Saving the Land from the People

Many summers ago I worked for the Nature Conservancy. They work to "preserve the plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive." That sounds pretty good, right?

One of the ways they get people to help is to donate land. In exchange for helping to save diversity of life on Earth you get a nice tax break. Well it seems that some people don't like this system. Yup, you guessed it. Wally thinks the system is "rife with abuse." I wish the story had more about what Wally was saying because I thought all Republicans liked tax breaks. Maybe I'll send a him a request for clarification.

Wally Continues to Protect Foster Children

One of the areas that I don't cover enough is Wally's stance on foster children. It's good. He's been banging on the drum about these poor kids being enrolled in clinical drug trials for HIV. Yes, many times these trials were life saving treatments -- and you could look at this in a cynical way, saying that Herger just wants to spend less money on saving foster children that have HIV. I just don't think Wally has that in him. I honestly think he is trying to look out for these kids.

I'll try and keep an eye on this subject and see where he takes it though, just to be on the safe side.

Wally's 2005 Legislation

A Thomas link to Wally's 2005 legistration has been added in the Quick Access Wally sidebar. This is only legislation that he sponsored and does not count bills that he has cosponsored.

To Havana!

From the Editorial Board at the Paradise Post we learn that Wally is cosponsoring (along with 57 other Congress critters!) a bill (H.R.1814) which basically tells Bush to ram his Cuba travel policy. It's a remarkably short and easy to read bill. I'm not really sure if this is some kind of delayed April Fool's Day joke or what.

Action Alert: Pentagon Requests Environmental Waivers

I visit the NRDC's Earth Action Center and send a letter:

I urge you to vote to reject the Department of Defense's request for exemptions from public health and environmental laws. Specifically, please do not exempt the Pentagon from the Clean Air Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) or the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) during consideration of the Defense Authorization bill.

The president already has the authority to waive these laws for national security reasons. But the Defense Department has yet to request any waiver, and has made no case to Congress for blanket waivers that could endanger public health. In the end, our military families who live in and around bases would suffer the most. Local communities also would be adversely affected as they are left to foot the bill for cleanup or deal with permanent blight.

Again, I urge you to protect America's military families and other communities and uphold our environmental laws. Please vote "No" on language that would exempt the Pentagon from these important public health statues.

I predict a response along the lines of, "we are at war, we must do what ever it takes, blah blah blah."

A Personal Moment

The Hill looks at the age of the "people in charge" and we find that Wally met his wife in D.C. Just a little factoid for your day.

More Rudeness

John Busch also writes a letter to the editor of the Chico Enterprise Record about rudeness at Wally's Social Security Town Hall meetings. I've had my say on rudeness. Perhaps if President Bush wasn't carefully vetting his audience and his minions allowed people with different opinions in to his town hall meetings he would also be met with people who want to let him know that they don't agree with him.

But John was also bothered by how "private" and "privitization" were being cast as negatives in the debate by some people. Simply put the government is good at absorbing risk and Social Security is a big insurance program designed at absorbing the risk of retiring into poverty. In terms of this debate "privitization" means taking the risk on as your own. There is also the idea that Bush is intent on phasing out Social Security instead of fixing it. That could be where some of the rudeness is coming from.

I'll let Josh Marshall do the talking.

It's easy to get lost in verbiage about defined this and defined that and mazes of actuarial figures. The key, though, is the difference between an unsecured system and a secured one. That's why it's called Social Security and why phase-out is really the only candid way to describe what the president wants.