Iowa U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Cumming) can count himself among the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, according to a USA Today analysis of financial disclosures of members of Congress.

Harkin has an estimated net worth of $16.6 million, putting him among the 57 members of Congress or 11 percent that are worth $9 million or more and thus in the wealthiest 1 percent.

The wealthiest 1 percent measurement has become popular in recent months as Occupy Wall Street demonstrators and others have begun referring to themselves as “the 99 percent,” decrying wealthy Americans and corporations they say aren’t paying their fair share in taxes.

Other members of the Iowa Congressional delegation aren’t included in the wealthiest 1 percent. U.S. Rep. Tom Latham (R-Ames) is worth $5 million; U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-New Hartford) is worth $3.2 million; and U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-Des Moines) is worth $1 million.

U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack (R-Mount Vernon) is worth $499,000; U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Waterloo) is worth $435,500; and U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Kiron) is worth $240,000.

The wealthiest members of Congress are U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Cal.), at $448.1 million; U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), at $380.4 million; and U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), at $231.7 million (most of which is courtesy of his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry).

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is worth $6.8 million; and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is worth $27.2 million.

House Speaker John Boehner is worth $4 million; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) is worth $101.1 million; and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) is worth $5.4 million.

Net worth doesn’t include primary residences or other personal property.

Napolitano called Secure Communities “a program that helps ICE identify those who have been arrested by state and local law enforcement for non-immigration state or local crimes, who are also in the country unlawfully. It bestows no additional authorities onto local law enforcement and only identifies those who have been booked into jails. Literally, in jails.”

Opponents of Secure Communities have repeatedly called on the Obama administration to end the fingerprint-sharing program because immigrants who have committed no crime are being detained and deported, leaving behind U.S.-born children and families that, in many cases, will struggle to make ends meet.

Jonathan Fried of We Count!, a South Florida worker and immigrant advocacy organization, said during an event in August that in Miami-Dade County, as of May 2011, close to 60 percent of undocumented immigrants who have been detained under Secure Communities have not committed a crime.

Napolitano said Secure Communities “got off to a bad start.”

“We did not explain clearly how it works and who is required to participate,” she said. “It has already helped accomplish a great deal toward ensuring that we use our enforcement resources where they do the most good.”

Over the summer, three state governors — in Illinois, New York and Massachusetts — announced they were suspending their participation in Secure Communities. Members of Congress have called on California Gov. Jerry Brown to suspend the state’s participation in Secure Communities.

U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told the Spanish-language La Opinion — an online news outlet — that deporting undocumented immigrants who have not committed a serious crime, something she accepted is happening with Secure Communities, is a waste of taxpayer money.

According to Napolitano, “Secure Communities hasn’t increased the number of individuals who are removed, but it has helped change the composition – helping ICE to dramatically increase the number of convicted criminals and egregious immigration law violators,” adding that, “despite the misleading commentary about this program, it has proven to be the single best tool at focusing our immigration enforcement resources on criminals and egregious immigration law violators.”

Pablo Alvarado, director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, responded to Secretary Napolitano’s speech today with the following statement:

We are happy to hear Secretary Napolitano mention S-Comm and “termination” in the same sentence. Despite the political spin and marketing campaign to defend a failed program, S-Comm has proven to be a disastrous policy for our nation and for our communities. It should be ended before it leads to the further Arizonification of the country.

Napolitano said termination of Secure Communities “would only weaken public safety, and move the immigration enforcement system back towards the ad hoc approach where non-criminal aliens are more likely to be removed than criminals.”

Napolitano said it is her department’s job “to listen and make adjustments consistent with our best law enforcement judgment. That’s why Secure Communities now has new training for state and local law enforcement, and additional steps are being taken to protect witnesses, domestic violence victims, and victims of other violent crime.”

The National Immigration Forum, ”a vocal and vehement critic of the Secure Communities program,” was invited by the Department of Homeland Security in July to participate in a task force “created in response to growing criticism and concern” about Secure Communities.

