Organizing for Action, the issue advocacy-focused incarnation of President Obama’s successful campaign wing, is strictly non-partisan, the leaders of the new group said on Wednesday at a meeting of some of its members, volunteers, and donors.

“We are not a partisan organization,” Jon Carson, the group’s director, told a gathering of roughly 70 participants at OFA’s Founder’s Summit, held in a ballroom at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C.

“We are here to move this shared progressive agenda forward, and we will advocate to Democrats to move that forward. We will advocate to Republicans,” he said.

OFA is registered as a 501c(4) nonprofit social welfare organization, able to accept unlimited contributions and not required by the Federal Election Commission to disclose its donors, although it will voluntarily do so for contributions over $250.

The group, however, has been called out for accepting money from wealthy donors, even as Obama railed against the undue influence of big campaign contributors during his presidential campaigns.

But OFA National Chairman Jim Messina, who served as Obama's 2012 campaign manager, asserted that the group will keep its message strictly policy-based, emphasizing gun safety, immigration reform, and climate change as three top issues.

“There’s been some confusion about what OFA is and what it isn’t," Messina said. "I’d like to make sure that everyone is clear on that from the very beginning -- Organizing for Action is an issue-advocacy group, not an electoral one. “

Volunteer Carlotta Joyner, who leads OFA’s Western Maryland chapter, said she had no concerns about the large checks the organization may get from some wealthy donors.

“I trust the leaders of our organization when they say there’s no tit-for-tat -- if you give this amount of money you get to spend this amount of time with the president,” she said.

“I don’t see it as constituting a way for this particular group of people to have undue influence on the president or the administration.” 
 
Through Wednesday and Thursday, the summit will feature discussions on topics like the structure of the organization, how it will execute an “issues campaign” as well as policy-specific conversations.

Among those leading the policy talks Thursday are outgoing EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, (who will discuss climate change) and Neera Tanden of the progressive think tank Center for American Progress (who will talk about gun safety).

During her Senate confirmation hearing today, Interior Secretary nominee Sally Jewell defended her decision as the CEO of sporting goods company REI to request a waiver from part of President Obama’s health-care law that would have insured part-time employees.

Jewell said that REI requested the waiver in March 2011 because the company already provided optional, limited-benefit health care coverage for its part-time workers with a $10,000 cap – the only way, Jewell said, REI could afford to cover those employees.

The Affordable Care Act bans such annual limits starting in 2014, however, at which time REI’s waiver will expire. In anticipation of that change Jewell said, the company “will be working to replace that plan with the exchange program,” referring to the health-care law’s insurance exchanges.

Jewell’s explanation came after Sen. John Barrasso, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said he hoped that her “first-hand” knowledge of “how waivers can help businesses avoid the negative impacts of bad policy” would inform her approach to exclusions to laws that would fall under her purview as Interior secretary.

Two years before REI requested the waiver, President Obama lauded the company at a White House event for committing to insuring all its employees. “REI, which has to be fit since they're a fitness company, has been doing work that allows them to provide health care coverage, health insurance, not only to their full-time employees, but also their part-time employees,” Obama said.

Some conservatives seized on REI’s waiver request, which came after Jewell stood beside Obama at the White House event, as an example of the Affordable Care Act’s overly burdensome requirements. “REI snagged a waiver to protect the health benefits of a whopping 1,180 workers from the very tentacles of the big government bureaucrats Jewell embraced at Obama's roundtable,” conservative commentator Michelle Malkin wrote in March 2012.

Jewell noted at the hearing that the 1,180 workers were part-time employees who voluntarily signed up for the, so-called “mini-med” plan.

“Those are the numbers that chose to sign up for a part-time plan," she said, "because these are people that had no possibility of coverage under any other plan that was affordable to them."

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said his eyebrow-raising statement that teachers were already getting “pink slips” because of the sequester was misinterpreted and that he only meant they were getting notices of potential future effects. 

“What I said is that teachers were getting notices, and in the district we talked about, 110 teachers have gotten notices,” Duncan said Friday after touring the Rolling Elementary School in Takoma Park, Md. “I think there was a misinterpretation that I meant they were being laid off tomorrow.”

But the education secretary still did not indicate whether these notices could be definitively linked to the sequester, or whether they were part of an unrelated warning that affected low-income schools that receive Title I funding.

