Category: Fall 2003 Newswire
NH Lawmakers United Against GOP Energy Bill, MTBE Allowance
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg will vote against a broad national energy bill that would squash a state lawsuit to hold oil companies accountable for their use of a chemical that has poisoned New Hampshire wells, he announced Tuesday.
Gregg, New Hampshire’s most powerful Republican lawmaker, yesterday became the fourth and last of the state’s Republican Congress members to break with their party and oppose the bill. He has joined a growing regional rebellion within the GOP that pits party stalwarts, including Sen. John Sununu, R-NH, against the Bush administration.
In announcing his opposition to it, Gregg called the energy bill “a grab bag of special interests.”
Of particular concern is a section of the bill that would protect producers of MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether), a chemical added to gasoline to make it burn more cleanly, from lawsuits. On Sept. 30, New Hampshire filed suit in Merrimack County Superior Court to force 22 oil companies that use the chemical, which the state claims to be a carcinogen, to pay to remove it from the public water supply.
State officials say MTBE has been detected in at least 15 percent of New Hampshire’s ground water wells. The source of the contamination is a matter of dispute between the oil industry and the state. While the state is suing on the ground that MTBE is a defective product, industry groups contend the contamination was the result of leaky underground storage tanks for which they’re not responsible.
“The use of MTBE was certified and approved 23 years ago by the federal government,” said John Kneiss, a technology and policy expert with the Oxygenated Fuels Association, which represents oil companies. He added that it had successfully reduced auto emissions and that it was not the industry’s fault New Hampshire’s holding facilities leaked.
“It did what it was designed to do,” he said of the chemical.
Sixty percent of New Hampshire residents use well water. And preliminary results from a U.S. Geological Survey report to be released next month show that as many as 41 percent of public wells in Rockingham County are contaminated.
The MTBE manufacturers “are saying that they should not be held responsible for this product that they have put in our fuel, and we’re saying that under standard principles of defective product liabilityáthey should meet us in court and áshould be responsible for the cleanup costs,” said Maureen Smith, the senior assistant attorney general who is handling the lawsuit.
To date, New Hampshire is the only state that has sued over MTBE, but the energy bill would protect the oil industry from liability for contamination on any lawsuit filed after Sept. 5 – effectively killing the Granite State’s claim and any that might have come later. It would also allow MTBE to be produced until 2015.
“We want that product off the market,” Gregg said Tuesday in a conference call with reporters. “What this bill does, instead of taking it off the market, it basically wipes out the lawsuit brought by the state of New Hampshire. It’s an ex-post facto law.”
“I don’t see any justification for the energy bill blocking this lawsuit,” said Congressman Jeb Bradley, R-NH, who worked on MTBE issues for years in the state legislature.
Gregg, the only member of the New Hampshire delegation to vote for the bill when it first came before the Senate in July, said it had been changed dramatically during House-Senate negotiations since then.
“I’ll not only vote against this bill, I’ll vote against attempts to shut down debate on the bill,” Gregg said, indicating that he would support an attempt by some Democrats to filibuster the bill and block a Senate vote on it later this week. A spokeswoman for Sununu said he would join the filibuster.
But Gregg said he thought the bill was likely to pass the Senate because negotiators “bought off” many special interests with lucrative subsidies. As a result, senators from states that stand to benefit from subsidies to such industries as agriculture or oil, regardless of party, will vote for the bill, he said.
In the House, Congressmen Charles Bass, R-NH, joined Bradley in voting against the bill Tuesday for similar reasons. The bill passed, 246-180 as 46 Democrats joined 200 Republicans to support it. Along with Bradley and Bass, XX Republicans opposed the measure.
“Energy is not partisan,” Bass said. “This is not liberals versus conservatives, or Democrats versus Republicans. These are issues that relate to districts.”
Gregg said he had not discussed the issue with President Bush but had been in contact with Bush’s staff. He also said he wasn’t concerned his opposition would harm his relationship with the president.
“You take issues issue by issue,” he said. “You don’t personalize them, and you move on.”
New Hampshire environmentalists put it more starkly.
“The message is clear that there is a huge divide between Bush politics and GOP politics, and there is nothing that is more important than public health and environment,” said Jan Pendlebury of the New Hampshire office of the National Environmental Trust, which opposed the bill.
Gregg said the country needs an energy bill, but not one that’s based on special-interest politics.
“It’s a very poorly structured bill from an energy policy standpoint, it’s a poor bill from an environmental standpoint and it’s a terrible bill from the standpoint of basically taking care of a few favored interests who happen to have some power down here in the Congress and who were serving on the conference committee,” he said.
“Other than that,” he quipped, “I think it’s a great bill.”
Smog Provision in Federal Energy Bill Frustrates Lawmakers, Clean-Air Advocates
by Kevin Joy
WASHINGTON - Environmental advocates and many lawmakers are fuming over a little-noticed provision in the $30 billion federal energy bill that they say could result in smoggier skies over Connecticut.
The provision would permit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to extend smog reduction deadlines established under 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. If an area could prove some of its pollution comes from another community or state-for instance, by pollutants traveling downwind-it wouldn't have to clean up its own emissions until the outside polluter did.
The outcome would be a continuous finger-pointing game with no incentive for ecological responsibility, said Christopher Phelps, an advocate for the Connecticut Public Interest Research Group (ConnPIRG), a watchdog organization.