The Forum resigned from the advisory committee in September, stating that despite recommendations “that – if implemented – would improve the operation of the Secure Communities program and strengthen civil rights and civil liberties protections,” they “fell short of sound policy recommendations that would cure fundamental flaws in the program.”

In the video a narrator asks, “Who supports Governor Perry’s decision to give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants?” Photos of President Barack Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid enter the frame before the video centers on footage of Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico, praising the decision by Gov. Rick Perry and Texas lawmakers. The praise was offered by the Mexican official during a 2003 luncheon in Texas.

Perry’s controversial debate statement that those who do not agree with the state’s decision to offer tuition breaks to undocumented migrants to attend universities aren’t sympathetic enough also makes an appearance. “If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart,” Perry said.

The final frames of the video provide Romney’s debate statement that the undocumented in Texas are being lifted above U.S. citizens because they are offered a better discount on an education in the state than those in other states.

A copy of the video is embedded below.

Last week’s decision by the Obama administration to shelve tougher EPA smog standards, coming hard on the heels of the State Department’s nod to the Keystone XL pipeline, has many mainstream environmentalists wondering if young, green voters will turn out for Obama next year the way they did in 2008.

“[The smog decision’s] a huge mistake politically, and I don’t understand it at all,” Dr. Brian Moench, president of the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, told the Colorado Independent. “Unless they’re calculating that by doing this they will capture campaign funds from the polluting industry that would have gone to the Republicans, and I don’t even see that as a possibility.”

According to EPA estimates, the tougher smog rules recommended by an independent scientific panel would have saved 12,000 lives by 2020 and created $17 billion in economic benefits — from health care savings to jobs in the pollution-control industry.

As Republican in Congress, including members of Colorado’s delegation, call for even more regulatory rollbacks for the oil and gas industry to create jobs, polls on the ground in Colorado show voters don’t want to improve the economy at the expense of the environment.

And a new report from Headwaters Economics analyzing federal labor statistics (pdf) finds that the oil and gas industry is doing just fine in the current regulatory environment.

“During this year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the energy industry has boomed, adding roughly 10,000 jobs a month, and drilling activity is approaching a 30-year high,” according to the report. “This activity already has increased so quickly this year that the sector is starting to fear shortages of skilled labor and machinery.”

In Colorado, where former Gov. Bill Ritter’s “New Energy Economy” focused on conservation and renewables has in some ways been the sole economic bright spot, observers say that the White House has shown some environmental leadership, but ultimately not nearly enough.

Starting with the climate bill …

Colorado Conservation Voters Executive Director Pete Maysmith cited as a positive Obama’s much tougher CAFE (gas mileage) standards for automakers. Others point to a long list of disappointments dating back to the failure in 2009 of a comprehensive climate bill, saying the administration has basically given back any gains from increased vehicle mileage.

“Since the climate bill in particular or moving forward from there, there has been this clear indication that all too often actions to better protect our air and water and address climate change are not the top priority of this administration and are at risk of being jettisoned away,” Maysmith said.

In an interview with the Colorado Independent on energy topics last spring, Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi placed blame on both the Senate and environmentalists for the failure of the Waxman-Markey climate bill that narrowly cleared the House.

“The House passes a bill; the Senate passes a bill. That’s the way it works,” Pelosi said. “They can do something different. It wasn’t theology for us. We always thought there’d be something less coming in from the Senate; we didn’t think there’d be nothing.”

And she added environmentalists should have lobbied the Senate harder. Now those groups are dejected by the missed opportunity that may have set the tone for future setbacks.

“I’ve been very clear to the [conservation] community,” Pelosi said, “They really had to work the Senate a lot harder than they did.”

‘The alternative is much worse’

But while environmentalists may be disaffected by the latest Obama administration actions, front-running Republican presidential candidate Gov. Rick Perry of Texas said during Wednesday night’s GOP primary debate that “the science is not settled on [human-caused climate change]. The idea that we would put Americans’ economy at jeopardy based on scientific theory that’s not settled yet, to me, is just nonsense.”

