2. Senators Question Bush Welfare Proposal [Mar 12, 5:33 PM (ET) By LAURA MECKLER] WASHINGTON (AP)]

Senators expressed reservations Wednesday about President Bush's welfare proposal, insisting that the federal government allow more flexible work rules and provide more money for child care.

Their comments during a Senate Finance Committee hearing made clear that the administration's plan for changing the welfare system would not sail through the Senate as it did the House.

The Bush plan would require states to put welfare recipients to work, and it require that each person work more hours. It would tighten the definition of what counts as work; for instance, it would be harder to enroll in vocational education, and job search would not count at all.

The president's proposal would provide hundreds of millions of dollars to promote marriage and sexual abstinence. It did not offer any new child care money, though the administration now supports a modest increase in spending provided by the House.

Congress is working to renew the 1996 welfare overhaul, which allowed states to impose tough new rules and helped lead to a huge reduction in welfare rolls. The Senate failed to renew the program last year, and the 1996 law has been extended several times to keep the program operating.

Even though Democrats no longer control the Senate, the makeup of the Finance Committee has not changed much since last year, and moderates in both parties are again voicing concerns.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, argued that her state's program allowing welfare recipients to go to college has produced results that are "beyond astonishing" and said that everyone on welfare should be given the same opportunity. Education, she said, is the only way to break the multigeneration cycle of poverty.

The Bush plan would not count people in school as working, putting tremendous pressure on states to bar education for recipients.

Snowe said it would be "impossible" for states to put 70 percent of their welfare recipients into "work" for 40 hours per week, as the Bush plan directs, without "tremendous cost."

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson responded that under the Bush plan, 16 of the 40 hours required may be in education, training or any other activity approved by the state. But he defended the bar on education during the other 24 hours. "Our basic premise was and still is: You have to have a work requirement," he said.
Sen. John Breaux, D-La., said there is no reason to increase the work requirements now in law, arguing that the overall welfare program is not broken and does not need fixing.

Current law requires each person to work 30 hours. Requiring states to require recipient to work more, Breaux said, is a classic case of "Washington knows best." "States can already do 40 hours per week of work if they want to," he said. "I do not think the administration has made their case to mandate 40 hours."

The committee chairman, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, expressed reservations about significant new requirements on the states, which have quietly complained about the stricter requirements. "I will be very mindful of the impact of any new reform effort to the states," Grassley said.

As for the dispute between the administration and some senators on this issue, he said, the committee "will have to look for a middle ground."

3. Airforce Tests Mega Bomb [Mar 11, 4:49 PM (ET) By ROBERT BURNS, WASHINGTON (AP)]

The Air Force tested the biggest conventional bomb in the U.S. arsenal for the first time Tuesday, a 21,000-pound bomb that could play a dramatic role in an attack on Iraq.

The bomb, officially called the Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB, and unofficially dubbed the Mother of All Bombs, is guided to its target by satellite signals. It was dropped out the rear of a C-130 transport plane, officials said.

The bomb is so powerful that its detonation had been expected to create a towering cloud visible for miles.

4. Bush Closer to Drilling in Arctic Refuge [Mar 11, 7:18 PM (ET) By H. JOSEF HEBERT WASHINGTON (AP)]

- Senate Republicans say they have moved to within a single vote of guaranteeing President Bush one of his top domestic priorities - opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The issue could be decided as early as next week. An internal GOP memo that circulated Tuesday in the Senate expressed confidence that 49 senators now plan to vote for drilling in the refuge, starting a scramble in search of the remaining lawmaker who would be needed to get the provision through as part of a budget measure.

"Dick Cheney has been working madly to secure the 50th (vote)," said the staff memo developed in the offices of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.

The House is expected to have enough votes to pass the drilling provision, but House leaders are reluctant to take up the issue - and expose some lawmakers to the politically sensitive vote - unless the Senate takes the lead, congressional sources said. http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030312/D7PN7PK00.html

5. Bush Adminstration Politicizes Medical Info on Web [Jan 07, 2003] Two recent editorials address the controversy over the Bush administration's reported removal and alteration of medical information, such as information on proper condom use and information on the alleged connection between breast cancer and abortion, on government Web sites (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 11/26/02). In December, a group of 14 Democratic lawmakers, led by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), sent a letter to HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson accusing the Bush administration of "playing politics" by eliminating "key information" from the CDC Web site because it "conflicts with the administration's preference for 'abstinence-only' programs." The new information on the CDC condom fact sheet states that the correct usage of condoms "can reduce the risk of STD transmission ... [but] cannot guarantee absolute protection against any STD." The administration also reportedly deleted information from the National Cancer Institute Web site stating that women who have undergone an abortion procedure are at "the same risk as other women for developing breast cancer" and added that "studies are inconsistent" regarding the possible connection between abortion and breast cancer (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 12/19/02).

