Category: Fall 2002 Newswire
Homeland Security Goes Local
WASHINGTON, Dec. 11, 2002–As part of a monthly drill, a Vermont emergency operations center sends out a notification that a local nuclear power plant has had a major “catastrophe.” There’s only 15 minutes to phone the key people who have been designated to alert the public, and the local Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), already busy with routine emergencies and 911 calls, does not have the time to relay the information.
If this sounds like something that could never happen in a security-heightened, post-9/11 world, think again. Despite hard work and good intentions, it does.
Recently, Vermont Emergency Management encountered this very situation during a General Emergency-Fast Breaker drill for the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, just over the New Hampshire border in Vernon, Vt. During the exercise, the Rockingham, Vt., PSAP failed to notify the Brattleboro, Vt., fire department and police dispatcher about the plant’s mock catastrophe. The plant is the state’s largest power generator, producing more than 30 percent of the energy used by Vermont’s consumers.
According to Duncan Higgins, deputy director for Vermont Emergency Management, the state routinely conducts exercises in preparation for a disaster at the Vermont Yankee plant. Vermont is the only state that conducts the General Emergency-Fast Breaker drill, said Higgins, and over the course of the four years it has been run, this is the first time a major problem has occurred, he said.
“There were some miscommunications because they were very busy in Rockingham,” Lou Stowell, radiological emergency response planner for Vermont Emergency Management, said. “Had this been a real emergency, they would have dumped what they were doing [by rerouting the 911 calls to other area dispatchers] and responded to the emergency.”
Both Stowell and Higgins said that a variety of things are being done to correct the problem, including better organization and additional training for all workers. Higgins, one of two evaluators on site at the time of the problem, said, “Every time we do an exercise, we’re looking for better uses of technology, lapses in training, and there is a process for evaluation and looking for ways to improve.”
Protection of the plant has increased overall since Sept. 11, Rob Williams, spokesman for Vermont Yankee, said.
“We took the initiative to go to the highest security status on Sept. 11,” Williams said, adding that precautions, including increased detection systems and barriers surrounding the plant, have been added. “We’ve increased staffing in the security force and training, and also upgraded their weapons.”
The issue of security at a nuclear power plant, like many other public safety issues, has been magnified after the events of Sept. 11 and recent terror alerts. Consistent safety measures are now a priority more than ever, and with the passage of legislation last month authorizing creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the federal government is attempting to ensure that as many Americans as possible are protected from the threat of both international and domestic terrorism.
The new department will combine 22 existing agencies to guard against terrorism attacks inside the United States, reduce the nation’s exposure to terrorism, reduce damage from terrorism attacks and aid in the recovery from future attacks. Nevertheless, questions remain of how the new department will provide the financing and the protection that New Hampshire and other states need.
Don Bliss, the New Hampshire state fire marshal and director of fire safety and emergency management, praised the Bush administration for the relationship the White House Office of Homeland Security, the predecessor to the new department, established with the state office. Bliss added, though, that the amount of money the states will receive for anti-terrorism programs remains uncertain.
“Many of these very costly initiatives were not able to move forward because Congress is funding the government off of a continuing resolution,” Bliss said. “We just need them to get back in session and pass a budget with funding.” Congress departed this year without completing its budget work.
According to Jim Van Dongen, spokesman for New Hampshire’s Office of Emergency Management, “the agency did not discover terrorism on 9/11.” The turning point for New Hampshire’s emergency management came, he said, in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
“From an emergency response perspective, terrorism is just another hazard, and the effect is going to be the same on people,” he said.
Van Dongen added that his office uses an “all-hazards approach,” with a single plan spelling out who is responsible for what in case of an emergency, including law enforcement groups, firefighters, and groups such as the Red Cross who provide shelter and food to large groups of people during a crisis.
Bliss said that the “all-hazards approach” has been effective in New Hampshire and he hopes that the federal government will use this same approach in its fight against terrorism. He added that while he doesn’t believe New Hampshire will immediately see the benefits of the new Department of Homeland Security, he thinks the department will help to streamline and simplify communication between the federal government and state and local agencies.
New Hampshire has been successful with its anti-terrorism prevention and training efforts not only because of the all-hazards approach, Bliss said, but also because the state opted not to create a new government agency after Sept. 11 and instead pooled resources to save money and “draw upon the best of existing agencies.”
In addition, Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen established the New Hampshire Commission on Preparedness and Security, which Bliss also heads. Bliss said the group was formed to evaluate New Hampshire’s ability to respond to terrorist attacks and make recommendations on how to better prepare for and deter such attacks.
Under legislation signed by the governor in May and put into effect in July, the commission soon will become a permanent body known as the Advisory Council on Emergency Preparation and Security, said Pamela Walsh, spokeswoman for the governor’s office.
“Governor Shaheen wanted to make sure we had our arms around the issue and a good understanding of all aspects of emergency preparedness,” Bliss said.
During its evaluations, the commission identified several key areas for change, including the need for improved training, equipment and communications for first responders such as firefighters and police officers. As a response to this need, New Hampshire recently received a U.S. Department of Justice grant of $104,704 to purchase air-purifying respirators and splash suits for police officers and emergency medical personnel. Of this money, the Keene Police Department will receive $5,162 for equipment for its officers.
“People in Washington know that the public is concerned about terror and that there’s a value in protecting first responders,” Van Dongen said.
Jack Zeller, the terrorism and intelligence officer for the Keene Police Department, said he believes the Department of Homeland Security will help his department receive necessary protective equipment and information about terror alerts and news.
“Until Homeland Security was set up, it was very different because you were dealing with 20 different agencies,” Zeller said. “People didn’t used to work together, and now things are different.”
New Hampshire also has received an $8.4 million grant from the Department of Health and Human Services for protection of public health and prevention of bioterrorism, Bliss said. The money has been earmarked for projects including increased training in local hospitals, disease surveillance, and laboratory improvements.
On Tuesday, Bliss said, the commission released its smallpox vaccination plan, as mandated by the federal government. The plan is intended to ensure that all New Hampshire government officials and the general public will be safely vaccinated in the face of a possible epidemic.
New Hampshire is also working to protect its drinking water and wastewater against the threat of contamination, said Harry Stewart, director of the water division of New Hampshire’s Department of Environmental Services and a liaison to Bliss’s commission.
“Both in our drinking water programs and in our wastewater programs, we had training courses developed [as part of the New Hampshire Commission on Preparedness and Security’s plan] on prevention and heightened security of those facilities,” Stewart said. Stewart added that the state legislature recently passed legislation allowing the governor to extend increased security measures in the event of a contamination.
While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has already given New Hampshire funds for water vulnerability studies to protect against both terrorism and natural events in Manchester and Nashua, Stewart said, the agency will also allocate money for vulnerability studies in all New Hampshire communities with populations below 100,000 in early 2003.
New Hampshire’s congressional delegation, which voted unanimously in favor of the homeland security bill this fall, has shown its support for state and local efforts directed at the threat of terrorist attacks. Rep. Charles Bass (R-2nd) says that having one centralized location to apply for grants from the Department of Homeland Security will make the process less difficult for local and state agencies, said Sally Tibbetts, Bass’s spokeswoman.
Bass has made a point of visiting the Seabrook nuclear power plant to ensure that necessary safety procedures and defenses are in place, and he has plans to visit the Vermont Yankee plant in the future, she added.
“Shortly after 9/11 the congressman held a town meeting with the heads of state agencies to speak with constituents about their safety concerns,” Tibbetts said.
Both Bliss and Van Dongen said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) has played a large part in ensuring that New Hampshire receives the money and support that it needs. According to Bliss, Gregg was a leader in setting up local and state programs for disaster preparation even before Sept. 11.
Gregg sees the Department of Homeland Security as an essential force in helping not just the federal government but also state and local administrations persist in the fight against terrorism, Jeff Turcotte, his spokesman, said.
