Oil CEOs Face Congress

By Robert Hune-Kalter-Talk Radio News Service

The CEOs of ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell Oil Company, and BP America, Inc., the five largest oil companies in the United States, appeared on Capitol Hill Tuesday before members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee fired up by the Gulf Coast oil spill.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Ma.), the chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee, said he expected the members of the respective oil companies to tell the committee that they believed the incident that occurred with the Deepwater Horizon was an isolated incident.

“It is this kind of blind faith, which is ironically the name of an actual rig in the Gulf, that has lead to this kind of disaster,” Markey said.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) questioned ExxonMobil’s accident response plan because forty pages are dedicated to dealing with media coverage, while only nine represent oil removal. He complimented Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil for being well rehearsed.

“I was struck Mr. Tillerson, you indicated in your testimony, based on the industries extensive experience, you state that what we do know is that when you properly design wells for the range of risk anticipated, follow the established procedures, build in layers of redundancy, properly inspect and maintain equipment, train operators, conduct tests and drills, and focus on safe operations and risk management, tragic incidents like the one we’re witnessing in the Gulf today, should not occur, and I mention that because in today’s [Washington] Post, those exact same words are there, but it’s attributed to Kenneth P. Coen, ExxonMobil’s V.P. of Public and Government Affairs,” said Stupak.

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) called for Lamar McKay to resign as CEO of BP America based on what he deemed the poor performance of the company in response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao (R-La.) had harsher words for McKay.

“Mr. Stearns asked Mr. McKay to resign. Well, in the Asian culture we do things differently. During the samurai days we’d just give you a knife and ask you to commit harakiri,” said Cao.

The four companies joining BP at the hearing were in agreement that they could not do any better containing the oil spill than BP. They stressed that an incident like the Deepwater Horizon accident can be prevented if certain measures are followed.

“The information we’ve been able to gather suggests that practices we would not put in place were employed here; For example, the casing design and the mechanical barriers put in place, appear to be different than what we would use,” said John Watson, CEO of Chevron.

McKay said that when the two relief wells are completed in mid-August, the flow of oil should be ceased.

House Energy And Commerce Committee Split Over Who Should Regulate Unsafe Driving

By Julianne LaJeunesse- University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

House Energy and Commerce Committee members met with Department of Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, and transportation experts Wednesday, to discuss who- the federal government or states- would be responsible for ensuring drivers avoid text messaging, using cellular phones, and working GPS systems while on the road.

The committee members agreed that distracted driving is dangerous and should be regulated, and some committee members, such as Virgin Island’s Representative Donna Christensen (D-V.I.), even admitted to texting or using their cell phones while driving. However, when it came to the question of who should regulate the rules of the road, the committee split.

Rep. John Shimkus (R- Ill.) put it bluntly: “Distracted driving is bad,” he said. However, he added, “I have never been for the federal government extorting highway funds to obtain some means to an end that should be decided through the state.”

Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) also expressed questions about potentially changing laws, saying he urged his colleagues to create thoughtful, flexible, and “sound” policy.

“Although we share a justified measure of concern about the relationship between use of certain technological devices and driver safety, we have to guard against enthusiastically overly prescriptive statutes... that in the long term may stifle innovation and ultimately show them to be of marginal benefit to the cause of improving driver safety,” he said.

Other representatives, such as Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), said federally mandating laws that would reduce distracted driving may seem “weary,” but said Congress could consider federally mandating public education on distracted driving.

As of last month, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association, six states including California, New York, and Oregon, had banned nearly all cell phone use while driving, and 18 states had banned text messaging while driving.

House Panel Approves Bill Creating Consumer Protection Commission

By Travis Martinez - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce voted 33-19 on Thursday to pass H.R. 3126, otherwise known as the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009. The legislation would oversee mortgages and other financial products and would strengthen the Federal Trade Commission's role in the financial industry.

Lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted to make two major changes to the bill. The first amendment, offered by Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), would first rename the agency, as written in the mark, as a new government commission. The amendment also provided a restructured panel of five members to the commission, with a limit of three commissioners from any particular political party. This would give the commission the same structure as the Federal Trade Commission, or Federal Communications Commission.

Several businesses, either in full or in part, would be exempt from the legislation. This list includes auto dealers, credit, mortgage and title insurers, banks with less than $10 billion in assets, and credit unions with less than $1.5 billion in assets.

Waxman acknowledged the long list of exemptions as a possible problem, but said that he would wait to address any issues he had.

"I am concerned that too many exemptions and exclusions were put into the bill... I will want to examine them closely as we move toward consideration on the floor," said Waxman.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) offered numerous amendments that were subsequently shot down after discussion with the panel. However, in a show of bipartisanship, Waxman offered to work with Barton on re-wording the offered amendments so that they could be possibly brought to the floor at a later date for full consideration.

Waxman recognized the original bill's sponsor, House Financial Services Committee Chair Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) for his committee’s work on promoting the expanded authority of the FTC over the financial sector.

“I am pleased that he made many essential changes, particularly in regard to the impact of the FTC, which will preserve the FTC’s authority to provide and aggressively enforce against financial fraud,” said Waxman.

Energy and Commerce Committee Finalizes Health Care Reform Mark-up

By Joseph Russell- Talk Radio News Service

The House Energy and Commerce Committee finalized a key mark-up on health care reform just hours before the House's summer recess began. However, despite hours of deliberation on the legislation that commenced Thursday evening, continued well past midnight Friday, and resumed during the day on Friday, the committee made no significant changes.

This upset GOP committee members, whose proposed amendments that were aimed at stripping the President's much-desired public option from the plan, were rejected.

Other Republican amendments, including provisions that would encourage citizens to live healthy lifestyles and would provide Americans access to the same insurance plans that members of Congress enjoy, were also thrown out.

Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) said there is no reason for Congress not to offer ordinary citizens the same health insurance it has access to. "We've got competition, we've got affordability, we've got choice," Terry said. "Those are the things that I want and Republicans want for our constituents."

The complete House health care bill will not be voted on until members return from summer break in September.

The fate of the bill, which proposes establishing a government-run health care system as a means of competing with the nation's private health care industry, is unknown. However, GOP'ers and Blue Dog Democrats plan on using the next month to guage their constituents' feelings about the plan.

Waxman Committee Working Overtime On Health Reform

By Joseph Russell- Talk Radio News Service

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) told members of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which he heads, to clear their schedules until late into the night on Thursday.

“I expect we’ll be back here tomorrow,” Waxman said. “We’re not going to close out anybody’s opportunity to offer amendments.”

The committee agreed to limit all debate for amendments to 10 minutes each for both sides in order to save time. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that the mark-up will be finished before the House's recess begins on Saturday.

Earlier in the day, a Republican amendment that would have prevented illegal immigrants from receiving Medicare benefits failed by one vote. The amendment would have required Medicare recipients to prove citizenship in order to get benefits.

An amendment that would prevent federal funding of clinical comparative effectiveness research passed overwhelmingly. Such research evaluates medical care based on cost rather than effectiveness. In England and Canada, federal comparative effectiveness research is used to ration care by preventing certain procedures based on factors such as outside patient needs and requirements.

Debate over mark-ups will continue as the committee works late into Thursday night and early Friday morning.