From PBS' "Need to Know", February 25, 2011:

In any debate over federal spending priorities, the underlying argument is over policy.  For example, defunding Planned Parenthood is a way to further limit abortion. If you defund environmental legislation, you’ve effectively crippled the government’s response to climate change. And that’s what’s going on in the Republican-controlled House. The Republican majority is seeking to block the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, cutting the EPA’s budget by $3 billion, and they’ve proposed defunding the White House Office of Energy and Climate policy.

Many of these lawmakers do not believe climate change is endangering our future, if they believe in climate change at all. But for those who want proof that sea levels are rising as the planet warms, they need to look no farther than Norfolk, Virginia. In cooperation with The New York Times, Need to Know’s William Brangham reports.