“We need an efficient, effective and coordinated arrangement with our government to protect and continue the war on terrorism,” Turcotte said. “We need a process that will take years but will keep people safer, improve port security [and] streamline the training of first responders and the proposals for their needs.”
Van Dongen said he believes it is most important for everyone to work together, from the Department of Homeland Security to local police departments and ordinary citizens.
“This is still a free society, and you don’t want a cop on every corner,” Van Dongen said. “It’s most important to get back to basics, with heightened police awareness and people being more aware of what’s going on around them.”
Published in The Keene Sentinel, in New Hampshire.
Conn. Delegation Secures Extra $116.5 Million in Defense Bill: Still Not Enough to Save Jobs at Sikorsky
By Andrew Kosow
WASHINGTON, Dec.11, 2002--Have you ever complained that it is too hard to balance your checkbook? That your 2.4 children want stuff that your $600-aweek paycheck can't possibly cover?
Now imagine you have 535 children braying at you, whining that your estimated annual; income of $2 trillion is woefully inadequate and suggesting that it would be a good idea to access your $5.95 trillion credit line to keep everyone happy…or else.
Welcome to the federal government's appropriations process.
Behind the scenes, members of Congress are jockeying and trading to get the most from the federal teat. Critics of the process derisively call it pork-barrel spending (bringing home the bacon, get it?), while those that benefit from federal earmarks say they are worthy, cost-effective projects that are good for the red, white and blue.
A case in point: the small sum of $116.5 million added to this year's colossal $393.1 billion defense appropriation for seven extra UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, built in Connecticut by Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. and championed by the Connecticut congressional delegation during the budget process.
Each year, there are literally thousands of appropriation decisions like this one, to spend the government's money on the additional Black Hawks instead of other, perhaps more needed, projects, military or otherwise.
An examination of attitudes on all sides of the Black Hawk issue should help provide a snapshot of the budget fights that occur regularly on Capitol Hill, including, perhaps, a picture of an old Pentagon ploy of asking for less than it really wants and counting on Congress to make up the difference.
Pork or Not?
Pork is definitely not the other white meat in Washington.
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), a watchdog group, estimates that about $8.8 billion in this year's defense budget is what it calls pork-barrel spending and that the 13 appropriation bills combined will have $20.1 billion in pork spending (Only two of the 13, of which one is the defense bill, have passed). One main criterion the group uses to classify a project as pork is whether the money earmarked by Congress is substantially larger than what the president or the relevantdepartment has requested.
The relatively small appropriation championed by Connecticut politicians for the Sikorsky-built helicopters does at first whiff smell a lot like bacon.
But maybe not.
With a war on terror under way and a possible invasion of Iraq looming, an extra seven helicopters does not seem to be a big deal.
Except that the Pentagon didn't ask for them.
In the fiscal 2003 budget, president Bush and the Pentagon requested only 12 UH-60 Black Hawks for the Army--but the final bill includes money for19.
The defense appropriations bill represents an increase of $45.9 billion in total defense spending over last year, and includes$269.9 million to produce 19 Black Hawks for the Army.
Some would argue that Connecticut's congressional delegation were merely doing their job by taking care of their home state. Others call the money for the extra helicopters a blatant example of pork-barrel spending.
"How do they know more about what we need to fight a war than the Pentagon?" asked David Williams, CAGW's vice president of policy. "The fact is that they don't, and historically neither of these guys vote in the interest of taxpayers." CAGW gives both Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) extremely low scores for limiting government waste.
Because Lieberman is the chairman of the Airland Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee - a post he will relinquish in January because Democrats lost control of the Senate- he has been in a powerful position to influence defense spending priorities. Many experts, however, defended Lieberman against the notion that he would exercise that power to help Connecticut at the expense of national defense.
"Joseph Lieberman is a real intellectual leader on defense," said Steven Kosiak, director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent, nonprofit public policy research institute established to promote innovative thinking about defense planning. "He is not focused solely on constituent issues but sees the big picture."
Many experts, asked to comment on this issue, could not, interestingly, even fathom what the fuss was about.
"Lieberman is not particularly egregious," said Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "He's pretty much like every congressman."
"He is merely protecting his constituents," said Michael O'Hanlon, a defense budget expert who is also at Brookings.
In other words, it's business as usual.
As the late Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen (R-Ill.) said, "A billion here and a billion there and soon you are talking about real money."
"People have to understand that it is more than this particular $116.5 million," CAGW's Williams said. "It has a ripple effect, and then other members say, 'What about me? I want something too.' "
So, is there a justification for spending this extra money?
According to the defense appropriations bill, "Two UH-60L aircraft are available only for the Army Reserve. Of the additional aircraft, three shall be HH-60L Medical Evacuation (MEDEVAC) models available only for units of the Army National Guard, and two aircraft shall be UH-60L models available only for units of the Army National Guard."
The National Guard and Reserves? Are they that important in a time of war?
As it turns out, yes, very.
"We can't deploy anywhere without the National Guard being deployed," said Jack Spencer, a defense expert at the Heritage Foundation, a think tank in Washington.
It seems pretty straightforward that the bill is earmarking the helicopters for an under-funded part of the military--but according to Fred Downey, a legislative aide to Lieberman, the Guard and Reserves might not actually get the new Black Hawks promised to them.
"The newest Black Hawks might go to frontline units and their Black Hawks would then be rotated back to the Guard," Downey said. The intent of the appropriation, however, definitely was to "shore up the war-fighting shortfall in the National Guard and Reserves," he added.
"The National Guard is the forgotten step-child of the military," said Singer of the Brookings Institution. "They are forgotten when it comes to funding."
"There is are more needs than resources available," Downey said. "So the Pentagon prioritizes." He went on to say that it usually counts on Congress to finance the shortfalls at the National Guard and Reserves. Requests to speak with the National Guard were not answered.
Some critics say, however, that this explanation is just a cynical ploy to blame the appropriations process in general for the government's high spending levels.
"The Pentagon will deliberately underfund stuff they know has support on the Hill so they can stay within the spending parameters set by the [White House] Office of Management and Budget," an official at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a non-profit, non-partisan budget watchdog group, said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They know the Hill will restore [the funding]. There is very little purity in this process."
"The Pentagon knows Black Hawks have tremendous support and that Lieberman is influential," said Thomas Donnelly, a defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank here. "But the fact is that Lieberman can only authorize the funding. He is not on the Appropriations Committee."
Connecticut and Defense
It is very difficult to assess exactly how much Connecticut will benefit from spending in this defense bill because much of the military equipment is only partially built in Connecticut-- but the benefits clearly are substantial. For example, $279.2 million is allocated for one E-8C Joint Stars aircraft whose highly sophisticated radar is manufactured at Northrop Grumman's Norden facility in Norwalk. Other Connecticut companies, such as Pratt & Whitney (like Sikorsky, a United Technologies Corp. subsidiary) in East Hartford and General Dymanics Corp.'s Electric Boat of Groton, also secured many lucrative contracts.
In 2001, Connecticut ranked 10th in the nation in Department of Defense contracts. The contracts accounted for $4.27 billion of the gross state product, according to the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD).
"That is truly amazing for such a small state," said Jim Watson, a spokesman for the DECD. "We are up there with the likes of Texas and California."
Fairfield County, according to the DECD, ranked first in the state in 2001 in defense contracts per capita.
Money and Politics
Another aspect of this story - albeit not critical in the final analysis - is campaign contributions.
Many times campaign contributions are the pressure that companies use to push politicians to act on their behalf. In a Washington Post op-ed article on Dec. 4, former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) described the pressure large donors can exert on politicians:
"Who, after all, can seriously contend that a $100,000 donation does not alter the way one thinks about - and quite possibly votes on - an issue. Donations from the tobacco industry to Republicans scuttled tobacco legislation, just as contributions from trial lawyers to Democrats stopped tort reform."
