The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Thursday, February 5, 2009 - 3A

NEWS BRIEFS
WASHINGTON
Obama signs bill
extending SCHIP
President Barack Obama has
signed a bill extending health
coverage to 4 million uninsured
children.
The East Room signing cer-
emony yesterday represented
a much-needed win for Obama
on health care a day after his
administration suffered a major
setback with the loss of his nom-
inee to lead his drive for sweep-
ing reform, Tom Daschle.
The bill went to the White
House fresh from passage in the
Democratic-controlled House,
on a vote of 290-135.
The bill calls for spending an
additional $32.8 billion on the
State Children's Health Insur-
ance Program. Lawmakers gen-
erated that revenue by raising
the federal tobacco tax. Obama
said it is a key step toward his
promise of universal health care
coverage for all.
ANNAPOLIS, Md.
Lawmakers push
for voters to fill
Senate vacancies
Amid allegations that former
Illinois Coy. Rod Blagojevich
tried to sell President Barack
Obama's U.S. Senate seat, state
lawmakers across the country
are pushing to give voters - not
governors - the power to fill
similar vacancies.
Lawmakers in Illinois, Mary-
land, Rhode Island, Minnesota,
Connecticut, Colorado and New
York have introduced bills to
require special elections for open
Senate seats.
Though such elections could
be time-consuming and costly
- Minnesota officials estimate a
statewide special election there
would cost $3.5 million and
Maryland officials say they'd
need about four months for one
- supporters argue the choice
should be left to voters.
"An appointment by a gover-
nor warps the normal democrat-
ic process in that one voter - the
governor - gets to choose who
gets to be a senator," sa51 rf ~
land Delegate Saqib Ali, who
was inspired by what he calls the
"Blagojevich imbroglio" to intro-
duce a bill in his state.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.
FBI searches home
of man linked to
tTylenol deaths
Federal agents yesterday
searched the home of a man
linked to the fatal 1982 Tylenol
poisonings in the Chicago area
thattriggered anationwide scare
and prompted dramatic changes
in the way food and medical
products are packaged.
No one was ever charged with
the deaths of seven people who
took the cyanide-laced drugs.
The FBI would not immediately

confirm that the search at the
home of James. W. Lewis was
related to the Tylenol case, only
that it was part of an ongoing
investigation.
Lewis served more than 12
years in prison for sending an
extortion note to Johnson &
Johnson demanding $1 million
to "stop the killing."
TAYLOR, Mich.
Two Detroit men
face trial in ATM
theft, chase
Two Detroit men are headed
to trial on charges that they
rammed a stolen rental van into
a gas station in the suburb of
Taylor, made off with an auto-
mated teller machine and later
fled from police.
Taylor District Court Judge
Geno Salomone yesterday bound
25-year-old Arthur Williams
and 19-year-old Arthur Foun-
tain over for trial on larceny,
safebreaking and other charges.
The men will be arraigned in
Wayne County Circuit Court on
Feb. 18.
Police say Williams and
Fountain were arrested after
the ATM fell from the rear of
the. van. No money was taken
from the machine.
Messages seeking comment
were left for Williams' attorney,
Dana Nessel, and Fountain's
attorney, Jeffrey Edison.
- Compiled from
Dailygvire reports

Obama fights
stimulus critics

President Barack Obama watches as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner speaks about executive compensation yesterday in
the Grand Foyer at the White House in Washington.
Obama caps salaries
of bailout recipients

Dem. leaders pledge
to have legislation
ready by next week
WASHINGT'ON(AP)-Politeyet
pointed, President Barack Obama
pushed back against Republican
critics of the economic stimulus
legislation making its way through
Congress yesterday at the same
time he reached across party lines
to consider changes in the bill.
"Let's not make the perfect the
enemy of the essential," Obama
said as Senate Republicans
stepped up their criticism of the
bill's spending and pressed for
additional tax cuts and relief for
homeowners. He warned that fail-
ure to act quickly "will turn crisis
into a catastrophe and guarantee
a longer recession."
Democratic leaders have pledged
tohavelegislationreadyforObama's
signature by the end of next week,
and they concede privately they
will have to accept some spending
reductions along the way.
"This bill needs to be cut down,"
Republican Mitch McConnell of
Kentucky said on the Senate floor.

