Category: Maine
Martha Stewart Tells Senate Panel to Focus on Caring for Aging Citizens
Aging
Bangor Daily News
Vicki Ekstrom
Boston University Washington News Service
4/17/2008
WASHINGTON –Martha Stewart, who is already there, told a Senate panel Wednesday that as the first of the nation’s 78 million baby boomers reach their 60s, their health needs will grow but not the number of trained professionals needed to care for them.
Stewart, who is 66, was among those who testified about the need for more and better trained caregivers for the elderly at the Special Committee on Aging hearing.
Stewart told of how experiences with her mother inspired her to establish the Martha Stewart Center for Living, a clinic providing geriatric outpatient services at the Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City. Stewart donated $5 million toward this project and said she hopes it will recruit more doctors to specialize in elderly care.
The center is located on the Upper East Side of New York City, but Stewart said in testimony on Wednesday that “it’s difficult, especially in smaller cities and rural locations, to find doctors experienced in the specific needs that arise with age.”
Stewart, who spends her summers on Maine’s Mount Desert Island and has given to local Maine charities, has not indicated whether she would set up in Maine a program modeled after the Mt. Sinai program.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a member of the committee, cosponsored legislation in March that would strengthen recruitment and retention for geriatric caregivers. The AARP, an advocacy group for people over 50, endorsed the measure.
The most rapidly growing segment of the nation’s population is 85 and over, Collins said at the hearing. “Maine is disproportionately elderly,” she said. “I’m very concerned about access to health care as my generation and others join me in this population segment.”
The hearing reviewed the findings of a report issued on Monday by the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, which was created by Congress to advise the government.
The report found that there aren’t enough geriatric specialists to care for the growing aging population. There is one geriatric-certified doctor for every 2,500 elderly Americans.
Medicare is also a problem because it does not pay doctors as much as they would get if the patient were not in Medicare, according to the report. This hinders patients from getting the best care because their doctors are forced to treat short-term problems rather than deal with the larger chronic conditions.
Dr. John Rowe, chairman of the Institute of Medicine committee that issued the report, said at the hearing that the health care workforce needs to be better trained to cope with an aging population and that more attention must go to recruiting and training geriatric specialists.
####
Collins Says Pope’s Message ‘Inspiring and Filled With Hope
White House
Bangor Daily News
Vicki Ekstrom
Boston University Washington News Service
4/15/2008
WASHINGTON – Pope Benedict XVI was greeted Wednesday morning at the White House by President and Mrs. Bush and thousands of invited guests, including a child holding a “Welcome Pope Hope” sign.
Among the crowd of more than 9,000 on the South Lawn were Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, minutemen in colonial garb, military personnel, Roman Catholic cardinals from throughout the nation and U.S. senators, including Susan Collins, R-Maine.
“I thought the pope’s message was inspiring and filled with hope,” Collins said after the ceremony. “He is bringing a message of hope and healing to our country and has the opportunity to inspire and strengthen America’s Catholics. His approach seems to be very warm and welcoming and invitational to encourage a stronger faith that I believe will be well received by Catholics and all Americans.”
Collins’ described the event as a “moving experience.” It was the first time she had seen Pope Benedict, though she had met the previous pope, John Paul II. Collins said she was surprised to see many of her Senate colleagues in attendance, some of whom weren’t Catholic, like Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., but wanted to be present for the historic event.
Wednesday’s presidential greeting of Pope Benedict was only the second time a pope has visited the White House and the first in 29 years. Pope Benedict greeted the crowd of more than 9,000 invited guests, making the event the largest in White House history.
In addition to a 21-gun salute and soprano Kathleen Battle’s rendition of The Lord’s Prayer, the crowd sang happy birthday to the Pope, who turned 81 on Wednesday.
The President and Pope Benedict share many of the same views on matters like abortion and stem cell research, but one matter they disagree over is the Iraq war. Alluding to this, the Pope maintained his hopeful stance.
