History > 2006 > USA > Congress (I)

Clay Bennett

The Christian Science Monitor, Boston

Cagle        19.1.2006

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

House Negotiator

Calls Senate Immigration Bill 'Amnesty'

and Rejects It

May 27, 2006
The New York Times
By RACHEL L. SWARNS

WASHINGTON, May 26 — The leading House negotiator on immigration denounced on Friday the bipartisan legislation that passed the Senate this week, saying House Republicans would never support a bill that gives illegal immigrants a chance at American citizenship.

The negotiator, Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he could envision legislation that included a guest-worker program. But he insisted that strong enforcement measures would have to be in place first, including an employment-verification system and tough sanctions on employers who hired illegal immigrants.

Mr. Sensenbrenner said he would continue to reject President Bush's call for a compromise because he believed that the president, who supports a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, remained out of touch with the public.

"The president is not where the American people are at," Mr. Sensenbrenner said at a news conference. "The Senate is not where the American people are at."

"Amnesty is wrong because it rewards someone for illegal behavior," he said. "And I reject the spin that the senators have been putting on their proposal. It is amnesty."

Mr. Sensenbrenner's stance put him on a collision course with backers of the Senate bill who say they will not accept any legislation that does not legalize illegal immigrants.

"There's going to have to be a path to citizenship," Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said on Friday.

It also highlighted the enormousness of the challenge facing Mr. Bush as he works to persuade reluctant House conservatives to embrace his position. Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, suggested on Friday that the president would embrace the challenge.

Mr. Snow said that Mr. Bush would continue to make his case on immigration and suggested that the president had already addressed Republican concerns about border security by promising to send up to 6,000 National Guard troops to help out on the United States-Mexico border.

"I think there are areas on which members of the House are going to agree with the president," Mr. Snow said, pointing to the widening consensus around a guest-worker plan. "There are certainly going to be disagreements, and that's how the process works. They're going to have to get hashed out."

Matthew Dowd, a strategist for Mr. Bush, said in a memorandum that polls conducted for the Republican Party suggested strong support among Republicans and conservatives for a temporary-worker program and for legalizing illegal immigrants.

But House conservatives strongly disagreed. One House aide said on Friday that constituents were furiously calling lawmakers to express outrage about the Senate plan, which would require the government to consult with Mexico before building a fence along the border.

NumbersUSA, a conservative group that supports reduced immigration, said the plan "would create the largest immigration increase in U.S. history — a disaster for American workers and taxpayers."

Mr. Sensenbrenner said the Senate was poised to "repeat the mistakes" of the failed 1986 amnesty law, which was supposed to end illegal immigration by legalizing illegal immigrants, securing the country's borders and cracking down on employers.

Instead, fraudulent applications tainted the process, many employers continued illicit hiring practices, and illegal immigration surged. "I would hope the Senate would take a look back," Mr. Sensenbrenner said.

Separate from the attacks by conservatives, some immigrant groups continued on Friday to criticize elements of the Senate bill, including provisions that would expand deportation and detention and leave some immigrants vulnerable to prosecution for using false documents to escape persecution in their home countries.

Marshall Fitz, director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said those issues were of "serious concern" even though the Senate bill would protect asylum-seekers from being deported while their claims were under review by federal courts.

Other advocates for immigrants criticized the bill as favoring illegal immigrants who had been in the country for longer than two years. Those living here for a shorter time would be required to leave.

"Some people might want to hold their nose and swallow it," Mark Stan, program director for the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said of the provisions in the Senate bill. "But I think you can't have your eyes shut to some of this."

House Negotiator Calls Senate Immigration Bill 'Amnesty' and Rejects It, NYT, 27.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/washington/27immig.html

House Leaders Demand

Return of Seized Files

May 25, 2006
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, May 24 — The constitutional clash pitting Congress against the executive branch escalated Wednesday as the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House demanded the immediate return of materials seized by federal agents when they searched the office of a House member who is under investigation in a corruption case.

The demand, by Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, underscored the degree of the anger generated among members of both parties on Capitol Hill by the search on Saturday night at the office of Representative William J. Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana, who has been accused of accepting bribes.

"The Justice Department was wrong to seize records from Congressman Jefferson's office in violation of the constitutional principle of separation of powers, the speech or debate clause of the Constitution, and the practice of the last 219 years," Mr. Hastert and Ms. Pelosi said in a rare joint statement.

Mr. Jefferson made a similar demand in federal court. He called for federal agents to be prohibited from reviewing seized files and computer records.

Justice Department officials, who have said the search was proper and necessary, did not appear ready to return materials taken from the lawmaker's official House suite, setting the stage for a court battle to resolve competing claims of constitutional protection and criminal inquiry.

In a statement, the agency said it was trying to resolve the dispute in a way "that meets law enforcement's needs and also allays any institutional concerns that Congress may have."

Privately, Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation officials expressed dismay at the tone of statements by Mr. Hastert and Ms. Pelosi.

The officials said there was virtually no possibility that any material taken legally during the search would be returned since it was now in the custody of the F.B.I. as evidence in an active criminal case.

Mr. Jefferson's case, which holds potential for Republicans to score partisan points, seemed an unlikely mechanism for bringing the two parties together in an election year.

But it appears to have done just that, leading Democrats and Republicans to find common ground in defense of institutional prerogatives.

The tense conflict is also developing into a potential new problem for President Bush.

The White House has reached out to Republicans on Capitol Hill to allay concerns about the president's low poll numbers and to try to heal deep rifts within the party over a variety of issues, including immigration.

The constitutional confrontation is doing nothing to help with that effort.

One lawmaker whose stance will be important to the fate of the immigration legislation, Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Wisconsin Republican who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, on Wednesday set a hearing for next Tuesday on the implications of the search.

Mr. Sensenbrenner called the subject of the hearing "Reckless Justice: Did the Saturday Night Raid of Congress Trample the Constitution?"

Besides the immediate return of the material, the Congressional leaders also said the Justice Department must halt review of the documents, make certain that those who have reviewed them do not disclose their contents and make a formal request in court to void the original search warrant.

Once the documents are returned, the leaders said, Mr. Jefferson "can and should fully cooperate with the Justice Department's efforts, consistent with his constitutional rights."

Mr. Hastert also said the F.B.I. agents involved in the search should be taken off the case.

The unanimity of Mr. Hastert and Ms. Pelosi, two staunch political foes, was a vivid display of how seriously House members are taking the search.

The two leaders have had a strained relationship made worse this year by an intense battle for control of Congress and by Democratic attacks on the way the Republican majority has led the House, which by extension are attacks on Mr. Hastert.

Their offices tried earlier this week to fashion a joint statement objecting to the search but were unable to come to agreement.

While Ms. Pelosi is objecting to the search, she is taking aim at Mr. Jefferson and on Wednesday urged him to abandon his seat on the Ways and Means Committee as part of the effort by Democrats, who have made Republican corruption a main campaign theme, to show that they have no tolerance for it in their own ranks.

But Mr. Jefferson quickly refused. The F.B.I., in obtaining the search warrant, said they had taped Mr. Jefferson accepting $100,000 to use his influence to ease business deals in Africa. Agents said most of the money was later recovered from his freezer.

The Justice Department said it had subpoenaed material last August but the response was delayed in negotiations with Mr. Jefferson and the House counsel, prompting the search.

David Johnston contributed reporting for this article.

    House Leaders Demand Return of Seized Files, NYT, 25.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/washington/25cong.html?hp&ex=1148616000&en=f4865cbb323fc301&ei=5094&partner=homepage

G.O.P. Lawmakers Agree on Bill to Extend Tax Cuts

May 10, 2006
The New York Times
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON, May 9 — House and Senate Republicans reached agreement Tuesday on a $69 billion bill that would extend President Bush's tax cuts for investors for two more years and temporarily block a big jump in the alternative minimum tax.

The agreement, which has a good chance of passing both chambers later this week, would lock in one of Mr. Bush's signature tax cuts through 2010 and give Republicans a victory at a time when most of their other efforts have stalled.

