Category: Nicolas Parasie
Emergence of Elder Abuse Nationwide and in Maine
WASHINGTON – The Bangor-based organization Spruce Run, which serves victims of domestic abuse, has received $42,488 in federal funds to improve its services to the victims of elder abuse beginning next spring.
Two years ago, Meg London of Family Crisis Services (FCS), which has worked with victims of domestic abuse in Cumberland and Sagadahoc counties since 1977, concluded that the problem of elder abuse was too often marginalized. So she decided to establish the Elder Advocate program to prevent elder abuse and to help victims.
“Elder people don’t come to us, so we have to reach out to them,” London said.
The decisions by Spruce Run and FCS to extend their services to abused senior citizens are evidence of the slow public emergence of a problem that feelings of shame and guilt have kept below the surface for many years.
The absence of federal laws on the subject has made coping with the elder abuse problem more difficult.
“There is federal legislation on domestic violence, child abuse, even on pet abuse, but nothing on elder abuse is current,” said Debbie D. Didominicus, president of the Elder Abuse Institute of Maine.
But now, on both the federal and state levels, significant signals are being given that law enforcers will take on the issue.
Substantial numbers of Maine’s seniors are victims of some form of abuse, in many cases inflicted by family members and other caregivers , according to Maine state officials and advocacy groups.
How many is unknown because elder abuse is a crime that goes largely unreported, according to these and other experts. Moreover, national and local crime reports do not list elder abuse as a separate category.
The National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA), which works to promote understanding and action on elder abuse, estimates that each year, 4 to 6 percent of Americans 60 and older encounter some form of abuse. The center reported that more than 500,000 Americans age 60 and over were victims of domestic abuse in 1996. And a bill now before the Senate Special Committee on Aging suggests that the total number of cases could be as high as 5 million a year.
Moreover, an NCEA study estimates that an alarming 84 per cent of elder abuse cases are not reported.
“It’s a dirty secret no one wants to talk about,” said Didominicus.
Particularly in cases of financial exploitation by relatives, she added, “people don’t want a family member to go to jail; they just want their money back.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Maine has 238,099 residents 60 and older, representing 19 per cent of its population. Rickard Hamilton, president of the National Association of Adult Protective Services Administrators, estimated that about 12,000 of them, or 5 percent, have been victims of abuse.
“The problem with current crime data is that they never considered elder abuse,” he said.
Elder abuse can be physical, emotional or sexual or involve exploitation, neglect (including self-neglect) or abandonment, according to the National Center on Elder Abuse.
During an October hearing before the Senate Aging Committee, experts testified the most common forms of elder abuse were neglect, emotional or psychological abuse and financial exploitation. The latter can include stealing, larceny by false pretense, embezzlement, forgery, extortion, burglary and robbery.
Michael P. Cantara, commissioner of the Maine Department of Public Safety, said in an interview that in some cases, workers hired to do small jobs around the house win the trust of older people and steal their money. Sometimes, he said, they “grossly” overcharge for the work they do.
Hamilton said in an interview that older people are reluctant to report abuse “because of shame, guilt and fear of the unknown.” Moreover, he said, many of the perpetrators are family members.
To Hamilton, America is “in the same situation [with elder abuse] as child abuse and domestic abuse was 20 years ago.”
Cantara suggested that increased public awareness would lead to improvements in detecting, preventing and treating elder abuse cases.
“There has been much progress in child abuse and domestic violence that is due to 22 to 25 years campaigning on the part of advocacy groups and the government,” he said. “In the battle against elder abuse, we need to train people to become more attuned to the problem.”
Mike Webber, who specializes in financial abuse cases for the Maine attorney general’s office, acknowledged that there is a problem with the collection of accurate data. But he provided some figures that give a sense of how large the problem is: at any one time, 15 to 20 cases of financial abuse of the elderly are open in Maine, with a total of about $1 million allegedly stolen.
In some cases, according to Webber, family members “take more from the victim than they take care of the victim.”
But Congress is slowly waking up to the problem. In February, Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana, the senior Democrat on the aging committee, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, introduced the Elder Justice Act.
