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NEWS FLASH

Webb: I Voted For Big Oil Tax Breaks Because I Dislike Renewable Tax Credits | Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) was one of four Democratic senators who joined Republicans to filibuster legislation that would end $24 billion in tax breaks for the big five oil companies and extend industry-sustaining tax credits for wind power. Webb explained that he voted to increase Big Oil’s record profits on rising gasoline costs because he opposes government investment in clean energy technology. “My vote today was based largely on concerns over extending tax credits for a number of renewable technologies,” Webb said. “Government should avoid picking winners and losers, and should allow the marketplace to work.”

By Brad Johnson on Mar 29, 2012 at 4:30 pm

Yglesias

Caucus Unity Still A Problem For Democrats

By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 14, 2011 at 9:15 am

Keep Manu Raju’s Politico article of Senate Democrats whining about President Obama’s American Jobs Act in mind the next time you hear that a bit more rhetorical magic would have produced wondrously different legislative results in the 111th Congress:

“Terrible,” Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) told POLITICO when asked about the president’s ideas for how to pay for the $450 billion price tag. “We shouldn’t increase taxes on ordinary income. … There are other ways to get there.”

“That offset is not going to fly, and he should know that,” said Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu from the energy-producing Louisiana, referring to Obama’s elimination of oil and gas subsidies. “Maybe it’s just for his election, which I hope isn’t the case.”

“I think the best jobs bill that can be passed is a comprehensive long-term deficit-reduction plan,” said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), discussing proposals to slash the debt by $4 trillion by overhauling entitlement programs and raising revenue through tax reforms. “That’s better than everything else the president is talking about — combined.”

A few things to note about this, which speak to the depth of the structural issue here. One is that Delaware is not a conservative state. Nor is it a swing state. The Democratic presidential candidate won there in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008. President Obama got 62 percent of the vote there. And even so, Carper is attacking the president’s jobs agenda from the right. What’s more, I think the most plausible possible account of this is that Carper genuinely believes that the best jobs bill that can be passed is a comprehensive long-term deficit-reduction plan because if he’s not expressing a sincerely held belief, it’s a bit hard to see the political angle here. Now on to Webb and Landrieu, what strikes me about their remarks is that they’re being mean. Webb isn’t respectfully disagreeing with the administration’s proposed offsets, he’s calling them “terrible.” Landrieu is calling the sincerity of the president’s motives into question.

For me, it’s difficult to imagine parallel behavior on the other side. Conservative states sometimes elect wishy-washy moderate Democratic senators, but when North Dakota or Alabama sends a Republican to Washington, they send a solid conservative. And while your Scott Browns and Olympia Snowes sometimes don’t vote with the party leadership, they rarely attack the leadership in quasi-personal terms. They don’t suggest that Mitch McConnell has “terrible” ideas that he’s pursuing for low political reasons.

In other words, it’s still the case that there are huge barriers to progressive change in Congress that people have to find ways of dealing with.

Justice

Webb Calls For White Americans To End ‘Government Directed Diversity Programs’

By Guest Blogger on Jul 23, 2010 at 7:49 pm

Our guest blogger is Sam Fulwood III, a Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

webbMaybe Sen. James Webb, the Democratic senator from Virginia, didn’t understand that what he was saying in a bizarre and unfortunate opinion article published in Friday’s Wall Street Journal made him sound like a mossback from the last century. I’m being charitable because surely the Democratic senator from Virginia didn’t mean to sound as bigoted as the article makes him seem. No, surely he wasn’t arguing that white Americans suffer from federal policies that favor everyone but themselves.

“Those who came to this country in recent decades from Asia, Latin America and Africa did not suffer discrimination from our government, and in fact have frequently been the beneficiaries of special government programs,” Webb wrote, arguing for a retreat from those unspecified federal programs. “The same cannot be said of many hard-working white Americans, including those whose roots in America go back more than 200 years.”