“In moments of crisis, Americans continue to find strength and commitment,” he said. “Freedom must always be fought for in the name of the common good…. I am confident that you will use diplomacy to solve international problems.”
The president assured Pope Benedict that in America he will find a nation of compassion, where “faith and reason coexist in harmony.”
“You’ll find in America a people whose hearts are open to your message of hope,” Bush said. “In America and in the world we need that message.”
After the greeting on the South Lawn, the pope met privately with the president. From there, the “popemobile” traveled among a crowd of well-wishers to the Vatican Embassy, across from the vice president’s residence on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory on Massachusetts Avenue.
Pope Benedict visited the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the largest Roman Catholic Church in North America, on Wednesday afternoon.
Wednesday night Collins, along with her guest, Sister Mary Norberta, president of St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor, was scheduled to have dinner at the Italian Embassy. There were conflicting reports on whether the pope would attend this dinner or have a quiet dinner at the Vatican’s residence in Washington. He had earlier indicated that he would not attend the White House dinner in his honor Wednesday night.
###
Government Leftovers Would Go to the Poor
Hunger
Bangor Daily News
Vicki Ekstrom
Boston University Washington News Service
4/10/2008
WASHINGTON – Despite millions of Americans who go hungry every day, government leftovers have been going straight to the trash because of strict liability laws.
Those rules may soon change thanks to legislation cosponsored by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, that would encourage the government and its food contractors to donate their extra food to soup kitchens and food banks.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which Collins is the senior Republican, passed the measure on Thursday. It now goes to the Senate floor, where it is expected to pass. The House passed a companion bill at the end of last year.
Collins’ measure would require that all federal contracts above $25,000 for food services include a clause encouraging the donation of excess, wholesome food to nonprofit organizations. The law also would protect the donor from civil or criminal liability, a move Collins calls “common sense.”
Maine is the 11th poorest state, with nearly 13 percent of its citizens going hungry, said the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit that works to wipe out hunger in the United States. A 2006 study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that of the 35.5 million hungry Americans, 12.6 million were children. There are more than 6,000 poor children in Penobscot County alone, according to 2006 Census Bureau data.
Because of the sinking economy and escalating oil prices, “families are being forced to choose between paying their bills and buying food,” Collins said after the committee’s passage of the measure. “This, combined with grocery stores becoming more efficient and donating less, has caused the demand for food to reach a record high.”
Collins told of a teacher who couldn’t afford food because of skyrocketing heating bills and unexpected medical costs.
While donations seem to have remained the same at the Good Shepherd Food Bank in Brewer and Auburn, the demand for food has increased, said Paul Tarr, warehouse operations manager of the food bank. Tarr, like Collins, attributes this to the price of fuel.
“If the price of fuel goes up, the price of everything else goes up,” Tarr said. “Everything someone needs to spend more money on is less money they have to spend on food.”
Because of higher demand, Good Shepherd is “moving food out almost as fast as it’s coming in,” Tarr said.
Tarr supports the legislation, saying he believes it will bring in more food in larger volumes to food banks and pantries throughout the nation.
Portland’s Preble Street, the largest soup kitchen in northern New England and one of 250 food shelters in Maine, is experiencing bare shelves for the first time in decades.
Serving more than 330,000 meals a year, Preble depends on donations for 90 percent of the food it serves. But its supplies have become meager at a time when poverty is on the rise.
“We all know it makes sense to share, it’s one of the first principles we are taught as children,” representatives from the soup kitchen said in a letter of endorsement for the legislation. “We all know that in this richly blessed nation, there is ‘enough to go around.’ Nothing makes more sense than to make our inclination and obligation to care for our neighbors in need part of our federal administrative practice.”
###
Reed, an Early Example of Maine’s Progressive Politics
Reed
Bangor Daily News
Vicki Ekstrom
Boston University Washington News Service
4/9/2008
WASHINGTON—Tucked in the southwest corner of the nation’s capital near the Potomac River is the home of Maine’s oldest living former governor, John Hathaway Reed, who served in the early 1960s. The third-floor condo is much the way it was when his wife of 60 years died four years ago, with a grand piano, 2 step-stool-sized Vietnamese elephant figures and bronze-gilded French décor.
