The Big Lie On Fiscal Conservatism

Perhaps my favorite moments in the speech were the parts where the President had the temerity to mention that "fiscal conservatives" don't give a damn about being fiscally conservative.

Part of the reason I faced a trillion dollar deficit when I walked in the door of the White House is because too many initiatives over the last decade were not paid for – from the Iraq War to tax breaks for the wealthy. I will not make that same mistake with health care [...]

Add it all up, and the plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over ten years – less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration.

Sarah Palin lashed out at this by saying that the President hates 9/11 (no link because I don't want to validate her), which proves they've got absolutely nothing to rebut this. I'm not Andrew Sullivan's biggest fan, but he nailed this a couple days ago.

If you believe in fiscal conservatism, the last place on earth you should look for salvation is the GOP. They have single-handedly destroyed America's finances since the 1980s, with the sole exception of George H W Bush, who was rejected by his own party precisely because of his fiscal sobriety. The current debt is overwhelmingly inherited by Obama, and it would have been nuts to enter office in the downdraft of the sharp recession and set about cutting spending. Bush had eight years to restrain it and he didn't. He let it rip. Think of the GOP's phony concerns about the cost of the current healthcare bill and compare it with the GOP's prescription drug entitlement that Rove rammed through the Congress when the GOP held total power. The costs then were about eight times as great as the proposed costs now. But that was a Republican measure and so it doesn't somehow count as evidence of fiscal irresponsibility. But Nancy Pelosi only has to raise an eye-brow and the alarms go off.

You cannot say this enough. The fiscal scolds who only pop up under Democratic Presidents are out of their minds if they think progressives should let them get away with their selective outrage designed entirely to forestall a progressive agenda. They have no credibility.

...John Dingell on this. In general Democrats have been very feisty today:

Q: Republicans, though, say that the bill explodes the deficit after 10 years because the revenues don't keep pace with spending growth.

A: Well, I'll give you several answers. First, that's fully consonant with Republican practices. They did it all the time, and can speak with authority to the evil of it. But that doesn't mean it's so. I don't honestly believe that's the case [that deficits expand], and the work has not been concluded. But if this is as factual as some of the other things they've said about the bill, I wouldn't pay too much heed.

We need 10 million views of this YouTube by next week

I mentioned earlier John Dingell bringing up the hearing in the House on rescission, the practice of insurers dropping people the moment they get sick, sometimes for technical violations on their applications like misspelling their name.

I know a fair bit about rescission, because in California, it's become a major issue. Former LA City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo has doggedly pursued those companies, like Blue Cross, who have engaged in the practice, and to date insurers have agreed to pay over $37 million dollars in fines. Another case is about to go to trial. Blue Cross encouraged this with performance bonuses for employees who found a reason to cancel coverage for the sick.

Now check out what these insurance CEOs said after being confronted with all of these examples of them denying coverage to sick people.

An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period [...]

Late in the hearing, Stupak, the committee chairman, put the executives on the spot. Stupak asked each of them whether he would at least commit his company to immediately stop rescissions except where they could show "intentional fraud."

The answer from all three executives:

"No."

Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) said that a public insurance plan should be a part of any overhaul because it would force private companies to treat consumers fairly or risk losing them.

"This is precisely why we need a public option," Dingell said.

Here's the YouTube of that hearing. It should have 10 million hits by the end of next week.



Here's a Splicd version of the moment where they all refuse to commit to stop rescinding people when they get sick. In the above YouTube, that comes in around 4:47.

TEN MILLION VIEWS.

Here's the Twitter message I put up about this.

Health insurance CEOs refuse to stop screwing their customers: http://splicd.com/_29CCVI1ao4/288/371 please RT! #publicoption

Email this to everyone you know. Retweet. Put it up on Facebook. Do whatever you can to get this in front of people's eyeballs. Without a public option, we give our health care future over to people who have vowed not to cover you if you're sick. Politicians can stand with people, or with these insurers.

Thanks.

...Health Care for America Now has a page up with this incredible video. You can forward an email to a friend with the video using their page.

Let's Not Give The People What They Want

Blanche Lincoln just can't get behind a public option in health care.

U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., says she prefers private insurance cooperatives to a government-run provider that would compete with the private sector in reforming the nation’s health care system.

“We want to keep what works in the private industry and make it better,” Lincoln told Arkansas reporters in a conference call today. “There’s a lot of discussion about what else we might need that we can’t get from the private sector.”

The senator left the door open to supporting a government-option, though she acknowledged she has reservations.

“One of our biggest concerns is that it doesn’t need to be a government plan that usurps that ability to compete in the marketplace, which I’m concerned that a totally government-run option would do,” she said.

This really doesn't make any sense, other than in the sense that Blanche Lincoln values corporate contributors over her constituents, and doesn't feel that the public can hold her accountable as long as she raises enough money. Because the public plan is wildly popular. In most cases, a wildly popular issue would be precisely the one that could yield bipartisan support. But if that issue is in any way progressive, suddenly, public opinion doesn't matter anymore.

