Legislation to allow major industrial users of electricity to negotiate with power companies for special rates passed the House of Delegates Tuesday 98-0 and goes to the governor.more >>
A bill to allow optometrists to perform new procedures advanced from House Health and Human Resources Committee Tuesday evening -- with all provisions to allow them to perform laser surgery stripped out of the bill (SB230).more >>
The head of the Senate Finance Committee warned that the governor's proposal to publicly finance state Supreme Court races could be derailed by concerns over the fees it would charge.more >>
In Michigan, where many enterprises are struggling to survive, the renowned University of Michigan is in the midst of a construction boom and hiring spree. Michigan State University, on the other hand, plans to lay off faculty and cut programs, blaming state funding that is lower than it was a decade ago. Flagship universities in other states are also prospering, while their lesser-known counterparts suffer from vanishing state appropriations.
So, why not change the arrangement and require big-name universities to take responsibility for their own financing, leaving more state money to support the other state schools? As legislatures face their toughest budget year since the recession began, the idea of giving a few universities autonomy to control their own finances has some appeal.more >>
The West Virginia Department of Education has awarded a contract to a Texas company to improve its food service operations at schools across the state.more >>
Unemployment rates are up in all of West Virginia's 55 counties. Figures released Tuesday by Workforce West Virginia also show the number of counties reporting rates much worse than average declined slightly in January.more >>
Another group opposed to federal health care legislation is including West Virginia in an ad campaign targeting congressional Democrats on the issue. Americans for Responsible Health Care is warning U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-3rd, and six of his colleagues not to vote for what may emerge from ongoing talks. Politico has an item.
The Hill is counting Rahall as "undecided" and Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-1st, as a "no comment" in its continuing "whip count" of House Democrats on health care legislation.
Public Broadcasting (with audio) is among those reporting on legislation co-sponsored by Mollohan and Rahall that would "prevent the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases from stationary sources, such as coal-fired power plants, for the next two years."
The Charleston Daily Mail quotes Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-2nd, and several of Rahall and Mollohan's would-be GOP challengers to report that "officials say bill will not save jobs."
Mollohan's Democratic primary opponent, state Sen. Mike Oliverio, D-Monongalia, wants them to face off at a series of debates before the May election, MetroNews reports.
The House Health and Human Resources has amended the bright, shiny object of the 2010 session by removing laser surgery from among the additional eye care procedures sought by optometrists.
The Legislature has taken its first step toward crafting a new state spending plan, with the Senate Finance Committee amending and advancing Gov. Joe Manchin's budget bill, The Associated Press reports.
Federal stimulus-related funds increase its total amount by around $248 million, but it "still cuts overall state spending by nearly 3 percent when compared to what the Legislature passed last year," the article said.
Changes also reflect the recent scaling back of pension premium hikes by the state's Consolidated Public Retirement Board, AP reports.
"Manchin outlined a spending plan in January that totaled just under $11 billion," the article said. "It included $3.7 billion backed by general tax revenues, $571 million from lottery proceeds and $4.3 billion from federal dollars."
Though the Senate is taking the lead on the budget this year, House Finance could take up its version of the budget bill Wednesday. Lawmakers expect to remain at the Capitol for about a week beyond Saturday's regular session finale to complete the new budget.
The Feb. 21-24 survey found 54 percent viewing the Supreme Court positively, but with 78 percent indicating that campaign contributions had at least some influence on decisions.
When first asked, 68 percent considered that a serious problem, and 52 percent said they at least somewhat supported a public financing program.
The pollsters then told those surveyed about the U.S. Supreme Court's recent appearance of improprierty ruling targeting state Justice Brent Benjamin's presence in a Massey Energy Co. appeal (phrasing found on page 5).
Those viewing campaign cash as a serious problem then jumped to 89 percent, with support of public financing rising to 61 percent.
Among other related findings in the poll:
62 percent supported an additional court of appeals;
91 percent agree that judicial candidates should disclose their contributors;
75 percent would require third parties to disclose their spending on ads in these races;
78 percent supported "requiring judges to remove themselves from any case in which one of the parties involved contributed money to help elect the judge."
Other numbers from the survey were posted earlier. Anzalone Liszt Research, which works with Democratic candidates, conducted the poll. The margin of error was +/- 4 percentage points.
Update: Senate Finance Chairman Walt Helmick tells The Associated Press that the court fees charged under the bill to raise some of the needed public funding could doom the measure in his committee.
With the 60-day session concluding at midnight Saturday (corrected), the Charleston Daily Mail asks whether the length of the Legislature's annual get-together is "too long, too short or just right."
The article said critics consider the regular session "too long and thus hammers taxpayers with needless expense," and believe that "legislators dawdle for most of the two months and do little or nothing until the very end."
The Associated Press examined this bit of conventional wisdom in 2008, by focusing on how the House and Senate each spent their daily floor sessions.
The results: over the course of the 60 days, "legislators spent two-thirds of their time on the key task assigned them by voters: to craft, advance and vote on bills." And while the session's opening days "were heavy on ceremony, as bills had only started the legislative process," daily floor sessions began to exhibit the overall trend before the halfway point.
In its article, the Daily Mail noted an observation from Brenda Nichols Harper, a longtime lobbyist and former state official, who said that "some people - lawyers, included - are unaware of how much work it takes to make a law. 'They come up here and they think you can pull a rabbit out of a hat,'" Harper is quoted as saying.
AP has also tried to assess the Legislature's pace with an ongoing analysis of the committee process, and expects to report on the results following the session.
West Virginia lawmakers may share their power to grant specialty license plates, The Associated Press reports. A Senate committee is slated to take up a House-passed bill that would allow the Division of Motor Vehicles commissioner to issue plates sought by non-political nonprofit groups under certain condition. DMV officials recently testified that motorists can choose from among 110 specialty plates so far.
The Charleston Daily Mail reports that House Education "endorsed a bill that would revise the way West Virginia colleges pay their staff and also strengthen the state's Higher Education Policy Commission by taking back some autonomy from Marshall University and West Virginia University." MetroNews also has an item.
