Sens. Udall, Bennet Fail Again To Secure Bipartisan Republicans

In the past couple of years, Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet of Colorado have touted their intent and ability to “work across the aisle to get things done”.  Instead of standing firm on Democratic principles and working overtime to secure the policies their base wants enacted, they have yielded time and again to the more disciplined but less principled Republican Teabaggers who are under no such illusions to work with the other side.  I’ve met and talked with with the staff of Sen. Udall many times since he was elected, trying to convince him to fight for what Colorado majorities and not corporate majorities want.  Each and every time, I was told by his staff that Sen. Udall values my opinion but feels it is important to represent everybody.  I have never received a sufficient explanation why it is more important to pay attention to what a minority of Coloradans want than what the majority wants.  A similar story emerged with Sen. Bennet.  So I have changed the way I evaluate the Senators’ performance.  If they want to be judged based on their ability to work with the other side, I’m happy to do that.

The issue of whether or not to continue or let expire the 2001 and 2003 Bush Regime tax cuts has been in the news recently.  Yesterday, Senators worked a rare Saturday session into their schedule to vote on those cuts.  Faced with the opportunity to extend tax cuts for earners of less than $250,000 permanently but allow tax cuts to expire on those making more than that, Sens. Udall and Bennet had the chance to demonstrate their acumen in bringing bipartisanship to the table.  If you look at this issue from the vantage point that Democrats hold the majority and a majority of Americans wanted the first $250,000 of every Americans’ income subject to continued tax breaks, Sens. Udall and Bennet failed.  Only 51 other Senators voted with them.

Where Do Colorado’s Senators Stand On Social Security?

One of the few U.S. Senators standing up for average Americans is Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Independent from Vermont.  He introduced a resolution in the Senate “Expressing the sense of the Senate in opposition to privatizing Social Security, raising the retirement age, or other similar cuts to benefits under title II of the Social Security Act.”

The resolution has 11 co-sponsors.  Neither of Colorado’s supposedly “Democratic” Senators have signed onto this resolution.  Why haven’t they done this?

I think Colorado’s Senators are mis-characterized as “liberal” – by folks from across the political spectrum.  Now, I don’t give a hoot what the psychos in the Republican Tea Party think about Sen. Udall or Sen. Bennet; they’re never going to give them the credit they deserve for pushing policies Cons used to love.  I’m a little more concerned what Democrats think about them.  I’ve listened to and read too many instances of Democrats cheering on Udall and Bennet because they advocate a “bipartisan” governing approach.  I’ve heard far too many instances of, “Well, we <i>have</i> to support Udall and Bennet, because…” and which is followed by any number of variations of the same argument.  We can’t let perfect get in the way of good.  We can’t let Teabaggers get elected even though our Democratic politicians don’t do all kinds of things we want.  They’re the lesser of two evils, blah, blah, blah.

Just like deniers’ inability to answer simple questions regarding global warming, the blind partisans in the Democratic Party are too willing to let their politicians get away with passing crappy policy because they’re unwilling to challenge them.  Health insurance companies are making out like bandits (still) because of people like Sens. Udall and Bennet.  Wall St. companies are making out like super-bandits (still) because of people like Sens. Udall and Bennet.  Global warming legislation got kicked to the gutter because of people like Sens. Udall and Bennet, who continue to show they are more interested in compromise than pushing for critical legislation.  All of this lack of progress is somehow a good thing to Democratic partisans, because at least their politicians, and not the other kind, are in power.

And that attitude is fine, I suppose.  At some point, however, I think Democrats need to evaluate at which point they will no longer accept the status quo.  Health care reform?  Nope, not there.  Financial industry gambling reform?  Nope, not there either.  Global warming action?  Nope, not there.  Immigration reform?  Nope, no action there either.  Well, how about Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare then?  Sens. Udall and Bennet haven’t had much to say about Republican Tea Party attempts to destroy the safety nets that have kept millions of Americans out of deep poverty and healthier than they would have been.  If the mis-named Deficit Commission recommends changes to Social Security and other programs, and Sens. Udall and Bennet vote for those changes, how will Democrats react?  Will they accept another incrementalist approach that didn’t get Democrats some of what they wanted?  Will they applaud the Senators for getting Teabaggers to vote with them to weaken our social programs?  Because after all, the Teabaggers won’t be able to do it by themselves.  They’re going to need “Democrats” to join them in their crusade to take America back to the 1750s.