And not only is the idea of a public option popular in the abstract, the inclusion of a robust public option would save a lot of money and thus allow the congress to minimize its reliance on unpopular measures like tax increases. But suddenly here public opinion becomes irrelevant. You never hear a Blue Dog say “my seat is so vulnerable that I can’t afford not to back a super-popular public plan.” Ben Nelson’s not talking about how if Democrats want to stay viable in red states they need to robustly back a 70-20 issue like the public plan. The WSJ doesn’t run a headline saying “Opposition to Public Option Spells Political Trouble for Republicans.” Public opinion, in other words, can be a reason to eschew sound progressive policy but never a reason to enact it.

Exactly. There are these etched in stone "political realities," designed by elites, that say you just cannot cross corporate power. And so we hear nonsense about "fiscal responsibility" as a means to deny the most fiscally responsible option. And we hear that we "have to protect the free market" while denying the choice that would strengthen that market. The public option is nothing so much as trust-busting. And the elites want to keep together the trust.

Meanwhile, the three committees working on this in the House have really stepped up. They released a discussion draft based on the work of all of the relevant Chairmen, which includes a robust public option to keep insurers honest and allow for experimentation in the marketplace. Initially, the plan utilizes Medicare bargaining rates to ramp up, and then will use cost control plans to provide better coverage and more effective care.

I would prefer a single-payer system. But this actually is a significant step, and worth fighting for: a health care plan that offers lower costs, higher quality and better choice. During the press conference (on C-SPAN 3, not cable, because who gives a crap about health care, right?), John Dingell brought up the hearing in the House on rescission, the practice of insurers dropping people the moment they get sick, sometimes for technical violations on their applications like misspelling their name.

An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period [...]

Late in the hearing, Stupak, the committee chairman, put the executives on the spot. Stupak asked each of them whether he would at least commit his company to immediately stop rescissions except where they could show "intentional fraud."

The answer from all three executives:

"No."

Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) said that a public insurance plan should be a part of any overhaul because it would force private companies to treat consumers fairly or risk losing them.

"This is precisely why we need a public option," Dingell said.

Here's the YouTube of that hearing. It should have 10 million hits by the end of next week.



Here's a Splicd version of the moment where they all refuse to commit to stop rescinding people when they get sick.

TEN MILLION VIEWS.

It's A Trap!

Yesterday, Al Gore testified on Capitol Hill about the climate crisis. Even though it was COLD! In January! I don't know how he worked up the courage to show his face.

Anyway, here's some of what he had to say.

We have arrived at a moment of decision. Our home - Earth - is in grave danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, of course, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings [...]

We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change.

For years our efforts to address the growing climate crisis have been undermined by the idea that we must choose between our planet and our way of life; between our moral duty and our economic well being. These are false choices. In fact, the solutions to the climate crisis are the very same solutions that will address our economic and national security crises as well.

In order to repower our economy, restore American economic and moral leadership in the world and regain control of our destiny, we must take bold action now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's ICE outside, Grandpa!

OK, wingnut cloak off. So Elena Schor was interested by Bob Corker's apparent desire for a carbon tax:

I want to tell you that I wish we would just talk about a carbon tax, 100 percent of which would be returned to the American people. So there's no net dollars that would come out of the American people's pockets.

Gore agreed with Corker. But this is a scheme to slow down progress on the climate, a divide and conquer strategy. Dave Roberts explains.

The 111th U.S. Congress is not going to pass a carbon tax. Calls for a carbon tax, to the extent they have any effect, will complicate and possibly derail passage of carbon legislation.

It's possible that a carbon tax (and/or cap-and-dividend) bill will be introduced. One or both might even make it to a full vote, though I doubt it. But they won't pass. If you want carbon pricing out of this Congress, cap-and-trade is what you're getting. It follows that your energies are best spent ensuring that cap-and-trade legislation is as strong as possible [...]

Through some process I find truly mysterious, the carbon tax has become a kind of totem of authenticity among progressives, while cap-and-trade now symbolizes corporate sellouthood [...] It doesn't seem to daunt these folks that their hostility toward cap-and-trade and support for carbon taxes has been taken up by a growing cadre on the far right, including Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, economist Arthur Laffer, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), and yes, even climate wingnut Sen. James Inhofe (R-Gamma Quadrant). Hell, throw in a refunded gas tax and you get America's Worst Columnist© Charles Krauthammer too. Are we to believe that these folks understand the threat of climate chaos, want to reduce climate emissions the amount science indicates is prudent, and sincerely believe that a carbon tax is the best way to accomplish that goal?

Perhaps, if we slept through the last decade, we might believe that. Having been awake (and watching in horror), we understand that it's a poison pill. It's a way to avoid legislation at all if possible and secure the weakest possible bill if not. It's a way to exploit disagreements within the climate coalition and derail momentum. That's what they do. As usual, they're fighting a knife fight and the left is holding a grad school seminar.

Now, Roberts strongly favors cap and trade, so take that with a grain of salt. But he's not wrong and we've seen this movie before. Hell, John Dingell proposed this a couple years ago, taunting environmentalists that he was doing so "just to sort of see how people really feel about this.” One goal is to associate mitigating climate change with a tax, and making sure the conservative base knows that's the only way any progress can be made (even though in one iteration, that tax would be paid by carbon producers and refunded to the people). Another is simply to drive a wedge on the left to blunt consensus.

Whether it's a carbon tax or cap and trade, the environmental movement should pick a side and go with it. They're going to need to be unified against near-universal Republican opposition. Kevin Drum has more.

