White-nose syndrome was first linked to a bat cave near Albany, N.Y., in 2006 and it has since spread to 16 states and four Canadian provinces. The fungus that causes the disease has been found on asymptomatic bats in another three states. The little brown bat, as well as the northern long-eared bat and the eastern small-footed bat, are all potential candidates for federal endangered-species listings, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is currently reviewing their bleak outlook.

Other species of North American bats are endangered as a result of human habitat disturbance. Bats, which eat enough insects to save the U.S. agricultural industry between $3 billion and $53 billion a year, are also flying up against industrial-scale wind turbines that crush their thumb-sized bodies.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will be directed to earmark the money from the 2012 endangered species recovery fund to research and manage the deadly outbreak of white-nose syndrome.

Concern for North America’s bats is growing as the fungal disease that breeds in the nocturnal animals’ faces and wings continues to spread.

“The high number of bat deaths and range of species being affected far exceeds the rate and magnitude of any previously known natural or human-caused mortality event in bats, and possibly in any other mammals,” said Paul Cryan, a U.S. Geological Survey research scientist in Fort Collins and one of the authors of an analysis published in the journal Science last spring about bats’ economic contribution to the farming industry.

“It is obviously beneficial that insectivorous bats are patrolling the skies at night above our fields and forests. These bats deserve help,” Cryan said.

Scientists warn of more economic losses in the ag industry because of “the double-whammy effect” of bat deaths caused by white-nose syndrome and from wind turbines and other human encroachment.

“Because the agricultural value of bats in the Northeast is small compared with other parts of the country, such losses could be even more substantial in the extensive agricultural regions in the Midwest and the Great Plains, where wind-energy development is booming and the fungus responsible for white-nose syndrome was recently detected,” said Thomas Kunz, a distinguished biology professor at Boston University who studies bat behavior and ecology.

There are 18 species of bats in Colorado and at least two other types found in nearby parts of Utah and Oklahoma that may be here too. White-nose syndrome is not known to have reached Colorado.

The National Park Service has closed caves in the Pocono Mountains in the eastern United States and, out west, federal and state agencies partially closed some caves and abandoned mines on public lands in New Mexico in response to the spread of white-nose syndrome. Others, such as Carlsbad Caverns National Park and Mammoth Cave National Park, are enacting processes to screen visitors to prevent the transmission of the fungus that can develop into white-nose syndrome.

The Colorado Division of Wildlife is asking the public to report the sighting of any active or dead bats this winter. Last year, the agency, along with Orient Land Trust, established a 350-acre conservation easement including a defunct iron ore mine to protect 250,000 Mexican free-tailed bats.

Under a law that President Bush signed in 2007, the Department of Energy on Jan. 1, 2012, was supposed to begin enforcing a ban on the incandescent bulbs that Thomas Edison perfected 132 years ago.

But the House and Senate’s massive spending bill to yet again avert a federal government shutdown includes a rider that will prevent the lightbulb rules from taking effect until at least October. Proponents of the lightbulb legislation promote it as an easy and logical way to improve the nation’s energy efficiency, but, to others, the law smacks of textbook government overreach.

Aficionados of the pear-shaped lights are stocking up on them at Home Depot — which reports lightbulb sales are up 10 to 20 percent over a year ago — and elsewhere before they fade away.

In Texas, the legislature passed a bill permitting the manufacture and sale of the traditional bulbs within its borders even though there is not a single lightbulb factory in the state.

Over the summer, a bill to repeal the energy-efficiency standards died in the House. Reps. Diana DeGette, Jared Polis and Ed Perlmutter, all Colorado Democrats, opposed it. Reps. Scott Tipton, Doug Lamborn, Cory Gardner and Mike Coffman, all Colorado Republicans, favored it.

Now there is a reprieve for the incandescent bulbs, but it may be too little, too late.