The Register-Herald reports on an "anti-racial profile training" provision added by the Senate to a House-passed bill targeting criminal gang activity.
West Virginia will go another year without treating failure to wear a seat belt as a primary offense for traffic stops, after House Roads and Transportation elected not to take up the necessary bill, MetroNews reports.
Public Broadcasting reports on a Senate committee advancing legislation that "would strengthen reporting requirements for Marcellus shale drilling," adding that "environmentalists and regulators want the bill, but some oil and gas representatives think it’s unnecessary." With audio.
Legislation that would "require doctors to offer women the chance to view ultrasound images before getting an abortion" is down to its final committee for review, The Associated Press and others report.
AP was among those on hand for the more than three hours of debate that preceded the 16-9 vote by the House Health and Human Resources Committee's decision to endorse the bill and advance it to House Judiciary.
Foes say the Senate-passed measure "is insulting to women and meant to intimidate doctors," the article said. "Supporters say it simply provides women with the opportunity for more information."
AP also notes that House Judiciary is "where bills that would restrict abortion have been stranded for the last several years. A change in leadership at that committee might spell a different outcome this year."
The Charleston Gazette reported earlier that while Chairman Tim Miley, D-Harrison, is anti-abortion, his wife Susan is not and spoke against the bill at last week's public hearing. MetroNews follows up on that, with audio from the chairman.
The attitudes of West Virginia voters heading into this year's elections may be glimpsed in polling conducted by supporters of Gov. Joe Manchin's Supreme Court public financing bill:
36 percent said they were more likely to vote for Republican congressional candidates compared to 35 percent more likely to go with Democrats, even though 49 percent considered themselves Democratic/leaning versus 37 percent Republican/leaning (and 61 percent said they were registered Democrats, versus 32 percent Republican);
43 percent thought West Virginia was moving in the right direction, while 40 percent indicated wrong direction;
Manchin scored a 76 percent favorable rating and a 77 percent job approval rating;
55 percent viewed the Legislature favorably, 34 percent unfavorably;
58 percent were favorable toward the state Supreme Court, though another 22 offered no rating; 54 percent approved of its performance;
Justice Brent Benjamin's favorables/unfavorables were 13 percent/18 percent, with only 31 percent identifying him and 69 percent offering no rating;
Justice Robin Davis scored a 17 percent/6 percent, with a 23 percent name recognition and 77 percent declining to rate her.
The poll also asked about Don Blankenship. The Massey CEO was rated 23 percent favorable/33 percent unfavorable, with 56 able to ID him.
The Legislature's poll numbers appear to buck a trend that Politico sees for statehouses elsewhere. "Numerous" state legislatures are "bottoming out" in recent polling, the article said, "showing off-the-charts disapproval ratings accompanied by stunning levels of voter cynicism."
Governors in other states sport dismal job performance numbers as well. Public Policy Polling had an item on the subject in January.
Anzalone Liszt Research, which works with Democratic candidates, interviewed 600 registered West Virginia voters from Feb. 21-24 for the poll released Monday. The margin of error was +/- 4 percentage points.
A Senate-passed bill "would forbid raffle games offered by charities to feature electronic or mechanical devices," the article said. " Anyone possessing such machines after July 1 would face a felony charge."
But the legislation surfaces amid a legal challenge against state regulators by the Harrison County Elks Lodge that lost 144 "video-enhanced raffle ticket dispensing machines" in a raid last year, AP reports.
Update: The House Judiciary Committee advanced the bill to the full House, AP reports, after amending it "to ensure it did not include such equipment as drums for drawing numbers." Chairman Tim Miley also noted the bill's start date means it could not apply in the Elks Lodge's case.
Several national groups are weighing in on "legislation that would offer public funds to future candidates for West Virginia's Supreme Court," The Associated Press reports.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall and a bill supporter, is hosting a Monday afternoon Capitol press conference with leaders from Justice at Stake and the Committee for Economic Development.
The two organizations have taken stances previously on issues involving West Virginia's court system. Endorsing the House-passed bill, the groups commissioned a poll they say shows bipartisan support for the measure.
But the Center for Competitive Politics has argued against the public financing of election campaigns. Questioning the benefits of such measures, it has warned Kessler that the pending bill contains "serious constitutional flaws," AP reports.
Update: Kessler's committee endorsed the bill Monday on a non-unanimous voice vote, sending it to Senate Finance, AP reports.
With the 60-day session ending at midnight Saturday, The Associated Press highlights some of the higher-profile measures that West Virginia's Legislature might pass to Gov. Joe Manchin.
Just over 300 bills remain in play following last week's crossover deadline, out of nearly 2,080 introduced. Another dozen have already completed their legislative travels.
(By comparison, 377 crossed over last year, out of 2,110 bills. In 2008, 345 bills made the deadline out of 2,131 introduced.)
"Given the still-fragile economy, few if any of these propose major changes to taxes, spending or public policy," the article said. "Senate Finance Chairman Walt Helmick said he and his committee intend to keep it that way as they sift through House-passed bills this week."
Helmick's committee is taking the lead on the new budget this session. Manchin is expected to keep lawmakers in town an additional week or so to complete action on that bill. As proposed by the governor, it would reduce all state spending by around 2 percent during the budget year that begins July 1.
The Associated Press reports that "state lawmakers appear ready to increase the independence of West Virginia's local governments, and they aren't waiting on results from an ongoing experiment on the subject."
The article highlights two House-passed measures now in the Senate that Gov. Joe Manchin included in his agenda this session and that have won the back of such groups as the state's Municipal League.
"Both proposals emerged from the home-rule pilot project that since 2007 has allowed a handful of cities to test out expanded powers," the article said. "But the bills' opponents want to wait until the project ends and reports results."
Besides Manchin, supporters of the measures include cities taking part in the pilot program and the West Virginia Municipal League. The state's Insurance Federation helped craft one of the bills, and believes it can help resolve its pending legal battle with Huntington.
