A flooded road in Portland, Oregon.
Credit: Tom Good/Flickr

Congress is taking aim at how communities address some of the most troublesome properties that require repeated federal flood insurance payouts under the National Flood Insurance Program.

Bipartisan legislation introduced yesterday would force communities to address patterns of repeated loss—one of the leading reasons many critics of the federally backed insurance program say it’s in trouble. The bill, which is sponsored by Reps. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), is expected to eventually be wrapped into the reauthorization of the flood insurance program next year.

“Repetitive flood loss continues to place communities and families at risk, while shortchanging the federal taxpayer and all those who pay flood insurance premiums,” Blumenauer said.

The federal flood insurance program plunged into debt after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and, more recently, after Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Properties that flood repeatedly represent about 1 percent of the total policies in the program but add up to 25 to 30 percent of the claims. They also represent […]

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Does the Environmental Protection Agency actually protect communities of color from environmental problems? A new report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights suggests it has largely failed that duty:

Since being established in 1993 and having nearly 300 Title VI complaints in its docket, EPA’s Office of Civil Rights has never made a formal finding of discrimination. EPA has never denied or withdrawn financial assistance from a recipient. Despite its regulatory authority to withdraw financial assistance from recipients, the Office of Civil Rights has long “avoided pushing civil rights complaints alleging discrimination based on disparate impact for fear that the agency would lose such a case if challenged in court.”

The Commission took the EPA to task in its compliance report on environmental justice and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, a regulation prohibiting “discrimination based on race, color or national origin in programs or activities which receive federal financial assistance.” Environmental justice, a term that has risen in prominence since an executive order from President Bill Clinton in 1994 made it an official duty of the federal government, is defined by the EPA as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, […]

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Sandbags lie in disarray along North Topsail Beach
Credit: John Althouse AP

This summer, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives tacked onto a military funding bill a provision that prohibits the use of federal funds by the military to study global climate change or even to plan how to respond to it. (emphasis added)

U.S. Rep. Ken Buck from Colorado called the military concern with global climate change a radical climate change agenda.

It is surprising that a major political party in this age of enlightenment has a central “plank” in its party doctrine showing skepticism about global climate change. Commonly, the skepticism includes the assumption that humans bear no responsibility for the sea-level and climate changes occurring. It is an example of what columnist Leonard Pitts called “the alternative reality of conservative orthodoxy.”

No better example exists of an immediate military requirement than the need to raise the Navy’s docks and piers to accommodate the rising sea. Recently four of the piers […]

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African Farmers

LONDON — More than half of all the world’s maize crops and around a third of all wheat and rice will be grown in regions vulnerable to climate change in the next 50 to 100 years, according to new research.

At the same time, the world’s population will grow to 9 billion, and global food production will need to rise by from 60% to 110% by 2050 to keep up with demand.

Such changes will inevitably hit the poorest nations hardest, and will put at hazard the planet’s remaining wilderness areas and the surviving wild plants and animals that keep ecosystems stable.

But a second study argues that humans could have it both ways: they could produce enough food and still support sustainable development, protect the environment and meet food security targets at the same time.

However, this would mean a change of diet for Western nations, and reducing meat consumption would be the simplest way to free up water and land resources.

Crops per hectare

Researchers have repeatedly warned that […]

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Two-year-olds at a preschool in St. Petersburg, Florida
Credit: Scott Keeler/Tampa Bay Times/ZUMA

The Obama administration released a new list of regulations today meant to improve the quality of child care in thousands of centers—from small mom-and-pop shops to large nonprofit and for-profit schools—serving infants and toddlers. Currently, every state has its own safety, health, and learning standards for child care centers, whose quality varies widely. The new federal standards aim to raise the bar for every center that works with any of the 1.4 million low-income children currently receiving a federal subsidy to cover their child care fees.

The new rules require, among other things:

• More thorough background checks for all staff working in child care centers;
• Unannounced inspection visits of child care centers that will be posted publicly for parents;
• Regular mandatory training for child care providers, including safe sleeping practices, preventing infectious diseases and administer CPR, and spotting and reporting child abuse;
• More professional development of educators.

“In some states, it is easier to […]

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