Week ending Friday, November 20, 2020

Superbolts

Scientists have for the first time documented how often a rare breed of extreme lightning bolts can occur in the skies above Earth and how bright they are. These “superbolts” can be 1,000 times brighter and stretch hundreds of miles farther than their more common counterparts. Writing in the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Los Alamos researchers say roughly one-third of 1%, or 1 in every 300 lightning strikes, are superbolts. Recent research finds that these extreme flashes occur in rare, positively charged cloud-to-ground events rather than the more common negatively charged...

Or is this just a difference of opinion?

Durango, Colo. — The Department of Interior issued a Secretarial Order regarding the implementation of the Land and Water Conservation Fund and The Great American Outdoors Act Nov. 13.

Anna Peterson, Executive Director of The Mountain Pact, believes the Order adds a litany of new provisions that weaken the Act, such as:

Allowing state veto of federal public land protection projects;

Eliminating funding for Bureau of Land Management land acquisition; and

Restricting future LWCF funds from helping to create new units of public land

The Department of the Interior offers a different characterization of the Secretary’s Order 3388.

On its...

Addresses Indian Health Service in letter

U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., has sent a letter to Indian Health Service Director Rear Admiral Michael D. Weahkee condemning a recent decision to decrease essential services at the Acoma-Canoncito-Laguna (ACL) Hospital.

The Pueblo of Acoma has seen a spike in COVID-19 cases. Over a matter of weeks, cases on the Pueblo went from zero in September to 100 in early November. With the recent suspension of emergency services and inpatient care at ACL, the community must now drive one hour or longer to hospitals in Grants or Albuquerque that are already reaching capacity.

ACL’s benefit to the Pueblo of Acoma and the surrounding community...

Supports renaming certain military bases

Dear Chairman Inhofe, Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Reed, and Ranking Member Thornberry:

We write to request that the conference report of the Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21) National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) include a provision to require the Department of Defense (DoD, or the Department) rename all property and other assets owned by the Department named in honor of Confederate officers.

As you know, both the Senate and House versions of the FY21 NDAA contain provisions requiring the Secretary of Defense to rename all military property, including the ten Army installations, named in honor of Confederate officers. Section 2829 of the House...