And for Connecticut, a state already faced with high summer ozone levels, a large commuter population and close proximity to New York City, activists say the extended deadlines for air quality standards could produce devastating long-term effects.
"You'll have sides saying, 'It's not our pollution, it's your pollution," Phelps said. "And in the meantime, nobody's cleaning up their air."
The measure was not in the original versions of the energy bill passed by the House and Senate earlier this year, but instead was inserted during negotiations on a final bill last week at the behest of Rep. Joe Barton, R-Tex. The House approved the bill, 246-180, Tuesday, and the measure awaits Senate action this week.
A number of senators on both sides of the aisle have threatened to try to kill the bill, a high priority for President Bush. The administration contends the bill would reduce America's dependence on foreign oil, while opponents argue it would provide too many tax incentives to energy producers and delay efforts to clean up air on a local level.
Angela Ledford, executive director of the Washington-based environmental group Clear the Air, called the provision "appalling" and said it overlooks Connecticut residents' health needs.
Ten percent-or 86,000-of Connecticut children have asthma, compared with 6 percent nationally, ConnPIRG reported. Medical experts say polluted air is a main cause of respiratory problems.
Connecticut has some of the nation's most stringent air quality regulations, and Gov. John G. Rowland signed a bill into law in 2000 cleaning up the state's aging "sooty six" power plants. Nevertheless, the number of days during which Connecticut residents were exposed to unhealthy amounts of smog rose by 177 percent from 2000 to 2002, according to the EPA.
An analysis by Abt Associates, a Cambridge, Mass., consulting firm, concluded that Connecticut residents could face an additional 10,756 asthma attacks, 135 hospitalizations and 15,000 lost school days because of symptoms resulting from increasingly poor air quality stemming directly from the energy bill's extension of clean air deadlines.
Both Rowland, a Republican, and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, have criticized the energy bill, with Rowland calling it "government at its worst."
Blumenthal said the provision was a "backdoor attempt to save polluters in the Midwest and the South from the expense of having to reduce emissions."
Reps. Rob Simmons and Nancy Johnson, both Connecticut Republicans, voted for the bill Tuesday. Simmons said that while he would continue to support a strong Clean Air Act, his vote could be likened to "swallowing a rat"-in other words, he said, "taking the bad with the good."
The "bipartisan energy bill had more than enough good provisions to warrant my support," Simmons said in a statement. "The energy bill passed today by a large majority is not perfect; far from it. But politics is the art of the possible, not the art of the perfect."
Forty-six Democrats joined 200 Republicans to pass the bill in the House. Despite the extended deadlines for smog reduction, energy producers contend the legislation will be environmentally effective.
"Some of the critics have suggested that any extension of a deadline must inherently be bad, when in fact the whole purpose of providing this flexibility is to ensure that this puts an end to finger-pointing and controversy impeding air quality progress," said Dan Riedinger, a spokesman for the Washington-based Edison Electric Institute, which represents companies that generate 70 percent of the nation's electricity.
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn, blasted the energy bill for containing a number of provisions that would shield polluters from liability and for doing little to promote the use of alternative and renewable fuels.
"Republicans are attempting to jam an energy bill through Congress that is better suited to meet the energy needs of the 19th century, not the 21st," Dodd said in a statement.
A number of Senate Democrats and Republicans have threatened to use a filibuster to prevent the bill from coming to a vote this week, but it is unclear whether they can muster enough support to sustain it. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D.-Conn., called the measure "another giveaway to special interests" and said he would support a filibuster
Public Financing System for Presidential Elections Broken
By David Tamasi
WASHINGTON - The recent decisions by former Vermont Governor Howard Dean and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry to opt out of public financing in the Democratic race for President have prompted two prominent Kerry supporters to sponsor legislation to reform the current system.
Congressmen Martin Meehan, D-Lowell, and John Tierney, D-Salem, said they intend to file campaign finance bills before the end of the year to encourage presidential candidates to stay within the public financing system. Meehan said he was still working on the details of the bill, while Tierney said he would reintroduce legislation that he has submitted every session he has been in Congress.
Under current law, presidential candidates are eligible to receive $19.1 million on Jan. 1, 2004, if they agree to spend no more than $45 million until their party officially nominates a candidate at their national conventions.
Tierney said that he hoped the decisions by Dean and Kerry would be the "stimulus to get serious about public financing."
Dean said two weeks ago that he was declining public funds because the Democratic nominee would have no money from March, when a nominee is expected to emerge, until the Democratic National Convention in July, while President Bush would have $200 million to spend with no primary opponent. The President has also declined public financing.
"A Democratic nominee with no money is exactly what the Bush campaign is hoping for," said Dean, who has raised more money than any other Democrat. "Ours is the only campaign with a chance to defend itself during those five months."
Last Friday, Kerry followed suit, saying that Dean had "changed the rules of the race, and anyone with a clear shot at the nomination must play by those rules." Kerry challenged Dean to stay within the $45 million primary spending cap, but acknowledged that he would retain the option to dip into his personal funds.
In light of Dean's and Kerry's decisions, political analysts said presidential public financing was finished.
"The system is dead," political analyst Stuart Rothenberg said. "When the front-runner in the Democratic race and the Republican nominee opt out, something is wrong. It is time to start over."
"I think that the system is in serious trouble," said Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that monitors campaign money. "It is probably the end of it if you are a viable front-runner." The consensus is that $45 million is no longer enough to wage a viable presidential campaign, he said.
