Intensive Land Management Leaves Europe Without Carbon Sinks

Fig.: In order to compute whether European landscapes store or release greenhouse gases, climatologists have for the first time also considered methane and nitrogen oxide emissions from livestock farming and intensive agriculture. The bottom line is that forests, grasslands and agriculture fields, particularly in central Europe, freely release greenhouse gas (in carbon dioxide equivalents / red colouring in diagram). In this way they balance out the effect which Russian forests have as a source of carbon dioxide storage (blue colouring), almost completely. (Credit: CarboEurope Team)

Of all global carbon dioxide emissions, less than half accumulate in the atmosphere where it contributes to global warming. The remainder is hidden away in oceans and terrestrial ecosystems such as forests, grasslands and peat-lands. Stimulating this “free service” of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems is considered one of the main, immediately available ways of reducing climate change. However, new greenhouse gas bookkeeping has revealed that for the European continent this service isn’t free after all.

These findings were recently published in Nature Geoscience.

Researchers from 17 European countries cooperating in the EU-Integrated Project CarboEurope, led by Detlef Schulze, of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany have compiled the first comprehensive greenhouse gas balance of Europe. They made two independent estimates: one based on what the atmosphere sees and one based on what terrestrial ecosystems see.

The new bookkeeping effort confirmed the existence of a strong carbon sink of -305 Million tonnes of carbon per year in European forests and grasslands. A sink of this magnitude could offset 19% of the emission from fossil fuel burning. However, agricultural land and drained peat-land are emitting CO₂, which cancels part of this sink. The resulting net CO₂ sink of the European continent is 274 Million tonnes of carbon per year — only 15% of the emissions from fossil fuel burning. But this balance is still incomplete, because all European ecosystems are managed and as a by-product of land management other powerful greenhouse gases are released — for example nitrous oxide from fertilizers applied to grassland and crops, and methane from ruminants and from peat-lands. These previously neglected emissions of greenhouse gases from land-use cancel out almost the entire carbon sink, leaving the landscape offsetting only some 2% of the CO₂ emissions from households, transport and industry.

Compared to Europe as a whole, the situation is even worse for the 25 states of the European Union. Here, although forests and grasslands can compensate for 13% of the CO₂ emitted by fossil fuel burning, emission of powerful greenhouse gases from agricultural emissions and peat mining reduces the effectiveness of the land surface sink to 111 Million tonnes of carbon per year, which is only 11% of the CO₂ emitted by fossil fuels. However, since the emissions of methane and nitrous oxide are relatively higher in the European Union the land surface emerges as a greenhouse gas source of 34 Million tonnes of carbon per year. This effectively increases the emissions from fossil fuel burning by another 3%.

Prof Schulze said “These findings show that if the European landscape is to contribute to mitigating global warming, we need a new, different emphasis on land management. Methane and nitrous oxide are such powerful greenhouse gases; we must manage the landscape to decrease their emissions.”

Story Source:

Adapted from materials provided by Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Schulze et al. Importance of methane and nitrous oxide for Europe’s terrestrial greenhouse-gas balance. Nature Geoscience, 2009; DOI: 10.1038/ngeo686

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091123114636.htm

Will Biden And Kerry Support A War Surtax Again?

Six years ago, when then-President George W. Bush requested an additional $87 billion from Congress for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, several prominent Democrats called his bluff. If Bush wanted to continue funding the wars, he’d have to find a way to pay for it.

Sens. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) introduced a joint amendment to the emergency war supplemental in September 2003 that would have funded Bush’s $87 billion request by suspending the high-end portion of the tax cuts he had enacted two years earlier.

The pair said it was smart politics and policy — something to satisfy both deficit and war hawks alike. “We can either pass on to our grandchildren the cost of meeting our security needs, we can cut deeper into the services middle-class taxpayers count on or we can face our obligations squarely and pay for them,” Biden said at the time.

“What this is about is called fundamental fairness,” said Kerry. “Is it fair in America to suggest that you can add to the deficit — which it will this year — to suggest all of the figures of this administration, which have been wrong, can be wiped away on the backs of the average American so that the wealthiest people in the country can keep their tax cut? That is the question. It is a pretty simple fundamental question.”

