Category: Spring 2003 Newswire
Local Officials Take Steps to Respond to Indian Point Incident as Federal Agencies Bide Their Time
By Paul Ziobro
WASHINGTON – Less than 30 miles from Norwalk’s City Hall lies the Indian Point nuclear power plant, which, in the case of an accident or even a terrorist attack, could spew out radioactive materials over hundreds of miles.
As federal agencies pore over the plant’s emergency preparedness plans, some local officials are taking their own precautionary measures, and the members of at least one family have taken action to distance themselves from the plant’s potential threat.
Concerns about the Buchanan, N.Y., plant were among the reasons Evelyn Cunningham and her family moved to Wilton last summer from Ossining, N.Y., which is less than 10 miles from the plant. Now that she is living more than 30 miles from Indian Point, Cunningham said, she is more concerned with her husband’s commute to New York City than with a nuclear accident. Nevertheless, she said, she still thinks the plant should be closed.
“If something happened at Indian Point, everyone would be in danger. There’s nothing that could keep everyone safe,” Cunningham said.
Connecticut residents have two related concerns about Indian Point: first, that a nuclear accident or terrorist attack could threaten all of Fairfield County; and second, that the absence of an adequate emergency response plan could lead to clogged roads that would endanger the safety of a wide swath of Connecticut and New York.
The plant’s spent fuel storage pools-which store radioactive fuel after it is removed from the reactor core-are attractive targets for terrorists, said Gordon Thompson, executive director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies, a Cambridge, Mass., think tank. The pools store the cesium-137 from the two pressurized water reactors. But if the pools were drained of water, radioactive material would be released into the air that could cover all of Fairfield County, Thompson said.
“These pools are packed so tight with radioactive material [that] if water was lost, the fuel will catch fire, burn and release large amounts of radioactivity,” said Thompson, who has over 25 years’ experience in assessing risk and security at nuclear sites. “If wind is moving toward Connecticut, it will affect a substantial portion of the state.”
If the fuel pools caught fire, the radioactive cesium would settle on land, vegetation and buildings and emit high doses of gamma rays for decades, Thompson said. Residents living hundreds of miles from the plant, depending on weather conditions and the size of the plume, could experience a two percent increase in cancer rates if they did not abandon their homes and render the area “uninhabitable.” he said.
A recent New York state report conducted by James Lee Witt Associates, a consulting group headed by the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), concluded that major flaws in Indian Point’s emergency response plan could threaten the safety of the 20 million people within a 50-mile radius of the plant.
As for concern about inadequate emergency preparedness plans, some towns have already taken precautionary measures-just in case.
Westport and New Canaan have passed resolutions calling for further scrutiny of the evacuation plans at Indian Point and urging the plant’s closure, and a host of communities have looked inward to strengthen their own evacuation plans.
Westport and Weston have distributed and stockpiled potassium iodide pills, which prevent the thyroid gland from absorbing radioactive iodine, “just to prepare for a radiological event that might happen,” said Diane Ferrell, First Selectman of Westport.
And Norwalk soon expects to hire a full-time emergency management director and is moving toward installing a dispatch system that both police and fire departments can use, said Councilman Kevin Poruban, chairman of the Norwalk Common Council’s Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Committee.
Many public officials and opponents of the plant are accusing FEMA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) of taking too much time to assess Indian Point’s plans and thus postponing any improvements to them.
“As state officials, we need federal help,” state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, said. “We need it in resources. We need the science that federal officials can make available to us. We need it now.”
A major concern of lawmakers is that the emergency plans could not handle a spontaneous or “shadow” evacuation by masses of residents who had not been advised to leave.
“I think you need to take a closer look at the challenges created by Indian Point’s location in a high-population area and the possible problems created by both shadow and spontaneous evacuations,” New York Rep. Sue Kelly said to NRC and FEMA representatives at a February congressional hearing on emergency plans at Indian Point. Kelly’s district includes the power plant.
A March 2002 Marist Institute for Public Opinion poll conducted for Riverkeeper, a New York-based environmental group pushing to close the plant, found that 60 percent of residents within 50 miles of Indian Point would attempt to evacuate in the event of a major accident. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4, who lives within the 50-mile radius, has said he would attempt to evacuate even if not told to do so.
