WGBH News: Politics

Political Divide At Congressional Hearing On Solyndra

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 21:39:00 GMT

A congressional hearing on Tuesday over a company called Solyndra became a politically charged referendum on the administration's effort to promote green energy.

Until recently, Solyndra made solar panels. It received more than half a billion dollars in government loan guarantees back in 2009. Now, the company is in bankruptcy and is being investigated by the FBI.

At the hearing, Republicans raised questions over whether the administration rushed the loan process for political or private reasons, while officials from the Department of Energy defended the decision to invest in the technology.

Questions For The Administration

President Obama spoke at the company's Fremont, Calif., headquarters 15 months ago, saying that "companies like Solyndra are leading the way to a brighter and more prosperous future."

The president held it up as a shining example of a company that created jobs while saving the environment and freeing the country of its dependence on foreign oil.

Two weeks ago, Solyndra laid off more than 1,000 workers when it failed.

At the congressional hearing on Tuesday, Republicans said the administration had cozy ties to the company and its investors, and that it was overeager to promote its environmental policies at the expense of taxpayers.

"Only after the Obama administration took control and the stimulus passed was the Solyndra deal pushed through," said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican.

Republicans accused the administration of pressuring the Department of Energy to approve the loan. They called its motives venal, noting that even as the company was failing, the department renegotiated the loans in a way that advantaged private investors in Solyndra — including a big Obama fundraiser.

And there was more: Michigan Republican Fred Upton called it an example of government trying to pick winners and losers.

"Was Solyndra just one bad bet by an administration rushing to claim credit for the first loan guarantee? Or was it the tip of the iceberg?" he asked.

Department Of Energy Responds

Jonathan Silver, executive director of the Energy Department's loan program, said the U.S. is rapidly losing out to China in solar technology, and that addressing this decline was the administration's motivation.

"This isn't picking winners and losers. It's helping ensure that we have winners here at all," he said. "We invented this technology and we should produce it here. The question is whether we are willing to take on this challenge or whether we will simply cede leadership in this vital sector to other nations, and watch as tens of thousands of jobs are created overseas. The administration believes this is a battle we must fight and win."

Silver said one big reason for Solyndra's failure was that China offered its companies far more subsidies, undercutting the whole market.

Democratic lawmakers said they felt misled by Solyndra's executives about the company's rapidly disintegrating financial condition. But they fought the accusation that the White House acted in the interest of George Kaiser, an Obama fundraiser.

California Democrat Henry Waxman questioned Silver, asking if he or his staff had any interaction with Kaiser relating to the Solyndra loan guarantee.

Silver responded: "I was not here at that time, but no, I've had – never h[ad] — never met or spoken to the man and as I understand from my staff, neither have they."

Waxman also noted that attacking green energy programs conveniently plays into the interests of big oil — a large Republican campaign donor.

Republicans came back at the witnesses, saying they missed signs the company was in trouble.

"I have heard not a single person stand up and take any accountability for a single dollar of taxpayer money that's gone," said Kansas congressman Mike Pompeo. "We ask who made decisions, we ask who was responsible, and the two of you stand here and point to other people and take no accountability to the taxpayers in America and in Kansas for having lost half a billion of their dollars."

Solyndra executives are expected to testify before the committee again, as early as next week. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]

On The Road, Obama Faces Mixed Reaction Over Jobs

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 21:01:00 GMT

For the second time in less than a week, President Obama visited a college campus today, touting his new jobs plan. He told supporters at North Carolina State University that if Congress goes along with his proposal for tax cuts and new government spending, it will help to restore middle-class jobs.

A new CNN poll shows more Americans support the President's jobs plan than oppose it.

But that survey and others also find widespread disappointment with the U.S. economy — and Obama's handling of it.

At an outdoor rally in Ohio this week, cheering supporters quickly took up Obama's call for Congress to "pass this bill."

Just a couple of blocks away, out of earshot of the rally, it was easy to see the toll that the long economic downturn has taken here in Ohio — an important political battleground that Obama won three years ago.

At a job fair sponsored by the regional logistics council, seasoned managers were putting in resumes for entry-level stock jobs. Matt Dawson lost his job as a lab technician two years ago. He's been looking for work ever since.

