The battery’s power level rises with the temperature—not the amount of caffeine. Bleary-eyed and hungover, somebody’s going to find this out the hard way. That’ll be that screeching sound, trailing in the distance. [Art Lebedev via Unpluggd] More »
George Costanza hits kid with car…..
Life served up a “Man Down Situation” for actor Jason Alexander this week. Alexander — perhaps best remembered for his role as neurotic George Costanza on the long-running sitcom Seinfeld — hit a 14-year-old cyclist in Beverly Hills on Tuesday morning, according to cops.
The boy was struck by the actor’s car near the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and June Street about 7:15 AM, Los Angeles Police officials told The Los Angeles Times this week. The teen, who was on his way to school at the time of the accident, has been hospitalized in stable condition.
The actor — who signed on as Jenny Craig’s newest spokesmodel earlier this year — was not cited.
“Jason stayed with the cyclist until the paramedics and police arrived and all indications are that the injury was minor,” Alexander’s rep told TMZ.com.
Would you like the inside scoop about events at 2010’s Council on Foundations conference? Foundation Center Advisory Board member Kris Putnam-Walkerly has posted quite a few updates at her blog, Philanthropy411, in partnership with the National Network of Consultants to Grantmakers and with the help of a blog team. Read the posts:
There may be other posts under the category #cof10. Enjoy!
(This post is from Cindy Bailie, director of the Foundation Center-Cleveland.)
by Grist
Umbra Fisk chatted live with our Friends with Benefits on April 21, 2010. And in the midst of tackling a range of questions from TV dinners to diapers to vampires, Umbra was asked to prom. Watch the replay to read her answer. Join us for next month’s Live Chat with Anna Lappé, author of Diet for a Hot Planet on May 11. Sponsored by Grist’s Friend with Benefits program. Keep the conversation going by making a donation to Grist today.
<a href=“http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=f6331115b7” mce_href=“http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=f6331115b7” >Live Chat with Umbra Fisk</a>
Related Links:
Foreign Policy mag spotlights ‘peak phosphorous’
Ask Umbra interviews ‘Dirt! The Movie’ director Bill Benenson
Eco dog treats confound canines and humans alike
Semi-transparent smartphone screens floating in front of the user Minority Report style are all the rage right now. Palm started it back in May with their first “Life moves fast. Dont Miss A Thing.” commercial. Microsoft had the unfortunate timing of launching a strikingly similar ad just 3 days later — and then RIM showed up with their crazy impromptu dance club remix of the idea just yesterday.
Oh well. Copy-cats aside, Palm’s carrying on with the idea. Showing off their new found abilities to make ads that don’t creep us out or otherwise turn us away, they’ve just released two more TV spots. (Heads up: Instead of cute lady people, these ones feature hipster dudes, one of whom seems to be trying to dress like Neo.)
Android Central Forum member alear got himself a look at Verizon’s silicone case for the HTC Droid Incredible. Looks like all the essential parts are there. But what do you guys think about the texture and design? And what accessories are you most looking forward to for the Incredible? Let’s hear it in the comments, and check out a couple more pics in alear’s forum thread.
Asteriod 24 Themis
KNOXVILLE — Asteroids may not be the dark, dry, lifeless chunks of rock scientists have long thought.
Josh Emery, research assistant professor with the earth and planetary sciences department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has found evidence of water ice and organic material on the asteroid 24 Themis. This evidence supports the idea that asteroids could be responsible for bringing water and organic material to Earth.
The findings are detailed in the April 29 issue of the journal “Nature.”
Using NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, Emery and Andrew Rivkin of Johns Hopkins University in Laurel, Md., examined the surface of 24 Themis, a 200-kilometer wide asteroid that sits halfway between Mars and Jupiter. By measuring the spectrum of infrared sunlight reflected by the object, the researchers found the spectrum consistent with frozen water and determined that 24 Themis is coated with a thin film of ice. They also detected organic material.
“The organics we detected appear to be complex, long-chained molecules. Raining down on a barren Earth in meteorites, these could have given a big kick-start to the development of life,” Emery said.
Emery noted that finding ice on the surface of 24 Themis was a surprise because the surface is too warm for ice to stick around for a long time.
“This implies that ice is quite abundant in the interior of 24 Themis and perhaps many other asteroids. This ice on
Josh Emery
asteroids may be the answer to the puzzle of where Earth’s water came from,” he said.
