Meteorologist vows never to fly again after seeing latest climate report

When meteorologist Eric Holthaus read the recent climate report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), he saw that things were worse than even he had anticipated.

Writing a reaction piece in Quartz, Holthaus wrote that for the first time, the IPCC's report "mentioned projections of climate change beyond 2100 and painted a picture of a bleak world, possibly unrecognizable to those living today, should fossil fuel use continue on its current trajectory."

Then, while getting ready to board a flight in San Francisco on Sept. 27, Holthaus began tweeting about his more emotional reaction to the report.

It's not an empty sacrifice for Holthaus, an avid traveler.

I’ll still have to travel a lot (by car and train), and I’ll use videoconferencing for meetings I can’t miss. But by removing my single biggest impact on the climate in one swoop, I can rest a bit easier knowing I’ve begun to heed the IPCC’s call to action. Individual gestures, repeated by millions of people, could make a huge difference.

Eric Holthaus was so alarmed by a new climate report that he says he'll never set foot on an airplane again.
'I just broke down in tears'

Gov't shutdown: No progress on ending stalemate

With much of gov't closed, no progress on ending spending stalemate _ and it could last weeks

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The political stare-down on Capitol Hill shows no signs of easing, leaving federal government functions — from informational websites, to national parks, to processing veterans' claims — in limbo from coast to coast. Lawmakers in both parties ominously suggested the partial shutdown might last for weeks.

A funding cutoff for much of the government began Tuesday as a Republican effort to kill or delay the nation's health care law stalled action on a short-term, traditionally routine spending bill. Republicans pivoted to a strategy to try to reopen the government piecemeal but were unable to immediately advance the idea in the House.

National parks like Yellowstone and Alcatraz Island were shuttered, government websites went dark and hundreds of thousands of nonessential workers reported for a half-day to fill out time cards, hand in their government cellphones and laptops, and change voicemail messages to gird for a deepening shutdown.

The Defense Department said it wasn't clear that service academies would be able to participate in sports, putting Saturday's Army vs. Boston College and Air Force vs. Navy football games on hold, with a decision to be made Thursday.

Even as many government agencies closed their doors, health insurance exchanges that are at the core of President Barack Obama's health care law were up and running, taking applications for coverage that would start Jan. 1.

"Shutting down our government doesn't accomplish their stated goal," Obama said of his Republican opponents at a Rose Garden event hailing implementation of the law. "The Affordable Care Act is a law that passed the House; it passed the Senate. The Supreme Court ruled it constitutional. It was a central issue in last year's election. It is settled, and it is here to stay. And because of its funding sources, it's not impacted by a government shutdown."

GOP leaders faulted the Senate for killing a House request to open official negotiations on the temporary spending bill. Senate Democrats led by Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada insist that Republicans give in and pass their simple, straightforward temporary funding bill, known as a continuing resolution.

"None of us want to be in a shutdown. And we're here to say to the Senate Democrats, 'Come and talk to us,'" House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said as GOP lawmakers designated to negotiate the shutdown legislation met among themselves before cameras and reporters. "At each and every turn, the Senate Democrats refused to even discuss these proposals."

Late Tuesday, House Republicans sought passage of legislation aimed at reopening small slices of the government. The bills covered the national parks, the Veterans Affairs Department and city services in Washington, D.C., such as garbage collection funded with local tax revenues.

The move presented Democrats with politically challenging votes but they rejected the idea, saying it was unfair to pick winners and losers as federal employees worked without a guarantee of getting paid and the effects of the partial shutdown rippled through the country and the economy. The White House promised a veto.

Since the measures were brought before the House under expedited procedures requiring a two-thirds vote to pass, House Democrats scuttled them, despite an impassioned plea by Democratic D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who recalled that in the last shutdown 17 years ago she prevailed on House Speaker Newt Gingrich to win an exemption to keep the D.C. government running.

"I must support this piecemeal approach," Norton said. "What would you do if your local budget was here?"

