cairirsletter

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.).

In a private gathering adjacent the governor’s mansion in Charleston, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D), Rep. Nick Rahall (D), Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R) and Gov. Joe Manchin (D) met with industry leaders regarding the mixed signals coming from the Environmental Protection Agency on mountaintop removal, a method of mining in which the tops of mountains are blasted away and the debris pushed into nearby streams.

And here’s a hint: the lawmakers are none too happy with the EPA’s actions so far. From the Gazette:

Rockefeller said the White House meeting doesn’t have to involve President Obama, but must be with someone who can provide “good, hard information” about exactly what new environmental constraints EPA wants to place on mountaintop removal.

Rahall said coal executives at Tuesday’s meeting expressed frustration with EPA permit reviews, delays in permit decisions and general confusion about what — if any — new standards EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is imposing on Clean Water Act permits for strip mines.

“We need to know what the rules of the game are,” Rahall said. “We need clarity. We need EPA to get its act together.”

The meeting was originally scheduled to be public, Ward reports, but was moved to a private tent at the last minute. Organizers might have feared the arrival of anti-mountaintop removal activists, though no protesters showed up, Ward notes.

Both sides have reason to feel anxious. Earlier this year, the EPA approved dozens of new mountaintop mining permits, causing some alarm among environmentalists that the Obama administration was poised to follow in the footsteps of the hands-off Bush White House on the issue. More recently, however, the EPA announced that it was withholding 79 pending applications for new mountaintop removal projects in order to assess their impact on local waterways. Then last month the agency took an even bolder step, threatening to revoke the permit for the Spruce No. 1 Mine, the largest mountaintop mine in West Virginia, unless the owner changed the design to protect local streams. It marked the first time since the 1972 passage of the Clean Water Act that the EPA had invoked its CWA authority to halt an existing coal mining permit.

Calls to Capitol Hill today weren’t returned. (Today, after all, is Veterans Day, and many offices are vacant.) But the EPA said last month that other existing mountaintop operations can breathe easy — the agency isn’t likely to target them as it did the Spruce project.

EPA does not expect to review additional mining projects in circumstances where the [Army] Corps has already issued a permit. Spruce is a very large mine, with correspondingly significant environmental and water quality impacts.

From a regional perspective this makes sense. Like Connecticut, Nebraska is home to a high concentration of insurance companies, boasting the headquarters of Mutual of Omaha Health Plans, Physicians Mutual and Continental General, to name a few. Before entering politics, Nelson himself was the president of the Central National Insurance Company of Omaha.

So in the face of a public-plan proposal that would threaten the profits of private insurers, he’s protecting the industry that made him wealthy and showers him with tons of campaign cash. Easy enough, right?

If only it were so neat and clean.

Nelson’s decision to protect one of Nebraska’s largest economic engines is neither surprising nor uncommon, and lawmakers much more liberal than Nelson have built entire careers on that strategy. Sometimes the regional protectionism is a boon to local industry; sometimes it results in a bust. But whichever direction the insurance industry is headed, you can bet that a vote for a proposal harming local companies would do little to win Nelson support at the ballot box when he’s up for reelection in 2012.

The dilemma facing Democratic leaders — on health care, climate change, finance regulation, everything — is how to pass the strong industry reforms they prefer and still keep congressional seats in the districts where those industries are most entrenched.

The charge against Nelson will be that he’s putting corporations above the people. The deeper problem, though, is that in Nebraska — as in in many other parts of the country — they’re largely one in the same.

So why did Baucus oppose the EPW bill, and why does he want to tinker with the legislation in Finance so much? According to the Sunlight Foundation, part of the answer could lie in the company he keeps:

Baucus will likely have a lot of input coming in from outside his office as twelve of his former staffers, including four former chiefs of staff, work as lobbyists for organizations with an explicit interest in climate legislation. [...]

Many of the organizations represented by former staffers of Baucus are generally supportive of a climate bill, but are seeking certain provisions to be included or not removed during the committee process. Others are engaged in outward opposition.

To be sure, this is far from scandalous: many former Hill staffers move on to lucrative positions on K Street. But given Baucus’ somewhat recalcitrant stand on health care in the context of heavy donations from the insurance industry, it’s reasonable to suspect that the energy industry — chock-full of old Baucus buddies — will have at least some sway as Baucus takes up climate legislation.

