Media ignores real story with Rehberg’s EAJA crusade

I just got done reading the Missoulian’s article “Environmental Lawsuits: Bill would limit payouts when government loses cases.”

Basically, in the article, the Missoulian helps Rep Denny Rehberg make the supposed case that the Equal Access to Justice Act needs to be reformed because us whacky environmentalists sometimes get some attorney fees covered when we successfully sue the federal government and the government loses.

As the Missoulian wrote, “The Equal Access to Justice Act says any government agency that loses a lawsuit to a private individual, group or business must pay the legal costs of the winner. The money comes out of each agency’s budget, rather than a central fund.”

“[EAJA's] morphed into something entirely different that wasn’t intended. It’s become a cottage industry for lawsuits, especially in the environmental arena,” explained Rep Rehberg in the article.

Yet, buried in the story (and certainly not reflected in the Missoulian’s headline) is the fact that “just 1 percent of Equal Access cases made awards for environmental lawsuits, and those were split between conservation and industry groups.“

“The real question is why does the government keep losing? Instead of getting rid of (EAJA), Congressman Rehberg should provide oversight of federal agencies to find out why they have such a hard time following the law” explained Michael Garrity of the Helena-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies.

So, just what type of cases make up the bulk of actual Equal Access to Justice Act cases? Well, the Missoulian really never tells us this, because apparently they want to keep the focus on the 1% of EAJA cases involving environmental groups.

However, the article does point out, “Other applicants for Equal Access to Justice money include businesses challenging federal agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and military veterans fighting the Veterans Administration or Department of Defense.”

And anyone with access to Google can find out just how important the Equal Access to Justice Act really is, not only to small businesses and military veterans, but also to Social Security claimants, especially the poor, disabled and disadvantaged.

From Disabled World:

Social Security Disability claimants may have to prepare themselves for another potentially crippling blow, and law firms that represent these claimants, such as Disability Group Inc., may suffer the same fate….The EAJA allows people to apply for awards of attorney fees and other expenses associated with pursuing litigation against the government. EAJA applicants who win their cases against the government and who are eligible may receive their payments after the case closes. This is a vitally important piece of legislation that helps guarantee that citizens of any socio-economic stratum can address legitimate grievances against the government….Any prohibition of EAJA fee award payments will undoubtedly make it difficult, if not impossible, for many Social Security claimants, as well as veterans, to find lawyers to represent them in federal court. This possibility weighs heavily on local and national Social Security Disability law firms across the country. “In my opinion,” writes attorney Douglas Brigandi of Bayside, New York, “it would be a travesty to allow this legislature to go forward and thereby deprive those individuals, who depend on the Social Security Act, the right to obtain these much needed entitlements.”

Perhaps the Missoulian can do another article on this aspect of the EAJA, especially since these cases constitute the vast, vast majority of EAJA cases and one would assume there would be plenty of veterans or small business owners or Social Security claimants in Montana who have benefited from EAJA.

It’s a shame that this EAJA debate with Rep Rehberg and Rep Lummis (R-WY) has been boiled down to the 1% of EAJA cases that are environmental in nature, while Rep Rehberg and Lummis apparently ignore what EAJA does to help level the playing field when the poor and disabled or military veterans and small businesses must hold the federal government accountable through court action.

HuffPost: Senators Back Delay In Crackdown On Fees That Yield Billions For Banks

As reported by Zack Carter of the Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — On Tuesday, a group of nine senators led by Montana Democrat Jon Tester put their names behind legislation to delay the Federal Reserve’s upcoming crackdown on the “swipe fees” that banks charge merchants for processing debit card transactions — a huge moneymaker for the banking industry whose continuation is at the top of the industry’s lobbying wishlist.

Retailers complain that the costs of high swipe fees, also known as “interchange” fees, hurt their business and are ultimately passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices. A provision in last year’s financial-regulatory overhaul requires the Fed to limit such fees, and in December, the central bank proposed a rule that would cap the levies at 12 cents per transaction, a nearly 73 percent drop from the current average of 44 cents per transaction.

Merchants and financial reform advocates celebrated the move, but the banks are obviously loath to give up such a big piece of any revenue stream, let alone the swipe fees that industry analysts at The Nilson Report estimate yield $1.35 billion every month, or $16.2 billion per year. (Half of that total, according to Nilson, goes to just 10 banks.)

Tester’s bill, the Debit Interchange Fee Study Act, would postpone the regulation for two years’ worth of further evaluation — and chances for the bank lobby to erase it entirely….And while Tester and Corker were issuing their statements, the American Bankers Association was holding a meeting on lobbying at the D.C. Marriott Renaissance Hotel in Chinatown. At the meeting, which HuffPost attended, the banking group’s COO, Michael Hunter, coached a packed ballroom of community bankers on ways to convince key lawmakers and staffers to support the bill. The Senate bill and its House companion, Hunter said, were the ABA’s top legislative priorities for the coming year.