Public Option Or Bust

Last week I wondered whether or not key Democrats were already bargaining away the public option in their universal health care proposal. Pete Stark has some control over the final bill in his perch as chairman of the House Ways and Means Health subcommittee, and according to him, either the public option stays or no deal.

Advocates of a government alternative to private health insurance fired the first shot of the new battle to reform the nation’s health-care system on Wednesday, saying that efforts to water down this key component of Barack Obama’s health-care plan should be rejected by members of Congress.

“In the absence of a public plan you would have to so strictly regulate [private] health plans that they would all have to become public plans,” said Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., chairman of the House Ways and Means Health sub-committee.

Stark spoke out on Wednesday because he is concerned that any effort to reform the private health-insurance market will prove ineffective if Americans are not offered the kind of Medicare-style government option contained in Obama’s 2008 campaign proposal.

Most important, Health Care for America Now backed Stark up on it, with their national campaign manager declaring any plan without a public option a "non-starter." I think HCAN is going to be crucial in this fight to beat back right-wing smears and insurance industry lies, so they probably have to be on board with any proposal.

Jacob Hacker released a report last week describing the importance of a public option in any universal health care plan. Especially if a "Medicare-for-all" single-payer plan is not being considered, the public option is crucial to create competition over quality care instead of over profit. And the current public plans (the VA, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.) do a much better job at reining in costs. Of course, there's a case to made that if the public plans improve upon private industry so much, they should be the only option allowable, because otherwise insurers will cherry-pick the healthiest clients and either drive the public option into bankruptcy or increase their costs and make themselves look more attractive. On the other hand, there are measures like guaranteed issue and community rating that can be written into the bill to ensure this cannot happen, and in addition, scaling up Medicare might have drawbacks of its own.

Overall, I think that untangling the mess that is our health care system is priority number 1, because it's woefully inefficient. Streamlining all the various public programs to deliver health care along with a public option anyone can buy would certainly increase that efficiency and hopefully lower costs, no matter the set of patients. So would placing limits on insurers, through guaranteed issue and community rating and mandatory percentages of premium money going to treatment, to reduce the energy and cash that goes into blocking care. So there's a lot we can do.

Interestingly, John Dingell is going to do a lot of it. Despite being upended as Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Henry Waxman has offered Dingell the lead sponsorship on national health care legislation. The Waxman-Dingell fight was always over energy, not health care, and this allows Dingell a legacy setter at the end of his career while still giving liberals what they desired on energy and global warming policy. It's a magnanimous and smart move. Hopefully Dingell understands the importance of a public option, too.

Chairman Waxman

I guess Henry Waxman, a key ally to Nancy Pelosi, wouldn't have made the move to unseat John Dingell if he didn't count the votes.

Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.) has ousted Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (Mich.), as Democratic lawmakers voted 137-122 Thursday morning to hand the gavel of the powerhouse panel to its second-ranking member.

This, more than anything, could be the biggest change in the federal government in 2009 and beyond. Waxman's Safe Climate Act sets the targets needed to mitigate the worst effects of global warming. It now becomes the working document in the House for anti-global warming legislation. And his constituency doesn't include a major polluting industry.

From a policy standpoint, it's a major progressive victory.

And the balance of power in the Congress moves once again to the Left Coast. In fact, right to my doorstep!

Waxman Wins Key Test Vote For Chair Of House Energy Committee

This is a very big deal. Henry Waxman has been nominated by the House's Steering Committee to be the head of the House panel on Energy and Commerce, ahead of longtime chair John Dingell. The implications for such a change would be huge, but it's not over yet.

The House Democratic Steering Committee has nominated Henry A. Waxman to be chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee next year — a stinging rebuke of the sitting chairman, John D. Dingell .

Waxman won a 25-22 vote over Dingell in a closed-door meeting Wednesday by the Steering panel. Because Dingell got more than 13 votes in the secret balloting, he can be nominated to run against Waxman at Thursday’s Democratic Caucus meeting, at which all of the Democrats elected to the 111th Congress are eligible to vote.

That means we have one day to whip our Congresspeople on this vote. Waxman, who wrote the Clean Air Act and who has an understanding of what is needed to be done on global warming and the post-carbon future, would make a great chairman, as opposed to the Dingellsaurus, who is still trying to protect the auto industry from moving into the 21st century, even as the verdict on their approach is defined by their trudging to Capitol Hill for a bailout. A majority of the caucus has signed a letter to Nancy Pelosi asking for greater efforts to combat climate change. Waxman at Energy is a key to that happening. We must eliminate this roadblock.

Marc Ambinder sets the scene (this was written before today's vote)

Waxman wants the job for obvious reasons: the committee will be the most powerful in the new Congress, one that'll deal with health care and energy legislation. (Ways and Means? Pleghghgh.) A lot of impatient liberal Democrats want to see Dingell go; he is too old, too blinkered in his thinking and too at odds with the party on energy, they say; just as many, it seems, want him to say, including some influential members of the leadership, even if for reasons of preserving the integrity of the seniority system.

Senior Democratic aides expect that the vote will go to the full caucus; all the loser of the steering committee vote has to do is present a letter with 35 House members. The full vote would be Thursday via secret ballot.

