According to Environment and Energy Daily, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) “plans to issue a rulemaking that would place greater scrutiny on the use of categorical exclusions, or CXs, used to bypass traditional environmental reviews, according to sources familiar with the issue.”

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report in 2009 found that between 2006 and 2008 the BLM used CXs to sign off on more than 6,100 oil and gas drilling permits in 20 states, mostly in the mountain west. The GAO also concluded that in 85 percent of those cases BLM officials failed to follow guidance and provide adequate justification for using CXs, which allow for drilling permits outside of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process in order to speed up production.

British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico was approved using a CX on April 6, 2009. A year later an explosion at the well sent millions of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.

“The BP oil spill disaster proved that allowing companies to take shortcuts is a bad idea,” DeGette said. “It’s unfortunate that some continue to attempt an end-run around the law and protections for Colorado’s water, air, and public lands.

“We need reasonable, common-sense solutions that allow for balanced energy development, and I commend Sec. Ken Salazar for his diligent work to ensure responsible energy policy in the West.”

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., held a hearing today of the Energy and Mineral Resources Oversight Subcommittee entitled “Impacts to Onshore Jobs, Revenue, and Energy: Review and Status of Sec. 390 Categorical Exclusions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.”

Lamborn argues that the Obama administration’s tougher stance on CXs, which were implemented during the Bush administration under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, is yet one more regulatory hurdle standing in the way of increased domestic oil and gas production and more high-paying American jobs.

It’s a theme the ranking Republican member of Colorado’s congressional delegation has hammered on over the past year, and he raised it again in reaction to President Barack Obama’s jobs speech Thursday night.

“Like all Americans, I support the president’s goal to create more jobs,” Lamborn said in a prepared statement. “But I reject his big government solutions. I favor pro-growth policies that will allow business owners to invest with confidence and hire more workers. One common-sense place to start is by rolling back burdensome regulations.”

However, a recent report (pdf) by Montana-based Headwaters Economics indicates the domestic oil and gas industry doesn’t need greater regulatory freedom. According to the report, the industry has added about 10,000 jobs a month so far this year.

“The energy sector today is experiencing rapid growth,” said Headwaters’ Julia Haggerty, Ph.D. “Oil and natural gas drilling activity is now approaching a 30-year high, having made a strong recovery since reaching a recession-induced low in 2009. Market prices and advancements in drilling technology account for most of the increases in drilling activity.”

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., also issued a statement backing the Interior Department on the CX issue: “We need leasing reforms that make sure the public, for the first time, benefits from development of public land at least as much as the companies that get sweetheart deals and taxpayer subsidies.”

High Country News in 2010 dubbed Salazar’s efforts to reform the process an exercise in “Safe(r) CX.”

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After taking BP to task for allowing the spill to occur, Markey said, “Now the other companies here today will contend that this was an isolated incident. They will say a similar disaster could never happen to them.”

And so they did. “This incident represents a dramatic departure from the industry norm in deepwater drilling,” said ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson. And Chevron chairman John Watson said his company’s “drilling and control practices for deepwater wells are safe and environmentally sound.”

But Markey would have none of it. “What we found was that these five companies have response plans that are virtually identical,” he said.

“The covers of the five response plans are different colors, but the content is ninety percent identical,” Markey continued. “Like BP, three other companies include references to protecting walruses, which have not called the Gulf of Mexico home for 3 million years. Two other plans are such dead ringers for BP’s that they list a phone number for the same long-dead expert.”

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, right, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates at Tuesday's Senate hearing on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (James Berglie/ZUMApress.com)

The Pentagon’s top civilian and military leadership made an unequivocal and at times emotional appeal Tuesday to end the decades-long ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, and spelled out a year-long process for securing uniformed and congressional support to change the policy.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed his “full support” for President Obama’s call in the State of the Union address to end the so-called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law this year. He announced to the Senate Armed Services Committee that he had asked Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson and Army Gen. Carter Ham to lead a panel studying the implications of repeal across a variety of military concerns: unit cohesion and discipline — the main concern that led Congress to embrace “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 1993; partner benefits; base housing; “fraternization and base conduct;” and others. In addition, Gates said he planned to ask the Rand Corporation, a leading defense think tank, to update its influential 90s-era study of the impact of gay service on unit cohesion.

