Washington in brief

Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 6, 2002

Medicare proposal pushes generic drugs, curtails ads

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans drafting legislation to add prescription drug benefits to Medicare said Tuesday that they would encourage the use of low-cost generic drugs as an alternative to brand-name medicines and would try to persuade drugmakers to curtail advertising, which has been blamed for rising costs.

In the three years that lawmakers have been debating ways to add prescription drug coverage to Medicare, this is the first time that a consensus has developed among legislative leaders in both parties favoring financial incentives for the use of generic drugs to lower costs.

One option is to charge a higher co-payment to Medicare beneficiaries who buy brand-name medicines rather than generic drugs, which have the same active ingredients. This is an approach adopted by many private health plans in recent years. The advertising proposal, however, is novel, and has already drawn criticism from drug manufacturers and the advertising industry.

Judge orders release of more energy documents

A federal judge ordered seven government agencies Tuesday to release thousands of documents related to Vice President Dick Cheney's national energy task force.

Last week, a different judge ordered a similar release of Energy Department documents related to the task force. And the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has sued Cheney to force the release of the names of energy executives who helped the task force develop the administration's energy policy.

In the case Tuesday, Judge Paul A. Friedman of U.S. District Court ordered the agencies to release records that a legal watchdog group, Judicial Watch, had sought since April under a Freedom of Information Act request.

The agencies affected are the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, Energy, Transportation and Commerce, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Office of Management and Budget. Representatives of the agencies served on the task force.

Friedman set deadlines for the release of the documents and also asked some agencies to explain why certain documents were being withheld under exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act. The deadlines ranged from March 25 to May 3.

Bush enters fray over judge nomination

President Bush invited embattled U.S. appeals court nominee Charles Pickering to the White House as part of a last-minute attempt to save the nomination in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Bush will meet with Pickering and his backers this morning to show his support for the federal district judge.

Coming along with Pickering will be supporters like Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, a Democrat, and Charles Evers, the brother of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, the White House said.

Bush wants to elevate Pickering to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which serves Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana. Democrats outnumber Republicans 10-9 on the Judiciary Committee, which is expected to vote on the nomination Thursday.

Analysts now see small budget surplus this year

Congress' top budget analyst is projecting small federal surpluses this year and next, assuming no new tax cuts or spending increases are enacted, congressional officials said Tuesday.

That would be a turnabout from modest deficits that Dan Crippen, director of the Congressional Budget Office, predicted in January.

Two officials, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, provided no figures but said the projected surpluses would be small. They said the new numbers resulted largely from recent data that indicates the economy is regaining strength, including last week's report of 1.4 percent growth in the economy in the final quarter of 2001, which surpassed an earlier estimate of 0.2 percent.

The figures will be revealed to Congress today.

Cherry blossoms to peak first week of April

A National Park Service horticulturalist rendered his much-anticipated prediction Tuesday on when Washington's fabled cherry blossoms will be in peak bloom this year: April 1 through April 5.

Tourism officials said they expect somewhere between 600,000 to 700,000 residents and tourists will visit the 3,700 cherry trees that line the Tidal basin, East Potomac Park and the Washington Monument grounds.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright