On Friday, Sen. Richard Shelby (left) confirmed that he had placed a “hold” on all of President Obama’s nominees who need to be confirmed by the senate. Shelby’s spokesman explained that the Alabama Republican was upset over bidding for a Pentagon contract that could create jobs in the Mobile area and financing for building a counterterrorism in Alabama.

As this Politico article explains, a senatorial hold doesn’t completely block a nominee, but it does require 60 votes to override a hold and schedule an up-or-down vote by the entire senate. And with the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, the Republicans now have 41 votes in the senate, meaning they can filibuster any nominee of their choosing.

Shelby’s action came just two days after Obama said, “Let’s have a fight about the real stuff,” as he discussed how his nominees have been held hostage with senate Democrats.

Shelby’s holds prompted New York Times columnist Paul Krugman to weigh in on senatorial procedure:

In the past, holds were used sparingly. That’s because, as a Congressional Research Service report on the practice says, the Senate used to be ruled by “traditions of comity, courtesy, reciprocity, and accommodation.” But that was then. Rules that used to be workable have become crippling now that one of the nation’s major political parties has descended into nihilism, seeing no harm — in fact, political dividends — in making the nation ungovernable. … And with the national G.O.P. having abdicated any responsibility for making things work, it’s only natural that individual senators should feel free to take the nation hostage until they get their pet projects funded.

NPR’s Watching Washington blog concluded that all American should be grateful to Sen. Shelby:

Americans owe a debt of gratitude to Richard Shelby, the senior Republican senator from Alabama, and the rest of the Senate should be furious at him.

The reason is simple. Shelby has overstepped the usual bounds of caution and produced an act of senatorial arrogance so breathtaking that the country just might notice. And if the country actually knew that such shenanigans were possible, the country would be amazed and, one would hope, perturbed.

That is why 99 other senators should be short of breath, too. Because if Shelby gets noticed with this extreme version of business as usual, other senators conducting smaller-scale hostage operations on similarly selfish impulses may get noticed, too.

The post continues:

The tactic works by inducing pain. It slows or disrupts the work of literally dozens of federal agencies and courts. It interferes with the normal execution of the functions we all pay taxes to support. But this is not the goal; it is merely pressure, a means to an end.

Placing a hold on a bill or appointment has another purpose. It gives any senator leverage over the White House and the rest of the Senate.

In this case, it serves notice that until Richard Shelby has been satisfied, nothing on the Senate agenda will be more important than satisfying Richard Shelby. [Read more →]

Photo via AP by Tom Hindman, Charleston Daily Mail

Nearly six months ago, Bayer CropScience announced it would be reducing the stockpile of deadly methyl isocyanate — MIC — at its Institute, W.Va., chemical plant by 80 percent. Bayer said the $25 million project would take about a year.

Reporters asked Bayer about that project today at a press conference the company called to announce major management changes at the Institute plant.  Bayer officials said they’re on schedule. But do the numbers and dates add up?

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Officials from DuPont’s Belle, W.Va., chemical plant issued a short statement today, updating the public on their internal safety review. Here it is:

The DuPont Belle plant remains on the voluntary safety stand-down that was implemented on January 23.  The purpose of the voluntary pause in production is to allow assessments related to safe operations.

We will restart production when we are fully convinced that we will be able to do so safely. During this voluntary pause in production, we have made progress in conducting plant-wide safety checks. When appropriate, our restart will take place in an orderly and staged fashion.

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Today’s big announcement from Bayer CropScience is the naming of a new plant manager, along with some shuffling of the Institute plant’s management duties.

Shown above is Steven Hedrick, who was named to the new role of “Head of the Institute Industrial Park.” The other change is the creation of a job as “Head of Bayer CropScience Institute Operations,” and that will be filled by Hank Teschendorf.

Bill Buckner, president and CEO of Bayer CropScience, explained the changes this way in a news release:

We believe these important changes will help us to better achieve our overall objectives at the Institute site. The new role of Head of Institute Industrial Park will allow increased focus on the overarching goals of the site, foremost among them safety and emergency response, while the Head of Bayer CropScience Institute Operations can direct his attention to the site’s day-to-day manufacturing operations.

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We reported back in mid-January that the state Department of Environmental Protection’s new oil and gas drilling rules had advance without any weakening amendments from the industry … At least the West Virginia Environmental Council thought so, but it turns out they — and we — were wrong.

In this weekend’s Green Legislative Update, the council’s lead lobbyist explained that Sen. Joe Minard, D-Harrison, quietly worked out a deal with the WVDEP to modify the rules. The deal provides a big loophole that would allow drillers to avoid using impermeable synthetic liners for drilling pits. According to Garvin:

While the Rule-Making Review Committee was considering other rules, the Senate Chairman of the committee, Joe Minard (D-Harrison) went out in the hall and huddled together with industry lobbyists, and DEP staff.

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Bayer CropScience is planning  to announce “significant changes in the organizational structure of its Institute” chemical plant at a press conference this afternoon.

The company’s media advisory about the 1 p.m. press conference says:

New site leadership positions have been defined and these organizational changes will help ensure achievement of site safety, tenant support and manufacturing systems.

The last time Bayer held a press conference, it was to announce plans to cut the methyl isocyanate stockpile at the Institute plant by 80 percent.  At the time, Bayer said that project would take about a year, cost $25 million and not cost any workers their jobs.

Also, Bayer officials have previously said that a U.S. ban on the use of carbofuran in food won’t affect production of the pesticide at the Institute plant because most of the product is shipped overseas.

