NH GOP - NH EDITORIAL PAGES PAN SHEA-PORTER'S FAILED LEADERSHIP ON FINANCIAL ISSUE

Concord – Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter is under fire this week from New Hampshire editorial pages because of her failed leadership on critical financial issues affecting her constituents. The Union Leader, Portsmouth Herald and Foster’s Daily Democrat, criticized Shea-Porter for failing to oppose crushing new EPA regulations and for her unwillingness to speak out against the Internet sales tax.

“Congresswoman Shea-Porter has refused to speak out against the crushing new regulations and tax hikes that Washington is trying to impose on New Hampshire. She has let down her constituents by refusing to provide any leadership on the critical financial issues facing the First District,” said NHGOP Executive Director Matthew Slater. “Congresswoman Shea-Porter’s approval ratings have dropped dramatically because voters realize that she would rather bow to Washington’s special interests than stand up for the Granite State’s fiscally responsible values.”

A poll released by the University of New Hampshire in April found that 31% of First District residents have a favorable opinion of Congresswoman Shea-Porter, while 32% have an unfavorable opinion of her. In UNH’s August poll 49% rated Shea-Porter favorably while only 28% rated her unfavorably. 

What They’re Saying About Shea-Porter’s Failed Financial Leadership

Foster’s Daily Democrat: “Shaheen, Ayotte and U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster from the 2nd Congressional District have all vocally opposed the Internet tax. Instead, Shea-Porter had a spokesman simply parrot Shaheen’s position on the issue.” (5/8/13)

• Foster’s: “What has happened to the once demonstrative Shea-Porter who climbed to fame after protesting at a President George W. Bush speech?” (5/8/13)
• Foster’s: “Why has she suddenly gone Caspar Milquetoast when it comes to critical financial issues affecting the Seacoast and Granite State businesses?” (5/8/13)

Portsmouth Herald: “U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter hosted a community forum last Tuesday that was billed as a talk about the future of Great Bay. In reality, it was a reminder of the massive expenses communities around the bay face to meet new Environmental Protection Agency mandates to reduce nitrogen emissions from their wastewater treatment plants.” (5/6/13)

• Herald: “While lowering nitrogen emissions from the plants is an opportunity it will require a collective half-billion dollar investment from the communities being forced to rebuild their wastewater treatment plants. It’s financially somewhere between a hardship and a doomsday for many ratepayers.” (5/6/13)
• Herald: “This is wrong, and if Shea-Porter is going to host community forums, we expect more from her…her words truly missed the mark.”
 (5/6/13)

New Hampshire Union Leader: “Carol Shea-Porter has a funny way of working in Washington to protect New Hampshire. Instead of fighting bad or questionable ideas that threaten to bring lasting harm to the state, she supports the ideas and works to carve out small exceptions for New Hampshire.” (5/6/13)

• New Hampshire Union Leader: “Shea-Porter, of course, is siding with the EPA, questionable science and all. Instead of siding with the local municipalities, she said she would try to get federal money to help pay for the costs of meeting the EPA's standards. She called water bodies like the Great Bay "national treasures" that need to be protected. True, but how? That's the question, and Shea-Porter's answer is: However the EPA says.” (5/6/13)
• New Hampshire Union Leader:  “Also last week, Shea-Porter finally took some kind of position on the Internet sales tax legislation pending in Washington, which could lead to the destruction of the New Hampshire Advantage. Her position was to support Jeanne Shaheen's proposed amendment carving out an exception for states that do not have a sales tax. Of course, once the law is in place, that exception can be revoked easily.” (5/6/13)
• New Hampshire Union Leader:  "From Obamacare to Medicaid expansion to the Internet sales tax, it would be helpful if New Hampshire's 1st District were represented in Congress by someone who actually sided with New Hampshire instead of Washington power-grabbers."(5/6/13)

CEI Today: Immigrants and welfare, Senate vote on EPA nominee, and Big Gov't versus doctors

IMMIGRATION - DAVID BIER

Openmarket.org: Conservatives Must Reject the “Poor Are Parasites” Narrative

When Mitt Romney made his comments about the 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay taxes and were supposedly “dependent on government,” many conservatives rightly condemned the remark, and Romney apologized. Now, a major conservative think tank is repeating his error, denouncing lower-skilled workers as a fiscal drain on the economy.

