News Release Archive - 2007

The Boston Globe reports: “Enrollment in the [Massachusetts] new subsidized health plan is growing so quickly that the state could face a funding gap as large as $147 million by the end of the fiscal year, according to a state projection.” The following analysts have been warning of the program’s problems:

STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER, MD
Associate professor of medicine at Harvard University, Woolhandler is co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program and co-wrote the piece “Massachusetts’ Mistake.”

She said today: “The Massachusetts health reform is busting the budget and already beginning to fall apart. The state based its budget projections on low-ball estimates of how many people are uninsured in the state, and unrealistic assumptions about what coverage would cost. And only 4 percent of the 244,000 uninsured people in the state who don’t qualify for subsidized coverage have thus far signed up for insurance.

“Yet Clinton, Obama and Edwards would follow this same failed model. In fact, they’re all proposing recycled versions of the ‘mandate model’reform, first proposed by Richard Nixon. This model has been tried and failed — in Massachusetts in 1988 under Mike Dukakis, and subsequently in Washington State and Oregon. Now it’s failing again in Massachusetts. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. The Democratic front-runners’ health reform plans are just that.”
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ZENEI CORTEZ
Cortez is a registered nurse and a member of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee Council of Presidents.

She said today: “What the Massachusetts experience demonstrates is the yearning of Americans for reform — those who receive public subsidies for healthcare coverage leap at the opportunity. But it also shows the looming disaster of a plan that diverts public funds for the benefit of the private insurance industry. California, whichis blindly following the Massachusetts path, will be an even bigger train wreck, with a current $10 billion deficit, and millions, not hundreds of thousands, of uninsured residents who would qualify for subsidies under a very similar plan now before the state legislature.

“The health plans in both states share the same fundamental flaws: insurance companies can continue to deny care, charge whatever they want, and limit coverage. Both states rely on mandating individuals to buy insurance, with little protection for those who will face greater medical debt or self-rationing of needed care as a result of the limited, minimal plans they are forced to buy. Only a more comprehensive, humane system, such as a single-payer, expanded Medicare-for-all system, is genuinely universal, controls costs, and stops the insurance companies from denying care while draining away vital public resources.”

The California Nurses Association has produced a number of video segments focusing on several presidential candidates.

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For further background on the Massachusetts plan, see the Institute for Public Accuracy news release from April 5, 2006: “The Massachusetts Health Plan: Behind the Hype.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167.

The following analysts are available to scrutinize some of the claims of Democratic presidential candidates at the debate Thursday night in Las Vegas:

DON McCANNE, M.D.
At last night’s debate, Hillary Clinton claimed: “I have a universal health care plan that covers everyone.” Barak Obama claimed that “the fact of the matter is that I do provide universal health care.”

Senior health policy fellow with the group Physicians for a National Health Program, McCanne writes a daily health policy update. He said today: “Neither Clinton’s nor Obama’s plans get us to universal coverage. Clinton claims that her plan is going to get universal coverage because it has an individual mandate, but that’s been tried and failed in several states. … Obama claims his plan gets universal coverage by making coverage affordable for people, but if you look at his proposals, there’s very little substance to it.”
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MARK WEISBROT
Sen. Obama talked of making “sure that Social Security is there for the people who need it.” An economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Weisbrot co-authored the book Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2000) and wrote the recent article “Memo to Obama: No Rush to ‘Fix’ Social Security.”

He said today: “Social Security can pay all promised benefits for nearly 40 years, according to the bi-partisan Congressional Budget Office. To ensure full benefits for the whole 75-year planning period will require only modest changes — less than we made in each of the decades of the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. There is no need for Presidential candidates to pretend that this is a serious problem when it clearly is not.”
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ROBERT NAIMAN
National coordinator and senior policy analyst at Just Foreign Policy, Naiman today wrote the piece “Clinton Flogs Alleged Iranian Role in Iraq — Even More Than Bush.” He said today: “In defending her votefor the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which critics have charged was intended to escalate towards military confrontation with Iran, Senator Clinton said ‘The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has assisted the militias and others in killing our Americans and maiming them [in Iraq].’

