Progressive Breakfast: And You Don't Stop

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Public Option Marches On After Senate Finance Vote

Sen. Schumer tells Rachel Maddow: "not a single [moderate Democrat] has closed the door" on public option.

Consumer Watchdog tallies up the special interest money in the pockets of the Dems that voted against the public option.

HCAN's Jason Rosenbaum sizes up the Senate Finance Cmte votes: "As today made clear, there will be surprises as this debate commences. Senators Wyden, Carper, and Nelson (FL) made clear that they support a public health insurance option, something that we didn't know beforehand. Who knows what other surprises await us as the push continues."

Change.org's Tim Foley similarly sees tide turning towards public option: "...I was quite surprised by both Nelson (FL) and Carper (DE) voting for Schumer’s amendment, scarcely a few weeks after both suggested they’d only vote for a public option with a trigger. Bingaman (NM) was part of the 'gang of six' who delivered an option-less bill, but he voted for both amendments. Two months ago, I would have put Cantwell (WA) in the 'probably no' column. Today she was a co-sponsor of Schumer’s amendment. And my biggest surprise of the day is the announcement by Sen. Tom Harkin, new chair of the HELP committee, that he had the votes to 'comfortably' get a public option passed in the Senate (if not yet enough to defeat a filibuster.)"

Open Left's Chris Bowers identifies 51 senators backing public option.

Wonk Room's Igor Volsky is more pessimistic: "Instead, the very same Democrats who defeated the national program during mark-up, will likely resurrect a discarded idea floated by the New America Foundation and momentarily embraced by the White House. That compromise will create a network of public options modeled on state employee benefit plans. The proposal could be triggered by Snowe’s amendment if reform did not meet a low affordability measure, but any state-based proposal would lack the market clout to lower overall health care spending, reform health care delivery, or hold private health insurers accountable. Today may have been the death of the public option and the birth of state-based public options."

Sen. Carper pushing those state-based options. Politico: "Carper suggests giving states the option of creating a competitor to private insurers, which could include a government plan, a network of co-ops, or a large purchasing pool modeled after the revered Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan."

The Treatment's Jonathan Cohn sizes up the challenge ahead: "The odds are against enactment, particularly for the Rockefeller amendment. But Schumer's, which is more or less identical to [the Senate health committee version], may be able to get fifty votes. Then it becomes a question of whether moderate Democrats, even those voting against the public option, would break ranks and uphold a filibuster over it--and how much Democratic Party leaders, including the one sitting in the Oval Office, care about the one or two Republican votes they stand to lose over this issue."

Sen. Ben Nelson demanding super-majority for health care, but didn't for Bush tax cuts notes HuffPost's Sam Stein.

Sen. Landrieu tells CQ she would filibuster bill with public option: "My vote will not be there,” she said. “They may have 51 votes, but we’re still trying to do this with some Republican support, and we’re at the least — at the minimum — trying to do it with the support of the Democratic Caucus. Not 51 Democrats, but 60 Democrats.”

White House maintains poker face in post-vote statement: "He believes making a public option available on the insurance exchange is a good way to achieve those goals. He has said he is open to other constructive ideas of increasing choice and competition."

Top conservative opponent of public option profits off of uninsured. Salon.com: "...a wrongful death lawsuit has been working its way through the Florida courts against a doctor employed by the chain of walk-in clinics [Conservatives for Patients Rights chief Rick] Scott founded. Scott has repeatedly bragged that the 27-clinic, Florida-based company, Solantic, is an example of the free-market ingenuity needed to fix our ailing medical infrastructure. The lawsuit, however, alleges a Solantic doctor misdiagnosed a patient's deep-vein thrombosis as a sprained ankle, leading to a pulmonary embolism and death. That same doctor was reprimanded by the state for misdiagnosing deep-vein thrombosis in a patient who died two years earlier. It's the kind of anecdote you'd expect to hear in Scott's documentary -- except that it condemns a free-market system where profit and patient volume may take precedence over care ... Scott has plunged into several new healthcare businesses that could be adversely affected by reform..."

Boxer-Kerry Climate Bill Draft Released Today

New bill offers more aggressive short-term target than House bill. NYT: "[The Boxer-Kerry bill] seeks to achieve by 2020 a 20 percent reduction from 2005 levels of carbon dioxide emissions, compared with 17 percent in the House bill." Sen. Conrad no likey reports ClimateWire.

Retains EPA authority to regulate carbon emissions, unlike House bill, reports LAT. Clean Air Watch's Frank O'Donnell tells W. Post that provision makes Boxer-Kerry: "the high-water mark for strong action on climate in this Congress."