United Technologies Corp. (UTC) was the second- largest donor to Lieberman in 2002, with $36,000 in campaign contributions, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan, non-profit campaign watchdog group. UTC also was a top donor to Dodd, with contributions of $29,200 in 2002.
The largest donor to Lieberman and the second-largest to Dodd was Citigroup. Sanford Weill, the chief executive officer of Citigroup, sits on the board of UTC and gave $2,000 - then the highest allowable personal contribution - to Lieberman in 2000 when he was running for re-election.
The kicker came earlier this month, when UTC's Sikorsky subsidiary announced layoffs of about 250 workers.
"[We] worked hard to help Sikorsky and we expect management there to work just as hard to help its workers," Lieberman said in a press release earlier this month. "I urge Sikorsky's leadership to pursue alternate measures to maintain their bottom line while avoiding additional layoffs."
Rep. Chris Shays (D-4th) was blunter. "This is a big disappointment," he said in a telephone interview. "We have appropriated 34 new [Sikorsky] helicopters, and I understand that they don't have the sales overseas, but this the third round of layoffs, and it hurts the community."
A spokeswoman for Sikorsky confirmed that weak international sales were the reason for the layoffs. She added that the company was very grateful to the Connecticut congressional delegation.
Published in The Hour, in Connecticut.
Tierney Fundraising For Re-Election Campaign
WASHINGTON, Dec. 10, 2002--Rep. John Tierney (D-Salem) raised almost $500,000 for his re-election campaign that he is expected to win on Nov. 5.
Campaign finance reports released on Oct. 15 showed that Tierney collected $494,098 by the end of September with 64 percent of contributions coming from individual donors mostly located in Massachusetts.
The largest contributions came from the North Shore area, with donors from Marblehead and Salem contributing a total of over $20,000 each. They include attorney Joseph Correnti of Salem with an $850 donation, architect Paul Durand of Salem with $1,000, and former Congressman Michael Harrington of Beverly giving $1,200.
Much of Tierney's smaller contributions came from various local businessmen and attorneys, with lawyers providing the greatest industry contribution of $39,500.
About one-quarter of Tierney's total donations came from unions and political action committees (PAC), with the Teamsters and Mechanists/Aerospace unions giving $10,000 each. Labor interest groups provided the most PAC money with a total of $79,000.
As of October Tierney had spent $272,753 of his money, with $35,000 going for contributions to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington DC.
Other expenditures included payments to many North Shore businesses. Tierney frequented places like The Beverly Storage Warehouse in Beverly, Butterworth & O'Toole Office Supplies in Salem, and catering facilities at the Lyceum Bar & Grill in Salem.
Tierney's opponent, Mark Smith of Burlington, did not raise nearly as much as the 3rd term incumbent. Over 60 percent of the almost $52,000 raised came out of Smith's own pocket. As of October he had spent $28,000 from his campaign chest.
Smith received no money from the Republican Party or any political action committees. His biggest individual contributors were John Cabot of Manchester with $950 and Michael Cronin of West with $1,000.
Out of state contributions made up only three percent of contributions with donors from the Washington DC area and New York giving a little over $2,000 each.
Published in The Newburyport Daily News, in Massachusetts.
Connecticut to Sue EPA
By Tia Carioli and Gregory Chisholm
WASHINGTON, Dec. 10, 2002--The Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed new regulations that would allow power plants to upgrade facilities without improving emissions standards.
The state of Connecticut plans to take the EPA to court to stop these changes. From Washington, WNPR's Tia Carioli reports.
Under the current system, when a power plant significantly upgrades or replaces equipment, it triggers the New Source Review, or NSR.
The NSR Requires plants to use the most environmentally safe technology
available.
Routine maintenance work does not trigger the New Source Review, and the new rule is designed to relax the definition of routine. So, in effect, plant operators would have less federal oversight of their operations.
Connecticut, and eight other NE states, will claim that giving the plants such leeway is illegal because it circumvents the Clean Air Act.
CT AG Richard Blumenthal believes northeastern residents will be in danger if these new rules are not challenged.
The message of the Bush administration to the Northeast essentially is: Northeast drop dead and the rest of the country can go with it, so far as environmental standards are concerned.
Blumenthal claims that power plants will no longer have an incentive to lower pollution rates and that plants in the Midwest will continue to emit harmful pollutants that are blown into the northeastern atmosphere.
6,000 asthma attacks every year, more than 300 deaths attributable
directly to the nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide that are produced by these plants and in turn are blown by the prevailing winds to the Northeast.
But the EPA insists the new proposal is aimed at lessening emissions from these Midwestern power plants.
One of the provisions of the rule allows a plant-wide cap on pollution, instead of regulating each component of the plant individually.
EPA Assistant Administrator Jeff Holmstead says their studies show a plant-wide cap will be environmentally friendly.
We've done studies at 6 pilot plants, in facilities around the country, and in each case, what happens is as soon as the cap is in place, they actually reduce their overall emissions to provide flexibility in the future so that as the market changes, as they need to make changes in the future, they can respond quickly.
Blumenthal claims this flexibility weakens the intentionally rigid Clean Air Act. Echoing his criticisms are Connecticut Senators Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman, who went so far as to call for EPA Head Christie Whitman's resignation.
Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust, an environmental advocacy group, blasted the policy and the way it was introduced.
They announced this in a sneaky manner almost: late on a Friday afternoon, typically a time to bury bad news and put it out, and the head of the EPA Christy Whitman wasn't even in town for this. 6:11 She was obviously so embarrassed at the nature of this rollback that's happening on her watch that she wasn't even around for it.
The EPA shrugs off these assaults as partisan politics. And Scott Segel, a spokesperson for an industry group representing power plants, attacked Blumenthal for not taking action within his own state to reduce air pollution.
What's interesting to me about some of the political leaders in Connecticut, the Attorney General included, is that he would rather sue power plants in Ohio than defend a cleaner feul program for automobiles in Connecticut. Its way easier to just sue people in Ohio then it is to actually fix problems in Connecticut.
Blumenthal dismissed Segel's claim, saying that Connecticut's biggest air quality problems are not created in state.
To give you some idea of the dimensions of the problem caused by these
Midwestern plants we could literally shut down all of our power plants,
take all of our cars off the road and we still would be out of compliance with the federal air quality standards because of the huge amounts of contaminants that are blown from the Midwestern power plants to our atmosphere and damaging our air quality as a result of the coal burning plants located elsewhere.
Blumenthal has already drawn up the lawsuit papers against the federal
government, and he hopes the courts will decide within a year what the future of air quality regulation will be.
For WNPR, this is Tia Carioli in Washington.
Broadcast on Connecticut Public Radio, in Connecticut.
Maloney’s Last Days
By Marty Toohey
WASHINGTON, Dec. 04, 2002--Goodbye, Jim Maloney - at least 'til next week.
That's when Maloney is expected to decide what he'll do next year. And the recently defeated congressman couldn't help blushing slightly when mentioning that he's been contacted about several jobs, "which is always nice and a little flattering."
But he's pledged to stay in the public eye, and said he's not inclined to return to his private law practice, where he spent 16 years as a real estate lawyer. He said he wants to stay in Connecticut, and he mentioned interests in higher-education administration and non-profit agencies.
He also mentioned the following public office possibilities "down the road": running for mayor of his hometown, Danbury, next year; trying to win the 5th Congressional District seat in 2004; and possibly running for governor in 2006.
Public office "is something I will give serious consideration to, but it's not the only thing I've thought about," he said.
Maloney is not alone in looking for work after losing to his fellow incumbent, Republican Nancy Johnson, in the redrawn 5th Congressional District; members of his staff also are in the job market. Maloney's offices, in Washington, Waterbury, Danbury and Meriden, will close in January, but staff members declined to discuss their job searches. Maloney's Washington office has been moved into a cramped, temporary suite for outgoing members.
