WASHINGTON — As lawmakers argued over long-term deficit reduction, the Republican-led House on Friday cut 20 percent from President Barack Obama’s budget request for energy and water projects.
Republicans called the bill a model of restraint but the White House said it jeopardized economic growth and clean energy.
The $30.6 billion bill, covering Energy Department and Army Corps of Engineers programs, was down $1 billion from this year and was nearly $6 billion less than the White House wanted.
An amendment to the bill would allow companies to make and sell old 100-watt light bulbs after January 1, when they are scheduled to be phased out. Republicans had previously tried and failed to overturn a 2007 law requiring light bulbs to be more energy efficient starting next year.
The bill also steered $1 billion away from high-speed rail projects and used the money instead to pay for flood relief along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. And it provided $1.3 billion for renewable energy programs, about $491 million below this year’s level.
Democrats objected to all those provisions and all but 10 Democrats voted against the bill. The bill now moves to the Democratic-controlled Senate, which is certain to take a different approach.
Obama to meet Dalai Lama at White House
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has invited the Dalai Lama to the White House Saturday, making time for the Tibetan spiritual leader who is in Washington for an 11-day Buddhist ritual.
The president last met with the Nobel Peace laureate in February 2010, infuriating Chinese officials. China accuses the Dalai Lama of pushing for Tibetan independence.
Employing a low-key approach, the White House has set the meeting in the White House Map Room, not the Oval Office, which is reserved for visiting heads of state. The White House is keeping the meeting closed to the news media, as it did last year.
A White House official says Obama will urge that representatives of the Dalai Lama be allowed to engage with Chinese authorities and will call for the preservation of Tibetan culture.
Army identifies additional draftees in service
WASHINGTON — When Command Sgt. Maj. Jeff Mellinger announced he was retiring from active duty, the Army thought it had lost its last Vietnam-era draftee. But it turned out there were more.
At least two other soldiers, Chief Warrant Officer 5 Ralph Rigby and Chief Warrant Officer 4 Franklin Ernst, also were drafted during that era and have continuously served on active duty.
The Associated Press reported July 3 about the upcoming retirement of Mellinger, who the Army believed was the last Vietnam-era draftee still on active duty. Other soldiers or their family members contacted the AP to say there are others, and the Army subsequently verified Ernst’s and Rigby’s service.
Rigby, 58, who was drafted in 1972 from Auburn, N.Y., is currently stationed in Kuwait. He said he has not had more than 10 consecutive months in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks because of war tours.
He called the draft the “only lottery I came close to winning” and says he has no plans to retire yet.
“I was just taking it a couple years at a time and next thing I know, 39 years is up. I don’t know where it all went,” Rigby said in a phone interview from Kuwait. “I’ve enjoyed what I’ve been doing. I enjoy working with the soldiers.”
Ernst, 61, said he did multiple tours in Iraq and is currently assigned to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where he’s had some surgeries. He said he was drafted in 1970 from the Panama Canal Zone, where his father was stationed. He said he had planned to retire two years ago, but he was talked into staying in the military a little longer. He’s set to retire in January.
Asked why he stayed in the military, Ernst said, “This is what I tell these young soldiers now today, because they ask me the same question. All the services are great, they really are. You just have to apply yourself and it’s what you make of it.”
Neither Ernst nor Rigby served with the Army in Vietnam.
The source for the AP’s story was the Army’s Human Resources Command, at Fort Knox, Ky. Mark Edwards, the chief of media relations for the command, said the mistake was made because the draftees’ records predate the Army’s current computer system and there’s no simple way to search for draftees. Edwards said it is possible there are other draftees still serving on active duty who have no t been recognized as such.