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Climate Progress

Illinois Electric Cooperative Scares Ratepayers Into Joining Oil Rallies Against Clean Energy Reform

By Brad Johnson on Aug 28, 2009 at 3:15 pm

Wayne-White Cap and TradeAn electric utility in southern Illinois is frightening thousands of its customers by spreading misinformation about President Obama’s clean energy reform agenda. The Wayne-White Counties Electric Cooperative has joined the American Petroleum Institute’s “Energy Citizens” propaganda campaign, telling its members to oppose the American Clean Energy and Security Act. Wayne-White is even “organizing a bus trip” to the state capital to join an API rally on September 1:

Wayne-White encourages concerned citizens to participate in the free bus trip and rally in Springfield. The co-op recently mailed out nearly 10,000 informational letters and signature forms to enable concerned citizens to help themselves by speaking out and opposing this issue. As of Monday, more than 4,000 postcards had been returned to the co-op office which will be hand-delivered to Burris and Durbin at their Springfield offices, the Wayne-White news release said.

Wayne-White’s CEO Daryl Donjon has claimed that the legislation, which would spur a clean-energy economy by capping pollution and supporting renewable energy and efficiency, “is an unfair tax to the Midwest and would raise electric rates by 80 percent.” In the letter sent to Wayne-White’s captive audience, the utility claims “Cap & Trade” will “lead to the transfer of wealth from the midwestern states to the coastal states” and is “scary.”

Donjon is repeating the fearmongering about clean energy reform promoted by conservatives from Newt Gingrich to Wayne-White representative John Shimkus (R-IL), who have been repeatedly debunked. In reality, the EPA has found that the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act would lower electricity bills, not raise them.

Scientific models project that Illinois is one of the top ten states most at risk of rising temperatures due to global warming in the coming decades — science that Daryl Donjon rejects.

Yglesias

Chasing Phantom Deals

By Matthew Yglesias on Aug 28, 2009 at 3:14 pm

180px-stethoscope-2

I agree with Steven Pearlstein about the importance of pragmatic compromise on social policy. And I think the Pearlstein Plan for health reform would be an acceptable compromise. But I really have to depart with him on this:

Although you’d hardly know it from all the shouting of recent weeks, there is a deal to be had here if only Democrats would be willing to take it. This is not a deal, mind you, designed to win the support of Republican leaders in Congress — at this point they’re determined to derail any health reform plan. Rather, it is the deal necessary to win broad support from an American public wary of federal deficits, anxious about losing the health care it already has and fearful of radical change.

A “deal” doesn’t need to be a deal with Republican leaders in congress but the premise of dealmaking is that it’s a deal with someone. There are a lot of items on the progressive wish list that I would give up in exchange for a solid guarantee that Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Chuck Grassley, George Voinovich, and Judd Gregg would vote “yes” on the overall package. Or you can vary the exact competition of the Senators. And throw in a dozen or so of the more moderate/vulnerable House Republicans. That would be a deal. That would essentially ensure that the swing block of Democratic Senators vote for the bill. And then you’d have a nice, tidy, solid deal that helps the American people.

But like Steve Benen I don’t see this deal. I don’t see a single, solitary Republican Senator offering anything in the neighborhood of this deal. In which case, it’s very hard for me to see Democrats securing cloture on any kind of health care bill at all. In which case there may be certain things that you just can’t get done through the reconciliation process. But there’s lots of stuff you can do through reconciliation. So it seems to me that the only reasonable course of action is to start drafting progressive legislation and try to get it done with 50 votes. If that brings other people to the table in order to strike a grand bargain, great. If not, then not so great. But a deal is only a deal if people on the other side want to make a deal.

Climate Progress

The Storm of the Century (so far)

By Joe Romm on Aug 28, 2009 at 2:37 pm

katrina-aftermath.jpgOn August 23, 2005, a tropical depression formed 175 miles southeast of Nassau. By the next day, it had grown into tropical storm Katrina and was intensifying rapidly. Early in the evening on August 25, Hurricane Katrina made landfall near North Miami Beach. Even though it was only a Category 1 storm, with sustained wind speeds of about 80 miles per hour, it caused significant damage and flooding, and took 14 lives.

The hurricane’s quick nighttime trip across Florida barely fazed the storm. Entering the Gulf of Mexico’s warm waters quickly kicked Katrina into overdrive, like a supercharged engine on high-octane fuel. Hurricanes fuel themselves by continually sucking in and spinning up warm, moist air.

