Category: Fall 2002 Newswire
USPIRG says ‘Revere Copper Products Violating Law’
By Joe Crea
WASHINGTON, Nov. 07, 2002–Several weeks ago marked the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, ambitious legislation that has regulated hazardous discharges in our nation’s waterways. On the eve of this celebration, a public interest group said that thousands of facilities including Revere Copper Products in New Bedford have been violating their permit by exceeding their permit dumping levels of hazardous metals.
The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) released “In Gross Violation: How Polluters are Flooding America’s Waterways with Toxic Chemicals,” detailing the lax enforcement of the CWA by the Environmental Protection Agency and state environmental agencies. About 5,116 major facilities in the U.S. have exceed their permit limits at least once between January 1, 1999 and December 31, 2001 and 1,768 of these facilities have discharged chemicals that are known or suspected to cause cancer and other serious health ailments, according to the report.
The report states that Revere Copper Products in New Bedford has exceeded their permit dumping levels of zinc into the Acushnet River by 3,179 percent over their normal limit. In a prepared statement, the company’s Vice President of Environmental and Human Resources, Kevin P. Cleary, called the report ‘misleading,’ and said that it created a ‘false impression.’
Cleary said the zinc levels were recorded at monitoring points located within the wastewater process ‘well before the discharge to the Acushnet River.’
“The facility itself reports this information to the EPA so I don’t understand what they’re (Revere Copper Products) saying in this statement,” said Richard Caplan, a US PIRG researcher who contributed to the report. “This is not an insignificant violation. It’s quite significant. They’ve violated the law.”
The health effects of high hazard chemicals like zinc are numerous. It’s a suspected blood, immuno, reproductive, respiratory and skin toxin. And any workers in the area that are exposed to accidental releases of the chemical in the facility could experience many ailments from respiratory problems to affixation, said Liz Hitchcock Communication Director for U.S. PIRG.
“When you confront these violators they often say, ‘well, people take Zinc lozenges,’” said Hitchcock. “However, the average level of zinc dumped into the Acushnet River by Revere Copper Products is 3,179% over their permit limit. Those aren’t lozenges levels.”
US PIRG said that their report makes clear that facilities are not being deterred from violating the law despite the fact that fines could be numerous for violaters.
According to the Sierra Club, if a company unknowingly violated their permits, they can be charged no less than $2500 and nor more than 25,000 per day of the violation. But for those who willingly violate their permits, the daily fines can reach close to $50,000.
“Those are pretty sizable fines especially if you are exceeding your permit for a few years,” said Ed Hopkins, director of the Sierra Club’s Environmental Quality program. “But, the courts are very sensitive about putting companies out of business, so a lot of the time it’s rare that the full penalty is imposed,” said Hopkins.”
Hitchcock says that one of the problems with the CWA is that it doesn’t have ‘mandatory enforcement’ attached to it. “With 88,000 violations of the law, that might indicate that there was less than enthusiastic enforcement happening,” said Hitchcock. “California and New Jersey have passed laws that establish mandatory fines but the
CWA as is, gives the charge to the states to enforce the law.”
In his statement, Cleary said that his company ‘considers environmental performance to be a matter of continuous improvement’ and is in the process of installing ‘additional water treatment enhancements including a final pH treatment system and increased equalization capacity.’
Published in The New Bedford Standard Times, in Massachusetts.
Republicans May Dictate Lame Duck Session
By Riley Yates
WASHINGTON, Nov. 06, 2002--Tuesday's election saw a shift of power in the Senate, which in the upcoming lame duck session may propel New Hampshire's senators to the chairmanships of two key committees and give Republicans control of the legislative agenda.
"I am heartened by the knowledge that the GOP will once again be in the majority in both chambers" because Bush's agenda has a better chance of success then, Sen. Bob Smith, who leaves the Senate after the lame duck session, said in a statement.
