LOS ANGELES — A federal judge has sentenced law firm co-founder Melvyn Weiss to 30 months in prison for his role in a lucrative lawsuit kickback scheme targeting some of the largest corporations in the nation.
The 72-year-old Weiss also was ordered Monday to pay $9.7 million in forfeitures and $250,000 in fines.
You know, it would be really informative for Congress to have an oversight hearing into the abuses of the plaintiff's bar. Weiss would probably appreciate a trip to Washington to break upon the monotony of prison.
Can we at least all agree that S. 3036, the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill, is all about raising revenues? (Specifically: Title IV, Auctions and Uses of Auction Proceeds.)
Well, then, the bill should not have been introduced in the Senate and it should not be debated there.
Unless the U.S. Constitution has no meaning.
U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 7. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
The pro-regulation, pro-tax, pro-crush-the-economy side of the global warming issue -- supporters of Lieberman-Warner included -- want to claim the moral high ground in the debate, since inaction will supposedly lead to dead polar bears, endangered crustaceans, and every other bad thing that ever happens.
But doesn't the moral high ground actually belong to those productive members of our society who create wealth, including the tax revenues that finance the government's protection of the environment? Jobs creators have a better claim of doing good than do the jobs destroyers, right?
Anyway, just a thought, prompted by this observation in today's Washington Post:
"This is just a money grab," said James E. Rogers, the chief executive of Duke Energy. Rogers says he supports a cap-and-trade system but argues that this bill raises too much revenue from coal users while diverting too much of it to other purposes. "Only the mafia could create an organization that would skim money off the top the way this legislation would skim money off the top," he said. Duke, with customers in Ohio, Indiana and the Carolinas, relies heavily on coal-fired plants.
The chief political virtue of cap-and-trade -- a complex scheme to reduce greenhouse gases -- is its complexity. This allows its environmental supporters to shape public perceptions in essentially deceptive ways. Cap-and-trade would act as a tax, but it's not described as a tax. It would regulate economic activity, but it's promoted as a "free market" mechanism. Finally, it would trigger a tidal wave of influence-peddling, as lobbyists scrambled to exploit the system for different industries and localities. This would undermine whatever abstract advantages the system has.
And the basic truth that too many policymakers want to avoid addressing: "If we suppress emissions, we also suppress today's energy sources, and because the economy needs energy, we suppress the economy."
And The Wall Street Journal, "Cap and Spend," which does a great job of detailing just how this vast wealth transfer would be parcelled out by politicians.
When cap and trade has been used in the past, such as to reduce acid rain, the allowances were usually distributed for free. A major difference this time is that the allowances will be auctioned off to covered businesses, which means imposing an upfront tax before the trade half of cap and trade even begins. It also means a gigantic revenue windfall for Congress.
Ms. Boxer expects to scoop up auction revenues of some $3.32 trillion by 2050. Yes, that's trillion. Her friends in Congress are already salivating over this new pot of gold. The way Congress works, the most vicious floor fights won't be over whether this is a useful tax to create, but over who gets what portion of the spoils. In a conference call with reporters last Thursday, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry explained that he was disturbed by the effects of global warming on "crustaceans" and so would be pursuing changes to ensure that New England lobsters benefit from some of the loot.
Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to consideration of S. 3036, Climate Security Act, and vote on the motion to invoke cloture
on the motion to proceed at approximately 5:30 p.m.
Perhaps the most straight-forward thing you'll hear from the Senate this week.
The law firm Milberg, down to one name, is close to a deal with prosecutors to settle charges the firm engaged in a various federal crimes in paying kickbacks to lead plaintiffs in class-action lawsuits. The WSJ:
Class-action law firm Milberg LLP is close to a settlement that could end a federal prosecution of the firm for alleged kickbacks, according to two people familiar with the discussions. The deal would mark the climax of a case that has roiled the American plaintiff's bar.
While a deal could still fall apart, the sides have made progress after weeks of talks that have centered on the payment Milberg will have to make as part of a settlement. Last summer, prosecutors had sought about $50 million in fines and penalties, but the demand mushroomed this year to about $100 million, say people familiar with the negotiations. Recently, Milberg and prosecutors have zeroed in on a payout in the neighborhood of $75 million, these people say.
And from Reuters, a story on the today's sentencing of Mel Weiss.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Class-action legend Melvyn Weiss can expect a rough ride on Monday when he is sentenced by a judge who handed down the maximum penalty to Weiss's former partner for his role in a kickbacks scheme involving their former law firm.
The 72-year-old Weiss, who built a multibillion-dollar shareholder litigation empire around a law firm now known as Milberg LLP, pleaded guilty to a racketeering charge in March.
More at Portfolio, a feature story on the Bill Lerach-Mel Weiss duo, with such tidbits as: "Compared with Lerach, Weiss has always been the more compelling and complex character, down to the diamond pink ring that he will probably be wearing to his sentencing hearing."
With all the deals done, the sentences issued, wouldn't now be a good time for Congress to hold an oversight hearing into the predations of Milberg Weiss and the plaintiff's bar?
P.S. That Boomtown Rats' song? "I Don't Like Mondays." Although "Rat Trap" might also fit.
Congress is back from its Memorial Day recess, with the Senate setting its cap for cap-and-trade anti-global warming legislation. You know, there's an old German saying: Lieber man wärmer als Lieberman-Warner.*
The Senate convenes at 2 p.m. and is scheduled to vote at 5:30 p.m. on cloture on a motion to proceed to S. 3036, the Climate Security Bill. The House convenes Tuesday at 2 p.m. The week's floor schedule includes"> H.R. 3021, the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act; the conference report on S.Con.Res. 70, the budget resolution; and perhaps H.R. 2642, the war supplemental. The House floor schedule for the week is here.
Executive Branch: President Bush has a meeting scheduled this morning on the economy and tax cuts (10:50 a.m., EEOB). The White House congressional picnic is Wednesday afternoon; on Thursday the president makes remarks at the ceremonial groundbreaking for the U.S. Institute of Peace, yet another building on the Mall. (With a webcam, too.) He then meets with the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Jan Peter Balkenende. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is also in town, meeting with POTUS on Wednesday. Secretary Paulson gives remarks in Dubai today on investment. Commerce Secretary Gutierrez is in Kiev, Ukraine, midweek; on Saturday, he's in St. Petersburg, Russia. USTR Ambassador Schwab is at the OECD Ministerial in Paris June 3-4.
Economic reports: Today is the release of the ISM report for May. Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the May jobs figures. More.
* "Better warmer than Lieberman-Warner." Roughly. Very roughly. And it's a joke, anyway.
Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor Emily Stover De- Rocco sees Penn State as a driver of innovation and the Pennsylvania economy — something she plans to highlight in her new role as visiting senior policy fellow in Penn State’s Office of Workforce and Economic Development.
DeRocco, who is senior vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Manufacturers, said this will be an opportunity to use her education and experience to shape the university’s role on a broader level.
“Higher education and universities around the country are taking on a much higher role in the transformation that’s occurring in education, our economy and the work force,” she said. “Penn State has for a long time had a substantial impact on the regional economy.”
DeRocco is an alumna of Penn State and will receive the university’s Distinguished Alumni Award.
This week's "Cool Stuff Being Made" takes us to the American cigar capital of ...Scranton, Pa.?
You bet. As Dominic Keating, company president, tells us on our factory tour, Avanti Cigar Company is the nation's largest producer of all-tobacco cigars, exclusively. From the company's website:
With prices that start at 45 cents each and top out at a dollar and a quarter, the cigar lines produced by Avanti Cigar Company are not status symbols. But for the serious connoisseur who wants to experience a unique, mild, and flavorful smoke, these Italian style cheroots are anything but a step down.
"We feel it's our turn now to be part of the cigar phenomenon" says Tony Suraci, Jr., marketing director and part of the third generation of the Scranton, Pennsylvania-based clan that produces Parodi, DeNobili, Avanti, Petri, and several other regionally recognized brand names for the Toscano-style cigar market. All told, the company manufactures and distributes over 30 million 100% U.S. tobacco cigars annually. While those numbers might sound impressive, the company routinely sold two to three times that number during its heyday in the 1960s. Nonetheless, Avanti still produces more all-tobacco cigars than any other U.S. company.
Mr. Keating does a nice job of explaining the machinery and processes and people, with lots of detail along the way.
Washington, DC - Just as the U.S. Senate is poised to vote on the Lieberman-Warner America's Climate Security Act (S. 2191), a new poll finds an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose the higher energy costs that Lieberman-Warner would impose.
The poll, conducted by the Public Opinion and Policy Center of the National Center for Public Policy Research, found that 65% of Americans reject spending even a penny more for gasoline in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The number rejecting raising gas prices in an effort to combat global warming has increased by 17 percentage points -- or 35% -- in just over two months. The National Center conducted a similar survey in late February.
There's more here, including the questions and crosstabs, a sign of confidence in the poll and its results.
While the U.S. Congress blocks trade agreements that would lower tariffs against U.S. exports, other countries busily reach deals. From Colombia Reports:
The Free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia will be ready in the first week of June, Colombian Minister of Agriculture told Caracol Radio.
The two countries finished another round of talks this weekend and are almost ready presenting a final agreement. ‘The most difficult issues are dealt with,” he said. “We hope that in the first week of June the treaty between the two countries is ready,” he said.
The National Review's editor, Rich Lowry, cites NAM Chief Economist David Huether to issue a bipartisan critique of the presidential candidates' position on energy and global warming. Well, mostly a critique of McCain. From The Corner:
The Party of Cheap Energy? [Rich Lowry]
Higher energy prices are threatening to stoke broader inflation and are eating into workers' paychecks, as USA Today noted yesterday: “Already, says David Huether, economist for the National Association of Manufacturers, soaring energy prices mean that the average worker's wages have fallen, when adjusted for inflation. `If you exclude energy, real wages would be rising now,’ Huether says.” Wouldn't it be a great time for the GOP to favor cheap, abundant energy? Especially when the nomination of Barack Obama is creating an opening among working-class voters who are especially feeling the pinch? Alas, the GOP nominee supports a scheme to make energy more expensive in an ineffectual gesture toward addressing a theoretical threat from global warming. What a missed opportunity.
The Bigger the Crisis, the Bigger the Contribution
From a Union of Concerned Scientists' fundraising letter:
With the global warming crisis reaching a critical point, each of us must strengthen our commitment to meeting this threat. Please donate today to ensure your donation will be doubled.
UCS is uniquely positioned to seize the opportunities presented by heightened public awareness about global warming, strong pressure on policy makers to take action, and a new president in the White House. We are a trusted voice among the scientific community and in Washington, DC, and our groundbreaking scientific analysis helps steer policy makers toward the best solutions before it is too late.
Your donation will allow us to respond quickly to the rapidly changing policy landscape in the coming months. Please make a generous donation to the UCS Matching Gift Fund today.
Trusted, eh?
The full letter is here. OK, granted the letter lacks the more refined touches, you know, the weeping polar bears, but... "before it is too late." Apocalypse, now.
With the Senate to begin the debate Monday on the Lieberman-Warner cap and trade, tax and spend legislation, much excellent commentary is appearing around the web.
Last week the Natural Resources Defense Council put out a report claiming “Doing Nothing on Global Warming Comes With Huge Price Tag.” Covering the report’s release, the Austin American-Statesman wrote: “If the United States doesn’t do something soon to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it could cost the country $3.8 trillion annually from higher energy and water costs, real estate losses from hurricanes, rising sea levels and other problems, an environmental group predicted Thursday.” The NRDC’s report is a case study in how environmental groups distort science to deceive the American public.
Roy W. Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, in The National Review, "Sacrifices to the Climate Gods":
Lieberman-Warner will, in effect, punish the use of energy by making it more expensive. Yet, energy is necessary for all human activities. We are already causing a food crisis around the world by converting food, such as corn, into liquid fuels for transportation. Now, with the Climate Security Act, we will also be causing additional turmoil at home as the poor struggle to survive in a world where only the middle class and wealthy can afford to live relatively comfortably. We will, in effect, be sacrificing even more humans at the altar of radical environmentalism in the vain hope that the gods in charge of weather and climate will look favorably upon us, and not destroy us.
Charles Krauthamner, The Washington Post, "Carbon Chastity":
Predictions of catastrophe depend on models. Models depend on assumptions about complex planetary systems -- from ocean currents to cloud formation -- that no one fully understands. Which is why the models are inherently flawed and forever changing. The doomsday scenarios posit a cascade of events, each with a certain probability. The multiple improbability of their simultaneous occurrence renders all such predictions entirely speculative. ...Yet on the basis of this speculation, environmental activists, attended by compliant scientists and opportunistic politicians, are advocating radical economic and social regulation. "The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity," warns Czech President Vaclav Klaus, "is no longer socialism. It is, instead, the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism."
Senate Chamber
Program for Monday: Senate will resume consideration
of the motion to proceed to consideration of S. 3036, Climate
Security Act, and vote on the motion to invoke cloture
on the motion to proceed at approximately 5:30
p.m.
Investor's Business Daily today praises Exxon-Mobil for having a refreshing point of view, that is, the company is in the business of producing energy.
Speaking to reporters after the annual meeting of Exxon stockholders Wednesday, CEO Rex Tillerson shoved political correctness aside and insisted the science on climate change is not settled and "that to not have a debate on it is irresponsible" and that to "suggest we know everything about these issues is irresponsible."
Also irresponsible is to ignore the growing energy requirements of the U.S. and world economy, hoping they will be met solely by sources such as biofuels which actually harm the environment by leading to cutting down forests and disturbing the soil to plant crops destined for our gas tanks, releasing huge amounts of CO2 in the process.
Tillerson says that "everyone agrees that notwithstanding the growth in all other options for supplying energy, renewables, nuclear, biomass alternatives, you are still going to require substantial fossil fuels to meet energy needs, and two-thirds is going to come from oil and natural gas."
Oil sands, the Bakken formation, oil shale ....if we developed our domestic energy resources, we can meet that demand.
NEW YORK (Associated Press) - North Dakota's mineral resources director says a $1.85 billion deal between two Texas companies is the biggest oil transaction on record for the state's part of the Williston Basin.
MILAN, Italy (AP) - First it was the film and the book. Now the next stop for Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" is opera.
La Scala officials say the Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli has been commissioned to produce an opera on the international multiformat hit for the 2011 season at the Milan opera house. The composer is currently artistic director of the Arena in Verona.
U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab has announced a challenge to the European Union’s duties being imposed on certain high-tech products, invoking the WTO’s dispute resolution since these products are supposed to be duty free under the WTO Information Technology Agreement. (Schwab news release here, and her statement is here.)
The EU’s behavior is your basic protectionism, but in trying to shield its high-tech manufacturers from competitors it violates a trade agreement that sought to encourage global trade and innovation. Specifically, the products included in the technology agreement but now facing duties.
Cable or satellite boxes capable of accessing the Internet
Flat panel displays for computers
Certain computer printers that can scan, copy or fax.
The EU’s action would, for example, redefine computer monitors that can receive video signals to be television sets, hitting them with a 14 percent duty. And the stakes are high: Schwab said global exports of these products are estimated at more than $70 billion.
If the EU is permitted to make its own definitions of what is covered, everyone else will do so too – and pretty soon the Information Technology Agreement will just be history. Exports of high technology goods such as integrated circuits and related products are the largest U.S. export. Maintaining an environment that supports the U.S. high tech manufacturing sectors is critical to the future of U.S manufacturing.
You would think the EU has learned by now that walling yourself off from the world is no way to encourage innovation. Computers are morphing into cell-phones are transmogrifying into televisions becoming who-knows-what and the EU thinks it gains an edge by keeping out new products its consumers want? In the short term, perhap its manufacturers benefits, but in the long term protectionism invites stagnation.
Of course, it’s not our concern if the EU adopts stupid policies that damage its member countries. That’s their business, especially since no politicians here in the United States regard the European Union as a superior model for trade or labor policy, right? But when the EU violates agreements and harm manufacturers based in the United States, it is time to act – and the WTO provides us a rules-guided venue in which to do so.
Columbus, IND. – Cummins Inc. (NYSE: CMI) announced today that Joe Loughrey, President and Chief Operating Officer, will retire from Cummins in March 2009. Effective this Aug. 1, Loughrey will become Cummins Vice Chairman and remain a member of the Board of Directors until his retirement.
“Shortly after my 35th anniversary with Cummins, I will retire from the Company,” Loughrey told Cummins employees today. “I have planned the date of my departure for more than two years as part of ongoing and regular succession discussions with the Board of Directors.
“With Tim [Solso] continuing in his role as Chairman, and the two of us being too close in age for me to replace him, my retirement gives the Board ample opportunity to observe and evaluate potential future leaders of the Company,” Loughrey added.
Loughrey has been President and COO of Cummins, the world’s largest independent diesel engine manufacturer, since May 2005.
Joe and Cummins are national leaders on workforce issues, and he helped really energize and focus the Manufacturing Institute's efforts in this area during his tenure as the Institute's president.
As noted here, environmental and public health groups are suing the Environmental Protection Agency for its ozone rules, arguing that the EPA should have followed the recommendations of staff scientists and advisors in setting a more stringent emissions standard.
Ozone NAAQS Litigation Group v. EPA (D.C. Circuit active) -- Environmental
Validity of EPA's ozone regulation
The NAM is a member of the Ozone NAAQS Litigation Group, which filed a petition for review 5/27/08 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit challenging the validity of the EPA's final regulation lowering certain ozone limits under the Clean Air Act. The American Lung Association, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and others are also challenging the rule, and are expected to argue that the EPA did not follow the advice of their scientific advisers to issue a tougher standard. No statement of issues has yet been filed, but the suit is expected to raise questions relating to the EPA's process and the validity of the data underpinning the stricter standard.
From the other side comes an NRDC news release, noting, "The public interest law firm Earthjustice is filing the lawsuit on behalf of the American Lung Association, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Environmental Defense Fund, National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), and Appalachian Mountain Club." The groups' petition for review is available here.
MIDLAND, Mich., May 28, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- The Dow Chemical Company [DOW] announced today that on June 1 it will raise the price of all of its products by up to 20 percent - depending on their exposure to rising energy, feedstock and transportation costs - and will review all terms to all customers.
Andrew N. Liveris, Dow chairman and CEO, said the sweeping price increases and reviews are essential as the Company attempts to mitigate the extraordinary rise in energy and related raw material costs.
"Our first quarter feedstock and energy bill leapt a staggering 42 percent year over year, and that trajectory has continued, with the cost of oil and natural gas climbing ever higher," Liveris said. "The new level of hydrocarbons and energy costs is putting a strain on the entire value chain and is forcing difficult discussions with customers about resetting the value proposition for our products."
Dow spent $8 billion on energy and hydrocarbon-based feedstock costs in 2002. At the current rate, those costs would climb to $32 billion this year.
"For years, Washington has failed to address the issue of rising energy costs and, as a result, the country now faces a true energy crisis, one that is causing serious harm to America's manufacturing sector and all consumers of energy. The government's failure to develop a comprehensive energy policy is causing U.S. industry to lose ground when it comes to global competitiveness, and our own domestic markets are now starting to see demand destruction throughout the U.S.," Liveris said.
"In addition to these price increases," Liveris said, "the Company is continuing its aggressive cost-control plan internally and is accelerating its existing top-down competitiveness review for all of its businesses and manufacturing facilities in the light of these new feedstock and energy prices."
The Supreme Court's two rulings this week in employment discrimination cases brought a startling response today from the Washington Post's editorialists in an opinion piece, "Flawed Victory." The cases were CBOCS West, Inc. v. Humphries -- in which a court majority created a law to ban employer retaliation -- and Gomez-Perez v. Potter, Postmaster General, in which the court found reasons in the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) to give federal employees the right to sue claiming retaliation. The Post concluded:
Protecting employees from retaliation makes sense, but it is not the province of judges to create such protections on the basis of their own beliefs of what is right or wrong, or even on the basis of their intuitive sense of what Congress meant to do or should have done. And those who today praise the outcome shouldn't be upset if in the future justices read into the law new principles that lead to results they may find less acceptable.
The Supreme Court handed down a pair of well-reasoned, fair-minded rulings this week upholding the rights of employees who charge age and race discrimination. The decisions, which forbid employers from retaliating against such workers, are a welcome break from some of the recent rulings by this court that have ignored precedent and common sense to throw out legitimate claims of unfair treatment.
We really like the New York Times' editorial page. It's so predictable you don't have to waste your time reading it.
We've commented before that support of the Employee Free Choice Act is a losing issue in general election campaigns because most Americans will recoil from the idea of eliminating secret ballots in the workplace. Polling conducted for the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace indicates as much.
So, yes indeed, candidates would be smart to hammer away at candidates who have voted for or endorsed card check.
And here we go....
In Oregon, The Employee Freedom Action Committee has run an ad against the new Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, State House Speaker Jeff Merkley, who just won the primary to challenge incumbent Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR). The group is affiliated with the Center for Union Facts, which publishes the Laborpains.org blog we often link to around here.
The ad in The Oregonian states:
Jeff Merkley won the Democratic primary Tuesday through a mailed private ballot by Oregon Citizens. Yet he supports eliminating the right to a private vote when unions are enlisting new members. Hard to believe?
Gordon Smith should renounce this rogue and the special interests that are bankrolling this organization...Shadowy groups like this are planning to come into Oregon and mislead voters about important issues at stake in this election. Smith has fought hard to protect these interests and now they are protecting him.
How does the ad mislead voters about important issues at stake in this election? What is inaccurate about it?
There's also some misdirection by Merkley's camp about the Employee Free Action Committee connection to Rick Berman, a tobacco lobbyist, a charge that's apparently supposed to trump all discussion of policy and campaign issues.
Seems to us, rather, that the most important question is: "Jeff Merkley won the Democratic primary Tuesday through a mailed private ballot by Oregon Citizens. Yet he supports eliminating the right to a private vote when unions are enlisting new members. Hard to believe?"
P.S. The Eugene Register-Guard covered the story here, a solid piece that goes to the AFL-CIO to defend the merits of the Employee Free Choice Act. A Merkley aide protests shadowy groups, but he does manage to express platitudes: "This is one of many ways to allow working men and women to thrive, to assure good quality jobs with health care and child care benefits."
You know that Brazil has found two large oil fields in the Atlantic Ocean.
You know that the Brazilians are now independent of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Russia…that the Brazilians are free of the Middle East and free of OPEC.
And you know that today, it is illegal to look for oil in the Atlantic, in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, in the Pacific, in northern Alaska, in the shale oil that’s available in the Rocky Mountains. Every one of those has been locked up by our politicians , and you know that it’s time that Americans had a chance to produce more oil and gas, to have refineries here and not be dependent on foreign dictators.
And stop the Warner-Lieberman bill, too.
The site includes an online petition in support of legislation, which Gingrich expects to be introduced in June. So go ahead and sign...$4.00 a gallon gas has a way of focusing one's thinking, even Congress, and action is indeed possible to increase domestic supply.
In all the finger-pointing over the not-quite-a-recession the economy is currently struggling through, how is that the United Auto Workers have so successfully escaped any blame? In case you missed it over the Memorial Day weekend, this Detroit News piece is quite striking, so to speak:
The American Axle strike and separate walkouts this month at two General Motor Corp. plants will take $2.8 billion off the automaker's bottom line, and cost the U.S. economy $8.2 billion -- shaving nearly a percentage point off the gross domestic product, an economist said Friday.
The 87-day walkout against American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc, which ended Thursday, cost GM 330,000 units of production, including 230,000 units in April and May, the automaker reported in a Security and Exchange Commission filing Friday. United Auto Workers strikes against GM plants near Lansing and Kansas City erased 33,000 production units in the second quarter.
The loss of that factory output and related fallout, represents a 0.9 percent decline in the country's GDP, said Mike Montgomery, an economist with Global Insight Inc.
"This has been a difficult process for American Axle workers and there is no doubt that they stood strong through it all," said UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles, director of the union's American Axle Manufacturing Department.
From the Clarksville, Tenn., newspaper, The Leaf-Chronicle, comes a report of the problems that the EPA's more stringent ozone rules will cause local governments and taxpayers...and commuters, and manufacturers, and pretty much everbody. A good story about how after working toward compliance, the county could again become non-compliant, and noting the impact on infrastructure projects, too. From "City Could Fail EPA Standards."
Clarksville will be judged on the new standards when the state reports its scores to the EPA in the summer of 2009. The EPA will then report in 2010 — based on three years of air quality data — who passed and who failed.
And if Clarksville fails?
"You jeopardize your federal highway funds for road projects," Williams said.
Williams calls it a Catch-22, as those federal funds are used on road projects that relieve congestion, and fewer idling cars means cleaner air.
As an example, Williams said four local intersections are on target for remodeling this year to to increase traffic flow using federal CMAQ (Congestion Mitigation Air Quality) funds. If the city was not meeting the EPA's air-quality standards, a position known as "nonattainment," such construction would not be possible.
Under this "8-hour standard," areas that have ozone concentrations higher than 75 ppb too often must look for new ways to cut ozone pollution.
The old standard was 80 ppb, and all Utah communities barely met it. The new limits are expected to pose big challenges for Salt Lake, Davis, Weber, Box Elder, Tooele and Utah counties and more than 300 other U.S. counties.
Pro-regulation advocates among environmental and public health groups are suing the EPA, arguing the restrictions should be tougher.
So more people can pay the price of being out of compliance.
The Los Angeles Times takes editorial note of Colombia President Uribe's extradition of paramilitary leaders to the United States, observing, "Congressional Democrats have for months been playing a bait-and-switch game with Uribe -- they insist that Colombia show progress on human rights and union issues in order to win their support for the trade pact, and then when Uribe gives them what they want, they ask for something else. Uribe's latest move should test their true motives." More ...
Democrats are ostensibly holding up a vote on the Colombia free trade pact because Bogota hasn't done enough to protect union leaders, who have been targeted by the paramilitaries. If the extradition of a large group of paramilitary leaders doesn't placate them, it's hard to imagine what will. Moreover, the trade pact would boost jobs in both the U.S. and Colombia during an economic downturn and cement Colombia as a firm U.S. ally in a region teeming with anti-American sentiment. It looks increasingly as though the real reason Democratic leaders won't vote on the Colombia deal is that they don't want to alienate their organized-labor backers during an election year.
Another blow was dealt recently to the FARC, the communist/narcoterrorist guerillas, with the death in March of one of its founders, Manuel Marulanda. (WSJ story.) The U.S. Congress could apply more pressure, perhaps helping to end the murderous rebellion, with a strong show of support of Colombia's democracy and market.
Do members of Congress really want to be seen as undermining a U.S ally because organized labor tells them to?
UPDATE: FARC, the global terrorists, as well. From Vivirlatino:
Colombian authorities revealed on Tuesday that an email had been found on the computer of fallen rebel leader Raul Reyes, in which the top FARC leader, Alfonso Cano, suggested that they "should plan a project" to carry out an attack in Madrid.
The email has intelligence organizations worried, because according to the initial analysis, FARC as planning to carry out attacks against prominent Colombian personalities in the Spanish capital. "I propose that you create a project that will get the comrades ready for the attack in Madrid," says the message that Cano sent to the head of the FARC.
From the White House transcript of President Bush's visit to Silverado Cable Co., a manufacturer of wire harnesses in Mesa, Arizona.
THE PRESIDENT: [These] guys were showing me a new laser machine they purchased this year, and they purchased it this year because the stimulus package provided a tax incentive to do that. And the reason why that's important is when the economy slowed down, we wanted to stimulate activity.
And so the fact that they purchased the machine meant somebody had to make the machine. And when somebody makes a machine, it means there's jobs at the machine-making place -- plus their employees are more productive, they're more competitive. It makes it more likely they're going to keep their business and expand their business.
Make tax relief permanent, the President says, so companies like Silverado don't have to worry what their tax burden will be two years from now.
The White House photo shows brothers are Bob Simpson Jr., President of Silverado Cable Company and Mitch Simpson, Vice President, who founded the company with five employees. They now employ 70.
Outstanding editorial in today's Wall Street Journal, explaining the rationale behind cap-and-trade -- letting politicians pick winners and losers is one great attraction. Trouble is, the entire country is the loser, so it's really just a question of who's marginally better off. From "Climate Reality Bites":
[For] the most part, the politicians favor cap and trade because it is an indirect tax. A direct tax – say, on gasoline – would be far more transparent, but it would also be unpopular. Cap and trade is a tax imposed on business, disguising the true costs and thus making it more politically palatable. In reality, firms will merely pass on these costs to customers, and ultimately down the energy chain to all Americans. Higher prices are what are supposed to motivate the investments and behavioral changes required to use less carbon.
The other reason politicians like cap and trade is because it gives them a cut of the action and the ability to pick winners and losers. Some of the allowances would be given away, at least at the start, while the rest would be auctioned off, with the share of auctions increasing over time. This is a giant revenue grab. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that these auctions would net $304 billion by 2013 and $1.19 trillion over the next decade. Since the government controls the number and distribution of allowances, it is also handing itself the political right to influence the price of every good and service in the economy.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that this meddling would cause a cumulative reduction in the growth of GDP by between 0.9% and 3.8% by 2030. Add 20 years, and the reduction is between 2.4% and 6.9% – that is, from $1 trillion to $2.8 trillion.
Since its introduction last October, the Lieberman-Warner bill has been S. 2191. But now Senator Reid has identified next week's debate to be over S. 3036, introduced May 20th. But maybe something else will come up.
Environmental groups, industries, and possibly states today are filing their intent to sue EPA in federal court over the agency's regulation limiting smog. Five groups represented by Earthjustice -- including the American Lung Association, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Parks Conservation Association -- will argue that EPA violated the Clean Air Act by not following the advice of their scientific advisers to issue a tougher standard. They will contend that the White House illegally intervened and allowed politics to trump the science. "The president personally engaged in an unprecedented level of intervention and interference," NRDC's John Walke said today. Today is the deadline for filing intent to sue.
The National Association of Manufacturers and other industry groups will counter that EPA issued a standard that is too costly to businesses, and that the agency did not objectively consider the science in deciding to replace a less-stringent requirement. "We believe that EPA cherry-picked the science to stack the deck, leading to the decision to a stricter standard," said NAM's Bryan Brendle. NAM officials declined to indicate who would join them in legal and administrative challenges to EPA's March 13 rule until their notice of intent to sue the agency is filed today. "We're a group with a bunch of people in it," one NAM spokesman said. The Edison Electric Institute, which represents major electric utilities, and at least 14 governors are among those who have sided with NAM's argument. Environmental groups will likely be seconded by governors from at least several Northeast states.
Supporters of even harsher, more jobs-killing regulation are contending that questions of immense importance to the American people, economy and manufacturers should be decided by some GS-14s* in the EPA, and don't you dare question them.
Immediately below we have a post about a new scientific study reporting on possible health consequences of exposure to carbon nanotubes. When injected into the abdomen of mice, some forms of the nanotubes cause lesions, similar to lesions in humans that are precursors to mesothelioma.
An early alert to potential health risks of nanoparticles encourages precautions and perhaps we can escape the real damage caused by asbestosis -- deaths and disabilites of those exposed in past decades in the manufacturing process -- as well as the damage of abusive litigation.
But litigation we expect. There are so many attorneys out there just looking for another target. From CyberWyre:
It’s been some time since I’ve updated my highest paying AdSense keywords list and I’m surprised by the results that I’ve found. It appears that mesothelioma attorneys are again paying the highest price for online advertising, at $69.10 per click! It has always been the trend that attorneys, insurance companies, and loan consolidation services are among those paying the most for online advertising, as they stand to make the most from a single client than many other businesses advertising online — which is the reason why the term “magazine subscription” is priced at $2.25/click and “mesothelioma treatment options” is over $69/click.
Below are the top-25 most expensive search keywords.
$69.10 mesothelioma treatment options
$66.46 mesothelioma risk
$65.85 personal injury lawyer michigan
$65.74 michigan personal injury attorney
$62.59 student loans consolidation
$61.44 car accident attorney los angeles
$61.26 mesothelioma survival rate
$60.96 treatment of mesothelioma
The study's basic finding was that long carbon nanotubes -- in contrast to the short or curly ones -- created conditions in mice abdomen that resembled lesions that lead to mesothelioma in humans.
Prominently featured in all was the study's coauthor, Andrew Maynard, a physicist and chief science adviser to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. In The New York Times, Maynard said, "I think there is clear evidence for caution in how they are used and handled." He told The Los Angeles Times that the greatest danger was to workers involved in the manufacturing of nanotubes who might inhale the dust.
The LAT story included useful perspective from a business source:
Sean Murdock, head of the NanoBusiness Alliance, an industry trade group based in Skokie, Ill., said precautions were now in place in many factories, usually requiring workers to wear respirators. Nanotubes are largely made in closed chemical reactors, he added.
"The good news is that we're understanding the potential hazards before we have large-scale use of these products and not four decades later," he said.
NPR's "Science Friday" carried a 24-minute segment on the study, again, pretty balanced. But several of the callers displayed the kind of uncertainty and anxiety that can produce a cultural and political environment that invites litigation. The thought kept recurring: When do the suits start?
In reading up on the study, we encountered this blog, Nanotechnology Law Report, written by John C. Monica, Jr. and Michael E. Heintz of Porter Wright Morris & Arthur. In this post, Monica excerpts a 2005 paper he co-wrote for Nanotechnology Law & Business, "Preparing for Future Health Litigation: The Application of Products Liability Law to Nanotechnology." And here, Heintz discusses a recent GAO report, ""Nanotechnology: Better Guidance Is Needed to Ensure Accurate Reporting of Federal Research Focused on Environmental, Health, and Safety Risks." Looks like a good site to keep up on, nanotechnologywise.
And here's a site that bills itself as the largest portal on the topic of nanotechnology, Nanowerk.com. Looks good.
The Copenhagen Consensus is under way in Denmark, a gathering of economists who are going to attempt to create a reasonable list of priorities for spending money: Do we do more good spending $50 billion on potable water, curing AIDS, fighting maleria, combatting global warming or FILL IN THE BLANK SOCIAL GOOD? A thought-provoking exercise, given that a leading figure in the project is Bjorn Lomborg, the Skeptical Environmentalist who, even while acknowledging climate change, doubts the value of vast government expenditures on global warming that will serve mostly to make the world poorer.
Ronald Bailey of Reason Magazine is on hand, and he reports:
But the fact is that in a world of scarce resources, a couple of big issues will get the bulk of the available resources. Trade-offs have to be made. When Lomborg is speaking of resources, he is basically talking about foreign development aid. What the Copenhagen Consensus hopes to do is help donors, both public and private, to spend their money is ways that solve the most urgent problems.
To illustrate how issues might be ranked, Lomborg cited some findings from a paper dealing with the challenge of disease. Spending $1 billion on controlling tuberculosis would save 1 million lives and result in estimated benefits of $30 billion for a benefit-cost ratio of 30 to 1. Spending $200 million on treating heart disease in poor countries (which accounts for 25 percent of deaths in those countries) with an inexpensive "polypill" combining aspirin and statins would produce $5 billion benefits implying a 25 to 1 benefit-cost ratio. And a $1 billion spent on malaria produces a benefit-cost ratio of 20 to 1.
Engaging in cost-benefit analyses is a bracing antidote to the mix of mysticism and apocalyptic thinking that now dominates public policy debate of the environment.
And in debating costs and benefits, we hope the economists also remember to keep the value of liberty central to their deliberations.
A contributor to Matthew Yglesias' Atlantic blog -- which leans Democratic -- has a post entitled, "$150 million is a lot of money..." Excerpt:
Which is why it's strange that almost three weeks after the Service Employees International Union announced that they'd spend precisely that amount both to swing the elections they're targeting and to support a massive mobilization to push for health care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act in the first 100 days of the new administration, not a single major news organization has written about that decision. In fact, nobody's really written about it all, unless Lab Law Weekly's decision to reprint the press release counts.
As noted below in the week ahead, the President visits Silverado Cable Company in Mesa, Arizona tomorrow. A few more details: He's visiting the small, manufacturer of custom wire harnesses to promote the benefits of the recent tax stimulus plan. From The Arizona Republic:
Silverado owner Robert Simpson described being chosen for the visit as "exhilarating."
Silverado Cable Co., founded in 1994, has about 70 employees who work to manufacture custom wire and harnesses. The company works mainly in connection with aerospace and transportations companies, but also does work with the military.
Simpson said he is thankful for the recent stimulus package because the extra funding gives them room to expand.
"We are a small business so all of our funds get directed right back into the company," he said. "But with the stimulus package we can expand and invest in other areas."
“We just run a great company,” Simpson said. “I don’t want to sound immodest, but we have a very, very good track record with our customers. He (Bush) wanted to take a look and see how we are taking advantage of some of the economic opportunities he is presenting. It’s working out great for us.”..[snip]
“Anything from a cigarette lighter to the radar systems, we are involved in putting wiring harnesses together for that,” Simpson said.
Congress is out this week, save for faux proma sessions of the Senate Tuesday and Thursday to prevent recess appointments. The Senate returns more formally next Monday, when it will vote on proceeding to the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill. The House returns on Tuesday, June 3. The latest Congressional Record Daily Digest has more...but not much more.
Executive Branch: President Bush heads to Arizona Tuesday, including a stop in Mesa at the Silverado Cable Company, a manufacturer of custom wire harnesses and cable assemblies. On Wednesday, he delivers the commencement address at the Air Force Academy; on Saturday, it's the commencement address at Furman University in South Carolina. Energy Secretary Bodman spends the first part of the week in Portugal, promoting renewable energy, or energias renováveis, as the case may be. Next weekend, Ambassador Schwab is in Arequipa, Peru, for the APEC Meeting of Ministers Responsible for Trade (MRT).
Economic Reports: From the Commerce Department Tuesday comes the report of April new-home sales; preliminary first-quarter GDP numbers on Thursday, and on Friday, personal income and spending data for April. More here.
Finally, has global warming caused the Club of Rome to move to Scandinavia? From The Economist: "A GROUP of economists, including Nobel laureates, get together this week in Denmark's capital city, concluding on Friday May 30th, to seek new ways to tackle big social, economic and environmental problems facing the planet. The Copenhagen Consensus gathering will address a wide range of issues—hunger, education, trade and subsidies, water and sanitation, climate change—relevant to the development of poor countries in particular." Well, the Copenhagen Consensus Center is headed by the commonsensical Bjorn Lomborg, so that's a good sign.
The Lone Sailor Statue, Wisconsin Square, Norfolk, Va. The wreath was placed in a ceremony on Saturday, May 24, by the Norfolk Branch 5 Fleet Reserve Association. (Photo here. The ship in the background is the USS Wisconsin, a battleship which earned five battle stars in World War II.)
From Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's discussion on Thursday of the week of June 2, when the Senate returns from a one-week recess:
Mr. REID. Mr. President, at about 5:30 p.m. on Monday, June 2, the Senate will proceed to a rollcall vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the climate security legislation. Under a previous order, the time from 4:30 until 5:30 p.m. will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees.
I failed to remind everyone that on Tuesday, the week we get back, all Senators should be dressed in their finest. We are going to have our Senate picture taken. So I would hope everyone will remember that and make sure they wear the right clothes for posterity when we have our picture taken. That will be Tuesday. It is scheduled for a time if somebody wears the wrong clothes, we can send them home and have them dress properly.
The economics behind building new or expanding a refinery in rural areas are extremely challenging. We got a lot of people looking at it. We got more people looking in ND than anywhere else in the country.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) on Fox News Sunday, being interviewed by Chris Wallace:
WALLACE: Haven't you blocked the Protect America Act for months now?
VAN HOLLEN: Absolutely. The provisions that we have in place are the ones that the president asked for. What they're asking for now is to essentially give amnesty to telecommunication companies that collaborated with the Bush administration.
We don't think that's part of looking forward in providing for national security and in making sure that we can listen in to those phone calls with Al Qaida.
So it is now acceptable to refer to American corporations as "collaborators" when they follow a legal order to help intercept terrorist communications? Communications by those who would gladly blow up U.S. citizens?
Speaking of ports, South Carolina and trade, it appears that the South Carolina-Georgia cooperation to build a new port facility in Jasper County, S.C., will have a major economic impact. From The State, March 7:
States from North Carolina to Florida have been investing heavily in ports, with an eye to bigger cargo ships being able to move through the Panama Canal in 2012. The lack of a long-term answer in South Carolina would at some point begin affecting the interest shown by major shipping companies.
To break the logjam, Gov. Sanford and Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue forged a deal to have the two states develop the Jasper site in a joint effort, under a still-to-be-settled final structure.
What persuaded Georgia to stop the fight? Mr. Davis said a key argument went like this: Join us and share in Jasper’s success, or after a drawn-out legal fight, get nothing.
I’m sure that was a big part of it, but it must have helped that the two governors are free-market conservatives and political mavericks.
Since the two governors agreed last year, the process is rolling along, Mr. Davis says. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers controls the site, because it has been dumping river dredge there. Corps leadership now says it will expedite the process of getting the construction approved.
The National Summit on American Competitiveness in Chicago last Thursday featured two governors, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, a Democrat, and Mark Sanford of South Carolina, a Republican. Turns out their administrations share an appreciation for the role of trade in strengthening their states' economies.
PHOENIX - Despite slower economic growth in much of the nation, Arizona showed its strength in the global economy by increasing exports to the world by nearly 5 percent in 2007. Governor Janet Napolitano today announced that Arizona exports grew $1 billion in 2007, with Arizona companies exporting $19.2 billion in products through the end of December, up from $18.3 billion in 2006.
Mexico was again Arizona's largest trading partner, with $5.2 billion in sales, even though exports to that country dropped slightly, while other nations dramatically increased exports from Arizona in the last year. Canada continues to show demand for Arizona products, posting a 16 percent gain from 2006, and coming in second, with $2.14 billion.
China comes in at number three, with $1.3 billion in exports, a rise of 10.1 percent from 2006.
"This exemplifies our state's ability to produce goods that the rest of the world needs and wants," said Napolitano. "Global exports - especially in times of slow U.S. growth - are important to the state's economy and the many businesses that benefit from selling their products worldwide."
The South Carolina Department of Commerce and the State Ports Authority today announced the state’s 2007 exports totaled more than $16.5 billion in goods sold to 198 countries around the world, representing a 21.6% increase over 2006 totals. In 2007, South Carolina’s 21.6% export growth ranked it 9th among the 54 states and U.S. territories and number one in the Southeast.
The state’s top 10 export industries last year were vehicles, machinery, plastics, electrical machinery, rubber, paper and paperboard, organic chemicals, optics and medical equipment, wood pulp, and manmade staple fibers. Of the top 25 product sectors, the sector that experienced the greatest export growth in 2007 was iron and steel, which rose 105.7% totaling more than $163 million. This increase was followed closely by the aircraft and spacecraft sector which rose 105.6% with exports totaling nearly $94 million. Other growing export product sectors included automobiles – up 64.4%, aluminum – up 31.8%, copper products - up 28.9%, and paper and paperboard – up 27.6% (all compared to 2006 totals).
“As South Carolina’s exports continue to grow, so do the businesses engaged in export activity in our state. South Carolina’s diverse economy is producing more products enjoyed by more people all around the world and this export growth directly translates into job opportunities for South Carolinians. Last year’s numbers are also a testament that the state’s business-friendly climate is working to strengthen our ability to compete in the global economy,” said Joe Taylor, Secretary of Commerce.
Germany is now South Carolina's No. 1 export market, with BMW getting much of the credit. Exports up 80 percent in a single year!
Well worth the money is a two-hour boat tour of the harbor at Norfolk, Virginia. Commerce and national defense on great display. This weekend, new cargo cranes are being unloaded.
Three new cranes for loading and unloading cargo container ships arrived Friday evening at the Virginia Port Authority's Norfolk International Terminals.The $24 million shipment left China on March 31 aboard the Zhen Hua 16.
Crews will spend the weekend undoing the fasteners securing the gangly, 208-foot-tall cranes to the ship's deck, said Jeff Florin, the authority's chief engineer.
The blue-and-white behemoths will then be rolled onto a just-constructed 900-foot-long stretch of wharf. The cranes should be off the vessel by the end of next week and in service by July, following adjustments and testing, he said.
The Virginia Port Authority has a website with more information about the shipping of the cranes and their intended use on the North Wharf Extension at Norfolk International Terminals.
Kudos to Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK) for sponsoring an amendment to the defense authorization bill (H.R. 5658) to modify a ridiculous measure that blocked the Department of Defense from using synthetic alternative fuels that had a higher carbon content than regular old oil. From the floor discussion (which we saved here):
My amendment would amend section 526 to allow DOD and other Federal agencies to enter into contracts to purchase generally available fuels that are not predominantly derived from nonconventional fuel sources. Any contract to purchase such fuel must specify that the lifecycle greenhouse emissions are less than that of conventional petroleum sources.
Well, then, semi-kudos. Boren concedes that the amendment is a compromise, and Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) notes that the language falls short of repealing the entire section.
That there was ever language like this in the first place in a national defense bill tells you how environmental shibboleths are a priority, a WRONG priority, for some policymakers. Section 506 originally came about as a concession to the greens who want to stop the development of Canadian oil sands. The idea that America's national security should be sacrificed to environmental purism and pieties is mind-boggling.
A good explanatory piece and legal analysis in the National Law Journal on the Clean Water Restoration Act, the legislation that would expand federal regulation of entirely localized bodies of water, including fens, bogs, ponds, intermittent creeks and darn I got my shoes wet. "Not a drop unregulated" is by John C. Martin and Amy B. Chasanov at Washington-based Patton Boggs, who represented an industry plaintiff in a relevant case.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee recently held a hearing on the Clean Water Restoration Act, the legislation that would delete references to "navigable water" in the Clean Water Act, with proponens claiming the change would "restore" past reading of the law, prior to recent court decisions the authors discuss in the piece. The proposed policy is foolish, unworkable and power-accruing.
As Martin and Chasanov explain:
[The] Clean Water Act is intended to balance the state/federal relationship in a way that preserves state authority. Its authors expected to maintain the "primary" responsibility of states to regulate their waters. Of course, most states already regulate "state waters" and define the term more broadly than federal waters. Indeed, many enforce standards more stringent than federal law would require. More important, these programs are tailored to local conditions and needs. That a part of the states' programs is beyond federal control does not do violence to the act's original structure. Indeed, if the states don't have some modicum of regulatory power reserved under the statute, one finds it difficult to conceive of any "balance" between state and federal authority — much less the states' "primary" authority prescribed by the act.
Of course, Congress is free to change this balance. But we doubt extending Clean Water Act jurisdiction to its constitutional limits would make for good policy. Surely, neither the Corps nor the EPA welcomes the prospect of examining every discharge or disturbance to all isolated — occasionally moist — depressions everywhere in the country. We find it hard to believe that regulators would want the burden of mapping local ditches or intermittent trickles in every state; their resources are better expended elsewhere.
Case Western Reserve law professor Jonathan Adler testified at the House hearings (written testimony), and he appears as a guest this week on "America's Business with Mike Hambrick," explaining the legislation would misallocate limited federal resources AND invite endless litigation. The interview is available here as an .mp3 file.
The ranking members of the respective Senate and House Intelligence committees have offered a major concession in the debate over FISA authority, the law that allows the federal government to conduct surveillance of foreign communications that pass through an American communications nexus. At a news conference yesterday, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) and Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) laid out a plan that would give a secret court's the ability to review the legality of intercepts conducted with the cooperation of telecommunications companies. These companies acted in good-faith compliance with national security orders and for it have been made the target of 40 multi-million-dollar lawsuits.
The litigation is yet another example of trial lawyers hunting for the big payout/payoff, but has even broader implications for the private sector: If you're going to be sued following a lawful order to help prevent terrorist attacks, the willingness to cooperate diminishes. So the Senate passed version of FISA legislation, S. 2248, provided retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies. That bill would have passed the House, but leadership prevented an up-and-down vote on that measure and passed an alternative largely as political cover.
Hence the compromise offered by Bond and Hoekstra. From AP:
The White House favors the Senate version of an electronic surveillance bill that grants full immunity to the telecommunications companies. The House-approved version would let the cases go to court, leaving it up to judges to determine whether the companies acted illegally.
The new Republican proposal_ which Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri said is backed by the White House and intelligence agencies_ would allow the FISA court to decide. It would require the attorney general to certify that the companies acted lawfully and at the request of the president.
The court would be allowed to read the requests to telecom companies for the wiretaps to be placed, and the plaintiffs could file their complaints with the court. The court could dismiss the lawsuits if it finds that supported by "a preponderance of the evidence."
This proposal allows the lawsuits to continue -- not to mention the associated politicking -- which means a continued disincentive for corporations to agree with the government's legitimate national security and intelligence requests. But, it does mean a court's determination as to the legality of the federal action and cooperation by the telecommunications companies. That's what the opponents want, right? A determination of legality?
Well, the ACLU is still opposed. And the left-wing MoveOn.org and the SEIU are running ads excoriating Blue Dog Democrats who voted for telecom immunity. The opponents on the left appear not to believe that there is a real risk of terrorist attacks against U.S. citizens, regard the Administration as totalitarian thugs and the telecommunications companies as, well...the leading, fevered Daily Kos blogger on the topic compares these American businesses to Mafia and drug kingpins.
The damage to US intelligence gathering has accumulated, and in August will become overwhelming. The FISA court orders which have enabled some intelligence gathering to continue despite the expiration of the earlier bill will themselves expire in August. At that point, Usama bin Laden can begin using pay phones.
The need for congressional action is pressing. If the Bond-Hoekstra compromise, no matter its failings, is what it takes to preserve legitimate intelligence gathering abilities, then by all means, put the measure at the top of the agenda when Congress comes back from their Memorial Day week.
UPDATE (Saturday, 9:55 a.m.): The ACLU rejects this wolf in sheep's clothing, kangaroo court, green light, linchpin, blank check. Effective surveillance authority that acknowledges private sector's role as citizens...that's just a piece of paper.
The National Journal's legal columnist, Stuart Taylor, eviscerates the plaintiff's lawyers in American Isuzu Motors v. Ntsebeza, the class-action lawsuit against corporations that did business with apartheid-era South Africa consistent with U.S. laws and foreign policy. This is the lawsuit that the U.S. Supreme Court could not deal with because it lacked a quorum after justices recused themselves. The entire column, "Lawsuits that Benefit Only Lawyers," is worth reading, but two points grabbed our attention:
The lawsuits will do victims little or no good. The more than 20 million surviving blacks who lived under apartheid are unlikely to get more than a couple of quarters apiece, if anything. The $400 billion claim is frivolous. Even the most fecklessly PC judges are not going to order a vast reparations program for 20 million South Africans at the expense of (mostly) U.S. consumers. And even if Hausfeld and Hoffman succeed in using burdensome court-approved fishing expeditions and inflammatory publicity to extort nuisance settlements of, say, $20 million, that would come to about 50 cents for each "plaintiff," assuming that legal fees and costs consume the usual 30 to 60 percent.
Hausfeld and Hoffman are Michael Hausfeld of Washington, D.C., and Paul Hoffman of Los Angeles, the lawyers who have accused the comapanies of aiding and abetting the South African regime. And...
The money comes from us all. The companies' defense costs and any damage payments would not come from corporate big shots. Rather, in the aggregate such costs are spread to us all in the form of higher prices and insurance premiums; of downward pressure on the stockholdings of the big pension funds and tens of millions individual investors; and of lost jobs, when companies are hit really hard or bankrupted, as more than 60 have been by the asbestos-litigation scam.
The lawsuit represents just self-interested wealth distribution.
WASHINGTON, May 22 --The Alliance for Improving America's Infrastructure today announced the launch of the organization's new website, GetAmericaMoving.com. The site will give concerned citizens across the country the opportunity to share video, pictures and stories of transportation infrastructure problems and traffic congestion in their communities while also offering the ability to recommend real solutions to this growing crisis.
"America's roads, bridges, rail system, airports and waterways are crumbling under their own weight, hurting hard working American families," said the National Association of Manufacturers President John Engler. "The solution is to modernize our aging transportation infrastructure and GetAmericaMoving.com will help the American people communicate their frustrations and solutions to transportation policymakers and decision makers in an innovative and interactive way."
GetAmericaMoving.com features an interactive map of the United States where visitors can upload video and pictures of local transportation infrastructure problems like traffic bottlenecks and roads and bridges desperately in need of repair. Beginning this week, families traveling for the Memorial Day holiday can submit their supporting images using their cell phones or PDA by emailing or texting video and photos to mobile@getamericamoving.com. These transportation problems will be sent to the submitter's Senators and Member of Congress, and to the appropriate committee members in both the Senate and House of Representatives.
Oh, go ahead, take the photo. You're already sitting in traffic. What else is there to do?
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) followed Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) in questioning oil company executives yesterday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gas prices. Sessions' comments seem directed at Sen. Whitehouse's comments cited below.
Well, this is a free country, and if you want to invest your money in expressing a view on science, you have every right to do so. And I think you have an individual responsibility to make sure it’s done with integrity, because you’re major corporations and you have great responsibilities.
I understand fundamentally that a responsible, large corporation exists to make a profit, but you have a responsibility also to do so in a way that’s consistent with high ethical standards.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) during Wednesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, "Exploring the Skyrocketing Price of Oil." He's addressing five top oil executives:
We are facing a potentially existential threat to the human species. We can warm the planet as much we please with global warming. The planet will be fine. The question is, will the species be fine. And it’s a very, very significant risk. It’s one we absolutely, absolutely have to do something about, in my view.
Also in my view, the science has become extremely clear on this. I’m married to a marine biologist, I understand a little bit of the science. I’ve read into this a great deal. With an astonishing level of scientific agreement about this, considering that science is by its nature an area of debate and exploration and experimentation, but the degree of agreement about it is phenomenal.
And yet there remain fringe views, many of them endorsed, espoused, promulgated by organizations that either are now or have in the past been funded by your companies, with, in my view, the intention of misleading the country about the actual state of the science.
And I would ask that each of you, when you go back from this hearing talk to the folks in your companies and take a look and see if this is still going on. Our regulatory proceedings in this country are riddled with phony science, with propped-up phony organizations that are fronts for industrial interests. It is a real disservice to people in this country that that is going on. And I think when people at your level support that kind of behavior, it’s a terrible mistake, and I ask you to review it and try to put an end to that practice if it still exists in your companies. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Peter J. Robertson of Chevron responded briefly, words to the effect that his company did not engage in that practice. Then J. Stephen Simon, Senior Vice President of Exxon Mobil Corp., took issue with Sen. Whitehouse. The exchange is in the extended entry.
(The passage cited starts at about the 3hr2mn mark of the webcast. An .mp3 is here.)
We noted yesterday the inclusion of Davis-Bacon provisions in the farm bill vetoed by the president, prevailing wage language that forces high-cost unionized labor on a construction project -- your usual one-side-fits all (labor's side) that increases that makes projects more expensive.
Turns out that union-friendly legislators have been adding Davis-Bacon to all sorts of legislation, including H.R. 6049, the Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008, i.e., tax extenders bill that passed the House yesterday.
Finally, the Administration strongly opposes the provision of H.R. 6049 that would apply Davis-Bacon Act prevailing wage requirements to projects financed with the proceeds of the New Clean Renewable Energy Bonds as authorized by the bill. This unacceptable provision is contrary to the Administration's long-standing policy of opposing any statutory attempt to expand or contract the applicability of Davis-Bacon Act prevailing wage requirements. If this provision were included in legislation presented to the President, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.
Looks like it's setting, though. From Congress Daily, a generally skeptical piece about the benefits of the Doha round.
Prospects for a successful conclusion of the Doha Round of multilateral trade talks continue to dwindle. New negotiating texts in agriculture and manufacturing have just been released, but are far from being agreed upon. As a result, a meeting of trade ministers to bless a formula for cutting tariffs will not take place before late June or might slip further.
The new text is disappointing and is a step backward from the trade liberalization the world needs. Manufactured goods are 60 percent of world trade, services 20 percent, and agriculture only 7 percent (oil and raw materials are the rest). There cannot be a Doha Round without substantial trade liberalization in manufacturing and services, and the new text makes that liberalization more difficult than before.
High-tariff advanced developing nations such as China, India, and Brazil, have pressed hard to get a text aimed at obtaining major concessions from the United States and other industrial nations, while minimizing their own market openings. These countries, though, are the ones with the highest barriers to exports from the poorest countries. Unless they cut their barriers, the Doha Round can contribute little to global trade and development.
The 2008 National Summit on American Competitiveness will convene the nation's premier leaders of business, government and academia on what steps the public and private sectors can take to secure America's position as the most competitive economy in the 21st century and beyond.
AP story here. You can log onto the summit's webcast here.
National Association of Manufacturers President John Engler is moderating a panel discussion entitled, "Utilizing Free Trade Agreements." An impressive group of panelists: Rick Goings, Chairman and CEO, Tupperware Brands Corporation; Robert Lane, Chairman and CEO, Deere & Company; Jim Owens, Chairman and CEO, Caterpillar; and Matthew Slaughter, Professor of International Economics, Tuck School, Dartmouth. That's 1:30 p.m. Chicago time.
The NAM sent a letter to the House expressing support for many provisions of H.R. 6049, the Energy and Tax Extenders Act of 2008:
On behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)—the nation’s largest industrial trade association—we appreciate the efforts of the House of Representatives to advance the Energy and Tax Extenders Act of 2008 (H.R. 6049), which extends a number of pro-growth, pro-competitiveness tax provisions that have expired or are set to expire at the end of 2008.
In particular, the NAM supports the following provisions in the bill:
• A seamless extension of the R&D credit;
• An extension of deferral of U.S. tax on active business global financing income;
• An extension of the look-through rules for payments between related foreign corporations; and
• Extensions of tax incentives for energy efficiency and renewable energy.
The White House has issued a Statement of Administration Policy expressing support for provisions, as well, including the R&D tax credit. However, the Administration finds enough objectionable that a veto is promised.
House Republicans today released their multipart plan to promote energy security and more affordable energy. Minority Leader Boehner:
Our plan is comprehensive, but our pledge is straightforward. We will increase the production of American-made energy in an environmentally-safe way. We will promote new, clean, and reliable sources of energy. We will cut red tape and increase the supply of American-made fuel and energy. And we will encourage greater energy efficiency by offering conservation tax incentives. By increasing energy supplies and encouraging more efficiency, House Republicans are prepared to deliver the change – and lower gas prices – America deserves.
The GOP plan was particularly focused on increasing domestic production, an idea Democrats have been cool to due to environmental concerns and a desire to focus on alternative energy sources rather than domestic drilling.
The Republican agenda also called for conservation tax credits, the increased use of nuclear power, an emphasis on coal to liquid technologies and for construction of new oil refineries.
On the production issue, Republicans called for increased drilling in the outer continental shelf, tapping into domestic oil share reserves and once again calling for drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, which has been a flashpoint in the energy debate going back to the early 1990s.
"It defies reality that China is drilling for oil off the coast of Cuba, but we cannot drill off of our own shores," said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.).
UPDATE (4:50 p.m.) : House Democrats today released a page of talking points highlighting their record "to make Americ energy independent, lower gas prices."
Cited as an accomplishment is the House passage today of H.R. 6049, the Renewable Energy and Jobs Creation Act. We think of it more as the "tax extenders" legislation, i.e., extending tax incentives, including many for renewable energy.
Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) today urged President George W. Bush to keep his promise to veto the Farm, Nutrition and Bioenergy Act of 2007 (H.R. 2419) over the expansion of the Davis-Bacon Act, among other issues. The legislation would expand Davis-Bacon from federal construction contracts to the bio-refinery loan guarantee program and subject local entities and private employers to federal micromanagement.
“The Davis-Bacon provision in the Farm Bill is a desperate attempt by Congress to keep alive a Depression-era law that has no place in the 21st century,” said ABC President and CEO Kirk Pickerel. “Besides being discriminatory towards minority contractors; open to waste, fraud and abuse; and violating state’s rights; it unnecessarily drives up the cost of a construction project that ultimately has to be paid by the taxpayer.”
The Davis-Bacon Act is a 1931 federal law that establishes wage rates and other conditions on construction projects involving more than $2,000 in federal funds. The law is named after co-authors Sen. James Davis and Rep. Robert Bacon.
“Eliminating the Davis-Bacon Act’s requirements would reduce unnecessary federal spending and guarantee more construction for the dollar,” said Pickerel. “In turn, more money would be available for important public projects such as schools, hospitals, roads, bridges and low-income housing.”
More from ABC here, including reference to the CBO estimate that the Davis-Bacon Act “already costs taxpayers more than $9.5 billion over the 2002 to 2011 period relative to the 2001 appropriations and $10.5 billion relative to 2001 appropriations adjusted for inflation. A more recent estimate, from the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University in January, suggests Davis-Bacon costs taxpayers $8.6 billion per year.”
For all the commentary, exhortations and denunciations involving the Employee Free Choice Act, the "card-check" legislation that would eliminate the secret ballot in the workplace, we doubt the broad public is aware of the issue. To be sure, it's a regular topic in the labor/activist/left wing blosophere and press, and Democratic superdelegates and unions cite the legislation when endorsing candidates. Meanwhile, some free-market and pro-business bloggers write about it...a lot.
But it seems like the issue is starting to gain a little bit more notice. US News columnist Matt Bandyk just wrote about card check, soliciting input from small business owners on the effects of forced unionization -- our term -- on the workplaces. His piece was prompted by a news release from the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, the free-enterprise group, which announced it would include state card-check measures in judging a state's business environment.
Also, John Lott Jr. -- an economist known widely for his statistical work on crime and gun ownership -- had a column published at the Fox News website, "Secret Ballots May End in Union Elections If Obama Becomes President." A statement of the obvious to those who follow the issue -- Senator Obama is a cosponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act -- but the Lott column represents a good introduction to the issue for a mass audience.
Why have unions placed this at the top of their legislative agenda? Changing the rules would only make a difference if workers were unwilling to vote in private for unionization, but apparently there are a lot of companies where unions think that this change will make a difference. After all, the AFL-CIO calls the “Employee Free Choice Act” its “million-member mobilization.”
Unions are making an all-out push to get this passed, planning to spend $360 million on the 2008 election, $200 million more than in 2004 general election. Just one union alone, the Service Employees International Union, plans on spending $75 million this year, much of it to help the Democratic presidential nominee. Compare that to the $83 million that John McCain will be able to spend during the fall general election.
Ultimately, as Lott's column demonstrates, it will probably take the fall election and the willingness of candidates to campaign on card check for the issue to impinge on the public's consciousness. Despite all the union spending, opposition to this profoundly anti-democratic measure is a political winner. As public opinion surveys in key Senate races (Oregon, Maine and Minnesota) show, support for the Employee Free Choice Act drives potential voters away from candidates.
P.S. This is callous. Columnist Jo-Ann Mort at the Democratic-supporting Talking Points Memo blog suggests that Sen. Hillary Clinton assume Sen. Ted Kennedy's role as the labor's leading Senate advocate, helping a new President Obama enact the Employee Free Choice Act.
MS. PERINO: Farm bill, on the timetable for the President -- we do expect the President will veto it at some point today, so let the phone calls to my office begin: "Has he done it yet? Has he done it yet?"
This bill is bloated. It is bad for American taxpayers. And when grocery bills are on the rise, Congress is asking families to pay more in subsidies to wealthy farmers, at a time of record farm profits. We believe that the fact that they wanted to spend more than $20 billion over the current baseline is way too much to ask from taxpayers right now. We think that they hid new spending with timing shifts. There's a report today that one of the provisions in the bill actually would provide even more subsidies to farmers.
And so the President has been clear all along on this bill. We worked hard to try to get to a place where we could sign a farm bill. We were very clear with what our provisions would be, and at the end of the day Congress decided to go in another direction.
In his conversation yesterday with bloggers (cited below), Chevron Vice Chairman Peter Robertson mentioned the difficulty the company was having in getting permits for a refinery upgrade in California. He was referring to the Richmond Refinery in the San Francisco Bay area. More Robertson (our transcription):
It’s not an enormous modification. We have a modification to that refinery that’s actually going to reduce the C02 emissions. It’s going to allow us to run a broader range of crudes, so it should reduce costs to the refinery and eventually reduce gasoline prices. But, we can’t get a permit to expand the darn thing, and as I say, we’re into the fourth year of trying to do that. And it’s not because we’re obstinate. It’s just because there’s lots of folks with a lot of interests that aren’t aligned with ours.
He added that the American public and gasoline users might have some interests of their own.
As for the Reliance Energy refinery being built in India, it's a greenfield refinery, i.e., one being built from the ground up rather than the expansion-on-current-site approach that has ruled in the United States for the last three decades or so (because of regulations, NIMBY opposition and the generally low margins on the refinery business). Here's an update on the Indian project from Reuters:
News of the start-up is in line with previous reports suggesting Reliance would start the plant late in the second quarter or early in the third quarter, well ahead of its official December target, bringing earlier relief to oil markets that continue to rally on fears of tight supplies.
Together with Reliance's existing 660,000-bpd refinery, the new unit will make the Jamnagar complex in western Gujarat state, the world's biggest with a capacity of 1.24 million bpd. Chevron Corp holds a 5 percent stake in the unit that is building the second plant, Reliance Petroleum.
Regions that produce energy and other commodities are enjoying higher employment and faster-rising incomes. In North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Texas, personal income, which includes income from wages and investments, grew between 6.4% and 7.4% in the fourth quarter of last year from the year before, before adjusting for inflation. Incomes in the country as a whole grew 5.9%.
Most states with thriving economies didn't have a sharp run-up in housing prices and so have avoided precipitous declines. Now, as high energy prices spur production from oil and natural-gas wells once too costly to be profitable in Texas and other states, there is strong demand for new workers -- and for hotels and restaurants to accommodate them. Newcomers flocking to jobs in labor-short markets help buoy housing markets.
National Association of Manufacturers President John Engler highlighted two challenges for industry last evening evening in his remarks to the Manufacturers’ Association of Central Pennsylvania in Williamsport: workforce and energy. From the Sun-Gazette:
“Work force is the top priority for our organization,” Engler said.
He said the baby boomers are retiring and taking 30 years of experience with them, and when those people retire, training new employee becomes very important.
“We want manufacturing to be appealing,” Engler said.
It is important to reach out to young people and to high school counselors and let them know the opportunities that are available in the manufacturing sector, he said.
The local association has started an annual awards program and honored last night were Cromaglass, PMF Industries and Woolrich -- small, medium and large manufacturing businesses of the year. Congratulations to all and our best to Cromaglass, a manufacturer of waste-water treatment systems and an NAM member company.
And speaking of cool, check out PMF Industries, a high-tech metals fabrication and forming company: "No other company can combine flowforming with more state-of-the-art processes, in-house manufacturing, design flexibility, and overall project control than PMF. It's what we call FlowformingPlus!"
The Senate Judiciary Committee has joined the angry array of congressional panels holding hearings into the oil prices and today's announced $130 a barrel price will no doubt goose the rhetoric of this morning's session, "Exploring the Skyrocketing Price of Oil."
Peter J. Robertson, vice chairman of Chevron, spoke to energy bloggers yesterday afternoon about some of the topics he expects to encounter today. The primary cause of high gas prices is high crude oil prices, he said, noting that the refining business has been very constrained.
And what would the effect of higher taxes on the energy producers be, we asked. Robertson responded by citing the axiom, if you tax something, you get less of it.
Chevron has invested all of its earnings. In the last six years after we formed this new company after the merger with Texaco, we’ve earned $72 billion after tax, and we’ve invested $73 billion. So we’ve invested all of our earnings.
And I would just say, I can’t point to any specific project which wouldn’t get done, it seems to me like you probably end up reducing our investment. Certainly, in a big chunk, taxing our earnings reduces investment, and reduces production, reduces supply – and if you reduce supply, prices go up. And it seems like it’s the wrong approach...
We’re not out there looking for subsidies. What we need is the reduction of barriers to investment. I mean, there are a bunch of barriers of investment to the United States: Eighty-five percent of the offshore is off-limits. I’m now four years into trying to get a permit to expand the refinery in California. Four years! (Or, we’re into our fourth year, so I guess it’s three or three point.something years.) In that same time Reliance Energy in India has built a 600,000 barrel a day refinery from scratch, and they’re about to start it up.
There are barriers all over the place to investment, and what these guys it seems to me ought to be working on is allowing us to invest more of our money in the United States and less about taxing it away.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Conservation groups returned to court to challenge Bush administration efforts to help save the polar bear, saying federal officials' refusal to include steps against global warming violates the Endangered Species Act.
In court documents filed late Friday, the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups asked a federal judge to reject Interior Department actions that were announced last week.
Reminder for the weekend: Rent Wernzer Herzog's "Grizzly Man."
A study paid for by a group that represents oil refiners found that the global warming bill, co-authored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.), would raise pump prices by around 48 cents (in 2007 currency) by 2030. It also found that the bill would increase gas prices by as much as 13 cents over the next four years....[snip]For refiners, the bill would act like a tax on carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas released when fossil fuels are burned. The total price hit would reach 60 cents, the study predicts.
About 80 percent of that would be passed on to consumers.
The report was performed by NERA Economic Consulting , a group that has helped craft a cap-and-trade system in Europe, and underwritten by the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association (NPRA) , a group that has called efforts in the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 'premature.'"
NEW YORK (Reuters) - William Lerach, a prominent U.S. class-action lawyer, reported to a low-security prison in California on Monday to begin serving a two-year term after admitting he participated in an illegal kickbacks scheme at his former law firm....[snip]Lerach was ordered to serve two years in prison by a federal judge in Los Angeles in February. He also agreed to forfeit $7.75 million and pay a $250,000 fine as part of a plea agreement.
Lerach admitted he played a role in a scheme to seek out clients with big stock portfolios, ask them to be plaintiffs when negative information surfaced about a company and then secretly pay them a portion of the legal fees the firm received.
WASHINGTON—With one of the country’s former leading class-action litigators, Bill Lerach, reporting to federal prison this afternoon for participating in a $250 million illegal kickback scheme, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced today that he is introducing new legislation to address what many believe to be a widespread criminal practice in the area of securities class action law.
“As recent events have shown, current securities litigation laws have been subject to abuse, and there is reason to believe this criminal activity may not be limited to just a few bad actors,” Sen. Cornyn, a leading advocate of lawsuit abuse reform, said today. “It is important that corporations be held accountable through securities fraud litigation when they cheat ordinary shareholders out of their hard-earned money. But it is equally important that attorneys be held accountable when they do the same thing. The recent securities litigation kickback scandals ought to spur Congress to action.”
On Trade, The Rest of The World Isn't Sitting Still
"Andean Community, EU Agree on `Flexible' Trade Talks": "May 17 (Bloomberg) -- The Andean Community and the European Union agreed to more ``flexible'' negotiations for a free trade agreement, Peruvian President Alan Garcia said today. The leaders of Andean trade bloc members Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru met with EU officials today in Lima to speed up talks for an accord, Garcia told reporters."
"The Democrats' Dangerous Trade Games," a WSJ op-ed by C. Fred Bergsten of Peterson Institute for International Economics: "The European Union, and the large and dynamic economies of Asia, will now strike trade compacts among themselves that discriminate against the U.S. rather than do deals with us. Examples will likely include EU-India and EU-Korea, and eventually an Asia-wide trade area. We will lose billions of dollars worth of exports and the associated high-paying jobs – just at a time when improvements in our trade balance, fortified by continuing growth abroad and a highly competitive dollar, are cushioning our slowdown. The multilateral trade system, including the highly effective dispute settlement mechanism in the World Trade Organization, will erode further and weaken our ability to tear down barriers in China, India and other large emerging markets."
"Quebec would welcome plumbers, Charest says": "Mr. Charest also sought to persuade the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry to lobby for a free-trade agreement between the European Union and Canada. France takes over the rotating presidency of the EU in July...."The United States is going through an economic slowdown," he said. "So we really have to make an effort to develop economic relations with Europe.""
National Association of Manufacturers President John Engler is headed to U.S. energy hot post today to speak to the Manufacturers' Association of Central Pennsylvania at the group's annual meeting in Williamsport.
There's an intense interest and negotiating over what appears to be the next big natural gas play in the United States, the Marcellus Shale. From USA Today:
Geologists and energy companies have known for decades about the gas in the Marcellus Shale, but only recently have figured out a possible — though expensive — way to extract it from the thick black rock about 6,000 feet underground.
Like prospectors mining for gold, energy executives must decide whether the prize is worth the huge investment.
"This is a very real prospect, very real," said Stephen Rhoads, president of the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Association. "This could be a very significant year for this."
Judging by the stories in the local paper, The Sun-Gazette, the decision has been reached.
According to a Penn State extension specialist quoted in the last story, the energy industry intends to spend $1 billion this year in the Appalachian Basin, and local per acre lease rates have jumped from $15 to $300 to $1,500. And a landower from make upwards of $800,000 a year with a producing well in his property.
Interest is especially high because the Marcellus formation closely resembles the Barnett Shale formation in Texas, now the biggest natural gas play in the country, but the gas is closer to the East Coast markets. Technological advances in the form of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fractionation have made energy accessible at a high, but still profitable cost. (The same technology is at use the Bakken oil formation in the northern Great Plains.)
As the USA Today story notes, expensive. Thank goodness for energy company profits.
The boss makes a point, too, about accessing the natural gas: It's a good thing this round of energy development doesn't have to go to Congress for approval. They'd probably vote no.
Canadian Superior Energy Inc. or an affiliate plans to announce Monday that it will apply for permission to build a liquefied natural gas terminal off the coast of New Jersey.
The possibility of building offshore LNG terminals off Sandy Hook and other New Jersey locations has already sparked protests from activists like Clean Ocean Action and politicians like Rep. Frank J. Pallone Jr., a New Jersey Democrat, who argue that LNG facilities harm the environment. Also reportedly exploring such terminals are ExxonMobil Corp. and Atlantic Sea Island Group.
Isn't natural gas supposed to be the low-carbon, "clean" energy source? Why would any group oppose additional LNG facilities unless they were opposed to the manufacturing sector, well-heated homes and prosperity in general?
Rhetorical questions aside, here's a recent column by Carl Gustin, president of the New England Energy Alliance, on how Connecticut is acting its own interest in opposing LNG terminals to supply needed energy. Gustin examines the opposition to Broadwater, a joint venture of Shell Oil and TransCanada, and Islander East Pipeline, a joint venture between KeySpan, now National Grid, and Spectra Energy. Both have gone through the required regulatory reviews, addressed the public's concerns (and those of critics) and still meet opposition.
These examples exemplify the contradictory nature of energy policy — use more natural gas, but don't increase supply. Unfortunately, opposition to large-scale projects designed to provide a fuel source that public policy encourages puts the region at risk of not having enough reliable and affordable energy. It discourages investors, undermines economic development, and puts our citizens and businesses at an economic disadvantage. And it's not limited to natural gas policy.
Wind development in New England faces the same challenges, with policies that encourage its use followed by actions that discourage project development. New England would benefit if the states would adopt energy plans that send consistent messages — messages that align goals, policies and actions.
Interesting profile in the Courier-Post of the new head of the incoming head of the American Trial Lawyers Association-New Jersey, Tommie Ann Gibney. She's a member of the Haddonfield, N.J., firm of Andres & Berger. She specializes in suing nursing homes, and wants to expand potential compensation in wrongful death suits.
The most specific goal for the organization this year is to amend the state's wrongful death statute. Currently, survivors in a wrongful death action can seek damages only for lost income. There is no monetary value put on what Gibney calls "the reality of what a family is in the 21st century.
Many families today include older members, like grandparents, who provide care services for children. Others have stay-at-home parents, yet survivors in a wrongful death lawsuit cannot seek a judgment to compensate for the loss, through negligence or violence, of those care-givers.
And Walter Olson's Overlawyered.com has a new look, a new platform, and the same legal excesses and outrages piling up daily. Do be so kind as to check it out.
BOGOTA, Colombia ( — A wanted leader of Latin America's largest guerrilla army handed herself over to Colombian authorities on Sunday, Colombia's defense minister said.
Eldaneyis Mosquera, also known as "Karina," was one of the most senior women in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. She operated in the country's mountainous, northwestern region, where security officials blamed her for a series of attacks and kidnappings.
When Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced the listing, he also made a bold statement that the new status of the polar bear would not lead to such consequences.
To which the environmental activists replied immediately: "Says who?" The law is the law, they correctly noted, and it cannot be cabined by "guidance" issued by the executive branch. Here's one example of the reality of the listing's aftermath from the pages of USA Today:
Kassie Siegel, a lawyer with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the group does not accept Kempthorne's view.
The act requires federal agencies to take steps to reduce or eliminate those impacts on threatened species, she said. "There is no exemption for greenhouse gas emissions."
If the government fails to address global warming, "we can and will go to court to enforce the law," she said.
The industries most likely to be pummeled by the polar bear are energy production, aggregates extraction, transportation, and commercial building because each can be shown quite easily to result in increased emissions of greenhouse gases and each routinely requires federal permits to go about some aspect of their business. (The coal industry may be target number one, followed by oil drilling in the lower 48.)
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European and U.S. businesses warned on Friday that the chances of clinching a long-elusive world trade deal will be undermined if more concessions are offered to China, India and other big developing nations.
The World Trade Organisation's Doha negotiations for freer trade around the planet, launched more than six years ago, face a possibly decisive next few weeks.
WTO mediators are due to publish proposals in coming days on how to bridge big differences on farm and industrial goods, which they hope will pave the way for a push by ministers for a breakthrough in June or July.
The National Association of Manufacturers and Business Europe sent a letter to Pascal Lamy, head of the WTO, urging negotiators "to maintain a strong sense of market access ambition".
From an interview in the May issue of Mojo, the best rock music magazine out there.
I'm currently really involved in finding a fuel source. That's something that is fascinating to me. I really think that the key to making the biggest contribution possible to the world is not a song. I think it's a fuel source. If the people who had their own fuel and anybody could get anywhere, that would be fantastic. It would cause turmoil in the economic balance for the world for a number of years, but ...something that would clean up the environment, something that would end this struggle for survival with fuel. It's all based around fuel. And if you took that away, it would be a massive change. It would be like the fuel or the internet. So that's the challenge for our generation.
How about we start the week with a plug for the 2008 National Summit on American Competitiveness on Thursday in Chicago? Organized by the Department of Commerce, the summit brings manufacturing leaders, policy thinkers and public officials, focusing attention on what's needed to keep the U.S. economy competive. NAM President John Engler moderates a panel on trade agreements, and Secretaries Gutierrez and Paulson speak.
Here in Washington, heavy action pending the one-week Memorial Day recess, with numerous committees getting their pound of oil. (If you drill, do we not produce?) The House convenes at 10:30 a.m. today, with major items on the week's schedule including H.R. 5658, the defense authorization act, and H.R. 6049, the renewable energy and tax extenders legislation. (It includes tax breaks for renewable energy, the R&D tax credit, and the federal deduction for state and local taxes.)
The Majority Leader's office has posted the floor schedule. And today, many, many, many special days declared.
The Senate convenes at 2 p.m. today and could soon take up H.R. 2642, the supplemental appropriation bill, which includes funding for the Iraq war. The Senate could act on the mandatory collective bargaining for firefighters and police officers, a priority for organized labor. Both the Senate and House could take up the president's expected veto of the farm bill.
For a full listing of this week's committee hearings, see theDaily Digest pages.
As we've noted previously here and here and here, media coverage of the debate over a federal media shield invariably depicts a battle between two forces: Journalists fighting to protect their sources and the free flow of information versus the Administration, warning against a law that will encourage leaks of national security and classified intelligence information.
But business, too, has a major stake in this legislation, which could shield crimes committed against companies, their executives and employees.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson raised one aspect of this illicit information spreading in a letter last month to Congress, noting the possible damage done to the CFIUS program -- the national security reviews involved in major foreign investments in U.S.-based corporations. (CFIUS = Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a multiagency review panel.)
CFIUS review depends heavily on the voluntary submission of substantial information by the parties pertaining to their transaction. Regulations require that parties submitting a notice to CFIUS provide detailed information (personal and proprietary) about themselves and the transaction, including their businesses' structures, commercial relationships and affiliations, transactional documents, market share and business plans. In recognition of the sensitivity of this information, section 721 prohibits public disclosure of such documents or information, except in the case of an administrative or judicial action or proceeding, and further exempts such documents and information from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
In recent years, there have been several instances in which pending transactions and their related details have been leaked to and reported by the press. Unlawful media disclosure of information provided to CFIUS risks fundamentally undermining the critical national security review process. Companies could become reluctant to submit their transactions for review. Those that do file may become less forthcoming in the information they provide to CFIUS. Media leaks also undermine the integrity of the interagency deliberative process, chilling the full and open discussion that is essential to CFIUS's decision making.
Breaches of confidentiality could also chill foreign investment. Firms otherwise willing to invest in the United States may become less inclined to do so if submitting to a national security review process risks public exposure of sensitive personal, proprietary, and business information. Also, repeated leaks may make other countries less inclined to provide robust protections for confidential information provided by U.S. companies, putting U.S. companies with international operations at a competitive disadvantage to local companies.
Nissley Winery - We travel to Nissley Vineyards & Winery Estate in Bainbridge, Pennsylvania, for this week's "Cool Stuff Being Made," where winemaker Bill Gulvin gives us a tour of the process -- from vinyard to bottle.
Rice hulls? Nitrogen? Argon via the sparger? Sure...all part of making wine.
CQ Politics reports on the NAM's objections to raising taxes on Chapter S Corporations to finance veterans education benefits, an amendment in the supplemental appropriations measure to fund the war in Iraq.
Higher taxes on manufacturers means there will be less money for business expansion and job creation, including for returning veterans, according to NAM.
In an interview, Dena Battle, NAM's director of tax policy, said today the group was disappointed that it passed. "We are very hopeful that this will be stopped in the Senate," she added. Battle pointed out that small businesses, such as S-corporations or limited liability companies, pay taxes at the individual rate. "So any time Congress does something to increase tax rate or place surtax on individual incomes, then it hurts those businesses," she said. "One thing that is unique to many small businesses is that it is all of their business income that is treated on their personal tax return, so you could have a very high number, but most of that amount is reinvested into the business and not profit going to the individual," she added.
This week's video podcast of "America's Business" features an interview with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) on the important topic of infrastructure. Wyden and Sen. John Thune (R-SD) are cosponsoring legislation to create Build America Bonds to finance infrastructure projects. Wyden:
It’s very clear to me that our country has underinvested in infrastructure. The bridges are in desperate need of repair. Ports and rail lines are or are near capacity. Highways are clogged and Americans are in traffic jams in places nobody could have dreamed a traffic jam would take place. And this is taking enormous economic toll. If you have to wait, for example, for hours and hours to move your goods and services through a particular community that’s going to make us less competitive.
For more of Sen. Wyden's interview with host Mike Hambrick and to listen to the full program, please go to www.AmericasBusiness.org.
This is disconcerting, the prospect of adding even more political gamesplaying with consideration of FISA legislation, the bill to provide the Administration effective authority to monitor foreign communications by our enemies. The Senate handily passed S. 2248, including the necessary retroactive immunity for telecom companies, but House action was blocked by obeisance to the powerful "netroots," civil-liberty absolutist and trial lawyer constituencies.
Now Jed Babbin, editor of Human Events, writes about a scenario to put more pressure on House Speaker Pelosi by combining a federal media shield bill with the Senate FISA bill. The stakes for national security are high, because some existing surveillance authorities expire in August. From "New FISA Strategy May Pry Bill from Speaker’s Grasp":
[There] are two ways for the House to pass the essential FISA legislation before the August expiration of existing FISA court orders blinds our signals intelligence gatherers altogether. First -- and best -- is for the discharge petition to obtain the needed 218 signatures to force the bill to a vote. Second -- and perhaps more likely -- is for House Republicans to combine the Senate FISA bill with an improved version of the Pence-Boucher bill and obtain Pelosi’s agreement to take the bill to the floor.
These are dangerous waters. Enactment of the Senate FISA legislation is an immediate national security need. A media shield --though a properly-crafted one would help insure freedom of the press -- is not. To compromise one for the sake of the other could imperil both.
Agreed. And for a good view of how these "netroots" -- angry, leftie activists -- see the issues of national security, take a look at this post by mcjoan at DailyKos. Signing a discharge petition is "traitorous," and some of the "Blue Dog" Democrats have tried to "sell us out." How dare they even consider protecting Americans from being blown up by terrorists.
For previous posts on the FISA legislation, click here.
The state of Rhode Island's lawsuit against lead-paint manufacturers is all about finding somebody in the private sector to pick up the costs for an unnecessary $2.4 billion clean-up plan, even though there's no specific connection to the companies. Perhaps their blame emanates from the penumbras given off by a house painted ....in 1938...in Ohio.
At any case, attorneys for the companies presented compelling arguments yesterday in the four-hour hearing held by the Rhode Island Supreme Court of their appeal of a jury verdict in the public nuisance suit brought by the state. From the AP:
The state never proved the toxic products produced by the companies ended up in the homes of Rhode Islanders, argued lawyers for Sherwin-Williams Co., NL Industries Inc. and Millennium Holdings LLC. The companies are appealing a 2006 verdict that found them liable in the first-ever jury ruling against the industry...[snip]
Industry lawyers told the state Supreme Court they were being held responsible for a product that was pulled off the market decades ago, and that state law already holds landlords and homeowners responsible for cleaning up lead paint. They said the state was allowed to argue the overall presence of lead paint in homes creates a public nuisance without identifying any of the company's products in particular homes.
"That one concept is responsible for getting the train off the track in many respects," said William Kayatta, a lawyer for Millennium Holdings. "Because once you accept that, you're not dealing with reality."
And again, we highly recommend Jane Genova at Law & More for her continuing coverage. This post was especially good:
I thought I was hearing wrong when one the of Justices cut Motley Rice attorney Fidelma Fitzpatrick short when she was starting her usual rant about lead paint is bad. I looked over to the man sitting next to me. He was bug-eyed. So, we both hadn't heard wrong. it was going to get a lot more intense.
The smart four men they are - one justice recused - they were going to find a narrow passageway through the public nuisance and contingency messes through questions of law. That's what they wanted. The attorneys representing the defendants Sherwin-Williams, Millennium Holdings and NL Industries and acquitted Atlantic Richfield stuck to the points of law. The plaintiff representatives did not. They came prepared with stylized rhetoric and kept to the script.
Motley Rice is the law firm the state hired on a contingency basis. And from the portions of the hearing we watched, Genova's summary is right on the mark. See for yourself: The Supreme Court web-archived the hearing, which you can watch it here.
Amid all the exchanges of outrage in the House yesterday over funding of troops in Iraq, we highlight one bad idea that did pass: A targeted tax increase on small businesses and employers to pay for veterans education benefits.
Specifically, by a vote of 256-166, the House approved an amendment to the supplemental appropriations bill that would impose a new .47% tax on S-corporations and other individuals with more than $500,000 in adjusted gross income in order to fund expanded education benefits to veterans.
Here's how The New York Times described the vote: "House Approves Tax on Rich to Aid G.I.’s" If by rich, you mean small-business owners who file as an S-corp, that's accurate.
The NAM strongly supports efforts to honor the veterans of our nation and to provide them with education benefits. However, we believe that the amendment’s expanded benefits should not be paid for by the small businesses most responsible for creating jobs and growing the economy. To raise taxes that would harm the economy means fewer jobs for returning veterans.
Twenty-seven million small businesses – including about 50 percent of the NAM’s members – operate as S-corporations or other “flow through” entities. They pay taxes at the individual rate and would thus be subject to the tax increase the amendment would impose. Levying a .47 percent additional tax on individual incomes over $500,000 would have a negative impact on these companies. Higher taxes on manufacturers, especially at a time when the economy is contracting, means there will be less money for business expansion and job creation.
Used to be that politicians dared only talk of funding new government spending by "repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy." Now it's taxing the wealthy. What's the next shift going to be?
The Senate Appropriations Committee today narrowly defeated Sen. Wayne Allard's attempt to end a moratorium related to oil shale development in Colorado....[snip]The moratorium prevents the Department of Interior from issuing regulations so that oil companies can move forward on oil-shale projects in Colorado and Utah. Allard said the moratorium has left uncertainties at a time when companies need to move forward and in the long term make the United States more energy independent.
"If we are really serious about reducing pain at the pump, this is a vote that would make a difference in people's lives," Allard argued.
The vote was 14-15, partyline, with Democrats voting no. Meanwhile, from Bloomberg:
May 15 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, leased about 80 percent of the world's deepest-drilling offshore rigs to explore prospects including the Western Hemisphere's biggest discovery in decades.
Petrobras, as the Rio de Janeiro-based company is known, is hiring rigs that can drill in at least 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) of water, Chief Executive Officer Jose Sergio Gabrielli said in an interview last week. The world has 21 such vessels, according to Rigzone.com, which tracks the offshore drilling industry.
Brazil, now there's a country that's serious about energy security, and it's not all ethanol.
NEWS ALERT
from The Wall Street Journal
May 16, 2008
Home construction turned up unexpectedly in April and showed surprising vigor, making the biggest increase in two years, while building permits also rose, a sign of optimism for the sickly housing sector. Housing starts increased 8.2% to a seasonally adjusted 1.032 million annual rate, driven higher by a surge in apartment building construction, the Commerce Department said. Starts plunged by a revised 13.8% in March to 954,000. Economists expected April starts to drop by 1.4% to a 934,000-unit annual rate.
Remember how former Labor Secretary Robert Reich misrepresented a meeting he had at the National Association of Manufacturers, describing it as a room full of cigar-chomping industrialists who hissed him loudly?
His speech over, Reich is lambasted by a "John," and Reich's answer elicits an eruption of "Wrong!" "B*******!" and "Go back to Harvard!" As Reich speaks, the audience hisses so loudly "that I'm not sure anyone can hear me." The cigar smoke, he says, "is making my eyes water. I feel dizzy." He says, "We're in a boxing arena, John's the champ, and the crowd is loving every minute." Finally, the meeting over, he races "out the back exit before they can pummel me."
As it happens, the meeting was a breakfast, not a lunch. The NAM says the attendance list shows that a third or more of the people present were women (including the NAM representative with whom I spoke). If anyone actually was inclined to light up a cigar after breakfast, he would have been breaking the NAM's no-smoking rule, according to an association representative (who, like another witness I talked to, saw no cigars). Most important, a transcript of the meeting shows a respectful Q and A session, in which none of the comments attributed to "John"--nor any like them--were actually made.
We were reminded of Reich's fabulism by an entry at the Los Angeles Times blog on differing accounts of a meeting Sen. Barack Obama had with automotive executives in Detroit.
Sen. Barack Obama, the leading Democratic candidate for his party's nomination, is very fond of telling receptive audiences the story about how last May he walked right into the automotive lion's den of Detroit and told those industrialists they were going to have to shape up, change the way they do things and start making more fuel-efficient vehicles to protect our environment.
"And I have to say," the straight-talking Obama tells his chuckling followers, "that when I delivered that speech, the room got really quiet. [Laughter] Nobody clapped."
Well, in honor of Obama's return campaign visit back to Michigan this week, someone -- perhaps Republicans, perhaps someone closer to home politically -- assembled videotape of Obama's oft-told tale and spliced it side by side with videotape of that actual Detroit speech.
You'll never guess what. The room wasn't quiet at all. Obama, in fact, got a loud round of applause. And at the end of his address the camera's view of him at the podium is partially blocked because the audience of local businesspeople and automotive executives was rising to give him a standing ovation.
Not quite the fanciful rendition of a Reich, but still.
To political candidates planning to speak to manufacturing executives, we say: Expect a polite, engaged audience, interested in what you have to say although not necessarily agreeing on all points. No cigars, chomped or otherwise.
CORALVILLE, Iowa, May 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The California Nurses Association (CNA) violated Iowa state law by improperly mailing promotional materials to 2,000 nurses represented by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 199 according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of nurses today. The suit charges the CNA broke the Iowa Trade Secrets Act when it sent unsolicited materials to the homes of Iowa nurses after illegally attaining a private mailing list of SEIU members earlier this year.
"It's frankly scary that an out-of-state union like the CNA would have gotten their hands on our confidential, internal list," said Cathy Glasson, a registered nurse and President of SEIU Local 199. "No one in America should ever have to worry that their private information will be taken and used without their consent."
This from a supporter of the Employee Free Card Check, which would deprive employees of their right to a secret ballot. And unions who pursue "neutrality agreements" with companies almost always demand employee addresses and other information as part of the arrangement.
"Venezuela Offered Aid to Colombian Rebels": CARACAS, Venezuela, May 14 -- High-ranking officials in Venezuela offered to help Colombian guerrillas obtain surface-to-air missiles meant to change the balance of power in their war with the Colombian government, according to internal rebel documents.
"Mr. Uribe's Send-Off": "Human Rights Watch and its congressional partners are running out of excuses for their campaign against the U.S. free-trade agreement with Colombia. The murders of "trade unionists" they decried have drastically decreased; the paramilitary leaders they claimed would go free are in U.S. custody. If their agenda is genuinely human rights -- and not opposition to free trade -- it's time for them to change course."
Two pithy and pessimistic observations on the listing of polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The Wall Street Journal: "The most pernicious element in the polar bear melodrama is the way the law is being run off the rails, and even a duly elected White House can't seem to throw on the brakes. If Congress wants to enact global-warming legislation, then so be it – but the costs and benefits should be argued in the open. This fly-by-night policy making is not only unscientific. It's undemocratic."
Roy Spencer, principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville: "I only hope when global warming ends, and is accepted to be a largely natural phenomenon rather than manmade, that all of the regulatory mistakes we’ve made can somehow be undone."
Senator Jim DeMint is pushing back against federally mandated collective bargaining for local firefighters and law enforcement officers as embraced in H.R. 980, which the Senate is debating this week.
“Organized labor is rapidly losing membership because the free market is helping workers more than unions. Realizing they can’t compete in a free market, organized labor is desperately trying to force more public workers to unionize.”
“Americans must have the freedom to work without being forced into paying dues to a union and they must have the freedom to vote by secret ballot in union elections. The right to work and the right to a secret ballot election are fundamental American freedoms that must not be trampled on.”
Right to Work: make it unlawful in any state to force public safety or private sector workers to pay fees to a labor union as a condition of employment. No American should be forced to pay tribute to a union in order to get or keep a job.
Secret Ballot Protection: make it unlawful to certify a union as the representative for a group of employees without a secret ballot election. No American should be forced to choose their representatives under pressure or coercion from a union or their employer.
The Vallejo City Council voted May 6 to become the largest city to ever declare bankruptcy in California. The cause of Vallejo’s demise? Contracts with fire and police unions account for 74% of the city’s $80 million budget. Why did the city sign such ridiculous contracts? Because public sector unions are a controlling force in the Democratic Party and Democrats dominate Vallejo’s government. So when it came time for the city to negotiate salaries with its unions, the Democrats were represented and the unions were represented, but the city’s taxpayers were not.
The Kaiser Family Foundation has launched a new series, "Viewpoints: The Health Care Debate," featuring interviews with leaders of organizations active in the public policy debate over health care.
The National Association of Manufacturers' John Engler provides the manufacturing perspective in his interview with the foundation's Jackie Judd. To frame the issue, he says:
The number one issue I think is they want to take care of employees who need to be protected in the event of a health emergency or if something is going on at home, that employee is going to be distracted from his or her job. Ao I think they want to be able to preserve this as a cornerstone benefit of an employment contract with someone and that means they need to be able to afford it.
A good discussion follows on health IT, health savings accounts, government programs like Medicaid and the politics of health care. A transcript is here.
Others interviewed the series, with transcripts, video and or audio are:
Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a national non-profit that advocates for affordable, high quality health care.
Ray Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association.
Dr. Mohammad Akhter, executive director of the National Medical Association, which represents African American physicians.
Also on the series' home page are materials about the presidential candidates' health care platforms, the daily news updates, etc. Kaisernetwork.org is a great resource we use a lot around here.
Classicist Regrets. Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann resigns rather than face impeachment for all manner of unpalatable, impolitic behavior, official and otherwise. His resignation letter, available here, claims many successes fit for an activist AG and concludes by quoting from Marc Antony's funeral oration for Caesar: "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." To which we say, "What?" Jonathan Adler has many links here.