Six years later, the notion of levying a tax on the wealthiest Americans to pay for an escalation of troops in Afghanistan is once again being considered. And the list of supporters includes some prominent House Democrats: Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wisc.) and Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.). On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hinted she might join the chorus when she said there was growing “unrest” in the Democratic Caucus over whether the country could “afford this war.”

There is no word yet as to whether the proposal has wider support in Congress. The Obama administration, meanwhile, has refused to comment on what it deems a hypothetical matter — noting that the president has yet to announce a policy that reportedly includes a deployment of an additional 30,000 or more troops to Afghanistan.

“I’m not going to get into how one funds a decision that’s yet to be made,” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said on Monday. “I don’t doubt we’ll have some time to do that.”

Nevertheless, as the debate makes its way into the Senate and the White House, both Biden and Kerry find themselves in more powerful positions to affect the conversation than in 2003. Certainly, as vice president and chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, respectively, their stance on a war surtax could go a long way towards determining its passage as well as providing another barometer of the Biden’s influence within the administration.

Both offices declined comment for this article. But observers say that while there are parallels between 2003 and 2009, the politics are different.

“There is some relationship between the [then and now],” said John Isaacs, Executive Director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. “But I don’t think the Democrats then were wanting to stop the war then so much as they were eager to go after the Bush tax cuts. They were aiming to make a point as opposed to pass legislation. Which is what Obey is trying to do. No one expects his approach to win even if it gets a vote.”

Of course, both Biden and Kerry came up short in 2003. With the GOP controlling Congress and Bush in the White House, their amendment was defeated 57 to 42. Weeks later, the Senate passed an emergency supplemental that was not deficit-neutral. Biden voted for the measure; Kerry, along with 10 other Democrats, was in opposition. During the 2004 election, the Massachusetts Democrat famously argued that he was for the bill (when it was paid for by repealing elements of the Bush tax cuts) before he was against it. And the rest, as they say, is history.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/25/will-biden-and-kerry-supp_n_370290.html

AP: GOP Spinning Hard On Health Care Reform Bill

CALVIN WOODWARD and DOUGLASS K. DANIEL

WASHINGTON — Republicans are using everything short of forklifts to show Americans that Democratic health care legislation is an unwieldy mountain of paper. They pile it high on desks, hoist it on a shoulder trussed in sturdy rope and tell people it’s longer than “War and Peace,” which it isn’t.

Although they complain they don’t have time to read all of it, they found the time to tape it together, page by page, so they could roll it up the steps of the Capitol like super-sized toilet paper and show how very long it is.

Size matters in the health care debate because Republicans have turned the length of the legislation into a symbol: Big, unwieldy bill means big, overreaching government.

Even bigger when you display double-spaced copies with double-wide margins and large print – then pile copies of the House and Senate bills together so that the cameras see something monstrously tall.

Lawmakers routinely debate massive legislation without absorbing every word. They employ people to find what matters to them.

Indeed, legislation of comparable size was used to redefine an area of much more limited federal responsibility, education. That was the No Child Left Behind Act from the agenda of Republican President George W. Bush.

The nation’s health care system accounts for one-sixth of the economy and no one really expects brevity when reinventing something so complex.

No one really expects the Republicans’ theatrical legislation inflation to stop, either.

Five Republican senators displayed the massive legislation on their desks during the weekend vote to bring the Senate health bill to full debate, as GOP lawmakers have been doing since the House bill came out earlier.

As if he risked a hernia carrying it any other way, Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa was seen carrying the House Democratic bill on his shoulder, all roped together. GOP Rep. John Culberson of Texas brought a copy to a Capitol Hill rally and threw its loose pages to the crowd, like meat to lions.

The actual Senate bill, which Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced last week, came in at 2,074 double-spaced pages, 84 more pages than the House version, which was already being ridiculed for its size.

“That’s larger than the novel ‘War and Peace,’” Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah said of the Senate bill.

“Exceeding even ‘War and Peace’ in length,” Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said of the House bill.

