Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 06/13/2009 11:41:37 AM PDT by jazusamo
GOP lawmakers may charge Democrat Rep. Ed Markey (Mass.) with violating House ethics rules for "intimidating a witness" who testified before his committee, officials tell The Hill.
House GOP leaders and members of the Energy and Commerce Committee have not “ruled out the option” of forcing a vote in the lower chamber to investigate the possible ethics violations, accusing the senior Democrat “retaliating and bullying” a witness who appeared last Tuesday before Markey’s subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, where the CEO of a major energy company told members that the White House-backed cap-and-trade bill would do nothing to reduce carbon emissions while driving up energy costs.
Republicans indicated that they would attempt to avoid calling for an ethics investigation if Democrats were able to satisfy their concerns spelled out in a letter sent to Energy and Commerce Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) on Friday afternoon.
In that letter, they explained their complaint that while David L. Sokol, CEO of MidAmerican Energy Holding Co. (of which Warren Buffett is the largest stakeholder), told Markey’s subcommittee panel that his cap-and-trade legislation would be ineffective and expensive, the chairman sent a formal request to regulators for an investigation into past statements made by Sokol and Buffett and actions taken by the company.
“Mr. Sokol and his company became the focus of apparent intimidation when Chairman Markey by letter dated the day of the hearing, asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to answer specific questions about investment and transmission-related activist of MidAmerican Energy and its partner, investor Warren Buffett,” they wrote in the letter signed by all GOP members of the committee.
They demanded that the top Democrat “take whatever actions necessary to make sure that witnesses are not “subjected to sanction, retribution and vengeance simply because the facts and opinions they offer do not square with those of the Committee's members."
As of Saturday morning, Markey’s office had not responded to a request for comment.
Sokol told the committee that the Democrat’s cap-and-trade bill’s "trading mechanism will impose a huge and unacceptable double cost on customers: first to pay for emission allowances, which will not reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one ounce, and then for the construction of new low- and zero-carbon power plants and other actions that will actually do the job of reducing these emissions.”
Republican lawmakers contend that Markey’s letter to FERC was an example of a wider effort on the part of Democrats to intimidate individuals who have different viewpoints than “what the Majority wants to hear,” citing reports that the Senate Finance Committee Chairman “just this week … instructed Democrat health care lobbyists not to meet with Republicans.”
“There’s systematic intimidation going on, and bullying of individuals by a party that preaches tolerance and it must stop," Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) told The Hill.
On Friday morning Markey disputed the GOP claims of intimidation and publicly apologized for the unfortunate timing of sending a letter to FERC, saying it had nothing to do with the carbon emissions bill on which Sokol was testifying.
“I would never seek to intimidate or retaliate against a person from having to come in and having to testify before this subcommittee,” Markey said at his subcommittee hearing on reviewing the nation’s public utility transmission policies.
Markey also said that he had talked to Sokol, who accused the chairman of intimidation, according to reports in the Omaha-World Tribune.
Republicans in attendance for Markey’s apology said that they were not satisfied with his “mea culpa.”
But Markey was emphatic that the letter to FERC was in the works days before Democrats knew that the minority party had booked Sokol as their witness for Tuesday’s hearing.
Republicans who learned of the letter were furious Wednesday. Markey said that he jumped into action that night after they confronted him about the request by sending a follow-up note to FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghof clarifying that he wanted "generic" information about companies similar to MidAmerican energy that were going to invest in improving the nation's energy distribution mechanism after Congress deregulated the system in 2005.
But his colleagues on the other side of the aisle were not satisfied. Therefore minority members requested a behind-closed-doors sit-down with Waxman and Markey to air their grievances. If the chairman agrees to that meeting and Republicans still aren't satisfied with the answers they hear, then they may pursue filing the privileged resolution.
Buyer told The Hill to “stay tuned.”
Markey's a liar, IMO, and should be nailed for this but he won't be.
