History > 2005 > USA > Politics > Senate

The U.S. Capitol Building is seen in this 2004 file photo.

The Senate approved a $60 billion tax cut bill on Friday

that would impose a $5 billion tax on big oil companies

and provide new tax breaks to help rebuild hurricane devastated regions.

REUTERS/Larry Downing

Senate approves $60 billion tax cut bill        R        18.11.2005

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=
2005-11-18T101828Z_01_RID821299_RTRUKOC_0_US-CONGRESS-TAXES.xml

Officials Want to Expand

Review of Domestic Spying

December 25, 2005
The New York Times
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Dec. 24 - Congressional officials said Saturday that they wanted to investigate the disclosure that the National Security Agency had gained access to some of the country's main telephone arteries to glean data on possible terrorists.

"As far as Congressional investigations are concerned," said Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, "these new revelations can only multiply and intensify the growing list of questions and concerns about the warrantless surveillance of Americans."

Members of the Judiciary Committee have already indicated that they intend to conduct oversight hearings into the president's legal authority to order domestic eavesdropping on terrorist suspects without a warrant.

But Congressional officials said Saturday that they would probably seek to expand the review to include the disclosure that the security agency, using its access to giant phone "switches," had also traced and analyzed phone and Internet traffic in much larger volumes than what the Bush administration had acknowledged.

"We want to look at the entire program, an in-depth review, and this new data-mining issue is certainly a part of the whole picture," said a Republican Congressional aide, who asked not to be identified because no decisions had been made on how hearings might be structured.

Current and former government officials say that the security agency, as part of its domestic surveillance program, has gained the cooperation of some of the country's biggest telecommunications companies to obtain access to large volumes of international phone and Internet traffic flowing in and out of the United States.

The agency has traced and analyzed the traffic flow - looking at who is calling whom, where calls originate and end, and other patterns - to gather clues on possible terrorist activities. In cases where security agency supervisors believe they can show a link to Al Qaeda, President Bush has authorized eavesdropping on calls without a warrant within the United States, so long as one end of the phone or e-mail conversation takes place outside the country.

The White House declined to comment Saturday on the security agency program or the use of data-mining, saying it would not discuss intelligence operations.

"The administration will aggressively fight the war on terror in an effort to protect the American people while at the same time upholding the civil liberties of the American people," said Allen Abney, a White House spokesman. "The president is doing both of these things and will continue to do both of these things."

Defenders of the program within the federal government say that the security agency's broad analytical searches and data-mining, combined with actual eavesdropping, are an essential part of detecting and preventing terror attacks.

And they say the president is well within his legal authority to order such programs, because of his inherent constitutional power and because of Congressional authorization in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that permitted him to use "all necessary and appropriate force" to fight terrorism.

But civil rights and privacy advocates voiced concerns Saturday about the expanded role of the security agency, which historically has focused almost exclusively on foreign powers in mining for data on American phone lines.

"To the extent that the N.S.A. is collecting information on people who are suspected of no wrongdoing whatsoever, it presents some very critical privacy concerns," said Marcia Hofmann, who leads the government oversight section at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a group that lobbies for greater privacy rights. "And it shows the need for Congress to put in place real safeguards to prevent the government from abusing this information."

Lisa Graves, senior counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, said, "There's no data-mining loophole in the Fourth Amendment." Ms. Graves added, "We're seeing an administration that's engaging in a lot of legal hair-splitting to justify behavior that's not authorized by the law."

    Officials Want to Expand Review of Domestic Spying, NYT, 25.12.2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/politics/25wiretap.html

A Lone G.O.P. Senator, Unknown,

Holds Up an Intelligence Bill

December 24, 2005
The New York Times
By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - An unidentified Republican senator has blocked the authorization bill that sets guidance for all intelligence spending, and the measure must now wait for Congress to return next month from recess, Congressional officials said Friday.

The bill, setting broad policies on intelligence matters, is one of the last items of significant business that was left hanging as lawmakers went home for the holiday recess.

The parliamentary "hold" was put on the intelligence authorization bill under Senate rules that allow a single senator acting anonymously to delay action on legislation. It appeared to be intended to block amendments dealing with the detention and treatment of captured terror suspects and with intelligence on Iraq.

The amendments were offered by the two Democratic senators from Massachusetts, Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry. The amendments include a requirement for the director of national intelligence to provide regular detailed updates about secret detention sites maintained by the United States overseas, and to account for the treatment and condition of each prisoner.

While the Central Intelligence Agency has provided limited briefings to members of Congress about the detention sites, the information has generally been shared with only a handful of Congressional leaders, who are prohibited from discussing the information with their colleagues.

Another amendment, also introduced by Mr. Kennedy, would require the White House to provide classified intelligence documents on Iraq that have been withheld from Congress.

"Senate Republicans are blocking adoption of the Intelligence Authorization Act," Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democrat leader, said. "As a result, we are now at risk of not passing this important piece of national security legislation for the first time in 27 years."

Mr. Reid added, "At a time of war when everyone agrees good intelligence is essential for our troops and our security, it is deeply disturbing that Republicans are holding this important piece of national security legislation hostage."

The authorization bill sets the policy and states guidance for intelligence spending. The delay in approving it does not cut off financing, which is allocated in a separate appropriations bill. The Senate still has time to seek a compromise and approve the authorization bill when it returns next month.

The hold on the intelligence authorization bill was first reported in The Washington Post on Friday. The hold scuttled a compromise negotiated with Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who agreed to include the amendments in a measure that was to be presented to the Senate for unanimous consent.

    A Lone G.O.P. Senator, Unknown, Holds Up an Intelligence Bill,
    NYT, 24.12.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24intel.html

Reporter's Notebook

Issues and Egos

Contend in Congress's

Rush to Leave

December 24, 2005
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The end of a Congressional year is never a pretty thing. But as the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said after the Senate spent hour after hour in a mostly fruitless weekend session, "This is about as un-pretty as I've seen it."

The days were long, the tempers short, the egos huge.

Nobody beat anybody over the head with a cane (that actually happened once, in 1856, when a House member burst into the Senate chamber and beat a Massachusetts Republican into unconsciousness). But there were fights, and plenty of them, because where would Republicans and Democrats be without fights?

Congress is a lot like college, and so it was this week. The members left their tough assignments, like cutting $40 billion from the federal budget and figuring out whether to open an Arctic wildlife refuge to oil drilling, until the last minute, then stayed up all night to finish before rushing home for holiday vacation.

There were late-night pizza parties, like the one for Senate Democrats in which bleary-eyed senators wandered in and out of Mr. Reid's Capitol suite, shuttling between their pepperoni pies and the empty Senate chamber, officially in a "quorum call" - Congressional lingo for a holding pattern. The world's greatest deliberative body had been reduced to a fraternity party.

Democrats complained bitterly that Republicans were passing special-interest giveaways in the dead of night. By 6 a.m. Monday, as the House took up a $40 billion budget-cutting measure, Representative Jim Nussle, Republican of Iowa and chairman of the Budget Committee, sought to correct the record.

"It is now the break of dawn," Mr. Nussle announced. "It is no longer the dead of night."

Much of the fighting had to do with the rules, and with Democratic assertions that Republicans were violating them. The Senate, in particular, operates on rules so arcane that aides make entire careers of studying them. Perhaps the most arcane of all is the "Byrd rule," named for the senior senator from West Virginia, Robert C. Byrd.

The Byrd rule - which has given rise to an adjective, "Byrdable," heard nowhere but the Capitol - allows senators to object to provisions in the budget bill if they can prove that those provisions do not affect the budget. It had a starring role this week when Senate Democrats declared that three budget provisions were Byrdable, and used the rule to strike them from the budget. Republicans were exasperated.

"There are so many rules in this institution that go to minutiae," lamented Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire and chairman of the Budget Committee.

But Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, had a different take on the rules in defending a Republican plan to tack the Arctic drilling provision onto a military spending bill.

"When I got to the Senate," Mr. Thune said, "I was told that the only rule is: There are no rules."

The drilling provision was so contentious that at one point late Sunday, Mr. Reid could be seen on the Senate floor jabbing his finger at his Republican counterpart, Senator Bill Frist, in an angry off-the-microphones exchange over the plan. Stunned reporters, looking down on the Senate chamber from the press gallery one floor up, craned their necks to hear.

They need not have. Before long, the irate leaders stormed upstairs to discuss their grievances. Pens scribbled and tape rolled as the insults flew. Mr. Reid is a former boxer, but Mr. Frist got in the sharpest jab.

"He is frustrated by being in the minority," Mr. Frist said, "and having less than 50 votes."

Not everyone, though, was in a fighting mood. Representative Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas and chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, showed up to vote for the Arctic drilling plan at 4 a.m. Monday, just hours after being released from the hospital for treatment of a heart attack.

"I'm not going to embarrass anybody on this floor," Mr. Barton told his colleagues, "but some of the meanest, toughest reputations on both sides of the aisle have called me and shown themselves to be some of the biggest softies I've ever known.

"So I just want to say from the very, very bottom of my very, very sore heart, God bless this institution."

Republicans lost the drilling fight, and no one suffered more than Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, who had championed drilling for 25 years. In a lengthy Senate speech, he promised revenge, reminding colleagues, like Senator Maria Cantwell, the Washington Democrat who led the opposition to drilling, that by stripping the drilling language from the military bill, they were also taking money for hurricane relief and home heating oil assistance for the poor.

"I am going to go to every one of your states, and I am going to tell them what you have done," Mr. Stevens said. "And I am sure the senator from Washington will enjoy my visits to Washington, because I am going to visit there often."

Some say politics is about compromise, but often it is about saving face.

Mr. Frist, for instance, insisted that he would oppose a "a short-term extension" of the USA Patriot Act, the broad antiterrorism bill whose major provisions were set to expire Dec. 31. When Democrats pushed for a three-month extension, Mr. Frist and President Bush held fast to their demands that the provisions be made permanent.

When Democrats blocked the permanent renewal by filibuster, Mr. Frist and the White House accepted an extension after all - not for three months but for six, provoking considerable debate about the meaning of "short-term."

That lasted a day, until the next face, that of Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, demanded saving.

Mr. Sensenbrenner, also a proponent of permanent renewal, had said he would accept no extension less than four years. With three months and six months off the table, and four years out of the question, he cut a deal with the White House for five weeks. Senator Trent Lott, the Republican of Mississippi who preceded Mr. Frist as leader, summed it all up this way:

"You always say what you're not going to do - until you lose. And then you do it."

    Issues and Egos Contend in Congress's Rush to Leave, NYT, 24.12.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24memo.html

Daschle Says Congress

Did Not Approve Spying Authority

December 23, 2005
Filed at 9:35 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The use of warrantless wiretaps on American citizens was never discussed when Congress authorized the White House to use force against al-Qaida after the Sept. 11 attacks, says former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

In an article printed Friday on the op-ed page of The Washington Post, Daschle also wrote that Congress explicitly denied a White House request for war-making authority in the United States.

''This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas ... but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens,'' Daschle wrote.

''The Bush administration now argues those powers were inherently contained in the resolution adopted by Congress -- but at the time, the administration clearly felt they weren't or it wouldn't have tried to insert the additional language,'' the South Dakota Democrat wrote.

Daschle was Senate Democratic leader at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington. He is now a fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank.

The administration formally defended its domestic spying program in a letter to Congress late Thursday, saying the nation's security outweighs privacy concerns of individuals who are monitored.

In a letter to the chairs of the House and Senate intelligence committees, the Justice Department said President Bush authorized electronic surveillance without first obtaining a warrant in an effort to thwart terrorist acts against the United States.

''There is undeniably an important and legitimate privacy interest at stake with respect to the activities described by the president,'' wrote Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella. ''That must be balanced, however, against the government's compelling interest in the security of the nation.''

Bush has acknowledged he authorized such surveillance and repeatedly has defended it in recent days.

But Moschella's letter was the administration's first public notice to Congress about the program in which electronic surveillance was conducted without the approval of a secret court created to examine requests for wiretaps and searches in the most sensitive terrorism and espionage cases.

Moschella maintained that Bush acted legally when he authorized the National Security Agency to go around the court to conduct electronic surveillance of international communications into and out of the United States by suspects tied to al-Qaida or its affiliates.

Former CIA Director Jim Woolsey said Friday the decision to undertake the monitoring is a ''very tough and a very close call,'' but he comes out on the president's side.

''This is one where I think if anyone says it's a crystal-clear issue one way or another, that is the only position I regard as wrong,'' Woolsey said. ''There are real values on both sides -- privacy vs. security.''

Yet Woolsey said the White House's argument that it was authorized to do this under Congress' joint resolution days after 9/11 is weak, and the president has to rely on his inherent power under Article II of the Constitution.

Because of threats from group's like al-Qaida and Hezbollah, he said, ''we are going to have to take some steps in the war on terror that we did not have to take in the Cold War.''

In his letter, Moschella relied on the Sept. 18, 2001, congressional resolution, known as the Authorization to Use Military Force, as primary legal justification for Bush's creation of a domestic spying program. The resolution ''clearly contemplates action within the United States,'' Moschella wrote, and acknowledges Bush's power to prevent terrorism against the United States.

Congress adopted the resolution in the chaotic days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, authorizing the president to wage war against al-Qaida and other terrorist groups that pose a threat to the United States.

Moschella said the president's constitutional authority also includes power to order warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance inside the United States. He said that power has been affirmed by federal courts, including the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. The FISA court was created in 1978 after public outcry over government spying on anti-war and civil rights protesters.

The administration deliberately bypassed the FISA court, which requires the government to provide evidence that a terrorism or espionage suspect is ''an agent of a foreign power.''

Moschella said Bush's action was legal because the foreign intelligence law provides a ''broad'' exception if the spying is authorized by another statute. In this case, he said, Congress' authorization provided such authority.

He also maintained the NSA program is ''consistent'' with the Fourth Amendment -- which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures -- and civil liberties.

For searches to be reasonable under law, a warrant is needed, Moschella said. But, outside criminal investigations, he said, the Supreme Court has created exceptions where warrants are not needed.

Associated Press reporter Katherine Shrader contributed to this story.

    Daschle Says Congress Did Not Approve Spying Authority, NYT, 23.12.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Domestic-Spying.html

The Year's Results

What Congress Did and Did Not Do

December 23, 2005
The New York Times

Passed

HURRICANE TAX RELIEF The $8 billion tax plan to spur redevelopment of the Gulf Coast creates an "opportunity zone" and grants tax incentives to those who rebuild housing and businesses.

ENERGY The first comprehensive energy bill in years sets rules to increase the reliability of electrical supplies, encourage construction of nuclear power plants and finance research into alternative energy sources.

CENTRAL AMERICA FREE TRADE Most trade barriers between the United States and six small Central American countries are removed.

HIGHWAY SAFETY More stringent safety measures are instituted, including the first performance standards intended to reduce rollovers. States can now receive additional federal money if they enact laws allowing the police to pull over drivers for not wearing a seat belt.

BANKRUPTCY OVERHAUL The first major overhaul of bankruptcy laws in 27 years disqualifies many families from erasing their debts and getting a "fresh start." Significant new costs are imposed on those seeking bankruptcy protection, and lenders and businesses get new legal tools for recovering debts.

CLASS ACTION LAWSUITS The ability of people to file class-action lawsuits against companies is sharply limited, and many such cases will now be transferred to federal courts from state ones.

TORTURE Cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners in American custody is banned in a bill sponsored by Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican and a former prisoner of war, that was originally opposed by the White House.

USA PATRIOT ACT The antiterrorism bill passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks is extended five weeks. Sixteen major provisions in the act had been set to expire on Dec. 31, and lawmakers now have until Feb. 3 to agree on reauthorizing them.

HURRICANE AID $29 billion in new federal aid for victims of Hurricane Katrina is authorized.

AVIAN FLU $3.8 billion is set aside to prepare for a possible outbreak of avian flu.

Pending

TAX CUTS AND THE ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX

CHANGES IN IMMIGRATION

SOCIAL SECURITY OVERHAUL

STEM CELL RESEARCH

ASBESTOS COMPENSATION

    What Congress Did and Did Not Do, NYT, 23.12.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/national/23cbox.html

Senate approves deficit cuts

Posted 12/21/2005 9:12 AM
Updated 12/21/2005 10:44 AM
USA Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-controlled Senate passed legislation to cut federal deficits by $39.7 billion on Wednesday by the narrowest of margins, 51-50, with Vice President Dick Cheney casting the deciding vote.

The measure, the product of a year's labors by the White House and the GOP in Congress, imposes the first restraints in nearly a decade in federal benefit programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and student loans.

"This is the one vote you'll have this year to reduce the rate of growth of the federal government," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, in a final plea for passage.

But Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada countered that the GOP was advancing "an ideologically driven, extreme, radical budget. It caters to lobbyists and an elite group of ultraconservative ideologues here in Washington, all at the expense of middle class Americans," he said.

The roll call delivered less than the final victory Republicans had hoped for.

In maneuvering in advance of the final vote, Democrats succeeded in forcing minor changes.

That requires the House to vote on the bill before it can be sent to President Bush for his signature. Passage is all but certain, but the timing remains in question, since most House members have returned home for the holidays.

The vote came on the first of two major measures facing tests in the Senate during the day.

On the second, Republicans maneuvered to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Democrats opposed that measure with a filibuster, and Republicans scrambled for the 60 votes needed to prevail.

Republicans signaled earlier in the week they would need the vice president to be present for the final vote on deficit cuts, and he flew back early from an overseas diplomatic mission.

"The vice president votes in the affirmative," he said, speaking only a few words as dictated by Senate custom.

He wasn't the only one who made an unexpected trip back to Washington. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., flew back on Tuesday night. He has been recuperating at home from knee replacement surgery, and he made his way into the Senate with the aid of a walker.