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman was the only GOP candidate Wednesday night who said Republicans can’t win in 2012 by denying the body of scientific evidence.

“[Perry’s] an environmental clown, so the alternative [to Obama] is much worse,” Utah physician Moench said of the president’s recent decisions. “But it’s going to affect people’s willingness to try and work at the grassroots level, to donate. It will affect turnout to a certain degree and it’s certainly going to have an effect on turnout for younger voters who traditionally are more in tune with environmental concerns.”

Maysmith said the smog ruling in particular appeared to be more of a political decision than an economic one.

“I’d call it a political decision that indicated some lack of willingness to stand by one’s principles in the face of shout radio and the right-wing tea partiers in Congress, and that is a bit mystifying and certainly frustrating,” Maysmith said.

He added it’s ironic that at a time when the Republican Party is regrettably swinging more and more to the right, denying science and becoming increasingly shrill, the White House isn’t standing up for common-sense environmental policy.

“For people who care about our air and our water, many of them are going to look at someone like candidate Perry and think, ‘No way, that’s not an option,’” Maysmith said. “At that exact moment they’re going to look at some of these decisions coming out of the White House and they’re going to inevitably be deeply disappointed in them. And it will have the effect in some instances of depressing energy and enthusiasm for the 2012 campaign.”

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“As a delegation, we are committed to working together to build the right environment in Colorado and the country for innovation to thrive,” the authors said in a letter accompanying the report. “We believe that the Colorado Competes Report serves as a good template for a serious discussion on how we can spur innovation and put our country back to work.”

Coloradans for an Innovation Economy came together earlier this year at Bennet’s request to identify ways to promote economic competitiveness at the state and national levels through a greater focus on innovation and cross-sector collaboration. The group includes representatives from business and academia and was co-chaired by Mark Sirangelo, head of Sierra Nevada Space Systems; and Holli Riebel, President and CEO of the Colorado Bioscience Association.

From the report:

Even during the worst recession since the Great Depression, we saw our innovation-based industries grow in Colorado.8 Our state is 6th in clean energy employment. We have the third largest aerospace industry in the country, represented by more than 400 companies across the state. We have the 6th largest medical device industry in the country, and bioscience in Colorado is represented by more than 1,000 establishments, employing more than 100,000 people. Our state ranks 2nd in SBIR Innovation Research grants, 3rd in high tech employment, and10th in the number of granted patents.

Many of our economic indicators are strong, but we believe Colorado is in danger of losing its competitive position relative to the rest of the country and the world. Colorado‟s rankings in per-capita personal income and domination of the aerospace industry have declined in recent years. Over the last few years, our state has been losing venture capital dollars, and export dollars from Colorado are the 4th lowest in the country. Colorado is 48th in spending on higher education putting us at risk of losing our competitive workforce.10 In addition, a recent report gave our state only a “D+” in its manufacturing efforts.

Meanwhile, the national and global competition is running full steam ahead. As the Denver Metro Chamber recently stated, “Many of Colorado‟s competitors are far more focused on what we call „purposeful economic development.‟ Countries such as China are acquiring major stakes in rare minerals and playing an increasingly prominent role in the purchase of oil reserves in places such as Canada. Other countries have made giant leaps in the number of scientists, engineers and mathematicians they train for entry into the workforce. For these competitors, the future is now.”

…

Though each of our industries interacts with different federal agencies, we are all hampered by a federal regulatory structure that seems more intent catching our mistakes, than working with us to help us succeed. In an economy where competition is fierce, we are spending greater and greater time and resources complying with sometimes conflicting federal requirements.

We understand the need for regulation, but along with that understanding we desire a partnership with the government than enables both sides to succeed in making Coloradans better off. Several states have initiated a process under which excessive, redundant or wasteful regulations are examined and if determined not to be needed, eliminated. We recommend that you look into pursuing a similar effort at the state and federal levels.