Tom Power on source of state gov’t budget difficulties across US

(A good one from University of Montana economist Tom Power, which appeared earlier in the week on MT Public Radio. – mk)

The latest political fad is to blame the budget difficulties at both the federal and state levels on government employees, in particular on their wages, benefits, and right to bargain collectively. There is something massively disorienting about this picture because it involves a distorted rewriting our recent economic history and the basic facts about government employment.

Federal, state, and local government budgets are under stress right now because of the financial collapse that triggered the Great Recession. As financial markets melted down and housing values plummeted, financial and construction workers were laid off wholesale, households stopped spending as much money and started saving so that they had some financial cushion if their family got caught up in the cascading layoffs. Faced with a drop in consumer spending and tight credit markets, businesses shelved expansion plans and did the opposite, laying off workers throughout the economy. Business profits tumbled, wage payments shrank, capital gains disappeared and were replaced with capital losses. The flow of tax revenues to federal, state, and local governments declined dramatically.

But governments still had to meet their usual obligations to put police on the streets, firefighters in fire stations, and teachers in schools. The federal government continued to face the cost of two wars and the world’s mightiest military force spread across the globe. Local governments still had to plow the snow and repair the roads.

In addition governments at all levels faced the increased costs associated with supporting the unemployed, coping with rising poverty, hunger, and homelessness and helping communities and families weather the worst economic decline since the Great Depression, 70 years ago.
It was those shrinking government tax revenues and stable or rising demand for government services that created the budget problems that plague governments at all levels.

It was not the wild spending of liberals or the wages and benefits of government workers who created the current budget problems. When the last Democratic president left office in 2000, the federal budget was running a surplus and most state government budgets were being balanced. It was not wild liberals who insisted on fighting two wars and expanding Medicare benefits while dramatically cutting taxes. It was a conservative Republican, George W. Bush. Instead of asking us to sacrifice to fund those wars and expanded benefits by paying higher taxes, he cut our taxes, started running massive deficits, and insisted that the most patriotic thing for citizens to do was to go shopping, assumedly using their credit cards.

Meanwhile, the deregulation fever spread and the economy lurched from one speculative bubble to another. We were all going to get rich, not by making more or better products, but by investing money in more and more risky financial gambles. The Las Vegas casino became our new economic model. The outcome was the near collapse of the nation’s and the world’s financial system and almost a repeat of the Great Depression. Instead, we “merely” got the Great Recession, the economic pain of which is likely to be with us for at least two more years.

It was not overpaid school teachers or police officers who brought this on us. It was outrageously overpaid financial speculators and corporate CEOs. Strangely enough, I do not hear Republican demagogues urging that the government take action against the real culprits behind the financial collapse and resulting Great Recession. The people who became hundred-millionaires in their high-stakes gambling with our livelihoods and homes go unmentioned. The fact that they are back at work wheeling and dealing and raking in their outrageous salaries, bonuses, and commissions is also ignored.

Instead the state budget deficits are blamed on underpaid school teachers and other civil servants. The fact is that the pay received by most state and local government workers, when adjusted for education, skill, and experience is notoriously lower that the pay in the private sector. Many local government workers actually qualify for food stamps.

It is true that politicians found it easier to make government jobs somewhat more attractive not by raising government workers’ salaries but by offering expanded medical and retirement benefits. Like many large corporations, those politicians also did not adequately fund the pension promises they made to their workers. Those promises did not have to be paid for until some distant point in time when the politicians and corporate CEOs would be long gone. As the failure of corporate pension plans across the nation over the last two decades has demonstrated, such financial irresponsibility has not been limited to the public sector.

The attack on teachers, police officers, fire fighters, and other civil servants as the cause of the various states’ budget problems is cheap scapegoating. Public employees did not cause the Great Recession that cutoff the flow of tax revenues to state government coffers. Very wealthy financial speculators did that. It is pure political demagoguery to use the fear and uncertainty generated by the current economic hard times to attack underpaid workers in order to pursue an unrelated political agenda, namely to renew the ongoing attack on workers’ rights to collectively bargain in their workplace.

There is no doubt that there is more economic pain to come and that government employees are going to have to share in it. Most have offered to do so. That is a fact of life during a serious economic downturn. But blaming the hard times and budget deficits on those whose pay and benefits you are cutting and topping that off by unilaterally taking away some of their civil rights, demoting them to second class citizens, is hardly a way of bringing citizens together to weather, as best we can, these very difficult times. When we need to be pulling together as a nation, state, and community, this partisan scapegoating is simply making bad times worse.

