Dems 'Doing The Bidding Of The Administration, Instead Of Listening To Constituents'

Editorial Cartoon by Gary Varvel

Today in Washington, D.C. - June 19, 2014:
The Senate reconvened at 9:30 AM today. Following an hour of morning business, the Senate resumed post-cloture consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 4660, the combined Commerce-Justice-Science, Transportation-HUD, and Agriculture appropriations bill for fiscal year 2015.

Votes on nominations for ambassador to Peru, and in the HUD and Defense departments are possible today.

The House reconvened at 10 AM and will continue votes and debates today on H.R. 4870 — "Making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, and for other purposes."
They may proceed today on H.R. 4413 - "To reauthorize the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to better protect futures customers, to provide end users with market certainty, to make basic reforms to ensure transparency and accountability at the Commission, to help farmers, ranchers, and end users manage risks to help keep consumer costs low, and for other purposes."

Later today, the House Republicans will be voting on a new Majority Leader and Republican Whip.

Yesterday without any final vote, the House continued debate and action H.R. 4870 — "Making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, and for other purposes."

Regarding the latest news of all those IRS "lost" "Recycled" emails files" to and from Lois Learner, Nathan Mehrens, President of Americans for Limited Government, issued the following statement urging House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-IN) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI.) to subpoena every federal department, agency, and office that former IRS Exempt Organizations head Lois Lerner might have sent an email to or received one from:"The IRS is claiming it recycled the backup tapes on its server and that it threw Lerner's hard drive away after it supposedly crashed, making it impossible for the agency to retrieve email communications from January 2009 to April 2011 that were not internal. That means the search must now branch outside the IRS. The House should subpoena every single federal department, agency, and office Lerner might have emailed or received an email from, including the White House.

"The IRS may not have followed the requirements of the Federal Records Act, but it is unimaginable that every federal entity would be so negligent, or corrupt, as the case may be. Any emails to or from her should still be on those servers. What is clear is that to get to the truth, the House of Representatives will have to expand its investigation beyond the agency itself and focus on those who Lerner may have been collaborating with in the targeting of the tea party and other 501(c)(4) organizations."The AP reported last night, “Apparently fearing that the top Senate Republican might score a political win, Democrats for the second time in a week cancelled a preliminary vote on a major spending bill. At issue was an amendment by Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell that would have allowed the Kentucky Republican and Appropriations panel member to successfully go to bat for his state's coal industry as the spending panel was to consider on Thursday a measure funding the Energy Department and other agencies. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., officially made the call Wednesday night . . . .”

Roll Call noted, “The war over the ‘war on coal’ has been postponed after Democrats pushed off a second fiscal 2015 spending bill in the Senate. Late Wednesday, the Appropriations Committee decided not to move forward as scheduled with Thursday’s markup of the bill that funds the Energy Department, as well as water development projects. The move avoids a potentially problematic vote for Senate Democrats and the Obama administration that could have stopped the Environmental Protection Agency’s bid to regulate carbon emissions from existing power plants — regulations that have the affect of targeting pollution from coal. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., crafted an amendment on the subject that he intended to offer to the Energy-Water appropriations bill. As noted previously, the breakdown of Democratic caucus members on the committee is such that he would have had a real chance to prevail.”

And the AP pointed out, “The Appropriations panel is stocked with Democratic red state supporters of the energy industry like Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Begich of Alaska, both of whom face difficult elections this fall. McConnell's amendment appeared on track to prevail. It is aimed at blocking any new government rules on carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. . . . Mikulski's decision to call off the vote on the underlying energy and water appropriations measure came a week after she cancelled debate on a huge measure that would also have forced endangered Democrats to vote on politically poisonous amendments regarding the implementation of President Barack Obama's health care law.”

Following up today, Roll Call writes, “Top senators signaled the White House threatened to veto a Senate spending bill over a possible amendment from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to block EPA power plant regulations. The amendment, billed by the Kentucky Republican as a fight against the Environmental Protection Agency’s ‘war on coal’ was cited by the chairwomen of the full Appropriations Committee and the Energy-Water Subcommittee as the key factor in removing that fiscal 2015 bill from Thursday morning’s markup agenda. ‘The amendment was a bill-killer. If it didn’t lead to defeat on the Senate floor, it would have resulted in a White House veto, as the chairman has said,’ said subcommittee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein. The California Democrat said the White House confirmed a veto threat over the amendment on Wednesday.”

According to Roll Call, Feinstein said, “As the chairman said, I asked her last night to delay the bill after learning that an amendment would be offered to halt progress on the recently proposed EPA rule on greenhouse gas pollution.” She also reportedly said “she was ‘happy to have this fight.’”

But if that’s the case, why would Sen. Feinstein and other Democrats on the subcommittee not vote on the amendment? Are Democrats happy to defend these job-killing regulations or not? They don’t seem to actually want to debate or vote on them.

Speaking on the floor this morning, Leader McConnell said, “Last night, the Senate Democrat leadership pulled the energy and water bill from consideration – for one reason: to protect the Administration’s new job-killing coal regulations. So once again, Senate Democrats are preventing my commonsense, pro-coal measure from moving forward. They’re doing the bidding of the Administration, instead of listening to constituents back home. Kentucky families, especially our coal families, continue to struggle under the Obama Economy. And the Senate Democrat leadership’s latest action is yet another example of the lengths they’ll go to defend Obama Administration’s regulatory agenda – an agenda Washington Democrats seem willing to protect at all costs, even when supposedly pro-energy Senate Democrats try to make us think otherwise.”

Democrats clearly aren’t spending much time considering the real people these regulations are going to hurt. Kentuckians have told reporters that “It's killing the economy in our area. There's no money circulating. Businesses are hurt. Everybody's out of work.” Another said, “It's going to trickle down and get worse. Your E.P.A. right now, it's costing the people so much.” One asked the AP, “Why keep chopping the legs out of your own economy to try to fight a world problem? You are going to destroy your country trying to set an example.”

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