People For the American Way – Super-Pac Tuesday

Ten states are holding primaries and caucuses today, earning March 6th the title of “Super Tuesday.” Participants will show up, cast their vote, and hopefully feel good for participating in the democratic process and fulfilling their civic duty.

photo by hjl via flickr

But thanks to Citizens United, and the Super PACs that flawed decision gave rise to, the voters are not the stars of this show. An outpouring of cash from a few extremely wealthy donors has dramatically altered the campaign landscape, altering the balance of influence from individual donors and grassroots donors to rich special interests and corporations.

Read the full story here.

NRDC – Nuclear Safety Deferred: U.S. Reactors One Year after Fukushima

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station near San Clemente, CA photo by TravOC via flickr

In the days that followed the 2011 Great Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami, news outlets around the globe followed the unfolding catastrophe at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant with what seemed like minute-by-minute coverage. The world witnessed the Japanese rescue workers struggling to keep the plant’s nuclear cores from overheating and melting. We saw graphic images of hydrogen explosions destroy multiple reactor buildings, televised in real-time. Reports came in of large evacuations that seemed to become more urgent and wide-reaching with each passing day. And it didn’t take too long before other countries and their citizens began to question the safety of their own nuclear reactors. Being a nuclear engineering graduate student at the time, I received my fair share of phone calls from family members and friends, all of them wanting to know: What is really going on and could this happen here?

Closing in on the one-year anniversary of the largest nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, those of us in the United States are still left wondering: Has anything changed? What have we learned from the Japanese accident, and is the U.S. nuclear industry safer than it was a year ago? Should Americans be confident in our nuclear regulators?

In the months that followed the Fukushima disaster, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the nuclear industry assured us that the accidents in Japan and the ever-compounding complications seen there were extremely unlikely to occur in the United States. Nonetheless, the NRC tasked a team of its own experts to conduct a study and to report back with an assessment of the “domestic nuclear fleet,” highlighting any changes in reactor safety-related systems, emergency equipment, and procedures that would be prudent to implement in light of the events and lessons learned at Fukushima. On July 12, 2011, the agency’s Near-Term Task Force released its findings and the Chairman of the NRC was hopeful that a decision could be made on implementing the report’s recommendations within 90 days. As news came that there might be an effort to stall this safety overhaul, NRDC’s Nuclear Program submitted more than a dozen rulemaking and order petitions related to the report’s recommendations to spur the Commission into action. A little more than a month later, NRC began conducting public meetings to solicit comment from industry and external stakeholders, NRDC among them, on the conclusions reached in the report and what the next steps should be for the Commission.

Read the full story here.

Union of Concerned Scientists – In Virginia, the Emperor Has No Clothes

photo by Philip Larson via flickr

The Virginia Supreme Court rebuffed Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s attempts to access the personal correspondence of climate scientists at Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia. The court’s ruling found that the university does not constitute a “person” and is therefore not subject to the Civil Investigative Demands—essentially subpoenas—issued by the attorney general under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act in 2010.

A circuit court judge said in August 2010 that if the attorney general wants to pursue a fraud investigation, he needs to have some reason to suspect that fraud has been committed. And in the lower court’s eyes, he failed to produce a shred of credible evidence to support his case.

UCS has followed the University of Virginia case closely—supporting the scientists and the university in the media, signing on to two amicus briefs opposing the attorney general’s actions, and organizing 800+ scientists and academic leaders to urge the attorney general to stop his fishing expedition—because the ability of researchers in Virginia to pursue tough and sometimes contentious research was at stake.

You can see a timeline of this nearly two-year charade here.

The high court’s majority opinion did not address the merits of the subpoenas. But in a minority opinion, The Honorable Elizabeth A. McClanahan wrote that she would have ruled against the attorney general because his subpoenas “did not sufficiently state what the Attorney General suspected Dr. Mann did that was ‘false or fraudulent.’”

Read the full story here.

