Power Couples: Lawmakers, Lobbyists, and the State of Their Unions

Congress has ignored a phenomenon blossoming in its own backyard, the growing number of lawmakers married to lobbyists—unions that we call “power couples” for short. Criticizing government corruption, pundits had raised questions about power couples. One news story asked, “How can a member of Congress possibly share a bed and a bank account with a member of the persuasion industry without a life laced by conflicts of interest?” Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, ranked the legislator-lobbyist marriage “way up there on the unseemly scale.” Another news report on family lobbying called the phenomenon “an increasingly popular maneuver in the age-old game of influence-seeking in Washington” and observed that today “when a corporation or interest group wants support from a key member of Congress, it often hires a member of the lawmaker’s family.” These ethical issues, in turn, raise theoretical questions about our contemporary understanding of marriage—questions of family law at the heart of this essay. First, some ethics experts identify the problem raised by power couples, put in its most benign form, as one concerning appearances. Given the importance of appearances and a prevailing ethical standard that emphasizes the need to avoid even appearances of impropriety, perceptions of the activities and relationships of legislator-lobbyist spouses necessarily loom large. What does the response to such power couples say about how we conceptualize marriage today? Second, this Essay reveals the importance of taking a closer look at “the state of the unions” in question, specifically the variations among these marriages and the manner in which these couples exercise, use, and share the power colloquially attributed to them. Ultimately, we question the conventional wisdom that the rise of power couples necessarily manifests gender equality in the public sphere. Instead, we suspect that these couples often re-inscribe the traditional stereotype, in which the husband is the preeminent spouse and the wife plays the role of helpmate, and we urge consideration of this issue in any evaluation of the Senate’s action and other possible reforms

Latest Permian chars may derive from wildfires, not coal combustion: REPLY

ArticleThis is the final version of the article. It was first published by the Geological Society of America via http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/G36804Y.1abstract not availabl

Organic Geochemical and Petrographic Analysis of Pure Macerals from the Ohio Shale

Recent advances now permit the separation of coal into constituent macerals of high purity using density gradient centrifugation (DGC). With the availability of pure macerals, the chemical structure of each can be investigated separately, without the interactive interference of the other macerals or mineral matter. The present study is a preliminary effort applying these methods to the study of oil shale kerogen. We have used a sample from the Huron Member of the Upper Devonian Ohio Shale from Logan County, Ohio. Whole rock petrographic examination revealed intact Tasmanites, telalginite of unknown derivation and a weakly fluorescing matrix. Pyrite is abundant, including framboidal and euhedral pyrite imbedded within macerals. The kerogen concentrate was subjected to DGC. The resulting profile shows a single, broad main peak, consisting of mixed telaginite, amorphinite and rare vitrinite. Variable amounts of entrapped minerals apparently account for the broad range of density within the peak, with the organic assemblage being fairly consistent. In future work, it is recommended that the kerogen be micronized prior to DOC to permit a cleaner separation. In order to investigate the chemistry of macerals, pyrolysis is preferred over simple extraction, since soluble native bitumen is mobile and may migrate from the maceral of origin into a neighboring one, acting as a natural contaminant. Pyrolysis techniques assure that the data reflect the nature of indigenous material only. The Ohio Shale kerogen and 4 DGC fractions were subjected to micro-scale, anhydrous, in vitro pyrolysis, followed by GCMS of the saturate and aromatic LC fractions of the pyrolyzate. The 4 DGC fractions are nearly identical in both their saturate and aromatic molecular distributions, consistent with the petrographic observations. To further demonstrate the efficacy of the method, a pure sporinite isolated from a coal in the Pennsylvanian Brazil Formation of Indiana was also analyzed. The sporinite pyrolyzate can readily be distinguished from that of the Ohio Shale alginite by the distributions of n-alkanes, isoprenoids, phyllocladane derivatives, extended tricyclic terpanes, hopanes, moretanes, steranes, alkylbenzenes and thiophene derivatives. Py-LC-GCMS is an effective and versatile characterization tool, as it provides a great number of molecular parameters

Constraints on the Emplacement and Uplift History of the Pine Mountain Thrust Sheet, Eastern Kentucky: Evidence from Coal Rank Trends

