RBlog

Sunday's New York Times article, "Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Hampering EPA" by Charles Duhigg and Janet Roberts, illustrates a fundamental problem with the way our country regulates environmental problems, particularly with water issues.

One must agree that it is pretty ironic that just when many of the world's leading security organizations are predicting potential wars over increasingly scarce water resources, the US Supreme Court issues a decision that makes it easier for entities to pollute by removing many water bodies from EPA's jurisdiction. At the heart of the matter is the basic criteria that any regulated water body needs to be "navigable." The intent and interpretation of this clause have been widely debated over the years and the Supreme Court just ruled that EPA will now have to prove "navigable" and establish jurisdiction on a case by case basis. The result is that EPA will fail to pursue many of its potential enforcement cases because establishing jurisdiction will be too costly.

The Senate's debate of health care reform legislation has exposed its internal dynamics like no other legislative proceedings in memory.

And what voters have seen, they do not like.

President Obama has been criticized in some quarters for both his mastery and over-reliance on the spoken word. When critics - most often Republicans - go for the president's jugular vein, it's almost as if they view its close proximity to his sonorous voicebox as an added treat, salivating over an imagined opportunity to deprive him of his dulcet tones and persuasive oratory skills.

The president's supporters - and the president himself in a particularly memorable speech during his campaign - insist that words matter, and that when it comes to the Bully Pulpit, you use it or lose it.

Evan Bayh has been running for President since the day he got to town. Or was that the day his father brought him to town. To think that he got out for high-minded reasons is to think that Dick Cheney went to Iraq because of al-Qaeda. Congress is the sausage factory and if you don't like the smell of sausage, you should be somewhere else. Which brings us to Bayh's logical conclusion. Time to get out and make money. But Evan, don't peddle those 2016 nomination papers around here. Nobody will bet on a two-time quitter.

"Snowmageddon," as President Barack Obama referred to the Atlantic coast's blizzard, hit Washington, D.C. early Friday evening, and the once imminent "Snowmageddon II," officially hit late Tuesday night. Growing up in the "Ohio Snowbelt" south of Cleveland, I find this whole ordeal rather fascinating. Ohio starts preparing for icy and snowy conditions weeks before the first snowfall by spraying the roads with liquid deicer, purchasing thousands of pounds of rock salt, and lining up the crews they will need to work around the clock to clear the snow out in less than 24 hours. I think during the entire time I lived and worked in Ohio, I only remember the government being closed one time.

Over the last four years as Director of Business Development at the Massachusetts Office of International Trade and Investment (MOITI), I realized firsthand the positive impacts that international trade can have across the many regions of Massachusetts. Now that I'm at Rasky Baerlein, I see the opportunities to work with foreign companies looking for professional assistance in dealing with state and local government in Massachusetts, and taking advantage of the resources that my new firm has in Washington with the Congress and the administration.

Watching the Supreme Court undo 100 years of established judicial precedent on a 5-4 vote, it made me wonder why we suddenly think it takes 60 senators to change the menu in the Senate cafeteria. If democracy is based on majority rule, the majority in one branch of government--especially the LEGISLATIVE branch--should not be rendered impotent by a set of rules that were never written or intended by the framers.

I don't know the precise moment when this 60-vote, veto-proof majority became the requirement for passing laws. I seem to remember when we were excited about winning the majority. Weren't those chairmanships supposed to mean something?