Lots of reaction to the remarks by Senator Barack Obama to the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board in January saying that the coal industry and utilities could never build a new coal-fired power plant because his Administration’s policies would “bankrupt” them.

The key quote from Sen. Obama:

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted. That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in wind, solar, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches. The only thing that I have said with respect to coal, I haven’t been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as a ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it.

The reaction from Gov. Palin, campaigning in Marietta, Ohio.

Now a couple points on this: One is that here again, why is the audio tape just now surfacing? This interview was given to San Francisco folks many, many months ago. You should have known about this, so that you would have better decision-making information as you go into the voting booth.

The value of the information is unquestionable, but the interview had been on the Chronicle’s SFGate website since January, which hardly seems like suppression. Instead, it appears that the Chronicle’s reporters and editors missed the news. Hardly a surprise: In California, killing off productive sectors of the economy is considered sport. They probably just didn’t recognize that Senator Obama’s position was all that unusual. Candidates and Congress demonize and single out the oil industry for punitive tax and regulatory policies, what makes coal that special?

On the other hand, you would have expected someone from the RNC or McCain campaign to listen to the interview at some point and identify the issue, perhaps bringing it up in a debate or a campaign ad. We used to hear about something called “opposition research.” Apparently it’s gone out of fashion.

The Obama campaign responded, as reported in the Charleston (W.V.) Daily Mail, calling the remarks “wildly edited” to take them out of context. Really? “So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them…” From a campaign statement:

The point Obama is making is that we need to transition from coal-burning power plants built with old technology to plants built with advanced technologies-and that is exactly the action that will be incentivized under a cap-and-trade program.

So that’s what’s happening to all those banks and investment houses in the financial crisis. They’re “incentivizing” themselves.

Forecasting a possible labor agenda under an Obama Administration the WSJ outlines today that includes many familiar items — the Employee Free Choice Act — and some not so familiar, including the RESPECT Act, as well some lesser known provisions within the card check bill such as language to impose binding arbitration for first contracts. The column’s summary of the mandatory arbitration provisions is the most concise argument against the card-check bill that’s out there.

Another labor-friendly provision of the Employee Free Choice Act is mandatory arbitration. Under current law, labor and management are required to bargain in good faith but aren’t obliged to reach an agreement. Under Mr. Obama’s proposal, if the parties can’t settle on a contract within 120 days, the dispute goes to an arbitration panel which can impose a contract that is binding for two years.

 

As a practical matter, contracts typically involve dozens of provisions dealing with wages as well as seniority, grievances, overtime, transfers and promotions. Rarely is this accomplished in four months. The provision would notably shift bargaining power to unions, which would have an incentive to run out the 120-day clock and let an arbitrator impose a contract that is bound to include much of what unions demand.

Other points included in the column:

• Senator Obama’s support for the RESPECT Act. This seemingly innocuous bill would drastically amend the National Labor Relations Act to change the legal definition of a supervisor. The result would place many supervisors in the same bargaining unit as their subordinates. As clear conflict of interest;
• The Senator would bar companies from replacing striking workers; 
• Sen. Obama’s plans would also force state and local governments to recognize union leaders as the exclusive bargaining agent for first responders instead of allowing these important public servants to negotiate directly with their employers.
• Additionally, the column states that Sen. Obama is against states’ rights to pass Right to Work laws that protect employees that refuse to join a union or pay union dues.

In other related news, House Republican Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) opines in Townhall.com other plans to implement big labor’s agenda. His piece focuses on the impact of EFCA and Sen. Obama’s position on the bill. Boehner speculates that if EFCA passes “With the stroke of a pen, a time-honored right [to secret ballot union elections] would be signed away into the pages of history.”

Last night during the final Presidential debate you may have heard the reference to a little known piece of legislation called the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. In responding to a question on abortion issues and judges, Senator Barack Obama briefly discussed the Supreme Court decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber and the legislation that was introduced days after the decision.

In the Ledbetter Decision, the Supreme Court reaffirmed current law by confirming prior Court decisions to uphold time limits in filing discrimination charges. This timely filing of charges is important to promptly investigate real instances of unlawful discrimination in the workplace.

Senator Obama references efforts to “overturn” the decision in the Senate, referring to the legislation introduced as “an effort to provide better guidance to the courts.”

In reality the scope of bill that was considered in the Senate, commonly referred to as the ‘Ledbetter Bill’, goes far beyond the issues raised in the Ledbetter decision and removes an important incentive to prompt identification and resolution of potential discrimination claims.

Although, Senator McCain didn’t fully respond to Senator Obama’s points on this issue, he was correct when he explained that the Ledbetter Bill was a “trial lawyer’s dream.”

