Category: Spring 2002 Newswire
Federal Agencies Review Bush’s Budget For Indian Programs
WASHINGTON, March 07–Federal agencies in charge of Indian programs urged a Senate committee this week to review the impact of the Bush Administration’s budget request for key services to American Indians and Alaska Natives.
The Indian Affairs Committee heard testimony yesterday and Tuesday from six witnesses on spending for Indian programs involving welfare, job training, education, health care, law enforcement and housing development.
The 2000 Census counted 4.1 million American Indians and Alaska Natives, 1.5 percent of the nation’s population, including more than 9,600 in Connecticut.
“I am hopeful we will find the kind of resources we need for these important services,” said the committee’s vice chairman, Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-CO, the only American Indian in the Senate. “I do want to take the opportunity to convey what I believe is one of the most successful federal programs ever devised: the Administration for Native Americans, or ANA, as we know it.”
The ANA is considered to be a unique umbrella program that confers financial assistance to more than 550 federally recognized and 60 state-recognized Indian communities to create and expand their social, economic and governance objectives, which include native language preservation and environmental regulatory enhancement projects.
“The president’s budget seeks a straight-line reauthorization of this important program,” testified Clarence Carter, the director of the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Community Services.
Carter also addressed the president’s reauthorization of two welfare programs, Tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Native Employment Works Program, pointing out that there is no separate financing source for American Indians within the TANF program and that welfare caseloads on reservations are not declining because there’s a lack of job opportunities.
On the subject of jobs, Campbell said, “I think we are really missing the boat somewhere in the Department of Labor.”
David G. Dye, the deputy assistant Labor secretary for the Employment and Training Administration, said “the federal government and Indian communities must work together” to secure employment and job training resources to enhance the Indian employment rate of 54.1 percent in 2000.
A portion of his agency’s proposed $70 million budget, Dye said, would be invested in these kinds of partnership programs.
Thomas M. Corwin, the acting deputy assistant Education secretary for elementary and secondary education, pointed out that compensatory education goes beyond the workforce and also into the classroom.
“Our request for the department’s Indian education programs is $122.4 million, an increase of $2 million over the 2002 level,” he said. “These programs include formula grants to school districts, competitive programs and national activities to further research and evaluation on the education needs and status of the Indian population.”
Dr. Michael H. Trujillo, director of Health and Human Services’ Indian Health Services, also requested additional funds to make “culturally acceptable personal and public health services” easily accessible.
Trujillo said his office sought to double the amount of funding the Bush Administration is proposing to meet the health care needs of American Indians and Alaska Native villagers. Trujillo added that said his office planned to deliver better health care services and facilities in addition to efforts to offset the rise in death rates caused by the top killers among tribal members, including tuberculosis, diabetes and alcoholism.
The Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs sent Tracy A. Henke, its principal deputy assistant attorney general, to request that the office’s tribal programs maintain its $50.6 million budget to address serious law enforcement problems on reservations and in villages, including substance abuse and domestic violence.
“Some of OJP’s programs focus on alcohol and drug abuse, which continue to be major problems in Indian country,” Henke testified. To address these problems, Henke asked for $5 million for a new program that would improve substance abuse services by providing better treatment and stepped-up law enforcement. OJP also put in a request for an additional $19.9 million for all of the office’s tribal Violence Against Women Act programs.
The committee heard about other federal programs, such as a public housing interagency initiative within the Housing and Urban Development Department that links “18 federal agencies through a single economic development access center” for individual Native Americans, Indian tribes and economic institutions, testified Michael Liu, assistant secretary of public and Indian housing. The department requested that $1.5 million be set aside within the Indian Community Development Block Grant’s $72.5 million total.
An oversight hearing to discuss the budget is set for next Thursday.
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Lawmakers Call for Passage of Immigration Bill to Repeal Provisions of 1996 Act
WASHINGTON, March 07--Lawmakers on Capitol Hill yesterday called on the Bush Administration to support passage of legislation that would overturn a 1996 law that Congressman Barney Frank said violated the Constitution.