    Senate approves deficit cuts, UT, 21.12.2005,
    http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-12-21-congress_x.htm

Senate passes spending cuts

after Cheney breaks tie

Wed Dec 21, 2005
10:39 AM ET
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Wednesday narrowly passed a bill to trim nearly $40 billion from federal spending over five years, including cuts to social welfare programs such as health care for the elderly and poor.

Vice President Dick Cheney, in his role as president of the Senate, broke a 50-50 tie when he voted in favor of the spending cuts.

The House of Representatives approved the measure on Monday. But during debate in the Senate, Democrats forced a minor change to the bill, requiring the House to act again, probably on Thursday.

    Senate passes spending cuts after Cheney breaks tie, R, 21.12.2005,
    http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=fundLaunches&storyID
    =2005-12-21T153911Z_01_SPI156234_RTRUKOC_0_US-CONGRESS-BUDGET-PASSAGE.xml

In Still-Busy Senate,

Showdown Is Today

December 21, 2005
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - Some are calling it Fristmastime on Capitol Hill.

Five days before the holiday, the Senate remains at work, poised for decisive votes Wednesday on major legislation. The results will determine whether the Congressional session ends on a triumphal note for Republicans, or whether Democrats will celebrate blocking Republican priorities like Arctic oil drilling and spending cuts.

"It is make it or break it," Senator Mel Martinez of Florida said Tuesday as he left a closed lunch where Republicans, led by the majority leader, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, had laid out strategy for the next 24 hours.

The last few days at the Capitol have been chaotic, with an exhausting all-night session in the House that ended just before sunrise Monday and then, after adjournment there, two days of bitterness in the Senate over process as well as policy.

The two parties have done battle over the fate of the USA Patriot Act, the broad antiterrorism law. Charges and countercharges are flying over the Bush administration's secret domestic surveillance program. Democrats continue attacking the Republicans for making what the minority deems draconian cuts in social programs.

The crucial votes now at hand deal not only with Arctic oil drilling and budget cuts but also with wartime military spending, Pentagon policy, and education and health care appropriations. Both parties have been marshaling their forces, making certain all senators will be on hand Wednesday. Democrats checked Tuesday on the status of Senators Jon Corzine, who is busy preparing to take office as governor of New Jersey, and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, who is recovering from knee surgery. Vice President Dick Cheney cut short a trip to South Asia and the Middle East so that he would be present if his vote was needed to break any ties.

Veteran legislators say that preholiday theater is not unusual and that Congressional leaders often use the calendar to try to enact measures that would never pass otherwise.

"I have been here 27 years, including, I think, two of those years on Christmas Eve," said Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia. "I actually observed fisticuffs between two of the most respected Republican senators ever to serve in this body on Christmas Eve."

As for Mr. Frist, he said he had no problem with working this close to the holiday.

"I used to be a surgeon," he said. "People got sick all the time on the 20th, the 21st."

But Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, declaring that the budget-cutting bill would damage programs for the poor, complained: "This is some Christmas present. We should go home for Christmas and not pass the legislation."

Republicans said that though Mr. Cheney's vote might be necessary, they were confident they could win final approval of that bill, which would save $39.7 billion over five years. They were less certain about the outcome of what could become a complex procedural challenge to their decision to include in a $453.3 billion Pentagon spending bill the provision for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Democrats and environmentalists said they were gaining ground in their efforts to block the provision, either by having it ruled out of order or through a filibuster against the bill.

One piece of legislation for which no votes are yet scheduled is the USA Patriot Act. Sixteen provisions of the law are set to expire at the end of the year, and an effort to extend them was blocked by a filibuster last week. Senate leaders traded accusations Tuesday over who would be held responsible if the provisions lapsed.

"The Patriot Act expires on Dec. 31, but the terrorist threat does not," Mr. Frist told reporters, echoing President Bush. "Those on the Senate floor who are filibustering the Patriot Act are killing the Patriot Act."

Democrats, who were joined by four Republicans in blocking the measure, say it is the majority that is at fault, for refusing to agree to a temporary extension while disputes over civil liberties safeguards are worked out.

Republicans acknowledged that the final days of the session had been messy, but said that if the votes on the remaining legislation came out in their favor, they would be able to claim success for the party agenda.

Republican leaders also say they might have been able to finish earlier had they not lost considerable time in September dealing with Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. But the approach of a holiday break is often an occasion for legislative action, as the time pressure builds and lawmakers relent on some fights.

Richard A. Baker, the Senate historian, recalled that in 1982, exasperated senators of both parties joined just two days before Christmas to shut off a filibuster by a handful of conservatives against an increase in the federal gasoline tax.

After the lopsided vote, Senator George J. Mitchell, Democrat of Maine, recalled for his colleagues Cromwell's exhortation to Parliament in 1653: "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing; in the name of God, go."

    In Still-Busy Senate, Showdown Is Today, NYT, 21.12.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/21/politics/21cong.html

Antiterrorism law may expire;

Congress debates

Tue Dec 20, 2005
7:48 PM ET
Reuters
By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Republican leaders on Tuesday appeared ready to let key provisions of a U.S. antiterrorism law expire and blamed Democrats who have blocked a renewal in a bid for more civil-liberties safeguards.

If these provisions of the USA Patriot Act expire on December 31, as scheduled, the Republican-led Senate could take another crack at renewing them as soon as Congress begins a new year in January, aides said.

Democrats, who are using a procedural maneuver known as a filibuster to block renewal, have proposed a three-month extension to provide time to resolve differences. But the White House and Republican congressional leaders have rejected such a move.

"Those on the Senate floor who are filibustering the Patriot Act are killing the Patriot Act," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican.

The act is a centerpiece of U.S. President George W. Bush's war on terrorism. Debate over renewing the provisions has escalated with revelations last week that Bush authorized spying without warrants on Americans suspected of having ties to terrorists.

Provisions up for renewal include ones involving wiretaps, access to business records and information-sharing by law enforcement and intelligence authorities.

The House of Representatives last week voted to renew the provisions, but that bill has been blocked in the Republican-led Senate.

Republican leaders have turned down a temporary extension, saying the proposed renewal would make improvements in civil liberties. Critics say the improvements are insufficient.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said, "The president says he wants to fight the terrorists, but his political stunt with the Patriot Act suggests he's more interested in scoring political points."

"Extend it, don't end it," said Reid. He said a majority of the Senate would back a temporary extension if Republican leaders allowed a vote on it.

Republicans aides noted that a majority of the Senate backs final congressional approval of the House-approved renewal.

A bid to end the procedural roadblock and move to passage of the measure fell eight votes short of the needed 60 in the 100-member Senate last week, with a few Republicans joining most Democrats in opposing it.

Frist said, "I've made it very clear where I stand. I'm opposed to opposed to (temporary) extensions."

"Why leadership on the other side would celebrate killing the Patriot Act, I don't understand it," Frist said.

    Antiterrorism law may expire; Congress debates, R, 20.12.2005,
    http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=
    2005-12-21T004818Z_01_KRA102363_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-PATRIOT.xml

Lawmakers Prepare for Showdown

Over Arctic Oil Drilling Provision

December 20, 2005
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE
and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - With tensions rising in the Capitol, Senate Democrats threatened on Monday to derail a $453 billion military spending bill over an Arctic oil drilling dispute, just hours after the House approved the measure in an all-night session that also included passage of a $40 billion budget-cutting bill.

Anticipating a Democratic-led effort against the military bill, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, took procedural steps on Monday to cut off debate on the measure, setting the stage for a decisive vote Wednesday on the legislation.

Frustrated Democrats predicted they could round up the votes to stall the Pentagon measure even if it put them in the awkward position of blocking money for American military operations. They called on Republicans to drop the language allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

"I don't have any hesitation to be part of a filibuster," said Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, who is a military hawk and a longtime foe of the Arctic drilling plan. "This is a tough fight," he added. "But it is a fight worth waging."

The standoff over oil drilling came as Congress tried to wrap up its business for the year, but significant issues were far from settled. In addition to the Pentagon bill snarled in the oil fight, Senate Democrats and Republicans remained at loggerheads over the USA Patriot Act, the broad antiterror law containing major provisions that were set to expire Dec. 31 without Senate action. The Senate has yet to vote on a $142.5 billion measure paying for health, education and employment programs. And Democrats are threatening to stall a series of nominations that Senate Republicans had hoped to see approved before the end of the year.

While the Senate began debating the budget-cutting plan Monday, both parties were also focusing on the procedural end-game.

The House approved the measure shortly after 5 a.m. Monday by a vote of 308 to 106 after the drilling provision was added Sunday afternoon at the insistence of its longtime champion, Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska. Mr. Stevens, 82, has fought to open the refuge to oil exploration since the 1950's, when he was a lawyer in the Interior Department under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He sees the military spending measure as his best shot.

The bill also contains a $29 billion hurricane recovery package and $3.8 billion to prepare for a potential avian flu pandemic. It also institutes a 1 percent across-the-board cut on the current federal budget, reducing spending by about $8.5 billion. Veterans programs were exempted.

Upset with the oil drilling initiative and other add-ons, Democrats accused Mr. Stevens of twisting Senate rules to hijack the military bill to advance an unrelated pet cause, a charge he angrily denied in a lengthy speech on the Senate floor Monday.

"We've done it because of the sincere belief that production of oil domestically has a great deal to do with our national security," he said. "Our national defense cannot operate without the basic potential for our own production of oil."

The fight over Arctic drilling had earlier threatened to kill the budget bill until Congressional Republican leaders agreed to take out the language and tack it onto the Pentagon measure. That move cleared the way for the House to narrowly approve the budget cuts, by a vote of 212 to 206, just after 6 a.m. Monday. Nine Republicans joined 196 Democrats and one independent in opposing the bill backed solely by Republicans.

The final five-year savings in the measure, achieved through a combination of revenue increases and spending reductions, were put at $39.7 billion, about $10 billion less than House conservatives had sought. An initial budget agreement announced Sunday afternoon had put the total at nearly $42 billion, but last-minute concessions made to secure votes lowered the final total.

As bleary-eyed lawmakers streamed out of the Capitol just before the sun rose Monday, Republican leaders hailed the budget vote as a victory that demonstrated they could rein in federal spending.

"This budget is the product of months of hard work, and on balance, I believe it is a positive first step in restoring fiscal responsibility on behalf of all Americans, from students and families to workers and retirees," said Representative John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio and chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee.

But Democrats and outside advocacy groups said the combination of the across-the-board cut, the future spending reductions required in the budget plan, and the cuts pending in the health and education bill would severely squeeze health and social programs for children, the elderly and the poor and would touch nearly every federal program.

While a plan to reduce spending on food stamps was blocked, the budget bill does reduce federal spending on child support enforcement. Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, senior Democrat on the health and education panel, said it also took $12.7 billion from student loans.

"Republicans are good at the rhetoric and making it look like they want to help our neediest citizens," Mr. Kennedy said. "But when it comes to putting their money where their mouth is, they fall short, very short, and it's our nation's poor that have to pay."

In another predawn vote, the House approved and sent to the Senate a broad military policy measure that, like the military spending bill, includes a provision by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, that would ban cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of military prisoners in American custody, establishing the Army Field Manual as the uniform standard for the interrogation of prisoners.

White House opposition to the McCain language had held up the military policy bill for weeks, but last week, President Bush reversed course and accepted the provision.

The bill also includes a provision sponsored by Senators Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, that restricts the rights of detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Mr. Graham has said the measure's intention is to make it possible to use information obtained by interrogation techniques that he describes as coercive but not abusive when military panels evaluate whether the detainees are being rightfully held as "enemy combatants."

On the antiterror law, both sides appeared dug in. Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he had talked to his Democratic counterpart, Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, over the weekend to try to reach a compromise. But by Monday, with House members having left the capital, Mr. Specter said he saw little chance for a resolution.

The Pentagon, along with health and education programs covered under the second pending spending measure, are operating under a stop-gap bill that will expire Dec. 31. Should efforts to enact the two bills collapse, lawmakers would have to approve another temporary bill or money for those agencies would run out at the end of the year.

    Lawmakers Prepare for Showdown Over Arctic Oil Drilling Provision, NYT, 20.12.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/national/20cong.html

Senate takes up Alaska drilling

Mon Dec 19, 2005 10:43 AM ET
Reuters
By Richard Cowan and Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hours after the U.S. House of Representatives agreed to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, the Senate was set to begin debating on Monday whether the issue belonged in a must-pass spending bill for the Defense Department.

Senate Democrats and moderate Republicans have long opposed giving oil companies access to the refuge, an area the size of South Carolina that sprawls along Alaska's northern coast. ANWR is home to a variety of wildlife such as migratory birds, caribou and polar bears.

Before dawn on Monday, the House approved drilling when it voted 308-106 in favor of a defense spending bill that contained the ANWR drilling language.

Giving oil companies access to the refuge's estimated 10 billion barrels of crude oil is a key part of the Bush administration's national energy plan to increase U.S. petroleum supplies and cut America's oil imports.

Rep. Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, noted that majorities in the House and Senate have voted in favor of ANWR drilling only to be "frustrated" by Democrats who used procedural tactics to block Senate passage.

The initiative could be debated by the Senate as early as Monday, where it will face stiff opposition from some Democrats and possibly some moderate Republicans.

"The defense bill should be about delivering equipment and support to our troops. Instead, it is being used to deliver a multibillion bonanza to oil companies," said Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.

Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, said including ANWR in funding for the Pentagon violated Senate rules that say a spending bill can include only germane items.

"These tactics reflect poorly on this body and this leadership," Feingold said. "Funding for our brave men and women in uniform should not be jeopardized by opening ANWR to drilling."

The administration believes ANWR could eventually pump 1 million barrels a day. However, drilling opponents say raising vehicle fuel standards for new cars, minivans and sport utility vehicles could save the same amount of oil.

About 1.5 million acres of the refuge's coastal plain would be opened to drilling under the current congressional plan.

Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska pushed to get the drilling plan included in the annual defense budget because it was the only major bill moving through the Congress that ANWR could hitch a ride on.

"Oil is related to national security. This is an amendment to pursue domestic production of oil," Stevens said. "The largest consumer of oil in the United States is the Department of Defense."

His state would get half the estimated $10 billion in bids that energy companies would pay for the right to drill in ANWR if oil prices were around $50 a barrel, according to government estimates. The federal government would receive the other half.

The Defense Department spending bill includes about $453.3 billion in funding for U.S. military troops in Iraq and around the world, pay increases for soldiers, and weapons building.

Democrats planned to challenge the inclusion of the ANWR language to the bill, saying it was added by negotiators and did not appear in the original versions of the House and Senate defense spending bills.

If Congress opened ANWR to drilling, the refuge's oil would not flow into market for 10 years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Once the refuge reached peak production in 2025, its oil would shave about 2 percentage points off the share oil imports would have in meeting domestic demand, the EIA said. That would moderate U.S. oil imports to a forecast 58 percent of total demand in 2025, equal to current import levels.

Senate takes up Alaska drilling, R, 19.12.2005,
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=
2005-12-19T154338Z_01_FLE937851_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENERGY-CONGRESS.xml

Congressional Leaders Agree

to $42 Billion in Budget Cuts

December 19, 2005
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 - Meeting in a marathon weekend session, Congressional leaders reached agreement Sunday on a nearly $42 billion budget-cutting plan that Republicans hoped to force through before adjourning, along with a military spending measure that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Congressional negotiators also put the finishing touches on a $29 billion hurricane recovery package for the Gulf Coast and a $3.8 billion proposal to prepare for a potential flu pandemic and added them to the Pentagon spending bill.

House Republicans dropped their effort to add campaign finance changes to a second military policy measure, clearing the way for passage of that bill, which establishes new rules for the treatment of terror detainees and provides the armed forces with a pay raise and new health benefits.

The agreement between the House and Senate on the $41.6 billion, five-year combination of spending cuts and revenue increases put Republicans on the brink of a significant political victory after struggling for months to reach a deal sought by conservatives as a way to demonstrate a new willingness to control federal spending.

"This bill is a good first step towards addressing the long-term spending challenges in the federal budget," Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said. "I am proud that House Republicans have put in the long hours and hard work necessary to make this happen."

Negotiators softened the impact of some provisions that had drawn objections from Republican moderates, including cuts in food stamps. But the plan reduces spending on Medicare by $8 billion and Medicaid by nearly $5 billion, and wrings savings out of several other programs like agriculture and student loans.

Democrats said the cuts were unfair and meant little for the deficit because Republicans were trying to advance next year nearly $100 billion in tax cuts that would more than erase any savings. "This entire exercise imposes sacrifice from Americans least able to afford it in an attempt to camouflage far larger Republican tax breaks for the wealthy," said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa.

The budget agreement came only after the proposal to allow drilling in the Arctic was stripped from the measure and added to the military bill. But passage of the budget cuts in the House, which planned to meet into the early morning hours, was not assured because some Republicans who had balked at the Arctic drilling plan were threatening to oppose the budget legislation to protest the decision to incorporate drilling into the must-pass military bill.

That move also infuriated Democrats and other drilling opponents, raising the prospect that the military spending bill would face a filibuster and other obstacles in the Senate. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, accused Republicans on Sunday of ignoring Senate rules to enhance the chances for approval of the drilling initiative that was a long-standing goal of Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska.

"This is a dark day in the history of the American constitutional form of government," said Mr. Reid, who threatened to slow the Senate over the next few days and block any votes on nominations as Republicans try to wrap up the session before Christmas.

Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, disputed the notion that Republicans were subverting the rules, though he said a specific provision in the military bill would declare that any new precedent created by including the drilling plan would not alter the rules for future legislation. He said it was acceptable to include the drilling in a Pentagon measure because the Senate had endorsed the oil exploration in earlier votes as a way to increase domestic oil production.

