Drilling Moratorium Lifted
June 22, 2010
A federal judge in New Orleans today lifted the ban on deepwater drilling. In a 22-page ruling, Judge Martin Feldman wrote:
“The blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger.”
The White House announced it would file an immediate appeal.
In a statement, API welcomed Judge Feldman’s decision to lift the moratorium on Gulf of Mexico deepwater operations and listed some of the activities the industry is taking to improve the safety of deepwater operations.
Immediately after the Deepwater Horizon accident, the industry formed two task forces to examine safety and environmental protection, and recently it formed two additional task forces on subsea well control and oil spill response.
With regard to the moratorium, API said:
“The moratorium was an initial reaction to concerns about the safety of offshore oil and natural gas operations. However, an extended moratorium would have a tremendous impact on the nation’s energy security – and cause significant harm to the region of the country that was already suffering from the spill – without raising safety or improving industry procedures. With this ruling, our industry and its people can get back to work to provide Americans with the energy they need, and do it safely and without harming the environment.”
Editor’s note: The President’s knee jerk reaction is as hystercal as would be banning of air travel after a plane crash. There have been relatively few incidents regarding deep water drilling, and this should be kept in perspective. Obama’s hope was to use this as an environmental wedge against Big Oil.
Lynn Woolsey’s Arrogance Shows Again
June 21, 2010
Hey, Lynn! The Marin taxpayers own half the Golden Gate Bridge if anyone does. Our tolls keep it open! – FedUpEditor
I am Lynn Woolsey, congresswoman from Marin and Sonoma Counties in California, which means that I own half of the Golden Gate Bridge, so that makes me perfectly situated to talk about poor people, right? No, but I am perfectly prepared because I was one, a person in need of a lot of the discussion that you have in your volume that I am going to participate in and I was honored to be able to contribute to the volume about how culture shapes the way people in poverty live. I mean, we have to think about that, don’t we? What a concept. Values, norms, beliefs play very important roles in the way people meet the challenges of poverty, and as one of the essays in your volume illustrates, they also play important roles in shaping how lawmakers choose to address poverty issues. And it is a shame, a lot of people that make these decisions around here have never lived through anything but a really comfortable, easy life. But you know what? There are also a lot of members, even though they have not, that they get the picture. Our speaker [Nancy Pelosi] is one; I mean, she has had a very nice life. She understands and she cares very much about people who have less. So you do not have to have lived the life that I went through with my children at one point when we were on welfare to really get the picture. But, unfortunately, too many don’t and you can see it when all of a sudden the light goes on because they have got a grandchild with a disease, diabetes let us say, or something that they are facing – oh my goodness, this does happen. I am going on about my colleagues, but it is very important that even if they have not lived through something that you help them see and this volume that I participated in I hope they will read. The lesson I take from all of this is that those of us in Congress must constantly re-examine the way we frame problems on Capitol Hill. We have to see if we are keeping up with the changing reality on the ground.
In my commentary, I examined one area where lawmakers’ thinking and legislating has not kept pace at all, and that is the relationship between work and family. We are just starting to talk about that now, but it has been clear for many years now that the typical American family has changed. We used to be a nation of predominantly nuclear families, complete with one breadwinner, usually the male, and one at-home, full-time parent, 99.9 percent the female, home with the children, after school, what a nice way to live, Ozzie and Harriet. For the first time in history now women make up one-half of the workforce. Today four in five families with children still at home do not consist of the traditional male worker and the female homemaker. In addition, nearly four in ten mothers are primary breadwinners – primary breadwinners – for their families, while nearly two-thirds are breadwinners or co-breadwinners, bringing home at least a quarter of their family’s earnings. While there is a growing cultural awareness of this change, the laws governing work-life balance have not kept up. In fact, our country, the wealthiest country on this globe, ranks at the bottom of industrialized nations when it comes to such issues as paid sick and maternal and paternal leave, access to affordable childcare, policies that promote flexible workplaces. Lawmakers have been slow to recognize that the traditional distinctions between home and work and between sole breadwinner and stay-at-home mom have collapsed. The worlds of work and home have become interdependent and our legislation needs to reflect this. I mean, we have a society-and we are very responsible for that as legislators-we have a society where if a child is lucky enough to have two parents, both of those parents are in the workforce, not always but usually, and if the child has one parent, that parent certainly is in the