Committee advances ‘divisive concepts’ bill without additional debate
An Alabama legislative committee on Tuesday took seconds to advance a bill banning “divisive concepts” in classroom lessons and in state diversity training, including that white people should feel guilt over the actions of their ancestors. African American members of the House State Government Committee objected to the voice vote, which took place within 20 seconds of the bill being brought for discussion and without opposed lawmakers getting an opportunity to speak. The bill now moves to the full House of Representatives. “I think it is unjust,” Rep. Rolanda Hollis, a Democrat from Birmingham, said after the meeting of the quick approval. Hollis said she wanted to offer an amendment to the measure, adding, “This bill right here, it stops us from being able to teach history, real history.” The bill by Republican Rep. Ed Oliver of Dadeville would prohibit a list of “divisive concepts” from being taught in schools and in diversity training for state entities. The banned concepts would include that the United States is “inherently racist or sexist” and that anyone should be asked to accept “a sense of guilt, complicity, or a need to work harder solely on the basis of his or her race or sex.” It would also prohibit “fault, blame, or bias” from being assigned to a race, sex, or religion, or to members of a race, sex, or religion, solely on the basis of their race, sex, or religion. “I don’t think you should be teaching children because of their skin color that they are necessarily bad, or they can’t succeed because of their skin color,” Committee Chairman Chris Pringle, a Republican from Mobile, said of why he planned to vote for the bill on the House floor. The legislation comes as Republicans in several states seek to ban either so-called critical race theory or put guidelines on how race is discussed in the classroom. Republican supporters have said it would steer classroom lessons to facts, rather than ideology, and prevent educators and diversity trainers from stoking divisions. While opponents said it is motivated by election-year politics and would have a chilling effect on classroom lessons and discussions in an effort to “whitewash” history. The list in the Senate bill is similar to a 2020 executive order President Donald Trump issued banning “divisive concepts” in training federal employees that has since been repealed. Similar language has since popped up in bills in dozens of states. The bill would prevent a public K-12 school or state agency from teaching one of the “divisive concepts” to students, employees, and contractors. A college could “teach about doctrines pertaining to a divisive concept” as part of a larger course of instruction but could not compel “students to assent to the concept.” Rep. Kelvin Lawrence, a Democrat from Hayneville, said the bill is vaguely worded and he is concerned it will make professors fearful of delving into certain topics. “They’re just going to avoid teaching those things, and unfortunately, that’s a critical part of our history, a critical part of what has happened in America and what continues to happen,” Lawrence said. Democratic Rep. Chris England, who is chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party, criticized the way the committee handled the bill. He tweeted that Republicans on the committee silenced the opposition to “pass a bill that will prohibit free speech and whitewash history.” Pringle defended the swift approval, noting the bill had been discussed at two previous meetings, including one with a public hearing. “What more is there to say that we haven’t heard in the public hearing or the debate we had last week,” Pringle said. The committee had previously deleted language in the original version that dealt with how slavery should be taught. A similar bill is pending in the Alabama Senate. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Senate approves bill to make daylight saving time permanent
The Senate unanimously approved a measure Tuesday to make daylight saving time permanent across the United States next year. The bipartisan bill, named the Sunshine Protection Act, would ensure Americans would no longer have to change their clocks twice a year. But the bill still needs approval from the House, and the signature of President Joe Biden, to become law. “No more switching clocks, more daylight hours to spend outside after school and after work, and more smiles — that is what we get with permanent Daylight Saving Time,” Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, the original cosponsor of the legislation, said in a statement. Markey was joined on the chamber floor by senators from both parties as they made the case for how making daylight saving time permanent would have positive effects on public health and the economy and even cut energy consumption. “Changing the clock twice a year is outdated and unnecessary,” Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Americans want more sunshine and less depression — people in this country, all the way from Seattle to Miami, want the Sunshine Protection Act,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington added. Nearly a dozen states across the U.S. have already standardized daylight saving time. Daylight saving time is defined as a period between spring and fall when clocks in most parts of the country are set one hour ahead of standard time. Americans last changed their clocks on Sunday. Standard time lasts for roughly four months in most of the country. Members of Congress have long been interested in the potential benefits and costs of daylight saving time since it was first adopted as a wartime measure in 1942. The proposal will now go to the House, where the Energy and Commerce Committee had a hearing to discuss possible legislation last week. Rep. Frank Pallone, the chairman of the committee, agreed in his opening statement at the hearing that it is “time we stop changing our clocks.” But he said he was undecided about whether daylight saving time or standard time is the way to go. Markey said Tuesday, “Now, I call on my colleagues in the House of Representatives to lighten up and swiftly pass the Sunshine Protection Act.