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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

In brief: Launch bumped to Feb. 3

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Shuttle Discovery will remain grounded until at least Feb. 3 while engineers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration continue to look for the cause of cracks in its external fuel tank, a top NASA official announced Friday.

William Gerstenmaier, the agency’s associate administrator for space operations, said engineers still don’t know enough about the cracks to justify launching Discovery on what is scheduled to be its last mission before retirement.

Discovery had been initially scheduled to launch Nov. 1. But during an inspection prompted by a leaking hydrogen valve, engineers found cracks in both the fuel tank’s insulating foam and the tank structure itself.

Gerstenmaier said that moving Discovery to February would delay shuttle Endeavour’s last flight, which had been scheduled to launch on Feb. 28.

WASHINGTON – Rearview cameras could become more common in future cars and trucks under rules proposed by the government Friday to address concerns about drivers unintentionally backing over children.

The new requirements from the Transportation Department are intended to improve rear visibility in cars by 2014. Most carmakers would comply by installing rear-mounted video cameras and in-vehicle displays. The government estimated that systems would add about $200 to the cost of each new vehicle.

Nearly 300 people are killed and 18,000 injured each year because of backovers, according to data kept by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The proposal is expected to be completed next year after a public comment period. Under the plan, 10 percent of the vehicle fleet will need to meet the standards by the 2012 model year, followed by 40 percent in 2013 and all new vehicles by 2014.

BP challenges spill estimate

WASHINGTON – BP is mounting a new challenge to the U.S. government’s estimates of how much oil flowed from the runaway well deep below the Gulf of Mexico, an argument that could reduce by billions of dollars the federal pollution fines it faces for the largest offshore oil spill in history.

BP’s lawyers are arguing that the government overstated the spill by 20 to 50 percent, staffers working for the presidential oil spill commission said Friday. In a 10-page document, BP says the government’s spill estimate of 206 million gallons is “overstated by a significant amount.”

In a statement Friday, the company said the government’s estimates failed to account for equipment that could obstruct the flow of oil and gas, making its numbers “highly unreliable.”

BP’s request could save it as much as $10.5 billion or as little as $1.1 billion, depending on factors such as whether the government concludes that BP acted negligently.