workforce. So we need steps to integrate our laws in a more holistic way of seeing the relationship between family and work. Most notably, the Family Medical Leave Act [FMLA] with its provisions for unpaid, protected leave. A bill I have introduced and reintroduced and reintroduced, called The Balancing Act, will carry us much further in the direction we need to go. It is comprehensive legislation, it is a package that includes bills introduced by other members of Congress; it is an omnibus bill, it is huge. And when I talk in front of Kiwanis and Rotary Clubs I watch the women business people at it, I watch the older businessmen – this is a surprise – who have daughters and in the workforce now-get it, and then there is the group in between who say, “Well, Congresswoman, this is all very nice but we cannot afford it,” and all I say is we cannot afford not to do this. Figure it out. The Balancing Act would provide paid family medical leave for workers to care for family members – so that they can bond with new children at the birth, and then not just the mother, the father too – or for recovering from an illness or helping a parent, there is this sandwich generation, I am looking around at you, a lot of you in this room are going to be taking care of your parents as well as taking care of children. So we would expand FMLA to cover more workers, to provide leave for children’s extracurricular activities, to allow workers time to cope with the effects of domestic violence. I mean right now, domestic violence – you do not get paid time off or you do not get protected if you have to take time off from your job. So the package also provides grants to build childcare centers and for schools to offer hot breakfasts, as well as to expand before- and after-school activities, and for voluntary universal preschool – so you can see it is huge. It has provisions to give part-time workers benefits – what a concept – and the bill would also encourage employers to allow their employees to telecommute and it supports flexible work schedules. There are other bills that recognize the new reality for American families, including efforts to permit employees to request flexible hours, expand the Family Medical Leave Act to cover domestic partners, and allow breast-feeding in the workplace. The fact that these bills have been introduced shows that more and more lawmakers are recognizing the new reality of the American family. The fact that none of these bills has passed shows that we still have a very, very long way to go. So your efforts here are not wasted on most of us; it will be good I think to make sure that we get that out to all members of the House and the Senate so they cannot pretend like they have not seen it and it will not be the first time they have heard about these issues but maybe they can concentrate on one or two of them. And staff, staff are very important, so make sure that legislative staff know that you have put together this wonderful, wonderful piece of work. So, I thank you all. I do not know if you want questions and answers or for me to just go away, I will do whatever you want.
Editor’s note: Remember, Democrats have been working on poverty since before FDR and have not solved the problem yet. As long as Woolsey thinks she can keep her job talking about solving the problem, she’ll appease everyone. Jim Judd, on the other hand, is a business man who has actually created jobs and wealth in his community of Cotati instead of talking about it. A vote for him will go a long way to putting Woolsey out to pasture where she belongs!
California Legislators Pelosi, Boxer and Feinstein Wealthiest Lawmakers in Washington…
June 18, 2010
Kind of makes you wonder why they want to tax the rich although they are not giving up THEIR money! Democrat voters are stupid to believe these lying liars! – Editor
California’s three most powerful female politicians, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, are also among the wealthiest lawmakers in Washington, according to annual financial disclosure reports released Wednesday.
Pelosi, D-San Francisco, reported income of $102,161 from book royalties in addition to her salary of $223,500 as speaker. She also has several joint accounts and properties with her husband, Paul Pelosi, a real estate investor and venture capitalist.
The couple own a St. Helena vineyard, Zinfandel Lane, valued $5 million to $25 million, in addition to a town home valued from $1 million to $5 million.
Paul Pelosi also has stock in several companies, including Apple, Microsoft and Yahoo. He also listed a partial sale of stock in the United Football League valued at $1 million to $5 million, and a partial sale of stock in Motorola valued at $500,000 to $1 million.
Nancy Pelosi is also an honorary board member for several organizations, including Lead America, a youth leadership organization; the National Women’s History Museum; and the Wheelchair Foundation, a nonprofit in Danville. She is also the CFO and secretary for the Paul and Nancy Pelosi Charitable Foundation.
Boxer listed her husband Stewart Boxer’s salary at more than $1,000 because congressional reporting rules state that spouses need not provide specific amounts. Boxer also listed her pension as $4,246 for the year, in addition to her $17,000 income from sale of her books.
Boxer’s value of assets is listed in a blind trust that the Senate Ethics Committee approved in 2001. The value of the trust is estimated at between $1 million and $5 million, according to her financial disclosure statement. Stewart Boxer reported assets in Wells Fargo Bank valued at $100,000 to $250,000.
