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Please enjoy today's issue of the Congressional Climate newsletter, brought to you by Keys to the Capitol! |
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Today's Hill Action:
THE SENATE:
The Senate convenes at 9:30 a.m. ET.
SENATE COMMITTEES:
Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs (2:30 p.m.): Business meeting to consider an original bill entitled "Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act of 2009" and revised subcommittee organization for the 111th Congress. SD-538 .
Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs (10:30 a.m.): Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation and Community Development - Hearings to examine modernizing affordable housing for seniors and people with disabilities. SD-538 .
Joint Economic (10 a.m.): Hearings to examine the impact of the Recovery Act on economic growth. RHOB-2237.
Senate Judiciary (10 a.m.): Business meeting to consider S.448, to maintain the free flow of information to the public by providing conditions for the federally compelled disclosure of information by certain persons connected with the news media, H.R.985, to maintain the free flow of information to the public by providing conditions for the federally compelled disclosure of information by certain persons connected with the news media, S.714, to establish the National Criminal Justice Commission, S.1490, to prevent and mitigate identity theft, to ensure privacy, to provide notice of security breaches, and to enhance criminal penalties, law enforcement assistance, and other protections against security breaches, fraudulent access, and misuse of personally identifiable information, S.139, to require Federal agencies, and persons engaged in interstate commerce, in possession of data containing sensitive personally identifiable information, to disclose any breach of such information, S.1624, to amend title 11 of the United States Code, to provide protection for medical debt homeowners, to restore bankruptcy protections for individuals experiencing economic distress as caregivers to ill, injured, or disabled family members, and to exempt from means testing debtors whose financial problems were caused by serious medical problems, S.1472, to establish a section within the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice to enforce human rights laws, to make technical and conforming amendments to criminal and immigration laws pertaining to human rights violations, and the nominations of Barbara Milano Keenan, of Virginia, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit, Carmen Milagros Ortiz, to be United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, and Edward J. Tarver, to be United States Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, both of the Department of Justice, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, of Maryland, to be a Member of the United States Sentencing Commission. SD-226.
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (10 a.m.): Hearings to examine helping workers preserve retirement security through a recession. SD-430 .
Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation (10 a.m.): Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security - Hearings to examine reauthorization of the National Transportation Safety Board. SR-253 .
Senate Budget (10 a.m.): Hearings to examine performance-informed budgeting, focusing on opportunities to reduce cost and improve service. SD-608.
Senate Environment and Public Works (9:30 a.m.): Hearings to examine S.1733, to create clean energy jobs, promote energy independence, reduce global warming pollution, and transition to a clean energy economy. SD-406 .
Senate (Select) Intelligence (2:30 p.m.): To receive a closed briefing on certain intelligence matters from officials of the intelligence community. S-407 .
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (2:30 p.m.): Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security - Hearings to examine Federal cyber defense. SD-342 .
Senate Energy and Natural Resources (2:30 p.m.): Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests - Hearings to examine S.555, to provide for the exchange of certain land located in the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forests in the State of Colorado, S.607, to amend the National Forest Ski Area Permit Act of 1986 to clarify the authority of the Secretary of Agriculture regarding additional recreational uses of National Forest System land that are subject to ski area permits, S.721, to expand the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in the State of Washington, to designate the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River and Pratt River as wild and scenic rivers, S.1122, to authorize the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior to enter into cooperative agreements with State foresters authorizing State foresters to provide certain forest, rangeland, and watershed restoration and protection services, S.1328 and H.R.689, bills to provide for the exchange of administrative jurisdiction over certain Federal land between the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, S.1442, to amend the Public Lands Corps Act of 1993 to expand the authorization of the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Interior to provide service-learning opportunities on public lands, establish a grant program for Indian Youth Service Corps, help restore the Nation's natural, cultural, historic, archaeological, recreational, and scenic resources, train a new generation of public land managers and enthusiasts, and promote the value of public service, and H.R.129, to authorize the conveyance of certain National Forest System lands in the Los Padres National Forest in California. SD-366 .
THE HOUSE:
The House meets at 10:00 a.m. and will proceed to the Conference Report on H.R. 2996, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010 and Continuing Resolution.
HOUSE COMMITTEES:
Joint Economic (10 a.m.): Hearings to examine the impact of the Recovery Act on economic growth. RHOB-2237.
House Armed Services (8 a.m.): Defense Acquisition Reform Panel. On whether the Department of Defense can improve innovation and competition in acquisition by better utilizing small business. Dept. witnesses. 1310 LHOB..
House Education and Labor (10 a.m.): Full Committee. On examining OSHA's review of Nevada's workplace health and safety program. MC's and public witnesses. 2175 RHOB..
House Energy and Commerce (2 p.m.): Energy and the Environment Subc. Markup of H.R. 515 - The Radioactive Import Deterrence Act. 2123 RHOB..
