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Table of Contents
DOWNSIDE OF THE SUPERCOMMITTEE
RUBIO TALKS TO THE ESTABLISHMENT
NO SUMMER TOWN HALLS--JOB FAIRS INSTEAD
Congressional 
Climate Bill Tracking 
Keyhole Image H.R.658 - FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2011
Keyhole Image H.R.164 - Damaged Vehicle Information Act
Keyhole Image H.R.514 - FISA Sunsets Extension Act of 2011
Keyhole Image H.R.1 - Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2011
Keyhole ImageH.R.4 - Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act of 2011
Keyhole Image H.R.96 - Internet Freedom Act
Keyhole Image H.R.605 - Patients' Freedom to Choose Act
Keyhole Image S.244 - State Health Care Choice Act

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Greetings!  
Please enjoy today's issue of the Congressional Climate newsletter, brought to you by Lobbyit.com!
Today's Hill Action: 

 

THE SENATE:

 

No meeting scheduled for today.

SENATE COMMITTEES:

 

No meetings scheduled for today.

 

THE HOUSE: 

 

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HOUSE COMMITTEES:

 

No meetings scheduled for today. 

The perils of the supercommittee

 

8-24upton

At a public event here at the Cass County Council on Aging, Rep. Fred Upton recalled the exact moment when Speaker John Boehner asked him to sit on the deficit-slashing supercommittee.

It's not a particularly fond memory.

 

"I pulled into a Wal-Mart parking lot and chatted with [Boehner] probably for about 20 minutes or so," Upton told the crowd. "At the end of the conversation, he said 'Well, between you and the fence post, you're on my list of three for this new joint committee on the deficit.' And I sort of swallowed and said, 'I don't know that I volunteered for this, but OK.'"

 

When the speaker later offered his congratulations, Upton recalled saying: "Congratulate [me] or offer your condolences, I'm not sure which."

 

On Tuesday Upton saw his fears weren't unfounded, when he faced a crowd of about 50 voters eager to ask him questions about the new committee.

 

The event is an early glimpse of what the 12 supercommittee members could face after they try to slice $1.2 trillion in spending this fall: they'll head home to sell their decisions to voters, many of whom are wary of losing Medicare and Social Security benefits, afraid of seeing their taxes increase - or will be peeved that Congress could not shift the fiscal trajectory of the country.

 

In Upton's case, his approach is to head off the criticism early, warning voters they won't all be happy - and he didn't even want the job in the first place.

 

"Yup, we're probably going to make some unpopular decisions," the mild-mannered Midwesterner said. His tenor, although upbeat at times, foreshadows the tough road ahead for the supercommittee, as it works under the weight of a Thanksgiving deadline.

 

It's an age-old story.

 

"Even though voters are increasingly concerned about debts and deficits, when you start cutting specific things, it gets controversial," said Ron Faucheux, president of Clarus Research Group, a nonpartisan polling firm. "The politics of it aren't easy and it requires real courage and leadership to deal with it."

 

When asked why Social Security and Medicare seem to be facing steeper cuts than other spending, Upton shot back that "all spending, defense as well as non-defense, virtually every aspect of the federal pie" will be looked at by the deficit commission.

 

"My sense is, as our group gets together, we will be looking at all spending in all the different categories and see what we can do to reduce the size of the deficit," he said.

 

He got a few questions on Social Security and said any changes to the program would be part of a bipartisan agreement.  

 

"Again those discussions haven't started yet, but it could well be part of the debate," Upton said.

In an interview with POLITICO, Upton said there has been a clear upside to his travels through his swing district this month: constituents say they are rooting for the committee to succeed - a point that was reflected in many of the constituent questions Upton answered from index cards in the front of a room that doubled as a cafeteria.  

 

"If you watch me, I'm not a partisan rancorous, you know, guy that gets in peoples' faces," Upton told POLITICO. "You gotta solve this mess, and we gotta solve it together."