But the bill falls far short of Mr. Bush's original goal, which was to make permanent all of his major tax cuts from 2001 and 2003. Nor did Republican leaders work out their differences on a separate measure that would extend scores of other tax cuts that expired at the end of last year.

"We've never had a more difficult melding of both houses' ideas," said Representative Bill Thomas, the California Republican who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Since last fall, House and Senate Republicans have been unable to agree on which tax cuts to include in a special "budget reconciliation" bill that could be passed in the Senate without needing 60 votes to stop a filibuster.

But critics said the agreement's tax benefits would overwhelmingly favor the nation's wealthiest taxpayers and fudged the true cost of some measures. Senate Republicans passed a tax-cut bill last fall that prevented an increase in the alternative minimum tax, a parallel tax intended to stop very wealthy people from taking too much advantage of special tax breaks. Partly because it is not adjusted for inflation, it is engulfing millions more families each year.

Preventing an increase in the alternative minimum tax would cost $34 billion for just one year, so Senate Republicans decided to postpone an extension of the tax cut on stock dividends that would cost about $20 billion over just two years.

House Republicans did the reverse, passing a bill that extended the tax cuts for investors, leaving the alternative minimum tax in a separate bill that could have been blocked by a filibuster in the Senate.

Those tax cuts on dividends and capital gains were the heart of Mr. Bush's 2003 tax-cutting package, and Republicans had credited them with spurring a rebound in investment and economic growth in the past three years. They also had enormous support from business groups and Wall Street.

Democrats and some Senate Republicans opposed extending them this year, arguing that the dividend tax cuts would not expire until 2009 and would primarily benefit the top 10 percent of income-earners.

"These were not wise choices or even fair choices for the American people," said Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.

The deal agreed upon Tuesday covers the tax cut for investors, the alternative minimum tax and the extension of an expiring tax cut on foreign profits earned by American corporations.

But lawmakers are still working on a second bill that would extend scores of other popular tax cuts that are expiring. Those include a costly tax credit for research and development, tax deductions for college tuition payments and tax incentives for low-income families.

Mr. Thomas and other top Republicans refused to say what provisions would be in the second tax-cutting bill. Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, had insisted that he would not approve any agreement on the main tax-cut extensions until he had agreement on the second bill.

But Mr. Grassley relented on Tuesday, apparently under pressure from Senate Republican leaders who were desperate to pass the main tax bill without further delay.

"The message is clear, the tax cuts have worked," said Treasury Secretary John W. Snow in a speech to homebuilders shortly before the agreement was announced. "We want to make sure that tax rates remain low on equity capital."

Opponents of the tax cut for investors, which reduced the rate on dividends and capital gains to 15 percent, said the new tax bill would overwhelmingly benefit the very wealthiest taxpayers.

The Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, recently estimated that the top 10 percent of income-earners would get 81.8 percent of the benefit from lower taxes on investment profits and 73 percent of the benefit from freezing the alternative minimum tax.

The agreement also has several provisions that seem to offset the cost of tax cuts but really may not. One "revenue-raising" provision, for example, allows high-income people to convert traditional Individual Retirement Accounts to Roth-style accounts in which all future investment income is tax free. The provision raises money in the first few years because people have to pay taxes when they take money out of their older I.R.A.'s, but over the long term the government loses billions of dollars because the new accounts are tax free.

Most Democrats strongly support the provisions on the alternative minimum tax, which has a disproportionately large impact on many Democratic-leaning, high-income states on the East and West Coasts. They also support many of the tax cuts that are likely to be extended in the second bill, and Republicans are calculating that Democrats will not want to sacrifice the tax cuts they support to stop the ones they oppose.

    G.O.P. Lawmakers Agree on Bill to Extend Tax Cuts, NYT, 10.5.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/10/washington/10agreement.html?hp&ex=1147320000&en=20542da50fb336e7&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Republicans fail to pass budget, tax bills

Thu Apr 6, 2006 11:05 PM ET
Reuters
By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. Congress suffered two major setbacks on Thursday when their fiscal 2007 budget plan collapsed and they failed to put the finishing touches on $70 billion in tax cuts.

The developments could not have come at a worse time as Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress and the White House, were hoping to shake election-year blues dominated so far by ethics scandals and sinking popularity.

Now, instead of returning to their home districts for a two-week spring break touting tax cuts and the passage of a budget they hoped would trim huge budget deficits, Republicans will greet their constituents empty-handed.

Following weeks of negotiations between the House and Senate, Republican leaders had been hopeful they could finish their tax-cut package this week. Treasury Secretary John Snow even canceled a trip to the Midwest to work on a compromise.

The tax cuts, central to President George W. Bush's domestic program, would have extended the maximum 15 percent tax rate on capital gains and dividends beyond 2008, when the lower rates are set to expire. Without congressional action, capital gains taxes would jump to 20 percent and dividends would be taxed as regular income.

Republicans also wanted to include some relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was aimed originally at only a few of the wealthiest Americans but would hit as many as 20 million taxpayers on their 2006 tax returns if Congress failed to act.

The bill was abandoned for now, without explanation.

REPUBLICAN INFIGHTING

Earlier on Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives spent the day debating a $2.8 trillion fiscal 2007 budget blueprint that would have given Bush the 7 percent increase in defense spending he requested, while keeping a tight lid on domestic programs, such as health and education.

Annual budget plans do not have force of law but set broad limits for spending bills Congress will try to pass this summer. Without those spending limits, Congress might edge into even greater deficit spending. Last month, the Senate narrowly approved its version of a fiscal 2007 budget plan.

The U.S. budget deficit for fiscal 2006 could exceed $400 billion.

House Majority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said he still hoped to "move forward with the budget" after the recess in late April. That was a reversal from a statement he made earlier this week when he told reporters he saw no point in pursuing a budget beyond this week.

After several days of leading intense negotiations among warring Republican factions in the House, Boehner canceled a vote on the budget, which no Democrats appeared to support.

The main problem was infighting among Republicans, according to a Republican aide close to the negotiations.

Moderate Republicans, such as Rep. Nancy Johnson of Connecticut, were pushing for about $7 billion in additional funds for health, education and other domestic programs the Senate already approved. Several moderate Republicans face tough re-election campaigns this year.

Conservative Republicans balked, demanding tight spending caps and also pushing budget reforms that would further control domestic spending.

The conservatives' budget reform initiatives angered a powerful group of Republicans who control the House Appropriations Committee. Led by Chairman Jerry Lewis of California, those Republicans did not want their power to oversee spending diluted by others.

The ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, John Spratt of South Carolina, said, "Any idea that they'd (Republicans) be able to put this back on track, once we come back here after two weeks, seems far-fetched."

(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell)

    Republicans fail to pass budget, tax bills, R, 6.4.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-04-07T030529Z_01_N06308991_RTRUKOC_0_US-CONGRESS-BUDGET.xml

Rice urges US-India nuclear deal in Congress

Wed Apr 5, 2006 9:48 PM ET
Reuters
By Carol Giacomo and Vicky Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday urged Congress to approve a nuclear energy deal with India, saying it would reduce New Delhi's dependence on Iranian oil and create thousands of new American jobs.

In testimony considered crucial to the agreement's future, Rice rejected critics who have argued that the agreement undermines efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.

But she acknowledged that under the deal, which overturns 30 years of U.S. policy, India would be free to continue nuclear weapons production.

The agreement, central to burgeoning U.S.-India ties, would permit the transfer of foreign nuclear energy reactors and fuel denied for three decades because New Delhi developed nuclear weapons and did not sign the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

While the agreement has been controversial, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee seemed largely supportive or neutral. Several voiced satisfaction that the two democracies were getting closer after years of chilly relations.

Rice encountered tougher questioning during an afternoon hearing before the House of Representatives International Relations Committee, where even supporters of the deal expressed grave concerns about India's ties with Iran and predicted Congress would seek to enact unspecified conditions.

"It is my view that this is in trouble here," said Democratic Rep. Gary Ackerman of New York.

