FEDERAL

Second Bush Term Officially Gets Under Way

President Bush will deliver his State of the Union address on February 2 and will send Congress his fiscal 2006 budget proposal on Monday, February 7, according to White House and congressional sources.

White House officials reviewed the second terms of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton to inform their thinking about scheduling the State of the Union address, which will take place on a Wednesday night, nearly two weeks after the president's January 20 inauguration. The president hopes that his address – which will lay out a thematic but policy-rooted rationale for his second term – will follow elections in Iraq on January 30.

Early in the year, he will travel domestically to sell his second term agenda as the GOP-controlled Congress digs into the legislative details. The President plans a goodwill swing through Europe beginning February 22.

ENVIRONMENT

Three Defendants and Company Sentenced in Lead Paint Waste Case

Nicholas Muskie, Kevin Foster and corporate defendant Kerrville Painting Company of Kerrville, Texas, were sentenced November 19, 2004, in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas for their role in violations of federal hazardous waste disposal and clean water laws.

Nicholas Muskie, owner of Kerrville Painting, was sentenced to three years in prison. Kevin Foster, a former Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department Inspector, was sentenced on one year in prison and has paid $5,768.00 in restitution for clean-up costs. Kerrville Painting was sentenced to five years probation and to pay $324,613 in clean-up costs resulting from the violations.

The criminal violations arose from sandblasting and painting work the company performed under highway bridge contracts in northeast Arkansas in 1999 and 2000. A fourth defendant, Cecil Zimmerman, who was a supervisor at Kerrville Painting, was sentenced in October 2004 to serve three years of probation including six months of home detention.

The defendants were involved in a scheme that caused the illegal discharge of lead-contaminated materials into the Black River from two different bridge locations.

Bridge sandblasting and painting typically generates wastes contaminated with lead, which must be disposed of properly to avoid exposure of the public, fish and wildlife to lead and lead compounds. Exposure to sufficient quantities of lead can cause neurological disorders, developmental disorders, birth defects, diseases of the blood and kidneys and even death.

POLLS

Nearly Two-thirds of Americans Want to Lose Weight

According to a recent Gallup Poll, four in 10 Americans consider themselves overweight. Fifty-four percent think their weight is "about right." But 62 percent said they'd like to lose weight: 23 percent of men and 34 percent of women said they are serious about trying to shed some pounds.

One-third of respondents said they were comfortable with their current weight, while 5 percent wanted to add a few pounds. The average weight of all adults surveyed was 173 pounds – 191 for men and 156 for women.

Although Americans may want to reduce their girth, their favorite pastimes remain mostly sedentary: Reading (chosen by 35 percent), watching TV (21 percent), and spending time with the family (20 percent) topped Harris Interactive's list. Brisk athletic activities were farther down the list: Walking and exercise (aerobic or with weights), the most popular, were chosen by only 6 percent each.

Exercise, however, is one of five activities that have risen in popularity since 1995, when the poll was first conducted (reading, spending time with the family, computer activities, and socializing with friends and neighbors are the others). Activities that have shown the greatest decline in popularity include swimming, watching TV, playing team sports, gardening, needlework, and bowling.

Respondents were similarly divided on lesser household purchases: 43 percent said they were in better financial shape for household spending today, while 39 percent said they were less comfortable today than they were six months ago. Asked to rank the state of their personal finances on a scale of one to seven (one being weak, seven strong), a plurality (29 percent) of respondents gave their situation a five, while 16 percent ranked their finances at six, and 12 percent responded with a seven.

SMALL BUSINESS

Large Federal Contractors Miscoded As Small Businesses

Some large federal contractors have been miscoded as small businesses, resulting in skewed procurement statistics, according to a report issued last month by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The report found that in fiscal year 2002 $2 billion in federal contracts were miscoded as going to small rather than large businesses.

The study examined contracts given to the 1,000 largest (in dollar volume) federal small business contractors in FY 2002. Information from the federal government’s Individual Contract Action Report (ICAR) was merged with the author’s proprietary data on parent firms and with other commercial and federal databases. The report found that 44 of the top 1,000 small business contractors were not, in fact, small businesses. Their contracts coded as small business contracts totaled $2 billion.

Eagle Eye Publishers wrote the report, entitled Analysis of Type of Business Coding for the Top 1,000 Contractors Receiving Small Business Awards in FY 2002, with funding from SBA.

Good Small Business Data Hard To Find

Good dynamic small business data has traditionally been hard to find. However, advances in data collection are making it easier, according to a study by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The study, Development of Business Data: Tracking Firm Counts, Growth, and Turnover by Size of Firms, was released last month at a review of government business statistics held by the National Academies’ Committee on National Statistics.

The study, written by Catherine Armington with funding from SBA, traces the development of small business data over the last quarter century. It also examines current sources of dynamic small business data and issues in linking small business data over time. It shows that SBA has played a key supporting role in underwriting small business data collection at the U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Federal Reserve System.