Yesterday the EPA unveiled long-overdue rules to limit the amount of mercury and other toxins which coal producers and other energy producers can release into the atmosphere. As environmental blogger David Roberts notes, these are a very, very big deal and for more reasons than having cleaner, safer air.

But this one is a Big Deal. It's worth lifting our heads out of the news cycle and taking a moment to appreciate that history is being made. Finally controlling mercury and toxics will be an advance on par with getting lead out of gasoline. It will save save tens of thousands of lives every year and prevent birth defects, learning disabilities, and respiratory diseases. It will make America a more decent, just, and humane place to live.

Read his whole post for the history of how long (over twenty years!) it's taken for this rule to be finalized. It really is a major big deal.

It's also big because it is a back-door jobs creator. As noted in the video above, the technology necessary to comply with the rules is manufactured in this country and can be installed by American workers. I don't know how many workers it will take to manufacture and install these devices, but even one extra person put to work is one less unemployed worker. The administration has vowed to do whatever can be done to stimulate job creation without Republicans. This is one of the ways they're doing it.

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The actions by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice to block this transaction do not change the realities of the U.S. wireless industry. It is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world, with a mounting need for more spectrum that has not diminished and must be addressed immediately. The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage. In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.

“AT&T will continue to be aggressive in leading the mobile Internet revolution,” said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO. “Over the past four years we have invested more in our networks than any other U.S. company. As a result, today we deliver best-in-class mobile broadband speeds – connecting smartphones, tablets and emerging devices at a record pace – and we are well under way with our nationwide 4G LTE deployment.

“To meet the needs of our customers, we will continue to invest,” Stephenson said. “However, adding capacity to meet these needs will require policymakers to do two things. First, in the near term, they should allow the free markets to work so that additional spectrum is available to meet the immediate needs of the U.S. wireless industry, including expeditiously approving our acquisition of unused Qualcomm spectrum currently pending before the FCC. Second, policymakers should enact legislation to meet our nation’s longer-term spectrum needs.

“The mobile Internet is a dynamic industry that can be a critical driver in restoring American economic growth and job creation, but only if companies are allowed to react quickly to customer needs and market forces,” Stephenson said.

I was curious about what legislation in particular AT&T wanted "to meet...longer-term spectrum needs." Behold, I discovered this tidbit from The Hill:

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski said on Tuesday evening that language in the House GOP payroll tax bill that restricts his agency's ability to regulate the airwaves could "threaten U.S. global leadership in spectrum-related innovation."

"Several provisions of the House bill would tie the agency’s hands in ways that could be counterproductive, reducing economic value and hindering innovation and investment," he said in a statement after the House approved the bill 234-193.

Ah, this would be the bill that the House is trying to force into a conference committee rather than taking the Senate's bill and voting on it. And there's more:

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Elbert Jovante Woods, the son of the former Cincinnati Bengals fullback Ickey Woods, died this Saturday. He was only 16. A cornerback high school football player, he’d been practicing with his varsity team on Wednesday and later collapsed at home. He was rushed to hospital with a severe asthma attack, and put on life-support, but never recovered. His doctors blamed extreme heat and poor air quality for the teen’s death. ‘We've actually had a lot of patients in the last week come in with exacerbation of asthma,’ said Dr. David Bernstein, a University of Cincinnati researcher. ‘We think it's probably related to air quality.’

All of us at C&L extend our heartfelt sympathy to Woods’ family, the loss of a talented, vibrant child a tragedy for anyone. (And aside from anything else, I’d like to note that Jovante was an organ donor, his gift of life is now helping eight other people – the kid was a star, in every sense of the word.)

Like Jovante, I and several other members of the C&L staff, have suffered from life-long asthma. Unlike Jovante, however, I’m lucky enough to live in a part of the world where the air quality is so relatively clean that lichen – which are incredibly sensitive to air pollution – grows on the asphalt of roads, even in cities as big as Auckland. Jovante, on the other hand, lived in Cincinnati, one of the worst cities for air pollution, having been ranked 2nd statewide and 11th nationwide for the worst fine particle, or ‘soot,’ pollution, and ranked 5th nationwide for soot pollution.  Power plants are the largest source of fine particle pollution, which is formed when sulphur dioxide and other pollutants react in the atmosphere.  Fine particle pollution is high year-round in Cincinnati and has routinely exceeded EPA’s standard for what is safe to breathe over the long-term. 

