Senator Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, is signing off on the multibillion-dollar tax increases included in the House-passed version of the farm bill reauthorization, jobs-killing plans that will discourage foreign investment in the United States. From The Des Moines Register:

Washington, D.C. — The Democratic-controlled Senate may pick up some key parts of the House-passed farm bill, including a tax measure that Republicans opposed.

The chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, said Tuesday he supported the tax on foreign corporations that the Democratic-controlled House attached to its version of the farm bill. The tax would raise an estimated $4 billion over the next five years.

“We’re looking at doing basically the same thing over here,” Harkin said. The tax “would give us some needed resources.”

Some needed resources? In exchange for fewer jobs and a further deterioration of a competitive business environment for manufacturing in the United States?

Harkin also likes the House provision to increase royalties on offshore oil leases, which would serve to make domestic energy more expensive. Funny thing, if all these tax increases pass, we’re sure the oil companies will be blamed for the higher price of gasoline.

It’s as if investment and domestic energy were somehow anathema to Congress. Bizarre.

Our previous posts on the jobs-killing tax increase on investment are here, here and here. And here’s AgWeb’s summary of Harkin’s news conference.

A largely partyline vote on H.R. 2831, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which rewrites employment discrimination law in favor of litigiousness. Not a surprise, really. Senate passage should be more difficult, and as noted below, the President has indicated he will veto the bill.

We’ll post the roll call as soon as it becomes available.

UPDATE (3:45 p.m.) You can see the roll call results here. Two Republicans voted aye, Don Young of Alaska and Christopher Shays of Connecticut. Six Democrats voted no: Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Allen Boyd of Florida, Nancy Boyda of Kansas, Bud Cramer of Alabama, Nick Lampson of Texas and Tim Mahoney of Florida. Congratulations to the six for sticking up for their constituents.

UPDATE (5:40 p.m.) The NAM’s news release is available online here. Debriefing around here, our policy people think this was a strong showing by opponents of the bill, helping the cause when it goes to the Senate.

UPDATE (6:15 p.m.) Everybody’s getting it wrong. Here’s the AP account:

WASHINGTON—The House voted Tuesday to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision limiting the time that workers have to sue their employers for pay discrimination.

No, incorrect. That’s how the supporters describe it — inaccurately. More accurate: Spurred by a recent Supreme Court decision, the House voted to rewrite employment discrimination law removing deadlines for filing complaints. Something like that.

The White House has indicated its intention of vetoing H.R. 2831, the Ledbetter Pay Act, if it comes to the President’s desk. From the Statement of Administration Policy (.pdf):

H.R. 2831 purports to undo the Supreme Court’s decision of May 29, 2007, in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. by permitting pay discrimination claims to be brought within 180 days not of a discriminatory pay decision, which is the rule under current law, but rather within 180 days of receiving any paycheck affected by such a decision, no matter how far in the past the underlying act of discrimination allegedly occurred. As a result, this legislation effectively eliminates any time requirement for filing a claim involving compensation discrimination. Allegations from thirty years ago or more could be resurrected and filed in federal courts.

Moreover, the bill far exceeds the stated purpose of undoing the Court’s decision in Ledbetter by extending the expanded statute of limitations to any “other practice” that remotely affects an individual’s wages, benefits, or other compensation in the future. This could effectively waive the statute of limitations for a wide variety of claims (such as promotion and arguably even termination decisions) traditionally regarded as actionable only when they occur.

PR kudos to the spinmeisters who talked to the L.A. Times reporter of today’s story on the Ledbetter Pay Act. While the story includes a variety of viewpoints, the reporter framed the entire article around the advocates’ argument, that H.R. 2831 overrides a Supreme Court ruling.

WASHINGTON — House lawmakers were expected to vote today to override a Supreme Court decision that makes it more difficult for workers to sue their employers for past discrimination about pay.

No, no and NO. The Supreme Court’s May 2007 Ledbetter ruling upheld statute, that is, the policy crafted by Congress over decades. It confirmed prior Court decisions regarding the time for filing a pay discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

H.R. 2831 doesn’t override the Court, it changes the underlying law — dramatically.

The anti-discrimination laws clearly state, and the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently ruled, that when an individual experiences an act of pay discrimination, a new charge filing period begins and he or she must file an administrative charge with the EEOC within that period. Issuing a paycheck is the result of discrimination, not a separate act of discrimination. The bill would change that basic principle of employment law.