Even if Republicans are successful in further pushing back the efficiency standards that the incandescent bulbs don’t meet, the industry is already moving forward with a focus on compact fluorescent, halogen and light-emitting diode versions. With many of the world’s other leading nations also phasing out the old energy-guzzling bulbs, companies are investing in newer technologies.

Democrats, along with lightbulb manufacturers such as General Electric Co. and environmentalists, are urging for new rules to take effect sooner than later, citing energy and cost savings.

“If America is to have a rational energy policy, we need to make progress in efficiency,” Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said in a prepared statement. “Blocking funds to enforce minimum standards works against our nation getting the full benefits of energy efficiency.”

The television ad from Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, running statewide on the FOX News Channel, erroneously claims the EPA wants to regulate methane from cattle and dust from farming activities.

“If you have to choose between Iowa farmers and Washington regulators, we will defer to the opinions of the Iowa farmers,” said Steve Grubbs, who’s also a former state representative and Republican Party of Iowa chairman.

David Bryan, a spokesman for the EPA, said Monday “there’s no truth to that at all” when asked about the methane regulations. He also noted EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson wrote a letter to members of Congress dispelling the farm dust regulation rumors.

But Grubbs — and apparently Cain’s campaign — aren’t convinced by the EPA’s statements. Grubbs stopped short of saying the EPA is lying, instead saying it’s responding to existing regulations and not potential future regulations.

“This is a concern that farmers have about the future and farmers have been through this before where they’ve been told one thing by the EPA and had negative outcomes,” he said.

Grubbs hopes methane from cows and farm dust will continue to be unregulated. But he said Iowa farmers don’t believe that’s the case, and he doesn’t think it’s misleading to suggest to voters those regulations are coming.

“I don’t think it’s misleading,” Grubbs said. “If farmers believe that this is the near future for them, then why shouldn’t we believe them? Who knows agricultural regulation better, the EPA or the farmer? We believe the farmer does. It just depends on who you trust as your source.”

He compared that with the approval ratings of British Petroleum during the Deepwater spill (quite a bit higher) and with the percentage of people who think America should become communist (a little higher). He took care to note that he was not in that group.

“I get the feeling that people don’t think people are watching.” Wrong, he said. They are watching and they aren’t liking what they see. “At a minimum they would like to see us prevent things from getting worse.”

Talking about the impasse over the debt ceiling, which resulted in a downgrade of America’s credit rating, he said, “There is not a mayor in Colorado who would threaten their town’s credit rating for politics, not a one, not a Democrat, not a Republican, not a Tea Party Republican, not a one.”

For Amash, the resolution’s second point goes too far, reports Lansing State Journal.

“Displaying ‘In God We Trust’ on public property is appropriate in some circumstances,” he wrote. “There is no need to push for the phrase to be on all federal, state and local buildings.

“The fear that unless ‘In God We Trust’ is displayed throughout the government, Americans will somehow lose their faith in God, is a dim view of the profound religious convictions many citizens have,” he added. “Trying to score political points with unnecessary resolutions should not be Congress’ priority.”

The resolution passed the U.S. House 396-9, with 26 members not voting and two abstentions.

“They have this unwritten assumption that every new device is innovative,” Dr. Rita Redberg, who is the editor of the Archives of Internal Medicine, said, referring to the venture capital funds. But some devices, she said, “are killing people or causing significant harm.”

The Times reports that 10 bills to speed up the FDA’s medical device approval process have already been introduced by House Republicans this month. In the Senate, Sen. Amy Klobuchar has introduced a similar bill.

The U.S. House of Representatives has held four hearings on F.D.A. device approval procedures since February, with the vast majority of witnesses being “investors, entrepreneurs, industry consultants, trade group officials or patients who said that agency delays in approving a device had harmed them or a loved one,” according to the New York Times. No one who was harmed by a faulty device was invited to testify.

