Yesterday, CREW, along with three other groups (Rutherford Institute, Judicial Watch and the Brennan Center) filed a friend of the court brief supporting the House Judiciary Committee’s efforts to compel former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and former White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolton to comply with congressional subpoenas. CREW’s amicus brief can be found here. Also, the Associated Press reported that a bi-partisan group of 20 former U.S. Attorneys also filed an amicus brief in this case.

The Judiciary Committee is investigating whether the White House and top Justice Department officials fired U.S. Attorneys because of their refusal to give in to partisan political considerations in their decisions on who to prosecute. The White House has taken the extreme and unprecedented position that Miers and Bolton are absolutely immune from congressional subpoenas, meaning that according to the White House they are free to ignore the subpoenas at the unilateral and unreviewable decision of the president. In the lawsuit, the White House has argued that the Court cannot and should not even hear the matter.

CREW joined with the other groups, who represent a broad spectrum of interests, in arguing that the checks and balances that are so fundamental to our democracy require that the court hear and resolve the case. The President’s actions have prevented Congress from carrying out its constitutional responsibility to investigate very serious allegations of executive wrong-doing and to consider a possible legislative fix. Dismissing the case will only reward the White House for its intransigence and create a perverse incentive to never comply with a congressional request for information, secure in the knowledge that the courts will not intervene to protect Congress’ legitimate constitutional interests. Read the rest of this entry »

Republicans last week introduced legislation for American-made energy for American jobs and the American economy. These bills touch every portion of the energy sector, and whatever it takes to get them to the House floor, we’re for, because we want energy prices down. Taken comprehensively, these bills would be a solution to America’s energy problem and I’m happy to say that all the energy would be made in America.

I am personally tired of standing around, wringing my hands and watching each day’s increase in a barrel of oil on the spot market and subsequent increase in the price of gasoline at the pump. This is actual policy, not more of the feel-goodism that the House has engaged in over the past two weeks.

In recent years, there has been much debate about the proper forum in which to prosecute suspected terrorists, sparked in large part by the failure of the Guantanamo military commission system to hold terrorism suspects accountable for the most serious crimes. Nearly 800 men have been imprisoned at Guantanamo since 2002. But more than six years later, prosecutors have sought charges against just sixteen men and convicted only one.

Some Guantanamo critics have urged a system of preventive detention without trial and/or the creation of “national security courts” with modified rules of evidence, secrecy and security. Others, however, believe that the existing criminal justice system already provides an effective mechanism for detaining and prosecuting terrorist suspects. This issue is expected to take on increasing significance in the coming months as part of a larger discussion over the future of Guantanamo and following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Boumediene v. Bush, a case on which the Court is expected to rule in June.

A new Human Rights First report, “In Pursuit of Justice: Prosecuting Terrorism Cases in the Federal Courts,” offers an important and much-needed contribution to this debate by examining 123 international terrorism cases prosecuted in the federal system over the past fifteen years, ranging from epic mega-trials for completed acts of terrorism to individual prosecutions focused on prevention. The authors are Rich Zabel and Jim Benjamin, two former federal prosecutors who are now partners at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP. They base their findings on a close review of motion papers, dockets sheets and judicial opinions as well as interviews with prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges with firsthand terrorism litigation experience.

In Pursuit of Justice analyzes various legal and practical aspects of the federal system that critics have suggested are ill-suited for terrorism cases, including pre-trial detention procedures, rules for protecting classified evidence, the authentication and admissibility of evidence collected abroad, and the mechanisms for ensuring courtroom security. It finds that the most common criticisms of the criminal justice system are unsubstantiated and exaggerated: Federal courts have ample tools for handling terrorism cases without compromising national security or sacrificing rigorous standards of due process. Read the rest of this entry »

We all want our children and our grandchildren to be able to enjoy what we love about the ocean – from fishing trips to beach vacations to seafood dinners. But this legacy is at risk. No where is this more apparent than in Florida. Flanked by the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, Florida’s fishing, diving, and beach-going industries are not only vacation magnets for the nation, but they generate billions of dollars for the state. And they depend on healthy beaches and coastal waters, vital coral reefs and diverse and robust fish populations – all threatened by global warming.

That’s why the report issued yesterday by a coalition of scientists and experts from internationally and nationally recognized environmental groups – including my group, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) – is so important. The Florida Ocean and Coastal Commission’s “Preparing for a Sea Change in Florida: A Strategy to Cope with the Impacts of Global Warming on the State’s Coastal and Marine Systems” is a blueprint for helping oceans and coasts survive global warming in Florida. But it’s reach is wider than it – the report’s recommendations are relevant to the rest of the country and the world, as our oceans and coasts face the stresses associated with global warming and ocean acidification.

