Most Democrats Can't Muster Much Energy For President Obama's Offshore Drilling Plan

A number of leading Democrats offered President Obama at best tepid support for -- and at worst, outright opposition to -- his plan to open new areas offshore the United States, particularly in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, to oil and natural gas drilling.

Obama announced the decision, one he says was not "made lightly," in remarks Wednesday at Andrews Air Force Base, just outside Washington. The announcement was made at the air base to highlight the aircraft there being tested on alternative fuels, the president says.

Obama says he made the decision to enlarge the area available for drilling in consultation with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, White House energy and climate adviser Carol Browner and others.

"But the bottom line is this: Given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth and produce jobs, and keep our businesses competitive, we are going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy," Obama says.

"So today we’re announcing the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration, but in ways that balance the need to harness domestic energy resources and the need to protect America’s natural resources," he adds. "Under the leadership of Secretary Salazar, we’ll employ new technologies that reduce the impact of oil exploration. We’ll protect areas that are vital to tourism, the environment, and our national security. And we’ll be guided not by political ideology, but by scientific evidence."

The president's allies in the Democratic Party were not pleased.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- usually a cheerleader for Obama and for nearly any initiative the president announces -- couldn't muster much enthusiasm.

"The Obama Administration's initiative regarding drilling on public lands must ensure that any offshore and onshore plan proceeds in an environmentally and fiscally responsible manner," Pelosi says. "Taxpayers who own these resources have been historically shortchanged from the huge profits received from drilling on public lands, and must receive a fair return in the future."

The speaker, and other progressives, were more effusive for the other announcement in Obama's speech: that the administration on Thursday will finalize a long-planned increase in vehicle fuel economy standards.

"It was important for the American people to hear from the President about the steps being taken by the federal government and the military to lower our nation's dependence on foreign oil," Pelosi says. "We welcome the President's announcement that tomorrow the administration will finalize standards to increase vehicle fuel efficiency for the first time in more than 30 years. And we support the President in highlighting the federal government's investment in clean energy that will not only create good-paying American jobs, but also help the environment."

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and a lawmaker known for environmentalism, says he is unequivocally opposed to Obama's offshore drilling plan.

“Drilling off the Virginia coast would endanger many of New Jersey’s beaches and vibrant coastal economies,” says Lautenberg. “Giving Big Oil more access to our nation’s waters is really a Kill, Baby, Kill policy: it threatens to kill jobs, kill marine life and kill coastal economies that generate billions of dollars. Offshore drilling isn’t the solution to our energy problems, and I will fight this policy and continue to push for 21st century clean energy solutions.”

Aside from environmental dangers, increased offshore fossil-fuel production will not solve U.S. energy needs, Lautenberg says.

In 2007, the Energy Information Agency estimated that production from all the areas that were then under drilling moratorium might yield an additional 200,000 to 300,000 barrels per day which would be about 1 percent to 2 percent of the nation's daily consumption of oil.

"That would hardly make us more secure," Lautenberg says in a statement.

Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, another East Coast Democrat, also registered opposition to Obama's drilling plan.

"I applaud the President for putting forward such a plan that includes renewable sources, nuclear energy, and developing oil and gas resources on existing leases, but I object to expanding off-shore drilling," the freshman senator says. "The oil companies already have over 60 million domestic acres of leased area that could be drilled today, but they sit idle. We need to explore and drill currently held lands before risking permanent damage to some of our nation's most sensitive environmental areas, including the Chesapeake Bay. Before drilling begins on any new areas, there must be comprehensive environmental and economic studies completed to assess the dangers to affected states. Spills happen with even the most responsible drilling, but spilled oil does not stop at the state border. The entire region must have a say before starting any activity that puts our fisheries, seafood and tourism industries in jeopardy."

And, like Lautenberg, Cardin says Obama's liberalized drilling won't meet the nation's needs.

"America consumes 25 percent of the world's oil, but has just 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. We cannot drill our way out of this. We need to use less energy and develop alternative and renewable energy sources," Cardin says.


Support from New Mexico


Indeed, one of the most prominent voices that supports Obama's policy change came from the Republican Party.

Former Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the longtime chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, commended the president.

"I congratulate the President on his decision to expand access to domestic oil and gas reserves on the Outer Continental Shelf," Domenici says. "The decision will enhance our energy security and benefit our economy. As former Chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, I believe that the President's decision will enhance the effort to develop bipartisan congressional support for bold energy legislation.

"I realize how many factors went into the President's decision because we confronted the same decisions when we worked on the 2005 and 2007 Energy Policy Acts," adds Domenici, who retired in 2008.

Significantly, however, one leading Democrat who appeared to embrace the plan is Domenici's New Mexico counterpart and the senator who succeeded him at the head of the Senate energy panel, Sen. Jeff Bingaman.

"I commend Secretary Salazar for proposing a plan that makes available for leasing much of the potential offshore oil and gas resources that the federal government owns. I also commend him for indicating that additional studies will be undertaken before making a final decision on leasing in areas that might be environmentally sensitive," Bingaman says.

"Secretary Salazar's proposed plan is generally consistent with the legislative proposals regarding our offshore national oil and gas resources that the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee reported last summer. I hope that the Senate will address these legislative proposals in the coming weeks," he adds.

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Specter Opposes EFCA, But Pa. AFL-CIO Picks Him Over Sestak In Senate Primary Battle

The members of Pennsylvania's AFL-CIO are endorsing longtime incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter over Rep. Joe Sestak in that state's contested May 18 Democratic primary election, despite the fact that Specter opposes one of the labor union's biggest legislative priorities.

"In our opinion Senator Arlen Specter is the strongest advocate and supporter for good jobs, fair trade policies, workers' rights and quality affordable health care for all. He is a proven leader who has stood with working families when the chips are down, especially his key role in passing the American Recovery and Reinvestment [Act] of 2009 which has protected jobs, helped unemployed workers, and prevented this nation from sinking into another great depression," Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George says.

Specter was one of just three GOP senators early in 2009 who helped push the $787 billion economic stimulus program known as the Recovery Act over the legislative finish line and onto the desk of President Obama, newly inaugurated at the time.

This year is the first election in which Specter is running as a Democrat. First elected in 1980, he was a Republican senator April 2009 when he switched parties. He did so because polling indicated he would lose to his then-opponent in the Republican primary, former Rep. Pat Toomey. Toomey came within 2 percent of unseating Specter in the GOP primary in 2004.

Although Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and other top Democrats vowed to support Specter after he came out as a Democrat, Sestak announced a primary bid to unseat the five-term lawmaker. First elected in 2006 and now in his second term, Sestak served as an admiral in the U.S. Navy before entering Congress. Sestak, too, has been able to claim some organized labor support on his side, including United Food and Commercial Workers locals.

The winner of the Democratic primary in November will likely face Toomey, who has remained in GOP contention and is seen as the likely Republican nominee at this point.

The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO notes that it has endorsed Specter twice before, in the 1998 and 2004 general elections. Its support now could be significant in beating back Sestak's challenge, as the union claims more than 900,000 members.

"We will conduct an energetic and aggressive education and mobilization campaign of union families throughout Pennsylvania in support of Senator Specter's nomination by voters on the Democratic ballot. Our principle obligation will be in helping share his record and message of support for all of Pennsylvania's workers," Rick Bloomingdale, Pennsylvania AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer says.

The union says an endorsement requires a two-thirds majority of the State Labor Federation's Executive Council.

The union, however, endorsed Specter despite a disagreement over a piece of legislation it has considered critical.

Specter reversed earlier support for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and came out against the legislation. The bill would make it easier for unions to organize workers, and has been strenuously opposed by business interests. Specter had been a rare Republican in support of the legislation before coming out against it. Specter maintained his new stance against EFCA even after his Democratic conversion.

