Pelosi Insists She Has Drained The Swamp

Robert Hune-Kalter - Talk Radio News Service

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) previously promised one of the most ethical Houses in years. Today, she commended the House Ethics committee hours before its hearing to possibly lay charges against embattled Congressman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.).

“What we did when we came in was to implement the toughest ethics reform in a generation,” said Pelosi during her weekly briefing with reporters. “Are there going to be individual issues to be dealt with? Yes. I never said that there wouldn’t be, but we would have a process to deal with it.

Reporters asked the Speaker if today’s hearing at all undermined a 2006 statement she made about “draining the swamp,” referring to her pledge to cleanse the lower chamber of unethical conduct.
 
“Drain the swamp we did, because this was a terrible place,” she said. “We have made a tremendous difference and I take great pride in that.”

Senate Republicans Denounce Energy Bill

Robert Hune-Kalter - Talk Radio News Service

Senate Republicans were quick to denounce Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) new energy and oil spill legislation that was announced late Tuesday evening. 

“Democrats are treating the serious subject of clean energy like an unwanted relative,” said Senate Republican Conference Chair Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).

Alexander told reporters that Republicans have been prepared to debate clean energy for a year, insisting many of the party’s policies are similar to those proposed by the White House.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she believes that the energy plan put forth by Republicans is much more responsive than the package released by Reid.

“It has been suggested that our Republican plan is a cobbled together, not thought-out process,” she said.  “We put together a package that responded to the situation in the Gulf. We must increase the strict liability limits, structurally reorganize the MMS, [and] we amend the oil spill liability trust fund.”

Republicans are concerned with one part of the Reid bill that aims to end hydraulic fracturing, the method used by the natural gas industry. Later in the day, Reid told reporters that such criticism is invalid, explaining that the U.S. should explore cleaner methods of extracting natural gas. 

Democrats are launching an aggressive move to pass the legislation before adjourning for the August recess.

Gulf Coast Tourism Industry May Not Be Compensated

Robert Hune-Kalter - Talk Radio News Service

Gulf Coast Claims Facility Kenneth Feinberg told the Energy and Commerce Committee Tuesday that defining eligibility for adequate compensation of the Gulf Coast tourism industry is a complex issue.

“’What constitutes an eligible claim?’ is a major question here,” Feinberg said. “It’s easy to compensate a motel or a restaurant on the beach where there is oil, you don’t need the wisdom of Solomon for that claim [but] proximity is going to be the problem here.”

Feinberg said the biggest hurdle he is facing concerning tourism claims is defining the distance from oil soaked beaches an entity can be without negating the plausibility of its claim. 

Keith Overton, Senior Vice President of Tradewinds Resort, accused the media industry for falsely reporting that Florida’s beaches are ridden with tar, deterring prospective tourists.

“The media must be held accountable to accurate and fair reporting of the facts regarding this oil spill,” said Overton. “Hold them accountable for sensationalism and inaccuracies that are there.”

Feinberg said the claims facility should be operational in the next few weeks.

“I believe that the blue print that I have established for emergency payments to be paid as quickly as possible should be finished and available this week,” he said.



Hoyer Pledges Jobs Creation Will Help Americans 'Make It In America'

Robert Hune-Kalter - Talk Radio News Service

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Friday at the Center for American Progress (CAP) that if jobs are created in America, Americans can make it in America and he believes job creation must be part of the American agenda.

“The private sector has added jobs for, as I said, six straight months,” said Hoyer. “By comparison, it took more than two years after the end of the last recession for our economy to return to six consecutive months of job growth in the private sector.”

He was critical of Republicans, accusing them of attempting to “demonize” legislation that has clearly helped the private sector and job growth.

“The House Minority Whip himself, hosted three job fairs ironically featuring employers who have benefited from such federal funds, a policy he voted against,” Hoyer said. “In fact, while all House Republican’s voted against these investments, more than half of the Republicans in Congress have taken credit for them in their districts.”

Hoyer says Republicans want to return to the same failed policies that put America in the current economic recession.

“The chairman of the Republican congressional campaign committee, whose job it is to recruit members to come to Congress to make policy said, and I quote, ‘We need to go back to the exact same agenda’,” said Hoyer.

Things Get "Massey" At National Press Club Luncheon

Robert Hune-Kalter - Talk Radio News Service

Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy Company spoke at the National Press Club Thursday but tensions ran high as three protesters were escorted out after moving to the front of the room and obstructing the podium with signs reading, “Massey Energy - Not Clean, Safe, Or Forever.”

Blankenship has made frequent appearances on national headlines after an April explosion at a Massey mine in Montcoal, West Virginia that killed 29 workers.

“I’m a realist. The politicians will tell you we’re going to do something so this never happens again,” said Blankenship. “You won’t hear me say that because I believe the physics of natural law and God trump whatever man tries to do.”

Blankenship said that the NFDL incident rate, a metric of lost-time accidents for mining, does not reach the top 12 most dangerous jobs.

“It’s more dangerous to drive a cab in New York or work at a 7-Eleven,” said Blankenship.

When asked about the Miner Safety and Health Act that passed in the House on July 21, Blankenship was quick in calling it a “knee-jerk” reaction by the government.

“We believe that the ventilation systems being dictated on us by the government are less safe,” said Blankenship. “We believe the air that has been used in the mining process needs to be taken outside the mine as quick as possible, but MSHA often disagrees with that.”

Blankenship wants to see independent pragmatic and scientific laws of safety put into place, rather than make laws that appear to do that in the publics eye.