Next up on unfinished Senate agenda: unemployment insurance

Once Democrat Carte Goodwin is sworn in Tuesday to replace the late Sen. Robert Byrd, Senate Democrats will have the votes to try again to extend unemployment insurance to the jobless.

For congressional Democrats – especially in the often-gridlocked US Senate – this week marks a sprint to wind up a large, unfinished agenda in time to sway midterm elections.

Big-ticket items range from energy and campaign-finance reform to decisions over expiring Bush-era tax cuts, war funding, and 12 spending bills for fiscal year 2011, which begins Oct. 1. On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee votes on the confirmation of Elena Kagan to the US Supreme Court, with a full Senate vote expected later in the week.

With the swearing-in on Tuesday of Democrat Carte Goodwin to fill the seat of the late Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Democrats say they have the 60th vote needed break a Republican filibuster and approve a long-stalled $34 billion extension of unemployment benefits..

Highlighting the unfinished Senate agenda in his weekly address on Saturday, President Obama charged Republicans with "filibustering the nation's economic recovery" and making a stand “on the backs of the unemployed.” Most Senate Republicans oppose the measure on the grounds that Democrats have not identified offsetting spending cuts to pay for it..

“We're all for extending unemployment insurance. The question is, when are we going to get serious … about the debt?” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday on CNN’s "State of the Union." “We recently passed a $13 trillion cumulative deficit threshold. When are we going to get serious about this? This administration has been on an incredible spending spree.”.

Back in February, when maverick Sen. Jim Bunning (R) of Kentucky launched a one-man bid to block a $10 billion, temporary extension of eligibility for unemployment insurance, 78 senators opposed him, including 19 of his GOP colleagues. But since then, Senate Republicans, with the exception of Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, have rallied around the theme of reining in federal deficits, even at the expense of unemployed constituents..

“There’s bipartisan support for the idea of helping the unemployed. The Democrats missed a great opportunity to pass a bill showing that we could also control costs,” says Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina..

At the same time, Republicans say there is no need to offset the cost of extending the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, now set to expire Dec. 31. If these cuts expire, the highest income tax bracket jumps from 35 percent to 39.6 percent; the lowest, from 10 percent to 15 percent. The top rate for dividends, now 15 percent, runs up to 39.6 percent. The top rate for taxes on capital gains rises from 15 to 20 percent. The estate tax, which dropped to zero for 2010, reverts to a top rate of 55 percent..

“We believe that the problem is not that we tax too little but that we spend too much,” Senator McConnell said Sunday..

Mr. Obama campaigned on a pledge to extend the Bush tax cuts for families with incomes less than $250,000 a year and for individuals earning less than $200,000 – a measure that Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation estimates will cost $300 billion annually..   Full Story

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Ceremonies Launch Clean Energy Venture

Two gentlemen from Ohio inked a partnership Sunday that they say could help create more than 2,000 sustainable jobs over the next decade in the Mahoning Valley. Today, the pair will affix their signatures again, this time on a document co-signed by an incubator in Israel that will work with them to enhance technological innovation in Northeast Ohio.

Scott, president of Applied Systems and Technology Transfer, Utah, and Garvey, president of M-7 Technologies, Youngstown, signed the agreement during a press event at Youngstown State University's Moser Hall. Their new partnership, Ohio Clean Technologies Group, is designed to facilitate and bring to market high-tech applications related to alternative and "clean" energy.

"There's a tremendous need for companies looking for industry partners, government contracts and final validation for their technology," Scott said. "Our company identifies these companies and works with them to get the resources they need, find the assistance they need to take those technologies to commercialization and to create jobs here."

Scott explained that the relationship with LN Technologic -- the Israeli incubator that Ohio Clean Technologies will sign a cooperative agreement with this afternoon -- began in January when the pair visited Israel as part of a delegation that included the mayors of Youngstown and Warren, local business leaders and representatives of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber.

"Some of the most innovative technologies we've seen have come out of Israel," Scott said. "What they've done is partnered with their defense department." That relationship, he continued, has helped create new technological applications that transcend military use and are adopted by the private sector rapidly. "Their defense department is key to the development and commercialization of technology," he said.

Advances in laser technologies, remote sensors, wind and solar cells are among the initiatives under development at LN Innovative Technologies. "We want to create a link with the Israeli incubator companies and identify and transfer those technologies back here," Scott noted.

The goal is to incorporate the expertise at nearby universities such as YSU, Akron University and Kent State University, and the cluster of small technology companies housed in the Youngstown Business Incubator.

Ohio Clean Technologies is in the final stages of negotiating a lease for 20,000 square-feet of office and manufacturing space at the Ohio Works Business Park, which would serve as an interim location until the group constructs a building of its own, Scott said. The long-term objective is to acquire 10 acres next to M-7 Technologies at the park and build a multipurpose center to test and help bring to market alternative energy efforts.





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Environmental group calls on Obama to support clean energy

 Ahead of President Barack Obama's third visit to oil-hit Louisiana, the head of the oldest US environmental group called Thursday for him to develop the coastal industry into a hub for sustainable energy.

"We stand in support of the 35,000 oil and gas workers in Louisiana who are trying feed their families," Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, told AFP. "It's not the fault of the workforce that America has become dependent on dirty sources of energy," he said.

As crude from a sunken BP-leased oil rig continued to devastate the Gulf's fragile wetlands, Brune urged Obama to redirect 10 billion dollars in annual federal incentives from oil and gas interests to developing a new energy economy based on wind, solar, and geothermal power, among other alternative sources.

"Places like Venice and the Gulf of Mexico... areas that have been the backbone of the industrialized fossil fuel-based economy, need to be the first places where we create a clean energy economy," Brune said.

"Knowing that we're not going to end all oil drilling tomorrow... we have the opportunity to aggressively phase in clean energy sources like wind, solar and geothermal (power)," he said.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal pointed out earlier this week that a prolonged moratorium on offshore drilling championed by Obama would threaten thousands of jobs in the state.

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