Beyond being grossly ignorant about the current effects of what he calls “present-day diversity programs,” Webb is engaging in reckless racial inversion. While he carefully exculpates black Americans, whom he describes as “still in need,” Webb makes a scurrilous case that white Americans – southerners and Baptists, in particular – are being harmed by nonwhite groups who receive “special consideration in a wide variety of areas including business startups, academic admissions, job promotions and lucrative government contracts.” His solution is a call for white people to unite and end “government directed diversity programs.”

Clearly, Webb is unaware that affirmative actions programs have been effectively dismantled by the Supreme Court. But worse, he’s oblivious to the fact that his screed treads dangerously close to the discredited divide-and-conqueror tactics of the Southern strategy. In this new formation, Webb pits the sweeping and swelling segments of America’s immigrant population against native-born Americans with the aim of rallying the nation’s “white cultures.”

If he thinks this is a necessary step toward racial healing, especially after the week the nation’s just had, then he’s even more misguided than his article reveals. Somebody, perhaps one of his congressional colleagues, needs to tell Sen.Webb to get his head out of the last, sad epoch of covert racist talk and join the rest of America in the 21st century.

Politics

Republicans Block Bills Ensuring Continuation Of Military Health Care

By Amanda Terkel on Mar 25, 2010 at 7:20 pm

As ThinkProgress reported earlier today, some military families have been concerned about how the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will affect their health care. Fears about the legislation have been fueled, in part, by lawmakers like Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA), who has claimed that “now their programs are going to be administered like welfare programs, rather than earned military benefits.”

There is another piece of misinformation floating around that’s important to clear up. The new law has an individual responsibility requirement, meaning that every person must have health coverage (or receive an affordability waiver), otherwise he/she will be subjected to a fee. The Affordable Care Act doesn’t explicitly state that TRICARE — the military’s health program — will meet the individual responsibility requirement. So on Saturday, lawmakers — out of an abundance of caution — passed separate legislation affirming that TRICARE will not be affected. As House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) stated when the legislation was unanimously approved:

While beneficiaries of these programs will already meet the minimum requirements for individual health insurance and will not be required to purchase additional coverage, the TRICARE Affirmation Act would provide clarification by changing the tax code to state it in law.

In the Senate, Jim Webb (D-VA) has introduced a companion bill to Skelton’s, and Daniel Akaka (D-HI) has put forth similar legislation on a related matter. Last night, Webb asked for unanimous consent to approve both measures. While Akaka’s would have to head back to the House for a vote, Webb’s — which has attracted six Republican co-sponsors — could go straight to the President for his signature, since the House already passed the Skelton bill. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) objected, however, saying that Republicans wanted them attached to the reconciliation bill as an amendment sponsored by Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), which would then have to go back to the House:

WEBB: Mr. President, I would suggest to my colleague from North Carolina and to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that if you really want to fix this problem, we can fix it right now and we should fix it right now. We should not allow this issue to be tied up in the separate melodrama of the moment here. [...]

COBURN: We’ve got this — we got this a minute and a half ago to see the language. You have an amendment on the floor that actually accomplishes everything you want to do, and why are we doing this? Because you don’t want to mess up a package that’s clean. It has every application, the Burr amendment, to this. With that and the fact that this is exactly the kind of shenanigans the American people don’t want, I object.

WEBB: Let the American people understand the Republicans objected to a matter that could have been fixed by law tomorrow.

Webb brought his legislation up on the floor again today, around 4:30 p.m., saying that he would be working with Republicans to “attempt to clear these today.” Watch Webb’s floor addresses:

Republicans had been trying to attach all sorts of “poison pill” amendments to delay the reconciliation legislation, including one to ban all federal funding for the group ACORN, which has already announced that it is shutting down. Since their attempt failed, and the reconciliation bill is already back in the House, the TRICARE legislation needs to pass the Senate as a stand-alone bill, as Webb had tried to do yesterday.

Even though Bilbray and all other House Republicans voted for this measure, they’re now trying to argue that it doesn’t go far enough. Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN) has another piece of legislation on the issue, which has attracted 32 co-sponsors — all Republicans. Bilbray spokesman Fritz Chaleff wrote to ThinkProgress that Skelton’s legislation says only that “TRICARE meets the minimal standards of coverage,” while the GOP bill “carves out TRICARE from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” However, Democratic aides on Capitol Hill told ThinkProgress that the the Skelton legislation is more than sufficient and the other bill is political grandstanding.

