USA Today’s lead page one story today is “Industry donates to drug plan foes” focusing on the pharmaceutical industry. The sidebar looks at a related issue of generic pharmaceuticals competing with “biologic” drugs, “Industry donates to drug plan foes.”

Meanwhile, at The Examiner, columnist Tim Carney submits yet another dispatch about big business running the country, “How industry kidnapped Obama’s health ‘reform’.”

Well, good. Report those stories. The same stories…over and over…ad nauseum…refreshing them every quarter when new lobbying or campaign contribution reports are out.

But maybe there’s a different and equally important story to tell. Yes, it’s the one we’ve been harping on for three weeks now, but it’s valid and woefully underreported: the role of the trial attorneys in blocking medical malpractice reform or federal liability limits.

To repeat ourselves (over and over), we’ve yet to see any major newspaper or wire service or broadcast outlet report on the gathering of thousands of trial lawyers in San Francisco at the American Association for Justice’s summer convention, which ends today. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a key player in the Congressional health care debate, addressed a powerful special interest and political constituency, and no mainstream media cared. (With apologies to LegalNewsline.) The peripatetic Tim Kaine lights down in San Francisco for political purposes and nada.

So here’s a new angle. On September 24-25 the AAJ is holding a seminar and Continuing Legal Education session at The Venetian in Las Vegas, “Litigating Toxic Tort, Pharmaceutical, and Medical Device Cases Seminar.” It’s two days in which attorneys will be trained how to make the U.S. health care system more expensive. And they get CLE credit for it!

Just consider the morning session, 8:30 a.m. to noon, as listed on the agenda, which includes sessions on the hot new topic of Chinese drywall, discovery in the post-Levine world — that is, the opportunity for more lawsuits against drugmakers in state instead of federal courts — and being prepared when lawyers try to dismiss personal injury suits because of statutes of limitation or assumed risk.

The two-day schedule also includes sessions on how to more effectively sue the manufacturers of drugs and devices.

The list of faculty is revealing too, including an attorney who sued pharmaceutical companies on behalf of the attorney general of West Virginia, and a university research fellow, litigator and former staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Indeed, there’s a list of 13 attorneys who, if they succeed in their efforts and inculcating the session’s students, will drive up the costs of health care in America.

There’s big money being spent, political influence being wielded, and our nation’s health care costs being driven through the roof while medical innovation is inhibited. So here’s a story idea: “Personal injury lawyers work to drive up health care costs.”

It’s a reasonable expection, that journalists covering the health care beat should apply the same kind of scrutiny to the plaintiffs’ bar as they do to the pharmaceutical, hospital and insurance industries. How about it, USA Today? Page one, above the fold…

In our continuing series of grousing about the inadequate attention being paid to the trial lawyers’ convention in San Francisco, we note that Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, chairman of the National Democratic Committee, spoke to the American Association for Justice on Sunday.

Governor Kaine’s travels and divided duties have been a big political issue in Virginia, with the Republicans and media demanding the release of travel records. So you would think that Kaine’s cross-country travel to San Francisco to speak to a key political constituency, lobbying organization nd powerful opponent of health-care reform would be a big news item. Right?

Here’s the Richmond Times-Dispatch story from June 22 and the relevant paragraph, “Kaine travel for DNC is detailed“:

Kaine said yesterday that he might be going to San Francisco and Seattle for the rest of the weekend. He said he will perform both DNC and gubernatorial duties when he addresses the Latino organization La Raza in Chicago next Tuesday.

Might be going to San Francisco? Surprised the reporter and/or editor were satisfied with that non-answer.

With so much attention being turned in Oklahoma to the major tort reform legislation signed into law this by Gov. Brad Henry, the Wall Street Journal still sees an alliance among Oklahoma’s governor, attorney general, and the plaintiff’s bar. Henry just vetoed the Private Attorney Retention Sunshine Act, HB 2167. His veto message:

While HB 2167 is well intended and has many good provisions, the legislation potentially does more harm than good because of its unintended consequences. Many state agencies could easily comply with the contracting restrictions in question, but for those agencies, such as Oklahoma Department of Transportation, that must respond quickly to a lawsuit or that must execute a large volume of legal contracts by virtue of their statutory responsibilities, such mandates would impair their ability to respond to pressing legal issues or to timely complete crucial projects, causing undue delays, increasing costs to the state and causing them to miss court-imposed deadlines. The Legislature should consider legislation that recognizes the unique statutory responsibilities of such adversely-impacted agencies.

From today’s WSJ editorial, “Oklahoma’s Tort Secrets“:

Whenever a governor vetoes a bill because it would have “unintended consequences,” you know it deserves a closer look. So it is in Oklahoma, where Democratic Governor Brad Henry said precisely that while turning down a bill that would have shed light on the state’s pay-to-sue racket.

