If you believe every woman deserves access to affordable birth control, make sure Congress hears from you. 

Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), top of the Koch Caucus with $27,000 in Koch contributions.

In a previous post, ThinkProgress Green reviewed the five Koch senators and their massive haul of campaign contributions from the Koch empire. Below is a compilation of the 40 members of the Congressional Koch Caucus, in addition to their contributions received from Koch Industries, according to data compiled from OpenSecrets.org.

Fourteen members of the Koch Caucus are members of the Tea Party caucus. The average contribution to the Koch Caucus was $9,869.

by Bill McKibben, reposted from Tom Dispatch

My resolution for 2012 is to be naïve — dangerously naïve.

I’m aware that the usual recipe for political effectiveness is just the opposite: to be cynical, calculating, an insider. But if you think, as I do, that we need deep change in this country, then cynicism is a sucker’s bet. Try as hard as you can, you’re never going to be as cynical as the corporations and the harem of politicians they pay for.  It’s like trying to outchant a Buddhist monastery.

Here’s my case in point, one of a thousand stories people working for social change could tell: All last fall, most of the environmental movement, including 350.org, the group I helped found, waged a fight against the planned Keystone XL pipeline that would bring some of the dirtiest energy on the planet from Canada through the U.S. to the Gulf Coast. We waged our struggle against building it out in the open, presenting scientific argument, holding demonstrations, and attending hearings.  We sent 1,253 people to jail in the largest civil disobedience action in a generation.  Meanwhile, more than half a million Americans offered public comments against the pipeline, the most on any energy project in the nation’s history.

And what do you know? We won a small victory in November, when President Obama agreed that, before he could give the project a thumbs-up or -down, it needed another year of careful review.  (The previous version of that review, as overseen by the State Department, had been little short of a crony capitalist farce.)  Given that James Hansen, the government’s premier climate scientist, had said that tapping Canada’s tar sands for that pipeline would, in the end, essentially mean “game over for the climate,” that seemed an eminently reasonable course to follow, even if it was also eminently political.

A few weeks later, however, Congress decided it wanted to take up the question. In the process, the issue went from out in the open to behind closed doors in money-filled rooms.  Within days, and after only a couple of hours of hearings that barely mentioned the key scientific questions or the dangers involved, the House of Representatives voted 234-194 to force a quicker review of the pipeline.  Later, the House attached its demand to the must-pass payroll tax cut.

That was an obvious pre-election year attempt to put the president on the spot. Environmentalists are at least hopeful that the White House will now reject the permit.  After all, its communications director said that the rider, by hurrying the decision, “virtually guarantees that the pipeline will not be approved.”

As important as the vote total in the House, however, was another number: within minutes of the vote, Oil Change International had calculated that the 234 Congressional representatives who voted aye had received $42 million in campaign contributions from the fossil-fuel industry; the 193 nays, $8 million.

Buying Congress

I know that cynics — call them realists, if you prefer — will be completely unsurprised by that. Which is precisely the problem.

We’ve reached the point where we’re unfazed by things that should shake us to the core. So, just for a moment, be naïve and consider what really happened in that vote: the people’s representatives who happen to have taken the bulk of the money from those energy companies promptly voted on behalf of their interests.

They weren’t weighing science or the national interest; they weren’t balancing present benefits against future costs.  Instead of doing the work of legislators, that is, they were acting like employees. Forget the idea that they’re public servants; the truth is that, in every way that matters, they work for Exxon and its kin. They should, by rights, wear logos on their lapels like NASCAR drivers.

If you find this too harsh, think about how obligated you feel when someone gives you something. Did you get a Christmas present last month from someone you hadn’t remembered to buy one for? Are you going to send them an extra-special one next year?

And that’s for a pair of socks. Speaker of the House John Boehner, who insisted that the Keystone approval decision be speeded up, has gotten $1,111,080 from the fossil-fuel industry during his tenure. His Senate counterpart Mitch McConnell, who shepherded the bill through his chamber, has raked in $1,277,208 in the course of his tenure in Washington.

If someone had helped your career to the tune of a million dollars, wouldn’t you feel in their debt? I would. I get somewhat less than that from my employer, Middlebury College, and yet I bleed Panther blue.  Don’t ask me to compare my school with, say, Dartmouth unless you want a biased answer, because that’s what you’ll get.  Which is fine — I am an employee.

But you’d be a fool to let me referee the homecoming football game. In fact, in any other walk of life we wouldn’t think twice before concluding that paying off the referees is wrong. If the Patriots make the Super Bowl, everyone in America would be outraged to see owner Robert Kraft trot out to midfield before the game and hand a $1,000 bill to each of the linesmen and field judges.

If he did it secretly, the newspaper reporter who uncovered the scandal would win a Pulitzer. But a political reporter who bothered to point out Boehner’s and McConnell’s payoffs would be upbraided by her editor for simpleminded journalism.  That’s how the game is played and we’ve all bought into it, even if only to sputter in hopeless outrage.

Far from showing any shame, the big players boast about it: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, front outfit for a consortium of corporations, has bragged on its website about outspending everyone in Washington, which is easy to do when Chevron, Goldman Sachs, and News Corp are writing you seven-figure checks. This really matters.  The Chamber of Commerce spent more money on the 2010 elections than the Republican and Democratic National Committees combined, and 94% of those dollars went to climate-change deniers.  That helps explain why the House voted last year to say that global warming isn’t real.

