History > 2007 > USA > Politics > Congress (III)

Energy bill to save 'billions'

18 December 2007
USA Today
By Sharon Silke Carty

President Bush has promised to sign into law, perhaps as early as Wednesday, an energy bill that will mandate the first increase in automotive fuel economy standards in 32 years.

The wide-ranging energy bill, passed by the House on Tuesday and the Senate last week, also calls for a dramatic increase in ethanol use and addresses energy standards for light bulbs and appliances.

"If you drive a car or if you use a toaster or heat your home, this bill is going to save you money," says Brendan Bell, Washington representative of the Union of Concerned Scientists. The environmental lobbying group estimates the vehicle fuel economy changes will save consumers $22 billion a year starting in 2020. In the home, the energy efficiency provisions could save $400 billion in electricity and gas bills by 2030, the group says.

"This is billions and billions of dollars for consumers," Bell says.

The bill will require an automaker's fleet of cars, pickups, SUVs and vans to have an average fuel economy of 35 miles per gallon in 2020. The standards currently are an average 27.5 mpg for cars and 22.5 mpg for light trucks.

The bill requires a massive increase in the production of plant-based ethanol for motor fuels, from roughly 6 billion gallons this year to 36 billion gallons by 2022.

The auto industry backed the bill after lobbying unsuccessfully to have separate fuel economy standards for cars and trucks.

David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research, says the industry saw the writing on the wall and knew it had to back some kind of energy plan.

"They know the energy picture isn't good," he says. But now the industry has the technology to deal with increasing fuel efficiency standards and is closer to offering a wider array of vehicles fueled by ethanol or powered in large part by electricity.

"They believe the technology is here to enable it," he says.

"This legislation will provide one clear requirement for increasing fuel economy and provide greater certainty for our product planning," Ford Motor said in a statement.

Phil Reed, senior consumer advice editor at car-buying website Edmunds.com, says the new requirements will force automakers to make small cars more stylish.

"It's really good news for consumers," Reeds says. "Domestic manufacturers have been marketing SUVs so heavily because they think they are the only things that will sell. Small cars are treated like econoboxes. This bill is going to encourage them to look at expanding this market and figure out a way to build small cars which are also very exciting and the consumers really want to buy."

Energy bill to save 'billions', UT, 18.12.2007,
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-12-18-fuel-economy_N.htm

Bush Appeals to Congress

for Iraq Funds

December 16, 2007
Filed at 5:03 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush appealed to Congress on Saturday to give him real cash for the war, not just a pledge to fund the troops.

''A congressional promise -- even if enacted -- does not pay the bills,'' Bush said in his weekly radio address. ''It is time for Congress to provide our troops with actual funding.''

The broadcast is the president's latest shot in a battle the White House is having with Congress over spending bills.

The Senate on Friday passed a defense policy bill for the 2008 budget year. It authorizes $696 billion in military spending, including $189 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it does not actually send any money to the Pentagon.

''Congress has had plenty of time to consider the emergency funds our troops need,'' Bush said. ''Time is running out, and Pentagon officials say that continued delay in funding our troops will soon begin to have a damaging impact on the operations of our military.

''Congress' responsibility is clear: They must deliver vital funds for our troops -- and they must do it before they leave for Christmas,'' Bush said.

Next week, Democrats are expected to let Senate Republicans attach tens of billions of dollars for the Iraq war to a $500 billion-plus government-wide spending bill. That move would be in exchange for GOP support on a huge spending measure that would fund the government.

The war money would not be tied to troop withdrawals, as Democrats want. But it would let Democrats wrap up their long-unfinished budget work and go on vacation before Christmas. It also would spare them from being criticized by Bush during the holiday recess for leaving work without providing money for the troops.

Without the money, the Defense Department said it would start delivering pink slips to thousands of civilians this month.

Congress passed just one spending bill before the end of the fiscal year in October, so most of the government is being run under a temporary continuing resolution.

Congressional negotiators are working to cut hundreds of federal programs, big and small, as they fashion the catchall government funding bill.

But while agreement with the White House remained elusive, negotiations went ahead on the assumptions that Democrats would largely accept Bush's strict budget for domestic programs and that he would ease up a bit if additional funding for Iraq is approved.

In the meantime, the House passed a bill to keep the federal government open for another week to give negotiators time to work on the omnibus spending bill, pass it in both the House and Senate and then adjourn for the year.

