PERSUASION IN INK

House Cloakroom: November 28 – December 2

Analysis: This week the House will take up several regulatory reform bills. The Regulatory Accountability Act would increase the requirements an executive agency has to meet in the rule making process as well as expand judicial review of legislation. The House will also take up the Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act that would prevent micro-unions.

Major Floor Action:

• HR 527  – Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act
• HR 3010  – Regulatory Accountability Act
• HR 3094  – Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act
• HR 3463  – To reduce Federal spending and the deficit by terminating taxpayer financing of presidential campaigns and party conventions and by terminating the Election Assistance Commission.

Major Committee Action:

• The House Financial Services Committee will hold a markup of the Small Company Jobs Growth and Regulatory Relief Act (HR 3213)
• The House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing on the “FHA Single Family Insurance Fund.”
• The House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Energy and Environment will hold a hearing on the “EPA Science Assessment.”

Senate Cloakroom: November 28 – December 2

Analysis: When the Senate returns from the Thanksgiving holiday this week they are expected to vote on an extension of the payroll tax cut. This vote will follow the conclusion of work on the Defense Department Reauthorization bill. There are many other issues the Senate could take up depending on the week’s timing, including additional appropriations bills and a Balanced Budget Amendment, which they are required by the Budget Control Act to vote on before the end of the year.

Major Floor Action:

• Payroll Tax Cut Extenison
• S 1867  – National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012

As international pressure on Iran has mounted due to its accelerating uranium enrichment, its foiled plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., and its systematic human rights abuses, the embattled regime in Tehran has lashed out verbally against Turkey, Britain, Israel, and the United States.

On Saturday, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the aerospace unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), warned that if the United States or Israel attacks Iran, then the IRGC would target NATO missile defense installations in Turkey. The Iranians claim that the NATO missile defense system, which Ankara agreed to host in September, is designed to protect Israel, a crude propaganda effort to discredit the Erdogan government as a tool of Israel.

Another high-ranking IRGC officer, General Yadollah Javani, also warned that “if Israeli missiles hit one of our nuclear facilities or other vital centers, then they should know that any part of Israeli territory would be the target of our missiles, including their nuclear sites.” The Israeli press has recently been filled with speculative articles about a possible Israeli preventive strike against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

Tensions over Iran’s nuclear program are growing as a result of a new IAEA report that charged that Iran has conducted experiments on detonating a nuclear warhead and designing a nuclear payload for Iran’s Shahab 3 ballistic missiles.

Iran’s saber-rattling is meant to deter a strike by Israel or the United States on its prohibited nuclear weapons program and underscore its continued defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for it to suspend its uranium enrichment efforts. But Iran’s relations with Turkey have also deteriorated due to Ankara’s growing pressure on Syria’s Assad regime, which is Iran’s most important Arab state ally.

Iran’s unpopular dictatorship knows that if the Assad regime is overthrown, Iran’s opposition forces will be emboldened to renew their own efforts to topple the Tehran regime. By threatening Turkey, Tehran hopes to deter it from considering a military intervention in Syria similar to the NATO-led intervention in Libya.

Iran’s relations with Britain have also deteriorated further after London last week cut all financial ties with Iranian banks due to their facilitation of Iran’s proliferation and terror activities. Iran’s hard-line parliament voted to downgrade relations with Britain amid chants of “Death to Britain.”

Iran’s dictators, increasingly sensitive to external pressure and fearful of internal rebellion, have become more belligerent. By publicly threatening to retaliate against Turkey in the event of a preventive strike by Israel, they are sure to outrage the Turks. But it also may make Turkey think twice about greater intervention in Syria. And the public threats serve other purposes by pushing up oil prices on the nervous world oil market and playing up foreign threats to prop up the regime’s sagging domestic support.

During last Tuesday’s Heritage Foundation/AEI debate on national security, the GOP candidates were queried on what lesser-known dangers to American security most concerned them.

One particularly visceral threat is nuclear fissile material falling into the hands of non-state belligerents. The American public, however, is acutely aware of such a threat. The notion of a “dirty bomb” attack has been pounded into the nation’s collective consciousness by pop-culture hits such as the Fox television drama 24. What is less known, but equally disconcerting, is the danger posed by an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack.

An electromagnetic pulse results from the sudden burst of electromagnetic radiation emanating from the detonation of a nuclear weapon. An EMP can also result from natural phenomena, such as a geomagnetic solar storm; however, our nation’s national security apparatus should be prepared to deal with the consequences of an enemy EMP attack.