The Next Brutus? A year ago, The New York Times declared: "As New York attorney general, Eliot Spitzer won national attention by becoming the new sheriff in finance, taking on Wall Street and mutual funds and the insurance industry. With Mr. Spitzer now in the governor’s mansion, is there another state regulator trying to take up his badge? A strong candidate for the new Spitzer might be Marc Dann, the new attorney general of Ohio." So, who's next? Forbes had a list of other potentially headline-grabbing AGs last year.
Stars and Arguments. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing yesterday on federal regulation of medical devices, a session meant to set the stage for reversing federal pre-emption of state regulations -- such a reversal being a priority for trial lawyers wanting to sue in state courts. Testimony by Dennis Quaid -- you remember, the actor? -- got the most attention; we commend the testimony of John E. Calfee, Ph.D., of the American Enterprise Institute. You can read Calfee's conclusions here. Bottom line: Eliminating pre-emption will encourage litigation, an ineffective and expensive approach of promoting safety or advances in prescription drugs.
Preempting Balanced Reporting. For a classic example of one-side reporting, read this AP scene-setter on the preemption hearing, an article that accepts the thesis from the activists (trial lawyers and self-styled consumer groups) that the Bush administration is using regulations to lock in federal preemptions, sticking it to the little guy in the process. Five separate people are cited complaining about pre-emption, "balanced" by two people making neutral observations about the legal and political landscape. Did no one make a positive case for federal preemption?
Happy 60th, Israel -- and to Your Manufacturers, Too
As Israel marks its sixth decade of existence, we note the country has a vital manufacturing sector with a heavy high-tech leaning. The Manufacturers Association of Israel reports in its most recent economic forecast that industrial output is slowing, largely due to lagging exports. Still, the forecast of industrial growth for 2008 is 4 percent.
And speaking of high-tech:
[We] should remember that industrial growth in 2008 will be influenced by the commencement of activity of the new Intel plant in Kiryat Gat. Due to the significant amount of activity expected at this plant (at the height of its activity5 the plant's exports are expected to reach about $ 3 billion), it will bring about an increase in average production activity and exports in industry.
Judging by the comments on an Interior conference call with think tanks, the conservative, free-market types are very skeptical, if not outright hostile to the Department of Interior's listing of the polar bear as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.
The listing of the polar bears as threatened is a compromise that shows just how the Endangered Species Act is a bad piece of legislation. The Secretary was compelled to make a listing he clearly didn't want to make and that comes with all sorts of foreseeable detrimental consequences of exactly the sort I describe in my book. In an effort to obviate those consequences, the Secretary has attempted to erect some barriers that will have all the legislative strength of tissue paper. It will take just a few seconds of a new administration to blow through them and bring about the dire consequences Sec. Kempthorne has obviously foreseen. The ESA needs to be reformed for all sorts of reasons that I discuss in the book, but this is perhaps the most urgent now.
Murray's colleague, Chris Horner, is less charitable, asking, "The only open question is how a green, might-be-around-for-some-consequences administration will deal with the litigation next year. Fight, or more flight?"
News release. Seems like one should read beyond the declaration "threatened" status to see what actual steps will be required under this 4(d) ruling. Also, Kempthorne emphasizes that the Endangered Species Act is not to be used to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
Next Steps
To make sure the ESA is not misused to regulate global climate change, Kempthorne promised the following actions:
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing a 4(d) rule that states that if an activity is permissible under the stricter standards of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, it is also permissible under the ESA with respect to the polar bear. This rule, effective immediately, will ensure the protection of the bear while allowing us to continue to develop our natural resources in the arctic region in an environmentally sound way.
Director Hall will issue guidance to staff that the best scientific data available today cannot make a causal connection between harm to listed species or their habitats and greenhouse gas emissions from a specific facility, or resource development project or government action.
The Department will issue a Solicitor’s Opinion further clarifying these points.
The Department will propose common sense modifications to the existing ESA regulatory language to prevent abuse of this listing to erect a back-door climate policy outside our normal system of political accountability.
Additionally, the Department will continue to:
monitor polar bear populations and trends,
study polar bear feeding ecology,
work cooperatively with the Alaska Nanuuq Commission and the North Slope Borough for co-management of the polar bears in Alaska,
provide technical assistance to the participants of the 1988 North Slope Borough Inuvialuit Game Council Agreement for the conservation of polar bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea region and monitor the effects of oil and gas operations in the Beaufort Sea region.
The proposed ESA special 4(d) rule is available at (http://www.doi.gov/issues/polar_bears.html) for a 60 day public comment period.
There are many more documents at Interior's homepage, which is being balky at the moment, no doubt because of traffic.
Secretary Kempthorne to Make Major Announcement
on Status of Polar Bear
WASHINGTON, D.C. – TODAY (Wednesday, May 14), at 2:30 p.m. at the Department of the Interior, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne will make a major announcement on the status of the polar bear.
A press release and other materials will be posted on line at that time at www.doi.gov.
U.S. companies should have an easier time getting export licenses thanks to the Bush administration’s decision to accept most recommendations of a business coalition seeking a comprehensive reform of the nation’s export-control system.
The recommendations essentially have a twofold purpose: to help U.S. companies by making the export-licensing process “more efficient, predictable and transparent,” and to enhance U.S. national security, according to the coalition.
By increasing trade-distorting subsidies, the bill undermines our ability to open foreign markets to American agricultural goods. The bill creates an egregious new sugar subsidy program that will keep sugar prices high for domestic consumers, while making taxpayers subsidize a handful of sugar growers. These are just a few of the reasons why I cannot support this bill.
In the absence of a good farm bill, I call on Congress to extend current law for at least one year. The Administration’s reform-minded proposal would be preferable to current law, but in light of the bill produced by conferees an extension is now the better policy for American agriculture and American taxpayers. It is a far superior option than supporting a bill that increases farm subsidy rates, spends too much and fails to reform farm programs for the future.
A funny thing happened to the economy on its way to recession: It's taken a detour.
That, at least, is the view of a growing number of economists -- including some who not long ago were saying a recession was all but inevitable. They note that stock and credit markets have steadily improved since the Federal Reserve intervened to keep Bear Stearns Cos. from bankruptcy in early March, while a series of economic reports have been stronger than expected.
Only a month ago, a recession looked inevitable. Job cuts were picking up speed, and stock prices were falling. The Federal Reserve was cutting its benchmark interest rate rapidly, in an effort to keep the downturn from snowballing. But the notion that the economy could avoid a recession altogether seemed fanciful.
It looks less fanciful today. The economic news hasn’t exactly been sunny lately, but there also haven’t been any nasty new surprises. If anything, the economy seems to have stabilized. The pace of layoffs has eased a bit, stocks have risen and the Fed has signaled that the rate cuts are over for now.
More than 2,500 workers have been murdered by Colombian death squads for trying to form unions since the 1980s, and there have been more than 400 murders since President Uribe took office five years ago. Yet the Colombian government has done nothing to effectively stop death squads from murdering workers for trying to form unions.
CARACAS -- The surprise move by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to authorize the extradition of 14 notorious paramilitary warlords early Tuesday morning to the United States won applause from the Bush administration and was expected to raise his sky-high popularity in Colombia even higher.
But many people fear that sending the men to the United States to be tried on cocaine-trafficking charges will keep victims' families from receiving any of the promised reparations from the paramilitary leaders.
In a nationwide television address, Uribe said that he agreed to the extradition because the paramilitary leaders had been continuing their criminal activities behind bars and had failed to make restitution.
''The country has been generous with them, but the government can't tolerate a relapse into crime,'' Uribe said.
The extraditions follow the transfer of a major paramilitary warlord last week.
Illegal gangs and paramilitary groups remain a problem in the Colombian countryside, a legacy of the state's long failure to stop FARC depredations. Mr. Uribe has done more to reduce violence, from both right and left, than any president in modern Colombian history. He views the free-trade pact with the U.S. as a chance to continue that progress by connecting his country to the global economy to raise living standards. Yesterday's extradition is further proof of his efforts to see that justice is done – and of his goodwill toward the U.S.
Organized labor in the form of UNITE HERE is sponsoring a rally today featuring trade unionists from Colombia, standing in solidarity with the U.S. labor unions in opposing the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. From the news release:
WASHINGTON, May 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Colombian union leaders and workers will join Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine, Communication Workers of America president Larry Cohen, and UNITE HERE general president Bruce Raynor for a news conference on Wednesday, May 14, at 11:00 a.m. ET, to highlight their opposition to the pending Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Colombia remains the most dangerous country in the world for union members. More than 2,500 workers have been murdered by Colombian death squads for trying to form unions since the 1980s, and there have been more than 400 murders since President Uribe took office five years ago. Yet the Colombian government has done nothing to effectively stop death squads from murdering workers for trying to form unions.
This is not true. This is a conscious misstatement of fact. This is a lie.
[A] new unit under the direction of the attorney general, staffed by 13 prosecutors and 75 investigators, is now dedicated to prosecuting homicides of labor union members, focusing on 187 “priority cases” agreed to in consultation with the International Labor Office and the trade unions themselves. This unit is projected to file formal charges in 27 cases during the course of 2007 with a projected 18 convictions rendered. Colombia’s change to an accusatorial system of criminal justice procedure will further speed up prosecutions.
The Protection Program of the Ministry of the Interior and Justice provided special security protection to some 1,500 trade unionists in 2006 at a cost of about $11 million. None of the persons enrolled in this program was killed.
This summary comes from the respected and independent Center for Strategic and International Studies, which conducted a rigorous study of Colombia's progress and continued failings. You can download the full report here.
The graph from the study also refutes UNITE HERE's lie.
When deciding where to start a new business or expand operations, manufacturers and entrepreneurs weigh heavily the legal environment. They opt for states with balanced tort systems that discourage excessive litigation. In 2006, for example, job growth was 57 percent greater in the 10 states with the best tort systems than in the 10 states with the worst. That same year state-level gross domestic product grew 25 percent faster in the 10 best versus the 10 worst.
As New York attorney general, Eliot Spitzer won national attention by becoming the new sheriff in finance, taking on Wall Street and mutual funds and the insurance industry.
With Mr. Spitzer now in the governor’s mansion, is there another state regulator trying to take up his badge? A strong candidate for the new Spitzer might be Marc Dann, the new attorney general of Ohio.
Well, sort of. Guess there's more than one definition of "activist" attorney general.
Lots of back and forth today over Dann's resignation, impeachment, hanging on, etc., the result of an ugly scandal involving lots of things, including an affair with a staffer, mismanagement and interfering with an investigation.
The Senate today voted 69-29 to invoke cloture on H.R. 980, Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act of 2007, to impose collective bargaining on state and local firefighters and law-enforcement officers.
Wait... Can the federal government do that?
No, actually it can't. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out yesterday in "The Union Police," it's a violation of the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which reserves to the states those rights not specifically granted to the federal government.
This federalist principle has real-world implications, too. Do we want the federal government imposing the same workrules for firefighters in Anchorage as in Tuscaloosa as in Montpelier?
What's at play here is the multi-front effort by organized labor to maximize its political influence by controlling more and more parts of government, a base from which it can extent influence over private-sector employers. Sen. Enzi (R-WY) noted on the Senate floor today that the bill came directly from the House to the Senate floor with no hearings in the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee. Labor must fear the scrutiny.
The Administration believes that State and local governments should determine the nature and range of collective bargaining rights exercised by the public safety workers they employ. The Administration strongly opposes this Act because its severe intrusions on State sovereignty and emergency management conflict with the fundamental principles of federalism. If H.R. 980 were presented to the President, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.
P.S. The National League of Cities opposes the bill, CQ reports.
The Heritage Foundation has just released an analysis of the economic consequences of the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade legislation, S. 2191, America's Climate Security Act of 2007. Conducted by Heritage's Center for Data Analysis, "The Economic Costs of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Change Legislation" is well presented, argued and documented.
Our analysis makes clear that S. 2191 promises extraordinary perils for the American economy. Arbitrary restrictions predicated on multiple, untested, and undeveloped technologies will lead to severe restrictions on energy use and large increases in energy costs. In addition to the direct impact on consumers' budgets, these higher energy costs will spread through the economy and inject unnecessary inefficiencies at virtually every stage of production and consumption--all of which will add yet more financial burdens that must be borne by American taxpayers.
S. 2191 extracts trillions of dollars from the millions of American energy consumers and delivers this wealth to permanently identified classes of recipients, such as tribal groups and preferred technology sectors, while largely circumventing the normal congressional appropriations process. Unbound by the periodic review of the normal budgetary process, this de facto tax-and-spend program threatens to become permanent -- independent of the goals of the legislation.
Making reasonable assumptions, the analysts conclude:
Cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) losses are at least $1.7 trillion and could reach $4.8 trillion by 2030 (in inflation-adjusted 2006 dollars).
Single-year GDP losses hit at least $155 billion and realistically could exceed $500 billion (in inflation-adjusted 2006 dollars).
Annual job losses exceed 500,000 before 2030 and could approach 1,000,000.
The annual cost of emission permits to energy users will be at least $100 billion by 2020 and could exceed $300 billion by 2030 (in inflation-adjusted 2006 dollars).
The average household will pay $467 more each year for its natural gas and electricity (in inflation-adjusted 2006 dollars). That means that the average household will spend an additional $8,870 to purchase household energy over the period 2012 through 2030.
Various groups and government bodies, working independently of one another, have examined the bill's potential consequences and reach similar conclusions: With its emission limits and injection of government control into the marketplace, Lieberman-Warner imposes dramatic economic costs. We'd say it wreaks havoc.
U.S. Senate rejects the supply side of supply and demand, defeating an amendment sponsored by Sen. Mitch McConnell that would have allowed access to domestic energy supplies in the Outer Continental Sheld and the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.
On to a measure to stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
It's like debating the sprinkles on a cake you can't eat.
UPDATE (12:04 p.m.): The sprinkles pass 97-1.
UPDATE (2:05 p.m.): Roll call vote here. Senate declares, "Let them eat sprinkles!"
Chao’s most significant achievement, however, may be proactive rather than defensive: Unions now must provide a far more detailed accounting of their money and activities. In last week’s hearing, Harkin called this “going after labor unions” for making them file “onerous new financial disclosure requirements for rank-and-file members.” In reality, Chao has empowered rank-and-file members by demanding that labor leaders comply with modern standards of transparency. They must report income, expenses, salaries, and so on. It’s all online in a searchable database, too. It means that in the future, union bosses will have a harder time keeping the lid on everything from their left-wing politicking to the bar tabs they rack up at their Las Vegas conventions.
For more Shopfloor.org posts on labor reporting and the Office of Labor Management Standards, start here.
In Politico, pollster John McGlaughlin reviews the results of public opinion surveys that show a candidate's support for the Employee Free Choice Act could be damaging at the polls in the fall election. Surveys conducted of Senate races in Maine, Minnesota and Colorado find that card check's attack on secret-ballot elections in the workplace is very unpopular.
Voters intrinsically support the concept of private ballot elections. They are worried about the potential of workers being coerced and intimidated under the card-check scheme. And they see little need to change the existing balance in current labor laws to make it easier for unions to organize nonunion workplaces.
More important, they resent and oppose efforts to take away an individual’s right to a private and secret ballot. These inconvenient facts for Big Labor can be exploited to the detriment of the candidates it supports. Smart candidates will not want to be on the wrong side of this issue come Election Day.
They’ll side with voters and oppose union card-check legislation.
The Aon Corp., the risk management and consulting firm, has released an analysis of liability costs and trends in the long-term care industry, and for the first time in the nine years of reporting, liability costs are stable on a national average basis. From the news release:
The study found that average general liability and professional liability loss costs nationwide are at approximately $1,460 per bed after peaking at $2,030 per bed in 1998. This trend is driven by a reduction in the average severity of claims from a high of $261,000 in 1998 to $138,000 in 2007. In addition, the number of claims (frequency) has stabilized in recent years -- hovering around 10.6 claims per 1,000 occupied beds after rising from 6.7 claims in 1997.
"The impact of tort reform has been lasting, but it is not the only factor contributing to the stabilization of liability costs in the long term care sector," said Theresa W. Bourdon, managing director and actuary for Aon Global Risk Consulting. "Many other changes, including the withdrawal of some long term care facilities operators from expensive markets, more effective defense strategies, the use of arbitration for claims settlement and significant improvements in quality of care, have combined to help alleviate the liability crisis."
Note the clause we bolded, "the use of arbitration for claims settlement." Arbitration contracts are one important element in a broad strategy for managing and controlling liability costs, AND, they help bring more balanced compensation when claims are justified. Arbitration is a way of replacing the roulette wheel of "jackpot justice" with a disinterested evaluation of causation, damages, and legal responsibility.
All of which explains why arbitration is under attack on Capitol Hill. Rather than a single bill limiting (or effectively banning) binding arbitration, the trial bar's lobbyists are hoping to write anti-arbitration language into a wide variety of legislation. Right now they're focusing on long-term care, hoping to leverage success there into more areas of law.
In April, Sens. Mel Martinez (R-FL) and Herb Kohl (D-WI) introduced S. 2838, the Fairness in Nursing Home Arbitration Act. The bill would amend the Federal Arbitration Act to ban pre-dispute arbitration agreements for nursing homes and residential care facilities, e.g., assisted living facilities. History tells us -- as does the Aon survey -- that the result would be higher costs with no clear benefit to care.
The nursing-home industry says arbitration is relatively quick and cheap -- for the elderly plaintiffs as well as the defendants -- and lets homes concentrate their staff and budgets on caring for patients, not litigation. "It's hard to keep staff focused on doing their best when there is a threat of lawsuits constantly hanging over their heads," says Gerald Coggin, a spokesman for Tennessee-based nursing-home operator National HealthCare Corp. In Tennessee, state legislators this year introduced a bill specifically to allow the nursing-home agreements as a condition of admission, to help homes "hold down or avoid the costs of litigation," says Democratic state Rep. Randy Rinks, one of the sponsors.
The industry was alarmed in the late 1990s by a rash of huge jury awards. In one case, $83 million was awarded in the death of a Texas woman with infected bedsores; $95 million went to a California woman who fractured her hip and shoulder when she allegedly was dropped by nursing-home staff. Both awards were knocked down by the trial judges: the Texas judgment to $56 million, and the California award down to $3.6 million. But plaintiffs lawyers were newly drawn to nursing-home suits by the big awards.
And arbitration provisions minimize the likelihood of these kinds of huge payouts, which have little to do with justice. Hence the attack against binding arbitration in Congress.
Good News from the Rockies. From The Associated Press: "SALT LAKE CITY — Rocky Mountain natural-gas production is soaring as new pipelines take away the region's bounty...Utah, Wyoming and Colorado together are producing 8.2 billion cubic feet of gas a day — an increase of 1 billion cubic feet from a year ago, said Porter Bennett, president and chief executive for energy analysts Bentek Energy LLC."
Yes, We'll Buy It. We'll Have To. National Energy Board (Canada): "CALGARY, May 12 /CNW/ - Record-high oil prices fuelled a seven per cent rise in Canadian crude production last year said the National Energy Board in its Canadian Energy Overview 2007 report. The report, released today, said Canada pumped an average of 441,128 cubic metres (2.8 million barrels) of crude oil per day last year, with almost half coming from Alberta's oil sands. Oil sands investment jumped 17 per cent from 2006 to $18 billion in 2007."
Wind, But With Assumptions. Associated Press: "WASHINGTON (AP) — Two decades from now Americans could get as much electricity from windmills as from nuclear power plants, according to a government report that lays out a possible plan for wind energy growth. The report, a collaboration between the Energy Department research labs and industry, concludes wind energy could generate 20 percent of the nation's electricity by 2030, about the same share now produced by nuclear reactors."
Wind ($23.37) v. Gas (25 Cents) Wall Street Journal editorial: "Congress seems ready to spend billions on a new "Manhattan Project" for green energy, or at least the political class really, really likes talking about one. But maybe we should look at what our energy subsidy dollars are buying now...[snip]For electricity generation, the EIA concludes that solar energy is subsidized to the tune of $24.34 per megawatt hour, wind $23.37 and "clean coal" $29.81. By contrast, normal coal receives 44 cents, natural gas a mere quarter, hydroelectric about 67 cents and nuclear power $1.59."
Something Positive About 'Big Oil.'Cal Thomas column: "Peter Robertson, vice chairman of Chevron, told me it’s a myth that oil companies are not investing in new energy sources. He says last year alone, Chevron spent $20 billion exploring new sources of energy. Robertson said President Bush’s trip this week to Saudi Arabia is 'highly embarrassing' because he is “calling on the Saudis to produce more oil when we are not doing it ourselves.” The last refinery built in America was in 1976. Tighter government regulations are the main reason. That’s how unserious we are about our energy 'crisis.'"
An unusual and unfortunate development at the U.S. Supreme Court today, as four justices recused themselves in an appeal of lawsuits brought by South African nationals against U.S. companies that did business with the South African government. Three of the justices own stock in the affected companies and another has a son who works for Credit Suisse. (AP story.)
When lacking a quorum, the Supreme Court is required to affirm a lower court [2nd Circuit] ruling that went against the companies, many of them major international corporations. Both the U.S. and South African governments also urged the high court to hear the case.
The South African apartheid appeal could affect more than 50 companies sued in 11 separate lawsuits for damages claims that exceed $400 billion. Among those who signed onto the appeal are American Isuzu Motors Inc., a unit of Isuzu Motors Ltd. (ISUZY), Ford Motor Co. (F), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Honeywell International Inc. (HON), General Electric Co. (GE) and 3M Co. (MMM).
The lawsuits represent a major interference with the Executive Branch's conduct of foreign policy and open up U.S. businesses to liability claims for doing business in an entirely consistent fashion with that foreign policy.
The National Association of Manufacturers joined other business groups in an amicus brief (available here); the others are the National Foreign Trade Council, USA*Engage, U.S. Council for International Business, and the Organization for International Investment. The Solicitor General's brief is available at ScotusBlog here.
As Michael Krauss commented earliler at the Point of Law blog, "Saudi Arabia's barbaric laws mistreat women and viciously oppress non-Muslims. China enslaves millions, harvests organs from thousands it executes, and is still in denial over Tiananmen Square. Warning to all US companies doing business in those places -- did you know you might be committing an American tort? Talk about a tariff barrier to exports!"
The New York Times ran a story Saturday on conservative support for a federal media shield bill, "From Places Unexpected, Support for the Press." Cited in the story as evidence are a conservative judge, Brett Kavanaugh, Sen. John McCain and Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN). Pence is the trump card in this hand, being a leader of House conservatives.
The article notes the Bush Administration's opposition based on concerns about leaks of classified intelligence and national security information.
But yet again, a story in a major media outlet fails to refer to the serious concerns about the legislation expressed by U.S. businesses, who worry that a shield law will protect criminal acts committed against them. (Our earlier posts here and here.)
It's almost as if the reporters are lobbying for the bill.
A Puzzling Omission: I don't think it's a secret that The New York Times tends to be particularly one-sided when reporting on matters of concern to The New York Times. Given that, perhaps everyone expects that a Times story on conservative support for a federal reporter's privilege is going to be as much a work of advocacy as a work of reporting.
Still, isn't it a bit odd that Saturday's story on the reporters' privilege doesn't disclose that both of the credited authors, Eric Lichtblau and Philip Shenon, have been personally involved recently in high-profile DOJ leak investigations? Lichtblau was himself a target after he co-authored the 2005 NSA surveillance story. And Philip Shenon was one of the two reporters who had his phone records subpoened in the Valerie Plame leak investigation (the other was Judith Miller). I don't know the official standards for journalistic ethics, but it seems pretty fishy to me that Lichtblau & Shenon didn't disclose their background in the story.
WASHINGTON — A major U.S. counterdrug aid package for Mexico is under attack by U.S. organized labor, which says Congress should reject the initiative unless tough human-rights conditions are included, according to a letter revealed Friday. The opposition by the AFL-CIO and other labor groups adds another obstacle to a three-year, $1.4 billion program for Mexico known as the Merida Initiative.
U.S. organized labor is absolutely cavalier about the fights that countries like Colombia and now Mexico are fighting against terrorists and criminals and murderers. Labor's exercise of political power for power's sake means those threats grow, not just south of the border, but here in the United States, too.
An editorial in the Wall Street Journal, "The Union Police," examines a bill that would force hundreds of thousands of local policemen and firemen into collective bargaining:
A bill that passed the House last year would make the top officials at local unions the exclusive bargaining agents for public safety officers in every town or city with more than 5,000 people. They would also have the authority to bargain for everything -- pay, benefits and work rules. The goal is to give labor the whip hand with local governments, and further coerce nonunion members to join the dues-paying ranks.
Sixteen states have considered legislation like this since 1996 and voted it down. The bill, pushed hardest by the International Association of Fire Fighters, would impose it nationwide, superseding all of these state laws.
State labor relations are traditionally -- and constitutionally -- handled by the states. As the Journal notes, the safety needs of Fargo are different than those of NYC.
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has vetoed a legislative resolution memorializing Congress to support the Employee Free Choice Act. His veto letter is here. He concludes:
"The Employee Free Choice Act is one-sided legisaltion that seeks to fundamentally alter more than 60 years of federal labor law. If passed, it will disadvantage businesses with U.S operations and may encourage more employers to transfer jobs, particularly manufacturing jobs, overseas."
Strong, principled move by the governor, especially since the resolution had no legal effect other than to encourage Congress. Organized labor has made these sorts of state and local resolutions part of its PR campaign for the anti-democratic card check legislation; it's good to see someone say, "Knock it off."
The Department of Labor today has published proposed rules for expanding the disclosure requirements for labor unions, affecting Form LM-2, which is used by unions with annual receipts of at least $250,000. From the news release:
Changes being proposed include disclosing the amount spent on benefits for individual union officers and certain union employees, reporting indirect disbursements to officers and employees, itemizing certain receipts of $5,000 or more, and disclosing the identity of the purchaser or seller in transactions involving union assets. All the proposed changes will bring further clarity to the Form LM-2 by improving disclosure in these areas. The proposed rule also increases accountability by establishing a fair procedure, including due process rights for the union, for revoking a privilege of filing a simplified annual LM-3 report instead of the more detailed LM-2.
The proposed rules were published in today's Federal Register, and you can access them here.
Among other things, the proposed rule adds a provision covering benefits paid to union officers and employees such as pensions, deferred compensation and life insurance. Currently, only gross salary, allowances, outlays for official business and assorted other disbursements to individual officers and employees exceeding $10,000 annually need to be disclosed.
Closing this loophole will enhance the ability of union members to have timely and accurate information about how union leaders and employees are being compensated. Without such information, it is difficult to assess whether the interests of members are being well-served by those representing them in the union leadership.
Both the House and the Senate convene today at 2 p.m., pro formally. The House floor schedule for the week is available here. For the full list of the upcoming week's committee hearings, goto the Daily Digest pages.
And two items of interest in state courthouses. Today in Covington, Ky., three lawyers go on trial for bilking their clients out of millions in the Fen-Phen settlement. And in Rhode Island Thursday, the state Supreme Court hears arguments on an appeal from three paint manufacturers sued by the state attorney general, twisting the public nuisance statutes to make them pay $2.4 billion for a state clean-up plan. The NAM's materials on the suit are here.
"There have been documented reports of polar bears drowning and starving -- and of snowy dens collapsing on newborn cubs and their mothers from unseasonable rains." -- NRDC fundraising letter from Lenardo DiCaprio.
The Bush Administration is under a judge's order to act on an Endangered Species Act listing for the polar bear by May 15th, as environmental groups abuse the legal system to try to enact global-warming policy through activist courts and regulations.
Well, science and population surveys indicate the polar bears aren't endangered, as AEI resident scholar Kenneth P. Green explains in The Orange County Register. Green also relates:
Environmentalists have long used charismatic megafauna as poster children in their ongoing crusade to wall off as much of the world as possible from human encroachment.
Environmental activist Eric de Place observes that using these types of animals as "poster children" for broader conservation has worked with grizzly bears, wolves, and sea otters. And the money follows the glamour.
For a particularly cynical and mawkish example of this "poster children" fundraising approach, take a look at a recent solicitation mailing from the Natural Resources Defense Council and its Polar Bear SOS campaign. (The inset photo comes from the campaign's website.)
It starts with the appeal from Leonardo DiCaprio quoted above, page 1 and page 2. Then there's a NRDC polar bear S.O.S. petition, asking, "Can you give $20 or more to throw the polar bears a lifeline?" The NRDC solicitation letter is over the top, but apparently they think that sells:
If you're like me, I'm sure it pains you deeply to imagine ...
...The last gasp of a polar bear before it drowns in the vast waters of the Arctic, unable to reach the increasingly distant ice floes it needs to find food.
...The muffled cries of newborn polar bear cubs as they are buried alive when their snowy den collapses from unseasonable rains.
...The exhaustion of a mother polar bear and her young as they succumb to starvation after enduring longer and longer periods without food.
And if that doesn't get you, we've got a tote bag!
At present, polar bear populations are robust and, according to native people, are considerably larger than they were in previous decades.[29] Predictions of polar bear endangerment are based on two sets of computer models: one set predicts how much Arctic sea ice will melt as a result of global warming, and the other predicts how polar bear populations will respond. But computer models of climate are known to be fraught with problems, and the ecological models used to predict polar bear response are equally limited.
Because of extreme limitations in data, it is essentially impossible to decide whether polar bears are endangered and whether their habitat is threatened by man-made global warming or other natural climate cycles. This is acknowledged by the experts themselves--the actual IUCN/SSC report is more broad in naming causes and more conservative about estimating their effects.
The policy implications of an ESA listing for the polar bear are breathtaking...and jobs-killing and economy-crushing and so radical that Congress, the policymaking branch of government, would never enact them. As Hugh Hewitt explains the listing would bring every carbon-emitting federal action under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act.
Can't you hear the muffled cries of the children of laid-off employees?
Exchange rate boosts U.S. squirrel exports. From The Guardian (U.K.): "The grey squirrel, the American cousin of Britain's endangered red variety, is flying off the shelves faster than hunters can shoot them, with game butchers struggling to keep up with demand. 'We put it on the shelf and it sells. It can be a dozen squirrels a day - and they all go,' said David Simpson, the director of Kingsley Village shopping centre in Fraddon, Cornwall, whose game counter began selling grey squirrel meat two months ago."
I'll Have Another Milkshake, Please. USA Today: "Record prices are prompting oil prospectors to renew interest in drilling in Los Angeles, where urban sprawl, environmental opponents and decades of production make for one of the world's toughest oil fields."
So climate change is a good thing? The Australian: "AUSTRALIAN agricultural output will double over the next 40 years, with climate change predicted to increase, rather than hinder, the level of production...A recent spate of reports forecasting the decline of Australian agriculture because of climate change have greatly exaggerated, and even completely misreported the threat of global warming, according to senior rural industry figures."
Socialized Refinery Plans, I: Bloomberg: "May 10 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuela agreed with China, the world's fastest-growing major economy, to form a joint venture that will produce oil in Venezuela's Orinoco Belt to supply a new 400,000 barrel-a-day refinery they will build in China."
Socialized Refinery Plans, II: A Fargo (N.D.) Forum editorial, "State-run oil refinery a silly idea": "The notion that North Dakotans will benefit from a state-owned oil refinery is more about pandering than policy."
Private-Sector Refinery Plans: AFP: "KUWAIT CITY (AFP) — Four South Korean and a Japanese firm were on Sunday declared winners of four major contracts worth billions of dollars to build a new refinery in Kuwait, an oil official said...The total value of the bids made by the companies was around 8.3 billion dollars..."
Kein Fahrvergnügen. From Deutsche Welle: "German motorists expressed anger at rising fuel prices Saturday, the start of the Whitsun holiday weekend, while opposition politicians called for a cut in fuel taxes...German motorists saw the prices for a liter of petrol break through 1.50 euros ($2.30) for the first time, with diesel only marginally cheaper at 1.45 euros." That's $8.70 a gallon.
Stocking Up for the Storm.From WVEC.com, Richmond, Va.: "RICHMOND– For the period Sunday, May 25, through Saturday, May 31, Virginia will hold its first Hurricane Preparedness Sales Tax Holiday. During the weeklong event, certain purchases will be exempt from the 5 percent state and local retail sales tax. Sales tax will not be charged on generators costing $1,000 or less, or on 22 other products selling for $60 or less each."
Even bottled water? From the Tonawanda (NY) News: "North Tonawanda, NY — While shopping at the North Tonawanda Budwey’s Supermarket on Saturday, Mary Collins and her mother, Betty Collins, both had 24-packs of bottled water in their carts. Both also had differing opinions on a bill being pushed by some state officials that would add a 5-cent deposit to non-carbonated beverages — everything from juice to bottled water and half-gallons of milk. That means shoppers would pay $1.20 more up front for a 24-pack of water."
BATH, Maine - The Navy's newest guided missile destroyer was christened Saturday with the name of a fighter pilot who spent 7 1/2 years in captivity in North Vietnam, received the Medal of Honor and served as presidential candidate Ross Perot's running mate.
Four Medal of Honor recipients and seven former prisoners of war attended the ceremony at Bath Iron Works that marked a milestone in construction of the 9,200-ton ship named for Vice Adm. James Stockdale.
The Stockdale is the 56th destroyer of the Arleigh Burke class and have its home port in San Diego. The Bath Works are scheduled to build four additional Burke vessels before starting on the new DDG-1000 Zumwalt class.
More than seven in 10 [British] voters insist that they would not be willing to pay higher taxes in order to fund projects to combat climate change, according to a new poll.
The survey also reveals that most Britons believe "green" taxes on 4x4s, plastic bags and other consumer goods have been imposed to raise cash rather than change our behaviour, while two-thirds of Britons think the entire green agenda has been hijacked as a ploy to increase taxes.
They have good reason to be suspicious. The European Union has implemented a cap-and-trade system akin to the Lieberman-Warner legislation the Senate will soon consider, and the program is an expensive failure -- certainly not reducing emissions. As a report from the London-based Open Europe think-tank reports,
As the cross-party Commons Environmental Audit Committee noted: “there is little or no evidence that Phase I is leading to any cutbacks in actual emissions at all, whether in the UK or elsewhere in the EU.” In its first year of operation (2005 to 2006) emissions covered by the ETS rose 3.6% in the UK, and rose by 0.8% across the EU as a whole.
Neil O'Brien, a director with Open Europe, appears on this week's "America's Business with Mike Hambrick," explaining how cap-and-trade actually subsidized pollution in countries like China and India at a cost of billions of Euros. To hear his sgement, click here.
"Report: Manufacturing still strong in Alabama": Alabama has nearly 6,900 manufacturers and industrial suppliers registered - with 520 on the list for the first time, according to the latest edition of the Alabama Manufacturers Register.
In Oklahoma: "Republican legislators lashed out Friday at Gov. Brad Henry for vetoing a bill they touted as a lawsuit reform measure. ...The governor Friday vetoed House Bill 2458, which would have required an expert opinion confirming professional negligence before a civil lawsuit could be filed
"Marine manufacturers join fight for more flexibility": "The heavy hitter in the recreational marine industry — the National Marine Manufacturers Association — has stepped up to the plate in support of flexibility in rebuilding American fisheries."
From The Orange County Register: "LAKE FOREST – Authorities today confiscated more than $200,000 worth of counterfeit handbags and jewelry with high-end price tags from the home of a woman who was selling them through the Internet...Designer labels such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Tiffany are suspected as being sold by the woman who was asked three years ago by attorneys from some of the companies to stop selling the counterfeit merchandise, authorities said." The fakes originated in China.
From the Staten Island Advance: "A Staten Island man who may have thought that he'd get off with just a ticket when he was pulled over for turning without signaling yesterday is facing more than a minor traffic infringement after cops say they found over 500 bootleg handbags in the trunk of his car." The fakes originated in China.
From Dow Jones: "GENEVA, May 10, 2008 (Dow Jones Commodities News Select via Comtex) -- -- The World Trade Organization has drawn up a report urging China to enhance steps to protect intellectual property rights with stiffer fines and criminal penalties for offenders, a copy of the report obtained by Kyodo News showed Saturday. ...The report, titled "Trade Policy Review," was prepared for a WTO meeting that will review China's trade policies slated for May 21-23 in Geneva."
A Washington Post "Think Tank Town" column, "Fire Retardant Asbestos Suits," by John M. Wylie II, the principal author of the Manhattan Institute report on asbestos litigation.
The report shows that the long-running asbestos-lawsuit scam has destroyed 80 companies and the employees and shareholders who depend on them, and created a system so corrupt that judges and advisors were guilty of outright extortion and theft. Companies forced into bankruptcy by questionable claims are now being scammed again by attorneys double-dipping from the trusts these companies created for those who really were injured. ...[snip]
Tragically, real victims -- workers who actually face serious future health problems due to asbestos exposure -- are often duped into signing away future rights for a pittance in order to pad current attorney fees, and are then left with no recourse if they actually become sick. And workers falsely diagnosed as sick face a lifetime of worry and problems getting insurance.
This week in "Cool Stuff Being Made," we head to Quality Custom Cabinetry in New Holland, Pa., for a tour of the company's 126,000 square feet facility. Dale Leaman, director of customer service, walks us through the 16 departments, starting with an explanation of importance of just-in-time manufacturing. And, as always, attention to quality is key to success.
2006 Quality Custom Cabinetry, Inc. launched a new line of cabinetry named Saxton Cabinetry, a European frameless construction. Saxton Cabinetry went through a rigorous pilot program by several dealers. Due to the new product line, the corporate identity and overall organization was renamed to "QCCI." (Quality Custom Cabinetry, Inc).
2007 QCCI added 57,000 square feet for manufacturing and distribution to facilitate both products, Quality Custom Cabinetry and Saxton. QCCI introduced a new product collection under the Quality Custom Cabinetry brand, called Steeplechase. Steeplechase features 1 inch thick face frame construction with sophisticated styling detailing surrounding inset doors and drawers, a hallmark of Quality Custom Cabinetry.
Thanks, as per usual and with sincerity, to PCN-TV for providing the base video. Cabinetry and other woodworking is a Pennsylvania tradition, so there's history afoot.
Two of the nation's largest labor unions have struck confidential agreements with large employers that give the companies the right to designate which of their locations, and how many workers, the unions can seek to organize.
The agreements are raising questions about union transparency and workers' rights. A summary document put together by the unions says it is critical to the success of the partnership "that we honor the confidentiality and not publicly disclose the existence of these agreements." That includes not disclosing them to union members.
With their advocacy for the Employee Free Choice Act, organized labor is insisting that employees NOT be allowed to maintain confidentiality when voting on whether to join a union. The secret ballot be damned.
But when it serves their purposes, confidentiality is a matter of principle.
The particular offenders here are the SEIU and Unite Here.
Happy 60th Birthday, Rex Morgan, M.D! Publishers Syndicate launched the strip in 1948, bringing medical issues to the comics pages.
In the current storyline, Rex faces his toughest foe yet, TV-advertising Max the Ax, personal injury attorney, who hopes to cash in an outbreak of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Today's strip:
In other news, this month's issue of "Trial" -- the magazine of the Association for Justice -- is all about medical malpractice lawsuits.
U.S. manufacturers that offer health insurance to employees spend an average of $2.38 per worker per hour on health care, substantially more than the amount spent by foreign competitors, according to a report released on Tuesday by the New America Foundation, the Los Angeles Times reports. According to the Times, the report "provides support for the now-familiar lament of employers -- that rising health care costs are eating into the corporate bottom line."
Not the way we'd characterize it. How about: "provides support for the reality employers face, that rising health care costs make it more difficult to compete in the global marketplace." In its materials, the Foundation summarizes:
A new model for health care that...
reforms the current insurance marketplace;
provides income-based subsidies; and
is individual, rather than employer-based,
...would enable us to finance our 21st-century health system in a more sustainable and competitive way.
Again for the report and briefing paper, start here.
Some law firms continue to use mass, automated phone calls to solicit personal-injury business. Listen to the phone message here, recorded last night at home as a firm trolls for plaintiffs who suffered health troubles after heart surgery.
Saturday is Pangea Day, another opportunity for raising, fund and consciousness, by the anti-global warming movement. There are sure a lot of these new celebrations, seems like, part of some Gaea-based ritual calendar. (The more radical of Southern Hemispheric activists refer to Pangea Day as Gondwana Day. It's really caused a schism.)
CNN's Christiane Amapour is featured prominently at the Pangea Day website. Isn't she supposed to be an objective reporter? Ha, ha. Just kidding.
Speaking of consciousness-raising, The Washington Post's Jeffrey Birnbaum writes about the oil and gas industry's education/PR campaign to explain the industry more effectively, "Oil Lobby Reaches Out to Citizens Peeved at the Pump." Good story.
The American Petroleum Institute has indeed been doing a very good, fact-based job of presenting the industry to the public. We liked the ads like this one explaining who owns the industry: 29.5 percent of U.S. oil and natural gas company shares are owned by mutual funds and other firms; 27 percent are owned by pension funds; and individual investors own 23 percent. So when politicians go after the oil companies, they're also going after your pensions and IRAs.
Loved the reaction from self-styled consumer groups reported in the Post: "'It's basically deceptive advertising that dulls the natural and proper reaction of the public,' said Mark N. Cooper, research director of the Consumer Federation of America." Get the rhetoric right, Mark. The correct term is "false consciousness."
Disclosure: Your correspondent went on a blogging tour mentioned in Birnbaum's story -- the one to Corpus Christi and the Chevron platform, Blind Faith. The latest update on the $1.4 billion project is that its operation has been delayed until the second quarter. Yes, that's right: $1.4 billion. Thank goodness for profits.
Reading for this week's Park City Center for Public Policy "Defending Cyberspace" conference -- which went very well, we hear -- we encountered the phrase "Manhattan Project." It actually turns up with some frequency.
Isn't the analogy limiting, narrowing the discussion to a centralized, government-directed solution to the problems we face, one that excludes the private sector?
And the Manhattan Project was a matter of war, of national defense, one of the areas most Americans agree belongs to the federal government. Saying we need a Manhattan Project is calling X, Y, or Z the moral equivalent of war.
Latin America and the United States are joined by geography, culture and common values. For many years, the exchange of goods and services across borders has been a vital factor in maintaining a mutually beneficial relationship. The approval of the free trade agreement between the United States and Colombia would be another step toward deepening that relationship, toward fair and equitable integration of our nations, and most importantly, toward securing the stability and peace of the Western Hemisphere.
As a founding member of the Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy, the NAM has worked closely with Congress, policymakers and stakeholders in all sectors affected by IP theft to confront this serious challenge. NAM member companies believe strongly that by improving the coordination of federal government IP enforcement resources, as well as expanding authorities and improving enforcement practices at the international, federal, state and local levels, the PRO-IP Act will strengthen our manufacturing economy.
From Weather Underground. Note that of these only one has occurred since the supposed onset of man-made global warming. The latest tragic cyclone should come in at #10 or thereabouts.
Rank: Name / Areas of Largest Loss: Year: Ocean Area: Deaths:
1. Great Bhola Cyclone, Bangladesh 1970 Bay of Bengal 550,000
2. Hooghly River Cyclone, India and Bangladesh 1737 Bay of Bengal 350,000
3. Haiphong Typhoon, Vietnam 1881 West Pacific 300,000
3. Coringa, India 1839 Bay of Bengal 300,000
5. Backerganj Cyclone, Bangladesh 1584 Bay of Bengal 200,000
6. Great Backerganj Cyclone, Bangladesh 1876 Bay of Bengal 200,000
7. Chittagong, Bangladesh 1897 Bay of Bengal 175,000
8. Super Typhoon Nina, China 1975 West Pacific 171,000
9. Cyclone 02B, Bangladesh 1991 Bay of Bengal 140,000
10. Great Bombay Cyclone, India 1882 Arabian Sea 100,000
11. Hakata Bay Typhoon, Japan 1281 West Pacific 65,000
12. Calcutta, India 1864 Bay of Bengal 60,000
13. Swatlow, China 1922 West Pacific 60,000
14. Barisal, Bangladesh 1822 Bay of Bengal 50,000
15. Sunderbans coast, Bangladesh 1699 Bay of Bengal 50,000
16. Bengal Cyclone, Calcutta, India 1942 Bay of Bengal 40,000
17. Canton, China 1862 West Pacific 37,000
18. Backerganj (Barisal), Bangladesh 1767 Bay of Bengal 30,000
19. Barisal, Bangladesh 1831 Bay of Bengal 22,000
20. Great Hurricane, Lesser Antilles Islands 1780 Atlantic 22,000
One million megawatts of electricity-generating capacity powers America’s grid, but 45 percent of that infrastructure is more than 30 years old. Meanwhile, the nation has deferred investment in new, more efficient baseload plants, including new reactors.
The 2005 Energy Policy Act’s loan guarantee program is a “very small step” in the right direction, but insufficient to rebuild electric power infrastructure.
The nation and world are seeking clean-air energy sources, like nuclear, to address climate change.
Electricity demand will increase by 25 percent by 2030, according to government officials.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats on Wednesday called for a temporary special tax on oil companies’ profits and a rollback of $17 billion in oil industry tax breaks as part of an energy package. The Democrats are also seeking federal penalties on energy price gouging and a suspension of oil deliveries into the government’s emergency reserve.
Senate Republicans strongly oppose any additional oil industry taxes, which are widely viewed as unlikely to be enacted and would almost certainly prompt a veto by President Bush.
The proposed 25 percent profits tax would apply just to oil company earnings above what would be considered “reasonable” and only if those profits are not reinvested in expanding refinery capacity or renewable energy sources, according to a summary of the proposals.
"From 1980 to 1988, the WPT may have reduced domestic oil production anywhere from 1.2% to 8.0% (320 to 1,269 million barrels). Dependence on imported oil grew from between 3% and 13%."
"Reinstating the windfall profit tax would reduce recent oil industry windfalls due to high crude and petroleum prices but could have several adverse economic effects. If imposed as an excise tax, the WPT would increase marginal production costs and be expected to reduce domestic oil production and increase the level of oil imports, which today is at nearly 60% of demand."
The NAM issued a news release yesterday on competing energy measures in the Senate.
Nice featurette at U.S. News' Washington Whispers column on Ag Secretary Ed Schafer, "boyhood farmer, telecommunications exec, conservationist, Junkyard Wars runner-up, and classic car and tractor restorer ." Don't forget manufacturing executive. And governor, that, too. Meanwhile, President Bush is preparing to veto a "bloated" farm bill.
Texas tea, brewed strong. "Austin, TX (AHN) - While the rest of the nation is reeling from soaring oil prices, Texas is benefiting from the non-stop rise in prices of black gold. Oil revenues' contribution to state budget would result to a $10.7 billion budget surplus." Certainly not limited to Texas: "'I think the bulk of Montana's budget surplus comes from the oil fields of Richland and Fallon counties,' said Richland County Commissioner Mark Rehbein." That's the Bakken play at work.
While Congress stalled, stuttered and stomped: "At Vienna, the EU and Central American nations, including Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, agreed to launch free trade talks. The 27-nation bloc also agreed to similar negotiations with four Andean countries including Peru, Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador."
Sometimes, just the thinking is flat. Henry Payne reports the reaction of airline executives to a recent Thomas Friedman column on global jetting and fossil fuels. Friedman's enthusiasm for biofuel-powered airlines is naive, they imply, and if there's one thing airline execs know, it's fuel usage. Payne: "They are extremely fuel conscious — but not because they are converts to Friedman’s religion. Fuel has always been a major business cost and so airlines are constantly investing in new planes to keep costs down. In the last eight years alone, for example — even as Delta’s fleet number has remained stable — the airline cut its fuel bill by 25 percent." Reading Friedman's columns in recent years, you sometimes think he should get out a little less.
Looks like Law & Order is actually shaping up. They've abandoned the steady beat of anti-corporate propaganda for pro-union propaganda! Yay! Last night's episode summary: "Strike -- A legal aid strike ends in the death of a lawyer, and the investigation leads to a golf pro who proclaims his innocence, again. Then the case takes an even stranger twist when Rubirosa is pitted against Cutter because of the strike that started it all." New detective actor Anthony Andrews must feel right at home, switching from Fox's short-lived "K-Ville" agitprop to "L&O" agitprop.
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada is "very close" to concluding free trade negotiations with Colombia, Trade Minister David Emerson said on Monday, calling those opposed to the deal on human rights grounds as simply "dogmatic."
Emerson also presented legislation to Parliament to enact a free trade pact with the European Free Trade Association, comprised of Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
And from Bloomberg, citing Prime Minister Stephen Harper's leadership on the issue:
Harper has made the issue a priority, saying an agreement will help improve democracy in Colombia and help President Alvaro Uribe stem violence against labor leaders.
A Canada-Colombia accord also would give Canadian farmers preferential access to the U.S.'s third largest market for wheat exports in Latin America at a time when Democrats in Congress are stalling a similar deal over concerns about violence against labor organizers in Colombia.
Colombia’s Vice-President Francisco Santos Calderón is visiting Canada this week.
Surely Congress could spend just a small percentage of its investigative energies on reviewing the crimes, economic waste and injustice perpetrated by the trial bar. Don't you think?
Sherman "Tiger" Joyce of the American Tort Reform Association cites the new study, "Trial Lawyers, Inc.: Asbestos," which details the abuses of the trial bar's shakedown/business operation, to renew his call for hearings: "“Whether one considers the findings of a federal judge in Texas who condemned lawyers and their physician accomplices for introducing phony medical records, a New York federal grand jury’s ongoing investigation into similar asbestos and silica fraud, or any of the countless related incidents reported by the media – such as the non-existent doctor who supposedly signed off on a claimant’s diagnosis in a West Virginia asbestos case against CSX Transportation – one can only conclude that Congress should spend less time worrying about problems in professional baseball and football and more time worrying about the integrity of our civil justice system."
Dan Popeo of the Washington Legal Foundation says the legal profession should do a much better job of policing itself and instilling an ethical code, and with Congress, "the silence is deafening." Still: "Unfortunately, nothing will really change until the legal establishment admits that too many other Lerachs, Scruggses and Spitzers are still out there using 'justice' and 'consumer rights' as a cover for their own aggrandizement."
More from Walter Olson at Point of Law on Trial Lawyers, Inc. He observes that the study "makes a compelling case that our legal system has failed badly to curb the various devices -- from mass screening resulting in medically dubious diagnoses, to mass forum-shopping in search of favorable courts, through group trial and mass settlement of cases -- by which some law firms convoy spurious claims of asbestos injury to victory along with the genuine." Good summary.
And more from the ABA Journal on the Manhattan Institute report. You know, the American Association for Justice, i.e., the national trial lawyers group, normally is quick to respond with an overheated news release attacking the motives of the legal reformers. Nothing so far.UPDATE: They did. The news release wasn't on the homepage, and we missed it. Same old rhetoric, though. Don't respond to the substance, just attack your opponent and change the subject. Where do they learn that? Maybe they're too busy.
The overall unemployment rate of scientists and engineers in the United States dropped from 3.2% in 2003 to 2.5% in 2006 (figure 1), according to data from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data System (SESTAT).[2] This is the lowest unemployment rate measured by SESTAT since the early 1990s. It continues a trend of lower unemployment rates for scientists and engineers compared with unemployment rates in the rest of the U.S. economy.[3] Comparable unemployment rates for the entire U.S. labor force in 2003 and 2006 were 6.0% and 4.7%, respectively.[4] (See "Data Comments and Availability" for the definition of scientists and engineers and other variables and for notes on SESTAT.
James Sherk at the Heritage Foundation has authored a new issue paper that rebuts the arguments of those opposed to H-1B visas. The conclusion:
Contrary to the claims of immigration opponents, H-1B workers are highly skilled workers with vitally needed skills. H-1B workers are highly educated. Almost half have an advanced degree. The median H-1B worker earns 90 percent more than the median U.S. worker. They are in no way average workers.
Good story in today's Washington Post, "Buoyed by Foreign Money," on export-driven economic growth, including a 5.5 annual rate of increased exports in the first quarter.
Locally, firms have shared in the growth, and they have a lot at stake should it tail off. Virginia's export shipments totaled $16.9 billion in 2007, up 56 percent from 2003. Meanwhile, Maryland's export shipments totaled $8.9 billion in 2007, an increase of 18 percent from the year before and 81 percent from 2003.
The story quotes the NAM's David Huether, our chief economist.
"What is happening now in the economy really shows why it is important for the U.S. economy to be engaged globally," Huether said. "When there are slowdowns in certain parts of the domestic economy, it is a real benefit when there is another pillar holding things up."
The survey partly reflects that companies are still benefiting from export growth and consumer demand that's growing as unemployment falls and real wages expand, the IW said. "Robust'' economic growth this year in the euro-region will likely deter the European Central Bank from lowering interest rates, Michael Huether, the IW's director, said in an interview. "Lower interest rates are just not on the agenda."
David Weigel, writing in the latest edition of Reason magazine, does an excellent job in describing the raw, naked, brutal and ugly politics behind organized labor's push for the Employee Free Choice Act. He starts by letting the words of Stewart Acuff, the AFL-CIO's director of organizing, illustrate:
“My brothers and sisters,” he said, “if we go into 2008 with an even larger mobilization of workers behind this legislation, with even more commitment to win the election in 2008, and put this on the agenda in 2009, I’m here to tell you today that we will pass this legislation, in the House, overwhelmingly! We will pass it in the Senate! We will defeat a Republican filibuster! And we will have a president who signs the Employee Free Choice Act! And we can get back to the business of restoring the American dream for millions and millions of workers!”
What’s the Employee Free Choice Act? If you aren’t a lobbyist in Washington, a union worker, or an employer nervously trying to prevent your staff from organizing, you might not have followed the twisty history of the latest attempt to increase private-sector unionization. “Card check,” as it is usually known, would allow employees at a company to bypass secret-ballot elections and declare their intent to unionize by simply signing cards. If adopted, it could portend the most revolutionary change to labor law since the 1940s.
One point we disagree on is Weigel's description of business lobbyists watching with a sense of "resigned horror." Not around here. We sincerely believe that once the public understands that card check means ending secret ballot elections, they'll reject it. Certainly there's no resignation among members of the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace -- including the NAM -- who are assiduously working to point out the legislation's hostility to American democratic principles.
That said, read the whole thing. An informed electorate needs more of this kind of reporting.
DAYTON, Ohio - Autoworkers and suppliers are fixing up their homes, worrying about health care coverage and frequenting food pantries as they wait for an end to the 2-month-old strike against a Michigan auto parts supplier that has idled them or cut into their business.
The UAW's strike against American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc., now in its third month, has affected about 30 GM plants.
The report represents a very good starting place for those unfamiliar with asbestos litigation, providing a readable history of the industry, the real health risks and deaths caused by asbestos exposure, and the rise of the asbestos lawsuit business model. For all its other merits, consider the report, "Asbestos Litigation 101."
Despite being debunked and punished, the practice of mass health screenings sponsored by law firms continues. These screenings -- often conducted in parking lots -- almost inevitably and unbelievably found asbestos-caused lung damage. And now? Writes Jim Copland, the Manhattan Institute's project director: "In the last six months, the Texas law firm Nix Patterson & Roach has held two mass screenings in the now-more-mass-tort-friendly neighboring state of Oklahoma. Like the asbestos screenings of old, the screenings attracted potential plaintiffs with newspaper, broadcast and direct-mail advertising."
Trial Lawyers, Inc., is resourceful. More Copland in a column in today's Examiner: "Firms began shifting lawsuits out of their formerly friendly locales and into alternative plaintiff-friendly jurisdictions; Texas asbestos law powerhouse Baron & Budd, for example, began shuffling its caseload to California...The list of target defendants, 8,400 strong, also keeps growing. None of the new targets actually made asbestos; as noted by uber-lawyer Dickie Scruggs — recently convicted for bribing a judge — asbestos litigation today is really just “the endless search for a solvent bystander.
Congress is unlikely to undertake reforms, but change is possible in the states: "Adopting medical standards of evidence can eliminate bogus claims, reforming venue rules can block lawyers from shopping their cases to lowest-common-denominator jurisdictions, repealing several liability would protect companies with minimal ties to asbestos from shouldering the load of its legal costs, and mandating transparency can ensure that asbestos claimants are not double-dipping among the bankruptcy trusts in multiple jurisdictions."
The injustice inflicted by Trial Lawyers, Inc., is manifold. Companies that had only a passing involvement with asbestos are brought to their knees by litigation, courts are swamped by abusive lawsuits, and the real sufferers are cheated.
But as Copland concludes, "One thing’s certain: Absent reform, asbestos litigation abuse is here to stay."
“And as we’re talking today, Terry, the death count in Myanmar from the cyclone that hit there yesterday has been rising from 15,000 to way on up there to much higher numbers now being speculated,” Gore said. “And last year a catastrophic storm from last fall hit Bangladesh. The year before, the strongest cyclone in more than 50 years hit China – and we’re seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming.”
So was the cyclone in China 50 years ago also caused by global warming?
Burma's annual population growth is 0.8 percent. Over the past three decades, its population has about doubled, to more than 47 million today. We contend that a correlation exists between high fatalities and increased population density in low-lying areas.
Trial lawyers in the state and a group proposing to severely restrict the ability of plaintiffs to bring contingency fee civil lawsuits have agreed to withdraw competing ballot issues aimed for the November ballot.
John Sadwith, executive director of the Colorado Trial Lawyer's Association (CTLA) said the decision was made late Tuesday after continuing talks with the group promoting the restrictions on how much lawyers could collect in successful civil actions.
"We didn't think it was the best interests of working people in the state" to go forward with gathering signatures and putting the measures on the November ballot, Sadwith said.
Oh, for the working people, is it? We have another theory: National political and legal figures called Sadwith, saying, "Are you nuts? With the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August, the national media will be all over this story, confirming the public's prejudices against trial lawyers as greeding, grasping, avaricious and vengeful characters. Our critics among all those doctors, real estate agents, business owners, homebuilders, farmers, everybody...they'll have a heyday. It's a public relations nightmare. KNOCK IT OFF!"
The lawyers' nine initiated measures would have, among other things, capped compensation by CEOs -- unconstitutional -- revoked licenses of some doctors sued for malpractice, limited commissions for real estate agents, gone after homebuilders and tapped federal farm subsidies of certain farmers. No working people among those groups.
High global commodity prices are hitting manufacturers hard these days, as growing global economies (China, India) push demand. It's good news for mining and heavy equipment companies, though, prompting many U.S.-based companies to plan for expanded mining production. As this story from Marquette, Mich., reaffirms, environmentalists are opposed. No, really.
Here's a riddle: How do you discover water on Mars? Submit a permit application for a Martian mine and the environmental groups will be sure to detect threatened wetlands.
But it takes the penny to really focus the public (i.e., media's) attention on commodity prices. Front page story across the land today: "Congress looking at steel pennies and nickels" "Surging prices for copper, zinc and nickel have Congress trying to bring back the steel-made pennies of World War II, and maybe using steel for nickels, as well."
Meanwhile, the effort continues to prevent any renaissance of the U.S. nuclear power industry, starting with demanding impossible standards of uranium mining. In Colorado, " Opponents of uranium mining on Tallahassee Pass today hailed new rules that would govern uranium mining in Colorado if signed by Gov. Bill Ritter. ...House Bill 1161 would require uranium mining companies to clean groundwater at their sites to pre-mining quality after mining the radioactive material."
Let's demand that standard of all things, including parents. You may have a baby if you promise to restore the world to pre-baby quality afterward. We'll accept a $100,000 bond.
From Reuters, a story anticipating a meeting in NYC Thursday between U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab and India Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath, with Doha high on the agenda. India is resisting demands made by the U.S. and EU that advanced developing countries open their markets to more foreign manufactured goods.
Speaking in advance of the India talks, Frank Vargo, vice president for international economic affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers, criticized New Delhi, saying: "They talk the talk, but they don't walk the walk."
"In other words, they say good things, that they want this to work ... but when it comes to actually putting any positive proposals on the table, they don't," Vargo said.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Alaska Native and environmental groups sued Monday to stop exploration by oil companies this summer in Arctic waters frequented by whales, seals and other marine species.
The groups are challenging federal permits that allow Shell Oil Co. and BP PLC to search for oil and gas using powerful acoustic devices that have been shown, at times, to harm a variety of marine animals. The technology, known as seismic exploration, is used to determine the geologic makeup of the sea bed.
"The federal government is rushing to approve a burst of new seismic activity without completely studying the effects on marine life," said attorney Clayton Jernigan of Earthjustice. The Juneau-based law firm filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Anchorage.
The oil companies have been cast as villains during the recent presidential campaigns for supposedly profiting too much and causing high gas prices. It's a cynical play designed to take advantage of public anger of high gas prices.
Might we respectfully suggest to the candidates that they look to other sources of the problem(s), such as environmental groups that prevent access to domestic energy supplies, the "energy insecurity" crowd.
How brave, how politically defining it would be for a candidate to repudiate one or more of the environmental groups who restrict demand and make the United States more dependent on foreign oil. Tell these obstensible supporters how much damage they're causing.
San Francisco's groundbreaking program to provide health care to all 73,000 uninsured city residents received a major lift this week as more than 700 businesses in the city signed up for the plan.
The businesses represent 12,900 employees, more than half of whom are eligible for the Healthy San Francisco program, which currently enrolls 19,000 people. The other employees are eligible for a health-care reimbursement account.
Major boost! Guess the critics were wrong, right? Except....
The program is expected to cost about $200 million a year, with a portion of that paid by employers who join. So far, businesses have contributed about $6 million to the program, according to the Department of Public Health.
Well, they're 3 percent of the way! (If that $200 million figure isn't a low-ball figure.)
The Pacific Research Institute's John Graham comments, "And, did I mention that San Francisco, like California, has a big bomb of a budget deficit before taking SFHAP into account?"
The NAM has filed an amicus brief in the lawsuit brought by the Golden Gate Restaurant Association against the city plan, which violates ERISA, the federal law that supersedes state and local regulation of employee-provided health care.
Utility as in electric utility, not software application.
In any case, congratulations and kudos to PG&E for being the first major utility -- that we know of -- to launch a blog, Next100, http://www.next100.com/
The San Francisco-based site describes itself as "a dialogue on the next century of energy," and includes posts and links on clean energy, green energy, carbon dioxide, China's emissions. It's a new site, so more to come, and it IS a dialogue, since there's a comments section.
California is a very tough business environment generally, and policymakers at every level in the state make life very difficult for energy producers to meet the market's demand. It makes sense to have a website devoted to public outreach on the issues, so good for PG&E.
As of last Friday, 127 proposed initiatives have been filed with the Colorado Secretary of State's office. Long ballot, eh? The Colorado Trial Lawyers Association has been extra active, filing nine new ballot initiatives for the November election. State Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg comments in the Greeley Tribune.
Farmers are one of their targets and for the life of me, why lawyers hate farmers and rural Colorado is beyond me. Their ballot initiative, if passed, would force farmers to give up as much as 25 percent of any disaster payment or farm program to higher education for farmer training and outreach.
They filed another initiative that says specifically what Realtors can charge per sale.
The lawyers also filed to order the maximum amount a company can pay its executives.
In an apparent retaliation for an earlier filing to limit attorney fees, the head of the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association has filed with the state to put nine measures on the November ballot.
"For too long, corporate interests have been put ahead of consumer interests in this state," said John Sadwith, executive director of the 1,200-member trial lawyers' group. "Real people in this state deserve a break."
Realtors, farmers, doctors, executives -- You're not real people. So go away, and take the economy with you.
Is it the exchange rate? "Volkswagen of America will pay more than $14 million over five years to be D.C. United's primary sponsor and have its logo appear on the team's uniform, sources familiar with the negotiations said yesterday." D.C. United is the professional soccer team in town. VW sponsors Vfl Wolfsburg in Germany, which finished with 12 wins, 10 losses and 9 draws last season in the Bundesliga.
Washington, D.C., lobbied hard to get its own commemorative quarter -- after the 50 states -- and the three final designs are now being voted on: Duke Ellington, Benjamin Banneker, and Frederick Douglas. We'd go with Banneker, a mathematician, astronomer and surveyor. Coins have the power to excite children's imaginations, so a Banneker design might encourage a future engineer or manufacturer. Then again, he WAS from Baltimore. (Our real preference: Henry Adams and the Willard.)
And in the mother country, from Reuters: "LONDON, May 6 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown has lost the "confidence and trust" of British business in less than a year in office, according to the head of a leading manufacturers group. Brown also risks sparking an "exodus" of British companies to more favourable tax regimes like Ireland, said Martin Temple, chairman of the EEF manufacturers trade body."
Broad shoulders or deep pockets? From The Heartland Institute: "Sales taxes in the Chicago area could climb $1 billion this year, making Chicago the most expensive city in the United States in which to shop and dine...The tax hikes have been imposed by the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), which includes Cook County and five suburban counties, and by the Cook County Board. They come on top of other major tax hikes, including a record $86 million property tax hike and 40 percent real estate transfer tax hike in Chicago, and the imposition of the nation's first tax on bottled water, also in Chicago..."The government unions are controlling the whole process. Hire more people, increase pensions, raise salaries. That's all they want, and they get it," said Jerry Roper, president of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.
Indiana's manufacturing and logistics industries are growing, according to a report released today by Ball State University.
The first "Indiana Manufacturing & Logistics Report Card" is an initiative focused on the state's manufacturing and logistics economy. The report card shows Indiana leading its neighboring states in key measures like productivity, capital investment per worker and business costs.
The report card was created by Ball State University's Bureau of Business Research, with a team of economists and researchers led by Michael Hicks.
Overall, the report indicated that manufacturing is growing in Indiana and nationally. Last year was a record year for U.S. manufacturing in terms of industrial output, according to the report. Hoosier manufacturers lead neighboring states in capital investment per worker and industrial research and development.
I’ve just come from this meeting they have once a year. I do get letters and e-mails and things from neighboring states that remark on this contrast, and so forth, so anyway. On the subject of trade, Susan Schwab was one of the presenters and gave a very good presentation, pointed out among other things that since NAFTA, manufacturing output in America has more than doubled. So among her messages was, whatever problems you may be experiencing don’t have anything to do with NAFTA.
But the governor of Michigan took exception to that, and in what I thought not very persuasive terms, attempted to lay the problems of her state on that. I didn’t say anything…there’s no point in that place, or any place, I guess, to have an argument about it. But there’s nothing about Michigan that doesn’t apply to Indiana, too. And yet we have made economic progress. It leads you to think that there are other things, other variables involved, like tax, and costs and regulatory policy and so forth.
John Derbyshire at the National Review's The Corner blog wanted more information about the Bakken Formation, the oil-rich strata underneath the Upper Great Plains we've been blogging about here. Derb was kind enough to mention several responses, including Shopfloor.org's posts, and then later linked to this report at The Oil Drum, a thorough discussion of the formation's potential by Piccolo, a petroeum engineer. Piccolo is not as optimistic as the USGS as to the total recoverable oil, noting the formation may have already reached peak production.
Very good review, although we anxiously await an analysis from Contrabassoon.
UPDATE (9:10 a.m. Tuesday): Much, much more at Next Big Future, including well-by-well production figures.
The three-to-four billion barrel Bakken play in North Dakota is certainly gaining attention...and prompting some big plans. From Tom Dennis, Grand Forks Herald:
North Dakota’s fate now is tied to the price of oil, in a way that’s likely to influence our state and federal elected officials for years or even decades to come.
While North Dakota’s “original oil in place” figure exceeds the UAE’s currently recoverable reserves, Dubai is a Las Vegas-like showpiece today because the oil there is so much easier to get at. Many Persian Gulf reserves are so accessible that oil companies can profit even when oil sells for a few dollars a barrel. So, the oil flowed decades ago when the price was exactly that, and it has flowed steadily ever since.
Shoots holes in the Buffalo Commons theory, doesn't it? That's the theory promulgated back in the '80s by Frank and Deborah Popper of Rutgers, arguing that Great Plains were oversettled in a terrible historic mistake and that natural and economic forces would eventually lead to their depopulation. Best to rationalize the process and have an enlightened federal policy to create an American Serengeti, the Buffalo Commons, they argued.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) argues for passage of a federal media shield law in today's Washington Post, challenging a recent column by Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who contends a shield law would place reporters above the law. Last week, Politico carried a thorough update on the pending legislation in the Senate, S. 2035. The White House is resisting the legislation, arguing that it may protect bogus journalists and Internet provocateurs who disseminate national security and intelligence secrets.
Yet in Senator Specter's column, the op-ed by Mukasey, and Politico's story, no mention is made of business' troubles with the legislation. The issues being examined all deal with national security and classified intelligence.
Business observers are seriously concerned that the media shield will free from accountability disgruntled employees, unethical attorneys, criminals and others who will be able to steal or otherwise illicitly acquire important, confidential data, release it to a "journalist" -- whatever the definition -- and do great damage without any public interest being served (beyond satisfying idle curiousity).
Consider this post-media-shield scenario: A popular blogger with mainstream media experience has declared a campaign against Company X for what he views as its record of pillaging the environment. Developing an obsession, the blogger decides to burglarize the CFO's home when the family is away for the weekend, breaking into the personal safe and stealing the CFO's laptop. What a wealth of intriguing, damaging information: Employee records, including Social Security numbers, trade secrets, competitive information and financial numbers, even computer passwords.
To punish the company, the blogger posts all this data on his website, causing terrible financial damage not just to the company but to scores of employees. All in the public's interest, supposedly.
Happy Battle of Pueblo Day. And you Hoosiers, be prepared to show your ID on Tuesday; it's primary day (in North Carolina, too.)
The Senate does not meet today -- salud! -- convening Tuesday to resume debate on H.R. 2881, FAA Reauthorization Act, and S. 2284, Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act.
The House convenes today at 12:30 p.m., and senses will be expressed. On Tuesday, look for debate on the appointment of conferees on H.R. 4040, the Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act. The Farm Bill conference report might also make it to the floor, as might H.R. 5818, the Neighborhood Stabilization Act.
So here is what I would do. We've talked about this, we've never gotten it done -- certainly under the Republicans, they were not about to -- we need to change the tax code to take out any single benefit from your tax dollars that goes to any business that exports a job out of Indiana to any foreign country. It's outrageous. It's unpatriotic that is still going on. And you look at the tax code -- it makes sense. We are, you know, a free country. If people want to start jobs somewhere else, we're not going to stop them. But why should we help them? Why should we tell them, if you move those jobs and you make profits over there, you don't have to pay taxes on them, unless you bring the money back home? Well, hey, why would you ever bring the money back home?
Repatriation of Foreign Earnings: In general, U.S. companies pay a 35 percent “toll charge” when they bring foreign earnings back to the United States. A temporary “tax holiday” enacted in 2004, which gave companies the opportunity to reinvest foreign earnings in the United States at an effective 5.25 percent tax rate, brought back some $300 billion to the United States and generated some $17 billion in tax revenues. Reinstating this provision would provide additional funds for much needed investment and job creation.
Granted, it's an advocacy piece; conservative Christian groups like Focus in the Family want more transparency in state judicial elections because they believe it benefits candidates who are rule-of-law judges (as opposed to liberal activists). State business groups tend to agree.
The report brings more info to bear on a national issue being played out in the states than we've encountered anywhere else. Did you know that the James Madison Center has organized the Judicial Accountability Project to end laws and rules that prevent judges from answering questionnaires? Legal efforts are under way in eight states.
As John Stamberger of the Florida Family Policy Council says: "All judges have views. The only question is [whether] they express those views when they write a decision, when they do a dissent, or when they rule from the bench. The question is, does it serve the interest of a robust democracy for us to know those views before they’re elected or learn those views after they’re elected. "
The soundfile linked above is the full 5:30 interview broadcast this weekend. A shorter version was broadcast on April 28th; here's the transcript.
Florida's trial-lawyer association is traditionally opposed to any limits on people's right to sue. It is a potent interest group in Tallahassee; its political committee contributed more than $3.5 million to state candidates in the past three years. And it has particularly strong support in the Senate.
But though the trial lawyers had said early this year they had a "problem" with the liability language, Central Florida backers didn't recognize until too late how hard the group was willing to fight.
"No one realized that the trial lawyers had decided to take this on and make it their power play," said Fred Leonhardt, a lobbyist for Orlando.
Nobody crosses an ILWU picket line, not unless he wants to pick his teeth up off the floor or find his car on fire. Admittedly, some will call this “intimidation”; the Longshoremen prefer to think of it as “solidarity.”
For another perspective, try Lowell Ponte, a former Readers' Digest editor who now writes for NewsMax, pretty hardcore in its own right, right.
It cost our economy between $1 and $2 billion, equivalent to the theft of up to $26.66 from every American family of four -- money you and your family will be paying in higher prices.
Even more troubling is that those who conspired to assault us have not been arrested, jailed, or even removed from their high-security-risk positions.
The two writers, both historically attuned, take a different view of one of the union's founders, Harry Bridges.
A month or two ago, the "world hunger crisis" burst upon the scene, suddenly seizing the media high ground and dropping horror stories and analyses down on the unsuspecting public. A remarkable example of a herd mentality marrying up with pack journalism running with the boys on the bus....oh, and ethanol's to blame.
Not to say there's no connection between ethanol and food prices -- in fact, it's been argued for years -- but the explosion of coverage raises suspicions. It's as if editors who have long disliked government subsidies for ethanol found a new angle that more effectively made the case against this particular renewable fuel.
Alternative theory: Environmentalists who had for decades promoted alternative fuels turned to their global master plan, Page 472, the chapter entitled, "The Promoting Phase is Over. Time to Pull the Rug Out on Ethanol." Because no energy is always preferable.
The Post article asserts that corn prices have “been climbing for months on the back of booming government-subsidized ethanol programs.” This has quickly become the conventional wisdom. But while free market types (like me) are skeptical about both subsidies and tariffs, there is actually no evidence that these market manipulations have been a major factor behind rising prices for corn or other grains. Researchers Robert Zubrin and Gal Luft point out that the total U.S. corn crop has increased 45% since 2002. The amount of corn available for food and feed has increased 34 percent --- after the part used for ethanol has been taken out.
But haven’t those farmers cut back on other crops -- soy and wheat, for example -- to plant more corn and hasn’t that led to increases in the prices of those grains? Apparently not. As Zubrin and Luft also note, U.S. soy plantings this year are expected to be up 18%, wheat plantings 6%, and overall, U.S farm exports are up 23%.
Well, then, it's global warming!
The Post article also blames higher prices on global warming. But there is no solid evidence to suggest that whatever global climate change we have experienced in recent years – an increase of 0.31 degrees Fahrenheit per decade since the mid-1970s is the best current estimate -- has reduced food production. In fact, a warmer climate should mean a longer growing season allowing for more food production.
At any rate, there's an odd media/economic/public relations/activist/media dynamic going on here, a dynamic that historically translates into political pressure and impetuous policymaking. Be on guard.
*May is a supporter of federal mandates that would encourage development and use of flex-fuel vehicles. So he's not an anti-ethanol guy, by any means.
UPDATE (3:10 p.m.): Over at Planet Gore, Henry Payne rebuts what he takes to be May's ethanol touting, arguing for a close connection between ethanol as fuel as world food prices. Our post was more about the sudden shift among the public-opinion influencers, which, as said, engenders suspicions.
Today's Washington Times has the best single take we've seen on the energy doublethink on display in Maryland, where Governor O'Malley has blocked construction of new wind turbines on state lands while at the same time demanding dramatic increases in renewable energy. From "Wind power debate whips up controversy":
ANNAPOLIS — Self-styled "green" leaders across the country face a conundrum over wind power: Do they alienate part of their constituency by leveling pristine forests to build wind farms, or irritate the other part by rejecting a promising source of renewable energy?
When Gov. Martin O'Malley faced that choice in April , he opted for the latter, and in no uncertain terms.
"In the end, we could not justify the consequences that commercial wind would have on this land, this publicly held land," he said in announcing his decision to block a wind-farm proposal in Western Maryland. He also barred wind turbines from being constructed on any state land.
"I also want to stress what this decision should not be misinterpreted to mean: This is not a rejection of wind power in the state of Maryland," he told a group of wind- farm opponents.
No?
Another question, less rhetorical: "Pristine" forests? That's the term the anti-wind forces used to block the turbines in Western Maryland, one echoed by the Washington Times' reporter. Pristine means untouched, uncorrupted, unsullied by man. In Western Maryland. Perhaps the more accurate term would be, ""really pretty."
Former D.C. Administrative Judge Roy Pearson sues to get his city job back. And he wants damages, just not $54 million. Pearson was not reappointed to the post after his suit against his drycleaners elicited international scorn.
A commuter rail project in Central Florida has gone off the tracks in the Legislature, with liability one of main obstacles. From the Daytona Beach News-Journal: "The Department of Transportation and Jacksonville-based CSX Transportation reached an agreement in 2007 for the state to buy the tracks from CSX, which would then lease them part time for freight. But the agreement requires legislative approval of legal liability provisions that provoked opposition from many senators and trial lawyers. One provision would have extended state sovereign immunity to private contractors hired by the state for key rail functions. Another would have shielded CSX for most liability from mishaps on the line."
It's Time for Hearings into the Trial Bar's Crimes
A recurring theme here at Shopfloor.org and with other advocates of tort reform -- the American Tort Reform Association and The Examiner newspaper, for example -- is the obvious need for Congress to conduct oversight hearings of the trial bar's crimes and their costs to the U.S. economy. The time has now arrived. On May 19, Melvyn WeissWilliam Lerach is due to report to prison -- following in the footsteps of his former partner, William Lerach -- for his conviction in leading a decades-long conspiracy at Milberg-Weiss to pay kickbacks in the filing of class-action lawsuits.
Today, House Republican Leader John Boeher and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Chairman John Conyers asking for such a hearing. (Copy of the letter here.) As the two note in their letter: "Mr. Lerach himself told the Wall Street Journal his illegal conduct and that of his law partners was an 'industry practice.' At his sentencing, one of his supporting letters quoted Mr. Lerach as saying, 'Everybody was paying plaintiffs so they could bring their cases.'" More:
The Republican-led Congress responded aggressively to the Enron and WorldCom scandals earlier this decade. Now the Democrat-led Congress needs to do its job and examine the scandal at Milberg Weiss, which potentially has deeper and more far-reaching implications. Nearly three months have passed since Mr. Lerach was sentenced, but this Congress has yet to conduct even a single hearing to determine the extent to which crimes such as his are occurring in the rest of the industry.
If in fact the crimes committed by Mr. Lerach and his colleagues are an “industry practice,” as Mr. Lerach himself confessed, then the United States Congress is sitting idle while criminal behavior in the trial lawyer industry threatens American jobs and feeds like a parasite on the prosperity of working families. The American people deserve answers.
How many of these cases are brought as a result of illegal payments to plaintiffs?
What other types of conflicts exist between trial lawyers and the injured investors they purport to represent?
What reforms should Congress enact to eradicate these abuses from our judicial system?
We respectfully request that the House Committee on the Judiciary schedule a hearing by May 19 to begin the process of answering these questions in a complete and bipartisan way. Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
We would be naive to think partisanship didn't enter into this request. Trial lawyers represent a major political force within the Democratic party, much appreciated for their generosity in campaign contributions. If Chairman Conyers declines to hold a hearing, the Republicans will make an issue of it.
But so what? Crimes were committed that wreaked great harm on the economy, damaged people's reputations, and produced unjust results -- all part of what did indeed appear to be an industrywide practice. The call for Congressional oversight stands on its own merits, and the public deserves an answer to the questions posed by Reps. Boehner and Smith.
A hearing...now.
UPDATE (12:26 p.m.): From Law.com: "John B. Torkelsen, a former expert witness in hundreds of shareholder derivative and class action cases for Milberg Weiss, pleaded guilty on Thursday to perjury charges."
Also, from Reuters: "Indicted U.S. law firm Milberg LLP is in settlement talks with federal prosecutors to resolve a long-running criminal case involving accusations it paid illegal kickbacks to clients, sources close to the talks said on Tuesday."
From Medill Reports (i.e., Northwestern's graduate school of journalism), a thorough story on the costs of climate-change legislation and regulation, "Manufacturers blast new climate bill."
While proponents of the America’s Climate Security Act, or Lieberman-Warner bill, have said trades and auctions of pollution allowances would minimize costs, manufacturing officials contend the legislation would inflate energy prices and operating costs, crimping demand at home and making U.S. companies less competitive overseas.
“You’re going to have prices driven up dramatically,” said Keith McCoy, a spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington, D.C. “With these short timelines, coal-based utilities will have to switch to natural gas. That’s a very valuable commodity for manufacturers, and the price will get bumped up.”
Warning: Disregard if you're prone to mandibular problems and reading the Google search results might cause TMJ-related syndromes, for which smart attorneys could develop a class-action theory to sue some poor hack blogger.
An e-mail came into our computer yesterday, one of the occasional communications we receive from We Can Solve It, a nice, soothing-colors group, the friendly face of Al Gore's wrath.
The pitch? Contact the Secretary of Interior and urge him to protect the polar bear. And give us your e-mail address while you're at it.
And a persuasive argument, it is:
The Bush Administration has until May 15 to decide whether to place the polar bear on the Endangered Species list. Tell Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne that the polar bear, and its fragile Arctic habitat, requires protection from the effects of global warming. Sign the petition today.
"Mr. Secretary, please ensure that the polar bear gains the protection of the Endangered Species Act today."
NEW YORK, NY -- 05/01/08 -- Yesterday, April 30, 2008, Rights For America attorneys, Robert H. Weiss and Stephen Murakami, along with two prominent Class Action law firms from Missouri (Scharnhorst Ast & Kennard, P.C.) and Kansas (The Hodges Law Firm), filed a billion dollar consumer class action lawsuit against the leading baby bottle manufacturers (Avent America, Evenflo, Gerber, Handi-Craft (Dr. Brown's) and Playtex) for their use of Bisphenol A in polycarbonate plastic baby bottles and toddler training cups. The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri pursuant to Missouri Consumer Protection Laws on behalf of the infants and children of Missouri and the United States who were unknowingly exposed to BPA through their use of plastic baby bottles and training cups.
You can shuffle the order, of course. Often the trial lawyers are there at every stage.
In the meantime, anxiety spreads -- "Later on down the road what if something happened to him and I didn't take the precautions to give him a different bottle" -- and even panic.
Oh, and take a look at all the advertisements on the webpage with the lawyers' news release: Lawsuit settlement cash, safe baby bottles, acne medication lawsuit, etc.
It's an industry, the lawyer-media-think-tank-panic complex.
UPDATE: (9 a.m.): The class-action lawsuit was filed as an alleged violation of Missouri consumer protection laws. Guess the lawyers had to move fast, as the Legislature is being asked to reform the laws to discourage frivolous lawsuits.
The news coverage goes poof, too. Our post on the dismissal of Raelyn Campbell's $54 million lawsuit against Best Buy for a lost laptop garnered minimum notice by the news media.
The estimable Marc Fisher wrote an entry at his Washington Post blog, "Raw Fisher," commenting, "[Just] because the plaintiff was smart enough to glom onto the enormous worldwide publicity that the District's favorite administrative law judge, Roy Pearson, won in his case last year against his neighborhood dry cleaner does not mean--thank goodness--that her lawsuit was going to be taken seriously by the court."
And that's it, so far and too bad. One of the factors that should discourage the filing of frivolous lawsuits is negative publicity, even ridicule. Campbell had a brief moment in the spotlight based on her snort-inducing $54 million demand -- look at all the news and blog references -- but when the suit was dismissed, she mostly escaped media attention and the useful opprobrium it might have generated.
In the future, some publicity-hungry, offended consumer might look at Campbell's experience and say to himself, "Well, I'll lose, but at least I'll be on TV. It's worth it to me."
P.S. In other Best Buy chicanery, that is, chicanery against Best Buy, we have this Montgomery County man's crime spree. Buying computers, taking them home, removing their inner workings, and then returning them to the store. And he used his own credit card to make the purchases.
The action comes despite a last-minute appeal by employers, backed by a labor arbitrator, to compel longshoremen to report for work.
"We are severely disappointed that the union leadership failed to keep its end of the bargain," said Steve Getzug of the Pacific Maritime Association, an organization representing marine terminal operators. "The coast arbitrator - essentially the Supreme Court on the waterfront - has ordered the union to treat today as a normal work day, but the union appears to have done the opposite."
The ILWU, which represents more than 40,000 dockworkers at 29 U.S. Ports, is currently negotiating for a new labor contract with the PMA. The current pact expires July 1.
Employers said today's protest does little to bring the sides closer to an agreement.
"Shutting down the ports in defiance of the contract and the arbitrator's order in no way benefits an already-fragile U.S. economy," Getzug said. "We have a lot of serious issues to resolve at the bargaining table, and the nation cannot afford uncertainty about the reliability of the West Coast ports."
Not only is the move a gesture of contempt to the law and the union contract, it also tells members of other unions -- those whose work is disrupted -- that they're of no concern. So much for solidarity. And do all longshoremen oppose the war in Iraq?
The West Coast ports are a huge economic engine, supporting eight million U.S. jobs and accounting for 11 percent of the U.S. GDP. ILWU members are among the highest-paid blue-collar workers in the nation; average full-time wages for fully registered workers are $136,000. A rich benefits package, including pension and health care, costs more than $50,000 per worker. Nearly 15,000 registered longshore workers are employed at West Coast ports – an increase of more than 4,000 since 2002.
From an e-mail just sent out by the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute
When slightly positive is as bad as negative EPI's take on the latest GDP numbers, released Wednesday morning by the Commerce Department, was that the miniscule 0.6% growth reported is not nearly enough to prevent rising unemployment. Economist L. Josh Bivens noted in an early response that "There's nothing magical about staying above zero. In fact, annual growth of less than 2.5% is a recipe for rising unemployment. We're already seeing this in three consecutive months of job loss, and considering the GDP numbers released this morning, we'll surely see more in the coming months."
Very clever attempt at changing the terms of political debate. There has been so much screaming about slipping into recession, and then reality intruded. So now the screaming must be about, well, not slipping into recession.
And for the record, yes, 2.5 percent annual growth would be a lot better than 0.6 percent growth.
An editorial from the People's Weekly World, the weekly newspaper of the CPUSA, "May Day 2008":
Workers of the world unite! That visionary call, issued 160 years ago, is being answered today in new and powerful ways.
As capital has gone global, using workers around the world as pawns in the transnational corporate profit grab, labor unions are going global too. They are forming unprecedented international alliances to fight the global assault on wages, benefits, living standards and worker rights.
• The United Auto Workers and France’s metalworkers federation (FTM-CGT) are developing a joint strategy for organizing at employers they have in common. They have agreed to share information and assist each other.
UAW Vice President and Organizing Director Terry Thurman said, “We are very pleased to work with our French brothers and sisters. … The corporations cross national borders for their self-interest, and our unions need to do the same thing.”
FTM-CGT includes the shipbuilding, aircraft and rail, electrical and electronic, mechanical equipment, metal, agricultural machinery, jewelry making and automobile industries.
• Earlier this month, the Communications Workers of America and Germany’s largest union, Ver.di, launched the first union ever to represent workers in both the U.S. and Europe. The new union, called T-Union, will support T-Mobile workers trying to win collective bargaining rights in the U.S. and other countries. It will also represent German union members who work for T-Mobile in the U.S.
• Last year, the United Steelworkers signed an agreement with Britain’s largest manufacturing union, Amicus, and the British Transport and General Workers’ Union to move toward a merger. Amicus and the T&G have since joined into one mighty union with 2.1 million members, called, appropriately, Unite.
• The AFL-CIO has just formed a new partnership with Enlace — a network of 21 worker centers, unions and organizing groups representing approximately 300,000 low-wage workers in the U.S. and Mexico — to work together to promote and enforce worker rights in the two countries.
All this indicates that labor is beginning to step onto the global stage as the advocate for the world’s people. It gives every reason for optimism as we celebrate May Day, the international workers’ holiday.
The Heritage Foundation's Foundry Blog has a useful summary today of the real state of the polar bear and the politically motivated sillineness of trying to list the animal as an endangered species.
Environmentalists are in their normal state of righteous frenzy over the Department of Interior’s continued deliberations on whether or not to list the polar bear as “endangered” pursuant to the Endangered Species Act. Responding to a California judge’s decision ordering Interior to make their decision by May 15, Natural Resources Defense Council’s Andrew Wetzler said, “The science is absolutely unambiguous that the polar bear deserves protection.” The Center for Biological Diversity’s Kassie Siegel added: “The science is perfectly clear. There’s no dispute. The polar bear is an endangered species.” This rhetoric is 100% typical of the environmental movement. All scientists agree with us. There is no debate. Politicians need to conform to our agenda or we’ll all soon die. The problem in this case is that someone forgot to tell the Canadians.
An independent committee of scientists told the Canadian government last Friday that the polar bears are not, in fact, threatened or endangered. The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada did give the bears a “special concern” status, though, Canada’s weakest classification. Chairman Jeffrey Hutchings announced: “Based on the best available information at hand, there was insufficient reason to think that the polar bear was at imminent risk of extinction.” Hutchings went on to explain that the polar bears were facing threats from over-hunting and oil and gas development, but that the current modeling is not reliable enough to determine exactly what impact global warming is having on the bear.
A federal judge has ordered the EPA to determine whether to list the polar bear as an endangered species by May 15th, delighting those who would limit human activity -- including energy development -- in vast reaches of America's arctic. It's another example of environmentalist and anti-energy activist attempting achieve their goals not through the political or public policy process -- where the extreme agenda would fail -- but through the courts.
Law professor and radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt has been an effective and impassioned advocate for environmental policies that recognize man's place in the world. His most recent post on the topic:
I have written about the effort to back door Kyoto via the polar bear listing push here and here. The impact of a decision to list the bear would be vast, and the costs to the economy only dimly perceived even by the industries which would be immediately impacted. The short summary is that any activity that leads to the emission of greenhouse gases and requires a federal permit would immediately be subject to a new level of permitting and federal review (and demands for "mitigation") under Section 7 of the ESA.
If the petition to list is rejected, the environmental groups that generated more than 600,000 comments in favor of the listing will sue. If the bear is listed, the environmental groups will start suing to push the most expansive interpretation of the law.
Ordinarily the chaos that follows a listing is limited to the region a species inhabits. The polar bear controversy will dwarf all previous ESA smash-ups, whether the snail darter, the delta smelt, the California gnatcatcher or the spotted owl.
It's hard to imagine Hollywood finding any heroic character elements in an American manufacturing executive, but today's Washington Post review of Iron Man, which opens Friday, gives hope. The protagonist, i.e., Iron Man, is Tony Stark:
He's an engineering genius who has succeeded his late father, named Howard, to run Stark Industries. Originally an anti-communist whose identity was formed during the Vietnam conflict, Iron Man and his story have been moved by Favreau and Co. to the Middle East, where Stark technology is being used -- and stolen, and used against civilians and Americans.
Stark's metamorphosis, in terms of both worldview and secret identity, comes about after his Humvee is bombed, he's captured, and then he's fitted with an electromagnet to keep shrapnel from entering his heart (Iron Man always had heart problems, and the armored suit was part life-support system).
To have Downey, the hippest of Hollywood creatures, deliver dialogue about Stark Industries' moral legacy and the virtues of corporate humanity was as delicate a matter as any facing the "Iron Man" team. But it was also in keeping with Favreau's philosophy about the hero himself.
"It was a difficult thing to present Robert as not being naive but being open to redemption," the director says. "Not making him seem childlike or foolish but having him realize he's been living by the wrong set of standards."
Great teachers like Mike are optimists who believe in setting high standards. He believes that every child can learn if given a chance. And so when he became head of the science department, he created assessments for the students, and he put a system in place to measure results. That's what confident, optimistic people do -- say, I'm not afraid to measure, and if you believe every child can learn, then you want to assess to make sure they are.
And what a fine set of remarks Geisen gave. Obviously, he spends a lot of time keeping people's attention with his words -- seventh graders! -- but he spoke naturally, sincerely and with good humor.
We need to realize that we, as the United States in the 21st century, have this unique opportunity, a tremendous opportunity to fulfill an emerging niche in the world economy if -- if we educate our children to do more than just do math, reading and writing.
Students need to know that we value more than just being right all the time. We need to really honor their creativity, we need to honor their desire to learn useful skills that are going to be relevant in a 21st century world. These are skills such as innovation and creativity; people skills, like compassion and collaboration; and the ability not just to know the details but to really see how it fits into the big picture.
This is our real challenge, is to educate the entire child -- not just the left side of their brain, but the entire child.
A very nice job, there with his wife and children and fellow teachers. And the President obviously liked the guy.
Raelyn Campbell had her 15 minutes of fame but lost out on the $54 million she claimed she deserved. A Washington, D.C., Superior Court judge has dismissed her lawsuit against Best Buy (a fact we have not seen reported elsewhere).
Campbell is the D.C., woman who sued the electronics retailer after she took her laptop in for repairs to the Tenleytown store (that's a neighborhood in northwest D.C.) and the computer went missing. According to her account, Best Buy wasn't up front with her about losing the device and then tried to buy her off with coupons and settlement offers. That and her supposed concerns about identification theft led her to file a $54 million suit in D.C. Superior Court last November.
In February, we called the suit outrageous, arguing, "The more time the court spends on her litigation after Best Buy made a serious settlement offer, the more taxpayer money the judicial system spends and the more economic resources are wasted on unproductive uses."
Campbell has been quiet lately -- her last blog post was February 15th -- a sensible silence given the fact Judge Natalia M. Combs Greene dismissed her lawsuit on February 28th. (The Superior Court's civil division has an online search function, which led us to the docket after about 10 minutes of work. The suit is 2007 CA 007641, Campbell v. Best Buy.Com, LLC.)
Best Buy has been seeking sanctions against Campbell for her lawsuit, several request rejected by the judge. However, the February 28th docket entry notes: "Deft. Atty. awarded 2 hours attorney fees as sanctions." Campbell's website provides her point of view about defense's motions challenging the service of summons and other mishandled procedural steps. But in the end, the judge dismissed the suit.
What a waste, an expensive waste. Take a look at that docket, all the orders, hearings, appearances, summons, motions -- months of work and tens of thousands of dollars (taxpayer dollars included) expended because of what, self-promotion? A legitimate complaint taken to absurd ends? Perhaps it started with a company that might have done better by a customer, but the ultimate source of all this waste was yet another American acolyte of "jackpot justice."
Addendum: The case was dismissed two months ago. Funny how the news hadn't been reported yet. And we did attempt to contact lawyers for both sides and Best Buy's corporate headquarters this morning, but have not heard back as of yet.
Addenda: This blogger has bought one laptop from Best Buy, the Tenleytown store, and has had several service interactions with the company. No complaints, at all.
UPDATE (1:53 p.m.) A Best Buy spokeswoman, Dawn Bryant, responds (before this post went live) via e-mail that the company cannot comment at this time, but there was no settlement in the suit.
Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 0.6 percent in the first quarter of 2008, according to advance estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter, real GDP also increased 0.6 percent.
Nothing to burst out in joyful shouts about, but the reality is: Two quarters of growth in a row do not amount to a recession.
Out: Recession. In: Expansion. That's my quick take on today's first-quarter gross domestic product number, which showed that the economy grew 0.6 percent in the first quarter. Now that's not a robust number by any means, but it's not so bad given all the worry out there that the economy is headed off a cliff. Before you declare a recession, as many economic pundits have, shouldn't the economy, well, actually recess a bit—if only for a quarter?
Americans for Prosperity, a free-market, small-government advocacy group with many state chapters, is launching its national hot air balloon tour in Kansas City today, highlighting the costs of climate-change legislation. (Relaunching? There was a D.C. event on April 21.) There's a website: HotAirTour.org, and the basic point:
“Elected officials at all levels of government are converting global warming alarmism into policies that will have devastating consequences for our economy,” said AFP President Tim Phillips. “We think American families need to know what these proposals will cost them – lost jobs, higher energy prices, and less freedom. We’re launching this Tour to educate citizens on unaffordable climate change schemes.”
Harold Meyerson, the Washington Post's most socialistic op-ed columnist, writes a piece today, "Landing the White Whale," on the necessity of Democratic politicians winning white, male, working-class voters to have any hope of gaining the presidency. How to achieve that goal? Reunionize!
