Category: Maine
Artificial Pancreas Would Improve Lives of People with Diabetes
DIABETES
Lauren Smith
Bangor Daily News
Boston University Washington News Service
9/27/06
WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 — Aidan Sweeney swiveled in a large leather chair at a conference table in a Senate committee hearing room. A small tube used to monitor the four-year-old’s blood sugar and inject him with insulin crept out from a belt that sat above his basketball boxer shorts. He colored while his mother gave gut-wrenching testimony that left tears in many eyes and the room silent.
“As parents we try from the moment our children are born to protect them from any harm,” Aidan’s mother, Caroline Sweeney, said. “Two years ago, I never felt more helpless when all I could do was hold the tiny hand of my 22-month-ld son in the intensive care unit and pray he would not die. I vowed at that moment to do everything I could to find a cure for diabetes.”
Aidan was diagnosed with type 1, or juvenile, diabetes when he was just 22 months old. The Sweeney family, residents of Gray, came to Washington for the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ hearing Wednesday on improving care for people with diabetes. Along with doctors and researchers, the Sweeney family was part of a panel to provide a face for families with diabetic children.
The hearing was chaired by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who founded and co-chairs the Senate Diabetes Caucus. The subject of the hearing was “The Potential of an Artificial Pancreas: Improving Care for People with Diabetes.” An artificial pancreas would free children from finger-stick tests and insulin injections.
“Diabetes is a life-long condition that affects people of every age, race and nationality,” Collins said in her opening statement.
The disease affects 21 million Americans. In juvenile diabetes, the body’s immune system attacks the pancreas and destroys the islet cells that produce insulin. Insulin regulates the amount of sugar in the blood, and people with diabetes must closely monitor their blood sugar levels through testing several times a day.
“His fingertips are scarred from being tested up to 12 times a day: that’s more than 11,000 tests in two and a half years,” Caroline Sweeney said.
Aidan receives insulin 24 hours a day through a pump that he wears on a belt around his waist. The pump is connected to an inch-long catheter tunneled beneath the skin on his bottom, his mother said.
But the development of an artificial pancreas may change all that.
An artificial pancreas would link two existing technologies—the insulin pump that Aidan uses and a continuous glucose monitor that provides real-time data on glucose levels and sounds an alarm if levels are too high or too low. The key to developing the artificial pancreas is finding a way to link these two technologies together.
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International, the world’s largest charitable contributor to type 1 diabetes research, has given grants to Yale Medical School and five other top scientific facilities to find a way to “close the loop.”
The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, is researching mathematical ways of predicting what is happening in the body and how much insulin is needed. They also are exploring other ways to monitor glucose, such as in eye fluid using a contact lens as a sensor.
But there are more benefits to the creation of an artificial pancreas than just those that relate to people with diabetes. “Fewer complications can, arguably, lead to one of the greatest health advances and financial savings in medical expenditures in U.S. history,” Arnold W. Donald , president and chief executive officer of the research foundation, said.
All types of diabetes cost the health care system more than $130 billion a year, Donald said. That’s because it is among the leading causes of heart disease, stroke, eye disease, kidney failure and amputation. “Decreasing the rate of diabetic complications in the U.S. can mean savings of literally billions of dollars in health care costs,” he said.
The Sweeneys are fortunate. Aidan’s father, Timothy Sweeney, is an emergency room physician, and his mother is a registered dietician. The two are familiar with medical procedures, needles and equipment. They live comfortably, and Aidan’s insulin pump is not cost-prohibitive. But that’s not the case for many other families in Maine whose insurance will not cover such devices, Timothy Sweeney said.
He said he hopes that Congress will increase spending for diabetes research.
“I stand before you today, with my son, my hero, asking for your support in saving his life,” Caroline Sweeney said. “While the continued glucose monitor and artificial pancreas are not cures, they can offer Aidan and children like him a tremendous improvement in his quality of life.”
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New Law Puts Americans in Watchdog Role
GOOGLE
Bangor Daily News
Lauren Smith
Boston University Washington News Service
9/26/06
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 —Two centuries ago Thomas Jefferson wrote, “We might hope to see the finances of the Union as clear and intelligible as a merchant’s book, so that every member of Congress and every man of any kind--and any mind in the Union--should be able to comprehend them, to investigate abuses and to consequently control them.”
This month Congress took his advice.
And on Tuesday President Bush signed into law the bill that will establish a Google-like search engine Web site listing the federal government's grants and contracts. Informally called “The Google for Good Government Act,” it will allow anyone with Internet access to see how America’s tax dollars are being spent.
“When we spend your money, we want you to be able to watch us,” President Bush said before signing the bill.
