• Janet Napolitano named in two lawsuits

    DHS secretary Janet Napolitano is under fire for two very different reasons as she is named in two separate lawsuits; the first lawsuit charges that two women executives Napolitano brought to DHS have mistreated male employees at the department; the second suit, brought by several ICE agents, charges that the administration’s deferred deportation executive order, which went into effect 15 August, force the agents face difficult choices while performing their tasks

  • House panel charges DHS overstates deportation figures

    A House committee says the administration inflates the number of illegal aliens it has deported in 2011 and 2012; the committee says the administration is able to cite larger numbers of deportees by including numbers from the Alien Transfer Exit Program (ATEP) in the administration’s year-end removal numbers; if the number of ATEP-removed individuals is subtracted from ICE-deported individuals, then the annualized number of deportees in 2011 and 2012 would lower – rather than higher – than the number of deportees in 2008 and 2009

  • Many of the U.S. 20 million manholes are in need of immediate rehabilitation or replacement

    The EPA estimates that there are about twenty million manholes in the United States – or one manhole for every 400 feet of pavement on average; many of those manholes are in serious decay or in need of immediate rehabilitation or replacement

  • MIT expert: “toxic” political discussions limit climate response

    In a talk at the Sandia National Lab, an MIT expert says the inability of natural and social scientists to convince political leaders that “we’re spinning a roulette wheel over climate change” puts humanity at “extreme risk,” and that the difficulties in using science to push for mitigation strategies are more political than scientific

  • Storing government records for generations to come

    A White House directive released last week requires that federal agencies adopt systems which will store and manage all electronic records in order to keep them safe and secure for future generations

  • As Hurricane Isaac beats on New Orleans, new infrastructure is holding up

    This week, as Hurricane Isaac was threatening to replicate the physical damage that Katrina inflicted, it has become apparent that $14 billion worth of changes and improvements in infrastructure, planning, and emergency response procedures have given the city of New Orleans and the Gulf states the ability to withstand the worst of the storm

  • Isaac leaves flooding, power outages in its path

    Hurricane Isaac lost its Category 1 hurricane status midday Wednesday and was downgraded to a tropical storm, but the severe rains and winds which it brought with it have not let up much; the number of power outages continues to increase as the number of homes and businesses without electricity is now up to 834,000 between Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas, with over one-third of the outages in Louisiana alone

  • Industry fights Pentagon efforts to restrict exporting of infrared products

    The global market for infrared technology products will be worth about $2.6 billion dollars by 2017; the technology can be used for commercial products such as automotive, surveillance, and security industries – and is heavily used by the military; three major U.S. infrared equipment makers fight the Pentagon’s efforts to restrict exports of devices based on the technology for fear these devices may enhance the military capabilities of adversaries of the United States

  • Evaluating fresh water sustainability in the southern U.S.

    Researchers have embarked on 4-year federal research effort to evaluate freshwater sustainability across the southern United States and develop policy recommendations on what can be done to make the best use of water supplies in the face of population growth and the effects of climate change over the next ten to thirty years

  • New Jersey infrastructure badly needs shoring up, and soon

    According to experts, changes to the way New Jersey maintains its infrastructure must be made soon, or the state could be vulnerable to catastrophic failures in its water and power systems as well as collapsing roads; the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority says more than $56.9 billion will be needed just to maintain state roads, rails, and public transportation systems through 2035; when you add in improvements to account for environmental changes and the expanding population in the state, the bill skyrockets to more than $123 billion

  • The costs, benefits, and efficiency of aviation security measures

    The threat of terrorist attack on American aviation has made the system the focus of intense security efforts, but it is difficult to determine if the benefits outweigh their cost; efficient security policy — a focus on getting the most security for the least cost — should be the priority in an era of fiscal austerity, says a new RAND report

  • China’s growing role in U.S. infrastructure building, maintenance

    The building and maintenance of heavy infrastructure in the United States, which includes road, mass transit, marine, and building construction, is worth $44.1 billion per year and $12 billion in annual wages; bridge and tunnel construction is worth an estimated $24 billion in revenue and $4.3 billion in wages; many wonder why, in this difficult times, states and municipalities hire Chinese companies for many of these infrastructure projects

  • Heat waves move toward California coasts, become more humid, imperiling health

    Scientists detected a trend toward more humid heat waves which are expressed very strongly in elevated nighttime temperatures, a trend consistent with climate change projections; moreover, relative to local warming, the mid-summer heat waves are getting stronger in generally cooler coastal areas; this carries strong public health implications for the twenty-one million Californians living near the ocean whose everyday lives are acclimated to moderate temperatures

  • Last year’s east coast earthquake has the region preparing for another one

    Last year an earthquake that was centered in Virginia shook up the entire east coast, surprising everyone; it did not result in any deaths and was considered relatively light compared to many tremors on the West Coast, but it was bad enough to force some states to prepare themselves in case of another quake

  • Activists in arms over plans to ship plutonium to New Mexico

    A proposal to ship tons of plutonium to New Mexico, including cores of nuclear warheads which would be dismantled at a structurally questionable lab on top of an earthquake fault zone, has activists and nuclear watchdogs up in arms