House Backs Debt Deal, but 95 'Conscience' Democrats Vote 'No'

By John Nichols
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi reportedly told members of the House Democratic Caucus to vote their "individual consciences" when they were asked to approve the debt-ceiling deal cobbled together by the Obama White House and Congressional Republicans.

Consciences divided evenly, with ninety-five Democrats opposing the compromise agreement while ninety-five supported it in a Monday evening vote that saw the measure pass primarily on the basis of Republican backing -despite the fact that this was a deal promoted aggressively by a Democratic White House.

The final tally was 269 in favor, 161 opposed.

Republicans generally backed the deal, with 174 voting "yes" while sixty-six voted "no."

Democrats were far more closely divided, with widespread opposition to what Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Keith Ellison, D-Minnesota, described as a violation of "core Democratic ideals."

While Pelosi cast her own viote in favor of the agreement, she did not "whip" her fellow Democrats to back the deal during a marathon caucus meeting Monday. The former speaker outlined the consequences of a default by the federal government if an agreement to raise the debt ceiling is not reached. But North Carolina Congressman G.K. Butterfield, who attended the caucus session said Pelosi avoided pressuring House Democrats to fall in line with the Democrats in the White House. "She told us to leave it to our individual consciences," Butterfield told reporters.

With the House vote done, the Senate will be vote Tuesday on the deal, which proposes radical cuts in federal programs-cuts that some fear will ultimately threaten Medicare and other Democratic "legacy" programs-in return for raising the nation's debt ceiling.

View the Original article

Bill McKibben: Bring Your Obama Buttons: Momentum Builds for White House Tar Sands Action

By Bill McKibben
I know that there been some bitterness in the blogosphere in recent weeks between those who are mad at President Obama, and those who are mad at those who are mad at President Obama.

I want to tell you about an upcoming action -- it looks set to turn into the biggest civil disobedience protest in the history of the North American climate movement. It will take place at the White House from August 20-Sept. 3, and we need your help spreading the word. But I want to explain the reasoning behind it in some detail, because for me it helps illustrate how some of the debate about Obama is unproductive.

First, the issue: the Canadians are proposing to build a huge new pipeline from their tar sands in Alberta down to the Gulf of Mexico. It's disastrous for native lands in the far north (check out this video from the wonderful Cree activist Melina Laboucan) and it will doubtless cause horrible spills much like last week's disaster on the Yellowstone River.

But there's a bigger problem here too. Those Alberta tar sands are the biggest carbon bomb on the continent -- indeed, on the whole planet, only Saudi Arabia's oil deposits are bigger. Some of you have followed the work fo 350.org, and know that above 350 parts per million co2 in the atmosphere you can't have, in the words of NASA climatologist James Hansen, "a planet similar to the one on which civilization evolved and to which life on earth is adapted." We're already at 390 ppm, which is why last year, according to Weather Underground's Jeff Masters, we had the most extreme weather the planet has seen at least since the great volcanic eruption of 1816. But the tar sands of Alberta will make it impossibly worse: if you could burn all that oil at once, you'd add 200 parts per million co2 to the atmosphere, and send the planet's temperature skyrocketing upwards. Any serious exploitation of the tar sands, says Hansen, means it's "essentially game over" for the climate. So, high stakes. And don't think that the Canadians will automatically find some other route to send their oil out to, say, China. Native tribes are doing a great job of blocking a proposed pipe to the Pacific; Alberta's energy minister said recently that he stays up nights worrying that without Keystone his province will be 'landlocked in bitumen.' Without the pipeline, said the business pages of Canada's biggest paper, Alberta oil faces a 'choke point.'


View the Original article

Where Are the White House Solar Panels Obama Promised This Spring?

Thirty two years ago today, President Jimmy Carter installed a series of solar panels on the White House roof. He stood up there on the roof that day, and issued an oracular warning: "A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, or it can be a small part of the greatest adventures undertaken by the American people."