“Not one single employee in the federal government is devoted full time to address elder abuse and neglect,” Breaux told his committee in October.
The bill would establish an Office of Elder Justice at both the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services and an interagency council that would coordinate federal, state and local prevention efforts and facilitate collection and analysis of data on elder abuse.
Maine Sen. Susan Collins is one of the original co-sponsors of the bill, and Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe supports “the concept” of the measure, according to her spokesman, Ted McEnroe.
Collins, a member of the aging committee, said in a statement that “the bill unites the social service, health, and law enforcement communities in analyzing elder abuse, improving the prevention and detection of elder victimization and making sure that mistreated seniors are able to receive needed services.”
Echoing Didominicus and Hamilton, Collins said that “Mainers pride themselves on self-sufficiency and value their privacy. They may even be less likely to report abuse or neglect or ask for help.”
Congress is expected to consider the bill, which has also been introduced in the House, early next year, according to Scott Mulhauser, Breaux’s spokesman. He said he expects the bill to pass with bipartisan support.
Elder Advocate is and soon Spruce Run will work closely with Adult Protective Services, the Eastern Agency on Aging in Bangor and the University of Maine’s Center on Aging to organize hearings, send out brochures and put up posters in an attempt to increase the community’s awareness of elder abuse.
“We must make people aware that our parents and grandparents are being exploited, sometimes, on occasion, by family members,” Cantara said. “Sometimes their trust is misplaced.”
Cantara, during his career as a prosecutor, observed the emerging problem of elder abuse firsthand.
“It was a sad surprise that in the domestic violence cases we saw more and more people of 60 and older were becoming the victims of physical and sexual abuse,” he said. “People that took care of themselves now rely upon us. They have become dependent on us.”
Collins Sponsors Anti-Terrorism Measure
WASHINGTON - Only weeks after Congress demanded Syria stop supporting terrorism, Sen. Susan Collins is co-sponsoring a similar bill for Saudi Arabia.
"We cannot allow countries that are supposed to be America's allies to play a double game, when they talk about cooperation but in fact are turning a blind eye on the financing of terrorists," the Maine Republican said Thursday.
The Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2003 introduced this week by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., urges the Arab kingdom to halt its funding of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Al-Qaida.
The Governmental Affairs Committee, which Collins chairs, held two hearings earlier this year during which officials from the FBI and the U.S. Department of Treasury testified about the Saudi funding of terrorist networks.Saudi Arabia was described as "the epicenter" of terrorism financing.
Collins said the Saudis have made some improvements to crack down on the flow of funds to terrorists since the capital of Riyadh was hit by devastating bomb attacks earlier this year. But she added that "it should not have taken the threat of terror attacks on Saudi soil to prompt the Saudis to act."
"It's important that we keep the pressure on," Collins continued, "because the Saudi record of cooperation on terrorism finance investigations has been very uneven, according to the briefings I have held."
Collins says that the bill will not be taken up any time soon, but that its introduction should send "a strong signal to the Saudi government" to stop Saudi citizens from funding terrorist networks.
"I would like to see for example the Saudis passing a law that says it is a crime for one of their citizens to provide financial support [to terrorist organizations]," said Collins.
If Saudi Arabia does not make a "sincere and sustained effort to crack down on sources of terrorist funding," then the bill would authorize President Bush to impose one or both of two sanctions. Bush could prohibit the export of certain arms to the country and Saudi diplomats in the United States could be restricted to travel within a 25-mile radius, a "standard sanction" according to Collins.
Agroterrorism is Imminent Threat
WASHINGTON - Food and agriculture experts warned members of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Wednesday that America's food supply is insufficiently protected against possible "agroterrorist" attacks, which could severely damage the economy and inflict widespread medical harm.
"We've become a nation that is afraid of anthrax, that is afraid of opening letters. Imagine being concerned about opening our refrigerator," said Thomas McGinn, director of emergency programs for the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.Because of its size and scope, the U.S. agriculture industry is an attractive target for terrorists, according to a new RAND Corp. report presented to the committee.