The Keystone State AFL-CIO's statement announcing its endorsement of Specter made no mention of EFCA, even though it its leader, Bill George, urged Specter to support the bill. George pledged at the time that the union would work to re-elect the then-Republican over any Democrat if Specter was willing to vote for EFCA, also known as "card-check."

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Consumer Group Alleges Big Insurer WellPoint Is Gaming New Healthcare Reform Law

WellPoint Inc., one of the nation's top five private health insurers, is looking for loopholes and play corporate games to keep corporate profits high, a consumer group charges.

The group, Consumer Watchdog, is calling for the Obama administration to launch an investigation of WellPoint, which is the parent firm of Anthem Blue Cross, a California insurer that recently sought to jack up rates nearly 40 percent even in the face of soaring profits. That increase raised the ire of California state officials, as well as federal lawmakers, both from California and beyond.

Consumer Watchdog cites a message to investors sent via Dow Jones newswires as describing how it would simply re-label administrative costs as "medical care" in response to the new health reform law.

"WellPoint keeps proving that it will sniff for every loophole and play every game to keep profits high without becoming more efficient or helping control overall medical costs," says Jerry Flanagan, medical policy director of Consumer Watchdog, which strongly backed federal healthcare reform legislation, including public-option provisions that were not included in the final law that President Obama signed last week. "This manipulation of how the insurer defines medical costs is what we predicted would happen, but it's surprising that WellPoint acted so swiftly. The Department of Health and Human Services hasn't even issued its definitions of what constitutes a medical expenditure."

In a statement, Consumer Watchdog quotes the message to WellPoint investors sent March 17 via Dow Jones as saying:

"WellPoint's (WLP) medical cost ratio should rise and its overhead-expense ratio decline this year as the insurer reclassifies various types of costs. Disease management, medical management and a nurse hotline, for example, 'are being reclassified because they represent additional benefits provided to our members,' a representative says. They'll now be part of the medical cost ratio, the percentage of premium revenue used to pay members' health-care costs. These are claims-related costs incurred to improve member health and medical outcomes, WLP says. Accounting rules allow the changes, which better align MCR with anticipated health reform guidelines, Stifel Nicolaus says."

The new healthcare reform law requires insurers spend at least 80 percent of customers' premiums on medical care in the individual insurance market, and 85 percent in the employer/group market.

Consumer Watchdog says that it predicts WellPoint will lobby for definitions that exactly match the company's revised idea of what constitutes medical care.

"The addition of 'medical management' -- a grab bag that may include purely administrative units whose job is to deny as much expensive care as possible, and may include doctor billing -- shows Blue Cross's intent to relabel first and defend it later," says Flanagan.

Consumer Watchdog charges that WellPoint has played games before, citing an email obtained by a congressional committee earlier this year showing company executives adding an extra 5 percent to those proposed premium increases in California, so it could turn around and "offer" a 5 percent reduction just if regulators protested.

In a letter earlier this month to California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, Consumer Watchdog also accused WellPoint of laundering profits through other WellPoint subsidiaries and sending excess amounts to the parent company.

Consumer Watchdog says it is calling for the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate WellPoint's reclassification of services, particularly the undefined "medical management" category and nurse hotlines, which could include the enforcer-nurses who conduct utilization reviews aimed at reducing the utilization of medical care.

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PR Firm Behind Propaganda Videos Wins Stimulus Contract

by Sebastian Jones and Michael Grabell, ProPublica

President Obama’s push for electronic medical records has faced resistance from those who question whether health information technology systems can protect patient privacy.
So last week, the U.S Department of Health and Human Services hired a public relations firm to try to win consumer trust.

The irony? The firm chosen for the job — Ketchum Inc. — was hip-deep in controversy a few years ago for producing a series of fake TV news stories that violated a federal ban on propaganda. The company also drew fire for channeling taxpayer funds to a conservative pundit to promote the Bush administration’s education policies.

Ketchum, based in New York, is one of the world’s largest public relations firms, with a host of large corporate clients and a history of winning government contracts.

Company spokeswoman Alicia Stetzer declined to answer questions about the $25.8 million contract, funded by the federal stimulus package. Nancy Szemraj, a spokeswoman for the government’s health IT initiative, said the PR firm won the contract over four other companies because of its ability to attract public acceptance.

“Ketchum has a long rich history of doing outstanding communication outreach work for large social marketing endeavors,” Szemraj said. “They are very capable of moving the needle, with has to happen here.”

She noted that Ketchum’s work helped HHS enroll 35 million people in the Medicare prescription drug program. And she said all of the firm’s marketing ideas would be reviewed by senior managers at HHS.

Consumer advocates warned that the PR contract will only heighten skepticism about the security of online health records. A poll conducted last year by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health found that roughly six in 10 Americans lack confidence in the privacy of online health records.

“The public has always been very suspicious over whether electronic health information will be safe,” said Dr. Deborah C. Peel, a physician and founder of the Coalition for Patient Privacy, which includes consumer, privacy and health groups. Peel called Ketchum a “very, very troubling choice because the last thing the public needs are more tricks being pulled on them.”

During the Bush administration, Ketchum and its former lobbying arm, the Washington Group, had several prominent Republicans on the payroll, including former New York Rep. Susan Molinari. In the last year, it has beefed up its Democratic credentials, hiring Jonathan Kopp, a member of the Obama campaign’s national media team, and Donald J. Foley, a longtime Democratic strategist.

Ketchum has continued to draw government work – particularly from HHS – despite a series of reports in 2004 and 2005, in which Government Accountability Office investigators found it had produced a series of video news releases that constituted “covert propaganda” because they did not disclose they were paid for by the federal government.

The segments aired during local television broadcasts on at least 40 stations across the country. Designed to look like news reports, each concluded with a paid actor posing as a journalist reporting from Washington.

One series was produced for HHS in an effort to promote the Medicare prescription drug program to seniors. The others were paid for by the Department of Education. Overall, video news releases have become increasingly common, used by large public relations firms and companies to repackage advertisements as news.

Ketchum was involved in a separate controversy in 2005, when reports surfaced that it had used taxpayer funds to pay syndicated columnist Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote the No Child Left Behind education bill during radio broadcasts as part of outreach to the African-American community.

In both instances, Ketchum defended its tactics. Stetzer referred reporters to a 2005 PR Week article, in which CEO Ray Kotcher said, “There is no indication that it was ever the intent of Ketchum or any of our people to mislead anyone.”

This time around, HHS has hired Ketchum to provide a “comprehensive campaign for communications and education,” to encourage doctors and hospitals to adopt health IT and to assure the public that their information will be safe.

The campaign is part of the administration’s $26 billion health IT program, also backed by the stimulus package, which aims to spearhead the transition to online medical records through grants, bonuses to doctors and hospitals, and the development of national standards.

Write to Sebastian Jones at Sebastian.Jones@propublica.org.

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Secret Webcam Surveillance Of Pa. Students Leads To Call For Stronger Privacy Law

Allegations that school officials in Pennsylvania secretly watched students at home via webcams installed on school-issued laptop computers proves that Congress must update federal eavesdropping laws to cover unauthorized video surveillance, an attorney representing an Internet freedom organization told senators.

Kevin Bankston delivered his message to members of a Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee in the same Philadelphia courthouse where the parents of high school student Blake Robbins filed a class action lawsuit alleging that school administrators secretly used Internet-enabled cameras installed on student laptops to spy on the students within their own homes.

Federal surveilliance protection hasn'tbeen updated since the the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, otherwise known simply as the Wiretap Act, says Bankston, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. That law currently only regulates electronic eavesdropping on oral conversations and the interception of voice and electronic communications, he adds.