The 1996 Immigration Reform Act denies immigrants who have committed two crimes the right to public benefits and a range of due process and fairness protections, according to the bill's sponsor, John Conyers Jr of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. "We grant due process rights to citizens and non-citizens alike," he said, "not out of some soft-hearted sentimentality, but because we believe that these rights form an important cornerstone to maintaining civilized society
Some of the key provisions of the proposed Restoration of Fairness in Immigration Act are providing the Attorney General with discretion to release immigrants from detention if he determines that they pose no security risk, restoring there right to a due-process hearing before an immigration judge and repealing portions of the 1996 law that retroactively permit deportation of permanent legal resident for minor offenses.
Mr. Frank, one of 24 co-sponsors and the second-ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, told immigrant advocacy groups at a press conference yesterday that the bill has no connection to the events of Sept. 11. "It is very important that we help people understand it has zero relevance to the mass [destruction] of Sept. 11," he said. "This [bill] predates it by five years·. This has nothing to do with terrorism, has nothing to do with what the Justice Department is doing."
Mr. Conyers, however, said assaults on the rights of immigrants after Sept. 11 justify passage of his bill. "The Justice Department is now holding deportation hearings in secret and detaining immigrants even after they are ordered released," he said. "The Attorney General is reducing both the independence and number of judges that handle the appeals of immigration cases. We are fending off legislation almost daily intended to reduce if not eliminate immigration to this country."
Mr. Frank added: "Nothing that we are talking about would make people non-deportable. It just wouldn't make it automatic."
Members of Congress are being urged to sponsor the bill by 76 advocacy groups, including the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. "The overwhelming impact of the '96 bill was borne on immigrants," said Victor Docouto, executive director of MIRA. "A huge slew of elderly people - who had worked here - were stripped of their benefits [upon passage of the bill]. All of those folks overnight lost their rights to [Supplemental Security Income] benefits."
Docouto added that a later act amended the '96 bill slightly - non-citizens residing in the United States before 1996 received benefits, but those arriving after the bill's passage needed to live in the United States for five years or become a citizen to receive benefits.
Most states complied with the federal government's stripping immigrants of benefits under Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, food stamps, job training and housing, among other programs, although Massachusetts made the effort to lessen the severity of the bill on immigrants. "Massachusetts was one of the few states in the Union to develop a safety net," Docouto said. "While the impact [of the Immigration Reform Act] has been significant, the impact has been mitigated."
"We must ameliorate the harshest provisions of the 1996 immigration laws and restore needed protections for these deserving individuals," Senator Ted Kennedy, a leading supporter of the bill in the Senate, said in a statement. "Permanent residents who committed offenses long before the enactment of the 1996 laws should be able to apply for relief from removal as it existed when the offense was committed·. Current immigration laws punish residents out of proportion to their crimes. Relatively minor offenses are now considered aggravated felonies, and many permanent residents who did not receive criminal convictions or serve prison sentences are precluded from all relief from deportation."
Written for the New Bedford Standard-Times in New Bedford, Mass.
Hispanic Business Leaders Protest Cuts in Programs to Aid Minority Businesses
By Kelly Field
WASHINGTON, March 06--Hispanic business leaders from Massachusetts met with members of Congress yesterday to protest cuts and changes in federal programs that provide loans and contracts to minority small businesses.
"Hispanic businesses are doing very well in Massachusetts, but we need to continue supporting programs that are going to take us to the next level," said Edgar R. Cintron, owner of a small construction company and a regional representative on the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce board of directors, at a USHCC legislative briefing proceeding the visits.
"These [cuts] would impact small business who depend on [federal] money to grow," said State Representative Jose Santiago, D-Lawrence, in an interview.
President Bush's budget proposes to slash funds for the Small Business Administration's 7A loan guarantee program by 50 percent, according to Senator John F. Kerry, D-Mass. The program provides secured loans to small businesses unable to borrow through normal lending channels. Demand for these loan guarantees increased by 16 percent last year as banks cut back on lending to small businesses in the face of the recession.
