Category: Ericka Crouse
Efforts to Protect Local Salamanders Illustrative Of Ongoing Conservation Issues
WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 – Each year on a rainy spring night, usually some time in March, a miniature migration turns volunteers across Massachusetts into curious crossing guards.
“We have big yellow signs that we hold up that say ‘salamander crossing.’ Everybody wears their fluorescent vests and gets out there with buckets and flashlights in the pouring rain,” said Deb Cary, coordinator of some of the volunteers and director of the Massachusetts Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary in Worcester.
In Massachusetts, where the land has long been thickly settled by humans, amphibians such as frogs, toads and salamanders often have to cross roads to get from the wooded upland areas where they live most of the year to the low-lying wetland areas where they mate.
These are small creatures – the larger salamanders can grow up to eight inches – and they aren’t necessarily easy to see on a rainy night. On these spring nights, the roads between the main living habitat of these amphibians and their mating areas are covered with hopping frogs, crawling salamanders, the little sperm packets dropped by the males and dead, squished animals.
The salamander crossing program is one of several that benefit threatened species of salamanders in Essex County.
There are six amphibians listed as “threatened” or “species of special concern” on the Massachusetts state list, according to the Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program, branch of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife that administers the state’s endangered species program. Only three of the listed species have been reported in Essex County in the last ten years, according to the Natural Heritage database, and only two “species of special concern” are found on the mainland: the blue-spotted salamander ( Ambystoma laterale ) and the four-toed salamander ( Hemidactylium scutatum ).
The third species, the threatened eastern spadefoot toad ( Scaphiopus holbrookii ) lives in Essex County only in the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island.
The salamander crossing program is only one of many efforts to raise awareness of and to help protect the amphibious creatures and their habitats.
In another part of the state, Scott Jackson, a wildlife biologist specializing in reptiles and amphibians, has developed a more permanent strategy for helping salamanders in their migration: tunnels.
Jackson is in the Department of Natural Resources Conservation at UMass Amherst. He helped develop a tunnel system for salamanders and other small animals at a site on Henry Street in Amherst, which was known as an amphibian road-crossing area.
“When you have an entire population that needs to cross the road to breed, that’s an obvious issue,” he said.
The crossing programs are useful for drawing attention to the plight of the salamanders, he said.
“It’s a good thing, but it’s not enough by itself,” he said. He noted that the volunteers are rarely there when the adults migrate back to the woods after the mating season is over, or when the young make their first migration into the uplands.
Jackson admitted that the tunnel system isn’t perfect either. He said that salamanders are reluctant to go into the dark tunnels, and other species sometimes don’t make it to the tunnels at all, instead being baffled by the small fences intended to funnel them into the tunnels.
If they help one species and hinder another, “the tunnels and fences themselves are going to cause more problems than the cars,” he said. He noted that on roads with light traffic, signs and speed bumps might be nearly as effective in protecting the salamanders, though larger roads would still be a problem.
“If you’re zooming down the highway these are a lot easier to miss than a snapping turtle or a moose if one wanders into the road,” Jackson said.
Some conservation efforts are centered more around habitat than direct protection of the species. According to its Web site, Massachusetts Audubon has 43 wildlife sanctuaries throughout the state, four of them in Essex County: in Gloucester, Newburyport, Topsfield and Wenham.
The Essex County Greenbelt Association also acquires land for purposes of education, conservation and preservation of green space. Though helping the amphibians is not the association’s chief goal, according to Edward Becker, the executive director, it is one of the many benefits of what it does.
“We own a lot of wetland, we own a lot of marshland, and we keep it for the habitat value,” Becker said.
Another local organization intent on education and conservation is the Vernal Pool Association. Begun in 1990 as part of an environmental outreach project at Reading Memorial High School by then-biology teacher Leo Kenney, it has grown into an independent organization.
Its main goal is to educate people about vernal pools and their ecology. Vernal pools are the wet lowland breeding areas for salamanders. They’re used by “amphibians, certainly, but a number of the turtles go there for feeding,” Kenney said. He added that the pools also are home to “an amazing number of invertebrates.”
Vernal pools are basically “wicked big puddles” (as Kenney’s book about vernal pool ecology is titled) which form when the snow melts in the spring and dry up by the end of the summer. The seasonal nature of the pools means they’re free of fish and larger amphibians who would prey on the eggs and young of salamanders and smaller frogs.
