Press Editorials
June 2009
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The Olympian - Time’s essential to properly review bills
Congressman Brian Baird, D-Wash., has re-introduced a bill in Congress that would ensure the public and members of Congress have adequate time to review legislation before it comes up for a vote.
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The Patriot-News - Let legislators, public read bills before Congress votes on them
On Friday, the House of Representatives voted on the American Clean Energy and Security Act, aka the "climate change bill." I'm going to sidestep the content of the bill today to make a different point: The legislation is more than 1,000 pages long.
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Chicago Tribune - Too big, too fast
Remember that gargantuan climate change bill we told you about last week? It's gotten bigger. Over the weekend, the bill grew from 946 pages to 1,201 pages, according to the Sunlight Foundation. It's still changing, with important amendments in flux.
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Orange County Register - Climate change bill all pain, no gain
The House of Representatives is preparing to vote Friday on a massive "cap and trade" bill purportedly designed to address global warming - though they call it "climate change" now since the globe hasn't warmed in the past few years - that will probably not be finished until minutes before voting begins. The reason is that proponents are still buying votes from moderate Democrats with special-interest favors and sweetheart deals. Not only will this bill do little or nothing to curb global warming - it's all pain and no gain - it has become a Christmas tree for politically connected industries and lobbyists.
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Clovis News Journal - Cap and trade bill polluted by politics
The House of Representatives is preparing to vote on a massive “cap and trade” bill today purportedly designed to address global warming — though they call it “climate change” now since the globe hasn’t warmed in the last few years — that will probably not be finished until minutes before voting begins.
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Roll Call - Black Hole?
The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has served notice that it will file an ethics complaint against Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), and we concur — without prejudging the case — that issues arising from his sexual affair with a former aide deserve examination.
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St. Paul Pioneer Press - Cap-and-trade energy bill: Has anybody read those 1,200 pages?
Without regard for the merits or demerits of the bill itself, we pause to take note of criticism for the process by which the new cap-and-trade energy bill is headed for a vote on Friday in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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Gazette Times - Editorial: Where there’s influence to buy, there’s a way
A national news report last week shed some light on another tactic lobbyists use in their efforts to curry favor with lawmakers and other influential government officials. It’s all perfectly legal. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it passes the sniff test.
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The New York Times - Pound-Foolish Lesson for Congress
So far no moat cleaning has shown up in Congressional fine print, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi is wisely ordering electronic disclosure of House members’ expense spending. The speaker grasped the transparency lesson of the scandal in the British Parliament, where members’ long-hidden expense account abuses forced the ouster of the speaker of the House of Commons.
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Seed Magazine - Gordon Brown reshuffles science, Europe and the pursuit of guilt-free energy, reviving the chestnut to fight climate change, creating clonal crops, and letting the sun shine on government.
UK’s Blue Skies Turn to Gray? The mood in British science has been bleak of late. Two months ago came the announcement that, while their colleagues across the pond would be receiving a large stimulus package, scientists in the UK would have to do without. Then they found themselves fighting off an attempt by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to ban scientists who had a record of failing to get grant applications approved from even applying for grants at all. And now they find themselves dealing with the fallout from Gordon Brown’s reshuffling of the British government last Friday, when among other things, he abolished the Department of Universities, Innovation, and Skills—the umbrella organization that included the Ministry of Science and Innovation—and created a new Department of Business, Innovation, and Skills that would be home to a restructured Ministry of Science and Innovation that now includes a substantial military orientation.
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Times Record News - Out in the open; Speaker's bill would allow constituents to view expenses
If Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi makes good on her word, taxpayers will be able, for the first time, to monitor the spending habits of members of Congress with the click of a mouse.