The Charleston Gazette, meanwhile, highlights that city's participation in the pilot project. "I just can't say enough about this home rule," Charleston Planning Director Dan Vriendt told the newspaper. "It's worked just the way we hoped it would."
"You have to identify something and label it so you can talk about it, and 'socialism' is a good scare word. ... I'm so tired of this politically correct crap. If it's socialism, let's call it that. If not, let's call it something else."
-- Donna Lou Gosney, West Virginia's Republican National Committeewoman, to NPR while commenting on "revelations that the Republican National Committee urged fundraisers to shake the money trees by playing on fears about President Obama and 'socialism."
(Politico first reported on the strategy document that advises the GOP to raise funds "through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on 'fear'" and "outlines how 'ego-driven' wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and 'tchochkes.'"
"What's so dumb is that somebody left it in the hotel," Gosney, an RNC member, also told NPR. "If you can't go into a private hotel meeting and talk honestly, we're going to be in big trouble.")
West Virginia is not among the finalists for the first round of federal "Race to the Top" education grants, bringing into play Gov. Joe Manchin's State of the State pledge to convene a special session to ensure it qualifies in the next round.
But Manchin tells The Associated Press and others that he first needs to see why the state fell short before outlining an agenda.
In the meantime, "state schools Superintendent Steve Paine, administrators, teachers unions, educators and others" are ready to "tweak their application and resubmit it by June 1, the deadline for the second round," AP reports.
"West Virginia education officials invested more than 4,500 hours trying to land $80 million for educational reforms," the article notes.
As president of the national association representing such regulators, state Insurance Commissioner Jane Cline was at the table for a White House meeting with President Barack Obama regarding health care legislation.
The Associated Press reports that Cline was among several of her counterparts from other states as well as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and top insurance executives.
"On the agenda: proposed premium hikes Sebelius said are making consumers' jaws drop around the country," the article said. "Sebelius said the long-term solution is a new health insurance marketplace that Obama wants to create for individuals and small businesses."
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners said state regulators "stressed the importance of thorough and objective rate review, adding that premium increases must be actuarially justified without discriminating unfairly against any groups of policyholders," it said in a release afterward.
“State regulators are best positioned to perform rate review and many of us do so with great success,” Cline said in the release. “Some, however, have not been given the authority by their state legislatures to review and deny unjustified increases. We believe that a federal backstop could help encourage these legislatures to provide that authority.” The White House has posted a photo from the meeting, showing Cline second from the president's left.
Politico casts U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., as " guardian of Senate tradition" to count him among the 10 people "who'll help determine whether Democrats can get a (health care) reform bill through."
The piece cites Byrd's recent rebuttal, to an editorial in the Charleston Daily Mail, in which he gives "a qualified thumbs-up to using reconciliation to pass a package of fixes to the already approved Senate bill."
Calling him "a master of the Senate’s parliamentary maze" and "the fiercest Democratic critic of using reconciliation to pass the entire health care bill," Politico concludes that "Democrats must be careful, though, to play by Byrd’s rules when they craft a reconciliation bill, or the longest-serving senator could be their biggest headache."
Update:Political Wire also picks up on Byrd telling the newspaper "his views about budget reconciliation have been misinterpreted."
Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-2nd, opposed the measure, as did all but 6 GOP members present for the 217-201 roll call.
Thirty-five Democrats also voted against what The Associated Press reported as "legislation giving companies that hire the jobless a temporary payroll tax break," and that "also extends federal highway programs through the end of the year."
With "further jobs measures are promised," AP notes the debate over the scale of this bill as well as the tension between the House and Senate over such proposals.
"Economist Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com said the new hiring tax credit could spur creation of about 250,000 new jobs," AP reported. "Several lawmakers in both parties criticized the payroll tax break, saying that it wouldn't do much to create jobs and that the bulk of it would go to employers for new hires that would be made anyway."
The Rothenberg Political Report offers an online teaser to an analysis in its latest (subscription) print edition of the re-election prospects for U.S. Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-1st.
District voters "have been sending a Mollohan to Congress for over three decades, but this year, Republicans are making a very serious run at breaking the streak," the snippet says. "Mollohan usually doesn’t raise a lot of money or start his campaign until late in the cycle, but unless he starts getting his act together, the fourteen-term Democratic incumbent could well lose a seat that has been in his family for two generations."
Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, meanwhile, notes West Virginia's approaching May 11 primary in a piece that seeks to measure anti-incumbent sentiment this election cycle.
"To be sure, no House incumbents were defeated in either Illinois or Texas, or for that matter, were even closely contested," that analysis said. "But by modern standards, it would still be quite noteworthy if even six or seven House members, and a senator and governor or two, were beaten over the course of the primary season."
The House of Delegates chamber is slated to host a public hearing this hour on the Senate-passed bill that The Associated Press described earlier as "aimed at getting women to look at fetal ultrasound images when considering an abortion."
The House of Delegates is moving quickly on a string of Senate-passed measures targeting prescription drug abuse, a major topic in that chamber this session, The Associated Press reports.
The House's Health and Human Resources Committee has already advanced one of those measures, which "would require all pharmacies in the state to provide pharmacists with access to West Virginia's online prescription drug database," writes AP's Tom Breen. "The idea is to allow pharmacists to see when patients are trying to get multiple fills on a single prescription, a common practice for people abusing drugs."
But the article said that Rite Aid and CVS, perhaps the state's largest pharmacy chains, "have internal policies restricting employee access to the Internet for security reasons." It adds that a Rite Aid spokeswoman said her " company doesn't think the West Virginia bill would be too onerous to meet."
The House and Senate exchanged around 317 bills by Wednesday's procedural deadline, out of nearly 2,080 introduced. While seven have already completed their legislative travels, the rest remain in play during the session's final 10 days.
The Associated Press reported earlier that Gov. Joe Manchin's entire agenda beat the deadline (except for the budget bill, which remains pending). That wish list includes a bill to refocus the West Virginia Turnpike's parent agency solely on roadways while also allowing it to operate tolls elsewhere in the state.
AP noted that "the measure advanced after language was removed that would have discounted rates for residents of counties that host toll roads to a dollar per booth. Critics questioned the constitutionality of that provision."