“I believe that if you are anywhere near that plant, you’re leaving,” Shays, chairman of the Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, said at a March 10 hearing in Washington. “And I will tell you this, if I had a child, or my wife and I were in New Canaan, and there was a problem at that plant, I’d be leaving New Canaan faster than you could imagine.”
Another major criticism has been that federal agencies fail to distinguish between the implications of an accident and those of a well-coordinated, terrorist attack on the plant. During his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush said diagrams of American nuclear plants were found in Afghanistan.
“I think we’re in the Stone Age of planning for security against terrorist attacks on our nuclear facilities,” said Blumenthal, who supports closing the plant until emergency planning deficiencies are addressed. “And, in a sense, Indian Point is just a poster child for the lack of planning and safeguarding of these facilities across the country.”
FEMA is now waiting for New York state and several of its counties to submit by May 2 parts of their emergency plans, such as letters of agreement with response groups and local schools’ evacuation plans, before determining whether there is a “reasonable assurance” of public safety. Otherwise, FEMA and New York have 120 days to correct any major deficiencies or submit a plan to do so before FEMA sends its evaluation to the NRC for another review.
If FEMA rejects the plans and the NRC concurs, as it has always done before, Entergy Nuclear Operations Inc., the New Orleans-based owner of Indian Point, would have 120 days to correct the problems or “there could be actions taken to protect public health and safety,” including closing the plant, NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said. None of the nation’s 104 nuclear reactors has been shut down because of inadequate emergency plans.
Jim Steets, communications director for Entergy, defended the plant’s emergency plans. He said the largest possible release from the plant would be narrow, “like a plume out of a chimney,” and would diminish to only a trace beyond 10 miles. There would be little, if any, impact on Connecticut, he said.
“We’re too far away from the Connecticut line to have any ramifications other than maybe some,” Steets said. “It’s hard to imagine a scenario that would cause anyone to do anything.”
Steets said anti-nuclear groups, in drumming up support to close Indian Point, have circulated misleading information to stir emotions. “You’ve got a staunch anti-nuclear group that has existed since the plants were built who have used every method at their disposal to scare people, with some success,” he said.
Indian Point, which provides 2,000 megawatts of energy-enough to power almost 2 million homes-to Westchester County and New York City, has had incidents in the past that threatened its license. In 1993, the NRC fined the New York Power Authority, which owned the plant at the time, $300,000 for safety violations. In 2000, the plant accidentally released a small amount of radioactive steam, and the NRC gave Indian Point the first-ever “red” designation, one step from being shut down.
Indian Point boasts a laundry list of security measures: razor-wire fencing, surveillance cameras around the full perimeter, FBI background checks for employees, “hand geometry” sensors that scan handprints for admission to certain areas, explosive detectors, metal detectors and X-ray machines-all before anyone could reach the reactors, according to Steets.
The reactor core — which would emit radioactive material if it were breached and its contents were exposed, for example, to a chemical explosion or fire — sits low inside a containment building surrounded by four to six feet of cement and six inches of steel to ensure minimal release during a meltdown, Steets said. Even then, backup cooling systems, pumps and power supplies are available and the entire reactor can be shut down “instantaneously” if needed, Steets said.
Steets said the core could withstand a hit from an airplane, much like the one that flew over the plant on route to crashing into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. But structural tests on containment facilities to determine their ability to withstand such impacts have yet to be completed, the Congressional Research Service reports.
In any case, critics of the plant say the spent-fuel pools, which house used radioactive rods, pose a greater threat than the reactor since they are enclosed in less-protected structures. The two pools cool 1,400 tons of spent fuel rods under at least 20 feet of water, which, if drained, could cause a zirconium fire and render up to 37,000 square miles uninhabitable, Riverkeeper executive director Alex Matthiessen said at the March National Security Subcommittee hearing.
Although Indian Point’s security measures meet NRC and FEMA requirements, the Witt report said the federal standards need revision to achieve a higher level of public protection.
John Wiltse, director of the state Office of Emergency Management, recommends creating basic regional evacuation plans adaptable for use during natural disasters, such as hurricanes and floods, or man-made threats, such as terrorist attacks or a nuclear meltdown. “I think that’s practical, realistic and achievable,” he said in an interview. He said that he could not give a timeframe for setting up a regional plan but that implementing it would require federal dollars to coordinate efforts among federal, state and local emergency planning officials.
