Reiterating the chorus from the song “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) campaign team launched a global warming commercial this week to address global warming.

“All the earth’s creatures are threatened by global warming,” the narrator in the commercial said. “One candidate for president is doing something to stop it.”

This week the President announced a plan to expand U.S. sanctions against the Sudanese government.  While these sanctions are a step in the right direction, alone they are not enough to stop the violence against the people of Darfur.  In his speech, the President also promised to seek a new U.N. Security Council resolution; that resolution could have a greater impact than these expanded U.S. sanctions, if it is hard hitting enough.

We should lead the international community in enforcing a No-Fly Zone, imposing multilateral sanctions through the U.N., shepherding negotiations among all the parties for a lasting peace settlement, finding the forces for a peacekeeping mission, and, if necessary, committing U.S. troops on the ground to support these efforts and ensure humanitarian access.  I recognize that there are logistical obstacles and humanitarian concerns involved in this more aggressive approach:  international assistance to Darfur hangs by a thread and we must take careful steps to ensure that aid continues to reach those in need.

The United Nations has authorized a peacekeeping mission of 20,000 troops and additional police forces for Sudan.  I recently met with the U.N. Secretary General and urged him to move rapidly to raise these forces and get them into Darfur.  The international community must step up to its responsibility and deploy the troops and equipment. Peace in Darfur requires a global response and bold action.  The U.S. can and will play a major role, but so must the United Nations and the African Union.  We also need a sustained, coordinated diplomatic effort, which will bring the rebels together and build a lasting peace that works for the people of Darfur.

According to reports this week, Russia has successfully tested a highly advanced long-range ballistic missile. Information thus far suggests that this new missile is capable of bearing up to 10 independently targeted warheads, which are difficult to intercept and destroy once they have been fired. Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov is quoted as saying, “As of today Russia has new (missiles) that are capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defense systems. So in terms of defense and security Russian can look calmly to the country’s future.”

Meanwhile, over the last several months Russia has consistently expressed disapproval of the potential U.S. missile interceptor site in Central Europe, to be deployed in an effort to defend our nation and allies against any long-range missile attack from nations such as Iran. It therefore strikes me as hypocritical that a nation numbered among America’s allies continues to oppose our efforts to secure strong defensive capabilities, while openly pursuing more advanced offensive weapons. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week Congress passed a bill to finally provide the no-strings funding that America’s troops need to win the war. It should not have taken so long to pass. Now that it has, we can finally give our troops the support they need to win the war in Iraq.

The bill is an absolute victory for our troops, especially the $3 billion that will be used to “up-armor” military vehicles. The inclusion of benchmarks for progress in Iraq instead of rigid, strategy-revealing timetables for ending the war is a vast improvement over previous legislation Congress sent the president.

But the legislation also contains some disappointing components that are bad public policy for America. The Democrats’ decision to once again use the need to fund our troops in order to raise the minimum wage and thereby cost jobs and economic growth is just plain shameful and demonstrates why Congress must be reformed. Congress should have held a separate up-or-down vote on the minimum wage, not tuck it into a bill that makes important national security determinations for our country. I support our troops and support the military components of the legislation we passed. I do not support Congress’ meddling in free markets by artificially increasing the minimum wage. The minimum wage increase will stifle our economy and hurt American businesses — big and small. But I also recognize that if we don’t fully back our soldiers in Iraq, all the economic policy determinations will become secondary — because we’ll be fighting the war here at home. Read the rest of this entry »

Highlighting a story of a campaign supporter in Iowa, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) laid out the details of a plan he promised at the start of his presidential campaign.

“The very first promise i made on this campaign, was that as president, Iwill sign a universal health care plan into law by the end of my first term in office…” Obama said. “A plan that not only guarantees coverage for every American, but also brings down the cost of health care and reduces every family’s premiums by as much as $2500.”

We applaud the president’s actions in imposing sanctions that are specific in their intent to free the Sudanese people from the horror and atrocities they are subjected to daily.  I personally find it morally opprobrious, that liberal groups such as the Congressional Black Caucus and NAACP saw fit to castigate the president as being singularly responsible for the ineptness of Mayor Ray Nagin and Gov. Kathleen Blanco in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina — yet in their pietistic capacity as the self-righteous arbiters of what is in the best interest of Blacks and African Americans they ignore the pleas for help from such a desperate and downtrodden people.