Meehan said that while it was too late to reform the system for the 2004 election, he had spoken to Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who helped spearhead campaign-finance reform last year. Their "discussions were a benchmark" to work on legislation next year that would increase the spending limit for those who stay within the system in future presidential races.
"We need a system to encourage candidates to raise small contributions," he said. Under the present system, the federal government matches, dollar for dollar, the first $250 of each individual donation. Dean has said he needs 2 million supporters to donate $100 each to match the amount Bush is expected to raise.
Meehan and McCain, along with Congressman Chris Shays, R-Conn., and Senator Russell Feingold, D-Wisc., authored legislation in 2002 that banned the unlimited contributions known as soft-money and raised individual contribution limits $1,000 to $2,000 per election. Opponents of the measure filed a lawsuit calling the law a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech. The case is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
New Hampshire Republican Congressman Charles Bass suggested Congress "hold hearings to examine the public financing system for presidential campaigns."
Congress created the presidential public financing system in 1974 in response to Watergate, and it has been effect since the 1976 election. At the time, proponents said taxpayer-financed presidential campaigns would restore public faith in national elections and reduce presidential candidates' reliance on big donors.
As the Democratic front-runner, Dean made his decision with an eye toward the general election, hoping to avoid the position 1996 Republican nominee Bob Dole found himself in that summer. Dole emerged from the Republican primaries in April of that year out of funds and unable to respond to a barrage of advertising on behalf of President Clinton.
Kerry's rationale for declining public funds is different from Dean's. The odds-on favorite last winter to win the Democratic nomination, he has found himself eclipsed by Dean in New Hampshire, a state that is vital to Kerry's electoral success. By opting out of the public financing system, Kerry no longer must adhere to state spending caps and can also spend his own money.
Federal law prohibits Kerry from tapping his wife's $500 million fortune, but he could use their joint assets as collateral to secure a personal loan from a bank. The couple jointly owns a $10 million home in the upscale Louisburg Square section of Boston's Beacon Hill. Kerry secured personal loans totaling $1.7 million in his 1996 Senate reelection campaign against then-Gov. William Weld.
The spending cap in New Hampshire is $700,000, but campaigns are granted a "fundraising exemption" that brings the cap to $1.4 million. Other exempt categories include salaries for campaign staff, direct mail and media.
For example, a campaign that buys advertising time on Boston television stations, which reach southern New Hampshire, need count only 15 percent of the advertising buy against the cap. By opting out of the public financing system, Kerry will be free to spend as much money as he wants in the Granite State. The most recent poll conducted by WMUR-TV and the University of New Hampshire showed Kerry trailing Dean by 22 points.
State spending limits are "an older idea that was no longer workable" and would probably be "scrapped" in any new legislation, the Center for Responsive Politics' Noble said. But political analyst Rothenberg said he did not think Congress would address the issue in a presidential year. "It is hard to believe that they would," he said. "I think that they will wait until after the campaign."
Meehan suggested that public funds be made available to candidates earlier than Jan.1. "These candidates have been campaigning since April," he said. "The actual campaign begins way in advance of when they receive the money."
Congressman Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, without saying whether he believed the system was broken, said, "It's up to each individual candidate to decide what's right for their campaign."
Agroterrorism is Imminent Threat
WASHINGTON - Food and agriculture experts warned members of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Wednesday that America's food supply is insufficiently protected against possible "agroterrorist" attacks, which could severely damage the economy and inflict widespread medical harm.
"We've become a nation that is afraid of anthrax, that is afraid of opening letters. Imagine being concerned about opening our refrigerator," said Thomas McGinn, director of emergency programs for the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.Because of its size and scope, the U.S. agriculture industry is an attractive target for terrorists, according to a new RAND Corp. report presented to the committee.
"Our response [to the threat of attacks] has been woefully inadequate," said Sen. Daniel Akaka, D.-Hawaii. "It would be a crushing burden if our food and water would be contaminated."
Terrorist organizations, such as Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, are believed to possess significant information on how to carry out such a terrorist attack, said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who chairs the committee. "
A CIA report in May confirmed that the Sept. 11 hijackers expressed interest in crop-dusting aircraft, an effective and remarkably simple way to spread biological agents, including plant and animal diseases, over large areas," Collins said.
An attack on agriculture could lead to the outbreak of disease, which could have a far-reaching impact on the economy and tourism, consequences that could last for years after the contamination has been contained, a number of experts told the committee.
As an example, Collins pointed to the reduction in tourism prompted by the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Great Britain in 2001. "A vital sector remains largely unguarded, and an attack could be devastatingáand could cripple our economy, require geographic quarantines, cause massive upheaval and produce illness and death," Collins said. Sen.
Jim Talent, R.-Mo., said the "food chain is an all-too-easy target" and "a big bull's eye for terrorists." Food security affects all states equally, he said, explaining that "our food comes from ranches in the West, farms in the heartland or potato farms in Maine."
McGinn said the threat of agroterrorism is a homeland security issue that requires "coordinated action on the part of federal, state and local governments, the private sector and concerned citizens across the country."
Sen. Richard Durbin, D.-Ill., said there is a lack of coordination among governmental agencies and local, state and federal governments need to get their "act together."
Using foot-and-mouth disease as an example, McGinn used a computer simulation to demonstrate to the committee how fast a disease could spread across the country, leading to the loss of more than 23 million animals only eight days after an outbreak.
