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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.
I think it is important to hold Congress accountable. I like the idea behind the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) Annual Most Corrupt Members of Congress Report. Congress does a poor job of policing itself for ethics violations and voters rarely punish incumbents for all but the most egregious of violations, so it is laudable for any organization to attempt what CREW does.
A government watchdog group has released its annual list of the most corrupt members of Congress and it includes eight democrats and seven republicans. Melanie Sloan is CREW's executive director. She says lawmakers are automatically put on the list if they're under federal investigation.
"Most of the investigations obviously have to do with money. That somebody accepted money in return for some kind of legislative assistance or misused their authority and their power to improve their financial status or that of their families."
CREW says the list is smaller than last year and most of those on it are under investigation, including Senator Roland Burris and Representative Jessie Jackson Jr.
And, this is where a good idea falls apart in implementation. A major flaw in CREW's list is the presumption that a legislator under investigation is necessarily corrupt.
President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton were not corrupt just because there was on politically motivated investigation opened into a land deal in Arkansas. Likewise, no Congressperson is corrupt just because a politicized Bush administration Dept. of Justice opened an investigation about them.
This brings me to this year's list.
The 15 most corrupt members of Congress
* Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL)
* Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL)
* Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA)
* Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA)
* Sen. John Ensign (R-NV)
* Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
* Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
* Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
* Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV)
* Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA)
* Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY)
* Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA)
* Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-IN)
* Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
* Rep. Don Young (R-AK)
It's quite likely that at least a few of these members are indeed corrupt. Odds are good that one or more will be charged with wrong-doing before their term of office ends. (The publicly available information about Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL), Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL), and Rep. Don Young (R-AK) are all cringe-inducing.) It's also quite likely that one or two will have open investigations closed for lack of evidence or lack of merit.
Rep. Mollohan
Several years ago the Bush administration Dept. of Justice announced an investigation into Sen. Alan Mollohan. During that election cycle, the RNC invested heavily in his district as a targeted pick-up opportunity. It was all for naught--the investigation has not resulted in any charges and Rep. Mollohan cruised to re-election.
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.
Representative Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV) is a fourteen-term member of Congress, representing West Virginia's 1st congressional district. He serves on the House Appropriations Committee, where he is chair of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies; he is also a member of the Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies and the Subcommittee on Homeland Security.
Rep. Mollohan's ethics issues stem primarily from misuse of his position on the Appropriations Committee, from which he has steered hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks to family, friends, former employees and corporations in exchange for contributions to his campaign and political action committees. In addition, Rep. Mollohan misreported his personal assets on his financial disclosure forms. He is currently the subject of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. The congressman was included in CREW's 2006, 2007, and 2008 reports on congressional corruption.
Earmarking of Funds for His Personal Benefit
Over the past ten plus years, Rep. Mollohan has earmarked $369 million in federal grants to his district for 254 separate programs. Between 1997 and 2006, $250 million of that total was directed to five nonprofit organizations that were created by Rep. Mollohan and staffed by his friends. During the same period, top-paid employees, board members and contractors of these organizations gave at least $397,122 to Rep. Mollohan's campaign and political action committees.
If Rep. Mollohan accepted campaign donations in direct exchange for earmarking federal funds to the nonprofits run by these donors he may have committed bribery and honest services fraud in violation House rules prohibiting dispensing special favors and engaging in conduct that does not reflect creditably on the House.
In June 2004, Rep. Mollohan, his wife, and two top aides took a five-day trip to Bilbao, Spain. The trip, arranged by the West Virginia High Technology Consortium and costing over $36,000 ($7,800 of which constituted the Mollohans' expenses), was paid for by a group of government contractors to whom Rep. Mollohan funneled more than $250 million in earmarked funds. By soliciting funding for his trip to Spain from TMC Technologies one month after TMC received a $5 million contract as a result of an earmark from him, Rep. Mollohan appears to be in violation of the illegal gratuity statute as well as House travel rules.