One of the goals of the organization is to identify vernal pools and certify them through the Natural Heritage program. Certification lets the public know the pools are there and helps get people involved, Kenney said.
“A pool doesn’t really have to be certified to be protected,” he said, but they’re a “very interesting ecosystem” that people should know more about.
Protecting this interesting ecosystem can be tricky, according to Alan Richmond, a professor of biology at UMass Amherst.
“Most people see a vernal pool and say: ‘Huh, West Nile. We’d better drain it and kill the mosquitoes,’ or ‘Huh, it dries up, let’s dig it deeper and put fish in it,’ ” he said. “Either strategy is bad news for these salamanders.”
This kind of struggle over the habitat of a few salamanders in Massachusetts is echoed all over the country in the fight to preserve many species that are endangered at the federal level.
The conflict has recently come to a head in the congressional debate over renewing the Endangered Species Act. The act, which President Nixon signed into law in 1973, must be renewed periodically. The latest bill intended to renew the act would make some major changes to its provisions.
The Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005, sponsored by Rep. Richard Pombo, a Republican from California, would eliminate the ability of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate critical habitat, streamline the process for pesticide approval and restructure the way the Fish and Wildlife Service can administer the endangered species program.
It would allow the Fish and Wildlife Service to compensate private landowners when an endangered species’ presence prevents the development of land, causing a financial loss for the landowner.
The House passed the bill, 229 to 193; the Senate has not acted.
Brian Kennedy, a Republican spokesman for the House Resources Committee, which Pombo chairs, said these changes are necessary to decrease the federal bureaucracy involved in protecting endangered species.
Kennedy said the law had produced a “tremendous amount of conflicts” between the Fish and Wildlife Service and private landowners, particularly in western states. He said the goal of the bill is to “protect the private property owner, incentivize the private property owner and make having an endangered species on the land a positive thing.”
He said that the current law may have helped keep species from going extinct, but it hasn’t helped many species to actively recover. The new law would require a recovery plan to be developed for each species within two years of its being listed. These plans would include active intervention to preserve and restore the species and specifics on habitat preservation, which would eliminate the need for the critical habitat designation, Kennedy said.
Right now, he said, landowners fear the hand of the federal bureaucracy in their affairs, especially because of its glacial speed in addressing concerns and responding to permit requests. They also fear losing money and autonomy, he said, and fear being prosecuted even when their intentions are good. This fear leads to what Kennedy called “shoot, shovel and shut up.”
That is, rather than let anyone know that an endangered species is on their land, private landowners would rather kill it, get rid of it and keep quiet than let anyone know it is there and work with the Fish and Wildlife Service to help preserve the animal.
The Fish and Wildlife Service will, if the new act passes, be required to give a timely response to a landowner’s proposal to develop a property. The service, Kennedy said, may then give the project the go-ahead or ask for some changes or reject it outright.
If it calls for changes, it must provide both financial and manpower help.. If it turns the project down, it must compensate the landowner “as if the land was taken under eminent domain,” Kennedy said.
This last is one of the many provisions of Pombo’s bill that has environmentalists up in arms.
Corry Westbrook, a legislative representative at the Washington office of the National Wildlife Federation, said, “It’s kind of like paying developers to adhere to the law.”
“The Fish and Wildlife Service is usually highly accommodating to private landowners,” she said. She added that the permitting process, while it might take time, doesn’t often prevent private landowners from doing what they want to do with a piece of property.
“Usually the project goes forward, but they say ‘put the parking lot over here instead of in the wetlands,’ ” she said.
Westbrook also had problems with the way the new bill defines what scientific data should be used in listing new species and making permit determinations.
It will let the Secretary of the Interior “lock in politically motivated definitions of science,” she said.
But the rollback of protections in favor of the rights of property owners is the big concern. While Westbrook said that most people will want to do the right thing, some of the biggest property owners will not.
“A lot of times, when people talk about private landowners, I think they romanticize and think, ‘Oh, a small farm,’ but in reality, a lot of the owners are private corporations,” she said. “They think about the bottom line, and that doesn’t always pan out for wildlife.”
