Senator Claire McCaskill (D) held a town hall in Concordia, Missouri at the Community Center Gymnasium on Tuesday, August 10th. Approximately sixty people attended.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) at a town hall in Concordia, Missouri on August 10, 2010.

Previously:

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): town hall in Concordia, Missouri (August 11, 2010)

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): town hall in Concordia, Missouri – media availability (August 11, 2010)

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): town hall in Concordia, Missouri – Q and A, part 1 (August 14, 2010)

The second part of the transcript for the audience question and answer session follows:

….Question: My biggest question is, um,  I’m a businessman [inaudible]. My question is, [inaudible] in the thinking process, why was [inaudible]?  It does create a [inaudible]. [inaudible] It quadrupled in [inaudible]. [inaudible]

Senator Claire McCaskill (D):  Well, actually, I think that they will go across state lines, the exchange in Missouri, because you’re allowed to sell insurance across state lines in a cooperative basis. The decision was made to not have the place that people can go to pool risk, which they can’t go to now, uh, is all gonna be private insurance companies. And the states are gonna administer that. And the states have every right, if they would like to go together with other states. And I’ve talked to the man who runs the insurance department in Missouri – it’s his intention to try to go together with a number of states so we can make the pool even bigger. And so there will be that…

…But here’s the thing about going across state lines, interestingly enough. Some of the very people who have talked to me about going across state lines also say to me, what about state’s rights? Now what you do, when you say from Washington that insurance companies don’t have to pay any attention to state law, that they can just sell anywhere in the country, what you’re basically doing is saying that states have no right to regulate what goes on in their state. Which means that the rules they set for insurance companies in New York or in Florida or in Texas could be the rules that a Missourian would have to live by, depending on where [inaudible] coming from. So we’ve always tried to respect the right of states to regulate their marketplaces within their borders. It is a radical concept that we would wipe that out. And the very people who are waving the Constitution saying, Tenth Amendment, Tenth Amendment, I’m a Tenther, are the same ones that say to me sometimes, what about selling across state lines. And I get dizzy. I mean, you can’t have it both ways. We can’t wipe out all the state regulations and also respect state rights. So that’s why I think the way we did it, by having these decisions made at the state level so the state can decide if they want to go in with other states that maybe have similar regulations or rules, you know like in Missouri a woman who has a baby, you can’t kick her out of a hospital in less than twenty-four hours. In other states they don’t have that rule. Well, the Missouri legislature went down there, elected by all of you, and they voted. I think it’s twenty-four, isn’t it? I think it’s twenty-four hours in the laws you guys passed, isn’t it? Yeah. And, you know, so do we want to say to Jeff City you can’t say to insurance companies that women get to stay in the hospital for twenty-four hours when they have a baby? That’s the problem. [inaudible crosstalk] No, no, these are all gonna be private insurance companies. What this is gonna be, it’s gonna be like, uh, the best example I can give you is like Expedia. You know how you can go on Expedia and you can buy a airline ticket here or from Delta or from Northwestern or any of those? That’s what this is gonna be, it’s gonna be like a marketplace. There are gonna be a number of different kinds of policies and a number of different companies that are gonna offer polices. The idea is that it’s one central location where you can get a lot of people to go buy insurance, you get bigger risk pools. And the fact that everything is gonna be in the pool, the idea is it’ll bring down costs for everyone. And we will, you will no longer be paying for your competitor across the road who decides he doesn’t want to offer insurance. And somebody on his workforce breaks their arm, and they go down to the hospital and get their arm fixed and freeload off all of us, ’cause we pay for it with our higher insurance rates. That’s the idea behind this, as unpopular as it is, that’s the concept. Um, and that’s why we didn’t do a public option. It is not gonna be run from Washington. It’s gonna be run at the state leve and hopefully they will combine across state lines to make it more affordable for your company to continue to offer insurance.

[….]

Question: Immigration is one of my pet peeves. It seems to me that, uh, [inaudible] Do you agree with Obama and Hillary Clinton [inaudible] the Arizona law. In my opinion, it’s a [inaudible] Congress sitting on their hands [inaudible] They’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing. [inaudible] My, my question is, do you agree with [inaudible] Obama [inaudible}?

Senator McCaskill: Well, I agree with some things, I disagree with others. Uh, let me start with the best news. The best news is that, uh, the day before we left Washington last week we were able, I voted for a whole lot a Republican amendments to step up border enforcement, against most of the people in my party. I was able to get border security passed the day before we left Washington, six hundred million dollars. And the whipped cream and the cherry on top of this is the way we’re paying for it. Um, they way we’re paying for it – there are some foreign companies that have come to our country and more than fifty percent of their workforce is H1B visas. In other words, they’re bringing foreigners here with their companies to be the employees. So the idea was that if you have more than, if you’re a foreign company and you have more than fifty percent of your employees that are H1B visas, any other visas you get are gonna be very, very expensive. And the Wall Street Journal, the day after we passed it, this is the best, this Indian company that it will affect, it’s a, it’s a, basically a call center kind of operation, very, very large Indian company, it would affect them. And they were quoted in the Wall Street Journal, saying, this means we’ll have to hire more Americans. Yahoo!  I like that. That’s a-okay with me. That’s a great way to pay for the bill as far as I’m concerned.

This will [inaudible] six hundred million dollars in a very focused way along the border, um, for task forces. As a former prosecutor I know that, you know, you don’t just put the same amount of help everywhere along the border. It’s a very long border. It will be unmanned drones, aerial vehicles for real time aerial photography that we can see, real time, various places across the border without a lot of manpower. It’s gonna help. The good news also is immigration is down. Deportations are up. The percentage of the deportations being people who have committed crimes is up sixty percent. And audits against businesses that hire illegal immigrants are at a record high. So, we’re moving the right direction. More people are getting deported, more of them are bad guys, less people are coming across the border, and more businesses are being audited. Rather than just photo-op workplace raids, that’s wha
t we used to do, we’d do a workplace raid and the people that were there that day that were illegal, there’d be cameras rolling and everyone gets this mistaken impression that the employer was being held accountable and they never were. Employers didn’t even get a rap on the knuckle. Now we’re going more aggressively after the magnet that’s pulling them across.

I get the frustration in Arizona. Do I think that every border state can start doing federal immigration policy? I don’t think our Constitution allows for that. Now maybe we need to change the Constitution in that regard. I’m not here to debate that today. I completely understand the frustration of the Arizona people. But I think the way to get at that is do what we need to do to secure the border and begin to enforce the laws we have. I voted against comprehensive immigration, I voted against amnesty, I’m not gonna go there until this country demonstrates to the people who occupy it legally that we can enforce the law. So, that, that’s where I am on immigration. So that means I come down yes some places and no other places.

[….]

Senator McCaskill: [reading the question] I’m interested in protecting the environment. How do you think clean energy can be made economically beneficial and promoted as so? Mos, most of the publicity has been to scare us about the cost to individuals of regulation. We’re behind many countries in this area.

I appreciate your sentiment. I will tell you that my hesitancy in this regard is because Missouri is a coal dependent state and this is a tough economy. The last thing I’m going to be a part of at this point is larger costs to working people in Missouri, small businesses and manufacturing, for a cost on carbon that we don’t yet have the technology or the alternative energy developed that make it a cost effective alternative. Now, there are allowances in the bill for coal dependent states, but I thought they were allowances in the bill that were paying off people that we shouldn’t be paying off. You know, I’m not big on let’s pay off this state to get these votes, let’s pay off that state to these votes, so that’s why I was not happy with the House bill in that regard. Um, we’re doing some things to incentivize alternative energy. And yes, I do think we need to lead the world, but on the other hand it’s the same atmosphere. And if China and India are putting up coal fired plants every ten minutes, I, I want us to lead but I don’t want us to be [inaudible]. I don’t want us to be in a situation where all of a sudden manufacturing is really fleeing our shores, going for cheap dirty energy in India and China because our rules are so serious and stringent and their rules aren’t. We’ve got to bring our competitors along. Not just Europe, who’s done this, but our competitors, which for manufacturing is, is more South America, India, China and to some extent Japan.

Voice: Do you think that the, quote, mainstream media is downplaying the dangers?

Senator McCaskill: Is the mainstream media, I’m breaking my rule here ’cause I’m not supposed to go out of order, mainstream media is, are they downplaying the dangers? I don’t know what the mainstream media is anymore. Here’s one of my com…[crosstalk] [voice: “The three networks.”] Well, the three networks I think probably cover it pretty accurately on the evening news, but here’s the, the problem we’ve got with all the media right now. We now have news outlets that you go to get affirmation, not information. My friends on the left they all go watch MSNBC and you know what they feel? Righteously vindicated. We’re right, we’re right, listen to Rachel, listen to Keith. People on the right? They go to Fox and they say, the listen to Sean Hannity and they, and they go, you know what? We’re right, we’re right. And meanwhile what I had as a kid? [voice: “You think they’re equal.”] I think both, I think in different ways they’re very alike. Both of them are playing to a segment of ideological opinion in this country as opposed to [inaudible] really trying to present both sides. And when I was little I had to watch the evening news on network. And that was pretty straightforward. [voice: “Huh.”] That was pretty straightforward. I mean, you know, whether it was NBC, Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, and then we’d talk about the news at the dinner table. And it was pretty objective. I’m not sure that all of our news sources now are as objective as they used to be when I was a kid. [inaudible crosstalk] Yeah [laugh].

