It could be because the breezy late May has brought relatively pleasant air to breathe in the north San Joaquin Valley. But, it's probably because of some flak offensive cooked up by Baltimore's top Democratic congressmen. Whatever the reason, we are currently under a full-scale attack of flakulence by representatives Dennis Cardoza, Shrimp Slayer-Merced, and Jerry McNerney, the Pleasanton Wind Machine.
Cardoza today announced the introduction of a bill to add a few years to the sentences of officials convicted of corruption in office, because public faith in government officials has been weakened by various scandals, notably the relationship between Jack "The Singing Lobbyist" Abramoff and the front end of the Pomboza, former Rep. Richard Pombo, Buffalo Slayer-Tracy.
"Beyond breaking the law, the perpetrators of these crimes violate the public trust by defying their fiduciary responsibility to the Constitution," Cardoza said.
It's laughable and pathetic, but there it is. This bum takes big bucks from finance, insurance and real estate to do everything he can to gut the Endangered Species Act for the benefit of these special interests. This bum leans on resource agencies regularly to relax their enforcement. This bum was the ramrod behind the fast-tracking of UC Merced running roughshod over environmental law and public process. This bum sold out to special interests on the Westly tire fire. This bum has real estate interests of his own that directly benefitted from the UC Merced-induced speculative housing boom in Merced. No politician in our region is more responsible for the subsequent housing bust than this bum, except possibly his mentor, Pombo. If this bum's name doesn't pop up in the investigations of the House Committee of Natural Resources on Interior Department official Julie MacDonald's actionable offenses against the public trust, it will only be a miracle of partisan politics.
But, demonstrating the totally fallacy of the so-called two-party system, we have another example of flakulence in Pombo's old district, now inhabited, however briefly, by McNerney. This jerk is going on about saving a VA hospital in Livermore. He serves on the House Veterans Committee and so it makes a certain kind of sense. He believes this idylic VA nursing home would be a good place for head-trauma victims among the veterans of the Iraq War.
We are filled with sympathy for these unfortunates in the all-volunteer military serving in Iraq. And we know the tender sentiments the Iraq War veterans hold for those of us who criticize the war. In this, there is going to be a vast difference from Vietnam. The re-absorption of these veterans into society is going to be uglier than the 1970s. Harrowing times lie ahead. This McPomboza, trying on the self-righteous priggery of Cardoza, hasn't got an ounce of solidarity with these poor, abandoned souls that fought this wretched, UnAmerican imperial campaign. He merely uses them to avoid facing the terrible problem of toxic pork. The successful effort to unseat Pombo resulted in the creation of a politically spoiled little monster. People literate in Valley political history think in terms of Margaret Snyder, an assemblywoman from Modesto so stupid she could not fathom the direction of her speaker, the black man who brought her to the party.
The Livermore VA hospital isn't in McNerney's highly gerimandered district. As late as 2005, the VA was considering building a replacement facility in French Camp, which is in McNerney's district. Thanks to the out-reach capacity of the Palo Alto VA Hospital, San Joaquin General has a functioning VA clinic, also in McNerney's district. The congresswoman who represents Livermore has remained silent on the issue of the Livermore VA hospital.
What we are looking at is a Flakulence Campaign to distract us stupid Valley children from the real issue, dear to the heart of both McNerney and Cardoza: the siting of a biosafety level 4 biowarfare lab at Site 300, owned and operated by UC/Bechtel et al Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The Department of Energy will decide on the short list of contestants for this fabulous project next month. Tri-Valley CAREs, a Livermore Lab watchdog, visited McNerney recently in Washington DC and presented their position on the project. It was negative. McNerney told CAREs he'd think about it. The next thing we know, he invites us to a mass compassion fest for head-trauma victims from the US invasion of Iraq.
See how he bleeds for the unfortunate victims of imperial foreign policy at the same time as he won't vote for a real schedule for withdrawing the troops.