Kerry, who has introduced legislation that would make it easier for businesses affected by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to qualify for 7A loans, said that such loans are important to "ensure that existing businesses are not left behind and aspiring businesses get started."
The Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee that Kerry chairs is asking Congress to increase funds for 7A loans to $11 billion. Last year, Massachusetts received 1,785 such loans, which added $231 million to the economy, according to the committee.
There are 622 Hispanic-owned firms in Lawrence, and 12,725 in Massachusetts, according to a 1997 U.S. Census Bureau Economic Census. The Lawrence firms took in over $50,000 in receipts that year.
Also at risk this year is Lawrence's Small Business Center, which could be affected by "under funding" of the nation's Small Business Development Centers (SBDC), Kerry said. The Lawrence center, which opened two years ago, includes the first-in-the-nation bilingual Business Information Center, which provides business information, counseling and training to Lawrence's Latino residents. Last year, 24 states, including Massachusetts, lost SBDC funds because their populations did not grow as fast as the national average during the 1990s.
Latino business leaders also denounced proposed SBA changes that would make it easier for businesses to qualify for contracts awarded on the basis of location, rather than ethnicity. The changes, they say, would place the Historically Underutilized Business Zones (HubZones) program-which provides federal contracts based on business location-on equal footing with the SBA's 8A Minority Enterprise Development Program, whose contract awards are based on ethnic background.
"This change would rob minority business of contracts and pit minority business owners against low-income communities," said Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-Brooklyn, the senior Democrat on the House Small Business Committee.
Contracting opportunities for minorities fell 20 percent from 1995 to 2000, said Velazquez, the first Puerto Rican woman elected to Congress.
"They are sending the message that minorities need not apply," Velazquez said.
Cintron, whose construction business is designated an 8A firm eligible for government contracts, said the government is shifting its priorities, increasingly directing its resources away from minority-owned business.
8A spending has been reduced by $1.3 billion in the past five years and $700 million in the past two alone.
"Little by little they are diffusing it," said Gerardo Villacres, president of the Hispanic American Chamber of Commerce in Boston.
Kerry, who yesterday introduced legislation that would make more businesses eligible for 8A funds, agreed that the government is "playing games with the regulatory process," and vowed to fight the proposed change in committee.
Villacres said that the Enron scandal points to the need for the government to "level the playing field" for small businesses that cannot afford "to fill the pockets of politicians." He said the 8A program makes it easier for small businesses to compete with larger companies that, he said, could "buy" government contracts or favorable legislation.
"It is not that we expect the government to do everything; we are willing to take charge, to not wait for someone to open the door for us," Villacres said.
"But," added Juana Horton of the Hispanic American Chamber of Commerce of Providence, "this helps them get their foot in the door. And that's all the help small businesses need."
Published in The Eagle-Tribune, in Lawrence, Mass.
Rep. Martinez Lobbies For Hispanic-Owned Businesses
WASHINGTON, March 06--Hispanic small-business owners have become one of the fastest growing contributors to Connecticut's economic development, and State Rep. John S. Martinez, D-New Haven, made a special trip to Washington this week to try to make certain it stays that way.
Martinez, the deputy majority leader of the Connecticut House, met Wednesday with other Hispanic elected leaders and administrative officials as part of an annual conference sponsored by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to promote federal legislative priorities, policies and programs that would continue to stimulate Hispanic business's access to capital.
The nation's Hispanic population in 2000 was 32.8 million, 12 percent of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. About 9 percent of Connecticut's population, or 320,323 people, are Hispanic.
The Census Bureau's most recent available figures show there are 1.2 million Hispanic business owners nationally, and 6,600 Hispanic-owned small businesses in the state, including 287 in Waterbury, which has the state's fourth-largest Hispanic population.
"The question is: What are the plans of the [Bush] administration in dealing with the economic development of the Hispanic community picture?" Martinez said. "The issue is access to capital and opportunities to minorities, and in this case we are talking about Hispanics."