Sen. Judd Gregg, on the other hand, focused on what he will do as chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee - if not in the lame duck session, then in the 108th Congress.
Gregg said in a statement that he would focus on passing a Medicare prescription drug benefit bill that includes access to generic drugs. Another big priority is ensuring that the United States is prepared in the event of a bioterrorism attack by allowing citizens access to the smallpox vaccine and medicine to treat other biological attacks, he said.
Smith also might briefly take control of the Environment and Public Works Committee, of which he is currently the ranking minority member, but Smith's office did not want to comment on what his priorities would be if that were to occur.
On the eve of the 2002 elections, Democrats held a one-seat majority in the Senate, having 50 votes to the Republicans' 49, with one seat vacant because of the Oct. 25 death of Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota.
The race for Wellstone's seat, as well as for a Missouri Senate seat to be filled immediately because the incumbent had been appointed to the seat, were decided in favor of the GOP. While neither result had been certified as of Wednesday, those victories were expected to give Republicans at least the same number of votes as Democrats in the lame duck session, with Vice President Cheney breaking any ties.
Normally, general elections do not affect the political makeup of a lame duck session, as the winners of the contests are not sworn in until January.
The Missouri race, however, determined who would serve the remainder of Democratic Sen. Jean Carnahan's term, to which she was appointed after her late husband, Gov. Mel Carnahan, posthumously won his election bid two years ago.
With Republican challenger Jim Talent defeating Carnahan, control of the seat will switch parties as soon as the result are certified, reportedly not until several days after the lame duck session begins.
The Minnesota race also saw a winner who could take office early to fill the Wellstone seat.
Republican Norm Coleman, who defeated former Vice President Walter Mondale in that race, will take his seat as soon as his victory is officially certified. In the meantime, Gov. Jesse Ventura's temporary appointee, Dean Barkley, an independent who has not said which party he will vote with, would be seated. Without his--or Coleman's--vote, the Senate would probably be split,with neither party having a majority of the votes, making Cheney's vote the tiebreaker. But if Talent is qualified in time, the GOP would have a clear majority of the Senate.
"There are some conflicting scenarios here," said John Fortier, a political analyst for the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. "But by all rights, Republicans are going to take the chairmanships and make the rules."
Republicans have two equally compelling options in the lame duck session, Fortier said. They could wait until Talent takes his seat and then use the momentum generated in the elections to try to pass the homeland security bill, which has been stalled for months.
They could also decide to wait until the dust settles and the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3, he said, when they are assured of having at least a bare majority of seats.
The potential makeup of the new Senate is 51-46 in favor of Republicans, with one independent, Jim Jeffords of Vermont, voting with the Democrats. One race was undecided Wednesday and another was subject to an automatic recount.
Republicans' decision on how to approach the lame duck session will probably be based on their ability to reorganize the Senate, said Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, another Washington think tank.
"My sense is that they're not going to go through all that," she said.
But GOP lawmakers are unlikely to know yet what they are going to do, Fortier said, having been caught off guard by such favorable election results. "They probably didn't consider having as good of a night as they did," he said.
Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.
Dems. Flooding New Hampshire With Cash
By Max Heuer
WASHINGTON, Nov. 01, 2002--National money is pouring into the Granite State for this midterm election at a record pace.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has given an historic amount of money to New Hampshire's state and local Democratic committees for a non-Presidential election.
The DNC money has flowed into the state at more than twice the rate of money from its Republican counterpart, according to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
The DNC funneled nearly $3.7 million to the Granite State's party committee from Jan. 1, 2001 through Oct. 16, 2002, according to the FEC. That figure dramatically outpaces Republican National Committee spending in New Hampshire. The RNC transferred a record of more than $1.4 million to the state and local party committees in the same time period.
The spending is important for candidates in the New Hampshire Senate and House races because under current election law, state party committees operate as political action committees (PACs).
