The WonkLine: April 10, 2009

Secretary of State Clinton Thursday expressed skepticism about Iranian claims of new advances in its uranium enrichment program, but said the claims underscore the need for Iran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency and return to negotiations on its nuclear program.

Congressional aides say President Obama is seeking $83.4 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into the fall. If approved by Congress, the money would bring the total amount for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001 to almost $1 trillion.

Japan has tightened economic sanctions against North Korea to punish the communist regime for its recent rocket launch, Japanese government officials said Friday.

Saying that “the world is at a turning point, where only countries that can turn adversity into opportunity will thrive,” Prime Minister Taro Aso outlined “an ambitious long-term economic strategy that he said would make Japan a global leader in ‘green’ technology like solar energy and electric cars.”

The Tennesseean published op-eds from Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) and the Southern Environmental Law Center that discuss the two “$1 billion solar-technology manufacturing plants” planned for the state and the urgent need for new energy policy.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is “objecting to three more federal permits for mountaintop-removal coal mining” in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia and West Virginia.

Time notes that “the second round” of the Federal Reserve’s TALF program “went even worse than the faltering first round did last month.” This is causing some Fed officials “to doubt the entire premise of the effort to restart nonbank credit markets.”

“The White House may have sounded a bit bleak on the Chevrolet Volt last week, but both the company and the Obama administration say don’t read that as early news of the much-advertised electric car’s demise,” McClatchy reports.

Michael Kinsley finds it “amazing” that 10 Democrats support cutting the estate tax: “[T]o save these very few very wealthy people a small fraction of their estates, these senators are willing to hand their party’s president an embarrassing defeat. Why on earth?”

Medicare cuts and a new public health care plan may encourage more insurer mergers. “Such mergers would greatly concern health care providers, especially physicians.”

Yesterday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, expressed strong opposition to the idea of a health board. “It tends to centralize health care decisions, but more importantly it tends to direct health care dollars, and we have to be very, very concerned about a national health board being set up,” Grassley said.

In a Nation cover story, Lester Feder profiles HCAN’s efforts to lay the groundwork for comprehensive health care reform.

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