By Antonia Aguilar – University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

Officials with the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) met with Members of Congress on Monday to persuade them that investing in oil and natural gas drilling could lead to economic growth.

“Our industry cannot only develop America’s resources and provide a better and secure energy strategy for the country, but also can provide jobs that are high paying and help improve the current economic condition across the country,” said IPAA Chairman Bruce Vincent.

Based in Washington, D.C., the IPPA is a trade organization that represents independent oil and natural gas producers and service companies across the United States.

According to Vincent 85% of offshore reserves within the United States are restricted, yet hold enough natural gas material to power homes for decades. Proper investment would reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign countries while stimulating the economy, he added.

Vincent also noted that the petroleum and natural gas industry supports 9 million jobs in the U.S., and with better access and more investment in domestic reserves, even more jobs could be created.

“We, in fact, have more natural gas in the United states then Saudi Arabia has, and we believe the industry has the ability to develop that and to power America for many years to come,” said Vincent.

By Monique Cala University of New Mexico/ Talk Radio News Service

Rep. Nydia Velazquez, (D-N.Y.), who heads the Committee on Small Business, proposed that $30 billion from the Trouble Asset Relief Program that was supposed to go to banks to help with small business lending, go directly to the Small Business Administration instead.

“Taking $30 billion and simply handing it to banks- in hopes that they will make loans- is not sound policy,” said Velazquez. “Small businesses are our best job creators, producing 60 percent of new jobs.”

Assistant Treasury Secretary for Financial Stability Herbert Allison said that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) reported that lending by the banking industry fell by $587 billion last year.

“We must improve credit conditions for small businesses,” said Allison.

He went on to say that the $30 billion proposed by President Obama for the Small Business Lending Fund (SBLF) would create incentive for small and mid size banks to accelerate small business lending.

Though no resolution came today, lawmakers are expected to vote on the FDIC proposal, which would allow only banks making less than $10 billion to receive funds.

By Chingyu Wang – Talk Radio News Service

Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) and leaders from the organizations Democracy for America and Progressive Change Campaign Committee argued Thursday that the majority of Americans would prefer having the controversial ‘public option’ be a part of healthcare reform.

“New Research 2000 polling shows voters in state after state hate the current Senate bill, overwhelmingly support the public option, and want senators like Tom Harkin, Byron Dorgan, Claire McCaskill, Jim Webb, and others to fight harder for the public option,” said Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) Co-Founder Adam Green.

According to a recent New York Times poll on public option, 59% of Americans support the public option, Green added.

Pingree said he believes the public option, essentially a government-administered insurance plan, is necessary to reduce the nation’s deficit, as well as to inject competition in the marketplace. The combination of a public option plan and a repealing of the antitrust exemption for health insurance companies will greatly improve things, added Pingree.

“It’s important for this bill for reducing the deficit, and for really injecting competition into a field,” she said. “The House took its historical vote yesterday on repealing the antitrust provision — the exemption that insurance companies have had; we took an important step but the public option will take it all the way.”

Weiner said he was hopeful that the public option would be discussed during Thursday’s healthcare summit involving Members of Congress and the President, stating his desire that the politically poisonous provision wouldn’t be neglected in the name of bipartisanship.

“We have to not see this urge for bipartisanship as being a substitute for our elective responsibility to make good law,” said Weiner. “The Republicans have expressed their imperatives, which is to try to stop the President from being successful.”

By Sofia Sanchez University of New Mexico/ Talk Radio News Service

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stated Thursday that an improvement in education will help mend the U.S. economy.

“We have to educate our way to a better economy. It is the only way we can get there. We have a dropout rate of 27% in this country. We have 1.3 million young people leaving our schools and going to the streets. That is morally unacceptable and economically unsustainable,” Duncan said during an appearance before the House Committee on the Budget.

Duncan’s remarks came during a hearing on the Department’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2011. $49.7 billion has been requested, a raise from 2010’s $46.2 billion request.

Duncan said the department has done program eliminations that resulted in $123 million in savings, and also eliminated earmarks, which resulted in $217 million in savings.

A full copy of the proposed FY2011 budget for the Department of Education can be found on the Department of Education’s website.

By Antonia Aguilar – University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner outlined the Obama administration’s plans for more job creation on Wednesday during a hearing held by the House Budget Committee.

“From the start, the Obama administration has realized that it would be almost impossible for us to move the deficit down without moving the economy forward…While we build up jobs, we need to bear down on the deficit,” said Chairman John Spratt Jr. (D-S.C.).

The Administration’s number one priority is job creation, said Geithner, adding that President Barack Obama’s proposal to extend the “Small Business Jobs and Wages Tax Cut,” and provide $5,000 tax credits to businesses that hire will help achieve this.

“This combination of tax measures will boost the pace and quantity of business investment, and with it, the number of new jobs that businesses create,” said Geithner.

In addition, Geithner lauded the President’s proposals to invest $5 billion in the production of clean energy products in the U.S., and to provide incentives for people who retrofit their homes to be more energy efficient.

“We are a strong and resilient country. We have successfully confronted great economic challenges in the past, and we will do so again. This is a question of will, not ability,” he said.

If a baby rides in a car through the Lincoln Tunnel and commits a sex offense 50 years later, never leaving New Jersey in the meantime, does the Federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) apply before the offense is committed? That was one of the questions considered in the U.S. Supreme Court today in the case of Carr v. US.