As the Minnesota Independent reported last week, Paulsen has been rewarded for his advocacy for the industry with campaign donations from company PACs and executives. The Congressman is currently sitting on $900,000, according to Federal Election Commission records. The medical device and drug industry gives more generously to Paulsen than to other candidates or PACs in the district, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Times story shows a steep increase in donations from venture capitalists with an interest in health care after Paulsen testified to Congress in June that FDA processes should be streamlined.

As the Minnesota Independent reported, Paulsen has seen substantial increases in donations from the entire medical device industry since he became a member of the influential House Ways and Means Committee, with one medical private equity firm crowing that “his increasingly high profile in Congress may help bring additional visibility to the medtech sector.”

Influx of medical device and drug industry cash
Already in this election cycle, Paulsen is the ninth most favored candidate in the House of Representatives for the drug and medical device industry, according to a breakdown by the Center for Responsive Politics. Paulsen was recently appointed to the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. In the 2012 election cycle, he’s already showing a 68 percent increase in donations from individuals and PACs associated with the pharmaceutical and medical device industries over the 2010 cycle.

A substantial portion of Paulsen’s fundraising this election cycle has come from executives at companies like Medtronic, Boston Scientific and 3M’s medical division. In the last financial quarter, which ended at the close of September, five executives at Medtronic pitched in $2,750, supplementing the additional $3,000 from the company’s PAC. Boston Scientific executives pitched in $4,500. Paulsen also received donations from smaller operations, like the $1,750 given by a manager at Hampshire Labs, which sells prostate and “male enhancement” supplements.

Thomas Fogarty also maxed out his yearly contribution to the candidate at $5,000, according to quarterly disclosure records filed with the Federal Election Commission. Although Fogarty lists himself on Paulsen’s disclosure as a self-employed physician, he’s also president of Fogarty Research & Development and has founded or co-founded 30 companies related to medical technology or devices, according to his bio at Stanford University, where he’s a professor.

A host of medical PACs also contributed to Paulsen’s war-chest this last financial quarter. WellPAC run by WellPoint, a health plan company that’s part of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, gave $2,500. Zimmer Inc. PAC, which pushes the interests of an Indiana-based company that creates artificial joints and other medical technology, gave $1,000.

Paulsen now has more than $900,000 on hand, according to Federal Election Commission records released last weekend. Donations from the medical device and drug industry, which gives more generously to Paulsen than to other candidates or PACs in the district, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, helped put Paulsen at the top of the heap in terms of the Minnesota House delegation’s fundraising.

Source: Flickr; Republicanconference (www.flickr.com/photos/republicanconference)

“Tireless efforts” to support medical device industry
By all accounts, Paulsen has been a good advocate for the industry, which has deep roots in Minnesota. Last year, he received the 2010 Medical Device Manufacturer’s Association (MDMA) Chairman’s Award for “his tireless efforts to support the innovative and job-creating medical device industry.”

Paulsen has also increased the visibility of the medical device caucus, launching a website this March that a press release said ”expands our connectivity and engagement with medical technology companies, industry experts, and doctors and patients who use the innovative products the industry creates.”

In an Oct. 3 editorial at Roll Call, Paulsen condemned what he described as a “new medical device excise tax that will eliminate more than 40,000 well-paying jobs and imperil America’s global competitiveness in one of our leading industrial and technological sectors.”

Paulsen has introduced legislation aimed at speeding up the Food and Drug Administration approval process. And in speeches to industry groups, Paulsen has vowed to revamp the agency, according to a MinnPost account of Paulsen’s May speech to “400 venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and industry professionals” at the MedTech Investing Conference.

Paulsen told Minnesota Public Radio this week that Washington doesn’t have “too many strong voices” supporting the industry.

“We’re going to propose legislation that modernizes the FDA so that this industry remains strong,” he said. “Companies don’t mind if [FDA review] is rigorous. They want to make sure it’s relevant.”

