Category: Fall 2003 Newswire
The Race for the Youth Vote
by Kevin Joy
WASHINGTON – Inside a fashionable nightclub one Monday night in October, Christian Price sipped Cristal champagne and mingled among 4,500 couture-clad twentysomethings packing the smoky, four-story dance hall on Washington’s Northeast side. But she wasn’t there to party, even though the open bar and thumping hip-hop music suggested otherwise.
This wasn’t just a casual evening out. Attendees paid $50 each to see former President Bill Clinton, the headliner at a bash intended to raise money for the Democratic National Committee and, perhaps more important, raise political participation among young people.
Around 11:30, over the booming strains of 50 Cent’s ubiquitous rap jingle “In Da Club,” Clinton took the stage to deafening applause and chants of “Bill! Bill! Bill!”
He spoke for only five minutes, but that didn’t matter. The event raised $250,000-90 percent of it from first-time political donors.
“Every time I see him I get star-struck,” Price, 21, a Capitol Hill intern, said of Clinton. “If the DNC did more events like this, they’d make a ton of money and reach more people.”
Reaching young people and spurring them to vote is a constant and growing challenge for politicians and political parties. The nine Democrats vying for their party’s presidential nomination are trying to break out of the pack in part by finding unique ways to connect to a generation distrustful of politics and reared on scandal.
With such demographer-coined titles as Generation Y, the New Millenials and the Nintendo Generation, young people today grew up on tabloid journalism, cable TV and, most recently, the Internet. They were bombarded with images of O.J. Simpson and Monica Lewinsky. They are media savvy and often skeptical. They watch reality television.
The trouble is, they avoid Election Day more than any other age group.
“The emerging voter right now already grew up in a world established by Watergate,” said Robert Thompson, director of the Center for Popular Television at Syracuse University. “In an age of fragmented popular culture, you’ve got a cynical, wise-guy population of young people.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, voter turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds dipped from 50 percent in 1972-the first time 18-year-olds could vote in a presidential race-to 32 percent in 1996 and again in 2000.
That’s 8.6 million young people who voted in the last presidential election. By contrast, more than 40 million people cast votes for their favorites in the last two seasons of “American Idol,” a televised pop-star competition.
Steve Christoforou, 21, a senior in history at Yale and president of the university’s debate society, said he thinks college students have difficulty seeing past the “campus lens” and into the distant future when deciding whether to vote.
“We’re still young, and the consequences aren’t as visible,” he said. Candidates’ positions on Medicare, Social Security or tax reform won’t usually inspire 18-year-olds to vote, though they will bring out senior citizens-already the most dominant group at the polls, Christoforou said. “Candidates are not as deeply relevant in the same way to some young people like they might be for older generations.
” Many political experts view young people as politically unattainable. Former Clinton political adviser Paul Begala, now co-host of CNN’s “Crossfire,” deemed them “hopelessly ill-informed.”
Nevertheless, voting advocacy groups, political strategists and an odd smattering of celebrities have renewed efforts this year to attract a generation they see as an untapped resource, one that could produce crucial swing votes in a tight election.
Campaigns to entice young voters to the polls have been diverse, even a bit unorthodox. They include the non-partisan Smack Down Your Vote, supported by World Wrestling Entertainment and the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (and more recently, the League of Women Voters), which registers voters at rallies featuring popular rappers, wrestling stars and religious leaders.
Two nonpartisan groups, Newspapers in Education and the National Association of Secretaries of State, have endorsed the short, snarky film “Let’s Go Voting,” starring actors Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughan, which tells high schoolers that voting is, like, really cool. The hyperactive 20-minute movie is the product of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of the controversial animated series “South Park.”
The $4 million New Voters Project is a nationwide drive to register 260,000 young people in the next year and to increase voter turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds by 5 percent in 2004.
Declare Yourself, a $9 million voting drive founded by 81-year-old television producer and Connecticut native Norman Lear, includes an 18-college tour featuring an original copy of the Declaration of Independence. The only New England stop is Keene State College in New Hampshire on Jan. 26, the day before that state’s primary.
Smack Down Your Vote and Declare Yourself aspire to get a total of 2 million more young adults to vote in the 2004 election. But will the endorsement of rap artist LL Cool J or the Spandex-wearing, body-slamming Superstar Maven of World Wrestling Entertainment attract new voters?
Curtis Gans, director of the nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, said glitzy, celebrity-driven campaigns are not often effective, since they rarely address anything other than the action of voting itself.
“Youths don’t vote because a wrestler or rock star asked them to,” Gans said. “They do vote because of idealism, a sense of greater national issues, something larger than themselves-really getting engaged through grassroots politics.”
A study released in October by the Harvard University Institute of Politics, which surveyed 18- to 24-year-olds on campuses across the nation, showed political interest is on the upswing. Of the 1,202 students who responded, 86 percent said they would “probably” or “definitely” vote in 2004. That would be a 169 percent increase from four years ago and, experts say, unlikely to occur.
On the other hand, a Harvard poll conducted in April 2000 found that 51 percent of students who participated believed political involvement rarely produced tangible results. A University of California-Los Angeles survey last fall found that less than one-third of incoming college freshmen view following politics as “important.”
“I don’t know what kind of sampling they’re taking,” said Derek Garcia, 22, a senior at Wesleyan University. “Most of that criticism has been generated mostly to cast American students as being apathetic to political issues. Colleges are centers of social issues and open-mindedness.”
Wesleyan, however, was rated the nation’s most politically active campus by Mother Jones magazine. More than 750 of the school’s 2,700 undergraduates traveled to New York last February to try to prevent the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Campus sidewalks are constantly etched in activist rhetoric with colored chalk. The college is, as 21-year-old Wesleyan junior Arusha Gordon called it, “kind of a bubble.”
But student sentiment is different on other campuses.
“This is a very apathetic campus, not very well-versed in politics at all,” said John Jevitts, 20, a junior at the University of Connecticut. “In no way could most people here name all nine [Democratic presidential] candidates.”
Since only about one-quarter of recent high-school graduates are enrolled in college, reaching the other 75 percent is difficult, said Dorothy James, a government professor at Connecticut College.
“You have a body of people who aren’t particularly interested in politics to begin with,” James said. “For these campaigns to make some real difference, they have to deal with the root cause of this problem. I’m not sure doing jazzy things is going to make a big difference.”
One of the most widely publicized efforts, last month’s Rock the Vote town-hall style debate-broadcast live on CNN from Boston’s Fanueil Hall-allowed viewers to question Democratic presidential candidates using e-mails, wireless text messaging and telephones. Technologically speaking, it was hip.
