The Daily Chronicle from De Kalb, Illinois • Page 4

4 DAILY CHRONIQE, DaKalbSycomor, Monday, January 1 2, 1 998 Opinions Airing out the EPA, 3M inhaler scam JOSEPH SPEAR By JACK ANDERSON and JAN MOLLER Greenspan is man of the year More than 30 million Americans use inhalers to treat conditions like asthma or diseases like cystic fibrosis. Because the need for these inhalers is so critical, so-called metered-dose inhalers were specifically exempted from the Montreal Protocol an international treaty banning CFCs that was signed by the United States in the late 1980s. CFCs from inhalers constitute about 1 percent of the chemicals that are depleting the ozone layer. But the fine print of the treaty says that CFC inhalers can be phased out as soon as an alternative is available. And now that one has been developed, the FDA wants to get rid of the others as soon as possible.

All of which would be fine, except for the fact that 3M Pharmaceuticals will have a market monopoly at least for a little while if its competitors are banned. And that would mean much steeper costs to patients, health plans and the government, all of which would be forced to pay more for the new inhalers than for the old ones. Most likely, prices wouldn't come down to earth until several other ozone-safe inhalers became available. The possibility of an FDA ban has caused some unlikely bedfellows to join in protest. On Capitol Hill, a chorus of Republican critics have been joined by Sen.

Ted Kennedy, and his son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, to oppose a ban on CFC inhalers. Patrick Kennedy is himself asthmatic, and his father remembers well the long nights he spent worrying about his son's fragile health as a boy. Both Kennedys liberals who normally support regulatory efforts at the EPA and FDA worry what it would do to the millions of patients who depend on an inexpensive supply of medicatibn. After the EPA letter and the source of the list became public knowledge this fall, Assistant EPA Administrator Fred Hanson ordered a review of the matter by the agency's internal watchdogs, the Office of Inspector General.

That review is now complete, and will be released later this week. We can only hope that the EPA's inspectors make clear to their fellow bureaucrats that such coziness between policy wonks and the people they regulate should not be encouraged in the future. For monopolies be they in software or pharmaceuticals can only hurt the people whom government are supposed to serve. providers such as yours have the opportunity to take direct steps to promote environmental health," the May 28 letter reads. "As you may know, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved the first CFC-free albuterol MDI (Proventil HFA).

Proventil HFA is the world's first inhaler that doesn't use chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to deliver medication to its users. There are currently more than 70 different inhalers on the market, all of which use ozone-depleting CFCs. This would be great news for asthma sufferers, were it not for one small detail: Now that a non-CFC alternative is on the market, the FDA and the EPA have teamed up in an attempt to ban all other inhalers, since they still use the environmentally harmful CFCs. What made the EPA letter extraordinary besides the fact that it essentially advertised a specific product is that the list of health organizations to which it was sent was provided to the agency by 3M Pharmaceutical, which developed the new inhalers. In other words, a U.S.

government agency teamed up with a private company to extoll a product that may soon have a government-granted monopoly. The Clinton administration is apparently of two minds when it comes to busting up monopolies. Less than six months before the Justice Department decided to crack down on Microsoft Corp. for including its Web browser as part of its Windows 93 operating system, an official with the Environmental Protection Agency got a bit too cozy with one of the top dogs in the pharmaceutical industry. Thus, while one side of the government is taking a strong stand against predatory business practices, other government officials are considering a move that could grant a virtual monopoly to a corporate giant.

Allow us to explain: Last May, as part of an "education and outreach" program, an assistant administrator at the EPA sent out a letter to more than 2,500 health insurers informing them of a new product that was coming to market and urging them to add it to their list of preferred products. "It is not that often that health maintenance organizations and health care Tackling Soc. Security carries political risks Why you should not dis D.C. Once again, Time has spoken Once again, I disagree. The magazine chose the chairman and CEO of Intel, Andrew Steven Grove, as its Man of the Year.

I think it should have been the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan. I have nothing against Mr. Grove, you understand. He survived Nazism and communism and his accomplishments have been extraordinary. His company is the leading developer and manufacturer of microchips in the world, and, microchips are arguably the most-important invention of the modem-age.

But Alan Greenspan is a He tightens a string here and he loosens one there and he makes the American economy sing like a Stradivarius. And he does it over and over again, steadily improving his technique with each passing year. Alan Greenspan, take a bow. I know what the naysaycrs say. No one person can be credited for the resuscitation of the U.Sj.

economy, they say. Alan Greenspan just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Indeed, the economy may have recovered in spite of him. You can believe what you choose. I am a results-oriented person, and I behold a wondrous miracle that has transpired on Alan Greenspan's watch.

I credit Greenspan. Of course, he does not act alone. He oversees a small army of, economists and numbers crunchers at the independent Federal Reserve Board. Another half dozen "gover: nors" serve on the Fed with him. They guide the economy mainly by controlling the supply of money.

If it is advancing sluggishly, they relax controls and things heat up. If the economy is surging ahead too fast, the Fed tightens controls on money and things slow down. The goal is steady growth. N( busts and no wild booms. Greenspan is clearly the brain behind the policies, the guru who keeps the Fed focused.