Still, how the water ice got there is unclear.
24 Themis’ proximity to the sun causes ice to vaporize. However, the researchers’ findings suggest the asteroid’s lifetime of ice ranges from thousands to millions of years depending on the latitude. Therefore, the ice is regularly being replenished. The scientists theorize this is done by a process of “outgassing” in which ice buried within the asteroid escapes slowly as vapor migrates through cracks to the surface or as vapor escapes quickly and sporadically when 24 Themis is hit by space debris. Since Themis is part of an asteroid “family” that was formed from a large impact and the subsequent fragmentation of a larger body long ago, this scenario means the parent body also had ice and has deep implications for how our solar system formed.
The discovery of abundant ice on 24 Themis demonstrates that water is much more common in the Main Belt of asteroids than previously thought.
“Asteroids have generally been viewed as being very dry. It now appears that when the asteroids and planets were first forming in the very early Solar System, ice extended far into the Main Belt region,” Emery said. “Extending this refined view to planetary systems around other stars, the building blocks of life — water and organics — may be more common near each star’s habitable zone. The coming years will be truly exciting as astronomers search to discover whether these building blocks of life have worked their magic there as well.”
The scientists’ discovery also further blurs the line between comets and asteroids. Asteroids have long been considered to be rocky and comets icy. Furthermore, it was once believed that comets could have brought water to Earth. This theory was nixed when it was discovered comets’ water has different isotopic signatures than water on Earth.
Now, due to Emery and Rivkin’s findings, many wonder if asteroids could be responsible for seeding Earth with the ingredients for life.
The Nature article is entitled “Detection of Ice and Organics on an Asteroidal Surface.” The researchers’ work was supported by the NASA Planetary Astronomy program.
—
C O N T A C T :
Whitney Holmes (865-974-5460, [email protected])
We’re celebrating a … nevermind what we’re celebrating, it’s not about us. It’s about you!
Thanks for supporting us in all the ways that you do. Thanks to Sony Ericsson for giving us a super cool World Cup themed Package to thank you with. Up for grabs is an unlocked SE Saito mobile phone and official World Cup soccer ball and T-Shirt. Here’s the deal: Post a comment to this story and you’ll be entered to win. The winner will be picked at 12 pm Pacific Time on Tuesday, May 4 2010. Posting more than once will not increase your chances of winning. And that’s pretty much that.
Posted by Michelle Manchir at 12:11 p.m.
SPRINGFIELD — Gov. Pat Quinn is angling for more federal education money ahead of President Barack Obama’s appearance in downstate Quincy today.
"You can always ask for more money. I think the thing we would like to see if at all possible is getting more money for education from Washington," Quinn said. "The president I know is committed to that but I’m not sure the Congress is and we have to be realistic; we’re not going to get the billion dollars from Washington that we got last year."
The expected drop off in federal schools aid was one reason Quinn cited last month when he proposed a 33 percent income tax rate hike to avoid a $1.3 billion cut to schools, from kindergarten through college. While a major education cut is in the budget Quinn proposed, lawmakers could cut elsewhere. Lawmakers have shown few signs of wanting to raise the income tax during
an election year.
“I’m not going to let the legislature off the hook on that one,” Quinn warned today.
The governor said next month will bring “quite a battle in making sure we have appropriate funding for education.” Already this year thousands of Illinois teachers and school employees statewide have been issued pink slips.
The General Assembly is scheduled to adjourn May 7, but the harder deadline is May 31. That’s when it would take a three-fifths vote to pass a budget, giving the out-of-power House Republicans a voice in the final spending blueprint.
The news out of Europe is that Deutsche Bank and several others have been raided in a C02 swapping tax evasion scheme.
This is amazing news because the carbon market — a concept beloved by both banks and environmentalists — is still nascent.
No, we don’t yet know how this is going to play out but really the fact that a market that’s barely gotten off the ground is already drawing suspicious of tax evasion is very damning, and suggests that banks can’t be trusted if the market ever gets huge.
Stepping back, because European carbon market rules were badly constructed, plenty of companies — not just banks — are already making a fortune — merely by virtue of the fact that slow business has meant they’ve easily come under their goals.
Map of the company’s power plants in Slovakia.
Surplus permits in ’08: 1,400,000
2008 value: $27 million
2012 est. value: $173 million
Source: Sandbag
CEO John Surma
Surplus permits in ’08: 1,600,000
2008 value: $31 million
2012 est. value: $200 million
Source: Sandbag
CEO Martin Roman (left) makes a deal.
