CNN's Patrick Oppmann looks at using stimulus funding to clean up nuclear sites.
The federal government has set aside nearly $2 billion in stimulus funds to clean up Washington state's decommissioned Hanford nuclear site, once the center of the country's Cold War plutonium production.
In the '50s there was just Darlington. The paved, high-banked 1.4-mile South Carolina track was the fastest on the Grand National circuit during NASCAR's first decade, with winning speeds typically topping out at more than 90 miles per hour. But then Daytona International Speedway opened, in 1959, and a year later came kindred tracks in Atlanta, Charlotte and Hanford, Calif. NASCAR's space age had begun. Like Darlington, all of the new venues allowed cars to run with stability at high speeds, encouraging drivers and manufacturers to push the outside of the envelope with greater horsepower and sleeker aerodynamics. The pursuit of pace was never more exciting, as increases in velocity came in large jumps. As the '60s began, average speeds on dirt tracks were typically around 60 or 70 miles per hour. But on the shiny new speedways, the cars' big V-8 engines began to take them far beyond those limits. By the time Talladega opened, in 1969, the 200-mph barrier was within reach.
Southern California tops the list of the nation's cities and counties most threatened by air pollution, according to the American Lung Association's annual report.
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