“This echoes unsubstantiated allegation by Senator Lieberman and the Bush administration that both Lieberman and the administration have claimed would justify U.S. military attacks on Iran. But, as Senator Clinton surely knows, the Bush administration has not produced evidence to substantiate these allegations.

“On February 12, the Washington Post reported on a much-awaited U.S. military briefing in Iraq that was supposed to substantiate these claims. ‘The officials offered no evidence to substantiate allegations that the ‘highest levels’ of the Iranian government had sanctioned support for attacks against U.S. troops.,’ noted the Post, adding that ‘the U.S. government has never publicly offered evidence proving the allegations.’ Iraq’s deputy foreign minister said the Iraqi government remains in the dark about the U.S. investigation into Iranian activities in Iraq. ‘It is difficult for us here in the diplomatic circles just to accept whatever the American forces say is evidence,’ he said. ‘If they have anything really conclusive, then they should come out and say it openly.’

“Regardless of what was true in the past, U.S. military officials are now saying that Iran has halted the smuggling of bombs into Iraq.’We have not seen any recent evidence that weapons continue to come across the border into Iraq.’ Army Maj. Gen. James Simmons said, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday. ‘We believe that the initiatives and the commitments that the Iranians have made appear to be holding up.’

“It’s very unfortunate that Senator Clinton is still pushing the claim that Iran is responsible for the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq when even the Bush administration seems to be backing away from claiming it.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167.

JONATHAN SCHELL
Schell’s most recent book is The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger. He just wrote the piece “Are You With Us… or Against Us? The Road from Washington to Karachi to Nuclear Anarchy.”
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MOHAMAD BAZZI
Bazzi recently wrote the piece “U.S. Must Cut Ties to Pakistan’s Dictator,” in which he states: “If anyone in the Muslim world still believed in the Bush administration’s historic promise to support democracy over political expediency, those hopes are being shattered with the crisis unfolding in Pakistan.” The former Middle East bureau chief for Newsday, Bazzi is a visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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JUNAID AHMAD
President of the U.S.-based National Muslim Law Students Association, Ahmad was last in Pakistan this August. He said today: “Musharraf’s grip on power is at its weakest point since he staged his coup eight years ago. What was going to be his civilian savior, Benazir Bhutto and her Pakistan People’s Party, has announced its complete break with any dealings with Musharraf, and has called for Musharraf to resign both as Army Chief and President of the country, and an immediate end to martial law. On top of this, Musharraf’s backers in Washington are becoming increasingly nervous about the political crisis in the country, and frustrated with Musharraf’s mishandling of it. John Negroponte, arriving in Islamabad on Friday, is bringing an ultimatum to the General-President: control the political situation or risk being ‘removed.'” Ahmad is a member of the Pakistan-based Peoples Rights Movement, a progressive political confederation of social movements.
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FATIMA BHUTTO
Bhutto is a Pakistani poet and writer. She just wrote the piece “Aunt Benazir’s False Promises: Bhutto’s Return Bodes Poorly for Pakistan — and for Democracy There,” which was published in the Los Angeles Times.

The piece states: “We Pakistanis live in uncertain times. Emergency rule has been imposed for the 13th time in our short 60-year history. Thousands of lawyers have been arrested, some charged with sedition and treason; the chief justice has been deposed; and a draconian media law — shutting down all private news channels — has been drafted.

“Perhaps the most bizarre part of this circus has been the hijacking of the democratic cause by my aunt, the twice-disgraced former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. While she was hashing out a deal to share power with Gen. Pervez Musharraf last month, she repeatedly insisted that without her, democracy in Pakistan would be a lost cause. Now that the situation has changed, she’s saying that she wants Musharraf to step down and that she’d like to make a deal with his opponents — but still, she says, she’s the savior of democracy. The reality, however, is that there is no one better placed to benefit from emergency rule than she is.” Fatima Bhutto is the daughter of Mir Murtaza Bhutto, who was killed in 1996 in Karachi when his sister, Benazir, was prime minister.
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167.