That’s the unseemly state practice of hiring outside lawyers to sue private companies on a contingency fee basis. The Oklahoma bill would have required more transparency and limitations on these deals. More to the point, the bill would have offered a close look at how this game has been played by Mr. Henry’s probable successor, Democratic Attorney General Drew Edmondson.

Mr. Edmondson has become a player in the growing national scandal of attorneys general who retain private plaintiffs lawyers on a contingency fee basis to prosecute cases on the state’s behalf. Then these lawyers make campaign donations for the AG’s re-election.

We note the Private Attorney Retention Sunshine Act is model legislation developed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, and the legislation has become law in Texas, North Dakota, Colorado, Kansas and Virginia. A veto message meant to persuade would cite negative consequences of the law’s enactment in those states.

In other government/trial lawyers news, from the AAJ Convention blog:

The American Association for Justice is pleased to welcome Governor Tim Kaine as the keynote speaker at AAJ’s Leadership Breakfast. For nearly twenty years, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine practiced civil rights law in the capitol city of Richmond.

Kaine is now chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

One of the nation’s leading legislative advocates of developing America’s abundant offshore energy resources is state Sen. Frank Wagner (R-Virginia Beach), A member of the NAM Board of Directors, Wagner testified yesterday in his capacity as a lawmaker at a U.S. House Natural Resources Committee hearing, “”Offshore Drilling: State Perspectives.”‘

Very solid arguments, reflecting the high level of interest in Virginia is the economic activity that would result from Outer Continental Shelf oil and natural gas development. Senator Wagner emphasized that OCS energy is just part of a comprehensive energy strategy. From  Wagner’s testimony:

We in Virginia recognize that there is no one silver bullet to solve our nation’s energy crisis. The solution must be thought of as a silver shotgun shell, with each pellet as important as the next.
Opening additional OCS area is one pellet. Expansion of nuclear power and revisiting prior decisions on breeder reactors is another. Conservation, energy efficiency, development of renewables and alternative energies are pellets, and the list goes on.

Three years ago in Virginia we passed a comprehensive energy plan, which I authored, with bipartisan support. The Virginia Energy Plan includes all the forms of energy just mentioned as well as the expansion of energy research and development.

However, we do not hold the keys, Mr. Chairman. You in Washington do. Please, Mr. Chairman, unlock the doors. One has been opened with MMS action to date with regards to Virginia’s OCS. Open that door for other states that want to follow Virginia. Facilitate the expansion of our nuclear industry. Open up more areas for energy development. Continue to expand the good work to date on funding energy R&D. Expand our efforts to use our existing energy more wisely. We as a nation are at a critical juncture where the health of our economy and the health of our planet are intertwined.

The MMS action to date Senator Wagner mentions is the MMS five-year leasing plan with potential lease sales occurring as early as 2012.

Also in the committee record is a letter from Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (and new DNC Chairman) to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, asking Interior to postpone the proposed Lease Sale 220 given Salazar’s decision to extend public comment on the MMS plan for OCS energy development.

Officialdom has been saying no to energy security for years and years and years now. Last year represented a major breakthrough in the expiration of the Congressional moratorium on expanded OCS drilling and President Bush’s decision to end the executive order banning it. The state is set for action, so let’s act.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine gave his State of the State address to the Legislature yesterday, an event reported in today’s Washington Post under the headlines, “Economic Recovery A Priority For Kaine — Governor Pushes For Green Jobs as Legislature Opens.”

“Green jobs” is a recurring theme for Governors and Legislatures as the 2009 sessions get under way across the country, an emphasis on transforming the economy in the pursuit of new employment, national leadership and a sense of purpose. (See the relevant passage from Kaine’s speech.)

It’s this decade’s “smart growth.”

Remember smart growth? A dozen years or so ago, governors and states were touting their smart growth agendas, claiming that a new emphasis on planning, urban density and environmental sensitivity would create a better world, with shorter commutes, more time for the family and simply a better, less-polluting way of life. Initiatives, planning groups, grants, spending and spending and spending resulted. It was a moment in the sun for land-use planners, academicians, and those who wanted to direct the economy away from the vicissitudes of the free market. (The National Governors Association was a fan, and Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening led the way, in the process creating a post-governor gig for himself.)

Now?

The advantage of smart growth as a political platform was that no one really knew what it meant, and its lack of specificity allowed politicians to claim victory no matter the outcome.

Today, “green jobs” is serving the same function for elected officials. Yes, we all want jobs, and good jobs, and environmentally sensitive jobs. Sustainability, etc., great!

But without a clear definition, “green jobs” lacks accountability, efficiency and ultimately public support. It could well prove itself to be a fad, doing nothing to improve the long-term competitiveness of the U.S. economy.