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Politics

Schwarzenegger: Gay marriage may boost California’s economy.

By Amanda Terkel on May 21, 2008 at 9:10 pm

Speaking in San Francisco yesterday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) said he hopes that the state Supreme Court’s recent ruling allowing gay marriage will lead more couples to come to the state to be wed:

You know, I’m wishing everyone good luck with their marriages and I hope that California’s economy is booming because everyone is going to come here and get married.

The San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau also expects a tourism boom this summer, and its website now “promotes a gay travel section” and “explains that same-sex couples are ‘officially allowed to marry in the state of California.’” Schwarzenegger has promised to oppose any amendments banning gay marriage.

Politics

GAO: Interior Dept. Officials Politicized Endangered Species Decisions

By Ali Frick on May 21, 2008 at 7:40 pm

fws.pngIn May of 2007, Julie MacDonald, deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks at the Interior Department, abruptly resigned just one week before Congress was to examine her political interference in endangered species decisions. MacDonald had a long history of rejecting scientists’ recommendations to politicize the Interior Department:

– MacDonald presented industry positions as equivalent to scientific studies, denigrating scientific studies as mere “opinion,” and saying, “We should treat [them] as we would treat an industry publication.”

– MacDonald pressed staff biologists to more seriously consider industry positions, especially when industry pushed for less regulation of a given species.

– Under MacDonald, the Interior Department reversed a staff ruling on an endangered species of tree after the Air Force complained.

Today, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the politicization of the Interior Department stretches beyond Julie MacDonald. Robin Nazzaro, a GAO investigator, told the House today that four other officials “may have put political pressure on lower-ranking employees who were deciding endangered species cases”:

The officials named by Nazzaro are Craig Manson, a former assistant Interior secretary; Brian Waidmann, chief of staff to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne; Todd Willens, a former deputy assistant Interior secretary: and Randal Bowman, a special assistant in the Interior secretary’s office.

All four acted in ways that could be seen as interfering in decisions on treatment of endangered species, Nazzaro said.

Last November, the Fish and Wildlife Service “reversed seven rulings that denied endangered species increased protection, after an investigation found the actions were tainted by political pressure from” MacDonald. But Nazzaro said that that investigation had been too narrow, as it focused only on MacDonald.

Chairing today’s hearing, Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D-WV) said that after MacDonald’s resignation, the agency “merely swept it under a rug.” He called the Service’s review “a boondoggle” that was “fixing nothing.” “It was too narrow, too fast, and too sloppy.”

Health

WSJ Is Wrong: McCain’s Health Care Plan Increases Costs And Abandons Uninsured

By Igor Volsky on May 21, 2008 at 6:28 pm

mccainhealth.JPGAn editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal argues that rather than reducing costs, the 2006 universal health care reform in Massachusetts has led to run-away public spending and an over reliance on the publicly-subsidized health care option. The Journal complains that “the ‘connector’ that was supposed to link individuals to private insurance options has barely been used” and proposes that “the real problem in health care is the way the tax code and third-party payment system distort incentives“:

That’s where John McCain has been focusing his reform efforts – because that really does have the potential to reduce costs while covering more of the uninsured – and Republicans ought to follow his lead.

Ironically McCain’s efforts to reform the tax code, create — rather than eliminate– a “real problem.” His plan increases costs across the board because it eliminates the tax incentives for employer-based insurance programs and pushes individuals out of diversified employer-based health pools and into the individual insurance market.

McCain replaces the employer health tax credit with a one-size fits all tax credit of $5,000 per family ($2,500 tax credit for individuals) for the first year. And while this credit may assist a limited number of families who currently lack any kind of health insurance, workers who receive a higher tax subsidy through employer-based plans would experience a tax increase; Americans with pre-existing medical conditions would either be locked-out of the system by the prohibitive costs of insurance in the individual market or fail to find insurance that covers their conditions.

Insurance costs would increase for the individual consumer and the insurance company. While insurance firms would have to spend more money “marketing and processing individual plans,” the individual consumer would have to stretch McCain’s tax credit to cover the ever-growing costs of medical premiums. This is because McCain indexes the growth of his initial $5,000 offering to inflation, not premiums. And, since premiums grow at a higher rate than inflation, McCain’s proposal imposes $3.6 trillion tax increase on the consumer.

Far from “reducing costs” and “covering more of the uninsured,” McCain’s Bush-like health care proposal increases personal health care costs and administrative costs and leaves more people un-insured and underinsured.