On August 28, Katrina reached Category 5 status, with sustained wind speeds of 160 mph and a pressure of 908 millibars. A few hours later, wind speeds hit 175 mph, which they maintained until the afternoon.

At 4:00 pm, the National Hurricane Center warned that local storm surges could hit 28 feet, and “Some levees in the Greater New Orleans Area could be overtopped,” a warning that was tragically ignored by federal, state, and local emergency officials. Over the next 14 hours, Katrina’s strength dropped steadily. When the hurricane’s center made landfall Monday morning, it was a strong Category 3, battering coastal Louisiana with wind speeds of about 127 mph. The central pressure of 920 millibars was the third lowest pressure every recorded for a storm hitting the U.S. mainland.

The devastation to the Gulf region was biblical. The death toll exceeded 1300. The damage exceeded $100 billion. [Combined with the effects of Hurricane Rita] two million people were forced to leave their homes, more than were displaced during the 1930′s Dust Bowl. One of the nation’s great cities was devastated.

About 20 miles to the west of the second Gulf landfall was the small town named Pass Christian, Mississippi, where my brother lived with his wife and son.

Read more

Economy

WellPoint Calls Attention To Its Own Immoral Practices In Effort To Smear Health Reform

By Lee Fang on Aug 28, 2009 at 2:30 pm

For-profit health insurance giant WellPoint fired off an email blast to its customers (using its Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield subsidiary) yesterday attacking the public option and Democratic plans for reforming health care, according to Politico’s Ben Smith. The email directs customers to its “grassroots Web site” for instructions on contacting legislators, a website ThinkProgress revealed to be run by the secretive corporate lobbying firm Democracy Data and Communications (DDC). DDC, which is operated by a former veteran of the astroturf organization now known as FreedomWorks, has helped various corporate and Republican interests shape legislation by helping to generate seemingly organic phone calls and letters to Congress.

In the letter to its customers, WellPoint makes a variety of false charges against health reform. Ironically, the attacks WellPoint makes against the public option are more appropriate criticisms of the way the private insurer does business:

1. THE LETTER STATES: Health reform will “increase the premiums of those with private coverage.”

– WELLPOINT POLICIES: In a recent giddy report about WellPoint’s expected profitability to investors, Barrons reported that WellPoint will be “hiking” premiums to at least “6% to 8% annually.” In 2006, WellPoint’s profits increased 34% as premiums and fees surged.

2. THE LETTER STATES: Health reform will cause “millions of Americans to lose their private coverage” and end up in the public option.

– WELLPOINT POLICIES: In March 2007, the state’s Department of Managed Health Care fined Blue Cross of California and its parent company, WellPoint, $1 million after an investigation revealed that the insurer routinely canceled individual health policies of pregnant women and chronically ill patients. Earlier this summer, despite promises by their lobbyists to the public, WellPoint refused to end the controversial practice of rescinding coverage after an applicant files a medical claim.

While WellPoint has been busy shedding customers and increasing premiums, AMNews reported that WellPoint has cut its medical loss ratio this year — meaning a greater percentage of every premium dollar is going to profits and overhead, rather than being spent on actual medical care. Not only that, while WellPoint has tried to put a “human face” on its company by encouraging their employees to show up at town halls with corporate talking points, WellPoint has cut over 1,500 jobs since the beginning of this year. As former CIGNA executive Wendell Potter has explained, private health insurance companies like WellPoint are an ATM machine for Wall Street.

In a recent interview, NPR’s Steve Inskeep forced WellPoint CEO Angela Braly to concede her company fears that “changes in the insurance market and regulations” could cut into her profits the most. That is because, as Igor Volsky has observed, WellPoint’s business model is “antithetical to regulation,” since the company aggressively pursues healthy customers who are less likely to use benefits to pay for medical care. As the company adds healthy customers, WellPoint has made a science of finding ways to deny coverage to the sick. California regulators uncovered more than 1,200 violations of the law by the company in regard to unfair rescission and claims processing practices.

Braly, who earns nearly $10 million a year, wants “sustainable reform,” yet opposes what her company calls “Obamacare,” refuses to stop rescinding coverage to the sick, and is even suspicious of an individual mandate. Although health insurance lobbyists continue to press their case that they truly want reform “this time,” WellPoint and its stealth lobbying efforts severely undermine that claim.