Duncan made the statement on the pink slips Wednesday when he came to the White House Briefing Room, citing Kanawha County in West Virginia.

“Whether it’s all sequester-related, I don’t know," Duncan said, "but these are teachers who are getting pink slips now."

According to the Washington Post, Kanawha's school superintendent said Thursday night that no teachers have received “pink slips” or been told they would not be coming back in the fall.

He said that because the district “do[es] not know what the cuts are” to Title I, he can’t predict whether teachers will, in fact, lose their jobs.

With less than five days to go before the so-called sequester forces across-the-board federal budget cuts, members of the president’s cabinet warned how cuts to their departments would affect Americans’ everyday lives.

Monday’s distress signals from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano came a day after two other cabinet leaders admonished Congress for some of the most high-profile consequences of the sequester, like cuts to education and air traffic control.

Salazar warned that the department would not be able to hire the seasonal workers needed to maintain national parks through the peak summer tourism season, meaning some favorite destinations might be off-limits.

“The public should be prepared for reduced hours and services not only in national parks but across all of the facilities which are managed by the Department of the Interior,” he said in a conference call with reporters. He added, “This will include reduced hours of operation for visitor centers, shorter seasons and closing of campgrounds, hiking trails and other recreational areas."

Like Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood Friday, Napolitano appeared in the White House Briefing Room, where she responded to the question of whether the country would be "less safe after the sequester."

"I don't think we can maintain the same level of security at all places around the country with sequester as without sequester," she said.

She stressed that cuts to her department would mean longer airport delays. “If you're traveling by air, you're going to have to start getting to the airport earlier. And if you're trying to make a connecting flight, you're going to have to make your arrangements to give you greater time with which to do that."

The former Arizona governor also warned of furloughed border protection officers, which would “affect our ability to keep out illegal migrants” and the government’s diminished ability to respond to national emergencies.

“Threats from terrorism and the need to respond and recover from natural disasters do not diminish because of budget cuts,” she said.

LaHood and Education Secretary Arne Duncan were dispatched to the Sunday talk shows to criticize Congress for the cuts scheduled to hit their departments.

President Barack Obama finally broke his silence on an issue of national importance Friday – he thinks it’s time to retire the penny.

The possible extinction of the one-cent coin was a featured economic question in a Google+ Hangout with the Commander in Chief last week as John Green, the co-creator of a popular YouTube channel, applied a little presidential peer pressure.

“Australia, Canada, New Zealand, many other countries have gotten rid of their pennies,” Green said. “Why haven’t we done it?”

“I gotta tell you, John, I don’t know,” Obama responded, adding, “Anytime we’re spending money on something people don’t actually use, that’s an example of things we should probably change.”

RELATED: Conservative thinkers: GOP should cut 'stale' policies loose

But why should anyone care? They’re pennies. Aren’t there more valuable things to worry about?

First, pennies actually cost more to make than they’re worth. In 2012, every penny cost 2.41 cents to make – more than twice their face value.

And as zinc and copper – materials used in minting the penny – have become costlier due, in part, to manufacturing shifts in China, which are likely to raise costs further.

Granted, the total cost of minting pennies was only $58 million last year – less than one-tenth of a percent of total federal spending in 2012 – but groups like Citizens to Retire the U.S. Penny have long been making the economic case for getting rid of the penny (plus, the group adds, fishing for pennies adds about 2 seconds to each cash transaction per day).

And the U.S. military has already decided they’re essentially useless; all Army and Air Force Exchange Service stores on bases round all cash purchases up or down to the nearest nickel.

With both parties looking for ways to cut government spending, it seems as though cutting penny production could be a relatively painless, if insignificant, place to start. But in the Google+ Hangout, Obama ceded that Washington has bigger fiscal fish to fry.

“The penny is an example of something that I need legislation for,” he said. “And, frankly, given all of the big issues that we have to deal with day-in/day-out, a lot of times it just doesn't -- you know, we're not able to get to it.”

There have actually been efforts to pass penny-banning legislation. Back in 2001, then-Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) introduced the “Legal Tender Modernization Act,” which would have made pennies obsolete by requiring retailers to round up or down to the nearest nickel on cash purchases.

That bill failed, and Kolbe’s second attempt in 2006, the “Currency Overhaul for an Industrious Nation (COIN) Act,” after zinc costs nearly doubled, met a similar fate.