But the lawmaker behind that discount, Senate Majority Leader Truman Chafin, D-Mingo, replaced it with an amendment that would offer 1,000 free transponders for the "EZ Pass" commuter discount system annually. The Charleston Gazette, MetroNews and The Register-Herald of Beckley also report on that bill.
Of other measures crossing over:
A Senate-passed measure "takes some autonomy back from Marshall and West Virginia universities but lets the schools maintain control in areas such as tuition and fee hikes," the Herald-Dispatch of Huntington reports.
The Register-Herald reports that a with a "lopsided" Senate vote, "West Virginia moved a step closer Wednesday to legalizing louder and more colorful" fireworks.
AP and the Herald-Dispatch bring attention to a House bill that targets drivers who fail to halt for stopped school buses. "Lawmakers and family members have pressed for such penalties following the death of 6-year-old Haven Brooke McCarthy," AP reports. "She had just stepped off her Lincoln County school bus in December 2007 when a passing vehicle struck her." Delegates passed a version of the bill last year, also unanimously, but the Senate never took it up.
Last year's death of a Charleston police office helped prompt another House-passed bill, this one leveled at criminals who flee or obstruct law enforcement, AP reports.
AP reports as well on the unanimous Senate passage of a bill " to require teens between 14 and 18 to get written permission from their parents before using a tanning lamp, booth or bed."
The Senate has also proposed removing some archaic laws from the books, AP reports, voting unanimously to repeal statutes that outlaw waving red flags, wearing hats in a theater and engaging in "lewd cohabitation.''
(Update)Public Broadcasting observes that the bulk of bills introduced each session never reach a vote, and offers some of the reasons as to why. With audio.
FactCheck.org has reviewed the television spot targeting several Democratic U.S. House members, including Reps. Alan Mollohan, W.Va.-01, and Nick Rahall, W.Va.-03, and concludes that "the ad is filled with misleading claims."
The analysis notes that the "relatively unknown conservative group called the League of American Voters" behind the ad has received a “cease and desist” letter from the League of Women Voters. That league alleges that this other group is "using a name clearly designed to be confused with the League’s in order to disseminate misleading information and block health care reform."
FactCheck also responds to attacks leveled against it by the conservative group's leader in The Charleston Gazette.
After Wednesday, only bills that have already cross between the House and Senate can advance as the session enters its final 10 days. More than 220 had been exchanged as of Tuesday.
The Associated Press (update) checks on how Gov. Joe Manchin's legislative agenda has fared so far. As noted earlier, all of its proposals (except the pending budget bill) have either already crossed over or are up for Wednesday votes.
As for other goings-on:
AP sets the scene for the House's consideration of "a measure to fund substance abuse programs that no longer includes a beer tax increase." House Finance broadened the bill's potential revenue sources that could include (but does not specifically mention) "an untapped Medicaid fund reserve."
The Senate has sent the House a bill that "gives pharmacists and doctors better access to a database that tracks prescribed controlled substances," the Herald-Dispatch of Huntington reports.
Both the Herald-Dispatch and The Charleston Gazette report on Senate passage of a measure that the latter said "would make West Virginia the 41st state to require an online verification system for auto insurance." Supporters say this "would crack down on the large numbers of uninsured drivers in West Virginia, which should result in lower overall auto insurance rates statewide," that article said.
A key House leader expects delegates will change the Senate bill that "would allow optometrists with the required training and approval to do three kinds of laser eye surgery," MetroNews reports.
The proposed spending plan for the budget year that begins July 1 cuts spending on tobacco prevention by 30 percent, even though West Virginia "has the nation's highest smoking rate," The Gazette reports.
Here is your reminder to come to the PSC hearing Thursday evening.
The WV Public Service Commission will be holding a public hearing on the December 2009 blackout that struck southern and central West Virginia. The PSC is in the middle of studying the causes of the blackout.
The hearing will be held on Thursday, March 11 at 6:00 p.m. at he Harrison County Recreation Complex/4-H Center located on 23 Recreation Drive in Clarksburg. If you are an intervenor in the PATH case at the PSC, you will be allowed to testify at this hearing, because it is a different case.
A Morgantown friend has been looking at the WV Consumer Advocate's responses to Allegheny Energy's recent rate increase request at the PSC. It turns out that Allegheny's WV division has vastly underspent on vegetation control in the last three years. You might want to include some of this evidence in your testimony Thursday night.
Here is a direct quote from the CAD's response to Allegheny's most recent rate increase request available at http://www.psc.state.wv.us/scr...
The vegetation control expense for calendar years 2006, 2007 and 2008 have been $18.0 million, $15.0 million and $20.1 million, respectively. The annual vegetation control expense has been less than the $23.9 million that the Companies are seeking, and, except for 2008, the annual expense has been even less than the 2005 test year amounts. This hardly suggests an "increased pace" as anticipated by the Commission.
In an earlier rate case, the PSC had stated:
the Commission encourages an increased pace of right-of-way maintenance and, therefore, will carve out this proposed adjustment for special treatment in this case and in future cases. The Companies should clearly understand that the $4.3 million allowance is for additional regular maintenance necessitated by moving to a more aggressive four-year maintenance cycle, as compared to the approximately $19.6 million spent per year for normal right-of way vegetation control.
In other words, since the last rate increase Allegheny got, Allegheny has seriously under-spent on vegetation control. They collected the higher rates, but they didn't spend the money they saved on clearing rights-of-way. And my power was out for six days last December as a result.
Here is what the Consumer Advocate Division concluded about Allegheny's right-of-way maintenance:
Without prejudging the outcome of the Commission's General Investigation into the recent storm-related outages, it certainly is reasonable to suspect that the Companies' failure to accelerate their vegetation control program as envisioned by the Commission's Order in Case No. 06-0960-E-42T may have had a significant impact on the extent, severity, and duration of the outages experienced by the Companies' customers as a result of the December snow storm.
Gosh, do ya think?