[….]

Transcript(s) of the remainder of the question and answer session will follow in subsequent posts.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) held a town hall in Concordia, Missouri at the Community Center Gymnasium on Tuesday, August 10th. Approximately sixty people attended.

Previously:

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): town hall in Concordia, Missouri (August 11, 2010)

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): town hall in Concordia, Missouri – media availability (August 11, 2010)

The first part of the transcript for the audience question and answer session follows:

….Question: Hi, Senator McCaskill. Thanks so much for coming out today. I was just wondering, with oil spill wreaking havoc in the Gulf, what do you propose to do to make sure that a disaster like this never happens to us again?

Senator Claire McCaskill Um, there will be a, um, the question was, uh, with the oil that has spilled into the Gulf, what are you gonna do to make sure that a disaster like the BP disaster never happens again? Um, you, I see your t-shirt. You probably aren’t gonna like this answer, some parts of it. Uh, we will not be considering a bill this year to place a price on carbon. And these ladies in the green t-shirt are almost as unhappy with me as [redacted] in that I have disappointed them because I refuse to be supportive of a, a price on carbon. I’ve, I’ve been, I have been, um, reluctant to support a price on carbon, um, for a cap and trade bill. On the other hand there is gonna be an energy bill that we will debate when we get back in September that will do three things. The first is accountability for BP, making sure that there’s not an artificial lid on what they would be responsible for in terms of the clean up. My job is to make sure taxpayers do not pay for their mistake. And so we want to make sure we remove the lid so BP has no artificial limit on what they would be required to pay to clean up the Gulf, to make those business whole, to make sure the families down there have not suffered because of their carelessness and negligence. Uh, it does some other things, like making sure that the companies that are doing offshore drilling have relief wells before they begin. Um, this problem was, it was never a relief well required. Truth be known, the oversight of oil and gas drilling in this country kinda was in a coma. Uh, and this goes for both administrations. They had not really been doing an aggressive job. And there has been a complete housecleaning over at that, in that regulatory area in the Department of Interior. So, we’ll be happy to get you all, you probably have it, as active as you are, you may have all the details of what’s in that bill as it relates to oils company accountability for negligence in offshore drilling that’s in the bill. The other thing that’s in the bill is a incentive to convert eighteen wheelers from, uh, diesel to natural gas. And the final part of it is a homestar provision which provides incentives for homeowners to weatherize their homes. Allow them to do things that will make their homes more efficient and spend less on their utility bills which is a win-win, uh, in terms of carbon emissions and also win-win, obviously, for homeowners in their electricity costs. Those are the three things that will be in the energy bill that we will debate before the end of the year. But I do not believe that the price on carbon will be coming up.

Question: Thanks for your time.

Senator McCaskill: Thank you.

[….]

…Senator McCaskill: [reading the question] Are you, as you cut spending in education, what will you do with No Child Left Behind provisions?

Um, education traditionally in this country has been a state and local responsibility. About forty years ago the federal government began helping with state and local education. And then during the Bush administration passed probably the most seeping requirements from Washington [inaudible crosstalk] as relates to No Child Left Behind.

[inaudible crosstalk] Sir, we’re not gonna do this, we really aren’t. [inaudible crosstalk] We’re not gonna debate the, we’re not here to debate. [inaudible crosstalk] I’m here to answer people’s questions. [inaudible crosstalk] And I don’t want to be rude to you. [voice: “That was, that was Carter, was it not?”] That, actually, the first funding for local education was not under Carter, it was before Carter. But I’m not here to try to say it was a D or an R, sir, I’m not here, I’m trying just to answer the woman’s question. [inaudible crosstalk] It is not gonna be fair if you keep interrupting.  [inaudible crosstalk] No Child Left Behind was a mandate from Washington that frankly I think that just about everybody I’ve talked to in the education community, parents, teachers, superintendents don’t like, uh, teaching to a test, uh, an arbitrary number that people have to reach. So, it will not be authorized as it is.

