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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

National Security Leaders Urge Senate to Uphold BLM Methane Waste Rule

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Wednesday, May 3, 2017   

PHOENIX – Leading voices on national security are asking Arizona U.S. Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake to oppose a plan to repeal an Obama-era rule that forces oil and gas companies to install equipment to minimize the waste of taxpayer-owned natural gas into the atmosphere.

The U.S. House has already voted to scrap the rule, and the Senate is expected to hold its repeal vote very soon. In the meantime, retired Army Major General Paul Eaton and a group of retired generals from the Vet Voice Foundation recently sent a letter to all U.S. Senators, asking them to keep the Bureau of Land Management's Methane Waste Rule.

"We cannot afford to allow oil and gas companies to continue to vent, to flare, to leak methane gas at the expense of taxpayers and our secure and stable energy markets," said Eaton in a tele-town hall.

By some estimates, methane gas worth $300 million a year is simply wasted, denying states and tribes the royalties that would come if the gas were brought to market – funds that Eaton noted could be used on national priorities like education and infrastructure.

In addition, natural gas pollution is linked to asthma and other diseases. But opponents of the BLM rule have argued that it imposes unreasonable costs on industry.

Eaton sees methane waste as a national security risk, as well. He said the U.S. is more likely to need to put troops in harm's way to defend the nation's oil supply, if we fail to take full advantage of domestic sources of natural gas.

"How can we ask our soldiers to put their lives on the line - especially in the energy-producing countries in the Middle East - if every day we allow oil and gas companies at home to waste, by just blowing this stuff into the atmosphere?" he asked.

Sen. McCain is considered a key swing vote on this issue. Neither he nor Sen. Flake has taken a position on the issue.



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