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well sir I believe THAT would be crossing the line into the realm of improbability Fafblog!

Oh, this can't be true!

Spying on you at the library, indefinite detainment, torture, preventive wars on the wrong country, oh sure I can see that. But nuking Iran? Well that'd just be crazy.

Legislating From the Bench   Balkinization

President Bush demonstrated his usual capacity for double-speak when he praised Judge John Roberts as a jurist who would "not legislate from the bench." As note on this blog and more extensively in Keck, THE MOST ACTIVIST SUPREME COURT IN HISTORY (mandatory reading during the confirmation hearings), the Rehnquist Court does nothing but "legislate from the bench" with Justices Thomas and Scalia being the most active judicial legislators. Consider the numerous areas in which they impose or would impose limits on state and federal officials.

1. They insist most campaign finance laws are unconstitutional.
2. They insist that most regulations of advertising are unconstitutional.
3. They insist that state legislatures can do little to protect abortion clinices from organized mayhem.
4. Thomas has suggested that elected officials have very limited capacity to regulate handguns.
5. They would use the fifth amendment to dramatically limit the capacity of local legislatures to pursue urban redevelopment.
6. They regard the fifth amendment as also limiting environmental regulations and limiting conditions that local legislatures can attach to private development.
7. They insist that affirmative action is unconstitutional, even though the persons responsible for the equal protection clause passed numerous laws providing special benefits to persons of color. nuking Iran? Well that'd just be crazy.

The Importance of Jack

I posted links to two long pieces on Republicans, ethics, and morality (remember, they're different!) last week, but never had a chance to go in depth. This closing passage from the piece in the New York Review of Books, "Selling Washington," presents an interesting and important perspective...

The effects of the new, higher level of corruption on the way the country is governed are profound. Not only is legislation increasingly skewed to benefit the richest interests, but Congress itself has been changed. The head of a public policy strategy group told me, "It's not about governing anymore. The Congress is now a transactional institution. They don't take risks. So when a great moral issue comes up— like war—they can't deal with it." The theory that ours is a system of one-person-one-vote, or even that it's a representative democracy, is challenged by the reality of power and who really wields it. Barney Frank argues that "the political system was supposed to overcome the financial advantage of the capitalists, but as money becomes more and more influential, it doesn't work that way."
Two House Democrats, Rahm Emanuel, of Illinois, and Martin Meehan, of Massachusetts, have introduced legislation to tighten the rules on privately funded travel, strengthen the lobbying disclosure rules, and slow down the revolving door by which former members of Congress take jobs with the trade associations and, after a year, can lobby their former colleagues. Some Republicans are talking about placing more restrictive rules on trips. But the record shows that new regulations can often be evaded.Stakeholder

I posted links to two long pieces on Republicans, ethics, and morality (remember, they're different!) last week, but never had a chance to go in depth. This closing passage from the piece in the New York Review of Books, "Selling Washington," presents an interesting and important perspective...

The effects of the new, higher level of corruption on the way the country is governed are profound. Not only is legislation increasingly skewed to benefit the richest interests, but Congress itself has been changed. The head of a public policy strategy group told me, "It's not about governing anymore. The Congress is now a transactional institution. They don't take risks. So when a great moral issue comes up— like war—they can't deal with it." The theory that ours is a system of one-person-one-vote, or even that it's a representative democracy, is challenged by the reality of power and who really wields it. Barney Frank argues that "the political system was supposed to overcome the financial advantage of the capitalists, but as money becomes more and more influential, it doesn't work that way."
Two House Democrats, Rahm Emanuel, of Illinois, and Martin Meehan, of Massachusetts, have introduced legislation to tighten the rules on privately funded travel, strengthen the lobbying disclosure rules, and slow down the revolving door by which former members of Congress take jobs with the trade associations and, after a year, can lobby their former colleagues. Some Republicans are talking about placing more restrictive rules on trips. But the record shows that new regulations can often be evaded.

