Venango County Tea Party Patriots

A non-partisan, non-profit, non-member, association dedicated to educating the public and promoting the principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free market economics, and all other lawful activities.

House Energy and Commerce Committee

/

Website Contractor Blames White House for Glitches

The leading contractors on the Obama administration’s troubled health insurance website told Congress Thursday that the government failed to thoroughly test the complicated system before it went live.

Executives of CGI Federal, which built the federal HealthCare.gov website serving 36 states, and QSSI, which designed the part that helps verify applicants’ income and other personal details, testified under oath before the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The contractors said they each tested their own components independently but that the Health and Human Services department was responsible for testing the whole system from end to end. That kind of testing didn’t happen until the last couple of weeks before the system’s Oct. 1 launch.

It quickly crashed once consumers tried to use it.

Representing QSSI, Andrew Slavitt told the committee that ideally, end-to-end testing should have occurred well before the launch, with enough time to correct flaws.

How much time?

“Months would be nice,” said Slavitt.

“We would have loved to have months,” concurred CGI vice president Cheryl Campbell.

The administration’s determination to go live on Oct. 1 despite qualms about testing quickly became a focus of the hearing, which turned sharply partisan at times.

Read more.

/

Congressman Upton Not Holding Out Hope Obama Will Approve Keystone

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said Friday that he is not holding out much hope that President Obama will approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

“Though normally a pretty good optimist, I am not overly optimist [sic] that the president will allow the Keystone XL to move forward despite Nebraska’s reroute of the pipeline thru their state,” Upton said in a live Web chat on Michigan news website Mlive.com where he typed out answers to questions.

The fate of the pipeline rests with Obama because it crosses national boundaries.

While most lawmakers want Keystone to go forward, environmental groups hope Obama’s recent comments on climate change — and the confirmation of John Kerry as secretary of State — foretell the project’s end.

Upton noted that a majority of the House supports the pipeline that would bring Canadian oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries. Most senators back the project as well, with 53 of them urging Obama to greenlight it in a letter.

Legislators and industry supporters say the pipeline will bring thousands of jobs, lessen dependence on foreign oil and also help reduce bottlenecks in shipping oil from North Dakota’s booming Bakken region.

Read more.

/

GAO Report Shows EPA Regs Are Burdensome

Republicans on Friday said a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report proved their claims that a pair of environmental rules would harm the economy and electric reliability.

The GAO report released Thursday touched on two forthcoming Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations that have drawn criticism from Republicans. Though the report said complying with those rules would pose “reliability challenges,” it maintained those risks were avoidable.

GOP staff from two committees saw the final report differently. They said the report points to glaring problems their members have long identified as significant risks to electric reliability and costs.

“The report confirms the committee’s repeated assertions that EPA’s power sector regulations will raise electricity prices and present serious localized reliability challenges for many coal-dependent parts of the country,” House Energy and Commerce Committee spokeswoman Charlotte Baker told The Hill on Friday. “We are seeing more and more coal plants retire as a result of EPA’s actions, but the administration has yet to account for how this reduced capacity will affect consumers and our ability to keep the lights on.”

The GAO report said between 2 and 12 percent of coal-fired electric capacity would come offline as a result of the rules. It said cheap natural gas might push power plant operators to voluntarily shutter expensive coal-fired plants.

Still, the report also echoed Republican and utility industry claims that meeting compliance deadlines would be difficult because the technology needed to clean up power plants is not widely available, a point that Baker emphasized.

“Utilities and local officials have warned the required compliance timelines are unachievable and will severely challenge electric reliability throughout the implementation process,” she said.

Read more.