A16
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KLMNO THE FED PAGE
AL KAMEN In the Loop
Whither Rahm? For some Washingtonians, the question was academic . . .
New York, people carefully comb the obituaries, looking to see whether the fine three-bedroom of their dreams, the one overlooking Central Park,might soon be available. InWashington we focusmore
A
on shifting political tides. For example, here’s the chat on a local e-mail list, a groupmostly formoms, on Sept. 30, the day before the formal announcement thatWhite House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was heading for Chicago to run formayor. The DC UrbanMoms (and
Dads) forumnaturally turned to the topic “RahmEmanuel departure.”Here’s how the discussion went: “Did he have any kids at the
local privates?” someone asked. (These are all anonymous.) “Maret,” came the response
threeminutes later. “Are you hoping for his kids’ spots?” “What grades (?)” the next
post asked. “I bet they stay through the
end of the school year,” someone wrote, adding: “that’s what they did when he joined the administration.” The discussion continued the
nextmorning. “His kids are at Jewish
Primary Day School, notMaret,” a poster said. “TheWash Post said his kids
are split between Jewish Primary andMaret,” someone corrected. “It also said they would be staying to finish out the school year,” he or she added. With that disappointing news,
the discussion drifted to less- important politicalmusings on why he would want to bemayor of Chicago. “Is it a stepping stone to Gov
of IL and then POTUS?” one participant wondered. President? Rahm? Seriously.
And Prendergast, too! Name-drop alert! Sign up now
for a chance to say, “I was having dinner with George Clooney the other night and he said . . . ” Yes, the new Council on
Foreign Relationsmember will be at the council’s offices here Tuesday for a dinner reception followed by an on-the-record “trip report” of his visit this week to Sudan. Clooney co-founded—with movie stars Don Cheadle,Matt
Damon and Brad Pitt (partner of councilmember Angelina Jolie)—the aid and advocacy group Not on OurWatch.He’ll be there Tuesday with human rights activist and former National Security Council aide John Prendergast of the anti- genocide Enough Project. They’re going to “assess the in- country situation” in Sudan, our invite says. With all due respect, Clooney
might want to offer his impressions and an overview and let Prendergast, a veteran Africa hand, do the assessing. Don’t be late. Starts at 6 p.m.
©2006 MELINDA SUE GORDON/WARNER BROS. PICTURES GUS RUELAS/ASSOCIATED PRESS Damon. Clooney. Pitt. Cheadle. One member of the “Ocean’s”-and-human-rights quartet is coming to town fresh from Sudan.
The recess that wasn’t This is the time of year when
the director of the Office and Management and Budget usually begins the process of preparing the federal budget for submission to Congress in February—the one that’s always pronounced DOA when it gets there. But Jack Lew, President
Obama’s nominee for the job, won’t be doing the honors.He’s still at Foggy Bottomas deputy secretary of state because of a hold put on his nomination by Sen.Mary Landrieu (D-La.). Landrieu says she placed the
hold because of the administration’s continued moratoriumon drilling in the Gulf ofMexico. And Obama won’t be able to
give Lew a recess appointment, because his own party is blocking his power to do so by keeping the Senate in pro forma sessions—lasting about a minute or so every three days— so that it’s not technically in recess. The D’s did this back in 2007
to prevent President GeorgeW. Bush fromusing the constitutional recess- appointment power—which
merica’s great cities have their unique, charming cultural idiosyncrasies. In
may have been the first time pro forma sessions were used for that purpose. And no one seems able to remember any occasion when the Senatemajority used that ploy to thwart their own party’s president. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) wielded the gavel for Tuesday’s pro forma session, and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) handles the action Friday. The odd situation resulted
froma compromise after Senate Republicans threatened to force Obama to re-submit a batch of nominations—which would mean requiring new hearings for each one. So the new budget will go up
to Congressmostly under the direction of the acting director, Jeff Zients.