    Bush Appeals to Congress for Iraq Funds, NYT, 16.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush.html

Energy Plan

Pushes Automakers on Mpg

December 2, 2007
Filed at 3:41 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The groundbreaking deal in Congress to raise mile-per-gallon standards will compel the auto industry to churn out more fuel-efficient vehicles on a faster timeline than the companies wanted, though with flexibility to get the job done.

The auto industry's fleet of new cars, sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks and vans will have to average 35 mpg by 2020, according to the agreement that congressional negotiators announced late Friday. That compares with the 2008 requirement of 27.5 mpg average for cars and 22.5 mpg for light trucks. It would be first increase ordered by Congress in three decades.

Majority Democrats plan to include the requirement in broader energy legislation to be debated in the context of $90-per-barrel oil, $3-plus pump prices and growing concerns about climate change. The House plans to begin debate this week.

''It is a major milestone and the first concrete legislation to address global warming,'' said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

While Senate Democrats were quick to embrace the compromise, the energy bill may face problems over requirements for nonpublic electric utilities to produce 15 percent of their power from renewable energy sources such as wind or solar.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., on Saturday said that idea ''will make this bill untenable for many in the Senate.''

Environmentalists have sought stricter mileage standards for years, saying that is the most effective way to curb greenhouse gas emissions and oil consumption.

The energy bill will help accelerate plans by automakers to bring more fuel-efficient technologies to conventional engines and alternatives such as gas-electric hybrids and vehicles running on ethanol blends. For the first time, for example, manufacturers will receive credits for building vehicles running on biodiesel fuel.

Domestic automakers and Toyota Motor Corp. vehemently opposed a Senate bill approved passed in June that contained the same mileage requirements and timeline. They warned the measure would limit the choice of vehicles, threaten jobs and drive up costs.

The companies backed an alternative of 32 mpg to 35 mpg by 2022. At the time, Chrysler LLC executive Tom LaSorda told employees the Senate bill would ''add up to a staggering $6,700 -- almost a 40 percent increase -- to the cost of every Chrysler vehicle.''

But the compromise worked out by Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate leaders, maintains a significant boost in mileage standards while giving the industry more flexibility and certainty as they plan new vehicles.

The proposal would continue separate standards for cars and trucks, extend credits for producing vehicles that run on ethanol blends, and allow automakers to receive separate credits for exceeding the standards and then apply those credits to other model years.

Michigan lawmakers secured an extension of the current 1.2 mpg credit for the production of each ''flexible fuel'' vehicle, capable of running on ethanol blends of 15 percent gasoline and 85 percent ethanol. Without the extension, the credits may have run out by 2010, but under the deal, they will be phased out by 2020.

The United Auto Workers union also won a provision intended to prevent companies from shifting production of less profitable small cars to overseas plants. At stake are an estimated 17,000 jobs.

The House's energy bill, approved in August, did not include mileage standards, and lawmakers had worked since then to include them.

Rick Wagoner, General Motors Corp.'s chairman and chief executive, said the new rules would ''pose a significant technical and economic challenge to the industry.'' He said GM would tackle the changes ''with an array of engineering, research and development resources.''

GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co. have announced plans to double their production by 2010 of flex-fuel vehicles. Toyota has said it will bring the option to the Tundra pickup.

Among hybrids, Toyota has dominated the market with the Prius, but several automakers are beginning to bring the technology to large SUVs and pickups.

Environmental groups estimate the deal would save the country 1.2 million barrels of oil per day by 2020 while helping motorists save at the pump.

''Cars are going to be more attractive to consumers because they won't cost as much to own and operate,'' said David Doniger, director of the climate center for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

------

On the Net:

Environmental Protection Agency's fuel economy site: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/

General Motors Corp.: http://www.gm.com/explore/livegreengoyellow/

Natural Resources Defense Council: http://www.nrdc.org/

    Energy Plan Pushes Automakers on Mpg, NYT, 2.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-More-MPG.html

Editorial

Limiting Power’s ‘Natural Tendency’

November 21, 2007
The New York Times
 

After a long and frightening period of acquiescence, Congressional Democrats are standing up to President Bush’s assault on civil liberties — demanding an end to spying on Americans without court supervision.

Last week, the full House and the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed major improvements to a deeply flawed measure that the White House pushed through Congress just before the summer recess. The leadership will have to stand firm to enact more needed fixes to that law — and prevent the White House from using the occasion to encroach even further on civil liberties.

