Category: Fall 2004 Newswire
Housing Authority Faces Unprecedented Crunch
WASHINGTON, Dec. 9, 2004-Joseph Finnerty, executive director of the New Bedford Housing Authority, is ready to throw up his hands: The federal government has tossed him a math problem to which there is no good answer.
“We really are caught between a rock and a hard place,” he says. “The numbers just don’t make sense.”
The swirling numbers pertain to Section 8 vouchers, which the Housing Authority administers and the government pays for. These vouchers allow low-income families to choose their apartment with certificate in hand, and pay only 30 to 40 percent of their income in rent.
The government pays the remainder, but only up to a certain guideline: the area’s fair market rent, which is supposed to represent the 40 th percentile of rental costs in the area (meaning 60 percent of rentals would be more expensive than the fair market rent).
That is where the equation has gotten tricky for New Bedford.
In October, the Department of Housing and Urban Development determined that New Bedford’s fair market rent had dropped by as much as 14 to 24 percent from the year before.
Change had been minimal in previous years, making this is an unprecedented shift – one that leaves the Housing Authority to cope under a tighter budget.
And Finnerty, who believes these figures inaccurately portray the cost of renting in the area, says his agency will have only two choices under its already-tight budget: They can either deny more applicants the certificates that lead to affordable new homes or they can force others, already on the program, to pick up the tab.
“People are going to have a very hard time finding safe, sanitary housing at that price,” Finnerty said.
It was a sentiment echoed by several politicians and housing experts. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., for example, a ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, wrote HUD requesting a reevaluation of New Bedford’s figures.
“We are very concerned about the rents in New Bedford,” said Kay Gibbs communications director for the Democratic staff of the committee. “New Bedford has a legitimate concern to say that they don’t feel that all that could have been done has been done.”
Critics point to discrepancies between the figures for New Bedford and the nearby city of Fall River, where fair market rents increased by about 25 percent. In New Bedford, they decreased by about 18 percent.
Steven Beauregard, director of leased housing for the authority, noted in a letter to HUD that Fall River has for the past five years averaged 13 percent below New Bedford in regard to fair market rent values.
“Amazing, amazing, amazing,” said Finnerty. “New Bedford and Fall River are usually referred to as sister cities, because geographically they have the same demographics. It just doesn’t make sense that the fair market rent in the Fall River area would increase.while New Bedford’s would decrease. It is just illogical.”
The repercussions of the fair market rent cuts and area discrepancies are already being felt. Several New Bedford area landlords have notified the Authority that they might have to opt out of the program.
Claremont Cos., for example, which manages Rockdale West and Buttonwood Acres in New Bedford and Sol-E-Mar in South Dartmouth may stop accepting the vouchers. Overall throughout the area, the company runs about 1200 affordable housing units, two to three percent of which rent to individuals with vouchers from the Housing Authority
“An approximately 20 percent decrease in the rents makes it not feasible to participate in the [voucher] program,” said Patrick Carney, president and chief executive officer of Claremont. He pointed to the discrepancies between Fall River and New Bedford as evidence that HUD “has made a terrible mistake in their new 2005 rents.”
Claremont will continue to provide project-based Section 8 housing, which uses the same formula for assistance, but is set up directly between the rental property and HUD.
Yet Aaron Gornstein, executive director of Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, a statewide advocacy group for affordable housing and community development, is worried that Carney’s reaction might be indicative of a future trend: landlords pulling out of the voucher program because of fears of losing money.
“It undermines the confidence in the program among landlords,” Gornstein said. “It is going to be more difficult to recruit more landlords into the program in the future.and to keep them on board now.”
Since HUD first published proposed figures in August, it has been under fire from affordable housing proponents and state representatives disputing the numbers. The result has been a long, drawn-out process in which HUD has figured and re-figured its methods for areas nationwide.
HUD has for years calculated its fair market rent figures using the most recent census data adjusted by inflation along with metropolitan statistics published by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. These latter statistics were based on geographical areas defined by county lines, or in some exceptions, more flexible groupings of cities and towns.
New England had, for the most part, always relied on this exception.
But in August, the Office of Management and Budget started basing its metropolitan statistics on county lines alone.
Across Massachusetts, cities and towns with widely varying leasing prices were suddenly classified as having the same fair market rents. The number of geographic areas declined from 19 to 10, and New Bedford, which had previously comprised its own metropolitan area, joined the rest of Bristol County, which spans from Providence to Boston.
Five Bristol County communities saw their fair market rents drop more than half from the previous year, and most others, including New Bedford, saw drops from 18 to 36 percent, according to the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association.
The move also had ripple effects for housing programs across the country, and more than 350 groups sent letters to HUD, urging it to reconsider its methods. The outcry prompted department officials to reverse course and in October they reverted to the 2004 geographical areas.
Combining the previous year’s geographical data, with the most updated census data, produced a set of numbers different from both the August proposals and the previous year’s figures.
HUD also agreed to perform random digit dialing surveys in 29 communities to further ensure the numbers’ accuracy. It had already completed 24 of these local market surveys, but had been using the August geographic guidelines.
These revisions solved the perceived problems in most areas, but not all – and not in New Bedford.
“The [latest figures] were only very slightly different, to the point where they could have just rubber stamped them and sent them back to us,” said Finnerty of the Housing Authority.
This fact did not escape the Housing Coalition, which specifically mentioned New Bedford in its letter to HUD, arguing that budget changes in April, coupled with the decreases in fair market rents, created a dire scenario for the city.
The organization also suggested HUD make major changes for determining, and publishing, fair market rents for the next time around.
“Taken as a whole, this year’s changes are not easily understood and they do not address the well-known criticisms of the old [fair market rates] in any meaningful or consistent way,” the Housing Coalition argued. “Values change[d] unpredictably last year to this, creating great uncertainty among tenants, administrators and advocates. In most cases.fairly arbitrary changes in geography and methodology appear to be at work.”
