George Zornick | The Nation

Part of the Stewart B. McKinney wildlife preserve in Connecticut, which will be ineligible for restoration funds under the Sandy relief bill passed this week. (Greg Thompson, US Fish & Wildlife Service.)

After much haggling with conservatives, the Senate finally passed a bill on Monday that provided $50.7 billion in relief to people affected by Hurricane Sandy. President Obama signed it late Tuesday.

That’s certainly a good thing—but along the way, the bill got roughed up a little bit in a couple ways that have irritated environmental groups.

The first was a $150 million cut in the amount of money that was originally headed to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That agency was going to use the money for coastal reconstruction and land acquisition by granting it to Regional Ocean Partnerships, which are multi-state coalitions formed to better manage ocean coasts that touch many different states.

But Regional Ocean Partnerships are an integral part of Obama’s National Ocean Policy, which he created in 2010—much to the dismay of Congressional Republicans and the oil companies who fund them. They hate the policy because, among other reasons, it creates substantial obstacles to offshore oil drilling.

Republicans have repeatedly passed amendments barring any money from going to National Ocean Policy implementation, and when House Republicans saw $150 million going to the Regional Ocean Partnerships in the Sandy relief bill, they axed it—even though it only would have gone to coastline restoration. The money was not restored in the final Senate version, and so NOAA has virtually no money to restore sand dunes, coastal wetlands and other areas damaged by Superstorm Sandy.

The National Resources Defense Council, while applauding passage of the bill, blasted the removal of that money as something that will “impede the protection of our oceans and land.”

House Republicans—specifically, Representative Rob Bishop—also added another provision that could hamstring federal efforts to restore damaged coastline. The Bishop amendment to the Sandy relief bill, which remained in the Senate version, prohibits the federal government from using any of the money to acquire new land.

Bishop supposedly feared a covert federal land grab, but in reality any land acquisition would only be allowed in areas affected by Sandy—just like every other provision in the bill, language specifically limited the funds to that use. And land purchases would simply be used to restore space to areas that suffered irreparable storm damage, and also add additional buffer zones for future storms.

Another provision added to the bill is nakedly punitive—a simple “screw you” to residents of Connecticut.

The Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge includes four sets of coastal islands and spans seventy miles of coastline in Connecticut along the Long Island Sound. It encompasses over 800 acres of barrier beach and tidal wetland, and “provides important resting, feeding, and nesting habitat for many species of wading birds, shorebirds, songbirds and terns, including the endangered roseate tern.”

It was ravished by Sandy and sustained what its manager termed “severe” damage. In the original Sandy relief bill put forward by the White House, the McKinney refuge was slated to receive $9.8 million to fix the damage—a vanishing fraction of the entire $50 billion legislation.

But if you read the final Sandy relief bill, you’ll notice a somewhat odd provision:

The provisions under this heading in title V of this division shall be applied by substituting ‘$78,000,000 (reduced by $9,800,000)’ for ‘$49,875,000’: Provided, That none of the funds made available under such heading in title V may be used to repair seawalls or buildings on islands in the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge.

Yes, the legislation specifically took away that $9.8 million and singled out the McKinney refuge as ineligible for restoration.

Why? Because a Republican representative of Louisiana, John Fleming, made the McKinney nature preserve a symbol of supposedly wasteful pork spending in the relief bill.

“For Heaven’s sake we should not be spending money restoring coastlines on islands that nobody ever goes to,” he crowed on the House floor during the debate earlier this month. (Over 17,000 people visit the McKinney refuge each year, and visitors are sort of besides the point to a wildlife refuge anyhow).

But to appease the talking point, House Republicans passed Fleming’s amendment to specifically keep the McKinney refuge from getting any money. Officials now say it will be hard for them to repair the damage and protect the land.

Besides coastal restoration, House Republicans also will likely block meaningful immigration reform.

(AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari.)

There’s a lot of unconvincing spin coming from the Senate Democrats who brokered an awful “filibuster reform” deal with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Thursday morning. Chief among them is the argument that this is any kind of actual reform—it isn’t.

The deal doesn’t implement a talking filibuster sought by liberal Senators Jeff Merkley and Tom Udall. It doesn’t flip the filibuster burden to the minority, requiring them to come up with forty-one votes. It simply eliminates filibusters on motions to proceed only—and that’s if senators from both parties agree on it. There are also some minor changes to limit debate on sub-cabinet and district court nominations.

“After these small changes the Senate will operate much the same way as it did yesterday,” a Democratic aide told TPM. Republicans agree: “Rules change doesn't really do a lot,” Senator Johnny Isakson told TPM. “It preserves the filibuster.”

