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Business Groups Oppose Emergency H1N1 Paid Sick Leave

2009-11-17T18:50:47Z

Public health officials say the H1N1 flu pandemic is exacerbated by employees going into work sick because they don't get paid time off. But a representative from the business community told Congress on Tuesday to stay out of it.

House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) is pushing an emergency bill that would require employers with more than 15 workers to provide up to five days of paid sick leave. That's about the length of time it takes for H1N1 sufferers to stop being contagious, according to American Public Health Association head Georges Benjamin, who testified before Miller's committee Tuesday.

The emergency bill doesn't go to the lengths that labor groups, not to mention Miller himself, want. It expires in two years, only applies to workers with "flu-like symptoms" and leaves the decision to grant time off up to the employer. But business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Businesses, strenuously oppose the bill anyway.

Testifying on behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers Tuesday, A. Bruce Clarke, who runs his own 1,000-member business lobby in North Carolina, told Miller's committee that most businesses already have comparable or more generous paid leave programs, so why bother?

"While some employers may not have taken specific action in response to the H1N1 outbreak, these employers are clearly the exception to the widespread practices taking place today," Clarke said in his prepared testimony. "These types of creative approaches are the result of flexibility that employers have to develop policies that best fit their workforce needs."

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 39 percent of workers in the private sector do not receive paid sick leave.

The "creative approaches" Clarke cited include telecommuting, advancing sick days from next year and allowing employees to make up missed hours with additional shifts. But most of his solutions wouldn't do anything to protect blue-collar or service-industry workers living from paycheck to paycheck.

Miller wasn't moved by the manufacturers' opposition. "Let's face some simple facts. When you're struggling to make ends meet you're going to do everything possible to not miss a day's pay," he said. "The lack of paid sick leave encourages workers who may have H1N1 to hide their symptoms and come to work sick, spreading infection to coworkers, customers and the public. This isn't good for our nation's public health or for businesses."

The emergency bill wouldn't obviate the need for a permanent and comprehensive paid leave policy, Miller said. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) has roughly 100 cosponsors on her Healthy Families Act, which would mandate seven days of annual paid sick leave not limited to the flu, and Miller said he will continue working with DeLauro to build support for it. In the meantime, he said, the emergency bill can function as "a circuit breaker needed to get this virus under control."

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) is developing a Senate version of Miller's emergency legislation. Though his bill would also sunset after two years, Dodd said last week that it will be based on the Healthy Families Act, which means it would leave the decision to take up to seven paid sick days up to the worker, not the company.

"Families shouldn't have to choose between staying healthy and making ends meet," Dodd said in a statement last week. "But if staying home means you don't get paid, that's an impossibility, especially for families struggling to make ends meet in this tough economy."

The business community, however, seems to think it can beat back any bill, including Miller's. One tactic they don't hesitate to use involves threatening benefit and job cuts.

"If employers are mandated to provide a certain level of a specific leave benefit, they must decide whether to add that on top of existing employer leave policies or to reduce the existing in order to meet the new mandate," Clarke said Tuesday.

Laying some groundwork for lobbying should the bill keep gaining steam, Clarke suggested that the federal government "encourage" businesses to provide their own H1N1 solutions, and argued that any federal law should preempt state and local laws on paid sick leave, many of which are tougher than the proposed legislation.

Dave Obey Chides Obama Administration For 'Stupid Mistakes' On Stimulus Reporting

2009-11-17T01:12:21Z

A powerful House Democrat used unusually harsh terms to blast the Obama administration's manipulation of stimulus data Monday night, and demanded an honest accounting of results from the $787 billion government program.

Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wis.), who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, took the administration to task for pervasive errors on the Web site designed to monitor disbursement of the stimulus funds. He called those errors "outrageous."

"Credibility counts in government and stupid mistakes like this undermine it. We've got too many serious problems in this country to let that happen," Obey said in a statement. "Whether the numbers are good news or bad news, I want the honest numbers and I want them now."

Obey demanded a commitment from the executive branch that they would "work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes." Congress and the public should be able to trust reports by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency (RAT) Board, he said.

The administration has already slashed 60,000 jobs from its estimates of how many jobs were created by the stimulus, after discovering "unrealistic data" submitted by stimulus recipients. In one extreme example, the stimulus Web site reported that 50 jobs were created or saved by an Arkansas cemetery's purchase of a lawnmower for roughly $1,000.

Republicans have also pounced on the administration's stat-juking. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, decried the "grossly inaccurate" information disseminated by the stimulus Web site in a letter to RAT Board Chairman Earl Devaney. If the transparency board can't certify that the stimulus has indeed saved or created 640,329 jobs, Issa wrote, the stimulus Web site should carry a disclaimer stating that its figures are unreliable.

Devaney will appear before the oversight committee Thursday during a hearing on tracking stimulus funds.

