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Climate Progress

NBC News projects Republicans will easily take the House of Representatives

By Joe Romm on Nov 2, 2010 at 9:33 pm

Serious climate action or a significant increase in federal clean energy funding all but dead for foreseeable future

It looks like the new Speaker of the House will be John Boehner, the man who said, “The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical.”

Ironically very few races were decided by climate and clean energy outside of California, which embraced the strongest possible action to reduce pollution.  And poll after poll makes clear the public as a whole supports strong action.  And the overwhelming scientific understanding that  unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gases poses a grave threat to the health and well-being of our children and countless future generations grow stronger every year (see “An illustrated guide to the latest climate science“).  But the economy and the President’s dreadful messaging, coupled with a staggering amount of money from Big Oil and the corporate polluters, swept in countless pro-pollution conservatives in the House.

There will be no post-partisan energy policy (see “Brookings embraces American Enterprise Institute’s climate head fake along with right-wing energy myths“).  I was at the US Department of Energy the last time the right-wing seized control of the House, under Newt Gingrich.

We had started a process of increasing the budget for clean energy over the past two years, much as Obama and Chu have — and immediately Gingrich and his pro-pollution extremists tried to shut down the department and zero out all applied energy R&D.  We fought back as hard as we could, and basically held them to a draw.

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Politics

Three Electoral Reforms That Would Improve And Enrich Our System Of Representative Democracy

By Zaid Jilani on Nov 2, 2010 at 9:00 pm

Today, millions of Americans are voting or have voted for a variety of local, state, and federal offices and for various ballot initiatives. By doing so, they took part in a proud American tradition of choosing our leadership and our policies that stretches back since the nation’s founding.

But the American electoral system that governs this process is far from perfect. The candidates on many Americans’ ballots had to spend tens of millions of dollars to be competitive, pandering to powerful special interests to build their war chests. Americans’ choices are limited by a ballotting process that discourages multi-party democracy. And many voters can’t even get off work to vote. On this election day, ThinkProgress presents three critical reforms that would overhaul America’s system of representative democracy, making it more meaningful and robust:

– Publicly Finance All Federal Campaigns: According to Federal Elections Commission data collected by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, more than $3.98 billion was spent on elections this campaign season. Much of this money comes from powerful corporate interests. For example, the finance, real estate, and insurance industries — who have keen interest in legislation dealing with financial reform, the mortgage market, and other major issues — alone contributed a whopping $216 million this season. Candidates for office feel obliged to tap into the wallets of these special interests in order to get their messages out and run competitive campaigns. The only major alternative is to self-fund, which has resulted in campaigns like that of California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. Whitman spent $140 million of her run for the Governor’s mansion. An electoral system that relies candidates to either be super-wealthy or pander to powerful special interests in order to fundraise is broken. A better system would be to publicly finance viable candidates. The bipartisan Fair Elections Now Act would allow candidates who received a qualifying number of small contributions to receive public financing for their campaigns, meaning they are accountable only to the general public, not special interests. Campaign finance experts estimate that as little as $6 from every American would be enough to publicly finance all federal campaigns.

– Enact Instant Runoff Voting Nationwide: American politics is overwhelmingly dominated by two major political parties: the Democratic and Republican parties. Yet polling shows that Americans, by a wide margin, feel that there needs to be more diversity and more choices in the American political system. The dilemma that voters have always faced when it comes to voting for third parties or independent candidates involves not wanting the “greater evil” to win. For example, progressive voters who do not want to vote for a conservative Democrat are afraid that by voting for a progressive third party candidate, they will be enabling a more conservative Republican to win by denying the Democrat votes. Instant runoff voting (IRV) would eliminate this problem. Instant runoff voting would allow voters to rank their choices on the ballot. If their first choice fails to garner enough votes to win, their votes will instantly be lumped onto their second choice, so on and so forth. So in the aforementioned example, if the third party progressive failed to win, a voter could choose to have their votes go directly to the conservative Democrat, making it so that they no longer have to choose the “lesser evil.” Additionally, IRV saves money by eliminating the need for runoffs. IRV systems continue to spread across the country, with the state of North Carolina using it for the first time today.

– Make Voting Day A National Holiday And Allow For Same-Day Registration: Unfortunately, nationwide voting for federal elections is always located on a weekday. Because of this, voting is a major obstacle for workers who feel like they have to choose between a paycheck and a ballot. While 30 states have laws that mandate voting time for employees, 20 states do not. Making voting day a national holiday would both make it easier for millions of Americans to vote and provide workers with more well-deserved time off. Additionally, allowing for voters to register the same day that they vote would boost voter turnout and cut down on bureaucracy.