Yesterday, Former Democratic Presidential Candidate, Senator and brave World War II B-24 pilot, George McGovern was interviewed on Fox News to discuss the card check bill. Senator McGovern defended the current secret ballot process for deciding labor union representation, but insisted that doing away with this process (as is the case under a card check scheme) is simply not the American way. An excerpt of the interview is below:

JON SCOTT (Fox News): Barack Obama’s supports this plan. He is one of the co-sponsors of the bill. Have you spoken to him?

 

George McGovern: I support Barack Obama. everybody knows that. I have gone public about it. But when it comes time to vote, I do not want to have to do that by signing a card that someone hands me publicly where everyone would know what I did in terms of my vote. I want that to be in private and I think that workers should hang on to the private secret polling place which they are now guaranteed but would not be guaranteed under this so-called free choice system. It is not a free choice if you have somebody pressing you to sign a card if you do it without the privacy of the polling place.

Full transcript here.

To both their credit, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain have both been very clear about their positions on the Employee Free Choice Act, the card-check legislation that would eliminate secret ballots in workplace elections over union representation. But it wasn’t until just this week that we saw much media coverage of their stated views on the issue, stated at public events, that is.

Obama is a cosponsor who voted for cloture on H.R. 800, i.e., to move the bill ahead in the Senate. McCain is an opponent and voted no.

Senator McCain in Virginia Beach, Virginia yesterday highlighted Senator Obama’s position on card check in his speech. McCain said that along with Congressional leadership Senator Obama is planning to “…take away your right to vote by secret ballot in labor elections…” CNN even did a fact check on this sound bite and confirmed what the bill will do, along with the positions and previous votes of the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates.

In case Senator Obama’s position isn’t clear enough, here is a clip of his comments on the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act last year before the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO.

The Examiner newspaper editorializes today on the tort reform records of the presidential and vice presidential candidates, asking a question of great interest to the business community: “Will either party’s presidential ticket keep a lid on the lawyers’ greed?”

The editorial uses NAM’s “Key Vote” voting records to assess Sens. Obama, McCain and Biden, taking special note of the most striking record — Biden’s. Of the 13 votes on tort reform and legal issues rated by the National Association of Manufacturers over the last four Congresses, Sen. Biden voted with the trial lawyers all 13 times. For business and the consumers, in other words, an 0-for-13 record.

And for the top of the ticket? From the editorial:

Obama’s Senate voting record is briefer but no less worrisome. The only time he voted right was on the Class Action Fairness Act, which makes it harder to move suits from state to state in search of a particularly lenient judge. That bill passed the Senate with a 72-26 bipartisan majority, so Obama’s vote made no difference. Before the final vote, however, he voted three times for “poison pill” amendments that would have eviscerated the bill’s effectiveness.

John McCain voted with the reformers nine of the 13 times cited by NAM, but occasionally sided with the trial lawyers on “patients’ rights.” His record gives evidence of a more balanced, case-by-case approach. Sarah Palin, meanwhile, comes from the state that the Pacific Research Institute ranks as having the second most favorable legal climate in the country. That’s one reason businesses like locating in Alaska — much as they will more frequently choose to come to the United States if we elect a president who understands the need to stop class-action lawsuit abuses while the rest of the world goes the other way.

You can see the NAM voting records legal reform here:

• Obama
• Biden
• McCain

The American Enterprise Institute’s Ted Frank has also written on the subject of Sen. Obama as a tort reformer, examining his votes on the Class Action Fairness Act. From the Examiner, “How bipartisan is Obama?”

From the liberal The New Republic’s well-done blog, The Plank, a post from Robert Gordon and James Kvaal, “Impossible to Pigeonhole“:

The speech once again demonstrated why Obama is so hard to pigeonhole ideologically.  He forcefully pressed classic Clintonian themes of government reform and personal responsibility, far more effectively than John Kerry ever did.  And he also dipped down to “second-tier issues” like family leave and bankruptcy (especially nice to hear after Joe Biden — who supported bankruptcy reform — joined the ticket), issues where “small” fixes can make a big difference.

But at the same time, Obama also made clear that “now is not the time for small plans.”  He offered a sophisticated defense of government, arguing that “what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves.”  And he went on to outline an agenda for health care and energy more ambitious and activist than Democrats have heard from their nominee in years.

The speech also had a serious populist edge.  Based on a quick count, Obama mentioned “companies” and “corporations” eight times – all but once (helping auto companies retool) in a critical tone.  In contrast, Bill Clinton mentioned them only four times in two speeches in 1992 and 1996.

The striking shift over time, not surprisingly, is that energy has replaced education as a top-tier issue.  Education and schools were mentioned 27 times in 1996 and 20 times in 2000, but only eight times in 2004 and 10 times tonight.  At the same time, the words “energy,” “oil,” and “gas” were not mentioned at all in the 1990s and only once in 2000, but they were used six times in 2004 and nine times tonight.