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Steve Flowers: Incumbency reigns supreme in State Senate
Being an incumbent state senator in Alabama is like owning that seat. The level of re-electability odds is probably better than that of an incumbent congressman, which is about the same as being elected to a seat in the Russian Communist Politburo. Being a freshman state senator in Alabama is a more powerful position than being a freshman U.S. congressman, especially if you want to affect public policy. Many times, a 50-year old, successful person who is interested in seeking a representative role will approach me and seek my advice about running for either a state senate seat or an open congressional seat. I will quickly advise them that as a state senator, you are one of 35, and you immediately have an impact on your first year as a state senator. However, if you win a congressional seat, you are one of 435. Because of the seniority system, it will be 15 years before they know your name in Washington and 25 years before you are chairman of a committee, and then it is time to retire. In the 35-member Alabama Senate, there are 27 Republicans and 8 Democrats – a pretty supermajority for the GOP. Twenty-four of the twenty-seven senate Republicans are running for reelection. Republicans Jimmy Holley, Del Marsh, and Jim McClendon are retiring. These seats will be filled by another Republican. Therefore, when the Senate organizes next January, the 27 to 8 supermajority will remain the same. The lines are drawn to protect incumbents on both sides of the aisle. The Constitution provides the power of the pencil for legislators to draw their own legislative districts. Seventeen of the 24 Republican incumbents have no opposition in the Republican Primary. Of the seven Republican senators who drew a Republican opponent, they only got an opponent the last day of qualifying, and their opposition is token at best. All 24 Republican incumbents will be reelected. If my prognostication is correct, that is a 100% re-electability rate. There are only two GOP incumbents that were first thought to have viable opponents. Tom Whatley, at first blush, was rumored to have a race. However, polling and fundraising reveal he will win easily. The only interesting race may be in the Huntsville area, where incumbent Tom Butler is being challenged by Bill Holtzclaw, who previously served in that senate seat. The rule of incumbency also prevails on the Democratic side of the aisle. There is only one Democratic seat open. Priscilla Dunn holds the post in name only. She has never attended a senate day in Montgomery for this entire quadrennium. The Senate has, in essence, been operating with 34 senators. In actuality, the Democrats have only seven senate seats. There are 150,000 residents of Jefferson County who have had no voice or vote in the Alabama Senate for four years. There are two Democratic House members vying to fill this seat, Merrika Coleman and Louise Alexander. Ms. Coleman is favored to win this open Senate seat. The cadre of leadership on the Democratic side will return, including powers Bobby Singleton, Rodger Smitherman, and Vivian Figures. Hank Sanders will return to represent Selma and the Black Belt after a four-year sabbatical. His daughter was in the seat this last quadrennium. The entire leadership of the Republican-led Senate will return unopposed, including Greg Reed, Jabo Waggoner, Clay Scofield, Arthur Orr, Greg Albritton, Steve Livingston, Gerald Allen, and especially Clyde Chambliss. They will be joined by a superstar freshman class, who will become even more powerful. This class of leaders includes Will Barfoot, Garlan Gudger, April Weaver, Sam Givhan, Donnie Chesteen, and a trio contingency of Baldwin/Mobile senators Chris Elliott, Jack Williams, and David Sessions. Another member of this sterling class, Dan Roberts of Jefferson, has an opponent but will be reelected. The three open Republican seats and one Democratic open seat will give us some interesting senate races to follow. One of, if not the most important ingredients which creates the power of incumbency is the almighty campaign dollar. Money is the mother’s milk of politics. Most of this campaign money comes from Special Interest Political Action Committees. Ninety percent of those special interest dollars go to incumbents. Thus, over 90% of Alabama state senators are reelected. See you next week. Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His weekly column appears in over 60 Alabama newspapers. He served 16 years in the state legislature. Steve may be reached at: www.steveflowers.us.