He cited $524 million for a State
Department program that he said
envisions creating 388 jobs. "That
comes to $1.35 million per job," he
added.
Republicans readied numer-
ous attempts to reduce the cost of
the $900 billion measure, which
includes tax cuts and new spend-
ing designed to ignite recovery
from the worst economic crisis
since the Great Depression.
But after days of absorbing rhe-
torical attacks, Obama and Senate
Democrats mounted a counterof-
fensive against Republicans who
say tax cuts alone can cure the
economy.
Obama said the criticisms he
has heard "echo the very same
failed economic theories that led
us into this crisis in the first place,
the notion that tax cuts alone will
solve all our problems."
"I reject those theories, and so
did the American people when
they went to the polls in Novem-
ber and voted resoundingly for
change," said the president, who
was elected with an Electoral Col-
lege landslide last fall and enjoys
high public approval ratings atthe
outset of his term.

President imposes
$500,000 cap on
senior exec. pay
WASHINGTON(AP)-President
Barack Obama yesterday imposed a
$500,000 cap on senior executive
pay for the most distressed finan-
cial institutions receiving taxpayer
bailout money and promised new
steps to end a system of "executives
being rewarded for failure."
Obama announced the unusual
government intervention into cor-
porate America at the White House,
with Treasury Secretary Timothy
Geithner at his side. The president
said the executive-pay limits are
a first step, to be followed by the
unveiling next week of a sweeping
new framework for spending what
remains of the $700 billion finan-
cial industry bailout that Congress

created last year.
The pay limitcomes amid a nation-
al outcry over huge bonuses to execu-
tives who head companies that seek
taxpayer dollars to remain afloat. The
demand for limits was reinforced by
revelations that Wall Streetfirms paid
more than $18 billion in bonuses in
2008 amid the economic down-
turn and the massive infusion of
taxpayer dollars.
The limit would apply to top-
paid executives at the most dis-
tressed financial institutions
that are negotiating bailout
agreements with the federal
government. It also would apply
to other banks that receive aid,
but they could get around the
limits by publicizing to share-
holders plans to exceed the sal-
ary cap.
The limits would not apply
retroactively to any bank that
received money from the first

half of the $700 bailout allocatedby
Congress. For example, the restric-
tion would not apply to such firms
as American International Group
Inc., Bank of America Corp., and
Citigroup Inc., that already have
received such help.


Salazar scraps sale of
Utah oil-and-gas lease

Interior secretary
reverses Bush decision
on 77 parcels of
federal land
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - In a
high-profile reversal of the Bush
administration, Interior Secretary
Ken Salazar said yesterday the gov-
ernment is scrapping the lease of 77
parcels of federal land for oil and gas
drilling in Utah's redrock country.
"In the last weeks in office, the
Bush administration rushed ahead
to sell oil and gas leases near some
of our nation's most precious land-
scapes in Utah," Salazar said from
Washington in a teleconference
call with reporters.
He ordered the Bureau of Land
Management, which is part of the
Interior Department, to not cash
checks from winning bidders for
parcels at issue in a lawsuit filed by
environmental groups.
The sales were worth $6 million

to the government in addition to
royalties on any oil or gas pro-
duction.
"We will take time and a fresh
look at these 77 parcels to see if
they are appropriate for oil and
gas development," Salazar said.
A federal judge put the sale of
the 77 parcels on hold last month
until the lawsuit was resolved.
Now, Salazar is refusing to sell
any of them - at least until the
new administration has a chance
to take a second look.
Conservation groups prom-
ised to press ahead with the
lawsuit to challenge long-term
management plans that made
the sale of the parcels possible
in the first place. The plans, gov-
erning 7 millions acres of public
land in Utah, were approved by
the BLM last year.
Among critics of December's
lease auction was Robert Red-
ford, who owns Sundance ski
resort and has spent a lifetime
on horseback in southern Utah's
canyons.


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