Politics

Bush Family Planning Appointee Who Called Contraceptives Part Of The ‘Culture Of Death’ Resigns

By Amanda Terkel on May 21, 2008 at 6:22 pm

Last October, President Bush appointed Susan Orr to oversee federal family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Orr, who previously directed HHS child welfare programs, was touted by the administration as “highly qualified.”

But after less than a year on the job, Orr has resigned. From a statement by the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association (via RH Reality Check):

We are certainly relieved that a known opponent of access to contraception like Dr. Susan Orr is resigning from her position as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs (DASPA), the position which oversees the only dedicated federal program for family planning services for low-income and uninsured people.

ThinkProgress spoke to HHS spokeswoman Jennifer Koentop today, who confirmed that Orr has stepped down.

From the beginning, Orr was controversial, with her strongest credentials seemingly being her support for failed abstinence-only policies. Lawmakers immediately wrote to HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt and urged him to reconsider the appointment. Before joining HHS, Orr served as senior director for marriage and family care at the conservative Family Research Council (FRC) and was an adjunct professor at Pat Robertson’s Regent University. A look at her past record:

– In a 2001, Orr embraced a Bush administration proposal to “stop requiring all health insurance plans for federal employees” to cover a broad range of birth control. “We’re quite pleased, because fertility is not a disease,” said Orr.

– In a 2000 Weekly Standard article, Orr railed against requiring health insurance plans to cover contraceptives. “It’s not about choice,” said Orr. “It’s not about health care. It’s about making everyone collaborators with the culture of death.”

– Orr authored a paper in 2000 titled, “Real Women Stay Married.” In it she wrote that women should “think about focusing our eyes, not upon ourselves, but upon the families we form through marriage.”

More recently, Orr’s former employer, FRC, has been pressuring the Bush administration to restrict federal funding for family planning centers. Conveniently, Orr oversaw this funding.

Climate Progress

Quick Kansas Update – A 3rd Veto

By Climate Guest Blogger on May 21, 2008 at 6:02 pm

This past Saturday, Governor Sebelius vetoed the third (and final) piece of legislation that proposed two new coal-fired power plants in western Kansas.

There’s still a chance that legislators will attempt an override on May 29th. Like last time, an override is a given in the Senate, but the House votes are in question.

Her comments are starting to sting, and you can tell she’s sick of the shenanigans:

Rather than working toward a compromise solution, legislative leaders recklessly chose to jeopardize important initiatives for businesses and communities across our state by combining them with energy legislation I have previously vetoed twice. …this maneuver has done nothing to address the issues at hand – developing comprehensive energy policy, providing base-load energy power for Western Kansas, implementing carbon mitigation strategies and capitalizing on our incredible assets for additional wind power.

This third attempt to build the coal plants is unique in that the legislation pairs the coal plants with economic development incentives. Sounds like it should give coal proponents a leg up, until you find out that under the Kansas constitution, no single piece of legislation can undertake two subjects. So there’s a good chance that for this legislative session, the final attempt will be forced to die with a whimper. Let’s hope so.

– Kari Manlove

Politics

Furman University faculty may protest Bush commencement speech.

By Ben Armbruster on May 21, 2008 at 5:50 pm

Faculty members at Furman University in South Carolina “have suggested they won’t attend graduation ceremonies because President Bush is scheduled to speak.” Over 200 students and faculty members “signed a statement earlier this month criticizing the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq war and environmental issues.” But a conservative student group is trying to block the protest:

More than 500 members of the Furman community signed a letter released Monday asking that administrators refuse to allow faculty members to skip ceremonies in protest of the Bush visit. [...]

“Some professors seem intent on turning what should be a celebration of their students’ accomplishments into a forum to air their political differences with President Bush,” said the letter, released Monday by Conservative Students for a Better Tomorrow.

In defense of the protest, one Furman neuroscience professor said, “At a liberal arts college, we really try to train people to think critically and respect other peoples views…And we have been expressing our views in very civil ways.” (HT: Dan Froomkin)

Yglesias

Why Negotiate?

By Judd Legum on May 21, 2008 at 5:25 pm

Noah Pollack being dense as usual is a good opportunity to repeat something:

Why is McCain allowing himself to be dragged into a debate about presidential-level diplomacy, when the more important question — and the question whose answer is more politically favorable to McCain — is whether diplomatic engagement will actually get anything accomplished? McCain should be asking Obama what concessions he realistically thinks he’s going to get from the Iranians upon going hat in hand to Tehran. UN Security Council sanctions have done virtually nothing to impede Iran, nor have EU diplomacy or IAEA reports. Russia and China continue to stand as the major impediments to the kind of UN sanctions that might so cripple Iran that it would give up its nuclear development.