Another supporter, Rep. Tom Lantos of California, the panel's senior Democrat, warned that "any (Indian) military cooperation with the present terrorist regime in Iran will certainly derail this deal in Congress."

CONCERN ABOUT IRAN

Responding to concerns about India's energy ties with Iran, Rice said helping India develop its nuclear power industry would "ease its reliance on hydrocarbons and unstable sources like Iran," a country the West has accused of pursuing nuclear weapons.

Iran, branded a state sponsor of terrorism by Washington, says its nuclear program only aims to produce electricity.

Rice said the nuclear deal, which must be approved by the U.S. Congress and the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, "may add as many as 3,000 to 5,000 new direct jobs in the United States and about 10,000 to 15,000 indirect jobs" as American companies engage India in nuclear trade.

Despite rapidly improving ties with Washington, India has insisted it will maintain relations with Iran, including a pipeline project.

Under U.S. pressure, India sided with the West in key votes of the International Atomic Energy Agency board that found Iran in noncompliance with international obligations and reported its case to the U.N. Security Council.

But India last month raised U.S. eyebrows by hosting a port visit by two Iranian navy ships, and lawmakers questioned Rice closely on this point.

She said some of America's closest allies, including Japan, have oil and gas ties with Iran; NATO ally Italy is Iran's largest trading partner and many other states have low-level military contacts.

But U.S. officials have argued that Iran, because of its record and policies, is not a reliable supplier and Rice said many states are reassessing their ties with Tehran.

In the Senate hearing, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the panel's senior Democrat, and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, announced support for the nuclear deal, which has been endorsed by American business and politically active Indian-Americans.

But Biden said it represented a "jump of faith" that India would follow through on its commitments and Kerry urged India to quickly agree on promised international inspection standards for its nuclear facilities.

    Rice urges US-India nuclear deal in Congress, R, 5.4.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-04-06T014749Z_01_DEL219897_RTRUKOC_0_US-NUCLEAR-INDIA-USA.xml

Congress split over immigration bill

Sun Apr 2, 2006 2:46 PM ET
Reuters
By Mark Felsenthal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawmakers clashed on Sunday over whether to let some illegal immigrants stay in the United States and work for citizenship, suggesting compromise may elude Congress on a politically sensitive issue.

"There's a chasm between the House and the Senate," Illinois Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

The Senate is debating a bill that would tighten security along the Mexican border, create a temporary "guest-worker" program, and could create a process for some of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States to become citizens.

The immigration issue has taken on heightened importance before November congressional elections and poses a dilemma for U.S. President George W. Bush, who wants Congress to approve a guest-worker program despite strong opposition from within his own Republican Party.

Durbin and other Senate Democrats said they oppose the route taken by the House of Representatives, which in December passed a measure that would define illegal aliens as felons and would build a 700-mile fence along the border with Mexico to keep illegal immigrants out.

"The House approach is unacceptable," Durbin said.

Meanwhile, prominent Republican lawmakers said the guest-worker program is at odds with the immediate goals of legislation beefing up border security.

"If we don't firm up the border, the guest-worker program is going to encourage more people to enter the country illegally," said Rep. James Sensenbrenner, the Wisconsin Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, speaking on the same program as Durbin.

A Republican senator and potential presidential candidate in 2008, George Allen of Virginia, breaking ranks with President Bush, said the legislation should focus on border security and put off debate on a guest-worker program.

Bush has backed allowing illegal workers to have temporary legal status while performing jobs Americans are unwilling to do. He favors a comprehensive immigration bill, while some Republicans prefer a limited bill addressing only border security.

HOUSE-SENATE DIFFERENCES

"It may be several years down the road or months down the road we can get a consensus on how you handle a good temporary-worker system," Allen said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

"I don't think we ought to be passing anything that rewards illegal behavior or amnesty," he said.

Debate over immigration has exposed rifts within the Republican Party, with some GOP lawmakers agreeing with Bush that immigration legislation must have a broader focus than sealing the border to illegal immigrants.

"Any type of immigration reform must include some type of pathway to a legal status," said Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, speaking on CNN's "Late Edition."

Sensenbrenner acknowledged that division in Congress over the guest-worker program poses a major obstacle to a compromise on immigration legislation.

"This will be tough, and it's the toughest thing that I've done in 37 years in elective public office," he said.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said on the CNN program that he expects the immigration bill to reach the Senate floor by Friday.

The House and Senate would then have to work out differences between different versions of the legislation, but any measure that does not create some path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants already in the United States "is simply not going to work," the Tennessee Republican said.

The House bill caused an uproar in the Hispanic community and has drawn opposition from groups as diverse as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Catholic Church.

    Congress split over immigration bill, R, 2.4.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-04-02T184547Z_01_N01389646_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-IMMIGRATION.xml

Major Changes Raise Concerns on Pension Bill

March 19, 2006
The New York Times
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH

With a strong directive from the Bush administration, Congress set out more than a year ago to fashion legislation that would protect America's private pension system, tightening the rules to make sure companies set aside enough money to make good on their promises to employees.

Then the political horse-trading began, with lawmakers, companies and lobbyists, representing everything from big Wall Street firms to tiny rural electric cooperatives, weighing in on the particulars of the Bush administration's blueprint.

In the end, lawmakers modified many of the proposed rules, allowing companies more time to cover pension shortfalls, to make more forgiving estimates about how much they will owe workers in the future, and even sometimes to assume that their workers will die younger than the rest of the population.

On top of those changes, companies also persuaded lawmakers to add dozens of specific measures, including a multibillion-dollar escape clause for the nation's airlines and a special exemption for the makers of Smithfield Farms hams.

As a result, the bill now being completed in a House-Senate conference committee, rather than strengthening the pension system, would actually weaken it, according to a little-noticed analysis by the government's pension agency. The agency's report projects that the House and Senate bills would lower corporate contributions to the already underfinanced pension system by $140 billion to $160 billion in the next three years.

That shortfall raises the specter of more pension plans failing, pushing their liabilities on to the government, according to the agency and critics of the bills. And some companies with fully financed pensions feel unfairly penalized by having to pay higher pension premiums to make up for others' shortfalls.

"It takes a better economist than me to understand how reducing contributions by that much is going to protect benefits and put the system on a sounder footing," said Jeremy I. Bulow, an economist at Stanford University.

Both pieces of legislation — one passed by the House and the other by the Senate, both by overwhelming majorities — do contain measures that would reduce some of the lapses and inaccuracies that the current pension law permits. They would also increase the premiums that companies pay to the federal guarantor, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, an agency grappling with a $23 billion deficit.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, says the bills attempt to strike the proper balance between providing for workers' pensions and allowing companies to remain competitive.

"My goal is to make sure that companies set aside enough money for the pensions they promise their workers," Mr. Grassley said. "At the same time, we can't put burdens on plan sponsors that are too heavy."

The overhaul of the pension system is being undertaken at a time when it is reeling from a series of big bankruptcies, like those of United Airlines and Bethlehem Steel, which sent billions of dollars' worth of obligations to the pension agency.

The agency's pension insurance is limited, and a growing number of these companies' employees have discovered to their dismay that their benefits exceed the limits and that they will simply lose part of the money they had been promised.

The House-Senate conference committee intends to reconcile the bills before April 15, when the next round of corporate pension contributions are due. But the White House already warned in November that President Bush might veto any bill that extended too much special pension relief to individual companies and industries.

Legislators argue that, while they want the pension agency to be strong, they also want to encourage companies to continue offering pensions. Lately, some companies, like I.B.M. and Verizon, have moved to freeze their pension plans, arguing that the costs of their plans make it hard to compete.

Kevin Smith, the spokesman for Representative John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio and the new House majority leader, who was one of the driving forces behind pension changes, defended the House bill, arguing that many specific measures, particularly those phasing in the new rules slowly, were necessary.

"Both the House and Senate pension bills represent the most comprehensive pension reforms in a generation," Mr. Smith said, "so a responsible transition period for employers to meet the new, stricter rules is appropriate."

He added that he believed the pension agency's analysis did not take into account the weakened financial condition of many companies that offer pensions.