Everyone from military and veterans organizations to the chairs of relevant House committees to Veterans Affairs officials have confirmed that TRICARE will not be affected by the new health care law.

Update

Rep. Martin Henrich (D-NM) has also now introduced legislation that would “change the maximum age of coverage for children from 23 to 26″ for military families on TRICARE. The Affordable Care Act allows individuals with private insurance to cover their children up until age 26 also.

Climate Progress

Which Democrat Supports Murkowski’s Bid To Bake Alaska?

By Brad Johnson on Jan 19, 2010 at 4:28 pm

MurkowskiSen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) plans to offer an amendment tomorrow that would block enforcement of the Clean Air Act for greenhouse gases. Her “Dirty Air Act” amendment threatens Alaska and the hopes for a clean energy economic recovery for the nation. At Mother Jones, Kate Sheppard reports that at least one Democrat is supporting her climate catastrophe campaign:

Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski has gained co-sponsorship for her effort to block the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide from at least one Democrat, her office confirmed Friday evening. Spokesman Robert Dillon said that one Democrat has signed on, though he was not able to confirm the identity of the Democrat. There are, however, plenty of ideas about who this Democratic cosponsor may be. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Jim Webb (D-VA), Byron Dorgan (D-ND), and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), all previously on record voicing concerns about carbon regulation, have been floated as possible sign-ons.

In April 2009, Dorgan, Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson, and Webb voted to preserve the filibuster threat against any “clean energy” legislation, even though they represent states on the front lines of the climate crisis. Below, the Wonk Room takes a closer look at these Murky Democrats:

BYRON DORGAN

Dorgan, buoyed by coal interests, has emerged as one of the strongest critics of President Obama’s plan to limit global warming pollution, saying it “makes no sense.” He opposes action even though his state has been ravaged by record floods and has vast renewable energy resources. Dorgan’s “preference is that Congress address this issue and not the EPA.” The senator told National Journal that “how the amendment is crafted — most notably whether it suspends the agency’s regulatory power or completely removes it — is crucial.”

BLANCHE LINCOLN

Lincoln has claimed that limits on carbon pollution would create “really high, higher food prices” and said when she took over the Senate Agriculture Committee that it isn’t her “preference to move on cap-and-trade legislation in the Senate this year.” Lincoln has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in polluter cash, including $10,000 from the right-wing extremists at Koch Industries.

MARY LANDRIEU

Landrieu has taken an oil-soaked stand “against forcing petrochemical companies” to “bear the brunt of new costs.” Her state, Lousiana, is still devastated by the widespread destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, a global-warming-fueled storm.

BEN NELSON

Nelson worries that climate legislation “could have a negative impact on our economy.” Unusual heat waves killed thousands of cattle last year, and a recent five-year drought was even more destructive.

JIM WEBB

Since 2008, Webb has opposed “things like emission standards.” Webb also opposes President Obama’s global warming plan, instead working with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) to promote a nuclear-industry subsidy plan. Coal and nuclear utility Dominion Resources is Webb’s fourth largest corporate contributor. Sea level rise is already eating away Virginia’s coastlines.

Murkowski’s move is expected to be attached to legislation to raise the federal debt ceiling. If it comes in the form of a binding amendment, 60 votes would be required for passage. She may instead offer a disapproval resolution, which would not block the EPA but would help senators pledge allegiance to coal and oil interests as the 2010 election season nears. A disapproval resolution would only require 51 votes to pass.

Update

Friends of the Earth Action has launched radio ads challenging Sen. Murkowski’s move, and Clean Energy Works has set up NoDirtyAirAct.com.

Politics

Webb Says He’ll Vote For Cloture On Health Care Reform Bill

By Ben Armbruster on Oct 26, 2009 at 3:20 pm

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will announce this afternoon that he plans to include a public option in the Senate health care reform bill and that it will allow states to opt out, “even though he’s currently short several votes” of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.