Meanwhile, he remains silent, as does Cardoza (downwind from the proposed biowarfare facility), about the possibility of bringing foot-and-mouth, Avian flu, and other of the most dangerous toxic substances known to man into an area populated by many people and much poultry and livestock besides.
Once again we see the power of the University of California to stop all thought among our political leaders. What is to pathetic about this particular mental paralysis is that UC really doesn't have much control of Lawrence Livermore or Los Alamos anymore. That has passed to corporate hands, particularly to Bechtel, the heroes of rebuilding the electrical, water and sewer infrastructure of Iraq. After the Bush administration bombed Bagdhad, Bechtel got the contract to rebuild its public works. Bechtel failed, but got paid anyway, because that is the Imperial Way. There is some dispute about whether it is the American Way, however.
Was it by mere chance that UC Merced announced today that it has opened an animal lab to study infectious diseases, under the auspices of the Livermore lab? Badlands has been predicting for years now that UC Merced would be absorbed eventually into the warfare lab because it lacks any other legitimate means of academic support beyond its memorandum of understanding with the august purveyor of weapons of mass destruction.
The flakulence of the moment in the north Valley boils down to the confluence of Pentagon Pork and the University of California. What happened with the siting of UC Merced was that weapons of mass destruction could be moved out of the Bay Area into the Valley, dumping ground for the toxics of the universe.
These despicable congressmen are going along for the ride because of the pork possibilities, like we live in militarist Georgia instead of California.
We hold out no hope whatsoever that the witless local political leadership will wake up in time to even register some protest to the most dangerous project ever sited in the Valley, because we have a very bad habit here: we live by the deal. Unfortunately, in this instance, we are not selling tomatoes. We are selling our lives and the lives of our loved ones and off-spring into deep danger. The biowarfare facility the proposed Site 300 facility is said to replace is on an island off Long Island so secret the island itself appears on very few maps. There is a book about this island, Plum Island, called Lab 257. Everyone in the north San Joaquin Valley really ought to read this book, which includes vivid descriptions of how Lyme Disease, W. Nile Fever and probably Newcastle Disease escaped this biosafety level-4 biowarfare laboratory and its colonies of ticks.
This is an evil project. You should pay the most intense attention to it. You should not believe anything about the current flakulence, which is nothing but propaganda farts in the wind.
Bill Hatch
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5-22-07
Stockton Record
Cardoza bill targets corrupt politicians...The Record
http://recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070522/A_NEWS/705220321
Rep. Dennis Cardoza apparently doesn't think the eight years in the slammer his disgraced colleague Randy "Duke" Cunningham got for taking bribes was enough...
announced Monday he's sponsored legislation to add years to the sentences of public officials convicted of corruption...legislation would give federal judges discretion to double prison sentences for elected and appointed public officials convicted of bribery, fraud, extortion or theft in the course of their official duties. "With public faith in government officials weakened by scandals from the Jack Abramoff affair to the Duke Cunningham conviction, we need to ensure that those who break these laws are punished appropriately," Cardoza said. "Beyond breaking the law, the perpetrators of these crimes violate the public trust by defying their fiduciary responsibility to the Constitution." Details of the bill, HR875, are at thomas.loc.gov.
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3-30-05
Cardoza, Pombo raise money together
By Michael Doyle
SUN-STAR WASHINGTON BUREAU
Merced Sun-Star - March 30, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Political collaboration has a whole new meaning for Merced Democrat Dennis Cardoza and Tracy Republican Richard Pombo.
In a unique exercise in bipartisanship, Cardoza and Pombo on Tuesday split the take from a joint $1,000-a-head fund-raiser. The lunchtime event near Lodi filled both incumbents' campaign treasuries with cash, and filled political observers with wonder.
"That's a fairly new one," Common Cause spokesman James Benton said with considerable understatement when informed of the event. "It might not be the only one of its kind, but it certainly is rare."
Cardoza acknowledged the two-hour event sponsored by prominent developer Greenlaw "Fritz" Grupe was unusual, not to mention politically delicate in some circles. Cardoza said he hadn't advised other House Democrats of his plans beforehand.
"Sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than for permission," Cardoza said with a laugh.
Speaking by telephone shortly before the luncheon began at Grupe's Shady Oaks Farm ranch, Cardoza said he wasn't sure how much money was likely to be raised. Individual tickets cost $1,000. The Stockton Record, which first reported the event, also reported that event sponsors were being charged $5,000, with upward of 40 individuals expected to attend.
"Fritz had said he appreciated the work we had done on a collaborative basis," Cardoza said, "and his comment was that he wanted to reward good behavior."
That is precisely what worries some activists, who oppose legislation authored by Pombo and Cardoza to rewrite the Endangered Species Act.
"The fact that Pombo and Cardoza are drinking from the same trough is surprising only in that they decided to drop the pretense and show up together at the same time at the same function," said Robert Stack, executive director of the Angels Camp-based Jumping Frog Research Institute. "Those seeking paybacks long ago figured out that giving cash to both parties is a good way to hedge their bets."
Ironically, Cardoza's own predecessor, Gary Condit, might have been the last House member to attempt something even remotely similar.
In 1997, Condit invited the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, then-Rep. John Kasich of Ohio, to join a Gary Condit Breakfast Club meeting in Modesto. The club was for people contributing $500 annually to Condit's campaign.
Republican activists voiced outrage that Kasich would lend his prestige to a Democratic gig.
"Choose your Party over the fuzzy headed 'bipartisanship' that is infecting all of Washington and has caused derailment of our agenda," wrote Michael Der Manouel, Jr. of Fresno, vice chairman of the California Republican Party, at the time.
Bombarded with similar complaints, Kasich subsequently backed out of the Condit event.
Pombo had likewise formed a close working relationship with Condit, and had refused to back any of the long-shot Republicans who ran against his colleague between 1990 and 2000. Since then, Pombo has risen to be chairman of the House Resources Committee, on which Cardoza now serves.
Beyond their common Portuguese heritage, Pombo and Cardoza share some common ideas about private property and environmental protection. The ideas, including some proposed rewrites of the Endangered Species Act, are generally favored more by developers like Grupe than by environmentalists like Stack.
"We have our fundamental disagreements," Cardoza said of Pombo, "but when we're at home, we focus on the things that bring us together instead of the things that drive us apart."
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9-20-05
Denny, Mr. Bipartisan
Badlandsjournal.com
http://www.badlandsjournal.com/old/getarch2.php?title=Denny,%20Mr.%20Bipartisan
Flanked by three Republicans, including his Chairman (of the House Resources Committee), Rep. Dennis Cardoza, Shrimp Slayer-Merced, today played Mr. Bipartisan in Pombo's latest attempt to gut the Endangered Species Act. And Pombo played it to the hilt, his flak leading with this evidence of unity across the aisles: "Bipartisan Coalition Introduce Bill to Improve the Endangered Species Act of 1973."
Thus, the UC Merced show goes on. If the UC weren't such an arrogant institution, so willing to believe at any point that it is omnipotent as well as omniscient, in fact, to be frank at least among the right sort of people, a god of sorts and not the smallest god in the heavens, it might have become clear even to its august regents, that UC got suckered big time by the real Valley coalition: agribusiness, land owners, developers and banks. And so, Merced's boy in Congress, the Shrimp Slayer, becomes the Principle of Bipartisanship on a bill to gut the ESA, written by Rep. Rich Pombo, "The Chairman," Buffalo Slayer-Tracy, and co-owner of Pombo Real Estate Farms.
Now, that's not enlightened! That's not what Californians ought to want to see in strong public-university academic leadership. It is neither moral nor intelligent for a handful of San Joaquin Valley congressmen, Pombo, Cardoza, Radanovich and Costa, to be determining national environmental policy for an exclusive club of agribusiness cashing out their land into real estate.