Lots of members of Congress put themselves in the position of someone like Dingell, who earned his chairmanship with seniority, and they don't want to see him pushed out because they wouldn't want it to happen to them. That's the kind of institutional thinking that must be vanquished, as it restricts change. The enviro groups are backing away from this fight because they don't want to feel Dingell's wrath if he wins. There is nobody else left to step in but us. I was skeptical that House Democrats would be pushed in the direction of progress, but with Waxman's former chief of staff, Phil Schiliro, in the Obama White House, some pressure may be coming down from the top. It's in all of our interests to have Henry Waxman atop this committee.

Call Congress and tell them you want to see a committee chair with bold ideas on energy as the head of the Energy Committee. If you want some extra incentive, read the smugness of the Blue Dogs who are fighting for their roadblock:

Dingell’s supporters said they are not worried by the vote of the Steering panel, which they say is stocked with left-leaning members who do not represent the broader makeup of Democratic caucus.

“If you look at the makeup of that committee in terms of geography and political leanings, this is not the same dynamic as our whole caucus,” said Jim Matheson , D-Utah, who is part of a team working the phones for Dingell, D-Mich.

In particular, if your member is in the Congressional Black Caucus or the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, both of which are supporting Dingell, ask them if they want their constituents to breathe clean air in the future.

UPDATE: This article in The Hill goes deeper into what I touched on about members' fear of the loss of seniority. It's really what's driving the fact that there's a contest on this at all.

A successful coup against Dingell (D-Mich.), head of the Energy and Commerce panel, could encourage Young Turks to attack the seniority system, which rewards years of service, and send a signal that all top jobs are now fair game.

Dingell, the longest-serving Democrat in the House, is two years into a six-year limited term as chairman. Waxman (D-Calif.), with 20 years’ less seniority but a closer friendship with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), is bidding to oust him.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D), an African-American from Missouri and a strong proponent of the seniority system, said Dingell’s ejection would mean “nobody is safe based on seniority, and that is going to cause a high level of disenchantment.”

Personally, I think the seniority system should be abolished in favor of a PERFORMANCE system. If your work aligns with the broad goals of the caucus, you get to keep your job. I don't see David Obey or Ike Skelton having much of a problem because their views are pretty well aligned.

Waxman Fight For Energy Committee Looking Grim

That's if you believe Tim Fernholz, who talked to a couple people in the know.

2. At least two people who would know (blind quotes suck but that's the way of the world) don't expect the Waxman challenge to Dingell at the Energy committee to get anywhere, in part because the last two classes of new representatives are more conservative on the whole than other members and will support the incumbent. The leadership hopes that it won't come to a vote, because Waxman, who is more closely identified with Pelosi (who isn't taking a position on the challenge) will drop out when he realizes he doesn't have the votes.

I want to push back on the idea that the most recent classes of Reps. are all conservative, because while that is ossified conventional wisdom inside the Beltway it's simply not true. Alan Grayson is not conservative. Tom Perriello is not conservative. Larry Kissell is not conservative. In fact, in this cycle the four Democrats who lost Congressional elections were all deeply conservative - Tim Mahoney, Nick Lampson, Don Cazayoux and Nancy Boyda.

This isn't totally about right-left, it's about those in the status quo who want to protect the seniority system in the event that they stick around Congress look enough to secure a plum post. That's why you have liberals in the Congressional Black Caucus like John Lewis pushing for Dingell to stay in his chairmanship. Dingell is trying to sucker new members by saying he is good on health care, but of course that's not totally true.

But Dingell is good on health care. Well, by good, I mean he has pushed 'single-payer' for literally decades, while preventing action on drug prices and appointing most of the members of the Energy and Commerce Committee that killed Clinton's health care plan, because they were reliable pro-auto industry votes on other issues Dingell prioritized (there aren't a lot of single payer pro-polluting members out there). But health care is all Dingell has, so he's emphasizing his willingness to work on health care with Obama in return for keeping his chairmanship of the enormously powerful Energy and Commerce Committee.

With the Senate appearing to take the lead on health care anyway, and Waxman just as solid on the issue, this is an irrelevant argument. What should be far more central to the debate is this:

The California economy loses about $28 billion annually due to premature deaths and illnesses linked to ozone and particulates spewed from hundreds of locations in the South Coast and San Joaquin air basins, according to findings released Wednesday by a Cal State Fullerton research team.

Most of those costs, about $25 billion, are connected to roughly 3,000 smog-related deaths each year, but additional factors include work and school absences, emergency room visits, and asthma attacks and other respiratory illnesses, said team leader Jane Hall, a professor of economics and co-director of the university's Institute for Economics and Environment Studies.

The decades of shameless defense of a heavily polluting auto industry should be grounds for Dingell's resignation, not just for booting him from this key committee (especially because it's resulted in the car companies being broke and looking for a government handout). But it's awful hard to impact an insider caucus battle with anything resembling reason.

However, we must keep trying. Call Congress and tell them you'd rather have someone concerned about catastrophic climate change in charge of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, instead of someone who uses it as a pretext to keep his failing auto industry executive buddies happy.

Anti-Manufacturing

John Dingell, who's an ornery SOB, is throwing around the insults at Henry Waxman for daring to challenge him for his post of chief protector of auto industry fuel economy standards in the Congress.

Dingell, who is in the process of whipping up support from colleagues to retain support of the influential committee, told a Detroit radio show last week that Waxman lacks a concern for the manufacturing industry, particularly the auto industry (workers in which populate Dingell's southeast Michigan district).

