Senator Rounds’ staff was kind enough this past week to help me get a tour of the White House for this weekend, so bright and early this morning, I popped in to pick up my pass.. And taking a chance, I asked if the Senator was in.

It’s not that there is anything going on in Washington today, such as a supreme court confirmation vote, or the first military action of our new administration… OK, maybe I was a little embarrassed that it might be an imposition, but the staff was gracious and I made a point not to overstay my welcome.

We had a great discussion on what was happening in his office, and in his committees, especially in light of the strike on Syria. One of the most important things that the Senator noted was the poor state the prior administration left us in, in terms of military readiness.

Mike noted that we were left in situations such as having 3 nuclear submarines inoperable & waiting for repairs, and how 63% of our F-18’s are in a state of disrepair after the Obama administration. And thats just thr tip of the iceberg.

We also spoke about his efforts to clean up the morass that is the VA, as well as his work on the Banking committee.

I knew Mike had to get to a committee meeting, so we got out of his hair, but it was good to get an update on the work he’s doing for South Dakota and the American people in Washington.

Thank you again to Senator Rounds and staff for the impromptu visit, as well as for the White House tour.

After boarding and de-planing, my flight has officially been pushed back by 2 hours.

Somehow, I don’t know if I’m going to make it to the Hill this afternoon, as I’d planned.

Although, as I haunt the waiting area of gate E8 in Chicago, waiting for my plane and the Eastern seaboard weather to clear, I’m not sure anyone in DC will be allowed to escape via air service, either.

Attorney General Jackley Joins Challenge of Affordable Care Act’s Tax on South Dakota’s Insurance Health Plan

PIERRE, S.D. – Attorney General Marty Jackley has joined a challenge filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit by 16 Attorneys General. The brief supports the petition for rehearing en banc from a panel decision that allows the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to extend the transitional reinsurance tax in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to the States that operate self-insured group health insurance plans for government employees. The ACA requires “group health plans” to pay the transactional reinsurance tax. The Attorneys General argue this tax does not apply to the States.

“The federal government has no existing authority to impose this tax on our self- insured state health care plans. Imposing this tax forces the States to foot the bill for the federal government’s inaction and poor policy choices on healthcare. We will continue this fight to protect our citizens and our State budget from this unauthorized tax,” said Jackley.

The brief argues that in order to impose such a tax, Congress must make its intent to do so unmistakably clear. The States have a substantial interest in contesting federal taxes imposed directly on States where it is not clear Congress intended for States to pay the taxes. A strong clear statement rule in the taxation context provides States much-needed protection from federal regulation that upsets the traditional federal- state balance. “There is no clear statement in the ACA that Congress intended to impose this transitional tax on the States,” said Jackley.

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I’ve been looking forward to my D.C. trip this week for quite a while. So when things started going sideways this AM, it had me wishing I had a St. Christopher’s medal handy for the rest of the trip.

The AM started out great. I actually think I remembered everything intended to take with me for once. But hey! Someone took my Diet Coke from the fridge. Grumble. Rotten kids. Not a big deal, The quick shop is open.

So we started heading down the  interstate… but dammit. The finicky cruise control in the truck finally decided to cease working. Yeah, I knew that one was coming. Not a tragedy. I’ll fix it when I’m back.

As I kept checking to make sure I wasn’t as lead-footed as I thought, as that Madison exit came up awfully fast, my wife grumbled in anguish, as my usual role in forgetting things was assumed by her. Apparently, she change for the big purse to a small purse, and forgot her credit card. Meh. I’ve got cards. No biggie.

By this time, we are pulling into the Sioux Falls Airport for parking, and here’s where things really start to go awry.

Long-term parking in the airport is down to one operable ticket machine. So we pull in line, and wait. And wait. And… what’s going on?

Apparently, despite the LCD screen that says press button for ticket, some idiot jammed a credit card into the lone working ticket dispenser at the long term parking ticket machine at the Sioux Falls airport.

So, on the fly, someone in charge sent us affected persons to short term parking.  For some reason, I’m  a little nervous about these instructions costing an arm & a leg, or worse being towed. 

 I could not raise anyone on the phone, so I sent a note to a friendly City Councilperson wondering if they could possibly help me obtain some peace of mind for following the sketchy “on the fly” instructions as related by the person who couldn’t read instructions, and help me find a live person.

After that, we arrived at the Airport terminal… only to find that our flight was delayed 45 minutes. Hm. That means a sprint when we land, but there’s a possibility we can still make our connecting flight. OK. Time to kill. We’ll go get breakfast. 

And breakfast was good. Thumbs up for biscuits and gravy. But thumbs down for the notice that came at the end of the meal that we were delayed an additional 45 minutes, which effectively meant we would be missing the next flight. Dammit.

As we trudged to gate 7, defeated, with our arrival resembling anything akin to what was planned shattered, and we waited for a gate agent to figure out how to get two hapless travelers to Washington DC before Friday….. all of a sudden, the flight was updated again.

Instead of an hour-and-a-half delay, we were now leaving in 5 minutes, literally 5 minutes behind our original schedule. Pre-boarding instructions were read at record pace. YOU! GET ON THE PLANE NOW! Amazingly, I had no problem with the rush.

We’re in the plane now, waiting to taxi, only 5 minutes behind. It’s all good. I just hope my car is there when I get back.

Read it here: Former Bosworth aide to work for Russians.

