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Climate Progress

Republican Senators Boycott Vote On Gina McCarthy’s Nomination To Head EPA

By Ryan Koronowski on May 9, 2013 at 11:53 am

Zero Republicans show up to vote on Gina McCarthy's nomination to be EPA Administrator.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee was scheduled to vote today at 9:15 on the nomination of Gina McCarthy to be the next EPA Administrator. Despite the fact that she has answered more than a thousand of the committee’s questions, Senate Republicans announced just before the hearing that they would be boycotting the vote, denying the committee quorum and postponing the confirmation hearing.

The committee rules require that at least two members of the minority party be present during a vote. Not a single Republican bothered to show up.

Senator Barbara Boxer, Chair of the committee, still held a meeting, allowing the Democrats in attendance to try to explain to the American people why they still have no EPA Administrator. The ostensible reason that the Republicans boycotted today’s vote was because they said she did not satisfactorily answer their questions. Senator Boxer reminded those present that Gina McCarthy has already answered more than a thousand questions from the committee and moreover is eminently qualified with an excellent track record of working with the business community and and both parties to do her job. Boxer later floated the idea of changing the rules of the committee so that a boycott such as this would not gum up the works. She urged her GOP colleagues to listen to the many “mainstream” Republicans who support Gina McCarthy’s nomination and “get out of the fringe lane.” If senators oppose a nominee, they should show up and vote against the nominee, not hold the process hostage for ideological reasons.

In 2009, the Senate easily confirmed the highly qualified McCarthy by a voice vote to head the Clean Air division of the EPA. With nearly three decades of experience working at the local, state and federal levels, McCarthy has been a champion for clean air and has even won plaudits from Republican leaders. She has received extensive support from business, health officials, environmental organizations and scientists, who have repeatedly suggested she is willing to work with all sides to find the best outcome.

At her confirmation hearing last month, Ms. McCarthy answered the committee’s questions and the Republican members failed to pin anything on her. Instead they focused on climate denier talking points and questions about instant messenger (something that McCarthy jovially admitted she was too old to know how to use.)

At today’s meeting, Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) argued that she deserved a vote because she answered all the questions that had been asked of her. He said that former EPA Administrators were used to questions (400 for Mike Leavitt, 100 for Lisa Jackson), but Ms. McCarthy’s 1,000 was unprecedented. “It’s bad for our country,” he said, when Senators fail to do their jobs to ensure that the executive branch does not turn into a “swiss cheese” of vacant seats, acting administrators, and delayed appointments.

Carper said she has been a proven public servant: “The president didn’t nominate somebody we don’t know. He nominated somebody who’d been unanimously confirmed by this committee and I think maybe by the senate” for her current position at the EPA.

Read more

LGBT

Minnesota Republicans Attempt To Block Marriage Equality Bill With Parliamentary Procedures

By Zack Ford on Mar 14, 2013 at 9:12 am

Sen. Warren Limmer (R)

Marriage equality legislation passed out of committees in both the Minnesota House and Senate on Tuesday, advancing to full floor votes in both chambers. But on Wednesday, Republicans in the Senate attempted to use parliamentary tactics to block the bill, as Minnesota Public Radio reports:

The maneuvering began on the Senate floor, when Republican Sen. Warren Limmer objected to a routine motion to adopt a report from the Senate Judiciary Committee, which approved the same-sex marriage bill a day earlier on a party-line vote.

The objection forced a recess of the floor session and sent the matter to the Senate Rules Committee, where Limmer explained that he had received information showing the bill could cost the state $688,000 in added insurance benefits to state employees.

Not only was there nothing to substantiate this funding claim, but Republicans were actually trying to argue that by simply accepting the report from the committee, they were approving same-sex marriage itself. Here’s Senate Minority Leader David Hann (R) attempting to make sense of this tactic:

HANN: When we adopt a committee report we are in effect endorsing — and this is the quote: ‘…the statement or expressing its approval by the body’ of the substance of the report. And it has the effect of ‘expressing approval or endorsing the findings or recommendations’ of the report. So members, what we’re doing by adopting the report that is before us is we’re adopting same-sex marriage in Minnesota.

The floor hasn’t voted on the bill yet. Anybody who wishes to vote against adopting marriage equality can vote to do so when given the opportunity. Resorting to such procedural maneuvers suggests fear that of the results of that vote, and desperation to block it.

Furthermore, though a specific report has not been calculated for Minnesota yet, the Williams Institute has consistently found that marriage equality brings revenue to states, not costs. Worst of all, the argument put forth here is that Republicans don’t want marriage equality because they don’t want to extend insurance to same-sex partners. Apparently, gay people are just less deserving of basic health protections.

