Entries for April 10, 2007

Political insiders of all stripes will be watching closely when John McCain give his high-stakes speech on Iraq tomorrow at Virginia Military Institute. McCain advisers tell Chief White House Correspondent Kenneth T. Walshthat it will be one of the Arizona senator's biggest moments so far in the evolving campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

In previews offered over the past few days, McCain insiders said the address will emphasize that the Iraq war is winnable, that slow but definite progress is being made, and that defeat would be a "catastrophe" for the United States and the Middle East. A loss, McCain will say, would give terrorists a breeding ground for more attacks on the United States and set back the causes of peace and democracy in the region.

See a full report here.

The Bush administration this afternoon announced the EPA's final Renewable Fuel Standard with some pomp and circumstance at the agency's headquarters, reports Associate Editor Bret Schulte. In attendance: EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, and the administrator of the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, Nicole Nason.

The new standard sets a national goal of producing 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuels -- for all intents and purposes, ethanol -- by 2012. At first blush, it seems a worthy goal, but the country already produced 5 billion gallons last year. It could reach 7.5 billion in the next year or two, giving the administration a rather easy victory.

Meanwhile, the administration has remained silent on how to divide finite corn supplies between the demands of the national gas tank and the demands of the national, or, more accurately, international kitchen. Already the demand for corn has sent prices for the crop skyrocketing. Plus, vehicles that run on the E85 blend (85 percent ethanol, 15 percent gasoline) being promoted by Washington policymakers get 20 to 30 percent fewer miles per gallon than they do with gasoline, meaning it will hit drivers in the pocketbook as they pull over more frequently to fill up the tank.

Etc.: Is Ethanol the Answer?, on USNews.com

The $85 billion student loan industry is facing a major investigation into the relationship between colleges and private lenders, and the problem didn't come out of nowhere. As U.S. News & World Report found in a 2003 investigation, the system of federally guaranteed loans was costing taxpayers hundreds of millions while taking lending business away from the government.

Tonight's online candidate forum on Iraq, sponsored by MoveOn.org and attracting all the major Democratic presidential candidates, is a huge technological undertaking for the organization. Framed as a "Virtual Town Meeting," it will feature streaming audio--in most cases live, though Bill Richardson had to record his in advance since he's in North Korea--in which the candidates answer questions generated by MoveOn.org members. Afterward, members can vote online for which candidate's positions they liked the best.

Some of MoveOn's larger ambitions for the project didn't come through this time around. They had wanted to allow listeners to vote on how directly the candidates answered each question, but that won't happen. (The candidates were not informed of this feature, representatives for MoveOn tell News Desk. The reason they scrapped the idea, they say, was technical.)

They had also wanted to enable cellphone voting, American Idol style, and were hoping for streaming video, both things they hope to implement down the road. There are two more such meetings in the works, one on healthcare policy and another on energy and environment.

"The results will go out to all our 3 million members, and there are lots of different ways that we expect that this information will reverberate outward," MoveOn Executive Director Eli Pariser said. "It will be successful if they're responsive to the questions our members are raising."

--Chris Wilson

Senior Editor Anna Mulrine reports:

The Army's announcement Monday that four Army National Guard brigades--totaling more than 12,000 troops--are headed to Iraq marks the first time that any full brigade combat team has returned to the country for a second tour.

National Guard soldiers currently account for 11 percent of the roughly 145,000 troops now serving in Iraq. (Reservists comprise about 6 percent of the total troops.) Though the return of the brigades will mark a significant increase in National Guard presence now in the country, it is not a high-water mark for Guard units in Iraq. That came in 2004, when Guard troops made up some 40 percent of the 120,000 soldiers and Marines then in-country.

Democrats:

• Hillary Rodham Clinton is in Syracuse, N.Y., to visit a veterans hospital and discuss her legislative proposals to address the poor condition of some military medical facilities.
• Bill Richardson is still in North Korea, negotiating the return of the remains of U.S. servicemen.
• This evening, all major Democratic candidates will be participating in a live "virtual town hall meeting" on Iraq organized by MoveOn.org. We'll have more details later this morning.

Republicans:

• Rudy Giuliani campaigns and raises funds in Montgomery, Ala.
• Mitt Romney is in College Station, Texas, to speak at the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library.

• A female suicide bomber detonated explosives in a crowd of police recruits in a town northeast of Baghdad Tuesday, killing at least 16.
• The Bush administration has been awarded this year's "muzzle award" by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. The efforts by the center allege that the White House ignored its own policy in allowing the censorship of scientific research. The Pentagon also received the dubious honor for investigating antiwar protesters.
• Bottled water may not be any healthier--or cleaner--than what comes out of the tap, a sports nutritionist told the American College of Sports Medicine on Monday.
• The Senate returns to business today after a week off, and apart from a war funding bill, which will require the House's attention as well when it returns next week, stem cell research is at the top of the agenda.