Larger reliance on carbon offsets. W. Post: "The bill, which is still being revised, would make it easier for businesses to compensate for their carbon pollution by expanding the available pool of domestic offsets by 40 percent compared with the House-passed climate bill." ClimateWire notes bill also creates "offset fraud sleuths" in the Justice Dept.

Climate Progress Joe Romm praises: "...environmentally, economically and politically stronger than the House bill ... Certainly 20% is better than the House’s 17% ... [Maintaining EPA authority is] a good change, but it’ll be a huge fight to keep it ... The bill makes a monumental improvement over the House bill by adopting a version of the carbon [price] collar I proposed ... The floor price is $11 (the draft bill above is, as I say, not final) and the ceiling is $28 — and they both starting rising 5% plus inflation each year. The draft bill adds an excellent twist — from 2018 on the ceiling rises 7% plus inflation each year. I hope that is true of the floor, also..."

Get Energy Smart Now likes the concept of a price collar on carbon as well but worries about details.

Key details left out. WSJ: "The Senate proposal isn't expected to specify how the government would allocate billions of dollars worth of the [pollution] permits. By remaining silent on that and other issues, the proposal effectively postpones for weeks many of the toughest questions associated with climate legislation, as senators wade deeper into the debate over health-care legislation."

ClimateWire adds "The bill will have placeholder titles on controversial issues like carbon markets oversight and international trade, a senior aide to Boxer said, because other committees have jurisdiction ... The draft includes new incentives for natural gas producers that were not in H.R. 2454. the sweeping House-passed energy and climate bill, as well as a modest nuclear energy title that Senate nuclear power backers -- such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) -- hope to greatly expand."

Politico notes its all negotiable: "Boxer and Kerry call for a 20 percent cut in emissions — a move that would seem to put them on a collision course with Rust Belt lawmakers from their own party. But virtually everyone involved in the debate sees the bill as little more than a starting point for negotiations, chips that will have to be bargained away if the bill is going to get anywhere in the Senate ... Boxer and Kerry’s open-for-business attitude has helped calm fears among Rust Belt and coal state Democrats, several of whom have sent a letter to Boxer asking for coal industry and electricity utility incentives."

Timing in question. NYT: "While Mrs. Boxer is promising to begin hearings on her bill on Oct. 20, there is no certainty that other committees will act as quickly."

Reid back to optimism. ClimateWire: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said floor action this year remains on the agenda. Asked yesterday whether the Senate is on track to pass a climate bill before December's international climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, he replied, 'Yup.'"

EnviroKnow flags Berkeley study finding 1.9M jobs created by House climate bill.

Change.org's Emily Gertz notes Chamber of Commerce is trying to greenwash it's stance after slow bleed of members: " Thomas J. Donohue tries to soft-pedal his group's recent call for a 'Scopes monkey trial' on climate science in the wake of some high-profile member defections, including utilities Exelon and PGE."

Sen. Sherrod Brown working to add support for manufacturers in climate bill. CQ: "Brown, D-Ohio, has mounted a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign that has attracted business and labor interests to promote his plan to create a revolving loan fund of $30 billion over two years to promote energy efficiency technologies ... Brown is confident that the provision will be added when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pulls together a final version of the climate bill before it goes to the full Senate. While NAM strongly opposed the House climate change bill and has shown no support for the Senate version, its endorsement of Brown’s proposal could provide cover for senators who are uncommitted on the measure and are worried about its economic impact — especially lawmakers from the Midwest and the South, where coal-fired power plants are plentiful."

Bank Backers Seek To Weaken Consumer Agency

Politico on the latest gambit, preventing tough state rules from applying to national firms: "A bloc of moderate Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee are negotiating with Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) over this 'pre-emption' issue as the panel convenes a hearing Wednesday on a proposed consumer financial protection agency. The committee could take up creation of the agency as early as Oct. 14. These moderates, who are members of the centrist New Democrat Coalition, are unhappy with proposed bill language that would force federally chartered firms to comply with state consumer protection laws. The moderates want to maintain the status quo, in which financial institutions that elect to have a national charter are exempt from additional state consumer protection laws."

Geithner pushes derivatives reform. Politico: "'Our proposal is a revolution in the regulation of derivatives,' Geithner said ... Because the risks were so little understood, it was nearly impossible for analysts to know which institutions would survive the crisis and which would fail, which helped spread the panic into every sector of the industry last fall. The administration plans to solve that problem by forcing certain derivatives to be handled by a central clearinghouse that would be regulated by the government. The clearinghouse would use a regulatory stick to force more derivatives to become standardized and to be traded on central exchanges. The goal is to take a sector that had been a hidden and dangerous area of the financial world and make it visible and predictable."

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