Ilena
01-10-2005, 10:00 AM
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2520820
Article Last Updated: 1/10/2005 09:32 AM
Hatch, Bennett meet with president to work on agenda for nation, state
New session: Utah's two senators say their number one priority is
saving Hill Air Force Base from military cutbacks
By Christopher Smith
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
WASHINGTON - Utah's two Republican U.S. senators met separately with
President Bush last week to plan strategy for marshaling through the
new Congress a pair of his most ambitious second-term initiatives:
overhauling Social Security and restricting personal injury lawsuits.
Sen. Bob Bennett and other members of the Senate GOP majority
leadership sat down with Bush on Thursday morning to steer the nascent
Social Security reform effort back on course after leaked White House
memos calling for deep benefit cuts caused several Republican
lawmakers to shy away from the plan.
"The president made it very clear to us that when he campaigned on
this issue he was serious," Bennett said. "This wasn't just an
applause line you forget when you get to Washington."
Later in the day, Sen. Orrin Hatch and a dozen other lawmakers from
both parties met with Bush to discuss plans for a new law to limit
class-action lawsuits, the broad-based civil claims brought against
products such as breast implants, Agent Orange defoliant, tobacco and
asbestos. Hatch said he's alarmed by the rash of advertisements
soliciting users of Vioxx, the popular painkiller that was pulled from
the market three months ago after being linked to heart attacks and
strokes.
"Many personal injury attorneys have found out they can get rich
soliciting people over television and the Internet," said Hatch.
"Unfortunately, that's gone way out of bounds."
The national legislative priorities are jockeying with
Utah-specific issues for Hatch and Bennett during the 109th Congress,
the first session of which opened last week.
The two say their most important priority for Utah this year will
be monitoring the Pentagon panel charged with identifying an estimated
25 percent surplus of unneeded military installations around the
country.
"It's no secret that we've had to save Hill a number of times and
that's my number one priority in the Senate this year, the survival of
that air force base," Hatch said of the state's largest employer,
located between Ogden and Layton.
While the process is designed to be free of political influence,
Bennett said the state's congressional delegation would give Hill and
the state's other military facilities "a high level of attention."
Although among the senior members of the Senate - Hatch was first
elected in 1976, Bennett in 1992 - neither lawmaker has command of a
full committee in this Congress. Hatch was term-limited off the helm
of the judiciary panel with no other chairmanships open and Bennett's
spot at the top of the Joint Economic Committee rotated to a House
member.
"I don't think you have to be a chairman to be effective," said
Hatch. "Being one of the most senior senators here, if I feel strongly
about something, I am not going to be ignored."
Hatch is the first-ranking Republican on the Judiciary and Finance
committees, and picked up a new seat on the Health, Education, Labor
and Pensions Committee, a panel he chaired for four years earlier in
his career. He also will chair an as-yet-unnamed Judiciary
subcommittee that will focus on intellectual property law, allowing
him to continue to wage his crusade against computer piracy of digital
music files.
Besides being the leading senator on the economic panel, Bennett
will keep a seat on the committee that holds the purse strings to
federal spending, Appropriations.
He will probably remain chairman of the Agriculture Appropriations
Subcommittee, although the assignment has not been finalized.
"I anticipate the [fiscal 2006] budget the president will submit
will be very close to a freeze, which always creates problems for
appropriators because everybody wants a slight increase over last
year," said Bennett. "But we need to do what we can to get control
over discretionary spending."
Bennett intends to work with Utah Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson to
introduce legislation for better monitoring and health safeguards in
the event underground nuclear testing is resumed in Nevada, upwind of
Utah.
"But this administration has no plans to conduct nuclear tests,
never has had and we can reasonably expect they never will have to,"
said Bennett.
The successful passage of a bipartisan Nevada public lands
wilderness bill at the close of the last session of Congress has
inspired Bennett to begin work developing a similar Utah bill that
would resolve the fate of some areas in the state identified as
potential wilderness.
"This Congress will be the opportunity to deal with some land
management issues," said Bennett. "If you can do it in Nevada, you
ought to be able to do it in Utah."
Hatch said he'll also focus on reviving legislation that failed
last year to limit medical malpractice lawsuits. He blames
skyrocketing malpractice insurance premiums for the sharp drop in the
number of Utah medical students choosing obstetrics/gynecology as
their residency field, something "that's a terrible thing for a state
that has so many children."
But he breaks with other GOP lawmakers who want to legislate a
ceiling on the amount of damages that can be awarded by a jury in
malpractice cases.
"There are cases that really deserve high verdicts and I am a
little disappointed, frankly, [that] on our side there is such a
desire to have an absolute cap on damages," said Hatch. "For the most
part, a cap is a wise thing, but there has to be an escape valve for
those egregious, highly negligent cases."
