Ethanol tax break extended
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
Senate Finance Committee agreed
Wednesday to extend a tax break for
ethanol, the corn-based fuel additive,
through 2007, a move strongly criti
cized by the chief tax-writer in the
House.
By a voice vote, the panel sup
ported the tax break, but moved to
gradually lower it from 5.4 cents a
gallon to 5.1 cents after 2005. The
panel also voted to extend existing
motor fuels taxes, including the 18.3
cent-a-gallon gasoline tax, through
Sept. 30, 2005, and approved a new
program to allow use of tax-free
bonds to construct toll roads.
Ethanol, a fuel derived from com
and other agricultural products,
enjoys a partial exemption from fed
eral fuel taxes. That fact has made it
unpopular with parts of the oil indus
try, and the ethanol battle has pitted
—th^farm states against the oil states.
Six plants with 850 workers pro
duce it in Nebraska, and a seventh
plant has been built. By the end of
1997, the Nebraska Ethanol Board
estimates the plants will be producing
300 million gallons of ethanol annu
ally.
About 200 million bushels of
grain, or about 15 percent to 20 per
cent of Nebraska’s com crop, is used
in ethanol production, said Todd
Sneller, administrator of the
Nebraska Ethanol Board.
Sneller called the Senate commit
tee ’s action “a crucial first step”
toward extending the tax break. “We
are all cautiously optimistic,” he said.
Ethanol, which totaled less than 1
percent of all transportation fuels
consumed in 1995, is commonly
blended with gasoline to enhance
oxygen content or octane level.
Rep. Bill Archer, R-Texas, who
chairs the House Ways and Means
Committee and traditionally fights to
protect the oil industry, sought to
eliminate the subsidy in his version of
the $152 billion tax bill enacted this
year. But House Speaker Newt
Gingrich, R-Ga., rescued it after
farm-state lawmakers complained.
The fmal bill allowed the ethanol sub
sidy to expire in 2000.
“If we’re going to change
Washington by eliminating wasteful
government spending, we should start
by allowing tins subsidy to expire as
promised,” Archer said in a statement.
The House Transportation
Committee chairman, Rep. Bud
Shuster, R-Pa., agreed. “I oppose
ethanol. It robs money from the high
way trust fund,” Shuster said.
Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., defend
ed the ethanol subsidy, saying it helps
boost an important alternative source
of energy and is a form of economic
development.
“Thousands of Nebraska jobs —
Nebraska has six ethanol plants that
employ 810 Nebraskans directly and
another 4,1000 Nebraskans indirectly
— and jobs across the Midwest
depend on ethanol,” Kerrey said.
The ethanol tax credit will cost
$208 million through 2007, accord
ing to the Joint Taxation Committee.
Earlier this year, Archer released a
General Accounting Office report
highly critical of the ethanol subsidy,
which was first created in the 1970s
amid the Middle East oil embargo to
promote domestic energy indepen
dence.
The GAO report said the subsidy
cost the highway trust fund $7.1 bil
lion, but said the corn-based fuel has
done little to reduce air pollution or
enhance the nation’s energy security.
Bomb removed from building
* -
By Brad Davis
Assignment Reporter
A pipe bomb that could have “lev
eled an entire building” was removed
without incident from an apartment
building in central Lincoln Wednesday
night by the Lincoln Fire Department
- bomb squad.
The bomb squad arrived about 8
p.m. at 1420 D St. and evacuated the
building and two homes next door.
Adam Sasse, a 21-year-old
Americorps volunteer, said he was till
ing his yard at his cabin on the Elkhom
River when he came across a plastie
tube Wednesday afternoon.
“I found a little piece of pipe,” Sasse
said. “I took the cap off one end and it
had some, wires and a green and yellow
tube inside it that had one-fourth of a
pound of TNT in it.”
Instead of leaving the bomb where
he found it, which is what firefighters
later said he should have done, Sasse
took the bomb from the cabin site and
brought it back to his Lincoln apart
ment
“I picked it up and brought it home
-1 was curious,” Sasse said
After bringing the tube home, Sasse
called a friend of his who is a University
of Nebraska-Lincoln science student.
She told him to call the police.
“They told me to go outside and
wait for them,” Sasse said
Lincoln Fire Department Deputy
Chief Jerry Greenfield said die device
was 24 inches long and 2i4 inches wide.
“It was a real bomb,” Greenfield
said
An LFD bomb technician removed
the bomb from the apartment building
and placed it in what Sasse described as
a dump truck full of sandbags. People
watched outside the evacuated building
and two houses next door, which also
were evacuated.