The senior lawmakers putting together the military spending bill agreed Sunday to add the drilling plan at the insistence of Mr. Stevens, who has been relentless in his effort to enact the plan this year. In trying to round up votes, Mr. Stevens added language that would direct billions of dollars from the sale of drilling rights to Gulf Coast recovery. Separately, $10 billion from the sale of rights to analog broadcast spectrum freed up by a switch to digital would be parceled out for hurricane relief, domestic security, home heating aid and other areas.

One of the last items added to the military spending bill was a provision sought by Mr. Frist that would shield drug makers from lawsuits related to vaccines that protect against biological agents or viruses like the one that causes the avian flu. The language would allow lawsuits against vaccine makers only if they engaged in "willful misconduct." The government would pay medical expenses and benefits to those injured or killed by vaccines.

Mr. Frist contends that the provision is necessary to encourage drug companies to make vaccines. But it is likely to draw criticism, with some arguing that it would be a windfall for those companies.

The second Pentagon policy measure for military pay raises and new health benefits had been stalled by a fight over the effort by House Republicans to use it to enact new campaign spending restrictions that Democrats believed would hurt their fund-raising efforts more than those of Republicans.

But Republican authors of the measure in both chambers encouraged the House leadership to relent in its push for the campaign finance changes to allow the otherwise popular bill to be approved. Like the military spending bill, it incorporates the newly negotiated agreement on banning torture of terror detainees and lays out the legal rights of those held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It would have been the first time in 40 years that a Pentagon policy measure had not been approved, and Democrats assailed Republicans for threatening to hold it up.

Despite the bickering on Capitol Hill, some legislation was moving through. On Saturday, the House sent President Bush a measure promoting the creation of banks to store umbilical cord blood, which yields stem cells that are useful in treating blood and bone marrow disorders.

Congress also approved legislation extending terrorism risk insurance and gave final approval to a measure providing new money for programs to curb violence against women. Lawmakers also approved a Justice Department measure that would require an annual report from the attorney general on the legal status of all people detained on suspicion of terrorism.

A huge spending measure for health, labor and education programs had yet to clear the Senate. It and the military spending bill were the final annual appropriations measures awaiting passage, and the federal programs they cover were running under a newly passed stopgap bill that would expire Dec. 31.

Republicans said the overtime wind-up was extraordinary, but they attributed the crunch to the extra work that had been forced upon Congress by the hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast at the end of the summer.

"It all went out the window when you get hit by a Category 5, another Category 5 and another Category 4," said Representative Adam H. Putnam, Republican of Florida. "Unusual factors have impacted this unusual year."

    Congressional Leaders Agree to $42 Billion in Budget Cuts, NYT, 19.12.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/19/politics/19cong.html


 

In Congress, a Lobbyist's Legal Troubles Turn His Generosity Into a Burden

NYT        19.12.2005        http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/19/politics/19lobby.html

In Congress,

a Lobbyist's Legal Troubles

Turn His Generosity Into a Burden

December 19, 2005
The New York Times
By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 - The announcement by two senators last week that they would return $217,000 in contributions linked to the indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff has produced calls for other members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, to follow suit or risk being tainted by the money in next year's elections.

Mr. Abramoff, a major Republican Party fund-raiser who is the focus of a federal corruption investigation in Washington involving gifts to lawmakers, was long among the most generous lobbyists in the capital in directing political contributions to lawmakers who could help his clients.

The money, most of it from Mr. Abramoff's Indian tribe clients and their lucrative casino operations, was eagerly accepted by members of Congress until this year.

But no more. Political strategists working for likely challengers in several 2006 Congressional races have said they intend to publicize the donations, arguing for the ouster of incumbents tied to Mr. Abramoff and his clients.

In announcing last week that they would return money from Mr. Abramoff's clients and his lobbying partners, Senators Conrad Burns, Republican of Montana, and Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, made clear that they were trying to distance themselves from accusations that they had done favors for Mr. Abramoff in exchange for the donations.

Mr. Burns, who is facing a difficult re-election fight next year in part because of news coverage back home about his links to Mr. Abramoff, called for other lawmakers to return donations from the lobbyist, who is also under indictment in Florida on unrelated fraud charges. "This is an important step that all public officials should take in order to renew the faith" of voters, he said.

Senator Dorgan, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said he was returning $67,000.

"I think a lot of voters are beginning to recognize the name Jack Abramoff," said Harry Mitchell, chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party. Mr. Mitchell said in an interview that the disclosures had given the party a clear opportunity to unseat at least one of the state's Republican House members, Representative J. D. Hayworth of Scottsdale.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a research group in Washington that monitors the influence of money in politics, Mr. Hayworth was the largest single Congressional recipient of donations from Mr. Abramoff and his family, his associates, his Indian tribe clients and a gambling cruise ship line that he owned, with more than $101,000 going to Mr. Hayworth and his political action committee since 1999. Mr. Hayworth was also a frequent guest in sports skyboxes controlled by Mr. Abramoff and his clients, and at Signatures, a Washington restaurant owned by the lobbyist.

Mr. Mitchell said Mr. Hayworth needed to return donations linked to Mr. Abramoff if he wanted to prove that he was not involved in "all the corruption that's been going on in Washington." In the meantime, Mr. Mitchell said, the party was looking for a strong candidate to challenge Mr. Hayworth in a race that, he said, would now focus in large part on the incumbent's ties to Mr. Abramoff.

Mr. Hayworth's chief of staff, Joe Eule, said in a statement that he did not take Mr. Mitchell's threats seriously and that the congressman had no intention of returning the money.

He said that Mr. Hayworth, co-chairman of the House Native American Caucus, "has been a hero to tribes nationwide" and that it was not surprising that "tribes, including a few formerly affiliated with Mr. Abramoff, have been generous in supporting Mr. Hayworth's political efforts."

The research by the Center for Responsive Politics shows that of the top 25 Congressional recipients of political money linked to Mr. Abramoff, 19 are Republicans and 6 are Democrats. The second largest recipient was listed as House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, with $69,000 in donations.

The Democrats include, tied at No. 16, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, his party's Senate leader, who received a total of $30,500. Asked if Mr. Reid was considering whether to return the money, his office said in a statement that he was "reviewing the circumstances of the donations."

The top Democrat on the list, who at No. 8 took in $42,500, is Representative Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, which determines how the federal budget is divided. Sean Richardson, a spokesman for the lawmaker, said that Mr. Kennedy was a founder of the Native American Caucus, that he had a "direct personal relationship with tribes" and that "none of it has anything to do with Jack Abramoff."

Only days before Mr. Burns announced last week that he would return $150,000 in contributions linked to Mr. Abramoff and his partners, his office had insisted that the donations were proper and had already been spent. "There's nothing to return," his spokesman, James Pendleton, said at the time.

The Center for Responsive Politics, which did not include donations from Mr. Abramoff's lobbying partners in its calculations, found that since 1999 Mr. Burns received $49,590 from Mr. Abramoff's Indian tribe clients.

Mr. Burns is widely seen as one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents in next year's Senate elections; a recent poll by Montana State University showed him with an approval rating of less than 50 percent. News reports in Montana have documented how he took a series of actions favorable to Mr. Abramoff's clients around the time he received large campaign contributions linked to the lobbyist.

Insisting that his actions were never tied to donations, Mr. Burns wrote to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales last month, asking that his ties to Mr. Abramoff be reviewed quickly by the Justice Department so he could be cleared of wrongdoing before next year's election.

"I welcome your thorough and expeditious review of this matter so that it may be disposed of officially once and for all and these outrageous and wrongful allegations may be put to rest before we get into the 2006 re-election cycle," Mr. Burns wrote.

    In Congress, a Lobbyist's Legal Troubles Turn His Generosity Into a Burden,
    NYT, 19.12.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/19/politics/19lobby.html

Lawmakers Back

Use of Evidence Coerced From Detainees

December 17, 2005
The New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT
    and TIM GOLDEN

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 - House and Senate negotiators agreed Friday to a measure that would enable the government to keep prisoners at Guantánamo Bay indefinitely on the basis of evidence obtained by coercive interrogations.

The provision, which has been a subject of extensive bargaining with the Bush administration, could allow evidence that would not be permitted in civilian courts to be admissable in deciding whether to hold detainees at the American military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. In recent days, the Congressional negotiators quietly eliminated an explicit ban on the use of such material in an earlier version of the legislation.

The measure is contained in the same military policy bill that includes Senator John McCain's provision to ban the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in American custody worldwide. Mr. Bush reluctantly embraced Mr. McCain's ban on Thursday. The full House is expected to approve the compromise bill soon, with the Senate to follow in the next few days, Congressional officials said.

The juxtaposition of the seemingly contradictory measures immediately led lawyers for Guantánamo prisoners to assert that Congressional Republicans were helping to preserve the utility of coercive interrogations that senior White House officials have argued are vital to the fight against war against terror.

While the measure would allow the Guantánamo prisoners to challenge in federal court their status as enemy combatants and to appeal automatically any convictions and sentences handed down by military tribunals in excess of 10 years, it would still prevent the detainees from asking civilian courts to intervene with the administration over harsh treatment or prison conditions.

Thomas B. Wilner, a lawyer who represents a group of Kuwaiti detainees at Guantánamo Bay, said in an interview that the new language would render the McCain restrictions unenforceable at the Cuban prison. "If McCain is one small step forward, enactment of this language would be two giant steps backwards," Mr. Wilner said.

Two of the main Senate sponsors of the measure, Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, defended the changes made to the language that the Senate passed last month, 84 to 14.

Mr. Graham acknowledged the measure's intention to make it possible to use information obtained by coercive interrogation techniques in military panels that evaluate whether detainees at Guantánamo are being rightfully held as "enemy combatants." He argued that the techniques were not abusive.

He also said that under his measure, the panels would weigh the value of the intelligence gained from an interrogation against a judgment on whether the statement was coerced. He said in a telephone interview with reporters that the amendment would promote "a balanced approach." A similar rule now applies in the military commissions that have been established to prosecute terror suspects at Guantánamo.

Human rights advocates criticized Mr. Levin, the chief Senate Democratic negotiator, for agreeing to restrict further the legal rights of Guantánamo detainees. Mr. Levin suggested that he had settled for the less damaging of two bad outcomes, saying he had deflected more onerous provisions that House Republicans wanted, including a demand that interrogators who abused prisoners be granted immunity from prosecution. Mr. Levin added in a telephone interview, "I don't think courts will allow coerced evidence in any proceeding."

The Bush administration has repeatedly considered - and rejected - explicitly prohibiting the use of evidence obtained by torture in the military commissions. Most recently, the issue was a major part of a lengthy internal debate over new rules for the tribunals that were promulgated on Aug. 31 in response to longstanding criticism in the United States and overseas that the tribunals are unfair.

Several officials familiar with the internal discussions said State Department officials and some senior Defense Department aides had strongly advocated an explicit ban on the use of evidence obtained by torture in a series of interagency discussions that began last December.

At one point in that process, the Pentagon official in charge of the tribunals, Maj. Gen. John D. Altenburg Jr., who is now retired, proposed barring any "confession or admission that was procured from the accused by torture," according to parts of a draft document read to a reporter. The rule defined torture as any act "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain and suffering."

The ban was also championed by the counselor of the State Department, Philip D. Zelikow, two officials said. The deputy defense secretary, Gordon R. England, also supported the ban in meetings on the revised commission rules, as did some senior military officers, said a spokesman for Mr. England, Capt. Kevin Wensing.

But such a prohibition was opposed by other officials involved in the debate, including David S. Addington, who was then Vice President Dick Cheney's counsel and is now his chief of staff. A spokesman for the vice president said Mr. Addington would have no comment on his reported role in the policy debates.

Since the drafting of the presidential order that established the commissions on Nov. 13, 2001, White House officials have sought to give the commissions wide latitude to consider evidence that would be inadmissible in civilian courts.

Mr. Addington, who was a primary architect of the presidential order, argued in the debates earlier this year that by explicitly prohibiting evidence obtained by torture, the administration would raise an unnecessary red flag. suggesting at least implicitly that prisoners in American custody were, in fact, being tortured, officials said.

Justice Department officials involved in the debates contended that such a prohibition was not necessary because the matter was already covered by the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, a treaty adopted by the United Nations more than two decades ago and ratified by the United States in 1994.

    Lawmakers Back Use of Evidence Coerced From Detainees,
    NYT, 17.12.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/17/politics/17detain.html

Senators Thwart Bush Bid

to Renew Law on Terrorism

December 17, 2005
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
and ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 - The Senate on Friday blocked reauthorization of the broad antiterrorism bill known as the USA Patriot Act, pushing Congress into a game of brinksmanship with President Bush, who has said the nation will be left vulnerable to attack if the measure is not quickly renewed.

With many Democrats and some Republicans saying the bill does not go far enough in protecting civil liberties, the Republican leadership fell short of the 60 votes required to break a filibuster. Now the future of the law, which greatly expanded the government's surveillance and investigative powers in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, is in doubt.

The debate, a passionate fight about the balance between national security and personal privacy, became a touchstone for repercussions after the disclosure on Thursday night that Mr. Bush had secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for terrorist activity.

On Friday afternoon, after the report in The New York Times and the fallout it engendered, Vice President Dick Cheney made a hurried trip to the Capitol to defend the domestic spying program against charges that it might be illegal, while Mr. Bush said he "would do everything in my power to protect the country, within the law," from another terrorist attack.

Disclosure of the eavesdropping prompted immediate calls from some lawmakers for an end to the program and for Congressional and possible criminal investigations into its operations. One senator, Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said the new information had prompted him to support the filibuster against extending the antiterrorism law.

"I went to bed undecided," Mr. Schumer said on the Senate floor, "but today's revelation that the government has listened in on thousands of phone conversations is shocking and has greatly influenced my vote."

Opponents of the extension say they are concerned that the law would allow the government too much latitude in obtaining personal information, like library and medical records and business transactions, and in conducting secret searches.

The vote, 52 to 47, with four Republicans joining all but two Democrats to back the filibuster, capped a particularly trying week for Mr. Bush. He has been buffeted by criticism, including from within his own party, over his policies on terrorism, the war in Iraq and the detention and treatment of military prisoners.

On Wednesday, Senate Democrats and Republicans agreed on a measure to require the director of national intelligence to provide regular, detailed updates about secret detention sites maintained by the United States overseas. On Thursday, after weeks of resisting Senator John McCain's effort to pass a measure banning cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners in American custody, Mr. Bush reversed course and embraced the plan.

The proposed renewal of the antiterrorism law had already been teetering under the weight of increased concerns about civil liberties.

Sixteen major provisions are set to expire at the end of December, and Congress hopes to adjourn in a few days. The bill's opponents had pushed for a three-month extension of the law to allow for more negotiations, but the White House and Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, rebuffed their request.

"The terrorists want to attack America again and kill the innocent and inflict even greater damage than they did on Sept. 11 - and the Congress has a responsibility not to take away this vital tool that law enforcement and intelligence officials have used to protect the American people," Mr. Bush said in a statement after the vote against ending debate. "The senators who are filibustering the Patriot Act must stop their delaying tactics so that we are not without this critical law for even a single moment."

Some Republicans as well as Democrats voiced concern about the disclosure that Mr. Bush had authorized the eavesdropping, without warrants, on the international phone calls and e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people within the United States, despite longstanding legal and policy restrictions on such domestic wiretaps.

A government official said Mr. Bush took a hands-on role in the oversight of the program, reviewing it every 45 to 60 days and renewing the original executive order more than three dozen times. The official said that close oversight reflected a determination by the White House to monitor the program closely.

Officials spoke about the program on condition of anonymity because it was classified.

A series of legal opinions within the Bush administration have supported the president's authority to conduct such warrantless searches, citing the authority that Congress gave him after the Sept. 11 attacks to deter Al Qaeda, officials involved in the operation said. But concerns about the program's use and the complexities of the legal rationale behind it prompted the administration to suspend it for a time in 2004 and impose new restrictions to better safeguard against abuse of civil liberties, the officials said.

Officials who were briefed on Mr. Cheney's closed-door meetings with House and Senate leaders on Friday declined to discuss them in detail because they took place in a classified setting. But they said Mr. Cheney, whose office helped lead the creation of the eavesdropping program, offered a vigorous defense of its legality and usefulness.

The lawmakers Mr. Cheney met with, Democrats and Republicans, had been briefed on the program previously, and the vice president focused less on explaining the program than on discussing the impact of the disclosure, one official said.

Mr. Bush was asked about the program on the PBS program "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," but he would not confirm its existence.

"We do not discuss ongoing intelligence operations to protect the country," he said. "And the reason why is that there's an enemy that lurks, that would like to know exactly what we're trying to do to stop them."

But Mr. Bush added: "I will make this point. That whatever I do to protect the American people, and I have an obligation to do so, that we will uphold the law, and decisions made are made understanding we have an obligation to protect the civil liberties of the American people."

"I told the American people I would do everything in my power to protect the country, within the law, and that's exactly how I conduct my presidency," he said.

The president suggested that the disclosure was not as big an issue as the news media and policy makers were making it out to be.

"It's not the main story of the day," Mr. Bush said. "The main story of the day is the Iraqi election."

But leading members of Congress from both parties made clear that they considered the eavesdropping program to be a major issue, raising what they described as troubling questions about the president's use of his authority to combat terrorism.

Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who leads the Judiciary Committee, promised full oversight hearings into the program, saying, "There is no doubt that this is inappropriate."

Mr. Specter said the hearings would "take precedence over every other item that that committee has scheduled," except for the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court, and he added that he intended to call N.S.A. officials and the attorney general as witnesses.

Mr. Specter and other lawmakers from both parties questioned the legality of Mr. Bush's executive order.

"The law prohibits this type of electronic surveillance," Mr. Specter said, "and there are a lot of basic questions that need to be answered about how this program was authorized and used."