Remember what Allegheny's CEO Evanson told investors in his last conference call:
And we'll be vigilant in our efforts to control costs and spending. Our plan is to keep [inaudible] O&M; [Operations & Maintenance] flat marking the fifth consecutive year of no increase in costs, an accomplishment I think few can match.
During that same time period when Mr. Evanson managed this "accomplishment few can match," WV rate payers were paying for right-of-way maintenance they weren't getting. Also during that same time period, Mr. Evanson was the eighth highest paid CEO in the US. Now we know where our money went.
Also in their most recent rate increase request, Allegheny wants the WV PSC to stop monitoring the effectiveness of their right-of-way maintenance because that is an "administrative burden."
Here is what the CAD said about that:
Q. SHOULD THE COMMISSION ABOLISH THE MONITORING OF VEGETATION CONTROL EXPENSES AS REQUESTED BY THE COMPANIES?
A. No. Such a removal of oversight would be unwise in light of the Companies' failure to meet the spending targets they themselves proposed in the last rate case and which were approved by the Commission. Those amounts were included in the Companies' cost of service and reflected in rates charged to customers. Given the likelihood that the failure to spend the specified amounts on right-of-way maintenance exacerbated the impact of the December 2009 snow storm, it would seem inappropriate to reward the Company with continued higher levels of expense for this issue without ensuring that the amounts included in cost of service are indeed expended for their intended purpose. [emphasis added]
I tend to agree.
I have a question of my own for our PSC Commissioners -- Shouldn't you be more concerned about fixing the reliability of West Virginia's own distribution power grid, before you go approving monster transmission lines to New Jersey using our electric rate money?
Campaign finance activist Doris "Granny D" Haddock, who walked across the country pushing for reform at age 90, died last night surrounded by family in her Dublin home. She was 100.
[..]
"She always said she'd live to be 100, and she did," Jim Haddock, her son, said.
Born in Laconia in 1910, Haddock was drawn to politics in 1960, when she opposed a plan to test hydrogen bombs in Alaska. After retiring as an assistant at a shoe company, she again became involved in politics in the 1990s.
Ten years ago, she walked across the country in support of removing "soft" money from electoral politics, later writing a book about the experience. In 2004 she was the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, challenging incumbent Republican Judd Gregg and garnering 34 percent of the vote. After the election, she continued her efforts by speaking at political rallies and continuing her daily walks.
Photo courtesy of OVEC
Mrs. Haddock was also a great friend of West Virginia, and walked through our state on her march to Washington. Over the last decade, she continued to work with local activists, such as Ken Hechler, Winnie Fox and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.
- Her thoughts on coal and mountaintop removal, from a 2003 speech, can be found here.
She remained active beyond her 100th birthday and, last month, urged citizens to organize and fight against the Supreme Court's now infamous ruling allowing unlimited spending by corporations in political races:
The Supreme Court, representing a radical fringe that does not share the despair of the grand majority of Americans, has today made things considerably worse by undoing the modest reforms I walked for and went to jail for, and that tens of thousands of other Americans fought very hard to see enacted. So now, thanks to this Court, corporations can fund their candidates without limits and they can run mudslinging campaigns against everyone else, right up to and including election day.
[..]
And to the Supreme Court, you force us to defend our democracy--a democracy of people and not corporations--by going in breathtaking new directions. And so we shall.
SB614 passed the House Judiciary Committee on a voice vote this afternoon. The bill could get its first reading at this evening's House session. The bill could make it to a floor vote as early as tomorrow evening, if the House has two floor sessions again tomorrow.
The bill provides that land owners to be affected by high voltage power lines get individual notice at the beginning of PSC cases, as is done in PA and VA. The bill also provides that the PSC must consider the impacts of high voltage power lines on West Virginians, in addition to regional power companies and customers.
For the sake of consistency, will the yes votes for the intrusive and medically unnecessary ultrasound bill also require men to get ultrasounds before they have a vasectomy? Afterall, they've of the mind set that the government should intrude in the medical decisions of doctors. I thought conservatives opposed governnment intrusion. Yeah, I know, in reality they are for every form of intrusion into the privacy of someone's home, particularly the bedroom. But the Every Sperm Is Sacred believers should treat men equally. They won't of course because they don't think women are equal and capable of making decisions for themselves. That's why they want to throw up so many hurdles as a way to punish them for having the audacity for wanting to control their own bodies. Too bad so many women on that committee go along with that mindset.
UPDATE:
Great news! As the Legislative Action Alert requested, the second reference to Finance was dispensed with. HB4373 will be on 1st reading today (Thursday). It is expected to pass without much objection. Thanks to all who made calls and thanks to Sen. Helmick for waiving the reference to his committee.
CALL ALERT: Please call Sen. Walt Helmick and ask him to pass HB 4373.
Don't make WV children wait to get heath insurance.
HB 4373 would eliminate the 12-month prior insurance "look back" period, the period for which children in families over 200% of the Federal Poverty Level have to be uninsured before qualifying for CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program). Eliminating the "look back" period enables children to have quicker access to health insurance.
HB 4373 has passed the House of Delegates, but is double referenced in the State Senate. Action is particularly needed to ensure its passage in the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Senator Walt Helmick.
Please contact Senator Helmick and ask him to waive the second reference of HB 4373 to the Senate Finance Committee. The Fiscal impact of HB 4373 is very modest, only $36,000, and CHIP can absorb this modest cost with their current appropriation. There is no increase appropriation needed.
Senator Walt Helmick responds better to phone calls than email. Please politely call Senator Helmick at 304-357-7980 and ask him to waive the second reference for HB 4373, so that WV children don't have to wait to get insurance coverage due to an arbitrary waiting period.
UPDATE: HB 4373 has now been passed by the Senate Banking & Insurance Committee. It's up to Sen. Helmick whether the bill will be able to pass.Thanks Sen. Helmick for waiving the second reference.
Someone emailed me this link to an excellent State Journal story about the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and Blind in Romney.
Mary Ennis Kesler, 30, said she sometimes tries to explain to her students just how much cell phone text-messaging, the Internet and other technology have changed life for people with hearing impairments.