Previous thread:
Don’t threaten, do it. There is no gain in negotiating with the rats, because they will lie about it. It’s time to start hanging the “culture of corruption” around their necks.
There’s systematic intimidation going on, and bullying of individuals by a party that preaches tolerance and it must stop,” Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind)
Surprised? Not hardly!
...Markey’s just showing off....he wants Teddy’s seat...and with little Kennedy in rehab look for Markey to resort to stunts to raise his profile.
???
What the helll good would that do? The place is run by the rats.
The Repubes will do no such thing.
You’re fast today, was going to ping you but you beat me to it. :)
All Markey has to do to get elected in that pisspot Massachusetts is drown a young woman in his car and get caught running a homosexual brothel. Nothing to it - - elected for life.
Democrat thugocracy continues unabated.
Throw in a father who made the family fortune via bootlegging and PRESTO you have a dynasty. Pathetic.
You're right but at least they're fighting it by doing it and keeping it in the press. Better that than sitting back and bowing to the Rats.
I guess Lion Oil Refinery will be the next Markey target!
******
Lion Oil: Climate rules will kill firm
June 10, 2009
Steve Cousins, vice president of refining for Lion Oil Company, an 80-year-old Arkansas-based refiner, testified that the company would have to “shutter operations” within a year and lay off 1,200 workers if climate-change legislation now before Congress is passed into law. Carbon-emission allowances under the law “will make our survival impossible” he told members of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment.
Passage of the bill “will make our survival impossible,” Steve Cousins, vice president of refining, testified before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the climate-change bill in late May, sending it one step closer to a full House vote. But Tuesday’s hearing was held after several committee members complained that the issue of carbon-emission allowances was not fully discussed.
Under the cap-and-trade plan that is part of the bill, total carbon-dioxide emissions from large sources, such as power plants and factories, must be reduced by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and by 83 percent by midcentury.
Companies would be given allowances for how many tons of carbon they are allowed to emit. If they don’t emit as much as allowed, they could trade a credit to another company that wants to go over its limit.
snip
Cousins contended that oil refineries, which would get 2 percent of the total allocation, were being shortchanged.
“This bill’s treatment of domestic refiners with respect to the allocation of allowances is simply a thinly veiled attack on crude oil as an energy source and domestic refiners as a provider of energy to consumers, farmers and truckers,” Cousins said.
snip
Rep. Ed Markey, chairman of the subcommittee and, with Waxman, co-author of the legislation, presented the allowances as a way to help consumers during a transition to “clean-energy” economy from an economy dependent on oil imports.
“The other choice advocated by some on this committee, the choice of business as usual, is to continue the policies that have crippled our economy time and again,” Markey said.
snip
Rep. Mike Ross, a Democratic member of the subcommittee, introduced Cousins, whose refinery is in Ross’ district. He worried that the bill passed by the committee gave refineries the “short end of the stick.”
Arkansas is among a group of states that includes Illinois, Louisiana, Missouri and Wisconsin - identified as the Mississippi Valley Region - that stands to suffer a 1.5 percent decline in jobs by 2030 if the legislation passes in its current form, according to a study presented at the hearing by W. David Montgomery, an economist at CRA International, a Boston economic-consulting firm.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/1226
Thanks for you post, kcvl.
And that is the only thing they will do...threaten. And as soon as they do, they will once again prop their fingers in the wind and hide under their desks. What a bunch of wimps..
Don’t threaten, do it. There is no gain in negotiating with the rats, because they will lie about it. It’s time to start hanging the “culture of corruption” around their necks.
Exactly right. There is no negotiation with these thugs. Do everything possible to destroy this arrogant bum. He would do the same to you and indeed is apparently trying to destroy this witness.
Threats, about all they have. They will need to grow a pair first.
Well, there’s that. But maybe with Sarah and Bachman (sorry for misspelling) showing the men how its done, they can at least pretend.
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