Democrats Eye New Oil Legislation Before August Recess

By Alexa Gitler-Talk Radio News Service

Before Congress leaves for its annual August recess, Democrats are eager to pass a series of measures in both the House and the Senate that would set new minimum safety standards for wells and require offshore drilling rigs to be built in the United States.

The House is set to debate and vote on a 238-page drilling package on Friday. The legislation, which attempts to stitch together several drilling bills advanced by committees in recent weeks, includes a bipartisan measure  that would set minimum standards for the design of wells, cement barriers at the sites and blowout preventers that are designed as a last defense against uncontrolled surges of oil and natural gas. The second measure, a 16-page bill, is aimed at allowing whistleblowers in the industry to voice their opinions without fear of retribution.

The package, which will be amended this week, would also bar companies with bad safety records from drilling on federal land.

Boehner Says The Government Should Share Responsibility For The BP Spill

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) suggested Thursday morning that the federal government should share responsibility for the oil spill off the Gulf Coast.

"I think the people responsible in the oil spill, BP and the federal government, should take full responsibility for [the oil spill]," Boehner said during a press briefing.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) office claimed that Boehner's remarks signaled his support for using public funds BP to help pay for the damage caused by the environmental disaster.

"House Republican Leader John Boehner ... declared that American taxpayers should bailout the Big Oil giant," a press release from the Speaker's office stated. "House Democrats are siding with American taxpayers. BP should be held accountable."

Boehner's staff told several media outlets that the comments were only meant to reflect that the government should be responsible for oversight, and not the costs accrued by the clean up.

During the briefing Boehner also criticized the amount hearings being held on Capitol Hill to investigate the spill.

"Well, this is congress at it's best," Boehner joked, eliciting laughter from the journalists in attendance. "Why the hell don't we get the oil stopped ... figure out what the hell went wrong, and then have the hearing and get the damn law fixed?"

House Democrats Urge Senate Counterparts To Get Into Gear

By Leah Valencia - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

Members of the House Democratic Caucus said Wednesday said that they plan on passing a jobs package today and will put pressure on their Senate colleagues to act with more compulsion.

"The caucus will pass over a jobs bill today, along with a defense bill, to the Senate, and we encourage...in fact, we would like to see the Senate take more action,” said House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson (D-Conn.). “The American people are demanding that the [Senate] take action, and most importantly, that we get America back to work.”

Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) said a recent count done by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) showed that 234 House bills have failed to pass through the Senate. Larson said he would like to see the Senate catch up.
"We'd be happy with just three, health care, energy, education...make that four, a jobs bill," Larson said.

Larson told reporters that he did not blame the Senate Democratic leadership for slow progress.

"Harry Reid will get a direct shot to heaven," he said. “He is laboring mightily with the rules of the Senate. It shouldn't be that any one senator or a collection thereof [can] stop progress on behalf of the American people, whether that's health care or a jobs bill."

Obama Meets With Senate Democrats To Secure Support For Health Care Bill

President Barack Obama met with Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill Sunday afternoon in an attempt to rally support behind health care reform legislation.

The private meeting, held in the U.S. Capitol, lasted approximately forty-five minutes.

According to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Obama did not touch upon the role a public option would play in health care reform during his remarks.

“That doesn’t mean it’s not an issue just because the president didn’t talk about it,” Reid added.

The Majority Leader stated that Obama stressed health care reform as the most important issue that Democrats have been faced with since the formation of Social Security decades prior.

Obama was reportedly accompanied by administration officials including Vice President Joe Biden, who served in the Senate for over thirty years, advisor David Axelrod and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

The president made a similar Capitol Hill excursion early November in the hours leading up to the House vote on the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

Group endeavors hopes to help planet and people

by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

Green for All and the Service Employees International Union converged in Washington, D.C. today, recommending to lawmakers how they should act following draft legislation recently put forward by Senate Democrats to introduce the Climate Equity Alliance, which is an alliance pushing for strong climate legislation that protects and provides opportunity for low- and moderate-income communities.

Jason Walsh, National Policy Director at Green for All said that, based on shared values, more than two dozen organizations from the research, advocacy, faith-based, labor and civil rights communities have formed this alliance.

“The urgent need of transition to a clean energy economy presents us with some critical choices…. We should therefore approach climate policy not only as environmental policy, though it is certainly that, but also as economic policy and as civil-rights policy that can advance principles of fairness and opportunity and equal access,” said Walsh.

The alliance believes that the best way to advance those principles “is to ensure that the strong policies needed to reduce green house gas emissions, also protect low and moderate income households and expand economic opportunity,” Walsh said.

U.S. climate policy needs to include effective mechanisms that reach all low-income households and effectively offset cost increases and to ensure that quality of life for those families is maintained, said Robert Greenstein, Executive Director at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

“This is definitely doable as part of climate legislation,” Greenstein said. “One certainly doesn’t want climate policy to have the unintended side effect of increasing poverty and hardship... Well-designed climate policy can assure that there aren’t such adverse effects by auctioning emissions allowances and devoting an appropriate portion of the proceeds to effectively deliver consumer relief for low and moderate income households”.

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, CEO of Green for All, said “We believe that if climate policy can fight pollution, it can also alleviate poverty at the same time,” adding that she wants to make ensure that the alliance is equitable and takes in account low and moderate-income communities.

“We want to ensure that climate policies provide equal protection and also equal opportunity for all communities,” she said. “Our hope is that working together, if we do this right, we’ll really be able to make sure that both our planet and the people that inhabit it are not really just surviving but in fact thriving in a clean energy economy.”