"Jim's staff are very hardworking and valuable people," John Olsen, chairman of the Connecticut Democratic Party, said in an interview about Maloney. "Too often we focus on the candidate and don't talk about the staff and their efforts."
Olsen and other Maloney peers praised his lawmaking ability and determination. Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd called him a "dogged" legislator, and Republican Rep. Chris Shays said he expects Maloney, whom he called "tremendously hardworking," to remain in public life.
Democratic Rep. John Larson, who also served in the state legislature with Maloney, said Maloney was "a real tribune for his constituents."
"Aside from being a workaholic, he was one of the most tenacious and talented people to serve in any legislature," Larson said. "I don't think he ever took a break."
Maloney survived for three terms, Olsen pointed out, in a blue-collar district almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, a constituency for which he had to carefully craft his voting record. Satisfying that constituency, Larson said, was something only a representative intimately plugged into his district could do.
Ultimately, though, Maloney couldn't sway enough of the newly drawn district's swing voters to continue representing Connecticut in Congress. But despite the negative tone surrounding the recent campaign, he said he laid the groundwork for future public office possibilities.
He said that from the 30 towns incorporated into the new 5th District to the "hundreds of people I'd never met before" who worked on his behalf, his campaign "produced a significantly expanded network of friends and supporters."
Until another run for public office, Maloney promised, he "won't be bashful about letting people in the 5th District know what's going on with their representatives in Washington."
Maloney, who said his campaign knew it would face "an uphill battle," had a simple formula to explain the outcome of both his race and elections around the country: significantly more money = significantly greater chance of winning.
As of the Oct. 16 pre-election-day campaign finance disclosure date, Maloney's campaign had raised $1.7 million to Johnson's $3.1 million. Estimates place spending nationwide at $95 million for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and $158 million for the Republican National Congressional Committee.
Maloney said Democratic polling showed Johnson ahead by about 10 points at the start of the campaign, and "their money advantage basically preserved their lead." Johnson won, 54 to 43 percent. Maloney concluded that the Democratic Party must raise money more efficiently, and said that the Republican Party has a much better financial infrastructure.
But ever the optimist, he also said that incoming House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has her political roots as a party organizer rather than as a local politician like outgoing Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), and that this will help the party overhaul its fundraising and organization.
He also said criticism that Democrats didn't have a unified national message, as well as criticism in 2000 that they didn't send enough grass-roots messages, are "missing the point."
"It's like saying the Titanic sank because it was going too fast," he said.
Democrats around the state expect Maloney to remain an active voice in the party and probably to resurface in public office. Their message to him: Goodbye - at least for now.
Published in The New Britain Herald, in Connecticut.
New Congress, New Results on Prescription Drugs?
By Max Heuer
WASHINGTON, Dec. 04, 2002--After a record-breaking campaign season in which the Republican party took back control of the Senate and widened its majority in the House, a new class of Republican lawmakers are preparing to join the ranks of the 108th Congress in January with a bundle of issues to address.
Few will be as important as passing a prescription drug benefit for Medicare for the millions of seniors in America who enroll in the government sponsored health care.
But as some inside the Beltway have trumpeted a new GOP mandate after establishing a majority on both sides of Capitol Hill, the issue will still be a hotbed of controversy.
Last summer, four bills in the Senate failed because none could garner the 60 votes necessary to end filibustering.
In June, the Republican-controlled House passed a prescription drug package for Medicare - estimated by the Congressional Budget Office at a cost of $337 billion over 10 years. That bill was sharply criticized by some Democrats and liberal organizations as inadequate.
Republicans maintain their version of the bill will help seniors and is more affordable than the Democratic version.
At the heart of the conflict last session is the classic dividing line of private versus public: The Republican plan uses HMOs and insurance companies to provide prescription drug programs for Medicare recipients, while many Democrats favor a government run benefit - although a few on both sides of the aisle have voted against the majority of their party on the issue.
While there is tri-partisan support in the Senate for increased aid to low income recipients and seniors whose prescription drug prices are "catastrophic," Democrats have criticized the GOP plan for a perceived "doughnut hole" in coverage.
Sen-elect John Sununu, R-NH, said he expected the Senate GOP to push for legislation similar to that already passed by the House.
With a narrow Republican Senate majority, the GOP leadership will try to include any new legislation into a budget resolution, which does not face the same 60 vote parliamentary hurdle. If the GOP fails to pass a budget, like the Democratic Senate last session, experts say the likelihood of passing a benefit would be reduced significantly.
The issue is rife with complexity, but it is of the utmost importance for New Hampshire's 148,000 residents 65 or older, none of who receive prescription drug coverage through Medicare, according to the New Hampshire Medication Bridge Program.
A study in 2000 revealed that 56% of seniors in New Hampshire do not have prescription drug coverage, higher than the national average of 38% at the time, according to the New Hampshire chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons.
To The Victors, Goes The Accountability
Campaign promises and post-election statements make providing relief for seniors on Medicare - who are faced with daunting prescription drug bills - a priority for the GOP in the 108th Congress.
"It seems to me there is an awful lot of activity aimed at getting something done in the first six months," said Ed Howard, executive vice president of the Alliance for Health Reform, a non-partisan, non-profit informational group. "The first thing out of (House Speaker) Dennis Hastert's mouth, when asked what his agenda was, was health care."
"We're going to see significant legislative action in the next Congress, and I even think it's likely to occur in the first year," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a liberal health lobby.
"This is something that so many people campaigned on that I can't image its not going to have a lot of momentum going forward," Howard said.
Whether that will get a bill passed is still up for debate.
Bill Hamilton, director of advocacy AARP New Hampshire, said that the chances the Senate could pass a bill may be improved "with a new a environment in January." But Hamilton added, "I don't know if anybody is exactly sure why it didn't go through the last time."
The fact that Republicans in the House got legislation may have helped the GOP in the midterm elections. Some wonder whether the flurry of proposals in the Senate was designed to fail by both parties.
"I think with the elections coming up as it was going through the Senate, I don't think either one wanted the other one to get credit for what happened," said Hamilton.
Howard said the failure of the Senate to act in July only served to illustrate what happens in politics "when an issue is so big politically that both parties have a stake in making sure that the issue survives as opposed to the policy proposal."
Ku said there were "political risks" at the time for Republicans, because there would be disappointment in what the "middle class senior will be getting" if the legislation's benefits were limited.
But now, some say the onus now falls on the Republicans' shoulders to deliver a bill.
"The Republicans are in a position where they have really got to deliver, there is no ability to hide behind a Democratic Senate," Pollack said.
The Budget
With a slumping economy and the federal government back in deficit, the Republican majority could try to restrict fiscal spending and maybe even push for a less expensive prescription drug benefit for Medicare.
"Inherently this is going to be something expensive," said Leighton Ku, senior fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan policy center emphasizing the issues that affect middle and low income people. "Three-hundred (billion) was the low end… the question is, gee, well can we afford this given the fact that the federal budget is in deficit for the next several years, and there's continuing interest in further tax cuts and a war with Iraq."
"I would hope that, you know, we're able to pass a prescription drug benefit plan," First congressional district Rep-elect Jeb Bradley, R-NH, said in a phone interview last week. "It certainly was something I talked a lot about during the campaign, I said it should be targeted to low and middle income senior citizens and it needs to be affordable."
Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-MA, co-sponsored a bill with Sens. Bob Graham, D-FL, and Zell Miller, D-GA, estimated to cost about $594 billion over eight years, by far the most expensive proposed last session.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated the House passed version at $337 billion; the tri-partisan Senate legislation - whose sponsors included Sen. James Jeffords, I-VT - was similar to the House version in cost.
The final Senate bill, a bi-partisan measure sponsored by Sens. Bob Graham, D-FL, and Gordon Smith, R-OR, aimed to compromise between the two competing versions, was estimated at $395 million.