Bennet, Hickenlooper and Udall also wrote a letter to Obama in which they express the hope that Obama will consider the report in drafting a national jobs creation plan. Obama is scheduled to deliver a jobs plan in a nationally televised address on Sept. 8.

Jobs seems to be on everyone’s mind these days, and for good reason. DeGette’s event, held on the Auraria campus, brought seven female business people together to talk about how Congress can help small business owners–especially women–succeed in the current climate.

The women on the panel were not shy about pointing their fingers at what they said was too much regulation and a tax environment that favors large corporations over small business.

DeGette started the forum by saying there are 12,200 women owned businesses in the Denver area, employing about 117,000 people and doing about $19 billion in annual sales.

Despite all the progress toward equality in the country over the past decades, she said women in America still earn only about 78 percent of what men earn for the same jobs.

Pelosi noted that everyone is talking about “jobs, jobs, jobs” but that figuring out how to create more of them is hard. “There is nothing more optimistic than starting a business,” she said before adding the possible exception of getting married, which got a good laugh out of the mostly female audience.

Pelosi said it is no surprise that Americans are disillusioned with Congress, to which DeGette added that people elect Congress to get things done. “Instead they see bickering and division.”

Both women lobbied for The Dream Act and Pelosi said the country is constantly redefining itself as new people come in search of the American Dream.

“What I need from Congress is first to do no more harm,” said Gail Lindley, owner of Denver Bookbinding Company. “We need the confidence that we can grow jobs,” she said. Lindley said small businesses typically pay about 33 percent higher taxes than larger corporations.

Selena Dunham, owner of training firm Classique, said her company grew tremendously in the early 2000s before crashing in 2009. She said when times were good she was proud to offer health insurance benefits to employees but had to drop it when her business fell. She argued for tax incentives to small businesses that offer health insurance and also noted that some of her clients have government contracts and when she does work related to one of those contracts she doesn’t get paid until her client gets paid. “We need prompt payment from the government,” she said.

Kristy Schloss, owner of Schloss Engineered Equipment, said her company has benefited from stimulus spending. “We are alive because of the stimulus,” she said of her 113-year-old company. She said the country needs to do a better job of maintaining its infrastructure of bridges, roads, and water systems, many of which she said are failing.

Purnima Voria, Founder/CEO of the National US India Chamber of Commerce, noted that only 11 Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs. She said corporations need to do a better job of placing and promoting women into jobs where they can compete for CEO slots later.

Diana Gadison, owner of Early Success Academy in Montbello, recounted growing up on welfare then watching her mother go to college to become a teacher and believing she could anything if she tried hard enough. As a business owner, though, she complained about regulation, even saying some regulations seem to cancel out other regulations do the point that she just wants to say “forget it” sometimes.

Lynn Gangone, Dean of the University of Denver Women’s College, said that only about 2.4 percent of woman-owned businesses ever reach $1 million in annual sales and that access to capital remains one of the most challenging aspects of starting or running a small business. She also noted that 60 percent of all new jobs being created in Denver require a college education.

At the end of the meeting, DeGette noted “three threads” that ran through the discussion: access to capital, the need for less regulation and the desire for tax relief. She said the country needs to eliminate duplicitous and unneeded regulation while ensuring “health and well-being.”

If tax relief were to be pursued, she said it should be for the small businesses that need it, not large corporations.

Pelosi said a better system of childcare that is more affordable and more available to working women would be a huge step that would not only be good for business, “but is a business itself.”

She said that most new jobs in the country will be created by small businesses. “Most wealth is created by small business,” she added.

She said Congress is looking at a number of pieces of jobs legislation. “We have to make our own environment for success, winning the future by shaping it ourselves. She said public policy needs to be crafted that inspires people to “follow their passions. We have always been a country of opportunity and hope,” Pelosi said.

National political leaders, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), hosted a community forum Wednesday in Minneapolis—which has a large Somali community—to chart the relief efforts spearheaded by the U.S. government and whip up support for humanitarian aid spending.

