Archive - Jul 21, 2009

• Federal transport agency withheld information on handsfree cell phone risks
• Employee Free Choice Act stalled in Senate
• US Senate may allow Americans to carry concealed weapons across states
• Health care lobbying reaches record numbers
• Myanmar generals promise to release political prisoners
• State funded clinic for transsexuals opens in Brazil

• India’s opposition members protest accord with US
• Honduran President denies coup
• Coordinated attacks in Afghanistan
• Charges against prominent African American professor dropped
• California balances budgets – deep cuts to social services, education, public health…
• Obama administration misses critical deadline for Guantanamo Bay closing plan

New documents obtained under a freedom of information ACT request, show that a federal agency withheld research for six years on the dangers of driving while using a cell phone. Consumer advocacy groups Public Citizen and the Center for Auto Safety have been fighting to get the documents from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released. The groups say the agency could have saved lives by releasing the research,  which showed using a handsfree cell phone device could be just as dangerous as using a handheld phone:

“Frankly, I´m shocked, I mean this is the equivalent of the Center for Disease Control hiding research on some new medical disease.”

Clarence Ditlow is the executive director of the Center for Auto Safety.

“The issue is not that your hands are not on the wheel when you´re using a handsfree cellphone, it´s that your mind is not on the road, you´re distracted by the very conversation that you´re conducting and so hands free are just as hazardous, cause it´s the conversation not the act of holding the phone that causes the hazard.”

Ditlow says they're not getting a clear answer on why the research was kept secret. The Center for Auto Safety says they're petitioning the NHTSA today to restrict the use of in-vehicle phone systems while someone is driving and wants the agency to support state programs that limit both hand-held and handsfree phone use by drivers.

The Employee Free Choice Act is stalled in the Senate.   Democratic negotiators admit that they've been unable to find a way to move forward on a proposal that would satisfy enough members to pass the bill. FSRN’s Leigh Ann Caldwell reports.

On Capitol Hill today, the Senate passed a contentious amendment to the 2010 Defense Authorization Bill. The amendment restricts the F-22 jet program that would have cost $1.75 billion.

Senators with the aerospace industry in their states pushed for the F-22 funding, saying it would support jobs and national security. But the F22 has never been used in combat and President Obama, the Pentagon and other senators opposed it.

This is one of the latest in a round of amendments to the Defense Authorization Bill, which includes some amendments that don’t have anything to do with the military. Tomorrow senators will vote on an amendment that would allow people to carry a concealed weapon across state lines.   FSRN´s Karen Miller has more.

US interest groups and corporations spent more than $3 billion last year lobbying Congress.  And as the debate on health care reform intensifies, the amount of money that the health industry spends on lobbying appears to be increasing.

Reports filed with Congress on Monday show that 22 health related companies and associations spent more than $1 million each, on lobbying over the past three months. The Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America topped the list, spending $6.5 million in lobbying activities during April, May and June of this year.

FSRN spoke to Dave Levinthal from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan think tank that tracks where money goes in US politics and its impact on policy making.

A recent trip to Myanmar – also known as Burma -- by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon prompted the military government to promise the release of an undetermined number of political prisoners. This follows mounting pressure against the junta’s two-year crackdown on democracy supporters.  But many exiled opposition leaders are skeptical of the junta´s promises. FSRN reporter Ari Paul has more from New York.