Rep. Mollohan continues to maintain a close relationship with several companies that either have office space in the complex run by a non-profit sponsored by the congressman or are clients of Robison International, a lobbying firm that has been a major campaign supporter.
Also, Rep. Mollohan's family foundation has received free rent and administrative services from a Mollohan backed non-profit while it accepted donations from companies supported by the congressman through earmarks.
Financial Disclosure Forms
Between 2000 and 2004, Rep. Mollohan went from owning assets of less than $500,000, generating less than $80,000 in income in 2000, to at least $6.3 million in assets earning $200,000 to $1.2 million in 2004. As of 2005, Rep. Mollohan's reported personal assets were worth at least $8 million and his liabilities were in excess of $3.43 million. In June 2006, Rep. Mollohan was forced to file two dozen corrections to his past six financial disclosure forms. If Rep. Mollohan knowingly filed inaccurate financial disclosure statements he broke the law prohibiting false statements.
(Their report continues with more details on the Dept. of Justice investigation.)
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.
Money and Politics
As the CREW executive director noted, the tap root of ethics problems in Washington is money. One way to minimize the corrupting role of money in politics is public financing of elections. Another is to further lengthen the time limit between working in Congress and lobbying Congress. Recent reforms to make the earmark process more transparent are another helpful step.
CREW is working towards laudable objectives. I hope their efforts bring greater attention to those Congresspeople with the most egregious behavior and encourages the Obama Dept. of Justice to make well-informed decisions about case files opened by the politicized Bush administration.
"The climate legislation proposed today by Senators Boxer and Kerry is a disappointing step in the wrong direction and I am against it.
"Requiring 20 percent emission reductions by 2020 is unrealistic and harmful - it is simply not enough time to deploy the carbon capture and storage (CCS) and energy efficiency technologies we need. Period.
"Our nation cannot survive without energy from coal and any viable climate policy must solidify our future by focusing on technology to make coal cleaner faster.
"I will continue studying the bill and all of its implications for our state and the coal industry. This is by no means the defining word on climate legislation in the Senate.
"I remain adamant in my conviction not to support any bill that might threaten the economy, workers or families across West Virginia.
"We should take the time to approach these issues with absolute care and diligence - they require nothing less."
I take Sen. Rockefeller at his word--as he studies the bill in more detail, he'll find there's parts there that can help the economy, workers, and families across West Virginia.
I agree with Sen. Rockefeller that 2020 is not enough time to fully deploy carbon capture and storage (CCS). I disagree with Sen. Rockefeller that we should set our greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets based on the risky and uncertain technology of CCS.
We should base our GHG reduction targets based on what is needed to maintain a livable planet, not based on the goal of burning as much coal as possible.
"I am glad to see that Senators Kerry and Boxer included some of the provisions I and other Senators recommended related to carbon capture and storage. I am pleased that Senators Boxer and Kerry are placing a greater focus on clean coal technology. While this is an encouraging sign, we have a long way to go on this legislation. Many issues have yet to be addressed. There is still a tough road ahead."
"I will continue to work with my colleagues to strike a balance that treats West Virginia's interests fairly as the legislative process moves forward. However, I will actively oppose any bill that would harm the workers, families, industries, or our resource-based economy in West Virginia."
West Virginia has more than just a resource-based economy. I hope Sen. Byrd will also actively consider how much damage the rest of our economy will suffer if no action is taken to address climate change.
A Good Sign
There's at least one major provision that will help out West Virginians. (For links to an overview of the bill and the actual bill visit Sen. Kerry's website.)
Part 2 of the bill provides Climate Change Worker Adjustment Assistance:
Sections 311- 313. Establishes a program pursuant to which any worker displaced as a result of Title VII of the Clean Air Act would be entitled to 156 weeks of income supplement, 80% of their monthly health care premium, up to $1,500 for job search assistance, up to $1,500 for moving assistance, and additional employment services for skills assessment, job counseling, training, and other services. Payments under the program cannot exceed the proceeds from the auction of allowances set aside for this purpose.