"At a time when the auto industry, American manufacturing, American industry needs somebody who understands these things in that particular spot to look after them and see that they are fairly treated," Dingell said, "he wants to put in an anti-manufacturing, left-wing Democrat."

Hmm. Anti-manufacturing? Interesting that the groups that send manufacturers their loans, who have every interest in keeping manufacturing strong, want to cut greenhouse gas emissions by precisely the same number as Waxman does.

A group of large financial institutional investors will on Tuesday call on rich countries to cut their emissions by up to 95 per cent by 2050, in the sector’s strongest demand yet on climate change.

The group of more than 130 investors, with a combined $7,000bn under management, includes Calpers, Calsters, several other US public sector pension funds, and several UK public sector pension funds. The group also includes Blackrock Investment Management, Deutsche Asset Management, HSBC Investments, Schroders and BNP Paribas Asset Management.

Those anti-business businessmen!

By the way, is anybody asking how successful Dingell has been in protecting the auto industry so far? Has he really allowed them to succeed? Is that why they're coming to Congress asking for handouts or they'll have to dissolve their businesses? Was resistance on fuel economy really positive for them? Maybe they need a push.

By the way, I tentatively support help for the auto industry and the saving of millions of factory jobs, as long as in the exchange, Detroit starts making efficient cars that people want to buy. But that might require management with heads dislodged from their ass. That Dingell supports the aid package as well makes me more, not less, dubious.

Gamechanger

Among the many executive orders that Barack Obama will seek to overturn to rack up some quick victories at the beginning of his term, none may have a more lasting impact than granting the waiver to California to regulate their tailpipe emissions.

The president-elect has said, for example, that he intends to quickly reverse the Bush administration's decision last December to deny California the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles. "Effectively tackling global warming demands bold and innovative solutions, and given the failure of this administration to act, California should be allowed to pioneer," Obama said in January.

California had sought permission from the Environmental Protection Agency to require that greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles be cut by 30 percent between 2009 and 2016, effectively mandating that cars achieve a fuel economy standard of at least 36 miles per gallon within eight years. Seventeen other states had promised to adopt California's rules, representing in total 45 percent of the nation's automobile market. Environmentalists cheered the California initiative because it would stoke innovation that would potentially benefit the entire country.

"An early move by the Obama administration to sign the California waiver would signal the seriousness of intent to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil and build a future for the domestic auto market," said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

There are two reasons this is a major change. One, by granting that carbon dioxide emissions threaten human welfare, you open up a whole toolkit of innovative policy choices to follow to restrict them. Cap and trade or a carbon tax becomes not just a policy option but a madate under the EPA. The second, as noted in the article, is that dozens of states will seek to follow the California ruling on tailpipe emissions over the federal government. And once you have 45% of the market mandating a higher fuel efficiency standard, it is unlikely that automakers will create a secondary market at the lower standard. You will have raised the CAFE number by default.

All of this is a recognition that the dangers of global warming is real, and that an Obama Administration will not stand in the way of sound science that declares the danger and seeks to mitigate it. For all of the effort by polluters to save John Dingell's chairmanship from the clutches of Henry Waxman (and they're enlisting all the legislators they've bought off to that end), this executive order would have lots of reach regardless who controls global warming legislation in the Congress. It would mean that California can control its own destiny and regulate its own air. It will force innovation and create economic opportunity and improve public health and possibly save lives.

And it's all a stroke of the pen away.

Post-Election Comings And Goings For LA-Area Lawmakers

A couple weeks ago I wrote about three looming battles that we had to think about after the election. Two of them have already fizzled. The open primary ballot initiative filed with the state has been withdrawn. That's probably because the Governor wanted to present it himself, so we'll see where that goes, and a lot of it might have to do with whether or not Prop. 11 actually passes. Second, Bush Republican and rich developer Rick Caruso decided against running for Mayor of Los Angeles against Antonio Villaraigosa. There is now no credible candidate running against the incumbent. Caruso may figure that Villaraigosa is primed for bigger and better things (he's in Washington today with President-Elect Obama's council of economic advisers), and if Villaraigosa vacates the seat he'd have a better shot of capturing it.

However, there are a couple other looming battles that are out there. First, Jane Harman, Congresswoman from the 36th Congressional District, is in line for a top intelligence post with the Obama Administration, and the odds are extremely likely that she'd take it. Laura Rozen has a profile here. After a tough primary against Marcy Winograd in 2006, Harman has been a moderately better vote in Congress, but this represents a real opportunity to put a progressive in that seat. Winograd has recently moved into the district, and would certainly be my first choice if it comes open (or if it doesn't - Harman voted for the FISA bill this year).

The other major news is that Henry Waxman, my Congressman, is looking to oust John Dingell from his post atop the Energy and Commerce Committee. This is a long time coming, and I don't think Waxman would go for it without the support of the Speaker. The Dingellsaurus, while a decent liberal on most issues (and also a former representative of mine in Ann Arbor, MI), has blocked progress on climate change and modernizing the auto industry for years. We were finally able to get a modest increase in CAFE standards last year, but Waxman, who wrote the Clean Air Act of 1990, would obviously be a major step up. And with the auto industry on life support and asking for handouts as a result of the old ways of doing business, it's clearly time for a Democratic committee chair who isn't protecting their interests at the expense of the planet. Waxman's "Safe Climate Act" introduced last year would mandate a cut in greenhouse gases of 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. That's exactly the right attitude from the committee chair, and with energy issues obviously so crucial in an Obama Administration, we need someone in that post who recognizes the scope of the problem. It should also be clear that the committee has likely jurisdiction over health care reform.