The other thing that’s beginning to happen is I don’t think there’ll be as much money coming from Washington for state and local education. Now keep in mind, um, how many of you are aware that, um, there was eight hundred million dollars cut out of the state budget, a lot of, some of which is going to education in terms of education cuts? Okay. Keep in mind that had the stimulus not been at the state level that figure would have been three point two billion that would have been cut. They have been balancing the budget for the last two years with the stimulus money that we sent from Washington. Because we were clearly not excited about the idea of a whole lot of teachers and other public sector jobs being laid off, especially the teachers. There is another bit of help that’s coming if the House votes for it today. I didn’t vote for it the first time ’cause it wasn’t fully paid for, but we voted on it last week and it was fully paid for. And that will bring another four hundred million to help, to, to try to keep teachers from being laid off in Missouri at the state and local level. But this is a warning. For all of the federal programs, whether it’s CDDG, whether it’s state and local education, all of that, I think over the next twenty years there will be less and less money coming out of Washington and more and more reliance will have to come from the state and local governments. Because we cannot continue on the trajectory we’ve been on for the last twenty or thirty years in terms of the increase in spending for functions that were originally designed and traditionally have been borne by the states and local governments. [inaudible crosstalk]

Absolutely. And that’s the problem. No Child Left Behind was a federal mandate that didn’t have a lot of money with it, that frankly, I mean I bet if I asked everybody in here who your favorite teacher was you can remember. Right? And my favorite teacher that I remember, that really motivated me, they did it with imagination. They did it by being creative in the classroom. And the people who were the best teachers go into it because they want to be creative in the classroom. And the problem is [inaudible] No Child Left Behind was squeezing that creativity right out of the classrooms and forcing everyone just to teach to a test. That’s not how we’re going to compete globally in terms of bringing up our education standards. So, there is a very, very [applause] wide support for doing away with the way, and what we should be doing is measuring progress, not doing apples to oranges. Um, making sure that kids are making progress and that we are and that [inaudible] give credit that we do have a President who, and you’re probably a teacher.  Are you a teacher?  Yeah, superintendent. Yeah, you know, we have somebody who’s beginning to take on some of the teachers unions as it relates to performance pay, um, you know, not ninety percent of the teachers, a few of the teachers may not be as good as the others. And we’v
e been very bad in the education system in terms of weeding them out. And we need to do better at that. I mean the vast majority are wonderful, but the ones that aren’t great, uh, we need to have a way we can not keep them in the classroom, um, because that’s really gypping our kids.

So, next question.

[….]

Senator McCaskill: [reading the question] Have you read the entire O, Obamacare bill?

Yes, I have.  [voice: “Two thousand nine hundred pages.”] I have. In fact, I’ve read parts of it twice. [voice: “Really?”] Yes, I have.  [inaudible crosstalk] And I read the financial reg bill, too. In fact, I’m co-sponsoring with Tom Coburn in the Senate, Dr. Tom Coburn, a bil, um, that will require all of the bills before we can vote on anything to be on the Internet for a minimum of seventy-two hours. [inaudible crosstalk] [inaudible] On the health care bill… [inaudible crosstalk] Okay. Section nine zero zero six in the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act amends section three forty-one of the Internal Revenue Code to require businesses to send Form 1099 to each vendor which they buy goods valued at more than six hundred dollars annually. [reading the question] How will health, health care be improved by this requirement?

Well, it was an attempt, which I disagree with, by the way, and there is a move to change this and I will make a prediction that will be removed by the end of the year ’cause there is wide support to remove it. It was put in there to help collect taxes that were owed. It wasn’t put in there to increase taxes, frankly, people are supposed to have taxes owed when they get reimbursed on business expenses over that amount. [inaudible crosstalk] Yeah. [inaudible crosstalk] Well, um, I hope you’re not surprised by them. Um, you know, the bill is public. [inaudible crosstalk] Well, and this is, you know, as I’ve said many, many times, the bill is not perfect, obviously. The bill is gonna need changes and tweaks along the way, it’s one of the reasons why all the provisions don’t go in all at once. They, they are, they are gradually gone in. I worry that some small businesses don’t know that they can get thirty-five percent of their health care premiums back as a tax credit this year. I’m worried that they don’t know that. I’m worried they don’t know that they get fifty percent of it back the following year. So, there’s both good news and bad news in this bill that people may not be aware of. As time goes on I hope they become more aware. This is something that I think is gonna cause more confusion than it is good. It is technically an effort to collect taxes that are owed. But the amount of paperwork that it’s gonna generate doesn’t make sense to me for the amount of taxes that we’re trying to, to collect. You know, all of us want anybody to pay the taxes they owe. I mean, I bet you most of you in this room pay your taxes like clockwork, but there’s a whole bunch of people out there that cheat. [inaudible crosstalk] And so part of this is trying to make sure everybody pays what is owed. [voice: “How about Timothy Geithner…he owed a whole bunch of back taxes? He still got nominated to be Secretary of the Treasury. How do we get by with people like that?”] Well, he paid all those before he was nominated. You’re right, he made mistakes. [voice: “There was six people in the Obama administration who were tax cheats. And there…”] There were definitely some people that were nominated who made mistakes on their taxes…  [inaudible crosstalk] have been repaid. [inaudible] I’m sure if you went through every administration you would find some of those. And it’s unfortunate. And I, I hope people don’t make mistakes on their taxes, but it is a problem that people make mistakes and some people intentionally make mistakes. [inaudible crosstalk]

