President Barack Obama attempts to regain his political footing with a trip to Baltimore today to promote jobs and education after a calamitous week that pulled attention away from his second-term agenda.
The president planned stops at an elementary school offering early childhood services, a speech at a manufacturer of dredging equipment whose president is prodding Congress to approve the Keystone XL pipeline and a visit to a community center that helps families learn job skills.
“While the Beltway has been consumed this week with so-called scandals, average Americans are much more consumed with the economy and jobs,” David Plouffe, Obama’s former senior adviser who’s now a Bloomberg TV contributor, said in an e-mail. Obama needs to “keep a laser like focus on the economy.”
In a speech later today Obama plans to announce he’s signed a presidential memorandum “to cut timelines in half for major infrastructure projects,” such as roads and bridges, to speed creation of jobs, according to a White House statement issued today. That would augment an earlier executive order directing multiple agencies to review construction projects at one time.
Obama will make the announcement at Ellicott Dredge Enterprises LLC, a supplier of dredging equipment to governments, municipalities, contractors, sand and gravel operators, port authorities, and marina operators.
Unemployment in Maryland, a Democratic stronghold, was 6.6 percent in March, little changed from 6.7 percent in the same month a year ago. Still, the state’s rate is lower than the nation’s as a whole, which was 7.5 percent in April.
[h=2]Keystone Pipeline[/h]The president’s visit to Ellicott Dredge Enterprises comes a day after the company president, Peter Bowe, testified before a House subcommittee urging lawmakers to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, without waiting for action by Obama. Environmental groups, part of the president’s political base, oppose the pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast.
The 128-year-old company, based in Baltimore, sells its equipment for as much as $30 million each, Bowe testified. The company and its 200 employees would benefit from Keystone because it manufactures dredging and pumping equipment linked to the production of oil from Alberta-based oil sand producers.
“For us, it’s all about jobs,” Bowe told a House Small Business subcommittee, according to his testimony.
TransCanada’s $5.3 billion pipeline has been among the most prominent environmental fights for the past two years. Obama’s administration is expected to decide on whether to permit the pipeline to cross the border later this year.
[h=2]Triple Controversies[/h]The president in Baltimore is trying to escape a trio of controversies back in Washington. The Internal Revenue Service is under investigation for giving extra scrutiny to Tea Party-affiliated groups seeking tax exempt status. Lawmakers are digging into the administration’s handling of the attack on a U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year, and the government’s seizure of Associated Press reporters’ phone records.
All that risks distracting from Obama’s second-term agenda which includes gun control, easing climate change, infrastructure spending, overhauling immigration laws, a free and expanded prekindergarten program for 4 year-olds, raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour and reaching a debt and deficit deal with Congress, among other things.
“Their challenge is to move beyond these problems and get on to stuff that people really care about,” said Steve Elmendorf, deputy campaign manager for then-Senator John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign.
To contact the reporter on this story: Roger Runningen in Washington at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steven Komarow at [email protected]
The president planned stops at an elementary school offering early childhood services, a speech at a manufacturer of dredging equipment whose president is prodding Congress to approve the Keystone XL pipeline and a visit to a community center that helps families learn job skills.
“While the Beltway has been consumed this week with so-called scandals, average Americans are much more consumed with the economy and jobs,” David Plouffe, Obama’s former senior adviser who’s now a Bloomberg TV contributor, said in an e-mail. Obama needs to “keep a laser like focus on the economy.”
In a speech later today Obama plans to announce he’s signed a presidential memorandum “to cut timelines in half for major infrastructure projects,” such as roads and bridges, to speed creation of jobs, according to a White House statement issued today. That would augment an earlier executive order directing multiple agencies to review construction projects at one time.
Obama will make the announcement at Ellicott Dredge Enterprises LLC, a supplier of dredging equipment to governments, municipalities, contractors, sand and gravel operators, port authorities, and marina operators.
Unemployment in Maryland, a Democratic stronghold, was 6.6 percent in March, little changed from 6.7 percent in the same month a year ago. Still, the state’s rate is lower than the nation’s as a whole, which was 7.5 percent in April.
[h=2]Keystone Pipeline[/h]The president’s visit to Ellicott Dredge Enterprises comes a day after the company president, Peter Bowe, testified before a House subcommittee urging lawmakers to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, without waiting for action by Obama. Environmental groups, part of the president’s political base, oppose the pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast.
The 128-year-old company, based in Baltimore, sells its equipment for as much as $30 million each, Bowe testified. The company and its 200 employees would benefit from Keystone because it manufactures dredging and pumping equipment linked to the production of oil from Alberta-based oil sand producers.
“For us, it’s all about jobs,” Bowe told a House Small Business subcommittee, according to his testimony.
TransCanada’s $5.3 billion pipeline has been among the most prominent environmental fights for the past two years. Obama’s administration is expected to decide on whether to permit the pipeline to cross the border later this year.
[h=2]Triple Controversies[/h]The president in Baltimore is trying to escape a trio of controversies back in Washington. The Internal Revenue Service is under investigation for giving extra scrutiny to Tea Party-affiliated groups seeking tax exempt status. Lawmakers are digging into the administration’s handling of the attack on a U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year, and the government’s seizure of Associated Press reporters’ phone records.
All that risks distracting from Obama’s second-term agenda which includes gun control, easing climate change, infrastructure spending, overhauling immigration laws, a free and expanded prekindergarten program for 4 year-olds, raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour and reaching a debt and deficit deal with Congress, among other things.
“Their challenge is to move beyond these problems and get on to stuff that people really care about,” said Steve Elmendorf, deputy campaign manager for then-Senator John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign.
To contact the reporter on this story: Roger Runningen in Washington at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steven Komarow at [email protected]