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Countering Palestinian push
American victims and families of victims of Palestinian terrorist attacks are in Washington this week to press the State Department to allow them to collect the damages they won as part of U.S. lawsuits.
Advocates from across the country plan to meet with members of Congress and officials from the Departments of State and Justice to make sure that they will be able to collect hundreds of millions of dollars in judgments.
Most of the attacks on the U.S. victims were orchestrated in Israel by Hamas, a group on the U.S. terror list. Reports that the State Department is considering supporting the Palestinian Authority in its quest to avoid paying the money have spurred the lobbying on behalf of the victims and their families.
The complex litigation in the U.S. courts is putting the Bush administration in a difficult position: choosing between supporting compensation for terrorism victims and bolstering the Palestinian government as part of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
The State Department has until Feb. 29 to decide whether to support the Palestinian Authority or let the litigation take its course. Courts were able to hear the victims’ cases because of legislation passed in Congress.
Roxana Tiron
Lantos remembered
Armenian-Americans suffered two setbacks this Congress. First, House leaders retreated from a pledge to bring a resolution that identified the killing of Armenians in Turkey as genocide to the House floor after an outcry from Turkish leaders.
And this week Armenian-Americans lost a champion: Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who died on Monday of complications from esophageal cancer.
The only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress, Lantos built a well-earned reputation as an advocate of human rights during his three decades of service. He initially opposed the Armenian resolution, but in more recent years had become one of its strongest advocates on Capitol Hill.
“We have a great appreciation for his support on this critical human rights issue,” said Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America.
“He saw the resolution as a significant step in re-establishing the moral authority of U.S. foreign policy.”
The Foreign Affairs Committee adopted the resolution last year under Lantos’s leadership.
Ardouny said Armenian-Americans continue to lobby for the measure to be brought to the floor.
After House leaders reversed course, however, it is unlikely they will do so again and pass the resolution.
Armenian-Americans, meanwhile, plan to be active on another issue. Ardouny said his group is watching a Bush administration proposal to share nuclear technologies with Turkey “very closely.”
“We are very concerned about this prospect,” he said.
Jim Snyder
Patent redux
Lobbyists for tech giant HP showed off a few of the company’s best and the brightest in a series of planned meetings with lawmakers Tuesday.
Why? Patent reform is considered HP’s top legislative priority this year. The House passed a patent reform bill last year, and Senate Judiciary panels approved a version of the bill, too. The full Senate is expected to take up the legislation soon.
Scientists and engineers employed by the Palo Alto, Calif., company shared stories with Hill staffers on how they have been hampered by lawsuits from patent challenges. Instead of concentrating on inventing new products, HP scientists find themselves consulting with the company’s lawyers on how to win the patent suits.
“I wasn’t inventing things. I wasn’t moving my product,” said Will Allen, a HP engineer who has worked on components for the company’s printers and slide projectors.
Tech interests like HP are running into opposition, however, from a number of groups, including manufacturers, unions and pharmaceutical companies, that are against the patent reform bill as now written.
Kevin Bogardus
Hunting votes
Eric Orff, retired wildlife biologist, says he’s already witnessed the effects of global warming in his native New Hampshire.
Milder winters have shortened ice fishing season, putting a crimp on an important industry to the state.
Orff also blames higher temperatures for a winter tick outbreak that threatens the state’s moose population.
Warming rivers, meanwhile, endanger brook trout in New Hampshire’s interior and river herring near its coast.
It isn’t just Orff who has noticed. A recent survey found that two-thirds of the state’s sportsmen and -women want Congress to pass a global warming bill.
“They want some action in Washington, D.C.,” Orff said.
He was among a group brought to town by the National Wildlife Federation Tuesday to support legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions. More than 650 local sporting and fishing groups signed on to a letter urging Congress to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.
David Crockett, a direct descendant of the famous ’coon-skinned cap-fitted sportsman, was expected to attend a news conference Tuesday.
J.S.
Young love
It won’t be in time for Valentine’s Day, but California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has a nice gift to give Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.).
Schwarzenegger is holding a fundraising reception in Young’s honor.
The event will be held at the Capitol Hill Club at 11 a.m., Monday, Feb. 25.
The price of admission for individuals is $1,000, and for people representing political action committees, $2,500. Young’s spokesman, Harry Glenn, said the two have been friends for nearly a decade, ever since Schwarzenegger, then just a simple movie star, came to Washington to support funding for after-school programs.
Young, the former chairman of House Appropriations Committee, was happy to oblige, Glenn said.
The two have also worked to improve facilities for American troops deployed overseas, Glenn said.
J.S.
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