He said food contamination would produce a similarly devastating effect, instantly overloading the public health system because of widespread fear. Besides the considerable economic impact, terrorism would create a huge psychological impact on a nation in which agriculture is the largest industry, according to the RAND report.
The RAND report recommended a number of steps to protect the food industry from agroterrorism, including education to help people to recognize symptoms and detect problems earlier, programs to contain and eradicate outbreaks and programs to assess risks better.
Ned Porter, deputy commissioner of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources, said that he doubted Maine would be a target for agroterrorism but added that an attack could easily disrupt the production of potatoes and dairy products, Maine's prime agricultural goods.
Congress Passes Energy Bill Despite Opposition From Local Delegation
By David Tamasi
WASHINGTON - - An energy bill that supporters said would generate almost 1 million new jobs and that opponents labeled as a giveaway to special interests skated through the House this week. But it faces a bipartisan effort in the Senate to kill it.
The bill, one of President Bush's top legislative priorities, will cost an estimated $30 billion over 10 years, including $23 billion in tax breaks for oil, natural gas and coal producers. It would require a doubling of ethanol use in gasoline and would, for the first time, establish federal rules for operators of high-voltage electric lines.
Although the House approved the bill by a comfortable margin Tuesday, the measure is opposed in the Senate by an unlikely coalition that includes New Hampshire Republicans Judd Gregg and John Sununu and Massachusetts Democrats Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry.
Under Senate rules, 60 votes are needed to shut off debate and bring a bill up for a vote. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he was planning to file a motion Wednesday or Thursday to bring the bill to a vote Friday or Saturday. Supporters of a filibuster said that they were close to obtaining the 41 votes necessary to block a final vote on the measure.
The House passed the 1,400-page bill after one hour of debate, with 46 Democrats joining 200 Republicans to support it. Congressmen Martin Meehan, D-Lowell, and John Tierney, D-Salem, voted against the bill and were sharply critical of its passage.
Meehan called the bill "horrible" and said it was the worst piece of legislation that Congress had passed in the last five years. He said the bill was a "kickback to Republican campaign contributors."
Under the bill, Meehan said the nation would continue to rely too heavily on traditional forms of energy, such as oil and coal. He said the measure doesn't provide a great enough incentive for companies to explore "renewable" types of energy. Roughly two-thirds of the tax incentives in the bill go to oil, coal and natural gas producers, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Tierney said the bill did not "do one good thing for my district or for the country." He chastised Republicans for negotiating the bill behind closed doors.
"From what I have heard, there were plenty of energy company people in the room and no Democrats," he said. "That should raise the eyebrows of everyone across America."
The all-Republican New Hampshire delegation opposed the bill primarily because it contained a liability waiver for producers of MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether), a gasoline additive that has been found to contaminate groundwater. New Hampshire has filed a lawsuit against makers of MTBE, contending that the product contains a carcinogen that has been found in 15 percent of the state's public water supply.
The MTBE waiver was demanded by Congressman Billy Tauzin, R-La., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. Both of their districts house MTBE producers.
The massive bill had been held up for three years, but the late-summer blackout across the Northeast and parts of the Midwest spurred lawmakers to act. Republican negotiators finally produced an agreement Friday. The final disputes involved ethanol, a gasoline additive produced from corn, and the amount of tax credits for energy producers.
Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, insisted the bill include an increase in the use of ethanol in gasoline, an issue critical to farmers in his state. That put him at loggerheads with his House counterpart, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, a California Republican. Ultimately, the deal on ethanol was brokered two weeks ago by Vice President Dick Cheney, who pressured legislators by reminding them the energy bill was an important domestic priority for the President.
With the ethanol issue resolved, negotiators then turned to the tax portion of the legislation. Some Republicans, including Sununu, and Democrats said that with the deficit growing, the country could not afford to lose money by giving energy producers additional tax incentives. The bill's tax package was three times what the President had originally proposed.
Republican and Democratic critics charge that negotiators padded the legislation with unnecessary tax incentives that would appeal to lawmakers whose districts are home to the beneficiaries.
The Congressional Budget Office sent a letter Tuesday to Tauzin that said enactment of the bill "would reduce revenues by $17.4 billion over the 2004-2008 period and by $25.7 billion over the 2004-2013 period."
Tierney said support for the bill was along geographic, not partisan lines. In fact, several Democratic Senators from the Midwest - the prime source of the nation's corn supply -- support the bill, and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, who could face a tough reelection contest next year, had still not taken sides Wednesday.
N.H. Students Share DC Internship Experiences
WASHINGTON - When Katy O'Meara was growing up in Alton, N.H., she dreamed of becoming either a professional skier or a doctor. She wanted to study pre-med at the University of Colorado at Boulder and hit the slopes in her free time.
She is doing neither.
Instead, O'Meara, 21, is a senior majoring in political science at George Washington University - in mountain-less Washington, D.C. She gave up the notion of skiing and doctoring after participating in political leadership programs in high school. Rather than making patients well, she hopes someday to make policy.
To succeed, O'Meara has chosen to do what has become the standard for college students looking to make connections and gain experience before entering the "real world": become an intern.
Working in the office of Rep. Jeb Bradley (R-N.H.), O'Meara said she enjoys seeing first-hand the congressional debates and bill passages -- things she used to read about in textbooks and newspapers.
With a wealth of politics, media and history, Washington has become home to thousands of interns each year.