Sunlight has a full chart of the twelve lobbyists, along with a relationship map, here.

By the way, the Finance Committee will hold its first hearing on climate legislation tomorrow, and the witness list isn’t exactly a who’s who of environmentalists:

Mr. Abraham Breehey, Director, Legislative Affairs, International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Shipbuilders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers, Department of Government Affairs, Fairfax, VA

Ms. Carol Berrigan, Director, Industry Infrastructure, Nuclear Energy Institute, Washington, DC

Dr. Kenneth P. Green, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, DC

Dr. Margo Thorning, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, American Council for Capital Formation, Washington, DC

Ms. Van Ton-Quinlivan, Director,Workforce Development and Strategic Programs, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, San Francisco, CA

As the nation remains mired in a debate over health care reform and how to keep down the costs of expanding coverage, AAJ is trying to point out that Republicans claims that medical malpractice lawsuits are one of the big cost drivers is completely misleading. In fact, though malpractice claims and so-called “defensive medicine” does account for a small percentage of unnecessary costs, medical errors and the astronomical profits of malpractice insurers appear to be a bigger part of the problem.

AAJ’s report released today finds that the average profit of medical malpractice insurance companies is higher than 99 percent of all Fortune 500 companies and 35 times higher than the Fortune 500 average for the same time period; and malpractice insurers have seen their profit margins range from 5.9 percent to 74.8 percent, with an average of 31.2 percent. The report also finds that malpractice insurers have publicly overestimated their losses and underestimated their profits in an attempt to suggest the insurance business and medical practice in general faces a crisis that must be resolved by so-called “tort reform” — i.e., making it harder for patients to sue and to collect damages for their injuries.

“Insurance companies are gouging doctors on their premiums to mislead lawmakers,” said American Association for Justice President Anthony Tarricone, managing partner at Kreindler & Kreindler LLP, in a statement released with the report. “And today, injured patients are often left with no avenue to pursue justice, while health care costs continue to skyrocket.”

Yesterday, The Hill ran the understatement of the year from Mary Kay Thatcher, director of public policy for the American Farm Bureau Federation.

We are very happy. She is a real believer in agriculture and is going to fight for it.

“We couldn’t have handpicked a chairman better than this,” Thatcher added.

As many have pointed out, however, what’s good for the farm industry, isn’t necessarily what’s good for taxpayers.

–

You can follow TWI on Twitter and Facebook.

–

You can follow TWI on Twitter and Facebook.

Which, as Washington Post columnist Michael Kinsley points out today, makes the new ad campaign from America’s Health Insurance Plans (the industry’s mouthpiece in Washington) just that much more cynical.

“Illness doesn’t care where you live,” the ad says, “Or if you’re already sick. Or if you lose your job. Your health insurance shouldn’t either.”

The ad sets a scolding tone, Kinsley writes, “as if describing some dreadful situation on the moon that they [insurance companies] have nothing to do with.”

If the health insurer industry shouldn’t discriminate against the disadvantaged, as the ad says, then “why does it?” Kinsley asks.

The industry lobby says, as part of health-care reform, that it will stop caring whether you’re already sick. But why wait, now that the scales have fallen from their eyes?

Good questions, all. And the answers can be found in the companies’ quarterly reports.

[S]trong anti-insurer rhetoric from Democrats struggling to win over a skeptical public could wake the sleeping giant.

Karen Ignagni, the president and CEO of the trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), said the industry would take its case directly to the American public via a television advertising campaign and by dispatching insurance company employees to public events staged by Democratic members of Congress during the August recess. [...]

“A campaign has been launched to demonize health plans and the men and women who work hard every day in their communities to provide health insurance coverage to more than 200 million Americans,” she said on a conference call with reporters.

Famously, the insurance industry helped to kill the Clinton administration’s 1993 health reform push, running a wildly effective ad claiming that the Clinton plan would steal the rights of patients to choose their own health care plans — the same argument the industry is using now to battle the public option proposal.

Ignagni said she’s not trying to cripple the Democrats’ health reform plans, The Hill reported. But if the Democrats come up with a strong public plan option, as many want, you can bet that AHIP’s strategy will quickly change.