Page 6 • Monday, June 28, 1999
Nation
The law of the land
Here is a sample of unusual or significant laws going into effect this summer.
Washington
outlaws lying by
politicians in campaign
ads. It also calls for
creation of a registry of
insurance claims that
should be payable to
Holocaust victims or
Idaho
rescinds
$1,000 limit
on awards for
charity rubber
duck races.
Vermont
allows needle
exchange
programs for
the first time.
their relatives.
Utah
protects Good
Samaritans
from being
sued for
T
\ MiF
damages done
while they use a
defibrillator to jump
start heart attack victims. Also
raises marriage age to 16 and
legalizes domesticated elk
hunting, with some restrictions.
New Mexico
New Hampshire
becomes last state to
grant Martin Luther
King Jr. a permanent
holiday and also
allows homosexuals
to adopt children.
\
A. •'
f -- aVv; South Carolina
officially legalizes
interracial
* — marriages. It also
comes up with an official state
question: "Red or Green?" The
query is to determine which type
of chili sauce diners prefer.
Tennessee and
Indiana require
parental consent
for body piercing
of young people.
outlaws the sale
of urine and
declares the
spotted
salamander the
official state
creature.
Florida
Louisiana makes it law for children
in kindergarten through fifth grade to
address their teachers with a courtesy
title such as “sir” or “ma'am.”
Georgia allows breast
feeding a baby in public,
provided the mother
“acts in a discreet and
modest way.”
allows sheriffs
to sell stray
livestock to
nearest
auction to
recoup cost of
capturing it.
July 1 to usher in new lat
Additions cover subjects from chili sauce to classroom com.
AP
AP — You can hula till you drop
in Hawaii, but you will need Mom
and Dad’s permission to have your
navel pierced in Tennessee. And do
not talk back to your teachers in
Louisiana or you may be breaking
the law.
New laws passed in states
around the country — many of
which take effect with the new fis
cal year July 1 — regulate every
thing from chili sauce to rubber
duck races. A spate of new ordi
nances focuses on reining in teen
agers.
Teens caught smoking in South
Dakota starting Thursday can be
fined once for every cigarette they
light up, as can the merchant who
sold them the pack. Louisiana
passed a law that makes students
in kindergarten through fifth grade
address teachers with a courtesy ti
tle such as “sir” or “ma’am.”
In Utah, the marriage age was
raised to 16 from 14, and in Flori
da, a new law calls for teen-age
girls to wait up to 48 hours for an
abortion to allow doctors time to
notify their parents. Indiana and
Tennessee enacted legislation that
requires Consent
for body piercing.
“Looking at it
on a broader scale,
I think there is an
issue of protecting
kids from them
selves and keeping
parents in con
trol,” Stephanie
Wilson, who mon
itors state laws at
the National Con
ference of State
Legislatures, said.
She said that in
the wake of shoot
ings at Columbine
I think there
is an issue of
protecting kids
from themselves
and keeping
parents in control.
nationwide trend toward closer
monitoring of teens will continue.
“Columbine was a huge shock
to everyone,” she said. “I think par
ents really do feel a loss of control. ”
Many states have taken steps to
try to protect chil
dren in school.
In Alabama,
teachers with un
supervised access
to students must
now be finger
printed and under
go background
checks. A new law
allows school dis
tricts in Nevada to
hire a chief of
school police. In
Maryland, stu
dents who plant
bombs or make
bomb threats can
— Stephanie Wilson
National Conference
of State Legislatures
High School and other schools, a lose their drivers licenses.
Of course, not all|
involve children,
raised penalties for
and for driving ur
ence, and some ran
“sin taxes" on cigaien
hoi. Several passedli
ping awards given
New Hampshire
allowing homosexn
children and also
state in the country
civil rights leader .V
King Jr. with a perma:.
South Carolina pa?
tion officially legalize
marriage. A state ban
enforced for decades
In Idaho, lawmake
a $1,000 limit onpriit
can be awarded inct
duck races. The ra
dumping rubber duck;
and seeing which one
finish line First
t
Officials criticize
Clinton drug plan
WASHINGTON (AP) — At “very
little” cost to taxpayers, all 39 mil
lion Americans covered by Medicare
could get prescription drug benefits
without bankrupting the program,
administration officials said Sunday
in previewing President Clinton’s re
form package.