"Our response [to the threat of attacks] has been woefully inadequate," said Sen. Daniel Akaka, D.-Hawaii. "It would be a crushing burden if our food and water would be contaminated."
Terrorist organizations, such as Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, are believed to possess significant information on how to carry out such a terrorist attack, said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who chairs the committee. "
A CIA report in May confirmed that the Sept. 11 hijackers expressed interest in crop-dusting aircraft, an effective and remarkably simple way to spread biological agents, including plant and animal diseases, over large areas," Collins said.
An attack on agriculture could lead to the outbreak of disease, which could have a far-reaching impact on the economy and tourism, consequences that could last for years after the contamination has been contained, a number of experts told the committee.
As an example, Collins pointed to the reduction in tourism prompted by the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Great Britain in 2001. "A vital sector remains largely unguarded, and an attack could be devastatingáand could cripple our economy, require geographic quarantines, cause massive upheaval and produce illness and death," Collins said. Sen.
Jim Talent, R.-Mo., said the "food chain is an all-too-easy target" and "a big bull's eye for terrorists." Food security affects all states equally, he said, explaining that "our food comes from ranches in the West, farms in the heartland or potato farms in Maine."
McGinn said the threat of agroterrorism is a homeland security issue that requires "coordinated action on the part of federal, state and local governments, the private sector and concerned citizens across the country."
Sen. Richard Durbin, D.-Ill., said there is a lack of coordination among governmental agencies and local, state and federal governments need to get their "act together."
Using foot-and-mouth disease as an example, McGinn used a computer simulation to demonstrate to the committee how fast a disease could spread across the country, leading to the loss of more than 23 million animals only eight days after an outbreak.
He said food contamination would produce a similarly devastating effect, instantly overloading the public health system because of widespread fear. Besides the considerable economic impact, terrorism would create a huge psychological impact on a nation in which agriculture is the largest industry, according to the RAND report.
The RAND report recommended a number of steps to protect the food industry from agroterrorism, including education to help people to recognize symptoms and detect problems earlier, programs to contain and eradicate outbreaks and programs to assess risks better.
Ned Porter, deputy commissioner of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources, said that he doubted Maine would be a target for agroterrorism but added that an attack could easily disrupt the production of potatoes and dairy products, Maine's prime agricultural goods.
Holocaust Survivors Gather in Washington
WASHINGTON - Hiding in a haystack, Sonia Goodman escaped the piercing bayonet blade by only half an inch. She recalls the moment as if it were yesterday, but this happened during World War II, when German Gestapo (secret state police) officers were searching for Jews.
Emotional and often painful memories like Sonia's were shared Saturday and Sunday by thousands of other Holocaust survivors who had traveled to Washington, D.C., to gather for the 10th anniversary of the Holocaust Memorial Museum.
"Many local people have helped us," said Olga, Sonia's sister. "I wish I could have thanked some of them. They saved my life."
Sonia and her sister grew up in Antwerp, Belgium. After Germany had invaded the small Western European nation in 1940, Belgium became a place where Jewish people were persecuted.
Their father was arrested in the streets of Antwerp and then deported. Many years later, Olga and Sonia found out that he had perished shortly after arriving at the death camp of Auschwitz. Their uncles and cousins underwent a similar fate.
"We felt like hunted animals," recalls Olga. "After my father's deportation, we knew we couldn't stay any longer in Antwerp and decided to go to Brussels, where Belgian resistance fighters helped us to remain undiscovered."Olga and Sonia then moved to a small village near Bastogne, in southern Belgium, where they remained in safety until the war ended.
Today, Sonia, 74, lives with her husband, Robert, in Queens, New York, but they have a summer house on Mount Desert Island in Maine.
"The pinewoods remind me a lot of Belgium," she said, referring to the Ardennes, a region marked by its gentle hills and pinewood trees, where both girls survived throughout the war. Her husband paints in his studio while Sonia writes poetry.
"Going to Maine in the summer has helped me in preserving my sanity," she said.
Joining the two sisters was Rachel Goodman, 79, who traveled from Florida to attend the survivor's weekend. She also lived in Antwerp and met Sonia and Olga earlier at the event. They spent the afternoon sharing their memories and stories of the days when they still lived in Belgium.