This week, the Heritage Foundation, the largest conservative D.C. non-profit organization, released a study intended to demonstrate that allowing the 11.5 million mostly lower-income immigrants who are currently in the country illegally to stay will harm America’s economy. The study focuses on immigrants, but its logic applies to millions of working Americans, almost half of whom had no income tax liability in 2011, according to the Tax Policy Center. > Read more

> Interview David Bier

 

EPA NOMINEE - MYRON EBELL Globalwarming.org: Senate Schedules Vote for EPA Nominee The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has scheduled a vote on the nomination of Gina McCarthy to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency for the morning of Thursday, 9th May. The argument for blocking McCarthy’s confirmation is simply that it is one of the very few shots that Senators will have during the 113th Congress to push back the EPA’s ongoing regulatory onslaught against affordable energy. > Read more > Interview Myron Ebell

BIG GOVERNMENT - MICHELLE MINTON Real Clear Markets: The GOP Has a Blurry View of Free Markets In Medicine Bad ideas and special interest politics don't ever die in Washington, D.C. They get re-introduced in the next Congress. Earlier this month, Rep. Larry Bucshon, R-Ind., resurrected a plan to make it more difficult for optometrists (doctors of optometry who provide primary eye care) to compete with ophthalmologists (medical doctors who specialize in treating eyes). The perversely named Truth in Healthcare Marketing Act of 2013 (HR 1427), authored in previous Congresses by former Rep. John Sullivan, R-Okla., as the Healthcare Truth and Transparency Act, is aimed at hampering competition between these eye-care providers. > Read more > Interview Michelle Minton

More in the news... EPA Doubles Down on E15 — Literally The Doctor Is In, America: Get With the Estonian Program Twinkies & unions - Twinkie, Twinkie, Little Star Getting ‘The Kinks’ Out: Unions vs. Union Jack CEI’s Battered Business Bureau: The Week in Regulation

CEI ANNUAL DINNER & GALA FEATURING THE HONORABLE RAND PAUL JUNE 20, 2013 cei.org/ceidinner

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

CEI Today: New Obamacare and Windsorgate lawsuits and another go at net neutrality

OBAMACARE LAWSUIT - SAM KAZMAN

Small Business Owners Sue Over IRS Obamacare Power Grab

A group of small business owners (and individuals) in six states today are suing the federal government over an IRS regulation imposed under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which will force them to pay exorbitant fines, cut back employees’ hours, or severely burden their businesses. CEI is coordinating the lawsuit.

“Agencies are bound by the laws enacted by Congress,” said Sam Kazman, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).  “Obamacare is already an incredibly massive program.  For the IRS to expand it even more, without congressional authorization and in a manner aimed at undercutting state choice, is flagrantly illegal.”  > Read more

> Interview Sam Kazman

> Listen to the podcast - May 2, 2013: Small Business Owners Sue Over IRS Obamacare Power Grab

See also: Obamacare Gets New Court Challenge

WINDSORGATE - CHRISTOPHER HORNER CEI Sues for EPA Official's Private-Account Email Yet again, the Environmental Protection Agency has forced the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) to file suit over a stonewalled Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for public records that political appointees, and EPA, apparently did not want the public to see. This time, CEI filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington to compel production of certain emails sent to or from Jared Blumenfeld, the Agency’s Region 9 (California and the Pacific Northwest) administrator who is the latest EPA official CEI has learned of using his personal email account to correspond on EPA-related matters.   > Read more > Interview Chris Horner

NET NEUTRALITY - FRED CAMPBELL DriveInnovation.org: Twice as Many Americans Lack Access to Public Water-Supply Systems than Fixed Broadband After abandoning the “information superhighway” analogy for the Internet, net neutrality advocates began analogizing the Internet to waterworks.  If broadband Internet infrastructure had been built to the same extent as public water-supply systems, more than twice as many Americans would lack fixed broadband Internet access. > Read more > Interview Fred Campbell

More in the news... The Costs Of Union Shareholder Activism Housing Nominee Watt Flunks Privacy And Transparency Tests Biofuels Policy Itself is Warning That It’s Near Breaking Point

CEI ANNUAL DINNER & GALA FEATURING THE HONORABLE RAND PAUL JUNE 20, 2013 cei.org/ceidinner

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

CEI Sues for EPA Official's Private-Account Email

After Receiving Private-Account Email From Region 8 Administrator in Similar Suit, Group Sues Over Ignored Request for Region 9 Administrator's

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 2, 2013 – Yet again, the Environmental Protection Agency has forced the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) to file suit over a stonewalled Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for public records that political appointees, and EPA, apparently did not want the public to see.

This time, CEI filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington to compel production of certain emails sent to or from Jared Blumenfeld, the Agency’s Region 9 (California and the Pacific Northwest) administrator who is the latest EPA official CEI has learned of using his personal email account to correspond on EPA-related matters.