Another silly argument is that, even though there were fifty-one votes to push through stronger reforms using the nuclear option, doing so would have angered Republicans and created more gridlock. This is a nicer approach that will encourage more comity. “It’ll give great momentum to working on a bipartisan basis here in the Senate,” Carl Levin told reporters. Anyone who actually believes that has a wildly undue faith in Mitch McConnell.

Yet another argument, channeled here by Ezra Klein, is that a massive filibuster fight is pointless with a Republican House, which will kill any liberal Senate bills anyhow. Putting aside any consideration of a long-term strategy, this would still be true only if the House had a say in nominations—which of course it does not. If a conservative Supreme Court justice retires or dies in the next four years, and the GOP filibusters Obama’s liberal appointee, let’s check back in on this theory.

The one argument with some real sway—and one aimed right at the progressive activists pushing for reform—is that if the filibuster is abolished, liberals would be unable to stop scary GOP bills should that party regain control of the Senate, which is at some point inevitable.

Said one pro-Reid aide to the Huffington Post: “Let's face it, if not for 60 [vote threshold] then Roe v. Wade might be dead and Social Security would be private accounts.”

But this argument is just as unpersuasive as the rest. It ignores the historical use of the filibuster, and recent Democratic reluctance to be anywhere near as aggressive as Republicans.

The filibuster has most notably been used to block progressive legislation, from anti-lynching laws to civil rights. (In fact, as this fascinating analysis from Slate in 2010 shows, in terms of the actual public, the filibuster is generally used to enforce majority rule, not protect minority rule.)

The filibuster simply hasn’t been in the purview of liberals in the Senate—and it likely won’t be if Republicans gain control in 2014. Just look at the record under Harry Reid when George W. Bush was president. Democrats in the Senate used the filibuster sparingly compared to Republicans post-2006, when its use absolutely skyrocketed. The cloture votes in 2009 and 2010 were more than the sum of cloture votes from 1919 through 1982.

Reid wielded the filibuster most publicly against Bush’s judicial nominees—but he still let through all but a small handful of true radicals. In fact, he even let those judges through in 2005 when McConnell threatened to use the nuclear option—including a judge who likened Social Security to cannibalism and thought all regulation might be constitutionally suspect.

It’s just not likely that Reid, or whoever leads Senate Democrats next, would come close to the level of obstruction now practiced by Republicans, which is just what the stronger reforms were meant to address. Reid doesn’t have the stomach for it—ironically, his cautious approach and respect for the institution of the Senate that lead to today’s weak reform would also paradoxically lead to an unwillingness to wield the filibuster as strongly if he found himself the minority leader once again.

The broader point is that Democrats should be willing to fight in the arena of ideas anyhow. The pro-Reid aide quoted earlier raised the prospect of Social Security privatization—an idea so unpopular that when it was proposed in 2005, it didn’t even come for a vote in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. More recently, Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney completely disavowed it on the campaign trail. (The other scary idea raised by that aide, that Roe vs. Wade “might be dead,” is literally nonsensical. The only thing Congress could do to kill it would be a constitutional amendment, which would require a two-thirds vote anyway.)  

Simply put, the most radical ideas put forth by Republicans, and thus those most deserving of the filibuster, are likely to be wildly unpopular. They can be defeated without it. And in the event of a crisis, Democrats would still have the talking filibuster.

An even broader point—and the most important one—is that the Senate was simply not designed to work under a sixty-vote threshold. It’s not what the framers intended. The Senate is considered the more deliberative body because members have six-year terms and generally bigger constituencies, not because they are supposed to pass everything with a supermajority. If Reid truly respects the institution, he should have considered restoring it to its original form.

Demonstrators rally against the Keystone XL pipeline in front of the White House on Nov. 6, 2011. (Reuters/Joshua Roberts.)

Addressing climate change was—quite remarkably—the most prominent policy vow President Obama made yesterday on the steps of the US Capitol Building. “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that failure to do so would betray our children and future generations,” he proclaimed.

The administration’s resolve on this issue will be tested quickly, when the Keystone XL pipeline comes up for review once again. Obama denied approval for the project in January 2012 over concerns it would damage Nebraska’s Ogalalla Aquifer, but allowed TransCanada to reapply for a permit with a different route, which it has done. A re-review of the project from the State Department may now be coming within the next few weeks.

It’s notable that the White House initially denied the project based on the logic that it might be bad for certain Nebraskans—not that it would pump unacceptable levels of carbon pollution into the air. (Which it would: NASA’s James Hansen has said “it’s basically game over” for climate change if the project goes ahead, and a new report released last week says it’s worse than we thought—the likely greenhouse gas emissions would be 13 percent higher than what the State Department originally estimated, according to the authors).

So will Obama’s new and ostensibly bold direction on climate change mean denying the project again, this time making explicit the harmful greenhouse gas argument? Or will the project be approved now that the pipeline has been rerouted around that aquifer?