White House: Joe Biden will travel to Europe for Ukraine talks
President Joe Biden will travel to Europe next week for face-to-face talks with European leaders about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced Tuesday. Biden will meet with European leaders at an extraordinary NATO summit in Brussels on March 24. He will also attend a scheduled European Council summit, where efforts to impose sanctions and further humanitarian efforts are underway. “While he’s there, his goal is to meet in person face-to-face with his European counterparts and talk about, assess where we are at this point in the conflict in the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. We’ve been incredibly aligned to date,” Psaki said. “That doesn’t happen by accident. The president is a big believer in face-to-face diplomacy. So it’s an opportunity to do exactly that.” The White House announced the president’s travel shortly before Biden on Tuesday signed a bill providing $13.6 billion in additional military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine as part of a $1.5 trillion government spending measure. Biden said at the bill signing ceremony that the U.S. was “moving urgently to further augment the support to the brave people of Ukraine, as they defend their country.” The trip follows Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to eastern flank NATO countries of Poland and Romania last week to discuss with leaders the growing refugee crisis in eastern Europe sparked by the Russian invasion and to underscore the Biden administration’s support for NATO allies. Poland’s foreign minister Zbigniew Rau said Tuesday that a visit by Biden to Poland was “very probable” when he comes to Europe. More than 1.8 million Ukrainians have fled to Poland since the start of the war, according to the United Nations. More than 3 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion. “It would be hard to imagine a better place for the United States and for the entire alliance to stress their position than the brightest link on the eastern flank, that Poland is,” Rau told Polish state TVP INFO. Psaki said she did not have additional details about whether Biden would visit Poland during the trip. The White House’s announcement of Biden’s visit to Brussels came on the same day that leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia set out for Kyiv by train despite the security risks to show their support for Ukraine. It was a visit EU officials said was not sanctioned by other members of the 27-nation bloc. Daniel Hamilton, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs, said Biden’s trip to Europe comes as the White House looks to continue to maintain what’s been a largely unified western opposition to Russia since the invasion. “As the war continues, it’s important that the president show he is not sitting comfortably across the Atlantic, but that he is part of the coalition meeting with European colleagues in Europe and that the United States is a European power,” said Hamilton, non-resident fellow at Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Daniel Savickas: Oil windfall tax makes a bad situation worse
Gas prices are in the news again for all of the wrong reasons. According to data from AAA, the national average price for regular gas is now roughly $4.33 per gallon. In some states (like California), the average is as high as $5.74 per gallon. These figures represent a 51 percent increase from this time last year. Part of this has been attributed to the impact of the war in Ukraine. However, U.S. government policies toward spending and energy have no doubt been a major cause. And, the response of some members of Congress is to make the cost of gas even higher with a new tax. U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) have introduced legislation that would impose a steep “windfall” tax on American oil companies. The proposal would create a tax on profits that oil companies make above $66 per barrel. Those profits would be taxed at the staggeringly high rate of 50 percent. The proceeds from that tax would then be used to create another stimulus check – $240 for individual filers and $360 for joint filers. This proposal is a disaster for a number of reasons and reflects the fundamental misunderstanding many Washington policymakers have about soaring gas prices. The first is the disregard for the role government policy has had on price inflation. The U.S. federal government has spent as much money in the last five years as it did in the prior eight years. The U.S. also imposed strict sanctions after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which impacted global supply. To attribute price hikes to “corporate greed” as Sen. Whitehouse and Rep. Khanna did, is to ignore the impact of their own policymaking and to miss the point entirely. This view of