The federal government awards more than $400 billion in grants and more than $300 billion in contracts to corporations, associations and state and local governments each year. “By allowing Americans to Google their tax dollars, this new law will help taxpayers demand greater fiscal discipline,” Bush said.
Bush thanked the bill’s co-sponsors, including Sen. Susan Collins, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, for a bipartisan effort. At the bill signing ceremony, Democrats and Republicans alike applauded the bill.
“The American public deserves to know how their tax dollars are being spent,” Collins said. “Taxpayers will be able to decide for themselves whether they believe their tax dollars are being spent well.”
Collins has led several investigations into government fraud and abuse, most recently the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster assistance performance in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“This new law will bring greater transparency to and reduce federal spending by shining more light on where federal dollars are directed and how they are spent,” she said.
The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, the legislation’s formal name, will allow anyone to type in the name of any company, association, state or locality and find out what grants and contracts in excess of $25,000 each they've been awarded. The Web site search also will tell the purpose of the award, the amount of money involved, and the agency providing the funds. Only classified grants and contracts will be excluded.
The bill’s backers said they hope it will cast light on earmarks, federal funds set aside for particular congressional districts, states, universities or organizations. In recent years the number of earmarks has skyrocketed, sometimes including more than a thousand in a single piece of legislation.
“It's a bill that empowers the American taxpayer, the American citizen,” Bush said. “And we believe that the more transparency there is in the system, the better the system functions on behalf of the American people.”
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Mainers Rally in Washington in the Fight Against Cancer
CANCERMAINE
Lauren Smith
Boston University Washington News Service
Bangor Daily News
9/20/2006
WASHINGTON, Sept. 20—“If you were told when you leave here today you would get in a car accident and you may not survive, would you go? Would you get in that car?” Dan Bahr of Ellsworth asked.
“Probably not,” Bahr answered his own question. “But people diagnosed with cancer don’t have that choice.”
Four years ago Bahr was diagnosed with throat cancer. “When someone tells you you have cancer,” he said, “times stops.”
He was once told he might permanently lose his voice because of harsh radiation and chemotherapy treatments. Today, he speaks loudly in the fight against cancer, and was chosen to be one of 14 Maine ambassadors to promote cancer research.
Clad in lobster paraphernalia and wearing a pink sash inscribed “Survivor,” Bahr held hands with three other Maine cancer survivors as they took a lap around the Capitol Reflecting Pool. The survivors’ lap was the kick-off ceremony for the annual Celebration on the Hill, an American Cancer Society grassroots event that celebrates cancer survivorship and strives to empower others to advocate for laws that could help in the fight against the disease.
Lura Raymond, 20, of Orono cried as she watched the Maine survivors take a lap. She lost her mother to breast cancer when she was eight years old and has been participating in Relay for Life since fourth grade. Also an ambassador, she said she hopes to provide a real face to how cancer affects the lives of people all over Maine as she and the state’s other ambassadors met with the Maine congressional delegation.
“We’re here to confirm that they don’t just hear us,” she said. ”We don’t just need their voice, we need their vote.”
“This is not some little jaunt through Washington,” Raymond said as she looked out at more than 10,000 people, all wearing purple shirts, gathered on the National Mall. “This is hope.”
In December, Congress passed legislation that cut the budget of the National Institutes of Health for the first time in 35 years and reduced funds for cancer research for the first time in a decade.
“Cancer is the most feared disease in America,” Megan Hannan, the American Cancer Society’s government relations and advocacy director in Maine, said. “We want our members of Congress to know that this fear is felt in every corner of Maine.” This year, she said, Maine alone will see an estimated 7,910 new cases and 3,190 deaths from cancer.
The Maine ambassadors came to Washington with three objectives: Restore and increase federal funds for cancer research; invest in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national breast and cervical cancer early detection program; and to have lawmakers sign the Congressional Cancer Promise, a pledge to support the American Cancer Society’s legislative goals to put the country on track in the fight against cancer.
In the afternoon Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, met with singer/songwriter Jewel to discuss the Breast Cancer Protection Act of 2005 that Snowe introduced with Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.). The bill would end the practice of "drive through" mastectomies, where women are forced to leave the hospital, sometimes just hours after difficult surgeries, even if their doctors feel they are not ready to go home.
Jill Goldthwait, a state ambassador from Bar Harbor who works at the National Cancer Institute’s Jackson Laboratory in that city and tries to identify federal funding for cancer research, praised the Maine delegation for their support. “We’re preaching to the choir in Maine,” she said. “They get it. These four people have really been out in front. We’re not here to ask much more; we’re here to thank them.”
A vigil was scheduled for Wednesday night and more than 20,000 luminaries purchased by people throughout the country were to be lit to honor those who have won their battles with cancer and in memory of those who have lost the battle. At the same time, the University of Maine in Orono planned a candlelight vigil, organized by Raymond, a junior at the university, before she left for Washington.