Said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas: “‘War and Peace’ – some people consider it the greatest book ever written, but most people recognize the novel because at 1,284 pages its length is often the butt of jokes. Now imagine trying to read something that long overnight.”

Actually, Leo Tolstoy’s tome is longer than either bill. Full translated versions are nearly twice as long.

The bill passed by the House is 319,145 words. The Senate bill is 318,512 words, shorter than the House version despite consuming more paper. Various versions of Tolstoy’s novel are 560,000 to 670,000 words. Bush’s education act tallied more than 280,000 words.

By now, the full draft of Reid’s bill that had circulated in the corridors and landed so prominently on Republican desks has been published in the Congressional Record in the official and conventional manner.

The type is small and tight. No hernias will be caused by moving this rendering of the bill around. Unfurling it on the Capitol steps would not be much of a spectacle.

It’s 209 pages.

___

Associated Press writer Ann Sanner contributed to this report.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/24/ap-gop-spinning-hard-on-h_n_368791.html

Low-Carbon Fuel Rules

Slash and burn: California’s Low-Carbon Fuel Standard penalizes biofuels whose cultivation involves rainforest clearing– and thus worsen the greenhouse effect instead of easing it.   Credit: Martin Shields / Photo Researchers, Inc

California is about to implement a standard to boost cleaner fuels and punish the rest.

By Peter Fairley

Come January 1, fuel suppliers across California will have to abide by the state’s Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). The standard aims to reduce the “life-cycle carbon intensity” of fuels consumed by cars, trucks, and other vehicles by 10 percent over the coming decade and, in the process, even the playing field for low-carbon alternatives.

This coming year a carbon intensity baseline for gasoline and diesel sold in California will be established. Each year thereafter, the state will set a standard that is progressively lower. Fuel distributors will need to reduce the carbon intensity of their fuel by blending in low-carbon fuels such as cellulosic biofuels, or by purchasing low-carbon credits earned by other firms that beat the standard.

“Those fuels with lower overall emissions will be incentivized, and those with higher emissions will be discouraged,” says Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute for Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis and an architect of the LCFS.

Policy analysts such as Sperling predict that the LCFS will be the harbinger of smarter national and international fuel policies, in contrast to the rush into food-based fuels such as corn ethanol that offer little overall environmental benefit. “Until we adopt an LCFS nationally and internationally, policy will be politicized and ad hoc,” he says.

However, controversy has dogged measures pending in Washington and Brussels as scientists and politicians struggle for consensus on ways to evaluate life-cycle emissions. A flashpoint is whether and how to measure greenhouse gas emissions from indirect land use changes. An example of this would be the clearing of a forest to grow food crops to make biofuels.

What is clear is that the LCFS will help make some alternative fuel technologies more viable than others. Dan Kammen, co-director of the University of California’s Berkeley Institute of the Environment and another architect of the LCFS, says battery-powered vehicles should win big, given California’s preference for natural gas-fired power generation and the high efficiency of electric drivetrains. “Because of the very low emissions per mile traveled for electric vehicles versus all liquid fuels, the LCFS could strongly advance electrified transport,” says Kammen.

Electric vehicle players are already scrambling to capture the benefits. The California Air Resources Board in Sacramento has determined that charging an electric vehicle will result in 43 percent as much carbon dioxide emissions, mile for mile, as burning gasoline. Charging electric vehicles should thus generate credits under the LCFS that fuel companies can buy to offset the carbon-intensity of higher-carbon fuels.

Article Continues – http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/24003/

Treasury Rethinks TARP: Strong Banks, Weak Credit

JIM KUHNHENN

WASHINGTON — Big banks are roaring back. At crisis’ edge last year, they are repaying billions of dollars dumped into their vaults to rescue them. Dividend checks are accumulating at the Treasury. Taxpayers won’t recoup the full sum of the government’s unprecedented infusion to the financial sector, but the returns are ahead of schedule.

With large bets on bonds, commodities and exotic financial products, big banks are reporting third-quarter profits.