SORNA was passed in 2006, over a year after Thomas Carr moved to Indiana and failed to register there as a sex offender. Carr was arrested in 2007 and charged with failing to register, a crime that carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. Carr argued that, since his move took place before the law was passed, he was exempt from the registration requirement.

Government lawyers in court today argued, to the contrary, that the law’s requirement of travel was a “jurisdictional hook,” added by Congress because the federal government has no power to regulate activities that occur solely inside a single state. Thus, the law’s purpose of requiring sex offenders to register is only served when the law is given the broadest possible reading, meaning travel can have occurred even before the statute was passed.

Justices expressed some concern with the language used in the law. The law says that someone who “travels” in interstate commerce falls under the law, and the use of the present tense implies that it does not apply to prior acts. If the government wants that language read broadly, Justice Antonin Scalia asked, why should the law not apply to people who travel before they even commit the sex offense, raising the “Lincoln Tunnel Baby” hypothetical.

Several Justices expressed concerns with both parties’ interpretations of the law, so it was not clear how they would rule. The Court will announce its opinion before the summer.

By Chingyu Wang – Talk Radio News Service

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that she and other Democrats in the House will try to pass the Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act tomorrow. The bill would remove antitrust protections for the major health insurance companies.

“This bill is about restoring competition, fairness, and choice to the health insurance industry. After 65 years, it is now time for the unfair advantage insurance companies have held over American families and small businesses to end,” said Pelosi. “We have set a better legislation. It’s about affordability for the middle class, it’s about accessibility of many more people to health care, and affordability is central to that.”

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said he is optimistic about the bill’s chances of passing when it is brought to the House floor tomorrow.

“I’m confident it’ll pass, and I surely hope that it passes with a significant bipartisan vote,” said Hoyer.

Former insurance executive Wendell Potter viewed the legislation as a major step toward ending what he described as the profit domination of seven major companies in the health insurance field.

“In my view it’s a beginning comprehensive reform that will benefit average Americans, working individuals and families more than the big insurance companies,” said Potter.

By Laurel Brishel Prichard – University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

A group of Republicans serving on the House Financial Services Committee have unveiled a bill that would force the Obama administration to add the total debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a total of $1.6 trillion, to the current national debt figure.

“All roads have led to Freddie and Fannie in the current financial meltdown situation that we have been continuing to deal with. We have to level with the American people as to what’s going on,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) during a press conference on Tuesday.

To date, the administration has taken into account the $110.6 trillion in taxpayer dollars that has already been paid to the corporations, as well as $225 billion in mortgage bonds bought by the Treasury Department, but Republicans aren’t satisfied.

“The Obama administration has been obscuring the cost of the government-sponsored enterprises by not including them in the budget…this is certainly what got Enron in trouble, it got WorldCom in trouble, and it got AIG in trouble,” said Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.).

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae hold well over forty percent of past due mortgages in circulation currently. According to Bachus, the Treasury Department’s Christmas Eve decision to give the GSE’s a “blank check” will allow them to rely on taxpayer support until 2012.

The proposed bill would begin to take effect ninety days after being signed into law.

By Monique Cala – University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

As reconstruction efforts get underway in Afghanistan, the shifting in oversight of Afghan police training from the U.S. State Department to the U.S. Defense Department has been slow to develop.

“The State Department was doing an inadequate job in training the police. At least that was the view of the policy people of the time. Ironically, that is exactly the view of today,” said Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen on Monday.

DynCorp International, which held the State Department contract, has filed a protest, delaying the transition and forcing an extension of their contract to July of this year.

While a resolution regarding the transition has yet to be announced, Douglas Ebner with DynCorp promised that his organization, “will do nothing to impede the mission” in Afghanistan.

“Our main concern today, however, is not the process and detail of contingency contracting,” said Federal Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan Co-Chair Christopher Shays. “It the strategic concern about the roles and responsibility, the planning, the visibility and especially the inter-agency coordination of efforts that rely on contracts.”

As pressure mounts on the U.S. to withdraw troops and transition governing power to the Afghan people, the need for a strong police force there is a key issue. According to U.S. officials, the number of Afghan police is expected to grow to 160,000 by 2013.

By Chingyu Wang-Talk Radio News Service

The Dalai Lama stated Friday that China’s communist party should “retire with grace” due to its lack of support and solid ideology.

The Tibetan religious figure’s remarks came after meeting with President Barack Obama Thursday at the White House, during a trip to the Library of Congress Friday for the Democracy Service Medal presented by The National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

[In] any country, the real change must come to people, to individual creativity,” said the Dalai Lama. “[Under] the totalitarian system, without freedom, that opportunity to utilize individual creativity stops.”

The Democracy Service Medal was created in 1999 “to recognize individuals who have made significant contributions to the progress of democracy around the world,” said NED vice chairman Judy Shelton.

The Dalai Lama has been proceeding to develop and promote democracy system around the world. In the early 1950s, the Dalai Lama sought democratic reform in Tibet’s system of government; in 1963, a democratic constitution was promulgated in India shortly after his departure.

The Dalai Lama explained that he views elections as an important symbol of democracy since “that gives people have some sort of power to control to change, and that also give them some kind of sense of responsibility and involvement.”