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Congress is heading back home for the August recess this week. Apparently our Senators need to rest after they failed to take up both a clean energy and climate bill and an oil spill bill.
Legislative inaction must be more tiring than I realized.
Still, I don't view this month as a cooling off period. If anything, it's time to turn up the heat.
Over the next few weeks, Senators will be holding "town hall meetings" in their states. Last year, these meetings came to define the health care debate. This year, they could help us reshape America's energy policy.
If you are like me and you are still stunned that the Senate refused to pass a bill that would have created nearly 2 million new American jobs, put our nation at the forefront of the clean energy market and helped end our addiction to oil, then go to a town hall meeting and tell your lawmakers what you think.
Tell them that it is in America's best interest to embrace clean energy now.
And while you are at it, please tell them to block attempts by some Senators to weaken the Clean Air Act-the 40-year-old law that has saved hundreds of thousands of lives-in an effort to further delay reductions in global warming pollution.
Some naysayers claim that voting on visionary legislation is a risky proposition when we are this close to an election. They are wrong, and history proves it.
As I wrote in a recent blog post, 13 of the most powerful environmental laws were passed during the fall of an election year or in the lame duck sessions following elections.
We can pass comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation this fall, but only if we demand it of our lawmakers.
Use this August to make your voices heard. You can find your Senators' schedules by checking their Senate websites, as well as their candidate websites - Republican or Democratic.
On June 26, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 219-212 in favor of HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). Only eight Republicans - we'll call them the "Enlightened Eight" - voted "aye." These Republicans were Mary Bono-Mack (CA-45), Mike Castle (DE-AL), John McHugh (NY-23), Frank LoBiondo (NJ-2), Leonard Lance (NJ-7), Mark Kirk (IL-10), Dave Reichert (WA-8), and Christopher Smith (NJ-4).
Republicans voting for cap and trade in the year of the Tea Party? You'd think that they'd be dumped in the harbor by now. Instead, they're all doing fine. In fact, to date, not a single one of these Republicans has been successfully primaried by the "tea party" (or otherwise). Instead, we have two - Castle and Kirk - running for U.S. Senate, one (McHugh) who was appointed Secretary of the Army by President Obama, and five others - Bono-Mack, LoBiondo, Lance, Reichert, Smith - running for reelection.
Rep. Lance actually was challenged by not one, not two, but three "Tea Party" candidates. One of Lance's opponents, David Larsen, even produced this nifty video, helpfully explaining that "Leonard Lance Loves Cap & Trade Taxes." So, did this work? Did the Tea Partiers overthrow the tyrannical, crypto-liberal Lance? Uh, no. Instead, in the end, Lance received 56% of the vote, easily moving on to November.
Meanwhile, 100 miles or so south on the Jersey Turnpike, Rep. LoBiondo faced two "Tea Party" candidates - Donna Ward and Linda Biamonte - who also attacked on the cap-and-trade issue. According to Biamonte, cap and trade "is insidious and another tax policy... a funneling of money to Goldman Sachs and Al Gore through derivatives creating a carbon bubble like the housing bubble." You'd think that Republican primary voters in the year of the Tea Party would agree with this line of attack. Yet LoBiondo won with 75% of the vote.
Last but not least in New Jersey, Christopher Smith easily turned back a Tea Party challenger - Alan Bateman - by a more than 2:1 margin. Bateman had argued that "Obama knows he can count on Smith to support the United Nations' agenda to redistribute American wealth to foreign countries through international Cap & Trade agreements and other programs that threaten our sovereignty." Apparently, Republican voters in NJ-4 didn't buy that argument.
Across the country in California's 45th District, Mary Bono-Mack won 71% of the vote over Tea Party candidate Clayton Thibodeau on June 8. This, despite Thibodeau attacking Bono-Mack as "the only Republican west of the Mississippi to vote for Cap and Trade." Thibodeau also called cap and trade "frightening," claiming that government could force you to renovate your home or meet requirements before you purchase a home. Thibodeau's scare tactics on cap-and-trade clearly didn't play in CA-45.
Finally, in Washington's 8th Congressional District, incumbent Rep. Dave Reichert has drawn a Tea Party challenger named Ernest Huber, who writes that Cap and Trade "is widely viewed as an attempt at Soviet-style dictatorship using the environmental scam of global warming/climate change... written by the communist Apollo Alliance, which was led by the communist Van Jones, Obama's green jobs czar." We'll see how this argument plays with voters in Washington's 8th Congressional District, but something tells us it's not going to go over any better than in the New Jersey or California primaries.