The questions ranged from marijuana use to racism to whether the candidates used Mac or PC computers (a play on the “boxers or briefs” inquiry Clinton fielded in a 1992 Rock the Vote event). The candidates tried to exude coolness-with only some degree of success.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and retired Gen. Wesley Clark, each wearing all-black ensembles with turtlenecks, looked slightly uncomfortable in their urbane threads.
It’s not window dressing-or issues, for that matter-but personal character that impresses young voters the most, said Ryan Jones, a UConn senior.
“What a lot of young people are looking for is strong leadership and personal dynamic,” said Jones, 21. “They’re more inclined to vote on the candidate, not just a specific issue.”
Politicians must tread carefully when courting young voters, according to Jonathan Zaff, president of 18to35, which works to involve young people in policymaking.
“This is an extremely savvy generation, and they’re not a group that likes to be marketed to,” Zaff said. “But the presidential candidates aren’t mind readers either. It’s important that young adults get involved and make sure their voices are heard.”
One popular method of small-scale mobilization has been through local gatherings called “meetups”-community get-togethers staged in coffeehouses, bars and homes to garner support for a candidate. On meetup.com, the Web site that organizes the events, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s campaign boasts 151,200 registered members. No other candidate has even one-third that number.
U.S. Representative Bob Ney, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Administration Committee, recently announced the formation of a bipartisan Congressional Youth Civic Caucus to look at issues affecting young people and urge politicians to initiate more voter outreach programs.
The Bush-Cheney campaign is starting its youth outreach eight months earlier than in the last election, according to spokesman Kevin Madden. It’s building a national student support group and organizing student committees. The campaign also is trying to reach out to a certain type of younger voter in another way: it has created a new fundraiser category called “Mavericks” for donors under 40 who raise $50,000 each.
With the help of Internet campaigning-encompassing e-mail “listservs” to send event updates, “blogs” that track day-to-day happenings and user-friendly Web sites-tech-savvy youth can feel more closely connected with a candidate, said Kerry Szeps, co-president the of the Connecticut Young Democrats. She credits Dean for fueling the Web-based phenomenon, which has garnered attention and copycat efforts from nearly every candidate.
While the Democratic presidential nominees are making every attempt to appeal to youth-the Rev. Al Sharpton recently hosted “Saturday Night Live” and Clark talks of his penchant for rap duo Outkast (“I can shake it like a Polaroid picture,” he said after a debate, using an obscure reference to one of the group’s hit songs)-they will have a tough time matching the electric connection Clinton made with young people in 1992.
Syracuse’s Thompson said he doubts any of the candidates will have an “Arsenio” moment, referencing Clinton’s wildly popular appearance on “The Arsenio Hall Show,” complete with sunglasses and a saxophone performance.
However, Dean did play Bob Dylan songs on the guitar and harmonica in Iowa last August.
But such attempts also carry risks.
“There’s always the uncomfortable moment when political candidates are in certain venues trying to ‘get down’ with the young folks-not only can that feel forced, but sometimes a little bit pathetic,” Thompson said. “They’ve got to speak with a candor and frankness that acknowledges this generation’s cynicism and skepticism, not to mention the very reason they’re appearing in this venue is to get their vote.”
UMass Dartmouth May Receive $1 Billion for Research
by Becky Evans
WASHINGTON - Textile and cranberry research projects at the University of Massachusetts could receive a windfall of more than $1 million in federal funds if the U.S. Senate approves the $820 billion spending bill that the House passed on Monday by a vote of 242-176.
The Senate is expected to vote on the measure when Congress reconvenes in January.
The legislation, which allocates funds for most federal departments and agencies, earmarks $870,000 for the National Textile Centers program at UMass Dartmouth and $154,000 for cranberry research at the UMass Cranberry Station in East Wareham.
"These funds will help the university continue its important role in the economy of Southeastern Massachusetts," Rep. Barney Frank, D-New Bedford, said in a statement. "The cranberry and textile industries are key elements of that economy, and the university has demonstrated an ability to help them meet the competitive challenges they face."
Research scientists at the textile center collaborate with businesses and the military to find solutions to real-world problems, such as the threat of biological warfare, said Paul Vigeant, assistant chancellor of UMass Dartmouth.
"The funding allows us to focus on science that will create the next generation of advanced materials used for scientific, technological and commercial products," he said.
Current projects include the development of military uniforms that can detect biological agents and self-cleaning shirts made from fabric that contains odor-eating bacteria.
"This is really cool science," Mr. Vigeant said.
The cranberry money would be used primarily for weed and pest control research, which is necessary to grow different strands of cranberries.
Scientists are also studying the health benefits of cranberries, which may include the prevention of kidney, coronary and gum disease.
"They are trying to understand how a berry that has been taken for granted for so long a time can improve the quality of life for so many people," Mr. Vigeant said. "Funding is so important."
In past years, the Massachusetts congressional delegation has secured funds for textile and cranberry research. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., will push for continued funding when the Senate debates the appropriations bill next year.
"This research has direct bearing on the SouthCoast economy," he said in a statement. "I am greatly appreciative that our colleagues have included it in the final budget agreement."
Emergence of Elder Abuse Nationwide and in Maine
WASHINGTON - The Bangor-based organization Spruce Run, which serves victims of domestic abuse, has received $42,488 in federal funds to improve its services to the victims of elder abuse beginning next spring.
Two years ago, Meg London of Family Crisis Services (FCS), which has worked with victims of domestic abuse in Cumberland and Sagadahoc counties since 1977, concluded that the problem of elder abuse was too often marginalized. So she decided to establish the Elder Advocate program to prevent elder abuse and to help victims.
"Elder people don't come to us, so we have to reach out to them," London said.
The decisions by Spruce Run and FCS to extend their services to abused senior citizens are evidence of the slow public emergence of a problem that feelings of shame and guilt have kept below the surface for many years.
The absence of federal laws on the subject has made coping with the elder abuse problem more difficult.
"There is federal legislation on domestic violence, child abuse, even on pet abuse, but nothing on elder abuse is current," said Debbie D. Didominicus, president of the Elder Abuse Institute of Maine.
But now, on both the federal and state levels, significant signals are being given that law enforcers will take on the issue.
Substantial numbers of Maine's seniors are victims of some form of abuse, in many cases inflicted by family members and other caregivers , according to Maine state officials and advocacy groups.
How many is unknown because elder abuse is a crime that goes largely unreported, according to these and other experts. Moreover, national and local crime reports do not list elder abuse as a separate category.