It also explains why “our” representatives vote, year in and year out, for billions of dollars worth of subsidies for fossil-fuel companies. If there was ever an industry that didn’t need subsidies, it would be this one: they make more money each year than any enterprise in the history of money. Not only that, but we’ve known how to burn coal for 300 years and oil for 200.

Those subsidies are simply payoffs. Companies give small gifts to legislators, and in return get large ones back, and we’re the ones who are actually paying.

Whose Money?  Whose Washington?

I don’t want to be hopelessly naïve. I want to be hopefully naïve. It would be relatively easy to change this: you could provide public financing for campaigns instead of letting corporations pay. It’s the equivalent of having the National Football League hire referees instead of asking the teams to provide them.

Public financing of campaigns would cost a little money, but endlessly less than paying for the presents these guys give their masters. And it would let you watch what was happening in Washington without feeling as disgusted.  Even legislators, once they got the hang of it, might enjoy neither raising money nor having to pretend it doesn’t affect them.

To make this happen, however, we may have to change the Constitution, as we’ve done 27 times before. This time, we’d need to specify that corporations aren’t people, that money isn’t speech, and that it doesn’t abridge the First Amendment to tell people they can’t spend whatever they want getting elected. Winning a change like that would require hard political organizing, since big banks and big oil companies and big drug-makers will surely rally to protect their privilege.

Still, there’s a chance.  The Occupy movement opened the door to this sort of change by reminding us all that the system is rigged, that its outcomes are unfair, that there’s reason to think people from across the political spectrum are tired of what we’ve got, and that getting angry and acting on that anger in the political arena is what being a citizen is all about.

It’s fertile ground for action.  After all, Congress’s approval rating is now at 9%, which is another way of saying that everyone who’s not a lobbyist hates them and what they’re doing. The big boys are, of course, counting on us simmering down; they’re counting on us being cynical, on figuring there’s no hope or benefit in fighting city hall. But if we’re naïve enough to demand a country more like the one we were promised in high school civics class, then we have a shot.

A good time to take an initial stand comes later this month, when rallies outside every federal courthouse will mark the second anniversary of the Citizens United decision. That’s the one where the Supreme Court ruled that corporations had the right to spend whatever they wanted on campaigns.

To me, that decision was, in essence, corporate America saying, “We’re not going to bother pretending any more. This country belongs to us.”

We need to say, loud and clear: “Sorry. Time to give it back.”

Bill McKibben is Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College, founder of the global climate campaign 350.org, a TomDispatch regular, and the author, most recently, of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.  This piece was originally published at Tom Dispatch.

by Miles Grant, cross-posted from the National Wildlife Federation

How bad was 2011 for America’s wildlife, air, water, land and public health? After taking 191 anti-conservation votes, even the House of Representatives’ own members called it ”the most anti-environment House in the history of Congress.”

That’s not to say the last year hasn’t been without progress in Washington. The Environmental Protection Agency set long-overdue limits on mercury pollution that will prevent 11,000 premature deaths a year. The EPA and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration set new fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks that will cut our oil addiction by billions of barrels. And the EPA is ready to establish landmark global warming pollution limits on power plants.

But those actions represent the Obama administration implementing past acts of Congress, often in the face of opposition from one or both parties in the current Congress. Inside the Capitol, many members of Congress spent 2011 attacking wildlife, trying to roll back public health protections, and doing the bidding of its Big Oil donors.

10. The Dirty Water Act

Yes, 2011 will be remembered as the year Congress decided America’s water was just too darn clean, attacking the Clean Water Act and investment in clean water programs. The Dirty Water Act passed the House and now Senators Dean Heller (R-NV) and John Barasso (R-WY) have been working to sneak it through the Senate by trying to attach it as a political rider to must-pass budget legislation. Get Smart: Tell Congress to protect river otters’ streams from pollution.

9. Banning Imaginary Regulations

The Environmental Protection Agency has no plans to regulate farm dust, but that didn’t stop a bipartisan majority in the House from passing the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act. “Since I am sure that many little girls all over America care about this deeply, can you commit to me that EPA will never try to regulate fairy dust?” Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) jokingly asked EPA assistant administrator Gina McCarthy. The Senate has no plans to take up the bill and President Obama has promised to veto it. Get Smart: Learn what pollutants are real threats to America’s wildlife and public health.

8. Lunch Special: Meat Loaf with Styrene Oligomers

When she served as House Speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) led an effort to green the Capitol that cut energy use 23%, water use 32% and used some of the savings to convert Congressional cafeterias to composting.  But when Republicans took charge of the House in 2011, they eliminated the composting program, diverted cafeteria waste back to a landfill, and brought back petroleum-based Styrofoam that can leech toxic styrene oligomers into the food it holds, increasing thyroid hormone levels. Get Smart: Use your own reusable container.

7. Politics Superseding Wildlife Biology

Just two of many examples: The U.S. Forest Service had closed much of Idaho’s Payette National Forest to domestic sheep grazing where conflicts with bighorns exist, hoping to protect bighorns from disease, but the budget bill that cleared Congress in December included a political rider reversing that decision. And the House GOP budget (H.R. 1) included language aimed at blocking implementation of two biological opinions intended to ensure the recovery of threatened and endangered salmon, steelhead, green sturgeon, and other species in the San Francisco Bay-Delta ecosystem. Get Smart: Support wildlife protections through NWF’s Choose Your Cause.

