Etc., etc., etc. …...

Coming in future issues…..

Progress Report on Fontenelle Trees

Nebraska Byways:
Stories about
Nebraskans

WESTERN ARCTIC
GETS REPRIEVE

NRDC and our partners have scored a major courtroom victory for Arctic wildlife. In late September, a federal judge blocked the Bush administration from proceeding with oil and gas development in more than 1 million acres in the Western Arctic Reserve, including a pristine nesting area for migratory birds and the calving grounds for the Teshekpuk Lake caribou herd.

The court ruled that the Interior Department failed to consider the cumulative environmental impacts of oil and gas drilling on this sensitive ecosystem. In tandem with our courtroom campaign, BioGems Defenders have sent more than 100,000 messages urging the Bush administration and Congress to uphold protections for important habitat areas within the reserve.

COURT UPHOLDS STRICT LIMITS ON DEADLY SONAR

A federal appeals court has rejected the Bush administration's attempt to turn back a landmark NRDC courtroom win that limits the peacetime deployment of a powerful low-frequency active sonar system. According to the Navy's own studies, the LFA sonar system generates noise so intense that dangerous levels of sound travel more than 300 miles -- posing a deadly threat to whole populations of whales and other marine mammals that depend on their hearing to survive.

Three years ago, a lower federal court sided with NRDC and our partners and ruled that the Navy's plan to deploy this powerful new sonar system across 75 percent of the world's oceans violated a host of federal laws. In the wake of the appeal court's decision, the Navy must continue to adhere to an agreement with NRDC, which limits LFA testing and training to an area in the northwestern Pacific Ocean.

More WPA stories about Nebraska by Nebraskans

Costs per Iowa caucus voter exceed $115 after totaling candidate expenditures in the Hawkeye State…...The networks have decided to pare down candidates allowed to participate in debates and are eliminating such candidates as Biden, Dodd, Kucinich, Paul and others…..Speculation has former Nebraska governor and U.S. Senator Bob Kerry top of the list of candidates for Hillary Clinton's running mate should she get the nomination. Kerry recently campaigned through Iowa with Clinton in the closing weeks of the Iowa campaign…..Bowing to pressure from the United States, Japan has called off its kill quota of 50 endangered humpback whales. Japan will, however, still kill some nearly 1,000 other whales in its present hunting season in an international whale sanctuary. ….In one of the shortest session in its history, the Senate's final session of the year lasted a total of 12 seconds Monday. Only one senator, Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island, was in the chamber to gavel open the Senate and adjourn it until January 3. Monday's event was the latest in a series of "pro forma" sessions the Senate has called. Pro forma means "for the sake of formality" and these micro sessions are part of the last political scuffle between the White House and the Democratic-led Congress.Democrats are keeping the Senate in session to block President Bush from making any recess appointments. During congressional recesses, a constitutional mechanism allows the president to fill top government posts for up to one year without Senate confirmation. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, announced December 19 that he would keep the Senate open with a series of pro forma sessions through mid-January. Talks had just broken down with the White House on a deal that would have allowed the president to make dozens of those appointments if he agreed not to

appoint one controversial official, Steven Bradbury, as the permanent head of the influential Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department. Bush declined to accept the Democrats' offer, and Reid refused to approve Bradbury because of concerns about his involvement in crafting legal opinions for the administration on interrogation techniques of terrorism suspects. ...Sara Jane Moore started the new year Tuesday a free woman more than three decades after a bizarre assassination attempt on President Ford that still baffles even her own attorney.  Prison officials have offered no details on why Moore, 77, was paroled Monday from a federal penitentiary east of San Francisco, where she had been serving a life sentence. Moore had been behind bars for 32 years...Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has announced that GOP Rep. Roger Wicker will fill the Senate seat of Trent Lott, who resigned earlier this month. Wicker will move the Senate after 13 years representing the state's northern 1st Dist. House seat.

U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson: Phone: (202) 224-6551  Fax: (202) 228-001240, Suite 5 Dirksen Basement (Temp)
Washington, DC 20510
senator@bennelson.senate.gov
U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel: Phone: (202) 224-4224  Fax: (202) 224-5213
346 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
chuck_hagel@hagel.senate.gov
Rep. Jeff Fortenberry: Phone: (202) 225-4806, Fax (202) 225-5686   1517 Longworth House Office Bldg. Washington,DC 20515
Rep. Lee Terry:Phone: (202) 225-4155  Fax: (202) 226-5452  1513 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
talk2lee@mail.house.gov
Rep. Adrian Smith 503 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515
Phone:(202) 225-6435
Fax:(202) 225-0207

SEC. B, p2
Senate Moments

SEC. B, p3
HISTORY
SCRAMBLE