“We all speak the same language when it comes to cancer,” Raymond said. “And this many survivors in one place means we’re doing something right.”
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Terrorists Recruit Inside U.S. Prisons
TERRORISM
Bangor Daily News
Lauren Smith
Boston University Washington News Service
9/19/2006
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. prison system has become a recruiting ground for Islamic extremists, a study by two academics released Tuesday shows.
Since Sept. 11, as the United States has made it increasingly difficult for potential terrorists to enter the country, the prison system, the world’s largest, has been spawning a new wave of home-grown potential terrorists.
“Our corrections facilities -- federal, state, and local -- provide fertile grounds for radicalization and recruitment efforts,” Sen. Susan Collins, chairwoman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said Tuesday before her panel heard testimony on the issue.
The experts referred not to direct recruiting by international terror organizations, but the spread of a radical ideology and tactics that groups like Al Qaeda inspire.
“The rise of domestic terror cells inspired by but not directly linked to Al Qaeda is an emerging threat to our nation’s security,” Collins said.
Many inmates convert to Islam to bring direction and purpose to their lives, Collins said. The problem sprouts from those who use prisons as a place to convert inmates not just to Islam but also to a “hateful ideology that incites adherents to commit violent acts,” she said.
Radicalization is not reserved for Islam but is also found among prison gangs and white supremacy groups, experts told Collins’ committee. Images of violence on television, and a general disconnect with the U.S. government all help to fuel inmates, panelists said.
A lack of Muslim chaplains is a large problem in many rural areas, the experts said. While more than 80 percent of religious conversions in prison are to some form of Islam only 10 of the 200 chaplains in the federal prison system are Muslims. Prisons use strict guidelines during religious meetings, such as allowing only English except for certain short prayers, and the presence of a prison official, to help keep watch over a group’s actions.
Prison networking, where officials on local, state and federal levels, can compare experiences in dealing with these issues, is key to stopping home-grown terrorism, the panelists said. Further study of social bonds, an increase in intelligence collecting and training programs for officials are also important, they said.
While panelists stressed the seriousness of the situation in California and New York prisons, smaller states, such as Maine, also have problems.
“It would be extremely difficult for officials in my state to track books,” said Collins, speaking about violent interpretations of the Koran that are sent to many prisons. She called on federal officials to compile and put on line a list of banned books.
“This is an issue with profound national security implications that reach into every state and a great many cities throughout America,” Collins said.
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Maine Senators Focus on Security
Security
Bangor Daily News
Lauren Smith
Boston University Washington News Service
9/13/2006
WASHINGTON -- In the week of 9/11’s five-year anniversary, both Maine senators focused their attention on security issues.
Sen. Susan Collins’ cargo security legislation finally hit the Senate floor. She was also able to include provisions in the 2007 defense spending bill that favor Bath Iron Works and Maine defense. Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, meanwhile, pressed the Senate to improve security of the passenger rail system.
The Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Collins chairs, also reached agreement with the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on another bill to increase cargo screening at ports and institute other security measures and contingency plans in case of terrorist attacks.
Roughly 95 percent of the nation’s overseas trade enters or leaves through U.S. seaports, according to Collins, and foreign vessels carry the majority of goods that come into the country.
“The link between maritime security and our national security is evident,” Collins said in a press release. “This legislation will provide the structure and the resources needed to better protect the American people from attack through seaports, which are both vulnerable points of entry and vital centers of economic activity.”
Collins was also able to get $3.4 billion in the 2007 defense budget, which the Senate passed last week, for the DD(X) naval construction program, which aims to build a new series of high-tech vessels, one of which will be constructed at Bath. Collins was also able to garner nearly $50 million in defense-related projects specifically for Maine in the budget.
“In addition to identifying the most likely threats, we must constantly assess and improve our efforts to counter them,” Collins said at a Homeland Security Committee hearing Tuesday. “While our efforts over the past five years have been substantial, they are not a task accomplished, but one under way.”
Snowe also supported an amendment to port security legislation that would require the Department of Homeland Security to conduct a passenger and baggage screening pilot program at five Amtrak stations and establish specific security measures, including testing explosives detection technologies and requiring picture IDs from passengers before they board a train. The amendment, introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), asks the department to complete a vulnerability assessment for rail infrastructure and make recommendations about security weaknesses. Additionally, it would require the department to sign a letter of agreement with the Department of Transportation to make clear each department's roles and responsibilities for the nation's rail security.
“Since the terrorist attacks of Sept.11th, we have worked to improve the overall security of our nation,” Snowe said in a statement. “But we still have to do more to secure our transportation infrastructure and specifically our nation's vulnerable rail network.”