In this paper coal rank trends on both sides of the Pine Mountain thrust in eastern Kentucky are used to place constraints on thrust evolution. Vitrinite reflectance () measurements on a single Pennsylvanian coal horizon (Fire Clay coal) in eastern Kentucky increase from 0.5% in the north to about 1.0% toward the SE in front of the Pine Mountain thrust. The same horizon in the hangingwall of the thrust displays lower Rmax values (0.8-0.85%). The reflectance isograds are subparallel to the thrust within approximately 10 km of the trace of the fault. We attribute thermal maturation to (1) pre-orogenic maturation by burial to a depth of about 2 km followed by (2) maturation due to conductive relaxation in the footwall after thrusting. Isotherms would not have been offset unless the thrust velocity was \u3e\u3e 10km / Mα. Assuming no erosion, the emergent thrust would have been approximately 3 km thick. In order to explain the relatively low reflectance values observed in the footwall, rapid uplift (\u3e3 km/Ma) after thrust emplacement is required. Alternatively, if erosion kept pace with thrusting, the thrust sheet would have been substantially thinner (\u3c1 \u3ekm), and thermal equilibrium would be rapidly attained in the footwall. Localized frictional heating may have caused elevated reflectance values observed in sheared coals from outcrop scale faults

Migmatite-Like Textures in Anthracite: Further Evidence for Low-Grade Metamorphic Melting and Resolidification in High-Rank Coals

Previous studies demonstrated that melting, initiated by supercritical fluids in the 375–400 °C range, occurred as part of anthracite metamorphism in the Appalachian Basin. Based on the known behavior of vitrinite at high temperatures and, to a lesser extent, at high pressures, it was determined that the duration of the heating, melting, and resolidification event was about 1 h. In the current study, featureless vitrinite within banded maceral assemblages demonstrates the intimate association of melted and resolidified vitrinite with anthracite-rank macerals. By analogy with metamorphosed inorganic rocks, such associations represent diadysites and embrechites, i.e., cross-cutting and layered migmatites, respectively. Even though the temperature of formation of the anthracite structures is several hundred °C lower than that seen in metamorphosed inorganic rocks, anthracites are metamorphic rocks and the nomenclature for metamorphic rocks may be appropriate for coal

The state of the Martian climate

60°N was +2.0°C, relative to the 1981–2010 average value (Fig. 5.1). This marks a new high for the record. The average annual surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for 2016 for land stations north of starting in 1900, and is a significant increase over the previous highest value of +1.2°C, which was observed in 2007, 2011, and 2015. Average global annual temperatures also showed record values in 2015 and 2016. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of lower latitudes

Diel surface temperature range scales with lake size

Ecological and biogeochemical processes in lakes are strongly dependent upon water temperature. Long-term surface warming of many lakes is unequivocal, but little is known about the comparative magnitude of temperature variation at Diel timescales, due to a lack of appropriately resolved data. Here we quantify the pattern and magnitude of Diel temperature variability of surface waters using high-frequency data from 100 lakes. We show that the near-surface Diel temperature range can be substantial in summer relative to long-term change and, for lakes smaller than 3 km2, increases sharply and predictably with decreasing lake area. Most small lakes included in this study experience average summer Diel ranges in their near-surface temperatures of between 4 and 7°C. Large Diel temperature fluctuations in the majority of lakes undoubtedly influence their structure, function and role in biogeochemical cycles, but the full implications remain largely unexplored

Diel surface temperature range scales with lake size

Ecological and biogeochemical processes in lakes are strongly dependent upon water temperature. Long-term surface warming of many lakes is unequivocal, but little is known about the comparative magnitude of temperature variation at diel timescales, due to a lack of appropriately resolved data. Here we quantify the pattern and magnitude of diel temperature variability of surface waters using high-frequency data from 100 lakes. We show that the near-surface diel temperature range can be substantial in summer relative to long-term change and, for lakes smaller than 3 km2, increases sharply and predictably with decreasing lake area. Most small lakes included in this study experience average summer diel ranges in their near-surface temperatures of between 4 and 7°C. Large diel temperature fluctuations in the majority of lakes undoubtedly influence their structure, function and role in biogeochemical cycles, but the full implications remain largely unexplored