Category: Andy Kosow
Conn. Delegation Secures Extra $116.5 Million in Defense Bill: Still Not Enough to Save Jobs at Sikorsky
By Andrew Kosow
WASHINGTON, Dec.11, 2002–Have you ever complained that it is too hard to balance your checkbook? That your 2.4 children want stuff that your $600-aweek paycheck can’t possibly cover?
Now imagine you have 535 children braying at you, whining that your estimated annual; income of $2 trillion is woefully inadequate and suggesting that it would be a good idea to access your $5.95 trillion credit line to keep everyone happy…or else.
Welcome to the federal government’s appropriations process.
Behind the scenes, members of Congress are jockeying and trading to get the most from the federal teat. Critics of the process derisively call it pork-barrel spending (bringing home the bacon, get it?), while those that benefit from federal earmarks say they are worthy, cost-effective projects that are good for the red, white and blue.
A case in point: the small sum of $116.5 million added to this year’s colossal $393.1 billion defense appropriation for seven extra UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, built in Connecticut by Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. and championed by the Connecticut congressional delegation during the budget process.
Each year, there are literally thousands of appropriation decisions like this one, to spend the government’s money on the additional Black Hawks instead of other, perhaps more needed, projects, military or otherwise.
An examination of attitudes on all sides of the Black Hawk issue should help provide a snapshot of the budget fights that occur regularly on Capitol Hill, including, perhaps, a picture of an old Pentagon ploy of asking for less than it really wants and counting on Congress to make up the difference.
Pork or Not?
Pork is definitely not the other white meat in Washington.
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), a watchdog group, estimates that about $8.8 billion in this year’s defense budget is what it calls pork-barrel spending and that the 13 appropriation bills combined will have $20.1 billion in pork spending (Only two of the 13, of which one is the defense bill, have passed). One main criterion the group uses to classify a project as pork is whether the money earmarked by Congress is substantially larger than what the president or the relevantdepartment has requested.
The relatively small appropriation championed by Connecticut politicians for the Sikorsky-built helicopters does at first whiff smell a lot like bacon.
But maybe not.
With a war on terror under way and a possible invasion of Iraq looming, an extra seven helicopters does not seem to be a big deal.
Except that the Pentagon didn’t ask for them.
In the fiscal 2003 budget, president Bush and the Pentagon requested only 12 UH-60 Black Hawks for the Army–but the final bill includes money for19.
The defense appropriations bill represents an increase of $45.9 billion in total defense spending over last year, and includes$269.9 million to produce 19 Black Hawks for the Army.
Some would argue that Connecticut’s congressional delegation were merely doing their job by taking care of their home state. Others call the money for the extra helicopters a blatant example of pork-barrel spending.
“How do they know more about what we need to fight a war than the Pentagon?” asked David Williams, CAGW’s vice president of policy. “The fact is that they don’t, and historically neither of these guys vote in the interest of taxpayers.” CAGW gives both Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) extremely low scores for limiting government waste.
Because Lieberman is the chairman of the Airland Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee – a post he will relinquish in January because Democrats lost control of the Senate- he has been in a powerful position to influence defense spending priorities. Many experts, however, defended Lieberman against the notion that he would exercise that power to help Connecticut at the expense of national defense.
“Joseph Lieberman is a real intellectual leader on defense,” said Steven Kosiak, director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent, nonprofit public policy research institute established to promote innovative thinking about defense planning. “He is not focused solely on constituent issues but sees the big picture.”
Many experts, asked to comment on this issue, could not, interestingly, even fathom what the fuss was about.
“Lieberman is not particularly egregious,” said Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. “He’s pretty much like every congressman.”
“He is merely protecting his constituents,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a defense budget expert who is also at Brookings.
In other words, it’s business as usual.
As the late Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen (R-Ill.) said, “A billion here and a billion there and soon you are talking about real money.”
“People have to understand that it is more than this particular $116.5 million,” CAGW’s Williams said. “It has a ripple effect, and then other members say, ‘What about me? I want something too.’ ”
So, is there a justification for spending this extra money?
According to the defense appropriations bill, “Two UH-60L aircraft are available only for the Army Reserve. Of the additional aircraft, three shall be HH-60L Medical Evacuation (MEDEVAC) models available only for units of the Army National Guard, and two aircraft shall be UH-60L models available only for units of the Army National Guard.”