The electoral system that Americans are utilizing today is a gift given to them by centuries of struggles by their forefathers. Yet one of the most admirable features of this system is that it has evolved over time, becoming more democratic and holistic. By enacting these progressive reforms, our country can make our system more accountable, more transparent, and more accessible, more fully realizing the dream that this is a country “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” as Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address.

Politics

King Tells Women Who Protest His Vote Against Rape Protection: You Don’t Know What You’re Talking About

By Tanya Somanader on Nov 2, 2010 at 7:00 pm

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has a knack for championing the ridiculous. But now he’s being called out for opposing the obvious. Last Friday, some of King’s constituents gathered outside his Sioux city office to demand an explanation for his vote against the Tribal Law and Order Act, legislation “designed to ease the stubbornly high rates of violent crime, including rape and sexual assault, within Indian reservations.”

Three years in the making, the measure finally “gives tribal courts tougher sentencing powers” to combat the declining rate of prosecutions (which are at 50% for murders and 30% for rape and sexual assault). And with one in three Native American women likely to be raped and more than 86 percent of these rapes being carried out by non-native, mostly white men, the need for this legislation was evident.

Despite overwhelming support for the bill, King was one of only 92 Republicans — including Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) — and the only member of the Iowa delegation to vote against the legislation in July. And while he “got a little memo” about the protest last week, King failed to offer any real explanation for his opposition. Instead, he called the protest “a campaign stunt” and declared the protesters, many of them Native American women, ignorant of “what law they’re talking about”:

“They’ve never contacted me about this issue.This is completely a campaign stunt, and it should be viewed as that,” said King.

King would not answer why he voted against the legislation.

“They don’t even know what law they’re talking about,” said King.

King would not give an answer why he voted against the law, but many of the Native American women felt like he was not looking out for their well being.

Watch local coverage here:

King’s flippant dismissal doesn’t change the fact that his actions “put us in harm’s way,” said one Native American woman. “As women, we are very much in distress, and feel very unsafe at this time in Fifth District under the leadership of Mr. Steve King.” His democratic opponent and protest participant Matt Campbell called his opposition “appalling,” “particularly when the rest of the Iowa Congressional delegation including Tom Latham [R-IA] voted for the measure.”

In spite of King’s opposition, Congress overwhelmingly passed the bill and President Barack Obama signed the Tribal Law and Order Act into law on July 29, 2010. (HT: Iowa Independent)

Health

Health Care Industry Will Lobby GOP To Strip Payment Board, Industry Taxes From Health Law

By Igor Volsky on Nov 2, 2010 at 6:35 pm

Wall Street Journal’s Janet Adamy and Jonathan Weisman offer some specific insights into why health insurers have been so heavily funding Republicans this election cycle and what they’re hoping to buy with the increased contributions:

Insurers want to reverse tax increases and loosen restrictions on insurance premiums, and several groups hope to tack on medical malpractice protections. [...]

The insurance industry is working to persuade the next Congress to roll back a roughly $70 billion tax on insurance companies that takes effect in 2014, saying it will disproportionately hit small businesses that insure their workers. It also wants lawmakers to allow insurers to widen the rating bands that dictate how much more insurers can charge older customers.

Insurers also want to tackle the growth of health costs by enacting a new measure to give robust protections against medical malpractice lawsuits to doctors who follow certain “best practice” guidelines, said Karen Ignagni, the insurance industry’s top lobbyist.

“We always reach out to both sides of the political aisle and we’ll continue doing that because we have had concerns,” said Ms. Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans. She said her group would be most focused on parts of the bill that it believes fail to lower the growth of health costs.

Recently, Ignagni also hinted that she would like to see Congress soften the employer responsibility provisions in the law, since the penalties could some employers to drop their existing employer-based coverage and send their workers into better regulated plans within the exchanges.

Of course, other sectors of the health industry — many of which cooperated with Democrats to pass reform — are also trying to weaken the law’s most important cost containment mechanism: The Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). The American Hospital Association (AHA) and drug makers have their sights set on the board, which will begin recommending cuts to reduce the per-capita rate of growth in Medicare spending.

But some of the groups that cooperated with Democrats may have trouble influencing the expected Republican majority, the Washington Post reports. “Some businesses joined in on the hang-me-last strategy,” said Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill). “I think upon reflection, in moments of candor, they may say they were foolish to do that.” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), for instance, blasted PhRMA for cooperating with Democrats on reform and the group has been trying to patch up relations ever since.