The National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA), which works to promote understanding and action on elder abuse, estimates that each year, 4 to 6 percent of Americans 60 and older encounter some form of abuse. The center reported that more than 500,000 Americans age 60 and over were victims of domestic abuse in 1996. And a bill now before the Senate Special Committee on Aging suggests that the total number of cases could be as high as 5 million a year.
Moreover, an NCEA study estimates that an alarming 84 per cent of elder abuse cases are not reported.
"It's a dirty secret no one wants to talk about," said Didominicus.
Particularly in cases of financial exploitation by relatives, she added, "people don't want a family member to go to jail; they just want their money back."
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Maine has 238,099 residents 60 and older, representing 19 per cent of its population. Rickard Hamilton, president of the National Association of Adult Protective Services Administrators, estimated that about 12,000 of them, or 5 percent, have been victims of abuse.
"The problem with current crime data is that they never considered elder abuse," he said.
Elder abuse can be physical, emotional or sexual or involve exploitation, neglect (including self-neglect) or abandonment, according to the National Center on Elder Abuse.
During an October hearing before the Senate Aging Committee, experts testified the most common forms of elder abuse were neglect, emotional or psychological abuse and financial exploitation. The latter can include stealing, larceny by false pretense, embezzlement, forgery, extortion, burglary and robbery.
Michael P. Cantara, commissioner of the Maine Department of Public Safety, said in an interview that in some cases, workers hired to do small jobs around the house win the trust of older people and steal their money. Sometimes, he said, they "grossly" overcharge for the work they do.
Hamilton said in an interview that older people are reluctant to report abuse "because of shame, guilt and fear of the unknown." Moreover, he said, many of the perpetrators are family members.
To Hamilton, America is "in the same situation [with elder abuse] as child abuse and domestic abuse was 20 years ago."
Cantara suggested that increased public awareness would lead to improvements in detecting, preventing and treating elder abuse cases.
"There has been much progress in child abuse and domestic violence that is due to 22 to 25 years campaigning on the part of advocacy groups and the government," he said. "In the battle against elder abuse, we need to train people to become more attuned to the problem."
Mike Webber, who specializes in financial abuse cases for the Maine attorney general's office, acknowledged that there is a problem with the collection of accurate data. But he provided some figures that give a sense of how large the problem is: at any one time, 15 to 20 cases of financial abuse of the elderly are open in Maine, with a total of about $1 million allegedly stolen.
In some cases, according to Webber, family members "take more from the victim than they take care of the victim."
But Congress is slowly waking up to the problem. In February, Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana, the senior Democrat on the aging committee, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, introduced the Elder Justice Act.
"Not one single employee in the federal government is devoted full time to address elder abuse and neglect," Breaux told his committee in October.
The bill would establish an Office of Elder Justice at both the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services and an interagency council that would coordinate federal, state and local prevention efforts and facilitate collection and analysis of data on elder abuse.
Maine Sen. Susan Collins is one of the original co-sponsors of the bill, and Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe supports "the concept" of the measure, according to her spokesman, Ted McEnroe.
Collins, a member of the aging committee, said in a statement that "the bill unites the social service, health, and law enforcement communities in analyzing elder abuse, improving the prevention and detection of elder victimization and making sure that mistreated seniors are able to receive needed services."
Echoing Didominicus and Hamilton, Collins said that "Mainers pride themselves on self-sufficiency and value their privacy. They may even be less likely to report abuse or neglect or ask for help."
Congress is expected to consider the bill, which has also been introduced in the House, early next year, according to Scott Mulhauser, Breaux's spokesman. He said he expects the bill to pass with bipartisan support.
Elder Advocate is and soon Spruce Run will work closely with Adult Protective Services, the Eastern Agency on Aging in Bangor and the University of Maine's Center on Aging to organize hearings, send out brochures and put up posters in an attempt to increase the community's awareness of elder abuse.
"We must make people aware that our parents and grandparents are being exploited, sometimes, on occasion, by family members," Cantara said. "Sometimes their trust is misplaced."
Cantara, during his career as a prosecutor, observed the emerging problem of elder abuse firsthand.
"It was a sad surprise that in the domestic violence cases we saw more and more people of 60 and older were becoming the victims of physical and sexual abuse," he said. "People that took care of themselves now rely upon us. They have become dependent on us."
No Town Left Behind in Terror Funding Flow
WASHINGTON - The town of Bennington, N.H., population 1,273, has one school and five chemical weapons suits.
Bennington bought the suits with some of the more than $6,500 in federal Homeland Security grants it received in 2003 - grants Congress authorized to help New Hampshire's 234 cities and towns respond to and prevent terrorist attacks.
Towns like Bennington highlight allegations by some government watchdogs and Congress members themselves that millions of taxpayers' dollars are going to waste in small corners of the country that face little real danger.
The reason: politics.
As congressional leaders rushed to fund anti-terror efforts after Sept. 11, they realized they wouldn't win enough votes to send money to New York and Washington unless they also provided a little something for every state from Alaska to Wyoming.
And New Hampshire. "I don't see no specific threats," said Bennington Police Chief Steve Campbell, whose department has two full-time and three part-time officers. "It was just something they offered, so we figured we'd get on the bandwagon. Even though we're a small department, we take advantage of it."
Critics say the current system - which awards funds based primarily on geography and population rather than need - wastes money protecting unlikely targets. They say a system that gives Wyoming, the least populous state, seven times more money per person than New York or Texas is fundamentally flawed.
"It's almost like an entitlement, like if you're below the poverty line you get food stamps," said David Williams, a policy executive for Citizens Against Government Waste, a Washington-based advocacy group that monitors government spending.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, Congress has created two main grant programs to help states prepare for terrorist attacks: one that spreads money to every state in the nation and the other that concentrates on areas most likely to come under attack. More than two-thirds of the $2.8 billion distributed by these programs in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 was awarded without regard to risk.
The $2 billion State Homeland Security Grant Program sent each state about $15.4 million, regardless of size, population or likely risk of attack. Six U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico and American Samoa, received a smaller amount. The roughly $1.2 billion remaining was spread among the states based on population. Under that program, New Hampshire got $17 per person and New York $5 per person.
"The way it's being done now is not rational, and it has to be changed," said former U.S. Senator Warren Rudman, a New Hampshire Republican who led an independent task force this summer that evaluated the grant system.
To make up for the imbalance, the Homeland Security Department devised the Urban Area Securities Initiative, which distributed another $800 million to 30 cities based on population density, the presence of potential terrorist targets and real threats intercepted by law enforcement agencies. New Hampshire received no money under this program.
