Think Progress

In its “sprint to the finish,” the Bush administration is working tirelessly to enact or alter a wide array of federal regulations that would weaken government rules protecting consumers, workers, and the environment.

As Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, told the Wall Street Journal, “This administration will stop at nothing to jam through as many reckless proposals as they can before the clock runs out.”

The Wonk Room and ThinkProgress are keeping a close eye on Bush’s Backward Sprint to the Finish, and have compiled a document to keep tabs on both the proposed and already enacted changes. Here are some examples:

Cutting back Medicaid: New rules “narrowed the scope of services that can be provided to poor people under Medicaid’s outpatient hospital benefit.”

Allowing mining near the Grand Canyon: A proposed rule by the Bureau of Land Management would prevent Congress from ordering emergency withdrawal of federal land from mining claims. The House Natural Resources Committee “issued such a withdrawal order in June for about 1 million acres near the Grand Canyon.”

Allowing more emissions from power plants:: The Environmental Protection Agency is “finalizing new air-quality rules that would make it easier to build coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other major polluters near national parks and wilderness areas” by weakening the Clean Air Act.

Click here to download a pdf of the report.

Let us know in the comments if you come across any more last-minute regulatory changes during Bush’s final days in office.

Earlier this week, Big Three automaker CEOs were ridiculed by members of Congress for taking private jets to Washington to plea for a federal bailout. Today, ABC reports that GM is putting two of its five corporate jets out of service allegedy “in response to the planes not being used” and not a reaction to the harsh treatment from Congress. Watch Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) criticize the auto execs:

Despite the downsizing, GM CEO Richard Wagoner “will still fly private for all business and personal travel” for “security reasons,” ABC notes.

The New York Times reports that Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) “has decided to give up her Senate seat and accept the position of secretary of state.” According to MSNBC, it is “also expected Monday” that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson will be named Commerce Secretary,” and New York Fed President Tim Geithner is expected to be announced as Treasury Secretary, “barring last minute changes.”

The U.S. Army recently released a photograph of four-star Gen. Ann Dunwoody, showing her in front of an American flag. However, it has now been revealed that the picture was digitally altered. In the original photo, Dunwoody was sitting at a desk:

The Army insists that it broke no guidelines by altering the picture, but the Associated Press has a “zero-tolerance policy of adding or subtracting actual content from an image” and has suspended use of Defense Department photos. Last month, the Army also doctored photos of two soldiers who had died in Iraq on Sept. 14. In the two pictures, only the names, ranks, faces, and coloration changed:

Yesterday, stocks plunged for the second straight day, bringing “the Dow’s two-day drop to 873 points, or 10.6 percent, its worst two-day percentage loss since October 1987.” On Fox News last night, former Bush adviser Karl Rove tried to pin the blame for the drop on President-elect Barack Obama.

Though he admitted that there had been bad economic news yesterday, Rove questioned “how much of it is the news of the day.” “I mean, how much of it is that, and how much of it is the market saying, You know what? The economy is not in a good place and we’re looking at the future, and how much confidence should we have in the team that’s coming to make the economy better any time soon?,” said Rove.

He then suggested that the problem was that Obama hadn’t named his Treasury Secretary yet:

ROVE: Well, I got to tell you, I’m a little bit surprised. If the number one issue facing the country is the economy, then it strikes me the new administration, the president-elect, would be putting a lot of emphasis on getting a Treasury secretary and an economic team in place in order to signal to the country what he’s going to do.

But instead, we’ve seen a leak about the secretary of state. We’ve seen pretty serious rumors about who’s going to be attorney general, pretty serious rumors about who’s going to be head of HHS, Health and Human Services, who’s going to be Homeland Security counsel — Homeland Security department chief.

Watch it:

Though some economic analysts believe it would be helpful for Obama to name his econ team, it is laughable for Rove to blame the market’s problems on Obama. Indeed, the market is much more likely reacting to yesterday’s “grim economic data,” which included “a 16-year high in weekly unemployment claims and the failure of Congress to reach a deal to help U.S. automakers.”

Rove says the market is “trying to look four months, six months, a year in advance.” That may be so, but anyone hedging their bets is probably much more concerned about the economic outlook released by the Fed on Wednesday — warning “that a recession believed already to be underway could last until mid-2009 or later” — than who Obama picks to head the Treasury Department.