"There is no reason why Congress should not amend that law to also provide Americans with equally strong privacy protections against surreptitious video surveillance," Bankston says.

Blake Robbins first learned of the alleged laptop spying in November when an assistant principal stated her belief that Blake was engaged in improper behavior in his home, citing as evidence a photograph from Blake’s laptop, Bankston told lawmakers at a Senate field hearing on Monday.

The hearing was held by the Senate Judiciary Committee crime and drugs subcommittee, which is chaired by Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Democrat.

According to more recent interviews with Blake and his attorney, school officials suspected that Blake was involved in illicit drugs because he was allegedly photographed holding pill-shaped objects; the Robbins family maintains those pills were simply Mike-N-Ike candies, a favorite of Blake Robbins, Bankston says.

After the lawsuit was filed, the local school superintendent issued a series of letters to district parents in which he admitted that school administrators did indeed have the capability, through the theft tracking features of security software installed on students’ laptops, to remotely take pictures using the laptops’ web cams. Superintendent Christopher McGinley further claimed that the feature was only ever activated when a laptop was reported lost or stolen, although notably, the Robbins allege that Blake’s computer was never reported lost or stolen, Bankston says.

Finally, McGinley admitted that no formal notice of the functionality or use of the remote picture-taking feature was ever given to students or the families, Bankston adds.

"Whether or not all of these frightening claims are true, the controversy over the school district’s previously secret capability to surreptitiously photograph students in their homes—a controversy that some students have dubbed 'Webcamgate' —has highlighted the significant privacy risk posed by web cams," Bankston says.

Bankston acknowledges that webcams represent a useful technology for most who use them, although they do pose the potential for unwanted snooping from stalkers, criminals, employers and others.

"Yet, American citizens and consumers lack the most basic protections against this kind of spying. In particular, manufacturers have failed to give us basic technical protections, such as lens caps and hard-wired on/off power switches for the cameras, so we can all be sure that when we’ve turned off our web cam, no one else will turn it on," he says. "In the meantime, we recommend that laptop owners do what many of the students in Lower Merion are doing—cover your camera lens with a piece of tape or a post-it note."

It "makes no sense" that Congress, while strictly regulating electronic eavesdropping on people who have a reasonable expectation of privacy that they won’t be recorded, would leave the regulation of equally invasive video surveillance up to states to decide, Bankston says.

Just 13 states had passed statutes expressly prohibiting the unauthorized installation or use of cameras in private places, and several of those statutes regulate cameras only in certain limited circumstances, such as in locker rooms or restrooms, or where the purpose is to view someone that is partially or fully nude, Bankston says, citing 2003 data. One federal law, the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act of 2004, similarly restricts only secret videotaping of persons in a state of undress, and "only applies in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States" rather than applying generally, he adds.

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‘Black Liquor,’ The Sequel

by Olga Pierce, ProPublica

From the murky depths of the health care reform reconciliation bill re-emerges an unholy mixture of industrial waste and shady Congressional bookkeeping.

In Part I of our reporting last week, we shared a mystery with our readers: What was biofuel language doing in the health care reform reconciliation bill?

And, with help from readers, we thought we had the mystery solved. Through unintended application of a tax credit designed to encourage use of alternative fuels in motor vehicles, paper companies have managed to get an estimated $7 billion from the U.S. Treasury for continuing to use a pulp byproduct – called black liquor – to fuel factories, a practice they had been employing anyway since the 1930’s.

All true – but not the whole story.

That tax credit, known as Black Liquor I, was for 50 cents per gallon, and it expired at the end of 2009.

But just like a hatchet-wielding horror movie villain, tax credits for black liquor were resurrected as soon as our backs were turned. Or so it seemed.

In October, in response to a question from a field agent, the IRS issued this ruling, saying paper companies would be able to claim an even more lucrative $1.01 per gallon tax credit designed to encourage production of biofuels out of materials people don’t eat, instead of corn – the price of which has been driven up by biofuel-related demand.

Tax experts dubbed it"Son of Black Liquor.”

Then the House of Representatives charged in, seemingly to the rescue. The original House bill included language banning (in a roundabout way) the application of the tax credit to Black Liquor, appearing to save taxpayers about $25 billion. Putting the language in the health care bill offset some of the increased costs, making the health care package technically $25 billion cheaper.

Enter the Senate, stage center. The chamber’s cheaper proposal did not require a $25 billion spending offset to make it look affordable, and besides, some powerful Senators had other plans for the on-paper savings. The Senate left out the biofuel language, and when the Senate bill emerged as the vehicle for health care reform via reconciliation, it appeared Son of Black Liquor had died on the Senate floor.

But Son of Black Liquor was back and standing right behind American taxpayers!

It turns out, however, the House may be the actual villains, because paper companies have repeatedly said they don’t believe they can get EPA clearance for the somewhat different Black Liquor production process that would be required to qualify for the Black Liquor II tax credit. Plain English subtitle: Closing a tax loophole no one was planning to use doesn’t actually save the government any money.

So, who, if anyone, can we blame? In this piece for WNYC’s The Takeaway, Todd Zwillich finds that many members of Congress didn’t actually know Black Liquor was back. (Also: if you listen all the way through, you will be rewarded with Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) explaining why the accounting makes sense.)

Write to Olga Pierce at Olga.Pierce@propublica.org.

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Senate On Recess, Thousands To Begin Losing Unemployment Benefits, Labor Secretary Warns

About 38,000 out-of-work Americans will begin losing their unemployment benefits starting in the second week of April because the Senate recessed through April 12 without approving a needed extension of those benefits, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis warns.

The Senate adjourned for its annual Easter recess Friday, failing once again to extend unemployment insurance payments and COBRA benefits for jobless Americans. Last week, action on the matter was blocked by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). Just weeks ago, another Republican, Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky, blocked such an extension.

"I am deeply disappointed that the Senate was prevented from taking action on legislation to extend funding for unemployment insurance and the COBRA subsidy. There is no room for partisan roadblocks when Americans are depending on their government's action and the stakes are this high," Solis says. "Beginning in early April, large numbers of workers will face the loss of essential benefits. Unemployment insurance recipients will not be able to move from regular state unemployment programs into Emergency Unemployment Compensation, and in some cases, individuals may stop receiving benefits outright."

Unemployment insurance provides out-of-work Americans with a small cash benefit while they look for a new job. COBRA benefits help provide them healthcare coverage while unemployed.

The national unemployment rate still stands at a decades-high 9.7 percent, as millions of Americans cannot find work in a labor market left soft as a result of the long recession. Estimates say there are six Americans seeking any one job.

Without an extension of funding for EUC and full federal funding of the Extended Benefit program, nearly 38,000 Americans could lose these vital benefits starting the second week in April, Solis says. By mid-May, more than 1.2 million would be left without these benefits. And, if eligibility for the Recovery Act COBRA subsidy is not extended, thousands of families could lose access to affordable health care, she adds.

"As I have said before, we cannot stop supporting workers who are desperately seeking jobs, but — in many cases — simply cannot find them. For many households with an unemployed worker, these benefits are the only thing that allows them to keep paying the bills and supporting their families as they look for new employment," Solis says. "I am hopeful that the few senators opposed to extending benefits will allow an expedient up-or-down vote on the bill upon Congress' return to Washington. Those Americans who have lost their jobs as a result of this recession are counting on these senators to put partisanship aside and pass this important legislation."

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ANALYSIS: In Bay State's Political Odd Couple, Republican Scott Brown Is The Odd Man Out

Members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation ended last week, dominated by the enactment of healthcare reform as it was, by gathering at the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center on Friday afternoon.