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney’s answer to a reporter’s question this afternoon offers virtually no comfort to environmentalists and pipeline opponents. When asked about the Republican governor of Nebraska, a former pipeline opponent, who blessed the project today now that it’s been re-routed, Carney said:

It’s interesting—you mention the Nebraska governor. This whole process, as you remember, got sort of derailed because of insistence on sort of politicizing something that was not political. It was a process that followed the format that had been used in the past in terms of the State Department’s role in approving these types of pipelines when they cross international boundaries. One of the things that delayed or postponed this process had to do with the opposition of the Nebraska governor and others in that state to the route Keystone was proposed to take, the pipeline was proposed to take, so I think that’s just an instructive reminder about how this ended up where it is now.

Well, yes, that is instructive. Carney appears to be preparing reporters for an approval of the project. He singled out the governor’s opposition as the key obstacle, and one that has been overcome. By slapping at the idea it was a “political” decision, Carney seems to be suggesting that the uproar and protests by environmentalists—and ensuing accusations by Republicans that the project was denied in deference to them—was all a sideshow, and that the real problem was one that has now been figured out.

Approving the pipeline would cripple any notion the White House is actually serious about addressing climate change. White House aides have said Obama’s planned action on climate change will be an “aggressive campaign built around the use of his executive powers to sidestep congressional opposition,” and so this is the perfect test case for that approach. Obama can deny the project without consulting Congress at all. The political costs to killing the project are likely to be low as well. Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, along with congressional Republicans, endlessly hammered Obama this summer and fall for denying the project—to no measurable effect in November.

In short, there really isn’t any excuse, and the decision will no doubt be considered an early litmus test of the administration’s seriousness about tackling global warming. Senator Bernie Sanders, who also wants Obama to push for legislative action on climate change, said in a statement today that “the president can, and must, move aggressively to use executive powers to reduce pollution and reject harmful projects like the Keystone XL pipeline.”

UPDATE: Late Tuesday, the State Department announced the environmental review wouldn't be completed in the first quarter of 2013, so no decision could be made before April 1, at the earliest. 

Young people have taken a leading hand in fighting approval of the Keystone pipeline, and activists stormed TransCanada offices across the country earlier this month.

President Obama speaks at the White House alongside Vice President Biden on January 16, 2012, about a new push to control gun violence. Credit: Reuters/Larry Downing.

One month and two days after the shootings in Newtown, the White House unveiled a broad strategic plan for reducing gun violence—and unlike too many other moments in his presidency, Obama went big. The policy proposals are ambitious, as was the presidential rhetoric used to ask for them.

The major features of the plan include:

An assault weapons ban: “Weapons designed for the theater of war have no place in a movie theater,” Obama said, in an obvious reference to the seventy-one people shot in Aurora, Colorado, this summer, while noting that Ronald Reagan also favored such a ban. Obama asked Congress to pass another assault weapons ban—the last one expired in 2004—and to close the loopholes that existed last time. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s legislation is a near-certain vehicle for this proposal.

Ban on high-capacity magazines: Obama proposes capping magazine clips at ten bullets, which is also a feature of Feinstein’s bill.

Universal background checks: Obama noted that 40 percent of the gun sales in America are conducted “privately,” and thus buyers are not subject to background checks. The White House flags this as the “single most important thing we can do to prevent gun violence.” Obama asked Congress to not only close the gun show loophole but require background checks for all gun sales, with narrow exceptions for transfers between family members and temporary transfers for hunting purposes.

Ban armor-piercing bullets: This is something the law enforcement community is strongly behind—police don’t want bullets that can break through their vests being fired at them. Obama wants Congress to ban not only the sale of these bullets, but also ownership and transfer—in other words, a total ban. It’s a good policy idea, but also one that focuses the public debate on some of the truly absurd weapons Americans are allowed to easily obtain.

Fund police officers: Obama wants Congress to pass $4 billion to fund police enforcement around the country. This is a slight (very slight) paean to the NRA proposal to put armed officers in every school in America, but also dovetails with the administration’s long-standing pleas for Congress to fund public sector employment in the cash-strapped states. Similarly, Obama wants Congress to fund 1,000 new school counselors and $50 million spent on an anti-bullying initiative.

Obama also signed twenty-three executive orders on gun control, beyond what he’s asking Congress for. The highlights include directives to state health programs to make sure there is parity between mental and physical health services under Medicaid; a raft of orders designed to beef up compliance with the FBI’s criminal background check system; and increased law enforcement of existing gun laws.

Crucially, Obama will also nominate a permanent head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which has been without even a temporary chief since 2006 and without a permanent one since 1970. That will reportedly be Byron Todd Jones, who is already at the agency.