If a nuclear weapon were to be detonated hundreds of miles into the atmosphere above the continental United States, the resulting electromagnetic pulse could destroy the nation’s electric grid and render impotent all elements of society that rely on electricity. In short order, many aspects of American society would be thrust into the early 19th century.

In 2004, the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack reported:

Several potential adversaries have or can acquire the capability to attack the United States with a high-altitude nuclear weapon-generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack capability without having a high level of sophistication. EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences. EMP will cover the wide geographic region within line of sight to the nuclear weapon. It has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures and thus to the very fabric of US society, as well as to the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power.

Given the dangers posed by EMP, how can the United States protect itself from such an attack? The answer rests in the pursuit of a comprehensive and layered missile defense system.

In a recent Heritage Foundation WebMemo, Baker Spring and Michaela Bendikova outline a number of steps that the Obama Administration can take to update and strengthen our missile defense capabilities. The suggestions include the expansion of Aegis-equipped vessels within the U.S. Navy’s arsenal.

The Aegis system is currently capable of intercepting ballistic missiles of short and intermediate range; however, the Obama Administration could pursue deployment of Standard Missile-3 interceptors capable of countering long-range ballistic missile threats.

The Obama Administration currently plans to deploy such interceptors as far out as 2020, but the threats facing our nation demand more immediate action. An EMP attack could be executed from within a vessel surreptitiously operating off the coast of the United States or from distances far beyond American soil. America’s missile defense capabilities should be prepared for any and all contingencies.

Spring and Bendikova further advocate for a more comprehensive system of land- and air-based detection and tracking capabilities, including an increase in ground-based interceptors and the development and deployment of space-based interceptors.

The Heritage Foundation/AEI–sponsored debate brought to light a number of important national security threats that may be faced by our next president. An EMP attack is certainly one of the more disconcerting yet least discussed and understood of such threats. Improving and expanding upon our current missile defense infrastructure is paramount to countering the dangers posed by an EMP attack.

This week, President Obama is again set to make a pitch for his latest plan to stimulate the economy, but meanwhile he is turning his back on projects that would put tens or even hundreds of thousands of Americans to work. And he’s doing it all to appease his left-wing, environmentalist base at the expense of domestic energy production.

Heritage’s Rob Bluey reported last week on a new finding by a New Orleans-based group that the Obama administration is approving just 35 percent of the oil drilling plans for the Gulf of Mexico so far this year. It is also taking an average of 115 days — nearly four months — to secure approval from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. Those numbers are a sharp drop from previous years, well below the historical average 73.4 percent approval rate and 61 days it takes to approve plans. And for plans that require drilling activity, the numbers are even worse with an average approval time of 222 days.

That’s bad news for job creation. One deepwater rig alone can create 700 jobs locally. But slowing down oil drilling in the Gulf isn’t the only way the President is blocking jobs. Earlier this month, the Obama Administration announced it would delay the construction of the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline that would bring in more than 700,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta, Canada, to the Texas Gulf coast–and could have produced upwards of 20,000 jobs. Heritage’s Nicolas Loris explains the impact:

What this delay really means is that President Obama is putting off an important election year decision in which two of his largest supporters–labor unions and environmentalists–are split on the issue. This tactic allows the decision to be delayed until after the 2012 elections.

More importantly, this means a delay in access to easy imports from our northern neighbor, the creation of thousands of jobs, and the generation of revenue for the states where the pipeline passes. Montana, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Texas are collectively projected to collect $5.2 billion in property tax revenue as a result of building the pipeline.

As if that weren’t enough, the White House made another decision blocking energy-related jobs in the United States. In mid-November, the Obama Administration delayed a mineral lease sale in Ohio’s Wayne National Forest for oil and gas drilling. Apart for providing Americans access to affordable energy, the project could have had a tremendous impact in the state, including the creation of an estimated 200,000 jobs, an overall wage and personal-income boost of $12 billion by 2015, and a billion-dollar boon to Ohio landowners, schools, businesses, and communities.

The President’s direction on energy policy is aimed at appeasing a very specific base, but it’s coming at a tremendously high cost. While Americans struggle to make ends meet, pay their bills, and find work, President Obama is turning his back on new jobs and safe, affordable energy sources.