Issa Threatens To Strip Federal Money From Fannie And Freddie

2009-11-11T17:33:26Z

Taxpayer money shouldn't be used to back some $6 trillion in home mortgages if there is no inspector general keeping watch over those funds, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said Wednesday in response to a story first reported by Huffington Post.

Thanks to complex maneuvering, the Federal Housing Finance Agency -- which includes Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks, comprising more than 80 percent of mortgage purchases and guarantees issued since mid-2008 -- convinced the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel back in September that their inspector general did not have the authority to investigate agency wrongdoing, according to documents obtained by HuffPost.

But if regulators aren't authorized to monitor Fannie and Freddie's use of federal funds, Issa said Wednesday, maybe the government should not be responsible for their loans.

"Until this issue is resolved, Congress should question the wisdom of continuing to provide taxpayer support to Fannie and Freddie until proper oversight is in place," Issa said in a statement. "It is absolutely unconscionable that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were at the heart of the subprime housing collapse last fall that sent our economy into a tailspin, should be without independent oversight at a time when the federal government now owns over half of all the mortgages in the United States."

Issa's temporary solution would be to reinstate Ed Kelley, who served as the agency's inspector general prior to the OLC ruling, as the acting IG pending a Congressional investigation.

"There is no way that Congress intended for there to be no IG for the FHFA and if we need to go back and fix this legislatively, we should do so immediately," he said.

Hoyer: House Stays Until Health Care Vote Happens

2009-11-06T16:04:39Z

Anyone trying to delay the House floor vote on health reform should know they're not leaving until it's done, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Friday.

Democratic leaders are still working to nail down the 218 votes they need to pass the House health care bill, slated for a vote Saturday night, but Hoyer told reporters on a conference call that if the floor debate takes longer than expected, members will have to return on Sunday afternoon, then Monday and Tuesday if necessary.

Coming in Monday or Tuesday might not sound extraordinary, but the House had been planning to take most or all of the coming week off for Veterans Day. Working on Saturday is already unusual for Congress, so Hoyer's threat to cancel their vacation plans might actually dissuade Republicans from trying to derail the vote or wayward Democrats from slowing it down to wring more concessions from leadership.

"My expectation is that that will not be needed," Hoyer said. "But clearly, things happen, and delaying tactics can be employed which would take longer than the Saturday early-evening projected end of the debate and the votes. So all I've done is to make sure everybody understands that we're going to complete this effort."

In the meantime, Hoyer acknowledged that leadership is still addressing concerns from some Democrats that the health reform bill doesn't do enough to deny federal funding for abortion services or health care for undocumented immigrants. As it stands, the bill doesn't provide either, but small coalitions of Dems are still pushing to change the final language on those points. "Obviously those are issues of great concern," Hoyer said. "We are working on those issues now."

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Kerry, Graham, Lieberman Working On Weaker Climate Compromise

2009-11-04T18:20:47Z

While Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) works to pass the Kerry-Boxer climate-change bill out of committee, her cosponsor is working on a compromise plan that he hopes can safely get 60 votes.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) announced Wednesday afternoon that he and Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) are consulting with the White House not merely to get the executive branch's input on the Kerry-Boxer bill, but to help build a parallel bill that they will pass onto Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

This "dual-track" approach has the "full consent and support" of both Boxer and Reid, Kerry told reporters at a press conference. The compromise bill, the three senators said, could help Reid reconcile the six versions of Kerry-Boxer that ultimately clear the Senate committees with jurisdiction over the climate legislation.

"We will be working very, very closely with the administration and be fully respectful of all of the efforts made by each individual committee with jurisdiction in this area," said Kerry, who chairs one of them, the Foreign Relations Committee.

Another helpful factor, Kerry said, would be secrecy. Though Lieberman acknowledged after the press conference that they were discussing preliminary details with a "working group," the three senators declined to name any of the colleagues with whom they seek to build consensus. "We are not going to negotiate this publicly, day by day, drip by drip," Kerry said at the press conference, seeming to draw a contrast with the architects of health care reform.

So why announce they're working on a compromise bill at all? Lieberman said the senators were moved not by the ongoing Republican boycott of Boxer's committee, but by the nominal support of an as-yet-nonexistent compromise proposal by the Chamber of Commerce, which the Chamber announced Tuesday night.

"We think that's essential," Kerry said at Wednesday's press conference.

Graham, too, sought to frame the need for reform in terms of what he called a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" for U.S. business interests, as well as energy independence and environmental protection.

"The green economy is coming," Graham said. "We can either follow or lead. And those countries that follow will pay a price."

Selling Republicans and business interests on a climate bill may require a lot of compromise from liberals, Graham acknowledged. "If you don't believe carbon pollution is a problem, then you wouldn't want to work with me, because I do," he said. "Remember 'Drill here, drill now?' Where did that go?"