The White House unveiling was greeted with fulsome praise from gun control advocates. “This profoundly historic initiative puts the full moral and political weight of the presidency behind strong and specific measures to reduce gun violence,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut in a statement. “It is presidential leadership at its best and boldest.”

Progressives also seemed pleased, not only because of the policy proposals but because the president was going all-in on a fight. “We applaud the White House plan to think big and take bold action against gun killings,” said Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee—an outfit not known for praising Obama. “The PCCC is all in for this fight, investing time and money in Republican and Democratic districts until Congress passes major gun legislation that includes an assault weapons ban.”

In Congress, the reaction from Republican leadership was muted—for now, anyhow. House Speaker John Boehner’s office put a noncommittal, two-sentence response: “House committees of jurisdiction will review these recommendations. And if the Senate passes a bill, we will also take a look at that.”

Rank-and-file members, however—including some key 2016 figures—were not as demure. Senator Marco Rubio appeared on right-wing talk radio moments before Obama spoke and slammed the new initiative as “completely misplaced.”

“If you’re going to pass a bunch of laws that are not going to work but are going to infringe on the Second Amendment right of law-abiding citizens, you’re going to have a problem with that,” Rubio said. (Talk among constitutional infringement is heating up in the far-right corners of the political world: the governor of Mississippi today called for measures to combat “this overreaching and anti-constitutional violation of our rights as American citizens.”)

I detect a small whiff of impeachment threat from Rubio, something one Republican member of the House has already openly threatened. And Representative Bob Goodlatte, who essentially carries the banner for the NRA in the House, wouldn’t rule it out on C-SPAN this morning.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed Obama’s proposal in a statement, and included a crucial and explicit endorsement of the assault weapons ban.

Representative Mike Thompson, however, who is tasked to lead the gun violence task force set up by House Democrats, wasn’t as fully committal. He released a positive statement, but one that didn’t explicitly endorse all of Obama’s recommendations. (As we noted yesterday, Thompson has been edging away from an assault weapons ban.)

“During the next several weeks our task force will examine the president’s proposals and the proposals of others,” Thompson’s statement said. “We will continue meeting with stakeholders on every side of this issue. And we will develop a comprehensive set of policy proposals that both respect peoples’ Second Amendment rights and help keep our communities safe from gun violence.”

Harry Reid, is also waffling on an assault weapons ban, put out a similar statement that said, “I thank the president’s task force for its thoughtful recommendations,” and committed that the Senate would consider legislation soon, but endorsed no particular aspect of the plan—notably not endorsing the assault weapons ban. 

The Congressional battles are yet to come, but for now, it will be interesting to see how the public responds to Obama’s announcement. He closed by saying this:

This is the land of the free, and it always will be. As Americans, we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights that no man or government can take away from us.

But we’ve also long recognized, as our Founders recognized, that with rights come responsibilities. Along with our freedom to live our lives as we will comes an obligation to allow others to do the same. We don’t live in isolation. We live in a society, a government of, and by, and for the people. We are responsible for each other. The right to worship freely and safely, that right was denied to Sikhs in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. The right to assemble peaceably, that right was denied shoppers in Clackamas, Oregon, and moviegoers in Aurora, Colorado.

That most fundamental set of rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness—fundamental rights that were denied to college students at Virginia Tech, and high school students at Columbine, and elementary school students in Newtown, and kids on street corners in Chicago on too frequent a basis to tolerate, and all the families who’ve never imagined that they’d lose a loved one to a bullet—those rights are at stake. We’re responsible.

When I visited Newtown last month, I spent some private time with many of the families who lost their children that day. And one was the family of Grace McDonald. Grace’s parents are here. Grace was 7 years old when she was struck down—just a gorgeous, caring, joyful little girl. I’m told she loved pink. She loved the beach. She dreamed of becoming a painter.

And so just before I left, Chris, her father, gave me one of her paintings, and I hung it in my private study just off the Oval Office. And every time I look at that painting, I think about Grace. And I think about the life that she lived and the life that lay ahead of her, and most of all, I think about how, when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable among us, we must act now—for Grace. For the twenty-five other innocent children and devoted educators who had so much left to give. For the men and women in big cities and small towns who fall victim to senseless violence each and every day. For all the Americans who are counting on us to keep them safe from harm. Let’s do the right thing. Let’s do the right thing for them, and for this country that we love so much.

That matched, in my opinion, any other moment in his presidency in terms of powerful and emotional rhetoric. The public is quickly getting behind gun control, according to polls, and how durable that momentum is will hold the real key to the messy gun control debate that lies ahead in Washington.

Does this mark the emergence of a bold new Obama? In his latest post, Rick Perlstein criticized “President Groundhog Day” for being afraid of his own shadow when it comes to negotiating with Republicans.