Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

REI Chief Executive Officer Sally Jewell is congratulated by outgoing Interior Secrtary Ken Salazar after she was nominated by President Barack Obama to be the next Secretary of the Interior in the State Dining Room of the White House on Feb. 6, 2013.

Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is threatening to put a hold on the nomination of Sally Jewell to head the Interior Department until it agrees to reverse a preliminary decision rejecting a road through a wildlife refuge,  Bloomberg BNA’s Lynn Garner reports.

After meeting with the nominee yesterday, Murkowski said she didn’t ask Jewell for a commitment, though she made it clear that she views the issue as one of public safety since the road could be used for medical emergencies.

Murkowski said she hopes the current secretary, Ken Salazar, will resolve the issue before he leaves office in the next few weeks.

If that doesn’t happen, Murkowski said she would use “every tool in the tool box,” including putting a hold on Jewell’s nomination.

The only way for residents of King Cove, a fishing community in southwest Alaska, to reach the Cold Bay airport is by boat or airplane, often in high winds and blizzard conditions. There have been 11 fatalities in 30 years attributed to the lack of road access to the Cold Bay airport,  according to Alaskan officials. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rejected a proposed land exchange that would allow construction of a 20-mile gravel road.

Murkowski sent a Feb. 11 letter to Jewell raising the emergency road issue: “I am prepared to consider all actions available to me as a U.S. senator to convince this administration that denying the people of King Cove reliable access to medical care would be a travesty.”

Original post is Senator May Throw Speed Bump in Path of Interior Nomination by Political Capital.

Photograph by Pete Marovich/Bloomberg

A United States Army Honor Guard rehearses for the 2013 presidential inaugural ceremonies in front of the East Front of the Capitol on Jan. 13, 2013.

Americans polled by Bloomberg News want Congress to delay steep spending cuts to give the economic recovery more time to take hold.

Julie Hirschfeld Davis reports that when Washington does confront the deficit, Americans back a compromise that includes more tax revenue and fundamental changes to Social Security and Medicare – a deal that would require give-and-take by both Republicans in Congress and President Barack Obama, according to the Bloomberg National Poll.

Fifty-four percent of poll respondents favor postponing the $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts that are scheduled to kick on March 1 and extend over the next nine years. That’s compared with 40 percent who say Congress should act now before the deficit gets out of control. The telephone poll of 1,003 adults was conducted Feb. 15-18 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

“The across-the-board cuts that they’re planning to do would do more harm to the general population than trying to wait and pick and choose which ones we really need,” poll respondent Mark Seeger, a school psychologist from Valparaiso, Indiana, said in a follow-up interview. “Right now, a lot of
people are holding on by the skin of their teeth — they’re opting whether to go to the doctor or have food — and I just think we need to wait until the economy gets back on its feet before we just go in and cut without thinking.”

Original post is Delay the Cuts, Americans Say in Poll by Political Capital.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski said she’s working with her counterpart in the House to come up with a strategy for going into the next fiscal year without the need for a continuing resolution, Bloomberg BNA’s Nancy Ognanovich reports.

While acknowledging obstacles, the Maryland Democrat said she wants to re-establish the committee’s role in setting spending priorities by finishing up work on the fiscal 2013 bills and making good on a promise to return to “regular order” by developing and passing legislation for fiscal 2014.

“For 2014 we are going to have real hearings, we are going to have real debate, real discussions, and a regular order,” she said.

As for the current fiscal year, Mikulski told reporters that she met with House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, a Kentucky Republican, to discuss options for avoiding a government shutdown when the current CR expires March 27.

Rogers has said he wants to attach to a new CR the annual spending bill for the Defense Department — which represents about half of the annual discretionary spending under appropriators’ control — as well as others related to military matters.

Original post is Real Hearings, Real Debate for ’14 Budget? by Political Capital.

Photograph by Brendan Smialowski/Bloomberg

Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat from Montana and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, left, and Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, the ranking Republican on the committee, in Washington in this file photo.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, and ranking member Orrin Hatch, a  Utah Republican, have given U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk  their priorities concerning a potential agreement on trade,  investment, and regulatory cooperation between the U.S. and  European Union, Bloomberg BNA’s Len Bracken reports.

The senators, whose committee has jurisdiction over international trade, identified several priorities ahead of any negotiation process, including access for U.S. agricultural exports, notably beef and pork; strong intellectual property protection; access for U.S. services exports; regulatory compliance; and a mechanism for dispute settlement, according
to a letter they sent yesterday.

The senators also wrote that they intend to push for renewal of trade promotion authority, the fast-track congressional approval process for trade agreements that expired in 2007.

The previous authority provided for up or down congressional votes on the agreements within strict time limits.  In his State of the Union address yesterday, President Barack Obama said he wants to begin trade talks with the  European Union.

“Negotiations will not be easy, but they have enormous potential to open new opportunities for us to sell our goods and services in the EU,” said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, a Michigan Republican.

“I welcome the president’s movement forward on this effort and look forward to consulting closely with the administration,” Camp wrote, according to Bloomberg’s Joi Preciphs.

Original post is Senators Set Priorities on EU Trade Deal by Political Capital.

Photograph by Adam Bird/Bloomberg

Representative Dave Camp, a Republican from Michigan and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, speaks at a Rotary Club meeting in Midland, Michigan, in this file photo.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp wants to break his panel into smaller working groups to tackle specific aspects of tax reform, Bloomberg BNA’s Marc Heller reports.