 

He largely refused to entertain questions about specific areas the committee might hit to find more than $1 trillion in savings, but Upton gave a broad preview of how the panel will work. He said he assumes it will hold "a number of public hearings," and also said he has spoken to most of the members on the committee since being appointed to serve on the panel. A recent talk he had with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) showed that the two agreed that constituents are "pulling for us to get the job done," he said.  

 

Upton also said he has told colleagues that he would like to see the committee set up a website where Americans could alert the panel of their ideas in cutting the nation's debt.  

 

"We want to get the best ideas of every American across the country," Upton told the crowd.  

 

He heard some ideas here as well from people who gathered on a pleasant summer day. Upton, wearing a button down shirt and khakis, went through a stack of hand-written questions. Taxes topped the list. He was vague about the issue, saying he didn't want to raise taxes on businesses who are trying to hire, but repeatedly said he wouldn't prejudge the work of the committee.

 

Upton did say that the panel will "be looking at all the different loopholes and different subsidies that are there and try to make some decisions as we proceed." When asked if he would pay more taxes to help aid in the recovery, he said "We'll see where the panel comes" and also said "we'll see, again, that's going to be part of the debate."

He did hint that tax reform could be part of the equation.  

 

"I'm not going to get into...dotting the I's and crossing the T's of what the tax code may or may not be," Upton said. "We have two members of the tax-writing committee on this panel of 12, the chairman of the Ways of Means committee in the House is Dave Camp from Michigan. The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee is Max Baucus from the state of Montana. They were selected by their respected leaderships, so many might suggest that their inclusion - they'll have ideas as it relates to taxes. I don't have an answer, again, we're being...we're not negotiating this way in advance." 

After a number of questions on the tax code, Upton sensed a pattern. 

"A lot of questions here on taxes, I know," he said. "It's difficult to answer these not knowing where the committee is going to be." 

He later said in an interview that "raising taxes is not something I've ever been a part of." 

Many members of Congress have shied away from open town halls this year, though most of the supercommittee members say they have planned events for the August recess. 

Unlike other events Upton and others held, there were few shouting attendees - it was mostly a tranquil affair. One woman asked about universal health care, and whether he thinks health care was a right or privilege. He responded by saying he wants to see the Supreme Court act on the Democratic health care law so Congress could get on with fixing it if it stays in place. 

When it came to the supercommittee, Upton made it clear he's seeking for a wide consensus on the panel, which boasts liberals like Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Rep. Xavier Becerra of California. 

"I'm hopeful that at the end of the process, it's not going to be a 6-6 deadlock - that's not what I want," Upton said." Frankly, I don't want to see 7-5 either, I'd like to see it 10-2, 11-1 or maybe even 12-0 with a very [substantial] vote on both the House and the Senate floor, people doing what you sent us to do - make some real hard decisions."

Marco Rubio courts establishment Republicans  

 

8-24rubio

It might look like tea party hero Marco Rubio waded into enemy territory with stops in San Francisco and Beverly Hills this week. But rubbing shoulders with a different crowd is the point of the freshman senator's three-day swing through the Golden State.

The Florida Republican is out to prove he can appeal beyond the activist base, introducing himself to the state's political and corporate elite, raising cash for his party from some of George W. Bush's top donors, and paying homage to one of Republicans' most venerable icons - Ronald Reagan.

 

It's the second act of a well-orchestrated national rollout that began this spring for Rubio, who insists he has no immediate national ambitions. But if the tea party favorite makes a strong debut and can win over establishment Republicans outside his home state, he could emerge an irresistible choice for the No. 2 spot on the GOP ticket in 2012.

 

"Two words: vice president," Jack Pitney, a Claremont McKenna College political science professor, said of Rubio's visit. "On the one hand, he wants to remain a favorite of the tea party faction. On the other hand, he wants to reassure the party establishment that he isn't the warm-weather version of Sarah Palin."

 

Since his stunning victory last fall, Rubio's stuck close to the script: He says he's focusing on his job as U.S. senator and isn't interested in making a run for the White House.