The law that Congress wants to amend was enacted in 1974 after a series of scandals in the auto industry in which employees of dying companies like Studebaker and Packard discovered that little or nothing had been set aside for their pensions. It gave rise to rules for the financing of pensions and to an insurance program roughly comparable to the federal insurance program for bank deposits.

The law did help safeguard pension benefits, but it has not been strong enough to stop some companies from falling short in their contributions.

When Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao sent Congress a blueprint for amending the pension law in January 2005, many companies thought her proposals were too tough.

From the start of the legislative process, lobbyists representing a wide swath of American business, including those from the United States Chamber of Commerce, the American Benefits Council and the Erisa Industry Committee (which represents large companies with pension plans), argued for easing the burden on companies by allowing them more latitude in estimating how long their workers would live, for example, and what they would need to set aside for future payouts.

The biggest single-industry pension break in the bill passed by the Senate is for the airlines, to allow them to keep their unstable pension plans going.

Among other things, the airlines would be given 20 years to close the shortfalls in their pension funds — nearly three times as long as other companies. They would also be allowed to factor in highly optimistic assumptions about their investment returns when calculating how much they needed to contribute to their pension funds each year.

The measures were written into the bill at the request of Northwest Airlines, which is in bankruptcy proceedings and is trying to keep its pensions alive, though in sharply reduced form. Northwest sought a 14-year breather on its pension contributions.

But then Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia, said that 14 years of relief would not be enough to help Delta, a big airline based in his state, which is also operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections. Senator Isakson amended the bill to provide 20 years of relief. After complaints from other big airlines, the relief was expanded to them all.

The Senate bill would also help recover more than $1 billion of benefits that thousands of pilots for Braniff, PanAm, Eastern, United and other airlines have lost in bankruptcy cases going back as far as the 1980's. That amendment was made by Senator Daniel H. Akaka, Democrat of Hawaii.

But helping those pilots would be expensive: the pension agency projected that the entire provision would increase its total obligations to retirees by more than $1 billion.

Someone must pay for this. Currently, the pension agency finances itself in part through the insurance premiums that companies are required to pay into the system. Raising the premiums to support pilots or help other victims of corporate bankruptcies, some companies in other industries are starting to say, would be unfair.

In a letter to shareholders last week, Edward S. Lampert, chairman of Sears Holdings, which is responsible for the pension plans of employees at Kmart and Sears, complained that his company's pension insurance premiums were going up by 60 percent, "not in order to address any risk associated with Sears, but rather to make up for the difficulties of other companies."

Mr. Lampert also deplored the current pension law, which bars companies with richly financed pension plans from taking any of the surplus money out, except in rare instances.

Prudential Financial has the same complaint, but instead of writing to its shareholders, it took direct action in Washington, hiring William F. Sweetnam Jr., until recently the Treasury Department's senior legal adviser on employee benefits, to lobby on the issue of surplus pension assets. Mr. Sweetnam is now a principal at the Groom Law Group, a Washington law firm that specializes in employee benefits issues.

Prudential has a $1.2 billion surplus in its pension fund. Mr. Sweetnam was able to persuade several senators, including Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey (where Prudential has its headquarters), that the companies that are more than 15 percent overfinanced should be allowed to remove some of the surplus and use the money to buy health insurance for retirees.

Currently, only companies that are 25 percent overfinanced are allowed to do so.

Robert DeFillippo, a Prudential spokesman, said that the provision would improve pension security because in exchange for the ability to take more money out of the pension fund, the company would be required to handle the money remaining in the fund much more carefully.

Smithfield Farms also got help in the name of strengthening the system. It bought another meat company out of bankruptcy in 2003, taking over its pension fund at the same time. That kept the bankrupt firm's pension plan alive, Smithfield said, and saved the government from having to take it over. In light of that, the company contends that it would hardly be fair to impose tougher new financing rules on Smithfield.

That argument caught the ear of Senator Mike DeWine, Republican of Ohio, where Smithfield has major operations. Mr. DeWine added a provision that would let Smithfield follow the old pension rules until 2014, no matter what Congress does in the meantime.

The bills would also be a boon to Wall Street by permitting financial service companies to handle more retirement money with fewer restrictions. Hedge funds, for example, would be permitted to manage more pension money without being held to the pension law's exacting standards of fiduciary duty.

Mr. Boehner has championed easing the restrictions on investment advice for several years. He included a provision that would permit investment firms to advise participants in 401(k) retirement plans, even if the firms' own mutual funds were among the employees' investment choices. Current pension law forbids this practice, on the thinking that it could taint investment recommendations.

Mr. Boehner has argued that employees need more investment advice, however, so that they can save more and earn better returns on their money. The securities industry is his top campaign contributor, providing more than $125,000 already in the 2005-06 House election cycle.

Mr. Smith, the spokesman for Mr. Boehner, said that the House bill would provide better quality financial advice for workers, adding that the Bush administration strongly supported that amendment.

"The Senate advice provision does little more than restate current law," he said, "which has left workers to fend for themselves without the type of quality advice they so desperately need."

    Major Changes Raise Concerns on Pension Bill, NYT, 19.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/business/19pension.html?hp&ex=1142830800&en=0e0f6f1b696f3337&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Nonprofit Hospitals Face Scrutiny Over Practices

March 19, 2006
The New York Times
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, March 18 — Congressional leaders, concerned that many nonprofit hospitals are not providing enough charity care to justify their tax-exempt status, say they will set standards for the industry if it does not do so itself.

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who had already been examining nonprofit groups like United Way and the American Red Cross, is broadening his focus to include nonprofit hospitals, with an eye to legislation that would clarify standards for their tax exemptions. Representative Bill Thomas, Republican of California, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, began investigating the financial practices of nonprofit hospitals last year.

The commissioner of internal revenue, Mark W. Everson, said tax officials often found little difference between nonprofit and for-profit hospitals "in their operations, their attention to the benefit of the community or their levels of charity care."

Huge changes have reshaped the health care industry in recent years, Mr. Everson said, but the basic standard for granting tax exemptions to hospitals has changed little since 1969.

Since 1969, Mr. Thomas said, "less and less has been required for hospitals to maintain tax-exempt status."

Before 1969, the Internal Revenue Service required hospitals to provide charity care to qualify for tax-exempt status. Since then, the agency has not specifically required such care, as long as hospitals provide benefits to the community in other ways — for example, by offering health fairs, screening for cancer and cholesterol, providing emergency care, training doctors and conducting medical research.

Health insurance companies typically negotiate with hospitals to secure large discounts off hospitals' posted prices. Uninsured people, with no one to negotiate on their behalf, are often charged much more than the insured, and some hospitals have been aggressive in trying to collect payment from the uninsured.

In a letter to the American Hospital Association this week, Mr. Grassley said he had "serious concern" about their billing and debt collection practices. He also expressed concern about the high salaries of some hospital executives, their joint ventures with commercial profit-making organizations and their use of profit-making subsidiaries.

While Congress is taking the initiative, administration officials have expressed similar concerns. President Bush has strongly encouraged hospitals to disclose detailed information about their prices, and tax officials say they intend to do more audits of nonprofit hospitals.

In the last few years, low-income people around the country have filed dozens of lawsuits arguing that private nonprofit hospitals are required to provide free or reduced-price services to the uninsured. Judges have generally rejected these arguments.

In a typical ruling last year, Judge Loretta A. Preska of the Federal District Court in Manhattan wrote: "Plaintiffs here have lost their way. They need to consult a map or a compass or a Constitution because plaintiffs have come to the judicial branch for relief that may only be granted by the legislative branch."

Federal tax law does not give patients an enforceable right to affordable medical care, Judge Preska said.

Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, said that nonprofit hospitals, like for-profit institutions, tried to earn a surplus, but used more of it to "take care of unmet health needs in the community."

In the last few years, Sister Carol said, a small number of Catholic hospitals have been accused of overly aggressive collection practices. These practices, she said, "resulted more from inattention than from a deliberate decision to hound poor people."