[Security1]“It is clear to us we must proceed in a manner that allows for thorough examination of all issues” and “minimizes disruption” to a force stressed by two wars, Gates said. The panel will issue its recommendations before the end of 2010, and Gates told the senators he hoped its work would guide the Congress to pass a law overturning “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

But it was Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who set the hearing’s tone. In 1993, when President Clinton attempted to overturn the ban, the uniformed military rejected the effort, particularly Mullen’s predecessor, Army Gen. Colin Powell. (Powell came out last year for “review[ing]” “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”) In 2007, Mullen’s immediate predecessor, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, publicly called homosexuality “immoral” and likened it to adultery as a rationale for keeping the gay servicemember ban in place.

This time, however, Mullen — emphasizing that he spoke for himself and not the service chiefs — firmly and powerfully argued for repeal. “It is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do,” Mullen said. He called it an issue of “integrity,” and said his personal experience and introspection led him to reject a policy that he said forces servicemembers to “lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.”

Several Republicans on the panel, led by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the committee’s ranking Republican, blasted President Obama’s decision to end the gay ban and Gates’ decision to announce his support for it before the Johnson-Ham panel has issued its recommendations. Some suggested that Mullen was carrying Obama’s water instead of presenting his own advice. “If it was a trial, perhaps we’d raise the undue-command-influence defense,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).

That drew Mullen’s ire. “I have served with homosexuals since 1968,” the chairman said, raising his voice. “Everyone in the military has… A number of things, cumulatively, for me, get me to this position.” Sen. Carl Levin, the committee’s chairman and a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” enemy, called Mullen’s comments a “profile in leadership.” After the hearing, Mullen tweeted, “Stand by what I said: Allowing homosexuals to serve openly is the right thing to do. Comes down to integrity.”

A Gallup poll from last May found that 69 percent of American adults favor allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly, and that acceptance of open homosexual military service has increased across all surveyed demographics over the past five years. Several close American allies — including those who have contributed to coalition military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan — allow open gay military service, including Australia, Israel, the U.K., France, Denmark, Italy, Canada, the Czech Republic and Spain. When asked, Mullen said he was unaware of any problems related to such service that impeded coalition efforts in either war.

Gates signaled that he was disinclined to take unilateral steps to mitigate the enforcement of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” contrary to a piece in Tuesday’s Washington Post. “We obviously recognize that this is up to Congress,” Gates, adding that it was “critical this matter be settled by a vote of the Congress.” Still, the Servicemembers’ Legal Defense Fund, which advocates for the rights of gay servicemembers, said yesterday it had noticed a 30 percent drop in “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” enforcement cases during the first year of the Obama administration.

Congressional repeal is far from certain. Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.), one of the few Iraq veterans serving in Congress, has introduced a bill in the House that would repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and claims the support of more than 180 representatives. Yet Rep. Ike Skelton, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is opposed to repeal. Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Penn.), a retired Navy admiral who is running for Senate in Pennsylvania, urged Obama not to wait for Congressional action and urged him to issue an executive order halting “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” enforcement. “In a time of war, we cannot lose any more troops that we depend on to keep our country safe,” Sestak said in a statement emailed to reporters.

Murphy is 36 years old and Skelton is nearly 80. The difference in their attitudes is reflective of what Paul Rieckoff, president of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, called a “generational shift within the military” during a 2007 interview with the Los Angeles Times. “The average 18-year-old has been around gay people, has seen gay people in popular culture, and they’re not this boogeyman in the same way they were to Pete Pace’s generation.” Rieckoff’s quote was cited in a recent anti-”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” article in the military’s influential Joint Forces Quarterly publication. Among the article’s conclusions: “[T]here is sufficient empirical evidence from foreign militaries to anticipate that incorporating homosexuals will introduce leadership challenges, but the challenges will not be insurmountable or affect unit cohesion and combat effectiveness.”

