The last time the president made such an announcement, the BP disaster occurred two weeks later. We all saw how that ended. Obama should not be laying the groundwork for history to repeat itself.

Current law caps accidental spill liability at $75 million, far below what actual spill damages would likely be. This translates into a huge subsidy for the industry and puts the American people on the hook.

Congress has yet to pass reforms in the wake of that disaster – including raising oil companies’ spill liability from the current $75 million cap.

Opening new areas to drilling while failing to hold oil companies accountable for fleecing taxpayers on existing drilling leases is unfair.

Obama should know better than to hold Big Oil’s support above Main Street’s interests.

Tyson Slocum is Public Citizen’s Energy Program director. Follow him on Twitter @TysonSlocum.

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Flickr by I-5 Design and Manufacture

Regulators—past and present—including Simon Johnson, Richard Fisher and Thomas Hoenig have offered public support for downsizing and reforming “too big to fail banks.”

The latest to publicly embrace the idea is Sheila Bair, the Republican-appointed FDIC chair who was critical in dealing with the financial crisis.

Politicians also have become supportive of breaking up the big banks. Chief among them is Jon Huntsman, who made this issue the central focus of his presidential campaign, but even Newt Gingrich has expressed sympathy for splitting up financial institutions. The conservative media also has gotten into the act. The idea has garnered support from Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard, Charles Gasparino of the Fox Business News Network and Arnold Kling of National Review, to name a few.

So, how do regulators actually do it?

They can use section 121 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Section 121 gives the Federal Reserve and the Financial Stability Oversight Council the authority to mitigate the “grave threat” that a financial institution poses by limiting the bank’s activities or forcing it to divest assets—in other words, the authority to break up a bank into separate institutions.

If regulators do their jobs properly, the resulting institutions should be simpler, smaller, and safer. Those firms would be less likely to fail—and less dangerous in the event that they do.

Take Bank of America, for example. In its current form, it is a “grave threat” by any reasonable definition of that phrase. On Wednesday, Public Citizen filed a petition with financial regulators, calling on them to break up the bank and reform it.

The petition details how Bank of America is a systemically dangerous behemoth, holding $2.1 trillion of assets. That equals roughly 1/7 of U.S. gross domestic product and makes it the second-largest bank holding company in the U.S. Its size and number of different lines of business make it too complex to manage or regulate properly.

In addition, Bank of America’s financial condition is poor and could deteriorate rapidly.  Near- and long- term financial indicators demonstrate the market’s unease with the firm. It likely is undercapitalized, as it faces potential liability and market risks that could severely destabilize it.

In fact, an ongoing study by the Volatility Institute at New York University’s Stern School of Business confirms the danger posed by the bank. Of all U.S. financial institutions, Bank of America contributes the most to systemic risk. This means not only that Bank of America is highly susceptible to financial crises, but also that it could “create or extend” a crisis.

If Bank of America in its current form were to fail, it would devastate the financial system. Regulators would have few options for dealing with an imminent failure, and all of them would be bad. These include bailing out the firm—something prohibited by the Dodd-Frank Act—or trying to put the bank through an orderly liquidation. There are many risks involved in putting such an unwieldy institution through liquidation. Many people think it wouldn’t work. In any event, it’s likely that a liquidation would be anything but “orderly.”

Luckily, these problems can be avoided. The Dodd-Frank law gives financial regulators the authority to act preemptively, safeguarding financial stability by engineering a soft landing for Bank of America well before a crisis materializes. It’s imperative that they use that authority.

We’re not saying that Bank of America is bound for a crisis. We’re saying that the possibility of a crisis is all too real—and it’s a risk we can’t afford to take. That’s why financial regulators must act now.

This blog was co-authored by Micah Hauptman and David Arkush of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division.