Surplus permits in ’08: 1,700,000
2008 value: $33 million
2012 est. value: $210 million
Source: Sandbag
CEO Bernd Scheifele
Surplus permits in ’08: 1,700,000
2008 value: $33 million
2012 est. value: $210 million
Source: Sandbag
CEO Wolfgang Leese
Surplus permits in ’08: 2,000,000
2008 value: $39 million
2012 est. value: $250 million
Source: Sandbag
CEO Lorenzo Zambrano (right) visits Wall Street.
Surplus permits in ’08: 2,700,000
2008 value: $52 million
2012 est. value: $330 million
Source: Sandbag
CEO Olof Faxander
Surplus permits in ’08: 3,300,000
2008 value: $64 million
2012 est. value: $410 million
Source: Sandbag
Corus facilities in the U.K. Others exist on the mainland.
Surplus permits in ’08: 3,400,000
2008 value: $66 million
2012 est. value: $422 million
Source: Sandbag
CEO Bruno Lafarge
Surplus permits in ’08: 4,200,000
2008 value: $82 million
2012 est. value: $520 million
Source: Sandbag
CEO Lakshmi Mittal
Surplus permits in ’08: 14,400,000
2008 value: $280 million
2012 est. value: $1,800 million
Source: Sandbag
Join the conversation about this story »
Speaking this morning at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s fiscal summit, former President Bill Clinton forcefully argued that immigration reform is crucial to solving the country’s long-term deficit problem. Clinton, who said he had recently visited Arizona — whose governor last week signed a highly controversial and highly stringent immigration bill that, for instance, requires police officers to ask people they suspect of being in the country illegally about their citizenship status — said the belief “might not be popular.”
But, he said, “If we have any advantage over China, if we have any advantage over India, it’s that we’ve got somebody from everywhere here, and they do well.” Saying that the country “still works for immigrants,” he went on to explain:
The real reason there’s anti-immigration sentiment is that it’s white, male factory workers without a college degree that got killed in the last decade…. The burdens of the last decade’s economic downturn were on white male high school graduates, or non-high school graduates, or [people with] a couple years of college, who shivered in this economy. Their taxes would be lower if we got more taxpayers…. The pressures on social security and the changes we have to make will be less draconian if there’s more people in the system. I don’t think there’s any alternative but for us to increase immigration. We can start [to increase immigration] at the areas at the top and the bottom [of the earnings spectrum] that will not displace people who are the most insecure [jobs-wise]. I don’t see any way out of [the fiscal crisis] unless that’s part of the strategy.
Last week, the Obama administration started reaching out to Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), presumably in an effort to woo him as a swing vote for immigration reform. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and the White House hope to move on immigration reform sometime this year.
by Julian Ku
The reaction of key countries to the recent Sudan elections electing Sudan’s President al-Bashir are in. The bottom line seems to be- the elections were deeply flawed, but not so much so that they should be denounced or set-aside. In the meantime, start planning for the all important referendum on Southern Sudan’s independence, which will require Bashir’s cooperation. This appears to be the view of the U.S. government, anyway, and it seems largely echoed by the EU. Interestingly, neither the E.U. nor the U.S. seems to be emphasizing (or even mentioning) the fact that Sudan is continuing to defy its international obligations to turn over individuals demanded by the ICC, including its President. The focus remains, as it should be, on preserving the delicate peace process in Sudan. But if the U.S. and E.U. do not demand compliance with the ICC, then it is clear that the ICC (at least in the near term) has no chance of completing its prosecutions in Sudan.
How much land area does CCS require? It depends on the site.
Earlier this week, the Guardian highlighted research that questioned the feasibility of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), the process of trapping carbon dioxide from power plants and storing it underground. Researchers from the University of Houston have claimed that we would need the underground capacity the size of a small state in order to store the CO2 from just one power plant. Geologists and engineers quickly refuted this claim, pointing to the success of ongoing pilot projects.
This latest dispute about CCS raises the question: how do we know if there is room to store CO2 underground?
CCS depends on storing CO2 in deep geological formations underground. But of course, geology varies greatly by region, and some areas are more suitable than others. For example (PDF), Texas and Louisiana have the highest potential, while states like Maine, Vermont, and Wisconsin have no storage potential at all.