But even before he announces
details tomorrow, lawmakers from
both parties said the plan was too
ambitious, and they urged limiting
the new drug cov
erage to the work
ing poor.
The elderly
and disabled in
the Medicare pro
gram who want
the prescription
coverage will
have to pay for it, cunton
said Donna Sha-
lala, secretary of the Department of
Health and Human Services. The
poor would get help buying medi
cine.
“This isn’t about just adding
some new, lush benefit,” Shalala
said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” not
ing that half the people in rural ar
eas do not have drug coverage. “This
is critical to health care. ”
Gene Sperling, chair of the Na
tional Economic Council, said in
CNN’s “Late Edition” that the ex
panded prescription coverage would
“cost very little” because of pro
posed savings through streamlining
and strengthened competition.
The president, Sperling said, “is
going to show a bit of political guts
in coming forward with such a de
tailed plan.”
But on Capitol Hill, there was
skepticism Clinton could save
Medicare from bankruptcy and in
troduce a significant new benefit
program.
Sen. Phil Gramm, chair of the
Senate Banking Committee, said
two-thirds of Medicare recipients
already have prescription coverage,
either through the Medicaid pro
gram for the poor or through pri
vate Medigap policies. That leaves
about 15 million beneficiaries with
no coverage.
“I don’t understand why we
would want to drive those private
programs out and substitute a gov
ernment program for it,” Gramm, R-
Texas, said on CBS.
It is “the working poor, the poor
est of the poor not on Medicaid, who
don’t have it, and we ought to work
that out some way,” Sen. Orrin
Hatch, R-Utah, said on NBC’s “Meet
the Press.”
Republican leaders generally
have supported the idea of provid
ing government-subsidized drug
benefits only for those near the
poverty level.
The administration argues many
Medigap policies are a major finan
cial burden for the elderly, averaging
about $90 a month and including a
$250 deductible.
Clinton’s plan would require
smaller premiums and might pay
about half the cost of prescriptions,
up to perhaps $3,000 to $5,000 a year.
Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., whose
state’s senior population strongly
supports cheaper drug prices, said
on CBS that this could be accom
plished by making Medicare more
efficient and by cutting fraud and
waste, which he said still accounts
for about 10 percent of Medicare
spending.
Other Democrats were less op
timistic.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn.,
said the way to save Medicare from
insolvency in the next decade “is not
to load it up with another big costly
benefit that nobody pays for even
though everybody wants it.”
Medical experts predict
future blood shortage
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ameri
cans take for granted they will get
a blood transfusion when they
need one, but soon, that may not
be the case: Blood donations are
dropping so low that serious, na
tionwide shortages could hit as ear
ly as next year.
The government is so con
cerned that Surgeon General David
Satcher has a committee hunting
ways to get more people to donate
blood more often, studying such
incentives as giving donors time
away from work or small rewards
like T-shirts.
And some blood banks have
started creative programs to lure
donors — one in Iowa even gives
puppet shows and science demon
strations to school students,
grooming them to donate as soon
as they turn 17.
“We operate on a very thin mar
gin of safety for the blood supply,
and if that trend continues, it
would put us in a year-round
shortage in a few years,” Dr. Arthur
Caplan of the University of Penn
sylvania, who heads a federal com
mittee on blood issues, said
The National Blood Data Re
source Center is more pessimistic:
Its studies predict next year, Ameri
cans will donate just under 11.7 mil
lion units of blood — but that hos
pitals will need 11.9 million units.
Blood donations are decreasing
about 1 percent a year. Demand for
blood is increasing 1 percent a year.
Already, some cities routinely
experience temporary blood short
ages during holidays like the
Fourth of July weekend and the
summer, when regular blood
donors go on vacation.
“When you need surgery, when
you need cancer treatment, when
a woman gives birth — we all as
sume the blood will be there,” Ca
plan said. “You can’t make that as
sumption anymore. ”
Blood banks say younger gen
erations have never shown the en
thusiasm of post-World War II
donors. About 60 percent of Amer
icans are estimated to be eligible
donors, but only 5 percent donatee.
