Environmental Politics

"Medical experts reacted with alarm Monday as two top contenders for the Republican presidential nomination appeared to question whether child vaccinations should be mandatory — injecting politics into an emotional issue that has taken on new resonance with a recent outbreak of measles in the United States."

"In a vote last month 15 Republican senators agreed that climate change is caused by human activity. Only three were ready to state how they would tackle it and none suggested a target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions"

"An overwhelming majority of the American public, including half of Republicans, support government action to curb global warming, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times, Stanford University and the nonpartisan environmental research group Resources for the Future."

"However the negotiations with Congress turn out, the budget will lock in the course of climate policy through the next presidential election."

"President Barack Obama's fiscal 2016 budget proposes $7.4 billion to fund clean energy technologies and a $4 billion fund to encourage U.S. states to make faster and deeper cuts to emissions from power plants, officials told Reuters."

"SANTA URSULA, Mexico — People in the hamlet of Santa Ursula began to worry when the logging started. In a few short weeks, more than a mile of densely forested riverbank was stripped from the Arroyo Sal to make way for heavy dredging equipment."

"The Senate passed a bill on Thursday to force approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which President Obama is certain to veto in his first official clash with the new Republican-majority Congress."

Congressional Republicans plan to re-launch some bills they fielded last year -- bills attacking the science on which environmental and health regulations are based. But this time, with GOP control of the Senate, the bills may clear Congress."

"The Senate is set to greenlight its Keystone XL bill on Thursday, just 48 hours after Democrats forced Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to postpone victory on the oil pipeline he has made the GOP’s first priority for 2015."