I've often said we need a hand-up for coal mining communities, not a hand-out for coal companies. This is a step in the right direction. (This is no mere footnote. Pages 229 - 282 of the bill text cover this program.)
Here's another program that might help (I can't tell for sure--it probably needs more funding behind it and probably needs to be directed more closely to Appalachian communities):
Section 156. Economic Development Climate Change Fund. Authorizes the Economic Development Administration to provide up to $50 million per year in technical assistance and grants for projects that promote green economic development in distressed communities.
Now that a bill is on the table, this is a good time for Sens. Byrd and Rockefeller to start being equally forceful in their advocacy for all the West Virginians impacted by climate change as they have been for the coal miners who might be impacted by addressing climate change.
If you get all of your news from traditional media, you'll hear all sorts of stories that say the public option is dead. Fear not, the public option is still very much alive.
There's different ways of looking at it, but I side with Sen. Rockefeller in his views that President Obama is the key player who will decide the fate of the public option.
That's not the big story today though, Rockefeller said. "Actually, the big story coming out of today is that I got eight votes and Chuck got 10 votes -- and in effect that's like getting all the Democrats to vote for it."
Well, "most of the Democrats," Rockefeller corrected himself.
Rockefeller also said that he's "a little bit" disappointed in President Obama for not pushing harder for the public option.
"The crunch is really beginning to count now," Rockefeller said, adding a moment later that, "I think it's important that he come in at this point, strongly."
"This was really good news for us," he said. "We're clearly not there, but not a single Democrat has said, 'I'm absolutely against the public option.' Chairman Baucus said he likes it but wants to see if it can get 60 votes, and we're feeling that we might get there."
Schumer emphasized that Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee are more conservative than Democrats in the Senate, who are in turn more conservative than House Democrats.
[snip]
The Senator also said health care reform that includes a public option would not be bipartisan.
"We're not going to get Republican votes, that's for sure. But more and more Democrats are open to it."
[snip]
"We lost today," he said. "We said we were gonna lose before the day began. We didn't expect it would be this close."
The bad news is we learned today the Senate Finance Committee will not report a public option in its version of health care reform. The good news is we also learned today there are at least 51 Senate votes in favor of Schumer's public option.
He then goes on to provide an even more detailed explanation why it is up to President Obama as to what kind of public option (if any) we end up with in the final bill.
Because Democrats are not going to pursue reconciliation for the public option (see why here), the next step in the process does not actually involve Kent Conrad's Budget Committee, as I had previously reported (the Budget Commitee only comes into play with reconciliation). Instead, a source on the Hill confirms to me the Senate HELP and Senate Finance committees will be merged by an informal, behind the scenes process involving the four major players in the Senate: Tom Harkin (Chair of HELP), Max Baucus (Chair of Finance), Harry Reid (Majority Leader), and the White House. Together, these four will meet and decide what sort of bill to send to the Senate floor for debate and amendments.
During this process, we can guarantee that Harkin will push for a HELP or Schumer-like public option to be sent the floor, while Baucus will push for no public option to be in the bill at all. Given his recent statements, the best bet is that Reid will probably push against a public option too, and instead favor either triggers (which he has called a good idea) or co-ops (which seems to be the sort of public option he likes best). With two against and one in favor, this means that the only way a public option ends up in the bill that is sent to the Senate floor will be if the fourth major player, the White House, demands it.
It is all up to the White House now. If it pushes for a public option to be included in the health care bill sent to the Senate floor, then a public option will pass as part of health care reform (at that point, all we would need are 60 votes for cloture, and from what I hear we have 57 already). However, if it allows a health care bill to go to the floor without a public option, it is pretty unlikely that a public option will pass as part of health care reform.
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, said that the Senate "comfortably" has a majority of votes to pass the public plan, and that he believes Democrats can muster 60 votes to break a filibuster.