[….]

Senator McCaskill: [reading the question] What impact will Proposition C have on the health care initiative nationwide, and two, financially on the State of Missouri, mainly because of the long court battle.

I don’t know that there’ll be long court battle on this. Um, I, I don’t think there will. And it is, uh, basically what the referendum it doesn’t probably have much legal impact. Um, it was, uh, I think, largely political. Um, but, and I don’t think that it will have a huge amount of impact on what actually happens as it relates to the changes in health care that will begin to occur. I mean, people are still gonna get their checks in Missouri this year to help fill in the donut hole. The small business in Missouri will still get their tax credits this year if they’re paying for health insurance. They’ll get it next year. There’ll be a bigger check to help fill in with the donut hole next year. By the way, all that’s being paid for by the pharmaceutical companies who are paying back the government some of the excess profits we gave them on that Medicare D. They’re going to be paying the federal government back three and a half billion dollars next year alone to help pay for some of these things because we bucked them up a lot of excess profits of taxpayer money on Medicare D.

[….]

Senator McCaskill: [reading the question] Promoting fiscal responsibility, why pass another bill to cap spending? Several have passed in the past fifty years and none have been adhered to.

Well, actually, that’s not true. Um, there was a cap on spending during the nineties and there was also Paygo. And if you remember during the nineties we actually balanced the budget. [inaudible crosstalk] You know what happened? They let it expire. [inaudible crosstalk] Because the people who voted for it [inaudible crosstalk] the [inaudible crosstalk] I, you know that’s a really good question. I wasn’t there. If I would have been there I would have said, this is a bad idea to let this expire [inaudible crosstalk] ever. [inaudible crosstalk] Well, I, I’m trying to get one passed that’s good for three years. If I said it’s forever I don’t know I could get it passed. But I’m trying, I’m trying, but you keep in mind when these things expired. They had both Paygo and a cap on spending in the nineties and we balanced the budget. And then in the two thousands, in the two thousands they let ’em go. And they took earmarking to a new art form and they never vetoed any spending and they took spending out of control. I don’t know why because we actually had a surplus at the beginning of the Bush administration. [inaudible crosstalk] Boy, me, too. [inaudible crosstalk] I’m one of two Democrats that do not take earmarks in the entire Senate. One of two. [applause] And, um, and I’ll tell you what you ought to watch for. Watch for somebody who’s runnin’ who says they won’t take earmarks this year, but they won’t promise anything about next year. Now that’s insulting. That’s insulting to voters that someone would actually say, you know, in an election year I’m not gonna take earmarks, but I’m not making any promises beyond the election year. Watch out for that. Watch out for that. Um, you can’t, either earmarks are a wonderful thing and you ought to fight for ’em and arm wrestle for ’em and get all of ’em you can, or they’re a bad thing and you shouldn’t do it at all. This is something you can’t be half pregnant on. You’ve got to either decide that you think it’s a good way to pay the taxpayer money or it’s a bad way. I think it’s a ridiculous way to spend taxpayer money because it’s not based on merit. I’m not saying there aren’t meritorious projects that have been funded. I’m sure they’re things within the crow flies ten miles from here, I know things at Whiteman [AFB] that paid for with earmarks that have been helpful to the community. Some of the projects that have been funded are good. But it’s the process by which they’re funded. Because you know how you get to decide how much money you get? I don’t either. It’s some kind of deal that if you’re like on a certain committee you get more. If you’re more senior you get more. If you’re an appropriator you get a lot more. If you’re not on the Appropriations you don’t get as much. If you’re in political trouble you get mo
re. This notion that somehow you’re gonna have people at home vote for you if you’re in trouble and not gonna get elected if you get more earmarks. The way in which the decisions are made on how the earmarks are decided are fundamentally wrong with public money. We should only spend money on projects that have competed on their merit, not on who you know. And the vast majority of earmarks that occur have lobbyists attached to ’em. The vast majority. [inaudible crosstalk] [laughter] Well, they’re not taking personal money, they’re not taking personal money. [inaudible crosstalk] Well, I would just say [inaudible crosstalk] regardless of whether, I mean, in every bushel basket there is a bad apple. In every bushel basket. But I will tell you that the vast majority of the people in Washington, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, are honest people. They’re honest people. They’re not feathering their own nest. I think they’re doing things they shouldn’t be doing in the way they spend the public money, but the vast majority of, I’m not saying they’re all perfect, we’ve go, I’m sure they’re bad apples there, too, but, um, most of my colleagues that are Republican are trustworthy and most of my colleagues that are Democrats are trustworthy in terms of being politically corrupt or graft. [applause]…