"I want to know precisely what they did," he said. "How N.S.A. utilized their technical equipment; whose conversations they overheard; how many conversations they overheard; what they did with the material; what purported justification there was - and I use the word 'purported' to emphasize - and we will go from there."

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, denounced the program as "Big Brother run amok," while Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said the disclosure "ought to send a chill down the spine of every American and every senator."

"You want to talk about abuses?" Mr. Feingold asked. "I can't imagine a more shocking example of an abuse of power, to eavesdrop on American citizens without first getting a court order based on some evidence that they are possibly criminals, terrorists or spies."

Some lawmakers called for an immediate end to the program. Among them was Senator Chuck Hagel, a moderate Republican from Nebraska who sits on the Intelligence Committee and voted to block extension of the antiterrorism law.

"This is a very serious issue, a very serious story," Mr. Hagel told reporters. "If, in fact, this is true, then it needs to stop. It's very clear in the law that the National Security Agency is prohibited from domestic spying, from spying on citizens of the United States unless there are extenuating circumstances. But we need some answers to this."

Mr. Specter said the report had been "very, very problemsome, if not devastating," to his effort to reauthorize the antiterrorism law.

But opponents of the extension said that, with support building for the filibuster all week, the outcome would probably have been the same.

"This was the will of the Senate," said Senator John E. Sununu, Republican of New Hampshire, who led the opposition among Republicans.

The two Democrats who broke ranks to oppose the filibuster were Senators Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Ever since the adoption of the antiterrorism law, critics have said it failed to strike the proper balance between protecting national security and personal privacy. The measure that was blocked in the Senate on Friday was the product of intense negotiations with the House, which passed it earlier this week. It would make 14 of the 16 major provisions permanent and would extend three others for four years. It would also add new safeguards, including some provisions for judicial oversight.

But Mr. Sununu and other opponents, including Senators Larry E. Craig of Idaho and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, both Republicans, said those safeguards did not go far enough.

It is now up to the White House and Mr. Frist to decide whether to negotiate or let the 16 provisions lapse.

Publicly, Mr. Frist insisted he would do neither. He took the tactical step on Friday of switching his vote at the last minute to side with the backers of the filibuster, a maneuver that allows him to bring the measure up for consideration again. After the vote, he said he would do so.

In holding fast, Mr. Frist and other Republicans may be calculating that Democrats would suffer at the polls for rejecting extension of the antiterrorism law, just as, the Republicans argued, they suffered in 2002 for defeating legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security.

But the chief Democratic opponent of the antiterrorism law, Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, said the votes would not change.

James Risen contributed reporting for this article.

    Senators Thwart Bush Bid to Renew Law on Terrorism, NYT, 17.12.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/17/politics/17patriot.html

US House,

Senate OK Katrina bill,

casinos get break

Fri Dec 16, 2005 8:24 PM ET
Reuters
By David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives approved a revised $8 billion tax incentive package to help rebuild the hurricane-devastated Gulf Coast on Friday after resolving differences over tax breaks for casinos and affordable housing.

The measure provides a variety of tax subsidies aimed at jump-starting reconstruction in the federally declared Gulf Opportunity Zone disaster area, in parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, including $14.8 billion in tax-exempt bond financing.

"By significantly lowering the cost of capital for small, medium, and large businesses alike, the provisions in this legislation will spur business investment on the Gulf Coast, increase the supply of affordable housing, and put dislocated employees back to work," said Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott.

Lott, a Republican who lost a home to the storm, brokered a deal with House leaders that allows casino owners to tap into $2 billion in investment subisidies for new facilities except gaming equipment and gaming room construction.

They will be able to claim a first-year bonus depreciation deduction for 50 percent of the cost of rebuilding main buildings, hotel facilities, restaurants and entertainment venues.

The measure extends the benefit to businesses investing in the Gulf Opportunity Zone for structures built before the end of 2008 and equipment bought before the end of 2007. Small businesses get additional expensing allowances.

An earlier House version of the bill denied tax benefits to casinos, massage parlors and certain other businesses, but Louisiana and Mississippi lawmakers argued the casino exclusion discriminated against the Gulf Coast's largest employers, which provide some 50,000 jobs.

The measure, which will cost the U.S. Treasury over $8 billion in foregone tax revenues over 10 years, was passed by unanimous consent by both bodies and sent to President George W. Bush for signature.

Treasury Secretary John Snow applauded the measure, saying it "will be an important part of the recovery."

The measure authorizes tax-exempt bonds to finance reconstruction of homes and businesses, with $7.9 billion in issuance for Louisiana, $4.8 billion for Mississippi and $2.1 billion for Alabama.

The plan is similar to the $8 billion New York Liberty bond program enacted to help rebuild lower Manhattan in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The bill will also allow municipalities to restructure their debts by allowing bond issuers one additional advance refunding before January 1, 2011. These are capped at $4.5 billion for Louisiana, $2.25 billion for Mississippi and $1.125 billion for Alabama, and the measure also provides $350 million in financing to help communities meet their debt payments.

The measure also follows the House bill's more generous $1 billion subsidy to encourage construction of low-income housing in the Gulf Opportunity Zone, estimated to provide some 12,000 new housing units.

The bill also creates an additional $1 billion worth of "new markets" tax credits for businesses investing in low-income communities lacking access to capital.

    US House, Senate OK Katrina bill, casinos get break, R, 16.12.2005,
    http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=
    2005-12-17T012425Z_01_SIB666010_RTRUKOC_0_US-HURRICANES-SUBSIDIES.xml

Senate Panel Probes New Orleans Levees

December 15, 2005
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:44 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal engineers trying to stop New Orleans flooding were unsure who was in charge of fixing the levees amid the confusion of Hurricane Katrina, according to interviews with congressional investigators released Thursday by a Senate panel.

In a Nov. 15 interview with investigators, Army Corps of Engineers Col. Richard P. Wagenaar recounted an instance after Katrina hit when federal workers attempted to fill in the breached London Avenue canal and were told to stop.

That led to a discussion of ''who is in charge?'' Wagenaar said.

''I mean, where's the parish president? Where is the mayor? And then the state, well they work for DOTD,'' Wagenaar said in the interview, referring to the Louisiana's Department of Transportation and Development.

''At some point, you know, you've got to make some stuff happen. Because this was a bad situation,'' he said.

At Thursday's hearing by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, lawmakers questioned whether officials at all levels of government -- federal, state, and local -- should share in some blame.

''All of you didn't do the job that you were supposed to be doing,'' said Sen. George V. Voinovich, R-Ohio.

The interviews, combined with Thursday's testimony, indicate vast confusion about who was ultimately responsible for the levees.

Regulations show that the Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for building levees and conducting annual inspections, and the state is charged with training and overseeing New Orleans levee district officials.

The Orleans Levee District, headed by a board of politically appointed commissioners, is responsible for day-to-day maintenance and repair of levees -- usually by staff engineers. An Aug. 16 work order released by the Senate panel, for example, shows that inspection crews did check the levees but also cut nearby grass and green space.

The former president of the commission described a lax -- if festive -- inspection process by its appointed members.

''You have commissioners,'' former president James P. Huey told investigators in a Nov. 29 interview. ''They have some news cameras following you around, and all of this stuff. And you have your little beignets, and then you have -- you go do the tourist and that and you have a nice lunch somewhere or whatever. They have this stop-off thing or whatever. And that's what the inspections are about.''

Asked about other levee inspections that might be more thorough, Huey told investigators: ''When you say inspections -- and I don't really know and I couldn't even answer to tell you -- how do you inspect levees other than if you see seepage?''

Huey resigned from the board in October amid questions about no-bid contracts to his relatives in the days after the Aug. 29 storm.

The Senate hearing came as a House panel considered whether to subpoena the White House to get documents detailing the government's response to Katrina. The chairman of the panel, Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., asked lawmakers to wait until after a private briefing Thursday at the White House before deciding whether to go ahead with a subpoena.

Davis issued a subpoena Wednesday to the Pentagon to get internal communications about the military's response to the storm from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and eight of his top deputies.

Pentagon spokesman Army Maj. Paul Swiergosz said the panel's requests for information have been ''very far-reaching and very broad, and we're doing everything we can to answer them as quickly as we can.''

''We're going to provide the documents as fast as we can,'' Swiergosz said. ''No one has been dragging their feet on these things.''

The House committee, which plans to issue its findings Feb. 15, requested hundreds of thousands of documents more than two months ago from the administration and Gulf Coast state and local officials.

    Senate Panel Probes New Orleans Levees, NYT, 15.12.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Katrina-Congress.html

William Proxmire,

Senator Who Abhored Waste,

Dies

December 15, 2005
The New York Times
By RICHARD SEVERO

William Proxmire of Wisconsin, the longtime gadfly of the United States Senate who thrived on exposing frivolous federal spending and dispensed Golden Fleece Awards to spotlight what he considered bad uses of taxpayers' money, died today at a nursing home in Sykesville, Md. He was 90 and had remained a resident of the Washington metropolitan area after he announced in 1987 that he would not seek re-election, ending a colorful Senate career of 31 years.

Mr. Proxmire, who was also remembered for his championing of regimens of daily exercise (in his prime, he jogged nearly 10 miles a day) and spartan diet, learned he had Alzheimer's disease in 1995 and made it public three years later. A man who was proud of his keen intellect, it was a disease he feared and perhaps had a premonition about: in 1987 The Chicago Tribune reported that shortly before he retired, a full eight years before he received his diagnosis, he asked the Senate doctor what his odds were of living to the age of 80 without getting Alzheimer's disease, which is a degenerative disorder of the brain .The disease did not run in his family but he was worried about it. He said more than once that he did not want to be a senator if his intellect was for any reason diminished. He thought he could see the infirmities of old age on the horizon when he said he would not run again.

Mr. Proxmire, a Democrat, was first elected in 1957 to fill the unexpired term of the late Joseph R. McCarthy, the Republican who was censured for reckless attacks on those he accused of being communists or fellow travelers. McCarthy's successor could not have provided more of a contrast.

Senator Proxmire was fervid in his opposition to unnecessary spending. His Golden Fleece of the Month Award, in which he identified some "ridiculous" government outlay, became "as much a part of the Senate as quorum calls and filibusters," Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia once observed.

A Golden Fleece was awarded, for example, to the National Science Foundation in 1975 for spending $84,000 to determine why people fell in love. Mr. Proxmire said that such study was better left to "poets and mystics, to Irving Berlin, to thousands of high school and college bull sessions, Dear Abby, Ann Landers ... "

Another Golden Fleece went to the National Institute for Mental Health, which spent $97,000 to study, among other things, the doings in a Peruvian brothel. The researchers said they had made repeated visits to the seraglio in the interests of accuracy, interviewing scarlet women "formally and informally.," They later infuriated some government officials by informing them they couldn't have a free copy of the book the taxpayers had paid for, that they'd have to buy it to find out what was seen and said.

The Federal Aviation Administration also felt Mr. Proxmire's wrath for spending $57,800 on a study of the physical measurements of 432 airline stewardesses, paying special attention to the "length of the buttocks" and how their knees were arranged when they were seated. Other Fleece recipients were the Law Enforcement Administration, for spending $27,000 to determine why prisoners wanted to get out of jail, and the Pentagon, for a $3,000 study that sought to determine if people in the military should carry umbrellas during rainshowers.

Over the years that the award was given, Senator Proxmire provided steady material for reporters and headline writers and made the nation laugh.

But he counted among his most significant accomplishments the government's 1986 approval of an international treaty outlawing genocide, for which he had delivered more than 3,000 speeches in the Senate over a 19-year period and which President Ronald Reagan finally signed into law in 1988. It took 40 years for the United States to join 97 other countries in a treaty outlawing genocide and it would not have done so were it not for Mr. Proxmire's tenacity. For two decades he would deliver a speech in favor of the treaty every morning the Senate was in session.

He also was credited with helping to block federal financing for the SST supersonic transport plane in 1970; in that battle, Mr. Proxmire bested the Nixon administration, Boeing, and his fellow Democratic senators Henry Jackson and Warren Magnuson, who desperately wanted the SST to create jobs in their home state of Washington.

He was tireless in pursuit of laws requiring lenders and credit card companies to disclose true lending rates and legislation enabling consumers to determine their credit ratings. He led forays against the practice by banks of "redlining" neighborhoods.

As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, he pushed for repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, a landmark piece of New Deal legislation that, through strict regulation, sought to wipe out corrupt self-dealing in the financial system by separating banking from the brokerage business.

His penny-pinching was the bane of defense contractors, social scientists and fellow senators, whose raises and hefty campaign funds he opposed. Conservatives regarded him as a loose cannon at times; Norman C. Miller, writing in The Wall Street Journal in 1967, said Mr. Proxmire had led "fiery fights for hopeless causes." But not everything he did pleased the liberals, either; some of his fellow Democrats thought he was a self-centered grandstander. His reputation as a maverick was well earned.

In 1982, a convention of feminists booed him because he had voted against liberalizing abortion rights. Democrats were also upset when he voted to approve the conservative William H. Rehnquist as chief justice of the United States.

His Wisconsin constituents were not always pleased with him either, even though they kept voting for him. He just did not bring home the bacon the way other senators did. On one occasion, the people of LaFarge wanted some federal money to improve a lake. Congress was more than willing but Senator Proxmire shot it down, calling it a waste. The lake became a mud hole and someone in LaFarge put up a sign calling it "Lake Proxmire."

And the senator had a bittersweet relationship with New York. After he was named chairman of the powerful Senate Banking Committee in 1975, he worked assiduously to get Washington to approve a $2.3 federal loan guarantee to bail out New York City, which in 1977 seemed surely headed for bankruptcy.

Mr. Proxmire argued that the aspect of the nation's greatest city going belly up would have a ripple effect across the country and serve to introduce uncertainty into the municipal bond market, with the result that cities all over the United States would probably have to pay higher interest rates on the bonds they issued, no matter what their financial health. This, in turn, would result in higher taxes for ordinary Americans, something Mr. Proxmire opposed vigorously.

Having helped to save New York, Mr. Proxmire then publicly criticized it for its profligacy and excoriated the City Council for seeking a 50 percent pay raise. He also said that municipal workers made too much money and that their pensions and welfare benefits were too cushy. He added that the politicians presiding over such a mess seemed rather silly to continue free tuition at the City University. For such criticism The Daily News called him "Senator Scrooge" in a large headline. Mr. Proxmire minded that not a jot; he showed up at his staff's Christmas party that year wearing a "Senator Scrooge" name tag.

Edward William Proxmire was born Nov. 11, 1915, in Lake Forest, Ill., the son of Dr. Theodore Proxmire, a prominent physician and steadfast Republican, and his wife, the former Adele Flanigan. He had an older brother and a younger sister, both long ago deceased. When young Edward was about 6 years old, he saw a movie starring William S. Hart, the legendary cowboy of the silent screen. He was so taken with Mr. Hart's independent, loner kind of heroism that he insisted from that day on that he be called William, not Edward.

The family was well to do, and he was sent to the Hill School in Pottstown, Pa. There he was referred to as "the biggest grind" and "the biggest sponger." After his graduation in 1934, he went to Yale, where he became an English major.

He graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1938 and immediately enrolled at Harvard, where he became a teaching fellow and got a master's degree in business administration. He then went to New York, where he got an entry level job with J.P. Morgan. When the United States entered World War II, he enlisted in the Army as a private; assigned to counterintelligence work, he was discharged in 1946 as a first lieutenant. He returned to Harvard and in 1948 got a second master's degree - this one in public administration - and tried to figure what he wanted to do with his life.

In 1949, Mr. Proxmire became a reporter for The Capital Times in Madison, Wis. They fired me after I'd been there seven months, for labor activities and impertinence," he once said, conceding that his dismissal was merited.

He moved on and briefly worked for a union newspaper where he found it not difficult at all to characterize certain individuals as "no friend of labor." He also briefly had a weekly radio show called "Labor Sounds Off," which was sponsored by the American Federation of Labor.

In 1950, he ran for the Wisconsin State Assembly and won, defeating a six-term incumbent in the Democratic primary and trouncing his Republican opponent in the general election. Mr. Proxmire found that he loved campaigning - meeting people, pressing the flesh, hearing what they had to say and telling them what his own vision was.

He then decided he wanted to be Wisconsin's governor and ran three times unsuccessfully; twice against Walter J. Kohler, an incumbent Republican, and once against another Republican, Vernon Thompson. When he ran for the Senate seat left vacant by the death of Joe McCarthy, his opponent was Walter J. Kohler again. But this time, Mr. Proxmire won. The next year, when he ran for a full term, he easily defeated his Republican challenger, Ronald J. Steinle.

From the beginning of his service in Washington, found himself frequently at odds not just with Republicans but with members of his own party. He had early clashes with Lyndon B. Johnson, the Senate majority leader, because he thought Mr. Johnson was inclined to excessive compromise on civil rights legislation. He also did not like Mr. Johnson's support of the oil depletion allowance, which he regarded as a windfall for the petroleum industry.

Nor did Mr. Proxmire approve of President John F. Kennedy's nomination of John B. Connally as secretary of the Navy. The senator filibustered for 19 hours in an effort to prevent Mr. Kennedy's appointment of Lawrence J. O'Connor to the Federal Power Commission.

He always supported the notion of a strong military but after 1975, when he started issuing his Golden Fleece Awards, various nodes of the military establishment were frequent recipients of this honor.

For example, he gave a Fleece award to the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation after he learned that they jointly spent around $500,000 to determine why rats, monkeys and people clenched their teeth when they got angry or upset. He gave another award to the Department of Defense for spending $100,000 to send brass to an Army-Navy game that was held on the West Coast.

But he also went after the National Endowment for the Humanities after it made a $2,500 grant to researchers in Virginia, who wanted to know why people were unruly and ill-mannered and why so many of them lied and cheated when they played tennis. He gave a Fleece to the Department of Agriculture, which spent $46,000 to calculate the precise time Americans spent cooking their breakfast eggs (it discouraged Agriculture from doing proposed studies on lunch and dinner).

