No Clear Map For Clinton's Political Future

The Washington Post reports:

In August 1980, with no hope left of winning the nomination, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy conceded defeat to incumbent Jimmy Carter in the Democratic presidential race.

"For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end," Kennedy said at the Democratic National Convention in New York. "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

And with that, at age 48, Kennedy returned to the Senate, where he committed himself to a career as a legislator, crafting landmark bills on health care, education and immigration. Many Democrats are now pointing to the Kennedy model as a path for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to reshape her own political career, assuming she is unable to wrest the nomination from Sen. Barack Obama.

"I loved the Senate before I ran for the president," Kennedy explained in an interview before his recent cancer diagnosis. Losing to Carter, he said, made him appreciate the opportunities in Congress all the more. "I think I became a better senator, with greater focus and attention," Kennedy said. But he added: "It all depends on the attitude, what's in the mind of the person."

Clinton, Kennedy continued, must decide where her heart lies. "She's got great capacity -- she was a good senator before, and she can be a great senator in the future," he said. The question, he said, is "what she does with this experience."

When Kennedy returned to Capitol Hill before the 1980 election, the Massachusetts Democrat was in a similar fix. Like Clinton, he was the heir to a powerful political legacy. But the climate was volatile, and voters were in the mood for change. Kennedy was rejected by many of his Senate colleagues, despite Carter's sagging popularity, and he won just 10 primary states. But like Clinton, he hung on until the bitter end.

Yet Kennedy was an 18-year Senate veteran who had already risen to chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a health subcommittee. Clinton faces few options for quick advancement should she give up her presidential bid, prompting some to speculate that she may look elsewhere for a prominent political post, possibly the governorship of New York.

The climate on Capitol Hill has changed considerably in the 18 months since Clinton began her presidential campaign. The Senate leadership path that she had once viewed as a viable alternative is now all but blocked. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) has gained clout in his role, and he will grow even more powerful if Democrats succeed in expanding their narrow majority in November by up to half a dozen seats.

Reid's deputies, Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (Ill.) and Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), also have enhanced their status in recent months and are quietly laying the groundwork to succeed Reid whenever he decides to step down.

"Within the caucus, there's strong support for Senator Reid, and those who speculate otherwise don't understand the Senate," said Durbin, who was the first senator to endorse Obama. When Clinton returns to her old job, assuming she does not win the nomination, Durbin added, "she will be an important part of the future. But I can't tell you that anyone has approached me, or anyone in the caucus, with any specific suggestions about what she would do."

When Clinton announced her bid in January 2007, she was the prohibitive favorite, and most of her Senate colleagues appeared ready to rally to her side. But as her primary battle with Obama draws to an end, with the senator from Illinois almost certain to emerge the victor, Clinton has discovered that the reservoir of Senate goodwill was not so deep after all.

Clinton collected 13 endorsements from her Senate colleagues, compared with 15 for Obama, and she has not added a name to her list since early February, even though she has won significant contests since then.

"I'm sure she'll remember, for the rest of her life, who was with her and who wasn't," said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who ran unsuccessfully this year and then endorsed Obama.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, many Democratic senators said they expect Clinton to work doggedly for Obama this summer and fall, and they agreed that if she does, whatever hard feelings that linger from the primary race will vanish.

But a bigger question is whether, like Kennedy, she will shelve her presidential ambitions, especially if Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) wins in November. The 2012 election would coincide with the end of Clinton's second Senate term, effectively turning her into a lame duck. A run for New York governor would hasten Clinton's departure by two years.

But if Obama wins in November, her next likely opportunity for the presidency would be in 2016, when she would be 69. If Clinton makes it clear her future is in the Senate, she could find several paths open to her, aides and colleagues said.

One would be to champion a major piece of legislation, such as the health-care bill Obama has promised early in his first term.

A member of three prominent committees, Clinton remains a junior member on all three panels and does not stand to become a committee chairman for at least another decade.

But another option would be to assume the chairmanship of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, a demanding but high-profile post that is an appointment by Reid. Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.) is a potential successor to Schumer, who has led the committee for four years, but Democratic sources said Clinton could get the job if she wanted it.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.) pointed to the late Hubert H. Humphrey (D-Minn.) as one example of life in the Senate after a losing White House bid. A senator in the 1950s and '60s, Humphrey became vice president in 1965 and then narrowly lost to Richard M. Nixon in the 1968 presidential election. He won another Senate term in 1970 and returned as the most junior member. "He realized he could command an audience anywhere in the world. He threw himself into the issues. He had the time of his life," Leahy said.