Of the $250 billion that the government initially set aside to spend in direct assistance to banks, it has spent $205 billion and the Treasury is already taking steps to bring that program to an end. The ledger: Banks have paid back $71 billion of the infusions. They have also paid the Treasury nearly $7 billion in dividends.

If propping up much of the teetering financial markets was the goal of the government’s $700 billion Wall Street rescue, then mission accomplished.

But there were other objectives for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, too: greater lending to consumers and businesses, mitigating foreclosures and helping banks shed toxic mortgage-backed assets.

On that, it’s unfinished business.

A program announced with fanfare four weeks ago that would funnel money to small banks at low rates to increase small business lending is still being designed. Treasury officials are looking at plans that could cost taxpayers between $10 billion and $50 billion but are encountering reluctance from small banks.

“I’m told by banker associations and banks, ‘Hey, this is good capital, we’d like to have it, but we don’t want to be the only bank in town who takes your capital because the others will advertise against us,’” Herbert Allison Jr., the assistant Treasury secretary in charge of TARP, said in an interview. “There is a stigma and it’s frustrating, frankly.”

Meanwhile, TARP is set to expire Dec. 31. But with about $140 billion still uncommitted (even more, about $300 billion, unspent), the Obama administration is considering extending at least a portion of the huge fund until next October.

“We are winding it down and will close it as soon as we can,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told a congressional committee. But he stiffly opposed any congressional effort to force the program to end. The struggle facing Treasury is how to continue TARP as insurance against further instability without having Congress use it as a source of new spending.

Officials are keeping a wary eye on smaller banks, which have been failing at the highest rate since 1992 due largely to losses from commercial real estate loans.

“The financial system is stable, but it is not normal and it could be derailed again, and you need to guard against that possibility,” said economist Mark Zandi, head of Moody’s Economy.com and a regular adviser to congressional Democrats.

Extending TARP as insurance for banks wouldn’t be a popular move. Conservatives and liberals object to the direct assistance to big banks and insurance conglomerate American International Group. Republicans have called for the program to end and assigning the unused money to debt reduction. Some liberals want the money for jobs programs.

Overall, the bank infusions alone could end up costing taxpayers about $14 billion, according to estimates by Economy.com. While banks are paying money back, not all of them can be saved. Earlier this month, a San Francisco bank became the first bailed-out institution to fail. More could fall. And two weeks ago small business lender CIT Group, which received $2.3 billion in rescue funds, filed for bankruptcy protection with little hope of repaying taxpayers.

Add to that the money injected into the auto industry, AIG and a $50 billion mortgage assistance program, and Economy.com estimates taxpayers could be left with a bill totaling $155 billion.

For instance, General Motors announced it would pay back a $6.7 billion in U.S. government loans by 2011, four years ahead of schedule. But that still leaves more than $40 billion that the government lent to GM in exchange for a common equity stake. Moody’s estimates taxpayers could recoup half of that.

The mortgage assistance program, off to a slow start, has now helped 650,000 homeowners with trial loan modifications, with average savings of $500 a month. The administration aims to help between 3 million and 4 million over three years, but that is $50 billion that won’t get repaid directly to the Treasury.

The potential cost to taxpayers illustrates the dramatic change in TARP’s purpose from the fall of 2008 when President George W. Bush proposed using the entire $700 billion to help banks get rid of toxic mortgage-backed assets. “We expect that much, if not all, of the tax dollars we invest will be paid back,” Bush said on Sept. 24 of last year.

Administration critics say Geithner has not spelled out with clarity how the program will ultimately end.

“Suppose they didn’t renew it; there would be shock,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and an economic adviser to Republican John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “There is an implicit expectation that they’ll do something. But there is not a nicely framed expectation of how they will exit.”

If stabilizing the financial sector was TARP’s main goal, increasing lending was the other.

Treasury Department figures released this month show that outstanding loan balances by TARP recipients in September, the latest available data, were 3.8 percent lower than they were in February when the economy was at its worst. Lending by the largest banks that received TARP money declined for the eighth straight month in September.