House Foreign Affairs (9:30 a.m.): Africa and Global Health Subc. On the Administration's global strategy for food security. Dept. and public witnesses. 2172 RHOB..
House Homeland Security (10 a.m.): Management, Investigations, and Oversight Subc. On examining the Department of Homeland Security's financial management systems. Dept. witnesses. 311 CHOB..
House Judiciary (2:30 p.m.): Full Committee. On the PATRIOT Act and other related matters. HVC-301 Capitol..
House Science and Technology (10 a.m.): Energy and Environment Subc. On the next generation of fusion energy research. Dept. and public witnesses. 2318 RHOB..
House Transportation and Infrastructure (9:30 a.m.): Highways and Transit Subc. On addressing the problem of distracted driving. 2167 RHOB..
House (Select) Energy Independence and Global Warming (9:30 a.m.): Full Committee. On investigating the fraudulent letters sent to Congress on clean energy and climate legislation. MC's and public witnesses. 1100 LHOB..
House Oversight and Government Reform (10 a.m.): Full Committee. Markup of H.R. 1506 - To provide that claims of the United States to certain documents relating to Franklin Delano Roosevelt shall be treated as waived and relinquished in certain circumstances, and several commemorative resolutions. 2154 RHOB..
House Judiciary (9:30 a.m.): Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Subc. On racial disparities in the criminal justice system and markup of H.R. 1064 - Youth PROMISE Act. MC's and public witnesses. 2141 RHOB..
House Foreign Affairs (2 p.m.): Human Rights Commission. On the rule of law in China. Public witnesses. 210 CHOB..
House Financial Services (9:30 a.m.): Full Committee. On systemic regulation, prudential matters, resolution authority and securitization. Timothy Geithner, Secretary, Department of the Treasury. 2128 RHOB..
House Energy and Commerce (10 a.m.): Full Committee. Markup of H.R. 3126 - The Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act. 2123 RHOB..
House Armed Services (10 a.m.): Oversight and Investigations Subc. On defeating the Improvised Explosive Device and other asymmetric threats. Dept. and public witnesses. HVC-210 Capitol..
House Agriculture (10 a.m.): Conservation, Credit, Energy, and Research Subc. On the future of next generation biofuels. Dept. and public witnesses. 1300 LHOB.. |
House $984 Billion Dollar Health Care Bill:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asserted Thursday morning that the 1,990-page House health care bill would cost $894 billion to add health insurance for 36 million Americans over the next 10 years and will cut the deficit by $30 billion.
"Today, we are about to deliver on the promise of making affordable quality health care available for all Americans, laying the foundation for a brighter future for generations to come," Pelosi said at a morning rally on the West Front of the Capitol to unveil the bill. "We have listened to the American people. We are putting forth a bill that reflects our best values and addresses our greatest challenges."
Pelosi's also said the bill, which will insure 96 percent of Americans, would reduce the deficit in the second decade - something that 36 House Democrats have warned is essential to getting their vote. The measure is funded primarily by a surtax on the rich and about $500 billion in cuts to the growth of Medicare.
Democratic leaders went with a less robust public insurance option than liberal lawmakers preferred, using negotiated rates rather than tying rates to Medicare. That cost them about $85 billion, which they made up by increasing Medicaid eligibility and taking a huge whack out of drug companies to get under the $900 billion figure set by
President Barack Obama.
Democrats also are creating a new national insurance high-risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions that they said would take effect until national insurance exchanges are created in 2013.
The final bill also allows more small businesses to enter the national exchange, with companies with 100 or fewer employees allowed in by 2015, up from companies with 20 or fewer employees in the original bill.
And it eliminates the "donut hole" for Medicare drug insurance by 2019, four years earlier than the original bill, and eliminates the blanket anti-trust exemption for insurance companies. Individuals would also be able to extend COBRA insurance coverage until exchanges are set up in 2013.
States would also be authorized to enter into compacts allowing insurance to be sold across state lines, and children would be able to piggyback onto their parent's insurance plans until they turn 27.
The bill also prohibits federal funding for abortions as well as prohibits illegal immigrants from getting subsidies and requires a verification system for determining legal status.
Republicans were quick to attack the plan, objecting to numerous provisions.
The Democratic plan "includes a job-killing employer mandate, an individual mandate that requires Washington bureaucrats to define what kind of coverage is acceptable, burdensome tax increases, cuts to Medicare Advantage benefits and a huge expansion of Medicaid that will break already strained state budgets," ripped Rep. Tom Price (Ga.), chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee.
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Homebuyer Tax Credit Deal Reached: 
Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) announced an agreement Thursday to extend the popular homebuyer tax credit through April.
Isakson said the extension would likely be included in the unemployment benefits package currently before the Senate. The homebuyer tax credit has been held up for weeks by Senators concerned over how to pay for it.