Perhaps nothing like the positioning of UC Merced as the political sanction for rolling back successful, 30-year-old environmental legislation shows more clearly the lost of vision and degeneration of the quality of education UC provides, at least to its regents and administration. The most pathetic aspect of the situation is that it is hard not to imagine UC lobbyists, at public expense, working the halls of Congress in favor of this bill -- only because it will make expansion of UC Merced easier. Edifice Over Education again.
As for Cardoza, what can be said? Ambition in a suit. Politicians don't make it up through the ranks in the 18th Congressional District until they've sold out to a few large special interests here. There have clearly defined roles here. From the shadows come the orders: "It's your job to sell our agenda to the boobs. If you don't, you lose your office."
In his ambition, is Cardoza making history or just casting his large, dark shadow on it? There is always that interesting question about the San Joaquin Valley. At times, when suitable to the political interests of the orator of the moment, it is presented at the richest, most productive agricultural land in the nation. This is supposed to be good. It conjures up images of happy farming families, cheap food policies, and cornucopia. Beneath this shining mythology lies the a small nest of big snakes that owns most of the land and all of the politicians. Every once in awhile, the public gets to see the political economic reality of the richest, most productive agricultural valley in the nation. Unused to examples of feudalism, they don't see it because they can't believe it. UC, blinded by its omniscience, missed it. Our favorite example is the endowed chair for the Tony "Honest Graft" Coelho School of Government.
Ignorance is bliss; UC-sanctioned ignorance is double-plus unbad bliss.
Rep. Joe Baca, from the other fastest growing part of California, Riverside-San Bernardino, is another Democrat bipartisan supporter. And now we know where freshman Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, stands, as we observe all the subdivisions with 499 units going in that don't have to prove they have a water supply, thanks to a loophole in an "environmental" law he wrote in the state Legislature.
In Cardoza's "town hall meeting" last weekend in Merced (see Badlands, The Denny Show), not a word was mentioned about the ESA, critical habitat, water contamination or supply -- not to mention the Iraq War. We boobs got a dose instead of "smart growth" and "regional cooperation" and how government is "working on it."
Bill Hatch
------------------------------------------
9-20-05
Denny, Mr. Bipartisan
Bipartisan Coalition Introduce Bill to Improve the Endangered Species Act of 1973
Washington, DC - At a California news conference today Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-CA), Reps. Dennis Cardoza (D-CA), Greg Walden (R-OR) and George Radanovich (R-CA) announced the introduction of the bipartisan Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005 (TESRA).
TESRA fixes the long-outstanding problems of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by (1) focusing on species recovery (2) providing incentives (3) increasing openness and accountability (4) strengthening scientific standards (5) creating bigger roles for state and local governments (6) protecting private property owners and (7) eliminating dysfunctional critical habitat designations ...
"After three decades of implementation, the ESA has only recovered 10 of the roughly 1,300 species on its list," said Chairman Pombo. "What it has done instead is create conflict, bureaucracy and rampant litigation. It's time to do better. Without meaningful improvements, the ESA will remain a failed managed care program that checks species in but never checks them out. This bill will remove the impediments to cooperation that have prevented us from achieving real results for species recovery in the last 30 years."
"I am pleased to join my colleagues, Chairman Richard Pombo and Congressman Greg Walden to announce the introduction of the 'Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act'," said Rep. Cardoza. "Over the past 30 years since its introduction, the Endangered Species Act has gone far off course from its original intent. Today, lawsuits and court mandates dictate species recovery, not science. This new bill puts more resources towards recovering species while at the same time creating transparency for those landowners whose land may be needed for species conservation." Cardoza continued, "I believe this bill is an innovative approach to solving the problems with the Act that I have been working on for the last two and a half years and I look forward to moving this bill quickly though Congress" ...
Congressman George Miller, California's 7th District
Monday, May 21, 2007
Danny Weiss, 202-225-2095
Miller and Rahall Launch Inquiry into New Conflict of Interest at Interior Department
Senior lawmakers press Bush Administration on manipulation of science in a California endangered species decision
WASHINGTON, DC - Two senior House Democrats launched an inquiry today into reports that a Bush Administration political appointee may have improperly removed a California fish from a list of threatened species in order to protect her own financial interests.