Analysts and Treasury officials attribute the decline to decreased demand from borrowers and continuing skittishness by banks in the face of economic weakness. “TARP giveth, but unemployment taketh away,” said Scott Talbott, chief lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, which represents large banking institutions.

Lending volume has declined less than it did during the 1991-92 recession, even though this downturn was deeper. But Allison said there is still a widespread perception that banks could be lending more.

“That’s what the business community is telling us uniformly,” he said.

Given that, the administration has a dual message for banks that are regenerating their capital.

“We want to see them using their capital for lending as much as they reasonably can,” Allison said. “We want to see banks that took TARP capital, especially the larger banks, paying it back when they are able to.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/24/treasury-rethinks-tarp-st_n_368765.html

Fed Said to Ask Stress-Tested Banks to Submit Plans on TARP

By Scott Lanman and Craig Torres

Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve asked nine of the U.S. banks that were part of this year’s stress tests to submit plans for repaying the government’s capital injections, a person familiar with the situation said.

The central bank this month asked Bank of America Corp. and eight other banks to give plans including a timetable, said the person, speaking on condition of anonymity. The firms may have the option to repay Troubled Asset Relief Program funds soon if they’ve been able to raise common equity and would continue to exceed capital buffers set in the stress tests, the person said.

“It would send a terrific message to the market if there was a plan and a timetable for at least the top banks in TARP to pay the money back,” said Joel Conn, president of Lakeshore Capital Inc. in Birmingham, Alabama, which owns stock in PNC Financial Services Group Inc. “It would signify they are good enough to stand on their own.”

The Fed’s request may turn up the pressure for banks accustomed to more flexibility on the timing and process of TARP repayment. Together the nine banks have received about $142 billion in bailout funds, out of the $700 billion Congress authorized in 2008 for the financial rescue.

The banks in the stress test that have yet to repay TARP are Bank of America, PNC, Citigroup Inc., Fifth Third Bancorp, GMAC Inc., KeyCorp, Regions Financial Corp., SunTrust Banks Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co.

Stress Tests

The Fed released results in May from stress tests that showed how the 19 largest U.S. lenders would fare in a slower recovery with higher-than-forecast unemployment. Ten companies including Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup needed to raise additional capital.

Banks had been prohibited from repaying TARP money quickly unless they replaced it with private capital. That changed with February’s $787 billion stimulus law.

Since then, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. among others have returned TARP funds by proving they were well capitalized without the government money.

Regions doesn’t comment on talks with regulators, spokesman Tim Deighton said. Bank of America and SunTrust declined to comment. Citigroup’s Stephen Cohen and Wells Fargo’s Julia Tunis Bernard declined to comment.

Bill Murschel, a KeyCorp spokesman, and Debra Decourcy of Fifth Third didn’t return calls for comment. Fred Solomon, a PNC spokesman, and GMAC’s Gina Proia declined to comment.

The request was reported earlier by DealReporter.com, a news service that focuses on mergers and is part of Pearson Plc’s Financial Times Group.

To contact the reporters on this story: Scott Lanman in Washington at slanman@bloomberg.net; Craig Torres in Washington at ctorres3@bloomberg.net.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aD00dAKNxIfo

Explaining the Air Traffic Breakdown

It wasn’t the fault of a creaky old radar system, but of high-tech flight-monitoring computers.

By David Talbot

The major failure of air-traffic control yesterday (Thursday November 19th) was yet another sign that our outdated radar-based system needs to be replaced with a sleek new satellite-based one, right? That’s the logical progression of much of the coverage out there.

The reality is that, yes, the system needs to be replaced. But yesterday’s failure was a high-tech one that could afflict a system based on satellites, too.

The problem wasn’t directly related to radar, but with the National Airspace Data Interchange Network, a system for processing flight plans and information for all flights in the country. It failed in both of its locations: Salt Lake City and Atlanta. This meant that automated regional FAA systems couldn’t process flight information. As a result, controllers had to enter information manually. This caused delays that rippled across the country. “A satellite-based system would have had the same problem,” R. John Hansman, an MIT aerospace and air traffic control expert, wrote to me this afternoon.