The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., paid tribute to nearly 7,000 Holocaust survivors from various states by organizing the two-day event. Activities included a Survivor Village, where survivors and families were given the chance to reunite and meet with fellow survivors, and plenty of workshops where survivors were shown how to record their testimonies for posterity, among other things.
"This event is the culmination of our 10th anniversary year," said Sara J. Bloomfield, museum director. "We are moving into a new generation, so our challenge is to make history as relevant and meaningful for the generations to come."
Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, who delivered the keynote address Sunday afternoon, embodies this center, according to Bloomfield.
Wiesel had said in the past that "a memorial unresponsive to the future is a violation of the past." Bloomfield added that the museum tries to teach the lessons of the past by gathering witnesses of the past, which it did this weekend.
FBI Crime Report Shows Maine is Safe
WASHINGTON - Maine's number of reported crimes dropped in 2002, defying the national trend, according to an FBI report released Monday.
Nationwide, an estimated 11.9 million crimes were reported to police in 2002, an increase of less than one tenth of 1 percent over 2001. In Maine, the number of reported crimes in 2002 was 34,381, a drop of 0.6 percent from the 34,588 crimes in 2001.
The FBI report shows only six states, two of them in New England, had lower 2002 crime rates or crime indexes -- the number of crimes per 100,000 people -- than Maine.
In New England, New Hampshire and Vermont have slightly lower crime rates than Maine. In terms of violent crimes, only North Dakota and Vermont had rates lower than Maine's.
The FBI statistics reveal striking regional differences: the Northeast had by far the lowest crime rate last year, at 2,889.0 per 100,000 people, with the Midwest next at 3,883.1, the West at 4,418.8 and the South at 4,721.9.
Maine's crime index last year was 2,656.0, well below the national crime index of 4,118.8.
Michael P. Cantara, the commissioner of the Maine Department of Public Safety called the FBI report and similar ones produced by his agency "a barometer of how safe people are in Maine and how effective law enforcement is."
In the past seven years, Maine's crime figures have been flat or slightly declining, according to Cantara.
Asked why Maine is such a safe state, Cantara, drawing on his 22 years of experience as a prosecutor and then public safety commissioner, emphasized the values of Maine residents.
"Our communities are still intact," he said.
Cantara said he expected the downward trend to continue, even though some crimes, such as sexual and elderly abuse, might increase. The number of forcible rapes rose from 326 in 2001 to 377 in 2002.
In some cases, Cantara said, it is the reporting, not necessarily the crimes, that has risen.
Crimes such as sexual abuse are coming "out of the shadows of shame and denial, so we can expect an increase in cases reported," he said. The growth in the number of senior citizens in Maine also makes them a greater target for emotional, sexual and financial abuse, he said.
Snowe Against Discrimination by Health Insurers
WASHINGTON - Bonnie Lee Tucker of Hampden, Maine, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1989 and again in 1990. Her mother was a breast cancer victim. So have nine other close relatives.
A genetic test could show whether Tucker's daughter has a high risk of contracting breast cancer. But Tucker, now 53, doesn't want the 25-year-old to take it for fear she might face job and insurance discrimination.
The Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Tuesday that is intended to relieve such fear. The measure would prevent health insurers from denying coverage or raising premiums on the basis of genetic information and would make it illegal for employers to use such data when hiring or firing. Violators could be fined up to $300,000.
Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe is the principal sponsor of the bill, the Genetic Nondiscrimination Act of 2003, which the Senate passed, 95-0.
Snowe said her bill "provides the protection people need in order to seek out their individual genetic information in the hopes of treating and maybe even preventing the onset of disease."
She said in a statement that "it simply isn't right that the very information which may lead to a healthier life and the prevention of a disease may also lead to the denial of health insurance or higher rates. Americans shouldn't have to make a choice between taking charge of their own care or keeping their insurance."
Snowe said she introduced the bill after Tucker wrote to her in 1997.
"I am happy the bill proceeded with bipartisan support," Tucker said. "Hopefully, employers don't have the opportunity to go through your medical files anymore."