Sen. Mark Udall Pushes National RES. But Where Is The Bipartisanship?

Sen. Mark Udall has done a functional job in his first term as Colorado’s senior Senator.  Far from leveraging his huge bases of support in the Denver-Boulder metro area, Sen. Udall has made more effort to reach across the aisle to the psychotic Cons of the 111th Congress who have ground the U.S. Senate to a near halt.  I have argued in numerous posts in plain and simple terms why this is such a bad idea.  To date, and in extreme summary form, we have a half-assed Stimulus Bill, a Health Care Insurance Bill Giveaway, a Wall St. Reform Scott Free Bill and no Climate and Energy Bill.  This situation largely exists because people like Sen. Udall and President Obama want to spend more time chasing the Holy Bipartisan Grail than passing powerful progressive legislation that might actually move this country forward in this 21st century.  To be clear, I do not consider either man to be a progressive; nor did I consider them to be so prior to the 2008 election.  The place I’m arguing from is that this country badly needs progressive legislation and we’re ill-served by the current crop of politicians who don’t care that the Senate is broken.

Recently, Sen. Udall announced that he really, really badly wants a National 25% Renewable Energy Standard by 2025 bill passed during this session of Congress.  That’s fair enough, I suppose.  Sen. Udall did establish some credentials as an environmental advocate in the state of Colorado and during his time as 2nd district Representative in the House.  But, as I’ve also argued in numerous posts, the U.S. Senate is where good legislation goes to die.  By moving from his base of support and joining the Quest for the Holy Bipartisan Grail in the Senate, I challenge the Senator on his calls for an RES.  If he’s not serious about truly enacting such a policy, or if he wants to give utilities policies they support in return for weakening the RES in any way, I’m not interested in listening to his announcements.

Mark Udall Frustrated At Con Obstructionisn? Join The Club.

Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) temporarily joined reality and called out Senate Cons for their obstructionism.  At issue was the cancellation of a hearing on the bark beetle epidemic plaguing the Western U.S.  The hearing was canceled because the Cons found another rule they could play with to get even less done in the Senate – the Senate rules say no hearings can take place after 2PM each day unless the Senate otherwise consents.  Up until now, the Senate has consented.  The Cons, in apparent retaliation over losing two general elections in a row, voted against the consent motion.  So this hearing, and others, were canceled.

Sen. Udall has been one of the leading proponents of working with the Cons, citing his desire for “bipartisanship” as an attribute.  This has continued despite overwhelming evidence that the Cons had and have absolutely no interest in doing their jobs and governing this country.  Their failures haven’t been enough for them – they want the country to fail along with them.  Democrats have stupidly negotiated on issue after issue with the Cons in the past 14 months – and received no votes for the watered down bills in return.

Now Sen. Udall wants to moan and complain about obstructionism?  Where have you been these 14 months, Sen. Udall?  What observations or experiences did you have when you were a House member that would have indicated the the Cons would work with you and your Democratic colleagues?  Because many activists outside of D.C. figured out the Cons wouldn’t work with Democrats prior to this Congress being seated.  Moreover, a majority of voters, most of whom don’t follow politics very much at all, elected Democrats to historical majorities because they figured out the Cons refused to govern when they had the majority.

Finally, is this a one-time event?  Will you make a small wave just once in the corporate press and expect things to straighten themselves out or are you willing to keep hammering away at this issue?  More than that, are you willing to change the rules at the beginning of the next Senate so that a super-majority isn’t required to do anything more difficult than pick your noses or will you give the Cons yet another two years to halt all activity in the Senate and allow our government to become more permanently dysfunctional?  If you want anything done on the bark beetle problem, Sen. Udall, you need to recognize what your political opponents are doing and then work to fix the problem.