Transcript: More »

Summoning the mythical boogeyman of the Fairness Doctrine — which would require broadcasters to provide a variety of political views on publicly-owned airwaves — Fox News host Bill O’Reilly warned last night that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “wants total control” over radio airwaves and would seek to reinstate the policy. He claimed that the media features far more liberal voices than conservative, citing newspapers, NPR, and…the Internet:

O’REILLY: A good case can be made there are more liberal voices in the media than conservative voices. The newspaper industry is certainly left. So is the Internet. NBC News almost completely liberal. So is PBS, so is NPR.

Watch it:

Just seconds later, O’Reilly contradicted his fearmongering: “The good news is the Fairness Doctrine will never happen.”

Our guest blogger is Peter Juul, a Research Associate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

In Iraq, the proposed Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the United States is generating a heated and near-violent debate in parliament. But here in the United States, the Bush administration has kept a tight lid on the contents of the agreement.

The Bush administration argues that the SOFA is an “executive agreement” that, unlike treaties or other international agreements, does not require congressional approval. Only after the agreement passed the Iraqi cabinet last weekend did the Bush administration deign to give lawmakers a closed-door briefing on it. As Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA), who has held a number of hearings on the subject of a U.S.-Iraq security agreement, noted in an opening statement on Wednesday:

… there has been no meaningful consultation with Congress during the negotiation of this agreement. And the American people have been kept completely in the dark.

Even now the National Security Council has requested that we do not show this document to our witnesses or release it to the public…

Now that’s incredible – meantime, the Iraqi government has posted this document on its media website, so that anybody who can read Arabic can take part in the discussion.

Oona Hathaway, a legal scholar and one of Delahunt’s witnesses, argues that the SOFA the administration has negotiated – at least its Arabic translation – amounts to a new authorization to use military force, and that it therefore requires congressional approval. Delahunt similarly believes that the SOFA requires congressional approval, and President-elect Barack Obama made pledges during the campaign to a similar effect.

Beyond the domestic legal authority issues pointed out at Delahunt’s hearing, there appears to be language in the SOFA that refers to a U.S. security guarantee toward Iraq:

In the event of any external or internal threat or aggression against Iraq that would violate its sovereignty, political independence, or territorial integrity, waters, airspace, its democratic system or its elected institutions, and upon request by the Government of Iraq, the Parties shall immediately initiate strategic deliberations and, as may be mutually agreed, the United States shall take appropriate measures, including diplomatic, economic, or military measures, or any other measure, to deter such a threat.

This language suggests that the SOFA is, in fact, a treaty committing the United States to act in the defense of Iraq if its security is threatened. Even if it does not rise to the level of a firm security guarantee, the SOFA’s language is close enough to a treaty that Congress should have a say in it.

As we noted a month ago, there has been too little debate on the proposed security agreement between the United States and Iraq. This lack of debate is due largely to the incredible secrecy with which the Bush administration has conducted SOFA negotiations with the Iraqi government, while a necessary focus on the crashing economy here at home has distracted Congress. But Congress cannot let the Bush administration push forward a far-reaching agreement without having giving its own constitutionally-mandated input.

Wal-Mart Chief Executive Officer Lee Scott will retire effective Feb. 1, 2009. He will be replaced by Mike Duke, who currently heads the company’s international operations. While Wal-Mart has made constructive efforts to tackle the health care crisis and establish more environmentally-friendly business practices under Scott’s tenure, it has also worked tirelessly to erode workers’ rights. Wal-Mart Watch released this statement today:

Wal-Mart’s announcement today of Mike Duke as the new Chief Executive Officer must be viewed in the context of the recent election. It represents an opportunity for Wal-Mart to change from the low-wage, low-benefit business model to one that will be more appealing to an Obama administration.

More »

Since Prop. 8’s passage in California, which revoked same-sex couples’ right to marry, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow has been a powerful outspoken advocate of the rights of gay citizens. “The amendment does not just prohibit gay rights. It takes away rights previously enjoyed,” she said. She has also called the vote a “rebuke to the incumbent rights of gay couples.” Watch a mashup:

However, last night, Maddow was notably silent on the issue of gay rights when interviewing former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. On Tuesday, Huckabee had insisted that gay rights and civil rights were totally different because gay rights activists’ “skulls” weren’t getting “cracked.” On Wednesday morning, Huckabee claimed that Prop. 8 “did not prohibit” gay marriage; it “simply affirmed that which already has and forever has existed,” he said.