Yglesias

Canadians Set the Record Straight on Health Care

By Matthew Yglesias on Aug 28, 2009 at 2:27 pm

In Canada, they have a program called Medicare. It works a lot like our program called Medicare except it’s open to people aged 0-64 as well as to senior citizens. It’s also funded at a somewhat lower level on a per capita basis, so relative to the US there are some shortages of advanced medical equipment. On the other hand, nobody ever goes bankrupt because they got sick, or dies because they’re too poor. Here some Canadians try to set the record straight on Medicare:

Obviously, there are a lot of details and ins-and-outs. But it’s basically pretty easy to keep straight. Canadian Medicare is pretty similar to American Medicare, but our Medicare is for old people and there’s is for everyone. So if you like Medicare, you’d also like Medicare. And if you hate Canadian-style socialism, you ought to favor dismantling Medicare.

Economy

Right-Wing Fearmongers That Health Care Bill ‘Totally Eliminates Tax Privacy’

By Pat Garofalo on Aug 28, 2009 at 2:00 pm

The right-wing, seizing on this report from CBS News, has begun claiming that the health reform bill currently before the House of Representatives will destroy tax privacy as we know it. The provision in question calls for income verification of those claiming the low-income subsidies (which are available for purchasing health insurance) that are established in the bill. “This totally eliminates the idea of tax privacy,” Dick Morris told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “It’s really the equivalent of publishing your tax returns in The Congressional Record. It’s unbelievable!”

Fox also ran a segment today, excoriating Democrats for taking “information for health care, but not for preventing terrorism”:

Even more concerns this morning surrounding the President proposed health care reform bill. Provisions that would force the IRS to give your personal information to a new government health choices commissioner. So Democrats can take Americans’ information for health care, but not for preventing terrorism. Got it?

Watch it:

First, as even Fox’s analyst conceded, it makes sense to verify income for people claiming subsidies. Otherwise the subsidy system would be ripe for fraud and abuse. For an organization so often concerned with the government wasting money, you’d think Fox would be against giving subsidies to those who don’t qualify.

Second, data-sharing of this sort already happens, and from an efficiency standpoint makes perfect sense. Why require persons applying for subsidies to submit another income statement to the government, when the IRS already has the data? As the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute pointed out, state governments access IRS information — among other sources — to verify income for Medicaid and CHIP applicants:

Verifying income using other government databases requires cooperation and coordination with other programs…States typically use four to five databases to confirm income information—Food Stamps, TANF, Social Security, the IRS, and state wage and unemployment compensation programs. Typically, state Medicaid agencies already have access to these databases.

And then there’s this section of the health care bill which expressly forbids use of the information for purposes other than income verification:

(B) RESTRICTION ON USE OF DISCLOSED INFORMATION – Return information disclosed under subparagraph (A) may be used by officers and employees of the Health Choices Administration or such State-based health insurance exchange, as the case may be, only for the purposes of, and to the extent necessary in, establishing and verifying the appropriate amount of any affordability credit described in subtitle C of title II of the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 and providing for the repayment of any such credit which was in excess of such appropriate amount.’

All in all, it seems like conservatives are making much ado about nothing.

Yglesias

Big Banks’ Growing Dominance

By Matthew Yglesias on Aug 28, 2009 at 1:44 pm

JP Morgan & Co. Building, New York City (cc photo by epicharmus)

JP Morgan & Co. Building, New York City (cc photo by epicharmus)

This is contrary to much of the rhetoric at the time, but also fairly predictable. David Cho in the Washington Post “Banks ‘Too Big to Fail’ Have Grown Even Bigger”:

J.P. Morgan Chase, an amalgam of some of Wall Street’s most storied institutions, now holds more than $1 of every $10 on deposit in this country. So does Bank of America, scarred by its acquisition of Merrill Lynch and partly government-owned as a result of the crisis, as does Wells Fargo, the biggest West Coast bank. Those three banks, plus government-rescued and -owned Citigroup, now issue one of every two mortgages and about two of every three credit cards, federal data show.

A year after the near-collapse of the financial system last September, the federal response has redefined how Americans get mortgages, student loans and other kinds of credit and has made a national spectacle of executive pay. But no consequence of the crisis alarms top regulators more than having banks that were already too big to fail grow even larger and more interconnected.

