All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Texas governor Rick Perry declared that the Obama administration was "hell-bent" on socialism during a speech to the Republican Women's Club in Midland, Texas yesterday, according to Texas local newspapers. He also called for more tea party protests against health care reform efforts.

Perry accused the administration of "punishing" Texas through what he calls the Alien Transfer and Exit Program. He complained to the crowd about what he said is the administration’s system of dumping illegal immigrants captured in other areas of the country into rural Texas, where the state must deal with them. Perry went on to describe a recent conversation he had with officials from the small border town of Presidio.

"They said, ‘do you all know what’s fixin’ to happen?’ I said, ‘well, no. What’s going on?’ They said, ‘the government has just called us and said for us to get ready for an influx of illegal aliens who were captured illegally crossing the border from San Diego to Nogales, Arizona," Perry recalled. "Way on the western side of this country. It's called the Alien Transfer and Exit Program."

Read full post…

A group of 34 U.S. Nobel Laureates sent a letter to President Obama today asking for him to push for more research and development funding in the climate change and energy legislation currently making its way through Congress.

While the nation is gaining ground now in the clean energy sector, they wrote, the development of potentially lucrative, carbon-cutting sectors could fall flat within the next decade without more basic research funding.

"We can get many gains now in efficiency (and) conservation," Burton Richter, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics who signed the letter, told reporters today on a conference call. "But to get what we need tomorrow, we must also invest more."

Specifically, the letter asks for the final cap and trade bill to establish a Clean Energy Technology Fund at $15 billion annually for 10 years, as Mr. Obama has previously called for. The president has previously proposed that proceeds from a cap and trade system be used to fund the initiative.

The cap and trade bill that passed in the House does not include any such stable funding mechanism; furthermore, about 85 percent of the permits for the cap and trade system -- which could generate revenue -- would be given away.

While the House bill would create technology deployment programs for particular industries, including coal and oil refineries, only 1.5 percent of funds in the bill would be allocated to energy R&D. The funding comes to roughly $2.5 billion a year starting in 2013, with $1 billion of that allocated to coal carbon capture research, Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) said in the conference call.

Read full post…

Even as her poll ratings sag, Sarah Palin remains the Republican party's hottest commodity.

Read full post…

President Obama will give discuss energy policy this afternoon, just days after the House of Representatives passed landmark climate change and energy legislation.

The president strongly advocated for the passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, but in an interview with reporters over the weekend, his review of the bill was mixed.

Mr. Obama called the bill an "extraordinary first step," according to the Washington Post, that would make renewable energy "a driver of economic growth."

He said the flexibility built into the bill enabled moderates to support the measure -- the first ever to impose a federal price on carbon.

"Finding the right balance between providing new incentives to businesses but not giving away the store is always an art, it's not a science," he said, the Post reported. "But, on balance, I think what we have with this legislation is a bill that business can embrace but is tough enough that by 2020 we will have seen significant reductions in carbon emissions."

Read full post…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has scheduled a floor vote for a controversial climate change bill for this week, even though some key Democrats may not yet be on board with the significant changes the legislation would make.

Other Democratic leaders are still working out compromises in the bill, but Pelosi filed the legislation with the House Rules Committee Monday night, Politico reported, meaning the full House of Representatives will vote on the matter. The speaker has said she wanted a vote on the bill before the Congress breaks next week for its July 4 holiday.

"There are some issues still under discussion, but we are confident we can resolve them by the time the bill goes to the floor on Friday," Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill told Politico in an e-mail.

Hammill said Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson both agreed to the vote. Waxman, who led the development of the climate change bill, has been negotiating with Peterson, who wants to ease the burden the bill may place on farmers and rural residents who may face higher electricity costs than urban citizens.

Read full post…

Democrats say they have made significant progress overcoming conflicting interests to advance climate change legislation in the House of Representatives, but one recent compromise could amount to simply another significant auto industry subsidy, some economists say.

Pressure is mounting for House Energy and Commerce Chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) to bring the legislation to the House floor by Memorial Day, as he promised. The committee could vote on the bill next week.

However, the cap-and-trade legislation in development has environmentalists who support reducing carbon emissions at odds with business-minded Democrats and Republicans, who say putting a price on carbon will hurt the economy.

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), a strong proponent of the bill, told reporters Thursday that major progress has been made over the last 24 hours. After meeting with the New Democrat Coalition, a centrist group that focuses on issues like national security and economic growth, Inslee said the coalition will sign a resolution urging the passage of climate change legislation this year.

"This is a very complex bill," said Inslee, chair of the sustainable energy and environment coalition. "There will be issues about this bill until the signing ceremony on the South Lawn."

Waxman has worked hard, though, "to accommodate members' concerns that are unique to their districts," Inslee said. For important committee members like former chair John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), that means helping the auto industry.

After meeting with the White House earlier this week, the House reached an agreement on a bill provision called "cash-for-clunkers." The program would allow consumers to trade in their old cars for a voucher of up to $4,500 when buying a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle.

Read full post…

This post was written by Stephanie Condon.

Congressional Democrats' proposal to create a trading system for carbon emissions will create jobs and bolster the economy, the Obama administration told Congress on Wednesday.

House Republicans insisted, however, that the proposal, which would charge the largest emitters of carbon dioxide for burning fossil fuels, would result in higher energy and gasoline prices for consumers, as well as a loss of U.S. jobs as carbon emitters moved positions overseas to unregulated markets.

"I believe this is a jobs bill that focuses our country's attention on the global industry of the future, which is the clean energy industry,"
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Read full post…