During the seven-minute interview last night, however, Maddow never forced Huckabee to defend these claims. Instead, Maddow repeatedly asked him about his future presidential plans and speculated about the influence of the Christian Right in the GOP. Watch it:

Huckabee has equated homosexuality with bestiality and necrophilia, said that people have the “choice” to act gay, and actively pushed to criminalize sodomy, ban gay couples from adopting, and exclude gay partners from spousal survival benefits. Huckabee’s views on gay rights are extreme, and deserve to be questioned.

The AP reports that Shiite protesters “stomped on and burned an effigy of President George W. Bush in the same central Baghdad square where Iraqis beat a toppled statue of Saddam Hussein with their sandals five years earlier.” Shiites were protesting the proposed U.S.-Iraqi security pact because it would allow American troops to remain in their country for three more years. A Friday prayer sermon written by Muqtada Al-Sadr was read by his representative, Sheik Abdul Hadi al-Mohammadawi:

“The government must know that it is the people who help it in the good and the bad times. If it throws the occupier out all the Iraqi people will stand by it,” the sermon read, using common rhetoric for the United States.

Miguel Caballero, “a Colombian tailor who has made a fortune from selling bullet-proof fashion to presidents, oligarchs, celebrities,” is marketing a new line of stylish bullet-proof jackets. The jackets are apparently inspired by Vice President Dick Cheney’s now-famous shooting accident:

“This is a new market for us. Dick Cheney has helped raise awareness of accidents,” said Carolina Fernandez, a marketing director.

The Guardian’s Rory Carroll tested out the new product, bravely allowing himself to get shot by a .38 pistol at point-blank range while wearing the jacket. Surviving to write about the incident, Carroll reports, “It felt like a light tap.” Watch it here.

President-elect Obama will reportedly nominate Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state after Thanksgiving and may tap ret. Gen. Jim Jones as his National Security Adviser. Obama is “getting foreign policy advice from an unlikely source: Republican Brent Scowcroft, who was national security adviser in the first Bush administration.”

Obama will not immediately move to repeal the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy which bans openly gay individuals from serving. Obama reportedly “first wants to confer with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his new political appointees at the Pentagon to reach a consensus and then present legislation to Congress.”

Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed last night while speaking at the Federalist Society’s annual gathering. Mukasey, who spent the night in the hospital for observation, is alert and “in good spirits,” according to a Justice Department spokesperson. An individual who witnessed Mukasey’s collapse said he was “visibly shaking and perhaps slurring his words before he fell to the floor.”

Big Oil is “firing up” its efforts to push for more domestic oil development. The American Petroleum Institute is “preparing a multimillion-dollar campaign” that will include an education program called American’s Energy Forum and “a wide array of advertising and lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill.”

The Bush administration is finalizing changes to the Endangered Species Act ensuring that agencies would not have to take global warming into account when assessing risks to plants and animals. John Kostyak of the National Wildlife Federation said the rule, for example, would “block federal officials from considering a carbon cap” to preserve polar bear’s habitat. More »

Today, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Libyan leader Moamer Gadhafi’s son, Seif al-Islam. In a press briefing yesterday leading up to the meeting, reporters pressed State Dept. spokesperson Sean McCormack on whether Rice would urge Libya to release Libyan activist Fathi al-Jahmi, a political prisoner who is gravely ill.

McCormack offered a defensive response: “I have to make it very clear we are concerned not only about Mr. al-Jahmi’s case, but other human rights cases around the world.” McCormack also claimed that President Bush’s human rights record could perhaps be the best in American history:

McCORMACK: And — and one thing I do take exception to is the idea that somehow we are not attentive to pushing the issue of human rights, whether it’s in Libya or any place else around the world. I don’t think — I would put the record of this administration up against any American administration or any other government around the world in terms of promoting universal human rights and pushing for human rights.

Watch it (around 8:20):

Under the Bush administration, the world has witnessed torture, rendition, and the revocation of habeas corpus rights. Amnesty International’s 2008 report rips the United States’s human rights record, citing the following Bush policies:

– Indefinite military detention
– Torture of detainees
– Imprisoning soldiers refusing to serve in Iraq on grounds of conscience.
– Government response to Hurricane Katrina

In 2005, the Center on Democratic Performance at Binghamton University gave Bush a “D” on human rights. The “D” grade was down from a “C” in 2004, due to “reports on the use of political detention without trial, torture of political detainees, and the use of secret detention of political prisoners.” Bush’s record is nothing to be proud of.