Grist has a lot more on this story.

The Latest - Sigh - On FISA

It's actually depressing to give the news on the Senate's FISA bill, which should come to a merciful but unfortunate end tomorrow, coinciding with the Potomac primary so Obama and Clinton probably can't vote, and the headlines will be small and inside the paper. Over the weekend The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal had dueling editorials, the WSJ using the novel phrase "the anti-antiterror left" and the NYT using common sense.

So Mr. Rockefeller and other senators want to give the companies immunity even if the administration never admits they were involved. This is short-circuiting the legal system. If it is approved, we will then have to hope that the next president will be willing to reveal the truth.

Mr. Rockefeller argues that companies might balk at future warrantless spying programs. Imagine that!

This whole nightmare was started by Mr. Bush’s decision to spy without warrants — not because they are hard to get, but because he decided he was above the law. Discouraging that would be a service to the nation.

This debate is not about whether the United States is going to spy on Al Qaeda, it is about whether it is going to destroy its democratic principles in doing so. Senators who care about that should vote against immunity.

The problem, of course, is that this "debate" on FISA is all a big game of Kabuki. By unanimous consent, and that means every single solitary Senator agreed to it, voting on amendments to the Intelligence Committee version of the bill were set at a high enough level that they will not get the votes they need. Senator Leahy can send an email out to his list about how we all have to push our representatives about fixing a bad bill, but he could have objected to the absurd 60-vote standards for some amendments which had majority support. And he's claiming he will "filibuster" the final bill, but there aren't 41 votes to hold that filibuster, and they simply plan to talk for a few hours to raise their objection. What you saw coming out of the Senate Intelligence Committee is what will go into conference, that's the bottom line.

So really, this debate shifts to the conference report. And while some important members of the House, including John Dingell, are giving positive signals that they will resist all efforts to allow telecom amnesty in the final bill, there are enough Bush Dogs in the House to probably give the President whatever he wants. I find it really difficult to keep my hopes up that we can get amnesty out of this bill. But it's certainly dead in the Senate, so we have to shift our attention to the House.

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald points to a question about FISA so ridiculous from Chris Wallace that even George W. Freakin' Bush feels the need to dial it back.

A Deal On Fuel Efficiency

This is the best that can be hoped for given the margins in the House and Senate, and for now, the renewable energy standard for electricity is still in the bill, which is crucial. If that stays then this is a tremendous step forward, and a big win for Nancy Pelosi.

Congressional negotiators reached a deal late Friday on energy legislation that would force American automakers to improve the fuel efficiency of their cars and light trucks by 40 percent by 2020.

The proposal, which would require automakers to achieve 35 miles per gallon on average, is similar to a measure that was passed in the summer by the Senate but was bitterly opposed by the auto companies, who argued they did not have the technology or the financial resources to reach that goal [...]

Ms. Pelosi called the compromise on mileage “an historic advancement in our efforts in the Congress to address our energy security and laying strong groundwork for climate legislation next year.” She said that she was confident it would win the backing of environmentalists, auto makers and labor and would clear Congress by the end of this year.

Mr. Dingell, in a statement, called the new mileage standard “aggressive and attainable.”

Standing up to the automakers here, and getting the buy-in from the Dingellsaurus, reflects a strong negotiating hand and an expectation of favorable public opinion to do something about rising gas prices. And raised awareness about global warming has led 150 global business firms to seek mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to fight global warming. This legislation would take a step in that direction.

Some of the world's largest firms -- including Coca-Cola, General Electric, Shell, Nestlé, Nike, DuPont, Johnson & Johnson, British Airways and Shanghai Electric -- said that the scientific evidence for climate change is "now overwhelming" and that a legally binding agreement "will provide business with the certainty it needs to scale up global investment in low-carbon technologies."

A separate coalition of environmental groups and U.S. companies, including Honeywell, Shell Oil and Pacific Gas & Electric, helped underwrite a report, released yesterday by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., that analyzes how much it would cost to reduce U.S. emissions significantly by 2030. The report, which examines 250 options, concludes that the United States could cut emissions by 3 billion to 4.5 billion metric tons a year through existing approaches and "high-potential emerging technologies" if the federal government signaled that it was determined to reduce greenhouse gases dramatically. That would represent a 7 percent to 28 percent reduction from the 2005 levels.

The President hasn't been shy threatening to veto bills this year, yet he's said nothing on this one, so this might actually pass through, and believe it or not, would culminate a pretty solid year of accomplishments for the Democratic Congress relative to recent years. Obviously, the failure on Iraq is troubling, but one interesting angle of the lack of focus on Iraq is that the President's plaintive wails about getting more no-strings funding aren't quite as loud in the media, allowing Pelosi to be far more forceful on troop pullback dates. At some point there will be a tipping point and this will change, but for now she's standing tall.

Federal Energy Bill: A Lot Of Sludge

It looks as if there will be a new federal energy bill after the Thanksgiving recess, but it's a half-measure.