For decades, as union membership declined from 35 percent of the workforce in the mid-1950s to 12 percent today (7.5 percent in the private sector), Democrats stood by and failed to strengthen workers' rights to organize. By the late '90s, John Sweeney's AFL-CIO had impressed upon Democrats that their inaction amounted to slow-motion suicide. Today, the party is united behind the Employee Free Choice Act, which, by enabling workers to join unions again without fear of being fired, would also greatly help Democratic prospects at the polls.
What is it, again, that card check, i.e., the Employee Free Choice Act does? It enables workers to join unions again without fear of being fired? Really? How?
We suggest an alternative formulation: "[The] Employee Free Choice Act, which by destroying secret ballot elections in the workplace, would enable labor organizers to pressure and intimidate workers into joining a union against their will, effectively using anti-democratic means to expand the ranks and warchests of organized labor." But as we've noted repeatedly, card-check's supporters don't want to deal with the odious details.
To his credit, Meyerson's column is otherwise bluntly honest: Card check is nothing more than a politically motivated mechanism to push a labor and partisan agenda.
Maine is the latest state to embark on a broad expansion of government paid by taxes targeted on a very narrow industry and retail segment, based on a bogus "but it just seems right" nexus: Soda pop = bad health. From the Tax Foundation:
Back when cigarette tax increases were justified by politicians on the grounds of paternalism (even though they really just wanted more money), critics argued that the same argument could be applied to other unhealthy activities and products like candy bars or soft drinks. But such criticisms were dismissed as being scare tactics and unrealistic. But now the nannies at groups like the totalitarian Center for the Science in the Public Interest are having their voices heard in the push towards even more state control over our lives (largely through tax policy), much like the American Cancer Society has done over the past two decades on cigarette taxes. Of course, all of this is in the name of public health. (You as an adult aren't smart enough to make up your own mind about what to drink.)
Policymakers in Maine are the latest to succumb to this pressure of raising money by targeting specific products. This time it goes beyond the usual suspects of cigarettes and alcohol. If you drink soda, you're now going to pay as much as 22 cents more for a 2-liter bottle. Yes, 22 cents more on that 2-liter bottle of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, or even generic Sam's Choice Cola (assuming Wal-Marts are allowed in Maine). This extra revenue is designed to help pay for health care for self-employed individuals and small business owners. Such a policy has basically no justification in sound public finance. Such a policy is likely even regressive given that the tax will disproportionately be borne by low-income Maine residents in order to finance a spending program that disproportionately benefits upper-income residents (those who own businesses and are self-employed).
And extra thanks to the Tax Foundation's Gerald Prante who makes the connection between more, arbitary taxation and the loss of individual freedom. Someone needs to make that connection. Maine's legislators sure aren't.
Gov. Jon Corzine will sign the paid family leave bill into law on Friday in a statehouse ceremony, the governor's office told NJBIZ. New Jersey will become the second state, after California, to offer workers six weeks of paid leave to care for newborns or seriously ill immediate family members.
Supporters of the bill say it will help workers balance their work and family life. Business lobbyists and other critics argue that employers—especially small ones like doctors' offices and car repair shops—cannot afford to lose key workers for up to six weeks at a time. The critics say that becoming the first state in the region to mandate paid leave would further damage the state’s image as a place to do business.
In 2007 New Jersey added just 3,700 private-sector jobs, growing only 0.1%. That put the Garden State 41st in the nation. Meanwhile, NJ has already lost 10,000 private-sector jobs in 2008. Adding mandates unique to the state only worsens that trend. Call it subtraction by addition.
Washington Post columnist and Newsweek editor Robert Samuelson's dispassionate economic analysis leads him to a clear conclusion in today's paper, a column entitled, "Start Drilling."
What to do about oil? First it went from $60 to $80 a barrel, then from $80 to $100 and now to $120. Perhaps we can persuade OPEC to raise production, as some senators suggest; but this seems unlikely. The truth is that we're almost powerless to influence today's prices. We are because we didn't take sensible actions 10 or 20 years ago. If we persist, we will be even worse off in a decade or two. The first thing to do: Start drilling.
It may surprise Americans to discover that the United States is the third-largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. We could be producing more, but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits. These include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. By government estimates, these areas may contain 25 billion to 30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion barrels of proven U.S. reserves today) and 80 trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 tcf of proven reserves).
What keeps these areas closed are exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies and sheer stupidity. Americans favor both "energy independence" and cheap fuel. They deplore imports -- who wants to pay foreigners? -- but oppose more production in the United States. Got it? The result is a "no-pain energy agenda that sounds appealing but has no basis in reality," writes Robert Bryce in "Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of 'Energy Independence.' "
Thinking more about the Reuters analysis yesterday that reprised the old argument, drilling in ANWR brings no immediate benefits, etc. (and remember, President Clinton vetoed ANWR legislation in 1995), we speculate about the future:
(Washington, D.C., April 30, 2022) -- Opening the Alaska's North Slope to energy development will do nothing to ease $16 a gallon gasoline, analysts agree, calling for increased conservation and smaller vehicles to help control fuel costs.
"True, the years of additional energy costs has hurt America," said Clich E. Thinking. "The manufacturing sector is down to Pete in Virginia and that little company in Texas. Turns out the green jobs went abroad with everybody else. But with conservation, we can at least spare the pain at the pump."
Dow Jones: "WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Addressing a myriad of economic worries, U.S. President George W. Bush pushed lawmakers to expand domestic energy production, streamline a "bloated" farm bill and pass an overhaul of the Federal Housing Administration."
Washington Post:"President Bush today blamed Congress for many of the nation's economic woes, charging that lawmakers have blocked his proposals for dealing with problems ranging from soaring gasoline prices to the increasing cost of food."
Bloomberg: "April 29 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush blamed Congress for blocking his initiatives to mitigate rising energy costs by expanding domestic production and said lawmakers also are delaying action on other measures to address higher food costs and the mortgage crisis."
WASHINGTON, April 29 (Reuters) - The Bush administration says the United States would be less addicted to foreign oil and fuel prices would be lower if Congress had only opened up Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.
But that claim doesn't reflect the long lead time to develop the refuge's huge oil reserves, which would not be available for several more years and initial volumes would still be small if Congress in 2002 had approved the administration's plan to drill in ANWR, energy experts say.
This line of thinking invites paralysis: "Since that extra week of overtime won't pay enough to buy a new car by June, I shouldn't do the work, even though it might help raise the funds by November."
Other points:
The market responds to expectations of supply and policy signals, and drilling in ANWR would not be considered in a vacuum. A commitment to domestic energy development as reflected in opening of ANWR in 2002 would have sent a powerful signal.
Bush got to the issue of ANWR as soon as he could. Congress changed the law to open the possiblity of energy development in 1980. Both the Senate and House approved drilling in ANWR in 1995, but President Clinton vetoed the legislation.
Finally, with energy costs rising and reliance on foreign supplies growing, the argument for ANWR has only gotten stronger. It's quite surprising that elected officials previously opposed to ANWR have not reassessed their positions given the serious consequences of inaction.
A few weeks ago NAM President John Engler sat down with trade reporters to talk about NAFTA, Colombia, China and other trade and export issues. At one point, a question prompted the Governor to outline what he thought the President should be emphasizing in the closing months of his Administration. Engler:
The one thing that the president would be well served to focus on for the remaining nine months is what can be done on the energy security front. The whole climate debate hinges in part of energy availability. We represent a sector which absolutely cannot function without power. I don’t know much about manufacturing, but I do know the factories won’t work if they don’t have power. Where’s it going to come from? You’ve got these people who don’t want to use coal. You’ve got other people who are opposed to nuclear. You’ve got others who think it will all come from wind and solar. You’ve got others who want to take the hydro projects, the dams, down.
Americans are concerned about energy prices, and I can understand why. I think the last time I visited with you it was like -- I said it was like a tax increase on the working people. The past 18 months, gas prices have gone up by $1.40 per gallon. Electricity prices for small business and families are rising, as well.
I've repeatedly submitted proposals to help address these problems. Yet time after time, Congress chose to block them. One of the main reasons for high gas prices is that global oil production is not keeping up with growing demand. Members of Congress have been vocal about foreign governments increasing their oil production; yet Congress has been just as vocal in opposition to efforts to expand our production here at home.
They repeatedly blocked environmentally safe exploration in ANWR. The Department of Energy estimates that ANWR could allow America to produce about a million additional barrels of oil every day, which translates to about 27 millions of gallons of gasoline and diesel every day. That would be about a 20-percent increase of oil -- crude oil production over U.S. levels, and it would likely mean lower gas prices. And yet such efforts to explore in ANWR have been consistently blocked.
The President went on to call for new refinery capacity and expanded use of nuclear power, and he criticized those who would make energy more expensive by increasing taxes on its production.
Darn good message.
(P.S. NAM President Engler had more to say about energy and climate-change legislation in his chat with reporters. His observations are in the extended entry below.)
How often is this kind of thing happening? From WIVB TV News, Buffalo, a story about the North Park Branch Library closing:
During a recent construction assessment to repair plaster walls, lead paint readings came back elevated. The highest elevated levels reported are confined to window areas of the libaray that are enclosed in plastic for energy savings.
As a precaution and to ensure the safety of staff and patrons, in consultation with the Library's Board of Trustees, B&ECPL Director Bridget Quinn-Carey has decided to temporarily close the library. "While we do not believe that our staff or patrons are at risk for lead exposure, we have decided to err on the side of caution and temporarily close the facility until further assessments and remediation work can be done," Quinn-Carey said.
SPANISH FORT, Ala. -- For the first time since Christmas break, all classes at Spanish Fort Elementary are back on campus Monday morning. Officials moved classes to other locations after lead paint was found on campus. Some classes returned to campus last month.
When did lead paint become plutonium? The risks to children of occasionally entering a room with lead paint or even attending classes in a room that might have some paint, maybe, is so neglible as to be non-existent. For goodness sakes, in Buffalo the paint is on windowsills sealed away from the public. And yet we have closures, disruptions, exorbitant clean up costs.
Common sense has been run off the rails by the trial lawyers -- aided by their political and activist allies -- who win billions of dollars in legal suits for the mere possibility of a health risk. The attorney general in Rhode Island has been suing paint manufacturers, demanding they pay to mitigate the risks from lead paint to the tune of $2.4 billion. To stop the public from laughing at the absurdity of it all, he, too, has to hype the risks.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (Legal Newsline) - The State of Rhode Island's landmark lead paint lawsuit might be a lot of fuss over a receding problem, recently released figures show.
Incidents of lead poisoning among Rhode Island children have "declined dramatically" over the past 10 years, according to a report by the state Department of Health. This news comes with only a few weeks left before the state Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the State's suit against three former manufacturers of lead paint.
OK, OK -- just some environmentalists. But as this entry in the Wall Street Journal's "Environmental Capital" blog details, California is afflicted with many, many people who like the idea of solar power in the abstract, it's just that actual getting it to the consumers who might use it that's unacceptable.
The L.A. Times reports that California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is throwing his support behind a proposed 150-mile transmission line that would partially run through a state park. Gov. Schwarzenegger pressed the case in a December letter to California’s public utility commissioner Dian Grueneich, though the decision won’t be made until this summer. The “Sunrise Powerlink” would link solar power plants in the Colorado Desert with San Diego—but wold also mean hulking high-transmission towers snaking through a state park enjoyed by a million visitors a year.
It’s hardly a local phenomenon. From Texas to Scotland, new clean energy projects that might disrupt wildlife habitats (or vacation views) have become an internecine battleground among green warriors. Fighting climate change by adding renewable energy is good; but upsetting pristine landscapes is unconscionable.
At what point does NIMBY become NIABY, Not in Anyone's Back Yard?
FERC staff issues Draft Environmental Impact Statement on Sparrows Point LNG and Mid-Atlantic Express Pipeline Project (Docket Nos. CP07-62-000, CP07-63-000, CP07-64-000, and CP07-65-000)
Issued: April 25, 2008
FERC staff prepared a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for the AES Sparrows Point LNG, LLC and Mid-Atlantic Express, L.L.C. (collectively, AES) Sparrows Point LNG and Mid-Atlantic Express Pipeline Project. The liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal is proposed for an industrial port setting on Sparrows Point, in Baltimore County, Maryland, and consist of facilities capable of unloading LNG ships, storing up to 480,000 cubic meters (m3) of LNG, vaporizing the LNG, and sending out natural gas at a baseload rate of 1.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcfd). The pipeline would include about 88 miles of 30-inch-diameter natural gas pipeline (about 48 miles in Maryland and 40 miles in Pennsylvania), ending in Eagle, Pennsylvania.
FERC’s environmental staff concludes that the Sparrows Point LNG Terminal and Pipeline Project with appropriate mitigating measures, as recommended, would have limited adverse environmental impact and would be an environmentally acceptable action.
The project is planned for the former Bethlehem Steel Plant site, replacing one industrial site with another. The locals and their elected officials are protesting, now relying on the last argument against any power facility -- terrorist attacks.
Nearly every time a conservative think tank expert is quoted on a subject -- think global warming -- journalists are quick to identify the funding of the group: "Which has oil company support..." That kind of thing. But what about when the group has other leanings?
The Washington Post front-paged a story on Sunday sympathetic to activists' claims the FDA relied too closely on studies funded by the chemical industry to determine that an ingredient in some consumer plastics, bisphenol A, or BPA, is more dangerous to the health than regulators would have you believe. It was more of the "politicization of science" thesis that Post editors and reporters consider a valid, IMPORTANT story. (See this post on another Page One story about Vioxx.)
Left out of the Post's reporting was the dominant role that the trial lawyers have played in publicizing the claims about BPA's supposed health threats and the related lawsuits being filed in another round of "jackpot justice." (Such as this one, filed last week in California.)
And the identification of one of the chief sources in the story was woefully inadequate.
"Tobacco figured this out, and essentially it's the same model," said David Michaels, who was a federal regulator in the Clinton administration. "If you fight the science, you're able to postpone regulation and victim compensation, as well. As in this case, eventually the science becomes overwhelming. But if you can get five or 10 years of avoiding pollution control or production of chemicals, you've greatly increased your product."
A federal regulator, so he must have a valid insight, right? Except as his bio notes, Michaels was a Department of Energy official, responsible for the health and safety of those who come in contact with the nation's nuclear weapons labs. Not quite as relevant, we think.
We learn further down in the story that Michaels "runs the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy at George Washington University and wrote the book 'Doubt is Their Product,' which details how various industries have used science to stave off regulation."
The Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy's homepage is www.defendingscience.org. There's a recent paper on the studies of BPA by Sarah Vogel, entitled, "Battles Over Bisphenol A," which makes the basic argument accepted as the thesis in the Post story.
For decades, industry trade associations and their lawyers staved off the regulation of unsafe products like tobacco, lead and asbestos by arguing that scientific uncertainty precluded government action. [41] Similarly, the plastics and chemical industries seek to deny, delay, and dismiss the low dose research on bisphenol A.
The story does not make clear who is financing the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy, aka SKAPP. To its credit, the group explains:
Funding: Major support for SKAPP is provided by the Open Society Institute and the Common Benefit Trust, a fund established pursuant to a court order in the Silicone Gel Breast Implant Products Liability litigation. The opinions expressed on the DefendingScience website are ours alone. We do not provide our funders advance notice or the opportunity to review or approve the content of this site or any documents produced by the project.
So that's who's paying for this anti-industry "science": George Soros' Open Society Institute (www.soros.org) and some of the cash thrown off in class-action lawsuits against silicone breast implants -- i.e., the largess of the trial bar.
A major point raised in the Post's story is that the chemical industry finances studies, a notable if not objectionable conflict of interest. And when a left-wing billionaire and trial lawyers finance counterstudies, that doesn't warrant a mention?
By introducing an element of unpredictability into those capital flows, CFIUS does more harm than good. And this comes at a time when the U.S. economy is slowing and needs all the help it can get.
The number of "obvious" cases ripe for rejection – Iran buying centrifuges, for instance – is exceedingly rare. Among other reasons, this is because most of America's post-Cold War state enemies are too poor to buy important U.S. assets. So CFIUS does most of its work on "marginal" cases where there might be some grounds for concern but the potential threat to security interests isn't clear.
A reformed CFIUS would restrict itself to the scrutiny of deals involving actual enemies of the U.S. – for example, states on America's list of terror sponsors. Barring that, it would subject itself to judicial appeal.
The burden is on CFIUS to prove its activities are in the interest of national security, not protectionism, Trevino writes.
UPDATE (8:40 a.m): Bumping this to the top of the page because we garbled the company's name in the original post. Apologies to KME.
John Kovatch III, now president and CEO of KME Fire Apparatus -- part of of the Kovatch group of companies -- shows us the ins and outs of manufacturing custom firetrucks and other fire-fighting apparatus in this week's Cool Stuff Being Made, a video from 2005. The company is another family business starting small, growing and expanding. As this feature story at Bystronic explains:
Kovatch Mobile Equipment Corporation, headquartered in Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania, builds custom-designed fire trucks, rescue trucks, industrial foam vehicles and aircraft refuelers....[Spirited] visionary, John "Sonny" Kovatch began his business as a modest two-car repair shop in 1946. Since then, with eleven manufacturing plants at this facility, annual production reaching 300-325 units and orders flowing in from around the world, this family owned and operated company stands as the largest privately held manufacturer of customized specialty vehicles in the United States.
Computer design, metal fabricating, custom painting, plumbing, etc. -- there's a lot that goes into building firefighting apparatus, including one we see in the video, a 2,000-gallons-a-minute pumping unit. And at KME, customers come to the facility to inspect their purchases.
And if you're in the Harrisburg area in the middle of May, drop by the Fire Expo 2008. KME and many other great companies will be well represented.
Thanks again to PCN for supplying the NAM with a consistent flow of consistently interesting videos on manufacturing in Pennsylvania.
That's a panel from Sunday's comic strip, "Rex Morgan, M.D." That nice Dr. Reed has just been served with a lawsuit, we presume a medical malpractice suit for letting that poor little Wagner boy die in the hospital from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). And not only does the lawyer advertise on TV, June Morgan, R.N., tells us he's known as Max the Ax, Legal Warrior.
Does Dr. Morgan practice in Memphis? From an editorial in The Commercial Appeal, "Only a baby step:"
Supporters of tort reform in Tennessee are touting a measure approved by the General Assembly as a step toward eventual passage of comprehensive legislation that will revolutionize medical malpractice litigation.
That's an optimistic assessment that might be borne out in the future, but it's far from a certainty.
In the meantime, Max the Ax will continue warring against family physicians.
Truckers descend on Washington this morning, protesting high fuel prices by driving in symbolic excess. Will they demand an FTC investigation into price gouging? A joint session of Congress convenes Wednesday to hear from Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland. Movement is possible on the Farm Bill, given the conferees' breakthrough on Friday.
On Tuesday, national leaders will gather at a "convocation" in Washington to weigh how much progress has been made in bolstering math and science education and strengthening the nation's research enterprise in recent years. The National Academies is sponsoring the event, following up on its important 2005 report, "Rising Above the Gathering Storm." New release.
The House convenes Tuesday and on Wednesday will start considering H.R. 5522, expanding worksite regulation against combustible dust, and H.R. 493, Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which passed the Senate unanimously last week. The House floor schedule is here.
The Senate convenes at 2 p.m. today and takes up the FAA reauthorization, H.R. 2881.
For a full list of this week's committee hearings, see the Daily Digest pages here.
Executive Branch: President Bush meets with the President of Guatemala today and later with the Co-Chairs of U.S.-Brazil CEO Forum. Commerce Secretary Gutierrez participates in the Brazil forum. Also today, Ambassador Susan Schwab speaks to the National remarks to the National Marine Manufacturers Association and later to the Korea FTA Business Coalition.
MILWAUKEE — Hampshire Co., a developer of touch-screen technology, has been puzzling since November over how to fill a couple of engineer openings.
Besides the more traditional avenues of career fairs, staffing companies, college recruiting and online want ads, the Brown Deer, Wis., company has been making classroom presentations to engineering student clubs and calling human resources departments that might be laying off engineers.
“I used all of my LinkedIn and Gmail networks,’’ said Carol Crawford, Hampshire’s general manager.
At the Milwaukee School of Engineering, more seniors are weighing multiple job offers and more employers are willing to cross-train the students they hire. The school expects its biggest graduating class in memory next month — 322 new engineers. But it’s not enough.
Engineers top the list of hard-to-fill positions according to a new, global survey released last week by Manpower, Inc., the temp and human resources firm.
Manpower Inc. (NYSE: MAN) released today the results of its third annual talent shortage survey, revealing that 31 percent of employers across the globe are finding it more difficult to fill jobs. The top three candidates most in-demand are: skilled manual trades, sales representatives and technicians (which are technical workers in the areas of production/operations, engineering and maintenance). Manpower surveyed nearly 43,000 employers across 32 countries and territories as a follow-up to its 2007 and 2006 surveys -- including for the first time in the Czech Republic, Greece, Guatemala, Poland and Romania -- to determine which positions employers are having difficulty filling this year due to lack of available talent.
In Speth's view, the accelerating degradation of the Earth is not simply the result of flawed or inattentive national policies. It is "a result of systemic failures of the capitalism that we have today," which aims for perpetual economic growth and has brought us, simultaneously, to the threshold of abundance and the brink of ruination. He identifies the major driver of environmental destruction as the 60,000 multinational corporations that have emerged in the last few decades and that continually strive to increase their size and profitability while, at the same time, deflecting efforts to rein in their most destructive impacts.
"The system of modern capitalism . . . will generate ever-larger environmental consequences, outstripping efforts to manage them," Speth writes. What's more, "It is unimaginable that American politics as we know it will deliver the transformative changes needed" to save us from environmental catastrophe. "Weak, shallow, dangerous, and corrupted," he says, "it is the best democracy that money can buy."
The Wall Street Journal reaches the conclusion last week's Senate consideration of the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would have lifted all statutes of limitation on employment discrimination suits, was intended more as a political statement and loyalty pledge than an earnest legislative proposal. From "The Foul Play Act":
Ms. Ledbetter took the novel view that decisions made decades ago by her now-deceased former boss affected her pay all the way up to her retirement, so each paycheck was a new discriminatory act. On this theory, there would be no statute of limitations at all. Cases could be brought long after relevant evidence and witnesses had passed from the scene. In practice, every such suit would become a new trial lawyer pay day, as employers settled cases they would find impossible to defend.
And in The Washington Post, a letter to the editor from David A. Drachsler, vice chairman of the Virginia Council on Human Rights.
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which you support, would permit an employee to file a pay discrimination lawsuit years after the pay decision was made, even if the employee was aware of that decision. Indeed, in Lilly Ledbetter's case, her lower pay, compared with that of men doing similar work, was caused by low performance evaluations of which she was aware years before she filed her charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
A simple solution would be to amend Title VII to make the statute of limitations run from the date the employee discovered, or with due diligence should have discovered, the discrimination that caused the pay disparity.
Marking the 25th anniversary of the Nation At Risk report on the failings of U.S. education, long-time analyst and reformer Chester Finn identifies four key lessons that should be more broadly applied. From today's Wall Street Journal:
First, don't expect Uncle Sam to manage the reform process. Not only does Washington lack the capacity to revamp thousands of schools and create alternatives for millions of kids, but viewing education reform as a federal obligation lets others off the hook. Yet some things are best done nationally – notably creating uniform standards and tests in place of today's patchwork of uneven expectations and noncomparable assessments. These we have foolishly resisted.
Second, retain civilian control but push for more continuity. Governors and mayors remain indispensable leaders on the ground – but the instant they leave office, the system tries to revert. The adult interests that rule it – teacher unions, yes, but also colleges of education, textbook publishers and more – look after themselves and fend off change. If three consecutive governors or mayors hew to the same agenda, those reforms are more apt to endure.
Third, don't bother seeking one grand innovation. Education reform is not about silver bullets. But huge gains can be made by schools that are free to run (and staff) themselves, attended by choice, expected to meet high standards, and accountable for their results.
Consider the more than 50 schools in the acclaimed Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) network. We don't have nearly enough today, but we're likelier to grow more of them outside the traditional system than by trying to alter the system itself.
Finally, content matters. Getting the structures, rules and incentives right is only half the battle. The other half is sound curriculum and effective instruction. If we can't place enough expert educators in our classrooms, we can use technology to amplify the best of them across the state or nation. Kids no longer need to sit in school to be well educated.
Apropos Lesson No. 3, NAM President John Engler often makes the point that we know what works, but in isolation. Program X does a great job in a Kentucky school system, Initiative Y achieved results in Arizona, and Reform Z works wonders in Washington. We need to bring these efforts together.
This week marked the 25th anniversary of the "Nation at Risk" report, awakening the public and policymakers to the failures of American public education. Have things improved since then?
In this week's video podcast of "America's Business with Mike Hambrick," we'll hear from Chester "Checkers" Finn, a leading educational thinker and reform and president of the Thomas Fordham Institute.
Finn sees lots and lots of problems still affecting our schools.
For more on this week's interview with Finn and the entire radio broadcast, please visit www.americasbusiness.org
WASHINGTON, April 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democratic leaders sent the following letter today to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman William E. Kovacic urging him to investigate record gas prices. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 gives the FTC the authority to probe possible market manipulation of gas prices, but to date, the Commission has failed to exercise its power to protect consumers from skyrocketing energy costs.
Seems familiar, this line of argument. Very familiar. In fact, why don't we respond to it by just reposting our post of September 19th, 2007, entitled, "Stop the Presses: Still No Price-Gouging!"
Certain elected officials get months of headlines every other year or so beating up on the people who supply fuel to consumers, claiming that the evil oil companies are manipulating the prices of gasoline. News conferences, congressional hearings, table pounding and news releases -- we get the whole spiel. Repeatedly.
But when the FTC issues yet another report showing that higher prices for gasoline resulted from market forces and no gouging occurred, it's a one-day story. A low-profile story.
We make these observations as a set-up to and praise for Paul Greenberg's opinion column, "Economics vs. politics." As usual, Greenberg pulls no punches.
[Every] time gas prices go up, a certain kind of politician is shocked, shocked. Or at least pretends to be. And demands an investigation, which is a lot easier than taking Economics 101 all over again.
Naturally the politician blames some vague, amorphous monster out there like Big Oil rather than the real-life owner-operator of your neighborhood filling station. After all, the little guy votes. If there's an avaricious cartel setting oil-and-gas prices, it's called OPEC. But oil sheiks and Venezuelan caudillos are scarcely subject to a congressional investigating committee.
If there's a conspiracy at work here, it's the dismal science itself — economics. It has been refuting demagogues ever since they've been taking advantage of our anger, suspicion and ignorance.
Thanks for the reminder, Mr. Greenberg.
Trouble is, the demagoguery has left its legislative mark. The Senate passed version of the energy bill (H.R. 6) includes anti-price gouging language, which will discourage companies from responding to the market's price signals, and inevitably lead to shortages. (Heritage looked at the issue here.) So we need to continue paying attention, just as Paul Greenberg has.
Or expect yet another FTC report, demanded in, oh, August 2008, but only to be finished after the November elections.
There are nine (9) countries on this year’s Priority Watch List: China, Russia, Argentina, Chile, India, Israel, Pakistan, Thailand, and Venezuela. Countries on the Priority Watch List do not provide an adequate level of IPR protection or enforcement, or market access for persons relying on intellectual property protection, in absolute terms and/or relative to a range of factors such as their level of development. Priority Watch List countries will be the subject of particularly intense engagement through bilateral discussion during the coming year.
Canada has actually been a significant concern in recent years, so this is good news: "Canada has taken some significant steps in the past year and, given the importance of the outstanding issues and maturity of its economy, we look forward to additional action in the coming months on the IP reforms identified as key priorities by the Government of Canada."
At this week's Three Amigos summit in New Orleans, where Mexico, the U.S. and Canada met to discuss and defend free trade, President Bush was right to also bring forth New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.
The mayor of the hurricane-hit city made an impassioned plea to Congress to pass the Colombia free trade agreement for New Orleans' sake. He knows how badly his city needs every break it can get, three years after the biggest disaster to ever hit a U.S. metropolitan area.
"New Orleans is becoming an even greater international city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina," Nagin wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last November, "and we are making every effort to capitalize on trade liberalization that will flow from these FTAs (free trade agreements). Our port system is ideally situated to take advantage of the Latin American FTAs."
IBD notes the close connections, historically and geographically, between New Orleans and Colombia: "New Orleans is situated on a direct shipping route just 1,640 miles to Cartagena and Barranquilla on Colombia's Atlantic coast."
(Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds, who observes, "Congress is unmoved because free trade produces less graft than massive aid projects. But it's funny that this hasn't gotten much attention from the press.")
As a Sopranos fan, I was disappointed to be cheated out of a great death scene to end a superb series. Insult was added to injury however, when one of the more show's more interesting characters -- Johnny Sac -- was revealed to be a Clinton fan.
Now at least, Johnny Sac is pushing a cause I can get behind:
Card Check is likely to be a significant issue in a number of Congressional races this year. The Curatola ad plays well on his Sopranos image, and does a good job of illustrating why workers might not want to lose the right to a secret ballot on unionizing. Do they really want their employers and union bosses to know how they stand on such a decision?The NAM is a member of the Coalition.
UPDATE (10:15 a.m.): More from Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, who calls it "perhaps one of the most effective ads in recent political history to demonstrate the dangers represented by Card Check, thanks to instantly-recognizable Sopranos star Vincent Curatola."
Yesterday in the post "Anatomy of a Beltway Takedown" we reported on how an environmental activist group, the Union of Concerned Scientists, "entrusted" a Washington Post reporter with a story, which begot congressional hearings, and successfully turned a policy dispute about Endangered Species Act listings into a Washington, D.C., "scandal" that drove an official from her job. Outrageous. Typical.
This week the Union of Concerned Scientists released a new survey making similar claims about the Administration "politicizing science," citing EPA staffers who said their work was being interfered with. Struck us as a whole lot of nothing, anonymous staffers objecting to people disagreeing with them. But given the environmentalist group's ability to network like-minded Capitol Hill types, we concluded, "Let's see how this one becomes a scandal."
Here you go.
These survey results suggest a pattern of ignoring and manipulating science in EPA's decisionmaking. At May's hearing, the Committee will examine one apparent example of this disturbing trend: EPA's recent revision of the national air quality standards for ozone. You should also expect members of the Committee to ask about these survey results and other evidence of political interference with science at EPA.
That's from a letter from House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. (Copy of the letter here.)
We'll see what happens next. Would guess subpoenas for this or that.
The NAM's Frank Vargo testified yesterday at a hearing, "U.S. Export Promotion Strategy, " before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade. His testimony is here. Key recommendation:
I propose for the subcommittee’s consideration that legislation be introduced to form a bipartisan Congressional-Administration-private sector commission to examine the U.S. approach to export promotion, to consider the size of the task, to propose a national export expansion goal, and to formulate recommendations for the nature and scope of an export promotion program that would be likely to achieve that export expansion goal. The commission’s report and recommendations would be for the purpose of consideration by the Congress and the next Administration. There should be representation from Congress, from key government agencies, from concerned trade associations, and representatives of large and small companies.
Other testimony:
The Honorable Israel Hernandez, Assistant Secretary for Trade Promotion and Director General of the United States and Foreign Commercial Service
James Morrison, Ph.D., Small Business Exporters Association of America.
Can't believe we'd never seen this before, the droll --yes, droll! -- 1973 video for Radar Love from the decidely undroll Dutch group, Golden Earing.
That three-wheel car is a Reliant Robin, the British vehicle. You didn't need a full driver's license?
In any case, it's a clever, amusing video, one that also evokes a bit of nostalgia. Golden Earring was the first band we saw, probably '74, touring with Leo Sayer. (Quite a combination.) And yes, the Radar Love drum solo was indeed 15 minutes long.
Bonus Folly: Dong Dong diki diki Dong, from Golden Earring's early Europop days. Hmm. Didn't Steely Dan steal that drum intro?
The inset photo (larger format here) is of an early evening street scene in Washington, D.C., the northwest corner of 14th Street and Rhode Island Avenue, NW.
The blue newspaper box in the foreground? It belongs to the Grand Forks Herald, from Grand Forks, North Dakota, which just happened to employ this blogger in the early 1990s.
From Mary Anastasia O'Grady, writing in the Wall Street Journal's daily political e-mail, "Political Diary":
Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was in New York yesterday to give a speech touting the economic achievements of the relatively new government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He stopped by the Journal offices to give a preview. Since coming to office two years ago, Mr. Flaherty told us, the Harper government has succeeded in steadily whacking down the corporate income tax to 18% from 22%, and is headed for 15% by 2012. Aiming for a total tax burden or no more than 25%, Ottawa has also been pushing the provinces to cut their own taxes on business profits. Ontario (Canada's Taxachusetts) has been a notable holdout and some in the Canadian press even accused Mr. Flaherty yesterday of leaving Ontario out of his sales pitch to U.S. investors. Mr. Flaherty joked in return that he was "gently prodding [Provincial] Premier [Dalton] McGuinty in my own subtle way to reduce business taxes."
Canada's cuts come none too soon. Business tax-cutting has been a global phenomenon, with the OECD countries now averaging less than 27%, down from 38% in 1993 (the U.S. average is 40%). It's also of a piece with the Harper government's broader pro-growth agenda, which includes free trade deals with Colombia, Peru and South Korea and work to speed up transit of goods at the Windsor-Detroit border crossing.
Resisting every inch of the way, the powerful National Association of Manufacturers has finally agreed to follow Congress’s new ethics law and disclose which of its members have been funding its lobbying operations on Capitol Hill.
Welcome to the sunshine club. Like other lobbying groups, the trade association must disclose to Congress and the taxpayers which of its 11,000 members have been essential to developing lobbying strategies or contributed payments of $5,000 or more each quarter to the effort. Until this week, N.A.M. has refused to do so, arguing that such disclosure somehow violates its privacy rights and its rights to free speech.
Tracking the quid pro quo money flow in Washington is an urgent priority and long overdue. Last year, Congress tightened disclosure requirements for lobbyists’ war chests — but only after a raft of scandals. It is encouraging that the courts have so far rejected N.A.M.’s arguments. The law was plainly written to smoke out stealth lobbying organizations, not to protect Washington insiders.
Acting in its free-speech tradition, the Supreme Court has upheld the right of a lone pamphleteer to distribute anonymous political campaign literature. It struck down an Ohio election law and called into question similar laws in other states, but probably only to the extent that the states threaten the rights of gadflies like Margaret McIntyre.
Mrs. McIntyre, a constant critic of fiscal practices in the Westerville, Ohio, school district, was fined $100 for passing out unsigned leaflets opposing a school tax increase. She opposed the fine in every available court, and after she died last year her husband took over her appeal.
The high court caught her spirit, finding her anonymity "a shield from the tyranny of the majority," honored by the Founding Fathers themselves when they didn't sign their right names to the Federalist Papers. The Court thus protects unpopular people who might not voice their views if forced to identify themselves.
Our emphasis. Seems like a principle that warrants consistent First Amendment application.
Returning to a favorite theme around here, Sherman "Tiger" Joyce of the American Tort Reform Association takes to the pages of The Hill to ask for a little balance: If Congress is going to hold hearings into the various scandals and offenses by big business, shouldn't it also look into the predations of trial attorneys like Mel Weiss, William Lerach and Dickie Scruggs?
His column, "Congress overlooks plaintiff-lawyer abuses," also notes that the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act (LARA) -- passed by the House in 2004, could serve an important corrective purpose.
Without preventing plaintiffs from filing legitimate lawsuits in jurisdictions with actual connections to their alleged injuries, LARA would restore the mandatory sanctions for filing frivolous lawsuits that were eliminated in a controversial 1993 change to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11. These sanctions could include reimbursement of reasonable attorney’s fees and litigation costs. Many foreign countries with which America competes economically already maintain such commonsense safeguards against lawsuit abuse. And the crimes of Dickie Scruggs, Bill Lerach and Mel Weiss aren’t qualitatively different than the crimes of Dennis Kozlowski at Tyco or Jeff Skilling and the late Ken Lay at Enron.
So why aren’t chairmen of the House and Senate judiciary committees and other congressional leaders calling for hearings into apparent corruption within the litigation industry?
"Catalyst," the magazine of the Union of Concerned Scientists, published a story in its spring issue, "UCS Ends One Official's Corrupt Tenure." (Scanned copy.) Written by Francesca Grifo, director of the Scientific Integrity Program, the article details the environmentalist group's attacks on Julie MacDonald, former assistant secretary of the Department of Interior, who disagreed with some of the career staff at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
More of the usual huffing and puffing about the politicization of science, but then Grifo reveals a little too much about how activists use reporters in their campaigns to destroy a person's career over policy disagreements.
Because this was a complex story to relate, we decided to entrust it to Juliet Eilperin, an experienced Washington Post reporter with whom we had worked extensively in the past. While she interviewed scientists and officials both inside and outside the agency, my staff and I headed to Capitol Hill to alert key members of Congress to the situation. As a result of our meetings, Congress was ready to act when Eilperin’s story broke in the Post.
Representative Nick Rahall (D-WV) ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee promised oversight hearings on the misuse of science at FWS.
"We decided to entrust it." You can interpret the thought behind that phrase any number of ways: "Who do we think will take this issue seriously and give it a fair hearing?" or..."Who is sympathetic to our cause and will generate a big story we can use for our purposes?"
With organized labor making support for the Employee Free Choice Act a matter of candidate fealty in the fall, opponents of card check have a big task ahead of them: Explain that the Employee Free Choice is a cynically misnamed power play designed by organized labor to actually eliminate employee free choice.
By eliminating secret ballots in union representaton elections, labor organizers will be able to use many types of pressure to intimidate employees into agreeing to join the election.
The ad, developed by nationally known media strategist Mike Murphy, uses a widely recognized character who will be easily identifiable to voters and will use humor to reinforce the need to protect private ballots for workers. The ad will begin airing on national cable news channels on Friday, April 25. The script of the ad is attached.
“Worker privacy is at stake in the upcoming elections and our goal is to educate voters about this important issue,” said Brian Worth with the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace. “If this anti-worker legislation passes, workers will lose their right to a private ballot. Our polling indicates that support for card check is a potential liability for candidates on Election Day,” added Worth.
Recent polls in Colorado, Minnesota and Maine conducted by CDW suggest widespread voter opposition to Big Labor’s card-check scheme. Nearly two-thirds of voters in Colorado (68%), Maine (72%) and Minnesota (65%) oppose the EFCA. Conversely, at least 80% of voters in all three states believe that secret ballot elections are the cornerstone of democracy and should be kept for union elections.
The news release also has the script. We're told the arm-twister is a character from the Sopranos. He's certainly ...evocative.
To finish off the day's posting on H.R. 2831, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act: The Senate voted 56-42, failing to invoke cloture, which everyone cast his or her vote for the record. Senator Clinton and Senator Obama were the last two speakers before leadership had its turn.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) chatted this afternoon with a group of bloggers about the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Act and the House leadership's decision to prevent an up-and-down vote on the agreement. The Senator traveled to Colombia in March, where he found a country more peaceful than in years past, growing economically, and embracing progress.
Many of his additional points will be familiar to readers of this blog: Alvaro Uribe is an impressive leader, an ally, and a man working to protect union leaders. The opportunities for U.S. exports to Colombia are impressive. And the Colombia FTA is a great deal for the United States, since Colombia already exports to the U.S. duty free under the Andean Trade Preference Act.
Corker expressed strong sentiments about the politics that have disrupted the agreement's consideration in Congress, the unions demanding allegiance just as they did with the Employee Free Choice Act, or card check. Corker:
Let me just say bottom line, I’ve never seen anything that’s just so brazenly a genuflect, if you will, by House leadership to unions. Card check, to me, it’s hard for me to believe that people really believe in this country that card check is a good thing, where basically union leaders go out and one on one should pick people off to bring a union into existence in companies. I’ve experienced first hand some of those types of tactics. Years ago, as a young man, I was a card-carrying union member. And again, it’s hard for me to see…it’s hard for me understand the tremendous tilt that this leadership has toward the unions. But this Colombia free trade agreement is absolutely inflicting pain on the very people that are being represented.
Today, per the Andean free trade preference agreement, Colombia can ship goods into our country tariff-free, for the most part. Very few things have tariffs on them. This agreement would allow us, our employees, our companies, our workers here in America to ship goods to Colombia tariff-free.
This is solely, solely bowing to union pressure. To me it’s an embarrassment to our country. This president has been our friend; Colombia as a country has been our friend in a part of the world where we need friends, where we need people who care about democracy, who care about freedom, who care about commerce, who want to be stable contributors, if you will, to the world. He has done that, and here we are, holding him hostage, holding their country hostage, holding our workers in this country hostage to the fact that the AFL-CIO and other unions are trying to lever this to some other end. I really mean it. I have never seen anything so blatant, so blatant of nothing, if you will, of kowtowing to union officials in our country.
If the House members are allowed to vote their conscience, Corker said, he's convinced the measure would pass by a large margin, just as it would in the Senate.
Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute takes a look at today's Washington Post editorial, "Fair Pay, Fair Play," calling for passage of the Ledbatter Fair Pay Act, and finds certain facts and legal context missing. Again. From the Open Market blog:
The Post seems completely unaware of the existence of another law, the Equal Pay Act, that already has a generous deadline (3 years) for bringing pay discrimination claims.
In Ledbetter v. Goodyear (2007), the Supreme Court enforced the explicit 180-day deadline for bringing discrimination claims under Title VII, ruling that Lilly Ledbetter's pay discrimination suit under Title VII was untimely because she brought it long after 180 days had elapsed. But the court specifically noted in a footnote that the plaintiff had (for unknown reasons) dropped her claim under the Equal Pay Act -- which has a longer deadline (3 years) for suing. Liberal court reporters deliberately ignored the footnote and the very existence of the Equal Pay Act in order to cynically create the false impression that the Supreme Court's enforcing the Title VII deadline as written would leave women without any redress for sex-based pay discrimination after 180 days had passed.
Good legal issues to discuss once the Senate takes up the bill.
Now, look, we understand people have to run for president and are not likely to be here much of the time. But to have the schedule of the Senate completely revolve around the schedule of the Democratic presidential candidates strikes me as particularly ridiculous.
As noted in yesterday's post here, the National Association of Manufacturers continues its litigation against the "affiliated organizations" portions of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007. The NAM issued a news release yesterday that quoted NAM President John Engler:
Denial of our request for an injunction does not address our basic challenge to the Constitutionality of this pernicious law which constitutes threatens the viability of business trade associations. It will require associations like the NAM to release the names of many members who contribute more than $5,000 for lobbying activities and who actively participate in the association’s lobbying activities, violating their right to privacy, association, speech and to petition the government for redress of grievances. The penalties for failure to disclose this information are severe. As businesses become aware of the serious implications of this law, many of them will curtail their membership or restrict their involvement in trade associations. The effect will be to compromise their First Amendment right to express their opinions in the legislative process, and also undermine trade associations which play a critical role in the development of public policy by government.
As the NAM continues the legal challenge, it has also decided to comply with the law in good faith; the decision has been made to file the disclosure forms with the member names. (We had originally planned to leave the names off, citing the pending litigation.) On balance, it makes sense not to complicate things at this point by inviting an enforcement action.
Because the law sets a disclosure threshold of $5,000 in lobbying expenditures, our larger member companies will comprise the list, that is, the sample is not representative of the membership.
Despite the filing, the objections remain: Section 207 Honest Leadership and Open Government Act infringes on our members' First Amendment rights of speech, association and petitioning the government.
News coverage...
CQ Politics: "New Lobbying Report Deadline Causes Few Problems." As usual, a thorough story from the reporters at CQ. We object to the NAM's actions being called "theatrics," however. We view good-faith efforts to comply with an unconstitutional law as a bit more serious that "theatrics."
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 30 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.
This legislation does not appear to be based on evidence that the current statute of limitations principles have caused any systemic prejudice to the interests of employees, but it is reasonable
to expect the bill’s vastly expanded statute of limitations would exacerbate the existing heavy burden on the courts by encouraging the filing of stale claims.
Any doubts as to the political nature of today's Senate debate and cloture vote on H.R. 2831, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, were put to rest when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had the Senate adjourn yesterday until 5 p.m. this evening.
Senator Reid filed a cloture motion on Monday. By Senate rules, this means a vote on cloture would follow an hour after the Senate convened on Wednesday -- i.e., sometime this morning. But because this is a vote meant not to legislate, but rather to demonstrate support for a philosophy of "fairness" and organized labor's political agenda, it's important that Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton be in town to vote yes. With yesterday's primary in Pennsylvania, it will take them until this evening to arrive back in D.C. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are angry because they were being attacked this week for delaying action on a veterans benefits vote.
The Swamp has a good rundown of the machinations, and The Corner relates the Republican grievances.
We won't pretend to be horrified at the politics of this, which seem normal enough for an election year, if a little heavy-handed. But then, inject organized labor into a Capitol Hill debate and heavy-handed is what you get.
Just as long as the legislation goes down. Contrary to what editorialists at The Washington Post ("Fair Pay, Fair Play") and the New York Times ("Pass the Fair Pay Act") claim, this bill does not correct a faulty Supreme Court ruling, this bill simply opens the floodgates to discrimination lawsuits ad infinitum nauseum. As the NAM's Key Vote letter makes clear, statutes of limitations were written into the law for a reason.
Anyway, isn't it funny that legislation that bases its entire existence on "fairness" should elicit such an unfair legislative process?
Global warming litigation heats up
Matthew F. Pawa
Scientists believe that global warming is primarily caused by human activities, especially those that add to growing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If this trend continues, the results could be devastating: floods, deadly heat waves, and the loss of entire ecosystems are just a few of the possibilities. So who is to blame for this state of affairs, and can they be held to account?
Representing Mother Earth
Interview with Trip Van Noppen
Trip Van Noppen is the president of Earthjustice, a nonprofit, public-interest law firm whose motto is, "Because the earth needs a good lawyer." His firm represents national, state, and local environmental groups, health advocates, and people harmed by environmental pollution. In this interview, Van Noppen discusses some key legal victories and describes the hard work that still lies ahead.
Alternative theories for environmental contamination cases
Burton LeBlanc and Misty A. Farris
Environmental pollution cases are usually grounded in allegations of negligence, but plaintiff lawyers shouldn't ignore the possibility of bringing nuisance and trespass claims, too. The additional cost of bringing these claims is minimal, and the benefits--including saving a case from a statute-of-limitations challenge--can be enormous.
Unfortunately, the articles are behind a subscriber/membership wall, but you get the gist. How do we address global warming? Expansively....
P.S. We're told that it's actually Earth Day, not Giants of the Earth Day. More's the pity.
NAM President John Engler was on a segment about NAFTA on today's Diane Rehm Show, a public radio talkshow based at WAMU here in Washington, D.C.
10:00 Free Trade
Canadian, Mexican and U.S. leaders met Monday to discuss the North American Free Trade Agreement. Both Democratic presidential hopefuls have been critical of the agreement. A look at the debate over free trade and a proposed pact with Colombia.
Guests
Jeff Faux, founding president, distinguished fellow, Economic Policy Institute
Eamon Javers, correspondent, Politico
John Engler, president, National Association of Manufacturers,
former three term governor of Michigan
Employers are not stupid. To the extent every employee is a potential lawsuit, that is a cost of hiring an employee. As those costs go up, employers will hire fewer employees, and charge "insurance" to the employees they do hire by reducing their wages to account for the possibility of a future lawsuit. If the misnamed "Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act" passes, the vast majority of workers will be worse off, as money that would have gone to pay employees will instead go to pay attorneys. There should be a better reason to pass such harmful legislation than the fact that Ms. Ledbetter's attorney sued under the wrong statute. If Congress really wishes to help workers, they should reject this legislation, and aim a closer eye at the liability system that hurts our economy.
From USA Today, page one: "Strict EPA rules tag unlikely areas
350 counties would violate new smog limit"
Smaller metropolitan areas — not gritty urban centers — are the most likely to be labeled as smoggy under a strict definition that the Environmental Protection Agency announced last month, an analysis by USA TODAY found.
The new limit also would ensnare many communities that contain large expanses of pristine wilderness. Places that would fall under the new ozone limit include Boise; Bar Harbor, Maine; and Biloxi, Miss.
And, according to the USA Today analysis:
Counties in metro areas of more than 1 million people, which now account for two-thirds of U.S. counties with unhealthy air, would account for 40% of new violators.
The number of high-smog counties with fewer than 250,000 people would jump from five to 47.
The number of smog-ridden counties with federal wilderness areas would nearly triple from 16 to 46. The total number of wilderness areas in such counties would rise to 185 from 106.
Many counties that face the prospect of cleaning up their air receive pollutants from elsewhere on prevailing winds. To address that problem, adjacent counties that contribute to smog will be declared in violation, too, the EPA says.
Which is exactly what the NAM and other critics of the then-proposed ozone rules argued, that the new restrictions would hit many, many areas hard -- imposing huge costs on producers and consumers for purely theoretical health gains.
And good for USA Today and all, but this might have been a productive area to explore BEFORE the EPA promulgated its rules.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid filed cloture Monday on H.R. 2831, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007, which supporters claim restores the ability of employees to sue for pay discrimination, supposedly abrogated by the Supreme Court's ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (U.S. Supreme Court 2007).
As the NAM summary of the case explains, what the court actually did was uphold the law that set a 180-day statute of limations for filing employment discrimination actions with the EEOC. Congress knew what it was doing when it wrote the law, the court said: "Congress clearly intended to encourage the prompt processing of all charges of discrimination.” Eliminating a statute of limitations would open up employers to potentially decades of increasingly difficult-to-defend litigation. Memories fade, people die, and yet the lawsuits carry on....and on....
Just as importantly, the 180-day requirement also compels employers and employees both to address real discrimination with a sense of urgency. Sometimes it takes an EEOC complaint to make management aware of a problem.
The legislation goes too far in other ways. The NAM sent a "Key Vote" letter (text here) to the Senate today, which notes, "[The bill] would grant standing for the first time to not just employees but those potentially 'affected by' discrimination. It would also broaden the bill’s reach to cover unintentional (disparate impact) discrimination suits and allow retirees to file claims over actions that took place decades earlier." Wow. "Affected by" discrimination -- bet that would be creatively interpreted.
The last time Senator Kennedy orchestrated a big vote to coincide with rallies and other observances was in June, when he brought H.R. 800 to the floor. That was the Employee Free Choice Act, labor's No. 1 priority, which would replace secret ballots in union representation elections with the intimidation-inviting card-check process. No one expected the measure to gain cloture -- and it didn't, falling short by a 51-48 vote -- but the Senator maximized the PR value with his timing. Same thing this week with the Ledbetter legislation.
So consider Senate action on this terrible bill to be the raising of a flag as organized labor and a band of employment lawyers watch, marking off on their checklists who salutes -- and who will be rewarded and punished accordingly.
The federal D.C. appellate court and Chief Justice Roberts yesterday rejected the National Association of Manufacturer's request for an immediate stay of enforcement of the "affiliated organizations" provision of Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, i.e., NAM v. Taylor. Since Monday was the deadline for filing lobbying disclosures with the House and Senate, the NAM did so, leaving out the relevant identifications because of the continuing litigation -- our appeal of Judge Kollar-Kotelly's decision. Here is the statement we filed.
All part of the process. The NAM firmly believes that Section 207 of the lobbying disclosure law unconstitutionally restricts the rights of our member companies to petition the government for redress of grievances, to freely associate, and to exercise their free speech rights. The chilling effect is pervasive.
For documentation on the NAM's lawsuit, please visit our Legal Beagle website, here.
Meanwhile, an unrelated issue, "bundling" of campaign contributions by lobbyists, has also complicated the law's enactment. From The Wall Street Journal: "Reports on Lobbyists Hit Snag."
But the disclosures have fallen prey to a standoff between Senate Democrats and President Bush over appointees to fill four vacancies on the Federal Election Commission. The commission was supposed to issue a regulation to enforce the bundling provision, but with only two of the commission's six seats occupied, it can't vote on a final rule.
Always a mess when you monkey around with the First Amendment.
UPDATE (10:05 a.m.) The NAM's first quarter lobbying report is now online at the House disclosure website, here.
Appeals Court Rejects Stay of Lobbying Disclosure Ruling
A federal appeals court Monday denied an urgent request from the National Association of Manufacturers to delay enforcement of a new lobbying law requiring the group to name its members.
The group is now asking the Supreme Court to delay enforcement of the law, said Quentin Riegel, NAM’s deputy general counsel.
Lobbying reports that include the membership details were due Monday, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit refused NAM’s request for a delay.
U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly upheld the law’s disclosure requirement in an April 11 ruling. NAM appealed the decision and asked for a stay while its appeal was considered. But Kollar-Kotelly rejected that request April 18.
Riegel said the group hadn’t decided exactly how it will respond to the appeals court’s refusal to delay the disclosure requirement. NAM’s last hope for a delay in compliance lies with the Supreme Court.
“We’ll hold off on filing for most of the day and hope for some definitive resolution from the court,” Riegel said.
PRINCETON, NJ -- While 61% of Americans say the effects of global warming have already begun, just a little more than a third say they worry about it a great deal, a percentage that is roughly the same as the one Gallup measured 19 years ago.
Despite the enormous attention paid to global warming over the past several years, the average American is in some ways no more worried about it than in years past. Americans do appear to have become more likely to believe global warming's effects are already taking place and that it could represent a threat to their way of life during their lifetimes. But the American public is more worried about a series of other environmental concerns than about global warming, and there has been no consistent upward trend on worry about global warming going back for two decades. Additionally, only a little more than a third of Americans say that immediate, drastic action is needed in order to maintain life as we know it on the planet.
What? You mean Snoop Dogg's performance at the Live Earth concert failed to persuade anybody?
In any case, some advertising firms have some explaining to do. After spending millions upon millions of dollars trying to move public opinion on global warming, they have zilch to show for it. Maybe because the product they're selling is just not believable.
The U.S. Trade Representative's office is collecting editorials in support of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, most reacting to House Speaker Pelosi's decision to change the rules and sideline the deal. The headlines are informative:
Washington Post – “Colombia’s Case,” 4/19
Mississippi Press – “Changing the Rules Mid Game,” 4/18
Tri-City Herald (WA)- “Congressional ineptitude evident in trade dispute,” 4/17
San Antonio Express News – “Our turn: House rule change does major damage,” 4/17
Dallas Morning News – “Colombia pact deserves Democrats’ support,” 4/16
Chattanooga Times Free Press (TN) – “Backward Priorities,” 4/16
The Dallas Morning News – “Bragging Rights in Colombia trade pact can boose Dems’ foreign-policy profile,” 4/16
Louisville Courier-Journal – “Trade off,” 4/15
Charlotte Observer – “Trade vs. Politics,” 4/15
The Colombus Dispatch (OH) – “Bad idea,” 4/15
Wall Street Journal – “Democrats for Colombia,” 4/15
Portales News Tribune – “Democrats reaction shows deep hostility toward world trade,” 4/15
The Star Ledger (NJ) – “Pandering on Trade,” 4/15
Riverside Press Enterprise – “Trade pact pulse?” 4/14
Charleston Post Courier – “Politics trumps free trade,” 4/14
Corpus Christi Caller Times – “Congress should pass Colombia trade deal,” 4/14
Knoxville News-Sentinel – “House Democrats holding free trade hostage,” 4/14
That's not the entire list. For the whole thing, see this.
The House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, holds a hearing at 10 a.m. Thursday: "U.S. Export Promotion Strategy." Testifying is the NAM's Frank Vargo, Vice President for International Economic Affairs.
Timely hearing, what with it being Small Business Week and all, and since NAM President John Engler spoke last Thursday at the annual conference of the Export-Import Bank. He highlighted an NAM member company, Air Tractor Inc., of Olney, Texas, featured in the Eximbank's annual report.
Developing markets are creating a growing demand for capital goods such as agricultural and construction equipment, but U.S. exporters often face limited availability of longer-term financing for borrowers in these markets. Air Tractor Inc., in Olney, Texas, a small-business manufacturer of agricultural and forest fire-bombing airplanes, has found an invaluable tool in Ex-Im Bank’s medium-term financing to increase its exports.
In 40 transactions over the past 12 years, Air Tractor has used the Bank’s medium-term insurance to export an estimated $20 million of its aircraft, primarily to small private-sector buyers in Argentina and Brazil. Exports now account for approximately 39 percent of the company’s total sales.
An op-ed from John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, in today's Wall Street Journal, "What Nafta Trade Deficit?"
What the antitrade advocates have been hiding from the candidates (or maybe don't know themselves) is that almost all of the increase in our Nafta deficit since 2000 has been in increased U.S. imports of energy from Canada and Mexico. In fact, $58 billion of the $62 billion increase in our Nafta deficit has been in energy imports. That's 95% of the total increase.
We need that oil and gas, and we would rather get it from our friendly neighbors. Surely no one seeks to argue that America would be better off saying no to Mexican and Canadian oil and gas, advocating that we instead import that energy from less secure sources farther from our borders.
The President and cabinet members are in New Orleans at the North American Leaders' Summit, meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calder. (AP story), another opportunity to make the case for the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. The Democratic primaries wrap up -- hah, just kidding -- when Pennsylvania voters go to the polls Tuesday. And in Congress, is there a farm bill yet? Probably not, but conferees meet again.
The House is out today, observing Passover. The House suspends things Tuesday and Wednesday, and then considers H.R. 5819, to improve improve the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs. The week's floor schedule is here.
The Senate convenes at 3 p.m. today. At noon Tuesday there's a motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 1315, the Disabled Veterans Act. Later in the week there should be a vote on cloture on S. 2831, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, another word for eliminating all statutes of limitation on employment discrimination lawsuits -- an invitation to endless, abusive litigation.
For the week's committee hearings, go to Friday's Daily Digest from the Congressional Record.
Executive Branch: As noted above, it's a tripartite summit in New Orleans on Monday and Tuesday. Also in Louisiana today is Energy Secretary Sam Bodman, attending the opening of the Cheniere Energy Sabine Pass Liquefied Natural Gas Regasification terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana – the first domestic onshore regasification terminal to be built in more than 25 years. Vice President Cheney speaks at 10 a.m. at the Manhattan Institute on Colombia.
A. I invite them to visit Colombia -- especially Speaker Pelosi. If she comes, she will find problems and progress, but she will see our total determination to overcome these problems.
Colombia is, indeed, violent -- though homicide has dramatically declined under Mr. Uribe. There were 17,198 murders in 2007. Of the dead, only 39 -- or 0.226 percent -- were even members of trade unions, let alone leaders or activists, according to the Colombian labor movement. (Union members make up just under 2 percent of the Colombian population.)
This hardly suggests a campaign of anti-union terrorism in Colombia. Moreover, the number of trade unionists killed has fallen from a rate of about 200 per year before Mr. Uribe took office in 2002, despite a reported uptick in the past few months. (Arrests have already been made in three of this year's cases, according to Bogota.) And evidence is sparse that all, or even most, of the union dead were killed because of their labor organizing. As Mr. Sweeney and other critics note, precious few cases have been solved, which is hardly surprising given that Colombia's judicial system has been under attack from left-wing guerrillas, drug traffickers and right-wing death squads -- a war, we repeat, that Mr. Uribe has greatly contained. But in cases that have been prosecuted, the victims' union activity or presumed support for guerrillas has been the motive in fewer than half of the killings.
Perhaps he sees no better option politically, but the willingness of President Uribe to continue engaging Congress despite the House changing the trade rules in the middle of the game -- a life and death game for Colombians -- is the sign of wise and measured leadership.
Speaker Pelosi should accept the president's invitation.
NAM's chief economist, David Huether, was on CNBC Friday in a report on the manufacturing economy, reacting to an interview with Jim Owens, CEO of Caterpillar. Also in the segment, Brian Rayle of FTN Research. The 4-minute video is here. And more from David in the AP story:
Nearly half of the manufacturing industry's 73 subsectors were expanding through February, according to the National Association of Manufacturers. Manufacturing output rose 1.8 percent in 2007 and is forecast to climb to 1.5 percent in 2008 as continued export strength cushions the blow of slumping home and automobile sales, said David Huether, NAM's chief economist.
Construction machinery makers like Terex Corp. are straining to keep up with foreign demand for equipment used on infrastructure development projects. Also thriving are food processors, oil refineries, electronics makers and others, Huether said.
WASHINGTON - The massive cranes slicing the skies over Brazil, Dubai and China can't come off the assembly lines fast enough at Manitowoc Co.'s manufacturing plants here and overseas.
But an insatiable global appetite doesn't mean the Wisconsin-based heavy equipment maker is boosting its payrolls.
The company last year added about 1,000 workers to bring its total to 11,000 but has no plans to repeat that hiring binge as recessionary effects play out here and abroad, said Eric Etchart, president and general manager of Manitowoc's crane segment. At best, Manitowoc may make some temporary employees permanent this year to help deplete a $2.88 billion crane backlog, up about 81 percent from 2006.
Manitowoc's growing export strength is matched by its increasing caution at home _ a position mimicked by U.S. manufacturers steeling themselves for recessionary reality.
We'd say, rather, recessionary possibilities. And don't forget increased productivity as a factor in limiting the expansion of payrolls.
The AP story also notes Friday's statement from Caterpillar on its first quarter earnings, up 18 percent.
Which reminds us of this very good speech by Robert W. Lane, chairman and CEO of Deere & Company, delivered last month in Las Vegas. Excerpt:
While we are a solid number two in the construction market in North America, we're aggressively expanding to become more of a global player in that business. We are growing our construction business in Latin America, Africa and Australia. And just a few weeks ago, we announced a joint venture with XCG Excavator Machinery Company in China — our first entry as a manufacturer into the rapidly growing construction markets in the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China. XCG is the third largest excavator producer in China, with a 14-model product line.
Looking for commentary on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement at Granma, the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist dictatorship, we tried an Internet archive search.
The search functions as well as Cuba's economy, taking you to one of those placeholder websites, presumably held by a domain name squatter. In other words, Granma messed up.
LEADERS and social activists from a number of countries are taking part in the 7th Hemisphere-wide Conference of Struggle against Free Trade Agreements, which begins today in the Cuban capital’s International Conference Center.
UPDATE (9:45 a.m. Monday): Sopranos to premiere on Cuban TV. Seems like the parallels would be too damning, what with there being a mob family and all.
BTW, we understand the Cuban government just steals these programs for its own airing.
Funny how President Bush announced his generally well-considered principles on global warming legislation the same week that authors were in Washington, D.C., highlighting the hype, scientific abuses and media credulity/complicity on misrepresenting climate change.
We've already noted the event with Christopher Booker and Richard North on their book, "Scared to Death," which disposes of various hypesterical phenomena.
On Friday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Cooler Heads Coalition hosted a Capitol Hill briefing with Larry Solomon, author of "The Deniers." The Chilling Effect blog covered the event in this post, noting that Solomon is an environmentalist who believes “there is a possibility that it is a potential threat, but the evidence hasn’t been there.” And that IPCC shibboleth?
Who are those 2,500 scientists the UN relies on to generate respect for its climate scares? When Solomon tried to find out, the UN told him those names are not public. Moreover, those 2,500 were reviewers, NOT endorsers who reviewed one or more of the 100’s of background studies!
Solomon is concerned that “the press has been taken, taken in by a big lie. This big lie has been told to us for 15 years now.”
Solomon noted a quirk of the international agency, IPCC, which generates so much fear-mongering: IPCC only looks at man-made causes, so only man-made causes will be found.
One of his major concerns? Critics, questioners and "deniers" are smeared and silenced. A definite concern as we head toward the June consideration of Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade: Will there be a full and fair debate or just more bullying?
MINOT, N.D. — Military and oil industry officials have reached a non-binding agreement to help missile sites and drilling rigs co-exist in northwestern North Dakota.
Col. Marty Whelan, commander of the 91st Space Wing at Minot Air Force Base, said he reached an understanding with Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council.
It stipulates that oil drillers would stay 400 metres away from the Minuteman III.
That's an article from the Canadian Press -- as you can tell, metre-wise -- and interest in the Bakken Formation is high in the prairie provinces. Don't think any ICBMs come into play.
John J. Miller dares to look out the window and state the obvious: It's raining.
It rained here last night, it's pouring down rain right now, and it's supposed to rain all day long today and probably tomorrow as well.
A few minutes ago, my wife and I were watching the local news. They did this live report from downtown DC, where there's supposed to be some kind of big Earth Day concert on the National Mall. The promoter of the event is holding an umbrella as she's being interviewed. Water is running off its edge. She's probably standing in a pool of mud. Yet she urges people to come on down for the concert today. "It's beautiful down here!" she insists.
Uh, no it's not.
I have some sympathy for those who plan big outdoor events only to have the weather ruin them. But how are we supposed to trust these people on climate change if they can't even tell the truth about what's happening right on their own heads?
With baseball season in full swing, it's time at Cool Stuff Being Made to cry, "Batter up!" Or, actually, "Bats up" Which means that this week's program takes us to Brookville, Pennsylvania, for a tour of the BWP Bats and its manufacturing facility.
As Vice President Mike Gregory explains, a high-quality bat starts with high-quality wood. From the company's website:
BWP Bats, LLC is located in the heartland of Pennsylvania, which is known as the hardwood capital of the world. Only the finest hardwood trees are processed into bats. Billets that do not meet these criteria are manufactured into other commercial products, such as furniture, flooring and other interior products. As you can see, only the highest quality wood ends up in your customers, hands at the plate. No third grade wood is sold to our customers.
We get a look at rock maple being turned into bats, but red oak is another durable wood that makes a great bat.
Thanks, once again, to the good people at PCN for supplying the footage. A durable outfit that makes a great documentary.
To watch this week's Cool Stuff Being Made, click on the embedded video or for a larger format, click here.
On this week's video podcast of "America's Business with Mike Hambrick," we hear from the two authors of a new book, "Scared to Death -- From BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares Are Costing Us the Earth." Christopher Booker and Richard North recount the media-fueled, government-sanctified scares that ruin companies, burden the economy and scare people to death -- for little reason. The latest example of this phenomenon cited by this British pair? The fear that the world faces disaster from man-made global warming. It's evidently chickentown.
For more on America's Business and to listen to the full radio program, please visit www.americasbusiness.org.
From Reuters, reporting on Silvio Berlucsconi's election to a third term last weekend as prime minister of Italy:
On Tuesday, he repeated campaign promises to cut taxes and sell state-owned real estate to trim a crushing public debt burden.
He has also pledged more infrastructure spending to stimulate the economy...
Time again to turn to the Tax Foundation for the global context: "Currently, the average combined federal and state corporate tax rate in the U.S. is 39.3 percent, second among OECD countries to Japan's combined rate of 39.5 percent."
Today Maryland Governor O'Malley signed into law the final piece of the state's major tax overhaul, an eighth tax rate and bracket on personal income.
"We see no record of any state having raised all three of its major tax rates in one fell swoop, but Maryland has done just that," said Bill Ahern, referring to the hikes in the sales tax, the corporate income tax, and the personal income tax that received its final change today. The study is Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact, No. 124, "Maryland Flouts Regional Tax Competition with Historic Tax Hike."
The study points out that middle-income people in Maryland were and still are paying higher income taxes than in any border state, and that in only five U.S. states—California, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine and Oregon—could a couple with $75,000 in taxable income be in a higher tax bracket than an average Maryland couple. The Maryland rate for middle-income workers is about 7.5 percent (4.75% state plus 2.73% local).
“I am pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with the South Korean government to reopen the Korean market to all U.S. beef and beef products, from cattle of all ages,” Ambassador Schwab said. “The import protocol is fully consistent with OIE guidelines and other international standards. I am very pleased that safe, affordable, high-quality American beef will soon be back on Korean tables. This will be a huge boost to our ranchers and producers who have waited patiently to regain the access to the South Korean beef market that was lost in December 2003.”
“With this full resumption of U.S. beef exports to South Korea, the major obstacle to Congressional consideration of the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) is removed. The Administration will now work in earnest with Congress and the U.S. agriculture, manufacturing, and services sectors to pass the KORUS FTA. Along with the Colombia and Panama FTAs, the KORUS FTA will strengthen our economy and our standing in the world. The KORUS FTA – the most commercially significant FTA we have concluded in over 15 years – will create new opportunities for U.S. workers, farmers, ranchers, businesses, and entrepreneurs across the country. It will also deepen our relations with one of our closest allies, and strengthen our vital strategic economic engagement in Asia.”
On 30 September [2005] David Nabarro, the senior official in charge of co-ordinating the WHO’s worldwide response to bird flu, hit the headlines by warning that a pandemic could now occur at any time, and that the number of resulting deaths could be anything up to ‘150 million people’. ‘It’s like a combination of global warming and HIV/Aids,’ he told the BBC. Although a WHO ‘media spokesman’ quickly pointed out that this was not an official WHO view, Mr Nabarro insisted that he stood by his claim.
Hey, where did all those dead victims of the avian plague go, anyway?
A good story to remember when mongerers demand immediate action and wrenching social change to address this, that or the other crisis, especially man-made global warming -- a theory subject to extraordinary amounts of misinformation, disinformation and nonsense. (See today's Wall Street Journal op-ed page, "Our Climate Numbers Are a Big Old Mess" by Patrick Michaels, a Cato fellow and professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia.)
The bird flu story is so illustrative that the authors of "Scared to Death -- From BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares Are Costing Us the Earth" open their book with it. The two, Christopher Booker and Richard North, spoke at an Independent Women's Forum book event Wednesday, laying out in detail the workings of the hype-steria machine -- activist groups, grasping and politicized "scientists," power-accreting bureacrats and the media, always the media, ginning up crises for their own ends.
Entertaining presentation and good context to remember as the world responds to the latest scare, whatever it may be. Cranberries? Nah, that's been done.
We let the President's announcement of Administration principles pass without notice yesterday on the blog, mostly because they were so measured, reasonable and well laid-out. Not much to add. The environmental left screamed and accused people of bad faith, but you could serve them a wonderful breakfast with eggs benedict, mush melon and mimosas, and they'd scream and accuse you of bad faith.
The National Association of Manufacturers did issue a statement from President John Engler that was also measured, reasonable and well laid-out, and you can read it here.
And the Wall Street Journal's editorial yesterday was right on the mark. With abdication of responsibility becoming an art form in the world of policy and politics this year, President Bush's effort to link rhetoric to action to economic consequences was welcome. From "Carbon Shakedown."
Mr. Bush also went after the Democrats and green activists ginning up a regulatory crisis. Judicial interventions and political pressure are forcing regulators to retrofit existing environmental laws to incorporate global warming – costly purposes for which they were never intended.
This effort has been appalling even when graded on the usual Congressional curve of self-interest and buck-passing. Democrats want to take credit for crowd-pleasing goals while shifting the blame for the costs achieving them onto unaccountable bureaucrats. But if a cap-and-trade program really is coming, then lawmakers should, well, make laws.
The White House deserves credit for playing the political hand in front of it. It would have been easy enough to abdicate responsibility to the next occupant of the Oval Office, who will be far more likely to wave aside economic considerations in the interests of "doing something."
The Washington Post's column-length smirk that goes by "In the Loop" had another keen report this morning:
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has quietly led eight congressional delegations to Colombia in the past six months to promote the great benefits of free trade and win support for the proposed trade agreement with that country.
In meeting with trade reporters yesterday, NAM President John Engler mentioned the letter from former Democratic members of Congess and Democratic Administration officials who supported enactment of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
You can download a copy here as a .pdf file. It signers include many leading Democrats with foreign policy expertise, so its first argument for the argument addresses the agreement's importance in international relations.
There is an overwhelming national security imperative to approving the Colombia FTA. There is a growing animus in some parts of the hemisphere toward the U.S., but Colombia has long been a traditional friend, and Colombian President Uribe has been a strong and faithful ally of the United States. To turn our back on the Colombia FTA would be a severe blow to that relationship and would send a very negative message to our friends in a volatile region. It is no
coincidence that the leaders of Mexico, Chile, Canada, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Peru among others, have strongly supported this treaty in the name of hemispheric solidarity. Failure to act would strengthen those in the region who would argue that we leave our friends isolated and that the U.S. is disinterested in the hemisphere. Since U.S. assistance for Plan Colombia was approved in the Clinton Administration, more than $5 billion has been provided with bipartisan support that has helped Colombia to strengthen democracy, counter narco-traffickers, and greatly reduce levels of violence. The Colombia FTA must be seen as part of this commitment.
And the economic arguments are compelling, too.
Today Colombia has double-digit tariffs on paper and paper products, transportation equipment, building products and consumer goods. U.S. agricultural exports of over $1 billion all face a duty there (for example, 15 percent Colombia tariffs on U.S. apples and oranges), while 99.9 percent of Colombia’s agricultural exports to the United States were duty-free. The FTA will immediately eliminate tariffs on more than 80 percent of American exports of industrial and consumer goods, and over time, 100 percent, including information technology products, agricultural products, construction equipment, medical equipment, and electrical power generation equipment.
The agreement is good for U.S. foreign policy as a demonstration of support for an ally, good for the economy through its opening of markets for U.S. exports, and good for the U.S. manufacturing and agricultural sectors, i.e., jobs creators. Opposing the agreement means opposing all those good things.
And preventing a vote on the agreement is an attempt to evade accountability, a dodge. How's that tactic working so far?
National Association of Manufacturers' President John Engler sat down over lunch with a cete of trade reporters today to talk about the Colombia FTA, NAFTA, Doha and the politics of trade. The meeting coincided with an NAM release in which Gov. Engler called for quick consideration of the agreement in Congress.
Good discussion, albeit one that focused on process and politics more than the merits of the U.S. Colombia Free-Trade Agreement. But then, the case for the Colombia FTA is pretty clear cut, and Speaker Pelosi's changing the rules in the middle of the game is the current issue. And in Washington, process and politics are often inseparable.
In the end, Gov. Engler thinks the merits and politics combine to win passage of the Colombia trade deal.
I actually believe we’re going to get the Colombian agreement. Put me down in the optimist camp, here. The reaction to the House has been so uniformly negative.
Every editorial I’ve seen across the country…it doesn’t make any difference as far as from the right or the left, anywhere along the spectrum, everybody’s been is unanimous.
I say unanimous, because I’m at this point aware of anybody who’s gone the other direction. There may be somebody, but the editorials I’ve seen – so you’ve got that factor.
Also, I think the 36 or so Democrat senators and former Administration officials, that group that spoke out (is) very, very important for trying to reestablish some type of a center that can hold on trade issues, because we’ve got to get back to a bipartisanship on these trade issues.
The Wall Street Journal took note of that Democratic officials' letter (actually 35 signators) in an editorial yesterday in "Democrats for Colombia."
A .mp3 sound-file of this particular part of today's discussion is available here. The boss goes on to talk about Ways & Mean Chairman Rangel's political stake in the issue -- the chairman had negotiated the inclusion of new environmental and labor standards -- and the possibility that the Speaker's maneuver was undermining a future Democratic president's ability to negotiate on trade.
A transcript of this portion of the discussion is posted in the extended entry below.
Useful inquiry by Charlie Gibson yesterday in the ABC Democratic presidential debate, asking Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton if they would increase the capital gains tax rate, noting that previous cuts in the rate had produced more revenue. (Relevant portion of the transcript here.) Senator Obama reaffirmed previous statements saying he could support an increase from the current 15 percent to 28 percent.
OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.
We saw an article today which showed that the top 50 hedge fund managers made $29 billion last year -- $29 billion for 50 individuals. And part of what has happened is that those who are able to work the stock market and amass huge fortunes on capital gains are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. That's not fair.
And for Sen. Clinton:
GIBSON: I'm going to go to commercial break. But I just want to come back because of one thing you said. And I want to be clear, the question was about capital gains tax. Would you say, no, I'm not going to raise capital gains taxes?
CLINTON: I wouldn't raise it above the 20 percent, if I raised it at all. I would not raise it above what it was during the Clinton administration.
GIBSON: If I raised it at all. Would you propose an increase in the capital gains tax?
CLINTON: You know, Charlie, I'm going to have to look and see what the revenue situation is.
Neither addressed the basic point, that cutting the capital gains tax increases investment AND government revenues.
Elsewhere, Larry Kudlow interviewed Sen. John McCain on Tuesday. (Transcript.) Capital gains did not come up. Here's his campaign's statement on the issue:
Reward Saving, Investment and Risk-Taking: Low taxes on dividends and capital gains promote saving, channel investment dollars to innovative, high-value uses and not wasteful financial planning. John McCain will keep the current rates on dividends and capital gains and fight anti-growth efforts by Democrats.
UPDATE (3:30 p.m. Friday): Wall Street Journal editorial, "Obama's Tax Evasion" recounts the debate exchange.
Two teams of researchers with access to thousands of documents gathered for lawsuits over the painkiller Vioxx allege that Merck waged a campaign of deception to promote its drug, moving slowly to warn of possible hazards while at the same time dressing up in-house studies as the work of independent academic researchers.
The reports in today's Journal of the American Medical Association in effect accuse one of the world's biggest pharmaceutical makers of various forms of scientific fraud.
Oh, the prestigious, fact-based, peer-reviewed JAMA, so it's an allegation that must be taken seriously, right?
To those who follow media coverage of civil litigation and tort reform, the story immediately stood out as a hit job, one that can only be seen in the context of the multibillion-dollar wave of lawsuits against Merck for claims against Vioxx. After the jump to an inside page -- always after the jump -- Merck gets a brief chance to respond: "A spokesman for Merck's legal team dismissed the JAMA authors as 'people in the pay of trial lawyers.'"
We know lots about media coverage, but not enough about the ins and outs of the Vioxx litigation to fully judge the story. But Ted Frank of the American Enterprise Institute certainly knows the issues, and here's his PointofLaw take on the JAMA study that the Washington Post gave such prominence to:
The latest issue of Journal of the American Medical Association publishes two pieces by plaintiffs'-side experts (including the infamous Dr. David Egilman (e.g., Oct. 2007; Dec. 2005; Jul. 2005) slamming Merck over Vioxx studies. Ross/Hill/Egilman/Krumholz accuse scientists of ghostwriting studies for Merck, but as Merck and Reuters note, Egilman et al. are smearing dozens of scientists without factual basis.
And...
How unbalanced and unfair is the Psaty/Kronmal piece? The entire piece is about Protocols 078 and 091 (the "Alzheimer's trials"), but nowhere does it note that the very same Alzheimer's trials data found that Vioxx was less likely than placebo to result in cardiovascular events. (Indeed, it was the results of Study 078 and 091 that led Merck (and the FDA) to mistakenly believe that the adverse cardiovascular results in VIGOR were the combination of the cardioprotective effects of naproxen and random chance. See Martin Report 58-60.) There was no scientific reason to believe that Vioxx was causing fatal heart attacks (or car accidents) while simultaneously preventing heart attacks. This sort of for-hire hit-piece is appalling enough when presented in a court of law masquerading as scientific evidence; it's utterly shameful that a political piece has the endorsement of a medical journal.
See, it's all part of the trial lawyer shakedown. JAMA is the enforcer carrying the baseball bat of bad publicity. And the Washington Post is the little weasely guy standing next to the muscle, saying, "Yeah, yeah, that's it. Hit 'em harder." Because the real point of enforcement is scaring the next victim who might not pay up.
The National Association of Manufacturers will host Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) today at noon as the Senator makes the case for U.S. competitiveness and the innovation-based economy, emphasizing the need for action on the R&D tax credit. Hatch is a sponsor of the S. 2209, to strengthen and extend the tax credit for research and development investment.
The R&D tax credit expired again at the end of 2007 -- for the 13th time, it expired -- and companies are beginning to report the negative consequences in their first quarter earning statements. Meanwhile, countries like New Zealand are moving ahead with their own, even more generous investment incentives.
The Examiner editorializes today on the Bakken Formation, a vast, oil-rich shale deposit laid down in the Devonian age. A recent U.S. Geological Survey described it as the largest continuous oil deposit ever assessed by the USGS, holding from 3 to 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil -- 25 times the amount previously estimated in 1995. From "Time to tap the Great Plains oil bonanza":
Policy-makers must not allow to happen with the Bakken Formation what has occurred with the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, where 10 billion barrels of oil have gone untouched for a quarter-century because of utterly spurious environmental fears.
Also, huge deposits of oil and natural gas continue to go untapped off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, again due to environmental hysteria. The truth is that leaks and spills from tankers carrying imported oil and gas exceed, by a large margin, the minuscule problems caused by the far safer use of pipelines from offshore drilling.
New discoveries and estimates from places such as the Bakken Formation and from the Marcellus natural gas fields in Pennsylvania continue to show that the United States has the resources and the wherewithal to be almost “energy independent.” What is lacking is not opportunity, but will.
"Bids started at 420,000 euros and quickly climbed to 490,000 euros, but when the bidding stopped there, the auctioneer declared no sale.
The private collector had set a reserve price of 500,000 euros for the specimen that was found in North Dakota in 2004 and had been on display in his own private museum set up in his residence.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela moved Tuesday to take a greater cut of windfall oil profits, approving a 50 percent tax on foreign oil companies when crude tops US$70 a barrel.
The tax rate would rise to 60 percent when the average monthly price for benchmark Brent crude exceeds US$100, according to the bill approved by Venezuela's National Assembly. The legislation will take effect as soon as it is published in the official gazette.
Revenues from the tax could reach US$9 billion (euro5.7 billion) annually, Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said after meeting with lawmakers.
"That's why, for the executive branch, it is urgent to create this law," Ramirez said.
The new legislation will let President Hugo Chavez further extend state control over foreign oil companies operating in Venezuela — home to the largest petroleum deposits in the Western Hemisphere — as he steers the nation toward what he calls "21st-century socialism."
The White House has sent out excerpts from President Bush's prepared remarks. We've put his entire statement in the extended entry below. Here's the intro:
This afternoon the President will deliver a statement in which he sets a new intermediate national goal for stopping the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. The President’s announcement comes as this week’s Major Economies Meeting in Paris begins to lay the groundwork for the world leaders’ climate meeting to be held in conjunction with the upcoming G-8 Summit.
The President’s remarks will also inform the Senate-scheduled debate on climate change legislation. In addition, the President will emphasize the importance of decisions on climate change regulation being openly debated and made by the elected representatives of the people rather than unelected regulators and judges.
That final emphasis is welcomed, because it is only through a thorough, informed and honest public policy debate that we can assess the real costs and consequences of global warming policies. Assess, and influence and correct mistakes, too.
As we await the President's new strategizing on global warming, we note Chairman John Dingell's insight as reported in today's The Hill.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) said Tuesday that he is no longer contemplating a “carbon tax” as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“Times have changed; our economy has taken a hard downward turn and now is not the time for us to put any additional financial burden on the working families of Michigan or this nation,” Dingell said.
And a very exercised Iain Murray looks at the economics and politics in this post in The Corner.
As I said, this is just so unnecessary. The President is right that activist litigation has forced his agencies into a regulatory nightmare - and things will only get worse if his own Interior Secretary decides to list the Polar Bear as endangered thanks to climate change. What he should be doing is telling Congress in no uncertain terms that the activists have twisted the Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Protection Act to breaking point by their use of them as a vehicle for global warming activism and that therefore Congress should fix those Acts so they can't be used so inappropriately again. As for emissions, the problem lies with Congress and Congress should debate among itself what to do, without any direction from the President. Siding with those who call for a mandatory emissions target does not help that debate.
The social issues are beyond our purview, but it does seem safe to say that these two economic measures cited in the Inquirer serve to discourage businesses from expanding in or moving to the Garden State:
Universal health care: A preliminary proposal for a plan that would eventually require everyone in the state to have health insurance has been presented by State Sen. Joseph F. Vitale (D., Middlesex).
Paid family leave: A measure approved by the Legislature awaits Gov. Corzine's signature.
While Governor Corzine has said he is going to sign this bill, let's make sure he knows how much business opposes this and how contrary it is to his stated goal of growing the economy. Corzine is expanding a benefits program even as he is calling for deep spending cuts in every department. Corzine is imposing a huge new mandate on businesses as New Jersey is losing jobs and is on the brink of recession.
Officials with Sutter Street Manufacturing, a subsidiary of home furnishings retailer Williams-Sonoma, announced plans to hire 820 people over the next five years to design, build and distribute upholstered furniture in Hickory....[snip] The area's skilled furniture workers and a state grant convinced the company to invest $22.5 million here rather than in alternative locations in Mississippi, Virginia and New Jersey, local business leaders said.
The unemployment rate in Washington, D.C., is stuck around 6 percent, which means some 20,000 people without work in an area otherwise greatly insulated from an economic downturn and with an unemployment rate half that of the district's. (Tables and graphs.)
Washington is beset with many social ills, adult illiteracy is high, and the public school system is in shambles (although Chancellor Michelle Rhee is certainly trying), but there's one place a public policy change could well improve the jobs picture: Development of a community college for the city to supplant the failed land-grant institution, the University of the District of Columbia.
Matthew Yeo, a private lawyer who works with D.C. Appleseed on work-force development issues, said the District also needs to improve vocational training.
"Our system of moving the working poor into more stable and higher paying jobs has really broken down," he said. "Even compared to other cities, the District hasn't done a particularly good job at this."
And even though the District lacks any significant manufacturing sector -- and no disrespect meant to the small manufacturing shops that do good work here -- vocational training that gave students the skills to succeed in the manufacturing sector could do much.
Washington, D.C. - A majority of Americans oppose the Oberstar/Feingold Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA), according to a nationwide survey by Wilson Research Strategies for the National Center for Public Policy Research.
CWRA will receive a hearing of the full House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee at 11 AM today.
In the survey, voters were informed the Congress is considering a measure that would expand the areas covered under the Clean Water Act, including to areas that are only intermittently wet. They were then provided brief arguments both for and against the measure and asked if they favored or opposed the proposal.
54% of those with an opinion opposed the measure, while 46% favor it. Among political independents, opposition was higher -- 56% opposed, 44% in support.
"The Clean Water Restoration Act would submit nearly every drop of water in the United States to federal regulation," said David Ridenour, vice president of the National Center for Public Policy Research. "It's not surprising that the American people have great reservations about such a massive increase in federal power."
Consider that baseline public opinion, too, before any sort of major education campaign, the kind that might arise during a general election campaign if candidates took opposing sides on the legislation. We envision a spot with bureaucrats peering over fences, sniffing the air for a scent of moisture. Or perhaps even a dispassionate explanation of the costs of federalizing puddles.
UPDATE (11:05 a.m.): The hearing is being webcast, and you can get to the link here. And do we read that right? Five panels and 23 witnesses? Phew.
UPDATE (11:25 a.m.) The ranking minority member, Rep. John Mica (R-FL) , says he's never received such an outpouring of comments from the public in opposition to the bill. And at the Volokh Conspiracy website, Jonathan Adler writes, summarizing his testimony:
First, the bill does not "restore" the Clean Water Act, as it could extend to many waters and lands never subject to regulation under the original act. Second, the bill will fail to achieve its stated goal of increasing regulatory certainty, as its vagueness and broad language will spur substantial litigation and controversy as courts struggle to determine the scope of federal authority. And finally, that the bill will not do much to advance environmental protection because it does nothing to focus limited federal regulatory and enforcement resources where they can do the most good.
Employers, that is, jobs creators, were successful in recently concluded Georgia and Maryland legislative sessions in beating back efforts to make it easier to sue for this, that and the other thing.
False Claims: Legislation that would have provided individuals new grounds to sue state government contractors (SB 845/HB 292) and health care providers (SB 215) for an allegation of filing a false claim for benefits.
Market Share Liability: Legislation that would have imposed an unprecedented standard of liability for companies that previously sold lead paint based on their market shares (HB 1241).
Noneconomic Damages: Legislation to increase the cap on noneconomic damage awards for lawsuits alleging wrongful death resulting from medical malpractice (SB550/HB 969).
Market-share liability, that's a great one. Rather than connect liability to the specific person or company that caused harm, you'd just apportion the damages according to some calculation. Joint-and-several liability in the Twilight Zone. Next thing you know they'll try to bootstrap lead paint lawsuits based on public nuisance law.(More from the Maryland Chamber here.)
Meanwhile, in its session-ending review, the Georgia Chamber of Commerce reported success in blocking bad bills, etc., the reversal of past progress:
Dismantling of Tort Reform. Legislation to weaken provisions from 2005's Civil Justice Reform Act (SB 3) - by removing the section requiring plaintiffs' attorneys to prove that emergency room doctors acted with gross negligence - was stalled, although the Georgia Trial Lawyers' Association has already announced that this will be their top priority during the 2009 legislative session.
Count on the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association to keep fighting to drive those doctors out of the state.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Corporate taxpayers won a round in the Supreme Court on Tuesday in a case challenging the long arm of state tax collectors.
In a unanimous decision, the justices said Illinois courts must take another look at whether the state can tax Ohio-based Mead Corp., a paper and forest products company, in the $1.5 billion sale of data retrieval service Lexis/Nexis in 1994.
Writing for the court, Justice Samuel Alito said the state courts misinterpreted two previous Supreme Court rulings in deciding that Illinois was entitled to tax a fraction of the gain of Mead, now MeadWestvaco Corp.
The National Association of Manufacturers, Gannett Co. Inc. and the Walt Disney Co. all filed briefs supporting MeadWestvaco in the case.
Mead says its $1 billion gain from the sale can be taxed by Ohio, where the company is headquartered, but cannot be taxed by Illinois.
The court's ruling is available here. The NAM's description of the case is here, and our amicus brief is on-line here.
Harold Meyerson is to the Washington Post's editorial page what Steve Perlstein is to the Washington Post's business page: A predictable class warrior, down on business and America for failing to live up to his expectations, or at least up to his desired tax rates. We usually skip Meyerson, but since he wrote about trade and U.S. manufacturing in his last column and cited Former Republican Strategist Kevin Phillips so approvingly -- and Former Republican Strategist Kevin Phillips was on NPR this morning -- it's worth noting the refutation from Russell Roberts at Cafe Hayek.
[Meyerson] argues that because of foolish free trade policies such as NAFTA and other increases in trade:
...America has gone from being a nation that manufactured things to a nation that manufactures debt. Manufacturing (as Kevin Phillips points out in the forthcoming issue of the American Prospect, which I edit) accounted for 25 percent of America's gross domestic product in the 1970s but just 12 percent in 2006. Finance, which amounted to 12 percent of GDP in the '70s, amounted to 20 percent in 2006.
If you read that quickly, it does sound pretty scary. It looks like our manufacturing output has been cut in half! Actually, manufacturing output since 1970 has roughly tripled. TRIPLED. I feel like writing the word again but I'll refrain. But "TRIPLED" is a good word to remember when you keep hearing that America's manufacturing sector is being hollowed out and we don't make anything anymore and soon we're going to be sitting around doing each other's laundry.
Much more of value, and since we're all due to suffer from another pre-election media wave of interviews with Former Republican Strategist Kevin Phillips, it's worth keeping the Cafe Hayek link handy.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell said Broadwater's rejection was a victory for the environment. As for the natural gas it would have provided — that will come from projects already being planned elsewhere, she said.
"There are projects underway or already on the drawing boards that will more than meet that future demand without ever needing the disaster-in-the-making that is Broadwater," Rell said after New York announced its decision on the Long Island Sound project Thursday.
But Broadwater's developers warned that without their project in place, households and businesses in Connecticut can expect electricity and natural gas prices to climb. Demand for natural gas, especially by power plants, continues to grow and the region has a limited number of pipelines to get gas into the state.
The other liquefied natural gas terminals proposed, in locations in Delaware and New Brunswick, Canada, will do little for Connecticut, Broadwater officials said, and that's assuming they win approval.
Rule of Washington, D.C., thumb: If legislation carries the term "restoration" in its title, it will inevitably do far more than restore past law. It will rewrite existing statutes to weaken the private sector and expand government. The Fair Pay Restoration Act doesn't restore "fair pay," but rather makes it possible to sue and sue and sue employers, ad infinitum.
And the Clean Water Restoration Act federalizes control over most occasionally damp pieces of land in the United States.
On Wednesday, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will hold a hearing on the water legislation, which needs much attention beyond the agricultural and property rights groups who are particularily exercised about the federal power grab. (Hearing details here and additional background here.)
Supporters sell the legislation as an effort to clarify the Clean Water Act's authority following several Supreme Court decisions, but in reality, it's a vast extension of the regulatory state over wet areas. For manufacturers, the concern is that modest remodeling or expansion projects that might once had been worked out with local planners or environmental authorities would fall under additional federal regulatory oversight, with all the attendant costs and delays.
And each regulatory decision becomes another point that NIMBY or environmental groups can use in litigation to block a project. That's an especially important issue for future infrastructure or energy projects that meet the economy's needs -- and create jobs.
The National Center for Policy Analysis National Center for Public Policy Research has been working diligently on this issue, and today the group issued a news release and study warning sportsmen of the threat: "[The legislation] would do more to threaten the cherished pastimes of hunters, fishermen and other outdoor enthusiasts than it would to ensure the cleanliness of our nation's water." Earlier in the month the the group released a letter signed by 53 separate groups -- the NAM included -- that highlighted the bill's failings.
The Senate has aleady held a hearing this month and tomorrow a House committee considers the bill, so it's wise to be paying attention -- this legislation may be moving.
Correction: We confused our National Centers. Apologies to both.
Much news this month about the energy potential of the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and Montana, thanks to a U.S. Geological Survey that estimated a mean value of 3.65 billion barrels of oil. Exciting. Worldwide interest. Etc.
That's former Interior Secretary Gale Norton in March, 2003 explaining the tremendous oil potential in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. Using some of the same drilling technology that makes much of the Bakken Shale Formation accessible, ANWR's oil could be recovered in an environmentally safe manner. And heck, there's a lot more diverse wildlife and fauna in the prairies and Badlands of North Dakota then there is in the frozen wasteland of the Alaskan North Slope.
So if you welcome the Bakken energy, it's hard to see how you could dismiss the ANWR potential. With any sense of intellectual consistency, we mean.
From Times Online: "Lonely Planet writer, Thomas Kohnstamm, claims he fabricated guidebook":
“They didn’t pay me enough to go to Colombia,” he said. "I wrote the book in San Francisco. I got the information from a chick I was dating – an intern in the Colombian Consulate.”
I support the rights of workers to form or join labor organizations and have collective bargaining representation, but this bill would deny workers their privacy and right to a confidential vote when making that decision.
Maintaining the secret ballot is the best way to protect workers’ privacy and to ensure workers have the ability to vote their conscience without fear of repercussion or retaliation. There is no compelling justification for replacing a fair, democratic process with one that has the potential to erode a worker’s existing rights and protections under the law.
The legislation, HB2974 HD2, represented the incremental strategy that labor unions have adopted nationwide, i.e., gain card check authority with public employees or other groups regulated by state, not federal, authorities. In this case, the affected groups were still significant:
[Most] agriculture businesses in the state; non-retail businesses with less than $50,000 in annual sales; retail businesses including restaurants with less than $500,000 in annual sales; many small, non-profit organizations; day care centers with less than $250,000 in gross annual revenues; hotels, motels apartments and condominiums with less than $500,000 in annual revenues; taxicab companies with less than $500,000 in total annual revenues; law firms and legal aid programs with less than $250,000 in gross annual revenues; art museums with less than $1 million in gross annual revenues; colleges, universities and secondary schools with less than $1 million in annual revenues; and newspapers with less than $200,000 in annual revenues.
Good for Gov. Lingle for standing up to labor's attempt to introduce the intimidation-based unionization into small-business workplaces all across the state.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has ruled against the NAM's lawsuit challenging provisions of the 2007 statute, the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, as a violation of the constitutional rights of speech, association and petitioning the government for redress of grievances. It's not a lightning bolt surprise, by any means, and the process continues. The NAM will seek a stay to prevent the law from going into effect. As NAM President John Engler said in a news release:
We remain convinced that many of the law’s burdensome and intrusive disclosure requirements will have a serious chilling effect on the Constitutional rights of our members. Public debate is not served by undermining the rights of business – employers and employees alike – or when laws limit speech, association and the public’s ability to petition the government.
We are committed to protecting the rights of everyone in this country, including those who work for manufacturers, to freely associate and to exercise their First Amendment rights without the government interfering with or chilling them.
