Today, Sally McGee, EDF’s New England Fisheries Policy Director released the following statement on today’s NE Council actions. “I am pleased to support recommendations today for modifications to the skate and the red crab fisheries which will increase flexibility and likely lead to increased profitability for many New England fishermen … “
Despite falling short of first-quarter earnings expectations, the stock of wood panel maker Norbord Inc. is poised to rise, according to Desjardins Securities.
Citing a fortuitous price surge in oriented strand board (OSB) and blaming the Toronto-based company’s underperformance on bad weather, Desjardins analyst Pierre Lacroix pegged Norbord stock at $20.50, up from $17.25, while maintaining a hold rating.
On Tuesday, Norbord posted first-quarter EBITDA of US$9 million and loss of US12¢ per share, compared with market consensus of US$16-million and EPS of US0¢.
Mr. Lacroix attributed those results to weather conditions which impaired shipments and raised costs.
The company should show “material improvement” in the second quarter, he said.
Since the beginning of April, OSB prices have soared, reaching the highest levels in five years, which the company expects to produce EBITDA of US$17-million in April alone.
“Over the longer term, management believes prices are not sustainable at these levels, and should decline later this year until a more solid U.S. housing recovery takes place,” Mr. Lacroix said.
Rising supply should also put downward pressure on prices, he said.
“We expect volatility will return as soon as pricing pressure resurfaces in the coming weeks.”
For the time being, Norbord will capitalize on inflated commodity prices, but into 2011, a normalized OSB market will put downward pressure on earnings.
Tim Shufelt
There are two huge questions we had with regards as to how Palm would be merged into HP. First: what would happen with webOS (they’re going to keep it – that’s why they bought Palm). Second: what would happen to Palm the company?
Here’s the word, straight from HP during today’s conference call: “We intend to operate it as a business unit, which is in line with the way we’re structured today.”
So the question is, what is a business unit with HP? Hewlett-Packard is currently organized as a series of loosely inter-connected ‘business units,’ including the Imaging and Printing Group (printers, scanners, and cameras), Personal Systems Group (desktops, laptops, handhelds, and miscellaneous ‘personal’ connected devices), Enterprise Business (servers and networking), Software & Solutions (corporate software), and the Office of Strategy and Technology (research and development, marketing, and mergers and acquisitions). Judging by this hierarchy, we’d say that Palm is due to operate independently of but alongside the Personal Systems Group. That’s not to say that Palm will be operating with any degree of autonomy, but given that the majority of Palm staff, including CEO Jon Rubinstein, look to be staying aboard, we wouldn’t count on any major changes in the way Palm operates.
We can’t promise that we won’t spend the entire time staring slack-jawed into the camera, wide-eyed and amazed at the crazy news this afternoon. We’re going to try, though. Join Dieter, Derek, Keith, and special guest/resident HP expert Phil Nickinson tonight on a very special edition of PalmCast Live.
Yes, we’re going to talk about HP acquiring Palm. It will be fun.
8pm Eastern tonight. We’ll see you there.
The Senate passed a bill, 29-4, Wednesday that would allow police officers to be eligible for workers’ compensation if they are faced with imminent danger of serious physical injury or death because of interaction with a mammal, such as a chimpanzee, while in the line of duty.
Police officers who face imminent danger because of other humans is already covered by existing law.
The bill was proposed by Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, after an incident last year in his home town.
“The story of what happened is probably worse than any Alfred Hitchcock terrorizing movie,” said Sen. Edith Prague, D-Columbia, who spoke in favor of the bill.
McDonald told his colleagues about Stamford Police Officer Frank Chiafari, who responded to a call in 2009 and found a pet chimpanzee that went berzerk. Travis, the chimp, had mauled 56-year-old Charla Nash and then came after Chiafari, who had retreated to his police cruiser. Chiafari shot and killed the chimp, and he suffered severe emotional stress and went into a deep depression because of the incident, McDonald said.
Chiafari asked for workers’ compensation, but his request was denied because current law only applies to humans. The officer is currently appealing the decision, and if the bill becomes law, McDonald said he would be elgible for compensation.