Congressional negotiators are nearing agreement on the components of an energy bill that would boost fuel efficiency standards for vehicles and require vast increases in the use of biofuels, according to congressional aides and lobbyists.

The auto industry and its champion, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), have accepted the target of achieving an average of 35 miles a gallon for each carmaker's fleet of new U.S. vehicles by 2020, set in the version of the bill passed by the Senate in June. However, Dingell and the automakers appeared to have won concessions extending fuel efficiency credits for flexible-fuel vehicles and creating separate mileage standards for cars and light trucks.

The two main and most likely features of the final bill are variations of what the Senate adopted. In addition to the 35 mile-per-gallon target for 2020, the Senate bill ramped up the requirement for gasoline makers to use ethanol and other biofuels, to at least 13 billion gallons by 2012 and 36 billion gallons by 2022.

There has been one change in the biofuels measure. While the Senate bill required that at least 3 billion gallons of "advanced biofuels" derived from sources other than corn be used starting in 2016, escalating to 21 billion gallons by 2022, new language would require that the first advanced biofuels be used in 2013. That might ease demand for corn, which has soared in price, and recognize that companies are making progress in using new feedstocks in pilot projects.

Many elements that were in the version of the energy bill passed in August by the House -- such as a requirement for utilities to use minimum amounts of renewable fuels and a rollback of the oil industry's share of a tax break for manufacturers -- seemed unlikely to be included, congressional sources said.

I'm all for compromise, but these seem to be compromises in the wrong places. The President signed bills in Texas mandating a renewable energy portfolio for utilities. Federally, that gets shunted aside. It's completely unclear that the President would sign a fuel efficiency increase, he's been very resistant to it in the past. Further, there are plenty of loopholes crammed into the bill, particularly regarding light trucks, that would incentivize American car companies against innovation and toward more of the same. (What will eventually push them is the market, as they've become almost irrelevant in the global auto economy.) Plus, there appear to be loan guarantees for nuclear power plants in the bill.

I believe the renewable energy standard would provide a more immediate impact to reducing fossil fuels. In fact, the new bill would ELIMINATE tax breaks for wind and solar, in the hopes that they would be reinserted in a later tax proposal. About the only positive I see from this bill is this:

Dingell is also pressing for a provision that would take the responsibility for regulating tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide away from the Environmental Protection Agency and give it to the Transportation Department's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Last week, Chrysler circulated a paper arguing that tailpipe emissions were linked to fuel efficiency standards NHTSA oversees. But earlier this year, the Supreme Court said the EPA has the power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act, and congressional sources said it was unlikely that the auto companies would prevail.

Because energy legislation is a difficult issue with all kinds of regional biases toward certain policies, you typically only get a shot at it every decade or so. It seems to me that the Congress is missing an opportunity, albeit in troubled circumstances

A Breakthrough on Energy

Early in the day it looked like the Democrats' energy package in the Senate was on the rocks. Republicans blocked the centerpiece of the proposal, removing $32 billion dollars in tax breaks and incentives for oil companies and funneling that money into alternative energy research. So the GOP maintained corporate welfare at the expense of working to save the planet. Good times.

However, by the end of the day, a compromise agreement had been reached that is actually fairly solid.

The Senate passed an energy bill late Thursday that includes an increase in automobile fuel economy, new laws against energy price-gouging and a requirement for huge increases in the production of ethanol.

In an eleventh-hour compromise fashioned after two days of closed-door meetings, an agreement was reached to increase average fuel economy by 40 percent to 35 miles per gallon for cars, SUVs and pickup trucks by 2020.

This overcame a watered-down proposal from Michigan's Carl Levin, and is a significant step. As Dianne Feinstein pointed out,

"It closes the SUV loophole," declared Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., referring to current requirements that allow much less stringent fuel efficiency standards for SUVs and pickup trucks than for cars. "This is a victory for the American public."

Industry should have closed that loophole years ago, it would have enabled them to sell more cars, but government has a vested interest in planetary survival as well as the survival of the domestic auto industry, and if the carmakers won't help themselves they must be dragged into the 21st century.

This bill could obviously be better, but getting it through the Senate with what amounts to a veto-proof majority (it got 65 votes without Sen. Johnson and I believe Boxer, so that's 67) is major news. The House may be tougher, especially considering John "I loves me some gas guzzlers" Dingell is Chairman of the relevant committee. Apparently Dingell is trying to punt on the CAFE standards issue, the most important part of the bill. Call your Representatives; we cannot let this happen.

Steps Forward and Backward on Fighting Global Warming

In a week where a bipartisan group in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urged the President to address climate change in a significant way during the G8 Summit, and not by agreeing to have more talks, some Democrats in the House are attempting to shanghai important climate change legislation already passed by the states.

Congressman Rick Boucher, representing Virginia's 9th district comes from coal country. Today he teamed up with Congressman John Dingell (MI-15) to propose legislation that would wipe out California's ability to regulate auto emissions in ways that both cut down on smog and reduce total CO2 emissions. In effect, Representative Boucher wants to use his seniority to shove a little more auto smog and coal-fired smoke down Californians' collective throats.

Boucher and Dingell are senior Democrats who don't give a rat's ass what anyone in the grassroots or netroots that just won them a majority perch in Congress thinks of them. They pitched this legislation just as Speaker Nancy Pelosi returned from a trip to Europe building support for progress fighting global warming. Coincidence? Sure. Truth is, Boucher and Dingell were going to do this anyway, and for one reason...they are senior Democrats, hence, they can and they think nobody can stop them.

