Obama To Face BP’s Leaders
President Obama will meet today with BP’s top executives, in a high-stakes meeting in which he will demand the creation of an escrow account to handle damage claims. The Associated Press reports: “The cost of such a fund would be enormous. The White House insists is has the legal authority to make it happen. Still, administration officials also acknowledge a negotiation is at play here, and key issues remain unsolved. Among them: Who will oversee the escrow fund, who will make that decision, how large will the fund be and whether BP will pay the salaries of oil workers idled by a six-month moratorium on new deep-water oil drilling.”
Obama’s Day Ahead
President Obama and Vice President Biden will attend a meeting with BP executives at 10:15 a.m. ET, will receive the presidential daily briefing at 10:35 a.m. ET, and will receive the economic daily briefing at 11:05 a.m. ET. Obama will deliver a statement to the press at 12:15 p.m. ET. He will have lunch with Biden at 12:30 p.m. ET. He will meet at 1:45 p.m. ET with senior advisers. He will meet at 2:30 p.m. ET with Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA). At 5:35 p.m. ET, he will deliver remarks at the American Nurses Association House of Delegates.
Axelrod: BP Cannot ‘Slow-Walk’ Damage Payments
Appearing on CBS’s The Early Show, White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod said that a goal of the administration is to make sure that damage claims against BP are not “slow-walked by the company.” Axelrod added that “it’s not a matter of trust. It’s a matter of holding them accountable.”
Centrist GOPers Not In Rush To Support Sharron Angle
The Hill reports: Several GOP centrists are undecided about whether to donate to Sharron Angle, who told Senate Republicans on Tuesday that she represents a chance to get rid of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)… Sen. Scott Brown, a centrist Republican from Massachusetts, said he doesn’t plan to campaign or donate to Angle. ‘I’m not planning on getting involved in that race,” he told The Hill. ‘I’m just focusing on doing my job here.'”
Dems Scaling Back Unemployment And Doctor Bills
The Associated Press reports: “Virtually certain of losing a showdown vote in the Senate, Democrats frustrated in their quest to extend jobless benefits and help for doctors facing Medicare payment cuts are scaling back a catchall tax and spending bill. Anxiety over record budget deficits is fueling the moves, which include rolling back last year’s $25 a week increase in unemployment checks and giving doctors just a short reprieve from scheduled cuts in their Medicare payments.”
GOP Link To Doctors Gets Knife
Roll Call reports on how the historically close relationship between Congressional Republicans and the American Medical Association has been broken: “But then last year, the AMA did the unthinkable in Republican eyes and endorsed the Democrats’ massive health care reform bill. So as the Democratic-controlled Senate now debates a bill that would prevent physicians from taking a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments, Republicans are turning the other way — saying that endorsement and other political missteps have scarred the long-standing relationship. ‘For some inexplicable reason, I think the AMA has kind of burned all its bridges. It just makes absolutely no sense to me,’ National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn said.”
NRCC Kicks Off Early ‘Battleground’ Effort
CQ reports: “The National Republican Congressional Committee is kicking off its biennial “Battleground” fundraising effort today with a goal of getting party leaders and rank-and-file Members to pony up a total of $20 million over the next three months to fund the effort to regain seats in November. That goal is well ahead of the $12 million mark the committee set for the program in 2008, a sure sign that Republicans are working with a much larger playing field this cycle than they were two years ago.”