On the other hand, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) returned to the Senate after his failed 1988 presidential bid and became a formidable voice on both the Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees.

With or without a prominent post, Clinton will possess unrivaled clout, her colleagues said. "She is the single most powerful woman in America, and that will be solidified by this race, not diminished by it," said Biden, who has not endorsed a candidate after dropping his own bid earlier this year.

As the former first lady, Clinton arrived in the Senate in January 2001 already a political celebrity, and her status was acknowledged with an appointed leadership position as head of the Steering Committee, with the task of interacting with outside liberal groups.

But colleagues said Clinton showed no interest in using her perch to work toward more powerful posts inside the Senate. Rather, she spent much of her time traveling the country to help Democrats in presidential battleground states, and raising money through her leadership political action committee, HillPAC. She also committed herself to advancing New York state interests, numerous colleagues and senior aides said.

Regardless of which route she now chooses, colleagues who have run failed campaigns said she must first readjust to life in the Senate.

"When you're out on the campaign, you've got to make decisions every hour, every minute," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). "Then you come back to the Senate and it's like a cocoon."

Corn Farms Prosper, But Subsidies Still Flow

The Washington Post reports:

Corn farmer Jim Handsaker has found a slew of ways to ride the heartland boom in biofuels that is reshaping the economy of rural Iowa.

He sold some of his 2006 crop this year for more than $4 a bushel, the highest price in a decade. His stake in two nearby ethanol plants brought in several thousand dollars more in dividends. Meanwhile, soaring farmland prices have pushed the value of the 400 acres he owns to around $2 million.

Even so, come October he will get a subsidy check from the government, part of a $1.6 billion installment that the U.S. Department of Agriculture will send to corn farmers.

Those annual automatic payments to Handsaker and thousands of other prospering corn growers have long been controversial. But coming at a time when taxpayers are already subsidizing the ethanol industry to the tune of $3 billion a year, the double-barreled support system for those who grow corn and those who turn it into fuel has begun to draw fire in Congress.

"Federal farm subsidies are already narrowly focused on certain crops and are excessive," said Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), a farmer and former chairman of the Senate agriculture committee. "They become ridiculous given the exploding possibilities to grow crops for biofuels production."

So far, Congress has shown little inclination to adjust the subsidies to account for the new energy-driven rural economy.

A House-passed farm bill would give corn growers $10.5 billion over the next five years, even if prices stay high. These "direct payments," a kind of annual allowance, are set by formula and go out automatically, regardless of prices, profits, yields or weather.

At the same time, a Senate-approved energy bill would double the federal requirement for the use of ethanol from corn -- a move that should further buttress corn prices.

Handsaker, a Republican who keeps a framed picture of President and Mrs. Bush in his office, argues that such farm subsidies help keep agricultural land in the hands of family farmers and away from corporate monopolies.

Handsaker is not banking on the ethanol boom lasting. "We've all been down the road of price plateaus," he said.

But he acknowledges that justifying the payments is not easy in the midst of an energy renaissance in the heartland. Country roads are dotted with signs advertising "ethanol corn" -- genetically engineered seeds with the high starch content ideal for making 200-proof, high-octane ethanol.

Just weeks before the October harvest, Hardin County, Handsaker's home in central Iowa, was a sea of corn rolling southwest from Iowa Falls. Handsaker once grew a mix of corn and soybeans on the farmland he and his brothers own or rent. "Now we're 100 percent corn," he said.

On a once quiet highway west of Iowa Falls, a constant stream of tractor-trailers pound the road, hauling corn to the Hawkeye Renewables ethanol refinery and soybeans to Cargill Inc.'s biodiesel plant.

To celebrate a banner year, Hawkeye founder and chief executive Bruce Rastetter pulled out the stops for his annual midsummer bash. Several hundred politicians, businessmen and farmers mingled at his richly landscaped hilltop estate, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) made his entrance in a wagon pulled by Rastetter's team of Percheron draft horses.