6. Bush Adminstration Pushed Anti-Abortion MD for FDA [WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2002 (AP)] A physician who pushed the Food and Drug Administration to ban the abortion pill RU-486 is in line to become an FDA advisor on reproductive health, drawing fire from women's groups that urged the Bush administration Wednesday to retract the choice. Dr. W. David Hager is a University of Kentucky obstetrician-gynecologist and fairly well-known specialist on gynecologic infections. He also has written popular books asserting the healing power of prayer, and in August was a spokesman for the Christian Medical Association's petition asking FDA to ban the abortion pill. Hager is a candidate for the FDA's influential advisory committee that considers reproductive health issues.

7. Bush administration changes science on polar bear impacts to suit Arctic drilling (NRDC)

[January 17, 2002:] Despite earlier government studies indicating that oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would harm polar bears, the Interior Department has reversed its position. The agency has determined that the bears can be adequately protected thanks to improvements in oil drilling technology.

Two reports -- in 1995 and 1997 -- by Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that drilling for oil might violate America's obligations under a 1973 international treaty to protect the world's largest land predators and their habitat. Although Fish and Wildlife Service staff remain divided on the issue, some agency scientists now believe that the risks to polar bears are minimal if oil development in the refuge is properly regulated. "Out with the old 'good' science, in with the new 'bad' science," said Chuck Clusen, NRDC's program director for national parks and Alaska. "The Bush administration seems intent on doing whatever it takes to let the oil industry get its sticky fingers on one of America's greatest national treasures." http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/default.asp

8. Despite scientific concerns, Interior Department approves power plant near Yellowstone (NRDC)

January 10, 2003: President Bush has said that environmental decisions should be based on "sound science," but that criteria remains vague and, apparently, only selectively used. How else to explain the administration's decision to approve a 780-megawatt coal-fired power plant on federal land outside of Billings, Montana? In greenlighting the proposal, Craig Manson, assistant secretary of the Interior Department for fish, wildlife and parks, reversed the determination of National Park Service experts that the plant would adversely impact air quality and visibility of Yellowstone Park, which is 112 miles downwind. Without even bothering to notify Park Service staff about the turnaround, Manson told Montana environmental officials that weather, not pollution, was to blame for the park's visibility problems.

This is not the first time that Bush administration political appointees have reversed a finding by Park Service experts that pollution from a proposed power plant would harm a national park. Last August, Assistant Secretary Manson reversed a finding that a proposed 1,500-megawatt coal-fired power plant in western Kentucky would significantly hamper visibility at Mammoth Cave National Park. The air at Mammoth Cave is already more polluted than at nearly every other park in the country. The reversal occurred after the deputy secretary of Interior and the director of the Park Service met with executives from the company that wants to build the facility, Peabody Energy Corp. -- a company that happens to be one of President Bush's major political contributors. http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/default.asp

9. Bush administration formally suspends arsenic-in-drinking-water protections; NRDC rips decision
May 22, 2001: The Bush administration announced today that it would suspend the new arsenic-in-tap-water standard and right-to-know requirements. Among the revelations in the announcement:

1. An invitation to industry to argue for a standard higher than 20 ppb, the level EPA Administrator Whitman had previously said was the highest number that would be considered;

2. A statement that EPA is reconsidering its previous scientific finding that arsenic likely causes cancer at any dose, which would directly reverse previous EPA scientific reviews and the advice of a definitive 1999 National Academy of Sciences review of arsenic in drinking water;

3. An indication that the Bush EPA will suspend the January 2001 arsenic rule's right-to-know measures, which would require water utilities to inform their consumers about arsenic levels in their water.