The Wall Street Journal observes that Maryland's just concluded legislative session undid the hated computer services tax, but instead of cutting government spending to compensate for the lost revenue, decided to disadvantage another group of small business owners, the purported "millionares," with an income tax surcharge on top of increases in top tax rates approved last year. From "New Jersey on the Chesapeake":
As state Senate Minority Whip Allan Kittleman pointed out, many of Maryland's so-called millionaires are actually small businesses that pay taxes through their proprietor's personal tax returns. With the state's economy struggling, wise money would avoid cudgeling a sector that has grown to more than 440,000 small businesses statewide. They now have another incentive to move to Delaware.
Opponents of a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal upriver from Astoria are taking their fight to overturn Clatsop County's zoning approvals for the project to a ballot measure and the state land-use appeals board.
Connecticut and New York opponents of the Broadwater LNG received a generous helping of good news yesterday afternoon when Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced that N.Y. Gov. David A. Paterson rejected the proposal.
"We did it," said Rell in a press release. Foes of Broadwater's project feared the liquid natural gas (LNG) proposal could radically alter Long Island Sound.
The answer to the rhetorical question is, yes, at least in Oregon, the Clatsop County Commissioners took the issue of energy security (and public safety, and the environment, and the local economy) seriously. And there are many, many other proponents of LNG projects. But NIMBY groups and the anti-prosperity crowd on the environmental left keep throwing up obstacles.
After running up various defense theories up the courthouse flagpole, Michigan trial lawyer Geoffrey Fieger has decided his best protection against charges of campaign finance fraud is to plead ignorance. Really...
both government and defense lawyers have said in court filings and in statements at pretrial hearings that the case now hinges on "state of mind" -- whether Fieger and Johnson knowingly broke the law.
"He would never have done that if he knew it was against the law," Fieger lawyer David Nevin told Borman at a hearing last week. "He simply would have too much to lose and too little to gain."
Fieger, whose career is largely based on knowledge of the law and who allegedly received a memo from one of his own attorneys warning him about the legality of his political fundraising methods, could face an uphill battle.
"It's hard for lawyers to put on an ignorance defense," said Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University and a former federal prosecutor. "Lawyers are expected to know the law and to know that when you're in a gray area you have to clarify."
Fieger and his law partner, Ven Johnson, were charged last year with conspiracy and campaign fraud for reimbursing employees who contributed to the presidential campaign of John Edwards. (More from the Detroit Free Press here and also here.)
Last week, the judge ruled that Fieger could not argue that he's a victim of a government conspiracy targeting Democratic trial lawyers, as he protested in emetic TV commercials.
The House convenes at 12:30 p.m. today and handles suspensions, etc., and starting Tuesday takes up legislation on international debt forgiveness, individual income tax filing procedures, and student loans. The floor schedule for the week is here.
The Senate convenes at 2 p.m. and moves to H.R. 1195, the Highway Technical Corrections Act. Senate Republicans appear ready to make an issue this week out of delays in acting on judicial nominations. (Background here and here.)
For a list of this week's House and Senate hearings, go to last Friday's Daily Digest.
House Hearings: Energy and Commerce holds an oversight hearing Tuesday on the FCC's auction of the 700 MHz band. (Details.) Also Tuesday, two Natural Resources subcommittees hold a joint hearing, "The West-wide Energy Corridor Process: State and Community Impacts." Two House and Science Technology hearings of interest: Tuesday, a subcommittee revue of FutureGen, the plug-pulled clean-coal project; Wednesday, the full committee on nanotechnology legislation. House Armed Services on Tuesday considers, "National Industrial Security Program: Addressing the Implications of Globalization and Foreign Ownership for the Defense Industrial Base." On Wednesday, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee holds a hearing on the Clean Water Restoration Act, legislation that would substantially shut down expanded farm, business, infrastructure and energy projects. (Hearing details here and additional background here.) And on Thursday, House Oversight considers the beef recall.
Executive Branch: The President meets with his Cabinet today and then congratulates Thomas Jefferson on turning 265. (Actual birthday was April 13, 1743.)
Economic Reports: Reporter will write about inflation: The monthly Producer Price Index is released Tuesday and the Consumer Price Index on Wednesday.
"Recently, our presentation of Edgar Allen Poe’s great horror story, the Pit and the Pendulum, displeased some listeners who felt that we should not have made the Spanish Inquisition the villain..."
That's from the makers of "Suspense," the long-running CBS radio drama, in an introduction to the program "The Analytical Hour."
And sorry in advance for insulting psychoanalysts.
The entire show, " broadcast June 28, 1959, is available at Archive.org. And interestingly enough, the founder of Archive.org, Brewster Kahle, was on the public radio program, "On the Media," this week to talk about his plan to provide free wireless Internet to low-income apartment complexes in San Francisco. It's necessary because municipal government plans to provide free wireless have failed miserably.
The U.S. Geological Survey's release last week of a new study estimating some 3 to 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil is indeed good news, but, no disrespect to the good people at the USGS, it's just a study.
It takes investment, ingenuity and innovation to get to the oil. In other words, it takes the oil companies and profits. And exploiting a find is still a 50-50 proposition, profitwise.
Being able to recover oil technically is different than being in business long enough so can recover it." Harms says it costs six million dollars to drill a well
And even with $110 barrel oil there are some wells in the Bakken that don't break even
(Bob Harms) "If you exclude the sweet spot in Parshalll and Mountrail area - 52% are not going to produce an economic well. Meaning they will not return the investment it took to drill it."
Investor's Business Daily made similar observations in a recent editorial. In a typically tough IBD editorial, the paper took to task those elected officials who welcome available oil in North Dakota but who vote against accessing needed energy in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge or off America's coasts, or who would institute a windfall profits' tax.
Yes, oil companies make money. But they spend more than they make on finding new sources of oil. A new Ernst & Young study shows the five major oil companies had $765 billion of new investment from 1992 to 2006 compared with net income of $662 billion.
Over the same stretch, the industry — which includes 57 of the largest U.S. oil and natural gas companies — had new investments of $1.25 trillion compared with a net income of $900 billion and a cash flow of $1.77 trillion.
This is an industry that has redefined innovation, reinvesting profits to find innovative ways to recover oil and gas wherever they find it. This includes fields once considered "dead," vast tracts miles beneath the ocean surface, and sands or even shale in North Dakota.
So that's the context. Touting potential oil resources is fine, but ultimately pointless if you demonize or undermine the energy companies that bring that resource to market.
SACRAMENTO - Joe Six-pack will have to pay a lot more to get his buzz on if Assemblyman Jim Beall has his way.
The San Jose Democrat on Thursday proposed raising the beer tax by $1.80 per six-pack, or 30 cents per can or bottle. The current tax is 2 cents per can. That's an increase of about 1,500 percent.
Beall said the tax would generate $2 billion a year to fund health care services, crime prevention and programs to prevent underage drinking and addiction.
"The people who use alcohol should pay for part of the cost to society, just like we've accepted that concept with tobacco," Beall said.
Well, then, let's get all the attorneys general together and sue the beer industry. Force them to reach a settlement.
NO, NO! Just kidding. That's just the reductio ad absurdum for the logic behind this tax-hungry attack on a single industry AND on the consumers and taxpayers who enjoy its product.
Tax unhealthy foods with funds going towards either environmental health improvements such as sidewalks or offsetting the higher price of fruits and vegetables. Could tax sugar sweetened items per gram.
Ban sales of whole milk in stores.
Legislate zoning in school areas to require businesses to have a minimum percent of sales be healthy foods.
Because whole milk is a gateway drug?
The totalitarian impulse appears way too often among public-health advocates.
To the readers of Colombia's largest daily circulation newspaper, El Tiempo, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is "la Doctura No" -- Dr. No.
At least that was the headline on a Sunday report from the newspaper's Washington correspondent, Sergio Gomez Maseri. As far as we can make out, it's not a negative piece, but rather one that attempts to explain to a Colombian audience the authority of the Speaker of the House and just who Nancy Pelosi is: "The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is the most powerful woman in the country."
But it also does a good job of explaining how Colombia's public sees her decision to block consideration of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement:
A telephone call came Wednesday afternoon to Colombian Ambassador Carolina Barco in Washington. On the other end of the line was Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful woman in the country in her role as Speaker of the House. “I hope you don’t take this personally. This is a problem about power,” she told Barco before publicly announcing the freezing of the FTA between Colombia and the United States. For a vast majority of Colombians, especially those who have been part of the close relations between these two countries, it was much more than an announcement. Pelosi, in a single stroke, had stopped the Free Trade Agreement with Colombia.
Although Barco and the minister of trade, Luis Guillermo Plata, and others rushed to say that the agreement was not dead, in reality it is far more than just damaged. It depends, according to Pelosi, on President Bush committing to a series of costly economic initiatives to which he has so far given a resounding no.
This is the story in Spanish and a very rough English translation, via Google. (Warning: Includes a vulgarity for "messing things up.")
Lawmakers approved a package of administration bills to reduce the state's energy consumption 15 percent by 2015 and to double the amount of renewable energy that power companies must provide for sale to customers, to 20 percent by 2022.
Gov. Martin O'Malley confirmed yesterday that his administration will not allow commercial wind turbines on state forest land, ending a heated four-month debate.
"While we must continue to explore and make progress on creating a more sustainable and independent energy future for Maryland, we will not do so at the expense of the special lands we hold in the public trust," the Democratic governor said.
What is that term about holding two mutually exclusive thoughts at the same time?
The April 9 Business article "Don't Blame NAFTA for Downturn, Many Economists Say" quoted politicians, economists and labor representatives but not a single manufacturer -- those at the heart of this wrenching debate.
Nearly half of North American manufacturers believe the North American Free Trade Agreement has helped their overall business performance, and 41 percent say it had no impact on their companies, according to a recent survey by the National Association of Manufacturers and Deloitte.
As lawmakers and presidential candidates address future trade deals and the economic concerns of America's working families, let's remember that competitive companies engaged in trade create more jobs and pay higher wages than those sitting on the sidelines.
EMILY DeROCCO
President
Manufacturing Institute
Washington
In this week's "Cool Stuff Being Made" we travel to Souderton, Penn, to visit Asher's Chocolate to answer the question: One coat of chocolate or two? The answer: Yes!
Our tour is conducted by Jeff Asher, a fourth-generation candy manufacturer who is in charge of sales and marketing for the company. The company was founded in 1892, making it the oldest continuously family owned and operated candy making company in the United States, but the Souderton facility we visit is of the modern sort: The 125,000 square feet factory houses 15 enrobers, a large kitchen and a modern shell moulding plant.
Thanks this week again go to the good people at PCN, the Pennsylvania Cable Network, who provided the video tour and who do a great job of documenting the Keystone State's history.
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez spoke at the National Association of Manufacturers recently on taxes and employment, as well as the importance of expanding trade to keep the economy humming.
Beforehand, the Secretary stopped by the "America's Business with Mike Hambrick" studio to make the case for tax incentives and the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, an interview we highlight in this week's video podcast.
"We should not put politics in front of sending a message to an ally," Secretary Gutierrez said of the Colombia trade deal. "If we don’t approve this, our allies and friends will be very confused. And people who don’t like us will be very happy."
For more on this week's program and to watch the video in a larger format, please visit www.AmericasBusiness.org
The Congressional Budget Office has issued a cost analysis of S. 2191, the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade climate-change bill. Among the conclusions: The costs to the private sector would violate limits set by law under the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.
The most costly mandates would require certain types of private-sector entities to participate in the cap-and-trade programs for GHG emissions created by the bill. CBO estimates that the cost of those mandates would amount to more than $90 billion each year during the 2012-2016 period, and thus substantially exceed the annual threshold established in UMRA for private-sector mandates ($136 million in 2008, adjusted annually for inflation).
We'll be interested in the reaction from command-and-control crowd on the environmental left: Attack the methodology or just ignore this study? We're guessing the latter.
More from CQ Politics here, with this interesting summary: "The Congressional Budget Office concluded that the bill would increase overall federal revenues by $1.21 trillion between 2009 and 2018, although the net increase would be just $78 billion after new spending was factored in." Another way of looking it that is, the federal government is taking that much -- $1.21 trillion -- out of the economy, the pockets of businesses, consumers and taxpayers, and directing its use. It represents a huge expansion of government control over our daily lives.
The largest steel mill in Venezuela, Ternium-Sidor is to be nationalized, according to a presidential decision made following yet another strike closure.
Ternium-Sidor, which is sixty percent owned by Argentineans was not able to reach an agreement with unions on wages. When the work force went out on strike President Hugo Chavez ordered its nationalization.
The move was in the works before yesterday's ignoble vote in the House to block the U.S-Colombia Free Trade Agreement -- earlier this week, foreign-owned cement companies were nationalized -- but Chavez must be even more emboldened. If you abandon your allies, why should your foes fear you?
(More on Chavez's attack on the private sector in The Economist.)
``Not having a trade agreement is almost like having trade sanctions imposed in the sense that you've been downgraded, or are at least now one level below the other comparable economies in the continent'' that do have trade deals, such as Mexico, Chile, Peru and Central America, Trade Minister Luis Guillermo Plata said in an interview.
Latin America is following this issue intently. Spurning Colombia undermines an ally in a dangerous part of the world and hands Venezuela's Hugo Chávez a victory. It sends a message that the United States doesn't know who its friends are -- or doesn't value them.
And Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit shares the perception that we do about labor's role in opposing the measure: "[The] unions decided that they had to show their ability to stop something, and chose this. Merits don't matter when it's all about demonstrating clout."
The handling of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement seems strikingly similar to the handling of the legislation to update federal surveillance authority over international communications, the FISA amendments. Faced with legislation that would pass on its merits with bipartisan support -- the Senate-approved S. 2248 -- House leadership refused to allow a vote on the bill and instead passed a measure that only confuses the debate and stands no chance of enactment -- H.R. 3773.
Legislation to enact the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, H.R. 5724, stood a good chance of passing the House with bipartisan support on its merits. So instead we get H. Res. 1092, changing the rules to avoid that up-and-down vote.
President Bush's reaction to the House abdication on its responsibilities on the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement is unusually tough. It's worth reading in its entirety.
Today's unprecedented and unfortunate action by the House of Representatives - led by Speaker Pelosi - to change the rules governing legislation to implement our trade agreement with Colombia is damaging to our economy, our national security, and our relations with an important ally. It also undermines the trust required for any Administration to negotiate trade agreements in the future.
By lowering tariffs for products made in America and sold in Colombia, this trade agreement would level the playing field for American workers and provide a boost for our economy at a vital time. Rather than supporting the opening of markets for our farmers and manufacturers, Democratic congressional leaders instead listened to narrow special interests and followed an isolationist path.
Today's action by the House of Representatives also sends a damaging message to the world that Congress cannot be counted on to keep its promises. Colombia is one of our strongest allies in the Western Hemisphere. Colombia's leaders are showing courage in improving the safety of their citizens while battling narco-terrorists that receive support from anti-American forces outside Colombia. The message Democrats sent today is that no matter how steadfastly you stand with us, we will turn our backs on you when it is politically convenient.
In addition, by changing the rules for how it considers legislation to implement trade agreements, the House has severed a bond of trust between the executive branch and the Congress, and with our trading partners, that has served our Nation well for decades. In order to negotiate trade agreements, we empower our trade representatives with the promise that Congress will consider trade agreements with a timely up-or-down vote. By breaking this bond, Democrats have undercut not just this Administration, but future Administrations as well. This will weaken our Nation's ability to negotiate fair trade agreements for American workers, farmers, ranchers, and service providers.
During the 16 months since the Colombia free trade agreement was signed, my Administration has gone above and beyond any reasonable effort to achieve a bipartisan path for considering this agreement. At the expense of our economy and our national security, the House has instead chosen to take a short-sighted and partisan path.
UPDATE (9:50 a.m.): To be fair, not all the coverage in Colombia is that despairing. Portafolio, the financial newspaper, declares in its lead story, "Despite the setback, all is not lost."
The U.S. Forest Service has released new rules to govern the development of management plans for the federal lands the government agency controls. Environmental activists are outraged and accusing the Administration of bad faith. Well, of course they are. (New York Times story; Associated Press story.)
With the new U.S. Geological Survey study out about the 4.3 billion barrels of oil that may lie in the Bakken Formation of North Dakota, we're reminded of another controversy in which outraged environmental groups denounced the U.S. Forest Service. Back in the late '90s, the Forest Service proposed a 10-year management plan for the Dakota Prairie National Grasslands, a plan that would have significantly restricted existing ranching operations and future energy development on these federal lands in western North Dakota. (Not pristine land, we note; much had been settled and farmed at some point and then abandoned in the Dust Bowl years.)
The plan satisfied no one, as these plans tend to do. Ranchers legitimately saw an attack on their way of life, and the oil and gas industry protested the increased costs to develop existing claims and the blocking of vast acreage to any future energy use.
Meanwhile, national environmental groups like the Sierra Club were horrified, saying the plan did almost nothing to protect the unique resources -- always unique -- and crown jewel of this and that. More restrictions! More limits! No development! Above all, more wilderness designations!
No one was satified with the final management plan, naturally. Nevertheless, the energy sector appeared to have reached a modus vivendi with the federal management plan, and oil and gas development continues on the federal land in Western North Dakota -- environmentally sensitive, heavily regulated and monitored development, but the energy can still be accessed.
Underneath much of the western portion of the Dakota Prairie Grasslands is the Bakken Formation, confirmed yesterday by the U.S. Geological Survey as a resource of tremendous potential -- the largest continuous oil accumulation ever assessed by the USGS.
And if the environmentalists had had their way when the Forest Service developed its national grasslands management plan, much of that Bakken resource would be off-limits -- blocked from development or made prohibitively expensive, prevented from being part of the solution to America's energy needs. The investment into accessing Bakken oil would have gone to Kamchatka, Kazakhstan or Angola -- if anywhere.
The grasslands history and the Bakken Formation's tremendous potential make it clear that the goals of the mainstream environmental movement cannot be reconciled with achieving energy security, that is, real, economical energy security, as opposed to the magical, mystical, utopian kind.
Judging by the more political of his cartoons, we're guessing Ruben Bolling would not be a big fan of the NAM, but we're big fans of his. His Tom the Dancing Bug cartoons turn the convention of cartooning upside down, but not in the traditional and worn-out upside-turning way, but funny...
That's a panel from one of Bolling's "Super Fun-Pax-Comix," his more accessible cartoons making fun of the comics pages. There's more here, here and here.
Reston, VA - North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation.
A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil.
And this (our emphasis)...
The Bakken Formation estimate is larger than all other current USGS oil assessments of the lower 48 states and is the largest "continuous" oil accumulation ever assessed by the USGS. A "continuous" oil accumulation means that the oil resource is dispersed throughout a geologic formation rather than existing as discrete, localized occurrences. The next largest "continuous" oil accumulation in the U.S. is in the Austin Chalk of Texas and Louisiana, with an undiscovered estimate of 1.0 billions of barrels of technically recoverable oil.
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) requested the study.
A podcast from U.S. Geological Survey scientists is available here.
P.S. "The USGS has determined that the Bakken Formation, in North Dakota and Montana, has 25 times more technically recoverable oil than was estimated in the USGS's 1995 assessment." Technological advances, made possible by...OIL COMPANY PROFITS. Blast them.
UPDATE (4:10 p.m.): A lot, but not as much as some of the more dramatic claims floating around the web in anticipation, notes Glenn Reynolds. More here, and the full report is here.
A resolution changing the rules to postpone consideration of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement has just passed, 224-195, causing damage to the United States' reliability as a negotiator and trade partner.
UPDATE (2:03 p.m.): The roll call tally. Six Republicans voted aye, 10 Democrats voted nay.
UPDATE (1:55 p.m.): Statement by Ambassador Susan Schwab, U.S. Trade Representative:
“The U.S. - Colombia Free Trade Agreement would have brought fairness to U.S. workers by finally leveling the playing field for our exports to Colombia. Colombia’s exports to our market already enter duty-free, and the Colombia FTA would have opened their market to the products of American workers, farmers, and entrepreneurs.
“When Congress enacted Trade Promotion Authority in 2002, it chose to enact rules that the United States and the other sovereign nations we negotiated trade agreements with followed. Now, the House is choosing to not honor those rules by changing them – in the middle of the game. The action by the House will have profoundly negative consequences for our workers, our relationship with Colombia, and the credibility of the United States. This is a sad day for the United States of America as the reckless decision by the Democratic House Leadership dismantles over thirty years of bipartisan trade policy precedent.
“The Administration held extensive consultations with Congress before negotiations on the Colombia free trade agreement began, during negotiations, and after the agreement was signed in November 2006. The Administration worked with Colombia, at Congress’ request, to add new strengthened environmental and labor provisions – as negotiated with the Democratic Leadership - into the core text of the agreement. Since September of last year, the Administration has held over 400 consultations with Members of Congress and led 8 Congressional trips to Colombia with 55 members of the House and Senate. The Administration has repeatedly reached out to the Congress to engage in discussions so that we could move the Colombia agreement forward to a successful bipartisan vote. Congress has yet to act.
“I believe that opening overseas markets and leveling the playing field for our workers and families – and honoring the rules that we all play by – is the right thing to do, the smart thing to do, and simply makes sense.
“The administration has gone above and beyond its statutory commitment under Trade Promotion Authority. Frankly, we have bent over backwards – time and time again – only to see the goalposts move further and further away. Changing the rules now only makes losers of American workers, farmers, and service providers.”
For years now, farm-state delegations led by members of Congress of both political parties have traveled to Havana, agitating for the end to the U.S. embargo so their states could sell ag products to the Cubans.
Today in the House many of those same advocates will vote to block expanded U.S. trade with Colombia, stopping consideration of a trade agreement that would lower Colombia's barriers to U.S. exports.
What a strange and discouraging symbol: Supporting more trade with a Communist dictatorship and enemy of the United States versus opposing more trade with a democratic ally.
The National Association of Manufacturers today sent a letter to members of the House of Representatives opposing any votes to delay action on enacting the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement:
On behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the nation’s largest industrial trade association representing small and large manufacturers in every industrial sector and in all 50 states, I urge you to oppose any effort to delay the prompt consideration of and timely vote on H.R. 5724, the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement Implementation Act.
The NAM is extremely concerned that removing the 90-day timetable for action on the agreement will not only prevent timely and fair consideration of the U.S.-Colombia agreement, but will also fundamentally undermine the effectiveness of the Fast Track/Trade Promotion Authority process. If this process is undermined in such a manner, the ability of the United States to enter or complete trade agreements with other countries will be severely compromised, both now and in the future.
Furthermore, at this time of great instability in world financial markets, this is not time to raise uncertainty about America's commitment to open trade. Currently, U.S. manufactured goods entering Colombia face an average tariff of 14 percent, at a cost of $80 million a month on existing sales to Colombia. At the same time, virtually no Colombian goods face any barriers in the United States. Passage of this agreement is vital to our economy and the future growth of American manufacturing.
Key votes are used by the NAM to rate a member's overall record on support for the manufacturing economy.
From the White House, press briefing transcript on U.S-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, featuring Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.
Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer teleconference with reporters, transcript.
Statement from House Minority Leader John Boehner.
National Association of Corn Growers, news release: ""The Colombia free trade agreement should be considered and voted upon this year, and not sidelined due to procedural maneuvering," said NCGA President Ron Litterer. "This agreement is good for U.S. agriculture and corn growers. Let's have the agreement in front of Congress fair and square -- on its own merits."
International Dairy Foods Association news release: From IDFA President and CEO Connie Tipton, "Playing political games and changing the rules in midstream will only hinder our country's ability to broker fair and effective trade agreements with international partners in the future."
National Cattlemen’s Beef Association news release, featuring statement by NCBA President Andy Groseta, a rancher from Cottonwood, Ariz. "Frankly, I don't understand why Congress was so willing to assist producers of Colombian goods by extending the Andean Trade Preferences, but won't stand up and be counted when they have a chance to help our own farmers and ranchers."
Consumer Electronics Association news release, quoting a letter to Congress from President and CEO Gary Shapiro: "As we fight for the hearts and minds of the Colombian people, it seems unhelpful to use a procedural vote to delay consideration of an important trade agreement. We urge you to reject efforts to delay consideration of the Colombian Free Trade Agreement and to support its passage.”
Ms. Pelosi denies that her intent is to kill the bill, insisting yesterday that Congress simply needs more time to consider it "in light of the economic uncertainty in our country." She claimed that she feared that, "if brought to the floor immediately, [the pact] would lose. And what message would that send?" But Ms. Pelosi's decision-making process also included a fair component of pure Washington pique: She accused Mr. Bush of "usurp[ing] the discretion of the speaker of the House" to schedule legislation.
That political turf-staking, and the Democrats' decreasingly credible claims of a death-squad campaign against Colombia's trade unionists, constitutes all that's left of the case against the agreement. Economically, it should be a no-brainer -- especially at a time of rising U.S. joblessness. At the moment, Colombian exports to the United States already enjoy preferences. The trade agreement would make those permanent, but it would also give U.S. firms free access to Colombia for the first time, thus creating U.S. jobs. Politically, too, the agreement is in the American interest, as a reward to a friendly, democratic government that has made tremendous strides on human rights, despite harassment from Venezuela's Hugo Chávez.
Work to Begin Immediately on New Joint Pipeline Effort to Bring Alaska Gas to Market
BP [NYSE: BP] and ConocoPhillips [NYSE: COP] today announced they have combined resources to start Denali – The Alaska Gas Pipeline. The pipeline will move approximately four billion cubic feet of natural gas per day to markets, and will be the largest private sector construction project ever built in North America. The project combines the financial strength, arctic experience and technical resources of two of the most capable and experienced companies in the world.
BP and ConocoPhillips plan to spend $600 million to reach the first major project milestone, an open season, commencing before yearend 2010. Following a successful open season, a process during which the pipeline company seeks customers to make long-term firm transportation commitments to the project, the companies intend to obtain Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and National Energy Board (NEB) certification and move forward with project construction. The FERC and NEB certificates are the critical permits that provide government authorization to construct a pipeline.
The announcement settles at least one part of a longstanding controversy of how to get Alaska's energy wealth to the lower 48. It's a heck of a project, which according to the New York Times article would include a $5 billion gas-processing facility on the North Slope, would cost about $30 billion and take at least 10 years to complete. Other energy and construction companies are definitely interested in participating, the Houston Chronicle reports.
But, of course, you can't have just good news when it comes to natural gas and increasing energy supply. In Congress, Senators have introduced a bill that would give NIMBY opponents the trump card in blocking needed LNG facilities. Presidential candidates Obama and Clinton say they like the bill, competing for the environmentalist vote in Oregon. And what about the people who heat with natural gas?
The price of natural gas has soared the last few years, largely as the result of higher demand and restricted supplies along the West Coast. So families pay $200 or $300 a month for heat in the winter, and even then they are likely to shiver through parts of the day.
One way of reducing the price is to increase the supply, which is why as long as LNG is cheaper, importing it is a sensible idea.
It's a big news day for the U.S. Geological Survey and North Dakota. Yes, we know, what's next? Worthwhile Canadian initiatives?
But really. Today, the USGS releases a study on the potential oil to be developed from the Bakken Formation, part of the Williston Basin oil patch centered on North Dakota. From the Kansas City Star:
Deep under the northern Badlands, trapped tightly in dense layers of shale, there is oil.
Perhaps hundreds of billions of barrels of it.
A long-anticipated federal report to be released today will examine just how much might be squeezed out of a vast blanket of rock called the Bakken Formation.
Making it profitable to develop are $100-a-barrel oil and new technologies, including increasingly sophisticated methods of horizontal drilling.
Scientific curiosity bubbled up last year — as did the economic hopes of rural North Dakota — when Houston-based EOG Resources reported that a single well it had drilled below the town of Parshall was expected to deliver 700,000 barrels in its lifetime. In 2007, the number of wells in the Bakken rose from 300 to more than 450. Drillers have encountered the formation throughout an area known as Williston Basin, through which the Missouri River flows.
We'll keep an eye out for news, but for now, there's more background and commentary at the Bakken Shale Blog.
"Life counts, then quality of life counts. It is important to focus on education and to be open to opportunity ... to not be a victim. Be on guard when you see bigotry and hatred — and fight against it."
Those are the words of George Blank, the founder of The MedTech Group, a New Jersey-based plastics technology company that engineers and manufactures disposable medical products. Blank, who survived the Holocaust while others of his family perished, will be recognized today at the Raritan Valley Community College's annual Make A Difference Award luncheon. From the Courier-News Online:
Blank was born in Poland in 1938. He was little more than a year old when the Nazis invaded Poland.
"I come from a very large family," Blank said. "Most of the people in the Jewish community (in Poland at that time) were poor. Both sides of my family were industrialists."
Blank pointed out that since his family was somewhat more affluent than many Jewish families, they believed they "could ride out the storm" of the Nazi invasion.
"But when the storm hit, it was a tsunami," Blank said. "Most of my family was killed, all the property was gone. My father's entire family was wiped out, I am the only one remaining with the name. And about 50 percent of my mother's family was murdered."
Blank and his mother were liberated by the Russians in the spring of 1945, and made their way west.
"We arrived in in the United States in 1947," Blank said. "The Statue of Liberty opened her arms to us. I am extremely lucky. Bad start ... but (after that) have been lucky my whole life. My mother worked seven days a week to take care of us, and I got a good education ... and went on to develop a career in the health care field."
The MedTech Group is an NAM member company and Mr. Blank is active in the organization, an honor for us.
The House Committee on Ways & Means' report on H.R. 5264, the Andean Trade Preference Act, provides a good, brief history of the original ATPA (P.L. 102-182) passed in 1991, a law which granted preferential trade benefits to Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru in the form of duty-free treatment of eligible products coming into the United States. The program was expanded by the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (P. L. 107-210) on August 6, 2002 -- giving another 700 products access to the U.S market.
So those who would delay a vote on the U.S-Colombia Free Trade Act are arguing, in essence, that it's politically non-controversial to open even wider the U.S. market to Colombia's exports, but a disaster to lower Colombia's barriers to U.S. exports. Strains credulity, that argument.
From the additional (Republican) views section of the Ways & Means report:
[When] the United States went from providing one-way access to imports from Central American countries to a bilateral FTA in the CAFTA, our $1.3 billion trade deficit with those countries has changed to a trade surplus of $3.7 billion.
Congress has the opportunity to replicate that CAFTA success by passing the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement. The Democrat Leadership's refusal to act so far on this Agreement means that the U.S.-Colombia trade relationship is one-sided to Colombia's benefit. More than 99 percent of total Colombian exports to the United States are already duty-free (measured by tariff line) because of the preferences. By contrast only 2.7 percent of U.S. exports to Colombia are currently duty-free. More than 89 percent of Colombian agriculture exports to the United States are already duty-free (measured by tariff line) because of the preferences. No U.S. agriculture exports to Colombia receive duty-free treatment today. The average U.S. tariff paid by imports from Colombia in 2006 was only 0.1 percent because of the preferential access to the U.S. market. In contrast, the average tariff paid by U.S. exports to Colombia was 11.2 percent. The U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement will reduce the average tariff faced by U.S. exporters by more than 68 percent, from an 11.2 percent average duty to 3.6 percent immediately upon implementation of the Agreement.
Our emphasis. As if we needed to emphasize the facts. It's widely understood on Capitol Hill that the economic benefits of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement will accrue to U.S. businesses and employees. It's the political benefits that appear to be at debate.
From La Republica.com.co, quoting Vice President Francisco Santos: "Si el acuerdo fracasa, sería una cachetada para nosotros. Eso no podría no tener consecuencias en nuestras relaciones."
Translation: "If the agreement fails, it would be a slap across our face. There's no way it wouldn't have an effect on our relations."
UPDATE (5 p.m.) Bloomberg updated story, including NAM comment: ``If you stop it for Colombia, you can stop it for any agreement,'' said Doug Goudie, a lobbyist at the National Association of Manufacturers, a pro-trade business group. ``That isn't exactly going to inspire confidence in any future possible trade partners, or in the WTO negotiations.''
Meanwhile, the U.S. Trade Representative has distributed a fact sheet that refutes the contention Congress has not been consulted ....See the extended entry below.
Responding to House Speaker Pelosi's stated intention of vitiating the timeline for acting on the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, seven Cabinet secretaries appeared at a news conference this afternoon. Early reports...
'There is perhaps no more important free trade agreement in recent memory,' Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters at the White House.
Failure to approve the agreement would do 'very serious harm' to relations with Colombia, which she called 'a country that is absolutely clear about its friendship with America.'
Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the nation's influence in the region and the economy will be harmed if the Congress takes the unprecedented act of rejecting the accord completed 16 months ago.
``There's perhaps no more important free-trade agreement in recent memory,'' Rice said at a White House briefing that included other members of President George W. Bush's Cabinet who sought to put pressure on lawmakers to ratify the accord.
Paulson said the agreement will make a ``big difference'' economically for both the U.S. and Colombia by maintaining the flow of trade between the two countries and shoring up U.S. credibility with other trading partners.
The cable news outlets gave short shrift to the Cabinet secretaries' news conference, so for the moment...
From CQ Politics, quoting Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT):
This decision by the House on the Colombia trade agreement is not at all surprising, given the president’s unprecedented effort to force Congress into a vote...Congress and the White House are going to need to take a step back from the brink, focus on renewing an agreement on Trade Adjustment Assistance for American workers, and then consider the Colombia deal on its merits.
[In] the back halls of Congress, the real debate is, and should be, over how much to help workers who lose jobs after government lifts trade protection in certain US industries. The current program, known as Trade Adjustment Assistance, is underfunded and not well focused to keep up with the rapid shift to a higher-skilled economy. More money is needed to retrain such workers for new types of jobs. Congress also must provide a higher tax credit for healthcare coverage during these workers' transitions.
Theory: The demands for environmental and labor provisions used to serve as the same sort of bargaining chip. Once the Administration gave those concessions, something new had to be invented to serve as a similar lever to gain advantage in TAA bargaining. It's timelines, now.
April 9 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, defying President George W. Bush's demand that Congress endorse a free-trade agreement with Colombia, said lawmakers will vote tomorrow to eliminate a deadline for taking action.
Bush this week sent Congress the trade accord, triggering a 90-day deadline for lawmakers to take a final vote on the agreement.
``The president took his action,'' Pelosi said after a meeting of all House Democrats. ``I will take mine tomorrow.''
If this goes through, why would any other country work with the United States on trade agreements? It would make a mockery of the phrase, "good-faith negotiations."
The White House has scheduled a news conference with Cabinet members at 2:15 p.m. to talk about this move. We truly hope it's just a bargaining maneuver.
UPDATE (1:30 p.m.): Here's Speaker Pelosi's statement on the timetable. The Speaker argues: "It’s not really a rule change; it’s sort of in keeping with the rules of the House."
UPDATE (1:35 p.m.) At the WH news conference:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson
United States Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab
Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson, Jr.
Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez
Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer
Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao
Small Business Administrator Steve Preston
The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works is now holding a full committee hearing on S. 1870, the Clean Water Restoration Act of 2007. The bill represents a frightening expansion of federal control over wet spots around the country, making regulators and bureaucrats the decision-makers over what happens to businesses and farms ...and tens of thousands of projects critical to a functioning economy.
The NAM's vice president for regulatory affairs, Rosario Palmieri, puts it succinctly: "It will stop the development of all critically needed transportation and energy infrastructure.
NACo has strong concerns with the CWR because we fear that it would drastically expand federal clean water act jursdiction. Additionally, we believe it would create significant bureaucratic obstacles and lead to increased costs to counties without enhancing environmental protections of waterways and wetlands.
Rather than cleaning up our nation's waters, we are concerned that CWR moves far beyond this universally agreed on principle. The bill is essentially a one-size fits all approach, changing every area within the Clean Water Act. Removing the word "navigable" from the definition of the act will have expensive, far-reaching and unintended consequences for local as well as state governments.
Seriously: Federal government control over all waters.
Old political strategy: Manufacture a crisis, demand more authority to address that crisis, use that authority to achieve other ideological goals, and expand your own personal power.
While you're at it, demonize opponents and otherwise stifle dissent.
Latest, most obvious example, California Aspiring Governor Jerry Brown's campaign for ueber-urban housing densities, part of his crusade for restructuring the economy and society to fit his vision of the world. From a Dan Walters' column:
The debate is not new but has gained volume because the advocates of vertical development - what Attorney General Jerry Brown describes as "elegant density" - have a new political lever in global warming.
Brown is waging a crusade for his development vision, something of a throwback to the "small is beautiful" credo he sometimes espoused as governor three decades ago.
(His personal commitment, however, is somewhat suspect since he and his wife, citing crime fears, moved from an urban loft in Oakland to a comfortable home in the Oakland hills after he took office last year.)
Brown has been suing, or threatening to sue, just about anyone who doesn't immediately adhere to his vertical vision, from the Environmental Protection Agency to local governments.
"I don't do much these days except sue people," Brown told the state Democratic convention in a virtual declaration of candidacy for governor two years hence. "But maybe one of these days I'll get around to doing more than that, and maybe you'll help me."
Cripes, that's ominous, on so many levels...a public official boasting of his hyperlitigiousness (remember Eliot Spitzer?) and calling for a mass movement to reshape society.
Si, es verdad. In a 2005 trip to Bogota, former President Bill Clinton responded affirmatively to President Alvaro Uribe's plea for his support for the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. According to news accounts at the time, Clinton said, "Estoy a favor del TLC y tengo la esperanza de que vamos a encontrar la fórmula para que se logre el acuerdo.”
Which is, "I am in favor of the free trade agreement and it is my hope that we will find the right formula to reach the agreement."
And that was before the environmental and labor protections were added.
President Clinton's support for trade agreements counted as one of his political strengths, an example of standing on principle in support of more trade, more wealth, more freedom.
UPDATE (5:05 p.m.): Larry Kudlow notes that Mark Penn was sent down and asks, "With that thought in mind, can’t we all agree that Bill Clinton should immediately resign from Hillary’s campaign? Or at least be demoted?"
In their drive to defeat the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, the labor unions are sticking it to their members who work for companies that export. Take Caterpillar, for example, as the Wall Street Journal does today:
Union leaders like to say they're looking out for the well-being of the rank and file. But by quashing the Colombia FTA, [the AFL-CIO's] Mr. Sweeney would weaken the competitiveness of American manufacturing and put some of America's best-paying union jobs at risk. These are jobs that exist today but could well be gone if Congress rejects this market opening in South America.
Exhibit A are 8,600 jobs at two Caterpillar Inc. factories in Illinois. Caterpillar exports more to Peru and Colombia than it does to Germany, Japan or the United Kingdom. So keeping and growing market share in both countries is important to union members in both plants. Not all are union jobs but both facilities are United Auto Worker shops.
Consider exports of the off-highway truck, made in Decatur. Customers in Colombia now pay a 15% tariff – equal to $200,000 – on the import of these vehicles. If the FTA goes through, that import tariff goes to zero immediately. Conversely, if the deal dies and Colombia, which is trying to expand its world trade, strikes an agreement with another country where similar vehicles are made, U.S. exports will immediately be at a 15% price disadvantage.
Union leaders don't care? Sadly, that doesn't surprise us. Their fight against the free-trade agreement is more about the exercise of raw political power than it is about improving the quality of lives of their members.
But the lobbying also will involve smaller firms, such as Quality Float Works Inc., of Illinois, with hopes of widening their reach abroad.
Quality Float's owner, Sandy Westlund-Deenihan, said she has spoken with her local representative, Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean, and hopes to meet other lawmakers next week. "We're not General Motors, we're just the little guy," Ms. Westlund-Deenihan said. "I would just want them to know that we're a small business that supports free trade."
The agreement helps labor and business, workers and employers, large and small.
More prepared testimony from today's House Small Business Committee hearing on the effects of high gas prices on small business, this time from a consultant for studies (works for) the renewable fuels industry. Critics of ethanol as fuel -- and there are legitimate criticisms, to be sure -- are making the case more and more on the basis of rising food prices. Corn is a staple, animal feed and is found in many food products, ethanol has increased the demand for and price of corn, therefore ethanol is to blame for higher food prices.
Yes, but that's not the entire story. From John M. Urbanchuk, director at LECG LLC, a global expert services:
[Since] rising fuel prices increase operating costs for businesses at virtually every stage of production and distribution, high fuel prices eventually affect the prices of all consumer goods and services. Rising motor fuel prices have been a major contributor to the recent increases in inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index. The CPI, all Urban Consumers for all items has been increasing at a year-over-year rate of 4.2 percent over the last four months. During this same period the CPI for motor fuels increased 33.4 percent. The impact of fuel prices on other consumer goods is illustrated by their impact on food prices.
Many critics have blamed the recent increases in consumer food prices on rising grain prices due in part to increased demand for biofuels. While grain and other agricultural prices have
increased sharply over the past year, their impact on consumer food prices is overshadowed by
energy and energy prices. Energy plays a significant role in the production of raw agricultural
commodities, transportation and processing, and distribution of finished consumer food products. An analysis I conducted for the Renewable Fuels Association last year concluded that an increase in energy (fuel) prices has twice the impact on consumer food prices measured by the CPI as does the same percentage increase in corn prices.
So many of the current problems that plagued the U.S. economy keep going back to the failure to have a comprehensive national energy strategy that recognizes the need to increase domestic supplies.
We take it as a sign of progress that The Washington Post editorializes today in favor of tort reform, "A Fall and a Lesson." With major criminal convictions of high-profile trial lawyers in recent months -- Lerach, Scruggs, Weiss -- the paper's failure to comment was starting to look like an abdication, untenable for a editorial page that takes its responsibilities seriously. (And the Post publishes a very good editorial page, certainly not as mindlessly predictable as the NYT.)
It's a typical, begrudging editorial, to be sure -- on the one hand, on the other hand -- and it includes a straw-man argument in responding to The Wall Street Journal's call for "loser pays." While "loser pays" is the legal standard in most of the world, and the U.S. business would generally find it preferable, it's really not a priority for the tort reform movement right now. Political reality precludes it.
But let us not begrudge the begrudging. The conclusion is sound, and it's a sign the topic of tort reform must remain a major issue for policymakers.
The truth is that there have always been and will always be voracious and ethically challenged lawyers, just as there have always been and will always be voracious and ethically challenged people in business. Both sets of scoundrels deserve to be punished. What is needed now is a sober discussion about how best to achieve a fairer, more balanced legal system through comprehensive tort reform. Such a system would not be lopsided but would shield businesses from legal blackmail, just as it would protect the rights of legitimate plaintiffs to win just compensation from negligent businesses that caused them real harm. Smart and ethical businesspeople and lawyers -- and, yes, there are many who fit the bill -- would be wise to start working together to craft such a fix.
Agreed.
UPDATE (1:50 p.m.): A good video from the Wall Street Journal with Paul Gigot, Kim Strassel, Daniel Henninger and Jason Riley, discussing lawsuit abuse by the Scruggs and Milberg Weiss.
Looks to be a good hearing at 10 a.m. today at the House Committee on Small Business, “The Impact of Increasing Gas Prices on Small Businesses.” For many small businesses -- manufacturers and services, both -- transportation fuel represents a major fixed cost of operations, one that they can't easily replace.
The service and delivery model of this business requires companies to make deliveries and service calls to the homes of customers. Many of the individuals we serve are unable to come to our locations and their equipment is not always conveniently transported.
Companies in this industry are primarily small privately owned businesses that serve a local or regional community. Most have annual revenues under $3M and many are rural providers who may serve an area with a radius of up to 200 miles. These companies employ fleets of their own vehicles which each can make 5-10 delivery/service stops and traveling 150-200 miles per day. The vehicles will cover rural and urban areas and experience highway and city driving conditions.
We can think of a lot of business with similar profiles, although the rehabilitative equipment industry faces another problem -- government programs like Medicare and Medicaid pay the bills, but at a fixed rate, unlikely to rise in compensation for higher fuel prices.
The NAM sent a "key vote" letter to the Senate today (text here) from Jay Timmons, our executive vice president, supporting clean energy incentives.
On behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the nation’s largest industrial trade association representing small and large manufacturers in every industrial sector and in all 50 states, I urge you to support the Cantwell-Ensign Clean Energy Tax Stimulus amendment number 4419 to H.R. 3221, housing legislation currently being considered on the Senate floor. This amendment would¸ among other provisions, extend incentives for clean and renewable energy that are set to expire at the end of this year.
U.S. manufacturers, large and small, have a substantial concern for affordable domestic energy supplies and improved energy efficiency. As a key component to reducing energy demand, increasing energy efficiency will go a long way to lowering energy costs and increasing economic competitiveness. By promoting energy efficiency and the development of renewable and alternative energy sources, the package of incentives included in the Cantwell-Ensign amendment represents an important step in securing our nation’s energy security without raising taxes.
The letter prompted an odd blog post from the Wall Street Journal's "Environmental Capital" blog -- an area of some expertise around here, odd posts -- suggesting that it's strange that the NAM would support renewable energy incentives while opposing a cap-and-trade program.
Where's the contradiction? One works, the other doesn't.
And...
But, for big manufacturers faced with rising energy prices, efficiency clearly has a bottom-line component, too. NAM inked a partnership last summer with the U.S. Department of Energy to promote energy efficiency among its member companies, citing efficiency as an “immediate and cost-effective” way to trim energy bills.
This is a particular danger in the case of Colombia, since the arguments against the pact are so flimsy. Colombian exports already have access to the U.S. market, so this agreement would help U.S. exporters without harming domestic industry; and Colombia, with backing from both the Clinton and Bush administrations, has demonstrated remarkable success in quelling civil conflict and restoring order and human rights. Both Democratic candidates rest their opposition on supposed concern about assassination of trade unionists in Colombia, although such violence has fallen so much that the crime rate for them now is lower -- as we've pointed out in past editorials -- than for the population at large.
When I asked Will Marshall, a key figure in the centrist New Democrat movement and head of the Progressive Policy Institute, what was going on, he seemed genuinely dismayed. “There has been a kind of willing suspension of rationality when it comes to the trade debate,” Marshall told me. “Apparently, the rule is that in the primaries, facts and evidence don’t matter, so bashing trade becomes a way of validating the emotions of people who feel stressed by global competition, and the facts get trampled underfoot in the process.”
Flimsy arguments, trampled facts.
But perhaps it's the very weakness of the arguments contra the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement that make it such an effective symbol of power for organized labor: "We demand you oppose the agreement even though the case against it is laughable. It's either trade or us. Pick one." A revealing demand, a revealing concession, and all those who value the benefits of trade and supporting U.S. allies are left hoping the candidates aren't being serious.
Left unaccomplished by the Maryland Legislature, which wrapped up its session yesterday late, a sweeping global warming bill. Instead of sweeping, they'll just pick and pick and pick and pick ...
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) -- The day after the end of a lawmaking term, many talk about what didn't pass.
That's the case again this year with Maryland lawmakers failing to agree to a sweeping global warming bill to slash carbon dioxide emissions. That bill failed amid concerns it could cause factories to close and jobs to be lost.
So instead Maryland lawmakers passed regulations and fees, which will simply be borne by business and never passed on to the consumer. From the Baltimore Sun's issue-by-issue summary:
ENERGY
Lawmakers approved a package of administration bills to reduce the state's energy consumption 15 percent by 2015 and to double the amount of renewable energy that power companies must provide for sale to customers, to 20 percent by 2022. The legislation also sets out how to spend proceeds from new fees on industry intended to promote reducing greenhouse gases, directing the money to energy efficiency, conservation and small utility-bill rebates.
Twenty percent by 2022. Easy, so easy to accomplish. We can't wait to see all those beautiful wind turbines anchored up and down Chesapeake Bay. Regattas will be so much more interesting.
The General Assembly repealed a new sales tax on computer services before it went into effect and replaced the unpopular $200 million levy with a combination of cuts and a three-year individual income tax surcharge on earnings of more than $1 million. Passed in the final hours of last year's special session, the so-called "tech tax" was opposed by a broad consortium of business groups that warned the measure would destroy Maryland's high-tech economy and cause a migration of well-paying employers out of state.
Ah, that's the strategy. A mighty wave of unrest rose against the tech tax: It was a broadly based tax that also hit a large, vocal group of people with organizational and communication skills, so they mobilized an effective lobbying force. Upper-income taxpayers represent a smaller group and if they complain, you can beat them up for being selfish.
Except what's the consequence to the state? The Maryland Chamber, which opposed the tech tax, had a good primer on the alternative tax scheme:
The proposed new income tax bracket of 6.25% would make Maryland’s top rate the 4th highest in the country (combined state and local), behind only California’s 10.3%, Rhode Island’s 9.9%, and Vermont’s 9.5%. The new combined rate of 9.45% would be significantly noncompetitive with our neighboring states of Virginia (5.75%), West Virginia (6.5%), Delaware (5.95%), the District of Columbia (8.7%) and Pennsylvania (3.07% gross). We believe that this income tax increase would be counterproductive to Maryland’s economic development.
Not a good campaign slogan: Making Maryland Less Competitive!
Increasing the level of private research and development will become that much easier because of a Labour-led government tax credit initiative which comes into effect on 1 April, Research, Science and Technology Minister Pete Hodgson said today.
Pete Hodgson made his comments during a visit to Australo, a Dunedin nanotechnology company. Australo have developed ground-breaking nanopore technology that has a broad range of applications, including diagnosis of cancer, viruses and other diseases.
BEIJING: After China and New Zealand signed a free-trade agreement, the first one that Beijing has concluded with a developed economy, Prime Minister Helen Clark of New Zealand said Monday that it could also influence Australia and other countries that were negotiating similar accords with China.
"I think there'll be a lot of interest in what New Zealand has achieved," Clark said after witnessing the signing of the accord with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.
Under the agreement, New Zealand will phase out all tariffs on imports from China by 2016. In return, China will remove tariffs on 96 percent of its imports from New Zealand by 2019, according to details of the agreement released by the New Zealand government. The agreement also covers trade in services.
These actions were taken by a government led by the Labour Party, a left-liberal organization akin to the U.S. Democratic Party. Tax relief for business and expanded trade from governing liberals...It IS possible.
Daniel Glier of Glier Meats joined other business leaders Monday in a meeting with President Bush to discuss the role that tax incentives play in encouraging investment -- not just for big corporations, but for small- and medium-sized businesses.
Active in the National Association of Manufacturers, Gleier attested to benefits that accelerated depreciation offer his company, the nation's largest producer of goetta. The Cincinnati Enquirer explains:
Glier, of Covington, Ky., was among nine small and mid-size business owners summoned to the White House to discuss with Bush ways that they’re taking advantage of investment incentives in the recently enacted economic stimulus package.
Under the plan, businesses can double to $250,000 the amount of expenses they can immediately write off, something Glier said encouraged him to make equipment purchases this year above what he otherwise would have made.
“I had a couple of things in the pipeline and with this, it made sense to go ahead with them,” Glier said.
Glier’s first purchase was a $100,000 clipping machine, which will allow him to automate the placing of metal fasteners at the end of each sausage of goetta. Previously, employees would clip about 7,000 packages a day by hand.
With the incentives, however, Glier told Bush that he also was able to buy a $15,000 replacement replacement refrigerator compressor and install a deer processing facility, which will operate in the fall to process meat for hunters.
Goetta is the Cincinnati-area version of scrapple -- an ethnic German mixture of pork, beef, whole grain and eats, eaten for breakfast.
It appears to have been a positive, productive session between the business owners and the President, demonstrating that lowering taxes does work as intended. More work, more income, as the President noted.
Even today power is short in particular in London; the situation will grow more dire as the years go by and localized plants are decommissioned; it is unimaginable that new sources of serious generation will be built anywhere near London or the left would go bonkers. The likeliest courses of action is that over time businesses that aren’t forced to be localized (retail, financial services) will bolt London for other parts of the country where the power situation isn’t so terrible. Local businesses will likely start to rely more and more heavily on backup power as the grid becomes more unreliable (on peak days it can fail overall, but it is more likely to just become less reliable over the years).
I don’t know how people can go on consuming electricity and products that require electricity and just pretend that adding new generation isn’t an option; while conservation is useful and perhaps even some localized elements like solar can help they aren’t sufficient for a serious, first world economy unless rotating blackouts a la Nigeria are viewed as OK. Of the options, nuclear emits the least greenhouse gases and new, modern coal plants are quite efficient and emit far less noxious compounds than their predecessors. While these 2 options clearly are not without flaws, they have to be part of the solution else reliability will just crater over time and inefficient local solutions will have to jump to the front.
South Africa's power crisis may last many years unless there is a sustained drop in electricity demand in Africa's largest economy, state power utility Eskom said on Wednesday.
The warning came as Eskom, which produces about 95 percent of the nation's electricity, resumed a wave of planned power cuts and South Africans grew increasingly impatient with an energy crunch that has shaken industry and investor confidence.
“Knowing that New Jersey has lost 10,000 private-sector jobs thus far in 2008, it is remarkable that the legislature would pass a mandate unique to our companies,” said CIANJ President John Galandak. “To do so without a clear understanding of the cost of the program, or the impact on small businesses is irresponsible, and we urge Governor Corzine to veto the bill.”
And...
“The budget season has been full of talk about how to improve New Jersey’s fiscal situation and business climate. The legislature took a step back from that goal today by increasing costs in one of the most expensive states to do business. The disconnect is stunning.” Galandak concluded.
Governor Corzine is a smart man attuned to economic reality and the needs of business. He could break free of the New Jersey partisan dictates that cause so much harm to the state and, at the same time, establish himself as a national leader by vetoing the legislation. It's a tough call politically, sure, but there's a great upside in a veto -- for the state, above all.
We dare not permit election year political posturing about process to compromise our commitment to free trade. The U.S. - Colombia Trade PromotionAgreement will expand U.S. manufacturing exports, create good jobs and help keep our economy growing. This is the best trade agreement ever and deserves bi-partisan support.
The President has worked diligently for many months with Congress to address their concerns. The clock has run out and now Congress must act to get the job done this year. When it is complete, Congressional leaders can justly claim they have done their part to make America more competitive in the global marketplace.
U.S. manufacturers are the most competitive in the world when allowed to compete on a level playing field. Free trade agreements are not the problem, they’re the solution.
One of out every five U.S. manufacturing jobs is tied to exports and U.S. companies that export create jobs nearly 20 percent faster than non-exporting companies. It is good for manufacturers, jobs and the economy as a whole to expand markets for our products.
The Colombia agreement will level the playing field for all U.S. exporters by immediately providing them nearly complete access to a $30 billion import market. Virtually all Colombia exports to the U.S. already enter the U.S. tariff free, while U.S. manufacturers currently face 14 percent tariffs on average for products entering that country.
This agreement will increase our annual exports to Colombia by more than $1 billion annually. That will mean more jobs in the U.S. and an increase of $2.5 billion in economic growth in a time when our economy needs a boost.
But there’s more to this agreement than just the clear economic advantages to the United States. Colombia is a stalwart ally of the United States that's advancing democratic principles in a time when some other countries in the region are going the other way. To reject this agreement would be a slap in the face to our friends and would give encouragement to our detractors and opponents.
The Colombia agreement is a clear winner on every level, an agreement that should have the full support of everyone who wants to encourage economic growth and democratic values. We will do everything in our power to rally manufacturers and manufacturing workers in support of this deal, and we will make certain our legislators in Washington know the voters are watching what they vote.
This agreement is good for the U.S. and it’s good for Colombia; it is a time for serious public servants to step forward and do the right thing.
More data on the benefits of the Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement are available at www.nam.org/tradetoolkit
The White House just e-mailed out the President's remarks from his signing of the transmittal for the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, and we've put the full text in the extended entry section below. (UPDATE: Here's the link.)
The advantages are obvious, almost indisputable from an economic standpoint, as Colombia already has duty-free access to the U.S. markets while U.S. exports face tariffs as high as 35 percent.
So the arguments against the agreement, mostly coming from labor, must talk about non-economic factors, such as President Uribe's human rights record. So we highlight two paragraphs from President Bush's remarks:
Approving this agreement is urgent for our national security reasons. Colombia is one of our strongest allies in the Western Hemisphere. They are led by a very strong and courageous leader, President Uribe. He's taken courageous stands to defend our shared democratic values. He has been a strong and capable partner in fighting drugs and crime and terror. And he's delivering results. The Colombian government reports that since 2002, kidnappings, terrorist attacks, and murders are all down substantially, as is violence against union members.
And...
President Uribe has stood strong against these threats. And he has done so with the assurance of America's support, because his fight against tyranny and terror is a fight that we share. President Uribe has told members of Congress as me -- and me, as well, that approving the free trade agreement is one of the most important ways that America can demonstrate our support for Colombia. People throughout the hemisphere are watching to see what the United States will do. If Congress fails to approve this agreement, it would not only abandon a brave ally -- it would send a signal throughout the region that America cannot be counted on to support its friends. As Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said: "If the U.S. turns its back on its friends in Colombia, this will set back our cause far more than any Latin American dictator could hope to achieve."
UPDATE (12:25 p.m.) Treasury Secretary Paulson will hold a press availability this afternoon with Colombian Finance Minister Oscar Zuluaga.
Starting the 90 day legislative clock ticking ...that's 90 legislative days, i.e., in session. The Senate pro forma sessions, designed to thwart recess appointments, count as formal days.
Bush had Cabinent members and Ambassador Schwab there in the Old Executive Office Building for the signing (too cool for the Rose Garden). Schwab is doing a White House chat at 12:15 p.m.
UPDATE (Noon): Ambassador Schwab's statement is in the extended entry below. Starting with...
“The U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement (FTA) will make American workers, farmers and entrepreneurs more competitive by knocking down trade barriers to 44 million potential customers in Colombia,” Ambassador Schwab said. “By enacting the legislation the President has submitted today, Congress will replace the current temporary, one-way trade preferences that benefit Colombia, and create permanent, two-way fair trade that benefits us all.
UPDATE: The Andean flute/guitar group has just started performing on the corner of 13th and F Street, NW. Good sign? CNN had the President's signing ceremony on, but Fox News was broadcasting the coverage of the Princess Diana inquest. The paparazzi and her driver were responsible.
Forbes depicts the worst places -- i.e., jurisdictions, courthouses -- to be a defendent in civil ligitation in this article, The Worst Places to Get Sued in America."
There is a high degree of stability in what most people think are the most problematic places to get sued," said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of The Rule of Lawyers. "If you put pins on a map for the top 50 most outrageous verdicts, bizarre run-away juries and so forth, you would find this belt around the Gulf Coast that runs from southern Texas across Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida. These are also some of the places people consider the worst places to get sued."
A news advisory: *THE PRESIDENT WILL MAKE A STATEMENT ON THE COLOMBIA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT AT 11:35 AM TODAY, APRIL 7, 2008, IN THE ROSE GARDEN – POOL FOR CAMERAS; OPEN FOR CORRESPONDENTS. PRE-SET: 10:15 AM; FINAL CALL: 11:10 AM*
We see this in Colombia, where President Uribe has succeeded in transforming his country into one of the most stable and strong democracies in the region. Dramatic economic improvements have followed increased safety and security --- Colombia has one of the highest growth rates in the region, and poverty and unemployment are at ten-year lows. Congressional approval of the Colombian free trade agreement will reinforce democracy in Latin America by showing support for a key ally, an ally who has made significant advancements to combat violence and instability.
Bill advocates have claim that only about 1% of New Jersey's workforce will utilize the program, and the bill uses these assumptions when setting the tax rate. This is based largely on California's experience with paid leave. What they fail to mention is that because it is so new, only 28% of Golden Staters know about the program. They also do not take into account the increasing number of paid leave applications and the rising costs - an $80 million jump in just two years. Remember, there is no contingency in the bill for what would happen if the $33 per year tax on employees is not enough to cover expenses.
Pepco will raise rates for its D.C. customers by about 15 percent on June 1, the second increase in five months facing the power company’s 235,000 District customers.
Oh, man. And why is that?
The D.C. Public Service Commission in February approved a lesser rate increase for Pepco’s distribution services. That 2.27 percent jump covered the cost of the poles, wires and high-tech equipment used to deliver power to D.C..
But generation makes up the vast majority of a customer’s bill. And the cost of coal, nuclear power and natural gas are all on the rise, Pepco spokesman Robert Dobkin said.
“Unfortunately we’re in a global energy pricing situation in which energy prices across the board are rising,” he said.
It is not every day that our government, with one bold stroke, could strengthen the competitiveness of U.S. workers; support a democratic ally on the cusp of achieving lasting national success; weaken those who would sow instability and autocracy in our hemisphere; and send an unequivocal signal to the entire world that the United States is a confident, capable global leader that acts not only in its own interest, but in the interest of its friends.
Figure it will be a busy week of back-and-forth on the economy. Again. And Iraq, as General Petraeus testifies. Again.
President Bush could well send the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement to the Hill.
The House takes Monday off, perhaps in early recognition of Araw ng Kagitingan, and returns to the floor on Tuesday with an array of suspensions. Later in the week there's consideration of H.R. 2016, the National Landscape Conservation System Act, and H.R. 2537, the Beach Protection Act.
The Senate convenes at 2 p.m. Monday and moves to consideration of H.R. 3221, the housing/economic stimulus bill, on which Sen. Reid has filed cloture.
Executive Branch. President Bush returns from Russia and meets today with small and mid-sized business owners on the economic stimulus package. (Here's a good column on the tax provisions targeted at small business, and here's the POTUS schedule.) Also today, Treasury Secretary Paulson and Commerce Secretary Gutierrez are in Miami Beach for the Inter-American Development Bank Annual Meeting. Paulson participates in the G-7 Ministerial here in Washington on Friday, focusing on the "international credit crisis." (Treasury schedule here.)
Ted Frank of the American Enterprise Institute has just released a new "Liability Outlook" paper, "Zombie Litigation -- Revivers and Retroactive Lawsuits Are Bad Ideas." The article examines the impact of revising existing law, including through vitiation of existing immunity, to encourage litigation. If legislatures can go back and reimpose potential liability with impunity, then the granting of legal protections will fail to achieve its end in the first place, Frank contends.
It's a timely topic, given the efforts in Michigan to eliminate protections for pharmaceutical companies enacted into law in 1996.
Frank also has a passage directly on the need to ensure telecom companies have immunity for assisting the government in post-9/11 surveillance of foreign communications.
Telecommunications companies relied upon the assurances of the president and the attorney general that the intelligence-gathering operation was legal. Perhaps those assurances will be determined in the future to be legally incorrect, but a government employee acting under such assurances would have qualified immunity from suit because of the lack of violation of a clearly established constitutional right.[49] Private industry, without the ability to second-guess the attorney general, should be equally protected. According to former attorneys general Benjamin Civiletti and Dick Thornburgh and former FBI and CIA director William Webster:
For hundreds of years our legal system has operated under the premise that, in a public emergency, we want private citizens to respond to the government's call for help unless the citizen knows for sure that the government is acting illegally. If Congress does not act now, it would be basically saying that private citizens should only help when they are absolutely certain that all the government's actions are legal. Given the threats we face in today's world, this would be a perilous policy.[50]
The legislation is thus distinguishable from other retroactive legislation because it is protecting rather than upsetting settled expectations and reliance interests. If anything, it is the plaintiffs seeking billions of dollars who are violating norms against retroactive liability. This is especially true in this particular instance--because the telecommunications companies were acting in good faith, they would almost certainly win the lawsuits after extensive and expensive litigation under existing law. The retroactive immunity would therefore not shift the underlying rights of any parties but merely shut down a litigation discovery process that would give enemies of America a "road map as to how to avoid the surveillance."[51]
Now compare that argumentation to that of immunity's most vocal opponents, including the Daily Kos blogger, mcjoan, who in this post calls Senate Intelligence Chairman Jay Rockefeller "Jello Jay" and accuses him of "carrying the water" for the Administration.
P.S. We've put the relevant footnotes from Frank's article in the extended entry below.
The desire to destroy U.S. energy security is becoming even stronger among many on the environmental left, as witness this over-the-top essay by the "progressive" writer, Wayne Madsen.
Congress was wise to ban oil drilling in ANWR, one of the most pristine areas on Earth, and it would be equally wise to ban the import of oil from the tar sands of Alberta in Canada. Our Congress also should support efforts by those far-sighted Canadians who are pushing for a moratorium on the further development of Alberta’s tar sands.
Unfortunately, recent reports estimate that Alberta’s tar sands could produce 3.1 million barrels of oil per day by 2015.
That’s a much too tempting opportunity for Canadian businessmen and politicians to line their pockets with increased profits from rising global oil prices by shipping quickly across the border to desperate gas-swilling Americans.
Stop swilling that gas, you crazed Americans!
In any case, appended to Madsen's column is a good refutation from Mark J. Perry, a professor of finance and economics at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. Perry reports that Congress has outlawed the Department of Defense from using fuels from the oil sands, a much-underreported story. That's not all:
California is moving to disallow the use of tar sands oil under a recently approved low-carbon fuels standard sought by environmental groups, and Illinois is among a dozen states also considering such a standard. And Environment Illinois has vowed to challenge any refinery expansion or modification permits that would facilitate greater use of tar sands oil and has asked the Great Lakes state governors to impose such a ban.
The irony is that countries with fast-growing economies such as those in China, Brazil and India are accelerating energy resource development, while resource-rich North America is becoming captive to environmental extremism and continues to restrict access to oil supplies.
This situation points to an inescapable imperative: Congress needs to address the matter, and it should take action to ensure the civilian and military use of Canadian tar sands oil. Our economic and national security depends on it.
Also testifying at the hearing was Professor Gordon Lafer of the University of Oregon, who noted that “Labor law is the only area of American employment law in which it is statutorily impossible to impose fines, prison, or any other punitive damage.”
An April 2nd hearing by the Labor/HHS subcommittee of Senate Appropriations obstensibly on the National Labor Relations Board's oversight of union elections became yet another platform for supporters of the Employee Free Choice Act to make the case for eliminating the secret ballot in the workplace -- all in the name of "social justice." Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) was upfront about his views in opening the hearing.
I will openly tell you that I’m a supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act. It is clear to me that in order to rebuild economic security for the middle class in America, we must rebuild strong and vibrant unions; and to rebuild strong unions, we must reduce the unfair barriers to union organizing.
In his testimony, University of Oregon political scientist Gordon Lafer -- whom union groups have hired in the past -- argued using the kind of morally objectionable terms heard far too often from labor activists.
[Even] Saddam Hussein had secret ballots. Indeed, history is full of dictatorial regimes that have remained in power despite the use of secret ballot elections. How do they do it? Through things such as threatening the livelihoods of opponents; denying them access to the media; and forcing all voters to attend propaganda rallies for the ruling party. Our government has rightly condemned these votes as “sham elections.”
Unfortunately, the very standards that we insist on as minimal guarantors of democracy in other countries is violated by the NLRB system. With the exception of the secret ballot – and, as I will discuss later, there is no truly secret ballot in NLRB elections–every other aspect of NLRB elections fails to meet American standards defining “free and fair” elections.
Understand? U.S. employers are the equivalent of Saddam Hussein; only the elimination of the secret ballot in the workplace will prevent their brutalizing employees.
NLRB Chairman Peter Schaumber provided countless statistics from 2007 union elections that debunk this kind of ugly rhetoric. Schaumber's testimony noted that 93 percent of all elections were conducted within 56 days of petitioning, and in fact, unions are enjoying fair success in organizing workplaces.
The results of elections held in FY 2007 show that the union was successful a majority of the time. Employees chose a collective bargaining representative in 59.2 percent% of RC elections [certification], 35.1% of RD elections [decertification], and 33.3% of RM elections [employer called], for an overall union success rate of 50.4 percent. That rate has increased in the first five months of FY 2008.
Schaumber also details the consistent and successful resolution of complaints.
The testimony of John N. Raudabaugh, a former NLRB member now a partner with Baker & McKenzie, was also a fact-full refutation of arguments leveled against the board, which he explains are part of a strategy by organized labor to enact the Employee Free Choice Act.
Driving the quest for an "over the shoulder/in-your-face" card-based alternative to the secret ballot is organized labor's longstanding, institutional angst -- declining union density, a labor economist's measure of success or failure in organized labor's ability to gain representational rights. Private sector union density has steadily declined from a high of 34 percent in 1954. In 2007, organized labor represented 7.5 percent of the private sector workforce, up from 7.4 percent in 2006.
We commend Raudabaugh's full testimony as an excellent summary of the fallacies behind the drive for card-check. We also also appreciate it being fairly argued, avoiding the kind of obloquy favored by Lafer and his fellow union activists.
Today's Outlook section of The Washington Post features an effective refutation of anti-NAFTA claims, "5 Myths About NAFTA," written by Philippe Legrain, a journalism fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He raises one issue that tends to fall by the wayside in discussions about jobs and economic growth, the demands to add environmental and labor standards to the trade agreement. Myth No. 4:
Making NAFTA's labor and environmental regulations stricter would benefit U.S. workers.
Probably not. Clinton wants to make the treaty's labor and environmental provisions "far tougher and absolutely binding" and to require that all future trade agreements include similar language. The stated purpose is to raise labor and environmental standards around the world and to make it harder for companies to ship jobs to countries where workers have fewer protections than in the United States. But America's trading partners would probably see the move as covert protectionism -- since when have the Teamsters cared about Mexican wildlife? -- and may retaliate. Meanwhile, consumers would probably resent the increased cost of their imports.
In any case, tough social clauses could backfire on the United States. Canada's labor and environmental standards are generally higher than the United States', and Canadians could claim that lax American standards amount to unfair competition. Given that Canada and Mexico have joined global efforts to curb climate change, they might wish to restrict American imports if the United States continues to hold back. And Mexican workers arguably have stronger labor rights than Americans: Unlike the United States, Mexico has ratified most of the International Labor Organization's conventions on core labor standards, including those on freedom of association, collective bargaining and employment discrimination. If the United States bashes Mexican labor practices, what's to stop Mexico from objecting to American imports produced in non-unionized factories?
Exactamente, compadre. We doubt this would be a very popular campaign plank: "We will reopen NAFTA to add tough new environmental and labor standards, including a ban on state right-to-work laws, because the Canadians and Mexicans demand it."
Seth Borden picks up on a not-so-subtle inconsistency about the willingness of some to sacrifice the important principle of the secret ballot to achieve one's political aims.
One of Senator Clinton's (D-NY) supporters may have erred today then, by simply speaking the common-sense truth. In a Newsday op-ed piece, Jay S. Jacobs, the Nassau County (N.Y.) Democratic chairman, explained why he thinks Senator Clinton should stay in the race for the party nomination. Mr. Jacobs opines that Senator Barack Obama's (D-IL) lead is based significantly on the "seriously" flawed caucus mechanisms used in several states -- and that the truer "representation of voters' interests" is disclosed by the primaries' secret-ballot process. Per Mr. Jacobs, a pledged Clinton superdelegate:
Caucuses, which are usually held in the evenings, are often complicated and require voters to be present for several hours, exclude many voters - like those who work at night or don't have child care options or are serving abroad in the military. What's more, caucus-goers are often required to make their choices known publicly, a practice that contradicts the American concept of the secret ballot.
Caucus-goers who are more than willing to abandon the secret-ballot when it comes to endorsing the Employee Free Choice Act, because doing so strengthens their allies in organized labor. More from Jacobs:
I was an observer at one of the Texas caucuses, or "precinct conventions." While mine was relatively well-organized, many others were not. Reports of verbal and physical fights were rampant. Complaints of a lack of checks on participant qualifications were widespread.
Coming soon to a workplace near you, IF the Employee Free Choice Act passes.
Today’s report of job losses and increased unemployment rate is disappointing. At the same time, it reinforces the importance of the stimulus plan the President recently signed into law. The provisions of this plan, which encourage business investment in new equipment, are beginning to take effect, and we expect them to provide a powerful incentive for job creation. And more than 130 million households will receive checks starting next month, which will supply an additional boost for our economy.
The Administration began addressing the problem on housing last year, and so far the FHA Secure program has helped more than 140,000 homeowners stay in their homes by refinancing about $20 billion worth of mortgages. To further address the housing situation, Congress must pass the FHA Modernization Act, pass legislation to reform the regulation of the Government Sponsored Enterprises and help at-risk homeowners by giving state and local governments the authority to issue tax-exempt bonds for mortgage refinancing.
“We recognize that the first half of this year is going to show slower growth and we are taking steps. It is important to recognize that key fundamentals of the economy remain sound. We are a competitive nation with a highly educated workforce, the most productive workers in the world, and unemployment, while higher than last month, is historically low.
“Trade remains a source of growth and exports support good-paying American jobs. We need to take advantage of trade opportunities and expand export markets to boost our economy. Congress should act to pass the Colombian Free Trade Agreement with the same sense of bipartisan urgency as they did the economic stimulus plan.
The fact sheet on necessary economic steps to take calls on Congress to enact the pending free trade agreements.
UPDATE (12:40 p.m.): A bit of contrariness from Newsbusters about the media...which is what they specialize in, and kudos for it.
Did you know that 574,000 and 1.1 million more Americans had jobs in March than in February and January, respectively?
This week, American truckers staged protests against the rising cost of diesel fuel while members of the U.S. House of Representatives competed to see who could do the best job of hectoring oil-company executives -- on-camera -- about the high price of gasoline.
Also this week, the House voted to double the size of two national marine sanctuaries off of the Northern California coast, which now are permanently protected from offshore-oil drilling. This is the same House that has supported a ban on new offshore drilling off the entire California coast and opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
It's a mystery of modern life that educated voters can grouse about the high price of gasoline, yet see no nexus between rising prices and dwindling domestic supply.
Right. And the amazing thing is, the legislation Saunders refers to (H.R. 1187) passed on the House consent calendar Monday, a few minutes discussion, one perfunctory objection by Rep. Bishop (R-UT) and that's it. (Congressional Record pages here.) And on Tuesday, House members berated oil executives for the high price of gas.
U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab issued a news release yesterday of some importance here at the National Association of Manufacturers:
Schwab praises Shaun Donnelly’s Service to USTR
WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab today announced that Shaun Donnelly, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Europe and the Middle East will depart the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to return to the private sector.
“Shaun Donnelly has contributed immensely to the president’s trade agenda during his time at USTR” said Ambassador Schwab. “Shaun has had a distinguished career of public service, and we at USTR wish him the very best in the next stage of his career.”
During his service to USTR, Mr. Donnelly was a key member of Ambassador Schwab’s team with daily responsibilities involving trade policy with Europe and the Middle East. Mr. Donnelly came to USTR following a thirty-three year career as a Foreign Service officer at the U.S. Department of State. During that time, Mr. Donnelly served for four and a half years as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs as well as U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Mr. Donnelly also served as Deputy Ambassador in U.S. embassies in Tunisia and Mali, and as an Economic-Commercial officer in our embassies in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Senegal.
A native of Culver, Indiana, Mr. Donnelly holds a B.A. in economics from Lawrence University and an M.A. in economics from Northwestern University.
As the NAM announced last month, Ambassador Donnelly will be joining the association as Senior Director for International Business Policy.
Always worth considering, is Larry Kudlow on the economy. "An Economic Cleansing" is the first time we've seen him say, yeah, maybe there is a recession. But then, let's use it to rectify policy:
[Domestic] corporate profits are down 20 percent from their peaks of late 2006. Since profits are the mother’s milk of stocks, businesses, and the economy, we will need to see profit improvement before the recovery-turn can be called.
How this recession affects the presidential race remains to be seen. Hill-Bama are calling for big-government spending and trade-protection — exactly the wrong medicine. Oh, and did I say tax hikes? Just what the doctor didn’t order. If government wants to play a role, economic policymakers should reduce the corporate tax rate to generate more profits, more jobs, and higher real wages. That would reignite the economy. Home prices and sales should be driven by corrective market forces.
Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar, which some are now calling the U.S. peso, should be appreciated in order to curb inflation. Inflation is the biggest economy-killer of all. Whether Sen. McCain will adopt Reagan-style growth policy to lower taxes and curb inflation remains to be seen.
Which allows us to link to a Wall Street Journal we overlooked earlier in the week, "Hoover's Heirs."
Vodcast: Rep. Roscoe Bartlett on Alternative Energy
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) wants the public to know more about the wide array of use and opportunities involving alternative energy and "green technology" and in this week's video podcast of "America's Business with Mike Hambrick," we hear about his plans for a "Maryland Clean Energy Center," a multifaceted rest stop along I-270 near the Monocacy Battlefield.
We'll also hear Executive Director Miguel Gomez Martinez of the Colombian-American Chamber of Commerce on the need for a U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
For more on the radio program that provides these highlights, please visit www.americasbusiness.org.
A significant victory for product liability defendants, from a unanimous high court in Sacramento: "A manufacturer is not liable to a sophisticated user of its product for failure to warn of a risk, harm or danger, if the sophisticated user knew or should have known of that risk, harm or danger." CalBizLit has more details on the decision in Johnson v. American Standard. The defense has been accepted in some other courts, but was on first impression at the California court. Per the Civil Justice Association of California (not yet online), "The state's personal injury lawyers association fought against the Court of Appeal ruling in an amicus brief filed by its former president Sharon J. Arkin." Lawyers Weekly has an account of the appellate decision, partly behind a pay wall. More: The Recorder, Lex Communis.
Speaking at the National Association of Manufacturers this hour, Commerce Secretary Gutierrez said we should treat the pending free trade agreements with the same urgency as economic stimulus.
An important message on the economy: We've gotten through rough spots in the past. We'll get through them now.
UPDATE (11:05 a.m.) Good turnout, by the way. Major media coverage and many NAM member representatives on hand.
As we glance over to the paper every half-hour or so, another outstanding column jumps out. Now, ABC's John Stossel on the abuses of the trial bar, a column entitled, "Small Victories for Tort Reform."
Our legal system invites lawyers to act like bullies. For "20/20" tonight, I report on a class-action lawyer who's suing his neighbor for smoking in her own apartment. Toxins are "being breathed every day by our 4-year-old," says Jonathan Selbin of Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein. His frightened neighbor had the apartment manager seal off air ducts between the two apartments, but Mr. Selbin sued anyway, claiming smoke was in the hallway. Mr. Selbin's neighbor was unusually feisty in going to the media to fight back, at least for a while. But last night, she decided to settle. After all, Mr. Selbin had written her that he had a legal advantage, because he and his wife "are both lawyers, and both litigators, for whom the usual barriers to litigation are minimal." Right. Mr. Selbin wrote ABC, "I have recovered more than $2 billion in cash for consumers defrauded by companies. I am proud of what I do." He wouldn't tell us how much of the $2 billion he kept.
What do we get from this kind of "private law enforcement"? Very little. James Copland of the Manhattan Institute points out, "The small, diversified investor is as likely to be a buyer as a seller and thus a payer in a class action settlement. The 'little guy' pays money to himself." Actually, it's worse than that: Little guys come out behind because the lawyers pocket so much.
The setting for this morning's news event at the NAM with Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. From the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
The unemployment rate rose from 4.8 to 5.1 percent in March, and nonfarm payroll employment continued to trend down (-80,000), the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Over the past 3 months, payroll employment has declined by 232,000. In March, employment continued to fall in construction, manufacturing, and employment services, while health care, food services, and mining added jobs. Average hourly earnings rose by 5 cents, or 0.3 percent, over the month.
And ...
Manufacturing employment fell by 48,000 in March and by 310,000 over the past 12 months. Employment in motor vehicles and parts was down by 24,000 over the month, largely reflecting the impact of a strike in auto parts manufacturing. The strike resulted in a parts shortage that led to plant shutdowns elsewhere in the auto industry. During the 12 months ending in February, the motor vehicle and parts industry lost an average of 6,000 jobs per month. In March, factory employment also fell in several construction-related industries, including wood products (-5,000), nonmetallic mineral products (-5,000), and furniture and related products (-5,000). Plastics and rubber products and textile mills also lost jobs over the month.
An op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal by Ken Duberstein and Mac McLarty, former Republican and Democratic White House chiefs of staff, respectively: "Our Free-Trade Consensus."
An op-ed by John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, and James Leaman, president of the Virginia AFL-CIO. From the Fredericksburg (Va.) Free Lance-Star:
The Employee Free Choice Act is a piece of national legislation that would level the playing field for America's workers - mitigating corporate greed and repairing the broken labor-law system that has stripped away the freedom to form unions and bargain collectively.
All right. And how would the legislation accomplish this goal? What would the process exactly be?
Sweeney and Leaman never say.
But that's typical. So again: The Employee Free Choice would deny employees the right to a secret-ballot election when deciding to join a union or not. Instead of federally supervised elections, a worksites union status would be determined through the very public process of union organizers collecting individual signatures on cards, hence the term, "card check." The process has proved an open invitation to union intimidation and coercion.
To the extent companies have stepped up, it's been on single issues, like card check. And therein lies the unions' biggest risk: overreach. Good as the overall political environment is, most Americans don't agree with specific union proposals. A recent poll released by the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, which is fighting against card check, found that two-thirds of voters in key Senate election states oppose getting rid of secret union ballots.
The tactic of pro-union Democrats in the past has been to avoid talking specifics. If Republicans want a shot at winning some political races, they'll need to. Painting the picture of a union-dominated America might help focus minds.
Sweeney and Leaman will do everything they can to keep minds blurred.
Kimberly Strassel's Potomac Watch column today in The Wall Street Journal looks at organized labor's aspirations for the fall elections and finds that the unions are going all in.
How bad does Big Labor want this? Consider the money and manpower so far. The AFL-CIO has approved a record political budget of $53 million to help fund 200,000 union workers on the street. Its affiliated national and international unions have pledged another $200 million. The National Education Association will throw $40 million to $50 million at races. The Service Employees International Union has marked off $100 million for politics, and intends to pay 2,000 union members the equivalent of their salaries to work on Democratic campaigns. Add in union money for federal or state political action committees, for 527s, and for local and state races, and some astute members of the business community – those who have seen this coming "tsunami" (as one puts it) – estimate union political spending may top $1 billion in 2008.
Don't self-styled reformers say we must rid our electoral system of big-money interests?
Well, never mind.
As to goals....
[Unions] will add passage of "card check," which would outlaw secret ballots in union organizing elections. Alongside will be legislation to make union officials the exclusive bargaining agents of most police, fire and rescue personnel. Then there's the biggie – so big that most officials don't talk about it publicly. Tucked into the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act is a provision called 14(b), which allows for "right to work" states. Big Labor last took a run at deleting this section, and forcing more unionization, in the Johnson administration. With a filibuster-proof Senate, they'd have a far better shot.
Unions want a Department of Labor that will sit on corruption cases, water down financial disclosure rules, and turn a blind eye to the use of pension funds to influence boardroom decisions. The National Labor Relations Board has three vacancies, which Senate Democrats will refuse to fill this year. Big Labor's own slate would include people favorable to proposals to allow "mini-unions" within corporate workplaces, or to rework job definitions to bring more positions under the union umbrella.
Business is overwhelmed on many political fronts and may find it difficult to resist labor's all-out efforts, Strassel observes. Except...and here she reaches the same conclusion we do: The people may well object to labor's overreaching in such instances as card-check, Strassel argues.
On Friday, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez will be speaking at the National Association of Manufacturers to discuss the economy, an event tied to the Department of Labor's monthly release of new unemployment figures. (Available here at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.)
We're also expecting him to touch on the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, which the Administration is likely to send to Capitol Hill next week. Secretary Gutierrez is optimistic about passage of the agreement, which would lower Colombia's barriers to U.S. exports.
And now legislators want to add more to the cost of doing business? As the New Jersey Business Matters blog notes, tax revenues are coming in below expectations, the state lost 10,000 jobs last year, and the unemployment rate has risen .3 percent to 4.8 percent. AND, there's potentially serious risks for small businesses
[The] mandate will harm New Jersey competitiveness, drive costs higher for our companies and put small businesses in the position where they may be violating federal anti-discrimination laws.
We've seen no rising public sentiment for adding expensive new burdens to employers while bringing new national attention to New Jersey as an increasingly unattractive place to do business.
Ted Turner envisions a Hobbesian future, or perhaps a Swiftian, or maybe a Hestonian? All because of global warming:
If steps aren't taken to stem global warming, "We'll be eight degrees hotter in 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow," Turner said during a wide-ranging, hour-long interview with PBS's Charlie Rose that aired Tuesday.
"Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals," said Turner, 69. "Civilization will have broken down. The few people left will be living in a failed state — like Somalia or Sudan — and living conditions will be intolerable."
One way to combat global warming, Turner said, is to stabilize the population.
"We're too many people; that's why we have global warming," he said. "Too many people are using too much stuff."
And freedom. They're using too much freedom.
(Hat tip: Mark Hemingway. Better a Hemingwayian future, all things considered.)
American Solutions for Winning the Future -- the Newt Gingrich-led group -- has released a new survey that shows the public overwhelmingly in support of secret ballot elections in determining whether to organize a workplace, a right that the Employee Free Choice Act would destroy. From the polling memo:
Democracy in the Workplace: Americans Fiercely Defend the Right to
Secret Ballot Elections.
Survey respondents were clear in their belief of keeping private U.S. workers’ decisions about whether or not to unionize: 79% agreed that “federally supervised secret ballot elections” were a right all workers should have. As the nearby chart shows, nearly half of them (48%) felt so strongly.
By comparison, just 12% denied the importance of this traditional method of organizing. This means that those in favor of secret ballot outnumbered those opposed by 6.5-to-1.
The survey was conducted by polling company™, inc./WomanTrend, headed by the well-regarded Kellyanne Conway. American Solutions has put the polling data, including crosstabs, up on its website here. (Always more receptive to a survey's credibility when the data are made readily available.)
Coming on top of the recent Coalition for a Democratic Workplace survey on the Employee Free Choice Act's potential impact on three Senate races (Maine, Minnesota and Colorado), the American Solutions survey makes it very clear that the candidates who sign on with organized labor's demands on card check are making a pact with their own demise. (Hah. Thought we'd say "pact with the devil," didn't you?) They gain campaign contributions and grassroots workers, but only at the cost of alienating the public.
And in the end, isn't winning elections about winning over the public?
Lots happening on the U.S.-Colombia trade front, or at least there's lots of commentary. With schedules the way they are, we expect the Administration to send the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement to Congress next Tuesday, so consider these developments, por favor:
USTR release: "Schwab to Lead Congressional Delegation Visit to Colombia."
The Wall Street Journal's editorial today follows up on Tuesday's election in Wisconsin, in which a rule-of-law judicial candidate defeated Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler, quite liberal in his legal interpretationing. From "The Wisconsin 'Tragedy'":
Governor Jim Doyle called the result of Wisconsin's state Supreme Court election "a tragedy." It's surprising to hear how little he thinks of his constituents, who had the sense to depose one of the court's ultra-liberal justices and in the process helped toughen the standards for judicial accountability.
Ah, but you know, now that we read Doyle's statement, that's not quite what he said.
It is a tragedy that such a fine judge and good human being was trashed during the campaign. Justice Butler has served with distinction and honor on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and I thank him for his fairness, his sense of justice and his lifelong commitment to public service.
You see, it was the "trashing" of Butler that was a tragedy, not the results per se.
Except the "trashing" was by and large a fair accounting of Justice Butler's record as a public defender, a failed court candidate, and only then a Doyle appointee to the state Supreme Court. Maybe the real "tragedy" was Butler's record.
In any case, the Journal's conclusion is certainly on the mark:
The Wisconsin result should reverberate through the 39 states that elect some or all of their appellate-level judges. Mr. Butler is the first incumbent justice to be ousted in more than four decades there. A seat on the bench is not a sinecure, and justices who abuse or contort the law must sometimes answer for their actions.
As noted below, the American Petroleum Institute organized a conference call for energy bloggers with Peter Robertson, vice chairman of the board of Chevron, following Tuesday's hearing on gas prices in the House.
Full disclosure: API and Chevron hosted a blogger/media tour of the Blind Faith deep sea platform last November in Texas we took advantage of. A billion-dollar project. Amazing stuff.
The return of the dollar to its more historic levels vis a vis other world currencies (as represented by the Euro, mostly) has made the U.S. manufacturing sector more competitive in the global marketplace. Exports are up, up, up.
But it's not all skittles and beer, and we're seeing more pundits and economists (in that order) calling for a return to the "strong dollar" policy. It's a big issue for Larry Kudlow, for example.
A low-value dollar certainly makes oil more expensive, a point that Peter Robinson, Vice Chairman of Chevron, made in his prepared testimony this week to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
This new reality and the impact on oil prices are compounded by the weakening of the U.S. dollar. The higher oil price is in part a market adjustment that reflects the weakening purchasing power of oil exporting countries that sell their oil in U.S. dollars but buy goods with stronger currencies such as the euro. Additionally, the weak dollar—and concern by stock investors over the subprime issue and its impact on the stock market—has contributed to a flight to commodities by investors seeking better returns (See Appendix chart #7). Oil has gone up along with many other commodities such as gold, corn, copper and even coal. While oil has reached record highs this year, a Washington Post article on March 20 reminds us that the tightening global energy-supply demand balance also has affected coal, which has increased in price by approximately 9 percent since the beginning of the year.
This has created a somewhat unusual situation that was observed by one economist speaking to the Wall Street Journal: “Crude futures prices,” he said, “have decoupled from the forces controlling the underlying physical flows of the commodity.” Or, more simply put, the weak dollar keeps prices high, even though the market has responded both with more supply to meet demand and, in some sectors, a lowering of demand. In fact, recent figures from EIA suggest that demand in the United States has moderated in response to the current high prices. That prices still remain high underscores the fact that many factors are in play and there are no short-term fixes to today’s price levels.
Robinson responded further to the issue in a bloggers' conference call that the American Petroleum Institute organized Tuesday (transcript here). Excerpt:
[If] you look at the relationship between the dollar – if you go back three or four years and you know, where oil was $30 or $35 or something like and we’re sitting in Europe, we’re sitting here, to us it looks like the price of oil has tripled. To the Europeans, it looks like it’s doubled. And in addition to that, you know, if you’re in three or four years ago, in the U.K., for example, paying $6 or $7 a gallon for your gasoline, the fact that the crude oil component of it is doubled really is a relatively small increase in your gasoline price, compared with for us, where it looks like our oil has tripled and we had low prices because we have low taxes, it looks like a huge increase here.
Come to think of it, there does seem to be a lot less screaming and table-pounding in Europe about oil gas and diesel prices than there is here in the United States.
A Maryland Senate panel voted to impose a three-year surcharge on the income of millionaires yesterday as part of a broader plan to repeal the state's new tax on computer services.
The 10 to 5 vote sends the legislation, which has deeply divided Montgomery County lawmakers, to the full Senate. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) predicted that it will be passed in the waning days of the legislative session, which is scheduled to end Monday.
Still very doubtful the tax increase passes, but if so, a couple of points:
Computer services companies warned that the tax increase could drive many of them out of the state, for example, to Delaware. So instead of taxing a business with a million dollar income, some Maryland legislators want to tax individuals with a million dollar income. We suspect some of these individuals are more mobile than local businesses.
A favorite saying of ours: Tax something, and you get less of it.
Temporary. Three years. Then it will expire. Oh, sure.
Labor unions are continuing their stategy of passing card-check laws at the state level, hoping to build pressure for federal enactment in 2009. From the AFL-CIO blog:
With passage of the federal Employee Free Choice Act a major issue for working people in the 2008 elections, lawmakers in Hawaii last week passed their own version of the bill. Union members were key to passage of H.B. 2974, which levels the playing field for workers considering a union. The legislation, which applies only to agricultural workers in the state, passed in both chambers by veto-proof margins with Republicans casting all the “No” votes.
State laws regulate working conditions for agricultural workers, so the unions are still restrained: They can only deprive a small percentage of the labor force of their right to a secret ballot.
But politically, it's a pretty good strategy.
Except...wonder if state legislators have seen this survey? Voters may be less supportive than union organizers trying to expand their own clout -- and spending.
CNN has posted the transcript of Lou Dobbs Tonight from Wednesday featuring Dobbs' interview with U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, urging enactment of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. An illuminating exchange, both as to the facts of the agreement and to Dobbs' rhetorical tricks.
You look at the strongest, most positive point in the U.S. economy today, it's U.S. exports. 40 percent of our economic growth last year was attributable to the increase in exports. So, here you got this deal with Colombia we negotiated and you can throw a lot of aggregate numbers about jobs and trade, we put this together one deal at a time and this deal even Lou Dobbs should like.
Right now, Colombia gets almost unlimited access to the U.S. market. 92 percent of what Colombia produces has been coming in here duty-free since 1991. This free trade agreement opens Colombia's market to our exports. And that means Caterpillar Tractors. It means John Deer equipment in Illinois. It means Sony televisions.
DOBBS: Coca-cola.
SCHWAB: Sony televisions out of Pennsylvania, apples, poultry, rice.
DOBBS: Sony televisions out of Pennsylvania?
SCHWAB: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania shipped to Colombia. We have today 8,000 small and medium sized businesses that ship to Columbia. Right now, they face tariffs up to 35 percent. Here's the key. If we're going to be competitive vis-a-vis China, for example, those 8,000 small, medium-sized companies are competing with the Chinese for the Colombian market. If this free trade agreement goes through, we have the edge. We are more competitive.
Etc. The case wins on its merits. Which means that Dobbs then switches the debate to generalities.
DOBBS: What I don't agree is the overall policy of free trade that has been pursued by this administration and previous administration and point of fact since 1976 is in the interests of the United States. We've run 32 consecutive years of trade deficits. We need to get a handle on what is a sensible trade policy.
This nonsense, as this administration has advanced it even before you were trade representative, I would say that Mr. Market is, you know, Mr. Market's happy, we're all happy. That is such utter nonsense in international trade, in international finance, in our domestic economy.
We are going to be paying for those misjudgments for years and future generations for years if we don't come to terms with it. Why can we not have a rational, balanced mutual reciprocal trade policy?
Populist generalities.
And would Dobbs prefer a Mr. Market that's not happy? A dour, glum market that retreats into itself?
P.S. As always, thanks to CNN for posting its transcripts. CNN does a fine job in speedy, accurate posting of its programs' transcripts, a service that certainly brings this reader back to its pages. The other cable news networks could learn from its example.
Aspiring Governor Jerry Brown made a comment at the California Democratic convention last week that merits repeating. From Peter Hecht's Sac-Bee report, "Day of Political Preening":
He mentioned his state car – a blue Plymouth he drove for "eight years and 240,000" miles.
As a state vehicle, no doubt it was kept up well, but still ...A major contributor to air pollution has long been the continued presence of inefficiently running old cars using outdated technology, something as true in the 1970s as is true today.
In fact, California runs a "vehicle retirement program" that pays people money to get old vehicles off the streets.
So, Brown was probably polluting more back then just for image's sake. Well-earned Moonbeam, indeed.
UPDATE (8:09 a.m.) Oh, yes. Brown sues EPA. Again. Trying to achieve policy ends he could not achieve through the political or legislative process.
Lou Dobbs had U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab on his program tonight to talk about the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. His opening gambit:
Free trade. It sucks and I have been saying that for years.
[Before] Butler had even conceded the race, calls began for the creation of a public financing system for state Supreme Court campaigns. Some have even proposed abolishing judicial elections in Wisconsin and imposing what’s known as “merit selection” – a scheme that transfers the power to pick judges from the people to a closed-door committee of lawyers, usually dominated by the trial bar.
These incumbent protection plans – usually masquerading as judicial “reform” – are based on the notion that we need to get “politics” out of courthouse races. But judicial elections are the only remedy Wisconsin voters have to remove judges who are out of step with their views – as Justice Butler clearly was.
Remember that Butler lost his own bid to unseat a sitting justice by a landslide and rose to the bench only after being appointed by a Democrat governor. Once on the court, he proved to be a judicial activist, imposing his own ideological views rather than interpreting the law – confirming the suspicions of Wisconsin voters who had earlier denied him a seat.
Activist judges like Butler are popular with liberal special interests, but, as last night’s results show, they rarely win the support of the people. Wisconsin voters won a key victory for democracy yesterday – but they need to be on guard for schemes to keep the people at arms length from the judicial selection process.
Yes. When you see somebody damning politics in the judicial selection process, they're really damning the people.
UPDATE (2 p.m.): The Wall Street Journal's John Fund, writing in the e-mail Political Diary, notes that Wisconsin's court is the eighth most cited state supreme court in the country. He concludes: "What voters in even liberal Wisconsin -- which hasn't voted for a Republican at the presidential level since 1984 -- showed is that they will plump for judicial restraint when presented with a clear choice. Given that 38 states elect appellate-level judges, the lesson from Wisconsin's election this week could have national implications."