None of the state-protected amphibians found in Massachusetts is on the federal list of endangered or threatened species maintained by the Fish and Wildlife Service. Any species that are on the federal list are added to the state’s list automatically, according to Tom French, the director of the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program.
Natural Heritage reviews construction and renovation projects for potential impact on endangered species in the state.
The state designations of “endangered” and “threatened” make it a crime to do anything that would harm a listed animal. The protections the designation affords to animals, plants and their habitats are comparable to the current federal endangered species protections.
“They’re essentially the same designation, except for geographical scale,” French said.
He said some of the clashes the federal government gets into with property owners are less common on the state level. He attributed this to the fact that landowners in Massachusetts and other populous areas must already contend with zoning and many other regulations. This is not the case in other states – particularly thinly populated western states, he said.
“No one here assumes they can fill in wetlands on their property, but those kinds of rights have not been in place for years and years,” he said.
Wetlands and other habitats for rare species are protected at the Massachusetts state level, but while people have come to accept the value of wetlands to wild animals, there is a lot of resistance to protection of the wooded uplands that are of greater commercial value to humans, French said.
“It does make it more difficult,” he said. “People understand that a vernal pool is there and that salamanders have to lay their eggs in it, but they don’t understand that they have to have forest around the pool.” French added that it becomes a question of the minimum area the animals need to live, which isn’t always easy to determine.
Natural Heritage tries to take into account both the needs of humans and the needs of listed species when they review projects. To do this, though, they need to know where the rare animals can be found.
“If we don’t know it, they’re not protected,” French said. The most important, helpful thing an individual can do to help preserve rare species and their habitat is to report sightings of these species, including a photograph, to Natural Heritage,, he added.
“The most important single thing is for us to know where they are,” he said.
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Lawmakers Look to Protect Religion in Workplace
WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 - When it passed in 1965, the Civil Rights Act was a landmark step for the rights of black Americans. Now an unlikely, bipartisan group of legislators wants to expand the law's protections to include religious working Americans.
At issue is the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, which would, among other things, require employers to make a "bona fide" effort to accommodate an employee's religion-related needs and would specifically exempt the way an employee dresses and when they take time off from being included in consideration of whether he or she can perform the essential functions of the job.
Under current law, employees may be let go for their religious practices or observances if accommodating these needs constitutes an undue burden on the employer. The bill would define more specifically what would constitute an undue burden on employers.
According to Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.), one of the bill's sponsors in the House, the courts have interpreted that burden too loosely.
"The Supreme Court has effectively thwarted the intent of Congress," he said.
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), the bill's other House sponsor, agreed. She said that some court rulings indicate that "any hardship is an undue hardship."
Souder said that the bill enjoys "broad bipartisan support" in both houses of Congress and added that it has caused unexpected people to reach across the aisle - it is sponsored in the Senate by Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) and. John Kerry (D-Mass.).
The House Education and Workforce Committee's subcommittee on employer-employee relations held hearings Thursday on the bill.
Rep. John Tierney (D-Salem) said the hearing provided a welcome opportunity to learn more about the bill and noted the importance of achieving the right balance between employee's rights and employer's needs.
"We must protect workers' rights, including their freedom from all types of discrimination, religious or otherwise," said Tierney.
One dissent to the generally positive view of the bill came from Camille A. Olson, who was at the hearing representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. According to Olson, the current protections of employees' religious civil rights are sufficient.
Samuel A. Marcosson, the associate dean of the University of Louisville's Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, also voiced concerns that the bill might "cross the line into non-neutrality."
"Government must be neutral between religions and between religion and non-religion," he said.
Marcosson expressed concern that the bill excluded non-economic factors that could contribute to an undue hardship determination, such as whether accommodation of a religious person's needs would infringe on the rights of that person's co-workers.
Richard Land, the only expert witness at the hearing who was neither a lawyer nor a member of Congress, urged the subcommittee to pass the bill.
Land, who was there representing the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said it is important for citizens not just to have the right to believe what they want, but also the right to act on that belief.
"This principle unites people of diverse faith because we all have challenges to our religious practice," he said. "To protect one - all must be protected."
The bill's future is unclear because is not currently scheduled for a vote in the committee.
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College Could Get $20k for Gang Prevention
WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 - North Shore Community College will receive $200,000 in federal money to establish a continuing gang prevention initiative, thanks to a spending bill the House passed on Wednesday and the Senate is expected to take up shortly.