Perhaps the greatest deterrent to ethical transgression is that members of Congress don't want to read unfavorable stories about themselves. A Republican lobbyist says that the biggest factor in the growth of corruption has been "the expectation that all this goes undetected and unenforced." He added, "If Jack Abramoff goes to jail, that will be a big message to this town." Since the scandal broke over Abramoff's payments on behalf of DeLay, members of Congress have been scrambling to amend their travel reports, in some cases listing previously unreported trips, or filling in missing details. Public outrage can also have an inhibiting effect: after the Republicans changed the ethics rules earlier this year to protect DeLay, the adverse reaction in the press and from constituents was strong enough to make the Republican leadership back down.

But the public can't become outraged about something that isn't brought to its attention. The press tends to pounce on the big scandals but usually fails to cover the more common ones that take place every day. Some of the politicians I talked to hoped that the scandal over DeLay and Abramoff might lead to real changes, including more prosecutions and stricter disclosure requirements. But even they admit that, like so many other scandals, it may simply blow over.

 

 

How to deal with a bully

Perhaps the greatest deterrent to ethical transgression is that members of Congress don't want to read unfavorable stories about themselves. A Republican lobbyist says that the biggest factor in the growth of corruption has been "the expectation that all this goes undetected and unenforced." He added, "If Jack Abramoff goes to jail, that will be a big message to this town." Since the scandal broke over Abramoff's payments on behalf of DeLay, members of Congress have been scrambling to amend their travel reports, in some cases listing previously unreported trips, or filling in missing details. Public outrage can also have an inhibiting effect: after the Republicans changed the ethics rules earlier this year to protect DeLay, the adverse reaction in the press and from constituents was strong enough to make the Republican leadership back down.

But the public can't become outraged about something that isn't brought to its attention. The press tends to pounce on the big scandals but usually fails to cover the more common ones that take place every day. Some of the politicians I talked to hoped that the scandal over DeLay and Abramoff might lead to real changes, including more prosecutions and stricter disclosure requirements. But even they admit that, like so many other scandals, it may simply blow over.

WASHINGTON - Documents that should have been written to explain gaps in President Bush (news - web sites)'s Texas Air National Guard service are missing from the military records released about his service in 1972 and 1973, according to regulations and outside experts.

For example, Air National Guard regulations at the time required commanders to write an investigative report for the Air Force when Bush missed his annual medical exam in 1972. The regulations also required commanders to confirm in writing that Bush received counseling after missing five months of drills.

No such records have been made public and the government told The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that it has released all records it can find.

(Note: I am a blogger fellow with Brave New Films and their Sick For Profit campaign. Visit us on Facebook)

It's important to understand what a bill without that public option would actually do. Brave New Films got Jerry Flanagan of Consumer Watchdog to explain the elements of Baucus-care without a public option, and it's not a pretty picture.

As Flanagan explains, without a public option, insurance companies can set their own rates, set their own level of benefits, and force the uninsured to pay them under penalty of law - you're talking about a forced market where people will be fined for not giving money to private health insurance companies. Max Baucus would say that there are safeguards to limit the amount of out-of-pocket spending or premium spending as a percentage of income, but he wants those rules to be set by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, an industry-friendly group without open meetings or public hearings, making the potential for loopholes and abuse very ripe.

Flanagan also takes on the bad employer provisions in the Baucus bill, which will allow them to drop health care for their customers and throw them onto the exchanges. He says that employers could pay only a couple hundred dollars a year per employee under this plan.

Flanagan further explains that the co-op alternative in the Baucus bill could lead to the gutting of state consumer protection laws on health insurance. This is a key point, and could lead to the insurance market looking like the credit card market, with every issuer moving to states with virtually no regulations or restrictions on how they manage their credit card business.

If you're looking for a quick, succinct way to explain the problems with the Baucus bill, pass along this video.