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 2, 2010 at 6:14 pm

Don’t ever look back:

— In lieu of watching election returns, I’ll be at the Wizards home opener.

— Wizards’ season is likely to make Blanche Lincoln’s performance look good.

— Third Way looking forward to a GOP majority.

—Pundit outsourcing.

— Liquidity traps and rational expectations.

— Pocket guide to vaginal euphemisms.

Listen to Wendy’s rendition of “Teenage Dream” and tell me Max Martin isn’t a genius.

Media

ABC Slams Breitbart’s Tantrum Over Not Being Allowed To Go On TV, Disinvites Him From Participating At All

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Nov 2, 2010 at 5:46 pm

Last week, right-wing media tycoon Andrew Breitbart announced that he would be “bringing analysis live” on air for ABC News’ “election night coverage.” Media watchdogs were rightly outraged by ABC’s decision to host the smear merchant, and the attorney for Shirley Sherrod — who was ousted from her job at the USDA by a duplicitously edited Breitbart video — slammed the network, saying hosting Breitbart was “like rewarding a Klansman.”

However, ABC quickly clarified and distanced themselves from Breitbart, saying they had never asked him to appear on air, and had only asked him to participate in “an online-only discussion and debate.” This snub was too much for Breitbart, and in recent days he has directed a considerable portion of his formidable smear machine at ABC News for supposedly lying to him about his participation in the network’s coverage.

This afternoon, ABC News released a letter it sent to Breitbart disinviting him from any participation with the network’s election coverage, saying his immature reaction to not be allowed to go on TV made them “feel it best for you not to participate“:

We have spent the past several days trying to make clear to you your limited role as a participant in our digital town hall to be streamed on ABCNews.com and Facebook. The post on your blog last Friday created a widespread impression that you would be analyzing the election on ABC News. We made it as clear as possible as quickly as possible that you had been invited along with numerous others to participate in our digital town hall. Instead of clarifying your role, you posted a blog on Sunday evening in which you continued to claim a bigger role in our coverage. As we are still unable to agree on your role, we feel it best for you not to participate.

While it seems clear now that Breitbart greatly exaggerated what ABC had asked him to do, and then threw a tantrum and used is his vast media empire to concoct outlandish conspiracy theories to defend his shameless self-promotion, ABC probably should have steered clear of Breitbart in the first place. As the American Prospect’s Adam Serwer has explained, Breitbart “has contributed in very direct ways to the racialization of the conservative argument against Obama, and has helped amplify that argument” through his dishonest faux journalism, and ABC turning to him would only help “rehabilitate” the smear merchant.

Yglesias

Zombie Economics

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 2, 2010 at 5:29 pm

Over the weekend I finished John Quiggin’s entertaining and accessible Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk among Us. To switch undead metaphors a bit, the conceit of the book is that the Panic of 2008 ought to be the stake through the heart of what Quiggin calls the “market liberal” paradigm that’s prevailed since stagflation killed the postwar Keynesian consensus.

To me the most interesting thing about the book is that even though the rhetoric, tone, and ideological self-positioning are 180 degrees away from Amar Bhidé’s book the proposals on bank regulation are literally identical. The same in every way. So hopefully people who enjoy valorizing businessmen and talking about how capitalism is awesome will read Bhidé’s book while people who enjoy afflicting the comfortable and talking about the need to tame markets will read Quiggin’s book. I’ll cross my fingers and hope that Dodd-Frank and Basle III will be all we need to prevent a new financial panic, but realistically I think more far-reaching reforms will be needed and these books point the way.

On the other side of the spectrum, the most provocative argument Quiggin offers is that the contemporary world massively overrates the case for privatization of “natural monopolies” and underrates the case for new public investments. I wish this chapter had been a whole book of its own, since it’s extremely thought-provoking but I have a lot of questions about the argument. For example, instead of a case for a small number of state-owned enterprises coexisting alongside private ones, is this possibly a case for sovereign wealth funds and the state acting as a passive investor in a wide range of firms?

Big picture, when the crisis first hit I know a lot of people on the left were excited about the prospect of it discrediting the right. Now heading into the midterms, the momentum has shifted to the idea that somehow the recession may discredit the welfare state. I think if you look back to the prolonged crisis of the seventies you see that this kind of interpretative pendulum can swing around quite a bit, and Quiggin’s argument is an important intervention in recapturing the narrative.