But in a vivid illustration of just how the political reality of its has changed, just one of the Bay State's U.S. senators, Democrat John Kerry, came to talk to reporters about how Massachusetts will benefit from the new law that make the lives of those in the state "demonstrably, undeniably better."

Meanwhile, Kerry's new Senate colleague, Republican Scott Brown was very much elsewhere, releasing a statement attacking the very health reform legislation that Kerry had helped pass.

“I am strongly opposed to the trillions of dollars in spending, the billions of dollars in tax increases and the enormous financial burden it will put on Massachusetts families and businesses,” Brown says. “The simple fact is that this bill will hurt jobs and the economy in our state at a time when unemployment remains near ten percent. The American people deserve better and our economy deserves better. I will work in the Senate to repeal the worst parts of this bill and replace it with legislation that will actually help lower health care costs for Massachusetts families without affecting our citizens’ care, hurting our businesses or putting our country further into debt.”

For anyone who had grown accustomed to seeing both Massachusetts senators virtually arm-in-arm as a team for decades, Kerry gone solo was a bit of an odd sight -- but one that clearly becoming much more common since Brown's upset victory Jan. 19, making him the first Bay State Republican in 30 years to be sent to the U.S. Senate.

Although Kerry had campaigned for Brown's opponent to take the seat once held by Kerry's late friend and mentor, Democrat Ted Kennedy, Kerry and Brown publicly have described a civil, professional working relationship.

Further, some political analysts have said that the Bay State could benefit from having a Republican in Congress for the first time since voters sent two GOP House members into retirement in the 1990s, since Brown actually sit down and work with the Republicans in Washington.

Despite such vows of cooperation and potential for bipartisanship, it's unclear that this odd pairing -- particularly the Brown side of the partnership -- is really delivering anything concrete for voters who elected them.

Over the years, Kerry would regularly team up with Kennedy to announce new federal grants and other funding to towns, fire stations, universities, and other projects and constituents back home.

Kerry and Brown have issued no joint statements since the latter was sworn in early in February -- although there have been opportunities to do so.

Since February, Kerry released announcements of $32 million for broadband development on Cape Cod; $583,200 statewide to from the Agriculture Department to increase enrollment in school meal programs; $100,000 for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study the U.S. electric grid; multiple $150,000 awards to manufacturers throughout the state to more effectively compete with overseas rivals; various awards to various local agencies to prevent home foreclosures; and others, as well.

In the same period, by contrast, Brown issued no such announcements of federal assistance to Massachusetts, its towns or its citizens. The news bulletins from Brown all came in the form of policy pronouncements, or press releases designed to call attention to the senator's media appearances on television.

Other senators, even conservative Republican ones, are expected to not only introduce legislation, vote on bills, and show up on TV. They fight for, and deliver on, whatever the particular priorities are for the voters back home.

For instance Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) announced federal disaster assistance for Iowa counties; $192,850 in government funds for airports in his state; $264,584 for five Iowa fire departments; plus more. It's not only money that senators have to demonstrate they are delivering for their states.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas is one of the most conservative Republicans in the Senate. Yet in addition to sounding off, for or against, various federal legislation or policies, Hutchison also lets her constituents know that she is working on issues important to them. For instance, she and colleague Sen. John Cornyn, announced how they were working to convince Army Secretary John McHugh to change his mind on a decision that would close a plant in Sealy, Texas, which makes Army vehicles. In another example, Hutchison issued a press release to let people know about the detention in Haiti of a resident of Amarillo, Texas.

So far, there is no evidence Brown is doing any of this work in the Senate.

Further, despite reportedly adulation as the new GOP rock star, Brown's clout with his conservative colleagues appears limited to the sole instance in which he crossed party lines to help break a Republican filibuster on just one of the Democrats' jobs bills, the HIRE Act.

Although his home state had to begin borrowing money from the federal government in February to keep its unemployment program running, Brown was publicly silent when first Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.), and later, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), held up legislation to extend jobless benefits.

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Saying ‘America’s Established Social Safety Net’ At Risk, Judiciary Chairman Defends Healthcare Reform Against State Lawsuits

Citing the oath the president and members of Congress take to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee defended the new healthcare reform law from mushrooming court challenges that seek to overturn the hard-fought legislative victory.

More than a dozen conservative state attorneys general, including those in Virginia and Utah, are filing suit in an attempt to prevent the reform legislation President Obama signed into law this week from taking effect. Obama’s signature comes after a year or so of struggle for Democrats who have long wanted to rein in private insurers and provide coverage for millions of uninsured Americans.

At issue in these lawsuits, and in measures in about three dozen state legislatures, are provisions in the new federal reform law that require all Americans to acquire healthcare coverage. Those behind the suits, and the state-level bills that would block the requirement from taking effect, claim such a mandate is unconstitutional.

“I know President Obama and know that he takes his oath seriously. I know that when he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, he understood it to be consistent with the Constitution,” says Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

Leahy says, he, too, took his oath seriously as the reform measure was debated in the Senate.

The senator notes that such a mandate originally began as a Republican idea, and is a feature of the state-level universal healthcare enacted in Massachusetts with the leadership of then-Gov. Mitt Romney (R). Romney today is a frontrunner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination to oppose Obama’s expected bid for re-election.

Obama's 2008 rival, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), also once backed a healthcare mandate as part of reform, Leahy says.

"In fact, when President Obama was a candidate, as a matter of policy he did not support the individual mandate requirement as part of his initial comprehensive health reform proposal," Leahy says. "It was one of the hundreds of Republican health care reform ideas he came to support and that were included in the law as the bill was drafted, developed, debated and passed. Now that the law is enacted, some Republicans have changed their tune in order to undercut these reforms by suggesting that it is unconstitutional."

Specifically, the Constitution provides for the enactment of healthcare reform through its “general welfare clause,” “commerce clause” and “necessary and proper clause,” Leahy says.

“These clauses form the basis for Congress’ power, and include authority to reform health care by containing spiraling costs and ensuring its availability for all Americans,” he says. “Any serious questions about congressional power to take comprehensive action to build and secure the social safety net have been settled over the past century.”

Leahy also cites the clause in the Constitution that says: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States.”

“This clause has been the basis for actions by Congress to provide for Americans’ social and economic security by passing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,” he says. “Those landmark laws provide the well-established foundation on which Congress builds with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

In past decades, the Supreme Court turned back similar legal challenges to the creation of those social programs, as well.


Healthcare mandate 'is hardly revolutionary'



Enforcement of the personal insurance mandate of healthcare reform by way of a tax penalty “is far from unprecedented, despite the claims of critics,” Leahy says.

He notes that Americans presently pay for Social Security and Medicare, for example, by payroll taxes collected under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), which typically are collected as deductions and noted on Americans’ paychecks every month.

Leahy quotes University of Maryland political science professor and political commentator Thomas Schaller by saying, “These paycheck deductions are not optional, and for all but the self-employed they are taken out immediately.”

"The individual mandate requirement in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is hardly revolutionary when viewed against the background of Social Security and Medicare that have long required individual payments," Leahy says.

The Supreme Court has, for decades, refused to uphold significant challenges to a number of pieces of major social legislation, the senator notes, including minimum-wage requirements, labor-relations law, and other congressional initiatives, the senator says.

"The Supreme Court abandoned its judicially-created veto over congressional action with which it disagreed on policy grounds and rightfully deferred to Congress’ constitutional authority," Leahy says. "These Supreme Court decisions and the principles underlying them are not in question."

The state-challenge strategy undertaken by conservatives goes "so far as to call into question the constitutionality of America’s established social safety net," the chairman warns.