On June 28, 2001, NRDC filed a lawsuit seeking to compel the Bush administration to reinstate the January 2001 protections; joining the suit were U.S. senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Jon Corzine (D-N.J.). "The Bush EPA's suspension of the arsenic is a distressing, unscientific, and illegal threat to the health of millions of Americans," said Erik D. Olson, an NRDC senior attorney. "There is no excuse for delaying or weakening the standard just finalized in January of this year." Olson noted that EPA took more than two decades to develop this rule, that Congress has repeatedly ordered EPA to update the standard over the last 25 years, and that the administration's actions fly in the face of what they concede is "overwhelming" public opposition expressed by thousands of comments. http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/default.asp

10. Administration's plan allows overfishing in New England (NRDC) April 16, 2002: Despite data indicating that 12 of 18 New England fish stocks are severely depleted, the Bush administration will allow overfishing to continue indefinitely. New England fish populations are down 70 percent from historic levels, while fishing has increased 300 percent. But an agreement put forth by the National Marine Fisheries Service threatens the fishery's sustainability by failing to impose limits on when, where and how fisherman can fish, as required by the 1996 Sustainable Fisheries Act. Environmentalists say the measures in the agreement are far weaker than those that had been proposed by the federal government over the last several months. NRDC and three other groups have requested that a federal judge reject NMFS's fisheries agreement. "The government's 'business as usual' proposal focuses on short-term economics at the expense of the long-term goal of rebuilding the region's fisheries. If enacted, it will illegally perpetuate overfishing," said NRDC attorney Brad Sewell. http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/default.asp

11. Bush Administration eliminates report on mass layoffs and plant closings

[December 2002] The Bush Administration announces it no longer will issue public reports on mass layoffs and plant closings. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly analysis details every layoff of more than 50 workers and the type of industry. The last report to be issued was for November 2002, and it reported 2,150 mass layoffs and about 240,000 workers who lost their jobs, mostly in the manufacturing industries. State officials have said the monthly reports were vital in helping them plan and fund their dislocated worker programs and services. http://democrats.senate.gov/~dpc/pubs/108-1-29.html

12. On Eve of War, New Right-Left Coalition Forms to Fight Justice Department Plans for Legislation That Would Diminish Liberty, Fail to Bolster Security

WASHINGTON - March 17 - As war with Iraq looms – and fears of possible new terrorist attacks grow -- a right-left coalition said today that follow-up legislation to the USA PATRIOT Act would do little to bolster security in the United States while inevitably infringing on fundamental American freedoms.

A previous anti-terrorism law, the USA PATRIOT Act, was rushed through Congress in October 2001 in a crisis atmosphere. “Some in the Administration might be tempted to use this national crisis to try to intimidate Congress into passing another PATRIOT-style bill,” said Timothy Edgar, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. “They should think twice,” Edgar added. “Americans agree that our safety need not come at the expense of our freedom.”

The coalition expressed its concerns in a letter sent today to every Member of Congress. Its strange-bedfellows signatories represented groups as far apart on the political spectrum as the American Conservative Union, Americans for Tax Reform, the Gun Owners of America, the ACLU, the NAACP and the National Council of La Raza. People of faith also expressed opposition to the Justice Department plans, including the American Baptist Churches USA, Presbyterian Church USA and the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism.

The Department of Justice has been drafting the new legislation -- called the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 (DSEA), but nicknamed PATRIOT II -- in secret over the past several months. The draft language, which was leaked to the media last month, contains a multitude of new and sweeping law enforcement and intelligence gathering powers and expands on many provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act.

The big picture implications of the bill, the ACLU said, include a severe reduction of basic checks and balances on the power of the executive branch. “If this proposal becomes law,” Edgar said, “it will encourage police spying on political and religious activities, allow the government to wiretap without going to court and expand wiretapping and asset forfeiture laws under an overbroad definition of domestic terrorism.”

Reaction to the leaked proposal has been quick and unfavorable. Conservative New York Times columnist William Safire called the draft legislation an “abomination” and Fox News Channel personality Bill O’Reilly – who recently declared “I’m not the ACLU poster boy” – is up in arms about several provisions in the proposal, including one that would greatly expand the ability of authorities to collect and keep DNA samples of law-abiding Americans.

The Department of Justice has been tight-lipped about the proposed bill. At a hearing earlier this month, Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI) quizzed Attorney General Ashcroft about the proposal. In response, the Attorney General, oddly, denied that a final bill existed. “The Attorney General should know that if he goes forward with PATRIOT II as written, he’ll be facing opposition from every point on the political spectrum,” Edgar said.