Start pricing inhalers for your kids. Patently un-green House Agriculture Committee Chairman Colin Peterson (MN-D), a self-proclaimed Blue Dog and fiscal conservative, lead the charge yesterday against the EPA's attempts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants under the Clean Air Act. With the support of House Republicans and Blue Dog Dems, Peterson introduced a joint resolution to repeal the Environmental Protection Agency's "endangerment finding."
The AP reported yesterday
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton of Missouri want to veto the EPA's finding in December that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, and that this calls for further rules restricitn emissions from cars, power plants and factories.
Their resolution, co-sponsored by Missouri Republican Jo Ann Emerson, mirrors one drafted by Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and backed by 41 senators from both parties. At least three states and a host of business groups also have challenged the EPA finding, which sets the stage for future rules restricting emissions from cars, power plants and factories.
Peterson, who has long been no friend of the EPA, also contested the Agency's attempts to investigate bio-fuels' impact on land cultivation in 2009. Claiming such a study would "kill off" the U.S. corn-based ethanol program, Peterson said of the EPA , "You can't trust them. I no longer have any confidence in the EPA."
Peterson's resolution, having immediately been dubbed the "Dirty Air Act" by environmental and public health lobbysists is already causing uproar. Many major U.S. medical organizations, including the American Association of Pediatrics, and the American College of Preventative Medicine have drafted a letter to the Senate urging the endangerment findings of the EPA be protected and upheld.
I'm going to jump ahead of the obvious criticism of that headline and acknowledge it's premature. We don't yet know how the health care debate will come out. I'm going to expound on the lessons learned anyway for two reasons, only the weaker of which is that at this point, we've seen enough to be pretty sure what some of the lessons will be. With the acknowledgment that this assertion is arguable, I'm confident that most of what I say will hold up when a bill is passed and when some time has passed.
However, the second reason is not arguable at all: the legislative fights to which these lessons must be applied are starting already. The state legislature goes into its non-budgetary session in January, where it will be trying to reverse some of Pawlenty's unallotments, especially GAMC. There will also be the bonding bill which is always contentious, at least with Gov. Wounded Deer still in office. Congress is already working on financial reform and global warming legislation, the corporate lobbyists have already chosen their targets, and conservatives are certain to use the same tactics they've been using to obstruct health care, the stimulus, and pretty much everything. That's why the heading says "apply" instead of "learn". What particularly worries me is I see the same mistakes being made at this early stage.
Which women should we abandon? That's the quandary Rep. Bart Stupak has created for liberals with his amendment. We can abandon women who might need to abort a pregnancy, or we can abandon women who could die of treatable conditions because they can't get health insurance. "Pick one", conservatives (blue dogs and their Senate counterparts included) are saying, and if liberals start fighting each other over which comes first, all the better. So they pitted the women with medically risky pregnancies against the women with breast cancer who can't get insurance because no one insures someone with breast cancer.
Stupak gained his chance to play cock of the walk by using that familiar tactic of attaching something your opponent can't stand to something your opponent wants very badly. Want health insurance for everyone? Then take these abortion restrictions. The restrictions go too far? Then no health care bill. The blue dogs can live with that. Seems they'd rather the whole subject hadn't come up anyway.
I make no pretense Stupak and the blue dogs are the first to do this. This was how the recent hate crimes bill got passed. It never would have gotten past the conservative filibuster, but then it was attached to the defense bill. Conservatives, moderates, centrists, and deficit hawks do love their defense spending. They love it so much in fact they passed it with the expansion of hate crimes laws to include sexual orientation.
Of course, there is a slight difference: the Democratic caucus had a majority and enough members to pass the bill if they could vote, and the people who voted Democratic were strongly for the bill, so this tactic got the bill past the obstruction of the minority.
Stupak, however, ostensibly part of the majority, did it to his own party. He knew one simple thing: when one side wants something very much, and the other is happy to walk away with nothing, the nothing side gets to make a lot of demands. If anyone wonders why the liberals keep having to compromise while Republicans and blue dogs don't...that's why. The only way to avoid voting for a watered down bill with things we don't want is to vote for nothing. The blue dogs know it, and have shown --- again --- they're willing to do this to their own party.
So of two things I'm sure: there must be blowback; and that blowback must not include killing the health care bill.
Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), a long-standing member of the Blue Dog Democrats, said support for Tinklenberg is important because "the Sixth Congressional District needs a responsible and reasonable voice in Washington, and El has the professional background and focus on important issues like the economy, health care and education--issues the people of the Sixth District care most about."
Amen. Economy, economy, economy, health care, health care, health care is the way to win CD6 this year.
Here's a not-so-good quote from the press release:
The fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition was formed in 1995 with the goal of representing the center of the House of Representatives and appealing to the mainstream values of the American public. The Blue Dogs are dedicated to a core set of beliefs that transcend partisan politics, including a deep commitment to the financial stability and national security of the United States.
Well....yeah. "Fiscally conservative" is a fair descriptor for the Blue Dogs, but "sometimes willing to tell the rest of the Democratic Party to go screw itself" is also fair. The Blue Dogs were once a southern populist organization within the Democratic caucus, but transformed themselves into pinstriped powerbrokers in pretty short order. In conservative-leaning districts like CD7 (Peterson's seat) and CD6, it makes sense, but there are (in my humble opinion) several places across the country where Blue Dogs are representing districts that are quite a bit more liberal than themselves.
That's beginning to change, but believe me -- in the case of the Sixth district, I would gladly take Congressman Tinklenberg over its current Representative.