But even with the extra $150 million that New York state garnered through the risk-based program, it still received $4 less per person than New Hampshire.
There's "a complete mismatch between the funding provided under this program and the need," New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly recently told Congress.
U.S. Congressman Jim Turner of Texas, the ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, was less diplomatic. At the same hearing, he called the system "haphazard" and "unfocused."
Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Rachael Sunbarger acknowledged the criticism, but said that New York also receives money from several other programs, many of which existed before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"If everything was just based on the Urban Area Security Initiative formula, then potentially states like New Hampshire and others would get very little from us," she said. "It'sáa good way to make sure that everybody gets a piece of the pie, and that's what everybody was shooting for."
At least eight bills currently before Congress would modify the way the swelling pot of homeland security money is doled out, in part to give a greater share to states that face the greatest threat of attack.
Meanwhile, members of Congress are working to "perfect" a threat-based system to distribute some of the homeland security money, said Sen. Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican and member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. But, he said in a statement, it is important to "strike a delicate balance between protecting highly populated urban areas without neglecting still-vulnerable rural areas."
The Homeland Security Department gave $36.4 million to New Hampshire in 2003, $20.9 million of which came from the state grant program. New Hampshire sent more than $5 million of that to cities and towns based on population. The result: every hamlet in New Hampshire got at least a small piece of the pie.
New Hampshire's smallest town -- Hart's Location, population 39 -- received $182.82. Ellsworth, the second-smallest town with 87 people and no fire department, received $407.82. Manchester, the state's largest city with a population of 108,078, received more than $626,377.
Campton-Thornton Fire Chief David Tobine, whose volunteer department covers Ellsworth, said the town spent its money on chemical decontamination equipment.
State officials now say that system was flawed. Bruce Cheney, director of the Bureau of Emergency Communications in the state's Department of Safety, said several committees of emergency workers were tapped to recommend how the homeland security money ought to be divided up and spent.
Initially, he said, "there was some fear that if we don't send Ellsworth something, they're going to be complaining that because they're a little town up north that they got forgotten."
Pam Urban-Morin, the state's grant coordinator, said the state did not have enough time to devise a system other than population to dispense the first round of money it received. So, it gave every city and town a percentage equal to its percentage of the state's population. When the state received more money later in the year, most of it was distributed based on need, she said.
"I think the population grant thing was in the early stages, saying, 'We can't leave anybody out.' And it's obvious that it didn't work well," Cheney said.
Fifty-two New Hampshire towns with fewer than 1,000 people received grants totaling more than $145,000 in fiscal 2003. More than half of New Hampshire's towns and cities - 121 of them - have populations of less than 2,500. They received a total of $668,000. Another $8 million was earmarked for upgrading radio equipment and distributed according to need.
The largess began when the Office of Homeland Security was elevated to a Cabinet-level department earlier this year and took over nearly two dozen federal agencies. The department began dispensing grants to help states and their first responders - police, firefighters, emergency medical technicians and hazardous materials teams - upgrade equipment and pay overtime costs incurred during times of heightened risks of terrorism.
But even some New Hampshire first responders say the decision to allocate money based on population, rather than on the likelihood of attack, was ill-conceived. In some cases, they said a threat-based system would work in their favor.
Durham, home to the University of New Hampshire, is a potential target, said Durham Fire Chief Ronald O'Keefe. So is nearby Newington, which has a large petroleum storage facility, he said.
"And because their population is less than 1,000, they get considerably less money," O'Keefe said. "Now I think there needs to be a way of distributing it a little more fairly."
Manchester Fire Chief and Emergency Management Director Joseph Kane said the state did the best job it could under strict time constraints imposed by the federal government. The Homeland Security Department gave states just 45 days to pass some of the money on to cities and towns.
"In that 45-day period they couldn't have done any kind of risk analysis," Kane said. A population-based system was the only fair option, he said.
Rudman, the former senator, said that cases like Ellsworth and Bennington are all too common.
"That is very typical of what's happening all over the country," Rudman said. "This shouldn't be a pork barrel; it ought to be something that protects the American people."
Rudman said pegging more of the federal funds to population density and the presence of critical infrastructure, such as power plants and bridges, is a more effective way to improve security.
But the current system has more to do with politics on Capitol Hill than with keeping Americans safe, said Don Kettl, director of the Project on Homeland Security at the Century Foundation, a New York-based think tank.
In the weeks following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the drive in Congress to give states money to cover new security costs bogged down in arguments over who would get how much, said Kettl, who also is a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. To win votes - particularly from lawmakers who represented areas less likely to be targets of terrorism - congressional leaders had to make concessions, resulting in the rigid geographic and population formulas that allotted some money to every state, he said.
"Whenever it comes time to start writing checks, it's very hard for a member of Congress to say the money ought to go someplace else," Kettl said. "We all know that it takes a certain amount of political grease to keep the system running, but the question is how it costs us in distributing money that way to get the kind of protection that we all need."
The state grant program was outlined in the Patriot Act, a controversial anti-terrorism bill that sped through Congress in the fall of 2001. Civil libertarians have argued that Congress was in such a rush it did not adequately review the bill before sending it to President Bush.
Rep. Christopher Cox, a California Republican and chairman of House Select Committee on Homeland Security, has introduced a bill that would eliminate the baseline grant. Cox's bill could significantly cut New Hampshire's slice of the pie by pegging security money to potential risk.
"If we try to protect everything, we will in fact protect nothing," Cox recently told his committee.
But politics could again interfere, both on a congressional and a presidential level.
Bush, who is up for reelection next year, might be reluctant to back a bill that would eliminate large chunks of money to many of the states that supported him in 2000.
Last month, Congress approved $22.4 million in homeland security grants for New Hampshire for fiscal 2004, most of it through the grant program that overlooks risk. New Hampshire's Cheney said state officials have not decided how to divvy up the dollars.
But some New Hampshire officials and first responders are not about to apologize for a system that, so far, has blessed them.
"My view is that New York doesn't need any money and New Hampshire needs all of theirs," Cheney said with a laugh. "But I'm sure they feel the same way. There have been many programs in the past from which New Hampshire got nothing," he said, "So I'm not real sad about the fact that there may be some advantage to us in this go-around."
Hampstead Fire Chief Chip Hastings was equally blunt.
New York, he said, "had a tragic loss. But when the sun shines we all warm up. If they're giving, my palms are up because it helps the town and it helps the taxpayers."