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Clean Elections Slowly Spread From Maine
WASHINGTON, April 28—When Maine voters approved the Clean Election Act in 1996 they started a trend. Clean election laws based in part on Maine’s are now on the books in Arizona, Connecticut, North Carolina and other states and a number of cities throughout the country.
And there are proposals in California, Maryland and the U.S. Congress that are based in part on Maine’s voluntary campaign finance system. Candidates who choose to receive public funds in Maine must collect a certain number of $5 qualifying contributions, depending on the office being sought. They then receive a set amount of funds from the Clean Election Fund.
Supporters say that clean elections eliminate the taint of special interest from politics and allow more people to run for office. Opponents say the laws impinge on freedom of speech and force taxpayers to support the campaigns of people they disagree with. Public concerns about money and politics have been heightened recently with the political scandals involving convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Public financing of campaigns are “the most effective way for the voices of ordinary people to be heard in the political process,” said Nick Nyhart, the executive director of Public Campaign, a public financing lobbying group.
Nyhart’s organzation and Common Cause, another reform-oriented lobbying group, are pushing to pass a bill that Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) has introduced. The measure, called the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act, would bring to the House a system similar to Maine’s. In the Senate, Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) plan to introduce a comparable bill, Nyhart said.
Tierney’s bill would set up a voluntary system under which House candidates whose political parties garnered at least 25 percent of the vote in the previous election would be allowed to gather 1,500 “seed contributions” of $5. If they meet that target, they would become eligible for public funds in the general election and would have to forgo any private donations.
If a candidate decides not to accept public financing and to raise his or her own campaign funds, an opponent who accepts public financing and is being outspent by the other candidate would receive additional public money.
Nyhart said it would allow politicians to spend less time raising money and more time with voters.
Tierney’s bill does not challenge Supreme Court rulings in Buckley v Valeo and McConnell v Federal Election Commission, which limit campaign finance reform to voluntary systems. But Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) has sponsored a bill that would require all House candidates to receive public financing. Because it would not be voluntary, Obey’s legislation would probably require a constitutional amendment.
Under Obey’s Let the People Decide Clean Campaign Act, all candidates for Congress would be required to get their money from a fund fed by contributions from voters. The Federal Election Commission would divide the fund among Republicans, Democrats and occasionally third-party candidates based on the percentage of the vote each party’s candidate won in the previous election.
Maine Rep. Tom Allen (D) has not decided which bill he will support but said, “In my 10 years in Congress, I’ve become increasingly interested in public financing.”
Rep. Michael Michaud (D) said he is concerned about the cost, under the present system of financing congressional campaigns, which can run into the millions.
“I think the public deserves to have confidence that there’s no abuse or no corruption in the whole electoral process,” Michaud said. “We’ve got to make sure that we do something to build confidence in the system.”
Michaud said that public financing would widen the field of candidates for office. Now you have to be independently wealthy or spend 80 to 90 percent of your time raising funds, he said.
He said he has ruled out supporting Obey’s bill because it is in conflict with Supreme Court decisions. Before backing Tierney’s bill, Michaud said, he would wait to see what the final legislation looks like.
The financing for candidates in Obey’s bill would be based on median household income in the congressional district. Michaud’s second district is generally poorer than Allen’s first district, which would mean candidates in the second district would get less money than candidates in the first district. But because the second district straddles the Portland and Bangor television markets, Michaud would need TV time on both, while Allen needs air time only in Portland. Television advertising is the most expensive and one of the most important tools in a modern campaign.
Michaud is the only member of Maine’s congressional delegation who had a chance to run under Maine’s Clean Election Act. In his last campaign for the state legislature in 2000, he decided to raise his own funds because, he said, the new system still had some kinks to be ironed out.
Maine’s two Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, say that public funding is unnecessary at the federal level.
“While our current system is far from perfect, I would be reluctant to put taxpayers in the position of being forced to pay for politicians’ campaigns,” Snowe said in a statement. “I believe we should give the Bipartisan Campaign Reform legislation I and my colleagues fought so hard to pass a chance to work, realizing that it has only been in place for one round of federal elections so far.”
Collins said that instead of devoting money to finance political campaigns, Congress should devote more funds to health care, education, defense and homeland security.
“I believe that taxpayer money is better spent meeting the needs of our young, our elderly and our most vulnerable, and protecting our nation against threats from nature and from those who want to do us harm," Collins said in a statement.
The chance of success for either of the House bills is slim. Allen said that a Republican-led Congress was unlikely to pass such reforms; in general, Republicans at the national level oppose public financing of campaigns.