McDonald, however, stressed that the bill was not proposed just for Chiafari. It is for future police officers who find themselves in imminent danger because of a mammal attack, he said, noting that those situations would be few. Likely, a mammal would have to be on top of an officer ready to rip his throat, McDonald said.
Workers’ compensation would only be given to police officers who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances, added Sen. Scott Frantz, R-Riverside, whose district includes Stamford. It sets high standards, he said.
by Jonathan Hiskes
The ecological fallout
of the Gulf oil spill continues as emergency teams plan
to set fire to the surface slick in hopes of keeping it away from the
coast.
The political fallout
continues as well:
More bad news for the Senate climate and energy bill, as coastal-state senators with key votes voiced concerns about drilling provisions in a potential bill. They include Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.); Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.); Benjamin L. Cardin and Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.); Mark Warner (D-Vir.); Kay Hagan (D-N.C.); and George LeMieux (D-Fla.), according to The New York Times.
Even more bad news for the Senate bill, as BP, who was leasing the drilling rig, planned to join Shell Oil and ConocoPhillips in endorsing the bill and appearing at the rollout announcement this week (which was scuttled because of Senate drama). At this point, BP’s endorsement might be a kiss of death.
Charlie Crist dropped his support for offshore drilling today after
flying above the slick that is spreading not far from his home state. “If
this doesn’t give somebody pause, there’s something wrong,” said the Republican
Florida governor, who is running for Senate as an independent. “This is, as I
understand it, a pretty new rig with modern technology. As I’ve always said, it
would need to be far enough, clean enough and safe enough. I’m not sure this
was far enough. I’m pretty sure it was not clean enough. And it doesn’t sound
like it was safe enough.”
Sens. Lautenberg, Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) called for a safety
investigation in a letter to Senate leaders. The trio, all strong opponents of offshore drilling in the past, call
the disaster “a sobering reminder of the real risk from oil drilling.”
“The explosion, ensuing
fire, and continuing spill raise serious concerns about the industry’s claims
that their operations and technology are safe enough to put rigs in areas that
are environmentally sensitive or are critical to tourism or fishing industries,” they wrote. “This may be the worst disaster in recent years, but it’s
certainly not an isolated incident.”
Investigation and litigation. Every branch of the government is now
involved in investigating the disaster, as Brad
Johnson notes. In the House, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, are investigating the companies’ emergency plans; the Coast Guard and Minerals Management Service
are looking into the causes; and in federal court, the wife of one of the victims has
sued BP, Transocean, and Halliburton for negligence.
Obama is sticking with his plan to ramp
up offshore drilling, says Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. He’s making sure things are investigated, though.
(Phew. We were worried there for a minute.) “We need the increased
production. The president still continues to believe the great majority of that
can be done safely, securely and without any harm to the environment.”
That response doesn’t seem
to jibe with Rahm Emanuel’s famous advice to
never let a serious crisis go to waste. If this isn’t a good occasion to talk
to Americans about the problems posed by fossil
fuels, well, here’s how “Turkana” at The Left Coaster puts it:
In a time of crisis, you don’t continue to promote that
which is causing the crisis. You teach people how it is causing the crisis and
why we have to stop it. You change the very nature of the conversation. You use
the science. You use every political skill and opportunity you have. You teach
people that we have to change the nature of our behavior. You teach people that
we have to change the nature of our economy. You teach people that we don’t
have time to waste.
Related Links:
On the Graham-Reid flustercluck
Oil burn operation begins in Gulf of Mexico
Cape Wind offshore project approved by Obama admin after nine-year battle
BP’s Deepwater Horizon well sprung a 1,000 barrel-a-day leak when a pressure valve malfunctioned.
Oil prophet Jeff Rubin calls this a hazard of drilling for hard-to-reach sources — some of which are deeper in the ocean than the BP rig.
Most forms of unconventional oil and gas (including, by the way, shale gas) are invariably very hard on the environment. Although tar sands production draws most of the world’s criticism, we are quickly discovering that deep-water wells and the pressure surges they engender run the risk of wreaking even greater ecological and environmental devastation.