"We have access to the whole world now," said Kesler, a Lewis County native who enrolled at the Romney school in 1984 when she was 4. "Technology has made it so that not being able to hear doesn't keep a person from doing anything they want to do. There are all these ways to communicate, all these ways to learn. We're not isolated like before."
Situated on the same campus, the state's School for the Blind also is experiencing a revolution in technology with a plethora of devices such as Braille PDAs and laptops equipped with the latest in voice-recognition software.
Despite the tech revolution, the Romney school in many ways approaches its mission in the same way it did in its earliest days, said Patsy Shank, the school's superintendent.
"It's about our students and what they need as individuals," said Shank, a Keyser native who began teaching here in 1981 and became superintendent in mid-2007.
Following last week's launch of anti-Democratic attacks by the prostitute-loving Dick Morris (who admitted his commercials were full of factual errors), a new group of rightwingers is airing "issue ads" against Rahall and Mollohan.
This week, the West Virginia Republicans can count on help from the American Future Fund.
A quick look into the past of the future fund shows it's made up of the expected Lee Atwater disciples:
- Former spokesman for the House GOP in Iowa, Tim Albrecht, who also worked on Mitt Romney's failed presidential campaign.
- Ben Ginsburg, legal counsel for the group. You'll remember Ginsburg as chief outside counsel for the Bush Cheney campaign in 2004. He, of course, had to resign his position when it was revealed he was advising the Swift Boat smear effort and contradicting the Bush campaign's claim that they had nothing to do with "outside" attacks on Sen. John Kerry.
- and Larry McCarthy, media strategist for the group - best known for producing the racist-as-hell Willie Horton ad for Bush Sr.'s campaign against Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1988. So, to review, we now have groups tied to the Swift Boat Liars, the Chambliss ad, Willie Horton and the 'white hands" spot lining up to help the opponents of Rahall and Mollohan.
And it's only March - a sure-fire sign a classy campaign will be coming from conservatives in the next 8 months.
Here's a picture of the GOP operatives in their undersea lair, hard at work on the next ad:
And here's the new 30-second spot - cheesy narration, tired rightwing memes, misinformation and all:
SB 614 would require more notice for land-owners in the corridor of planned high voltage transmission lines.
It would also require the Public Service Commission (PSC) to find that proposed transmission lines are in the best interest of West Virginia customers.
Call / e-mail Delegate to SUPPORT SB 614.
Find your Delegates now!
Delegate Miley - Chair
Delegate Hunt - Vice-Chair
Delegate Ellem - Minority Chair
Delegate Lane - Minority Vice-Chair
Delegate Barker
Delegate Brown
Delegate Caputo
Delegate Ferro
Delegate Fleischauer
Delegate Frazier
Delegate Hutchins
Delegate Longstreth
Delegate Michael
Delegate Moore
Delegate Ross
Delegate Shook
Delegate Skaff
Delegate Susman
Delegate Wells
Delegate Wooton
Delegate Hamilton
Delegate Overington
Delegate Schadler
Delegate Schoen
Delegate Sobonya
Check below the fold for other information from work in the Senate . . . West Virginia Environmental Council Action Alert
March 2, 2010 WVEC Alerts Archive
SB 614 would require more notice for land-owners in the corridor of planned high voltage transmission lines.
It would also require the Public Service Commission (PSC) to find that proposed transmission lines are in the best interest of West Virginia customers.
Sometime Wednesday (3/03) the Senate will vote on a floor amendment that improves the bill, and then on final passage of SB 614.
The vote on this bill will be close, so it is important that you contact your Senators immediately and ask them to support the floor amendment and the final bill.
Senator Clark Barnes (R-Randolph) - (304) 357-7973
Senator Donna Boley (R-Pleasants) - (304) 357-7905
Senator Edwin Bowman (D-Hancock) - (304) 357-7918
Senator Richard Browning (D-Wyoming) - (304) 357-7807
Senator Don Caruth (R-Mercer) - (304) 357-7901
Senator Truman Chafin (D-Mingo) - (304) 357-7808
Senator Frank Deem (R-Wood) - (304) 357-7970
Senator Lary Edgell (D-Wetzel) - (304) 357-7827
Senator Douglas Facemire (D-Braxton) - (304) 357-7845
Senator Karen Facemyer (R-Jackson) - (304) 357-7855
Senator John Pat Fanning (D-McDowell) - (304) 357-7867
Senator Dan Foster (D-Kanawha) - (304) 357-7866
Senator Mike Green (D-Raleigh) - (304) 357-7831
Senator Jesse Guills (R-Greenbrier) - (304) 357-7959
Senator Mike Hall (R-Putnam) - (304) 357-7843
Senator Walt Helmick (D-Pocahontas) - (304) 357-7980
Senator Evan Jenkins (D-Cabell) - (304) 357-7956
Senator Jeffrey Kessler (D-Marshall) - (304) 357-7880
Senator William Laird (D-Fayette) - (304) 357-7849
Senator Brooks McCabe (D-Kanawha) - (304) 357-7990
Senator Joseph Minard (D-Harrison) - (304) 357-7904
Senator Michael Oliverio (D-Monongalia) - (304) 357-7919
Senator Corey Palumbo (D-Kanawha) - (304) 357-7854
Senator Robert Plymale (D-Wayne) - (304) 357-7937
Senator Roman Prezioso (D-Marion) - (304) 357-7961
Senator Herb Snyder (D-Jefferson) - (304) 357-7957
Senator Ron Stollings (D-Boone) - (304) 357-7939
Senator Dave Sypolt (R-Preston) - (304) 357-7914
Senator John Unger (D-Berkeley) - (304) 357-7933
Senator Erik Wells (D-Kanawha) - (304) 357-7841
Senator Randy White (D-Webster) - (304) 357-7906
Senator Bob Williams (D-Taylor) - (304) 357-7995
Senator Jack Yost (D-Brooke) - (304) 357-7984
Got this off the WVEC website this pm, vote on floor today at 11 am
Good afternoon, West Virginia Blue readers. This is your late afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.