"One of the great American successes of the last century was the establishment of a social safety net of which all Americans can be grateful and proud," Leahy says. "Through Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Congress established some of the cornerstones of American economic security. Comprehensive health insurance reform has now joined them. Congress has acted within its constitutional authority to legislate for the general welfare of all Americans. No conservative activist court, on any level, should overstep the judiciary’s role by seeking to turn back the clock and deny a century of progress."

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Union Chief: GOP Fueled Healthcare Vote Violence

In the hours leading up to the Sunday's climactic healthcare reform vote in the House, congressional Republicans helped foment an atmosphere that helped spark a subsequent rash of violence that's struck at Democrats who supported the legislation, according to the leader of one of the nation's oldest and largest organized labor organizations.

"When I was at the Capitol on Sunday, I saw Republican lawmakers come out onto balconies and egg on hateful crowds like giddy teenagers, waving signs and chanting to fire up the protesters," says Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO. "They set the foundation for a dangerous climate, and they must take the lead in stopping it."

Like other unions, the AFL-CIO played an active role in pushing to enact healthcare reform.

So-called "tea party" demonstrators protested loudly outside the Capitol last weekend lawmakers geared up for a final series of votes that saw the reform legislation narrowly approved and sent to President Obama. Obama signed the bill into law Tuesday at a packed ceremony in the East Room of the White House.

Some conservative protesters resorted to directing racial and homophobic slurs at Democrats even in the run-up to Sunday's vote, including insults to Reps. John Lewis of Georgia and Barney Frank of Massachusetts. An African-American, Lewis was nearly beaten to death during the Civil Rights movement while Frank is openly gay. Both have been strong proponents of healthcare reform.

The violent backlash against healthcare reform supporters only has spread since, as at least 10 Democratic lawmakers have reported vandalism, death threats and other intimidation. These representatives reportedly have been offered Capitol Police protection usually only afforded to congressional leadership.

Incidents have included a brick thrown into Rep. Louise Slaughter's New York district office; a shattered door at Rep. Gabrielle Gifford's office in Tuscon, Ariz.; and a gas line cut at the Virginia home of Rep. Tom Perriello's brother. A tea party activist posted the brother's address by accident, thinking it belonged to the congressman, along with a suggestion that reform opponents "drop by" to show their displeasure over the healthcare vote.

"In America, thankfully, we all have the right to make our voices heard. We in the labor movement are no strangers to protest and civil disobedience," Trumka says. "But many of the chants and signs I heard and saw were those of an ugly mob, not participation in the political process.

"Racial and homophobic slurs, death threats and guns have no place in civil discourse. Nor should differences of view on abortion rights and funding lead to name-calling and violence," he adds.

Nor are the outbursts of violence from healthcare reform opponents are not just "par for the course" for controversial decisions, according to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

"We've had a lot of serious disagreements on tax bills, on war and peace, and other matters. And I haven't seen the level of, frankly, threats or anger, or threatening of violent acts that I've seen recently," Hoyer tells CBS News. "I think in part it's because the rhetoric that has been utilized with respect to this bill is far beyond, I think, legitimate debate."

The leadership of both parties have a role to play cool a situation which is sparking the violence.

"I think all of us in leadership need to make it very clear to the American public, very few of which I think are participating in such acts on either side, we need to make it very clear that that's unacceptable in a democracy," Hoyer adds.

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Treasury, Ahem, Clarifies Goals for the Mortgage Mod Program

by Paul Kiel

How many struggling homeowners will get a mortgage modification through the government’s $75 billion program? It would seem to be a simple question. But for the past year, the administration has been saying one thing, and observers have been hearing another.

What the administration has been saying is that the program “will help up to 3 to 4 million at-risk homeowners avoid foreclosure by reducing monthly mortgage payments.” Sounds like the Treasury Department is aiming to get 3 million to 4 million modifications, right?

Actually, Treasury’s real goal is between 1.5 million and 2 million permanent modifications, according to a new watchdog report.

Why the discrepancy? Under the program, homeowners first enter a three-month trial period. But as we’ve reported, most trials have gone longer. It has proven much easier for mortgage servicers to get homeowners into the trial than out of it.

The publicly stated goal of 3 million to 4 million, Treasury says, is actually for offers of trial modifications – not actual trial modifications, let alone permanent modifications. It’s a metric that the special inspector general for the TARP (SIGTARP) calls “essentially meaningless” in the new report.

As for meaningful metrics, an unnamed Treasury official is cited in the inspector general’s report as providing the new goal: 3 million trial modifications, of which 1.5 million to 2 million would become permanent. It was always expected that a portion of trials would fail – some homeowners, for example, won’t be able to keep up with even their reduced mortgage payments. The question has always been how many. Treasury thinks that somewhere between 50 and 66 percent of homeowners in trial mods will fall out.

But even by that reduced standard, the program has a long way to go: While servicers have thus far begun 1.1 million trials, only 168,708 homeowners have received a permanent mod.

Our breakdown of the data shows which mortgage servicers are performing the worst. The program lasts through 2012. (The reduced number of trial mods has also led to another revised expectation. The administration originally estimated the whole program would cost $75 billion—$50 billion from the TARP and $25 billion spent through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Because there have been so few permanent modifications, a recent Congressional Budget Office estimate said Treasury is likely to spend only $22 billion from the TARP, not $50 billion.)

Meanwhile, Treasury is about halfway to its goal of 3 million to 4 million trial offers. Some 1.4 million homeowners have received trial offers from their servicers, according to Treasury. It’s unclear how many of the 260,286 borrowers who’ve received offers but have not begun the trial have refused the offer – certainly some just represent a lag between the offer and the beginning of the trial.

While the Treasury’s newly stated targets may seem like a bait and switch, the SIGTARP doesn’t charge that officials actually changed the program’s goals. Rather, it’s all blamed on imprecision. As far as that goes, Herb Allison, the Treasury official overseeing the TARP, promises in a response to the report that “Treasury will try in the future to be more precise.”

Write to Paul Kiel at paul.kiel@propublica.org.

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ANALYSIS: Selling Voters On Healthcare Reform's Cost-Cutting Provisions Could Be The Democrats' Silver Bullet Come November

Democrats could rob Republicans of their ability to use healthcare reform as a weapon against them in this year's election if they can sell voters on the new law's ability to cut costs, a new poll suggests.

The survey, conducted by the polling firm TNS, appears to contradict the notion that the Democrats' healthcare reform -- which was enacted into law this week during a triumphant White House ceremony -- would be a slam-dunk issue for the GOP in congressional elections this fall. The poll provides what could be a roadmap for Democrats to turn what could be a major anchor around their necks in November into a positive, potentially changing the tone of the entire campaign.

Public opposition to health reform rose steadily over the last year as the legislation came under united and fierce attack by the GOP, and that opposition led many House Democrats to fence-sit on the issue until nearly the very end, with President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other high-level reform backers cajoling nervous lawmakers. Even then, some 34 Democrats still came out against the reform when the last votes were counted late Sunday.

Angry Republicans have been using healthcare reform as an election issue even more loudly since the House sent its bill to the president's desk. Just a day after Obama signed the reform bill that has become the centerpiece of his presidency, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio appeared on Fox News to say that he would work to repeal it, "if I were the Speaker of the House, and [Republicans] were the majority" in Congress.

But TNS says that, while 75 percent of those polled are concerned with the projected rise in health care costs, but that the public is not as opposed as perhaps Republicans are counting on.

"The research shows the public support for health reform is stronger than one might expect, and that concerns over its implementation are significant but not overwhelming," says William Bruno, head of TNS' insurance practice. "The benefits are expected to exceed the potential side effects –- with careful management."

The question in the minds of the public seems to be one of cost.

"The new law is expected to improve access to care, but we are still yet unclear as to how it will comprehensively decrease the overall cost of care," says Rob Haley, senior advisor to TNS on healthcare reform.