State officials have shown a keen interest in the issue. The attorney general of Kansas, Phill Kline, said he had opened an investigation of the billing and collection practices of nonprofit hospitals after receiving complaints from consumers. Some nonprofit hospitals have hired debt collection agencies that "harass the poor," Mr. Kline said.

In Illinois, Attorney General Lisa Madigan recently proposed legislation that would require hospitals to provide a minimum amount of charity care, equivalent to 8 percent of hospital operating costs. The Illinois Hospital Association opposes the legislation, saying it would "threaten the survival of many hospitals" by imposing new financial burdens.

In Minnesota, the state attorney general, Mike Hatch, said that stronger government regulation was needed because self-regulation was not enough.

Some nonprofit hospitals and health systems in Minnesota have provided "lavish gifts" and "grossly excessive" compensation to top executives while providing "paltry levels" of charity care, Mr. Hatch said.

When members of Congress raise questions about executive pay, they sometimes point to the compensation paid by teaching hospitals in New York. Tax-exempt organizations generally have to file annual returns with the Internal Revenue Service.

These forms, which are open to public inspection, show that the president of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Dr. Herbert Pardes, received more than $4.3 million in compensation in 2004, plus $1.2 million in contributions to his employee benefit plan. About half of his pay was a reward for performance in prior years, the hospital said.

Dr. Spencer Foreman, president of Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, received $1.1 million in compensation and $712,000 in benefits.

In an interview, Dr. Foreman said, "Congressional interest in this area is quite appropriate, and we as an industry have to come forward with a comprehensive response." But in defining the proper level of charity care, he said, it is "totally unrealistic" to apply the same mathematical formula to nonprofit hospitals in destitute urban neighborhoods and affluent suburbs.

"If a hospital provides a benefit proportional to the community's needs and the institution's resources, it meets the community benefit test," Dr. Foreman said.

    Nonprofit Hospitals Face Scrutiny Over Practices, NYT, 19.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/politics/19health.html

Amid Ports Furor, Lawmakers Plan for New Security Reviews

March 3, 2006
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE and HEATHER TIMMONS

WASHINGTON, March 2 — Lawmakers promised on Thursday to change the way the government reviews the foreign acquisitions of companies with national security significance, saying the furor surrounding a Dubai company's effort to take over some major American port terminals was proof that the existing system had broken down.

House and Senate members, saying they were blindsided by the proposal, said the mishandling of the transaction and the disclosure of other sales under review were stark evidence that Congress needed to play a greater role. They called for a new approach in the post-Sept. 11 environment and said commercial benefits had to be weighed against the threat of terrorism.

"While I strongly support our investment policy and recognize that it is vital to our national economic interests, I do not believe it should stand at any cost," said Senator Richard C. Shelby, the Alabama Republican who leads the Senate Banking Committee. "Everything in this country can't be for sale."

In the House, Representative Duncan Hunter, the California Republican who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he would introduce a bill to force foreign governments to relinquish ownership of critical installations.

Mr. Hunter said Dubai's record on handling nuclear materials and other weaponry disqualified it from having one of its state-owned businesses operating port terminals.

"Their track record is terrifying," he said.

Other lawmakers said the disclosure that the administration had begun a security review of a proposal by another Dubai company to buy a British manufacturer of precision tank and aircraft parts in Georgia and Connecticut increased doubts.

At a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, pressed administration officials to explain why the sale of the company, the Doncasters Group Ltd., merited a close review while the port deal covering a potentially greater vulnerability did not. "It just doesn't add up," Mr. Schumer said.

Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert M. Kimmitt said unresolved security questions on the Doncasters purchase by Dubai International Capital had led an administration committee to require an extended 45-day review. Mr. Kimmitt said he could not publicly discuss what prompted the review, which The Washington Post reported on Thursday. Many lawmakers said they were unaware of the new review before that report.

Mr. Kimmitt conceded that it was likely that changes were in store for the rules on reviews by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

"We clearly have to do some things inside the departments, and we clearly have to do quite a bit in finding ways to provide you more promptly with the information you need," he said.

Doncasters is being bought as the Pentagon increasingly depends on foreigners for critical military supplies, even in Iraq, and when the line between domestic and foreign military contractors is increasingly blurring. Multimillion-dollar Pentagon contracts have been given to dozens of countries, among them Israel, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in the Mideast. Companies in allied countries like England, France and Germany are competing with American contractors for a larger piece of the Pentagon budget, which has exceeded $400 billion in recent years.

The scrutiny of the Dubai transactions is partly product of the aggressive acquisition posture of state-owned companies from the United Arab Emirates. U.A.E. companies have swallowed up more than 40 foreign companies since the beginning of 2005. Several of those acquisitions have United States operations, according to data from Thomson Financial.

Among them are a British shipping services company with operations in more than 20 United States ports and a freight company that flies cargo into eight United States airports.

That Dubai, which is seeking to spin its limited oil resources into the creation of a worldwide shipping and financial center, has already completed transportation-related deals in the United States should be no surprise, some experts say.

"This has been a long-term strategy for Dubai, which is based around turning its domestic and regional operations into international operations," said Simon Williams, a senior economist with Economist Intelligence Unit in London who specializes in the Mideast. "I can't really believe" that the United States will look retroactively at all the Dubai deals, Mr. Williams added.

In early January, a Dubai investment company, Istithmar, Arabic for "investment," said it would buy Inchcape Shipping Services, a British ship agency company that operates in more than 20 ports in the United States, including Baltimore, New York-New Jersey and Long Beach, Calif. Istithmar paid $285 million for Inchcape.

In December, Etihad Airways bought Cargolux Airlines International, a Luxembourg-based freight company that flies in and out of eight United States airports, including New York.

Etihad, Arabic for "united," is the national airlines of the United Arab Emirates. It was started in 2003 by Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, then crown prince of Abu Dhabi.

Dubai has been an avid investor also in other industries that have United States ties. Last June, an investor group from the United Arab Emirates bought Borealis, a Danish specialty plastics manufacturer of medical packaging, automotive components and insulation that has plants in the United States

Dubai officials have played down concerns about the review of their deals. Some financial advisers and analysts say companies from the Emirates may try to avoid doing business in the United States. In confirming that it was participating in the 45-day Doncasters review, Dubai International Capital said in a statement it was "pursuing all of the proper U.S. regulatory approvals."

"It remains confident of obtaining those approvals and closing the transaction as originally envisioned," the statement said.

Carl Hulse reported from Washington for this article, and Heather Timmons from London. Leslie Wayne contributed reportingfrom New York.

    Amid Ports Furor, Lawmakers Plan for New Security Reviews, NYT, 3.3.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/03/politics/03ports.html

Bush to seek $439.3 billion defense budget

Thu Feb 2, 2006 10:35 PM ET
Reuters
By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush will ask Congress for $439.3 billion in defense spending for fiscal 2007, a 4.8 per cent increase over the current U.S. military budget, defense and administration officials said on Thursday.

The proposed budget for the financial year beginning next October includes $84.2 billion to purchase fighter jets, ships and other new weapons and $73.2 billion for military research and development programs, according to the officials, who asked not to be identified.

The proposed Pentagon budget, which does not include Energy Department funds to maintain the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, will be sent to Congress by the White House on Monday.

The new military budget also does not include $120 billion in planned new U.S. funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The White House said on Thursday it would ask Congress in the coming weeks for about $70 billion in new emergency funds for the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts and seek another $50 billion for those wars early in fiscal 2007.

The $84.2 billion request for weapons programs in the 2007 budget includes $3.5 billion for 42 advanced F/A-18 fighter jets built by Boeing Co., $2.5 billion for two new high-tech DDX Navy destroyers under development by General Dynamics Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp., and $2.4 billion for an additional Virginia Class attack submarine built by Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, the officials said.

A Pentagon official said that the proposed five-year defense plan for procuring weapons projects would increase such spending to $99.7 billion in fiscal 2008, $109 billion in 2009, $111.7 billion in 2010 and nearly $118 billion in 2011.