 

But his Tuesday night address here at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library - his first major speech outside of Washington or his home state - was rife with symbolism. It cast him as a serious policymaker and fueled already rampant speculation that the young, charismatic senator is the hands-down favorite to win the vice presidential nod.

 

"Americans here in the 20th century built the richest, most prosperous nation in the history of the world," Rubio told an enthusiastic crowd of 1,000. "And yet today we have built for ourselves a government that not even the richest and most prosperous nation in the face of the earth can fund or afford to pay for - an extraordinarily tragic accomplishment."

 

GOP presidential front-runners are already courting the 40-year-old Rubio, whom Pitney calls "a computer-generated running mate." He's the son of working-class Cuban immigrants, a father of four, a gifted orator and a tea party star who hails from a key swing state that will play host to the Republican convention next year. 

 

At a recent fundraiser, Mitt Romney said Rubio - along with Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Bob McDonnell of Virginia - would be on any nominee's vice presidential short-list. And Texas Gov. Rick Perry placed a phone call to Rubio shortly before announcing his White House bid, the senator said.

 

"He is one of the fastest rising stars in the entire Republican firmament right now," said Washington pollster Whit Ayers, chairman of the American Association of Political Consultants who counts Rubio, Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman among his clients.

"Watching Marco Rubio in politics reminds me of watching Michael Jordan play basketball at North Carolina," added Ayers, a UNC alum. "They are just playing at a different level than most other people in the game."

 

The Reagan speech marks the midpoint in a fundraising tour that reveals Rubio, for all his tea-party talk, is a team player. He's headlining five big-money events in roughly a 60-hour span, benefiting both his own Senate campaign and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the GOP fundraising arm that initially backed Rubio's rival, then-Gov. Charlie Crist, in the 2010 primary.

 

On Monday, former U.S. Ambassador to France Howard Leach, one of the 2000 Bush campaign's "Pioneer" donors, and his wife feted Rubio at a $2,500-per-plate lunch at Waterbar, a restaurant with sweeping views of the San Francisco Bay. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who ran for Senate last year, was on hand, and guests paid $5,000 each to co-host and score a photo with Rubio.

Later in Silicon Valley, Rubio mingled with the likes of Reagan's former secretary of state George Schultz and former Ambassador to Portugal Tom Stephenson, another Bush Pioneer and a Sequoia Capital partner, at a $1,000-per-person, Miami Dolphins-themed reception at the Atherton estate of literary agent Jillian Manus and venture capitalist Alan Salzman.

 

Guests were greeted by servers sporting Dolphins jerseys and a banner reading: "Senator Marco Rubio: A Winning Touch Down for our Team!" Attendees paid $2,500 to co-host the event, while 18 VIPs forked over $5,000 to nosh on ceviche, pineapple rice and plantain rum cake at a Cuban-inspired dinner with Rubio and his wife.

 

After his sold-out speech in Simi Valley, Rubio will drop by a trio of fundraisers Wednesday - breakfast in Santa Barbara, lunch in Los Angeles and dinner in Beverly Hills - before hopping on a red-eye flight back to Miami. The Santa Barbara event will be hosted by Oracle Corp. Chairman Jeff Henley and former U.S. Ambassador to Austria Susan McCaw, a top fundraiser for Bush-Cheney '04 and McCain-Palin '08.

 

In part, the fundraisers highlight Rubio's crossover appeal with moderates.

 

Manus, who chaired Maria Shriver's Women's Conference and led women's outreach for former eBay chief Meg Whitman's failed 2010 gubernatorial bid, said she's felt "confused" and "disillusioned" at how the tea party has divided Republicans, particularly on social issues. And yet she was curious about Rubio, to the point she agreed to host a fundraiser so she and other Silicon Valley Republicans could meet and directly hear from the rising GOP star.

 

Rubio was "completely authentic" and "one of the most impressive political leaders I've met in either party over the last 20 years," Manus said Tuesday. "He was a breathe of fresh air for me and one day - hopefully sooner than later - will be for this country."

 

Much of Rubio's political philosophy is rooted in Reaganism: limited government principles, foreign interventionism and a robust military.