6. Targeting Smokey Bear

Who could want to kill Smokey Bear? Answer: Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), who included the U.S. Forest Service’s conservation education program in its list of possible targets for the House GOP’s YouCut voting. Voters spared Smokey, but the incident spoke volumes about how little this Congress valued investments in conservation education. Get Smart: Take Smokey’s pledge to be smart whenever you go outdoors.

5. Gulf Coast: Still Not Made Whole

We’re just a few months from the 2nd anniversary of start of the Gulf oil disaster, yet Congress still has not acted on legislation to make sure BP’s fines and penalties are reinvested in Mississippi River Delta restoration. Get Smart: Ask your members of Congress to support the RESTORE Act.

4. War on Next-Generation Light Bulbs

Just a few years ago, President George W. Bush signed bipartisan legislation to encourage energy-efficient light bulbs. Industry gets certainty, consumers save money, America cuts its carbon footprint: Everybody wins! But extremists attacked the standards and when they couldn’t win votes, they snuck the Dim Bulb Act into must-pass budget legislation. “Big companies like General Electric, Philips and Osram Sylvania spent big bucks preparing for the standards, and the industry is fuming over the GOP bid to undercut them,” reported Politico. Everybody loses! Get Smart: Check out NWF’s Cool It! tips for greening your home, office and garden.

3. Push Pipeline First, Ask Safety Questions Later

Facing concerns from conservationists concerned about protecting critical wildlife habitat, landowners concerned about getting their land seized, and public health advocates worried about water supplies, the Obama administration delayed a decision on the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline from the Canadian border to Texas. But before a revised route could even be drawn up, Big Oil’s Congressional allies tacked a political rider onto the payroll tax cut extension moving through Congress right now that would force a decision on the pipeline within 60 days. Get Smart: Ask our elected officials to keep dirty oil out of whooping crane habitat.

2. Protecting Tax Giveaways for Big Oil

Big Oil has already banked a staggering $101 billion in profits in 2011,  and as NWF detailed in Conservation Works, Congress can save more than $100 billion by closing tax loopholes for special interests like the oil and gas industries. But time after time, purported Congressional concern about the deficit came in a distant second to catering to Big Oil donors and lobbyists. Get Smart: Stand up for new vehicle fuel efficiency standards to reduce America’s dependence on dirty oil.

1. Fiddling While Our Climate Burns

Our world has now seen 321 consecutive months with a global temperature above the 20^th century average, meaning we haven’t seen a below-average temperature month since before The Goonies came out in 1985. Extreme weather records fell, with NOAA reporting 12 disasters of at least $1 billion in damage here in the U.S. Through November, 2011 has been the 11th-hottest year on record. If the pace keeps up, it will mean each of the last 11 years (2001–2011) will have been one of the 12 hottest on record. The Arctic continues to warm, melting sea ice and pushing several polar bear populations to the brink.

How has Congress reacted? Sen. John Barasso introduced legislation to not only prohibit the EPA from regulating carbon pollution, but ban the federal government even from observing what is happening with our climate. The House GOP’s H.R. 1 tried to cut programs to invest in clean energy innovation and to help people and wildlife adapt to our warming climate. Get Smart: Tell your members of Congress you support limits on carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act.

Do you have any dishonorable mentions to add to the list? Leave your comments below.

With your help, the National Wildlife Federation worked to keep many of these dumb ideas from becoming law. But with the same Congress returning in 2012, you can bet we’ll see even more attacks on our wildlife, air, land, water and public health in the year ahead.

Miles Grant is the online communications manager for the National Wildlife Fund. This piece was originally published at the NWF website.

Republicans launched an unprecedented frontal assault against environmental protections and regulations this year, prompting Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) to call his chamber “the most anti-environment House in history.” Here are the 10 most powerful and outspoken opponents of clean air, clean water, conservation and climate action.

That’s the Los Angeles Times editorial board opening its “Year in Review: Congress’ 10 biggest enemies of the Earth,” what they call “Observations and provocations from The Times’ Opinion staff.”

Here are the opponents 10 to 8:

10. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. Thought to be the biggest lifetime recipient of oil-industry contributions in the Senate, Cornyn has rewarded Exxon-Mobil’s largesse by supporting the industry’s position on pretty much every energy or environmental issue that has ever appeared before him. That’s why he, like everyone on this list, has a “0″ on the League of Conservation Voters’ scorecard for pro-environment votes.

9. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska. A tireless advocate for opening Alaska’s pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, Young was involved in one of the more entertaining name-calling spats in Congress this year when he got into a tiff over the refuge with author and professor Doug Brinkley. You can be the judge of who won by watching the video replay.

8. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista [CA]. There may have been a time when the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee lived up to its name, investigating and bringing to light incidents of government waste, fraud and abuse. But I can’t remember back that far. In recent decades it has served as a tool for the majority party in the House to bash and embarrass the presidential administration, at least during times such as now when the House isn’t controlled by the president’s party. Issa, the committee’s current chairman, has turned such political gamesmanship into an art form, and has been particularly keen to attack environmental regulators and policymakers. In so doing he has turned up precious little waste or fraud, but provided plenty of political theater for those who want to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency or end subsidies for clean energy.

