Born on this day in 1934

America’s corporate and political elites now form a regime of their own, they’re privatizing democracy. All the benefits, the tax cuts, policies and rewards flow in one direction: up.
Bill Moyers

I happened to be reading Moyer’s Blog early this morning looking for his interview with Public Citizen’s Joan Claybrook which I missed when it aired on PBS last Friday on “Bill Moyers Journal.”

The subject of the segment was lobbying and lobbyists and their pervasive influence on our political system.

I have a large measure of respect for both Moyers and Claybrook and an enormous loathing for lobbyists and their destructive influence on MY country and I was disappointed to have missed the program.

Fortunately for me I learned from Karl Rove that Al Gore invented the internet a few years back, and that invention led to the discovery of You Tube where I found a clip of the segment and I feel very good about the modern world this morning.

If you are at all interested, as you should be, in the machinations and corruptions of our polical system by the Bob Neys, the Jack Abramoffs, the Billy Tauzins and other disreputable and criminal scum who infest our government and engage in buying and selling it these days I recommend that you watch the video.

Coincidentally, it seems like an appropriate time to once again ponder the the corruption in our government and to seriously consider, again, again… doing something to put an end to the revolving doors and corrupt and unethical congressional behavior, after yesterday’s indictment of another sitting congressman (Louisiana’s own William Jefferson .. hmmm… Billy Tauzin was from Louisiana too) on bribery and racketeering charges.

Just about a year ago, around the time that the Feds were breaking down Jefferson’s office door, I wrote a somewhat awkwardly titled and probably, awkwardly written piece The Mother Of All Public Airings Of The Dirty Skivvies, in which I ranted briefly about the corruption in Washington. I reread it this morning after reading accounts of “Dollar Bill’s” indictment and marveled that I had, at that time, a somewhat hopeful tone, because I fully expected the Democrats to sweep back into Washington at mid term, surfing on a tidal wave of the foul detritus of Republican corruption and really polish up the Washington Monument and everything else in sight.

Those were heady and optimistic days for me, I had survived a heart attack, learned that I would likely survive to a decently old age, Abramoff was singing his heart out, Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney were preparing musical arrangements of their own and it looked like the lid was going to blow right off the old Washington sewer.

I gushed:

Democrats do not wait, do not falter, this day, this very day begin to cleanse your ranks of the filth, of the rot, of all those unworthy to serve the public trust. You know them well, you have ignored and protected and excused them far too long, and they have held us back like a great sea anchor, made from the mainsail of our Ship of State and torn from it’s proud and proper place flying high and boldly before the winds of history.

Take the lead Democrats and do it this day, the gods and the people wait and watch.

I blush as I read it this morning but I was so much younger and idealistic a year ago, and this morning after the last months of watching my Democratic leadership fold on nearly all fronts, from health care and pharmaceuticals to Iraq and ethics reform, watching their cowardly accommodations and their lust for the largesse of the lizards of K Street, I am much older.

The Democrats were voted back into Washington and the several statehouses by the people, to do the work of the people, to put a stop to the corruption, an end to the war, to renew our economy, and return us to a position of respect in the eyes of the world, not to do the bidding of the Big Oil Trust, Big Pharm, the National Association of Manufacturers or the defense industry.

They were elected to throw the moneylenders out of the temple not to grovel by their side and worship Mammon with them.

I’m straying a bit here from “Happy Birthday Bill” I suppose but I set out to pen a small tribute to his work in past years of exposing the kind of corporate and governmental collusion that I believe is at the heart of our public malaise as well as to express my respect for the work of Public Citizen.

From Ms Claybrook:

When corporate lobbyists raise campaign cash or help lawmakers get lucrative lobbying jobs after leaving office, the democratic system is corrupted. It’s also expensive. Lobbyists throw their financial weight around Congress to get tax breaks, contracts, loan guarantees, subsidies and regulatory cutbacks for their corporate clients. Meanwhile, those of us with legitimate concerns about drug safety, global warming and high gas prices have trouble being heard at all.
Joan Claybrook from Public Citizen
The scandals brought on by the criminal relationship between lobbyist Jack Abramoff and members of Congress * like Tom DeLay and Bob Ney * toppled Republicans in 2006. The Democrats came to power on the promise of draining the swamp and ending the culture of corruption.

So where are we now?

We are still fighting for some very modest reforms for transparency in the way that lobbyists and members of Congress conduct business.
See Watchdog Blog

The lobby and ethics reform bills passed by the Senate and House will be joined in a conference committee when Congress returns to work next week. At least one critical reform found in the stronger Senate bill may be in jeopardy: slowing the “revolving door.” This refers to the practice of former lawmakers taking high-paying lobbying jobs after leaving Congress, hired because they know the system and have special access to ask former colleagues for favors.

Under the current law, public officials are prohibited only from “direct” lobbying * and only for one year after office. This means that former lawmakers can run lobbying campaigns for clients as soon as they leave Congress * as long as they don’t pick up the phone or meet personally with a lawmaker. This is completely inadequate.