Federal law is clear, as described by EPA to employees in its policy, stating: “Can I use a non-EPA account to send or receive EPA e-mail? No, do not use any outside e-mail system to conduct official Agency business. If, during an emergency, you use a non-EPA e-mail system, you are responsible for ensuring that any e-mail records and attachments are saved in your office's recordkeeping system.”

Recently, Region 8 Administrator James Martin resigned after exposure of his use of a private account to conduct EPA-related correspondence, some of which CEI obtained in litigation settled last week.

On Feb. 26, after learning of Blumenfeld’s correspondence with former Administrator Lisa Jackson at her fictitious-employee “Richard Windsor” account, CEI sent a FOIA request to EPA seeking all records sent to or from or copied to Blumenfeld’s Comcast email address. EPA did not even acknowledge the request, the seventh FOIA request CEI has been forced to sue EPA over since October. Agencies have 20 working days to provide responsive records or a schedule on which they expect to produce.

“Although EPA could not be bothered to acknowledge CEI’s request, it did take the time to provide Sen. David Vitter with a legally misguided, airy dismissal of this most recent exemplar provided by CEI. Apparently, it is merely the latest in a long and growing series of unrelated isolated incidents,” said CEI Senior Fellow Christopher Horner, who filed the FOIA request. “This is the same line that EPA insisted upon in the case of former Region 8 administrator Martin. We now know this was not only was not true, but that EPA made the claim without even asking Martin if it were. That is, this EPA just makes things up to try and make its scandals go away and avoid accountability for rampant violations of the law.”

In CEI’s litigation, relating to Martin’s use of a private account to correspond with the pressure group Environmental Defense, EPA ultimately turned over dozens of pages of emails and attachments discussing EPA-related topics. Congressional investigators then obtained many more such emails to or from the same Martin account showing discussions among EPA officials, pressure groups, lobbyists and captains of rent-seeking industry.

After CEI’s experience in the Martin case and with officials deciding on specious grounds not to turn over responsive records, today’s suit also asks that Blumenfeld not be the person to determine which emails to his personal account pertain to agency business, for obvious conflict-of-interest reasons.

In the course of his investigation into EPA’s efforts to martial allies in favor of a war on abundant energy in general – and coal specifically – and as part of the research for his book, “The Liberal War on Transparency,” Horner discovered widespread use among agency officials of personal email and even alias email accounts to avoid FOIA scrutiny from both outside groups and Congress. Horner also has learned that EPA has been withholding instant messaging and text messages from private and congressional requesters.

► Read CEI’s filed complaint here.

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CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

Cooler Heads Digest 26 April 2013

26 April 2013

In the News

The Climate Circus Leaves Town
Steven Hayward, Weekly Standard, 26 April 2013

Debunking the Gasland Sequel
Steve Everley, Energy in Depth, 25 April 2013

Fisker = Solyndra
Ronald Bailey, Hit & Run, 24 April 2013

Obama Administration Missed Clues on Fisker
Matthew Daly, AP, 24 April 2013

Reform the Wind PTC in 2013!
Lisa Linowes, Master Resource, 24 April 2013

Boxer’s Claims on Behalf of EPA Nominee Don’t Hold Water
Brian McNicoll, Daily Caller, 23 April 2013

Explaining Energy Gridlock
Marlo Lewis, National Journal, 22 April 2013

Dysfunction Rampant at Energy Department
Paul Chesser, National Legal & Policy Center, 22 April 2013

Europe Is Becoming a Green Energy Basket Case
Washington Post editorial, 21 April 2013

News You Can Use
Is Tesla Next?

Fisker Automotive, a luxury electric car manufacturer that benefited from almost $200 million in stimulus benefits, is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Meanwhile, informed opinion on Wall Street predicts a similar fate for Tesla Motors, another luxury electric car manufacturer that benefited from almost $460 million in stimulus benefits. According to CNN, more than 40% of the company's available shares were being held by investors who are betting the stock will go down.

Inside the Beltway
Myron Ebell

D.C. Circuit Backs EPA's War on Coal (Although There Is a Silver Lining)

The federal D. C. Circuit Court of Appeals this week overturned a lower court decision that the Environmental Protection Agency could not use its veto over Clean Water Act dredge and fill permits retroactively after the Army Corps of Engineers had issued the permit. This means that the EPA acted legally in yanking the permit of Arch Coal’s Spruce Number One surface coal mine in Logan County, West Virginia, several years after the investment was made and the mine started producing coal.

