Key numbers:

BP and other companies involved in the gulf disaster employ as lobbyists more than three dozen former lawmakers, congressional staffers and bureaucrats. BP alone has hired at least 31 internal and external lobbyists with government experience, records show.

The American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s leading trade group, employs 48 lobbyists with previous federal experience, the analysis shows. They include former senator J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.), who helped deregulate the natural gas industry, and former congressmen Jim McCrery (R-La.) and Charlie Stenholm (D-Tex.), both of whom strongly backed oil interests while in Congress.

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Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Al Franken (Minn.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) are cosponsors. The Colorado Independent’s sister site in Washington spoke with Stabenow and Brown on the issue last week.

The new bill will include a $25-a-week supplement that was dropped as Democrats pared the jobs bill back to meet the requirements of moderate deficit hawks, none of whom ultimately voted for the bill. The new bill does not create any new tiers of unemployment benefits, instead restoring Tier IV benefits to the jobless. Congress added or expanded Tiers I through IV last year, as part of its stimulus plan.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who refused to cross the aisle for the jobs bill — objecting to, among other things, the closing of a tax loophole for “S corporations” — has said she will vote for a standalone UI bill. She urged Senate Democrats to take one up last week.

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But Republicans, who a month ago were saying that they’d recognize progress when the jobless rate fell, aren’t impressed. Indeed, Republican House Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) just issued a statement blasting the stimulus programs that are propping the numbers up.

[M]uch of what the Administration touts as a ‘jobs recovery’ has caused – and will continue to cause — the deficit to soar. Let me be clear – during challenging times, a job is a job. Yet government jobs that are paid for by taxing small business people and borrowing from the Chinese are not signs of a healthy economic recovery.

He has a point: 411,000 of those 431,000 new jobs are related to the 2010 Census and therefore temporary. Still, any new job creation is good news relative to the hundreds of thousands of jobs the economy was shedding a year ago. And, of course, the idea behind stimulus spending all along has been that the short-term hit to the deficit will be a tiny cost relative to the consequences of federal inaction.

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“Americans have demanded a real fence to combat the very real problems of illegal immigration that have led to human trafficking, drug trafficking, kidnapping and violence on our border,” DeMint said in a statement. “Congress will never be able to achieve long-term reform to create a legal immigration system that works until we secure our borders.”

The amendment will require the support of 60 senators to pass. Last year’s version attracted only 54.

h/t: The Hill.

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“If we catch them. We should document them. Make sure we know where they are and where they’re going. I actually support micro-chipping them. I can micro-chip my dog and find him. Why can’t I microchip an illegal? Right? I mean, that’s not a popular thing to say but you know it’s a lot cheaper than building a fence that they can tunnel under. Right?”

Bertroche said he wasn’t serious. He told The Des Moines Register it was all supposed to be a joke aimed at poking fun of the radical ideas that are ruining a reasonable discussion of immigration policy.

“I ended my statement earlier than I should have,” he said.

The YouTube record of the event comes via a user named “IA03RawFootage.” All seven uploads from the account are videos of GOP candidates running in the 3rd District Iowa primary.

–
Hat tip to Jason Hancock at the Iowa independent.

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Yesterday, it heard from former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan. Today, the FCIC hears from former top Citi executives Chuck Prince and Robert Rubin, as well as the current and former comptrollers of the currency (responsible for regulating national banks); tomorrow, it hears from former Fannie Mae officials and Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight executives.

What did Greenspan say of importance? Not much. (Here is a copy of his prepared remarks and a copy of his review of the boom and bust, titled “The Crisis,” prepared for the Brookings Institution and released last month.) Much of his testimony retread well-worn ground. But the “Maestro” did assert that he was correct 70 percent of the time during his Fed tenure. Angelides cannily asked him: “Would you put [the financial crisis] in the 30 percent category?” Greenspan replied, “I don’t know.”

He also said that banks had been undercapitalized for the past 40 to 50 years (a problem under the Fed’s purview) and argued that financial services might be too complicated for regulators to regulate. “It’s not a simple issue of, ‘Let’s regulate better. It’s a different world,” he said. “The complexity is awesome.” He hedged that statement by noting that banks’ counterparties — the firms on the other sides of their trades and loans — helped alert regulators.

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The ruling strikes at the heart of “net neutrality,” the principle of keeping web content equally accessible regardless of its provider, origin or destination. Advocates say net neutrality is threatened by the major conglomerates in the telecommunications industry who wish to provide themselves with an advantage by slowing down sites that aren’t associated with their companies and don’t pay a fee for the faster service.

From the New York Times:

The ruling would allow Comcast and other Internet service providers to restrict consumers’ ability to access certain kinds of Internet content, such as video sites like Hulu.com or Google’s YouTube service, or charge certain heavy users of their networks more money for access.

Telecommunication companies argue they have to charge a premium for better quality of service, such as faster connections and larger bandwidth. They also contend that net neutrality will stifle competition and result in higher flat rates for consumers. The FCC is considering applying rules that were written for the old phone system to Internet service providers.

Save the Internet assembled a bipartisan cast of supporters of the equal-access internet in the video below last year.

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At issue were Bachmann’s claims that prior to 2008, “100 percent of the private economy was private” and that “30 percent of American physicians would leave the profession if the government took over health care.” CBS News said evidence directly contradicts Bachmann’s statements.

“[N]ow we have the federal government taking over ownership or control of 51 percent of the American economy. This is stunning. Prior to September of 2008, 100 percent of the private economy was private,” Bachmann said on the long-running national news show.

CBS News:

Ms. Bachmann offered no facts to back up her assertion that the government owns or controls 51 percent of the U.S. economy.

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis data since 1929, the highest percentage of government spending as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product was during World War II when government spending was 47.9 percent (in 1944). The lowest level of government spending as a percent of GDP was 9 percent in 1929 at the outset of the Great Depression.

At no time during this period was the United States’ GDP 100 percent private.

The 2009 level of federal government spending was 20.6 percent.

In October, Bachmann put the figure at 30 percent, although her apparent source for the figure said it was an estimate.

Bachmann also cited a phony New England Journal of Medicine report pushed by a doctor-placement agency earlier this month.

“The New England Journal of Medicine released a survey the week that President Obama signed Obamacare stating that over 30 percent of American physicians would leave the profession if the government took over health care. That’s very serious going forward.”

CBS News: “The New England Journal of Medicine has denied it conducted or published the survey cited by Ms. Bachmann.”

Tea Party favorite Marco Rubio, who is running to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate tweeted the phony New England Journal of Medicine report last week.

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Sample:

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