Rounds Speaks in Support of Judge Neil Gorsuch to Be Confirmed to Supreme Court

WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) today spoke on the Senate floor in support of Judge Neil Gorsuch to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

“Throughout his career, Judge Gorsuch has proven time and again that he is exceptionally qualified to serve on the Supreme Court,” said Rounds in his floor speech. “The knowledge and careful deliberation he will bring to the court will result in rulings that reflect justice, fairness, and an interpretation of what the law is and what Congress intended it to be, not what administrative agencies want it to be.”

Noem Outlines Agriculture’s Tax Reform Priorities
Congresswoman shares tax ideas with House Ag Committee

Washington, D.C. – Rep. Kristi Noem today outlined tax reform priorities for farmers and ranchers during a House Agriculture Committee hearing. 

Noem highlighted efforts to repeal the Death Tax, protect cost-recovery mechanisms in the tax code to help young producers, and develop provisions to help when purchasing land and machinery. 

More specifically, Noem explained:

“Just as the Farm Bill touches every family’s life because everyone eats, tax reform will impact everyone’s life because we all pay taxes in one way or another….

“We know some areas of the tax code disproportionately and unfairly impact America’s agriculture community.  This includes the Death Tax…. That’s why I’ve sponsored legislation to repeal the Death Tax and was glad it was included in the House Ways & Means Blueprint.  

“Additionally, what many don’t quite realize is how highly leveraged agriculture is…. Ensuring there are adequate cost-recovery mechanisms in the tax code is essential to attracting and keeping younger producers on the farm.

“Some use a combination of interest and expensing for operating notes and equipment purchases.  Because land is a principle input for agriculture, ensuring there continues to be a cost-recovery mechanism for land purchases remains a priority. 

“All this said, … [p]rovisions cannot be looked at in isolation. I encourage you to view tax reform as a comprehensive package that is aimed to increase opportunity and growth for Americans from all walks of life.”

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Rounds, Warner Reintroduce Legislation to Provide Financial Stability to Muni Bonds

Allows high quality municipal debt to be classified at a level equivalent to debt issued by corporations

WASHINGTON—U.S. Sens .Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), members of the Senate Banking Committee, today reintroduced bipartisan legislation to allow high quality municipal debt to be classified at a level equivalent to debt issued by corporations. Debt sold by state and local governments is currently excluded from consideration under a rule requiring banks to hold enough high quality liquid assets to fund their operations for 30 days. This exclusion may create a disincentive for banks to hold their positions in the municipal-debt market, potentially making it harder for state and local governments to issue bonds to fund infrastructure projects.

“Access to capital is critical for South Dakota communities looking to finance important infrastructure projects like bridges and roads,” said Rounds. “Our bipartisan legislation would allow banks to count high-quality, investment-grade municipal debt as level 2B High Quality Liquid Assets under federal banking regulations. Doing so will help maintain a healthy demand for this debt and prevent borrowing rates for municipalities from dramatically increasing.” 

“As a former governor, I know firsthand how critical it is for states and municipalities to issue bonds that fund their basic operations, including the construction of schools, roads, and local projects,” said Warner. “We must ensure a continued and reliable access to capital markets for our local governments, and this legislation represents a compromise that achieves that while appropriately balancing concerns for the long term stability of our financial system.” 

Under proposed rules issued by federal banking regulators, debt sold by states and localities isn’t eligible to count as High Quality Liquid Assets (HQLA), which means they won’t qualify as assets necessary for banks to retain under new funding requirements issued following the financial crisis. These requirements ensure that banks maintain a liquidity coverage ratio that includes holding a certain amount of HQLA, but prohibits munis from being considered as HQLA. The rules effectively cabin off an entire category of high quality and highly liquid debt from being considered as HQLA, limiting the incentive for financial institutions to hold these assets and potentially adversely affecting the issuance of such debt by states and municipalities. 

The Federal Reserve recently weighed in on the issue, making limited changes to their previously issued rule. However, the two other regulators involved—the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp—have made no changes to allow the institutions they regulate to count municipal bonds toward their liquidity buffers. The Rounds-Warner bill would categorize certain types of municipal debt as level 2B, on par with certain corporate debt, and would receive a 50 percent equivalent to the liquidity ratio requirement. This action would bring municipal bond debt on par with corporate debt, and help stabilize the municipal securities market.

In addition to Rounds and Warner, the legislation is cosponsored by fellow Senate Banking Committee Members Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). The legislation was previously introduced in the 114th Congress. 

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Caught a news story this morning that was a good reminder that we need new pipelines as much, if not moreso than we need pipe-dreams.

Remember the Solar Roadways Video that people were posting a few years back? I admit that I found the concept fascinating, and there were plenty of others who agreed. Many on the left were asking why we weren’t doing this, instead of promoting Keystone XL:

Why weren’t we doing this? Well, a city in Idaho ponied up the cash to run a pilot project and actually tried it. And as they found… it still needs a little work:

An expensive solar road project in Idaho can’t even power a microwave most days, according to the project’s energy data.

The Solar FREAKIN’ Roadways project generated an average of 0.62 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per day since it began publicly posting power data in late March. To put that in perspective, the average microwave or blow drier consumes about 1 kWh per day.

and…

Solar FREAKIN’ Roadways has been in development for 6.5 years and received a total of $4.3 million in funding to generate 90 cents worth of electricity.

Read it here.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea, and I think it may have merit. But the science to make it happen on a cost effective basis is many, many years away.

Someday, the technology may catch up. But until then, if we want cheap and plentiful energy in our country, fossil fuels are king. And we actually need those pipelines to bring it to market.