McCain: Gop Looking Dovish on Deficit Spending
WASHINGTON -On the heels of the pork-packed energy bill and a behemoth Medicare expansion, some prominent conservatives are expressing concerns that the Republican Party may be shedding its famously frugal reputation.
Or, as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., bluntly said on television, the GOP-controlled Congress has been "spending money like a drunken sailor."
Congressional Republicans loaded the $31 billion energy bill with three times the amount of tax breaks and subsidies that President Bush originally requested. Critics charged the bill was laden with pork - favored projects intended to garner congressional votes more than to improve the nation's energy system. Congress also voted this fall to spend $400 billion to reform Medicare with a prescription drug benefit, creating the largest new entitlement in decades.
It's the kind of big spending Republicans long accused Democrats of engaging in.
"I think we've lost our bearings," McCain said in an interview. "We've lost our sense of outrage and anger over these egregious spending practicesá..
"First you're outraged, then you condone, then you embrace."
A bipartisan coalition that includes Sens. John Sununu and Judd Gregg, both New Hampshire Republicans, in addition to McCain has temporarily frozen the energy bill in the Senate. Opponents mounted a filibuster to prevent it from coming to a vote, partly because it violates spending limits for the next decade that Congress adopted earlier this year.
But according to hardcore deficit hawks such as McCain and former Sen. Warren Rudman, also a New Hampshire Republican, the energy bill is symptomatic of a GOP that has been fiscally careless in recent years.
The numbers tell the story.
Government spending has grown to $2.17 trillion this year, 16-percent higher than it was when Bush took office in January 2001, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Leading Republicans, including the President, have argued that unprecedented homeland security costs, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as burgeoning entitlement payments for Social Security and Medicare have contributed significantly to that jump.
Discretionary spending - money that Congress is not required to spend - has increased 27 percent during the same time period, to an estimated $826 billion. Excluding the military, discretionary spending has increased 22 percent - to $419 billion - since 2001.
By comparison, non-military discretionary spending increased 9.8 percent during the first three years of the Clinton administration, according to the CBO.
All this comes alongside Bush's sweeping $350 billion in tax cuts, which helped turn a $127 billion budget surplus in 2001 into what the CBO estimates will be a $401 billion deficit this year.
And while the CBO predicts that the deficit will swell to $480 billion in fiscal 2004 before being halved by 2006, some spending watchdogs say those estimates may be much too optimistic.
The Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group that monitors government spending, recently predicted the deficit could swell to $523 billion next year and reach more than $5 trillion by 2013. The coalition cited as reasons the Medicare bill and the unlikelihood that Congress will allow many of Bush's tax cuts to expire.
"I really find it one of the most incomprehensible things in public policy since I've been in politics," said Rudman, a Concord Coalition founder who fought for balanced budgets throughout his two terms in the Senate. "Republicans suddenly don't care about deficits."
While some critics blame Bush for leading the party away from fiscal conservatism, Rudman said the House and Senate must share responsibility. Although he said the Republican majority is not solely at fault, he added, "We're in charge, so we're either going to get credit or blame."
Rudman said the country is heading for a "fiscal crisis" that will inevitably result in higher taxes, slashed benefits or both.
"We're acting like there's no tomorrow," he said, "and there is a tomorrow."
Fiscal policy expert David Boaz said that neither congressional leadership nor the president have been willing to tie the government's purse strings. Boaz, executive vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute, said the GOP's preoccupation with maintaining its majority has caused it to compromise its core beliefs in favor of "political calculations."
"You do expect that Republicans are put on earth to cut taxes and cut spending, and they're not doing that," Boaz said. "It's always easy to spend money before an election and worry about the future sometime later.
"Part of it is also I think just a loss of any sense that we came here for a purpose," he added, "not just to get reelected."
But Sununu said it's unfair to suggest the entire GOP has strayed from its fiscally conservative roots. Although he opposed both the Medicare and energy bills, he said he did so for very different reasons. Sununu said the Medicare bill didn't solve underlying problems with the program, while the energy legislation was awash in wasteful spending.
"It's an overgeneralization to say 'the party," Sununu said. But, he added, "There's no question that [the energy bill] had little in the way of fiscal restraint, and I don't think it was in keeping with a lot of the free-market principles that should be guiding the Republican Party."
U.S. Congressman Jeb Bradley, R-N.H., who was elected to his first term last year, said Republican spending was driven by world events, particularly terrorism.
"Part of it is the times we live in," he said. "A little over two years ago our nation was attacked very brutally, and that's caused a major realignment in terms of homeland security spending and national defense."
U.S. Congressman Charles Bass, R-N.H., said in a statement he was concerned about current spending levels but that fighting terrorism and nursing the economy back to health were the priorities.
Bass was elected to Congress in 1994 as part of a so-called Republican Revolution that gave the GOP the majority in the House for the first time in decades. The new majority was dedicated to balancing the budget - and pushed Clinton to enact the first one in decades -- though it has been unable to add a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
"Incumbents, in general, like to remain incumbents," said J. Mark Wrighton, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire. "And one way that they may be able to do that is by spending money."
But according to Boaz, of the Cato Institute, voters who elected the current Republican leaders - in Congress and the Oval Office - may be losing patience.
"The people who voted for George Bush thought they were going to get smaller government than if they voted for Al Gore," Boaz said. "And the question is whether they did."
Mercury Poisoning Fishing for Answers
by Becky Evans
WASHINGTON - When he was 9 years old, Jim Simmons fished for his dinner in Turner Pond, which straddles the Dartmouth-New Bedford line. Each night, his mother would fry the catfish he caught after school.
Forty-six years later, there are no more fish in the pond worth catching. "All the fish - perch and sunfish -- they're all gone. The only thing left are eels and turtles," Mr. Simmons said in a recent interview. "You can't even catch catfish because there are such high levels of mercury."
The fish in Turner Pond and nearby lakes and streams have been contaminated by mercury emissions from the Brayton Point Station, one of the state's oldest coal-fired power plants, said Mr. Simmons, who now runs an organization that battles mercury emissions. Brayton Point Station is the largest source of industrial air pollution in New England, according to the Conservation Law Foundation.
Each year, Massachusetts' four coal-fired power plants emit an estimated 185 pounds of mercury from their smokestacks, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has reported.
Once released, mercury travels through the air and settles in bodies of water, where bacteria transform it into methylmercury, a potent neurotoxin that is absorbed by fresh and saltwater fish and passed through the food chain to people. Mr. Simmons, who is president of the Hands Across the River Coalition, wants to protect children from neurological disorders associated with eating mercury-contaminated fish.