"I think the message has been sent by the American people loud and clear to Congress: Work out your differences, keep things affordable, and at the same time provide meaningful drug relief to senior citizens," Bradley said. "As long as we're reasonable, I'm pretty optimistic."
But just how reasonable that is could shift depending on the circumstances.
"The numbers are going to be subject to maneuvering," Howard said.
Some say those numbers could even fall from last year's estimates.
"Sen. Lott talks about going for the low income (benefit)," Ku said. "This could be a signal a new bill would go below last year's proposals."
The Doughnut Hole, Among Other Things
One of the biggest conflicts this past year over the various plans was a perceived "hole" in drug coverage. Under the plan passed by the House, drug coverage under Medicare would end at total drug expenditures of $2,000 and only start up again once the amount of money spent out of the recipient's own pocket reached $3,700, or $4,800 in total spending, according to a Congressional Research Service report.
In 2001, Medicare beneficiaries spent an average of $1,756 on prescription drugs, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
"It's the so called doughnut hole," said Howard. "But here's the political dilemma, it's very expensive to insure that because that's where most of the expenses are."
Under the House plan, a senior with $2,500 in annual drug costs would have to pay $1,400 themselves plus a $396 premium, totaling 72 percent of the senior's total prescription drug expenses, according to a Families USA release in September.
Beyond the hole, the debate starts to get more ideological.
The House relies on Medicare+Choice plans and prescription drug plans (PDPs) to provide the drug benefit. The bill promotes competition by also relying on private plans to compete and provide coverage, with federal subsidies to encourage participation.
The M+C plan, which can provide prescription drug coverage, has dwindled in the Medicare system as an option because HMOs contend they cannot afford it
"Medicare+Choice is currently the only part of Medicare where you can get a prescription drug benefit," Sununu said. "One of the reasons we need to further modernize Medicare is to make sure we further fund that option."
"The problems with a one size fits all prescription drug benefit that's managed by government bureaucrats is that it's an expensive, inefficient way to do business," he said.
Experts say that while there is tri-partisan agreement that the legislation will include broad coverage for the very poor, just how much the drug plan reduces costs for the average senior citizen is still something of a debate.
The disagreement highlights major divides in how big a role the Medicare program should have in providing the benefit.
While Bradley said the House bill passed last session would have cut drug costs between 40-45 percent for the average senior, others say the benefit would have been more like 25 percent.
"It may be that 300 or 350 (billion dollar appropriation) can really only pay for a decent low income benefit," Howard said.
Pollack said prescription drugs will cost consumers over $2 trillion over the next ten years, and therefore even a plan allotting $500 billion would only cover 25 percent of that cost, and the GOP benefit would amount to about 15 percent off.
Sununu called this reasoning "ridiculous" and said the GOP's estimate factored in a decline in drug costs because of the bulk purchasing and competition spurred by the legislation. Sununu said these factors would shrink prescription drug costs an estimated 15 percent, adding to the total savings of the recipient.
Ku also added this was an issue "that distinguishes Republicans versus Democrats" because a Medicare benefit coupled through private plans could increase the efficiency, which helps "shave off some of the cost."
"One of the features that seemed to be malleable… was the extent to which you guarantee that this benefit was going to exist even if private insurance companies didn't see fit to offer it," Howard said.
While there is concern among Democrats that giving private insurance companies control would hurt consumers, insurance companies say having the necessary flexibility to give people a variety of choices is crucial to doing business.
"Some in the Senate wanted to see a purely government run program, just to add drugs to the existing benefit," said Larry Akey, a spokesperson Health Insurance Association of America. "We think that the lessons to be learned from the last 40 years is that benefits designed by the Congress take away the innovation that a private market can bring."
Others say if Medicare has more control, prescription drug prices will be driven lower.
"The Medicare program would use its very substantial bargaining clout to get prices down," Pollack, of Families USA, said. "When the pharmaceutical (industry) endorses the House plan, they obviously do not want prices coming down."
But Sununu said competition was the best way to bring down pharmaceutical prices.
"We should give seniors a choice and some options, and in the long run that competition is going to continue keep costs and prices under control," he said. "The Kennedy bill would effectively undermine all of the benefits that some senior might already have and enjoy."
Agreements, Not Many
Democrats and Republicans have agreed, on principle at least, that the largest benefit in any bill go those seniors with a very low income and those who have gigantic prescription drug bills from medical disasters.
The House plan included low-income subsidies for recipients with earning less than 175% of the federal poverty level, which is set at $8,860 for a single person home.
This provision should help a significant number of Granite State residents. About 41,000 seniors in New Hampshire live below 200% of the federal poverty level, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation State Health Facts Online.
Still, the importance of providing at least some assistance to the neediest could be enough to lure some Democrats.
"It seems to me very difficult for Democrats to walk away from $40 billion to low income seniors," Howard said, roughly referring to the annual cost of the GOP version.
Getting Local
In place of federal assistance, local Granite State residents and lawmakers have devised an array of stopgaps and alternatives to ease the escalating costs of prescription drugs.
Seniors have turned to bus trips and online purchasing to obtain cheaper drugs from Canada.
While the Bush administration has voiced opposition to the growing popularity of obtaining cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, it has not tried to stop such access. In fact, a bi-partisan bill passed in 2000 barred the Food and Drug Administration from blocking seniors' access to cheaper drugs up north.
Assistance programs have popped up all over the Granite State providing community access to pharmaceutical manufacturers offering assistance. According to the New Hampshire Medication Bridge Program, pharmaceutical companies provided $500 million for prescription drug aid for 1.5 million patients in 1999 alone.
President Bush neutralized, at least somewhat, the polarizing election issue of allowing cheaper generic drug versions into the market by using an executive order to close a loophole in the 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act that allowed drug companies to continually extend patents by filing frivolous lawsuits.
Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, who recently lost to John Sununu in the Senate race, testified before a Senate committee on behalf of the Businesses for Affordable Medicine Coalition, a group of business, labor leaders and Governors concentrated on the generic drug issue.
Sen. Judd Gregg, R-NH, will take the reins of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee from Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-MA - which has jurisdiction over generic drug issues. The Finance Committee deals with Medicare prescription drug legislation, according to Gregg's Press Secretary Jeff Turcotte.
Bush's new regulations are set to go into effect 60 days after his announcement October 21st. BAM spokesman Brad Cameron said the move was a "good first step" but that "what will happen after that nobody knows for sure."
Cameron said the new regulations would save consumers about $3 billion annually, if implemented effectively.
New Hampshire's HHS currently pays $93 million a year for prescription drugs for Medicaid recipients. Generic drugs are 30 to 60 percent cheaper than their brand name counterparts and are therapeutically equivalent, said Lisa Swenson assistant director of Health Planning and Medicaid at the New Hampshire HHS.
But most involved with the prescription drug issue acknowledge that aid from Washington, especially for seniors under Medicare, is a must.
New Hampshire prescription drug expenditures increased 17 percent in fiscal year 2001, costing the state's residents $88 million.
The New Hampshire American Association of Retired Persons had every congressional candidate this past election cycle sign a pledge in commitment to getting a prescription drug bill passed, said Bill Hamilton, New Hampshire AARP director of advocacy.
New Hampshire was one of only two states in the country - the other being Iowa - that was able to garner signatures from every candidate, Hamilton said, which shows that the Granite State's elected officials in Washington are committed to finding a solution.
"I think that we will see a prescription drug benefit bill on the president's desk," Bradley said. "The elections showed that the American people want results and that its up to the Republican party and the Democrats to produce those results and we'll be held accountable for our successes or our lack of success."
The desire to produce those results has left New Hampshire Democrats ready to support just about anything that would help.
"If (the Republicans) can pull it off great," New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Kathy Sullivan said. "I wish them luck and I hope it works, and if they do ill be the first one standing there and applauding."
Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.