Boxer also reported a gift valued at $3,625 from her Democratic colleague Feinstein. The gift was a flight the senators took to California. She also listed reimbursements for travel connected to her book-tour promotion, part of her contract with her publisher.
Feinstein, who also established a blind trust in 1991, listed her assets at between $1 million and $5 million. The former San Francisco mayor and supervisor’s pension from the city is reported at $49,969 for the year.
She and her husband, Richard Blum, also reported assets in Carlton Hotel Properties valued between $5 million and $25 million. In addition, the couple own a condominium in Hawaii valued at $1 million to $5 million.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/17/MN041E09OR.DTL#ixzz0rE7SqXtl
Lynn Woolsey Killing Jobs Again!
June 18, 2010
Editor’s note: This is not about protecting workers. This is about Congress getting its grubby mitts on 1099 employees’ salaries so they can steal the taxes! Don’t fall for this. About the only place employment is growing is contracting because companies can not afford to hire full time. If business is forced to hire them as employees, it will stifle the job creation. Woolsey needs to be removed before she kills all new job growth.
On Thursday, June 17, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee held a hearing on preventing employers from misclassifying employees as independent contractors. The hearing focused on the Employee Misclassification Prevention Act (EMPA), a recently introduced bill intended to reduce instances of worker misclassification through new record-keeping requirements, notice requirements, and the imposition of civil penalties for employer violations.
Chairman Harkin (D-IA) opened the hearing by arguing that independent contractors are not afforded sufficient protections under the labor law, such as those provided by minimum wage standards, overtime requirements, unemployment compensation, workers’ compensation, safety and health laws and antidiscrimination provisions. Harkin asserted that a few “unscrupulous” employers thus make economic challenges “even more difficult for their workers by intentionally misclassifying them as ‘independent contractors’ to gain an advantage over their law-abiding competitors.” Harkin also argued employee misclassification costs federal and state governments “billions of dollars in unpaid revenues.” For example, it deprives governments of the payments that support unemployment and workers’ compensation systems, as employers are only required to make these payments on behalf of employees and not independent contractors. Accordingly, Harkin posited that while employer misclassification laws are currently in place in several states, a federal legislative response is necessary.
Read the entire article here.
You Already Know This – OPINION
June 14, 2010
Lynn Woolsey called for a “progressive resurgence” in a Hill blog article today. Who the heck does she think got us to this horrible mess in the first place? Look who has been running government for the past 3+ years! Besides, there really hasn’t been time to have a real conservative resurgence… yet. Maybe she is looking into the future and what November will bring.
The problem with progressivism is that, just because it sounds like a good idea doesn’t mean the federal government should be doing it or spending money on it. After all, their track record of success is pretty bleak no matter how noble they think their causes are.
The original founders saw the USA as a collection of individual countries (states) united under one limited federal government so that we would not end up where we are today; top down central planning. Instead they saw a country with a small federal government and strong state governments. Yet here we are 234 years after the Declaration of Independence, and we are exactly where they feared we would be; huge federal government (much more powerful than King George was?), unbridled deficit spending, freedoms being incrementally taken away in the name of “fairness” and religion kicked to the curb (unless you are a Muslim extremist). How did this happen? Over time, that’s how.
There is only so much bandwidth and money with which to tackle all the unconstitutional laws that have been passed over the years. And then our congressmen use those bad laws which survive to serve as precedents upon which to write more bad laws. This is the reason for the Constitution. It is a measuring stick by which laws are to be written (or not). But with Federal Judges seeing it as a “living, breathing document” they have twisted the Constitution to mean something other than what was originally intended. So it would seem the problem with progressivism is that in top down planning everyone must do it the same way regardless if it’s a good idea or not. Where’s the freedom? Besides that, it is not “constitutional”.
The original idea was that each state was a unique experiment free to try different things to see what worked to solve their challenges. It was even codified in the 10th Amendment in case the original version of the Constitution didn’t make that clear. It says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Obama and Progressives call this a “negative” right. Actually, it is exactly right (correct)… period. Each state government was supposed to decide for itself how it should be run. They could then look to other states and see what worked in order to implement or improve upon those which their constituents found favorable. Not so today. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find any area in any state that didn’t come under the rule of some bureau of the federal government.
The original purpose of the Federal Government was to solve disputes and problems which crossed state lines. Read George Washington’s biography and you will learn that he viewed the federal government as a necessary evil and loathed the thought of it. He knew what “progressives” would do if given half a chance.