But in Massachusetts, next year might come too late.
“The numbers, as proposed, would be devastating to certain areas of the Commonwealth,” Beth Bresnahan, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development, said in October, after the revisions. The department, in conjunction with the University of Massachusetts’s Donahue Institute, conducted its own investigation into HUD’s methodology.
According to Gornstein of the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, the majority of the fair market figures for Massachusetts are still “significantly below” the real world figures in most regions, and that non-metropolitan areas have been particularly hard-hit.
“In reviewing its choices,” Gornstein wrote in a letter to the department, “HUD needs to ask.what implementation is reversible, and what does irrevocable harm? If the [fair market rents] are too low now, and are allowed to stand pending review, then hundreds of families in Massachusetts and thousands nationwide will be displaced out of good housing.with many more displaced over time. This will be irrevocable.”
Eighty Massachusetts organizations ranging from housing authorities to research institutions signed on to the letter, as did the New Bedford Housing Authority.
Of particular significance to New Bedford, Gornstein argued that the process by which the random digit dialing surveys were used was flawed.
For some areas of Massachusetts, original survey results (under the discarded geographical definitions) were used, while in others, like New Bedford, fair market rents were updated based on the recent census data alone.
Gornstein pointed out that the survey results had been maintained in Fall River, but discarded in New Bedford. He asserted that this explains the difference in fair market rents between New Bedford and Fall River.
And according to the Housing Authority’s Beauregard, 96 percent of rental inventory taken for the Providence-Fall River survey fell within New Bedford’s property area.
“Our analysis suggested that the New Bedford area really needed its own RDD [random digit dialing] survey,” said Mike Goodman, director of economic and public policy research at the Donahue Institute, and one of the authors of the Department of Housing and Community Development’s report.
But with an already tight budget, the Housing Authority might find it difficult to fund a survey of its own.
The other hope is that HUD might add New Bedford to the list of cities and towns for which it is continuing to revise numbers. Department officials are considering it, said Kristine Foye, a spokeswoman for HUD’s New England regional office.
New Bedford will find out if that will happen when HUD responds to open comments in the next Federal Register, due out after the first of the year, according to Donna White of HUD.
But that leaves Finnerty, who has already decided not to issue any new vouchers for 2005, simply keeping his fingers crossed.
“Right now, we are operating as if the October 1 rents are the ones we will be living by,” he said.
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Intel Overhaul Highlights
By Ken St. Onge
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8, 2004 -The intelligence overhaul bill that the Senate sent to the White House Wednesday includes these major provisions:
. Establishes the post of director of national intelligence to oversee and coordinate intelligence gathering across the government, including the FBI and the CIA and some, but not all, military intelligence agencies;
. Creates a National Counterterrorism Center, under the office of the national intelligence director, to plan intelligence and counterterrorism operations. Regional National Intelligence Centers and a National Counterproliferation Center would also be created;
. Sets national standards for driver's licenses and other government-issued identification cards;
. Mandates that the Homeland Security Department develop plans for using "biometric" information (such as fingerprints or facial features) to identify individuals;
. Instructs the President to institute an "information-sharing environment" to inform relevant agencies of new information about terrorist activities;
. Authorizes the Transportation Security Administration to begin testing a new pre-screening system for airline passengers by Jan. 1 and develop a similar system for cruise ships. The agency must also develop an enhanced cargo-screening system within eight months;
. Encourages the Treasury Department to work with international groups to promote improved standards for halting terrorist-financing and money laundering.
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Congress Signs Intel Overhaul
By Ken St. Onge
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8, 2004 - After a month of wrangling over budgets and immigration and an initially fruitless attempt at compromise before Thanksgiving, the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly last Tuesday and Wednesday to implement the key 9-11 Commission recommendations and create the post of national intelligence director.
On Tuesday, the House approved the intelligence overhaul legislation 336-75, with a relatively minor change, the compromise hammered out before Thanksgiving by House and Senate negotiators. Reps. Martin Meehan (D-Lowell) and Jeb Bradley (R-Wolfesboro) both voted for the bill.
"I am deeply gratified that the leaders in Congress . have put partisan and territorial concerns aside to take a critical step forward for our national security," Meehan said. "Over three years after 9-11, agreement on intelligence reform has been sorely overdue."
To Bradley, the bill "marks significant progress in our nation's effort to defeat and deter terrorism. I am pleased to support legislation that improves our nation's intelligence-gathering capabilities while at the same time ensures that our troops have access to battlefield information, which will protect their safety and enable them to succeed in their mission."
Some Republicans, including Bradley, were disappointed that some provisions in the original House bill aimed at curbing illegal immigrants were left out of the final version. Those issues are likely to be a high priority in the next Congress, he said, noting that House leaders and President Bush "have provided assurances that these issues .will be dealt with early in the next session."
On Wednesday, the Senate approved the compromise, 89-2. Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy (D) voted for the compromise, as did Sen. John Kerry (D), who had missedthe vote on the original proposal. New Hampshire Sens. Judd Gregg (R) and John Sununu (R) also voted for the bill.
Kerry, who along with Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) did not vote on the original legislation, issued a statement saying "it's time to respond to the 9/11 Commission and the courageous voices of 9/11 families. With today's vote, the Senate can take the first step in doing what's right for our country's security."
Judd Gregg, called the bill "a step in the right direction" but said further steps remain to be taken in correcting "leadership" failures within the intelligence community.
Sununu, who served on the conference committee that negotiated the final version of the legislation, said the bill "removes the outdated, stove-pipe structure of our intelligence organizations."