The chamber has called upon the Bush administration to sustain and expand existing federal programs that provide federal funds and tax credits to employers and small-business owners who hire employees to help strengthen the economy in depressed areas.
The Hispanic chamber also recommended that Hispanic small-business enterprises in low-income communities be able to obtain more venture capital funds from the Small Business Administration, and that more money go into the SBA for its venture capital arm, the Small Business Investment Co., which targets Hispanic businesses.
In an effort to proactively address this question, Martinez and other conference participants plan to lobby their states' congressional delegations today in support of the chamber's policy recommendations.
Martinez agreed with U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass. that in order to maintain that important part of the economy and help it grow, there needs to be more business education and training as part of entrepreneurship curriculums in elementary and secondary schools and colleges.
"The strength of our country doesn't just come out of the muzzle of an M-16 or out of the belly of a B-52. It comes out of the ability to educate our children," said Kerry, who was invited to deliver a legislative briefing at the chamber conference. Kerry is also the chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship.
Business education, Martinez said, should also focus on Hispanics who already own small businesses.
"People may already have the skills, but they don't know where the resources are," he said. "Part of technical assistance is connecting people to people who can provide them with help on how to access these resources. That is a real positive movement that's occurring right now in the state of Connecticut."
Martinez cited the Inner City Business Strategy Initiative in Waterbury, saying that in light of Sept. 11, the program should expand beyond its four-part training program and add a fifth part that would address crisis training for small-business owners.
"Quite frankly, I think Sept. 11 taught us that we should be doing a better job, particularly in this area, as is [being done] around homeland security," Martinez said. "Crisis intervention, handling and management have got to be one of the goals we need to achieve."
Not all businesses experienced setbacks since Sept. 11. Joel Rosario, vice president of the Greater Waterbury Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, claims many of Waterbury's Hispanic small businesses are prospering from the aftermath of the attacks.
"I don't know if I can fully contribute this to 9-11, but there has been a dramatic increase of New Yorkers moving to Waterbury. Some of them are starting small businesses, but some are just moving here," said Rosario, who did not attend the conference.
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Gregg Confident He Will Garner Federal Funds for IP Land Deal
WASHINGTON, March 06--Pointing out that he sits on the Senate committee that appropriates federal funds - including money for land conservation projects - Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) said Wednesday that the final purchase of easement on the International Paper land in the North Country will "absolutely" go through "hopefully no later than the end of next year."
Gregg, a junior member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior, has already secured $3.6 million to secure easements on the 171,000 acres in Pittsburg, Stewartstown and Clarksville. The funds would come from the Agriculture Department's Forest Legacy Program, which gives grants to states for private land conservation. President Bush's proposed budget for the coming fiscal year also includes $4 million.
Approximately $12 million is needed from the federal government to purchase the easements on the land next year.
Sitting in one of his capital offices in front of a panoramic picture of the view atop Mount Washington, Gregg said he is "not too concerned about identifying a specific" bill that will contribute the additional money. He said one such bill, the Wildlife Enhancement Act - which Sen. Bob Smith (R-NH) introduced last year and which would give $9 million to the land purchase - is "certainly a source."
But, he said, "the real source is the Interior Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, and if they agree to put the money in, they'll fund it. I would hope that we can get another significant chunk of money this year equaling that or maybe even a little higher than that towards that project."
The Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national nonprofit, will buy the land from International Paper later this month. It will hold on to the property until the easements and final plans for the property are hammered out. Lyme Timber plans to buy a small portion for logging, and the remaining land will remain as wilderness. Private contributors and the state government will help Gregg and his counterparts garner the needed funds. The New Hampshire state House approved a $10 million bond for the land, which the state Senate will soon consider.
Gregg served as co-chairman with Governor Jeanne Shaheen of the Connecticut Lakes Headwaters Partnership Task Force that was created last July to figure out how to preserve the land while paying heed to the people who rely economically on logging. The Granite State's other federal legislators served on the task force's steering committee.