Wiltse said Connecticut would create an evacuation plan specifically for a threat at Indian Point only if the federal government mandated it by expanding the emergency planning zone to towns more than 10 miles from the plant-a decision, he said, that “needs to be based not on emotion or fear but on scientific evidence.”
The 10 and 50-mile emergency planning zones have different requirements to ensure public safety from radioactive releases based on the immediate risk to the public, according to testimony of Donna J. Miller Hastie, an emergency preparedness specialist, at a congressional hearing last June.
To prevent immediately life-threatening exposure to the radioactive plume, people within the 10-mile zone would be evacuated and possibly also given potassium iodide pills to minimize radioactive exposure, Hastie said. While there are no evacuation plans for the area between 10 and 50 miles from the plant, she said, officials would have to monitor water and food sources to prevent “ingestion exposure” of radioactive products.
The Marist poll last year found that 77 percent of the people surveyed who lived within a 50-mile radius of Indian Point felt there should be an evacuation plan for where they live.
Wiltse said, however, that applying the emergency preparedness requirements for the 10-mile zone to a 50-mile radius would be a massive undertaking and possibly an unnecessary one, considering that during the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, there was no mass evacuation from New York City.
“People are under some impression that it’s magic, you click your fingers and people just evacuate and then they’re taken care of. It’s a little more complex than that,” Wiltse said.
“Evacuation itself, if not done correctly and if not done in an appropriate scope, can be more dangerous than what you’re evacuating from,” he added.
Sgt. Paul Vance, a spokesman for the State Police Division of Homeland Security, said since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Connecticut developed emergency plans providing assistance and evacuation routes for emergencies in New York City. Vance said these plans could be applied to an incident at Indian Point.
“It’s a matter of taking those plans, tweaking them and improving on them to make them workable in the event of an emergency at that facility,” Vance said.
Weston First Selectman Woody Bliss said the town used last summer’s distribution of potassium iodide pills to test its disaster distribution system and to look for ways to improve its emergency plan.
“It’s a working process you keep working on, you keep testing it, what-if-ing it and looking for ways to do better,” Bliss said.
Wilton has not been focusing on an Indian Point threat, according to First Selectman Paul Hannah, who called it a regional issue and said that the town’s response plans are part of the work it does to prepare for terrorist attacks. Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy said the plant is not “a front-burner issue.”
Jackie Horkachuck of Norwalk, who put her name an on-line petition to close the plant, said she thinks local precautions are lacking, and that makes her feel uncomfortable even though she lives nearly 30 miles from the plant. “I know we’re outside of the 10 miles,” she said, “but that’s still too darn close to me.”
Published in The Hour, in Connecticut.
Dem Candidates Participate in Forum on Children’s Issues, War in Iraq
By Bill Yelenak
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) has raised more than $3 million for his presidential campaign during the first quarter of 2003, placing him far behind two other Democratic presidential hopefuls.
Lieberman trails U.S. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John Edwards (D-N.C.) in contributions collected during the early months of campaigning. Edwards leads all candidates with $7.4 million and Kerry comes in a close second with about $7 million.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is just behind Lieberman, with more than $2.6 million.
Many of the candidates who have said they intend to run for the Democratic nomination for president, including former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-Ill.), Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and the Rev. Al Sharpton, had not released their first-quarter earnings as of Thursday afternoon. Candidates have until April 15 to file their quarterly reports with the Federal Election Commission.
According to a Wednesday press release, Lieberman's fundraising has come on strong of late, with $2.1 million of the senator's total raised in March. The campaign raised $300,000 in January and $600,000 in February.
Lieberman spokesman Jano Cabrera attributed the large increase to the hiring of Sherry Yost as campaign finance director.
"I think it's pretty clear that once we had our finance operation clearly in place, and with the hiring of our finance director at the end of late February, we really hit our stride," Cabrera said Thursday. "Already in the first week of April, we've raised more than we did in the entire month of January."
Others on the Lieberman campaign staff similarly expressed pleasure that contributions were coming in at a much quicker rate.
"I'm tremendously proud of our growing strength," Lieberman campaign manager Craig Smith said Wednesday in a press release. "Combined with the strong political endorsements we gained in key states like New Hampshire, New York, Arizona and Oklahoma, we have built a solid foundation for our future success."