The bill, which President Bush is expected to sign next week, will create a national intelligence director to advise agencies such as the CIA and FBI on intelligence priorities and make budget recommendations. The bill also establishes a national counterterrorism center under the supervision of the national intelligence director.
Final passage of the bill had been held up in the House because of concerns by some House Republicans, particularly Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, over how the reordering of intelligence gathering could affect the flow of intelligence to the battlefield.
When Hunter agreed to language clarifying the Pentagon's control over such field
intelligence, the bill sailed through the House.
"The President has always wanted a strong national intelligence director with full budget authority, while protecting the [military] chain of command," White House spokesman Trent Duffy said during a briefing on Tuesday. "There are a lot of stakeholders with very good, legitimate concerns about preserving that. The President was one of them. He certainly wants a bill that preserves the chain of command. And so that's why there was ongoing and good-faith discussions about how best to write the language, the fine print of this piece of legislation that will reform our nation's intelligence services for generations to come. And it was good that we acted carefully and deliberately."
The final 9-11 Commission report, which was released in July and condemned the U.S. intelligence community's "failures of imagination, policy, capabilities and management," helped generate a swell of support behind legislation to implement its recommendations.
For 29-year-old Carie Lemack, a Framingham native whose mother, Judy Larocque, was a passenger on one of the hijacked planes on Sept. 11, approval of the bill was bittersweet.
"We didn't want other victims' families in the future to say, 'If you had just done what the commission had said, I wouldn't be a victim's family member.' That was our motivation," she said.
Carie and her sister Danielle helped co-found Families of September 11, a group that campaigned heavily for the bill's passage. She organized a five-day vigil last week at the Boston memorial site, hoping to pressure the House leadership to bring the bill for a vote.
"It's hard," she said. "I feel like I want to tell my mom all about it - about all the things that have happened in the past three years.. But she's still not here, and that's very difficult."
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House Votes on Intelligence Bill
WASHINGTON, Dec 7,2004-The House, after several false starts, was expected to give its final approval Tuesday night to legislation designed to implement the 9-11 Commission's recommendations for a national intelligence revamping.
While the final vote occurred after the Times' deadline, the Senate was expected to easily pass it Wednesday. The bill would constitute the biggest overhaul of the U.S. intelligence network since the end of World War II.
"I am pleased that at long last Congress has stepped forward with a bill that provides congressional reform and intelligence community overhaul that will provide the safety and security for the American people," said Congressman John F. Tierney (D-Salem).
The House vote marked the end of a month-long stalemate spurred by two influential House chairmen who led the charge against a Senate-passed compromise measure that President Bush and an apparent majority of the House had favored.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) had insisted that the original bill's establishment of the post of national intelligence director would interfere with the Pentagon's chain of command and would obstruct the military's ability to get vital information. House Judiciary Committee Chairman, F. James Sensenbrenner opposed the original bill because it did not include measures to control illegal immigration.
The final version of the bill included language intended to allay Hunter's concerns about the national intelligence director's authority by guaranteeing battlefield commanders access to top-secret information.
Congressman Tierney said in an interview Tuesday that he did not think the new language substantively changed the original bill. He added that he suspected Hunter's true aim was less budgetary control for the new national intelligence director. Tierney supports full budget authority, and said that was not changed in the new bill.
While the new bill also does not address Sensenbrenner's efforts to deny driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and impose other restrictions on the immigrants, President Bush sent a letter to House members promising to address illegal immigration issues early in the New Year.
Tierney said he and others believed Sensenbrenner's concerns could be dealt with at a later date.
The July release of the commission's report prompted legislation aimed at better safeguarding America from terrorism, chiefly by creating a centralized national intelligence director and a national counterterrorism center and by granting more funds for border control agents and detention facilities.
The Senate's version of the bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), passed overwhelmingly early this fall. The House passed a GOP-drafted version along party lines, but were unable to reach a compromise with Senate negotiators before the election.
When they did reach a post-election compromise during the pre-Thanksgiving lame-duck session Hunter and Sensenbrenner objected. Although House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert supported the bill he refrained from sending it to the floor without the approval of a majority of Republicans.
"That they didn't have a majority of a majority voting for it . that's what concerned me: when partisanship is put ahead" of the good of the country, Tierney said of Hastert's refusal to bring the bill to a vote. The Salem Democrat said times like these require congressmen to "put aside that kind of stuff."
Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) issued a similar statement Tuesday. "Shameful political games and stonewalling by House Republicans and complicit Administration officials have stood in the way of desperately needed intelligence reform for too long," Kerry said.
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On George Peabody
By Ken St. Onge
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, 2004 - To those who know his family history, it makes sense that Lawrence-born George Peabody would be a leader in a group that on Thursday challenged Congress to affirm a new vision for the National Mall.
"It has become a center stage not just for monuments, celebrations and varied public uses, but for social movements that have shaped our history," said the report by the National Coalition to Save Our Mall, a Maryland-based citizens group for which Peabody serves as secretary. "It's a metaphor for our burgeoning democracy."
In his small role with that group, which aims to preserve open space in the maze of museums, monuments and memorials the Mall has become, Peabody said he is partially fulfilling his family's tradition of public service.
"He's our wise soul," said Cheryl Terio, the coalition's director.
The middle child in a family where public life is a generations-old custom, it was expected that Peabody would carry on the tradition. Along with his brother and sister, Peabody, more than eight decades ago at the age of two, left Lawrence, where he was born into one of the oldest and most prominent families in the state. His father, a priest at Grace Episcopal Church, left for a new parish in Pennsylvania.
His older sister, Marietta, who went on to serve as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations with Adlai Stevenson, was the eldest of the five children of Malcolm Peabody and Mary Parkman. Their second oldest, Endicott, known as "Chub," would become governor of Massachusetts from 1963-65 and a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts and New Hampshire. George's younger brother, Sam, went on to a successful real estate career in New York. Malcolm, the youngest, became a teacher and a leader in the charter school movement.