“The only entity that is capable of imposing public financing on congressional campaigns is Congress itself,” said John Samples, the director of the Center for Representative Government at the libertarian Cato Institute.
“They have in the last 30 to 40 years not chosen public financing of congressional campaigns,” Samples said. “They passed it once, but it wasn’t a serious bill and it was vetoed.”
Samples said any bill Congress might pass would be written to ensure as little change as possible in the high reelection rate of incumbents. Since public financing would increase funds for challengers, he said, it is unlikely that Congress will act.
Libertarians oppose government regulation, Samples said, and others oppose public financing because, they say, it would limit freedom of speech and force taxpayers to donate to campaigns they otherwise would not support.
Samples pointed to the federal law that finances presidential campaigns as an example of how such a statute might not work.
Members of reform groups like Nyhart say taxpayers already pay politicians’ salaries that they do not agree with. Voters have been paying $400,000 a year for the last six years, plus numerous perks, to President Bush, although about half of them did not support him in either election.
Samples also disagreed with reform groups’ argument that public financing would eliminate the advantage of access. He said the evidence that donations buy access to members of Congress is hazy at best.
“To this date the Supreme Court has not recognized equality of influence as a good reason for limiting freedom of speech,” Samples said.
Samples said liberalizing campaign finance limits and taking redistricting out of partisan hands would help increase competition in local and House races.
Brian Darling, the director of Senate relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation, agreed with Samples on many points. He said conservatives in general believe that publicly financed campaigns are a bad idea.
Some of the proposed public financing systems favor major parties, forcing other parties to get more signatures or seed money for the same amount of funds. Darling called this unfair, saying public financing should be for everyone or no one. Darling also said that public financing could lead to more visibility for fringe candidates like Nazis or Islamic extremists.
In California, the state with the largest population, the state Assembly recently approved a public financing bill. It still has to go through the Senate, be signed by the governor, who said he would consider it, and go to the voters as for final approval in a public referendum.
Aaron Cervantes, the Latino outreach coordinator for the California Clean Money Campaign, said that the bill passed the assembly, which is controlled by the Democrats, along party lines. He said his group was “cautiously optimistic” that it would pass the Democratic Senate this year.
Cervantes said his group hopes that if California adopts the system, it will spread even further.
Maine’s system has sparked much of the current debate on the subject. Recently it has prompted a nettlesome debate in the Maine Republican primary campaign.
Peter Mills and Chandler Woodcock, who are running for the Republican nomination for governor, have both accepted public funds. They say that the people of Maine supported the system, noting that it was adopted by ballot initiative.
Mills said that despite some reservations, notably that it forces taxpayers to finance the campaigns of candidates whom they do not support, he enjoys the time that being a clean election candidate gives him to spend with voters.
Woodcock said that without public financing he would not be able to run. He thinks the system, only four election cycles old, still has some fine points that need to be tuned, including how to assure to solvency of the clean elections fund.
Noting that he was not a statewide figure before entering the primary, he said that the increased time with voters has proved invaluable,.
Republican David Emery is running his gubernatorial campaign traditionally. Though he hates fundraising, he said, he is doing it to show that he is serious about cutting government spending at a time when Maine is $5 billion in debt.
“It’s always easier when someone else pays your bills for you,” Emery said. “If I didn’t have to work to pay the bills at my house I could play golf all day, but that’s not life.”
Emery said he support public financing for the state legislature because that is a part-time job that requires a lot of sacrifices of its members. But making candidates for the governorship do their own fundraising, he said, helps to weed out those with little chance of winning.
Gov. John Baldacci (D) is running his campaign traditionally. Jeff Connolly, his campaign manager, said that while the governor supported clean elections in principle, he decided not to run on clean election money because Maine is in debt. Connolly said Baldacci believes the money for the governor’s race, which is the most expensive one in the state, could be better used.
Other states still have kinks to iron out in their systems as well. Connecticut recently enacted a law that bars all contributions from lobbyists and state contractors and their families. Opponents say it is unconstitutional and will be challenged.
Phil Sherwood, the spokesman for the Clean Up Connecticut Campaign, said that his group and other reform organizations did not want that prohibition in the bill, but it was put in at the insistence of Republican Gov. Jodi Rell. Sherwood said he hoped any legal problems would be ironed out eventually.
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Michaud’s Bill to Aid Economic Development
WASHINGTON, April 13 - Rep. Michael Michaud (D-2 nd ) is trying to get millions of dollars for economic development in Maine with his bill to create a Northeast Regional Development Commission.
"The Northeast Regional Development Commission will invest in economically distressed communities," Michaud said in a statement Wednesday. "It will create and implement regional economic development plans to reduce poverty, address changing land use and improve the quality of life for residents."