The money will be used to extend "Project YES," a gang prevention pilot program in Lynn that the college's Education Department ran in the summer and again this fall.
The money was included in a bill that provides funds for the State, Commerce, Justice and related departments; it will be disbursed to the college in fiscal year 2006, which ends next Sept. 30, according to an announcement from the office of Rep. John Tierney (D-Salem).
The program is an effort to fill adolescents' needs in a positive and constructive way, said Wayne M. Burton, president of the college. The program is aimed at preventing middle-schoolers from joining a gang in the first place, because "the problem with the gangs is, once they're in, it's hard to get out," Burton said.
"What's critical is that it may take a village to raise a child, but it takes a city to beat the gangs," he added.
The program provides services to at-risk youth, including computer training, school testing preparation, and recreation, among other things. "We had a former gang member come in and talk about some of the horrors that he endured," Burton said.
Burton said he is working with a task force that he put together with Lynn Mayor Chip Clancy that consists of representatives of many fields in the community, including schools, police representatives and lawyers.
Tierney said in a release that he was "pleased" to have worked to provide the federal funds.
"Engaging young people and providing opportunities will stem a tide of crime and violence that often leads to larger community deterioration and dissolution," Tierney said. "President Burton has shared with me specific cases where the program has had a positive impact."
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Private Property Protection Passes the House
WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 -- The House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that would forbid any state or local government from using eminent domain for economic development projects if they have received any federal economic development funds in the same fiscal year.
Eminent domain, a governmental power established in the Constitution allows government to buy land from a private owner at market rates, even against the will of the owner, and put it to a public use.
Known as the Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2005, the bill would make municipalities that break the law ineligible for federal economic development funds for two years, as well as providing specific lines of recourse for land owners.
The measure passed with a vote of 376 to 38 .
The bill was introduced by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) in reaction to a Supreme Court decision earlier this year that eroded property owners' rights, according to many representatives from both sides of the aisle who spoke on the floor of the House in support of the bill. The Supreme Court decision resulted from the use of eminent domain by New London, Conn.
Rep. John Tierney (D-Salem) expressed tentative support for the bill before the vote on Thursday.
"I think the Supreme Court went too far, but I want to make sure that it doesn't swing back too far in the other direction," he said.
Tierney said that there were a number of amendments that, if they passed, would give him more confidence that the bill would achieve its original intent. He said that he was concerned that, as originally written, the bill would not allow for the government to buy lands to do environmental cleanup unless the land in question posed a public health risk.
An amendment proposed by Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), which would have specifically addressed the kinds of environmental cleanup Tierney mentioned, failed to pass.
Rep. Tierney ultimately voted for the legislation.
Scott F. Sneddon, a homeowner in Salem, a second-year law student and vice president of the Salem Common Neighborhood Association, called the bill "potentially very troubling."
"Eminent domain has been an important tool for urban redevelopment," he wrote in an email.
He added: "It's really not a lawyer's issue, it's a fairness issue. People are worried that they won't be treated fairly, and that influences outside their control will cause them to lose something that we hold dear, the right to say 'no, this house is not for sale.'"
Sneddon said this right is not absolute, and, though it is never an easy decision, the right must sometimes give way to community concerns.
However eminent domain is not a power that local communities take lightly. Tom Moses, the chief financial officer in the Gloucester City Treasurer's Office could not remember a time when he was involved in city government when eminent domain was used.
"I was here in '97, '8 and '9 and left and then came back in 2003," he said. "I don't ever remember it being used in that time."
Frank Kulik, director of the Salem city assessor's office, said he believed the last time eminent domain was used by the city was before his 20-year stint in city government.
"The Salem Redevelopment Authority, back in the '70s, when the downtown area was totally redeveloped," was the most recent example he could think of. "I would think it almost had to happen, back then."
In June, the Supreme Court issued a decision in the case of Kelo v. New London that said economic development constitutes a public use, and therefore is a legal reason to use eminent domain under the Constitution.
In floor speeches Thursday, many representatives who rose to speak expressed concerns that the Kelo v. New London decision would put private homes, small businesses and churches at risk of being replaced by strip malls and box stores, if they were in a good location.
"Until Kelo came around, you couldn't take land until you demonstrated blight," said Jim Masterman, a Boston property lawyer whose practice concentrates on eminent domain issues. "That's the argument."