"We definitely need help," Dawson said. "I was making 16 dollars an hour and I'm considering jobs at 11, 9, 10, 8. And they're tough to come by."

Denise Coffield has been working part-time for minimum wage, since losing her job in a corporate downsizing.

"Something's got to change. I mean the economy's not going to grow if people aren't working and they can't spend money," Coffield said. "I just really hope that something changes soon."

That deep-seated frustration is echoed in national polls, showing that most Americans feel no better off now than they did three years ago. And they doubt that Obama's economic policies are helping.

It's not clear how much the president's new jobs plan will change those numbers. Alex Fischer heads the non-profit Columbus Partnership, which is made up of some of the area's biggest businesses.

"First we have a bit of skepticism," Fischer said. "I mean this is Stimulus Two. You can call it whatever you want to. Is that additional government spend the right strategy?"

Obama's first stimulus effort is widely seen as unsuccessful, even though many economists argue the recession would have been worse without it. Unemployment in Ohio did come down — from a high of 10.6 percent to 8.6 this spring. But with money from the first stimulus mostly gone now, unemployment has begun creeping up again.

Belt-tightening local governments continue to shed workers, here and across the country. That's why the president of the Columbus teachers union, Rhonda Johnson, was cheering Obama's plan to use new federal dollars to help keep teachers on the payroll.

"I know in Cleveland they had a layoff of more than 300 teachers," Johnson said. "As a union president, the hardest thing you have to go through is when your members lose their jobs."

Unions played a big role in electing Obama. But labor support could be tempered next year, with so many union members out of work. When asked how enthusiastic his members are about working for the president's reelection, Mario Ciardelli of the Central Ohio Building Trades Council's members replied, "That's a good question."

"A lot of us were a little disappointed in the recent past that he wasn't able to get things done," Ciardelli said. "And we need to bring jobs back to America. It's eroded our tax base. It's eroded the American Way. The American Dream. People are just losing heart over not having employment."

Ciardelli says the president's newfound push for the jobs act is a major step in boosting support.

Passage of the bill in a divided Congress is anything but certain. Alex Fischer of the Columbus Partnership said he wonders why Washington can't function more like his city, where Democrats and Republicans at least sometimes work together.

"We're able to push out all this partisanship and all the crap that goes on from that standpoint," Fischer said. "And that's a big frustration in Washington. Not pointing fingers at anybody but maybe pointing fingers at everybody."

Polls suggest as doubtful as Americans are about the President's economic policies, they like the Republican alternatives even less. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]

Perry Focuses On Faith At Christian University

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:08:00 GMT

At an evangelical Christian school in Virginia on Wednesday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry found an audience warmly receptive to his message about his own religious commitment.

Perry, the current front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, visited Liberty University after what some considered a lackluster showing in this week's Tea Party debate in Tampa.

Perry didn't deliver his traditional stump speech: Instead of attacks on President Obama and his GOP challengers, Perry spoke about his inspirations and his personal faith.

"What I learned as I wrestled with God is that I didn't have to have all the answers — that they would be revealed to me in due time," he said. "And that I needed to trust him."

The governor made no mention of Social Security, immigration or his controversial attempt to mandate a cervical cancer vaccine for young girls in Texas. The closest he got to politics was talking about the fight for freedom in the U.S. and around the world — and a quick nod to the Republican message of cutting government spending.

"You have the right to insist on change. To tell the people in power that you will not have your inheritance spent or your future mortgaged," he said.

Liberty University, founded by the late minister and televangelist Jerry Falwell, bills itself as the largest Christian university in the world. It has been a favorite campaign stop for candidates trying to solidify or improve their social conservative credentials.

But the school's current chancellor, Jerry Falwell Jr., says that doesn't mean only Christian candidates need apply.

"We don't encourage our students to have a litmus test based on a candidate's theology," Falwell says. "But the issues are what we care about, where they stand on all the issues that matter — social conservatives to fiscal conservatives — and that's always been our position."

Perry's not the only GOP candidate pushing his social conservative credentials.

Liberty University student Danna Cahn liked what she heard from Perry, but says she's pulled to another candidate.