"I have polled senators, and the vast majority of Democrats - maybe approaching 50 - support a public option," Harkin said told the liberal "Bill Press Radio Show." "So why shouldn't we have a public option? We have the votes.
"I believe we'll have the 60 votes, now that we have the new senator from Massachusetts, to at least get it on the Senate floor," Harkin later added. "But once we cross that hurdle, we only need 51 votes for the public option. And I believe there are, comfortably, 51 votes for a public option."
The Iowa lawmaker's statements mark a bold claim that Democrats have the votes to pass a health bill in the Senate including the prized public (or "government-run") plan after signs for weeks now that centrist Democrats and virtually all Republicans would not support a bill including the provision.
Americans are dying at a faster rate - 1 every 12 minutes, 5 an hour, 120 a day, 45,000 a year - not from war or natural disaster, but from lack of health insurance.
Meanwhile, Republicans are trying every stupid stunt in the book as they try to keep Democrats from fixing our terminally inadequate system of health care coverage. For example, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) argued that the Senate Finance Committee should delay a vote on legislation a full 72 hours just to allow time for senators to consult with health insurance lobbyists. (watch it below)
The Harvard Institute of Medicine estimated in 2002 that more than 18,000 Americans between the ages of 19 and 64 were dying each year as a result of being uninsured. The new number is two and a half times that figure.
Trying to get by, the uninsured and underinsured delay necessary care, put off filling drug prescriptions or take only some of their medications each day. Most are just one major illness or accident away from financial ruin.
Despite the fact that most Republicans admit that something needs to be done to fix the system, even casual observers of Senate Finance committee markup procedures could tell that Republicans weren't there on behalf of Americans, but to represent the health industry.
Yesterday, Sen. John Rockefeller (D-WV) called out the special-interest representation in response to an amendment offered by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX):
ROCKEFELLER: This is a very very important amendment, and it's a very very bad amendment. If there's anything which is clear, it's that the insurance industry is not running this markup, but it is running certain people in this markup. [...]
CORNYN: With all due respect, senator, I don't know what amendment you're referring to -
ROCKEFELLER: I'm referring to yours.
CORNYN: - you're certainly not referring to my amendment -
At the time, he was criticized for better representing the interests of coal companies than the interests of West Virginia residents. Among other things, Sec. Huffman minimizes damages from MTR by saying: "Without evidence of any significant impact on the rest of the ecosystem beyond the diminished numbers of certain genus of mayflies, the State cannot say that there has been a violation of its narrative standard."
A week ago, Ken Ward, Jr., made the bombshell disclosure that a staff scientist at WV DEP had written a memo pointing out a critical factual error in Sec. Huffman's testimony. The memo provides detailed scientific evidence of additional impacts of MTR, including that entire genus of mayflies and stoneflies (not just individual species) the entire order of mayflies and the entire order of stoneflies (not just individual species, genera, and families) have been wiped out by mountaintop removal.
This week, two of Sec. Huffman's subordinates issued a press release repeating a portion of Sec. Huffman's congressional testimony and claiming there was nothing misleading about it. In stark contrast to the level of detail in the leaked memo, this press release includes no new information. Furthermore, it did not dispute any of the facts presented in the leaked memo.
About Congressional Testimony
Providing testimony to Congress is very different than giving a speech to, say, a Friends of Coal dinner. Congressional testimony is typically given under oath ("to swear the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth"). Knowingly making a false statement in a Congressional hearing is grounds for a charge of perjury.
Even short of perjury, getting caught providing misleading information to Congress is very embarrassing. It undermines whatever you are advocating for, can do great harm to your personal reputation, and can end up pissing off people with a lot of power.
Amending Testimony
Because the stakes are so high in Congressional hearings, everyone wants to get the information right. Thus, "often the chair will announce that the hearing record will be left open for a period of time so that additional information can be entered into the formal hearing record" (source: "Hearings in the US Senate" (pdf) found via Wikipedia). Also, "some committees provide for review by witnesses of their testimony for the
purpose of determining errors in transcription, grammatical corrections or obvious errors of fact."