The anti-employer rhetoric has been a consistent and troubling theme throughout the Democratic presidential primaries. So much of the motivation for the raise-taxes rhetoric seems almost punitive, the desire to stick it to jobs-creators because of profits. What’s next? Defining some companies as patriotic, others as unpatriotic? It’s been suggested — more than suggested, endorsed.

With oil prices at record high levels Americans are more eager than ever to find affordable, alternative fuels. House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), a guest on this week’s edition of “America’s Business with Mike Hambrick” radio program, says nuclear power will be an important part of our nation’s future energy supply.

Clyburn’s state is already pro-nuclear. More than half of South Carolina’s electricity came from nuclear power plants in 2004, according to the Energy Information Administration. “I do believe that if we are going to…ever wean ourselves off of foreign oil we’re going to have to do it with nuclear in the mix,” Clyburn says.

Commerce Undersecretary Chris Padilla is responsible for helping formulate America’s international trade policy. He will appear on America’s Business to talk about why a pending trade agreement with Colombia is important to the U.S. economy and job creation and why lawmakers are wrong to block passage of that deal.

Our radio program will also host one of the biggest supporters of free trade in Congress – Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT). The National Association of Manufacturers recently honored Matheson for his unwavering support of free trade. Like Padilla, Matheson says Congress should approve the Colombia deal. The agreement will open that market to American goods and services and help support an important South American ally, he says.

“We should be rewarding Colombia for the progress it has made – the move to democracy, the move to a secure situation in that country, the move to respect human rights,” he says. “It’s been such a great success story.”

Who will presumptive presidential nominees Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain pick as running mates? National Association of Manufacturers Executive Vice President Jay Timmons, who has been deeply involved in the national political scene for years, will give us his take on who could be vice president.

In our regular segments, Renee Giachino of American Justice Partnership gives us the latest on tort reform and commentator Hank Cox recalls “The Way It Was.” And our program will close with “The Last Word” from the National Association of Manufacturers President Gov. John Engler.

For more about “America’s Business with Mike Hambrick” and to listen to the program online, please click here. And for video highlights and more, check out http://www.americasbusiness.org.

From Senator Obama’s energy platform, “New Energy for America,” the section, “Diversify Our Energy Sources”:

Develop and Deploy Clean Coal Technology. Carbon capture and storage technologies hold enormous potential to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as we power our economy with domestically produced and secure energy. As a U.S. Senator, Obama has worked tirelessly to provide incentives to accelerate private sector investment in commercial scale zero-carbon coal facilities. In order to maximize the speed with which we advance this critical technology, Obama will instruct DOE to enter public private partnerships to develop 5 “first of a kind” commercial scale coal-fired plants with carbon capture and sequestration.

These points are consistent, quite consistent, with legislation introduced last year by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), S. 2323, the Carbon Capture and Storage Techology Act of 2007. Republican Sens. Arlen Specter and Ted Stevens were the two cosponsors (not Senator Obama). Among other things, the bill would ” establish 3-5 ‘first-of-a-kind’ coal-fired demonstration plants with carbon capture.”

Senator Kerry chaired a Commerce subcommittee hearing on the bill last November:

“If the United States continues to turn a blind eye to dangerous emissions, we will be forced to climb an even steeper hill in battling global climate change,” said Senator John Kerry. “Carbon capture and storage technologies hold enormous potential to reduce our emissions as we power our economy. This legislation and today’s hearing offer a chance to embrace smart solutions the American way: by harnessing technology to help combat the climate change threat.”

Couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

And it’s not even that up-to-date.

But following the post yesterday about Sen. Obama’s support in 2005 for an amendment promoting research in coal-to-liquid technology (Fischer-Tropf), a reader points us to this L.A. Times article from June 2007, “Obama Yields to Greener Side.”

With pressure mounting on Democratic presidential candidates to adopt hard-line positions on curbing global warming, Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday backtracked from his long-held support for a controversial plan to promote the use of coal as an alternative fuel to power motor vehicles.

The Illinois Democrat made his announcement with little fanfare – in a dryly worded and technical-sounding e-mail sent late in the day from his Senate office to environmental advocacy groups – and did not mention the issue during an appearance at a Brentwood gas station designed to shore up his green bona fides with a renewed call to nationalize California’s ambitious goals for reducing carbon levels in fuel.

At issue is legislation, introduced in January, that would give the coal industry tax breaks and other incentives to harness the abundant natural resource as an alternative fuel. A bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by Obama and Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.), promoted the idea as a way to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil.

But environmentalists charged that coal would produce a dirty fuel and exacerbate global warming, putting Obama in the awkward position of balancing the desires of an industry with a strong presence in his home state against those of a key voting bloc in the Democratic presidential primaries.

No mention of coal-to-liquid in the candidate’s latest energy position paper.