Michaud added that the commission, which would fund projects that stimulate economic development, would work with and not replace existing federal, state and local economic development programs.
"These commissions have been around since 1965 except for the Northeast," Michaud said in an interview. "And they funnel $40 million a year on an ongoing basis for economic development purposes."
Maine is poised to receive up to 40 percent of the commission's funding, which would be the state's fair share, according to a county-based funding-formula, Michaud said.
Rep. Tom Allen (D-1 st ) is a co-sponsor of Michaud's legislation. The bill, he said, would help to foster economic development by bringing state and federal government together with business and non-profit groups.
"I am proud to be working with Mike Michaud in support of his bill to create a Northeast Regional Economic Development Commission," Allen said in a statement. "We need to do everything we can to bring more focus, more resources and more attention to the need for economic development in Maine and throughout Northern New England."
Sens. Olympia Snowe (R) and Susan Collins (R) plan on introducing similar legislation and are working on its wording and getting more support for the bill, according to press persons in each office.
"Communities in the Northern Forest Region share common transportation, environmental and economic development challenges," Snowe said in a statement. "The bill I plan to introduce will recognize these unique needs and set up a commission that can work across borders to overcome problems that we all face. By combining our efforts and formulating a common strategy, we can more efficiently leverage existing resources to get the job done."
Collins agreed, saying in a statement, "Regional commissions such as this are proven to create opportunities for self-sustaining economic development and improved quality of life in distressed areas."
A similar commission has existed since 1965 in Appalachia, an area that stretches over 13 states, and has helped cut poverty in the region in half since it was established. The Appalachian Regional Commission has also created 26,000 jobs and cut the number of economically distressed counties in the region from 219 to 100.
Over the past decade Congress has established three other commissions and has proposed two more.
"When I came to Congress and saw other regions coming together to address their economic development in a way that was modeled after the successful ARC [Appalachian Regional Commission]," Michaud said in a statement, "I thought that it was something that Maine should have and that our region could share."
Michaud's bill was introduced last year and is going before committee in May or June, according to Michaud.
The legislation says that while the northeastern border region, which extends from Maine through New Hampshire and Vermont and into upstate New York, is rich in natural resources, it lags behind other parts of the country in economic development.
Losses in manufacturing jobs and people leaving the area have drained the area's economy, according to the bill. Federal assistance in the form of grants would greatly help the region while preserving existing industries, the bill says.
The commission would be made up of a federal commissioner appointed by the president and the governors of all the states that decide to participate. The federal commissioner and a majority of the governors would need to agree on specific grants before the money could be disbursed.
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Vacationing Congress Creates a Legislative Vacuum
WASHINGTON, April 11 - Congress is taking more time off than usual this year. The House is on track to meet for 97 days this year, compared to 141 last year. The Senate is meeting more, having met for 16 more days than the House has so far.
Democratic Reps. Michael Michaud (2 nd ) and Tom Allen (1 st ) said they thought that the House should be meeting more this year, but pointed out that the Republican leadership made the schedule.
"I believe we should be spending more time in session because we have a lot of work to do," Michaud said in his Washington office. "Unfortunately Congress hasn't exerted its independence."
"Congress is a separate branch of government, and there's been a lack of oversight for federal agencies, whether it's the hurricanes in the Gulf Coast, 9/11 Commission recommendations or high gas pricing," Michaud said. "There's a lot of work we should be doing in Congress that we're not doing."
During the Clinton administration, the Republican Congress was much keener on oversight, according to Allen. He said the House Government Reform Committee, which he sat on, went so far as to investigate President Clinton's use of the White House Christmas card list. The current lack of oversight, he said, was intended to protect a Republican administration.
The House is on schedule to meet for fewer days this year than it has in decades, Allen said. Many issues can not be addressed in a substantive way because of the light schedule, he said.
"Health care costs for small businesses, the threat of climate change and the rapid rise in energy costs-all of those issues just get lost because they're complex and they take a substantial amount of time," Allen said in an interview on Capitol Hill. "And when we come in on a Tuesday evening and vote for a couple of post offices and then work Wednesday and finish on a Thursday afternoon, we just don't have the hours down here for the committees to do their work."
The House has rarely voted on Mondays and Fridays this session, leaving the members travel days to get back to their districts and do work there.
Congress is responsible for naming post offices around the country, and such votes regularly take up voting time. Allen said there were not any more of these votes this year than normal, but that many more important issues were not being addressed by the Republican leadership.
Allen said that many of his more senior colleagues have told him that the House used to spend days on legislation like the defense appropriations bill and others, but now they are done in a day or less.
This year the House and Senate took off a week for St. Patrick's Day and are now on a two-week spring break. The House worked a mere two days in January while the Senate worked nine. Both Houses regularly take off the month of August and reconvene after Labor Day. This summer the House is scheduled to leave a week earlier than the Senate.