The National Guard and Reserves? Are they that important in a time of war?
As it turns out, yes, very.
“We can’t deploy anywhere without the National Guard being deployed,” said Jack Spencer, a defense expert at the Heritage Foundation, a think tank in Washington.
It seems pretty straightforward that the bill is earmarking the helicopters for an under-funded part of the military–but according to Fred Downey, a legislative aide to Lieberman, the Guard and Reserves might not actually get the new Black Hawks promised to them.
“The newest Black Hawks might go to frontline units and their Black Hawks would then be rotated back to the Guard,” Downey said. The intent of the appropriation, however, definitely was to “shore up the war-fighting shortfall in the National Guard and Reserves,” he added.
“The National Guard is the forgotten step-child of the military,” said Singer of the Brookings Institution. “They are forgotten when it comes to funding.”
“There is are more needs than resources available,” Downey said. “So the Pentagon prioritizes.” He went on to say that it usually counts on Congress to finance the shortfalls at the National Guard and Reserves. Requests to speak with the National Guard were not answered.
Some critics say, however, that this explanation is just a cynical ploy to blame the appropriations process in general for the government’s high spending levels.
“The Pentagon will deliberately underfund stuff they know has support on the Hill so they can stay within the spending parameters set by the [White House] Office of Management and Budget,” an official at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a non-profit, non-partisan budget watchdog group, said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They know the Hill will restore [the funding]. There is very little purity in this process.”
“The Pentagon knows Black Hawks have tremendous support and that Lieberman is influential,” said Thomas Donnelly, a defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank here. “But the fact is that Lieberman can only authorize the funding. He is not on the Appropriations Committee.”
Connecticut and Defense
It is very difficult to assess exactly how much Connecticut will benefit from spending in this defense bill because much of the military equipment is only partially built in Connecticut– but the benefits clearly are substantial. For example, $279.2 million is allocated for one E-8C Joint Stars aircraft whose highly sophisticated radar is manufactured at Northrop Grumman’s Norden facility in Norwalk. Other Connecticut companies, such as Pratt & Whitney (like Sikorsky, a United Technologies Corp. subsidiary) in East Hartford and General Dymanics Corp.’s Electric Boat of Groton, also secured many lucrative contracts.
In 2001, Connecticut ranked 10th in the nation in Department of Defense contracts. The contracts accounted for $4.27 billion of the gross state product, according to the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD).
“That is truly amazing for such a small state,” said Jim Watson, a spokesman for the DECD. “We are up there with the likes of Texas and California.”
Fairfield County, according to the DECD, ranked first in the state in 2001 in defense contracts per capita.
Money and Politics
Another aspect of this story – albeit not critical in the final analysis – is campaign contributions.
Many times campaign contributions are the pressure that companies use to push politicians to act on their behalf. In a Washington Post op-ed article on Dec. 4, former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) described the pressure large donors can exert on politicians:
“Who, after all, can seriously contend that a $100,000 donation does not alter the way one thinks about – and quite possibly votes on – an issue. Donations from the tobacco industry to Republicans scuttled tobacco legislation, just as contributions from trial lawyers to Democrats stopped tort reform.”
United Technologies Corp. (UTC) was the second- largest donor to Lieberman in 2002, with $36,000 in campaign contributions, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan, non-profit campaign watchdog group. UTC also was a top donor to Dodd, with contributions of $29,200 in 2002.
The largest donor to Lieberman and the second-largest to Dodd was Citigroup. Sanford Weill, the chief executive officer of Citigroup, sits on the board of UTC and gave $2,000 – then the highest allowable personal contribution – to Lieberman in 2000 when he was running for re-election.
The kicker came earlier this month, when UTC’s Sikorsky subsidiary announced layoffs of about 250 workers.
“[We] worked hard to help Sikorsky and we expect management there to work just as hard to help its workers,” Lieberman said in a press release earlier this month. “I urge Sikorsky’s leadership to pursue alternate measures to maintain their bottom line while avoiding additional layoffs.”
