Three days after Congress was told that stalled free-trade pacts were headed to a vote soon, the White House demanded new concessions before that would happen. How many times must the goal posts be moved?
Nearly five years have passed since free-trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea and Panama have awaited just a vote in Congress.
Some $10 billion in exports for American companies is awaiting, while about 380,000 American jobs stand to be lost if the pacts don’t go through. Canada enacts its pact with Colombia on July 1, meaning the U.S. will lose a big chunk of its Colombian market to Canada soon.
The Obama administration seemed to get this in the past few months, with many officials confirming the pacts would go forward by midyear.
But with the finish line in sight, there are new obstacles. The latest came from the White House early Monday warning Congress to either approve an expanded Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, or the stalled trade pacts will be kept on hold.
Last February, Congress scrapped the $2.4 billion TAA program for 2011-2014 for good reason: A 2008 American University study found it of “dubious value.”
Worse still, consultants such as Karen Tramontano of Dutko International found that TAA encourages workers to blame all job losses, regardless of cause, on trade.
Only Big Labor likes this program, in part because it hands idled workers 156 weeks of “income support” on top of 99 weeks of unemployment, creating a five-year free ride instead of job creation.
“The administration will not submit implementing legislation on the three pending free-trade agreements until we have a deal with Congress on the renewal of a robust, expanded TAA program consistent with the objectives of the 2009 trade adjustment assistance law,” said Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council, in a conference call with reporters.
The contradictions in this announcement could give you whiplash. Three days ago, U.S. Trade Rep. Ron Kirk in testimony before Congress described free trade as a job-creating machine.
“Continued growth in agricultural exports depends on accessing new markets for America’s farmers and ranchers and ensuring their continued access to existing markets,” he told the House Agriculture Committee.
Now, suddenly, it’s a job killer.
“The president has always been unequivocal … that keeping faith with our workers is just as important for us as an administration as opening new markets and enforcing trade agreements,” Kirk said Monday.
In reality, what’s happening here is the same old Big Labor political game of holding the White House by its puppet strings ahead of elections to extract more concessions, without giving anything in return.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Vice President John Murphy wrote that Obama’s labor union supporters have been doing this with free trade since at least 2006 — from the early days of the pact’s negotiations, to the add-ons demanded in 2007, to the present day.
“Repeatedly, political leaders in both parties who want to open foreign markets to U.S. workers have reached out to labor to seek a compromise to move agreements forward … each time, labor pockets the concessions and then opposes the deals anyway.”
It happened a year ago, when Panama made concessions on tax policy to please Big Labor, and it has just happened in the wake of President Obama’s meeting with Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos, who accepted an Obama-dictated “action plan.” With these latest demands, the goal posts have moved again.
But the reality of this sorry picture is that as the White House plays games, it’s the U.S. economy that suffers.
“The administration’s announcement that they will tie our three pending trade agreements to unrelated spending is hugely disappointing to American workers, farmers and job creators, who are losing out to foreign competitors with every passing day,” said Senate Finance Committee’s top Republican, Orrin Hatch.
“It makes no sense to shut the door on increasing U.S. exports by over $10 billion in order to fund a costly program,” said Hatch. “With our economy struggling and our nation broke, it’s time to stop the excuses and give our exporters fair access to international markets.”
Couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
Source: Investors.com
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich threw his hat into the presidential ring on Wednesday. Republicans should toss it back onto Gingrich’s head and kindly ask him to go away. He is the wrong man to lead the GOP to victory in November 2012.
Gingrich’s intellect, tenacity, and perseverance helped the Republican party secure the House of Representatives in 1994, ending the Democrats’ 40-year majority. That achievement notwithstanding, Gingrich’s flaws glowed beneath the glare of national leadership. And there they remain.
Gingrich is no happy warrior. He snarls more than he smiles. Rather than speak, he hectors. Gingrich lectures more than he inspires audiences, as if he were Daddy, and they had misbehaved. His abrasive tone will chafe voters long before he ever gets an opportunity to snap at them from the Oval Office.
Also grating, Gingrich cannot say “America.” It’s pronounced A-MEHR-i-ca, not A-MORE-i-ca, as Gingrich puts it.
While “frankly” is a fine word, it’s a verbal tic for Gingrich. As a drinking game, sip a mimosa every time Gingrich says “frankly” on this Sunday’sMeet the Press on NBC. You will be bombed before the first commercial break.