But H.R. 2831 doesn’t stop there. The bill’s provisions also apply to anyone “affected by” unlawful compensation discrimination. Got that? It doesn’t even have to be the aggrieved employee, or even someone who worked for the employer. H.R. 2831 goes far beyond pay discrimination — which the Court’s decision was about — also applying to any alleged discriminatory employment practice, including vacation benefits, health care costs, pensions, life insurance, etc.

No matter how much proponents talk about “fairness,” this bill is a radical restructuring of employment law. And how, precisely, is making employers subject to unending uncertainty and threats of litigation “fair?”

The Wall Street Journal’s lead editorial today provides a useful point-by-point summary of the tax increases being pushed in Congress. There’s the 61 cents a pack tobacco increase, the tax on private equity partnerships, a boost to the tax on “carried interest” of hedge funds and private equity (15 to 35 percent), the out-of-nowhere higher withholding tax on U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies, a capital gains increase, new energy taxes, and….phew, out of breath.

We’re probably overlooking some other tax increase proposals, and some of the above will be blocked this year by President Bush’s veto pen. But this kind of manic Congressional grasping at any and every revenue idea hasn’t been seen since the first days of the Clinton Presidency.

So many proposals, in fact, that you can’t fit the entire list on a wallet-sized card. But still a reader service.

But will they have to rename the Iron Range? From AP:

Babbitt, Minn. A mineral company is drilling test holes about 2,000 feet beneath northeastern Minnesota’s Birch Lake and on nearby land, exploring what’s long believed to be a vast deposit of copper, nickel and other precious metals.

Low metal prices historically made the deposits unattractive to developers, but an increase in demand, new processing technologies and stronger metal prices has upped the financial incentive in recent years for mining the ore.

It could mean hundreds of workers toiling in metal mines in this part of the state in the coming years.

Estimates are that about 4 billion tons of mineable copper, nickel and precious metals like gold, palladium and platinum exist in the region, according to MiningMinnesota, a trade group that represents copper, nickel and metals producers.

The MiningMinnesota site has lots of interesting information about the potential for non-ferrous metals, with a heavy emphasis on environmental sensitivity.

Modern mining practices have come a long way in the past 20 years. For example, the non-ferrous mining operation proposed for Hoyt Lakes will not involve a smelter, will have zero water discharge, and will line and cap the waste rock. The objective is to have as minimal an environmental impact as possible at any mining sites in Minnesota.

Hmm. The Range Formerly Known as Iron?

Hat tip, James Lileks at Buzz.mn.

Front page news in today’s Washington Post:

The first application to build a new U.S. nuclear power plant in three decades has been filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, bumping a proposed third unit at a Calvert County site to the front of a list of reactors being considered by the nuclear power industry.

Constellation Energy Group of Baltimore has filed a partial application with the NRC, asking the commission to review environmental plans for a 1,600-megawatt reactor at the Calvert Cliffs site in Lusby, Md., that could cost $4 billion.

Step by step, nuclear power’s renaissance advances, and this proposal has an exciting element to it worth watching — Constellation is seeking to build a standardized nuclear power plant, the basic model of which could be replicated around the country in the expection of reducing costs and regulatory delays.

“Perhaps the most significant contribution Constellation Energy can make would be to deploy the first standardized fleet of new nuclear power plants in almost three decades,” Constellation chief executive Mayo A. Shattuck III said last week in an earnings release.

Maryland certainly needs the power. Electric rates are high, and NIMBY-ism holds sway, blocking transmission lines and LNG development. Last week Governor O’Malley held an “energy summit” — everything’s a summit these days — and at least one quote leads one to believe his solutions are all about curbing demand (and pain, lots of pain). Supply be damned.

“These are not just kitchen-table issues,” the governor said as his energy summit got underway in the state Senate building in Annapolis. “They’re life-and-death issues for our planet. Maryland is on a dangerous and unsustainable path of consumption.”

The story reports that the governor is considering a strategy that could “include executive orders, legislative proposals or, possibly, new controls on utility companies.” Florida North, in other words.

But let’s close on a positive note. Proponents of nuclear power are making plans, spending money and moving ahead on new generations of power plants. Progress!