economics supposes that the relatively low prices for a barrel of oil until now have been because of corporate altruism on the part of the same companies now being maligned as greedy. The true explanation is a tad more complex than policymakers would care to admit. Oil companies are responding to global economic forces, which at the moment are making it more costly to bring supply to the market. Prices are rising, producers are incurring greater costs and markets are anticipating the need for new sources of supply. Another contradiction in the way Washington Democrats are approaching this issue is in their discussion of supply. In a public comment, White House press secretary Jen Psaki accused the oil industry of purposely refusing to drill so prices would go up. Psaki cited the fact that there are 9,000 permits not in use. This also misses the mark. While there are unused permits, the federal government has paused leases on federal lands for oil companies. Permits and leases are only one part of a longer production process where the federal government has erected and maintained barriers to increased production. At a time where U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has pushed oil companies to produce more oil, the administration has a pause on leases and Congress is trying to further dissuade more production. Rapidly ramping up production would create millions of dollars of risk for these companies. Costs will rise, and prices usually follow. Bills like the Whitehouse-Khanna proposal would obliterate the incentive to assume such risks. The messaging is not in sync with actual policy coming from Capitol Hill. Further, the guidelines set in the Whitehouse-Khanna bill are arbitrary at best. The $66 per barrel threshold is based on “the average price of oil between 2015 and 2019.” No justification was given for why that metric was used or why such a short window of time was used to generate it. In the midst of rampant inflation, a waning pandemic, and conflict in Eastern Europe, the current global market price sits at just under $100 per barrel. A $66 benchmark is out of touch with clear and present realities in the market. The solution to the lagging global oil supply is to incentivize production wherever possible, not to seek out ways to punish those who might. Higher prices are part of incentivizing said production. The solution to rising inflation is to cut government spending, not to create a new entitlement on the back of that aforementioned punishment. The Khanna-Whitehouse proposal on oil “windfalls” manages to consolidate much of what has gone sideways in Washington in recent years. Not only will it fail to address the current issues, it will exacerbate those problems. Daniel Savickas is Government Affairs manager at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. Republished with the permission of The Center Square.
Mercedes opens Alabama battery plant, adding up to 600 jobs
Mercedes-Benz has opened a new electric vehicle battery factory near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that will create up to 600 new jobs. The German automaker said Tuesday that the plant in Bibb County opened a few months before Mercedes plans to start making two all-electric SUVs at a large assembly plant in nearby Tuscaloosa. The new plant will supply batteries for the EQS and EQE SUVs, which will be built for sale in the U.S. and for exports, the company said in a statement. Mercedes said it spent about $1 billion on the battery plant and to upgrade the assembly line in Tuscaloosa to make electric vehicles. The Alabama battery plant will make lithium-ion batteries with an advanced chemistry that contains nickel, cobalt, and manganese, Mercedes said. It is one of six battery factories that the company plans, including two in Germany, one each in China and Thailand, and one in Poland. Mercedes plans to build EVs at seven plants on three continents. Mercedes already employs about 4,500 people at the Tuscaloosa assembly plant, which made about 260,000 SUVs last year. The plant can build internal combustion engine vehicles on the same line as electric vehicles, Mercedes said. The automaker says it will go fully electric by the end of the decade, depending on market conditions. The company plans to build eight battery cell plants worldwide with partners. “Mercedes-Benz will expand its partnerships with the world’s leading battery technology companies,” the statement said. The company said it is joining with Envision AESC to supply the Alabama battery factory with modules from a new U.S. plant. Module supplies will start arriving in the middle of the decade, Mercedes said. The Alabama plant is currently getting battery cells from Mercedes’ existing network of suppliers. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and other dignitaries attended the opening ceremony Tuesday.
