After three years of legislative delays, the most-visited memorial in the nation's capital will get a visitor center.
The U.S. Senate has unanimously approved legislation allowing a visitor center to be built at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a vote that memorial-fund founder Jan C. Scruggs calls "an enormous victory for America's young people."
"This educational facility will provide thousands of students each day with the opportunity to learn about service, sacrifice and patriotism at The Wall," he predicts.
Last May, after several failed attempts, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), a Vietnam combat veteran, re-introduced legislation to build the center, along with fellow Vietnam-combat vets Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.)
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Virginia GOP Sen. John Warner also have been longtime proponents of the center.
When completed in three or so years, the center will provide an overview of the Vietnam War and the resulting memorial, as well as photos of those killed or missing in action and some of the more than 60,000 items that have been left at the Wall over the years. The center will be built underground within the Memorial's existing 2-acre site.
KEEP OUT
Montana has become the first state to prohibit the sale of land to the federal government.
"State land may not be sold to the federal government or to any agency of the federal government, except for the purpose of building federal facilities and structures," says the amendment introduced by Republican State Rep. Rick Maedje and signed into law by Republican Gov. Judy Martz.
"Not only does the federal government fail to pay taxes on land it holds, but even the PILT payments (Payments in Lieu of Taxes) it promises us never come through," Maedje explains to Environment & Climate News.
"Worse yet," he continues, "Montana has had nothing but serious problems in the last 30 years with virtually every acre the federal government claims to have jurisdiction over in this state. Selling the feds our state land is like rubbing salt in a wound."
MEMBERSHIP PASSES?
When a law is passed by Congress and signed into law, it's supposed to go into effect - or at least that's what Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) always assumed.
As author of the Terrorist Exclusion Act, which became law in 1996, Snowe, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has written to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell questioning his department's implementation of the law to deny - or even permit - a potential terrorist entry to the United States.