Under the proposed 50/50 formula, utilities that are more coal dependent will need to purchase even more allowances than they would have if all allowances were allocated based on emissions.

Well, yeah. And under the current proposed 50/50 formula, the coal burners would also have to purchase more allowances than if Congress did nothing at all. But the whole point of the bill is to discourage the use of high-emission energies like coal by making them less affordable than cleaner alternatives. Sheppard explains further why the lawmakers’ argument makes little sense in the context of the global warming debate:

Of course, this would work against the entire logic of the proposed scheme, which is to offer utilities financial incentives to switch to lower-carbon fuel sources. [...]

Right now, the climate bill needs all the votes it can get from Democrats. So enviros worry that concessions to this bloc could ultimately result in a deal in which coal plants suffer no real penalties for the carbon they pump into the atmosphere. “Dirty coal polluters know their days are numbered and are lobbying for the largest piece of the pie they can get,” said Jason Kowalski, policy coordinator at 1Sky. “It goes against the spirit of this legislation to reward the polluters that caused this problem in the first place.”

Signing on to the letter were Democratic Sens. Carl Levin (Mich.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Russ Feingold (Wis.), Herb Kohl (Wis.), Tom Harkin (Iowa), Al Franken (Minn.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Roland Burris (Ill.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Michael Bennet (Colo.), Mark Udall (Colo.) and Robert Byrd (W.Va.).

GOP leaders have a defense. They argue that the Democrats’ strategy to pay for the $2.4 billion proposal by hitting employers with a surtax of $21 per worker will discourage new hires, thereby harming the same jobless folks it’s supposed to benefit. They also point out that it’s the Democratic majority that controls the floor schedule.

Yet Stabenow dismissed the notion that the Democrats could have acted more quickly to pass the UI extension, arguing that Republicans have used filibusters to stall legislation throughout the year, creating a backlog of legislation that’s slowed progress to a crawl.

“This has become a tactic,” Stabenow said. “We could have done this three weeks ago.”

And indeed they tried. On Oct. 8, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) asked GOP leaders for unanimous consent to approve the legislation, which would extend UI benefits for 14 weeks in every state, with an additional six weeks for states where unemployment rates are higher than 8.5 percent. (The House passed a similar bill last month). But Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) objected, citing the absence of a cost estimate.

Five days later, it was Stabenow who requested Republicans’ consent that the bill be passed. That time around it was Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to object, citing no particular reason.

Meanwhile, the disagreement over how to approach the ACORN and immigration amendments continues, much to the disappointment of jobless advocates. Maurice Emsellem, policy co-director at the National Employment Law Project, estimated that 1.3 million Americans will exhaust their unemployment benefits unless Congress steps in with an extension. The frustration for advocates is compounded, Emsellem said, because “we haven’t heard any objections to the substance of the bill.”

The Senate is set to vote tomorrow to begin consideration of the proposal — a procedural move requiring 60 votes to pass. But that’s just be the start of the process. Without an agreement over the amendments, Democratic leaders will have to stage a second cloture vote in order to move to a final vote on the bill. The series of procedural steps could easily push that final vote to the end of the week.

Only the public’s ignorance of the process, some Democrats claim, is preventing a backlash against Republicans. “If the public understood what was holding up this legislation,” Shaheen said, “they would be outraged.”

“And rightly so,” she added.

Indeed, as The Washington Post reported over the weekend, that failure to lend a financial hand for the sake of fixing the broken health care system has made the industry few friends on the Senate Finance Committee, which has proposed $40 billion in fees on medical device makers over the next decade, when those companies are estimated to pull in $2 trillion.

Yet, this being Washington, even that proposal is getting pushback from lawmakers representing states where medical device makers are most concentrated. From the Post:

Democrats and Republicans from Minnesota, Indiana, New Jersey and other states with prominent medical device operations are rallying to oppose the proposed fee, which would collect $4 billion annually from the $130-billion-a-year industry. Fourteen Democratic senators sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and other top Democrats last week, urging them to “moderate” the levy, which they said will “threaten the existence of some manufacturers” and cause “significant job reductions” for those that remain. Five GOP governors also have weighed in with objections.

“The issue here is that these are very good jobs in our state and in our country,” [Sen. Amy] Klobuchar [D-Minn.] said in an interview, acknowledging that she is among a group of “strange bedfellows” rallying around the industry. “You want to be very careful when you start assessing taxes on an industry like this.”