"I have looked into a lot of stuff about Michele Bachmann, and I do like her a lot, too," Cahn says. "I'm just trying to stick with the conservative movement, just to choose from there."

Student Shaquille Cook says it's great that Perry and other presidential candidates are planning stops at Liberty. He just hopes the Texas governor and others aren't simply putting on a Christian face for their visits.

When Perry leaves Liberty and travels to other places, Cook says, "is his message going to be the same as it was here?"

Bachmann visits Liberty later this month. Falwell says all the presidential candidates, including Obama, have been invited to speak. [Copyright 2011 KUT-FM]

Warren Announces Run For Brown's Senate Seat

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:00:00 GMT

Perry Asked To Halt Texas Man's Execution

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:00:00 GMT

Al Gore: It's An Honor To Be Attacked On Climate Change

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 18:55:00 GMT

"There's a long tradition of people who don't like a particular message turning to attack the person delivering the message," former Vice President Al Gore just said on NPR's Talk of the Nation.

That's why, the 2000 Democratic presidential nominee added, "I view it as an honor, really," to be the target of Republican jabs on the issue of climate change.

He went on to accuse those who express the loudest doubts about whether humans are contributing to climate change of "doing exactly the same thing that the tobacco industry did after the Surgeon General's report came out" linking smoking to cancer. "They hired actors and dressed them up as doctors and gave them scripts" saying that smoking isn't harmful. Today, said Gore, "carbon polluters" are paying for climate change doubters to say similar things.

Gore has been making the media rounds this week to talk about The Climate Reality Project, "24 hours of reality" that starts streaming on the Web today at 8 p.m. ET. Gore's project says that:

"Each hour people living with the reality of climate change will connect the dots between recent extreme weather events — including floods, droughts and storms — and the manmade pollution that is changing our climate. We will offer a round-the-clock, round-the-globe snapshot of the climate crisis in real time. The deniers may have millions of dollars to spend, but we have a powerful advantage. We have reality."

He was on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report Tuesday night.

Earlier this summer, on the pages of Rolling Stone, Gore made the case that the news media has not been a good "referee" in the climate change debate between "Science and Reason" in one corner and "Poisonous Polluters and Right-wing Ideologues" in the other.

He also wrote that President Obama "has thus far failed to use the bully pulpit to make the case for bold action on climate change."

Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan and NPR Political Junkie Ken Rudin also asked Gore about his one-time supporter, current Texas governor and Republican presidential contender Rick Perry, who worked for Gore's 1988 presidential campaign.

As he did on Colbert, Gore said "it would probably hurt [Perry] In the Republican primaries if I said good things about him. ... I do remember him and I appreciate his support back at that the time when he was a Democrat. ... I don't know what's happened to him since."

NPR's John Burnett reported last week that Perry is among the "global warming doubters" and has said "the biggest source of carbon dioxide is Al Gore's mouth." Perry argued in his book Fed Up that "the complexities of the global atmosphere have often eluded the most sophisticated scientists."

Gore, in turn, told Talk of the Nation that "97 to 95 percent of all the climate scientists in the world who actively publish in that field [climate change] are in agreement on this." [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]

Obama White House's Haste On Solar Firm Loan Creates Political Headache

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 17:23:00 GMT

While there are still many open questions, some things are more certain in the sorry tale of Solyndra, the now bankrupt solar-cell manufacturer President Obama once praised as a model for the nation's renewable energy future.

One, U.S. taxpayers will take a loss on their $535 million federal loan guarantee that was part of the stimulus program.

Two, 1,100 workers have been laid off.

Three, the Federal Bureau of Investigation last week raided Solyndra's offices.

Four, the Obama White House has an uncomfortable political problem because of its past support for Solyndra.

Five, the president's political opponents will continue to exploit that White House discomfort to greater or lesser degrees. Republicans cite it as a failure and symbol of the hasty wastefulness of the 2009 stimulus program. They say it raises doubts about the administration's funding of green technology. And it's an example of crony capitalism, they charge.

Much of the rest is unclear, at least to outsiders looking in.

