David Waldman aka KagroX wrote an excellent post at Daily Kos last night about just how potentially big a net the theory underlying this bill could cast. Very wide, wide enough to get a whale.
Again I quote him.
" Take the rape provisions out, and you're left with a bill that paves the way for using the tax code to select every American's health care options for them, direct from Washington."
Here's his piece "H.R. 3 hides even bigger dangers than redefinition of rape"
The bill lays the groundwork for the radical right to target every social and economic advance that they don't like. And they don't like much. They are redefining the purpose of the tax code. Taxes are meant to raise money and to apportion fairly the burdens and benefits of government. Taxes have been used to promote innovation like the R&D credit. Or not like the oil depletion allowance or agricultural subsidies. The tax code has been used to allow religious groups to sustain their mission - to worship and to make the world a better place.
The tax code as we can see from the church/synagogue/mosque friendly provisions have long served social goals as well. But that can now be used to go after social goods.
In H.R. 3, Republicans revive the mid-90s "Istook amendment" theory of the fungibility of money to include under their definition of "taxpayer funding for abortion" all tax deductions, credits or other benefits for the cost of health insurance, when that insurance includes under its plan coverage for abortion.
So if a company provides health care benefits for its employees, and the plan they pay for includes coverage for abortion, the company becomes ineligible for the normal federal tax deductions and credits that are the usual reward for providing benefits. That's a gigantic tax increase. If you pay for your own coverage directly, no deductions, credits, etc. for you, either, if the plan you select offers abortion coverage. Whether you or someone on your plan ever gets one or not. All deductions associated with your health care costs are disallowed.
That, apparently, will impact approximately 87 percent of private insurance plans on the market today.
That would be a huge tax increase. So they would be using a tax increase to bring about one social change they have long pursued. But they can do the same in many other areas. What are some of them?
Basically everyone but more after the fold from me and I quote David first.
Weekly Mulch: Fighting the Joe Millers of the World
by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Joe Miller, Sarah Palin's choice candidate for one of Alaska's Senate seats, does not believe in climate change. That didn't bother Alaska voters: this week, Miller bested Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the state's Republican primary. If that weren't worrisome enough, it also emerged that the fossil fuel industry spent eight times more than environmental groups on lobbying in 2009, the year the House passed the climate change bill. It's been a bad year already for environmental causes, and as the November election edges closer, progressives might want to start working overtime to regain momentum on climate and energy issues.
Seven months out from the midterms, electoral anxieties are hampering potential climate change legislation. Election years are a time to pass easy, politically popular policies, and climate change legislation does not fit that bill. For the Senate's climate change legislation to have a chance, Congress has to sweep through the financial overhaul faster than any bill in its history. Otherwise, politicians' focus will shift to the midterms before they pass a climate bill.
The next international climate negotiations are just weeks after the November midterms, and failure to pass a bill now means that the United States could show up once again without a solid platform from which to negotiate. After working on climate legislation for over a year, leaders on the Hill and in the executive branch are getting nervous.
At this point, any climate legislation that reaches the president's desk will have far less impact than advocates once hoped, but Congress can still pass a bill that moves the country forward on this issue.
Tick tock
Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsay Graham (R-SC), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) are working on a bill. On Thursday, Sen. Graham half-promised it would come a couple of weeks after Congress' spring recess. That's not the end of the process, though, as Kate Sheppard reports for Mother Jones. The Environmental Protection Agency will also take a crack at the bill and weigh in on its cost and overall environmental benefits.
That process could take a month and a half, Sheppard says, and on Capitol Hill, Democrats are getting antsy. "If the legislation isn't ready to go to the floor by Memorial Day, it probably won't make it there at all this year," Sheppard writes.
Connie Hedegaard, the outgoing Danish Minister of Climate and Energy who hosted this year's international climate negotiations at Copenhagen, also noticed the unease in a series of meetings with environmental leaders rangingfrom Todd Stern, the U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change, to Carol Browner, head of the White House Climate and Energy Office. Hedegaard told Inter Press Service (IPS) that "she got the sense that they are not sure "what will fly and what will not fly or when" with regards to U.S. climate legislation."
"I definitely get the feeling that if [the legislation] fails this time then it would not come until after the midterm elections," Hedegaard said.
That means the U.S. would go to the next round of international negotiations empty handed. As IPS notes, midterm elections "take place Nov. 2. The Cancun climate conference starts Nov. 29."
Energy reduction is key
As far as anyone can tell, the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill is not going to do a great job limiting carbon emissions. Don't expect that to change between now and May, or whenever the bill comes to a vote. In the absence of a real cap on carbon, Grist's David Roberts has some advice for the trio of senators on what they can do:
"The main goal with your bill should be to establish a framework whereby a carbon price is implemented and steadily raised. The initial price can be low -- low enough to avoid the kind of political backlash that has poisoned previous efforts -- and phase in over time so affected industries have time to prepare ... In exchange for reducing the role of carbon pricing, you should push to strengthen and expand the clean energy and efficiency provisions in your bill."
In other words, the bill can avoid the politically treacherous cap-and-trade system, as long as it pushes through strong policies for programs like energy efficient appliances, home insulation, and other actions that reduce the amount of energy we're using.
Who watches the watchmen?
Climate legislation, even in weakened form, is still on the table, so the amount of finger-pointing over its difficulties has been limited so far. But in The Nation a few weeks back, Johann Hari threw a stink bomb at big environmental groups, arguing that their increasing coziness with the corporate world had checked their political strength and led them to advocate for milquetoast environmental policies.