MIXED REVIEWS
Roland Bowe, a University of New Hampshire student from Dover, N.H., decided to spend the semester in Washington to build up his rÚsumÚ. So he applied to The Washington Center, which places college students in internships working in Congress, for mass communications companies and in the criminal justice system.
In September, he began an internship in the office of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.). Bowe said he found himself performing tasks a "high school dropout could do," including lying to people on the phone about the whereabouts of his boss. Rohrabacher spokesman Aaron Lewis said staffers did not tell Bowe to mislead callers.
Although he was working on Capitol Hill, Bowe said he was unable to learn as much as he would have liked about the democratic process, particularly about how bills go through Congress.
"I had a general idea of what it was like, but I've just never seen the process for myself, and that's why I wanted to work on the Hill," he said.
"I wanted to actually do stuff besides shuffling papers around and grabbing ice for the office and making coffee," said Bowe, 21.
Bowe said he was bored and looking for a challenge. So in October, he left Congress and started interning for lawyer David A. Branch. He now spends his days doing research on discrimination cases.
"I'm actually helping people," Bowe said. "I actually read stuff and use my head.".
The small office, with Bowe, two attorneys and an assistant, is close-knit, he said. Bowe still has the occasional minor duty to perform, but he is happy.
Branch said Bowe is "well on his way to a promising legal career." Bowe, a junior, who has a double major in English and philosophy, plans to focus on criminal or international law. He will remain at UNH for a fifth year, to make up for credits he lost when he transferred from Boston University after his freshman year.
He advises other interns to "just research and know what you're getting into."
A DIFFERENT OFFICE, A DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE
O'Meara is the first person visitors to Bradley's office see on Mondays and Fridays. She sits at the front desk and answers phones, opens letters from constituents and greets visitors.
"To intern here, it's a great experience," she said. "It's a learning experience. It's hands-on."
She is quick to discount the stigma that has been attached to the title "intern" following the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the murder of federal intern Chandra Levy.
"The vast majority of interns go about their work, do their stuff, come in when they're supposed to, leave and not a lot is said about that," O'Meara said.
Interns are an important part of the dynamic of Bradley's office, according to a spokesman, T.J. Crawford.
"They're just an incredible resource for the staff, from small tasks to larger tasks, their input on everything is valued," he said. "And we try to make it as much of a learning experience for them as possible, too, because that's why they're here."
O'Meara said she applied to work for Bradley because he is from Wolfeboro, where O'Meara's family moved when she left for college three years ago. She will continue to work for him throughout the school year.
"I liked the fact that, yes, Bradley is from my hometown," O'Meara said. "And I also liked the fact that he was a freshman because that means that you're kind of walking into an office á [where] they haven't been here too long. They probably have a lot of energy, and I liked that idea."
Before working in Bradley's office, O'Meara had two other internships. During her junior year, she traveled to South Africa to teach first-grade students, many of whom were stricken with the HIV virus.
That internship made O'Meara realize she wanted to help set U.S. education policy. But first, she said, she needs to see what's happening in the schools.
"Before you can even begin to try and influence things through policy, you need hands-on experience," she said. "And I think the best way you can do that would be to teach for a while in our country, to get a grasp on what the education's really like and then maybe go on and come back to the policy aspect of things."
O'Meara also worked during the first semester of her sophomore year for Fianna F½il, Ireland's largest political party, in Dublin. She said it was similar to working for Bradley, because both offices worked to maintain good relationships with constituents.
A BALANCING ACT
Part of being an intern is balancing time. Besides going to his internship four-and-a-half days a week, Bowe is expected to attend a weekly three-hour class in peace studies, to participate in embassy visits and to attend lectures.
O'Meara spends about nine-and-a-half hours a week at her internship, 15 hours in class and 12 hours working as a nanny for a family in nearby Virginia. She also volunteers on Saturdays for Our Place, a program to educate children whose parents are incarcerated.
"It's very balanced," she said. "I've always been someone who's always very busy and always have a million different things going. I think that the structure of it works very well for me."
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Despite their busy schedules, both interns set aside time to enjoy the capital.
Bowe said he likes the nightlife. O'Meara likes to explore the museums of the Smithsonian Institution and to sip coffee in Georgetown, which bustles with students, shoppers and tourists.
Having been in the capital for three years now, O'Meara has become adjusted to city life. When she returns home, she is reminded how special New Hampshire is to her.
And what is one of the things O'Meara misses most? The slopes.
"If I miss one thing about being in D.C. and not having gone to a school either in Colorado or New Hampshire or up north somewhere, I miss skiing," she said.
Gregg Chief of Staff is a Known Quantity in New Hampshire Politics
By David Tamasi
WASHINGTON - Joel Maiola knows New Hampshire politics. At least President George W. Bush, former President George Bush, former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, Gov. Craig Benson and U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg think he does.
Maiola, 44, currently serves in Concord as Gregg's chief of staff. He has worked for the New Hampshire senator for 20 years. And he has played a major role in the state's last four Republican presidential primaries - ultimately managing the current president's New Hampshire campaign -- and its most recent gubernatorial contest.
"He is widely regarded as one of the most able political organizers and strategists in the state," said longtime GOP operative and attorney Tom Rath.
Even the chairwoman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, Kathy Sullivan, agreed that Maiola was a "pretty well-respected" figure in state political circles.
Next year, Maiola's political prowess will again be put to use as Gregg faces a challenge from Democratic state Sen. Burton Cohen.
