Pawlenty To Address Tea Partiers

Rumored 2012 GOP presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty will address one of the largest Tea Party groups in the country next weekend.

Pawlenty, the former Governor of Minnesota, is considered likely to pursue his party’s nomination when the 2012 campaign officially gets underway. Currently, the potential field of GOP candidates is somewhat cloudy, with no real front-runner having emerged, though there is speculation that 2008 candidate Mitt Romney will again run.

Recently, Pawlenty placed third in a New Hampshire straw poll behind Romney and 2008 Libertarian presidential nominee Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), who will also speak at next week’s gathering. Last week, Paul captured his second straight straw poll victory at the annual CPAC event in Washington.

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Senate Dems Want Oil Subsidies Terminated

As both parties look for ways to respond to voter concern about the nation’s debt, Senate Democrats have zeroed in on doing away with federal subsides for oil companies.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Wednesday that the move would slash $20 billion from the budget, and would encourage more investment in clean energy initiatives.

“At the same time that Republicans are threatening to undermine Social Security, they are defending $20 billion in government giveaways to oil companies that are raking in record profits,” said the spokesman, Jon Summers.

The question now is whether Democrats will be willing to compromise on a proposal from President Obama in his forthcoming budget outline that aims to roll back roughly $4 billion in subsidies and tax breaks for the oil industry. Progressive lawmakers have pointed to figures showing that large oil companies are enjoying record profits as evidence that they don’t need help from the federal government.

Meanwhile, critics of the Democrats’ proposal have argued that the oil industry actually subsidizes the federal government through the billions of taxes that businesses pay annually.

Issa And Towns Break The Ice

Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y) will sit together during President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

The pair announced the news in a joint statement.

“We cannot advance the solutions needed to address the challenges facing our nation unless we are first willing to move beyond the partisan entrenchments that too often stand in the way of progress,” Issa and Towns said.

Issa replaced Towns this year as Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in the new Republican-controlled House. Towns, meanwhile, was replaced as the committee’s top Democrat by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who carries more of an attack-dog style than his predecessor.

Cummings and Issa have become engaged in a spat since roughly the start of the new year, which is likely why they will not be seated together during the address.

Gibbs: Actions Of Alleged AZ Gunman "Not American"

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs today rebuked the notion that alleged Arizona gunman Jared Lee Loughner was exercising his constitutional rights when he killed six people and wounded dozens more during an attempt to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) last weekend.

Gibbs’ voice reached a crescendo during his response to a question of whether Loughner had the “freedom” to exhibit violence at the site of Giffords’ townhall event.

“I would disagree vehemently with that,” Gibbs said. “There is nothing in the values of our country, there’s nothing on the many laws on our books that would provide for somebody to impugn and impede on the very freedoms that you began with by exercising the actions that that individual took on that day.”

“That is not American,” he added.

Gibbs also said during his roughly hour-long briefing that President Barack Obama will look for opportunities in the coming weeks to further promote civil discourse, a theme he addressed somewhat during a primetime speech to the nation Wednesday night in Tucson. However, Gibbs cautioned that scaling down the often heated tone of the country’s political environment would require a national effort.

“We are not gonna remove disagreement from our Democracy,” Gibbs said. “And we shouldn’t.”

Oil Spill Commission Suggests Raising Liability Cap

The special panel created by President Obama to investigate the causes of the BP oil spill released a final report on Tuesday that recommends tightening regulation of the oil industry.

Among its suggestions, the panel urged Congress to raise the amount of money oil companies are required to pay when they are found liable for damages caused by spills.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) applauded that suggestion, and announced that he would reintroduce legislation he authored last year that would raise the spill liability cap from its current $75 million to $10 billion.

“We cannot continue to coddle oil companies by protecting them when they destroy livelihoods – that’s not a privilege given to any individual or small business,” Menendez said on Tuesday. “Holding oil companies accountable for the damage they cause not only protects taxpayers and coastal families, but it also gives those corporations incentive to actually focus on the safety of their drilling operations.”

Menendez’s Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act was rejected in the Senate last September.