Gingrich’s non-stylistic failings are far graver. After admirably holding promised House votes on the Contract with America’s ten planks, Gingrich had no Act II. He waffled on fighting big government. Among other things, he rescued the notorious sugar program and let Republicans launch their disastrous expansion of earmarks. Just last January, Gingrich defended ethanol subsidies and complained that a pattern of attacks on ethanol by “folks in big cities” “hurts the farmer. It hurts rural America, and it’s fundamentally unfair to America’s future.” Rather than advocate ending ethanol mandates, Gingrich wants a new one: a federal requirement enabling all cars to consume ethanol or methane.
Gingrich’s man-crush on Bill Clinton made him falter in legislative negotiations with the then-president. “I melt when I’m around him,” Gingrich purred in January 1996. “After I get out, I need two hours to detoxify. My people are nervous about me going in there because of the way I deal with this.”
Gingrich also ensnared himself in needless controversies such as an ill-conceived multi-million-dollar book deal and a hissy-fit regarding the utter humiliation of deplaning from Air Force One via a rear door. As the Wall Street Journal editorialized, “It’s time for him to finish growing up.”
Gingrich’s biggest vulnerability, however, is his Technicolorful personal life.
Like him or not, Barack Obama has been married for 19 years to Michelle — his first and only wife. By every indication, he has been faithful to her.
In jarring contrast, Gingrich — inexplicably a hero to many social conservatives — has lived like a guest at the Playboy Mansion. While married to Jackie Battley, his first wife, Gingrich became involved with Marianne Ginther, who soon became Wife No. 2. He then strayed from Ginther with House staffer Callista Bisek, now his third wife.
Gingrich cavorted with his legislative underling during Bill Clinton’s impeachment hearings for lying under oath about cavorting with his subordinate Monica Lewinsky. Gingrich’s failure to zip his zipper under such volatile circumstances confirmed his breathtaking immaturity. Had this dalliance surfaced before the November 1998 midterm elections, the staggering hypocrisy would have triggered America’s gag reflex. Voters would have catapulted the Republicans from the Capitol dome and given the Democrats the House and the Senate. Gingrich’s lack of self-control jeopardized the entire conservative agenda. Luckily for the Right and its ideas, Gingrich did not get caught with his pants down.
Gingrich now calls patriotism his aphrodisiac. As he told the Christian Broadcasting Network: “There’s no question at times in my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.”
If Republicans nominate Gingrich, Democrats will carpet-bomb him relentlessly with a simple message: “Ladies, can you trust a man who treats women like this?” Although Gingrich’s daughter has recently said the account was false, look-alike actors still may recreate the scene of Gingrich’s request for a divorce from Wife No. 1 as she was hospitalized after breast-cancer surgery. Democrats might organize breast-cancer sufferers to haunt Gingrich with picket signs that read “Newt: Mean to breast-cancer patients; mean to America.”
Given such tawdriness, if Republicans endorse Newt Gingrich for president, they will earn the ensuing electoral shellacking.
* Deroy Murdock is a nationally syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.
Source: National Review
Let’s restore common sense to our public policy debates on energy and climate
We are constantly bombarded with information – much of it inaccurate, misleading, even deliberately so.
We are frequently told we must reduce carbon emissions, support “carbon disclosure” and invest in “carbon trusts” – to prevent catastrophic global warming, global climate change or global climate “disruption.” News stories, advocacy and lobbying activities, and corporate “ethics” promotions frequently use “carbon” and “carbon dioxide” almost interchangeably; some occasionally talk about “dangerous carbon monoxide emissions.”
Torn by misplaced hydrocarbon guilt, wanting to do right ecologically, and often scientifically challenged, people are naturally confused. Because so much is at stake – for our energy supplies and prices, jobs, economies, living standards, budget deficits and environment – clearing up that confusion is a high priority.
“Carbon” (chemical symbol C) is what we burn to get energy to power modern society. Carbon is the molecular building block for wood, charcoal and coal, and hydrocarbons (HC) like oil and natural gas. Cars and power plants do not emit carbon, except in the form of soot. Thus, talk of “carbon disclosure” or “reducing our carbon emissions” is misleading, unless one is confessing how much charcoal was used at a picnic, or apologizing for not having pollution controls on a wood-burning stove.
“Carbon monoxide” (CO) is an odorless, deadly gas. A natural product of combustion, it increases when ventilation is poor, oxygen levels are low and burning is inefficient. It’s why we shouldn’t use charcoal grills indoors or operate cars in garages, unless we’re suicidal.
“Carbon dioxide” (CO2) is another natural byproduct of combustion, from power plants, factories, vehicles, homes, hospitals and other users of wood, coal, petroleum and biofuels. This is what many environmental activists, politicians and scientists blame for recent and future climate change.