"Politically, what Kelo has come to mean is that the government can take your land for any purpose," said Masterman. He said in essence the Supreme Court's decision has been seen to mean that a government could take the land a private home was on and use it to build luxury condominiums, because the latter would produce more revenue for the government and more jobs for the community.
"The Kelo decision struck a nerve," he said, especially with elected officials.
"I don't think it's an overreaction to have this debate going on in the legislature," said Masterman. He added that the checks and balances that keep the use of eminent domain limited are currently economic instead of legal, so a legislative debate on the issue is "appropriate."
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Tierney Campaign Fund Raising On Track For 2006
WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 - With nearly a million dollars in his campaign war chest, Rep. John Tierney looks ready for any kind of reelection challenge. Now all he needs is a challenger.
Although the $996,266 Tierney has in the bank, according to his campaign filings with the Federal Election Commission, is not is not an exceptionally large amount for a member of Congress, it is unusual for a candidate in a district as safe as Tierney's.
"One of the things that money does is to keep the opposition at bay," said Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan, non-profit group that tracks money in politics. He noted that Tierney didn't have any "serious" opposition in 2002 or 2004.
Politicians also build up huge campaign chests because "they never think they have enough, generally," Noble said.
David King, the associate director of the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government, agrees.
"It's a beating of the chest in the political jungle," King said of fundraising. He added that it might take as much as $2 million for a candidate to run a competitive campaign for congress.
So far no opponents have filed against Tierney in the 2006 race, though his spokeswoman was quick to dismiss the notion that he expected another easy reelection. "Congressman Tierney always anticipates a race each election and would in any circumstance work to ensure that he campaigns aggressively so as to connect with all potential voters," said Katie Economou, a Tierney campaign spokeswoman.
As for the size of Tierney's war chest? "With the high cost of campaigns, especially in expensive media markets, it is important to ensure that a campaign has adequate funds with which to get out the candidate's message," she said.
Candidates can also use the money can to support their party - not incidentally building their own influence. Tierney has given $25,000 so far this year to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats' campaign vehicle. During the last two years, he donated a total of $100,006 to the committee.
Thus far for the 2006 election cycle, Tierney has raised $214,155 and spent about half of that on events and the day-to-day expenses of his campaign.
The majority of Tierney's funds come from individual contributors, which is typical for congressional candidates on both sides of the aisle, according to Larry Noble. Individuals' contributions are more numerous than contributions from political action committees, "and they should be," Noble said.
Organized labor is the congressman's biggest donor on the special interest side. Tierney has received $21,500 so far in this election cycle from political action committees of various unions, including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Auto Workers, according to information compiled from FEC filings on politicalmoneyline.com and opensecrets.org.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) also has given the congressman financial support. Tierney has received $1,000 from Kerry's political action committee.
Outer Brewster LNG Approval Process Not Even Begun
WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 - Environmental groups, newspaper editorials and nearby townspeople have all condemned a new proposal for a liquefied natural gas facility on Boston Harbor's Outer Brewster Island. And the approval process for the facility has not even begun.
AES, the Virginia-based company that proposed the project, has not filed any of the necessary documents with the commission, said Tamara Young-Allen, a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission spokeswoman.
At this point, the battle over the new facility is taking place entirely in the Massachusetts legislature. Outer Brewster is currently park land. AES needs rights to the land before it can submit an application to the commission, and it needs two-thirds approval in both legislative chambers in order to can get rights to the island.
In spite of their very public opposition to a similar proposed facility in Fall River, Massachusetts Senators Edward Kennedy and John Kerry have not commented on the Outer Brewster facility.
"Senator Kerry's staff has been briefed on this project," said Setti Warren, Kerry's press secretary. "Senator Kerry will certainly be keeping tabs on this proposal, paying close attention to the homeland security and environmental implications."
As for Kennedy, Melissa Wagoner, is press secretary, said,"The Senator looks forward to working with local, state and federal officials and interested parties to determine the project's potential impact and if it's the best way to increase our region's natural gas supply."
The federal review process allows for comment from the public and from local and state entities as well as from the Coast Guard and the Department of Transportation.
In filing for approval such a project, a company must alert the commission and the public about its proposal at least 180 days before an application is formally filed.
