The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ruled that PepsiCo may not exclude a shareholder proposal filed by NLPC that asks the company for a report on its lobbying priorities. PepsiCo is a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition of corporations and environmental groups that lobbies for the disastrous cap and trade legislation.

Our resolution will appear in PepsiCo’s proxy materials, and I will speak in its support at the company’s annual meeting this spring.

By trying to preclude a shareholder discussion of this and other issues, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi seems unwilling to publicly defend the company's controversial public policy positions, which is exactly the point of our resolution. Maybe the company should change its positions on cap and trade, and other issues where it sides with anti-business activists.

CNN's Anderson Cooper looks at resignation of Rep. Chairman Charles Rangel as House Ways and Means Committee Chairman, with Joe Johns reporting. NLPC President Peter Flaherty calls Rangel's claim "implausible" that he did not know of corporate sponsorship of Caribbean junket. Click here to download a 2-page pdf transcript.

The admonishment last week of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) was based in part on photos, audio recordings and other materials that I provided the Ethics Committee from the 2008 St. Maarten junket. Rangel still claims, however, that he did not know of the corporate involvement. I went back today and found this photo. I did not provide it to the Ethics Committee because I never imagined that Rangel would make such a claim. This photo is more proof that Rangel’s protestation of ignorance is simply not plausible.

Here’s another photo that shows the gentleman above in the blue jacket is Rangel. In both photos, to his right is former New York mayor David Dinkins. To his left is Carl McCall, the former Comptroller New York state.

Just when you think that the House Ethics Committee might actually be doing its job in the form of the Rangel admonition, it reverts to form on the investigation of the now-defunct lobbying firm PMA that was headed by Paul Magliocchetti.

Indeed, PMA may be the biggest cover-up in the history of the Ethics Committee, which today issued a report clearing the late Rep. John Murtha and Reps. Jim Moran (D-VA), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Norm Dicks (D-WA) and Bill Young (R-FL).

This action was certainly calculated by Nancy Pelosi to protect the late Murtha. It is the strongest evidence to date that earmarking and corruption are still bipartisan enterprises. Republicans cannot attack Pelosi’s toleration of corruption as long as Republican members of the Ethics Committee sign off on a report like this. The Republican members of the Ethics Committee are: