Senate Democrats Want To Ensure BP Is Held Accountable

By: Justine Rellosa- Talk Radio News Service

After the Senate failed to pass legislation on Tuesday that would raise the liability cap for those responsible for the oil spill, Senators Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) held a briefing to stress the importance of lifting the liability limit for oil giants from $75 million to $10 billion.

“I don’t think BP’s words are anything to rely upon," said Menendez. Added the New Jersey Democrat, "By lifting the cap unlimitedly, whoever is determined to be beyond BP, the responsible party, will also be [held] responsible.

Lautenberg noted that BP does have the available funds to meet additional costs posed by a higher cap.

“BP had a $5 billion dollar profit quarter...they can afford to pay for their mistakes,” Lautenberg said.

'Terror Gap' Allows Terrorists To Purchase Guns, Explosives

By Benny Martinez
University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee today that there are loopholes in the United States’ current gun laws that allow known and suspected terrorists to legally purchase guns and explosives.

“To put it simply, right now the Federal Government cannot block the sale of explosives or firearms to someone because they are on the terrorist watch list,” Lautenberg said.

According to a statement released by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), since 2004, terrorists attempted to purchase guns and explosives in the United States with a 91 percent success rate. Lautenberg said that these figures are perfect examples of how the “Terror Gap” is being exploited in this country.

The Senator has introduced new legislation that would close this loophole in the U.S. by giving the Attorney General the authority to stop the sale or transfer of guns or explosives to terrorists. In an effort to protect America’s right to bear arms, Lautenberg said that in this new legislation, a gun holder who disagrees with the Attorney General’s finding has the power to challenge the ruling.

“This commonsense legislation is not anti-gun, it’s anti-terrorism,” he sad.

In light of Saturday’s incident where an SUV loaded with flammables and explosive material was abandoned in Times Square, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was invited to the hearing and testified in support of the new legislation.

“At a time when the threat of terrorism is still very real...it is imperative that Congress close this terror gap in our gun laws, and close it quickly,” he said.

Similar legislation is currently being drafted on the House side.

Climate Change Legislation Should Be About More Than Climate, Senators Say

By Sam Wechsler - Talk Radio News Service

Climate change legislation is not just about curbing global warming, but also about jobs and America’s health, argued Senators during an Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on Tuesday.

Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) argued that while the bill intends to clean up America’s carbon footprint and to create new jobs in the renewable energy sector, it will also kill approximately 2.5 million other jobs. Bond also said that government does not create “green jobs," but rather buys them with taxpayer subsidies.

“I think one of our prime tests in moving forward with energy legislation and environmental legislation is not just energy security for America, which is critically important, we need to do that.....but we also need to keep jobs and create jobs in America,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.).


During his testimony, Governor Bill Ritter (D-Colo.) discussed Colorado’s relatively low unemployment rate of 7.6%, which is nearly two points below the national average. “The new energy economy is certainly part of the reason we’re in such relatively strong shape,” he said.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) suggested that the country’s health should be of the utmost concern. He said that while some argue farmers have the most to lose if the country imposes costs and rules to clean up the environment, families with children and grandchildren actually have the most to lose. Citing increased risks of respiratory diseases due to pollution, he stated “we’ve all got a price to pay here, the question is, are we going to continue with our heads buried in the sand?”

Faulty Buildings Not Bullets Killing American Soldiers

By Jonathan Bronstein, Talk Radio News

Senator Byron Dorgan

Ryan Masseth, a Staff Sergeant in the United States Army, was killed not by an enemy bullet, but by faulty electrical wiring. He was electrocuted while showering on a United States military installation in Baghdad during January 2008.

Yet, the company who wired the building, Kellogg, Brand and Root, also known as KBR, was aware of this issue some 11 months before Staff Sgt. Masseth’s death. The U.S. government recently reclassified Staff Sgt. Masseth’s death as accidental to gross negligence on the part of KBR.

“KBR’s shoddy electrical work wasted tax payer money,” said Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) at the Senate Democratic Policy Committee hearing, who continued to say, “and even worse put our service members at risk, sometimes for their lives. 18 people died as a result of this negligence.”

Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, was critical of the government for giving bonuses to KBR from 2004 to 2008 that totaled some $85 million, even though their work failed often to meet even the most basic standards.

The Army’s standard definition for awarding bonuses requires that the contractor's “performance is of the highest quality that could be achieved under the contract. There are no areas of deficiencies or problems encountered during the evaluation period.”

The 2008 edition of the Defense Contract Management Report found that there were 26,205 incidents of improper wiring, 4,571 incidents of outlet box hazards, and 3,201 hazardous switches and fuses. All of these safety deficiencies pose an unneeded threat to American service people, according to Dorgan.

KBR Master Electrician, Eric Peters, estimated that 50 percent of all buildings were not wired properly, and it often took several visits before KBR’s poorly trained electricians could fix the problem. Each one of these visits was charged to the U.S. government, and therefore to the American taxpayer.

Lautenberg attributed KBR’s ability to obtain these large bonuses to the no-bid contracts given to corporations for the reconstruction of Iraq.

“I knew I could no longer work for a company so completely focused on the bottom line they would disregard the safety of their employees and those we were serving: our soldiers,” said Peters, who left KBR two months after being hired.

Jim Childs, another Master Electrician who worked for KBR, had similar gripes with the company and their complete disregard for safety.

“KBR did not do this work to any electrical code,” said Childs.

KBR even attempted to switch to the more lenient British electrical code, but upon re-inspecting the wiring according to the newly implemented standards he still discovered multiple violations.

Childs cited examples of safe buildings that KBR retrofitted and became dangerous, when he said “what had been a safe, properly wired building became a danger to those inside because the re-wiring performed by KBR was not done properly.”

When Childs attempted to solve the wiring problems with quick and cheap solutions, KBR refused to listen and wanted to re-wire the entire building, at the expense of the tax payer.

Childs travelled to Afghanistan to inspect KBR’s work their, but to his dismay, “I found the exact same code violations.”

This wiring situation, according to Childs, is an epidemic that needlessly endangers the lives of American servicemen and women.

Much like its own employees, the Department of Defense is also losing confidence in KBR’s ability.

Captain David Graff, Commander of Defense Contract Management Agency, said that “Many within the Department of Defense have lost or are losing all remaining confidence in KBR’s ability to successfully and repeatedly perform the required electrical support services mission in Iraq.”

Terrorist victims finally receive justice from Libyan bombing

The families of the victims killed by the Libyan bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, from December 1988, are finally celebrating the restitution of justice from the Libyan government.

Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) joined the victim's families one month before the 20th anniversary of the fatal crash that killed 270, including 38 from New Jersey. On October 31, 2008, Libya was "freed from the family of terrorist nations," Lautenberg said, when the final amounts owed to the families was deposited in an American bank account from the Libyan government. Kara Weipz, a family member who lost her 20-year old brother in the bombing, spoke about the "long fulfilled justice" that was due to the families. Although they do not forgive Libyan leader al-Gaddafi, Weipz said, the families are "free now to close this chapter in our nightmare."