The National Association of Manufacturers is operating on a reduced capacity today due to the continued snow and ice that has calamatized the Washington, D.C. area. (It’s a big week for neologisms, including Snowpocalypse and Snowmaggedon.) Many NAM employees are working from home and the main switchboard at the NAM-HQ is not staffed.
Our favorite headline is from The Washington Hispanic:
One hopes the weather gods had arranged for blowhard Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to have been trapped inside the Beltway this week. It’s would be a just confinement given his Sept. 24, 2008, column in The Los Angeles Times, “Palin’s Big Oil infatuation,” which claimed global warming has destroyed good old Washington winters.
Those odd climatological phenomena led me to reflect on the rapidly changing weather patterns that are altering the way we live. Lightning storms and strikes have tripled just since the beginning of the decade on Cape Cod. In the 1960s, we rarely saw lightning or heard thunder on the Massachusetts coast. I associate electrical storms with McLean, Va., where I spent the school year when I was growing up.
In Virginia, the weather also has changed dramatically. Recently arrived residents in the northern suburbs, accustomed to today’s anemic winters, might find it astonishing to learn that there were once ski runs on Ballantrae Hill in McLean, with a rope tow and local ski club. Snow is so scarce today that most Virginia children probably don’t own a sled. But neighbors came to our home at Hickory Hill nearly every winter weekend to ride saucers and Flexible Flyers.
Thanks to the Mid-Atlantic snowstorm, Senate debate on the nomination of SEIU counsel Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board has been postponed until Tuesday. A cloture vote is now anticipated after 5 p.m.
Opposition to Becker is strong among the business community:
Kevin Williamson, an editor at National Review, analyzes Becker’s anti-employer writings and calls Becker The ‘Shut Up’ Candidate“:
He has argued that businesses should be prohibited from presenting the case against organizing unions — to their own workers, on their own property, on their own time. And if secret-ballot elections survive his card-check dreams, he doesn’t want anybody taking too close a look at any possibly fraudulent election: He has written that employers should be banned from placing observers at the polls or challenging ballots. He argues that businesses should be compelled to open up their own private property so that union organizers may conduct their electioneering on the premises.So what if the organizing vote is fraudulent? Or marked by the trademark violence and intimidation tactics long associated with Big Labor? Becker’s answer, in his own words, is this: “Employers should have no right to raise questions concerning voter eligibility or campaign conduct. . . . They should not be entitled to charge that unions disobeyed the rules governing voter eligibility or campaign conduct. On the questions of unit determination, voter eligibility, and campaign conduct, only the employee constituency and their potential union representatives should be heard.” Legalese for: “Shut up.”
The Senate breaks next week for the Presidents Day recess, and buzz is picking up about a possible recess appointment for Becker. The unions are signaling their support for the move, a Politico article suggests:
“They can’t let the minority party call the shots when it comes to the handling of critical nominations,” Bill Samuel, legislative director of the powerful AFL-CIO, said, calling on Obama to consider recess appointing Becker if his nomination stalls.
According to the Congressional Research Service, a recess appointment made in mid-February would serve until the conclusion of the next Senate session, i.e., the end of 2011. One wonders: If President Obama were to recess appoint Becker, what would happen to the two, non-controversial nominees, Mark Pearce, the Democrat, and Brian Hayes, the Republican? Recess appointments also, or straight up-and-down Senate votes allowing them to complete terms, which for Hayes is through 2012 and for Pearce, 2013?
Finally, as previously noted, NLRB Chairman Wilma Liebman on Friday took the unusual step of getting involved in the Senate confirmation battle by issuing a news release decrying the lack of a full quorum on the NLRB. She omits the fact that President Bush’s nominees to fill the vacancies in 2007 and 2008 were blocked by the Senate majority, who also prevented recess appointments by scheduling regular pro forma sessions.
The Hill, “Labor board chief wants vote on NLRB nominees”
Federal offices in the Washington, D.C., area are closed today because of the snow and iced-in streets. In keeping with National Association of Manufacturers policy, the NAM is also closed. Another storm is supposed to hit Tuesday afternoon so consider the times below subject to change.
The Senate will convene briefly today in a pro snowa session to juggle schedules, as leadership has postponed major legislative action 24 hours. That means a Tuesday debate on the nominations of Joseph A. Greenaway, Jr. to be U.S. Circuit Court Judge for the Third Circuit, and Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board, with cloture votes set for 5 p.m. (Washington Post coverage.) The NAM and hundreds of manufacturers are urging a no vote on Becker’s nomination. Senate Democrats may also try to move a “jobs bill” this week, The New York Times indicates.