Stay tuned …

The Kleen Energy plant is seen in this aerial photo after an explosion in Middletown, Conn., Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

At least five workers were killed and a dozen others injured this morning when an explosion rocked the site of a power plant that was under construction in Connecticut, raising more questions about the practice of gas-line purging — and issue already under close scrutiny by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.

Only Thursday, CSB members voted to issue urgent safety recommendations about this practice, after initially rejecting its own staff’s suggestions that it do so.

According to The New York Times’ account:

Al Santostefano, the Middletown deputy fire marshal, said the explosion, at about 11:25 a.,m., occurred as workers at the nearly completed Kleen Energy Systems generating plant were trying to suck natural gas out of the plant’s pipes, a procedure known as a “blow down.” He said the explosion and the resulting fire was contained to a single building known as the Power Block.

The plant, on the Connecticut River, is somewhat remote from Middletown’s residential core and from its best known institution, Wesleyan University, perhaps two miles away. Yet so powerful was the blast that Mr. Santostefano heard the explosion from his home five miles away.

“I felt a tremor,” he said. “I thought to myself something somewhere has happened and then my pager went off.“

Similar details are in The Associated Press story published by USA Today and in The Hartford Courtant.

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Call it the law of unintended consequences, but with its ruling in Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court may have just given President Obama additional motivation to take strong action to fill the 102 vacancies in the federal judiciary.

Here’s how Nan Aron, president of Alliance for Justice, sees it in an opinion piece published Tuesday on Politico.com:

The breathless reporting of the State of the Union “confrontation” between President Barack Obama and the conservative members of the Supreme Court in the wake of the Citizens United v. FEC ruling has overshadowed a much more serious issue — congressional Republicans’ systematic blocking of the president’s judicial nominees.

While ultraconservatives regularly decry “judicial activism,” this criticism rings false. In fact, conservatives have long had the goal of packing the federal bench with ideological appointees. For years, Republicans have fought to place their own judicial activists in powerful judicial positions. The presence of Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court represents the zenith of this strategy; and, as Citizens United proved, these justices’ activism can have a powerful, lasting legacy.

Now, faced with the prospect of seeing a president with a different judicial philosophy leave his mark on the federal judiciary, senate Republicans have a new strategy, according to Aron: Stall, stall, stall. [Read more →]

It’s been quite a week for Toyota.

On Monday, the automaker announced its “comprehensive plan” for fixing sticking gas pedals, and Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. president and COO James E. Lentz did a series of media appearances, trying to address concerns about the massive recall.

Lentz’s statements prompted members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce to send him a letter on Tuesday, asking him to clarify the apparent discrepancies in information provided by Toyota to the public and to Congressional staffers.

On Wednesday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said: “My advice is, if anybody owns one of these vehicles, stop driving it,” he said. “Take it to a Toyota dealer because they believe they have a fix for it.” He later clarified his comments, and here’s a statement LaHood made on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Web site on Feb. 3:

I want to encourage owners of any recalled Toyota models to contact their local dealer and get their vehicles fixed as soon as possible. NHTSA will continue to hold Toyota’s feet to the fire to make sure that they are doing everything they have promised to make their vehicles safe. We will continue to investigate all possible causes of these safety issues.

LaHood’s tough stance on holding Toyota accountable for producing safe cars stands in marked contrast to previous NHTSA investigations. As the Gazette-Mail reported on Jan. 30, Toyota employee Christopher Santucci, hired directly away from NHTSA, admitted under oath in a December deposition that he discussed the 2004 investigation with his former colleagues at the federal safety agency. Following those discussions, NHTSA’s Office of Defect Investigations limited the scope of the investigation, excluding incidents of unintended acceleration that lasted longer that one second and where the car couldn’t be controlled by applying the brake.

And it’s nice to see the national media is catching on to the chummy relationship between Toyota and the agency that was supposed to be monitoring it. It only took five days for the New York Times and ABC News to publish their own stories about Toyota, NHTSA and Santucci. Here’s ABC’s lead from yesterday’s “Revolving Door: From US Safety Agency to Toyota Representative” story:

Federal safety investigators agreed to exclude reports of the most serious cases of alleged “runaway Toyotas” after the intervention of a former safety official hired to be a Washington, D.C. representative of Toyota, an ABC News investigation has found.

According to this latest update on the recall, Toyota is still focusing on floor mats and sticking accelerator pedals. It’s also looking at issues with software that controls the braking system in 2010 Prius models.

Gazette photo by Chris Dorst.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd’s office has just released portions of a letter the West Virginia Democrat sent earlier this week to DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman regarding the Jan. 23 phosgene leak that killed Belle, W.Va., plant worker Carl Fish and other recent incidents at the plant:

While my deepest condolences go out to the family of Mr. Carl Fish, an employee of thirty-two years, I am particularly alarmed at the information provided by DuPont employees in briefing my staff.  As I noted in my January 25, 2010, statement, as information of the accident becomes available, it suggests that the accident was not a regrettable, but temporary lapse in safety, but in fact suggests that there are fundamental and systemic deficiencies in the safety procedures at the Belle facility.

As it has been reported, this was not an isolated leak of the chemical phosgene, but one of multiple leaks of multiple chemicals over a period of several days.  I am advised that phosgene was used as a chemical agent during World War I for its highly toxic nature.  As I understand it, the other chemicals that were leaked, methyl chloride and sulfuric acid, are similar in terms of their toxicity and potential danger to life.

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