How Congress Is Making A Mess Of Forest Fire Prevention

By Rebecca Leber on Oct 9, 2012 at 4:10 pm

It’s the worst wildfire season on record in an equally historic year of drought: Nearly 9 million acres have burned, and up to 20,000 firefighters were on the job at the height of the season. But thanks to congressional budget cuts, the U.S. Forest Service has needed to dip into funds for programs aimed at preventing future giant fires, like removing dried brush and dead wood, in order to combat existing fires. According to the Washington Post:

Recently, Congress stepped in and reimbursed the Forest Service and the Interior Department, which plays a far lesser role in fighting fires, with $400 million from the 2013 Continuing Resolution, allowing fire prevention work to continue. Forestry experts at state agencies and environmental groups greeted it as good news.

But they also faulted Congress for providing at the start of the fiscal year only about half of the $1 billion dollars it actually cost to fight this year’s fires. They argued that the traditional method that members of an appropriations conference committee use to fund wildfire suppression — averaging the cost of fighting wildfires over the previous 10 years — is inadequate at a time when climate change is causing longer periods of dryness and drought, giving fires more fuel to burn and resulting in longer wildfire seasons.

Climate change has caused the wildfire season to grow in intensity and duration, with the typical season now lasting up to 70 days longer. But federal spending on prevention and suppression has fallen since 2010 by $512 million (15 percent), according to The Guardian.

Over seven years, the Forest Service borrowed $2.2 billion from prevention services in order to pay for vital firefighting when the budget fell short. Lawmakers also drew hundreds of millions of dollars from the FLAME fund meant to fund firefighting during particularly bad years.

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Climate Progress

GOP Rep. Promises To ‘Reverse This Trend Of Public Ownership Of Lands’

By Scott Keyes and Adam Peck on Oct 9, 2012 at 4:02 pm

Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM)

DENVER, Colorado — A key western congressman declared late last week that Mitt Romney supports his push to “reverse this trend of public ownership of lands.”

In a speech to the Colorado Conservative Political Action Conference, Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM) criticized Teddy Roosevelt’s “big ideas of big forests and big national parks,” which primarily exist in the West. Pearce told the audience that, if elected, Mitt Romney will help turn back public lands to the states or private entities.

PEARCE: America, each state, the public lands were given back to the states after they were chartered. But in the West, starting with Teddy Roosevelt who had the big ideas of big forests and big national parks, they held that land. And so the next chart shows you the effect on us in the West. Just understand this is the education. The red is of course bad. We’re starved in the West for education funds because of policies that Mitt Romney sat and listened to Rob Bishop and myself explain when it came to Hobbs. He knows that if we want to reverse the trend, we’ll reverse this trend of public ownership of lands starving education.

Watch it:

Though Romney’s campaign has asserted that they’re not targeting national parks for further drilling, Pearce disputed the notion that they should be off-limits. “Constitutionally,” Pearce told ThinkProgress after the speech, decisions about drilling in national parks and other public-owned lands “should be left with the states.” Indeed, drilling is already underway in a number of parks, with dozens more threatened.

Public lands are vital to the nation for many reasons. They allow anyone, not just the wealthy, access to beautiful natural areas. They provide clean air and water. They even help the United States adapt to climate change while boosting the economy.

For a primer on how the nation’s 700 million acres of public lands could be affected under a Romney presidency, click here.

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Health

STUDY: Obamacare Reduces Costs For Small Businesses

By Jeff Spross on Oct 9, 2012 at 3:50 pm

One of the attacks leveled against Obamacare is that it will further hamper the already sluggish economy by imposing new costs on employers who want to hire. But a new study by the Urban Institute — modeling the effect of Obamacare’s various provisions on employer behavior had the law been in effect in 2012 — found the health care reform law would’ve only impose a modest increase of 2.2 percent on total employer spending. More strikingly, for small businesses of 100 employees or less, total spending would’ve actually decreased by 1.4 percent:

The drop in total spending for small firms was due to three factors. One, Obamacare exempts employers with 50 workers or less from penalties levied for not providing mandated coverage. Two, it provides a tax credit for two years to employers with 25 workers or less — and an average pay of $50,000 or less — in order to help with the costs of premiums. Third, Obamacare’s exchanges are expected to lower costs by providing a centralized marketplace in which both firms and individuals can comparative shop. On net, these factors completely overwhelm the new costs imposed on smaller businesses from Obamacare’s new coverage requirements.

