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Thursday, January 27, 2005

White House wants to cut government at the knees
The White House announced that the FY 2006 budget will include two proposals for dramatic overhauls of government oversight that would become the Gatling gun for destroying federal programs that protect the public health, safety, civil rights, and environment.

One proposal would create a Sunset Commission to review program performance. As a Congress Daily AM article elaborates, the proposal would also force all government programs to cease serving the public after ten years, unless Congress affirmatively votes to keep the program alive.
Another would create a Results Commission, which would be empowered to produce recommendations for government overhauls that would then go onto a fast-track in Congress. An unelected commission would thus have the power to overrule Congress's own determination of priorities for its agenda.

As Congress Daily discovered, the proposals were announced in the press before anyone in Congress was ever alerted. Congress Daily interviewed Rep. Henry Waxman, who expressed fear that the new White House proposals would "be a field day for corporate lobbyists and put our most important health and safety programs in jeopardy."

Get the White House press release here.

Posted by Robert Shull, 05:46:20 PM

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

What we need to block radical right-wing extremists
You already know that protections of the public health, safety, civil rights, and the environment are all at stake from the corporate-backed, radical right-wing extremists to whom Bush wants to give lifetime appointments on the federal courts. Sen. Frist, the religious right, and the corporate machine desperate to install as many conservative judges as possible are all rallying to attack the filibuster -- the technical rules of cloture that allow a minority of Senators to block developments on major issues unless a supermajority ends the filibuster. These radical extremists don't have the kind of widespread support in the Senate that would overcome a filibuster, and the radical and corporate-backed wings of the GOP are therefore doing everything they can to overturn this 200-year tradition.

People for the American Way is trying to rally support for the continued use of the filibuster to prevent a narrow majority from ramming through these extremists. PFAW is making available this petition to urge the Senate, and your Senators in particular, to do the right thing.

Posted by Robert Shull, 12:52:33 PM

Monday, January 24, 2005

Senate Republicans announce priorities
Sen. Frist unveiled his top ten legislative priorities for the 109th Congress. Get it here. Two potentially worrisome nuggets:

A bioterror preparedness bill would "provide[] for federal pre-emption of any State or local regulatory requirements that alter federal statutory or regulatory requirements for the safety, efficacy, labeling, or advertising of drugs and biological products if those requirements impede access to FDA-approved products." In other words, if a state law or reg would protect consumers from unsafe meds that the FDA refuses to do anything about -- even just to require labeling of the hazards that the FDA refuses to identify -- then that state protection is kaput.
A bullet point in the "Healthy America Act" calls for "reducing the regulatory burden on safety net providers to enhance the provision of care to underserved communities and individuals." Vague at this point... but it can't be good, especially if it augurs the weakening of federal standards in place to protect vulnerable populations.

Posted by Robert Shull, 08:00:59 PM

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Super-waiver of all federal law coming back?
You might recall that Reps. Dreier and Hunter tried -- ultimately unsuccessfully -- in the 108th Congress to sneak into the 9/11 bill conference committee some language that would empower the Secretary of Homeland Security to waive all federal law, in the Secretary's sole and unreviewable discretion, in order to expedite construction of barriers in the final stretch of the southern border. The Congressional Research Service has completed a report on the legal and historical context of that issue, which you can download here. Interestingly, in the CRS analysis, it looks like the only hitch to completion of the remaining section is a conflict between the drive to finish the barrier and California's protection of a coastal zone under a federal law that ultimately already permits the White House to waive when needed. So there is pretty much no need at all to revive the Ose/Dreier/Hunter amendment in the 109th.

Posted by Robert Shull, 07:05:09 PM

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