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Stunning Statistics of the Week:

• $27.5 million: The amount that Super PACs have spent to influence the 2012 presidential election
• $8.1 million: The amount Restore Our Future, the Super PAC backing GOP contender Mitt Romney, has spent
• $5.4 million: The amount candidates have spent on TV ads for the South Carolina primary to date
• $6.9 million: The amount Super PACs have spent on TV ads in South Carolina

Taking to the streets as Jan. 21 Citizens United anniversary approaches
What a week! Saturday, Jan. 21, marks the second anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s disastrous Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, and activists have been engaged in – or gearing up for – hundreds of events around the country. Public Citizen and other groups held rallies and press events with state officials in Maryland, Vermont and Massachusetts to call for a constitutional amendment to overturn the court’s decision. Another big rally is scheduled Saturday in Sacramento, Calif. In addition, activists are planning about 300 demonstrations around the country. It’s not too late to get involved in your area! Check out www.DemocracyIsForPeople.org. Or if you are a Facebook fan, check this out. Also worth reading is today’s Huffington Post piece by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Public Citizen President Robert Weissman.

CEOs, investors, others call on SEC to require disclosure of corporate political spending
The Corporate Reform Coalition, made up of institutional investors, CEOs, good government organizations and others, is calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission to require publicly traded corporations to disclose political spending. U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who joined a coalition press call Thursday, released a letter to the SEC from himself and 13 Senate colleagues. “Many shareholders remain in the dark, unaware that their money could be funding political activities, or even political attack ads. The rights of shareholders must be protected and at present, we believe that they are being compromised,” the letter said. A citizens petition to the SEC has already garnered more than 20,000 signatures. Add yours here.

Well, this is a bit awkward: Democrats get more money from Bain than Republicans
Bain Capital has been in the spotlight because of Mitt Romney’s tenure at the private equity firm. But truth be told, Democrats have taken more donations from Bain executives than Republicans over the past three election cycles ($1.2 million vs. $480,000), The Hill reports.

Small business leaders: Citizens United hurts us
Two-thirds of small business leaders say the Citizens United decision has hurt them, and 88 percent say money has a negative role in politics, a new Lake Research poll shows. The poll was commissioned by the American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC), Main Street Alliance and Small Business Majority.

Dollars and Cents (even more news bites):

… Members of Congress are taking more privately funded junkets than ever, Roll Call reports, indicating that travel restrictions instituted in 2007 are no longer working …

… a resolution is moving through the California Legislature that would require political ads to identify who paid for them …

… Arizona lawmakers are considering a measure to toughen the state’s campaign finance law by being more explicit about when corporations have to register as political committees and disclose where their money comes from …

… the Portland, Maine, City Council has voted 6-2 in support of a constitutional amendment that would overturn Citizens United …

Visit DemocracyIsForPeople.org to learn more!

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Activists join Maryland legislators and U.S. Representatives, as well as Public Citizen's Mark Hays and other allies, to call for a constitutional amendment at the State House in Annapolis.

“We’re already at a point where the public overwhelmingly opposes the decision ,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, a watchdog group helping to spearhead the efforts. “The goal is to build a grass-roots movement that will eventually be able to shape the debate.”

Public Citizen’s Democracy is For People campaign, as a founding member of the United for the People coalition, is proud to be in the thick of this amazing “movement moment.”

Building on more than 50 cities and towns that have passed resolutions demanding a constitutional amendment that overturns Citizens United and stems the influence of money over elected officials, Public Citizen and our allies have been organizing in four different states vying to have their legislatures follow suit (and in the process declare that they’re ready to ratify an amendment). Rallies supporting those resolutions were held in Massachusetts and Maryland over the last 2 days (with Congressmen Chris Van Hollen and John Sarbanes attending in Maryland). Vermont and California will follow suit tomorrow and Saturday.

And to mark Saturday’s anniversary itself, activists around the nation will “Occupy the Corporations,” and expose the corporate imposters posing as ‘people’ with the constitutional right to buy unprecedented influence over elected officials and public policy. We’ll be focusing on some of the mega-corporations most empowered by Citizens United and most responsible for greedy, disastrously short-sighted policies, to the detriment of the rest of us.