P.S. The New York Times today runs a major story, “Energy Bill Aids Expansion of Atomic Power.”

UPDATE (11:40 a.m.): Via NEI Nuclear Notes, Bloomberg reports on the Calvert Cliffs proposal.

The House convenes at 9 a.m. this morning, with legislative business to get under way at 10 a.m. High on the agenda is a vote on passage of H.R. 2831, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. This bill destroys any measure of finality in employment law, eliminating deadlines for filing complaints for workplace discrimination.

As we noted yesterday (here), Congress has made repeated policy decisions to include deadlines in employment law. They’re there for a reason. First, deadlines provide employers with certainty: An alleged incident or practice is not going to come back and bite you 10 years after the fact, when the distance of time makes it almost difficult to refute accusations by a disgruntled (former) employer. Deadlines discourage the filing of frivolous lawsuits, meant not to correct a violation but only to squeeze some money out of (supposedly) deep pockets.

Deadlines also serve an important corrective purpose. If workplace discrimination is occurring unbeknownst to the employer, how can management correct it if no one complains? Employers of good will want to fix problems — if, at the very least, to address the legal liability — but may need the impetus of a complaint, one that brings the problem to their attention.

And again, proponents of this bill misrepresent it. It’s not a simple legislative fix to the Supreme Court ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co, it’s a fundamental shift in employment law.

The National Retail Federation made the case in a letter to the House yesterday.

Contrary to the claims of the bill’s proponents, this bill contains numerous provisions that would unfairly and unnecessarily expand employer liability in a variety of employment law contexts, creating a long-term litigation time bomb while compromising the prompt settlement of discrimination claims,” NRF Senior Vice President for Government Relations Steve Pfister said. “This measure abandons the balanced settlement process set forth in current law and instead creates a lawsuit bonanza for trial lawyers.”

For more information, please read the NAM’s Key Vote Letter, available here, and the one-page Manufacts is here. To contact your House member, please click here. Times is running out before the vote.

NAM President John Engler travelled to Texas last week, meeting with member companies and getting the lay of the Texas manufacturing land. He also had time to sit down with some folks with The Houston Chronicle, which devotes more (quality) space to energy coverage than any other daily newspaper in the United States. Engler’s comments on energy are timely, given the anticipated debate in the House this week.

Q: Your group has publicly opposed the increases in fuel economy called for under the U.S. Senate’s current energy bill. In your mind, what would be a more reasonable proposal?

A: What’s reasonable is a comprehensive approach, not one that takes different aspects of policy and has them be disconnected. Right now, there are so many conversations going on, and different people have different parts of the puzzle. And we’re trying to add all those up to make them all fit. This isn’t just trying to have an environmental group say we’re happy with you because you’ve delivered on this promise. What’s at stake are literally thousands and thousands of jobs in the U.S. economy.

The Governor talks more energy, employee skills, and the overall challenges facing manufacturing in the United States.

Congress Daily PM is reporting that House Speaker Pelosi will be revealing an energy bill today with plans to vote on it this Friday. Intraparty negotiators softened the restrictions on drilling on federal lands just enough to get a few more oil-patch Democrats to sign on. Meanwhile, Congress Daily says, Pelosi plans to push hard for the 20 percent renewable fuels standard (which we blogged about here).

NAM President John Engler sent a letter to House members today raising several objections to the renewable standard.

We are deeply concerned that a mandatory federal RPS could raise electricity prices for all consumers. Electricity costs are a significant factor for U.S. businesses. Affordable and reliable electricity is essential to the long-term health of the U.S. economy and its citizens. Lower energy prices mean greater take home pay for American workers, and access to affordable energy enables domestic producers of chemicals, plastics, fertilizers, paper and wood goods, glass, metals and food products to effectively compete in the global economy.

Almost half of the states have already implemented renewable portfolio standards based on their available renewable energy resources. These state programs set percentage requirements and timelines that the states believe are achievable. We are deeply concerned that the 20 percent federal RPS amendment will preempt, or conflict with, many of these state programs. At the same time, other large regions of the country are not rich in renewable resources. A federal RPS mandate will result in a huge wealth transfer from those regions to other areas or, even worse, simply result in utilities paying significant sums of money to the U.S.

You can read the full letter (in .pdf format) here.