One of the biggest questions is, did White House officials improperly pressure the Office of Management and Budget to approve the loan guarantee to Solyndra, a company with an investment from a foundation associated with Tulsa billionaire George Kaiser, a major Obama fundraiser. Kaiser has denied that he did anything to secure the federal loan guarantee and White House officials say there was no interference from them.

Washington Post reporters obtained emails that suggest, however, that White House officials did push the Office of Management and Budget harder than OMB officials would've liked to speedily review Solyndra's application to keep on schedule an official groundbreaking event featuring Vice President Biden.

An excerpt from a Washington Post story by Joe Stephens and Carol E. Leonnig:

One e-mail from an OMB official referred to "the time pressure we are under to sign-off on Solyndra." Another complained, "There isn't time to negotiate."

"We have ended up with a situation of having to do rushed approvals on a couple of occasions (and we are worried about Solyndra at the end of the week)," one official wrote. That Aug. 31, 2009, message, written by a senior OMB staffer and sent to Terrell P. McSweeny, Biden's domestic policy adviser, concluded, "We would prefer to have sufficient time to do our due diligence reviews."

What makes the current situation especially ironic is that OMB officials warned White House officials that the rush might lead to later regret. Another excerpt:

In one e-mail, an assistant to Rahm Emanuel, then White House chief of staff, wrote on Aug. 31, 2009, to OMB about the upcoming Biden announcement on Solyndra and asked whether "there is anything we can help speed along on OMB side."

An OMB staff member responded: "I would prefer that this announcement be postponed. . . . This is the first loan guarantee and we should have full review with all hands on deck to make sure we get it right."

That now seems prescient.

A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee held a hearing Wednesday on the Solyndra debacle. The full committee's chairman, Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) noted in his opening statement that Solyndra has set off alarm bells for the administration's loan guarantee program which has already committed $8 billion in loan guarantees and has until the end of September to commit $10 billion more:

Was Solyndra just one bad bet by an Administration rushing to claim credit for the first loan guarantee, or is it the tip of the iceberg? DOE has closed over $8 billion in loan guarantees to other "green tech" companies, and it has about $10 billion left to spend in the next few weeks, before the September 30 deadline.

If the administration was so wrong about Solyndra after nine months of due diligence, how can it possibly exercise the proper controls when doling out $10 billion dollars in a matter of weeks? In this time of record debt, I question whether the government is qualified to act as a venture capitalist, picking winners and losers in speculative ventures and shelling out billions of taxpayer dollars to keep them afloat.

[Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]

Was Florida Debate A Game Changer For Candidates?

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 17:00:00 GMT

It's ScuttleButton Time!

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:23:00 GMT

As a long-time watcher of the TV show "Happy Days" and an admirer of Henry Winkler, I'm very familiar with Ponzi and his schemes. But if you really want to see a Ponzi scheme, there's no better place to look than at the weekly ScuttleButton puzzle.

It's where I put up a vertical display of buttons on this site every Wednesday. Your job, other than to send me your Social Security and bank account numbers, is to simply take one word (or concept) per button, add 'em up, and, hopefully, you will arrive at a famous name or a familiar expression. (And seriously, by familiar, I mean it's something that more than one person on Earth would recognize.)

For years, a correct answer chosen at random would get his or her name posted in this column, an incredible honor. Now the stakes are even higher. Thanks to the efforts of the folks at Talk of the Nation, that person also receives a Political Junkie t-shirt. Is this a great country or what?

I should also say that since ScuttleButton has now begun to appear on the TOTN web site, more and more people are discovering the contest for the first time. Thus, you may see some repeat puzzles from years past.

You can't use the comments box at the bottom of the page for your answer. Send submission (plus your name and city/state — you won't win without that) to politicaljunkie@npr.org.

And, by adding your name to the Political Junkie mailing list, you will be among the first on your block to receive notice about the column and the puzzle. Sign up at politicaljunkie@npr.org. Or you can make sure to get an automatic RSS feed whenever a new Junkie post goes up by clicking here.

Good luck!

By the way, I usually reveal the answer — and announce the winner — on Wednesday's Junkie segment on TOTN. So you should get your answer in by Tuesday.

Here's the answer to last week's puzzle:

(Man dressed as a chicken) — That's Bill Clements, the Republican nominee for governor of Texas, during his winning race in 1978.