The House convenes at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, with votes delayed until 6:30 p.m. Major legislation of the week is H.R. 2701, the FY2010 Intelligence Authorization Act, and the Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act, to eliminate the federal anti-trust exemption for health insurers.
For the full list of committee hearings for the week, see Congressional Record page D95.
Senate Hearings: Senate Committee on Armed Services examines President’s FY11 U.S. Air Force budget. A Banking subcommittee on Wednesday, a hearing on monitoring systemic risk. The Budget Committee on Tuesday reviews the economic outlook and on Wednesday postulates “fiscal sustainability.” If neologisms are the goal, how about “fiscal smart growth?” The Commerce Committee Tuesday examines the DOT budget proposal. Energy and Natural Resources on Tuesday scrutinizes financial transmission rights and electricity market mechanism, with FERC Chairman Wellinghoff and CFTC Chairman Gensler testifying. On Wednesday, Interior Secretary Salazar testifies on the agency budget; on Thursday, it’s the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program. EPW on Tuesday holds a confirmation hearing on NRC nominees. On Thursday, EPW’s topic is global warming impacts, including U.S. public health. Senate HELP Committee on Thursday, a hearing, “A Stronger Workforce Investment System for a Stronger Economy.” Strong. Senate Judiciary on Wednesday holds a hearing on cybercrime and identity theft.
House Hearings: It’s a busy week for House Appropriations (schedule). The relevant subcommittee considers FDA’s budget request on Wednesday. The Subcommittee on Interior and Environment reviews its bailiwick’s budgets Thursday, with Interior Secretary Salazar testifying. An Armed Services subcommittee Wednesday gets private sector perspectives on DOD information technology and cyber-security activities. The Budget Committee on Wednesday reviews Treasury’s budget request, with Secretary Geithner testifying; on Thursday, it’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on his budget. On Wednesday, Secretary Duncan testifies before House Ed & Labor on education issues, including ESEA reauthorization. An Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Wednesday holds an oversight hearing on FERC. On Thursday, the subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection holds a hearing, “Domestic and International Actions on Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxic Chemicals.” Financial Services on Wednesday considers the unwinding of emergency federal liquidity programs. Foreign Affairs on Wednesday reviews the “Google predicament,” China, cyber-policy and trade. Oversight and Government Reform on Wednesday, a hearing, “Toyota Gas Pedals: Is the Public at Risk?” Secretary LaHood testifies. Science and Technology on Wednesday reviews the Administration’s R&D budget proposals. Also Wednesday, the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee holds a hearing on Rare Earth Minerals and 21st Century Industry. We can only hope Bolivian lithium is on the agenda. On Thursday, the full committee holds a hearing on Energy’s R&D budget proposal. Small Business, Wednesday, reviews SBA’s budget request. A Transportation subcommittee on Tuesday ponders the electrifying issue of Asian Carp and the Great Lakes. The full committee on Wednesday hears a one-year progress report on transportation and infrastructure investments. Thursday, a subcommittee hearing on the Surface Transportation Board. Ways & Means on Thursday, a hearing on HHS’s FY11 budget proposal, with Secretary Sebelius testifying. The Global Warming Committee on Thursday peers at black carbon pollution.
Executive Branch: President Obama hosts Congressional leadership on Tuesday to discuss health care, jobs legislation, and how everyone handled the snow. From RealClearPolitics: “Also on tap this week: the president hosts another White House concert, this one in honor of Black History Month. Also on Wednesday, Vice President Biden will give a broad speech on nuclear threats facing the nation.”
Economic Reports: On Thursday, we get a read on January retail sales. Neil Irwin at The Washington Post also directs our attention to a new index being released Wednesday, the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index: “Ceridian has partnered with UCLA’s Anderson School of Management to use data from that business to create an index of how much fuel consumption is occurring at the truck stops of America. It is, effectively, a near real-time measure of how many trucks are on the road and how far they’re driving. Trucks account for so much of U.S. commerce that the index correlates closely with overall industrial production.” For more, see Daniel Fisher at Forbes.com, “The Fed Should Have Listened To The Truckers.”
Has any political watcher seen something like this before, a chairman of an executive branch agency getting involved in a political nomination battle like this? Highly unusual, especially before a highly partisan battle on the Senate floor, Monday’s cloture vote on the nomination of Craig Becker to the NLRB.
