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The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an industry challenge to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations issued by Republican former President George W. Bush's administration that set standards for ozone pollution. By declining to hear the case, the court left in place the so-called primary air quality standards designed to protect public health, which Democratic President Barack Obama's administration defended. Those rules, which set air quality standards that U.S. states and the federal government must implement through regulations, had been challenged by the Utility Air Regulatory Group, which represents electricity-generating companies.

Congress should use the appropriations process to reassert its authority over the Environmental Protection Agency, according to a Heritage Foundation issue brief released Tuesday.The report, written by scholar Daren Bakst, identifies three issues on which the EPA has proposed rules and regulations that exceed its authority. In all three cases, Bakst recommends that Congress prohibit the agency from using its funding to implement the proposals. (RELATED: EPA Overrides Congress, Hands Over Town to Indian Tribes)According to the report, “the EPA is using the regulatory process to require greenhouse gas emission reductions even as Congress has been unwilling to take such...

A looming Obama administration rule aimed at updating the federal ozone standard could be the single most expensive federal regulation in U.S. history, according to a new study commissioned by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). The proposal, expected to be unveiled by year’s end, could lead to millions of lost jobs, $2.2 trillion in compliance costs and a $3.4 trillion blow to gross domestic product between 2017 and 2040, according to the 142-page study. The analysis does not take potential public health benefits into account. NAM President Jay Timmons contends the regulation would saddle manufacturers with a new regulatory...

The heroes and zeroes of the presidential elections I've voted in. Heroes: Reagan, Bush Sr, Dole, Bush Jr, McCain, Romney Zeroes: Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama The pattern is obvious! Hoping and praying that it goes republican in 2016. I've not just voted for but campaigned for every hero on the entire list!

Couple kill cops in cold blood - reportedly yell "This is the start of revolution".

As the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) moves forward with more stringent ozone regulations, it could be the costliest EPA regulation in history. Senator John Thune (R–SD) wants to make sure that doesn’t happen. In 2011, President Obama asked then-EPA administrator Lisa Jackson to withdraw the agency’s draft for more stringent National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). Although Jackson begrudgingly complied, the EPA moved forward to implement the Bush Administration’s 2008 proposed standards of 75 parts per billion (ppb) of ozone, down from 84 ppb. A ppb is the concentration of ozone in the air over an eight-hour period; for reference, a drop of gasoline...

A DEVASTATING burst of gamma-rays may have caused one of Earth's worst mass extinctions, 443 million years ago. A team of astrophysicists and palaeontologists says the pattern of trilobite extinctions at that time resembles the expected effects of a nearby gamma-ray burst (GRB). Although other experts have greeted the idea with some scepticism, most agree that it deserves further investigation. GRBs are the most powerful explosions known. As giant stars collapse into black holes at the end of their lives, they fire incredibly intense pulses of gamma rays from their poles that can be detected even from across the universe...

Scientists have identified four new man-made gases that are contributing to the depletion of the ozone layer. Two of the gases are accumulating at a rate that is causing concern among researchers. Worries over the growing ozone hole have seen the production of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases restricted since the mid 1980s. But the precise origin of these new, similar substances remains a mystery, say scientists. Lying in the atmosphere, between 15 and 30km above the surface of the Earth, the ozone layer plays a critical role in blocking harmful UV rays, which cause cancers in humans and reproductive problems in...

SAN FRANCISCO — The banning of ozone-depleting chemicals hasn't yet caused detectable improvements in the Antarctic ozone hole, new research suggests. Instead, changes in the South Pole's ozone hole from year-to-year are likely the result of natural variations in wind patterns, researchers said here Wednesday (Dec. 11) in a press conference at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. The findings suggest that measuring the total size of the ozone hole says little about ozone depletion, and that it's misleading to use the hole's extent alone to measure environmental progress.

A new study suggests that the ban on ozone depleting chemicals may have also impacted the rise in global temperatures. CFC gases were responsible for a massive hole in the ozone layer, but they also had a powerful greenhouse effect. The authors link a ban on their use to a “pause” or slowdown in temperature increases since the mid 1990s. The research is published in the journal Nature Geoscience. The subject of a hiatus or standstill in global temperatures rises since 1998 has been the subject of intense debate among scientists, and it has been used as a key argument...