THEODORE LOWI
Lowi is professor of American Institutions at Cornell University and author of several books including The End of Liberalism. He said today: “Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Judiciary Chair John Conyers and the vast majority of Democrats in Congress are making a grave Constitutional error by keeping impeachment off the table. Impeachment does not mean removal. It means putting the accused before the bar of judgment. Clinton was impeached but not removed.

“Impeachment can be a method of achieving a modicum of balance between the branches of government. The Bush administration has totally thrown that balance off. Some of the same individuals who helped impeach Clinton, reducing the power of the executive then, are now backing the notion of a ‘unitary executive.’ We are moving beyond the ‘imperial president’ to what Clinton Rossiter warned us of in 1948: ‘Constitutional dictatorship.’

“The Congressional ‘power of the purse’ has effectively been destroyed. Bush dominates because he has set the terms of discourse. The Democratic leadership has lost control of the budget in the face of the discourse of ‘supporting our troops.'”
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JEFF LEYS
Co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Leys wrote the piece “Slip Sliding Away: House Votes on Iraq War Funding Today, November 14,” which notes: “The Democratic Party leadership in the House shifts its position on redeployment from a MANDATORY completion date of the end of August 2008 to a GOAL completion date of December 15, 2008. The only thing mandatory about the goal date is that it be by December 15, 2008. But, as any labor union negotiator will tell you, a GOAL is permissive and unenforceable absent any language to make it enforceable. And, guess what, there is no enforcement mechanism in HR 4156 if President Bush does not meet the goal of completing redeployment by December 15, 2008.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167.

STEVE KRETZMANN
Executive director of Oil Change International, Kretzmann said today: “Despite how environmentally damaging and tragic the San Francisco and Black Sea spills are, they are only the most visible of the many costs of our oil addiction. Oil spills cannot truly be called accidents. Like human rights abuses, wars for oil, and climate, they are instead predictable and ongoing consequences of our collective addiction to oil. Democratic leadership in Congress, which is considering removing renewable energy incentives in the Energy Bill, should wake up and realize that the only real way to prevent tragedies such as this in the future is to chart an end to our nation’s addiction to oil.”
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RIKI OTT
Ott wrote the recent piece “Shocking: 18 Years On and Exxon Still Won’t Pay $2.5 Billion for Valdez Oil Spill.” She is the author of Sound Truth and Corporate Myth$: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill and of the forthcoming Not One Drop: Promises, Betrayal, and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. Ott is a community activist, a former ‘fisherm’am,’ and has a degree in marine toxicology with a specialty in oil pollution.
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TYSON SLOCUM
Director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, Slocum said today: “Right now Big Oil gets over $8 billion in subsidies. There’s a move on in Congress to shift some of that to alternative energy and energy efficiency. But even this conservative approach is getting filibuster threats in Congress. This even though we’re facing close to $100 for a barrel of oil and environmental damage.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167.

AP reports: “The House on Thursday approved a free trade agreement with Peru, the first under a Democratic majority in Congress that has declared that labor rights and the environment must be central parts of all such pacts.”

WENONAH HAUTER
Executive director of Food & Water Watch, Hauter said today: “Unfortunately, the passage of the Peru Free Trade Agreement will accelerate the importation of potentially unsafe food from Peru, especially seafood, without adequate import safety systems even to handle current imports. …

“The Peru FTA merely expands the flawed ‘free trade’ agriculture policies that have failed to deliver for U.S. farmers. The volume of U.S. agriculture exports has been flat but imports have been surging. The United States already has a large and growing agricultural trade deficit with Peru that reached nearly $400 million in 2006. Under the Peru agreement, U.S. farmers will face growing import competition from vegetable and fruit companies that relocate to Peru while Peruvian farmers are likely to be driven from their land by low-priced American exports of food staples.”
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DEBORAH JAMES
Director of international programs at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, James said today: “Many Republicans turned the discussions on the Peru FTA into a foreign policy debate, arguing that it was necessary for the U.S. Congress to approve the U.S.-Peru FTA in order to contain the influence of President Chávez of Venezuela. Even Secretary Rice jumped into the fray, making that argument in a rare foreign policy speech [that addressed trade]. Ironically, the exact opposite has been the case. The increased victories of left-leaning candidates at the polls in Latin America over the last several years reflect the public rejection of ‘Washington Consensus’ economic policies and the failure of the neoliberal model — which the Peru FTA codifies — to promote economic growth. While it’s shocking that the Democratic leadership would support this failed model, which has wreaked havoc on workers and farmers in the U.S. and Latin America, at least a majority of the majority had the sense to demand a sea change in U.S. trade policy.” James is a specialist in trade issues and Latin America, and speaks fluent Spanish.
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TOM LOUDON
The New York Times reports in a front-page piece today, “Trade Accord Causes a Split of Democrats,” that “the Democrats are riding high politically and getting sizable campaign contributions from the sectors that are benefiting the most from the global economy. These include financial services firms, computer chip makers and other high-tech manufacturers, the entertainment industry and farmers dependent on selling to markets overseas.”

