Blog - Articles Tagged 'Environment'

• S.1 – American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

A bill to create jobs, restore economic growth, and strengthen America’s middle class through measures that modernize the nation’s infrastructure, enhance America’s energy independence, expand educational opportunities, preserve and improve affordable health care, provide tax relief, and protect those in greatest need, and for other purposes.

• S.2 – Middle Class Opportunity Act of 2009

A bill to improve the lives of middle class families and provide them with greater opportunity to achieve the American dream.

• S.3 – Homeowner Protection and Wall Street Accountability Act of 2009
  
  A bill to protect homeowners and consumers by reducing foreclosures, ensuring the availability of credit for homeowners, businesses, and consumers, and reforming the financial regulatory system, and for other purposes.

• S.4 – Comprehensive Health Reform Act of 2009

A bill to guarantee affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans, and for other purposes.

• S.5 – Cleaner, Greener, and Smarter Act of 2009

A bill to improve the economy and security of the United States by reducing the dependence of the United States on foreign and unsustainable energy sources and the risks of global warming, and for other purposes.

• S.6 – Restoring America’s Power Act of 2009

A bill to restore and enhance the national security of the United States.

• S.7 – Education Opportunity Act of 2009

A bill to expand educational opportunities for all Americans by increasing access to high-quality early childhood education and after school programs, advancing reform in elementary and secondary education, strengthening mathematics and science instruction, and ensuring that higher education is more affordable, and for other purposes.

• S.8 – Returning Government to the American People Act

A bill to return the Government to the people by reviewing controversial “midnight regulations” issued in the waning days of the Bush Administration.

• S.9 – Stronger Economy, Stronger Borders Act of 2009

A bill to strengthen the United States economy, provide for more effective border and employment enforcement, and for other purposes.

• S.10 – Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009

A bill to restore fiscal discipline and begin to address the long-term fiscal challenges facing the United States, and for other purposes.

TAPPED broke this list on Tuesday, and they have some more information on some of these bills from a Democratic aide on the hill.

The full text of these bills hasn’t been published by the Government Printing Office yet, but it should be available within the next 24 hours or so. Check back at the “see full bill text” link on the OpenCongress bill pages. In the meantime, you might want to start tracking some of these with your “My OpenCongress” account (login or register) to be alerted to any legislative action that is taken and every new blog post or news article is published about them.

These first 10 Senate bills are mainly symbolic. They’re a statement of the Democrats’ legislative priorities at this point for the next two years, but any legislative action that’s taken on these measures could very well come in a different form. The first ten Senate bills of the last session included some measures that were enacted (minimum wage increase, ethics reform), some that were vetoed by President Bush (funding for stem cell research) and some that were hotly debated but never passed Congress (comprehensive immigration reform).

UPDATE: Way more info on all these bills from the Democratic Policy Committee. Be sure to check it out.

The AIG bonus scandal is burning through the media universe, but Congress is also continuing work on the legislative agenda. Some of the big pieces in the coming months will be on the energy front. New details were recently released about a proposed renewable energy standard (which would require utilities to produce a percentage of their power via renewable sources, like solar and wind). How that RES bill will move through the House and, more importantly, the Senate, is a bit confusing and very political. So, here’s an OpenCongress primer on the looming energy/climate change battle.

For starters, let’s look at the big-name players in the game. In the House, you’re talking about Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He waged a successful campaign to uproot former Energy Committee Chair Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) at the start of the 111th Congress, and there’s general agreement that climate change legislation was one reason why. Waxman is an ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and will play a major role in shaping any energy or climate change legislation in the House. Also keep an eye on Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who introduced an RES bill last month.

In the Senate, things start to get complicated. Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) is chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Bingaman introduced renewable energy standard legislation in the 110th Congress, which was removed from a larger energy bill amid Republican opposition. Bingaman wants to proceed on separate bills for RES, for energy in general, and for climate change (likely in the form of a cap-and-trade bill).

Until recently, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) seemed to be fine with that idea. After President Barack Obama called for climate change legislation during his address to Congress, however, Reid changed his tune. He is now pushing for a comprehensive bill that will include all three elements. Bingaman has argued that each piece of the agenda will require finesse to reach the 60-vote Senate cloture threshold, and he’s reluctant to combine the different objectives.

