Editorial roundup

Feb. 10

Wall Street Journal

President Obama rewriting ObamaCare

“ObamaCare” is useful shorthand for the Affordable Care Act not least because the law increasingly means whatever President Obama says it does on any given day. His latest lawless rewrite arrived on Monday as the White House decided to delay the law’s employer mandate for another year and in some cases maybe forever.

ObamaCare requires businesses with 50 or more workers to offer health insurance to their workers or pay a penalty, but last summer the Treasury offered a year- long delay until 2015 despite having no statutory authorization. Like the individual mandate, the employer decree is central to ObamaCare’s claim of universal coverage, but employers said the new labor costs — and the onerous reporting and tax- enforcement rules — would damage job creation and the economy.

Liberals insisted that such arguments were false if not beneath contempt, but then all of a sudden the White House implicitly endorsed the other side. Now the new delay arrives amid a furious debate about jobs after a damning Congressional Budget Office report last week, only this time with liberals celebrating ObamaCare’s supposed benefits to the job market.

Well, which is it? Either ObamaCare is ushering in a worker’s paradise, in which case by the White House’s own logic exempting businesses from its ministrations is harming employees. Or else the mandate really is leading business to cut back on hiring, hours and shifting workers to part- time as the evidence in the real economy suggests.

Under the new Treasury rule, firms with 50 to 99 full- time workers are free from the mandate until 2016. And firms with 100 or more workers now also only need cover 70 percent of full- time workers in 2015 and 95 percent in 2016 and after, not the 100 percent specified in the law.

The new rule also relaxes the mandate for certain occupations and industries that were at particular risk for disruption, like volunteer firefighters, teachers, adjunct faculty members and seasonal employees. Oh, and the Treasury also notes that, “As these limited transition rules take effect, we will consider whether it is necessary to further extend any of them beyond 2015.” So the law may be suspended indefinitely if the White House feels like it.

By now ObamaCare’s proliferating delays, exemptions and administrative retrofits are too numerous to count, most of them of dubious legality. The text of the Affordable Care Act specifically says when the mandate must take effect—“after December 31, 2013”— and does not give the White House the authority to change the terms.

Changing an unambiguous statutory mandate requires the approval of Congress, but then this President has often decided the law is whatever he says it is. His Administration’s cavalier notions about law enforcement are especially notable here for their bias for corporations over people. The White House has refused to suspend the individual insurance mandate, despite the harm caused to millions who are losing their previous coverage.

Liberals say the law isn’t harming jobs or economic growth, but everything this White House does screams the opposite. Feb. 12

Chicago Tribune

Getting cracking on the Keystone pipeline

The U. S. State Department finally has given the Keystone XL pipeline an unexpectedly “green” light. In a Jan. 31 report, the agency found the pipeline wouldn’t cause significant environmental damage. It wouldn’t prompt more oil extraction. It wouldn’t increase demand at U. S. refineries. And, surely to the shock of many opponents of the long- proposed pipeline, its construction actually would lead to fewer greenhouse gas emissions than the likely alternatives for moving oil.

The State Department didn’t formally approve the project, but it did give direct answers to the key environmental concerns that President Barack Obama raised when he put a stall on the project last June:

No, the pipeline would not be the environmental horror that the opponents allege.

Yes, it would have a significant economic impact. It would create lots

of jobs.

“There are no more excuses for delaying this project,” said Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, which represent 3 million skilled craftsmen. “The time to construct this pipeline is now.”

Yes, now. The Obama administration should promptly approve Keystone XL — and boast about the environmental and economic pluses it will deliver.

To review how we got to the gridlock that has stymied this project:

Keystone XL would link the rich oil sands of inland Canada to U. S. refineries and ports at the Gulf of Mexico. That is, the pipeline would be a safer and more reliable way to move oil from one part of North America to another — oil that now moves primarily by barge, rail and truck.

Yet the Keystone XL project remains in limbo five years after its backers first sought the necessary approval from Washington. There’s speculation that Democratic congressional leaders, for whom the proposal spells trouble no matter how the administration rules, will press Obama to keep a decision on ice until after the November midterm elections. The pipeline plan divides two Democratic constituencies: labor unions that want the job creation, and environmental groups opposed to further development of fossil fuel resources. These groups see thwarting Keystone XL as a step toward faster development of renewable fuel sources. Trouble is, no matter what Washington decides, Canada will extract this oil and consumers somewhere will use it; the question is whether it goes to U. S. refineries or to markets in China or elsewhere.

Republicans have pushed for approval — House Speaker John Boehner said the president’s stall amounted to “economic malpractice.” But some of the president’s allies have also stepped up the pressure for approval, including Democratic Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

“It’s past time for the president to make a decision — the right decision — and approve this project so we encourage and benefit from energy production from a friend and ally, rather than get those resources from volatile countries elsewhere across the world,” Heitkamp said in response to the State Department report.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been pressing for years for U. S. approval of the $ 5.4 billion pipeline. With the project, Canadian energy resources can be put to use more efficiently. Without it, Canada will work around the U. S., expanding its access to ports on its Atlantic and Pacific coasts. More oil will be transported by methods that carry a higher risk of accidents — witness the carnage last summer when a train loaded with oil exploded in the Canadian city of Lac- Megantic, killing 47 people.

What’s most striking in the State Department report appears deep in the fourth of its 11 volumes, under the heading Greenhouse Gas Impacts. Three scenarios if the pipeline isn’t built:

• If the oil instead moves to refineries by rail and tanker, greenhouse gas emissions would be 27.8 percent higher.

• If the oil is transported by train to existing pipelines, emissions would be 39.7 percent higher.

• And if the oil goes to the Gulf solely by train, emissions would be 41.8 percent higher.

The obvious conclusion: The Obama administration should strike a blow for environmentalism and approve the Keystone XL project.

The White House has said it will wait at least until other federal agencies have a chance to comment on the State Department report. That could delay a final decision for 90 days — or 190, or longer.

Enough. Get to work — and put people to work — on the Keystone XL pipeline. Feb. 11

Tampa ( Fla.) Tribune

A state ban on Cuban research that makes no sense

Florida is the only state in the nation that prohibits its university professors and students from collaborating with researchers and educators in Cuba.

The destructive law hurts Florida’s scientists without penalizing Cuba.

As the Tribune’s Paul Guzzo reports, a Florida Senate bill adopted in 2006 forbids the use of any money connected to a state university to be used for travel to nations on the U. S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, which includes Cuba.

The island nation is a socialist dictatorship but hardly a serious threat to the United States.

Yet the legislation treats the neighboring nation as though this were the Cold War era.

The law doesn’t just handicap researchers. It also prevents Florida students from pursuing education opportunities in Cuba. Students from across the nation — or those from private institutions — can participate in studies in Cuba. Only students at Florida’s schools are kept from interacting with Cubans.

This punishes Floridians, not the Cuban government.

Lawmakers should revisit the issue and see that Florida’s sanctions against the free exchange of ideas and research is a policy more appropriate for a totalitarian state, not a democracy.