Federal Appeals Court Blocks Alabama Immigration Law

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ATLANTA — A federal appeals court on Friday blocked a key part of Alabama's law that requires schools to check the immigration status of students, temporarily weakening what was considered the toughest immigration law in the nation.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also blocked a part of the law that allows authorities to charge immigrants who do not carry documents proving their legal status. The three-judge panel let stand a provision that allows police to detain immigrants that are suspected of being in the country illegally.

The ruling was only temporary. A final decision on the law won't likely be made for months.

[Read why Hispanics are key to a victory in the 2012 presidential race.]

Groups who challenged the law said they were hopeful the judges would eventually block the rest of it.

"I think that certainly it's a better situation today for the people of Alabama today than it was yesterday," said Omar Jadwat, an attorney for the ACLU, which challenged the law along with the Obama administration. "Obviously we remain concerned about the remainder of the provisions, and we remain confident that we will eventually get the whole scheme blocked."

Supporters of the law also claimed a partial victory.

Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard, who championed the law, said the "most effectual parts" of the law will remain in place.

"We've said from the beginning that Alabama will have a strict immigration law and we will enforce it. Alabama will not be a sanctuary state for illegal aliens, and this ruling reinforces that," he said.

The judges also let stand parts of the law that bar state courts from enforcing contracts involving illegal immigrants and make it a felony for an illegal immigrant to do business with the state for basic things like getting a driver's license.

Alabama Republicans have long sought to clamp down on illegal immigration and passed the law earlier this year after gaining control of the Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley signed the measure, saying it was crucial to protect the jobs of legal residents amid the tough economy and high unemployment.

The law has already had a deep impact in Alabama since a federal judge upheld much of it in late September. Many frightened Hispanics have been driven away from Alabama, fearing they could be arrested or targeted by police. Construction workers, landscapers and field hands have stopped showing up for work, and large numbers of Hispanic students have been absent from public schools.

To cope with the labor shortage, Alabama agriculture commissioner John McMillan at one point suggested farmers should consider hiring inmates in the state's work-release program.

It's not clear exactly how many Hispanics have fled the state. Earlier this week, many skipped work to protest the law, shuttering or scaling back operations at chicken plants, Mexican restaurants and other businesses.

Immigration has become a hot-button issue in Alabama over the past decade as the Hispanic population has grown by 145 percent to about 185,600 people, most of them of Mexican origin. The Hispanic population represents about 4 percent of the state's 4.7 million people, but some counties in north Alabama have large Spanish-speaking communities and schools where most of the students are Hispanic.

[Read about Obama's four ways forward on immigration.]

Requiring school officials to check the immigration status of students in public schools helped make the Alabama law stricter than similar measures enacted in Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia. Federal judges in those states have blocked all or parts of those laws.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer earlier this year asked the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve the legal fight over her state's tough immigration law.

The Justice Department called the Alabama law a "sweeping new state regime" in court filings last week and urged the appeals court to forbid states from creating a patchwork of immigration policies. The agency also said the law could strain diplomatic relations with Latin American countries, who have warned the law could impact millions of workers, tourists and students in the U.S.

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House Bill Could Cut Federal STEM Spending

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Home > Politics & Policy > STEM Education > House Bill Could Cut Federal STEM Spending

September 30, 2011 Print

A budget bill introduced today by the House Appropriations Committee would cut $175 million in federal math and science spending.

The $153.4 billion Labor, Health and Human Services Funding Bill would cut overall spending in those areas by $4 billion.

"The bill takes decisive action to cut duplicative, inefficient, and wasteful spending," House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers said in a statement. Overall, the bill would cut education spending by $2.4 billion.

Among the cuts: the $175 million Mathematics and Science Partnerships program, which is designed to improve the quality of math and science teachers by partnering them with working scientists to improve content knowledge.

Currently, about 30 percent of chemistry and physics teachers in public high schools don't have majors in those fields and don't have a certificate to teach those subjects.

Have something to share? Send news and submissions to stem@usnews.com.

Tags:STEM education, Congress

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Despite Job Security, Federal Workers Gripe About Pay

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Some federal workers just can't be pleased. Despite avoiding the massive layoffs, pay cuts, and harsh benefit reductions suffered by private sector workers, Uncle Sam's workforce is less satisfied with their pay than last year and generally less satisfied with their jobs than nonfederal workers, according to an Obama administration new survey.

In the new Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, a minority of bureaucrats said they are satisfied with their bosses and believe they have the opportunity to get a better job.

[See who will benefit from the slowing economy.]