Reed, a lifelong potato farmer and horse lover, sits surrounded by the exotic trinkets and regal furniture collected from years abroad as ambassador to Sri Lanka and his travels as governor.
Described by friends and former colleagues as a progressive Republican, the 87-year-old Reed is an early example of a moderate Maine leader who believes in bipartisanship, qualities that today characterize and separate Maine’s leaders from much of what is considered the “norm” in politics.
“When you were around John it didn’t matter if you were a Republican or Democrat, you always had a good discussion and would come out still friends,” said former U.S. Rep. Peter Kyros, who served Maine’s 1st District from 1967 to 1975 as a Democrat and who is a friend of Reed’s. “Likeability is probably the number one reason why we choose people as leaders. John was a reflective, thoughtful and deliberate man and a highly likable man, and that’s why he was successful.”
Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, who is married to John McKernan, the only Republican governor since Reed, said Reed has “demonstrated a commitment to public service that has transcended partisan politics.” She recalled the first time she met Reed during her senior year in college.
“I attended a reception he hosted during the presidential inauguration in January 1969 and I remember even then enjoying his graciousness and great sense of humor,” she said.
Reed always made up his mind on a case-by-case basis, said Jeff Akor, a former Reed spokesman who first met the governor while covering a story on budget cuts for the University of Maine at Orono’s school newspaper.
Perhaps the best example of this is Reed’s position on the Iraq war, which he has been against since the beginning.
“You don’t attack someone who’s not attacking you,” Reed said in an interview at his home. “I could not believe President Bush was going to start a war. I really was astounded. I was shocked. It was a mistake.”
It was “ridiculous” that former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, “who had never been in a war,” believed the oil supply would benefit the United States and that the Iraqi people would “welcome us with open arms,” Reed said. “Well, it hasn’t turned out that way at all.”
Reed’s bipartisan and progressive spirit began as a child when he would act as the peacemaker, Reed’s oldest daughter, Cheryl Reed, was told by a relative.
Born on Jan. 5, 1921 in Fort Fairfield, Reed was the grandson of a prominent potato farmer. Reed carried on the family business for much of his life, later selling all but 70 acres of the farm.
“I’ve kept it because I’m always going to have a piece of Fort Fairfield and have it so I can still call myself a potato farmer,” Reed said with pride.
Reed never intended to be a politician and thought he would serve a few terms in the state legislature and give it up.
But “he enjoyed his associations in government and in public policy, and so it became his life,” said Don Larrabee, a Washington journalist who covered Maine from 1948 to 1978 and who is now a friend of Reed’s.
Reed attended the University of Maine, where he was required to go through military training in his first two years. He wanted to continue the training, but wasn’t chosen. When World War II broke out, Reed was finishing college, and many of his friends who had been accepted into the training program were shipped to Germany and eventually died in combat.
“Fate plays a hand, and you might be disappointed one time,” Reed said, “but later on it turns out to be a blessing.”
He joined the Navy and when he went to turn in his papers, he said, there sat a “beautiful, vivacious redhead,” Cora Davison, who would become his wife.
Reed, who was not sent overseas until late in the war, spent much of his time on bases in Rhode Island and Florida training troops.
After the war, Reed and his new wife settled in Maine, where Reed worked his way up the political ladder. He began as a state representative in 1955 when his hometown representative retired. Two years later Reed became a state senator.
Because of a love for horses, Reed frequented races and fairs, making many friends who were involved in politics.
“It’s kind of a grassroots sport, and that’s where the harness horses were too,” Reed said. “So I had built-in contacts that helped me a lot.”
Reed used his network to help him get elected president of the Senate. Then, in December 1959, of Gov. Clinton Clauson died of a heart attack and Reed became governor.
As governor, he started educational television in Maine and created a network of University of Maine colleges. He also combined school districts to save money, something again occurring in Maine today.
