WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2010


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EZ SU POLITICS & THE NATION As Earl nears, FEMA says prepare to leave


In first evacuation, N.C. orders tourists off a barrier island


FROM NEWS SERVICES AND STAFF REPORTS


As Hurricane Earl made its


way toward the Eastern Seaboard onTuesday, theFederalEmergen- cy Management Agency warned people along the coast to prepare for possible evacuation orders from state and local govern- ments. “The primary threat is going to


be storm surge,” said FEMA Ad- ministrator W. Craig Fugate. He advised people to also be mindful of high winds and flooding. North Carolina officials an- nounced the first evacuation late Tuesday, saying that tourists would be ordered to leave Ocra- coke Island beginning at 5 a.m. Wednesday. Those who live year- round on the barrier island, ac- cessible only by ferries, have the option to stay. Islanders in the Turks and Ca-


icos hunkered down Tuesday as theCategory4hurricane steamed across the Caribbean with winds of 135 mph. Earl was expected to remain


over the open ocean before turn- ing north and running parallel to the East Coast, bringing high winds and heavy rain to North Carolina’s Outer Banks by late Thursday or early Friday. From there, forecasters said, it could curve away from the coast some- what as it makes its way north, perhaps hitting Massachusetts’s Cape Cod and the Maine shore- line Friday night and Saturday. FEMA is deploying response teams from the Carolinas to


Murkowski concedes in GOP primary


FROM STAFF REPORTS AND NEWS SERVICES


Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alas-


ka) conceded her primary race Tuesday night, becoming the third senator to lose renomina- tion this year and the second to lose a primary. Murkowski called a halt to her


bid after failing to close the gap on lawyer Joe Miller after two- thirds of the 25,000 absentee votes were counted Tuesday. She gained barelyany groundonMill- er and remained about 1,600 votes short of winning her party’s nomination. “It’s been a long week,”


Murkowski told reporters at her campaign headquarters in An- chorage. “I don’t see a scenario where we could win.” Miller moves into a general


election as a strong favorite to succeedMurkowski.He faces un- derfunded SitkaMayor ScottMc- Adams. A GOP poll this week showedMiller leadingMcAdams, 52 percent to 36 percent. Murkowski joins Sen. Arlen


Specter (D-Pa.) in losing a prima- ry this year. Sen. Robert F. Ben- nett (R-Utah) fell at his party’s May convention. In addition, fourHouse incum-


bents have lost their primaries. The Alaska result also repre-


sents the latest victory of a “tea party” candidate over candidates backed byGOPleaders, after sim- ilar outcomes in Nevada, Ken- tucky, Colorado andUtah. The little-known and badly outspent Miller was endorsed by former Alaska governor SarahPa- lin (R), a tea party heroine. Jennifer Duffy, a Senate cam-


paign analyst for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, told BloombergNews thatMurkowski didn’t take Miller’s candidacy se- riously enough. AlthoughMurkowski raised 20


times as much money as Miller, she was reluctant to run negative political ads. “When you know this is an


election cycle that does not favor incumbents, you take absolutely nothing for granted, and I think Murkowski took a lot for grant- ed,” Duffy said. The Tea Party Express political


action committee poured money into advertising and e-mail blasts for Miller, who criticized Murkowski for her support of the 2008 federal government bank bailout. The group spent more than $400,000 on such indepen- dent expenditures for the race this month, reports to the Federal Election Commission show.


Staff writer Aaron Blake contributed to this report.


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Hurricane Earl is expected to create rough surf and dangerous currents this week at East Coast beaches, including at Coney Island in NewYork. The Category 4 storm will run parallel to the shoreline, forecasters say, with storm surge the main threat. FEMAis stationing response teams fromMaine to the Carolinas.