Coordinator for the Alliance for Responsible Trade, Loudon said today: “The interests of the microchip companies, the mining companies, the financial sector and especially huge agribusiness are backing these corporate trade deals while the average citizen is quite skeptical of them.”

Loudon can also help arrange interviews with Peruvian Spanish speakers.
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167.

JAMES PAUL
Paul is executive director of Global Policy Forum, which monitors the United Nations. He said today: “UN authorization for the U.S.-led force in Iraq is set to expire. The U.S. government has drafted a renewal resolution to submit to the Security Council, and a vote could come up soon. But Iraq’s parliament has called for a timetable for withdrawal of these forces from the country. And it has denounced as unconstitutional any move by the Nouri al-Maliki cabinet to request a renewed mandate by the Council for the so-called Multi-National Force.”

Global Policy Forum has just made public on its website the letter from a majority of the Iraqi parliament that states it is “unconstitutional” for al-Maliki to “unilaterally” request a renewal of foreign troops in Iraq. Dated April 28, 2007, the letter was apparently handed over to the UN in Baghdad but never delivered to Security Council members. English translation of the letter is at available [PDF].

Paul also noted: “On May 27 the Iraqi parliament again took action on the MNF renewal issue. With a majority vote, it passed a binding law reaffirming the constitutional requirements in the case — the cabinet must submit any future MNF renewal request to parliament for approval by a two-thirds majority.” See the backgrounder “The Iraq Parliament and Security Council Renewal of the MNF Mandate.”
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RAED JARRAR
Currently in Washington, D.C., Jarrar is Iraq consultant for the American Friends Service Committee. He just wrote the piece “Parliament vs. Cabinet.” He said today: “Sunni, Shia, Kurdish, and secular separatists have been systematically bypassing the elected Iraqi parliament, which is controlled by a majority of Iraqi nationalists from all different religious/sectarian/ethnic backgrounds. This conflict over the UN mandate is an example of how the elected parliament is being bypassed by the Iraqi and U.S. executive branches.

“There is no constitutional ambiguity over who has the authority to ratify international treaties. The Constitution of Iraq stipulates in Article 58, Section 4 that the Council of Ministers [the cabinet] must gain the ratification of the Council of Representatives [the parliament] for ‘international treaties and agreements.’ A majority of members of parliament have gone on record, affirming that the renewal of the MNF mandate is a matter covered by this constitutional provision. And the parliament has also passed a binding law to this effect earlier this year.

“While the majority of Iraqis and Americans, and the majority of Iraqi MPs and U.S. Congress members, are searching for a way to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the Bush and Maliki administrations continue to ignore the demands of their people. Renewing the UN mandate during the next few weeks without going back to the Iraqi government will be another illegal step taken by both administrations to justify and prolong the U.S.-led occupation.”

Jarrar co-wrote “Iraqi Lawmakers Pass Resolution That May Force End to Occupation.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167.

The Politico reports: “Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) plans to take to the floor of the House Tuesday and introduce a privileged resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. The privilege approach allows him to circumvent Democratic leadership, which opposes voting on the measure.

“His resolution will be met with a motion to table it. A vote against the motion will be a vote in favor of impeaching Cheney …

“An American Research Group poll this summer found more than half of Americans support his impeachment.