And the deeper that technology allows us to drill miles below the ocean floor, the greater the risk that we will see more and more of these disasters. If this week has shown us the pressure surge of wells a mile below the ocean floor, what are the prospects of our standing up to those we’ll encounter in newly discovered Gulf of Mexico fields like BP’s Tiber one, six miles below the ocean floor?
Got it? To keep consuming the amount of oil that we are, we need to pursue oil in more geologically challenging locations, and this means spills.
Join the conversation about this story »
Since March 30, when the LHC at CERN first collided protons at an unprecedented total energy of 7 TeV (7 trillion electron volts) the machine has been steadily moving from crawling to walking. Last Saturday, I’d say it took its first steps, and like any toddler, will soon be running.
The plot shows what we call “integrated luminosity” which is simply a measure of the number of collisions of protons in the interaction regions at the four experiments. In this case, it’s my own experiment, CMS, the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment. CMS and ATLAS are the two large general-purpose detectors, each with thousands of physicists eager for real physics data.
As you can see, the vertical axis of the plot is labelled in units of “nb-1” or inverse nanobarns. The unit “barn” is a unit of area, a kind of joke from Enrico Fermi and friends who, despite the tiny size of a nucleus, said it was “as big as a barn” even though in cross sectional area it’s on the order of 10-28 m2 (which is in fact the definition of one barn). If we think about the cross sectional area of the protons colliding in the LHC, they have a cross sectional area (or simply a total collision cross section) of about 0.12 barns.
So what’s an inverse nanobarn? Well, if we try to collide lots of protons, we might ask “how many collisions per barn or cross sectional area did we make?” It’s like throwing little paint blobs at a wall, one at a time. Eventually the wall is covered, and then covered again, and then covered many times over. We can ask “how many paint blobs per unit area of the wall did we cover?” The nano in nanobarns means one billionth of a barn, and so, now, the LHC has managed to produce its first inverse nanobarn: one collision per every billionth of a barn of cross section.
It’s just a unit – all that matters is “how many collision events of my favorite kind should have been produced?” To get this, you multiply the number of inverse nanobarns by the production cross section for that kind of event, and also by the probability that you actually detect it. So for Z boson production, for example, the cross section is about 30 nanobarns, so we should have a few by now. (I am not at liberty to say whether we do or not…)
The plot has stair steps – the horizontal axis is real time, and the LHC machine is filled with protons, then brought to full energy, then collimators put in, then the experiment turns on and records data for some time until the accelerator folks decide to dump the beam out and refill. As you can see this cycle has been going like clockwork, with fill after fill of the machine. And the experiment has been recording a very large fraction of the delivered collisions, the losses being quite normal and due to end effects and the occasional glitch.
But then came the LHC baby’s first real step last weekend: squeezing the beam. By raising the quadrupole beam focusing magnets to high field, the transverse size of proton bunches in the machine shrinks down and the probability of collisions goes up. In this case, the luminosity went up by an order of magnitude – it was a stunning success. Any imperfection in the focusing fields can send the beam right out of the machine, and, clearly, that did not happen.
The goal in the next year is to get to one inverse femtobarn – a million times more data. In the next week or so the plan, if all goes well, is to achieve another couple orders of magnitude in luminosity. Shit’s about to get real, folks…
This thing is happening, folks. Palm has filed a couple of documents with the SEC in preparation for this deal with HP. The documents update Palm’s guidance for the 4th quarter of fiscal year 2010 and if HP weren’t buying Palm, we expect that it would have been curtains. Ok, actually, the numbers perhaps look so grim because Palm saw the buyout coming and so wasn’t shy about spending cash.
At any rate, Palm projects that their revenue for the 4th quarter will clock in between $90 and $100 million. They also state that "Revenues for the fourth fiscal quarter are being impacted by slow sales." Cash on hand at the end of the quarter should be between $350 and $400. In all, HP is acquiring a company near the end of its rope but fortunately not bogged down with loads of debt.
 Xing Lida and Song Qijin |
Scientists say the feathers of early and late juvenile Similicaudipteryx dinosaurs had markedly different looks, especially on the wings and tail, as shown here. |
A rare fossil find from China reveals how dinosaurs’ feathers changed as the creatures matured. The discovery, announced in this week’s issue of the journal Nature, suggests that dinosaurs molted like modern-day birds do – even though their feathers developed in an un-birdlike way.