Help me out. Enjoy the Ogden silliness and flip-flop again. Add some news... Serious scheduling conflict today. Sorry.
Don't forget that the Congress set up the Congressional Oversight Panel. The last hearing was 4 March with Assistant Treasury Secretary Herbert M. Allison, Jr. and Citigroup Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit testifying. I am a big fan of Prof. Warren. Rep. Jeb Hensalring R-TX quit because there was going to be more to oversee.
On the general topic of the economy, Simon Johnson is worth the read today.
The editor of my local paper thinks they are smarter the Sen. Byrd on Senate procedure. They used to think he as standing tall. What a difference two days make. Hah!
The West Virginia Democratic Party has a strong slate of candidates running for office, in some cases against each other. In most of the primary races I intend to remain neutral, but people can take their own stances.
Two notable exceptions I'll state upfront. I strongly support the re-election of Nick Rahall and Alan Mollohan to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Sometimes the obvious needs to be stated: with the ads he is running, coal baron Don Blankenship wants to split Democrats. He knows he has no chance of winning those two House races. (He's willing to throw his vacation buddy Spike Maynard out as the Republican sacrificial lamb to lose to Rahall. Some friend you got their Spike. You two deserve each other.)
Blankenship's real agenda is at least twofold: 1.) to push the Overton window his direction no matter who is running and 2.) weaken Mollohan and Rahall for any future senatorial races by attacking them now and making them spend campaign resources now.
I'm not playing Blankenship's game. We've got two fine representatives for West Virginia in Mollohan and Rahall - I've long wished Rahall in particular was my representative instead of Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito - and those two gentleman have my support.
As always, I speak for myself. The rest of the fine community members of this group blog are free to disagree or agree.
I listened to a Congressman from Alabama give the Republican's weekly statement (after the President's weekly statement) on NBC this morning and was told that despite what Pelosi and Reid want, despite the threat of using reconciliation to push the Health Care bill through, the American People don't want the Health Care bill as it has been debated and argued over the past year. He said the American People want Congress and The President to "start over on a new page."
Here in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, about as American a location as you can find, I sit watching this knowing that I WANT a Health Care bill to be passed NOW. I know that if the government starts on a NEW PAGE it will be in the face of a rate-raising, highly profitable private insurance system and a 10-to-1 ratio of lobbyists who are NOT starting on a new page, who will work day and night to weaken any progress. Do I want to allow this to happen? Do I not want to see the potential for Health Care plans that will be made available for 30 million more people, that will allow insurance companies to cancel existing plans or not let folks with pre-existing conditions (like little ol' diabetic me) sign up if they change jobs? Am I not an American Person?
I asked my wife, who also wants to see Health Care passed NOW if she was an American Person. Oddly enough, she said she was. Last night we sat in a lounge with friends from the Philadelphia area (they are pretty American, too, and all 4 were People) and they had the same feelings about Health Care politics that we had.
Yet the Republicans keep pointing out that the American People want things to start again on a NEW Page.
Well, as an official American Person, in contact with lots of other American People, may I say that WE DON'T WANT TO START ON A NEW PAGE. We want the Health Care plan to go through NOW. We have too many other things to get to and we don't want to throw away all the work that has been done so far. And we don't want the Insurance Industry and the Lobbyists to be given still another advantage in the debate.
No Republicans have asked me for my opinion, yet, as an American Person, they are willing to form their opinion as reported words from my mouth. Maybe they should get on board with the rest of us and put America ahead of Party Politics.
A second former New Orleans Police Department officer has been charged in federal court in connection to the Sept. 4, 2005 shootings on the Danziger Bridge. Jeffrey Lehrmann, who left the NOPD to work for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was charged last month with concealing a crime, according to court documents unsealed Tuesday and obtained by our partners at the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
The bridge incident was particularly notorious. Police officers shot six citizens, killing two. Lehrmann, tasked with investigating what happened on the bridge, “participated in the creation of false reports” and provided “false information to investigating agents,” according to the bill of information filed by the U.S. Department of Justice.
As the Times-Picayune noted, Lehrmann also plays a central role in another ongoing controversy: While working as an NOPD detective he helped build the case against Michael Anderson, whose murder conviction was overturned recently when a judge found that prosecutors had failed to turn over key evidence to defense lawyers.
Last month, former NOPD Lt. Michael Lohman pleaded guilty to conspiring to obstruct justice in connection with the bridge shootings.
The Supreme Court recently freed corporations to spend more money on aggressive election ads. But if businesses take advantage of this new freedom, the public probably won't know it, because it's easy for them to legally hide their political spending.
Under current disclosure laws for federal elections, it's virtually impossible for the public to track how much a business spends, what it's spending on, or who ultimately benefits. Experts say the transparency problem extends to state and local races as well.
"There is no good way to gauge" how much any given company spends on elections, said Karl Sandstrom, a former vice chairman of the Federal Election Commission and counsel to the Center for Political Accountability. "There's no central collection of the information, no monitoring."
Companies invest in politics to win favorable regulations or block those "that could choke off their business model," said Robert Kelner, chairman of Covington & Burling's Washington, D.C., political law group. But they'd rather hide these political activities, he said, because they fear backlash from customers or shareholders.
For instance, a company may want to help Democratic politicians who support health care reforms that would benefit the company, but it worries about offending "Republican shareholders who may care more about their personal ideology than about their three shares of stock in the company," said Kelner, who says he represents many politically active Fortune 500 companies. "The same would be true on the other side of the political spectrum."
Businesses must reveal their identities on publicreports to the Federal Election Commission if they buy advertising on their own. But one popular and perfectly legal conduit for companies wanting to influence politics under the radar is to give money to nonprofit trade groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The Chamber and its national affiliates spent $144.5 million last year on advertising, lobbying and grass-roots activism -- more than either the Republican or Democratic party spent, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of public records -- while legally concealing the names of its funders. The Los Angeles Timesreported this week that the Chamber is building a grass-roots political operation that has signed up about 6 million non-Chamber members.
Now the Jan. 21 Supreme Court ruling that increases the potential political clout of businesses is drawing fresh attention to the problem of tracking them.