Transcript(s) of the remainder of the question and answer session will follow in subsequent posts.

From Think Progress via Steve Benen at Washington Monthly:

McCaskill: I’m Going To Make ‘My Friends On The Left Very Unhappy’ On Clean Energy Legislation

Last month, the House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which aims to transition America to a clean energy economy while combating climate change. After the bill’s passage, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) tweeted that she wanted to “fix” the bill’s cap on carbon pollution because it would “unfairly punish” Missouri’s families and businesses….

….[excerpt from a radio interview] MCCASKILL: Well, I’m going to make people, my friends on the left, very unhappy and I’m going to make those who don’t think global warming is real very unhappy because I’m probably going to be working with a group of moderates in the middle to try to come up with a bill that doesn’t punish coal-dependent states like Missouri. We’ve got to be very careful with what we do with this legislation. For one, we need to be a leader in the world, but we don’t want to be a sucker. And if we go too far with this, all we’re going to do is chase more jobs to China and India, where they’ve been putting up coal-fired plants every ten minutes. So, I’m very conscious of the fact that Missouri businesses and Missouri families don’t have a choice as to where they get their utilities generation. It’s coming primarily from coal now and it will take a decade or longer to move to either sequestered coal or other forms of energy that will be more responsible as it relates to get out from underneath the thumb of foreign oil and reducing our carbon imprint. So, I’ll be, I won’t vote for the version ever that was voted on last year in the Senate. I would vote against that version. I don’t think the version that passed the House will pass the Senate in the same shape, so I’m going to be one of those trying to craft it in a way that is very gradual, that is not going to hurt a state like Missouri that is so coal dependent…

Senator McCaskill on cap and trade in Kansas City on December 15, 2008:

…Question: I’d like to start with an easy issue and that is climate change. [audience laughter] I, I’ve been told that you are reluctant to support a cap and trade program or some other major federal effort to address climate change until the economy improves. It seems that every week, there’s a new study that comes out that says that the consequences of climate change are coming much more rapidly and much more severe than we have anticipated. And my, my concern is that we’ve really got to address this climate change issue early. We need to expect, in this climate change, for all of us to share some sacrifice. I have some pain, if a cap and trade program or a carbon tax, or something like that, is the best way to begin to address climate change. I believe we’ve got to do it.