According to an investigative report published Sunday by the Contra Costa Times, Julie MacDonald, who resigned this month as Interior Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, was actively involved in removing the Sacramento Splittail fish from the federal threatened and endangered species list at the same time that she was profiting from her ownership of an 80-acre farm in Dixon, CA that lies within the habitat area of the threatened fish.
MacDonald's financial disclosure statement shows that she earns as much as $1 million per year from her ownership of the 80-acre active farm. Federal law bars federal employees from participating in decisions on matters in which they have a personal financial interest.
The Sacramento Splittail, a small fish found only in California's Central Valley, depends on floodplain habitat and has been described by the Fish and Wildlife Service as facing "potential threats from habitat loss."
Today, Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, wrote to Interior Secretary Kempthorne requesting a full accounting of MacDonald's role in the Sacramento Splittail decision, an explanation of her apparent conflict of interest, and a thorough review of the science underlying the decision to remove the Sacramento Splittail from the threatened species list.
"It looks like another Bush Administration official was protecting her own bottom line instead of protecting the public interest," said Miller, a senior member and former chairman of the Natural Resources Committee and a long-time proponent of the Endangered Species Act and Bay-Delta fish and wildlife issues. "We are going to fully investigate this matter and determine whether public policy was improperly altered because of personal conflicts of interest.
"This news raises serious questions about the integrity of the Interior Department and its policy decisions," Miller added. "The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has enough problems without political appointees at scientific agencies cooking the books. Who thought it was acceptable for a Deputy Assistant Secretary to change a major policy decision to exempt her own million-dollar enterprise from the Endangered Species Act even though federal law prohibits such conflicts?"
Rahall, who has served on the Natural Resources Committee since 1976 and became its chairman in January, called on the Department to fully explain what happened.
"Time and again, this Administration has demonstrated a complete disregard for scientists and their work," Rahall said. "Political appointees at the Interior Department have been allowed to overrule biologists and to work more closely with special interests than with their own staff. The Interior Department must explain its deputy assistant secretary's actions in this very troubling case, which is apparently the latest in a long line of efforts to undercut species recovery."
The letter from Miller and Rahall comes just two weeks after a May 9 Committee hearing at which Deputy Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett was questioned about recent controversies in the implementation of the Endangered Species Act. Her prepared testimony did not mention a report by the Department's Inspector General on an investigation into MacDonald, nor did her testimony indicate awareness of the serious consequences of MacDonald's actions. In the course of the hearing, Scarlett affirmed that "where there is scientific manipulation, we want to correct that," but no specifics were provided.
MacDonald resigned from the Interior Department just one week before Scarlett testified.
The Endangered Species Act established a policy of protecting and recovering species in decline and their habitats. Fish, wildlife, and plants listed as "endangered" are in danger of extinction and the federal government is required to take action to recover them. Species are listed as "threatened" if it is determined that they may soon become endangered. Other threatened species in the Bay-Delta region include the green sturgeon and the delta smelt.
The full text of the letter to The Hon. Dirk Kempthorne, Secretary of the Interior, is below.
May 21, 2007
The Honorable Dirk Kempthorne
Secretary
Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20240
Dear Secretary Kempthorne:
We are writing to reiterate the request we made at the House Natural Resources Committee's hearing on May 9, 2007, and subsequently in writing by Chairman Nick J. Rahall, II, for a complete accounting of how the Department of the Interior is responding to the Inspector General's investigation of Julie MacDonald. Yesterday's newspaper report in the Contra Costa Times on Julie MacDonald and her role in the decision to remove the Sacramento Splittail from the list of threatened species demands an immediate response from the Department. This new information adds very serious charges to her record.