The Federal Aviation Administration hopes to roll out a Global Positioning System-based control system, called Next Generation or NextGen, in stages. By 2020 most planes will carry a cockpit gadget that continuously broadcasts the planes’ GPS-derived location, altitude, and speed to ground controllers. In later years, the system will extend so that this information is picked up by other planes, too, so that pilots can gain more control over their routing and spacing. As they beam their position information to one another they’ll be able, to some extent, to self-navigate. However, there will always be an FAA air-traffic system keeping track. It’s unlikely that pilots will ever be permitted to make all takeoff, routing, and landing decisions entirely by themselves in the event of failures of national air-traffic computers, as happened yesterday.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/24444/?a=f

Envisioning a Real-Time Government

By Ellen Miller – Co-founder and Executive Director of the Sunlight Foundation

Everyday people are inundated with real time information that makes their lives, even the most mundane parts, more manageable. When I leave the house in the morning I can check weather patterns in real time on my phone. Back when the Red Sox were still alive I could find up to minute scores and stats (That’s both good and bad). If I were into fantasy baseball, I could get up to the minute calculations for my team on my iPhone while games are still being played.

With so much information readily available at the tips of our fingers, the slow pace of information dispersal from the government only engenders distrust. The contrast between government and our real-time real life is simply too stark not to be frustrated by. Campaign contribution reports come out every four months, lobbyists don’t disclose their actual meetings, and Congressional committees only post information online at their discretion. The information that people need to see in order to understand who’s playing the game in Washington — not to mention who’s on first — is not readily available — and in some cases it’s not available at all.

Just think how easy it is to get the history on a car through CarFax. What the public needs is a daily GovFix, an up to the minute, mobile phone accessible, real time accounting for our government leaders. If I can find out that my used car was in a rear collision accident in 2004, why can’t I know that my congressman had a collision with a telecom lobbyist at a fundraiser and left the scene with a $2,300 campaign contribution? If I get a receipt immediately after every single I purchase I make throughout the year, why can’t I get a receipt to see how my single biggest expenditure — my tax dollars — are spent?

Well, I think you should be able to. And I think we can get there.

Imagine a world where the entire influence economy in Washington were available to the public, online and in real time. The coverage of the health care debate would be far different if newspapers featured widgets on their web sites showing the daily “take” for local congressmen and senators from the health insurance and drug companies. A daily updated database of lobbyist contacts would show which special interests were involved in the secretive Baucus Gang of Six meetings over the summer. Imagine a searchable and downloadable database of all Congressional earmarks so in an instant you could see what government is spending our tax dollars on. Imagine having this sort of information across the federal government right now — being able to track who is paying for lobbying whether in Congress or at the regulatory agencies, and what those discussions entail. One could quickly sort or browse all paid lobbying for individual clients or issue areas, and understand what agency actions are up for grabs.

At the Sunlight Foundation we’ve envisioned such a world starting with the executive branch — and true to form, it’s complete with web mock ups.

Picture a single website that would function as a portal for all government agencies’ to file daily reports on lobbying meetings (image 1), and allow the public to examine and search through the disclosures (image 2).

One need only look briefly at the images to get a sense of the types of things we could expect to see. It’s just a start, but it’s the kind of information that would be valuable for citizens, journalists, and even agency heads and employees who are striving to evaluate decisions and understand what kinds of pressure they’re feeling.

In short: this kind of simple disclosure in just one arena of the influence economy — lobbying — would be a game changer that would help us make better decisions and build public trust.

And what’s more, with real-time access given us through the Web, this level of government transparency and accountability is actually possible. And it’s possible in your pocket. That’s something we couldn’t even say as recently as five years ago. Information sharing is now part of the exponential curve that quits curving and just goes straight up. Today, we can present vast amounts of data meaningfully, and almost as fast as it can be created.

What this means for government and the future of citizen engagement is unprecedented.

We are on the cusp of new era of democracy and participation and it will be heralded by online, real-time government. Two hundred thirty-three years after we launched this grandest of experiments, it’s time for us to take it to the next level.