“Regardless, the measure is expected to fail by a wide margin.”

The following analysts and activists are available for interviews:

MARJORIE COHN
Cohn is the author of the new book Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law. She is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and president of the National Lawyers Guild. Cohn said today: “The war of aggression in Iraq, the secret prisons, the use of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, the use of evidence obtained by torture, and the surveillance of citizens without warrants, all initiated and carried out under the tenure of Bush and Cheney, are illegal under the U.S. Constitution and international law.”
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BRUCE FEIN
Available for a limited number of interviews, Fein was a Justice Department attorney in the Nixon administration. In June 1998 he helped write the articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton. He wrote the piece “Impeach Cheney: The vice president has run utterly amok and must be stopped.”

Fein said today: “The Founding Fathers expected an executive to try to overreach and expected the executive would be hampered and curtailed by the legislative branch. But the legislature is walking away from its responsibility to oversee and check the executive. Impeachment is not an option for lawmakers — it’s an obligation when they take that oath to faithfully uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. Impeachment is part of the Constitution and for Pelosi or anyone else to ‘take it off the table’ is itself an unconstitutional act.”

Fein is a constitutional lawyer at Bruce Fein & Associates and chairman of the American Freedom Agenda. He is author of the forthcoming book Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle Over the Constitution and Democracy. Fein is retained counsel for Ron Paul’s presidential campaign only on ballot access issues.

DAVID SWANSON
Creator of ImpeachCheney.org, Swanson said today: “The majority of Americans want Cheney impeached, while the majority of Congress members and Washington insiders refuse to consider the idea. Perhaps they’re too busy exporting ‘democracy.’ Or maybe they’re too busy passing bills and writing letters, pretending not to know that any progressive bills will be vetoed, and a letter asking Bush not to launch another war of aggression won’t even be read. Citizens have the power to write letters. The Constitution gave the Congress the power of impeachment. Nothing else will halt the Bush-Cheney war agenda.”

DAVID LINDORFF
Lindorff is co-author of the book The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office. He said today: “Cheney has violated the Nuremberg Charter by threatening to attack a country (Iran) that poses no imminent threat to the U.S. This is an easily proven and clearly illegal action.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167.

The New York Times is reporting today: “The Bush administration signaled Sunday that it would probably keep billions of dollars flowing to Pakistan’s military, despite the detention of human rights advocates and leaders of the political opposition by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the country’s president.”

AIJAZ AHMAD
Ahmad has written extensively on South Asia. Currently senior news analyst for The Real News Network, he recently interviewed Asma Jahangir, chair of the Human Rights Commission in Pakistan, in a segment titled “Democracy or martial law in Pakistan?” (AP is reporting that Jahangir is among those who were just detained.) Video is available.
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ZIA MIAN
Mian is a physicist with the Program on Science and Global Security at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus. He wrote a recent piece titled “Pakistan Needs Real Democratic Government” published by the Philadelphia Inquirer.

He said today: “In a desperate bid to stay in power, General Musharraf has staged a coup against the rule of law. His declaration of martial law and suspension of the constitution and of basic rights are aimed at overthrowing Pakistan’s Supreme Court, which was likely to rule that Musharraf could not continue as both President and Chief of the Army. The Supreme Court was the only branch of government Musharraf and the army did not control. …

“Since September 11, 2001, the United States has given enormous political and diplomatic support and over $10 billion to Pakistan to buy General Musharraf’s support for its ‘war on terror.’ This has served to strengthen Mushharaf’s position and that of Pakistan’s army. It has done practically nothing for Pakistan’s people, who have been demanding a return of democracy and free and fair elections.

“[The U.S. government’s] response to Musharraf’s second coup shows that when it comes to the crunch, rather than a principled commitment to democracy that would meet the aspirations of Pakistan’s people, the U.S. has again chosen the general it knows, and his shopworn promises of stability and order.”
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MUMTAZ AHMAD
Professor of political science at Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia, Ahmad is currently a visiting faculty member at the International Islamic University in Islamabad. He said today: “One of the major concerns here in Pakistan is if this will stop the elections. Another major concern is the possibility of a counter-coup and what would happen to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.”