Economy

VIDEO: How The GOP Constantly Pretends Spending Cuts Haven’t Happened

By Jeff Spross on Mar 1, 2013 at 10:40 am

Barring a miracle of bipartisan cooperation over the next 12 hours, the sequester — a series of across-the-board spending cuts — will kick in tonight.

Part of the Budget Control Act of 2011, the sequester will likely shave 700,000 jobs and 0.6 percent worth of growth off the economy. Its cuts were designed to be so crude and damaging they would incentivize all sides to replace it with more well-thought out deficit reduction.

But thanks to the GOP’s single-minded fixation on spending cuts over tax increases, that effort failed. Republicans spent the last two years treating every debate over the deficit as if it were occurring in a historical vacuum, accusing Obama of failing his own commitment to balance, repeatedly scoffing at new tax revenue, and insisting that “it’s finally time” to “get serious” about cutting spending, even as trillions of dollars in cuts mounted.

In short, the GOP has repeatedly thrown the spending cuts from each previous deal down the memory hole, demanding more and more while claiming that Obama and Democrats have unreasonably wanted to balance those cuts with new revenue. ThinkProgress has the video report. Watch it:

Between the spring 2011 budget fight, the debt ceiling debacle, and the so-called “fiscal cliff,” the United States has cut almost $1.5 trillion in spending over the next decade, plus saving roughly $200 billion more in lower interest payments.

In fact, at the Wall Street Journal breakfast featured in the video, reporter Lori Montgomery brought up all these previous cuts point blank with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Ryan’s rejoinder encapsulated the entire bizarre kabuki dance: “That was last session. We’re going forward now.” Montgomery and the other reporters literally busted out laughing in response. (Ryan’s logic doesn’t even work on its on terms. The new tax revenues in the fiscal cliff deal were part of the last congressional session as well, but he wants to count those.)

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the budget ledger, the country will raise only $630 billion in new tax revenue over the next decade. That’s the context in which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) insists “the tax issue is finished,” even as both he and Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) claim to be seeking a “balanced” agreement. As a result, everything from Medicare, to the military, food safety, air traffic control, nutritional support for women and infants, disaster relief, law enforcement, and health research looks likely to get the axe.

LGBT

Why The Sequester Is (Still) A Bad Idea For LGBT Americans

By Crosby Burns on Feb 28, 2013 at 12:55 pm

If Americans thought the “fiscal showdown” was over, they should think again. Tomorrow, a series of automatic across-the-board spending cuts—a process known as “sequestration”—is set to begin. This series of cuts calls for a devastating $85 billion reduction in spending on federal programs by the end of the year.

These broad spending cuts were originally intended to force both parties to agree on an alternative deficit-reduction plan out of a mutual desire to avoid swallowing such a painful pill. Now at the eleventh hour, it seems increasing unlikely that Congress will reach a deficit reduction compromise.

Millions of hardworking Americans, however, once again find themselves at the precipice of a fiscal showdown that, if left unresolved, will impose real and significant financial harm on them and their families. Among those Americans who will be hit hardest by sequestration are LGBT Americans.

As the Center for American Progress and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force outlined last November in the midst of the last fiscal showdown, sequestration would cut federal programs that are vital to the health, wellness, and livelihood of LGBT Americans and their families.

The sequester was a bad idea then. And it’s a bad idea now. Here are six ways sequestration would impose real and significant harm on LGBT Americans:

  • Sequestration will hurt LGBT workers. LGBT Americans face extraordinarily high rates of discrimination in the workplace and it is still perfectly legal in a majority of states and under federal law to be fired for being LGBT. Sequestration would exacerbate this situation by, for example, reducing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s ability to investigate claims of discrimination against LGBT workers.
  • Sequestration will compromise LGBT health and safety. Sequestration will cut funding to a number of federal programs—like programs suicide and bullying prevention—that are in place to support the physical and mental health of LGBT Americans, a population that disproportionately lack access to health insurance and culturally competent health care services, and suffers from a host of health disparities.
  • Sequestration will exacerbate homelessness among LGBT youth. Already facing higher rates of homelessness compared to the general population—LGBT youth comprise 5 percent to 7 percent of all youth and 40 percent of all homeless youth—sequestration will exacerbate LGBT youth homelessness by reducing grant funds to community organizations working to addressing the issue and homelessness shelters that house the LGBT homeless.
  • Sequestration will make higher education less accessible for LGBT students. Furthering inequality gaps in accessing higher education, sequestration will result in significant cuts to federal work-study programs for LGBT students and a reduction in supplemental educational opportunity grants for low-income LGBT students.
  • Sequestration will limit the ability to prevent violence against LGBT people. Sequestration will reduce the funding that supports the government’s ability to tackle the disproportionate levels of abuse, harassment, and violent crime suffered by LGBT Americans. It will also limit resources available to investigate, prosecute, and prevent hate crimes.
  • Sequestration will limit U.S. capacity to protect the human rights of LGBT people worldwide. The Department of State has become the world leader in promoting a comprehensive human-rights agenda aimed at protecting all human rights of LGBT people. Sequestration will deal a blow to worldwide LGBT equality by cutting funds to federal agencies and thereby limiting public diplomacy efforts conducted by U.S. embassies

