"House Republicans overcame bipartisan opposition Tuesday to pass a bill that would reauthorize and overhaul the National Flood Insurance Program, which has strained to pay out billions of dollars to policyholders after this year's run of devastating hurricanes."
"Few people in potential inundation zones are aware of the hazard, a Statesman investigation found. Texas applies its strictest safety standards only if a dam’s failure would probably cost seven or more lives."
"Critics call Perry's proposal raising coal, nuclear plants' rates a bailout".
"In public health circles, New York City is known for its long war on lead poisoning. ... A 2004 housing law targeted 'elimination' of childhood lead poisoning within six years.... Yet inspectors didn’t visit the Brooklyn apartment where Barbara Ellis lived until after her twin daughters tested high for lead three years in a row, she said."
The GOP-controlled Senate has already shown it will confirm Environmental Protection Agency leaders with massive conflicts of interest. "Yet Michael Dourson, the industry scientist Trump nominated to head EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, may be unable to clear even this low bar." Some of the opposition is from red states.
"At a private meeting in September, congressional aides asked Rebeckah Adcock, a top official at the Department of Agriculture, to reveal the identities of the people serving on the deregulation team she leads at the agency."
"President Trump's Vietnamese hosts served him shark-fin soup instead of his customary steak Saturday in a culinary move that may have had political undertones."
"East Coast fishery managers Monday rejected a proposal backed by conservation groups to start setting harvest limits for Atlantic menhaden based on their role as food for other fish and wildlife, not merely their commercial value."
"Irreplaceable cultural resources in New Mexico are among those areas targeted for expedited drilling – and conservationists say it’s ‘like losing pages and chapters of that history book’."
"Senate opponents of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge hope to convince their colleagues over the next few weeks that energy development there threatens America's entire wildlife refuge system, primarily for the sake of alleviating Alaska's fiscal crisis."
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