This insight would appear to indicate that, if Democrats can answer that question, Republicans would lose one of their most potent tools to whittle away the Democrats' three-year-old majority on Capitol Hill. The focus on cost concern also would seem to tell Democrats how they need to shape their messaging in the days, weeks and months to come.

Fortunately, the Democrats have a very good story to tell, according to an independent Washington advocacy group that supported healthcare reform.

U.S. PIRG gave the final healthcare bill, along with companion "fixes" working their way through Congress this week under the so-called "reconciliation" process, a grade of "A minus" for its cost-containment provisions. Only the lack of a public option prevents the bill from getting an A, the group says.

"These reforms are game-changers which significantly increase America's ability to rein in skyrocketing health care costs. We will see affordable coverage for families, lower costs for business, and significantly reduced federal deficits,” says Larry McNeely, federal healthcare advocate for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

The new law achieves this by taming high administrative costs, increasing competition in the insurance market and by "fixing skewed incentives," to reward quality, well-coordinated care that delivers results rather than paying solely based on the number of tests and procedures, U.S. PIRG says.

“Despite enormous opposition from health industry lobbies, Congress has assembled strong legislation that will help lower health care costs,” McNeely adds. “We congratulate both Houses for enacting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and urge the Senate to quickly finish pass the Reconciliation Act of 2010.”

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Has Health Care Bickering Blocked Afghan Police Training Inquiry?

by T. Christian Miller, ProPublica

Today at 2:30 p.m., Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., was supposed to hold a hearing on the U.S. effort to train Afghanistan's police force. This is no small thing. Not only has the Obama administration made training Afghan cops a key foreign policy goal for getting American soldiers out of the country, but the U.S. has already spent $6 billion on the training.

And as detailed in a joint story by ProPublica and Newsweek on the cover of this week's magazine, the mission has been a disaster. Afghan cops have been accused of corruption, rape and arms sales to the Taliban. State and Defense department officials have continually squabbled over how best to train them. The chief contractor doing the training, DynCorp International, has been embroiled in a contract protest that has delayed attempts to fix the flailing system.

All of which, you'd think, would make Congress want to ask: What's up? Instead, McCaskill's Oversight Committee hearing was suddenly cancelled just hours before it was to start. McCaskill took to the floor of the Senate to accuse Republicans of killing the meeting. Senate rules forbid most types of hearings when the Senate has been in session a certain number of hours or after 2 p.m., but those rules are traditionally waived by consensus of both parties. Not anymore, McCaskill said, accusing the Republicans of a "new low of obstructionism."

"Why in the world are we not able to ask questions at a hearing in a few minutes as to why the police training is not going well in Afghanistan and how we can do better. Our men and women are over there and they are at risk if we don't get this right," McCaskill said.

"I had to call these witnesses and say, 'Go home because the Republicans won't let us have a hearing?' Somebody's got to explain this to me," she said.

Calls to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office went unanswered. McCaskill has rescheduled the hearing for April.

Write to T. Christian Miller at T.Christian.Miller@propublica.org.

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'Medicare Tax' Now to be Called 'Unearned Income Medicare Contribution'

by Olga Pierce, ProPublica

The payroll tax increase that was formerly known as “Medicare tax” in both President Obama’s health care reform reconciliation proposal and the original House reconciliation bill is NOT A TAX. Repeat: NOT A TAX.

Sure, individuals with earnings over $200,000 and couples with earnings over $250,000 will have to fork over 3.8 percent of their capital gains (which were not formerly subject to Medicare taxes) to Medicare, in addition to .9 percent more of their earned income.

But among the 15 pages of changes to the Reconciliation Act included in the manager’s amendment released over the weekend was a wee name change: references to ‘Medicare tax’ were deleted, and replaced with the much gentler, and voluntary-sounding, ‘unearned income Medicare contribution.’

We called Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office for more insight, and will pass along anything we hear back.

For a look at all the changes that the reconciliation bill would make in the health care reform law, check out our side-by-side comparison.

Write to Olga Pierce at Olga.Pierce@propublica.org.

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GOP 'Temper Tantrum' Brings Senate Committees To Halt

On one end of Pennsylvania Ave., jubilant Democrats packed the East Room of the White House to watch President Obama sign long-hoped-for healthcare reform into law. At the other, seething Republicans let their anger over the achievement boil over and bring their campaign of obstruction to an even higher level as they used Senate rules to bring work in the chamber's committees to a standstill.

That's what happened Tuesday along what is known as "America's Main Street," as Republican after Republican also issued statements denouncing the new reform law in dire terms.

"Senator McCain’s promised obstruction comes to reality just a day later," says Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), referring to former Republican presidential nominee John McCain's Monday declaration that "there would be no cooperation for the rest of the year" from members of the GOP. "‘The Party of No’ wouldn’t even agree to let Senate committees meet today. Ironically, as they make false claims about transparency regarding health reform, they’re shutting down a committee hearing today on transparency in government."

The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee had scheduled a meeting featuring government officials and others to discuss ways to increase transparency and accountability in the federal government.

“The bottom line is that as millions of Americans are learning about the immediate benefits of health reform, Republicans are throwing a temper tantrum and grinding important Senate business to a halt," Manley adds.

GOP senators also were looking for ways to derail, or at least slow down, the last remaining piece of impending healthcare reform business: a package of "corrections" to the original legislation demanded by House Democrats that is under consideration by the Senate under reconciliation rules which prevent the bill from being blocked by a certain Republican filibuster. GOP senators have long railed against the potential use of reconciliation for healthcare. Republicans most recently used reconciliation in the last decade to pass the big tax cuts advanced by President George W. Bush.

All Republicans in the House and Senate voted against the new healthcare law.

Senate Democrats finally turned to reconciliation to complete their work on the legislation after the surprise Jan. 19 victory of Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown, whose election gave the GOP a critical 41st vote that would sustain a Republican filibuster. Bills considered under reconciliation cannot be filibustered, and require just a simple 51-vote majority to be approved.

Like his GOP colleagues, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah continued to attack the new reform law, which more strictly regulates the market behavior of private insurance companies and is designed to eventually provide coverage to 32 million Americans who lack health insurance. A former Judiciary Committee chairman, Hatch, though also explicitly endorsed an effort by the attorney general of his home state to sue the federal government in an attempt to block a provision in the law that requires every American to buy health insurance.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff announced Monday that Utah will join other states in challenging the constitutionality of the health care. In all, more than 30 states are either mounting such a challenge, or considering one.

“The Constitution empowers Congress to regulate interstate commerce, but not to tell Americans what they can buy. And this is just one of the constitutionally suspect provisions in the legislation," Hatch says. "So I commend Mark Shurtleff’s and other state attorney generals’ plan to challenge this unconstitutional Washington mandate that encroaches on states’ rights and Utahns’ personal liberty, and I will do all I can to assist them in their efforts.”

Although a staunch conservative, Hatch often has worked in a bipartisan way, particularly with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) on healthcare matters.Indeed, Hatch last summer delivered a touching public eulogy for his friend Kennedy, for whom healthcare reform was a legislative dream for which he had long worked.

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Despite Kennedy's Touching Tribute To His Dad, For Many Healthcare Reform Remains Unfinished

The late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) once declared healthcare reform "the cause of my life," but succumbing to cancer last August just as the battle for reform was becoming noisy and messy, he died long before it was even evident reform could be enacted. So it is both touching and poignant that, after the final House vote late Sunday assured the nation that the legislation would finally become law, Rep. Patrick Kennedy visited the quiet gravesite of his father. On his congressional stationery, the Rhode Island Democrat left a note that read, "Dad, the unfinished business is done."