The three senators met with Energy Secretary Steven Chu Wednesday morning, Lieberman said, though he declined to detail the conversation. He, Kerry and Graham are slated to meet Wednesday afternoon with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the White House's point person on climate change, Carol Browner.

Inhofe Shows Up To Climate Hearing, Refuses To Discuss GOP Position, Walks Out

2009-11-04T16:26:05Z

Just like the day before, only one Republican showed up for the Senate's climate change hearing Wednesday morning -- but not to debate.

Republicans are boycotting the Environment and Public Works Committee hearings, blocking action by exploiting a committee rule that at least two members of the minority have to be present before opening markup.

On Wednesday, ranking Republican James Inhofe of Oklahoma made a brief appearance at the hearing before the committee began its consideration of roughly 80 Democratic amendments and zero from Republicans, who offered none. In a rare move, Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) extended the deadline for amendments from Monday to Tuesday night on behalf of the committee Republicans, but once it became clear they wanted an extension of five weeks, she stopped waiting.

Inhofe provided a statement, but unlike Ohio Sen. George Voinovich, the lone Republican at Tuesday's hearing, he declined to further discuss his position -- or even read his statement into the record.

Pressed to expand on the GOP position by Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Penn.), Inhofe snapped, "You know, I say to my good friend Sen. Specter, with whom I've served for 20 years, I don't have to answer that question. I have it in writing. That's exactly what we want. And so I'd -- rather than deviate from, that way people might get confused, it's right in front of you."

"And what I would like to see us do is to try to be specific as to what it is you'd like to have," Specter said.

Inhofe would not be moved. "Yes, well, that's the reason that I did put this in writing, I say to my good friend Sen. Specter," he said. "Because I was afraid there would be some who weren't here at that time who didn't know the past history, and so I wanted to make sure we had it down specifically in writing, so there could be no question as to what we want and what has happened in the past."

Specter tried one more time. "Well, could the senator from Oklahoma describe it in a general way?" he asked.

"No, it's right in front of you, you could read it if you like, If you'd like me to -- I'm not going to read it you the letter, because I'm going to have to be going," Inhofe said. "But it's very specific, it's right in front of you, and the EPA staff has agreed to this."

Shortly thereafter, Inhofe took off, leaving the Democrats to debate their amendments. "We're ready to go," Boxer said after he left.

WATCH:

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GOP Boycotts Senate Climate Change Hearing (VIDEO)

2009-11-03T23:27:38Z

Barbara Boxer is out in front on climate change in the Senate. As a result, she spent much of Tuesday sitting by herself.

From the beginning, it was a bizarre day for Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee and the climate-change debate in general. Making good on their boycott threats from last week, none of the seven committee Republicans were in their seats at the start of Tuesday's hearing.

This attempt to stall the committee from beginning to mark up the Kerry-Boxer climate bill was based on the EPW rule that at least two members of the minority have to be present before opening a markup. But that's just a nicety, and Boxer isn't known for being all that nice. "Sen. Boxer has been as patient as I've ever seen her. I've been with her since 1982," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Boxer doesn't need to be patient, necessarily. She doesn't really need any Republicans to simply pass the bill out of the committee, which has 12 Democratic senators to the 7 from the GOP.

Democrats weren't surprised that one side of the committee dais was empty. They already had their one-liners ready to go:

Republicans weren't entirely absent from the hearing. Retiring Ohio Sen. George Voinovich appeared to deliver a prepared statement on behalf of his missing colleagues that well exceeded the typical five-minute limit on speeches. Then he, too, vanished.

What Voinovich and the Republicans claim they want is a full analysis of the bill by the Environmental Protection Agency, which would take another five weeks. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Reid have agreed to wait for the EPA report before beginning the process of final passage on the Senate floor, but that probably wouldn't mean any delays -- the bill has five more committees to get through before Reid can reconcile its various amended versions. The Republicans want the report now.

"Madam Chairman, asking for an EPA analysis is not a stalling tactic. This is not a ruse to prevent the committee from marking up a climate bill," Voinovich said. "Rather, this is a genuine attempt to make sure that members of this committee, both the majority and the minority, have the best information available as we debate and amend a bill that will have consequences for every person in our country."

The committee just heard from 54 witnesses on nine panels last week, Boxer countered, and has an atypically large amount of data available for review. Voinovich left anyway.

After they'd taken their best shots at the empty chairs, committee Democrats left, too, leaving Boxer to chair a committee of one.

As promised, Boxer brought an EPA official to answer questions from the missing Republicans later in the day, but none materialized. The GOP still wants the report, Voinovich wrote in a statement later Tuesday. "Having a briefing does nothing to change that."