Our founders would have drooled.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-miller/envisioning-a-real-time-g_b_347004.html

New H-1B hiring bill takes aim at tech firms

Lawmakers may be setting the stage for the fight over broader immigration reform

By Patrick Thibodeau

The two lawmakers who successfully added H-1B hiring restrictions to the financial bailout bill earlier this year have introduced legislation that would bar any firm that lays off 50 or more workers from hiring guest workers.

This legislation, introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), could potentially affect a broad swath of tech firms that have laid off large numbers of workers but continue hiring.

The high-tech industry overall has laid off more than 345,000 workers since August 2008, according to the two senators in the unveiing of what they called the Employ America Act.

“With the unemployment rate over 10%, companies that undertake mass layoffs shouldn’t need to hire foreign guest workers when there are plenty of qualified Americans looking for jobs,” said Grassley, in a statement yesterday.

In February, Grassley and Sanders moved to prohibit any financial services firm that received money from the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) from hiring H-1B holders. That blanket restriction on hiring wasn’t adopted, but Congress did agree to automatically make any firm receiving TARP funds “H-1B dependent.”

A company is considered H-1B dependent if more than 15% of their workers are on the H-1B visa, but the TARP restriction applies regardless of the percent of visa holders on the payroll. Companies that are H-1B dependent must, among the things, make good faith efforts to hire U.S. workers first.

With the Senate expected to receive an immigration overhaul bill early next year, the prospects for any H-1B-related legislation is uncertain and probably unlikely to pass.

Grassley and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill) introduced the H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2009 earlier this year (S.887) that would set a number of restrictions on H-1B use, including the so-called 50-50 provision that would prohibit any firm with more than 50 workers from having more than half workforce on H-1B or L-1 visas. That provision is aimed at Indian outsourcing firms. The legislation also sets higher salary standards for visa workers as well as anti-fraud provisions.

Conversely, U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) has proposed legislation that would to increase the H-1B cap and that would exempt foreign graduates of U.S. Ph.D. programs from counting toward a cap on H-1B visas.

The Sanders-Grassley bill would apply as well to companies hire workers on the H-2B visa, which is used in occupations such as construction, health care, food service, among others.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9141198/New_H_1B_hiring_bill_takes_aim_at_tech_firms

Fed Beaten: Bill To Audit Federal Reserve Passes Key Hurdle

In an unprecedented defeat for the Federal Reserve, an amendment to audit the multi-trillion dollar institution was approved by the House Finance Committee with an overwhelming and bipartisan 43-26 vote on Thursday afternoon despite harried last-minute lobbying from top Fed officials and the surprise opposition of Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who had previously been a supporter.

The measure, cosponsored by Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), authorizes the Government Accountability Office to conduct a wide-ranging audit of the Fed’s opaque deals with foreign central banks and major U.S. financial institutions. The Fed has never had a real audit in its history and little is known of what it does with the trillions of dollars at its disposal.

The amendment expressly blocks Congress from interfering with the independence of monetary policy decision-making, but opponents of the measure said that the political pressure would inevitably follow.

A desperate, last-minute attempt to thwart the move came in the form of an amendment championed by Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) and described by its supporters as more reasonable. On Tuesday, however, the Huffington Post reported that, on a close reading, his amendment would in fact decrease transparency at the Fed by adding additional restrictions.

Backers of the Watt amendment pressed their case on Wednesday by sending a letter from a “political cross section of prominent economists” backing a measure like Watt’s. HuffPost reported, however, that those economists might well have be prominent, but they certainly aren’t a “political cross section.” Seven of the eight economists in question have extensive connections to the Fed — and half of them are currently on the Fed payroll. Those affiliations were not noted in the letter.

The playbook in Washington often goes like this: When a measure that threatens the establishment builds enough momentum that it must be dealt with, it is labeled as “unserious.” The Washington Post editorial board, true to the script, called Paul’s measure “an unserious answer to a serious question.”

And it particularly rankles the center that a pair of “wingnuts” are behind a successful effort to challenge the prevailing order.

Step Two is for a “serious” compromise to be offered. In this case, it was Watt’s amendment. But by the time the vote was called Thursday afternoon, committee members had seen through his measure, recognizing that it was not a compromise effort to bring real transparency to the Fed but an attempt to further shut the the doors.