But even many Democrats who backed the bill that a triumphant President Obama signed at the White House Tuesday, the business of healthcare reform, in fact, remains unfinished.

Perhaps most notably, Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio last week signaled the fight would continue even as he announced that he would reverse his earlier opposition and support the current version of reform.

"I ask for your continued support in our ongoing efforts to bring about meaningful change," declared Kucinich, who had long fought for a single-payer health system instead. "As this bill passes I will renew my efforts to help those state organizations which are aimed at stirring a single payer movement which eliminates the predatory role of private insurers who make money not providing health care. I have taken a detour through supporting this bill, but I know the destination I will continue to lead, for as long as it takes, whatever it takes to an America where health care will be firmly established as a civil right."

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), another ardent supporter of single-payer and inclusion of a public option, suggested that healthcare reform be enhanced over time, just as other major federal programs have been. "Just as we have improved Medicare and Social Security, so too will we strengthen this initial package of reforms," he says.

Across the Capitol in the Senate, yet another single-payer champion, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, says that while millions of workers, families, seniors, small business owners stand to benefit from lower health care costs, improved coverage and strong consumer protections due to the new law -- yet more remains to be done.

"The bill is not as strong as I wanted and I will work to improve it, but it begins to move this country toward the long-time goal of providing comprehensive, affordable health care for all Americans. We can do better, but this is an important step forward,” says Sanders, a left-leaning independent.

In particular, Sanders says that he will continue his fight in the Senate for lower-cost prescription drugs by supporting legislation that will allow importation of drugs and that will require Medicare to negotiate lower prices for Medicare beneficiaries. Provisions to allow drug reimportation, so as to provide less-expensive medication were stripped out of the current law before it received its final vote in the Senate on Christmas Eve.

Another Chance At A Public Option?

Also, Sanders and others who supported a public option to provide healthcare coverage say they have a commitment from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to consider adding such a federally run coverage plan later this year.

"I call on my fellow progressives to hold our firm in our insistence on such a vote," says Conyers. "The health insurance monopolies fear the competition an efficient not-for-profit public health insurance plan would provide and that is exactly why we must have an up or down vote on this proposal.

"I support a public health option because I fundamentally believe in the value of public health insurance," he adds. "For this reason, I remain an ardent supporter of universal single-payer health care. This system has successfully provided quality, affordable, and cost-effective health care wherever implemented, whether with Medicare, the U.S. military, Europe, Taiwan, or Japan."

Even as he details the specific benefits the new law will bring his central Florida district, Rep. Alan Grayson says his Medicare You Can Buy Into Act (H.R. 4789) isn't going away. Grayson says that his proposal would allow anyone who can afford it to buy into Medicare at cost. He says the bill already has 80 cosponsors in the House.

“My new bill will provide real competition to the private health insurance companies," Grayson says. "Those companies make money by denying people the care they need. My Medicare You Can Buy Into Act will go even further toward saving money and saving lives.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) doesn't even appear to be in a mood to celebrate as much as other reform supporters. His gaze isn't on some future improvements -- but rather whether the Senate will approve the package of fixes to the current law now under debate in the Senate under rules known as "reconciliation."

Republicans are working to defeat the reconciliation package, which is impervious to a filibuster because of Senate rules. Reid says that he has the votes, but Weiner isn't so confident.

“... I’ll wait till the Senate acts before I join the victory dance in the end zone,” he says. “This game is only half-over. We are now relying on the Senate to pass the reconciliation bill or something better, like a public option. Unfortunately, the Senate has been less than reliable.”

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Biofuel/Health Care Mystery Demystified

by Olga Pierce, ProPublica

Last week, we asked readers to help us figure out why, amongst the talk of health care in the House reconciliation bill, there was a paragraph eliminating the “unintended application of [a] cellulosic biofuel producer credit.”

We were as curious as anyone as to what sediment in biofuel has to do with health care, but it was Friday afternoon, after all, and even journalists like to go home sometimes, even if said home is a dank cell in Brooklyn.

Luckily, our readers came through for us (we owe you one).

As Mark Smith put it, the language eliminates “the boon to the paper industry from adding diesel fuel to its wastes before burning and claiming biofuel credit.”

For the purpose of, “$ income for CBO score,” @michaelwhitney helpfully tweeted.

Bottom line: Making it harder to get the tax credit will save the government money. And everything in the bill that saves the government money makes health care reform look cheaper on paper, because of the way the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office evaluates the cost of legislation. And we care what the Congressional Budget Office (a.k.a. the CBO) says a bill will cost, because that’s the official price tag that will remain affixed to the bill in perpetuity.

Turns out, making paper produces a byproduct called “black liquor,” which can, in turn, be used to fuel a paper plant. Most U.S. paper producers have done this since the 1930s—without receiving a tax credit of any kind.

Then, in 2007, an earlier law intended to encourage the mixture of biofuels (like ethanol) into fuel for automobiles was changed so that it could be claimed for fuel used for non-transportation purposes. Cha-ching for paper companies! Now they could get cash back for something they had been doing all along!

And they did: In 2008, one paper company received nearly $30 million from the U.S. Treasury for just one month’s worth of black liquor use in just one of its four plants, according to an SEC filing turned up by The Washington Post. In this press release, International Paper trumpets the fact that it received $71 million for just one month’s worth of black liquor use in 2008.

By shutting down the black liquor spigot, this language offsets billions of the cost of health care reform—about $25 billion worth over 10 years, it seems.

The House has been pursuing this line of revenue generation for some time, according this firedoglake article that several folks pointed us to: Earlier stand-alone legislation aiming to rule out the credit for black liquor was folded into the manager’s amendment of the original House health care reform bill.

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Capitol Idea: For Democrats It Will Be Either Kill, or be Killed

By Scott Nance

Having finally passed health care reform, the worst mistake Democrats now could make is to try to simply pivot to “all jobs, all the time” in a feeble hope that the health care legislation will be so far back in the nation’s rearview mirror by the election this fall as to change the subject.

The Republicans aren’t going to let that happen, and that will become the surest route to John Boehner being handed the speaker’s gavel next year.

It will be nearly as bad for Democrats to rely solely on President Obama running around the country in a “Gee, whiz, ain’t health care reform grand?” cheerleading road show to try to dissipate all of that tea party anger out there.

Make no mistake: health care reform is grand, and it will offer important, life-changing help and hope to millions of Americans who had none before the House passed its bill on Sunday. And the president and the Democrats in Congress who helped him get this reform enacted into law are right to take their good news to the country.

But simply as a crass political matter, all the positive sincerity the Democrats can muster between now and November alone won’t save them when it comes to the 2010 midterms.

Health care reform will be a weapon in this year’s election. The Republicans, unshackled as they are now from even the pretense of trying to legislate, will guarantee that. They've already shown they are willing to mislead and misrepresent legislation that incorporated, as Nancy Pelosi said, more than 100 Republican amendments. The only question is: Which side of the club will Democrats find themselves on?

Salivating at the chance to rerun 1994, Republicans want to hold that bludgeon in a tight death grip to pummel Pelosi, Harry Reid and every other Democrat in Congress fiercely about the head every day between now and Election Day.

(Incidentally, I now can see another reason why Democrats should have passed this bill sooner, so that Boehner would have been eligible for an Oscar for his performance prior to the vote. He deserves one just for opening with the line that he came to the House floor with a “sad and heavy heart,” when in truth, he could barely contain the glee he felt at potentially becoming speaker next year.)

It doesn’t take much for anyone who’s been around Washington long enough to already imagine the attack ads the Republicans and their allies could gin up against the Democrats, complete with negative, grainy images and a narrator describing reform in ominous tones.