“This find suggests that early feathers were developmentally more diverse than modern ones and that some developmental features … have been lost in feather evolution,” the researchers wrote.
…(read more)In what is essentially a gigantic refinancing, Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced a new budget-cutting plan Wednesday that involves less borrowing at a lower interest rate to save $337 million more than a Democratic plan.
The move would allow the state to reject all plans for “securitization,” a complex borrowing mechanism that has been opposed by both Republicans and Democrats. The highly unpopular idea would thus be dropped in an election year, and no lawmakers would be prompted into voting for securitization as the November election approaches.
The state had been planning to use various state revenues as collateral in order to borrow $1.3 billion for the 2011 fiscal year in the securitization plan, but Democratic legislators strongly rejected Rell’s idea of legalizing the Keno gambling game and using an expected $60 million in annual revenue to help pay off the bonds.
In addition, Rell is calling for turning the operation of the state-owned Bradley International Airport into a quasi-public agency that would generate an additional $25 million per year for state coffers. Bradley would essentially be run like a port authority – as in other states – and would have more flexibility in dealing with airlines and vendors than the state currently has, officials said.
In a complicated series of moves that need legislative approval, Rell is now calling for borrowing money at 3 percent, rather than 4 percent – which is 1 percentage point but a 25 percent rate difference. In addition, the borrowed money would be repaid in 7 years, rather than 10 years – thus saving the state money.
Like a complicated chess game, the plan involves a series of moves that are contingent upon each other. The proposal involves transferring more than $1 billion in the state’s “rainy day” fund from the 2010 fiscal year into the 2011 year, plus moves involving the competitive transition assessment on electric bills, the Energy Conservation and Load Management Fund, and the Renewable Energy Investment Fund. Upon hearing about the complex and multi-pronged deal, one longtime lobbyist asked if Wall Street investor Bernard Madoff was involved in the deal.
“I think it’s a sound plan,” Rell told reporters in her Capitol office. “If there are other suggestions, I welcome them.”
After meeting with Rell, the top legislative leaders had little comment on the complex plan, saying they needed to analyze the proposal to see if the numbers add up.
“I think it could help move things forward,” said Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams of Brooklyn.
At the same time, Rell is also proposing to “sweep” environmental funds to help pay for shortfalls in the state’s general fund. The New Haven-based Connecticut Fund For the Environment criticized Rell for calling for sweeping 50 percent of the Connecticut Energy Efficiency Fund and the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund.
Charles Rothenberger, staff attorney for Connecticut Fund for the Environment, said in a statement, “This is unequivocally the wrong direction for the state. For months, the legislature and the clean energy business community have been working to improve Connecticut’s economic future. Supporting clean energy jobs, reducing energy costs, and freeing up money that can be spent in other areas of the economy are part of these efforts. The administration is eviscerating these efforts by reversing course.”
The energy funds, according to CFE, supports nearly 12,000 jobs, including those involved in fuel-cell manufacturing, solar installation, and fuel cell manufacturing, and energy auditing. The funds support programs that help consumers make energy-saving improvements to their homes and businesses.
The CFE stated, “Earlier this year, the governor put forth a proposal to securitize 37 percent of the customer ratepayer funds and in 2009, a similar plan to securitize the funds called for stripping $50 million from the funds each year for two years and moving $52 million from the funds to the general fund each year for the next decade to securitize a $350 million payment to the general fund. Met with strong opposition from business leaders, state policymakers, and environmental advocates, that plan was scrapped and the resulting investment in the clean energy and energy efficiency funds allowed the state to leverage state spending and take advantage of a $38.5 million federal stimulus investment.”
Christopher Phelps, the executive director of Environment Connecticut, said, “With her proposal, Governor Rell has turned her back on clean energy businesses such as solar installers and fuel cell entrepreneurs. It would slash weatherization and energy efficiency programs that help families and small businesses on Main Streets across the state cut their energy bills and put money back in their pockets. The result will hurt out economy and hamstring programs that are helping Connecticut cut its dependence on polluting energy sources that contribute to air and global warming pollution.”