Colorado News Stories: Connecting Some Dots

Today was another day in which a number of news articles caught my eye.  They warrant additional context, especially the connections between some of them.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has been working behind the scenes to talk with what the corporate media likes to term “centrist”/”moderate” Democratic Senators regarding health care.  He will continue to try to convince CorporateDems to vote to allow debate on the Senate health bill.  What’s the center position between corporatist lackeys and principled public servants anyway?  Another very popular Washington buzzterm came into play: Salazar is involved because he was involved in several bipartisan agreements while a Senator.  He was at the forefront of what I term the Gaggle of Gangs in the Senate – joining with other “centrists” to keep the filibuster around but ensure Democrats wouldn’t use it while in the minority.  Which is part of the reason why Salazar is being sent back to work on his former colleagues: the Cons are threatening to filibuster the health bill (though Democrats won’t actually force them to carry one out) and -gasp- Democrats might join them.  That’s the answer to “How did that bipartisanship end up working out”.  Whatever happened to the Cons’ “Upper-down-vote!” they couldn’t get enough of?  One person of concern is Sen. Lieberman, the man who campaigned for Sen. John McCain in last year’s presidential election and is doing everything he can to keep himself in the news this year.  Salazar was “mentored” by Lieberman when he joined the Senate, so I’m sure Lieberman can be convinced to play nice – aren’t you?  Oh, and after watering down the bill with nonsense to appease “centrist” Republicans, where are their votes to move to debate?  MIA?  Why did we negotiate with them exactly?  They’re not going to vote for the final bill.

Study: $1240 TRILLION In Costs Due To Climate Change With No Adaptation

Many scientists and activists have stated, with good reason, that the 2007 IPCC 4th Assessment Report (4AR) didn’t look deeply enough into the potential costs of doing nothing to change the globe’s GHG emissions.  The good news is that in addition to developing a more robust research methodology to dig into the unknowns of the science surrounding climate change, work has also taken place to assign realistic figures of the costs of adapting to climate change.  The figures available for the past few years were viewed as having major shortcomings: unrealistic assumptions, not accounting for enough of the effects (which have interdependencies and feedbacks of their own), etc.

A new study was issued earlier this month by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) that worked to address some of those concerns.  For reference, I’m going to discuss the Section 8 material.  It is not without its own set of caveats and disadvantages: it looks at the IPCC A2 scenario, for instance, even though our actual emissions have already outpaced this mid-range emissions scenario.  There’s another equally out-dated caveat that I’ll talk about more below.  So, take the results with a grain of salt – realize that these costs continue to be an underestimate of what we’re likely to face!

With that in mind, what are some of the results of this study?  Without adaptation, the mean net present value of climate change impacts under the A2 scenario is $1240 Trillion.

Credit Card Companies Pushing Back Against Udall’s Reform Bill

As many Americans can now attest, the way in which credit card companies have conducted their business for years crosses the ethical line of right and wrong.  Largely empowered by the Cons, but not without help from ConservaDems, credit card companies have introduced a byzantine set of rules and policies with one goal in mind: maximize the amount of money they can charge Americans.  Regulations and oversight fell by the wayside as the companies’ actions grew more bold and odious.  The Fed announced back in December some rules that would clamp down on some of the banks’ activities.  I still find it absurd that they don’t take effect until mid-2010.  Americans are needlessly suffering under the banks’ unfair practices today.  They need relief today.

The good news is there are some politicians in Washington who have heard their citizens’ cry for action.  When he was still a Representative, Mark Udall (D-CO-02) supported the House’s Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights, one of the few pieces of legislation that Democrats named intelligently.  Who wouldn’t be for a cardholder’s Bill of Rights?  Certainly not the rights-loving Republicans, right?  Not so much.  112 Republicons voted against the bill in the House and the legislation died in the Senate, due to Republicon obstructionism.  A Colorado Independent article notes that now-Sen. Mark Udall plans on continuing to stand up for the morally right thing.  I’ve criticized Mark when I thought I needed to.  In this case, I heartily applaud his stance and actions.  They clearly need to be publicized so that others can do the same.