Rep. Chris Shays (D-4th) was blunter. “This is a big disappointment,” he said in a telephone interview. “We have appropriated 34 new [Sikorsky] helicopters, and I understand that they don’t have the sales overseas, but this the third round of layoffs, and it hurts the community.”
A spokeswoman for Sikorsky confirmed that weak international sales were the reason for the layoffs. She added that the company was very grateful to the Connecticut congressional delegation.
Published in The Hour, in Connecticut.
Democrats Expected to Support Homeland Security
By Andrew Kosow
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19, 2002--Both Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) were expected to vote for the Republican version of the homeland security bill that was expected to pass the Senate late Tuesday or Wednesday.
"Almost 100 percent of the bill was exactly like the legislation some of us drafted," Lieberman said Tuesday on CNN, explaining why he would vote for a bill that includes key provisions he has vocally opposed.
"Many good things are still in this bill from the original Lieberman document," Dodd said late Tuesday on the Senate floor. "That is why I support this bill."
In what will be the largest reorganization of the federal government in a half-century, the new Department of Homeland Security would encompass 22 existing government agencies with approximately 170,000 federal workers.
As chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, Lieberman first crafted the legislation to create a Department of Homeland Security, but his version and the Republican version could not be reconciled.
Both sides have said the most contentious issue was the Bush administration's insistence on changing federal union protections. President Bush said the protections constrained his ability to protect the country during a national crisis.
The Democrats vehemently opposed Bush's approach and refused to allow a vote. Lieberman, speaking on the Senate floor earlier this fall during the debate over workers' rights, said that if union protections were removed, "we may as well not have a Department of Homeland Security at all."
The Democrats' defeat in the Nov. 5 elections - which many attribute to the perception that Democrats were obstructing the passage of this bill - all but assured that the Republican version would pass in January. The Democrats then relented and allowed a vote in the lame-duck session.
Those union protections were significantly watered down in the bill before the Senate.
A Congressional Quarterly analysis of the labor provisions reads, "It would give the president the ability to exempt some employees from collective bargaining units for national security reasons. It also would give the department the ability to make changes to personnel rules but would establish a process for unions to object to and negotiate on those changes."
When asked on CNN if he regretted his defense of union members' rights, Lieberman said, "You never regret when you do the right thing."
There are some provisions in the House version that Democrats said were sneaked in as a sop to Republican supporters, but they were assured by the Senate Republican leadership that much of it would later be "scrubbed from the legislation," as Dodd put it on the Senate floor while explaining his support of the bill.
The Republican-controlled House passed the legislation, 299 to 121, earlier this month.
During that debate, Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) - who has held nearly 40 hearings and briefings as chairman of the House Government Reform subcommittee on national security - said, "We need to reorganize our government to be able to implement our new strategy and confront the new terrorist threat facing this nation and the world. We need to wake up and do it now."
Published in The Hour, in Connecticut.
Veterans Frustrated by Compromise
By Andrew Kosow
WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2002--John Walsh, a disabled veteran from Norwalk, is upset with Congress because of a compromise reached Wednesday night that he and many veterans groups say put too many limits on a new enhancement of benefits for injured veterans.
"I am disappointed," said Walsh, an Army and Navy veteran who took part in five major land battles in Europe during World War II with the 320th infantry division. "It is an injustice, but half a loaf is better than none."
Veterans groups said they were originally told that President Bush would veto enhanced benefits, known as concurrent receipt, because of the program's cost. A veto now seems unlikely.
The provision for veterans in this year's defense authorization bill would alter a century-old law that requires a deduction in a veteran's pension check equal to the amount of any disability payment. The new approach would allow veterans wounded in combat and those with service-connected injuries who are 60 percent disabled to receive both benefits in full.
"For more than a century, the law has unfairly forced disabled retirees to fund their own disability compensation," Norm Ryan Jr., president of the Retired Officers Association, said in a press release. "We intend to track implementation closely…and continue to fight to expand eligibility."
For example, if a retired veteran of 20 years - the minimum to receive a pension - was injured in combat and was entitled to a disability payment of $300 a month from the government, the $300 would be deducted from his pension check. This new bill would allow eligible veterans to keep the disability payment.
Agreement on the benefits was the last hurdle to congressional passage of a $393 billion defense authorization bill. The pension provision is a compromise between the Senate and House versions. The Senate had originally asked for full compensation.