Point of Order (What I'd like to know...)
So, here's what I like to know...
Can Sec. Huffman still amend his testimony? If so, does he plan to?
In this week's press release, Mandirola said. "The sentence in his testimony that is the subject of the issue should not have been construed to mean that the only impact of valley fills was a diminished number of a certain genus of mayflies."
Seeing as how no other impact of valley fills was mentioned in Sec. Huffman's testimony, it might be important for him to provide more detail to the Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife. Just what are those additional impacts of valley fills that the WV DEP has identified? I'm sure the subcommittee would like to know.
Even more to clarify
Inspired by this press release, I went back and read Sec. Huffman's testimony in its entirety. Here's a something else from his original testimony (pdf) that Sec. Huffman might want to clarify, too.
Coal production is the leading revenue generator for West Virginia
How does Sec. Huffman figure that?
By jobs? Mining and logging, the industry category that includes coal production, accounted for only 3.4% of West Virginia jobs in July, 2009. Here is a list of industries that employed more West Virginians in July, 2009: Construction, Manufacturing, Retail Trade, Financial Activities, Professional and Business Services, Educational and Health Services, Leisure and Hospitality, Other Services, and Government (that's almost every other sector of the economy).
By West Virginia government revenue? The major source of industry-specific revenue provided by coal production is the state severance tax.
In July, 2009, WV severance tax revenues were 10,872,000. Here are five larger sources of revenue:
Personal Income Tax (102,857,000)
Consumer Sales Tax/Use Tax (97,492,000)
Motor Fuel Tax (36,074,000)
Insurance Tax (24,545,000)
Vehicle Sales (Privilege) Tax (14,159,000)
And two more that were nearly equivalent:
Business and Occupation Tax (10,247,000)
Cigarette Tax (10,622,000)
No matter how I slice it, I can't come up with any way to make the statement "Coal production is the leading revenue generator for West Virginia" true.
If I was a Senator and found out a witness couldn't get a basic fact like that right about their own state, it would make me wonder what else the witness was wrong about in his testimony.
And, another...
Here's another really odd statement in Sec. Huffman's testimony:
The greater concern for the Department of Environmental Protection, however, as protector of the State's water resources, is the unintended consequences of the Environmental Protection Agency's recent actions that have the potential to significantly limit all types of mining.
Let's read that again real slowly. "The greater concern... as protector of the State's water resource... is the unintended consequences of the EPA... potential to significantly limit all types of mining."
Let's say that your only job was to protect WV water resources. Can you come up with a single way in which doing more mining in West Virginia would make your job easier? That's what Sec. Huffman said, that as protector of West Virginia water resources his job would be more difficult if mining was limited (by the EPA) in West Virginia.
His statement makes absolutely no sense. It is nonsense.
Let me be really clear here: I'm not advocating for the EPA to stop all mining (and neither are they; Sec. Huffman was arguing a straw man). What I am saying is the person responsible for protecting our water resources should find that job easier to do if there is less mining. That's a straightforward logical fact.
As citizens, we are responsible for determining how these resources are to be used so that our quality of life, and that of future generations, is enhanced. Please join me and the 800 WVDEP employees who are working to improve our water and air quality, resource recovery processes, waste management, abandoned mine land reclamation, and brownfields remediation.
There's a big difference between what Sec. Huffman says on his website and what Sec. Huffman said in his testimony. In his testimony, Sec. Huffman does not sound like someone pursuing that mission.
I find it really embarrassing to West Virginia that people are calling for a federal takeover of a major department of our state government. Unfortunately, when a WV Cabinet Secretary appears before Congress this poorly prepared for testimony, it is a real black eye for our state.
This is an important element of the legislative debate on the public option--it is not just about health care reform, it is also about changing who has power in Washington.
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This week brings a small revelation. Via 