The wildcard in all this might be the Obama Administration itself. In February, an Obama energy adviser not-so-subtly warned that the Environmental Protection Agency may impose regulations on emissions from cars and smokestacks (as a result of a 2007 Supreme Court ruling). That’s an option with little appeal to lawmakers, and one that might encourage them to work quickly to pass climate change legislation, a renewable energy standard, or both.

You can stay tuned to this space for more, and you can always track what’s happening in these issue areas through OpenCongress. If you’re a registered user, check out climate change, energy or more than 4,000 other issues.

Image (used under a Creative Commons license) by Chandra Marsono.

House Democrats introduced a gigantic cap-and-trade climate change bill to Congress last week and it’s getting it’s first big action TODAY. At 1 pm EST, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will begin the mark-up process. You can tune in to a live broadcast here. This committee work is where the most important tweaking takes generally place. Follow Congress Matters for mark-up liveblogging.

Apparently, Republicans are planning on submitting 450 amendments during the markup. A lot of them look like classic “gotcha” amendments, aka “poison-pills.”

H.R. 2454 – American Clean Energy And Security Act of 2009

After seeing the absurd list of amendments Republicans submitted to the American Clean Energy And Security Act during committee markup, it’s pretty obvious that they are going to try to delay the process however they can.

One dilatory tactic Republicans can use would require the full 946-page bill and its 450 Republican-offered amendments to be read aloud in full by committee staff. Generally, the committee dispenses with the section-by-section reading of the bill during the amendment process under a unanimous consent agreement. But if Republicans object to the motion to dispense with the reading of the sections and amendments, the committee has no choice but to proceed with the reading.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats have found a novel solution – they have hired a speed reader as a member of their staff, and he’s standing by, ready to rock the mic if need be. The Wall Street Journal reports:

A committee spokeswoman said the young man, who’s doing door duty at the hearing as he awaits his possible call to the microphone, was hired to help career staff. After years of practice, the panel’s clerks can certainly read rapidly, but she says the speed reader is a lot faster.

“Judging by the size of the amendments, I can read a page about every 34 seconds,” said the newly hired “staff assistant” who declined to give his name. Based on that count, it would take around nine hours to read the entire bill.

Personally, I’m looking forward to the part on hydrochlorofluorocarbons.

UPDATE: This happened:

I was expecting this to take even longer, but apparently Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee backed off their threats and posturing to delay progress on the Waxman-Markley climate change bill and it has been approved by the committee.

Kate Sheppard at Grist reports:

After months of grueling hearings and deliberations, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill by a vote of 33-25 on Thursday evening. It’s a landmark occasion, the first time a serious climate bill has made it this far in the House.

The vote fell largely along party lines, with only one Republican voting yes—Mary Bono Mack (Calif.)—and four Democrats voting no—John Barrow (Ga.), Jim Matheson (Utah), Charlie Melancon (La.), and Mike Ross (Ark.). But the Dems who did support the bill represent diverse constituencies—coal states, industrial districts, and agricultural areas, as well as coastal regions.

As the bill was debated this week, Republicans on the committee offered dozens of amendments intended to weaken it or kill it entirely, but Democrats stood united behind the bill, approving only one insignificant GOP amendment. That’s thanks to hard work done ahead of time by Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and his bill coauthor, Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who negotiated at length with moderate Democrats to craft a bill they could support. (Most Republicans had made it clear that their opposition to the bill was nonnegotiable.)

Democrats want to bring the bill to the full House floor sometime before Congress’s month-long August recess. First it has to move through several other committees, where, Sheppard notes, it will face many attempts at fundamental alteration and watering-down from both Democrats and Republicans. The Energy and Commerce Committee’s approval belies the bill’s actual vulnerability. For example, Congress Daily ($) reports that some Democrats that voted for the bill in the committee did so with plans to try to weaken it during full House consideration, for example by “softening the bill’s cap-and-trade 2020 emission reduction target.” Environmental groups like Greenpeace have already ditched the bill because, they say, its 17 percent reduction target by 2020 is too weak considering the climatic situation.

