| Washington (special) -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca) is seeking to
alter the way the United States and Mexico fight drug traffickers; to change
the environmental requirements for treating gasoline, and to modify the
ways in which federal funds are spent for education.
Along with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tx), Feinstein introduced
legislation to suspend for one year the requirement that the United
States
must certify Mexico's efforts to fight drug traffickers. She explained
that she wanted to give Mexico's new President, Vicente Fox, time to
put
his own drug-fighting ideas into effect, before requiring him to account
for Mexican government actions.
The senator wrote to Environmental Protection Agency Director Christine
Whitman to seek a waiver for California from the Clean Air Act
requirement of 1990 that two percent of its reformulated gasoline be
comprised of oxygenates such as methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE).
Owing to concerns that MTBE fouls ground water supplies, Feinstein
has
urged the EPA to permit alternative methodologies for achieving clean
air
standards.
Feinstein also introduced bills to provide $5 billion for the creation
of
smaller classes and smaller schools over the next five years; to provide
$100 million for training teachers in advanced technologies, and to
require that federal funds earmarked for the support of economically
disadvantaged students be used for academic instruction rather than
administrative expense. -- Donald
H. Harrison |
Washington
