A little R&R

Considered Forthwith: Senate Foreign Relations Committee

2009-10-25T20:28:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the 25th installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

This week, I am looking at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Two thoughts before proceeding. First, I am happy to be out of the newspaper business because I can say what I really think without worrying about objectivity. Second, what I really think is that the committee's website is in dire need of a redesign.

Membership

Here is the full committee membership:

Democrats: John Kerry, Massachusetts, chair; Christopher J. Dodd, Connecticut; Russell D. Feingold, Wisconsin; Barbara Boxer, California; Robert Menendez, New Jersey; Benjamin L. Cardin, Maryland; Robert P. Casey Jr., Pennsylvania; Jim Webb, Virginia; Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire; Edward E. Kaufman, Delaware; Kirsten E. Gillibrand, New York

Republicans

Richard G. Lugar, Indiana, ranking member; Bob Corker, Tennessee; Johnny Isakson, Georgia; James E. Risch, Idaho; Jim DeMint, South Carolina; John Barrasso, Wyoming; Roger F. Wicker, Mississippi; James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma

The Chairman

John Kerry is best known for his narrow loss in the 2004 presidential election.Perhaps that is for the best, though. Senator Kerry is now being credited with at least temporarily resolving the political crisis in Afghanistan. Kerry was in the country on an unrelated visit last week when President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got in touch. Kerry ended up convincing Afghan President Hamid Karzai to agree to a run-off election on Nov. 7. The original election was marred by allegations of widespread fraud. His efforts drew praise from the administration, though Kerry is trying to downplay the praise.

The Times of London had this to say of Kerry's recent work:

The patrician New Englander with the long face and helmet of grey hair has transformed himself over five days of shuttle diplomacy and, he says, “a thousand cups of tea” into Afghan election saviour, and the Administration’s pointman on President Karzai. He professes embarrassment when spoken of as a de facto Secretary of State, but when he speaks on Afghanistan at the Council on Foreign Relations today, Washington will listen as if he were — and with good reason.

Maybe Kerry was so successful because he some experience with shady election results.

Jurisdiction

Note: Use this direct link for the committee's statement of jurisdiction. The site's navigation is terrible and getting to the jursidiction page is difficult, if not impossible, without doing a Google search.

The committee has jurisdiction over pretty much every issue that affects relations between the United States and the rest of the world. This includes acquiring space for embassies, oversight of the World Bank and IMF (some jurisdiction shared with the Senate Banking Committee), non-trade treaties, and relations between the US and organizations like the UN and Red Cross. In addition, the committee is charged with holding confirmation hearings for foreign service appointments. Here is the committee's statement of jurisdiction:

(Excerpted from Rules of the Committee)

Rule 1 — Jurisdiction

(a) Substantive. — In accordance with Senate Rule XXV.1(j)(1), the jurisdiction of the Committee shall extend to all proposed legislation, messages, petitions, memorials, and other matters relating to the following subjects:

1. Acquisition of land and buildings for embassies and legations in foreign countries.

2. Boundaries of the United States.

3. Diplomatic service.

4. Foreign economic, military, technical, and humanitarian assistance.

5. Foreign loans.

6. International activities of the American National Red Cross and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

7. International aspects of nuclear energy, including nuclear transfer policy.

8. International conferences and congresses.

9. International law as it relates to foreign policy.

10. International Monetary Fund and other international organizations established primarily for international monetary purposes (except that, at the request of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, any proposed legislation relating to such subjects reported by the Committee on Foreign Relations shall be referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs).

11. Intervention abroad and declarations of war.

12. Measures to foster commercial intercourse with foreign nations and to safeguard American business interests abroad.

13. National security and international aspects of trusteeships of the United States.

14. Ocean and international environmental and scientific affairs as they relate to foreign policy.

15. Protection of United States citizens abroad and expatriation.

16. Relations of the United States with foreign nations generally.

17. Treaties and executive agreements, except reciprocal trade agreements.

18. United Nations and its affiliated organizations.

19. World Bank group, the regional development banks, and other international organizations established primarily for development assistance purposes.

The Committee is also mandated by Senate Rule XXV.1(j)(2) to study and review, on a comprehensive basis, matters relating to the national security policy, foreign policy, and international economic policy as it relates to foreign policy of the United States, and matters relating to food, hunger, and nutrition in foreign countries, and report thereon from time to time.

(b) Oversight. — The Committee also has a responsibility under Senate Rule XXVI.8, which provides that “. . . each standing Committee . . . shall review and study, on a continuing basis, the application, administration, and execution of those laws or parts of laws, the subject matter of which is within the jurisdiction of the Committee.”

(c) “Advice and Consent” Clauses. — The Committee has a special responsibility to assist the Senate in its constitutional function of providing ``advice and consent'' to all treaties entered into by the United States and all nominations to the principal executive branch positions in the field of foreign policy and diplomacy.

The seven subcommittees have their own jurisdictions and are available at the link above.

Nicaragua

We are all familiar with the coup in Honduras, but neighboring Nicaragua may become a new flash point in the region after the country's supreme court ruled that Daniel Ortega may seek reelection to the presidency. Ortega was the leader of the leftist Sandinistas which fought the US backed government in the 1980s. He took power in 1984, but lost the 1990 election. He returned to power in 2007 and the ruling essentially negates a rule saying presidents may not serve consecutive terms or more than two terms.

While neither the committee nor the rest of Congress has taken any formal action against Nicaragua, Kerry had this to say:

Nicaragua and Honduras are obviously different, but unconstitutional actions are unacceptable anywhere. President Ortega appears to be following the cues of the coup-plotters in Honduras, where the president of the Congress and the military have manipulated the Supreme Court to rationalize a coup d’etat, resist the restoration of democracy, and impose martial law repression.

NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was just one, but the most important and enduring, alliance set up to oppose the expansion of authoritarian socialism (i.e. communism). It is a formal mutual defense commitment among 28 countries in North America and Europe. (France is even back in the fold.) The key to the alliance's mutual defense pact is Article V:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the (U.N.) Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.

Notice the wording "against one or more of them in Europe or North America." This is what kept the signatories from getting entangled in the 20th century colonial wars. It is also important to note that this article is not automatically in force. Instead, on nation must invoke the article to get help from the other allies. During the Cold War, of course, the assumption was that the theatre of war would have been Central Europe. No one could have foreseen the first formal invocation of Article V, after the 9/11 attacks, would put NATO forces in Central Asia, nor could most people have predicted that the country that invoked Article V would get distracted in the middle of the war and invade a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.

At any rate, the committee's most recent hearing focused on the future of the alliance. (Note: click on the headline hotlink to watch the two hour hearing.) Earlier this year, NATO announced a review of its "strategic concept" and this hearing was part of America's review.

Kerry had this to say (.pdf link):

The Strategic Concept review is an important vehicle for NATO to evolve—recalibrating its priorities, re-inventing itself and preparing to protect the West from challenges new and old. That is why, even as we grapple with Afghanistan and other present concerns, it remains the right time for a public dialogue about NATO’s future.

Kerry also discussed the possibility of expanding NATO membership in the Balkans and to fast track membership for Ukraine and Georgia, moves that could irritate Russia. He also mentioned the impact that passage of the Libson Treaty would have on the alliance.

Ranking member Lugar had this to say (.pdf link):

The paramount question facing NATO today is how to strengthen the credibility of Article Five. Recent developments have eroded some of NATO’s deterrence value. This erosion has occurred as Members of the Alliance have expressed less enthusiasm for NATO expansion and found an increasing number of reasons to avoid committing forces to Afghanistan. The decline in the deterrent value of Article Five became more apparent with the onset of a string of energy crises in Europe and the adoption by several West European governments of “beggar-thy-neighbor” policies with respect to oil and natural gas arrangements with the Russian Federation.

The Obama Administration’s decision to alter missile defense plans also has implications for Alliance confidence in Article Five. Iranian missiles never constituted the primary rationale for Polish and Czech decisions to buy into the Bush Administration’s plan. Rather, it was the waning confidence in NATO, and Article Five in particular, that lent missile defense political credibility in those countries. The United States must be sensitive to events that have transpired in the broader European security environment since the Bush plan was proposed and negotiated. Our commitment to NATO remains the most important vehicle for projecting stability throughout Europe and even into regions of Asia and the Middle East. It is critical that we re-establish the credibility of these assurances.

Lugar does make some good points, but he ignores the fact that the United States has primary responsibility for the Afghan mission and George W. Bush and the Republicans shirked that responsibility by invading Iraq. It is not difficult to image some resentment from Europe and Canada over the perception that NATO is fighting America's war.

Other committee news

As I noted above, the committee staff does not do a great job with the site. They do not have future hearings or meetings listed, however, the most recent Senate schedule does not list any hearings of the committee either. However, the committee has recently held some interesting hearings.

Climate Change: The Subcommittee on International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs, and International Environmental Protection held a hearing Oct. 15 to discuss the climate change crisis, particularly focusing on flooding, drought and refuges. The projected rise in ocean levels from melting ice caps is a serious threat to low lying countries like Bangladesh and island nations like Tuvalu.

Tuvalu is quite literally in danger of disappearing. The nation of 10,000 people is located on low-lying atolls that could disappear if ocean levels rise significantly. In Bangladesh, brackish water from the Indian Ocean is getting into the country's fresh water rivers and then into its lakes and groundwater. This means less fresh water for drinking and watering crops. That could lead to mass migrations of refuges in search of better land. Of course, the United States and China are the top contributors to Global Warming, but it is the Global South feeling the effects.

The witnesses for the hearing were:

Dr. Jim Ball
Senior Director
Climate Campaign
Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN)
Washington, DC

Mr. David Waskow
Climate Change Program Director
Oxfam America
Washington, DC

Mr. Kenneth P. Green
Resident Scholar
American Enterprise Institute
Washington, DC

Note: You may remember the American Enterprise Institute from their decision two years ago to offer $10,000 to any "scientist" who would debunk a major Global Warming study. Even now, Mr. Green says we should adapt to climate change rather than, you know, do anything to try to reverse it.

Mr. Peter O'Driscoll
Executive Director
ActionAid USA
Washington, DC

General Charles F. Wald (USAF, Ret.)
Former Deputy Commander of United States European Command
Director and Senior Advisor
Aerospace & Defense Industry Deloitte
Washington, DC

Nuclear power for UAE The United States and the United Arab Emirates are close to a deal that would provide the UAE with assistance in building nuclear power plants. The subcommittee on Near Eastern, and South and Central Asian Affairs heard testimony on the deal Oct. 7. Neither the committee nor Congress made any move to block the deal, which includes specific pledges that would keep UAE from sharing any nuclear material with Iran.

Via Reuters:

Congress could have blocked the deal by passing a resolution of disapproval before the end of the 90-day review period last Saturday. Despite concerns some lawmakers raised about the UAE's relationship with Iran, there was no push in the Senate or House of Representatives for a vote.

The Obama administration calls the pact a model for the region that contains several unprecedented commitments that ensures the UAE will not use American technology to develop a nuclear weapon or to help others in the region do that.

Reuters also tells us that the deal will be lucrative to certain US companies:

The pact, which President Barack Obama approved in May and sent to Congress for a 90-day review period, is potentially worth billions of dollars to General Electric Co (GE.N) and Westinghouse Electric, a subsidiary of Toshiba Corp (6502.T).

Nominations: The Subcommittee on European Affairs held the committee's most recent round of nomination hearings Oct. 8. Let's meet the newly minted ambassadors:

William Kennard, an executive at Carlyle Group, to be the US Representative to the European Union.

James Legarde Hudson, Chairman of JAH Development Co. (a venture capital projects company), to be United States Director for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

John F. Tefft, a career foreign service employee, to be ambassador to Ukraine. He has previously served as ambassador to Lithuania and was involved in the START arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union in 1985.

Michael C. Polt, another foreign service officer, to be ambassador to Estonia. He previously served as ambassador to Serbia.

Cynthia Stroum of Seattle to be ambassador to Luxembourg. She is a business investor, arts supporter and major Democratic donor.

Other recent hearings of the committee have focused on Afghanistan strategy, radio broadcasting in war zones, transnational child custody cases, worldwide violence against women, and American policy toward Burma and Zimbabwe.

Subcommittees

The committee has seven subcommittees. Their full jurisdictions and chairs and ranking members are listed here.

For more information, see my past work:

House Foreign Affairs Committee
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
Joint Committee on Taxation
House Oversight Committee
Conference Committees
Senate and House Budget Committees
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Senate and House Armed Services Committees
Small Business Committees
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
The Committee Primer
House Education and Labor Committee
Senate Finance Committee
Senate HELP Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee
House Energy and Commerce Committee
House Ways and Means Committee
House and Senate Appropriations Committees
House Intelligence Committee
House Judiciary Committee
House and Senate Ethics Committees
House Science and Technology Committee
House Financial Services Committee
House Rules Committee
The Role of Committees

This entry is posted at Congress Matters, Daily Kos, Progressive Electorate, Docudharma, and my own blog.

Considered Forthwith: House Foreign Affairs Committee

2009-10-18T20:09:00.003-04:00

Welcome to the 24th installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

Reality got in the way the past two weeks, but I am finally back. This week, Considered Forthwith will examine the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. This committee has considerably less official authority than its Senate counterpart. Notably, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee has jurisdiction over treaties and appointments -- including ambassadorships -- as as required by the Constitution. I plan to examine that committee next week.

This week, however, I will be looking at the committee that dates back to the early days of the Revolution.

Membership

Howard Berman of California is the chair of the committee and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida is the ranking member. Berman is a solid progressive, but he did vote for the 2003 Iraq invasion and the 2008 Patriot Act amendments. However, he also voted for the Kucinich resolution to investigate Bush on lies leading to the Iraq war.

He is also a staunch supporter of Israel, saying in 2008, when he took over the chairmanship from the late Tom Lantos:

Even before I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist

Here is the rest of the committee membership:

Democrats: Howard Berman, California, Chairman; Gary Ackerman, New York; Eni Faleomavaega, American Samoa; Donald M. Payne, New Jersey; Brad Sherman, California; Robert Wexler, Florida; Eliot Engel, New York; Bill Delahunt, Massachusetts; Gregory Meeks, New York; Diane Watson, California; Adam Smith, Washington; Russ Carnahan, Missouri; Albio Sires, New Jersey; Gerry Connolly, Virginia; Michael McMahon, New York; John S. Tanner, Tennessee; Gene Green, Texas; Lynn Woolsey, California; Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas; Barbara Lee, California; Shelley Berkley, Nevada; Joseph Crowley, New York; Mike Ross, Arkansas; Brad Miller, North Carolina; David Scott, Georgia; Jim Costa, California; Keith Ellison, Minnesota; Gabrielle Giffords, Arizona; Ron Klein, Florida

Republicans: Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida, Ranking Member; Chris Smith, New Jersey; Dan Burton, Indiana; Elton Gallegly, California; Dana Rohrabacher, California; Donald Manzullo, Illinois; Ed Royce, California; Ron Paul, Texas; Jeff Flake, Arizona; Mike Pence, Indiana; Joe Wilson, South Carolina; John Boozman, Arkansas; J. Gresham Barrett, South Carolina; Connie Mack, Florida; Jeff Fortenberry, Nebraska; Michael McCaul, Texas; Ted Poe, Texas; Bob Inglis, South Carolina; Gus Bilirakis, Florida

Jurisdiction

The committee has jurisdiction over pretty much every issue that affects relations between the United States and the rest of the world, including international drug trafficking. Here is the committee's statement of jurisdiction:

The Full Committee will be responsible for oversight and legislation relating to: foreign assistance (including development assistance, Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Millennium Challenge Account, HIV/AIDS in foreign countries, security assistance, and Public Law 480 programs abroad); the Peace Corps; national security developments affecting foreign policy; strategic planning and agreements; war powers, treaties, executive agreements, and the deployment and use of United States Armed Forces; peacekeeping, peace enforcement, and enforcement of United Nations or other international sanctions; arms control and disarmament issues; the United States Agency for International Development; activities and policies of the State, Commerce and Defense Departments and other agencies related to the Arms Export Control Act, and the Foreign Assistance Act including export and licensing policy for munitions items and technology and dual-use equipment and technology; international law; promotion of democracy; international law enforcement issues, including narcotics control programs and activities; Broadcasting Board of Governors; embassy security; international broadcasting; public diplomacy, including international communication, information policy, international education, and cultural programs; and all other matters not specifically assigned to a subcommittee.

The Full Committee will have jurisdiction over legislation with respect to the administration of the Export Administration Act, including the export and licensing of dual-use equipment and technology and other matters related to international economic policy and trade not otherwise assigned to a subcommittee and with respect to the United Nations, its affiliated agencies and other international organizations, including assessed and voluntary contributions to such organizations.

The Full Committee may conduct oversight with respect to any matter within the jurisdiction of the Committee as defined in the Rules of the House of Representatives.

The seven subcommittees have their own jurisdiction and I have provided links at the end.

Iran Sanctions

The Committee has scheduled a mark up of HR 2475, the "Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act" for Oct. 28, beginning at 10 a.m. I can't figure out if the markup with be available via webcast (assuming that C-Span does not show it live.) If it is available on line, the link should appear here.

Berman introduced the bill at the end of April and currently has 330 co-sponsors. The act, as currently written:

Amends the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 to direct the President to impose two or more current sanctions under such Act if a person has, with actual knowledge, made an investment of $20 million or more (or any combination of investments of at least $5 million which in the aggregate equals or exceeds $20 million in any 12-month period) that directly and significantly contributed to Iran's ability to develop its petroleum resources. (Under current law the sanction thresholds are $40 million, $10 million, and $40 million, respectively.)

This is what is meant by the Traditional Media meme of "tightening sanctions." If the bill passes intact, Americans could only invest $20 in Iran's oil refining efforts, rather than the current level of $40 million. I would expect the significant amendments to focus on moving those numbers higher or lower. I also suspect that the White House quietly asked Chairman Berman not to advance the legislation while President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton publicly and privately tried diplomacy. Should this bill pass by a veto-proof margin -- and there is little reason to think it would not -- the American diplomats can blame the new sanctions on Congress while continuing diplomacy.

The companion bill in the Senate, is S 908. It was introduced by Evan Bayh two days before the House bill and has been sitting in the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee ever since. It has 75 cosponsors.

(Hint for anyone using Thomas LOC: the link for CRS summary provides a plain language statement of what the bill does as currently written.)

Burma

Saying that Burma has a spotty human rights record is like saying torture is a bit uncomfortable. Ever since the 1962 coup, the military junta has brutally suppressed democratization efforts and human rights is the last thing on the rulers' minds. The United States certainly has an interest in seeing a democratic Burma. The problem is that Burma's neighbors are more interested in the country's mineral resources than the well-being of the country's people. Specifically, China has close ties with Burma and has been funding numerous infrastructure projects in the country in spite of recent ethnic violence in the border region. Burma has scheduled elections next year, but the U.S. State Department is not particularly optimistic that the elections will be free and fair and the British said at the beginning of this year that elections would simply entrench the military government.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday, Oct. 21, to discuss the issue of Burma. As I have discussed before, Congressional hearings do not result in new policy, but they do allow both members and witnesses to grab headlines and possibly set the news agenda.

The committee will hear from:

Kurt M. Campbell
Assistant Secretary
Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs
U.S. Department of State

Tom Malinowski
Advocacy Director
Human Rights Watch

Chris Beyrer, M.D., MPH
Professor of Epidemiology, International Health, and Health, Behavior, and Society
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Aung Din
Executive Director
U.S. Campaign for Burma

Aung Din spent more than four years in prison -- sometimes in solitary confinement, naked, in total darkness -- after organizing and leading Burma’s nationwide pro-democracy uprising in August 1988 as vice chairman of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions. ABFSU, the largest student organization in Burma, is outlawed by the ruling military junta.

Other committee news

Northern Ireland: The Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight will hold a hearing regarding allegations of collusion between police and paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. The implication is that the British government implicitly supported Loyalist/Protestant armed groups against the IRA and other Republcan/Catholic groups during the "Troubles." Witnesses include a man whose father was killed by Loyalists and another man whose son was killed by Republicans. Both men previously met with President Bush in 2007.

Violence against women: The Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight will hold a hearing Wednesday, Oct. 21, to discuss worldwide violence against women. It should go without saying that the problem is not insignificant. A recent ten-country study by the World Health Organization found that:

Between 15% and 71% of women reported physical or sexual violence by a husband or partner.

Many women said that their first sexual experience was not consensual. (24% in rural Peru, 28% in Tanzania, 30% in rural Bangladesh, and 40% in South Africa).

Between 4% and 12% of women reported being physically abused during pregnancy.

and

About 5,000 women are murdered by family members in the name of honour each year worldwide.

Trafficking of women and girls for forced labour and sex is widespread and often affects the most vulnerable.

Forced marriages and child marriages violate the human rights of women and girls, but they are widely practiced in many countries in Asia, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.

Worldwide, up to one in five women and one in 10 men report experiencing sexual abuse as children. Children who experience sexual abuse are much more likely to encounter other forms of abuse later in life.

The committee will hear from Rep. Jan Schakowsky; Melanne Verveer Ambassador-at-Large, Office of Global Women’s Issues, U.S. Department of State; Mallika Dutt, Founder and Executive Director of Breakthrough; and actress and activist Nicole Kidman.

So why would the committee invite a celebrity to testify? Let's face it. More people have heard of Nicole Kidman than Mallika Dutt. Kidman's star power will inevitably make more reporters, including the celebrity rags, take notice to the hearing and more people will be interested in reading about it. This is strategic thinking by the committee chair to increase interest in the hearing and possibly increase pressure to take action on the problem.

International Child abduction: The Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight will hold a hearing Oct. 29 on the problem of international child abduction. The problem is addressed by the Child Abduction Section of the Hague Convention. As with any transnational crime, enforcement can be a difficult matter. Obviously, child custody law varies by country. If a parent takes a child to another country and refuses to return, the other parent may go through a bureaucratic nightmare to get the child back. This was at the heart of the Elian Gonzalez affair in 2000.

The hearing will include testimony from Patrick Braden of Los Angeles. Braden's daughter was taken to Japan by her non-custodial mother in 2006. Japan is not a signatory to the Hague Convention on Child Abduction. Also testifying will be George David Goldman of New Jersey. His now late wife took their son, Sean, to Brazil. The boy's new step father, a lawyer, is fighting for custody. The situation has created a low-level diplomatic row between the United States and Brazil.

Both governments have indicated that they consider the decision by Goldman's wife, Bruna Bianchi, to move Sean to Brazil in 2004 a violation of the Hague Abduction Convention, an international treaty that seeks to determine whether children have been wrongfully removed from their country of habitual residence.

The State Department, as well as the Brazilian government authority that deals with the treaty, has called for Sean's return to the United States. But the case remains in federal court in Brazil awaiting a ruling on whether the treaty has been violated.

Join the conversation

The committee has an innovative feature on its website. They offer a link to "Join the Conversation." Currently, they are soliciting citizen input on foreign assistance reform. USAID has more information about the issue.

History

If you remember U.S. history, you may recall the Committee on Correspondence that was established during the Revolution. The committee in its current from traces its history back to this Committee on Correspondence, which was chaired by Benjamin Franklin and charged with representing the nascent nation in its relations with Europe. Later, in the early years of Congress, committees were only formed as needed. In 1807, for example, a committee was formed to deal with British and French forces preying on American shipping. This was the era of the Napoleonic Wars and both countries needed all of the sailors they could find. On the high seas, American soldiers were vulnerable to impressment. This was one of the main issues that led to the War of 1812.

Ten years after the war, the House established the standing committee on foreign affairs. Even though the Executive Branch traditionally takes the lead in foreign relations, the committee was able to use the "power of the purse" to push for important foreign policies like Marshall Plan to help Western Europe recover from World War II and to end American involvement in Vietnam. The Subcommittee on Africa worked on sanctions against South Africa to force an end to apartheid and the bill passed over President Reagan's veto.

Read more history here.

Subcommittees

There are seven subcommittees. In the interest of keeping this post somewhat short, I will dispense with the usual details. Here is a link to the subcommittees page. The subcommittees are:

Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health
Chairman Donald M. Payne
Ranking Member Christopher H. Smith

Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment
Chairman Eni F.H. Faleomavaega
Ranking Member Donald A. Manzullo

Subcommittee on Europe
Chairman Robert Wexler
Ranking Member Elton Gallegly

Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade
Chairman Brad Sherman
Ranking Member Edward R. Royce

Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight
Chairman Bill Delahunt
Ranking Member Dana Rohrabacher

Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia
Chairman Gary L. Ackerman
Ranking Member Dan Burton

Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere
Chairman Eliot L. Engel
Ranking Member Connie Mack

Next week I will look at the committee's Senate counterpart.

For more information, see my past work:

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
Joint Committee on Taxation
House Oversight Committee
Conference Committees
Senate and House Budget Committees
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Senate and House Armed Services Committees
Small Business Committees
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
The Committee Primer
House Education and Labor Committee
Senate Finance Committee
Senate HELP Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee
House Energy and Commerce Committee
House Ways and Means Committee
House and Senate Appropriations Committees
House Intelligence Committee
House Judiciary Committee
House and Senate Ethics Committees
House Science and Technology Committee
House Financial Services Committee
House Rules Committee
The Role of Committees

This entry is posted at Congress Matters, Daily Kos, Progressive Electorate, Docudharma, and my own blog.

Considered Forthwith: House Transportation Committee

2009-09-27T20:58:00.002-04:00

Welcome to the 23rd installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

This week's entry discusses the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. This is an authorizing committee that has the initial authority over the nation's public works projects. This authority encompasses everything from repaving highways to parts of the Clean Water Act to the government involvement in the Katrina rebuilding effort.

Members

This is a huge committee, which is not at all surprising. There is not a district in the county that could not use public works projects like highways, levees, bridges, railroads, and public buildings. Citizens pay taxes for these things and and expect results. To put it more cynically, this is the committee where members can get their pet issues authorized and thus take the credit at election time. If you are on the authorizing committee, there is a better chance of your project getting approved. As a result, this is a very attractive committee assignment.

Instead of wasting a lot of space listing every member, the committee members are listed on the web page. Take a peek and see if your congresscritter is on the committee. James Oberstar of Minnesota is the chair and John Mica of Florida is the ranking member.

Jurisdiction

Here is the formal statement of the committee's jurisdiction:

* Coast Guard, including lifesaving service, lighthouses, lightships, ocean derelicts, and the Coast Guard Academy.
* Federal management of emergencies and natural disasters.
* Flood control and improvement of rivers and harbors.
* Inland waterways.
* Inspection of merchant marine vessels, lights and signals, lifesaving equipment, and fire protection on such vessels.
* Navigation and laws relating thereto, including pilotage.
* Registering and licensing of vessels and small boats.
* Rules and international arrangements to prevent collisions at sea.
* The Capitol Building and the Senate and House Office Buildings.
* Construction or maintenance of roads and post roads (other than appropriations therefor).
* Construction or reconstruction, maintenance, and care of buildings and grounds of the Botanic Garden, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution.
* Merchant marine (except for national security aspects thereof).
* Purchase of sites and construction of post offices, customhouses, Federal courthouses, and Government buildings within the District of Columbia.
* Oil and other pollution of navigable waters, including inland, coastal, and ocean waters.
* Marine affairs, including coastal zone management, as they relate to oil and other pollution of navigable waters.
* Public buildings and occupied or improved grounds of the United States generally.
* Public works for the benefit of navigation, including bridges and dams (other than international bridges and dams).
* Related transportation regulatory agencies.
* Roads and the safety thereof.
* Transportation, including civil aviation, railroads, water transportation, transportation safety (except automobile safety), transportation infrastructure, transportation labor, and railroad retirement and unemployment (except revenue measures related thereto).
* Water power.

Note that the Coast Guard is a department within the Department of Homeland Security and the House Homeland Security Committee has some jurisdiction over the Coast Guard as well.

Authorizations vs. Appropriations

Transportation and Infrastructure is an authorizing committee, meaning that they approve projects and set spending limits on the projects. No project can proceed until the money to do the projects is included in the relevant appropriations bill and the Appropriations Committee and the relevant subcommittee have jurisdiction over the actual expenditure. Naturally, these bills also have to be approved by the full House and Senate as well.

Identifying projects

Believe it or not, decisions on which projects to authorize are not solely made within the Beltway Bubble with no regard to the needs of the districts. The local needs filter up to the Congressional level and through the Executive Branch bureaucracy with varying levels of effectiveness.

Here is an example using agencies with which I am familiar. Assume that there is a need for a federal highway project in Pennsylvania's Northern Tier. Citizens can contact this agency or go to one of their occasional public hearings intended to accept input on local needs:

NTRPDC is the regional transportation coordinator and liaison between PennDOT and our communities. Getting approved for transportation improvement projects can be a time consuming and detailed process and we help make the process more manageable.

If the project in question is the responsibility of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, then PennDOT and the state legislature will decide if and when the project moves ahead. If the U.S. Department of Transportation has jurisdiction over a project -- if it deals with the Interstate system, for example -- PennDOT would work with US DOT and the members of the state's delegation to Congress to get it on the agenda.

