Washington focuses on jobs ­— and snow

Snowmageddon kept the Capitol closed on Monday, and forced at least one lobby fly-in day to cancel. The Environmental Defense Fund and the Ocean Conservancy were welcoming fishermen this week to lobby for fisheries conservation, but the plan was put on ice due to, well, ice — not to mention the Buffalo-esque piles of snow.

The historic storm meant Senate Democrats were unable to introduce a jobs package on Monday, as planned. That gives lobbyists another day to try to find a spot on what is proving to be a popular legislative vehicle.

{mosads}Now that healthcare reform is on the back burner, the jobs bill is an appealing target for lobbyists representing physicians, hospitals, nursing homes and other Medicare providers.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is putting together the so-called extenders package. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the House Ways and Means Committee also confirmed the lower chamber is working on a similar measure.

It isn’t clear what will be included, but there is no shortage of ideas.

Nursing homes and rehabilitation therapy providers, along with patient groups, are pushing legislation to undo a hard-dollar cap on Medicare coverage of physical, speech and occupational therapy. Hospitals are seeking to restore special payments to large rural and small urban hospitals. Physicians also are pursuing the reinstatement of bonuses to rural doctors.

Both the House- and Senate-passed healthcare reform bills included fixes to these issues, but Democratic leaders set aside plans to immediately advance that legislation after Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) won election last month, depriving Senate Democrats of their filibuster-proof majority.

Doctors are also clamoring for action to prevent a 21 percent cut in their Medicare payments that looms on March 1. Doctors strongly favor a permanent solution to the flawed formula that calculates their fees and are stiffly resisting a one-year fix, which has been Congress’s favored approach since 2002.

But with little time remaining until the pay cut kicks in, physician groups are eyeing an extension of current rates for a few months to give Congress time to act on the issue, which is on track to be handled separately from healthcare reform.

Climate bill backers stress jobs

As the administration and congressional Democrats look for ways to lower unemployment, backers of climate change legislation are making an extra push to link clean energy with job growth.

“Congress has an opportunity to spur additional job creation and put Americans back to work by completing their work on a comprehensive clean energy and climate policy that will create nearly 2 million jobs here in America,” said David Di Martino, a spokesman for Clean Energy Works, a coalition that supports climate legislation.

The Blue Green Alliance, a coalition of labor and environmental groups, wrote senators on Feb. 1 to urge that “comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation remains at the top of the Senate agenda in coming weeks.”

Environmentalists and businesses that favor climate legislation say they are revisiting the theme that the climate and energy bill could provide a boost to the economy.

“That is our big card,” said Marchant Wentworth, a lobbyist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It is the quickest, easiest way to create jobs that there is.”

The Third Way, a left-leaning public policy think tank, will send Congress a list of 23 clean energy proposals that would lead to job growth — as soon as mail delivery starts again.

Josh Freed, who directs Third Way’s clean energy initiative, said clean energy should be viewed as a “cornerstone of long-term economic growth.”

House Dems push consumer agency

It isn’t all jobs, jobs, jobs.

House Democrats and consumer advocacy groups are urging Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) to support a strong Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) as he drafts the financial overhaul legislation.

Dodd said last week that bipartisan negotiations with Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) had reached an “impasse” and that he would draft legislation by the end of February. Industry sources said last week that Dodd and Shelby had discussed creating a consumer financial protection division at a national bank regulator. That would have been in lieu of a fully independent CFPA, a proposal backed by President Barack Obama and passed by the House in December.

{mosads}Dodd and Shelby clashed on how much power the division would have and whether it would be able to write and enforce rules. Shelby said on Friday that he is concerned about the separation of consumer protection responsibilities from regulators overseeing the safety and soundness of banks.

More than 30 House Democrats circulated a letter to colleagues at the end of last week urging Dodd to support a strong CFPA. Meanwhile, Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of 200 unions and advocacy organizations, on Tuesday will hold a conference call with three state attorneys general who support the CFPA.

“Abandoning an independent consumer financial regulator is not a small compromise, but an untenable capitulation to those in the financial industry who have no interest in meaningful reform,” Consumer Watchdog wrote in a letter to Dodd.

Separately, the communications and strategy firm FD released a new poll showing that 76 percent of Washington insiders believe new financial regulations will pass in 2010. The poll surveyed 300 lobbyists, government officials and others. A similar 74 percent said Congress would not pass legislation requiring an audit of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy.

Fight starts over Pentagon spending

Budget week’s over, but the fight over funding is just beginning and big battles loom over defense spending.

Some points of contention are already emerging: the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter alternate engine and the lack of funds for it; the C-17 cargo aircraft and no more desire for it; and the loss of appetite for a multiyear contract for the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets.

Pretty much a case of déjà vu of recent budget battles.

This time, though, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made it clear he would recommend that Obama veto the defense bills over the alternate engine and the C-17. And Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), once Obama’s rival for the presidency, now in a tight race for his own seat, has already urged the president to issue a personal veto threat over the programs.

Lawmakers are also peeved over the much-awaited Quadrennial Defense Review, saying it lacks priorities and resources for the future.

“This makes our task much more difficult, because although the QDR should not be budget-constrained, the plain fact is that resources are not unlimited,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) said this week. The QDR “comes up short” on giving Congress any guidance on how to make the essential trade-offs, he said.

Next week, Air Force officials are poised to hammer their case on the fiscal 2011 budget request both in the Senate and the House. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley will also sit down with defense reporters for a roundtable on Thursday. The same day, Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter is scheduled to address defense industry representatives at a National Aeronautic Association lunch.

Jeffrey Young and Roxana Tiron contributed to this report.