Phelps added, “As the cliché goes, this is a penny-wise, pound foolish proposal. In fact, Governor Rell has dispensed with half of the cliché and chosen instead to simply be pound foolish.”
Filed under: Motorsports
What, Danica Patrick’s inclusion in the sport isn’t enough to generate sufficient interest? Guess not. Seemingly in an attempt to generate some additional excitement in the 17-race 2010 IndyCar Series schedule, Randy Bernard, first-year chief executive of the Indy Racing League, has announced that there will be three different winners after the season is done and over with. Why? We’ll let Bernard explain:
After my first six weeks, I kept saying to myself we need to be able to deliver a consistent message about our sport that separates us from other forms of auto racing… What hit me is that we have the fastest and most versatile drivers and racecars in the world – and no one can deny that – and now we have to show why we’re the fastest and most versatile. We have 17 events, but how do we create better story lines?
Apparently, that “consistent message” necessitates awarding a winner for both oval racing (to attract NASCAR fans?) and road racing (to attract F1 or Le Mans series fans?) in addition to the normal overall series champion.
Does this three-tiered championship earn your interest? If so, you’ll be pleased to hear that a contest coming in late May will allow fans to help choose the names for the oval and road racing trophies. So far, it seems that Foyt (oval) and Andretti (road) are the leading candidates.
[Source: The New York Times | Image: Darrell Ingham/Getty]
IndyCar no longer content with crowning single champion, moving to three? originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
BMW announced last week that its Megacity Vehicle will launch in markets in 2013. The Megacity Vehicle will be a zero-emission urban vehicle and will use extensive amounts of carbon fiber to reduce weight. The German automaker also plans to use of carbon fiber across its lineup.
“We will be the first manufacturer to take carbon fiber to effectively high volume,” global sales head Ian Robertson said.
He said that carbon fiber technology shows the promise for use outside the new Megacity and could help generate better economies of scale.
BMW and SGL Group plan on building a $100 million carbon fiber manufacturing plant in Washington state to supply parts for its vehicles. The plant will produce carbon fiber and a plant in Germany will mold it into paneling for the Megacity vehicle.
– By: Omar Rana
Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)
Everyone seems to be getting into the Android spirit. We learned today that the Commtiva Blaze passed through the FCC, and is headed for Cincinatti Bell. No word on processor or memory specs quite yet, but what we do know points to the Blaze being another solid entry level phone. Quadband GSM and dual band 1700/2100 HSDPA (which means it would also make a great pre-paid T-Mobile handset), Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR, WiFi 802.11 b/g, 5 MP camera with LED flash and autofocus, GPS and aGPS, and a 1230mAh battery all wrapped up in what looks to be a slightly customized version of Android 1.6.
While it may not be a screamer, it’s always nice to see new handsets — especially when the smaller carriers are beginning to get into the game. [via CellPhone Signal]
After undesirable third quarter sales pegged Palm as a sinking ship, many speculated that companies such as HTC, Huawei, or Lenovo might purchase the company for varying reasons. But after all of those deals fell through, a buyer emerged. In an unprecedented move by HP, an announcement has just been made that they have reached an agreement to purchase Palm for $1.2 billion. The purchase price equates to $5.70 per share and is expected to be finalized at the end of July (end of the third quarter, to be technical). According to the press release (below), Palm CEO John Rubinstein is expected to continue on with the company but we’re unsure in what capacity.
Keep checking back for update as we’ll post them as fast as we get them. Until then, leave you thoughts in the comments!
Via Engadget
PALO ALTO, Calif. & SUNNYVALE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–HP (NYSE: HPQ – News) and Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM – News) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which HP will purchase Palm, a provider of smartphones powered by the Palm webOS mobile operating system, at a price of $5.70 per share of Palm common stock in cash or an enterprise value of approximately $1.2 billion. The transaction has been approved by the HP and Palm boards of directors.
The combination of HP’s global scale and financial strength with Palm’s unparalleled webOS platform will enhance HP’s ability to participate more aggressively in the fast-growing, highly profitable smartphone and connected mobile device markets. Palm’s unique webOS will allow HP to take advantage of features such as true multitasking and always up-to-date information sharing across applications.
