Congressional
Climate Bill Tracking
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Video Of The Day
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Greetings!
Please enjoy today's issue of the Congressional Climate newsletter, brought to you by Lobbyit.com!
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Today's Hill Action:
THE SENATE:
No meeting scheduled for today.
SENATE COMMITTEES:
Senate Appropriations (4:00 p.m.): Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, & Related Agencies - Hearings to examine proposed budget estimates for fiscal year 2012 for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). SD-192.
No meeting scheduled for today.
HOUSE COMMITTEES: No meetings scheduled for today.
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Shutdown averted, all eyes shift to 2012 budget and debt ceiling
With lawmakers and the administration coming together on Friday to avert a government shutdown, all eyes are turning to the debt ceiling and the 2012 budget as the next major political battles.
It was made clear on Sunday that the two issues will be linked going forward as all parties try to capitalize on momentum from this week's deal to keep the government running over the next six months.
White House senior adviser David Plouffe, who cited the President Obama's leadership efforts in budget negotiations, said the White House this week will unveil a long-term deficit-reduction plan ahead of an upcoming vote on raising the debt ceiling.
"All the leaders have said we have to raise the debt limit, so we're going to," said Plouffe, who managed President Obama's 2008 campaign. "In that process, we should be able to reduce the deficit."
With Congress facing a major vote on raising the debt ceiling, which will be needed by mid-May, Republicans say they have the leverage for enacting major spending cuts.
House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), said he is happy that the White House wants to pair the debt ceiling vote with deficit-reduction efforts. However, he declined to say what cuts Republicans will want.
"I don't want to get into our negotiations," Ryan said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
But Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) strongly hinted that Republicans may tie the debt-ceiling vote to enact major entitlement reforms outlined in the GOP's budget, which is set to come to the House floor this week.
"Just as we saw happen in this week, there are leverage moments," Cantor said on "Fox News Sunday."
Plouffe, who appeared on four Sunday morning shows, urged Republicans to avoid major political fights that can hold up the debt ceiling vote.
"Mitch McConnell, Harry Reid, Eric Cantor, John Boehner - all the leaders have said we have to raise the debt limit," Plouffe said. "But in that process we should be able to reduce the deficit. So we should not be playing brinksmanship with the full faith and credit of the United States of America."
Both House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (Texas) and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said on CNN's "State of the Union" that not raising the debt ceiling is not an option - although they disagree on how future budgets should address closing the budget gap.
"What I do think is, yes, it would be catastrophic to have the nation default upon its debt," Hensarling said.
"If we default on America's debt with this debt ceiling, it will have a dramatic negative impact on America's economy," Durbin said. "It will spin us into a second recession. We don't need that."
At the same time, Plouffe made clear the House GOP budget, unveiled by Ryan on Tuesday, is a nonstarter. Plouffe criticized the budget for cutting taxes on top earners while reducing the government's Medicare and Medicaid contributions.
"The average senior down the road would pay $6,000 more for healthcare," Plouffe said. "It cuts our energy investments at a time we're dealing with high gas prices, by 70 percent. So we're obviously not going to sign on with that approach."
The Ryan budget transforms Medicare into a voucher-like system for those currently 55 and younger while converting Medicaid into block grant payments. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office offered up a problematic review this week, saying the House GOP budget would cost seniors to pay more for healthcare and reduce Medicaid services.
"What we're trying to do here is trying to save Medicare and Medicaid so they're sustainable," Ryan said in defense of his budget Sunday, predicting the House will approve it this week.
Meanwhile, Plouffe said the president's deficit-reduction plan will include reforms to entitlement programs, two months after the White House faced criticism for punting on the issue in its 2012 budget proposal. However, Plouffe also said the healthcare reform law enacted last year already provided a strong baseline for deficit-reduction efforts.
"We've had a lot of savings in healthcare - we have to do more," Plouffe said. "So you're going to have to look at Medicare and Medicaid and see what kind of savings you can get. First squeezing them out of the system before you squeeze seniors."