Maine. “We . . . make sure this is a support to the governors and their teams,” Fugate said, adding later that “we’re not waiting for people to ask.” FEMA teams from the West


Coast are deploying to New Eng- land to assist if necessary, he said. The agency’s ability to act in


advance of big storms is a direct result of congressional reforms enacted after 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. Critics argued then that the agency waited too long to respond, waiting for formal re- quests from the states instead of deploying resources that it knew were needed. Fugate spent most of Tuesday


at FEMA’s operations center in Washington, receiving updates from teams in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico that are assessing Earl’s damage to the Caribbean, briefing top officials and coordinating with response


teams along the East Coast. In Puerto Rico, nearly 187,000


people were without power and 60,000 without water, Gov. Luis Fortuno (R) said. Cruise ships were diverted and flights can- celed across the region, but there were no reports of deaths or serious injuries. Not since Hurricane Bob in


1991 has such a powerful storm had such a large swath of the East Coast in its sights, said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the Na- tionalHurricane Center. Even if Earl stays well offshore,


it will kick up rough surf and dangerous rip currents up and downthe coast through theLabor Day weekend, forecasters said. And what about Earl’s poten-


tial impact on Labor Day plans? “Don’t cancel anything out-


right; it’ll be a conditional, case- by-case situation, but chances are, unless you’re being directly


impacted, you may have a good weekend,” Fugate said. As of late Tuesday afternoon,


Earlwascentered about 150 miles east of Grand Turk island — and 1,000 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C. — as it headed northwest at 14 mph. Close on its heels was Tropical Storm Fiona, which had weakened consider- ably and not expected to get stronger at least for a couple of days.


Staff writer Ed O’Keefe contributed to this report.


6


onwashingtonpost.com Where is it headed?


Get up-to-the-minute coverage of Hurricane Earl,


including a map of the most recent projected path.


BY N.C. AIZENMAN Nearly 2,000 employers and


unions have been approved to seek federal reimbursement for the health claims of their “early retirees,” or retired workers aged 55 or older who are too young to getMedicare,Obamaadministra- tion officials announced Tuesday. The $5 billion programis a key


“bridge” provision of the new health-care law, intended to en- courage employers to maintain coverage of early retirees and their families until states are able to establish federally subsidized health insurance exchanges in 2014. At that point, early retirees dropped by their employers pre- sumably could purchase insur- ance through the exchanges at more affordable rates than the ones currently available to them on the individual market. But the large number of em-


ployers deemed eligible in the first round of applications has prompted concern that the pro- gram will run out of funds long before its expiration in 2014. The applicants approved so far


span a broad spectrum: Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, major unions, schools, local gov- ernments and nonprofit groups. Among them is the conglomer-


ateKoch Industries, one of whose principal owners, billionaire Da- vidKoch, has been a major funder of groups that lobbied heavily to defeat the health-care law. “Once laws or programs are enacted we will not place ourselves or our employees at a disadvantage by turning our back on incentives offered to our competitors,” said the company’s director of com- munication, Melissa Cohlmia.


2,000 groups approved for early-retiree health-care funds


Many state governments that are party to a lawsuit contesting the health-care law’s constitutionali- ty also applied successfully. Thenewfederalfundwill reim-


burse up to 80 percent of a cov- ered individual’s medical costs over $15,000 and up to $90,000. Employers can use the reim- bursement to lower early retirees’ premiums and other costs. But at a news conference Tuesday, Health and Human Services Sec- retary Kathleen Sebelius said the principal goal was to halt the steady decline of employers offer- ing coverage to early retirees. Theshare of large firms provid-


ing such coverage dropped from 66 percent in 1988 to 29 percent in 2009, though not much of that decline occurred recently. Be- cause of their age and higher likelihood of having a pre-exist- ing condition, early retirees at- tempting to buy insurance on the individual market face premiums that are four times those of young adults, if they get covered at all. “For many people, early retire-


ment is not their choice. Maybe it’s a family situation or a health condition,” Sebelius said. “So if employers want to do the right thing . . .we’re going to helpmake it happen.” In a recent analysis, economist


Paul Fronstin of the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Insti- tute says that if all eligible groups were to apply, the $5 billion in the program would run out by the end of next year — two years before health exchanges arrive. Even if that happens, Fronstin


said it is unlikely that many em- ployers will cut the estimated 1.3 million early retirees and family members on their rolls. aizenmann@washpost.com


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