Environmental Politics

President Obama will send his budget request for fiscal 2013 to Congress today. It is expected to fund the clean energy programs he mentioned in his State of the Union speech. But Congress, which actually appropriates the money, will have the last word. Republicans want to cut many environmental and clean-energy programs drastically. After agency-specific budget briefings today, some agency heads will explain the budget requests to Congressional committees later in the week.

"Religious-right leaders are slamming a green evangelical group for casting support for Environmental Protection Agency rules to cut power plant mercury emissions as a 'pro-life' position." (EPA says the new standards "will avert up to 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks and 130,000 asthma attacks every year.")

"About 21 months ago, a proposed list of widely used chemicals that may pose health risks landed at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget for review. It’s still there."

"The American Chemistry Council significantly ramped up its lobbying efforts in the fourth quarter of last year, spending more than double its total for any quarter in recent history."

"Documents obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy, recently unsealed as part of a major lawsuit against Syngenta, reveal how the global chemical company's PR team investigated the press and spent millions to spin news coverage and public perceptions in the face of growing concerns about potential health risks from the widely used weed-killer 'atrazine.'"

"The president of the Maldives resigned yesterday in what one aide described as a coup d'etat."

"Sen. Richard Burr's vocal opposition to the STOCK Act raised some eyebrows in Washington this week, and with good reason. Burr, a North Carolina Republican who was one of just three senators to vote against the ban on congressional insider trading Thursday, owns investments in the natural gas industry that would benefit from legislation he co-sponsored offering tax credits for natural gas-fueled vehicles."

"Across the country, activists with ties to the Tea Party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy. They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities."

"Publication of a landmark government study probing whether diesel engine exhaust causes lung cancer in miners -- already 20 years in the making — has been delayed by industry and congressional insistence on seeing study data and documents before the public does."

Some coal-industyry front groups have begin a campaign to frighten Penn State into cancelling a speech by climate scientist Michael Mann -- who will be talking about coal industry efforts to silence climate scientists. Penn State has refused.