He believes deep in his soul that inflation is a virus that constantly threatens our economic health. Control inflation and you will control the diseases of recession and depression. Control inflation and investors will buy bonds and industries will be developed, products will be sold, people will be employed, pensions will be secure. It sounds like sensible policy to me. Greenspan is also a genius of understatement.

He dresses in somber suits and muted ties. He affects a mild demeanor, speaks in circumlocutions and never raises his voice. It is a persona that belles the man's, resilience and fortitude. Supply-side conservatives, who preach that un trammeled growth is the answer to everything from deficits to poverty to chilblains, get on Greenspan's case because his monetary policies restrain rapid expansion. Liberals trounce him bcr cause they want full employment and damn the inflationary consequences.

There's a pervasive suspicion, also, that if Wall Street is prospering, the little guy is somehow getting screwed. Twice a year, Greenspan goes before Congress and gently deflects' the jibes of pugnacious pols who cannot abide economies that are simply stable. They want sizzling economies, the better to win elec-. tions with. Sen.

Paul Sarbanes, D- has displayed cartoons lampooning Greenspan as a Gloomy Gus. Sen. Byron Dorgan, once claimed the Fed governors" "masquerade as a bunch of economic monks" but in fact woi- ship Wall Street. At the same time the economy expanded at a rate of 3.7 percent, infla tion hovered around the 2 percent mark. Wages shot up 4 percent the greatest hike in 20 years.

Corporate profits were up. The Dow Jones stock market index hopped over the 8,000 mark several times. And best news of all: Unemployment was at 4.6 percent, the lowest level in a quarter century. Thank you, Alan Greenspan. And now, a few encores.

Please. increases and to gradually increase the age of full eligibility to 70. A year ago, an advisory commission suggested options without settling on one, agreeing only that some Social Security money should be invested in the stock market for increased income. There was no consensus on how much or how to raise it. Clinton's economic advisers say he is committed to Social Security reform and has told them to look for the most effective way to get it done.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich said it should begin with a new commission, one that would represent the three generations of Americans affected now and later. He said he hopes Clinton will agree, that Congress will vote to do it early this year, and that the commission will be operating by summer. Clinton hasn't said. There are other Republicans demanding that he go first and propose an overhaul plan himself. Detailed proposals now would invite an election year argument, on a program both sides know is too sensitive to overhaul without a political consensus on a course.

Sperling said Clinton is trying to lay a foundation for reform that can pass Congress. That may well point to a bipartisan commission, like the one already assigned to deal with Medicare and already behind schedule because the administration and the Republicans haven't agreed on a chairman. Agreeing on Social Security will be far more difficult. Republicans are pushing private investment options. "Anyone who tells you that we are going to have painful choices about Society Security doesn't understand the marketplace," Gingrich said.

"We shouldn't have painful choices. We ought to have better choices with better returns." Democrats are wary of tilting away from the current system to private options and individual retirement accounts. "Social Security does not need to be privatized," said Franklin Raines, Clinton's budget director. "Social Security needs to be guaranteed He said private savings should be encouraged, but not at the expense of the Social Security floor of support for retired Americans. "This is our biggest and most important anti-poverty program," Raines said.

Walter R. Mean, vice president and columnist for The Associated Press, has reported on Washington and national politics for more than 30 years. By WALTER R. MEARS AP Special Correspondent WASHINGTON (AP) Hoping to cure a crisis in Social Security financing long before it hits. President Clinton is seeking the solution to politically volatile problems, risky and recurrent.

Not a bad legacy, if he and Congress can manage it by the end of 1999. Beyond then, the clashes of the next presidential campaign probably will get in the way. The next step likely will be a commission to draft proposals for financing the system past the crunch projected to begin in about 2010 with increasing retirements. Without changes, the threat of insolvency looms in about 2030 when there would be too few workers paying taxes into the system to support the retirees taking benefits out. "We have to try to raise the sense of national urgency," said Gene Sperling, director of Clinton's National Economic Council.

"In the past when we've done major entitlement reform, we have waited right until the ax was falling. "Here, we are trying to prevent a crisis, instead of waiting till the solutions become much harder." Dealing with entitlement changes never is easy. And it can be costly politically. Republicans figured their support for limiting Social Security benefit increases, on which their own administration later pulled the plug, cost them control of the Senate in 1986. In Clinton's time, a commission on entitlement reform and an advisory council on Social Security both have tackled the financing future, agreeing that there needs to be action, but without a consensus on what should be done.

That's not unusual when politicians are dealing with the program that's been called the third rail issue, dangerous to touch. They did when they had to, in 1983, when the system was said to be bound for financial crisis. A commission then agreed on changes including tax increases, cost reductions, and a gradual increase in the retirement age for full benefits, from 65 to 67 in 2025. That was supposed to be a solution for the following 75 years. But the forecasts now are that Social Security surpluses will turn into deficits by 2012, and that the system could be broke by 2031, as the baby boom generation retires.