Our guest bloggers are Chris Frost, intern, and Crosby Burns, Research Associate, with the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress.

Climate Progress

House GOP Rejects Calls For Climate Hearings — But Democrats Will Keep Pressing

By Jeff Spross on Feb 7, 2013 at 4:59 pm

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA)

Between President Obama’s surprisingly hawkish second inaugural address, and the confirmation of John Kerry as Secretary of State, moves to combat climate change may be afoot in Washington.

That momentum extends to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where ranking minority member Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and his fellow Democrats have been pushing to move hearings on climate change onto the group’s agenda for this congressional session. Unfortunately, Republicans still control the House and thus the committee, and have already shot down Democrats’ efforts twice, according to a report in The Hill.

On Wednesday the Committee, along party lines, voted down Democratic amendments to its formal oversight plan for the 113th Congress….

One defeated amendment, from Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), would have required hearings on the role of climate change in drought, heat waves, wildfires, reduced crop yields and other effects….

A second defeated amendment, by Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), called for hearings on climate-related coastal threats including sea-level rise, more frequent and intense storms, and ocean acidification. Both proposals called for witnesses including National Academy of Sciences members.

The good news is that Waxman intends to keep pressing, in order to get the GOP on record refusing to investigate an issue that is rapidly moving to the forefront of the American public’s concern:

More votes – with a similar outcome – are expected when the meeting to approve the oversight plan resumes next week.

Waxman is offering a third amendment calling for a hearing on recent reports that warn, “the window for action to prevent irreversible harm from climate change is closing rapidly.”

The need for American lawmakers to come to grips with the reality of climate change and global warming is pressing. In January, the Federal Advisory Committee released its draft of the third National Climate Assessment, and its prognostications were grim: If the United States remains on its current emissions path, most of the country will see a rise of 9 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit over the coming century, with ever-worsening extreme weather, heat waves, deluges and droughts as the result.

Encouragingly, there are signs President Obama will call for new policy pushes in next week’s State of the Union address. Even without new laws from Congress, the executive branch has numerous regulatory tools with which it can combat climate change, including having the Environmental Protection Agency move to curb carbon emissions from both new and existing power plants. Nor are Waxman and other Democrats sitting idle — they’ve announced the formation of a new Bicameral Climate Change Task Force, “dedicated to focusing Congressional and public attention on climate change and developing effective policy responses.”

As for where the Republicans are at, the House Science and Technology Committee is set to hold a hearing that appears destined to degenerate into a forum for climate denialism. The committee’s new chair, Rep. Lamar Smith’s (R-TX), has criticized “the idea of human-made global warming, railed against the media as “lap dogs” for not devoting enough airtime to climate deniers, and taken $500,000 from the oil and gas industries over his political career.

LGBT

INFOGRAPHIC: What Republicans Could Do With $3 Million Other Than Defend Discrimination

By Guest Blogger on Jan 25, 2013 at 2:05 pm

Our guest blogger is Crosby Burns, Research Associate with the Center for American Progress.

This spring the Supreme Court will issue a final ruling on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA. This odious law treats families headed by legally-married same-sex couples as second class citizens, depriving those families the same economic protections, access to safety net programs, and tax breaks afforded to other families. Largely because of this law—and contrary to commonly held stereotypes—families headed by same-sex couples are more likely to experience poverty, report lower incomes, and often face a higher tax burden compared to families headed by different sex couples.

Last year, the Obama Administration rightly determined that DOMA unfairly discriminates against Americans by arbitrarily denying one group of citizens (gay people) access to government programs and tax benefits. Consequently, the Department of Justice rightly refused to defend the law and promote discrimination against same-sex couples in federal court.

House Republicans, on the other hand, decided to take up the mantle of defending discrimination. To do so, these so-called “fiscal conservatives” have decided to foot taxpayers with $3 million in legal fees to ensure DOMA has its day in court.