"It's a great country," said Rastetter, a Hardin County native who started with a few acres of farmland and a small feed business 20 years ago. He recently pledged $1.75 million to Iowa State University. In addition to his Iowa Falls plant, he operates a second one in a nearby county and has two more under construction.

The boom has helped push shares in Iowa ethanol plants to double or triple the initial price. Bill Couser, a corn grower and cattleman who was a driving force behind a new ethanol plant in neighboring Story County, says a grateful local school bus driver who bought shares "waves and honks every time she drives by."

"That's the secret of this ethanol industry," Couser said. "It's keeping the dollars at home."

In July, Pine Lake Corn Processors, the second Hardin County plant after Hawkeye's, announced profits for the previous eight months of $3,800 a share, more than the $3,250 cost of the initial investment. "It's worked out better than my wildest dreams," said Pine Lake President Larry Meints, a corn grower who pushed for the new plant after becoming fed up with hauling grain to distant elevators.

The new market means corn-rich Hardin County has to import the crop even though it grows 35 million bushels a year. The county can't supply its two ethanol refineries and its thriving pork, beef and poultry industries.

"Things are good here," said Howard B. Wenger, president of Iowa Falls State Bank, who reviews the balance sheets of hundreds of farmers.

He estimates that most farmers earned between $100 and $400 an acre on their 2006 crop after expenses, depending on whether they owned or rented their land. That translates into profits of $100,000 to $400,000 on a 1,000-acre farm. The USDA predicts that net farm income will be $87.1 billion this year, up nearly 50 percent over 2006.

Iowa farmland values are up 18 percent in the past 12 months, according to Federal Reserve Board surveys, making millionaires on paper out of any farmers owning 200 acres free and clear.

The rural prosperity is due in large measure to billions of dollars in federal subsidies and incentives for corn-based energy. These include a 51-cent tax credit that gasoline manufacturers get on every gallon of ethanol they mix with their blends, and more than $500 million in federal cash to ethanol refiners between 2001 and 2006.

In 2005, Congress required the use of at least 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol a year by 2012. Then in 2006 came new demand for ethanol as a pollution-curbing additive, along with a jump in gasoline prices that made the corn-based fuel competitive.

"We're harvesting the sun out here," said Handsaker, a genial man who typifies the new breed of businessman-farmer. "We're creating something with sun and chemicals and water and making a renewable product instead of unloading an oil tanker."

When he started in 1971, he recalled, farmers sold their crops to the local livestock industry or sent them "down the river" to volatile export markets.

Prices soared when the Soviet harvest failed or Argentina's corn crop fell short. In between, government payments bridged the gap between solvency and bankruptcy. From 2001 through 2005, Handsaker and his two brothers collected more than $500,000, according to USDA records.

Now four ethanol plants have sprouted within easy trucking distance of their farms and will get about half the 450,000 bushels they produce.

Still, the three brothers stand to collect about $45,000 in direct payments this year, based solely on their previous crop acreage and yields, according to USDA records. Congress created the payments in 1996 as part of a plan to temporarily buttress farm incomes while other traditional subsidies were eliminated. They were supposed to be phased out. Instead, the 2002 farm bill continued them.

"It's a bonus program, not a safety net," said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.). "Farmers I talk to know it's not politically sustainable to ask taxpayers to make payments to them in highly profitable years."

Durbin plans to offer a farm bill amendment that would gradually replace the automatic payments with a program to compensate growers when statewide farm revenues fall below the norm. The National Corn Growers Association embraces a similar plan. This week, the Senate agriculture committee's chairman, Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), circulated a proposal to cut direct payments by $4.5 billion over five years.

The American Farm Bureau Federation, the country's largest farm organization, opposes any changes, but the National Farmers Union, the nation's second-largest, supports an overhaul of direct payments. "It's the most costly and inefficient method for providing a safety net," said the union's president, Tom Buis.

Lugar, the senator from Indiana, favors scrapping the current farm program and using crop insurance and tax-exempt savings accounts to tide farmers over in bad years.

"A farmer's best friend in Iowa is the energy bill," said Bruce Babcock, a professor of economics at Iowa State. "What do you need the direct payments for? It's money for nothing."

Rastetter, along with most others in the ethanol industry, argues that increasing requirements for ethanol use would do more for corn growers than farm programs would. If the government expands its support for ethanol, he said, "then the market price of corn will support farmers and provide the safety net."