Here are the worst 7:

7. Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio. Latta has the distinction of sponsoring the most far-reaching and destructive amendment to the most egregious anti-environment bill passed by the House this year. The TRAIN Act, approved by the House in September but not expected to get through the Senate, is a breathtaking (literally) gift to polluters that creates a committee to study the costs but ignore the benefits of environmental regulation, while also blocking EPA efforts to crack down on deadly emissions from power plants. Latta’s contribution is an amendment that undermines a cornerstone of the Clean Air Act, requiring the EPA to take industry costs into account when setting health-based standards. This would allow corporate polluters to overrule scientists and strikes at the heart of the polluter-pays principle that has guided environmental policy for 40 years.

6. Rep. Edward Whitfield, R-Ky. Another architect of the TRAIN wreck, Whitfield offered an amendment that would block the EPA from regulating mercury and other toxics from power plants, and from coming up with a rule on smog and soot that crosses state lines. Together, these two regulations would save an estimated 51,000 lives per year. But what are a few thousand lives when utility profits are at stake?

5. Sen. James M. Inhofe, R-Okla. One of the most outspoken climate-change deniers in the Senate (he’s renowned for calling global warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”), Inhofe is also one of the most influential Republicans in the country when it comes to environmental policy. As ranking member of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, he uses his position to push for expanded oil drilling and reduce environmental regulation. Inhofe sometimes even finds himself to the right of the polluter-packed U.S. Chamber of Commerce; this summer he placed a hold on President Obama’s nominee John Bryson as Commerce secretary, even though Bryson had the blessing of the Chamber, because Inhofe felt Bryson was too pro-environment.

4. Rep. Michael Simpson, R-Idaho. Simpson has stepped to the front lines of his party’s war on Mother Nature by adding dozens of anti-environment riders to must-pass budget legislation. Among other things, Simpson aims to let mountaintop coal-mining operations continue to pollute streams, prevent the EPA from regulating coal-ash disposal, and exempt pesticide sprayers from complying with the Clean Water Act.

3. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. The enforcer of Republican Party discipline, Senate Minority Leader McConnell is among the key architects of his party’s stance on environmental issues. In 2009, when Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was among the few Republicans willing to discuss a bipartisan climate bill with Democrats, it was McConnell who reportedly convinced him to back away. This spring he led a failed effort to block the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions and overrule its finding that climate change threatens public health — tantamount to a statement that politicians know more about the dangers of climate change than scientists.

2. Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va. The House Majority Leader released a memo in late August listing the top 10 “job-destroying regulations” his party would battle in the remainder of the congressional session. Seven were environmental rules opposed by the fossil fuel industry, including restrictions on emissions from industrial boilers and cement plants, and proposed rulemaking on smog, farm soot and greenhouse gases. None of these rules really threaten jobs, but failing to approve them would certainly threaten lives.

1. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich. As chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Upton is the gatekeeper for many of the disastrous anti-environment bills that have been approved or proposed in the House this year. Ironically, he was once known among his state’s conservatives as “Red Fred” because of a somewhat pro-environment voting record, but a recent electoral challenge from his right changed all that. Because of his powerful position and newfound disdain for green regulation, he represents one of the biggest threats to planet Earth on planet Earth.

Groups frame climate as a moral cause

Op-Ed: Arguments to abandon Kyoto Protocol untenable

As negotiators are gathering in Durban, South Africa, to push for new progress on global efforts to deal with climate change, divergent views emerge over the fate of Kyoto Protocol.

As the cornerstone of the climate regime, Kyoto Protocol sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European Union to cut their emissions to an average of 5 percent against 1990 levels over the 2008-2012 period.

As the first commitment period is to expire in 2012, some signatory countries have not only backed down from their previous emissions cuts commitment, but refused to renew their pledges beyond 2012.

They argue that Kyoto Protocol, an agreement adopted more than a decade ago, is a thing of the past and could no longer reflect a changing reality.

Thus a global deal, which moves beyond the distinction between rich and poor countries and commits all the major emitters to binding emissions targets, is needed, they said.

Their arguments are untenable and far-fetched. For a start, developed countries are responsible for most of the greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere in its long and historical process of industrialization.

Op-Ed: Climate change and the Kiribati syndrome

This week in Durban, South Africa, 194 nations are meeting to discuss global warming. The whole effort is in disarray: The Bush administration withdrew American support in 2001, in a decision that is still having disastrous consequences; China, considered a developing country, isn’t bound by Kyoto targets for reducing carbon emissions. With the world’s two biggest economies out of the discussion, Durban is crowded with little island nations and other poor, vulnerable countries that have resorted to forming a 132-nation bloc – call them the pesky unknowns – to protest the continuing environmental damage.

Another obstacle to progress is the very term “global warming,’’ which sounds like one big group hug — far too benign to generate the political momentum needed to promote renewable energy, slow deforestation, and embrace energy efficiency. Dry scientific discussions — about, say, how many more gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions the climate can tolerate — aren’t creating a compelling narrative, either. Environmentalists should focus on repackaging the problem in a way that prods people into action. We need a new name: the Kiribati syndrome.