Security

A Look Into Lamar Smith’s Anti-Immigrant Agenda

By Andrea Nill Sanchez on Nov 2, 2010 at 5:20 pm

If the Republicans win the House of Representatives tonight, as many predict they will, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) is set to be the next head of the House Judiciary Committee which oversees all immigration issues. Described as a lawmaker who is “less interested in getting in the spotlight and more interested in driving immigrants out of the country,” Smith will undoubtedly use his leadership position to push through his anti-immigrant agenda. Though Smith has declined to comment on his plans if he becomes chairman, a look at a few of the bills he has supported over the past several years paints a pretty clear picture:

Arizona-Style Immigration Enforcement: Earlier this year, Smith sponsored H.R.4471, a bill “expressing the sense of the House of Representatives” that local governments, and State and local police “have the inherent authority of a sovereign entity” to essentially enforce federal immigration laws. Smith’s legislation seeks to clarify the ambiguity concerning Congress’ intent on inherent authority in a way that would invalidate the argument that Arizona’s immigration law is preempted by federal law.

Ending Birthright Citizenship: Smith has been credited by his supporters with “lead[ing[] the charge behind H.R. 1868, the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2009.” In August, Smith explained “We do not need to amend the Constitution to end birthright citizenship.” “I think if Congress simply passes a law saying that the United States should do what every other industrialized nation in the world does…and that is, require at least one parent to be in the country legally, that we can do it by statute,” he explained — which is exactly what H.R. 1868 aims to do.

Mandatory E-Verify: H. RES. 1026, a piece of legislation co-sponsered by Smith, aims to make the voluntary federal electronic employment verification system — E-verify — mandatory. Both sides of the aisle tend to agree that such a program is necessary, however, its alarming error-rate has given many lawmakers pause. According to Westat, a research company that evaluated the program for the Department of Homeland Security, E-Verify fails to flag undocumented workers 54% of the time. Meanwhile, in 2008, the Human Resource Initiative for a Legal Workforce found that “[i]f all U.S. employers were to use the system, as many as six million U.S. citizens and legal residents could be denied employment due to bureaucratic error.”

HALT Act: There is also a rumor on right-wing websites that Smith is interested in introducing a bill called the “HALT Act” which is supposedly “designed to prevent President Obama and his administration from granting de facto amnesties.” The Obama administration isn’t poised to grant any “de-facto amnesties.” However, the New York Times did report that while deporting “a record number of immigrants convicted of crimes,” the Department of Homeland Security “is sparing one group of illegal immigrants from expulsion: students who came to the United States without papers when they were children.” That’s largely because Republicans have blocked the DREAM Act — a piece of legislation which would legalize undocumented youth through the legislative process. The majority of the American people support the DREAM Act. Yet Smith called it a “dual assault on law-abiding, taxpaying American citizens and legal immigrants.”

Smith isn’t the only Republican to worry about when it comes to immigration. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) would head the House Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law. Unlike Smith, King hasn’t held back from sharing his plans: “A birthright citizenship bill, legislation to reaffirm states’ right to enact Arizona-like immigration laws, a bill to take away deductions from employers who pay illegal immigrants and legislation to crack down on cities that don’t go after illegal residents.”

Climate Progress

January-to-October tied for hottest in satellite record

By Joe Romm on Nov 2, 2010 at 4:55 pm

New U.S. daily high temperature records in October outpace record lows by nearly 5-to-1

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_oy2DMM6iwUU/TM8_YJxdaMI/AAAAAAAAB3s/s2WR56Yky2A/s1600/temp.records.103110.gif

ENDLESS SUMMER:  For all the talk of plummeting ocean temperatures, last month was tied for the second hottest October in the UAH satellite record (with 2003, 2006, and 1998 — October 2005 was slightly hotter).  And we had the rare event of “two simultaneous hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean on October 30,” as Meteorologist Jeff Masters noted (see below).

In this country, Steve Scolnik of CapitalClimate reports:

… new record high temperatures are outpacing record low temperatures in the U.S. for the 8th consecutive month. Preliminary data from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) for October show over 1500 new record highs, vs. slightly more than 300 lows, giving a ratio of 4.75 to 1. For the year to date, new highs are exceeding new lows by a ratio of 2.8 to 1….

new record warm minimum temperatures also exceeded record high maximums as they have in nearly every month so far in 2010. The excess of high minimum records was particularly strong in the summer, when as many as 3761 were reported in August alone.

I like the statistical aggregation across the country, since it gets us beyond the oft-repeated point that you can’t pin any one record temperature on global warming.  If you want to know how to judge whether the 4.75-to-1 ratio for October is a big deal, here’s what a 2009 National Center for Atmospheric Research study found for 1,800 weather stations in continental US over the past six decades:

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