Cabrera shrugged off the large fundraising gap between Lieberman and the two contribution leaders.
"We're just focused on reaching out to our own supporters, talking to them about the message that Sen. Joe Lieberman wants to spread," Cabrera said. "We'll leave the punditry to the pundits."
Bill Yelenak, a Boston University student, works at the Boston University Washington News Service in Washington, D.C. His telephone number is 202-756-2860 ext: 114 and his email is byelenak@newbritainherald.com.
Published in The New Britain Herald, in Connecticut.
Michaud Introduces Federal Legislation Mirroring Maine Rx
WASHINGTON--Rep. Mike Michaud introduced his first substantial piece of legislation today - a bill modeled after a Maine law that would authorize the federal government to negotiate for lower medication prices for people without health insurance
Michaud said that his bill, America Rx, would require the Health and Human Services Department to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower prescription prices for Americans who do not have health insurance or do not have prescription drug coverage in their insurance plan.
"Drug prices continue to spiral upward, forcing millions of Americans to choose between medicine and food, medicine and rent, medicine and heat," Michaud said.
He said that his bill would not cost taxpayers money and probably would even mean money for the drug industry by opening up the prescription drug market to more people.
"Nationwide, there will be a lot of support for this legislation," Michaud said. "The question is whether members of Congress will take it seriously."
Rep. Tom Allen, a co-sponsor of America Rx, was also at the press conference to present the legislation with Michaud. There are 29 co-sponsors so far.
As a state senator, Michaud co-sponsored Maine Rx, which required the Maine Department of Human Services to negotiate prices with the drug producers, and threatened to punish those companies that did not negotiate with losing all or their Medicaid customers.
Maine Rx passed overwhelmingly in the state House and unanimously in the Senate but has been held up in the courts after the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry's lobbying group, challenged the legislation. The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case s still reviewing the case. Michaud's bill does not include the provisions in the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Maine law that have been challenged.
Michaud said he expects that America Rx would receive public and political support from both sides of the aisle, as the Maine Rx legislation did.
"A lot of people thought it was a crazy idea," Michaud said. "But in a small state like Maine we were willing to try new ideas, to build bipartisan coalitions, to offer fresh approaches to very complex ideas."
Under America Rx, pharmaceutical companies that decline to negotiate would lose their tax deduction for marketing and advertising.
"It's a powerful incentive" for the pharmaceutical companies to do what they have already done with other countries, Allen said.
Michaud said that he hopes the legislation will pass and added that if it does, it would be unlikely to be held up by litigation, as Maine's law has been.
Published in The Bangor Daily News, in Maine.
Democrats Meet to Discuss Their Presidential Agendas
By Heidi Taylor
WASHINGTON—Although they came to discuss children's issues, the nine candidates running for the Democratic presidential nomination-who made their first joint appearance in Washington last night-were first asked to listen to some choice leadership advice.
Nicky, a fourth grader from Charlotte, North Carolina advised the Democratic hopefuls that power is the strength to do the right thing. "And when you make a mistake," she added, "admit it."
Oscar, also a fourth grader from North Carolina said that "A leader acts responsible and fair, and he shows justice."
The forum, sponsored by the Children's Defense Fund, a non-profit advocacy group that says President Bush is not living up to his promise to leave no child behind, offered candidates the chance to introduce their campaign agendas and their ideas on children's issues. But first, moderator Judy Woodruff of CNN asked each to touch on the war in Iraq-the issue, perhaps, that divides the candidates most noticeably.
Four, including Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass, and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn, supported the war and defended their positions. With Saddam Hussein's regime all but toppled last night and news stations airing footage of Iraqis cheering in the streets, the candidates said that, as a great and powerful nation, the United States did have the responsibility to liberate the people of Iraq from tyranny.
However, not one commended Bush's tactics.
"I voted for the resolution to provide the President with the credible threat-force which I believe the President has to have," Kerry said, but added that he had presumed that Bush would respect multilateral institutions like the United Nations and would work with the world rather than going it alone.
But with the United States alone funding the now $80 billion dollar war, and with only American and British troops in the battle, Kerry said, "I have been very critical of the way this administration went at it."
Although the forum was meant to focus on children's issues, the panel of journalists had many hard-ball questions for the candidates, asking them to discuss topics ranging from abortion to affirmative action.