But Reed’s largest accomplishment was the way he touched individual lives, visiting factories and farms and bringing himself closer to everyday Mainers.
“These are hard-working people, and I wanted to look after their interests,” Reed said.
“He was very attentive to the feelings, the needs and the desires of the people,” said Reginald Bowden, a Reed spokesman from 1961 to 1965. Bowden said there wasn’t a day in his administration that Reed didn’t get out and visit people.
“Dad has a natural ability to make friends,” Cheryl Reed said. He “has no need to impress or be anything other than who he is in all circumstances. He is the same whether talking to the lowest or highest.”
Reed made friendships with some of the highest.
At a National Governors Association conference in Hawaii in June of 1961, Reed split from the pack, who went golfing, and took the opportunity to visit then-Vice President Lyndon Johnson. The two non-golfers quickly learned that they had something else in common: both grew up on a farm. The two reveled in their shared experiences and Johnson invited Reed to visit his Texas ranch, which he later did.
“Over the years I developed a good friendship with him, even though I was a Republican and he was a Democrat,” Reed said.
In fact, he recalled, Johnson had asked him to send him a couple of male deer, hoping the Maine deer would help to increase the size of the deer in Texas.
“So I did,” Reed said. “I never did find out how it worked out.”
A few years later, in 1966, the United States was in Vietnam and Reed, who was now the chairman of the National Governors Association, joined other governors on a trip to the White House. After his White House meeting, Reed came out in support of Johnson’s Vietnam policies, said Larrabee, the Washington journalist. Larrabee also said Reed was echoing the sentiments of the governors at the time.
Later that year, after Reed lost his bid for reelection, Johnson appointed him as one of the five original members of the National Transportation Safety Board. After a year as a member, Reed became chairman of the board and served for eight years, the longest of any chair, before being appointed ambassador to Sri Lanka by President Gerald Ford.
After Jimmy Carter became president in 1977, Reed served as director of government relations for Associated Builders and Contractors Inc., a Washington lobbying group. Upon the election of President Reagan, Reed was appointed to his old post as ambassador to Sri Lanka and served until 1985.
While on this tour, a civil war broke out in Sri Lanka between the government and the Tamil Tigers, an ethnic minority fighting to create an independent state in the north and east of the island.
Reed said it was “so sad” that the war continues today, but he is very much removed from the country he once called home.
Now, he busies himself with simpler activities like daily walks along the Potomac and occasional trips to Baltimore, where, surrounded by Orioles fans, he proudly wears the cap of his beloved Red Sox.. He spends part of each summer along Maine’s North Pond, where he has summered since he was just 1year old.
He continues his political friendships as a member of the National Republican Club of Capitol Hill and of veterans groups, while also spending time with his daughter Cheryl, who works for a large law firm in Washington. His other daughter, Ruth, and three grandchildren live in Massachusetts and Maine.
He said he “feels great,” noting that he has no health problems, and doesn’t have any regrets in his life. Though he never intended to live the life he has, he succeeded with a blend of fate and friends.
“Fate opens doors and you take advantage of them,” Reed said, but “you’ve got to have a lot of friends who believe in you…. I guess in life it’s that way, but certainly in politics.”
###
Renewable Energy Tax Credits Pass in Senate
Housing
Bangor Daily News
Vicki Ekstrom
Boston University Washington News Service
4/9/2008
WASHINGTON – The Senate Thursday approved energy tax credits proposed by Maine’s two senators and aimed at helping businesses and homeowners struggling to pay their bills in the sluggish housing market.
The credits were part of a broader bill directed at the current home foreclosure crisis. The bill, which cleared the Senate overwhelmingly, 84-12, now goes to the House, which has some different ideas for easing the housing crisis.
Home prices dropped by 11 percent last year, according to a letter Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, sent to President Bush on April 1 urging him to act.
“In my home state of Maine, price declines are becoming an unfortunate staple of kitchen table conversation,” Collins said in the letter. “Although foreclosure filings in the state of Maine are occurring below the national pace, state officials tell me the numbers are rising and are expected to worsen.”