There are no reliable estimates as to the cost because of the maze of new criteria that determine whether a veteran is eligible for the benefits.
The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that there are 33,500 disabled combat veterans in the United States. It is unclear how many will be affected by the new bill. But Richard Fuller, the national legislative director of the Paralyzed Veterans Association, said that every injured veteran should receive the special compensation.
"This bill is just a tip of the hat by Congress to this issue," he said in a telephone interview. "This is just another injustice for military retirees, and we will fight it. He indicated that the guidelines are so stringent that no more than 10,000 veterans might be eligible for the increases.
A spokesperson for Rep. Chris Shays (R-4th) said he supported full benefits for all combat-disabled veterans, but that the bill as approved would be an improvement for veterans.
Payments were expected to start six months after the legislation was signed into law.
Published in The Hour, in Connecticut.
Blumenthal Fights to Protect Kids
By Andrew Kosow
WASHINGTON, Nov. 12, 2002--Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal argued before the Supreme Court Wednesday that Connecticut's version of Megan's Law - which allows public access to the sex offender registry through the Internet and at state and local police stations - is constitutional.
The question before the court in Connecticut Dept. of Public Safety et al. v. John Doe et al. is whether convicted sex offenders have a due process (14th Amendment) right to a hearing before being listed in a public database as convicted sex offenders.
Blumenthal argued that they do not.
"They have had their due process hearing when they went to trial and were convicted beyond a reasonable doubt," he said. "All the registry does is list the truthful fact that the people on the list are convicted sex offenders."
Many of the justices seemed to agree with Blumenthal. They made more frequent comments and posed more pointed questions to Shelley Sadin, the lead attorney for Doe.
"I could give a person unlimited hearings and all the due process they want," said Justice Stephen Breyer. "But they still would be on the Website as a convicted sex offender."
"People on the ten-most-wanted list are in a better position than your clients," Justice Antonin Scalia joked to Sadin. "They have had no hearing and are still innocent. Your clients had their hearing."
The respondents contend that they are unfairly stigmatized for the rest of their lives.
"The state is saying that everyone on this list is a dangerous person," Sadin said in her opening remarks. " And these people should have a way [a hearing] to get off this list if they are deemed no longer dangerous."
Justice John Paul Stevens asked Sadin: "But what if the people of Connecticut don't trust these hearings and don't care what psychiatrists say? Don't they have a right to the information and then decide for themselves?"
Another argument the respondents made is that the most egregious violent offenders are lumped in with cases like that of an 18-year-old boy sleeping with a 15-year-old girl.
"All we are saying is this law encompasses too wide a variety of people," Philip Tegeler of the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union, which filed a brief on behalf of the defendants, said in an interview. "It is stigmatizing too many people that are not even considered dangerous."
Blumenthal said that Connecticut's Website has a disclaimer specifically stating it is merely a way to disseminate the information and not a predictor of future crimes.
Scalia agreed. "The Website only says these people may be dangerous, not that they are dangerous."
Rep. Chris Shays (R-4th) said in a phone interview that Connecticut citizens simply have a right to know.
"If you served time, it doesn't mean that the public does not have a right to know," he said. "The Website did not say you will do it in the future but that you were convicted in the past, and that person needs to make peace with the people he will live with."
The law was named for Megan Kanka, a 7-year-old New Jersey girl who was raped and killed in 1994 by her neighbor - a twice-convicted sex offender.
The registry has been unavailable to the Connecticut public since May 17, 2001, when the Website was taken down after a federal court ruled that sex offenders were denied their due process rights and not allowed to prove they did not belong on the list. A federal appeals court upheld the decision.
Sgt. Paul Vance, the commanding officer of the public information office in the Connecticut Department of Public Safety, said an average of more than 150,000 people visited the Website each month in a state with only 3.4 million residents "[Access to the information on sex offenders] was a peace of mind for neighborhoods. and some of that was removed."
He noted that while the public currently has no access to the sex offender registry, organizations like schools and youth groups can still run criminal checks on individuals if they pay a $25 fee to the state for each background check.
