Sen. Carper to “fight” for Clean Air. UPDATE
Senator Tom Carper supports the EPA’s Clean Air Good Neighbor Rule which would demand that the EPA better regulate air pollution. Senator Rand Paul hates clean air and wants to end the EPA. Senator Rand Paul has introduced Senate Joint Resolution, which disapproves of the rule and would prevent it from being enacted. Carper says he will fight for the rule…… in a debate on the Senate floor.
Pardon my French, Senator Carper, but fuck that. I fully expect you to filibuster Sen. Paul’s resolution, and I fully expect you make sure this rule never makes it to a full vote. If votes on creating American jobs are to be subject to cloture votes and blocked by your Republican friends, I expect you to return the favor.
This is the new normal, since you Senate Democrats were too cowardly to change the Senate Rules in January 2010. If you oppose a thing, you filibuster it to death. If you want to pass something, you must get 60 votes to even debate it. Make Rand Paul find 60 votes.
UPDATE from the News Journal:
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is bypassing the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and forcing a floor vote on his measure under a fast-track procedure.
Paul’s proposal will require a 51-vote majority to pass rather than the 60 votes required to overcome filibusters in the Senate. The House, which already has passed legislation to delay the EPA rule, also would have to pass the resolution.
The measure isn’t expected to pass the Senate. If it did, President Barack Obama probably would veto it.
So Carper cannot filibuster this. How convenient that Republicans get to have their resolutions fast tracked and not subject to the filibuster. Hey Democrats, how about using this fast track procedure for all of our legislation? Like creating jobs?
Have you ever seen Carper publicly stick his neck out for anything? I can’t recall the last brave stand Carper took. Probably because there wasn’t one.
Carper was talking a decent game of smack about Paul’s stance towards this thing at the JJ dinner. But I’m with you, DD, he does need to fillibuster this thing and make Paul get his 60 votes.
Do I think he’ll do it? Are you kidding? The facade of looking *reasonable* is way more important than actually standing up for something.
How many times have we been told a Democratic bill can’t pass because it can’t get 60 votes? Smack yourself if you were one of the people who said that.
I read the whole News Journal article but now I have to go somewhere else to find out WTF this “fast-track procedure” is and why we never hear about Democrats using it.
So I am looking at Fast track stuff, and it appears to be limited to trade agreements. But in that context, it appears that the President has to submit a a trade deal and Congress only has the ability to vote up or down.
So since Rand Paul is invoking fast track, that can’t be it.
I suppose Paul is invoking the Congressional Review Act, which requires a simple majority.
I’ll have to look further into it to see if Harry Reid could have blocked it if he chose.
CRA was signed by Clinton in 1996 and was one of the first things the new Congress used in 2001, to repeal worker safety regulations signed by Clinton. It was my first confirmation that Bush wasn’t going to just be “regular Republican-President bad” but “crazy evil bad.”
OK, this is more detailed about it (I don’t know how this paywall thing works, so you may get prompted to pay, or not)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/us/politics/23health.html
It appears that fast track is another term for “reconciliation” which is exactly how the healthcare bill was passed. It is funny though, that when the Dems talked about using it at the beginning of the debate, it was tantamount to war:
It does play to the idea that taking off the gloves is acceptable these days (see Paul, Rand), and screw the Republicans if they try to thwart our bills with the filibuster
Confirmed:
Curse you, Newt Gingrich! (of course, I suppose Clinton didn’t have to sign it).
FYI, the Congressional Review Act applies only to regulations, not anything else. So that is why you don’t hear about Democrats using it.
I wonder if the inability for individuals to buy-in to Medicare is a regulation or part of the law…
We suck. Democrats are like the philadelphia eagles of politics.
Washington Generals.
Who here still wants to repeal the filibuster for every bill?
I don’t understand the question. I don’t have a problem with a filibuster. I just want it to be an honest-to-goodness, read-from-the-phonebook, tell-old-stories-about-your-family-moving-out-west-in-a-Conestoga-wagon filibuster.
@ Puck “How many times have we been told a Democratic bill can’t pass because it can’t get 60 votes? ”
That was my drinking game for October, good month.