The New York Times reports that House Democratic leaders released late Monday night a revamped 1,201-page Waxman-Markey “cap and trade” energy bill and plan to move it to the floor on Friday. The bill has grown from the 946-page version adopted in the Energy and Commerce Committee — and “Sponsors expect to draft a manager’s amendment later this week that reflects additional deals reached among lawmakers.”
Democrats are still not done wheeling and dealing as they gear up for a floor debate, with critical issues still unresolved on everything from biofuels to which federal agency — U.S. EPA or the Agriculture Department — will have lead oversight of the offset program that would pay for environmentally friendly land management practices.
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“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 said. “The speaker, Leader [Steny] Hoyer and Chairmen Waxman and Peterson have all agreed on this approach for moving this historic climate change and clean energy jobs bill.”
Paul Blumenthal, writing on the blog of the Sunlight Foundation, describes how the bill is suddenly 255 pages longer than the one reported out of committee — and is getting longer. The bill was introduced on May 15, reported out of the Energy and Commerce Committee with amendments on June 5, discharged by two other committees the same day, discharged by six other committees on June 19, and “now we are expecting a Friday vote on a bill that has had no public hearing in a committee with jurisdiction over it and that is not yet available in the main engine of public disclosure, THOMAS.”
And that isn’t even the worst part. This, apparently, isn’t even the final bill. The final bill will be a manager’s amendment that will be drafted later this week! From a posting on the House Rules Committee, we know that the deadline to submit amendments is Thursday at 9:30am. And there is talk that this will be voted on Friday. Thus, the final version of this bill will likely only be available for less than 24 hours.
It seems clear that, if the public knew what is in this bill, and how much it may cost them, they would concur with this analysis: it is a “disaster.” But the Democrats plan to ram it through without hearings or even public availability of the relevant text. The same legislative process that brought us trillion-dollar stimulus spending and trillion-dollar deficit budgets is about to replicate itself yet again.
Why so fast? Aside from the obvious reasons, there is a need to make room for the next bill to be railroaded through on a fast track by a one-party Congress. The Times notes that:
Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) . . . wants to see the House adopt the climate bill before the start of the Fourth of July recess so that he can turn his full attention after the break to President Obama’s health care reform plans.
Funny, when the President questions whether the House has gone too far, you disparage him (dishonestly, I might add). But in Flotsam and Jetsam, you wrote that moderate Senators who were doing the same thing were “the adults in the Senate.”
“Meanwhile, the adults in the Senate have decided the House has gone too far in taxing the AIG bonuses, …”
I realize it must be hard to maintain logical consistency when you are motivated simply by blind partisan rage.
New populist charge … 90% tax on politicians
What this whole problem needs is a very excellent speech by Obama. He’s equaled Lincoln in the past, according to the MSM, now it’s time to top him.
“None of this bodes well for the future.”
Actually it does bode well for the future. Given his objectives we would now be in a lots worse pickle if this guy had entered office with a disciplined and coherent plan. He’s been burning credibility at every turn.
Jennifer: Number One’s flip-flops are not “mood changes.” Number One is always cool.
More importantly, you assume that Number One’s “conflicts” with Congress are real. Wrong: behind the scenes, this is all being choreographed by Number One, the D’s on the Hill and the Four Horsemen of Spin. Think of it as a pressure valve release, that permits some of them to surf on a popular mob emotion for a while, then, when the mob view becomes problematical, other of them can decry it. Number One and his henchmen are so good at this that they can actually fan the mob flame, all the while claiming that they are the firemen we need to douse the conflagration.
We are doomed to at least four years of this banana republic behavior.
Don’t give him Obama and his lynch mob too much credit. These are all unintended consequences of their stupidity and they are scheming themselves not to be blame.
Beside, why do you think Obama always incoherent in his rhetoric? Because he doesn’t think critically and he is lazy. We will see more and more telepromter debacle.
We basically elected people above their pay grade.
Like I predicted last fall: President Dinkins.
The silver lining:
According to poll savant Nate Silver, Obama’s average approval rating actually increased in the face of the AIG bonus flap.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/is-aig-bonus-blowout-hurting-obama.html
It’s another beautiful day in liberal America. Dow +250 points, only about 400 points below its inauguration day close.