Clean Air Watch – EPA to Congress: low-sulfur gas would cost only a penny a gallon

Here is a letter to Congress from the US EPA clarifying the the scope and cost of gasoline changes related to the so-called Tier 3 clean-car program under consideration.

photo by hectore via flickr

This ought to put to rest the oil industry charges that EPA is planning to do more than just reduce sulfur in gasoline levels, and that the changes would cost as much as a quarter a gallon. This letter backs up what we have been saying since last October: EPA can make real smog reductions just by reducing the sulfur content of gas, and the cost is so small that no one would notice. Note, by the way, that the projected cost of a penny a gallon wouldn’t happen until 2017.

UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20460

FEB 27 2012

OFFICE OF
AIR AND RADIATION

Honorable Ed Whitfield U.S. House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Congressman Whitfield:

Thank for your letter of December 19, 2011, co-signed by 67 of your colleagues, sharing concerns a bout the potential impacts and the rulemaking processes of two upcoming U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed rules: the ”Tier 3″ light-duty vehicle emissions and gasoline standards, and the refinery sector rulemaking.

The EPA is developing the Tier 3 standards to respond to the critical need to improve air quality, and to enable a harmonized national vehicle emissions control program. This rule would reduce motor vehicle emissions and help state and local areas attain and maintain the existing health-based air quality standards in a cost-effective and timely way. Lower sulfur gasoline is necessary to operate the pollution control equipment to achieve new Tier 3 vehicle standards, and will facilitate the development of lower cost technologies to improve fuel economy. Improvements in fuel economy reduce gasoline consumption and save consumers money.

Read the full story here.

Public Citizen – Bringing the heat of reality to a GOP freeze on public safeguards

The U.S. House of Representatives refuses to let up on its quixotic mission to destroy public safeguards. Its latest incarnation is H.R. 4078, the “Regulatory Freeze for Jobs Act of 2012,” a misguided bill that seeks to halt regulatory protections until the unemployment rate is equal or less than six percent.

photo by Velo Stave via flickr

It was the topic of the hour at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, Commercial and Administrative Law, featuring two professors associated with the Hoover Institute, Allan Meltzler and John Taylor, who were there to bolster a weak argument that by “freezing” regulations, somehow all of our country’s jobs problems would magically disappear.

Fortunately, Public Citizen President Rob Weissman was there to speak on behalf of reality.

Weissman, who also serves as co-chair of the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, reminded the subcommittee it was regulatory failures that helped create the current jobs crisis. He said a freeze on public protections not only would fail to create jobs, but would place the economy in serious jeopardy, particularly if newly created financial regulations were weakened or blocked.

Read the full story here.

People for the American Way – ALEC Gives Cash to Congressmen?

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) strategy of corporations enact favorable legislation at the state level across the country by wining and dining state legislators at fancy conferences and then presenting them with model bills to shepherd into law is well documented. Apparently, ALEC also sees value in currying favor at the federal level as well.

photo by AMagill via flickr

Common Cause’s Nick Surgey reports that ALEC gave a cash award of $1,350 to Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) in 2009 as part of their Thomas Jefferson Freedom Award, according to an investigation of ALEC’s tax filings. This presents a potential breach of ethics because House members are prohibited by law from receiving any cash gift.

While ALEC’s main focus is on pro-corporate state legislation, common cause notes that ALEC’s influence extends far into the realm of the federal government:

Read the full story here.

The Economist Recycles Old Right-Wing Ideas to Gut Public Protections

By Rena Steinzor
Reprinted with permission from the Center For Progressive Reform

The Economist’s February 18 edition offers a cover package of five articles on “Over-regulated America” (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Our British friends want you to know there’s a problem here in the States that needs fixing:

A study for the Small Business Administration, a government body, found that regulations in general add $10,585 in costs per employee. It’s a wonder the jobless rate isn’t even higher than it is.

You can almost feel The Economist’s pain: the jobless rate should be a lot higher than it is, if the premise about the costs of regulations is correct. Surely if the regulatory burden were

photo by jritch77 via flickr

actually 12 percent of GDP – that’s what the SBA numbers say, if you draw them out – things would be far worse than they are. Ideologically unable to consider the obvious alternative – that regulations don’t add $10,585 in costs per employee, The Economist, just, well, “wonders” aloud.