But the president doesn’t need Congress to explore other, cheaper alternatives to zinc – the main metal in pennies. In fact, the administration’s 2013 budget encourages the Treasury to “explore, analyze, and approve new, less-expensive metals for all circulating coins like aluminum, iron and lead.”

It wouldn’t be the first time Abe Lincoln’s coin got a makeover. Back in 1982, the penny changed from 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc to 97.5 percent zinc and 2.5 percent copper.

(And lest so-called “penny hoarders” try to melt that valuable pre-1982 copper down, the Mint in 2006 prohibited the melting of pennies and nickels. It also made it a crime to carry more than $5 in one and five-cent coins out of the country).

Changes to the composition of pennies do have Congressional champions: Ohio Rep. Steve Stivers (R) introduced the “Cents and Sensibility Act” in December 2011, which would mandate that pennies were out of American steel (much of which comes from the Buckeye State) and dipped in copper. 

But these efforts will be met with some serious resistance from the zinc lobby (yes, there is one). The company Jarden Zinc, which creates “metal and zinc coinage,” according to its website, paid lobbyist Mark Weller $340,000 in 2012 to discuss issues related to “minting/money/gold standard” with members of Congress and the Mint, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Weller also represents the pro-penny group Americans for Common Cents, whose website warns of the risk of inflation that eliminating the penny would bring, and whose headquarters are on K Street, known for its many D.C. lobbyist offices. 

“Americans for Common Cents aims to inform and educate policymakers, consumers, and the media about the penny’s economic, cultural, and historical significance,” the group’s website reads.

The political power of the penny is likely another reason Obama hasn’t acted on getting rid of it. As far back as 2008, when he was still a candidate, the “penny lobby” appeared to mystify Obama.

Asked about it at a town hall in Pennsylvania, he said, “We have been trying to eliminate the penny for quite some time -- it always comes back,” joking, “I need to find out who is lobbying to keep the penny.”

This story was originally published on Tue Feb 19, 2013 2:51 PM EST

DECATUR, Ga. -- Continuing his post-State of the Union tour, President Barack Obama today made an economic case for the early childhood initiatives he unveiled in his primetime speech, telling a crowd in this Atlanta suburb that investments in such programs are “a good bang for your educational buck.”

The president’s education proposals include national universal pre-school enrollment and a new collaboration between the federal Early Head Start program, which is focused on the development of very young low-income children, and childcare facilities.

And in his speech at a recreation center here, Obama singled out the nearby College Heights Early Childhood Learning Center, which he visited during his stop to the state, as an example of the types of state-federal partnerships that can boost the quality of life for low-income children well after preschool.

“The kids we saw today, that I had a chance to spend time with -- they're some of the lucky ones, because fewer than three in 10 four-year-olds are enrolled in a high-quality preschool program.”

Evan Vucci / AP

President Barack Obama runs up the stairs as he arrives for a speech on education, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013, at the Decatur Community Recreation Center in Decatur, Ga.

The president said that such early investment in the future of children -- of all economic levels -- leads to a more vibrant economy overall. “That's not just going to make sure that they do well. That will strengthen our economy and our country for all of us,” he said.

He praised Georgia, one of only five states to have an official goal of full preschool enrollment, in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, saying the state “make[s] it a priority to educate our youngest children.”

But Georgia, which made a commitment to universal pre-K in 1995, still only has about 60 percent enrollment, and has had to cut back funding and school days because of budget shortfalls -- the program is funded by lottery revenues which have slowed recently.

Twenty days of the pre-kindergarten year were removed this year due to budget cuts, which resulted in an exodus of qualified teachers. Now, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) is proposing adding back 10 of those days according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Obama gave a nod to the state’s difficulty in funding the program, saying that “even in times of tight budgets,” Georgia and states like it have “worked to make a preschool slot available for nearly every parent who's looking for one for their child.”

In terms of how the federal program would be funded, the Obama administration has not yet given specifics of how much its proposals would cost. The New Republic magazine speculated that the program might resemble one proposed by the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, whose preschool program costs $10 billion per year and Early Head Start-child care initiative would cost $10.5 billion per year.

But the program will be revenue-neutral, deputy National Economic Council director Jason Furman maintained yesterday, because it will not cost as much as the administration’s spending cuts implemented last year.

In addition to laying out his vision for America’s education future, President Obama also had a few words of advice for the parents of young children -- raising a few eyebrows as he seemed to suggest one of his daughters might have begun going on dates.