Right Jennifer Rubin. But how much criticism will the Solons of the media give Obama for wrongly trying to surf this wave? Remember, Obama is “too big to fail.” Just ask Chris Matthews.
Ehhh. The Dow’s just a tracking poll.
#8 I am sure that is why he did ot. Don’t worry – everyone now wants to know if he is Mayor Dinkins or President Carter revisited. The teleprompter shtick seems to have stuck. The market was also up on housing news. Remember everyone – Musselini and Hitler were very popular. That didn’t end up working out so well as I remember. Their domestic politics smell alot like the Ones.
Part of me agrees with Sully. Given just how transformative-and destructively so of prosperity and liberty- Obama’s vision of American society is, it is a good thing if he stumbles badly and stumbles early. Of course, Sully and my assumption is that enough Americans(and not only McCain voters) will catch on to the fact that Obama is essentially a fraud.
The other part of me is well aware of just how easily corrupted political culture can be by a sustained manipulation of populism.
There is hope, however. In the middle of another soft-ball interview on 60 Minutes last night, Obama began to laugh when talking about the economic crisis. The interviewer- Bob something, I think- asked him if he thought laughing about it might appear unseemly to people.
He also asked Obama, as the Great One was laughing, if he was punch drunk.
Over time there will be more and more moments in which Obama’s arrogance peak out of his “concern” and in which his morale boosting speeches will ring hollow.
I wonder if the Germans have a word meaning sort of the inverse of schadenfreude. Freudenschade? (Not a Deutschmeister, I’m afraid.)
I still think we should have just let AIG and Lehman go through bankruptcy. As ugly and tedious as that process is, it at least deals with the toxic assets — and if the bankruptcies had been filed a 6-12 months ago, we’d already have some idea where to look for the end of the tunnel, and the light beyond.
But. But, but… if he weren’t having to go through this Rube Goldberg shoring-up-the-capital charade, there’s no telling what unconstitutional horrors Obama would be up to right now. We may actually count it a blessing that he’s stuck with his bullhorn on the Toxic Debt Slag Heap for the time being.
#7–Seth: I missed that call last fall, but that is spot-on.
JED, what are you trying to express with your inversion of Schadenfreude? If you’re referring to the possible destructiveness of Obama’s joy, then, yeah, Freudeschaden (the “n” belongs to Schade(n)) works for me (as a lapsed GSLer) as a play on the well-known compound/loanword… though in other contexts it might tend to suggest something very different – say, the injuries experienced in the course of or as a result of some pleasureful act.
The discussion puts me in mind of one of my favorite German compounds of recent years, also derived from socially inappropriate presidential behavior – when German tabloid writers described Pres. Bush’s surprise shoulder massage of Angela Merkel as a “Liebesattacke” and also a “Blitz-Massage.” I’m sure that, if moved to report on this incident, the same writers could come up with some amusing oxymoronical compounds – disaster-giggles, catastrophe-lulz, who knows?
For now, we might say that reaction to the Obama’s demeanor would suggest a species of Schadenfreudeschaden. Coming on top of complaints to Kroft, in defense of Geithner, about the multiple contradictory and irreconcilable proposals and demands being made, the President’s giddy responses did very much seem like tragic laughter, giggled with an almost sadistic frisson. His own Schaden derive not from the fact that tragic laughter is unnatural, but that it implies detachment from and even surrender to whatever evils – as though he’s reached a point beyond caring, beyond rational choice, and no longer believes that any particular action he takes is any more likely than any other to repair the disaster or avert oncoming catastrophe.
The President’s laughter seems to say that he might as well be playing blind president’s bluff or pin the tail on the policy donkey. That the game is fixed by his ideological tilt is another story, but in the context he describes couldn’t matter very much: Since this is all such a laughable catastrophe, why not push the liberal wish list? What difference would it make? Ha-ha-ha!
Someone said that all the president’s stated positions have expiration dates. They’re just coming more fast and furiously than they used to.
CKM — very nice. I like Schadenfreudeschaden. “Schaden sandwich” seems almost too easy here… (although I suppose “freude sandwich” is actually the correct locutionary formulation, from the standpoint of American cultural allusion). Either way, the evanescent irony comes through.
Man, I miss the Cowboy George days.