The US Capitol, photo by Ramona du Houx

“Taste of Maine,” sponsored by the Maine State of Commerce, was hosted by Senators Susan Collins and Angus King for their colleagues on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., last month.

The event brought together more than twenty Maine vendors with over sixty-five Maine-made products. Maine’s famous lobster, artisanal cheeses, wild blueberries, craft beers and wines were among the featured Maine culinary products sampled in the historic Kennedy Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Office Building.

“We are delighted that the Maine State Chamber of Commerce has organized some of Maine’s finest culinary treasures,” said Senators Collins and King in a joint press release.  “We hope everyone came away thinking that Maine truly is the way life should be!”

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Joined by veteran groups on Capitol Hill, House lawmakers unveiled a legislative package of ten bills designed to help the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) accomplish its goal to eliminate the backlog by 2015.

“I applaud the VA’s ambitious goal, but the time for relying on them to get the job done alone is over,” said Rep. Mike Michaud (Maine-01), the Ranking Member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, who spearheaded the introduction of the legislative package. “Congress needs to act in order to get veterans the benefits they’ve earned faster. This legislation represents a pragmatic and commonsense approach that members of Congress of all political stripes should support.”

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As Congress gets set to take up a controversial bill that would allow the backers of the Keystone XL pipeline project to bypass numerous environmental and regulatory requirements, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree isbacking legislation which would make sure those same shortcuts would not apply to the Portland-Montreal pipeline. The operators of the pipeline have talked about reversing the flow so tar sands oil from Canada could be pumped to Portland Harbor.

“The bill we are taking up this week is irresponsible and risky and sets a dangerous precedent by letting the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline skip important environmental regulations,” said Pingree. “I’m adamantly opposed to the bill but if Republicans succeed in getting it through the House it should at least include language that makes it clear that it doesn’t apply to the Portland Pipeline.”

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Dhaka Savar Building collapse on April 24, 2013 killing over 1,000 garment workers

On 24 April 2013, an eight-story commercial building, Rana Plaza, collapsed in Savar, a sub-district in the Greater Dhaka Area, the capital of Bangladesh. Approximately 2,500 people were injured and more than 2,500 people were rescued from the building alive. The death toll stands at 1,127.It is considered to be the deadliest garment-factory accident in history, as well as the deadliest accidental structural failure in modern human history.

The building contained clothing factories, a bank, apartments, and several other shops. The shops and the bank on the lower floors immediately closed after cracks were discovered in the building. Warnings to avoid using the building after cracks appeared the day before had been ignored. Garment workers were ordered to return the following day and the building collapsed during the morning rush-hour.

In Congress, Senior House Democrats have sent letters to nine separate U.S. retailers calling upon them to join a broadening global coalition supporting a May 12 Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, developed by the Worker Rights Consortium and a number of key stakeholders. The accord has won the support of labor rights organizations and unions around the world, and it has gained significant momentum among buyers, with Abercrombie & Fitch, Aldi, Benetton, C&A, Carrefour, El Corte Inglés, Esprit, G-Star, H&M, Helly Hansen, Hess Natur, Inditex, JCB, KIK, LIDL, Loblaws, Mango, Marks & Spencer, Mothercare, N. Brown group, New Look, Next, Primark, PVH, Rewe, Sainsbury’s, Stockmann, Switcher, Tchibo, Tesco, and WE Group having signed on already.

The letters were signed by Leader Nancy Pelosi, Whip Steny Hoyer, Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin, Education and Workforce Committee Ranking Member George Miller, Rep. John Lewis, Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra, Caucus Vice Chairman Joe Crowley, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Labor, Education, Health, and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro and Rep. Mike Michaud.

“Circumstances are at a tipping point in Bangladesh, much as they were in the wake of the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York over a century ago. …We urge you to seize this moment, and to help ensure that workers in Bangladesh do not needlessly lose their lives to produce the clothes we wear,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter to the retailers.