“I do have to warn the parents who are here who still have young kids, they grow up to be, like, 5 [feet] 10 [inches]. And even if they're still nice to you, they -- they basically don't have a lot of time for you during the weekends. They have sleepovers and dates. So all that early investment just leaves them to go away,” he joked as the crowd laughed.

President Barack Obama said if congressional negotiators cannot draft a full budget by March 1, they should at least come up with a short-term combination of spending cuts and revenue increases in order to stave off deep federal spending cuts scheduled for that date.

"If Congress can't act immediately on a bigger package, if they can't get a bigger package done by the time the sequester is scheduled to go into effect," Obama said, "then I believe that they should at least pass a smaller package of spending cuts and tax reforms that would delay the economically damaging effects of the sequester for a few more months until Congress finds a way to replace these cuts with a smarter solution."

Charles Dharapak / AP

President Barack Obama turns towards cameramen and reacts to a sound as he speaks in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013.

The sequester, reached as part of 2011 budget negotiations, was never actually supposed to take effect. Rather, its deep cuts, including almost $500 billion in defense spending over nine years, were put in place as a trigger to get Congress to agree to more comprehensive budget and tax reform.

House Speaker John Boehner released a written statement before Obama’s remarks, blaming the president for the sequester and saying he would not support any additional revenue increases.

“President Obama first proposed the sequester and insisted it become law,” Boehner said, adding, “We believe there is a better way to reduce the deficit, but Americans do not support sacrificing real spending cuts for more tax hikes."

In recent weeks, members of Congress appeared to be playing rhetorical chicken over the cuts, with some suggesting they were resigned to the across-the-board cuts.

“I think it’s more likely to happen,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was quoted as saying by the Washington Post last week.

But the White House has stood firm on the self-imposed cuts, with White House Press Secretary Jay Carney underscoring Friday that the sequester was always intended to be replaced.

“The negative consequences of implementation would be bad across the board," Carney said. "That's the point. So Congress needs to do its job."

And the president hinted that revenues would remain central to all budget negotiations, telling CBS in a Sunday interview that “there is no doubt we need additional revenue coupled with smart spending reductions in order to bring down our deficit."

Days after Israel’s air strike on Syria prompted a new round of fiery rhetoric from Hezbollah and objections from Russia, Vice President Biden will meet with key figures in the Syrian conflict while visiting Europe this week, senior White House officials said Thursday.

Biden will attend the 49th Munich Security Conference Saturday, where he will have bilateral meetings with the United Nations envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, as well as the head of the Syrian Opposition Council, Moaz al-Khatib. But White House officials suggested the meeting would not result in any additional U.S. involvement in the conflict beyond the humanitarian assistance it has been providing.
 
“I think the vice president, in his meetings with the leadership of the Syrian opposition as well as other international partners, is going to be discussing how we can continue to provide humanitarian assistance,” said Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, on a conference call with reporters previewing the visit.

Biden will also talk with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov -- a meeting that will take place just days after Russia rebuked Israel for launching a military strike in Syria.

And in the meeting with Lavrov, Rhodes said Biden will stress that it is “very important for the Russians to put their full weight into political transition in Syria.”

The conversation will also likely touch on Russia’s human-rights record, which came to a head when the U.S. Congress passed the Magnitsky Act, which imposes sanctions and denies visas to Russians accused of human rights abuses and corruption. 

Passage of the act set off a series of retaliatory actions from both the Russian and U.S. governments that could complicate U.S. efforts to “reset” the countries’ relationship.

“We have real differences, and we don't hide them,” said Tony Blinken, Biden’s national security adviser. “But going forward, there is a real potential not only to work through those differences, but to continue the agenda that we set over the past four years.”

In addition to Biden's stop in Germany, where he will meet one-on-one with Chancellor Angela Merkel, the vice president also will be meeting with the heads of France and the United Kingdom. Syria will figure into all of those discussions, said Blinken, who will soon move roles to serve as the president’s deputy national security adviser.

During his inaugural address earlier this week, President Obama raised eyebrows by making a call for new action on climate change.  

“We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations,” he said.

But given the tricky politics of climate change in Washington – Democrats were unable to pass cap-and-trade legislation when they controlled both the White House and Congress – environmental groups are urging the Obama administration to avoid Congress and pursue executive action.