And herein lies what’s perhaps the most significant hurdle facing the Obama administration as it attempts to fix health care this year. The medical-industrial complex is a $2.3-trillion-a-year behemoth. And even the most wasteful of that spending creates jobs somewhere, thereby producing a perverse incentive for congressional lawmakers to protect regional interests at the expense of national ones. The device makers are only one tiny sliver of that much larger trend. But they should be careful. Regional protectionism has its perils.

The only other senator using time to speak on Sunstein’s nomination was Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who stuck to a character sketch of her old law school teacher, who looked like a “boy in man’s clothes” when she met him at the University of Chicago. OIRA, said Klobuchar, “is a very difficult agency, and no one is quite sure what it does.” Lieberman thanked her and continued to talk about Sunstein’s endorsements from the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers.

President Obama is slated to address a joint session of Congress on Sept. 9 to lay out more detailed demands for health care reform, ABC News reported today. The move — which came on the heels of a written invitation from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) –  is intended to quell complaints from congressional lawmakers that the White House has been neither forceful nor specific enough to get the job done.  Ironically, the failure of the Clinton administration’s health reform effort 16 years ago is commonly attributed to this same approach of the White House presenting too many policy details to the legislative branch.

Despite reports that Obama won’t insist on a public option, conservatives are skeptical that the provision is dead. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) took to the airwaves Wednesday urging the White House to veto any proposal that contains a public option or “anything that smacks of a public option, like a co-op.” And Rick Scott, head of Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, issued a statement saying that he’ll believe the public option is dead when he can stick a fork in it. “We’ve heard this song and dance before,” Scott said, “and the White House was all too quick to backtrack.”

Meanwhile, some Democratic senators are also getting more specific about their health policy views. Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) voiced her strongest opposition yet to the idea of creating a public option; Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) reiterated his strong support for a public plan; and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) split the difference, saying she’s open to the public option but not if it utilizes a Medicare-like payment system.

MoveOn.org, the liberal policy advocate, is planning 350 vigils tonight to highlight the necessity of health reform this year, The Washington Post reported. The group says they expect 50,000 participants in an effort to counter the animated town hall forums — predominately featuring opponents of the Democrats reform plans — that have dominated headlines during the August recess.

Meanwhile, consumer advocates continue to support Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), the leading congressional voice behind the push for a single-payer health care system. On Tuesday, Weiner asked the Congressional Budget Office to estimate the cost of the single payer bill, a move Public Citizen is calling “a significant step in educating Congress and the public on how to truly fix our broken health care system.”

“The Census has a profound impact on Minnesota’s communities,” [Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)] said in a statement. “It’s important that every Minnesotan is counted, so we get our fair share of congressional seats and federal funding.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has vowed not to fill out a full census because the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is one of numerous groups partnering with the government to collect data.

In 1944, Minnesota’s Democratic Party and Farmer-Labor Party merged to form the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL). Since then, Minnesota has not had a Democratic Party, although the DFL is 100 percent aligned with national Democrats.

And if you’re still not convinced that the DFL is more than some sort of fringe party, I should note that it’s run three major candidates for president: Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy and Walter Mondale. Humphrey and Mondale each won the Democratic nomination for the presidency, FL suffix notwithstanding.

Now it appears that both U.S. Senators from Minnesota will be DFLers, as Al Franken seems all but assured to join Sen. Amy Klobuchar in the upper chamber.

Democratic leaders made Burris’ claim on the seat contingent on his ability to secure a formal election certificate from the state of Illinois, a document Franken will not have until Norm Coleman’s election challenges in Minnesota have been exhausted.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in announcing a deal to seat Burris provisionally, said an election certificate is a “vital” requirement that has never been waived in modern history. [...]

The Democrats’ announcement seemed to dampen speculation that there might be an effort to seat Franken this week, in light of his 225-vote recount victory. Though some Minnesota Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, have suggested seating Franken pending the outcome of Coleman’s legal challenges, Minnesota law requires the full election contest be complete before the governor can sign a formal state certification. Gov. Tim Pawlenty has indicated that he will abide by the law.

That could be awhile. Another Star-Tribune piece reports that Coleman’s suit could take two months to decide.