Evan Bayh is an astute student of capitalism. He knows how to maximize profits and influence. And now this recent retiree of the Senate has a clear strategy for getting rich as a lobbyist with McGuireWoods LLP and maximizing his utility as a conservative television pundit with FOX.
Many in NWI and East Chicago fashion themselves as a moderate after Evan Bayh.
Lawrence Wilkerson looks at Shirley Anne Warshaw’s new book The Co-Presidency of Bush and Cheney. This is a comprehensive rendering of the Cheney’s evisceration of the country’s regulatory system, where my Governor, Mitch Daniel’s appears in a supporting role and referred to as ”Dick Cheney’s Dick Cheney.” This portrait gives the moniker “My Man Mitch” a whole new meaning.
via [ The Washington Note ]
Whether oil, gas, forestry, mining, fisheries, national parks, clean air, pharmaceuticals, food, endangered species - you name it - Cheney was the kingpin in the dismantling of relevant oversight and regulation.
Cheney managed this principally by putting into the regulatory or oversight positions within the executive branch of our government, people who either hailed from long service in the industry or field they were overseeing or regulating, or who had lobbied for that industry or field for long years, or a combination of the two.
Not content to have CEQ, EPA, the Departments of Energy, Agriculture, and Interior at his beck and call, Cheney went after the real seat of executive power - the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
The OMB was the ultimate reviewer of all proposed regulatory changes. Its director, Mitch Daniels, as Warshaw points out, was referred to as “Dick Cheney’s Dick Cheney.” Daniels, coming from the huge pharmaceutical company Eli Lily, knew big business. Sean O’Keefe, another Cheney man, was OMB’s deputy. And with John Graham and, later, Susan Dudley in the key regulatory positions at OMB, Cheney had a winning hand. Graham at Harvard and Dudley at George Mason University had both made names in risk management analysis concerning industrial pollution and corporate malfeasance that were shamefully full of holes but extremely pro-business.
In the case of Dudley, the analyses were underwritten by such sponsors as ExxonMobil and BP Amoco. From their positions in OMB’s office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Graham and Dudley gave Cheney the ultimate power to oversee and check if necessary almost everyone in the bureaucracy concerned with regulation-writing.
A Local Impact
National policies are not abstractions when your community sits on the worlds greatest fresh water resource managed by several international treaties and is the home to three of the largest, wealthiest, and to a measurable degree dirtiest multinational industries; BP, ArcelorMittal, and US Steel. This is how policies have location with real effects. The legacy of Cheney’s energy task force and environmental policies continue today unopposed, and this has a real negative effect for East Chicago.
East Chicago is the site of BP’s Canadian Crude project. The BP project is GROUND ZERO for concentrating highly negative environmental impacts in a poor minority community while directing benefits elsewhere.
Recently BP convened the “Good Government Initiative,” essentially cutting-off political opposition to there project while simultaneously walking behind the public process to extract a tax abatement from East Chicago without a single public hearing. BP also effectively pushed through a flawed NPDES permit without a single political eyebrow raised, editorial written, or an environmental group objecting in Indiana. Instead of calling foul regional leaders, including the regional news paper - NWI Times, rallied behind BP against out-of-state opposition, by citing the bad environmental stewardship of others.
by desmoinesdem
Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana announced plans in December to form an equivalent of the Blue Dog caucus in the Senate. Today his office rolled out the Moderate Dems Working Group:
WASHINGTON - A diverse group of 15 Senate Democrats today announced the formation of a new moderate coalition that will meet regularly to shape public policy. The group’s goal is to work with the Senate leadership and the new administration to craft common-sense solutions to urgent national problems.
The Moderate Dems Working Group will meet every other Tuesday before the Democratic Caucus lunch to discuss legislative strategies and ideas. The Moderate Dems held their second meeting Tuesday to focus on the upcoming budget negotiations and the importance of passing a fiscally responsible spending plan in the Senate.
Leading the new group are Democratic Senators Evan Bayh of Indiana, Tom Carper of Delaware and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. Both Senators Bayh and Carper were successful governors before coming to the Senate. Senators Lincoln and Carper bring bicameral experience to the group as former members of the House of Representatives. All three leaders are honorary co-chairs of Third Way, a progressive Democratic policy group, and Senators Bayh and Carper have led the centrist Democratic Leadership Council.
At the working group meeting, Senator Bayh acknowledged that such a large group was unlikely to agree on all major issues before the Senate. Yet the Moderate Dems are joined by a shared commitment to pursue pragmatic, fiscally sustainable policies across a range of issues, such as deficit containment, health care reform, the housing crisis, educational reform, energy policy and climate change.
In addition to Senators Bayh, Carper and Lincoln, others joining the group are Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet of Colorado, Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Bill Nelson of Florida, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, and Mark Warner of Virginia.
A few things jumped out at me:
15 members is a quarter of the Democratic Senate caucus. That’s proportionally larger than the Blue Dog caucus in the House.
Look how many first-term senators have joined up with Bayh: McCaskill from the class of 2006 and Udall, Begich, Hagan, Shaheen and Warner from the class of 2008.
Of the Moderate Dems, only Bennet, Lincoln and Bayh are up for re-election in 2010. Lincoln and Bayh are not expected to face tough challenges.
Of the Moderate Dems, only Lincoln, Landrieu, Begich and Ben Nelson represent states carried by John McCain. Why did the others rush to join a caucus that (based on Bayh’s record) will try to water down President Barack Obama’s agenda?
Back in December Matthew Yglesias advanced a very plausible hypothesis about Bayh’s agenda:
With Republicans out of power, the GOP can’t really block progressive change in exchange for large sums of special interest money. That creates an important market niche for Democrats willing to do the work. It was a good racket for the House Blue Dogs in 2007-2008 and there’s no reason it couldn’t work for Senate analogues over the next couple of years.
Bayh’s press release includes a ludicrous quote from Harry Reid:
Of the working group’s formation, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, “If we are going to deliver the change Americans demanded and move our country forward, it will require the courage to get past our political differences and get to work. Established organizations like Third Way and new ventures like this group offer us a new opportunity to get things done, and I support every effort that puts real solutions above political posturing.”
Raise your hand if you believe that Bayh’s group is going to offer “a new opportunity to get things done.”
The only good I can imagine coming of Bayh’s venture is if the group gives some political cover to Democratic senators representing red or purple states, making it harder for Republicans to tie them to liberal bogeymen.
This optimistic scenario would pan out only if the Moderate Dems do not consistently vote as a bloc with Bayh. Earlier this month, David Waldman/Kagro X analyzed some Senate votes in which Bayh supported Republican amendments. If you click that link you’ll see that various senators named in today’s press release did not vote with the Bayh/Republican position.
For that reason, Waldman greeted today’s news with a big yawn and doesn’t seem worried that the Moderate Dems will do anything other than help Bayh show off how “moderate” he is.
The Russians say one should “hope for the best but prepare for the worst.” As a Democrat who wants President Obama to succeed, I hope Waldman is right and the “Moderate Dems” are just using Bayh to bolster their “centrist” image.
On the other hand, if Bayh’s group develops along the path envisioned by Yglesias, which I consider more likely, then Democrats really should prepare for the worst in 2010. The severe recession may make next year a tough environment for the president’s party to begin with. If Democrats carrying water for corporate interests sink “the change we need,” Democratic base turnout could drop significantly, as it did in 1994. Most of the Moderate Dems Working Group members will not face the voters until 2012 and 2014, but their obstruction could harm many other Congressional Democrats.