As shown in an infographic released today by the Center for American Progress, here are nine alternative ways that House Republicans could use $3 million other than defending discrimination before our nation’s High Court:

  • Provide health care coverage to 1,497 children through state Medicaid programs.
  • Help 37,443 victims of domestic violence access emergency shelters and related services.
  • Provide nutrition assistance to 1,873 people through Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP).
  • Give 203 homeless youth access to transitional living programs.
  • Increase employment opportunities through job training for 17,422 workers.
  • Offer job training to 12,167 veterans, many who were forced out of the military due to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
  • Ensure that an additional 75,000 people are tested this year for HIV.
  • Pay back 500 same-sex couples for the $6,000 in additional taxes they pay because of the discriminatory effects of DOMA.
  • Rent a billboard in the center of Times Square promoting anti-bullying initiatives for gay and transgender youth.


Health

House Republicans Can’t Find Any Co-Sponsors For Their Latest Obamacare Repeal Bills

By Sy Mukherjee on Jan 15, 2013 at 1:50 pm

Earlier this month, Tea Party darling Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) admitted that his plan to introduce yet another Obamacare repeal bill would be unlikely to pass in the wake of President Obama’s decisive re-election. As it turns out, that was an understatement.

In a sign that the GOP’s anti-Obamacare fervor may finally be giving way to political reality, Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) latest Obamacare repeal bill doesn’t have a single co-sponsor in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Bachmann made introducing the repeal bill her first order of business for the 113th Congress, even as millions of Americans waited for House Republicans to act on a disaster relief package in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

And two other anti-Obamacare bills — one to repeal the law’s individual insurance mandate and another introduced by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to repeal the whole law — also do not have any co-sponsors. By contrast, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) so-called “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act” had a total of 182 cosponsors by the fourth day of the 112th Congress, and House Republicans successfully voted to repeal Obamacare a staggering 33 times during the last session — costing taxpayers an approximate $50 million. Public support for repealing the reform law has plunged to an all-time low as Americans begin experiencing its positive effects.

But the latest repeal efforts’ lack of co-sponsors should by no means be taken as a sign that Republicans will embrace health reform altogether. House Republicans can still try to obstruct Obamacare’s implementation by putting the law’s funding mechanisms on the chopping block and attempting to repeal measures such as the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). In fact, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) recently advocated for doing exactly that in an editorial for his hometown paper, and former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) went as far as to suggest “civil disobedience” and breaking the law in order to stymie Obamacare.

Still, the full Obamacare repeal effort’s newfound loneliness in the House is a powerful demonstration of the difference an election can make.

Economy

Milk Prices Likely To Soar In January After Republican Obstruction Blocked The Farm Bill In The House

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Dec 21, 2012 at 11:55 am

House Republicans let the five-year farm bill expire at the end of September without a new law to replace the massive measure covering billions of dollars in programs, including food stamps and agriculture subsidies. The Senate passed its own bipartisan, 10-year farm bill in June, and House Democrats and farm state Republicans attempted to force the House to consider a bill to replace it. But the GOP leadership steadfastly refused to vote on it.

As a result, milk prices could jump as high as $6 to $8 per gallon after Jan. 1, when the government will revert to following antiquated 1949 regulations without a farm bill in place:

Under the current program, the government sets a minimum price to cover dairy farmers’ production costs. If the market price drops below that, the government buys dairy products from farmers to buoy prices and increase demand. Since milk prices have remained above that minimum price in recent years, dairy farmers usually do better by selling their products commercially rather than to the government.

But if 1949 rules go into effect, the government would be required to buy dairy products at around $40 per hundredweight — roughly twice the current market price — to drive up the price of milk to cover dairy producers’ cost.

“It would be bad for consumer demand in the long run,” said Chris Galen, a spokesman for the National Milk Producers Federation, which represents more than 32,000 dairy farmers.

In the short term, farmers would see a windfall by selling to the government at a higher price, but as the New York Times reports, that would lead to higher prices in stores and less milk available for manufacturing butter and cheese. “I don’t think customers and food processors are going to pay double what they are paying now for dairy products,” said Dean Norton, a dairy farmer and president of the New York Farm Bureau.

Members of the House Agriculture Committee say they will go back to work on a new five-year farm bill in the new congressional session.

Health

Three Ways The GOP Will Still Try To Weaken Obamacare

By Sy Mukherjee on Nov 9, 2012 at 12:40 pm

After surviving a year-long battle in Congress, a Supreme Court challenge, and the presidential election, Obamacare is here to stay. Just yesterday, GOP House Speaker John Boehner admitted yesterday that Obamacare is, in fact, “the law of the land.”