To help, Collins and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, proposed measures to extend renewable energy tax credits and give homeowners a tax credit for buying more energy-efficient wood stoves.
Their proposals, which were added to the bill in committee, would extend incentives to improve energy efficiency and encourage investment in renewable electricity sources such as wind, biomass, hydropower and sun.
“We must do more than pay lip service to alternative energy production and conservation,” Snowe said, while recognizing that high energy prices are one of the reasons for the current economic downturn. Snowe also said in a January letter to Senate leaders that promoting long-term clean electricity would lower home-heating costs and stimulate job growth and the economy.
Snowe’s proposal extends for one year deductions to build more energy-efficient homes and make existing homes more efficient. Additionally, credits for using energy-efficient technology to build homes would be extended for two years and a credit for making energy-saving appliances would be extended for three years. More than 100,000 Americans could be put to work this year with Snowe’s tax credits, her letter said.
The Snowe proposals were from a 2005 energy law she sponsored that is set to expire at the end of this year.
Collins’ proposal would give $300 tax incentives to people who purchase new wood stoves or exchange their old wood stoves for newer and cleaner versions. The new wood stoves are 70 percent cleaner and use a third less firewood than older models. Sponsors say the new stoves are also a healthier option, as the old stoves can aggravate asthma and bronchitis.
“Wood is a renewable resource, and its increased use for home heating is inevitable in these times of high oil prices,” Collins said. “We have the technology to make its use better for the environment and for human health, as well as safer and more affordable.”
By switching from old to new, homeowners would save on their heating bills, improve their health and help the environment, but the new stoves cost more--$1,500 to $3,000, on average--making the tax credit a needed incentive, Collins said.
In addition to renewable energy tax credits, the housing bill would also provide $10 billion in tax-exempt bonds to help first-time homebuyers and at-risk borrowers. An additional measure by Snowe would add $930 million for small states, increasing what Maine would receive from $43 million to $90 million.
Similar measures were proposed in the House by Reps. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and Barney Frank, D-Mass. The president unveiled his own more moderate housing plan on Tuesday.
###
Trading “Pork” for Lobsters in Maine
Lobsters
Bangor Daily News
Vicki Ekstrom
Boston University Washington News Service
4/3/2008
WASHINGTON – Some of Maine’s leaders were accused this week of trading “pork” for lobsters by Citizens Against Government Waste, a non-partisan watchdog group that monitors government pork-barrel spending.
The group released its 2008 Pig Book Wednesday, listing government pork projects and gave one of its “Oinker Awards” to Maine’s Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe and Democratic Rep. Tom Allen. They received the Taxpayers Get Steamed Award for $188,000 that was given to the Lobster Institute, a research and education program at the University of Maine.
One of the institute’s projects, the lobster cam, is a small underwater video camera attached to a lobster trap,
“If we’re going to fund a lobster cam at a time when we’re at war, we’re not making good decisions, said Sen. Jim DeMint, R- S.C., at a press conference. Appearing with DeMint were a guy in a pink pig suit, five other members of Congress, Tom Schatz, the president of the watchdog group, and two live pigs, Winnie and Dudley, who munched on treats.
The Pig Book defines pork as spending that meets at least one of seven criteria: requested by only one chamber of Congress; not specifically authorized; not competitively awarded; not requested by the president; greatly exceeds the president's budget request; not the subject of congressional hearings; and serves only a local or special interest.
This definition encompasses spending earmarks, the practice of designating money for local or special-interest projects.
The Lobster Institute earmark went to fund lobster health research, which is vital to the lobster industry, said Robert Bayer, head of the Lobster Institute.
“Lobsters get sick just like any other animal and sometimes what they get sick from kills them,” Bayer said. “Some of these health issues are from pollutants that come from us. We want to know what those health issues are and how we can mitigate them.”
Bayer stressed that while people can’t be harmed by these lobster health issues, determining what makes lobsters sick should result in more lobsters to eat.