Asked about his controversial pledge this week that, as president, he would nominate only supporters of abortion rights to the Supreme Court, Kerry responded that he believes that women in this country have the constitutional right to privacy.
"Women have the right to make that critical, painful, and difficult decision," Kerry said, adding, "and the government has no business intervening in it."
Among the many topics, there was one area of agreement between the candidates: Americans in general, and Democrats especially, must be willing to open a dialogue on race relations.
Asked to comment what they would do as president if the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in the University of Michigan case they are now hearing, Kerry responded that the matter at hand is the "greatest unresolved issue" in the country. He promised, as did the Reverend Al Sharpton and former Illinois Senator Carol Moseley Braun-the two African American candidates running-as well as all the other candidates, that he would restore affirmative action if he became President.
At the end of the evening, as the candidates made their closing remarks focusing mostly on children, Lieberman caught the crowd's attention when he said that although many in this nation think it will be impossible for a Democrat to beat Bush in the 2004 presidential election, he knows otherwise. "Because," he said, "I did it with Al Gore in 2000."
Published in The Newburyport Daily News, The Gloucester Daily News, and The Salem News in Massachusetts.
Democratic Candidates Speak Out in First Joint Forum
By Kim Forrest
In their first joint forum, the 2004 democratic presidential candidates spoke out on issues ranging from education to the war in Iraq Wednesday night.
The forum, sponsored by the Children's Defense Fund, a non-profit children's advocacy group, was purported to focus on issues relating to children, but talk of the American success in the war on Iraq was on everyone's minds and lips.
While the democratic candidates agreed on many issues, the war was a subject where the candidates were divided. Five of the candidates had previously expressed their opposition to military action in Iraq and maintained their beliefs in the forum.
"[The war] opens up a new dangerous preemptive doctrine," Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean said.
Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), former Senator from Illinois Carol Mosley Braun, Rev. Al Sharpton of New York, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), expressed similar sentiments in their opposition to war, saying that the war took the focus away from domestic issues.
"I'm glad Saddam was toppled," Sharpton said. "But I would also like to see things toppled in this country."
Sens. Joe Lieberman (D-CT), John Edwards (D-NC), John Kerry (D-MA), and Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-MO) all voted for the resolution that entitled President Bush to attack Iraq. They defended their position, stating how action in Iraq is part of protecting the homeland, and also noting that domestic programs should not suffer because of the money and attention paid on the war.
"This is not an either/or choice. It is actually the responsibility of the President of the United States to be able to do two things at the same time," Edwards said, gaining laughter and applause from the crowd.
After discussing the war, candidates were asked questions on a variety of topics. The Democrats were many times placed on the defensive, as was Kerry, who defended his announcement this week that, if elected, he would only appoint justices to the Supreme Court who supported a woman's right to have an abortion.
"Women have the right to make that critical, painful, and difficult decision," Kerry said. "And the government has no business intervening in it.
When Lieberman was asked why he did not serve in the military during Vietnam, he explained that he was exempt for two reasons, the fact that he was a student, and because he was a father.
"And do I regret it? I do," he said, and added later, "But in some sense, I hope that my service in public office and particularly my backing of the military has helped, in some ways, make up for that."
As the program dictated, children's issues ranging from education and school testing to foster care were highlighted in the discussion.
Like the other candidates, Gephardt was critical of the current administration's handling of such issues.
"This President and this administration has made a fraud of Leave No Child Behind," he said, referring to the current administration's education program, "We need new leadership in this country to really Leave No Child Behind."
The final question, relayed to all of the candidates, was about the current affirmative action case, a program that all of the candidates support.
"The University of Michigan was trying to…create diversity, to give opportunities, in ways that did not entail quotas," Braun said.
While all the candidates drew applause and laughter from the crowd throughout the two hour forum, it was Lieberman who stood out with the most resounding response of the evening, as he expressed that the Democrats would be successful in the 2004 presidential campaign, despite skepticism about beating the incumbent President.
"I want to tell you why I know we can beat George W. Bush," he said. "Because Al Gore and I did it."
Published in The Keene Sentinel, in New Hampshire.