In sum, it appears that it's quite possible for Republicans to vote for comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation and live (politically) to tell about it. The proof is in the primaries.
Its been over a month since the Upper Big Branch Mine, a Massey Energy owned and operated mine, faced a disaster due to a methane related explosion that took 29 miners lives. It was a dark day for the state of West Virginia, the coal industry, and the entire country. To West Virginians, and even those not from the state, these fallen miners will be in our hearts forever.
Don Blankenship is the current Chairman, CEO, and head right-wing gun-toting thug in charge of Massey Energy. Massey is currently the 6th largest coal company in the United States by production. Blankenship, to most people, is seen as cold, dark, and very mysterious. If you need further convincing, watch this ABC News video of one of their correspondents attempting to evoke an interview from Blankenship. The video shows the ABC News rep wanting to ask Blankenship about pictures published in the New York Times of him with Former WV State Supreme Court Judge and Current Republican nominee for WV 3rd Congressional District Eliot "Spike" Maynard. Maynard was elected to the Supreme Court in WV.
Several news outlets have begun to report that Don Blankenship will testify this Thursday before the Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions) Committee regarding the April 5, 2010 mine explosion in Raleigh County, West Virginia .
Mine blast: Don Blankenship, the head of Massey Energy Co., testifies before a Senate panel investigating the explosion that killed 29 workers at his company's coal mine in West Virginia.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle's SF Gate
Blankenship, 60, plans to appear before the Labor and Health and Human Services subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, on May 20 in Washington, his first appearance before Congress since the explosion.
Massey said last month that it expects a second-quarter charge of as much as $212 million for the accident, more than twice its 2009 earnings.
The costs will include $80 million to $150 million for benefits for families of the miners, rescue and recovery efforts, insurance deductibles, legal and other contingencies, Massey said. The value of the damaged equipment, development and mineral rights is an additional $62 million.
Source: Businessweek.com
With the pieces still being picked up in rural West Virginia, Blankenship has a slew of problems on his hands. Massey Energy has seen its stock slump since the disaster (big shocker there) and he is constantly being questioned about the incident and his lack of care for safety violations and hazardous working conditions. It has seen a -21.7% change YTD with their stocks recently plummeting 10% after a possibility of a criminal investigation was mentioned, and 40% since the disaster.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Shares of Massey Energy plunged about 10% Monday after a report surfaced over the weekend indicated the coal mining company may face a criminal investigation.
Federal prosecutors are investigating possible "willful criminal activity" by "directors, officers and agents" of Massey subsidiary Performance Coal at the Upper Big Branch coal mine where an explosion killed 29 workers last month, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
A Bloomberg report on Monday claimed that some large Massey shareholders will seek to block the re-election of three company board members at the meeting.
Another report by the Wall Street Journal on Monday said a congressional committee will vote on Wednesday on whether to give the House Education and Labor Committee deposition power to call witnesses in for questioning on the case.
Massey shares have fallen about 40% since the mine explosion on April 5.
Source: CNN Money
More interesting news for Massey Energy, in what seems to be an effort to obtain transparency in lieu of shady business, as they have now declared that they will declassify their board of directors. This according to the Wall Street Journal, the board is proposing to introduce the idea to shareholders etc. and potentially even make the process more democratic.
Massey Energy Co. said its board plans to propose that directors stand for election every year for one-year terms.
Chairman and Chief Executive Don Blankenship and lead independent director Admiral Bobby R. Inman said the move to declassify the board of the coal producer was a result of stockholder input and the board's ongoing review of Massey's corporate governance policies.
A classified board, where classes of directors generally are elected for three-year terms and only a portion of the directors stands for election each year, is harder to dislodge through the shareholder meeting process.
The board plans to hold a special shareholder meeting in the next three to six months where it will propose that stockholders approve declassification.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Blankenship has seen his fair share of controversy, as I have detailed in several previous blogs in wake of the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster, and this proves there isn't an end in sight. Blankenship, amidst numerous calls to step down and many claims of injustice and fraud, refuses to forgo his position as CEO of Massey. Its hard to tell whether this is simply Blanky trying to play a game and manipulate his business further, saving his butt from criminal allegations, or just plain stubbornness. My personal opinion? He needs to step down. Futher even, he needs to be criminally indicted. Too often, CEO fat cats like Blank are left alone to ravage whatever gets in their way in the holy name of money.