You could see making a case for creating a system dominated by a handful of giant players. That’s essentially what they have in Canada, and their system held up much better than most during the crisis. But the flipside of that is that Canada’s large banks are more tightly regulated in terms of leverage and risk-taking than American banks. We seem to be mostly just consolidating while offering one-sided semi-guarantees with no meaningful new regulations. Prudence alone should keep a new crisis at bay for a little while, but basically as best one can see we’re setting ourselves up for another round of boom and bust.

Politics

Media pundits suggest John McCain could be ‘the new Ted Kennedy.’

By Faiz Shakir on Aug 28, 2009 at 1:38 pm

Yesterday, Cynthia Tucker, a columnist with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and frequent television pundit, argued that “John McCain could be the Senate’s new Ted Kennedy.” While acknowledging McCain has “bowed to the harsh nihilism that seems to be all that Republicans represent these days,” Tucker said there’s hope that McCain could embrace Kennedy’s “reputation for pragmatism.” Yesterday afternoon on CNN, host Wolf Blitzer amplified the emerging meme:

I was talking earlier with some friends and I asked, who might emerge as the new Ted Kennedy in the United States Senate? You know who a lot of people think it might be? … That would be Senator McCain.

Watch it:

Ted Kennedy said “Americans want the choice of enrolling in a health insurance program backed by the government for the public good”; McCain says we have to “abandon the public option.” Kennedy joined with McCain to push aggressively for comprehensive immigration reform in 2007, a bill that McCain “would not” vote for anymore. Kennedy is remembered as a passionate gay rights advocate; McCain thinks discrimination against gays in the military is “working well.” See the similarities?

Check out “The Dream Lives On” — ThinkProgress’ video tribute to Sen. Kennedy.

Related Posts

Climate Progress

Energy and Global Warming News for August 28: Climate change causing severe food shortages in Nepal

By Joe Romm on Aug 28, 2009 at 1:32 pm

Millions in Nepal Facing Hunger as Climate Changes

Millions of people in Nepal face severe food shortages because global climate change has disrupted weather patterns and slashed crop yields in the Himalayan nation, an international aid agency warned Friday.

Changing weather patterns have dramatically affected crop production in Nepal, leaving farmers unable to properly feed themselves and pushing them into debt, Oxfam International said in a report released in Katmandu.

The British aid agency described the situation as ”deeply worrying.”

”Communities told us crop production is roughly half that of previous years … Last year many could only grow enough (food) for one month’s consumption,” said Oxfam’s Wayne Gum, adding that less precipitation has been forecast this winter, which will make the situation worse.

More extreme temperatures, drier winters and delays in summer monsoons have all compounded the situation, the report said.

More than 3.4 million people in Nepal are estimated to require food assistance, and food stocks in farming communities will last only a few months, it warned.

Oxfam said Nepal will likely suffer more frequent droughts because of climate change. River levels will decline due to the reduced rainfall and glacial retreat, making it harder to irrigate crops and provide water for livestock.

Here is the report, Even the Himalayas Have Stopped Smiling:  Climate Change, Poverty and Adaptation in Nepal.

Read more

Yglesias

The Pentagon’s Parking Lot

By Matthew Yglesias on Aug 28, 2009 at 12:58 pm

I think it’s great that the newest Pentagon auxiliary structure will be the DOD’s greenest office building yet but if they really wanted to be environmentally conscious they wouldn’t have located it “a mere 7 miles down I-395 at Mark Center,” they would have put it right next to the Pentagon where currently a gigantic open-air parking lot is occupying some extremely valuable land:

pentagon

If you replaced all those lots with office buildings featuring underground parking garages, it would still be possible for DOD personnel inclined to drive to do so. But, obviously, parking would be expensive and many people would choose instead to avail themselves of the conveniently located Pentagon Metro Station. To cope with the increased demand you would also want to beef up the frequency with which the bus lines that serve the Pentagon arrive, and possibly even launch a new line or two. The environmental benefits of that kind of arrangement would be considerable.

Generally one substantial problem we have in the national capital area is that the federal government, being the federal government, faces no real financial pressure to use its space in an efficient way. Congress maintains a lot of open air parking lots in the vicinity of the Hill that a private company would almost certainly turn over to developers. That would add jobs and houses to a dense, walkable, very transit-accessible area. But of course the members of congress and their staff couldn’t personally pocket the money thereby earned, so they have no real incentive to do so.

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