But relying on energy policy instead of the traditional farm program worries many in rural Iowa who remember previous bubbles.

The bank still holds a mortgage on his land, Handsaker notes.

Ethanol prices have been tumbling recently as supply catches up with demand. Some ethanol companies, including Rastetter's, have put plans for new refineries on hold pending action by Congress to expand required use.

But such action faces stiff opposition from the livestock industry, which contends that the added demand for corn could mean higher feed and food costs. Environmental groups say it could jeopardize water supplies and sensitive lands in exchange for only minimal savings in the use of fossil fuels, given the amounts of gasoline and chemical fertilizer needed to raise corn.

Meanwhile, the prices of fertilizer, seed and land have been rising rapidly as landlords and corporations move to capture their share of higher grain prices. "As far as the bioeconomy, I don't think any of us thinks it's the golden egg," said April Hemmes, who owns 1,000 acres of prime farmland near Iowa City.

Clampdown on Funding Cheney in Peril

The Hill reports:

Senate Democratic appropriators’ clampdown on funding for Vice President Cheney may not survive a likely test today, as two centrists remain undecided on whether to prod Cheney to comply with an executive order on safeguarding classified information.

Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chairman of the appropriations panel in charge of Cheney’s office, added to his subcommittee’s spending bill a provision freezing money for the vice president until Cheney stops resisting a mandate that executive-branch entities report on their handling of classified data.

Cheney initially argued that his office is not part of the executive branch, garnering snickers from Democrats. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) is likely to seek a vote on removing the funding freeze today, meaning that Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) would need to vote with their party to keep the provision alive.

Landrieu spokeswoman Stephanie Allen said her boss “is weighing her decision until the full committee markup, but she is hoping the administration and Congress can work out this dispute.”

Nelson, who supported Durbin’s provision in a Tuesday vote, declined to say whether he would continue voting to keep it alive. Instead, Nelson urged the administration to intercede by clarifying the executive order at issue, specifically exempting Cheney.

Durbin said he has spoken with senators hesitant about the funding curb and hopes that fellow Democrats continue their support.

U.S. Senate Panel Moves To Cut Off Funding Cheney's Office

The International Herald Tribune reports:

Senate Democrats moved Tuesday to cut off funding for U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's office in a continuing battle over whether he must comply with national security disclosure rules.

A Senate appropriations panel chaired by Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin refused to fund $4.8 million in the vice president's budget until Cheney's office complies with parts of an executive order governing its handling of classified information.

At issue is a requirement that executive branch offices provide data on how much material they classify and declassify. That information is to be provided to the Information Security Oversight Office at The National Archives.

Cheney's office, with backing from the White House, argues that the offices of the president and vice president are exempt from the order because they are not executive branch "agencies."

The funding cut came as the appropriations panel approved 5-4 along party lines a measure funding White House operations, the Treasury Department and many smaller agencies.

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Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said Cheney's office was flouting requirements that it comply with the reporting requirements on classified information.

"Neither Mr. Cheney or his staff is above the law or the Constitution," Durbin said. "For the vice president to believe that he has no responsibility to meet this requirement of the law is a dereliction of duty."

The tempest originally attracted widespread media attention after Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman charged that Cheney's office's had originally argued to the Archives that it did not have to comply with the order because it was not "an entity within the executive branch."

The vice president is also the president of the Senate, able to vote to break ties and preside over the chamber, though he is not eligible to sponsor legislation or participate in debates.

Cheney's office, Waxman said, also blocked the archives from doing an onsite inspection of his office to make sure classified information was being properly protected.

Republicans on the Senate panel said Durbin was going overboard in using Congress' power of the purse to try to force Cheney to conform with the order.

Such a step, said Republican Sen. Sam Brownback would set a terrible precedent in relations between the executive and legislative branches of government, which have historically let each other set their own budgets.

"This is going to further erode any sort of working relationship back and forth," Brownback said. "This is a patently bad idea."

The House of Representatives last month narrowly rejected a comparable attempt by Democrats to cut off funding for Cheney's office.

On Tuesday, two panel Democrats — moderates Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska — registered discomfort with Durbin's move, though they backed him when Republicans forced a vote.

Brownback said the executive order does not apply to Cheney's office because it is not an agency. But Durbin insisted that Cheney's office is explicitly covered because the order applies to "any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information."