Newly Passed C.A.R.E. Act Would Encourage Charitable Contributions
By Paul Ziobro
WASHINGTON – Legislation to grant new tax breaks for charitable contributions, sponsored by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., passed the Senate Wednesday without a controversial provision backed by the Bush Administration that would have opened more government funding to religious organizations.
The bill would allow tax deductions for charitable contributions by the 86 million taxpayers who do not itemize their tax returns. It would also provide $150 million a year to expand services at community and faith-based organizations.
Some local charities can expect to see an upturn in their donations if the bill passes the House, as expected, and is signed into law, according to David R. Kennedy, president and CEO of United Way of Norwalk & Wilton. Kennedy said he thinks giving tax deductions for charitable donations to residents who don't itemize their taxes would help the local United Way get out of an expected 2 percent decline in contributions decline this year.
"One of the results of that legislation may help people feel better about the contributions they make. In doing that, they may make larger contributions than they usually would," Kennedy said.
Lieberman, who co-authored the bi-partisan bill with Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said he was relieved the bill survived a "torturous" path to the Senate floor but was disappointed that the bill dropped President Bush's plan to allot federal funds to religious organizations on an equal footing with secular non-profit groups.
The Charity Aid, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Act would allow taxpayers who file their taxes using a short form to deduct up to $250 for individuals and $500 for couples for charitable contributions. It also allows individuals to donate from their Individual Retirement Accounts without penalty, and provides tax deductions for donating food and books to charitable groups.
In order to win the support needed for Senate passage, proponents of the legislation were forced to drop most of its "faith-based initiative" components.
"What started out as a faith-based initiative ended up as, more broadly, a charity-based initiative," Lieberman said at a press conference following the 95-5 Senate passage of the legislation.
In comments on the Senate floor Wednesday, Lieberman addressed the changes made to garner strong bi-partisan support for his two-year long effort: "It no longer contains any provisions targeted specifically at carving out a larger, lawful space for faith-based groups in our social service programs, a development I am disappointed about."
Lieberman said one of the best things about the legislation was the restoration of $1.375 billion in Social Services Block Grant funding that had been promised in a 1996 welfare reform law. The addition of this money will bring the annual total for this program to $2.8 billion. The restoration could help Connecticut's 2-1-1 Infoline, a health and human services information hotline, reopen three regional offices that closed because of a shortage of funding, Lieberman said.
Connecticut's social service block grants have decreased about $15 million in total since 1996 and the funding increase in the bill would fully restore that gap, he said.
While the White House generally supports the bill, it objects to the increase in block grant funding.
The religious components of the bill were strongly opposed by civil rights organizations. Although most of the religious support was taken out of the legislation, the bill would still grant federal money to some religious groups that provide social services. According to Santorum, 75 percent of food pantries, 71 percent of food kitchens and 43 percent of shelters have religious affiliations.
Published in The Hour, in Connecticut.
Collins Hears From Portland Police Chief at Hearing
WASHINGTON – Local and state officials told senators Wednesday that federal homeland security dollars are not effectively being distributed to states and towns across the nation. Sen. Susan Collins, R.-Me., introduced legislation to give state and local governments more flexibity in how they use the money.
The federal government should allow local agencies to help determine their staffing, training and equipment needs, Portland Police Chief Michael Chitwood told the Governmental Affairs Committee.
Collins, who chairs the committee, scheduled the hearing to evaluate how homeland security money can best help protect towns, states and the nation. She said she wants to assess whether the government is "getting the right resources to the right people," she said.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the federal government has ordered Portland to increase police staffing by 600 percent at the Portland International Jetport. This requirement has "cost taxpayers close to a million dollars in police staffing and overtime," Chitwood said.
The police force isn't the only local agency with staffing troubles: officials at the Portland Fire Department and the Old Orchard Beach Fire Department are considering layoffs. Not one Maine fire department is compliant with national staffing standards set in place during the summer of 2001, a few months before the terrorist attacks, according to the International Association of Firefighters.
State and local officials also told Collins' committee that they lack money for training, that federal money takes too long to get to them and that there is not enough coordination between federal and local emergency agencies.
Chitwood added that local emergency workers have little say in how homeland security funds are spent. He said improving communication between federal and local agencies would help solve this problem.
Collins agreed that states need more flexibility to distribute funds. While the federal Office of Domestic Preparedness provides states with money for training of first responders and for equipment, emergency simulation exercises and planning, it doesn't permit local officials to make enough decisions about how the money is used, she said.