But not all of the news is bad. "One clear finding: federal employees continue to be dedicated to their jobs and to accomplishing their missions. Employees are willing to give extra effort, are looking for ways to do their jobs better, and believe their work is important," said Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry.

Unlike private employers and state and local governments, the Obama administration has not responded to the mounting deficit and sinking economy with job cuts. The administration did levy a pay freeze, but it did not freeze pay increases called for in union contracts or limit the check-fattening "step increases" employees are eligible for. Currently, 459,016 of the government's 2.14 million workers make at least $100,000 in average base salary, according to OPM. [See political cartoons about the economy.]

Still, the employee survey logged a decrease in pay satisfaction. While 65.8 of the federal workforce said last year that they were satisfied with their pay, this year it dropped to 62. 5 percent with just 18.3 percent saying that they are "very satisfied" with their pay check. Nearly 6 percent of the 253,704 employees who answered the survey said that they are "very dissatisfied" with their pay. [Check out the new U.S. News Weekly iPad app.]

When compared to the views of workers in the private sector federal workers aren't as satisfied in many areas either. While there is parity in job satisfaction, federal workers, for example, feel that they aren't as challenged to do things better than private workers. And less federal workers are satisfied with their organization than are private workers.

As for which departments have the happiest employees, State led among the biggest cabinet departments. According to the OPM, the top 10 agencies with the higest job satisfaction are:

1. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

2. National Aeronautics and Space Administration

3. Department of State

4. Social Security Administration

5. Federal Trade Commission

6. National Credit Union Administration

7. Office of Personnel Management

8. Court Services & Offender Supervision Agency

9. Department of Justice

10. Department of the Treasury

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Why Federal Government Trumps the States

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What's so great about the states?

It's obviously fashionable these days to bash Washington and anything associated with the federal government. By contrast, state government now seems to be the last, best hope for democracy. One thing all the Republican presidential candidates seem to agree on is that any policy that can be shifted from Washington to state capitals should be. Mitt Romney and Rick Perry both insist that if there's any government healthcare program at all, it should be run at the state level and not be nationwide, as Obamacare is. Perry has even suggested that Social Security, which has been a federal program since 1935, should devolve to the states. The Tea Party, meanwhile, has made a rallying cry of the 10th Amendment, which says that all powers not delegated to the federal government by the Constitution reside with the states.

[See how to escape the middle-class squeeze.]

It sounds quaint. But giving Washington less control over our affairs, and the states more control, is a bad idea.

Here's why: People move.

Anybody who has relocated from one state to another knows there's a huge hassle factor associated with simply adapting to a different set of rules. You have to re-register your car and get a new driver's license. Do that a couple of times, and you'll surely become a fan of a national driver's license. Most banks are chartered at the state level, which means you might have to close your old account and open a new one to get all the services you want. Make sure all your checks have cleared! If you run a business, chances are you'll get to spend hours--days?--figuring out how the licenses and permits in your new state differ from those in your old one. Since tax laws are different, make sure to hire a new accountant. And if you ever have to file an interstate lawsuit, you might run out of money just paying the fees for lawyers to dicker over which state should have jurisdiction.

Businesses with regional or national scale would dearly love to operate by one set of standards instead of 50. For years, most automakers that sold cars in the United States produced at least two variants of every model: One for the handful of states that followed California's tough emission rules and another for the majority of states with less-stringent standards. One reason automakers agreed to tough new emission rules recently adopted by the federal government is that the deal meant all states would enforce one national standard. Part of the reason Amazon and other online retailers object to collecting state sales tax on the stuff they sell is the administrative burden of enforcing 50 different tax regimes—including changes that happen every year, as states tweak their tax code.

[See 11 countries with worse problems than America.]

There's also the dubious proposition that states manage their business better than the federal government. It's true that nearly all states are required to balance their budgets, which creates a degree of spending discipline. But that's hardly the same thing as responsible government. There aren't too many people in California—which may have a more convoluted set of laws than even the federal government—who seem happy with rising taxes, fleeing businesses, and continual conflict in Sacramento. In the state where I live, New York, corrupt cronyism is rampant and the former governor, Eliot Spitzer, had to resign after getting caught patronizing a hooker.

Even in the sensible Midwest, state government can be a circus. Illinois, where former Gov. Rod Blagojevich tried to auction off a Senate seat to the highest bidder, is so well-run that it had to pass a 66 percent increase in the state income tax this year to assure it didn't go broke. Minnesota partially shut down this past summer when lawmakers couldn't agree on a budget. In Wisconsin and Indiana, lawmakers even split town as a tactical maneuver, while arguing over budget cuts.

