Banner Graphic, Volume 21, Number 28, Greencastle, Putnam County, 5 October 1990 — Page 3

Hoosier officials unite on trash bill

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Eight of Indiana’s 10 U.S. House membo's want a committee chairman to schedule a vote on a bill that would help Indiana ban shipments of out-of-state trash. The congressmen wrote House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Dingell, DMich., Wednesday to ask him to schedule committee action on the Waste Materials Management Act before the end of the 101st Congress. THE LEGISLATION sponsored by Rep. Tom Luken, D-Ohio, would allow states to ban importation of out-of-state trash after development of a solid waste management plan approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Almost 30 percent of Indiana’s solid waste originates from other states. These waste shipments are undercutting our state’s effort to responsibly manage its own waste,” the Hoosier congressmen said in their letter. “Indiana’s goal of recycling 50

Princess Di graces D.C. fundraiser WASHINGTON (AP) Candlelight, flowers and chamber music set a festive mood for a charity gala honoring Princess Diana, despite the absence of several prominent oiganizers who said ticket prices were too high. Diana, wearing a fuchsia silk off-the-shoulder dress, entered to the strains of Handel’s Water Music and presided over a table that included two of President .Bush’s children, Marvin Bush and Dorothy Leßlond. TODAY, SHE was visiting Barbara Bush and touring v Grandma’s House, a Washington home for children with AIDS, before flying back to England. Proceeds from the Thursday i. night gala were to benefit Grandma’s House, the Washington Ballet, the London .City Ballet and the BritishAmerican Arts Association. The 29-year-old princess, who is married to Prince Charles, has had longstanding interests in those areas. SHE IS PATRON of London City Ballet and has been involved with AIDS patients since 1987. She visited a pediatric AIDS unit at Harlem Hospital last year during a trip to New York City and has made similar visits to adult patients in London. Her second solo trip to the United States began Thursday afternoon with a tea at the British ambassador’s residence and continued late into the evening at the benefit. A number of women on the event’s organizing committee did not attend, among them .television personality Barbara Walters and Georgette Mos- . bacher, wife of Commerce .Secretary Robert Mosbacher. THE OSTENSIBLE reason was that ticket prices, at $2,500 or $3,500, were too high. Mrs. . Mosbacher asked for her money back, said Joanna Seymour, media manager for London City Ballet. Celebrities who did show up included Patricia Hearst, Democratic fundraiser Pamela Harriman, Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner and the British and French ambassadors. Some 260 tickets were sold, with guests who paid the higher price entitled to shake hands with Diana at a pre-dinner " champagne reception. THE DEPARTMENTAL -Auditorium, its gilded pillars draped with greenery, fruit, flowers and sheaves of wheat, was far from full. But the British and corporate organizers of the evening declared it a success. Seymour said the two ballet - companies and Grandma’s House would each receive more than SIOO,OOO. The arts association was in line for at least $20,000, she said.

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REP. LEE HAMILTON One of eight to sign percent of our solid waste by the year 2000 will have little impact if these gains are nullified by other state’s waste,” the letter said. FIFTH DISTRICT Rep. Jim Jontz, a Democrat, circulated the

Government underestimates poor, experts say

WASHINGTON (AP) There are 13 million “hidden poor” people in America, those living in destitution but not counted by the official government measure of poverty, the head of a House committee says. Rep. Tony Hall, D-Ohio, chairman of the Select Committee on Hunger, said Thursday that Census Bureau poverty statistics released last week rely on a poverty line standard that is outdated and understates the problem. THE CENSUS BUREAU’S statistics for 1989 show an overall poverty rate of 12.8 percent, or 31 million people about what it was the year before. “These rates, as shameful as they are, mask the real depth of the problem,” Hall said as he opened a hearing on the need for adjustments in the official government poverty measurement “Thirty-one million is millions short of what the American people