"We have to act now to change the emissions standards," he said. "We need the help of city councilors, mayors, state representatives and state senators."
The Hands Across the River Coalition and other environmental groups have spent years trying to eliminate mercury emissions from the state's oldest power plants.
They won a victory in September when Gov. Mitt Romney and the state Department of Environmental Protection proposed regulations that would require Brayton Point Station, Somerset Station, Salem Harbor Station and Mount Tom Station in Holyoke to eliminate 85 percent of mercury emissions by 2006 and 95 percent by 2012.
Massachusetts health officials warn pregnant women, nursing mothers, women of childbearing age and young children not to eat any freshwater fish caught in the state or any shark, swordfish, king mackerel, tuna or tilefish.
The federal government doesn't go quite that far. The Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have just drafted a proposed warning adding tuna to the list of fish and shellfish that people in those categories should eat less of. A 2003 study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 8 percent of women of childbearing age had blood mercury levels above those EPA has deemed safe. The study estimated that approximately 320,000 children born in the United States each year are at risk of adverse health effects from mercury-contaminated fish.
Studies have shown that mercury exposure in children can lead to neurological damage, including attention and language deficits, impaired memory, inability to process and recall information and impaired visual and motor functions.
Parents in Fall River are concerned that mercury poisoning may be the reason behind the high number of children who have been diagnosed there with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). They also worry mercury emissions could lead to increased rates of autism and dyslexia, though scientists have not drawn such conclusions.
"There is no proven link between mercury and autism and ADHD," said Dr. Jefferson H. Dickey, professor of environmental health at UMass-Amherst. "But the one thing we are learning about mercury is that it is very clearly associated with some learning disabilities."
Dr. Jeannine Audet, a developmental behavioral pediatrician at the Center for Children and Families at St. Anne's Hospital in Fall River, said cases of autism and ADHD were "no more prevalent" in Fall River than in other parts of the state. But Rochelle Pettanati, who teaches art at Kuss Middle School in Fall River, said she sees the problem firsthand at school and at home.
"The number of cases of ADHD is amazing," she said. "So many children have attention problems in our schools."
Ms. Pettanati, who lives about 6 miles from Brayton Point Station, said her two sons have ADHD and many of her neighbors have been diagnosed with cancer. She said she fears that mercury emissions from the plant are responsible for the health problems in her neighborhood.
"We're thinking about moving away from the plant," she said.
Ms. Pettanati said she never knew it could be unsafe to serve her family fresh fish.
"There is a lack of education," she said. "We know lots of fishermen, and I always thought it was wonderful to get fresh fish, scallops and lobsterá. I didn't know I could be potentially harming my family. It is very upsetting."
Dave Dionne, a spokesman for the Campaign to Clean Up Brayton Point Power Plant, said many poor immigrants in Fall River supplement their diets with fish caught in local rivers and ponds.
They often are unaware of the state's fish advisories, he said.
"Fall River is not a rich communityá. This is an economic justice issue," he said. "There are no signs that I can find anywhere that say do not eat the fish, in any language."
Ms. Pettanati and Mr. Dionne recently attended a public hearing in Fall River on the Department of Environmental Protection's proposed mercury emissions regulations.
Mr. Dionne said the draft regulations are good, but he and other environmentalists are concerned about a proposed alternative--a trading system that would give more flexibility to power plants that cannot meet the 2006 deadlines. Under the plan, some plants could receive credit for reducing mercury emissions at off-site locations and for recycling mercury in thermometers and other products.
"The trading system proposed by the DEP would allow an actual emitting facility with a smokestack to trade with a potentially emitting facility like a lab or school," said Frank Gorke, an energy specialist for the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group. "We think it is problematic."
Some power plants have requested more time to install expensive mercury pollution controls, said Ed Coletta, a spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection. The electric utilities industry opposes stricter regulations even while acknowledging that mercury emissions can harm the environment.
Robert Rio, vice president of environmental programs for Associated Industries of Massachusetts, said the state's coal-burning power plants have already made significant mercury emissions reductions. Further reductions would cost millions of dollars and would have little impact on the environment, he said.
"There is no evidence at all that removing that amount of mercury from power plants will make that much difference at all," Mr. Rio said. "The worst part about the whole thing is that most of the mercury we get here is from upwind power plants."
In 1996, the Department of Environmental Protection estimated that 59 percent of mercury emissions in Massachusetts came from out-of-state sources. Environmentalists agree that reducing mercury emissions in other states is key to protecting the health of Massachusetts residents.
"We need to be concerned about our own pollution and pollution from other states," Mr. Gorke said. "Unfortunately, the Bush administration is not helping us out at the federal level."
According to EPA documents, the Bush administration is proposing mercury regulations that are less stringent than those for other toxic air pollutants. Instead of requiring coal-fired power plants to install maximum pollution controls, Bush's "cap and trade" program would allow plants to buy and sell the right to emit mercury into the air. The market-based system, which is supported by energy producers, is modeled after a sulfur dioxide trading program designed to combat acid rain.
"We know from evidence that cap and trade programs work better than the current command and control approach," said Frank Maisano, a spokesman for the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a group of utilities, power companies, unions and businesses. "The trading program puts the onus on the company and gives a financial incentive to reduce pollution. That is why it works better."
Environmentalists worry that President Bush's proposal would create mercury "hot spots" around the dirtiest power plants, which could opt to pay cleaner plants to reduce emissions rather than install expensive pollution controls.
"We are very concerned about the prospect of mercury trading at the federal level," said Cindy Luppi, the New England coordinating director for Clean Water Action, an environmental advocacy group.
"Our top goal is to make sure that the families who live in the shadows of the smokestacks of the affected power plants see real relief from this pollution." Massachusetts' proposed mercury regulations should not be affected by weaker federal standards, according to Mr. Gorke. But the state's air quality could be harmed anyway, he said.
"The main reason to be concerned about what the feds are doing is that we do get some mercury in our environment from upwind sources. It could hurt our environment if the feds are relaxing requirements in Ohio and other states," he said.
Mr. Simmons said his Hands Across the River Coalition will not rest until there are zero mercury emissions from Brayton Point.
"We can't wait for the President to do something about the plant," he said. "We have to do this on our own, by lobbying our lawmakers and saying enough is enough."
Collins Sponsors Anti-Terrorism Measure
WASHINGTON - Only weeks after Congress demanded Syria stop supporting terrorism, Sen. Susan Collins is co-sponsoring a similar bill for Saudi Arabia.
"We cannot allow countries that are supposed to be America's allies to play a double game, when they talk about cooperation but in fact are turning a blind eye on the financing of terrorists," the Maine Republican said Thursday.
The Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2003 introduced this week by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., urges the Arab kingdom to halt its funding of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Al-Qaida.
The Governmental Affairs Committee, which Collins chairs, held two hearings earlier this year during which officials from the FBI and the U.S. Department of Treasury testified about the Saudi funding of terrorist networks.Saudi Arabia was described as "the epicenter" of terrorism financing.
Collins said the Saudis have made some improvements to crack down on the flow of funds to terrorists since the capital of Riyadh was hit by devastating bomb attacks earlier this year. But she added that "it should not have taken the threat of terror attacks on Saudi soil to prompt the Saudis to act."
"It's important that we keep the pressure on," Collins continued, "because the Saudi record of cooperation on terrorism finance investigations has been very uneven, according to the briefings I have held."
Collins says that the bill will not be taken up any time soon, but that its introduction should send "a strong signal to the Saudi government" to stop Saudi citizens from funding terrorist networks.
"I would like to see for example the Saudis passing a law that says it is a crime for one of their citizens to provide financial support [to terrorist organizations]," said Collins.
If Saudi Arabia does not make a "sincere and sustained effort to crack down on sources of terrorist funding," then the bill would authorize President Bush to impose one or both of two sanctions. Bush could prohibit the export of certain arms to the country and Saudi diplomats in the United States could be restricted to travel within a 25-mile radius, a "standard sanction" according to Collins.
McCain: Time Running Out for Energy Supporters
WASHINGTON - Buried deep down in a multibillion-dollar bill to overhaul the nation's energy program is a provision that would primarily benefit one company: Home Depot.
It is because of pork such as that tax break on imported ceiling fans that the entire $95 billion energy bill should be killed, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Thursday.
"Forty-eight million dollars for a two-year suspension of tariffs on ceiling fans -- what's that all about?" McCain asked incredulously.
McCain said the longer the Senate debates the energy bill, and the more Home Depot-style tax breaks that emerge, the harder it will be for supporters to defend it.
The bill's opponents have charged that it is loaded with pet projects meant to buy votes. Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., denounced the bill on the floor for the second consecutive day Thursday, saying it was a "hodgepodge of little interests" that picks winners and losers in different regions of the country based on whether their senators' votes are needed to pass the bill.
Republican leaders have tried to get a quick vote on the bill, McCain said, "because the more of the specifics of this colossus are known, the more people are going to be against it."
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., filed a motion late Wednesday to try to bring the bill to the floor for a vote Friday afternoon. But the bill faces so much opposition that it was unclear whether Frist would be able to garner enough support to end debate and force a vote.
McCain, Gregg and Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire are three of the six Republicans to defect from the Bush administration and forcefully oppose the bill. They argue that the $25 billion in tax breaks for energy industries and roughly $70 billion in other spending are wasteful and fiscally irresponsible.
"It's hard to believe that the administration could endorse a bill that exceeds their level of spending by such a significant number," said Gregg, pointing out that the bill has three times the dollar amount of tax breaks that President Bush initially asked for.
Sununu said the bill surpasses spending limits the Senate adopted six months ago by $800 million in fiscal 2004 and $3.5 billion over the next five years. He also said it unfairly props up some industries, favoring untested technologies like hydrogen-powered cars, which he called a "grandiose pipe dream."
"Why should any legislator, or any bureaucrat, for that matter, be trying to pick the winning or losing energy technology five to 10 years into the future?" asked Sununu, an engineer.
McCain has sarcastically called the legislation "the No Lobbyist Left Behind Act," a play on the education-related No Child Left Behind Act, and the "Hooters and Polluters bill." One provision would give $2 billion in bond incentives to shopping centers in four states that use energy-efficient technology. One of the malls, in Shreveport, La., would contain a Hooters restaurant, part of the chain known for its buxom waitresses.
"Usually when I look at an appropriations bill I see several hundred thousand, maybe in some cases a couple of million" in pork spending, but "these are in the billions," McCain told reporters.
In two days of debate on the floor, the bill's backers, including Budget Committee chairman Don Nickles, R-Okla., have repeatedly conceded it may not be perfect, but that it is needed to decrease America's reliance on foreign oil. An imperfect bill is better than none at all, said its chief author, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. And if the bill is killed, Domenici has warned, no comprehensive energy legislation will come about in the near future.
But Gregg and the five other Republicans who have split from their party's leadership argue the bill just goes too far.
Gregg told the Senate Thursday that "one of the most outrageous" provisions would give $2 billion to oil companies in Texas and Louisiana to phase out the use of the gasoline additive MtBE.
Meanwhile, the bill would shield those producers from lawsuits that would force them to pay to clean the chemical from public water supplies. New Hampshire, with 15 percent of its wells contaminated by MtBE, is the only state to sue so far. Its suit would be killed if the bill passed.
Government waste watchdogs speculated late Thursday they were within one or two votes of the 41 needed to sustain a filibuster and prevent the bill from coming to a vote on the Senate floor. But McCain, who said he wasn't sure what the current count was but that "it's close," cautioned that the opposition would need more than a one- or two-vote cushion to be confident it could filibuster the bill.
When the margin is slim, the forces doling out such large prizes usually win out because senators are eager to bring money home to their states, he said. Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who could face a tough reelection next year, has decided to support the bill because his state stands to gain from a $5.9 billion subsidy for ethanol, a corn-based gasoline additive.
"They'll bring all pressure to bear on one or two people," McCain said. The White House, Republican leaders and a number of powerful interest groups have made passage of this bill a high priority.
If GOP leaders manage to overcome a filibuster and get a final vote on the bill, its opponents would most likely not have the votes to sink it.
"It's very apparent what the process here was," said McCain. "'We need somebody's vote; well, what do they need?'"
Maine, NH Lawmakers Split on Medicare Bill
WASHINGTON - As congressional negotiators put the final touches on a bill to revamp Medicare, New Hampshire and Maine lawmakers are split over whether to support the 10-year, $400 billion measure.
The bill would overhaul the senior citizens' health care program with prescription drug benefits, a pilot program that would allow private insurance companies to compete with Medicare and a $25 billion spending increase for rural hospitals and physicians. Congress is expected to vote on the bill this weekend.
Because of last-minute negotiations on the bill's language, members of Congress remained in the dark on its final contents until Thursday afternoon. Both Sens. John Sununu and Judd Gregg, both New Hampshire Republicans, said they had "significant concerns" about the bill and would have to read through the final version before deciding whether to support it. Both senators voted against an earlier version of the Medicare bill in June.