There is no cap on donations to PACs, and state committees often pay for "issue ads" during elections. Although issue ads cannot directly encourage viewers to vote for or against a specific candidate, they often do so indirectly.
In the last midterm election, in 1998, the DNC transferred just $189,907 to the Granite State's Democratic committees and the RNC just $79,500 to GOP state committees, according to the FEC. In the only Senate race that year, GOP Sen. Judd Gregg was re-elected with an overwhelming 68 percent of the vote.
There are two reasons for the contributions increase, UNH assistant professor of political science Mark Wrighton said: First, there is heightened national interest because the New Hampshire Senate race is one of only a few that will determine control of the Senate, and second, this is the last year for unregulated "soft-money" donations thanks to the campaign finance bill that Congress passed in March and that becomes law next Wednesday, the day after the elections.
The new law will ban soft-money donations to political parties and limit some advertising before an election. So the 2002 elections represent the last chance for donors to slide huge checks directly to the parties, Wrighton said.
Nationally, the RNC has outspent the DNC 2 to 1. The RNC has transferred more than $46 million to state committees around the country, while the DNC has transferred about $21.6 million, according to the FEC.
Almost all the money the DNC transferred to Granite State Democratic committees was in the form of soft money- a whopping $3.53 million. The RNC's soft-money transfers totaled $974,728 this year, roughly two-thirds of its total contribution. Wrighton said that the money the RNC had transferred was probably a "rational decision" that factored in other important races.
He said the large disparity between the two national party committees' New Hampshire contributions was not an indication that the GOP wasn't paying enough attention to close New Hampshire races, specifically the Senate contest between Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen and Rep. John E. Sununu.
Instead, he said, Democrats have to spend more on ads if they are to win in the historically conservative Granite State, where even the number of registered Independents is significantly larger than registered Democrats.
"(Shaheen) has gained, but I think the best way to describe her task is as an uphill battle," Wrighton said. "(Democrats) have to appeal to the Independents, and that's going to require some bucks."
"It's a race we think we can win," DNC communications director Maria Cardona said. "It would be a big coup if we could pick up that seat. The resources reflect a priority that the Democrats have."
RNC spokesman Dan Ronayne said the committee was supporting Sununu and explained the high level of Democratic national support as a philosophical difference between the parties. "Democrats tend to think that all power, knowledge and wisdom come from Washington, D.C.," Ronayne said.
The largest soft-money contributions to any state have come from the RNC, which has transferred more than $5.3 million to Florida state and local committees. Ronayne would not comment on what that figure represented, but one GOP state official attributed it to the relatively low cost of commercials in New Hampshire compared to other media markets.
"We're supportive of all of our candidates in New Hampshire and feel that at the end of the day it will be leadership that will be appreciated by the voters of New Hampshire and not negative attack ads," Ronayne said. Shaheen has raised $4,701,976 to Sununu's $2,847,690, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
The Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee has transferred about $2.5 million to state GOP committees in New Hampshire. Its Democratic counterpart has transferred about $2.3 million to its state party committees.
Phone calls to the New Hampshire Democratic Party were not returned.
Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.
Lebanon – Highest Crime Rate in N.H.
By Riley Yates
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2002--Lebanon, in west-central New Hampshire near the Vermont border, had the highest crime rate of any city in the Granite State last year, according to the annual FBI crime report released this week.
Lebanon saw 42.4 crimes per 1,000 people in 2001, compared to an average of 23.4 per 1,000 in other New Hampshire cities with populations above 10,000. Concord and Nashua were not included in the study because they did not submit complete data.
Of the 544 crimes reported in Lebanon, 449 of them were cases of theft or larceny, such as cashing bad checks. There were many fewer violent crimes reported in the city - five rapes, one robbery and nine cases of aggravated assault - giving Lebanon a lower violent crime rate than the rest of the state. New Hampshire ranks in the lowest five in the nation in that category.