Quick Hits:

• Egyptians head to the polls today in the first elections since Hosni Mubarak left power. CBS News reports that the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists are expected to do well in the vote.
• Los Angeles police are attempting to clear out the city’s Occupy Wall Street protesters following a midnight deadline to vacate the encampment. Three people were arrested and protests, which turned violent, continued.
• Officials say that NATO and Afghan forces came under fire from across the Pakistan border on Saturday before an airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Foreign ministers in the Arab League voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to impose sanctions on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
• The supercommittee failed, and spending is still the problem. Read more at Foundry.org.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson recently announced that her agency would proceed with twice-delayed regulations targeting power plants that emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Mrs. Jackson’s decision ignores three vital pieces of information that should make it easy for Congress to prevent unelected bureaucrats from regulating CO2:

• The EPA inspector general’s finding that EPA did not follow federal data quality standards in preparing its “endangerment finding” regarding greenhouse gases.

• The profusion of scientific dissent.

• The massive economic costs and minimal environmental benefits.

In April 2009, the EPA issued an endangerment finding stating that the gases pose a serious threat to human health and public safety. It provided a lengthy technical support document to justify this position.

But this September, the EPA’s Office of Inspector General released its own report concluding that the agency’s document failed to follow federal guidelines for a “highly influential scientific assessment.” Specifically, the EPA had failed to publicly report its review results. Moreover, one of the federal climate-change scientists reviewing the document was an EPA employee.

The EPA responded by arguing that the document did not qualify as “highly influential,” yet the agency offered it to justify one of the most expansive – and expensive – regulations in history. If that’s not highly influential, what is?

The inspector general’s report does not question the scientific validity of the endangerment finding. But disagreement among the scientific community regarding the magnitude of anthropogenic global warming should have been sufficient reason for the EPA not to issue the endangerment finding in the first place.

Excerpted from The Washington Times. Click here to read more.

On Tuesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee postponed the planned nomination vote for Michael McFaul as the next ambassador to the Russian Federation by request from GOP Senators. This is a common practice when Senators have concerns that they want the executive branch to address.

Foreign Policy says that this decision is completely unrelated to McFaul’s qualifications for the position. In fact, according to an unnamed committee staffer, McFaul is “about as good of a nominee as Republicans can expect from this administration.” As highlighted in a previous Heritage Foundation blog, the concerns with McFaul’s nomination originate from the problems Republicans have with Obama’s “reset” policy rather than the man himself. Nominating an ambassador to Russia who is the architect of this dubious strategy will have grim implications for the future of the U.S.–Russian relations and U.S. leadership in Eurasia.

A number of Heritage Foundation papers discuss the reasons for failure in detail. In simple terms, the Obama Administration is trying to implement a failing strategy by exaggerating the gains and ignoring the costs. The few “concessions” the Russians gave that are so often touted by the Administration were all in Russia’s self-interest.

Providing a transit route for American troops in Afghanistan helped maintain stability in the region so that Russia and its central Asian allies have an easier time after the American troops leave. In fact, as the U.S. contributes to stability in Eurasia by keeping the Taliban in check, Russia is reaping the benefits by preparing to launch a “Eurasian Union,” a deeply integrated economic and political sphere of influence.

The terms of New START arms control treaty actually gave Russia an opportunity to modernize and increase its nuclear arsenal, while the United States has reduced its nuclear capability by about 25 percent and was forced to abandon missile defense facilities in Eastern Europe proposed by the last Administration. This not only affected U.S. security interests but also harmed good relations with European allies like Poland and Czech Republic. According to Dan Goure, a prominent security expert writing for The Heritage Foundation, Obama’s vision of nuclear disarmament “undermines any notion of a system of alliances and our relationship with long-standing allies.”

Russia is quick to take advantage of this arms control weakness. Moscow’s actions speak for themselves; here is a list of events since last month’s McFaul nomination hearing, where he assured the Senate that the “reset” is a success.

• Russia decided to sell its newest 4++ generation fighter jets to the highly unstable Middle East.
• Russia is negotiating with Iran to provide more nuclear reactors to the rogue regime, even in the wake of the IAEA report that confirmed that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. In fact, the Russian foreign ministry has slammed the report with unambiguously hostile criticism.
• If that were not enough, Russia decided to continue to provide Syria with military equipment. Assad’s repressive regime has now been condemned not just by the West but also by Arab countries for its brutal armed crackdown on protesters.
• Finally, the Russian government reconfirmed the prohibition of foreign media outlets on its territory so that it can continue to rely on state-controlled media while its own Russia Today TV channel is broadcasting anti-American propaganda within this country.