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Rap artist Ice T performs Saturday in Houston as part of this year’s Vans Warped Tour. The tour, which began in San Antonio, will trave ;
the United States this summer. It is the nation’s largest travelling music tour, combining music with extreme sports such as skateboard^
Peace efforts, aftermath costing billio
Reconstruction, troop deployment test military budget
WASHINGTON (AP) — Waging war with
$2 million missiles can run up quite a tab. So
can preserving peace.
NATO’s 78-day air campaign against Yu
goslavia cost the United States as much as $4
billion, according to private and congression
al estimates.
Annual peacekeeping and reconstruction
expenses are expected to run nearly as high
— and that assumes the United States will
honor President Clinton’s pledge that “not a
penny” will go to rebuild Serbia’s roads and
bridges while Yugoslavia President Slobodan
Milosevic remains in power.
The U.S. military contributed to the NATO
force more than 725 aircraft, a variety of ar
tillery, multiple-launch rocket systems and
about 5,500 supporting Army troops. Clinton
called up about 5,000 reservists.
U.S. aircraft flew 2,300 missions in the 11
weeks of airstrikes. U.S. Navy ships fired
about 450 Tomahawk cruise missiles, at a
price of about $1 million a missile. U.S. Air
Force B-52 bombers launched 90 air-launched
cruise missiles, which cost about $2 million
apiece.
The Pentagon has not put a price on these
deployments or on replacing the munitions
they consumed. An independent research or
ganization has: $2.3 billion to $4 billion, ac
cording to the Center for Strategic and Bud
getary Assessments.
The costs are difficult to estimate because
the Pentagon has not given details on how
many munitions other than cruise missiles
were used.
Further, the Pentagon plans to upgrade,
rather than replace, some of the cruise missiles
and other munitions while also increasing
stockpiles, center analyst Elizabeth Heeter said.
In late May, President Clinton signed an
emergency spending bill that set aside about
$5 billion for the airstrikes through Sept. 30,
if necessary.
With the fighting over and warplanes head
ed home, the administration hopes to use as
much of the remaining money as possible —
about $2 billion by some estimates — to pay
for peacekeeping in Kosovo, a province of Yu
goslavia’s dominant republic Serbia.
Tending to the peace in Kosovo is expect
ed to run $2 billion to $3.5 billion annually,
not including reconstruction costs, the center
says. The international force of 50,000 peace
keepers includes 7,000 U.S. troops to help re
settle and protect ethnic Albanian refugees.
White House Chief of Staff John Podesta
said U.S. peacekeepers will be needed indefi
nitely.
U.S. peacekeepers in a second Balkans hot
spot, Bosnia, have cost more than $9 billion.
About 6,700 U.S. troops remain in Bosnia,
down from a peak of more than 22,000. They
are helping to implement the 1995 U.S.-bro
kered Dayton peace agreement that ended
three years of fighting by the country’s Serbs,
Muslims and Croats.
For Kosovo, the administration and con
gressional leaders insist the bulk of Western
reconstruction aid must come from Europe.
Without waiting for the administration to
request a U.S. share, the Senate Appropria
tions Committee voted to provide $535 mil
lion for postwar Balkan reconstruction. Koso
vo would receive $150 million, but the rest of
Serbia would get nothing.
Lawmakers want the United States to pro
vide about 20 percent of total costs, said Sen.
Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., chair of the Appro
priations subcommittee on foreign operations
and author of the reconstruction plan. The
Senate could take up the measure this week.
The European Commission, administrative
arm of the 15-nation EuropeamUnion, has es
timated the cost of rebuilding Kosovo at $7 bil
lion for the first three years. It plans to spend
up to $722 million on reconstruction during
each of the next three years.
The cost of war
According to private and
congressional estimates,
NATO’s 78-day air campaic
against Yugoslavia costtlie
United States as muchasJ
billion. Here is a look at the:
of U.S. contingency opera!
since 1991.
Bosnia 1
$9.43 billion
Iraq 1
$7.08
Kosovo
$4.00
Somalia
$1.52
Haiti
$1.04
Other
$2.03
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‘Includes funding for operations in only two
parts of the former Yugoslavia. ported-
** Does not include funding for Deserve sprim
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Source: Center for Strategic and 1 p|
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