This was exactly what happened with the project to upgrade parts of US Route 15 in Pennsylvania and New York to Interstate status (again, I am very familiar with this particular project). If you click on the link, you will see that the road has been designated the Bud Shuster Highway. Shuster is a former Republican Representative from Pennsylvania's 9th District who chaired this committee for the final six years of his term. He was a champion of highway projects and developed a reputation as the "go to guy" to get highway projects approved. (His son, Bill, now represents the district,sits on this committee and chairs a subcommittee.)

Of course, citizen pressure helps, too. As much as we want to deny it, every time we try to influence the government, we are lobbyists. The real distinction is between real grassroots efforts and the major Washington lobby shops that represent corporate interests to the detriment of citizens. Continuing with the Route 15/I99 example, a regional lobbying group, The Route 15 Coalition, has been lobbying the state and federal government for decades to keep the project rolling.

Committee priorities for 2009

You can read committee's full set of legislative priorities in this .pdf file. The stimulus money, they point out, will help relieve some of the backlog of projects in the near future. A few highlights include:

1. Authorizing the year's "surface transportation" (i.e. highways and mass transit) programs for the year.

2. Re-authorization of the FAA. The Senate has yet to get around to voting on this, but the deadline has been extended until Dec. 31. More information here (.pdf).

3. Address $2.5 billion worth of renovations needed at various Smithsonian museums.

4. Look into building more buildings for federal offices rather than renting space and making existing buildings more energy efficient.

5. Consider a water resources development act.

6. Address waste in emergency recovery efforts, particularly in the Gulf region.

7. High speed rail.

8. Levee and dam safety.

9. Address questions about Global Warming and the impact of automobiles.

10: Reform of the Coast Guard's Deep Water Procurement program. The bill would provide additional oversight (.pdf) on a program that will cost $24 billion over 20 years.

Hearings and Pending Legislation

Note: The full list of hearings is here

The next hearing for the committee will examine "Final Breakthrough on the Billion Dollar Katrina Infrastructure Logjam." What timing! It has only been 49 months since the storm hit (although, in fairness, the Republicans were in charge for the first half of that time). Other upcoming hearings will focus on topics like the emergency alert system, the Coast Guard's search and rescue mission, protection and restoration of the Long Island Sound, and the Clean Water Act (the committee has jurisdiction over pollution of navigable waterways).

FEMA Independence

This is a position that I argued for last year. Some excerpts:

Then came the Decider in Chief. Bush decided that his former campaign manager Joe Allbaugh should be in charge of FEMA. After 9/11, someone in the bureaucracy noticed that acts of terrorism will require disaster response. Therefore, FEMA should become one of 22 agencies incorporated into the new DHS. Notably, Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin warned against the move.

~snip

Somewhere along the way, Allbaugh hired his old college buddy Mike "heckuva job" Brown, who was FEMA head when Katrina hit. There is evidence that Brown was more interested in his wardrobe and how much time he would have for dinner than actually responding to the disaster. There was plenty of time to prepare for the storm, but Brownie (who had zero emergency management experience) did nothing. As a result, the people in New Orleans were stranded in a football stadium and conference center for days without food, water, or sanitation.

Brown got canned and Congress started an investigation. Initially, there was a push to restore FEMA to its former status it enjoyed as an independent agency. This effort was led by Senators Hillary Clinton, Daniel Akaka, Barbara Boxer, Trent Lott, and Rep. Tom Davis a Republican from Virginia. After a lack of response by FEMA to some ice storms in Oklahoma in January, 2007 the very Republican delegation from that state called for FEMA to regain its independent status as well. This includes Coburn and Inhofe.

It turns out that the only time that FEMA was really effective was during the Clinton era when they were independent, focused on emergency management (instead of preparing for nuclear war as it did under Reagan) and had an emergency management expert leading the agency.

Now Oberstar is pushing for a bill (.pdf) to finally reestablish FEMA as an independent agency. The bill is HR 1174 and plenty more information is available on the committee's home page.

How's your state doing?

Just a quick thought here: Wyoming is Best, Florida Worst in Utilizing Recovery Act Highway Funding

“Our Committee has analyzed the percentage of Recovery Act highway formula funds that have been put out to bid, are under contract, and are underway. Over the past five months, most states have moved forward aggressively to use the highway funds to create and sustain family-wage jobs. According to our analysis, Wyoming has performed the best, with New Hampshire and Oklahoma close behind,” said Rep. Oberstar. “Unfortunately, a few states have fallen far behind in putting their Recovery Act highway formula funds to work. Florida has been the slowest state in utilizing its funding allocation, while Hawaii and South Carolina rank 50th and 49th respectively.”

More information on recovery act transparency rules are available here.

Subcommittees

There are six subcommittees under the full committees. The names of the committees are fairly self explanatory and each one has a link to its recent hearings.

Aviation: Jerry F. Costello, Illinois is the chair and Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin is the ranking member.

Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation: Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland is the chair and Frank LoBiondo, New Jersey is the ranking member.

Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management : Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Columbia, is the chair and Mario Diaz-Balart, Florida is the ranking member. Delegates from DC and the territories may vote in and chair committees, including the Committee of the Whole, but not on final passage of bills in the House.

Highways and Transit: Peter DeFazio, Oregon is the chair and John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee is the ranking member.

Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials: Corrine Brown, Florida is the chair and Bill Shuster, Pennsylvania is the ranking member (like father, like son).

Water Resources and Environment : Eddie Bernice Johnson, Texas is the chair and John Boozman, Arkansas is the ranking member.

In case anyone is under any sort of delusions about it, the subcommittee has posted this (.pdf) report: Stagnant Waters: The Legacy of the Bush Administration on the Clean Water Act

"The Bush Administration has presided over the slow, but steady, dismantling of the Clean Water Act."

I will leave it on that note.

For more information, see my past work:

Joint Committee on Taxation
House Oversight Committee
Conference Committees
Senate and House Budget Committees
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Senate and House Armed Services Committees
Small Business Committees
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
The Committee Primer
House Education and Labor Committee
Senate Finance Committee
Senate HELP Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee
House Energy and Commerce Committee
House Ways and Means Committee
House and Senate Appropriations Committees
House Intelligence Committee
House Judiciary Committee
House and Senate Ethics Committees
House Science and Technology Committee
House Financial Services Committee
House Rules Committee
The Role of Committees

This entry is posted at Congress Matters, Daily Kos, Progressive Electorate and my own blog.

Considered Forthwith: Joint Committe on Taxation

2009-09-20T19:27:00.003-04:00

Welcome to the 22nd installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

And we're back. This week, I will be looking at the Joint Committee on Taxation. With the upcoming Finance Committee mark up of the Baucus bill, this little known committee will be in the spotlight. This is the committee responsible for studying the impact of tax policy and has calculated the revenue projections for the Finance Committee bill (opens a .pdf file).

The Joint Committee on Taxation is not a traditional committee. Its members are specifically drawn from other committees and its role is established by statue in the Internal Revenue Code.

Members

There are always ten members of this committee. Five are from the House Ways and Means Committee and five are from the Senate Committee on Finance. There are three members from the majority party and two from the minority party from each of the committees. In the first year of the Congress, the chair of the Ways and Means Committee chairs the joint committee. In the second year, the chairmanship goes to the Finance Committee chair.

The members for the 111th Congress are:

House: Charlie Rangel, chair; Fortney Pete Stark; Sander M. Levin; Dave Camp; and Wally Herger

Senate: Max Baucus, vice chair; John D. Rockefeller IV; Kent Conrad, Chuck Grassley; and Orrin Hatch

Statutory Role of the Committee

As noted above, the Joint Committee on Taxation does not have a specified jurisdiction under the rules of the House or Senate like the other committees. Instead, the committee's role is spelled out by statute. From the committee's website:

The statutorily prescribed duties of the Joint Committee are:

* To investigate the operation and effects of internal revenue taxes and the administration of such taxes;
* To investigate measures and methods for the simplification of such taxes;
* To make reports to the House Committee on Ways and Means and the Senate Committee on Finance (or to the House and the Senate) on the results of such investigations and studies and to make recommendations; and
* To review any proposed refund or credit of income or estate and gift taxes or certain other taxes set forth in Code section 6405 in excess of $2,000,000.

Under Internal Revenue Code section 8021, the Joint Committee is empowered to:

* Obtain and inspect tax returns and return information (as specified in sec. 6103(f));
* Hold hearings, require attendance of witnesses and production of books, administer oaths, and take testimony;
* Procure printing and binding;
* Make necessary expenditures. In addition, section 8023 authorizes the Joint Committee (or the Chief of Staff), upon approval of the Chairman or Vice-Chairman, to secure tax returns, tax return information or data directly from the IRS or any other executive agency for the purpose of making investigations, reports, and studies relating to internal revenue tax matters, including investigations of the IRS's administration of the tax laws.

In addition to these functions that are specified in the Internal Revenue Code, the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 requires the Joint Committee to provide revenue estimates for all tax legislation considered by either the House or the Senate. Such estimates are the official Congressional estimates for reported tax legislation.

The members of the committee do not actually do the legwork on all of the actual study. Instead, the committee employs a staff of PhD economists, lawyers, and accountants to make the specific projections on expected revenue of any changes in tax policy.

It is worth noting that Congress passes a new revenue bill every year. At any time, these provisions could be struck out, thus eliminating this joint committee. This is probably unlikely to happen, but a possibility nonetheless.

America’s Healthy Future Act Of 2009 (AKA: The Finance bill)

On September 16, the joint committee released its ten year revenue projections if the Finance Committee bill were to pass as is. Use this link to go to a page that will open a .pdf file to see these numbers.

According to ten-year projections, the Finance bill would generate $348.8 billion in revenue over the next decade (starting in 2010) to help pay for the proposed "insurance exchanges." The vast majority of this new revenue -- to the tune of $214.9 billion would come from:

35% excise tax on health coverage in excess of $8,000/$21,000 indexed for inflation by CPI-U; levied at insurer level; employer aggregates and issues information return for insurers indicating amount subject to the excise tax; nondeductible; high 17 state transition relief

This is the tax on the so-called "premium" health insurance plans.

The bill also calls for "fees" (read: taxes with a different name) on health insurance providers, clinical labs, and manufacturers and importers of medical devices and brand name drugs.

And here's me thinking that health care reform was supposed to reduce health care costs.

The Congressional Budget Office took a more comprehensive view of the Baucus plan. According to CBO, this plan would reduce deficits by $49 billion over ten years and:

By 2019, CBO and JCT estimate, the number of nonelderly people who are uninsured would be reduced by about 29 million, leaving about 25 million nonelderly residents uninsured (about one-third of whom would be unauthorized immigrants). Under the proposal, the share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage would rise from about 83 percent currently to about 94 percent. Roughly 25 million people would purchase coverage through the new insurance exchanges, and there would be roughly 11 million more enrollees in Medicaid than is projected under current law.

In other words, the Finance Committee plan only barely covers more than half of the uninsured and a good portion of the newly enrolled end up in Medicaid. So much for hitting those lofty goals of universal coverage. Moreover, 8.25 million brown people who have not yet become citizens (including mothers delivering newly minted full citizens) are frozen out of the system. Of course, this should assuage any knuckdragger fears that we are treating non-citizens like human beings.

Revenue streams for HR 3200

In case anyone is under the delusion that the Finance Committee bill is somehow superior to the House version, here is the link to the report on HR 3200, the tri-committee bill.

A ten-year analysis of the House bill (which includes a public option) shows that total revenue should amount to $583.1 billion. The majority of this new revenue ($543.9 billion) would come from tax increases on the wealthiest Americans. Specifically, the bill calls for:

Impos(ing) a Surcharge for Certain AGI at the Following Rates: 1% for $350,000-$500,000 for Joint Returns for 2011 Through 2012, 2% in 2013 and Thereafter; 1.5% For $500,000-$1,000,000 for Joint Returns for 2011 Through 2012, 3% In 2013 and Thereafter; 5.4% for $1,000,000 and Above for Joint Returns for 2011 and Thereafter; Income Thresholds are Indexed for Inflation

and

In the case of unmarried individuals, heads of households and trusts and estates, the income threshold dollar amounts are 80 percent of the above dollar amounts.

News Flash: If the public option really does cost $1 trillion over ten years, the House bill covers 54.4 percent of the costs just by increasing taxes on the rich to pre-Bush era levels. These figures do not include cost reductions in other programs nor do they take into account premiums that one would expect enrollees to pay. Naturally, the point is to make insurance affordable. Consider this. If 47 million uninsured people enroll and are charged $100 per month for the public option, the math works out like this:

47 million uninsured x $100/month = $4.7 billion per month

$4.7 billion/month x 12 months = $56.4 billion per year

$56.4 billion/year x 10 years = $564 billion over ten years

$564 billion + $583 billion = $1.147 trillion.

And that is assuming 1) no other cost savings and 2) that it actually would cost $1 trillion to run a not-for-profit health insurance program.

Game, set, match.

Role in the Markup

Click here for a full round up of the joint committee staff's role in committee mark ups, Floor debates and conference committees.

During markups of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees, the Joint Committee chief of staff (Thomas A. Barthold) usually testifies first and describes what the bill would do. During the remainder of the markup, the staffs of the joint committee and the Finance/Ways and Means committee are on hand to assist Members with drafting the language of any amendments. When the markup is complete, it falls to the joint committee staff to write the final report, including revised numbers to reflect amendments made during the markup.

The "report" in this instance is a summary of what the bill does and how much is costs. Most bills that are reported out of committee (that is, voted on and passed in committee) are accompanied by a report summarizing the bill for Members not on the committee and often arguing for its passage.

A little history

The Joint Committee on Taxation has a rather colorful beginning and involves a Senator from Michigan getting into a very public fight with the very wealthy and connected Treasury Secretary.

In the 1920s, there were charges of "inefficiency and waste" in the Bureau of Internal Revenue (the forerunner of the modern Internal Revenue Service). In 1924, Senator James Couzens (pronounced "cousins") introduced a resolution to create a select committee to investigate these charges.

The committee found that there appeared to be no system, no adherence to principle, and a total absence of competent supervision in the determination of oil property values.

The next year, Senator Couzens directly accused the BIR of giving preferential treatment to large corporations, costing the government millions of dollars every year. The bureau then notified Senator Couzens that he owed $10 million in back taxes. Treasury Secretary and Gulf Oil principal owner Andrew Mellon was thought have personally directed the retaliation. Mellon was the third wealthiest person in the country in the 1920s and Gulf Oil specifically benefited from the alleged favoritism by the bureau.

The select committee's work led to the 1926 Revenue Act and the creation of the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation. The idea was to allow Congress to get a handle on how tax law was (and is) administered. The House envisioned a temporary panel to help improve tax policy. The Senate strengthened the committee's role and made it permanent with a professional staff. The committee's first work was recommendations for simplifying the tax code in 1927.

The statutory role of the joint committee has changed very little over the years. They have taken on a handful of extra roles, including investigating tax issues for nominees to executive offices, providing assistance on negotiating treaties that involve tax revenue (i.e. tariffs and duties), overseeing the tax system, and creating and archiving tax-related documents.

That wraps it up for this week. Next week will probably be the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

For more information, see my past work:

House Oversight Committee
Conference Committees
Senate and House Budget Committees
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Senate and House Armed Services Committees
Small Business Committees
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
The Committee Primer
House Education and Labor Committee
Senate Finance Committee
Senate HELP Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee
House Energy and Commerce Committee
House Ways and Means Committee
House and Senate Appropriations Committees
House Intelligence Committee
House Judiciary Committee
House and Senate Ethics Committees
House Science and Technology Committee
House Financial Services Committee
House Rules Committee
The Role of Committees

This story is posted on Daily Kos, Congress Matters, Progressive Electorate, Docudharma.

Considered Forthwith: House Oversight Committee

2009-09-06T20:03:00.003-04:00

Welcome to the 21st installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

Congress is still in recess (until Tuesday), but the committees are coming back to life and scheduling hearings. This week I will be taking a look at the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. This is the main investigative committee in the House. While most other committees have the power to conduct investigations, this committee exists to provide another layer of oversight. The committee also has jurisdiction over several specific operations of the federal government and the local affairs of the District of Columbia.

Members

Edolphus Towns of New York took over the chairmanship of this committee after Henry Waxman took over the gavel on the Energy and Commerce Committee. Darrell Issa of California is the ranking minority member. Here are the members of the Oversight Committee:

Democrats: Chairman Edolphus Towns, New York; Paul E. Kanjorski, Pennsylvania; Carolyn B. Maloney, New York; Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland; Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio; John F. Tierney, Massachusetts; Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri; Diane E. Watson, California; Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts; Jim Cooper, Tennessee; Gerry Connolly, Virginia; Mike Quigley, Illinois; Marcy Kaptur, Ohio; Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Columbia; Patrick Kennedy, Rhode Island; Danny Davis, Illinois; Chris Van Hollen, Maryland; Henry Cuellar, Texas; Paul W. Hodes, New Hampshire; Christopher S. Murphy, Connecticut; Peter Welch, Vermont; Bill Foster, Illinois; Jackie Speier, California; Steve Driehaus, Ohio

Republicans: Darrell Issa, California, Ranking Minority Member; Dan Burton, Indiana; John M. McHugh, New York; John L. Mica, Florida; Mark E. Souder, Indiana; John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee; Michael Turner, Ohio; Lynn A. Westmoreland, Georgia; Patrick T. McHenry, North Carolina; Brian Bilbray, California; Jim Jordan, Ohio; Jeff Flake, Arizona; Jeff Fortenberry, Nebraska; Jason Chaffetz, Utah; Aaron Schock, Illinois

Jurisdiction:

As noted above, this committee is primarily an oversight and investigations body and has a few other roles within the federal government. Here is the formal statement of jurisdiction:

Legislative Responsibilities
The legislative jurisdiction of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform includes the following areas, as set forth in House Rule X, clause 1:

• Federal civil service, including intergovernmental personnel; and the status of officers and employees of the United States, including their compensation, classification, and retirement;
• Municipal affairs of the District of Columbia in general (other than appropriations);
• Federal paperwork reduction;
• Government management and accounting measures generally;
• Holidays and celebrations;
• Overall economy, efficiency, and management of government operations and activities, including federal procurement;
• National archives;
• Population and demography generally, including the Census;
• Postal service generally, including transportation of the mails;
• Public information and records;
• Relationship of the federal government to the states and municipalities generally; and
• Reorganizations in the executive branch of the government.

And here is the section dealing with oversight responsibilities:

Oversight Responsibilities

The oversight responsibilities of the Committee are set forth in House Rule X, clauses 2, 3, and 4.

House Rule X, clause 2(b), provides that the Committee shall review and study on a continuing basis—

(A) the application, administration, execution, and effectiveness of laws and programs addressing subjects within its jurisdiction;

(B) the organization and operation of Federal agencies and entities having responsibilities for the administration and execution of laws and programs addressing subjects within its jurisdiction;

(C) any conditions or circumstances that may indicate the necessity or desirability of enacting new or additional legislation addressing subjects within its jurisdiction (whether or not a bill or resolution has been introduced with respect thereto); and

(D) future research and forecasting on subjects within its jurisdiction.

House Rule X, clause 3(i), provides that the Committee shall “review and study on a continuing basis the operation of Government activities at all levels with a view to determining their economy and efficiency.”

House Rule X, clause 4(c)(1), provides that the Committee shall:

(A) receive and examine reports of the Comptroller General of the United States and submit to the House such recommendations as it considers necessary or desirable in connection with the subject matter of the reports;

(B) evaluate the effects of laws enacted to reorganize the legislative and executive branches of the Government; and

(C) study intergovernmental relationships between the States and municipalities and between the United States and international organizations of which the United States is a member.

And House Rule X, clause 4(c)(2), provides that the Committee “may at any time conduct investigations of any matter without regard to clause 1, 2, 3, or this clause [of House Rule X] conferring jurisdiction over the matter to another standing committee.”

Nearly every other Congressional Committee has oversight responsibility for the parts of the Executive Branch bureaucracy that fall under their respective jurisdictions. This reality makes the Oversight Committee seem redundant. However, there are no guarantees that a particular committee with jurisdiction will vigorously investigate (or investigate at all, for that matter) any given issue.

More to the point, this committee is a protection against out of control Iron Triangles. To seriously oversimplify, Iron Triangles refer to the often too cozy relationships among interest groups (i.e. lobbyists and contractors), Congress (particularly committee members and staffers) and bureaucrats. If a committee gets too cozy with those that they are supposed to oversee, the oversight can suffer. The oversight committee offers another layer of oversight. Here is a graphic showing how Iron Triangles work:

Current Investigations

As set forth in House Rule X, clause 4, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform may, at any time, conduct investigations of any matter regardless of whether another standing committee has jurisdiction over the matter. In 1998, Rep. Waxman formed the Special Investigations Division to conduct investigations into issues that are important to members of the Oversight Committee and other members of Congress.

It would be impossible to detail every investigation undertaken by this committee. I suggest checking out the investigations page to see a list of all of the major investigations the committee has handled in recent years. Here are some of the most recent announcements of the committee's activities.

SEC Personnel: Chairman Towns is seeking information about the level of experience of investigators at the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding the investigation of the Ponzi Scheme operated by Bernie Madoff. SEC's Office of the Inspector General reviewed the commission's work on the case and issued a scathing report Aug. 31. The executive summary is available here in .pdf format. The report indicates that SEC could have uncovered the scheme as early as 1992, but inexperienced personnel were assigned to the case and the SEC missed important red flags. Towns points out that a 2002 law gave the SEC the authority to offer higher pay than is usually seen in the federal government to recruit experienced and talented investigators, so he wants to know why key personnel on the case:

had “recently graduated from law school” or had “joined the SEC as his first job out of school.”

Federal Procurement System: An Aug. 7 Washington Post article titled A $191 Million Question: How a relationship between an Army official and a private contractor led to allegations of collusion and impropriety caught Chairman Towns' attention. (And you thought the traditional media had shirked its responsibilities a long time ago.) Towns sent a letter to the U.S. Merit Protection Board requesting information about this matter. This is not exactly a Strongly Worded Letter ™. "Requests" for information from Congress are not to be taken lightly.

This situation is a classic example of an Iron Triangle (though the alternate term "cozy triangle" seems more appropriate). In this instance, a technology program director for the Army and an executive in a military contracting company were very close personally (though he claims they were not romantically involved). In any case, he provided her with information about upcoming contracts, allowing her company to write proposals that all but ensured her company would win the contracts. Even if the government got the best deal for the best price, the situation reeks of impropriety.

Bank of America bailout: Towns is also seeking documents related to the Bank of America - Merrill Lynch merger likely with an eye on future hearings and investigations. When Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch at the beginning of this year, BoA's stock prices tanked badly -- within three weeks, the bank's stock price dropped 78 percent. The Treasury Department dutifully (though probably reluctantly) forked over a $20 billion bailout and the American taxpayers are now on the hook for that money. To be sure, this is the latest in a string of investigations into the merger that the Wall Street Journal frankly called "A Deal From Hell." For example, three days before Towns called for the investigation, Subcommittee on Domestic Policy Chair Dennis Kucinich took credit for uncovering bonuses promised to Merrill Lynch executives that greased the way for the merger vote.

There is certainly a whole lot more to this story, but I will leave it at that for the sake of salvaging some kind of brevity here.

Whistleblowers

Have you got a tip about possible corruption in the government? Here is the whistleblower contact information:

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202) 225-5051

You can also contact them via e-mail through this portal: http://oversight.house.gov/contact/. In addition, there are separate tip lines for general tips; waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars; and steriods in professional sports. You don't even have to include your name.

District of Columbia

From the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8:

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;

That means the federal government was granted the Constitutional authority to run a town. James Madison discussed the need for a separate entity for the nation's capital in Federalist 43 in which he argues that the seat of the government needs to be insulated from the legislative whims of any state that would host the capital.

Initially, the populated areas of the district generally only consisted of the hamlets of Georgetown on the northern bank of the Potomac River and Alexandria on the southern bank. (Alexandria was returned to Virginia in 1846 in a compromise over slavery.) Since the original federal government was envisioned as very limited in scope and the climate was terrible (it was a swamp, after all), few people expected the population to grow very much. However, the government did grow, particularly during the Civil War and later during the New Deal era. This growth, in turn, attracted government workers, special interest groups, and people to actually build and staff all of the things that make a city a city.

Congress continued to directly govern the growing district until 1973 when the Home Rule Act devolved certain powers to the city and provided for a mayor and city council to make local decisions. Regardless, Congress still retains the power to overturn local laws. This committee and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs has jurisdiction over such matters. This is also the reason why the delegate from DC traditionally sits on the House Oversight Committee.

A case in point is the DC council's decision earlier this year to recognize same sex marriages performed elsewhere. Congress could have intervened, and thus touched off a debate that could have either opened the door to overturning the Defense of Marriage Act or conversely banned the practice entirely depending on the votes in Congress. However, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Congress to just let the issue slide, thus expanding same-sex marriage rights without actually doing anything.

Dissenting from this decision -- but not getting anywhere -- was Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, the ranking member of the subcommittee that oversees the District.:

It’s not something I can let go softly into the night.... I recognize the Democrats are in the majority, but I represent the majority of Americans on this issue.

Well, he did not even get a press release on the minority home page at that time, much less a hearing on the matter.

Oversight under Republicans

This committee certainly can abuse its power. During Bill Clinton's term, the Republican-controlled committee issued 1,052 subpoenas compared to three under the Bush Administration. Put quite frankly:

An examination of committees' own reports found that the House Government Reform Committee held just 37 hearings described as ''oversight" or investigative in nature during the last Congress, down from 135 such hearings held by its predecessor, the House Government Operations Committee, in 1993-94, the last year the Democrats controlled the chamber.

Source

Instead of investing Jack Abramoff, 9/11, Plamegate, suppression of NASA supporting global warming, torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, claims of WMD in Iraq, the Downing Street Memo, and the botched response to Hurricane Katrina, Committee Chair Thomas Davis was focused on Terri Schiavo (going as far as to issue a subpoena ordering her to appear before the committee) and steroid abuse in professional wrestling. Committee Democrats were even forced to use a small basement room to discuss the Downing Street Memo.

When Waxman took over the chair in 2007, he followed through with promises to step up oversight.

A note about postage stamps

I'm just putting this one out there. This is from the committee's rules:

Rule 20 -- Subjects of Stamps

The Committee has adopted the policy that the determination of the subject matter of commemorative stamps and new semi-postal issues is properly is for consideration by the Postmaster General and that the Committee will not give consideration to legislative proposals specifying the subject matter of commemorative stamps and new semi-postal issues. It is suggested that recommendations for the subject matter of stamps be submitted to the Postmaster General.

While the committee has the power to govern what images appear on postage stamps, they are ~~refusing to waste their time~~ punting such decisions to the Postal Service. Certainly, commemorative stamps can potentially set off damaging political firestorms over essentially nothing. What if the committee decided, for example, to put out a stamp commemorating the Roe v. Wade decision? The committee (and the rest of Congress for that matter) would be distracted from more important matters by a petty debate over stamps. The message here seems to be, it's somebody else's problem. Here are the 2009 commemorative stamp collections. My challenge to readers: can you detect the pronounced liberal bias going on here (snark).

Subcommittees

The Oversight Committee has five subcommittees to handle relevant business. Each of them also has their own webpage.The subcommittees are:

Domestic Policy:

Jurisdiction includes domestic policies, including matters relating to energy, labor, education, criminal justice, the economy, as well as the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Dennis Kucinich of Ohio is the chair and Jim Jordon of Ohio is the ranking member. Link

Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the District of Columbia:

Jurisdiction includes federal employee issues, non-appropriation municipal affairs of the District of Columbia, and the Postal Service, including post office namings, holidays, and celebrations.

Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts is the chair and Jason Chaffetz of Utah is the ranking member. Importantly, Delegate Elanor Holmes Norton is a member of the committee. Link

Government Management, Organization, and Procurement:

Jurisdiction includes management of government operations, reorganizations of the executive branch, and federal procurement.

Diane Watson of California is the chair and Brian Bilbray of California is the ranking member. This is the committee that will likely handle that procurement investigation discussed above. Link

Information Policy, Census, and National Archives:

Jurisdiction includes public information and records laws such as the Freedom of Information Act, the Presidential Records Act, and the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the Census Bureau, and the National Archives and Records Administration.

William Lacy Clay of Missouri is the chair and Patrick McHenry of North Carolina is the ranking member. Link

National Security and Foreign Affairs:

Jurisdiction includes oversight of national security, homeland security, and foreign affairs.

John Tierney of Massachusetts is the chair and Jeff Flake of Arizona is the ranking member. Link

That's it for this week. I'm soliciting suggestions for next week.

For more about other committees, check out my previous work:
Conference Committees
Senate and House Budget Committees
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Senate and House Armed Services Committees
Small Business Committees
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
The Committee Primer
House Education and Labor Committee
Senate Finance Committee
Senate HELP Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee
House Energy and Commerce Committee
House Ways and Means Committee
House and Senate Appropriations Committees
House Intelligence Committee
House Judiciary Committee
House and Senate Ethics Committees
House Science and Technology Committee
House Financial Services Committee
House Rules Committee
The Role of Committees

This series appears at Congress Matters, Daily Kos, Progressive Electorate, Docudharma, and my own blog.