Claire McCaskill: Well, let me, say that I – first of all, I support cap and trade. And my hesitation is not as much about the economy but the way it was, it was drafted in the beginning. And I think we’re going to do a better job as we got back at it again under the Obama administration. First of all, I hope that you noticed that the person who is going to head the Department of Energy is, his foremost expertise is in the area of global warming and climate change. And so, I think we’re going to have somebody at the head of the department that certainly understands the scientific risks that our planet faces because of what’s going on in our atmosphere. The way the bill was originally drafted, we were talking about fifty possibly, trillion dollars, as much as fifty trillion dollars being pre-spent. What they’ve done is they’ve divided up this money, and this is the money that would come about as a result of the auction. Essentially what you would do, is you would trade a commodity, a commodity is your ability to pollute. So if you were polluting, you’d have to pay for it. You’d have to buy goods to allow you to pollute. And if you weren’t polluting you earn benefits. So it’s really putting into the free market system an incentive to not put out carbon emissions. That’s essentially the simplest way to explain cap and trade. You, so, it becomes a free market. Now they’ve done this in Europe and they’ve had some success, but they’ve also had some failures. And we can learn from that. One of the things I didn’t want to see happen is, they were so busy handing out this money, to California and other – to buy them off, and this was all money that we weren’t going to spend in Congress. It was going to be spent by a board. Well as a former auditor, the idea that we were going to pre-spend fifty, over fifty trillion dollars without a whole lot of oversight kind of frightened me. And what I was most worried about was that the money wasn’t going to help citizens who were going to be faced with astronomical increases in utility costs. I want to make sure that we take the money from the auction and get it back to regular folks to help pay the utility bills. So it’s not, I’m, I’m for cap and trade, the devil’s in the details about how this is going to work. And I think we’re going to find that middle. And I know that Senator Obama agrees with me on this, he completely supports cap and trade, as did in fact, John McCain. They both were in favor of cap and trade. Now we’ve got to figure out how to make it work in a way that doesn’t damage working families and the middle class any more than they’re currently being damaged by this economy. And I think we can do that. I think we can do that. Okay, yes…

Some of the comments at Think Progress are very interesting:

spencers mom:…Right. Because only people on the left will be affected by global climate change…

Lefty Liberal:…I live in her state of Mizzery, and I voted for her in 2006. If she keeps siding with the coal and energy companies, then she won’t get my vote in 2012.

The way Obama is pandering to the right, and now Clair McCaskill, I’m not sure there will be anyone on the ballot I can vote for…

MontereyDean:…She’s right, you know. If saving the planet means being unfair to Missouri, it’s just not worth it.

I used to think this woman was one of the few remaining senators with a brain. You live and learn….

EugeneDebs:…Before we all go the way of the triceratops I think we ought to build a monument for whatever creature comes after us, perhaps a cross between cockroaches and Kieth Richards. It would be letters written a hundred feet high on the wall of th Grand canyon saying. We could have saved it but it would have cost too much money…

As for making some people unhappy Senator McCaskill, you already have. The right doesn’t want compromise, they only want your failure: And that’s how Washington works – an infinite loop until time runs out.

Brad Johnson at Think Progress has a good post regarding Claire McCaskill’s tweet on the climate bill that I mentioned yesterday. While McCaskill claimed that cap and trade needed more work to defend Missouri families and businesses from extra costs imposed on coal dependent states, Brad points out that courtesy of congressmen in coal-dependent districts, like Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), the House bill already includes billions to make sure coal is protected for decades. I wonder what changes McCaskill would like to make to the bill in order to make ACES even more friendly to Big Coal.

Missouri currently gets a lot of of its electricity from coal-fired power plants (85%), but we get practically none of that coal from our own state. Over 90% of our coal is transported via rail from Wyoming. It’s not like tons of jobs in Missouri depend on coal mining. And it’s not like electricity is magically getting cheaper with coal – the PSC has approved rate hikes for Ameren in 2007 and again in 2008, for example.

According to a study from the NRDC, when you take in to account the incentives and resources provided for energy efficiency (which the CBO largely did not), in 2020 even coal dependent states like Missouri will have a lower average electric bill ($6.32 less per month per household) and lower transportation costs ($13.93 per month per household) than if we had done nothing but continue with the status quo of relying on coal.

So instead of relying on the status quo, why not invest in making sure that Missourians have the job-generating clean energy economy that we voted for in overwhelming numbers over the entire state last November?

Senator Claire McCaskill posted to Twitter today about the next big item on the federal revenue agenda:

Just arrived DC. On way to meeting with other Sens about cap & trade. Support concept but worried about execution.about 2 hours ago from TinyTwitter

Which Senators? I hope not any obstructionists.

Oh yes, cap and trade is definitely a very important addition to federal revenue:

Budget includes cap-and-trade revenues

By Jim Snyder

Posted: 02/26/09 01:59 PM [ET]

The budget drafted by the Obama administration assumes for the first time ever revenues from a cap-and-trade system designed to curb carbon dioxide emissions to reduce the threat of global warming.

Under such a system, polluters could buy and sell allowances on an open market to meet emissions targets. Obama will call for 2005 emissions levels to be reduced by 14 percent by 2020 and by 83 percent by 2050, according to a senior official at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

In total, the budget assumes revenues of around $645 billion by 2019 to federal coffers through the program, although only $237 billion of that would be available by 2012.

Obama’s climate policy marks a significant shift from the approach by the Bush administration, which favored dedicating money to research ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but did not impose any hard and fast caps on industries….

