 BALL IS NOW IN WHITE HOUSE COURT
House Republicans on Thursday presented President Obama an offer to lift the debt ceiling for six weeks beyond Oct. 17 to allow for further negotiations on a broader budget deal but Obama wouldn't commit, The Hill reported. "The president didn't say yes, he didn't say no," said Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the House Budget Committee chairman.
"We had a useful meeting. We agreed to continue discussions," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said Thursday. "We will continue tonight and hopefully we will have a clearer path forward."
The House previously voted to restore pay to military death benefits and back pay to furloughed workers. The House also has voted 230-189 along party lines to approve a short-term spending plan that would continue funding government operations through mid-December. (The IRS has collected billion in taxes during the shutdown that began Oct. 1 when Democrats wouldn't accede to House proposals to continue to fund the government.)
Boehner said it's up to the president to end the shutdown. "That's the conversation we're going to have with the president today," he said prior to the White House meeting. The proposed debt limit bill would restrict the Treasury Department from using "extraordinary measures" to increase borrowing after Nov. 22, The Hill reported.
The debt limit, equivalent to the maxed-out limit on a credit card, was $5 billion in 1992, just over $11 billion in 2008, and $17 billion this year. According to The Hill, Republicans want a longer-term budget plan from Obama that would allow government money spigots to begin dispensing. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said a procedural vote is scheduled Saturday on legislation to raise the debt ceiling by $1 trillion through the end of 2014.
The White House backs the longer extension but Reid might not be able to muster the 60 votes necessary to pass it, The Hill reported. A White House official said that the administration was "willing to look at any proposal Congress puts forward" but reiterated that Obama would "not pay a ransom" and prefers a longer debt-ceiling extension.
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WSJ URGES CONGRESSIONAL CORRECTIVE ACTION ON 'SUE AND SETTLE' ENVIRONMENTAL TACTICS
The Wall Street Journal is urging Congress to take corrective action on legal settlements made between the Environmental Protection Agency and environmental activists. The Journal in its weekend edition said that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and an environmental advocacy group recently agreed to settle a lawsuit over fast-tracking nine species of aquatic life onto the endangered species list.
"Many westerners suspect that this environmental action isn't only or even mostly about saving species and obscure subspecies," WSJ editorial board member Stephen Moore wrote. "Instead, it is about restricting land use on hundreds of thousands of acres of private and state land." The Journal said the Center for Biological Diversity "boasts" on its website that it wants to end most oil and gas production in the United States. "Since taking office, the Obama administration and its green allies inside and outside federal agencies have been making use of the expanded tactic called 'sue and settle' lawsuits to issue 'new and expansive regulations'," Moore wrote. He cites a U.S. Chamber of Commerce study that found that in the last four years the EPA agreed to settle more than 60 lawsuits with environmental activists to pass regulations that "in some cases impose tens of billions of dollars of costs on industry and land owners. And the groups get legal fees from taxpayers. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's report, "Sue and Settle: Regulating behind Closed Doors," cites more than 100 new regulations costing more than $100 million. "The result is a giant tax on the economy brought to you by the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund with little or no input or oversight from Congress," the Journal said. The Business Council of Alabama is Alabama's exclusive affiliate to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers.
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BUSINESS GROUPS PRESS OBAMA ON KEYSTONE
Important business groups hope to win the Keystone XL pipeline battle by warning President Obama that blocking the project would shake investor confidence in the slow U.S. economic recovery.
"We are at an inflection point in our economic recovery. Whether economic growth will remain modest or pick up speed will depend on maintaining investor confidence and strengthening America's competitiveness," states a letter to Obama released Thursday by the Business Roundtable, the Chamber of Commerce's energy institute and the National Association of Manufacturers.
"Investor confidence is shaped heavily by perceptions of business climate - whether governments take actions that enable capital investment and job growth," adds the letter that's also signed by CEOs of many individual companies, such as AT&T, Boeing and GE. Obama said in June that he would not approve Keystone unless he's sure it would not "significantly" worsen carbon pollution on a "net" basis, The Hill reported. Obama is considering whether to grant a cross-border permit for TransCanada Corp.'s pipeline to bring heavy Canadian crude oil to Gulf Coast refineries, The Hill reported. Obama said in June that he would not approve Keystone unless he's sure it would not "significantly" worsen carbon pollution on a "net" basis.
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Boehner slams Obamacare after other GOP leaders sidestep it
The Hill (Kasperowicz, Swanson 10/09) "Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Wednesday criticized the first week of ObamaCare as a system that threatens to fine people for failing to buy health insurance on websites that don't work. 'How can we tax people for not buying a product from a website that doesn't work?' he asked on the House floor. 'What a train wreck'.
"Boehner's comments come as GOP leaders have shifted from attacks on ObamaCare in the context of the government shutdown and debt-ceiling fight, a move that has irritated some conservatives. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in an op-ed published Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal, for example, called for Washington to agree to a small bargain to reopen the government and lift the debt ceiling.
"Ryan focused on changes to Medicare and tax cuts but didn't mention the healthcare law. Ryan, a conservative and the GOP vice presidential candidate in 2012, retains a great deal of clout with rank-and-file members. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) also didn't mention ObamaCare in an op-ed published Wednesday on The Washington Post's website. The omissions have riled conservatives who pushed Republicans to demand that ObamaCare be defunded, an effort that led to the government shutdown that entered its ninth day Wednesday."
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President Obama losing top adviser on energy and climate change issues
USA TODAY (Jackson 10/10) "Heather Zichal plans to step down in the next few weeks after five years in the administration. A replacement for Zichal, the deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change, has not been named."
(From Reuters): "Zichal, 37, has advised Obama since his 2008 presidential campaign and helped shape the administration's policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions blamed for contributing to global warming. Zichal was the architect of the president's plan, announced in June, to cut carbon emissions from U.S. power plants, reviving his climate agenda after a planned "cap and trade" system was thwarted by Congress during his first term."
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IRS official: No Obamacare problems
The Hill (Baker 10/09) "The IRS's share of ObamaCare implementation is 'going fine', the director of the tax agency's implementation office said Wednesday. Implementing the healthcare law falls mainly to the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) and the IRS. Technical problems have plagued HHS's rollout of new insurance exchanges. But Sarah Hall Ingram, the director of the IRS's Affordable Care Act office, told a House panel Wednesday that the IRS hasn't experienced similar problems.
"The portion of the responsibilities the IRS is in charge of is going fine," Hall Ingram said. Hall Ingram previously led the IRS office that has been accused of improperly scrutinizing the tax-exempt status of Tea Party organizations. Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee assailed Hall Ingram during a hearing Wednesday, seeking to link the targeting scandal to the IRS's role in implementing the Affordable Care Act.
"Hall Ingram said the IRS has created new processes to protect the tax information that would be accessed when consumers apply for insurance through ObamaCare's exchanges. 'It is secured behind the scenes,' she said. 'It is not shown to anyone who is applying or who is assisting them'. Exchanges have successfully pinged the IRS's servers to request income information about applicants, and the IRS has been able to respond, she said."
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