But in the last two years, Maiola has been in the news for a different reason. At issue are two separate but similar incidents involving elderly peace activists.
The Concord Monitor reported on October 7, 2001, that "Maiola refused to apologize for having argued repeatedly with a group of two dozen elderly peace activists" who were submitting a peace petition to Gregg and Rep. Charles Bass, R.-N.H., a few weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The event was caught on tape by New Hampshire Public Television.
The newspaper quoted a Republican operative saying, "It's this kind of error in judgment that cost Bush the primary in New Hampshire." Bush was soundly defeated in 2000 by Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
In October 2002, while the Senate debated whether to authorize the use of force in Iraq, 35 members of the Seacoast Peace Response organization headed to Gregg's Newington office seeking answers to 15 questions the group had previously submitted to the senator.
Among the peace activists was Macy Morse, an 82-year-old Portsmouth resident and longtime opponent of war.
Maiola reportedly confronted Morse inside Gregg's Newington office and told her to leave the premises.
"He was in the Concord office when he found out there were 25 of us outside and another five in the office," Morse said in a recent telephone interview. "He urged us to leave by 5 p.m. because that was when the office closed."
Morse said she never felt physically threatened by Maiola. Maiola, through a Gregg spokeswoman, declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this article. Public service has been a tradition in the Maiola family. His father, Tony, has been New Hampshire's liquor commissioner for the past 12 years and his mother has served on the Newport planning board and as town selectman. A
resident of Bow, Maiola graduated from Keene State College in 1980 and, even before he graduated, began working in politics in Bush the elder's first presidential campaign, , with the help of his connections to former New Hampshire Gov. Hugh Gregg, who recently died. "He was a child prodigy," Rath said of Maiola.
Maiola's affiliation with the younger Gregg began in 1983, when Gregg was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and has continued through Gregg's term as governor and now as senator.
Along the way, Maiola took time off from Gregg's staff to work on the New Hampshire presidential primary campaigns of the elder Bush in 1988 and 1992, and Dole in 1996. But it was Maiola's work with the current president in 2000 that caught the attention of Bush political adviser Karl Rove.
Despite the New Hampshire primary loss, Maiola was asked to join the Bush team for the campaign's final eight weeks. He went to campaign headquarters in Austin, Tex., where he was in charge of direct-mail operations and radio advertising. Serving as an assistant to Rove, Maiola got to know Bush; on election night, he was one of a small group allowed in the "boiler room," the first place where results come in.
After Bush took office, Rove asked Maiola to assist him in the White House political shop. He turned down the job to be with his wife, Karen, and children Ryan and Lauren in Bow, Maiola told the Bow Times last year.
Although he works in Concord for Gregg, Maiola remains in close contact with Rove, reportedly speaking with the President's chief political strategist as often as several times a week.
"He is probably one of the single most powerful men in the state," said James Pindell, managing editor of PoliticsNH.com, a political Web site, "and not just in Republican circles."
In fact, Business NH Magazine named Maiola one of the state's 10 most influential people. Maiola's boss, Gregg, did not make the list.
Two years ago, Maiola took a leave of absence from Gregg's staff to join Benson's general-election campaign immediately after his primary victory. Benson shook up the staff amid concern the campaign was haphazardly spending money. Pindell said an experienced political hand was needed to streamline and refine the campaign's message.
State Democratic Party chief Sullivan said Maiola was brought in to "make sure things were not messed up."
When Maiola joined the Benson campaign, he was reunited with one-time adversary Mike Dennehy, who had run McCain's successful 2000 New Hampshire primary campaign.
Rath dismissed talk that the two did not get along, saying disagreements between Dennehy and Maiola were "professional and not personal."
Now Maiola is gearing up for another race, this time on behalf of his longtime boss, Gregg.
"Maiola is the guy you call when you are in a pinch," Pindell said, although Gregg is favored to win the race. "He is to Judd Gregg what Karl Rove is to the President."
Sununu and Gregg to Jump in Marathon Debate Over Blocked Judges
WASHINGTON - Both of New Hampshire's Republican senators will take part in a rare, three-day talkathon aimed at pressuring Democrats to stop blocking President Bush's judicial nominees.
Like their 49 Republican colleagues, Sens. Gregg and Sununu will take part in at least 30 consecutive hours of debate intended to punish Democrats for their dramatic, and so far successful, tactics to prevent the Senate from voting on four nominations.
Even though the Republicans have a majority in the Senate, they need 60 votes to end debate and bring an issue to a vote. The minority Democrats have capitalized on this technicality to use filibusters to prevent confirmation votes on a handful of Bush's most controversial nominees.
While Republicans charge Democrats with obstructing the judicial system, Democrats counter that they have approved the vast majority -- 168 -- of the President's nominees and have held up only the four they view as too conservative for key judgeships.
Gregg and Sununu will each take the floor early Thursday afternoon in the marathon debate scheduled to begin Wednesday evening. Republicans say they hope to be able to change the rules of the Senate to reduce the number of votes needed to end debate. Democrats will have to keep at least one senator on the floor at all times to prevent the GOP from taking an immediate voice vote and confirming the nominees.
Gregg said the Democratic tactics amount to an end-run around the Constitution.
"As soon as they give us a vote, the issue will be resolved," Gregg said Tuesday. "What they're trying to do is change the constitutional structureá. The Constitution has been traditionally viewed as requiring 51 votes to approve a judge. They're now, for the first time in history, suggesting that you need 60 votes to approve a judge, which is a significant change in the balance of power between the executive and legislative branch and changes the function of the Senate."