“The unambiguous language of subsection 404(c) manifests the Congress’s intent to confer on EPA a broad veto power extending beyond the permit issuance,” wrote Appeals Judge Karen Henderson. The two other judges on the panel, Brett Kavanaugh and Thomas Griffith, agreed with Henderson’s opinion. 

If upheld on further appeal, this means that investing in surface mining projects will be a gamble. Hundreds of millions of dollars could be lost if the EPA decides that it doesn’t like the looks of someone and cancels the permit years after it has been issued. West Virginia's congressional delegation have introduced a bill, H. R. 524, to prohibit retroactive vetoes of section 404 permits.

William Yeatman, my CEI colleague, noted in a press release that the Appeals Court sent the case back to the federal district court to determine whether the EPA's scientific case for vetoing the permit was sound.  According to William, "When all the hyperbole is stripped away, EPA’s only ‘evidence’ to justify its actions is a putative threat posed by saline effluent from the mine to an order of short-lived insects, which aren’t even an endangered species. This is plainly unreasonable: EPA shouldn’t be trading jobs for bugs absent a Congressional mandate to do so." See William's 2011 study that shows why the EPA's science is shoddy here.

EPA Critiques State Department on Keystone XL

The Environmental Protection Agency this week filed a lengthy comment on the State Department's draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement on the long-delayed Keystone XL Pipeline. The EPA challenges the SEIS, which finds no major environmental problems, as being based on "insufficient information in regard to alternative routes, additional greenhouse gas emissions, and the impacts of spills.” 

The proposed Keystone XL Pipeline would carry oil from Alberta's oil sands and North Dakota's Bakken field to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The pipeline requires a presidential permit because it crosses the international boundary with Canada. President Barack Obama has denied issuing the permit twice on specious grounds. The new application addresses the President's objections.

The EPA's official comments are largely repeated in stronger terms in many public comments filed by opponents of the pipeline. The EPA's comments do not constitute a formal objection. That could come later, which would mean that the SEIS had become an inter-agency dispute. Such disputes under the National Environmental Policy Act are resolved by the White House Council on Environmental Quality.  At the end of the day, President Obama will make the decision. EPA's intervention gives him grounds to once again deny the Keystone permit.

Across the States
William Yeatman

Green Mandate Freeze Fails in North Carolina

By a 13-18 vote, the North Carolina House Public Utilities and Energy committee voted down SB 298, legislation that would have prevented the state’s green energy mandate increase from 3% to 12% of electricity sales. The bill had previously been passed out of the House Commerce and Job Development Subcommittee on Energy and Emerging Markets. Although North Carolina’s renewable energy mandate is small relative to similar production quotas in 28 other states, professional environmentalists and the green energy lobby reacted strongly in opposition to the bill, out of fear that it would engender a domino effect leading to the repeal of green energy mandates in other states.

L.A.’s Decision To Kick Coal Will Cost Ratepayers Big Time

During the 2000-2001 electricity crisis in California, Los Angelinos were spared the energy price spike that afflicted other Californians because the city-owned utility received almost 40% of its power from coal. This arrangement changed last month, when the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the city-run utility, succumbed to a long-term campaign waged by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to divest from coal. This week, the L.A. City Council added teeth to the utility’s announcement, by approving a plan to pay for a fuel switch from coal to gas at a 600 megawatt power plant in Utah with which the utility has a contract to purchase power. The City Council passed the measure unanimously (12 to 0) despite a warning from a ratepayer advocate, employed by the city, that the switch would carry a $500 capital cost, and an additional $150 million in added fuel costs.

Around the World
William Yeatman

Japan Turns To Coal, Because It’s Cheaper

Among the many harmful impacts of the Fukushima Daitchi disaster was the loss of almost 4,500 megawatts of nuclear-powered electricity generation. This is the equivalent of almost 9 average-sized power plants, and it represented a significant strain to the nation’s electricity grid. Initially, Japan relied on imported oil and gas to make up the difference in electricity generation, but this proved to be exorbitantly expensive. As a result, the country is turning to coal. Tokyo Electric, the largest state-regulated electric utility in Japan, recently added 26,000 megawatts of coal-fired electricity generation. And earlier in the month, the utility negotiated unusually aggressively in securing a historically low price on coal imported from Australia. Finally, Japan's environmental regulators this month announced that they would accelerate permitting for new coal-fired power plants from 3 years (on average) to 1 year.

The Cooler Heads Digest is the weekly e-mail publication of the Cooler Heads Coalition. For the latest news and commentary, check out the Coalition’s website, www.GlobalWarming.org.