A number of significant reforms that Congresswoman Chellie Pingree authored as part of her Local Farms Food and Jobs Act were adopted this week by the House and Senate Agriculture Committees. The Committees, controlled by Democrats in the Senate and Republicans in the House, voted in favor of two versions of a Farm Bill that contain Pingree’s reforms designed to open new markets for sustainable farmers and increase consumer access to local food. The Farm Bill passed the Senate Committee on Tuesday and the House Committee late last night.

“Farm policy in this country has been skewed in favor of big agribusinesses but in the last year we’ve made some significant progress in reforming it in favor of local, sustainable farms,” Pingree said. “These ideas are rapidly becoming more mainstream as consumers realize that local food isn’t just good for their families but it’s good for the local economy too.”

Pingree first introduced the Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act in the House in 2011 with Senator Sherrod Brown. Since then, many of the proposals in her bill were adopted as part of the Farm Bill, the 5-year funding bill that determines national farm policy.

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The following are President Barack Obama’s remarks on the Affordable Care Act, made last Friday:
THE PRESIDENT: Moms take care of us. (Baby cries.) Yes, see? (Laughter.) Case in point. Sick kids, aging parents, grumpy husbands. And I know there are lots of moms out there who often go without the care that they need, or the checkups they know they should get, because they’re worrying that co-pay has to go to gas, or groceries, or the new soccer uniform instead. Or worse, they know the unfairness of being charged more for their health care just because they’re a woman, or the stress of trying to manage a family budget when health care costs are impinging on it, or trying to insure a sick child only to be told “no” over and over again.

So we decided that needed to change. In a country as wealthy as this one, there was no reason why a family’s security should be determined by the chance of an illness or an accident. We decided to do something about it.

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Congresswoman Chellie Pingree. photo by Ramona du Houx

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree and about a dozen other Representatives and Senators from both parties met with top White House officials this morning to discuss the issue of sexual assault in the military. The bipartisan group met with Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama, and Tina Tchen, Chief of Staff to First Lady Michelle Obama. President Obama was traveling to Texas and could not attend. Both Jarrett and Tchen are members of the President’s Council on Women and Girls.

“It was a good discussion and it’s clear President Obama is committed to addressing the problem of sexual assault in the military. Sexual assault is criminal behavior that isn’t tolerated in the civilian world and shouldn’t be tolerated in the military—and I think the Administration gets that,” said Pingree.

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The United States Capitol. photo by du Houx

“This bill holds banks accountable and provides much-needed protections to those who’ve served our country,” said Congressman Mike Michaud. “This is a win-win for all members of our military and so many veterans, surviving spouses and their families. It should receive strong bipartisan support because it’s good policy and because it’s the right thing to do.”

Reps. Elijah E Cummings, Mike Michaud, Adam Smith, Susan Davis, Mark Takano, and John Tierney, the Ranking Members of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, the Committee on Armed Services, the Subcommittee on Military Personnel, the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, and the Subcommittee on National Security, introduced H.R. 1842, the Military Family Home Protection Act, to strengthen foreclosure protections for U.S. military service-members and their families.

Similar legislation passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representative during the last Congress by a vote of 394 to 27. Similar legislation was passed by the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, but was never considered on the Senate floor.

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April 27, 2013, The Great Degrader
I’ve been focused on economic policy lately, so I sort of missed the big push to rehabilitate Bush’s image; also, as a premature anti-Bushist who pointed out how terrible a president he was back when everyone else was praising him as a Great Leader, I’m kind of worn out on the subject.

But it does need to be said: he was a terrible president, arguably the worst ever, and not just for the reasons many others are pointing out.

From what I’ve read, most of the pushback against revisionism focuses on just how bad Bush’s policies were, from the disaster in Iraq to the way he destroyed FEMA, from the way he squandered a budget surplus to the way he drove up Medicare’s costs. And all of that is fair.

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Representative Mike Michaud reintroduced the “Maine Coastal Islands Wilderness Act,” which designates 13 islands of the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. Congresswoman Chellie Pingree is a cosponsor of the bill, which is supported by numerous Maine conservation organizations and local businesses.

“This designation would elevate the profile of these islands and help increase tourism, which will benefit the economies of nearby communities,” said Michaud. “In addition, it will maintain the restoration and preservation of this critical wildlife habitat for future generations to enjoy.”

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