But at a press conference Thursday, Dodd maintained, "We're going to do this, and my guess is the president will sign it."
Under the Dodd-Isakson agreement, an $8,000 tax credit would be awarded to first-time homebuyers and current owners looking to upgrade after living in their home for five years or more. Isakson said the measure would be deficit-neutral and would expire April 30.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) are trying to reach an agreement on the unemployment bill, which would extend benefits from 14 weeks to as many as 20 weeks for the hardest-hit states. That bill has been tripped up by a host of GOP amendments, prompting Reid to file a procedural motion that passed earlier this week. Both leaders continue to negotiate to reach an agreement on a broader package that could be voted on Thursday or next week.
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Congressional Climate Bill Addressing Potential Security Risks: 
An island in the Indian Ocean, vital to the U.S. military, disappears as the sea level rises. Rivers critical to India and Pakistan shrink, increasing military tensions in South Asia. Drought, famine and disease forces population shifts and political turmoil in the Middle East.
U.S. defense and intelligence agencies, viewing these and other potential impacts of global warming, have concluded if they materialize it would become ever more likely global alliances will shift, the need to respond to massive relief efforts will increase and American forces will become entangled in more regional military conflicts.
It is a bleak picture of national security that backers of a climate bill in Congress hope will draw in reluctant Republicans who have denounced the bill as an energy tax and jobs killer because it would shift the country away from fossil fuels by limiting carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and industrial facilities.
At the current increasing rate of global carbon dioxide pollution, average world temperatures at the end of this century will likely be about 7 degrees higher than at the end of the 20th century, and seas would be expected to rise by as much as 2 feet, according to a consensus of scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The security implications of global warming were center stage Wednesday at a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing, one of a series of sessions in advance of voting on the climate bill, possibly as early as next week.
"Our economic, energy and climate change challenges are all inextricably linked," retired Vice Adm. Dennis McGinn told the committee. "If we don't address these challenges in a bold way and timely way, fragile governments have great potential to become failed states ... a virile breeding ground for extremism."
"The U.S. military will be called to respond to these threats," added McGinn, a member of the CNA Military Advisory Board, an influential think tank on military and security issues.
The security implications of climate change have been an issue of growing concern in the defense and intelligence communities.
Dennis Blair, the Obama administration's national intelligence director, has told Congress that global warming will have broad security implications over the next two decades. Also, the Central Intelligence Agency has created a new group of experts to study the security fallout of increased droughts, population shifts, sea level rise and other likely impacts of severe climate change, and the Pentagon has embarked on a detailed study on the military's vulnerabilities from a warmer world.
"U..S. vulnerabilities to climate change are linked to the fate of other nations," says Kathleen Hicks, a deputy undersecretary for defense. She told the Senate panel that senior defense officials believe climate change will make U.S. security challenges more difficult and complex.
While the debate over climate legislation has been sharply split along partisan lines, the alarm over impacts on national security has come from both Democrats and Republicans in the defense and intelligence communities.
A recent report by the American Security Project, an advisory group of high-powered Republicans and Democrats, called global warming "not simply about saving polar bears or preserving beautiful mountain glaciers ... (but) a threat to our security." The group has on its board Republicans such as former Sen. Warren Rudman as well as Democrats including Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the chief author of the Senate climate bill.
Across the globe there exist conflicts and security challenges including ethnic conflicts and emerging radicalism and often "these are also the parts of the world where we will see the most severe consequences from climate change," Bernard Finel, a co-author of the American Security Project report, said in an interview. " The intelligence community, CIA, (military) commanders, they're all looking at these issues."
Former Republican Sen. John Warner, a longtime chairman of the Armed Services Committee and a close ally of the military, has been touring the country to talk about climate change and national security.
"We are talking about energy insecurity, water and food shortages, and climate-driven social instability," says Warner. "We ignore these threats at the peril of our national security and at great risk to those in uniform."
Among the flash points:
· Himalayan glaciers are likely to recede, producing fresh water shortages in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of China.
· Receding Arctic ice could trigger a territorial conflict involving Russia, the United States, Canada and others.
· Sea level rise in Bangladesh, and drought in other parts of the world could unleash a flood of cross-border "climate refugees" and violence.
· The Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, an atoll only a few feet above sea level, likely would disappear, taking away a critical U.S. military staging area.
Still these concerns are not unanimous.
At Wednesday's hearing, retired Army Major General Robert Scales, who said he had "deep reservations" about the science of climate change, worried that if fossil fuels were curtailed it would reduce the availability of diesel and jet fuel "that might reduce our ability to go to war."
On the prospects of global political and military instability from climate change, Scales said, "such unlikely events would cause enormous suffering and social dislocation. But the history record strongly suggests that such devastating humanitarian disasters rarely if ever result in large-scale wars."
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Until tomorrow,
Keys To The Capitol |
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