Because larger businesses will still be subject to the new coverage requirements, but won’t enjoy the tax credits or the exemption for the smallest firms, their total spending increases under the model. For businesses of 101 to 1,000 employees, overall spending would increase 9.5 percent, mainly due to expanded enrollment. For businesses over 1,000 employees, the increase would be 4.3 percent. In both cases, those increases fall on larger firms more capable of absorbing the costs.

The findings from The Urban Institute’s model are also in line with real world results from the health care reform that was passed in Massachusetts. Like Obamacare, that reform imposed new requirements on businesses to cover their employees along with penalties for the firms that failed to comply. As a result, the percentage of small businesses offering coverage to their employees jumped from 70 percent to 77 percent, and employers saw their costs rise 9 percent between 2009 and 2010. At the same time, no evidence of reduced employment could be found.

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Security

House Dems Say Republicans Are Withholding Information In ‘Partisan’ Investigation Into Libya Attack

By Ben Armbruster on Oct 9, 2012 at 3:38 pm

Darrell Issa

Staff for House Democrats allege in a memo to Democratic members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that Republicans on the committee withheld information from Democrats in the investigation surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi Libya:

Although Chairman [Darrell] Issa [R-CA] has claimed publicly that ‘we are pursuing this on a bipartisan basis,’ the Committee’s investigation into the attack in Benghazi has been extremely partisan. The Chairman and his staff failed to consult with Democratic Members prior to issuing public letters with unverified allegations, concealed witnesses and refused to make one hearing witness available to Democratic staff, withheld documents obtained by the Committee during the investigation, and effectively excluded Democratic Committee Members from joining a poorly-planned congressional delegation to Libya.

The Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow investigating the Benghazi attack, which killed four Americans, including Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens.

The memo also complains that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) did not invite the Oversight Committee to a classified State Department briefing today on the Libya attacks and that “[a]s of the writing of this memo, the minority is not aware of any classified briefings provided to the Oversight Committee about the attack in Benghazi during the Committee’s entire investigation.” (HT: Foreign Policy)

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Alyssa

Activating The Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon For Reproductive Rights

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Oct 9, 2012 at 3:34 pm

I love pretty much everything about the Draw The Line campaign, a project of the Center For Reproductive Rights, which is attempting to get people to sign up and register their support for a Reproductive Bill of Rights:

I’m generally opposed to contempt as a political emotion, but I think here it’s effective because it reinforces what’s compelling and fun about the ad, the idea that you can be part of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. The ad sells the idea not merely that you can end up part of a social network that has a particular cultural cachet, but that you have an affinity with the people in it, that we share disgust and frustration with people who seem impossibly distant from our own lives.

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LGBT

Washington Bishop: Marriage Equality Is ‘Actually Offensive To Basic Human Rights’

By Zack Ford on Oct 9, 2012 at 3:20 pm

Bishop Joseph Tyson, who oversees the Catholic Diocese of Yakima, Washington, is the latest member of the Catholic hierarchy to speak out against marriage equality. In a pastoral letter urging parishioners to vote against Referendum 74, Tyson not only claims that the freedom to marry would harm children, but spins that claim to say that “it is actually offensive to basic human rights and equality”:

R-74’s conception of marriage is wrong from the start, since it presumes that marriage is simply a matter of what any two consenting adults desire. But this has never been the meaning of marriage, nor has it been the reason why marriage is recognized as essential to the common good. R-74 redefines marriage and therefore pays no heed to fundamental facts of human life and flourishing. It ignores the significance of the human body as well as sexual difference and complementarity, understood in their fullness – spiritual, biological, psychological, and emotional.

R-74 overlooks the basic rights and equality of children, and it dispenses with an appreciation for the unique place of motherhood and fatherhood. As a law, R-74 therefore conditions our society to forget or ignore basic realities of human existence, and, rather than foster human rights, it is actually offensive to basic human rights and equality. This is the tragic irony: a law touted as a victory for civil rights and equality is actually a loss of civil rights and equality for the most vulnerable among us, children.

The language mirrors the strategy laid out in the infamous National Organization for Marriage’s “race-wedging” memos to “fan the hostility” between blacks and gays by suggesting LGBT activists are trying to co-opt “civil rights.” By focusing on sowing division instead of unity, Tyson is blind to two significant “basic realities of human existence”: that people are innately gay and that they are already raising children. In fact, 16 percent of all Washington same-sex couples are raising their own children, including 29 percent of couples who identity as spouses. If Tyson truly cared about children’s well-being, as he claims in his letter, he would make sure that their families are not treated with second-class status and persistent stigma.

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Economy

Billionaire CEO Threatens To Fire Employees If Obama Wins

By Scott Keyes on Oct 9, 2012 at 2:55 pm

The CEO of a massive timeshare company sent an email about the upcoming election to his employees yesterday, threatening to fire some of them if President Obama wins re-election.