With the NLRB also before the Supreme Court in the appeal of New Process Steel v. NLRB, doesn’t this statement also undermine the NLRB’s case that two-member quorums represent an appropriate, legal delegation of authority? (For more background, see this Jackson-Lewis post, “U.S. Supreme Court to Decide Appeals Court Conflict Over NLRB Quorum.”)
A statement from Wilma Liebman, chairman of the National Labor Relations Board:
NLRB Chairman on Pending Nominations
WASHINGTON—In response to numerous press inquiries, National Labor Relations Board Chairman Wilma Liebman made the following statement regarding nominations to the Board of Craig Becker, Mark Pearce and Brian Hayes that have been pending before the Senate since July of 2009:
“I am disappointed that we still do not have a fully constituted Board despite the naming of three nominees last summer. The Board has been in limbo for a long time. For more than two years, the Board has had to operate with three vacancies, leaving only myself and Member Peter Schaumber to decide the hundreds of cases that come before us. We have done our best to carry out the Board’s important work, issuing more than 500 decisions in cases involving thousands of workers across the country. But our authority to do so has been challenged and now the Supreme Court will decide whether we can continue to function. At the same time, the Board has been unable to move forward on the most significant cases before it. I look forward to a time in the near future when the Board is back at full capacity resolving issues vital to American workers and their employers.”
The National Labor Relations Board is an independent federal agency vested with the power to safeguard employees’ rights to organize and to determine whether to have unions as their bargaining representative. The agency also acts to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices committed by private sector employers and unions.
Leibman is a Democratic appointee, but we’ve never before seen a Democrat or Republican member of an independent executive branch agency take such an overt, political role in a nomination.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm wins the prize among governors so far for referring to “manufacturing” or “manufacturer” 14 times in her State of the State address. The Democratic governor spoke Wednesday, and here are the first references from her speech, “A State in Transition: Crossing to the New Michigan Economy“:
Where the old Michigan economy was all about autos and manufacturing…the new Michigan economy is much broader: clean energy, life sciences – like bio-economy and medical devices – homeland security and defense, advanced- manufacturing, film and tourism.
We have steadily focused on the unique attributes that give Michigan a competitive advantage.
No state has the skilled workforce we do.
Nobody has the capacity and the manufacturing know-how we have.
Nobody has the natural resources – the forests, the diverse agriculture – the water…that we have.
Combine that with our great universities and colleges, and we’re using these unique assets to attract new companies and whole new industries.
That’s our competitive advantage.
The cover of this month’s Popular Mechanics asks, “Can We Trust Robots?” with the set-up: “Humanoid machines are a sci-fi staple, but soon we’ll be meeting them face-to-face. In our February issue, we unpack what a future with real C-3POs means.” The trouble, the authors warn, is we might like robots too much.
As do the Black Eyed Peas:
Last week Grammys performance featured more dynamic, dancing robots, but there was too much “Imma be” before the poppier weirdness started. (For another view of the Oprah event, with its impressive flash mob choreography, go here.)
Robots have been on a hot streak in popular culture recently, and we don’t mean the fantastic yet tendentious “Avatar.”
“Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” has been playing on the nether channels of broadcast digital, with its excellent pulp era robots on display.
And timely, indeed: Sky Captain’s Spitfire is also a submersible fighter, and Popular Mechanics is reporting the unveiling of yet another cool machine: “Dreams of off-the-shelf high-speed personal submarines came closer to a reality today when Hawkes Ocean Technologies, the creator of the Super Falcon personal submersible, announced it would team up with Virgin Galactic entrepreneur Richard Branson to build the next-gen winged exploration vessel.”
During the confirmation hearing Tuesday, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) was the chief Republican critic of Craig Becker’s nomination to the National Labor Relations Board. Becker, an associate counsel for the SEIU and the AFL-CIO, tried to assure the committee that as a board member he would not try to implement the more radical, anti-employer views expressed in his academic writings.
Isakson said, in effect, yes, we’ve heard those kind of assurances before, and we got burned. He outlined the criticism in the subsequent news release with the sub-headline, “Concerned Becker Will Use Position to Unfairly Favor Labor Unions Just as New Nominees to National Mediation Board Have Done“:
Isakson noted that pro-union members of another federal labor panel – the National Mediation Board – are also using their positions to impose pro-union rules. In 2009, the Senate confirmed two of President Obama’s nominees to the National Mediation Board only to watch them overturn 75 years of precedent by fiat just weeks after their confirmation.