VA Funding Increases, As Does Backlog
WASHINGTON, Dec. 03, 2002--It took Jim Umble, a Navy veteran of the Korean War, more than a year, he says, before a doctor at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical and Regional Office Center at Togus could examine his lungs. And when the 68-year-old Carmel resident asked if he could have a test for his damaged hearing, he was told, he adds, that it'd be another two years before that could happen.
"The wait is the main problem at Togus," Umble said recently.
Gene Bickford of Norway, another Korean War veteran, has had similar experiences. Bickford, 70, says he waited more than a year to see a doctor for a hearing test. At his September appointment, he learned that he needed a hearing aid for his service-connected hearing loss but that the VA could not provide him with one at that time. Since then, Bickford says he's been billed for his visit, but is still waiting for the hearing aid.
While these veterans agree that the care they receive at Togus is good, they are plagued by the time it takes to be seen by doctors and the lack of equipment at the facilities. Togus spokespeople say hearing aid orders and supplies are not usually significant problems, although the backlog issue is a serious concern. The wait at Togus is not only long but is getting longer by the day as more and more veterans reach the age where they require increased VA medical care.
Korean War veterans are now being joined in Maine by a steadily increasing number of veterans who served in the Vietnam War. Maine not only has a high veteran population but very few facilities to offer treatment. Existing facilities are understaffed, under funded and unable to meet the demand of the growing number of patients. Congress and government agencies have been working to improve this problem.
On Nov. 22, the VA agreed to change federal reimbursement rules, which previously penalized the New England region because it has a large population of older veterans. VA Secretary Anthony Principi announced the new adjustments in the Veterans Equitable Resource Allocation (VERA) formula, which will help New England states by broadening reimbursement categories from three to ten specific areas to better address such states with older populations.
Dave Lackey, director of communications for Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, said the changes in the formula will help treat Maine more fairly by taking into account older and sicker veterans. According to Lackey, Maine is fourth in the nation in the number of older veterans per capita.
The changes will also commit an additional $25 million for this fiscal year to New England VA hospitals, including Togus. The new money is intended to substantially relieve pressures the hospitals currently face, such as inadequate staffing and yearlong waiting lists for health appointments.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Snowe said in a recent joint statement that they expect the additional money to help reduce the backlog at Togus and other hospitals.
"Without adequate funding for VA hospitals, services and quality could slip," they said. "This is a step in the right direction, and pending appropriations bills offer promise of additional funds that will make a real difference for veterans in Maine."
Pending in Congress are similar House and Senate Appropriations Committee versions of bills that would provide more than $1 billion in additional funds for the VA, including health services. The new Congress which convenes in January will have a chance to act on this legislation.
"This is a must-pass piece of legislation," Lackey said, adding that the Bush administration "has made VA health care a greater priority" than previous administrations.
Maine's senators said they believe their October visit to Togus helped reinforce their argument that New England needs additional VA funds. At that visit Snowe addressed the problems with the backlog:
"This is the wrong message to be sending at this point in time, when we're asking people to serve our country. Given the potential conflicts around the world, and what we're engaged in already in the war on terrorism, we need to do everything we can to get this waiting list down."
While Togus is eager to use the new funds to expand its medical staff, clinical services and building facilities, it is unclear whether those funds will be enough to help alleviate the growing backlog.
From October to November, the number of Mainers waiting to see VA physicians swelled from 5,400 to 5,800. Jim Simpson, a Togus spokesman, said the backlog is now more like 5,900, with the number growing by 500 to 700 a month. As a consequence, he said, veterans are waiting one to two years to get an appointment.
"Resources are being outstripped by the demand we have," Simpson said.
Furthermore, during the next decade, the number of patients seeking care at Togus and its community-based outpatient clinics in Bangor, Caribou, Calais, Rumford and Saco is expected to rise from nearly 40,000 to more than 60,000, according to a study by the national VA CARES (Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services), a program within the VA's Veterans Health Administration.
"The numbers speak for themselves," Simpson said. "We're confident that people will look at this and realize that this is a problem."
Although the hospital still awaits additional money, some internal funds from the region's network have been available for backlog reduction, Simpson said. This money has been used to add doctors and other medical professionals at Togus and Saco and to increase support staff at the Bangor clinic.
But those funds don't stretch far enough to shrink the expanding waiting line. The last addition at Togus was a wing added in 1991, which, Simpson says, is not large enough to meet the outpatient demand. More money is needed to increase space for primary care, he says.
According to Helen Hanlon, a nurse at Togus and the president of Local 2610 of the American Federation of Government Employees, Togus also hasn't had equipment replaced since 1991.
"We've been shortchanged for a number of years, and with the sense of being understaffed, it's wearing," said Hanlon, who noted that the tension level rises this time of year among employees who face mandatory overtime and cancelled vacations. Hanlon added that a current wave of retirements among veterans is bringing many new patients to Togus and that there isn't enough staff to handle the influx of new patients who are usually elderly, hypertensive and in need of thorough check-ups.
"Veterans understand the bureaucracy and try to be patient, but with rescheduling, waiting and worrying, I'm sure it must be difficult," she said. "We worry too about what happens to these people who are waiting a year. I certainly wouldn't want someone from my family to be put in that position."
On Oct. 3, the VA announced new regulations to provide priority treatment to veterans with service-connected disabilities who have been diagnosed and rated in the top half of all VA patients. The new policy was instituted to ensure that severely disabled veterans receive prompt treatment in VA facilities instead of continuing to rely on the former first-come, first-served basis.
Gail Goza-Macmullan, network communications officer for the VA's New England Health Care System, said that the policy, which is currently being implemented at Togus, was intended in part as a response to the growing backlog.
"Waiting lists are a fairly new phenomenon, and the extra workload is a recent problem for us," Goza-Macmullan said in October. "This policy ensures that severely disabled veterans have priority access to care." She noted that veterans with medical emergencies will continue to receive priority treatment in any VA facility regardless of their disability status.
Ron Conley, national commander of the American Legion, says it takes time and resources to diagnose the thousands of patients and determine which priority group they belong to. Right now Togus is working with a shortage of staff, all of whom are overworked, Conley said.
"VA health care is superb, it's quality care," he said in October. "But the problem is, not enough veterans are able to get into that hospital to receive that care."
Conley also suggested that veterans be allowed to use Medicare to cover costs at VA facilities. Currently, neither Medicare nor Medicaid coverage is accepted. Simpson explained that VA facilities treat service-related disabilities free of charge and accept payment from private insurance companies for non-service-connected treatments.
"VA care is provided in VA facilities," Simpson said, although he noted that in some cases the patient is referred to a community clinic. This means that many Maine veterans have to drive hours to Togus because they have no other option for free or subsidized care. Under VA standards for access to primary care, veterans should live within 30 minutes or 30 miles of a VA facility, which is not the case in Maine.
In any event, Togus administrators admit that the newly enrolled still are waiting close to two years for their first appointment at Togus.
Similar backlog problems run far and wide in other New England states. Democratic Rep. Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts, an advocate for veterans' benefits, said in an October statement: "Veterans already face maddening delays at medical clinics from Quincy to Hyannis…. The least we can do is make good on basic commitments to those who sacrificed the most."
Until the promise of funds turns into dollars in hand, Togus will be operating as usual and working with internal funds. And Jim Umble and Gene Bickford may be happy to hear that Togus is now installing a new hearing test booth.
"We have been backlogged," Simpson said of the increased demand for hearing tests now that the eligibility for hearing aids has expanded. "But we have made inroads, and we're clearing it up." The new hearing test booth, along with the decision to send some patients to Boston for hearing tests, have helped lift the burden, but Simpson said Togus is still not as timely as it would like to be.
Adding booths is just one of the many steps needed to close the gap between resources and demand. More medical staff, physical additions and new equipment are crucial to places like Togus, where veterans from the Korean War are being joined rapidly by Vietnam veterans, inflating the waiting list by the hundreds every month.