Yesterday on CNN, Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) called the public option with an opt out provision “an interesting concept” but pointedly refused to endorse it. He said the “best approach” would be “to have not-for-profit insurance companies.” However, Webb also said that he will not let his personal views get in the way of the Senate having an up or down vote on the public option:

WEBB: One thing that I did say to the leader is that I will vote to proceed forward to debate. That doesn’t mean that I will necessarily at this time commit myself to voting for the result of that debate.

HOST JOHN KING: If [Reid] needs 60, he has your vote?

WEBB: We need to have the debate.

Watch it:

Last week, an aide to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said that Lieberman — who opposes a public option — is also “inclined” to vote for a motion to proceed. Similarly, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) recently said, “I’m not right now inclined to support any filibuster.”

But other Democratic Senators are on the fence. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) — who has gone back and forth on hints of support for the opt out provision — said on CNN yesterday, “I can’t decide about the procedural vote until I see the underlying bill.” A spokesperson for Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) said “she will have to see the legislative language and cost first” before voting for cloture. Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) has not indicated what his intentions are.

But when asked recently if he would support a GOP filibuster of health care reform, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) replied, “I don’t think you’ll see me or any other Democrats do that.”

Update

At a press conference this afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that “we intend to include” a public option in the Senate bill “with an opt-out provision for states.” Watch it:


Update

,Igor Volsky writes that it will be important to understand what kind of public option plan Reid is putting on the table.


Update

Yglesias

Senator Jim Webb Calls for Prison Reform

By Matthew Yglesias on Mar 27, 2009 at 11:13 am

story_1.jpg

Jim Webb’s talked about prison reform before, and now is prepared to take action on the issue with a new bill. The introductory document notes that “with 5% of the world’s population, our country now houses 25% of the world’s reported prisoners” and “four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals.” This fact, in particular, seems unlikely to be an effective or humane way of dealing with the issue. The legislation’s specific mandate is for not much more than the creation of a national commission on the issue. But I think that’s a good idea. The politics of trying to turn this around are treacherous, but my impression is that there’s actually a lot of common ground that people who’ve analyzed this issue seriously find themselves reaching.

A few favorite points on the issue:

– Obviously, mentally ill people should be getting treatment for their mental illness; it’s quite possible that with treatment many of these people would be no danger to anyone.

– An effective parole system could keep criminals who are also drug addicts off drugs, and thus sharply reduce their proclivity to commit crimes, without the financial or human costs involved in keeping them incarcerated over the long term.

– At the margin, it’s better to fight crime by having police officers patrolling the streets than by expanding the number of people in prison.

– Insofar as drug use is criminalized, it’s still possible to target actual law enforcement in the first instance at people involved in violent criminal enterprises.

– Overcrowded prisons are unsafe, which encourages people to join gangs which, since the prisoners get out eventually, makes the crime problem worse.

– Sentence lengths should be better-calibrated to reflect actual research on preventing crime rather than pure moralistic outrage. Keeping a person who’s likely to commit violent crimes in prison is an effective crime-control tactic, but we need to focus on people who are actually likely to commit violent crimes. Many people in prison have already aged out of the period at which violent crime is likely.

There seems to be some interest on the Hill in this bill so hopefully something will happen.

Climate Progress

Democratic Senators Make Pollution Lobbyist Demands

By Brad Johnson on Jun 11, 2008 at 11:48 am

Ten Senators letterTen Senators letter

The ten Democratic signatories: Debbie Stabenow & Carl Levin (MI), Mark Pryor & Blanche Lincoln (AR), Evan Bayh (IN), Sherrod Brown (OH), Jay Rockefeller (WV), Jim Webb (VA), Claire McCaskill (MO), and Ben Nelson (NE). Download the letter.

As the New York Times noted today, ten Democratic senators echoed polluters in a letter sent to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) about her filibustered climate change legislation last Friday. The senators, nine of whom supported cloture to end debate and vote on amendments, wrote, “We commend your leadership in attempting to address one of the most significant threats to this and future generations; however, we cannot support final passage of the Boxer Substitute in its final form.” Their letter continues:

To that point we have laid out the following principles and concerns that must be considered and fully addressed in any final legislation.