“The actions of these new members of the National Mediation Board are nothing less than manipulation of the federal regulatory process to favor one special interest group,” Isakson said. “I remain concerned that Mr. Becker will follow their lead if he wins confirmation and compromise fairness to grant favors to the labor unions that currently employ him.”
Ranking Member Mike Enzi (R-WY) made a similar point in his committee statement, saying there was good evidence the nominees to the National Mediation Board were not forthright before the committee:
Last year this HELP Committee confirmed 2 nominees to the NMB. Some members, including me, specifically asked each of them about their position on changing the way a majority in a unionization election is measured. In response, both of these nominees testified that they had no pre-conceived agenda to alter rules that have been in place for 75 years. Yet, practically before the ink had dried on their confirmations, these two nominees began pushing through a regulation that is a wholesale reversal of those rules to tilt the playing field to the benefit of labor unions.
Click to continue reading “Learning from Experience on the Becker Nomination to NLRB”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed a cloture motion Thursday on the nomination of labor counsel Craig Becker to serve on the National Labor Relations Board. The vote on cloture will occur after 5 p.m. Monday. (See The Congressional Record for details.) [UPDATE 1 p.m. Friday: CQ Politics story, "Feb. 8 Vote Will Be First Test of Senate GOP’s New Number."]
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee had earlier in the day reported out Becker’s nomination, 13-10, on a partyline vote. Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Ranking Member Mike Enzi (R-WY) both made statements on Becker’s nomination before the committee vote. (Harkin, Enzi.)
Enzi’s vote against Becker indicated solid Republican opposition to Becker, and with the swearing in of Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), the GOP can defeat a cloture vote.
Thus, Majority Leader Reid has begun to talk about recess appointments, raising the possibility in remarks on the Senate floor:
Today is Thursday. I know we were interrupted yesterday because of the retreat, but we have spent all day on Monday, Tuesday, and now Thursday on two nominees, one to be the Solicitor at the Department of Labor–that is the lawyer for the entire Department of Labor–and the one we are working on today is to have someone run the General Services Administration. The Federal Government is the largest real estate holder in the world, and the General Services Administration manages that. Yet we have no one to run that.
So we have had to file cloture. Everyone within the sound of my voice understands it takes a long time to do that. We have to lay it down, file cloture, 2 days, 30 hours. It is not right, and I hope we can get more cooperation.
I have been someone who has tried hard not to have the President do recess appointments, but what alternative do we have? What alternative do we have? We have on the calendar dozens of people who are being held up–dozens–and I have only picked out a few; these very sensitive people, dealing with the safety and security of our country. I think it is without explanation why this is happening.
Sen. Enzi responded a few moments later:
The leader earlier talked about the amount of time it takes for cloture on people. It does take quite a while, but it is part of the process. I can tell you, when there is a hearing on a person, if there are 270 questions to start with and the other people in a similar position have a couple dozen questions, you know there is a little bit of a problem that could develop with that one person, depending on how they answer or don’t answer the questions.
Click to continue reading “Next Step on the Becker Nomination to NLRB: Cloture Vote”
CQ Politics reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is contemplating the use of recess appointments to place President Obama’s nominees into office without a vote of the Senate. The possibility of recess appointments becomes much more relevant with the swearing in of Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) and Republican opposition to the nomination of labor lawyer Scott Becker to the National Labor Relations Board.
From “Recess Appointments Eyed To Surmount GOP Filibusters of Nominees“:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., said Thursday he may be forced to support the hardball tactic unless some of the chamber’s Republicans consent and let nominees through. Once Republican Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts is sworn in at 5 p.m. Thursday, the minority will have 41 votes — enough to sustain a filibuster.“What alternative do we have? What alternative do we have?” Reid asked.
In 2007 and 2008, President Bush’s attempts to make recess appointments — including his nominees to the National Labor Relations Board — were blocked when the Majority Leader instituted regular pro forma sessions of the Senate.
Indeed, President Bush’s recess appointments and threats of recess appointments provoked expressions of outrage from the majority Senate Democrats. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was especially adamant in his opposition.
From CQ Today, Aug. 2, 2007:
“There will be no recess appointments on my committee or they will not get another single nominee for anything at all from the Committee on Foreign Relations,” [Sen. Joe] Biden declared. “I made that clear to the secretary of State. Absolutely, positively clear. Not a one. Mark me down. Not a one.”
Biden is now Vice President of the United States.
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