The bill had a narrow aim, to close a loophole in the 1978 law on electronic spying that was created by new technology. But Mr. Bush added provisions that gave legal cover to his decision to spy on Americans’ international calls and e-mail messages without a warrant after 9/11 — and actually expanded his powers. The only thing good to come of last summer’s rout is that the law was set to expire in February, and a group of Congressional Democrats are fighting to get it right this time.

The House passed a measure last week that contains the necessary updates to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It allows the collection of e-mail messages and phone calls between people outside the United States that happen to go through American data hubs. It grants some additional latitude for starting eavesdropping on communications originating or ending in the United States, and then getting court approval afterward.

But it restores critical oversight powers to the special foreign intelligence court — to monitor such programs, compel the intelligence agencies to comply with the rules and impose sanctions if they do not. These legitimate restraints on the government’s power are reflected in a Senate bill that was approved by the Judiciary Committee last week.

Mr. Bush opposes that bill, as well as the House bill, because it restores the court’s oversight powers. The president is also insisting that Congress give immunity to telecommunications companies that turned over data to the government without a warrant — which they did for five years after Sept. 11, 2001.

Both measures could use strengthening, but they are a good start. Much depends on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who should allow the Judiciary Committee bill to come to the Senate floor and permit vital amendments to be proposed by Senator Russ Feingold. Mr. Reid should allow a parallel, badly flawed bill passed by the Intelligence Committee to die a well-deserved death.

Here are some red lines for this debate:

SUNSET The law must have an expiration date. Congress should not grant the government unending powers to spy on Americans. The Bush administration, predictably, wants just that. We support the House bill’s two-year expiration date.

COURTS AND WARRANTS Any new law must include real supervision by the special FISA court. The administration wants to gut the court’s powers, taking away the requirement for advance warrants for most eavesdropping on international communications originating or ending in the United States. The administration would allow the court to rule afterward on whether required procedures were followed, but strip the court of its remaining powers to enforce such a judgment. It is vital to retain provisions in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s bill that would make it clear that the government cannot just collect information in bulk — by, say, tapping all calls to and from Pakistan — but has to cite targets, including specific phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

Even if the government is legitimately targeting someone overseas in an eavesdropping operation, the 2007 law would permit it to collect vast databases that would include Americans at the other ends of those communications. Mr. Feingold is working on vital amendments that would restrict the ways the government could store and use such information.

The Senate bill would require a warrant to eavesdrop on an American who is in another country. The White House opposes this provision. It must be retained.

AMNESTY The telecommunications companies must not get amnesty. Lawsuits against them must be allowed to proceed, in the interest of the rule of law and also to force disclosure of the nature and extent of the lawless eavesdropping that began after Sept. 11, 2001.

Senator Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, is expected to propose an alternative that would allow plaintiffs to sue the government rather than the companies. That would leave the taxpayers holding the bag for monetary damages and allow the government to use claims of sovereign immunity and state secrets to kill the suits. If the government wants to protect the companies, it can set caps on damages. Mr. Bush wants this amnesty to ensure that his own administration’s culpability is never revealed in court.

As this debate proceeds, Mr. Bush and his allies will tell Americans that these reforms — and the Democrats — will make it impossible to eavesdrop on Osama bin Laden. That’s not true. American intelligence has most of the tools it needs to do that already, and the Democratic bills give them the few extra ones they may be missing. Mr. Bush will present Americans with a false choice between effective intelligence and protecting their freedoms. It is possible, quite easily, to have both.

Senator Sam Ervin, the author of groundbreaking legislation in this area, warned eloquently in June 1974 of the dangers that arise when the “natural tendency of government to acquire and keep and share information about citizens is enhanced by computer technology” without legal and judicial restraint.

“Each time we give up a bit of information about ourselves to the government, we give up some of our freedom,” he said. “For the more the government or any institution knows about us, the more power it has over us. When the government knows all of our secrets, we stand naked before official power. Stripped of our privacy, we lose our rights and privileges. The Bill of Rights then becomes just so many words.”

We hope that lawmakers, both the remaining passive Democrats and those Republicans who cherish the Constitution but have been afraid to buck this president, bear those words in mind as they debate the electronic espionage law.

    Limiting Power’s ‘Natural Tendency’, NYT, 21.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/opinion/21wed1.html

Congress Turns Back Bush’s Veto in a Test of Power

November 9, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 — The Senate dealt President Bush the first veto override of his presidency on Thursday, with a resounding bipartisan vote to adopt a $23.2 billion water resources bill that authorizes popular projects across the country.