“Palm’s innovative operating system provides an ideal platform to expand HP’s mobility strategy and create a unique HP experience spanning multiple mobile connected devices,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP. “And, Palm possesses significant IP assets and has a highly skilled team. The smartphone market is large, profitable and rapidly growing, and companies that can provide an integrated device and experience command a higher share. Advances in mobility are offering significant opportunities, and HP intends to be a leader in this market.”
“We’re thrilled by HP’s vote of confidence in Palm’s technological leadership, which delivered Palm webOS and iconic products such as the Palm Pre. HP’s longstanding culture of innovation, scale and global operating resources make it the perfect partner to rapidly accelerate the growth of webOS,” said Jon Rubinstein, chairman and chief executive officer, Palm. “We look forward to working with HP to continue to deliver industry-leading mobile experiences to our customers and business partners.”
Under the terms of the merger agreement, Palm stockholders will receive $5.70 in cash for each share of Palm common stock that they hold at the closing of the merger. The merger consideration takes into account the updated guidance and other financial information being released by Palm this afternoon. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of domestic and foreign regulatory approvals and the approval of Palm’s stockholders. The transaction is expected to close during HP’s third fiscal quarter ending July 31, 2010.
Palm’s current chairman and CEO, Jon Rubinstein, is expected to remain with the company.
by David Roberts
All right, all right, I suppose I have to say something about the Graham situation, as much as the entire subject just saps my life force.
For those of you who haven’t been keeping track: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has threatened to pull his support from the climate bill he’s been working on—even help filibuster it—if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) follows through on his recent vow to push immigration reform in the Senate this year. Reid backed down a little earlier this week, saying he’d put energy ahead of immigration, but now Graham has dug his heels in and said he’ll bail on climate if Reid pushes immigration at all this session. In response, Reid accused Graham of “gall” and said he wouldn’t allow the bills to be played off each other. And that’s where things stand.
Now, to a normal human being, this doesn’t make much sense (though perhaps it’s redundant to say that in reference to the U.S. Senate). Why are the two issues even related? WTF is going on?
Here, in no particular order, are a few of the background considerations at work:
Immigration got forced: The Arizona racial profiling bill has pushed immigration back into the spotlight and increased the need for federal action.
Dems need Hispanics: Reid is in a frantic battle for reelection and badly needs Nevada’s considerable Hispanic population to turn out; he thinks/hopes a fight on immigration would do the trick. More broadly, the Dems face a dire midterm election situation and they all need Hispanics to turn out. (By contrast, no one thinks enviros can or will have any effect on turnout whatsoever, except for in a few coastal enclaves.)
McCain fears immigration: Graham’s dear friend John McCain (R-Ariz.) is currently battling a right-wing challenger in a state where he’s increasingly unpopular. He has traditionally been a “maverick” on immigration, but he’s been tacking right on that like everything else. Mostly he’d just like to avoid it. Lots of folks think Graham is doing a solid for McCain.
Immigration is theater: Virtually no one thinks an immigration bill can actually pass this year; there’s been little work on it and there’s no actual legislative language. So lots of folks view this as a political stunt by Reid for purely self-interested reasons.
Climate is doomed without Graham and he knows it: There is no Plan B on climate legislation in the Senate right now. If it falls, apart the best anyone can hope for is the tepid “energy-only” bill that Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) is once again pushing. (Nice party discipline, Bingaman. Way to be helpful at just the right moment.)
Graham’s exposure: Graham has lately been taking on the “maverick” role recently vacated by the Incredible Shrinking McCain. He’s pretty much the sole Republican interlocutor on both climate and immigration, and he’s been taking heavy fire from the right for both. By all indications he’s been participating in the climate process in good faith, but he’s understandably leery about having both these issues in play at once.
And so on. Sad to say, this is the U.S. Senate, where matters of incredible inter-generational consequence are decided by the whims and raw electoral interests of elderly white men with enormous, fragile egos. Whee!
To me, the central and most salient fact is that Graham is holding all the cards. Whether you think he has a legitimate beef with Reid or he’s just looking for an excuse to bail, it’s difficult to see what leverage could be brought to bear on him. And please, let’s not waste our time discussing how important climate is. That’s irrelevant to this situation. The only question is, who’s got power and leverage over whom?
