Live Blogging the Sotomayor Hearings, Day 2

The afternoon session has focused on property rights and a government’s authority to seize property for a public use or purpose, and now has moved onto Bush administration policies and law in the wake of Sept. 11.

Cameras in the Courts | 2:28 p.m.
It’s Senator Russ Feingold’s turn, and he compliments the judge’s answers and says how much he’s enjoying listening to her. In fact, he says, once she arrives at the Supreme Court, and is perhaps engaged in talks with the justices about whether to allow cameras, she’ll remember how wonderful this experience was.

“You were a very good lawyer, weren’t you, senator?” she quips.

Ricci-Bashing | 2:24 p.m. People for the American Way, a left-leaning group cited by Senator Hatch as possibly responsible for smearing Mr. Ricci, the New Haven firefighter, has responded to the senator. Marge Baker, an executive vice president, issued this statement: “With all due respect to Senator Hatch, he’s attacking a straw man. It is not a smear to point out than an individual used the law to protect his interests. It’s time to get past this distraction and have an honest discussion about the importance of anti-discrimination laws for all people.”

First Protest of the Day | 2:17 p.m. In the middle of the senator’s questions, a man stands up in the back of the room and loudly calls the judge a “baby-killer.” Most if not all of the protesters have been against abortion. Mr. Leahy admonishes the room to adhere to the decorum befitting a Supreme Court confirmation hearing; says he won’t tolerate any disruptions.

Property Ownership | 2:03 p.m. Senator Chuck Grassley has reverted to questions about the Supreme Court’s decision in Kelo, which allowed a government to take a private owner’s property for business development. Mr. Grassley (and in fact many others) consider that to be an expansion of what’s allowed under the Constitution.

Judge Sotomayor mentions a case she ruled on, regarding a resident and a village in New York. She said she took the opposite view, siding with the property owner who she believed hadn’t been granted enough avenues for recourse.

She won’t take Mr. Grassley’s bait, as he tries through several questions to get at her opinions on whether the Supreme Court justices “overstepped.” But, she acknowledges, “I know there are many litigants who have expressed that view, in fact there have been many state legislatures that have passed state legislation not permitting governments to taking (of property) in the situation that the Supreme Court permitted in Kelo.”

(Adam Liptak discussed the Kelo case in an article for the Week in Review. And Linda Greenhouse, our former Supreme Court correspondent, on the original decision.)

We’re Back | 2:01 p.m. Judge Sotomayor has just returned to the hearing room. But many of the senators have yet to come back. Senator Patrick Leahy is preparing to take his seat as chairman, and given that he warned everyone he wanted to start promptly at 2 p.m, he’s just taken a look at his watch.

Lunch Break | 12:35 p.m. We’re now recessed until 2 p.m., when Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, will take up the questioning.

Source: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/live-blogging-the-sotomayor-hearings-day-2/?hp

Sotomayor seeks to explain her wise Latina' comment

WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor tried Tuesday to defuse controversy over her remarks about the superior judgment of a "wise Latina," saying that her comments were a "rhetorical flourish" and that at no time "have I ever permitted my personal views or sympathies to influence an outcome of a case."

Tuesday was the first day that the 55-year-old federal appellate judge, who's bidding to become the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court, faced questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

What little controversy remains often centers on her 2001 remarks about the advantages of being a Latino woman. Republicans quizzed her hard on the comment and others that suggest she uses her life experiences to guide her judicial work.

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the committee's top Republican, also questioned Sotomayor's judicial temperament, saying that she has made several statements over the years that call her impartiality into question.

Sotomayor calmly, repeatedly assured the committee that she has always striven to be fair, and said her "wise Latina" comment was "bad because it left an impression that I believe that life experiences commanded a result in a case. But that's clearly not what I do as a judge."

She added, "My record shows that at no point or time have I ever permitted my personal views or sympathies to influence an outcome of a case."

Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., had gotten Sotomayor to defend herself quickly from the "wise Latina" remark.

"You've heard all these charges and countercharges ... here's your chance. You tell us what's going on here, judge," Leahy said.

"No words I have ever spoken nor written have received so much attention," Sotomayor said, chuckling. "I was trying to inspire them to believe their life experiences would enrich the legal system, because different life experiences and backgrounds always do. I don't think there is a quarrel with that in our society."

She said she also was trying to inspire minorities to be anything they wanted.

The context of the words, however, Sotomayor acknowledged, "created a misunderstanding, and to give everyone assurances I want to state up front, without doubt, I do not believe any racial, ethnic or gender group has an advantage in sound judgment."

"I do believe every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge regardless of their background or life experience," she said.