The vote of 79 to 14 sent a clear signal that the Democrats in control of Congress plan to test the power of the White House on other fronts, and it gave Republicans a chance to show distance from an unpopular president heading into a tough election year.

“We have said today, as a Congress to this president, you can’t just keep rolling over us like this,” said Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, who led the charge on the water bill as chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee.

“You can’t make everything a fight because we’ll see it through,” Ms. Boxer added. “And that’s a big deal. It isn’t easy for members of the other side to stand up to a president in their own party. I know. I know what that’s like. It’s hard.”

Thirty-four of the Senate’s 49 Republicans voted to override.

If the Democrats have their way, Republicans will most likely find themselves in similarly difficult positions in the next few weeks as Congress looks to go toe to toe with the administration on a series of budget bills, most of which Mr. Bush has threatened to veto.

Lawmakers will also face decisions on a White House request for more money for the Iraq war; a continuing battle over children’s health insurance; the farm bill, which Mr. Bush has said he will veto; and a proposed change to the alternative minimum tax.

On the Iraq war, the Democrats prepared to offer the administration $50 billion but with strings attached, including a goal to withdraw troops by December 2008. Republicans quickly accused them of threatening to cut off money needed to support American troops.

“This bill is déjà vu all over again,” said Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the Republican whip in the House. “The last time Democrats tried to tie funding for our troops to a date for surrender, they failed. And that was before the marked turnaround we’ve witnessed on the ground over the past several months.”

Meanwhile, the House on Thursday approved a $471 billion military spending bill, which omitted the president’s request for $196 billion for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, except for $12 billion specifically for vehicles that would protect soldiers from roadside bombs.

The bill would provide a 9 percent budget increase, or $40 billion, for the Pentagon. If the Senate, as expected, also approves, it could be the first spending bill this year signed by Mr. Bush.

But with the override on the water bill providing a huge morale boost for the Democrats, they began to draw some of the battle lines more clearly, accusing Mr. Bush of being too focused on the Iraq war and portraying themselves as more committed to domestic needs.

“The Congress disagrees with the president on priorities,” said Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland. “This override is a clear indication that the Congress, by an overwhelming vote, believes that we need to invest in our own country, here, that we have to invest for our future.”

The water bill authorizes popular projects in states across the country, including hurricane recovery efforts in Louisiana, environmental restoration in the Florida Everglades and flood control in California. But it does not actually appropriate money for the projects, which must be done in spending bills.

And it is on the spending front that the clash between Congressional Democrats and the White House will continue through the end of the year.

On Wednesday, the Senate approved a $151 billion spending bill for labor, health and education, a measure that Mr. Bush has said he will veto, after Senate Republicans succeeded in separating it from a $64 billion spending bill for military construction and veterans affairs that the president would probably sign.

The House approved the labor and health spending bill Thursday night, sending it to the White House for a near-certain veto. In both chambers, however, the Democrats were unable to muster the two-thirds majority needed for an override on the bill .

Mr. Bush did not publicly respond to the override of the water bill, but after a tour of a new treatment center for wounded veterans at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, he chastised Democratic leaders for linking the spending bill for veterans affairs to the larger labor-health bill.

“Now look, there’s obviously some disagreements between me and the Congress,” Mr. Bush said. “But there’s no disagreement over the amount of money we’re going to spend for veterans. And they need to get the bill — to do their job. They need to get the bill to the desk of the president as a stand-alone piece of legislation, so the veterans of this country understand that we’re going to support them.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in praising the Senate’s override on the water bill, accused the administration of mishandling the federal budget.

“Our commitment to real fiscal responsibility — no new deficit spending — contrasts sharply with the trillions of dollars in record deficits accumulated by the Bush administration,” said Ms. Pelosi, a California Democrat. “We are hopeful that the president will reconsider his chronic use of the veto to block the priorities of the American people, from water resources to ending the war in Iraq to providing health care for 10 million children.”

A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, said the administration was not surprised by the override.

“We understand that members of Congress are going to support the projects in their districts,” he said. “But budgeting is about making choices and defining priorities — it doesn’t mean you can have everything. This bill doesn’t make the difficult choices; it says we can fund every idea out there. That’s not a responsible way to budget.”

Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from San Antonio, and Carl Hulse from Washington.

    Congress Turns Back Bush’s Veto in a Test of Power, NYT, 9.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/us/09spend.html

In First Bush Veto Override, Senate Enacts Water Bill

November 8, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 — The Senate voted overwhelmingly today for a popular $23 billion water projects measure affecting locales across the country, thereby handing President Bush his first defeat in a veto showdown with Congress.

