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Archive for January 17th, 2013
Jakarta floods as monsoon soaks Indonesia
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 17th, 2013
Guardian: Heavy monsoonal rains have triggered severe flooding across the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, with many government offices and businesses forced to closed because staff could not get to work. Authorities said four people were killed and 20,000 had to evacuate. Weather officials warned the rains could get worse over the next few days and media reports said that thousands of people in Jakarta and its satellite cities had been forced to leave their homes because of the torrential downpours this week....
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High 2012 temperatures led to earliest flowering ever in eastern U.S
Posted by ClimateWire: Elizabeth Harball on January 17th, 2013
ClimateWire: Record-high temperatures in 2012 led to massive droughts and wildfires, but tiny wildflowers like the dwarf dandelion and the shooting star were also affected by the especially warm spring. Their early blooming has the potential to disrupt the ecosystem, scientists say, but perhaps it could be a sign of plants' resilience.
Last year, scientists from Harvard University, Boston University and the University of Wisconsin documented the earliest flowering season on record in the eastern United States....
Salazar has long list of unfinished business
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 17th, 2013
Greenwire: With months of speculation ended over whether Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will stay for President Obama's second term, the former Colorado senator must now decide which of many policy initiatives he wants to finish before he leaves in March.
There is no shortage of high-profile decisions Salazar could make in the coming months, ranging from a final rule governing hydraulic fracturing to the designation of national monuments on scenic lands throughout the West.
The Colorado native yesterday...
Feds Withdraw New Furnace Efficiency Standards
Posted by St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Jeffrey Tomich on January 17th, 2013
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The federal government has agreed to withdraw new rules that would require consumers in Missouri, Illinois and more than two dozen other northern states to purchase high-efficiency furnaces beginning this spring.
The decision is the result of a legal settlement between the Department of Energy and the American Public Gas Association, which argued the new regulations would prove too costly for certain consumers and ultimately steer some of them to heat their homes with other, less-efficient fuels....
TransCanada Says Gulf Coast Pipeline Construction On Schedule
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 17th, 2013
Reuters: TransCanada Corp said on Wednesday that construction of its $2.3 billion Gulf Coast Project, which will carry 700,000 barrels per day from the Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub to Texas refineries is going smoothly and the pipeline is expected to open on schedule by year end.
Sporadic protests and legal challenges to construction on the line's 485-mile (780-kilometer) route have not altered the company's plans to have the pipeline in service in the fourth-quarter of this year.
"We factor things...
US Interior Chief Salazar to Step Down; Obama Remakes Energy Team
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 17th, 2013
Reuters: U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who helped lead the government's response to the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, said on Wednesday he will leave his post by the end of March to return to his Colorado ranch.
The former U.S. senator came to office pledging to clean up the "mess" at the Interior Department, but it was the massive 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that ultimately spurred the dramatic overhaul of the nation's offshore drilling regulator.
Salazar's departure...
Wyoming Gov. Disappointed by EPA Delay in Pavillion Groundwater Pollution Report
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 17th, 2013
Associated Press: Gov. Matt Mead has joined those expressing disappointment that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has extended for a third time a public comment period on a report on groundwater pollution in a Wyoming gas field rather than moving toward wrapping up the study.
The comment period was supposed to end Tuesday. Last week, the EPA announced it would be extended to Sept. 30. That could postpone independent experts' formal review of the December, 2011, report by another eight months or more.
"Wyoming...