"I think, from my family, I was influenced by two things," Peabody said in a recent interview, "a certain rebelliousness and a certain confidence at the same time. The kind of confidence that mother had when she went to jail."
In 1964, his 72-year-old mother joined civil rights protesters in St. Augustine, Fla., where she was promptly arrested for helping African-Americans disobey the state's Jim Crow laws. It made national headlines: Massachusetts socialite, cousin of Franklin D. Roosevelt, mother of sitting governor of Massachusetts, arrested for protesting. Martin Luther King Jr. called her one of the "heroes of St. Augustine."
George Peabody has tried to exemplify those qualities throughout his careers, he said. He joined the Coast Guard and served as a gunnery officer on the ship that carried three of the marines who raised the flag on Iwo Jima.
According to Harry Haskell, his best friend since age five and World War II crewmate, after their first year in the Coast Guard, he and Peabody - both nearsighted - tricked their way into officer candidate school, by surreptitiously putting on contact lenses to pass the eye exam.
"It was George's idea," Haskell said. "What a wonderful man."
Later, as an Episcopal priest, Peabody resigned from the church over political differences to spend eight months following community organizer Saul Alinsky.
Since 1980, Peabody has lived in Washington, where he teaches about leadership to clients such as the CIA and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Although he has long since left Lawrence, Peabody recalled returning several years ago to preach a sermon in the same church his father had nearly 80 years earlier.
"I was preaching a sermon about my mother and I mentioned that she had been given this very fine painting by a famous French painter," he said. "Since it was showing a little bit too much bosom, my mother gave it to the rummage sale where it sold for about 50 cents. I said, 'Somebody here has to remember the family who bought this important French painting. It's probably up in your attic.' Having said that, I expected everyone to leave."
While in Lawrence he was able to locate the Prospect Street house he was born in.
Despite his many years' absence, the shape of the house was etched in his memory, he said.
"It just felt right," he said.
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A Greener Corps?
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 - A young tourist arrived in Emerald Isle last summer eager to kick off her shoes and let her feet sink into the fine, white sand beaches for which North Carolina is famous.
Although the sand looked a bit darker than she expected, she bounded onto the beach-only to sink into a soup-like, thigh-high sludge that left her immobilized.
"She was lucky to be able to get herself out," said Emily Farmer, an Emerald Isle resident and one of the activists who has opposed a dredging project, authorized by the Army Corps of Engineers, which has left the town's beaches spoiled and the townspeople divided.
Residents narrowly voted in favor of a 2002 referendum for a beach "renourishment" project which supporters said would rescue eroding beaches and preserve area tourism. The Corps provided the permit, but when the independent contractor began pumping sand onto the beach from an off-shore spot, people were shocked by the results.
"People are kicking and screaming and saying, 'What are you doing to the beach?'" Farmer said. "They haven't destroyed the whole beach yet, but they sure are working on it."
For many Emerald Isle residents, the experience with the Corps of Engineers has been frustrating. They accuse the agency of issuing the permit too quickly and failing to follow up to make sure the work was done correctly.
It's the kind of experience that has prevented the Corps from shaking an unfavorable reputation among environmental groups. But Corps officials point to a growing environmental consciousness illustrated by projects like the restoration of the Sagamore Salt Marshes and, more broadly, stricter operating guidelines.
Now, many Cape Cod residents are carefully watching the Corps, which will determine whether Cape Wind can proceed with its ambitious renewable energy project in Nantucket Sound, a local controversy that has grabbed national headlines. Many wonder which experience Cape Codders will have: Emerald Isle's or Sagamore's.
But at $700 million the stakes for the wind farm dwarf those of smaller dredging and restoration ventures. Proposed in 2001, the Cape Wind project would consist of 130 wind turbines in Horseshoe Shoals that would produce, on average, roughly 75 percent of the Cape's electricity demand. The Corps is the deciding body under Section 10 of the 1899 Rivers and Harbors Act, which requires Corps approval for any construction in navigable waters.
Corps officials admit that environmental sensitivity often played second fiddle to efficient engineering in their projects for almost 200 years - if it mattered at all.
But in 1970, President Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Protection Act and the Corps had a new charge: the environmental impact of every Corps project had to be taken into account before work commenced.
An old dog - one that since 1775 had proudly built much of the country's infrastructure - would need to learn some new tricks.
It is an agency where nearly 34,000 civilians work for the military, thereby enjoying the government's muscle, but also having to heel when ordered to do so.
Best-known for building spectacular projects, the Corps completed the Washington Monument and oversaw construction of the Panama Canal. Its engineers managed the Manhattan project, helping produce the first atomic bomb, and when President Kennedy declared that he wanted to put a man on the moon, the government turned to the Corps for help.
The Corps in 1928 rescued an abandoned Cape Cod Canal project, addressed its flaws and continues to play gatekeeper to the water body that separates the elbow of land from the rest of the country.
More than 15 Cape Cod harbors that greet mariners - in Edgartown and Falmouth, Harwich and Hyannis - were Corps projects and more recently its engineers have cleared explosives from Camp Wellfleet on the Cape Cod National Seashore and restored the Sagamore salt marshes.
For the Cape Wind project, the public has been invited to thumb through a nearly 4,000 page draft environmental impact statement for the proposed Cape Wind project that was prepared by the Corps with 16 cooperating agencies. Four town hall meetings were scheduled for citizens to provide feedback about the project and the review period was increased by 45 days.
Since 1970 the Corps has made significant operational changes intended to reflect a growing environmental concern. The number of staff scientists - biologists, archeologists and ecologists - has grown appreciably. An independent environmental advisory board was assembled that reports directly to the Corps commander. Restoration projects became a priority, environmental operating principles were created and district divisions assembled their own environmental branches.