We found out the answer in much less than a generation -- it only took six years for Ronald Reagan to rip them off the roof. But we thought we'd gotten a new chance last fall when the Obama administration promised that solar panels would go back up this spring.

Spring ended last night, and...no solar panels. Instead there was a press release from the director of the Department of Energy's Solar Energy Technology Program saying "the Energy Department remains on the path to complete the White House solar demonstration project, in keeping with our commitment, and we look forward to sharing more information -- including additional details on the timing of this project -- after the competitive procurement process is completed." Translated from the bureaucratic, I think this means "we're working on it, just not very hard."


View the Original article

Salmon Surprise: House Opposes FDA Frankenfish Approval

The eminent fisheries writer Paul Greenberg recently gutted and filleted the rationale for a novel type of farmed salmon genetically altered to grow faster. The "improved" fish, created by a Massachusetts-based company called AquaBounty Technologies, threatens to "escape and contaminate wild populations of salmon," Greenberg wrote. And the business model AquaBounty has in mind is ecologically insane: "the fish requires much wasteful transport since it would be cloned in Canada, grown in Panama, and then flown back to the U.S. for consumption." On top of those obvious drawbacks, the GMO salmon literally offers no benefits to the environment or consumers. "It is completely unnecessary," he concludes. Its only rationale is economic -- as defined narrowly by the interests of the AquaBounty shareholders. Greenberg writes:

"It seems to me that what the AquaBounty AquAdvantage salmon represents is the privatization of the salmon genome. Should salmon farming come to be dominated by the AquAdvantage fish, farmers could become dependent on a single company for their stock, just as soy, corn, and wheat farmers must now rely on large multinationals like Monsanto to provide seed for their fields year in and year out. AquaBounty will literally own salmon farming." 

View the Original article

Down with Healthy School Lunches, Says House GOP

By Tom Laskawy

Having already moved to gut USDA programs promoting agricultural conservation and renewable energy and strip the USDA of its authority to enact the first meaningful reform of the irredeemably monopolistic livestock industry, House Republicans have now turned their attention to that other great threat to American freedom: USDA nutrition guidelines.

According to the Associated Press, Republican appropriators in the House of Representatives (the lawmakers who control the government's purse) are on the verge of defunding significant parts of school-lunch reform and elements of Michelle Obama's Let's Move! program, as well as the recently announced voluntary Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines that would restrict junk-food advertising aimed at young children.

As a spokesperson for House Appropriations Committee Chair Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) put it, the new FTC rule in particular is "classic nanny-state overreach":

 "Our concern is those voluntary guidelines are back-door regulation," he said, deploring the fact that kids can watch shows that depict sex and drugs on MTV, but "you cannot see an advertisement for Tony the Tiger during the commercial break."

Ah, the House GOP -- making the world safe for Tony the Tiger. But the fury of the Cuddly Corporate Marketing Character Lobby pales in comparison to that of the Potato Lobby. Big Spud is furious -- furious, I tell you -- that the new USDA guidelines for school lunches would restrict starchy vegetables such as the potato to a one-cup-a-week appearance on the plates of schoolchildren nationwide. In place of the mighty potato would come additional servings of whole grains, orange and green veggies, and low-fat milk. It's enough to drive you around the bend!

Never mind that the potato is by far the most-consumed vegetable in America and that restricting it at school would still allow parents to stuff their children with French-fried, mashed, and chipped potatoes outside of school hours. Attention must be paid! So the Potato Lobby and representatives from potato-growing regions are fighting back hard.

And how about the new calorie-labeling requirement that was included in health-reform legislation? The House GOP is going after that, too.

View the Original article

GE Food Policy Protest at White House and in 33 Cities Across the US

By Eddie Gehman Kohan

Beyond the fence line of the North Lawn of the White House on Saturday afternoon, a group of worried citizens gathered for the Rally For the Right to Know. A call for action against genetically modified/genetically engineered food, the event was organized by the Organic Consumers Association, as part of its Millions Against Monsanto campaign.

The protesters--including kids--carried placards decrying GE foods, as well as a big red banner that read GMO's.

View the Original article