Washington, D.C.

EPA figures reveal declines, advances

The Environmental Protection Agency forced polluters to spend $3.9 billion on new controls and cleanups last year — 11 percent less than in 2001 but still the second-highest amount in its history, agency officials and congressional overseers said Thursday.

The $4.4 billion spent on new controls and cleanups in 2001 was the highest ever.

The agency conducted 17,668 inspections in the 2002 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 — a 1 percent increase over the previous year but still below the 20,417 inspections in the last year of the Clinton presidency, EPA figures show.

The data, presenting a mixed picture of EPA’s enforcement activities last year, were made available by Democratic members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The numbers were confirmed later by agency officials, who planned to release them next week.

London

Report: Al-Qaida built bomb in Afghanistan

Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network successfully built a crude radiological device known as a “dirty bomb” in Afghanistan, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Thursday.

British intelligence agents infiltrated the network and found documents that showed al-Qaida members had built the device near Herat in western Afghanistan, the BBC said, citing unidentified British government officials.

Britain’s Foreign Office said Thursday the report substantiated expert opinion that al-Qaida wanted to develop a nuclear weapon.

In Washington, a U.S. official said there was no doubt about bin Laden’s interest in acquiring a “dirty bomb” — a conventional bomb capable of spreading radiation.

The British agents did not find the device itself and it has not been recovered.

Washington, D.C.

Weather service should continue, panel says

Should the National Weather Service continue forecasting weather?

Yes, says the National Research Council, despite complaints by some private forecasting companies that the government is competing with them by giving away information they can sell.

From farming to transportation to energy, as much as half the U.S. economy is directly affected by weather, and 400 or more private companies have gone into business providing specialized forecasts, said John A. Armstrong, chairman of the committee that did the study.

Under law the weather service is required to issue warnings of hazardous weather and to provide forecasts affecting air and marine travel.

Those forecasts are done with taxpayer money and should continue to be routinely made available to the public, the council committee said Thursday in its report.

Miami

INS extends deadline for student tracking

The Immigration and Naturalization Service gave the nation’s colleges and universities an extra 15 days to begin feeding information about their foreign students into a new Internet database.

The immigration agency said the new Feb. 15 deadline would let schools make sure their computers could link to INS equipment.

The INS had set a Thursday deadline for about 3,000 schools to be ready to start supplying data to the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, which is meant to replace the paper-based system the INS has used for years to track foreign students.

Schools must provide information on the academic, personal and financial status of foreign-born students and their dependents. Colleges must also provide data on any disciplinary action, off-campus employment and whether the student has dropped below a full course of study.