Friday, June 30,2006 TheLegislative News-Da il y fromCongressional Qua rterly Swift Actio.n Promised on Detainees Bushreaches out to Congress following high court ruling on Guantanamo BY KEITHPERINE CQ STAFFWRITER The Supreme Court ruling rejecting the va-lidity of military com-missionsestablished to try enemy combatants is spurringPresident Bush todosomething hehastriedhardto avoid:work with Con-gresstodeviseground rules for combating ter-rorism. The court'sdecision Thursday is a major set- The Supreme Court ruling prodded Bush to pledge to work with Congress on back forBush, who hasnew laws for dealing with enemy combatants being held at Guantanamo Bay. claimed expansive pow-ers on a broad array of frontsin hiscoun-terterrorism efforts, while the Republican-controlledCongresshaslargelystayed silent. Now,lawmakersfromboth partiesare calling fora legislative response to the de-cision. The high court ruled 5-3 in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that Bush did not have the au-thority toestablisha military commission totry analleged enemy combatant held since 2002 at the U.S.naval base at Guan-tanamo Bay,Cuba. Enemycontinued on page 29 Stevens Poaches Funds for Salmon Earmark BY CATHARINE RICHERT, CQ STAFF WRITER Republican Ted Stevens is looking out for Alaska'ssalmon industry- and for babies everywhere. For the third year in a row, Alaska's sen-ior senator has set aside money in the fis -cal2007 Agriculturespending bill(HR 5384) for development of baby food made from salmon. The $450,000 earmark in the AppropriationsCommittee'sreport gives direction regarding part of a $1million line item for"alternative salmon product re-search." Critics say the proposed spending shows why Congress needs tighter earmark rules. Baby foodcompanies,they argue,should pay for their own research. But supporters of the spending, includ-ing the two organizations that would receive the money, say government funding is cru-cial tostate economies and jobs creation. Stevens says the research will also help im-prove child nutrition. "Given its overwhelming nutritional val-ue for children, Sen. Stevens believes find-ing ways to incorporate omega-3 into baby food and formula isa project worthy of at-tention and the [Agriculture Department] agrees," said Lindsay Hayes,the senator's spokeswoman. Scott Smiley has been perfecting salmon baby food for a few years. He works for the Fisheries Industrial Technology Center,a Baby Foodcontinued on page 30 Appropriations10 Offshore drilling Feinstein moves to force oil companies to resume paying suspended royalties Note to readers: Because of the July Fourth holiday, the next issue of CQ Today willbe published July 10. A summary of this week's legislative action will be posted Friday night on the Web inPDF format at www.cq.com/weeklyreport/. During the recess, CQ Today subscribers will receive specialnews updates in their e-newsletter, CQToday Extra.To subscribe, send a request to contracts@cq.com. PULSE OF CONGRESS ! A . EDITEDBv GREGMcDoNALDLill 11111111 IlL NOTHING LIKE LEAVING TOWN With a Few Loose Ends Still Flapping As lawmakers packed up and prepared to head home for the July Fourth recess, something wasclearly missing. Where were the leadership threats to work through the weekend? Where was the roguemember forcingCongress to stay in town just to prove a point? Instead, the House and Senate eased peacefully into a weeklong break,even heading out a little early Thursday to catch the annual congressional baseball game. SenateMajority Leader BillFrist,R-Tenn., had hoped toforcea voteon re-ducing the estate tax,but hiseffortsto sweeten the bill (HR 5638) enough to get 60 votes fell flat. And a conference committee's long-suffering effort toreconcile legislation that would overhaul the nation's pension system(HR 2830,S 1783) gaveup the ghost days earlier. The House failed to appoint conferees to the lobbying overhaul bill (S 2349, HR 4975), pushing that task into July. Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis, R -Calif., also failed to deliver on his boast continued on page 15 Volume 42, Number 99 Page30 Baby food continued from page 1 branch of the Alaskauniversity systeminchargeof improving fishingpractices and fishprod-ucts that has teamed up with the nonprofit AlaskaFisheriesDe-velopmentFoundationonthe baby food project. Alaska Salmon Alaskaprojects a salmon harvest of almost 167 million fish this year, a decline from the record 2005harvest of 221million but inline with the 10-year average. Here is the breakdown by species. 