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GOP-run Senate panel takes on Obama environmental rules

Associated Press: Republicans controlling a powerful Senate committee moved Thursday to block Obama administration initiatives to curb global warming, issue new clean water rules and regulate hydraulic fracturing on federal land. The vote by the Senate Appropriations Committee represents a sweeping attack on the president's ambitious environmental agenda. Republicans say the rules themselves are an assault on the coal industry, farmers and western landowners. The battle played out on a $31 billion spending bill...

Flood insurance changes run into resistance

Associated Press: Just a year after Congress imposed significant changes in the government's oft-criticized flood insurance program, howls of protest from homeowners facing higher premiums have coastal lawmakers pressing for delays that would preserve below-cost rates for hundreds of thousands of people in flood-risk areas. The government can't say how many people could confront higher premiums, but homeowners in places like Staten Island, N.Y., along the battered New Jersey coast and in low-lying areas of Louisiana,...