“It’s not trivial. It’s about the survival of the industry,” Bayer said, noting that people eat Maine lobsters all over the country and even in Canada and that “one of the reasons people come to Maine is to see the quaint lobster villages and eat lobster.”
There are more than 5,800 lobstermen in Maine, and Maine supplied 70 percent of the country’s lobsters in 2006, according to the office of Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine.
The institute is funded mostly by those affected every day by the lobster industry: lobster associations, fishermen and their friends. It relies on sponsors and endowments so that it will not need to rely on the federal government, Bayer said.
“While I did not in fact make this specific request…the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine seeks to enhance our understanding of the impact of the environment on this vital resource as well as on food safety,” Snowe said. “These objectives, which the appropriation would support, are important given there’s no question our lobster industry is vital to the economy of Maine.”
Congress spent more than $17 billion on pork projects this year, according to the watchdog group. Maine received less of this money on a per capita basis than most states, dropping from 28th in 2006 to 41st this year on a state ranking list. Projects in Maine received more than $29.5 million on pork-barrel projects, the group said.
The Maine members of Congress said pork spending can get out of control but many of the projects are important.
“I will continue to fight against government waste, and to make sure that our tax dollars are spent wisely,” Michaud said. “At the same time, I will also continue to advocate for appropriate federal investments in high-priority needs in Maine.”
Snowe and Collins released a list of their requested earmarks last year to maintain an open process, a spokesperson for Collins said. Michaud and Allen did not.
“Sponsors of earmarks should make their requests public, as Sen. Snowe and I have done,” Collins said. But “when subjected to thorough scrutiny and transparency, earmarks can be an appropriate exercise of Congress’ constitutional budget authority.”
Allen does not disclose all of the earmarks he requests.
“Publishing information about requests that are not funded could undermine the constituent's efforts to secure funding from other sources,” a spokesperson for Allen said.
Allen does display all earmarks he has secured on his Web site.
###
Allen Ocean Observing Bill Improves Fishing and Port Safety
Oceans
Bangor Daily News
Vicki Ekstrom
Boston University Washington News Service
4/2/2008
WASHINGTON – Legislation sponsored by Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, that would strengthen ocean observation techniques and improve understanding of the nation’s bodies of water passed in the House on Monday.
Under the bill air, land and sea observations, which have been carried out by many government agencies and private organizations with different techniques and goals, would be coordinated under one integrated system allowing the nation to make better use of the information.
“We watch weathermen on the news and we forget that behind those reports is this vast network of weather satellites and other apparatuses,” Allen said in an interview on Wednesday. “An integrated system provides that data. A similar kind of data flow is what the integrated observation system provides.”
Allen’s national integrated system for studying the oceans is based on Maine’s Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System, or GoMOOS, which studies the Gulf of Maine to improve safety, increase understanding of weather and contribute to climate change findings.
GoMOOS was the model for regional observing systems throughout the country, but each year GoMOOS struggles to obtain funding, said Philip Bogden, head of GoMOOS.
“This bill will certainly help to sustain the data flow, but I think we still face significant challenges ahead,” said Bogden, who is exploring an alternative business model as well because, he said, GoMOOS can’t completely depend on the federal government.
In addition to establishing a funding mechanism for regional systems throughout the country, the bill “will provide a steady stream of real-time data about what’s happening offshore,” Allen said.
Allen recounts speaking with a Rockland, Maine, fisherman several years ago who told him how fishermen benefited from GoMOOS.
“Instead of trying to guess what the weather was going to be seven miles away, he could turn on his computer and get real-time data about what was going on out there and decide whether it was safe to go out and fish,” Allen said.
“I think it will have a major positive effect on the industry,” said Patrice McCarron, head of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association “The fishermen have become very dependent on the buoys to find out sea conditions and help tell them not to go out when it’s not safe…. This makes a system that was pioneered by Maine a national priority for the country.”
Allen also said the bill would help scientists who are “trying over an extended period of time to figure out what’s happening with the oceans.”
