[Discussion of Icebreakers] Chasm Grows Within GOP Over Spending.

House Passes Bill to Overhaul EPA Scientific Advisory Board. The House passed legislation on Tuesday to modify the selection process for members of the Environmental Protection Agency's Scientific Advisory Board. Passage fell largely along party lines by a vote of 236-181. The bill would prohibit the board, which advises the EPA on its regulations, from appointing members who are registered lobbyists. It would also require that at least 10 percent of board members be from state, local or tribal governments. The Hill

New Map Will Help Scientists Study Alaska's Climates. The world has a new way of looking at Alaska's climate data, thanks to a University of Alaska post-doctoral fellow and a handful of other like-minded scientists. A set of 13 new Alaska climate divisions and their associated data sets created by Dr. Peter Bieniek as part of his doctoral thesis recently were accepted for use by the National Climatic Data Center and integrated into the center's website. Climate divisions are important because they are used to identify long-term climate trends, predict weather, determine crop cycles and monitor precipitation and drought, among other things. Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

NOAA Plans Increased 2015 Arctic Nautical Charting Operations. As commercial shipping traffic increases in the Arctic, NOAA is taking major steps to update nautical charts in the region. NOAA's Office of Coast Survey will use data collected by two of its own ships, Rainier and Fairweather, as well as the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Healy and a private sector hydrographic contractor to cover nearly 12,000 nautical miles in the Arctic  for use in updating its navigational charts. The NOAA-led Arctic marine corridor project will work with the Coast Guard to asses the safety of a potential Arctic shipping route from Unimak Island, the largest of the Aleutian Islands, through the Bering Strait to the Chukchi Sea, as proposed in the USCG Port Access Route Study for the region. The Coast Guard will continue to take public comments prior to making a final decision on the proposed route. NOAA

Finland Shelves Indigenous Rights Agreement Ratification. Finland will not be ratifying the International Labor Organization's Convention No. 169, which vouchsafes the rights of indigenous peoples, until the next government is formed. The ratification proposal was shelved last Friday. The decision to put the ratification proposal on ice came down from Parliament's Speaker's Council. It means that the International Labor Organization's (ILO) Convention No. 169, a binding international directive granting indigenous and tribal peoples the same rights as other citizens, will next be under discussion in the next government. The convention was approved in 1989, and has so far been ratified by 22 states. Alaska Dispatch News

Russia's Arctic Policy Up for Remake. As Russia is unfolding a major combat alert drill in its Northern Fleet, the country's government has approved the setup of a new federal Arctic Commission. Headed by hard-line Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, the Commission will coordinate all government authorities involved in regional developments. Included in the commission mandate are issues of social, economic, political, as well as military, importance, newspaper Kommersant reports. In a first commission meeting, Rogozin and his commission members decided to "conduct a revision of everything which Russia has in the Arctic," the newspaper writes. Alaska Dispatch News

Huge Data Gaps Cloud Fate of Arctic Mammals. A first-ever effort to gauge the ecological status of all 11 species of marine mammals living in the Arctic reveals a mixed picture-and a lot of missing information. Researchers found that although some populations appear to be coping with climate change, others are in decline. Overall, however, scientists found that little information is available on most of the 78 known populations. "Unless we fill critical data gaps, this is the information we have to base management decisions on for the foreseeable future-amid increasing development pressures," says Kristin Laidre, the study's lead author and a marine mammal biologist at the University of Washington's Polar Science Center in Seattle. ScienceMag

Papp Says US Must Better Prepare for Melting Arctic. As the U.S. prepares for its two-year turn at chairing the council of nations with Arctic territory, the State Department's special representative for the Arctic, retired Coast Guard Adm. Robert J. Papp Jr., admits that this country is behind in its preparations for a melting Arctic. The U.S. is an Arctic nation because of Alaska, which was purchased from Russia in 1867. The eight-country Arctic Council was established to promote cooperation and coordination among them, indigenous groups and other Arctic inhabitants. The council's primary focus is on environmental protection and sustainable development of the region. Military