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Abortion opponents vow to continue the fight
Social conservatives lost Round One against Planned Parenthood, but they got a taste of what's possible and vowed Saturday to return for more.
"We're not finished with this," Penny Nance, CEO of Concerned Women for America, said in an interview. "The fiscal year 2012 budget is just around the corner. We are going to continue to work to defund Planned Parenthood."
That fight could make this one look quaint by comparison. Republicans have staked out the battle over Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's dramatic budget proposal - with $6.2 trillion in cuts and a remaking of Medicaid and Medicare - as a defining ideological moment for the party.
But if House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had hoped to keep his party tightly focused on jobs and the economy, social conservatives - emboldened by their ability to push government shutdown negotiations to the brink - have a different goal in mind.
And Democrats couldn't be happier about it.
Several Democratic insiders said they believed the tide turned in their favor once the debate shifted from a larger fight over government spending to a more narrow focus on eliminating funding for women's health services, including for groups like Planned Parenthood, long a target for conservatives.
If the next round of spending talks is overshadowed by social issues, Democrats believe they have a tested roadmap for gaining the upper hand politically.
"They lose this fight if people think this is about Planned Parenthood. It turns them into the rank social ideologues nobody wants when they're unemployed," an aide to a moderate Democrat senator up for reelection in 2012, said before the deal was struck. "Earlier this week, they had us in a bit of a box, but I think we've ... turned it around" quickly.
The budget deal, in the end, turned out to be a mixed bag for both sides.
Republicans backed down from the Planned Parenthood cuts, a move that Nance said left her "bitterly disappointed." Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, said she, too, was disappointed, but that abortion opponents "will not rest until Planned Parenthood is defunded."
"The most disappointing part of the whole battle is that Speaker Boehner basically gave over to the president's talking points on shutting down the government over Planned Parenthood funding," Dannenfelser said. "It would have been a very easy message to communicate that the president had such a diehard attachment to Planned Parenthood ... that he would be the one making the decision to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood."
Boehner lost bargaining power as far back as February, when he signaled during an interview with CBN's David Brody that he wouldn't use Planned Parenthood to force a shutdown, Dannenfelser said.
"He gave over his leverage a long time ago," she said.
Abortion-rights advocates won on Planned Parenthood, but they lost on another front. Democrats agreed to reinstate a ban on the D.C. government from using local funds on abortion services.
"It's clear that the fight for women's health will continue, and we will continue to work on behalf of the millions of American women who count on this critical care," said Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Nance said the D.C. abortion ban was important, but "low-hanging fruit."
Brendan Buck, a Boehner spokesman, declined to say Saturday whether the speaker would use the upcoming 2012 budget debate - or a must-have vote to raise the debt limit - to renew the fight against Planned Parenthood. Buck would say only that Boehner wants the House to "work its will."
Few questioned Boehner's private commitment to abortion opponents over the past week. But in his public statements, he talked only about the spending issues - a disconnect that highlighted how much the GOP leadership wanted to avoid elevating social issues, much to annoyance of abortion opponents.
At the White House late Thursday, with only 24 hours left until a government shutdown, Boehner kept insisting that any deal include a prohibition against federal funding for Planned Parenthood. But President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) repeatedly refused, saying there was no room for negotiation.
"The president and Sen. Reid were prepared to say, 'we will - this bill will go down if you make this about social policy,' " said a senior Senate Democratic aide close to the negotiations. "That was the line in the sand."
Yet in public, Boehner never made mention of abortion, at least not in the past week.
With Democrats blanketing the TV airwaves early Friday, accusing Republicans of wanting to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood, Boehner's aide released a terse statement trying to set the record straight - and Boehner delivered the same message in person less than two hours later.
"There's only one reason that we do not have an agreement as yet, and that issue is spending," Boehner said. "We are close to a resolution on the policy issues. But I think the American people deserve to know: When will the White House and when will Senate Democrats get serious about cutting spending?"