While Boxer sent the EPA deputy on his way Tuesday evening, Inhofe hastily announced a press conference that he abandoned just as quickly. An Inhofe staffer announced to the assembled reporters that Republicans had heard Boxer planned to move her committee into markup at any moment, and Inhofe wanted to be ready to rush into the hearing room and object, the staffer said.

Tragically, that scene never came to pass. Instead, Boxer adjourned the committee to hold a press conference of her own.

It sounded like another Yes Men stunt, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorsed a theoretical Senate climate change bill on Tuesday evening. Not the Kerry-Boxer bill, though.

Boxer pounced on the news anyway, calling the Chamber's support of a prospective weaker bill a "game changer" at her press conference Tuesday night.

"The Chamber stands ready to work with Congress to resolve this issue in a bipartisan manner that recognizes regional differences, the state of the technology, and the compelling need for a solution that minimizes overall economic impact," head Chamber lobbyist R. Bruce Josten wrote in a letter to Boxer and Ranking committee Republican James Inhofe (R-Okla.).

The letter praised the spirit of compromise displayed by Kerry and Graham in supporting further funding for nuclear power, so-called "clean coal" and domestic drilling, as well as renewable energy sources. Josten reserved the rest of the Chamber's compliments for Republicans, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who quickly emerged last week as a primary threat to the bill in Boxer's committee. The chair herself, not so much.

Even if it's not the "fundamental shift" Boxer called it Tuesday night, Josten's professed desire for some kind of reform marks a reversal for the Chamber, which claims to be the nation's largest business lobby. The group's reputation has been damaged repeatedly in the past month as a series of companies sought to distance themselves from the Chamber's opposition to the climate bill or just left the umbrella group outright.

Last week, the Chamber also began openly working against health care reform.

The Republicans missing from Boxer's hearing earned the public support of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) Tuesday afternoon. Graham has been the Olympia Snowe of climate change since partnering with Kerry to write a New York Times op-ed stressing the need for reform, but he doesn't seem to feel the same pressure he felt a month ago to have a bill to show the international community in Copenhagen in December.

Neither does Kerry, for that matter. "I welcome the opportunity to go at this in a deliberate and thoughtful way," he told reporters Tuesday afternoon. "Obviously it's pushed back, but that's okay."

The United States can still be a productive participant in the Copenhagen discussions, Kerry said, as long as they have a "framework" take to the world stage. Kerry said European Union President Fredrik Reinfeldt, as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, agreed with that assessment Tuesday morning. The White House will provide its own ideas for a basic framework on Wednesday, Kerry said, when he and Graham will meet with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

But since climate change won't be done this year, there has been talk of pushing it back beyond the 2010 elections, for the safety of Democrats up for reelection in red or fossil fuel-heavy areas. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) told reporters Tuesday afternoon that while he does not support it, he has heard the prospect of a years-long delay floated in "street talk among staff" working on the issue.

At that prospect, Kerry balked. "There's no way that we can afford to do that. There's just no way," he said. "I don't know what an election has to do with the temperature of the Earth being kept at 2 degrees Centigrade. It has nothing to do with it. And the notion that this should be delayed for some artificial schedule is just beyond consideration here. We have an obligation to make this happen, and unless we set some targets, we're going to fall short with disastrous consequences."

Offered a worst-case scenario, Kerry did acknowledge the political realities. "If you get into September of next year or something, that's a different story," he said. "But I don't think we're going to get there."

Senate Dems Divided On Climate-Change Bill

2009-10-27T19:07:28Z

If Tuesday was any indication, the Senate's climate-change bill has a ways to go before it gets weak enough to garner the 60 votes it needs for passage.

The legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions took its standard shots from Republicans on the Environment and Public Works Committee during the first day of hearings, but unsurprisingly, they seem to have already made up their minds. Many left the committee room after delivering their opening remarks, and none remained through the end.

More threatening to the bill's prospects on the Senate floor were objections voiced by senators who are more likely to vote in favor of the final product: committee Democrats from predominantly rural states and fossil-fuel producers.

Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the bill's principal author, has been working for months behind the scenes to win over coal-state Democrats and other moderates, and most of the committee's Democrats praised her efforts on Tuesday. That didn't stop them from demanding more carveouts for themselves, however.

Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania acknowledged that the bill will create jobs for his constituents, but said he wants a bill that the United Mine Workers of America can support. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who said she wants the bill to provide a more "stable business environment," called for more nuclear-energy funding and suggested that she would work to weaken the bill's impact on farmers in the agriculture committee.

Most damning was Max Baucus of Montana, the second highest-ranking Democrat on the committee and formerly its chairman, who provided a long list of "serious reservations" about the bill's effects on his state.