My daughter was getting ready for work and she took Frankie(mom) and Mocha(daughter)out to use the potty and in her hurry, she thought Mocha ran inside her apartment. So she and Frankie followed and she closed the door unaware that Frankie was still outside. My daughter is plaqued with guilt and on a mission with flyers to find her Doggie..please pray for my daughter(feelings of guilt) and that we find Mocha and bring her home. Thank You..Mom:)

google "boy scouts" and "lightning" to get the story.

Hello fellow free republicans! I've been reading more and more online about how Atheists have started a movement to have Atheistic Churches the way doctrinal/theological religions do. Regardless of where you stand it's certainly a thought-provoking movement seeing as Atheism has long been an intellectual perspective of DOUBT in any religion. But I found an interesting video on youtube/cleantv.com about it. It's only 3 minutes so it is well worth your time. So check it out! I'm interested to see what others think about atheistic movements in our culture. http://www.clean.tv/Web/ProgramDetail.aspx?pid=670

The hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic was the second smallest in the last two decades, data from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites shows. This year also showed an improvement in the concentration of ozone in the region, with the minimum level recorded hitting its second highest level in twenty years. However, the reason appears to be a change to warmer temperatures in the Antarctic lower stratosphere, and experts warn that the improvement may not last. "The ozone hole mainly is caused by chlorine from human-produced chemicals, and these chlorine levels are...

From the Harvard University  news service and the what are they smoking department, comes this suggestion that apparently it never was ozone damaging CFC refrigerants at all, it was those nasty thunderstorms wot done it.  They say: “Recent studies have suggested that the number and intensity of such storms are linked to climate changes…which could in turn lead to increased ozone loss and greater levels of harmful UV radiation reaching the Earth’s surface, and potentially higher rates of skin cancer.” I have a pretty hard time believing this one, because, well, it’s like Rube Goldberg machine construct where lots of...

A reminder for those who are not receiving the message: Romney is a pathological compulsive liar. Lie after lie papered over with more lies. Doesn’t even flinch when caught in bald faced lies, simply tells another big whopper to cover up or dodge the issue. Funny thing, the man actually seems to believe his own latest lies and simply ignores the glaring record of his past actions/lies. And you have true blue establishment elite RINO Republicans like Karl Rove enabling and backing up his lies. Their motivation is simply to hang on to power (and riches) any way they can....

"Whoa Nellie! Where did THIS come from? The Fox News network, with its deep bench of producers, associate producers and “investigative journalists” didn’t have access to these video clips? Of course they did. The truth is that this is about as scandalous as the Machiavellianism their sister company Sky News engaged in their phone tapping/hacking scandal that caused Rupert Murdoch’s son James to resign in humiliation. Fox news apparently sat on these clips as though they didn’t exist – just as they CONCEALED the fact they damned well knew – that Mitt Romney repeatedly lied to us and his challengers...

Enlarge Image Light therapy . A portable plasma flashlight can kill bacteria in minutes. (Credit: X. Pei et al., Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics) Credit: X. Pei et al., Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics (2012) Killing harmful bacteria in hospitals is difficult; out in the field, it can be an even bigger problem. Now, researchers may have a means for remote disinfection in a portable "flashlight" that shines a ray of cold plasma to kill bacteria in minutes. Medical scientists have high hopes for plasmas. Produced in electrical discharges, these gases of free electrons and ions have...

KINGSPORT, Tenn. -- Republican Newt Gingrich launched a final, two-day swing across the South on Monday in advance of the biggest voting day so far of the year. Gingrich planned to campaign on Monday and Super Tuesday in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia -- and vowed to exceed expectations in all the Southern states voting this week and next. Gingrich touted new polls showing that he is closing the gap in Tennessee, and he predicted again that he will win his home state of Georgia with ease. In a morning interview on CNN, Gingrich admitted that losing Georgia could end his...

The first ozone hole above the North Pole has been aggravated by extraordinarily cold winter temperatures, say scientists. Cooling of the ozone layer enhances the effect of ozone-destroying substances such as chlorofluorocarbons - CFC. A repeated ozone hole above the Arctic is to be expected, say scientists from the KIT Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research. About a year ago, the scientists detected that ozone degradation above the Arctic for the first time reached an extent comparable to that of the ozone hole above the South Pole. At a level of around 13 miles above the ground, 80 per cent...