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Yglesias

Abolishing The Department Of Energy

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 9, 2011 at 10:31 pm

Conservatives, including Rick Perry when he manages to remember his own platform, sometimes talk about their desire to eliminate the Department of Energy. The existence of this department has presumably attracted their ire because it was established during Jimmy Carter’s administration and it perhaps sounds like it might have something to do with solar panels. But like many of America’s cabinet agencies, it’s very much a mixed bag of sub-programs. It includes, for example, the National Nuclear Safety Administration which is a bloated big government regulatory effort to make sure America’s nuclear weapons function properly. I, personally, would not have a big problem with reducing American’s overall nuclear weapons spending but keeping the lights on in the agency that “continuously assesses and evaluates each nuclear weapon to certify its reliability and to detect and/or anticipate any potential problems that may come about as a result of aging” seems important.

By the same token, the DOE also houses the Naval Nuclear Reactors program which “provides the design, development and operational support required to provide militarily effective nuclear propulsion plants and ensure their safe, reliable and long-lived operation.”

Now I think that if Perry thought about it for a minute or two he’d decide that he doesn’t actually want to de-nuclearize the Navy, and whatever it is he means by abolishing the Department of Energy it’s not actually canceling all of the programs the DOE oversees. But this is precisely why reporters need to press politicians much more vigorously when they talk about eliminating cabinet departments. The country could obviously get by without a Department of Commerce, but that’s different from saying that it would be no problem to abolish all the specific programs and agencies that comprise the Commerce Department. The department’s functions could be parceled out in different ways. NOAA could go to Interior, BEA could be merged with BLS in a new statistics agency, etc. I believe some of my CAP colleagues developed a proposal along these lines. But nobody should be allowed to get away with hazily waving at whole cabinet departments without talking about what, exactly, it is they’re saying should happen. My strong suspicion is that Perry actually has no idea what the scope of the Energy department’s defense-related activities are and is just running his mouth off.

Politics

CNBC Debate Live Blog

By ThinkProgress on Nov 9, 2011 at 7:57 pm

10:01: “That was a statement I probably should not have made.” — Herman Cain on CNBC post-debate interview, referring to his “Princess Nancy” remark

10:00: “I’m glad I have my boots on because I sure stepped in it tonight.” — Rick Perry in spin room

9:55: It never gets old. Watch it again.

9:52: Here’s an idea for taking care of high frequency trading that none of the candidates will endorse: a financial transactions tax!

9:51: Michele Bachmann just called the Chinese People’s Liberation Army the world’s biggest employer. Not true!

9:37: 9-9-9 fatigue: Audience laughs when Cain’s answer to a specific question about California hiring a Chinese company to rebuild the Oakland Bay Bridge is the 9-9-9 plan.

9:31: Fifteen minutes later, Rick Perry’s brain clicks in. “By the way, it was the Department of Energy that I was reaching for before,” he reveals.

9:30: Quote of the night: “Oops.”

Rick Perry: “Commerce, education, and the umm, what’s the third one there? Let’s see… The third agency of government I would do away with – education, uh the, commerce, and let’s see, I can’t. The third one I can’t. Sorry. Oops.”

9:24: Romney again says he’d link pay of public employees to that of private-sector workers. As we’ve reported numerous times, that would require giving many public employees a raise.

9:22: Romney proposes cutting 10 percent of the federal workforce, which translates to nearly 500,000 jobs. At least 600,000 government workers have already lost their jobs since the recession began, dragging down the recovery and keeping national unemployment higher than it needs to be.

9:22: Gingrich points to Galveston’s privatized retirement program as an alternative to Social Security. The Galveston program works really well for the rich and not well at all for everyone else.

9:20: Let’s not let pass that Perry’s plan to cut the Commerce Department, the Education Department, and a department to be named later would mean an end to the federal student loan program.

9:18: The Highlight Of Tonight’s Debate: Perry couldn’t even name the three federal departments he wanted to eliminate — could only name Commerce and Education. Paul suggested there are five; Romney suggested the EPA. Perry said, no that’s not it, but couldn’t name the third. Some one get him some maple syrup.

9:16: Perry says his tax plan will let Americans “keep more of what you work for.” Actually, it would raise taxes on most middle-class and low-income families.

9:06: The candidates will address lowering the deficit after the break. Remember that they all support repealing the Affordable Care Act, which will increase the deficit by $230 billion over 10 years.