David Siegel, who owns Florida-based Westgate Resorts, sent an email to all his employees yesterday to discuss the upcoming election. “The economy doesn’t currently pose a threat to your job,” Siegel wrote, noting that the company is “the most profitable [it's] ever been.” “What does threaten your job however, is another 4 years of the same Presidential administration.” He went on to say that although he “can’t tell you whom to vote for,” if Obama is re-elected, it would mean “fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.”

Here are a few select paragraphs from the email:

Subject: Message from David Siegel
Date:Mon, 08 Oct 2012 13:58:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: [David Siegel]
To: [All employees]

To All My Valued Employees,

As most of you know our company, Westgate Resorts, has continued to succeed in spite of a very dismal economy. There is no question that the economy has changed for the worse and we have not seen any improvement over the past four years. In spite of all of the challenges we have faced, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t currently pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is another 4 years of the same Presidential administration. Of course, as your employer, I can’t tell you whom to vote for, and I certainly wouldn’t interfere with your right to vote for whomever you choose. In fact, I encourage you to vote for whomever you think will serve your interests the best.

However, let me share a few facts that might help you decide what is in your best interest.

[...]

So where am I going with all this? It’s quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company. Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back. This means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.

So, when you make your decision to vote, ask yourself, which candidate understands the economics of business ownership and who doesn’t? Whose policies will endanger your job? Answer those questions and you should know who might be the one capable of protecting and saving your job. While the media wants to tell you to believe the “1 percenters” are bad, I’m telling you they are not. They create most of the jobs. If you lose your job, it won’t be at the hands of the “1%”; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country.

You can view the email in full here.

Siegel earned national notoriety this year for his quest to build the biggest house in America, “a sprawling, 90,000-square-foot mansion inspired by Versailles.”

In a bizarre twist, Siegel’s email was modeled after a fake letter that made the rounds on the internet during the last presidential election. He confirmed his own email’s authenticity in a phone call to Gawker, saying that “it speaks the truth” and gives employees “something to think about when they go to the polls.”

ThinkProgress reached out to Siegel for comment, but no response was given.

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Security

Anti-Muslim ‘Savage’ Ads Invade DC’s Metro

By Hayes Brown on Oct 9, 2012 at 2:48 pm

Geller's ad at the Georgia Avenue/Petworth Metrorail station

After a slight delay, the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority has posted the American Freedom Defense Initiative’s anti-Muslim advertisements in four DC Metro subway stations. WMATA last month delayed displaying the ads — which refer to Muslims as “savages” — on the grounds that they could be seen as incitement in a time of global tensions after the attacks on U.S. embassies in the Middle East.

ADFI, led by Pamela Geller, sued WMATA to have the advertisements posted immediately, as any delay was a violation of the group’s First Amendment rights. In a one-page order issued on Friday, District Judge Rosemary Collyer ordered WMATA to display the ads by no later than October 5.

WMATA has complied with the District Court’s order, leading the ads to be posted in four DC Metro stations for the next month: Takoma Park, Glenmont, Georgia Ave/Petworth, and U Street/Cardoza. At the time of publishing, WMATA did not respond to an inquiry about why it chose to place the ads in these locations.

An appeal to have the ads remain free from defacement ran on the Washington Post’s website on Monday. Similar ads in New York and San Fransisco have been the target of constant defacement, being labeled as “racist” and “hate speech.” Despite the appeal, several of the signs have already been creatively revised, as in the case of the advertisement at the Takoma Park station:

Debbie Polhemus, of D.C., covered up the letters of the ad, which read “In Any War Between the Civilized Man and the Savage, Support the Civilized Man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”

The high school teacher said she wanted to counteract the American Freedom Defense Initiative’s right to free speech with her own right to free speech, all without actually defacing the sign. “This is a public space, and we don’t like hate speech,” she told The Washington Examiner. “And not to do anything would be to allow this speech. … It would be hurtful.”

Her message at the Takoma Metro station on the Red Line instead included: “If you see something hateful say something peaceful.”

The ads in New York have also been countered by anti-hate speech advertisements purchased by the United Methodist Women and other religious groups.

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Justice

Why The Obama Foreign Donation ‘Scandal’ Is Pure Fiction

By Josh Israel on Oct 9, 2012 at 2:47 pm

Despite significant right-wing hype, a new report by the conservative Government Accountability Institute (GAI) on the potential for foreign nationals to illegally contribute to U.S. political campaigns does not actually find any evidence of foreign nationals successfully donating to the Obama campaign. Still, a wide array of conservative and mainstream publications have incorrectly reported that the report documents foreign donors giving to the President’s re-election.

