Dumb Ass
Scumbag:
http://thehill.com/...
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) blamed Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown for the stalling of a bipartisan energy efficiency bill.
Brown is running for Senate against Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the lead sponsor of the energy efficiency bill with Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio). Brown previously served as a U.S. senator for Massachusetts, but now lives in New Hampshire.
Shaheen and Portman's bill failed to get enough Republican support to overcome a filibuster on Monday.
Republicans blamed Reid’s refusal to consider any amendments, but Reid said Republicans blocked the bill because Brown requested it.
“Scott Brown, who is running for the Senate in New Hampshire, he asked the Republican caucus to make sure they didn’t give Sen. Shaheen a win on this,” Reid said on the Senate floor Thursday. “I wonder who called them today to tell them to kill this bill … maybe it’s one of the other Republicans wanting to join the Senate.”
Reid’s comment came immediately after Republicans also blocked progress on a tax extender bill, which had broad bipartisan support. But Republicans again were unable to offer amendments. - The Hill, 5/15/14
Here's a little more info:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
The Huffington Post first reported on Tuesday that Brown, a former senator from Massachusetts, lobbied against the bill as recently as last week. The Shaheen-Portman bill failed to clear a procedural hurdle Monday despite enjoying broad bipartisan support. Although the legislation had 14 co-sponsors -- seven from each side of the aisle -- just two other Republicans ultimately voted with Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio) to end debate on the measure: Sens. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) and Susan Collins (Maine).
A spokeswoman for Brown, who did not return HuffPost's request for comment, did not deny the report in a statement to Politico. "Scott Brown was concerned that Senator Shaheen was refusing to allow a vote on the Keystone pipeline, a commonsense and bipartisan project that would immediately create thousands of jobs and lessen our dependence on foreign oil," spokeswoman Elizabeth Guyton said.
Senate Republicans abandoned the Shaheen-Portman bill after GOP leadership tried to force votes on energy-related amendments, such as approving the Keystone XL pipeline and blocking a new Environmental Protection Agency rule on coal-fired power plants. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) rejected additional amendments to the bill, although he promised to hold a standalone vote on Keystone if Republicans helped pass the energy efficiency measure. Reid also pointed out that the bill's sponsors had already incorporated 10 bipartisan amendments before reintroducing it this year.
Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), did not confirm or deny that Brown lobbied GOP leadership against the Shaheen-Portman bill. "Sounds like he was saying the same thing everyone else was: Americans should be allowed the opportunity for the Senate to vote on Keystone and other job creation measures," Stewart said in an email to HuffPost.
Requests for comment to Portman, Ayotte and Collins were not returned.
But Portman said last month that he wasn't worried Democrats would use the energy efficiency bill to bolster Shaheen's reelection prospects. "It’s never been a mystery that it’s going to come to the floor. It was just a question of when," Portman said. "Clearly it was going to come to the floor long before Scott Brown got in." - Huffington Post, 5/15/14
Reid isn't the only one blaming Brown for the bill's failure:
http://grist.org/...
Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), the third-ranking Senate Democrat and top strategist, criticized Brown for sabotaging Shaheen’s bill.
“First, he was here two years and he seems still not to understand the legislative process,” Schumer told reporters Wednesday on Capitol Hill. “By killing the Shaheen bill, he also killed a vote on the pipeline. He seems to have a pattern of saying one thing publicly and doing something else internally, and it always seems to catch up with him.”
The Shaheen-Portman bill includes incentives, opportunities, and funding to improve the energy efficiency of commercial buildings, houses, and appliances, but does not impose any mandatory standards. It would spur the creation of 190,000 jobs, save the country $16.2 billion a year on energy bills by 2030, and reduce planet-warming greenhouse gases, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. Several leading energy-related groups have endorsed the bill, including the American Chemistry Council, the American Gas Association, and the Earth Day Network. - Grist, 5/15/14
But Brown's plot to sabotage Shaheen's bill is getting some major backlash:
http://www.thewire.com/...
As the Huffington Post reports, Teamsters Local 633 Secretary-Treasurer David Laughton sent out a release on Thursday condemning Brown's "blind partisanship" which "appears to have cost us a stand alone vote to proceed with the Keystone XL pipeline." Though New Hampshire's Teamsters support Shaheen despite her opposition to Keystone, Brown has been courting the group by attending their rallies and writing op-eds for local papers in favor of the bill. "In an op-ed, and more recently at a rally we co-hosted, Scott Brown claimed that he supported the Keystone pipeline," Laughton said. "But clearly when he told us he wanted 'to get this done' he was just lying to our face."
Brown hasn't denied reports that he sabotaged the bill, which would have encouraged energy efficiency in buildings, but would have also given Shaheen a nice feather in her cap. In fact, as New York magazine noted, New Hampshire's Republican Party has already used the bill's failure to attack Shaheen, writing that she "doesn't have a single legislative accomplishment to run on as she seeks re-election. It's time to end Jeanne Shaheen's failed tenure in the Senate and replace her with a responsible Republican who can get results for New Hampshire." Given the circumstances, we're not sure which results-driven Republican they're referring to. - The Wire, 5/15/14
Seriously, what an dumb asshole. But this is a sure sign that Brown is running scared, especially since he's look like a real idiot when it comes to his attacks on Obamacare:
http://www.politico.com/...
The former Massachusetts senator, now running in New Hampshire, has become a walking megaphone of anti-Obamacare rhetoric. He calls the health law a “disaster,” a “fiasco,” a “government takeover” and a regulatory “tsunami” that will overwhelm the state’s businesses, its medical device industry, its ski resorts.
Yet for all the vitriol, Brown may not be the purest critic. Obamacare is an offshoot of Romneycare, which Brown supported as a Republican state lawmaker in Massachusetts. That gives Brown the same problem Mitt Romney had while running for president in 2012: explaining why he likes and still defends a health reform law packed with mandates in Massachusetts while declaring its central elements unfit for the nation.
Brown insisted in an interview that although Obamacare is “the biggest issue in New Hampshire” he is not taking health care cues from Romney.
“He’s not told me anything,” he said. “I haven’t talked to anybody about it. I understand the issues and do my own research.”
Yet Brown is not reticent about enlisting Romney to make his case, including a fundraising appeal highlighting the very topic that confounded Romney’s own candidacy. - Politico, 5/15/14
I'm looking forward to beating this asshole again. Lets make sure Senator Shaheen is ready to take him down. Click here to donate and get involved with her campaign:
http://jeanneshaheen.org/