Welcome to The WonkLine, a daily 10 a.m. roundup of the latest news about health care, the economy, national security and climate policy. This is what we’re reading. Tell us what you found in the comments section below, and subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, you can now follow The Wonk Room on Twitter.
Climate
On Earth Day, President Obama is visiting a “wind turbine manufacturer in Iowa” to “champion his push to cap greenhouse gas emissions and boost renewable alternatives to fossil fuels,” as top officials testify before Congress on behalf of action on green jobs for a green future.
Oil-patch and Blue Dog Democrats like Gene Green (D-TX) and Jim Matheson (D-UT) yesterday called for subsidies for the oil and nuclear industries to be added to the Waxman-Markey clean energy bill, while criticizing federal renewable energy and energy efficiency standards.
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) criticized the Environmental Protection Agency for taking initial steps to obey a Supreme Court mandate to regulate global warming pollution, saying, “if alphabet agencies can do what they want without regard to what Congress believes, there’s something wrong with the system.”
Health Care
A new twist on the public plan? The government could run a public plan and promise that the new program “would pay better than Medicare–say, by 10 or 15 percent on average. That should ease the concerns of insurers, providers, and other groups worried that a public plan wouldn’t pay sufficiently high rates.”
“Democrats appear to have the votes for a budget measure that would allow reform of the nation’s healthcare system with just 51 Senate votes.” “The fastest route to healthcare reform, the better,” said Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-PA). “If that means supporting healthcare through reconciliation, I would.”
Tim Foley asks, “is NYC insurance really worse than renting in Manhattan?” “Looking at the numbers from The NY Post’s article “In$sure Poorhouse” on the cost increases for health insurance, they seem to be from a world gone mad,” Foley writes.
Economy
Most major higher education groups have signed a letter urging Congress to support President Obama’s plan to end the guaranteed student loan program, “saying the major benefit — using the savings to guarantee a permanent stream of funding for Pell Grants — outweighs concerns about the change.”
According to new data from RealtyTrac, “the 26 U.S. cities with the worst foreclosure problems are concentrated in four states — California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada.”
Steven Davidoff at DealBook writes that, regarding bonuses, “we fought AIG and AIG won.”
National Security
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, is in Afghanistan to review a new community-based defense program recently started in the increasingly violent Wardak province. The program draws volunteers from Afghan communities to defend their villages against militants.
Iran announced officially on Wednesday that it welcomed talks over its nuclear program, and said that it was ready to offer a proposal to resolve the dispute over its uranium enrichment activities.
The Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat valley has moved into a neighboring district, in an apparent attempt to expand its control of the region, officials said on Wednesday.
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