The latest Dream It! Do It! campaign gets under way in San Antonio, Texas, encouraging young people to consider and prepare for careers in manufacturing. From MySA.com:
"The greatest danger to San Antonio economic development and manufacturers is if we hit the upper limit of our labor resource," said Henry Cisneros, former San Antonio mayor and former secretary of housing and urban development. "We've got massive work to do to bring focus to the simple reality that we have to act."
Inspirational quote: "These are jobs for the taking" -- Judy Ingalls, executive director, SAMA Workforce Development Corp.
April 1 marked the opening day of the five-day period for submitting applications for 65,000 H-1B visas, which allow foreign nationals with high skills in high-demand jobs to work in the United States.
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 1, 2008 – On the opening day to submit applications for H-1B visas for highly-educated and skilled employees, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) praised policymakers who support raising the visa cap from its current 65,000 limit along with other more long-term solutions to America’s serious shortage of highly skilled employees.
“We are grateful to those Members of Congress who have acknowledged the significant and growing shortage of highly skilled employees needed to keep America on the leading edge of innovation,” said NAM President and CEO John Engler today. “We thank these leaders for taking steps to remedy this threat to U.S. economic growth and global competitiveness.”
Like last year, the FY 2009 visa cap of 65,000 is expected to be reached on the same day applications are first accepted, April 1. Engler praised Members of Congress who have supported a higher H-1B visa cap through legislative initiatives.
“Manufacturers will continue to push for bipartisan immigration reform that permanently solves the inadequacies of both the H-B visa and employment-based green card systems,” Engler said.
The Wall Street Journal's editorial, "Oil Refinements," pokes fun at and holes in the logic behind yesterday's House hearing on gas prices. We'll paraphrase: House Member A: Gas prices are too high! Outrage! House Member B: We need to discourage oil consumption through market mechanisms!
Or is that also House Member A?
A few facts, summarized by the Journal:
About 70% of the price of gasoline is determined by the global price of crude, which is rising because of world-wide demand and volatility in the commodities markets, not to mention the Federal Reserve's easy-money policy. Congress might also look to its gas mandates and the corset it has laced around domestic production.
It's true that industry profits are at a record high, but oil is a classic boom-and-bust business, which is why billions in capital investments are folded back into exploration and production. Besides, the industry's effective tax rates are in the neighborhood of 40% to 44%. Over the past five years, Exxon Mobil's total U.S. tax bill exceeded its U.S. revenues by some $19 billion.
On Tuesday, the House Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee held a hearing that allowed House members to upbraid the oil companies for failing to meet the nation's energy needs (as defined by House members, not the marketplace).
Very good news from Wisconsin, where Mike Gableman has won a seat on the state Supreme Court, defeating sitting Justice Louis Butler. From the Wisconsin Radio Network:
Gableman says he is gratified and humbled by the support. He's pledging to give every litigant appearing before him a "fair shake" and to fairly apply the law.
Gableman believes his message and background resonated with voters in the campaign and appreciated his role as a judicial conservative, both as a judge and former prosecutor.
Lots of swooning among among the political and media class about the negative campaign, but in the end, seems like a majority of voters -- and it was a very tight election, 51-49 percent -- preferred the former prosecutor who campaigned for judicial restraint (Gableman), versus a sitting, appointed judge who had a record of expanding the grounds for civil lawsuits (Butler).
Congratulations to Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, which expressed its members' views on the candidates through advertising and advocacy, and whose commitment of dollars provided enough information to the voters so they could make an informed decision.
Very interesting. Candidate after candidate backed by organized labor has sworn allegiance to the Employee Free Choice Act, but if a new survey is any indication, that support could cost them votes in the fall elections. The survey of Senate races in Colorado, Minnesota and Maine shows voters supporting secret-ballot elections in the workplace, which the Employee Free Choice Act would destroy:
Voters in Colorado, Maine and Minnesota favor federally supervised secret and private ballot elections over a process where the majority of workers simply sign a card and workers’ signatures are made public to their employers, union organizers and co-workers. In fact, the overwhelming majority of voters agrees that secret and private ballots are the cornerstone of democracy and should be kept for union elections. Voters are concerned that intimidation of workers by management or union leaders could be a serious problem in union organizing elections.
When it comes to Congress taking action on this issue, Colorado, Maine and Minnesota voters prefer leaving federal union laws the way they are now. The majority of voters opposes a bill in Congress called the “Employee Free Choice Act” which would replace federally supervised secret and private ballot elections with a process that requires the majority of workers to simply sign a card to authorize organizing a union.
The survey was conducted by the Coalition for a Democratic Workforce by John McLaughlin of McLaughlin and Associates. The National Association of Manufacturers is a founding member of the coalition. (News release here.)
We've seen the card-check legislation become an issue so far in only one election when the conservatives at the Red State blog cited it in endorsing Sean Parnell, the Republican primary challenger to Rep. Don Young (R-AK).
But the issue should certainly figure prominently in many fall campaigns, with organized labor making campaign contributions contingent on a candidate's support. Thing is, labor doesn't like to talk about what the measure actually does -- eliminating secret ballots -- which suggests a political vulnerability. Candidates who oppose card check and who educate the voters as to the measure's anti-democratic core could do very well for themselves.
We saw the news about the survey at Marc Ambinder's blog at The Atlantic, which was then reported at the Las Vegas Sun's news update blog. Points go to the Sun's Michael Mishak for explaining what card check actually does: "Specifically, the bill would allow workers to sign a card signifying their preference for a union instead of voting in a secret-ballot election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board." Wish more reporters were as careful.
From the Dow-Jones coverage of today's House Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee's hearing on oil prices:
Stable tax and regulatory policies are essential to encouraging needed investments," said J.S. Simon, senior vice president of ExxonMobil Corp., in prepared testimony before a House panel. "Imposing punitive taxes on American energy companies, which already pay record taxes, will discourage the sustained investments needed to continue safeguarding U.S. energy security."
Chevron Corp. Vice Chairman Peter Robertson said the oil industry has been "urging greater access to U.S. resources -- onshore and offshore." But he said that "instead, we have been increasing our demand on exporting countries," and warned that "any serious measures toward energy security must seek to reverse this equation."
Robertson has been speaking on an API-sponsored conference call with bloggers, and domestic supply recurs as an important topic.
He agreed with the observation that the hearing was generally productive, less hardball than perhaps expected, and provided some good, intelligent questions and discussions.
The hearing by the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming has just wrapped up. Contrary to our expectations, it was an informative, interesting hearing -- at least the parts we watched on C-SPAN 3 -- with a minimum of table pounding.
The testimony of the oil company executives has been posted at the committee's website here.
San Francisco restaurateurs' legal battle with the city's novel health plan is gaining supporters.
At least nine groups have submitted briefs to the U.S. Court of Appeals urging judges to halt mandatory business payments to a program designed to provide coverage to as many as 82,000 uninsured adult city residents. The plan, called Healthy San Francisco, is also funded by city money and payments from people who are enrolled.
Groups including the National Federation of Independent Business, the California Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Department of Labor have written the court arguing that the city's health plan is superseded by a federal law, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which restricts local governments from administering employee benefits.
The Golden Gate Restaurant Association has a resource-rich webpage devoted to its opposition to the city ordinance, available here.
The NAM's news release and amicus brief are available here.
Not table pounding or shouting. Planning. Permitting. And then building.
RICHMOND, March 31 -- Dominion Virginia Power's plan to build a coal-burning power plant in southwest Virginia cleared a major hurdle Monday when it was approved by the State Corporation Commission, despite objections from environmentalists.
Dominion is pushing to build the $1.8 billion plant in Wise County, in Virginia's coal country, as part of a multi-pronged strategy for meeting the state's growing demand for electricity.
Dominion, which has 2.3 million customers in the state, said the plant would be "one of the cleanest" coal-fired facilities in the nation because it would have a sophisticated emissions-control system.
BISMARCK, N.D.--A California uranium exploration company has leased more than 1,000 acres of land in Slope County, in southwestern North Dakota.
It is the first such lease in the state in about 30 years, said Ed Murphy, the state geologist.
Murphy anticipates the filing of mining permits, given the level of interest.
Uranium prices are up, nuclear power is enjoying a renaissance, and the United States currently relies on supplies from Russia to power its nuclear plants. Glad to see some people taking the idea of domestic energy security seriously.
Burdensome regulation, politics, and bad policy hamper access to available energy resources in the United States. The nation can now add uranium to the list of energy resources that local, state, and federal bureaucrats have deemed off-limits, which includes oil in the Arctic, off-shore natural gas, coastal wind, and cellulosic ethanol.
The nation's largest known uranium deposit was discovered in the 1980s on a farm in southern Virginia. The owner of that land has recently explored the possibility of mining the approximately $10 billion worth of uranium believed to be on the site. Despite the fact that uranium has been mined safely around the world for decades, including in New Mexico, Nebraska, Utah, and Wyoming, Virginia bureaucrats have decided to prohibit land owners from even studying the viability of mining.
Senior Treasury officials identified three immediate targets yesterday for their plan to overhaul the nation's financial regulatory structure, including streamlining the approval process for securities that contributed to the crisis now roiling Wall Street. But their hopes for a few quick changes are running into mounting opposition from interest groups and officials elsewhere in the Bush administration.
Today is election day in Wisconsin, with a high-profile race for a seat on the state Supreme Court between sitting Justice Louis Butler, appointed in 2004 by Democratic Gov. Mike Doyle, and his challenger, Mike Gableman, a former Ashland County district attorney and current Burnett County judge.
The race has boiled down to your basic contest between an activist judge in Butler and a more rule-of-law oriented aspirant, Gableman. Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce has been active in support of Gableman, tired of the Wisconsin Supreme Court's practice of expanding liability out of an ill-defined sense of "fairness." The Wall Street Journal's John Fund described a defining example in a column last year:
Mr. Butler soon became the fulcrum for a new majority that overturned the court's own precedents and long-standing deference to the legislature's policy choices. In 2005, he authored the infamous Thomas decision. The court ruled that a plaintiff -- who claimed he had eaten paint chips containing lead pigment -- could sue paint manufacturers and lead pigment suppliers if he could prove they had done business in Wisconsin, even if the pigments were not in the paint chips he claimed to have eaten. The ruling adopted a "risk contribution" theory of liability that allows a person who cannot determine which company caused his injuries to sue a variety of companies.
One of the Thomas dissenters argued that "the defendants . . . can be held liable for a product they may or may not have produced, which may or may not have caused the plaintiff's injuries, based on conduct that may have occurred over 100 years ago when some of the defendants were not even part of the relevant market." Another dissenter wrote that the case made it "nearly impossible for paint companies to defend themselves or, frankly, for plaintiffs to lose."
You can see where manufacturers would prefer another, more restrained justice than Butler.
Unfortunately, as sometimes happens in Wisconsin's self-regarding political class, the very act of criticism has been deemed somehow improper, the intrusion of (gasp!) politics into the judicial system. The Wall Street Journal editorialized on this dynamic and the activities of the supposedly nonpartisan Wisconsin Judicial Integrity Commission last week in "Wisconsin Bar Brawl." The conclusion is one we share:
Judicial elections aren't always enlightening, but they are a natural public reaction when courts usurp the power of legislatures. They can also be a check on a legal elite who think they should dominate the bench. Justice Butler picked this election fight when he and four colleagues decided, by judicial fiat, to make Wisconsin a national mecca for the trial bar.
The Rheinischer Merkur -- a weekly newspaper circulated nationally in Germany -- included a major piece on the U.S. manufacturing economy in a recent issue, part of a special section, "The American Nightmare." (It's OK. Despite the title, the Merkur is not one of those reflexively anti-American publications.)
Entitled, "Comeback der Blaumaenner," or "Comeback in the Men in Blue" -- we'd say more, "Comeback of the Blue-Collar Guys" -- the article by Jens Korte features a nice sampling of National Association of Manufacturing member companies and board members, including Drew Greenblatt of Marlin Steel, Mary Andringa of Vermeer Manufacturing and Stephanie Harkness of Pacific Plastics and Engineering. Caterpillar and Al-Jon also figure in the story.
It's a good overview of manufacturing -- the upside, including this context:
According to Peter Esser of the Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie (BDI) in Washington, the weak dollar is not the only thing drawing foreign businesses back to the United States. “The German middle class is very familiar with the U.S. market. We’ve observed a trend that German operations are increasingly withdrawing from Asia and moving more toward the United States.”
Many firms had their fingers burned in the Far East. Trade secrets and intellectual property went missing. With the American market the middle class can better judge what to expect. “On top of that, there’s the shipping costs,” says the lobbyist, Esser. With oil topping $110 a barrel, freight costs are also exploding. “That’s contributed to the comeback of manufacturing in the United States.”
Many customers are also sensitive to the advantages of “Made in the USA.” And for that reason Pacific Plastics & Engineering (PPE), a contractor for custom work and medical technology, is doing quite well. “Our customers want to be sure that we can meet their required specifications,” says Stephanie Harkness, chairwoman of PPE. The 100-man company sits in the middle of Silicon Valley. Many of the new customers are start ups, for which PPE develops prototypes. “So a lot of development directors are coming our way.” Harkness, too, is seeing the return of those who are turning away from Asia. “America is still the place where most of the ideas and new technologies are being born, and now we have the chance to use that.”
Technology firms across the nation are crossing their fingers today as the U.S. opens the annual visa application window for skilled workers. Last year, the annual cap of 65,000 was reached on the same day.
Despite industry's efforts to raise the issue with lawmakers and the public, this year's quota of H1-B visas is likely to disappear just as quickly.
"Without adequate access to these types of key employees, a lot of U.S. companies will be forced to cancel U.S. projects or move them offshore, like Bill Gates did," said Ian Macdonald of the law firm Littler Mendelson.
Madhura Godbole speaks four languages. Since receiving a second master's degree from Loyola University Chicago last summer, she has been developing software to produce blood thinners for heart patients.
But it's luck, more than her impressive résumé, that the Indian-born engineer needs this week, as she enters a fierce annual competition for a small number of visas given to highly skilled foreign workers.
Isn't Madhura Godbole precisely the kind of highly skilled and U.S.-trained employee that benefits the U.S. economy, not to mention American civil society?
P.S. Another personal account from Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute, which concludes: "America continues to maintain an incomprehensible and counter-productive immigration policy, damaging both pocketbooks and heartstrings from Silicon Valley to the Bay of Bengal. Unless Congress and the White House do something to fundamentally reshape immigration rules with respect to skilled workers — setting aside for the moment the gardeners and construction workers who get all the news coverage — things will only get worse."
As noted in the post below (and in this Houston Chronicle article), today's hearing by the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will draw more attention -- more heat? -- because national average gas prices hit another high yesterday. Oil executives will be testifying, so the pressure will be on them to justify the prices. Fair enough, even if the hearing's title indicates a predetermined story line: “Drilling for Answers: Oil Company Profits, Runaway Prices and the Pursuit of Alternatives.”
[Corn] prices have skyrocketed in recent years, almost tripling since 2005.
Corn began its latest surge in early 2007, rising from just more than $3 per bushel to record prices above $5 per bushel today. If prices hold steady or rise, the average price per bushel in 2008 will be the highest ever, according to USDA statistics.
Corn prices rose yesterday after the release of the USDA report, with the most active contract briefly hitting a record of $5.88 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade before settling at $5.67 a bushel.
Perhaps Chairman Markey can hold another hearing later. Call it, “Digging for Answers: Ag Company Profits, Runaway Prices and the Pursuit of Alternatives.” Or, "Plowing for Answers: Farmer Profits, Runaway Prices and the Pursuit of Alternatives."
That is, if the goal is the seeking of real information on which to make rational policy judgments, as opposed to, oh, pure political theater.
The House Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee has no real legislative authority, but it's a bully pulpit for its chairman, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA). On Tuesday, Markey will have seated in the pews five top oil industry executives, testifying at a hearing, "Drilling for Answers: Oil Company Profits, Runaway Prices and the Pursuit of Alternatives.” (Markey's news release.)
No one will be surprised at the tenor of the questioning.
Federal lawmakers are sustaining their ongoing attack on Big Oil. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, is on Tuesday expected to lambast oil executives for high oil prices at a panel hearing.
"This gas price record is a perfect example of why we need these oil companies to go on the record with the American people to discuss our dangerous dependence on oil," Markey ahead of his hearing. "These companies are defending billions in federal subsidies needed for renewable fuels and clean energy while reaping over a hundred billion dollars in profits in just the last year alone."
We have every confidence in the executives' ability to defend the oil industry if given a fair opportunity to respond to questions. One question we'd like fully addressed: How will increasing taxes on energy production by $18 billion encourage further domestic exploration and development?
Oh, and here's another: How will increasing energy taxes improve prices at the pump?
But perhaps those are best directed at Chairman Markey.
The five executives scheduled to testify:
Mr. J. Stephen Simon, Senior Vice President, Exxon Mobil Corp.
Mr. John Hofmeister, President, Shell Oil Company
Mr. Robert A. Malone, Chairman and President, BP America, Inc.
Mr. Peter Robertson, Vice Chairman, Chevron
Mr. John Lowe, Executive Vice President, ConocoPhillips
With all the attention paid to litigation-encouraging attorney general provisions in the Consumer Product Reform Act’s passage in the Senate (S. 2663, but now H.R.4040) we neglected to note Sen. Diane Feinstein’s successful amendment to ban children’s toys and products containing phthalates. That’s the class of chemical used to make plastic soft and malleable, with many applications in consumer products.
The health and scientific bases for banning the phthalates are lacking, although that hasn't stopped the Europeans, as William Duncan of the Kansas City Life Sciences Institute explains in this Washington Times column, “Political science.” In fact, the EU ban on phthalates occurred before the required scientific study was completed, which just happened to find the substance safe. Political science indeed.
Duncan also asks the very good question: What potentially even more dangerous chemicals will replace the phthalates?
Feinstein’s federal ban was inspired by legislation in California, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law last October. For the children. As American Chemical Council President Jack Gerard protested, "This law is the product of the politics of fear. It is not good science, and it is not good government. Thorough scientific reviews in this country and in Europe have found these toys safe for children to use. California businesses will now be obliged to take products off the shelves that their customers need and want."
Yes, and as Feinstein's amendment shows, policy blunders and blandishments that start in California often spread. Which brings us to the latest from the sponsor of the original state ban...
From the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, March 28: “Senator Carole Migden (D-San Francisco) has introduced SB 1713 which would prohibit numerous toys and childcare articles that contain detectable levels of bisphenol-A. This expands the current prohibition on the use of phthalates to include an array of products where exposure is almost undetectable or non-existent.”
Congress needs to pass FISA reform. Our intelligence professionals are waiting on the Congress to give them the tools they need to monitor terrorist communications. Congress also needs to provide liability protection to companies that may have helped save lives after September the 11th, 2001.
Also, Washington Times editorial, "Blue Dog betrayal." And the reliably liberal editorialists at The Los Angeles Times propose a grand compromise on immunity in "Congress' first task: FISA":
Civil lawsuits are not the only or the best way to ventilate information about the program, about which Congress already knows much more than it did a few years ago. A better option is proposed in the new House bill: a congressional commission to investigate the genesis of the secret NSA program. A House-Senate compromise that included both immunity and a commission would be hard for Bush to veto. More important, it would put what began as a lawless program on a sound legal footing.
We'd take the Times more seriously if it wasn't so dismissive about the importance of telecom immunity, which it describes as a side issue. We suggest that encouraging the involvement of the private sector and America's citizens in opposing murderous terrorists is rather central.
His speech proposing lots and lots of financial regulatory changes is available here. Among the recommendations is merging the SEC and the OTC, but this proposal about authority for the Federal Reserve is likely to draw the most attention:
Market Stability Regulator
The Federal Reserve would have the responsibility and authority to gather appropriate information, disclose information, collaborate with the other regulators on rule writing, and take corrective actions when necessary to ensure overall financial market stability. To fulfill its responsibilities to gather information, the Fed would have authority to join in examinations with the prudential and business conduct regulators.
This new role will replace the Fed’s more limited, traditional role as the supervisor of financial holding companies, bank holding companies, and certain state-chartered banks.
The Fed would have the ability to monitor risks across the financial system.
A spate of publicity came Raelyn Campbell's way in February with the reporting on her $54 million lawsuit against Best Buy for losing her computer. She appears to have a legitimate complaint, and her arguments about data theft have merit.
Nevertheless, the amount sought -- the same figure that Judge Roy Pearson sued his drycleaners for upon the loss of his pants -- is outrageous, seemingly designed just to elicit the coverage Campbell desired. She even started a much-publicized blog on her crusade.
Funny thing is, that blog hasn't been updated since February 15th. Did the suit get settled? Did it serve her publicity goals and get dropped? Because no matter what, that $54 million claim remains outrageous.
This goes a long way in explaining why California Attorney General Jerry Brown has turned himself into the litigation-happy Environmental Minister at Large for the state.
SAN JOSE - State Attorney General Jerry Brown waxed nostalgic about his former days as governor on Saturday and strongly suggested that he might run again - just as soon as he is done suing President Bush over global warming.
In a speech to more than 1,000 activists at a state Democratic Party convention, Brown, 69, hyped his current legal battle to uphold California's global warming fight and enforce tough auto emissions standards. "I've had to sue Bush about five times," he said, because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency "is blocking the will of the people of California."
He stirred speculation of another gubernatorial run when he closed his speech by saying: "I don't do too much these days except sue people. But someday maybe I'll get around to doing more than that and hopefully you'll help."
The old joke around political circles is that AG stands for "Aspiring Governor." We can add "Activist Guru" in Brown's case, if only for the historic resonance.
P.S. Take a look the Global Warming section of the AG office's state webpage. Brown's insertion into a policy area that rightfully belongs to the U.S. Congress is breathtaking.
The Washington Post's Opinion Page today offers more of its solid argumentation in support of passing the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. From "Free Colombia":
The agreement is being held hostage by members of the House (and Senate) who argue that Colombia -- despite a dramatic drop in its overall murder toll under the leadership of President Alvaro Uribe -- hasn't done enough to protect trade union activists or to punish past murders of labor leaders. It's a spurious complaint: Actually, in 2006, union members were slightly less likely than the average Colombian to be murdered. But the human rights issue has served as cover for many Democrats whose true objections are to free trade itself.
Once the agreement arrives on the Hill, Congress will have 90 legislative days to vote yes or no -- no amendments and no filibusters allowed, because special "fast track" rules apply. The Bush administration is betting that enough Democrats would support the pact to ensure its passage in the House, if it ever comes up for a vote. Of course, Ms. Pelosi could make an issue of the president's failure to get her approval to submit the pact and then could have her caucus shoot down the deal. But she could also engage the White House in serious negotiations. The president has signaled a willingness to consider reauthorizing aid for workers displaced by trade, legislation that is dear to the Democrats' labor constituency and that he has heretofore resisted.
Ms. Pelosi recently said that no Colombia deal could pass without trade adjustment assistance -- without also mentioning the bogus trade unionists issue. Perhaps she is realizing that talking to Mr. Bush about swapping a Colombia vote for trade adjustment assistance might actually lead to a tangible accomplishment. At least we have to hope so.
Before leaving for Ukraine this morning, President Bush briefly spoke from the South Lawn, urging Congress to act on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. The Post's scenario appears to one way to achieve that goal to the satisfaction of both House leadership and the White House.
Last Friday the National Association of Manufacturers joined the Society for Human Resource Management and the International Franchise Association (IFA) in filing an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case, Golden Gate Restaurant v. San Francisco. The suit involves San Francisco's law, "The Health Care Security Ordinance," that requires companies doing business in the city to provide employee health insurance or pay into a city fund for the uninsured.
This is an obvious violation of ERISA, the 1970s' era law through which federal employment-benefits law supersedes state and local laws. In their drive for universal health care, San Francisco and other mandate-happy localities would create an even more expensive, unsustainable system, featuring potentially thousands of different local laws on health-care coverage.
In December, a federal court ruled the city had violated ERISA, but the usual suspects at the 9th Circuit suspended the district court’s ruling and allowed the ordinance to go into effect in January 2008.
“Congress understood that without a dependable set of national rules on employee benefits, businesses will find it too complicated and expensive to work across state lines,” said Quentin Riegel, NAM's director of litigation. “That’s why ERISA has always superseded state and local laws like San Francisco’s.”
Representing the three trade associations is the law firm of Ogletree Deakins, with Tom Christina as lead attorney. The amicus brief is available at the NAM’s website, here, and the IFA issued its own news release.
The National Federation of Independent Business is also alarmed, given the imposition of yet another mandate on the small employers they represent. From the NFIB news release:
"This ordinance is extremely unfair to small employers, the real job creators in California and across the country," said John Kabateck, NFIB/California executive director. "If this ordinance is upheld, small employers will be forced to make difficult decisions about whether to lay off staff, increase prices on consumers or if possible, move their business out of San Francisco. Hurting small employers in this manner is simply unacceptable and should not be permitted by our state or local laws."
The online trade publication, Occupational Health and Safety, covered recent developments in this article.
UPDATE (9:15 a.m.) Washingotn Post small-business reporter/blogger Sharon McLoone has more on the legal developments in her column today.
Otherwise...Congress is back, the President is a roamin', and the Pennsylvania primary is still weeks away. For conflict of a more stellar sort, the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica premieres Friday.
The House will consider H.R. 5501, funding the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief -- $50 billion over five years. And if the President sends the Colombia Free Trade Act to the Hill, it comes first to the House. The floor schedule for the week is here.
Two hearings of note on Wednesday by the transportation subcommittee of Appropriations: 10 a.m. on "Highway and Transit Programs: Urgent Funding Needs"; 2 p.m. on "National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission."
Senate Hearings: A HELP Committee subcommittee holds a hearing Tuesday on OSHA violations. (Details.) The full Commerce Committee marks up legislation on Wednesday, including S. 2688, the Commercial Seafood Consumer Protection Act, and H.R. 802, Maritime Pollution Prevention Act. Also Wednesday, Environment and Public Works holds an oversight hearing on an Endangered Species listing for the polar bear. The high-profile hearing of the week is Senate Banking on Thursday, considering financial turmoil, with Secretary Paulson, Fed Chairman Bernanke, and SEC Chairman Cox testifying. (Details.) Energy and Natural Resources reviews the role of institutional investors on oil prices. And Thursday sees the Finance Committee holding a hearing, "Outside the Box on Estate Tax Reform: Reviewing Ideas to Simplify Planning." Outside the death tax box? That would be the zombie tax, then.
Reporters covering Sen. Hillary Clinton's speech on housing in Philadelphia last Monday described one of her proposals as "tort reform." Here's the AP intro:
PHILADELPHIA: Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed several remedies to the nation's home mortgage problems Monday, including one tool more often associated with Republicans than Democrats.
The New York senator proposed greater protections for lenders from possible lawsuits by investors, a variation of so-called tort reform.
Well, the term didn't cross her lips, but here's the passage from the transcript.
The fourth and final part of my plan involves passing new legislation to clarify legal liability for mortgage companies that act to help more borrowers stay in their homes.
Right now, many mortgage companies are reluctant to help families restructure their mortgages because they're afraid of being sued by the investment banks, the private equity firms, and others who actually own the mortgage papers.
Because, remember, all of these mortgages were bundled up in these huge packages and sold around the world. So you can't just go down to see your mortgage broker or your bank or your other lender to work out a deal, because they no longer own the paper.
This is the case even though writing down the value of a mortgage is often more profitable than foreclosing, both for mortgage companies and for most of those who own the mortgages.
That's why I will be proposing legislation, when Congress returns, to provide mortgage companies with protection against the threat of such lawsuits.
Clarifying Legal Liability for Mortgage Servicers to Help Unfreeze the Mortgage Market. Many mortgage servicers who want to work with families are deterred out of fear of litigation. Senator Clinton is introducing legislation to provide them with legal protection when they act to help struggling homeowners to modify mortgages.
Looks like tort reform to us. Very good.
And if tort reform is a good and helpful step to strengthen the housing market, then it should also be for health care, right? And the manufacturing of affordable consumer goods.
An editorial in today's Wall Street Journal, "One Missed Call."
In Michael Mukasey, President Bush finally seems to have an Attorney General worthy of the current moment. In Nancy Pelosi's hometown this week, the former judge who once tried terror cases told the Commonwealth Club audience that even he had no idea of the extent of the threat.
Speaking of what he hears in his national security briefings, Mr. Mukasey said, "It is way beyond – way beyond anything that I knew or believed. So, if I was picked for the level of my knowledge . . . that was a massive piece of false advertising."
As reported by the New York Sun, he also offered a perspective, partly personal as a former Manhattanite, on the necessity of warrantless antiterror surveillance. Before 9/11, Mr. Mukasey said, "We knew that there had been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went. We've got" – here the Attorney General paused with emotion – "we've got 3,000 people who went to work that day, and didn't come home, to show for that."
The AG also addressed why immunity from lawsuits is vital for the telecom companies that cooperated with the surveillance after 9/11. "Forget the liability" the phone companies face, Mr. Mukasey said. "We face the prospect of disclosure in open court of what they did, which is to say the means and the methods by which we collect foreign intelligence against foreign targets." Al Qaeda would love that. The cynics will call this "fear-mongering," but most Americans will want to make sure we don't miss the next terror call.
We have a slightly disrupted supply chain of Cool Stuff Being Made videos this week, soon to be rectified. But in the meantime, we return to last week's video -- one that received an especially large number of hits.
Besides, Instapundit is knife-blogging today, with all sorts of links to interesting commentary and coverage, so the subject is timely.
So again this week, we take a gander at U.S. manufacturing in all its hand-crafted skill and beauty, as W.R. Case & Sons Cutlery brings us a video showing how fine knives are made.
Case’s commitment to quality is evident in the 125 pairs of hands it takes to create one knife. Artisans shape handles from rare Brazilian cattle bone and Buffalo horn to more delicate substances like rosewood, mother-of-pearl, and stag. Metals like brass, nickel, and silver highlight each form, bringing together a knife that’s not only beautiful, but one that will stand the tests of time and use.
And there's lots of tradition, American tradition.
The company’s rich history began in 1889 when William Russell (“W.R.”), Jean, John, and Andrew Case began fashioning their knives and selling them along a wagon trail in upstate New York. A unique tang stamp dating system used since the very early days of its history has cemented the Case brand as one of the most recognized and valuable collectibles in the industry. Today the Case Company is owned by Zippo Manufacturing, another family-owned business based in Bradford.
Thank you to the good people at Case who sent us the video. We're pleased to feature it at Cool Stuff Being Made and encourage other manufacturers to share their stories.
First off, what's wrong with Asia? Do environmentalists not want Asians to have jobs? Second, if a green job cannot be outsourced, does that mean that manufacturing solar panels isn't green? After all, they can be produced anywhere. And why do green jobs -- not including functions such as accounting -- require more skill than traditional jobs? Another green jobs advocate tells the Times that a traditional mining job magically becomes green when the metal is used for a green purpose. So which is it?
Advocates also say that green jobs are different because they produce things 'the world wants.' I suppose that sets them apart from traditional capital intensive and polluting jobs such as say, producing food and energy.
We're all in favor of green jobs. And blue ones, and orange ones, and, oh, that's a nice magenta.
And as for thinking, crystal-clear is our favorite.
Eighty-seven days have passed since the U.S. research and development tax credit expired, nearly an entire fiscal quarter.
And in the meantime, other countries are expanding their incentives for R&D. From Britain comes the news...
The chancellor announced that large companies carrying out new technology R&D would receive higher tax incentives from HMRC. Tax credit enhancements rise to 175 percent for large companies from 150 percent, which means an organisation spending £100,000 on R&D will see a tax saving of £7,500.
So we weren't the only ones dissatisfied with the New York Times' editorial reaction/misrepresentation of the Supreme Court's ruling in Riegel v. Medtronic. From the AP:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Antonin Scalia took the news media to task Thursday for some recent coverage of the Supreme Court.
At a conference of attorneys in Washington, Scalia said news organizations often fail to focus on the text of the laws the court interprets, citing accounts of last month's 8-1 decision that made it harder for consumers to sue makers of federally approved medical devices.
The media often make it appear as though the court is reaching policy judgments on its own rather than basing its decisions on the text of the law at issue in a case, Scalia said.
In some instances, said Scalia, the news media leave the impression that no ruling based on the text of a law "is even possible."
John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, was on CNBC's Squawk Box this morning talking about presidential campaign rhetoric versus reality on issues like NAFTA, labor standards, and exports. Video here.
He raises one tax issue that doesn't get talked about enough, repatriation. Engler:
One of the things that Congress could do that would really help is to knock out some of these antiquated laws such as repatriation of foreign earnings. More and more companies today have half or more of their earnings overseas -- you have them on the show all the time -- and to bring that money back to the United States, they’ve got to subject it to the highest corporate tax rate in the world.
Pretty good lineup this morning: Former National Economic Council Director Larry Lindsey, former Treasury Secretary John Snow, and James Lockhart, director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO).
ANKARA - Turkish Energy & Natural Resources Minister Hilmi Guler said Tuesday Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) can cooperate with Cuba in oil and natural gas exploration as it does in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Libya.
"TPAO is eager to join natural gas and oil exploration tenders in Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico and Ecuador," Guler told reporters after meeting Marta Lomas Morales, the Cuban minister of foreign investments and economic cooperation, in capital Ankara.
Guler said the corporation will also carry out researches in Cuba. "We may cooperate with Cuba in oil and natural gas exploration," he told.
Including Cuba-controlled portions of the Caribbean, we're talking within 45 miles of Florida's shores...while development in adjacent U.S. territorial waters is banned.
Confronted by Stahl with the fact some prominent people, including the nation’s vice president, are not convinced that global warming is man-made, Gore responds: "You're talking about Dick Cheney. I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat,” says Gore. "That demeans them a little bit, but it's not that far off," he tells Stahl.
That's not quite as bad as comparing people who disagree with the climate models to Holocaust deniers, but Gore's comments are still a bullying attempt to shout down people who disagree with him. Probably because he can't carry the day on the basis of arguments alone...
Well-reasoned column in today's Wall Street Journal by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), "Regulatory Rethink." This is a compelling point:
Look closely at unifying and simplifying our regulatory structure, perhaps moving toward a single regulator. In this era of global markets and global actors, we cannot return to the older model of separate businesses with separate regulators. We must consider whether a more unified financial regulatory system could provide more efficient regulation. In our report on maintaining the competitiveness of our financial sector, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and I suggested we should look closely at the system now in place in the United Kingdom. They have a single strong, effective financial regulator, focused on results and not rules, with the power to act. Such a regulator would likely have called in Bear Stearns managers and told them to improve their capital position long before the crisis arose, thus avoiding the backdoor action the Fed was forced to take.
Schumer adds a gratuitous knock against the Bush administration's "hostility" to regulation, even though Treasury has been a consistent advocate of a single regulator for the housing-related GSEs. And the absence of any mention of Sarbanes-Oxley's excesses jumped out at us.
In response to manufacturing industry input, Riverland Community College has developed a new certificate in the Industrial Maintenance and Mechanics (IMM) program. The Production Technician I certificate will offer a short, specialized, foundation of manufacturing education and skills that provides students the opportunity to be competitive and successful in entry-level manufacturing production jobs.
Students will take classes related to cutting and drilling machines, small tool usage, gas welding, blueprint reading and jigs and fixtures along with an introductory computer class and classes in safety and OSHA, workplace human relations, technical math and quality and productivity improvement.
Riverland's complete news release is available here.
Austin is the home to Hormel Foods, by the way, a fine manufacturer that creates lots of wealth and jobs in that part of Minnesota.
WASHINGTON - Oracle, Microsoft and other tech companies, joined by business leaders in New York and Washington, are making a new push for an increase in visas for skilled workers. But they conceded Thursday they face difficult odds in Congress.
Robert Hoffman, an Oracle vice president, predicted that applications for next Tuesday's H-1B visa lottery will quickly exceed the 65,000 available slots, with winners determined by a random process that ignores market needs and economic benefits.
Last year, the 65,000 cap was reached on the first day of applications.
Under this "surreal system," Hoffman said, a fashion model (the next Heidi Klum) will have the same chance at a visa as a tech entrepreneur (the next Andy Grove) who generates jobs.
We're always on guard against new laws and regulations creating unintended consequences that take a whack at manufacturers and the economy, but when Phil Kerpen of Americans for Prosperity considers the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade scheme, he sees a lot of intended consequences. Kerpen cites the NAM-ACCF commissioned study on S. 2191, America's Climate Security Act, which projects inflation-adjusted costs including 3 to 4 million fewer jobs, $4,022 to $6,752 in lost household income, an annual hit to GDP of between $631 billion and $669 billion, and higher energy prices — 60 percent to 144 percent higher for gasoline and 77 percent to 129 percent higher for electricity. From "Bad Times for Green Schemes":
But these costs are not unfortunate side effects of the bill; they are intended effects. The bill’s key regulatory scheme is called “cap and trade,” which is a complicated, indirect way of levying an energy tax. Instead of charging a set amount for carbon-dioxide emissions, the government would sell a fixed number of permits, with prices set at auction and then determined by trading on Wall Street. This has all the costs of a tax, with price uncertainty and administrative costs thrown in.
Al Gore acknowledged that the House-sponsored energy tax of 1993, which he championed as vice president, contributed to Democratic congressional defeats. Yet while the cap-and-trade scheme helps hide the tax from voters, its purpose remains the same: Make energy much more expensive so that people use less of it.
Meanwhile, cap-and-trade has failed in Europe to achieve its goals, and even if successful, does anyone seriously believe such a program would do anything to curb supposed global warming?
Better to encourage the prosperity that allows the developed world to afford to address the environment, Kerpen argues.
Some 26 years later, a trio of high-school kids busked their own version, featuring a standing bass, a harp, and, what is that instrument? A Fender mini? Anyway, an amusing performance by The Wrong Trousers. (Not Roy Pearson's, we hope.)
A new analysis out by the Tax Foundation, "Tax Freedom Day® to Arrive April 23 in 2008." Subhed: America Will Work Three Days Less to Pay Taxes in 2008 than in 2007; Stimulus Rebates Push Date of Celebration Up
This is the most downbeat thing I read today. From the Wall Street Journal:
"We have to accept that this is no longer a nation of 4% real economic growth. This is a mature nation that no longer has a strong manufacturing base," says Steve Leuthold, chairman of Leuthold Weeden Research in Minneapolis.
My take: The last time I heard this talk was back in the mid-'90s, right before the economy turned on the jets. Back then, the common wisdom was that the economy could grow no faster than 2.5 percent a year or so. Here is a bit from a 1996 New York Times story on the topic:
History and circumstance, in sum, have locked the United States into a level of economic growth that, measured against expectations raised by the 1996 Presidential campaign, is politically unacceptable. "It might be good for our politics if some candidates acknowledged this," said William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and a Republican strategist, addressing an issue that most politicians don't, in public.
I might buy into this theory today if it looked to me that the U.S. economy was already optimized for speed. But it clearly isn't, not with the second-highest corporate tax rate in the world, for instance, or a healthcare system that is a terrible burden on employers. Now is no time to give up on growth.
Why is the Colombian agreement such a big deal for the White House? If Colombia were a state, given the size of its economy, it would just be Iowa. Take a look at Caterpillar. If you talk to Jim Owens, the CEO of Caterpillar, he will tell you that the Peru and Colombia markets combined are bigger for Caterpillar than either the Japanese market or the German market or the U.K. market. And why is that? You've got a lot of extractive industries in that region. But that's real money, and that's U.S. jobs.
If the agreement levels the playing field between the two nations, why is there so much criticism of it? Good question. Certainly not because of the substance. It was probably best expressed by [House Ways and Means Committee] Chairman [Charles] Rangel, who said, "It's not the substance on the ground—it's the politics in the air." Anyone who has looked at this agreement knows that by any definition it is in the U.S. national interest. It is in our economic and commercial interest. It is in our national security interest. It is in our geopolitical interest. It is a win-win for both the U.S. and Colombia. I mean, there is no rational explanation for any member of Congress to vote "No." This agreement is virtually identical to the Peru agreement, which was approved by an overwhelming bipartisan majority.
Could this be a national campaign theme being tested on the regional circuit? Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, in an economic address Wednesday:
“We need a stimulus package that generates pay checks, not a single check,” Gregoire said. “We need a stimulus package that rebuilds our creaking infrastructure and makes our economy stronger.”
The governor is asking the White House and Congress to invest in jobs that pay family wages and improve our communities at the same time by financing “ready-to-go-projects” throughout the state and country.
In Washington alone there are 156 water and sewer projects worth more than $350 million, and 29 statewide transportation projects that would cost $75 million. All of these projects have gone through the design and environmental review process and could begin construction within weeks.
Deja vu. Public works spending -- $6 billion worth -- was a major component of President Bill Clinton's first economic stimulus bill in 1993. The legislation was blocked by a Senate Republican filibuster and got the Clinton Administration off to a rocky start.
ColorCraft is a small, thriving business that will benefit from the stimulus package that the Congress passed earlier this year. It will benefit from it because if they make -- if Jim decides to purchase software or machinery, there is a tax incentive to encourage him to do so. He's made the decision to do so, and his company will be encouraged to do so through the tax code.
And that's important because when he buys the machine, or when he buys software, somebody has to manufacture that. Therefore, there is a direct link between the stimulus package and jobs. As well -- we talked about this earlier -- a lot of the folks who work here at ColorCraft are going to get a check in the second week of May, as part of the economic, pro-growth stimulus package.
The NAM is a co-signer with many, many companies and business and agriculture groups to a letter urging Congress to live up to the U.S. commitment to enact a cross-border trucking pilot program with Mexico. It's a good letter.
Prior to implementation of the pilot program, the United States restricted Mexican trucks entering the United States. In 2001, a NAFTA dispute-settlement panel unanimously ruled that the blanket exclusion of Mexican trucking firms violated U.S. obligations under the NAFTA. The ruling gave Mexico the right to retaliate against U.S. products entering Mexico. It is estimated Mexican retaliation against U.S. products could be as much as $2 billion per year. Fortunately, Mexico refrained from retaliation. However, if the pilot trucking program is blocked, we expect Mexico to exercise its right to retaliate. Retaliation of this magnitude could wipe out a broad swath of U.S. exports to Mexico and related U.S. jobs.
Although agricultural interests would be most prominently affected, the harm from Mexican retaliation could also be significant.
Mexico is an important export market for many U.S. businesses and manufacturers. For example, Mexico is one of the largest export markets for consumer electronics (CE) products produced in the United States. The CE industry is poised to be negatively affected by any retaliation. Additionally, Mexico is by far the largest market for U.S.-made yarn and fabric (textiles). Almost $3 billion worth of U.S. textiles were exported to Mexico in 2007. Textile exports could be jeopardized by the Mexican retaliation as well as by lack of cross border trucking.
And shouldn't the United States live up to its agreements?
P.S. The Superior Court judge said the trial would take about three weeks. More than 100 potential jurors were questioned over two days, and the list of potential witnesses was mindnumbing. Would have been interesting..."Web of Intrigue in D.C. Murders."
Bush will be back in Virginia this morning for a briefing at the Pentagon. From there, he will travel to Sterling for a visit to ColorCraft of Virginia. The stop at the commercial printer is meant to illustrate in part the importance of Bush's economic stimulus package to small businesses, according to James Mayes, the president of the company, which employs 66 full-time workers.
Mayes said ColorCraft produces invitations, pamphlets and fliers for a number of government agencies including the Defense and Agriculture departments.
He said that he would not presume to ask Bush whether the family had decided on a printer for Jenna Bush's wedding invitations.
"I will ask of course how Mrs. Bush is," he said. "She's everybody's favorite."
An outstanding, great, great member of the National Association of Manufacturers, we add. Colorcraft, that is. Not Mrs. Bush.
Clinton says her package would also involve a form of "tort reform" to protect mortgage companies against lawsuits for restructuring loan terms.
We'll delve into this later. Wonder if the proposal would include all those banks being sued by Cleveland under public nuisance laws for securitizing sub-prime mortages.
As a general principle, we believe in the transitive property of tort reform. If it's justifiable in one heavily litigated area, then it's justifiable in others.
NRG Energy will form a new business with Toshiba Corp. to develop nuclear power projects in the U.S., including construction of the two new reactors planned for the existing South Texas Project plant near Bay City.
The new venture, called Nuclear Innovation North America, will help clear technical issues that led the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to slow down its review of NRG's application for the two new reactors, NRG said.
Toshiba will be the prime contractor on all of the projects and will invest $300 million in the venture over the next six years for a 12 percent equity ownership.
Business secretary John Hutton is to call for a "significant expansion" in Britain's nuclear power industry.
In a speech to the Unite trade union, he argues the industry should go beyond replacing its 23 ageing reactors, which provide 20% of the UK's electricity.
He will call for the creation of a £20bn industry with 100,000 new jobs - making the UK "the gateway to a new nuclear renaissance across Europe".
It comes as the President of France - a world nuclear leader - visits the UK.
AES, a worldwide power-plant developer based in Arlington, announced yesterday that it will partner with private-equity firm Riverstone Holdings to invest up to $1 billion in solar energy projects around the world.
The joint venture, AES Solar, plans to create solar-energy farms by covering fields with rows of photovoltaic panels to convert sunlight into electricity.
In this election year, Americans will hear a lot about taxes. Candidates for everything from President to village alderman will present their plans on who should pay and how much. Yet in the political frenzy, one type of tax will almost certainly be overlooked: the hidden tax of regulation. The federal government alone enforces thousands of pages of regulations that impose a burden of some $1.1 trillion—an amount that is comparable to total federal income tax receipts.
And the cost of regulation is getting higher. Despite the claims of critics—and some supporters—of the Bush Administration, net regulatory burdens have increased in the years since George W. Bush assumed the presidency. Since 2001, the federal government has imposed almost $30 billion in new regulatory costs on Americans. About $11 billion was imposed in fiscal year (FY) 2007 alone.
Even more are on the way. Historically, the amount of regulatory activity surges dramatically in the last year of a presidential Administration, whether Republican or Democrat, as regulators, freed from normal political constraints, clean off their desks. A similar surge looks likely for the final year of the Bush Administration unless the President and other policymakers keep a tight hand on the regulatory leash.
Thursday morning I read a report from the Tax Foundation in which Delaware now ranks as the most expensive state government in the contiguous 48 states. We spend 18 percent more per household than New Jersey, 47 percent more than Maryland, 52 percent more than Pennsylvania and 70 percent more than Virginia. If you care about this state like I do, that has to hit you dead in the heart. Our families and businesses are paying for gold-plated state government and we're simply not getting our money's worth. Not in our schools, not in our roads, not in job creation.
It has taken almost nine years, but the extraordinary federal investigation that last week claimed 72-year-old Melvyn Weiss - the proud, long-defiant dean of the class-action securities bar - has now erased an entire masthead of name partners in what was once America's most feared law firm.
Under an agreement filed late last week, Weiss, who was indicted last September, has agreed to plead guilty to racketeering as part of a 25-year scheme to pay kickbacks to class-action plaintiffs; he faces a 33-month prison term and will pay $10 million to the government. And with that, Milberg Weiss - the firm that Weiss co-founded and ran for decades with an iron hand - announced that it would reduce its name to Milberg LLP.
From The New York Post, "Lawyers Gone Wild," about the predations of Melvyn Weiss, Milberg-Weiss and the plaintiff's bar:
The saddest part about the injury Weiss caused is that it's become permanently ingrained in the system - think "litigation lotto."
As Neil Minow of Corporate Library told The New York Times, kickback schemes like the one he used no longer are necessary: "Because of what he accomplished, lawyers do not need to scrounge for plaintiffs."
BOISE, Idaho -- Companies are racing to provide radioactive fuel for America's nuclear renaissance, and they're powering debate along the way.
Even as the government continues to oppose Iran's efforts to enrich uranium for power plants, projects to do just that are under way in this country. General Electric Co. and USEC Inc., along with European rivals Urenco Ltd. and Areva Inc., are pushing billions worth of new U.S. enrichment plants or technology so they don't miss the new uranium boom.
Opponents including the Union of Concerned Scientists fear that sends the wrong message to countries like Iran. The group argues that it's unclear that the U.S. really needs new facilities when it could just import nuclear fuel.
Two points:
What a false equivalence. The United States should not be enriching uranium for peaceful use because a totalitarian, terrorist-supporting enemy of our country may misinterpret the signals and want to do the same?
If you ever, EVER see the Union of Concerned Scientists arguing for policies based on "energy security" or "energy independence," don't believe them. The United States imports 85 percent of its enriched uranium for nuclear power generation, 40 percent from Russia under a program due to end in 2013. And this "concerned" environmentalist group apparently thinks that's just fine.
The story focuses on developments in Idaho, with Areva playing a significant role in addressing U.S. energy needs through domestic production. Now that's real energy security.
Penguin Books used the success of "There Will Be Blood" to reissue the 1927 novel upon which the movie was looselylooselylooselyloosely based, Upton Sinclair's "Oil!" And surprise...It's a very good book.
Given Sinclair's politics, we expected a mixture of screed, agitprop and socialist realism. In some passages, it is (especially the heavy-handed ending). But Sinclair also essays a clever satire* of the goings-on of the 1920s, with sly, fictionalized descriptions of the Teapot Dome Scandal, Aimee Semple Mcpherson, Hollywood socialites, spiritualism, college athletics, labor and radical politics, and of course, the oil industry. Sinclair's willingness to take shots at all sides and his accurate eye for descriptive detail make it an entertaining read. For example:
With these young Socialists, as with the old ones, it was right wing versus left; everybody argued tactics, and got tremendously excited. The Communists also had an organization, the Young Workers' League, and the two rivals carried on sniping operations; sometimes they held formal debates, and young people would jump and down in their seats and carry on the controversy in their homes and working places for weeks afterwards. It was Moscow versus Amsterdam, the Third International versus the Second, the "reds" against the "pinks," as the mild Socialists were known.
If anything, it reminds us of Tom Wolfe's "The Bonfire of the Vanities," the best satire of the '80s, with the early California oil industry taking the role of investment banking.
* Now, it's also possible that Sinclair was trying to tell the story straight and his writing now appears humorous just because sensibilities have changed. Don't think so, but it's possible.
The business groups' brief in support of the Bonanza coal-fired power plant in Utah has elicited some news coverage, which we do welcome. The Sierra Club is attempting to twist and turn Clean Air Act regulations into an all-purpose tool to control carbon dioxide emissions, which, if affirmed, would vastly expand the federal government's authority over construction permits for new structures. The more attention the environmentalists' case receives, the more its excesses will be revealed. (Earlier post here.)
The Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital blog covers the issue here. AP has a broadcast story available here.
Last fall, House Oversight Chairman Henry Waxman was indignant and berated EPA officials (sorry for the boilerplate) for granting the permits to allow the coal-powered plant, claiming the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA compelled the agency to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. No matter that the court's ruling dealt specifically with vehicle emissions, not stationary facilities, which fall under an entirely different section of the law. Or that the court said the EPA had the authority to regulate C02 from mobile sources, not that it MUST regulate.
It strikes us as strange that a representative of the policymaking branch of government would be so eager to surrender so much authority over U.S. economic activities to federal regulators. If the Sierra Club wins its argument, we'll see the EPA in charge of construction permits for things like big-box stores or new hospitals, federalizing local decision making. The result will be expensive, inflexible, and expensive.
Governor Schwarzenegger vetoes the Service Employees International Union and AFSCME's legislative effort (SB 867) allowing collective bargaining by state-subsidized family care workers, with a simple veto message:
Given California's significant budget challenge, I cannot consider bills that would add significant fiscal pressures to the State's structural budget deficit.
The politically most justifiable explanation given California's budget mess, but we hope there was more behind its rejection. As we noted earlier, the bill would have eliminated secret-ballot elections and allowed recognition of unions via card check, where SEIU and AFSCME organizers would have gone to individual workers and said, "Sign up. No, really. Sign up. It's a good thing to sign up. Really. We mean it." It was part of labor's creeping card-check campaign leading up to another vote in 2009 on the federal Employee Free Choice Act.
The National Association of Manufacturers has joined the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others in opposing an effort by the Sierra Club to dramatically expand the regulatory power of the Environmental Protection Agency over facilities that emit carbon dioxide. As our news release explains, we filed a brief with the EPA's Environmental Appeals Board supporting the issues of a construction permit to the Bonanza coal-fired power plant in Utah. The case is In re: Deseret Power Cooperative (PSD Appeal No. 07-03).
Environmentalists want to use the permitting process as a way to prevent new power plant construction, even when the Clean Air Act never envisioned its application against carbon dioxide emissions. And power plants are stationary sources, not mobile ones like automobiles that were at issue in Massachusetts v. EPA. As the NAM's Quentin Riegel argues:
Big-box stores, schools, fast-food restaurants – the number and type of facilities requiring EPA permits would explode if the Sierra Club gets its way. Even slight changes to these facilities or plans for new structures would require Clean Air Act pre-construction permits under the ‘Prevention of Significant Deterioration’ program.
Also on our brief (which is available here) are the American Chemistry Council, the American Royalty Council, the National Oilseed Processors Assocaition, and the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association.
Separately, free market groups last week also entered into the fray. The Competitive Enterprise Institute sent out a news release linking to the amicus brief from the critics of regulatory overreach. CEI Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis cut to the chase, calling the Sierra Club's petition preposterous.
The issue in Mass. v. EPA was whether EPA had to regulate CO2 emissions from new motor vehicles, under Section 202, a provision dealing solely with mobile source emissions. The Court specifically said it was not ordering EPA to establish new tailpipe standards, nor even that EPA had to issue or deny an endangerment finding regarding CO2, only that EPA's action or inaction must be grounded in the statute. In no way, shape, or form, did the Court tell EPA it had to regulate CO2 emissions from stationary sources, such as the Bonanza power plant.
Employees and employers are getting squeezed by the price of health care. The struggle to control health costs is viewed as crucial to improving wages and living standards for working Americans. Employers are paying more for health care and other benefits, leaving less money for pay increases. Benefits now devour 30.2 percent of employers' compensation costs, with the remaining money going to wages, the Labor Department reported this month. That is up from 27.4 percent in 2000.
The NAM's Jeri Gillespie is quoted.
Nearly nine out of 10 firms that responded to a National Association of Manufacturers survey last year named the cost of health insurance as one of their top-three worries -- ranking it higher than government regulation, competition from imports or finding qualified employees.
An increasing number of companies are trying to control costs by promoting employee wellness campaigns and pushing insurance companies and health providers for more details about their operations.
"Certainly, it is frustrating for the benefit managers and the budgeters," said Jeri Gillespie, vice president for human resources policy at NAM. "They say, 'my pot is only so big every year and our health-care costs are rising.' "
From Dan Pero of the American Justice Partnership at the blog, American Courthouse.
[Melvyn] Weiss and [William] Lerach conspired to provide cash kickbacks to plaintiff/frontmen in an effort to seize control of mega class actions and win huge fees in 150 cases over 20 years.
Prosecutors say these illegal kickbacks helped the firm reap at least $216 million in legal fees. Milberg Weiss has taken in more than $1 billion in total legal fees by dragging American companies into court.
Companies have paid more than $45 billion in damages because of Milberg Weiss cases – including $600 million from Lucent Technologies and $460 million from Raytheon.
That’s $45 billion that did NOT go into medical research … $45 billion that did NOT go toward creating new jobs … $45 billion that did NOT build a single factory.
The only people that benefited were two corrupt trial lawyers and their frontmen.
Mr. Weiss and his partners made their careers, and their fortunes, casting those they were suing — insurance and tobacco executives, Swiss bankers — as crooks. Some of them may have been, though many were not. Now these lawyers are admitting to the court that they are crooks, too. From where we sit, what should be illegal is not paying plaintiffs, but trial lawyers exacting enormous costs on the economy, and winning enormous fees, by launching actions that undermine the notion of individual responsibility. As so often is the case, the scandal isn't what's illegal, but what's legal.
Prosecutors can do their best to root out illegal behavior, as they have in this case. Congress has already acted to reform the class-action system from the "first-to-file" system that engendered the Milberg Weiss abuses. But until Congress and the state legislatures act further to reform the civil litigation system, the costs of Weiss's career will be borne by all of us.
Before he antes up further resistance to reasonable tort reform in Oklahoma, Gov. Brad Henry ought to consider that the real beneficiaries of the tort tax aren't the little people he seeks to protect from damage caps but the Dickie Scruggs of the world.
Marc Monseau, J&J’s director of corporate communications, says jnjbtw.com helps the company connect with everyone from employees to suppliers while discussing regulatory and other ticklish issues in a candid fashion. It can even be used to settle scores.
“Everyone else is talking about our company, so why can’t we?” Monseau says on the site. “I will try to find a voice that often gets lost in formal communications.”
MALMSTROM AIR FORCE BASE, Mont. (AP) - On a wind-swept air base near the Missouri River, the Air Force has launched an ambitious plan to wean itself from foreign oil by turning to a new and unlikely source: coal.
The Air Force wants to build at its Malmstrom base in central Montana the first piece of what it hopes will be a nationwide network of facilities that would convert domestic coal into cleaner-burning synthetic fuel.
Air Force officials said the plants could help neutralize a national security threat by tapping into the country's abundant coal reserves. And by offering itself as a partner in the Malmstrom plant, the Air Force hopes to prod Wall Street investors - nervous over coal's role in climate change - to sink money into similar plants nationwide.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced a one-day strike against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, calling for a “No Peace No Work Holiday” to take place May 1. They are calling on the AFL-CIO, the Change to Win Coalition, and other unions to do the same. This is a major development for both the labor movement and antiwar movement in the U.S.
The call was first put forward by ILWU Local 10 at a recent West Coast Caucus and was resisted by the ILWU’s top leadership. But rank-and-file support for the call to action pushed it through, with only 3 out of 100 delegates voting against it.
Rank-and-file delegates, that is. If you're a rank-and-file West Coast dockworker who supports the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, you're stuck; you lose a day's pay because the ILWU is more interested in making an anti-war point than representing its members. But then, so many unions these days are putting a political or "progressive" agenda ahead of actual worker representation.
A new black gold rush is under way, this time in North Dakota. The potential payoff is huge -- up to 100 billion barrels of oil. That’s twice the size of Alaska’s reserves and potentially enough to meet all U.S. oil needs for two decades.
Until now, the obstacles to production seemed overwhelming. The crude oil is locked away in rocks that are buried miles underground in the Bakken Play, a field that stretches into Montana and Saskatchewan, Canada.
But times have changed. High oil prices and new technology make it worth the effort. Computer analysis and remote sensing systems, plus smart drills that can probe horizontally or snake left and right, vastly improve the odds of locating new pools and putting them into production.
Using the horizontal drilling technology, some companies have recently begun drilling under Lake Sakakawea, the vast Missouri River reservoir behind Garrison Dam. A real estate manager with the Corps of Engineers reports nearly half his time is spent taking inquiries from oil companies.
Prices cycles have caused economic disruption in the state in the past. North Dakota lost 50,000 people after the last oil boom went bust in the '80s (coinciding with the drought and farm crisis), but as Kiplinger's suggests, it's hard to see oil dropping back to the $10 a barrel level.
Environmental opposition to the oil industry is relatively muted in North Dakota, with the most vocal outfit being the Dakota Resource Council. But with 56 rigs drilling in the state, you can bet there will be more criticism, if only as a red flag for fundraising.
Congress remains on Easter recess this week, save for the thwart-the-President pro forma meetings of the Senate today and Thursday. The Senate and House return professionally formally on Monday, March 31st.
A Senate field hearing of some interest in Bismarck, N.D., on Wednesday: The Energy and Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Energy Oversight, will receive testimony on the challenges associated with rapid deployment of large-scale carbon capture and storage technologies. Details here.
Executive Branch: The President starts the week with the White House Easter Egg Roll and he ends it next Sunday tossing the ceremonial first pitch at the Nationals' opener (in the new stadium). In between, it's pretty quiet: Remarks on the GWOT in Dayton on Thursday, and White House meetings with Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Friday.
Tuesday morning there's a news conference on the Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports. Attending are Treasury Secretary Paulson, Labor Secretary Chao, HHS Secretary Leavitt and Commissioner of Social Security Michael J. Astrue. It's also a busy week in Denver. Tuesday DOT Secretary Peters promotes the cross-border trucking pilot program; Secretary Bodman on Friday attends the New Frontiers in Energy Summit.
Economic reports: February existing home sales today and the Conference Board's consumer confidence report for March on Tuesday. Labor releases February unemployment figures on Friday. From Brussels and the European Parliament, we learn: Jean-Claude Trichet. The ECB President's regular dialogue with the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee comes at a time on increasing concerns about the impact of the financial market crisis on the real economy. (Wednesday)
Well, that didn't take long. From the March 20th statement by Sanford Dumain, executive committee of the law firm formerly known as Milberg Weiss:
New York, New York – March 20, 2008, It is with deep disappointment that we have learned that Melvyn I. Weiss has engaged in misconduct and has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy charges in the Central District of California. Mr. Weiss is resigning from the Firm, which will change its name to Milberg LLP.
Above is the new, we're guessing temporary, logo at the Milberg law firm, formerly known as Milberg Weiss. (With a little Flash animation you can't see here.) The www.milbergweiss.com url takes you to www.milberg.com, which the firm has also owned for many years. The logo replaces ...
Above, then, is one version -- inside pages -- of the firm's logo that was on the website until Saturday. Other versions had a different color scheme but the same M/W symbol.
Back in the day, before the now convicted-felon William Lerach split off for California, the above was the logo for Milberg, Weiss, Bershad, Hynes & Lerach. The old .url was www.milberg.com.
Strange thing is, if you look up old Milberg-Weiss urls at web-caching sites like The Wayback Machine at www.archive.org, the new logo seems to have reached back into the past and replaced the old "MW" logo. For example, from 2004.
We're running low on factory tours, mini-documentaries, and other video looks at manufacturing the United States. However much we love old industrial films like the RCA corporate history of pre-1956 developments in television depicted here (and available here), we'd much rather profile modern manufacturing.
So if you have a produced DVD of manufacturing processes or a facility tour, please send them our way. Contact:
James Skelly
National Association of Manufacturers
Director, Broadcast & Multimedia Strategies
M: 202-281-6754
W: 202-637-3092
And credit for today's RCA industrial film goes to the Prelinger Archives, reached via Archive.org. Archive.org is a great site. Where else can you watch the 1964 movie adaptation of "I Am Legend," this one entitled, "The Last Man on Earth," starring Vincent Price.
Zach Scruggs, the son of powerful plaintiffs attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, has pleaded guilty to a federal felony charge that he was aware of but did not report that associates were inappropriately trying to influence a Mississippi judge. Here’s the early report from the Biloxi Sun-Herald. The AP (link not available) is also reporting the news. Click here for the plea agreement and here for the criminal information.
Zach Scruggs was originally charged along with his father and others of a more serious charge of conspiring to bribe Judge Henry Lackey for a favorable ruling in a dispute with other lawyers over $26.5 million in legal fees.
But on Friday, Zach Scruggs pleaded guilty to a lesser charge — called misprision of a felony. The crime is punishable by a prison term, though prosecutors are recommending probation. Zach Scruggs, 33, is the last of five defendants in the high-profile judicial bribery case to enter a guilty plea. His father pleaded guilty last week to conspiring to bribe a judge.
This plea never would have happened had his father, Dickie Scruggs, continued proclaiming his innocence. One presumes the prosecution overcharged in order to apply pressure.
TRENTON—New Jersey’s $1 million national advertising campaign to attract businesses to the state appears to be generating interest, but has not snagged any companies.
“Relocation is a very refined business and there are entities that work with nearly every major company,” says Gary Rose, chief of the state’s Office of Economic Growth. “In that world, we see our job is to get connected with intermediaries and make sure they are aware of our programs and offerings.”
Perhaps the potential Garden Staters start reading the news coverage like this story and then have second thoughts...
New Jersey Senate Health Committee Chair Joseph Vitale (D) on Monday announced a universal health coverage proposal that would require all residents to obtain health coverage within three years, the New York Times reports. About 1.4 million state residents are uninsured (Chen, New York Times, 3/18). ...[snip]According to Vitale, the second phase of the plan would cost an estimated $1 billion and eventually would be funded with savings from a reduction in charity care, as well as premiums from beneficiaries and other sources.
New Jersey is likely to soon join California and Washington in approving legislation requiring up to six weeks of leave to care for newborns, adopted children or sick family members. Workers receive a portion of their salary or wages, with coworkers providing the funds through new mandatory payroll deductions.
The Examiner newspaper in Washington, D.C., continues to do necessary and effective spadework in the fertile fields of the plaintiff's bar, reporting done under the rubric, "Lawyers Gone Wild."
Hillyer made good use of the National Association of Manufacturers' voting tallies going back to the 106th Congress, finding that Senators who voted more often against the NAM's preferred position on legal reform issues also received the largest contributions from Milberg Weiss attorneys.
Now, we don't suggest any direct cause-and-effect relationship between contributions and votes. Like-minded legislators and constituency groups support one another in many ways.
But we definitely think Milberg Weiss' activities are often unjust and anticompetitive. And as keen political observer Michael Barone says:
This is part of the whole trial lawyer orbit. On telecom immunity [in the national security wiretaps debate], they were voting to enrich their trial lawyer contributors — and if some of those trial lawyer contributors are actually under indictment, that makes it look even more fishy.
The Examiner's Thursday story on the campaign contributions to the presidential candidates -- Obama and Clinton -- is available here.
BTW, anyone is welcome to analyze and break down NAM voting records, the summaries of how members of Congress voted on key issues, those that directly affect the manufacturing economy. In the case of tort reform and many other issues, you have to go combine multiple years and their votes to develop an informative sample.
Good, tough editorial in today's Wall Street Journal, "Wiretaps and Blue Dogs," on the House's passage of its intelligence bill, meant only for political cover instead of legitimately providing for effective surveillance of foreign terrorist suspects:
In addition to leaving phone carriers exposed to billion-dollar lawsuits, the legislation strips away the "state secrets" privilege for any entity that cooperated with the U.S. intelligence community. What this does, essentially, is ensure that the dozens of suits already pending against carriers would, at the very least, reach the merit phase of litigation and possibly drag on for years. Such legal exposure makes it that much more difficult to gain private cooperation in national security emergencies going forward.
Another provision would create a new 9/11-style commission to investigate antiterror surveillance. Congressional committees already exist to perform this oversight, but no matter. The first 9/11 commission blamed everyone for not doing enough to fight terror. This commission would have as its main goal blaming the Bush Administration for trying to do too much.
By requiring prior court approval to gather foreign intelligence from foreign targets on foreign soil, the House measure would also further involve unelected judges in warfighting decisions. By the way, since when do foreign targets have a right to any court review under the U.S. Constitution?
The House-passed legislation may have served its narrow, political purpose for now. We haven't seen a lot of coverage of the issue from local media outlets this first week of the Easter recess.
One more week before Congress returns. Let's hope the House leadership is satisfied with the temporary cover and now agrees to serious discussion about what laws are really needed for effective surveillance of America's murderous enemies.
The Los Angeles Harbor Commission on Thursday unanimously approved a clean air plan requiring shipping companies to buy and maintain a modernized fleet of big rigs and employ thousands of independent truckers who currently operate under contract.
A spokesman for the American Trucking Assn. derided the plan as a "scheme to unionize port drivers" and vowed that his group would sue the port. Spokesman Curtis Whalen said the plan violates court rulings allowing the trucking industry unrestricted access to markets nationwide.
A profoundly cynical power play by the unions, using environmental regulations to drive out the little operator.
David Weigel of the libertarian Reason Magazine stopped by the Take Back America conference last week here in D.C., a gathering of labor-progressive usual suspects. Informative passage from Weigel's blog reports:
Last night I cracked beers with some members of the United Steelworkers who were funny and blunt about the election. "We needed to get rid of Hillary, and it looks like she's done," one said. I asked him about the chances of passing the Employee Free Choice Act (which would let people unionize by signing cards instead of holding elections) if a Democrat won the election. He looked at me like I was drooling. "If the sun comes up in the morning, we're passing card check."
A questioner (who works for the Social Security Administration) asks if EFCA can really be passed if the Democrats don't get 60 Senate seats. Mary Beth Maxwell points out that the Act got some Republican votes. But: "It's a beginning, the sea change moment that shows we can turn this around, we can secure this right for millions of workers."
The sea change moment: Eliminating secret ballots in the workplace.
How aspirational.
UPDATE (March 24, 9:30 a.m.) Jim Gray comments: "What is most interesting about the first blog comment is that the rationale given for eliminating the secret ballot is the same rationale that triggered the (original) creation of the secret ballot for NLRB elections!"
There is no one thing, no silver bullet, to quickly bring prices down. We need a broad strategy to help reduce prices, from increasing domestic energy production to developing alternative fuels and conservation.
Wamp urges building new domestic refinery capacity (a timely argument) and, as a supporter of the Tennessee Valley Administration, is an advocate for expanding nuclear energy. Bottom line:
In the short term, conservation is important. Any sound energy policy must both increase production and reduce consumption. Consumers are already adapting by improving efficiency and conservation. But the Department of Energy estimates that maintaining U.S. economic growth through 2025, even with aggressive conservation efforts, will require a 36 percent increase in energy supply. Without increasing domestic capacity, and until new technologies are readily available to consumers, we will continue to slog through the adverse economic impacts of high energy costs.
The Union County Commission's decision to re-zone land for an oil refinery was a big step forward for Hyperion Resources. But now groups on both sides of the issue are taking action on that decision....[snip]
But while the group supporting the refinery project was at the Union county courthouse Thursday to file petitions to refer the county commission's zoning decision to a public vote. The group opposing the project was there to file a lawsuit against those same commissioners.
Ed Cable with Save Union County says, "The planning and zoning commission, and the board of commissioners did not properly follow the Union county ordinance."
Actually, despite the usual manifestation of Not in My Backyard litigiousness, this is a generally positive development. Hyperion Resources saw sufficient profit potential to embark on a $10 billion refinery project -- got that? $10 billion! -- and the Union County Board of Commissioners voted 5-0 in support. Governor Rounds has said positive things about the project, and it's supporters who think the democratic petition process works in favor of the new plant.
Could the political and economic landscape be shifting, making new construction again possible? The last new oil refinery built in the United States was completed in 1976. The Marathon Ashland's Garyville, La., plant is now being expanded, the only way that new domestic capacity has been added in the last three decades.
Why No Congressional Oversight of Plaintiff's Bar?
Following yesterday agreement by Melvyn Weiss to plead guilty to conspiracy charges, the latest in a string of high-profile tort lawyers caught for their corrupt ways, a theme emerges...
In the wake of the felony admissions of Weiss and Lerach and last week's bribery plea by Dickie Scruggs, where are the cries in Congress to crack down on these wealthy wrongdoers who abused their positions of legal trust? Weiss's corner of the tort bar has enriched itself for decades on the backs of shareholders who took home a pittance while the lawyers became megamillionaires.
It is impossible not to wonder what else might have been false in Milberg Weiss cases. The answer to that question is critically important because Milberg Weiss pioneered the securities class-action suit and for decades has provided the template for other plaintiffs firms. And Lerach, who enters federal prison today, said he paid kickbacks because “everybody was paying plaintiffs.” Doesn’t anybody in Congress wonder about copycat crimes?
“There’s never a shortage of rhetorical outrage, hastily scheduled show hearings and promptly proposed reform legislation on Capitol Hill whenever executives of energy, pharmaceutical or insurance companies are accused of wrongdoing.
“But when it comes to rich, powerful plaintiffs’ lawyers committing crimes in order to rig our courts and make themselves even richer, Congress apparently sees no reason to get involved. That should make it clear that trial lawyers comprise one of Washington’s most powerful special interests, and the trial lawyers association should just own up to that obvious fact once and for all.
And from Shopfloor.org:
It is time for high-profile investigations and oversight hearings from Congress into the lawsuit industry, demanding accountability from these spoilers. Let's investigate their impact on the economy, the abusive model that Milberg-Weiss established, and the harm their predations do to the children. Make the witnesses take the Fifth, if it comes to that. At the very least, the public shaming will serve an educational and deterrent effect.
Big Oil, Big Pharma, Giant Multinationals, even Wall Street are buying candidates ad influence. They skirt campaign finance laws and find loopholes to ensure that they can give bigger contributions and thus gain more power over our nation’s health policies, energy laws, and lifesaving regulations that might put profits on the line.
A federal judge today dismissed Southfield lawyer Geoffrey Fieger's claim that he is the victim of a politically-motivated prosecution in last year's indictment on charges that he illegally contributed $127,000 to John Edwards' 2004 presidential campaign.
U.S. District Judge Paul Borman denied Fieger's request to dismiss the indictment in a one-page order. Borman said the case will go to trial on April 14. He said he would issue an opinion at a later date.
Claybrook's letter, by the way, makes a pitch for publically funded congressional campaigns.
So how does the Montana governor's office respond to questions about Thorning's remarks and the economic analysis?
"They've been denying climate change is happening for so long, and now they're trying anything they can to scare people," said Eric Stern, senior counselor to Schweitzer. "This is a petroleum industry front group that is literally like a cigarette company promoting a study that says smoking is good for you."
Senior counselor? Reads more like something a snot-nosed kid would say, to come back with an insult instead of acknowledging legitimate concerns.
What's so strange and irresponsible about the remark is that Montana is an energy producing state, and Gov. Brian Schweitzer fancies himself an advocate of coal. Many, many NAM member companies are involved in the creation of jobs and wealth in Montana -- with a significant presence in the energy sector -- and the governor's office just blows them off. It does a disservice to the state's citizens and a rational discussion of energy and environmental policy.
“I deeply regret my conduct and apologize to all those who have been affected, including all of the wonderful and extremely talented lawyers and other eemployees of the Firm, none of whom had any involvement in any wrongdoing. I believe that it is very important to preserve this unique legal resource for the benefit of victims of wrongdoing affecting the masses, who historically have been under-served in so many ways.”
LOS ANGELES – Becoming the fourth current or former partner of the law firm now known as Milberg Weiss to admit criminal conduct, Melvyn I. Weiss has agreed to plead guilty to a federal racketeering charge and acknowledge that he and others concealed secret payment arrangements that Milberg Weiss had with named plaintiffs in class-action lawsuits.
A plea agreement filed this morning calls for a sentence of between 18 months and 33 months, and the government expects that it will ask United States District Judge John F. Walter to impose the 33-month term after Weiss formally pleads guilty. In the plea agreement, Weiss agrees to forfeit $9.75 million in ill-gotten gains derived from the criminal enterprise and to pay a criminal fine of $250,000.
The House of Delegates yesterday gave preliminary approval to a slimmed-down version of Gov. Martin O'Malley's budget, voting down a Republican amendment to repeal the computer services tax through additional budget cuts.
But multiple efforts to scrap the unpopular levy are still under way in Annapolis, with some support building around the idea to tap the $400 million Transportation Trust Fund to pay for a repeal of the $200 million expansion of the sales tax to computer services.
See, if you let the roads deteriorate, then all the computer service businesses will find it hard to move to Delaware.
NEW YORK, March 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --Benjamin Brafman today announced that he has reached an agreement with prosecutors that would have Mr. Weiss plead guilty and thus avoid a trial of the indictment that is now scheduled for August 2008.
According to Brafman, Mr. Weiss will plead guilty to his limited participation in a criminal Conspiracy relating to allegations that he and other former Milberg Weiss attorneys agreed to share part of the firm's fees with certain individuals who were Plaintiffs in several of the thousands of Class Action lawsuits filed by the firm during its 40 year history. The Plea Agreement provides that Mr. Weiss may receive a sentence of from 18-33 months imprisonment, with the Court having the discretion to substitute a period of home confinement and/or community confinement for up to half of any prison sentence, should the Court conclude that a prison sentence is appropriate. Mr. Weiss has also agreed to pay a total of $10
million dollars in fines and forfeiture penalties.
According to Mr. Brafman, "It is important for the public and legal community to note that despite his plea, Mr. Weiss provided access to the Courts for millions of victims of corporate wrongdoing. Through a lifetime of legal work and public service, he has participated in important pro-bono, humanitarian and philanthropic efforts that have improved the quality of life for millions of citizens throughout the world. Accordingly, despite his participation in the criminal conduct he has today acknowledged, I am nevertheless hopeful and confident that the Court will recognize Mel Weiss to be one of the true legal giants of his generation and a consummate humanitarian whose contributions to the Bar and the world community have been nothing short of spectacular."
A prince among men! A giant who walks among mortals! A spectacular humanitarian around whom constellations circle!
It is with deep disappointment that we have learned that Melvyn I. Weiss has engaged in misconduct and has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy charges in the Central District of California. Mr. Weiss is resigning from the Firm, which will change its name to Milberg LLP.
Having previously believed former leaders' assurances of their innocence, the Firm is now seeking to find a fair and appropriate resolution of remaining issues so that we can continue our work on behalf of injured investors and consumers.
So Weiss was lying to his partners all the while?
Dumain also apologizes to all judges, lawyers, clients and class members.
Just a guess, but the percentage of science fiction readers -- and especially hard science fiction -- is probably higher in the manufacturing sector than the general economy.
So a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, who has died at the age of 90, is certainly well-placed, especially given his technological prescience. From John J. Miller in today's Wall Street Journal, "The Master of Science and Mysticism."
Among science-fiction buffs, he is routinely hailed as one of the postwar era's "Big Three," along with Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein.
There's an asteroid named for Asimov and a Martian crater on Mars for Heinlein -- each one a tribute to an author who inspired countless readers with fantastic yarns about rockets and aliens. Clarke shared their literary accomplishment (there's an asteroid named after him as well), but unlike Asimov and Heinlein his earliest achievements were in science rather than fiction.
In 1945, a dozen years before the launch of Sputnik, he published an article observing that artificial satellites in geosynchronous orbit could transform global communications. Today, a satellite that sits in a fixed position over the Earth is sometimes said to be in a Clarke Orbit. Its namesake had to spend much of the rest of his life listening to people say he should have patented the idea when he had the chance.
Big swings in the prices of coal and other commodities are common. But while the price of coal has slipped slightly in recent weeks, many analysts and companies are wondering whether high prices are here to stay. As increasing numbers of the world's poor join the middle classes, hooking up to electricity grids and buying up more manufactured goods, demand for coal grows. World consumption of coal has grown 30 percent in the past six years, twice as much as any other energy source. About two-thirds of the fuel supplies electricity plants, and just under a third heads to industrial users, mostly steel and concrete makers.
Meeting rising demand will prove difficult. To maintain its role as the world's producer of last resort, the United States will need to make major investments in mines, railways and ports.
"We think the current world markets have legs," said Thomas F. Hoffman, senior vice president of external affairs at Consol Energy, one of the biggest U.S. coal producers.
It's a heck of a story. Consider the trade angle: "The value of coal exports, which account for 2.5 percent of all U.S. exports, grew by 19 percent last year, to $4.1 billion, the National Mining Association said. An even bigger increase is expected this year."
New York Times. Washington Post. The TV networks should have the story on the evening news next week.
Melvyn Weiss, the onetime powerhouse shareholders lawyer, has struck a deal to agree to plead guilty in a case alleging improper kickbacks, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
His lawyer declined to comment. The terms of the deal, which could be announced as early as today, weren't known.
Mr. Weiss, 72, was indicted in September on charges in connection with his role in an alleged scheme at his law firm, now known as Milberg Weiss LLP, to pay millions of dollars in kickbacks to clients in exchange for their being at the ready to serve as name plaintiffs in lucrative shareholder class-action cases. He was charged with four counts and could have faced 40 years in federal prison if convicted on all of them in a trial.
A deal would mark one of the final chapters in a long-running probe into the high-profile law firm.
Melvyn Weiss. William Lerach. Dickie Scruggs. Guilty, guilty, guilty.
We look forward to all the materials that will have to be rewritten at Milberg-Weiss. Start here:
Milberg Weiss LLP, founded in 1965, is one of the most respected and effective plaintiff law firm in the United States. The firm’s unparalleled resources place it in a unique position to vigorously pursue all types of corporate wrongdoing.
The guilty pleas of a namesake partner, Weiss, and its former giant of class-action lawsuits, Bill Lerach, also place it in a unique position, don't you think?
UPDATE (11:14 a.m.): Definitely a Wall Street Journal scoop. Not much coverage otherwise. From Reuters:
NEW YORK, March 20 (Reuters) - A lawyer representing U.S. class-action attorney Melvyn Weiss said on Thursday that a statement would be issued later in the day following a report that Weiss had reached a deal to agree to plead guilty in a criminal case.
Weiss's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, provided no additional details.
The firm formerly known as Milberg Weiss Bershad & Shulman LLP, then Milberg Weiss Bershad LLP, then later Milberg Weiss LLP, will now be known just as Milberg LLP. According to a Milberg insider, the name change was announced at a staff meeting this morning, at which Mel Weiss gave a speech talking about the accomplishments of the firm. The audience reportedly applauded. A spokeswoman for the firm didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
We've been looking off and on for a reaction to Mississippi trial lawyer Dickie Scruggs' guilty plea from John Grisham, the suspense author, lawyer and friend to Scruggs and the plaintiff's bar. Nothing on his website we see, nothing immediate from searching Google News, and the Wall Street Journal's law blog last talked to him on the subject in December, when Grisham said:
When you know Dickie and how successful he has been you could not believe he would be involved in such a boneheaded bribery scam that is not in the least bit sophisticated. I don’t believe it. I hope it’s all proven to be wrong.
We were prompted to make another look by a column in today's Wall Street Journal on the preference of Grisham and his compadres with the plaintiff's bar for unelected judges, aka "merit selection" via a supposedly unbiased commission. From "Grisham's Judicial Appeal":
Fans of the judicial commission approach claim that it removes the selection process from the hands of "special interests." At the end of the day, however, the problem isn't the power of business groups, like the fictional chemical company in his novel. Trial lawyers in each state are the ones with the financial and organization incentive to work year-in and year-out to shape the local judiciary to their liking.
Which is another thing we don't see Grisham commenting on.
We've obviously been all wrong around here with our PR strategy. Forget the press releases, the news conferences, the phone calls and web updates.
We should have been blocking traffic at intersections, throwing red paint at buildings, disrupting government business, even dressing up in silly costumes. More crimes, less schmoozing.
After all, look at all the uncritical coverage the anti-war protesters received in this morning's Washington Post. A front page photo, and then a full package on the front of the Metro section, with a jump inside: A photo spread with seven photos (!) and more than 800 words of reporting, with only one negative quote, that of an inconvenienced commuter. And the reporters didn't even mention the more outrageous rhetoric, the demands for impeaching Bush and Cheney, the cursing.
We have to change our strategy. Where's the red paint?
The Washington Post updates on the anti-America, anti-capitalism, anti-war protests and street blockages, sticking it to commuters.
There was some street theater -- eight women in white death masks and black robes sat for nearly an hour in the intersection of 17th and L streets NW until police dragged them away. But even participants said they were disappointed at the low turnout.
A very good forum on the innovation (OK, the NAM helped sponsor the event) in Greenville, Mich., with U.S. Rep. Dave Camp talking about the R&D tax credit -- an issue he's passionate about. From The Daily News:
GREENVILLE - A large part of the region's economic future rests on United Solar Ovonic.
Meanwhile, the Auburn Hills-based company's future largely rests on its ability to conduct continual research and development of more advanced products.
Nancy Bacon, executive vice president of United Solar Ovonic's parent company, Energy Conversion Devices Inc. (ECD) in Rochester Hills, called research and development "the foundation of this company" Tuesday.
Hence the focus on the tax credit, which expired AGAIN last year. Rep. Camp and Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI) have introduced a bill, H.R. 2138, to make the credit permanent.
Good observation as well from Gordon Stauffer, founder, president and CEO of Northland Corp. in Greenville: "Lapsing this tax credit has been disruptive... Not knowing what to expect has been difficult to deal with. This is as important to Michigan as anywhere else."
And new unemployment figures show another 1,700 jobs lost in February, including trade, transportation and utilities (-2,800), manufacturing (-1,100), and construction (-500).
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal on June 20, 2007, the federal Department of Labor estimates that paid family leave programs cost employers an average of $1.76 per hour per full time employee, or 6.8% of total compensation. Using the above hourly estimate, a company with just ten full-time employees would see an increase of approximately $36,608.
Now, If We Convert the Tata Nano to Run on Coal...
Soaring international demand for energy is driving up U.S. prices of coal, reports The New York Times in a good big picture piece, "An Export in Solid Supply."
For coal producers, the new demand abroad is good news at a time when coal is under political attack at home. More than 50 proposed coal-fired power plants were delayed or canceled over the last year because of concerns over greenhouse gas emissions.
“This export boom right now is the difference between slow growth in our markets and hyper-expansion in our markets,” said Gregory H. Boyce, chairman and chief executive of Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private coal company. “You have two billion-plus people looking for a better standard of living. The world is energy-short and the U.S. coal sector is beginning to fill that gap.”
So even if the United States hogties its own energy production by restricting carbon dioxide emissions, the rest of the world will continue to expand its own coal consumption? Well, what do you know.
Highlight: An amazing photo of an 80-foot-high wall of coal in the Power River Basin of Wyoming.
A report from Don Brunnell, President of the Association of Washington Business, on an NAM-sponsored dialogue with Rep. Adam Smith, a Democrat whose district covers the southern part of the Puget Sound area.
Congressman Adam Smith (D-Wash-9) told a small group of business leaders at Weyerhauser Co. headquarters that he is an unabashed supporter of free and open trade which often gets him crosswise with some of his Democrat colleagues in Congress. According to Smith, America needs to find its niche and innovate. We have to realize that our competition and markets are global today and we cannot isolate ourselves by throwing up tariff and other barriers.
Likewise, Smith told the group, which included AWB President Don Brunell, that immigration reform is necessary as well. We need to make sure we can fill the positions the private sector needs to compete. Homeland security is important, but we have jobs going begging and too often crops are left to rot in the fields and orchards because we have a shortage of agricultural workers. We need workers to fill jobs that are going begging today.
On energy, Smith said it may be time to look at nuclear energy again. With all of the problems associated with fossil fuels and renewables like wind, solar and biomass, multiple strategies - including energy conservation - are important if the Northwest is to have low cost reliable electricity.
Smith also touched on the need for worker training.
Bill Gates appeared before Congress again last week to make a simple point to simpler pols: The ridiculously low annual cap on H-1B visas for foreign professionals is undermining the ability of U.S. companies to compete in a global marketplace.
"Congress's failure to pass high-skill immigration reform has exacerbated an already grave situation," said the Microsoft chairman. "The current base cap of 65,000 H-1B visas is arbitrarily set and bears no relation to the U.S. economy's demand for skilled workers."
The Journal cites the recent studies by the National Foundation for American Policy which demonstrate the domestic jobs-creating power of employing foreign workers here through visas.
The preponderance of evidence continues to show that businesses are having difficulty filling skilled positions in the U.S. By blocking their access to foreign talent, Congress isn't protecting U.S. jobs but is providing incentives to outsource. If lawmakers can't bring themselves to eliminate the H-1B visa cap, they might at least raise it to a level that doesn't handicap U.S. companies.
Faced with the green-topian schemes to remake the U.S. economy, Henry Payne of The Detroit Newshas an inconvenient habit of looking at reality: While many push to cripple the U.S. economy by limiting emissions of carbon dioxide, the rest of the world is chosing prosperity instead.
Case in point, the new Tata Nano, a car for India's masses:
“The $2,500 Tata Nano is the kind of car upon which empires are built,” writes Detroit Free Press auto writer Mark Phelan this week. “The 122-inch-long Nano could be the first car a few hundred million people in the developing world dream about, and how many of them attain it. The Model T was a car like this. So was the Volkswagen Beetle. Their appeal and affordability put people around the world behind the wheel for the first time.”
In other words, India is on the cusp of an affordable auto revolution the U.S. and Europe experienced over a half century ago. And this in a country with ten times the population of the U.S. when Ford’s revolutionary car was introduced (15 million Model Ts were sold over its 20-year lifetime). Even before the Nano, vehicles in New Delhi — population 16.5 million — have increased five-fold in the last 20 years.
Followed by a boom in infrastructure building.
Payne concludes: "[The] Nano is a lesson that growing economies demand cheap energy, and — Goracle pipe dreams notwithstanding — the 21st century is on the cusp of an explosion in energy use."
A new analysis by the Tax Foundation's president, Scott Hodge, reports that U.S. states are taxing "job providers" at a higher rate than most any country in the world.
Counting the federal rate alone, the U.S. has the world's highest corporate tax rate, but including average sub-national rates (federal plus state in the U.S.), Japan edges out the U.S. for the highest-tax location (see table).
This new study breaks the tax down state-by-state, adding each state's corporate tax rate to the federal corporate tax rate. The results show that 25 states impose, when combined with the federal rate, a higher business tax rate than in any other nation. In fact:
25 states have a combined corporate tax rate higher than top-ranked Japan.
35 states have a combined corporate tax rate higher than third-ranked Germany.
46 states have a combined corporate tax rate higher than fourth-ranked Canada.
All 50 states have a combined corporate tax rate higher than fifth-ranked France.
"If federal lawmakers are serious about making the U.S. corporate tax system more competitive globally, they will have to partner with state officials to lower the nation's overall corporate tax burden," Hodge added. "Likewise, state officials should have a vested interest in cutting the federal corporate tax rate because there is only so much they can do to improve their own competitiveness. After all, even corporations in the three states that do not impose a major state-level corporate tax—Nevada, South Dakota, and Wyoming—still shoulder a higher corporate tax rate than France, and 25 other major countries, because of the 35 percent federal corporate rate."
Take a look at the chart. It's actually alarming, from a competitive standpoint.
For the full Fiscal Fact No. 119, please click here. It's excellent work.
Oh, It's a Full Day of Nonsense Here in Washington
Alas, we missed the opportunity to stand in solidarity with our comrades at the American Petroleum Institute, targeted for protests at 8 a.m. this morning because they caused war for blood for oil for imperialism for profiteers.
Of course Americans enjoy the constitutional rights to petition the government, associate freely, speak out, and opposition to the war in Iraq is a legitimate, widely held position. But that's not what today's marching, chanting and theater are about. Today's about holding the United States and the market economy up for ridicule, contempt and hate.
Having watched many of these D.C. rallies, protests and bang-a-pot-get-it-hot gatherings over the years, one thing that recurs -- and annoys -- is the failure of the media to capture how unhinged and anti-American most of the protesters are. Reporters seem to hunt out the rational, moderated-in-tone speakers, who are in fact the exception -- especially as the protests grow smaller and more radical. David Korn, a writer for The Nation, described the typical advocacy back in 2002:
FREE MUMIA. FREE THE CUBAN 5. FREE JAMIL AL-AMIN (that’s H. Rap Brown, the former Black Panther convicted in March of killing a sheriff’s deputy in 2000). And free Leonard Peltier. Also, defeat Zionism. And, while we’re at it, let’s bring the capitalist system to a halt.
9:30am - March of the Dead begins at the Women's Memorial at Arlington Cemetery
10:15am - Veterans ceremony with Buffy Saint-Marie in front of the American Indian Museum
11am - Public Gathering & Press Briefing at McPherson Square
12noon - Funk the War: Student Power Dance Party Against Empire, meet at Franklin Park, 14th & K NW
12:30pm - Die In at CAT, 1445 K St, with the Coalition for Justice and Accountability
1pm - War Profiteer of the Year Roving Award Ceremony
Student Power Dance Party, huh? That's a powerful message of persuasion there. Can we get a Student Power Dance Party for development of oil and natural gas in the Alaskan north slope?
We usually stop paying attention as soon as someone shouts, "No blood for oil." Unfortunately, if history is any guide, that kind of Marxist nonsense will get loads of media coverage today in Washington -- passive, unquestioning, even positive coverage. While the rest of America goes about its business, secure in our liberties and living in a time of unprecedented prosperity.
MR. FRATTO: And on Colombia specifically, we think it's critically important -- we think that we will be able to find accommodation with congressional leaders to get it done, and we think it's important enough to do that.
Q Follow-up on that. Nancy Pelosi said March 13th that you have to have -- they, Congress, has to have trade adjustment assistance action first before they would consider Colombia free trade. Is that what's being negotiated?
MR. FRATTO: They only think I'm going to say about that is we certainly want to have conversations with congressional leaders and Speaker Pelosi on trade adjustment assistance. We support trade adjustment assistance. We think it's important. We think it's important that it works, and that it's well funded, and that it does the job that it's intended to do, which is to help those affected by trade to be able to find other employment if they are adversely affected by trade.
According to the most recent data, you move more than 8 million tons of cargo each year. This cargo doesn't move itself. Somebody has to move it from port to port.
I'm sitting -- standing in front of people that are all part of the process, good, hard-working Americans. They're putting food on the table for their families because of trade.
You handle more than -- more automobiles than any American port.
I don't know if the people of Jacksonville understand that. Think about that, more automobiles are handled at this port than anywhere in the United States of America.
Last year, we worked out a bipartisan approach on a bill implementing a good free trade agreement with Peru, and it was a good bill. And it was one of those bills where people, when they step back from politics, realize it'd make good sense and overwhelmingly approved it. Both Republicans and Democrats voted for that, two of whom happen to be sitting right here.
The Colombia agreement is almost identical to the agreement with Peru, except that the Colombia agreement has even greater economic potential because Colombia has a larger GDP, and even greater national security importance because of Colombia's strategic location.
The lesson is clear: If Congress can find a way to vote on and improve the Peru agreement, there's no reason it can't do the same for Colombia.
Exactly so. The protections are the same, and as the President argues, the stakes are higher. Colombia is a strong ally of the United States, defending democracy in an unsettled region populated by the FARC terrorists and anti-American provocateurs like Hugo Chavez.
Arguments by U.S. trade opponents that Colombia has not done enough to prevent crimes and assassinations of union leaders have always struck as extraneous, thrown in to confuse the debate (and curry favor with big labor, the driving force in the anti-camp). Would denying Colombia the benefits of expanded trade with the United States improve its battle against the narco-terrorists and crime? As President Bush says succinctly:
If members of Congress truly want Colombia to make further progress, then it makes no sense to block the very measure that would make progress more likely.
Tops on the “impediments” list: a U.S. education system that’s not turning out appropriately qualified graduates for the workplace, the panel said.
“Education and work worlds too often are spinning in separate orbits,” said Emily DeRocco, president of the Manufacturing Institute. “As the boomers line up at the exit doors in our manufacturing plants, we find almost no young workers ready to replace them.”
She said government incentives, educators and parents need to redirect attention to the value of technology-based education, keyed to the needs of today’s workplace.
The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.
Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.
Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.
The NAM has filed its response brief in National Association of Manufacturers v. Taylor, the lawsuit challenging the intrusive disclosure provisions in the 2007 amendments to the Lobbying Disclosure Act. You can read a description of the suit here, and the brief is available as a .pdf file as well.
Much of the NAM response brief relates to the 1954 case, States v. Harriss, cited in amicus briefs by supporters of the existing lobbying law. From the NAM brief: "Although the Harriss Court upheld certain narrowly-construed reporting obligations, that decision simply does not speak to the intrusive and burdensome requirement challenged here."
The NAM felt compelled to litigate because the law undermines the First Amendment rights of the association and of our members to freely associate and to petition the government for redress of grievances. For more background, see this earlier post.
From the Baton Rouge Advocate, a story about the campaign of Don Cazayoux, a Democrat running in Louisiana's 6th Congressional District, holding a special election after the resignation of Richard Baker. Cazayoux (what a great Louisiana name) spoke at the AFL-CIO's state convention.
Cazayoux, a state representative, said he believes a strong union movement is vital for a strong economy.
He promised to support the Employee Free Choice Act of 2007, which backers say would amend the National Labor Relations Act to enable employees to form, join or assist labor organizations more efficiently and provide harsher penalties for unfair labor practices during organizing efforts.
The act passed through the U.S. House and is awaiting discussion in the U.S. Senate.
Not to pick on the reporter, who had a limited amount of space to work with and might have been new to the issue. And she did attribute the description of the Employee Free Choice Act, so it's not an inaccurate passage. (Except for the bit about it awaiting discussion in the Senate. H.R. 800 failed to gain cloture in the Senate last June, so it's dead for now.)