The Acme products work The troubled Agency for
International Development has one less trouble, it seems. General Services Administration chiefMartha Johnson pronounced AID’s headquarters in the Ronald Reagan Building to be bedbug-free Thursday, our colleague Ed O’Keefe reports. After an employee
complained, officials sent in bedbug-sniffing dogs, which detected the pests in two cubicles and a small storage area on the fourth floor—apparently in the Africa bureau— according to an e-mail we received lateMonday. “Three small contiguous areas were identified as possibly being infested. The eradication program
included “an aerosol spray, steamand a liquidmixture,” the e-mail said. “The area will be re- inspected” in a few weeks to see if that worked. If not, Predators?
kamena@washpost.com
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ters operated by 74 air ambu- lance companies fly in the Unit- ed States, according to the FAA. Once associated chieflywith hos- pital-based programs, the indus- try is now dominated by private firms, somewith fleets as large as regional carriers, a Washington Post investigation found last year. But unlike commercial carri-
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as the industry is experiencing a spike in helicopter deaths. Six- teen crew members have been killed this year in accidents, an increase that recalls 2008, when a midair collision of medevacs helped drive the death toll to an all-time high of 28 crew mem- bers and patients. The FAA proposal is subject to
90 days of public comment, and officials could take at least a year to write final rules. It could take even longer to adopt and imple- ment them. The FAA proposal also pro-
vides for enhanced procedures for flying in challengingweather, at night and in remote landing areas. “We can prevent accidents by
preparing pilots and equipping helicopters for all of the unique flying conditions they encoun- ter,” said FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt, who called the proposal “significant.” It is time, he said, “to take steps towards mandating these major safety improvements.” The proposed rules do not
cover public operations such as the Maryland State Police heli- copter fleet, unless those agen- cies have agreed to abide by them through an FAA certification process. A spokeswoman for the Mary-
land State Police, which suffered a crash that killed three crew members and one teenage pa- tient in 2008, said the depart- ment is pursuing its certification andwill have added safety equip- ment when it replaces its aging helicopters. In the meantime, crews voluntarily comply with many of the proposed rules, spokeswoman Elena Russo said. The NTSB declined to com-
ment on the proposed rules while the board reviewed the FAA announcement, spokesman Keith Holloway said. Les Dorr, an FAA spokesman,
said that the agency had consid- ered requiring night vision gog- gles but that it did not “because those are not a one-size-fits-all solution.” Thomas P. Judge, a proponent
of even more extensive safety requirements, said Thursday’s action “is long awaited and a big deal, because the FAA has finally decided to act and move the bar. But it is only the start, and rules are the minimum standard and under the best of circumstances will take time — maybe years — to put in place, given the rule- making process.” Judge is execu- tive director of LifeFlight of Maine.
“We hope there is no push-
back from some of our industry who will approach this from a cost perspective rather than out- comes. The real bottom line is that we need a safer environ- ment,” Judge said. “We have to stop saying, ‘We can’t, we can’t, we can’t.’ ” The Association of Critical
Care Transport, one of several industry trade groups, called for members to commit to the full range of NTSB recommenda- tions, saying that “clearly, the abilities of the industry to self- regulate and the voluntary adop- tion of improvements have been proven unsuccessful.” Members of the Air Medical
Operators Association, another trade organization for air ambu- lance operators, have begun to reviewthe proposed rules so they can ask how they would be applied and enforced, managing director Christopher Eastlee said. A “vast majority” of the organization’smembers have im- plemented the proposed require- ments, he said. “A lot of these things the
industry has been doing far ahead of the rule-making,” he said. “There’s a lot of rule-mak- ing here, and it’s going to take us a long time to sift through it.” In response to the 16 fatalities
this year, he said: “Obviously, our goal is zero accidents, zero fatali- ties.. . .All we can do is learn from these incidents and try to [figure out] where the system failed.”
flahertym@washpost.com johnsonj@washpost.com
The Federal Worker
A double message Letter carriers are honored for heroic acts and good deeds, which makes the point that with Saturday delivery these things happen six days a week. B3
Working from home The Obama administration is pushing hard for a telework bill, and legislation is ready to go before the House. B3
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2010
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