A 1994 commission on entitlements couldn't settle on a formula; its chairmen tried themselves, proposing bills to limit cost of living By BEN WATTENBERG Americans are crudely skeptical about their capital city, my adopted hometown of Washington, D.C. It's called the crime capital of America. It's said that its bloated government is a debt-ridden one-party bumbling kleptocracy, running a city where nothing works. Famous joke: Washington is the only city whose mayor made his own license plates. Washington was never quite like that.

Anyway, your capital is changing. The visible symbol is the sparkling new MCI Center, home of the NBA Washington Wizards and the NHL Capitals. On opening night, the Wizards creamed the Seattle Sonics. Situated between Capitol Hill and the White House, the new structure anchors a rejuvenated area with hot restaurants, new office buildings, a soon-to-come new convention center, galleries, stores, and some, but too few, apartment houses. Violent crime in D.C.

in 1997 is down 14 percent; homicide is down 25 percent. Something else happened the night the arena opened. David Catania won a special election for a vacant at-large seat on the D.C. Council. Democrats in Washington have an 11-to-l registration edge over Republicans.

No Republican had ever won a citywide election before. Catania is openly Republican, conservative, white, gay, young (29) and articulate. He even admits to being a lawyer. Democrats offered alibis: low turnout, two black Democrats splitting the Democratic and black votes blah, blah, blah. But something else was at work.

Voters anywhere, including those in D.C, can only be pushed so far before saying, "I'm fed up and I'm not going to take it anymore," and acting upon that hind New York and Los Angeles) and is likely soon to surpass slo-gro third place Chicago (8.5 million). The Baltimore-Washington CMSA is one of the most prosperous, variegated, cosmopolitan and creative parts of the nation. Maryland has 250 biotech firms, mosdy located in the 1-270 corridor of suburban D.C. Half of America's Internet traffic courses through the telecommunications hotbed in the Virginia suburbs. Washington is regarded as Out of Touch.

Wrong. Your capital may be America's most representative city. Senators and Congressmen come from all over. Several thousand trade and special-interest groups are located in the area, speaking for, and to, doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs, gambling interests nervous about Indian chiefs, ball-bearing manufacturers, labor unions, the pro-choice and pro-life movements, pro- and anti-gun-control cause groups and so on. Can your typical town say that? Greater Washington has a good mix of Americans: 62 percent white, 27 percent black, 6 percent Hispanic and 5 percent Asian.

It is the intellectual capital of America. It has no Harvard or Stanford, but does Boston or San Francisco have the National Institutes of Health, the Census Bureau, the National Academy of Sciences, the World Bank, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, 157 foreign embassies and 116 think tanks? Washington was a stealth great city before the recent developments. With healthy and temporary federal intervention, with a glimmer of bipartisanship, with downtown revitalization, the big rush is on in your capital. The 2012 Olympics will be the frosting on the cake. So stop dissing us.

We're fed up and we're not going to take it anymore. Marion Barry, called "Mayor for Life," seems likely to run for reelection next year. He has done some very good things for Washington, like push for the MCI arena, but he is tarnished goods. In 1994 Republican Carol Schwartz lost to Barry 56 percent to 42 percent, less than a landslide. Since then, the bankrupt city has endured a humiliating but necessary takeover by a congressionally appointed control board.

New scandals are uncovered daily. If an additional 7 percent of Barry voters decide they won't take it anymore, wouldn't that be interesting? Catania thinks big. He is helping to put together a joint Baltimore-Washington bid to host the 2012 Olympics. Don't laugh. D.C.

already accommodates 21 million tourists a year. There are, or soon will be, four new sports venues in the area: the MCI Center, a stadium for the Redskins, a facility for the new NFL Baltimore Ravens, and Camden Yards the elegant home of the Baltimore Orioles. Washington gets a bad name in part because it is a statistical anomaly. It encompasses only 61 square miles, compared to New York's 309, Los Angeles' 469, Chicago's 227, Houston's 540, Detroit's 139, Philadelphia's 135. Dallas' 342 and San Diego's 324.

Most American big cities have troubles in their center core. But geographically big cities have typically annexed some of their suburbs. That boosted their overall statistics. With federal status, and squeezed between Virginia and Maryland, the city of Washington could not expand. D.C.

has 567,000 people, ranked 20th in America. But the booming Baltimore-Washington Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area (CMSA) has 7.1 million people, is the fourth largest in the nation (be jVltttattacj This day in history in DeKalb County and the Today is Monday, Jaa 12, the 12th day of 1998. There are 353 days left in the year. On this date: In 15 19, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I died. In 1773, the first public museum in America was established, in Charleston, S.C.

In 1915, the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a proposal to give women the right to vote. In 1942, President Roosevelt created the National War Labor Board. In 1945, during World War II, Soviet forces began a huge offensive against the Germans in Eastern Europe. In 1948, the Supreme Court ruled that states could not discriminate against law-school applicants because of race.

In 1964, leftist rebels in Zanzibar began their successful revolt against the government. Write to us! The Daily Chronicle welcomes letters to the Editor, Letters should be addressed to: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, co The Daily Chronicle, P.O. Box 587, DeKalb, IL 60115 Letters may be edited for length and should not exceed 250 words. Letters also may be edited for clarity and good taste..