Mullen indicated his respect for all points of view on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and took pains to emphasize that he was not speaking for the entire military. But he said he believed there was a “gap between that which we value, the military — specifically the value of integrity — and where our policy is.”

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who chairs the House Financial Services Committee (a subcommittee of which is holding the hearing where Liddy is testifying) said he might subpoena the names of AIG employees who received bonuses, after consulting with law enforcement.

Earlier, Liddy testified that he’s been communicating for the past three months with the Federal Reserve about payment of these bonuses, though he didn’t know if the Fed has communicated that information to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.  Geithner has said he only learned about the bonus payments two weeks ago.

“I proudly stand in support of Senator Norm Coleman’s pursuit to see that Minnesota’s voters are enfranchised by having their ballots counted. If voters do not have confidence in elections, then they will not have confidence in their elected leaders. That is why the judges’ review of thousands of additional ballots in Minnesota is critical to the democratic process. The Republican National Committee remains committed to Norm Coleman’s campaign and confident that when the recount contest is complete, he will be re-elected to the U.S. Senate.”

Meanwhile, Franken’s lawyers are arguing before the Minnesota Supreme Court today that Franken should be issued a temporary election certificate so that Minnesota can have its full representation in the Senate while Coleman’s election contest is resolved (it could take a while). Watch the hearing live:

Will he resign? Will he quote a British poet? Will he channel his inner Clint Eastwood? Will he deliver a Mr. Smith-esque filibuster? Is that even allowed? Only time will tell…

It’s the TV event of the century, on … right … now!

Politico reports that Paul McNulty and Larry Thompson, who are both former deputy attorneys general in the Bush Justice Department, have thrown their support behind the nominee. You may remember McNulty from the “inaccurate information” he gave to Congress in his testimony in the U.S. attorney firings, and his resignation from the number two spot at the department shortly thereafter.

Considering the low morale at the Department of Justice after McNulty’s boss, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned, and the hit the department’s reputation has taken in the last eight years, it’s hard to discern whether the support of someone like McNulty is a good thing.

In his endorsement letter, McNulty stated that Holder “is one of the most qualified nominees for Attorney General in the nation’s history.”

James Comey, another deputy attorney general who served under former Attorney General John Ashcroft — and whose reputation actually survived the Bush Justice Department intact — has also said he supports Holder’s nomination. Holder’s confirmation hearings begin Thursday.

The Pentagon is refusing demands from state government officials to clean up three contaminated military sites, in Maryland, New Jersey, and Florida. EPA has authority, under the Superfund toxic clean-up program to back the states and make the Pentagon clean up these bases– which are full of toxins released from unexploded chemical weapons. But EPA has yet to exercise this power– even as the Pentagon has allegedly bullied these states by threatening to cut off funding for oversight activities.

The Pentagon defended itself at the hearing by saying they disapprove of state officials and EPA’s approach to the clean-up. Barbara Boxer, (D-Calif.) an ardent Bush administration foe, responded: “I don’t want the EPA making decisions on war strategy and I don’t want the [Pentagon] making decisions on environmental clean up.” I don’t know– maybe we should see if Stephen Johnson has been secretly spending his time cooking up an Iraq withdrawal plan.

The scheduled dates for hearings are odd: Oct. 6 and 7th, when Congress is in election season recess. A member of the oversight committee staff explained that the extraordinary circumstances of the financial crisis merit bringing committee members back for the special sessions.

Meanwhile, the House financial services committee is holding its own hearing next week, which, like the oversight committee, will ask how government regulators could have prevented the catastrophe.

So far the oversight committee has focused on one sliver of the mortgage crisis: the compensation packages of CEO’s for subprime lenders and investment banks. Will Congressional investigators have anything new to add about a crisis that has dominated the past week’s headlines?