2006 Alaskan Salmon Harvest Projection (in thousands) Chinook780 Sockeye35,636 CQToday, Friday, June 30,2006 thenumerousfishermenand Alaska'smorethan 80fishpro-cessing companies. Smiley said baby foodcompa-nies are interested in his research, but declined to name them. 'Cannery Cartel' Thebaby foodprojecthigh-lights an ongoing debate over how lawmakers' pet projects should be subsidized.In theaftermath of ethicsscandalssurrounding for-mer Reps.Randy "Duke" Cun-ningham,R-Calif. , and Tom De-Lay,R-Texas,some critics want lawmakerstojustifytheirear-marks. Researchers in Smiley'sdivi-sion are using grant money from the state research and education branch of the AgricultureDe-partment todeveloptwobaby foodstyles:puree and chunky. Smileysaysnutrientsinpink salmon fromthe watersaround the Alaskan coast improve infant development. --- t--------- ------ ------ ------------------------- ---------- -Taxpayersshould not bere-sponsiblefordevelopingand sustaininganichemarketin Coho Health Food Pink The research isalsogood for the health of Alaska'sfishing in-Chum dustry.Finding new markets for Total wildAlaskansalmon- anin-4,959 108,005 17,552 -166,932 : : = = = = = = = = = = = = = : : : : : : ~Alaska, said TomSchatz , presi-dent of the watchdog organiza-tion CitizensAgainstGovern-ment Waste. dustry that has suffered recentlySOURCE: AlaskaDepartment offish andGame"This isa cannery cartel at our expense," he said.fromcompetition with foreign producers of cheaper farm- raised salmon- isa lot easier with federal mon-ey,Smiley said. "Without federalresearch fundingfor fishutilizationresearch,the largest em-ployment sector in Alaska would have even greater troubles than they doalready," he said. If onebaby foodcompany developed Enemy continued from page 29 returning to Congress to seek the authori-ty he believes necessary." The court left open the possibility that Bush could simply try Guantanamo Bay de-taineesincourts-martial under American military law. "Nothing in the record before usdemonstrates that it would be impracti-cabletoapplycourt-martial rulesin this case," Stevens wrote. But theadministration andGOP con-gressional leaders appear to be intent on codifying rulesformilitary commissions instead.Senior administrationofficials observed that the court didnot ruleout theconcept of suchcommissionsalto-gether. Scott L.Silliman,executivedirector of Duke University School of Law's Center on salmon baby food,it would own allrights to the product, Smiley explained, and prob-ably would contract with only one or two businesses in Alaska to catch and process fish. But if the technology isdeveloped by federallyfundedgroups,any company cantapintothenew market,including Law, Ethics and National Security, said the decision was a shot across the Bush admin-istration'sbow that thecourt doesnot in-tend toabdicateitsrole as"the arbiter of what the law is and how it shapes the pres-ident's authority." Besides Scalia, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A.Ali to Jr. dissented from the court's opinion. Thomas, who has been on the court since 1991, read his dissent from the bench for the first time ever. Chief Justice John G.Roberts Jr.did not participateinthecase.Asanappellate judge, Roberts participated in the 2005 rul-ing by theU.S.Court of Appealsforthe District of Columbia Circuit in the case that found in favor of the government.+ Elizabeth B.Crowley contributed to this story. Keith Ashdown, vice president of policy for Taxpayers for Common Sense, said such projectsusually donot produce much for the taxpayers who fund them. "I have two kids," Ashdown said."I did-n'tfeed them fish[asbabies]and Idon't know whowould.Thebigger issueisif we're ever going to get anything fromthis. This isnot a national priority." Ashdown said earmarks distort the budg-et process. If the Agriculture Department viewedStevens'project asparticularly worthwhile, it would have included money for it in its budget requests, he said. The annual Agriculture appropriations bill fundsgrantsby the department'sCo-operativeState Research, Education, and Extensions Services arm. Millionsof dollars have been dedicated toresearching new salmon markets and products since 2000, but it was not until re-cently that money wasspecifically desig-nated for the baby food project. The Agriculture Department would so-licit applicationsforthe grant funded by Stevens' earmark,although the money is earmarked fora specific project ina spe-cific state. As far as he knows, Smiley said, he and his colleagues are the only people developing fishy baby food.+