And, um, nobody can, at lease in the sense of current electoral politics. John Dingell's an institution who will probably drop dead on the House floor. He's been there 50 years. Having lived in his district, there's no chance of anyone booting him. And there's no chance of booting him off the Commerce Committee - too much seniority.

Like it or not, he's also representing his constituents - carmakers. So's Boucher, to an extent: as KO said, he's from coal country.

Frustratin', ain't it?

Fortunately, Madam Speaker is having none of it.

Any legislation that comes to the House floor must increase our energy independence, reduce global warming, invest in new technologies to achieve these goals and create good jobs in America.

Any proposal that affects California’s landmark efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or eliminate the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions will not have my support.

The question, of course, is this: will it simply not have her support, or will she actively work in her position in the leadership to keep it from coming up for a vote?

You stop these things by electing more and better Democrats who can keep these kinds of pernicious pieces of legislation down. While you're always going to have competing interests in a big-tent party, you can blunt Rep. Dingell and Rep. Boucher on this issue by showing them they have no support. In fact, every Democratic legislator should hear from their constituents on this one and tell them just that.

Cutting Through Ice

Progressives did a great job getting people in office in 2006 who share the same values. But it's going to take decades before we get enough turnover in office where that's going to make a real difference. Sure, the caucus is for the most part right on the Iraq war, but that's a layup. On too many other fronts, we're not seeing a lot of movement on the issues on which Democrats supposedly ran.

The biggest disappointment is that Democrats are stubbornly refusing to sever the ties between government and Big Money interests in the form of lobbyists.

House Democrats are suddenly balking at the tough lobbying reforms they touted to voters last fall as a reason for putting them in charge of Congress.

Now that they are running things, many Democrats want to keep the big campaign donations and lavish parties that lobbyists put together for them. They're also having second thoughts about having to wait an extra year before they can become high-paid lobbyists themselves should they retire or be defeated at the polls.

The growing resistance to several proposed reforms now threatens passage of a bill that once seemed on track to fulfill Democrats' campaign promise of cleaner fundraising and lobbying practices.

"The longer we wait, the weaker the bill seems to get," said Craig Holman of Public Citizen, which has pushed for the changes. "The sense of urgency is fading," he said, in part because scandals such as those involving disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former Rep. Duke Cunningham, R-Calif., have given way to other news.

Lobbying is a protected right in the First Amendment, and I don't want to see it go away any more than I would want a free press to be stopped. But making former lawmakers wait a couple years before crossing over and becoming lobbyists, and making lobbyists disclose details about the big money they scrounge up in contributions, is just sensible good-government stuff. Furthermore, it's terrible politics to rant and rave about a culture of corruption, only to leave the door open for that corruption after the election is over.

Second is this pernicious secret trade deal, the details of which have still yet to be released to the general public or the media. Of course, this didn't stop the traditional media from defending the deal and calling it a grand breakthrough in the spirit of high Broderist bipartisan compromise. The only compromise here is that members on both sides of the aisle have no problem screwing the American worker. Fair-trade Democrats were denied a chance to see the final agreement before the announcement (the US Chamber of Commerce, on the other hand, got a nice long look). Worse, the deal is just a precursor to giving the President fast-track authority, essentially a line-item veto for trade, so that the puny and unenforceable labor and environmental standards that might be in the deal could be legally wiped out with the stroke of a pen. The good news is that the majority of Democrats don't support the deal and will fight its passage, but it's not clear that will be enough.

The story on trade is really about seniority in the leadership and the top Congressional committees means that the majority opinion of the caucus can always be overridden by someone at the top. An additional example is fuel economy. All of the top Presidential candidates want to boost mileage averages, and even the Senate Commerce Committee approved a bill that would raise CAFE standards to 35mpg by 2020. But in the House, the relevant committee chair is John Dingell. Of Michigan. And he's not likely to budge, stiffening at the very hint of criticism.

U.S. Rep. John Dingell said he’s just a simple Polish lawyer from Detroit who is not running for higher office and not trying to make political points.

So he took umbrage today with a speech given last week by U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat who is running for president. In a speech to the Detroit Economic Club, Obama chastised the auto industry for not working harder to achieve better fuel-efficiency standards.

Dingell used his speech to the same organization to shoot back:

"I admire Sen. Obama’s enthusiasm..… But with all due respect, as the Sopranos would say — I would not travel to Chicago for the purpose of teaching people how to butcher hogs."

They don't butcher hogs in Chicago anymore, incidentally. And if I fucked up the auto industry the way the Big 3 have in the US over the past decade, including having to sell Chrysler for a fraction of what it was purchased for in 1998, I'd welcome any advice I could get. The truth is that fuel economy is the killer app of the 21st century, and the technology is with us today to make cars faster and to go further using less. But stubborn men like John Dingell want to protect the profits of their corporate buddies.

This is a major problem, not atypical, where the status quo bumps up against those who want real change. Progressives want to reduce the corrosive power of money in politics, give American workers a chance to compete without being priced out of the global market, and create a revolution in alternative energy in the name of environmental and national security. These are not controversial issues. But there is a generational political divide that is going to take a long time to breach.