Legislative Report to BRWC Luncheon
November 17, 2009
Health Care Reform: As you know, on11/7 PelosiCare (HR 3962) passed the House 220-215. The bill needed 218 to pass and 39 Democrats voted “no”. Although the Stupak (D-MI) amendment passed to bar federal funding of abortion, Democrat leaders refused to guarantee that it will be in the final bill. It may have been a ploy to get pro-life Democrats to vote yes on the bill. Call Rep. Gary Peters and tell him he cast the wrong vote. Now the Senate's bill must be defeated. Call Senators Carl Levin, Debbie Stabenow and several Democratic senators who might well vote no: Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Jon Tester of Montana, and Dianne Feinstein of California.
Reform We Can Believe In: US Representative John Fleming (R-Louisiana) introduced an Amendment to the Pelosi health care bill that will automatically enroll all Members of Congress and all Senators in the public option.
Cap and Trade: A vote for the Boxer-Kerry legislation sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), and Sen. John Kerry ( D-Mass.), actually means a vote for even more greenhouse gases. Princeton University's Tim Searchinger and his colleagues found that carbon reduction laws encourage widespread deforestation as trees and other vegetation are harvested to produce energy from biomass to replace oil and gas. The problem is that in the long run, this process actually increases greenhouse gas emissions, which cap-and-trade is meant to reduce.
UN Climate Change Meeting in Denmark: U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders on Sunday supported delaying a legally binding climate pact until 2010 or even later, but European negotiators said the move did not imply weaker action. Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen said the December 7-18 talks should still agree on key elements such as cuts in greenhouse gases for industrialized nations and funds to help developing nations. Copenhagen would also set a deadline for writing them into a legal text. The next major U.N. climate meeting is in Bonn in mid-2010.
GITMO Detainees Moving to Illinois?: Gov. Pat Quinn and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin on 11-15 tried to build support and counter criticism of a proposal to sell a prison in Thomson, a rural northwestern Illinois village, to the federal government to house Guantanamo Bay detainees and other inmates. Federal officials visited the maximum security prison on 11-16.
In the States: The MEA and other educational organizations have formed SAVE OUR SCHOOLS (SOS) to assist schools in dealing with the funding crisis and to create solutions from within the school community. There is a proposal that Federal Stimulus money which was going to be used for next year's budget be pulled into the 09-10 budget to restore some of the 20J funding and the $127/student cuts to the school aid budget. Some groups believe that the administrators and teachers should be taking reductions in their pay, pensions and benefits in lieu of increasing taxes. On 11-10, SOS rallied in Lansing regarding school funding.
Source: League of American Voters, OneNewsNow.com, National Center for Policy Analysis (ncpa.org), dickmorris.com; fleming.house.gov, Reuters, Associated Press, BPS enews, Michigan Taxpayers Alliance
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