Critics, however, describe the environmental changes as window dressing, and argue that the Corps remains a handmaiden to congressional members whose sole mission is to attract projects to their home states and districts. They point to Corps projects that went awry like the Emerald Isle fiasco as proof that the agency has not reformed a careless environmental past. Citizen concerns are not taken into account, opponents charge, and Corps lawyers defend against an endless string of environmental lawsuits, they say.
Martin Reuss, the senior Corps historian, knows the charges well, but said the environmental progress of the last 30 years is real.
Reuss said staff turnovers have cleared out many of the "old timers" who resisted environmental constraints. Sharpened expertise at state and local levels and tighter federal funding, he said, have forced the Corps to take on partnerships - often at the local level - a change that naturally produces stricter environmental regulation.
"I think today, we're more concerned about ensuring a project from the get-go," Reuss said. "Our cautionary partners are involved in the planning process and are trying to do what is good engineering but also responds to local needs."
But Reuss also acknowledged that Corps employees are "good soldiers" who have superiors to whom they must report. "These policies and approaches are not developed by the Corps of Engineers in a vacuum," Reuss said. "They are developed in accordance with the guidance of Congress and the executive branch."
To Oliver Houck, a conservation lawyer who has sued the Corps many times, this union of civilian know-how and military might makes the Corps "the most schizoid agency in the federal domain."
The former attorney for the National Wildlife Federation sat on the Corps environmental board in the mid-1970s and is now a professor at Tulane University law school. He has frequently wrangled with the Corps about its projects in the Mississippi delta and accused Reuss of living in a "Washington dream world."
"Their construction program is the plaything of Congress," Houck said, adding that the Corps often behaves like "just another highway department sucking mud and laying concrete."
He said that if any environmental progress has been made, it is on the regulatory side, a role that has increased substantially for the Corps since the 1972 Clean Water Act. That legislation authorized Corps oversight of dredging or dumping projects in the country's wetlands.
"The impact statements on their own projects, like those of other agencies, tend to be propaganda pieces," said Houck. "When it's dealing with third party permits, the Corps is at its most honest and believable."
Still, Houck said that while environmental concerns may be mitigated during a review process, the companies seeking permits almost always get the go-ahead.
"I'd say 99 percent," confirmed Mark Sudol, the chief of the regulatory programs at Corps headquarters in Washington. It's a figure that stirs ire from environmental groups which, Sudol said, fail to recognize environmental impacts that regulators have confronted in their reviews.
"When we've done our job, everyone is mad at us," Sudol said. "We'll work very hard to avoid negative impacts, so the developer doesn't get the project he or she wants. On the other hand, the environmentalists aren't happy because we issued the permit."
Roughly 86,000 permits were issued in 2003 and Sudol expected that number to reach 90,000 this year.
While Sudol normally trusts his district regulators' decision-making, he said he is "keeping an eye on" the Cape Wind review because it has generated talk about a need for national policy change - something project opponents like Gov. Mitt Romney (R) and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D) have repeatedly advocated.
One area that Sudol and other Corps officials admit remains problematic is project oversight. Once projects are approved, Sudol admitted, the Corps lacks resources, both in funding and staffing, to monitor them - sometimes leading to problems like that at Emerald Isle. Sudol has requested an increase in his 2005 and 2006 budgets for more compliance work, calling it an area where the Corps' can do better.
Beverly Getzen, the chief of the Corps' office of environmental policy, agreed that the Corps must improve its monitoring work.
"I think the real nagging problem for all of us to face is how projects are ultimately managed, operated and maintained," she said. "How do we make sure the projects are maintained 20 years from now?"
But Getzen, who has worked for the agency since 1972, argues that the Corps has become more eco-friendly. She remembers the first environmental impact statements as very different from those produced today, like the 4,000-page volume released for Cape Wind.
"Everyone was struggling with what to do and how to do it," Getzen said. "People proudly provided 15-page documents accompanying their project plans."
She also mentioned efforts to streamline data, citing recent agreements with the Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Geological Survey intended to support information-sharing about project successes and failures.
Even skeptics concede that the Corps has improved - somewhat.
"For the vast majority of their history, protecting the environment is not a part of their charge," said Seth Kaplan, a senior attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation, which provisionally supports the Cape project-providing the rigorous environmental review comes out positively. "Congress told them to care about this stuff. Does it truly manifest itself in the way the Corps does business? The answer is sometimes."
By no means, he said, is the overhaul complete.
"They're not dancing around in Birkenstocks over there," Kaplan said, who has often battled the Corps in the past. "The big picture is the military is like an aircraft carrier. Turning it is a really hard thing to do."
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Obesity Battle Plagues Poor
WASHINGTON, Dec 2, 2004-The people of Gloucester have a better chance than residents of lower-income communities to combat obesity, which is second only to smoking as the leading cause of death in the United States, according to health and nutrition experts.
And the economic factors affecting obesity are something many nutrition and epidemiology experts would like to see the federal government do more about.
Because people of higher socio-economic backgrounds have more access to healthy foods and more money to spend on the recommended diet of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, lean meats and fish, they have a leg up on dodging the obesity epidemic, according to many experts.
Conversely, nutrition experts believe, and studies show people of lower socio-economic backgrounds, opt to buy cheaper foods -- white bread and sugary treats, for example -- that tend to be unhealthy.
This is compounded by the fact that low-income areas generally have fewer grocery stores and higher concentrations of fast-food restaurants, not to mention fewer outdoor spaces and parks for exercise.
The limited outdoor space, the lack of grocery stores, and the high cost of produce in poor areas create the perfect recipe for obesity.