Massey Energy chief executive Don Blankenship, whose Richmond-based company is under investigation after a deadly explosion at its Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia, said he has no plans to resign.
"Whatever happened at UBB is something that needs to be figured out, but it's not the result of my management style," Blankenship, 60, said in an interview.
From The Washington Post, as reported by Bloomberg
An end is not in sight for this ongoing Blankenship conundrum, which can be seen as good news and bad news. I want resolution. I hope that one day this man will receive the proper justice brought to him, not on a silver platter, but closer to a penitentiary meal tray.
He doesn't represent the values and culture of Appalachia, he represents the coal industry and corporate greed. I for one will not stand for this. The question still remains, will the people of Congress and those in higher powers finally grow a pair and do something about corrupt and greedy tycoons like Blankenship? Or will they let this case slither away like a cunning snake, deep into the elusive tall grass it will await yet another prey who is unbeknownst to their presence.
And have you noticed that even when they are "in Session" they throw away most of Monday and Friday with traveling? And have you noticed that from Tuesday to Thursday Senators are really on the floor, so they are spending more time having Quorum Calls than they are debating?
Have you noticed that when they are debating neither side ever seems to be actually "debating" with the other side... like they don't respond to each others' comments and queries? And have you noticed that even when they do comment on a question from the other side they never really provide an accurate answer?
I have personally created several corporations in my time, and never once have I thought any of them to be separate "people" - if I had I would have been granting myself more than the "one man, one vote" concept of our Constitution and all related laws.
Now we have the Supreme Court allowing Corporations (and, yes, Labor Unions - also not separate "people") the ability to spend unregulated amounts of money on elections... because they are "people" within the law.
Via Open Left: "C-SPAN has now issued a formal request to televise the secret House-Senate health care negotiations."
"President Obama, Senate and House leaders, many of your rank-and-file members, and the nation's editorial pages have all talked about the value of transparent discussions on reforming the nation's health care system," C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb wrote. "Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between the Chambers, we respectfully request that you allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American."
A bi-partisan effort by two female senators Cantwell and Collins, promises to assist the efforts of renewable, sustainable energy projects. This represents a marked difference from previous bills. The best thing about it is that it's only 39 pages as introduced (PDF), lets see how many are added as a result of fossil interference.
Via Open Left, here's yet another reminder that candidate Obama's promises for health care reform sounded quite a bit different than what President Obama is now signaling we ought to settle for.
There is still 3 to 6 weeks left for the final version of health care reform to get hammered out. After this morning's expected passage in the Senate, President Obama is preparing to roll up his sleeves:
In an interview today with PBS, President Obama said he plans to begin working on merging the Senate and House health care bills before Congress returns from Christmas recess.
"We hope to have a whole bunch of folks over here in the West Wing, and I'll be rolling up my sleeves and spending some time before the full Congress even gets into session," Obama said, "because the American people need it now."
Obama is expected to work with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to merge the bills.
There's still time for Pres. Obama to remember what candidate Obama had to say. Many of us remember the promise of Barack Obama's campaign, will he?
Good afternoon, West Virginia Blue readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.
I have been posting this on Daily Kos and Congress Matters. I seem to be a glutton for punishment. If you like it, I'll keep crossposting.
This is the most important news of the day... okay, maybe only some of it. So if you disagree, go watch CSPAN2.
As Republicans try to pressure members of the Blue Dog coalition to abandon what they like to term as Obamacare by pointing to last night's losses, the true story of why the Virginia's gubernatorial race went south hasn't been widely told. The fact is that Democratic hopeful Creigh Deeds shot himself in the foot when he publicly shunned the public option, because exit polls indicate that Democrats just didn't bother to come to the polls in Virginia. The early reports were that young Dems stayed away in droves yesterday.
So while the media overlooks the real story by posing yet another bogus question in an attempt to spread doubts about waning public support for health care, political insiders realize that Blue Dog constituents are not only actually for seeing to it that the working poor get health care coverage, but desire a strong public option as well. That the Blue Dogs themselves aren't really flapping their gums much over Pelosi's plan to promulgate a strong public option speaks volumes about just how conflicted they are .
Which brings us to Sen. Joe Lieberman's position on filibustering the health care bill to kill it. The money the former chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council is raking in by demagoging his position as would-be spoiler to impress his campaign financiers is phenomenal. But even his Connecticut constituents have expressed overwhelming support for the public plan.