If I have a point here aside from birthday greetings it is this, the only thing that will save our Democratic Party is extreme pressure from you and I, we, after all are the base, the core and the soul of the party and we must not allow it to become another tool co -opted by the theo – plutocracy.

Write to the Party leadership, piss and moan in the media and in print, loudly, boldly and clearly.
My America, our America, cannot survive without a Democratic Party.

Oh yeah, donate to Public Citizen and to Bill Moyers Journal, it’s his birthday you know.

Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust

crossposted at five before chaos.

Julie’s excellent post on upcoming bad energy policies really piqued my interest this morning so I dug in and did some research in the hopes of giving you even more information regrading these horrible proposals. It’s a bit extensive, but this is important stuff, folks.

First off, there’s a proposal to increase subsidies for coal liquification. Yes, you heard right, one of the dirtiest fuel sources on earth. There’s an extensive post over at MyDD that details the many ways that this is a bad, bad idea. Increased emissions, according to the EPA. More moutaintops destroyed and rivers clogged (have you seen how this has devastated West Virginia?), as well as the devastating poverty and health problems that are part and parcel of working in the coal industry.

Now here’s the clinker – there are quite a few Democrats sponsoring both the Senate and House versions of these bills. And lo and behold, one of the sponsors of these bills is none other than Sen. Brack Obama, who apparently can do no wrong to his starry-eyed supporters. Well, there’s something for you, then. This bill is bad news.

As far as I can tell, none of the VT delegation has signed on to this, but we need to let them know it’s bad, nevertheless. After you read up on it, you Vermonters should all call Congressman Welch at 888-605-7270 and let him know your opposition to  H.R.370 — the title: To promote coal-to-liquid fuel activities, and call Sen. Sanders at 802-862-0697 and Sen. Leahy at 802-863-2525 and voice your opposition to S.154 — the title: A bill to promote coal-to-liquid fuel activities. If you’re from another state, you can call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 and they should be able to direct you to your delegation if you’re not sure who they are. We need to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels. Now. Not later.

But the madness continues so unabated, you’d almost think the Repubs were still in charge. There’s another bill Julie pointed out that tries to pass itself off as being a progressive energy policy, but in reality is anything but. As the Rutland Herald is reporting:

A dozen states, including Vermont and Massachusetts, would be blocked from imposing new requirements on automakers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under a draft energy bill being prepared for a vote later this month.

The “discussion draft” would prohibit the head of the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing a waiver needed for a state to impose auto pollution standards if the new requirements are “designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” …
It calls for expansion of the production of ethanol and other alternative motor fuels – including liquefied coal – to 35 billion gallons a year by 2025…

“The intent is to tie EPA’s hands when it comes to establishing greenhouse gas standards,” said Frank O’Donnell of Clean Air Watch, an environmental advocacy group.

Apparently liquefied coal is all the rage now. There’s the whole joke known as ethanol (which I’ll get to in a minute). And it does indeed try to tie the hands of states such as Vermont and California, who are trying to impose higher mileage requirements on its automobiles. Oh, and did I mention that the chairman of that committee is John Dingell, of Michigan? You know, home of the perpetually sputtering U.S. automotive industry that still behaves like it’s 1972?

This one’s not an actual bill yet, it just consists of a discussion draft memorandum (full memo here) that will, if it goes through, be incorporated into some larger energy proposal in the next session.

Now let’s talk about ethanol, a gasoline substitute that is a type of alcohol that in the United States, comes primarily from corn. You hear Bush talk about it a lot, so that alone should give you pause. But you also hear a lot of other politicians talk about ethanol. Why? Because the government subsidizes the hell out of it, that’s why. Now, I don’t agree with a lot that comes out of the libertarian Cato Institute, especially in regards to the fabled “free market”, but consider this:

Ethanol is a corn-based gasoline substitute. Gasoline is a creation of the marketplace, but ethanol is a creation of Washington, D.C. The ethanol program originated in the late 1970s during the energy crisis. A quarter-century later, there is no energy crisis and virtually every independent assessment –by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the General Accounting Office, the Congressional Budget Office, NBC News and several academic journals — has concluded that ethanol subsidies have been a costly boondoggle with almost no public benefit.

Yet even after ethanol has siphoned $7 billion from the federal treasury, the mighty ethanol subsidies still flow. Why? Ethanol’s survival has nothing to do with economics or the environment and everything to do with political muscle. Almost 70 percent of ethanol is produced by America’s premier agri-giant, Archer Daniels Midland. ADM, the self-proclaimed “supermarket to the world,” has spent a small fortune on farming Capitol Hill over the past 20 years. Through programs like ethanol and sugar price supports, it has reaped a profitable harvest from taxpayers. In fact, an estimated 40 percent of ADM’s profits come from government-subsidized products…

On the alleged environmental benefits from ethanol, the GAO says, “Available evidence suggests that the ethanol program has little effect on the environment.” Getting rid of ethanol subsidies would “slightly increase carbon monoxide emissions… but slightly reduce emissions of ozone precursors.”

