Episode Details

In this episode, we catch up on all the bills that passed the House of Representatives in January, including a bill to protect chemical storage companies from having to pay for their messes, a few bills to damage ObamaCare, and a bill to make sure private health insurance companies can't pay for abortions. Information Presented in This Episode Mel Watt Resigns On January 7, Rep. Mel Watt of North Carolina's 12th district resigned to become Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency after being appointed to the position by President Obama. The Federal Housing Finance Agency was created during the 2008 financial meltdown, a meltdown created largely by giant private banks chopping up bad mortgages, mixing them with good mortgages, and selling them to other companies such as Frannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The FHFA is in charge of regulating sort-of Federal mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Private banks want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gone because Fannie and Freddie are more heavily regulated than private banks and create a basement of rules that banks sort-of have to play by. Private banks want the "free market" to control mortgages so that they can, once again, do whatever they want and make enormous profits with new financial scams models. Last August and again in the State of the Union, President Obama sided with the "free marketeers" and voiced his support for getting rid of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in favor of more private banker control of our mortgages. Who will President Obama's choice to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac side with? Well, former Representative Mel Watt's top two campaign contributors over the course of his Congressional career were Bank of America and the American Bankers Association. In total, he took over $1.3 million from the Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate sector. Representative Watt's former district, North Carolina's 12th district, is a funny shaped, likely gerrry-mandered district that cuts through the center of the state; it includes portions of Charlotte, Salisbury, and Lexington. The district will remain unrepresented until the November election. HR 2279: Protects Finances of Chemical Storage Companies On January 9, the House passed H.R. 2279. The one good thing about this bill is that it would require owners of chemical storage facilities to report to their states the quantities of dangerous chemical that they store in their buildings. This is a direct response to the giant explosion at the West Fertilizer Company in West Texas, which took place on the same week as the Boston Marathon bombing, killed five times as many people, but didn't get nearly as much press coverage. The explosion happened after the building caught fire and ignited ammonium nitrite - the same stuff used in the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing- which was being stored in the building in huge quantities which were never reported to Texas regulators or the Department of Homeland Security. The building had not been inspected by Federal worker safety regulators since 1985, when it was cited for improper storage of dangerous chemicals and given a $30 fine. It had been fined again in 2012 by the Department of Transportation for improper storage of dangerous chemicals. The explosion killed fifteen people, injured 160, and destroyed 50 homes. So had this bill been law early last year, in theory, Texas and the Department of Homeland Security would have known how much the company was storing and may have done inspections more regularly. That's a good thing. But that's where the good things stop. The company responsible for the West, Texas explosion was only insured for $1 million in damage, which wasn't nearly enough to cover the damage they caused. The damage was estimated at $100 million, at least. The State of Texas has no requirement for storage facilities to have any insurance, and so FEMA had to pay 75% of the costs of the damage. Despite the fact that the Federal government had to pick up the tab fo