Leahy, the first senator to ask questions, also tried to ease other controversies. What qualities, he asked, does a judge have, and how does that shape your approach to your work?

Sotomayor cited the comments of other senators, who said that a judge had to show respect for the Constitution and "an understanding that respect is guided by ... a full appreciation of the limited jurisdiction of the court in our system of government, but understanding its importance as well. That is the central part of judging."

Leahy dived right into what's likely to be the biggest controversy of the hearing: Sotomayor's ruling, along with two other judges, that the New Haven, Conn., fire department didn't deny firefighter Frank Ricci a promotion unfairly. The Supreme Court reversed that decision by a 5-4 vote last month.

The case was decided "on the basis of a very thorough 78-page decision by the district court and on the basis of established precedent," she said.

"The issue in Ricci was what the city did or could do when it was presented with a challenge to one of its tests for promotion," Sotomayor explained. "This was not a quota case. This was not an affirmative action case. This was a challenge to a test that everybody agreed had a very wide difference in the pass rate of a variety of different groups."

She also addressed any notion that she isn't tough on crime, recalling her days in the New York City prosecutor's office and how she learned that "each case gets decided case by case."

The Tarzan murder case, she said - named after a man who used acrobatic feats as he committed his crimes - was an early test for her. As a young prosecutor, she helped convict murderer Richard Maddicks. She said she learned about the human consequences of crime and the law.

"That family was destroyed," she said of the victim's family. "They scattered to the four winds, and only one brother remained in New York who could testify. That case taught me that prosecutors - as all participants in the justice system - must be sensitive to the price crime imposes on our entire society."

Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1141082.html

Exxon Sinks $600M Into Algae-Based Biofuels in Major Strategy Shift

Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. is making a major jump into renewable energy with a $600 million investment in algae-based biofuels.

Exxon is joining a biotech company, Synthetic Genomics Inc., to research and develop next-generation biofuels produced from sunlight, water and waste carbon dioxide by photosynthetic pond scum.

"The world faces a significant challenge to supply the energy required for economic development and improved standards of living while managing greenhouse gas emissions and the risks of climate change," said Emil Jacobs, vice president of research and development at Exxon Mobil Research and Engineering Co. "It's going to take integrated solutions and the development of all commercially viable energy sources, improved energy efficiency and effective steps to curb emissions. It is also going to include the development of new technology."

Exxon Mobil's collaboration with Synthetic Genomics will last five to six years, Jacobs said, and will involve the creation of a new test facility in San Diego to study algae-growing methods and oil extraction techniques. After that, he said the company could invest billions of dollars more to scale up the technology and bring it to commercial production.

"We're not claiming to know all the answers," said Craig Venter, founder and CEO of Synthetic Genomics, which has so far done early work on algae strains. "There are different approaches to what is truly economically scalable, so we're testing things and giving a new reality to the timelines and expectations of what it takes to have a global impact on fuel supply."

Jacobs and Venter are mum about the specific technology the collaborative effort would employ. They said the team would investigate all options, including growing organisms in open ponds and in closed photobioreactors.

They added that they were likewise uncertain what end-product fuels would result from the collaboration. Other startup companies have announced that they were producing both synthetic crude and biodiesel using photosynthetic algae (Greenwire, April 28).

"As far as products to expect from this program, our intent is to make hydrocarbons that look a lot like today's transportation fuels," Jacobs said. "We want to produce hydrocarbons that look like today's refinery products, that can go into a refinery to be processed along with other petroleum streams and then used in the transportation fleet or even jet fuel. And we think we've got a good chance of doing that."

Exxon Mobil launched the partnership after years of being publicly opposed to investing in renewable energy. Privately, though, Jacobs said the company has been investigating the sector for years.

"It's fair to say that we looked at all the biofuels options," Jacobs said. "Algae ended up on top."

Others in the algae-biofuels industry say Exxon Mobil's investment validates the sector.

"A couple years ago, the petroleum institute said there's only a couple of years left for oil, and now they're really finally acting on that," said Riggs Eckelberry, president and CEO of OriginOil Inc. "Algae is the feedstock to overtake petroleum. It's the real alternative to petroleum."

Environmentalists were more cautious in their appraisal of the Exxon Mobil-Synthetic Genomics plan.

"They've never done anything like this before -- invested real money in the renewables sector," said Kert Davies, research director at Greenpeace. "We've always said [the oil industry] has to be part of the climate change solution. We can't solve anything without companies like Exxon helping."

He added, "I'm guarding my optimism."

Exxon Mobil's timing is noteworthy, Davies said, because of the ongoing energy and climate legislative fight.