But it IS incomplete. Readers would be well served by learning what the bill actually does: It eliminates the secret ballot in the workplace, allowing unions to gain recognition through "card check," a process in which organizers collect employee signatures on cards. Employees lose the right to make their decisions in private, instead becoming subject to all sorts of immediate pressure and intimidation by organizers to sign the cards.
We think a large majority of the public will react with revulsion when they discover that the unions want to destroy the secret ballot. The unions probably think so too, which is why they rarely discuss the actually workings of card check in a general audience.
Speaking of the "Rich States, Poor States" economic rankings (see post below), we see that New Jersey comes in 43rd out of the 50 states. And apparently a lot of lawmakers are working to sink the state even lower.
The General Assembly last week passed by a 46-30 vote a bill mandating paid leave for employees, financed by a new payroll tax. The Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey issued a news release in reaction:
Paramus, New Jersey – The Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey (CIANJ) today criticized the New Jersey General Assembly for passing legislation that would make New Jersey only the second state with a paid leave mandate on virtually all companies. If it were to become law, A-873 would allow almost all workers to take up to six weeks of paid time off to care for a newborn or newly-adopted child or a sick family member.
The program would be funded through a tax increase on Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI) and a diversion of $25 million from that fund.
CIANJ opposes the measure, contending the bill would hamper NJ companies’ ability to compete, and provides another disincentive for organizations to locate to or expand within New Jersey. The Association noted companies will incur additional expense through hiring temporary staff or paying overtime to cover shifts lost while employees are out on leave. Unlike current unpaid leave laws, there is no exemption for small businesses.
“New Jersey’s job growth is the weakest in five years, yet the General Assembly has decided to impose another requirement unique to New Jersey companies,” said CIANJ President John Galandak. “Trenton should be doing all it can to help our state grow itself out of the current slump, not imposing a job-killing mandate.”
Delaware's economic development mavens must be grinning.
UPDATE (5:25 p.m.) NJBiz explains the legislative process more fully, saying the inability to move the bill last week means it could be May before a final vote occurs in the Senate. The additional time gives business owners and anyone interested in a strong New Jersey economy an opportunity to derail the legislation, which Gov. Jon Corzine has said he will sign.
Lawmakers' efforts to impose a new sales tax on the computer services industry may have permanently tarnished Maryland's reputation among some small-business owners there, raising the possibility that they will simply pack up and relocate across the border.
The Legislature in November voted to implement a tax that the computer industry never had to deal with. Even as hopes rose last week that the 6 percent tax will be repealed, the issue already has prompted some computer businesses to explore Delaware's offerings, fed up at last with high property taxes and government intrusion.
"We're feeling more and more like the state wants to run everything," said Duffy Thomas, who with brother Patrick makes up MidAtlantic Computer Connection in Willards, Md. "It doesn't really welcome the individual with rights."
Supporters of repealing the tax rallied in Annapolis last week, proclaiming "axe the tax." The Tech Council of Maryland issued a news release decrying the effects of the computer services tax.
Support is growing in the General Assembly for a plan to replace Maryland's new computer services tax with an income tax surcharge on top earners, suggesting that the coming weeks could become a reprise of the debate that nearly scuttled November's special legislative session.
Are lawmakers unaware of the mobility of businesses? Or employers? Of employees? According to "Rich States, Poor States," a report by Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore written for the American Legislative Exchange Council, Maryland ranked 32nd among the states in economic outlook, and that was BEFORE the tax increases. Delaware ranked 22nd. Virginia ranked sixth.
SB 867 (Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles) to unionize child care providers was sent to the Governor on March 11th. The bill authorizes family child care providers to form, join and participate in "provider organizations," for purposes of negotiating with state agencies. Specifically, a union such as the State Employees International (SEIU), would be considered a "provider organization" and they would negotiate with the State on behalf of the child care providers. This bill will hurt California’s competitiveness and will increase labor costs for California childcare providers, thereby reducing the pool of money available for subsidized childcare for working parents.
Furthermore, SB 867 sets a precedent for the use of "card check" as a method of unionization. "Card check" takes away an individual’s right to a private ballot when deciding whether or not to join a union by replacing the private ballot with a system that allows a union to organize if a majority of workers sign a card. Union organizers oversee the process and the workers’ votes are made public to the employer and employees. Workers are better protected from interference and intimidation by casting their vote privately with a secret ballot.
But in all cases, the basic fact remains: Card check eliminates secret-ballots in the workplace, replacing it with a system where union organizers use a public process to collect employee signatures. The process invites abuse and intimidation.
Governor Schwarzenegger has a pretty good record in support of business autonomy. Let's hope he continues it by vetoing SB 867.
Your March 2 Outlook article about the Iditarod dog-sled race ["Hot Dog! The Iditarod's Not as Cool as It Used to Be"] was an example of why understanding the debate about climate change is so hard.
Organizers did not have to truck snow into Anchorage for the start of the race because of lack of snow. They import it most every year because they want more snow on the streets for the sled runners than they normally leave after plowing the streets the same way any city does after it snows.
If you think it was warmer, talk to participants in this year's Yukon Quest dog-sled race, which started in Fairbanks when it was well below zero.
The eight Great Lakes states plus Ontario account for 30 per cent of North America's employment and output and a healthy 36 per cent of its manufacturing employment. Every day, about $900m worth of goods travels between Ontario and our Great Lakes partners. At the Detroit-Windsor gateway alone - the busiest in the world - $122.8bn worth of goods, 6.5m trucks and 6m cars cross each year. This has helped create an integrated Great Lakes economy where products are made - not on the Canadian side, or the American side, but together as a region.
For example, a part produced in Ohio could find its way into a car assembled in Ontario, which in turn could be shipped to Europe. Resources produced in Ontario can be sold in the US, turned into products and sold again in the Canadian market.
Meanwhile, Harvard economics prof Greg Mankiw takes another look at sentiment among economists and finds little change: A vast majority of all political stripes still support free trade. From The New York Times, "Beyond the Noise on Free Trade":
With the two political parties apparently divided on trade policy, you might expect those free-trade-loving economists to be predominantly Republicans. But that’s not the case. One reason is that economists are not single-issue voters. Like everyone else, they are divided over contentious issues like health policy, the Bush tax cuts and the war in Iraq.
BUT another reason is that many economists don’t really believe the populist rhetoric coming from the Clinton and Obama campaigns. They expect that once in office, either candidate would pursue a policy more like that of Mr. Clinton, who relied heavily on the advice of economic moderates like Mr. Summers and Robert E. Rubin, another former Treasury secretary. When reports surfaced recently of an Obama economic adviser telling the Canadian government to ignore his candidate’s anti-Nafta rhetoric, some people were appalled, but many Democratic economists I know were secretly relieved.
[The] United States remains the largest exporter in the world, selling $1.6 trillion in goods and services abroad last year — the fourth straight year of double-digit export growth, says Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. Boeing announced worldwide contracts for 85 more planes last week, bringing their total orders to nearly 900 aircraft.
NAFTA has been a driving force in that export growth. Closing the United States off from the global marketplace, or calling for a "timeout," is a job-killer. The jobs of the future will come more and more from selling our stuff to a growing world economy.
Manufacturing companies believe that without a rejuvenation of young workers, their futures are cloudy. Creating a worker pipeline is proving difficult, however, when too many young workers believe manufacturing jobs pay little or that too few job opportunities exist locally.
Having experienced limited results from two previous efforts to recruit manufacturing workers and to boost awareness of job opportunities, area manufacturers will launch a third program on April 1.
[Steve] Yencich, president of the Michigan Lodging and Tourism Association, told the House Tourism, Outdoor Recreation and Natural Resources Committee that the state should add a record $40 million to its tourism budget and, for the first time, promote winter recreation.
And he wasn't alone.
On two days' notice, 53 people from the tourism industry appeared to show their support before the committee, he said...
Funding would come from refinancing tobacco settlement bonds.
The $40 million would be used over two years for travel advertising. Another $20 million would be spent to promote business development under the legislation.
Some states decided to securitize the revenue streams that resulted from the tobacco company payments, with the bond revenues going to all sorts of spending. The GAO reports that between 2000 and 2005, the states spent 30 percent of the proceeds (payments and bond revenues) on health, 23 percent on budget shortfalls, 6 percent on infrastructure, and 5.5 percent on education.
Now tourism! So when you're snowmobiling up there on the UP, don't forget to stop for a moment and say a silent thanks to Dickie Scruggs.
And consider where the next round of class-action suits -- say, oh, against fatty foods -- may eventually take us.
The self-immolation by Gov. Eliot Spitzer may actually hurt the cause of tort reform in New York, at least with respect to medical malpractice. Spitzer, whose brother is a neurosurgeon, created a task force last year to recommend changes to state law to help rein in malpractice insurance premium increases (14 percent last year).
From Newsday: “Spitzer said he was trying to fashion a winning proposal, similar to last year's changes to workers' compensation, which cut expenses by 20 percent and improved benefits. He is working with lawmakers, doctors, insurers and other interest groups.”
On business issues, new Gov. David Paterson had a middling record during his time in the New York Senate. The New York Business Council gave Paterson a "C" score in its 2006 "Vote for Jobs" index. Another "C" in 2005, too. No clear record on tort reform issues.
Ah, someone else shares our displeasure at the incessantly anti-business themes that dominate NBC's "Law and Order" -- previous posts here and here -- in this case, Jonah Goldberg of National Review:
The story began well, like a good Law & Order of old, with a kidnapping, a murder and some warrant dodging. But, of course, that sort of drama is too pedestrian. So it turned out that the husband of the murdered wife and kidnapped daughter was in fact an Enronesque trader who deliberately orchestrated a city-wide blackout which had not only made the kidnapping possible, but prompted it in the first place (because the evildoers had a tip it was going to happen). Little did this greedy capitalist realize that when you wage economic war on the middle class you might pay a steep price.
You really wonder how they're going to rip the Eliot Spitzer story from the headlines. Probably make the prostitute a plant by a business syndicate designed to entrap a crusading former attorney general. Something like that.
Congress is on its two-week Easter recess, the President promotes trade, and the Supreme Court considers D.C.'s gun control law. More headlines about the economy this week. Or so we speculate.
Congress: A couple of field hearings have a business angle. Today in Tucson the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of House Science will hold a hearing, "Utility-Scale Solar Power: Opportunities and Obstacles." On Thursday, a House Education and Labor Committee subcommittee will hold a hearing in Hartford, Conn., on H.R 2833, the Preexisting Condition Exclusion Patient Protection Act. Details.
White House: The President meets today with the Prime Minister of Ireland and takes part in a St. Patrick's Day lunch at the Capitol. On Tuesday, he travels to Florida to talk trade and the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Wednesday at the Pentagon he gives remarks at the Pentagon on the global war against terror. Thursday, he meets with the prime ministers of the Bahamas, Barbadoes and Belize and then heads to Camp David for the Easter Weekend. (From the WH press briefing.) Meanwhile, Vice President Cheney is on a 10-day trip to the Middle East, including visits to Oman, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Palestinian territories and Turkey. Secretary Rice is in Moscow. Commerce Secretary Gutierrez is in Kanas City today, speaking on innovation at the Kaufmann Foundation.
Supreme Court: The Supreme Court starts a two-week schedule of oral arguments today. The high-profile case comes Tuesday, D.C. v. Heller, determining the constitutionality of the district's ban on handguns.
Finally, today is a day to celebrate, Rumble Day! Fifty years ago today Link Wray released the recorded-in-Washington single, "Rumble," the first popular song with guitar distortion.
The Workforce Summit 2008 held at the Convention Center yesterday was a big success. The annual gathering of educators, government representatives and employers was treated to a great opening speech from Emily DeRocco, president of the National Center for the American Workforce and senior vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers. She addressed the "morbid fascination" that the media has with all things China. The truth is, she said, is that the United States is still the world leader, accounting for a quarter of all global manufacturing activity. China ranks third behind the United States and Japan with only a 6 or 7 percent share of the world market. True, China is gaining ground fast and our domestic industries are at a "tipping point" that requires attention. DeRocco also pointed out that local industries like biotech, technology and aerospace are all part of manufacturing and will only get better. She also pointed out that one-fifth of all the manufacturing companies in the United States are owned by women.
Another special session of the Legislature has concluded in Baton Rouge, giving new Gov. Bobby Jindal a quick record of success. Notable is his strategy for making Louisiana a more attractive place for investment. In the first session, pass ethics reform to drive out corruption and ensure the rule of law. In the second, reduce the costs of doing business:
Lawmakers passed bills to eliminate a 1 percent sales tax that businesses pay on utilities, an estimated annual savings to Louisiana companies -- as well as a loss of state revenue -- of $69 million. They also passed an expedited phaseout of taxes on corporate debt and on manufacturing machinery and equipment. Those taxes were widely seen as burdens on companies that expand their operations, therefore placing Louisiana at a competitive disadvantage with other states.
"Our current tax code is the greatest gift we can give our neighboring states," Jindal said of the business taxes that will be cut under the new laws.
Ah, we see the governor recognizes the competitive environment in which Louisiana exist. Would that some of federal officials acknowledge the same is true for the United States and the global economy.
A lovely sounding Cool Stuff Being Made this week, as Quince Eddens and Ronald Sachs of Violin Makers Limited show us how to craft a violin.
From their shop at Camp Hill, Pennsyvlania, we learn about the proper wood -- European maple for the back, Italian spruce for the top -- glue and proper varnishes, as the two put together a violin modeled after a Guarneri del Gesu.
When William Lerach pleaded guilty last year to federal charges of conspiring to obstruct justice, his plea came decades after the first illegal recruiting of plaintiffs in class action suits. There was a longstanding pattern that eventually tripped him up.
Final vote on H.R. 3773, 213-197 (1 present). Looks like many of the House Blue Dog Democrats who voted for the Senate bill, S. 2248, also voted for this new House Democratic leadership bill.
That's an awful lot of people not voting, 24?
Any bill without immunity for telecom companies will not become law.
UPDATE (2:58 p.m.): A very sharp reaction from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:
This House vote represents a ‘cover vote’ which the Democratic leadership believes will allow them to go on their Easter recess claiming to have passed a bill that protects America. But instead, they’ve done great harm to the effort to enact a responsible strengthening of our anti-terror laws during this session of the Congress. Democrats passed a bill which would drag patriotic private companies into court for answering their government’s call for help, created yet another Commission to investigate the administration, and failed our intelligence professionals by denying them the tools they need to track and stop foreign terrorists before they act.
But the bottom line is: when the Protect America Act lapsed on February 16 due to House inaction, we lost the ability to monitor without restrictions emerging terrorist threats overseas. As National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell (a former Clinton Administration director of the NSA) has observed, we have lost intelligence. Thanks to today's action, that unacceptable situation will continue.
The first eyewitness account to events in the Oxford, Miss., courtroom this morning when Dickie Scruggs pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bride a judge comes from Patsy R. Brumfield, a reporter with the local Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. She reports that the government has recommended a sentence of five years in prison for Scruggs and 2 1/2 years for Backstrom. They also will pay a maximum fine of $250,000 each and a court fee, and are likely to voluntarily surrender their law licenses.
Before Biggers accepted their pleas, Scruggs and Backstrom admitted in open court that they had done what the government said they had done in Count One – they had conspired to bribe Circuit Judge Henry Lackey of Calhoun City for a favorable order in a Katrina-related legal fees case.
When it was Backstrom's turn to speak, he began quietly, "I want to apologize to the court..." then his voice trailed off as he broke down, his voice choked with emotion.
Dickie Scruggs, arguably the most famous plaintiffs' attorney in the U.S., looked pale and thin but carried himself with a bit more control than his younger colleague at The Scruggs Law Firm, headquartered on the storied Square in Oxford.
Scruggs stood in front of the judge's bench, straight, with shoulders back, beside his California attorney John Keker who was the only member of the defense legal team there for Scruggs.
The 61-year-old Ole Miss Law School grad and legal giant-killer, as well as Backstrom, likely will voluntarily surrender their law licenses, as has co-defendant Timothy Balducci of New Albany, who pleaded guilty in December although he was wired and cooperating with the government at least a month earlier.
ATLANTA -- Over the years, Richard F. "Dickie" Scruggs earned a reputation as one of the most wily and powerful plaintiff's attorneys on Earth. Along the way, he was hailed as a hero of the little guy. He was also derided as a scoundrel who would stoop as low as he needed to get his way, and fatten his bank account.
Today, his critics rested their case in the court of opinion.
Dickie Scruggs Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Bribe
The edifice built by years of abusive lawsuits and campaign contributions is trembling. Now, trial lawyer extraordinaire Dickie Scruggs of Mississippi enters a suprise guilty plea to trying to bribe a judge. From the Wall Street Journal:
Mississippi plaintiffs attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy in a judicial bribery case. The surprise plea came during a hearing on pretrial matters. His trial was set to begin at the end of the month. Scruggs and co-defendant Sidney Backstrom both pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe a judge. Scruggs's son, Zach, also is charged in the case but hasn't entered a plea.
The three were accused of conspiring to bribe a Lafayette County Circuit Court judge for a favorable ruling in a dispute over $26.5 million in legal fees from a mass settlement of Hurricane Katrina cases.
The Journal had a lengthy page one story today on the events that led to the charges.
Last November, a lawyer who was working with famed plaintiffs' attorney Richard Scruggs entered the chambers of a local Mississippi judge and delivered the last chunk of a $40,000 cash payment. In return, the judge said he would issue a ruling favorable to Mr. Scruggs in a fee dispute with other lawyers.
Driving away after delivering the cash, the lawyer was pulled over by federal agents and confronted with videos of his visits. He soon agreed to wear a wire. Within a month, a federal grand jury had charged Mr. Scruggs, the architect of landmark litigation against cigarette makers, with conspiracy to bribe a state official.
Now debating the rule for the FISA Amendments Act. Yesterday's secret session in the House achieved...well, we don't know...it was secret. From CNet:
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said he heard nothing new that would dissuade him from urging the House to support the bill that Democrats have drafted. Blunt, for his part, said the "constructive session" offered "powerful reasons" why the House should instead support a U.S. Senate version, favored by President Bush, which does supply retroactive immunity.
An hour of debate was scheduled to begin late Friday morning, with votes expected to wrap up during the early afternoon. Even if the Democrats succeed in getting their bill passed, however, it would have to be reconciled with the Senate's version. President Bush has promised to veto anything lacking retroactive immunity.
Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) notes that the current proposal being considered on the House floor will have a total of 20 minutes of debate available for the House Intelligence Committee on the issue. Why such a closed rule?
Let the House vote on the Senate bill, S. 2048, which passed on a strong, overwhelming bipartisan vote, Hastings argues.
The original house bill died a couple of weeks ago when the judiciary committee refused to hear it, but Wednesday, the health committee passed a revised version of a senate bill that keeps tort reform alive.
The bill still many hurdles to cross, but its revival today indicates there's enough support to at least give it a fighting chance.
"This is a crisis, that is here today," said Dr. Goto. "Physicians are leaving the state and cutting back on their practices."
The American Tort Reform Association has a new white paper out on anti-reform agenda being driven by tort lawyers, "Defrocking Tort Reform: Stopping Personal Injury Lawyers from Repealing Existing Tort Reforms and Expanding Right to Sue in State Legislatures." From the news release, quoting Sherman "Tiger" Joyce, ATRA's president:
"The front-page prosecutions of Bill Lerach and Dickie Scruggs, coupled with various tort reform court victories in recent years, make it easy enough for some in the media and elsewhere to believe that the plaintiffs' bar is in retreat...
But as this new white paper makes clear, personal injury lawyers and their allies are still aggressively, if subtly, on the march, particularly at the state level. Their drive to expand liability and litigation markets has been quiet, but it's robust and as opportunistic as ever.
Two years ago, the director of the state's Environmental Protection Agency issued a dour prediction that made few people breathe easy: Northeast Ohio, he said, could not meet clean-air requirements by 2010.
On Tuesday, the region sat on the cusp of meeting that federally mandated target.
But on Wednesday, the U.S. EPA announced tougher ground-level ozone regulations designed to protect the public's health. And just like that, the region fell behind in its quest to make the air clean enough to meet federal guidelines.
"This area's going to struggle to meet the new standard," predicted Pamela Davis, senior environmental planner with the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency. "We've been chipping away at it, but we're going to have to pay even more attention."
More attention? That's not the only thing you'll have to be paying more of.
Yesterday's budget votes in the House and Senate went whistling past the graveyard of global competition, willfully ignoring the reality that their other countries are cutting their corporate tax rates to improve their competitive positions. From The Wall Street Journal:
WASHINGTON -- Congress endorsed letting many of President Bush's tax cuts expire during largely symbolic voting on budget blueprints.
Certain marginal tax rates and reduced rates for long-term capital gains and dividends, which are set to expire at the end of 2010, wouldn't be extended under a budget blueprint passed by the House yesterday and in a separate plan passed late last night by the Senate.
Time to turn again to the Tax Foundation's work on corporate tax rates across the world as reported in its Fiscal Fact No. 108 from last October:
Five countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) cut their corporate income tax rates in 2006, and eight more, including Germany, will have cut their rates by January 1, 2008.
In the OECD, only Japan's 39.5% rate is higher than thef U.S. rate right now.
Food Fight is an abridged history of American-centric war, from World War II to present day, told through the foods of the countries in conflict. Watch as traditional comestibles slug it out for world domination in this chronologically re-enacted smorgasbord of aggression.
Extremely well-done exercise of a clever concept. The initial humor fades quickly enough, though.
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the American Council for Capital Formation released a new report today analyzing the costs of implementing S. 2191, the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill, the leading legislative proposal to limit carbon dioxide emissions through a cap-and-trade system. Key findings, among many, from the study conducted by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).
Impact on Jobs
Under L/W, the United States would lose between 1.2 and 1.8 million jobs in 2020 and between 3 and 4 million jobs in 2030. The primary cause of job losses would be lower industrial output due to higher energy prices, the high cost of complying with required emissions cuts, and
greater competition from overseas manufacturers with lower energy costs.
Impact on Disposable Household Income
Higher energy prices would have ripple impacts on prices throughout the economy and would impose a financial cost of $739 to $2,927 per year by 2020 on national households, rising to $4,022 to $6,752 by 2030.
L/W’s Impact on Energy Prices
Most energy prices would rise under L/W, particularly, coal, oil, and natural gas. The price of gasoline would increase between 60% and 144% by 2030, while electricity prices would increase by 77% to 129%. Table 1 shows the increase in gasoline and electricity prices faced by US households. US consumers would pay between 84% and 146% more for their natural gas by 2030.
NAM's president, John Engler, and the chief economist from ACCF, Margo Thorning, briefed the media and bloggers on the report.
And...an .mp3 file of the Engler/Thorning briefing to public policy/state think tank bloggers. Click here.
UPDATE (4:05 p.m.): Engler: If a cap-and-trade measure passes, "we will be committing what I call economic disarmament because we will drive US jobs offshore and at the same time trade relatively clean production in this country for dirtier production offshore, so you end up with job losses and a worse environment”. Reported at ICIS News.
From comments this morning on the South Lawn of the White House, reacting to the House legislation that proposes a new, complicated
First, the House bill could reopen dangerous intelligence gaps by putting in place a cumbersome court approval process that would make it harder to collect intelligence on foreign terrorists. This is an approach that Congress explicitly rejected last August when bipartisan majorities in both houses passed the Protect America Act. And it is an approach the Senate rejected last month when it passed a new -- new legislation to extend and strengthen the Protect America Act by an overwhelming vote of 68 to 29.
Now House leaders are proposing to undermine this consensus. Their partisan legislation would extend protections we enjoy as Americans to foreign terrorists overseas. It would cause us to lose vital intelligence on terrorist threats, and it is a risk that our country cannot afford to take.
Second, the House bill fails to provide liability protection to companies believed to have assisted in protecting our nation after the 9/11 attacks. Instead, the House bill would make matters even worse by allowing litigation to continue for years. In fact, House leaders simply adopted the position that class action trial lawyers are taking in the multi-billion-dollar lawsuits they have filed. This litigation would undermine the private sector's willingness to cooperate with the intelligence community, cooperation that is absolutely essential to protecting our country from harm. This litigation would require the disclosure of state secrets that could lead to the public release of highly classified information that our enemies could use against us. And this litigation would be unfair, because any companies that assisted us after 9/11 were assured by our government that their cooperation was legal and necessary.
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer issued a statement in response, saying the President misread the bill.
In fact, this bill is the product of weeks of negotiations – negotiations which the White House and Congressional Republicans refused to engage in – and it marries the best of the House and Senate-passed FISA bills.
OK, without the participation of the executive branch and advocates of telecom immunity, then whom were the negotiations between? John Conyers and Silvestre Reyes? The ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation? The trial lawyers and Daily Kos?
Toledo, Monroe, and Lima, Ohio, probably will find themselves out of compliance with tighter smog controls announced last night by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
About 345 counties nationwide, including several in Tennessee, would not be able to meet the new ozone standard today. They include Nashville-area counties Davidson, Sumner, Wilson and Williamson.
They will all have years to achieve compliance.
Those that don't make the grade could be prevented from locating large new industries or other plants that emit nitrogen oxide and other ozone-creating compounds — or could require more pollution controls.
In the Nashville area, officials might have to prove that any new highway construction project would not add to the problem.
The Akron-Cleveland area will likely be required to use cleaner, more costly gasoline in order to comply with the tighter federal limit beginning in 2013, said Lynn Malcolm, director of the Akron Regional Air Quality Management District.
Malcolm said he would be shocked if less-evaporative gasoline is not mandated, at least during summers, for vehicles in Summit, Portage, Medina, Cuyahoga, Lake, Lorain, Geauga and Ashtabula counties.
He said he was unable to speculate what new and costly requirements might be imposed on Ohio industries, vehicles and coal-burning power plants in order to comply.
Already struggling to meet the old ozone standards, the state will now have to find ways to meet the new directive. These Georgia counties are in violation of the new EPA standards: Bibb, Athens-Clarke, Cobb, Coweta, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry, Murray, Paulding, Richmond, Rockdale.
Expect tougher regulations for coal-fired power plants, engines and fuels, as well as bans on outdoor burning and other controls.
On and on and on....
Credit, by the way, to all the media outlets cited above. They've been paying attention to the ozone issue for some time now and were able to write informative accounts about the consequences of this unnecessary new rule. Lots of other places, where the news has failed to get out, are going to be in for a big, big surprise.
Congratulations to Ron Bullock, an NAM board member, and all the good people at Bison Gear and Engineering for drawing the attention of CBS Evening News this week.
The issue? Skills gap, the lack (and lack of interest) of prospective employees to fill the many open positions in the high-tech manufacturing sector.
Employees at Bison Gear and Engineering makes motors for everything from dialysis machines to ice-cream makers. The company has all the orders it can fill. What it can't fill is jobs.
"We have about a half-a-dozen openings right now," said Bison owner Ron Bullock. "The business is there, and we have the capacity to expand it."
Bison isn't alone. With half the nation's 14 million manufacturing workers nearing retirement, 90 percent of America's manufacturers say they are short qualified workers.
CBS and Bison both highlight the steps manufacturers are taking to address this shortage -- no passivity and complaining, but action. From Bison Gear and Engineering:
As a result of Bullock's concern with the quality of secondary education and the shortage of skilled entry-level workers in manufacturing, in 2007 Bison Gear announced its Skilled Workforce Initiative. In the initiative, manufacturing leaders, educational institutions, economic and workplace development organizations came together to create a talent pool of better qualified employees with plans to offer long term stable employment.
The House is expected today to vote on the FISA Amendments Act, legislation that only forestalls the necessary extension of authority for surveillance of foreign, electronic communications by suspected terrorists. Sponsored by Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), the bill does not grant the retroactive immunity for telecom companies that is a key measure of a serious, effective bill versus one that actually hinders the pursuit of terrorist killers.
The Washington Times describes the recent developments that have led us to this sad stage, where some House members remain intent on attacking the private sector, whose legal cooperation is essential for effective intelligence gathering against America's enemies. The Times notes recent comments by Reyes indicating that House leadership was looking for a graceful way out, agreeing to immunity provisions.
But the reaction from trial lawyers who stood to profit from lawsuits against telecommunications firms was decidedly negative and the left-wing blogosphere was downright apoplectic. Mr. Reyes appeared to have gone underground, resurfacing Tuesday with a one-paragraph statement, also signed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, denouncing the White House as obstructionist. Meanwhile, House Democrats leaked to the New York Times the outlines of a new proposal that denies retroactive immunity to the telecommunications firms. Rather than bar lawsuits against companies for doing their patriotic duty by helping the U.S. government prevent terrorist attacks, the Pelosi plan would ensure that they remain vulnerable to new litigation: House Democrats would create a bipartisan congressional commission with subpoena power to issue a report on U.S. terrorist surveillance programs. They would leave the issue of immunity to the federal courts — ensuring that it becomes the subject of protracted litigation that could go on for years.
And then it's off for a two-week vacation.
Sir! We have new intelligence of an imminent attack!
Well, then, call out our top team to prevent it. Now!
Can't, sir. They're on vacation. It's Easter break. Almost everyone's gone.
Damn. Who's left?
Well, we have some trial lawyers available. But there's paperwork to fill out.
Gates wants to see more funding for a National Science Foundation program for math, science and engineering graduates students, and he suggested that at the high school level, math and science teachers should be paid more. He's urging Congress to support state programs that measure students' learning abilities.
"Ultimately, we need to identify a smaller set of clear, high and common state standards that reflect what young people truly need to know to be successful in the 21st century...," he said in his prepared remarks.
And...
Gates also argues that the U.S. should raise the cap on so-called H-1B visas for skilled foreign nationals so that the U.S. can retain the high-tech workers it trains at its universities. "The fact that their smartest people want to come here has been a huge advantage for us, and in a sense we're throwing that away," Gates said.
In addition, he urged lawmakers to raise the current cap on employment-based visas, or "green cards," and he called on Congress to renew the now-expired research and development tax credit..
A statement on the EPA's new ozone rule from National Association of Manufacturers' President John Engler:
The costs are too high and the benefits too unclear to impose this new burden on America’s manufacturers and employees. Anyone interested in preserving high-paying U.S. jobs in manufacturing and keeping a lid on energy prices should be disappointed by today’s ruling. Considering America’s current domestic economic challenges, this is the wrong move at the wrong time.
Air quality is improving across America. Manufacturers and states have spent enormous resources developing plans to meet the existing ozone standard, which is still being implemented and would have been attained in many states by 2013. Changing the rules now is equivalent to moving the goalposts during the middle of the game. EPA’s own studies show that ozone levels have dropped by 21 percent since 1980 and continue to decline.
Moving to a more stringent standard could have a devastating effect on manufacturing employment. The new standard will make it much more difficult to build new and expand existing refineries in the U.S., leading to higher gasoline prices and more dependence on foreign sources of fuel.
Stricter environmental controls for companies in non-attainment areas will require billions of dollars in compliance costs. U.S. manufacturers already pay more than $77 /billion each year for environmental regulations. The new ozone rule will add significantly to this cost burden. The tighter standard is not based on sound science and will hurt U.S. manufacturing competitiveness and job growth.
Lots of good perspective and many good questions from a Texan at Ozoneinformation.com. Question 1: How are small, rural areas supposed to lower their 8hr average ozone readings when they are not contributing any pollution or only trace amounts? How many hundreds of new cities will now fall into "non attainment"?
But let not Clean Air Watch be surpassed in pique. From the group's news release, quoting the perpetually outraged Frank O'Donnell: "The Bush Administration is compromising public health to save industry money."
You know, it's entirely possible the Administration acted in good faith, trying to reach a level that achieved both positive health ends while respecting the value of economic growth. A good faith decision....wrong...but still one that doesn't warrant impugning motives.
That said, in anticipation of encountering the argument -- one you hear mostly from criticized journalists but also from political figures -- we reject this claim: Well, both sides are unhappy, so we must be doing something right!
Ah, no. You've split the baby and thrown it out with the bathwater. That's two wrongs.
As expected, the EPA has announced a new standard for ground-level ozone emissions, 75 parts per billion. From the EPA fact sheet:
On March 12, 2008, EPA significantly strengthened its national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone, the primary component of smog. These changes will improve both public health protection and the protection of sensitive trees and plants.
• EPA is revising the 8-hour “primary” ozone standard, designed to protect public health, to a level of 0.075 parts per million (ppm). The previous standard, set in 1997, was 0.08 ppm. Because ozone is measured out to three decimal places, the standard effectively became 0.084
ppm as a result of rounding.
• EPA is also strengthening the secondary 8-hour ozone standard to the level of 0.075 ppm making it identical to the revised primary standard. EPA decided to strengthen the secondary ozone standard after concluding that the 1997 secondary standard is not adequate to protect public welfare. Current ozone air quality concentrations in many areas of the country --
including some areas that meet the 1997 ozone standards -- are high enough to harm sensitive
vegetation and ecosystems.
At a press conference June 28 [2006], NYS AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes stated that Spitzer had won the endorsement of the two-and-a-half-million member labor federation because his “track record of accomplishments on behalf of all working men and women is second to none.”
He added: “Throughout his career in public service, Eliot Spitzer has time and time again stood up for the rights, dignity and concerns of working people. His dedication to protecting those who need help the most is unsurpassed.”
Opponents of updating foreign intelligence authority have done a good job of misrepresenting the issue during the current Congressional debate. Andrew M. Grossman of the Heritage Foundation brings clarity and accuracy to the discussion in a new web memo, "FISA Modernization Is Not About 'Warrantless Wiretapping'":
No phrase has done more to confuse the public and distort informed debate over foreign surveillance than "warrantless wiretapping." The accusation that the federal government is listening in on Americans' domestic telephone conversations without any legal authority or any judicial oversight has been an article of faith among those who oppose modernization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Though the government's foreign intelligence programs are clouded in secrecy (and rightly so), publicly available information, statutory text, and recent comments by government officials provide strong indications that FISA modernization, by making permanent the authorities of the now-expired Protect America Act (PAA), has nothing at all to do with domestic wiretapping and has only an incidental relation to Americans' communications. Now that Congress is again considering restoring FISA to its originally intended scope of coverage by extending the authorities in the PAA, it is important to understand how the government uses these authorities.
Stewart Acuff, Organizing Director, AFL-CIO, and Sheldon Friedman, Research Coordinator, AFL-CIO Voice@Work Campaign, writing at The Huffington Post.
Extreme economic inequality sharpens perhaps the ultimate contradiction between capitalism and democracy. This can be seen in the corrosive influence of money in the nation's politics, as corporations and the wealthy buy ever more influence with their increasing opulence.
The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor union organization, will announce plans Wednesday for a $53 million effort to elect a Democrat to the White House.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A free trade agreement with Colombia is too important to U.S. national security and to the region for congressional leaders to prevent a vote on the pact this year, President George W. Bush said on Wednesday.
"We must not allow delay to turn into inaction," Bush said in a speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. The pact "is too important to be held up by politics."
By obstructing a free-trade agreement with Colombia, Congress is achieving a mathematical impossibility.
If opposition to the deal made no sense in terms of rational self-interest when it was sealed between the U.S. and Colombia in 2006, it makes even less sense now. Less than zero sense.
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez will answer questions on the agreement Thursday at the White House website. Visit here.
The U.S. trade deficit widened slightly in January as strong American exports were more than offset by higher prices for imported oil....[snip]January exports rose 1.6% to $148.2 billion from December, while imports rose 1.3% to $206.4 billion. Exports were strong as the weak dollar boosted sales of food, industrial supplies and consumer goods.
Imports rose due to higher prices and volume for imported oil, although a slight rise in auto imports also contributed.
Padilla told business leaders at The Brown hotel that Louisville "is a top-40 exporting city. It exported almost $5 billion worth of products in 2006" -- nearly half of that to Mexico and Canada, the two nations that joined the United States in the North American Free Trade Agreement implemented in 1994.
"Now more than ever, exports are a huge driver of American economic growth," Padilla said.
PASCAGOULA -- The export business at the Port of Pascagoula is booming, a trend Port Director Mark McAndrews said should continue for the next decade and beyond.
From 2005 to 2006, the port's export trade increased by nearly 59 percent, according to the most recent figures released by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
That meant an increase in trade revenues from $243,812,792 to $387,151,597, the report added.
EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson is expected to announce the final rule today setting standards for ground-level ozone, with most semi-informed speculators saying the limits will drop from 80 parts per billion to 75 ppb, perhaps more.
The air quality in about 85 of more than 700 counties currently exceeds the federal health standard for smog during at least some days of the year. If the standard is lowered to 75 parts per billion, that number of counties in noncompliance is expected to roughly quadruple, according to the latest EPA estimates.
Baton Rouge-area parishes have been struggling for years to meet ozone standards — first, the 1-hour standard and then the current 8-hour standard.
To meet a third new standard, the state will need to develop a plan for each area to outline how ozone pollution will be reduced.
These plans would need to be submitted to EPA for approval in 2009 and include new strategies because ongoing strategies to reduce air pollution can’t be included.
The Washington Post summarizes the latest maneuvering by House leadership to keep litigation alive against telecom companies that agreed with Administration's request to assist in foreign surveillance of terrorist suspects. They propose allowing secret civil trials, obstensibly to protect national secrets, but really just as a means to keep the litigatory pursuit of the telecom companies alive.
As the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded, the failure to extend liability protection will undermine the private sector's willingness to help the Intelligence Community do its job. Without the assistance of the private sector, our intelligence agencies will be hobbled in their efforts to protect the country from attack.
It is clear that House Democratic leaders have once again bowed to the demands of class-action trial lawyers, MoveOn.org, and Code Pink and put their ideological interests ahead of the national interest. The priorities of House leaders are dangerously misplaced. Instead of providing liability protection to companies that did their patriotic duty, House leaders would establish a commission to examine intelligence activities in the past that helped protect the country from further attacks after 9/11.
The Senate, which passed a reasonable surveillance bill on a bipartisan basis, will not go along. Shocking that the House would extend its failure to act through the next, two-week vacation starting Friday.
More...
The ACLU is pleased, mostly, with the House bill, describing it as a compromise. What? A compromise among like-minded is hardly a compromise.
If you’re like me, you’ll be shocked to hear that there are thousands of high-paying jobs out there – and no one qualified to fill them. Even more surprising: They are in the manufacturing sector! America’s manufacturers are screaming to anyone who will listen that their obituary was written too soon.
Cynthia notes the NAM/Manufacturing Institute's "Dream It! Do It!" campaign, which strives to make manufacturing a more appealing profession for young people.
The Pacific Research Institute has just released its latest study on the civil litigation climates in each of the states, "U.S. Tort Liability Index: 2008 Report." Indexwise, good news for North Dakota, bad news for Florida.
The study takes a twofold approach toward assessing a state's tort climate -- its tort costs, hard numbers about monetary tort losses and litigation risks; and tort laws, that is, the element that reduce tort risks and costs.
Lawrence J. McQuillen, co-author of the report, explains why it matters: "In the competition for jobs and capital investment among the states, those states that suffer from high tort costs and litigiousness will continue to lose jobs and businesses to states with superior tort systems."
How do the states stack up?
Saints: States that have relatively low tort costs and/or few litigation risks and relatively strong tort rules on the books. These states are well positioned to contain their tort liability costs in the future if the rules are implemented as written. These states include Alaska, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, and Utah.
Sinners: States that have relatively high tort costs and/or high litigation risks and relatively weak tort rules on the books. The sinners are likely to face high and rising tort liability costs in the future if lawsuit abuse continues unchecked. These states include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Suckers: States that have weak tort rules on the books because they currently have relatively low tort costs and/or few litigation risks and, therefore, foolishly believe that they are not vulnerable and reform is not needed. These states include Hawaii, Iowa, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, and Virginia.
Salvageables: States that have moderate to high relative tort costs and/or moderate to high litigation risks, yet have moderate to strong tort rules, probably as a result of recent reforms. These states include Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Texas.
To read the full report and more, please click here.
Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund called into a Heritage Foundation bloggers luncheon today for a discussion of topics topical. On Spitzer, he said:
Eliot Spitzer’s personal tragedy isn’t that personal. It’s a public one, because he subjected himself to possible blackmail for months, for years, from a group of thugs who were running an escort service.
Secondly, basically his reform agenda had either collapsed or been abandoned. He was at 27 percent approval because of a recent scandal involving investigators that he had sent out to try to smear the Republican president of the state Senate. His first budget’s spending increases were three times the rate of inflation, which now led to a $4.5 billion deficit in the state of New York. And lastly, the one time that he did try to cut back Medicaid spending the powerful health-care workers union launched a community campaign against him, and he folded like a cheap suit.
Eliot Spitzer departs with very few accomplishes, and frankly, with a legacy that he managed to turn the office of state attorney general away from its traditional law-enforcement functions into basically a social crusader who would trample on constitutional rights and basically engaged in ... blackmail of corporations and entities he was investigating.
Fund also talked about the anti-earmark maneuvering on Capitol Hill and the possiblility of voting by mail in the Michigan and Florida Democratic presidential redo primaries. Fund has criticized vote-by-mail balloting as an invitation to corruption; he's written a good book on voter fraud, "Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy."
An .mp3 file (low quality, alas) of Fund's brief opening remarks is available here.
Thanks to Americans for Prosperity for hosting the luncheon, too. Heritage has been a movable feast as of late because of construction at Heritage HQ.
In Politico, a letter to the editor from Darren McKinney, director of communications, American Tort Reform Association:
Politico’s coverage of the immunity-for-telecoms-versus-no-immunity-for-telecoms debate that’s stalling vitally important reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [“Republicans Unwilling to Budge on FISA Update,” March 5] continues to ignore the obvious.
Though some members of Congress opposing immunity may be genuinely and primarily motivated by their desire to protect civil liberties, many other “more liberal” lawmakers also are plainly motivated by their political allegiance to and dependence on the wealthy personal injury bar, which desperately wishes to maintain some 40 potentially lucrative telecom lawsuits with designs on more to come.
If the National Rifle Association pressed its Hill allies to hold out against a gun control regulation contained in legislation supported by most security experts and majorities in both bodies, Politico readers would rightly get details about how much NRA money had found its way into the campaign coffers of those holdouts. But when it comes to telecom litigation, a special interest that gives more money to political campaigns than any other is exercising comparable influence, and it goes unmentioned.
Eliciting support from and protecting companies that assist in preventing America's enemies from killing us is a policy question: Should the private sector be encouraged to provide effective assistance in surveillance of foreign terrorists? Policy questions should be decided by the policymaking branch of government, the Legislature, not pawned off to the interpretation of federal courts. This new House provision is an attempt to escape responsibility.
Tough time for Eliot Spitzer's family. Good time for newspaper headline writers.
The following links go to .pdf files of newspaper front pages. Courtesy the Freedom Forum, which has a story on newspaper coverage of the Spitzer scandal.
New York Times: Spitzer, Linked to a Sex Ring As a Client, Gives an Apology
The Wall Street Journal, well versed in Spitzer's predations, sums up the sentiments here in its lead editorial, "Spitzer's Rise and Fall."
In our system, citizens agree to invest one of their own with the power of public prosecution. We call this a public trust. The ability to bring the full weight of state power against private individuals or entities has been recognized since the Magna Carta as a power with limits. At nearly every turn, Eliot Spitzer has refused to admit that he was subject to those limits.
The stupendously deluded belief that the sitting Governor of New York could purchase the services of prostitutes was merely the last act of a man unable to admit either the existence of, or need for, limits. At the least, he put himself at risk of blackmail, and in turn the possible distortion of his public duties. Mr. Spitzer's recklessness with the state's highest elected office, though, is of a piece with his consistent excesses as Attorney General from 1999 to 2006.
He routinely used the extraordinary threat of indicting entire firms, a financial death sentence, to force the dismissal of executives, such as AIG's Maurice "Hank" Greenberg. He routinely leaked to the press emails obtained with subpoena power to build public animosity against companies and executives. In the case of Mr. Greenberg, he went on national television to accuse the AIG founder of "illegal" behavior. Within the confines of the law itself, though, he never indicted Mr. Greenberg. Nor did he apologize.
UPDATE (11:25 a.m.): Walter Olson examines the "structuring" offense that prosecutors may be focusing on, working up the financial transactions in a way to evade bank reporting requirements or other scrutiny.
For every H-1B position requested, tech companies listed on the S&P 500 stock index increased their employment by five workers in an analysis of 2002 to 2005, according to astudyby the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP).
For tech firms with fewer than 5,000 employees, each H-1B request corresponded with an average increase of 7.5 workers, the group said.
Few topics on the blog elicit more heated reaction than support for increasing the H-1B visa cap. (It's generally well-spoken reaction, we add.) Employees argue that the visa program is just the way for employers to avoid hiring capable Americans for the jobs and for them to keep their labor costs down.
That may well be true in individual cases. But we've talked to enough manufacturers to know that they'd gladly hire and pay well a qualified, available American first. They'd gladly hire and pay ANYBODY.
Unfortunately, given the growth of their operations -- and the U.S. high-tech economy more broadly -- the demand for skilled employees is outstripping the supply. There just aren't enough of the right people with the right skills available, period. More from the PC World article:
NFAP looked at the number of job openings at tech firms and defense contractors and found 140,000 job openings at S&P 500 firms in January, including more than 4,000 job openings at Microsoft, more than 1,600 openings at both IBM and CSC, and more than 1,500 openings at Cisco Systems. After Microsoft, the company with the most job openings, were defense contractors Northrup Grumman and Lockheed Martin, each with more than 3,900 job openings, according to a second study by NFAP. More from PC World:
You exhaust the 65,000 cap on H1-B visas pretty quickly given this kind of demand.
These shortages of skilled employees crimp a company's ability to meet the demands of the marketplace. So get the right people by hiring domestically as well through the H1-B visa program, and you can expand your business and spur economic growth. You create more jobs, more good jobs, for everybody.
The larger point is that the United States now competes in a global economy, with its competive advantage resting on innovation -- new products, new processes. Integral to this economy is the global competition for the talented individuals, those who can keep driving innovation, and in great demand are graduates of U.S. universities. Better they contribute to the American economy -- and as aspiring, talented individuals, to American society -- than make our competitors even more successful.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) gave a fine speech last week to the Emergency Committee for American Trade on counterfeiting and protection of intellectual property. From "Counterfeiting and piracy aren't just about downloaded music, pirated software, or fake designer hand bags."
Counterfeiting and piracy aren’t just about downloaded music, pirated software, or fake designer hand bags. It’s about the health and safety of the American people.
Indeed, counterfeiting and piracy affect all sectors of our economy, including pharmaceuticals, auto parts, and the quality and safety of our food.
Consider the following:
• General Motors and its suppliers lose billions of dollars annually from lost sales due to counterfeit parts.
• In fact, General Motors says it has come across brake linings made of wood chips and cardboard that could burst into flames with heavy use and coolant that can eat through a car’s radiator in 48 hours.
• The Federal Aviation Administration estimates that 520,000 parts installed on airplanes each year are counterfeit.
• The operational life of counterfeit bearing seal-spacers removed from a United Airlines plane were found to last only 600 hours while genuine parts had a life of 20,000 hours.
• The World Health Organization estimates that counterfeit drugs account for 10% of all pharmaceuticals. That number rises to as high as 60% in some developing countries.
Unfortunately, the list goes on and on.
Sen. Hatch is developing legislation to expand the federal government's ability to counter these dangers.
Former head of the New York City Central Labor Council Brian McLaughlin pleaded guilty Friday to racketeering, perjury and siphoning cash from union funds. McLaughlin now faces eight to ten years in prison for, among other misdeeds:
- taking cash to pay for his son's tuition, and the mortgage on his $1.6 million Long Island home (pictured), and rent for an Albany apartment;
- using union members as errand boys, shoveling snow at his home, cleaning a barn, installing a home security system and scouring a basement for rodents;
- embezzling $95,000 from a bank account for a local Little League, for which he had members raise donations;
- getting $400,000 in kickbacks and three cars from street lighting contractors who hired his union members; and
- using union members as personal chauffeurs.
Good thing the budget for the Office of Labor Management Standards has been cut.
"I do, however, feel badly that many have listened to untruths and have been prey to fear-mongering tactics spewed from the mouths of longtime anti-social service agency leaders of our town." -- Diane Montgomery of Framingham, Mass., condemning criticism of a residence house for families involved with drug addiction.
"It was an unfortunate slip, but one that echoed the sentiments of many Clinton apologists like me -- who've watched Hillary's descent into pettiness and fear-mongering ..." -- Seth Grahame-Smith in the Huffington Post, renouncing his past support for Hillary Clinton.
"This is a case where Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain should take the initiative and denounce the fear-mongering about Mr. Obama as hate speech" -- New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, objecting to religious slurs against the candidate.
"On trade, Barack Obama’s opportunistic fear-mongering defines the new Democratic orthodoxy." -- National Review editor Rich Lowry on anti-NAFTA rhetoric.
"[Feith] attacks those criticisms as 'fear-mongering' that serves the interests of certain officials and journalists." -- From a Washington Post story on Douglas Feith, ex-Defense official getting even with his former antagonists among intelligence agencies.
"Last week, 19 Democratic senators surrendered to bullying and fear mongering, extending the executive autocracy of the Bush-Cheney regime." -- Former Texas ag commissioner and left-wing pundit Jim Hightower, ranting about bipartisan intelligence legislation.
Intelligence legislation is the topic that got us noticing this rash of fear-mongering rhetoric, specifically S. 2048, the legislation that updates the federal authority to monitor foreign electronic communications of terrorist suspects; the Senate bill includes retroactive immunity for telecom companies that acceded to federal requests to assist in the monitoring.
Rather than respond to the arguments, critics of the FISA legislation are wont to charge "fear-mongering" -- here are some prime examples -- a rhetorical tactic that evades debate and demonizes their opponents. It's bluster and bullying. Enough, already.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters today cautioned Congress that now is not the time to halt efforts to implement trucking provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which is delivering economic benefits to U.S. workers, farmers, businesses and consumers.
Secretary Peters said a broad coalition of more than 69 U.S. companies and agricultural and business organizations support the project because of the benefits it provides to U.S. exporters who every year ship billions worth of products and produce into Mexico. Should Congress choose to end the project, Mexico has the right under the rules of NAFTA to impose fees and tariffs on U.S. goods that would surely result in lost business and lost jobs, she said.
“Whatever their reason, this is no time to let the politics of pessimism dim the promise of prosperity for hundreds of thousands of American drivers, growers and manufacturers. We should be looking for every chance to open new markets for our drivers, to find new buyers for our products, and encourage new consumers for our produce,” Secretary Peters said.
This study by Iowa State University economics and finance professor Dermot Hayes documents the economic impact and jobs loss from legitimate Mexican retaliation.
The Trucker.com has a story on the issue, "Peters makes plea for keeping Mexico truck program," noting the participation of: National Association of Manufacturers President John Engler; American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman; Corn Refiners Association President Audrae Erickson; and Emergency Committee for American Trade President Calman Cohen.
The Senate Commerce Committee holds a hearing on the Mexican cross-border trucking program on Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. Details here.
UPDATE (3 p.m.): A little back story. The Teamsters have gone after Peters for her efforts to implement the law, a typical enough tactic by organized labor: When you can't make the case on a policy basis, personalize it.
The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades.
Page C1, Style Section, Washington Post, Saturday, March 8th, "Depopulation Boom":
It turns out that the world will be such a swell place without any humans around -- better sunsets, cleaner water, less traffic -- that we can't wait to see it. Even if, you know, we're all dead.
Since last summer, when Alan Weisman's "The World Without Us" became a surprise bestseller by imagining what would happen to the planet if all 6.5 billion humans instantly disappeared, the idea has taken hold in the popular imagination.
A new standard "is completely unnecessary," said Republican Sens. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and George Voinovich of Ohio, who joined four colleagues in sending a letter to the EPA.
The senators said a tighter anti-pollution rule "could trigger layoffs nationwide, further eroding U.S. economic competitiveness, and place upward pressures on consumer inflation, further diminishing the standard of living enjoyed by the majority of our citizens."
The benefits are questionable, the costs clear, and they are enormous...The proposed rule change would cost the Atlanta metro $143.8 billion and 165,200 jobs. The Administration’s decision to change the ozone rule will be made in D.C., but its impacts will be felt across Georgia. Atlanta’s economic strength is needlessly being put to the test – EPA’s own estimates show that ozone levels have decreased 21 percent from 1980-2006.
It's budget resolution week in Congress, and the House (at least) will consider intelligence matters, as policymakers prepare for the two-week Easter recess. The White House may send the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement up to the House, starting the clock ticking on Congressional action. Mississippi's voters weigh their primary choices on Tuesday. Wednesday is a big day, regulatorywise, with the EPA expected to release its new emissions standards for ground-level ozone. The NAM will certainly have a response. And Leonard Cohen gets inducted into the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame tonight; he was not born in a small town.
This morning NAM President John Engler heads to the Department of Transportation to take part in a news conference on the U.S.-Mexico pilot border trucking program. Secretary Peters leads the event.
The House begins business at 2 p.m. today, voting this week on overriding the President's veto of H.R. 2082, the FY08 Intelligence Authorization. The possibility potentially exists, perhaps, that the House will also consider legislation to update electronic surveillance authority. Maybe. And the FY09 budget resolution will come to the floor. The Majority Leader's schedule for the week is here. The Senate convenes at 2 p.m. and debates the budget resolution. Schedule of Senate hearings for the week is here.
House hearings: Oh, where to be at 10 a.m. Tuesday? Separate subcommittees of House Appropriations hold hearings then: (Schedule here.) Commerce Secretary Gutierrez testifies to the Commerce subcommittee on his agency’s budget. The Energy and Water Development Subcommittee considers energy conservation and electricity delivery. And the Financial Services Subcommittee holds a hearing on the CPSC, with acting Chairman Nancy Nord testifying. The Training and Employment Services Subcommittee holds a hearing, "Implications of a Weakening Economy for Training and Employment Services."
It's been about a year since we last linked to Kansas City Star columnist E. Tom McClanahan on the topic of the Employee Free Choice Act, that undemocratic legislation that would eliminate secret ballots in the workplace. Tom remains as pointed as ever:
The unions are also clamoring for passage of something they call the Employee Free Choice Act, a pernicious little bill with a grand Orwellian name.
Clinton and Obama are both for it, even though it would wipe out the secret ballot in elections that certify union bargaining units. That would allow union officials to pressure workers into creating bargaining units by signing “check cards” instead of voting privately. Some “free choice.”
The card-check bill would mean a lot more unionized workplaces, so let’s suggest a more honest name: An Act to Drive American Capital and Jobs Offshore.
OK, so you might choose to dismiss McClanahan as just another pro-liberty columnist pounding at the keyboard. Then take a look at this Right to Work Foundation video of Dana Corp. employees who resisted a card check campaign by the United Auto Workers.
Beverly Mulsof: Seemed what they were there for every day, just harassing us, outside the doors, wanting us to sign the cards.
Rita Murphy: And I think they thought just because we were a small town, that, you know, we were just a kind of country ….
Beverly Mulsof: Going to lay back and take it.
Candidates shouldn't be able to get away with high-flown rhetoric about empowering workers when the Employee Free Choice Act would really just invite employee harassment and intimidation. Let's get down to brass tacks and real experience. Make it a point of public debate.
Manufacturers told [Gov. Tim] Pawlenty that they have jobs to offer, but can't find skilled workers or students interested in training.
Many young adults are passing up career opportunities with extensive training and salaries that begin at $50,000 a year, they said.
"It's frustrating," Pawlenty said at hydrant maker Waterous Co. in South St. Paul. "People have the mistaken impression that manufacturing's a dead industry and that we are not making anything in America anymore. That's not true. Thirteen percent of all the jobs in Minnesota are manufacturing. ... It remains a really important part of our economy."
Another myth plaguing the industry is that all manufacturing is "old, dark and dirty," officials said.
In contrast, most manufacturing is now done in modern facilities that use robotics and computers. "This is not your mother or father's manufacturing industry. This is not only about pulling the lever on a machine anymore," Pawlenty said.
WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today denied requests for rehearing of the Mid-Atlantic and the Southwest Area National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (National Corridors) designated by DOE in October 2007 as areas of significant electricity congestion and constraint. The designation of national corridors was made in accordance with the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct). In affirming the National Corridor designations today, DOE dismissed as being without merit challenges raised by the applicants for rehearing, citing extensive data analysis conducted in its 2006 National Interest Electric Transmission study, ample opportunity for public review and comment, and several other key reasons.
Senator Obama voted for final adoption (the conference report) of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that encouraged new transmission capacity. Sens. Clinton and McCain voted no. Roll call here.
And Hillary understands that to harness the power of the wind, we need to develop the transmission lines to bring that power from our plains to urban areas.
Overall use of the transmission system is growing without significant additions of new construction or upgrades. Approving new projects and acquiring new right-of-ways has been difficult. Many customers oppose having new transmission facilities built near them. These transmission facilities support interstate commerce; but the siting and approval are generally a State and local governmental responsibility.
So credit to the Clinton camp for identifying a major obstacle to economic growth, the lack of transmission capacity. It's a message the entire country should hear, not just Wyoming.
The asbestos lawsuit blob has grown so large that many companies have simply given up fighting it. Then there's W.R. Grace, which is on the verge of making legal history with a trial proceeding that could alter the federal asbestos bankruptcy landscape forever.
Grace is using the rules of evidence to challenge the many bogus claims of asbestos injury, leaving federal bankruptcy Judge Judith Fitzgerald a potentially historic ruling to consider.
Judge Fitzgerald has to weed out the many false claims from the few legitimate ones, but she does have the tools to do it. The medical community long ago established diagnosis criteria that account for dosage, exposure, and work and medical histories. Plaintiffs lawyers have tried to keep these common-sense standards out of courtrooms, but they clearly belong in any court whose goal is just compensation.
If Judge Fitzgerald does discount most of these claims, it could mark the beginning of the end of the bankruptcy racket. Other judges will find it difficult to ignore the evidence and procedures here. As important, trial lawyers might be reluctant to push more companies (in asbestos or other mass torts) into bankruptcy court if they think false claims may be exposed.
This clean-up would obviously come too late for the dozens of companies that have already surrendered to asbestos trusts now run by the tort bar. But it's encouraging that courts are finally investigating sham asbestos claims. It's never too late for real justice.
The House Science and Technology Committee
Competitiveness and Innovation on the Committee’s 50th Anniversary with Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft [Scheduled]
March 12th, 10 a.m., 2318 Rayburn House Office Building
Peter S. Goodman (Reed, '89) of The New York Times is one of the top economics reporters around, so it was a pleasant surprise to find an interview with him in the alumni magazine. Always interesting to see a mainstream reporter on the record in a publication that expects its subject to be frank and interesting. Looks like Peter adopted the journalist's old dodge: On the one hand, on the other hand, a pox on both their houses, and look at this straw man.
A lot of people blame places like China and India—and their low-wage workers—for our economic woes. Is that reasonable?
Most of what ails us in this country, and most of the threats facing American workers, are home-cooked. We don’t compete with China, except in a very limited sense. If we jack up the value of the Chinese currency, and Chinese workers are making $1.25 an hour as opposed to $1.00 an hour, we’re not all of a sudden going to start making tube socks in North Carolina for a living and prospering.
I think that when the Democrats, in particular, essentially demagogue the trade issue and pin the blame for problems with the American economy on trade, they are disingenuously avoiding the solutions that would be complicated and expensive, namely, large-scale public works projects funded by the government to create good jobs, job training, making education a whole lot more affordable, universal healthcare, affordable housing. The Republicans, by the same token, have this dogmatic devotion to free trade, and they’re being disingenuous in not acknowledging that there are all sorts of problems that result from globalization, and markets create winners as well as losers. It’s ultimately an issue of domestic policy how we address the losers.
Do Republicans really not acknowledge that problems result from globalization? Really? And we hear daily from Democrats calling for public works projects, job training and universal healthcare.
We're fans of Goodman, who does fair-minded and insightful reporting. Still, it always seems like a risky idea for a beat or hard-news reporter to express personal opinions on policy matters (Linda Greenhouse's commencement speech at Harvard being a prominent example, albeit one at the extreme). You open yourself to charges of bias; Republicans and Democrats, for example, might well take umbrage at being called disingenuous (the polite term for dishonest).
We recall the guidance of introductory reporting professor Mel Mencher, delivered to a class of students at Columbia Journalism School, fall of '84: "No one cares what you think!"
Finally, a video about manufacturing that features the pouring of molten metal! Sometimes, you just want to see a foundry at work.
And this week's Cool Stuff Being Made brings us the Pennsylvania foundry -- and much more -- at the Chester, Penn., operations of Laran Bronze. The company's website does a great job of telling its story:
Laran Bronze is a fine art foundry established in 1984, owned and operated by Larry Welker, his wife Diane Welker and brother Randy Welker. The company is located in Chester, Pennsylvania, in a large complex that was once a part of the shipbuilding industry. Over the years, Laran Bronze have perfected the art of bronze casting, from miniature to monumental....
Laran Bronze has been selected for several high profile projects like the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC. “The War Memorial commission is the most important of my career,” stated Ray Kaskey, sculptor for the Memorial, “I wouldn't want to entrust the casting to anyone I didn’t have the utmost confidence in.”
As a fine art casting foundry, we combine age-old skills with the latest materials and technology, including resin bonded sand casting, and digital 3D scanning and enlarging. Our large facilities allow for work at practically any scale.
Diane Welker does the honors this week, taking us through the facility and the process of molding and casting sculptures. And yes, lots of high-tech manufacturing processes and materials at work.
As we ride our DST hobby horse ahead an hour tonight, we ask again, does an early start to Daily Saving Time really save energy?
Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), chairman of the House Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, has been the chief advocate of a three four-week expansion of Daylight Saving Time, arguing that the shift of working hours conserves energy. In a news release this week, he said:
Saving energy and decreasing crime help to justify this effort, and the extra evening light will make our towns, cities, front stoops and porches livelier as winter begins to wind down and we look forward to spring.
And frosty milkshakes are frostier. I drink it up!
Now, Rep. Markey could well be right, and there is indeed evidence -- a much-cited UC Santa Barbara study -- that more DST helps conserve. The DST provision was included in the NAM-supported 2005 Energy Policy Act on that basis.
Thing is, there are so many claims and counterclaims thrown around in the world of energy policy: Ethanol is a net gain for U.S. energy security, ethanol actually creates more problems than it solves, etc. Claims like DST-inspired conservation should be challenged, monitored, tested. You know, spring ahead but verify?From PL 109-58:
SEC. 110. DAYLIGHT SAVINGS.
(a) AMENDMENT.—Section 3(a) of the Uniform Time Act of 1966
(15 U.S.C. 260a(a)) is amended—
(1) by striking ‘‘first Sunday of April’’ and inserting ‘‘second
Sunday of March’’; and
(2) by striking ‘‘last Sunday of October’’ and inserting ‘‘first
Sunday of November’’.
(b) EFFECTIVE DATE.—Subsection (a) shall take effect 1 year
after the date of enactment of this Act or March 1, 2007, whichever
is later.
(c) REPORT TO CONGRESS.—Not later than 9 months after the
effective date stated in subsection (b), the Secretary shall report
to Congress on the impact of this section on energy consumption
in the United States.
(d) RIGHT TO REVERT.—Congress retains the right to revert
the Daylight Saving Time back to the 2005 time schedules once
the Department study is complete.
The due date passed December 1, 2007.
The longer a study by the Department of Transportation is delayed, the harder it becomes for Congress to exercise its right to return to the previous DST arrangement.
UPDATE (3:30 p.m. Sunday): Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) argues the energy benefits in this op-ed.
In a new interview with National Journal magazine, an intelligence adviser to Barack Obama's presidential campaign broke with his candidate’s position opposing retroactive legal protection for telecommunications companies being sued for cooperating with a dubious U.S. government domestic surveillance program.
"I do believe strongly that [telecoms] should be granted that immunity," former CIA official John Brennan told National Journal reporter Shane Harris in the interview. "They were told to [cooperate] by the appropriate authorities that were operating in a legal context."
"I know people are concerned about that, but I do believe that's the right thing to do," added Brennan, who is an intelligence and foreign policy adviser to Obama.
Meanwhile, House oppponents of telecom immunity, losing the fight on the merits -- and the politics -- invent new controversies to justify their failure to renew effective U.S. surveillance of communications by foreign terrorists.
Implications: Today’s report on payrolls is disappointing but not nearly as bad as many are making it out to be. Reports on layoffs in February ran below the level of February 2007 and unemployment claims are not signaling recession. What we have is a temporary hiring freeze at many firms in response to fears of a recession, not the kind of layoffs that occur during actual recessions. In addition, the February number may have been influenced by heavy snow that covered much of the US, particularly in the Midwest, which contains much of our nation’s manufacturing sector. This was layered on top of another understandable 26,000 loss in home building jobs. The overall decline in payrolls in February is the second straight monthly drop, which rarely happens outside recessions. However, this is the first business cycle in history when Baby Boomers have started to retire. Negative payrolls in the 1980s and 1990s would have been a very bad sign given trend payroll growth of 200,000+ per month. In a world with trend payroll growth near 100,000, payroll declines are less indicative of recession. Also, the recent weakening in the labor market resembles the acceleration of post-recession job loses in early 2003, as fears mounted about the war with Iraq. That weakening was temporary, and we expect recent weakness to be temporary too. We were glad to see the unemployment rate tick down to 4.8% and note that the measure of the unemployment rate that includes “discouraged workers” also ticked down.
Kralik: We realize at American Solutions that what we want to accomplish cannot be done without embracing the latest technology. That includes social networking and online learning and collaboration and mobile technologies.
We opened an office here in Silicon Valley to embed ourselves with the technology sector, to learn from the best.
That's part of my mission being here, to connect with the tech companies that made Silicon Valley the center of innovation.
IBD: But are you looking for best practices in technology or looking instead to hear what concerns the executives in Silicon Valley have?
Kralik: It's both. We want to play a strong advocacy role. We want to understand the issues that are important to Silicon Valley executives and employees.
For instance, it's utterly silly that we have to extend year after year the R&D tax credit and for some reason we can't make it permanent. Why can't we raise the level of H-1B visas (for foreign workers)? We want to be out here to advocate for those issues.
Nice write-up, Dave. Best of luck on the advocacy.
March 7 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. unexpectedly lost jobs in February for the second consecutive month, adding to evidence the economy is in a recession.
Payrolls fell by 63,000, the most in five years, after a revised decline of 22,000 in January, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The jobless rate declined to 4.8 percent, reflecting a shrinking labor force as some people gave up looking for work.
And, Bloomberg reports, manufacturing payrolls declined by 52,000, the biggest reduction since July 2003, after falling 31,000 a month earlier.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics release is here, and the full page of data is here. Secretary Chao's statement is here.
The unemployment rate for last month dipped to 4.8 percent, but today's report of negative job growth in February shows that the president's concerns about the near term challenges to the economy are right on target. It also underscores the importance of keeping taxes low and making the president's tax cuts permanent, so workers can keep more of their hard earned wages.
UPDATE (10:25 a.m.): Boy, that's quick. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer reacts by saying, vote Democrat.
The Bush Administration seems flummoxed when it comes to the economy, and has taken a ‘hands-off’ approach. It is imperative that our nation and our economy head in a new direction, and that will only occur when a Democrat occupies the White House.
Minnesota manufacturers put out the help wanted sign for skilled workers
by Tim Post, Minnesota Public Radio
March 6, 2008
While one might think the slumping economy would be the top worry for manufacturers in Minnesota right now, many companies say their biggest concern is the lack of skilled workers available to make their products.
That's what Governor Tim Pawlenty and state economic officials heard from some Brainerd area manufactures today.
A well-done story about the workforce needs of a dynamic economy. And here's another, covering the shortage of welders in Minnesota and what one company, Superior Industries of Morris, is doing in response.
Because of the shortage of welders in the U.S., Superior Industries started its own welding school this year to train new welders to meet the demands of a growing industry, one that is more than ever stressing quality and safety as products are becoming larger and more complex.
Superior began its school by investing more than $125,000 in equipment and training materials, then bringing in [Dave] Dybdal to instruct the welders in the techniques that would earn them the top available industry certifications.
“Companies have to do something,” Dybdal said. “We feel like it’s an investment, not an expense.”
Congratulations to Superior, a great example of the efforts manufacturers are taking around the country to address the shortage of skilled employees -- offering people great careers in the process.
Walter Olson's Point of Law item on ergonomics cited below is worth taking full note of, as it clearly outlines how a court, ruling on the basis of the law, can thwart the plaintiff bar's efforts to invent an entirely new class of injured person who can demand compensation, and with this new class, new law and sweeping economic consequences. Drawing on this AP report, it's a very good history lesson.
At one point, RSI-carpal tunnel-cumulative trauma was seen as one of the more promising product liability mass torts, with lawyers around the country filing thousands of claims; the favored targets were deep-pocket equipment makers such as IBM and Apple. The suits gathered steam and moved forward for several years but suffered a crushing setback when a federal appeals court in 1993 reversed an order consolidating many such cases (In re Repetitive Stress Injury Litigation, 11 F.3d 368 (2d Cir. 1993)). When pursued individually most of the cases fared poorly, and the prospect of a "bet your company" mass verdict was no longer there to serve as leverage to get defendants to the settlement table. The result was a rout for plaintiffs and an unusually thorough win for defendants: RSI-carpal tunnel litigation has subsided and is no longer seen as a threat to the financial health of computer makers, and most lawyers have given up on it.
But what if the Second Circuit had acted differently in 1993 and allowed the mass cases to move forward as a consolidation? What if rather than risk a "bet your company" trial, defendants had one by one begun signing up for a settlement fund to compensate sufferers? What if -- after the lawyers and experts took their billions -- billions were left over for persons who could produce a doctor's note attesting that after they used computers their joints ached in certain ways? Is there really any doubt that the number of newly reported cases would today be far higher, and perhaps would not have declined at all? Is there any doubt that a large body of opinion would now angrily reject the reassuring Mayo and Harvard findings, on the grounds that -- to quote a phrase heard in both the silicone-implant and autism-vaccine episodes -- "We are the evidence."
Some, of course, will draw from all this the conclusion that carpal tunnel is just as real and frequent an ailment as ever but is now being seriously underdiagnosed because workers are ever more discouraged from even so much as reporting it, knowing there will be no remedy. Others will conclude that our legally driven compensation system is quite good at calling forth subjective or hard-to-disprove claims of injury, and that we owe the Second Circuit thanks for a narrow escape, not only from a gigantic and spurious episode of mass tort litigation, but indeed from a whole spurious public health epidemic that would otherwise be raging on to the present.
In catching up on the Office of Labor and Management Standards yesterday, we learned of a new site sponsored by one of the lesser members of organized labor's popular front, American Rights at Work, a 501(c)(4) organization (overtly political, not tax deductible). The group, headed by David Bonior, has a lovely new web project going, Shame on Elaine, another example of labor's ugly practice of personalizing policy disputes (besides being weirdly late to the game in the last year of the administration). Quick summary: U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao is a bad person.
One section stood out, not just for its vulgar title, "Screwing Workers," but also for the timeliness of its wrongness.
Slashing Safety
Nixing Ergonomics Rules: In 2001, more than 600,000 workers a year had to take time off from work because of ergonomic-related injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome. Despite convincing evidence on the significance of conditions caused by repetitive motion, Elaine sided with corporations and against worker safety.
The AP reports that since the 1990s, the height of concern over the issue, "carpal tunnel cases have plummeted, declining 21 percent in 2006 alone, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among workers in professional and business services, the number of carpal tunnel syndrome cases fell by half between 2005 and 2006." Researchers are concluding that while repetitive stress injury, to use another catch-phrase, is indeed a serious job hazard for some workers who engage in physically demanding tasks like meat-cutting, mattress-flipping, and so forth, it was greatly overdiagnosed or misdiagnosed as a malady afflicting computer keyboard users. (Ergonomic improvements such as wrist rests for mouse pads have undoubtedly helped, but are unlikely to explain the whole drop, especially since time devoted to keyboarding among the population seems to be rising steadily.) "A 2001 study by the Mayo Clinic found heavy computer users (up to seven hours a day) had the same rate of carpal tunnel as the general population. Harvard University headlined a 2005 press release 'Computer use deleted as carpal tunnel syndrome cause.'"
The proposed ergonomics rules promoted so aggressively by groups like American Rights at Work would have rewarded and institutionalized all those overdiagnosed or misdiagnosed claims, costing employers millions of dollars, harming productivity and doing nothing to benefit the serious sufferers of ergonomic injuries.
Elaine Chao was right on this one, just as she was right on so many other issues that this dishonorable group now attacks her for.
The measure now goes to a conference committee to iron out differences with the House bill, a process that is likely to be contentious since manufacturers and retailers have been lobbying vigorously for the House legislation. But several changes to the Senate bill -- lowering fines, limiting lawsuits by state attorneys general to injunctive relief only, and reducing the amount whistle-blowers might receive -- brought the two bills more in line. Earlier this week, the White House embraced the House bill but didn't say it would veto the Senate bill.
The Senate's changes weren't enough to mollify the National Association of Manufacturers, however. In a statement, Executive Vice President Jay Timmons expressed reservations about the Senate bill. "While it's encouraging that the Senate joined the House in taking action to strengthen the CPSC," he said, "we are still concerned that several provisions in the Senate bill have nothing to do with enhancing product safety but will only increase litigation, undermine uniformity of enforcement, and create unnecessary burdens on U.S. companies."
Actually, it did mollify, just didn't satisfy. The bill has definitely improved from earlier Senate versions.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi indicated Thursday that new legislation regulating electronic surveillance may come to the House floor next week, but would not commit to a vote before the Easter recess.
She called the bill that easily passed the Senate on Feb. 12 “not right,” and said Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer , D-Md., continues talks with the Senate on how to meet House Democrats’ objections.
Does this strategy make any sense? Not for national security -- obviously, it doesn't -- but politically?
Well, maybe if the goal is to mollify the angry leftist netroots, like blogger mffarrow at the DailyKos.
All we need in order to win on FISA is for the House to do nothing. No vote means "compromises," no immunity, no unfettered governmental spying on its citizens.
I think this is our chance.
One really hopes that that attitude isn't driving House debate...or lack thereof.
UPDATE (9:55 a.m. Friday): Speaker Pelosi is now talking "exclusivity" as the key issue. More generally, she says, House Democrats are "at the mercy of the 17 or 18 Democrats in the Senate who are voting with the Republicans on this."
But...there are enough Democrats in the House who would vote for the Senate bill that it would pass. So who are they at the mercy of?
Saturday, March 01, 2008 Smog squeeze: industry escalates pressure at the White House
Industry is escalating its political pressure against any effort by EPA to toughen ozone standards. It’s a smog squeeze play.
The latest documented meeting took place Wednesday, as groups including the Edison Electric Institute and the National Association of Manufacturers met with the Office of Management and Budget. (See below.)
By Clean Air Watch's standards then, this should also be a headline: "Job Squeeze: Big government, economy-killing activist groups escalate pressure at White House."
Meeting Record Regarding: Ozone NAAQS
Date: 3/ 3/2008
Name Affiliation Client (if applicable)
Art Fraas OIRA/OMB
Deborah Shprentz . American Lung Association
Casey Vermeulen Physicians for Social Responsibility
John Walke NRDC
Janice Nolen American Lung
Cindy Pellegrini Amer. Acad. of Pediatrics
Gary Ewart American Thoracic Society
John Balbey EDF
Kevin Neyland OMB/OIRA
Heidi King OMB/OIRA
Erika Sasser EPA
However, we offer the headline only for purposes of illustration. We don't immediately condemn the groups as malicious or mendacious, but rather as citizens who have a right to petition the government. They may be wrong as matter of policy, and the ozone standards they support will damage the economy with little if any health benefit resulting, but it's worth a debate.
(Hat tip: OMBWatch, which delighted in maligning Susan Dudley, now head of OIRA.)
Former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow to Moderate Manufacturers’ Association 103rd Annual Event
ERIE – In a year that has seen conventional political predictions pushed aside, two former presidential candidates will offer their insider’s view of the race for the White House. John Edwards and Fred Thompson will be the featured speakers at the Manufacturers’ Association’s 103rd Annual Event Wednesday, June 18 at the Bayfront Convention Center.
Former White House press secretary Tony Snow will bring his unique experience and serve as the moderator of the event.
“It has been a truly unpredictable presidential race full of great storylines,” said Association Chairman Gerald B. Eighmy, president of American Turned Products. “Who better than John Edwards and Fred Thompson to offer our membership a unique glimpse into the campaign trail and the pulse of the American electorate?
Give Edwards credit. After a campaign spent demonizing American business as selfish, greedy exploiters of the little guy, it takes some guts -- is that the right word? -- to speak before a manufacturers' group.
Hmmm...Yeah...the better word is chutzpah. But then, he's a trial lawyer.
Oil and Gas Investor Are you a proponent of more natural gas drilling (domestic production of natural gas), or shipments (via LNG or pipeline from Canada)?
Carl Pope Our view is that we should actually let markets work. We should make it possible for the most efficient-energy sources to meet the largest part of our energy needs. There’s a lot of opportunity—people in the natural gas industry tell me—to produce more natural gas domestically by using new technologies, and we’re in favor of that.
On the other hand, if you look at LNG, although it may have a place in certain regions, taking a bunch of natural gas from Indonesia and moving it to the United States is intrinsically not terribly efficient, so we would rather see what we can do with domestic production here in the United States before we start substituting imported natural gas for imported oil.
We think we have enough energy resources here in the United States that if we harness innovation—if we use every cubic foot, every gallon, every Btu, every kilowatt hour—to do real work and deliver real value, we think the United States can generally be energy independent and we’d like to see that. So our focus is on domestic sources, and the most efficient and cheapest domestic sources first.
That's really something.
UPDATE (3 p.m.): In the extended entry, you'll see a news release from David Willett, national press secretary of the Sierra Club, disputing the Oil and Gas Investor interview.
Again, Sierra Club's official policy on natural gas production, which Mr. Pope explained in the full interview, remains unchanged--it includes opposition to new off shore and onshore drilling in environmentally inappropriate areas, or using less than the best available technology. We support using newer and better technologies for increased production from existing fields. We recognize that gas is cleaner than coal or oil but is still not as preferable as renewables and efficiency.
Yes, and everywhere is "environmenally inappropriate."
Apparently even a mixed message is too disturbing for the Sierra Club to contemplate, so they're walking back Pope's statement. At least that's the way it seems.
Following up on our earlier post about the budget of the Office of Labor Management Standards, we note these enforcement actions under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act for February...so far.
On February 8, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Betty Illig, former Secretary-Treasurer for Graphic Communications Workers Local 638-S and the Tri-State District Joint Council, pled guilty to embezzling $145,675 in union funds and submitting false Form LM-3 reports. The plea follows a joint investigation by the OLMS Cleveland District Office and the Department of Labor’s Office of the Inspector General.
On February 8, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Carolyn M. Wallace, former President of Steelworkers Local 02-356, pled guilty to embezzling union funds in the amount of $25,200. On December 13, 2007, Wallace was charged with one count of embezzling union funds in the same amount. The plea follows an investigation by the OLMS Milwaukee District Office.
On February 7, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, Bridgett Cardall Hooks, former Secretary-Treasurer of Postal Workers Local 332, pled guilty to one count of embezzling union funds in the amount of $10,820.17. The plea follows an investigation by the OLMS Nashville District Office.
On February 7, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, an information was filed charging Brian Dolney, former President of Machinists Lodge 2333, with one count of bank fraud totaling $11,565. Donley fraudulently negotiated union checks at the Security National Bank in Springfield, Ohio. The charge follows an investigation by the Cincinnati District Office.
On February 6, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, an information was filed against Francis Pagan, former President of Boilermakers Local Lodge 3M, charging him with embezzling $17,415 in union funds. The charge follows an investigation by the OLMS Cleveland District Office.
On February 6, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Chad Mowery, former Secretary-Treasurer of BLE Division 282, was charged with embezzling $2,537 in union funds. The charge follows an investigation by the OLMS Cincinnati District Office.
On February 4, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, an information was filed against Pauline M. Gibson, former President of the Drivers, Warehousemen, Maintenance and Allied Workers of America, Local 1, charging her with making a false statement and representation of a material fact, knowing it to be false, on the local’s annual financial report. The charge follows an investigation by the OLMS Nashville District Office.
On February 4, 2008, in the Douglas County, Wisconsin Circuit Court, John Sigafus, former Secretary-Treasurer of Machinists Local W-335, pled no contest to theft of union funds in the amount of $2,500 or less. Subsequently, Sigafus was sentenced to one year probation and ordered to make restitution in the amount of $5,363.91. The sentencing follows an investigation by the OLMS Milwaukee District Office.
Theft of union funds? Embezzlement of union funds? Yes, but also union members' funds.
Cutting the OLMS's budget to weaken its enforcement ability is objectively anti-worker.
From the Grand Forks Herald, the newspaper of the last major city (at least by Northern Plains standards) before you hit Manitoba, an editorial, "NAFTA helps grow U.S., N.D.":
Manufacturing output has grown, not declined, in the U.S. under NAFTA. It’s up almost across the board –- as Grand Forks residents, when they drive past the local LM Glasfiber and Cirrus Design plants, can see.
Speaking of Grand Forks and the state, “North Dakota ranked top in the nation for export growth in 2007, according to U.S. Commercial Service reports,” the Bismarck Tribune reported recently.
“The state’s exports totaled $2 billion in 2007, up 34 percent from its $1.5 billion in exports in 2006; nationally, export growth was 12 percent more than the previous year.”
Given that ranking, it’s ironic that Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., is a sharp critic of NAFTA. His views mean the state “leads the nation in both exports and protectionism,” the National Association of Manufacturers declared. But that’s par for the course for NAFTA, a policy about which contradiction is the political norm.
Our earlier post here. And for what it's worth, we worked at the Herald in the 1990s, before Glasfiber and Cirrus Design Corp. set up its manufacturing operations in Grand Forks.
Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao testifies this morning before the House Appropriations Committee, the Labor subcommittee, on her department's 2009 budget. We trust she'll make the good case for an expanded budget for the Office of Labor Management Standards, the office that monitors whether labor unions comply with federal laws governing the proper use of union members' funds. Think accountability, transparency...
As this all-too-lengthy summary of OLMS enforcement actions in 2007 indicates, there does seem to be a bit of a problem when it comes to things like embezzlement and misuse of funds.
Last year, President Bush and the Department of Labor's budget called for increasing tohe OLMS budget by $9 million to $57 million. But once organized labor called in its chits, pulled its strings, unveiled its veiled threats, Congress actually reduced the office's budget by nearly $3 million. (Previous Shopfloor.org posts here.) Think accountability, transparency...and then think about getting less of it.
If Congress were making wholescale cuts, reducing budgets to trim government spending, well, OK. But where else were budgets actually cut?
The President's FY09 budget takes another run at increasing the Office of Labor Management Standard's budget, going to $58.3 million, including $8 million to bring OLMS back to its previous size and effectiveness. (For Labor's budget summary for OLMS in .pdf format, click here.)
The Office of Labor Management Standards protects union members and ensures their dues are spent properly.
Or, to take rhetorical inspiration from the unions themselves: Cutting the OLMS budget is anti-worker. People who support cutting its budget are anti-worker. They don't care for workers. They are undermining worker democracy. Why do they hate workers?
One of three provisions of S. 2663, the CPSC Reform Act, likely to cause the most damage to a coherent, federal standard of product safety is the one that gives states attorneys general the authority to enforce the laws. Instead of one federal standard, understandable by manufacturers and consumers alike, we in effect get 50 state-based and arbitrary sets of rules -- all depending on an individual attorney general's legal interpretation or, we're afraid, hunger for headlines in going after a supposed bad actor. As the Wall Street Journal says, think 50 Eliot Spitzers.
Then there's the trial lawyers, who are happy to work with attorneys general to target potential big payouts. Threaten companies with litigation, get the lawsuits rolling, and the cash will flow. The most abusive relationship is one where attorneys general contract out with one or more legal firms to do their work for them, based on a contingency fee.
So in Senate debate today on S. 2663, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) offered an amendment to stop the threat of at least that most egregious abuse, the AG-trial lawyer shakedown tag team against business. The amendment's purpose:
To prohibit State attorneys general from entering into contingency fee agreements for legal or expert witness services in certain civil actions relating to Federal consumer product safety rules, regulations, standards, certification or labeling requirements, or orders..
Unfortunately, the Senate preserved the threat, voting 51-45 to table Cornyn's amendment. Pleasing to the plaintiff's bar, sure, but this has nothing to do with product safety.
Debate continues in the Senate tomorrow.
If you can bear more of this, there's actually a pretty good discussion available on the legislation available for download. It was broadcast today on the Washington, D.C. public radio program, the Kojo Nnamdi Show. Guests are Rachel Weintraub, Director of Product Safety, Consumer Federation of America, and Rosario Palmieri, Vice President, Infrastructure, Legal and Regulatory Policy, National Association of Manufacturers.
We haven't written much about the card-check issue since the Senate stopped H.R. 800, the Employee Free Choice Act, last June by failing to invoke cloture. The bill was dead, no reason to keep restating how undemocratic it was, how much abuse employees would face if they were robbed of their right to a secret ballot in the workplace.
But since then, organized labor has been tireless in promoting -- and misrepresenting -- the Employee Free Choice Act, making it a matter of faith on the political left. Just one example: In Minnesota, the Minnesota Machinists Union endorses Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken, proclaiming, "Al will carry our voice to Washington and not only vote for the Employee Free Choice Act he will proudly co-sponsor it."
That's no surprise, but neither should the unions and candidates simply get a free ride on the issue, claiming card check would "protect the rights of the 60 million people" who supposedly want to join a union. If by "protect" you mean open up to flagrant intimidation by union organizers, sure.
Anyway, we promise renewed attention. And to fire up the effort, an observation from the former top man at GE, Jack Welch, talking to Larry Kudlow on CNBC.
And I think people, the market, is usually ahead of things, are seeing some of these crazy proposals that are out there from these people. We’d be the only country in the developed world that’s raising taxes, not lowering taxes. And there’s a whole series of programs here. And Larry, we haven’t even talked about yet, the first thing they’ll do is pass that damn [Employee] Free Choice Act. And if you want to see jobs escape, in a country where [American workers] don’t have a secret ballot for voting, you’ll see it happen here.
House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said Wednesday the House will not take up an electronic surveillance measure this week, further delaying any decisions on the controversial measure.
Hoyer said in his weekly press conference that he hoped to wrap up work on an update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act; “towards the end of this week or the beginning of next week.”
However, the majority leader acknowledged that there were “still disagreements” within the Democratic caucus over the issue of granting immunity to telecom companies who aided the government in the wiretapping program.
Tiny plastic bags used to sell small quantities of heroin, crack cocaine, marijuana and other drugs would be banned in Chicago, under a crackdown advanced Tuesday by a City Council committee.
Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd) persuaded the Health Committee to ban possession of "self-sealing plastic bags under two inches in either height or width," after picking up 15 of the bags on a recent Sunday afternoon stroll through a West Side park.
Lt. Kevin Navarro, commanding officer of the Chicago Police Department's Narcotics and Gang Unit, said the ordinance will be an "important tool" to go after grocery stores, health food stores and other businesses.
Because drug dealers are too stupid to figure out other ways to package their wares.
Via Jim Geraghty, who in an item of Sen. Barack Obama notes other Chicago urbanity:
UPDATE (3:15 p.m.): Buried the lede. Here it is, courtesy today's Wall Street Journal:
Over the weekend, Chicago lifted itself to the top of a tax dishonor roll: The city's cumulative sales-tax rate is now the steepest of any major metropolitan area in America, at 10.25%. That blows past the former valedictorian, Memphis (9.25%), as well as New Orleans (9%), Denver (8.6%), and even New York and Los Angeles. Congratulations.
WASHINGTON - Fresh off a tour of Colombia, Rep. Jim Matheson says a free trade agreement with that South American country could boost its strength as a U.S. ally, a point President Bush also stressed Tuesday.
Matheson, a Utah Democrat, spent three days in Colombia this weekend with several other members of Congress, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez. They met with President Alvaro Uribe and toured parts of the nation that Matheson says even police would not dare to visit just a few years ago.
"There's just been a real transformation in this country," Matheson says. "This is a country that has made tremendous strides to provide security for its population . . . [however], they're clearly very open about all the challenges they face."
Secretary Gutierrez has done yeoman's work in accompanying bipartisan congressional delegations to Colombia over the past. The Department of Commerce has materials on the most recent visit, the fourth such delegation, here.
The saber-rattling from Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and his Ecuadorian ally against Colombia reinforces the high stakes at play in Latin America. Austin Bay's smart column sees Chavez's aggressiveness as a response to Colombia's President Uribe success in war against narcoterrorism. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
The sides are pretty clear, here. The United States should support an ally, thwart a foe AND expand opportunities for U.S exports by enacting the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s courage in taking a perilous stand against terrorists is a persuasive indication that he is precisely the breed of ally we need in the region. Uribe deserves our support, and a trade accord would bolster his administration while benefiting both our nations’ economies.
Washington Post business columnist Steven Perlstein is right -- and how often do we say that? -- in identifying a real need for an institution providing community college-type education in Washington, D.C., currently underserved and misserved by the University of the District of Columbia. From "UDC is a School to Retool":
To put it bluntly, the District doesn't need -- and probably can't support -- a quality land-grant university. Its population is too small and its tax base too narrow. Most of its public school graduates are unprepared to do college-level work. And the most pressing need of its businesses and its unemployed residents is for an effective teaching machine that can make up for the deficiencies of the public school system and train its residents for the tens of thousands of "middle skill" jobs offered by the regional economy.
In other words, what the District needs is a community college.
We write a lot about the "skills gap" because of the high demand for skilled employees in the manufacturing sector. However, the district's manufacturing base is tiny enough that a refocused UDC would be unlikely to develop as many close ties between industry and vocational education as do other institutions.
That said, an emphasis on acquiring skills demanded by the local economy would certainly serve the citizens -- and taxpayers -- of the District better than UDC's current approach.
Perlstein notes ongoing discussions about education in the district, including work by the Brookings Institution, and anticipates...
I suspect UDC may wind up as the administrative and political umbrella for a collection of programs aimed at training workers for specific industries -- a teachers college, a school of nursing and health sciences, a technology campus and so forth. Each would have its own campus, its own faculty and its own advisory board drawn from local employers. Programs would be designed as much around internships, apprenticeships and computer-based learning as around traditional classroom instruction.
From an op-ed in today's USA Today, "Don't Confuse Consumers," by Rosario Palmieri, the National Association of Manufacturers' vice president of regulatory policy
Proposed database could unduly alarm the public, harm companies.
America's manufacturers are committed to ensuring that consumers can be confident that the products they buy are the safest in the world.
That's why the National Association of Manufacturers supported the bipartisan Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act that passed the House last December, and why we support the provisions in the Senate Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Reform Act that improve product safety in a meaningful way.
Unfortunately, the Senate bill also contains several provisions, including the creation of a "public database" that will do nothing for product safety and instead confuse and mislead consumers.
The Senate provision would require the CPSC to devote significant money and staff resources to maintain a database that in reality would contain massive amounts of inaccurate, unverified, extraneous and self-interested information.
Advocates of the database often equate it to one maintained by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA). However, unlike the NHTSA database, which classifies only consumer complaints regarding motor vehicles by make, model and year, the Senate's CPSC database would not only include consumer complaints, but also require that all reports from local, state and federal agencies, doctors, hospitals and other unspecified sources for more than 15,000 categories of products be included by manufacturer, model and year.
And, unlike the NHTSA database, the Senate's proposed CPSC database would not protect confidential business information from public disclosure.
The Senate's proposed database could unduly alarm consumers and harm companies. At a minimum, any public database maintained by the CPSC should only include information that has been through an appropriate review and comment process as to its accuracy and whether disclosing it would be misleading or unfairly prejudicial. (The House bill includes a study on how best to create such a database.) While the Senate provision is well-intentioned, the proposed database's "garbage in, garbage out" approach will not improve product safety.
The Senate yesterday defeated the substitute amendment sponsored by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), that would have substituted the more targeted and effective House version (H.R. 4040) for the current S. 2663. The vote to table the amendment was 57-39.
Bush's Security 'Scare Tactics' Will Not Divide Democrats -- That's last week's Washington Post op-ed by the chairmen of the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees. Since then, it appears Bush's security 'scare tactics' have divided Democrats. Or perhaps it's the merits of the argument.
Should either candidate fail to land a knock-out punch in Pennsylvania or in equally populated North Dakota on May 6th, this nerve-wracking game could adjourn until the Democrats' nominating convention in September.
That's from a report about yesterday's primaries at T-Online, the biggest Internet provider in Germany and a business unit of Deutsche Telekom, which offers lots of news and other services -- think AOL News.
North Dakota held its caucuses on February 5th and has about 640,000 inhabitants.
Lobbying is a constitutionally protected activity that warrants as much legal protection as publishing a newspaper, joining together in prayer or gathering on a street corner for a protest. Section 207 of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act strikes directly at that activity by demanding burdensome and intrusive disclosures — disclosures that would effectively discourage many of our members from speaking out in the first place. When the NAM and our members’ rights are threatened in this way, there is no choice. Lobbying gives way to legal action, and we turn to the courts for justice.
The NAM's materials on the suit are available at our Legal Beagle search engine, here.
The brief from U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor is available here as a .pdf file. To read the brief filed for defendants Secretary of the Senate Nancy Erickson, and Clerk of the House of Representatives Lorraine C. Miller, click here. .
An amicus from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government Washington is available here and a brief from the Campaign Legal Center, Democracy 21 and Public Citizen is here.
UPDATE (3:45 p.m.): Corrected the name of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The group's news release is here.
At 5:30 p.m. today the Senate is scheduled to vote on an amendment to S. 2663, the consumer product safety bill, sponsored by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). The language is basically that of H.R. 4040, the bipartisan legislation that passed the House. DeMint:
Giving the Consumer Product Safety Commission the tools it needs to ensure that products are safe for our children should be a top priority. The House passed a truly bipartisan bill last year and the Senate should have taken it up long ago. But some of my colleagues want to use this emotional issue to add a number of politically motivated giveaways for trial lawyers, organized labor and other special interest groups. Unfortunately, these provisions will harm American workers and consumers.
I hope the Senate will recognize that passing Speaker Pelosi’s bill is the most responsible thing to do. The President could sign it tomorrow, instead of waiting months to work out differences in the House and Senate bills and without adding harmful political giveaways. Let’s set politics aside and protect our children.
Driving the debate over reauthorization of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is public concern about the importation of unsafe products from China. In response to this concern, the Senate Commerce Committee has drafted legislation (the forthcoming substitute for the CPSC Reform Act, S. 2045) that is larded with massive gifts to the plaintiffs' trial bar and would undermine the CPSC's efforts to improve product safety. It would boost criminal penalties for distributing products in violation of consumer-products laws and regulations, dramatically raise fines for such violations, and give state attorneys general the power to sue firms on behalf of their citizens--a great boon for trial lawyers. These three provisions are likely to have serious unintended consequences, especially for small businesses, independent retailers, and American products manufacturers and distributors. The House versions of these provisions (in H.R. 4040), though not perfect, present a more balanced approach. At a time when economic growth is slowing, Congress should take care to avoid policies such as these that raise the cost of doing business, increase legal uncertainty and risk, and threaten jobs.
House and Senate Democratic leaders are headed into talks today that they say could lead to a breakthrough on legislation to revamp domestic surveillance powers and grant phone companies some form of immunity for their role in the administration's warrantless wiretapping program after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
A senior House Democratic aide said a bill could be sent to President Bush as early as next week. But significant issues remain, including those surrounding immunity, said Wyndee R. Parker, general counsel of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
It appears the movement by House Democrats toward a resolution of this issue, complete with immunity, is motivated by a mixture of serous concern about national security and the political reality of this -- it's a loser issue except among the activists and trial lawyers.
They know their House leadership has bungled this issue. The Democrat-controlled Senate passed a compromise measure by a decisive two-to-one margin. Yet, Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to allow the Senate bill to even reach the floor — where it would have doubtlessly passed. Instead, top Democrats embarrassed themselves by voting a couple of transparently politicized, legally meaningless contempt citations against Bush-administration officials and then . . . leaving for a week’s vacation. Now, we are only a few legislative days away from yet another recess, this one for two weeks over Easter.