Kathy DeCoster, the director of federal programs at the TPL, said "things are going very smoothly in the state, which helps bolster our push down here for funding."
Gregg's press secretary, Jeffrey Turcotte, said that since the Senator formed the task force last July, he "has pretty much worked on it full time gauging public support."
"I'm still very involved in it, making calls and having discussions" with people in New Hampshire and at the TPL, Gregg said. "We're committing a lot of energy to this. We have one person who is working on this issue almost full time."
"Gregg was governor at the time that land study has come to fruition," said Lesley Kane, the TPL's vice president for federal affairs. "There was a real look at the changing pattern of ownership land, how the New England states were going to confront large slots of land going up for sale. Since that time, many things have developed, and he's stayed involved."
Charles Levesque, the president of Innovations Natural Resource Solutions, a consultancy working with the TPL, calls the land deal a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." He added, "All this financial work is worth it, because we won't have this opportunity again."
Published in The Union Leader, in Manchester, New Hampshire
Officials Rebut Report that Mammography Is Not Effective in Saving Lives
WASHINGTON, March 06--Although Danish statisticians conclude in a recent report that mammograms are not essential to save lives, local and national specialists insist that regular screenings are necessary to detect most types of tumors, and to improve patients' quality of life.
"Mammograms are an effective preventive tool," said Dr. Ronald Charles, medical director at the Greater New Bedford Community Health Center. "I believe that the potential is there to save lives - if cancer is detected, then the person can be sent to the right place [for treatment]. The goal is early detection, and early treatment."
Stacy Souza, a statistician at the Health Center, agreed. "If a woman [with a tumor] never got mammograms, she would never know she had the disease," she said. "It could be a much greater issue 10 years down the road. It would go to the lymph [node], and metastasize."
In a Senate hearing on Feb. 28, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), disputed a recent study by statisticians Dr. Peter Gotzsche and Ole Olsen of the Nordic Cochrane Center of Denmark. The report concluded that there was no reliable evidence to prove that mammograms save lives. But Dr. von Eschenbach said the data he has compiled indicated that they play a role.
In 1989, death rates from breast cancer began a decline of 1.4 percent a year; in recent years, he said, the decrease improved to 3.2 percent a year.
"We feel confident that mammography has contributed to this decline, but mammography alone has not driven this trend," Dr. von Eschenbach told the joint hearing. "Advances in therapy, including adjuvant therapy (both hormonal and chemotherapy) and chemoprevention approaches (such as Tamoxifen) have also played a role. Unfortunately, the current debate appears to be focused on this single component in the equation."
Accordingly, NCI continues to recommend mammography screening for women over age 40. But Dr. von Eschenbach said he believes women need unimpeded access to prevention, screening, treatment, and supportive care to win their battle against breast cancer. "We need to keep our focus on the sum of the equation: longer life coupled with better care."
Although Dr. Charles was unsure if mammograms actually save lives, he said that it is essential for women to take advantage of mammograms at free clinics that are supported by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health's Breast Cancer and Cervical Initiative. "If women don't come into the health care system and take advantage of the free care program, then their chances of getting early detection are nil," he said. Nevertheless, the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy found in an October 2001 study that insured residents are almost twice as likely to visit a doctor as an uninsured adult in the Fall River/New Bedford area.
Caucasians are more likely to develop breast cancer than African-American women, but blacks have a higher mortality rate, and nearly half - 47 percent - die within ten years of diagnosis, according to the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition. Dr. Charles said that African-Americans have a higher mortality rate because of the lack of information about resources available to them. Of the clients at the Greater New Bedford Community Health Center, approximately 5 percent are black, and nearly 30 percent are Hispanic.
It was the debate over the need for mammograms that prompted. Barbara Mikulski, D-MD, to join with Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, in calling the joint hearing of two Senate subcommittees to clarify the effectiveness of breast exams and inform women of various options for treatment.
The hearings were held by the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS and Education, which Harkin chairs, and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee on Public Health, on which Mikulski, who authored the 1992 Mammography Quality Standards Act to ensure higher quality breast imaging, sits.