“Famine isn’t defined as drought or defined as food access, it’s a definition of children dying,” USAID Administrator Raj Shah told the crowd, made up mostly of people from the University of Minnesota and Somali-American communities. “That number is likely go up significantly if we’re unable to dramatically expand our access to care for vulnerable populations in Somalia.”

USAID Administrator Raj Shah speaks to the crowd.

Shah announced another $23 million in grants and aid to provide some famine relief in Somalia and the surrounding region. The U.S. has already spent more than $580 million this year to combat the famine in East Africa, which Rah said accounts for half the funds being donated internationally to the effort.

The drought has also impacted Kenya and Ethiopia. In the entire region, up to 12 million people could be at risk, Shah said.

Much of the effort spearheaded by USAID focuses not just on food convoys, which have been hijacked in Somalia in the past, but on longer-term projects to develop drought-resistant crops and sustainable agriculture, Shah said. Relief efforts have also focused on medical care that can prevent children deaths, like cholera treatment centers.

But despite the urgency of the situation, lawmakers on the panel admitted they could run into roadblocks in attempting to fund more relief in a Congress fixated on budgetary issues. U.S. Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) said the most common constituent call to his office demanded an end to foreign aid.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)

Pelosi said security and humanitarian issues were related.

“Some in Congress believe that if people are starving in areas controlled by al-Shabab, that they should not be provided with food assistance,” Pelosi said, referring to the Islamic militant movement that still controls vast stretches of the country. ”Alleviation of poverty, eradication of disease, providing opportunity lessen the fury of despair, which is a recruiting ground for trouble, for violence.”

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said the United States’ history in the region, including the 1993 killings of 18 American soldiers in Mogadishu, gave some Americans pause about interacting with the region. But the international neglect of Somalia has led to a number of problems, from piracy to the famine to the al-Shabab movement, he said.

“The crisis in the horn [of Africa] and Somalia is all of our business,” Ellison said, calling for constituent pressure for humanitarian aid. “This world of ours can take care of its people but we have to have the political will to make it that way.”

But a lack of financial aid represents just one difficulty in staving off famine in East Africa. Complications in the region have led groups to approach the issue differently than past relief projects, with groups like the American Refugee Committee (ARC) working with the Somali-American community to help get aid to people who need it.

“I want to tell you with absolute certainty that the money you give, the support you put in, is and can be translated into lifesaving programs and it’s happening right now as we sit here,” said Daniel Wordsworth of ARC.

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.)

The Somali-American community has been very active in organizing and supporting relief efforts, Wordsworth said.

“We want the Somali-American community, the American-Somali community to know how much we value your contributions to our country, your country, all of our country,” Pelosi told the audience. “I hope you know how deeply concerned we are on this issue that challenges the conscience of all humanity, and we must get the job done.”

Zainab Hassan said the forum was the sort of discussion the community needs to have to help spread peace and stability throughout the region.

“As world citizens we have to be involved in these issues and look at it in a positive and comprehensive way in terms of how do our policies impact other people in the region,” Hassan said. “How can we hold accountable our politicians to do the right thing and to adopt policies that would benefit not only Minnesotans but also internationally?”

Hassan said it didn’t seem that most Minnesotans were aware of what was going on in Somalia, but that programs like ARC’s Neighbors Initiative were changing that.

“A lot of effort is going on in Minnesota to bring together Minnesotan communities regardless of race, culture, countries of origin,” she said.

Ayan Abdinur said most people of Somali origin knew about the famine, but that other issues have sometimes distracted the broader community from learning about famine relief efforts.

“When you hear Somalia, it’s about the pirates, it’s still al-Shabab, there’s so much negative media that we really forget the issue that’s happening right now,” Abdinur said. “Yes, there is a security issue, but there is a bigger issue than al-Shabab and the pirates and anything that’s going on, but I wish that people would step away from that and open their heart to the people who are dying.”