Gloucester illustrates the advantage wealthier people have in the fight against the obesity epidemic. With a median income of $48,000 -- $6,000 above the national median -- it has a single McDonald's, four large supermarkets, seven beaches, five parks, two fitness centers, and one yoga studio-a sharp contrast to a poor urban neighborhood.
The Obesity Epidemic
Nearly 65 percent of the adult population-119 million Americans-are overweight or obese, according to Trust for America's Health, a non-profit organization that works to make disease prevention a higher national priority. In Massachusetts alone, the obesity rate among adults increased by 81 percent between 1990 and 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That federal agency defines obesity as an excessively high amount of body fat in relation to lean body mass. Individuals with a body mass index (BMI) of 25 to 29.9 are considered overweight and those with an index of 30 or higher are considered obese.
Body mass index is a common measure expressing the ratio of weight to height. For example a five foot, four inch woman who weighed 130 pounds would have a BMI of 22.3, indicating a perfectly healthy weight. If that woman were to gain 45 pounds, however, her BMI would rise to 30 and she would be considered obese. (You can check your BMI at the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)
Obesity causes at least 300,000 deaths in the United States each year and affects all major bodily systems: heart, lung, muscle and bones, according to the American Obesity Association. More than 30 medical conditions are associated with obesity. Ninety percent of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese and nearly half of obese men and women have high blood pressure. Obese people have twice the likelihood of heart failure than those with healthy weights, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.
Despite the explosion in recent years of diet and exercise regimens, from low-fat or low-carb diets to Weight Watchers or Jennie Craig to yoga or Richard Simmons, obesity rates have steadily climbed in the past decades. Despite books like Fast Food Nation and movies like Super Size Me that warn of the dangers of unhealthy eating habits, Americans keep getting fatter.
The Government's Role
So what is the federal government doing to help ward off obesity? More specifically, what is the government doing to help even the playing field for rich and poor alike in combating this deadly disease? Many nutrition and epidemiology experts say nothing or not enough.
"The government plays an immense role in the relative prices, research and all aspects of our diet, and it would be a revolution if they truly focused on a healthy diet," said Dr. Barry Popkin, director of the division of nutrition epidemiology at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
"Right now the government subsidizes animal-source foods and sugar and does little for fruits and vegetables, so they distort relative food prices away from healthier foods," Popkin said in an interview, referring to the government's inaction on subsidizing healthy foods.
"Right now the government does the same for public recreation options that favor the rich," Popkin said about the lack of outdoor spaces available to those in poor neighborhoods.
While half of poor women suffer from obesity, only a third of women who are not poor are diagnosed with the disease, according to a September 1998 study by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank.
Adam Drewnowski, the director of the Center for Public Health and Nutrition at the University of Washington in Seattle, firmly believes that poverty predetermines obesity. "When I look around I can tell the highest rates of obesity and overweight among adolescents and adults are in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods," Drewnowski said on the Australian radio show The Health Report in May 2004.
"Obesity is the consequence of economic decisions-some voluntary, some not-that have much to do with social and economic resources, food prices and diet costs," Drewnowski wrote in a report on poverty and obesity published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Drewnowski said that diets of refined grains, added sugars and added fats are more affordable than are "prudent diets based on lean meats, fish, fresh vegetables and fruit."
As a result, he wrote, "there is no question that the rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes in the United States follow a socioeconomic gradient, such that the burden of disease falls disproportionately on people with limited resources, racial-ethnic minorities and the poor."
The Wealthy Advantage
Whole Foods Market, a grocery chain that caters to its customers' desire to live healthy lifestyles, exemplifies this disparity between the upper and lower classes. According to its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, this natural and organic foods market chooses its sites by determining the income and education level of residents in specific areas, like Route 1A in Swampscott, where a store is soon to open.
Inside every Whole Foods Market is a giant fresh produce section, a salad bar complete with tofu, vegetables and exotic bean mixtures, a plethora of whole grains and nuts, yoga books and magazines, exercise balls and mats and gourmet wines. Just as the stores' magazine racks lack the Star and the National Enquirer , so do their grocery shelves lack food with added sugars, refined flours and trans fats, a leading contributor to the epidemic of coronary heart disease.
Whole Foods Market stocks its store with all the ingredients that the U.S. Department of Agriculture suggests people include in their diets. The USDA Healthy People 2010 report, co-sponsored by the Food and Drug Administration, advises people to eat a variety of whole grains, plenty of fruit and vegetables and moderate amounts of fat and sugar. Shopping at Whole Foods Market, a customer would hardly have to think about those guidelines.
Unfortunately, according to a survey the chain commissioned, three-quarters of the people surveyed believe the primary barrier to shopping there is the cost of the food. At the same time, over half those surveyed believed the food at Whole Foods is better for their health.
Is this a privilege of the upper classes? Some argue it is.
In his interview with The Health Report, Drewnowski said his Harvard colleagues came up with a new food pyramid, a play on the pyramid the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services food designed to lay out the recommended servings of the different food groups.
The government's pyramid suggests a daily dose of five to 11 servings of bread, cereal, rice or pasta, three to five servings of vegetables, two to four servings of fruits, two to three servings of milk, yogurt or cheese, two to three servings of meat, poultry, fish, dry beans, eggs or nuts and minimal use of fats and oils. A new set of guidelines will be coming out in January, which government officials said they hope will stem the tide of obesity by giving nutritional information in a way that makes sense to the public.
Drewnowski's colleagues' tongue-in-cheek food pyramid consists of a whole red snapper, a whole head of radicchio, a salmon steak, arugula, fresh raspberries and a glass of merlot. Drewnowski called it an example of economic elitism that doesn't account for the needs and restricted resources of the minorities and poor.
"People who are most obese are the ones living in the poorest neighborhoods, [so] the advice to consume more fresh fruit and play a bit of tennis is not working and will not work," he said.