Examples of the founders intent for responsibilities of Federal government would be building and maintaining bridges between bordering states, or regulating commerce on shared waterways that touch several states. Two of the things the federal government is actually supposed to do, defending our borders or protecting our freedom overseas, are the same things Progressives complain about spending money on. They say we should be spending the money here on infrastructure or education. As in debt as we are, we probably shouldn’t be spending the money anywhere!
If you want to see the failures of progressivism you only need to look at states like Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Hawaii or California and cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, etc. to see that the progressive experiment doesn’t work. High crime and high unemployment are the norm for liberal bastions such as these. Yet what happens when Lynn Woolsey talks about how we need a progressive resurgence? Socialist ideologues come out of the woodwork and praise her, even though she and her buddies have spent us into the poor house thanks to progressives. Those people will never be persuaded to see the truth.
It is my belief that the majority of people in this area are liberal because they can afford to be. Things are pretty good for many people in Marin County. Fortunately, the high unemployment rate in California hasn’t really hit the San Francisco Bay Area yet… yet. Does that mean we should wait until it gets worse before we do something? Unlike an Obama administration spokesperson, we are not looking for a crisis to use to our advantage. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that to change people’s minds.
What we must do is seek out the reasonable Democrats, the patriotic ones who love our country and believe the party has left them, and turn them to our side like Reagan did. There are common sense, patriotic people on the other side who don’t like what their Democratic Party has become. They may not change parties, but they can be persuaded to vote for a candidate who wants to lower taxes to stimulate the economy and help businesses create jobs, among other ideals that will truly embody progress.
- FedUpEditor
Health Care… STILL?
June 8, 2010
Today President Obama will hold a tele-townhall in the administration’s latest attempt to try and sell the new health care law that a majority of Ohioans (and Americans) continue to reject. It’s time the administration admitted that the problem isn’t in the sales pitch, it’s the policy. Small businesses don’t want all the new taxes and job-killing mandates; seniors don’t want the $500 billion in Medicare cuts; and middle-class families don’t want the higher health care costs that even the Obama Administration admits will result from the new law. That’s why I’m fighting to repeal this costly health care law, and replace it with common-sense solutions to lower the costs and increase access to quality care. Also in this week’s E-Bulletin you’ll find the times and locations for my weekly “Open Door” program, as well as the latest on the nation’s fiscal health and America Speaking Out. Please continue to keep me updated on the issues that concern you.
Sincerely,
John Boehner
API response to the president’s offshore development announcement
June 5, 2010
API’s President and CEO Jack Gerard has issued a statement in response to President Obama’s decision to delay and/or cancel offshore development projects and leases. Jack says, “Decisions that impact the industry’s ability to produce the oil and natural gas… will affect the lives of every citizen, every day.” The full statement is available here.
Jane Van Ryan
American Petroleum Institute
Liberal Papers, Marin IJ and Press Democrat Support Halliwell – Judd is Favorite of Conservatives!
June 2, 2010
It’s no surprise that liberal papers like the Marin Independent Journal and Santa Rosa’s Press Democrat have thrown their support behind Mike Halliwell, a two time loser to unseat Woolsey. However, conservatives and business people have thrown support behind newcomer Jim Judd in hopes of making real change that will bring back conservative values in northern California!
Here is an Editorial from the PD and the link to it online
EDITOR: The Press Democrat’s recommendation of Mike Halliwell as the 6th District Republican primary choice is not a surprise considering what’s at stake come November (“A debate,” Editorial, Thursday).
This will present an opportunity for badly needed change to fight the flood of entitlement programs that have been and will continue to be foisted on a tax weary public, and we will need the leadership of a realist such as Jim Judd.
I’ve known and done business with Judd for more than 20 years and have seen this businessman guide his company through three recessions, including the current one. The “most conservative elements” that The Press Democrat pins on him are in fact the core values that have helped him manage this and that all Americans should possess: family, national pride and fiscal responsibility.
I’m sure Halliwell may have these same values along with some political experience, but his presentation of them has failed to unseat Woolsey the past two elections. Why throw this real chance for change under the political bus with the same old rhetoric?
Judd understands what has brought us into the liberal quagmire and has the leadership skills and understanding of what it will take to get us out of it with his real world views.
CHUCK HOWARD
Santa Rosa