Indeed, new polling shows that small-business owners view the impact of Citizens United (and of the dominant role of money in our politics) as bad for business by a 7 to 1 margin! And Public Citizen is part of a broad coalition of top institutional investors, CEOs, public officials, legal experts and good government groups that is petitioning the Securities & Exchange Commission to mandate transparency in political spending by publicly-traded corporations. (Listen to the coalition’s conference call for more on how the current “Wild West” atmosphere for campaign finance negatively impacts business, and how the kind of disclosure that the Supreme Court incorrectly presumed to exist can at least help mitigate the damage done by Citizens United in the short term.)

Fittingly enough, the anniversary of Citizens United falls on the exact same day as South Carolina’s presidential primary. The ruling that paved the way for the ongoing deluge of money and negative ads that state– like Iowa and New Hampshire before it– is seeing right now has not been lost on disgusted citizen activists around the country, nor on newspaper editorial boards or fellow fans of Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert.

Yet pure anger at the drowning out of grassroots democracy isn’t all that’s driving the 300-plus grassroots actions taking place this week, nor the over 60 national, state and local organizations mobilizing for them.  As Democracy is for People organizer Aquene Freechild relayed at the press conference introducing Vermont’s proposed resolution, the amazing people we’ve met through organizing are often driven by a simple principle: “We do not want a nation organized around greed. We want a nation [and a politics] organized around democratic principles, and strength of character.”

And as Maryland State Senator and constitutional law professor Jamie Raskin, the author of that state’s legislative resolution calling for an amendment, told The Nation‘s editorial board, “American citizens have repeatedly amended the Constitution to defend democracy when the Supreme Court acts in collusion with democracy’s enemies, whether they are slavemasters, states imposing poll taxes on voters or the opponents of woman suffrage.”

The road to a constitutional amendment won’t be easy, and established conventional wisdom says that our efforts have the deck stacked against them. But we’re in this one for the long haul, because as Americans throughout the nation are declaring this week, people-powered democracy is a cause well worth fighting for.

Sean Siperstein is a Legal Fellow with Public Citizen’s Democracy is For People campaign.

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Lisa Gilbert

If you’re not a campaign finance wonk, you may not have noted that a significant anniversary will arrive this weekend on January 21: on Saturday, the ruling in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission turns two.

This week two years ago, I and many other reformers spent days constantly refreshing our browsers on the Scotusblog website, playing the waiting game to see if the Supreme Court would do what we all feared and unleash a torrent of outside and corporate money.

Despite the endless build up, when the decision came down I don’t think any of us were really ready for the results.

Two years later, the ramifications of this decision are still whip-lashing across the nation. The impacts are felt by everyone whose televisions have been bombarded by ads, all the investors who have no idea if their pensions are being spent by corporations in politics to support candidates they oppose, and by all the voters who feel like their voices are now even more drowned out by SuperPAC spending.

There are few, if any, constituencies that are excited about this decision two years down the road. A poll released today by the American Sustainable Business Council, Main Street Alliance and Small Business Majority highlighted that 88 percent of small business owners hold a negative view of the role money plays in politics and that 66 percent of American small business leaders believe that Citizens United hurts small companies. And many other Americans agree with these small business owners. A Pew Research Center study also from this week; showed that among those that have heard of the Citizens United decision 65% say they are having a negative effect on the 2012 presidential campaign. And among those who have heard a lot about the new campaign finance lay of the land, 78 percent say the effect of the decision has been negative.

There are a number of different ways to deal with the aftermath of this cataclysmic ruling, but one narrowly focused and attainable solution is to deal with the problem through reigning in corporate spending. The Corporate Reform Coalition – made up of institutional investors managing a combined total of $800 billion in assets, as well as public officials, legal scholars, good government groups and CEOs is working to do this through legislation, via agency action, and through supporting shareholders who are calling on their companies to disclose their spending or to stop playing in politics completely.

