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Is a New Icebreaker on the Horizon?

September 26, 2008 1:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Caitlin Webber, CQ Staff

A Senate Democratic economic stimulus plan unveiled Thursday would provide the Coast Guard with $925 million for the construction of a new polar ice-breaking ship.

Will this icebreaker be a ship of the past?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Appropriations Chairman Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., promote building a new icebreaker to bolster the U.S.'s stake in the oil-rich polar region, among other energy and environmental measures in their $56.2 billion plan.

Tags: Caitlin Webber, Coast Guard, icebreakers

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Aging Icebreaker Fleet May Mean U.S. Loses Arctic Opportunities

July 22, 2008 6:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

by Caitlin Webber, CQ Staff

ice breaker.jpg

As sea ice continues its retreat from the North Pole this summer, many see America's stake in contested and resource-rich region growing. But the head of the U.S. Coast Guard says access to new polar opportunities is threatened by an aging and inadequate Arctic fleet.

Coast Guard photo of the Cutter Healy
in the Arctic Circle, July, 2000

"While U.S. strategic interests in the Arctic region expand, both domestically and internationally, our polar icebreaking capability is at risk." Thad W. Allen, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, told lawmakers on July 16. "I am concerned that we are watching our nation's domestic and international ice breaking capability decline as reliance on foreign icebreakers grows."

Tags: Arctic, Caitlin Webber, Coast Guard, icebreakers

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Government Searches for New Ways to Protect the Borders

July 1, 2008 6:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Caitlin Webber, CQ Staff

The Homeland Security Department is looking for creative ways to collect foreign visitors' biometric information upon exiting from land borders in the United States.

The head of U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program says that methods used at airports to collect fingerprints, photographs and other biometric identifiers might not necessarily be the best approaches on the land border.

Tags: biometrics, Caitlin Webber, homeland security, US-VISIT program

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The E-Verify System: Protection or Hindrance?

June 30, 2008 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Caitlin Webber, CQ Staff

The debate over the E-Verify program is less one about statistics, or even policy, than it is about two states of mind.

One says nobody should have to prove to the government that they are qualified to work in the United States. The government should have to prove they are not.

The other says that people have to be sorted out in order to enforce the law, and both must be examined to separate the legal from the illegal.

Those points of view aren't even mutually exclusive. But neither side gives the other an inch.

Tags: ACLU, Caitlin Webber, DHS, E-verify, Heath Shuler, immigration, National Immigration Law Center, NumbersUSA, Social Security