Graham right now is about the only sane Republican in the Senate. If he wants to, he can take his balls and go home. He can single-handedly sink both immigration and climate. There just won’t be bills on either subject without his participation.
What pressure can Obama and Reid bring to bear on him? Public haranguing? That only strengthens him within his party. Can they withhold support or money? No. Can they threaten his legislative priorities? No; alienating him leaves their own agenda stranded.
What then? How is this going to play out? Right now, nobody knows. I see three ways it could go:
1. Dems crack and abandon immigration until after the midterms. This would be a pretty huge political blow at this point. Now that it’s been made into this battle of wills, immigration groups are all fired up. If Reid tosses them overboard now, after all this, Hispanics could well stay home en masse during the midterms. Reid could lose; Dems could lose both houses. On top of all that, it will be an extraordinary humiliation: one Republican bending the entire Dem party to his will. I suppose Reid and Obama could do this if they were completely dedicated to getting a climate bill, but there’s been no sign of that intensity of support.
2. Obama flatters Graham’s ego. Graham is similar to McCain in that he’s a self-glorifying narcissist who loves being the center of attention. It’s possible that Obama could turn on the charm, invite him over for a one-on-one, do a press conference with him, something to show the world how Very Very Important Graham is. Sadly, the fate of the world really does turn on such matters.
3. Dems find a new Republican. Graham has total power over the fate of the climate bill because he’s the only Republican working on it—supposedly he’s a “bridge” to other R votes. If another Republican got an attack of conscience and realized that it’s important to address the largest problem of our age, he or she could step forward and take over Graham’s role. This is, to put it mildly, unlikely. The Maine moderates (Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe) wouldn’t impress any of their colleagues, and anyway, Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) has given Collins an easy out on this with their pony bill. Scott Brown (Mass.) could potentially be brought aboard, but he’s not brave or smart enough to do it first. George LeMieux (Fla.)? Richard Lugar (Ind.)? I don’t see it.
All those options seem unpleasant or unlikely, so … it’s a real pickle. I’m sure right now Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Jim Messina, Phil Schiliro, and any number of congressional staffers are working the phones, fumbling around for some way out.
Even if they find it, though, this kind of botched, half-ass rollout does not bode well for a bill that was already facing steep odds—a bill that, though it allegedly has the support of industry groups, has not been seen by anyone, even other senators. (It’s the Sasquatch of bills, as Kate Sheppard puts it.)
At this point if Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman pull a rabbit out of the hat, it will be a bona fide miracle.
———
Read more perspectives on the Graham-Reid mess:
The upside of the Senate climate bill’s troubles—by John Passacantando
Why immigration reform is getting more traction than climate change—by Larry Shapiro
Is Harry Reid making the world safe for geoengineering?—by Jeff Goodell
Related Links:
Hey, Harry, thanks for pimping my book!
The politics of the Gulf oil spill
Senate Dem leader vows action on both climate and immigration
While HP is clearly making an enormous investment in Palm and webOS, don’t think they’re giving up on their other operating systems, most notably Windows Mobile. While their current sales of iPaq devices running Windows Mobile are less than lustrous, we can’t exactly say that Palm sales are moving along gangbusters either. So, we won’t fault HP for wanting to continue on with Windows Mobile alongside Palm webOS. Said HP VP of Strategy and Corporate Development Brian Humphries during the conference call today:
“We intend to continue to be a strategic partner for Microsoft. They’re a huge piece of our business today, and will continue to be so.”
WASHINGTON–President Obama gave Democratic Illinois Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias a shout out while in Quincy, Ill. to deliver a speech on Wall Street greed and the need for the GOP to help pass his package of financial system reforms.
Giannoulias, attending in his official roll as the Illinois state treasurer was called a
a “soon-to-be senator” by Obama while making introductions in his speech. This morning, White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton said not to expect a shout-out because the event was governmental, not political.
Sure, it was expertly shot and framed, brightly lit, and set in a striking location, but you really can’t diminish what Nokia’s N8 has done here—it’s recorded crystal-clear, camcorder-level 720p footage. Except, it’s a phone. More »