 

"Politically, I was raised by Ronald Reagan," Rubio said. "He was elected when I was in third grade and left office when I was I think a senior in high school. So I basically grew up in the era of Ronald Reagan where [his] presidency didn't just define government. In many respects, it defined America during that era."

 

Rubio said he's rarely traveled outside of Florida this year and that he's simply fundraising at the request of party officials and donors who were helpful to him during his underdog Senate campaign. He also couldn't turn down a personal invitation from Nancy Reagan to speak at the library; she'll host a private dinner for Rubio after his address.

 

Those who know Rubio dismiss any suggestion the speech is part of some broader political calculation for higher office. But they acknowledge that the library - home to a replica of Reagan's Oval Office, his retired Air Force One plane and his final resting place - is an important pilgrimage for Republicans seeking the White House.

The first GOP presidential primary debate of the 2008 cycle was held at the library in Simi Valley, about 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles. And the field of 2012 contenders will gather here on Sept. 7 for a debate, sponsored by POLITICO and NBC News, that celebrates the centennial of Reagan's birth.

 

"The Reagan library has become an incredibly important symbol in Republican politics. It's sort of become an icon of its own," said Rick Wilson, a Tallahassee, Fla.-based GOP strategist who's tracked Rubio's career from the statehouse to the U.S. Senate. "It's become a major symbolic starting point."

Democrats, however, see the speech as more flash than substance.

 

"Senator Rubio appears to be more focused on stroking his own ego over bettering the lives of the people he represents," said Scott Arceneaux, the Florida Democratic Party's executive director. "Instead of fighting for Florida's families, Rubio has been shamelessly promoting himself."

 

For his first 10 weeks in office, Rubio was mostly silent; then in March, he burst on the scene with a flurry of national media interviews and op-eds. Rubio's visit to the Golden State kicks off the second phase of his choreographed unveiling.

He recently launched his Reclaim America political action committee, which will allow him to raise money for other candidates and promote his message around the country. A Senate Intelligence Committee member, he's planning a trip to Guantanamo Bay, a chance to bolster his security and foreign policy chops. And Rubio will speak about America's role in the world at the Jesse Helms Center in Wingate, N.C., a day after the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

 

"Expect many more trips like this one," Pepperdine University Political Science Professor Robert Kaufman said of the California visit.

 

The Reagan and Helms speeches could be a preview of August 2012, when the home-state senator is almost certain to address the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

 

For Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez, the image of Rubio in Tampa evokes another young, handsome, relatively unknown senator who would later go on to win the White House: Not Barack Obama, but John F. Kennedy. Kennedy, she notes, stormed onto the national scene at the 1956 Democratic National Convention, where he narrowly lost out on becoming Adlai Stevenson's running mate.

 

"It brought him out of obscurity to a national level. Four years later, it had paid dividends," said Sanchez, a Rubio backer and author of "Los Republicanos: Why Hispanics and Republicans need each other." "Raising Rubio's profile in 2012 could have much larger implications in 2016 and 2020. That really is what the game is about."

 

While he's flattered by the attention, Rubio insists he just isn't interested in running for vice president.

 

"They have to talk about somebody," Rubio said. "I guess it's my turn but they will move on to other people soon enough."

As for a White House bid in 2016? "Oh gosh, I'm not ruling out, I'm not ruling in. I'm not discussing anything about 2016," he said.

 

"I don't even know if I'm running for reelection for the U.S. Senate yet. That is a decision that we'll make a little further down the road," Rubio added. "I'm not going to talk about vice president. I'm certainly not going to start speculating about 2016 and presidential stuff. That is just distracting. It's just something I'm not really focused on."

8-24jobfair

With unemployment locked in double digits in many congressional districts, the defining political event of the summer for many members of Congress is becoming the jobs fair, sponsored by lawmakers to connect constituents with actual hiring prospects.

 

The concept has taken off with conservative Republicans as well as liberal Democrats serving some of the poorest communities in America.