Here’s what The Economist would have found if they’d dug just a little bit: Fully 70 percent of the SBA estimate was actually based on a regression analysis using opinion polling data on perceived regulatory climate across countries (in a strange twist, a separate article in the same issue actually questions the study, briefly). Whole reports have been written on why that number is bogus.

Our economy is still recovering from a tremendous collapse largely caused by under-regulation of financial institutions. But in its group of articles, The Economist wants us to think the opposite: “The home of laissez-faire is being suffocated by excessive and badly written regulation.” That premise, in turn, leads the magazine to – you guessed it – a series of warmed-over right-wing policy ideas aimed at gutting regulations. Let’s take a closer look.

Read the full story here.

DEMOS – Small Businesses Aren’t Concerned About Regulations, So Why is Washington?

The headline for next week’s edition of The Economist is “Over-regulated America,” with the subtitle “The home of laissez faire is being suffocated by excessive and badly written legislation.”

photo by dalechumbley via flickr

Sounds dramatic, but in reality the only things getting “suffocated” here are the facts about regulations. To be fair, this article does recognize (as few tend to do) that both parties in the U.S. are responsible for the growth of regulations — this is important to remember, but this falls short of achieving genuine balance given how consistently this piece goes on to misrepresent the relative weight of costs versus benefits of public oversight.

Take this passage, for example:

“A study for the Small Business Administration, a government body, found that regulations in general add $10,585 in costs per employee. It’s a wonder the jobless rate isn’t even higher than it is.”

Well, The Economist is right about one thing: it is a wonder that the jobless rate isn’t higher today — but that has a lot more to due with the fact that Congress seems physically incapable of passing the fiscal stimulus measures that we know are needed to make a real dent in the unemployment rate, and less to due with regulatory over-reaching.

Read the full story here.

Public Citizen – Nuclear Power: Only Technology That Requires An Emergency Evacuation Plan

Nuclear power is the only technology that requires an emergency evacuation plan. And for unfortunate communities, like those situated near the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan,

photo by kmichiels via flickr

evacuation has meant more than fleeing one’s home. It has meant the death of livestock, contamination of produce and fish, and the realization that returning home won’t be an option for a very long time.

During the initial hours of the crisis, the Japanese government advised residents within a 12-mile radius of the reactor site to evacuate the area. The U.S. government recommended that U.S. citizens evacuate if they were within 50 miles of the plant.

Remember that: 50 miles. Now try to reconcile that with the fact that U.S. nuclear regulations require emergency planning only within a 10-mile radius. Can’t do it? Exactly.

That’s why today, Public Citizen, along with 37 other organizations, filed a petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), calling on it to expand the radius for emergency planning from 10 miles to 25 miles, establish a new 50-mile emergency response zone and take other measures to address the inadequacies in regulations governing emergency planning.

Read the full story here.

U.S. PIRG – We Tell the Financial Regulators: Don’t Let Big Banks Make Taxpayer-Backed Bets

U.S. PIRG and the AFL-CIO joined Americans for Financial Reform in a detailed comment letter urging issuance of a strong Volcker rule by the financial regulators. It’s a 72-page pdf

photo by MarkyBon via flickr

comment letter that basically comes down to one simple thing. We tell the financial regulators: don’t let big banks make taxpayer-backed bets. The rule implements Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, as proposed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and implemented into law by the consumer and investor champions, Senators Jeff Merkley (OR) and Carl Levin (MI).

Excerpt from our joint letter:

There are significant positive elements in this proposed rule. But it still falls well short of fully implementing the statute. It is clear from both the legislative history and the text of the statute that in passing the Volcker Rule Congress sought fundamental change in the American financial system by restoring basic firewalls between the banking system and the capital markets. In the proposed rule, the regulators have not placed the statutorily required limitations on permitted capital market activities. Instead, they have gone to some effort to preserve business as usual in important areas. This includes practices at the center of the financial crisis, such as dealing in illiquid and customized products for which no market exists and bank participation in securitizations. The metrics-based oversight regime favored by the regulators here, while positive in many respects, simply will not work unless it is accompanied by clear restrictions on the scope of permitted activities.

Read the full letter here.