"Though we have plenty of work to do in the district, the legislation suffers immensely when we're not here," Allen said.
Last year Michaud said he and his colleagues had much of their August break eaten up by their attempts to deal with the closing of Brunswick Naval Air Station.
The two chambers' schedules are tentative and are subject to change when more legislating is necessary. Last week the Senate was supposed to adjourn on Thursday but stayed late into the night and into Friday to work on the immigration package.
One reason Congress is meeting so little this year is because of the November elections. The two chambers usually have a light schedule the last quarter of an election year so they can campaign. All the members of Maine's delegation said that despite a lighter legislation schedule, in an election year their work time remained about the same because they have to campaign and raise funds.
Even Sen. Susan Collins (R), the only Maine member who is not up for election this year, said that chairing the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee made her schedule much busier than it had been before she got the post.
"Maybe there are less scheduled days, but I'm not," Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) said. "I'm about seven days a week."
Snowe said that what Congress accomplishes is more important than how many days they meet. The Senate this year has confirmed Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, passed lobbying reform legislation and approved a budget resolution.
Michaud, who has been in the House two terms, said he took a vacation last year, but it was the first one he had taken in about 10 years. Before being elected to the House he served in the State Legislature for 22 years.
"Even though I took it off as far as scheduling meetings, with the BlackBerries nowadays you're always in constant contact with folks," Michaud said pulling out his communications device.
Other members agreed with Michaud, saying that their time off was often spent thumbing e-mail messages to their staffs on their BlackBerry devices or fielding calls from the press.
All of the members said they worked long days when in session. They come in early in the morning, from 6 to 8, and leave late at night, from 10 to 11. Their days are full of committee work, voting, meetings and press interviews.
Back in Maine, the members might not work into the night as often and are more likely to get a day off, but they are busy shaking the hands of voters, fundraising and attending meetings. They are also in constant contact with their Washington staffs while in Maine.
James Melcher, an associate professor of political science at the University of Maine in Farmington, said each member of Maine's delegation is hard working.
"In the House of Representatives in particular, people are campaigning for reelection pretty much constantly," Melcher said. He said the framers of the Constitution wanted the House to be "under the microscope" all the time.
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Snowe Opens Up About the Election
WASHINGTON, April 6-She's way ahead in the polls, and political experts tag her seat as secure. Nevertheless, Sen, Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, says she is going to keep on working hard as she attempts to win her Senate seat for a third time in November.
"Polls are just a snapshot in time," Snowe said. "I've been a veteran of numerous elections, and I'm well aware of the pitfalls and the risks that are associated any time you're on the ballot."
A recent poll has Snowe in the lead, with 63 percent of likely voters saying they would vote for her and only 21 percent saying they would vote for an as-yet- unnominated Democrat.
Elections are a long process, Snowe said in an interview in her Senate office, and she has never taken one for granted. "I have a great respect for the ballot box on election day," she said.
In 2000, Snowe won reelection handily with 69 percent of the vote. She has already almost tied her fundraising for the 2000 election, collecting $2.1 million this time through March, compared to $2.2 million for the entire 2000 election.
Her closest opponent in the money race is Democrat Jean Hay Bright, who has raised $13,000 so far.
Snowe said she would center her campaign on what she has accomplished in her many years representing Maine in Washington and on what she considers her "pivotal" role in the Senate.
"We need more individuals in the United States Senate that are prepared to work on a bipartisan basis to build a consensus and a centrist position," Snowe said during the interview. "And losing centrist voices in the United States Senate isn't good for Maine and it isn't good for America."
Pundits have often referred to Snowe as a RINO, a Republican in Name Only. Her voting record has been middle of the road at a time when the Republican Party nationally has veered further to the right.
Snowe said that politics and her position on Senate committees have enabled her to get things done in the Senate. She has reached out across the aisle and worked with members of her own caucus to help pass tax cuts, to get the Medicare prescription drug benefit, which she first backed in 1988, enacted into law, and to increase internet access and bandwidth in schools and libraries in Maine and across the country.
With her swing vote on the floor and her voice on the Finance Committee, Snowe went against her own party on President Bush's Social Security proposals last year.
"I've been able to prevent the diversion of revenues from the Social Security Trust Fund for the creation of personal savings accounts," she said.
Snowe said that she did not have any plans to campaign with administration officials, saying she prefers to campaign on who she is and what she stands for. "I don't run on anybody's coattails," she said.
The President's low approval ratings, and the several scandals that have rocked the GOP can have an effect on the election, Snowe conceded. But she intends to base her campaign on her centrist values and her plans for her potential third term.
