Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bay Area Reporter - December 14, 2006
Bob Roehr
Politics and the scramble for dollars had dogged reauthorization of the CARE Act for more than a year. The House had passed one version in October, only to see it blackballed in the Senate by Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-New York) and a handful of others because their states would lose money.
A compromise last week pared reauthorization to three years, mandated further restructuring in the next reauthorization, and limited any jurisdiction's loss of funding to a maximum of 5 percent. That was enough to lift Clinton's hold and allow the Senate to pass the modified bill on a voice vote last week.
But those changes riled Representative Joe Barton (R-Texas), chairman of the House committee that had passed the earlier version of the CARE Act. He also was upset that the Senate had not taken up a bill that modified and reauthorized the NIH. Barton said he would not even put Ryan White on the House agenda for a vote unless the Senate voted on the NIH measure.
After furious last minute lobbying and phone calls from constituents, the CARE Act was reauthorized Saturday with members of both chambers getting at least some of what they wanted. President Bush is expected to sign the bill.
FDA commissioner confirmed
Retiring Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tennessee) also rammed through confirmation of Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach as commissioner of the FDA, over the strong objections of two fellow Republicans.
Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) had placed a hold on the nomination over what he has seen as non-cooperation from von Eschenbach during investigation of the agency. Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana) had used his hold as a bargaining chip with the Bush administration over its policy against the importation of drugs from Canada.
Von Eschenbach is a surgeon and researcher from Houston who previously had headed up the National Cancer Institute. He is a survivor of melanoma and prostate cancer and has brought that additional patient perspective to his push for rapid approval of drugs. He has served as acting head of the FDA for more than a year.
The confirmation vote was 80-11, with all but one of the no votes coming from Republicans, many of whom were conservatives who objected to von Eschenbach's recent approval of the emergency contraceptive RU 486.
A main argument for the confirmation vote was the need for leadership and continuity at the FDA, where the average tenure of a commissioner over the last decade has been just two years.
Foley report
The House ethics committee released its report on the Representative Mark Foley (R-Florida) scandal Friday, December 8. The nine-week investigation included testimony from eight members of the House and 43 other witnesses, and revealed little that was new.
The report stated, "A pattern of conduct was exhibited among many individuals to remain willfully ignorant of the potential consequences of former Representative Foley's conduct with respect to House pages." Nonetheless, the report "did not find that any current House Members or employees violated the House Code of Official Conduct."
The report revealed no evidence of Foley ever having had sex with any young man, let alone those participating in the congressional page program.
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