Jim Alexander, a spokesman for the Lebanon police, said Thursday that the city's high number of property crimes are probably attributable to the large number of people who pass through it each day.
Lebanon has the biggest retail base of all the North Country, Alexander said. The number of people in the city swells during the day as Vermont residents shop there to avoid paying their state's sales tax. By all estimates, he said, the city's population of 13,000 at least doubles during business hours.
"If you are going to burglarize, you're going to come here," Alexander said. "We have a huge group of people during the day, and that brings a lot of crime. Where there [are] more people, there is more opportunity."
Burglaries, another category in the FBI report, appear to be on the increase in 2002, Alexander said. From January through September 2002, Lebanon police reported 54 burglaries, he said. For all of last year, there were 51.
The city also saw a murder in 2002, when 19-year-old Corey Brink was shot and killed in an apartment parking lot on Sept. 22.
But in many crimes, Alexander said, Lebanon appears to be seeing a decrease. In the first 9 months of 2001, there were 495 thefts and cases of larceny. During the same period in 2002, those crimes had dropped to 466, he said.
"Some crimes are rising, others falling," Alexander said. "It seems about the same overall."
Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.
Election Reform Bill Promises Upgrades for Disabled Services
By Marty Toohey
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2002--When Janet Wallans goes to the voting booth next Tuesday, she'll bring a braille-covered piece of paper to help her remember the ballot layout.
She used to memorize the ballot, but it's difficult to remember everything, she said. So now she calls the county clerk's office on Election Day and has someone read the ballot to her over the phone. She transcribes what she hears into braille.
Wallans, who is from Hartford, is legally blind. She can operate the voting machines, which use levers, "but it's tricky sometimes" and maybe even a little inaccurate because she can't see her choices, she said.
But Wallans is fiercely protective of her right to privacy in the voting booth and won't allow anyone to assist her with the equipment.
"A person's vote is private," she said.
Statistically speaking, Wallans is an exception: A person with a disability who votes. Nationwide, there are an estimated 30 million eligible voters with disabilities of various kinds, but a 1999 Harris Poll showed that fewer than 30 percent of them cast their ballots. By contrast, 51.3 percent of eligble voters cast their ballots in the 2000 general election. Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewisz said that 200,000 to 300,000 of the state's 400,000 eligible voters with disabilities don't participate. For all eligible voters in the state, 58.4 percent voted in the 2000 general election.
But thanks to national legislation authored by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and efforts within the state to reform the election process, this may be the last time that Wallans will have to call ahead or use antiquated machines.
The $3.86 billion election reform bill, which President Bush signed into law on Tuesday, requires every precinct in the country by 2006 to have at least one machine for people with disabilities. Connecticut is considering implementing ATM-style touch screens, which Bysiewisz's office hopes to test in the 2003 elections. The machines would have braille keys and auditory cues telling voters what they're selecting. They would also be provided by the manufacturers for testing at no taxpayer cost, Bysiewisz said.
"I think the new machines could be very helpful," said Wallans, who heads a commission in Hartford advising the city on services for people with disabilities "The equipment is definitely there. It's just a matter of buying it."
The new reform law authorizes $100 million nationwide in grants to improve polling places for voters with disabilities, and authorizes another $40 million in grants over four years for state entities to assist voters with disabilities. It also requires states to establish centralized voter databases, patterned after Connecticut's,Bysiewisz said/ Shegave advice on the voter registration portion of the bill, and was at Bush's signing ceremony. It's uncertain how much federal money Connecticut could receive, though, because the commission to oversee the reform law hasn't been formed, and the grant formulas haven't been calculated.
Congress has not appropriated money for the bill yet, but its advocates, including Dodd, have pledged to fund the bill to the full amount, and point to the overwhelming support it received in both congressional chambers as evidence that the money will go through.
Published in The New Britain Herald, in Connecticut.