The bill as passed by the Energy and Commerce Committee is already much weaker than what many environmental advocate and many in the global community would prefer. The Economist, for example, points out that 85 percent of the carbon pollution permits under the bill’s cap-and-trade scheme will be given away for free rather than being sold at auction. This violates the basic “polluter pays” concept of environmental accounting that would protect the public from the costs of the program, and it takes away hundreds of billions that President Obama has been figuring into his budget numbers. Obama had been calling for 100 percent of the permits to be sold at auction with a big chuck of the revenues going into a program to help consumers pay for energy cost increases that will ensue form the legislation.

The bill’s supporters in Congress, of course, say that providing the permits for free is necessary to win the votes of members of Congress from coal-producing states and the like. But the end result is a bill that raises the deficit beyond President Obama’s budget outline (which means more taxes at some future point) and increases energy costs for consumers while giving massive handouts to big business.

Well, this one’s definitely worth following as it moves through the legislative maze. You can track the bill on OpenCongress by subscribing to its actions RSS feed or going to the bill page and adding it to your “My OpenCongress” account (click the “+” button on the tab at the top of the page). You can also subscribe through OpenCongress to RSS feeds for relevant news and blog coverage of the bill.

Marketplace’s Paddy Hirsch goes over the basics of cap and trade. This is the, essentially, the policy mechanism at the center of the climate change bill going through Congress, the American Clean Energy And Security Act of 2009.

Meet Cap ’n Trade from Marketplace on Vimeo.

Blue Dog Rep. Gene Taylor [D, MS-4] sums up coal-state Democrats’ opposition to the big energy bill in Congress, the American Clean Energy And Security Act of 2009:

I think of the whole cap-and-trade idea as a Ponzi scheme. I don’t like the idea that one factory is cleaner than it has to be so that another a factory is dirtier than it should be, because historically that factory that’s dirtier than it should be ends up in the South. … If the vote was today, I’d vote “no.”

via NYT.

The two food safety bills in Congress – H.R. 875 and H.R. 759 – are very unpopular. Both bills, people say, would put small organic farms and CSAs out of business by forcing them to jump through the same set of hoops as big agribusiness companies like Monsanto.

Both bill pages on OpenCongress show the level of opposition, which is significantly stronger for H.R. 875. The section-by-section bill text comments left by users are especially helpful for understanding the perceived problems with the legislation. Scroll over the text on that page and click “comments” where there is a speech bubble in the right-hand column to view the analysis.

But apparently neither of those bills will be used as the framework for Congress’ attempt at improving food safety. The House Energy and Commerce Committee just released a discussion draft of a new bill, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, that, with the blessings of Rep. Henry Waxman [D, CA-30], will be the one that moves forward in Congress. It’s based largely off the unpopular (but less so) H.R. 759.

The official committee announcement, bill summary and discussion draft can be gotten here. Below is the initial summary from the food politics blog La Vida Locavore:

* Gives the FDA mandatory recall authority.

* Requires all food producers to register with the FDA & pay a registration fee of $1000. It applies to both US and foreign producers and will fund the FDA’s activities.

* Requires companies to prepare food safety plans. The FDA can audit them and can specify minimum requirements.

* The FDA is required to issue food safety regulations for production and harvesting of fruits and vegetables. This worries me A LOT. The California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement provided “safety” guidelines for leafy greens that were absolutely idiotic and harmful. That is what we DON’T want to see happen here. However, that part will be hammered out by the FDA, not by Congress. It’s just something to pay attention to for the future.

* Inspections: High risk facilities must be inspected every 6-18 mos. Lower risk facilities can be inspected every 18 mos to 3 years. Warehouses must be inspected every 3-4 years.

* Traceability:

FDA would be required to issue regulations that require food producers, manufacturers, processors, transporter, or holders to maintain the full pedigree of the origin and previous distribution history of the food and to link that history with the subsequent distribution history of the food; and to establish an interoperable record to ensure fast and efficient traceback (current law permits facilities to hold a record in any format – paper or electronic – making efficient tracing of foods difficult for FDA). Prior to issuing such regulations, FDA would be required to conduct a feasibility study, public meetings, and a pilot project.

Farms that sell directly to consumers or restaurants are exempted from this provision.

* The bill does NOT include: A requirement that companies test for pathogens and report positive results to the FDA. THIS SHOULD BE ADDED to the bill, if we’re going to have a strong and effective bill