The Air Force would get $2.2 billion in funding for new F-22 fighter jets, built by Lockheed Martin Corp., in 2007. That would be a deep cut from current F-22 spending, but would allow the service under a new stretch-out plan to buy 20 of the expensive radar-evading jets each year in 2008, 2009 and 2110.

The planned separate requests to Congress for new Iraq and Afghan war funds would come on top of the $320 billion the White House budget office said has been allocated for the wars so far, pushing costs since the start of the conflicts through early next year to about $440 billion.

Congress in December sent Bush $50 billion to fund the wars until this next supplemental is approved.

    Bush to seek $439.3 billion defense budget, R, 2.2.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-02-03T033526Z_01_N02194729_RTRUKOC_0_US-ARMS-USA-BUDGET.xml&archived=False

Congress extends anti-terrorism Patriot Act

Thu Feb 2, 2006 10:40 PM ET
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Legislation to provide a second brief extension of expiring provisions of the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act won final congressional approval on Thursday and President Bush was expected to swiftly sign it into law.

The provisions had been set to expire on Friday, but the Senate approved a bill passed earlier by the House of Representatives to extend them to March 10.

Some lawmakers want the added time to resolve demands for greater protection of civil liberties before making most of the provisions permanent.

"We must give government the tools it needs to fight the terrorists, but the checks we need to stop it from abusing its powers," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said in a statement.

First enacted after the September 11 attacks, the Patriot Act expanded the power of federal authorities on such fronts as wiretaps and secret searches. Many provisions were to have initially expired on December 31.

In December, four Senate Republicans joined Democrats to block a House-passed bill to renew the Patriot Act, and demanded changes to better protect civil liberties.

Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, one of those four Republicans, said he and others have been in discussions with the White House and expect to reach an agreement soon.

A chief concern has been the government's ability to obtain an individual's private records in a probe of terrorism, even if, critics complain, the person has no ties to terrorism.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, said the bill blocked by the Senate would provide new safeguards and has again called for its passage.

    Congress extends anti-terrorism Patriot Act, R, 2.2.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-02-03T034039Z_01_N01376042_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-PATRIOT.xml

Lawmakers seek review of eavesdropping rules

Sun Jan 22, 2006 7:11 PM ET
Reuters
By Joanne Kenen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. surveillance laws should be reviewed and possibly rewritten to allow the type of eavesdropping that U.S. President George W. Bush has been criticized for authorizing, lawmakers from both parties said on Sunday.

Democrats and some Republicans have said the Bush administration's classified warrantless eavesdropping program is illegal. The White House has strongly defended the National Security Agency surveillance as legal and essential. The Senate Judiciary Committee starts hearings on the issue on February 6.

The NSA has been monitoring communications, including e-mail and telephone calls, into and out of the United States by people believed linked to al Qaeda or related groups.

An audio tape by Osama bin Laden that emerged last week threatening new attacks on the United States has heightened security concerns. Neither party can afford to be seen as failing to protect the country, particularly as corruption scandals and public questioning of the Iraq war loom over November's congressional elections.

Lawmakers on several Sunday talk shows said that if the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) does not give Bush the tools and legal framework he needs to monitor potential threats, the president should ask Congress to change the law rather than bypass it.

Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry, who endorsed former Vice President Al Gore's call for an independent investigation of the Bush program, said on ABC's "This Week" that some Republicans like Bush adviser Karl Rove are trying to equate Democratic opposition to warrantless spying as weakness.

"What he's (Rove) trying to pretend is somehow Democrats don't want to eavesdrop appropriately to protect the country. That's a lie," Kerry said. "We're prepared to eavesdrop wherever and whenever necessary in order to make America safer."

'THERE IS A WAY'

But Kerry said the spying has to be legal and constitutional and if Bush needs the law to be changed, "then come to us and tell us. ... There is a way to protect the Constitution and not go off on your own and violate it."

Other prominent Democratic senators including Dick Durbin of Illinois, Charles Schumer of New York and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut made similar comments about re-examining the breadth and modernity of FISA in television interviews a few days after Rove urged Republicans to campaign on national security and the war on terror.

"Senate Democrats continue to engage in misleading and outlandish charges about this vital tool that helps us do exactly what the 9/11 Commission said we needed to do -- connect the dots," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in a statement.

"It defies common sense for Democrats to now claim the administration is acting outside its authority while their own party leaders have been briefed more than a dozen times -- only after there was a leak and subsequent media coverage did they start criticizing the program," he said.

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who has also questioned the legality of the eavesdropping, also urged the administration to work with Congress on modernizing the 1978 FISA law to take into account technological changes in communications.

"I know of no member of Congress, frankly, who, if the administration came and said here's why we need this capability, that they wouldn't get it. And so let's have the hearings," McCain said on Fox News Sunday.

House Intelligence Committee chairman Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, a strong defender of the president's program, said on ABC's "This Week" that "we'll take a look at whether there needs to be a change in the law."

But his Senate counterpart Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts of Kansas said he worried the public debate about what the NSA can or cannot do would harm its intelligence gathering.

"Al Qaeda are not stupid," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "I really worry about losing that capability and seeing a diminished capacity for the president to act and detect a possible attack on the homeland, then do something about it."

Bush will visit the NSA on Wednesday as part of the effort to highlight the need for the program. Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, former head of the NSA, will speak at the National Press Club on Monday and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will speak on Tuesday.

    Lawmakers seek review of eavesdropping rules, NYT, 22.1.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-01-23T001144Z_01_N22234484_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-EAVESDROPPING.xml

Lobbying reform tops agenda for Congress

Mon Jan 16, 2006 11:12 AM ET
Reuters
By Donna Smith

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lobbying reform is a top priority for returning U.S. lawmakers as Republicans push to keep majority control of Congress and deal with an ethics scandal that threatens to overshadow an election-year agenda including immigration reform and tax cuts.

The Senate returns on Wednesday from a month-long break to begin a second session of Congress with a lively debate and likely vote on Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, named by President George W. Bush to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

The House of Representatives returns on January 31, the day Bush will give his annual State of the Union address and outline an agenda that is expected to include some tough spending cuts.

Lawmakers face a raft of unfinished business, including a nearly $40 billion spending cut package and legislation extending expiring tax breaks for businesses and investors.

Those tax breaks could come under greater scrutiny now that the administration has forecast a fiscal 2006 budget deficit of more than $400 billion.

Lawmakers will also be pressed to renew the expiring anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act amid disclosures that Bush authorized spying on Americans with suspected ties to terrorists without a warrant. A temporary extension enacted in final days of the last session expires on February 3.

But those issues and other legislative priorities, including a push for tougher enforcement of U.S. immigration laws, are being overshadowed by the ethics scandal surrounding lobbyist Jack Abramoff's recent guilty pleas in an expanding fraud and bribery investigation.

At least one Republican representative is known to be under investigation related to the Abramoff probe and many more could be drawn into the scandal as lawmakers gear up for the November congressional election.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, have made lobbying reform a high priority. But it is unclear whether lawmakers plan far-reaching changes.

Roberta Baskin of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan group that tracks lobbying activity, said chances are good a comprehensive reform will emerge from the scandal.

"It depends on how serious they (lawmakers) are and that is going to depend on how serious the public is," she said.

HOUSE LEADERSHIP VOTE, SENATE AGENDA

Before turning to the legislative agenda, House Republicans will elect a new majority leader on February 2. Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas said this month he would not seek to reclaim that position. He is facing felony charges related to a Texas campaign finance case and also has had a close relationship with Abramoff.

A three-way race is developing with Acting House Majority Leader Roy Blunt of Missouri, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio and Arizona Rep. John Shadegg vying for the post.

In the Senate, in addition to the Alito nomination, senators will vote on the nomination of White House adviser Ben Bernanke to be chairman of the Federal Reserve, replacing Alan Greenspan, who is stepping down on January 31.

Lawmakers expect the White House to ask for an additional $80 billion to $100 billion to help finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and face a politically unpalatable vote on raising U.S. borrowing authority. The government's debt limit of $8.184 trillion likely will be breached in mid-February and Treasury Secretary John Snow has urged Congress to act quickly to increase the limit.