9:03: Romney says he believes “markets work”, but his Massachusetts health care reform plan regulates health insurers and requires that they offer basic comprehensive coverage precisely because the free market wasn’t working in the state.

9:01: Bachmann says the key to health care is lowering costs. One key to her version of health reform: tort reform, which experts say would have minimal impact, if any at all, on health costs.

9:00: Bachmann’s solution to let people buy coverage “anywhere they want” won’t work: insurers would simply cherry pick the healthiest applicants and deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. That’s part of the reason why so many Americans have a hard time finding individual coverage today.

8:59: The GOP’s health care solutions are bogus: sending Medicaid “back to the states” and reducing the federal contribution would force states to reduce the size of their Medicaid programs by cutting payment rates for doctors, hospitals or nursing homes; reducing the scope of benefits covered; or limiting eligibility,” the Congressional Budget Office has found.

8:57: Cain just called Nancy Pelosi “Princess Nancy” — because condescending to women is a smart move for him right now.

8:55: Huntsman came into office with a “goal of halving the state’s ranks of uninsured.” At the end of his term, “The state’s uninsured rate remained steady at 11 percent in 2010, meaning 300,000 Utahns went without coverage.”

Read more

NEWS FLASH

Romney Threatens Iran: ‘If You Want Peace, Prepare For War’ | Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney threatened war with Iran in an oped set to appear in tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal. “I will back up American diplomacy with a very real and very credible military option,” wrote the former Massachusetts governor. He quoted a Latin phrase and said the Iranian regime would understand: “If you want peace, prepare for war.” The Romney campaign’s foreign policy team is stacked with hawks that led the charge for the war with Iraq and have been pushing to launch one against Iran. One adviser has even advocated for a controversial Iranian anti-regime exile group that’s on the State Department’s list of terror groups.

By Ali Gharib on Nov 9, 2011 at 7:12 pm

Economy

Bank Of America Charges Interest On A $0 Credit Card Balance

By Pat Garofalo on Nov 9, 2011 at 7:00 pm

Bank of America has been involved in a slew of consumer catastrophes recently, from stealing a woman’s pet parrot and foreclosing on a home that had literally been destroyed by a hurricane to putting an elderly couple into foreclosure for paying their mortgage too early. This week, Bank of America agreed to a $410 million settlement for charging excessive overdraft fees (which won’t even cover the money the average BofA customer lost unfairly).

In the latest example of BofA’s consumer ineptitude, the Chicago Tribune reported that the bank charged a man $39.23 in interest on a credit card bill of $0:

Roger Greenwood thought he had heard of every conceivable bank fee. Then he received his September credit card bill.

Bank of America charged the Jacksonville, Ill., man $39.23 in interest — on a $0 balance…His statement clearly showed that between the credits and his payment, Greenwood paid off the entire $5,734.13.

Of course, if there is a $0 balance, there is nothing on which to be charging interest. Both the Tribune and the Consumerist contacted the bank, which said the problem arose when one of the merchants Greenwood interacted with credited his account with $1,450. Bank of America, for whatever reason, decided that the merchant’s credit didn’t count towards Greenwood’s balance, and therefore charged him interest. As the Tribune explained, Greenwood “would have had to overpay his balance by $1,450 to avoid the interest charge.”

Bank of America is a huge institution, so some mishaps are almost inevitable. But the bank has shown an extremely consistent pattern of incompetence, which has manifested itself not just in headaches like the one Greenwood faced, but in improper foreclosures and seizures of property. As one BofA customer put it, “Bank of America is ruthless in their incompetency.” (HT: Huffington Post Business)

Climate Progress

IEA’s Bombshell Warning: We’re Headed Toward 11°F Global Warming and “Delaying Action Is a False Economy”

By Joe Romm on Nov 9, 2011 at 6:30 pm

International Energy Agency:  “On planned policies, rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change.”

“… we are on an even more dangerous track to an increase of 6°C [11°F]….  Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.”

The International Energy Agency has issued yet another clarion call for urgent action on climate.  Their 2011 World Energy Outlook [WEO] release should end once and for all any notion that delay is the rational course for the nation and the world.

The UK Guardian‘s headline captures the urgency:

World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns

If fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed, the world will ‘lose for ever’ the chance to avoid dangerous climate change

We must start aggressively deploying clean energy now through myriad policies, including a price on carbon.  That has been the conclusion of most authoritative studies, of course,  including the recent one by California’s independent state science and technology advisory panel (see “Study Confirms Optimal Climate Strategy: Deploy, Deploy, Deploy, Research and Develop, Deploy, Deploy, Deploy“).