In accordance with Drewnowski's studies, Laura Segal, spokeswoman for Trust for America's Health, said in interview, "Low-income zip codes tend to have fewer and smaller grocery stores than higher-income zip codes."
As a result, she said, "people in low income areas pay more for nutrition. The cost of items in a city might be higher because there are fewer supermarkets available, so the cost of produce is higher." The supermarkets available to poor people are in sharp contrast to Whole Foods stores, Segal said.
More research needs to be done to understand the impact of subsidizing healthier foods and making it more affordable for poor people, Segal said. The government should also think about redeveloping unused spaces in urban areas, such as abandoned buildings or parking lots, into parks or recreation areas, she added. The combination of more affordable health food and more outdoor areas could help stop the rise of the obesity epidemic among the poor, Segal said.
Drewnowski, on The Health Report, said, "We have this tragedy where research and public health policy don't bridge the gaps." He said more integration of research data with concrete plans in state and local government agencies is needed to curb obesity among the poor.
Fighting Poverty and Obesity
The federal government has been trying to find solutions to this problem.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has programs in many states, including Massachusetts, which has implemented 5-2-1 Go!, a school-based overweight prevention program. The goal is to increase consumption of fruits and vegetables, decrease consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, step up physical activity and lower time spent watching television and playing computer games. But this program, in its initial stages, is geared only toward students, who typically are not in charge of buying the family groceries.
In looking at the relationship between diet quality and diet cost, the Department of Agriculture is trying to come up with a healthy diet that costs $100 a week for a family of four. "But once you put the cost constraint in, you are pretty much driven toward mayonnaise, crackers, white bread, ground turkey, Kool-Aid, sugar, inexpensive things," Drewnowski said.
Eric Boost, Agriculture's undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, told the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness in September that the department's Food Stamp Nutrition Education program was aimed at curbing obesity. The goal is to increase the likelihood that all food stamp recipients make healthy food choices within their limited budgets and choose active lifestyles consistent with the department's dietary guidelines and the food guide pyramid.
"We are working very aggressively to make sure the recipients of the assistance programs have access to healthy choices," Suanne Buggy, spokeswoman for the department's Food and Nutrition Services, said in an interview.
While the program does not prohibit poor people from making bad food choices with their food stamp allotment, it does prohibit buying anything other than food. The program's goal is only to educate and encourage recipients to buy healthy foods.
"If they want to buy soda and chips we can't tell them not to," said Laura Arms, the food stamps program manager in Boston. "It's still America. We can't dictate what food they can buy."
Trust for America's Health believes differently. Segal said that 17 states and the District of Columbia have enacted a snack tax to try to discourage consumption of food low in nutrients. Eleven states have passed legislation that limit obesity-related lawsuits so that people cannot sue McDonald's or other food chains for their obesity. A few states and communities have tried to improve access to low-cost, nutritious food in low-income areas. Massachusetts has done none of these things, according to Segal.
So, while some states are taking steps to curb obesity, Massachusetts, a leader in prohibiting smoking in public places and placing high taxes on cigarettes, remains a few steps behind on this deadly health problem.
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Bush Bans Internet Access Fees
WASHINGTON 12/3/04-President George W. Bush signed a bill Friday banning taxes on Internet access fees, but a grandfather clause in the bill allows New Hampshire to continue for two years to tax access fees on high-speed DSL lines.
The clause allows states that taxed Internet access fees, including high-speed Internet access fees, prior to an Internet access fee tax ban enacted in 1998 and renewed in October 2001 to continue doing so.
New Hampshire taxes DSL, or high speed Internet, at a rate of 7 percent under the Communications Services Tax, which dubs DSL a two-way communication service provider. DSL lines are digital internet connections provided by telephone companies to their local subscribers that carry information at high-speeds. The new bill, sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), bans taxation on all access fees for three years and clarifies the definition of Internet access to include DSL, dial-up, cable modem and wireless service. According to a Wyden press release, it also bans double taxation, by two or more states, of a product or service bought over the Internet and discriminatory taxes that treat Internet purchases differently from other purchases, for another three years.
The legislation does not ban taxes on voice over Internet protocol, since the Federal Communications Commission recently ruled that it is an Internet service that is not subject to state public utility regulation.
Voice over Internet protocol is using a computer network to make a telephone call.
Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.), who helped draft the bill, said the ban provides small businesses around the country the certainty they need to expand their information networks.
"The Internet provides great leverage for small firms. It enables small firms or entrepreneurs to access the national market and the international market," Sununu said.
He also said it would spur the development of new products and services that can be purchased through the Internet.
Sununu said in a press release that he supports a permanent ban on taxation of Internet access fees and that the Internet should not be a source of revenue for states.
It is uncertain how many states currently tax Internet access fees. But according to Michael Mazerov of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, Hawaii, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin tax Internet access fees in some way. Mazerov cited an Oct. 30, 2003 letter from the Congressional Budget Office as the source of this information.
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Coyotes Threaten Residents
WASHINGTON, Dec. 1, 2004 -- National Park Service ranger Ken Ferebee searched the spotlight beam on a late September evening, hoping to catch a deer in its circle for a nocturnal count he was conducting in Rock Creek Park, the meandering stream valley that runs through the heart of the nation's capital.
As the light came to rest beneath a grove of trees, the shining eyes staring back at him were altogether unexpected.
"It was just out in some high grass under some oak trees, probably eating some acorns," Ferebee said as he recounted the sighting..
On Sept. 19, Ferebee had officially spotted the first coyote in the District of Columbia. Four more sightings of furry interlopers in October and November confirmed that it wasn't the only one.
"We're not sure how many we have at this point," Ferebee said, "at least two, maybe four or five."