The vote was 79 to 14, far more than the two-thirds needed to override the veto that President Bush cast last Friday. Only 12 Republicans voted against the measure, and just two Democrats, Senators Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin and Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

On Tuesday, the House voted by 361 to 54 in favor of the bill, also well over the two-thirds barrier to nullify the veto.

Enactment of the water projects measure had been widely expected, despite the veto, given the importance of the bill to individual districts and, of course, the lawmakers that represent them. The measure embraces huge endeavors like restoration of the Florida Everglades and relief to hurricane-stricken communities along the Gulf Coast and smaller ones like sewage-treatment plants, dams and beach protection that are important to smaller constituencies.

The bill authorizes the projects but does not appropriate the money for them. Appropriation of funds will have to be taken care of in subsequent legislation.

The veto of the water bill was the fifth cast by Mr. Bush, and the first to be overridden by Congress. The president and some Republicans had complained that the bill was wasteful. Some critics said the measure did not do enough to reform the Army Corps of Engineers, which would handle much of the work, and was larded with political pork.

But, as the comments of lawmakers made clear today, pork is in the eye of the beholder.

The bill “is one of the few areas where we actually do something constructive,” Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, the Republican whip, told The Associated Press. He said the bill contains “good, deserved, justified projects.”

Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, also argued in favor of overriding the veto. “This bill is enormously important, and it has been a long time coming,” Mr. Vitter said.

Mr. Lott and Mr. Vitter side with President Bush far more often than they oppose him. But both senators represent areas that were hard-hit by Hurricane Katrina, and their votes to override Mr. Bush’s veto underscored the adage that politics is basically local, or at least regional.

Then, too, the bill was the first water-projects measure in several years, so there was plenty of pent-up demand for money in locales from coast to coast.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, said the veto override “sends an unmistakable message that Democrats both will continue to strengthen our environment and economy and will refuse to allow President Bush to block America’s real priorities for partisan reasons.”

“The Water Resources Development Act provides authority for essential new navigation projects and funds programs to combat flood and coastal-storm damage, restore ecosystems, and projects guided by the Army Corps of Engineers essential to protecting the people of the Gulf Coast region,” Mr. Reid said.

Mr. Bush previously vetoed a stem cell-research bill (twice), an Iraq spending bill that set guidelines for withdrawing troops and, most recently, a children’s health insurance bill.

Senator Feingold said he was disappointed at the lost opportunity to fix “this flawed, bloated bill.” He noted that there is already a huge backlog of projects that have been authorized but for which money has not yet been appropriated.

The Associated General Contractors of America lobbied hard for passage of the bill. “This week’s veto override means that this nation will finally have the opportunity for new investments in improved flood control, increasing navigation capacity and ecosystem restoration,” Stephen E. Sandherr, the organization’s chief executive, said after the Senate vote.

    In First Bush Veto Override, Senate Enacts Water Bill, NYT, 8.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/washington/08cnd-spend.html?hp

Military Bill Omits War Funds

November 6, 2007
Filed at 11:45 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- House and Senate negotiators agreed Tuesday on a $460 billion Pentagon bill that bankrolls pricey weapons systems and bomb-resistant vehicles for troops, but has little for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Democrats said they wouldn't leave troops in the lurch, but were reluctant to say when Congress might consider President Bush's $196 billion request to pay expressly for combat operations.

The nearly half-trillion dollar bill covers the 2008 budget year, which began Oct. 1.

Republicans supported the spending measure, but said the lack of war money would cause a tremendous strain on the military. To keep the wars afloat, the Pentagon would have to transfer money from less urgent accounts, such as personnel and training programs.

Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, the top Republican on the Senate defense appropriations panel, said that if Congress didn't act soon, the Army would run out of money by January.

''I do believe that Congress would break the Army if it refuses to fund the troops with what they need now,'' he said.

Stevens suggested adding $70 billion to the bill for the wars, but Democrats, who hold sway on the panel, declined.

''This amendment would send to the president additional funding for his horrible, misguided war in Iraq without any congressional direction that he change course. No strings attached,'' said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

While the bill omits most money for the war, it does include $11 billion for Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles. Stevens said the money to produce the vehicles was useless unless Congress approved additional funds to deploy them.

Democrats were considering approving money for the war in a separate bill -- a tack that would give party members a chance to oppose war spending and still support the military's annual budget.