The US Department of Energy publishes a national atlas of storage capacity by state. The calculations assume (PDF) that even in areas that look promising for CO2 storage, only 1-4% of available geologic capacity will actually be used for CCS. Even with this limitation, the DOE still estimates overall potential for storage in the US to be at 3,600 to 12,900 billion metric tons of CO2. To put that in perspective, the United States’ current annual emissions are about 3,200 million metric tons per year. That is why, despite the challenges, CCS is such a potentially important opportunity in the fight against climate change.
When evaluating how much land would be needed to store carbon dioxide, it is important to remember that not all land is created equal in terms of CCS potential. This makes generalizing about CCS an imprecise art. For example, the study cited by the Guardian suggests that a single 500 MW power plant capturing and storing CO2 for 30 years would require 686 mi2 of underground land area, quite a large number. However, the researchers base their calculations on the assumption that the underground geologic reservoir would be only 200 ft thick. If you apply the same methodology to sites with much thicker reservoirs, those power plants would require considerably less land area. That’s why true capacity can only be estimated with site-specific geological information.
CCS for power plants is, to be sure, a complicated process. In the United States there is currently one coal fired power plant that is capturing CO2, injecting it and storing it underground today (the Mountaineer Project in New Haven, West Virginia). Others are in the planning stages, and there are many legitimate issues that each CCS project will need to address in order to be successful. That’s why the World Resources Institute convened over 90 leaders from national laboratories, research institutes, environmental organizations and energy companies to create guidelines for safe, effective carbon dioxide storage in the United States. These guidelines answer many of the concerns that CCS skeptics have about issues such as seismic events, potential leaks, and correctly evaluating underground capacity.
The important point to remember in discussions about CCS is that every geologic reservoir, and thus every CCS site, is unique. The only way to answer remaining uncertainties about CCS, and bring the cost down over time, is through demonstrations and commercial deployments – in other words, real life, site-specific scenarios – as soon as possible.
Birkholzer, J.T., Zhou, Q., Tsang, C.F., 2009. Large-scale impact of CO2 storage in deep saline aquifers: a
sensitivity study on the pressure response in stratified systems. Int. J. Greenhouse Gas Control 3(2), 181–194.
Birkholzer, J.T., Zhou, Q., 2009. Basin-Scale Hydrogeologic Impacts of CO2 Storage: Capacity and
Regulatory Implications, International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, published online on 8/8/2009,
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijggc.2009.07.002.
Dooley, J., Davidson, C., 2010. A Brief Technical Critique of Ehlig-
Economides and Economides 2010: “Sequestering Carbon Dioxide in a Closed
Underground Volume.” United States Department of Energy. Available here.
Nicot, J.P., 2008. Evaluation of large-scale carbon storage on fresh-water section of aquifers: A Texas study.
Int. J. Greenhouse Gas Control 2(4), 582–593.
Yamamoto, H., Zhang, K., Karasaki, K., Marui, A., Uehara, H., Nishikawa, N., 2009. Numerical investigation
concerning the impact of CO2 geologic storage on regional groundwater flow. Int. J. Greenhouse Gas
Control, 3(5), 586-599.
Zero Emissions Platform, The Realities of Storing Carbon Dioxide
Zhou, Q., Birkholzer, J.T., Tsang, C.F., Rutqvist, J., 2008. A method for quick assessment of CO2 storage
capacity in closed and semi-closed saline formations. Int. J. Greenhouse Gas Control 2(4), 626–639.
This came completely out of left field. Microsoft made a few claims that HTC infringed on a few of their patents. HTC obviously agreed that they did and will now pay royalties to not only Google but Microsoft as well to use Android on their handsets.
Microsoft and HTC have had a long standing business relationship. The best WinMo devices come from HTC, that’s what makes this move by Microsoft so odd. Maybe they want to slow down Android in any way they can? There is no mention on which Microsoft patents HTC violated with their Android phones. HTC clearly agreed to pay because they are currently locked into a battle with Apple over various patents. This move may cause the price of future Android handsets from HTC to go up. Either way I’m sure they will continue to make awesome yet affordable Android devices.
“HTC and Microsoft have a long history of technical and commercial collaboration, and today’s agreement is an example of how industry leaders can reach commercial arrangements that address intellectual property,” Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing at Microsoft, said in the official statement. “We are pleased to continue our collaboration with HTC.”