At least 203,500 invasive cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed this year, and 40,000 women will die of the disease, said Harmon J. Eyre, chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society. Nonetheless, Mr. Eyre said, progress is evident in detecting and treating the disease over the past two decades primarily because of mammography.
"We have reviewed the scientific evidence relating to mammography repeatedly since 1980, and we have continuously concluded that while improvements in technology are certainly welcome, mammography remains the best tool we currently have to detect breast cancer early," he said. "Studies showed that detecting breast cancers early increases the chances of survival."
Although most scientists agree that mammography is the best test to detect tumors, not all concur that screenings save lives.
"Women with breast cancer detected mammographically have extremely good prognoses in comparison with those having cancers detected in any other way," said Dr. Donald Berry, chairman of the department of biostatistics at the University of Texas. "Mammographically detected tumors are smaller and are less likely to have spread to the axillary lymph nodes. Since women whose breast cancers were found by a mammogram do so much better, there is a tendency to attribute the benefit to mammography."
But such an attribution may be incorrect, Dr. Berry said, because while the "apparent survival from diagnosis may be longer· life expectancy may not change at all."
If scientists are uncertain that mammograms save lives, then clinicians should inform clients of this prior to a screening, National Breast Cancer Coalition president Fran Visco said at the hearing. "The issue is about saving lives, not saving the institution of mammography," she said.
Ms. Souza, of the New Bedford Community Health Center, advises women to conduct self-exams at the onset of sexual activity or age 18, and to begin regular mammograms 10 years prior to the age of their mother's, sister's or grandmother's diagnosis.
Written for the New Bedford Standard-Times in New Bedford, Mass.
Stamford Mayor Asks Senators For Transportation, Mill River Project
By Justin Hill
WASHINGTON, March 05--Stamford Mayor Dannel P. Malloy asked Connecticut's Senators yesterday for more federal money to secure land for the Mill River Corridor Project and to build the Urban Transitway Dock Street Connector and other transportation projects.
The mayor met first with Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd in a 45-minute discussion of Stamford's needs.
"We talked about funding for land acquisition of the Mill River Corridor," Malloy said in an interview after the meeting. "We talked about transportation dollars that might become available [and] housing dollars that might become available. We're down here working on our budget, our federal budget priorities for Stamford, where the federal government might be helpful to us."
The mayor met with Democratic Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman about an hour later.
Malloy also asked Dodd for $32.25 million in federal funds for Phases I and II of the Dock Street Connector and $4.6 million for construction of a high-speed ferry landing at Atlantic Street and Washington Boulevard.
"We had a good discussion on Stamford's needs," Dodd said in a statement, "and while obviously there are budget restraints and these are never easy fights, I intend to do everything I can to help him and the community on these requests."
Malloy said Dodd, whom he credited with putting the Dock Street Connector and Mill River project in the budget three years ago, was "very supportive" and "responsive" during the meeting.
The mayor also talked to Dodd about President George W. Bush's proposal to ax half of a community's funds from the Housing and Urban Development Department's budget if the town's median income is double the national median income. Stamford is not on a list of towns affected by this proposal, which is based on income data from the 1990 census, according to Robert Duncan, deputy director of HUD's office of block grants. But it could lose those funds when the proposal takes into account income data from the 2000 census.
"We have to be concerned about that as a threat," the mayor said. "We're going to keep a close eye on thatá. We would have a great concern about that."
Stamford could lose more than $1.5 million in funds. In fiscal year 2002, the city received $1.2 million in HUD's community development block grants and $506,000 in HUD funds for affordable housing. Income data from the 2000 census are due out next year, Duncan said.
Malloy also requested $124 million in federal money for reconstruction of railroad underpasses in the I-95/Rail Center area-Atlantic Street, Elm Street and Post Road/Rte. 1-and a section of East Main Street as well as $500,000 for a feasibility study for the new Post Road Train Station on the New Canaan Line at the intersection of Rte. 1 and I-95. He also asked for legislative authorization of the new station.
