The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Yesterday's report on a Greenpeace rally sparked some comments, notably one from a Greenpeace member, who pointed to a January 2007 report [pdf] detailing Greenpeace's energy strategy. That report emphazises conservation and renewable energy sources, especially wind and photovoltaic solar. It's skeptical about carbon sequestration, a technology that stores CO2 produced by coal power underground or under the ocean.

There's a lot to agree with in that report. However, like a lot of environmental organizations, Greenpeace opposes nuclear power. So, to achieve the level of renewable energy production required by their consumption scenario, Greenpeace assumes huge growth in that sector. For example, they predict a 300-fold growth of wind power in less than 20 years.

This month's Wired Magazine examines a few of the environmental sacred cows, including nuclear power. From the perspective of global warming, Wired argues that nuclear is clean and available in an industrial scale. That issue debunks a number of other myths, including the one that Air Conditioning is inefficient (actually, it's more efficient than heating), and the notion that organic foods help the environment. It's an interesting counterpoint to the Greenpeace study.

David Nachbar, who briefly ran for the Democratic nomination in the 29th, has announced his candidacy for State Senate in District 55. That office is currently occupied by six-term Republican Jim Alesi. As you can see in Rochesterturning's post on the announcement, a large part of SD-55 is in the 29th District.

Having a well-financed challenger who will run an serious campaign is probably a benefit to Eric Massa, and the Massa campaign has already announced Massa's endorsement of Nachbar.

Update: Rochesterturning has a lengthy interview with Nachbar.

There was a Greenpeace rally in Elmira yesterday, with the goal of having participants write Randy Kuhl and Eric Massa to ask them to make global warming an issue in the election.

Wait -- there's a Greenpeace chapter in the Southern Tier?

In other news, the Rothenberg Political Report has an item on John McCain's efforts (or, more correctly, lack of effort) in the recent special Congressional elections. According to their analysis, McCain is likely to campaign for candidates only in Presidential battleground states. New York won't be one of those states, so Randy Kuhl can't bank on a campaign appearance by McCain in the 29th.

Following up on yesterday's story, WENY asked Randy Kuhl about his plan to lessen the impact of higher gas prices. Kuhl says he supports a federal gas tax holiday and also supports a $6,000 tax credit for those who buy a fuel-efficient car.

The gas tax holiday has been discussed earlier here and here. It just won't work.

The tax credit for buying a more economical car might actually be effective. But with the rising deficit, I'd like to see how it will be financed, and I'd also like to see a study showing that a tax credit is a significantly better incentive than the rising price of gas itself. Maybe $4/gallon gas by itself will spur people to buy smaller cars.

Eric Massa makes a brief statement in a WENY story about gas prices. Massa's comments are drowned out by some crazy talk from Maurice Hinchey (D-NY-22), who wants to cap the price of gas at $2.49 and give everyone $6,000 for buying more fuel efficient vehicles. Maurice was mum on the possibility of shiny new ponies for everyone, though that might be coming in a follow-up story.

Massa will be one of the speakers at a pro-Clinton rally outside tomorrow's DNC meeting discussing the seating of the Michigan and Florida delegations. Hotline has promoted Massa to Representative in that item.

I ran across a couple of interesting reads this week.

First, the Congressional Budget Office's letter [pdf] to Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) about the Webb GI Bill.

The CBO analysis shows that, as John McCain claims, the new GI Bill would decrease retention. However, the CBO's analysis shows that this can be partially offset by recruiting bonuses, and also that the quantity and quality of new recruits will rise with better educational bonuses. In addition, the total five-year cost of the original bill is $1.1 billion. That last number doesn't figure in the additional taxes paid by better-educated (and therefore better-paid) vets.

Second, here's an interesting McClatchy story about the Bush administration's budget requests for Iraqi police versus US police. The White House wants $603 million for Iraqi police, yet has cut a grant program for local police by $700 million. Since the start of the war, we've spent a little over $20 billion on training and equipping the Iraqi police force and army.

The DCCC has added a web ad to its campaign highlighting Randy Kuhl's present vote on Iraq funding. It will also field a new robo-call from General Wesley Clark:

Hi, this is General Wes Clark, calling on behalf of the DCCC.

Congressman Randy Kuhl had the opportunity to stand up for our veterans.

Instead he voted against expanding the GI bill for the first time since World War II to provide a free college education for veterans.

That's leaving our veterans behind.

Call Randy Kuhl at 607-776-9142 and tell him to stand up for our troops and our veterans.

Paid for by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

The web ad is embedded below:

Update: The DCCC released a Kuhl-specific version of the ad.

Grievous Angel at Rochesterturning has today's Massa Press Conference. The main topic was the Webb GI Bill, from a number of different angles. Massa sees it as a key difference between him and Randy Kuhl.

Exile at Rochesterturning notes that Randy Kuhl is touting a "clean" version of the new GI Bill, and wonders if Kuhl really thinks that nobody will notice his earlier opposition to the real GI Bill. There's little chance of that, because there's no antidote to Kuhl's position on this issue.

Kuhl has allied himself with a narrow majority of the Republican House that opposes Senator Jim Webb's version of the GI Bill. The original version of Webb's bill has 300 co-sponsors in the House. The latest version passed in the Senate last week by a 75-22 vote.

Kuhl has not explained his vote against the GI Bill, so one has to assume that he agrees with Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, who have offered a less generous version of Webb's bill. McCain and Graham's position is that Webb's GI Bill, which allows full benefits after three years of service, will hurt recruiting. After three years, a soldier has probably served two full tours in Iraq, but that's not enough for McCain, Bush and Kuhl -- their shared vision of a long-term US presence in Iraq requires a penurious GI Bill that gives soldiers an incentive for multiple re-enlistments.

Kuhl's present vote on the Iraq supplemental, and his vote against an amendment adding the new GI Bill to that supplemental, make stuff like his most recent blog post sound like so much hot air. He talks of troops "working tirelessly to protect and defend our rights", but he's allied with an administration that begrudges them a .5% extra pay raise. A good number of his Republican colleagues have abandoned Bush on this one, and so have some conservatives, but Randy's chosen to stay the course.

Randy Kuhl gave yesterday's commencement address at Keuka College. Kuhl's speech drew heavily on the inspiration of John F. Kennedy's inagural address. Today, Kuhl will be at the Fairport Memorial Day commemoration, which is keynoted by Maj. Gen. (Ret.) John Batiste, an outspoken critic of the Iraq War and Massa endorser.

Eric Massa will attend the Memorial Day commemoration at the Corning American Legion. Massa is not campaigning today.