Short Takes – 9-1-23

Greene says she won’t vote for government funding without Biden impeachment inquiry. TheHill.com article. Officially no longer part of the Republican 11, Greene exacerbates McCarthy’s spending bill problems. Pull quote: “Speaking at a local town hall on Thursday, Greene placed other conditions on her vote as well, including eliminating funding for Ukraine, withholding funding for “Biden’s weaponization of government,” and eliminating coronavirus-related mandates — which have largely already been rolled back.”

The ways Hurricane Idalia made history. CNN.com article. Pull quote: “Idalia made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane with sustained wind speeds of 125 mph Wednesday morning in Florida’s Big Bend region – where the panhandle meets the peninsula – near Keaton Beach.” Lots of broken records listed.

The science that goes into emergency evacuation orders. NPR.org interview with Craig Fugate. Pull quote: “Well, this is the challenge because the area of impact could be hundreds of miles. Yet we know that the greatest impacts will be where that center of circulation crosses for storm surge. And if you wait too long, 'til you're certain, you run out of time. And in many cases, it's - you know, historically, less than 25% of the areas that are put into evacuation orders actually get the devastating damages. But if we got to go earlier, there's going to be less precision in the forecast. If we wait until we have certainty, it will be too late.”

Norfolk Southern Railway's Request To Operate During a Temporary Outage of Its Positive Train Control System. Federal Register FRA notice. Summary: “This document provides the public with notice that, on August 28, 2023, Norfolk Southern Railway (NS) submitted a request for amendment (RFA) to its FRA-certified positive train control (PTC) system. On August 28, 2023, NS experienced a system-wide outage of its PTC back office, temporarily impacting the operations of NS and its tenant railroads. NS is seeking FRA's authorization under FRA's PTC regulations to continue operations, with certain restrictions, while NS's PTC system is temporarily disabled.” Comments required by September 21^st, 2023.