The company must also host open houses in the area where it propose to build such a facility to discuss the project. Commission representatives participate in these open houses and also seek written comments as part of a required environmental impact statement. Then they must hold public hearings on draft versions of the statement.
Young-Allen said the agency must also consider information from a variety of experts in liquid natural gas engineering, anthropology, biology, parks, forestry and law, among other subjects.
"Everyone is equal," she said. "It is America. Everybody's comments are considered." She added that the commission has to consider such things as national security, whether alternative projects exist, how much the project is needed and whether it would create noise pollution.
Concerns of area residents are only a slice of that pie.
"I think some people have the impression that the more signatures we get against a project," the less likely it is to happen, Young-Allen said. "That's not the case."
More information on the review process can be found on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Web site at http://www.ferc.gov/industries/lng/gen-info/rev-proc.asp
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House Passes Bill Protecting Firearms Businesses from Lawsuits
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - The House voted on Thursday to forbid lawsuits against manufacturers, distributors and sellers of firearms for any harm that comes from illegal use of their products.
The measure, which the Senate approved in July, cleared the House, 283-144. It now goes to the White House for President Bush's signature.
The bill, known as the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, would protect manufacturers, distributors, importers and dealers of firearms and ammunition from lawsuits based on the way guns were used by the end consumer. It also would protect firearms and ammunition trade associations from the same kinds of suits.
The legislation allows lawsuits against firearms companies or dealers if any of certain criteria are met: transfer of a gun in violation of state or federal law in which there was a conviction for the violation; a seller's negligence; a manufacturer or sellers knowing violation of state or federal laws in the sale and marketing of the product; a breach of contract or warranty; injury due to a design or manufacturing defect, or if the action was brought by the U.S. Attorney General.
In floor debate, supporters said that these exceptions would allow all legitimate lawsuits to go forward.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) said the bill "by prohibiting abusive lawsuits against the firearms industry, supports core federalism principles." He also noted that the firearms industry supplies the U.S. military and provides jobs to citizens.
Other supporters also expressed concern that lawsuits against firearms companies for crimes committed by third parties represent attempts to sue the industry out of existence.
Rep. John Salazar (D-Colo.) said the bill was "a commonsense measure to protect small businesses and preserve the second amendment."
One of the leaders of the opposition to the bill, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), said that since the majority of gun shops are law-abiding, this bill would serve only to protect those few who are not.
"Why don't we go about the business of passing legislation to protect the victims of gun violence rather than a handful of bad-apple dealers?" he said.
Many of the members who rose to oppose the bill said that the courts were already doing the job of dismissing frivolous lawsuits.
According to the Associated Press, about 20 pending lawsuits by local governments against the industry would be dismissed under the measure.
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Food Responsibility Act Limits Fast Food Liability
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 - The House approved a bill Wednesday that would eliminate consumers' ability to bring obesity-related lawsuits against fast food and supplement companies.
The Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act, nicknamed "the cheeseburger bill," includes language that would stop all lawsuits pending against food companies such as McDonald's in which plaintiffs are seeking damages for the companies' contributions to their obesity. The bill also would forbid all obesity-related suits in the future.
The measure passed, 306 to 120. The Senate has yet to act on the bill.
John Tierney (D-Salem), who voted no on the bill, questioned why Congress was even considering this issue when his constituents were concerned with other issues, such as energy prices and health care.
Republicans "want Congress to take time out" to work for special interests, he said. "There is not a single piece of evidence that the courts aren't working well."
In the floor debate, opponents concentrated on the fact that the bill would supersede approximately 20 state laws that prohibit such lawsuits and 26 more that are under consideration.
Melvin L. Watt (D-North Carolina) said the bill was "an overreaction" and the "ultimate attestation to the fact that many of my colleagues have lost confidence and faith in the legal system."
Watt said that the legal system was already properly determining which lawsuits are frivolous and throwing them out.
He also expressed concern that the bill might forbid lawsuits against dietary supplement companies even if people developed a serious condition such as heart disease as a result of their use of a supplement.
But Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia) echoed the opinions of many of the bill's supporters when he emphasized the importance of personal responsibility.
"It is common sense that individuals should take responsibility for their personal choices and eating habits," he said.
Goodlatte added that the bill would protect legitimate lawsuits, such as suits over defective products and food poisoning.