In 1980, his "The Fleecing of America" was published by Houghton Mifflin and in it, Senator Proxmire conceded that some researchers thought he had been unfair and simplistic and needlessly hurtful. He acknowledged that academics, in particular, were needlessly stung when he highlighted certain research projects that were not easily understood. One scientist in Michigan who had been ridiculed by the senator for studying jaw-clenching monkeys sued him for libel in 1979 and there was an out-of-court settlement. In 1980, the senator reimbursed the Treasury for some of the money the Senate had paid out in its unsuccessful defense of the lawsuit.

Mr. Proxmire did not like it when a Cornell professor gave him the "Earth Is Flat Award." The professor noted that when Columbus left Spain, he had no firm evidence that North America existed. The professor suggested that had Senator Proxmire been working for King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Europeans might still be wondering if there was a New World.

Mr. Proxmire also believed he would be cheating his constituents if he was not present in Washington attending to business so he set records in his time for Senate attendance and consecutive roll-call votes. His most-votes record, set when he cast his 12,134th vote on April 27, 1990, was broken by Senator Byrd.

His aversion to spending money extended to himself. Throughout his career, he wore inexpensive suits of the type worn by new employees who start work in the mailroom. They bore the label of "Robert Hall."

Mr. Proxmire also paid for his own plane rides when he went home to Wisconsin, which was often. He refused to spend any significant money to win re-election. 'I think fully two-thirds of the senators could get re-elected without spending a penny," he declared. He financed his own campaigns. Usually his campaign budget was well under $200 and some of that money went for postage to return money his constituents had donated to him.

His pronouncements did not stop him from being lobbied. Sometimes, the lobbyists would show up at his home in the Cleveland Park section of Northwest Washington and tried to jog with him as he ran the 4.9 miles to work at the Capitol every morning (after doing between 100 and 200 pushups). He jogged better than eight miles an hour and most lobbyists - victims of too many butterfat-and-martini luncheons - could not keep up with him.

Senator Proxmire was twice married. His first marriage to Elsie B. Rockefeller, a great-grandniece of John D. Rockefeller, ended in divorce in 1955. The following year he married Ellen Hodges Sawall, a former executive secretary of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. For years, even after he became ill, Mr. Proxmire was a great promoter of smiling. He was very conscious of the way he looked. He had a series of hair transplants, which the Washington press corps knew about and wrote about. He also had a face lift, which, it seems, almost nobody knew about. He even wrote a book explaining his outlook on exercise and life style called "You Can Do It: Senator Proxmire's Exercise, Diet and Relaxation Plan," which was published in 1973.

In retirement, he had a little office in the Library of Congress next to the La Follette Reading Room. He especially liked the location, since Robert La Follette had been Wisconsin's great progressive Senator and was one of Mr. Proxmire's heroes. He would jog there, too, just as he had to the Capitol. But there came a time when he began to fall. And he noticed that he could not remember anything he had read.

"I can't remember what I've read," he told a reporter. "Sometimes I can't remember where I am." But he added, "Regardless of what happens to you, get a smile on your face and keep it there."

    William Proxmire, Senator Who Abhored Waste, Dies, 15.12.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/national/15cnd-proxmire.html

Oversight

Senate Is Set

to Require Details on Secret Prisons

December 15, 2005
The New York Times
By DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 - The Senate is poised to approve a measure that would require the Bush administration to provide Congress with its most specific and extensive accounting about the secret prison system established by the Central Intelligence Agency to house terrorism suspects.

The measure includes amendments that would require the director of national intelligence to provide regular, detailed updates about secret detention facilities maintained by the United States overseas, and to account for the treatment and condition of each prisoner. The facilities, established after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, are thought to hold two dozen to three dozen terrorism suspects, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is said to be the mastermind of the attacks.

An agreement reached Wednesday between Democrats and Republicans called for the measure to be approved by unanimous consent, but it was unclear on Wednesday night when a final vote might occur.

While the C.I.A. has provided limited briefings to members of Congress about the detention facilities, the information has generally been shared with only a handful of Congressional leaders, who are prohibited from discussing the information with their colleagues. The Senate measure would widen that circle considerably, by requiring the director of national intelligence to provide reports each 90 days to the House and Senate intelligence committees. Among other things, the reports would be required to address the size, location and cost of each detention facility; "the health and welfare" of each prisoner there, and whether the treatment of those prisoners had been humane.

The new Senate measure, part of a bill authorizing intelligence spending, is separate from an amendment by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, that is still being debated as part of a military spending bill. Both reflect a widening sense of unease in Congress about the treatment of prisoners captured and held by the United States as part of what the administration calls its war on terrorism. The McCain amendment would prohibit the cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners in American custody anywhere in the world, including at secret facilities run by the C.I.A.

The Bush administration has never officially acknowledged that secret detention facilities exist, but the basic facts surrounding them have been described by current and former government officials. The location of the prisons in particular remains a carefully guarded secret, though the European Union is seeking information to confirm a report by The Washington Post last month that said that at least two were in Eastern Europe.

In a bow to that nuance, the Senate bill uses the phrase "if any" to describe the secret prisons and specifies that the reports about them remain classified, to minimize the prospect of public disclosure.

Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the top Republican on the Senate intelligence panel, agreed to include the amendments in a measure that was to be presented to the Senate for unanimous approval, Congressional officials said.

The new reporting requirement is not in a version of the intelligence bill that has been approved by the House, so the amendments to the Senate measure would have to be endorsed by a House-Senate conference committee, and then win final passage from the House and Senate before they could become law.

Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said she would seek to persuade the conference committee to approve the new requirement. "There is more information that should legitimately come to the full intelligence committee," Ms. Harman said in an interview.

No senator has publicly objected to the amendments, which were introduced by the two Senate Democrats from Massachusetts, Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry. Another measure included in the bill, also introduced by Mr. Kennedy, would require the White House to provide classified intelligence documents on Iraq that have until now been withheld from Congress.

    Senate Is Set to Require Details on Secret Prisons, NYT, 15.12.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/politics/15intel.html

Negotiators Say

Differences Over Ban on Abuse Remain

December 12, 2005
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE
    and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 - The Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, predicted on Sunday that Congress and the Bush administration would reach agreement this week over a proposal to ban torture of terror detainees, but lawmakers engaged in the negotiations said major differences remained.

With Congress trying to finish its work for the year, Mr. Frist, Republican of Tennessee, said in a television interview that he expected the dispute over language banning "cruel, inhumane and degrading" treatment of prisoners would be resolved, clearing the way for approval of two stalled Pentagon measures.

"I think an agreement will be reached and we will come to some understanding, which will allow us, in ways consistent with our values, that is legal, to get the appropriate information to protect us," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

But other lawmakers and Congressional officials, appearing on television and in separate interviews, said that the White House and the members of Congress who insist on the language remained far apart.

"We're not close to a deal," said Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who has been working on the issue with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, on the NBC program "Meet the Press."

One Senate official, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the negotiations, said the two sides remained at a virtual standstill. "It's very, very hard to predict what will happen," the official said.

Mr. McCain, a former prisoner of war who wrote the antitorture provision, expressed a similar view in an interview broadcast Saturday on CBS News. "We still have a difference," he said, "the same one we had from the beginning: whether people have immunity automatically for anything that they may have done, and unfortunately we have not made progress."

The Senate has twice approved Mr. McCain's measure, which would make the Army field manual the standard for interrogations by all American personnel, and ban the use of cruel and degrading treatment. The House has not addressed these provisions.

The White House originally threatened to veto both the military spending bill and the military budget bill if they contained the McCain language. But administration officials have since backed off that threat in light of strong support for Mr. McCain's measure in both chambers.

The sticking point in talks between Mr. McCain and Stephen J. Hadley, President Bush's national security adviser, hinges on narrow language the White House is seeking that could make it harder to prosecute intelligence officers charged with violating torture standards.

Mr. McCain is balking at agreeing to any exemption for intelligence officials, members of his staff say. Instead, he has offered to include some language, modeled after military standards, under which a soldier can provide a defense if a "reasonable" person could have concluded that he was following a lawful order about how to treat prisoners.

Mr. McCain and Mr. Hadley spoke again by telephone on Saturday, said Frederick Jones, a White House spokesman, who offered no details. "We're still in discussions with all the parties," Mr. Jones said Sunday.

Mr. Graham indicated that he and others would be reluctant to agree to a broad exemption to the antiterror provision. "If we start allowing American political figures to waive the law, grant immunity or create exemptions from existing law that the international community has signed up to, what stops the next country from doing the same thing to our own people?" he asked on NBC.

The dispute over the provision had tied up the Pentagon spending bill, usually one of the first approved by Congress each year, but Congressional leaders are determined to pass that measure before adjourning as early as the end of the week. It was also added to a separate Senate bill on Pentagon budget and policy, which also includes provisions on the legal rights of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as well as a call by the Senate for the Iraqi government to become much more responsible for its own security in 2006.

On Sunday, Senate negotiators on the budget and policy measure sent the House an offer in an effort to resolve their differences with a hope of completing their work on Monday. John Ullyot, a spokesman for Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said tentative plans called for the House to vote on the bill on Wednesday followed by the Senate on Thursday.

    Negotiators Say Differences Over Ban on Abuse Remain, NYT, 12.12.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/12/politics/12abuse.html



 

Senator Eugene McCarthy talks to campaign workers

at his Bedford, N.H., campaign headquarters on March 12, 1968.

Associated Press        December 10, 2005

NYT        11.12.2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/national/11mccarthy.html

Former Minnesota Senator Eugene J. McCarthy in Washington in 1996.

Paul Hosefros/The New York Times        December 10, 2005

Eugene J. McCarthy, Senate Dove Who Jolted '68 Race, Dies at 89

NYT        11.12.2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/national/11mccarthy.html

Eugene J. McCarthy,

Senate Dove Who Jolted '68 Race,

Dies at 89

December 11, 2005
The New York Times
By FRANCIS X. CLINES

Eugene J. McCarthy, the sardonic Senate dove who stunned the nation by upending President Lyndon B. Johnson's re-election drive amid the Vietnam War turmoil of 1968, died early yesterday. He was 89.

A courtly, sharp-witted presence in capital politics for half a century, Mr. McCarthy, a Minnesota Democrat, died in his sleep at an assisted-living home in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, where he had lived for the last several years.

His son, Michael B. McCarthy, said the cause was complications of Parkinson's disease.

Eugene McCarthy left his mark in a generation's skepticism toward war and the willfulness of political leaders.

"There is only one thing to do - take it to the country!" Senator McCarthy angrily declared in a Capitol corridor 15 months before the 1968 election, after hearing the Johnson administration make its case for the legality of the war.

Mr. McCarthy, a man of needling wit, triggered one of the most tumultuous years in American political history. With the war taking scores of thousands of American and Vietnamese lives, he rallied throngs against this "costly exercise in futility" and stoked a fiery national debate over the World War II model of an all-powerful presidency. He challenged Johnson in a primary, and the president, facing almost certain defeat, ended up withdrawing from the race.

Mr. McCarthy was a disarming presence on the stump as he mixed a wry tone and a hard, existential edge in challenging the White House, the Pentagon and the superpower swagger of modern politicians.

An acid-tongued campaigner, Mr. McCarthy was sometimes a puzzlement, veering from inspired speechifying to moody languishing. But he was the singular candidate of the Vietnam War protest, serving up politics and poetry, theology and baseball in a blend that entranced the "Clean for Gene" legions who flocked to his insurgent's call.

"We do not need presidents who are bigger than the country, but rather ones who speak for it and support it," he told them. His supporters were delighted by what they saw as his candor, yet some were troubled by the diffidence that marked his public persona.

"I'm kind of an accidental instrument, really," he said, "through which I hope that the judgment and the will of this nation can be expressed."

A Self-Styled Outcast

Typically, he only frustrated his followers when he allowed that he was at least "willing" to be president and, yes, might even be an "adequate" one. Questions arose about his passion on the campaign as he built a reputation as an unapologetic contrarian.

In his 1968 challenge and for decades thereafter, Mr. McCarthy played the self-outcast of the Democratic Party, even shunning Jimmy Carter to endorse Ronald Reagan, the Republican candidate for president in 1980. He was a chronic presidential campaigner, running in 1972, 1976 and 1988, 18 years gone from the Senate. He endorsed trade protectionism, the strategic defense initiative advocated by Reagan that was often referred to as Star Wars and, most passionately, the junking of the two-party establishment whose rules he came to despise.

"It's much easier for me to understand politicians who don't walk away from it," he said when, at age 71, he once more knew he could not win but ran anyway, hectoring the latest Beltway incumbents.

Mr. McCarthy stayed busy writing poetry and books about the decline of American politics, and kept his eye on Washington from his farmhouse in bucolic Rappahannock County, Va., 70 miles to the west, on 14 acres set amid the Blue Ridge Mountains.

"I think he has a rejection wish," Maurice Rosenblatt, a Washington lobbyist who was a longtime friend, once said of the senator's perplexing mix of quixotic impulse and lethal hesitancy. "He wants to reject others and be rejected by them."

But others, conceding his quirks, rated Mr. McCarthy the one stand-up, cant-free politician of their generation. "Besides his conscience, there is his civility," Joe Flaherty wrote in the antiwar heyday of The Village Voice.

Mr. McCarthy delighted in commenting obliquely on politics and himself by reciting poetry on the hustings. His more zealous volunteers yearned for clarion calls, not pentameter. But this was not the style of a man steeped in the Thomistic tangents of his training as a Roman Catholic college professor.

Standing a lean 6-foot-4, gray-haired and dryly smiling, the candidate McCarthy gave a memorable rendering of Yeats ("An Irish Airman Foresees His Death") in suggesting why he ran:


Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds.


As a speaker, Mr. McCarthy was an original but hardly stem-winding presence. "Usually the cheers were greater when he came in than when he finished speaking," noted the poet Robert Lowell, who frequently traveled with the candidate.

Mr. McCarthy, once a semiprofessional baseball player, liked to burnish a kind of knuckleball oddness. In one of his own later poems, "Lament for an Aging Politician," he wrote:


I have left Act I, for involution
And Act II. There, mired in complexity
I cannot write Act III.


He identified simplistic partisanship as the ultimate enemy in the domestic strife over the Vietnam War. Invoking Whitman's call to human goodness - "Arouse! for you must justify me" - candidate McCarthy's basic message to Americans was Daniel Webster's dictum to never "give up to party what was meant for mankind."

A Soft-Spoken Campaigner

As crowds rallied to him, he promised no new deals or frontiers. Rather, he slowed his baritone for a plain definition of patriotism: "To serve one's country not in submission but to serve it in truth."

He showed more passion as contrarian than as dogged campaigner. At the 1960 Democratic National Convention, Senator McCarthy showed that speaker's fire so longed for by his later followers when he boldly nominated Adlai E. Stevenson, a twice-defeated presidential candidate, one more time despite - or because of - John F. Kennedy's lock on the nomination.

"Do not reject this man who made us all proud to be Democrats," rang Mr. McCarthy's electrifying loser's plea.

In Congress, Mr. McCarthy was an unabashed liberal unafraid to take on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin and his alarmist warnings about the Communist menace. More often, as he restlessly paced the backs of committee rooms or brought a tome to read during hearings, Eugene McCarthy was viewed by peers as something of a ruminator and a curmudgeon.

Yet he was the one who dared to step forward and bell the White House cat when other Democrats would only complain. Grasping the unpopularity of the deepening war, he sought to make a party issue of it, announcing his primary candidacy against President Johnson, a fellow Democrat, in the hope of building pressure for a policy change.

"There comes a time when an honorable man simply has to raise the flag," declared the senator, a onetime novice monk whose political role model was Sir Thomas More, the English statesman martyred in resisting Henry VIII's seizure of church power.

Mocked by Johnson loyalists as a mere "footnote in history," Mr. McCarthy prevailed well enough in his time to observe, after driving Johnson into retreat, "I think we can say with Churchill, 'But what a footnote!' "

Senator McCarthy's challenge was intended to prod, more than destroy, the president. But in unnerving Johnson in office, he shook Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York from his irresolution about challenging the president. The critical moment came in the New Hampshire primary of March 1968, when Mr. McCarthy beat the pundits' predictions and won 42 percent of the vote. Johnson, despite his incumbent's grip, could score only 49 percent.

Within days, Senator Kennedy entered the race, embittering McCarthy supporters, not to mention their champion. Two weeks later, Johnson pre-empted greater popular rejection and astonished the nation by suddenly announcing in a postscript to a televised speech that he would not seek re-election and would devote his energies to ending the war.

The Chicago Convention

The year's tumult continued. Kennedy was assassinated in June in California as he edged out the McCarthy forces in a key round of the antiwar competition. The Democrats staggered to their convention in Chicago, where civic mayhem erupted.

The party machine forced the nomination of Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey to face Richard M. Nixon, over the objections of war protesters, including draft-ripe college students. Many demonstrators were beaten in the streets by the Chicago police of Mayor Richard J. Daley, a party stalwart.

"I can still smell the tear gas in the Hilton Hotel," Mr. McCarthy said in an interview nearly 30 years later. "I said before the vote we were not going to win, and there was no point in having the student delegations in the streets thinking we could."

"The party hasn't recovered from Chicago; sort of its integrity was lost," he contended in his ninth decade, saying that modern issues of importance were being sidestepped as candidates ran to the drumbeat of the focus group for the office of "Governor of the United States."

Robert Kennedy's brother, Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, said in a statement yesterday: "Gene's name will forever be linked with our family. In spite of the rivalry with Bobby in the 1968 campaign, I admired Gene enormously for his courage in challenging a war America never should have fought. His life speaks volumes to us today, as we face a similar critical time for our country."