On Late Night with David Letterman last night Senator Joe's former running mate (and former vice president) Al Gore said that he and Lieberman were still very close, and that he was certain that Lieberman didn't want to be on the wrong side of history when it came to passing a health care bill.
Let's all hope that Gore is prescient on yet another critical issue.
We recently discussed the lingering ethics questions regarding Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV).
This week brings a small revelation. Via TPMMuckraker, here's a summary of the story the Washington Post broke this week.
But nearly all of the new stories show that the members in question were cleared of wrongdoing, and it's worth asking how much new information has really come to light.
There are a few new details on the probes of Reps. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) and Alan Mollohan (D-WV).
It also contains some potentially bad news for Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV). The Post reports:
The Justice Department has told the ethics panel to suspend a probe of Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-W.Va.), whose personal finances federal investigators began reviewing in early 2006 after complaints from a conservative group that he was not fully revealing his real estate holdings. There has been no public action on that inquiry for several years. But the department's request in early July to the committee suggests that the case continues to draw the attention of federal investigators, who often ask that the House and Senate ethics panels refrain from taking action against members whom the department is already investigating.
The Post article concludes its section on Mollohan:
Mollohan said that he was not aware of any ongoing interest by the Justice Department in his case and that he and his attorneys have not heard from federal investigators. "The answer is no," he said.
As I said in early October:
I've read CREW's report on Rep. Mollohan each year they've included him on their list and I certainly don't like the sound of their allegations. But, I can never get a sense if there's any "there" there. And, as the years pass the only new damning information we learn is about how politicized the Bush Dept. of Justice was--nothing new has come out about Rep. Mollohan.
West Virginia voters deserve a prompt resolution to the investigation on Rep. Mollohan. If there was any wrong-doing, prompt action is warranted. If there was not, Rep. Mollohan deserves to have the cloud over his head lifted.
I stand by my prediction from June, 2009 ("What could 1,000 West Virginians accomplish in 1,000 Days?") that before the "2010 mid-terms elections, the Democratic Congress and the Obama administration will pass a second stimulus bill focused on job creation."
Job Losses & State Fiscal Crises: Time for More Federal Stimulus Spending
The numbers from this month's job report were brutal: 263,000 payroll jobs lost in a month and the unemployment rate hit 9.8 percent. Since the pre-recession peak, the economy has lost 7.2 million jobs and overall hours worked have now declined by 8.6 percent. A record share of the unemployed (35.6 percent) are “long-term unemployed” and have been out of work for at least six months. (See graph courtesy of Center for American Progress)
Public Layoffs Threatening to Make Things Worse: One of the most disturbing parts of this trend is that the government sector lost 53,000 jobs in September, compared with a loss of 19,000 jobs in August. This is tied to the fiscal crisis hitting the states.
The initial federal recovery funds from the Spring have held off far worse cuts than were originally projected; in fact, before last month, state and local government layoffs had amounted to just 110,000 jobs lost over two years. However, projections are that fewer recovery funds will be available for fiscal year 2011, so government job losses will inevitably mount as states seek to balance their budgets going into next year.
Avoiding Fifty Herbert Hoovers with a New Stimulus: History tells us that government should be hiring when the private sector is laying people off to act to act as a counter-cyclical economic lever on the economy. A wide range of economists, including Nobel Laureates Paul Krugman, Robert Solow, and Paul Samuelson, are now calling for an additional federal stimulus to counter these jobs losses.
Back in February, as we noted at the time, the U.S. House had originally proposed tens of billions of dollars more in help for the states in the recovery plan, but those funds were cut during U.S. Senate negotiations to overcome a filibuster. But this reflects the fact that even then, many understood that more help to the states was needed to deal with the severity of the recession we face.
Already the Obama administration is talking about a broader transportation bill, extensions of a homebuyer tax credit and extended unemployment benefits as part of additional spending to deal with the economic crisis. All of these are necessary, but priority should be to extend further aid to the states to stem the layoffs of teachers, nurses, and public safety officers which is needed not just to avoid further unemployment but is critical to provide the services to a public in even greater need of help during this economic crisis. And other funds should go directly towards additional forward-looking job creation programs tied to green jobs, broadband deployment and rebuilding our overall infrastructure to both employ people in the short-term while improving the global economic competitiveness of our communities over the longer-term.
A jobless recovery is not a recovery. It is a temporary sop for the already wealthy. The only path for long-term financial stability is full employment. It's both the right thing to focus on economically and morally.
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This week brings a small revelation. Via 