"The legislation before us is about our economy," Baucus said. "Montana, with our resource-based agriculture and tourism economies, cannot afford the unmitigated impacts of climate change. But we also cannot afford the unmitigated affects of climate change legislation. That's why I support passing common-sense legislation that reduces greenhouse gas emissions while protecting our economy. The key word in that sentence is 'passing.'"

Baucus said the bill's 2020 emissions target, a 20 percent reduction from 2005 levels, was too strong. He didn't say, however, how weak the target should be, and wouldn't tell reporters outside the hearing room whether he would accept the 17 percent reduction mandated by the House climate bill that passed in July.

The Senate climate-change package does have allies. The five executive-branch agency heads sent by the White House -- Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff -- all said the bill's time has come, as did Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who didn't make it there.

Both President Obama and Vice President Biden spent time stumping for alternative energy development on the road Tuesday, Obama at a Sarasota, Fla. solar-research center and Biden at a Wilmington, Del. General Motors plant slated to reopen as a production center for alternative-energy cars. The legislation also enjoys 60 percent support among the public, according to a poll released Tuesday by CNN.

And several of the committee's 12 Democrats spoke out in favor of the bill with few or no caveats. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who has spent the past month loudly championing the bill since he became its lead cosponsor, opened the committee's witness testimony with a strong defense.

"The science is screaming at us to take action," Kerry said. "America's leadership is certainly on the line here." Kerry pushed back against Ranking Republican James Inhofe (Okla.), who led the GOP charge that the bill would be too costly, by noting that Inhofe's analysis ignored its positive effects -- and the price of inaction.

Apparently unmoved, Inhofe repeated his charge that cap-and-trade would mark "the largest tax increase in history" Tuesday night on the Senate floor. Democrats outnumber Republicans 12 to 7 on the committee, so Inhofe's power is limited, but he could slow the committee down by telling the seven Republicans not to show up. Under committee rules, two of the Republicans have to be in the room for a quorum, and Inhofe has said since last week that he is considering withdrawing the GOP from the process if he feels they don't have enough time to decry the bill.

He'll have plenty of time Wednesday and Thursday. The committee is slated to hear four panels of witnesses during each of the two days, for a total of 54 witnesses including the handful from Tuesday.

But expect movement after that, Boxer said during Tuesday's hearing.

"Climate change, global warming isn't waiting for who's a Democrat or who's a Republican," she said. "Either we're going to deal with this problem, or we're not."

Grayson Shreds Republican On Constitutional Question

2009-10-22T20:32:38Z

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) dispensed with the typical Congressional niceties Wednesday at a House science and technology markup, when he dismantled a Republican provision targeting ACORN on constitutional grounds.

Refusing to yield his time to allow Republican Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia to escape his line of questioning, Grayson persisted in establishing that Broun's provision was a constitutionally-prohibited bill of attainder, a law which punishes a particular individual or group -- in this case, denying federal funds -- without benefit of a trial.

The tense exchange was unusual among members of Congress, and nervous laughter filled the committee chamber after the second of three times Grayson refused to yield.

WATCH:

When the House first defunded ACORN last month, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) picked up on the constitutional problems with the legislation. Grayson also noticed that the bill was written so broadly as to defund the entire military-industrial complex and got that language read into the legislative record.

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35 GOP Senators Vote Against Defense Bill With Hate-Crimes Amendment

2009-10-22T19:29:05Z

It's not easy to get 35 Republican senators to vote against defense spending -- unless hate crimes legislation is involved.

The Senate narrowly invoked cloture on Thursday, 64 to 35, on the defense authorization package with the bill named for Matthew Shepard attached. The bill, named for a gay Wyoming teenager who was kidnapped and beaten to death in 1998, makes it a federal crime to assault someone on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Senate Republicans conceded that the Shepard bill swung their votes against the defense package. "The bill includes hate crimes legislation, which I firmly believe is unnecessary, irresponsible, and certainly not germane to this bill," Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said. "There is little evidence that indicates that violent crimes motivated by hate go unpunished in the United States. Every single state has criminal laws that prohibit the antisocial behavior addressed by hate crimes legislation, including laws against rape, assault and battery."

Those are states' rights issues, said Chambliss. "I do not believe the federal government should interfere with the criminal laws already on the books in our states," he said.

John McCain decried the inclusion of the hate crimes provision as an "abuse of the Senate process," arguing that it was not germane to the broader defense authorization bill. But Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) noted that this was nothing new -- the Senate has included hate crimes provisions in previous defense bills.

Only Sens. Dick Lugar of Indiana, George Voinovich of Ohio and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine voted with Democrats to move the legislation to a final vote, which is expected Thursday night or Friday.

"I'm disappointed that Senate Republicans have decided that defeating hate crimes legislation takes precedent over supporting our troops," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a statement. "It is outrageous and unacceptable that Senate Republicans would vote against pay raises for our troops, battlefield equipment upgrades and increased funding for veterans' health care as we continue to fight two wars. And they decided to do this all for the sake of stopping passage of landmark legislation that will bring justice to those who commit violent crimes based on bigotry and prejudice. What message does that send to our country and, more importantly, to our troops?"