Ray Beeman, tax counsel to the committee, said in a webinar sponsored by Deloitte Tax LLP that Camp, a Michigan Republican, plans to have the bipartisan groups focus on subject areas that have yet to be defined. Camp is working with the committee’s ranking Democrat, Sander Levin of Michigan, to create the working groups, he said.

“I really think it’s an outreach effort,” Beeman said, adding that the groups’ main task will be to collect facts and at some point come back with a report. Camp has said he intends to pass a comprehensive overhaul of  tax policy by the end of this year.

The groups will probably call upon stakeholders in tax issues but wouldn’t hold public hearings of their own, he said. The plan for informal groups sheds light on Camp’s approach as he works to craft a proposal, though they can’t deal with every tax issue that a comprehensive bill will address, Beeman said.

One of those issues is likely to be an examination of the tax code’s Section 501, which governs the treatment of exempt organizations, according to Bloomberg BNA’s Diane Freda.

Because Congress is looking at changing revenue streams for Section 501 limitations on deductions, there will be a need for a wider conversation about that section, a Senate Democratic aide, whom BNA didn’t identify further, said at a joint meeting of the Great Lakes, Gulf Coast, and Pacific Coast Area Tax Exempt and Government Entities Councils and the Mid-
Atlantic and Northeast Pension Liaison Groups.

The imposition of mandatory amounts of charity care for tax-exempt hospitals — which some institutions had feared under past proposals by Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican — isn’t garnering much attention now, as sequestration takes center stage, the aide said. Even so, a re-examination of the effectiveness of the 2010 health-care law may follow once Section 501 has been implemented.

Original post is Camp Considers Working Groups to Tackle Tax Reform by Political Capital.

That date puts a decision in the case off until deep into the lame-duck session or for the next Congress, reports Bloomberg BNA’s Nancy Ognanovich.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said it will hear arguments on whether to dismiss the suit filed by the watchdog group Common Cause against Senate officers or allow the challenge to proceed.

In an order issued Oct. 10, the court said it has scheduled the hearing on the motion to dismiss the case filed by the Office of Senate Legal Counsel. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan will hear the arguments.

Common Cause filed its suit in May, arguing that the Senate filibuster rule is unconstitutional as it violates the principle of majority rule. The suit against Senate officers charges that the practice of requiring 60 votes to consider most legislation and confirm presidential nominees is inconsistent with the principle that only 51 votes are needed to pass important matters.

In its response, filed in July, the Office of Senate Legal Counsel asked the court to dismiss the case on a number of grounds, including provisions of the Constitution allowing each house of Congress to determine its own rules. In earlier cases courts have found the 60-vote rule to be constitutional and have concluded that it cannot be upended by another branch of government, it said.

Original post is Federal Court to Hear Filibuster Challenge by Political Capital.

You saw what the No. 3 Senate Democrat had to say about tax reform. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says it has laid out the case for how income tax rates could come down and the deficit could be reduced at the same time.

The bipartisan nonprofit group said several estimates produced since 2005 have shown that it is possible curb the deficit through a combination of cutting tax rates and eliminating tax expenditures, though the political willpower to enact the necessary changes may be lacking.

“From a review of the past studies and budget proposals, it is certainly possible to reform the tax code to lower tax rates and the deficit,” the
organization wrote. “Even though it is technically very feasible, there is no guarantee that we will make the tough choices needed to make these kinds of reforms a reality.”

In a speech this week, New York’s Charles Schumer argued that the notion of getting both a cut in tax rates and a reduction in the deficit is a “trap” and urged Americans not to fall for it. Any tax reform plan needs to focus on reducing the deficit and protecting the middle class, rather than cutting  the top tax rates, he said.

The group said that its review of studies by other organizations found that a 2005 Treasury Department estimate prepared for the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform and President Barack Obama’s 2010 National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform showed it would be possible to cut the top tax rate to 23 percent and still save money for deficit reduction — as long as all tax spending is eliminated.

Original post is A Response to Schumer on Taxes by Political Capital.

Photograph by Sam Hodgson/Bloomberg

Job seekers meet prospective employers at an employment fair sponsored by National Career Fairs in San Diego.

The government’s two major budget agencies are taking opposing positions on the long-term impact of the 2007-2009 recession and sluggish recovery on the economy, Bloomberg BNA’s Jonathan Nicholson reports.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, in its  updated economic and budget forecast issued Aug. 22, estimated  the economy would still be about 1.5 percent smaller in 2022,  the end of the agency’s 10-year forecasting window, than if the recession had not happened.

That contrasts with a more upbeat report issued in July from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, which said the current economic recovery could accelerate ahead as more resources are used.

“The U.S. economy is operating well below its capacity, with higher levels of unused resources than at any time in over a quarter century. The potential for a more rapid recovery is present in this low level of resource utilization,” the OMB report said.

The debate is important because the slower the economy grows when all its resources are productively in use, the harder it will probably be to reduce the budget deficit and stabilize government debt levels.

The CBO report said lingering weakness in the job market has led some people to retire earlier or leave the labor force in other ways, such as applying for disability benefits.

The slack labor market has also meant young people are putting off launching their careers, and thus delaying their peak earning and productivity years,  Bill Beach, director for the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation, said Aug. 31.

Original post is Budget Agencies At Odds On Lasting Effect of Recession: CBO vs. OMB by Political Capital.