[via wmexperts]
Ricky Gervais will return as host of the Golden Globe Awards in 2011.
The Hollywood Foreign Association has tapped the comic — who won solid reviews in his Globes debut this year — to front the 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards, airing live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel Sunday, Jan. 16, 2011 on NBC.
Nominations will be announced Dec. 15.
“I can’t believe they invited me back after awful things I said. Let’s see how far I can go this time,” an enthused Ricky remarked in a presser issued Wednesday.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today approved the Cape Wind renewable energy project on federal submerged lands in Nantucket Sound, but will require the developer of the $1 billion wind farm to agree to additional binding measures to minimize the potential adverse impacts of construction and operation of the facility….
A number of similar projects have been proposed for other northeast coastal states, positioning the region to tap 1 million megawatts of offshore Atlantic wind energy potential, which could create thousands of manufacturing, construction and operations jobs and displace older, inefficient fossil-fueled generating plants, helping significantly to combat climate change.
At the press conference, Salazar said he expected this would be the “first of many projects up and down the Atlantic coast.” He said America was leading “a clean energy revolution that is reshaping our future” and that “Cape Wind is the opening of a new chapter in that future.”
The announcement could not have been better timed. Offshore wind taps the clean, safe energy of the 21st century that never runs out, in contrast to that other offshore energy resource, the not-so-clean, not-so-safe energy of the 19th century that can’t sustain the human race (see Spill Baby Spill and ‘Safe’ offshore oil rig explodes, 12 missing, seven critically hurt).
The DOI news release is here, project fact sheet here.
The project calls for 130 turbines of 3.6 megawatts, each with a maximum blade height of 440 feet, to be arranged in a grid pattern in 25 square miles of Nantucket Sound in Federal waters offshore Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket Island. The projected maximum electric output would be 468 MW (average of 183 MW).
Here is what the project would bring to the region.
The Cape Wind project would be the first wind farm on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf, generating enough power to meet 75 percent of the electricity demand for Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Island combined. The project would create several hundred construction jobs and be one of the largest greenhouse gas reduction initiatives in the nation, cutting carbon dioxide emissions from conventional power plants by 700,000 tons annually. That is equivalent to removing 175,000 cars from the road for a year.
The junior Senator from Massachusetts begs to differ:
US Senator Scott Brown criticized Salazar’s decision, saying it was “misguided.”
“With unemployment hovering near ten percent in Massachusetts, the Cape Wind project will jeopardize industries that are vital to the Cape’s economy, such as tourism and fishing, and will also impact aviation safety and the rights of the Native American tribes in the area. I am also skeptical about the cost-savings and job number predictions we have heard from proponents of the project,” Brown said in a statement.
I guess he’d rather be drilling off the coast of Massachusetts.
Related Post:
By Beth Daley and Martin Finucane
In a groundbreaking decision that some say will usher in a new era of clean energy, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said today he was approving the nation’s first offshore wind farm, the controversial Cape Wind project off of Cape Cod.
“This will be the first of many projects up and down the Atlantic coast,” Salazar said at a joint State House news conference with Governor Deval Patrick. The decision comes after nine years of battles over the proposal.”America needs offshore wind power and with this project, Massachusetts will lead the nation,” Patrick said.
The decision had been delayed for almost a year because of two Wampanoag Indian tribes’ complaints that the 130 turbines, which would stand more than 400 feet above the ocean surface, would disturb spiritual sun greetings and possibly ancestral artifacts and burial grounds on the seabed, which was once exposed land before the sea level rose thousands of years ago.
Salazar said he had ordered modifications to “minimize and mitigate” the impact of the project that would “help protect the historical, cultural, and environmental resources of Nantucket Sound.” He said his approval would require Cape Wind to conduct additional marine archaeological surveys and take other steps to reduce the project’s visual impact.
“I am convinced there is a path we can take forward that both honors our responsibility to protect historical and cultural resources and at the same time meets the need to repower our economy with clean energy produced from wind power,” he said.
He said the United States was leading “a clean energy revolution that is reshaping our future. … Cape Wind is the opening of a new chapter in that future and we are all a part of that history.”
Supporters have long said an approval would be a giant step forward for renewable energy efforts in the country, while opponents have said they would seek to kill the project through legal action. The project, if it is not held up by lawsuits, could begin construction within the year.