Mr. McCarthy viewed himself as the classic "messenger who brought the bad news" to the party, never to be forgiven. He withheld his endorsement of Humphrey until a week before the 1968 election, using the intervening time to demand antiwar concessions, but also, in a characteristic display of aloofness, to cover the World Series for Life magazine.

Baseball was his metaphor for politics and life. "We know Nixon's stuff," he said well before Nixon resigned in disgrace from the presidency. "He's got a slider. And he's thrown a spitter so many years he's got seniority rights on it."

Eugene Joseph McCarthy, of Irish-German descent, was born March 29, 1916, in Watkins, Minn., the son of Michael J. and Anna Baden McCarthy. He graduated from St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn., in 1935 and then earned a master's degree in economics and sociology at the University of Minnesota. He taught social science in Minnesota high schools for several years, then economics and education at St. John's and sociology at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul.

The young McCarthy thought he might want to be a Benedictine monk, but he left the monastery after a nine-month novitiate trial. He later married a fellow teacher, Abigail Quigley. They had four children. Soon after the 1968 campaign, the McCarthys separated after 24 years of marriage. They never divorced.

In addition to Michael McCarthy, of Seattle, Mr. McCarthy is survived by two daughters, Ellen A. McCarthy of Bethesda, Md., and Margaret A. McCarthy of Takoma Park, Md.; and six grandchildren. He is also survived by a brother, Austin McCarthy of Wilmer, Minn.; and a sister, Marian Enright of Walnut Creek, Calif. A daughter, Mary A. McCarthy, died in 1990, Michael McCarthy said.

Public Figure, Private Man

Mr. McCarthy remained active until the last few months. In January, he published a 173-page paperback collection of essays and poems, "Parting Shots From My Brittle Bow: Reflections on American Politics and Life."

Stirred to politics by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, Mr. McCarthy was elected to the House of Representatives in 1948 and served five terms before being elected to the Senate, where he served 12 years.

In the 1968 campaign, Mr. McCarthy was the sort of candidate who could accept with equanimity a critic's charge that he ran "against the powers of the presidency."

In manner, he was faulted for arrogance; in strategy, for not broadening his antiwar constituency with stronger ties to blacks and the working poor, as Robert Kennedy did. The McCarthy civil rights record was considered exemplary, yet when asked about the issue at a rally, he dismissively advised his questioner to look up his record.

"Record, hell! Tell us what you feel!" the citizen shot back at the candidate.

Although his image was warm and witty on television, Mr. McCarthy stepped back from playing the candidate who engaged by self-revelation. Abigail McCarthy, respected in her own career as a writer, once said, "The essential thing about Gene is that he's a private person, and in an all-confessional age, that's considered almost treachery."

The senator who defied his president and party was confessional in his reliance on Thomas More as "the first modern man, the first political man."

"He was forced to make a kind of individual and personal choice at a time when there was great upheaval," Mr. McCarthy noted with satisfaction as he tried to explain himself to a nation also in upheaval.

    Eugene J. McCarthy, Senate Dove Who Jolted '68 Race, Dies at 89,
    NYT, 11.12.2005
     http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/national/11mccarthy.html

Senate presses

for paring terrorism insurance

Thu Dec 8, 2005
6:48 PM ET
Reuters
By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With the clock ticking toward a December 31 deadline, U.S. Senate Republicans leaned on the House (of Representatives) on Thursday to accept their plan for renewing -- but cutting back -- a government backstop for terrorism insurance.

Aides to key senators declared there was not enough time left this year to negotiate on the two chambers' differences over the program, which the House wants to expand, but the Senate and the White House want to pare back.

But a House aide countered that there was plenty of time to talk. Industry lobbyists watched the sparring warily.

Called the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002, the program requires insurers to make terrorism insurance available and, in return, the U.S. government guarantees it will reimburse insurers for losses over certain thresholds, up to $100 billion a year.

It was originally enacted after the September 11, 2001 attacks, when insurers were reluctant to offer coverage, saying they could not judge the likelihood of another attack. The 2001 attacks caused some $30 billion in damage.

The insurance and real estate industries have been urging Congress to renew the measure before it expires at year's end, saying the nation's economic security depends on it.

The House on Wednesday passed a bill that would make additions to the terrorism insurance program as well as renew it. But the Senate bill passed last month seeks to minimize the program and its influence on private markets.

A spokesman for Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, sponsor of the Senate-passed bill, said there was not time for the usual House-Senate negotiations toward a deal.

"We don't believe there will be time to complete a conference (on the competing bills) this year," the spokesman, Andrew Gray, told Reuters. Shelby is an Alabama Republican.

It would be preferable for the House to accept the Senate-passed bill, Gray said. A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said he concurred with that assessment.

But Peggy Peterson, spokeswoman for House Financial Services Chairman Mike Oxley, said there was plenty of time for talks and noted the House had already named its negotiators.

She said the Senate should act, either to appoint negotiators, or to look again at the House bill. "The House has already spoken," she said.

Both the Senate and House bill attempt to reduce the program in part by raising the magnitude of losses that trigger federal aid from $5 million under the current program to $50 million in the first year of its extension and $100 million in the second year.

But the House bill, which the White House opposes, would expand the backstop to cover damages from attacks by domestic terrorists, such as the Oklahoma City bombing. The Senate bill only backs up losses by foreign perpetrators.

A spokeswoman for the American Insurance Association said the two chambers would have to find a way to reconcile their differences. "Time is short," Julie Rochman said. "We hope that even if there is no formal conference, there will be dialogue in order to get that done."

    Senate presses for paring terrorism insurance, R, 8.12.2005,
    http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2005-12-08T234831Z_01_KNE884761_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-TERRORISM-INSURANCE.xml

House, Senate reach deal on Patriot Act

Posted 12/8/2005 11:24 AM
Updated 12/8/2005 12:11 PM
USA Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — House and Senate negotiators reached an agreement Thursday to extend the USA Patriot Act, the government's premier anti-terrorism law, before its major provisions expire at the end of the month.
"All factors considered it's reasonably good, not perfect, but it's acceptable," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, as he announced the deal.

The agreement would extend for four years two of the Patriot Act's most controversial provisions — authorizing roving wiretaps and permitting secret warrants for books, records and other items from businesses, hospitals and organizations such as libraries. Those provisions would expire in four years unless Congress acts on them again.

Also extended for four years are standards for monitoring "lone wolf" terrorists who may be operating independent of a foreign agent or power. While not part of the Patriot Act, officials considered that along with the Patriot Act provisions.

The Republican-controlled House had been pushing for those provisions to stay in effect as long as a decade, but negotiators decided to go with the GOP-controlled Senate's suggestion.

Most of the Patriot Act becomes permanent under the reauthorization.

The ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, has not yet decided whether to support the agreement, a spokesman said. But the GOP-majority negotiating committee has enough votes to send the House and Senate the compromise if all of the Republican negotiators agree to it.

The Senate is expected to vote on the compromise next week, Specter said. That would give them enough time to deal with any filibuster threats before the Patriot Act provisions expire on Dec. 31.

Congress overwhelmingly passed the Patriot Act after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The law expanded the government's surveillance and prosecutorial powers against suspected terrorists, their associates and financiers.

The compromise also makes changes to national security letters, an investigative tool used by the FBI to compel businesses to turn over customer information without a court order or grand jury subpoena.

Under the agreement, the reauthorization specifies that an NSL can be reviewed by a court, and explicitly allows those who receive the letters to inform their lawyers about them.

The Bush administration contends that such consultation already is allowed, citing at least two court challenges to NSLs. However, in a letter obtained by the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act and posted on its website, the FBI prohibits the recipient "from disclosing to any person that the FBI has sought or obtained access to information or records under these provisions."

    House, Senate reach deal on Patriot Act, UT, 8.12.2005,
    http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-12-08-patriot-act_x.htm

Terri Schiavo's widower

takes aim at politicians

Wed Dec 7, 2005
9:47 PM ET
Reuters
By Jane Sutton

MIAMI (Reuters) - Terri Schiavo's widower launched a political action committee on Wednesday aimed at defeating elected officials he accused of exploiting a tragedy for political gain by trying to block court orders that allowed his brain-damaged wife to die.

Michael Schiavo said in a news release that the group, TerriPAC, would raise money to campaign against members of Congress, mostly Republicans, who drafted and voted for legislation to intervene in the case.

Among Republicans it is targeting are Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas.

Frist, a medical doctor who appeared to diagnose Terri Schiavo on the Senate floor based on a video clip on the Internet, has said he would not run for re-election in 2006 but many believe he might run for president in 2008.

"I was a lifelong Republican before Republicans pushed the power of government into my private family decisions," Schiavo said in a statement. "And it is not so simple to forget those politicians who shamelessly sought to squeeze political leverage out of my family's most emotional hour."

The Republican National Committee did not return calls seeking comment on Schiavo's effort.

Terri Schiavo, 41, suffered massive and irreversible brain damage during a cardiac arrest in 1990 and died on March 31 this year after a prolonged court battle between her husband and her parents, who wanted her to be kept alive.

The Florida courts granted Michael Schiavo's request to honor what he said were his wife's wishes and halt the tube-feeding that had kept her alive for 15 years.

The decision prompted a fevered public battle over the right to die and government jurisdiction in what the courts had traditionally treated as a family medical decision.

Urged on by conservative Christian supporters, the Republican-led U.S. Congress and President George W. Bush rushed back from vacation in March to enact last-ditch legislation giving the federal courts authority to intervene, which they declined to do.

Michael Schiavo, a nurse who now works at the Pinellas County Jail in Florida, on Wednesday described the Congressional intervention as "a sickening exercise in raw political power."

He teamed with the November Group, a campaign management company in Coral Gables, Florida, that generally works for Democrats, to launch his PAC and set up a Web site, www.TerriPac.org.

Political action committees are private but regulated bodies organized to promote or oppose candidates or legislation. Schiavo's PAC was first disclosed by the Web site Salon.com.

    Terri Schiavo's widower takes aim at politicians, R, 7.12.2005,
    http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=
    2005-12-08T024735Z_01_KNE802112_RTRUKOC_0_US-SCHIAVO.xml

Senate Summons Pentagon

to Explain Effort

to Plant News Stories

in Iraqi Media

December 2, 2005
The New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT
and DAVID S. CLOUD

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 - The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee summoned top Pentagon officials to a closed-door session on Capitol Hill on Friday to explain a reported secret military campaign in Iraq to plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news media. The White House also expressed deep concerns about the program.

Senior Pentagon officials said on Thursday that they had not yet received any explanation of the program from top generals in Iraq, including Gen. John P. Abizaid, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. and Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, the three most senior commanders for Iraqi operations.

After reports about the program circulated this week, General Casey initially protested that it should not be discussed publicly because it was classified.

One senior Pentagon official said, however, that General Casey was told that response was inadequate. The official asked for anonymity to avoid possible reprisals for disclosing the general's reaction.

At a briefing with reporters, the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, responded to a barrage of questions about the program, which military contractors and officials said also pays friendly Iraqi journalists with monthly stipends.

"We're very concerned about the reports," the White House spokesman said. "We have asked the Department of Defense for more information."

Under the program, the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations firm working in Iraq, was hired to translate articles written by American troops into Arabic and then, in many cases, give them to advertising agencies for placement in the Iraqi news media.

At a time when the State Department is paying contractors millions of dollars to promote professional and independent media, the military campaign appeared to defy the basic tenets of Western journalism.

Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee, said he had directed Pentagon aides to describe and justify the program on Friday in a closed briefing for senators and staff aides.

"I am concerned about any actions that may undermine the credibility of the United States as we help the Iraqi people stand up as a democracy," Mr. Warner said in a statement.

"A free and independent press is critical to the functioning of a democracy, and I am concerned about any actions which may erode the independence of the Iraqi media," the committee chairman's statement said.

Asked about the issue on Thursday, the top military spokesman in Baghdad appeared to defend the practice without referring specifically to the Lincoln Group's activities.

The spokesman, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, said that Iraq's most-wanted militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born head of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, was also using the news media to advance his terrorist goals.

But General Lynch said the similarities ended there because the American military was disseminating truthful information.

"He is conducting these kidnappings, these beheadings, these explosions, so that he gets international coverage to look like he has more capability than he truly has," General Lynch said. "He is lying to the Iraqi people."

General Lynch continued: "We don't lie. We don't need to lie. We do empower our operational commanders with the ability to inform the Iraqi public, but everything we do is based on fact, not based on fiction."

One Pentagon official said it was possible that the program began as an effort to buy space in Iraqi publications for articles identified as coming from the United States government and then evolved into something where the government and contractor roles were hidden.

"If the whole intent of this is really an effort to provide false information to the people of Iraq, then that's more of a problem," said the official, who added that officials could decide to refer to the matter to Defense Department inspector general.

The Lincoln Group, which includes some businessmen and former military officials, was hired last year after military officials concluded that the United States was failing to win over Muslim public opinion.

In Iraq, the effort is seen by some senior commanders as an essential complement to combat operations in the field.

Lincoln's media work for the Pentagon in Iraq included a multimillion dollar campaign to influence Sunni Arab voters in Anbar Province before the national referendum on the new Iraqi Constitution in October, according to military contractors and officials.

The campaign, the officials said, included television and radio spots that did not disclose their American sponsorship and the disbursement of more than $1 million in cash.

"It wouldn't be obvious it came from Americans," said one official, referring to the media messages.

Laurie Adler, a spokeswoman for Lincoln, confirmed the company worked for the military in western Iraq but refused to provide any details.

The company's most senior executive in Iraq is Paige Craig. His résumé, contained in Pentagon documents spelling out some of Lincoln's work, highlights his role in "designing and leading the development of numerous government and corporate intelligence projects."

It goes on to say "Paige Craig graduated first in class from the Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center in 1996."

The descriptions of the Lincoln Group's activities, first reported by The Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, have spurred debate in Washington about how the United States should promote free and independent news media in the Middle East and other parts of the world.

"The State Department is working with journalists in Iraq to help them develop the skills that you all have in terms of reporting and journalistic ethics and practices," the State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, told reporters on Thursday.

"That's important," the department spokesman said. "This is a country where free media didn't exist for decades, so they are learning. We think it's important to assist them in that."

But if the nascent Iraqi news media are perceived by ordinary Iraqis to be a tool of American interests, that effort will be ruined, some lawmakers said.

"How are people going to get information that's reliable?" said Senator Richard G. Lugar, an Indiana Republican who heads the Foreign Relations Committee. "Who can they trust? If you are a devout Shiite or Sunni, and you suspect that the press has been bought, why, then you wouldn't respect the press."

Jeff Gerth contributed reporting for this article.

    Senate Summons Pentagon to Explain Effort
    to Plant News Stories in Iraqi Media, NYT, 2.12.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/politics/02propaganda.html

Look Who's Talking

About Making a Comeback

in the Senate

November 27, 2005
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 - Trent Lott is talking again - and again and again and again.

It has been three years since White House officials and some Senate Republicans orchestrated Mr. Lott's ouster as Senate majority leader amid an uproar over racially insensitive remarks. Now, as he contemplates his future, Mr. Lott is tweaking the Republican elite at every turn and jangling the nerves of official Washington as never before.

As he ponders re-election next year, Mr. Lott, Republican of Mississippi, is also dropping hints about a possible bid for a return to the Senate leadership. Democrats are enjoying the show. Some Republicans are cringing, but others are eyeing Mr. Lott with some appreciation.

During an appearance last weekend at the University of Mississippi, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, predicted that Lott would become Republican leader again, adding, "I will tell anyone that of all the majority leaders we've had in the United States Senate, I believe that Trent Lott was the finest leader we've had."

Others say Mr. Lott seems liberated. "He's a free agent," said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas.

"A happy warrior," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, adding, "I think he kind of relishes being a bomb thrower right now."

He also relishes keeping people guessing. After spending more than half his life in Congress, Mr. Lott, 64, is coy about plans. Personally, the senator has had a difficult year; his mother died in July, and in August his home in Pascagoula was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Now, Mr. Lott, who says he feels an obligation to constituents who have lost as much or more than he has, is weighing whether to stay or leave for a more lucrative opportunity.

"It's difficult," he said, dashing between meetings in the Capitol on a recent afternoon. "I've been here a long time, 33 years, and I have to think that through."

Meanwhile, he is having a blast. "My outlook on life," he declared, "is whatever you do in life, do it with gusto and have fun. And I am."

So Mr. Lott is taking aim where he will. When Harriet E. Miers, the White House counsel, withdrew her nomination to the Supreme Court, Mr. Lott, who had been openly critical of Ms. Miers, was practically gleeful. "In a month," Mr. Lott said, in an interview on the Fox News Channel, "who will remember the name Harriet Miers?"

The senator has also thrown darts in the direction of Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser. With Mr. Bush's poll ratings dropping, Mr. Lott has said the White House might consider "bringing in some new people" - a jab at Mr. Rove, who helped engineer Mr. Lott's departure as Republican leader.

The current majority leader, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, also seems to be in Mr. Lott's sights. In his book, "Herding Cats: A Life in Politics," published in August, Mr. Lott wrote that he considered Mr. Frist's leadership bid in 2002 "a personal betrayal."

When Mr. Frist pushed for a Congressional inquiry to determine the source of a Washington Post article about secret prisons run by the C.I.A., Mr. Lott complicated matters by suggesting the leak may have come from a Republican.

Some wonder if Mr. Lott's recent barbs are a preretirement parting shot. Others say he remains deeply bruised from his fall in 2002 and is exacting payback. His close friends, who expect Mr. Lott to make a decision about his future by year's end, try to dismiss the notion of revenge.

"I wouldn't say it's revenge," said Robert L. Livingston, the Republican congressman from Louisiana who was due to become House speaker in 1998 but left Congress amid revelations of an extramarital affair. "But he has a long memory."