Rupert Murdoch’announced today that Fox News’s top executive, Roger Ailes, has signed a five year contract extension with News Corp. “Roger has done a remarkable job building FOX News into a force in journalism and built a great asset for News Corporation,” said Murdoch in a statement. Ailes said that he looks “forward to carrying out Mr. Murdoch’s legendary vision in the future.”

As the CEOs of Detroit’s Big Three automakers pleaded for a $25 billion bailout from Congress this week, conservatives have been looking for an easy culprit to blame for the auto industry’s seeming collapse. First it was the unions. Now conservatives have turned their attention to the modest fuel economy (CAFE) standards — fleetwide average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020 — imposed in last year’s Energy Independence and Security Act. Last night on Fox News, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney echoed other conservatives in pointing the finger at the fuel economy changes:

– MITT ROMNEY: Well, government did [cause a lot of this]. There’s no question but that the CAFE standards have put an unusual burden on the domestic automobile manufacturers. And our energy policies as a country continue to put burdens on domestic manufacturers. That’s just — that’s reality. [11/19/08]

– WILLIAM KRISTOL: Well, one problem with the auto industry is we have been telling them how to operate an awful lot, you know, in terms of CAFE standards and other things, probably which should not have been most — may have been the most — not the most intelligent way to help that industry. [11/16/08]

– SEAN HANNITY: They [the government] — you know, between the unions, between trade policy, safety standards, CAFE standards, you know, economy, fuel economy standards, they’re forcing these auto companies to be in a position where they’re not as competitive. [11/14/08]

Watch it:

Last year’s stonewalling attempts by the auto industry notwithstanding, improving fuel economy is not difficult for the Big Three. As the Sierra Club explained in 2006, “The technology exists today to make all new vehicles average 40 miles per gallon within ten years.” A 2002 report by the Board on Energy and Environmental Systems of the National Research Council found that technologies existed then that “would significantly reduce fuel consumption within 15 years” — technologies that manufacturers were “already offering or introducing” in overseas markets.

What’s more, those existing technologies would hardly bankrupt the auto industry. NPR reported that technologies to raise fuel-efficiency “to around 33 mpg across the fleet pay for themselves within three to four years.” Indeed, Tom Cole of the Center for Automotive Research, said that with only about $1,000 worth of changes, “a conventional, gas-powered car could go 25 percent farther on a single gallon of gas.” The Union of Concerned Scientists designed its own highly efficient SUV comparable to the Ford Explorer that doubled its fuel economy (from 17 mpg to 30 mpg). The lifetime fuel savings paid back the additional technology cost of $2,560 in less than three years.

The auto industry’s problems have far more to do with the lack of universal health care in America than they do with fuel economy requirements. For General Motors, health care costs add $1,525 to the price of every car that leaves the lot; the company estimates that it spent $5.2 billion on health care benefits in 2004, more than it paid for steel.

Since the GOP’s dismal electoral performance on Nov. 4, many conservatives have been engaged in a massive game of cover-up, arguing that despite the results, America is still a “center-right” country. (But it’s not). During a recent interview with Time magazine, House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) was the latest to take up the baton, saying there is “no question” that both the nation and Congress are “center-right”:

BOEHNER: America is a center right country.

TIME: Still?

BOEHNER: Yes, no question. When you look at all the exit polling, Americans don’t want bigger government, they don’t want higher taxes. And frankly, I think the Congress is still a center-right Congress.

It’s odd that Boehner would call the entire Congress “center-right” given the fact that both the House and Senate combined gained 28 more progressives than it had in 2006. In fact, one of first items on the Senate’s agenda in the new Congress next year will be a top progressive priority: universal health care.

A federal judge ordered today that five Algerian nationals detained at Guantanamo Bay should be released. The court found that the government had “provided insufficient evidence to continue their detentions.” The Washington Post reports:

The decision came in the case of six Algerians who were detained in Bosnia after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and have been held at the military prison in Cuba for nearly seven years. U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, a Bush appointee, ruled that five of the men must be released “forthwith” and ordered the government to engage in diplomatic efforts to find them new homes. […]

In the case of the sixth Algerian, Belkacem Bensayah, Leon found that the government had met its evidentiary burden and could continue to hold him. … The landmark ruling is the first by a federal judge who has weighed the government’s evidence in lawsuits brought by scores of detainees who are challenging their detentions.