Underscoring the importance of the issues involved, Blumenthal arrived in Washington over the weekend to prepare for the oral arguments. His preparation included mock trials in front of "judges," including Theodore Olson, the solicitor general of the United States, who also argued today on behalf of Connecticut's Megan Law.
Andrew Vachss, a child-advocate lawyer who has written extensively on the subject in non-fiction and fiction, said in a phone interview that even if Blumenthal is victorious, the law will not protect children. "Megan's Law just gives people a false sense of security. It means that the judicial system doesn't keep these dangerous predators in prison. They will do it again."
This case is significant because, along with a similar case affecting Alaska that the Court heard today, it is the first time the Court has reviewed the constitutionality of Megan's Law . The Court should rule by June.
Published in The Hour, in Connecticut.
Dodd Fights the Bite
By Andrew Kosow
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2002--Sen. Christopher Dodd (D - Conn.) is "fighting the bite" on Capitol Hill.
Dodd recently introduced legislation that would establish a grant program that authorizes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to match state funds that are allocated to fight the West Nile virus with federal money on a dollar-for-dollar basis.
"This health threat - like a storm - is capable of inflicting damage. We need to track it, combat it, and alleviate any pain caused by it," Dodd said in a recent press release. "This measure provides a broad array of resources to fight this viral threat from all angles."
According to the CDC, there have been 3,052 documented cases of West Nile virus in the United States as of Thursday that have resulted in 164 deaths. Connecticut has had 12 cases - none of them fatal.
At the forefront of research into the prevention of the West Nile virus is the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES) - a state-supported research institution that would be eligible to receive money from the CDC. "I fully support [the legislation]," the station's director, John Anderson, said Thursday. He added that the CAES isolated the first case of West Nile in the United States in1999.
The CAES would receive an additional $350,000 in federal funds to combat the virus under the House version of the fiscal 2003 agriculture appropriations bill. The Senate has not passed its version but will take it up in a post-election session.
West Nile virus is spread by the bite of an infected mosquito, and can infect people, horses, many types of birds, and some other animals.
Most people who become infected with West Nile virus will have either no symptoms or only mild ones. However, on rare occasions, West Nile virus infections can result in severe and sometimes fatal illnesses.
According to the website of the Norwalk Department of Health - which uses the phrase "fight the bite" to describe West Nile virus preventive measures - citizens can minimize the risks of contracting the virus by draining collections of stagnant water (where mosquitoes tend to breed), ensuring that doors and windows screens are tight-fitting and using mosquito repellent.
In Norwalk, four crows and one mosquito pool at the Rowayton School have tested positive for the virus, but there have been no infections in the city, according to the website of the city's Department of Health.
Published in The Hour, in Connecticut.
Shays Forced to Defend U.S. Policy Towards Israel
By Andrew Kosow
WASHINGTON, Oct. 07, 2002--A combative Connecticut Rep. Chris Shays (R - 4th) chaired a subcommittee hearing Tuesday that was designed to discuss how America can better communicate with the Arab world but degenerated into a contentious debate about U.S. policy towards Israel.
"Arabs love American culture but deplore American policy in the Middle East, particularly with regard to Israel," said witness John Zogby, a well-known pollster who is president and CEO of Zogby International. He cited a poll that showed young Arabs in the Middle East generally like all aspects of American life and values but, like their elders, abhor U.S. policy.
"If it is just policy then I think the differences are unbridgeable," said Shays. "We are not changing our policy towards Israel." He went on to say that after Sept. 11 he feels more sympathetic to the Israeli side and that terrorism will only make the American government do the opposite of what the terrorists are hoping to accomplish.
The hearing entitled, "Are We Listening To The Arab Street?" was before the Government Reform subcommittee on national security, veterans affairs and international relations - and consisted of three separate panels of experts.
The rhetoric and acrimony became particularly harsh during the testimony of the second panel of five experts, four of whom held pro-Palestinian views.
"There is an asymmetry of compassion and pressure," said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. "No compassion for Palestinians and no pressure on the Israelis." He said that because of this bias, "when President Bush professes to care about the Iraqi people [in his speech Monday night] it does not ring true."
Shays said that the U.S. government would not publicly engage in dialogue with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat or the Palestinian Authority because it believes he uses terrorism. "Until terrorism stops, how can we negotiate?" said Shays.