"It's interesting timing as the oil companies are struggling to find a place at the table," Davies said.

Renewable fuels standard

While Exxon Mobil's investment marks a sea change in activity in the sector, significant challenges remain in place to achieve wide-scale commercial development.

Next-wave biofuels that could reduce carbon emissions and displace oil imports are politically popular but have not moved into commercial production as fast as supporters would have hoped. Biofuels overall got a boost through a 2007 law that expands the national renewable fuels standard, or RFS, to reach 36 billion gallons by 2022.

But Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) said the RFS expansion is too restrictive and could freeze out emerging technologies -- including algae-based biofuels. He is calling for changes that would make it more "technology- and feedstock-neutral" to accommodate fuels that could ultimately prove superior in several respects.

"Algae-based fuels are the most obvious example, which, despite having characteristics superior to any renewable fuels in commercial production today, have no home in the RFS," Bingaman said in a column about the standards published in the Politico newspaper.

Senior reporter Ben Geman contributed.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/07/14/14greenwire-exxon-sinks-600m-into-algae-based-biofuels-in-33562.html

Southwest plane makes emergency landing: reports

TOKYO (MarketWatch) -- Southwest Airlines /quotes/comstock/13*!luv/quotes/nls/luv (LUV 6.88, +0.08, +1.18%) is inspecting nearly 200 of its aircraft overnight after a hole in the fuselage of a Baltimore-bound plane which originated in Nashville forced an emergency landing in West Virginia late Monday, according to published reports. The Boeing /quotes/comstock/13*!ba/quotes/nls/ba (BA 40.29, -0.15, -0.37%) 737-300 lost cabin pressure after a 1-foot-by-1-foot hole was found in the rear of the aircraft, but no one was injured, reports said, and Southwest is inspecting all similar planes.

Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/southwest-plane-makes-emergency-landing-reports

Goldman Sachs Reports Big Profit, Beating Forecasts

Goldman Sachs comfortably exceeded analysts’ forecasts on Tuesday as the bank reported that it earned $3.44 billion, or $4.93 a share, in the second quarter.

The results continue a robust turnaround for Goldman since it rode out the final tumultuous months of last year with aid from the government’s banking rescue. The earnings announcement came just one month after the bank paid back $10 billion in federal aid.

Goldman’s profit was lifted by record quarterly revenue of $6.8 billion in its fixed income, currency and commodities unit, where mortgage and other credit instruments are traded, the bank said in a statement. This business has performed well because the bank has taken on greater levels of risk since the end of last year.

Its equity underwriting business also generated record net revenue, worth $736 million in the second quarter, Goldman said, as the bank benefited among other things from a rush by other troubled banks to issue shares and raise their capital levels.

“We are performing well across the board,” said David A. Viniar, chief financial officer, noting that the strong performance reflected “blocking and tackling every day” by Goldman’s employees.

The bank, which amid the crisis converted from an investment bank to a more regulated commercial bank structure last fall, said that in the first six months of 2009 it had set aside $11.4 billion for compensation and benefits. Analysts said this was up 33 percent from a year earlier and was enough to pay each employee $386,429 for the first half of this year.

Over all, Goldman’s net revenue totaled $13.76 billion, compared with $9.43 billion in the first quarter.

“These are pretty good results,” said Peter Nerby, an analyst at Moody’s, adding that this was an understatement.

Goldman Sachs’s shares, which had risen almost 10 percent in the last three days on expectations of strong earnings, were little changed on Tuesday afternoon, trading up 20 cents, to $149.69.

Goldman was humbled along with the rest of Wall Street last year when the financial markets froze.

As a result, it lost money in the final quarter of 2008, a rarity for the bank.

But since then it has rebounded strongly, posting robust profits in the first quarter on the back of trading revenues and again in the latest quarter.

Many analysts are likely to welcome the news as another sign that the financial industry is stabilizing, and the Goldman results will probably set a positive tone for a slew of other bank results expected in the coming week.

Other banks like JPMorgan Chase have been emerging as strong players since last year’s financial troubles, and analysts also expect them to record strong results, again partly on the back of robust trading revenues.

But Goldman’s performance in particular is raising questions about how its rapid return to making strong profits will be perceived by lawmakers and taxpayers who helped it with the multibillion-dollar cushion last fall after the nation’s financial industry was shaken to its foundations.

Goldman, along with other banks, also benefited from a government program that allows banks to issue debt cheaply with the backing of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. In addition, it received money from the government’s bailout of the American International Group, being paid 100 cents on the dollar for its $13 billion counterparty exposure to the insurer.