The GAI (not to be confused with the Government Accountability Office) details in its report America the Vulnerable: Are Foreign and Fraudulent Online Campaign Contributions Influencing U.S. Elections? that because candidates now raise money on the Internet and the Internet allows foreigners to access U.S. websites, it is easier than ever for non-Americans in foreign countries to donate to political candidates. The Daily Beast published a shorter version of the report, titled “The Illegal-Donor Loophole“. The authors note that a wide variety of candidates — Democrats and Republicans — face this concern.

The report notes:

Using a collection of online research tools, the Government Accountability Institute analyzed a portion of the foreign links that lead to the Obama campaign website, my.barackobama.com. The Institute found a wide variety of instances in which apparent foreign nationals either received solicitation emails or posted links to my.barackobama.com.

GAI then notes nine examples of foreign bloggers and bloggers in foreign countries — who may or may not be U.S. citizens — who have posted email solicitations or links to a “donate to Obama” page on their blogs. Only one, a Norwegian blogger named Gaupefot, claims to have actually donated to Obama. The blogger’s unverified claim, written in Norwegian, also appears to claim that the CIA funds the Norwegian Labour Party.

The GAI also notes that people from other countries often visit campaign websites and that an array of cyber-squatters have purchased domains that sound like political websites and link them often to legitimate campaign websites. These are even more often visited by users outside of the United States. It also claims that because Obama’s campaign site — and 211 Members of Congress — use a verification system for credit card contributions that does not include asking for a three-digit security code (Card Verification Value), these sites are potentially at greater risk for fraud.
Read more

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Climate Progress

Why The ‘Get Rid Of All Energy Subsidies’ Argument Is A Political Distraction

By Stephen Lacey on Oct 9, 2012 at 2:36 pm

Federal support for energy technologies has been a central piece of this year’s presidential and congressional campaigning. Since last week’s presidential debate, however, the issue become even more interesting.

Mitt Romney surprised many during the debate when he said that cutting billions of dollars in yearly tax breaks for the oil and gas industry would be “on the table.” Of course, he followed that up by grossly inflating federal investments for renewables and lying about the number of clean energy companies that went bankrupt.

Still, Romney’s statement is notable considering that he’s never said anything like it as a presidential candidate. (It’s also very likely that Romney — who once called himself “severely conservative” — made the comment only to Etch-A-Sketch himself back to being a centrist, as he tried to on almost every issue during the debate).

Yesterday brought another surprise comment on the issue from a prominent Republican. In a debate against his Democratic challenger last night, Fred Upton (R-MI), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, took Romney’s comments further and actually proposed an end to federal tax support for fossil fuels: “I’m for putting all of these on an even footing. Let’s look at the oil and gas subsidies, let’s take them away. Let’s let them compete just like everyone else at the same level.” Upton then went on to criticize government investments in renewable energy.

Like many other politicians who oppose federal support for clean energy, both Romney and Upton have previously protected tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry (Romney through his campaign, Upton through House votes). However, now that they’re being forced to message to the general electorate, both candidates are changing positions to make their opposition to renewable energy spending sound more reasonable.

Whether or not Romney and Upton are being sincere or just saying what may get them elected, they’ve added their prominent voices to a chorus of Republicans and conservative free-marketeers who want to see an end to all federal support for energy — mostly clean energy.

This argument is quickly becoming the new “center” of the debate. While a realistic conversation around how, how much, and how long to incentivize certain energy sources is absolutely necessary, it’s important that clean energy advocates not get pulled in to the question of if the government should lend its support to emerging industries.

As we’ve covered over and over, it’s preposterous to claim that the free market delivered us the energy system we have today. We’ve enjoyed cheap fossil fuels in part because of government’s attempts to bring the industry to scale. Over the last century, the federal government has practically given away land for extraction of coal, oil and gas; helped build infrastructure to transport fuels; and has provided a range of tax breaks, loan programs, and technical support for the fossil fuel industry. But now that the clean energy industry is asking for many of the same incentives in order to compete against an incumbent industry, hypocritical politicians call it “picking winners and losers.”

And that makes the second point so crucial. It’s important to remember why we’re putting federal and state support behind clean energy in the first place. We have to limit our use of fossil fuels within a pretty compressed time frame in order to transition to a low-carbon future and avoid irreversible climate change. Period. And that means providing support for renewable energy, efficiency and conservation while taking away support for the polluting resources causing the problem. Global warming pollution needs to be a loser since it is the greatest threat to human health and well-being. It’s as simple as that.

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