Members of Congress shrugged their shoulders and procrastinated this week, putting off tough budget and tax decisions until after Tuesday’s elections. Six out of thirteen annual appropriations bills funding federal agencies are stalled, the subject of vicious fighting because of provisions tacked on in the form of "riders."
Of course, the special interests lobbying hard on these provisions are the same cast of characters handing out millions of dollars of campaign cash for Tuesday’s elections. Dependent as they are on this money, but knowing that special interest giveaways don’t go over well with voters, is it any wonder that Members of Congress find themselves, well, a bit indecisive?
Some 30 anti-environment riders stud the now-abandoned Labor-Health and Human Services spending bill, reports the Natural Resources Defense Council. These range from a provision that would delay the Environmental Protection Agency’s dioxin reassessment, to one that would provide exemptions for distilleries from the Clean Air Act, to another that would undermine Clean Water Act requirements for sewer overflows. Chemical companies have dumped $7.1 million into candidate and party coffers this election cycle; the beer, wine, and liquor industry has given $8.4 million; electric utilities, $14.4 million, and oil and gas companies, $22.8 million.
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) blocked the Labor-HHS bill not because of these anti-environment provisions, but because of another measure that would implement a long-languishing Labor Department standard meant to reduce cases of crippling repetitive-stress injuries in the workplace. The Chamber of Commerce and other business groups are fiercely opposed to this "ergonomics" standard. Hastert gets 93 percent of his campaign cash from business interests; DeLay, 94 percent.
Indeed, it is the rare Member of Congress who won’t bend over backwards to help major campaign contributors on Capitol Hill at the same time his hand is out seeking last minute campaign contributions. Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) is pushing for a provision that would save regional Bell telephone companies billions of dollars paid to local carriers. Consumers Union warns that Internet users would bear the cost of the change, since the local carriers would raise their fees for Internet service providers to make up the difference. Tauzin’s top two campaign contributors are regional Bell companies—Verizon Communications, which gave him $13,750, and SBC Communications, which gave him $12,250. Tauzin ranks third in the House for contributions from telephone utilities in the 2000 election cycle, receiving a total of $53,450.
The campaign donors themselves are shameless, often spreading money across the political spectrum. AT&T, which is pushing for measures that would relax restrictions on its ability to get into the cable business, shows up on the top contributor list for all the Democrat and Republican congressional party committees: the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee got $383,050; the National Republican Congressional Committee got $386,883; the National Republican Senatorial Committee got $483,843; and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee got $550,150. Reach out and touch someone, indeed.