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First Posted: 11-19-09 08:13 PM   |   Updated: 11-19-09 08:44 PM

 

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Read More: Alan Grayson, Barney Frank, Congress, Fed, Federal Reserve, Monetary Policy, Ron Paul, Politics News

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In an unprecedented defeat for the Federal Reserve, an amendment to audit the multi-trillion dollar institution was approved by the House Finance Committee with an overwhelming and bipartisan 43-26 vote on Thursday afternoon despite harried last-minute lobbying from top Fed officials and the surprise opposition of Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who had previously been a supporter.

The measure, cosponsored by Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), authorizes the Government Accountability Office to conduct a wide-ranging audit of the Fed’s opaque deals with foreign central banks and major U.S. financial institutions. The Fed has never had a real audit in its history and little is known of what it does with the trillions of dollars at its disposal.

The amendment expressly blocks Congress from interfering with the independence of monetary policy decision-making, but opponents of the measure said that the political pressure would inevitably follow.

A desperate, last-minute attempt to thwart the move came in the form of an amendment championed by Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) and described by its supporters as more reasonable. On Tuesday, however, the Huffington Post reported that, on a close reading, his amendment would in fact decrease transparency at the Fed by adding additional restrictions.

Backers of the Watt amendment pressed their case on Wednesday by sending a letter from a “political cross section of prominent economists” backing a measure like Watt’s. HuffPost reported, however, that those economists might well have be prominent, but they certainly aren’t a “political cross section.” Seven of the eight economists in question have extensive connections to the Fed — and half of them are currently on the Fed payroll. Those affiliations were not noted in the letter.

The playbook in Washington often goes like this: When a measure that threatens the establishment builds enough momentum that it must be dealt with, it is labeled as “unserious.” The Washington Post editorial board, true to the script, called Paul’s measure “an unserious answer to a serious question.”

And it particularly rankles the center that a pair of “wingnuts” are behind a successful effort to challenge the prevailing order.

Step Two is for a “serious” compromise to be offered. In this case, it was Watt’s amendment. But by the time the vote was called Thursday afternoon, committee members had seen through his measure, recognizing that it was not a compromise effort to bring real transparency to the Fed but an attempt to further shut the the doors.

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“The Watt amendment will fully obliterate everything 1207″ — Paul’s measure — “is intended to do,” said Paul during Thursday’s debate.

For anyone remaining confused, the debate was further clarified by the central bank itself: Federal Reserve Vice Chair Don Cohn and General Counsel Scott Alvarez spent much of the day calling committee members, urging them to oppose the Paul-Grayson amendment in favor of Watt’s, a member of Congress who asked for confidentiality told HuffPost.

Paul’s opponents also placed a letter from former Fed chairmen Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker on the seats of every committee member. Such a move is in violation of House rules and Grayson was able to have the letters removed.

As the day wore on and support held for the Paul-Grayson side, the Fed still could hope that both would pass. Watt’s amendment, which included additional restriction, would then trump Paul’s.

To counter that possibility, the Paul-Grayson side moved to fully replace Watt’s amendment with theirs, leaving only one amendment to vote on. The motion carried and the amendment passed in a landslide.

The GOP broadly backed the amendment, though Frank chided them for finding their love of Fed transparency only after they lost power, noting that Paul has been introducing some version of the measure since 1983.

Frank said he was opposing the Paul amendment because it could be perceived as influencing monetary policy, which can have inflationary pressure. “Perception is very important in monetary policy,” said Frank.

He urged a no vote, yet 15 Democrats bucked him, voting with Paul. Key to winning Democratic support was a letter posted early Thursday from labor leaders and progressive economists. The letter, organized by the liberal blog FireDogLake.com, called for a rejection of the Watt substitute and support for Paul.

Grayson was able to show Democratic colleagues that the liberal base was behind them.

“Today was Waterloo for Fed secrecy,” a victorious Grayson said afterwards.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/19/fed-beaten-bill-to-audit_n_364546.html