That decision (PDF), Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, allows corporations to run television ads that don't merely speak to an issue but say outright whether a candidate should be elected, and allows them to do so any time they want to, using their general funds. The ruling also gives nonprofit groups like the Chamber these new freedoms, because they are technically structured as corporations.
Before, corporations had to rely on employee and shareholder contributions to a separate political account to finance the most explicit commercials and, in the months before an election, any issue ads that mentioned a candidate. Although the decision addressed federal election rules, its constitutional rationale also dismantles similar restrictions in 24 states.
Soon after the ruling, two Democrats -- Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York -- announced they were writing a bill to make it easier to tell which companies are backing which ads in federal elections. An outline (PDF) of that bill, which is expected to be introduced this week, proposes forcing nonprofit groups to identify those who fund their political commercials.
At present, nonprofit groups don't have to disclose the sources of their advertising money, unless the donors specified that their contributions were intended for political ads.
"Unless you're sort of dumb enough to designate your contribution to the Chamber," said Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center, "no one will ever know who's the source of those funds."
Politically active nonprofits exist across the ideological and policy spectrum and include unions as well as trade groups. Their funders include both corporations and individuals, some of them very wealthy. But campaign finance experts say groups that advocate specifically for business tend to have the greatest resources, simply because corporations have the most money to give.
The lack of tracking mechanisms sometimes leaves company officials themselves in the dark about their organization's political activities, said Adam Kanzer, managing director and general counsel of Domini Social Investments, which files shareholder resolutions to push corporations to adopt self-monitoring and disclosure practices.
"In a lot of our conversations with companies, they say, 'We don't know exactly how our money is getting spent. It's hard to get those answers,'" Kanzer said. One major drug manufacturer, he said, signed on for voluntary disclosure after learning that its funds had supported a state judicial campaign that many voters -- who could be customers or shareholders -- viewed as racist.
The public price of spotty disclosure is not being able to gauge the real effects of corporation-backed politics, McGehee said. She questioned one argument, often made by defenders of the Citizens United decision, that the 26 states that have long allowed unlimited corporate advertising in their elections haven't suffered more political corruption than the rest of the nation.
"How would you know? Most of those states have next to no disclosure," McGehee said. Corporations "could be buying outcomes left and right, but because of no disclosure, we don't know." A 2007 examination by the National Institute on Money in State Politics found that, while 39 states required some degree of disclosure by political advertisers, the laws in most were riddled with loopholes. Only five states required enough detail to link sponsors with specific ads, the report said.
Rep. Van Hollen said the disclosure requirements he and Schumer are drafting would uncover the corporate political money flowing through nonprofit channels.
"If corporations spend money in these campaigns, we cannot allow them to hide behind sham organizations and dummy corporations that mislead voters," he said in a written comment to ProPublica. "Voters have a right to know who is delivering and paying for the message."
The requirements would apply to unions and liberal nonprofits as well as trade groups, according to the early outline of the bill. The proposal mentions additional transparency requirements -- such as mandating corporate disclosures to shareholders and "stand by your ad" appearances by CEOs of companies that finance commercials directly -- and seeks outright bans on political advertising by government contractors, bailout recipients and companies significantly controlled by foreigners.
A strong disclosure law would be "hugely effective" in revealing who is paying for political speech, said Trevor Potter, a former FEC chairman and head lawyer for John McCain's presidential campaigns, who is now general counsel at Campaign Legal Center.
But precisely for that reason, Potter said, politics may get in the way of any serious reform. He expects trade groups on the right, unions on the left and other cause groups across the board to fight hard against such legislation.
Already the political battle is taking shape.
Asked to comment on the push for more disclosure, the Chamber's chief legal officer and general counsel, Steven Law, instead attacked the political motives of the proponents. "Unions overwhelmingly support those who are pushing this legislation," he said in an e-mail. "This isn't about reform, it's about politicians trying to secure advantages for themselves before an election."
That reaction drew fire from one of the nation's most politically active unions, the Service Employees International Union, which also declined to comment on the new disclosure proposals. "The coming flood of corporate and foreign money into our elections through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a threat to democracy, plain and simple," said Anna Burger, SEIU's secretary-treasurer, in an e-mail. She called on legislators to "drag the Chamber's practices into the light of day."
The Chamber revealed more about its view of disclosure in an amicus brief (PDF) it filed in the Citizens United case on behalf of the 3 million business members it says it has. It supported the plaintiff, a nonprofit corporation called Citizens United, which wanted the Supreme Court not only to lift corporate advertising bans but also to strike down the existing disclosure requirements.
The Chamber argued that those requirements inhibited corporations from speaking out. If the public discovered that corporations were "taking controversial positions," it might punish them, the brief said. As an example, it pointed to a 2005 boycott of ExxonMobil products after the public learned the company was lobbying Congress to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.
That argument failed to persuade the high court, which by an 8-1 majority decided to leave the current disclosure laws intact.
Transparency is important, wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority, because it helps voters "give proper weight to different speakers and messages," and because it allows citizens to "see whether elected officials are 'in the pocket' of so-called moneyed interests."
The Recovery Tracker includes all the data used on the government’s stimulus Web site, Recovery.gov, and thousands of records the feds didn’t include—the law doesn’t require all recipients to report to Recovery.gov. We also cleaned out the cobwebs. Altogether they’re the most comprehensive publicly available analysis of stimulus spending.
Weather Alert: FLOOD WATCH - THE NATIOANL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED A FLOOD WATCH FROM THURSDAY EVENING THROUGH SATURDAY EVENING FOR THE FOLLOWING COUNTIES: BARBOUR, POCAHONTAS, RANDOLPH, UPSHUR AND WEBSTER. THE COMBINATION OF MELTING SNOW AND RAIN SHOWERS COULD PRODUCE FLOODING FOR LATE WEEK AND OVER THE WEEKEND. PERSONS LIVING IN A FLOOD PRONE AREA SHOULD STAY ALERT FOR RISING WATER.
The Supreme Court recently 