The U.S. Attorney Purge scandal may be over, but the Bush administration hasn’t changed its habit of ridding itself of those guilty of independent thinking.

The battle over dioxin contamination in this economically stressed region [of Michigan] had been raging for years when a top Bush administration official turned up the pressure on Dow Chemical to clean it up.

On Thursday, following months of internal bickering over Mary Gade’s interactions with Dow, the administration forced her to quit as head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Midwest office, based in Chicago.

We’ve learned quite a bit in recent days about the White House interfering with EPA regulations on dioxin contamination, but it’s especially bold, even for the Bush gang, to fire the one career official who was looking out for the public’s interests.

For the past year, Gade has been locked in a heated dispute with Dow about long-delayed plans to clean up dioxin-saturated soil and sediment that extends 50 miles beyond its Midland, Mich., plant into Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron. […]

Though regional EPA administrators typically have wide latitude to enforce environmental laws, Gade drew fire from officials in Washington last month after she sent contractors to test soil in a Saginaw neighborhood where Dow had found high dioxin levels.

Michigan Environmental Council President Lana Pollack called Gade a “woman of unquestioned credentials and integrity who was doing her job enforcing our environmental laws.”

In this administration, that’s not a compliment.

When it comes to the nation’s finances, Republicans in Washington have shown, shall we say, a certain lackadaisical attitude. Deficits, debts, expensive tax giveaways, lax regulations on the financial industry, Enron-omics — when it comes to looking after our money, GOP officials don’t exactly inspire confidence.

But what about when they’re tasked with looking after their own money? Well, it’s a funny story, actually.

The accounting scandal now haunting the National Republican Congressional Committee was preceded by a series of decisions over the past decade to relax internal financial controls at the committee, according to numerous Republican sources familiar with the NRCC’s operations during those years.

Under Virginia Rep. Tom Davis and New York Rep. Thomas Reynolds, who chaired the committee from 1999 until the end of 2006, the NRCC waived rules requiring the executive committee — made up of elected leaders and rank-and-file Republican lawmakers — to sign off on expenditures exceeding $10,000, merged the various department budgets into a single account and rolled back a prohibition on committee staff earning an income from outside companies.

And wouldn’t you know it, the lack of oversight led to abuse — and apparent felonies.

As Josh Patashnik concluded, “House Republicans can be accused of many things, but at least inconsistency isn’t one of them: They adhere to the same low standards of ethics and competence in their own affairs that they expect of the federal government as a whole.”

It looks like another Republican is snared in another corruption scandal. This one is taking place in McCain's Arizona stomping grounds

Shadegg is named in a complaint brought by the Arizona Democratic Party that is expected to be filed with the Federal Election Commission today. In it, Democrats allege that Shaddeg's campaign committee and his PAC "may have colluded together to avoid the individual contribution limits to a federal candidate and in violation of several FEC regulations."

Shadegg, who dismissed the charge as political exploitation, said in a statement Wednesday that he welcomed the federal investigation and was giving back the money in order “to remain above reproach in the handling of my campaign finances and to dispel even the potential appearance of improper conduct relating to these funds.”

And look at this. Shadegg has returned the money! Is this an admission of guilt?

After being accused of accepting illegal campaign donations, Republican U.S. Rep. John Shadegg announced Wednesday that he was refunding $10,000 he received from his own political action committee. Shadegg, who dismissed the charge as political exploitation, said in a statement Wednesday that he welcomed the federal investigation and was giving back the money in order “to remain above reproach in the handling of my campaign finances and to dispel even the potential appearance of improper conduct relating to these funds.”Democrats pointed out that only days ago Shadegg told The Arizona Republic that he had no intention of giving back the money.

And where has Shadegg been recently you may ask? Traveling with John McCain in Hew Hampshire.

Congressman John Shadegg, R-Ariz., was among those in New Hampshire Tuesday, doing some last-minute campaigning for Arizona Senator and Republican presidential hopeful John McCain. Shadegg said McCain was running strong among the GOP faithful in New Hampshire's primary.
Let's see if the John King's of the media will get on the McCain bus and ask him about Sadegg's involvment in this muck.