2012 GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, who has previously said that insider trading laws should “absolutely” apply to information lawmakers receive in private briefings, predicted last night during an event in South Carolina that lawmakers will eventually have to place their investments in a blind trust during their terms in office:

What we will migrate to, my prediction is, that members of Congress, on winning office will have to end up putting their money in blind trusts, managed by other people with no communication, because it is so clear that they have so much power that there’s no way to build trust in an environment where they can make money out of what they’re doing. And I think that’ll be the culmination of this whole series of things, is it will create a new pattern that says if you go into Congress and you have any significant amount of resources they go into a blind trust and are managed for you by somebody who does not talk to you, doesn’t have any insider knowledge about what’s going on in Congress. It’s unfortunate, but I think that’s going to become, something like that will be almost inevitable.

Watch it:

On this particular issue, Gingrich is doing a good job seizing the populist position. However, he has made clear that he doesn’t have much more than contempt for the wider concerns of the population when it comes to fairness in financial markets. Just yesterday, he called on President Obama to “repudiate the concept of the 99 and the 1,” a direct shot at the Occupy Wall Street movement’s call for an economy that works for everybody.

I’m not sure how many open letters I’ve read over the years from businesses and state-level political leaders urging Congress to extend short-term tax credits to renewables. It’s a lot. And it’s kind of sad that I’m still reading them.

The latest letter, written by a bi-partisan coalition of governors who support wind energy, lament the negative impact that a looming expiration of the production tax credit is having on businesses throughout the country:

Wind-related manufacturing is beginning to slow in our states because the credit has not yet been extended. If Congress pursues a last minute approach to the extension, the anticipated interruption of the credit’s benefits will result in a significant loss of high-paying jobs in a growing sector of the economy.

The leading wind project developers and manufacturers are slowing their plans for 2013 and beyond due to the current uncertainty. Some developers have no projects scheduled for 2013, and are beginning to lay off employees. The ripple effect of this slow down means reduced orders for turbines and decreased business for the hundreds of manufacturers who have entered the wind industry in our states. If the tax credit is allowed to expire at the end of 2012, there will be negative impacts on the high-tech manufacturing jobs that the industry has brought to or created in our states.

To put it more bluntly: Congress is hurting businesses.

Meanwhile, members of Congress and presidential candidates continue to make outright false claims that environmental regulations are “job killers.” In reality, the inability of Congress to craft consistent tax policy for wind and other renewables is actually killing jobs.

This, quite frankly, is scandalous. But it’s the way things have been for so long, the industry just expects that every couple of years, they’ll go back to Congress and beg for an extension of tax credits.

How many times do lawmakers need to hear that consistency in clean energy tax policy stimulates private-sector investment, creates jobs, and helps bring new revenue to landowners and local communities? And why do we have permanently embedded tax incentives for oil companies, while clean energy companies fight for 1-2 year extensions?

It’s no wonder the approval rating of Congress is at 9 percent — making it less popular than President Nixon during Watergate, as HuffPost points out. The original chart is from Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), who introduced it on the Senate floor in this must-see video:

As Roll Call points out today, the estimated median net worth for a member of Congress in 2010 was $513,000 (this is strictly an estimate as assets are reported in ranges). Meanwhile, the Center for Economic and Policy Research’s David Rosnick points out that the net worth of the median household in the United States that same year was closer to $100,000:

For Congress, the median net worth in 2010 was about $513,000. For regular households, the Federal Reserve Board pegged that number at about $120,000 in 2008, and that number this year is probably around $100,000, [said economist David Rosnick]. While it is hard to make an exact comparison between Congress and the rest of the nation, what is clear is lawmakers “are all a lot richer than anything you would call a typical American,” Rosnick said.

The Center for Responsive Politics looked at the average wealth of members of Congress in between 2004 and 2009 (relying on estimates derived from ranges). In 2009, the average net worth of a senator $13.4 million. On the House side, it was $4.9 million:

Meanwhile, the average wealth of an American household is around a half a million dollars (dragged upwards from the median by high-wealth families). This isn’t to say that just because members of Congress tend to be much wealthier than most Americans that they necessarily will not legislate on behalf of the 99 Percent. But it is important to note that the wealth gap between Americans and their federal legislators is as wide as it is, even in a democratic system that is supposed to represent all Americans, not just the most wealthy.

“We need people in Congress who have the right priorities. Who don’t let Wall Street destroy Main Street,” said Franke Wilmer, who is running for an at-large seat in Montana, as the candidates gathered to enter the capitol. “Workers didn’t fire themselves and senior citizens didn’t cause this recession.” When the seven candidates got to Boehner’s office, Brittany Brammell, Boehner’s press secretary, did not allow them in but did promise to take the petitions. She did not tell them when Boehner would take up the jobs bill. Watch it:

“We’ve come to the conclusion that this really means, ‘Welcome, one percent, please come in,’” remarked House candidate Markos Liias of a welcome sign outside Boehner’s door. “Speaker Boehner and the Republicans in Congress ignore the 99 percent at their peril.”