Published in The Hour, in Norwalk, Conn.
Reeve Joins Kennedy in Support for Bill Allowing Therapeutic Cloning
By Kelly Field
WASHINGTON, March 05--Quadriplegic actor Christopher Reeve joined Senator Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass, yesterday to endorse a bill that would allow human embryonic cloning for medical research.
The "Cloning Prohibition Act," introduced by Kennedy and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Cal, would ban reproductive cloning, but permit "therapeutic cloning," the transfer of cell nuclei into egg cells whose nuclei have been removed. Scientists believe that these "reprogrammed" cells could eventually be used to provide treatment for the millions of Americans who now suffer from cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes, ALS and spinal cord injury.
"Some people are able to accept living with a severe disability," said Reeve, who has been unable to eat, wash, go to the bathroom or get dressed by himself since being thrown from his horse and paralyzed in 1995. "I am not one of them."
Therapeutic cloning, Reeve said, could give "hundreds of millions of people around the world who are afflicted withá.diseases and disabilities exactly the kind of chance that we need."
Proponents of therapeutic cloning, or "somatic cell nuclear transfer," (SCNT) as it is called in scientific circles, argue that it is necessary to create replacement cells and tissues are that are compatible with patients own immune systems. They maintain that therapeutic cloning could be used to create new stem cells that would be perfectly matched to the DNA code of the target patient.
"We must not confuse human cloning with regenerative medicine," said Kennedy, at a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee which he chairs. "One creates a person, and should be banned. The other provides a cure, and deserves our strong support."
Reproductive cloning involves the development of a full individual from a body cell. It is the technology used by Scottish scientists in 1997 to create Dolly the sheep and more recently by Texas scientists to create CC the cat. Kennedy's bill would outlaw this type of cloning, making it a federal crime to implant a cloned embryo into a woman's uterus.
But opponents of the Kennedy bill insist that there are safer methods of medical research that don't require the destruction of human embryos. They suggest that comparable medical advances could be accomplished through the human genome project and research on adult and embryonic stem cells, and raise the specter of a new era of eugenics and made-to-order, designer babies.
"The idea that you would use science to produce a human being to specifications flies in the face of some fundamental beliefs. The fact is cloning humans is wrong," said Senator Judd Gregg, R-N.H., at the hearing.
Gregg is a co-sponsor of an alternative piece of legislation that would ban all human cloning and create strict penalties for those who violate the ban. That legislation, introduced by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, and Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-LA., resembles a bill passed by the House of Representatives last year and is expected to be considered by the Senate in the next couple of weeks.
"Creating human life simply for the purpose of destroying it is immoral, unethical, and should be illegal," said Landrieu at the hearing.
Landrieu said that cloning research would put women-particularly poor women-at risk by subjecting them to undue pressure to donate eggs. Some studies suggest that the ovarian stimulating drugs that women take to produce larger number of eggs can pose a risk to future fertility.
"The exploitation of women in this process is inevitable," said Landrieu. "In this brave new world, women's eggs and wombs would be commodities sold to the highest bidder."
Judy Norsigian, Executive Director and Founder of the Boston Women's Health Collective, agreed that "the reality is that women with limited financial resources will be the primary providers of human eggs" if therapeutic cloning is allowed.
Published in The Eagle-Tribune, in Lawrence, Mass.
Environmental Activists Lobby Smith to Protect Arctic Refuge
WASHINGTON, March 05--A group of New Hampshire high school students traveled to Washington to lobby Senator Bob Smith, R-N.H. on the energy bill being considered in the Senate this week and to thank him for his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The ten activists, most of whom are high school students at The Derryfield School in Manchester, were attending a public lands summit organized by the Sierra Student Coalition, the student arm of the Sierra Club. Over 150 students from 35 states took part in the forum and in lobbying the Capitol.
In the energy debate which began yesterday and may continue through next week, Republican Senators hope to add an amendment to cut fuel imports by allowing oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Smith is expected to join an effort by opponents of the drilling in supporting a filibuster, which would halt debate on the Republican amendment. To overturn the filibuster, Republicans would need 60 votes, which Smith does not believe they have.