Ten months into their reclaimed control of Congress, Democrats have been unable to pass legislation ordering troops home. Republicans are more optimistic than ever that the Iraq war may be turning a corner, and Democrats lack enough votes to overcome procedural hurdles in the Senate or override a presidential veto.

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Congress has approved more than $412 billion for the war there, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Most of the money has paid for military operations, while $25 billion went to diplomatic operations and foreign aid. About $19 billion has gone toward training Iraqi security forces.

    Military Bill Omits War Funds, NYT, 6.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Iraq.html

Bush Says Congress Is Wasting Time

October 30, 200
The New York Times
By BRIAN KNOWLTON

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — President Bush lashed out at Congress today, the third time he has done so in two weeks, this time saying the House had wasted time on “a constant string of investigations” and the Senate had similarly wasted its efforts by trying to rein in the Iraq war. Its failure to send a single annual appropriations bill to his desk, he said, amounted to “the worst record for a Congress in 20 years.”

“Congress is not getting its work done,” the president said in brief remarks from the North Portico of the White House.

He urged Congress to act on defense-funding legislation and on a compromise on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP.

As he spoke, Mr. Bush was flanked by two senior Republicans, Representative John Boehner of Ohio, the minority leader, and Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the minority whip.

The three had emerged from a meeting in the East Room of the House Republican Conference, and perhaps reflecting the campaign season under way, the president’s words took on a partisan edge.

According to The Associated Press, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, responded by saying: “President Bush’s rally this morning reminds us that Congressional Republicans remain ready and willing to rubber-stamp the Bush agenda: no to children’s health care; no to a new direction in Iraq; and no to investing in America’s future.”

Republicans have chafed amid the nearly continuous investigations, many by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which that panel’s Democratic leadership describes as accountability.

Referring to the current congressional session, Mr. Bush said: “We’re near the end of the year, and there really isn’t much to show for it. The House of Representatives has wasted valuable time on a constant stream of investigations, and the Senate has wasted valuable time on an endless series of failed votes to pull our troops out of Iraq.”

Members of the Democratic-led Congress, he added, hadn’t “seen a bill they could not solve without shoving a tax hike into it.”

”Proposed spending is skyrocketing under their leadership,” he said.

But Democrats, and some Republicans, have regularly criticized the administration for spending increases since Mr. Bush came to office.

The president again criticized Democrats over the S-CHIP bill, saying the Senate had taken up a second version of the legislation passed by the House “despite knowing it does not have a chance of becoming law.”

While the president vetoed the first version, saying it spent too much money and covered not just the poor children it is intended to help but some middle-class children and adults, he said this version would spend even more.

“After going alone and going nowhere, Congress should instead work with the administration on a bill that puts poor children first,” he said. “We want to sit down in good faith and come up with a bill that is responsible.”

Mr. Bush was also sharply critical of a reported plan by congressional leaders to combine the Defense Department appropriations bill with bills for domestic departments.

“It’s hard to imagine a more cynical political strategy than trying to hold hostage funding for our troops in combat and our wounded warriors in order to extract $11 billion in additional social spending,” he said.

The president had used scathing language about the Democratic majority during an Oct. 17 news conference, saying Congress was dragging its feet on a range of important legislation while spending time debating whether the deaths of more than a million Armenians in the early 20th century amounted to a genocide at Turkish hands.

The president had continued his denunciations of Congress last Friday, saying its leaders had also failed to act yet to confirm Michael Mukasey as attorney general, despite Democrats’ complaints about a lack of leadership at the Justice Department. “This is not what congressional leaders promised when they took control of Congress earlier this year,” he said then.

    Bush Says Congress Is Wasting Time, NYT, 30.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/washington/30cnd-policy.html?hp

Bush and Congress Honor Dalai Lama

October 18, 2007
The New York Times
By BRIAN KNOWLTON

WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 — Over furious objections from China and in the presence of President Bush, Congress on Wednesday bestowed its highest civilian honor on the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists whom Beijing considers a troublesome voice of separatism.

Dressed in flowing robes of dark burgundy and bright orange, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, beamed and bowed as the president and members of Congress greeted him with a standing ovation and then praised him as a hero of the Tibetan struggle. President Bush called him “a man of faith and sincerity and peace.”

But the Dalai Lama said he felt “a sense of regret” over the sharp tensions with China unleashed by his private meeting on Tuesday with Mr. Bush and by the Congressional Gold Medal conferred on him in the ornate Capitol Rotunda.