Abdinur said she was proud to see how many people showed up for the forum.

“It was a really great way to show that Somali-Americans, other Americans, that everybody cares about the issues going on in Somalia and that we come together as a community and try to make an effort to help the people in Somalia,” Abdinur said. ”I was really happy, touched, by how the community could come together for one issue outside our country.”

Nancy Pelosi

Pelosi last week told the Independent that oil and gas operators should want to publicly disclose all the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” as protection against future litigation. Critics of the process claim it can lead to the contamination of groundwater supplies with chemicals that are kept secret from the public for proprietary reasons.

Nearly half of the shareholders of Energen Corporation recently supported “increased transparency and accountability around its hydraulic fracturing operations,” according to SEC filings. Still, a slight majority voted to maintain the status quo.

“This vote is the highest on record for this issue and is among one of the highest votes for any environmental proposal,” Luan Steinhilber of Miller/Howard Investments said in a release. Miller/Howard filed the proposal at Energen. “In addition to the 49.5 percent voting yes among all those voting yes or no, a sizeable percentage of the voting shareholders declined to support management’s recommendation to oppose the resolution, and instead voted to ‘abstain.’

“This is a wake-up call for the company to increase disclosure on how it is managing and reducing potential risks associated with its fracturing operations,” she added.

Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette has once again proposed the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act to better regulate hydraulic fracturing, in which water, sand and chemicals are injected under high pressure into natural gas wells to free up more gas. DeGette has spearheaded recent congressional studies showing diesel fuel and 29 different human carcinogens have been used in fracking operations.

Oil and gas industry representatives countered that fracking occurs too deep to contaminate shallow drinking water supplies and that federal oversight is unwarranted because there is no evidence of fracking tainting groundwater.

Shareholders at Carrizo Oil & Gas, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Ultra Petroleum will have an opportunity to vote on the issue in coming weeks.

DeGette’s FRAC (Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals) Act would compel the industry to disclose chemicals used in the process, which industry officials say must be kept under wraps for proprietary reasons. Known as “fracking,” the process frees up more gas by injecting water, sand and chemicals into natural gas wells deep underground – too deep to contaminate groundwater supplies, industry officials say.

DeGette points to anecdotal evidence of fracking causing groundwater contamination and to recent probes by her congressional committee revealing diesel fuel and up to 29 known cancer-causing human carcinogens are being used in hydraulic fracturing operations. She wants the chemicals disclosed and regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Pelosi chimed in that the industry should want the same thing, if for no other reason than to “protect” itself. That sentiment is echoed by environmental shareholder groups that forced votes at ExxonMobil – the nation’s largest natural gas producer with its acquisition last year of XTO Energy – and other natural gas companies showing some support for the full disclosure of fracking chemicals. The groups view the move as a means of avoiding future litigation.

Similar votes have occurred among shareholders of companies such as Williams, the largest natural gas producer on Colorado’s Western Slope.

Pelosi said the industry should not continue to oppose the release of more information on fracking by arguing there’s been no evidence thus far of fracking contaminating groundwater.

“It’s a catch 22 in that there’s no reporting and so they say there’s no evidence, so let’s find out,” Pelosi said. “And I think it’s a really important issue that deserves a bright spotlight on and it may be that they’re not in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act and that they’re going deeper [than groundwater] or whatever it happens to be. If there’s so much natural gas that they want to get at, the public has a right to know [the chemicals].”

Pelosi said fracking has sparked a highly emotional debate around the country that needs to be informed by more study, more information and greater industry transparency.

“Natural gas is a domestic supply that again is plentiful and is not so expensive and I hope not as dangerous to the environment as other fossil fuels. The evidence seems to point that it isn’t,” Pelosi said. “It’s a great transition to when all the renewables are ready and much more operating. And it may be that it’s clean enough to be an answer for a very long time to come. But this [fracking issue] has to be cleared up.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, it just doesn’t get any better on a Monday than to hear that the House of Representatives has selected Paul Clement as its outside counsel to take on the defense of DOMA,” wrote Focus blogger Bruce Hausknecht on Monday. “Clement’s resume’ reads like a lawyer’s fantasy: Georgetown, Cambridge, Harvard Law, Scalia law clerk, Solicitor General of the United States, even acting Attorney General of the United States – for a day!”