A town meeting on Thursday (in the Theater, building 210 at Togus, from 1:00-2:00 PM) will discuss the national VA CARES study. Simpson said the focus of the meeting will be on the dramatic rise in the number of enrollees expected in the coming decade and the resources needed for the next 10 to 20 years, such as additional buildings and new equipment.
"Our purpose is to provide information and get questions from veterans," he said. "We'll be looking at redistributing resources within VA and where we might be able to place more clinics." Plans are to be developed with input from Maine veterans.
"Vets are coming to us in increasing numbers-they need and want VA health care," Simpson said. "We focus on their needs and we can treat them, from post-traumatic stress to prosthetics. We can provide them with help. We just need more resources."
Published in The Bangor Daily News, in Maine.
Mr. Bradley Goes to Washington
By Tia Carioli and Gregory Chisholm
WASHINGTON, Nov. 27, 2002--Congressman-elect Jeb Bradley recently found himself lost in the Capitol. He is slowly getting adjusted to Washington DC. NHPR correspondent Gregory Chisholm has more on Bradley's congressional orientation.
I'm looking around so that I make sure that I have my orientation so that I walk in the correct way--There's the Capitol! Alright...
LAST WEEK, JEB BRADLEY SPENT HIS TIME LEARNING HIS WAY AROUND THE U.S. CAPITOL.
BRADLEY WON ELECTION TO CONGRESS FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE'S FIRST DISTRICT EARLIER THIS MONTH.
AND SINCE THEN HE'S BEEN GETTING FAMILIAR with the rules and procedures of Congress as well as the layout of the city.
I'm trying to, as you saw walking over here, make sure I orient myself in terms of geography. I you go on all of the tunnels under the Capitol, there's always signs telling you where you are and where you are going, but I like getting outside.
Bradley doesn't like being cooped up indoors.
An experienced climber, he enjoys the open SPACES.
My top criteria for an office is windows that open...(Why is that)...I like fresh air.
TROUBLE IS, SENIOR MEMBERS GET FIRST PICK OF THE OFFICES IN A LOTTERY SYSTEM.
FRESHMAN Bradley will likely get one of the last choices.
BUT Setting up his office IS JUST THE BEGINNING.
HE'S ALSO GOT TO ASSEMBLE A STAFF AND FIND A PLACE TO LIVE.
ALL THAT'S GOT TO BE DONE BEFORE JANUARY 7th, that's WHEN THE 108 CONGRESS is sworn in.
THAT'S WHEN HE BEGINS LIVING A SPLIT LIFE.
WEEKDAYS, HE'LL BE IN WASHINGTON.
HE PLANS TO SPEND THE WEEKENDS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE WITH HIS FAMILY…AND HIS CONSTITUENTS.
I'll have the portabello sandwich…
Sitting at lunch in Union Station near the Capitol BRADLEY ENHANCES his meal by mixing a vitamin C powder in his grapefruit juice...
Don't be grossed out by this…
he says HE BEGAN THIS DAILY RITUAL WHEN HE OWNED a natural food store for 16 years.
THE former state legislator DISTINQUISHED HIMSELF AS A BIT OF A DETAIL MAN.
SOME MIGHT CALL HIM A POLICY WONK.
AND THAT HASN'T CHANGED IN WASHINGTON.
HE'S ASKED TO BE ASSIGNED TO THE HOUSE Transportation committee.
HE WANTS monitor the WIDENING OF Interstate ninety three BETWEEN MASSACHUSETTS AND MANCHESTER.
Highway users AND OTHER INTERESTED PARTIES ARE anxious TO FINISH the project quickly.
BUT THEY'VE butted heads with environmental groups AND LOCAL RESIDENTS who are trying to PROTECT THE STATE'S WETLANDS.
I would hope that the parties can sit down around a table and negotiate a resolution that's not overly costly to the State's highway fund and drivers eventually and does not delay road projects, but at the same time does the job and mitigates the environmental impact.
BRADLY'S answer is reserved, balanced and careful.
HE'S learning the political rhetoric so common to politicians.
But THE WASHINGTON NEWCOMER still lacks the image-consciousness seen in seasoned pols.
In THIS city titles dictate status and access is power.
BUT Bradley STILL introduces himself simply as Jeb and gives out his personal cell phone number. He arrived without a staff member or press-handler.
He apologizes for being late.
HE SAYS someone told him that if he is on time in Washington, he's wasted fifteen minutes of his life.
And he readily admitted not completely understanding a vote he's ALREADY cast.
IT TOOK PLACE in a Republican organizational meeting.
IT HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH CREATING greater accountability for the Appropriations Committee.
There were people for it, people against it…I thought that not really knowing the ins and outs and the people and all of that, it just seemed to make sense to me.
Many consider Bradley more moderate than John Sununu, the Republican he replaces in the Congress.
Perhaps because my record in the legislature on working to resolve particular environmental issues and I'm pro choice, perhaps that has something to do with it.
But Bradley says he COMPLETELY SUPPORTS President Bush's POLICY ON the wars on terrorism and Iraq, and the tax cut.
(Walking through leaves)
ON HIS WAY back to the Capitol BRADLEY IS RUNNING late for his next meeting.
Bradley spoke to his wife earlier about the color of the foliage in New Hampshire.
He's been in Washington only a week and he can't wait to get home.
For NHPR News, this is Gregory Chisholm in Washington
Broadcast on New Hampshire Public Radio, in New Hampshire.
Maloney Leaves Washington
By Tia Carioli and Gregory Chisholm
WASHINGTON, Nov. 26, 2002--Connecticut's 5th District Congressional Race was watched around the country as redistricting pitted two incumbents against each other in the most expensive House race Connecticut has ever seen. Republican Nancy Johnson came out victorious over Democrat James Maloney. Two weeks later, Maloney is talking about why he lost and what is in his future. WNPR Correspondent Tia Carioli reports from Washington.
Congressman James Maloney will leave his Congressional office for the last time today.
Over the past week, his staffers have been scrambling to pack up the office and find new jobs.
After representing Connecticut's 5th District in Washington for six years, Maloney will be returning home to Danbury.
His opponent Nancy Johnson has 14 more years experience and greater public recognition which he says made his campaign an uphill battle from the beginning.
But Maloney says he's not one to back down from a challenge.
I think we ran a very good campaign, I think we had a huge mobilization of volunteers, we had well more than 1,000 volunteers on election day doing all kinds of things, that tremendous spirit and that tremendous commitment all around the district. (18 secs)
Despite that commitment, Maloney couldn't keep up with Republican opponent Nancy Johnson in one of the five most expensive races in the country.
Johnson raised and spent over 3 million dollars, compared to Maloney's 1.8 million dollars.
This money gap also manifested itself on a national level.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised about 85 million dollars, while the National Republican Congressional Committee raised close to 160 million dollars.
Maloney says Republican deep pockets helped the GOP to not only maintain control of the House of Representatives but also to gain control of the Senate.
The Republicans have very substantially greater resources than the Democrats …I think what the Democratic party will need to do is expand and deepen its fundraising efforts. Its going to ultimately its going to have to go out to the public and intensify its efforts in a sort of a grass roots approach to fundraising to compensate for the corporate money that has been flowing into the Republican coffers. (27 secs)
But in order to gain the majority in either house of Congress, the Democrats have to do more than just raise money.
After their election losses, the House Democrats sought new direction for their party, and chose Nancy Pelosi as the new Minority Leader.
Maloney says Pelosi's experience as a political party leader, as opposed to former Minority Leader Richard Gephart's background as a public servant, will give her a better understanding of the changes that must be made.
She has a very keen appreciation and understanding of the need to strengthen political parties as a vehicle for public policy… and I think she will invest more of her time and effort in rebuilding the infrastructure of the Democratic party.