Thirty Republicans also touched a nerve in a separate defense bill recently, when they voted against an amendment that would deny defense contracts to companies that ask employees, including rape victims, to sign away the right to sue. That time, they were actually joined in some of their concerns by the Department of Defense.

A final Senate vote on the defense bill is slated for Thursday night or Friday morning. It passed the House two weeks ago, 281 to 146, so it would proceed from there to the White House. President Obama has promised to sign the Shepard bill, a reversal from the policy of the Bush administration.

Snowe Warns Reid On Public Option

2009-10-22T17:49:54Z

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), the most likely Republican vote for the Democratic health care bill, told reporters Thursday that she would not vote to break a GOP filibuster if the bill put forth by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) contains a public option.

"Would [inclusion of a public option] be enough for you to vote against the cloture motion?" a reporter asked Snowe on her way off the Senate floor Thursday afternoon.

"On the public option? I'd say I'm against a public option, so yes," Snowe said.

"But would it be enough for you to say, 'I'm not going to proceed to this bill?'" the reporter pressed. Snowe nodded on her way into the elevator.

Snowe said she also opposes the opt-out version of the public plan, which would allow individual states to remove their residents from the federal exchange. "I don't support that," she said.

Reid is still working with Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and health committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), along with representatives from the White House, to meld the finance and health bills into one.

Snowe's was the lone Republican vote for the bill in the Finance Committee, where it contained no public option. On the Senate floor, Snowe's vote alone might not make the difference. But besides the bipartisan veneer that her "aye" could offer a unified Senate bill, Snowe confirmed that she is in talks with conservative Senate Democrats like Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Should they present a united front, the public option would have a weaker chance of passage in the Senate.

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Consumer Financial Protection Act Passed By House Committee

2009-10-22T16:56:08Z

The proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency took another step forward Thursday in the House, moving out of the Financial Services Committee -- albeit a bit weaker -- on its way toward the floor.

CFPA, which would be the first federal regulatory agency devoted solely to consumer financial protection, passed the committee 39 to 29. All but one of the assembled committee Republicans and two Democrats voted against the consumer protection bill, despite a series of compromises that included exemptions for favored industries and limits on tougher state regulation.

During the four days worth of amendments considered by the committee, Republicans consistently decried the proposed independent consumer watchdog, echoing bank lobbyists, as a threat to the overall "safety and soundness" of the financial services industry. Those complaints were undercut -- and the bill given a boost -- when top banks announced huge bonus payouts during the markup.

Republicans also argued, in debate and through a long list of proposed amendments, that existing banking regulators like the Federal Reserve were already capable of protecting consumers as well as the financial markets. Rep. Michael Castle (R-Del.) acknowledged that existing regulators failed to protect consumers, but, he added, "I think they're ready to do that now."

Democrats weren't convinced.

"What did the prudential regulators do to protect consumers? Nothing. Zero. Zilch. They didn't do a thing," Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said, noting that the Fed has already had consumer protection powers since 1994 but that they went unused for 12 years. "I think enough has been said here in this committee about the markets. The markets. Always concerned about the markets. Well, you know what? Those markets caused trillions of dollars in losses to men and women who live on Main Street across this country."

Castle ultimately crossed the aisle to support the bill, while Democrats Travis Childers of Mississippi and Walt Minnick of Idaho opposed it.

A pillar of the Obama administration's proposed financial regulatory reforms, the CFPA is designed to protect Americans from abusive or deceptive loans, including credit cards and mortgages, that played a substantial role in the financial crisis.

However, committee chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) made it clear, via his own amendments and his support for certain exemptions proposed by other committee members, that the agency's regulatory power extends only to lending activity, not other retail purchases on credit. Frank also stressed that the bill is designed to target predatory practices, not necessarily particular professions.

"We have restricted the CFPA from what the administration proposed," Frank said Wednesday.
The requirement that banks offer easily understandable "plain vanilla" financial products was out of the bill by the time the markup process began, and the committee quickly decided that community banks -- those with less than $10 billion in assets -- should be exempt from agency oversight. So are credit, mortgage and title insurers, plus lawyers, real estate brokers, cable companies, accountants and auto dealers.

In addition -- as a measure of of ACORN's continued political toxicity -- Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) handily passed an amendment preventing the organization's employees from serving on the CFPA oversight board.

Democrats also compromised on a keystone reform that would have allowed tougher state laws to act in tandem with new federal regulation. Frank and the White House wanted states to have free rein to get as tough as they chose, while pro-business Democrats and Republicans sought to exempt large national banks from state standards. Democratic Reps. Mel Watt of North Carolina and Dennis Moore of Kansas authored the middle road, which would allow the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, an existing bank regulator, to override state laws if they "significantly" interfere with federal regulation.