The project has undergone years of environmental review and political maneuvering, including opposition from the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, whose home overlooks Nantucket Sound. While opponents’ main concern is esthetics — the turbines would be visible low on the horizon from the Cape and Islands — the battle was fought by raising other issues, including possible effects on property values and harm to birds, fishing, aviation, and historic and cultural sites.
Horseshoe Shoals, the part of Nantucket Sound where the wind farm is proposed, is widely considered the best place along the East Coast to build a wind farm. That’s in part because the site is in shallow, sheltered waters close to shore — the nearest beach is five miles away. But it is also because it is in federal waters: Political will to build such a massive wind farm in state waters three miles from shore does not exist.
Salazar said the project would create 1,000 construction jobs and produce energy equivalent to that of a medium-sized coal-fired power plant. He said it would reduce carbon emissions by the equivalent of 175,000 cars.
Cape Wind Associates said the wind farm could produce enough wind power to handle three-quarters of the electric needs of the Cape and Islands. The price of its electricity is expected to be higher than conventional power. The company is still in negotiations with National Grid, the utility, that has agreed to purchase some of the power the farm produces.
US Senator Scott Brown criticized Salazar’s decision, saying it was “misguided.”
“With unemployment hovering near ten percent in Massachusetts, the Cape Wind project will jeopardize industries that are vital to the Cape’s economy, such as tourism and fishing, and will also impact aviation safety and the rights of the Native American tribes in the area. I am also skeptical about the cost-savings and job number predictions we have heard from proponents of the project,” Brown said in a statement.
Ya sé que en Highmotor no hablamos exclusivamente de coches de competición, pero no he podido resistir hacer cierta analogía de la noticia. Ford quiere volver a las épocas de gloria en Europa, y preparó un Ford Mustang GT3 para intentar hacerle sombra a los grandes de la categoría, a los monstruos europeos del GT3. Pareciera que Ford busca que el Mustang tenga más presencia en Europa, en donde no es un coche que sea muy vendido que digamos. De hecho, si no es en Alemania en donde es más común ver aluno circulando por la autobahn, ver un Mustang en las calles resulta algo que no es cosa de todos los días.
El Mustang será confiado a un equipo de competición belga-canadiense y competirá este mismo año, aunque todavía no se sabe en qué carrera del calendario hará su debut. El proceso de pruebas ya ha comenzado y el Mustang ya fue presentado por Ford y trasladado a las instalaciones de Ford en Gran Bretaña, en donde está en fase de pruebas.
El Mustang tendrá que hacer frente a Alpina, el Ford GT, al Ferrari 430 Scuderia, Lamborghini Gallardo, Audi R8, Corvette y Porsche con el 997… ¿Crees que Ford ha hecho una locura en plantar al Mustang frente a lo más graneado de Europa? En todo caso, sólo resta esperar el resultado de este experimento. En Recta de Meta, tienes unas cuantas fotos de cómo es este Mustang, para saciar tu curiosidad.
Vía | Recta de Meta
Well, if you define success as having the commission come up with solutions that can pass Congress, then yes. I am watching several commission members at the Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit. They are all downplaying what the commission can accomplish, saying that as long as the panel educates the American public on the debt problem, they will consider it a success. But will bondholders of U.S. debt agree? Downplaying expectations may avoid an adverse financial market reaction to failure, but I am not sure it should. We won’t cut spending. We won’t raise taxes broadly. And we ignore policies that would boost economic growth. What else is there?
With Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) siding again with the Republicans — none of whom crossed over to vote for cloture to start debate on Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) financial regulatory reform bill — the effort has failed for the third day in a row on a vote of 56 to 42. Reid immediately moved to reconsider, meaning that the Senate will make a fourth attempt tomorrow.
Dodd and Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have repeatedly slammed Republicans for blocking the start of formal debate on the bill, saying that they are keeping negotiations secret and that the two parties should hammer out their differences on the floor.
In truth, the two bills are not that dissimilar. One major change in the Republican proposal — the reform of Fannie and Freddie — is too complex to insert into the Dodd bill. But many other changes would be easy to sub in. Senate staffers say negotiations are centering on the Democrats’ adoption of the Republican version of resolution authority, which is virtually identical in the Republican proposal except that that any losses incurred by the government are recouped after the formal liquidation, rather than before (via the Obama bill’s $50 billion fund).
The Republicans viewed as most likely to switch continue to be Olympia Snowe (Maine), Susan Collins (Maine) and George Voinovich (Ohio).