But blocking judicial nominees is nothing new. Republicans did it repeatedly when President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, occupied the White House, often by keeping his nominations locked up in committees so the full Senate could not vote on them.
Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., has tried to dispel the notion that filibusters have never been used before, citing four instances over the last 40 years when Republicans used filibusters to block nominees.
"So it is troubling to us that this assertion is made over and over that filibusters are unprecedented when clearly the record shows that there have been many filibusters," Daschle told reporters Tuesday. Sununu said the verbal slugfest will publicize how Democrats have hijacked parliamentary procedure to inhibit the Senate's ability to function.
"I think that kind of obstruction, whether it's on judicial appointments or on legislation, is something that frustrates every American," Sununu said Tuesday. "I don't think it's something that's supported, and this debate is simply going to highlight that fact."
Democrats contend they're well within their rights to use the technicality to their advantage. They also said they are fighting for respect. They argue that the Republican majority has made full use of its power to set the Senate's agenda, preventing the chamber from debating a number of key issues.
To fight this, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., seized the floor Monday afternoon during debate on an appropriations bill and refused to yield for nine hours, during which he blasted Republicans for their treatment of Democrats.
J. Mark Wrighton, a University of New Hampshire political scientist and an expert on Congress, said the Democrats would do the same as the Republicans if put in the same position.
"At some point, it's going to detract from the ability to staff the judicial branch," Wrighton said. "The majority, no matter who it is, has to find a way to get judges confirmed, and unfortunately there's nothing apolitical about this process."
The partisan fight comes as Congress works to wrap up a number of significant issues, including a Medicare prescription drug plan and energy bill, before recessing for the holidays.
Democrats have said that the Republicans' three-day, two-night talkathon will delay votes on critical bills.
But, Gregg said, getting the judges appointed is Senate business. He said there's no comparison between the GOP's 30 hours of talk and Reid's nine-hour filibuster.
"What we're doing is the opposite of a filibuster," he said. "What we're saying is let's go back to the old way, let's have a vote. And they're saying, 'No.'"
Nashua Native Helps Shadowy Agency Hunt Government Cheats
WASHINGTON - - Don't ask Special Agent Andrew Hodges where he's been. Don't ask him where he's going. Odds are, he can't tell you. Try to swindle the federal government, though, and you'll likely be hearing from him.
Hodges, 30, a Nashua native, is a fraud sleuth in the Air Force's shadowy and sometimes hated Office of Special Investigations (OSI). It's the agency charged with hunting spies and tracking terrorists as well as rooting out criminals from inside the Air Force itself.
It's also his job to ensure that the government gets what it pays for in the multibillion-dollar defense contracting industry. By Hodges' own estimation, if you've never heard of him, he's doing just fine.
"You say OSI and people think Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man," Hodges said in a recent interview at OSI headquarters at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C. He was referring to the 1970s television series starring Lee Majors as a bionic agent for the fictional Office of Strategic Investigations.
"That's good in a lot of ways," he added, cracking a smile. "We'd prefer to kind of stay in the shadows."
Those who break the law would probably prefer it, too. Many soldiers maintain a stiff distance from Hodges and his fellow agents, who are in the prickly position of having to investigate their own.
"People have this image of OSI that we're kind of the bad guys, the guys that kick down your door and take you away in handcuffs if you're doing drugs," he said. "You can kill a party real quick when you walk in."
The image is not entirely false.
He recalled with distinct satisfaction watching one belligerent and particularly "pompous" senior airman and small-time Ecstasy dealer get "slam-dunked."
Hodges' detective work landed the fellow three years in prison and a dishonorable discharge. ("To see the expression on his face when they told him his sentence was kind of fun," Hodges said.)
But after four years with the agency, Hodges has graduated from corralling drug dealers, rapists and thieves inside the Air Force to stalking those who would try to scam it from the outside.
"Basically it's people that cheat the government," he said. The problem dates at least to the Civil War, when the Union Army was flimflammed into buying boxes of ammunition that were full of sawdust.
And as military equipment gets more complex, Hodges said the stakes get proportionately higher. If, for example, contractors try to shave expenses by putting a cheap, flimsy grade of metal in a helicopter, not only are they stealing from the government, the results could be catastrophic.
There are "guys out there putting their lives on the line, putting their trust in the equipment that it will work as promised," said Hodges, who has a master's degree in economic crime from the University of Alabama.
Federal prosecutors sued TRW, a subsidiary of aerospace contractor Northrop Grumman, for billing the government for millions of dollars of work done on non-government space contracts during the 1990s. After almost ten years in court, Northrop agreed in June to pay a $111 million settlement. Hodges said such complex cases routinely drag on from five to 15 years.
Despite having to slog through mountains of documents and to coordinate complex investigations with dozens of other federal agencies, Hodges said the trick to nabbing government grifters really is "old-fashioned detective work." And that runs in his blood: Hodges grandfather was one of the first OSI agents when the Air Force was created in 1948; his father, Robert, was a long-time detective and captain with the Nashua Police Department.
Hodges declined requests to interview his family and friends, or even to name them. His parents - his father is retired - now live in Wolfeboro. His brother, an Army Reservist based out of Londonderry, is in Iraq.
As fraud operations program manager, Hodges now spends more time facilitating investigations than he does actually sleuthing. It is, he begrudgingly acknowledged, a cushy desk job with "bankers' hours."