Senator McCaskill on cap and trade in December:

…Question: I’d like to start with an easy issue and that is climate change. [audience laughter] I, I’ve been told that you are reluctant to support a cap and trade program or some other major federal effort to address climate change until the economy improves. It seems that every week, there’s a new study that comes out that says that the consequences of climate change are coming much more rapidly and much more severe than we have anticipated. And my, my concern is that we’ve really got to address this climate change issue early. We need to expect, in this climate change, for all of us to share some sacrifice. I have some pain, if a cap and trade program or a carbon tax, or something like that, is the best way to begin to address climate change. I believe we’ve got to do it.

Claire McCaskill: Well, let me, say that I – first of all, I support cap and trade. And my hesitation is not as much about the economy but the way it was, it was drafted in the beginning. And I think we’re going to do a better job as we got back at it again under the Obama administration. First of all, I hope that you noticed that the person who is going to head the Department of Energy is, his foremost expertise is in the area of global warming and climate change. And so, I think we’re going to have somebody at the head of the department that certainly understands the scientific risks that our planet faces because of what’s going on in our atmosphere. The way the bill was originally drafted, we were talking about fifty possibly, trillion dollars, as much as fifty trillion dollars being pre-spent. What they’ve done is they’ve divided up this money, and this is the money that would come about as a result of the auction. Essentially what you would do, is you would trade a commodity, a commodity is your ability to pollute. So if you were polluting, you’d have to pay for it. You’d have to buy goods to allow you to pollute. And if you weren’t polluting you earn benefits. So it’s really putting into the free market system an incentive to not put out carbon emissions. That’s essentially the simplest way to explain cap and trade. You, so, it becomes a free market. Now they’ve done this in Europe and they’ve had some success, but they’ve also had some failures. And we can learn from that. One of the things I didn’t want to see happen is, they were so busy handing out this money, to California and other – to buy them off, and this was all money that we weren’t going to spend in Congress. It was going to be spent by a board. Well as a former auditor, the idea that we were going to pre-spend fifty, over fifty trillion dollars without a whole lot of oversight kind of frightened me. And what I was most worried about was that the money wasn’t going to help citizens who were going to be faced with astronomical increases in utility costs. I want to make sure that we take the money from the auction and get it back to regular folks to help pay the utility bills. So it’s not, I’m, I’m for cap and trade, the devil’s in the details about how this is going to work. And I think we’re going to find that middle. And I know that Senator Obama agrees with me on this, he completely supports cap and trade, as did in fact, John McCain. They both were in favor of cap and trade. Now we’ve got to figure out how to make it work in a way that doesn’t damage working families and the middle class any more than they’re currently being damaged by this economy. And I think we can do that. I think we can do that. Okay, yes…

Claire took a lot of heat on this site over her remarks about holding Bush and Cheney “accountable”. Her attitude about spending taxpayer money sensibly is less likely to raise your ire. She responded to a question about her no vote on cap and trade legislation by explaining that in the form it was offered, we were committing ourselves to fifty trillion dollars in pre-spent money–unnecessarily.

She seriously did say fifty trillion. She’s holding out for a better bill.

Similarly, Claire is cautious about the stimulus:

“Let me talk about the stimulus real quickly. I … I …. I hope I can vote for  it. And the reason I say that is I’m nervous. I’m very nervous. I’m very, very nervous. You take the idea that we’re going to spend 500 billion to 700 billion dollars in America and you hand it over to the appropriators. There is a real fear I have that there will be people who will substitute projects in this bill that are not good stimulaters in terms of the economy. This bill is not about solving the problems in America. That’s not what it’s for. It’s not to solve the health care problem. It’s not to help solve the education problem. It’s not there to solve any social problem we have in this country. It is there to create jobs. And if we do not have the discipline to make sure that every dime we spend in the stimulus package is in fact going to create jobs, then we’re going to be throwing away some of your money. And we can’t afford to be throwing away any of your money right now. (…) There’s a lot of ways to create jobs–shovel ready projects, infrastructure–is one way. There are other ways we can create jobs, but that’s the test: that we can create jobs and that we can realistically create them–this is the sticker–within ninety days. So this is not for a long term stimulus; this is for a short term stimulus.”

I want hundreds of billions of dollars spent on creating jobs. I want it spent quickly. But Claire is right. We spent money bailing out banks that are now refusing to lend money to deserving companies. That bill should have been better crafted, and I appreciate Claire’s caution about what gets into the stimulus package.