It's worth keeping in mind that the national press corps is centered in Washington and New York, and for all its flaws, there are still hundreds of dogged journalists eager to ferret out wrongdoing and pounce on scandalous behavior. The same goes for interest groups like Common Cause and Consumers Union, which tend to focus their limited efforts on national issues rather than local ones. All of that oversight helps keep Washington more honest than it would otherwise be. In state capitals, by contrast, there's far less oversight and a thin press corps that can't possibly keep tabs on every shady deal.

[See why big companies are axing jobs.]

So let's say the states took over Social Security. Some might manage it responsibly, others would cut benefits when times got tough, and a few would probably debase the program completely. Benefits would differ by state and if you moved you'd have to register with a new government bureaucracy to make sure your checks kept coming. If states all had a different healthcare system, it would basically be the same as what we've got now, except that benefits would be determined by governors' appointed poobahs—most likely big campaign contributors--instead of by insurance-company executives. And in future elections, we'd get to listen to even more tedious arguing between Governor Snappy and Governor Smarmy over which state's bureaucracy is better.

Yeah, there are a lot of problems with the federal government. But 50 different sets of rules isn't one of them.

Twitter: @rickjnewman

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Solyndra Bankruptcy Raises Questions About Federal Loan Guarantees

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High risk was essentially the nature of the ill-fated Solyndra investment from its conception, but it's really only now—after what could potentially amount to a scandal for either the bankrupt solar company, the Obama administration, or both—that the risks taken by the Department of Energy's Loan Guarantee Program are coming to the forefront.

Solyndra, a solar manufacturing company based in Fremont, Calif. that specializes in producing a new type of cylindrical solar photovoltaic panels, was the Obama administration's clean-energy poster child back in September 2009 when it finalized a loan guarantee deal with the Energy Department. Early this month, however, after receiving $527 million in federal funds over two years, the company filed for bankruptcy.

[Read about how Obama abandoned clean energy in his recent jobs speech.]

With the half billion in taxpayer dollars loaned to Solyndra mostly likely lost for good, Americans now have to ask themselves whether the loan guarantee program is worth the gamble, and whether they should trust the administration with managing the risks involved.

Democrats have been quick to point out that it was the Republican Bush administration that set the loan guarantee program in motion and first began to process Solyndra's application; it was the Obama administration, however, that ultimately moved forward on Solyndra's loan guarantee with money set aside by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the 2009 stimulus. According to the Energy Department, more than two years of due diligence were completed before the loan guarantees were first offered conditionally in March 2009, and then finally closed later that year. At the time, Solyndra's new rolled-tube technology seemed like it had potential. Though it was more expensive to deploy than other more traditional solar panels already in the market, it didn't have to account for the price of polysilicon—which was fairly high at the time—and it was also much cheaper and easier for consumers to install.

However, after the deal was signed, the global solar market changed unexpectedly, significantly changing Solyndra's business prospects. A large influx of Chinese state loans to domestic silicon producers and a decline in demand in the European market drove down the price of polysilicon and it continues to fall—as much as 42 percent just since the beginning of 2011, according to the DOE. Though this benefited consumers, Solyndra lost its competitive advantage with other solar manufacturers around the world, something that even a new facility built with the money backed by the loan guarantees couldn't overcome.

According to the head of the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office, Jonathan Silver, who testified before members of Congress Wednesday, these changes came as a surprise. After all, the department wasn't the only one to bet on Solyndra. Private investors also dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into Solyndra's new manufacturing facility, and the company had been hyped by other credible sources, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Technology Review and the Wall Street Journal. "Silicon just went way, way down and it became less of a compelling technology because of the price of silicon just changing completely," said Kate Gordon, vice president for energy policy at the Democratic-leaning Center for American Progress. "That's the piece that nobody could have really predicted, neither the DOE or all the private investors who put their money in this project."

Also, compared with other DOE loan guarantee projects, the very nature of Solyndra's project might have made it a greater risk for taxpayers. Unlike the majority of the solar projects in the department's portfolio, which are built for solar power generation, Solyndra was building a facility to manufacture solar panels, a commodity susceptible to global competition and market swings. According to Damien LaVera, spokesman for the Energy Department, the solar generation projects are "good for the taxpayer because they tend to carry less risk" than the manufacturing projects, due to power purchasing agreements that generally guarantee revenue after a project is completed. And indeed, such solar projects are thriving due to the cheaper price of photovoltaics worldwide. In contrast to the bust of Solyndra, the U.S. solar industry as a whole is on track to double its solar capacity in 2011 from 2010 to almost 2,000 megawatts, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

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