N.H. Race Tight Despite Fundraising Differences
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2002--In politics, money may not be everything, but it certainly might matter. In one of the tightest Senate races in the country, New Hampshire Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen leads Rep. John Sununu by only 48 to 42 percent, within the 5 percentage-point margin of error in a poll conducted last week by the Becker Institute. The poll results were reported in Hotline, an online political daily.
While Sununu has raised $2.8 million during his campaign, Shaheen has almost doubled Sununu's fundraising efforts with $4.7 million through Oct. 16, according to the Center for Responsive Politics at its opensecrets.org Web site, which tracks candidates' contribution filings to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
Financial resources were an integral part of the preparation, said Colin Van Ostern, spokesman for the Shaheen campaign, since it was believed that Sununu would outspend Shaheen by the end of the campaign.
"In addition to the money raised for the Sununu campaign, we've seen millions upon millions of dollars coming in from the national Republican Party, and when you see that kind of money coming in, you have to be prepared," Van Ostern said.
Van Ostern attributed Shaheen's fundraising to her wide range of support throughout New Hampshire and the United States.
"She offers a compelling solution to get the economy back on track, and she supports a woman's right to choose," Van Ostern said. "She's mounted a very strong campaign and gone from being 10 points behind in the polls to ahead in the polls."
Shaheen has also outspent Sununu, spending $3.7 million to Sununu's $2.4 million and still has $995,000 on hand as compared to Sununu's $442,000.
Julie Teer, spokeswoman for Sununu's campaign, said that the campaign does not see having less money than the Shaheen campaign as a hindrance because "John Sununu has always been out-raised and outspent in every election, and he always wins."
Teer added that a lack of funding would not deter Sununu from his mission of winning because "the political graveyard is full of people who had all the money and didn't win."
"He's going to continue to run the kind of campaign he's always run," Teer said. "Person to person, door to door, community to community, a traditional grassroots campaign."
Both candidates have received funds from a variety of political action committees (PACs) in support of their campaigns. Among Shaheen's contributors are EMILY's List, a PAC in support of pro-abortion rights Democratic women candidates, and the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.
Sununu counts the Business Industry PAC, which is supported by leaders in the business community, including Lockheed Martin Corp. and General Motors Corp.; and the New Republican Majority Fund, the PAC for Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.).
Additionally, the League of Conservation Voters has spent $118,381 for polling, mailing, and ads attacking Sununu, while the American Society of Anesthesiologists PAC spent $126,414 preparing and running radio and newspaper ads against Shaheen.
Published in The Keene Sentinel, in New Hampshire.
New HUD Grant for Seniors
By Max Heuer
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2002--The Bush administration announced a new grant Wednesday designed to help seniors in Dover stay in their homes longer and live independently.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development allotted the Dover Housing Authority a $200,000 Resident Opportunities and Self Sufficiency (ROSS) program grant.
The Dover Housing Authority, which provides elderly housing units to 297 seniors, collaborates with Wentworth Homecare and Hospice to provide home medical and homemaking services under the Dover program, which has existed for five years.
Dover Housing Authority supportive services coordinator Kathryn Conway-Dorr said the program provides seniors with help doing basic house cleaning and errands.
"If the resident has trouble or is putting themselves at risk, the homemaker coming in can be there," Conway-Dorr said in a telephone interview.
The grant marks the third straight year HUD has funded the program with a $200,000 ROSS grant.
Conway-Dorr said the grant "has allowed us to reach all of our residents on some level; it's not just for the most frail elderly."
The Dover program also provides information for seniors who do not need assistance to keep themselves safe and healthy.
Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.
How Much Will The New I-93 Plan Really Help?
By Max Heuer
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2002--Whether traffic on Interstate 93 is going to get better any time in the next decade is still anybody's guess.
The U.S. Department of Transportation formally announced Thursday that the $420 million project to widen I-93 was one of several construction projects put on an expedited list to speed up environmental review. But exactly how much faster the process will be still isn't clear.