Every one of those decisions directly challenges U.S. goals and values. They show Russia’s non-cooperation on nonproliferation, freedom and democracy, Iran, and missile defense. As House Speaker John Boehner mentioned in his recent speech at The Heritage Foundation, “International cooperation can only be transactional to a point. We cannot sacrifice values or get away with walling off our interests from our moral imperatives.”

The Senate is taking the right course of action. McFaul’s nomination notwithstanding, it should continue to pressure the White House to initiate damage control for the consequences of the “reset” and to come up with a new, workable strategy as the Kremlin turns away from the West.

Anatoliy Khomenko is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. Click here for more information on interning at Heritage.

Media coverage of Occupy Wall Street has dominated the news lately, supplanting stories about the Tea Party movement and the grassroots uprising that took Washington by storm. For one of the movement’s early leaders, it has come as no surprise. Jenny Beth Martin is a co-founder and national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots. Today she continues to fight against big government, albeit while fending off comparisons to Occupy Wall Street.

In an interview with Ginni Thomas at The Daily Caller, Martin talked about the early rise of Tea Party and two of its champions in Washington — Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). But her most profound comments came on the subject of Occupy Wall Street, a movement she complained was “manufactured” by the media in search of an alternative to the Tea Party.

“The distinctions between Occupy Wall Street and the tea party movement are so vast that it really becomes insulting, the comparisons,” Martin said.

She added:

I wasn’t surprised when the president or the Democrat leadership embraced Occupy Wall Street. Even with the press, they have been clamoring … for the past two-and-a-half years they couldn’t find any comparison between the Tea Party movement and anything they had going on their side. And so I think that they’ve manufactured something. They’re trying to say this is the equivalent of the Tea Party movement and it’s not. But they need that so desparetely on their side, they’re willing to embrace lawlessness just so they can say that there’s a comparison.

That’s a similar message to the one Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner and First Coast Tea Party co-founder Billie Tucker delivered in a commentary earlier this month. They noted that Tea Party activists respect the values set forth by the Founding Fathers, while the Occupy Wall Street protesters want to dramatically change America.

“Any comparisons between the Tea Party, which desires to liberate ‘We the People’ from big government, and the Wall Street occupiers, who want more government regulation,” Feulner and Tucker wrote, “is either misguided or made to intentionally confuse Americans.”

On September 26, the Department of Transportation (DOT) published a rule requiring modification of airline Web sites and automated kiosks at airports “to ensure that individuals with disabilities can readily use these technologies to obtain the same information and services as other members of the public.” Accessibility criteria apparently do not apply to the DOT, however.

The comment period for the DOT’s proposed rulemaking was extended on November 21, but the notice of rulemaking indicates that the agency’s online public comment form “is not easily accessed” by individuals with visual impairments. The DOT directs these individuals to use “alternative submission methods” to comment on the proposed rule.

Hopefully the disabled are not discouraged from commenting on this rule, despite their limited options to do so. This is just another unfortunate reminder that the government often insists we do as it says, not as it does.

John Russell is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. Click here for more information on interning at Heritage.

Last Friday, Moroccans headed to the polls to vote in the latest parliamentary elections since the constitution was reformed in July. The Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) made major gains with 107 out of 395 seats, but fell considerably short of winning an absolute majority. While the PJD has the right to form a new government, it will need to form a coalition. Prime Minister Abbas Al Fassi has reached out to the PJD, saying that his nationalist Istiqlal party is ready to work with the PJD in a coalition government.

While Morocco was not affected by the “Arab Spring” to the extent that other countries were, last summer King Mohamed VI took proactive measures to reform the constitution and defuse opposition protests. Such reforms included the appointment of the prime minister from the political party with the most seats in parliament and giving the prime minister new powers, including the ability to dissolve parliament and make appointments. However, the monarchy retained power over defense, security, and religious issues.

While the PJD emerged as the main opposition party almost a decade ago, the party’s long-term goals remain ambiguous. Some are concerned that the PJD will push for the institution of sharia law. However, it is unlikely that the party’s religious preferences will have dramatic effects. A coalition government will maintain a balance of influence and prevent controversial measures from being introduced. Furthermore, the king is known to have taken aggressive measures against Islamist extremism.