Early detection through genetic testing is one key to surviving breast cancer, Tucker said. Her daughter, Laura, has not taken such a test yet, Tucker said, because she is afraid she might be the subject of discrimination.
"I hope that with this bill my daughter can be free of worries to be tested, so that she can go on with her life.áThese companies are not going to save money on my daughter," she added.
For some women, the risk of breast cancer rises if they have a hereditary defect in one of two genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, whose presence can be detected through genetic testing.
Tucker wrote Snowe "about her fear of having the BRCA test because she worried it would ruin her daughter's ability to obtain insurance in the future," Snowe said. "And Bonnie Lee isn't the only one who has this fear."
Bangor Student at Leadership Conference in Washington
WASHINGTON - It was an unusual sight at the Capitol Thursday when about 400 high school students gathered on the floor of the House to question a member of Congress on the war in Iraq, the federal budget and the USA Patriot Act.
The morning session with Rep. John Boozman, R-Ark., before the House convened for the day was one of many events of the National Youth Leadership Conference this week. And Bangor resident Lindsey Snyder was there.
A senior at Bangor High School, Snyder, 17, participated in workshops, listened to several speakers talk about leadership and did some extensive sightseeing. It was her first trip to Washington.
She said she had expected Washington to be much smaller after looking at the map, "but once you get around the Capitol it can be pretty intimidating."
Snyder, was selected on the basis of leadership potential and scholastic merit to spend six days with other student scholars from around the country.
"I am interested in the way government works and how things are run," she said. "I like to know what is going on in the world.," Despite her interest in politics, she does not see herself as pursuing a political career.
"I want to go into elementary education, and I am looking [to teach] younger grades: that is definitely about leadership," Snyder said.
Snyder is seeking a college where she can combine her passion for swimming with a liberal arts education before getting a master's degree in education.
After meeting with staff members of Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Snyder was heading for another sightseeing tour of the Washington memorials before heading to a group gathering. "A very busy, but fun schedule," she said.
One of the workshops was about deciding what' s important in life. For Snyder, it was "swimming, school work, family and friends."
The leadership development program was also an opportunity to get to know likeminded students from other states. "There was this misconception that everyone would be uptight and not wanting to express their opinion, but in truth, everyone is really relaxed," she said.
Snyder said her time in the capital gave her "a better idea of what politicians are doing." She said it was hard to generalize "because they are all different."
Collins Wants to Keep Families Together
WASHINGTON - Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said Thursday she plans to introduce legislation that would prevent parents from being forced to relinquish custody of their seriously mentally ill children in order to obtain health care for them.
The bipartisan "Keeping Families Together Act" would set aside $55 million in grants to help states improve health care for mentally ill children and create a task force to study ways to improve such care. It also would make more children and adolescents eligible for Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, if they receive treatment at home or at community-based facilities. Currently, those children are covered only when they receive care in residential facilities, such as hospitals.
In 2001, parents gave up custody of more than 12,700 seriously mentally ill children nationwide because they could not afford the expensive health care costs, according to a report by the U.S. General Accounting Office.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg," Collins said, noting that many states did not respond to the GAO survey.
In Maine, another problem also exists, Collins said. "Because the state does not have mental health care, "too many children are sent to residential treatment centers far away from the state at tremendous costsá. Maine needs to do more to develop community-based care for families with children with mental illnesses," she said.
Maine is among 11 states that allow parents to voluntarily place children in child welfare systems without relinquishing custody in order to access mental health services.
Carol Carothers, executive director of the Maine office of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, a nonprofit advocacy group, said that often neither private insurance nor Medicaid covers the costs of home-based treatment. As a result, she said, parents face a choice: keeping their children at home or getting them the care they need.
Moreover, Collins said, state and federal aid is so complex that parents often don't understand their options.
"In the long run, if we can develop a community-based system not only would it be a more compassionate treatment for the children, but it would also be less expensive than sending them to out-of-state residential care facilities," she said.
Collins is co-sponsoring the legislation with Sens. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and Mark Pryor, D-Ark. A similar bill will be introduced in the House by Reps. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., and Pete Stark, D-Calif.