A March posting on a medical private equity firm’s blog noted the new medical technology caucus website and Paulsen’s appointment to the House Ways and Means Committee at the end of last year: “Rep. Paulsen has proven himself dedicated to innovation and the issues facing the medical device industry, and his increasingly high profile in Congress may help bring additional visibility to the medtech sector.”

The Money Trail will be a regular feature looking at the special interests that fund our state’s politicians. If you have tips or suggestions, please sent them to tips@minnesotaindependent.com.

The final vote tally, for House Resolution 358, was 251-172, with 15 Democrats voting in favor of the bill and two Republicans opposing it.

While the representatives debated the bill early in the day, anti-abortion-rights organizations demonstrated in the Congressional Auditorium of the Capitol Visitor Center, where several women in various stages of pregnancy displayed their uteruses on a widescreen as a certified nurse conducted their ultrasounds. Among the women to undergo a public ultrasound was Mary O’Connor, an employee for Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), the author of the Protect Life Act.

When the debate continued in the evening, Pitts defended his legislation, comparing the anti-abortion-rights movement to the civil rights movement. He suggested that if abortion had been legal before 1973, former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, writer Maya Angelou, and the recently deceased Apple founder Steve Jobs, all of whom were adopted, might never have lived.

In general, Republicans defended the legislation by arguing that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was approved last year without language mirroring that of the Hyde Amendment — the source of a more than three decades federal-funding ban on abortions. Obama’s executive order to that effect has been deemed by the House GOP to be insufficient and alterable.

“Hyde only affects Labor/HHS programs, not the massive expansion of government-funded healthcare,” Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said earlier in the day during the first half of the debate. “Thus ObamaCare, when phased in fully in November 2014, will open up the floodgates of public funding for abortion in a myriad of programs, including and especially in exchanges, resulting in more dead babies and wounded mothers than would otherwise have been the case.”

Democrats attacked Republicans for pushing legislation that attempts to restrict women’s access to abortion instead of focusing on jobs and the economy.

“This bill creates no jobs, it doesn’t help the economy and it inserts the federal government smack in the middle of [women's reproductive decisions],” said Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.).

“The American people want the divisiveness to stop and the jobs to start,” Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) echoed.

Democrats also argued that that bill could put women’s lives at risk if they are refused abortion care in cases of emergency, a contention bill supporters disputed.

Abortion-rights advocacy group NARAL Pro-Choice America has dubbed the Protect Life Act the “Let Women Die” bill.

Following the bill’s passage, NARAL released a statement that reads, in part:

H.R.358 is part of Speaker Boehner’s ongoing agenda to attack women’s privacy and take away the right to choose.  This is the House’s seventh vote attacking choice since January. In February, the anti-choice leadership brought the government to the brink of shutdown over its obsession with defunding Planned Parenthood. In May, the House passed H.R.3 (a companion bill to H.R.358). These two bills made headlines earlier this year because they both included language that redefined rape to make it more difficult for sexual-assault survivors to access abortion care.  Boehner caved to public outrage on that issue, both bills still jeopardize women’s health.  Shockingly, H.R.358 would allow hospitals to refuse to provide a woman emergency, lifesaving abortion care, even if she will die without it.

To this end, Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) attempted to amend the bill with a provision stipulating that health care workers be required to provide care to women in an emergency regardless of their personal beliefs on abortion. Capps argued that Pitts’ bill as written creates a loophole allowing health care workers to ignore the existing Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), which ensures public access to emergency services regardless of ability to pay. But her motion failed.

Obama has promised to veto the Protect Life Act if it makes it to his desk.

Among the five women to undergo a public ultrasound at the kickoff event to the Voices from the Womb campaign was Mary O’Connor, who works for Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), sponsor of the bill being debated in the House. Pitts’ House Resolution 358, or the “Protect Life Act,” would ban women from using tax subsidies created under the new health-care reform law to purchase health plans that cover abortions. HR 358 is scheduled for a vote in the House as soon as Thursday evening.

