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Coming in future issues…..
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Progress Report on Fontenelle Trees
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ND Reduces Pollution
By Measuring Differently
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Unsolved: Murder in Missouri
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Just before Valentine's Day this year, the Bush administration gave the North Dakota electric industry a sweetheart deal, agreeing to a plan that will pave the way for new coal-fired power plants to be built in the state near Theodore Roosevelt National Park -- the same picturesque terrain where its namesake discovered his calling as the godfather of the American conservation movement.
Since 1999, the U.S. EPA and North Dakota officials have sparred over air quality in the park, with the EPA saying that pollution has exceeded federal clean-air standards and state and industry representatives trying to refute the charge. According to state air-evaluation reports from 1999, the region's power plants were pumping out about 66,000 tons more sulfur dioxide each year than permitted under federal rules. In 2000, EPA officials in Region 8, which includes North Dakota, confirmed this finding.
But suddenly, as of Friday, North Dakota's power-plant emissions have been deemed acceptable by the Bush EPA -- despite the fact that no significant efforts have been made to reduce pollution in the state.
What gives? Well, what always gives when industry demands run up against pollution standards these days? The standards. The EPA agreed to let North Dakota change the methods it uses to estimate air pollution, altering the criteria within its pollution modeling software that dictate what baseline years are used and how the pollution data is averaged.
State and industry officials argue that the revised models should produce results that are more consistent with those of large air-monitoring equipment installed within the park -- equipment which consistently registers lower pollution levels.
But according to an EPA Region 8 official who asked to remain anonymous, the results from that equipment are not necessarily to be trusted: "There are only two air monitors within a sprawling 70,000 acres of territory, and the data they produce is hardly reliable."
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More WPA stories about Nebraska by Nebraskans
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"Vice President Dick Cheney's political problems have folks in Tennessee gabbing about rumors that their own Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, would be tagged to take the veep's job if the former Halliburton exec had to step aside," Washington Whispers reports. "Both sides make the expected denials that anything's afloat." ….California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), "who during the recall campaign pledged reforms to bar the governor and legislators from raising campaign donations while working on the state budget, is becoming the most aggressive fund-raising governor in the state's history," the San Francisco Chronicle report and Rep. Richard Gephardt are being touted as a VP choice for John Kerry. Also mentioned and, according to polling, is Sen. Even Bayh of Indiana who carries his normally GOP state ...Stephanie Herseth (D) has "a wide lead" over Larry Diedrich (R) in the South Dakota U.S. House special election race, according to a new poll, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports. The June 1 special election will be held "to fill the vacancy created when U.S. Rep. Bill Janklow resigned following his felony second-degree manslaughter conviction. The winner will serve until January 2005….California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger "has just emblazoned his name in gold letters above the word 'Governor' that has long been the only identification outside the chief executive's office in the Capitol," California Insider reports...Bristol, R.I., student Republicans at Roger Williams University are offering a scholarship for which only white students are eligible...An investigation into a committee created by Tom DeLay includes its use of corporate donations in 2002, when the Republican Party took control of the Texas House...Some 3,000 Democratic documents were secretly downloaded from a Senate computer by a number of Republican aides….A number of police chiefs have joined a
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U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson: Phone: (202) 224-6551 Fax: (202) 228-001240, Suite 5 Dirksen Basement (Temp)
Washington, DC 20510
senator@bennelson.senate.gov
U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel: Phone: (202) 224-4224 Fax: (202) 224-5213
346 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
chuck_hagel@hagel.senate.gov
Rep. Doug Bereuter: Phone:(202) 225-4806 Fax (202) 225-5686
2184 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Rep. Lee Terry:Phone: (202) 225-4155 Fax: (202) 226-5452 1513 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
talk2lee@mail.house.gov
Rep. Tom Osborne:Phone: (202) 225-6435 Fax: (202) 236-1385
507 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
PLEASE NOTE: Congressmen Bereuter and Osborne do not have email
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SEC. B, p3
HISTORY
SCRAMBLE
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