But other Democrats said Republicans shouldn't be permitted to choose which agencies should open and which remain shut.

"This piecemeal approach will only prolong a shutdown," Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., said.

Republicans said there could be more votes Wednesday, perhaps to allow the National Institutes of Health to continue pediatric cancer research. The NIH's famed hospital of last resort wasn't admitting new patients because of the shutdown. Dr. Francis Collins, agency director, estimated that each week the shutdown lasts would force the facility to turn away about 200 patients, 30 of them children, who want to enroll in studies of experimental treatments. Patients already at the hospital are permitted to stay.

Republicans also said the House may vote anew on the three measures that failed Tuesday, this time under normal rules requiring a simple majority to pass.

Republicans hoped such votes would create pressure on Democrats to drop their insistence that they won't negotiate on the spending bill or an even more important subsequent measure, required in a couple of weeks or so, to increase the government's borrowing limit.

There were suggestions from leaders in both parties that the shutdown could last for weeks and grow to encompass the measure to increase the debt limit. "This is now all together," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said.

"It's untenable not to negotiate," House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said. "I've always believed it was the debt limit that would be the forcing action."

While GOP leaders seemed determined to press on, some Republicans conceded they might bear the brunt of any public anger over the shutdown — and seemed resigned to an eventual surrender in their latest bruising struggle with Obama.

Democrats have "all the leverage and we've got none," Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said.

Rep. Scott Rigell of Virginia said it was time to pass legislation reopening the government without any health care impediments.

"The shutdown is hurting my district — including the military and the hardworking men and women who have been furloughed due to the defense sequester," he said.

But that was far from the majority view among House Republicans, where tea party-aligned lawmakers prevailed more than a week ago on a reluctant leadership to link federal funding legislation to the health care law. In fact, some conservatives fretted the GOP had already given in too much.

No end in sight for government shutdown

The political stare-down on Capitol Hill shows no signs of easing, with both sides suggesting a resolution could take weeks.
Next moves

House Republicans are planning no new proposals on the first day of a shutdown to fully fund the government, but they will introduce three small bills that would continue funding for veteran benefits, national parks and museums, plus another measure that would allow the District of Columbia to continue operating using its own revenue.

Although the move wouldn't end the budget impasse, the measures would ease some of the pain while lawmakers continue to try to find a path out of the standoff, and House leaders were preparing for votes Tuesday evening.

Senate Democrats, however, rejected the new offer outright. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Tuesday afternoon insisted, as he has throughout the entire process, that the Senate would accept nothing short of a bill that funds all government operations.

"The government is shut down," Reid said on the Senate floor. "And if they think they're going to nit-pick us on this, it won't work."

Earlier Tuesday, the morning of the first federal government shutdown in 17 years, the political brinkmanship reached a stalemate when the Senate rejected a House request for a conference committee to take up a proposal to fund the government through Dec. 15 and delay a key part of the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare.

The Democrat-controlled Senate voted to table the House bill passed overnight that proposed the committee. The House bill also included language that would prohibit congressional staff members from receiving subsidies for their health care plans and delay Obamacare’s individual mandate to buy health insurance for one year.

By transitioning to a conference committee, the House and Senate would each appoint members to work out a deal to fund the government and end the shutdown. But appointing a committee would take the talks from public view to closed-door negotiating rooms where lawmakers and staffers could hash out their differences in private.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor joined members of the chamber's appointed conference committee in a meeting room where they called on Senate lawmakers to join them for negotiations.

"We invite Senate Democrats to come and join us and resolve our differences," Cantor said.

Democrats continued to decline alternative offers until the House passes a full funding bill.

Meanwhile, Obama blasted Republicans on Tuesday in a Rose Garden statement for using a mandatory spending bill to dismantle the health care law, the president's landmark legislation.