O’Connor lay on a wooden table in the Congressional Auditorium of the Capitol Visitor’s Center, while Dana Miller, a registered nurse from Fredericksburg, Va., administered an ultrasound using a portable sonogram machine provided by Stanton Healthcare, a crisis pregnancy center in Boise, Idaho, and one of the three sponsoring organizations hosting the live ultrasound event. O’Connor, who was confirmed to be 15-weeks pregnant, said she and her husband are referring to her baby as “Pookie” in this early stage.

Brandi Swindell, Stanton Healthcare’s founder and president, acted as master of ceremonies, delivering commentary while Miller pointed out the fetuses’ appendages and their different stages of developments. She intermittently allowed the audience of more than 100 — most of whom belonged to various youth-led anti-abortion rights groups from Fredericksburg, Va. — to hear the fetal heartbeats.

“Everyone comes to Washington, D.C. to testify,” said the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, another Voices of the Womb sponsor. ”Because of technology, we have the opportunity for … the voices of millions of pre-born children to be heard.

Mahoney compared the anti-abortion-rights movement to the civil rights movement, arguing that fetuses should be given full human rights at the detection of a heartbeat.

“Today there is no question when life begins,” Mahoney said. “If we can prove it’s a child … then Roe v. Wade is invalid. We are doing that today.”

A live ultrasound was performed on one of Mahoney’s daughters, 26 year-old Kaitlin Martinez, who, along with the activists, reporters and her father, learned the sex of her child (female).

“We want to safeguard the mothers’ dignity and privacy,” Mahoney said, ensuring the audience that reporters were given consent from the women on display, to peek around the gray curtain to see the sonogram machine up close.

Swindell explained that Stanton Healthcare was named after Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a leader in the women’s suffrage movement, who has been quoted likening abortion to infanticide (she is also quoted as being in support of birth control). Swindell argued that the women’s suffrage movement was about distinguishing women from men’s property, and that the “pro-life” movement is about distinguishing pre-born babies from women’s property.

“We have to get the moms upon the tables so we can see our babies,” Swindell said. “Even if it’s tiny like a little grain of rice [they] should carry it to term.”

Mahoney explained to the audience that one woman, Mashawn Evans, has had two other abortions and that she was encouraged by the D.C.-based  Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center to carry her current pregnancy to term. After watching the other ultrasounds, Evans told Mahoney had she been given access to an ultrasound, she would have not had abortions previously.

Mahoney announced he would be using this statement from Evans throughout the Voices From the Womb campaign.

Evans came to the event believing she was 12 weeks along in her pregnancy, but after struggling to identify the heartbeat, Miller explained that Evans was closer to seven weeks. Eventually, a heartbeat was identified — distinctively quieter and weaker than the more developed fetuses. Mahoney reminded the audience that it is at this stage that states such as Ohio are attempting to ban abortion.

Though all 535 members of Congress were invited to attend the “Voices from the Womb,” only House Reps. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Tom Marino (R-Pa.), Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), and a representative from Rep. Michele Bachmann’s office spoke before the crowd of more than 100 anti-abortion-rights advocates.

Wicker, whose state has the opportunity next year to criminalize abortions by approving a “personhood amendment” on the ballot, told a story about counseling a young couple to have an abortion in the ’70s.

“We do a lot of things that are dumb when we’re not educated,” Wicker said. “I wish we had Voices From the Womb back in the late ’70s.”

Presidential contender Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who recently introduced an anti-abortion-rights bill (PDF) that would mandate sonograms for all women seeking abortions in the U.S., sent a legislative assistant, Renee Doyle to the event to speak in her absence.

“The beauty of [Bachmann's] bill is that the image will speak for itself,” Doyle said. “Once the mother chooses life, her heart changes … and she becomes a proponent of life.”

Doyle said Bachmann’s bill would require abortion providers to show women the sonogram image, describe cardiac activity present and make an available heartbeat audible using a hand-held Doppler monitor.