I’ll be honest – I don’t remember Rep. Udall’s support of this bill last year.  In any event, I read about it today and it struck a chord.  Following a link from the CI article, Sen. Udall’s website has the following information:

The Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights:
• Protects cardholders against arbitrary interest rate increases
• Prevents cardholders who pay on time from being unfairly penalized
• Protects cardholders from due date gimmicks
• Shields cardholders from misleading terms
• Empowers cardholders to set limits on their credit
• Requires card companies to fairly credit and allocate payments
• Prohibits card companies from imposing excessive fees on cardholders
• Prevents card companies from giving subprime credit cards to people who can’t afford them
• Requires Congress to provide better oversight of the credit card industry
• Contains NO rate caps, fee setting, or price controls

For the wonky among us, this year’s House bill is H.R.627, sponsored by Rep. Maloney (D-NY).  On March 19, the bill had its first hearing in the House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, covered here by creditcards dot com.  The Thomas.loc.gov summary page also says the bill had two markup sessions and was voted out of the subcommittee to the full committee on April 2 (last Thursday).  The corresponding Senate bill is S.235, sponsored by Sen. Schumer (D-NY).  S.235 has been referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

I will also note that Sens. Dodd (D-CT.), who chairs the Banking Committee, and Levin (D-MI) also have a credit card bill introduced, the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act (Credit CARD Act – get it?  see what I mean about the need to name bills better?).  S. 392 has been referred to committee.  The CI characterizes S.392 as going further than S.235/HR627.  Not having delved into the details of either bill, I’m not going to offer an opinion other than to point out that H.R.627/S.235 would become law 90 days after signing.  The banks are already crying about the rapidity of enactment, to which I don’t have a lot of sympathy.  Banks have done pretty much what they wanted for 20-some years now.  Reform can’t come soon enough.

Quick Hits: Colorado News

Oil corporations bought conditional senior water rights to 7.2 million acre-feet of water earlier this week.  Why?  So they can potentially use the water in the future to drill for oil in shale in Western Colorado.  Some things come to mind: diverting water from the Front Range to drill for oil in shale won’t go over well if it ever happens; diverting water from downriver states won’t go over well either (read: tons of litigation); oil shale development won’t be viable for decades – by that time, I don’t think we’ll need the oil.

A foundational health care bill passed out of a Colorado House committee Wednesday.  Somehow, the Cons think double-digit insurance rate increases year after year should be totally loved by everybody.  The reality is far from that.  People are justifiably upset with for-profit insurance that doesn’t deliver care.  The bill still has to pass the House Appropriations Committee before going to the full House.

Colorado’s newest Senators might be deciding to go the pro-corporatist, non-progressive route in Congress.  Sens. Udall and Bennet have joined a gang in Washington (just like the Senator Bennet replaced, Ken Salazar) that tries to sell itself as ‘centrist’.  I’m going to be very clear about this: the difference between most Senate Democrats and the Senate Cons isn’t a lovely place called centrism.  If they want to join the Cons in their assault on the American worker and our economy, they’re free to do so.  Colorado voters are similarly free to examine their efforts and decide if Udall and Bennet are who they want in the Senate.  Joining a gang isn’t the worst thing that can happen.  But if Udall or Bennet decide to vote like Salazar did – if they develop a clear pattern of voting against Colorado citizens’ best interests, I won’t hesitate to call them on it or work to get somebody else elected in the next election.  I was reasonably sure Udall would do this – it remains to be seen how he votes.

Yesterday’s paper version of the Denver Post had a full-page, color ad that lied to readers.  It claimed new energy taxes were going to be passed soon by Congress.  They provided a website that is full of pro-industy spin and very short on facts.  The fossil fuel industry has enjoyed years’ worth of tax loopholes – they’ve cheated the U.S. out of billions of tax dollars.  Now that real public anger has bubbled to the surface over fuel costs; now that the public is demanding fossil fuel corporations finally pay their fair share; after years of not developing refining infrastructure but buying up 60 million acres of land that isn’t being drilled, how does the industry respond?  With full page ads and websites, part of a multi-million dollar marketing campaign.  Remember that when fuel prices shoot back up this summer.  And remember this too: fuel corporations were making tens of billions of dollars of profit every three months last year while telling everyone that they couldn’t produce anymore product.  The fact is, they refuse to produce more.  They’ve refused to do it for a long, long time.  Americans are ready to move to a post-fossil fuel era.  And that scares the hell out of the industry.