Frist hopes to have early Senate consideration of legislation that would create a $140 billion fund to compensate victims harmed by asbestos, while ending their right to sue.

Frist also has said he would like the Senate to consider in February immigration reform and Bush's call for a guest worker program that would allow Mexican and other foreign workers to temporarily work in the United States.

The House last month passed an immigration bill that had no provisions for a temporary work program and instead focused on tough enforcement measures requiring employers to verify the status of their workers and raising fines against those who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan)

    Lobbying reform tops agenda for Congress, R, 16.1.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-01-16T161210Z_01_N15110629_RTRUKOC_0_US-CONGRESS.xml

In Congress, 'we simply have too much power'

Posted 1/9/2006 11:37 PM
USA TODAY
News analysis by Jim Drinkard

WASHINGTON — In 1980, a House member got caught on videotape stuffing cash into his pockets, one of five lawmakers snared in the Abscam FBI corruption sting operation.

Congressmen Bob Ney, left, and Tom DeLay are currently embroiled in scandals over ethical violations.
AP photos

Today, Washington is roiled by new bribery and fraud scandals, and the amounts involved wouldn't come close to fitting into a coat pocket. Tens of millions of dollars, luxury travel and expensive gifts have been used to influence — and in at least one case, bribe — members of Congress.

The revelations are damaging faith in the federal government, triggering calls for tighter rules and prompting some to ask whether Congress is once again for sale.

"We simply have too much power," says Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., speaking of lawmakers' ability to target tax dollars for particular projects, contractors or campaign donors. "We Republicans have abused that power badly over the past several years."

The scandals spring from several factors, ethics authorities say. The Republican Party enjoys nearly unchallenged control of the federal government. The congressional ethics committees, which normally enforce the rules, have been moribund. The cost of running for office and the amount of money being spent on influencing the government have grown sharply.

"When one party has been in power for an extended period of time, a certain amount of corrosive behavior sets in," says Kenneth Gross, an attorney who specializes in congressional ethics. "People start getting careless with the rules."

Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who built a successful practice at two blue-chip Washington firms over the past decade, personifies the problems. He maintained skyboxes at sports venues where he entertained lawmakers and clients, started a swanky restaurant where free drinks and meals flowed for the powerful, and billed an astronomical $82 million to Indian tribes that were his clients.

Abramoff used to refer to the congressional appropriations committees, which write annual spending bills, as "the favor factory."

He is cooperating with federal prosecutors to build a case that may sweep in members of Congress, their aides and Bush administration officials. The case, FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker said, involves "systemic corruption within the highest levels of government. ... We fully expect additional subjects to be charged."

"Congress needs to clean house," says Jan Baran, an attorney who often represents public officials and lobbying groups in ethics matters. "There are many people in Washington who are surprised they haven't done so before now."

These problems come at the end of a decade of rapid growth in Washington lobbying. Senate records show 32,890 lobbyists were registered last year, three times the number a decade earlier. Many of those are former members of Congress or their aides. Annual spending on lobbying has grown from about $800 million in 1996 to about $2.2 billion last year.

Ironically, ethics rules already are tighter than they were in decades past. Lobbyists must register and report their income and client lists. Lawmakers and their aides are prohibited from accepting meals, entertainment or other gifts worth more than $50. They are barred from lobbying their former congressional contacts for a year after leaving Capitol Hill for the lobbying world. And they must report trips taken on the tab of private interests.

The guilty pleas of Abramoff and his lobbying partner, public relations executive Michael Scanlon, follow other ethical troubles. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, stepped down as House majority leader last September after being charged in his home state with felony conspiracy to launder campaign money. Saturday, he abandoned efforts to return to the post. Another Republican congressman, Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California, resigned Nov. 28 after pleading guilty to taking at least $2.4 million in bribes, including a Rolls-Royce and antique furniture.

Normally, policing the House of Representatives and Senate is up to each chamber's ethics committee, but those have been largely inactive of late.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, head of the Democrats' campaign committee, wants to make corruption a top issue in this year's elections.

Republican leaders, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., are pushing for lobbying changes.

The dealings between lobbyists and members of Congress have become "unfortunately, the ordinary way of doing business in this town," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who introduced a proposal last month designed to make the influence business more transparent.

"It's obvious why it's needed," he said. "One word: Abramoff."

Among the concerns:

• Campaign contributions:

These are tightly regulated by the federal government and must be disclosed to the public, which is meant to keep them from becoming a corrupting influence.

The limits haven't slowed lobbyists and politicians. Though an individual can directly give a maximum of $2,100 per election to a candidate, lobbyists routinely raise far greater amounts by persuading their colleagues and clients to give to selected lawmakers they are seeking to influence — and that legal activity is not disclosed.

Abramoff leveraged his tribal contacts into $4.4 million in contributions from 1999 through 2005, for example. The money flowed to more than 240 members of Congress, two-thirds of it to Republicans. Dozens of lawmakers have rushed to give back tainted money or donate it to charity.

DeLay, with help from Abramoff, pioneered a system that rewarded the party's donors with access and pressured interest groups to hire Republicans as lobbyists. The system was known as the "K Street Project," after the Washington street lined with lobbying offices.

It institutionalized the capital's "pay-to-play" mentality, says Melanie Sloan of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "Congress started becoming for sale," she said.

Adding to the pressure to raise money is the growing cost of campaigns. In 1994, when Republicans captured the House, the average winner of a House seat spent $516,000 to get elected. In 2004, the figure topped $1 million.

• Travel:

Members of Congress are frequent flyers, and lobbyists know a quick way to make friends is to make their travel easier. Corporations that own airplanes often put them at the disposal of lawmakers, particularly senior leaders. For example, when Frist wanted to congratulate newly elected Republican senators in 2004, he used the plane of drugmaker Schering-Plough for a trip to Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.

For the price of a first-class ticket, members of Congress can be whisked to their destinations without the waits, uncertainties or hassle of scheduled airlines. The corporation gets goodwill and valuable time for their lobbyists with the lawmaker.

Non-profit groups, many of them closely tied to lobbyists, also are permitted to sponsor trips for lawmakers and their staffs under the "fact-finding" exemption to rules barring expensive gifts.

• Spouses:

Spouses of members of Congress can be hired by the lawmakers' campaigns or otherwise find work through their congressional connections, which is legal as long as they perform work.

DeLay's wife, Christine, earned about $115,000 over a three-year period for work she did for the Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying firm formed by former DeLay staff members.

Abramoff hired a consulting firm owned by Julie Doolittle, wife of Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., to do fundraising for a charity Abramoff founded.

• Gifts:

Ethics rules say members of Congress and their aides may accept gifts worth no more than $50, and an aggregate of $100 a year from a single donor, and require that any such gifts be disclosed.

Cunningham ignored those rules, allowing a defense contractor to buy his San Diego home for $700,000 more than it was worth. He accepted the use of the contractor's yacht and thousands of dollars in other gifts.

Plea agreements signed by Abramoff and Scanlon outline "a stream of things of value," including a golf trip to Scotland, given to a lawmaker later identified by his attorney as Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio. Ney denies wrongdoing.

There is little to stop public officials from ignoring the gift limits and reporting rules, other than the risk of criminal prosecution. "The Cunningham business was not just one real estate transaction but a much broader pattern," says Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "You've got to look at that and say maybe he wasn't the only one."

    In Congress, 'we simply have too much power', UT, 9.1.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-01-09-congress-scandal-analysis_x.htm

Basis for Spying in U.S. Is Doubted

January 7, 2006
The New York Times
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 - President Bush's rationale for eavesdropping on Americans without warrants rests on questionable legal ground, and Congress does not appear to have given him the authority to order the surveillance, said a Congressional analysis released Friday.

The analysis, by the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan research arm of Congress, was the first official assessment of a question that has gripped Washington for three weeks: Did Mr. Bush act within the law when he ordered the National Security Agency, the country's most secretive spy agency, to eavesdrop on some Americans?