The senators’ letter uses practically the same talking points and specific policy demands as the industry polluters who fought to kill the legislation, in particular the industry lobbying groups American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). A review of the letter reveals the Boxer substitute (S. Amdt. 4825 to the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, S. 3036) already made concessions to these parochial and fossil-industry demands:

Polluter Talking Point #1: “Contain Costs and Prevent Harm to the U.S. Economy.” Read more

Politics

Webb: ‘People In The Administration’ Would Like To Strike Iran Before Leaving Office

By Matt Corley on May 21, 2008 at 4:58 pm

webbhearing.jpgLast year, Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) proposed legislation that would have required the President Bush to “seek congressional authorization prior to commencing any broad military action in Iran,” but the amendment failed in the Senate. On NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday, host Terri Gross asked Webb about the bill and if he thinks “the Bush administration is considering a military strike” before Bush leaves office.

“It certainly seems that it’s on the table,” replied Webb, noting that some in the administration are pushing for it:

GROSS: You also introduced a bill that failed to require congressional approval before any military action in Iran. Do you think the Bush administration is considering a military strike against Iran before President Bush leaves office?

WEBB: Well, it certainly seems that it’s on the table. That there are people in the administration who would like to see that happen.

Listen here:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2008/05/WebbBushIran.320.40.flv]

Yesterday, the White House aggressively pushed back against a Jerusalem Post story claiming that “Bush intends to attack Iran in the upcoming months, before the end of his term.” White House Press Secretary Dana Perino called the story “not worth the paper it’s written on.”

But conservatives close to the administration have also gotten the impression that an attack on Iran could still occur before Bush’s term ends.

In April, a day after meeting with President Bush, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said on Bill Bennett’s radio show that he didn’t think “it’s out of the question” that Bush would strike Iran before leaving office because “people are overdoing how much of a lame duck the president is.”

Security

Inhofe Quietly Withdraws Support From 21st Century GI Bill

By Ali Frick on May 1, 2008 at 3:13 pm

inhofe.gifOn Tuesday, around 100 veterans and a dozen congressmen gathered on Capitol Hill to rally in support of Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) 21st Century G.I. Bill, which boasts the bipartisan support of 56 cosponsors.

In seeking the support of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — whom Webb said “needs to get on the bill” in order to secure more Republican support — Webb told McCain “several times that this is not a political issue.” Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) pointed to the bill’s bipartisan support: “[P]eople like John Warner and James Inhofe are on it.”

According to the Congressional record, however, Inhofe (R-OK) quietly removed his name from the list of cosponsors on Tuesday — the same day as the Capitol Hill rally:

inhofe-withdrawn.png

After months of stalling, McCain introduced his own competing bill last week, in an apparent attempt to peel off conservatives supporters from Webb’s bill. McCain suggested Webb’s staff “has not been eager to negotiate,” to which Webb retorted, “He’s so full of it. I have personally talked to John three times.”

Unlike Webb’s bill, McCain’s proposal pegs benefits to the length of time served in active duty, reserving the most generous benefits to older soldiers who signed up before 9/11. He purports to be concerned over military reenlistment, an argument fueled this week when Secretary of Defense Robert Gates asserted on Tuesday that “our first objective is to strengthen the All-Volunteer Force.” He warned that “serious retention issues could arise” under a too-generous GI bill.

Of course, as the Boston Globe pointed out, the “promise of an education in return for serving the country is one of the most frequently cited reasons that young men and women join the military.” What’s more, keeping Americans in the military by denying them better options is simply morally bankrupt, as VoteVets Chairman Jon Soltz and Gen. Wesley Clark wrote recently:

[I]t is morally reprehensible to fix the system so that civilian life is unappealing to service members, in an attempt to force them to re-up. Education assistance is not a handout, it is a sacred promise that we have made for generations in return for service.

Email or call Sen. Inhofe and demand that he get back on the Webb bill: (202) 224-4721.

Update

The McCain-Graham bill, which was introduced on Tuesday, lists seven co-sponsors, including Inhofe and three other senators still listed as co-sponsors of the Webb bill: Susan Collins (R-ME), Pete Domenici (R-NM), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT).

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