"(In terms of) how does (the program) actually get implemented and what difference ultimately will it effect I don't know," Jeff Brillhart, director of project development for New Hampshire's Transportation Department and the former manager of the I-93 project, said in a phone interview Thursday.
The list is part of a program that -- under an executive order from President Bush about six weeks ago- - will create a Cabinet-level, interagency task force designed to simplify the environmental review process without upsetting federal law on the issue.
Brillhart said he hadn't seen any specific information on the task force other than a press release. He said he was expecting that eventually "something will come down from the Federal Highway Administration."
The goal behind the new task force is to avoid "duplication" and "red tape" that have delayed projects, a U.S. Transportation Department spokesman said Thursday on condition of anonymity. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta echoed this statement in a press release, saying that "President Bush asked his Cabinet to help states cut through federal bureaucratic inertia to help them complete sound transportation projects more quickly and at less cost."
The department spokesman said that a "second wave" of announcements is coming soon that will place other projects around the country on the new list. The spokesman said that the function of the new system was simply to avoid multiple reviews of the same site by different groups with similar interests.
The Environmental Protection Agency has been involved for years with the I-93 project, which would widen the highway lanes in an 18-mile stretch between the Massachusetts border and Manchester.
"(The I-93 project) has been on a fast track basis… since day one," said Elizabeth Higgins, Northeast director of the EPA's Office of Environmental Review. Higgins said the widening of I-93 was a "pilot project" for streamlining the review process. Unlike with most construction projects, she said, the I-93 project's environmental impact statement that her agency made public Sept. 13 was preceded by months of detailed interagency discussion.
But the EPA and the New Hampshire Transportation Department have been unable to come to a consensus on mitigating damage to wetlands along the road - or on how much land in other areas of the Granite State should be preserved in the place of wetlands lost to the widening of I-93. This issue remains the single biggest stumbling block between the two agencies.
Brillhart said the EPA is pushing for secondary impact mitigation, which would provide an additional 3,000 acres of land with high ecological value. This land would be included because of the potential for further loss of wetlands as a consequence of an increase in business and housing development in New Hampshire towns not directly adjacent to the highway, Brillhart said.
The New Hampshire agency has agreed to 650 acres of wetland mitigation for towns that are immediately adjacent to the highway, Brillhart said. Higgins said the EPA had not specified an exact amount of land, but that its position is that more land should be included.
Brillhart said that the New Hampshire Transportation Department does not need EPA approval but added that there will be "some negotiation" on the issue. The. Army Corps of Engineers, the state Wetlands Bureau and the Federal Highway Administration are the agencies that grant the the state highway agency permission to widen the interstate, Brillhart said.
Brillhart said that after environmental concerns are addressed, the final design must be approved by these agencies. He estimated that "some construction" would begin by 2004 but that the project would probably not be completed until 2012. Brillhart added that obtaining proper funding would be another "critical item."
The original estimate for the $ project was $150 million, state transportation commissioner Carol Murray told The Union Leader Wednesday. The department's budget is about $150 million a year, and additional federal funding is "the other unknown" in addition to the eventual cost of the project, Murray said.
Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.
Violent Crime Down in N.H.
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Gregg Protects N.H. Voting Exemptions
WASHINGTON, Oct. 30, 2002--Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) succeeded in preserving two key New Hampshire exemptions-same-day registration on Election Day and no "motor voter" provisions-- in an election reform bill that President Bush signed into law Tuesday.
Gregg said Wednesday he felt the exemptions were important because "New Hampshire has an extremely aggressive and effective election system." He added that because the state has relied heavily on local election officials to oversee elections, "it has allowed us to deliver elections to people in the most effective way with integrity."
New Hampshire, along with five other states, will continue to be exempt from federal motor voter laws, which allow voter registration at department of motor vehicle offices. The other states are Idaho, Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
According to Patricia Little, city clerk for Keene, motor voter registration creates additional problems for voters instead of making the process easier. The problem, she said, is that every time people visit the department of motor vehicles they are asked about registration, regardless of their current voting status.