This Thursday, the coalition is calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to issue rules on corporate political spending. Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion in Citizens United incorrectly assumed that comprehensive disclosure requirements were already on the books; the SEC could and should close this gap for the publicly traded companies they oversee.

Several prominent law professors filed a petition with the SEC in August, urging it to require publicly traded companies to disclose their political spending. Numerous others have joined their voices to the call for SEC action, from State Treasurers to Representatives and Senators to the former CEO of one of the biggest mutual funds out there, John Bogle of Vanguard.

Mandating transparency is well within the SEC’s authority, and there is no time like the 2 year anniversary of this game changing decision to set the wheels in motion. The SEC should shine a light on corporate spending in politics and enable the public and shareholders to hold CEO’s accountable when they spend in politics. Otherwise, I fear the recap I will be giving of this election at next year’s anniversary.

Take Action: Urge the SEC to require publicly traded corporations to disclose their political spending.

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Stunning Statistics of the Week:

• $5.7 million: The amount that Elizabeth Warren has raised in the last three months of 2011 for her race to unseat U.S. Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.)
• $3.2 million: Amount that Brown raised in the same period

Activists gearing up as second anniversary of Citizens United looms
As the second anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s damaging Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling looms, thousands of people across the country will stage demonstrations, rallies, protests and other actions to magnify the urgent need to overturn the decision and ensure democracy is for people – not corporations. It’s not too late to get involved.

Occupy Congress
Just ahead of #J21 actions to protest the Jan, 21, 2012 anniversary of Citizens United, thousands upon thousands of occupiers will be filing into DC, where the DC Occupy Camp just passed a resolution against corporate personhood! Find out more about their planned actions here. 

Disclosure order on horizon?
Could it really be? The Obama administration is considering issuing that long-awaited executive order requiring federal contractors to disclose political donations. Yes, the one that was imminent last summer. Public Citizen’s Craig Holman heard this at a recent White House meeting.

Another state law falls in the wake of Citizens United
New Mexico’s $5,000 limit on contributions to federal campaigns and $5,000 limit on contributions for independent expenditures are on hold for the moment. A federal judge has said they likely don’t square with the Citizens United decision.

RNC seeks end to ban on direct corporate contributions to candidates
Why stop with Citizens United? Indeed, the Republican National Committee has not. It filed a brief with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals seeking an end to the federal ban on direct contributions from corporations to candidates. (Citizens United said corporations could independently spend unlimited sums on such things as broadcast ads, fliers and so forth that support candidates, but did not allow direct contributions to canmdidates.)

More employees witnessing illegal contributions
The number of employees at major companies who say they have seen illegal campaign contributions being made is four times higher than two years ago, a new study from the Ethics Resource Center says. The silver lining is that the percentages are relatively low; the number jumped from one percent in 2009 to 4 percent in 2011.

That’s rich
Public Citizen and other groups are working to overturn Citizens United with a constitutional amendment. Most are organizing rallies, protests and the like. But television host Cenk Uygur is using a different approach. He is using a Super PAC – the new entity that sprang into existence thanks to Citizens United – to overturn the ruling.

Dollars and Cents (even more news bites):

… Good government groups are calling on President Barack Obama to fill vacancies on the Federal Election Commission and fix its dysfunction …

… K Street lobbyists are trying to figure out ways around the restrictions on corporate and lobbyist donations at the Democratic National Convention …

… One Wisconsin Now claims that Gov. Scott Walker violated the state campaign finance laws more than 1,000 times since 2009 …

… Texas Gov. Rick Perry is attacking Mitt Romney for his work at Bain Capital, a private equity firm. But over the past 11 years, Perry has received more than $7 million from private equity and other similar firms and their employees, Texans for Public Justice finds …

… the U.S. Supreme Court has reaffirmed the ban on political contributions by foreign nationals …

… Portland, Ore., has passed a resolution designed to oppose Citizens United and saying that corporations should not have the same rights as people  …

… Comedian Stephen Colbert continues to highlight the weakness in the campaign finance system by turning his Super PAC over to Jon Stewart, claiming the two hosts of back-to-back comedy shows will not coordinate …

… Want to know who coined the term “Super PAC”? We have the answer. …

Visit DemocracyIsForPeople.org to learn more!

