At Grist, Daniel J. Weiss and Arpita Bhattacharyya write, Top 10 American vacation spots House bill could ruin:
Checking pollution advisories could become a vital part of your pre-travel planning, along with checking the weather and stopping the mail, if the House of Representatives votes for more than 40 pollution provisions this week.
Simply put, the House could put future vacations at risk in order to keep Big Oil and coal interests happy. It plans to vote on the Interior Environment FY 2012 Appropriations bill, H.R. 2584, which is chock full of provisions that would prolong pollution of the air, water, oceans, and lands of your favorite vacation destinations. [...]
Here's how these provisions will impact 10 of America's favorite vacation spots, with the appropriate section of H.R. 2584 included in parentheses:
Grand Canyon National Park: uranium mining
The threat: One million acres around the Grand Canyon would be opened up to uranium mining, threatening the pristine canyon and polluting the drinking water [PDF] source for more than 25 million Americans. (Sec. 445) [...]
Puget Sound: slower cleanup [...]
Big Bend National Park: scorching heat waves [...]
Grand Teton National Park: bulldozers near the park [...]
Great Smoky Mountains National Park: smoggy skies [...]
The Great Lakes: alien species attack [...]
Chesapeake Bay: more pollution [...]
California's beaches: sewage's up [...]
Minnesota fishing: mercury rising [...]
Your backyard: endangering our children [...]
At Daily Kos on this date in 2005:
en. Frank Lautenberg is the prop master. You'll recall, of course, his awesome Chickenhawk Chart, which made an appearance on the Senate floor. Today, he's unveiling a countdown (or should I say count-up?) clock which keeps track of exactly how long Congressional Republicans have gone without investigating the Plame leak (742 days, 15 hours, 22 minutes and counting as of this writing). He also includes a Harper's Index-style rundown of some salient facts. My favorite are the last two:
Minimum number of hearings held by Senate Republicans to investigate accusations against President Clinton involving the Whitewater case: 20
Total hearings held by Senate Republicans to investigate the leak of the covert identity of Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife: 0
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