"The bureaucracy that results from motor voter is much worse than the bureaucracy from same-day registration," Little said. "The people aren't even there to register, they're just there for [department of motor vehicle] social services."
Additionally, voters in New Hampshire will still be allowed to register on Election Day, under an exemption from the new law's provisional voting regulations.
Under those regulations, voters will be allowed to cast their ballots even if their names are absent from the registration list at their voting precinct. Election commissioners would then have seven to 10 days to verify the validity of a voter's registration status.
Gregg said there is no need for provisional voting in New Hampshire because regardless of their status, voters can register on the spot when they go to vote on Election Day.
"Election Day registration in a small state where there is a high level of integrity is very appropriate, although it might not work in New York City," Gregg said. "If you have this, you don't need provisional voting."
The new law, which the Senate passed earlier this month by 92-2 and the Houseapproved,357-48, was a reaction to the issues that arose in Florida in the 2000 election-including concerns about voters' registration that could not be verified in time to allow them to vote. Joining Gregg in favor of the bill, the Help America Vote Act of 2002, were New Hampshire Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.) and Rep. John E. Sununu (R-1st). Rep. Charles Bass (R-2nd) did not vote.
Bill Gardner, who has been New Hampshire's secretary of state since 1976, lauded Gregg for his efforts on the bill.
"I appreciate the considerable time and effort undertaken by Sen. Gregg to make sure New Hampshire is able to retain control of how we run our own elections," Gardner said in a statement. "In New Hampshire, we have seen a constant increase in voter turnout and more accurate and efficient elections in the past few years."
During an interview, Gardner said the problem with the new law is similar to the problems in the 1993s Voter Registration Act--which enacted the motor voter provision--in that it attempts to create a blanket solution for every area of the country.
"The problem with the federal law was that it affected metro areas as much as rural areas, and what you need in a city is not what you need in the country," Gardner said. "We didn't need to have the problem areas fixed because they didn't exist."
According to Gregg, Gardner was instrumental in explaining the importance of the New Hampshire exemptions to the staff of Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.). Dodd, the author of the legislation, had initially opposed the exemptions. Gardner said the more Dodd's office found out about New Hampshire's voting system, the more his support increased because "they certainly couldn't argue with the turnout, and New Hampshire has one of the highest voter turnouts in the country."
Gardner said New Hampshire has been ahead of the curve with voting procedures because of the high number of elections in the state as well as the number of recounts following many close elections in the state. With 400 members, New Hampshire has the largest state House of Representatives in the country, accounting for many of the elections.
"In a state like Florida, you don't become aware of problems as quickly as you do with a state that has a lot of recounts," Gardner said. For example, Gardner said, New Hampshire banned punch card voting machines in 1986 after discovering the amount of inaccurate counting that occurred.
While approximately $5 million of the $3.9 billion the new law authorizes is supposed to go to New Hampshire, Gardner said he is concerned about whether Congress will even appropriate the authorized funds. He pointed out that much of the money that was supposed to be spent to carry out the Voter Registration Act was never appropriated.
"Until they appropriate the money, I'm not sure how much of this bill will be administered," he said.
According to Gardner, the funds would be used to build a statewide database, in which registered voters' names could be checked instantaneously, and to buy the computers and hardware necessary for each town to link to the system. Additionally, money could be spent on voter education, training of election officials and purchase of voting machines that would allow blind people to vote without assistance.
Gregg, however, said he believes the problem will not be appropriating the money but making sure each state spends it effectively.
"I think we're going to see the reverse a lot more," Gregg said. "Places like Broward County [Florida] are going to go out and buy new equipment because they have the money and then find out it doesn't even work, like they did in the [recent] primary with the touch-screen voting machines."
Published in The Keene Sentinel, in New Hampshire.