The New York Times notes that in 2002, “President Bush made the government’s allegations against the men a showcase of his administration’s approach to dealing with terrorists. He said in his State of the Union address that the six men had been planning a bomb attack on the United States Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia.” Glenn Greenwald writes that the ruling demonstrates the “grotesque injustices we have wrought with Guantanamo and our denial of basic due process to detainees.”

The Associated Press reports today that, as part of its long-fought campaign to gut the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Bush administration is pushing a last-minute regulatory change that would significantly weaken the ESA:

The rules would eliminate the input of federal wildlife scientists in some endangered species cases, [by allowing] the federal agency in charge of building, authorizing or funding a project to determine for itself whether a project would be likely to harm endangered wildlife and plants.

At today’s White House press conference, a reporter asked if the Associated Press had accurately described the proposed regulatory change. Perino responded first by saying she didn’t have the documentation with her, but suggested that the rule change would have little effect because the ESA doesn’t help protect “any species, including ours” anyway:

PERINO: I don’t have [the documentation] with me. I know conceptually what we support. And I know that the Endangered Species Act is a tangled web that doesn’t actually help support any species, including our own. …

Q: (Laughter) So you’re proposing eliminating it?

PERINO: No.

Watch it:

Perino’s wholesale dismissal of the ESA could not be more inaccurate. Indeed, the law is responsible for saving, among other species, the Grey Wolf, the Grizzly Bear, and perhaps most notably our national bird, the American Bald Eagle. While Perino dismissed the rule change as insignificant, a spokesperson for the National Wildlife Federation explained, “These changes take unbiased, professional wildlife biologists out of the equation and put decisions in the hands of political appointees.”

More disturbing, however, is how widespread the last-minute assault on the federal government’s environmental regulatory structure has become. The White House’s other last minute initiatives include:

– Eliminating environmental reviews of fishing regulations. A rule change proposed by National Marine Fisheries Service would repeal a requirement that “environmental impact statements be prepared for certain fisheries-management decisions.” Instead, the government would “give review authority to regional councils dominated by commercial and recreational fishing interests.”

– Allowing more emissions from power plants. Over the objections of half of its 10 regional administrators, the Environmental Protection Agency is “finalizing new air-quality rules that would make it easier to build coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other major polluters near national parks and wilderness areas” by weakening the Clean Air Act.

– Opening protected wilderness areas to energy development. Despite being blocked by “federal court and administrative rulings,” the Bureau of Land Management is “reviving plans to sell oil and gas leases in pristine wilderness areas in eastern Utah that have long been protected from development.”

As Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, told the Wall Street Journal, “This administration will stop at nothing to jam through as many reckless proposals as they can before the clock runs out.”

In a press conference this afternoon, Democratic congressional leaders announced that they were not able to reach a deal on a rescue package for the struggling auto industry, reportedly rejecting “compromise legislation worked out by key senators from auto states.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said that they would give the automobile industry a second chance: They must present a plan for viability no later than Dec. 2 and possibly submit to another round of hearings. Congress may then come back and vote during the week of Dec. 8. “Until they show us the plan, we cannot show them the money,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Watch a portion of today’s press conference:

The Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo explains the necessary components for any auto rescue package, including strong oversight and requirements for innovation.

In his Wall Street Journal column today, Daniel Henninger argues that the “unprecedented economic ruin” that many Americans are facing is a casualty of the War on Christmas because “a nation whose people can’t say ‘Merry Christmas’ is a nation capable of ruining its own economy”:

Notwithstanding the cardboard Santas who seem to have arrived in stores this year near Halloween, the holiday season starts in seven days with Thanksgiving. And so it will come to pass once again that many people will spend four weeks biting on tongues lest they say “Merry Christmas” and perchance, give offense. Christmas, the holiday that dare not speak its name.

This year we celebrate the desacralized “holidays” amid what is for many unprecedented economic ruin — fortunes halved, jobs lost, homes foreclosed. People wonder, What happened? One man’s theory: A nation whose people can’t say “Merry Christmas” is a nation capable of ruining its own economy.

After cataloging a series of complex economic factors that do relate to the financial crisis, Henninger concludes that what really went wrong is that “the steady secularizing and insistent effort at dereligioning America” led to “subprime personal behavior by borrowers and bankers.”