Allen, Radtke announce money numbers
The Senate campaign of Republican George Allen raised more than $900,000 in the July 1-Sept. 30 quarter, substantially more than nomination challenger Jamie Radtke’s fundraising haul in the three-month time frame.
“Our strong grassroots team is working hard and it’s invigorating to see the momentum build as we grow stronger by the day,” said Allen, whose campaign has raised to date more than $3.5 million all told.
Radtke reported $116,000 in donations in the July 1-Sept. 30 period and $370,000 raised to date for her nomination campaign.
“Our momentum is building as more Virginians realize career politicians like George Allen and Tim Kaine got us into this mess, and they’re not going to make the spending cuts necessary to get America going again,” Radtke said.
Senators urge implementation of safety regs for bus industry
Following deadly tour bus crashes that claimed dozens of lives in New York, Virginia and Washington state this year, a group of six senators wrote to U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood calling for swift implementation of safety standards aimed at preventing driver fatigue.
“The pattern of enforcement by DOT has been uneven, inconsistent and ineffective,” the senators wrote. “These crashes indicate the urgency in addressing these critical safety deficiencies—improving occupant protection with currently available vehicle safety technology as well as upgrading driver and operator oversight and regulations. The failure of a driver and company to operate safely does not need to result in occupant deaths and injuries.
The letter, signed by U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Jim Webb (D-Va.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) urges the DOT to accelerate efforts to promptly remove unsafe motorcoach carriers from our roads, ensure driver preparedness, and protect passenger safety.
Driver fatigue is the root cause of 37 percent of all accidents investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board. Preliminary reports indicate that last week’s Sky Express bus crash in Virginia was caused by two key factors: driver fatigue, and the Department of Transportation’s decision to give this clearly unsafe carrier a last minute reprieve from closure despite a pattern of safety failures and a determination that the carrier’s safety record is unsatisfactory.
Brown is the lead sponsor of the bipartisan Motorcoach Enhanced Safety Act, comprehensive tour bus safety legislation aimed at reducing the number of tour bus crashes and related fatalities and injuries. Brown first introduced the legislation – which was passed unanimously by a key Senate panel last month and awaits final passage by the full Senate – following a 2007 crash of a tour bus carrying 33 Bluffton University baseball players that claimed seven lives. Brown’s bill, which he introduced alongside Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) would also address driver safety standards. The bill would increase and expand safety requirements for motorcoach drivers and companies. It would ensure that new companies are operating by the book and that drivers maintain a valid commercial driver’s license and would establish new minimum requirements for drivers including more classroom and behind the wheel training. It would also give the DOT new authority to deny, suspend or revoke operator registration, ensure that the carrier complies with hour of service rules, and implement safety management programs to ensure that vehicles are running properly. The bill would ensure periodic safety reviews of motorcoach operators.
Webb will not seek re-election in 2012
It’s official: U.S. Sen. Jim Webb will not run for a second term representing Virginia in the United States Senate in 2012.
“After much thought and consideration, I have decided to return to the private sector, where I have spent most of my professional life, and will not seek re-election in 2012,” Webb said in a statement Wednesday morinng, confirming months of speculation that the Democrat was hedging about a possible run.
Webb won the seat in 2006 in an upset of Republican George Allen, who had entered the ’06 election cycle as a prohibitive favorite to win a second term and was considered at the time a contender for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. The Allen campaign imploded in the summer of 2006 after a controversy that erupted over his characterization of a Webb campaign volunteer filming an Allen campaign event in Southwest Virginia using a racial slur.
Even with the boost from that controversy, Webb won a narrow victory, defeating Allen by 9,000 votes in an election with voter turnout just short of 2.4 million. The Webb win came in the midst of a several-year boost of Democratic fortunes in Virginia that culminated in 2008 with Barack Obama becoming the first Democrat to win the state’s electoral votes since 1964.
That appears for now to have been a high-water mark for Virginia Democrats. Republicans swept the 2009 statewide races and unseated three Democratic incumbents in the 2010 congressional elections.
Riding the wave of Republican resurgence, Allen announced last month that he will be a candidate for the Republican Senate nomination. Former governor and current Democratic National Committee chair Tim Kaine would appear to be the early frontrunner on the Democratic side if he were to enter the race. Another top Democrat who could generate interest is a former DNC chair, Terry McAuliffe, who lost a 2009 Democratic primary for the party’s gubernatorial nomination, but has been since gearing up for an anticipated run at the 2013 party nomination for governor.
Story by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
Webb backs effort to redirect ethanol dollars
U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. joined Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., yesterday in introducing an amendment to pending tax legislation which would save billions of dollars and redirect funding from ineffective ethanol subsidies and tariffs toward advanced energy technologies and U.S. deficit reduction.
“Reducing the ethanol subsidies and trade barriers would reduce the overall cost to taxpayers, while allowing Congress to support the vitally important development of our manufacturing sector through the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit,” Webb said.
Currently, the United States has a 54 cent-per-gallon tariff on ethanol imports and a 45 cent-per-gallon subsidy on blending ethanol into gasoline. In addition, the Federal Renewable Fuels Standard mandates an annually increasing usage of corn ethanol. These protections are expensive and redundant. The amendment would lower the tariff and subsidy to 36 cents-per-gallon. The resulting $2 billion in savings would be used to reduce the deficit and to renew the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit, which was created under the 2009 economic stimulus law to spur renewable technology advancement. The tax credit would fund the advancement of projects such as smart grid technology, energy storage capabilities, and geothermal energy technologies.
In a 2009 letter, Sen. Webb recommended the Environmental Protection Agency examine more closely the negative effects ethanol protections have on other sectors of the economy. Ethanol subsidies have led to steep increases in the price of corn and other sources of feed, which have negatively affected beef cattle, dairy and poultry producers and driven up the cost to consumers of commodities like milk and eggs. He also sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk expressing concerns over the ethanol tariff.