The party’s 2008 prospects may hinge on a convincing demonstration of national-security seriousness. For members who grasp that, skipping town without addressing the perilous gap in our capacity to detect new terrorist threats is unacceptable.
Seems like a fair assessment, politically speaking.
BizCentral.org, Lowering Barriers to Blogging Entry
Congratulations to Pat Cleary, former NAM vice president and founder of Shopfloor.org, who has set up a new site that allows trade associations to enter the world of blogging, BizCentral.org.
Welcome, everyone, to BizCentral.org, the first-of-its-kind business association community blog. What's that mean? It means that it's a blog with a dozen or so contributors drawn from the business association community -- and one wannabe. If you click on the link at the right that says, "Who's blogging," you'll see who is part of our initial band of merry pranksters. Click on a blogger's name below to see all their posts.
It's hard to believe that there's any gap in a universe of blogs that Technorati estimates at over 90 million, but there is. There are blogs for just about every group and interest but until now there's not been a blog for business associations. And, we figure our timing is good, if this Reuters story is accurate, that 70% of Americans believe that "traditional journalism" is out of touch and are turning to the Internet for their news. We're figuring this Internet thing is gonna catch on.
We hope through our humble efforts here to grow the business voice in the blogosphere. We are capitalists, are generally pro-trade, free market folks who create jobs by the millions and power this economy. You'll hear from the bloggers about their issues and about some of the things they are doing. We invite feedback, hope you'll mark us as a "favorite," hope you'll check back from time to time to see what's buzzing in the business world.
Welcome to BizCentral.org.
Also -- nice, nice profile in Politico. That's quite a list of contributors: Business Roundtable, American Trucking Associations, American Petroleum Institute, CTIA — The Wireless Association, National Association of Chain Drug Stores, National Electrical Manufacturers Association, Nuclear Energy Institute, Organization for International Investment, Personal Care Products Council, Salt Institute and the U.S. Telecom Association.
Good idea, good luck, and welcome to all our association blogging compatriots.
Remarks by Sen. John McCain about the potential that autism can be caused by thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used in vaccines, are gradually drawing more attention. First reported by ABC News, McCain's remarks came last week in town-hall meeting in Texas.
It’s indisputable that (autism) is on the rise amongst children, the question is what’s causing it. And we go back and forth and there’s strong evidence that indicates that it’s got to do with a preservative in vaccines.
No, there is NOT strong evidence that autism has anything to do with thimerosal. It is a claim made by some parents of autistic children, trial lawyers -- of course -- and demagogue activists like Bobby Kennedy Jr.
[The] thimerosal-autism theory is as dead as phlogiston in respectable company. I'm not surprised that "respectable company" excludes a few ambulance-chasing lawyers looking for deep pockets and a some emotionally devastated parents looking for someone to blame.
But it's distressing — to use no stronger term — that the presumptive Republican nominee for President, rather than looking at the evidence, has chosen to side with the panic-spreaders and pander to the emotions of the panic victims.
Yes. The fact is autism has continued to exist after the mercury-containing preservative was removed from vaccines, so...
Most discouraging about a presidential candidate lending credence to these claims is that it may prompt some parents to forego vaccinations for their children. So we get more illness, more long-term damage to children's health, because the plaintiff's bar has ginned up a medical controversy. Awful.
Anyway...Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, took part in a conference call with a few bloggers yesterday to take issue with the Senate Democratic budget, which will be marked up this week. (Congress Daily summary here.) Gregg seemed fired up, taking heated issue with the larger government, bigger spending and higher taxes he expects from the majority.
Acting on instructions from the NAM policy mavens, we asked about the reconciliation process. That's the only real hammer the Budget Committee has, using a reconciliation resolution to demand specific spending actions by committees in charge. Reconciliation-instructed actions are then not subject to filibuster and can pass by a 51-49 vote.
In the past, reconciliation has been used to cut spending, but Gregg says last year the practice was reversed when Democrats juggled student loan spending and reimbursements to increase spending by some $19 billion.
And this year?
I expect they’re going to do the same game, but they’re going to use it much more aggressively this year – probably use it on Medicare, probably use it on Medicaid, maybe use it on S-CHIP, maybe use it on some agriculture programs. I’m expecting them to be significantly expanding the size of government by using reconciliation protection in getting around the filibuster.
Q: And is there any way to resist that?
A: Well, in the end, as long as we have a Republican president, their proposal would be subject to a veto, but it does mute the ability of Senate Republicans to use the filibuster to stop something coming right out of the gate.
You can read the transcript of Gregg's reconciliation-related remarks by clicking here. The audio file is here, but the sound levels are low.
UPDATE (9:45 a.m.): Gregg's basic argument, the political critique of the Democratic budget, as reported by Townhall.com.
MINNEAPOLIS - Minnesota's push to drastically cut state greenhouse gas emissions is being felt next door in South Dakota -- and that may be a problem for its neighbors.
A hoped-for power plant expansion has been approved by South Dakota's regulators, but plans to run powerlines deep into Minnesota have faced opposition from environmentalists who say it runs counter to Minnesota's move toward cleaner power.
According to the study of state economic climates published by the American Legislative Exchange Council, "Rich States, Poor States," Minnesota ranks 35th in economic outlook among the 50 states. South Dakota ranks third. And the calculations used by authors Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore don't take the costs, availability and reliability of energy into account.
From today's Wall Street Journal editorial page, "Lawyers 'R' Us":
Under the latest version of a bill sponsored by Arkansas Democrat Mark Pryor, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is in for a major expansion. The bill would more than double the agency's budget by 2015, to $155 million from $63 million. Also skyrocketing are civil penalties faced by companies in violation of consumer safety rules. Those would rise to $250,000 from $8,000 for each incident, with a maximum of $20 million for multiple violations.
These figures risk creating a new set of incentives for assorted plaintiffs, with the trial lawyers right behind them. And under a whistleblower provision in the Senate bill, employees could keep from being fired merely by claiming knowledge of a product safety violation. In some cases, they could also sue their employer for up to $250,000 in punitive damages.
Sound fun yet? The Pryor bill would also distribute enforcement power among the nation's dozens of state Attorneys General. In lieu of consistent national standards, the newly empowered state AGs would be given the green light to file lawsuits and enforce rules against manufacturers based on their own interpretation of consumer product safety laws. Think Eliot Spitzer times 50.
The Journal notes significant improvements in self-policing by toy manufacturers.
The Senate resumes consideration of S. 2663, the Consumer Product Safety Reform Act shortly after 10 a.m. today. We agree with the Journal's conclusion: " If Congress must act to appease parental concerns, better to adopt something more like the House bill, which passed unanimously in December. The Senate bill would raise costs for consumers and business, with little benefit in product safety."
The hits keep coming. But, the dryness of the description notwithstanding, Senator Gregg (R-NH) made an important point when discussing budget issues with bloggers yesterday. Can't we at least acknowledge that, yeah, that's a tidal wave coming our way?
[The Democratic budget] doesn't even address the real crisis, which we do have, the fiscal crisis we do have, which is the $66 trillion of unfunded liability that’s coming down the pike as a result of entitlements’ cost, because of the retirement of the Baby Boom generation.
And the president has at least tried to address that in his budget. It was the only thing in his budget that I had any respect for, quite honestly. I haven’t been any kinder to his budget than to this budget, but at least he tried to address entitlement spending. And he made proposals which were reasonable and which would have reduced the out-year liability at about $8 trillion in the health care accounts out of the $32 trillion that’s owed in health care and Medicare.
Gregg's points were largely a partisan prebuttal to the Democratic budget, with sharp criticism of Sen. Barack Obama -- All fair comment but better left to reports like this piece in Congressional Quarterly.
Still, Gregg's point in the conference call, making a basic argument about the legitimacy of the budgeting process, is worth taking note of:
This budget doesn’t live up to the obligations to the Congress to do a fair, honest and straightforward budgeting exercise. It’s a fraudulent document. It was last year. Last year we said they couldn’t make the numbers they said they were going to make. Nobody listened to us, because they said that they should have the benefit of the doubt. This year hopefully people will be a little less sanguine in accepting these representations from the other side.
The Office of Management and Budget today issued the Statement of Administration Policy on S. 2663, the CPSC Reform Act. Like the NAM, the Administration objects to granting attorneys general vast new authority to enforce federal product safety laws.
The Administration is strongly opposed to enforcement of CPSC safety standards by State attorneys general. Although progress has been made from the Committee-reported bill, the Administration continues to believe that safety standards should be exclusively established and then enforced by the CPSC. The CPSC is currently required to cooperate with other State and Federal entities in carrying out its enforcement duties, allowing them to receive input from outside parties. S. 2663, unlike its House counterpart, appears to give State Attorneys General broad powers to interpret what constitutes violations of the various acts enforced by the CPSC and allows States to pursue claims that the CPSC may have already determined are not violations of the Acts under its jurisdiction. This is likely to lead to a confusing patchwork of safety standards that will make it impossible to enforce uniform, national policies. Moreover, there is no apparent justification for the provision in section 20(g) creating a new and separate standard for the award of legal fees to State attorneys general that differs from the Consumer Product Safety Act’s existing general standards governing the award of legal fees.
The SAP did not include a veto threat, which suggests a willingness of the Administration to work on a compromise on the objectionable provisions; Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR) told reporters he was uncertain a compromise was possible. Trust that's bargaining.
Then at 1:00 p.m., the President meets with the National Association of Attorneys General. Attorney General Mukasey will be briefing him ahead of time. The President will come in, spend some time with them. His remarks to the attorneys general with the pool will focus on FISA. Twenty-one of our nation's attorneys general have written a letter in support of FISA modernization.
Over on the left, anger at the House possibly moving on the FISA legislation, including telecom immunity.
UPDATE (1:40 p.m.) At the risk of offering political advice, we wonder why House Democratic leadership would be so responsive to angry left activists on this issue, when any compromise was going to elicit condemnations like this one from New York lawyer Glenn Greenwald:
No rational person who has watched Congressional Democrats since they took over Congress could possibly have expected them to do anything but what they always do: namely, whatever they're told to do by the White House. The last thing they were ever going to do was stand their ground over Americans' basic liberties and the rule of law, concepts about which they couldn't possibly care less.
And Greenwald is one of the charitable, non-cursing critics.
A letter to the editor in today's Washington Post from John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers:
The Feb. 27 editorial "The Problem With Biofuels" underscored the hard truth that there is no silver bullet to achieve significant reductions in greenhouse gases.
The Energy Department projects that demand in America will climb 30 percent by 2030. The real challenge will be how we meet future demands while growing our economy, protecting the environment and creating jobs.
Making better use of nuclear, carbon capture and sequestration, and advanced coal technologies -- coupled with research and development into innovative renewable resources -- offers hope for increasing reliable and affordable energy sources while improving energy efficiency and conservation.
One study should not discourage us from finding solutions to America's energy challenges, though it reminds us that the task will not be easy.
JOHN ENGLER
President and Chief Executive
National Association of Manufacturers
Washington
From The Examiner, commenting on S. 2663, legislation to expand the authority and activities of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, as well as make state attorneys general an enforcement authority of their own. From "State attorneys general shouldn’t be toy inspectors":
In the course of adding requirements for voluminous product safety warnings and otherwise expanding the reach of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, it would give extremely broad powers to state AGs “to obtain penalties and relief … whenever the attorney general of the State has reason to believe that the interests of the residents of the State have been or are being threatened or adversely affected by a manufacturer, distributor, or retailer entity that violates this Act or a regulation under this Act.”
But is anybody encouraging state AGs to step in when the CPSC already exists to perform just such oversight? Even setting aside the fact that the state AGs have no uniform standards of conduct to guide (or restrain) them, a big problem is that the proposal would effectively double the bureaucracy involved in the regulatory scheme. What is the point of centralizing the enforcement of product safety in the CPSC when the very next step invites officers in all 50 states to put their own interpretations on the safety requirements? Already, the House has passed a bill on the same subject — but without the invitation to the state AGs — by the unassailable margin of 407-0. Such unanimity in Washington is exceedingly rare. It seems foolish, then, for the Senate to muddy the waters by advancing Pryor’s far more problematic bill.
For more on this topic, read this New York Post column by Jeff Stiers, associate director of the American Council on Science and Health, "'Safety' Insanity."
Federal scientists and local lawmakers alike would be shunted aside in favor of the wisdom (or lack thereof) of your local crusading AG, effectively one of America's 50 new science czars. It would then be up to a federal district court to decide whether the product was in fact a hazard.
Imagine the chaos, with various AGs targeting different products in the different states. It would be a nightmare for manufacturers and for consumers, who'd no longer know what was safe.
The NAM supports a strong CPSC with a larger budget, but it's hard to see how expanding and duplicating authorities while giving trial lawyers more opportunity to sue improves protection of the public health.
A big week for politics with presidential primaries in Rhode Island and Vermont...and Ohio and Texas (caucuses, actually, in the latter). In Congress, sparring over foreign intelligence surveillance continues, while the CPSC debate in the Senate will disedify.
The House meets in pro forma session Monday, names and proclaims stuff on Tuesday, and on Wednesday turns to Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007, i.e., excessively broad mental health parity legislation. (News story.) It appears there may be a vote or votes on surveillance authority, including telecom immunity, as House leadership yields on the politically charged issue. The House floor schedule for the week is here.
The Senate convenes at 2 p.m. and will debate a motion to proceed to S. 2263, expanding the Consumer Product Safety Commission's authority -- a bill with many well-intended but jobs-killing provisions. Committee hearings for the week, here.
House hearings:The Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services holds two hearings of interest Wednesday, "Expanding Health Care Access" at 10 a.m. and "Health Issues and Opportunities" at 2 p.m. (Details) The Ag subcommittee considers food safety Wednesday, too. A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Wednesday holds a hearing, "Climate Change and Developing Countries," with testimony from Michael Morris, CEO of American Electric Power and Jim Slattery of NuCorp Steel. (Details) Also Wednesday, a House Financial Services subcommittee reviews "Foreign Government Investment in the U.S. Economy and Financial Sector," with focus on sovereign wealth funds. (Details.) A House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee reviews the investment in the pipeline industry at a hearing Wednesday. (Details.)
Economic reportsbeing released include January factory orders on Wednesday and February's employment figures on Friday. Fed Chairman Bernanke speaks to bankers in Florida Tuesday morning. (CNBC roundup here.) OPEC meets in Vienna, Austria.
From Hawaii: "Tort Reform Bill Dies" -- KHNL-TV reports that House Judiciary Chairman Tommy Waters refused to hold a hearing on a medical malpractice bill, in effect killing the legislation. Waters, an attorney, is a favorite of the plaintiff's bar.
From Georgia: "Tort reform' gets a frontal assault -- "The Daily Reporter reports, "Attorneys for a man claiming to have been rendered quadriplegic by mistakes made in a Douglas County emergency room argued last week that the entire law passed as Senate Bill 3 should be declared unconstitutional." Senate Bill 3 was the 2005 legislation that capped no-economic damages at $350,000 and protected ER doctors from liability without a finding of “gross negligence."
From Colorado: "Bill lifts damages cap for medical injuries" -- The Denver Post reports that legislation to increase the cap for non-economic damages in medical malpractice suits passed in its first go-around in the Senate 18-15. The bill is supported by the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association, opposed by the Colorado Medical Association. "Right at the time we should be trying to lower costs and increase access, this legislation is going in the wrong direction," said Sen. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction.
So tomorrow the eyes of America will be on these two states moving in different directions. Ohio has an economy burdened by high taxes and work rules that impose heavy costs on employers. Texas embraces free trade, keeps taxes low, doesn't impose unions on business and has tooled itself for 21st century global competition. Ohioans may not like to hear this, but for any company considering where to locate a new plant or move an existing one, the choice between Ohio and Texas isn't even a close call.
The challenge for our national economy in a world of competition is to become more like Texas and less like Ohio.
Down below in the extended entry we've put the text of Section 7 of S. 2663, the CPSC Reform Act. The section would give carte blanche to anybody, no matter the motivation, to post anonymous claims about a company's products on a government-sponsored website. From subsection 9:
Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of the CPSC Reform Act, the Commission shall establish and maintain a publicly available searchable database accessible on the Commission's web site. The database shall include any reports of injuries, illness, death, or risk of such injury, illness, or death related to the use of consumer products received by the Commission from--
`(i) consumers;
`(ii) local, State, or Federal government agencies;
`(iii) health care professionals, including physicians, hospitals, and coroners;
`(iv) child service providers;
`(v) public safety entities, including police and fire fighters; and
`(vi) other non-governmental sources, other than information provided to the Commission by retailers, manufacturers, or private labelers pursuant to a voluntary or required submission under section 15 or other mandatory or voluntary program.
Injury, illness or death, or risk thereof -- that's an invitation to any sort of outlandish claim.
And it's certainly not the "transparency" that activists like to throw around as an unalloyed public good:
(G) DISCLOSURE- The Commission may not disclose the names or addresses of consumers pursuant to its authority under this subsection."
Got that? Anonymous charges about anything, naming a company as producer of a dangerous or adulterated product. You can picture unsubstantiated complaints piling up one after another, generating a feeding frenzy that does serious harm to a company's reputation (and the reputations of associated individuals). With no benefit to the public health.
House Intelligence Chairman Sylvestre Reyes (D-TX) signaled movement on immunity for telecom companies. From the AP:
"We are talking to the representatives from the communications companies because if we're going to give them blanket immunity, we want to know and we want to understand what it is that we're giving immunity for," he said. "I have an open mind about that."
Regarding a compromise deal, Reyes said: "We think we're very close, probably within the next week we'll be able to hopefully bring it to a vote."
Rep. Roy Blunt, the second-ranking Republican in the House, said Sunday he was not "quite that optimistic yet."
The Reuters story strikes a slightly more sceptical point of editorial view.
Lots of coverage of the Houston energy summit on Friday, with attention paid to Sen. Hillary Clinton's presence and the other candidates' absence. (Houston Chronicle story.) Shell's John Hofmeister makes an argument for additional domestic oil and gas resources.
"What do we say to the low-income driver who today is putting $3 gasoline in his tank?" Shell Oil President John Hofmeister asked the audience at the start of the event. "We face continuing, eroding social and economic justice."
Oil, in other words, is an economic issue. As prices rise, it's in danger of becoming a fuel of the affluent, forming a wedge that widens the gap between rich and poor.
The solution?
"People need hydrocarbons now," Hofmeister said when I caught up with him later. "In the short term, there is no alternative to more oil and gas and coal."
The only way to get more oil is to allow more drilling in areas where we've said we don't want it — federal lands, wildlife refuges and coastal regions.
Definitely a big-picture guy, Hofmeister was also in Anchorage recently for an energy summit, where similar themes arose. From The Arctic Sounder:
Offshore oil development in Alaska is going to happen, and the only question is when and how.
Or so it would appear from the dialogue had by 32 representatives from big oil, labor, conservationists and Native leaders at a Congressional Quarterly Summit held Tuesday, Feb. 20, at the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage.
Animal rights activists keeping potential food safety violations under wraps because they wanted to maximize the PR impact of their charges? Even though their skullduggery endangered the public's health? Wow...wow.
Yesterday the Riverside (California) Press-Enterprise helped answer a burning question about the undercover slaughterhouse video released on January 30 by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS): If HSUS knew in October 2007 that potentially unsafe meat was entering the U.S. food chain (including the federal school lunch program), why did the animal rights group sit on its footage for more than three months? In sworn testimony before Congress on Tuesday, HSUS’s Dr. Michael Greger blamed the delay (at least three times) on the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office, claiming that “they told us to wait on any kind of public release of this information.” But yesterday the Press-Enterprise exposed this as a lie. And today we’re asking Congress to investigate whether Greger committed perjury. (Click here to read our letter to lawmakers.)
Consumer Freedom contacted the San Bernadino County DA's office and talked to Assistant District Attorney Dennis Christy, who confirmed the Press-Enterprise report:
I can say unequivocally that we never suggested in any way – in fact, we encouraged the HSUS to cooperate with, provide information to the U.S. Department of Agriculture … [and] we had some difficulty in preparing criminal charges, because of delays in setting up any interview with the Humane Society investigator at which USDA officers would be present.
If Roger Clemens is going to be subject to an investigation and potential perjury charge for lying to Congress, and the only person he conceivably endangered was himself, well, then....
I am extremely disappointed in how the Humane Society has handled this process. They are not forthcoming with the information. If their mission is to allow, or to provide humane treatment of animals out there, there's a simple fact that if they took this film in October they didn't contact the USDA until after they released it to the press at the end of January. So for four months, theoretically, animals were not being properly treated, and the Humane Society stood by and allowed it to happen.
That's not the relationship that we should have in this marketplace. The Humane Society and USDA should be working together on common goals, which is the humane treatment of animals, and if they or someone else, an employee, an owner, somebody, comes forward and says animals are not being treated properly, we are going to at USDA step forward and say, 'We have rules, we have regulations, and we're going to stand by them about how animals are treated.' Immediately. Not four months later.
The Wall Street Journal, opining on the Supreme Court's ruling in Riegel v. Medtronic. From "Medical Double Jeopardy":
Another sensible Roberts Court ruling, another uproar. "The Supreme Court's decision strips consumers of the rights they've had for decades," seethed the always-seething Congressman, Henry Waxman. To decipher: The Court last week restored a measure of rationality to the way government regulates medicine, while foiling a tort bar plot to rewrite federal statutes via state lawsuits.
The court's 8-1 ruling dealt with a narrow textual interpretation of a specific federal statute, but it may shed light on justices' thinking on federal pre-emption more broadly.
The Court is about to rule in Warner-Lambert v. Kent, which will determine whether a Michigan trial court is the proper jurisdiction to adjudicate fraud that a pharmaceutical company allegedly committed during FDA review. Also on the docket is Wyeth v. Levine, which could extend similar Riegel protections to drug companies. (Drug and device makers are governed under separate standards.) A Vermont patient contends that the warning label on the anti-nausea drug Phenergan was not specific enough about its risks.
If FDA regulation fails -- as it often does -- the Supreme Court would be wise to blame the FDA, not the medical industry.
Our neighbors to the north welcome $100 a barrel oil. Or least Financial Post editer Diane Francis does, as she engages in a little épater les Americains to count Canada's blessings. From "Canada's Privileged Position", where she cites reasons Canada is a better place to live than the United States.
-Canada does not have to return taxation to higher levels to pay for universal health care, because we already have high taxes and universal health care.
-Canada does not have a broken border with Mexico.
-Canada does not have a growing underclass the size, or proportion, of America's to have to bootstrap.
-China is not a problem for Canadian jobs, but a blessing. China and India, plus other emerging countries, are driving the price of commodities to record levels and will continue to do so.
Fair enough. Such is the nature of a commodities-driven economy, although it certainly has its disadvantages for Canadian manufacturers. And we appreciate Francis' proposed policy response to what economic difficulties there are:
We need to combat the high dollar by quickly eliminating all business taxes, and we need to fix some lousy immigration practices.
Ohio workers would pay a heavy price for pulling out of Nafta. Canada and Mexico are the top two markets for exports from Ohio, accounting for more than half of the state's exports in 2006. According to the Ohio Department of Development, 283,500 workers in the state earn their living in the export sector, with machinery, car parts, aircraft engines and optical/medical equipment among the leading exports. A trade showdown would put those good-paying jobs at risk.
The Democratic candidates understand that trade with the developing world has both costs and benefits, which are not evenly distributed across the United States. Two days before this week's debate, Mr. Obama said, "I don't think it's realistic for us to repeal NAFTA," because that "would actually result in more job loss . . . than job gains." Ms. Clinton awkwardly pleaded that NAFTA has benefited some parts of the country -- such as Texas. Yet the urge to win Ohio trumped, and both Democrats made a threat that, if taken seriously, can be described only as reckless. In other words, we have to hope that they were only pandering.
Pejman Yousefzadeh, writing about Austan Goolsbee, the Obama adviser who reached out to Canada, eh?
Goolsbee comes out of this entire matter smelling like a rose. And rightfully so. At the very least, he tried to make it clear to the Canadians that NAFTA would remain a going concern despite Obama's rhetoric on the campaign trail. This is a good thing; absent Goolsbee's intervention, the Canadians may have been convinced that an Obama Administration was going to ditch or renegotiate NAFTA and if they were so convinced, the Canadian government may have taken measures that we would not have liked them to take, such as altering the deal the United States has regarding Canadian oil.
In eastern Washington, medical provides have a sophisticated electronic medical link. AWB President Don Brunell's column earlier this year addressed this topic and on May 22, Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association (AHA) will address AWB's spring meeting in Spokane on health care and Health IT.
First, blend the apples -- Golden Delicious, Yorks and Romes -- and start cleaning, peeling, chopping and processing. This week's Cool Stuff Being Made brings you that American staple, applesauce, courtesy of Knouse Foods and its Ortanna, Penn., processing plant. Robert Binkley, vice president of technical services for Knouse, walks the line with us, finishing with a nice cup of cinnamon-flavored applesauce.
All that steam and sterilization...You know, this is a pretty energy-intensive process, making applesauce.
Thanks to our friends at the Pennsylvania Cable Network for bringing us another look at the manufacturing of the Keystone State.
From Powerline, pointing to the real bureaucratic scandal that preceded the EPA refusing California's request for a waiver so the state could regulate auto emissions in its war against carbon dioxide:
It turns out that two top EPA staff members were so intent on having their way that they prepared talking points for former EPA administrator William Reilly (Bush 41’s guy) to use when lobbying Johnson to grant the waiver. Among the talking points, prepared for Reilly by Chris Grundler, deputy director of EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, Margo Oge, the director of that office, was this:
From what I have read and the people I have talked to, it is obvious to me that there is no legal or technical justification for denying this. . .You [Johnson] have to find a way to get this done. If you cannot, you will face a pretty big personal decision about whether you are able to stay in the job under those circumstances. This is a choice only you can make, but I ask you to think about the history and the future of the agency in making it. If you are asked to deny this waiver, I fear the credibility of the agency that we both love will be irreparably damaged.
Thus, in essence, a pair of bureaucrats contrived to have a respected outsider lobby their boss by advising him that he might have to quit his job if he didn’t comply with their policy preference. Amazing stuff, even by Washington standards.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) suggests an improper use of agency resources -- indeed -- and potentially a Hatch Act violation (don't know about that). But this kind of activism puts the lie to the environmental left's claim that the EPA's career staff are saints AND scientists and must have their opinions obeyed.
The EPA today released the documents explaining the denial of California's waiver request. The materials are available here.
An op-ed in today's Columbus Dispatch by John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, "Free-trade pacts are good for Ohio." Excerpt:
The unrestrained attacks against free trade, specifically the North American Free Trade Agreement, are reaching a deafening pitch as Ohio's presidential primary draws near.
Drowned out in this contest of populist one-upmanship is the economic truth about trade agreements: They create good jobs, sharpen U.S. competitiveness and keep our economy growing. When politicians demonize trade, they disparage our past progress and poison the public against future agreements that offer even more economic benefits.
It is time to set the record straight on the benefits of NAFTA by looking at the facts and then pressing Congress to pass pending free-trade agreements. These agreements will increase the state's manufacturing competitiveness around the world and strengthen the security of Ohio's 308,000 manufacturing jobs that depend on exports.
A heavy week for North Dakota news here at Shopfloor.org, mostly because the state provides a model of the economic growth that accompanies a healthy energy sector and strong exports. Oil production is at a peak.
There are 3,854 wells producing oil, up from 3,648 a year ago and the most ever since oil first was commercially produced in the state in 1951.
The new price record and growing production figures means that every day, nearly $13 million worth of oil is pumped out of the state's wells spread across 16 western counties.
That money is divided between oil companies, the owners to the mineral rights at the well and state, local and federal governments. Mineral rights owners get, roughly, 17 percent of the crude's value. State government gets about 8 percent.
If production and prices remain at this level, it would mean about $5 billion worth of oil harvested in 2008 from North Dakota.
Stimulated by high prices, new exploration and drilling technology have made the Bakken Formation one of the big oil plays in North America right now. (The North Dakota Petroleum Council has a good summary of Bakken developments here.)
We also assure you, western North Dakota is far more beautiful, scenic and full of wildlife than the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, yet oil development is proceeding safely there. Why in North Dakota, and not Alaska?
P.S. Note the illustration for the story on the Grand Forks Herald's website, a graphic with the label, "Boom Times." The elements are the harvesting of grain, an oil rig, and a maple leaf. The maple leaf stands for Canada -- importing millions and millions of dollars of North Dakota manufactured goods and farm products, helping the state lead the nation in export growth last year.
Gov. Mitch Daniels continued talking good sense and economic reality when he returned to Indiana this week after spending a short time in Washington, D.C. Asked about the EPA's pending ozone rules, which could ratchet down emission limits, Daniels said,
Having just finally gotten to the point where we can add jobs and grow with fewer obstacles in some of these areas, here comes the possibility that we'll be thrown right back into the same restrictions...It makes you ask, why go to the trouble?
Gannett reporter Erin Kelly talks to the NAM's Bryan Brendle, who provides more context.
Brendle also argued that new regulations are unnecessary because ozone pollution has dropped 21 percent since 1980.
"It would be devastating economically, and for what reason?" said Brendle, the group's director of energy and resources policy. "Ozone levels are dropping. We're making progress."
BTW, we knocked a Gannett news story earlier in the week for giving short shrift to the critics of stricter standards. Judging from this localized version of the story, which includes more from Bryan Brendle, the reporter did do justice to both sides. It was the editors who cut the balancing points of view. (Gee, we used to say that ALL the time during our reporting days.) Anyway, good job Erin.
Also, video and audio from Governor Daniels remarks Monday to the American Enterprise Institute are now posted online.
And AEI's magazine, "The American," features a nice article, "Hoosier Fixer," on Daniels' government and budget reforms.
Valid point from The Toronto Star, editorializing on the recent anti-NAFTA rhetoric from a few political candidates: "Obama, Clinton err on NAFTA." The editors note the many trade complaints the Canadians have against U.S. practices -- softwood lumber being the most prominent dispute -- and remind readers of the political dissatisfaction with NAFTA north of the border.
A U.S. push to reopen NAFTA now would invite Canada to use its leverage as the biggest fuel supplier to the U.S. to bargain for better terms. That would not be in the interest of U.S. consumers and jobs.
The prospect alarms business. "That would be a disaster for American jobs," warns Frank Vargo, from the National Association of Manufacturers. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce called the Democratic candidates' remarks "troubling."
Business insists NAFTA has been a success. Merchandise trade among the three partners tripled to almost $900 billion between 1993, just before the pact was in effect, and 2006. Economic growth and job growth have been stronger since NAFTA than in the years before. Yet, like some Americans, many Canadians are ambivalent about the trade pact and its effects on us. We would like changes to NAFTA, too. Clinton and Obama ought to be careful about what they ask for.
In other NAFTA news, there's a grand contretemps over a CTV report that claimed Senator Obama's campaign had told Ottawa not to worry, the anti-trade rhetoric wasn't serious. The Obama camp disputed the story, the Canadian embassy rejects the claims, but CTV is standing by the report. Our view? (shrug)
Canada has warned that the US's privileged access to its oil and natural gas could be in jeopardy if a Democratic administration backtracks on the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Canada is the US's biggest foreign oil supplier, exporting close to 1.8m barrels a day - more than 10 per cent of US consumption. Nafta provisions make it difficult for Canada to restrict oil shipments to the US.
"If Nafta is ripped up then the Chinese can buy more of our oil; there's no further obligation on the part of Canada to sell its oil to the US," a Canadian diplomat told the Financial Times.
It reads like the account of a vast fishing expedition in which the plaintiffs claim that any small minnow they catch is a veritable Moby Dick of a privacy invasion.
It claims the surveillance program “intercepts and analyzes the communications of millions of Americans” in an “illegal domestic spying program.” Never mind, of course, that the only way “millions” of Americans could be said to be affected is if they are said to have been subject to unlawful “search and seizure” just by having their phone numbers show up as tiny data bits among “4,000 terabytes (million megabytes)” on the same network that is monitored for the targeted foreign calls. This is hardly a real privacy violation.
Moreover, the suit defines the class of aggrieved citizens as “all individuals” who were customers of the phone company “at any time after September 2001” that the program was in effect. In this one suit, that class is identified as consisting of 24.6 million people. How all 24.6 million Americans could possibly be harmed by this program aimed at suspected foreign terrorists is a question perhaps best answered in the Twilight Zone.
The suit gets wilder still. Not only does it ask for at least $1,000 for each class member for each of two alleged types of violation, but on each of two other counts it asks the companies for at least $100 per alleged victim per day of violation — plus punitive damages and attorney’s expenses.
Do the math: The total potential payout by AT&T for the first two categories of alleged violations is $49.2 billion. Meanwhile, at $100 per day for each day of the four years at issue after 9/11, the total potential liability for each of the two latter counts is $3 trillion, 591 billion.
Defending against this kind of lawsuit abuse is time-consuming and expensive, but that's the point. The activists want to undermine the legitimate surveillance of foreign communications through litigation, getting to the Administration through legal assaults on private companies.
The movie "300" must have produced more mash-ups, video satires and tributes than any film since "Star Wars." Every week we happen upon a new one.
This week it's "Anchorman 300," using scenes from the Will Ferrell comedy with the soundtrack from the "300" theater preview. And darn it if it doesn't work. Thank goodness for that street fightin' scene.
And from "300" to 3000, Andre 3000, that is, we have a link to the preview for Ferrell's latest, a basketball epic, "Semi-Pro." Andre 3000 of Outkast costars.
A statement from Senate Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, following a meeting of House and Senate Republicans and Democrats with Benjamin Powell, general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence:
The Administration has demanded that Congress immunize major telecommunications companies from legal liability for their participation in a government surveillance program about which many questions have been raised. On an issue of this magnitude, it is imperative that our deliberations be thoughtful and thorough. Anything less would be an abdication of our responsibility.
Members should also act on a very urgent priority, and that is to pass legislation our intelligence officials need to quickly and effectively monitor terrorist communications. At issue is a dispute over whether telecommunications companies should be subjected to class-action lawsuits because they are believed to have helped defend America after the attacks of 9/11. Allowing these lawsuits to proceed would be unfair. If any of these companies helped us, they did so after being told by our government that their assistance was legal and vital to our national security.
Allowing the lawsuits to proceed could aid our enemies, because the litigation process could lead to the disclosure of information about how we conduct surveillance, and it would give al Qaeda and others a roadmap as to how to avoid the surveillance. Allowing these lawsuits to proceed could make it harder to track the terrorists, because private companies besieged by and fearful of lawsuits would be less willing to help us quickly get the information we need. Without the cooperation of the private sector, we cannot protect our country from terrorist attack.
Protecting these companies from lawsuits is not a partisan issue. Republicans and Democrats in the United States Senate came together and passed a good bill, protecting private companies from these abusive lawsuits. And Republicans and Democrats in the House stand ready to pass the Senate bill, if House leaders would only stop blocking an up or down vote and let the majority in the House prevail.
1) S. 2478 - To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 59 Colby Corner in East Hampstead, New Hampshire, as the “Captain Jonathan D. Grassbaugh Post Office.” (Sen. Sununu – Oversight and Government Reform)
2) S. 2272 – To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service known as the Southpark Station in Alexandria, Louisiana, as the John "Marty" Thiels Southpark Station, in honor and memory of Thiels, a Louisiana postal worker who was killed in the line of duty on October 4, 2007 (Sen. Vitter – Oversight and Government Reform)
3) H.R. 3936 – To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 116 Helen Highway in Cleveland, Georgia, as the “Sgt. Jason Harkins Post Office.” (Rep. Deal – Oversight and Government Reform)
4) H.R. 3803 - To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 3100 Cashwell Drive in Goldsboro, North Carolina, as the "John Henry Wooten, Sr. Post Office Building."(Rep. Butterfield – Oversight and Government Reform)
5) H.R. 4454 – To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 3050 Hunsinger Lane in Louisville, Kentucky, as the "Iraq and Afghanistan Fallen Military Heroes of Louisville Memorial Post Office Building", in honor of the servicemen and women from Louisville, Kentucky, who died in service during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Rep. Yarmuth – Oversight and Government Reform)
6) S.Con.Res. 67 - A concurrent resolution establishing the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies (Sen. Feinstein – House Administration)
7) S.Con.Res. 68 - A concurrent resolution authorizing the use of the rotunda of the Capitol by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies (Sen. Feinstein – House Administration)
CQ Politics reports House may take up surveillance legislation next week, but what legislation? "'We don’t have agreement but ... I am very hopeful that we will have legislation on the floor next week,' House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer , D-Md., said on the floor Thursday in a colloquy with Minority Whip Roy Blunt , R-Mo."
Mexico and Canada yesterday voiced concerns about calls by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, as the Democratic presidential hopefuls compete to adopt the most sceptical stance towards free trade before next week's Ohio primary.
From The Detroit Free Press comes a 13-paragraph Gannett News Service story on the EPA's proposed rule on ground-level ozone emissions, i.e., smog, "U.S. moving to clear the smog
Rules would be first update since 1997."
Of the 13 paragraphs, one represents the point of view of those who criticize stricter rules as unwarranted and economically damaging. It's a fair-enough summary, to be sure, although it doesn't mention the lack of environmental justification for the increased rules.
But a spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers, which opposes any change in the smog rules, said many communities are struggling to meet the 1997 standards and would suffer economic losses if pushed to go further to clean up their power plants, factories and tailpipe emissions.
The story basically comes down to a 10-to-1 reporting imbalance in favor of the advocates of increased regulation.
[Dorgan] has been one of the fiercest Senate critics of free trade, including the North American Free Trade Agreement. He said the fact that Obama “has always opposed Nafta” was a major factor in his endorsement.
North Dakota ranked top in the nation for export growth in 2007, according to U.S. Commercial Service reports.
The state's exports totaled $2 billion in 2007, up 34 percent from its $1.5 billion in exports in 2006; nationally, export growth was 12 percent more than the previous year.
Among the top export destinations were Canada, which represented 49 percent of the market, Mexico, Belgium, Germany, Russia, Ukraine and Australia.
On a voice vote, the House approved a 10-month extension of the Andean trade preference program, which provides Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia with duty-free access to the U.S. market for most of their exports.
So those countries -- Colombia! -- have duty-free access to the United States already. That must mean that a free trade agreement with, say, Colombia, will not be lowering U.S. tariffs, since they're already gone. Which means that the lowering of trade barriers will be on Colombia's part, creating greater access for U.S.-made products.
From CQ Politics, a story on passage of H.R. 5351, the $18 billion tax increase on oil and natural gas producers.
Meanwhile, Citgo Petroleum Corp. would continue to receive a 6 percent deduction for domestic manufacturing that the largest firms would lose.
Citgo, which refines oil and markets and transports gasoline in the United States, is owned by a subsidiary of the government-owned Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., or PDVSA. Because Citgo does not drill for oil and gas domestically or abroad, it does not fall under the bill’s definition of companies that will lose a major tax break.
The five big companies targeted by the bill — Chevron, BP, ExxonMobil, Shell and ConocoPhillips — all produce and refine oil and sell gasoline in the United States, and therefore under the bill would lose the domestic manufacturing deduction they received as part of a corporate tax law in 2004 (PL 108-357).
¿Cómo se dice "perverse incentive" en español?
Although our first instinct was to think that the Citgo-Joe Kennedy propaganda campaign really did pay off, it's more likely that this is just what happens when politicians pick winners and losers in the marketplace.
Democrats claim the world hates America because President Bush has behaved like a global bully. But we don't recall him ever ordering an ally to rewrite an existing agreement on American terms -- or else.
Yet that's exactly what both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are now promising to do to our closest neighbors, Mexico and Canada. At their Ohio debate on Tuesday, first Mrs. Clinton, followed ever so quickly by Mr. Obama, pledged to pull America out of the North American Free Trade Agreement if the two countries don't agree to rewrite it on Yankee terms. How's that for global "unilateralism"?
The embrace of pro-export, pro-economic growth, pro-jobs free-trade policies has a long bipartisan history (go far enough back, and the Republicans were the party of high tariffs), so it's discouraging to see leaders of one party heat the rhetoric up so high.
In the end, facts and history will win out over populist tub-thumping.
By opening the continent to investment and trade, capital has found more efficient uses, with benefits to producers and consumers alike. In Nafta's first decade after 1993, trade between the U.S. and Mexico multiplied to $232 billion from $81 billion. Trade with Canada has also blossomed, with Canadian exports to the U.S. by surface transport rising 79% in a decade and U.S. exports to Canada increasing 38%.
The deal also increased U.S. productivity. U.S. firms found they could be more globally competitive by putting some manufacturing in Mexico or Canada while retaining high-end production in the U.S. This has resulted in what John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, has called "the highly integrated North American industrial base, particularly between Canada and the U.S." Such flexibility may have saved thousands of U.S. jobs from going abroad. In the first 10 years of the deal, the U.S. economy added 18 million jobs and the jobless rate sank to record lows.
Yes, it's hard to envision electoral success for a campaign based on reversing economic growth.
On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission held a hearing in Cambridge, MA, on broadband network management practices. (For commissioners' statements, scroll down.)
The following statement may be attributed to Mike McCurry and Christopher Wolf, co-chairs of the Hands Off the Internet coalition (HandsOff.org):
“For the typical Net user, today’s hearing is not just an academic debate about government policy. If the FCC yields to those pushing for government regulation over the Internet, the result will be higher broadband access costs, which fewer Americans will be able to afford. Our focus should be on new and faster access choices, not policies that tie this progress down in red tape and bureaucracy.”
The Hands Off the Internet coalition is a Washington, DC-based coalition of companies and nonprofit organizations that believes the Internet has flourished because government has not tried to regulate it. Members include Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, 3M, the National Association of Manufacturers, FiberControl, and Cinergy Communications. Nonprofit members include Citizens Against Government Waste, the American Conservative Union and the National Black Chamber of Commerce.
Catching up on the day's news, we see the House passed H.R. 5351, the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax, by a vote of 236-182. Eight Democrats voted no, 17 Republicans voted aye. Roll call here.
As oil settles in above $100 a barrel, and natural gas makes its way toward $10 a thousand, the only thing the bill on the floor tonight would do is ensure today’s prices turn into tomorrow’s bargains.
Last year alone, the five largest oil companies had a combined profit of $123 billion – which only provokes this question: Do these companies need and deserve these taxpayer subsidies? The answer, of course, is no.
From the Statement of Administration Policy on H.R. 5351, the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act.
[The] bill would use the tax code to target tax increases on a specific industry in a way that will lead to higher energy costs to U.S. consumers and businesses. If this legislation is presented to the President in its current form, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.
Specifically, the Administration strongly opposes the bill’s repeal of the manufacturing deduction for a segment of a single industry. This targeted tax increase would reduce the Nation’s energy security rather than improve it. Industries should be taxed on a level playing field, and that field should be leveled by lowering rates, not by raising them; such increases would create an even greater disadvantage with respect to foreign competitors.
Changes to tax rules on foreign operations would also damage the ability of U.S. companies to compete on major energy projects while possiblity violating international trade rules, the Administration says.
William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008) [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
I’m devastated to report that our dear friend, mentor, leader, and founder William F. Buckley Jr., died this morning in his study in Stamford, Connecticut.
He died while at work; if he had been given a choice on how to depart this world, I suspect that would have been exactly it. At home, still devoted to the war of ideas.
As you might expect, we’ll have much more to say here and in NR in the coming days and weeks and months. For now: Thank you, Bill. God bless you, now with your dear Pat. Our deepest condolences to Christopher and the rest of the Buckley family. And our fervent prayer that we continue to do WFB’s life’s work justice.
From The New York Times obituary, recalling President Ronald Reagan's tribute at the magazine's 30th anniversary celebrations:
“You didn’t just part the Red Sea — you rolled it back, dried it up and left exposed, for all the world to see, the naked desert that is statism,” Mr. Reagan said.
“And then, as if that weren’t enough,” the president continued, “you gave the world something different, something in its weariness it desperately needed, the sound of laughter and the sight of the rich, green uplands of freedom.”
The Wall Street Journal reported today on the question of whether extended Daylight Saving Time saves energy. The story, "Daylight Saving Wastes Energy, Study Says" (subscription required) An economist studied Indiana's experience with Daylight Saving Time, and found:
Having the entire state switch to daylight-saving time each year, rather than stay on standard time, costs Indiana households an additional $8.6 million in electricity bills. They conclude that the reduced cost of lighting in afternoons during daylight-saving time is more than offset by the higher air-conditioning costs on hot afternoons and increased heating costs on cool mornings.
We note, again, that the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which lengthened DST by three weeks, required a study of the effect. From the PL109-58:
SEC. 110. DAYLIGHT SAVINGS.
(a) AMENDMENT.—Section 3(a) of the Uniform Time Act of 1966
(15 U.S.C. 260a(a)) is amended—
(1) by striking ‘‘first Sunday of April’’ and inserting ‘‘second
Sunday of March’’; and
(2) by striking ‘‘last Sunday of October’’ and inserting ‘‘first
Sunday of November’’.
(b) EFFECTIVE DATE.—Subsection (a) shall take effect 1 year
after the date of enactment of this Act or March 1, 2007, whichever
is later.
(c) REPORT TO CONGRESS.—Not later than 9 months after the
effective date stated in subsection (b), the Secretary shall report
to Congress on the impact of this section on energy consumption
in the United States.
(d) RIGHT TO REVERT.—Congress retains the right to revert
the Daylight Saving Time back to the 2005 time schedules once
the Department study is complete.
The Secretary in this case is the Secretary of Transportation, who overseas time zones in the United States.
We ask again: Nine months after March 1, 2007, is December 1, 2007, right? It's now almost March, 2008. So where's the report?
The Supreme Court considers oral arguments today in the case of Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, with the issue being whether the $2.5 billion in punitive damages levied against the company for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill is excessive. The NAM has filed an amicus brief in the case, which, among other things, questions whether such a huge, disproportionate punishment -- on top of more than $3.4 billion Exxon has already spent in penalties, claims, clean-up, etc. -- serves a legitimate deterrent factor. (The NAM news release and brief are available here.)
The counterargument is that it's not that big of a settlement considering Exxon's huge, huge profits. Local fisherman Andrew Wills says: "We lost everything, but they've seen record profits." We appreciate the pain and dislocation, but the accident was an ACCIDENT -- and certainly not caused by the desire to maximize profits. It's been extremely costly for Exxon.
And again, we question this mindset that profits are bad or worthy of suspicion. By a scheduling coincidence (it IS a coincidence, right?) the House today considers H.R. 5351, the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act, which would raise taxes on oil and natural gas production by $18 billion. Debates of this sort invite a flood of anti-oil-company, anti-profit populism. "Oil companies make too much money! We must punish them!"
The suggestion that the domestic oil and gas sector is currently undertaxed may be a popular sound byte, but it is not supported by the evidence. By many measures, energy companies face tax rates comparable to, or higher than, those of other industrial sectors. For example, the average effective tax rate for major integrated oil and natural gas companies is actually higher then the average rate of 32.3 percent for the market as a whole, according to the Tax Foundation.
Also, record profits for oil companies have been accompanied by record tax bills. According to the Energy Information Administration, gross revenues from the 27 biggest energy companies hit a record high of $220 billion in 2006 (the most recent information available), well above the $188 billion in 2005 and $129 billion in 2004. But total income taxes also rose to a record high of $81 billion in 2006, compared to $67 billion in 2005 and $45 billion in 2004. This effective tax rate of 37 percent in 2006 is in line with (and actually a bit higher than) large corporations in general.
Those are facts and figures, we know, not an emotionally satisfying response to those Alaskans angered by a disrupted life or motorists ticked at $3.39 a gallon gas.
But our elected representatives -- or if not them, at least our Supreme Court -- should be able to base decisions on something more than populist passions and anti-wealth anger. Right?
The National Association of Manufacturers today sent a "key vote" letter to members of the House of Representatives, expressing NAM's opposition to H.R. 5351, the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act. There's much to like in the way of incentives for alternative fuels and energy efficiency, but the bill's tax increases make the entire legislation unacceptable. From the letter:
In particular, we are concerned about provisions that would make certain oil and gas firms ineligible for the Sec. 199 deduction for domestic manufacturing activity and limit the benefit for other energy companies. The NAM believes that the energy debate should focus on increased production of all types of energy, improved conservation and efficiency, more research on technology and alternative energy, increased access to domestic sources with continued environmental protections, and improved distribution – not on new taxes on one particular industry.
Unfortunately, we have little choice but to oppose the bill because of these tax provisions.
"Key votes" are those the NAM uses to determine a member of Congress' voting records on issues the association deems important to the manufacturing economy.
Theoretically, yes, it's possible, but who not running for high office could possibly think that it's a good idea? You'd have 14 years of U.S. business contracts, arrangements, supply chains, personal relationships, on and on and on, simply tossed out the window. Picture the effect on U.S. companies who have factored Canada materials and Mexican parts assembly into their product, companies perhaps just squeaking by. It's cutting off the nose of your face to toss into the Pyrrhic victory.
The implausability of such an "opting out" also explains why the campaign vows to reopen NAFTA "or else" are just politics. The governments of Mexico or Canada would simply reject such negotiations as an economic disaster.
This kind of anti-trade pandering detracts the real issues -- including manufacturing employment -- involved with trade and the global economy. Moderator Tim Russert asked exactly the right question last night, positing a multitude of factors for the decline of manufacturing jobs in Ohio. As Russert characterized the study:
"MR. RUSSERT: Senator, two journalists here in Ohio wrote a piece called "Business as Usual," which is very well known, suggesting it wasn't trade or manufacturing jobs that were being lost because of it, but rather business as usual: lack of patents, lack of innovation, lack of investment, 70 percent of the Ph.D.s in biology, chemistry, engineering leaving the state.
The fact is, exports now have the highest share of our national income ever. Ohio ranks fourth in terms of exports to Canada and Mexico. Are you sure this has not been better for Ohio than you're suggesting?"
The Toledo Blade Series, published in 2006, is available here: "'Business as Usual."
It’s a comment many of us heard in our early years on the job, delivered by a demanding boss or exasperated coworker: “Work smarter, not harder!”
Manufacturers in the United States take those words to heart. They have to.
Although no strangers to hard work, America’s manufacturers know that their competitive advantage in the hard-fought global marketplace lies in the ability to work smarter. Other countries will boast lower costs of labor or raw materials, so it’s skilled and creative people who ensure America’s competitive edge – the edge that builds on research, development, investment and innovation.
For many years, a bipartisan consensus in Congress has helped maintain that American edge. Republicans and Democrats both have supported smart policies that encouraged the R&D and innovation that lead to new products, technologies and manufacturing processes. Yet year after year, Congress still does a dumb thing: It allows the federal research and development tax credit to expire, throwing U.S.-based business into a world of uncertainty and frustration.
The NAM has a recent ManuFacts summary of the R&D tax credit available here.
The U.S. House is expected to vote Wednesday on H.R. 5351, the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008. The legislation raises taxes on oil and natural gas production by about $18 billion, targeting one sector of the energy industry to subsidize others -- wind, biofuels, solar power, etc.
The tax increase is supported by Democratic lawmakers disappointed in the Senate's rejection of similar provisions in last year's energy bill.
Meanwhile, out in North Dakota, state Democratic legislators are introducing tax cuts for oil production.
Rep. Dorvan Solberg, D-Ray, will be introducing legislation to extend the tax holiday for new wells drilled in the Bakken Formation.
“The drilling incentives have increased the amount of drilling, and the development has been a real positive for area communities as well as oil companies,” Solberg said. “I would like to see this activity continue. The benefits for the state are well-documented and that includes my own District 2.”
The legislation passed in 2007 had a sunset clause to end the holiday. Solberg’s legislation would drop the sunset and give a tax holiday on the first 75,000 barrels, an exemption to the extraction tax the state collects.
How does this work, exactly? Tax cuts are needed to encourage oil production at the state level, but tax increases are necessary at the federal level? Seems...inconsistent.
In June 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a more stringent revision of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone, the primary component of smog. Currently, the eight-hour ozone standard set by the EPA is 84 parts per billion (ppb). The new proposal would lower this to 75ppb or 70ppb.
The signature on the final ruling is expected in March, and the rule would go into effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. The EPA would require each state to designate attainment and non-attainment areas and to have a detailed State Implementation Plan outlining how to reduce air pollution.
The revisions purportedly aim to strengthen public health safety for asthmatics, children, and the elderly and to limit environmental damage to vegetation and ecosystems.[1] However, studies have proven that the current standard is stringent enough and that implementing a tighter standard would be extremely costly and could actually increase some health risks. Many counties would be forced to comply with new requirements that offer only marginal health benefits at best. The EPA should withdraw its proposal.
The piece includes a clear explanation of how the EPA has engaged in unsound science and faulty extrapolation.
President Bush's unpopularity: "The 70% who say the country is on the wrong economic track are merely expressing their Bush fatigue."
Presidential election year: "If you belong to the out party--this year, the Democrats--your gambit is always to say the economy is in bad shape."
Business press incompetence and fear: "The thin talent pool in business journalism combines with two other forces: Journalism is populated by left-of-center people, many of whom are hostile to business; and traditional journalism itself faces threats of disruption from the Internet, leaving business journalists in a fearful mood, which gets projected into their stories.
Trouble with numbers: "When reading about any business problem or challenge, how often do you see the problem stated in relative terms? For example, what dampens spirits today? The subprime mortgage mess. How big a problem is this? No one really knows, but so far banks have written off about $150 billion in bad loans. Now, $150 billion sounds huge. But it is only 1% of America's annual GDP. It is also less than 1% of the market capitalization of U.S. stocks. In any typically volatile trading day U.S. stocks gain or lose $150 billion every hour. How often does one hear that?"
It's been a discouraging spell on the campaign trail for advocates of competition, prosperity and trade, as the Democratic candidates for president strain to outdo one another in anti-NAFTA rhetoric.
Since 1993, the U.S. economy has grown by 54 percent. The jobless rate has dropped from 6.9 percent in 1993 to 4.9 percent today. Manufacturing output has increased by 63 percent. Canada and Mexico are our first- and second-largest export markets, and U.S. merchandise exports to them have increased at a slightly faster clip than exports to the rest of the world.
NAFTA has clearly been a (small) benefit to the economy of both the U.S. and Mexico. Critics focus on the large U.S. trade deficit that opened up with Mexico shortly after the adoption of NAFTA, but that had more to do with the decline of the peso and a steep Mexican recession that dampened demand for our exports. Since 2001, our manufactured-goods deficit with NAFTA countries has been stable, making the agreement an implausible villain in the hollowing out of America.
And quoting the NAM's top trade expert, Lowry writes:
As Frank Vargo of the National Association of Manufacturers points out, when manufacturing jobs drastically declined from 2000 to 2003, manufactured-goods imports essentially were stagnant. Trade affected the manufacturing recession not through an increase in imports, but a decline in exports. That, coupled with a decline in domestic consumption of manufactured goods coinciding with the U.S. recession, accounted for the large job losses.
Trade agreements make for good targets on the campaign trail because there certainly are cases where companies relocate facilities to less costly, overseas locations. The negative consequences of trade, lost jobs, are particular and personal. In contrast, the benefits of trade accrue more broadly across the entire economy in such things as growth in export-related industries.
But you have to really stretch your arguments and work hard to ignore facts -- like those cited above -- to make trade the all-purpose scapegoat it has become on the campaign trail.
An op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal by Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) on the need for enactment of the Senate-passed legislation to clearly authorize monitor of foreign intelligence. "Hard of Hearing" takes the House Democratic leadership to task for delaying action on the legislation, and stresses the need for retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies that assist in surveillance.
Telecommunications companies are for now, after intense negotiations, cooperating with the government under the assumption that protections granted to them under the Protect America Act will be upheld in court, even though the law is now defunct. But there is no guarantee that the courts will do any such thing. There is also no guarantee that corporate executives, under pressure from their legal counsels and shareholders to limit liabilities, will continue to cooperate.
- The cooperation of the telecommunications companies is limited to intercepting communications of terrorists identified before the Protect America Act lapsed. Until intelligence agencies can chase leads involving foreign communications, the U.S. will not be as safe as it was just a few weeks ago.
The authors reject the idea of a "compromise" on telecom immunity being discussed by Speaker Pelosi as gutting the bill.
Hoekstra speaks at the Heritage Foundation today at 10 a.m., a talk entitled, "See No Danger? Hear No Danger? Congress Missing in Action!" Heritage will broadcast the speech on the Internet, here.
The most promising and politically controversial initiative taken by Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels during his first term of office was the long-term leasing of the Indiana Toll Road to a private consortium, bringing in nearly $4 billion over 75 years. (Details here.)"We are taking in more in interest alone each year than the toll road generated in 50," Daniels told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute Monday. The revenues are dedicated to infrastructure and economic development, he emphasized.
These kind of private-public partnerships are drawing more attention nationwide as gas tax revenues prove insufficient to maintain transportation infrastructure. Democratic Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania -- incoming chairman of the National Governors Association -- supports a long-term lease of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, with revenues to address the state's infrastructure shortfalls.
But the talk of public-private partnerships is not -- and should not be -- limited to public toll roads. Private management of the Gary, Ind., airport, for example, is a "tantalizing subject" Daniels told the AEI audience.
"The mayor of Gary has said that he is prepared to look at the possibility of some kind of a lease of that facility that might bring some private capital into the game, too,” Daniels said...[snip]
“There’s a heck of an opportunity there if we can get it right,” he said of the airport. “I would use both public and private tools. I support that.”
Daniels took great political heat from the toll-road leasing (unions and local residents being most upset), but the benefits are accruing and the political damage clearly subsiding. A just-released public opinion poll showed Daniels with a 20-point lead over both his potential Democratic challengers.
Excellent presentation and Q&A session today at the American Enterprise Institute by Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, who was in town for the winter meeting of the National Governors Association. (He reports he's released early from NGA attendance having been called to jury service.)
Indiana is the most manufacturing-intensive state in the nation, and the economy is doing pretty well. Daniels noted that the state unemployment rate is at its lowest in six years, and for the third year in a row, the state has broken the record for new investments coming to the state. The governor expressed clear support for foreign companies investing in Indiana, citing the car companies, Toyota, Subaru and Honda.
Which led to the most interesting part of the Q&A session, at least for those who follow manufacturing. A Kalamazoo native asked about the economies of Michigan versus Indiana and wondered about the role of organized labor in discouraging investment in the state. While taking pains not to denigrate unions, Daniels said the adversarial model of labor-management relations appeared to no longer function well in a globablized economy.
And then he turned to trade:
I do get letters and e-mails and things from neighboring states that remark on this contrast, and so forth, so anyway. On the subject of trade, Susan Schwab was one of the presenters and gave a very good presentation, pointed out among other things that since NAFTA, manufacturing output in America has more than doubled. So among her messages was, whatever problems you may be experiencing don’t have anything to do with NAFTA.
But the governor of Michigan took exception to that, and in what I thought not very persuasive terms, attempted to lay the problems of her state on that. I didn’t say anything…there’s no point in that place, or any place, I guess, to have an argument about it. But there’s nothing about Michigan that doesn’t apply to Indiana, too. And yet we have made economic progress. It leads you to think that there are other things, other variables involved, like tax, and costs and regulatory policy and so forth.
In December 2006, Indiana's unemployment rate was 4.6 percent and Michigan's was 7.6 percent.
A transcript of the relevant portion of Daniels' Q&A is in the extended entry below.
UPDATE (8:40 a.m. Tuesday): The relevant portion of Daniels' remarks are available here in an .mp3 format.
[Full disclosure: This blogger was a registered lobbyist for the state of Indiana before joining the NAM two years ago.]
President Bush, meeting with governors today at the White House, reiterated the basic and persuasive arguments for Congress renewing federal authority for monitoring foreign electronic communications. His point about telecom immunity has received less attention than others:
[Such] lawsuits would require disclosure of information, which will make it harder to protect the country. You can imagine when people start defending themselves, they're going to be asked all kinds of questions about tactics used. Makes absolutely no sense to give the enemy more knowledge about what the United States is doing to protect the American people.
We've reached the running-of-the-ads stage of the debate, the elevating of political pressure in a way that will surely be repeated come the fall elections. This video spot by the group, Defense of Democracies, is nonetheless a fair-enough piece, noting the Senate's bipartisan passage of the legislation (S. 2248) and chiding House leadership for going on vacation instead of acting to extend surveillance authority. Which it did. One Minnesota congressman, Rep. Tim Walz, who's criticized denounces the ad, cites his National Guard service, and lashes out at "fear-mongering." Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy responds here.
The issue really right now between the House and the Senate, as far as I can tell, the biggest issue is retroactive liability protection, and in their op-ed they just had a passing glance to that issue. But it is one of the biggest sticking points, because at the end of the day if we don't have the companies helping us, then we won't have a program.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say they’re determined to hammer out electronic surveillance legislation, but with hostile rhetoric intensifying and no hard deadline for action, a quick resolution is unlikely.
A temporary surveillance law (PL 110-55) expired Feb. 16, amid squabbling among Democrats and Republicans who blame each other for the lapse of the law. As Congress returns to work this week, GOP lawmakers, backed by the Bush administration, are insisting that the House simply clear bipartisan Senate-passed surveillance legislation (HR 3773).
But a version the House passed in November differs significantly from the Senate legislation, and Democratic leaders are equally insistent that the two chambers must strike a deal.
In today's Washington Post, the Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees dispute the assertions that American intelligence gathering has been hurt by the lapse of Protect America Act surveillance authority. The op-ed, "Scare Tactics and Our Surveillance Bill," suffered from the writers changing the topic, attacking the Administration for mishandling the Iraq war; if the arguments about FISA were so persuasive, then why the rhetorical misdirection?
KING: But Senator Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, says this, "No amount of fearmongering will change the fact that our intelligence-collection capabilities have not been weakened last week. Even the president's own director of national intelligence agrees."
That would be you, sir, Harry Reid putting you in his statement accusing the administration, of which you are a member, of fearmongering.
MCCONNELL: John, we're less safe because we're not as an agile. And we have to have the cooperation and partnership from the private sector. And we are actually negotiating -- so, think about it. We may be able to get information that's fleeting, seconds or minutes, and you have to sit down with a lawyer to say, well, can I do this?
So that's the issue that makes us less capable because we can't keep up. We have to be agile, and it takes full partnership from the private sector.
McConnell also makes the case for retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that assisted in the surveillance of foreign-based communications of suspected terrorists.
Sigh. What a discouraging weekend of bombast on trade from the Democratic candidates for president, who are more vociferously than ever blaming NAFTA for lost manufacturing jobs. The Washington Post does an analysis piece noting that Sen. Hillary Clinton is sounding more and more like John Edwards pitching the populism. Clinton and Obama take turns exceeding one another's trade bashing.
Their argument is fundamentally a post hoc one: Manufacturing employment has declined, that decline followed enactment of NAFTA, and therefore NAFTA is to blame. But as Dan Griswold of Cato reminds us in this Reuters story, the decline since 2000 is largely the result of the early-decade recession and increased productivity; we can manufacture more products today with fewer people.
So we blame microchips. We must take a time out on microchips.
The anti-trade rhetoric suggests a desire to return to an era of simpler, more labor-intensive machinery, perhaps the 1950s. Trouble is, none of our global competitors would follow suit. The anti-trade policies now popular in the primaries mean the United States just surrenders in the world of competition, innovation and economic dynamism, a formula for long-term stagnation and decline.
Nineteen years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments on Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker on Wednesday, determining at what point punitive damages are excessive. (Here is the docket for 07-219, and the questions presented are here.) The National Association of Manufacturers filed an amicus brief in the case, noting that Exxon already incurred $3.4 billion in damages, settlements, remediation costs and fines as a result of the 1989 oil spill. The brief argues: "A punitive award is excessive if it exceeds the amount that is reasonably necessary to accomplish the governmental interests in deterrence and retribution. This court has both articulated and applied that principle in its recent punitive damages cases."
The Sunday Washington Post had a detailed, page one story on the oil spill, its environmental consequences, and the legal case on page one. Headlined, "Exxon Oil Spill Case May Get Closure," the story by Robert Barnes takes an almost psychological approach toward the issues.
In the time span of the battle -- 14 years after the verdict, nearly two decades since the spill itself -- claimants' lawyers say there is a new statistic to add to the grim legacy of the disaster in Prince William Sound: Nearly 20 percent of the 33,000 fishermen, Native Alaskans, cannery workers and others who triumphed in court that day are dead.
"That's the most upsetting thing, that more than 6,000 people have passed and this still isn't finished," said Mike Webber, a Native Alaskan artistic carver and former fisherman in the Prince William Sound community of Cordova. "Our sound is not healthy, and neither are the people. Everything is still on the surface, just as it was."
Our legal system is ill-equipped to bring "closure" or to "heal" Alaska, which seems to be the desire -- an understandable, human desire, to be sure -- of many. Would $100 billion in punitive damages restore Alaska to what people remember it as being those halcyon decades ago?
"What if the doctors went out on strike?" asks the Pacific Research Institute's John R. Graham in today's Examiner. The question is elicited by the talk of unionizing doctors, which then raises broader issues about the U.S. health-care system.
Unionizing doctors is not the answer; giving control back to patients is. Let them choose and pay doctors without the bewildering array of bureaucratic intermediaries. The cost savings would be enormous, and doctors and patients alike would feel like they have control over their treatment.
You want to know why giving state attorneys general more authority to pursue consumer product safety complaints (see below) causes serious heartburn? Read today's editorial in the Wall Street Journal, "Lawsuit Inc." It paints in disturbing detail Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood's practice of hiring trial lawyer firms on contingency to sue companies on behalf of the state.
The documents show Mr. Hood has retained at least 27 firms as outside counsel to pursue at least 20 state lawsuits over five years. The law firms are thus able to employ the full power of the state on their behalf, while Mr. Hood can multiply the number of targets.
Those targets are invariably deep corporate pockets: Eli Lilly, State Farm, Coca-Cola, Merck, Boston Scientific, Vioxx and others. The vast majority of the legal contracts were awarded on a contingency fee basis, meaning the law firm is entitled to a big percentage of any money that it can wring from defendants. The amounts can be rich, such as the $14 million payout that lawyer Joey Langston shared with the Lundy, Davis firm in an MCI/WorldCom settlement.
These firms are only too happy to return the favor to Mr. Hood via campaign contributions. Campaign finance records show that these 27 law firms -- or partners in those firms -- made $543,000 in itemized campaign contributions to Mr. Hood over the past two election cycles.
The most egregious example of this sort of outsourcing was all the tobacco company litigation that eventually led to the tobacco settlement, a case of trial lawyers effecting public policy through lawsuits and campaign contributions. Do we really want to see that justice-debasing pattern replicated in consumer product litigation, divvied up by AGs to their plaintiff's bar buddies?
The Journal's conclusion hits the target, dead center:
The real issue is the way this AG-tort bar mutual financial interest creates perverse incentives that skew the cause of justice. A decision to prosecute is an awesome power, and it ought to be motivated by evidence and the law, not by the profit motives of private tort lawyers and the campaign needs of an ambitious Attorney General. Government is supposed to act on behalf of the public interest, not for the personal profit of trial lawyers. The tort bar-AG cabal deserves to be exposed nationwide.
We appreciate the efforts in Congress to strengthen the authority and resources of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, but...but...BUT! The Washington Times editorializes on the Senate bill expected to be introduced this week. From "A flawed approach to product safety":
Among the unpalatable provisions in Mr. Pryor's bill is one that would allow state attorneys general to intervene in product safety cases that go well beyond what is written in statute, thus encroaching on the CPSC's authority and creating excess bureaucracy and governmental overlap.
"We appreciate the idea of having more cops on the beat," said Stephanie Lester, vice president for international trade at the Retail Industry Leaders Association. However, Miss Lester points out, the law could result in attorneys general interjecting themselves into these cases for political or other reasons that go beyond the intent of policy-makers.
The Senate bill would also require manufacturers to place excessive product warning labels on toys, a nanny-state move that could result in wavering consumer confidence and harm some toymakers. The bill would require that labels be plastered in every sort of advertising medium, regardless of whether the actual toy already has the labeling on the actual product. The Senate bill would create a publicly disclosed database that would allow consumers to openly complain about alleged product safety shortfalls, regardless of whether these complaints are true. This misguided proposal could damage the reputations and commercial viability of manufacturers and retailers who are smeared in this public setting before a full investigation can take place.
No primary elections this week, but Congress is back in town. The House votes on an energy tax increase and perhaps authority to gather intelligence on foreign terrorists. The Senate re-re-revisits Iraq. The Supreme Court hears oral arguments over Exxon Valdez damages, lo these 19 years later.
This afternoon at the National Press Club, National Association of Manufacturers' President John Engler speaks at a Health IT Now! news conference urging congressional action on legislation to promote information technology in health care. Speaking are Gov. Chet Culver (D-IA), Gov. Joe Manchin (D-WV), and Gov.Gov. Jim Douglas (R-VT).
The House convenes Monday at 4 p.m. and the major bill on the floor schedule H.R. 5351, the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act, raising taxes on oil and gas production by $18 billion to incentifizicate alternative fuels. Expect a vote Wednesday. Although not on the schedule, anticipate rhetoric on foreign intelligence surveillance and immunity for telecom companies. House schedule here.
House hearings: House Financial Services holds Humphrey-Hawkins hearings (how's that for nostalgia?) Tuesday and Wednesday on the economy and monetary policy (details); Fed Chairman Bernanke is up Wednesday. Also Wednesday, the telecommunications subcommittee of Energy and Commerce considers legislation called "Wireless Consumer Protection and Community Broadband Empowerment." On Thursday, there's a separate subcommittee hearing on S. 742 and draft legislation to ban asbestos. On Friday, there's a field hearing at Rice University by the Energy and the Environment Subcommittee of Science and Technology, considering Houston and energy. John Hofmeister of Shell is scheduled to testify.
Executive Branch: President Bush meets with governors at the White House today. On Wednesday, he visits with the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic and the Boston Red Sox, but separately. Friday, it's a meeting with the Secretary General of NATO, and then off to Crawford with the Prime Minister of Denmark.
Supreme Court: On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments on Exxon Co. v. Baker, determining whether whether $2.5 billion in punitive damages for the Exxon Valdez oil spill is justified. The NAM joined in an amicus brief in the case, and you can read the news release and brief here.
James Taranto, who compiles and writes The Best of the Web column for the online Wall Street Journal, takes delight in pointing out the stretches reporters go to justify a quote's anonymity. We offer this one for consideration, taken from The Washington Post's Saturday story, "Spy Law Lapse Blamed for Lost Information." The issue is the granting of retroactive immunity to telephone companies that acceded to the federal government's request to assist in monitoring of foreign communications by suspected terrorists. The telephone carriers declined comment, reasonably enough given pending litigation.
But some people familiar with their thinking said that the companies reduced cooperation for practical reasons.
"The skittishness and concern is the companies are already spending a great deal of money on a number of suits pending that they don't have the ability to defend against because of the State Secrets Act," said one source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. "That's why the companies are saying, 'We just can't put ourselves in the position of having another round of suits against us because there's no law in place at the moment that will protect us from litigation.' "
Now, that's a reasonable observation that's probably accurate. But how in the world is a reader supposed to judge the credibility of that source? And citing a topic's sensitivity as an excuse for skipping attribution? That's a standard that allows pretty much every comment in a political or legal story to be made anonymously.
That's why we will try to explain to readers why a source is not being named. We also will strive to tell our readers as much as we can about why such a source would be knowledgeable and whether the source has a particular point of view -- for example, "a police official involved in the investigation," "an aide to a Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee" or "a senior Pentagon official who disagrees with the administration's policy."
A theme developing, a tax-and-spend Sunday here at Shopfloor.org. Or as The Wall Street Journal's weekend editorial on New Jersey puts it, "Toll and Spend."
The slow economy is hurting state tax revenues around the country. But look on the bright side: You could live in New Jersey, where decades of tax and spend politics is reaching its logical conclusion.
"We have a serious structural financial problem," the state's liberal Democratic Governor Jon Corzine told us on a recent visit. "You better address these problems or you will put yourself in a 1970s-style New York City situation, where you get a control board telling you what to do." Mr. Corzine is promoting his own solution, but he's also tacitly admitting that the state's politicians have been sucking the place dry for decades. If you want to know where a state dominated by public-employee unions ends up, Trenton is it.
The Journal is sympathetic to Corzine's plight, as he's a realistic politician who certainly understands where the state has gone down the wrong road. But one "solution" he proposes involves leasing out the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway, to pay off old debt -- risky refinancing in any circumstances. It's also a far cry from the tollway leasing being undertaken in more fiscally prudent states like Indiana, where the revenues are allocated to infrastructure.
The real problem is tax and spend governance, by both political parties. State revenues have grown at an average annual rate of 3% over 20 years, while spending has increased by an average of 7%. And that's despite a tax burden that is already nearly the country's highest (see nearby table). Mr. Corzine's predecessor, James McGreevey, jacked up the top income tax rate to 8.97% from 6.37% in 2004, giving more hedge fund managers a reason to move to Connecticut.
Mr. Corzine's toll-hike plan is well meaning but unlikely to work and is already encountering bipartisan opposition. If it fails, he ought to consider the only real solution, which would be a state constitutional tax and spend limitation. He'd be a hero to taxpayers, and it might even save the state from bankruptcy.
P.P.S. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels is speaking Monday afternoon at the American Enterprise Institute, remarks entitled, "Economic Lessons from Indiana." We hope to make it.
Dr. Laffer appears on this week's NAM radio program, "America's Business with Mike Hambrick," discussing the report. The conversation turned to California as a state that discourage investment; it ranks 43rd in the ALEC report. Laffer:
California, I don’t want to be rough on. It’s a wonderful state, a lot of wonderful people, but it’s lost its way. What it’s done is raise… its highest tax rate is now 10.3 percent, and with the alternative minimum tax, if you’re in that bracket, it’s probably not deductible to you either. So it really … discriminates very much against high-income earners and big job producers and growers.
It also has all sorts of other problems as well. It’s got a very, very high sales tax. And even though the property tax rate that you know of as being Prop. 13, even though the rate is very low, with high housing prices the actual total payment of property taxes is pretty high in California.
I could go on and on, but there’s almost no category where California is really an exceptionally pro-growth, pro-business, pro-jobs state.
A big problem is the gerrymandered legislative process, which entrenches politicians, Laffer explains.
Laffer also discusses his February 13 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, "That 'Stimulus' Nonsense."
Governors showed up on this morning's TV news-talk shows today, including four chief executives on Fox News Sunday: Republicans Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, and Democrats Tim Kaine of Virginia and Jon Corzine of New Jersey.
Questioned by host Chris Wallace, Sanford hit directly on the issue that should dominate any economic discussions during this year's national campaigns.
SANFORD: Well, I think a lot of folks — and there's a lot of economic data to support this — don't believe that you can tax your way to prosperity.
And so I think that come this fall, there's going to be a tremendous debate between where Senator McCain will be and whoever the Democratic nominee might be on where we go next as a country.
And I think it goes straight to — you know, Thomas Friedman visited yesterday with the nation's governors...
WALLACE: The New York Times columnist.
SANFORD: ... and talked about competitiveness. And I think that if you really look at an agenda of competitiveness, one of its absolute foundations has to be being competitive with the rest of the world with regard to tax and spending policy.
The United States has the second highest corporate tax rate among developed nations. (OECD chart here, via the Tax Foundation.)
A voice worth hearing from as Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and many legislators propose a regulatory crusade against carbon dioxide.
John Holt, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Unions Local 1900 in Largo, which represents 1,700 power plant and electrical system workers in the state, predicted that the law could shut down power plants.
"They have basically said, 'Trust us: We won't lose any revenues and we won't lose any jobs,'" Holt said of the bill's sponsors.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Consumer advocate Ralph Nader said on Sunday that he is launching another long shot independent campaign for president of the United States.
What was it Marx said? History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce, the third as Harold Stassen....
When Congress reconvenes on Monday, Members of the House have a choice to make: They can empower the trial bar -- or they can empower the intelligence community. They can help class action trial lawyers sue for billions of dollars -- or they can help our intelligence officials protect millions of lives. They can put our national security in the hands of plaintiffs' lawyers -- or they can entrust it to the men and women of our government who work day and night to keep us safe. As they make their choice, Members of Congress must never forget: Somewhere in the world, at this very moment, terrorists are planning the next attack on America. And to protect America from such attacks, we must protect our telecommunications companies from abusive lawsuits.
The House floor schedule for the week does not list any FISA or Protect America Act legislation as being acted upon.
More follow-up on Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's endorsement of anti-C02 legislation, a reaction from the western part of the state, an executive with the Luke Paper Mill, which employs about 950 people.
Gary Curtis, vice president for Luke operations, said, "SB 309 is a local attempt at fixing a global issue. NewPage Corp. urges Maryland to support the federal government's efforts to address climate issues and increase our country's understanding of this very complex issue before states individually implement global climate regulations."
He said placing additional burdens on U.S. manufacturers on a state-by-state basis will have little effect on global climate change and will only result in the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs.
"More and more of this manufacturing will be moved overseas in countries where there are few, if any, environmental regulations," Curtis said.
He added that the net effect of this phenomenon will be more, not less, global greenhouse gas emissions.
"We ask that our leaders in Maryland support only those environmental regulations which are balanced in helping to retain the manufacturing base in our state," he said. "Forcing these good-paying manufacturing jobs overseas is a detriment to our economy and will only exacerbate, not solve, the global warming issue."
LUKE - When NewPage's senior management team visited the Luke mill, it announced a commitment of $20 million for projects at the local mill next year, Tom Caldwell, president of United Steelworkers Local 676, said.
"That made us feel a lot more secure," he said.
And then legislators and the governor introduced insecurity.
From a letter (.pdf here) from Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey to Rep. Silvestre Reyes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
We have lost intelligence information this past week as a direct result of the uncertainty created by Congress’ failure to act. Because of this uncertainty, some partners have reduced cooperation. In particular, they have delayed or refused compliance with our requests to initiate new surveillances of terrorist and other foreign intelligence targets under existing directives issued pursuant to the Protect America Act.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's response to those assertions is revealing. In a statement, Hoyer says:
[The] Bush Administration repeated its assertion today that the expiration of the Protect America Act has resulted in intelligence gaps. If this is true, then it was grossly irresponsible for the President to threaten to veto and Congressional Republicans to vote against a PAA extension and any intelligence gap would be one of their own creation. Again, if Republicans truly believe gaps are created by a PAA expiration, they should support a temporary extension and join us in quickly crafting a strong, bipartisan FISA modernization bill that represents the best of the House and Senate passed bills.
Those are two awfully consequential "ifs." They acknowledge as credible the argument that intelligence is being harmed by the House's inaction on foreign intelligence surveillance authority. (As did the more than 20 House Democrats who disagreed with their leadership's handling of the legislation.) And, after all, does anyone in a responsible position of power think that McConnell and Mukasey are lying?
Once you concede the Administration's case as likely or at least legitimate -- as Hoyer has -- then the rest of the rhetoric is just politics, positioning for voters and anti-surveillance constituencies. What's need isn't rhetoric, what's needed is authority to effectively monitor foreign communications of suspected terrorists. What's needed isn't politics, but immunity for good corporate citizens who acted responsibly in assisting in the prevention of Americans being massacred by terrorists.
The iconic American frontier home -- a log cabin -- takes on modern attributes at Conestoga Log Cabins, the Lebanon, Penn., manufacturer of log house kits.
The idea for Conestoga Log Cabins and Homes was developed over twenty years ago. In 1983, after over ten years of various designs and several generations of machinery, Conestoga produced its first cabin for the campground industry under the name Conestoga Log Cabins. The initial concepts and processes from those early years have evolved into a streamlined 100,000 square foot state-of-the-art manufacturing facility.
And in this week's Cool Stuff Being Made, Bill Keller Jr., a company vice president and co-owner, walks us through that facility to show us how it's done. Laminated logs? You bet.
From the Wall Street Journal's Political Diary e-mail:
Quote of the Day II
"I no longer care much about the science [of global warming]. To me, the central question, and the one that few are willing to discuss in depth, is: Then what?... Fossil fuels now provide about 85% of the world's total energy needs. Even more important is this corollary: Increasing energy consumption equals higher living standards. Always. Everywhere. Given that fact, how can we expect the people of the world -- all 6.6 billion of them -- to use less energy? The short answer: we can't.... The developed countries of the world can talk forever about the virtues of solar panels and windmills, but what the energy-poor need most are common fuels like kerosene, propane, and gasoline" -- Texas Observer writer Robert Bryce, author of the forthcoming book "Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of 'Energy Independence.'"
Robert Bryce's website is here, at RobertBryce.com. You can subscribe to Political Diary here.
You'll note we talk in terms of "energy security" around the NAM as a more realistic and achievable goal. Importing oil from Canada doesn't really bother us as a matter of economics or foreign policy. Although having access to U.S oil and natural gas reserves should come first.
Premarket approval is a “rigorous” process. Lohr, 518 U. S., at 477. A manufacturer must submit what is typically a multivolume application. FDA, Device Advice— Premarket Approval (PMA) 18, http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/ devadvice/pma/printer.html. It includes, among other things, full reports of all studies and investigations of the device’s safety and effectiveness that have been published or should reasonably be known to the applicant; a “full statement” of the device’s “components, ingredients, and properties and of the principle or principles of operation”; “a full description of the methods used in, and the facilities and controls used for, the manufacture, processing, and,when relevant, packing and installation of, such device”; samples or device components required by the FDA; and a specimen of the proposed labeling. §360e(c)(1). Before deciding whether to approve the application, the agency may refer it to a panel of outside experts, 21 CFR§814.44(a) (2007), and may request additional data fromthe manufacturer, §360e(c)(1)(G).
The FDA spends an average of 1,200 hours reviewing each application, Lohr, supra, at 477, and grants premarket approval only if it finds there is a “reasonable assurance” of the device’s “safety and effectiveness,” §360e(d).
Do we really want to replicate state regulation of medical devices sold in interstate commerce? It's the logical extension of allowing lawsuits under state tort law.
Consumers are already at the mercy of the all-too-fallible Food and Drug Administration. So it is especially disturbing that the Supreme Court ruled this week that patients injured by defective medical devices cannot sue for damages in state courts if the device was approved for marketing by the F.D.A. and made to the agency’s specifications.
That means that any consumer harmed by a faulty device — whether it be an implanted defibrillator, a heart pump or an artificial knee — will have no chance of fair compensation and the manufacturers will have a dangerous sense of impunity.
Charles Riegel underwent coronary angioplasty in 1996,shortly after suffering a myocardial infarction. App. to Pet. for Cert. 56a. His right coronary artery was diffusely diseased and heavily calcified. Riegel’s doctor inserted the Evergreen Balloon Catheter into his patient’s coronary artery in an attempt to dilate the artery, although the device’s labeling stated that use was contraindicated forpatients with diffuse or calcified stenoses. The label also warned that the catheter should not be inflated beyond its rated burst pressure of eight atmospheres. Riegel’s doctor inflated the catheter five times, to a pressure of 10 atmospheres; on its fifth inflation, the catheter ruptured. Complaint 3. Riegel developed a heart block, was placed on life support, and underwent emergency coronary bypass surgery.
According to the Times' logic, the manufacturer should bear the legal and economic consequences for the doctor's error, or at least Riegel should have the right to sue based on the alleged inadequate warning labels.
It's that federal pre-emption on labels, i.e., FDA pre-market approval, that's really at issue here, not the supposed arrogance or impunity of manufacturers. At some point, some authority has to sign off on a medical device's design and labeling and safety; Congress has determined, logically enough, that that authority should be a federal one, the FDA. And here's what the court said:
The FDA requires that a device that has received premarket approval be marketed without significant deviations from the specifications in the device’s approval application, for the reason that the FDA has determined that those specifications provide a reasonable assurance of safety and effectiveness.
Again, to the Times, that approval should be subject to the state laws of 50 states, not a single federal standard, because the ability of an injured party to sue must always come first. The reasonable assurance of safety and effectiveness be damned.
The Times view reflects a cloistered and completely impractical view of the business and regulatory world. Put into place, it would only discourage the manufacture of life-saving devices.
Security always beefs up, clamps down and otherwise messes up traffic around NAM-HQ this time of year, as the National Governors Association holds its winter meeting next door at the JW Marriott.
In his capacity as NGA chairman, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is leading a Securing a Clean Energy Future initiative (full report here), which will be the focus of plenary sessions. Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, will speak about the role businesses can play in advancing energy and environmental innovation, so that's a high-profile platform for a profitable area of discussion.
The NGA report does feature this regrettable line, repeating President Bush's most unfortunate utterance ever in a State of the Union address, "Bottom line—The United States is currently addicted to oil..." No. No, we're not. Are we addicted to copper? Are we addicted to wheat? Our economy consumes oil as one of many commodities, substituting for it when economically rational. This talking of being addicted to oil does damage to critical thinking.
Thankfully, judging from the press release, at least, the NGA discussions take a big picture approach, going beyond the (well justifiable) promotion of alternative fuels.
Later on Saturday, the Securing a Clean Energy Future Task Force members will convene to examine the role of traditional electricity sources, such as coal and nuclear power, in our nation's energy future and hear how utility companies plan to balance the mix of efficiency, coal, nuclear and renewable energy sources to meet future power needs. Throughout the meeting, several "Governors-Only" sessions will provide governors the opportunity for candid dialogue on reducing the nation's overall energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions while keeping the economy strong.
So, best of luck, governors. Always nice to have you in town, bringing a little bit of homestate experience and accomplishment into the belly of the Beltway beast.
The signing of an agreement between the EPA and the NAM to promote energy efficiency among manufacturers was postponed today because of the ice storm that hit the east coast. Folks here in D.C. could not make it to Georgetown, Ky., and the Toyota plant where the event was to be held.
The United States has retained its position as the world's most inventive country. But, the World Intellectual Property Organization says countries in northeast Asia are catching up. Last year, WIPO says 156,000 patent applications, a record number, were filed, representing a 4.7 percent increase over the previous year. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from WIPO headquarters in Geneva.
The says the growth in patent filings by several countries in northeast Asia confirms shifting patterns of innovation around the world. It notes nearly 26 percent of all international patent applications last year came from Japan, South Korea and China.
The WIPO news release is here, and its patents section is here.
Knee-jerk reaction to news: Improve education in math and science, discourage the bread and circuses, and expand H1-B visas.
Raymond Keating, the group's chief economist, said the patent system needed to be restructured to bolster patent quality while reducing costs. Other reforms, he said, should include patent litigation, international harmonization and a shift to a first-inventor-to-file approach, as opposed to first-to-invent.
So who's behind these 40 some civil suits against the telecommunications companies for responding to the federal government's request to assist in the monitoring of post-9/11 foreign electronic communications. Sure, you have the privacy absolutists at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU, but you also have the usual suspects among the litigation shakedown set, the trial lawyers.
Consider Eric Isaacson, the former Milberg Weiss attorney who joined now convicted felon William Lerach at the California law firm, Coughlin Stoia. Isaacson and Lerach are lead plaintiffs in one of the high-profile lawsuits against the telecom companies, Hepting v. AT&T. Top Milberg Weiss attorneys have also been convicted or indicted for a kickback scheme to gin up class-action shareholder lawsuits.
[Isaacson] comes from exactly the sort of cutthroat milieu that makes telecoms balk (absent immunity) when asked for an emergency foreign-intelligence wiretap.
Just imagine how Coughlin Stoia could take information gleaned from “discovery” motions in the wiretap suit and use it to try to nail the phone company in a subsequent investors’ suit that is the firm’s stock in trade.
Remember the modus operandi of Milberg Weiss, tactics that Isaacson specializes in defending on appeal. As former partners described in their guilty pleas, the firm would troll for clients with stock in big corporations and then file suit almost any time the share-price dropped, without specific evidence of wrongdoing but based merely on what Lerach called his internal “X-ray vision.”
This X-ray vision amounted to plaintiff's lawyers abusing the discovery process to dredge up anything that could be twisted into appearances of wrongdoing. Juries would deliver huge verdicts. Hillyer comments:
Without immunity from such shakedowns, the companies surely would be forced to decline even the most urgent of future government requests. Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte has sworn under oath that the end result “reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States.”
Shakedowns or security? Too many members of Congress are choosing the former.
With the Oscars upon us, and Roy Scheider having danced, swum and acted his way off this mortal coil, we bring you this week's Friday Follies, a tribute with "Jaws in 30 Seconds with Bunnies."
Our favorite opportunity optimist, Larry Kudlow, has a new home for his blog, Kudlow's Money Politics. It's now part of Blow Row at National Review Online:
Kudlow promotes and discusses his CNBC program, Kudlow & Company, opines on the political scene, and provides both analysis and prescriptions for the U.S. economy. Always a good read.
Dan Popeo, chairman of the Washington Legal Foundation, surveys the political climate and sees too many populist politicians making common cause with the trial lawyers -- a toxic combination of special interests. But the reality is, America cannot regulate and sue its way to economic success. From The Examiner:
Recklessly smearing free enterprise and labeling businesses as “special interests” may fill politicians’ and activists’ coffers, but such tactics deeply fail all hard-working Americans. Empty words and an oppressive regulatory climate will not solve any of the pressing problems facing the U.S. economy.
They do, however, strip away economic rights and our confidence in free enterprise, two key factors that must continue to provide America with an edge in the brutally competitive international market.
If those who claim to represent the public interest act so harshly toward successful companies, why would anyone want to invest in America’s future or create a new business?
THE SUPREME Court during recent terms has relied on cramped legal analysis to deny fairness to workers and criminal defendants in several notable cases.
Question: Is that what the court is supposed to do, determine and distribute "fairness?"
Bernard G. Frieder, a British technology consultant now working with Israeli firms, writing in The Jerusalem Post, expresses alarm at the patent legislation being proposed in the U.S. Senate.
Because inventors, research organizations and startup ventures around the world rely on US patents to protect the output of their labor, changing the US patent system has global repercussions...[snip]
Over the past 20 years, a significant proportion of the Israeli economy - and export growth - has been based on our patent-centric technology sector. From essentially a handful of companies, Israel has developed a world-renowned start-up culture and multi-billion venture capital investment engine. In fact, Israel is second only to California's Silicon Valley as a driver of global innovation.
He has many, many specific objections:
THE PROPOSED changes would greatly increase the costs of securing a basic US patent and expand filing requirements and processing time, thereby reducing a patent's term of protection.
Also, a US patent would no longer be a secure asset since its validity could be challenged during the course of its effective life. There would be no closure. The potential for costly litigation would skyrocket and patent holders would be forced to "lawyer up" - to defend themselves against opportunistic plaintiffs.
Which is a sure way to discourage investment in innovation.
Atlanta, Ga. – February 20, 2008) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) will sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to help improve the energy efficiency of U.S. manufacturers. This is the first-ever agreement between EPA and NAM, the nation’s oldest and largest industrial trade association. EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson also will present Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. (TMMK) with its second Energy Star Plant Award for its commitment to energy efficiency.
WHO: EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson; National Association of Manufacturers President John Engler and Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky Inc. President Steve St. Angelo.
Etc. We'll have lots more upon the event's occurrence.
Tonight's episode of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" deals with corrupt executives with a households products manufacturer who have an FDA official on the take, helping to cover up contaminated mouthwash that had killed poor children. Contaminated with anti-freeze. The Skull & Bones Society is mentioned as a source of ties among the movers and shakers.
Yes, there are murders involved, and the culprit isn't so obvious as to be one of the top executives. But business sure does get kicked around ...once again. Earlier this year the regular "Law & Order" made the villain a manufacturer of contaminated toothpaste. Contaminated with anti-freeze.
Ripped from the headlines, all right. The headlines of Mother Jones or The Nation. Didn't any of these writers ever work for a business where the executives were honest, hard-working Americans?
In his quest to make San Francisco the greenest city in the nation, Mayor Gavin Newsom recently created a $160,000-a-year job for a senior aide and gave him the ambitious-sounding title of director of climate protection initiatives...[snip]
[The] new climate protection initiatives director is just the latest person to join the city payroll in the name of tackling global climate woes, raising questions about whether environmentalism is becoming the latest excuse for a bloating government payroll.
San Francisco has at least two dozen other city employees already working directly on climate issues at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Elsewhere in California, the attorney general has an expansive -- and expensive -- view of his office's duties.
SACRAMENTO - Attorney General Jerry Brown is taking the global warming enlightenment skills he honed in the Bay Area across the rest of California today - a move that even supporters such as San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed said will meet resistance.
Monday, Brown's aides told MediaNews he will announce he is convening voluntary regional schools for California's more than 500 county supervisors and mayors to advocate tough actions such new transportation impact fees and costly energy-efficiency.
California's government is the enlightened model of environmental leadership that must be taken nationwide. Whether the taxpayers like it or not.
British Columbians will be paying more at the fuel pump and less at tax time under a new carbon tax on all fossil fuels unveiled Tuesday as part of the Liberal government's budget...[snip]
As part of the new tax plan, carbon-based fuels — including gasoline, diesel, natural gas, propane, coal and home heating fuel — will be taxed at $10 per tonne of greenhouse gases generated, starting July 1, 2008.
That will translate into a new 2.4 cents per litre tax on gasoline at the pump and 2.8 cents per litre for home heating fuel.
The carbon tax rate will rise by $5 a year for the next four years, until it hits $30 per tonne of greenhouse gas generated in 2012, said [Finance Minister Carole] Taylor.
The government intends to give the $1.85 billion the tax raises over three years back to the taxpayers in the form of tax breaks, Taylor emphasized.
Seems like the kind of promise and fiscal discipline that tend to slip after a while, falling victim to government spending demands or the desire to otherwise punish a disfavored industry.
Still, the carbon tax does seem a lot cleaner and simpler plan than cap and trade, doesn't it?
A good ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court in a product liability case, Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc. From Reuters:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court handed a victory to Medtronic Inc on Wednesday, ruling that patients cannot sue medical-device manufacturers in state court over harm from a device that has approval from federal regulators.
By an 8-1 vote, the court ruled a 1976 law creating federal safety oversight for medical devices bars state-law claims challenging safety or effectiveness of devices that have won premarket approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
To function in any sort of predictable, profitable way, medical device manufacturers have to rely on a reasonable approval process that provides some level of certainty. Congress has determined that FDA, that is, federal approval is the proper way to achieve that certainty, logically enough given the interstate commerce considerations. You simply cannot change the standards every time there's a lawsuit.
In his majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia argued, "State tort law that requires a manufacturer's catheters to be safer, but hence less effective, than a model the FDA has approved disrupts the federal scheme no less than state regulatory law to the same effect." He suggested that tort law, applied by juries, is "less deserving of preservation" than statutory law or regulations, because juries, unlike federal or state officials, do not take into account the benefits of a particular product design along with its risks.
Frigid arctic air coming down from Canada set records in eastern North Dakota on Wednesday, but forecasters said a warmup was in store.
The temperature dropped to minus 33 degrees at the Grand Forks airport Wednesday morning, breaking the record for the date of minus 29 set in 1956, said Al Voelker, a National Weather Service meteorologist in the city.
Devils Lake hit 33 degrees below zero, breaking that city's record for the date of 30 below set in 1939, Voelker said.
Coming from the Senate majority leader, this is very, very disturbing.
From The Las Vegas Sun, reporting on Sen. Harry Reid's remarks at the Renewable Energy World Conference:
He accused the coal industry of using “the old Hitler lie — when you say things long enough people start believing them.”
The comparison of the coal industry to Nazis came after his keynote speech began and ended with references to “the Jewish sages of yesteryear.”
It's one thing for environmental activists, political extremists and just-plain-old idiots to toss around Hitler analogies; it's the vacuous currency of demagoguery these days. But for the Senate majority leader to use this kind of rhetoric mainstreams that demagoguery, declaring the people who heat our homes and light our streets to be the equivalent of Nazis. It's unacceptable.
UPDATE (9:39 a.m.) The Sun has posted Reid's prepared remarks, which do not include the Nazi allusions.
National Association of Manufacturers' President John Engler participated in a panel discussion yesterday at Iona College on infrastructure and emergency response, part of a daylong conference organized by Terex Corp. From The Connecticut Post:
NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. — When the bridge in Minneapolis collapsed in August 2007 and killed 13 people, Ronald DeFeo called the president of Iona College to tell him he was worried about the nation's infrastructure.