Mr. Lott's downfall as Republican leader stemmed from his comments at a 100th-birthday tribute to Strom Thurmond, the since-deceased Republican senator from South Carolina who in 1948 ran for president as a segregationist. Mississippi voted for Mr. Thurmond, and Mr. Lott said if the rest of the country had done so, "we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years."

Some thought Mr. Lott would quietly slink away, but instead he rebuilt his career as sort of a Republican Greek chorus. On any given Tuesday in the Capitol, when Republicans meet for their policy luncheons, Mr. Lott can be found afterward lingering in the corridors, surrounded by reporters eager for sharp sound bites from the former leader.

"He has to be in the soup," Mr. Livingston said, "and I think he's been frustrated over the last couple of years, not being in the position of leadership that he once was."

Though Mr. Frist, who is eyeing a White House bid, is set to leave the Senate at the end of 2006, Mr. Lott is unlikely to run for leader; that spot has already been sewn up by Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, the current whip.

Mr. Lott, who served as whip in both the House and the Senate, could run for the whip's job, particularly if Senator Rick Santorum, the Pennsylvania Republican who has designs on that spot, does not win re-election. Or he could run for some lesser post.

Mr. Lott would not talk about his plans, though in October, Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, quoted him as saying that he "probably would try to get back into a leadership position of some kind" if he stays in the Senate.

Whether he would be welcomed back by fellow Republicans is anyone's guess; when asked about Mr. Lott, most parse their words carefully, as did Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican from Alabama.

"Trent has a lot to offer," Mr. Sessions said, pausing to think for a moment, "and we have a number of talented people who served well in the leadership."

Conservative advocates have also complained that he was too accommodating to Democrats as leader. But one, Paul M. Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation, has changed his mind. "I think if he came back he would be a strong leader," Mr. Weyrich said, "because he has taken to heart some of the criticism."

Some Republicans still turn to Mr. Lott for advice, citing his knack for cutting deals and his contacts in both chambers of Congress. When Senator Collins was shepherding legislation to overhaul the nation's intelligence system, she said, Mr. Lott got her out of a jam with a powerful House member, whom she would not name, threatening to vote against the bill unless changes were made.

"Trent found out he wasn't going to be here for the vote anyway, so for me to accommodate him wasn't necessary," she said. "I never would have been able to find out that little tidbit."

Democrats, for their part, are delighted with Mr. Lott; they say they cannot wait to pick up the morning newspaper to read his latest remarks. Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate, laughed aloud at the mere mention of the former Republican leader's name.

Mr. Dorgan said, "We ought to have to pay admission to watch this."

    Look Who's Talking About Making a Comeback in the Senate,
    NYT, 26.11.2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/politics/27lott.html

Senate's Tax Bill Includes Incentives

for Charity Gifts

November 22, 2005
The New York Times
By LYNNLEY BROWNING

The tax bill passed by the Senate last week includes several provisions to encourage giving to charities and could lead to a significant increase in donations.

The bill would add tax breaks for people who make small charitable contributions and for those who want to donate directly from their individual retirement accounts.

The Senate measure would have to be reconciled with the House's tax bill, which is now under consideration and lacks any substantial provisions on charitable giving.

Under the Senate bill, people who do not itemize deductions on their federal income tax returns would for the first time be able to deduct the amount they gave if it exceeded certain thresholds. The minimum would be $210 for individuals and $410 for married couples.

Taxpayers must now itemize, instead of taking the standard deduction, if they want a tax break for their gifts.

The provision would last two years and could increase charitable giving by $1 billion a year at little cost to the government, said Patrick Lester, director of public policy for the United Way of America, the nation's largest charitable organization.

"This is by far the most important provision" in the Senate tax bill, Mr. Lester said, adding that he was particularly pleased there was no maximum amount that could be donated tax free.

Because lower-income taxpayers are less likely to itemize, the provision could prompt charitable giving to nonprofit organizations like churches and soup kitchens.

Another provision in the Senate bill would make it possible for taxpayers who reach age 70 1/2 and who have not yet fully tapped into their individual retirement accounts to make tax-free donations to charities straight from the accounts. Taxpayers must now cash out of their accounts and pay taxes on the amount withdrawn before making donations.

The provision could lead to several billion dollars of additional charitable giving a year, according to estimates by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. But it would cost the Treasury some $914 million a year in lost taxes.

Universities and nonprofit hospitals are expected to benefit the most from such a measure.

The Senate also intends to curb some abuses of the rules on charitable giving. The Internal Revenue Service has said that tax dodges through nonprofit organizations are the fastest-growing type of tax crime. The bill would make tax-exempt organizations liable for penalties if they participated directly or indirectly in prohibited tax shelters. A typical abuse involves a charity's temporarily holding taxable assets owned by a commercial entity.

Curbing abuses with life insurance contracts is another goal of the legislation. It would levy an excise tax, equal to the acquisition cost of the insurance contract, on any buyer of a contract that is then used partly to benefit a charity.

The Senate is hoping to clamp down on donor-advised funds, which are set up by individuals, families or businesses to make contributions to specific charities. Such funds have been a source of abuse, with some supporting lavish travel and other improper perks by family members.

C. Eugene Steuerle, a tax policy analyst at the nonpartisan Urban Institute, a research organization in Washington, said yesterday that the Senate tax bill was unusual in that it both "expands incentives and cuts back on abuses."

The combination, Mr. Steuerle said, "has ended up to be a fairly good one."

    Senate's Tax Bill Includes Incentives for Charity Gifts, NYT, 22.11.2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/politics/22charity.html

The Congress

In the Senate,

a Chorus of Three Defies the Line

November 21, 2005
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 - On a July evening in the Capitol, Vice President Dick Cheney summoned three Republican senators to his ornate office just off the Senate chamber. The Republicans - John W. Warner of Virginia, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina - were making trouble for the Bush administration, and Mr. Cheney let them know it.

The three were pushing for regulations on the treatment of American military prisoners, including a contentious ban on "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." The vice president wanted the provision pulled from a huge military spending bill. The senators would not budge.

"We agreed to disagree," Mr. Graham said in an interview last week.

That private session was an early hint of a Republican feud that spilled into the open last week, as Senate Republicans openly challenged President Bush on American military policy in Iraq and the war on terrorism. In the center of the fray, pushing Congress to reassert itself, were those same three Republicans.

Though their views on the war differ, they have much in common: each is a member of the influential Senate Armed Services Committee, each has a strong maverick streak and each has personal ties to the military - and to one another, mostly through Mr. McCain.

Senator Warner, the committee chairman and a veteran of World War II and the Korean War, was secretary of the Navy when Mr. McCain's father commanded the armed forces in the Pacific and Mr. McCain was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. That experience, he says, "bonded me with John McCain."

Senator Graham, a former military lawyer, was co-chairman of Mr. McCain's 2000 campaign for president in South Carolina and still has bitter memories of the tactics used by operatives for Gov. George W. Bush. Should Mr. McCain make a White House bid in 2008, as is widely expected, Mr. Graham says he will be there.

Their relationships with Mr. Bush are respectful, though not especially close, and each has a different political agenda. Mr. Warner, 78, aspires mostly to maintain his status as an elder statesman in the Senate. Mr. McCain, 69, covets the White House. And Mr. Graham, 50, is still a rising star.

But their "little triumvirate," as Mr. Graham calls it, has become a powerful political force at a time when President Bush's popularity is sinking and all of Washington is consumed with debate over the direction of the war in Iraq.

On that score, the three are not in lockstep. Last week, Mr. Warner prodded the Senate to require the Bush administration to provide Congress with quarterly progress reports on the war, spawning a raucous House debate over whether troops should withdraw and setting the stage for Iraq to dominate the 2006 midterm elections. But Senators McCain and Graham, who have steadfastly called for more troops, not fewer, voted against Mr. Warner's plan, saying it smacked of a timetable for withdrawal.

Yet the three are firm in their conviction that Congress, having ceded authority on military matters to the executive branch, must flex its muscles. In addition to sticking together on the so-called torture ban - despite a White House veto threat - they joined last week in backing a bipartisan compromise, sponsored by Senator Graham, giving "enemy combatants" in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, limited rights of appeal in federal court.

"This was a huge 'Congress getting into the ballgame' week," Mr. Graham said. Mr. Warner said wryly, "You know, Congress is a co-equal branch."

But Congress is hardly united, and now the three senators must contend with House Republicans. On Thursday, Mr. Warner met with his House counterpart, Representative Duncan Hunter of California, to discuss the military spending bill, which lacks the torture provision in the House version.

Mr. Hunter said afterward that each man promised to give the other "a fair hearing." But Mr. Warner said he made his position clear.

"I told him as an opening salvo, 'I'm solid with John McCain,' " Mr. Warner said.

All three senators are also in the "Gang of 14," a bipartisan group that struck a deal on President Bush's judicial nominees. They trace their alliance on military matters to last year's revelations of detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The scandal prompted Senator Warner, the committee chairman, to conduct hearings, over the objections of some Republicans who said he was handing a political issue to Democrats.

Mr. Graham says he became convinced at that time that Congress needed "a holistic approach" to the delicate issues surrounding those in American government custody. So he asked the committee chairman for permission to hold hearings on the legal rights of detainees. He recounts Mr. Warner's reply:

"He said: 'Go to it, young man.' "

Mr. McCain says he pressed for the torture provision because "frankly, we never got answers to some of the questions that were asked" about Abu Ghraib. The measure would require all American troops to use only interrogation techniques authorized in a new Army manual; the White House is now pressing to make clandestine Central Intelligence Agency activities exempt. Mr. McCain said last week that he was "hopeful, but not confident" the negotiations could produce a compromise.

"I think I can help the administration by forcing this through," he said. "I think I can help them more effectively pursue the war on terror in general and the war in Iraq in particular."

Not everyone in the Capitol is so convinced, and Mr. Graham says the three have "withstood a lot of pressure." The McCain provision received only nine "no" votes in the Senate, but four were from Republicans on the Armed Services Committee - a tally that suggests a possible rift within the panel. One of the four, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, complained last week that his colleagues had given Democrats an opening to politicize the Iraq war.

"I think McCain galvanized opinion on this issue because of who he is and what he's been through," Mr. Cornyn said, "in a way that probably no one else could."

For Democrats, who have spent months trying to put the public spotlight on the issues of detainee treatment and the war in Iraq, the three Republicans are like some kind of gift from the political gods. After the Senate overwhelmingly adopted Mr. Warner's measure on the war, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, stood slack-jawed.

"It's gigantic," Mr. Biden said.

Perhaps that is because Mr. Warner, who characterizes his own military service as "very modest," has such strong defense bona fides: He has been associated with the armed services, in one form or another, for 60 years. But Mr. Biden said military ties are not the main reason Senators Warner, McCain and Graham have such strong credibility.

"I think their credibility," Mr. Biden said, "is mainly, they're Republicans."

    In the Senate, a Chorus of Three Defies the Line, NYT, 21.10.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/21/politics/21trio.html


 

J.D. Crowe        Alabama        The Mobile Register        Cagle        17.11.2005

http://cagle.msnbc.com/politicalcartoons/PCcartoons/crowe.asp

George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States
 

Bid to renew anti-terror act stalled

Fri Nov 18, 2005
7:28 PM ET
Reuters
By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A proposed renewal of the anti-terror USA Patriot Act stalled in Congress on Friday, and Senate foes said they had the votes to block it unless protection of civil liberties were increased.

Backers said they remained confident they would muster needed support, when Congress returns next month from a holiday break, to extend or make permanent key provisions of the act set to expire on December 31.

The Patriot Act, a centerpiece of President George W. Bush's war on terror, was first passed after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. It expanded federal investigative powers to track down suspected terrorists.

"We can't let key provisions to just die," said a senior Senate aide. "Somehow this will all be worked out."

"We have to move ahead with it," said Rep. David Dreier of California, a member of the House Republican leadership.

Backers argue the Patriot Act has bolstered national security. But critics charge it has also undermined civil liberties, and that the proposed renewal failed to adequately address concerns.

On Wednesday, Republican-led negotiators reached a tentative agreement to extend or make permanent about 20 expiring provisions, including ones covering wiretaps, Internet surveillance and access to personal records.

NO MAJOR REVISIONS EXPECTED

The Republican-led House of Representatives and Republican-led Senate had hoped to pass the accord by Friday so Bush could quickly sign it into law. But amid bipartisan complaints, backers were unable to get enough signatures from Senate negotiators to do so.

Some possible modifications will now be considered, Republican Senate aides said, but no major revisions were expected.

Assistant Senate Democratic leader Dick Durbin of Illinois said, "We hope that the leaders on both sides of the Rotunda will come to realize that they have a strong bipartisan coalition for meaningful Patriot Act reform."

"If they do not ... I believe we can demonstrate on the floor of the United States Senate that a substantial bipartisan majority opposes this Patriot Act as it's been currently proposed," Durbin, flanked by a dozen fellow lawmakers, told a news conference.

Republicans, who hold 55 of the Senate's 100 seats, largely support the proposal to renew the Patriot Act. But opponents would needed just 41 votes to sustain a procedural hurdle known as a filibuster.

"Right now, we have the votes," Durbin said in a brief interview.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who helped negotiate the agreement, said he would like to see some changes.

Specter said he favored extending three expiring provisions by four years rather than the seven stipulated in the accord.

But Specter also said he saw the agreement as bolstering anti-terror efforts as well as safeguards on civil liberties.

"I'm prepared to sign the report (the agreement) if we cannot have an improvement," Specter said. "The getting it done is more important than improving it."

"But if we can improve it in the interim, when people understand it better and we have a chance to talk to more people, and perhaps the White House will weigh in, that's what I'd like to do," Specter said.

    Bid to renew anti-terror act stalled, R, 18.11.2005, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-11-19T002839Z_01_MCC881203_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-CONGRESS.xml

Senate approves

$60 billion tax cut bill

Fri Nov 18, 2005 5:18 AM ET
Reuters
By Donna Smith

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate approved a $60 billion tax cut bill on Friday that would impose a $5 billion tax on big oil companies and provide new tax breaks to help rebuild hurricane devastated regions.

The package, approved on a vote of 64-33, passed the Senate only after provisions extending reduced tax rates for capital gains and dividends beyond their 2008 expiration were dropped. Democrats and some moderate Republicans put up solid opposition to those provisions.

The overall cost of the legislation was reduced by a number of revenue raising measures, including an accounting provision that would raise about $5 billion from big oil companies by temporarily changing the way they value oil inventories.

Another measure would eliminate a $1 billion tax break for oil and gas exploration that was included in energy legislation President George W. Bush signed into law earlier this year.

But the Senate rejected attempts by some Democrats to include a windfall profits tax on the record earnings of big oil companies and give the proceeds to consumers.

The Senate bill also includes about $7 billion in tax breaks to help rebuild regions destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and other provisions to encourage charitable giving.

The bill extends a number of tax breaks for business, education and savings that otherwise would expire at the end of the year. Among them is a $30 billion measure that would keep millions of taxpayers from paying the alternative minimum tax next year -- a tax originally intended for the very wealthy.

"If Congress does its job, taxpayers won't suffer any tax increase," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican.

While the Senate bill omitted the measure to extend the 15 percent tax rate on dividends and capital gains, which had been backed by the administration, some Republicans have vowed to restore the measure later in the process.

The lower rate on investment income was the centerpiece of Bush's 2003 tax cut and is set to expire at the end of 2008. Unless Congress acts, the tax rate on capital gains would go to 20 percent and investors would pay regular income tax rates on dividends.

A competing tax bill pending in the House of Representatives would extend the 15 percent tax rate for capital gains and dividends through 2010.

The House Ways and Means Committee passed that legislation earlier this week and the bill could be taken up by the full House possibly as early as Friday.

The tax legislation is part of a broader effort by congressional Republicans to continue Bush's tax cuts while trimming federal domestic spending to reduce deficits.

Democrats accused Republicans of putting too much of the deficit-cutting burden on the poor while giving generous tax breaks to the wealthy.

"Essentially, they've targeted the most vulnerable in our communities -- children, the aged, the blind and disabled -- for spending cuts that pave the way for tax cuts for the rich," said Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Republicans argue that the tax cuts will help generate economic growth.

    Senate approves $60 billion tax cut bill, R, 18.11.2005, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-11-18T101828Z_01_RID821299_RTRUKOC_0_US-CONGRESS-TAXES.xml

Tax-Cut Measure

Faces Bush Veto Threat

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 18, 2005
Filed at 11:04 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A $60 billion bill the Senate passed to continue expiring tax cuts and shelter 14 million families from higher taxes faces a White House veto threat because it also includes a hefty tax increase for oil companies.

The legislation passed by senators early Friday would spare millions of families from paying increased taxes through the alternative minimum tax. Much of the bill, passed 64-33, preserves tax cuts approved in previous years that are set to expire unless lawmakers keep them alive.

But unlike a bill assembled by the House tax writing committee, it does not preserve lower tax rates for capital gains and dividends scheduled to disappear at the end of 2008. Congress lowered the maximum tax rate on that investment income to 15 percent in 2003, and many Republicans want to act this year to keep those rates in place in 2009 and 2010.

It was doubtful whether the House would vote on its bill before leaving for the Thanksgiving holiday. ''It's a possibility that we'll move it if we're ready to move it,'' Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said early Friday. ''We'll have to see where the votes are.''

Most Democrats oppose the tax cuts for investment income. Senate leaders dropped an extension from their bill because a key moderate Republican balked at its inclusion.

GOP leaders vow it will reappear before the final tax bill reaches President Bush's desk.

The White House wants to see another change in the Senate bill: elimination of a $4.3 billion tax increase on oil companies.

''This provision would result in a retroactive tax increase by changing a long-accepted accounting practice,'' the White House said in a statement warning that senior advisers would recommend that President Bush veto the legislation if it's not removed.