The IEA report deserves the label “bombshell,” though, because for most of the past two decades, the IEA was the source of bland, conservative, business-as-usual analysis.  When I was Acting Assistant Secretary of Energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy in 1997, no one at DOE paid much attention to IEA reports.  And that perspective continued through most of the 2000s.

But in just the last few years they have woken up to the risks posed to peak oil — see IEA top economist warns (8/09): “We have to leave oil before oil leaves us” — and especially climate change. In releasing its 2009 WEO, the IEA warned, “The world will have to spend an extra $500 billion to cut carbon emissions for each year it delays implementing a major assault on global warming.”

Now the IEA has done the calculation a different way, concluding, “Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.”  Those who counsel waiting for breakthrough technologies are urging us on a path that is unsustainable, irreversible, potentially catastrophic, and economically indefensible, according to the IEA.

The IEA is one of the few organizations in the world with a sophisticated enough global energy model to do credible (i.e non-hand-waving) projections of the cost of different emissions pathways and the costs of delaying efforts to achieve them.  Their 2008 analysis of the 2°C warming pathway demonstrated that the total shift in investment needed to stabilize at 450 ppm is only about 1.1% of GDP per year — and that is not a “cost” or hit to GDP, because much of that investment goes towards saving expensive fuel (see “IEA report: Climate Progress has the 450-ppm solution about right“).

The new analysis shows that because of soaring emissions, we are running out of time for the “450 Scenario.” We are at risk of irreversibly “locking in” dangerous warming — a point I agree with mostly, but not entirely:

Read more

Climate Progress

Historic Hurricane-Force Blizzard Pounds Alaska, Climate Change Likely to Worsen Erosion

By Climate Guest Blogger on Nov 9, 2011 at 6:01 pm

Powerful “Medicane” hits France

by Dr. Jeff Masters in a Wunderblog repost

The most powerful storm to affect the Bering Sea coast of Alaska in 37 years is pounding Alaska’s west coast and Eastern Siberia with hurricane-force winds, a destructive storm surge up to 7 feet high, waves up to 35 feet high, and blinding snow. Tin City on the west coast of Alaska north of Nome recorded sustained winds of 70 mph, gusting to 81 mph, at 1:55 am local time this morning, and hurricane-force winds are likely affecting much of the open waters of the Bering Sea.

Figure 1. Visible satellite image of the Bering Sea superstorm at 7 pm EST November 8, 2011. Image credit: National Weather Service.

A storm surge of 6 feet hit Nome, Alaska this morning, pushed inland by sustained winds that reached 45 mph, gusting to 61 mph. A even higher storm surge is predicted for this evening (Figure 3.) The last time Nome, Alaska saw a storm this strong was November 11 – 12 1974, when the city experienced sustained winds of 46 mph with gusts to 69 mph, a pressure that bottomed out at 969 mb, and a storm surge of 13 feet that pushed beach driftwood above the previous high storm tide mark set in 1913. The center of today’s storm moved ashore over eastern Siberia near 12 UTC with a central pressure of 945 mb. The storm has likely peaked in strength, and will gradually weaken as it moves northeast into the Arctic.

Read more

NEWS FLASH

Obama’s SEC Asks Big Banks To Sign ‘Never-Do-It-Again’ Pledges, After Banks Repeatedly Broke Past Promises | Yesterday, the New York Times reported on deals brokered with the nation’s biggest banks by Robert Khuzami, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s director of enforcement. Khuzami has sought relatively small fines for frauds committed by big Wall Street companies, which he justifies by asking the banks to sign “never-do-it-again” pledges. But the Times conducted an analysis of enforcement actions and found that during the last 15 years, there were “at least 51 cases in which 19 Wall Street firms had broken antifraud laws they had agreed never to breach,” calling into question the validity of any new promises the banks might make. As ThinkProgress has noted, Khuzami was recommended for his position by Richard Walker, a regulator who spun through the revolving door to work at Deutsche Bank after allegedly squashing an SEC inquiry into a case of suspected insider trading at Deutsche Bank.

By Lee Fang on Nov 9, 2011 at 5:55 pm

Health

Romney’s Abortion Stance Still A Mystery

By Igor Volsky on Nov 9, 2011 at 5:30 pm

Ben Smith gets this quote from Mitt Romney spokesperson Gail Gitcho on the candidate’s stance on abortion: Romney supports “a Human Life Amendment that overturns Roe vs. Wade and sends the issue back to the states.” “Mitt Romney is pro-life, and as he has said previously, he is supportive of efforts to ensure recognition that life begins at conception. He believes these matters should be left up to states to decide,” she said.