This week, the magazine published responses from the groups profiled, who called the story "plump with distortions of reality" and "a toxic mixture of inaccurate information and uninformed analysis."
The responses are worth a read, as is Hari's original article. In his rebuttal, Hari asks the critics to point out specific inaccuracies in his story and worries at the defensiveness of the environmental community. "Do none of these people feel any concern that the leading environmental groups in America are hoovering up cash from the worst polluters and advocating policies that fall far short of what scientists say we need to safely survive the climate crisis?" he writes.
Local action for green jobs
If big environmental groups are not as perfect as one might hope, more local environmental efforts can still make an impact, albeit on a different scale. Chris Rabb and Colorlines profile three grassroots efforts to create green jobs in three corners of the country. In Los Angeles, solar panels went up on roofs; in New York, more low income communities won access to public transportation; and in Arizona, a Navajo group formed to advocate for more green jobs in their community.
"We need all kinds of solutions--local, state, and national--and as we've seen the people need to make it happens," says Rabb.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Over the past few days, I have been writing about how there has been little to no response to Peterson's actions from climate change activists and organizations (see here and here). Now, yesterday's 4-page New York Times spread on Peterson (yes, he is earning quite the power, media, and lavish praise for doing the bidding of evil) explains why. Environmental groups hate Peterson, but have no idea how to apply pressure to him:
"He's tough -- he doesn't always get the value of conservation," said one environmental lobbyist who did not want to be named because of ongoing negotiations with the Agriculture Committee. "His policy and heart and soul are all in supporting big ag."(...)
Environmentalists that were at odds with him on some issues said they could find no effective way to pressure him -- that attempts to do so would often just send him in the opposite direction.
OK--this finally makes sense. Environmental groups are aware of Peterson. They hate Peterson. They are trying to fight Peterson behind the scenes, even. However, they have no idea how to use public pressure on Peterson to influence his actions.
Admittedly, figuring out a strategy to pressure Peterson requires some difficult and unconventional choices. A conservative, ten-term Democrat from an R+5 district with no media market is a tricky case, especially when he is completely in the service of Big Ag. However, it is still doable for any non-partisan group that is willing to play real hardball. And, if there is any member of the House with whom we need to play real hardball right now, it is Collin Peteron.
(Warning: What I write below will freak out many Democrats. However, from the perspective of a non-partisan advocacy group, it is a viable solution to dealing with the specific case of Collin Peterson. Further, that many people would freak out at even the suggestion of this idea is probably one of the reasons why environmental groups have no response to Peterson's ongoing efforts to water down the ACES).
Agriculture Committee Chair Collin Peterson has been holding up the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation in order to further water it down. For a while, Peterson was just looking for more cash for abribusiness, to further weaken the EPA's authority to regulate carbon. Now, he is upping the ante:
Since Memorial Day, Peterson has stood in the way of quick passage of the legislation sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.), demanding changes to a number of provisions he views as harmful to the agriculture community.
Now Peterson, who because of his demands has gotten himself face-time with Waxman, Markey and Pelosi, is being approached by Democrats beyond his committee who are eager to take advantage of his access to the top Democrats.
"Now an even bigger impediment to the bill than agriculture is the electricity allowances," Peterson explained on Tuesday, citing another of the measure's provisions.
Peterson said the Waxman-Markey formula for distributing allowances to electricity producers heavily favors populous states over rural ones, meaning rural-state consumers may face a disproportionately high increase on their utility bills compared with consumers in urban areas.
Curious to see what was being done about Peterson escalating his attempts to water down the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation, I went over to the League of Conservation Voters website. Here is what I found:
On the front page of their website, the LCV features a TV ad urging people to call Congress, and asking them to "strengthen and pass" the climate bill. That's good. The bill does need to be strengthened.
However, there is absolutely no information on the LCV website about Collin Peterson's obstructionist efforts. They have no press releases on the subject. There isn't a single blog post mentioning either Collin Peterson or the Agriculture Committee.
So, the LCV wants to strengthen the climate change bill, but isn't taking any public action-or even making any public mention-of Collin Peterson's ongoing, and escalating, efforts to weaken it. Further, this public blackout on Collin Peterson is made all the more strange since, more than four years ago, the LCV named Collin Peterson to its "dirty dozen" list, and vowed to take action against him:
The League of Conservation Voters (LCV), the national political voice of the environmental and conservation community, today named Representative Collin Peterson (D-MN) to its 2004 "Dirty Dozen" list. PetersonÆs record shows a blatant bias toward corporate polluters and special interests over Minnesota families.
"Rep. Collin Peterson has repeatedly voted to let corporate polluters off the hook, earning a place on our æDirty DozenÆ list," said LCV Senior Vice President for Political Affairs Mark Longabaugh. "We plan to let North Star state voters know about Rep. PetersonÆs record of siding with special interests over Minnesota families."
Given this, why is the LCV apparently doing nothing to Collin Peterson as he is escalating his efforts to weaken the most important piece of environmental legislation in decades?
As I wrote on Monday morning, there is a bizarre lack of public condemnation from climate change activists and organizations when it comes to Democrats, like Collin Peterson, who are currently weakening Waxman-Markey (the American Clean Energy and Security Act). Why aren't green groups doing anything about Collin Peterson's attempts to weaken the American Clean Energy and Security Act? I thought we were supposed to be strengthening the climate change bill, not putting our hands in our pockets while Collin Peterson watered it down further.
If someone can show me an action that some green group--any green group--is taking against Collin Peterson, maybe we can start using that as a rallying cry. Until then, it seems like we are in the middle of a greenout.
STATE BLOGS