"This bill has some very serious flaws, in my opinion," Gregg told reporters. "And I've got deep reservations about itá. "I'm going to take a very serious look at it."
Rep. Charlie Bass (R-N.H.) said in an interview he would probably support the bill. While he did not favor all aspects of the legislation, he said, it was better than nothing.
"No bill is ever perfect, and nobody who supports the bill is going to believe that it is a perfect product," Bass said. "But it's a product that will provide a prescription drug benefit for seniors. And it's way overdue."
Both Bass and Rep. Jeb Bradley (R-N.H.) have said that in future sessions of Congress, they would like to revisit some parts of the legislation they disagree with, including a provision that would allow Americans to import some medication from Canada.
Bradley and Bass voted in favor of the House version of the Medicare bill in June. Negotiators have been working since then to reconcile differing provisions of the House and Senate bills.
Neither of Maine's senators, Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, have said whether they will vote for the bill. Both voted for the initial Senate version, but several provisions have changed since then. Collins said Congress needed to modernize Medicare, particularly by adding a prescription drug benefit for the first time.
Snowe, on the other hand, has joined a bipartisan group of senators who are circulating a letter to their colleagues in an attempt to remove a provision, called "premium support," that would allow private insurance to compete with traditional Medicare for seniors' business.
"This letter is an important message that we cannot accept an untested premium support program - one that could potentially impact the quality of health care for millions of seniors and effectively undercuts the traditional Medicare program," Snowe said in a statement.
Earlier this week, the AARP, the nation's largest organization of seniors, endorsed the Medicare bill, saying it would strengthen health security for millions of older Americans.
"We need to see bipartisan support," said Steve Hahn, a spokesman for AARP. "We need to see legislation passed and enacted this year. AARP members have waited long enough."
Nevertheless, some angry AARP members gathered in front of the organization's Washington headquarters in the pouring rain Wednesday to protest the endorsement of the Medicare bill.
"This card is worthless," shouted Genevieve Cervera, 64, of New York City, who crumpled her AARP membership card before television cameras. "Now you see it, now you don't. That's what [the AARP] did to us."
"We got sold out," she added. "We weren't even informed."
Cervera was among approximately 50 AARP members who traveled to the capital from New York with the progressive activist organization USAction.
Mike Naylor, AARP's director of advocacy, said people do not understand the contents of the bill, and, if it becomes law, the AARP intends to spend "a lot of money" to educate people about it.
New Hampshire Sens. Begin Assault on Energy Bill
WASHINGTON - Sen. Judd Gregg condemned the GOP-backed national energy bill on the Senate floor Wednesday, calling it a "gratuitous attack on the Northeast" and an "obscene attack on American taxpayers."
New Hampshire's senior Republican lawmaker helped lead an increasingly rancorous debate over the Bush administration's broad national energy plan as it became clear the bill would face a much tougher fight in the Senate than it did in the House, which passed it with relative ease Tuesday.
As debate on the bill intensified, a bipartisan filibuster that both Gregg and Sen. John E. Sununu have pledged to support seemed likely. Sununu said Wednesday he wasn't sure whether the coalition had the 41 votes necessary to sustain a filibuster and prevent the Senate from voting on the bill. If they didn't, the bill is likely to pass.
Meanwhile, the bill's most ardent supporter and chief author, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., cautioned that killing the bill now would mean killing any meaningful energy legislation in the near future. Traditionally, as the presidential election year approaches, chances for passing controversial legislation dims. And the energy bill, which the Bush administration worked on for nearly three years, is one of the most contentious pieces of legislation to come along in years.
Leafing through the bill's more than 1,200 pages as he paced back and forth on the chamber floor Wednesday, Gregg excoriated supporters for pandering to regional special interests with roughly $25 billion in tax breaks - three times what President Bush had asked for. He called the bill "a socialistic approach to a way to run an economy," a slap at the free market system that Bush and most other Republicans espouse.
Gregg zeroed in on a one section of the bill regarding the use of ethanol, a corn-based additive that makes gasoline burn cleaner. The bill would mandate that the percentage of ethanol used in domestic gasoline be increased by two and half times over the next 10 years. That provision, which froze the bill in negotiations for over a month and threatened to sink it, is seen largely as a concession to senators from agricultural states, including Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.
But Gregg argued that experiments with synthetic fuels after the energy crisis of the late 1970s showed that tax breaks and other incentives are worthwhile only if market forces - not political ones - demand them.
"Unless the market makes the product viable, it usually never works," Gregg said.
In an interview, Sununu said the breadth end depth of the tax cuts threatened the fiscal solvency of the government.
"There's no reason to put forward a tax package that's above what the President requested," he said. "The tax subsidies in the bill are huge and are mostly directed toward industries that are relatively strong and profitableá. Providing $25 billion in tax subsidies distorts the competitive marketplace, distorts the investment in the energy industry and is bad for the economy."
Gregg also used his floor time to question provisions of the bill that would require the federal government to pay for environmental impact studies for geothermal? energy companies operating on federal land.
"That's like saying to a drug company that the federal government must pay for research to produce your drug, even though the company will get the profits," he said.
Both Gregg and Sununu criticized another provision of the bill that would protect the makers of the gasoline additive MtBE from a contamination lawsuit filed by New Hampshire in September. The state contends that the product, which the federal government forced several northeastern states to add to fuel to meet clean air standards, is now present in 15 percent its wells.
The bill would protect the makers of the chemical, which the state says could cause cancer, from lawsuits and allow them to continue to produce it until 2015.
"I think this type of case should be decided in the courts, and if it's frivolous to sue the manufacturer of a product simply for having produced a product, then I trust that the courts will give a good judgment," Sununu said.
Domenici said on the Senate floor that the MtBE provision was a compromise that had to be made in order to persuade House negotiators to accept the ethanol provisions, which were needed to win over powerful senators. He warned the growing coalition trying to filibuster the bill that it would be foolish to sink such far-reaching legislation over one small provision on MtBE.
"We did what was politically feasible," Domenici said. "If we do this, the country will be much safer, much better off, for years to come...
"You don't kill this bill in pieces; you adopt it all or none," he added. Domenici repeatedly tried to defuse the argument by some of the bill's opponents that the bill was regionally biased.
But Gregg insisted the Northeast is unfairly hamstrung by the legislation.
"You don't pass a law which says the legitimate activity of a state or a group of states in trying to defend the quality of their environment will be wiped off the books," he said. "It should certainly not be being done by a Republican-dominated Congress, which theoretically still believes there are states out there that have some rights."