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These words were apparently uttered by legendary college football coach, Paul W. “Bear” Bryant. While the advice is applicable to just about any person or subject matter, a recent federal government report shows that U.S. hospitals are in dire need of a reminder.

According to a Department of Health and Human Services study, hospitals are failing to document their medical errors. The study, an examination of Medicare patients’ records, found that hospital staff failed to report 86 percent of “adverse events,” (harm done to patients as a result of medical care) to their respective internal incident reporting systems.

This systematic failure of hospitals is worrying in a number of ways.

Due to the severe underreporting of incidents, the number of actual injuries and deaths from medical errors is probably significantly higher than the oft-quoted estimate, 98,000 deaths annually, reported by an Institute of Medicine report over a decade ago.

Failure to acknowledge medical errors probably also means that hospitals are failing to give victims of medical errors critical information about what caused their injuries. Consequently, hospitals and their staffs are evading accountability for their actions. That is, hospitals are likely failing to acknowledge and compensate patients for injuries caused by errors, particularly preventable ones. And medical providers are not appropriately disciplined for these errors.

Moreover, hospital staffs are likely committing the same errors repeatedly because, if they fail to acknowledge the existence of errors, then they are also failing to change their policies and practices to prevent similar future errors. In fact, the study found that only five reported incidents led to policy or practice changes at a hospital.  Quite succinctly, these findings reflect the perilous conditions for patients in hospitals.
Indeed, this study is yet another piece of evidence of the  under-recognized patient safety crisis: Less than two years ago, an HHS study estimated that 1.6 million Medicare beneficiaries suffer injuries from medical mistakes costing taxpayers at least $4.4 billion a year. HHS also found that medical mistakes kill 15,000 Medicare patients a month, or  180,000 Medicare deaths per year – more than the IOM’s estimate, which estimated deaths  for all U.S. patients.

The HHS Office of Inspector General, which authored the incident reporting study, recommended that HHS agencies work together to create a list of potentially reportable events and technical assistance to hospitals.  Developing lists of potential reportable incidents is a logical step to assist hospital staff in tracking medical errors. It is also critical that the public be informed about hospital safety. Hospitals should be required to report incidents and disclose the data to the public. Public disclosure will improve the accountability of medical providers who commit such errors, will lead to changes in hospital policies to prevent the errors, and consequently will reduce the number of medical errors.

So returning to Coach Bryant’s wise words, when adverse events occur, hospitals must:

(1) Admit it. Report the incidents, not just internally, but also to the people affected by the actions – the patients and the public.

(2) Learn from it – Analyze the incident reports. Identify trends in types of errors and infections.

(3) Don’t repeat it – Change the policies and practices to prevent unnecessary deaths and injuries.  Discipline those who flout these policies and commit preventable errors. Adequately compensate patients injured by preventable medical errors.

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But after reviewing the Chamber’s examples of the most egregious abuses of the legal system, we couldn’t help but ask, “Is that all you’ve got?”

The Chamber’s list includes a grand total of zero cases against small businesses.

We also couldn’t find a single instance among the Chamber’s examples in which the plaintiff was actually awarded damages, although we had to look beyond the Chamber’s brief summaries, which conveniently omitted the results of the cases. If businesses really are suffering significant losses from unfounded claims, don’t you think the Chamber would give us some examples?

A man who doesn't lie! Public Citizen Congress Watch Research Director Taylor Lincoln

And last, if the Chamber says the real problem is with businesses’ costs of litigating unmerited cases (as opposed to paying damages awards), we point out that eight of its ten examples were dismissed or withdrawn. In fact, at least six of the cases were terminated within six months—which is pretty fast by litigation standards—and four within a month. The two ongoing cases were filed since October. If the claims are really as silly as they sound, we have faith that the courts will dispense with them quickly.

