Lawmakers are attempting to pass legislation to reimburse states that funded the reopening of National Parks during the partial government shutdown that occurred October 1 through October 17 of this year.

In further moves at the Department of the Interior (DOI), President Obama is nominating Rhea Suh to be Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, and intends to nominate Tommy Beaudreau to take Rhea Suh’s position as Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget.

President Obama announced plans to nominate Janice Schneider to Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management within the Department of Interior.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) accepted public feedback on the new National Plan for Observing our Earth.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is hosting eleven public listening sessions across the country to solicit ideas and input from the public regarding the best Clean Air Act approaches to reducing carbon pollution from existing power plants. Power plants are the nation’s largest stationary source of carbon pollution, responsible for about one-third of all greenhouse gas pollution in the United States. The EPA hopes to enforce stricter regulations on existing power plants that would cut emissions by 26% by 2020. 

The National Science Foundation awarded $16 million in grants to fund a new observation system in the sub-polar region of the North Atlantic Ocean to better understand the ‘global conveyor belt’ – the system of surface ocean currents that carry warmer waters northward, and the deep ocean currents that carry cooler waters southward toward the equator. This initiative is part of the U.S.-led Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program (OSNAP).

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed a mapping tool that organizes Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) prepared by federal agencies, as well as EPA’s comments concerning the EIS’s. The National Environmental Policy Act requires federal agencies proposing projects or making decisions on major federal actions to develop an EIS. Within the database, one can search by year, by state, or by EIS’s with open comment records since 2004. EPA comment letters issued within the last 60 days are also available on the map.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) recently released a report outlining the President’s proposed federal investments in research and development for fiscal year (FY) 2014. Under the President’s FY 2014 request, $142.773 billion is allotted for federal research and development, a $1.861 billion (1.3%) increase from the FY 2012 actual spending levels.