Add to that the enormous $50-million effort that the slavishly pro-business, anti-regulation U.S. Chamber of Commerce has promised to throw against Democrats –- not to mention any heightened impact from the Supreme Court’s recent Citizens United decision that unleashes virtually any corporate election spending –- and you begin to see just how vicious and relentless the attacks on Democrats quickly could become.

That’s why Democrats need to turn health care around on the GOP. It needs to be Democrats who hammer Republicans endlessly on the issue, not the other way around.

Democrats, and the major allies who supported reform — the big labor unions, and AARP, in particular — need to pony up to begin putting attack ads on the air that go after the GOP in no uncertain terms. AARP, in particular, should be active in this fight.

The retiree lobby has long promised to support those lawmakers in favor of reform, and call to account those who did not. Given that AARP is influential and well-funded, that accountability for reform opponents ought to be more consequential than merely a black mark on a website or a complaint on a junk-mail postcard that no one realistically would pay attention to.

The ads Democrats and its allies produce ought to start by highlighting those aspects of reform that go into effect most quickly. But instead of explaining these benefits in positive terms, these ads should focus on real people and real situations.

These TV spots should describe in fairly negative terms the cruelty of Republicans for trying to harm their fellow Americans by attempting to deny this help, as well as portray them as recklessly and irresponsibly damaging the U.S. economy by their opposition to reform. These ads would not exercises in cool intellectualism; rather, they'd be direct appeals to the viewers' raw emotional responses, designed to create and cement negative impressions of Republicans within the viewers.

The ad campaign I describe here would start ugly, and get only uglier as the year wears on.

Let me be clear: Suggesting such a course of attack fills me with no joy, and indeed, runs counter to my nature of consensus-building and comity.

But I do well remember the run-up to the 1994 election, in which Republicans and their allies ran endless ads that unfairly painted even sincerely bipartisan and middle-of-the-road Democrats as “ultra liberal” and “embarrassingly liberal.”

So I have a sense of what’s coming, and as this fall wears on, I expect worse. This time, Democrats ought to fight the battle from a position of strength, not weakness. As one former president might say, “Bring it on.”

The publisher of On The Hill, Scott Nance has covered government and Washington for more than a decade. Capitol Idea is his regular column from Washington.

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A Nice Reform 'Two-Fer' For Young Americans, If A Few Senate Dems Don't Stand In The Way

Young Americans -- the so-called "Millennial Generation" -- should, in particular, have something to celebrate if the Senate approves the reconciliation bill now up for debate.

That's because the legislation pairs "corrections" to healthcare reform with sweeping changes to student-aid that are also on President Obama's agenda. The whole thing, though, could be in trouble not because of Republicans, but because of a small group of Democratic senators who oppose the aid reform provisions.

"Young people are one of the most uninsured groups in America and this bill, if passed, would extend insurance to 10 million members of the millennial generation that are currently uninsured. And, of course, the younger people are also struggling with the costs of college, struggling with student debt and we have to do something to solve that problem," says Pedro de la Torre with the Center for American Progress, a progressive Washington think tank.

The healthcare legislation Obama signed into law Tuesday, in reality, is not intended to be the entirety of reform. The version of reform Obama signed during a celebratory signing ceremony at the White House actually is the more-conservative version of reform approved by the Senate. House Democrats agreed to approve that bill only on the condition that the Senate OK a series of changes that bring reform more into line with their version.

The House also approved a bill with those changes during its historic vote Sunday, alongside the legislation Democrats passed and sent to Obama, and it was onto that legislation that the the Student Aid and Financial Responsibility Act (SAFRA) was tacked. The legislation has now moved to the Senate, which also must approve this package separately.

This bill is being considered under Senate rules known as "reconciliation," because those rules protect it from being blocked by a Republican filibuster. Such an unconventional approach was prompted by the surprise Jan. 19 victory of Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts. Brown took the seat once held by the late Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy, and gave the GOP the vote it needed to sustain filibusters. A reconciliation bill needs just a simply majority -- 51 votes -- to pass.

" ... Because of some of the rules about reconciliation ... you actually have to include the student aid bill with the health bill," de la Torre says in a new web video that attempts to explain the unique legislative scenario.

The student-aid reform measures would effectively end the federal Family Education Loan Program, in which private banks and other student loan companies are subsidized by the federal government and are able to get loan guarantees against defaults from the federal government to provide loans to students in favor of a direct-loan program in which the government gives college loans directly to students.

"The student aid system right now first of all doesn't provide enough help for students," de la Torre says. "The maximum Pell grant has dropped from covering about three-fourths of an average college education to covering only about one-third since the grant was created. College costs are rising and student aid has not kept up. But really the most pressing reason why we really need to pass Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility act is because if it does not pass, any existing shortfall in the Pell grant program that was created when students flooded into colleges during the recession and a lot more people had financial need during the recession, this shortfall if not filled in one way or another will cause half a million students to lose their grants completely and cause everyone else in the program--about 8 million students--to get their grants cut by 60 percent.

"This is really unacceptable. We cannot let that happen," he adds. "And if Congress does not pass the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, they'll either be forced to find this money in couch cushions or cut some other programs to the bone, or they'll have to use deficit spending to make it up. So this is clearly the fiscal responsible way to go."

The student-aid reform also will save taxpayers at least $67 billion, de la Torre says, "and that's actually kind of low because schools have already been moving to this ... direct loan program."

Although the reconciliation bill is protected from a filibuster, Republicans are looking at other ways to potentially derail it.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says he has a "commitment of a significant majority of the U.S. Senate" to approve the reconciliation bill.


The Gang of Six


But six of his members earlier this month sent Reid a letter expressing "concern" over the student-aid reform, seeking alternatives.

One of those, the conservative Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, already has gone further, saying he will oppose the reconciliation bill over the student-aid reform. Nelson says student-aid reform has "never been debated in the Senate and would result in a government takeover of student lending."

Nelson also complains that the reconciliation bill calls for taking $9 billion from the student loan programs to pay for health care.

"That, then, reduces money available to students for college loans by $9 billion," he says.

With Republicans united in opposition and six Democratic senators expressing doubts, the financial lobby could have a big impact on the upcoming Senate vote, according to Campaign for America's Future, a Washington progressive advocacy organization.

“Just as health care reform mobilized fierce industry resistance, student loan reform has triggered a massive lobby campaign by the banking lobby,” says Robert Borosage, co-director of the organization. “Now, ironically, the lobby is claiming that Democrats are taking money from students to help pay for health care, when in fact the bill takes money from unjustifiable banking subsidies and helps families pay for college education. Senators should understand that their votes on this matter will be watched just as closely as their votes on health care.”

Campaign for America's Future released a new report that says former staffers to the six senators who signed the letter to Reid are currently lobbying for the student loan industry: Kelly Bingel (former chief of staff to Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas); Bill Leighty (former chief of staff to Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia); Amy Tejral (former legislative director for Nelson); Oscar Ramirez (gubernatorial campaign staffer for Warner); Timothy Casey (legislative aide to Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware); and Paul Brathwaite (Carper staffer).

With billions in profits on the line, banks have waged an intensive, multimillion-dollar political and lobbying campaign to maintain the status quo: subsidies for the banks,

Leading student lender Sallie Mae reported profits of $324 million last year on the strength of its student loan business, which is heavily subsidized through the federal government, Campaign for America's Future says. Sallie Mae originated $21 billion worth of loans backed by the program in 2009; other major lenders profiting from the program include Citigroup, Nelnet, JP Morgan, and Wells Fargo.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the $68 billion the government would save with reform would be money that would otherwise subsidize bank profits, Campaign for America's Future says. CBO also estimates that students would pay significantly lower interest rates on their loans with reform, the advocacy group adds.

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