Considered Forthwith: Conference Committees

2009-08-30T20:22:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the 20th installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

This week's entry is a little different than usual. With Congress out of session until Sept. 8, there is not much going on in the standing committees. When they do get back, there will be a ton of work to get done, not the least of which will be a health care reform bill and a climate change bill. There are also 13 appropriations bills to handle. Everyone of these will certainly end up in a conference committee. This seems an opportune time to discuss that process.

Under Article I Section 7 of the Constitution, a bill must pass both the House and Senate with the exact same wording before it may be sent to the president for final approval. Since the members of both houses have their own prerogatives and the ability to amend bills, usually only the most routine bills (like naming post offices) go unamended. One notable exception was the additional appropriation of funds to the Cash for Clunkers program.

On less complicated and/or controversial bills, the houses will often "ping-pong" the legislation, giving each the chance to just accept the other chamber's amendments and finally pass the bill. This is essentially what happened with Cash for Clunkers. The added wrinkle was that the House was out of session for more than a month while the Senate debated the bill. Had the Senate even changed a comma, the House would not be back pass the updated version and the program would have died for want of money. In fact, this is what the Republicans tried to do, but failed.

Going to conference

When the "ping-pong" method fails or is obviously not feasible, the two houses pass resolutions request a conference with the other. Could these resolutions be voted down or filibustered? It's conceivable. However, if a bill has garnered enough support to pass both chambers, there is no reason to believe that a resolution to go to conference would fail to gain the same support.

For what it's worth, this item either flew under the radar or we have forgotten about it, but President Obama is planning to let the health care reform battle play itself out in Senate. Then he is planning to get involved more directly during the conference process. The president has no formal role in the process, but it is an opportunity to do some arm-twisting, dealing, and bullying from the pulpit.

Selecting conferees

Without a doubt, this is the key part of the conference committee process. The people who negotiate the final product will obviously bring their own biases to the bargaining table. For this reason, it is vital to pick conference committee members who will likely return a bill that the majority party leadership will find acceptable.

According to the rules of the House (pdf), the Speaker selects the members of the committee:

Committee appointment
11. The Speaker shall appoint all select, joint, and conference committees ordered by the House. At any time after an original appointment, the Speaker may remove Members, Delegates, or the Resident Commissioner from, or appoint additional Members, Delegates, or the Resident Commissioner to, a select or conference committee. In appointing Members, Delegates, or the Resident Commissioner to conference committees, the Speaker shall appoint no less than a majority who generally supported the House position as determined by the Speaker, shall name those who are primarily responsible for the legislation, and shall, to the fullest extent feasible, include the principal proponents of the major provisions of the bill or resolution passed or adopted by the House.

Similarly, the power to appoint conferees from the Senate falls to the presiding officer. These appointments are subject to a debatable (and thus subject to a Senate filibuster) resolution, so it is important to select committee members who will be acceptable to a majority of the chamber. Just like standing committees, members of the minority parties are included in the conference committee, but this is not always particularly important since the minority can be frozen out of the substantive part of negotiations. See more discussion below.

In actual practice, though, the chairs and ranking members of the relevant standing committees usually have the inside track on appointment to the conference committee. Additionally, the parties' leaderships are heavily involved in the process on major bills. This means that the final vote on the conferees is often not controversial, but the behind-the-scenes process may be highly contentious. That said, the Democrats when they were in the minority, did sometimes attempt to filibuster these resolutions when they felt excluded from conference committees.,

For the health care reform bill, that means the Democrats will almost certainly appoint Max Baucus, Chris Dodd, Henry Waxman, George Miller and Charlie Rangel (presumably among others) to the conference committee on whatever bills emerge.

There is no upper or lower limit to the number of members that each chamber may appoint to a conference committee. Indeed, committees that deal with large omnibus bills are often huge and split into subcommittees to work are various sections of the bill under consideration. The 1981 Omnibus Reconciliation Act set a record with 250 members working on different parts of the bill in conference. (No link, but noted in Congress and Its Members by Davidson, Oleszek, and Lee on page 268.)

During this process, the houses may also pass resolutions expressing what they would like to see ultimately emerge. The conferees are not formally bound to such resolutions, but there is always the possibility that the full body will vote down the final conference report (i.e. the final bill).

Procedure

Conference committees are, for all intents and purposes, a forum for negotiations. Ultimately, they must report out a bill that both chambers will find acceptable and pass. This requires a simple majority of committee members to vote for passage. Like regular standing committees, there are always more majority party members than minority party members, meaning a united group of Democratic Senators and Representatives can report out a Democratic bill that will likely pass both chambers and be signed into law. Keep in mind that the conference committee is intended to be a negotiation between the House and Senate, not between Democrats and Republicans.

It is important to remember that there is a time limit on debate on conference committee reports in the Senate. Therefore, it is not subject to a filibuster. Additionally, amendments are not allow as this would pretty much defeat the point of having a conference committee. If either chamber fails to pass the final bill, it dies.

Another important point is that the conference committee cannot add new material, nor can it remove anything that is included in both versions. Using the example of Cap-and-Trade and the climate change bill:

1. If Cap and Trade is not included in either bill sent in from the two chambers, it cannot be inserted into the final bill.

2. If it is in both in identical form, the program could not be touched by the conference committee, but other provisions of the bill are up for negotiations.

3. If it is in both bills, but in different forms, the program stays, but the terms can be negotiated.

4. If it is in one bill but not the other, the program could be cut entirely, included as is, or included in a modified form.

This is why it is important to pass bills with favored policies (like a public option, for example) in at least one of the chambers and to appoint conferees who will fight for those policies. This is also the reason why it is not necessarily the worst possible situation if the House passes a public option, but the Senate does not as Orrin Hatch threatened today.

Davidson, Oleszak and Lee note (page 206) that there are four basic types of negotiations formats used in conference committees. Note that this process might take days or weeks and include multiple meetings.

Traditional: The conferees all come together and hash out the differences in the bill in a familiar negotiating format until they reach a compromise on all of differences in the bills.

Offer-counter offer: Often used for tax measures, this is a format favored in union-management negotiations. One side will make an offer. The other side will retire to consider the offer and come back with their own counter offer. Eventually, a final compromise report will emerge.

Subcommittee: As noted above, omnibus bills are usually too large for a committee to tackle wholesale. On bills like this, the committee may divide itself up into subcommittees and negotiate the various conflicting provisions piecemeal. After all of the subcommittees are done, the final bill is assembled and voted upon. This, of course, illustrates the basic problem with "must pass" omnibus bills. Even the members on the conference committee don't know what all is included in the bill.

Pro-forma: The conference committee must meet initially for an opening session and meet to vote on final approval. Beyond that, there are no requirements for actually holding formal negotiating sessions. When they were in the majority, Congressional Republicans were particularly fond of conducting negotiations among themselves in private, calling a meeting of the committee, and voting as a bloc on the report/bill that they had previously hammered out. Democrats, feeling they had been frozen out of negotiations, retaliated by sometimes filibustering and otherwise delaying the naming of conference committee members on subsequent conference committee resolutions.

When the Democrats took over in 2007, the leadership pledged to both open the process and legitimately include Republicans in the process. Health care reform and climate change will be some of the first major bills on which the Democrats can live up to these promises. With the veto crayon wielding George W. Bush in the White House and only bare majorities in Congress the Dems in the 110th Congress did not have the opportunity to push for major legislation like these measures before now.

Openness and power

Even with the Democrats new openness rules, there are no guarantees that the public will be able to see anything other than the opening session and final vote on C-Span or streaming on line when the conference committees start to meet this fall. Even if we do see some actual bargaining, it is not only possible, but probable, that the actual Democratic proposals will be worked out ahead of time. Considering the commitment to obstruction path on which the GOP seems set, there really seems little reason to include them in the process anyway.

There has been some criticism of the conference committee system for putting too much power into a largely unaccountable group of Senators and Representatives. Others point out that these members are simply acting on behalf of the leadership of their respective chambers and not significantly changing policy. I tend to side with the latter view, but I do think the process should be more open. At any rate, if you are following health care reform and/or climate change, be sure to keep up with the conference committee appointments.

For more about other committees, check out my previous work:
Senate and House Budget Committees
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Senate and House Armed Services Committees
Small Business Committees
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
The Committee Primer
House Education and Labor Committee
Senate Finance Committee
Senate HELP Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee
House Energy and Commerce Committee
House Ways and Means Committee
House and Senate Appropriations Committees
House Intelligence Committee
House Judiciary Committee
House and Senate Ethics Committees
House Science and Technology Committee
House Financial Services Committee
House Rules Committee
The Role of Committees

Crossposted at Congress Matters, Daily Kos, Docudharma, and Progressive Electorate

Not a spammer site

2009-08-30T13:19:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, I received a notification that this site had been identified as a "spammer." Rest assured that this is not the case. My best guess is that I have been asked to submit my Considered Forthwith series, written under my nom de blog "Casual Wednesday," at so many places that Blogger/Google's computers raised some red flags.

I post my series at these sites:

Daily Kos
Congress Matters
Docudharma
Progressive Electorate

I feel so syndicated now.

I have e-mailed Blogger/Google and requested a real person to review the site.

Filling Sen. Kennedy's seat

2009-08-29T18:25:00.002-04:00

Originally posted at Congress Matters.

With the passing of the Lion of the Senate, the question now turns to who will fill his seat. As much as I think Barney Frank is one of the few people who can live up to Uncle Teddy's legacy, I am nominating Eric Mogilnicki, Kennedy's chief of staff. Follow me on this.

Less than a week before his death, the always forward-looking Kennedy urged his state to prepare for his imminent passing. He of all people recognized that he was not mortal and that someone else would need to carry on his work, particularly on health care reform. Kennedy was obviously focused on the political calculus. The vote of a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts will almost certainly be needed to pass a meaningful public option during this session of Congress.

The problem is that a special election to fill the seat cannot possibly take place in time to seat someone before any vote will be held.

From The Hill

The special election must be held between 145 and 160 days after the vacancy occurs. Since Kennedy died late Tuesday, that puts the window between Jan. 17 and Feb. 1. Holding the race on a Tuesday, a traditional Election Day, would mean Jan. 18, Jan. 25 or Feb. 1.

Kennedy wanted the state legislature to change a 2004 law setting the special election, but forbidding the governor from appointing even a temporary "seat warmer." This law was passed to prevent then governor Mitt "Mittens" Romney from appointing a Republican to fill a seat left vacant by a possible President John Kerry. With a Democratic governor, Deval Patrick, now in office in this overwhelmingly Democratic state, the dynamic has changed. (One question, why did you vote for Mittens, Massachusetts?)

From the New York Times

Abby Goodnough, The Times’s Boston bureau chief, noted in an article published today that Gov. Deval Patrick spoke with the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, on Wednesday. The topic at hand is how and when to fill the seat long held by the state’s senior senator. On Wednesday, the governor vocally and publicly endorsed Mr. Kennedy’s wishes that a special appointment be made to replace him, in lieu of state law providing for a special election several months hence.

And it looks like the state legislature is willing to go along.

Also from the Times:

Wednesday, Democrats in Washington stepped up pressure on the governor to see Mr. Kennedy’s wish fulfilled, and state legislative leaders said they would immerse themselves in the issue after a mourning period for Mr. Kennedy.

snip

The governor said he would sign a change in the law if the legislature approved it. He said it was important for Massachusetts to have two voices in the Senate as Congress prepares to vote on overhauling the health care system — contentious legislation whose passage may well require every Democratic vote.

And we assume that anyone Patrick appoints would be in favor of the public option. (For some odd reason, Mittens fairly publicly took himself out of the running for the seat. Hey, I'm not seeking that seat, either. Can I get a story over here?)

Is this all blatantly partisan? You betcha. Can Massachusetts actually decide the ultimate fate of health care reform? Yep, in much the same way as six Senator representing 2.75 percent of the country can save or kill reform. Sorry. That's politics. As a partisan, I'm all about this change in the rules. As a student of politics, I'm uneasy about abruptly changing the rules for political expediency.

The individual states, as we are aware, are responsible for replacing their own Senators and they all have a motivation to select a replacement as quickly as possible. When Barack Obama and Joe Biden were elected, four states found themselves in this unenviable position. The results were, shall we say, mixed. We had:

The best possible decision,

A jockey for position that went largely unnoticed outside of Colorado,

A comi-tragedy that played itself out on the national stage and,

What can be charitably described as a gigantic clusterfuck

The American people absolutely must be allowed to vote for Senate replacements. They also absolutely deserve representation in that body and a vacant Senate seat is patently unfair to the residents of that state. Exhibit A: Minnesota.

Therefore, the governors of each state ought to retain the power to appoint a "benchwarmer" until an election can be held. Should he/she be required to pick someone of the same party as the outgoing or deceased Senator? No. Obviously, a Romney-Kerry dynamic is problematic. A governor who is allowed to pick anyone to serve temporarily has an incentive to appoint a strong member of his/her own party. If the governor is required by statute to pick someone from the opposite party, the obvious option is to pick a corrupt ditch digger who happens to be a member of the party.

This is why I have always thought that the appointment of Ted Kaufman to fill Joe Biden's seat until the next election. Kaufman was Biden's 19-year chief of staff. This person essentially acts as a vice senator, generally holds the same views as the boss, and knows what is going on in the office. This person, in almost every case, would be a hard worker who reflect the views of the person who was elected.

I would offer this as the best reform. Elevate the chief of staff to the Senate until a special election can be held. I still don't like that Kaufman will be in office until Joe's son runs in 2010, but it is the best we could do under the rules.

Considered Forthwith: Budget Committees and reconciliation

2009-08-23T21:06:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the 20th installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

Since we are all interested in passing the public option through reconciliation, this seems an opportune time to look at the House and Senate Budget committees that have jurisdiction over reconciliation. This process, which has existed since 1974, is not used every year, but is being actively considered this year. The major function of the budget committees, however, is to handle the budget resolution, which was done months ago. (CF regrettably missed that opportunity to discuss the Budget Committees.)

Members and Jurisdiction

Normally I list all of the members of the committees and their jurisdictions here. This will be a lengthy and substantive entry, so here are links to the House members, Senate Democratic and Republican members and official statements of jurisdiction of the House and Senate committees.

Kent Conrad is the chair and Judd Gregg is the ranking member of the Senate Committee. John Spratt is the House committee chair and Paul Ryan is the ranking member.

Neither committee has any subcommittees.

Reconciliation

Reconciliation is not the main function annual function of the committees. That would be writing the annual budget resolution, which is discussed below. The Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 established the modern budget process including the optional reconciliation process and the budget resolution. Reconciliation...

...is utilized when Congress issues directives to legislate policy changes in mandatory spending (entitlements) or revenue programs (tax laws) to achieve the goals in spending and revenue contemplated by the budget resolution. First used in1980 this process was used at the end of a fiscal year to enact legislation to fine tune revenue and spending levels through legislation that could not be filibustered in the Senate. The policy changes brought about by this part of the budget process have served as constraints on the levels of mandatory spending and federal tax revenues which also has served since 1981 as a vehicle for deficit reduction.

Reconciliation is immune to a filibuster because debate is limited to 20 hours by the statute. That's why we are considering using reconciliation to pass health care reform, or at least the public option. With out the filibuster threat, the Democrats only need to muster 50 votes plus the vice president's tie breaker for passage.

The health care reform bill was included in both the House and Senate budget resolutions for fiscal year 2010. More on the process of this below. The important point is that reconciliation was included in the budget resolutions, so the reconciliation process may take place this year.

Under the rules of reconciliation, the budget committees direct the authorizing committees to submit their pieces of the reconciliation bill. It is up to the budget committees to combine these bills into one omnibus bill to be reported to the full chamber with fiscal reports from the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation. (Honestly, I cannot make heads or tales of the current reports on the reform bills. However, I do see a few key Blue Dogs, including Max Baucus and Kent Conrad on the committee.) The work of the Budget committees, however, is largely administrative since they are not allowed to make substantive changes to the bills that make up the omnibus. If the public option, for example, is in one bill, then it will be in the omnibus.

From there, the bill goes through the normal floor votes and conference report process with the exception of the 20 hour limit on debate in the Senate and the possibility of points of order outlined next.

At the moment, our current debate is not so much whether the public option can pass under reconciliation. The current whip count seems to indicate that a majority are in favor of establishing a public health insurance agency. The real problem is whether the public option may even be included in a budget reconciliation bill. This is due to the Byrd Rule. The Byrd Rule rule, originally propagated by Senator Robert Byrd in the mid 1980s, defines what constitutes "extraneous matter" that would be subject to a point of order by any Senator. These six tests for identifying extraneous matter are:

* do not produce a change in outlays or revenues;

* produce changes in outlays or revenue which are merely incidental to the non-budgetary components of the provision;

* are outside the jurisdiction of the committee that submitted the title or provision for inclusion in the reconciliation measure;

* increase outlays or decrease revenue if the provision's title, as a whole, fails to achieve the Senate reporting committee's reconciliation instructions;

* increase net outlays or decrease revenue during a fiscal year after the years covered by the reconciliation bill unless the provision's title, as a whole, remains budget neutral;

* contain recommendations regarding the OASDI (social security) trust funds.

A point of order can be waived if 60 members vote in favor of waiving it. If the point of order is upheld, the provision would be struck from the bill. Of course, that essentially defeats the point of running the public option through reconciliation to get around the filibuster threat. Now, there are some exceptions to the Byrd Rule that can eliminate the point of order. They are:

* a provision that mitigates direct effects attributable to a second provision which changes outlays or revenue when the provisions together produce a net reduction in outlays;

* the provision will result in a substantial reduction in outlays or a substantial increase in revenues during fiscal years after the fiscal years covered by the reconciliation bill;

* the provision will likely reduce outlays or increase revenues based on actions that are not currently projected by CBO for scorekeeping purposes; or

* such provision will likely produce significant reduction in outlays or increase in revenues, but due to insufficient data such reduction or increase cannot be reliably estimated.

When a member makes a point of order, the presiding member rules whether or not it is in order (i.e may even be voted upon). In making this decision, the presiding member confers with the parliamentarian. The parliamentarian is a non-partisan professional who has gone through years of training in the rule and procedures of Congress. When the parliamentarian makes a decision it is highly likely that the presiding officer will rule the same way. The presiding officer, of course, may rule the other way. However, this sets a dangerous precedent. Essentially, the presiding officer is saying that it is fine to disregard the finer points of the chamber rules as interpreted by the person who was hired to know this information.

It seems very likely that the public option would violate one or more of the tests of the Byrd Rule. Therefore, the supporters will need to show that it meets one of the exceptions. In other words, they will need to show that it will save money in the long run despite the required start up costs. This will also necessarily require splitting the bill into the financial components and the sections that do not affect the federal budget.

In this case, the parliamentarian's decision would be heavily influenced by estimates from the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation (linked above and the subject of next week's entry). This seems like a good time to discuss CBO, over which the committees have jurisdiction.

Congressional Budget Office

CBO was also created by the 1974 budget reform act to serve as a source of objective budget information and long-term spending and revenue projections for Congress. Their reports do not include policy recommendations. In other words, the numbers are what they are. However, the CBO director, under Congressional testimony can be pressed for recommendations based on the office's reports and studies.

CBO is not to be confused with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which does similar work for the President. The CBO budget for FY 2009 is $44.1 million and employs 235 people, most of whom hold advanced degrees in public policy or economics. OMB's FY 2009 budget is about $72.8 million and has a work force of 489 full time equivalents, meaning that their employees work the equivalent of 489 40-hour weeks. Why have two budget offices? Long-term budget projections are as much art as science. Two sets of experts can come to radically different conclusions on budget forecasts. Therefore it is advisable to essentially get a second opinion.

One major role of the CBO is to produce a cost estimate on every bill that is reported from any committee. In mid July, CBO released a report on the Democrats' health care reform plan. The Senate Budget Committee promptly held a hearing with CBO director Douglas Elmendorf. The result of this hearing was the revelation that the current plan might be a drain on the budget, which sent the fiscal conservatives into a panic and made them waver in their support for a government-run health insurance company. The July 16 hearing was really a turning point in the debate. This hearing also illustrates another key power of the Budget committees: through their hearings the members have the opportunity to shape budget debates.

Like any economic projection, these numbers are only estimate. Furthermore, CBO is quick to point out that the July projections are not based on complete information:

The figures released yesterday do not represent a complete cost estimate for the legislation. In particular, the estimated impact of the provisions related to health insurance coverage is based on specifications provided by the committee staff, rather than on a detailed analysis of the legislative language.

That means that additional information may change the budget forecasts. I have also heard an argument that allowing the Bush tax cuts (which were also passed under reconciliation incidentally) could cover the costs of the public option.

To be accurate, the July time line looked like this: CBO released a preliminary analysis of the House bill July 14. The Senate Budget Committee held their hearing July 16. CBO released it's latest report July 17.

To keep up to date with CBO's health care reform reports, bookmark this page. The climate change reports are here.

The other major roles of CBO include overseeing the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP, or the bank bailout), making long-term projections on the budget and entitlement programs, issuing monthly budget reports to Congress on current incomes and outlays, and assisting with the annual budget resolutions.

Budget resolutions

For a full rundown of the budget process, please see my primer on the budget process.

A major role of the Budget committees is to produce the annual budget resolutions. These are brief statements outlining the amount of money that may be spent on each of 21 "budget functions." The budget functions are listed herehere. If the President and Congress are of the same party, the budget resolutions will be largely based on a President's budget. If relations between Congress and the President are strained, the budget could be declared "dead on arrival" and the budget resolution will be radically different from the President's budget.

In addition, any reconciliation plans must be included in the budget resolution. Under the original 1974 budget reform act, two resolutions were required and reconciliation happened in the second resolution in the fall. This was problematic, The point of reconciliation is to reduce spending or increase resolution. However, by the fall the appropriations committees have already settled on the outlays and it proved difficult to cut funding that had already been appropriated. After that experience, Congress shifted to using only a single budget resolution in early spring.

Once the Budget committees report the budget resolutions, they go to the full chamber for a vote. The resolution is not subject to a filibuster in the Senate as debate is limited to 50 hours. These resolutions become rules of the chamber and it takes a supermajority votes to exceed spending limits to spend more than the amount listed in the resolution.

Ongoing studies

Finally, the committees continue to oversee the budget process and study proposals to change the current budget or the process in general. For example, the House Budget Committee has held hearings on PAYGO (a law requiring all spending to be covered by revenue or spending cuts elsewhere), the economic case for health care reform, and Budgeting for Nuclear Waste Management. The Senate Committee has held fewer hearings and several recent ones have focused on Chairman Conrad's home state of North Dakota.

Finally, if anyone is still under the delusion that the Republicans operated like the party of fiscal responsibility under George W. Bush, consider these numbers from the House Budget Committee which were current as of November, 2008 just after the election:

Budget Surplus or Deficit:
Fiscal Year 2001: surplus of $128 billion
Fiscal Year 2008 as projected in 2001: surplus of $635 billion
Fiscal Year 2008 (actual): deficit of $455 billion
Fiscal Year 2009 projected in the Administration's July 2008 Mid Session Review: deficit of $482 billion

Debt:
Debt held by the public in January 2001: $3.4 trillion
Debt held by the public in November 2008: $6.3 trillion
Statutory debt limit* in January 2001: $5.6 trillion
Statutory debt limit* now: $11.3 trillion
*(Statutory debt limit includes debt held by the public and intragovernmental holdings)

Foreign-Held Debt:
Foreign-held debt: $2.7 trillion - more than two and half times its level in 2001
More than 80 cents of every dollar of new debt is bought by foreign investors

Interest on National Debt:
Fiscal Year 2008 debt service as projected in 2001: $27 billion
Fiscal Year 2008 debt service (actual): $249 billion

For more about other committees, check out my previous work:
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Senate and House Armed Services Committees
Small Business Committees
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
The Committee Primer
House Education and Labor Committee
Senate Finance Committee
Senate HELP Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee
House Energy and Commerce Committee
House Ways and Means Committee
House and Senate Appropriations Committees
House Intelligence Committee
House Judiciary Committee
House and Senate Ethics Committees
House Science and Technology Committee
House Financial Services Committee
House Rules Committee
The Role of Committees

Crossposted on Docudharma, Congress Matters and Daily Kos.

Bachmann: Keep your Kenyan Shillings out of my country

2009-08-13T17:04:00.001-04:00

Crossposted at my new regular gig at Congress Matters.

This one is not really news. Instead this nugget of hilarity has flown well under the radar where it belongs.

Noted birther Michele Bachmann (R-Outer Xenophobia) introduced a House Resolution back in March to get the gears in motion to amend the U.S. Constitution. This one is a beaut.

HJ Res 41 proposes an amendment to the Constitution that would:

prohibit the President from entering into a treaty or other international agreement that would provide for the United States to adopt as legal tender in the United States a currency issued by an entity other than the United States.

I don't know what is going through Rep. Bachmann's mind that would convince her that this is a pressing issue (I'm guessing oxygen). The only logical conclusion to draw is that Rep. Bachmann is concerned that a United States ruled by Barack Obama will force the country to adopt the Kenyan Shilling. I know the economy is in rough shape, but this is stretching the bounds of reality a bit far even for the winggers.

The fact that Bachmann felt the need introduce this legislation is bad enough, but she has 37 co-sponsors or 8.5 percent of the House of Representatives. Here they are along with the date they signed on.

Rep Akin, W. Todd [MO-2] - 3/25/2009
Rep Bachus, Spencer [AL-6] - 3/30/2009
Rep Bartlett, Roscoe G. [MD-6] - 3/25/2009
Rep Barton, Joe [TX-6] - 4/21/2009
Rep Biggert, Judy [IL-13] - 3/25/2009
Rep Blackburn, Marsha [TN-7] - 3/25/2009
Rep Broun, Paul C. [GA-10] - 3/25/2009
Rep Brown, Henry E., Jr. [SC-1] - 3/25/2009
Rep Burton, Dan [IN-5] - 3/25/2009
Rep Conaway, K. Michael [TX-11] - 3/25/2009
Rep Culberson, John Abney [TX-7] - 3/25/2009
Rep Duncan, John J., Jr. [TN-2] - 7/29/2009
Rep Fallin, Mary [OK-5] - 3/25/2009
Rep Fleming, John [LA-4] - 3/25/2009
Rep Foxx, Virginia [NC-5] - 3/25/2009
Rep Franks, Trent [AZ-2] - 4/1/2009
Rep Gingrey, Phil [GA-11] - 3/25/2009
Rep Gohmert, Louie [TX-1] - 3/25/2009
Rep Hensarling, Jeb [TX-5] - 3/25/2009
Rep Hoekstra, Peter [MI-2] - 4/2/2009
Rep Issa, Darrell E. [CA-49] - 3/25/2009
Rep Jones, Walter B., Jr. [NC-3] - 3/25/2009
Rep King, Steve [IA-5] - 3/25/2009
Rep Kirk, Mark Steven [IL-10] - 3/25/2009
Rep Lamborn, Doug [CO-5] - 3/25/2009
Rep Marchant, Kenny [TX-24] - 4/2/2009
Rep McClintock, Tom [CA-4] - 3/25/2009
Rep McCotter, Thaddeus G. [MI-11] - 3/30/2009
Rep Paul, Ron [TX-14] - 3/25/2009
Rep Pitts, Joseph R. [PA-16] - 3/25/2009
Rep Platts, Todd Russell [PA-19] - 4/27/2009
Rep Posey, Bill [FL-15] - 3/25/2009
Rep Price, Tom [GA-6] - 3/25/2009
Rep Roe, David P. [TN-1] - 3/25/2009
Rep Shadegg, John B. [AZ-3] - 3/25/2009
Rep Thompson, Glenn [PA-5] - 3/25/2009
Rep Wamp, Zach [TN-3] - 3/25/2009

HJ Res 41 was sent to the House Judiciary Committee and later sent to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, which handles proposed constitutional amendments, where it will almost certainly die unless chairman Jerrold Nadler goes suddenly and irreversibly insane. On the other hand, three of the co-sponsors are also Republican members of the subcommittee. This is why control of the committees is important.

So, yea. Have at it....

Note: This is the first of an occasional series that I am considering that would highlight the more ludicrous bills that are introduced in Congress. This is why thousands of bills are introduced each Congress, but only a few hundred ever pass and most of these are bills to name the post office in Nowheresville, Minnesota for Ronald Reagan. It's also why Legislative Counsel has one of the least enviable jobs in Washington. This idea was inspired by Magnifico.

New gig

2009-08-09T19:45:00.003-04:00

Just a quick note. I was recently invited to be a contributing editor at Congress Matters. We are all about the process of the legislative progress.

I blog as Casual Wednesday. Come check it out.

Considered Forthwith: Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee

2009-08-09T19:39:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the 19th installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

Even though Congress is out of session and the members are back home getting shouted down and physically assaulted by lobbyist-funded mobs of teabaggers, there are still a few things going on in the committees. This week, I will look at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has two field meetings (in Alaska and Colorado) scheduled this month.