Clement is a partner at international firm King & Spaulding, which represents major multinational businesses and employs more than 800 attorneys. The firm’s billing reportedly reaches upwards of $900 per hour for top personnel.

The Obama Administration Justice Department announced in February that it would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court because it believes DOMA unconstitutionally discriminates against gay citizens. Boehner responded by declaring that the House would defend the Act and asked this week for a part of the Justice Department budget to pay Clement.

Legal analysts have suggested it will be very difficult to defend DOMA against charges of unconstitutionality given legal precedent being set in courts around the country. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi decried Boehner for even trying, given that the controversial position is sure to distract from the crisis-level economic and fiscal matters demanding to be addressed by lawmakers.

“Speaker Boehner is spending half a million dollars of taxpayer money to defend discrimination. If Republicans were really interested in cutting spending, this should be at the top of the list,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill told the Huffington Post.

Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese told the Huffington Post that the number of DOMA cases lining up suggest Clement will end up costing Congress much more than the initial $500,000 Boehner has agreed to pay him.

Ed Whelan, president of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center and contributor to the National Review blog, was reportedly the first to suggest Boehner tap Justice Department funds to pay outside counsel. He made the suggestion during a “Defending Marriage” House hearing Friday.

“The Department’s irresponsible course of action is fully to blame for the House’s need to incur legal fees in defending DOMA. Thus, although it is refreshing to witness concerns of fiscal frugality from some members of the House not ordinarily associated with such concerns, those concerns are misdirected if they are deployed to question or oppose the House’s retention of counsel. The far more sensible course is for the House to make clear that the sum to be appropriated for the Department will be reduced by the sum expended on legal fees in defense of DOMA—or, better yet, by some healthy multiple of that sum.”

ThinkProgress posted a montage of video from the hearing where Whelan testified. He appears at 2:30. Full video available here.

Tea Party voters concerned primarily with fiscal matters swept a record number of Republicans into Congress last November. The new GOP majority, however, has dedicated itself above all to pushing repeated flash-point partisan social legislation.

Since January, Republicans have introduced several bills attempting to block access to abortion, for example. One of the bills attempted to redefine rape to only include “forcible” attacks. Another bill sought to reintroduce the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” military policy repealed in December that barred gay soldiers from serving openly. Republicans also introduced three bills to defund public broadcasting for its supposed liberal bias. And this month, they placed a provision that would have stripped funding from Planned Parenthood-– the top women’s reproductive health organization in the country–- at the center of the just-passed federal budget showdown.

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Making the case as to why she should be considered for the 2012 Republican nomination for president, the Minnesota representative told Fox News last week, “I have been able to raise more money than any member of the House of Representatives in the history of the United States Congress,” according to The Washington Post’s ‘Fact Checker blog.

The Post found that Bachmann raised more money in the 2009-2010 election cycle than any other House member, bringing in $13.5 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics; her contributions came mostly from individuals, 50 percent of whom contributed $200 or less.

“Bachmann is a prodigious fundraiser, but once again her talent for hyperbole has stretched the truth a bit,” writes the Post’s Glenn Kessler. ”Her statement would have been accurate if she had added the words ‘in an election cycle.’ But instead she choose to make a sweeping statement that, as of yet, is not quite true.”

Using CRP data, the Post found that Bachmann is in fourth place in terms of total fundraising by current House members, though those figures do not include money raised from leadership Political Action Committees:

• Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio): $26.4 million
• Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.): $21.7 million
• Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.): $20.5 million
• Bachmann: $19.6 million
• Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.): $18.5 million
• Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.): $17.6 million
• Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.): $12.5 million.