Republicans still complained that the Watt-Moore Amendment required national banks to comply with too many different sets of laws -- compelling Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) to snap, "It used to be you all" who argued for states' rights.

That compromise did, at least, elbow out the total-exemption amendment authored by Rep. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.), who was sidelined earlier in the week when her family came down with the flu. The Bean amendment had been a singular focus for Heather Booth, the head of Americans for Financial Reform, who told the Huffington Post it was "extremely bad."

Booth also took issue with the exemption for auto dealers, whom she called "major agents where there's been a great deal of fraudulent practices, of major credit problems, especially in low-income and communities of color." But Frank said Wednesday that dealers remain "very popular" in their communities and have been "unfairly punished" in the restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler. He opposed the Campbell dealer-exemption amendment only because he said the dealers were already exempt in the legislation.

Frank pushed through an amendment that shifted the oversight of consumer-reporting agencies, which track individuals' credit histories, from the Federal Trade Commission to the CFPA.

And Frank was less sympathetic to other proposed exemptions, including amendments from Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) that would have blocked the CFPA from regulating any "medical professionals." Earlier, Price apologized for having missed the previous debate. "The gentleman from Georgia never has to apologize to me for not being here," Frank replied.

Tempers ran hot throughout the markup process, with the combustible Frank usually involved. Republicans drew out the early days of the debate, and by Tuesday the chairman's voice was, he acknowledged, hoarser than usual. But that didn't stop him from lengthily upbraiding Ranking Republican Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) both Tuesday and Wednesday for, variously, ignoring parliamentary procedure, "distorting history" on the subject of regulation, and wasting the committee's time debating doomed Republican amendments designed to kill the bill. By Wednesday night, Frank had heard enough.

"I would say to my friend, it's a little late now for this. I think frankly there was a lot of unnecessary debate," Frank said at the close of business Wednesday, when Bachus pushed for another day to hear further GOP bill-killers. "Sarbanes-Oxley, we considered for six weeks..." Bachus began, but Frank put his gavel down. "The committee is in recess."

Bachus said in a statement Thursday morning that he was disappointed Frank "prematurely ended debate on something this important." But House Republicans still have several weeks to campaign against the CFPA bill before it comes to the floor, and in response to complaints from Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.) that it contains "traps," Frank agreed on Wednesday to hold a hearing on it in the meantime should Republicans desire.

The bill's passage out of committee quickly garnered plaudits from President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "The Consumer Financial Protection Agency will prevent predatory lending practices and other abuses and will ensure that consumers get clear information they can understand about financial products like credit cards and mortgages," Obama said in a statement. "We will continue to work closely with Congress to create, for the first time, a federal agency whose sole mission is to protect the financial interests of everyday Americans."

If the CFPA bill makes it past the House floor, where conservative Blue Dog Democrats exert more influence than they do in Frank's committee, it will go on to face tougher opposition in the Senate. Meanwhile, the House committee will continue working on reforms of the credit-rating agencies and investor protections, likely with the same Republicans arguing that they go too far and put the banks' very survival at risk.

"I think in recent times it has been exactly the opposite, that it has been the lack of consumer protection that has endangered safety and soundness," Frank said Tuesday, responding to concerns from Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) about the possible regulation of cash-back rebates and frequent-flier miles. "That's the kind of argument you use to scare little children, and I don't see any little children here today."

The Huffington Post Investigative Fund looked at the Republicans, business interests and federal regulators who still oppose the new agency:

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Hoyer: Senate Keeping House Empty

2009-10-20T17:58:27Z

Count Steny Hoyer among those grumbling that the House isn't working enough, the Majority Leader told reporters Tuesday -- but blame the Senate.

"I want you all to know I'm not happy with it," Hoyer said at his weekly press briefing. "We passed numerous very substantive pieces of legislation, and we're waiting for them to get back."

That's not to say the House isn't working, Hoyer said, citing ongoing health care negotiations as "a heavy lift," but while they await conferences with the Senate on a wide variety of bills, House members don't have as much to do on the floor. "We're not going to make work. I'm not going to have people stand here and just twiddle their thumbs," he said.

Hoyer said his criticism was not directed at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- who has become the target of progressive groups now that Senate movement on health care reform has shifted in his direction -- but the deliberative nature of the chamber itself. "It's difficult to move things in the Senate," Hoyer said. "I think Sen. Reid has the most frustrating job in government in the United States of America."

Afghanistan, however, is one area where further delay is necessary, Hoyer said. He hit back against growing complaints by both Republicans and the military that Democrats are taking too long to weigh their options, arguing that the additional troops directed to Afghanistan under President Obama mark an improvement over what the Bush administration did for the region.