In the states, 70 percent of homeland security money goes for equipment purchases 17 percent for exercises, seven percent for planning and five percent for training. That formula is the same from Maine to Hawaii, and prohibits state officials from moving surplus money from one area to another.
Maine received more than $5.7 million in homeland security funds this year, according to the Office of Domestic Preparedness. About $4 million goes for equipment, and the remaining $1.7 million is used for training, exercises and planning combined.
Collins said the distribution of money means that "in some cases, we may see communities with up-to-date, complex equipment but lacking the training to use it most effectively. This defies common sense."
Collins' new bill would authorize the Department of Homeland Security to grant waivers to states that would allow money to be transferred from one category to another.
"I believe states should have the flexibility to spend homeland security dollars where they are most needed," she said.
Published in The Kennebec Journal and The Morning Sentinel, in Maine.
Coalition Still Faces Much Work, NH Delegation says
WASHINGTON, D.C.—After the Pentagon announced Wednesday that U.S.-led forces had taken control of Baghdad, New Hampshire's Congress members praised coalition troops and said they were buoyed by Iraqi citizens' celebrations.
"We all have to be very impressed with the incredible success of our military effort in Iraq, especially the professionalism and expertise of our soldiers," Sen. Judd Gregg said in a statement Wednesday. "In about 20 days, they moved about 500 miles and have taken over Baghdad."
Gregg, Sen. John Sununu and Reps. Charlie Bass and Jeb Bradley-all Republicans-said they were happy for the people of Iraq, whose dancing and cheering emanated from Capitol Hill television sets.
"Today marks a great deal of sense of hope and opportunity in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq," Sununu said in a statement. "The scenes we have seen of the celebration are an indication that the impression of Saddam Hussein's regime is recognized not just by people in the United States but by the Iraqi people themselves."
Bass said the celebrations in Baghdad should remove any doubts that Iraqis did not want to be liberated from Saddam's rule. Bass also said he hoped ousting Saddam would bring "a whole new era of fortune" for Iraq.
"I just think it's a huge day for Iraq, obviously, and a great day for freedom around the world," Bass said, "and a bad day for not only the old regime, which is now gone, but also those other countries that think that America will ignore or look the other way when states sponsor international terrorist efforts."
Gregg, Sununu. Bass and Bradley agreed the coalition forces still face many hurdles.
"There are many pockets of resistance," Gregg said. "But as we move forward, towards (Saddam's home of) Tikrit and other parts of Iraq, I would expect they will start to collapse."
Bass and Bradley said the coalition still must pay to rebuild Iraq, and Bass predicted President Bush would be forced to submit another emergency spending request to Congress.
Congress still is debating Bush's earlier request for $75 billion - increased by the Senate to about $80 billion -- to fund the war and homeland security. The House and the Senate have passed different versions of the bill and are arguing over several provisions, including a $3.5 billion aid package for airlines that the White House strongly opposes.
"We can't underestimate the fact that this is not cheap," Bradley said. "But there's not a price to be paid for security for Americans, and I think that we have to accept that price and we also have the responsibility of helping to rebuild Iraq with the support of coalition partners."
Bradley said that while he expects the U.S.- and British-led coalition to play the major role in post-war Iraq, he hopes that other countries will participate in the rebuilding effort and that the United Nations will provide humanitarian aid. Bradley said he also expects Iraqi oil money to help pay for reconstruction.
"Now, we begin the process of establishing a stable and representational government structure in Iraq, returning the resources of that country back to the people, and getting supplies to the people in Iraq that need them," Sununu said.
Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.
Gasoline Prices Expected to Decline, But Are Still Higher Than Last Year
By Heidi Taylor
WASHINGTON—There was some good news and some not-so-good news Tuesday as the Energy Information Administration announced its forecast for summer gasoline prices.
The good news: motorists may already have paid the highest prices for gas this year when the national average hit $1.73 per gallon in March.
The bad news: the national average price per gallon this summer is expected to be $1.56, nearly 20 cents more than it was last summer.
Still, the forecast from the Energy Information Administration was unexpectedly optimistic. Despite nationwide fears that the war in Iraq and the recent political turmoil in Venezuela would lead to gas shortages and price hikes, EIA officials said they expect gasoline prices to continue dropping throughout the summer.