However, while other banks like Bank of America and Citibank have not yet been able to pay back the money they received under the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, Goldman Sachs has done so, along with dividends on preferred shares issued to the government.

Goldman’s trading revenue has been helped by the fact that several of its rivals have gone out of business following the credit crisis, a fact that has added to its market share. It has also been able to increase its fees.

Mr. Viniar said that within its trading business, activity in credit products and currencies had been especially robust. Results from Goldman’s interest rate products and commodities business were down from the first quarter, but still strong, he said.

Mr. Nerby said a measure of risk-taking at Goldman, and other banks — known as value at risk, which estimates how much money a firm might lose on a single day — had stayed at a high level in the second quarter after rising sharply in the first quarter.

“They are in a great position to take risks for customers, and these results are evidence of this,” he said.

Mr. Viniar said that although value at risk was running at higher levels, Goldman’s leverage was much lower than before the crisis.

“Over all, as a firm, we are taking a little bit less risk now” than Goldman was before the crisis, he said.

Mr. Nerby said Goldman’s business mix was changing — as mergers and acquisitions revenue slowed, for example, reflecting a slower economy, the trading business was taking over.

In the first quarter, Goldman had announced profits of $1.66 billion, or $3.39 a share, again bolstered by strong revenue in its trading business.

As Goldman has recovered this year, its share price has soared — 77 percent this year. The stock is still well off its record high of $250.70, reached in 2007.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/business/15goldman.html

Big Firms Team Up For a New Kind Of Job Board

Several Fortune 500 companies are banding together to create a free job board that will give users access to all their jobs.

The site is called United We Work and launched yesterday with sponsorship from Sears, AT&T, ADP, Allstate, Hewitt Associates, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, Office Depot, 7-Eleven and Starbucks. The site is free for up to a year for other companies posting positions and will remain free for job seekers.

"If we can stimulate an employer to make a hire now, that's going to help get this hiring process back," said Jason Kerr, chief technology officer of QuietAgent, which powers the site.

Kerr said that the site has about 350,000 jobs in its database and that he hopes to increase the listings to 500,000 by the end of the week. He said the jobs are culled from corporate Web sites.

QuietAgent had helped some of the country's biggest companies about a year ago to create a network to share job applicants, Kerr said. Here's how it worked: Sears might get 100 applications for a single job posting. Once it has filled the slot, it could pass on the other 99 applications to other companies in the network. Sears could also access other companies' unhired applicants.

But that network was designed for fee-paying recruiters, Kerr said. United We Work uses a similar database but allows job seekers to post their résumés and search for positions. Large companies can sign up to post positions free until the end of the year, while small businesses can access it for free until July 2010.

It's competitive out there. Wisebread offers good tips on how to get the most out of your job search, including finding key words and tracking which companies are hiring. And if you want to get really Web 2.0 with it, BioJobBlog has a guide on using Twitter to find a job.

-- Ylan Q. Mui

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/13/AR2009071303205.html

Sources: Tallon out as Hawks' GM

Despite helping assemble a team that went to the conference finals, Dale Tallon is out as Blackhawks general manager, sources told ESPN.com's Scott Burnside.

Mark Giangreco, of Ch. 7 in Chicago, said he talked to Tallon on Tuesday morning, and Tallon reportedly said he will remain with the Blackhawks as a consultant/senior adviser.

Tallon's ouster was first reported by Comcast SportsNet in Chicago late Monday night.

It is believed assistant GM Stan Bowman, son of legendary coach and current Blackhawks advisor Scotty Bowman, will be offered Tallon's position.

Tallon had trouble recently when the team didn't mail out qualifying offers in time to a number of free agents, including rookie of the year candidate Kris Versteeg. All of the players ultimately signed with the team but not before the players association filed a grievance.

Though the incident was embarrassing for the team, it may have had little to do with Tallon's firing. He was a holdover from the regime before the Blackhawks named former Cubs executive John McDonough president of the club.

Tallon was named general manager of the Blackhawks in 2005. He is responsible for drafting young talent like Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews and acquiring Patrick Sharp and Versteeg. He also signed high-profile free agents Brian Campbell, Nikolai Khabibulin and Cristobal Huet. The Blackhawks went from 65 points in Tallon's first season to 104 last year when the Hawks eventually lost to the Red Wings in the conference finals.

Stan Bowman has been an assistant general manager with the Hawks for almost a decade. He has been primarily responsible for contract negotiations, collective bargaining agreement issues and free agency.

Scott Burnside covers the NHL for ESPN.com.

Source: http://espn.go.com/chicago/story?id=4325783