Still, like all soldiers, he must to be ready to deploy immediately to any number of "ugly" places when the call comes. It came four months ago, when Hodges was summoned to lead a security and counterintelligence detail out of the American Embassy in Pakistan. In the interview, he spoke in carefully guarded tones and uses almost incomprehensible jargon to describe his duty there: "threat collection," "vulnerability assessment," and so on.
But he softened at the memory of one specific encounter, with a fellow Granite Stater no less, on a steamy runway in Islamabad, Pakistan, in August. It was U.S. Sen. John Sununu, who was on a whirlwind tour of Central Asia and the Middle East with other senators.
The weary group emerged from the plane and Hodges' detail "herded" them to a heavily defended motorcade.
Recognizing Sununu, Hodges jumped in to ride shotgun in his van.
"I mentioned I was from New Hampshire and he seemed kind of shocked to bump into somebody -- a constituent, so to speak," Hodges laughed, "much less one holding an M-4" assault rifle.
Thousands of Letters Reach N.H., Maine Lawmakers Yearly
WASHINGTON - Put it this way: If every piece of correspondence and phone call to Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) were a dollar bill, he'd be a millionaire twice over by the end of his six-year term.
And he answers them all.
"One of Sen. Sununu's top priorities is to provide the very best constituent service possible, and he appreciates it when constituents contact him with their questions, comments and concerns," said Sununu's spokeswoman, Barbara Riley. Sununu's office receives an average of 1,200 letters, e-mails, faxes and phone calls every day of the year, she said.
Of course, the senator can't personally respond to each one. If he did, he'd have no time left to cast votes, author legislation or take care of the issues his constituents are contacting him about. But the senator makes sure his staff answers every missive and call.
Regular Americans from all over the country constantly write and call their representatives in Congress to let them know what they think. Writers to New Hampshire's four senators and House members will always receive responses, but not necessarily from the lawmakers themselves.
"Occasionally, [Rep. Charlie Bass] will respond himself, but that's not the norm," said Sally Tibbetts, spokeswoman for the New Hampshire Republican. "I'm sure you can understand, given the volume of mail. He wouldn't have time to do anything else."
Bass receives approximately 22,000 to 25,000 letters, phone calls, faxes and e-mails annually, according to Tibbetts. This year, however, an additional 3,000 to 5,000 constituents are expected to contact Bass to air their views on the battle against terrorism and the war in Iraq, she added.
Iraq is the number one topic of most letters and phone calls to the office of Rep. Jeb Bradley (R-N.H.), said spokesman T.J. Crawford.
"Obviously, with the magnitude of an issue á there's going to be more interest with constituents," Crawford said.
People writing to and calling Bradley's office can expect a response in no more than three weeks, depending on the issue, Crawford said. He added that the congressman reviews every response.
"Every answer to a letter, to an e-mail, to a fax, to a phone call that's going out of this office, the congressman makes sure that he sees and personally approves," Crawford said. "Nothing goes out without him seeing it, which is obviously important.
"With the volume of correspondence coming in, it's tough to respond to everyone as fast as you'd like, but we make sure that it's one of the priorities to get a response out of the door as soon as possible."
It takes longer for members of Congress to receive mail since two senators received letters containing anthrax spores two years ago. Now, letters sent to the Capitol complex undergo intense screening, including X-rays. Because it typically takes two weeks to a month for mail to reach them, lawmakers suggest constituents communicate to them via e-mail or fax.
Once letters arrive in the office of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), writers can expect a two-week response time. Snowe also approves all of the responses to her constituents, said spokesman, Jason Galanes.
"It's basically to ensure that very individual concern is addressed as thoroughly as possible," Galanes said.
Snowe wants to make sure that her positions on issues are represented accurately, he said.
Depending on the current issues in Maine, Congress and around the world, the volume of correspondence and calls from constituents fluctuates every day, Galanes said. Besides Iraq, Mainers have expressed concern in the regulation of national fisheries and what is known as Amendment 13, which would end over-fishing, he added.
"That's a topic closer to home, so Mainers definitely felt they needed to communicate with Sen. Snowe about that," Galanes said.
Responses to the 900 or so pieces of correspondence received daily in the office of Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) often contain excerpts from Gregg's speeches on the Senate floor, according to spokesman Jeff Turcotte.
"It's better to use his own words, and certainly if he's spoken on the floor, then that's a very accurate description of how he's feeling," Turcotte said.
The volume of correspondence Gregg receives tends to decrease in the summer and during holidays when Congress is in recess, he added.
Sometimes lawmakers are even given celebrity-like status by their letter-writers.
"You get sort of fan mail, you know, constituents writing, praising your efforts, or just unabashed admiration for the congressman," Tibbetts said of correspondence sent to Bass.
One recent e-mail sent to Bradley's office was more emotional. An Arizona woman, whose brother from New Hampshire is a soldier in Iraq, attached a photo of Bradley with her brother during the congressman's recent visit to the region. When she received word that a helicopter was downed Sunday in Iraq, killing 15 Americans, she worried that her brother was involved. A few minutes later, her brother e-mailed her a new photo and informed her that he was safe.
"We love correspondence like that," Crawford said.
Then there are the children.
"Some of the best letters we've gotten are from younger kids, writing in for a school project, wanting to know how the congressman feels about being a congressman," Crawford said.
"It's a fun change sometimes from some of the more serious questions," he said. "That lightens things up a bit."