Vacant & Underutilized Buildings
WASHINGTON - The General Accounting Office reported in August that the federal government owns four sites in Maine that are either "vacant" or "underutilized." Sen. Susan Collins from Maine said this is a costly situation that needs to be dealt with.
During a Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday, Collins, who chairs the committee, said that "such properties are costly to maintain" and "could be put to more cost-beneficial uses."
Across the country, according to the report, the federal government owns 927 properties containing more than 2,000 acres of land and 32.1 million square feet of vacant or underutilized space.
Though this is only a small portion of the more than 3 billion square feet of building space, worth about $328 billion, that the government owns, Collins said "the federal government spends millions of dollars each year to maintain empty buildings. This is government waste, plain and simple."
Included in the GAO report are 51 acres of land in Scarborough and 1 acre in Eastport that are considered vacant. The report also said that at the Veterans Affairs Medical and Regional Office Center in Togus, more than half of the 55,000 square feet of "administrative space" is vacant and more than 6,000 square feet of living quarters are unoccupied.
But Jack Sims, director of the Togus center, said the figures are a year old and do not represent the current situation.
The living facilities are indeed vacant, he said in an interview, but that is because the occupants were required to leave while the center removes lead paint for which it was fined this summer. Sims said that once that problem is taken care of, the facilities will be occupied again.
As for the large amount of vacant office space, Sims said, that has been an "ongoing concern" and the center is working to convert some of it into clinical space.
According to Andrea Hofelich, spokeswoman for the Governmental Affairs Committee, the U.S. Postal Service purchased the 51 acres in Scarborough for development of a new Portland/Southern Maine processing and distribution center. It also bought the 1-acre site in Eastport to expand the main post office there.
The fourth building in Maine is at the Agriculture Department's animal and plant inspection site in Houlton, where, according to the report, 37 percent of the space was vacant.
Anne Hilleary, a senior analyst for the GAO, acknowledged that use of the spaces might have increased and the report's figures might be outdated by now.
"Given the uniqueness of these cases of vacant and underutilized properties, it is really hard to make sweeping generalizations about the plans agencies may or not have," she said.
Nevertheless, Collins said the report, which she requested along with Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Me., and others, indicates a nationwide problem.
Maine Senators Oppose Bush on Iraqi Reconstruction
WASHINGTON - - Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe would rather lend than donate part of the $87 billion that the Bush administration has requested for war and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Collins and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) plan to introduce an amendment that would provide $15 billion to rebuild part of Iraq's infrastructure in the form of long-term loans. President Bush has asked Congress to grant $20.3 billion for Iraq's reconstruction.
But some members of Congress, led by Democrats, have argued that the United States cannot afford to pay the entire cost of rebuilding Iraq in the face of record-setting budget deficits at home. Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, told the Associated Press Tuesday that he could envision a compromise on the loan issue and that "part of it should be considered repayable when oil comes out of the ground" in Iraq.
"I am not asking the Iraqi people to repay us immediately or even next year, but ultimately Iraq will have to," Collins said Tuesday. She also said Iraq could pay back the loan with oil revenue.
The White House and some Republican senators oppose the notion of loans. They argue that Iraq already has too many foreign debts and that forcing it to accept loans would serve to strengthen the belief among some foreign nations, particularly Arab countries, that the United States is after Iraq's vast oil reserves.
Snowe said the loan proposal represents "a reasonable course of action and the preferred approach" given the U.S. deficit.
The Senate Appropriations Committee, voting 15-14 along party lines, Tuesday rejected a Democratic proposal to remove the $20.3 billion in reconstruction money from the larger bill. It also killed an amendment that would have split the reconstruction money into a separate bill. Members of both parties say they will support the bulk of Bush's request for military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Last week, Collins and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced another amendment that would require competitive bidding among companies seeking reconstruction contracts in Iraq.
The amendment would prevent companies with close ties to the Bush administration from receiving contracts without competing for them. The Pentagon has come under fire for awarding large contracts to companies closely aligned with the White House, including Halliburton, formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney.
Both of Collins' proposals will be considered as the Senate takes up the $87 billion request in coming days.
