Why I'm running for re-election

 

One of the things that has caused me a lot of distress over the last few years is that too many people have stopped believing we have the capacity to solve our problems. They have stopped thinking and dreaming of a better world. They are buying into despair and accepting the cost of failure. Driving some of this belief is a lack of faith in our elected officials and institutions to solve problems. It has caused a rift in our society and is hampering our ability to come together to make change. This is an issue we need to address together if we are going to right the ship. A livable community is one where people are safe, healthy and economically secure. Not many people would say our communities meet that definition right now, and in fact, Portland is indeed broken— but we can and must put the pieces back together. That's why I have decided to run for reelection to Congress! I know the next couple years are going to be hard, and sometimes unpleasant. We are facing a housing and houseless crisis, a climate crisis, and an economy that works for some but not all. We had these same crises before the pandemic, and as we stand here two years later they seem to have gotten worse. It won't come as a surprise to you that I have a series of ten point plans, reports, and legislation to deal with the crises we face. But those alone will not solve our problems. In the past, the secret of our success was our people— our communities. We worked together to build the coalitions and the ideas to make our region one of the best places in the world. And that is how we will build back better. This sense of community is inspiring a new generation of leadership and we're seeing it happen again. Whether it's Councilman Eddy Morales and Rep. Ricki Ruiz in Gresham, Rep. Khanh Pham on 82nd Avenue, or Metro Councilmember Duncan Hwang in SE Portland, these leaders are pulling people together with a vision for improving the community. Working with them is inspiring. We are forging unlikely coalitions with people who have a similar vision, even if sometimes there are disagreements on specific items or tactics. But that spirit of collaboration is how we reclaim the mantle of livability. I'm renewing my commitment: if reelected, I will work as hard as I can to put our community back on the path toward being one of the most livable communities in the country. I'm excited to represent the new district, which includes the heart of Portland and East Multnomah County, beautiful parts of Clackamas County, majestic Mt. Hood, the Columbia Gorge, and now Hood River. The federal government plays an important but different role in each of these areas and I want to use my knowledge and connections to ensure these voices are being heard. This is not something I can do alone. It will take all of us working together to make the changes we want to see. I'm not only asking for your support and your vote, but I am also asking you to go on this journey with me. It's time to rededicate ourselves to the work of making sure our communities are safe, healthy and economically secure. And we can only do it together. Onward,     Paid for and authorized by Blumenauer for Congress.   This email was sent by Earl Blumenauer Blumenauer for Congress 901 SE Oak Street, Suite 105 Portland, OR 97214 United States Email is an important way for Earl Blumenauer to keep supporters like you informed about critical issues and to build a winning grassroots campaign.

RSN: FOCUS: Rep. Ro Khanna and Earl Blumenauer | US Hands Big Oil $20 Billion a Year to Spew Greenhouse Gases. Congress Needs to Cut Off the Tap

 

 

29 September 21

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FOCUS: Rep. Ro Khanna and Earl Blumenauer | US Hands Big Oil $20 Billion a Year to Spew Greenhouse Gases. Congress Needs to Cut Off the Tap
Ro Khanna and Earl Blumenauer, The San Francisco Chronicle
Excerpt: "Each year, Big Oil receives more than $20.5 billion a year in federal and state subsidies."

Each year, Big Oil receives more than $20.5 billion a year in federal and state subsidies. Many of these subsidies are holdovers from another century, enacted when the industry was first getting on its feet. One of the largest, a tax deduction for drilling oil wells, dates to 1913. Then there’s the tar sands loophole, which gives a tax break to companies that import or produce tar sands oil, which is one of the dirtiest fuels on Earth.

Yes, you read that right. The U.S. gives the fossil fuel industry a special deduction to help make the planet hotter.

Unlike when they were first created, these giveaways no longer create jobs. Instead, they pad the profits of a malign industry. A recent study found that 96% of federal fossil fuel subsidies increase profits for oil and gas companies over and above the investment hurdles needed to begin new projects.

Even more dismaying, this is an industry that has spent the past four decades carefully researching the human impacts of climate change, while publicly denying its existence or that it is a problem, and continuing to spew planet-altering greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Why are we rewarding them with taxpayer money for this behavior?

On Earth Day this year, a senior official from a fossil fuel industry trade group claimed, under oath at a congressional hearing, that “if you want to take the entire tax code and treat the oil and gas industry as every other industry, we’re happy to do that.”

We should be taking him up on this offer.

President Biden called for eliminating “billions of dollars in subsidies, loopholes, and special foreign tax credits for the fossil fuel industry” as a key policy to help pay for his American Jobs Plan. However, the current version of the Build Back Better Act moving through the House is missing most of the domestic fossil fuel subsidies repeal passed by the Senate Finance Committee earlier this year.