I would further be remiss, if to not suggest that perhaps when Julian Bond, Harry Belafonte, and Danny Glover finish caressing the back and shoulders of maniacal dictators like Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro they too will find time to address the cries for mercy from Darfur.

Read Project 21’s press release concerning the imposed sanctions against Sudan here.

I voted against the Iraq Supplemental last week because it does not provide the American people with a path to end this war. Without a real plan for accountability in Iraq, there is no telling how long this war will continue.

I fully support our troops and their families, and I’ve made this clear time and time again with my votes in Congress. But I also believe that it is Congress’s duty to support a change in Iraq policy that will meet our national security goals and objectives.

When the people of South Florida elected me to Congress last November, they put their trust and faith in me to represent their values and priorities. And those priorities include fighting for a new direction in Iraq. Rest assured I will continue that fight.

This week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) held its first hearings in response to California’s long-standing request to implement landmark global warming emissions standards for new automobiles. Under the Clean Air Act (CAA), California is permitted to set higher vehicle emissions standards than the federal government, with other states given the option to enact either the federal or the California standard. By affirming EPA’s authority to regulate global warming pollutants under the CAA in Mass. v. EPA, the Supreme Court placed California’s own efforts to do so under the CAA on solid legal footing. California and thirteen other states — comprising some forty percent of the U.S. auto market — have shown bold leadership on global warming by enacting these standards and continue to wait for the EPA to grant them the waiver they need to move forward.

EPA should give California its Clean Air Act waiver immediately. Instead of sitting in neutral until the last days of 2008, it’s well past time for the Bush administration to get out of the way and let these states shift the fight against global warming into high gear. Read the rest of this entry »

While we’ve heard a lot of discussion over the past few weeks about the problems with the Senate immigration bill, there has been very little mention of key aspects of the bill that will affect every working American.

Title III would require every person working in America, including U.S. citizens, to have his or her eligibility to work verified by the Department of Homeland Security using the already overburdened and error-plagued Employment Eligibility Verification System (EEVS). EEVS creates a massive government database containing extraordinary amounts of personal information about every person in America. Everyone will have to carry a hardened Social Security card, perhaps containing biometric information about the cardholder - essentially a national ID, and present a REAL ID-compliant driver’s license to get any new job. And, if the government’s data is wrong the Senate bill does not allow the individual who is wrongly denied the ability to work to get wages lost due to government error.

In addition, a number of the proposed amendments would deny due process and undermine the values of our country and our Constitution. For example, Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-Tex.) inappropriately named “Fairness in Immigration Litigation Actâ€? (FILA) would eliminate effective judicial review of DHS errors denying immigrants their rights. It places arbitrary and absurdly short deadlines on courts deciding immigration cases and shuts down injunctions against the DHS when the department has violated the law. Read the rest of this entry »

Some constitutional provisions are open to interpretation. One constitutional requirement that is not ambiguous, however, is the requirement that every bill pass both houses of Congress before it can be presented to the President and become law. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA) was presented to the President in violation of that requirement: The Senate passed one version of a bill, the House another, and then the Senate’s version was presented to the President, who signed it on February 9, 2006. Under the Constitution, that bill has not become a law.

Public Citizen challenged the validity of the DRA in a lawsuit last year; the district court dismissed our case. The court held that a case from 1892 called Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark precluded courts from questioning the validity of an enrolled bill signed by the House and Senate leaders and presented to the President. Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed that decision. Two other district courts have rejected challenges similar to ours.

These decisions and, even more so, the underlying facts surrounding passage of the DRA, should disturb anyone who believes in the principles established by our Constitution. If congressional leaders can knowingly flout a basic constitutional requirement (and the facts show that the leaders did so knowingly), and the President can sign into law a bill that he knows was not enacted in accordance with constitutional requirements (and the facts show that the White House did know), and the courts refuse to enforce that constitutional requirement (as several have done), what does that say about the primacy of the Constitution? What does that say about the effectiveness of “checks and balances” in our government today? What does that say about our leaders’ respect for the law? Nothing good.