"My Republican colleagues, of course, abandoned their focus on Afghanistan for seven years. Seven years they let it drift. And did not resource it properly. And did not succeed," Hoyer said. "So this business of wringing your hands and saying, you're not doing what you need, we're doing much more than they did."

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CNN Scuttles Anti-Dobbs Ad

2009-10-15T19:33:43Z

With Additional Reporting By Sam Stein

CNN is declining to carry a national advertisement, purchased by two progressive groups, which attacks its host Lou Dobbs for his controversial views on immigration.

On Thursday, the progressive media watchdog group Media Matters, along with the organization America's Voice announced a new ad attacking Dobbs and CNN for airing "60 minutes of anti-immigrant hate." And in a deft touch of political messaging, the groups announced that they had their ad buyer place the spot on CNN itself, during the network's "Latino in America" series.

The possibility of an ad slamming Dobbs on his own network created a bit of buzz and anticipation in progressive circles. But CNN moved quickly to squelch discussion. A spokesperson at the network told the Huffington Post that they would not be running it on the national network, though there is no word yet as to whether local affiliates would, or could, carry the spot.

"Contrary to reports, CNN has not accepted these spots and they will not air on the network," said a statement from the network.

This is the second time that the network has declined to run an ad critical of Dobbs. Earlier in the year Media Matters had attempted to buy a spot whacking the host for entertaining birther conspiracies about the president. That too was rejected.

The most recent spot was part of the groups' grassroots campaign effort to push CNN to cancel Dobbs' show. The host, who has been a source of agitation for immigrant-rights groups, is reportedly considering a move from CNN to FOX News.

There is no word, as of yet, whether Media Matters and America's Voice will attempt to put the ad up on another station. In trying to place the spot on CNN, the groups were undoubtedly hoping to generate enough publicity to make it a news story of its own -- a technique that would have resulted in the ad being replayed on other news sites for free.

Here is the spot, entitled "Drop Dobbs":

Grayson, Progressives Push Reid To Strong-Arm Lieberman, Conservative Dems

2009-10-14T19:30:35Z

UPDATE: Reid pushed back Wednesday afternoon against the consensus that health reform is on him -- after Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), laid the fate of the public option in the Majority Leader's hands Tuesday night. "He would rather say anything so it wasn't up to him," Reid snapped Wednesday, en route to a meeting with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.).

Dodd said he expects the Senate finance and health bills to be reconciled by the end of next week. "The Leader will set the agenda," he said.

* * * * *

Now that the primary responsibility for health reform has shifted to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, progressives are pushing him to get tough with conservative Democrats looking to delay progress of a unified Senate reform bill.

Progressive Caucus member Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) and representatives from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee delivered their respective petitions to Reid's office Wednesday afternoon. With some 87,000 signatures collected in the past week, the PCCC urged Reid to strip leadership powers from members of the Democratic Caucus who do not vote for cloture to prevent a Republican filibuster -- a clear shot at Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), who chairs the Homeland Security committee and said Monday he "wouldn't rule out" allowing a filibuster to proceed.

Reiterating the urgent need for reform outside the Hart Senate office building Wednesday afternoon, Grayson didn't single out any congressmen or senators, but said he was baffled by continued delays given the Democratic supermajority and the cost of delay.

"Every single day in America, 122 more Americans die for lack of health insurance. That means that as we stand here in front of you right now, one or two or three more Americans have died because we have not acted yet," Grayson said. "I apologized to the dead and their loved ones for our inaction. Now it's time to move beyond that and get the job done."

Grayson's own petition, launched last Friday, questioned the power wielded by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), noting that "Olympia Snowe was not elected president last year."

The PCCC members handed off the petitions to a Reid staffer, but spokesman Jim Manley said Reid is unlikely to pursue retribution against senators who fight reform. "Senator Reid is focused on crafting a health care bill that will overcome a Republican filibuster," Manley wrote in an e-mail. "Stripping Democratic Senators of their leadership titles is a decision that would be left up to the Caucus, not Senator Reid. In light of this reality it's unlikely that the Caucus would ever go along with this idea."

That's good news for Lieberman, who already owes Senate leadership -- and President Obama -- for letting him keep his chairmanship back in November after campaigning for John McCain.

Reid's deputy, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), said the PCCC and Grayson ought to "count to 60 and understand we need to be together, and there are times when we need to work out our differences."

Grayson wasn't sympathetic to that argument Wednesday, noting that other Americans are paying the price while the Senate tries to work out its differences. Pulling a large American Journal of Public Health study from his jacket pocket, he said, paraphrasing the study authors, "You take two Americans who are otherwise identical in every single way -- same age, same gender, same race, same smoking habits, same weight -- you put them side by side, if one has insurance and one does not, the one without insurance is 40 percent more likely to die."

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