Here is a brief rundown on the cases the Chamber presented, complete with what we know about the cases’ resolutions:

• A man who was convicted of kidnapping a Kansas couple after breaking into their house while fleeing police sued the couple in a longhand submission from prison. He claims the couple broke an oral contract, made while he held them hostage, to hide him from the police. His case, chosen as the most ridiculous of 2011 by more than half of the Chamber’s voters, was filed just a few months ago. It’s still ongoing but if the Chamber’s claims are correct, we wouldn’t bet on it to get very far.
• A California woman sued the children’s restaurant and arcade chain Chuck E. Cheese alleging that it exposed children to casino-style gambling in its arcades. The mother dropped her case within a week. As an aside, her case may not be so absurd. In 1996 the Alabama legislature saw fit to pass a law prohibiting prizes in arcades.
• A woman sued Carnival Cruise Lines in small claims court claiming that its cruise ship was moving too fast and made her and many other passengers sick. Her case was dismissed.
• A 60-year-old New York man sued the nonprofit sponsor of a musical competition for age bias because it would not allow him to participate. After his case was tossed out by the court, he resubmitted it, alleging that the 88-year-old judge was biased against him. The resubmitted case was also dismissed by the same judge.
• In 2009, a pair of young adults sued their mother for neglect. The plaintiffs cited “playing favorites” and not including gifts with birthday cards. The court dismissed the case, saying the complaints did not meet the standard of “intentional infliction of emotional distress.” The siblings appealed the case. The dismissal was upheld by an appeals court.
• An overweight man from New York sued a White Castle because the booths in the restaurant were too small for someone of his size. The man had complained to the restaurant for two years, saying that he just wanted to “sit down like a normal person,” and reportedly received a promise that something would be done. The man dropped the suit after the restaurant added freestanding chairs and tables.
• A New York woman sued the preschool that her daughter attended because, she claimed, the school did not adequately prepare her child for standardized tests used to determine placement in top elementary schools. She sought a refund of the tuition and class action status for other parents. The case was dismissed.
• A man in Virginia sued a bar in which he got into an armed altercation for failing to search him and confiscate his gun before he entered the establishment. A federal judge dismissed the case.
• A woman sued Century 21 department stores for $5 million after she was shorted 80 cents when she returned some items that she had purchased with the $5 coupon. She also sought class action status. The plaintiff dropped the suit.
• A Michigan woman sued the film distributer Film District because, she claimed, the movie she saw did not resemble the trailer. She wants the price of her ticket refunded. 

It’s hard to see the Chamber poll as anything more than a sideshow intended to distract people from the most important abuses in the courts. Take, for example, the unprecedented flood of fraudulent filings by mortgage servicers. These are companies that deliberately falsified paperwork they submitted to courts in order to unjustly kick people out of their homes—and did so on a massive scale. Or consider the example of Capital One bank filing more than 15,000 cases to collect debts illegally. If the Chamber were truly concerned with addressing abuses of the courts, rather than insulating its members from accountability, then it would work to remedy these serious abuses rather than opposing efforts to fix them.

One of the greatest ironies is that the Chamber’s positions serve to enable abuses of legal fairness rather than combat them. Consider the case of the kidnapper reportedly suing a couple over their alleged breach of a contract he struck with them while he held them hostage. If the kidnapper had been clever enough to include a clause mandating that disputes over the contract be settled in arbitration, the Chamber’s policy prescription would require the couple to plead their case in the arbitration forum of the kidnapper’s choosing. And if the couple wanted the forced the arbitration clause voided so the case could be heard in court, they would have to make that request to—you guessed it—the arbitration firm selected by the kidnapper.

Yes, in America, people do enjoy the freedom to seek redress in the justice system when they believe they have been harmed by a business or another individual. In a country of 300 million people, it’s not surprising that in the course of a year, 10 Americans might submit claims that seem absurd. In most of the examples above, the courts found the plaintiffs’ evidence insufficient and dismissed the cases. There is scant evidence that businesses suffered anything more than minor inconveniences from these episodes.