With prices down to an average of $1.63 this week, officials forecast that gas would cost about the same amount this summer as it did in the summers of 2000 and 2001. The $1.56 per gallon average price forecast for this summer is nowhere near the record of $2.77 (adjusted for inflation) that motorists paid in the summer of 1980.
Guy Caruso, the EIA's administrator, warned, however, that high crude oil costs, low motor gasoline inventories and growing demand-expected to increase by 1.6 percent this summer-mean gas prices may rise above those forecast. And some parts of the country are expected to see much higher prices. California may be hit particularly hard because it is implementing a ban on the gas additive MTBE, which was polluting groundwater, and replacing it with pricier ethanol, Caruso said.
"We've got an uphill battle to meet the inventory requirements," Caruso said. He added that while he didn't expect Iraq to resume oil exports for some months, other countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates had increased their outputs, which was helping to hold down prices.
On a local level, Jeff Worthley, the economic development manger for the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce, said that although he didn't expect high gas prices to reduce tourism, visitors would have less money to spend on local activities and at local shops.
Worthley said that in the past five years, an average of 65,000 people visited Cape Ann each summer, regardless of gas prices. He added that after Sept. 11, 2001, many people prefer to drive rather than to fly.
"The impact of high gas prices is that people have $10 or $20 less in their pockets" once they get to Cape Ann, Worthley said, adding "so they have that much less to spend while they're here."
Published in The Newburyport Daily News, The Gloucester Daily News, and The Salem News in Massachusetts.
Gas Prices to Decrease for Summer Travelers
By Kim Forrest
WASHINGTON--It looks as if the worst gasoline prices are behind us, though the best are not yet to come.
Gas prices already have peaked for the year, according to a forecast released Tuesday by the Energy Information Administration. But the average summer gas price will be 17 cents per gallon higher than last year's, though similar to those of the summers of 2000 and 2001.
With the war in Iraq, political turmoil and oil strikes in Venezuela and ethnic strife in Nigeria, experts have been concerned that gas prices would rise, especially during the summer, when vacationers take to the roads.
EIA administrator Guy Caruso predicted that gas prices peaked year, at an average of $1.72 per gallon nationwide in mid-March.
The current national average is $1.63. But by the time summer rolls around, Caruso said, the average price should be down to $1.56 per gallon, and it is likely to decrease from there.
The price forecast for this summer is significantly lower than the all-time summer high of $2.77 (adjusted for inflation) in 1980.
Still, despite the projected prices, Caruso said, summer gas prices could range from $1.40 to $1.72 per gallon, because of record-high demand -- 91.8 million barrels a day -- and uncertainty in both the crude oil market and the domestic refining and distribution systems.
California really will be feeling the heat. Because the state banned the polluting gas additive MTBE and is replacing it with more expensive ethanol, Californians are expected to pay about 50 cents per gallon above the national average.
And while Iraq is not exporting oil and is not expected to for several months, countries such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have increased their output to keep prices down.
Still, Caruso said, America's crude oil inventory is "at the low end of normal."
In New Hampshire Wednesday, gas prices were slightly below the national average at $1.58 per gallon, down from $1.62 a month ago, according to the Web site, newhampshiregasprices.com. Still, these prices are higher than a year ago, when prices were $1.12 per gallon.
According to Lauri Klefos, director of the state's Division of Travel and Tourism Development, 80 percent of visitors coming to the Granite State travel by car.
Still, Klefos said she did not think high gas prices would have a big impact on New Hampshire tourism this summer. It's more important, she said, that people know they will be able to buy gas, something drivers were unsure of during one stretch of the 1970s.
"I think the interesting thing is most of the research shows us it's not so much the price of gas as it is a stable a source of gas," she said.
Klefos added that while gas costs more, it probably would not discourage people from traveling. Other national issues may, however.
"I think this summer, we're all a little bit nervous because of the economy," Klefos said. "But in New Hampshire we're not worried about safety concerns…. People [may be] looking for a destination that's not so urban and busy…. It's the economy that I worry about."
Still, she said, what most affects New Hampshire tourism is something that no one can control.
"The weather makes or breaks us all the time," she said. "If we have a nice, hot, sunny summer it'll be great."
Published in The Keene Sentinel, in New Hampshire.