Here are the members of the committee:

Democrats: Jeff Bingaman (NM), Chair; Byron L. Dorgan (ND); Ron Wyden (OR); Tim Johnson (SD); Mary L. Landrieu (LA); Maria Cantwell (WA); Robert Menendez (NJ); Blanche Lincoln (AR); Bernard Sanders (I) (VT); Evan Bayh (IN); Debbie Stabenow (MI); Mark Udall (CO); Jeanne Shaheen (NH)

Republicans: Lisa Murkowski (AK), Ranking member; Richard Burr (NC); John Barrasso (WY); Sam Brownback (KS); James E. Risch (ID); John McCain (AZ); Robert Bennett (UT); Jim Bunning (KY); Jeff Sessions (AL); Bob Corker (TN)

Jurisdiction

As suggested by the committee's name, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee generally oversees American energy policy and policies related to most non-military public lands (mainly those lands held by the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Forest Service). Some other issues under the purview of the committee include Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Native Hawaiian matters, nuclear waste disposal, territorial claims including matters related to Antarctica, preservation of prehistoric sites, and irrigation. A full rundown of the jurisdiction of the full and subcommittees is available here.

This committee assignment is particularly attractive to Western Senators since most of the American public lands are in the West. Here is a map showing the BLM land holdings. This .pdf file shows the total public and private ownership of U.S. forests. Note that this also includes state-owned forest lands. This map shows percentages of land owned by the Forest Service by state. Finally, this one shows the percent of each state's area that is owned by the federal government.

As a result, the committee tends to be rather non-partisan and more interested in regional interests rather than party ones at least on land and resource extraction issues.

A Sustainable "Cash for Clunkers" Program

After seeing the success of the Cash for Clunkers program, Committee Chair Bingaman and Senator Olympia Snowe have crafted a bill to revise the program and make it a long term policy. S. 1620 would revise the tax code to offer tax credits or instant rebates to anyone purchasing a car or truck that exceeds CAFE standards for that automobile's class. The bill was referred to the Senate Finance Committee since it primarily deals with revisions to the tax code.

Sure, it is essentially a middle and upper income tax cut since those people will be the ones most likely to buy a spiffy new fuel efficient car. It's also a market incentive to the car companies to turn out more fuel efficient automobiles. This is one of those bills we should track, analyze and push forward if it seems viable. .

Upcoming Hearings

Energy and Natural Resources only has two hearings scheduled during the August recess. On Aug. 22, they are meeting in Alaska to discuss the impact of renewable energy production on rural areas. Murkowski is hosting this hearing at Chena Hot Springs Resort in Fairbanks which opened the state's first geothermal power plant in 2006.

The other hearing will be a meeting of the National Parks Subcommittee on Aug. 24. They will learn about the impact of global warming on Colorado's national parks. The meeting will be held in Board Room of Town Hall, 170 MacGregor Avenue, Estes Park at 1:30 p.m. if anyone is interested. And yes, Mark Udall of Colorado is the subcommittee chair.

Cap and Trade

Also known as the American Clean Energy Leadership Act, the bill was reported out of committee in July. However, I cannot find a mention of the actual Cap and Trade program in the Senate version. The program is specifically discussed in the House version. On the other hand, there is a lot of other interesting stuff in the Senate bill including carbon sequestration, incentives for green buildings and alternative energy production, and nuclear waste disposal and recycling. Here is some information from the committee on the bill. The good news for Cap and Trade proponents is that adding Cap and Trade by amendment is easier in the House than the Senate.

Committee History

This is a very abbreviated history. Use this link for a more complete committee history.

Americans have always held land ownership in a regard approaching religious conviction. Land ownership is part of the American dream. Indeed many European colonists and later immigrants (notably the Irish immigrants) saw the New World as the key to escaping feudalistic systems in which peasants worked land owned by wealthy landlords. Indeed, purchasing a house and a small piece of land is among the first priorities of American newlyweds.

At this point, it seems appropriate to point out that much of the land on the North American continent was stolen from the Native Americans who already lived here. Even land that Europeans "purchased" like Manhattan Island was bought for a pittance. To dispel a few myths, the original purchase was for some useful trade goods worth 60 Dutch Gilders, equivalent to about $1000 today. There is also some evidence that Peter Minuit negotiated the purchase with a tribe that did not even live on the island.

The first major land annex in American history was the Louisiana Purchase from France for $15 million, equal to about $213 million today. Contemporary opposition to the deal aside, the federal government had done a major land deal and doubled the size of the country. Almost immediately, the federal government felt the pressure to open the land to settlement. It should go without saying that the settlement was by White people at the expense of Native Americans who had called the land "home" for millennia.

The Executive Branch General Land Office was created in 1812 to oversee the distribution of Western land. This was also the era of the rise of the committee system and the Senate Committee on Public Land was created in 1816 to take the lead on federal land policy. Depending on the policy of the day and the land, settlers brave enough to leave the relative safety of the Eastern Seaboard could own homesteads cheap or free. For one thing, the nation had an interest in populating the land. For another thing the Louisiana Purchase and subsequent land "acquisitions" (Mexico probably has a different perspective on the issue) were done with public resources (i.e. taxes), so American citizens were certainly entitled to a piece of the land.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the beginnings of land preservation as the federal government started to set aside lands that would not be distributed to individuals. Instead that land was set aside for public use and included forests, open spaces, and managed parks (including historic sites). Around the same time, some states established their own forest systems. This raised still unresolved questions over how much access to public lands should be afforded to individuals and ranchers as well as business interests like loggers, miners, and natural gas and oil drillers. It should come as no surprise that the Libertarian Cato Institute would like to see much of the public land privatized.

In 1921, the committee was renamed the Committee on Public Lands and Surveys after gaining jurisdiction over geological surveys. Following World War II, the committee gained jurisdiction over trust territories awarded to the United States following the defeat of the Japanese Empire. In 1948, the committee was again renamed the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs with jurisdiction over both public lands and the mineral rights to those lands. In addition, the committee had jurisdiction over the process of awarding statehood to Alaska and Hawai'i.

By the 1970s, the link between mineral extraction and environmental degradation became clear. Meanwhile, the oil embargoes exposed the country's (still unresolved) strategic vulnerability of reliance on foreign energy sources. In 1977 the committee became the modern Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The realignment confirmed the committee's role in American energy policy, but took away most of its responsibility for policies related to Native American affairs.

Subcommittees

The jurisdictions of the subcommittees are listed under the main jurisdiction link above. However, here are the four current subcommittees and leaderships. As with many other committees, the chair and ranking members are ex-officio members of the subcommittees.

Energy: Maria Cantwell is the chair and James E. Risch is the ranking member.
National Parks: Mark Udall is the chair and Richard Burr is the ranking member.
Public Lands and Forests: Ron Wyden is the chair John Barrasso is the ranking member.
Water and Power: Debbie Stabenow is the chair and Sam Brownback is the ranking member.

That's it for this week. I will be at Netroots Nation next week, so the chances of posting Considered Forthwith next week is minimal.

For more about other committees, check out my previous work:
Senate and House Armed Services Committees
Small Business Committees
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
The Committee Primer
House Education and Labor Committee
Senate Finance Committee
Senate HELP Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee
House Energy and Commerce Committee
House Ways and Means Committee
House and Senate Appropriations Committees
House Intelligence Committee
House Judiciary Committee
House and Senate Ethics Committees
House Science and Technology Committee
House Financial Services Committee
House Rules Committee
The Role of Committees

Crossposted on Daily Kos, Docudharma, and my own blog.

Considered Forthwith: Armed Services committees

2009-07-26T20:28:00.003-04:00

Welcome to the 18th installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

This week, I will look at the House Armed Services Committee and Senate Armed Forces Committees. Obviously, these members are the ones to contact to advance the bill that would repeal the "Don't ask/don't tell policy." These are also the committees that need a proverbial kick in the pants to advance legislation that would close Gitmo. More information below.

Committee membership

First, here are the members of the House Committee:

Democrats: Ike Skelton, Chairman, Missouri; John M. Spratt, Jr., South Carolina; Solomon P. Ortiz, Texas; Gene Taylor, Mississippi; Neil Abercrombie, Hawai'i; Silvestre Reyes, Texas; Vic Snyder, Arkansas; Adam Smith, Washington; Loretta Sanchez, California; Mike McIntyre, North Carolina; Robert A. Brady, Pennsylvania; Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey; Susan A. Davis, California; James R. Langevin, Rhode Island; Rick Larsen, Washington; Jim Cooper, Tennessee; Jim Marshall, Georgia; Madeleine Bordallo, Guam; Brad Ellsworth, Indiana; Patrick Murphy, Pennsylvania; Hank Johnson, Georgia; Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire; Joe Courtney, Connecticut; David Loebsack, Iowa; Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania; Gabrielle Giffords, Arizona; Niki Tsongas, Massachusetts; Glenn Nye, Virginia; Chellie Pingree, Maine; Larry Kissell, North Carolina; Martin Heinrich, New Mexico; Frank Kratovil, Maryland; Eric Massa, New York; Bobby Bright, Alabama; Scott Murphy, New York; Dan Boren, Oklahoma

Republicans: John M. McHugh, Ranking Member, New York; Roscoe Bartlett, Maryland; Buck McKeon, California; Mac Thornberry, Texas; Walter B. Jones, North Carolina; Todd Akin, Missouri; Randy Forbes, Virginia; Jeff Miller, Florida; Joe Wilson, South Carolina; Frank LoBiondo, New Jersey; Rob Bishop, Utah; Mike Turner, Ohio; John Kline, Minnesota; Mike Rogers, Alabama; Trent Franks, Arizona; Bill Shuster, Pennsylvania; Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington; Mike Conaway, Texas; Doug Lamborn, Colorado; Rob Wittman, Virginia; Mary Fallin, Oklahoma; Duncan D. Hunter, California; John C. Fleming, Louisiana; Mike Coffman, Colorado; Tom Rooney, Florida

Here are the members of the Senate committee:

Democrats: Carl Levin (Michigan), Chairman; Edward M. Kennedy (Massachusetts); Robert C. Byrd (West Virginia); Joseph I. Lieberman (Connecticut); Jack Reed (Rhode Island); Daniel K. Akaka (Hawaii); Bill Nelson (Florida); Ben Nelson (Nebraska); Evan Bayh (Indiana); Jim Webb (Virginia); Claire McCaskill (Missouri); Mark Udall (Colorado); Kay R. Hagan (North Carolina); Mark Begich (Alaska); Roland W. Burris (Illinois)

Republicans: John McCain (Arizona), Ranking Member; James M. Inhofe (Oklahoma); Jeff Sessions (Alabama); Saxby Chambliss (Georgia); Lindsey Graham (South Carolina); John Thune (South Dakota); Mel Martinez (Florida); Roger F. Wicker (Mississippi); Richard Burr (North Carolina); David Vitter (Louisiana); Susan M. Collins (Maine)

These are relatively large committees for several reasons. For one thing, the military is the largest bureaucracy within the federal government, so the oversight and law-making functions are important.

More importantly, this is the authorizing committee for defense projects. For more background about the difference between authorizing and appropriating, check out my diary on the Appropriations Committees. In a nutshell, authorizing committees decide which projects to pursue while the appropriations committees decide whether or not to fund them. This is particularly important since the defense budget represents more than half of the government's discretionary spending.

Senate Committee Assignments

The House committees are fairly flexible in terms of how large they can be. As a result, the more prominent committees tend to have large memberships in order to accommodate members' preferences. Senate assignments rules, on the other hand, are very formalized. The two parties make their assignments and those are formally approved early in the session.

All of the Senate committees are classified as Super A, A, B, or C depending on the prominence and workload of the committee. Armed Services is one of the Democrats' five Super A committees. The others are Finance; Appropriations; Foreign Relations' and Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Republicans do not count Commerce, Science, and Transportation to be a Super A committee.

Chamber rules state that Senators are limited to service on two Class Super A/ Class A committees and one Class B committee. There are no limits on service on the Class C committees. Both Parties' rules limit members to service on only one Super A committee. For more about committee and chair assignments, check out the Senate's web page on these rules.

Jurisdictions

Here is the formal jurisdiction of the House Armed Services Committee:

(1) Ammunition depots; forts; arsenals; and Army, Navy, and Air Force reservations and establishments.
(2) Common defense generally.
(3) Conservation, development, and use of naval petroleum and oil shale reserves.
(4) The Department of Defense generally, including the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, generally.
(5) Interoceanic canals generally, including measures relating to the maintenance, operation, and administration of interoceanic canals.
(6) Merchant Marine Academy and State Maritime Academies.
(7) Military applications of nuclear energy.
(8) Tactical intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the Department of Defense.
(9) National security aspects of merchant marine, including financial assistance for the construction and operation of vessels, maintenance of the U.S. shipbuilding and ship repair industrial base, cabotage, cargo preference, and merchant marine officers and seamen as these matters relate to the national security.
(10) Pay, promotion, retirement, and other benefits and privileges of members of the armed forces.
(11) Scientific research and development in support of the armed services.
(12) Selective service.
(13) Size and composition of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force.
(14) Soldiers’ and sailors’ homes.
(15) Strategic and critical materials necessary for the common defense.

And here's the Senate Committee's official jurisdiction:

1. Aeronautical and space activities peculiar to or primarily associated with the development of weapons systems or military operations.

2. Common defense.

3. Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, and the Department of the Air Force, generally.

4. Maintenance and operation of the Panama Canal, including administration, sanitation, and government of the Canal Zone.

5. Military research and development.

6. National security aspects of nuclear energy.

7. Naval petroleum reserves, except those in Alaska.

8. Pay, promotion, retirement, and other benefits and privileges of members of the Armed Forces, including overseas education of civilian and military dependents.

9. Selective service system.

10. Strategic and critical materials necessary for the common defense.

(2) Such committee shall also study and review, on a comprehensive basis, matters relating to the common defense policy of the United States, and report thereon from time to time.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

I won't get into the politics of DADT, except to say that I support a repeal and allowing gay and bisexual soldiers to serve in the military. For one thing, there are issues of equality to consider. For another, the military has very few Arabic and Farsi speakers and too many have been discharged under DADT.

Homosexuality in the U.S. military goes back to the Revolutionary War when Lt. Frederick Gotthold Enslin was drummed out of the service for attempting to engage in sodomy with another solider. For many decades, "sodomy" was classified as a crime under the Articles of War. In 1942, the policy of discharge for homosexuality was officially codified. Depending on the circumstances, soldiers discharged after being caught engaging in homosexual activity often could not collect veterans' benefits. Draftees during the Vietnam era sometimes claimed to be gay to avoid the draft.

Source

One of Bill Clinton's early efforts was to repeal the policy and allow gays, lesbians, and bisexuals to serve openly. Naturally the homophobes balked. The eventual compromise -- DADT -- was authored by Colin Powell and included in the Fiscal Year 1994 Defense Authorization Bill.

The repeal movement's current champion is Rep. Patrick Murphy (Pa-08). The former U.S. Army lawyer has introduced legislation in the last three Congresses to overturn DADT and allow gays, lesbians, and bisexuals to serve openly. Currently the bill is in the House Subcommittee on Military personnel. Murphy is a member and Susan A. Davis of California is the subcommittee chair. More information on the subcommittees appears below. Murphy's bill has 164 co-sponsors, but it is more important to get Chairwoman Davis to bring the bill to a markup/vote in the subcommittee and get Chairman Skelton to do the same in the full committee.

Other current issues

House Committee hearings: The House Committee has several hearings scheduled for this week, including professional development in the military, psychological stress of members of the military, and an assessment of the U.S.-Russian security arrangement.

Senate Committee hearings: This Week, the Senate Committee is dealing with several nominations, including Secretary of the Army.

Update: How did I miss this? The nominee for Secretary of the Army is John McHugh, the ranking member of the House Committee.

Gitmo: Both committees are dealing with the question of what to do with the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Earlier this month, the Senate Committee received testimony on the legal issues surrounding holding trials for the prisoners. Here is a link to the testimony and a webcast of the hearing. The House Committee last week marked up House Resolution 602 which would:

Requesting that the President and directing that the Secretary of Defense transmit to the House of Representatives all information in their possession relating to specific communications regarding detainees and foreign persons suspected of terrorism.

In addition, there are numerous bills in the two committees relating to the closing of Gitmo. The problem, of course, is that he have to find homes for the innocent and hold trials for the rest. Since the Bush Administration did exactly zero on this issue, this might unfortunately take a while. This is an issue we need to continue to pursue. We need to identify, try and punish the guilty and release the innocents.

Defense Authorization Act: Each year, Congress must pass the Defense Authorization Act, which sets the spending priorities for the Department of Defense for the year and make any Congressionally-directed policy changes like it did with DADT. (It will be up to the appropriations committees to actually fund those programs). The Senate passed the bill on Thursday. This was the bill that cut the authorization for those F-22s and expanded the hate crimes law. The House has already passed their version with significant differences. This bill will got to conference committee and a final vote will probably take place this fall. A full summary of the House version is on the committee's home page and here is the easy to understand round up from Congress Matters.

Subcommittees

Here is a brief run down of the subcommittees.

House subcommittees:

Readiness:

Military readiness, training, logistics and maintenance issues and programs. In addition, the subcommittee will be responsible for all military construction, installations and family housing issues, including the base closure process, and energy policy and programs of the Department of Defense.

Chair: Solomon Ortiz, Texas
Ranking member: J. Randy Forbes, Virginia

Seapower and Expeditionary Forces:

Navy and Marine Corps acquisition programs (except strategic weapons, space, special operations, and information technology programs) and Naval Reserve equipment. In addition, the subcommittee will be responsible for maritime programs under the jurisdiction of the Committee as delineated in paragraphs 5, 6, and 9 of clause 1(c) of rule X of the Rules of the House of Representatives.

Chair: Gene Taylor, Mississippi
Ranking member: W. Todd Akin, Missouri

Air and Land Forces:

All Army and Air Force acquisition programs (except strategic missiles, special operations and information technology programs). In addition, the subcommittee will be responsible for deep strike bombers and related systems, National Guard and Army and Air Force reserve modernization, and ammunition programs.

Chair: Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii
Ranking member: Roscoe Bartlett, Maryland

Oversight and Investigations:

Any matter within the jurisdiction of the Committee, subject to the concurrence of the Chairman of the Committee and, as appropriate, affected subcommittee chairmen. The subcommittee shall have no legislative jurisdiction.

Chair: Vic Snyder, Arkansas
Ranking member: Rob Wittman, Virginia

Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities:

Department of Defense counter-proliferation and counter-terrorism programs and initiatives. In addition, the subcommittee will be responsible for Special Operations Forces; science and technology policy, including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and information technology programs; force protection policy; homeland defense and consequence management programs within the Committee’s jurisdiction; and related intelligence support.

Chair: Adam Smith, Washington
Ranking member: Jeff Miller, Florida

Strategic Forces:

Strategic weapons (except deep strike bombers and related systems), space programs, ballistic missile defense, intelligence policy and national programs, and Department of Energy national security programs (except non-proliferation programs).

Chair: Jim Langevin, Rhode Island
Ranking member: Michael Turner, Ohio

Military Personnel:

Military personnel policy, reserve component integration and employment issues, military health care, military education, and POW/MIA issues. In addition, the subcommittee will be responsible for Morale, Welfare and Recreation issues and programs.

Chair: Susan A. Davis, California
Ranking member: Joe Wilson, South Carolina

Source for jurisdictions

Senate Subcommittees
Airland
Emerging Threats and Capabilities
Personnel
Readiness and Management Support
Seapower
Strategic Forces

I don't have jurisdiction statements for the Senate subcommittees, but the membership lists are available at the link above.

For more about other committees, check out my previous work:
Small Business Committees
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
The Committee Primer
House Education and Labor Committee
Senate Finance Committee
Senate HELP Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee
House Energy and Commerce Committee
House Ways and Means Committee
House and Senate Appropriations Committees
House Intelligence Committee
House Judiciary Committee
House and Senate Ethics Committees
House Science and Technology Committee
House Financial Services Committee
House Rules Committee
The Role of Committees

Note: Blogger Union rules state that, after doing this for 18 weeks with no pay, I get next weekend off. I almost feel like a Senator taking August off.

Crossposted on Daily Kos, Congress Matters, Docudharma, and my own blog.

Considered Forthwith: Small Business Committees

2009-07-19T19:16:00.002-04:00

Welcome to the 17th installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

This week I'm examining the House Committee on Small Business and the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. These are not the most glamorous committee assignments, but anyone who owns, plans to own, or works for a small business should pay attention.

Here are the committee members:

House Committee on Small Business:

Democrats: Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez of New York; Dennis Moore of Kansas; Heath Shuler of North Carolina; Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania; Kurt Schrader of Oregon; Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona; Glenn Nye of Virginia; Mike Michaud of Maine; Melissa Bean of Illinois; Daniel Lipinski of Illinois; Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania; Yvette Clarke of New York; Brad Ellsworth of Indiana; Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania; Bobby Bright of Alabama; Parker Griffith of Alabama; Deborah Halvorson of Illinois

Republicans: Ranking Member Sam Graves of Missouri; Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland; Todd Akin of Missouri; Steve King of Iowa; Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia; Louie Gohmert of Texas; Mary Fallin of Oklahoma; Vern Buchanan of Florida; Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri; Aaron Schock of Illinois; Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania; Mike Coffman of Colorado

Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship:

Democrats: Chairwoman Mary L. Landrieu (LA); John F. Kerry (MA); Carl Levin (MI); Tom Harkin (IA); Joseph I. Lieberman (CT); Maria Cantwell (WA); Evan Bayh (IN); Mark L. Pryor (AR); Benjamin L. Cardin (MD); Jeanne Shaheen (NH); Kay Hagan (NC)

Republicans: Ranking Member - Olympia J. Snowe (ME); Christopher S. Bond (MO); David Vitter (LA); John Thune (SD); Michael B. Enzi (WY); Johnny Isakson (GA); Roger Wicker (MS); and a Republican Leadership Designee to be named

Jurisdiction

Here is a plain language statement on the House Committee's jurisdiction:

(T)he House Small Business Committee is charged with assessing and investigating the problems of small businesses and examining the impact of general business practices and trends on small businesses. The committee has oversight and legislative authority over the Small Business Administration (SBA) and its programs, as well as provides assistance to and protection of small businesses, including financial aid and the participation of small business enterprises in federal procurement and government contracts.

And the Senate committee's jurisdiction:

1) Oversight of the Small Business Administration

2) Consideration of Non-SBA Legislation

Any proposed legislation reported by the Committee on Small Business and Enrepreneurship that relates to matters other than the functions of the SBA shall, at the request of the chairman of any standing committee having jurisdiction over the subject matter extraneous to the functions of the SBA, be considered and reported by such standing committee prior to its consideration by the Senate; and likewise measures reported by other committees directly relating to the SBA shall, at the request of the chairman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, be referred to the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship for its consideration of any portions of the measure dealing with the SBA, and be reported by this committee prior to its consideration by the Senate.

3) Study of American Small Businesses

Notice that the main function of the committee is to oversee the Small Business Administration. This is an independent Executive Branch agency with a substantial, though largely invisible, influence.

Small Business Administration

The American economy is very dependent upon small business. Here are some statistics from the Census Bureau on the sheer number of small businesses and the number of people who work for them. Almost all of the employers in the United States are classified as small business and about half of all American workers are employed by a small business. A small business is generally defined as having few than 500 employees and less than $7 million in annual receipts. More details on limits by industry are here.

These employers are also the most vulnerable to market fluctuations. While large companies like Walmart and Microsoft can ride out economic downturns, a few bad months or one ill-conceived business expansion can put the independent bookstore or small factory out of business. As a result, the federal government offers some support for those businesses and people considering starting a business. The main government agency to help small business is the Small Business Administration. Since both committees oversee this agency, this would be a good time to investigate further what exactly they do.

SBA was proposed by President Eisenhower in 1952 and established by Congress the next year. However, the roots of small business assistance go back the the Great Depression with the establishment of President Hoover's Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) in 1932. RFC was a government lender for all businesses affected by the Depression. President Roosevelt saw value in the program and made sure the RFC was well funded and staffed.

During both World War II and the Korean War, the federal government set up similar programs specifically to help small businesses be competitive with larger corporations to supply war matériel. RFC was abolished in 1952 and many of its small business activities were taken up by the newly formed SBA. The agency later expanded to offering business advice as well as awarding grants and loans.

More history on SBA is posted here.

Today, SBA offers loans and grants to small business owners and potential small business owners for start up/expansion costs. Additionally, and probably more importantly, SBA offers expertise on all areas of business (including declaring bankruptcy). These are handled through regional Small Business Development Centers like this one and the volunteer SCORE program, which offers free counseling services from other business professionals.

SBA also has a number of programs to encourage and promote business owned by women and minority groups and handles some disaster assistance.

Here is another list of resources, courtesy of the Senate Committee website. Other assistance is available at your county (or parish because Louisiana has to be different) or city economic development organization.

The Senate Appropriations Committee recently reported the Financial Services Appropriations Bill, which would appropriate $697 million to SBA. This is an increase of $150 million over the last year of the Bush Administration and $22 million more than President Obama requested. More information here. The House version, meanwhile, provides $848 million, an increase of $236 million. The discrepancies will be worked out in conference committee.

I will leave it at that, but I would encourage any small business owners (including self-employed people) to explore these resources and see what might be available to you.

Other committee activities

The SBA is not the only responsibility of the committees and they have a few other things going on. There is not much in the way of upcoming hearings, but the House committee will hold a hearing called “Meeting the Needs of Small Businesses and Family Farmers in Regulating our Nation’s Waters” on Wednesday.

Here are a few other things that have been going on:

Economic stimulus program: Remember the hundreds of billions of dollars we spent to stimulate the economy? Well, there is some work going on with the two year plan to use the money. On July 15, the House Committee held a hearing to check on the progress within the small business community.

From the chairwoman's opening statement:

Six months after the Recovery Act was signed into law, the clouds are starting to clear. To begin, lending from the SBA is up dramatically. As of June, the agency had supported $6 billion in loans. Just as importantly, small business credit markets are coming back to life. Loan volumes in the secondary market jumped from under $100 million in December to $360 million last month. So things are looking up. Still, small firms continue to face challenges in accessing capital, and it would be wrong to say we are out of the woods just yet.

-snip-

Small firms are already leading the Green Revolution. Increases in clean energy tax credits are helping that process along, and generating tremendous opportunity for small firms. In a recent survey by the Air Conditioning Contractors of America, 75% of respondents said they had seen improved sales. Because the efficiency sector is dominated by entrepreneurs, good news for green businesses is good news for small businesses.

I have not watched the full hearing, but the highlights are available on YouTube.

Physician shortage: Health care reform, if when it happens will be irrelevant if there are no doctors to provide care. The problem is that general practice is not always lucrative enough to attract new doctors, particularly in rural areas. House Committee Chairwoman Velázquez had this to say in reaction to a July 8 hearing on the issue:

Velázquez noted that Democrats are already taking steps to help address the physician shortage. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) sets aside $2.5 billion to expand community health centers and provide educational debt relief to get thousands of new doctors and health professionals into the field faster, especially in underserved and rural areas. Nonetheless, it was clear in today’s hearing that more would need to be done to further incentivize doctors to practice medicine in those fields facing a workforce shortage.

Health care reform and the small business: The cost of health care is a particularly large concern for small businesses, particularly to the 22 million (out of 27 million small businesses) that are self employers. These are the people who start their own businesses with no employees and need to worry about health care coverage along with all of their other concerns. Between 2001 and 2008, health care premiums for the self employed increased by an unsustainable 74 percent. The Senate Committee examined this issue on July 9.

From chairwoman Landrieu's opening statement (pdf link)

Small businesses need: stable coverage that cannot be taken away; stable, affordable costs that will not increase without warning; and stable quality that assures the proper treatment is always within reach. Simply put: We need to reform our health care system to provide small businesses the opportunity to grow and prosper. The cost of doing nothing is just too great.

A link to watch the hearing is here.

I'm not entirely sure what the small business committees can directly do about this issue, but the fact that these Senators are aware of the health care issues within the small business community means that they should be cognizant of these issues during the eventual floor debate and amendment process.

Rural broadband Internet access: Another piece of the stimulus/recovery program is to spend $4 billion on improving broadband internet. This is being done through the Commerce Department and more information is available here. The deadline to apply for funds in Aug. 14. Here is Chairwoman Landrieu's statement on the program. If you are stuck with dial up internet, contact the nearest cable company and urge them to apply for the money.

For anyone lost on what I am talking about, here's the deal. In a city or town, a few dozen feet of cable can provide television and Internet service multiple customers. Therefore it is cost effective to provide cable and high speed Internet there. In rural areas, a cable company might have to run several miles of cable and poles (and do the maintenance on them) to serve a handful of -- or even one -- customer(s). Even if that happens, there are no guarantees that those customers will sign up for service anyway. That is not cost effective. This program would at least put the infrastructure in place and give residents of rural areas access to this digital playground and potential money-making tool the rest of us enjoy.

