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Washington in brief
Compiled from Times wires Together RX, U.S. agree on drug pricingTogether RX, a discount drug card for seniors offered by seven major drug manufacturers, announced Wednesday that it has resolved its pricing dispute with the Bush administration. Industry executives received a letter Tuesday from Tom Scully, who heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, saying he no longer believes the companies are offering discounts that would trigger the "best price" provisions of Medicaid. If Scully had ruled otherwise, as he threatened to, the companies would have been forced to provide the same low prices to all Medicaid patients. Industry officials said they would cancel the card rather than lose millions of dollars on Medicaid sales. Together RX card promises savings of up to 40 percent on about 150 drugs commonly used by seniors. Since the program was launched in June, an estimated 330,000 seniors have signed up for it. An applicant's income cannot exceed $28,000 for a single person and $38,000 for a couple. Poet picked to head arts endowmentA poet, critic and translator is President Bush's choice to head the National Endowment for the Arts, the federal agency that channels aid to artists and arts groups. Dana Gioia, 51, won a 2002 American Book Award for his third book of verse, Interrogations at Noon. His book-length essay Can Poetry Matter? explores poetry's place in American culture. If confirmed by the Senate to a four-year term, Gioia will succeed Michael P. Hammond, who died in January after just a week as chairman. Report: Bush rules mean dirtier air from industryAir pollution from oil refineries and factories would increase under new rules the Bush administration is preparing, according to two new studies by a consultant used by the Environmental Protection Agency. The studies were released on the eve of today's deadline for the EPA to deliver to a Senate committee documents detailing the decisionmaking behind the Bush administration's proposed relaxation of former President Bill Clinton's controls for emissions from aging coal-fired power plants and other facilities. They were commissioned by the Environmental Integrity Project, a group funded by the Rockefeller Family Fund and headed by Eric Schaeffer, a former chief of civil enforcement at the EPA. Using computer models, Abt Associates of Cambridge, Mass., examined emissions from recent upgrades at an ExxonMobil refinery in Joliet, Ill., and a Nucor Steel plant in Crawfordsville, Ind. The analysis found emissions from the two facilities, and others like them, would have increased had the new rules been in effect when the upgrades were made. Also . . .BUSH SIGNS DEFENSE BILL: President Bush signed into law Wednesday the biggest military spending increase since Ronald Reagan's administration, a $355.5-billion package. The measure contains a 4.1 percent salary increase for military personnel, $7.4-billion to keep developing a ballistic missile defense system and $72-billion for new weapons. -- Times Washington bureau chief Sara Fritz contributed to this report.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