Now, Rep. Jim Renacci (R-OH) is following Chabot’s lead. The Ohio congressman’s staff barred a cameraman from the Democratic-allied American Bridge organization from filming a town hall in his district that took place yesterday:

Despite a nationwide controversy that erupted last week after Cincinnati GOP Rep. Steve Chabot refused to allow video cameras at a town hall meeting, organizers of a public meeting last night with Wadsworth GOP Rep. Jim Renacci followed suit by barring a Democratic organization’s cameraman from recording the event. The newly-established American Bridge 21st Century Super PAC has recorded speeches by public officials and political candidates around the nation, including events held by GOP U.S. Senate candidate Kevin Coughlin of Cuyahoga Falls, and Urbana area GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, who chairs the House Republican Study Committee. “We are making sure politicians are held to account for their record and the comments they make to their constituents,” said the group’s spokesman, Matthew Thornton.

While Renacci stopped American Bridge’s cameraman from filming, his staff did allow a woman to film at the event on behalf of him. The footage recorded by her shows Renacci’s staff stopping the American Bridge cameraman from using his video camera. Watch it:

There were more than 1 million foreclosure filings in the first half of 2011 alone, yet only a fraction of the government aid that was supposed to reach homeowners has been spent:

Instead, Congress has mandated that the leftover money be used to pay down the debt.

Of the $45.6 billion in Trouble Asset Relief Program funds meant to aid homeowners, the most recent numbers available show that only about $2 billion has actually gone out the door.

The low number reflects how little the government’s home loan modification and other programs have actually helped homeowners deal with the foreclosure crisis.

Pro Publica notes that in November, the CBO lowered their estimate of the total amount of money the government would spend on its foreclosure relief programs from $22 billion to $12 billion.

The original TARP legislation stipulated that unused bailout money should be returned to the Treasury to reduce the debt. However, Congress has the power to “re-route” these funds so that they fulfill their original purpose of helping homeowners through loan modification programs and other plans. But it’s unthinkable that Republicans will take such action, even to help struggling families stay in their homes.

GOP lawmakers have consistently prioritized reducing the deficit over the more pressing concerns of chronically high unemployment and foreclosure. Their willingness to let billions that could be used to aid homeowners go to paying down the debt instead is perhaps the clearest illustration to date of their skewed priorities.

Amidst all the talk about increasing offshore drilling in the arctic, permitting massive renewable energy projects in remote areas, and building out expensive transmission lines around the country, we often forget about the simple things.

A few years back, I wrote an article asking if the U.S. was on the verge of a small hydropower boom. I’m sad to say that despite the myriad compelling reasons for developing small hydro projects around this country, we’re still in the same place we were when I wrote that story.

Why? Because we have a terrible regulatory framework in place.

A 2006 study put together by the Idaho National Laboratory found that we could feasibly develop up to 30,000 MW of small and “low-power” hydro projects (between 10 kilowatts and 30 megawatts) around the country. All of those projects could be run-of-river — meaning they don’t require any damming — or could be built on existing dams.

There are over 81,000 dams around the U.S. and only 2,400 of them have any electrical generating capacity. Many of the power-less 78,600 dams are close to existing infrastructure, making it easier to build and maintain a project compared with a centralized wind or solar farm located far away from where the electricity is used.

So while the government has focused heavily on streamlined permitting for centralized, large-scale renewable energy projects, almost nothing has been done for small hydro.

Due to regulatory morass, the U.S. is not a good place for small hydro companies to do business. In order to build even the smallest facilities, a developer must go through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Army Corps of Engineers, State Environmental Departments, State Historic Preservation Departments, and many more. Each of these agencies is just doing their job — but the cumulative impact weighs down small hydro and makes projects prohibitively expensive.

“The regulatory environment is not friendly at all. It’s incredibly difficult and expensive to build these facilities,” explains Lori Barg, CEO of Community Hydro, a developer based in Vermont. “It’s absurd, really.”

Barg says that federal and state permitting can add up to $2,000 per kilowatt for projects under 1 MW. To put that in perspective: solar PV projects around 1 MW are being built today for about $3,000 a kW, including permitting, labor and equipment.

That needs to change. It’s an embarrassment that we still haven’t fixed this problem.

A bill introduced by Republican Congressman Adrian Smith is a great start. The Small-Scale Hydropower Enhancement Act, which passed quietly out of the House Natural Resources Committee at the beginning of this month, will exempt all projects smaller than 1.5 MW on non-federally owned conduits from FERC licensing requirements.

“This is a great targeted solution for a particular set of hydropower projects that could spark a tremendous increase in facilities under 1 MW,” explains Jeff Leahey, director of government affairs for the National Hydropower Association. “If you can take those out of the FERC process and put those at the states, it will significantly reduce costs.”

Consistent with the slow-moving process for small hydro, the bill now needs pass through two more committees — the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

On the Senate side, Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski recently re-introduced the Hydropower Improvement Act that would streamline permitting of hydro projects on existing dams and create a competitive grant program for developers. It also expands R&D for new hydro technologies.

NHA hopes to find a way to combine both bills and pass something with bi-partisan support this year.

“We keep telling lawmakers that there’s tremendous growth potential in the industry. We are far from tapped out. We can access existing infrastructure today and build tens of thousands of megawatts in communities around the country. We consider that low-hanging fruit,” explains Leahey.