"U.S. policy was always to negotiate in the past," said soft-spoken panelist Dr. R.S. Zaharna, an assistant professor of public communication at American University.
"That was a mistake," shot back Shays. "Because that says that if you do violent acts then we would negotiate."
Earlier during the hearing, Shays said he was embarrassed by what he considered the lack of American response after the terrorist bombings of the U.S.S Cole in Yemen and Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and added sarcastically that the terrorists were probably worried that maybe "we were gonna sue them."
In later testimony James Zogby tried to reiterate criticisms of Israel that he had mentioned earlier, but was cut off by Shays, who asked Zogby not to repeat himself to make his points.
"Repetition can be the mother of learning," an exasperated Zogby said. "But I see I have failed today."
Zaharna did try to soften the debate by thanking Shays for attempting to understand differing opinions. She said that the reason there is such vitriol is that Arabs have such high expectations of America: "There is still a love of the American people and their values which makes the pain double."
In the third panel, the Washington bureau chief for the Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera, Hafez Al-Mirazi, answered critics of his organization who say it exacerbates anger in the Arab world by showing provocative images of Palestinian suffering. "We give airtime to Israeli casualties but there are more Palestinian victims." Al-Jazeera is the only non-government controlled television station in the Arab world.
Shays said he had a better feeling about Al-Jazeera after the testimony, and added that he was delighted they attempted to address difficult issues. But, he said, he would be "horrified if people thought I was complimenting the programming."
Shays said after the hearing that he was shocked to learn that the Zogby poll, conducted earlier this year, said young Arabs have a more positive view of America than older generations. "It is something we can build on and gives me hope."
He also said the hearing produced an informative debate but that he was not persuaded by the witnesses' arguments to change American policy.
"If Israel disappeared tomorrow, we would still have these problems," Shays said.
Among the other witnesses Tuesday were Ambassador Chris Ross from the U.S. Department of State and Yigal Carmon, the president of the Middle East Media Research Institute.
Published in The Hour, in Connecticut.
Debate Heats Up In Senate After House Resolution
By Andrew Kosow
WASHINGTON, Oct. 02, 2002--Talk of war heated up on Capitol Hill Wednesday as President Bush and the House leadership reached swift agreement on a resolution was between and on that would grant Bush the authority he seeks to launch a pre-emptive attack on Iraq.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D - Conn) quickly introduced an identical amendment in the Senate.
"You don't sit back and wait for the mushroom cloud," said Connecticut Rep. Chris Shays (R -4th) at a subcommittee hearing Wednesday afternoon on the Iraqi threat. "Containment, deterrence and mutually assured destruction no longer can assure our safety."
Under Wednesday's arrangement with House leaders, Bush, before using military force, must certify to Congress that diplomacy alone cannot protect U.S. citizens from weapons of mass destruction. In addition, he must notify Congress 48 hours before attacking Iraq.
"I am encouraged it was done in a bipartisan way," Shays said. " I am also happy that it seems to give the president the ability to act unilaterally if circumstances call for it." Shays said that he supports United Nations inspections of Iraq's suspected weapons-of-mass-destruction sites but only if they are "totally unfettered and without conditions."
Lieberman, who previously voiced concern that any debate on Iraq before the elections would be too emotionally charged, said today at a White House press conference that the time has come to confront Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Lieberman said e was confident the resolution would pass within a week with a "very large bipartisan majority."
"We can no longer tolerate the intransigence and danger posed by Saddam Hussein," Lieberman said. "This resolution is our attempt to express our support of the president as commander-in-chief in seeking international backing for action against Saddam. It is also a way to strengthen the president's hand as commander-in-chief if Saddam does not comply or the United Nations is not willing to take action to enforce its orders."
Sen. Christopher Dodd (D - Conn) said in a press release, "This resolution is clearly an improvement over the one originally proposed by the President, which amounted to a blank check for military action in the region." Dodd also said he was satisfied that the president understood the need to try to act in conjunction with U.S. allies.
Late Wednesday afternoon, Shays chaired a hearing by the Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations on the Iraqi threat, where he tried to highlight what he said was the enormity of the task faced by weapons inspectors in Iraq.