The report, requested by several members of Congress, reached no bottom-line conclusions on the legality of the program, in part because it said so many details remained classified. But it raised numerous doubts about the power to bypass Congress in ordering such operations, saying the legal rationale "does not seem to be as well grounded" as the administration's lawyers have argued.

The administration quickly disputed several conclusions in the report.

The report was particularly critical of a central administration justification for the program, that Congress had effectively approved such eavesdropping soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by authorizing "all necessary and appropriate force" against the terrorist groups responsible. Congress "does not appear to have authorized or acquiesced in such surveillance," the report said, adding that the administration reading of some provisions of federal wiretap law could render them "meaningless."

The president acknowledged last month that he had given the security agency the power to eavesdrop on the international telephone and e-mail communications of Americans and others in the United States without a warrant if they were suspected of ties to Al Qaeda.

The Justice Department is investigating the disclosure of the program, first reported in The New York Times. With Congressional hearings expected this month, the Congressional research report intensified debate on the program. Administration lawyers quickly responded that Mr. Bush had acted within his constitutional and statutory powers.

"The president has made clear that he will use his constitutional and statutory authorities to protect the American people from further terrorist attacks," said Brian Roehrkasse, a Justice Department spokesman, adding that the program represented "a critical tool in the war on terror that saves lives and protects civil liberties at the same time."

Many Democrats and some Republicans pointed to the findings as perhaps the strongest indication that Mr. Bush might have exceeded his authority in fighting terrorism.

Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, who leads the House Democratic Policy Committee, said the report "raises serious questions about the president's legal authority to conduct domestic spying."

Mr. Miller said the justifications for the program were unacceptable.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said the report made "absolutely clear that the legal authorities advanced by the president in justifying domestic surveillance are on very shaky ground."

Thomas H. Kean, a Republican who was chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, weighed in for the first time in the debate. Mr. Kean said he counted himself among those who doubted the legality of the program. He said in an interview that the administration did not inform his commission about the program and that he wished it had.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Congress passed in 1978 after widespread abuses by intelligence agencies, created a system for court-ordered wiretaps for terrorism and espionage suspects. That system "gives very broad powers to the president and, except in very rare circumstances, in my view ought to be used," Mr. Kean said.

"We live by a system of checks and balances," he said. "And I think we ought to continue to live by a system of checks and balances."

One reason the administration has cited for not seeking to change the intelligence law and obtain specific approvals for eavesdropping was that it might "tip off" terrorists to the program. The Congressional research service found that unconvincing.

"No legal precedent appears to have been presented," the study said, "that would support the president's authority to bypass the statutory route when legislation is required" simply because of secrecy.

Opinions on domestic spying have largely broken down, though not exclusively, along partisan lines, causing splits between the top Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.

The analyses of the Congressional Research Service, part of the Library of Congress created in 1914, are generally seen as objective and without partisan taint, said Eleanor Hill, staff director of the Congressional inquiry on the Sept. 11 attacks.

Because of its importance, the report was repeatedly reviewed by senior staff members at the research service for accuracy and bias before its release, officials there said.

Some Democrats say the administration bypassed the authority of Congress in ordering the eavesdropping. One congressman said he was actively misled. In a letter released Friday, Representative Rush D. Holt, a New Jersey Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, complained to the N.S.A. over what he described as deception by its director, Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander of the Army.

Mr. Holt, a physicist who has worked as an arms control specialist at the State Department, visited the agency on Dec. 6 for a briefing by General Alexander and agency lawyers about protecting Americans' privacy. The officials assured him, Mr. Holt said, that the agency singled out Americans for eavesdropping only under warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

After the program was disclosed, Mr. Holt wrote a blistering letter to General Alexander, expressing "considerable anger" over being misled. An agency spokesman, Don Weber, declined to comment on the letter.

    Basis for Spying in U.S. Is Doubted, NYT, 7.1.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/07/politics/07nsa.html?hp&ex=1136696400&en=147d251d212f7f11&ei=5094&partner=homepage

    Related > http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/m010506.pdf

Abramoff Conviction
Gives New Impetus to Moves in Congress to Toughen Curbs on Lobbying

January 6, 2006
By CARL HULSE
The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 - The criminal conviction of the high-powered lobbyist Jack Abramoff is giving new impetus to Congressional initiatives to toughen restrictions on lobbying as Republicans and Democrats vie to establish their credentials on a potentially potent election-year issue.

Both parties are preparing to roll out lobbying reform proposals in the aftermath of Mr. Abramoff's guilty plea to public corruption charges. They are considering a variety of ideas certain to draw resistance from the lobbying community and other lawmakers.

"These are tough changes, and some of them will be quite controversial among our colleagues here," Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, said Thursday as he endorsed a plan developed by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, after his hearings into Mr. Abramoff's bilking of Indian tribes through a lobbying operation.

The plan by Mr. McCain, a chief author of changes in campaign finance law, is one of a handful that have been percolating behind the scenes for weeks.

Now that the Abramoff inquiry has exploded, those plans are unlikely to be quietly shelved. Lawmakers are eager to show that Congress is willing to crack down on practices that have become business as usual in a city increasingly driven by campaign contributions and cozy relationships.

"I will be working with colleagues this session to examine and act on any necessary changes to improve transparency and accountability for our body when it comes to lobbying," said Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, who late last year assigned a colleague to begin exploring new regulations on lobbying.

Democrats say Mr. Frist and other Republican leaders are latecomers to the call for changes, noting that Democrats in the House and Senate introduced proposals in the spring and summer only to be treated dismissively by Republicans. And they say they are skeptical that proposals from the Republican leadership will be sufficiently tough.

"Congressional Democrats have been pushing to clean up Congress since long before the indictments started coming down on the culture of corruption," John Lapp, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Thursday. "We continue to wait for Republicans to join us."

House Democrats announced Thursday that 120 Democratic lawmakers now back a proposed overhaul of House rules that would prohibit any lobbyist involvement in paying for travel of members of Congress. That change follows disclosures that Mr. Abramoff funneled money through organizations to underwrite lavish trips for Republican lawmakers like Representatives Tom DeLay of Texas and Bob Ney of Ohio. Those men say they were unaware of Mr. Abramoff's ruse.

House and Senate Democratic leaders plan to unveil extensive lobbying changes later this month. Like other proposals, they would extend the prohibition on lobbying of Congress by former lawmakers and staff members to two years from one, eliminate floor privileges for former members who are registered lobbyists and put new limits on gifts and Congressional travel. Penalties for violations would be significantly increased.

The McCain measure that Mr. Lieberman is backing would take similar steps, including requiring lawmakers to disclose employment negotiations that could pose a conflict - an area of controversy in recent years as lawmakers and senior aides left Capitol Hill to work for industries formerly under their legislative jurisdiction.

The proposal would institute extensive requirements for financial disclosures by lobbyists. It would also require lawmakers to pay the true costs of flying on private jets owned by outside interests rather than reimbursing the jets' owners at first-class travel rates as is now the practice.

Mr. Lieberman said he believed that new public disclosure of lobbyist activities could curtail some abuse though he acknowledged, as some outside watchdog groups have asserted, that lack of enforcement of current rules by the Congressional ethics committees is an issue.

"I think it's a reasonable question to ask about the work of the ethics committees," he said.

Senior Republican aides in the House and Senate said their proposals were still being assembled and negotiated among lawmakers, but they promised that the measures would have teeth.

"The leader expects a serious and credible lobby reform proposal for the Senate," said Eric Ueland, chief of staff to Mr. Frist, "and the ideas proposed to date fit that bill to bring more transparency and accountability to the lobbying world."

Members of both parties say it is likely some legislation will be enacted, particularly with elections coming up in November and with public regard for Congress at a low in public opinion polls.

"The Congress needs to respond," said Representative Zach Wamp, Republican of Tennessee.

    Abramoff Conviction Gives New Impetus to Moves in Congress to Toughen Curbs on Lobbying, NYT, 6.1.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/06/politics/06cong.html