It may or may not be related, but Chairwoman Landrieu's state has a town that finally got basic phone service in 2005. To illustrate the expenses involved in such a project, the cost to provide 15 homes with phone service was $700,000.

Minority sites

I think it is a good idea to take a peek at what the Republicans are saying on their sites. On the House minority site, the latest post is spinning the July 15 hearing as a failure by President Obama and Speaker Peloisi. A tax hike on the wealthiest people to pay for health care reform will doom small business. Moreover, the recovery has not yet resulted in new jobs, therefore, it is a failure of epic proportions. Never mind that these things take time and the situation might be even worse without the recovery/stimulus money.

On the Senate minority site, Ranking member Snowe is complaining that the government has not cut energy taxes enough. She might have a point because the Republicans are looking for tax cuts to encourage more energy efficiency and green technologies. Credit where it is due, I suppose.

Subcommittees

The Senate Committee does not have subcommittees. All of these subcommittees are under the House Committee. I could not find formal statements of jurisdiction, so we only have names and member, which are listed here. The subcommittees are:

Finance and Tax (Kurt Schrader, Chair and Vern Vern Buchanan, Ranking Member)
Contracting and Technology (Glenn Nye, Chair and Aaron Schock, Ranking Member)
Regulations and Healthcare (Kathy Dahlkemper, Chair and Lynn Westmoreland, Ranking Member)
Rural Development, Entrepreneurship and Trade (Heath Shuler, Chair and Blaine Luetkemeyer, Ranking Member)
Investigations and Oversight (Jason Altmire, Chair and Mary Fallin, Ranking Member)

That's it for this week. We are getting close to the summer recess, so there probably won't be much going on in the committee in the near future. However, I am soliciting suggestions for next week's installment.

For more about other committees, check out my previous work:
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
The Committee Primer
House Education and Labor Committee
Senate Finance Committee
Senate HELP Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee
House Energy and Commerce Committee
House Ways and Means Committee
House and Senate Appropriations Committees
House Intelligence Committee
House Judiciary Committee
House and Senate Ethics Committees
House Science and Technology Committee
House Financial Services Committee
House Rules Committee
The Role of Committees

Crossposted on Daily Kos, Congress Matters, and Docudharma.

Considered Forthwith: Senate Environment and Public Works Committee

2009-07-12T19:59:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the 16th installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

Well, DK Greenworks week has come and gone, but the group lives on. Click the link and join us. In keeping with the green theme, this week I examine the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Here are the members of the committee:

Democrats: Barbara Boxer, California, Chair; Max Baucus, Montana; Thomas R. Carper, Delaware; Frank R. Lautenberg, New Jersey; Benjamin L. Cardin, Maryland; Bernard Sanders, Vermont; Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota; Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island; Tom Udall, New Mexico; Jeff Merkley, Oregon; Kirsten Gillibrand, New York; Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania.

Republicans: James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma, Ranking Member; George V. Voinovich, Ohio; David Vitter, Louisiana; John Barrasso, Wyoming; Mike Crapo, Idaho; Christopher S. Bond, Missouri; Lamar Alexander, Tennessee.

Jurisdiction

There is a connection between public works projects and the environment since the construction of things like highways, bridges, dams, and levees invariably affect the environment. In addition, this committee handles some economic development issues as there is often a connection among creating jobs, undertaking public works projects, and protecting the environment.

According to the committee's history, a Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds was formed in 1837 to oversee the development of federal buildings Washington, DC. During the committee reorganization of 1947, the committee came to be known as the Committee on Public Works.

As the federal government began to take on more and more public works projects, like the interstate highway system, the committee's power and relevance grew.

During the environmental movements of the 1960s and 1970s, Congress took a greater role in environmental protection. The Public Works Committee took the lead in passing the 1970 Clean Air Act and the 1972 Federal Water Pollution Control Act. The Committee got its present name and even greater authority over more policy areas, notably endangered species and civilian nuclear power, in 1977.

Somewhere along the way, the committee also picked up jurisdiction over regional economic development since this also involves public works. More on this below.

Note that there is also a Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources with some overlapping jurisdiction.

The Committee's formal jurisdiction is as follows:

1. The following standing committees shall be appointed at the commencement of each to act until their successors are appointed, with leave to report by bill or otherwise on matters within their respective jurisdictions:

1. Air pollution.
2. Construction and maintenance of highways.
3. Environmental aspects of Outer Continental Shelf lands.
4. Environmental effects of toxic substances, other than pesticides.
5. Environmental policy.
6. Environmental research and development.
7. Fisheries and wildlife.
8. Flood control and improvements of rivers and harbors, including environmental aspects of deepwater ports.
9. Noise pollution.
10. Nonmilitary environmental regulation and control of nuclear energy.
11. Ocean dumping.
12. Public buildings and improved grounds of the United States generally,including Federal buildings in the District of Columbia.
13. Public works, bridges, and dams.
14. Regional economic development.
15. Solid waste disposal and recycling.
16. Water pollution.
17. Water resources.

(2) Such committee shall also study and review, on a comprehensive basis, matters relating to environmental protection and resource utilization and conservation, and report thereon from time to time.

Environmental protection

I won't get into a full discussion of all of the environmental protection statutes since that could take up multiple posts, but a few laws deserve mention. The big one is the Cap and Trade Bill. Initially, there was talk that the Senate would take up the bill soon, but Chairwoman Boxer has decided to hold off consideration until after the summer break.

Other than that, a handful of major laws form the basis of U.S. environmental policy and all of them fall under this committee's jurisdiction and most are enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency. These laws include the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and the Endangered Species Act. For a full list of EPA enforced laws, click here. The Fish and Wildlife Service has information about endangered species.

Two technical notes. First, most new environmental policy takes the form of amendments to existing statues rather than new laws. A major exception is the current cap and trade bill, which represents a major new program rather than tweaks to the clear air act.

Second, the regulations that polluting industries are always griping about are usually rules issued by EPA and other executive branch agencies. Rules are technical policy while the act is a more of a broad framework. Congress can pass all kinds of laws saying that we need clean water, but it is up to the EPA to write the regulations that will make that happen.

This system is problematic on one level since these rules are indeed written by Washington DC bureaucrats -- rather than elected officials -- and influenced by both industry and environmental protection lobbyists. Take a really wild guess which one has more money. This is your motivation to join and donate to groups like The Sierra Club, which recently stopped its 100th coal plant from opening, from and The World Wildlife Federation. On the other hand, members of Congress do not have the expertise to write rules/regulations, so they defer to the experts while also conducting oversight to ensure that the rules are fair and effective.

Public works

I have to giggle a little bit and then get really depressed when I hear the small government advocates complain about public works projects like highways, bridges, levee and dams. The problem, of course, is that the private sector has no particular incentive to build these things. Even if they did, the final product would serve the interests of those who built them, and those interests are not necessarily the same as the public interest.

The Environment and Public Works Committee will eventually have to take up the authorization of a new highway bill, which is currently in the House. The proposed six-year $450 billion authorization is being held up over a discussion about how to pay for it. President Obama and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood would like to hold off on a new bill for 18 months to give him time to develop a comprehensive highway construction plan. The current authorization expires at the end of September. Typically when there is a hold up on a major spending authorization, Congress keeps the money flowing by doing three month reauthorizations of current funding levels. LaHood would like Congress to just accept that he needs a year and a half and just do the reauthorization all at once.

There is also the question of how to pay for the new highway bill. There has been talk of raising the 18.4 cent per gallon gasoline tax by another ten cents or more, but this might not be the best idea in a recession. Additionally, Americans are sensitive to gasoline price increases. Once again, the country and our politicians have to make the difficult decision to pay for the infrastructure we desperately need.

Economic Development

The committee has jurisdiction over regional economic development commissions. One example I will offer -- mostly because I am familiar with it -- is the Appalachian Regional Commission. ARC was created in 1965 to help this historically impoverished region to improve its economy. The region stretches from northeastern Mississippi to New York's Southern Tier. Each year, ARC awards grants to projects intended to create jobs. A major component of economic development is highway construction. Few major employers will set up shop in an area that is inaccessible to reasonable highway systems.

I am most familiar with ARC's work in converting U.S. Route 15 between Williamsport, Pa. and Corning, N.Y. This is a major north-south corridor in the region. In 1962, a group of three businessmen from Mansfield, Pa. (my last home) started a local effort to improve what was essentially a two-lane mountain road. They rallied local support and lobbied Congress to get the highway project underway. Work to expand the road to a four -lane highway did not actually begin until the 1990s and there is still a six mile section in New York that needs to be finished. Regardless, there has been a marked reduction in fatal accidents and an increase in economic activity in the region and it will eventually become part of Interstate 99.

Here is a map showing the ARC region and some of the highway projects they have helped to fund over the years:

Naming buildings

Thousands of bills are introduced each Congress. Only a couple hundred actually pass. Of these, a large number are bills to name public buildings. This committee has the responsibility for reviewing such requests. Thus, this committee sees a relatively large percentage of its bills pass.

Do you want to see your name engraved on a federal building? Don't get your hopes up. Here are the guidelines for naming buildings:

The committee may not name a building, structure or facility for any living person, except former Presidents or former Vice Presidents of the United States, former Members of Congress over 70 years of age, former Justices of the United States Supreme Court over 70 years of age, or Federal judges who are fully retired and over 75 years of age or have taken senior status and are over 75 years of age.

In other words, very few people are even eligible until they die. Sorry about that.

Current legislation and hearings

This week's three hearings will focus on the impact of global warming legislation on agriculture/forestry, transportation, and the economy respectively. The website does not indicate if live webcasts will be available, but you can watch past hearings.

In addition, the committee has quite a few pending bills. The committee's website is very useful because they actually list all of the bills that have been referred to the committee. Here are a few examples of the bills currently in committee:

A bill to prohibit the use of stimulus funds for signage indicating that a project is being carried out using those funds. -- Judd Gregg

Writer's note: errrr... Okay.

A bill to amend title 23, United States Code, to direct the Secretary of Transportation to require that broadband conduit be installed as part of certain highway construction projects, and for other purposes. -- Amy Klobuchar

A bill to permit commercial vehicles at weights up to 129,000 pounds to use certain highways of the Interstate System in the State of Idaho which would provide significant savings in the transportation of goods throughout the Unites States, and for other purposes. -- Mike Crapo

A bill to amend the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to temporarily prohibit the Secretary of the Interior from considering global climate change as a natural or manmade factor in determining whether a species is a threatened or endangered species, and for other purposes. -- John Barrasso

A resolution recognizing the need for the Environmental Protection Agency to end decades of delay and utilize existing authority under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act to comprehensively regulate coal combustion waste and the need for the Tennessee Valley Authority to be a national leader in technological innovation, low-cost power, and environmental stewardship. -- Barbara Boxer

Global Warming and Polar Bears

There is a debate about whether or not to list animals as endangered due to global warming. This was the genesis of Joe Scarborough hates polar bears. Global Warming is destroying the polar bears' habitat. Of course, if the government lists the polar bear as an endangered species due to global warming, then we are explicitly stating that global warming is caused by humans. Thus, despite the objections of the global warming deniers, we might actually have to address the problem.

The majority side of the committee has created an excellent page about the plight of the polar bear. Of course, there are some people who don't think global warming is real or that if is real that human activity has nothing to do with it. That calls for a polar bear face palm:

And for more facepalm worthy material, we now turn to...

Minority home page

The official voice of the committee in Internet land is controlled by the majority party, but the minority gets their own page. There is a lot of lunacy here, but I want to highlight Ranking Member Inhofe's decision to post this: More Than 700 (Previously 650) International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims. There is even a prominent link on the welcome page.

To find evidence that this "report" is disingenuous, see links here, here, and here.

This quote from the first source is telling:

the list was padded with TV weathermen, economists and so on and contained very few actual climate scientists.

I won't go any further into this, but we should be aware that such misinformation is being actively promoted by the Republican Party.

Subcommittees

The subcommittee structure changed slightly in the 111th Congress. Most notably, children's health was given its own subcommittee. Here are the committees and their jurisdictions.

Children's Health: Amy Klobuchar is the chair and Lamar Alexander is the ranking member. The jurisdiction is:

Responsibility for policy issues in connection with protection of pregnant women, infants and children from environmental hazards

Clean Air and Nuclear Safety: Thomas R. Carper is the chair and David Vitter is the ranking member. The jurisdiction is:

Clean Air Act, Indoor Air, Tennessee Valley Authority, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Plant Safety

Green Jobs and the New Economy: Bernie Sanders is the chair and Christopher "Kit" Bond is the ranking member. The jurisdiction is:

Responsibility for issues related to job creation through the development and deployment of “green” technologies and practices. Issues also include federal investment in technologies and practices that reduce the government’s carbon footprint or the emission of other pollutants, including technologies and practices that enhance energy efficiency, conservation, or renewable power sources.

Oversight: Sheldon Whitehouse is the chair and John Barrasso is the ranking member. Here is the jurisdiction:

Responsibility for oversight of agencies, departments, and programs within the jurisdiction of the full committee, and for conducting investigations within such jurisdiction

Those agencies include:

The committee's oversight extends to programs in five cabinet level departments and seven independent agencies, including the Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration and the Coast Guard, the Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, the GSA's Public Buildings Service, the Council on Environmental Quality, the civil works program of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Mississippi River Commission, and the nonperforming functions of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health: Frank Lautenberg is the chair and James Inhofe is the ranking member. The jurisdiction is:

Superfund and Brownfields, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), including recycling, Federal Facilities and interstate waste, Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA), Chemical Safety Board, Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), Environmental Justice and Risk Assessment

Transportation and Infrastructure: Max Baucus is the chair and George Voinovich is the ranking member. The jurisdiction is:

Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Public Buildings, Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), Economic Development Administration, Historic Preservation, National Dam Safety Program, Stafford Act and federal disaster relief programs, Mississippi River Commission, Green Buildings

Water and Wildlife: Ben Cardin is the chair and Mike Crapo is the ranking member. The jurisdiction is:

Clean Water Act, including wetlands; Safe Drinking Water Act; Coastal Zone Management Act; Invasive Species; Fisheries and Wildlife, Endangered Species Act (ESA), National Wildlife Refuges; Outer Continental Shelf Lands

That's it for this week. Next week will probably be the armed services committees and any movement on DADT unless something else comes up or I get a suggestion for something else.

For more about other committees, check out my previous work:
House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
The Committee Primer
House Education and Labor Committee
Senate Finance Committee
Senate HELP Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee
House Energy and Commerce Committee
House Ways and Means Committee
House and Senate Appropriations Committees
House Intelligence Committee
House Judiciary Committee
House and Senate Ethics Committees
House Science and Technology Committee
House Financial Services Committee
House Rules Committee
The Role of Committees

Crossposted on Daily Kos, Congress Matters, Docudharma, and my own blog.

Considered Forthwith: House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming

2009-07-05T04:37:00.002-04:00

Welcome to the 15th installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

This series usually runs on Sunday evening, but this is a special edition in honor of the DK Greenroots project. This evening, I will look at the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. This select committee was formed in March, 2007 after the Democrats took control of Congress to study policies intended to reduce America's dependence on fossil fuels, especially oil from overseas, and reduce greenhouse gasses.

If you are interested in environmental issues, please join DK GreenRoots, a new environmental advocacy group created by Meteor Blades and Patriot Daily. DK GreenRoots comprises bloggers at Daily Kos and eco-advocates from other sites. We focus on a broad range of issues and are always open to new ones.

Over the coming weeks and months, DK Greenroots will initiate a variety of environmental projects, some political and some having nothing directly to do with politics at all.

Some projects may involve the creation of eco working groups that can be used for a variety of actions, including implementing political action or drafting proposed legislation. We are in exciting times now because for the first time in decades, significant environmental legislation will be passed by Congress. It is far easier to achieve real change if our proposal is on the table rather than fighting rearguard actions.

We alert each other to important eco-stories in the mainstream media and on the Internet, promote bloggers at one site to readers at other sites, connect bloggers of similar interests to each other and discuss crucial eco-issues.

Come help us put these projects together. Bring ideas of your own. There is no limit on what we can accomplish together.

Here are the committee members:

Democrats: Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Chairman; Earl Blumenauer of Oregon; Jay Inslee of Washington; John Larson of Connecticut; Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota; Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri; John Hall of New York; John Salazar of Colorado; Jackie Speier of California

Republicans: James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, Ranking Member; John Shadegg of Arizona; Candice Miller of Michigan; John Sullivan of Oklahoma; Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee; Shelley Capito of West Virginia

My humble take on Global Warming

I sincerely believe that human activity is a direct cause of the observed warming of the Earth in the last century. No, I don't think it has anything to do with the decline in the number of pirates in the world. If it did, I would be sailing the Seven Seas in search of booty and plunder right now.

If I am wrong, no matter. Even if spewing pollutants into the air is not actively altering earth's climate, it is still doing no favors for the environment, particularly in terms of air quality. Furthermore, I was raised to clean up my own mess, so we have a collective responsibility to minimize air pollution, even if global warming is a natural phenomenon unrelated to greenhouse gasses.

Select vs. Standing Committee

On Sunday, I wrote a brief overview of how Congressional Committees operate. However, this is a good time to note the difference between a standing and select committee. Select committees are temporary panels that are created by the chamber leadership to investigate certain issues. Select committees may hold hearings, but not mark up legislation. Standing committees are the permanent panels that do mark up bills and advance them to the full Chamber.

Jurisdiction

For those unfamiliar with the process, a committee's jurisdiction is the formal statement specifying the areas that a committee may address. This committee's jurisdiction is:

Jurisdiction: The select committee shall not have legislative jurisdiction and shall have no authority to take legislative action on any bill or resolution. Its sole authority shall be to investigate, study, make findings, and develop recommendations on policies, strategies, technologies and other innovations, intended to reduce the dependence of the United States on foreign sources of energy and achieve substantial and permanent reductions in emissions and other activities that contribute to climate change and global warming.

Admittedly, most citizens don't think to check with the House of Representatives' committee system system to get information about global warming and energy independence. This is more a resource for members and the reporters who cover them. For example, the committee recently promoted this story: National Climate Science Report Makes Strong Case for Immediate Action on Global Warming that should have turned some heads in Congress.

Furthermore, this is the official position of the majority party on global warming and energy independence, so we can rest assured that the House Democrats are generally on board with combating global warming, even if some voted against the American Clean Energy and Security Act also known as the Cap and Trade bill for their own reasons. If we can convert from fossil fuels -- particularly from overseas -- to non-polluting sources, then we can both protect the earth and unshackle ourselves from whims and politics of the members of OPEC.

In any event, this would be a good panel for Green Kossacks to track.

The importance of the committee

Energy and the environment are two problems that are inseparably linked. In the absence of efficient power sources (solar, wind, and geothermal) the production of energy pollutes since much of our electricity in generated through burning coal. Nuclear power does not directly pollute, but the toxic waste is a huge problem. Furthermore, the use of energy for transportation pollutes the air. Therefore, it is only reasonable to consider both issues together and the fact that this panel is addressing the two issues holistically rather than piecemeal is almost an innovation in governing.

Another important note is that this select committee was formed when the Democrats took office. We can all agree that the Republican record on the environment in general and global warming in particular is non-existent at best and a tragedy of epic proportions at worst. Just the establishment of the committee showed that the Democrats intend to take Global Warming seriously.

One indirect power of the committee is its members. Each one sits on at least one other committee that deals with climate change and energy independence issues. While this select committee has no direct power to alter legislation, members can take the ideas offered in hearings of the select committee and offer them as amendments to bills considered in standing committees.

In addition, the select committee is actively tracking legislation on topics they have investigated. Obviously, the major legislation right now is Cap and Trade, but there are plenty of other resources posted on the website. This committee's website is like a one stop shop for the latest on climate change legislation.

Debunking the deniers

The most frustrating part about addressing global warming is the fact that the deniers (sorry, they prefer to be called "doubters") are not only vocal, but very well funded.

From Newsweek:

But (Senator Barbara) Boxer figured that with "the overwhelming science out there, the deniers' days were numbered." As she left a meeting with the head of the international climate panel, however, a staffer had some news for her. A conservative think tank long funded by ExxonMobil, she told Boxer, had offered scientists $10,000 to write articles undercutting the new report and the computer-based climate models it is based on. "I realized," says Boxer, "there was a movement behind this that just wasn't giving up."

And the deniers may be winning on the public opinion front. From the same article:

Just last year, polls found that 64 percent of Americans thought there was "a lot" of scientific disagreement on climate change; only one third thought planetary warming was "mainly caused by things people do." In contrast, majorities in Europe and Japan recognize a broad consensus among climate experts that greenhouse gases—mostly from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas to power the world's economies—are altering climate.

On this page, the committee thoroughly debunks a denial piece that the Washington Post felt compelled to run in 2007. Sadly, while we are wasting time and paper arguing a point that is not really up for debate, we are also wasting time that could be better spent developing solutions.

In keeping with the theme of pushing back, let's check out the minority website. All of the committees have a minority website. Regardless of which party is in power, the official site is controlled by the majority, but the minority does get their own little corner of that slice of cyberspace. Here's what the Republicans have to say:

In the United States and around the globe, there's a debate about what affect emissions from cars, factories and power plants are having on the temperature of the Earth. This debate has inspired passion in some, fear in others, and a host of solutions, both good and bad.

snip

While searching for solutions, Republicans will urge Congress to be guided by these principles:

* First, any solution must produce real improvement to the environment. Some proposals would damage the economy without making any significant reductions in greenhouse gases.
* Second, any solution must focus on technologies from across the energy spectrum, from nuclear to clean coal to renewable energy to improved energy efficiencies.
* Third, any climate change policy must protect U.S. jobs and the economy.
* Finally, it must require global participation, including China and India, whose industrial growth is resulting in a tremendous rise in greenhouse gas emissions from these nations. This year, it is expected that China will surpass the U.S. in greenhouse gas emissions.

So far, so good. Nice platitudes. Now take a look at their latest press release and tell me if the GOP are concerned about playing the fear card:

Cap-and-Tax Bill Will Raise Energy Prices, Ship Jobs and Funds Overseas

So much for that.

And for what it's worth, Nate Silver figured out that a majority of Americans support Cap and Trade until their monthly energy bill increases by $18.75 per month. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the increase to be an average $14.58 per month.

Remember, too, that these global warming ~~doubters~~ deniers have managed to get themselves elected to congress. To name names, two of them are Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California. Even Select Committee Ranking Member James Sensenbrenner groused about the costs of halting global warming.

Some other committee studies

Beyond the ever present and ever unpleasant task of mythbusting global warming denials, the select committee has been busy with other studies. Some are positive ideas like tips for living more green at home, school and work. Others are dedicated to debunking other right wing myths.

Remember Drill, baby, drill? Here's what the committee has to say about that: "The facts are clear. America can not drill our way to energy independence."

They even included this pretty graphic:

Maybe they should have included this projection reported on Alternet which warns of up to 90 minor oil spills per day from increased offshore drilling.

Most recently, the select committee held a hearing on the impact of global warming on agriculture and forestry. Chairman Markey had this to say:

The findings of the report that rising temperatures, precipitation changes and increasing weeds, disease and pests will impact the productivity of farms and forests should make us all apprehensive.

source (.pdf link)

I have not read through all of the testimony. The important point to keep in mind, though, is that Congressional hearings typically get noticed by the traditional media and other members. Often, they will generate stories for the 24 hour news cycle. I could not find a specific story about this hearing, therefore I encourage the Progressive bloggers to take notice, too, and generate our own stories. To make it easier, many committees do live webcasts of hearings, so there is no reason why someone in California cannot watch hearings and write up a blog post on a story that the rest of the media ignore.

Here's a story that did grow legs, so to speak. Remember the debate about global warming's impact on the polar bear -- namely that Joe Scarborough doesn't care about polar bears. In January 2008 the committee held a hearing to ask Bush administration officials why they had not listed the species as endangered due to ice melts in the Arctic.

Markey even introduced a bill, that never got out of committee, to:

To prohibit the Secretary of the Interior from selling any oil and gas lease for any tract in the Lease Sale 193 Area of the Alaska Outer Continental Shelf Region until the Secretary determines whether to list the polar bear as a threatened species or an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, and for other purposes.

Source (.pdf link)

The polar bear has since been listed as "threatened," which does not have quite the same policy impact as "endangered," but it is a start.

If nothing else, this hearing generated interest in the media and the public. It also inspired this LOL:

Finally, the committee even has links to various carbon footprint calculators so that you can see exactly how much your lifestyle contributes to global warming and environmental degradation.

The whole point in writing this diary was to let everyone know that this committee exists and that they are doing something. Just the existence of the committee demonstrates the commitment of the House leadership to studying the causes of global warming, the effects of proposed policy, and ways to wean the country off of energy sources that pollute the environment and place us in strategically untenable political associations.

For more about other committees, check out my previous work:
The Committee Primer
House Education and Labor Committee
Senate Finance Committee
Senate HELP Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee
House Energy and Commerce Committee
House Ways and Means Committee
House and Senate Appropriations Committees
House Intelligence Committee
House Judiciary Committee
House and Senate Ethics Committees
House Science and Technology Committee
House Financial Services Committee
House Rules Committee
The Role of Committees

Crossposted at Congress Matters and Daily Kos.

Considered Forthwith: The Committee Primer

2009-06-28T19:04:00.003-04:00

Welcome to the 14th installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

This week is a special edition of Considered Forthwith. Instead of examining a single committee, I will look at the committee system in general this week. For one thing, Congress is in recess for Fourth of July (funny, I only get one day off for that). For another Meteor Blades is launching the committee monitoring project, so this seems to be an ideal time to go over the basics.

Note on sources: Much of the uncited material in this post is from these sources:

Roger Davidson and Walter Oleszek, Congress and Its Members, 10th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2006)

Sarah Binder and Paul Quirk, The Legislative Branch (Oxford University Press, 2005)

James A. Thurber, Rivals for Power: Presidential-Congressional Relations. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001)

The two most important things to know about committees

There are two important points to keep in mind when you are considering the Congressional committee system. The first is the actual power of the committees and the second is the relative power of committees in the House and Senate.

The most important power of the committees is to create the framework of legislation that will be considered by the whole chamber. Further, the committee can even decide whether or not to advance legislation at all. Indeed only a small fraction of bills even make it out of committee. Conservative Southern Democratic committee chairs used this power to hold up civil rights legislation, for example.

To use a worn out analogy, consider an architect at a major firm who has been assigned to "design a one family house." If she designs a ranch home and turns the draft into the bosses for final approval, the garage may be enlarged and a bedroom converted into a bathroom, there is not much chance that the final product will be a row house. (When this does happen in the legislative context, it is called an "amendment in the nature of a substitute.")

The other important point to keep in mind is that House committees are generally much more relevant than Senate committees. For one thing, Senators have far more committee assignments (they average 11 vs. 6 in the House) and most majority members serve as chair of a full committee or subcommittee. Therefore, Senators have less time to devote to committee matters.

The other factor in this disparity of power is the rules of the respective chambers. In the Senate, bills come to the Floor by unanimous consent. This means that everyone has to agree to debate and consider the bills. Generally, the unanimous consent agreement is just a one sentence resolution saying that the bill will come up for consideration. On the Floor, Senators are generally free to offer any amendment, which can render moot the committee's work on the bill.

In contrast, it is very rare for a bill to come up for consideration in the House without a rule from the Rules Committee. Rules, which are voted on before consideration of the bill, set the terms of the debate and determine which amendments are in order (i.e. can be offered). For example, Rep. Jeff Flake wanted to offer 11 amendments to "cut costs" from the FY 2010 Homeland Security Appropriations Bill. The rule only allowed him to offer four of those amendments (his choice). The result of this set up is that the House Committee bills are more likely to resemble the final product than those in the Senate. Click the link for the Rules Committee above for more details on the types of rules -- open, closed, and modified -- that can be issued.

The process
Oleszek calls committees "little legislatures" and the characterization is accurate. Once a member drafts a bill (or more accurately, has legislative counsel draft it) and submits it, the bill is referred to a committee (or sometimes multiple committees). Technically, this is done by the Speaker of the House and the Senate Pro Tem. In actual practice, parliamentarians routinely handle this function. The referrals are based on the committees' jurisdictions. These jurisdictions, which are set in the rules of the Chambers, often overlap and it is common for bill sponsors to lobby the parliamentarians for favorable referrals.

Once the committee gets the bill, the chair (usually in consultation with the ranking member) decides whether or not to even consider the bill. Of course if the bill's sponsor is on the committee (score!) or chairs the committee (bonus!) there is a good chance the bill will be considered and advanced.

It is worth pointing out at this point that each committee operates differently and the chair has broad discretion in setting the rules for speaking and voting and even the number, jurisdiction, and composition of subcommittees. One common custom, though, is that full committee chairs do not also chair one of the committee's subcommittees. However, chairs and ranking members are usually ex-officio members of all of the subcommittees under the full committee.

The chair then decides whether to send the bill to a subcommittee or handle it in the full committee. Often, major bills will stay with the full committee while less important bills end up in the subcommittees. Of course, this is not always the case. The chair may decide to pass a bill along if the subcommittee chair has more expertise on the subject.