He pointed to a satellite photo of one of the sprawling compounds of Saddam Hussein's Mosul presidential palace that Iraq says would be off limits to weapons inspectors. The picture appears to show hardened bunkers, hardened storage warehouses and a command and control facility.
He then took out a twine ball the size of a softball and said it represented the amount of plutonium Iraq would need to build a nuclear device. "There are thousands of these softballs currently in unguarded facilities in Russia," Shays said, referring to a tour he took of Russian nuclear facilities. "Once Saddam gets one, he would have a bomb in six months."
Despite the evidence, Shays said, "constituents who contact me are 40 to 1 against any action in Iraq." Shays said he listens to his constituents, but that he thinks the 70 families from the 4th District who lost loved ones on Sept. 11 understand-- as he does from holding 34 hearings on terrorism and attending many security briefings-- that there is no line that terrorists and people who hate the United States will not cross.
Published in The Hour, in Connecticut.
It’s All Homeland Security, All of the Time
By Andrew Kosow
WASHINGTON, Oct. 01, 2002--Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D - Conn.) and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D - S.D.) blasted Republicans at a Tuesday afternoon press conference for letting politics delay the passage of a homeland security bill.
"There has been no movement at all from the White House or my Republican colleagues," said Lieberman, the main sponsor of the bill in the Senate. "This intransigence makes me wonder if politics is involved."
Democrats have complained that the Republicans don't want to pass a homeland security bill because the continuing debate over provisions of the bill keeps the focus off the sluggish economy and on national security, traditionally an issue on which voters trust Republicans more than Democrats.
"They have blocked the vote on cloture (which would end debate on the various amendments and bring the bill to a vote a) five times," Daschle said at the press conference.
President Bush has said it is Democrats who are playing election-year politics by kowtowing to labor unions that oppose a key provision of the President's bill. "The Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people," Bush said last week.
The Democrats control the Senate by a one-vote margin. The Washington Post reported recently that unions have given Democrats $50 million in donations in this election cycle.
The major sticking point in the homeland security debate may actually have little to do with security.
The issue involves an amendment, sponsored by Sens. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) and Zell Miller (D-Ga.), which would grant the president the authority he has insisted on to remove the collective bargaining rights of federal workers in the proposed Department of Homeland Security who are involved primarily in antiterrorism activities.
Lieberman has said the Democrats are willing to compromise, and have offered to grant Bush what he seeks when it comes to the workers in the new department who deal directly with terrorism, but would require him to negotiate the changes with the unions. But Republicans will not compromise, he added.
"Even our most fervent antagonist, Phil Gramm, says that our two bills are 95 percent similar," Lieberman said. "[Bush] will have the executive authority in an emergency."
Whatever the merits of the two camps' arguments, House Republicans like Rep. Chris Shays (R - 4th) are clearly fed up.
"The House did its job, and now both the Democrats and Republicans [in the Senate] need to work together, and they are not," Shays said in a phone interview Tuesday, referring to House passage of its version of the homeland security bill in July. "I am not happy, because this does not speak well of the process."
Published in The Hour, in Connecticut.
Westport Scholarship Winner Meets With Sen. Dodd
By Andrew Kosow
WASHINGTON, Sept. 25, 2002--Seventeen-year-old Westport native Benjamin Schwartz came to the Capital this week to receive a $10,000 scholarship he earned as a 2002 Davidson Fellow because of a computer program he created that could someday make computers cheaper, bridges safer and buildings like the World Trade Center sturdier.
Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) met with Schwartz and his parents, Laura and Joshua, at his Senate office Wednesday to congratulate him and talk about his program, AFMetric, which Dodd admitted sheepishly, "I don't completely understand."
Seated comfortably on couches in the senator's office, Schwartz eagerly explained the computer program and how it uses data from an atomic force microscope to accurately measure grain boundary energy with a series of three-dimensional mathematical operations.
"Most materials, such as metals, are not completely solid but built of many large grains stuck together," Schwartz said to an impressed Dodd, "and my program helps measure the energy at the weakest points in the structure, which are the grain boundaries." He explained that this would aid engineers and physicists in creating more durable metals and cheaper computer chips and in helping detect flaws in building materials.
"Makes sense," Dodd said. "Heck, I'm surprised we didn't have this already."