As TAI’s sister site The Florida Independent reported previously, the federal Food and Drug Administration has warned women against undergoing ultrasound procedures unless it is medically necessary, because the long-term effects of repeated ultrasound exposures on a fetus is not fully known.

Watch a live ultrasound of Mashawn Evans’ pregnancy at seven weeks.

The draft legislation [bill summary] has been dubbed the Harkin-Enzi bill in some media outlets, but Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) did not take part in a conference call with reporters yesterday. The two senators have been working closely together in coming up with a bipartisan piece of legislation.

Joe Brenckle, a Republican spokesperson for the HELP committee from which the education bill came from, told The American Independent, “Senator Enzi continues to work with Senator Harkin and is anticipating a bipartisan markup of the ESEA language on the 18th.”

Last month, President Obama unveiled his plan to grant states waivers from No Child Left Behind, putting pressure on congress to come up with a reauthorization of the 2002 law, which has been due for overhaul since 2007. Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), the chair of the House education committee, has stated he prefers to augment the nation’s top K-12 law through smaller bills.

Repealing No Child Left Behind has become a consensus mantra among education stakeholders and lawmakers. A fault-line splits those who want a more active federal government in K-12 regulation and greater state autonomy.

The divisions have also pit several left-leaning advocacy groups against the top Democratic senator’s proposal.

While Sen. Harkin told reporters he wants to redesign No Child Left Behind “for a new era” as a partnership with states, Democrats for Education Reform and The National Council of La Raza — which supports federal legislation that reaches out to minorities — expressed their reservations with the draft bill.

From Education Week:

The language calls for states to ensure that schools are making continuous improvement, but they would not have to set student performance targets toward a specific goal, as they do now under the current version of ESEA—the No Child Left Behind Act. The changes also would allow states to decide which interventions to use in all but the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools and schools with persistent achievement gaps (as defined by the state).

“We haven’t seen the bill, but in general, we would be concerned about having no progress targets,” said Raul Gonzalez, the director of legislative affairs for La Raza. “We’ve worked with Mr. Harkin (chairman of the Senate education committee) on a lot of issues. We know that he has the interest of all kids at heart. And so we hope the bill that emerges out of committee is one that has some solid targets and has some authentic accountability.”

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT),  the second-largest teachers union in the country, released a statement neither in outright protest nor support the bill’s provisions. It read, in part:

The Harkin-Enzi bill also addresses teacher evaluation, a new area in federal education law. When done correctly, evaluations with tools and supports for teachers can lead toward a path of vibrant instruction.  When done incorrectly, it becomes just a human resources sorting mechanism that devalues teachers, limits their growth and undercuts our children’s education.

[…]

Valid and reliable teacher development and evaluation systems should be based on multiple measures, not just test scores, and should provide teachers with the feedback, tools and conditions they need for continuous improvement.

The statement concluded with, “This is a lengthy bill that will require much analysis. The AFT and our members will work throughout the process to ensure that a reauthorized ESEA bill will make a positive difference in teaching and learning.”

The nation’s largest union, National Education Association, also eschewed taking a position on the draft bill, writing: “Now is the time to weigh in.  We must make sure that the Senate crafts a bill that champions student success, promotes great educators and school leaders for every student, and ensures equitable and safe schools for all.”

According to New America Foundation’s Jennifer Cohen, an education policy analyst, the Harkin plan would force states to increase funding in poorer districts with its teacher comparability provision.

Right now, states must demonstrate through an alternative measurement, like student-pupil rations, that Title 1 schools and richer schools that are not Title 1 receive similar funding. However, current laws permits a gap of ten percent in spending, which tends to privilege wealthier schools as they can attract more qualified teachers and more supplies. Harkin’s plan would force spending to be equal between Title 1 and non-Title 1 schools, allowing struggling districts to have funds on hand to pay better qualified teachers more.