Then the committees start work on the bills. Admittedly there is always a lot of behind the scenes work, but there are three general types of committee meetings, which I will consider in the next section...

What am I watching on C-Span? Hearings, markups and business meetings

Business meetings are not often televised. They are merely regular meetings to get the members up to speed on the status of legislation pending in the committee.

Hearings are exactly that. These are formal opportunities for citizens (usually selected by members of Congress), special interests (i.e. both "good" and "bad" lobbyists), and other members of Congress to make their cases for the bill under consideration. For all the hoola and media coverage of hearings, nothing is officially accomplished here. Hearings are really just a forum to share ideas and viewpoints. Considering the hyperpartisanship in Congress and inattentiveness of the public, I would argue that not much actual persuading happens in these hearings, either.

A special type of hearing is the oversight hearing. Congress has a responsibility to oversee the functions of the Executive Branch. Most committees have subcommittees dedicated to oversight. In addition, the House has a full oversight committee. These are the people who make sure that the bureaucracy does not abuse it's power. This is what we are talking about when we call for Congressional investigations. Often, just the threat of a Congressional subpoena can cause an agency head to make wholesale reforms. Furthermore, oversight hearings often attract media attention and the reforms Congress cannot or will not force can be achieved through public pressure.

Markups are the really the important part of the process because the committee actually changes the content of the original bill. At this point, members of the committee may offer amendments and speak on the amendments before they are voted upon. Committees vary on the actual voting process. Some hold formal votes while others, particularly smaller ones, can get away with voice votes.

Incidentally, if you cannot catch hearings and markups on C-Span, most of the committee websites do live feeds and archive the videos. When Nancy Pelosi took over as Speaker, she encouraged the use of live feeds to increase transparency in the government.

Of course, some hearings are closed to the public in the interest of "national security." This includes most intelligence committee hearings and some related to the military and homeland security.

Final passage

Following the markup, the committee votes on final passage. If the bill was sent to a subcommittee, the hearing-markup-final vote procedure happens in both the subcommittee and full committee. On the other hand, the full committee will often just pass the subcommittee bill on routine legislation.

If the final version of the bill passes the committee, it is "reported out" of committee. Usually a staffer writes a report of the content of the bill. Quite often, these pieces are as much persuasive as they are informative since the committee has an interest in seeing its legislation passed.

As noted above, House bills go through the Rules Committee and their public website even has a link to the secure section for committee chairs to requests a rule. Anyone interested in tracking House legislation might want to get an RSS feed of the current bills.

Types of committees

There are three basic kinds of committee and the most important has two subcategories.

Select committees: Select committees are temporary panels that are created by the chamber leadership to investigate certain issues. Select committees may hold hearings, but not mark up legislation. One current example is the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Both chambers also created select committees to look into homeland security after the 9/11 Commission Report. The result was a reshuffling of committee jurisdictions to oversee the new homeland security bureaucracy.

Note that the intelligence committees are called "select committees," but they function as regular standing committees.

Joint committees: There are a handful of issues that are either so routine or so important that it makes sense for the House and Senate to work together. The major joint committees are Taxation Committee and Economic Committee. These committees comprehensively study the potential impact of taxation and economic policies respectively. Some of the minor joint committees oversee the Congressional Printing Office and the Library of Congress.

Standing Committees: This is where most of the legislative work gets done. The committees are sometimes renamed (especially after a new majority takes over) and the jurisdictions get shifted, but the system is fairly stable. The two types of standing committees are appropriations and authorization.

Most committees are authorizing committees. Simply put, authorizing committees decide to write bills that create program X and authorize spending $Y on it. Both chambers have a single appropriations committee (with 12 subcommittees to handle the 13 routine appropriations bills) that decide to appropriate $Y + or - Z. Z is a combination of $Y, appropriators whims, budget constraints, and earmark requests.

I hope all of that is clear. I had thought about including discussions of committee assignments and a history of the system, but that would take up another diary. Also, we will not have to worry about committee assignments until after the 2010 midterm elections.

Past Considered Forthwith entries:
House Education and Labor Committee
Senate Finance Committee
Senate HELP Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee
House Energy and Commerce Committee
House Ways and Means Committee
House and Senate Appropriations Committees
House Intelligence Committee
House Judiciary Committee
House and Senate Ethics Committees
House Science and Technology Committee
House Financial Services Committee
House Rules Committee
The Role of Committees

Crossposted on Daily Kos, Congress Matters, and Docudharma.

Considered Forthwith: House Education and Labor Committee (Health Care update)

2009-06-21T16:39:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the 13th installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

First, I want to note the committee monitoring project that Meteor Blades has announced. I hope to take part and invite anyone else who is participating to see my list of links at the end of this diary for more information about specific committees.

This week, I will look at the House Education and Labor Committee, yet another committee with jurisdiction over health care reform. The big news: we have a public option sighting!

First, here are the members of the committee:

Democrats: George Miller, Chairman (CA-07), Dale E. Kildee (MI-05), Donald M. Payne (NJ-10), Robert E. Andrews (NJ-01), Robert C. Scott (VA-03), Lynn C. Woolsey (CA-06), Rubén Hinojosa (TX-15), Carolyn McCarthy (NY-04), John F. Tierney (MA-06), Dennis J. Kucinich (OH-10), David Wu (OR-01), Rush D. Holt (NJ-12), Susan A. Davis (CA-53), Raúl M. Grijalva (AZ-07), Timothy H. Bishop (NY-01), Joe Sestak (PA-07), Dave Loebsack (IA-02), Mazie Hirono (HI-02), Jason Altmire (PA-04), Phil Hare (IL-17), Yvette Clarke (NY-11), Joe Courtney (CT-02), Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01), Marcia Fudge (OH-11), Jared Polis (CO-2), Paul Tonko (NY-21), Pedro Pierluisi (PR), Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (Northern Mariana Islands), Dina Titus (NV-3), Vacancy

Republicans: John Kline (MN-02), Ranking Member, ~~Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, Ranking Member (CA-25)~~, Thomas E. Petri (WI-06), Peter Hoekstra (MI-02), Michael N. Castle (DE-At Large), Mark E. Souder (IN-03), Vernon J. Ehlers (MI-03), Judy Biggert (IL-13), Todd Russell Platts (PA-19), Joe Wilson (SC-02), John Kline (MN-02), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05), Tom Price (GA-06), Rob Bishop (UT-01), Brett Guthrie (KY-2), Bill Cassidy (LA-6), Tom McClintock (CA-4), Duncan D. Hunter (CA-52), Phil Roe (TN-1), Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson (PA-05), vacancy

Buck McKeon left the committee last week to take a seat on the House Armed Services Committee. The Republicans picked John Kline to be the ranking member, but the member page has not been updated yet.

Notice that delegates from Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands sit on the committee. Delegates from U.S. territories and the District of Columbia do sit on committees (and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton chairs the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Emergency Management, and Public Buildings). They are allowed to vote in committees and when the House resolves into the Committee of the Whole (typically on amendments). However, they do not get to procedural matters or on final passage.

Cooperation on the public option

This might qualify as "breaking." The full committee has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday at noon to consider the The Tri-Committee Draft Proposal for Health Care Reform. If C-Span does not cover it, a live webcast should be available on the committee's website. (Aside: the expanded use of webcasts for committee hearings is one of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's reforms to promote open government.)

The Tri-Committee Draft Proposal includes the ever elusive public option. The key portion of the proposal:

1. If an individual likes their current plan, they would be able to keep it.

2. For individuals who either aren’t currently covered, or wanted to enroll in a new health care plan, the proposal would establishes a health care exchange where consumers can select from a menu of affordable, quality health care options: either a new public health insurance plan or a plan offered by private insurers. People will have similar choices that Members of Congress have.

3. This new marketplace would reduce costs, create competition that leads to better care for every American, and keep private insurers honest. Patients and doctors would have control over decisions about their health care, instead of insurance companies.

The proposal also includes a number of common sense measure to reduce health care costs and improve the quality of health care. You may want to check it out if you care about the debate.

What is really remarkable about this is that the three committees with jurisdiction, Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and Labor Committees worked together on this. The norm in Congress is inter committee rivalry. Instead, the House committees will consider (and hopefully report) similar bills for Floor consideration. I have noted in past diaries that Senators and Chairmen Kennedy (HELP Committee) and Baucus (Finance Committee) agreed to work together on the Senate version as well. However, Baucus may be wavering on the public option.

So what would a committee called "Education and Labor" be doing with a health care bill? Let's look at the...

Jurisdiction
From the committee website:

Education. The Committee on Education and Labor oversees federal programs and initiatives dealing with education at all levels -- from preschool through high school to higher education and continuing education. These include:

* Elementary and secondary education initiatives, including the No Child Left Behind Act, school choice for low-income families, special education (the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), teacher quality & teacher training, scientifically-based reading instruction, and vocational and technical education;
* Higher education programs (the Higher Education Act), to support college access for low and middle-income students and help families pay for college;
* Early childhood & preschool education programs including Head Start;
* School lunch and child nutrition programs;
* Financial oversight of the U.S. Department of Education;
* Programs and services for the care and treatment of at-risk youth, child abuse prevention, and child adoption;
* Educational research and improvement;
* Adult education; and
* Anti-poverty programs, including the Community Services Block Grant Act and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).

Labor. The Committee on Education and Labor also holds jurisdiction over workforce initiatives aimed at strengthening health care, job training, and retirement security for workers. Workforce issues in the jurisdiction of the Education and the Labor Committee include:

* Pension and retirement security for U.S. workers;
* Access to quality health care for working families and other employee benefits;
* Job training, adult education, and workforce development initiatives, including those under the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), to help local communities train and retrain workers;
* Continuing the successful welfare reforms of 1996;
* Protecting the democratic rights of individual union members;
* Worker health and safety, including occupational safety and health;
* Providing greater choices and flexibility (including "comp time" or family time options) to working women and men;
* Equal employment opportunity and civil rights in employment;
* Wages and hours of labor, including the Fair Labor Standards Act;
* Workers' compensation, and family and medical leave;
* All matters dealing with relationships between employers and employees.

Since health care is the gold standard for employment benefits, the labor side of the committee certainly has a claim to this legislation. The rest of the jurisdiction is fairly self explanatory. The committee's turf includes the (fairly limited) federal role in education as well as labor relations and worker safety.

It is also important to keep in mind that this is an authorizing committee. They can deal with policy changes and authorize new programs with spending proposals. It is up to the Appropriations committees to actually fund those programs, however.

A little history

The committee was established in 1867 as industry started to grow after the Civil War. In 1883, it was split into separate panels and handled education and labor separately. Following the Second World War, Congress passed the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. This reduced the number of committees (at the time there were 48 committees in the House and 33 in the Senate) and more clearly defined committee jurisdictions. Under the act, the Education and Labor Committees were once again merged.

When the Republicans took over Congress in 1995, the committee was renamed the "Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities." In the next Congress (1997), it was again renamed to the "Committee on Education and the Workforce." When the Democrats won back Congress, the name reverted back to its current name.

For more, click here.

Other current issues

401(k) fee disclosure. The committee is scheduled to mark up the 401(k) Fair Disclosure and Pension Security Act of 2009. This bill would increase disclosures about fee associated with 401(k) plans. This would allow workers and employers to better decide which 401(k) plans to select. More information is here.

Conflicts of interest in investing advice. Remember all of those last minute regulations that George W. Bush issued? One of them loosened regulations regarding conflicts of interest in the investment industry:

These actions opened the door for financial services companies to provide advice to employees where they had a direct or indirect financial interest.

The Conflicted Investment Advice Prohibition Act will restore workers’ protections by laying out clear rules to ensure that workers receive investment advice at work that is based solely on interests of the account holder’s needs, not investment firms’ bottom line.

Source

The subcommittee voted 13-8 (presumably along party lines) last week to report the bill to the full committee.

OSHA oversight. A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report says that the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) invested too much time and energy in the Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP) under the Bush Administration. VPP was established in 1982 recognizes businesses that voluntarily comply with safety regulations. Critics, including Congressional and Committee Democrats, contend that voluntary programs risked worker safety by relying on asking for compliance rather than enforcing it. Expect greater oversight and probably some hearings by the committee.

Student loan reform. Last month, the committee held a hearing about the need for reforms in the student loan system. Take it from this professional student, college is not cheap and the best education is really not cheap. In order for poor and middle class students to afford a higher education, there is agreement that the government programs that offer student loans needs reform. Read more here.

Check out the committee's website for other related news.

Subcommittees

There are five subcommittees under the full committee. The full membership lists are available here. Note that the these lists have not been updated to reflect Buck McKeon's change of committee. All jurisdiction descriptions are posted and taken from here.

Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education: Dale Kildee is the chair and Michael N. Castle is the ranking member.

Including education from early learning through the high school level including, but not limited to, elementary and secondary education, education of the disabled, the homeless and migrant and agricultural labor. Also including school construction, overseas dependent schools, career and technical training, school safety and alcohol and drug abuse prevention, educational research and improvement, including the Institute of Education Sciences; and early care and education programs and early learning programs, including the Head Start Act and the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act.

Subcommittee on Healthy Families and Communities: Carolyn McCarthy is the chair and Todd "Russell" Platts is the ranking member.

Adolescent development and training programs, including but not limited to those providing for the care and treatment of certain at risk youth, including the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act and the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act; all matters dealing with child abuse and domestic violence, including the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, and child adoption; school lunch and child nutrition, poverty programs including the Community Services Block Grant Act, and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP); all matters dealing with programs and services for the elderly, including nutrition programs and the Older Americans Act; environmental education; all domestic volunteer programs; ; library services and construction, and programs related to the arts and humanities, museum services, and arts and artifacts indemnity.

Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness: Rubén Hinojosa is the chair and Brett Guthrie is the ranking member.

Education and training beyond the high school level including, but not limited to higher education generally, postsecondary student assistance and employment services, the Higher Education Act; postsecondary career and technical education, training and apprenticeship including the Workforce Investment Act, displaced homemakers, adult basic education (family literacy), rehabilitation, professional development, and training programs from immigration funding; pre-service and in-service teacher training, including Title II of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Title II of the Higher Education Act; science and technology programs; affirmative action in higher education; Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972; all welfare reform programs including, work incentive programs, welfare-to-work requirements; the Native American Programs Act, the Robert A. Taft Institute, and Institute for Peace.

Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions: Robert Andrews is the chair and John Kline is the ranking member. Note: since Kline is now the ranking member of the full committee, he may have to give up this position.

All matters dealing with relationships between employers and workers generally including, but not limited to, the National Labor Relations Act, Labor Management Relations Act, Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment-related retirement security, including pension, health and other employee benefits, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA); all matters related to equal employment opportunity and civil rights in employment, including affirmative action.

Subcommittee on Workforce Protections: Lynn Woolsey is the chair and Tom Price is the ranking member.

Wages and hours of labor including, but not limited to, Davis-Bacon Act, Walsh-Healey Act, Fair Labor Standards Act , workers’ compensation including, Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, Federal Employees’ Compensation Act, Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, Service Contract Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, including training for dislocated workers, Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988, trade and immigration issues as they impact employers and workers, and workers’ health and safety including, but not limited to, occupational safety and health, mine health and safety, youth camp safety, and migrant and agricultural labor health and safety.

That's it for this week. Next, I am planning a general discussion about committee rules, procedures, assignments, etc. If there is a demand, I will get it up before next Sunday.

Also, if you are interested in the U.S. Congressional response to the situation in Iran, monitor the House Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.

Past Considered Forthwith entries:
Senate Finance Committee
Senate HELP Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee
House Energy and Commerce Committee
House Ways and Means Committee
House and Senate Appropriations Committees
House Intelligence Committee
House Judiciary Committee
House and Senate Ethics Committees
House Science and Technology Committee
House Financial Services Committee
House Rules Committee
The Role of Committees

Crossposted at Congress Matters and Daily Kos.

Considered Forthwith: Senate Finance Committee

2009-06-14T15:50:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the 12th installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

This week, Considered Forthwith looks at the Senate Finance Committee. This committee is the other half of the health care reform debate equation. I detailed the other half, the Senate HELP Committee, last week.

In general, the Finance Committee handles tax measures and government-funded health insurance programs. As a result, this is a very powerful committee. Moreover, if health care reform dies, it will likely find its grave in this committee.

A note on the names of committees: The Senate counterpart to the House Ways and Means Committee is the Senate Finance Committee. The Senate counterpart to the House Financial Services Committee, which deals with banking and other financial institutions, is the Senate Banking Committee.

Here are the members of the Senate Finance Committee:

Democrats: Max Baucus, Chairman, Montana; Jay Rockefeller, West Virginia; Kent Conrad, North Dakota; Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico; John Kerry, Massachusetts; Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas; Ron Wyden, Oregon; Charles Schumer, New York; Debbie Stabenow, Michigan; Maria Cantwell, Washington; Bill Nelson, Florida; Robert Menendez, New Jersey; Thomas Carper, Delaware

Republicans: Chuck Grassley, Ranking Member, Iowa; Orrin Hatch, Utah; Olympia Snowe, Maine; Jon Kyl, Arizona; Jim Bunning, Kentucky; Mike Crapo, Idaho; Pat Roberts, Kansas; John Ensign, Nevada; Mike Enzi, Wyoming; John Cornyn, Texas

Public Comment!

We are late on this one, but the committee actually solicited public comment on health care reform. The deadline was May 26. However, the committee has a regular link for submitting comment on the topic du jour. Looking through past comments and comment solicitations, it seems that this is a fairly regular option.

On the other hand, if you have a particularly strong opinion on closing the alternative fuel tax cut loophole for "black liquor," click here (pdf link). In fact, using the "hearings" link, citizens and organizations can submit comments for the record via mail. The problem, of course, is that the committee is not always prompt about posting upcoming hearings.

As I have written many times, the goal of this series is to help progressives focus their activism for maximum impact. Sure, you could write your Senators and Representative every day, but there is little that those members cannot do if they do not sit on a committee with jurisdiction over the matter. Even more frustrating is the fact that many members will only accept calls, e-mails, and letters from constituents. This is why I suggest contacting committees directly. It is refreshing to see a committee this open to the public.

Finally, the phone/snail mail contact information is here.

Jurisdiction

The Committee has jurisdiction over the following topics:

1. Bonded debt of the United States, except as provided in the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

2. Customs, collection districts, and ports of entry and delivery.

3. Deposit of public moneys.

4. General revenue sharing.

5. Health programs under the Social Security Act and health programs financed by a specific tax or trust fund.

6. National social security.

7. Reciprocal trade agreements.

8. Revenue measures generally, except as provided in the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

9. Revenue measures relating to the insular possessions.

10. Tariffs and import quotas, and matters related thereto.

11. Transportation of dutiable goods.

The committee also has oversight responsibility for many Executive Branch agencies. Some of those oversight duties are shared with other committees. Follow the link above for the full list.

Cap and Trade Hearing

The only scheduled upcoming committee hearing regards tax considerations of climate change regulation. Presumably this has to do with the Cap and Trade bill that was recently considered by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. (This was the one with the speed reader.) Here's a preview:

The witnesses include:

Mr. Gary Hufbauer, Reginald Jones Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington DC

Mr. Mark Price, Principal-in-Charge, Financial Institutions and Products, Washington National Tax, KPMG LLP, Washington DC

Mr. Keith Butler, Senior Vice President of Tax, Duke Energy, Charlotte, NC

The Peterson Institute is calling for a multi-lateral approach to Global Warming. KPMG seems to be specialized in providing tax advice to businesses. FWIW, there was also this little issue from 2005. Duke Energy is obviously a large energy company that makes the usual nice statements about protecting the environment. I would expect a lot of hot air to be circulated about how expensive it will be stop global warming.

Hearings are nothing more than policy discussions among members of Congress and interested groups and individuals who manage to get invited/subpoenaed to appear. No official action is typically taken after a hearing. Indeed, it is not unusual for only a few committee members to show up. In any case, this is one of the ways that lobbyists, both good and bad, get access to the government. Urge your favorite public interest groups to get hearings with committees.

Health Care Reform

One of the reasons why it is difficult to pass major reform bills is the practice of multiple referrals. On almost every reform bill, more than one committee can claim jurisdiction over a policy change. Naturally, no committee or member will want to surrender the chance to influence major policy moves. The problem is that different committees often report radically different bills to the floor. All too often neither competing bill will get the votes needed for passage and the policy reform dies.

In the health care debate, both the HELP Committee and the Finance Committee have claims to jurisdiction. In an uncommon move, HELP Committee Chairman Ted Kennedy and Finance Committee Chairman Baucus have pledged to coordinate the bills from their respective committees. However, it looks like Baucus might be wavering on the public option and offering other (admittedly needed) fixes and expanding Medicare instead. Grassley, of course, is having none of the public option. Interestingly, Senator Jay Rockefeller, chair of the subcommittee on Health Care, introduced a bill to create the public option.

I won't go on about this since there are plenty of other posts about this issue, but I will offer this link which detail's Baucus' views on the issue. This would be a good person to contact about health care reform (hint, hint).

Other committee agenda items

The U.S. - Panama Trade Promotion Agreement was on the agenda May 21. The bill is a free trade agreement with Panama. There are concerns about lax labor and tax policies in Panama that could make an agreement unfair to U.S. interests. At least one U.S. company and an industry group favor the agreement. Two senior Democrats and a Kossack are not thrilled with the bill.

Meet Neal Wolin: Mr. Wolin's nomination to be Deputy Secretary was the focus of a recent hearing. He was confirmed May 18. Apparently, he helped deregulate the banks in the 1990, a contributing factor in last year's banking meltdown.

Trade with Cuba: Baucus is pushing a bill to open trade with Cuba (pdf link). Love it or hate it, Baucus is correct that five decades of U.S. sanctions have not forced political change in the little communist nation that could.

Paygo: This is a brand new proposal from the Obama administration. There is nothing on the Committee page about it yet, but this legislation will undoubtedly land in the Finance Committee. Paygo is a Clinton-era law that requires any loses from new entitlement spending to tax cuts to be made up through budget cuts or tax increases elsewhere. This rule would not apply to the 40 percent of the budget that is discretionary spending.

Note: the party of fiscal responsibility allowed the PayGo laws to lapse, which in turn allowed Congress to irresponsibly cut taxes and increase spending. Now the Conservatives are bashing the President for even bringing it up. The Democratic House did reinstitute PayGo as a rule 2007, but it was waived a number of times.

Subcommittees

I could not find formal statements of jurisdiction for the five subcommittees, but the names seem fairly self explanatory.

The Subcommittee on Health Care is chaired by John D. "Jay" Rockefeller and Orrin Hatch is the ranking member.

The Subcommittee on Taxation, IRS Oversight, and Long-Term Growth is chaired by Kent Conrad and Jon Kyl is the ranking member.

The Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure is chaired by Jeff Bingaman and Jim Bunning is the ranking member.

The Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy is chaired by Blanche Lincoln and Pat Roberts is the ranking member.

The Subcommittee on International Trade and Global Competitiveness is chaired by Ron Wyden and Mike Crapo is the ranking member.

Any assistance with jurisdiction would be appreciated.

That's it for this week. I am considering looking at the two Foreign Relations Committees next week, especially if the situation in Iran escalates. Of course, I welcome any suggestions and will watch for movement in any other committees.

Past Considered Forthwith entries:
Senate HELP Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee
House Energy and Commerce Committee
House Ways and Means Committee
House and Senate Appropriations Committees
House Intelligence Committee
House Judiciary Committee
House and Senate Ethics Committees
House Science and Technology Committee
House Financial Services Committee
House Rules Committee
The Role of Committees

What I learned from the Tank Man

2009-06-07T02:45:00.004-04:00

Note: this not a diary about the history of the Tiananmen Square Protests or the situation there now. For the history, check out the Wiki page. For a first hand account of yesterday's "ceremony," I suggest this LA Times story. This diary is the impressions of a teenager watching the world both evolve and devolve 20 years ago.

I have a poster of this picture -- it is also stamped with the date of June 5, 1989 -- hanging in my room:

I picked it up just after I started back to college to study politics after a somewhat unfulfilling career in journalism.

Twenty years ago, give or take a few hours, a 14-year-old Chris was watching television, and it was not Alf. It was the summer of an amazing year that had already seen the triumph of Solidarity in Poland and the election of a democratic government in Hungary. The "Evil Empire" was unwilling and/or unable to suppress the wave of freedom.

For the previous 14 years, I had lived with the nagging fear that someone in Moscow would push THE button that would kill most of the people in the First World and reduce the survivors so something lower than cockroaches. Or maybe a hoard of Russians, Cubans, Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Romanians, and North Koreans would land in California and push east to Denver and Chicago while Bonn, London, and Paris would fall in advance of Communist attacks on New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. A stead diet of movies like The Day After and Red Dawn and Reagan's proto neo-con posturing didn't help much, either.

Even a 14 year old kid could see that Reagan and Bush Sr. were playing a dangerous game. Gorbachev seemed like a pretty reasonable guy, but if this perestroika and glasnost thing didn't work out, we were probably fucked. Even worse, if the United States failed, our allies in Western Europe were in serious trouble, too.

As 1989 dawned and the United States inaugurated a new president, the world was changing for the better. Poland and Hungary may have called themselves "people's republics," but there were always two inherent lies in those names. The "republic" consisted of the Communist Party and the "People" were "free" to go to work and support the state. That was all changing and it just seemed like a matter of time before the rest of Eastern Europe broke the shackles of dictatorship that stretched back to Moscow.

The story in Asia was different. As protesters (mostly students not much older than me at that time) started to gather in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on April 14, 1989 to morn the death of Hu Yaobang, it seemed like Red China was about to be the next dictatorship to fall. The circumstances were more prophetic than the West would have imagined. Much like Gorbachev, Mr. Hu was a political leader who championed market and political liberalization and cleaning up official corruption. People from all over the country gathered in the heart of the capital to mourn the passing of their leader and to call for the government and the party to continue Mr. Hu's reforms.

In the ensuing eight weeks, many Westerners including a young CW, naively thought that we were seeing an Oriental Woodstock. It was about to turn into Altamont. On June 4, the People's Liberation Army (another name with two inherent lies) cleared out the democracy lovers with shocking violence. The army felt the need to use tanks and automatic weapons to chase off and kill unarmed civilians.

The next day, the tanks remained. The protesters who had not managed to escape the senseless violence were dead or being held as political prisoners. Democracy and freedom were were dead (or at least arrested) in China.

Then a Western journalist in a nearby hotel room caught an amazing sight.

Some dude, armed only with his shopping bags, decided to stare down a column of farking tanks! Not only that, he went out of his way to stand in front of the lead vehicle and made gestures like "GTFO, jackass." Then he climbed on top of the thing before he was finally arrested. Witness:

This man, who remains unnamed in the West, has not been heard from since. Personally, I suspect that he is already dead. If he is alive, I doubt we will ever hear from him. This is tragic because we may never know his true motivations. Was he really the last defiant hero for freedom and democracy in China or was he batshit crazy? I, and most other freedom lovers, like to think the former.

As I watched the footage of the tank man, I knew that I could never be the bravest person ever. This guy had all of us beat. Here was a guy who believed in freedom and democracy so much that he was willing to risk a course of action in which getting plowed over by a tank ranked among the best possible outcomes.

After Tiananmen, democratic reform was pretty much a dead issue in China. To this day, one could not even Twitter on June 4 or access Google's Blogger service (shameless plug for my own site) at any time. Young CW started to lose hope. It seemed like this potentially historic year was going to be an epic failure. In some ways, it was since much of East Asia missed out on the great promise of freedom and democracy. For all of its faults, democracy is still the sole political system that inherently protects basic human rights.

In the wake of Tiananmen, we had a long, hot summer before we finally saw images like this in November:

The physical wall that symbolized the dividing line between freedom and repression and the wall that literally tore families apart came down. Der Stasi, who almost made the SS look like a reasonable police force in comparison, were impotent to stop it. The freedom march was alive and well -- at least in Europe.

My final impressions came one cold Christmas morning. After all of the gifts were opened, I was allowed to try out my new Atari 2600 games (we were a little behind the times). When I turned on the television, the news was on. I learned that another country had freed itself after about two weeks of violence. Romania had ousted the Communist government and executed Nicolae and Elana Ceauşescu (live on Romanian television as it turned out). I gave up the video games to bask in yet another victory for freedom. However, the brutality of summary execution has always bothered me. In my later studies, I learned that there was a brief trial (a mere formality and a closed affair) Christmas Eve and the couple were shot the next day. It turns out that Ceauşescu thought the Soviets were not repressive enough. To me, that still does not justify state-sanctioned murder.

As I and my generation were dragged into the decadence and idealism that was the 1990s, I resolved to be someone who stands up against repression, human rights abuses, torture (as I am sure the tank man endured), and state-sponsored murder and someone who stands up for democracy, the rule of law, freedom, human rights, family, and basic human dignity. That's what got me into Progressive politics. Thank you, Tank Man -- where ever you are.

