Dorothy first began writing on the news from Washington for Render under Jay Richter, the magazine’s first Washington columnist. She then assumed the column under her own name in 1995, continuing until this issue.
Dorothy brought a unique flair to Render and we want to thank her for her dedication to the industry all these years and wish her happiness in the future.
“Washingtonspeak”
Senator Trent Lott (R-MN) recently chided those at a Senate Finance Committee hearing for all their charts, numbers, and “political gobbledygook.” What is needed, he said, is “common-sense language” that his 91-year-old mother could understand.
Here’s what Robert Pozen, a witness with a Social Security plan favored by the administration, had to say: “Taking your mother, she has a replacement ratio now of, let’s say, 40 or 50 percent. And if we move completely from wage to price indexing, we’re going to reduce her replacement ratio from something like 40 or 50 percent to something…like 25 or 30 percent.”
Got that, mom?
Ditching the Subject
When is a ditch simply a ditch, and when is it something more?
The crux of the matter: Whether or not said ditch is “isolated and non-navigable.” If so, then the feds can’t call it a wetland in need of protecting. It’s the Clean Water Act that gives the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers the power to decide.
Not everyone is happy with those decisions. For example, National Wildlife Federation spokesperson Julie Sibbing asks, “How could a ditch be considered isolated? It flows into something. Most ditches do.”
Industry groups charge that the feds often use a “trace-the-drop-of-water” yardstick (i.e., a raindrop joins others to form a puddle, then a trickle, then a mini-stream, etc., until you get to the ocean) to allow ditches far removed from any real body of water to be protected from development.
Primed Real Estate
After six years and millions of dollars for clean-up, EPA has certified that 300 former toxic waste dumps – Superfund sites – are now “ready for reuse.” Some of those are already in use, serving as soccer and baseball fields, or have businesses atop them.
EPA’s Web site shows some of these spruced-up places to tempt takers for as-yet-unclaimed areas. To view the Superfund photo gallery, click on www.epa.gov/superfund/action/process/sfgallry.htm.
Protecting a Sitting Duck…
In these days of tightened homeland security, you might expect the Secret Service to be on guard about anywhere in the nation’s capital, watching out for potential terrorists and protecting American officials and foreign potentates. But duck sitting?
A mallard duck, who made her nest right downtown near the Treasury Department, was under the watchful eye of agents and behind metal gated barricades until her eggs hatched. Tourists bound for the White House could take a peek. In the end, mom and her 11 goslings were safely relocated to the city’s Rock Creek Park – under Secret Service escort, of course.
…A Few Feasted-on Foxes
Lest you think Uncle Sam has gone ape over animals, federal officials have taken an entirely different approach with wild pigs on California’s Santa Cruz Island. The National Park Service, together with the Nature Conservancy, are paying some $5 million to have pigs, which trace back to escaped ranch hogs of the mid-1800s, killed.
The pig population had reached some 3,000. By federal law, none of the pigs can be relocated because of the danger of transmitting pseudorabies or cholera.
Problem is the pigs seem to have attracted an unusually large number of eagles to the island to feast on baby piglets. Those same eagles have also been dining on the endangered Santa Cruz fox.
Note: Livestock producers recently petitioned House lawmakers to “fix” the 32-year-old Endangered Species Act (ESA), saying it is an economic hardship for ranchers who graze on public lands. Also, they argued that Congress should keep folks who sue under ESA from profiting, even when they lose.
…And Others in the Wild Kingdom
The Humane Society of the United States and George Washington University (GWU) Law School in the nation’s capital have formed the Animal Law Litigation Project. As a result, GWU will offer a new course: Animal Law Lawyering. (No kidding, that’s the course title!) Students will get credit working on court cases to protect wildlife, as well as prevent mistreatment of farm, circus, or research animals.
Family Leave Adding Up
The federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) has hit the 10-year anniversary mark and appears headed to Congress for possible changes. The act, affecting companies with more than 50 employees, allows workers to take up to 12 weeks unpaid leave for serious health conditions or for maternity, adoption, or newborn care.
A study by the Employment Policy Foundation shows that intermittent, unscheduled leave is increasing. FMLA was designed to be taken, if necessary, more in chunks and to be scheduled.
Half of all leave-takers failed to give notice last year, and 20 percent took one day or less off in each episode.
The foundation figured that FMLA cost businesses $21 billion in 2004, with manufacturing taking an 18 percent hit. Costs include lost productivity, payment of benefits for leave time, and worker replacement costs when employees miss work (particularly with no advance notice).
Cow Slingers
A recent Washington Post editorial entitled “Wag the Cow” recently took aim at the beef industry, not so subtly implying that all the high-level emphasis on Japan opening back up its beef market to us is detracting from, among other things, working with Japan to deal with the North Korean threat of nuclear weapons. The piece even linked President Bush’s call to Japan’s prime minister to talk about beef to the minister’s next-day suggestion that his country might start selling off some of its dollar reserves. Result, according to the Post: “The dollar immediately fell, and U.S. interest rates spiked upward.”
The editorial saved its biggest guns for the finale: “Like the Clintonites before them, the Bush team resents Japan’s enormous trade surplus and fears domestic producer lobbies. The Bush reelection campaign was endorsed and financially supported by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, which has now grabbed the trade tail of Japan policy and is swinging the beast mercilessly. It took the Clinton administration three years to see that larger issues ought to dominate the U.S. relationship with Japan. May the Bush team awake faster.”
June 2005 Render