The House omitted a major provision in the Senate bill, a change preventing a tax hit on millions of families caused by the alternative minimum tax. Originally intended as a levy to prevent the wealthy from avoiding taxation, the alternative minimum tax must be tweaked every year to keep it from applying to additional millions more families.

The House and Senate bills reduce taxes roughly $60 billion over five years. Both preserve tax breaks scheduled to expire, including a business research and development credit, a low-income saver's credit, investment incentives for small businesses and a deduction for state and local sales taxes.

Both are versions of a $70 billion tax cut outlined in a budget drafted earlier this year.

The Senate's bill would offer $7 billion in assistance to businesses and individuals hit by Hurricane Katrina and other storms, filling in details of President Bush's proposed Gulf Opportunity Zone. Taxpayers also would get new incentives to make charitable contributions at the same time that tax-writers put new curbs on charitable deductions deemed excessive.

A last minute change to the Senate tax bill would require corporate executives to count as income the value of personal use of corporate aircraft.

------

The bill is S. 2020

Congressional information on the Net: http://thomas.loc.gov/

    Tax-Cut Measure Faces Bush Veto Threat, NYT, 18.11.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Congress-Taxes.html

Senate Renews

Terrorism Insurance Act

November 18, 2005
Filed at 11:01 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate on Friday voted to renew a post-Sept. 11 act providing federal safeguards for the insurance industry in the event of a devastating terrorist attack.

The voice vote extended for two years the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, while putting more of the financial burden on the insurance industry.

''Sept. 11 proved that there needs to be a mechanism in place to allow the economy to rebound more quickly and to protect American jobs in the unfortunate event of another terrorist attack,'' said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada.

The bill extends the terrorism insurance act that was to expire on Dec. 31 while increasing from $5 million to $50 million in 2006 and $100 million in 2007 the amount of property and casualty losses that would trigger federal payments.

It reduces coverage in the program by excluding commercial vehicles, theft, surety and other items and raises the deductibles for insurers before federal help begins.

After the deductible is reached, the federal government covers 90 percent of insured losses in 2006 and 85 percent in 2007.

The White House, in a statement, expressed support for the Senate bill, saying it sends the proper signal to the marketplace that the program is envisioned to be temporary and is consistent with administration goals of encouraging private markets and reducing taxpayer exposure.

The American Insurance Association, in a statement, said enactment of the legislation before the current law expires is essential for U.S. economic security. The House is expected to take up the measure soon.

The original TRIA was enacted in 2002 in response to the economic slowdown and reluctance of investors and construction companies to initiate new projects because of concerns that they would be unable to obtain insurance needed to cover devastating losses.

------

The bill is S. 467

On the Net:

Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov/

    Senate Renews Terrorism Insurance Act, NYT, 17.11.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Terrorism-Insurance.html

Extension of Patriot Act

Faces Threat of Filibuster

November 18, 2005
The New York Times
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 - A tentative deal to extend the government's antiterrorism powers under the law known as the USA Patriot Act appeared in some jeopardy Thursday, as Senate Democrats threatened to mount a filibuster in an effort to block the legislation.

"This is worth the fight," Senator Russell D. Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat who serves on the Judiciary Committee, said in an interview.

"I've cleared my schedule right up to Thanksgiving," Mr. Feingold said, adding that he was making plans to read aloud from the Bill of Rights as part of a filibuster if necessary.

The political maneuvering came even before negotiators for the House and Senate had agreed on a final deal to extend the government's counterterrorism powers under the act.

With a tentative deal in place on Wednesday, Congressional negotiators had been expected to reach a final, printed agreement by early Thursday for the full House and Senate to consider. But despite minute-by-minute updates about a possible conclusion, the day passed on with no final agreement, causing no shortage of nervousness among Bush administration officials and Republican supporters of the tentative deal.

By Thursday evening, officials said negotiators had reached what amounted to an impasse for the day, as those from the Senate pushed for further civil rights safeguards that were seen as unacceptable to House leaders. Talks are expected to pick up again on Friday, officials said.

The tentative deal reached by negotiators would make permanent 14 of the 16 provisions of the law that are set to expire at the end of the year. The remaining two provisions - related to government demands for records from businesses and libraries and its use of roving wiretaps - would have to be reconsidered in seven years, as would a separate provision on taking aim at people suspected of being "lone wolf" terrorists.

But in the eleventh-hour negotiations to complete the deal, Congressional leaders discussed changing some crucial elements of the agreement in response to concerns from lawmakers, officials said. One proposal would have lowered the "sunset" on the three investigative provisions from seven years to something closer to the four years approved by the Senate in its version of the bill earlier this year.

In a letter Thursday, a bipartisan group of six senators said the tentative deal had caused them "deep concern" because it did not go far enough in "making reasonable changes to the original law to protect innocent people from unnecessary and intrusive government surveillance."

Reflecting the political breadth of concerns about the law, the letter was signed by three Republicans - Senators Larry E. Craig, John E. Sununu and Lisa Murkowksi - and three Democrats - Senators Richard J. Durbin and Ken Salazar and Mr. Feingold.

The group called for tighter restrictions on the government's ability to demand records and its use of so-called "sneak and peak" warrants to conduct secret searches without immediately informing the target, among other measures.

"We have worked too long and too hard to allow this conference report to eliminate the modest protections for civil liberties that were agreed to unanimously in the Senate," Ms. Murkowski, of Alaska, said in a separate statement.

"There is still time for the conference committee to step back and agree to the Senate's bipartisan approach. If the conference committee doesn't do that, we will fight to stop this bill from becoming law."

Republican leaders said they remained confident that a deal would be worked out that would accommodate the newly raised concerns from members of both parties. But the late maneuvering could thwart the leaders' hopes to have a deal in place before Congress breaks for Thanksgiving next week.

The Bush administration, which saw the negotiators' tentative agreement as a strong endorsement of its demand for tough antiterror tools, has made the reauthorization of the act one of its top legislative priorities, and officials have been pushing for a quick resolution to avoid hitting a deadline at the end of December, when several major surveillance and investigative powers in the law would expire.

    Extension of Patriot Act Faces Threat of Filibuster, NYT, 18.11.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/national/18patriot.html

In Setback for Bush,

Congress Fails to Pass His Proposals

November 18, 2005
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE
and DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 - President Bush suffered a series of setbacks and rebukes on Capitol Hill on Thursday and early today as the Republican leadership was unable to push through some of his most cherished policy goals for his second term.

As the House and Senate struggled with spending and tax measures, two of Mr. Bush's main objectives - oil-drilling in Alaska's National Wildlife Refuge and an extension of the deep cuts to taxes on capital gains and dividends - were shelved by opposition from Democrats and some moderate Republicans.

The defeats for the White House on the oil-drilling and tax-cut proposals came as Senate Democrats threatened to mount a filibuster against extension of the USA Patriot Act, which was enacted just after the Sept. 11 attacks and is a centerpiece of Mr. Bush's antiterrorism policies. Democrats have been joined by several Republicans, some of them conservative, in contending that some parts of the act intrude too much on personal privacy in the name of national security.

This morning, several senators who are hardly ideological soul mates - Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the liberal Democratic whip, and Larry E. Craig of Idaho, a conservative Republican, for instance - reiterated their opposition to the act as it now stands. So more negotiations are on the horizon.

And Mr. Bush's policy on Iraq has been condemned by a leading Democrat on military affairs, Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania, who said Mr. Bush's approach was folly based on illusion, and that American troops should be brought home. The comments of Mr. Murtha, a Vietnam combat veteran who is usually hawkish on military matters and supported the 2002 resolution authorizing force against Saddam Hussein, were still being discussed today on Capitol Hill as word reached Washington of the latest carnage wrought by suicide bombers in Iraq.

The House action on spending amounted to a rare defeat for Republican leaders as well as the White House as 22 Republicans teamed up with Democrats on Thursday to kill a major health and education spending measure. The 224-to-209 rejection of the $142.5 billion in spending on an array of social programs was the first time since the early days of the Republican takeover of the House a decade ago that the majority had come out on the losing end of such a vote.

Hours after the loss on the spending front, the leadership early this morning forced through a separate measure making nearly $50 billion in budget cuts over five years after massaging the plan to reduce opposition from Republican moderates. The vote was 217 to 215, and even that razor-thin victory was gained only after moderate Republicans successfully resisted Mr. Bush's oil-drilling plan.

Today, the Senate approved a resolution to provide money to keep the government running through Dec. 17 while Congress works on the spending bills. The House passed an identical measure on Thursday.

The struggle on the spending measure underlined the divide over spending policy confounding House Republicans as they struggle to provide relief for hurricane victims while placating party members alarmed about growth in federal spending.

It also focused attention once again on the difficulties of a leadership team that has been somewhat off balance since September, when Representative Tom DeLay was forced to step aside as majority leader after he was indicted in Texas.

In rebelling against the spending measure, Democrats and some Republicans said it fell woefully short of fulfilling federal commitments.

They pointed, for example, to $900 million in health care cuts that took a toll on the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and on rural health care. They opposed the elimination of $8 billion to prepare for a potential flu pandemic. And they pointed to a provision that would strip money from a variety of popular education programs and leave Pell Grants to college students frozen, as part of the first reduction in education spending in a decade.

"The Republican bill to fund our nation's investments in health, education and other important programs betrayed our nation's values and its future," Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland said.

The narrow passage of the budget cuts this morning came after a couple of false starts in recent weeks and a bitter debate.

"Today we are simply slowing the future growth of government," said Representative Chris Chocola, Republican of Indiana, as the House opened debate. Mr. Chocola said the reductions, if translated to a typical family budget of $50,000, represented a savings of $50.

President Bush's press office issued a statement from Pusan, South Korea, where the president was meeting with leaders of Southeast Asia, praising the action on the budget cuts.

"I applaud the Republican Members of the House who passed a significant savings package that will restrain spending and keep us on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009," the statement said. "We will continue to fund our priorities in a fiscally responsible way and ensure that taxpayer money is spent wisely or not spent at all. I urge the House and Senate to reach agreement promptly on a spending-reduction package that I can sign into law this year."

Democrats said it was unfair to reduce spending on programs like food stamps and health care for the poor to offset the costs of the hurricanes.

"This is the cruelest lie of all," said Representative Gene Taylor, a Mississippi Democrat who lost his home to Hurricane Katrina, "that the only way you can help people who have lost everything is by hurting somebody else."

In another indication of the turmoil in Congress, a tentative deal to extend the government's antiterrorism powers appeared in some jeopardy, as Senate Democrats threatened a filibuster in an effort to block the legislation.

In the Senate, Republicans claimed a victory early Friday morning as senators voted 64 to 33 to approve a $60 billion tax-cutting package. Republicans defeated Democratic efforts to impose a temporary tax on the sale of oil priced over $40 a barrel. Under the bill, energy companies would have been taxed 50 percent on profits not reinvested in increasing domestic oil and gas supplies. But one of Mr. Bush's objectives - extending the tax cuts of 2003 on capital gains and dividends - fell by the wayside.

Members of both parties said the health and education spending measure fell victim to a unusual confluence of legislative circumstances. Pressured by conservatives to show dedication to spending discipline, negotiators stripped the bill of special local projects sought by members, a decision that cut into support, because House members who were already unhappy with the cuts had no other incentive to back the bill.

"The combination of that was too much for them to swallow," Representative Jerry Lewis, Republican of California, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said.

Some Republicans sat stunned on the House floor after the vote, which threw a wrench into Republican plans to finish the spending measures and leave for the Thanksgiving break. Senior lawmakers were debating whether to reopen negotiations to fashion a bill that could pass, keep the programs operating under a yearlong stop-gap bill or try to add the measure to a must-pass Pentagon spending bill.

The defeat averted a Senate vote on the bill, which even the chief Senate negotiator, Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, opposed. "There is a totally insufficient allocation on that bill, beyond any question," Mr. Specter said.

Over all, the House measure that was defeated called for spending more than $600 billion. But the vast majority of that money flows automatically through Medicare and other mandatory programs, so the battle was over the $142.5 billion for discretionary programs, an amount $164 million less than current levels.

The 22 Republicans opposing the bill represented a cross-section of ideologies and had a variety of reasons for objecting. Representative Bill Thomas, Republican of California, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said he objected because of an unexpected acceleration in the timetable for halting Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for sexual impotence drugs.

Among Republicans from Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, only two broke ranks to oppose the bill. They were Representatives Nancy L. Johnson and Rob Simmons, both of Connecticut.

House supporters of the bill said that it provided a satisfactory level of federal support for health and education programs and that new fiscal restraint was called for, given the resources needed for the Gulf Coast hurricanes and the war in Iraq.

"Maybe it is not as much as you like," said Representative Ralph Regula, Republican of Ohio, chairman of the subcommittee responsible for the measure. "But there is a lot of good in there."

Democrats said the measure, which would have ended more than 20 programs and prevented the start of eight new ones, would shortchange Americans who need assistance at the very time the House and Senate were advancing new tax cuts that would benefit the more affluent.

"This is the day when the price of Republican tax cuts for the wealthy becomes quite clear," said Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin, senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.

    In Setback for Bush, Congress Fails to Pass His Proposals,
    NYT, 18.11.2005,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/politics/18cnd-spend.html

Veto Threat

as Senators Approve

Pension Bill

November 17, 2005
The New York Times
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH

The Senate passed a bill yesterday aimed at strengthening the nation's troubled system of company pension plans. But the White House called the measure inadequate and warned that President Bush was likely to veto it if it remained in its current form.

The bill requires companies to close any shortfalls in their pension funds and gives most of them seven years to do so. But it allows the financially ailing major airlines 20 years to close those gaps, a provision the White House said was unacceptable.

It also requires companies to calculate pension benefits in a way intended to avoid certain distortions that can make the funds look stronger than they really are.

The bill would increase the insurance premiums that companies must pay to the federal agency that guarantees pensions and would make them pay a fee to the agency if they file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, terminate their pension plans and then emerge from bankruptcy.

The White House raised numerous objections to these measures, saying they had too many built-in delays and did not go far enough to close loopholes.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, a leading figure in the pension debate, said yesterday that the Senate had struck a useful compromise, calling its bill "a huge leap forward for retirement security." The measure was passed 97 to 2.

In the House, two bills have been approved by separate committees and are awaiting reconciliation, possibly next month. Both houses of Congress have been trying for months to plug loopholes in the current pension law, to make sure that companies set aside enough money to pay the benefits they owe and to provide adequate resources for the government agency, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Some analysts have warned that without such changes, the whole pension system could eventually collapse, requiring a costly taxpayer bailout.

But the legislative effort has been slowed by warnings from business executives that if companies were forced to put unreasonable amounts of money into their pension plans, they would have to stop offering pensions entirely.

Organized labor, fearful of hastening the demise of a valuable type of benefit, has tended to side with business on the issue of pension funding, warning lawmakers against pushing companies too hard to put more money behind their promises.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation has been analyzing the various proposals. A recent study suggested that the Senate bill might not work as well as the lawmakers hoped yesterday. That analysis, completed by the federal agency in October, found that companies would contribute about 8 percent less to their pension plans over the next 10 years under the Senate bill's provisions than if nothing at all was done.

In 2006 alone, the analysis found that the bill - whose provisions would start slowly - would save companies about $21 billion on their pension contributions. The total savings over the next 10 years would be about $70 billion. And as companies put less money into the pension plans over time, more plans would fail and end up at the pension agency.

In January, the Bush administration outlined a vision of pension reform, but companies with pension plans said it was unrealistically tough. According to the pension guarantor's analysis, it would have required companies to put about $91 billion more into their pension funds over the next 10 years than under the existing law.

The Senate bill passed yesterday did contain several important provisions advocated by the administration, but with modifications that would make them take effect less quickly or less harshly.

One would require companies to start taking the ages of workers into account when measuring the total value of pension obligations. This method, called a yield curve approach, acknowledges that companies need to set aside more money as their workers approach retirement age, because the money will not have very much time to compound before the benefits start coming due.

Many analysts have warned that the approach now used by most companies - calculating their pension values as if their workers were all the same age - is potentially dangerous because it understates the total value of the benefits, particularly at companies with older work forces. If companies underestimate the value of their pensions, they will set aside less money to pay them, weakening the plans.

Companies have been particularly hostile to the idea of calculating pensions on the basis of a yield curve. They have argued that this would be unacceptably complicated. The Senate tried to address their complaints with a compromise that required companies to place their workers into three age categories and measure the pensions that way.

Another of the administration's goals was to take each company's financial health into account in determining the way it handles its pension plans. Companies with junk credit ratings, as the administration saw it, were much likelier to default, not only on their bonds but on their pension obligations, so they would have to handle their pension plans much more cautiously. The Senate bill included this concept, but with a complicated array of phase-ins and exclusions.

Another provision of the bill would require employers to rein in the benefits they promise if their pension plans get into financial trouble. Under the current law, for example, companies that pay pension benefits in a single big check - called a lump-sum distribution - can keep on writing those checks even if their pension funds start running out of money, as recently happened at Delta Air Lines.

The Senate bill would brake such "bank run" situations, requiring companies to stop paying lump-sum distributions if their pension assets fell below 60 percent of total pension obligations. The administration had hoped for a tougher standard, barring lump-sum payments if assets fell below 80 percent.

The bill would also make companies freeze the growth of additional benefits if their pension assets fell below 60 percent of pension obligations. At the moment, there is no requirement that companies freeze these benefit accruals, no matter how weak their plans become.

Another provision of the bill would require companies to report the strength of their pension plans to employees every year. Current disclosure requirements make it quite difficult for an employee to find out if a pension plan is secure or not.

On the floor of the Senate yesterday, Mr. Grassley said, "we are here to fulfill the promise" of the 30-year-old pension law "and to let the American people know that if you've been promised a pension, we're going to make sure you receive it."

Veto Threat as Senators Approve Pension Bill, NYT, 17.11.2005,
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/17/business/17pension.html