Harnessing the full potential of small-scale, local hydropower could actually be pretty easy – all possible without having to deploy massive clean-up efforts, making environmental major trade-offs, or facing stiff local opposition. But we have to get our act together on permitting.

Considering all the other major problems Congress is dealing with, this should be a very easy fix.

A record 82 percent of Americans now disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job — the most since The Times first began asking the question in 1977, and even more than after another political stalemate led to a shutdown of the federal government in 1995.

A bulk of that disappointment was targeted at Congressional Republicans:

The poll also found disappointment in Obama (46 percent approval) and Congressional Democrats’ (28 percent) handling of the negotiations, but the numbers get worse for Republicans. Half of Americans disagreed with the GOP’s stance that the deal should not include any new revenues, more than half believed the GOP did not compromise enough, and nearly half blamed Republicans for the difficulty in reaching a deal:

When it comes to the actual debt problems, ThinkProgress has documented the ways in which policy decisions made in the Bush administration were the main drivers of American debt. Americans seem to agree, as nearly half blame Bush for most of the federal government’s fiscal problems:

Republicans successfully held the government and the American economy hostage over the debt ceiling. But this poll and other show Americans haven’t forgotten what drove up the nation’s debt and that they don’t approve of the GOP’s hostage taking.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu recognizes the immense challenge that coming budget cuts will represent. In an interview with ClimateWire, Chu explained his new approach to helping deploy renewables and efficiency:

“Now, since the amount of money one is going to have for doing these things is not going to be at Recovery Act scale, but we have a large deficit,” he said, “It is very important we work towards reducing this deficit. So where’s the best dollars and how could they be most highly leveraged?”

Over the past year and a half, Chu said, he’s begun gearing DOE’s machinery — some parts smoothly, some parts with more resistance — toward a new strategy.

As he summarizes it: “It’s taking a more business approach to what is really happening.”

The perfect example of a more business-oriented approach is the SunShot Initiative – a program that encourages companies and municipalities to compete head-to-head in order to drive down costs in installation, permitting and manufacturing. By offering rewards in different areas of innovation, the competitive process creates a “multiplier effect” for developing new technologies and business models with the goal of driving down the installed cost of solar 75% by 2020.

In order to make the most of funds, competitive programs will be necessary, says Chu:

“This is in part because the amount of funds we expect going forward on some of these deployment things just won’t be there,” he said. “But fundamentally, it may not even be necessary if you get the right business models.”

It’s nice to know we have a forward-thinking energy secretary at the helm during one of the biggest boom-bust political cycles for clean energy in our history. But we still need some core programs that will provide financiers with the certainty they need to help deploy proven technologies.

We reached out to a variety of companies and analysts in the renewables and efficiency space and asked them for their top priorities. These explicitly excluded a price on carbon or a renewable energy standard – two incredibly important components that are unlikely to get traction in the near term. This is far from an exhaustive list, but simply an overview of what respondents answered.

Here are the top five:

Cash Grant

The Treasury cash grant was one of the most important mechanisms for keeping momentum in the clean energy industry strong. With financial institutions tanking after 2008, there was very little “tax appetite” – meaning it was difficult to find a bank with enough tax liability to take advantage of production or investment tax credits.

The cash grant changed all that. By giving a project owner a cash payment for 30% of equipment costs up front, it opened up the project finance market to a whole range of parties unable to previously fund projects with tax credits. Over $6.87 billion in grants have been handed out since the program began, stimulating $24 billion in private investment, according to data from Mintz Levin and GTM Research. However, there’s only about $3.5 billion in tax equity available in the U.S. today, so a lot of projects – particularly solar – may not get developed in the coming year.

The cash grant has the same budget impact as a tax credit, only front-loaded rather than spread out over time. But the program was created as part of the stimulus package, which taints it politically. Almost no one in the industry believes it will be renewed. But it’s certainly at the top of everyone’s wish list

Production Tax Credits

Since the grant program will likely expire at the end of the year, the next logical step would be to extend production tax credits. These are a core mechanism for investment certainty. The solar industry has an 8-year, 30% investment tax credit (ITC) through 2016, but the production tax credit (PTC) for wind is set to expire at the end of the year. The production tax credit for biomass, hydro and geothermal will expire at the end of 2012.

While there’s still time to get an extension, a continuation of these credits is a must-have. Larger projects take years to develop; if there’s uncertainty around getting the tax credit program extended when a developer is ready to move forward, the project is a no-go. What’s amazing is that after all these years – even with clean energy becoming a national priority – Congress still has not been able to pass long-term tax credits.

Meanwhile, oil and gas companies enjoy a handful of permanent tax incentives for exploration, drilling and R&D.

Green Bank/Clean Energy Deployment Administration

With the future of the successful loan guarantee program uncertain, something needs to take its place. That “something” could be the Clean Energy Deployment Administration, also known as a Green Bank, that could back loans, provide insurance products and issue bonds to help arrange financial transactions between technology developers and financial institutions.

Many opponents of clean energy believe that innovative, up-and-coming technologies need more support than “conventional” renewables. If we are to provide that support, a financial mechanism for bridging the gap between invention and commercialization is absolutely necessary – and the Green Bank would be the perfect agency for supporting America’s entrepreneurs while leveraging private capital.