Many supporters also said that frivolous obesity lawsuits would threaten jobs and weaken the food service industry.
Ric Keller (R-Florida), the bill's sponsor, originally introduced the legislation last year. It passed the House but was never brought to a vote in the Senate. Keller re-introduced it on Feb. 2.
Bryan Malenius, Keller's chief of staff, said the congressman reintroduced the bill because the playing field has changed. "It's a more favorable environment for tort reform," he said.
Malenius added that the restaurant industry is the nation's largest private-sector employer and that Keller, while confident restaurants would win any obesity lawsuits, believes the bill would help ensure that they "keep investing in communities instead of paying legal fees."
Home Heating Assistance Amendment Blocked in Senate
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- Senate Republicans this week blocked an effort to increase funding for home heating assistance.
GOP senators used a procedural move to prevent a vote on an amendment to a defense spending on Wednesday night. The amendment would have increased funding for low income energy assistance from the $2.183 billion currently appropriated for 2006 to the maximum $5.1 billion that can be spent.
"Basically, this was the Republican leadership blocking a very good amendment to get funding for these families," said Amy Brundage, press secretary to Sen. John Kerry, who sponsored the amendment.
"If we've learned anything from the past months it's that we need to prepare for trouble ahead," said Kerry in a press release Thursday morning. "With the defeat of this amendment, we remain unprepared for what may be a long, cold and expensive winter for millions of American families."
The Kerry amendment "didn't have a prayer," said Elliot Jacobson, the head of the energy assistance program at Action Inc., a Gloucester distributor of federal heating assistance funds for the Cape Ann area.
Jacobson said that he is keeping an eye, instead, on a bill in the state legislature that would provide an additional $20 million in state money for home heating assistance.
"We want to put language in the bill that forces the state to raise the benefit level proportionally," said Jacobson.
Raising the state benefit level would allow each household that qualifies for heating assistance to receive more. Right now, according to Jacobson, the level of assistance from federal and state funds is only enough to buy one tank of heating oil.
"Most people need three or four [tanks] to get through the winter," he said.
The state bill also would allow only $5 million of the funds to be released at the beginning of the heating season, according to Jacobson. "We're trying to correct the language of the legislature to get the full authorization up front," he said.
Stat box:
By the Numbers
Residential Heating Prices
Oil
$1.83 -- Average price per gallon last winter in northeast.
$2.42 -- Projected price per gallon this winter in the northeast.
$2.57 -- Current average price of heating oil in Mass.
Natural Gas
$14.36 -- Average price per thousand cubic feet last winter in New England
$20.64 -- Projected price per thousand cubic feet this winter in New England.
Source: Energy Information Administration
Bogus Calls on Jury Duty Could Lead to Identity Theft
WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 -- People in several states have fallen victim to con artists claiming to be employees of state and federal courts.
The scheme runs like this, according to the FBI: The victim will receive a call from a person pretending to be a court official. The person will be told that he or she has jury duty and then will be requested to give confidential information, such as Social Security number and credit card numbers. Victims refusing to comply will be threatened with fines.
"A person might receive a phone call from a federal employee, that's for sure," said Dick Carelli, a spokesman for the federal court system, but he added that no officer of a federal court would ask for sensitive information over the phone.
"They'd never ask for your bank account," he said. "They'd never ask for your Social Security number."
Carelli advises that if someone is asking you for sensitive information over the phone, no matter who they claim to be, ask for a number and call the person back. Or, if you are uncomfortable, "Simply hang up and give a call to your local FBI office or your local district court."
The FBI has several guidelines on how to avoid telemarketing fraud. The bureau's Web site suggests that you take your time when responding to phone calls, insist on getting information about who you're dealing with, including name, mailing address, street address and phone number. Then verify the information before money or sensitive information changes hands.
You should also never give personal information to someone who is unknown to you, even if the person already has information about you. The complete list of guidelines is available at http://www.fbi.gov/majcases/fraud/fraudschemes.htm.
Carelli said that calls about the scheme from clerks in Ohio and Nebraska came on top of "similar complaints from half a dozen states" over the summer about people posing as state employees.
A spokesman in the Washington FBI office confirmed that complaints of the scheme also came in to the bureau's New Haven, Conn., office and a "western state" that the spokesman refused to name.
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