On reducing alleged global warming, the GAO says that the “change in greenhouse gas emissions that would occur if ethanol fuel were not subsidized is likely to be minimal.”

On reducing petroleum imports, the GAO concludes, “Ethanol tax incentives have not significantly enhanced U.S. energy security.” Ethanol reduces U.S. gasoline consumption by “less than one percent.”

Now, be aware that the Cato author is an old righty Club-for-Growther, but the facts that he presents are easily verifiable elsewhere. Is this ridiculous, or what? And by making it from corn, it uses more energy to produce ethanol than the energy it provides. It’s made much more efficiently and cheaply elsewhere, but we don’t import it, thanks to a 54 cent per gallon tarriff (that ADM successfully lobbied for heavily about ten years ago). Have a gander at this “Ethanol Primer” from Taxpayers for Common Sense (and no, it’s not a front group). You can see how mad this really is. And when ethanol subsidies increase, the price of food goes up, because there is less corn for food sources.

So, if you’d made it this far, my point is the problem isn’t just “Big Oil”. They’re definitely a big part of the problem, but the bigger picture is twofold. Both parties are continuing to drink from the corporate trough at the expense of the public interest. And more importantly, as a nation, many of us are still stuck in an early-20th century mindset in regards to energy production and consumption. We need to use less, and we need to get it from renewable and efficient sources. There’s no way around that fact.

(I’m bumping a retread from WAY back up to the top, because in light of recent news that Bush is planning on relaxing environmental guidelines around National Parks, as well as his recent comparing of Obama to a nazi appeaser before the Knesset, I think its starting to have relevance… – promoted by odum)

As the clock ticks on towards the end of the Bush Presidency, I can’t help but feel a nagging dread at the prospect of what mischief this President could cause in his final weeks.

Presidents pull some interesting things out of their hats on the way out the door – whether its because of the freedom from professional accountability, or simply a last chance to pay back campaign supporters. Pardons are what we usually expect to see. Clinton, of course, caught hell for pardoning Marc Rich and others. More colorfully, Reagan expunged George Steinbrenner’s record from his 1974 guilty plea on obstruction of justice and conspiring to make illegal contributions to President Nixon. Then, of course, there was Bush I’s Christmas Eve pardons of Iran-Contra figures which came only days before former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was to stand trial for perjury.

Clinton also garnered the ire of the right for last minute administrative fiats. Signing the treaty creating the International Criminal Court, the protection of vast swaths of environmentally sensitive or unique land, and a tightening of logging regulations made the GOP seethe.

If Bush is thinking similarly, the last weks between the 08 election and the swearing in of a (hopefully) Democratic President could be scary. On the one hand, he has governed as President ‘Id’, so perhaps he has nothing up his sleeve – as he wears everything on it. If not, well – the mind boggles.

The President’s administrative authority gives him the broad powers of implementation. From this perspective, the easiest targets will again be environmental. He has already quietly attempted to sneak in rules for the maintenence of National Forests that would be devastating, and has opened up National Parks to unprecedented exploitation. In (those particular anti-environmental efforts from a year back), his style did suggest an uncharacteristic degree of concern about the public’s perceptions. Without that concern holding him back, he could throw the barn doors wide open.

Additionally, it’s not hard to imagine draconian new rules around federal programs designed to squeeze out immigrants in need, or to simply choke off programs’ effectiveness and ability to be broadly implemented – especially where they may compete with church-based programs.

And it’s hard not to worry about the prospects for higher-profile mischief, too. Given that the President’s simplistic political zealotry knows no bounds, its not hard to imagine a last minute “10 Commandments” monument dropped on the White House lawn, or a January attempt to take out Iranian nuclear sites.

At this early point speculating is little more than nervous musing, but as the final days get closer (and in the face of a Supreme Court that is giving tremendous deference to Presidential power), the nervousness will loom larger.

(Meke sure you view this complete diary, as the the way the bill impacts Vermont specifically is detailed after the jump – promoted by odum)

There’s a great diary over at MyDD which outlines some serious problems with an energy bill which is cosponsored by Barak Obama.  The first is a bill to support liquid coal.  From the diary:

We don’t know how to sequester mass quantities of carbon dioxide created during coal liquefaction yet. Even once we figure that process out–a solution that will no doubt reduce the net energy output of the coal to fuel process itself–we’ve still got a dirty fuel that increases greenhouse emissions compared to petroleum.

There’s also a draft bill up for discussion that includes a provision which will screw us, as Vermonters, over, along with a lot of other states.  Per The Rutland Herald:

A dozen states, including Vermont and Massachusetts, would be blocked from imposing new requirements on automakers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under a draft energy bill being prepared for a vote later this month.

The “discussion draft” would prohibit the head of the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing a waiver needed for a state to impose auto pollution standards if the new requirements are “designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

This is bad.  The first bill has quite a few Democratic sponsors and presents a serious danger.  The second is only in draft form, so it’s got a much better chance of being modified before it makes it into being an actual bill, but they’re both representative of how much work we have to do to deal with the existing archaic mentality when it comes to proper energy usage.