Ed Koch for Mayor — Koch, a Democratic member of Congress from Manhattan, was first elected mayor of NYC in 1977.

A — This button was obtained at an Anarchist Party bookstore in lower Manhattan in the early 1970s.

(Picture button of Margaret Thatcher) — The former Conservative Party prime minister of Great Britain.

So, when you combine chicken + Koch + A + Tory, you kinda get ...

Chicken cacciatore — a familiar Italian dish.

And the winner, chosen completely at random, is ... Susan Daigle-Leach of Prescott, Ariz. If she can prove she's a U.S. citizen, she wins a TOTN t-shirt. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]

GOP's Bob Turner Wins Anthony Weiner House Seat In NY Upset

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 12:51:00 GMT

Republicans had reasons to cheer and Democrats to despair Wednesday with the upset special election victory in New York City of a Republican retired businessman who will complete the congressional term of Anthony Weiner, the Democrat who exited the U.S. House because of a sexting scandal.

Bob Turner, a 70-year old former cable television executive, beat David Weprin, a 55-year old, state assemblyman, in a district which had, until Tuesday, been reliably Democratic for nearly 100 years.

The election was being interpreted by both Democrats and Republicans as a fearful omen for Obama's reelection chances. Republicans nationalized the race, making it a referendum on President Obama's handling of the economy and Middle East policy.

In a statement, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) said:

"This clear rebuke of President Obama's policies delivers a blow to Democrats' goal of making Nancy Pelosi the Speaker again. New Yorkers put Washington Democrats on notice that voters are losing confidence in a President whose policies assault job-creators and affront Israel. An unpopular President Obama is now a liability for Democrats nationwide in a 2012 election that is a referendum on his economic policies.

While Democrats privately worried that much of what Sessions said might be true, senior party officials, at least publicly, downplayed what could only be seen as a psychically devastating loss for the party.

Following the loss, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D-FL), chair of the Democratic National Committee, demonstrated some of why President Obama chose her to hold that position. From The Wall Street Journal:

Democratic party leaders insisted the loss wasn't a harbinger of things to come. "It's a very difficult district for Democrats," said Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, noting its Democratic margins there tend to be the second lowest of all the districts in New York City.

And that was despite Democrats having a 3-to-1 voter registration in the New York's 9th Congressional District, which straddles the New York boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. Also Weiner, who held the seat for seven terms, beat Turner by 20 percentage points last November.

It anything was capable of striking fear in the hearts of Democratic Party officials on Wednesday and in the days and weeks beyond, it was a sentiment expressed by a lifelong Democratic voter to a New York Times reporter:

"I am a registered Democrat, I have always been a registered Democrat, I come from a family of Democrats — and I hate to say this, I voted Republican," said Linda Goldberg, 61, after casting her ballot in Queens. "I need to send a message to the president that he's not doing a very good job. Our economy is horrible. People are scared."

But special elections can have special dynamics which make such races harder to generalize from and this one surely had those. For instance, the district has a large number of orthodox Jews who apparently responded well to Turner's charge that Obama was insufficiently supportive of Israel.

That Turner is a Roman Catholic and Weprin is an observant Jew apparently mattered less than perceptions of Obama's Mideast policies, suggesting that religious identity was paradoxically and simultaneously less and more important in the race. Talk about your Talmudic riddles.

The Republican win in New York City came only months after Democrats celebrated an upset win of their own in western upstate New York. Democratic Rep. kathy Hochul defeated a Republican in what had been a reliably Republican district. That race was nationalized by Democrats to become a referendum on House Republicans' controversial efforts to largely privatize Medicare.

Democrats may not have to worry about Turner for long. He immediately myst start running for re-election. Also, his district is likely to be one of the two the state will lose as a result of the decennial reapportionment following the 2010 census.

While Republicans were able to score an upset in New York, Democrats were unable to pull their own upset in Nevada. As expected, Republican Mark Amodei easily beat Democrat Kate Marshall for the 2nd Congressional District seat vacated by U.S. Sen. Dean Heller when he was appointed to fill the seat left open when Jon Ensign resigned because of a sex scandal. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]