One central recommendation in the report is that Congress pass laws that provide funding, as well as require federal and state agencies to protect and strengthen the health of coastal and ocean ecosystems. The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008 provides an important example for how to do this, and is scheduled to come before the United States Senate as early as next week. This bill is estimated to provide billions of dollars every year to protect and restore natural resources impacted by global warming, and to help fish, wildlife, habitats and ecosystems become more resilient. The longer we wait to act, the more expensive and difficult it will be to fix later. Read the rest of this entry »

Finally, the USTR is taking action and asking the WTO to enforce the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), as Congress has been urging the Administration to do for more than a year.  To sustain innovation in the high-tech sector and preserve our transatlantic trade relationships, the countries who signed the ITA must play by the rules and live up to the agreement.  It is my hope that the EU will respond to the USTR’s announcement by dropping their arbitrary tariffs against US goods and upholding the ITA.

While today’s announcement is good news, this enforcement case is only one of a handful brought before the WTO by the Bush Administration over the last 8 years.  I am hopeful that a new Administration will work more aggressively to reduce our trade deficit by using every tool at its disposal to ensure that American goods and services are treated fairly around the globe.

This week the Supreme Court reaffirmed that protection against retaliation is a crucial aspect of the enforcement of our nation’s civil rights laws in two decisions. CBOCS v. Humphries involved a restaurant manager who alleged that he was fired after reporting racially derogatory remarks and differential treatment of minority employees. Gomez-Perez v. Potter involved a postal worker who claimed retaliation after she complained that the refusal to grant her a transfer was based on age discrimination.

In both cases the Court did what we should have been able to expect– to follow precedent.  The Court affirmed a case decided just over three years ago, Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education, which held that Title IX’s broad prohibition against sex discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal funds also prohibits retaliation, which, in turn, was based on another Supreme Court case decided almost 40 years ago. Thus, in Gomez-Perez and CBOCS the Court stood by its longstanding precedent to hold that a right to be free from discrimination includes a right to be free from retaliation.  Indeed, the Court recognized, as it has in the past, that protections against discrimination include a protection against retaliation. Read the rest of this entry »

Today I announced alongside New Hampshire Transportation Commissioner George Campbell in Concord that I will introduce legislation when I return to Washington to help commuters struggling with record high gas prices.

My legislation would create a tax credit for businesses for fifty percent of any amount they pay to their employees as part of a reimbursement program for carpooling to work.  It will also allow state and local governments to participate as well, and they would receive additional annual funding for programs that encourage carpooling to the office.

On average, New Hampshire families are paying $3.88 for a gallon of regular gasoline, which is up from just $3 a gallon one year ago. Diesel prices have also skyrocketed up to $4.78 from just $2.80 per gallon a year ago. And often commuters in New Hampshire spend up to $3,000 per year on commuting to work and with skyrocketing gas prices that number is just increasing. Read the rest of this entry »

In 1996 the United States and other countries accounting for over 90 percent of world trade in computers, semiconductors, and other information technology products agreed in the World Trade Organization to eliminate their import tariffs on all such products. As a result, the United States became a huge exporter of these products.   Now, over 10 years later, the European Union (EU) has decided to start imposing 14 percent import duties on new information technology products in violation of the agreement.

Their rationale is that these new products didn’t exist in 1996 and many of them, such as computer monitors that can receive TV signals could be considered consumer goods.  Duh!  As NAM President John Engler just told the press, “Integration of electronics into more and more multifunction products is the future of the electronics industry. We need to encourage this product evolution with liberal tariff treatment, not discourage it with protectionism. If the EU is permitted to make its own definitions of what is covered, everyone else will do so too - and pretty soon the Information Technology Agreement will just be history.” Read the rest of this entry »

In the first four months of 2008, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the federal agency responsible for the safety of more than 15,000 types of consumer products, has initiated 121 recalls involving nearly 10 million unsafe products. That includes more than 5.9 million toys and other children’s products with harmful, tiny magnets; toxic lead paint; and choking and strangulation hazards. If you do the math, that’s more than 50,000 products a day. Much is at stake if we don’t fix our product safety system, especially for children.

Our goal should be fewer recalls because that would mean the products winding up on our shelves are safer. To help reach that goal, consumer and public interest groups, and concerned Americans everywhere, want Congress to finalize action on meaningful product safety reforms. Congressional conferees are now at work trying to complete action on a product safety reform measure. It’s important that they get it right and produce the strongest reforms possible.

Consider the story of one family. Twenty-month old Jack Esses ended up in a coma late last year. And when doctors were at a loss to explain what was wrong, his mom — Shelby Esses — was sure her son’s frightening state was due to the Aqua Dots beads he had swallowed earlier that day. Fortunately, six hours after falling into a coma, Jack woke up. But Shelby didn’t let the matter drop. She pursued her hunch that the Aqua Dots were the cause of her son’s sudden sickness. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and VoteVets.org sent a letter to the General for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) requesting an investigation into the process and manner by which the VA makes a diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in veterans.

Earlier this month, the two groups exposed an internal VA e-mail advising VA mental health staff in Texas to consider a diagnosis of adjustment disorder in place of a PTSD diagnosis as a cost-cutting measure, which stated the staff should “refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out” and they should “R/O [rule out] PTSD” and consider a diagnosis of “Adjustment Disorder” instead. Read the e-mail here.

Since that disclosure, there have been calls for investigations by members of Congress. VA Secretary James Peake has repudiated the email as not reflecting VA policy. Read the rest of this entry »