The Contra Costa Times reports ("Decision on splittail raises suspicions") that the Fish and Wildlife Service, at MacDonald's direction, may have improperly ignored scientific evidence when deciding to eliminate the Sacramento Splittail's threatened species designation, and that MacDonald, a non-scientist, was heavily involved in the decision. By statute, as you know, listing and de-listing decisions can only be made on the basis of the best scientific and commercial data available.
More egregious still, the article demonstrates that MacDonald was profiting significantly from agricultural property in Sacramento Splittail habitat. It is our understanding that this is the first and only time that a fish species has been removed from the list of threatened species for reasons other than extinction. It is unacceptable that such an unprecedented policy decision may have been made because a Deputy Assistant Secretary had a direct and substantial personal financial interest.
In light of this highly troubling new report, please provide us with a full accounting of former Deputy Assistant Secretary MacDonald's role from 2002-2004 in the Sacramento Splittail decision, including but not limited to:
1 Details of her contacts with staff in the California and Nevada Operations Office and elsewhere within the Department regarding the Sacramento Splittail;
1 A complete accounting of the changes made by Julie MacDonald, and others, to the Sacramento Splittail listing documents after they were sent to Washington; and
1 Communications regarding the Sacramento Splittail, if any, between MacDonald and interests outside the Department, including the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, the State Water Contractors, or the California Farm Bureau.
In addition, please provide us with a full account of former Deputy Assistant Secretary MacDonald's apparent conflict of interest, including but not limited to:
1 Details of her participation in decisions affecting the management of fish and wildlife species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region, especially those on or near her property;
1 A description of Interior Department decisions, if any, from which she recused herself based on a conflict of interest, or the appearance of a conflict;
1 A list of officials at the Department who were aware that she continued to own and profit from agricultural property in California while serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary; and
1 All advice or ethics opinions provided to her by the Department regarding these matters.
In order to determine the Interior Department's role in overseeing MacDonald's activities, please provide a description of all formal or informal action taken by the Department in response to her 2004 decision to leak documents to the California Farm Bureau's lobbyist in an apparent attempt to undermine a scientific decision regarding the threatened Delta smelt.
Finally, in order to address the significant policy implications of MacDonald's actions, we request that you direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to re-evaluate whether its decision to de-list the Sacramento Splittail was based solely upon the best available scientific and commercial data, as required by law, and to report these findings to the Congress. In addition, please provide us with the results of each of the three statistical methods employed by the Fish and Wildlife Service to determine the health of the Sacramento Splittail's population. Endangered species decisions must be based on accurate and reliable scientific analysis, not the conflict of interest of a senior departmental official. This is especially true for significant and sensitive decisions such as this one, which could affect the management of California's Bay-Delta and water operations.
We appreciate your prompt attention to our request. Please contact Ben Miller with Rep. George Miller's staff at (202) 225-2095, or Lori Sonken with the Natural Resources Committee staff at (202) 225-6065, with any questions.
Sincerely,
GEORGE MILLER NICK J. RAHALL, II
Member of Congress Chairman, Committee on Natural Resources
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Official calls for new VA services
By Chris Metinko, MEDIANEWS STAFF
Article Last Updated: 05/18/2007 02:57:06 AM PDT
LIVERMORE— With the number of injured and traumatized veterans coming home from the Middle East increasing daily, Livermore's endangered veterans hospital could find new uses, including possibly as a post-traumatic stress disorder clinic.
An East Bay rookie congressman is pushing the idea of an expansion of services in the hospital's future rather than closure. Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, who has had private conversations with VA Secretary James Nicholson on the subject, made a formal push for new uses at the 115-acre campus on Thursday with a letter to the secretary.
The future of the Veterans Affairs medical facility is still very much in the air. The VA is considering closing at least part of the campus, which includes a hospital and nursing home, or improving and expanding the facility. One option also would beto move outpatient, nursing home and other services to San Joaquin County. A decision by Nicholson is expected soon.
"I've been thinking of this before I was even elected," McNerney said of a new post-traumatic stress disorder clinic on Livermore's campus. "It's such a quiet, peaceful place, it would be perfect."