 

The political advantages are two-fold: The events cast members as doing something about the nation's jobs crisis while at the same time shielding them from public confrontations with angry voters. It means town-hall meetings - once a staple of the congressional summer season - are now in decline thanks to the testy summer of 2009, when health-care protests helped launch the tea party movement and provided endless grist for opposition campaign ads.

 

The new formula is one that leaders on both sides of the aisle are encouraging other colleagues to pursue. But some public-interest groups charge that jobs fairs are no substitute for the face-to-face contact essential in a democracy.

 

"Our concern is that elected officials are only hearing from their respective partisan bases and will not expose themselves to criticism. Politics is about competing ideas, and everyone should have a seat at the table," said William Galston, a cofounder of No Labels, an independent group promoting bipartisanship in Washington, in a statement.

 

About half of Republicans and two-thirds of Democrats said that they had no town-hall meetings scheduled over the August recess, according to a survey released Aug. 21 by No Labels.

In Miami Tuesday, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) wrapped up the fourth of five jobs fairs planned this summer in high-unemployment neighborhoods. Some 120 employers participated, including local government, offering about 3,000 job prospects. Previous jobs fairs were held this month in Atlanta, Detroit, and Cleveland. The CBC hosts a jobs fair in Los Angeles on Aug. 31.

 

"Unemployment in south Florida is no longer a crisis, but an epidemic," said freshman Rep. Frederica Wilson (D) of Florida in a statement before Miami's jobs fair on Tuesday. "It's time to take matters into our own hands and provide real opportunities for people to get back to work."

 

Unemployment in Miami-Dade County is 12.5 percent, but black unemployment is 29 percent in Miami's Liberty City and 26 percent in another Miami neighborhood, Little Haiti - and even higher among black men, says an aide to Congresswoman Wilson.

 

A former state lawmaker, Wilson began developing contacts with local businesses long before coming to Washington. But aides say that she has used contacts with business groups asking for her help in Congress to enlist their participation in jobs fairs.

 

Freshman Rep. Benjamin Quayle (R) of Arizona told staff as he took office that the No. 1 concern had to be job creation and to schedule events that reflected that. On Aug. 10, he sponsored a jobs fair promising some 6,000 openings in northern Phoenix and neighboring Paradise Valley. While Arizona's unemployment rate is 9.3 percent, unemployment in Paradise Valley is well above the national average of 9.2 percent.

 

"It's difficult for people to travel around to find jobs, especially with high gas prices," says Congressman Quayle. "Any small thing we can do to help people to get back to work is something we wanted to pursue."

 

He also held a forum with local business groups to find out what was preventing them from more hiring. Answer: uncertainty about new government regulation.

In Phoenix, as in the CBC jobs fairs, it's not clear how many participants actually found a job. "We did hear from some employers who give out offers, and many said they had follow-up interviews," says Quayle.

 

Freshman Rep. Jim Renacci (R) of Ohio, a former local businessman and car dealer, began meeting regularly with a local business groups to discuss jobs soon after his upset election in November 2010.

 

Unemployment in his old industrial district has been as high as 14 percent in the last 18 months. He spent several months investigating whether there was enough interest in hiring to make a jobs fair useful.

 

"It's difficult around here," says James Slepian, Congressman Renacci's chief of staff. "A lot of people looking for jobs do not know where to start, or may have too narrow a focus. But when you put them in front of 100 employers, it opens up opportunities they may not have thought of."

 

Renacci's jobs fair on June 27 was the first in the state sponsored by a member of Congress, aides say.

Congressional leaders would like to see more.

 

"Jobs are job No. 1 for House Republicans, and members are encouraged to continue hosting these fairs as an effective way to connect job seekers, with job creators, and promote our economic growth policies," says Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R) of Texas, who chairs the House Republican Conference, in an e-mail.

 

"Democrats have been fighting to get Congress to focus on jobs all year," says Ellis Brachman, a spokesman for the House Democratic Caucus, in an e-mail. "House Democrats across the country are having events in their districts of all types - from town halls to job fairs to business visits and many other things."
Until tomorrow,


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