“Congress has proved to be the place where good ideas go to die, and clearly the climate bill’s failure back in 2009 is an example of that,” said Melinda Pierce, legislative director for the Sierra Club.

Obama acknowledged the difficulty of getting climate legislation passed when he was asked about it during a Nov. 14 press conference. “I don't know what either Democrats or Republicans are prepared to do at this point,” he said.

But environmental activists say the president has already taken steps outside Congress, pointing to the work done on fuel efficiency standards that the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation adopted in 2012.

To build on that, green groups are urging the president to use the EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act to put emission restrictions on existing power plants.

“He’s already tackled cars,” said Bob Keefe, senior press secretary for the National Resource Defense Council. “Now we need to go after this other big source of carbon pollution.” 

This isn’t a new proposal – it’s been an option ever since the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the E.P.A. had an obligation, under the Clean Air Act, to regulate greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change unless it could find a scientific reason for not regulating them. 

And while the EPA is already working on carbon restrictions for new power plants (final proposals for which are due in April 2013), environmental groups have used the milestone of President Obama’s second term to stage a new campaign urging him to make existing plants subject to emissions caps as well.

“That’s probably our number one issue right now,” Keefe said.

The NRDC held a press conference in December to refocus attention on existing power plants and was one of 70 environmental groups that signed a January 7^th letter congratulating the president on his re-election and urging him to propose standards for existing plants.

“Use your executive authority,” they wrote, telling him that “most significantly, you can set standards that cut carbon pollution from America’s aging power plant fleet.”

According to the NRDC, imposing restrictions on existing plants would cut carbon pollution from existing plants by 26 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.

And the Sierra Club is also staging a push that coincides with the beginning of Obama’s second term. Earlier this month, it launched a 100-day campaign to raise awareness for what its branded his “Climate and Clean Energy Legacy,” which includes action on emissions standards on refineries and heavy-duty trucks, stopping the Keystone XL pipeline and limiting expansion of drilling and mining on public lands.

Action on any of these fronts would likely be met with serious resistance from the private sector.

The National Association of Manufacturers – one of the largest manufacturing trade groups in the U.S. – is already lobbying against the proposed EPA restrictions on new power plants. Those efforts would extend to regulations on existing plants, said Ross Eisenberg, NAM’S vice president of energy and resources policy.

“I have a feeling that this will be very, very high priority for us if it does happen,” he said, noting that it’s difficult for the group to forecast exactly what kind of caps the administration would seek to impose. “When you have regulations under the Clean Air Act that almost certainly will impact the economy, we’re going to have a problem with that.”

President Obama also will have several empty cabinet positions to fill that deal with the environment, including the EPA, the Department of Interior and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Green groups are already working to get their favored candidates considered; an early favorite for Interior is Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), former chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands.

In a December letter to President Obama, a coalition of 238 environmental groups also appealed to the president’s sense of legacy, urging him to “seize this historic opportunity” to appoint a leader “who grasps both the urgency of this crisis and the practical paths towards real-world solutions.” 

But while environmental groups are encouraging the president to pursue action through the myriad departments and cabinet offices that make up his administration, one thing is certain: going through Congress is no longer part of the conversation.

“Obviously it would be better to do it with the help of Congress, but he doesn’t have to,” Keene said.

In a new 2-minute Web video, President Obama is reminding people of exactly what he campaigned for during the election: higher taxes on those making $250,000 or more a year.

The clip is part of the Obama administration's social-media push to raise public support for his position of higher taxes on the top 2 percent of earners as "fiscal cliff" negotiations continue. It is one of the first times the post-election the Obama team has used actual footage from the campaign to show verbatim what he called for on the trail.   

"President Obama campaigned on a clear tax plan,” graphics in the video's opening sequence read. Then, a flashback to Obama's speech on Sept. 9 in Florida: "Under my plan, first of all, 98 percent of folks who make less than $250,000, you wouldn't see your income taxes go up a single dime."

Since he won re-election, Obama has highlighted what he believes was his victory in the court of public opinion on taxes, suggesting Republicans should accept the politically popular idea of raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

“That's the kind of fair, balanced, responsible plan that I talked about during the campaign, and that's what the majority of Americans believe in,” Obama said in Hatfield, Pa., last Friday in a campaign-style trip to rouse public support for the White House’s position.