"I think right now it looks good for them not having the vote, so I think it looks very positive right now," Smith told the students. "I'm not sure what the procedure's going to be, and there may not be a vote because they don't have the votes to pass it."
Smith posed for photographs on the Senate steps with the students, who thanked him with a framed photograph of caribou in the Arctic Refuge, taken by award-winning conservationist Ken Madsen.
"There's a lot of connection here, you've got moose of course up thereáand in New Hampshire," Smith quipped about the photograph.
"It's really fun to be down here and know that our voices count," said Derryfield junior Christina Churchill, a member of the school's Conservation Club. "I think all we can really do is show that from New Hampshireáthere's a lot of support for these causes, and let them know that we really care about these places and protecting them."
Aside from studying potential environmental hazards of oil drilling in the Northern Wildlife Refuge, the students spent the weekend learning about public land issues in Alaska, Utah, the Northern Rockies, and the National Forests. They asked Smith to support other conservation efforts in these areas, which he offered to consider "on a case-by-case basis."
"I think it's really important to make sure that you hold your Congressman accountable, because they're supposed to represent you," said Derryfield student Katie Maglathlin. "If you don't tell them how you feel, then it's your fault if they make a stupid decisionáor one not in the mindset you'd like it to be."
The students also organized a letter writing campaign at their school, presenting Smith with 7,000 postcards signed by New Hampshire citizens.
"It's really been an interesting discussion, with a little bit of arm-twisting," Smith said. "But when you feel you're right on an issue, you stay with it. That's a good lesson for everybody, right?"
The students also met with aides of Senator Judd Gregg, R-N.H. and of Congressman Charles Bass, R-N.H. on Monday, and with an aide of Congressman John Sununu, R-N.H., yesterday morning. Both Smith and Bass have come out in opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, while Gregg and Sununu have strongly supported the drilling initiative.
Smith refuted the idea that his stance on the issue is intended to separate himself from Sununu, his opponent in this year's Senate Republican primary.
"Right now this is not about anyone's political campaign, this is about doing the right thing. I try to do what is rightáand let the chips fall where they may politically," Smith said, who emphasized a longtime opposition to the drilling.
One Derryfield junior, Sara Dewey, said she enjoyed meeting with Native American students at the Sierra Club summit and discussing conservation issues in areas like Black Mesa, Arizona and in Puerto Rico, "issues that we don't hear about in New Hampshire."
"Drilling the Arctic will not solve any of our energy problems but will destroy an irreplaceable natural treasure," said Matthew Connolly, Derryfield junior, in a statement released by the Sierra Club. "These lands represent the last wild, unspoiled places in America."
Published in The Keene Sentinel, in New Hampshire
Smith Joins McCain in Introducing Bill That Cuts Army Corps of Engineers Pork
WASHINGTON, March 06--Declaring that "taxpayers' hard-earned money should not be devoted to pouring sand on the beaches of the wealthy," Senator Bob Smith (R-NH) Tuesday introduced a bill that cuts excess spending on Army Corps of Engineers projects.
Smith, the senior Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, introduced the Corps of Engineers Modernization and Improvement Act of 2002 with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).
The bill prevents projects that are not "in the best interest of the nation" from receiving funding through the Army Corps of Engineers.
Peter Sepp, the vice president of the National Taxpayers Union, said "too many Corps programs are undertaken for political benefits rather than sound economic benefits, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill."
"How can I look the people of New Hampshire in the eye and say, your tax dollars pay to maintain a waterway that sees two barges a year or to replenish the sand on a beach where the median home price is $1.5 million?" Smith said in a statement.
The proposed bill would de-authorize Corps projects that never received construction funds, some of which, he said, are over 25 years old.
The bill calls for some future projects to undergo an independent peer review. The bill also calls for projects to meet a cost-benefit ratio standard.
Published in The Union Leader, in Manchester, New Hampshire