(The other major byproduct is water vapor or steam – plus pollutants that reflect impurities in the fuel and are removed via scrubbers and other technologies, or reduced by controlling the temperature, airflow and efficiency of combustion processes: sulfur and nitrogen oxides, particulates, mercury and so on.)
Literally thousands of scientists vigorously disagree with the hypothesis that CO2 is responsible for climate change. It plays only a minor role, they argue, in a complex, chaotic climate system that is driven by numerous natural forces, cycles, and positive and negative feedback loops. They also note that CO2 increases have followed, not preceded, temperature rises, throughout Earth’s history.
CO2 constitutes a mere 0.0380% of our atmosphere. That’s 380 parts per million (380 ppm), which sounds much more threatening, especially when used in juxtaposition with the pre-Industrial Revolution figure of 280 ppm. But even that 100 ppm increase represents only 0.0100% of Earth’s atmosphere – equivalent to one penny out of $100.
380 is far below historical CO2 levels. During the Jurassic and Early Carboniferous periods, geologists calculate, our atmosphere contained 1,500-2,500 ppm carbon dioxide. However, even at today’s comparatively CO2-impoverished levels, this trace gas is vital to the health of our planet.
As every grade schooler learns, CO2 enables photosynthesis and plant growth: carbon dioxide and water in, oxygen and plant growth out, through complex chemical reactions. Without CO2, there would be no plants and no oxygen; life as we know it would cease. Carbon dioxide is truly the “gas of life” – and no attempt by Al Gore, James Hansen or EPA to brand it as a dangerous pollutant can change that.
The 100 ppm rise in CO2 levels came courtesy of two things. As oceans warmed after the Little Ice Age ended 160 years ago, they released some of their carbon dioxide storehouses. (As with beer and soda water, seawater is able to retain less CO2 as it warms.) The rest came from hydrocarbon fuels burned during the Industrial Revolution and modern era, and from billions more impoverished people still burning wood and animal dung in open fires.
Though vilified by radical greens and climate alarmists, hydrocarbon energy and the Industrial Revolution have hugely benefitted mankind. They doubled average life expectances in industrialized nations and increased prosperity, overall health and living standards, in proportion to the ability of poor communities to acquire electricity and modern technologies. Thus, telling poor countries to limit hydrocarbon use, and focus instead on wind and solar power, sharply limits their ability to modernize, create jobs, and improve health, living conditions and life spans.
And all that extra CO2 from electrical generation and other economic activities? As Drs. Craig and Sherwood Idso explain on their CO2science.org website and in their fascinating book, The Many Benefits of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment, the extra carbon dioxide has blessed people and planet in at least 55 ways.
For example, increased atmospheric carbon dioxide increases the photosynthesis rates for plants. It enables plants to extract more moisture from the air and soil, thereby expanding root systems that stabilize soil, reduce erosion and help plants survive better during droughts.
Higher CO2 levels also reduce the need for plants to keep their stomata (pores in leaves) open to absorb carbon dioxide – and in the process release moisture from the plant – further increasing drought resistance. Because stomata don’t need to be open as much, plants also reduce their absorption of harmful pollutants that can damage their tissue. As with the air in greenhouses, rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations improves nitrogen fixation by soil bacteria, increasing the availability of this important chemical.
CO2-enriched air also increases plants’ ability to manufacture Vitamin C, antioxidants, and health-promoting substances in medicinal plants – while likewise improving plants’ immune systems and ability to withstand a wide variety of common plant diseases.
Many climatologists and astrophysicists believe recent sun spot, Pacific Ocean and global temperature trends suggest that our planet may have entered a cool phase that could last for 25 years. If that is the case, the additional carbon dioxide being emitted by China, India and other developing countries could bring a major additional benefit: helping to protect wildlife habitats, enhance oceanic biota and preserve crop yields under sub-optimal climatic conditions.
Attempts to coerce expanded wind and solar installations will require that we devote still more land, raw materials and taxpayer subsidies to these expensive, unreliable energy supplies. And trying to capture and store carbon dioxide from power plants and factories will require trillions of dollars and vast supplies of energy, to take this plant-fertilizing gas out of the atmosphere and inject it under high pressure deep into the earth – and keep it from escaping, to kill animals and people.
To get 1000 megawatts of net electricity from a power plant designed for CO2-capture-and-storage would require building (at minimum) a 1300-MW plant, burning at least one-third more fuel than a conventional plant does, using over one-third of the 1300 MW to power the CCS equipment – and paying much higher electricity prices. The impact on factories, shops, jobs, household budgets and fuel supplies would be significant.
Legislators and regulators need to focus on controlling unhealthy amounts of real pollutants (based on valid medical and environmental science) – and keep their pesky hands off our CO2!
* Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.
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