A. H. NAYYAR
Nayyar is a physicist, retired from Quaid-i-Azam University, in Islamabad. He is currently the executive director of Developments in Literacy, an organization of Pakistani Americans that engages in philanthropic intervention in education for the poor.

He said today: “Musharraf’s regime has always been [that of] martial law [since the 1999 coup]. What else can it be called if it is headed by a chief of army staff … [with a] nominated prime minister and chief ministers? Musharraf wanted to give it a facade of civilian rule, and could not go on doing it.

“The facade has come down crashing. The facade had been a great help for him in securing money from the U.S. Will that money now stop? … What options does Musharraf have if the U.S. administration re-imposes stringent sanctions on account of the emergency? Hardly any. He has to continue taking action against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, or else NATO forces will … take open action against them from across the border, openly violating Pakistan’s sovereignty. This will be a huge loss of face for Musharraf, both internationally as well as internally. I think the U.S. can force Musharraf to restore constitutional government.”

ANITA WEISS
Co-editor of the book Power and Civil Society in Pakistan and professor of international studies at the University of Oregon, Weissis currently in Islamabad. She said today: “While terrorism and suicide bombings had reached unprecedented levels in Pakistan, it is clear that this military action has NOT been taken because of this. Pervez Musharraf had declared he would ‘remove his uniform’ — leave the military — once his election as President was assured. The Supreme Court verdict was due any day. However, now the Chief Justice has been suspended and judges throughout the country are being asked to take loyalty oaths to the military government; to their credit, most are refusing to do so.

“On the ground, hundreds of people have been arrested and put into ‘preventive detention,’ in expectation that they might cause problems for the government forces. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz is quoted as saying elections, due in January, may be postponed for a year. Political engagement with civil society has been slammed shut.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167.

A subcommittee of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee subcommittee voted today to advance the Lieberman-Warner bill — which sets caps on greenhouse gas emissions and promotes “carbon trading” — to the full committee.

The following analysts and activists are available for comment:

ERICH PICA
Pica is director of economic policy for Friends of the Earth and co-author of the just-released report “Windfalls in Lieberman-Warner Global Warming Bill: Quantifying the Fossil Fuel Industry Giveaways.”

He said today: “The Lieberman-Warner bill will reward corporate polluters by handing them pollution permits worth almost half a trillion dollars. The bill:

* “Provides the coal industry and other fossil fuel industries [with] pollution permits worth $436 billion over the life of the legislation; 58 percent of this amount goes to coal.

* “Returns revenue raised through auctions directly to polluters — for example, an additional $324 billion would subsidize the coal industry’s efforts to develop carbon capture and storage mechanisms.

* “Directs another $522 billion of auction revenue to low- or zero-emissions technologies, which could result in handouts to the nuclear power, big hydro and coal industries, which are not clean. (These funds could also be directed toward important clean technologies, such as wind and solar — the legislation is not specific.)”
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DAPHNE WYSHAM
Wysham is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. She said today: “The main sponsors of the Lieberman-Warner bill made it clear that profits for the carbon cartel come ahead of aggressive action, based on what the science requires we do, to protect our increasingly unstable climate. Each of Senator Bernie Sanders’ attempts at progressive amendments to the bill were rejected by the bill’s sponsors, in favor of actions that would provide billions if not trillions of dollars in giveaways to the coal, oil, gas and nuclear industries. [Sanders voted against the bill.] We can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions without nuclear power by 2050. However, the Lieberman-Warner bill would, at best, get us only half the way there, while handing even more power to the very industries that got us into this hot water.”
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JESSY TOLKAN
Executive director of programs for the Energy Action Coalition, Tolkan said today: “While many politicians and corporations have stalled — and in many instances actively fought — efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions and promote cleaner fuels, young people have organized in a concerted effort to help avert a climate crisis and build a cleaner, more economically sound and healthier future.

“The Energy Action Coalition has organized Powershift 2007, the largest youth summit on climate change ever, which will draw over 5,000 people from every state who will converge on the nation’s capital on Nov. 2 to 5, to give voice to that much-needed perspective to Capitol Hill.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167.