Daily Stuff: May 21 / 2009

Today the House Energy and Commerce Committee finished it's markup of the landmark clean climate, energy and jobs bill known as Waxman-Markey or more formally the American Clean Energy and Security Act. It passed the committee with one Republican vote (Mary Bono Mack of California) and four Democrats in opposition. It's a pretty huge deal so that's most of what today's stuff is about.

-First. What Dave said. And I would add it would be nice to have that kind of presence in the office of every legislator every week.

-Lots of people have roundups on the passage. I recomend Grist's Kate Sheppard and Climate Progress's Joe Romm. Adam Siegel is less impressed.

-It was really awesome to read the great reporting/livetweeting under the #ACES tag on twitter. In particular @JesseJenkins @climatebill @kate_sheppard @LCVoters @MeghanMcNamara and probably some others I'm forgetting did a really fantastic job of providing real time updates throughout the process. They really showed that Twitter can be used as a powerful tool for open government, not just a way to update the world on what your eating.

-Evan Bayh is a really bad Senator. I don't mind being a Big Tent party, don't think most Democrats should get primaries and am fine with Democrats who "vote their district." But Evan Bayh is from a state that Barack Obama won. Every single issue he tries to find a way to find "common ground" for no reason other then that's the niche he's created for himself. It's hard to see what he does as motivated by any principle or conviction. If he faced India's other Senator, Republican Richard Lugar, in an election I honestly think I'd vote for Lugar.

-This guy is cool. Maybe I should become a speed reader.

-What would happen if we delayed helathcare reform? Really, really bad things.

-Ezra Klein makes incredibly boring things exiting and easy to understand Part 1: differential tax treatment of health care benefits when provided by your employer

-Mmmm. Nice cool Mud Soup.