Edited by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
Webb: Congress should end ethanol subsidies
U.S. Jim Webb, D-Va., today called for an end to costly ethanol subsidies and tariffs. In a bipartisan letter, Sen. Webb and other senators urged Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kent., to eliminate the protections currently manipulating ethanol costs and restricting U.S. trade. The current subsidies and tariffs on domestic ethanol are set to expire on Dec. 31.
“Eliminating or reducing ethanol subsidies and trade barriers are important steps we can take to reduce the budget deficit, improve the environment, and lessen our reliance on imported oil,” said the senators. “Historically our government has helped a product compete in one of three ways: subsidize it, protect it from competition, or require its use. Ethanol may be the only product receiving all three forms of support from the U.S. government at this time.”
Currently, the United States has a 54 cent-per-gallon tariff on ethanol imports and a 45 cent-per-gallon subsidy on blending ethanol into gasoline. In addition, the Federal Renewable Fuels Standard mandates an annually increasing usage of corn ethanol. These protections are expensive and redundant.
“We cannot afford to pay industry for following the law,” said the senators, noting that subsidies would cost taxpayers at least $31 billion over the next five years.
In a 2009 letter, Sen. Webb recommended the Environmental Protection Agency examine more closely the negative effects ethanol protections have on other sectors of the economy. Ethanol subsidies have led to steep increases in the price of corn and other sources of feed, which have negatively affected beef cattle, dairy and poultry producers and driven up the cost to consumers of commodities like milk and eggs. He also sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk expressing concerns over the ethanol tariff.
Edited by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
Don’t ask, don’t tell, DREAM Act fall victim to filibuster
An effort to get a vote on legislation repealing the don’t ask, don’t tell policy that is used to keep gays and lesbians from serving in the United States military and a vote on a bill that would open educational opportunities and a path to citizenship for undocumented Americans who are long-time U.S. residents failed today in the United States Senate.
A Republican-led filibuster of the measures, attached to the annual Defense Authorization Bill, blocked consideration of the defense bill and the don’t ask, don’t tell and DREAM Act bills.
Virginia Sens. Jim Webb and Mark Warner voted with Democrats on a motion to bring the bills to a vote. The vote fell four votes short of the 60 needed to suspend debate.
Two Democrats, Arkansas Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, voted with Republicans to uphold the filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., voted no as a procedural tactic; under Senate rules, by voting with the majority he can revive the bill at a later date if he wants, and early indications after the vote are that the bills will be revived for consideration after the November congressional elections.
“Once again, politicians are playing politics with people’s lives. Filibustering the defense authorization bill to block action on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal and the DREAM Act — two measures that do justice to the fundamental principle of fairness — is a disappointment and disservice to our country,” said Rea Carey, the executive director of the Washington, D.C.,-based National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, in a statement released Tuesday afternoon.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan talked with reporters before the vote to express the support of the Obama administration for the DREAM Act.
“I believe it’s not only the right thing to do, for the students, who want for themselves the same thing that we want for our children, and it’s also the right thing to do for our country. In this economy, we need everyone trained and prepared for the jobs of the future,” Duncan said.
“The DREAM Act means that students who have spent most of their lives here in America can get a college education. It would put students who have already been educated in our schools on a path to citizenship. It would empower states to apply in-state tution rates to undocumented students. Above all, it would stop punishing innocent young people for the accidental circumstance of their birth,” Duncan said.
Story by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
Chris Graham: Thanks, Filibuster!
Posted by afp on December 1, 2010 · 4 Comments
That’s the good news. The bad news – well, good luck to the GOP when it gets the keys to the White House and majorities in Congress back.
“With little time left in this congressional session, legislative scheduling should be focused on these critical priorities. While there are other items that might ultimately be worthy of the Senate’s attention, we cannot agree to prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job-killing tax hike,” reads a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid signed by all 42 Republican senators promising to block consideration of legislation in the lame-duck session of Congress until the dispute over extending the Bush-era tax cuts is resolved and an extension of current government funding is approved.
The threat is just the latest in a series of successful filibuster threats by Republicans that effectively hamstrung Democrats from being able to do anything in terms of meaningful public policy in recent months. This with barely enough senators, 42, to be able to use the filibuster, or more accurately, again, the threat of filibuster, to steer policy discussions from the unusual minority bully pulpit that the unique parliamentary device provides.
Republicans were able to do a lot more in the 2000s (the Bush tax cuts and No Child Left Behind are two notable examples) with a lot less in terms of partisan-majority strength in large part because Democrats didn’t make the filibuster a top tactic in their arsenal.
Which isn’t to say that they haven’t seen how effective it can be with the success that Republicans have had in the halls of Congress the past two years now translated into success at the polls with the sales pitch to the voters that Democrats weren’t able to get anything done.
Oh, yes. As in sports, success breeds imitators.
The approach reminds me of something I’ve observed about the game of soccer, in which overmatched teams can pack it in by putting all of their efforts into the defensive side of the field in a strategy that accepts as a given that they’re not going to be able to score and thus win but also makes it so that their more talented opposition will have difficulty scoring a goal themselves. It’s a bargain that accepts 0-0 as the best possible outcome, but hey, you can’t lose 0-0, right?
The success of going all-filibuster, all-the-time means we can almost guarantee more of the same when the political winds shift, and the political winds are ever shifting.
Say goodbye to meaningful policy direction from either side from here on out. The race to a long line of 0-0 ties has already commenced.
And in the process, American power, economic, military and otherwise, already on the wane globally, has now officially jumped the shark.
Filed under Blogs · Tagged with bush tax cuts, capitol hill, democrats, filibuster, jump the shark, republicans, senate