A coordinated observing system also would help to lessen erosion and pollution, strengthen the protection of ports and improve predictions of climate and weather changes and storms, like hurricanes.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would be the lead agency to oversee and allot money to the new ocean-observing system.
The bill has been introduced in the House in the past, but “never went anywhere with the Republican Congress because even though it’s not a lot of money, it’s money,” Allen said. The initial investment for the integrated system was estimated at $138 million by the National Office for Integrated and Sustained Ocean Observations, or Ocean.US, the federal agency that would develop this effort.
The Senate’s companion measure was introduced by Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and approved by the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee last summer. A full Senate vote has not been scheduled. When introduced in the past, the legislation has passed in the Senate, her office said.
“Despite the constant interaction between our lives on land and the natural systems of the ocean, the physical properties of nearly three-quarters of the Earth’s surface remain a mystery,” Snowe said after Monday’s passage of the House bill. “This bipartisan effort will help our country uncover those mysteries by developing a national integrated system.”
A nationwide observing system was one of the Bush administration’s top three recommendations when it announced its Ocean Research Priorities Plan and Implementation Strategy in January 2007.
###
Snowe’s Health Insurance Bill Aims to Benefit Small Businesses
Small Business
Bangor Daily News
Vicki Ekstrom
Boston University Washington News Service
4/2/2008
WASHINGTON – Small businesses are the intended beneficiaries of health insurance legislation introduced on Wednesday by Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, senior Republican member of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.
“I can’t tell you how many people who run small businesses in the state have told me how much they want to offer health benefits to their employees and they can’t,” Snowe said in an interview on Wednesday. “This legislation is going to have a huge effect in Maine because Maine is a small-business state. That’s what inspired me. I heard from small-business owners directly.”
The Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) would make health insurance more affordable for small businesses through a tax credit to offset part of employers’ contributions to employee premiums.
The legislation also would encourage small businesses to become part of regional purchasing pools and, beginning in 2011, of national pools to lessen administrative costs.
Additionally, a lack of competition in the insurance industry has resulted in small businesses being “trapped,” Snowe said.
In Maine, four insurers control 98 percent of the market, Snowe said. “If you have no competition you have a rise in prices, a rise in prices means no health insurance, and that’s simply unacceptable and unconscionable.”
The purchasing pools give small businesses more health plan options, pushing competition in the health insurance industry and encouraging lower rates.
There are 124,000 uninsured people in Maine and there are more than 13 million people working for small businesses that are uninsured in the nation, said an October 2007 report by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, which researches economic security and employee benefits.
Most of these people are uninsured because of the cost, Snowe said, adding that the increasing cost of health insurance has been the number one concern for small businesses.
Individual coverage in Maine costs about $4,800 a year, a figure that Snowe called “atrocious.” Meanwhile, insurance premiums have increased by 78 percent since 2000, Snowe said.
The legislation will help the more than 41 million employees of the nation’s almost 6 million small businesses. Small businesses provide about two-thirds of the new jobs in America. In Maine, about 90 percent of businesses are small.
Snowe’s bill has received support from the National Federation of Independent Business, the Service Employees International Union and the National Association of Realtors, as well as Maine’s Bureau of Insurance.
“The SHOP Act recognizes the important protections that many states, like Maine, already have and sets a federal standard,” said Mila Kofman, superintendent of Maine’s Bureau of Insurance, in a letter sent to Snowe on Wednesday. “The SHOP Act is an important step forward. I applaud your efforts and commitment to Maine’s and America’s small businesses and workers.”
In the past, similar legislation was rejected under heavy pressure from the insurance industry, Snowe said. Now, she said, the industry supports her bill.
Snowe recounted in an interview a time before the 2006 election when she went into a shoe store and the man behind the counter dropped on the counter his Blue Cross and Blue Shield bill.
“It was staggering,” Snowe said. “I couldn’t help but think, here he is, struggling to keep his business together, a family-owned business, and there’s no justification for the inability of Congress to just let this happen.”