Schwartz created AFMetric in an intense five-week period he spent working with Professor Eugene Rabkin, an expert in grain boundary engineering, this summer in a program at the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.
At the beginning of the meeting, Dodd jokingly asked Schwartz, now a freshman at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "Why not go to school in Connecticut, why go to school in Boston?"
This prompted a serious discussion about the University of Connecticut's inability to attract the best students from Connecticut. "They are just not aggressive about identifying the best students in the state," Dodd said. "Now if you were 6'9", it would be a different story," he added lightly, alluding to UConn's powerhouse basketball program.
"They aren't aggressive at all," Schwartz agreed. "I never heard from them."
Laura Schwartz said that Benjamin had been interested in science "since he was three years old," and that while growing up, the only television he was allowed to watch were video rentals of shows like "Nova" or the science show "Teacher to Teacher with Mister Wizard."
"Half of what I know came from Mr. Wizard," Schwartz said.
Dodd then asked slyly, "So where did you sneak [watching other television shows]?" The Schwartzes laughed heartily.
Schwartz expressed an interest in understanding government and said that someday he would want to be the science adviser to the president because "technology changes foreign policy. Look at the debate now over countries with weapons of mass destruction."
Dodd promptly extended Schwartz an invitation to work in his Senate office here next summer so he could see how policy is formulated. " I'm always excited when people express a desire to understand policy and how politics work," Dodd said.
After the meeting, which lasted 30 minutes, Schwartz said, "That was great, and I am very interested in working for [Dodd] next summer."
"Ben is an impressive young man - bright and articulate," Dodd said in a press release. "He makes Connecticut and Westport proud, and I wish him all the best in his future achievements."
Published in The Hour, in Connecticut.
Traffic in Fairfield County Could Worsen
By Andrew Kosow
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24, 2002--The Senate's overwhelming rejection of an amendment offered by Connecticut's two Democratic senators may have removed the last major obstacle in the Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe's 20-year quest to receive federal recognition and move ahead with its plans for a casino in Bridgeport.
The Senate defeated the amendment sponsored by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D - Conn.) and supported by Sen. Joe Lieberman (D - Conn.), 85-15, Monday night. Its rejection could clear the way for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to hear the tribe's petition for formal recognition.
"The defeat of the Dodd amendment is a great relief to the Golden Hill tribe," the leader of the tribe, Chief Quiet Hawk, told The New York Times immediately after the vote. "It would have been a delay unneeded and unfounded."
Once recognized by the federal government, the Paugussett tribe could go forward with its plans for a casino that many say would worsen the severe traffic congestion on I-95 in Fairfield County.
"It would turn I-95 into a parking lot," Rep. Chris Shays (R-4th) said recently of the proposed casino. "I can't imagine [I-95] would not have to be widened."
A July 2001 report by the South Western Regional Planning Agency titled "Casino Traffic Impact Study" backs up Shays' assessment. "Bumper-to-bumper conditions on a summer Friday would increase from 6 hours today to 14 hours a day," the report said, adding that the average speed on northbound I-95 would lessen from 46 miles an hour to 34 based on what it describes as "conservative estimates" of increased traffic.
Not so, a spokesman for the tribe said. "Bridgeport is an ideal site because of the access," the spokesman said in a phone interview Tuesday. "People can take the Port Jefferson ferry from New York, and there is nearby Sikorsky Airport that will also alleviate traffic." He also indicated that much of the traffic to the Bridgeport casino already would have been going to the Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun casinos and would now have a shorter drive to a casino.
Dodd said in a press release that he was disappointed the Senate rejected his amendment to the Interior appropriations bill. The amendment would have imposed a moratorium on Bureau of Indian Affairs recognition of Indian tribes until major bureau reforms are instituted. But he added that he and Lieberman would continue to push for reforms.
"As we go forward, we will continue to pursue our goal of reforming the system through other avenues," Lieberman said in the same press release. "[We also will] continue showing our colleagues how these recognition decisions are having such an intense impact in Connecticut."
Shays said in a phone interview Tuesday that he had empathy for what the Connecticut senators were trying to accomplish. "The system is broken and it needs to be fixed."
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is scheduled to hear the Paugussetts' application for federal recognition on Jan. 18.
Published in The Hour, in Connecticut.