In gentle language and conciliatory tones, he congratulated China on its dynamic economic growth and recognized its rising role on the world stage, but also gently urged it to embrace “transparency, the rule of law and freedom of information.”

The 72-year-old spiritual leader made clear that “I’m not seeking independence” from China, something that is anathema to Beijing. Nor, he said, would he use any future agreement with China “as a steppingstone for Tibet’s independence.”

What he wanted, he said, was “meaningful autonomy for Tibet.”

The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India since the Chinese Army crushed an uprising in his homeland in 1959.

Speeches by the president and the top leaders of each party emphasized the Dalai Lama’s humble beginnings and humanitarian achievements, as well as a long history of American support for him. He was also lauded by the Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, a fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate and a previous winner of the Congressional Gold Medal, which is cast in the image of the recipient.

When the speaker of the House, Representative Nancy Pelosi, noted that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had given the Dalai Lama, then very young, a watch that displayed the phases of the moon — and that he still had it — the honored guest tugged on his robe, held his wrist out before President Bush, tapped on the watch and grinned.

Earlier, Beijing offered a sharp new rebuke of the award ceremony, which the top Chinese religious affairs official condemned as a “farce.”

“The protagonist of this farce is the Dalai Lama,” said Ye Xiaowen, director general of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, Reuters reported. Other officials have warned, without specifying, of a “serious impact” on relations between the United States and China.

Mr. Bush, during a news conference, appeared unconcerned.

“I don’t think it ever damages relations,” he said, “when an American president talks about, you know — religious tolerance and religious freedom is good for a nation.”

The two have met three times before. But in the face of the Chinese broadsides, their encounter on Tuesday was held with the maximum discretion: in the White House residence, not the Oval Office, with no cameras present, and shorn of the trappings of a meeting of the president and a political leader.

Mr. Bush reminded reporters that he had told President Hu Jintao of China, when they met recently in Sydney, Australia, that he would meet the Dalai Lama. During the award ceremony, he urged the Chinese to do the same.

“They will find this good man to be a man of peace and reconciliation,” he said.

Apparently in a protest over the award, China pulled out of a multiparty meeting this month to discuss Iran. It also canceled a human rights meeting with Germany, displeased by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s meeting last month with the Dalai Lama.

    Bush and Congress Honor Dalai Lama, NYT, 18.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/washington/18lama.html

Bush Vetoes

Children’s Health Insurance Bill

October 3, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — President Bush vetoed the children’s health insurance bill today, as he had promised to do, setting the stage for more negotiations between the White House and Congress.

Mr. Bush wielded his pen with no fanfare just before leaving for a visit to Lancaster, Pa. “He’s not going to change his mind,” Dana Perino, the chief White House spokeswoman, said this morning just before the president cast only his fourth veto.

The bill was approved by Congress with unusual bipartisan support, as many Republicans who side with the president on almost everything else voted to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or Schip, from its current enrollment of about 6.6 million children to more than 10 million.

The measure would provide $60 billion over the next five years, $35 billion more than current spending and $30 billion more than the president proposed. Mr. Bush and his backers argue that the bill would steer the program away from its core purpose of providing insurance for poor children and toward covering children from middle-class families.

Democrats immediately issued statements expressing their anger.

“Today we learned that the same president who is willing to throw away half trillion dollars in Iraq is unwilling to spend a small fraction of that amount to bring health care to American children,” said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said the “heartless veto” showed how “detached President Bush is from the priorities of the American people.”

Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said, “Today the president showed the nation his true priorities: $700 billion for a war in Iraq, but no health care for low-income kids.”

Gov. Jon Corzine of New Jersey said: “Once again, President Bush has missed an opportunity to display compassionate leadership. Instead, he has resorted to political and ideological gamesmanship rather than seek a bipartisan solution that would protect this nation’s most vulnerable children.”

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said: “We have no choice but to try to override his veto. The Senate already has the votes to do it, so it is now up to the holdouts in the House to decide whether to vote their conscience or join the president in putting ideology above kids.”

Mr. Schumer put his finger on the numbers working against supporters of the bill. It cleared the Senate by a veto-proof 67 to 29, but the vote in the House was 265 to 159, a couple dozen short of the two-thirds needed to override Mr. Bush’s veto.

Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the House Republican whip, told The Associated Press he was “absolutely confident” that there was strong enough opposition in the House to sustain a veto. But Mr. Blunt’s counterpart in the Senate, Trent Lott of Mississippi, said Congress should be able to reach a compromise with the president. “We can work it out,” Mr. Lott told the A.P.

