The House Appropriations Committee approved an additional $1 billion in funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to ensure that the agency has the resources necessary to aid those whose homes and livelihoods were devastated by the recent tornadoes in Joplin, MO. From Politico, 24 May 2011

House Republicans made one of their first orders of business passing legislation to zero out research budgets for domestic and international climate efforts and unraveling a key EPA declaration that humans have played a critical role in changing the planet.

“Scientists aren’t a lobbying force,” said Andrew Revkin, author of The New York Times’s Dot Earth blog. “They’re trying to make science matter in an arena where the only way it matters is to use it to support an existing agenda.”

“For people for whom this is a matter of ideology or faith, there’s no argument that’s going to convince them,” he said.