The reason?

Despite its platitudes that it is “certainly fine being treated like every other industry,” the very same trade group has been out in full force lobbying against eliminating its lucrative subsidies. Recycling old strategies for influencing the climate debate, the American Petroleum Institute and groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the American Exploration and Production Council have been running a coordinated and expensive campaign of mass corporate influence.

Over the past several weeks, the fossil fuel industry wrote letters to congressional leaders and lobbied our House and Senate colleagues directly. It placed op-eds in the local newspapers of key oil and gas states like Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Oklahoma, as well as national outlets like the Hill and the Washington Examiner.

Most insidiously, through a faux grassroots group called “Energy Citizens,” the American Petroleum Institute spent millions of dollars running television and Facebook advertisements in key swing states and congressional districts with fearmongering messages.

Meanwhile, California and other states are suffering from out-of-control wildfires and their noxious smoke, tens of thousands of Louisianans were left without power for over two weeks after Hurricane Ida, and the 17th tropical storm of the season earlier this month in the Atlantic, an unusually high number for this time of year.

The fossil fuel industry is overwhelmingly responsible for the climate crisis. A 2017 report found that since 1988, active fossil fuel producers, including American companies ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Marathon Petroleum and Occidental Petroleum, are linked to 71% of all industrial greenhouse gas emissions.

At a time when even an international oil regulatory agency declared we must end all new oil and gas exploration today to have any hope of limiting devastating global warming, and when renewables are set to become a greater share of the U.S. energy mix than natural gas by 2050, we know that the only people arguing for padding the pockets of oil executives are the oil executives themselves.

Right now, Congress has the power to call the industry’s bluff. We can end special privileges for one of our most polluting and badly behaved industries and instead support the clean energy sources of the future. It’s time to reject bad-faith industry arguments intended to block climate legislation and preserve shareholder profits. Our colleagues in Congress need to summon the moral courage to fight for just that.

READ MORE

Progressives Stand Firm, Pelosi Gets Back on Board With 2-Bill Infrastructure Plan
Mike Lillis, The Hill
Lillis writes: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday said the stonewalling by Senate centrists has 'completely' disrupted the Democrats' timeline for moving President Biden's domestic agenda, leaving open the possibility that the House will punt once again on an infrastructure vote scheduled for Thursday."

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday said the stonewalling by Senate centrists has "completely" disrupted the Democrats' timeline for moving President Biden's domestic agenda, leaving open the possibility that the House will punt once again on an infrastructure vote scheduled for Thursday.

Pelosi said she still intends to stage the infrastructure vote on Thursday, but acknowledged her power as Speaker to delay it, if need be.

"We take it one step at a time," Pelosi told reporters after huddling with members of her caucus in the basement of the Capitol, referring to Thursday's vote.

She also repeated her intention to not bring legislation to the floor that does not have the votes for passage. Leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus say half the group is prepared to vote against the infrastructure bill unless the larger social spending bill moves in tandem.

Pelosi noted that, while the House Budget Committee has already approved a blueprint for the larger social spending bill - the second piece of Biden's legislative wishlist - the Senate moderates balking at the $3.5 trillion price tag have stalled progress on the broader two-pronged agenda.

"In the meantime, there was this 'Oh my god, we can't go to that number,'" Pelosi said, invoking the Senate holdouts. "Well that completely sets off the timetable."

Delaying that vote would be sure to infuriate the moderate Democrats who are fighting for immediate approval of the Senate-passed, bipartisan infrastructure bill - and won a promise from Pelosi to do it this week.

"We're voting Thursday," Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), a co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, said Tuesday.

An initial Monday vote on infrastructure was already kicked to Thursday when it became clear that there was no House-Senate agreement on the larger social benefits bill, which liberals are demanding before they'll support the infrastructure proposal. Without those assurances, it appears the liberals have the numbers to kill it.

Pelosi said Wednesday that she won't move one bill without the other.

"We're doing it simultaneously," she said.

And upping the stakes in the ongoing debate, she declared that a simple promise from the Senate centrists to support the larger "family" package won't be enough to spur the House to act. Instead, she wants legislative text to be drafted on that broader piece of Biden's agenda.

"We come to a place where we have agreement in legislative language - not just principle, in legislative language - that the president supports," she said. "It has to be his standard."

The prolonged impasse arrives at a delicate political moment when Biden's approval numbers are falling, and Democrats are also scrambling to prevent a government shutdown this week and a Treasury default next month, all in the face of entrenched GOP opposition.

Biden is racing to break the logjam, huddling Tuesday with the two centrist holdouts, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), in an escalating effort to win their support.

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