That answer’s “states’ rights” emphasis sounds good for a candidate who’s hoping to sway independent voters in a general election, but it still doesn’t answer whether or not Romney supported Mississippi’s personhood amendment before it went down in flames — a question he skillfully avoided last month and his campaign refused to answer — and actually undermines his promises to more conservative audiences.

For instance, during an Oct. 3 appearance on Fox News’ Huckabee, Romney hinted that he would support additional federal abortion restrictions: “I would encourage legislation which provided to individuals the information they needed to make a choice, an informed choice about whether or not to have an abortion,” he said, referring to mandated counseling or waiting periods. Similarly, during the Palmetto Freedom Forum on Sept. 5 in South Carolina, Romney promised to “absolutely” strengthen federal conscience protections for health care workers who refuse to perform abortions. “We have to allow people to practice their faith and when they have a matter of conscience that they can’t participate in some form of activity which violates their faith, then they should be able to abide by their faith, particularly when there are plenty of opportunities for people to have a service provided,” Romney said.

Politics

Koch Brother Front Group Americans For Prosperity Pushes Smear Campaign Against Me

By Lee Fang on Nov 9, 2011 at 5:30 pm

Levi Russell, Americans for Prosperity Director of Public Affairs, contributed to a blog post calling Lee a "liar." Russell, however, erroneously quoted the conversation and has refused to issue a correction.

Levi Russell, Americans for Prosperity Director of Public Affairs, contributed to a blog post calling me a “liar.” Russell, however, erroneously quoted the conversation and has refused to issue a correction.

Yesterday, Americans for Prosperity, the corporate front group founded and financed by the Koch Brothers, posted a blog post titled: “Lee Fang Lies.” The post, which was Tweeted and promoted by other conservative groups, accuses me of misrepresenting myself at the Americans for Prosperity Defending the Dream Summit last Friday. The allegations are all demonstrably false. I called AFP on the phone today to explain that their post was false and gave them an opportunity to retract it. The Americans for Prosperity’s Levi Russell, the press person involved in the smear, responded: “No, I’m not going to correct it.”

The Americans for Prosperity blog post claims that, in order to receive a press credential, I said that I was a student from California (view a copy of the post here):

Lee Fang, a blogger with “Think Progress,” lied to event organizers about his residency and status in an attempt to gain media access to the Defending the American Dream Summit, held this past weekend at the Washington Convention Center. Fang told Americans for Prosperity Foundation that he is a student “visiting from California,” who “had to fly home tomorrow” and had really hoped to cover the event.

However, Fang is listed as a “resident of Prince George’s County, Maryland” on his ThinkProgress author page. His wikipedia page says that he “attended college at the University of Maryland, College Park.” [...] Fang regularly impugns conservative authors as dishonest, yet characteristic of his reporting, his preferred tactic is dishonesty and lies.

I did say that I live in California, and that I was hoping to attend the conference before going home the next day. That is because I live in California and was traveling home that Saturday. Despite Americans for Prosperity’s best research efforts, I moved away from my native Prince George’s County several years ago, and relocated finally to northern California about seven months ago. The biography page cited by Americans for Prosperity is obviously out of date. Moreover, Americans for Prosperity never reached out for a clarification and, if they had looked past Wikipedia, I broadcast the fact that I now live in California on a regular basis when I appear on television and radio.

Unfortunately for Americans for Prosperity, I had been interviewing folks going into to the event on my way into the conference, and had a voice recorder still on in my pocket during the exchange with the group’s media staffers. The transcript of the entire conversation between myself, my ThinkProgress colleague Travis Waldron, and the Americans for Prosperity media staff is on tape, and clearly shows that I introduced myself as a ThinkProgress reporter, not a “student.” Click more at the bottom of the screen to read a transcript of the tape, or listen below here:

Contacted today, Americans for Prosperity public affairs director Levi Russell said he was responsible for the post because he “wanted to call you out.” Russell would not tell me the last name of the other Americans for Prosperity staffer I spoke to, who identified himself as Adam. Asked to issue a correction and apology for the smear, Russell said: “No, I’m not going to correct it.”

For a full transcript of our conversation with Americans for Prosperity, click more. Read more

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