Like a lot of industry groups, the farm lobby says it would prefer that Congress tackle climate change rather than leave the job to Environmental Protection Agency bureaucrats. But now, the prospect of EPA greenhouse gas regulation looms large - mostly because agriculture and so many other interests haven’t liked any of the climate bills proposed so far on Capitol Hill. Not to worry. The same onslaught of lobbyists and lawyers - representing about 1,170 businesses and interests - that helped dim prospects for climate legislation in this Congress is now engaged in an energetic, multifront offensive to delay or block any attempt by the Obama administration to enact an alternative through regulation. Overt and covert support for Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s pending resolution to stop the EPA from regulation and similar legislation introduced in the House is but one prong of this assault. Opponents of federal curbs on fossil fuel emissions are also seeking allies in the states and in other federal agencies, while paving the way for court action to directly challenge the EPA’s initiative. Rick Krause, the American Farm Bureau Federation’s senior director for congressional relations, says the EPA’s Clean Air Act permitting […]
If no health care overhaul passes Congress, health insurers may be in for a windfall — and one far larger that most Americans probably realize. According to a study by a pro-health reform group published Thursday, the nation’s largest five health insurance companies posted a 56 percent gain in 2009 profits over 2008. The insurers including Wellpoint, UnitedHealth, Cigna, Aetna and Humana, which cover the majority of Americans with insurance. The insurers’ hefty profit gains came even as 2.7 million more Americans lost their insurance coverage due to the declining economy. A lobbyist for American’s Health Insurance Plans, the trade group that represents insurers in Washington, D.C., attributed the gain in 2009 profits to a poor performance in 2008. In 2008, insurers were forced to write down their stock holdings because of the US market’s declines. Insurance companies keep a great deal of money in the markets, earning interest from the time between premiums are paid and the time when health providers are paid. ‘It is disingenuous to look at the profits at one company today compared to where it was in the depth of a recession,’ Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, […]
HAMILTON, ONTARIO — Researchers at McMaster University have developed a cocktail of ingredients that forestalls major aspects of the aging process. The findings are published in the current issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine. ‘As we all eventually learn, ageing diminishes our mind, fades our perception of the world and compromises our physical capacity,’ says David Rollo, associate professor of biology at McMaster. ‘Declining physical activity-think of grandparents versus toddlers-is one of the most reliable expressions of ageing and is also a good indicator of obesity and general mortality risk.’ The study found that a complex dietary supplement powerfully offsets this key symptom of ageing in old mice by increasing the activity of the cellular furnaces that supply energy-or mitochondria-and by reducing emissions from these furnaces-or free radicals-that are thought to be the basic cause of ageing itself. Most of the primary causes of human mortality and decline are strongly correlated with age and free-radical processes, including heart disease, stroke, Type II diabetes, many cancers, neurodegenerative diseases, and inflammatory and autoimmune conditions. Successful intervention into the ageing process could consequently prevent or forestall all of these. Using bagel bits soaked in the supplement to ensure […]
More than a million spectators gathered before the Capitol on a frosty January afternoon to witness the inauguration of Barack Obama, who promised in his campaign to change Washington’s mercenary culture of lobbyists, special interest influence and backroom deals. But within a few months of being sworn in, the President and his top aides were sitting down with leaders from the pharmaceutical industry to hash out a deal that they thought would make health care reform possible. Over the following months, pharmaceutical industry lobbyists and executives met with top White House aides dozens of times to hammer out a deal that would secure industry support for the administration’s health care reform agenda in exchange for the White House abandoning key elements of the president’s promises to reform the pharmaceutical industry. They flooded Congress with campaign contributions, and hired dozens of former Capitol Hill insiders to push their case. How they did it-pieced together from news accounts, disclosure forms including lobbying reports and Federal Election Commission records, White House visitor logs and the schedule Sen. Max Baucus releases voluntarily-is a testament to how ingrained the grip of special interests remains in Washington. In the 2008 campaign, Obama declared his […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