On Saturday, Buck said the speaker was "focused on getting as many of the cuts and riders as possible, not putting one above any others."
Democrats took Boehner's statements as a sign that Republicans thought they were losing control of the debate.
"If abortion was really working for Republicans, then John Boehner wouldn't be saying right now that this isn't about abortion, it's about spending," said Jim Kessler, vice president of policy for Third Way, a centrist think tank. "If the issue worked well, they would be putting it out front."
Another frustration for abortion opponents was a Friday press conference of House Republican women. It was called in response to House Democratic women blasting the GOP over the Planned Parenthood cuts, but the GOP women refused to talk about the policy riders.
"It does make you wonder why none of these true believers felt inclined to speak on the No. 1 pro-life issue we have been talking about," Dannenfelser said.
But the mere fact that the negotiations went down to the wire over reproductive health underscored the enduring influence of social conservatives. For the second time in a year - first the health care law, now the budget - the fate of a major legislative battle hinged on abortion.
And that's just what the Republican base had wanted.
For months, conservatives urged Republicans to use abortion as a tool to corner Obama. Citing polls that show more 70 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer-funded abortion, activists told lawmakers to make it the centerpiece of efforts to repeal the health care law and, then, to make deep spending cuts.
To them, federal funding for Planned Parenthood was exactly about spending.
Federal law already prohibits taxpayer funding of abortions. But conservatives maintain that the funding for women's health care, a provision known as Title X that supports services such as cancer screenings and mammograms for low-income women, frees resources for Planned Parenthood to provide abortion services.
"Independents know the government is out of money and they don't want taxpayer money to go for abortion," Keith Appell, a conservative political strategist and senior vice president CRC Public Relations, wrote in an email Friday. "That's a 70-30 issue, sorry Harry."
Nance said the group's immediate focus is on a vote this week in the Senate on Planned Parenthood funding, which was granted as part of the budget deal. The bill is unlikely to advance, but the vote will put senators on the record, which abortion opponents say they will use in the 2012 elections.
After that, she said, "we're going to have to sit down and lick our wounds a little" before deciding how to proceed.
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The House of Representatives voted on Friday to reject Internet "neutrality" rules that were adopted last year to keep big Internet service providers from blocking certain traffic.
House Republicans, in a 240-179 vote, pushed through a measure disapproving the Federal Communications Commission's rules. Tech and telecom giants such as Verizon Communications Inc and Microsoft Corp could be affected.
The outlook for further progress by the Republicans in rolling back the FCC's actions was uncertain, however.
While a similar measure has been offered in the Senate and has 39 co-sponsors, the White House said on Monday that President Barack Obama's advisers would recommend that he veto any such resolution.
The FCC's rules, approved in late December, banned Internet service providers from blocking traffic on their networks, while allowing providers -- such as Verizon, Comcast Corp and AT&T Inc -- to "reasonably" manage their networks and charge consumers based on usage.
Republicans argued in House debate that the FCC's rules needlessly impose government regulation on the Internet. "The FCC has never had the authority to regulate the Internet," said Republican Representative Cliff Stearns. House Republican Leader Eric Cantor called the House's vote "an important step to bring down the FCC's harmful and partisan plan to regulate the Internet." Democrats argue that the FCC rules are needed to curb the growing market power of large service providers. Disapproving the FCC rules "would give big phone and cable companies control over what websites Americans can visit, what applications they can run, and what devices they can use," said Democratic Representative Henry Waxman. Democratic Representative Anna Eshoo called the Republican push against the FCC's rules "an ideological assault on a federal agency and its ability to provide basic consumer protections." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Monday dismissed challenges to the FCC rules that had been filed by Verizon and MetroPCS Communications Inc, ruling that the challenges were premature. "In most parts of the country, companies like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast have a virtual monopoly over access to the Internet," Waxman said. "Without regulation, they can choke off innovation by charging for the right to communicate with their customers."
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Until tomorrow,
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