But Boehner was quick to walk back his comments via Twitter, reasserting that the GOP’s wish is still to fully repeal or severely dismantle the law. Since the Senate and the presidency remains solidly in Democratic hands, the GOP has their work cut out for them. But that doesn’t mean they won’t try their best to beat back, sue, and defund Obamacare provisions in an effort to neuter the law at the cost of Americans’ health and financial security. Here are three ways that the GOP will likely attempt to attack and undermine Obamacare provisions:

1) Denying federal insurance subsidies to Americans under health exchanges. If states can’t make a decision by November 16th about whether to set up health insurance exchanges, the federal government will set up one for them. But House Republicans may try to throw a wrench into those plans. Republicans are claiming that a minor technicality in the health reform legislation restricts its health insurance subsidies to Americans living in states that set up their own exchanges, and doesn’t extend to the Americans in states where the federal government sets up an exchange. This is obviously not what the health reform law intends, and IRS Commissioner Doug Shumlin has already issued an IRS-rule setting aside subsidies for Americans in all states. But Republican leaders may pursue this line of obstruction for insurance subsidies, essentially leaving sick and needy Americans to fend for themselves by denying them the subsidies that would make it possible for them to afford health coverage.

2) Resisting the Medicaid expansion. ThinkProgress has consistently reported on how Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion will significantly lower state health care costs while extending insurance to as many as 30 million low-income Americans — but only if the states agree to take part in the expansion, which the Supreme Court ruled optional. Even after President Obama’s re-election, GOP governors in states such as Florida are digging in their heels against reform. Sadly, many of the expansion’s GOP detractors lead states with extremely large uninsured populations, and their refusals to implement Medicaid reform might leave millions of low-wage workers without the health coverage they depend on.

3) Undermining the medical device tax and Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). The device tax and IPAB are ways that Obamacare raises revenue for its vast coverage expansion and controls the rate of Medicare spending. Republicans are already eyeing the 2.3 percent medical device tax, calling it a burden on American businesses. But repealing the device tax risks grossly under-funding Obamacare’s insurance subsidies to Americans, meaning that Republicans are seeking to lower big manufacturers’ costs by shifting the burden onto Americans’ subsidized insurance premiums in 2014. Similarly, the independent, 15-member IPAB looks to keep American health spending at sustainable levels by finding ways to control Medicare spending growth without compromising on quality or benefits. While some of these cuts may be painful at first for hospitals and some physicians, the savings accrued will act as a firewall against seniors’ rising premiums and assure that providers, rather than everyday Americans, are bearing the burden of lowering medical spending.

Americans can expect continued battles over the proper funding and implementation of Obamacare in the coming months — for example, employer groups are almost certain to challenge the law’s provisions requiring that all large employers offer their workers health benefits. But now that the uncertainty over Obamacare’s future no longer exists, it isn’t too difficult to see what attempts to weaken the law really are: giveaways to large corporations, providers, and partisan politicking at the expense of real Americans’ health care and financial security.

LGBT

Strategist Admits Goal Of Minnesota Amendment Was Republican Voter Turnout

By Zack Ford on Oct 16, 2012 at 11:06 am

Michael Brodkorb

Michael Brodkorb was a powerful Republican insider within the Minnesota legislator until it came to light 10 months ago that he was having an affair with Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch (R). Koch resigned and Brodkorb was fired, but after keeping his silence in the interim, he’s now speaking out against the marriage inequality amendment. He explained to WCCO that the amendment had nothing to do with morality, but was passed to drive Republican voter turnout:

“It provided a turnout opportunity for Republicans,” he said.

Brodkorb was former Deputy Chairman of the State Republican Party and top Senate staffer, and says GOP Senators knew a driving force behind the gay marriage amendment wasn’t morality. It was political reality.

Top GOP leaders thought they couldn’t beat incumbent Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, and Republicans would stay home.

“The belief was, the United States senate race was not going to be close, and that Republicans needed and social conservatives needed a reason to get to the polls in November,” he said.

This revelation is troubling, but perhaps not so surprising. After all, it cannot be forgotten that the Minnesota state government had to shut down, because instead of passing a budget, Republican leadership dedicated excessive time to debating and passing the amendment banning same-sex marriage, then flying around the state to defend it.

Brodkorb says the plan may now backfire, because strong opposition to the harmful amendment could cause some Republican state Senators to lose. Polls have shown a close race, but they indicate the amendment is set to lose, because Minnesota law requires a full 50 percent vote of approval — non-votes will count as no-votes. (HT: Truth Wins Out.)

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