Article Last Updated: 1/10/2005 09:32 AM
Hatch, Bennett meet with president to work on agenda for nation, state
New session: Utah's two senators say their number one priority is
saving Hill Air Force Base from military cutbacks
By Christopher Smith
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
WASHINGTON - Utah's two Republican U.S. senators met separately with
President Bush last week to plan strategy for marshaling through the
new Congress a pair of his most ambitious second-term initiatives:
overhauling Social Security and restricting personal injury lawsuits.
Sen. Bob Bennett and other members of the Senate GOP majority
leadership sat down with Bush on Thursday morning to steer the nascent
Social Security reform effort back on course after leaked White House
memos calling for deep benefit cuts caused several Republican
lawmakers to shy away from the plan.
"The president made it very clear to us that when he campaigned on
this issue he was serious," Bennett said. "This wasn't just an
applause line you forget when you get to Washington."
Later in the day, Sen. Orrin Hatch and a dozen other lawmakers from
both parties met with Bush to discuss plans for a new law to limit
class-action lawsuits, the broad-based civil claims brought against
products such as breast implants, Agent Orange defoliant, tobacco and
asbestos. Hatch said he's alarmed by the rash of advertisements
soliciting users of Vioxx, the popular painkiller that was pulled from
the market three months ago after being linked to heart attacks and
strokes.
"Many personal injury attorneys have found out they can get rich
soliciting people over television and the Internet," said Hatch.
"Unfortunately, that's gone way out of bounds."
The national legislative priorities are jockeying with
Utah-specific issues for Hatch and Bennett during the 109th Congress,
the first session of which opened last week.
The two say their most important priority for Utah this year will
be monitoring the Pentagon panel charged with identifying an estimated
25 percent surplus of unneeded military installations around the
country.
"It's no secret that we've had to save Hill a number of times and
that's my number one priority in the Senate this year, the survival of
that air force base," Hatch said of the state's largest employer,
located between Ogden and Layton.
While the process is designed to be free of political influence,
Bennett said the state's congressional delegation would give Hill and
the state's other military facilities "a high level of attention."
Although among the senior members of the Senate - Hatch was first
elected in 1976, Bennett in 1992 - neither lawmaker has command of a
full committee in this Congress. Hatch was term-limited off the helm
of the judiciary panel with no other chairmanships open and Bennett's
spot at the top of the Joint Economic Committee rotated to a House
member.
"I don't think you have to be a chairman to be effective," said
Hatch. "Being one of the most senior senators here, if I feel strongly
about something, I am not going to be ignored."
Hatch is the first-ranking Republican on the Judiciary and Finance
committees, and picked up a new seat on the Health, Education, Labor
and Pensions Committee, a panel he chaired for four years earlier in
his career. He also will chair an as-yet-unnamed Judiciary
subcommittee that will focus on intellectual property law, allowing
him to continue to wage his crusade against computer piracy of digital
music files.
Besides being the leading senator on the economic panel, Bennett
will keep a seat on the committee that holds the purse strings to
federal spending, Appropriations.
He will probably remain chairman of the Agriculture Appropriations
Subcommittee, although the assignment has not been finalized.
"I anticipate the [fiscal 2006] budget the president will submit
will be very close to a freeze, which always creates problems for
appropriators because everybody wants a slight increase over last
year," said Bennett. "But we need to do what we can to get control
over discretionary spending."
Bennett intends to work with Utah Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson to
introduce legislation for better monitoring and health safeguards in
the event underground nuclear testing is resumed in Nevada, upwind of
Utah.
"But this administration has no plans to conduct nuclear tests,
never has had and we can reasonably expect they never will have to,"
said Bennett.
The successful passage of a bipartisan Nevada public lands
wilderness bill at the close of the last session of Congress has
inspired Bennett to begin work developing a similar Utah bill that
would resolve the fate of some areas in the state identified as
potential wilderness.
"This Congress will be the opportunity to deal with some land
management issues," said Bennett. "If you can do it in Nevada, you
ought to be able to do it in Utah."
Hatch said he'll also focus on reviving legislation that failed
last year to limit medical malpractice lawsuits. He blames
skyrocketing malpractice insurance premiums for the sharp drop in the
number of Utah medical students choosing obstetrics/gynecology as
their residency field, something "that's a terrible thing for a state
that has so many children."
But he breaks with other GOP lawmakers who want to legislate a
ceiling on the amount of damages that can be awarded by a jury in
malpractice cases.
"There are cases that really deserve high verdicts and I am a
little disappointed, frankly, [that] on our side there is such a
desire to have an absolute cap on damages," said Hatch. "For the most
part, a cap is a wise thing, but there has to be an escape valve for
those egregious, highly negligent cases."