It's never easy. Sometimes life takes a shit on you personally. Sometimes our great nation sees fit to elect a clown like George W. Bush. When I am faced with adversity -- personal, political, profession/academic, or social -- I look at my poster and think, "have I really stared down a column of tanks today?"

Chris

Crossposted at Daily Kos, where it was my third rescued diary of the week. The other two dealt with the Uniting American Families Act hearing announcement and follow up.

Considered Forthwith: Senate "HELP" Committee (with health care reform)

2009-06-07T02:43:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the eleventh installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

This week Considered Forthwith will examine the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. The Committee is also commonly referred to by its acronym, The Senate HELP Committee.

I settled on a different committee than I planned because there The HELP Committee has a major hearing scheduled this week.

First, here are the members of the committee:

Democrats: Edward Kennedy, chair (MA), Christopher Dodd (CT), Tom Harkin (IA), Barbara A. Mikulski (MD), Jeff Bingaman (NM), Patty Murray (WA), Jack Reed (RI), Bernard Sanders (I) (VT), Sherrod Brown (OH), Robert P. Casey, Jr. (PA), Kay Hagan (NC), Jeff Merkley (OR)

Republicans: Michael B. Enzi, Ranking Member (WY), Judd Gregg (NH), Lamar Alexander (TN), Richard Burr (NC), Johnny Isakson (GA), John McCain (AZ), Orrin G. Hatch (UT), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Tom Coburn, M.D. (OK), Pat Roberts (KS)

The HELP committee's webpage is one of the more informative sites that I have used while writing this series. Unlike many of the pages I have investigated so far, the HELP Committee includes a link to e-mail comments to the committee and the physical address is listed at the bottom of the page. The only thing that is lacking is a telephone number, but I tend to think that e-mail and snail mail is better since there is something of a paper trail. Additionally, contacting a committee or members of a committee directly gives citizens the benefit of addressing concerns directly to the people who can make a difference.

The committee also maintains a list of bills under consideration by the committee. This is helpful, too, since citizens can see what is on the agenda and lobby for or against pending legislation.

FWIW: The committee even maintains a photo gallery.

Important upcoming hearing

The HELP Committee has scheduled a hearing on "Healthcare Reform" for Thursday, June 11 at 3 p.m. There is no further information now -- not even a witness list -- but past hearing pages have included video and testimony in .pdf format. According to this Washington Post article, markups on Kennedy's proposed bill could start on June 16. Markups are the committee version of amendments and we can expect the minority to throw all kinds of killer amendments to any bill that comes from the committee. The GOP threw hundreds of amendments at the Cap and Trade bill, for example.

The timing of this hearing is not coincidental. Obviously, Health Care reform is one of the President's priorities and many members (including newly elected Democrats) in Congress want reform as well. In fact, the White House issued a report on June 2 arguing that health care reform is vital to keeping the American economy strong. Reform has public and special interest support, as evidenced by the 2008 elections. The ideas for reforms have been around for sometime, but we are now talking about them. Finally, There are enough flaws in the current system to fill a book on the subject.

Political Scientist John W. Kingdon discussed the concept of policy windows in 1984. When all of the above "streams" -- problem identified, political will to solve it, and possible solutions -- converge, policy windows open. Policy windows are the opportunity to implement new policies. It seems intuitive, but this is an important theory in the field. To put it more simply, we could have all kinds of great ideas for health care reform, but with a narrow Democratic majority in the Senate and a Republican President it was not happening.

Perhaps President Obama read his Kingdon when he said:

"If we don't get it done this year, we're not going to get it done," he said yesterday in a call to members of Organizing for America, the political group formed to advance his agenda. "And to do that we're going to need all of you to mobilize."

Source is the same Post article cited above.

One of the great failings of the traditional media is that they rarely announce upcoming hearings (the a fore mentioned Post article is a notable exception). Instead, they report afterwords on what was said. The problem with this convention is that citizens do not have the opportunity to contact their legislators ahead of time. The June 11 meeting is only a hearing and will not advance any legislation, but citizens could still contact these Senators and let their concerns be aired (hint, hint). Ideally, citizens' top concerns would be the basis for questions Senators pose to the witnesses.

The specialized media is better with this, but they are not always perfect. If you have a pet issue, find the relevant committee and book mark the hearings page. Check it regularly and watch for any upcoming hearings. I also want to give a shout out to David Waldman and his work on "Today in Congress." The place to find committee hearings is "Below the Fold" and it is only that day's hearings, but it is more than most news outlets give us.

Nomination Hearing

Like most other Senate committees, the HELP committee holds hearings on many executive branch appointments. In case you were wondering, Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg will likely be the next Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Here is her biography and here is her confirmation hearing.

Why do I bother taking up bandwidth making this point? Frankly, it really is that important. The legislature approves top level people to Executive Branch agencies. Many agencies have "rule-making" authority. Congress passes the laws, but it is often up to the Executive Branch agencies to create rules to implement the laws. For example, the HELP Committee reported a bill in May that would allow the FDA to "regulate tobacco products" (PDF link). Well, what does that mean in practical terms? Consider this excerpt from The Medical News:

Under the bill, FDA could ban certain tobacco products, such as candy-flavored cigarettes, restrict tobacco advertising to black-and-white ads, and prohibit use of the terms "mild" and "low tar" (Yoest/Mundy, Wall Street Journal, 5/21). FDA also could limit the amount of nicotine in tobacco products, as well as enlarge warning labels. To pay for the new regulatory efforts, the bill would require all tobacco companies to pay a fee that would raise nearly $5.4 billion over the first 10 years.

Bold is mine.

Basically, the bill gives the FDA broad authority to further regulate tobacco products, but it is up to the FDA to actually force a change in the warning label for example. Furthermore, under this language the FDA does not have to do a thing. Since the boss has ultimate authority, Dr. Hamburg's views on tobacco regulation will carry a lot of weight in the actual results of this legislation.

Committee Jurisdiction

Getting back to the nuts and bolts of the committee, here is the HELP Committee's jurisdiction under Rule 25 of the Senate's standing rules.

Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, to which committee shall be referred all proposed legislation, messages, petitions, memorials, and other matters relating to the following subjects:
1. Measures relating to education, labor, health, and public welfare.
2. Aging.
3. Agricultural colleges.
4. Arts and humanities.
5. Biomedical research and development.
6. Child labor.
7. Convict labor and the entry of goods made by convicts into interstate commerce.
8. Domestic activities of the American National Red Cross.
9. Equal employment opportunity.
10. Gallaudet University, Howard University, and Saint Elizabeth hospital.
11. Individuals with disabilities.
12. Labor standards and labor statistics.
13. Mediation and arbitration of labor disputes.
14. Occupational safety and health, including the welfare of miners.
15. Private pension plans.
16. Public health.
17. Railway labor and retirement.
18. Regulation of foreign laborers.
19. Student loans.
20. Wages and hours of labor.

Such committee shall also study and review, on a comprehensive basis, matters relating to health, education and training, and public welfare, and report thereon from time to time.

This committee will be key to any discussion of health care reform due to their jurisdiction. However, the Senate Finance Committee also has a claim to any reform plan. Such split jurisdiction can, and often does, lead to turf wars as members of Congress fight over who will take the lead on a given policy rather than on actually crafting legislation. In contrast, Chairman Kennedy and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus issued this statement (pdf link):

For both of us, reforming the nation's health care system to cut cost, improve quality and provide affordable coverage remains the top priority on our two committees. We have worked together closely over many months and will continue to do so. We intend to ensure that our committees report similar and complementary legislation that can be quickly merged into one bill for consideration on the Senate floor before the August recess.

In other words, they are not planning to offer radically different pieces of legislation which might both fail. Instead, they want to work together and advance a viable bill.

A few other notes on jurisdiction: Gallaudet and Howard Universities in Washington were both founded by acts of Congress during the Civil War (Howard was actually founded just after the end of the war). Gallaudet University (along Metro's Red Line) was founded to accommodate deaf and hearing-impaired students. Howard University (along the Yellow and Green Lines) is a historically black university that now produces more on campus African American PhD candidates than any oher university in the world.

Retired railroad workers receive benefits similar to Social Security, but a separate agency was set up in the 1930s to handle those claims. More information about the Railroad Retirement Board is available here.

Finally, that final paragraph of the rule gives the committee oversight power over many Executive Branch agencies. I won't list them all here, but if you are interested go to the committee's page and click on the links for Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions to see the committee's oversight jurisdictions and link to those agencies.

Subcommittees:

There are only three subcommittees under the full committee. Like the full committee, the subcommittees have wide jurisdictions. The chair and ranking member are ex-officio members of all of the subcommittees.

Subcommittee on Children and Families: Chris Dodd is the chair and Lamar Alexander is the ranking member.

Jurisdiction:

The Subcommittee has jurisdiction over a wide range of issues including Head Start, the Family Medical Leave Act, child care and child support, and other issues involving children, youth, and families.

Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety: Patty Murray is the chair and Johnny Isakson is the ranking member.

Jurisdiction:

The Subcommittee has jurisdiction over a variety of labor issues including worker health and safety, wage and hour laws, workplace leave, employment trends and workforce training among others.

Subcommittee on Retirement and Aging: Barbara Mikulski is the chair and Richard Burr is the ranking member.

Jurisdiction:

The Subcommittee has oversight over many issues including: Pensions, the Older Americans Act; elder abuse, neglect, and scams affecting seniors; long-term care services for older Americans, family caregiving, and the health of the aging population, including Alzheimer's disease and family caregiving.

That's it for this week. I'm going to plan on writing about the Senate Finance Committee next week, unless I find something more interesting or someone makes a suggestion in the comments.

Past Considered Forthwith entries:
Senate Judiciary Committee
House Energy and Commerce Committee
House Ways and Means Committee
House and Senate Appropriations Committees
House Intelligence Committee
Considered Forthwith: House Judiciary Committee
House and Senate Ethics Committees
House Science and Technology Committee
House Financial Services Committee
House Rules Committee
The Role of Committees

Chris

Considered Forthwith: Senate Judiciary Committee

2009-05-31T02:47:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the tenth installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies. If you want to read previous dairies in the series, search using the "forthwith" tag or use the link on my blogroll. I welcome criticisms and corrections in the comments.

This week I will look at the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. The committee's jurisdiction is very similar to the House Judiciary Committee (the Forthwith diary is posted here). There is one big difference, though. The Senate committee gets to hold hearings on judicial confirmations, so this seems timely.

Additionally, the committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on an important gay rights/immigration bill (see Uniting American Families Act below).

Note: last week I mentioned that the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources will likely get the Cap and Trade bill. It turns out that the Environment and Public Works Committee has jurisdiction on global warming legislation. However, there is a an argument for sending it to either committee. This might wind up as a multiple referral.

Here are the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Democrats: Patrick Leahy, Chairman, Vermont; Herb Kohl, Wisconsin; Dianne Feinstein, California; Russ Feingold, Wisconsin; Chuck Schumer, New York; Dick Durbin, Illinois; Ben Cardin, Maryland; Ron Wyden, Oregon; Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island; Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota; Ted Kaufman, Delaware; Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania

Republicans: Jeff Sessions, Ranking Member, Alabama; Orrin Hatch, Utah; Chuck Grassley, Iowa; Jon Kyl, Arizona; Lindsey Graham, South Carolina; John Cornyn, Texas; Tom Coburn, Oklahoma

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (hey, if the wingnuts insist on using President Obama's middle name) is only the ranking member temporarily. When the 112th Congress convenes, Grassley will take over the ranking member post (assuming he gets reelected) or the chairmanship if the Democrats manage to lose a net of 11 Senate seats. In 2012, the plan is for Sessions to take the ranking member spot on the Budget Committee while Grassley will give up his spot on the Finance Committee to take over on the Judiciary Committee. If you haven't guessed, Senators only get to chair or serve as ranking member one committee at a time. Additionally, there are term limits on the seats and the leadership position assignments are typically based on seniority. CQ Politics had the full explanation here.

Jurisdiction

The Senate Judiciary Committee's jurisdiction is nearly identical to the House Judiciary Committee's jurisdiction. I could not find an explicit statement of the committee's jurisdiction on their website, so this one is from the Center for Responsive Politics (better known as opensecrets.org):

Apportionment of Representatives; bankruptcy, mutiny, espionage, and counterfeiting, civil liberties; constitutional amendments; Federal courts and judges; Government information; holidays and celebrations; immigration and naturalization; interstate compacts generally; judicial proceedings, civil and criminal, generally; local courts in the territories and possessions; claims against the United States; national penitentiaries; Patent Office; patents, copyrights, and trademarks; protection of trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies; revision and codification of the statutes of the United States; and state and territorial boundary lines.

I listed the House Judiciary Committee's jurisdiction in this diary. This diary will focus on two main differences: apportionment of representatives and nomination hearings. Under the Constitution, the Senate is solely responsible for approving appointments under the advise and consent clause.

Nomination Hearings

Right now, we are all excited Sonia Sotomayor's upcoming confirmation hearing. Obviously, this will be important, but the committee deals with a lot of nominations every year. Specifically, there are 875 federal judicial positions nationwide that are subject to Senate confirmation. These are lifetime appointments. In addition, the committee holds hearings for a number of top positions in the Executive Branch.

Granted, the SCOTUS nominations are important. However, the publicity is overblown in comparison to the other nominations. During the Bush era, many of the judges who were appointed to the federal bench were as wingnutty as the President himself and that will probably be his legacy. Consider this reporting from the LA Times:

"Some of the appeals courts will be quite far to the right for a generation to come. So why is the Senate rushing to confirm as many of these terrible nominees as possible?" asked Simon Heller, a lawyer for the Alliance for Justice, a liberal advocacy group.

He gives the Republicans more credit than the Democrats for adhering to the party line. "Republican senators have voted in lock step to confirm every judge that Bush has nominated. The Democrats have often broken ranks," he said.

Conservatives tend to agree on that point. They say the ideological makeup of the courts has grown into a major issue on the right, and it has brought Republicans together, whether they are social conservatives, economic conservatives or small-government libertarians.

The important point to remember is that the Supreme Court typically considers less than 100 of the thousands of cases that they receive each year. (Incidentally, the court clerks have a large influence on which cases are even considered.) This means that the rulings of the District Appeals Courts are often the final word on questions of law.

On the other hand, this guy was a Bush nominee, too.

The next section will examine the nomination processes for judicial and executive appointments. These will be brief descriptions, but full rundowns are available here and here. This nomination process is part of the "checks and balances" and "separation of powers" that your high school civics teacher talked about.

The process for judicial nominations: The committee handles appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, U.S. District Courts, and the Court of International Trade.

The first step is for the president (in consultation with his/her advisers) to name a nominee. This is also part of the separation of powers. Congress cannot pick their preferred nominee; they can only approve or deny the president's choice. The nominations are then automatically referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The next step is for the committee to collect information about the nominee. The nominee is expected to submit answers to a questionnaire, which is not unlike an indepth resume. The questionnaire that Sotomayor must fill out is here (pdf link).

The committee also receives ratings from the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary. These ratings evaluate a nominee's integrity, competence, and temperament. They say nothing about political leanings or philosophy.

Finally, the Senators from the nominee's home state receive blue slips. The Senators use these blue slips to indicate their support for or opposition to holding a hearing on a nominee. This is part of the "Senatorial Courtesy" tradition. The committee's website indicates that "the return of a positive "blue slip" is not a commitment by either home state Senator to support or oppose, a pending nomination." However, a lack of support from one's own Senator can seriously undermine a nominee's appointment to a lower court. The point is that the committee cannot possibly know everything about every judge in the country and Senate is willing to defer to the opinion of the members who would know the local judges. Indeed:

Throughout the nation's history, appointments to judicial posts below the Supreme Court have generated little controversy. This has been due in part to the large number of such appointments and to the tradition of "senatorial courtesy," which defers to the preferences of senators belonging to the president's party who represent a particular nominee's home state.

Blue slips and Senatorial Courtesy are not a consideration with a Supreme Court nomination since the high court has jurisdiction over the entire country and not just a part of a state or a few states.

The next step -- however unofficial -- is for the media, special interest groups, other Senators, and now the blogoshere to go bat shit crazy about the nominee. Perceived opponents scramble to find that one nugget of bad information that will sink the nominee while supporters scream that the attacks are untrue and/or irrelevant. This phase applies to SCOTUS nominees only; other nominees are usually allowed to fly under the radar.

Next is the actual hearing, if requested, before the full committee. For obvious reasons, hearings are always held for Supreme Court nominees. This is the real power of the committee and the advantage of seniority. The character of the questioning influences public opinion and more importantly the opinions of Senators. For example, between the pre-hearing framing and the intense questioning, Robert Bork never really had a chance at confirmation. It's probably worth mentioning that Bork on the court would be a disaster for Progressives, but there's no arguing that the term "borked" has become a term for character assassination due to the intense questioning he went through. Another example is the Clarance Thomas hearings. Anita Hill's allegations that Thomas sexually harassed her did not stop the nomination, but it did start the national conversation about sexual harassment.

As for the seniority issue, members of the committee question nominees and other witnesses in order of seniority, alternating between the parties. That means Arlen Specter gets to go dead last. Had he not switched parties, we would have gone second. Basically, the Senator with the least seniority is stuck rehashing questions that have already been asked or asking the nominee his or her cat's name. Even if the most junior member has an important question to pose, the media has already written their stories and passed judgment on the nominee based on earlier interrogation.

After the hearing, members may submit follow up questions. These followups fly under the radar unless a member decides to make a big deal about it. The committee then votes on the nomination. If the committee votes in favor of the nomination, it is reported to the full Senate for a final vote. Of course, we are aware that the GOP is confused whether or not it is a good idea to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee.

The Supreme Court nomination hearings are typically slated for early to mid September after Congress reconvenes after Labor Day so that the nomination is confirmed before the court's start date of Oct. 1.

Executive nominations: The process for Executive Branch nominations is similar procedurally to those for the Judicial Branch. The difference is that there are no blue slips, questionnaires, or ratings from private organizations. Some of the key posts the committee considers include attorney general; assistant secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and director of Citizenship and Immigration Service within Homeland Security; the directors of FBI, ATF, U.S. Marshalls, DEA; and 93 U.S. Attorneys and 94 U.S. Marshals. Here is the full list.

Apportionment of Representatives

This is one of those things that literally only comes up once a decade. Following the decennial census the 435 seats in the House are divided among the states so that each member of the House represents approximately the same number of people. With population movements, Northeastern states have been losing House seats while the South and Southwest have been gaining seats. This is typically a fairly mechanical process, but this is the committee that gets the final say.

Of course, there is the possibility that the committee may have to make some close calls. For example, if Utah and California have an equal claim to another Representative, a Democratically controlled committee would probably be inclined to award the seat to reliably Blue California. It is later up to the states to ~~gerrymander~~ draw the new congressional districts.

Uniting American Families Act

This is an important bill that falls under the Judicial Committee's jurisdiction. On Wednesday June 3 at 10 a.m., the full committee will hold a hearing on the Uniting American Families Act. Under current U.S. law, American citizens may sponsor their spouses for citizenship. Same sex couples do not have the same right. The Uniting American Families Act would remedy this. This is one of things that we should publicize and contact our Senators about. Of course, this is also an opportunity for the GOP to pull the ever elusive homophobia/xenophobia two-fer. I'm going to tune in.

Subcommittees

There are seven subcommittees under the full committee. Unlike many other committees, the Judiciary Committee does not have a specific oversight subcommittee. Instead, the various committees conduct oversight within their own jurisdictions. Here are the subcommittee leaders and jurisdictions.

Administrative Oversight and the Courts: Sheldon Whitehouse is the chair and Jeff Sessions is the ranking member. The jurisdiction is:

(1) Court administration and management; (2) Judicial rules and procedures; (3) Creation of new courts and judgeships; (4) Bankruptcy; (5) Administrative practices and procedures; (6) Legal reform and liability issues; (7) Oversight of the Department of Justice grant programs, as well as government waste and fraud; (8) Private relief bills other than immigration; (9) Oversight of the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission.

Regarding point 8, a private bill is legislation that only applies to one person or a small group of people. For example, if Congress decides that you (and only you) are allowed to grow marijuana, Congress would pass a private bill to that effect.

Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights: Herb Kohl is the chair and Orrin Hatch is the ranking member. Their jurisdiction is:

(1) Oversight of antitrust law and competition policy, including the Sherman, Clayton and Federal Trade Commission Acts; (2) Oversight of antitrust enforcement and competition policy at the Justice Department; (3) Oversight of antitrust enforcement and competition policy at the Federal Trade Commission; (4) Oversight of competition policy at other federal agencies.

The Constitution: Russ Feingold is the chair and Tom "I never met a hold I didn't like" Coburn is the ranking member. Their jurisdiction is:

(1) Constitutional amendments; (2) Enforcement and protection of constitutional rights; (3) Statutory guarantees of civil rights and civil liberties; (4) Separation of powers; (5) Federal-State relations; (6) Interstate compacts.

Crime and Drugs: Arlen Specter is the chair and Lindsey Graham is the ranking member. Their jurisdiction is:

(1) Oversight of the Department of Justice's (a) Criminal Division, (b) Drug Enforcement Administration, (c) Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, (d) Office on Violence Against Women, (e) U.S. Marshals Service, (f) Community Oriented Policing Services and related law enforcement grants, (g) Bureau of Prisons, (h) Office of the Pardon Attorney, (i) U.S. Parole Commission, (j) Federal Bureau of Investigation, and (k) Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, as it relates to crime or drug policy; (2) Oversight of the U.S. Sentencing Commission; (3) Youth violence and directly related issues; (4) Federal programs under the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, as amended (including the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act); (5) Criminal justice and victims' rights policy; (6) Oversight of the Office of National Drug Control Policy; (7) Oversight of the U.S. Secret Service; (8) Corrections, rehabilitation, reentry and other detention-related policy; and (9) Parole and prohibition policy.

Human Rights and the Law: Richard Durbin is the chair and Tom Coburn is the ranking member. Their jurisdiction is:

(1) Human rights laws and policies; (2) Enforcement and implementation of human rights laws; (3) Judicial proceedings regarding human rights laws; and (4) Judicial and executive branch interpretations of human rights laws.

Immigration, Refugees and Border Security: Charles Shumer is the chair and John Cornyn is the ranking member. Their jurisdiction is:

(1) Immigration, citizenship, and refugee laws; (2) Oversight of the immigration functions of the Department of Homeland Security, including U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Ombudsman Citizenship and Immigration Services; (3) Oversight of the immigration-related functions of the Department of Justice, the Department of State, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement, and the Department of Labor; (4) Oversight of international migration, internally displaced persons, and refugee laws and policy; and (5) Private immigration relief bills.

Yes, these would be the border fence people.

Terrorism and Homeland Security: Ben Cardin is the chair and Jon Kyl is the ranking member. Their jurisdiction is:

(1) Oversight of anti-terrorism enforcement and policy; (2) Oversight of Department of Homeland Security functions as they relate to anti-terrorism enforcement and policy; (3) Oversight of State Department consular operations as they relate to anti-terrorism enforcement and policy; (4) Oversight of encryption policies and export licensing; and (5) Oversight of espionage laws and their enforcement.

Interestingly, the House established a separate Homeland Security Committee while the Senate handles those issues within a subcommittee.

For more information about the history of the committee, the past subcommittees (for example, the now defunct Youth Violence Subcommittee) can be found here. A history of the full committee since its founding in 1816 is available here.

A few highlights: This was the committee that debated the Missouri Compromise, handled the emergency war powers during the Civil War, and reported the Sherman Antitrust Act. The Committee, then chaired by Dixiecrat James Easton of Mississippi refused to schedule hearings on the Civil Rights Act of 1957. This prompted the Senate to bypass the committee system and bring the bill directly to the floor for debate and a vote. The committee has only held public hearings on Supreme Court nominees since 1955. Before 1916, the committee closed their investigative hearings and in the interim only a few hearings were open.

That's it for this week. Next week will probably be the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works unless news breaks about a relevant committee or someone makes ~~a good~~ any suggestion in the comments.

Considered Forthwith: House Energy and Commerce Committee

2009-05-24T11:54:00.002-04:00

Welcome to the ninth installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies. If you want to read previous dairies in the series, search using the "forthwith" tag. I welcome criticisms and corrections in the comments.

This week, I will examine the House Energy and Commerce Committee. There is a lot going on in this committee, including speed reading to neutralize a GOP stalling tactic.

First, here are the committee members:

Democrats: Henry Waxman, Chairman, California; John Dingell, Chair Emeritus, Michigan; Ed Markey, Massachusetts; Rick Boucher, Virginia; Frank Pallone, Jr., New Jersey; Bart Gordon, Tennessee; Bobby Rush, Illinois; Anna Eshoo, California; Bart Stupak, Michigan; Eliot Engel, New York; Gene Green, Texas; Diana DeGette, Colorado; Lois Capps, California; Michael F. Doyle, Pennsylvania; Jane Harman, California; Jan Schakowsky, Illinois; Charlie Gonzalez, Texas; Jay Inslee, Washington Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin; Mike Ross, Arkansas; Anthony Weiner, New York; Jim Matheson, Utah; G. K. Butterfield, North Carolina; Charlie Melancon, Louisiana; John Barrow, Georgia; Baron Hill, Indiana; Doris Matsui, California; Donna Christensen, Virgin Islands; Kathy Castor, Florida; John Sarbanes, Maryland; Chris Murphy, Connecticut; Zack Space, Ohio; Jerry McNerney, California; Betty Sutton, Ohio; Bruce Braley, Iowa; Peter Welch, Vermont.

Republicans: Joe Barton, Ranking Member, Texas; Ralph Hall, Texas; Fred Upton, Michigan; Cliff Stearns, Florida; Nathan Deal, Georgia; Ed Whitfield, Kentucky; John Shimkus, Illinois; John Shadegg, Arizona; Roy Blunt, Missouri; Steve Buyer, Indiana; George Radanovich, California; Joseph R. Pitts, Pennsylvania; Mary Bono Mack, California; Greg Walden, Oregon; Lee Terry, Nebraska; Mike J. Rogers, Michigan; Sue Myrick, North Carolina; John Sullivan, Oklahoma; Tim Murphy, Pennsylvania; Michael C. Burgess, Texas; Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee; Phil Gingrey, Georgia; Steve Scalise, Louisiana.

The chairman
Waxman is brand new to the chairmanship. In November he managed to take control of the committee from Dingell, who had served as chair for 28 years. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her allies quietly supported Waxman's bid under the assumption that the California Representative would be a more effective supporter of President Barack Obama's priorities, including a Cap and Trade bill, than the long-serving Representative from Michigan with ties to the automobile industry. Waxman won the chairmanship by a vote of 137-122 in the Democratic Caucus. Dingell now holds the title of chairman emeritus. According to the committee rules, that entitles him to be a non-voting ex-officio member of any subcommittee that he does not sit on.

Additionally, Dingell is the second most senior Democrat on the committee, meaning he will usually be third in line to ask questions of witnesses (after Waxman and Barton). This is important because the "five minute rule" means members may only take five minutes to question a witness. Going first means a member has a chance to make headlines by asking the tough questions before anyone else. Whereas Dingell might have a chance to ask a relevant and probing question, Peter Welch might be stuck with asking a witness his or her favorite color.

Jurisdiction
The Energy and Commerce Committee is one of the oldest standing committees (along with the Rules and the Ways and Means Committees). It also has one of the more expansive jurisdictions of the authorizing committees.

Authorizing committees handle non-appropriations bills. They have the power to set spending limits for government programs and purchases. It is then up the the appropriations committees to actually fund programs. For example, the committee recently passed a one-year program called "Cash for Clunkers" what would give Americans vouchers of up to $4,500 for trading in high polluting vehicles. If the program is approved, the appropriations committee would need to actually make money available for the program. This is part of an intra-branch system of checks and balances. Appropriators can only fund existing programs, but cannot create new ones. Authorizing committees, on the other hand can create all kinds of programs, but are at the mercy of the appropriators to get those programs funded.

As expected, the Energy and Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over most aspects of the nation's energy policy (including nuclear power) as well as interstate and foreign commerce. The commerce aspect includes several health care responsibilities including all health facilities not covered by payroll deductions (i.e. Medicare), biomedical research and development, public health, quarantine, Medicaid, SCHIP, and mental health research. The commerce aspect also covers consumer safety, the Internet, travel and tourism, sports, vehicle safety, and noise pollution.

Believe it or not, that is only scratching the surface of the jurisdiction. The full rundown is here.

The cap and trade speed reader
Also referred to as "Cap and Trade" the Waxman-Markey Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 was the focus of Thursday's hearing (actually a mark up) that featured that speed reader you may have heard about. The merits and flaws of cap and trade are a topic for another diary, though I generally support it as a first step toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Instead, here's the deal with the speed reader. Barton tried a cheap procedural stunt to kill a bill that has overwhelming support in the House and the committee. In order to make a bill a part of the official proceedings, the clerk must read the bill into the record. That was fine in the early days of Congress when bills might be three pages long. The cap and trade bill was 946 pages, including the major amendments the minority was planning to introduce. These days, presiding officers routinely make a motion that the "reading of the bill be dispensed with" which normally passes with unanimous consent to save time.