Much of the PJD’s success is owed not only to the “Arab Spring” but to the monarchy’s acceptance of Islamist political activity. In Egypt and Tunisia, Islamist parties were banned and their leaders forced into exile. However, in Morocco, King Mohamed instituted a dual-track approach, encouraging Islamists who oppose violence and support the monarchy to participate in politics, while cracking down on adherents to Salafist ideology. The PJD’s non-revolutionary objectives and acceptance of the monarchy have allowed it to work within the system.

However, opposition activists such as the February 20 movement are not satisfied with instituting change from within the system. Rather, they have called for more aggressive reform and a boycott, arguing that until the government is transformed into a constitutional monarchy, the king will maintain absolute power. Yet, with only 45 percent of the electorate participating, it is evident that many who had hoped for change have become complacent. Though PJD was the clear winner, the party will have to form a coalition with the pro-monarchy parties. With the PJD forced to compromise, activists feel the politicians will bargain away much of their platform.

Morocco is a unique case of a country affected by the “Arab Spring.” The country is not ruled by a dictator; the monarchy is generally accepted by the population; the Moroccan government maintains close ties with the U.S. and Europe; and the king has taken measures to address some of the shortcomings in government that have caused other countries to implode. Despite this, corruption, patronage, and other abuses of power continue, and the king’s past efforts to address these abuses have stagnated.

Supporters of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) burn a US flag during a protest in Multan on November 28, 2011, against a NATO strike on Pakistan troops. Pakistan denied provoking NATO air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and refused to accept expressions of regret over the cross-border attack that has inflamed US-Pakistani ties. AFP PHOTO/ S.S. MIRZA

A NATO airstrike along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border on Saturday that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers has once again inflamed U.S.–Pakistan tensions and called into question the future of the partnership.

The circumstances surrounding the strike are still unclear, and both NATO and U.S. Central Command have vowed to investigate the incident. Afghan and Western officials have said the airstrike was launched in response to firing from the vicinity of two Pakistani border posts. Pakistani military officials have denied those claims and said the NATO attack was unprovoked.

Islamabad responded swiftly to the incident by shutting down NATO supply lines that run through Pakistan into Afghanistan and demanding that all U.S. military personnel evacuate the Shamsi air base in Baluchistan province, which in the past facilitated the U.S. drone campaign in Pakistan’s tribal border areas. Islamabad had already demanded that the U.S. stop launching drones from Pakistani territory, and the eviction of the remaining dozen or so U.S. military personnel from the Shamsi air base seemed to be more of a symbolic rebuke of the U.S.

The military situation along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border is not black and white, and it is sometimes difficult to determine where enemy fire originates. Afghan insurgents on the Pakistan side are known to fire at NATO forces from areas close to Pakistan army posts, which leads to confusion about the precise location of the enemy. The ambiguous relationship between Pakistan’s military forces and some of the Afghan insurgents also lends itself to confusion over whether Pakistan is helping prevent militants from striking at coalition forces or turning a blind eye to their activities. The situation is unlikely to get any easier as NATO plans in 2012 to increase military operations in eastern Afghanistan along the border to shut down insurgent routes from Pakistan.

This tragic incident further highlights the strategic differences between the U.S./NATO coalition and Pakistan when it comes to the future of Afghanistan. Ties between the U.S. and Pakistan are destined to lurch from crisis to crisis unless and until the two sides can come to an understanding on the way forward in Afghanistan. Relations between Washington and Islamabad had just begun to recover from remarks made by recently retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen in September alleging that the Haqqani network is an “arm” of Pakistani intelligence.

The incident will be a major setback to U.S.–Pakistan relations and will disrupt the two sides’ ability to cooperate in Afghanistan, but a radical break in relations is also probably not in the cards. The U.S. seeks continued engagement with Pakistan to help avoid a nightmare scenario in which a nuclear-armed nation of 180 million potentially succumbs to religious extremists. For its part, Pakistan needs aid from the U.S. and other Western lending institutions to sustain its economy and maintain its regional position.

The Obama Administration had hoped that the Bonn conference on Afghanistan, scheduled for next week, would help catalyze reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan. This incident and Pakistan’s harsh reaction (which includes threats to boycott the conference) have cast a pall over the Bonn process. Most doubted that the Bonn conference itself would result in any serious breakthroughs with regard to Afghan reconciliation, and this week’s events seem to make those prospects even dimmer.