    Bush Vetoes Children’s Health Insurance Bill, NYT, 3.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/03/washington/03cnd-veto.html

Restoring American Justice

September 17, 2007
Editorial
The New York Times
 

In 2006, acting in reckless haste before an election, 65 senators and 250 members of the House defied the Constitution, endangered the safety of American soldiers and hurt the nation’s global reputation by passing the Military Commissions Act. The law created a separate, substandard and clearly unconstitutional system of trial and punishment for foreigners. This week Congress has a chance to begin fixing that grievous mistake.

The Senate is expected to consider a measure that would reverse one of the worst aspects of the 2006 law — the suspension of the right of habeas corpus, the ancient principle that no governing power may lock people up without the chance for a hearing in a court of law.

The protection from arbitrary arrest, embedded in the Magna Carta and in the Constitution of the United States, is one of the most powerful weapons against tyranny in democracy’s arsenal. Before President Bush, only one American president suspended habeas corpus — Abraham Lincoln, during the Civil War — and the Supreme Court duly struck down that arrogation of power.

In 2004, the Supreme Court again affirmed habeas corpus, declaring that Mr. Bush had no right to revoke the rules of civilized justice at his whim for hundreds of foreigners he declared “illegal enemy combatants.” But Mr. Bush was determined to avoid judicial scrutiny of the extralegal system of prisons he created after the Sept. 11 attacks. With the help of his allies on Capitol Hill, he railroaded the habeas corpus suspension through the Republican-controlled Congress.

The administration’s disinformation machine portrayed the debate as a fight between tough-minded conservatives who wanted to defeat terrorism and addled liberals who would coddle the worst kinds of criminals. It was nothing of the kind.

There is nothing conservative about expressing contempt for the Constitution by denying judicial procedure to prisoners who happen not to be Americans. A long list of conservatives, including Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman; David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; and William Sessions, a former federal judge and F.B.I. director under the first President Bush, support the reinstatement of habeas corpus for the prisoners of the so-called war on terror.

This issue has nothing to do, either, with coddling criminals. Many, perhaps a majority, of the men subjected to indefinite summary detention at Guantánamo Bay were not guilty of any crime. Beyond that, American justice rests on the principle that the only way to protect the innocent is to treat everyone equally under the law. The argument by Mr. Bush’s supporters that Guantánamo prisoners would clog the courts with appeals is specious.

There are many other things deeply wrong with the Military Commissions Act, which established military tribunals to try any foreigner that Mr. Bush labels an illegal combatant. It also allowed the introduction of evidence tainted by coercion and endorsed “combatant status review tribunals,” kangaroo courts in Guantánamo Bay that declare prisoners enemy combatants without a real hearing or reliable evidence.

All of those issues must be addressed, speedily, by Congress, but restoring habeas corpus would be a good first step. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, must ensure a vote on the habeas corpus restoration measure sponsored by Patrick Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Arlen Specter, its ranking Republican.

It is good to see the effort led by Mr. Specter, who as chairman of the committee before the 2006 election shepherded the military tribunal law through Congress at the behest of the White House. We hope similar principle will be on display by the other Republican and Democratic senators and representatives who betrayed the Constitution and the democracy they were sworn to defend by voting for that law.

Restoring American Justice, NYT, 17.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/opinion/17mon1.html

Low Approval Persists for Bush,

Congress

September 13, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:06 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Only a third of the public is satisfied with the job President Bush is doing and even fewer are pleased with Congress, according to a poll by The Associated Press and Ipsos released Thursday.

With the clash between Bush and congressional Democrats over Iraq continuing to dominate the news, 33 percent said they approve of Bush's performance. That essentially matched his all-time low of 32 percent measured several times in the AP-Ipsos survey, a level that has barely changed since late last year.

Bush's approval on various issues ranged from 40 percent on foreign policy and terrorism to 33 percent on Iraq. But he wasn't the only one whose popularity was in the doldrums.

Congress' 26 percent approval was also about the same as its low point since Democrats took control this year, which was 24 percent in July.

Only 28 percent think the country is moving in the right direction, consistent with people's feelings since last year. Half of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents, plus large majorities of Democrats and independents, think the country is on the wrong track.

The survey was conducted Sept. 10-12, and involved telephone interviews with 1,000 adults. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Low Approval Persists for Bush, Congress, NYT, 13.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/
AP-Bush-Congress-AP-Poll.html - broken link