(14 secs)
Maloney plans to help the Democrats rebuild the party whether or not he is in Washington.
And for the time being, Maloney is looking forward to spending time with his family.
My oldest daughter is going to be going to college next year, so this year and this coming summer will really be the last year that she really is going to be around before she goes off to college, so I think that's a wonderful opportunity to spend time with her as well as her two younger sisters and my wife. (17 secs)
He has not ruled out running for Mayor of Danbury, or even running for Congress again in two years.
And he proudly recalled his election night speech when the people started chanting "Jim for Governor."
The people have been very kind to make a number of suggestions. All I've said is I'm committed to stay involved in Public Life and we'll have to see how that works out in the specifics…I haven't ruled anything in, I haven't ruled anything out. (19 secs)
At age 54, Maloney says he hopes to have many years of public service ahead of him.
For WNPR, I'm Tia Carioli, in Washington D-C
Broadcast on Connecticut Public Radio, in Connecticut.
“Champion of the Poor” Surrendering His Gavel, For Now
By Randy Trick
WASHINGTON, Nov. 25, 2002--For the second time since Edward Kennedy entered the Senate in 1963, he has seen his chairmanship of the labor committee slip from his hands.
Kennedy's work with the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee-- which has the appropriate acronym HELP--has become as much a part of the senator's identity as his Massachusetts accent, his family name and the pain of seeing all his brothers die violently.
His work on the committee, which has gone by different names but has always focused on the issues of the working class, is a reflection of his identity as the indisputable champion of the poor, his staffers say. And while they may be glum about seeing their party lose control of the upper chamber yet again, the seventh-term senator has been through this before.
Kennedy, the alpha-male of the Senate Democrats, adapts.
He will see his colleague to the north, Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, take the committee reins, just as he saw Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah take them from Democratic Sen. Harrison Williams of New Jersey in 1981, and Sen. Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas take them from Kennedy himself in 1995. When not commanding the agenda of public welfare, gavel in hand, Kennedy takes to the Senate floor, lambasting the gridlock keeping his public health or economic bills from seeing the light of day. It's another strategy Kennedy uses with ease.
"He's had great success both ways," said Michael Myers, staff director of Kennedy's HELP Committee.
Kennedy has given no hint that as the ranking minority member he will reduce the workload for his committee aides, Myers said. Instead, he'll change his tactics and become the panel's minority voice; he will "keep showing up and blasting away," said his press secretary, Jim Manley, who focuses on committee issues.
"He fights. He's always been a fighter. There's not another gear there," said Myers, gesturing as if trying to put an invisible five-speed into sixth. "He can't get more aggressive."
Each time the chairmanship of the committee has been transferred to a Republican, Kennedy has gotten it back, and his aides say it's only a matter of time before the senator is at the helm of the ship again.
In the meantime, Kennedy will continue high-profile fights for two issues, universal health care and lower prescription drug costs.
41 million and counting
Kennedy's unfinished symphony during his 30 years in the Senate has been his fight for universal health care.
He wrote the opening movement in 1970. Having been in the Senate for under a decade, Kennedy proposed that the United States join other industrialized nations and extend universal health care coverage to its citizens.
The second movement came in 1993, when he teamed with then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was pushing her husband's universal health care proposal.
"Kennedy waged a big battle within Congress to make sure the bill ended up in his committee," Myers said.
Clinton's proposal did go to Kennedy, and he arranged exhaustive hearings on the issue. However, Clinton's plan died on the Senate floor when Republican stall tactics forced the Democratic leaders to abandon it.
Kennedy, however, refused to raise the white flag and delivered a passionate speech from the floor.
"I will never give up the fight for health reform until senior citizens no longer have to worry about how to pay for long-term care," he said on Sept. 26, 1994. "I will never give up the fight until the working men and women of this country know that years of effort and hard-won savings cannot be wiped out by a sudden illness. The drive for comprehensive health reform will begin again next year. We are closer than ever to our goal, and I am confident that we will prevail."
"Everybody felt disappointed, but he felt maybe with this opportunity he got something done," Myers remembered.
Since that debate ended in 1994, Kennedy pared his goal and has since completed three smaller pieces of his universal health care opus. In 1996 he teamed with his Republican counterpart, Kassebaum, on a law that allows workers to retain their health care insurance as they change jobs.
In 1997 he joined with Hatch to push through Congress the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides medical insurance to low-income children. During the 106th Congress he successfully sponsored legislation to make it harder for managed care companies to decline patients' claims, teaming with Vermont's James Jeffords, now an independent but the Republican chairman of the HELP Committee before Kennedy resumed control in 2001.
He tries to see what is doable and focuses on that, Myers said.
Kennedy sees universal health care as doable again, not because it is popular now, but because the problem with rising health care costs is pressing, and presses the working class more and more each year.
In a speech Nov. 21 at the Harvard School of Public Health, Kennedy unveiled his composition's most recent movement: his plan to put universal health care back into the fray come January.
"In the past year, the number of uninsured grew by two million, the largest increase in a decade," Kennedy said. "Forty-one million Americans now have no health insurance at all. Over the course of a year, 30 million more will lack coverage for an extended period."
"Quality, affordable health insurance for every American is a matter of simple justice," he added.
"The time is long overdue for America to join the rest of the industrial world in recognizing this fundamental right."
But Republicans controlling the Senate, and those preparing to mount a major campaign to unseat Kennedy in 2006 should he run for re-election, hear something out of tune in Kennedy's speeches.
"When voters are educated about what [Kennedy's proposal] means, a national HMO, voters are not really too excited," said Jonathan Fletcher, executive director of the Massachusetts Republican Party. "The government's underwriting the cost of health care for all citizens will become such a drain on the Treasury that it will come to rationing health care."
People with expensive shoes
The HELP Committee's hearing room, with a rich wood décor and seating for fewer than 100, was packed on July 11. Kennedy's committee members were voting to open the door for generic drugs to enter the market by making it tougher for pharmaceutical companies to renew patents on prescription drugs by altering the color of the pills or instituting some other small change.
Although the vote was, as Kennedy is fond of saying, "in the light of day," behind the scenes, pharmaceutical lobbyists had waged a blitzkrieg against the bill. But, Myers boasts, when it came time to vote, five Republicans crossed the party line to side with all the committee's Democrats, making the final vote 16-5 and sending the generic drug legislation to the Senate floor.
Face-offs with special interest lobbyists have been standard operating procedure in Kennedy's public health agenda.
"Part of what he always says [about special interests] is to bring sunshine to this, bring public attention and make the vote in the light of day," Myers said.
"That room was jammed with people in expensive shoes," Manley said of the lobbyists watching the vote in mid-July.
Still, despite the lobbyists' attempt to torpedo the bill, all but five of the committee members saw the importance of the legislation, Myers said.
"They were all saying there is no way Kennedy could get the bill out of committee, but when it came time to vote, five Republicans joined with the Democrats," Myers said. "Health care affects everybody."
Kennedy learned how much people care about drug prices years before many of his colleagues, and he fed the first flickers of the flame that has since exploded into a major campaign issue, Myers said.
"He always starts with Massachusetts and find that the challenges he sees there he's also seeing across the nation," Myers said. In the mid-1990s "seniors were telling Kennedy they cannot handle the drug prices. … He saw all that in Massachusetts and came back to Congress and said this is what he's seeing and started talking about it. In two years others were seeing it and they were all talking about it."
The House killed the generic drug bill this year by never acting on it, but Kennedy and his aides still feel victorious because the Senate approved it.
"He has a special passion for those in poverty and for working families," Myers said.
However, stiff words from his state's opposition party allude to Kennedy's proposals as passé, and as throwbacks to the New Deal.
Most lawmakers are "using public policy to better people, rather than throw money at the problem," said Fletcher. "With [most] Democrats that strategy has gone the way of the dodo bird."
Published in The Lawrence Eagle Tribune, in Massachusetts.