Coyotes, symbols of folklore and notorious pains-in-the-neck for ranchers in the West, had finished their steady expansion east over the last 100 years. For Connecticut residents, coyotes are old hat; the creatures have been lurking along fences and the edges of lawns for nearly half a century. The spotting in the District of Columbia, however, illustrates the pervasiveness of the species, and with the increasing numbers there have been increasing concerns in New England about how to deal with them.
Coyotes belong to the family Canidae , which includes the wolf, the fox and the domestic dog. Their coats range in colors from all black to all red but are most often mottled gray with a cream-colored underbelly. Standing about 2 feet high at the shoulders, a coyote sports a long snout, upright ears and a black-tipped tail; in dim light, it can resemble a thin German Shepherd.
While most specimens typically weigh 30 to 35 pounds, coyotes seem to have gained considerable size as they migrated into New England from Canada and the Great Lakes region. Researchers in Connecticut have caught males weighing close to 50 pounds. Speculation abounds among scientists as to the reason behind the greater size, but most evidence blames likely interbreeding with the growing wolf population as coyotes migrated east.
Active at dawn and in the late evening, coyotes are some of the greatest opportunists of the natural world. Living close to wolves, coyotes can often be spotted scavenging a wolf pack's fresh kill. They've been known to take down deer, but prefer smaller mammals such as squirrels, mice and hares. As such, small domestic pets that venture outdoors need keep a wary eye.
"They seem to have a real fondness for cats," said Christine Montuori, director of the Second Chance Wildlife Center in Gaithersburg, Md.
Coyotes have held a tumultuous place in history, one they carried with them as they traveled east. They were revered by American Indians as symbols of wisdom, but western ranchers tried to shotgun them into extinction as threats to livestock. Now, as they crawl beneath the fences along city limits, their reputations have many people feeling apprehensive.
"It's an interesting psychological study, watching people's reactions to them," Laura Simon, urban wildlife director for the Fund for Animals, said from her office in New Haven. "We get calls here that coyotes are here to drag their children off.. People are scared to death of them. We have to correct a lot of misconceptions over our hotline."
Simon noted that coyotes tended to avoid people at almost all costs, even going so far as to pass over garbage and other possible sources of a quick meal rather than risk contact.
"Coyotes, even in suburban areas, tend to make an honest living," Simon said. "They ate what they were supposed to eat."
Coyotes now exist in almost every major metropolitan center in the continental United States. In Chicago, for instance, naturalists have discovered them in every wooded section of the city, where they travel via aqueducts and abandoned "L" tracks from hunting ground to hunting ground.
The coyote population in Connecticut stands at roughly 3,000 to 5,000, having first entered the state some time in the 1950s, according to Paul Rego, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Environmental Protection.
While problem animals can be caught and killed, there is no concerted effort in Connecticut to control the coyote population. It's just not feasible, said Rego.
"Coyotes have an extremely high reproductive rate," he said. "To kill even a small percentage of the population, you'd have to put an astronomical bounty" on coyotes to entice hunters to put in the necessary effort. "If you removed half the population, they'd be back in a couple years."
The best way to deal with the animals is to accept their presence and take precautions. These include keeping pet food indoors, supervising small dogs and cats outdoors or putting up fences around property.
Trapping and relocating the animals is not an option, Rego said. Trapping laws in Connecticut are strictly regulated, so much so that the only traps used must be placed in the winter and must be under water.
"Most of the species trapped in Connecticut have something to do with water," Rego said, including beaver, mink and raccoons. The state has no traps specifically for coyotes.
The District of Columbia, with a significantly smaller coyote population, doesn't have a need for residents and naturalists to examine man-predator interactions-at least not yet. The National Park Service is making plans to monitor the animals in Washington and surrounding areas. In the spring, rangers will use motion-sensitive cameras with the hope of locating breeding dens in Rock Creek Park.
But even without a den sighting, there's strong evidence that coyotes will remain a permanent fixture.
"I doubt they're going to disappear," said Montuori of the Second Chance Wildlife Center. "Whether they become a problem is really anybody's guess."
Bhopal Still Poisonous 20 Years Later
WASHINGTON, Dec 1 - Citizens of Bhopal, India awoke late in the evening of December 3, 20 years ago, with burning eyes, noses and mouths. Poison gas had leaked from a factory, a catastrophe that killed more than 3,500 within hours and thousands more in the intervening years. It was the worst chemical disaster in history.
And today, several activist groups said Wednesday, it continues to fester.
Amnesty International, Greenpeace and several other organizations advocating on behalf of Bhopal survivors launched a new campaign Wednesday, timed to coincide with the disaster's 20 th anniversary, denouncing the pesticide plant as a continuing source of pollution.
"The abandoned plant is still leaking toxics to the drinking-water supplies of 16 residential communities, where 20,000 people live," Rajan Sharma, primary attorney representing Bhopal survivors, told reporters.
Based in New York, Sharma's legal team is in the midst of a battle to bring liability suits against Dow Chemical in U.S. and Indian courts, charging the company is responsible for the plant's current leaks.
Dow Chemical, in a statement posted on its Web site, denied having any current responsibility over the Bhopal site, a location it transferred to the state of Madhya Pradesh in 1998.
"All the claims arising out of the release were settled 15 years ago . with the approval of the Supreme Court of India," the statement said. In 1991, that court forced the company to pay an average of $500 each to the 570,000 people affected by the leak.
Bhopal survivors and officials from Amnesty International, Greenpeace and other groups described the compensation as insufficient and said Wednesday they were not willing to let the tragedy or its victims be forgotten.
Amnesty International, in a report called "Clouds of Injustice," asserted that neither the company nor the Indian state has cleaned up the "the mess" 20 years later. The report also asked the government of India "to secure justice for the victims."
More than 150,000 people are still suffering from illnesses stemming from the leak, the advocates said. "We demand medical care and economic and social support for them," said Rachna Dingra of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.
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