Last week, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed a version of CEDA with unanimous bi-partisan support. This version includes support for “clean” coal and nuclear – a decision that some may find hard to support. But that may be the only option if Congress is to pass something soon.

Recommendations for CEDA funding are in the $10 billion range – a potentially very difficult number to get past the conservative House. But let’s remember, the top five oil companies will receive about $4 billion in tax breaks this year while seeing $35.4 billion in second quarter profits alone.

There are easy ways to find the money for investing in innovative clean energy technologies and leverage hundreds of billions in private capital. The question is: does Congress have the political will?

PACE

Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) is one of the most effective mechanisms for deploying renewables and efficiency on the local level. Under the program, municipalities issue loans for renewable energy systems or efficiency upgrades and allow a home or business owner to pay back the loan through their property taxes. It’s a clean, simple way of encouraging local project development.

That is, until national lenders Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Finance Authority blocked the program last summer. In the event of a default, these players said that a mortgage should get paid back first; but under the PACE program, the loan gets paid first. The conflict brought the residential market to a stand-still.

But another bi-partisan bill introduced last month could bring new life to PACE. The PACE Assessment and Protection Act prevents federal lenders and regulators from interfering with the program. If passed, the bill could spark thousands of projects in the 30 states around the country that have already approved PACE.

A recent analysis found that for every $4 million in spending on PACE, cities saw $10 million in gross economic output and the creation of about 60 jobs. If lawmakers are serious about creating long-term jobs in their districts, passing the PACE protection bill should be a top priority.

Renewable Fuels Standard

Americans have been very impatient with the progress of advanced biofuels like cellulosic ethanol, algae biodiesel and drop-in aviation fuels from non-edible plants. And given how much excitement there was in 2005/2006 around how quickly these fuels would scale, that impatience is understandable.

As a result, some political leaders have called for a repeal of the 2007 Renewable Fuels Standard, a target that requires 36 billion gallons of biofuels to be blended into the fuel mix by 2022. The vast majority of that comes from conventional ethanol, a mature fuel that many in the environmental community loathe. The standard also created targets for cellulosic fuels, which were supposed to reach 500 million gallons by next year. Due to financial and technical problems, the industry hasn’t come close to hitting those targets — so the new proposed targets have been dropped down to around 15 million gallons.

But getting rid of the renewable fuels standard would be a bad idea. It would send the wrong signal to companies and financiers in the market and risk hurting the sector just as it’s scaling up. While companies like Amyris, Gevo, LS9, Poet and Solazyme start building commercial units, it’s important have an RFS to establish a framework for the market.

This won’t take much effort from Congress at all — it simply needs to keep the targets in place and provide market certainty for advanced biofuels developers.

Even as toxic algae outbreak plagues Florida's Caloosahatchee River, one of its representatives, John Mica (R-FL), sponsored a bill to limit the EPA's power to control water pollution.

HR 2018 is a bipartisan bill that would rein in the Obama EPA and end the agency’s destructive abuse of authority and restore the balance needed to get America working again.

But the West Virginia Coal Association did much more than offer written support for the act; the organization is one of 44 such groups who donated a combined $28.9 million to House lawmakers in a push to secure the bill’s passing and thus limit the EPA’s role in the making, promulgation, and enforcement of clean-water regulations.

Lobbyist money played a pivotal part in what Earth Justice calls the fight of “clean water versus dirty water.” Interest groups working in support of the bill spent 23 times more money than did the opposition. In some instances, lawmakers received as much as $100,000 from lobbyists in support of the measure and not a cent from those opposed.

House Majority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) alone took in over $325,000, and Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) made close to $550,000.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-FL), who sponsored the bill, received $102,000 from those in favor of his legislation. Mica characterized the act as a defense against the EPA’s bullying. “Everyone has called this a huge power grab by EPA and EPA has indeed created a regulatory nightmare that affects almost every state in the union,” Mica said.

But what specifically attracts water polluters and their money to this piece of legislation? It essentially takes the EPA’s long-held power to regulate water pollution and gives that authority back to individual states where corporate interests and ill-informed lawmakers can control the show. The EPA explains what the act proposes in its press release:

H.R. 2018 would roll back the key provisions of the Act that have been the underpinning of 40 years of progress in making the nation’s waters fishable and drinkable.

H.R. 2018 could limit efforts to safeguard communities by removing the federal government’s authority to take action when state water quality standards are not protective of public health. In addition, it would restrict EPA’s authority to take action when it finds that a state’s Act permit or permit program is inadequate and would shorten EPA’s review and collaboration with the Army Corps of Engineers on permits for dredged or fill material.

All of these changes could result in adverse impacts to human health, the economy and the environment through increased pollution and degradation of water bodies that serve as venues for recreation and tourism, and that provide drinking water sources and habitat for fish and wildlife.

H.R. 2018 would disrupt the carefully constructed complementary Act roles for EPA, the Army Corps and states in protecting water quality. It also could eliminate EPA’s ability to protect water quality and public health in downstream states and could increase the number of lawsuits challenging state permits.

Fortunately, the Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act must clear both a Democrat-controlled Senate and the threat of a presidential veto before it can become the law of the land. But what is clear from the July 13 vote is that House members are selling something that shouldn’t be sold for any price–our right to clean water.

Appalachian Voices is fighting the War on Water.

–Sarah Bufkin