Barton decided he wanted the 900+ pages read in the hopes that the supporters would just leave, (resulting in a lack of quorum) and/or Waxman would just give up and adjourn the meeting. Basically, he was angling for a House version of a filibuster.

Since one cheap political stunt deserves another, the committee hired Douglas Wilder to act as the committee's clerk and read the bill as quickly as possible. In fairness, Barton did say at the hearing that he was planning to agree to dispense with the reading, but he seemed interested in hearing the young man actually do it. Wilder went on for about half a minute and got applause before Barton relented.

Via Talking Points Memo, here is the video:

What was much more troubling was the 400+ amendments that the Republicans dreamed up to throw at the bill. Most of them failed, but they did cause the meeting to last 16 hours. The bill was reported from committee (i.e. it passed) by a vote of 33-25 with four Democrats voting against and one Republican (Bono-Mack) voting in favor. The bill will probably pass the House, but will face a committee markup and cloture vote in the Senate.

Other recent issues
One of the other more significant bills that the committee handled recently was the federal expansion of SCHIP by $33 billion. This program, run by states with federal assistance, helps to cover health care for children of low income families. The increase is funded by a new tax on cigarettes (so keep smoking for the good of the kids). This was the same bill that George W. Bush vetoed (one of only ten vetoes he exercised), which allowed us to mock him for hating children. On a related note, anyone with kids should look into this program as some states are fairly generous with guidelines for defining "low income."

On May 1, the committee met to discuss the state of college football's Bowl Championship Series and calls for a playoff system. This is a huge debate with fans; most other people could care less. To wit: three members of the committee showed up for it. Read all about it at espn.com, if you care.

Other recent issues have included U.S.-Cuba trade relations, the federal response to Swine Flu, secrecy surrounding a fatal explosion at a Bayer chemical plant, Cybersecurity, and several hearings about health care. Unfortunately, there are no future hearings listed on the committee's calendar and I hope that is due to the holiday break.

Reconciliation
As I pointed out last week, if health care reform happens via the reconciliation process, several committees in both chambers will have a say in the process. Furthermore, even if health care reform is handled without reconciliation, Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Rules will all be key players in the House. Energy and Commerce's role, of course, will be in coverage for children and any revisions to Medicaid.

When (if) the health care reform debate gains traction in Congress, it is very likely that members of the committees involved will be asked to sit on a select committee, similar to the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Most select committee may only make recommendations on legislation and may not actually report a bill to the floor. On the other hand, the work of a select committee can become the basis for future law. Stay tuned on this one.

Taking it a step further, when (if) health care reform actually passes, there will be an inter-committee turf war/power struggle between the Ways and Means Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee over which one gets jurisdiction over a nationwide health insurance program. We might get extremely lucky and one committee will concede the jurisdiction to the other, but that is highly unlikely since that is the same as surrendering power. It's hardly the most pressing issue of the debate, but one that could hijack the whole damned thing.

Subcommittees
There are five subcommittees under the full committee. The chair and ranking member are ex-officio members with voting privileges of all subcommittees to which they are not assigned. The chair emeritus is a non-voting ex-officio member of the subcommittees on which he is not a member. This means Dingell can question witnesses and join the debate, but not vote on amendments and final reporting.

Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection: Bobby L. Rush of Illinois is the chair and George Radanovich of California is the ranking member. Here is the full membership list. The jurisdiction is as follows:

1. Interstate and foreign commerce, including all trade matters within the jurisdiction of the full committee;
2. Regulation of commercial practices (the Federal Trade Commission), including sports-related matters;
3. Consumer affairs and consumer protection, including privacy matters generally; consumer product safety (the Consumer Product Safety Commission); and product liability; and motor vehicle safety;
4. Regulation of travel, tourism, and time; and,
5. Toxic substances and noise pollution.

That's pretty self explanatory, but I am wondering which member has the ability to regulate time. Maybe Bobby Rush is a Time Lord from Gallifrey. (In fairness, this provision probably has to do with Daylight Savings Time, but the second someone goes and develops time travel, this committee is going to be very busy.)

Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet: The subcommittee is chaired by Rick Boucher of Virginia and Cliff Stearns of Florida is the ranking member. The full membership list is here.

The jurisdiction is simple, but inclusive:

Interstate and foreign telecommunications including, but not limited to all telecommunication and information transmission by broadcast, radio, wire, microwave, satellite, or other mode.

In other words, these are the people you can complain to the next time someone flashes a breast for half a second during the Super Bowl or a troll starts mucking about in your blog post.

Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment: Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts is the chair and Fred Upton of Michigan is the ranking member. The full membership list is here. Markey is also chair of the select committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

The subcommittee's jurisdiction is as follows:

1. National energy policy generally;
2. Fossil energy, renewable energy resources and synthetic fuels; energy conservation; energy information; energy regulation and utilization;
3. Utility issues and regulation of nuclear facilities;
4. Interstate energy compacts;
5. Nuclear energy and waste;
6. Superfund, RCRA, and the Safe Drinking Water Act;
7. The Clean Air Act; and,
8. All laws, programs, and government activities affecting such matters.

The committee recognizes that energy and environmental protection are necessarily intertwined. Energy production (i.e. coal power plants, nuclear reactors, oil and natural gas exploration) and consumption (i.e. driving, heating and air conditioning) have direct effects on the environment. Therefore, energy and environmental policy should be considered in tandem rather than in separate vacuums. Yes, sometimes government is efficient and intelligent.

Subcommittee on Health: Frank Pallone, Jr. of New Jersey is the chair and Nathan Deal of Georgia is the ranking member. Here is the full membership list.

Again, the jurisdiction is straight forward, but encompassing:

1. Public health and quarantine; hospital construction; mental health and research; biomedical programs and health protection in general, including Medicaid and national health insurance;
2. Food and drugs; and,
3. Drug abuse.

Highlighting is mine. Hint: here are some members to track and contact when health care reform hearings start. Considering the pretty specific mention of "national health insurance" in the jurisdiction, this subcommittee will likely end up with authority over any future programs and policies.

Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations: Bart Stupak of Michigan is the chair and Greg Walden of Oregon is the ranking member. Here is the full membership list. The subcommittee's jurisdiction is:

Responsibility for oversight of agencies, departments, and programs within the jurisdiction of the full committee, and for conducting investigations within such jurisdiction.

I could not locate a full list of the Executive Branch agencies that fall under the oversight provision. However, some of the obvious ones include Department of Energy, Commerce Department, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Communications Commission, Food and Drug Administration, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Consumer Product Safety Commission. Any additions would be welcome.

That's it for this week. Next week will likely be the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources since they will deal with Cap and Trade soon enough.

Crossposted at Daily Kos, Congress Matters, and Docudharma.

Another plea for support

2009-05-18T20:18:00.002-04:00

Well, I didn't get the Netroots Nation scholarship in the first round, but I still have two more opportunities. If you have already supported me, thanks. But all of the supporters were reset to zero and I have to go about the business of rebuilding my support.

This scholarship is sponsored by Democracy for America and generous donors. It would allow me to attend Netroots Nation (formerly Yearly Kos) in Pittsburgh in August.

I need supporters to help me get this, so I am asking anyone so inclined to support my application. Just sign up for an account. Then go to my profile here. Click the link labeled "add your support." You can also leave a nice message if you would like.

Thanks in advance and thanks to everyone who supported me in the last round.

Chris

Considered Forthwith: House Ways and Means and reconciliation

2009-05-17T04:16:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the eighth installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies. If you want to read previous dairies in the series, search using the "forthwith" tag. I welcome criticisms and corrections in the comments.

For the next few weeks, health care reform through reconciliation will be a common theme in this series. Check out this Front Page story on Congress Matters for a description of the reconciliation process.

This week, I will look at the House Ways and Means Committee. The chair is Charlie Rangel of New York and the ranking member is Dave Camp of Michigan. In general, Ways and Means deals with tax issues, trade, Social Security, and health insurance. http://

A note on the names of committees: The Senate counterpart to the House Ways and Means Committee is the Senate Finance Committee. The Senate counterpart to the House Financial Services Committee, which deals with banking and other financial institutions, is the Senate Banking Committee.

Here are the members of the Ways and Means Committee:

Democrats: Charles B. Rangel, NY, Chairman; Fortney Pete Stark, CA; Sander M. Levin, MI; Jim McDermott, WA; John Lewis, GA; Richard E. Neal, MA; John S. Tanner, TN; Xavier Becerra, CA; Lloyd Doggett, TX; Earl Pomeroy, ND; Mike Thompson, CA; John B. Larson, CT; Earl Blumenauer, OR; Ron Kind, WI; Bill Pascrell Jr. , NJ; Shelley Berkley, NV; Joseph Crowley, NY; Chris Van Hollen, MD; Kendrick Meek, FL; Allyson Y. Schwartz, PA; Artur Davis, AL; Danny K. Davis, IL; Bob Etheridge, NC; Linda T. Sanchez, CA; Brian Higgins, NY; John A. Yarmuth, KY

Republicans: Dave Camp, MI, Ranking Member; Wally Herger, CA; Sam Johnson, TX; Kevin Brady, TX; Paul Ryan, WI; Eric Cantor, VA; John Linder, GA; Devin Nunes, CA; Pat Tiberi, OH; Ginny Brown-Waite, FL; Geoff Davis, KY; Dave G. Reichert, WA; Charles W. BoustanyJr. , LA; Dean Heller, NV; Peter J. Roskam, IL

Last week, Considered Forthwith looked at the Appropriations Committee to see how Congress spends money. Conversely the Ways and Means Committee (and the Senate Finance Committee) are concerned with ways to raise money. In other words, these are the people who deal with tax policy.

The Ways and Means Committee is one of the most powerful committees owing to its broad jurisdiction, particularly its role in setting tax policy, directing entitlement programs, and overseeing international trade. Because the committee is so strong, members are not usually permitted to sit on other committees.

Constitutional authority

Article I, Section 7, of the Constitution:

All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and...To borrow Money on the credit of the United States.

16th Amendment:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

These points are important. The Founders, or at least the Federalists among them, recognized that Representatives are more closely tied to the people. (See in particular Federalist 52-57.) This is because most legislative districts are smaller than states, so House members are closer to the people they represent. Additionally, House terms are much shorter than Senate terms. This allows the people the opportunity to vote out House members much earlier than Senators. (It is also noteworthy that Senators were selected by state legislatures until 1913.)

Therefore, the authors of the constitution decided that tax measures should originate in "the people's house." This power to write the original tax measure makes the Ways and Means Committee more powerful than the Senate Finance Committee.

Reconciliation

The point of reconciliation is to save money and/or increase revenue. This can be done through raising taxes and fees and/or savings in entitlement programs. As I detailed last week, entitlements include Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. To clarify, Medicare covers hospital costs for elderly Americans and some disabled people. and Medicaid is a similar program for low income Americans. Social Security includes both the familiar monthly payments to retired Americans and coverage for disabled people who are not covered by veterans' benefits.

One of the jurisdictions of the Ways and Means Committee is Social Security and Medicare. Medicaid falls under the jurisdiction of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health.

Presumably, any health care reform will include reforms to Medicare and Medicaid, so these committees will play a key role in the process. By extension, that means some key players will be Ways and Means Chair Rangel, Subcommittee on Health chair Fortney Pete Stark of California, Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman and Subcommittee on Health Chair Frank Pallone Jr. (Hint, these are people to contact if President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decide to pursue the reconciliation route.)

As we are aware, reconciliation bills are effectively not subject to a filibuster. However, reconciliation must be undertaken to save money or raise revenue. Additionally, reconciliation instructions must be included the chamber's budget resolution in order for the process to begin and it is not used every year. (For example, the process was authorized in the 1974 budget act, but not first used until 1980.) Reconciliation instructions were included in the fiscal year 2010 House Budget Resolution, but not the Senate resolution. Regardless, with Democratic majorities in the Senate and the committees, a reconciliation bill has a good chance of passing the both the House and Senate.

So how can we say that spending money on a public health care program will reduce costs? The problem with Medicare and Medicaid is that they do not cover primary care like routine doctor visits. Many uninsured people will not see a doctor when they get sick. When their conditions worsens, a very expensive visit to the emergency room is the next step. Instead of a payment of a couple hundred dollars for a visit to a doctor to deal with a minor problem, Medicaid is paying thousands of dollars for an ER visit and hospitalization for acute cases.

Unfortunately, public health coverage does not necessarily cover all health care costs. This means that people least able to afford huge medical bills are stuck with enormous debt. This, in turn, increases the rate of personal bankruptcy. If more people are caught up in the cycle of bankruptcy and ruined credit ratings, fewer people are able to obtain credit to keep the economy rolling.

There will most likely be upfront costs associated with health care reform. However, the long-term benefit will be lower health care costs (and thus fewer payments from Medicaid/Medicaid or whatever program emerges) and fewer personal bankruptcies. For a more in depth discussion of this rationale, check out this old diary of mine.

(On a personal note, I used to work at a job that required me to run credit checks. The single largest reason for ruined credit was unpaid medical bills.)

Jurisdiction
The full breakdown of the committee's jurisdiction is available here. Here's the highlights and I will get into the meat more in the subcommittees section.

The committee handles legislation related to taxation, both new laws and revisions to the existing tax code.

As noted above, the committee handles any changes to the Social Security and Medicare laws. In addition, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. TANF is a block grant to states that is used to encourage people to transition from welfare to work. Recipients must work while receiving the assistance and payments are limited to five years. There are also incentives to encourage marriage to reduce "non marital births." I do have some problems with this. For one thing, there is the danger that people will marry for money, not love. For another, same sex marriage is obviously not included.

Tariff and international trade legislation also falls under the committee's jurisdiction. This covers trade agreements like NAFTA, customs, import restrictions and dumping, grants of normal trade relations status, and budget authorization for international trade organizations.

The committee also has jurisdiction over laws covering a number of child protection programs. These include adoption assistance (including adoption of special needs kids), child support payments, foster care, and child welfare.

Finally, the committee has jurisdiction over unemployment compensation programs and low income energy assistance.

That's fairly comprehensive and illustrates the importance of this committee.

Powers no longer retained by the committee
Since the Ways and Means Committee was established as a standing committee in 1802, the jurisdiction of the committee has changed several times. Two key changes occurred in 1865, when appropriations was taken from the committee and given to the newly formed Appropriations Committee, and in 1974 when the committee ceased to appoint members of other committees. That power is now retained by the parties. Specifically, the House Democratic Steering Committee controls committee assignments for the party and the Republicans have a similar committee to make their own assignments.

Subcommittees
There are six subcommittees under the House Ways and Means committee.

Subcommittee on Trade. Sander Levin of Michigan is the chair and Kevin Brady of Texas is the ranking member. As the name indicates, this subcommittee deals with the international trade bills handled by the committee. The formal jurisdiction is available here.

Subcommittee on Oversight. John Lewis of Georgia is the chair and Charles W. Boustany Jr. of Louisiana is the ranking member. Like most of the other committees, Ways and Means has an oversight subcommittee that investigate allegations of wrong-doing in the Executive Branch and monitor their activities. The subcommittee's oversight functions include, but are not limited to, the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration. The committee chair and the chair of any other committee with jurisdiction must approve any hearings or investigations of the subcommittee. In other words, if Rangel doesn't want an investigation, it won't happen. The full jurisdiction is described here.

Subcommittee on Health. Pete Stark of California is the chair and Wally Herger of California is the ranking member. This is the subcommittee that deals with health care, health delivery systems, and health research. Hint: this is the subcommittee that would deal with health care reform. Chairman Stark is very supportive of health care reform and is not enamored of the high levels of military spending. Also see this recent press release from the committee's website addressing the long term solvency of Madicare. Here is the full description of the subcommittee's jurisdiction.

Subcommittee on Social Security. John S. Tanner is the chair and Sam Johnson of Texas is the ranking member. This one is straight forward. They handle any bills dealing with Social Security, disability insurance and Railroad Retirement. Whenever the media decide to get paranoid about long term gloom and doom predictions about the projected year Social Security will go bankrupt, this is the subcommittee that has to deal with it. The current projection for bankruptcy is 2037. The subcommittee's jurisdiction is described here.

Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support. Jim McDermott of Washington is the chair and John Linder of Georgia is the ranking member. This is the subcommittee that deals with child protection services, adoption, TANF, welfare, food stamps, and energy assistance. The full jurisdiction is described here.

Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures. The chair is Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts and Pat Tiberi of Ohio is the ranking member. This is essentially and "other" subcommittee. The entire jurisdiction is described as:

The jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures shall consist of those revenue measures that, from time to time, shall be referred to it specifically by the Chairman of the full Committee.

Basically, if a revenue measure is referred to Ways and Means and it does not fall under the jurisdiction of any other subcommittee, this one gets the bill. All things considered, this is not typically the glamor subcommittee.

That's it for this week. Next week will probably be the House Energy and Commerce Committee. There is a lot going on there, including Medicaid and the cap and trade proposal.

Considered Forthwith: The Appropriations Committees

2009-05-09T15:37:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the seventh installment of "Considered Forthwith."

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies. If you want to read previous dairies in the series, search using the "forthwith" tag. I welcome criticisms and corrections in the comments.

This week I will look at the House and Senate committees on Appropriations. With the passage of the budget resolution by the House and Senate (PDF), the Appropriations committees are starting their work. I have heard from Hill staffers that many people worked late last week to review the appropriations for fiscal year 2010.

Since the House and Senate Committees do the exact same thing, this week I will look at both committees. These are large committees. Since the main function of Congress has become spending money, a seat on the Appropriations Committee is one of the most desirable assignments. Such an assignment lets members go back to their districts and brag about their power in Washington. This, in turn, increases reelection prospects.

Here's the members of the House Appropriations Committee.

Democrats: David R. Obey, Wisconsin, Chairman; John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania; Norman D. Dicks, Washington; Alan B. Mollohan, West Virginia; Marcy Kaptur, Ohio; Peter J. Visclosky, Indiana; Nita M. Lowey, New York; José E. Serrano, New York; Rosa L. DeLauro, Connecticut; James P. Moran, Virginia; John W. Olver, Massachusetts; Ed Pastor, Arizona; David E. Price, North Carolina; Chet Edwards, Texas; Patrick J. Kennedy, Rhode Island; Maurice D. Hinchey, New York; Lucille Roybal-Allard, California; Sam Farr, California; Jesse L. Jackson, Jr., Illinois; Carolyn C. Kilpatrick, Michigan; Allen Boyd, Florida; Chaka Fattah, Pennsylvania; Steven R. Rothman, New Jersey; Sanford D. Bishop Jr., Georgia; Marion Berry, Arkansas; Barbara Lee, California; Adam Schiff, California; Michael Honda, California; Betty McCollum, Minnesota; Steve Israel, New York; Tim Ryan, Ohio; C.A "Dutch" Ruppersberger, Maryland; Ben Chandler, Kentucky; Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida; Ciro Rodriguez, Texas; Lincoln Davis, Tennessee; John T. Salazar, Colorado

Republicans: Jerry Lewis, California, Ranking Member; C.W. Bill Young, Florida; Harold Rogers, Kentucky; Frank R. Wolf, Virginia; Jack Kingston, Georgia; Rodney P. Frelinghuysen, New Jersey; Todd Tiahrt, Kansas; Zach Wamp, Tennessee; Tom Latham, Iowa; Robert B.Aderholt, Alabama; Jo Ann Emerson, Missouri; Kay Granger, Texas; Michael K. Simpson, Idaho; John Abney Culberson, Texas; Mark Steven Kirk, Illinois; Ander Crenshaw, Florida; Dennis R. Rehberg, Montana; John R. Carter, Texas; Rodney Alexander, Louisiana; Ken Calvert, California; Jo Bonner, Alabama; Steven C. LaTourette, Ohio; Tom Cole, Oklahoma

Notes: No, not that John Oliver nor that Jerry Lewis.

Here's the Senate Appropriations Committee:

Democrats: Daniel Inouye, Hawaii, Chairman; Robert Byrd, West Virginia
Patrick Leahy, Vermont; Tom Harkin, Iowa; Barbara Mikulski, Maryland; Herb Kohl, Wisconsin; Patty Murray, Washington; Byron Dorgan, North Dakota
Dianne Feinstein, California; Richard Durbin, Illinois; Tim Johnson, South Dakota; Mary Landrieu, Louisiana; Jack Reed, Rhode Island; Frank Lautenberg, New Jersey; Ben Nelson, Nebraska; Mark Pryor, Arkansas; Jon Tester, Montana; Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania

Republicans: Thad Cochran, Mississippi, Ranking Member; Kit Bond, Missouri; Mitch McConnell, Kentucky; Richard Shelby, Alabama; Judd Gregg, New Hampshire; Robert Bennett, Utah; Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas; Sam Brownback, Kansas; Lamar Alexander, Tennessee; Susan Collins, Maine; George Voinovich, Ohio; Lisa Murkowski, Alaska

Note: notice that Arlen Specter is listed last among the Democrats. This reflects his lost of seniority after switching parties.

Before the appropriations process

This is an opportune time to discuss the process of appropriating money. (Admittedly, I should have looked at the Budget Committees by this point since they are key players in the process as well.) As you read this, keep in mind the key date of October 1. That is the start of the fiscal year and the official deadline for the appropriations bills to pass. FY 2010 starts on Oct. 1, 2009.

Before the appropriators start their work, the budget process for the next fiscal year has been rolling for almost a year. During the summer of 2008, the Executive Branch agencies were working on budget projections for FY 2010 (really). During the fall and early winter, the president and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) negotiated a final President's budget. This year, the process was a little more complicated as the outgoing and incoming competed to get their priorities included in the budget. Of course, the Obama Administration got the better of the deal since they had the final say on the budget proposal.

Next the House and Senate budget committees received the president's budget. In brief, their role is to develop a budget resolution, which is a statement of Congress' spending priorities for the year. The resolutions set limits on discretionary spending and revenue targets. The resolutions become rules of the chamber and it is difficult, but not impossible, to authorize expenditures exceeding those limits. The resolutions do not carry the force of law since they are not sent to the president for a signature. Additionally, the House and Senate resolutions are not always identical, which can cause problems later in the process. Specifically, the appropriations bills could be radically different by the time they get to conference committee.

This is an extremely simplistic version of the process to this point. A future diary will look more closely at the Budget Committees and I might take a break from the committees to look more closely at OMB.

Cutting the Budget Pie

After the chambers pass the budget resolutions, the Appropriations Committees begin their work. This year, the appropriators have about $3.5 trillion to spend. The full committee divides the money into broad spending areas. (As an aside: federal spending falls into one of 20 different "functions." The full list is here.)

After that, the subcommittees take over.

Both appropriations committees have 12 subcommittees and every agency within the federal government receives money from one or more appropriations subcommittees in each house. Obviously, some subcommittees appropriate money to more than one functions. Additionally, some agencies receive money under more than one function. For example, the Department of Energy gets Function 270 money for "energy" and Function 250 for "General Science, Space and Technology."

During this stage, the subcommittees take testimony from agency officials, activists, lobbyists and even other members as they decide how much or how little various agencies will receive for the year. These numbers do not come out of thin air. They are guided by the president's budget, agency requests, and the budget resolution.

Behind the scenes, staffers in every members' office work overtime to review appropriations proposals, particularly the ones in the Senators' states or the Representatives' districts. The members have a better handle on necessary spending priorities locally and their testimony and informal communications with subcommittee members can save or kill individual programs.

The subcommittees produce 13 spending bills (though this number can change from year to year) which must be approved by the subcommittee. The bills then go to the full committee for possible further revision and a final committee vote. They then go to the full chamber for approval. On the House side, they go to the Rules Committee for a rule first.

Twelve of the 13 spending bills correspond directly to the subcommittee that writes them. The final bill is a separate bill for operating the District of Columbia government.

Discretionary vs. Non-discretionary spending
This is an important distinction. A little more than half of the federal government's budget is "non-discretionary spending." That represents money that the government must spend. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the other mandatory programs are entitlements. If you qualify for these programs and ask for the money, you get it.

Graphic source

And check out that outlay for interest. That is just interest on the national debt and does not touch the principal.

So the subcommittees really have less than half of the total budget to play with. Of that amount, the discretionary spending, defense expenditures amount to more than half of the total.

Graphic source

It's a Wiki, but it sources the Congressional Budget Office, so I trust it.

After the bills get out of the committees, they go through the standard Floor procedures for final approval.

Earmarks

I ranted about Earmarks earlier this year. In light of recent rule changes as well as my own research, I have changed my position on the issue slightly. This will probably be a special topic in this series.

Earmarks account for about one percent of the federal budget. However, they open the door to rampant corruption. This is Rep. John Murtha's problem with the now defunct PMA Group. Murtha is under investigation for allegedly taking campaign contributions from PMA and its clients and then securing earmarks for those clients. Murtha contends that the earmarks benefit his district and he would have made those earmarks regardless.

Earmarks are extra appropriations not included in the President's Budget and/or considered in the budget resolution. They are pet projects requested by individual members, almost always benefiting their districts. (Indeed, an earmark benefiting a different district will raise some eyebrows.) Since almost every member requests earmarks, they are typically passed. No member wants to risk infuriating another member by opposing opposing his/her earmarks. The iron law of reciprocity says that the opposition will be repaid in kind.

One reform is that members must report all of their earmark requests. Here is a list of links to Senators' earmark requests (and John McCain apparently has none).

Supplemental Spending

Remember when George W. Bush started his invasion and occupation of Iraq? We were going to wage a war on the cheap and pay for it all with oil revenues.

From the Jan. 10, 2003 Common Dreams article:

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the cost of an occupation would range from $12 billion to $48 billion a year, and officials believe an occupation could last 1 1/2 years or more.

Yeah, not so much.

Anyway, the war has been funded through supplemental funding and war funding is not one of those things that it is wise to cut off. When the federal government is faced with an unforeseen expense, a supplemental funding bill is required to cover those costs. This was one of those little tricks the Bush Administration used to make the budget look better than it really was. This is the equivalent of buying a mansion and not budgeting for the mortgage payments.

Regardless, the appropriations committees have jurisdiction over supplemental funding as well as the regular spending bills. oh, and Congress is STILL funding the wars through supplemental bills (PDF Link).

President Obama's budget cuts

On May 7, President Obama announced a plan to slash $17 billion in spending from the federal budget. Most of the cuts will be to programs that officials have concluded are not effective and military projects that are obsolete. The cuts affect 121 programs that benefit nearly every state.

In terms of the actual budget process, this is little more than a suggestion. The President has identified some programs that could be cut and is asking the appropriators to save some money. The total price tag of $17 billion is a lot of money, but it is a drop in the bucket compared to the $3.5 trillion in proposed spending.

Politically, this will be a difficult fight. Those programs, whether effective or not, help to employ a lot of people in a lot of Congressional Districts. Senators and Representatives will have a difficult time cutting programs that benefit their districts. However, the President always has the option to veto a final budget including this spending. For better or worse, the president does not have the power to issue a line item veto, so he cannot approve the budget, but veto the offending programs.

The Traditional Media might forget about this proposal, but it will create some interesting subcommittee fights.

Continuing resolutions

Congress moves slowly, especially when they cannot agree on something. In recent years, the budget has been the central focus of political fights. This is nothing new. In the mid 1990s, the government twice shutdown after President Bill Clinton and Congressional Republicans led by Newt Gingrich (the original lizard person) failed to compromise on a budget by the Oct. 1 deadline. There are two resolutions:

Government shutdown: This is exactly what happened in the 1990s. For a brief time, the government shutdown and non-essential employees were temporarily laid off. This forced action, and it is generally accepted that Clinton came out looking better than Gingrich (who was blamed for forcing the shutdown to further his own political ends).

Continuing resolutions: In order to avoid a potentially damaging and politically embarrassing government shutdowns, Congress has often resorted to using the continuing resolution. These resolutions fund the government at current levels if the relevant budget bill has not yet been passed. In fact, part of the government was funded by continuing resolution between Oct. 1, 2008 and March 2009 when President Obama finally signed the FY 2009 budget.

The subcommittees

This entry is already long enough without detailing all of the committees. The House subcommittees are listed on the left of the homepage. The Senate subcommittees are listed here. Click on links for jurisdictions to see which agencies are overseen by the various subcommittees.

If you are interested in a specific agency, leave a comment and I will dig up the relevant subcommittee. If you are interested in lobbying for more funding for an agency or program, contact the subcommittee or the chair of that subcommittee.

One House Subcommittee of note is the new House Appropriations Select Intelligence Oversight Panel. This subcommittee was created during the 110th Congress (the last session). The panel was recommended by the 9/11 Commission and oversees intelligence funding, including spending that is classified, also known as the Black Budget. While these hearings are largely closed, there is at least some oversight of these budgets and members now have the ability to stop questionable intelligence activities by defunding them.

The 13 member panel includes the chair and ranking member of the full committee and the defense subcommittee. In addition, there are three members who are members of the Intelligence Committee who are not members of the Appropriations Committee. More information is available at the Wiki entry. There is no equivalent committee in the Senate.

I have nothing in mind for next week. If there are any committees you have an interest in reading about, leave a comment and I will try to accommodate.