The mission of the Chamber’s “ridiculous lawsuits” project is to make the case that meritless litigation is so prevalent and harmful that consumers’ legal rights must be curtailed. On the basis of the evidence presented, we would like to submit a motion to dismiss the Chamber’s case because it strikes us as, well … ridiculous.

This blog post was co-authored by Kelly Ngo, also from Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division.

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Stunning Statistics of the Week:

• $13 million: The amount that outside groups have spent on ads and direct mail in early battleground states
• $7.9 million: The amount outside groups had spent at this point in the 2008 presidential campaign

Nationwide protests planned the week of Jan. 21
The nationwide days of protest around the second anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (Jan. 21) are almost upon us! You can attend or host an organizing party to plan an anniversary action. These parties will occur on and around Tuesday, January 10. The night before (Monday, January 9), The Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC is expected to host a representative of our coalition, and we hope to share clips of that show with party hosts for their meetings. Sign up to attend a party or host one if there is not one in your area.

Montana says its corporate spending ban survives Citizens United
The Montana Supreme Court has upheld a state law banning corporations from spending money to support or oppose candidates. The court did so despite the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court said in Citizens United that a similar federal law was unconstitutional. The state court held that Montana’s unique history of corporate corruption provided the compelling justification the Supreme Court said was necessary to bar corporations from spending to help candidates through such things as ads and mailings. The challengers likely will try to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

New York City, Duluth and California weigh in on corporate personhood
Momentum grows to overturn Citizens United. This week, New York City passed a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision, and legislation calling for an amendment was introduced in the California Legislature. Duluth, Minn., also passed a resolution in late December. Check out these great discussions on Democracy Now! and the Thom Hartmann show.

Santorum Super PAC does a switcheroo, avoids disclosure
What a neat trick! A Super PAC supporting the presidential candidacy of Rick Santorum is switching its donor disclosure schedule from quarterly to monthly. This means that it doesn’t have to disclose the names of its donors before primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. Candidate Jon Huntsman’s Super PAC is trying to do the same thing.

Poor Newt …
Pity poor Newt Gingrich. Alright, we admit it’s hard to muster much pity for Gingrich. Still, he now stands as not the first, but the most recent, prominent victim of the U.S. Supreme Court’s abysmal decision in Citizens United.

Dollars and Cents (even more news bites):

… A pending Federal Communications Commission rule could help the public know who is behind political ads, but broadcasters are fighting it …

… A Maine legislative committee has killed a measure that would have prevented gubernatorial candidates from using public financing to pay for candidacies …

… Stephen Colbert had these words of wisdom about Super PACs: “This is 100 percent legal and at least 10 percent ethical.” …

Visit DemocracyIsForPeople.org to learn more!

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What does that do? It keeps prices high, of course. And that’s really what the oil industry is after: more drilling (without having to abide by rules prohibiting the fouling of the environment or the poisoning of people), more oil, more exports, high gas prices, more money.

We are awash in energy supplies. We are the third-largest oil producer on the planet, and the second-largest natural gas producer. But we remain the largest consumer of fossil fuel energy, which is unsustainable from the standpoint of price, climate, water use and our environment.

Who loses? You, me and everyone else who gases up at the pump. We will lose even more if the Keystone XL pipeline is approved. That’s just a conduit to export even more gasoline, because it will be piped from Canada to the Gulf Coast refineries then put on ships.

The problem is not inadequate access to domestic resources. It’s that we still don’t have enough clean alternatives. We need to invest more in rooftop solar and wind power. We need to develop more mass transit and more electric cars. We need to wean ourselves off oil.

So don’t be fooled by the slick ads. The message is just more of the same from a polluting, deceptive and price-gouging industry that is focused solely on its bottom line. American families can’t afford Big Oil’s status quo.

Tyson Slocum is Public Citizen’s Energy program director.

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