Last week, the House passed a bill to completely defund the health law. When the Senate rejected it, the House passed another version that would have abolished a tax on medical devices and delayed the law for a year. When the Senate rejected that, House Republicans passed another bill that would have delayed the individual mandate and revoked health insurance subsidies for congressional staffers. After the Senate said no to that, the clock ran out and the government shut down. That’s when the House asked for private negotiations — surprise, the Senate turned that down — and that’s where the parties stand now.

The back-and-forth between the parties will continue throughout the day, as House Republicans recalibrate their strategy and Senate lawmakers huddle for partisan meetings this afternoon.

Unless they can find a compromise, the government will remain shut down until further notice.

The Republican strategy of coupling anti-Obamacare legislation with the threat of a government shutdown is unpopular, according to a national Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday. American voters oppose the GOP's tactic by a ratio of 72 to 22 percent, according to the poll.

Congress squabbles as government shuts down

House Republicans will introduce three bills that would continue funding for certain programs — and one city.
Senate leader responds

As deadline nears, applications to 9/11 fund soar

NEW YORK (AP) — With just a few days remaining until a key deadline, more than 32,000 people have applied to the federal compensation fund for people with illnesses that might be related to toxic fallout from the Sept. 11 attacks, program officials said.

Congress has authorized paying as much as $2.78 billion to people exposed to the tons of thick dust that fell on Manhattan when the World Trade Center collapsed.

The first deadline to apply for a payment comes Thursday, and as that date has approached, the number of applicants has soared. As recently as late June, only 19,733 people had applied. More than 6,000 registrations have been completed just since Sept. 15.

Applications have come in the greatest numbers from firefighters, police officers and construction workers who spent months on the smoking debris pile. A smaller number of registrants are people who lived or worked many blocks away and are concerned about the heaps of ash that fell on the streets or blew through building ventilation systems.

It is unclear how many of those people are actually ill, or who among them might qualify for compensation.

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FILE - In this Dec. 28, 2001 file photo, emergency workers continue recovery and cleanup efforts wit …

The flood of applications has long been expected. The Congressional Budget Office initially projected that as many 50,000 people would seek compensation. Still, there have been concerns since the program's start that relatively loose eligibility requirements could result in the sizeable fund being stretched thin by the number of enrollees.

Those concerns have multiplied since federal officials began adding many common types of cancer to the list of illnesses that could qualify a person for a payment.

This year, the director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health added prostate cancer as a covered condition. That is an illness that affects 1 in 7 American men during their lifetime, meaning it is bound to hit huge numbers of people exposed to World Trade Center dust even if there is no actual connection between the ash and the disease.

The compensation fund's special master, Sheila Birnbaum, said it was premature to speculate how the number of claimants or addition of cancers might affect the program, "but it is something we are closely monitoring to ensure that the fund is administered in a fair and transparent fashion."

John Feal, a former World Trade Center demolition worker and leading advocate for sick responders, said he thought maybe as many as a third of people registering for the fund are actually healthy and are registering as a precaution because they worry they might get sick later.

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FILE - In this Sept. 14, 2001 file photo, a firefighter emerges from the smoke and debris of the Wor …

"I think there is enough money, and if there isn't enough money, we go back to Congress and ask for more money," he said.

He said his more immediate concern is that so few people have completed the claims process and received a payment. As of Sept. 15, fund administrators had rendered only 78 compensation decisions.

Birnbaum said the fund's staff was hard at work reviewing claims, which have been slowed partially by the need to verify that applicants were actually exposed to the trade center dust and suffering from covered illnesses.

The Oct. 3 deadline applies to anyone who was ill with a condition covered by the fund when it began operating in 2011. That group includes people with several types of respiratory and digestive system ailments.

People with several types of cancer will have an additional year to apply because federal officials didn't expand the program to include those diseases until more recently. People who were healthy in 2011, but have since fallen ill, will also get an additional two years from the date of their diagnosis. The fund closes entirely in 2016.

First responders top the list of those who have applied for the $2.78 billion in aid, but many others are also eligible.
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