Snowe said that she can’t see “any good reason why this can’t be supported” because of a general sense in the Senate that it needs to get done; she said she believes the legislation will pass before the November elections.
###
Homeland Security Responds to Baldacci’s Request
Baldacci Letter
Bangor Daily News
Vicki Ekstrom
Boston University Washington News Service
3/26/2008
WASHINGTON – The Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday it is working with Maine and is encouraged by the efforts of the state’s leaders to move forward with procedures called for within the Real ID Act.
“We want to make sure that at a minimum the states are moving forward in good faith to comply with the procedures called for in the Real ID Act, regardless of whether they want to say they are complying with the Act,” said Laura Keehner, a spokeswoman for the department “Some states are reluctant in calling it Real ID, but regardless of what they call it, we want them to move forward with the procedures.”
Of 18 procedures outlined in the act, Maine meets or partially meets 10 of the procedures.
The department’s response comes a day after Gov. John Baldacci sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff requesting that Maine residents not be penalized for not complying with the act.
The state legislature passed a law last year, signed by the governor, which prohibits the state from complying with the act.
“While the development of the rules, policies and procedures have taken longer than had originally been anticipated, the state of Maine has moved vigorously in the meantime to improve the security of its credentials,” Baldacci said in his letter, without directly saying the state would comply.
The deadline to request a waiver to give states more time to comply with the act is Monday, March 31.
Maine is the second state to send a letter requesting a waiver without indicating that the state will comply with the act. Montana’s Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer sent a similar letter and was granted a waiver last week.
South Carolina and New Hampshire also have not sought waivers. New Hampshire has asked to be exempted from the act, but the department has not yet granted the state an extension.
The department is reviewing Baldacci’s request for a waiver, Keehner said.
###
Snowe Fights Internet Phishing, As The Scam Tops The IRS’s ‘Dirty Dozen’ List
Phishing
Bangor Daily News
Vicki Ekstrom
Boston University Washington News Service
3/21/2008
WASHINGTON – Internet phishing – the name given to scams that trick people into revealing personal information through emails – topped the Internal Revenue Service’s “Dirty Dozen” list released last week of the 12 most common and costly tax scams.
With tax deadline approaching and citizens expecting economic stimulus package checks, scammers are enticing many to release information that they should not be sending over the internet.
“Many of these scams involve official-looking e-mail messages that try to trick the recipient into entering their personal information at a fake IRS Web site by stating in the email that they are eligible for a refund check,” Sen. Olympia Snowe, R- Maine, said.
Peggy Riley, a spokeswoman for the IRS, warns that citizens will get their economic stimulus check by filing an income tax form, not through email.
“We’re really working hard to warn people not to click any links that come to them through email asking for personal information,” Riley said in an interview. “Sometimes it looks too good to be true.”
To combat such scams, Snowe introduced legislation in February to end phishing and related practices, including the use of fraudulent or misleading domain names.
The Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act of 2008 clearly defines phishing as a deceptive practice. It gives the Federal Trade Commission more authority to penalize “phishers” and makes phishing a higher priority for the commission. Additionally, the legislation gives state attorneys general the power to fine the scammers.
“Phishing and other online fraud activities directly undermine the vital trust of online consumers,” Snowe said when she introduced her bill. “In a world that is growing more dependent on technology, we need to take every step possible to make the Internet safer and more reliable. This begins with restoring the trust and consumer confidence that has been eroded by the prevalence of deceptive emails and Web sites that are defrauding the American people.”
Coined in the late 1990s, the word “phishing” comes from the analogy that scammers are “fishing” for personal data from the sea of Internet users. “Ph” is a common replacement for “f” in hacker lingo, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a global association focused on eliminating Internet fraud and identity theft.
There were more than 25,000 reports of phishing during the month of December, according to the group. Phishing scams and other forms of online fraud have increased by 57 percent from last year, claiming more than 3.5 million American victims.
Experts from the business, government, technology, advocacy and academic communities will gather in Washington on April 1 at a conference called by the Federal Trade Commission to discuss strategies to increase awareness of phishing.
###