With the current fighting in the Middle East, renewed attention is being paid to PTSD: an anxiety disorder some people develop as a result of experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event, such as military combat.
It was estimated earlier this year that 15 to 30 percent of the more than 1.4 million members of the U.S. military that have served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will develop PTSD.
In his letter to Nicholson, McNerney said, "Livermore offers a peaceful and idyllic setting for veterans to rest and receive the unmatched health and rehabilitative care the VA provides."
McNerney admitted trying to expand the facility's services might offer it a reprieve from the chopping block as the VA tries to streamline its services. "Absolutely, it's such a wonderful facility, it shouldn't be closed," he said. "And there's such a great need for it right now."
McNerney's plan has sparked enthusiasm and optimism among some veterans. "It would make sense to have something like that out there for the soldiers coming home from the Middle East," said Les McDonald, a 74-year-old veteran from Livermore who has attended meetings on the future of the Livermore VA facility. "That is the prefect place for veterans suffering from that to go."
Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, another advocate of the Livermore VA hospital, reiterated her support of local care for veterans.
In a statement released Thursday, the congresswoman said, "At the heart of this issue is whether local veterans will continue to receive the best health care services available. We have made it clear to the VA from the secretary on down that the needs of those served must be considered before anything else.
"Any decision about care that's based on number-crunching in Washington and doesn't take into account our veterans in the Tri-Valley is never going to fly with me."
McNerney contends with so many soldiers fighting in the Middle East and the increasing numbers coming home injured, the VA should be looking at expanding services, especially those associated with PTSD, and not cutting back.
Along with the proposed Livermore enhancements, McNerney added he believes the French Camp Outpatient Clinic —the only VA health care facility in San Joaquin County — also should expand services to meet the need for PTSD-specific treatment.
McNerney said he hopes to sit down with Nicholson in the next few weeks — before any final decision on Livermore is rendered — to discuss keeping open the facility. The VA had originally forecast a decision on the future of the Livermore site would likely be made by late spring or early summer.
Kerri Childress, spokeswoman for the VA Palo Alto Health Care System which includes the Livermore campus, said there is no hard timeline when Nicholson may make a decision.
"Hopefully it is in the near future," Childress said.
In his letter, McNerney added "recent conversations with my constituents have led me to believe that closure of the Livermore hospital is imminent and that other services may soon be lost. This move would severely limit care and would be detrimental to veterans in the region."
McNerney said he believes the Livermore facility is being phased out even before the decision is announced because he has talked with patients who have been directed toward other VA clinics.
Nevertheless, McNerney said after a discussion with Nicholson at House Veterans' Affairs Committee meeting last week, he feels the secretary is willing to listen and find ways to better serve the needs of our nation's veterans.
"It's unacceptable to close this facility," McNerney said.
5-22-07
UC Merced to get first lab animals...Victor A. Patton
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/13610283p-14207825c.html
The first lab-test mice and rats that will be used for scientific research purposes at UC Merced will likely be kept at the university starting within the next 14 days, university officials said Monday...school is putting the finishing touches on its 5,000-square-foot vivarium... Sam Traina, UC Merced's vice chancellor for research and graduate studies, said the university is awaiting final approval from officials at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to begin keeping animals at the facility. Until UC Merced obtains its own operating license from a national oversight board, Lawrence Livermore researchers will be responsible for providing oversight and review of the vivarium, which should occur by September... Much of the research performed at the facility will involve study into infectious diseases and the immune system, as well as some stem cell research. Roy Hoglund, the vivarium's director, said the first set of animals at the facility will primarily be "sentinel animals"... Traina said most major construction on the building was completed by the end of April. The facility is located inside an existing wing of the school's Science and Engineering building and will contain about $2 million in lab equipment...officials have said they will seek to have the facility approved by Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Lab Animal Care, a private, nonprofit organization that promotes the humane treatment of lab animals through a voluntary accreditation and assessment program.