"We understand that people are very concerned about the direction of this country, and it's a very volatile political environment," Snowe said.
This promises to be a tough election season for the Republican Congress. While Snowe's seat appears secure several Republican senators are in tough races, notably Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. There are also many volatile House races.
Snowe said that it was too early to call the election for either party. She said there are always constant shifts in sentiment, and things could change before November.
Her advice to colleagues in tough races, Snowe said, is that they should focus not on polls or the views of pundits, but rather on their messages and on building a strong organization.
Snowe refused to weigh in on the Republican gubernatorial primary in Maine, saying that her party had several strong candidates and that she would let the voters decide in June.
She said Republicans have many good opportunities this fall in state elections. Both Peter Mills and David Emery lead Democratic Gov. John Baldacci by small margins in polls. The legislature also is very tightly balanced, and Republicans could take it as well.
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Washington Holds a Festival, Maine Names a Princess
WASHINGTON, April 6- This town is infested with tourists, worse than anything seen on Mount Desert in August. Some 700,000 people have descended on the capital from across the country and around the world to take part in the 71 st annual National Cherry Blossom Festival.
One of the best places to see the cherry trees and their blossoms is the Tidal Basin, which the Jefferson Memorial sits beside and which is within walking distance of many of the Smithsonian museums and the Washington Monument. The banks of the large pool are lined with thousands of the trees.
The trees themselves are short, no taller than 20 feet and about as wide. Before the blossoms bloom, they are pink buds. When they open up into the five-leaf flowers they gradually turn white and fall to the ground after a few days.
During the two-week festival, which is set to wrap up on Sunday, there are more tourists than cherry trees lining the Tidal Basin. Some of the tourists are pushing baby carriages, others are snapping pictures and some are taking advantage of the 50 paddle boats that are for rent there, running them into the dock and getting a duck's eye view of the blossoms.
American families blend with Japanese ones and their next-generation video cameras. There are a lot of Japanese tourists here. The cherry trees-3,000 of them-were a gift from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo in 1912.
According to the festival's Web site, the United States returned the gift in 1915, giving Japan flowering dogwood trees. In 1965, Lady Bird Johnson, the president's wife, accepted 3,800 more cherry trees.
The two weeks of the festival are sprinkled with events, from a Japanese lantern lighting festival to a parade and to the crowning of the Cherry Blossom Queen.
The queen is chosen from the princesses. Each state is eligible to have a princess, but in reality only states with active state societies in Washington name a princess. Maine has one of the most vibrant state societies, with some 1,000 members in Washington and around the country.
This year's Maine Cherry Blossom Princess is Melissa C. Danforth of the Berwicks in York County. The 24-year-old lives in Washington, working in the executive office of the president as the deputy associate director of the Office of Strategic Initiatives.
Danforth did not want to talk too much about her experiences working for the President, but she did say that her long title meant that she worked on presidential events and that it was a great experience.
The princess graduated from Northeastern University in Boston in 2004 with a degree in political science. At Northeastern, Danforth was showered with honors and got her first experiences in politics, working for a Massachusetts Senate member and as a research assistant to a health committee in the Irish National Parliament in Dublin.
Danforth said that she was chosen to be the princess after submitting an application with biographical information, a résumé and an essay.
"It's very exciting," Danforth said. "I've known a variety of past Cherry Blossom Princesses from other states, and their experiences really led me to pursue the possibility."
Dee Dee Thibodeau Fusco was Maine's Cherry Blossom Princess in 1981; she was at the state society's dinner in honor of Danforth on Wednesday at the Officers' Club in Fort Myer, Va. Fusco lauded the new princess.
"She's a fabulous representative," Fusco said. "She's intelligent, well-spoken and clearly represents the state of Maine in a good way."
Danforth was honored at the Maine State Society's dinner, receiving a commemorative plate, a mug and a flower. More than 40 people were there, most from Maine but with a small contingent from the Massachusetts State Society, which piggy-backed onto Maine's event because their society did not have enough members to host its own.
There was a raffle with such Maine prizes as a six-pack of Poland Spring water, a can of B & M Brown Bread and a bag of redeye beans.
Chris Fortier, a 26-year-old Aroostook County native who is a Virginia contract lawyer, did not win any of the reminders-of-home prizes, but he did enjoy the dinner.
"It's a fantastic event to honor the state of Maine and the accomplishments its peoples have brought," he said.
Wayne Hanson, a Bangor native whose mother, Myrna, wrote for the Daily News, said that the Maine State Society has a number of other events throughout the year. In May there is a lobster dinner and a day to clean up Maine sites at Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania. In December they also lay out wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery thanks to a generous gift of more than 4,000 wreaths donated by Morrill Worcester of Harrington over the past 14 years.
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