New poll shows western voters support environmental protections

A new bi-partisan poll of inter-mountain West voters shows that a strong majority (77%) believe that environmental standards and a strong economy can coexist. The findings, from the first-ever Conservation in the West Survey, reveal differences and many points of agreement among voters on issues such as conservation, regulations, renewable energy and other environmental issues.

The poll, conducted by Lori Weigel at Public Opinion Strategies (a Republican firm) and Dave Metz at Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates (a Democratic firm), measured environmental attitudes of 2,200 voters in the five Western states January 23-27, 2011. The survey is being released by the Colorado College State of the Rockies Project, which, for the past eight years, has worked to increase public understanding of vital issues affecting the Rockies through annual report cards, free events, discussions and other activities.

“This research underscores an interesting and important trend in these five states,” said Walt Hecox, Ph.D., professor at Colorado College and director of the State of the Rockies Project. “While there are differences of opinion on a range of issues, there are true common values shared between each state, including a commitment to protect the important natural resources that make this region so unique.”

Click here to view the executive summary or entire report.

Below are some interesting Montana-specific findings, especially in the context of the current gutting/eliminating/slashing of environmental protection laws and regulations by the GOP majorities in Helena.

As part of efforts to improve the state economy and generate jobs as quickly as possible, some people have proposed reducing protections on land, air and water that apply to major industries, including construction and agriculture. Would you prefer that:
• Montana reduce protections for land, air and water that apply to major industries: 20%
• Montana maintain protections for land, air and water that apply to major industries: 73%

Even with state budget problems, we should still find money to protect Montana’s land, water and wildlife.
• Strongly or somewhat agree: 81%
• Strongly or somewhat disagree: 16%

We should ensure that undeveloped, public lands in Montana are kept in their natural state.
• Strongly or somewhat agree: 75%
• Strongly or somewhat disagree: 20%

We need to do more to ensure oil, gas and mining companies follow laws protecting our land, air and water.
• Strongly or somewhat agree: 76%
• Strongly or somewhat disagree: 22%

Did Sen Tester forget that he already re-introduced his logging bill?

The Tuesday, February 22, 2011 edition of the Missoulian included this article, which detailed Senator Tester’s talk at the annual Salish Kootenai College Career Fair in Pablo.

According to the article:

In response to other questions from the crowd, Tester also said:

• His Forest Jobs and Recreation Act will likely be re-introduced soon, probably attached as an amendment to another bill because it is Montana-specific, and Congress otherwise would not get around to considering it. “We’ll drop it in very soon, probably without much fanfare,” Tester said. “We’ve already been through that part, and had the fanfare.”

It’s very strange that Senator Tester would claim that his so-called Forest Jobs and Recreation Act will likely be re-introduced soon. Why?  Because the truth of the matter is that Senator Tester has already, in fact, re-introduced his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.

According to the official website of the Library of Congress (which tracks all federal bills), the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act was re-introduced by Senator Tester on Feb 3, 2011 (three weeks ago) and was “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.”  Tester’s mandated logging bill has been given bill number “S.268,” so anyone can view the bill language for themselves by visiting this site doing a search via the bill number.

It’s worth pointing out that the current version of the FJRA that Senator Tester has introduced this session of Congress differs from his original bill in a number of significant ways.  However, it unfortunately seems very clear that Senator Tester will not be looking to hold a Senate hearing on the new version of his bill. Nope, it seems clear that Senator Tester will again try the questionable maneuver of attaching his FJRA as a rider to a piece of unrelated, must pass legislation, such as the upcoming appropriations bills.

Perhaps this the reason why Senator Tester said he doesn’t want much “fanfare” for his mandated logging bill this session of Congress? Perhaps this is why he told the folks up in Pablo that his bill wasn’t re-introduced yet, when in fact it was re-introduced on February 3, 2011.

What hasn’t change in this session of Congress is the serious, substantive concerns expressed by many Montanans – as well as Americans – with Senator Tester’s FJRA. Concerns and opposition has come from not only the 50 plus conservation organizations (including 16 Montana organizations) that make up the Last Best Place Wildlands Campaign, but also conservation groups such as the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Biological Diversity and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility – some of the most respected environmental groups in our nation. Concerns have also been expressed publicly from some of the former Chiefs of the Forest Service and a host of former Forest Service supervisors and district rangers.

Despite some minor changes, Senator Tester’s FJRA bill would still  have members of Congress mandating how and where logging takes place in our forests; would turn some of Montana’s federal wildlands (including Wilderness Study Areas protected in the late 1970s by former Montana Senator Lee Metcalf) into permanent motorized recreation areas; would allow motors and other non-compatible uses in Wilderness and would cause negative impacts to the Forest Service budgets in our region.

The future of America’s national forest legacy is much more important than blindly supporting some politician who apparently thinks the best way to manage America’s public lands is through mandates and interference from Congress…but then forgets to tell a public gathering that the bill has already been reintroduced in Congress.