Greenfield said the bomb squad
would take die bomb apart and detonate
it today. He said he did not think there
were any other bombs at the site near die
Elkhom River, but die situation may be
investigated.
John Klein, owner of the apartment
building from which the bomb was
removed, said he had encountered fires
in some of his other properties, and was
not concerned when he was told about
the bomb.
“There’s nothing you can do. You
just stand and wait to see if the building
is going to blow up or not,” Klein said.
— -■—•—--—I I
Sex case nears trial
I *1
■ Ail Army reviewing
officer agrees with a
recommendation to
court-martial McKinney.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
sexual misconduct case against
Sgt. Maj. of the Army Gene
McKinney moved within a step of
trial Wednesday when a reviewing
officer concurred with a recom
mendation that McKinney be
court-martialed.
Col. Owen Powell sent his
report to Maj. Gen. Robert Foley,
who will make the final decision
on whether McKinney should
stand trial.
Mx women have alleged that
McKinney made improper sexual
advances toward them.
All six testified at a Fort
McNair hearing to determine if
there was sufficient evidence to
order a court-martial. \
McKinney, the Army’s top
enlisted soldier, has denied all the
allegations.
Powell, commander of the Fort
Myer Military Community/
ordered the hearing and appointed
Col. Robert Jarvis to preside. The
proceeding lasted eight weeks,
one of the longest such hearings in
Army history.
Jarvis recommended that
McKinney be court-martialed on
22 counts, including indecent
assault, adultery and obstruction
of justice, and sent his report to
Powell for review.
The Army has refused to say
what either Jarvis or Powell rec
ommended. But sources close to
the case, speaking on condition of
anonymity, confirmed that both
officers recommended the matter
go to trial.
The brief Army announcement
said that Foley could dismiss the
charges, order nonjudicial action,
return the case tp Powell for dispo
L__
sition or order a general court
martial.
Charles Gittins, McKinney’s
civilian lawyer, has said that if a
court-martial is ordered he will
file a motion detailing cases in
which general officers accused of
the same activity alleged against
McKinney were not threatened
with prosecution. He said the offi
cers were allowed to retire with
full benefits.
Earlier this week, Gittins filed
a motion denouncing the Jarvis
report as “flimsy and superficial.”
He said that Jarvis’ 2‘/2-page
report had “no critical analysis of
the evidence or explanation of
what Circumstances required the
testimony of 56 witnesses.”
iuc uvivUdv aidu saiu me
Jarvis report included no discus
sion “of evidence contradictory of
the complaining witnesses.”
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill,
House and Senate negotiators
agreed to reinforce the Army’s
training command in light of die
sex scandal that rocked a training
center at Aberdeen Proving
Ground, Md.
Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., said
lawmakers Working on the 1998
defense authorization bill agreed
to add 1,200 to 1,300 positions to
Army manpower, with most of the
new personnel going to the ser
vice’s Training and Doctrine
Command.
Studies by Buyer’s House
National Security personnel sub
committee and by die Army point
ed to problems in the training of
drill sergeants, as well as an over
stretched work force in the train
ing command, as factors leading to
problems with sexual harassment
and misconduct.
The studies followed incidents
at Aberdeen that resulted in nine
drill sergeants and 15 others being
disciplined for sexual misconduct. >.
In one case, a drill sergeant was
convicted on 18 counts of rape. |
Congress approves pay increase
WASHINGTON (AP) —
Capping weeks of intense maneuver
ing, Congress approved legislation
Wednesday that clears the way for a
$3,000 cost-of-living increase in law
makers’ $ 133,600 pay.
The 55-45 Senate vote was the
latest in a series of close calls for the
bill, which leaders in both houses and
both parties nursed toward passage
over many weeks without permitting
a direct roll call vote on a pay
increase.
Even so, the political anxiety was
evident in the Senate, where 19 of the
30 lawmakers seeking re-election
next year voted against the bill, and
only 11 voted in favor.
“We shouldn’t be receiving a
(costnof-living adjustment) during
that period of time” when lawmakers
are asking others to sacrifice, said
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who
faces the voters in 13 months and was
one of a small number of senators to
speak out against the increase. “I can
not support the COLA at this point in
time.”
While partisan tensions
inevitably surfaced, the issue exposed
generational splits within the two
houses. In the House, the younger,
reform-minded Republicans were
vocal in their opposition, while the
older lawmakers of both partiestpro
vided the bulk of the support needed
for passage.
“Maybe it’s the fat $100 a month
that everybody gets out of this,” sec
ond-term Rep. Joe Scarborough, R
Fla., said scathingly after an earlier
House vote.
I
\ Iff
■ i
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THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
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