Tuesday, DeFeo, chief executive officer of construction equipment maker Terex Corp. in Westport, Conn., joined Iona's president, Brother James Liguori, in opening a conference that featured present and former congressmen, national leaders in security and transportation operations and President Eisenhower's granddaughter in discussing how to fix the nation's ailing infrastructure.
"We do have a great country and we want it to stay a great country," said DeFeo, whose company builds construction equipment. "It needs vision. It needs planning. It needs leadership."
"There are some who wonder, 'Will we be able to adapt economically?' " the governor said, flanked by lawmakers and environmental leaders. "We really don't have a choice."
Really? No choice?
Governor, there are hundreds of economic development recruiters from other states who are eager to offer Maryland's businesses a choice. Keep punishing the state's employers and wealth-creators enough and that choice will become increasingly attractive.
Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley has joined several state legislators in pushing for a massive expansion of the regulatory state, believing government control of the economy is the only effective response to the catastrophic threat of global warming. We wrote about the scheme yesterday here and here.
This morning's second-day stories give business more opportunity to respond. From The Baltimore Sun:
[Representatives] of Maryland's only steel mill, the Domino Sugar factory in Baltimore and a paper mill in Western Maryland warned of closings or dire financial losses if the state passes a law with some of the nation's toughest limits on carbon dioxide.
"That plant is not going to survive," said Gene Burner, lobbyist for the ArcelorMittal steel plant at Sparrows Point, which employs 2,500 workers. "In order to make steel, you have to produce carbon dioxide. ... The only way to limit carbon dioxide is not to make it."
"If you totally eliminate all of Maryland's greenhouse gases, you won't see any difference in the climate-change issue," Michael Powell of the Maryland Industrial Technology Alliance, a manufacturing industry group, told the committee.
“It is impossible for a small state, such as Maryland, to achieve a reduction goal as large as the 25 percent by 2020, and 90 percent by 2050,” said Maryland Chamber Vice President of Government Affairs Allyson Black. “This legislation is counterproductive, and would make it extremely difficult for businesses to survive.”
A number of Maryland Chamber members testified in opposition to SB 309 today, including Maryland Industrial Technology Alliance, Maryland Petroleum Council, Redland Brick, Inc., NewPage, Allegheny Energy, Mirant Mid-Atlantic, Constellation Energy and ArcelorMittall.
From Bob Garfield, a review of the House Republicans and last week's walkout protesting the House's failure to extend the authority for intercepting foreign communications.
America at risk - well, that’s for sure, not only from bearded Islamists cowering in caves but also by white men in red neckties who, in the name of national security, for six and a half years, have eroded the civil liberties at the heart of our Constitution. In that way, Thursday’s walkout was a paradox within a photo-op within a civics lesson.
Well, that's typical enough, a common trope of moral equivalency (with a hint of racism) from the demagogic left: White men in red neckties are the equivalent of al-Qaeda.
There's more along these lines, allusions to the American dictatorship:
[The] President never mentions the freedoms already stolen, like the freedom not to be spied on and the Constitutional freedom to hold the government accountable for its conduct.
And who is Bob Garfield? He's the co-host of "On the Media," a weekly, hourlong show of media analysis and criticism from NPR, that's National Public Radio, produced by WNYC in New York.
Garfield's commentary, "Congressional Contempt," led last week's program. It represented a one-sided, rhetorical assault on, among others, those who believe effective surveillance of foreign terrorists requires retroactive legal immunity for telecommunications companies.
The conclusion:
Could it be that the GOP walkout had nothing to do with spying authority at all? Maybe it was, in media parlance, just a bit of counter-programming – or, in other words, changing the subject.
And that's the only reference to the media in Garfield's supposed media analysis. Suppose he's just trying for his Murrow-versus-McCarthy moment, but it is offensive, dangerous and vapid to dismiss the threat of terrorism as a partisan political feint.
We note, in closing, that Garfield enjoys a great national platform for his invective, a great taxpayer-supported platform. According to its IRS Form 990, WNYC received nearly $2.4 million in government grants and support in the 2005-2006 fiscal year.
There are a lot of reasons why the anti-business message doesn’t work. One important reason is that 138 million Americans work for these corporations. Their livelihoods depend on businesses. 138 million is a big number. Think of it.
The Wall Street Journalcontinues its editorial analysis today of the House leadership's decision to allow the authority to intercept foreign communications lapse.
As for immunity for the telecom companies:
We asked one phone company executive what he'd do, after Friday's expiration, in response to a government request for cooperation. His answer was blunt: "I'm not doing it. If I don't have compulsion, I can't get out of court [and those lawsuits]. . . . I'm not going to do something voluntarily." Having talked to telecom executives, we can tell you this view is well-nigh universal.
And a harsh but accurate assessment:
What we have here is a remarkable display of the anti-antiterror minority at work. Democrats could vote directly to restrict wiretapping by the executive branch, but they lack the votes. So instead they're trying to do it through the backdoor by unleashing the trial bar to punish the telephone companies. Then if there is another terror attack, they'll blame the phone companies for not cooperating.
Again, this is not a universal point of view among Congressional Democrats -- the Senate bill extending the surveillance authority passed with support from both parties, and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has been a strong advocate for effective authority. In the House, 21 Democratic members have expressed support for the Senate bill, S. 2248. But the activist left and plaintiff's bar seem to have the upper hand, at least tactically, at the moment.
Popular Mechanics has now posted online its March feature story (and exceptional photos) on manufacturers who have prospered in the United States in the face of global competition: "Five American Manufacturers Doing It Right: Made in the USA."
The package highlights:
Bulldozers, manufactured by Caterpillar in Peoria, Ill.
America’s manufacturing sales stagnated at the $4 trillion mark in the late 1990s. But then something surprising happened. America started selling again—finding more customers for tractors, steel, plastics, knives and medicines than ever before. Manufacturing sales hit a record $5 trillion in 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.“People talk about a doomsday scenario for manufacturing, but that’s not the case,” says Vinod Singhal, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Management. “The best U.S. manufacturers have become more competitive, no doubt about it.”
Very nicely done, but then, you can always rely on Popular Mechanics for clear and understandable reporting (and illustrations) on the practical side of engineering and technology.
Castro is trying to make virtue out of necessity; making de jure what has been de facto since he went into the hospital 17 months ago. Fidel has not run the country since July of 2006 but as long as he is alive no Cuban will dare challenge his power. The average Cuban, as well as the leaders, are far too afraid of physical retaliation from Castro. And with good reason. In fact, I suspect many Cubans will see this resignation as a trick by the Castro brothers to see who attempts to fill Castro's shoes. On the other hand, the jockeying for position within the leadership, which has already begun, will intensify.
The central...one of the central....one of the MANY central flaws in the carbon-dioxide-repression scheme being embraced by Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley (see below) is that a state is in no position to regulate a global phenomenon. People and capital are mobile, and both will flee the onerous regulations and costs that Maryland would impose in its effort to combat a perceived global warming. (Meanwhile, China is said to build a new coal-powered generation facility every week.)
Maryland's state government already works hard to make the state less inviting to jobs-creating investment. A recent study by Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore, "Rich States, Poor States," placed Maryland as 32nd among states in its economic outlook, based largely on its anti-competitive tax structure. And that was BEFORE the increase in the state sales tax and corporate income tax (among others). Does Maryland want to send ALL its manufacturers and electricity consumers to Virginia or Delaware ...or overseas?
The Maryland Chamber of Commerce opposes the legislation that O'Malley has now endorsed. The Chamber reports:
Maryland’s man-made GHG emissions comprise approximately 1.5% of the United States’ emissions and a very small percentage of the world’s total emissions. Since GHG emissions disperse globally and Maryland’s emissions are a very small percentage of the total global problem, this issue needs to be addressed on a national level in concert with international efforts.
It is impossible for a small state, such as Maryland to achieve a reduction goal as large as the 25% by 2020, and 90% by 2050 (the strongest mandate in the country). This legislation is counterproductinve, and would make it extremely difficult for businesses to survive. It is probable that if enacted this legislation would force businesses out of Maryland, and possibly out of the United States, which would place an even bigger burden on the state and federal economies, respectfully.
More on Maryland Gov. O'Malley's support for a vast new regulatory scheme to penalize those who emit carbon dioxide. From The Sun:
The legislation, which is scheduled to be considered by a state Senate committee today, would impose a 25 percent cut in greenhouse gases from all industries in Maryland by 2020 and a 90 percent cut by 2050.
The lights may soon go out in Washington, D.C. — and it could happen where you live, too.
"Electric power has already become painfully expensive in Washington and its suburbs. Now, local utilities, say, it could become something even worse: scarce," The Washington Post reported this week.
Maryland, for example, may face rolling blackouts as early as 2011 or 2012 on summer days.
The core of the problem is that the region’s ability to meet its ever-increasing demand for electricity is being short-circuited by environmental activists who are doing everything they can to make it as difficult as possible to generate and transmit power.
Malloy adds: "The environmentalists’ new tactic in their war against our meeting our basic energy needs focuses on coal-burning power plants, which are at the top of the list of carbon dioxide emitters."
Gov. Martin O'Malley will support a bill that would impose some of the nation's toughest limits on global warming pollution, according to administration and legislative sources.
The legislation, which is scheduled to be considered by a state Senate committee today, would impose a 25 percent cut in greenhouse gases from all industries in Maryland by 2020 and a 90 percent cut by 2050....[snip]
Under the proposal, the state would use a system of financial penalties and rewards to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that scientists have concluded are warming the atmosphere and melting polar ice, causing rising sea levels.
Global warming pollution? What in the world is that? Carbon dioxide? By that logic, everyone who respirates who is a global warming polluter. First, regulate emissions, then exhalations.
Second, this line: "that scientists have concluded are warming the atmosphere and melting polar ice, causing rising sea levels." That's just not true. Scientists have concluded no such thing. Some scientists argue it and cite evidence for their arguments, but more than 400 scientists disputed the man-made global warming theory in 2007.
Have we come so far that reporters don't even bother to hide their biases for big-government solutions to a disputed problem?
Members the group formerly known as the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, now the American Association for Justice, are being encouraged to pick up their continuing legal education credits on the slopes of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The Ski Medical Seminar's pitch:
"You’ll come away with new approaches to handling defense experts and effective tactics for defeating common defenses. You’ll also gain insight on important subjects such as innovative approaches to Medicare/Medicaid resolution, understanding ERISA and subrogation claims, and using the latest imaging techniques to prove causation."
Now, we're not going to mock trial lawyers for heading to a swanky resort for a ski weekend, deductible on their taxes. Business groups and other trade associations also schedule their events for attractive getaway spots, if only to boost attendance. It's SOP.
But, darn, the trial lawyers sure are bald about it.
Don't miss this opportunity to network and interact with some of the nation’s leading trial attorneys and noted physicians. With the early morning and late afternoon sessions, this program is also designed to give you time to take advantage of all that Steamboat Springs, Colorado has to offer.
In other trial lawyer marketing news, caught the first CBS broadcast of the Showtime series, "Dexter," on Sunday. More well-done sadism for the sake of entertainment. (While we're at it, let's bring back bear baiting, hmm? Use polar bears to elicit that extra frisson of outrage.) In the second half hour, an ad appears warning of mesothelioma and urging people who have come in contact with asbestos to contact the law firm of Peter Angelos.
Our question: Why THAT ad buy? What in the world is the targeted demographic?
The Economist examines China's infrastructure splurge, "Rushing on by road, rail and air." The monster projects -- like Beijing's new 1.8 mile long airport terminal -- are the attention grabbers, but it's in the daily upgrades and expansions the larger economic impact may be felt. Consider railways.
In the past couple of years investment has grown considerably. This year's target is $42 billion, compared with a total of $72 billion in the preceding five years. World Bank officials call it the biggest expansion of railway capacity undertaken by any country since the 19th century. China had 78,000km of track at the end of last year. The original plan, published in 2004, was to increase this to 100,000km by 2020. Last October this was revised to 120,000km (and officials now say the target will be met by 2015). Even sticking to the 2020 target, this will mean laying 60% more track in the next dozen years than was built since the start of the economic reform programme 30 years ago. Huang Min, the Ministry of Railways' chief economist, says that by 2020 the railway system's freight-handling capacity should be greater than demand. At present, he says, it can handle only 40%.
Mr Huang reckons that railway expansion will bring down logistics costs, which he says amount to 18% of GDP in China compared with 10% in America. It will also help reduce pollution, he says, since fewer polluting lorries will be needed.
A nicely done review of the big infrastructures issues affecting China, and by extension, the rest of the world.
January Was Wicked Cold
How cold? Anthony Watts reports that the drop from January 2007 to January 2008 "appears to be the largest single year to year January drop for the entire GISS data set."
Of course, we're not likely to hear much about record breaking cold, but Watts goes on:
This is yet one more indication of the intensity of planet-wide cooler temperatures seen in January 2008, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, which has seen record amounts of snow coverage extent as well as new record low surface temperatures in many places.
[Probably] the worst part of any substitution deal would be the effect of Congress putting its muscle behind letting these suits proceed. That would make the suits appear more valid and viable, which would create an incentive for phone companies not to cooperate with the government in the future, regardless of any emergency conditions.
In any event, the aggressiveness with which we should pursue foreign intelligence gathering is a political issue which should be settled between Congress and the president (and, ultimately, the voters). The courtroom, with the ACLU and CAIR in the role of the public and the courts in the role of policy-maker, is not where a democracy settles such political questions.
As the Democratic presidential contest moves to the distressed industrial Midwest, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have ratcheted up their antitrade, anticorporate rhetoric.
The candidates have made broad attacks on corporate wealth and tax cuts they say tilt toward the rich, along with more specific attacks against health insurers and oil companies, among other industries. On Friday, Mrs. Clinton began airing a TV spot in Wisconsin in which she says, "The oil companies, the drug companies, have had seven years of a president who stands up for them.... It's time we had a president who stands up for all of you."
Both candidates increasingly sound like former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards as they pursue his endorsement and the voters -- particularly union members -- who were drawn to the populist candidate before he dropped out last month. Illinois Sen. Obama got a boost toward that goal Friday with the backing of the Service Employees International Union, one of the most politically powerful labor organizations.
It's hard to see how embracing this kind of invidious rhetoric and anti-growth policies succeeds in a general election. Who was the last candidate of class warfare who won the presidency? FDR in '36? Andrew Jackson?
Wright started the company more than 20 years ago, originally as a lawn-care business. The company has incorporated manufacturing principles that reduce waste, and it has taken on the likes of John Deere with an innovative product -- the stand-up mower -- that has changed the way people cut grass.
Stand-up mowing gets to more places than a sit-down mower without having to walk miles and miles a day. Also, it's sorta fun. Wright has sold upward of 40,000 stand-up mowers, which range from $5,000 to $9,000. Bush seemed smitten by all these facts, which lined up well with his desire to give breaks to people like Wright so they can, theoretically, buy more equipment, expand their businesses faster, hire more people, and jump-start the economy. Turn on the klieg lights. Press record.
The true cause for blocking the bill was the Senate-passed retroactive immunity from lawsuits for private telecommunications firms asked to eavesdrop by the government. The nation's torts bar, vigorously pursuing such suits, has spent months lobbying hard against immunity.
The recess by House Democrats amounts to a judgment that losing the generous support of trial lawyers, the Democratic Party's most important financial base, is more dangerous than losing the anti-terrorist issue to Republicans. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the phone companies for giving personal information to intelligence agencies without a warrant. Adm. Mike McConnell, the nonpartisan director of national intelligence, says delay in congressional action deters cooperation in detecting terrorism.
Novak does note that there was a sizable minority of House Democrats who supported the Senate-passed revision of FISA authority, which included immunity for the telecommunications companies.
UPDATE (12:30 p.m.) More from The Examiner's editorial page, which detects two reasons for House leadership's decision to allow the authority to expire: "first, to please the class-action lawyers and left-wing activists who provide so much campaign cash and energy to liberal incumbents, and second, to hold the telecoms hostage to a wider political battle against the administration’s anti-terrorism policies. In so doing, though, they also hold hostage a key element in our defenses against terrorists seeking to murder Americans."
Happy Presidents' Day! Especially you, William Henry Harrison, the forgotten February-born president. How soon you were gone.
The federal holiday means Congress is (mostly) on recess this week and President Bush is touring Africa. The Supreme Court begins two weeks of hearing oral arguments on Tuesday. (Schedule here.) The Wisconsin presidential primary is Tuesday. (And Hawaii.)
Congress: The Senate holds yet another President-appointment-thwarting pro forma session on Tuesday. A few field hearings are on tap. In New Orleans, the Senate Small Business committee will hold a hearing in New Orleans, "Rebuilding the Gulf Coast: Small Business Recovery in South Louisiana." Sens. Landrieu and Vitter are both on the committee. Up in Miami, Okla., the House Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing on Oklahoma Indian issues, regulations concerning economic development. List of Senate hearings is here.
Executive Branch: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is also in Africa, traveling to Tanzania, Rwanda and Ghana. And we'll dig deeper into the cabinet agency schedules to pull up this event, today in Washington: "Department of Energy (DOE) Director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Ward Sproat will deliver remarks on the Yucca Mountain Project during the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissions Annual Winter Meeting."
Supreme Court: You want to delve into the details of electricity regulation, pay attention to Tuesday's oral arguments in Morgan Stanley Capital Group v. Public Utility and American Electric Power Service Corp. v. Public Utility District 1. (That's Snohomish County, Wash.) As the ScotusWiki explains, the cases grew out of the 2000-2001 western energy crisis. "In each case, a purchaser of wholesale electric energy filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or “the Commission”) seeking reformation of a long term contract with a market based rate that was entered into during the western energy crisis." You don't want to delve? We understand.
And Canada's foreign minister, Maxime Bernier, is in Colombia this week, forging trade and economic ties. Seems far-sighted.
David Brooks considers the costs of failing to develop industrious, innovative, educated citizens and workers and calls for a new human capital revolution. From The New York Times:
Doing that would mean taking on the populists of the left and right, the ones who imagine the problem is globalization and unfair trade when in fact the real problem is that the talents of American workers are not keeping up with technological change.
Doing that would also mean stealing ideas from both the left and right. Liberals have spent more time thinking about human capital than conservatives, who have tended to imagine that if you build a free market, a quality labor force would magically appear.
Doing that would also mean transcending economic policy categories. If there is one thing we have learned over the bitter experience of the past 30 years, it is that per-pupil expenditures and days in the classroom are not sufficient to produce superb information-economy workers. They emerge from intact families, quality neighborhoods and healthy moral cultures.
The particulars are subject to debate, but Brooks makes a powerful case.
Raelyn Campbell's $54 million legal suit against Best Buy for losing her computer and giving her the runaround is getting a bit more attention in the media. Obviously, an electronics retailer is less viscerally sympathetic than a couple of striving drycleaners who immigrated from South Korea, but still...her grandstanding demand (she was on NBC's Today Show) is abusive, costly to taxpayers and ...stupid. That's a good description. Stupid.
Following in arguments he made when Roy Pearson sued the Chungs for $54 million, Sherman Joyce, president of the American Tort Reform Association, has written the D.C. City Council urging reform of the city’s Consumer Protection and Procedures Act -- the statutory basis for the lawsuits. Specifically, he calls for reforms that would:
Provide that consumers can recover their actual losses as well as reasonable attorneys fees, not an arbitrary and excessive $1,500 per violation regardless of their injury, except in cases when it can be shown that a defendant’s actions were knowingly and willfully fraudulent or deceptive, and
Permit only those consumers who experienced a loss because they actually relied on a fraudulent or deceptive advertisement or representation to bring a lawsuit, not those who vaguely claim harm to others or the general public.
Perhaps the council members would deign a response?
In Sunday's Washington Post "Outlook" section, a dispatch from Cuba, reporting on greater freedoms being sensed as Castro slips away. The writer, Tom Miller, reports on a conversation with a long-time acquaintance, who goes unnamed:
She described a devastating rainfall that had pounded the eastern end of the island weeks earlier. People had lost their homes, buildings collapsed, roads were destroyed, railroad lines uprooted.
"If Fidel had been in charge, he'd have started a speech that would still be going, and he'd blame the imperialists for the storm," she said. "Raúl devoted three sentences to it in a speech and blamed climate change."
You may not see that when you go there and are wined and dined, but since the early 1960s, Cuba's dream scenario is a world without the U.S. It's difficult to do business with a country that would like to see yours disappear.
This paragraph from a BusinessWeek article, "Is Obama Good For Business?" keeps turning up in the blogosphere:
Still, business has traditionally preferred Republicans in the White House. In its most recent Senate tally, the Chamber of Commerce gave likely GOP nominee McCain an 80% favorable rating, compared with Clinton at 67% and Obama at 55%. Even worse for the two main Democrats, the National Association of Manufacturers rated both a zero, while McCain garnered 100%.
Sen. John McCain -- 100 percent. But that's based on just one vote. He was absent from the six other votes, no doubt out campaigning.
Seven votes -- or one, for that matter -- are insufficient to get a good view of a candidate's record. Therefore, here are the voting records for the previous two Congresses. Obama has only been in the Senate since 2006.
109th Congress -- 2005-2006
Sen. Hillary Clinton -- 16 percent
Sen. Barack Obama -- 16 percent
Sen. John McCain -- 63 percent
In warning against the consequences of letting surveillance authority lapse, President Bush has relied on the advice of non-partisan, career law enforcement and intelligence professionals. Are we to dismiss Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell as a partisan hack?
From Fox News Sunday, an interview of McConnell by Chris Wallace:
[WALLACE] House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says, "The president's comments are wrong, divisive and nothing but fear-mongering." Senator Ted Kennedy says, "The DNI's," that's you, "The DNI's latest comments show yet again the shamelessness of the administration's tactics."
Question: Is the White House making the situation sound worse than it really is?
MCCONNELL: Chris, President Bush is repeating advice that I'm giving him. As you know, I am not a political figure. I am a professional. I've been doing this for 40 years.
And our situation now, when the terrorist threat is increasing because they've achieved — Al Qaeda's achieved de facto safe haven in the border area of Pakistan and Afghanistan — the threat is going up.
And therefore, we do not have the agility and the speed that we had before to be able to move and try to capture their communications to thwart their planning.
McConnell also stressed that the lapsed surveillance authority Saturday puts intelligence gathering at risk because there is currently no retroactive immunity for the telecommunications carriers.
For six months, I urged Congress to take action to ensure this dangerous situation did not come to pass. I even signed a two-week extension of the existing law, because members of Congress said they would use that time to work out their differences. The Senate used this time productively -- and passed a good bill with a strong, bipartisan super-majority of 68 votes. Republicans and Democrats came together on legislation to ensure that we could effectively monitor those seeking to harm our people. And they voted to provide fair and just liability protection for companies that assisted in efforts to protect America after the attacks of 9/11.
The Senate sent this bill to the House for its approval. It was clear that if given a vote, the bill would have passed the House with a bipartisan majority. I made every effort to work with the House to secure passage of this law. I even offered to delay my trip to Africa if we could come together and enact a good bill. But House leaders refused to let the bill come to a vote. Instead, the House held partisan votes that do nothing to keep our country safer. House leaders chose politics over protecting the country -- and our country is at greater risk as a result.
Wish Andrew McCarthy would have written this column earlier. McCarthy, who directs the Center for Law & Counterterrorism at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, lays out in detail the legal and practical problems that will undermine U.S. surveillance of FOREIGN plotters once the current Protect America Act expires.
Drop for a moment the issue of telecom immunity, which we focus on here out of a belief that companies that act in good faith to help prevent terrorist attacks should not be punished for such help. Consider just the issue of foreign surveillance of evil people who want to blow up Americans. That's not fear-mongering, that's reality.
The whole reason Congress enacted the PAA in the first place is because FISA was never meant to apply to foreigners outside the U.S. communicating with other foreigners outside the U.S. We are not supposed to need court authorization for that. We are not supposed to have to write affidavits, approved by the attorney general and others, demonstrating probable cause that such people are agents of foreign powers — as well as demonstrating that other alternative investigative techniques would not yield the same intelligence.
Those are protections afforded by the FISA statute. Foreigners outside the U.S. are supposed to be outside the protection of the FISA statute, just as they are outside the protection of the Constitution. Saying the government can go to the FISA court is no answer: Government is not supposed to have to go to the FISA court. These people are not supposed to have FISA rights. They are not supposed to have Fourth Amendment rights.
We are talking about thousands upon thousands of communications, totally outside the U.S. (in the sense that no person inside our country is a participant) which the intelligence community used to be able to intercept and sift through without any burdensome judicial procedures whatsoever. That is how FISA was written, and that is how FISA was understood for almost 30 years. Then last year, a secret FISA-court ruling attempted to bring all those communications under FISA-court control — apparently on the theory that, because some digital bits of these conversations may zoom through U.S. hubs in global telecommunications networks, somehow a conversation between a guy in Pakistan and a guy in Afghanistan should now be considered a U.S. wire communication.
Thank you, Andy. Opponents of legitimate foreign surveillance raise this specter of millions of domestic phone calls and communications being monitored by an evil conspiracy of neo-cons and spooks, with corrupt telecoms bowing to their masters' demands. It's just garbage, dangerous garbage.
The White House posted an excellent, point-by-point rebuttal to the falsehoods being shopped by those whose want to sue telecommunications companies as a way to attack the Administration's national security policies. Here's entry one of five:
MYTH: The future security of our country does not depend on whether Congress provides liability protection for companies being sued for billions of dollars only because they are believed to have assisted the Government in defending America after the 9/11 attacks.
FACT: Without the retroactive liability protection provided in the bipartisan Senate bill, we may not be able to secure the private sector's cooperation with current and future intelligence efforts critical to our national security.
FACT: Senior intelligence leaders have repeatedly testified that providing retroactive liability protection is critical to carrying out their mission of protecting our homeland.
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell: "Lack of liability protection would make it much more difficult to obtain the future cooperation of the private-sector partners whose help is so vital to our success." (Select Committee On Intelligence, Hearing, U.S. Senate, 2/5/08)
FBI Director Robert Mueller: "[I]n protecting the homeland … it's absolutely essential we have the support, willing support of communication carriers. … My concern is that if we do not have this immunity, we will not have that willing support of the communication carriers." (Select Committee On Intelligence, Hearing, U.S. Senate, 2/5/08)
CIA Director Michael Hayden: "These are very fragile relationships. We lost industrial cooperation, at CIA, with partners on the mere revelation of the SWIFT program in public discourse." (Select Committee On Intelligence, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 2/5/08)
FACT: According to the Director of National Intelligence, "we are experiencing significant difficulties in working with the private sector today because of the continued failure to address this issue." (Mike McConnell, Op-Ed, "A Key Gap In Fighting Terrorism," The Washington Post, 2/15/08)
Several Senators who have been working on legislation to revise the authority and budget of the Consumer Product Safety Commission have reached an agreement among themselves. After an initial review, the measure looks like another expansion of government at the expense of consumers. Trial lawyers will be pleased, though.
The NAM's vice president who handles this issues summarized the legislation's problems in today's Washington Post story:
"We continue to have serious concerns about several of the provisions in this legislation," Rosario Palmieri, a spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers, said in a written statement. Palmieri singled out attorney general enforcement, whistle-blower protection and information disclosure for criticism, saying they would "not improve product safety or strengthen the CPSC, but instead promote litigation and lead to much more delay in taking action to address unsafe products and protecting the public."
A grandstanding attorney general might sue not to protect the consumer, but for political PR? THAT never happens.
Specifically, we're looking for a narrated, educational videotape, one that represents the U.S. manufacturing economy. We'll edit as necessary and give your company or process a widely watched promotional and educational boost.
Please contact Greg Snapper at (202) 637-3085 or mail videos to:
Greg Snapper
National Association of Manufacturers
1331 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20004
While modest gains in retail sales and industrial production suggest temporarily slower growth for the U.S. economy, these indicators are not signaling recession. In particular, Friday’s 0.1 percent production increase — which comes to 2.4 percent at an annual rate over the past 3 months and 2.3 percent over the past 12 months — removes the recession scenario. It’s slow growth, but it’s growth nonetheless.
Much in the way of irresponsible politicking, though, Kudlow reports.
All the Mailbag correspondents who lately have denounced the proposed liquid natural gas terminal at Bradwood Landing on the Columbia River might be interested in what organized labor has to say.
“The Oregon AFL-CIO is solidly in support of a proposed liquid natural gas terminal along the Columbia River near Astoria,” the labor federation said in a press statement Wednesday, “The facility will create 450 construction jobs over three years, plus 65 permanent living-wage jobs, and generate $7.8 million a year in taxes for Clatsop County.”
The union already has an agreement that union contractors will build the terminal if it’s allowed. Jobs for its members obviously are the group’s main concern, but Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain also said of the project: “It will ... help secure a more stable energy future for Oregon.”
The labor federation makes two other important points to answer critics who worry about safety and the environment.
On safety: “The natural gas will be held in two-foot-thick concrete double-wall storage tanks, and tankers will operate under strict regulations of the U.S. Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security.” And on the environment: “The project will utilize the former site of the Bradwood lumber mill, which ceased operation in 1965 after more than 100 years.”
On this issue, some of Oregon’s Democratic politicians who oppose Bradwood Landing ought to listen to their supporters on the labor front. The labor leaders have as big a stake in a sound Oregon economy and reasonable energy prices as all the rest of us. Their strong endorsement of this project carries the weight of good sense. (hh)
But does good sense carry the day?
* Mid-Valley = midway between Buena Vista and Tangent.
A revealing commentary today from mcjoan, the primary Daily Kos blogger on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In "FISA Fight: How predictable was this? " mcjoan writes about civil immunity for the telecommunications companies:
"[Remember,] it's not just so that AT&T and Verison aren't held accountable. It's to prevent legal action going forward that, in the discovery process, would expose the full extent of the administration's illegal activity. This isn't just protecting AT&T and Verizon. It's protecting the Rove/Gonzales/Cheney/Bush cabal.
Don't forget to pronounce the word "cabal" with that extra fleck of spittle.
In any case, mcjoan's comments reveal the politics of those who oppose S. 2248 and telecom immunity. To them, the purpose of the 40 lawsuits against the telecommunications companies is to punish the "cabal" for conducting surveillance of America's enemies. When the left cannot achieve its policy goals through the policymaking branch of government -- Congress -- it turns to the courts and whatever target serves its purpose. Today, it's the telecommunications companies. Tomorrow, it's whatever other member of the private sector is deemed the cabal's running dog lackey.
UPDATE (5:05 p.m.): From the National Journal's The Gate:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Republicans would talk up the issue in their home states during next week's recess. "I think this will be the biggest story through the recess," McConnell said. He accused Democrats of being in bed with attorneys who are among their biggest contributors. "We think it's a lot more urgent to protect the country than it is to protect the trial bar," he said.
From the Senate floor, February 14, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee:
What people have to understand around here is that the quality of the intelligence we are going to be receiving is going to be degraded. It is going to be degraded. It is already going to be degraded as telecommunications companies lose interest. Everybody tosses that around and says: Well, what do you mean? I say: Well, what are they making out of this? What is the big payoff for the telephone companies? They get paid a lot of money? No. They get paid nothing. What do they get for this? They get $40 billion worth of suits, grief, trashing, but they do it. But they don't have to do it, because they do have shareholders to respond to, to answer to. There is going to be a degrading of the nature of our intelligence in some very crucial areas if we follow the path that the minority leader is suggesting, because we will go right back to where we were last August, and that will be a further jolt to the telecommunications companies, because they will understand that you cannot count on the Congress, you cannot count on us to make policy which will give stability to their--not government agencies but to their corporations.
Not to pile on today, but this bit of analysis of William Lerach, the king of class-action kickbacks, was tough and accurate:
The scheme had very little to do with combating corporate fraud and a lot to do with making money. The first lawyer to file and win certification for a class action usually controls all the other litigation on that particular claim nationally, and thus, gets the biggest fees. That's why Lerach worked so hard to win the race to the courthouse by having plaintiffs essentially on retainer should a ripe target emerge. The details of the Milberg Weiss prosecution paint a pretty sleazy portrait of class action law. (The plaintiffs were actually paid in cash out of a safe in a Milberg office.) Two other Milberg partners have already pleaded guilty, as has the ophthalmologist. Milberg Weiss reportedly netted some $250 million in fees from those cases, and the firm itself has also been indicted, similar to the fate of the accounting firm Arthur Anderson in the Enron case.
Some of that money went to back political campaigns. Lerach himself has given about $1.3 million to Democratic Party entities and candidates since 1993. (He also served as a fundraiser for John Edwards' presidential campaign until his plea agreement last Fall.) Milberg Weiss employees have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrats since 1990, and more than $800,000 in donations to 527 groups supporting Democratic presidential candidates in 2004. This generosity may be one reason why Lerach's guilty plea doesn't seem to have muted his liberal folk-hero status.
And it's from Mother Jones, one of the premiere publications of the "progressive" crowd.
People say, oh, it doesn't matter if this law hasn't been renewed -- it does matter. It matters for a variety of reasons. It matters because the intelligence officials won't have tools necessary to get as much information as we possibly can to protect you. And it matters because these telephone companies that work collaboratively with us to protect the American people are afraid they're going to get sued.
And the American people have got to understand these lawsuits make it harder for us to convince people to help protect you. And so by blocking this good piece of legislation, our professionals tell me that they don't have all the tools they need to do their job.
And so now the House and Senate are off on a 12-day recess without getting the people's business done. And when they come back from that 12-day recess, the House leaders must understand that the decision they made to block good legislation has made it harder for us to protect you, the American people, and we expect them to get a good bill to my desk -- which is the Senate bill -- as soon as possible.
The Environmental Protection Agency Administrator is nearing a decision on whether to make EPA ozone regulations even more burdensome on businesses, towns, and municipalities. Environmental extremists and states like California, which aren't even in compliance with the current level of regulation, are pushing for the onerous new national regulations that are unnecessary and would be harmful to our economy.
The costs of complying with tighter regulation of ozone levels will cost businesses, towns, and municipalities literally hundreds of billions of dollars. If this new regulation is established, it could end up being one of the most costly rules ever issued with little or no health benefit for the American people.
We need to stimulate economic growth, not stifle it with needless new regulations from the EPA, especially during an economic downturn. Ozone has been significantly reduced over the past twenty years and this progress will continue without putting a big-government stranglehold on economic growth.
Please call the White House today and urge the Administration against implementing this new ozone rule. Tell them regulatory excess is not a legacy the Bush Administration wants. To use our online call alert form click here or see below for contact information and talking points.
We've put the rest of the message in the extended entry below.
For more ozone and contact information, please visit the NAM's resources page at www.nam.org/ozonetoolkit
With the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday and Ohio's on March 4th, the Democratic presidential candidates have been talking a lot about manufacturing on the campaign trail. We've linked to recent stories about Sen. Obama's speeches, so here's the text of Sen. Clinton's remarks Thursday morning at the General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio.
Today, I'm announcing an agenda to rein in the special interests and save the American people at least $55 billion a year.
Money that can go back into your pockets. Money we can use to create new jobs, rebuild our infrastructure, make college affordable and so much more.
We'll take on the oil companies and harness their record profits to create millions of clean energy jobs, high-wage jobs you can raise a family on.
I'll end their special tax breaks and give them a choice, invest some of your profits in alternative energy, or we'll do it for you.
People have been paying through the roof at the pump, and it's time the companies paid their fair share.
Etc. We appreciate the visit to a manufacturing facility. Would have liked to hear more about U.S. competitiveness in the global economy, perhaps less talk of "reining in" and more talk about "freeing up."
Funny thing is, as of February 3, Weiss's bio at Milberg Weiss still claims: "Mr. Weiss is the Vice Chairman of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, a think tank founded during the civil rights movement that today provides ideas to fuel the progressive agenda." (Screen grab here.) But he's not on the Drum Major Institute website's board list anymore. Wonder why that is.
Weiss' connection with the Institute has now been erased from his Milberg Weiss bio.
We assume the inconsistency and timing amounted to nothing more than desultory website management at Milberg Weiss. And, actually, it's reassuring to find that the Drum Major Institute does regard an indictment as reason enough to remove (or accept the resignation of) the indictee from its board.
The greater point relates to the earlier post about the infrastructure of class-action abuses, the observation that trial lawyers like Mel Weiss spread their dollars not just as campaign contributions but also to create or fund institutions like the Institute for Law and Economic Policy.
And the Drum Major Institute. No coincidence that DMI operates a website, Tortdeform.com. Nothing wrong or suspect that it does so, not at all, although it would be more transparent to designate itself, "The trial lawyer defense blog."
We've long known of the political spending by the the plaintiff's bar, the assignment of some of the millions of dollars it pulls in from excessive litigation. Through generous campaign donations, trial lawyers gain access and favorable legislation. (The role of politically generous trial lawyers in the current debate over electronic surveillance and telecom liability warrants much more attention.)
But there's another, less prominent way the plaintiff's bar spends its litigation lucre in creating a political system favorable to its legal abuses -- a non-profit foundation that fostered and flattered academics, judges and other influential figures. The Examiner newspaper today finishes a three-day, multipart series on the Institute for Law and Economic Policy (ILEP), a tax-exempt foundation overseen by attorneys from the Milberg Weiss law firm. The series, a follow-up to Lawyers Gone Wild, is called
The foundation used law professors to construct a façade of academic respectability even as the foundation helped Milberg Weiss cultivate key federal and state judges and federal securities enforcement officials. Three things stand out here: ILEP principals refuse to discuss its funding or operations; the foundation’s federal tax returns, which the IRS designed to help the public evaluate such exempt groups, are notably uninformative, and the few officials who would talk professed a less-than-credible ignorance about Milberg Weiss’s links to ILEP. The question must be asked: Are these people hiding something?
At stake here are the integrity and credibility of the U.S. justice system. Surely if Congress can hold hearings on whether Roger Clemens used steroids, they can also get answers to far more important questions like these: Who financed ILEP besides Lerach, a $50,000 contributor? Why were judges on the Southern District of New York of such interest to ILEP? Why did so many SEC commissioners and senior staff attend ILEP events year after year? Why were so many cases with Milberg Weiss as counsel assigned to judges who attended ILEP events? It’s time somebody is required to give some answers.
For links to the entire series, please click here.
In a test of the American Dream, Adam Shepard started life from scratch with the clothes on his back and twenty-five dollars. Ten months later, he had an apartment, a car, and a small savings.
Actually, the savings was $5,000, which is pretty healthy given the short time he had to raise it. More:
The effort, he says, was inspired after reading "Nickel and Dimed," in which author Barbara Ehrenreich takes on a series of low-paying jobs. Unlike Ms. Ehrenreich, who chronicled the difficulty of advancing beyond the ranks of the working poor, Shepard found he was able to successfully climb out of his self-imposed poverty.
Shepard is young, educated, muscular and good looking, so has some natural advantages, true. But his experience still serves as a useful response to those who think the American economy keeps people down. Upward mobility is reality, and determination is the determining factor.
Dug a dry hole in the search for a Friday Follies video, but decided to keep fishin' anyway, and found Rivers Cuomo's latest video from his new CD of sonic flotsam, "Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo." Trouble is, the video, "Blastoff," is just odd, family movies from his wife's Japan plus a vocoder.
So back to an old favorite, "Keep Fishin'," as Weezer appears on The Muppets Show (reincarnated). Another brilliantly conceived and humorous video...and the Swedish Chef!
If you're new to Weezer videos, start with Buddy Holly and check out Perfect Situation -- a 3 minute "Star is Born," with Rivers in the Judy Garland role. That's Elisha Cuthbert as James Mason. You know, Kim Bauer, still whining.
When I am president, I will not sign another trade agreement unless it has protections for the environment and protections for American workers. And I’ll pass the Patriot Employer Act that I’ve been fighting for ever since I ran for the Senate—we will end the tax breaks for companies who ship our jobs overseas, and we will give those breaks to companies who create good jobs with decent wages right here in America.
Patriotic, no matter what the company's investors think?
The United States trade deficit shrank in 2007 for the first time in five years, buoyed by a surge in exports that has helped domestic businesses stay afloat as the domestic economy flags.
His campaign sent out a memo to reporters this morning saying that Obama opposes NAFTA and similar trade pacts and supports legislation in the Senate called the Patriot Employers Act that would "would eliminate tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas and provide incentives for corporations to invest in their U.S. workforce."
Coincidentally, perhaps, that is legislation Brown mentioned to The Daily Briefing yesterday when he was talking about what he would be looking for from Obama and Clinton on trade and the economy as he tried to decide who to eventually support. Brown says he will not endorse before the Ohio March 4 primary, however.
That's not all the legislation would do. Here's the CRS summary for S. 1945:
Patriot Employers Act - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow a taxpayer certified as a Patriot employer by the Secretary of the Treasury a tax credit for one percent of such employer's taxable income. Defines a "Patriot employer" as any taxpayer who: (1) maintains its headquarters in the United States; (2) pays at least 60% of the health care premiums of its employees; (3) observes a policy requiring neutrality in employee organizing drives; (4) maintains or increases the number of its full-time workers in the United States relative to its full-time workers outside of the United States; (5) provides full differential salary and insurance benefits for all National Guard and Reserve employees called to active duty; and (6) provides its employees with a certain level of compensation and retirement benefits.
It's a start, but of course, if a company's very patriotism is at stake, government can demand so much more.
Our government has no greater responsibility than getting this work done, and there really is no excuse for letting this critical legislation expire. I urge congressional leaders to let the will of the House and the American people prevail, and vote on the Senate bill before adjourning for their recess. Failure to act would harm our ability to monitor new terrorist activities, and could reopen dangerous gaps in our intelligence. Failure to act would also make the private sector less willing to help us protect the country, and this is unacceptable. The House should not leave Washington without passing the Senate bill.
I am scheduled to leave tomorrow for a long-planned trip to five African nations. Moments ago, my staff informed the House leadership that I'm prepared to delay my departure, and stay in Washington with them, if it will help them complete their work on this critical bill.
The lives of countless Americans depend on our ability to monitor terrorist communications. Our intelligence professionals are working day and night to keep us safe, and they're waiting to see whether Congress will give them the tools they need to succeed or tie their hands by failing to act. The American people are watching this debate, as well. They expect Congress to meet its responsibilities before they leave town on a recess.
In today's article, I catalogue some of the problems with the Senate bill which would overhaul FISA — while explaining that the bill absolutely must be passed by the House or our foreign intelligence collection is going to collapse. It would be unconscionable for Democrats to allow that to happen while our nation confronts an enemy hell-bent on reprising 9/11 and while we have 200,000 men and women in uniform relying on the continuing flow of information from our intelligence services.
Well it looks like the unconscionable is about to occur. I am hearing from several sources that the House is planning to recess on Friday without taking up the Senate bill. That would mean the lapse of our surveillance authority at midnight.
McCarthy's take highlights the partisan particulars of the debate, which is, inded, the unfortunate reality here. Still, it should be noted that the Senate bill passed and the House temporary extension were defeated thanks to Republicans AND Democrats, both.
Campaign contribution data reveal that those opposing protection for telecommunications companies received $1.5 million from the trial lawyers that are seeking to cash in law suits based on possible post-9/11 technical violations of FISA. A bipartisan coalition of Senators passed FISA legislation that protects these cooperating companies. A bipartisan coalition, which includes 21 Blue Dog Democrats, wants to pass similar legislation in the House. Political gamesmanship is no way to protect our country. The House needs to step up to the plate and pass FISA reform so we can defend our country within the rule of law.
House Republican Leader John Boehner has just called on Republicans to leave the chamber to protest vote on holding Josh Bolten and Harriett Miers in contempt, rather than voting on the FISA legislation.
UPDATE (1:52 p.m.) Majority Leader Steny Hoyer blames Senate Republicans for delays and disputes President Bush's assertion that the expiration of the Protect America Act will endanger the company. FISA will remain in effect, Hoyer says. "So I tell my friends, we are pursuing the politics of fear, unfounded fear."
UPDATE (2:02 p.m.): Speaker Pelosi and House Republicans holding competing news conference.
National Association of Manufacturers' President John Engler was in Pierre, S.D., this week to address the South Dakota Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and he had an opportunity to visit with Gov. Mike Rounds and tour the (very lovely) Capitol.
I think South Dakota is strong, with a small base of manufacturing that continues to grow in a robust fashion," Engler said. "It’s certainly has aided South Dakota to have a strong business climate."
Engler, a former three-term governor of Michigan, said South Dakota has a good problem since the state has a low unemployment rate. However, jobs available have become very competitive — something that educators have a chance to address, he said.
"Employers need skilled people in a lot of different areas," Engler said. "But, it’s a great opportunity for schools, technical schools and universities to make sure they can help deliver that workforce."
In his remarks at the Chamber dinner, Engler commented on South Dakota's tax structure being a strong competitive advantage. A recent study by the American Legislative Exchange Council, "Rich States, Poor States," ranked South Dakota as having the nation's third best economic outlook, thank in large part to its tax structure (notably, no corporate or personal ncome tax).
Although the chief sponsor of S. 1945, the Patriot Employers Act, also known as the Patriot Corporation Act, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) did not mention the legislation once during his remarks yesterday at the Economic Policy Institute's Shared Prosperity Forum.
Shame, really. We would have liked to hear how following a set of government dictates about business practices, wages and benefits, labor-management relations and investment plans should qualify a company as a "Patriot Corporation," eligible for income tax breaks. And it would have been very interesting to hear Sen. Brown's thoughts about designating a company a "Not a Patriot Corporation."
The association of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama with the Patriot Corporation concept -- Obama is a cosponsor -- has certainly brought the legislation more attention. Here's a column at the widely read Hot Air blog about Sen. Obama pressuring the CEO of Tesco to build grocery stores in certain neighborhoods. The author observes:
While I’m sure that politicians routinely lean on corporations to change their behavior, few politicians are co-sponsoring a bill that would legally designate corporations as either patriotic or not patriotic based on whether their practices met with liberal approval or not, and would deal with those companies differently based on their patriot status.
Washington, D.C., resident Raelyn Campbell sues Best Buy for $54 million for losing her computer and then jerking her around. The DCist blog notes the numerical resemblance to the lawsuit filed by former D.C. Administrative Judge Roy Pearson and reaches the reasonable conclusion that Campbell chose the figure for PR value -- she is, after all, blogging on the experience. DCist ponders:
People were outraged over Roy Pearson's lawsuit against a small, family-run business over a pair of pants - but we're curious to see what the reaction to Campbell's suit, for the exact same amount, against a giant corporation over a personal computer, will be.
Obviously her pursuit of Best Buy -- even if the company behaved badly -- won't drive the company out of business, like Pearson's suit against the Chungs threatened to (and actually led to the closing of several dry-cleaning outlets). And goodness knows, we understand be driven to distraction by bad service.
But on the other hand, if she's inflating her demands to such a ridiculous figure for (self-)promotional purposes, then if not frivolous, the grandstanding is still outrageous. The more time the court spends on her litigation after Best Buy made a serious settlement offer, the more taxpayer money the judicial system spends and the more economic resources are wasted on unproductive uses.
Garrett Graff, author of "The First Campaign," was on "America's Business with Mike Hambick" last week -- available here -- talking about the intersection of technology (or more specifically, technological change), policy and politics. Graff comments today on his blog:
My relationship with NAM was one of the more interesting twists of the book: While ideologically we don't agree on much, one of my best sources/idea-bouncer-offers in writing "The First Campaign" was Pat Cleary, who at the time headed up communications at NAM. We found that we agreed on a ton of issues regarding trade, the economy, education, and even health care. I ended up featuring the story of Tony Raimondo, a member of NAM's board of directors, quite prominently in the book. American business has a lot in common with the progressive left on many of the First Campaign issues and it'll be interesting to see whether a thoughtful Democrat nominee can reach across the aisle and build some support in the business community. NAM, by the way, has an excellent blog that covers many of the First Campaign issues: Shopfloor.org.
And thank you for the kind comment.
Interestingly enough, the intersection mentioned above is getting even more crowded as Raimondo is running as a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Nebraska. We don't plan to cover the race here (suspecting there's some free speech regulator just waiting to crack down), but it will be very informative to see how the issues discussed in "The First Campaign" play out when a manufacturer is the candidate.
We've written extensively about the telecom immunity provisions in the FISA debate out of a belief in good corporate citizenship, a principle certainly not limited to just telecommunications companies. If Verizon or AT&T can be sued for assisting in good faith in the surveillance of America's murderous enemies, then any company can be sued, legally harassed and discouraged from ever helping again.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), a former FBI agent, made the case on the House floor on Wednesday. From page H891 of the Congressional Record:
This is about white hats and black hats. It's about good guys and bad guys. It's about Good Samaritans. You know, there are ads on TV today where they go into high crime neighborhoods and say, It's okay for you to tell on criminal behavior. Please call the police. Please call the FBI. Please make a difference in your community.
Think of the confusing message we are sending today because we're hooked up on the size of the company. So if I go in as an FBI agent to find the address that a pizza delivery company has for a fugitive, should we go after them, too? Should we go after that pizza delivery guy for, out of the goodness of his heart, telling us where there is a fugitive who may have committed murder or have committed child pornography or been selling drugs and is in violation of the safety and security of his neighborhood, his community? No, of course not. And we shouldn't punish people who say, listen, I want to help the United States catch terrorists and murderers, and if you ask me and I'm in lawful possession of it, I'll share it with you. We do it in banks. We do it in small businesses. We knock on neighbors' doors every day in this country and say, Help us help protect your neighborhood, your kids and your family. Will you tell us what you saw? Will you tell us what you know? Will you tell us where this information leads us to? It happens every day.
This is about black hats and white hats, good guys and bad guys. Let's make sure we stand up today for every courageous American who stands up for the safety of the community of this United States. I don't care how big or how small they are, we ought to stand with them and not make them the enemy.
Today the issue is whether the telecommunications companies should be punished for aiding in the good-faith surveillance of people who mean to brutalize and kill American citizens. Tomorrow, the target of punishing litigation could be Company X, Manufacturer Y, or Industry Z.
The "nation's status quo highway program is no longer acceptable, and needs to be reformed, refocused, restructured, and refinanced." -- Pete Ruane, president and CEO of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), speaking at ARTBA's 19th Annual Conference on Public-Private Ventures in Transportation.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi's statement on the possible lapsing of authority to conduct surveillance if the House fails to pass the Senate revision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
On Friday, a surveillance law insisted upon by the President last August will expire. Today, an overwhelming majority of House Democrats voted to extend that law for three weeks so that agreement could be reached with the Senate on a better version of that law. The President and House Republicans refused to support the extension and therefore will bear the responsibility should any adverse national consequences result.
A bipartisan MAJORITY, including 34 Democrats, declined to extend the law, believing that no further delays were justifiable.
The time for political statements is over. Now, it's time for action. The only bill that will pass the House and receive the President's signature is the responsible, bipartisan legislation the Senate passed.
We do not need, nor do we have, additional time. The current patch expires in less than three days, and the Democratic leadership seems comfortable in letting this vital legislation lapse while they use essential floor time to consider unessential things.
Like H. Res. 60, congratulating the National Football League champion New York Giants for winning Super Bowl XLII and completing one of the most remarkable postseason runs in professional sports history.
The roll call vote on H.R. 5349, a 21-day extension of the Protect America Act. The bill failed, 191-229. Thirty-four Democrats joined the unanimous 195 Republican voters. Not all the Democrats were the moderate Blue Dogs; some were more left-leaning members we assume oppose the underlying Protect America Act, extended or not.
The surveillance law is set to expire Saturday. The House should now just pass S. 2248, the Senate-passed FISA amendments legislation.
As we noted below, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) gave a very strong floor speech today opposing the 21 day extension of surveillance authority, an extension that would have delayed, yet again, passage of FISA legislation defining the authority for monitoring foreign communications that pass through U.S. networks.
A video of the remarks is now available here. Rogers makes two arguments: One, that arguing for additional time is ridiculous given the days the House spends on less serious things; and two, we ask business for assistance in fighting crime -- a pizza shop owner, for example -- so why is it wrong to ask other companies to oppose terrorism?
The gist of the first:
You know, today we’re going to spend hours and hours grilling a professional baseball player about “he said, she said” activities in professional baseball. We spent an entire day on this floor this year trying to figure out how we’re going to designate scenic trails in New England – 162 bills commemorating someone or something, 162 on the floor, this year. Sixty-two bills naming post offices.
I think, if we put this in perspective, this isn’t about needing more time. This isn’t about that. We obviously wasted a lot of time. Our Constitution, as so many people point to, says some pretty clear things to me. It makes sure that you stand tall and you take an oath to defend against all enemies foreign and domestic. It’s one of the most important things we do in this body. And if we can find time to put Roger Clemens in a chair and grill him for hours, and make a media circus about professional baseball, you’d think we could spend a few minutes protecting the United States of America.
And instead what we do is we kind of fool around and wring our hands and say, “I’m for national security, but kinda not really, but hey, did you see these jangly keys? Professional baseball could be in trouble.”
It maybe works for my kids when they were three and in trouble, but it doesn’t work for the American people, and it certainly doesn’t work to keep us safe.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer just released his floor statement in favor of a 21-day extension, which was defeated. We've put his comments in the extended entry.
Flanked by Congressional leaders of both parties, President Bush this afternoon signed H.R. 5140, the economic stimulus plan, into law. His statement from the White House is here. Speaker Pelosi issued a statement, and Senator Majority Leader Reid also had a statement.
Most of the attention has gone to the individual rebates, but the bill does include some very beneficial incentives for business investment. Our good friends (and NAM members) at Deloitte have put together a one-page fact sheet to explain the provisions. Here's the summary:
The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 signed into law by President Bush on February 13, 2008 includes two significant business related tax incentives that may lower your cost of investing in new equipment and spur new orders from customers. Increased expensing limits for small businesses and a 50 percent “bonus” depreciation provision will provide a benefit to businesses of all sizes. In fact, small businesses that qualify for the increased expensing can also take advantage of the bonus depreciation.
For more detail, please click here to read the one-pager.
The bill is H.R. 5349, to extend the Protect America Act of 2007 for 21 days. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) rejects the arguments that the House needs more time, saying that if the House has time to investigate Roger Clemens, name post offices, and pass commemorations, then it has time to act to protect the United States.
First time we've seen a Rep. Rogers speech. Very, very good.
House Republicans engineered a series of procedural votes Wednesday in a bid to derail the Democrats’ proposed extension, which President Bush said he would veto. They argued that the House should simply take up and send to the White House a surveillance overhaul bill that the Senate passed by 68-29.
Because 21 conservative Blue Dog Democrats have endorsed the Senate-passed bill, Republicans might be able to win approval of the Senate bill through a motion to recommit the extension with instructions to amend it with the text of the Senate bill.
UPDATE (2:38 p.m.) The call goes out from the leftroots to pressure Blue Dog Democrats, with Daily Kos blogger McJoan urging, "Tell them to stop enabling the Republicans and Bush in taking away our civil liberties."
Funny, OUR civil liberties are not threatened by the narrowly targeted monitoring of communications by foreign nationals -- suspected terrorists -- that may be routed through U.S. networks. Which is, contrary to the assertions from FISA-swamps, what the bills does, as documented in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on S. 2248.
UPDATE (2:50 p.m.) From The Foundry blog at the Heritage Foundation: "The House has had more than half a year to conduct this important debate. They will not learn anything new in another 21 days. It is time for them to act now."
UPDATE (4:15 p.m.): The House has voted down the 21 day extension, 191-229. We'll post the roll call when it becomes available, but clearly, many Blue Dog Democrats took a gutsy stand -- within their party, that is -- and voted against the legislation. Congratulations to them.
Our man on the street, Keith Smith, attended this morning's speech at the Economic Policy Institute by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH). The occasion was the labor-backed EPI's forum, Agenda for Shared Prosperity. Keith reports that, among other things, Brown talked about the manufacturing possibilities of alternative energy technology, and focused much of his remarks on trade. Keith:
The crowd gave resounding applause when the Senator declared he wants to hit the 'pause button’ on trade agreements and that 'the President wants three more under his belt before he leaves, but he’s not going to get them.' Brown argued that the pivotal election states need to look at NAFTA and re-examine the benefits of trade.
Agreed. In 2006 more half of Ohio’s manufactured goods exports were sent to our NAFTA partners, and the value of those exports has by more 30 percent since 2001. Brown suggested that we write new trade agreements that allow manufacturing to thrive, apparently overlooking the benefit of FTAs as the great trade bulldozer that levels the international playing field.
Brown did echo the NAM's concerns about the skills gap, saying there is a need for a manufacturing skills certificate to verify a worker’s skills across numerous states. In the 80 roundtables he's held throughtout Ohio the shortage of skilled workers has consistently registered as a huge concern for manufacturers. Endorsing the primacy of skills, rather than a four-year college degree, Brown identified addressing the skills gap as a "big idea" that Congress and the next President can pursue.
EPI says it will be posting a transcript of the event.
Oil companies would lose some $13.6 billion in tax breaks granted in 2004 for domestically produced goods. Exxon Mobil (XOM), Chevron Corp. (CVX), ConocoPhillips (COP), Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA), and BP Plc (BP) would lose the tax breaks entirely. The deduction would be frozen at 6% for smaller oil and gas companies. That deduction had been scheduled to jump to 9% in 2010, as part of a 2004 law that gradually phased in the manufacturing tax break.
Oil companies would also lose another $4.1 billion under provisions that provide less favorable tax treatment for certain kinds of foreign income.
Revenues from the tax increases would be used to "extend tax breaks for investments in solar hot water heaters, wind-power projects and buildings that are designed to be energy efficient."
Here's the bill:
By Mr. RANGEL (for himself, Mr. STARK, Mr. LEVIN, Mr. MCDERMOTT, Mr. LEWIS of Georgia, Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts, Mr. BECERRA, Mr. DOGGETT, Mr. POMEROY, Mrs. JONES of Ohio, Mr. LARSON of Connecticut, Mr. EMANUEL, Mr. BLUMENAUER, Mr. KIND, Mr. PASCRELL, Mr. CROWLEY, Mr. VAN HOLLEN, Ms. SCHWARTZ, Ms. CASTOR, Mr. COHEN, Mr. ELLISON, Ms. GIFFORDS, Mr. HALL of New York, Mr. HILL, Mr. HODES, Ms. HIRONO, Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia, Mr. KLEIN of Florida, Mr. MCNERNEY, Mr. SARBANES, Mr. SIRES, Ms. TSONGAS, and Mr. WELCH of Vermont):
H.R. 5351. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide tax incentives for the production of renewable energy and energy conservation; to the Committee on Ways and Means.
President George Bush praises Senate passage of S. 2248, emphasizes the importance of civil immunity for telecommunications companies, and demands action from the House.
Congress has had over six months to discuss and deliberate. The time for debate is over. I will not accept any temporary extension. House members have had plenty of time to pass a good bill. They have already been given a two-week extension beyond the deadline they set for themselves. If Republicans and Democrats in the Senate can come together on a good piece of legislation, there is no reason why Republicans and Democrats in the House cannot pass the Senate bill immediately.
The House's failure to pass the bipartisan Senate bill would jeopardize the security of our citizens. As Director McConnell has told me, without this law, our ability to prevent new attacks will be weakened. And it will become harder for us to uncover terrorist plots. We must not allow this to happen. It is time for Congress to ensure the flow of vital intelligence is not disrupted. It is time for Congress to pass a law that provides a long-term foundation to protect our country. And they must do so immediately.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said Tuesday he still opposes retroactive immunity.
"There is no basis for the broad telecommunications company amnesty provisions advocated by the administration," Conyers wrote in a letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding asking for documents about the wiretapping program. The documents have been withheld from Congress.
We read that to say that the issue of telecom immunity is purely a bargaining chip to exert House authority over the Administration, not a matter of principle or national security.
Sen. Sherrod Brown's interview with The Nation about his legislation to give tax breaks to "Patriot Corporations" has finally drawn some much needed attention, at least in the blogosphere (our post here), magnified by Brown highlighting the support of cosponsor and presidential candidate, Barack Obama.
But the idea has been kicking around in the House and Senate for a while now, turns out. Last August, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), introduced her legislation, H.R. 3319, the Patriot Corporations of America Act of 2007. (With 14 cosponsors from the left wing of the Democratic Party.) Here's the CRS Summary:
Patriot Corporations of America Act of 2007 - Grants after 2007 a preference to Patriot corporations in the evaluation of bids or proposals for federal contracts. Defines " Patriot corporation" as a corporation which: (1) produces at least 90% of its goods and services in the United States; (2) does not pay its its management-level employees at a rate more than 10,000% of the compensation of its lowest paid employee; (3) conducts at least 50% of its research and development in the United States; (4) contributes at least 5% of its payroll to a portable pension fund for its employees; (5) pays at least 70% of its employees' health insurance costs; (6) maintains a policy of neutrality in employee organizing drives; (7) provides full differential salary and insurance benefits for all National Guard and Reserve employees who are called to active duty; and (8) has not violated federal regulations, including regulations relating to the environment, workplace safety, labor relations, and consumer protections.
Amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) reduce the income tax rate for Patriot corporations; (2) reclassify foreign corporations created or organized to avoid federal taxation as domestic corporations for income tax purposes; and (3) increase, for the period between January 1, 2007, and December 31, 2010, the income tax rate for individual taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of $500,000 or more ($1 million or more for joint returns).
And Schakowsky introduced the same basic bill in 2006, as well, H.R. 5699.
The idea of the government designating this firm or that as "patriotic" based on things like its salary structure is repellent; implicit -- or perhaps even explicit, sometime in the future -- is the designation of "unpatriotic." And just imagine the government power involved in administering the law. You'd need an entire agency along the lines of FDR's National Recovery Administration.
Schakowsky and Brown's bills have gone nowhere, being referred to committee to leave us alone, please. But if the political environment takes a sharp leftward turn come November?
Arnold Kling's column (hat tip Glenn Reynolds), Mandates for Change, outlines a very believable scenario under which a left-leaning Administration and Congress would control the economy through regulation, not taxation. Interesting and troubling.
We recently groused about the media always reading recession into every story featuring bad economic data, but never writing that good economic data -- and there are some -- eased the fears of recession.
Well, today reporters added that context. Good for them.
From Bloomberg: "Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar strengthened against the euro and yen after a report showed retail sales unexpectedly rose last month. ...Traders bought the dollar as the data cooled speculation a housing slump will push the economy into a recession."
From The Wall Street Journal: "U.S. retail sales unexpectedly climbed 0.3% in January, given a boost by demand for cars and gasoline in a positive sign for the economy. Excluding the gas and auto sectors, demand at other retailers last month was unchanged."
From IDG News Service, reporting on a Capitol Hill demonstration/news conference that took place yesterday.
WASHINGTON -- Congress needs to pass health care IT legislation before private companies develop multiple systems that don't talk to one another, two advocacy groups said today.
Members of the Health IT Now coalition and the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) urged Congress to move ahead with health IT legislation such as the Promoting Health Information Technology Act (PDF format). The bill would establish a public/private group to recommend health IT standards and certification, and it would budget $163 million annually for health care providers to adopt health IT products such as electronic health records.
The National Association of Manufacturers is a member of the Health IT Now coalition, which has its website here. The NAM news release is available here.
Drew Greenblatt at Marlin Steel Wire passes on a really fine article in the March issue of Popular Mechanics, "Made in the USA." As the blurb states, "A funny thing happened to America's industrial meltdown -- the country started making and selling more goods than ever. How did companies do it? With quality, speed and innovation."
The article features:
Bulldozers, manufactured by Caterpillar in Peoria, Ill.
America's manufacturing sales stagnated at the $4 trillion mark in the late 1990s. But then something surprising happened. America started selling again -- finding more customers for tractors, steel, plastics, kinves and medicines than ever before. Manufacturing sales hit a record $5 trillion in 2006, according ot the U.S. Census Bureau. 'People talk about a doomsday scenario for manufacturing, but that's not the case,' says Vinod Singhal, a professor at Georgia Institute of Technology's College of Management. 'The best U.S. manufacturers have become more competitive, no doubt about it.'
The article is not online (yet?), but it's well worth taking a look at as some saluatory reporting amid the all-too-common pessimism.
Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) visited with some bloggers yesterday to outline his proposal for a two-year budgeting and appropriations process to bring some accountability to Congress' spending practices. It certainly is a worthwhile topic for debate (although not really a matter that the NAM would weigh in on).
Under Isakson's proposal, the president would submit a two-year budget at the beginning of the first session of Congress, i.e., the odd-numbered year following the election. Congress would adopt a two-year budget resolution, a reconciliation bill (if necessary), and two year appropriations bills during the first session of a Congress. During the second year, Congress would consider authorization bills and conduct oversight of federal programs.
In the conference call, Isakson placed a fair amount of emphasis on the oversight responsibility, seeing it as way for Congress to address seriously the effectiveness of government program.s
Those of us who have watched two-year budgeting at the state level (specifically, North Dakota and Oregon) will attest that the process can work -- certainly better than what Congress manages these days. As Isakson noted on the Senate floor last October, Congress just isn't getting the job done now on passing appropriations measures on time. More often than not, appropriations bills are rolled into an omnibus legislation, allowing all sorts of mischief, earmarks and logrolling to win out over reasoned spending policy.
After 9/11 the people entrusted with establishing nomenclature for new programs fashioned custom-fitted sleeves of tin for their ears, and thus we had the Patriot Act and the “Department of Homeland Security.” The first was needlessly jingotastic, and the second had no cultural resonance; we’ve never referred to America as the Homeland. It’s a bad term for a nation founded not on soil and race but on a concept. Well, the idiocy has spread. Now we have the Patriot Corporation Act, which will officially designate certain companies as Patriotic if they follow certain rules, and accord special privileges.
If dissent is the highest form of patriotism, then companies that don’t conform to the bill’s stndards will be so damn patriotic they will bleed red white and blue and tootle “Yankee Doodle” on a fife that pops out of their butt every time the CEO passes wind.
From today's Wall Street Journal, an editorial on Tuesday's FISA votes that wonders at Sen. Obama's embrace of a position both damaging to national security and politically untenable.
Now and then sanity prevails, even in Washington. So it did yesterday as the Senate passed a warrantless wiretap bill for overseas terrorists while killing most of the Lilliputian attempts to tie down our war fighters.
"We lost every single battle we had on this bill," conceded Chris Dodd, which ought to tell the Connecticut Senator something about the logic of what he was proposing. His own amendment -- to deny immunity from lawsuits to telecom companies that cooperated with the government after 9/11 -- didn't even get a third of the Senate.
The bill now goes to the House, where 21 Blue Dog Democrats have indicated their support for the Senate's version of the bill.
UPDATE (9:40 a.m.): A statement from Senator Clinton, who missed the votes: "As I have maintained for months, I oppose the provision contained in the bill that grants blanket retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that allegedly cooperated in the administration's warrantless wiretapping program."
The roll call vote on final passage of S. 2248, the FISA amendments, is available here. The vote was 68-29.
Republicans: 48 yea, 0 nay, 1 absent (Graham of South Carolina) (Including Lieberman as a Democrat.
Democrats: 20 yea, 29 nay, 2 absent (Obama and Clinton)
This is not what is normally called a "largely party-line vote" as Reuters described it. A "largely party-line vote" is when one or two or, at most, three members of a party split with their partisan colleagues.
And how interesting that of the Democrats, only the presidential candidates missed the final vote. The vote occurred between 5:30 p.m. and 6 p.m., hardly an inconvenient time.
The House of Representatives now has an opportunity to put aside narrow partisan concerns and come together to pass this bipartisan bill and send it to my desk without delay. Our intelligence professionals and private sector partners need the certainty of long-term legislation that will allow us to keep programs in place to protect the Nation, so that the flow of critical intelligence information is not interrupted.
A strong, bipartisan majority to pass S. 2248, allowing the legitimate use of foreign surveillance to protect Americans from being killed by terrorists. Senators of both parties also voted for retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that took their obligations as corporate citizens seriously, assisting in proper, legal intelligence gathering.
Congratulations to Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) for their leadership in accomplishing this legislation. May the House follow suit.
Telecom immunity should have never taken this long to approve. The immunity covers companies who received assurances from the Department of Justice that their cooperation broke no laws, and they cooperated to help defend the US from attack. Their reward for trust and assistance should not be billion-dollar class-action lawsuits, which would have been nothing more than a back-door attempt to kneecap intelligence operations that kept this nation safe for more than six years after 9/11.
The American economy relies on the ingenuity and imagination of inventors coupled with the hard work and dedication of our workers, to drive our economy and the creation of jobs. The U.S. patent system, the strongest in the world, has protected the work of the inventor, solidified our leadership in innovation and allowed the American economy to produce the jobs and products of the future. S. 1145 would significantly weaken that protection making it far easier for our competitors to gain access to this knowledge and steal it for their own individual gain.
A very good letter. It’s remarkable and encouraging to see how an issue that is the key to our economic power – intellectual property – can unite disparate groups such as labor and management. The NAM is working with the Teamsters on counterfeiting and piracy, too. The fact that they’ve jumped into the fray on this is proof positive that not only is IP the engine of our economy and must be preserved, but that this particular bill is so harmful that the unions will break ranks with their usual political allies.
The Senate has resumed debate on S. 2248, the FISA amendments. Sen. Feingold (D-WI) just warned against a "dragnet that could sweep the private communications" of citizens. The criticisms get wilder and wilder.
Opponents of immunity for telecommunications companies insist the companies' cooperation in foreign surveillance was illegal, and they paint the willingness to help prevent terrorists from murdering more Americans as some malign act.
The extension of immunity in section 202 reflects the Committee's determination that electronic communication service providers acted on a good faith belief that the President's program, and their assistance, was lawful. The Committee's decision to include liability relief for providers was based in significant part on its examination of the written communications from U.S. Government officials to certain providers. The Committee also considered the testimony of relevant participants in the program.
The details of the President's program are highly classified. As with other intelligence matters, the identities of persons or entities who provide assistance to the U.S. Government are protected as vital sources and methods of intelligence. But it reveals no secrets to say--as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, this bill, and Title 18 of the U.S. Code all make clear--that electronic surveillance for law enforcement and intelligence purposes depends in great part on the cooperation of the private companies that operate the Nation's telecommunication system. ..[snip]
The Committee has reviewed all of the relevant correspondence. The letters were provided to electronic communication service providers at regular intervals. All of the letters stated that the activities had been authorized by the President. All of the letters also stated that the activities had been determined to be lawful by the Attorney General, except for one letter that covered a period of less than sixty days. That letter, which like all the others stated that the activities had been authorized by the President, stated that the activities had been determined to be lawful by the Counsel to the President.
The committee report corrects many of the canards being flapped about by critics of the legislation, who seem to think that shouting "illegal" and "bad faith" somehow amounts to proof.
UPDATE (3:35 p.m.): From Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) of the Senate Intelligence Committee: "[This] vote proves to American families that Republicans and Democrats in the Senate can work together to protect our civil liberties and keep our country safe from attack."
UPDATE (4:15 p.m.): A favorite line of attack against the bill is the Administration is fear-mongering, creating a climate of fear, etc. Well, who's the mongerer? From a conference call with Sen. Dodd:
The Senate had "just sanctioned" the "single largest invasion of privacy in the history of the country," he said.
The Senate has just rejected an amendment to S. 2248, the FISA amendments legislation, by Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Russell Feingold (D-WI) that would have stripped out the retroactive immunity for telecommunication companies.
This is a clear statement in favor of effective, legal surveillance of suspected terrorists overseas, and an endorsement of good corporate citizens aiding in the protection of Americans. A very important vote.
UPDATE (11:37 a.m.) A poster at the Daily Kos website, with which we disagree, is liveblogging the debate.
UPDATE (12:13 p.m.) Second string of Kos commentary here. Quotes e-mail from Senator Reid's office: "If, as appears likely, none of the amendments to strike or modify the provisions of the bill concerning retroactive immunity are adopted, we expect Sen. Reid to oppose cloture and oppose final passage of the bill."
UPDATE (12:34 p.m.): Cloture invoked, 69-29. Senate now breaks.
I've talked to Barack a lot about his Patriot Corporation Act, which is not trade per se, but it's certainly part of the economic package around globalization. The Patriot Corporation Act has not gotten the attention that I would hope it would. But, basically it says that if you play by the rules, if you pay decent wages, health benefits, pension; do your production here; don't resist unionization on neutral card check, then you will be designated a "Patriot Corporation" and you will get tax advantages and some [preference] on government contracts.
There is so much here that's profoundly objectionable. On card check, it's "patriotic" to support the elimination of the secret ballot in the workplace? It's "patriotic" to pay an employee $14 an hour, but not $13.83? Play by the rules? What does that mean?
The most striking offense here is the idea that the federal government would be defining patriotism, company by company. And if the federal government defines a company as a patriot, than it will be defining -- if only by omission -- the companies that are not patriots.
A terrible, terrible idea.
UPDATE (1:50 p.m.): Welcome, Instapundit and Jonah Goldberg readers, and thanks to them both. The bill Sen. Brown is talking about is S. 1945, introduced last August by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), with Brown and Obama as cosponsors. Sen. Durbin's office issued a news release at the time.
BTW, Sen. Brown is the keynote speaker tomorrow at a manufacturing-oriented event sponsored by the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute, "An Agenda for Shared Prosperity" forum. Does shared prosperity demand shared patriotism?
The American Petroleum Institute's new interview with Ben Stein -- actor, author, economist, lawyer -- shows Stein doing what he does best, reminding Americans of how fortunate we are to live in a prosperous, free country. In this case, Stein talks about how the oil and gas industry makes our way of life possible, and he rejects the class warfare wielded against energy suppliers.
Stein's remarks are especially valuable given this week's expected introduction of a House proposal to raise taxes on the oil and gas industry, a political maneuver that will inspire all sorts of invidious, anti-business rhetoric. Stein comments on the anti-oil industry invective:
As far as their profits, I mean, that is a matter of record. They make very large amounts of profits compared with what I earn each year, but very small on a percentage basis compared with what high tech companies make, or what finance companies make.
And, something that always bugs the heck out me...is that people say to me, ‘Oh look at how much oil companies make’ and I say, ‘Well who at the oil company are you mad at? Are you mad at the guy in the pick-up truck bringing the pizzas to the guys working on the rig? Are you mad at the guys on the rig getting wind and rain and sleet and snow in their face and getting frozen and getting pneumonia from working out in the cold? Are you mad at the people who serve the meals in the company cafeteria? Are you mad with the people who file all the papers with the regulatory agencies? Are you mad with the people who maintain the pipelines? Who are you angry at?’
API makes a related argument in a full-page ad today in The Washington Post, headlined, "Do you own an oil company?" A pie chart in the ad shows that ownership of oil and gas companies in 2007 was led, percentagewise, by mutual funds and other firms (29.5 percent), pension funds (27 percent) and individual investors (23 percent).
So when politicians inveigh against oil and gas industry profits, they could well be condemning you -- and targeting your income at the same time.
U.S. District Judge John F. Walter handed out the toughest sentence he could to William Lerach Monday under terms of a generous plea agreement worked out between Lerach and prosecutors. And the judge wasn't pleased.
In selecting the maximum term, the judge decried as "breathtaking" the cash kickbacks that Lerach and others at his former law firm paid to plaintiffs in an effort to gain control of big lawsuits and win larger fees in 150 cases over 20 years.
The scheme "corrupted the law firm, and it corrupted it in the most evil way," the judge said.
A law firm corrupted from the inside? Sounds like John Grisham's "The Firm," only with more realistic villains. Not that Grisham would write it.
After they changed the law, I stopped doing it, but other people at my firm kept doing it. I didn't know they were … I made the wrong decision and I have to go to jail.
Throw in all the conspiring by Mississippi trial lawyers -- alleged and admitted -- and plots by Texas trial lawyers, and you have a powerful case for endemic corruption within a politically powerful sector of the civil justice system, the plaintiff's bar.
This should trigger a wider-ranging federal investigation of the plaintiffs bar, if indeed such a probe is not already being conducted. Senate and House Democrats, many of whom in years past received multiple campaign contributions from Lerach and others at Milberg Weiss, could demonstrate a laudable independence by opening a congressional inquiry.
William Lerach made many admissions of guilt and repeatedly said he was sorry for his crimes in the run up to yesterday's sentencing in federal court for conspiracy to obstruct justice and to making false statements. The judge sentenced him to two years in prison for the crimes committed during a multiyear scheme to make kickbacks to plaintiffs who filed class-action lawsuits.
"I was guilty," Lerach has said. "I participated in what was being done and was wrong." And, "I have to stand by the guilty plea and I do stand by it."
I knew that if the Bush Justice Department and their allies in the ultra tort reform movement could find something about us to use against us, to investigate us or accuse of us, they would. We were powerful, high-profile, combative individuals, and people who were our enemies who had power got in a position to use our own mistakes against us and they did so with the same ruthlessness with which we prosecuted our cases. And that's the way it is in the big leagues.
Shorter Lerach: "I'm guilty, but it's their fault."
President Bush's FY09 budget proposal undermines a key provision of S. 2488, the Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National (OPEN) Government Act, which the President signed into law less than two months ago. The National Association of Manufacturers supported the bill (and its predecessor, S. 849, of which the NAM wrote a letter of support to Congress), believing its provisions to expedite Freedom of Information Act requests would serve information-seeking companies and the public well.
The bill created a formal FOIA ombudsman in the National Archives, a position which the President's budget proposes to move to the Department of Justice. A Cox Newspapers blog, The Secrecy File, notes the consternation this move has caused among what reporter Rebecca Car calls the "open government community."
The Sunshine in Government Initiative, a coalition of ten media groups dedicated to open government issues, wrote to lawmakers today objecting to the action.
“Asking the Justice Department to perform the responsibilities creates an inherent conflict of interest,” the letter to lawmakers states. “We encourage the Congress to fully fund the Office of Government Information Services within the National Archives. This reflects the plain language of the statute and intent of Congress in passing the OPEN Government Act. The money should follow the law.”
“For the first time, Congress created an independent ombudsman in the federal government to help the public,” said Rick Blum, coordinator of SGI. “Why quit the experiment after only 35 days?”
And THAT is a very good question, even if the activists oversell the importance of the ombudsman in relation to the rest of the bill.
All in all, a curious and unproductive move, one not likely to withstand the budget process.
(A pet peeve: The "open government community?" What community? Any group that includes such disparate characters as Rep. Jim McDermott [NAM 109th Congress voting record -- 4 percent], the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, and the NAM is most definitely not a community. We simply share similar views on a single issue.)
Of all the slow-moving targets that bleed profusely when you hit them, can there be a fatter, slower, juicier bull's-eye to sight your scope on than the $450 million Newseum, the four-years-in-the-building, seven-story, steel-and-glass monument to journalistic vanity just a nine iron away from Washington, D.C.'s National Mall?
Imagine what reporters and opiners would say if, for example, a chemical, energy, or widget/gadget manufacturing company built their own, similar kind of shrine near the National Mall. They'd get creamed.
Famed plaintiffs lawyer Bill Lerach received a two-year sentence today for his role in an alleged kickback scheme involving class-action lawsuits. Lerach pleaded guilty last fall to a felony count of conspiring to obstruct justice and to submit false testimony in federal judicial proceedings.
The former Milberg Weiss class-action king was also sentenced to two years probation, fined $250,000 and ordered to complete 1,000 hours of community service.
As the AP reports, Milberg Weiss "made an estimated $250 million over two decades by filing legal actions on behalf of professional plaintiffs who received kickbacks."
UPDATE (3:30 p.m.): The judge was not happy with the plea agreement, which he considered too lenient. "'This whole conspiracy corrupted the law firm and it corrupted it in the most evil way,'" Judge John Walter of federal district court said during the hearing."
Free trade's benefit to the country as a whole may be open to debate, but there is no doubt that California stands to gain from it. So why are the state's political leaders so squeamish about standing up for free trade in Washington?
California has twin engines of ingenuity -- Hollywood and the Silicon Valley -- and continued trade liberalization is crucial to keep both running. These industries face more daunting market barriers -- the absurdly low number of foreign films allowed in China's cinemas is a good example -- than do traditional industrial manufacturers, which already have benefited from many rounds of tariff reductions. Trade pacts are starting to address U.S. intellectual property concerns too, another reason California's key industries (we could add biotech to the list) can ill-afford a loss of momentum on trade liberalization.
The Employment Standards Administration of the Department of Labor published a proposed new rule today updating regulations governing the Family Medical Leave Act. The key provisions include increased notice obligations for employers so can better understand their FMLA rights, while revising employee notice rules to minimize workplace disruptions due to unscheduled FMLA absences. Labor's news release is here, and the proposed rule is here.
From a statement by National Association of Manufacturers President John Engler:
We welcome the Department of Labor’s decision to address the way the Family and Medical Leave Act is applied in the workplace. Today’s action is the result of tens of thousands of comments to the federal government from both employers and employees, and it builds on a decade-long record of congressional testimony and legal decisions that reached the Supreme Court, all pointing to the practical challenges involved in granting family and medical leave. Over the course of the regulatory process, the NAM looks forward to reviewing the proposal thoroughly to ensure it upholds the benefits outlined in the law, while addressing critical administrative problems.
This proposal ensures key benefits of the Family and Medical Leave Act, as intended by Congress will remain secure. Employees will continue to take time off for the birth of a child, attend to a seriously ill family member and maintain the job protected leave they need for their own medical care. The FMLA was never intended to turn full-time jobs into part-time jobs. It was never intended to allow employees to take sporadic leave without no notice to employers, nor to add workload to those covering the surprise absences of their co-workers. Future success of the program relies on clear, consistent rules, and there are legitimate concerns that must be addressed to protect the law’s intent.
Marketplace story here. And this is an informative AP story, which notes, "Under the Family and Medical Leave Act, employees can wait as long as two days after their shift begins to notify employers they are claiming time. The Labor Department wants to end that practice except for emergencies."
Ralph Nader, praising a convicted felon for ginning up class-action lawsuits that cost the stockholders of American businesses billions of dollars. From Legal Pad:
“Until now, I have not written a letter asking a judge to be lenient in sentencing a defendant,” said the consumer advocate/perennial presidential headache. “I do so today because of the unique contribution William Lerach has made to our society and to the practice of law.”
The New York Sun reports that Nader urged the judge to spare Lerach prison and instead have him lecture law students on ethics.
House Democrats plan to put "big oil" in the cross-hairs this week with a new bill on the floor, but it remains unclear if the Senate intends to follow suit. Democratic leaders are scheduled to bring an energy tax package to the floor that would extend renewable power incentives and offsets the costs by repealing oil industry tax breaks.
Earlier reports suggest the legislation will resemble the $21 billion in tax increases the House supported in last year's energy bill, but which were rejected by the Senate.
Democratic leadership in the House claims to be motivated/angered by the high price of fuel. How exactly does raising taxes on oil production lead to lower prices at the pump?
Also, the American Petroleum Institute has a new podcast up, an interview with Ben Stein on the importance of the oil and gas industry in keeping America prosperous. "We would not have any way of life besides chaos, endless civil war and bloodshed without an abundance of oil and natural gas. Important doesn't even start to convey it. It's like say how important is heartbeat to gas," Stein says... "It takes an incredible lot of work by an incredible lot of people to get that oil and natural gas in its ultimate usable forms to us."
UPDATE (10 a.m.): Name of the bill is the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act.
On the Amazon webpage for John Grisham's latest novel, The Appeal, is the following author's letter.
If he does say so himself.
The book deals with a Mississippi judicial race, manipulated by a New York executive with the Krane Chemical Company, a corporate polluter and killer. As this excellent review in the St. Louis Post Dispatch puts it:
Corporate interests recruit an earnest lawyer to run for the Mississippi Supreme Court, so when the pollution case arrives there he will vote the right way. He's vetted by groups with names like the Tort Reform Network and the American Family Alliance and championed by an ancient U.S. senator whose influence creeps in everywhere.
There's so much more interesting, real-life territory to be explored in the malfeasance of the trial bar. Consider that today is the sentencing for William Lerach, who as a partner at the NYC-based Milberg-Weiss popularized the abusive class-action securities litigation. He's now going to federal prison for a kickback scheme to solicit fake lawsuits. In a letter to the court, Lerach admits: "I did something wrong and I have to pay the price. Everybody was paying plaintiffs so they could bring their cases. I thought I had to do it, too."
Legal corruption in Mississippi, New York, all around the country, is certainly promising subject matter for a rapidly paced mix of political and legal intrigue. But the topical legal corruption is on the side of the plaintiff's bar. Looks like Grisham's ideology is getting in the way of good fiction.
UPDATE (12:20 p.m.): The death of Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) may change the House's schedule this week as members travel to memorial services.
President Bush signs the economic stimulus bill, even as the House considers destimulating the economy with a tax increase on energy production. The Senate fusses over FISA. Busy week of hearings, including two on the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) at 15 years. The father of abusive, excessive, extortive class-action lawsuits, Bill Lerach, is sentenced today for his role in a kickback scheme at Milberg-Weiss.
The House starts business Tuesday at 2 p.m., if by business you mean endorsing the National Quilting Museum in Paducah, Ky. On the floor this week are H.R. 3521, about HUD's public housing program, and the Democratic plan to raise taxes on the oil industry to subsidize alternative energy. Here's the House floor schedule for the week.
The Senate convenes at 2 p.m. today and moves to S. 2248, the FISA amendments, revising the laws on collection of foreign intelligence. The schedule of the week's hearings is here.
Senate Hearings: The big event is Thursday's Senate Banking hearing on the economy, with testimony from Secretary of Treasury Paulson, SEC Chairman Cox, and the Fed's Bernanke. Budget hearings continue with an Appropriations subcommittee considering the DOT on Tuesday, and another subcommittee reviewing the EPA on Thursday; the Budget Committee monitors health IT on Thursday.
Executive Branch: President Bush will sign H.R. 5140, the economic stimulus bill on Wednesday. At 1:05 p.m. today, President Bush is signing the Economic Report of the President, the annual report by the Council of Economic Advisors. The rest of the week is devoted to Valentine Days stuff and events related to his trip to Africa; he departs Friday for Benin. (More details at Friday's press gaggle .)
The Senate takes up wiretapping of foreign terrorists this week, and the stakes couldn't be higher. Not only for the ability of our spooks to eavesdrop on al Qaeda, but also regarding Congressional and judicial intrusion into Presidential war powers. Some damage seems certain, but the issue is how much damage President Bush will accept.
The debate concerns an effort to revise the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to bless spying without a court order on terrorist communications that originate overseas but move through U.S. switching networks. We believe -- and appellate courts have stated -- that the President already has such authority under the Constitution. But the political left claims this is "illegal" under FISA, and Mr. Bush has agreed to work with Congress on a compromise.
And...
By far the worst threat is an amendment from Senator Chris Dodd (D., Conn.) to deny legal immunity to telephone companies that cooperated with the government on these wiretaps after 9/11. The companies face multiple lawsuits, so a denial of even retrospective immunity would certainly lead to less such cooperation in the future.
This is precisely the goal of the left, which has failed to get Congress to ban such wiretaps directly but wants to use lawsuits to do so via the backdoor.
The Chicago Auto Show has another week to go? Wow. But on the other hand, we spent perhaps a total of seven hours there last week, just enough to orient us to the two exhibition halls -- North and South -- and to recognize that there a LOT of vehicles there. Says here, you could park 26 Boeing 747s on the show floors. And hey, look, webcams!
Which brings us to another fact obvious to any recent vehicle purchaser, but just abstract knowledge in our case: Today's vehicles have incredible amounts of computer and communications capacity. Gigabytes are standard, and one car -- forget which -- included Zagat restaurant recommendations as part of its satellite capabilities.
And, as one of Edmunds many fine blogs reports, Ford unveiled truck options (Ford Work Solutions) that included an in-dash computer with Microsoft software, Garmin navigation, Bluetooth and a wireless printer interface. They take this work-truck stuff seriously, Brian Moody observes:
"DeWalt's Tool Link lets you use that dash-mounted computer to keep track of your tools. The kit comes with radio frequency ID tags which you stick on each tool. As you head to the job site or back home you can instantly check to see that all the needed tools are on board. The Work Solutions package will be available on various 2009 Ford trucks including the F-150 and E-Series vans."
How little of this would have made sense even 10 years ago.
"I will be signing this bill Wednesday," Bush said in an interview on Fox News Sunday. When asked whether he would consider further action if the economy continued to sputter, Bush said: "We just have to play it by ear."
President Bush also mentioned the FISA legislation, which leads Senate floor debate starting Monday. The Senate Intelligence Committee version of S. 2248 came out of committee with a bipartisan, 13-2 vote, but is opposed by the party's left wing, the netroots, and ACLU-types. In a portion of the interview about the fall campaigns, the President acknowledged these political realities:
America's got to be in the lead if you want to deal with these threats and we've had a lot of friends with us. And I'm confident our candidate will say, we're going to lead to protect the American people. It's a fundamental difference. Look at the FISA debate.
We believe that our intelligence officers ought to have all the tools they need to protect the American people. And yet it's -- and I think we're going to get a good bipartisan bill and so I applaud those Democrats. I'm not going after those Democrats. But there is a big part of the Democrat Party that is against giving our intelligence officers the tools necessary to protect America.
We expect many loud expressions of unhappiness about these comments on the Senate floor Monday.
The Milwaukie Journal-Sentinel editorially urges the presidential candidates to talk about issues that have special importance to the Midwest and Wisconsin. From "What Wisconsin wants to hear from candidates":
The jobs have been bleeding away for a while, jobs that pay an average annual wage of $46,000, with benefits.
The culprit, depending on whom you're talking to, is global economics, new trade deals and our own inflexibility. The solution is to become more competitive. So how will you help us do that?
Congress, of which you three are members, allowed a research and development tax credit to expire. According to the National Association of Manufacturers, 11,000 companies used that tax credit. And because it lapsed, they are paying $9 billion more in taxes.
Gov. Jim Doyle has proposed a state tax credit for R&D. But is that enough? How would you help displaced workers? Simply, what precisely are the elements of your national manufacturing policy, keeping in mind that the rest of the United States lost 3.4 million manufacturing jobs between 1998 and 2007?
Other issues demanding attention, the Journal-Sentinel says, are health care, alternative energy, Great Lakes management and water shortages, transportation and education.
While many of the paper's questions represent policy views not shared here at the NAM, they're still credible inquiries that we, too, would like to hear the candidates answer. Congratulations and thank you to the Journal-Sentinel for raising them.
Now that the excitement of Super Tuesday has passed, we should remember the kinds of policies and principles at stake. Exhibit A: three pieces of legislation pending in Congress that would dramatically increase the liability of private companies for alleged acts of employment discrimination.
The first would resurrect the discredited idea of "comparable worth." The second would add various sexual orientations to the classifications protected from employment discrimination. The third is a plaintiffs' bar wish list, aimed mostly at overturning cases it lost in the Supreme Court.
Too many politicians, backed by organized labor, are assiduously trying to bring the European labor model here to the United States, where it becomes almost impossible to fire lousy employees. As the French have experienced, this extreme level of workplace regulation discourages employers from hiring new workers, inevitably increasing the number of long-term unemployed, who then demand more and more government, tax-supported services.
Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green” fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded.
The benefits of biofuels have come under increasing attack in recent months, as scientists took a closer look at the global environmental cost of their production. These latest studies, published in the prestigious journal Science, are likely to add to the controversy.
Yeah, things just keep turning up. Like another less noticed item from Science, or rather, the prestigious Science.
Researchers have found a control mechanism in the western Pacific Ocean that seems to be protecting coral reefs from global warming. The discovery is a welcome bit of good news, the scientists say, because it suggests that some of the most diverse ecosystems in the world might not be in as much jeopardy as previously thought.
UPDATE (4:20 p.m.): Glenn Reynolds observes the following about the Science report: "It doesn't seem to address ethanol or methanol from waste biomass, though. Those should have a considerably more benign profile. Also, there are advantages to weakening OPEC even if there's no environmental benefit from doing so."
Time to take notes...or notebooks, as the case may be, as this week's "Cool Stuff Being Made" takes us to the Alexandria, Penn., factory of Mead School and Office Products, where paper is turned into a wide variety of notebooks. The company is a division of the Mead Corporation, the Ohio-based forest products and paper company, with a long and distinguished (and now diversified) history, which extends back to 1846.
Chris Fowler, manager of engineering, walks us through the production of what are more precisely known as Mead composition books, a standard for would-be scholars everywhere.
As per usual, we write our thanks to the Pennsylvania Cable Network for supplying us the documentary materials. And to watch more NAM videos, please go to the aptly named YouTube page, http://www.YouTube.com/namvideo.
By banning plastic bags, the Chinese show the wisdom and effectiveness of authoritarianism in responding to environmental crises, writes David Shearman, an Australian academic and environmentalist.
There must be open minds to look critically at liberal democracy. Reform must involve the adoption of structures to act quickly regardless of some perceived liberties. It is not that liberal democracy cannot react once it sees a threat, for example, the speedy response to a recent international financial emergency. If governments can recognise a financial emergency and in an instant move heaven and earth (and billions of dollars, pounds sterling and euros) to contain it, why are they unable to do the same in response to a global environmental emergency? Quite simply our system is seen to live and breathe by the present economic system; the problem is that living and breathing within the confines of the world ecological systems is contrary to the activity of progress and development as defined within liberal democracy.
The Chinese decision on shopping bags is authoritarian and contrasts with the voluntary non-effective solutions put forward in most Western democracies. We are going to have to look how authoritarian decisions based on consensus science can be implemented to contain greenhouse emissions. It is not that we do not tolerate such decisions in the very heart of our society, in wide range of enterprises from corporate empires to emergency and intensive care units. If we do not act urgently we may find we have chosen total liberty rather than life.
The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom lists China as 128th in the world, right in the pack with other environmentally enlightened regimes such as Ethiopia, Yemen, Guinea, Niger, Equatorial Guinea and Uzbekistan. All countries perfectly happy to imprison those who disagree with the consensus, or rather, dictatorship.
In this week's video highlights of "America's Business with Mike Hambrick," we hear from Rep. Zach Wamp (R-TN), an outspoken advocate of expanding nuclear energy in the United States as part of a multifaceted strategy of achieving energy security. Wamp argues:
"Let’s lead on this issue. Let’s advance nuclear, let’s solve the problems of the world. Let’s build energy technologies out of this country and export them to the world. Frankly, let’s lead on energy in the next 20 years the same way we lead on information in the last 20 years and we will preserve our way of life. But it means technology, not regulation."
Wamp also has some sharp criticisms for members of Congress who respond to America's energy challenges with the heavy hand of government, taxation and regulation.
In our second segment, we hear from Garrett Graff, author of The First Campaign, a look at how new technologies have reshaped the world of campaigning, politics and policy.
After getting my official press kit, I looked around to find the cavernous hall swarming with serious photographers and scribblers with official-looking notepads. With so much event coverage taking place, I was faced with two dilemmas: (1) how could I bring readers unique insi
From the White House transcript of President Bush's visit to Silverado Cable Co., a manufacturer of wire harnesses in Mesa, Arizona. 
National Association of Manufacturers President John Engler is headed to U.S. energy hot post today to speak to the
Remember how former Labor Secretary Robert Reich misrepresented a meeting he had at the National Association of Manufacturers, describing it as a room full of cigar-chomping industrialists who hissed him loudly?
Well, science and population surveys indicate the polar bears aren't endangered, as AEI resident scholar Kenneth P. Green explains in 
From the Lewiston Tribune, reprinted
It's hard to imagine Hollywood finding any heroic character elements in an American manufacturing executive, but 
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Looking for commentary on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement at 
To the readers of Colombia's largest daily circulation newspaper, 
Speaking at the National Association of Manufacturers this hour, Commerce Secretary Gutierrez said we should treat the pending free trade agreements with the same urgency as economic stimulus.
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Tough time for Eliot Spitzer's family. Good time for newspaper headline writers.
With the Oscars upon us, and Roy Scheider having danced, swum and acted his way off this mortal coil, we bring you this week's Friday Follies, a tribute with 
Members the group formerly known as the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, now the American Association for Justice, are being encouraged to pick up their continuing legal education credits on the slopes of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The 
Good, informative feature story in today's 
Drew Greenblatt at Marlin Steel Wire passes on a really fine article in the March issue of 
The Chicago Auto Show has another week to go? Wow. But on the other hand, we spent perhaps a total of seven hours there last week, just enough to orient us to the two exhibition halls -- 