The problem here is that, once again, we see hawks not understanding what diplomacy is. But think of diplomacy as a kind of bargaining. Like you might do at a yard sale or something. Diplomacy doesn’t exist at one end of a spectrum of coercive measures — we try war, we try sanctions, we try diplomacy — any more than bargaining operates on a smooth continuum with robbery. The point of bargaining with a vendor is to see whether or not it’s possible to find mutually acceptable terms that improve both parties’ positions. In terms of diplomacy with Iran, the idea isn’t that Obama’s steely gaze would force concessions out of the Iranians, the idea is that we might be able to give Iran something Iran deems more valuable than weapons-grade nuclear material, and in exchange we would get verifiable disarmament.

The “something” here would presumably be some form of security assurances plus an accommodation to Iranian interests in Iraq, along with Teheran and Washington laying out a pathway to gradual normalization of relations in exchange for an end to Iranian support for terrorism and Palestinian rejectionist groups. Would it be possible to strike such a deal? Maybe, maybe not. But the purpose of a negotiating session would be to find out by attempting to do the bargaining rather than having five more years of back-and-forth blog posts speculating about the possibility. The general theory of diplomacy is that rational actors should, through negotiations, be able to achieve positive-sum settlements rather than negative-sum conflicts. It’s always possible that your would-be negotiating partner will prove irrational (as George W. Bush did when he rejected Iranian peace overtures several years back) and the process will fail, but it’s worth attempting in good faith.

Politics

Webb: ‘People In The Administration’ Would Like To Strike Iran Before Leaving Office

By Matt Corley on May 21, 2008 at 4:58 pm

webbhearing.jpgLast year, Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) proposed legislation that would have required the President Bush to “seek congressional authorization prior to commencing any broad military action in Iran,” but the amendment failed in the Senate. On NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday, host Terri Gross asked Webb about the bill and if he thinks “the Bush administration is considering a military strike” before Bush leaves office.

“It certainly seems that it’s on the table,” replied Webb, noting that some in the administration are pushing for it:

GROSS: You also introduced a bill that failed to require congressional approval before any military action in Iran. Do you think the Bush administration is considering a military strike against Iran before President Bush leaves office?

WEBB: Well, it certainly seems that it’s on the table. That there are people in the administration who would like to see that happen.

Listen here:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2008/05/WebbBushIran.320.40.flv]

Yesterday, the White House aggressively pushed back against a Jerusalem Post story claiming that “Bush intends to attack Iran in the upcoming months, before the end of his term.” White House Press Secretary Dana Perino called the story “not worth the paper it’s written on.”

But conservatives close to the administration have also gotten the impression that an attack on Iran could still occur before Bush’s term ends.

In April, a day after meeting with President Bush, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said on Bill Bennett’s radio show that he didn’t think “it’s out of the question” that Bush would strike Iran before leaving office because “people are overdoing how much of a lame duck the president is.”

Climate Progress

The White House’s Agents Of Environmental Corruption

By Brad Johnson on May 21, 2008 at 4:27 pm

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is an obscure Cabinet-level office that oversees the activities of all the federal agencies of the Executive Branch. Under President Bush, the OMB has become administration’s primary mechanism for politicizing the work of the Environmental Protection Agency, as congressional investigations have discovered.

Bush’s political appointees to the OMB and EPA share personal ties and a common right-wing ideology of defending corporate polluters against environmental regulation. The individuals listed below joined the administration directly from anti-regulatory think tanks or from the staff of Republican congressmen.

Yesterday, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) held an oversight hearing into OMB interference with EPA decisions on ozone and greenhouse gases, at which EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson yet again put in a performance that “rivals Alberto Gonzales” and failed to turn over subpoenaed documents. Today, Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) held an oversight hearing into OMB interference with the EPA risk assessment process for toxic chemicals. Tomorrow, the House Global Warming Committee will hold a vote to recommend that Johnson be found in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with their subpoena.

Here are a few of the major figures linking the OMB to the EPA:


John D. Graham

Former Administrator of the OMB Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

John Graham
John D. Graham

BACKGROUND: Administrator of the OMB Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) from 2001 to 2006. Called “the man behind the curtain” by OMB Watch, Graham “made his anti-regulatory agenda clear upon entering office.” In 1990, Graham founded the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, an industry-funded think tank that fights environmental regulation. Graham is now the dean of the RAND Graduate School, the military think tank’s private school. His protegés — Marcus Peacock and George Gray — now hold top positions in the EPA.

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