Congress is trying to figure out how to come up with $10 billion to extend funding for the nation’s Highway Trust Fund for a year.  Without action, it will run dry at the end of this month.

UPDATE (June 3, 2015): On May 29, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed into law a bill prohibiting local cities and counties from banning fracking operations. The bill allows communities to issue “reasonable” restrictions dealing with traffic and noise, but all other oil and gas drilling operations will be regulated by the state. This means all drilling operations will be overseen by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, made up of three Republicans, two of whom have ties to the petroleum industry.

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There is a new paradox emerging in the fracking debate.  

That is the question President Obama posed at the Georgetown University Catholic-Evangelical Summit on Overcoming Poverty on May 12. It was a fascinating discussion -- not least because it was a discussion, with the president exchanging views with two scholars and replying to questions by moderator E.J. Dionne of theWashington Post. The president acknowledged the growing awareness of inequality and poverty. He challenged us to see that over decades, we have been disinvesting in shared institutions (like education) that lift people out of poverty. He agreed with the premise of one of the panelists, Robert Putnam, whose new book Our Kids describes the "withdrawing from the commons" occurring across the nation. Where in decades past affluent, working class and poor children might all have attended the same public school, all able to participate in school sports and music programs, today's communities are far more segregated by class as well as race. The well-off are less likely to send their children to a public school, and fewer have the equalizing experience of sports teams and band because strapped school districts now charge hefty fees to participating students, shutting out some struggling families.

Cutting carbon emissions from U.S. power plants will help combat climate change, but it can also substantially reduce illnesses and deaths from other types of air pollution. Scientists from Syracuse, Harvard, and Boston universities compared the health impacts of three alternative policies related to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposed carbon standards for existing power plants, and they found that increasing energy efficiency would be one of the most effective ways to cut power plant emissions and protect our health.