Woman sues landlords of alleged haunted house

HEBRON, Conn. (AP) A woman who claims the 110-year-old house she once rented is haunted wants her former landlords to pay the fee charged by two ghost hunters she hired to investigate. Jo-Ann Rich, scheduled to appear in Vernon Superior Court today, is suing Kevin O’Donnell and Hayden Houston, for $2,000. She wants them to cover the $lB5 fee she paid to the ghost hunters, as well as to return a $1,250 security deposit and SSOO in rent and interest ED AND LORRAINE Warren of Monroe, who investigated the haunting at the Long Island, N.Y., house made famous in the book and movie “The Amityville Horror,” support Rich’s claim that the sevenroom Victorian house is spooked. Mrs. Warren, who claims she is clairvoyant said she felt the presence of a confused, somewhat frustrated human spirit in the house. She said she also felt the presence of something evil. Rich moved into the house in the fall of 1988 with her boyfriend and son. She moved out 18 months later, before her lease was up. O’-

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letter. It also was signed by Democrats Lee H. Hamilton, Andrew Jacobs Jr., Phil Sharp, Frank McCloskey, Peter J. Visclosky and Jill Long and Republican Dan Burton. Luken’s bill won the approval of a House subcommittee shortly before the August recess. The measure is now pending before the full Energy and Commerce Committee. Jontz said he wrote the letter to try to advance the legislation before Congress adjourns prior to the November election. No adjournment date has been set “TIME IS running out but I think it’s possible” to advance the bill, said Jontz, a co-sponsor of Luken's measure. One problem, however, is that the same committee has been devoting much of its time to the Clean Air Act and hasn’t been able to focus on the trash bill, said Jontz. If the measure won committee approval, it could be voted on by the full House before Congress ad-

and many scholars think about the number of poor Americans,” he said, citing studies that put the figure 13 million higher. “Thirteen million hidden poor. With these additional poor, we’re talking about one out of every five Americans living in poverty.” THE OFFICIAL poverty line is based on government measurements established in 1963. There have been annual adjustments since then to account for inflation, but witnesses told the panel those adjustments haven’t been adequate. “That measure represented a reasonable estimate of minimum family needs in 1963, but it has never been updated to reflect changes in consumption patterns and standards of living since the early 19605,” said Patricia Ruggles, an economist with the congressional Joint Economic Committee. “In fact, that measure is based on consumption data from the mid-

Donnell and Houston are countersuing her for $2,000 for breaking the lease. RICH SAID SHE had no choice but to move out after being terrorized by ghosts. She cited several inexplicable occurrences, saying she photographed a pink haze at the top of the stairway and a blue haze over a mysterious candle that would not bum down. O’Donnell has called Rich’s claim “baloney” and accused her of conjuring the ghost story to get out of her lease after her boyfriend moved out and she had trouble paying the rent. The house, which was built about 1880, has had at least six owners. Among them were Edward and Janet Phillips, who lived there 19 years. The Phillips, now retired and living in Plainville, say they have no recollection of strange incidents. THE HOUSE IS now occupied by a state trooper and his family, who moved there in August. Trooper Mark Dumas said he’s heard rumors about the ghosts but puts no stock in them.

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joums. ON SEPT. 18, the Senate passed an out-of-state waste ban sponsored by Sen. Dan Coats, R-ind., and attached as an amendment to an appropriations bill for the District of Columbia. The fate of the trash provision is uncertain because of the other content in the bill, lawmakers have said. Jontz said federal legislation is needed because courts “have rendered states virtually helpless in dealing with out-of-state waste because of the constitutional implications of allowing states to regulate interstate commerce.” However, court rulings allow Congress to regulate such commerce or delegate that power to states, said Jontz. INDIANA’S GENERAL Assembly, reacting to reports of out-of-state trash shipments coming into the state, approved a law this year to regulate those shipments. The constitutionality of that law is being challenged in a federal lawsuit. A judge is expected to rule in the case next week.

19505,” she said. THE POVERTY SCALE was based on estimates of minimum adequate food budgets and then tripled, on the assumption that food represents about one-third of total expenditures, Ruggles said. The scale has not been changed to reflect that the average U.S. family now spends 42 percent of its income on housing, she said, or that fewer families have the services of a full-time homemaker to take care of young children. It also does not consider differences in cost of living between regions or urban and rural areas. Updated scales based on more modem estimates of food and housing costs would raise the poverty threshold more than 50 percent to $14,000 to $16,000 or more for a family of three in 1988. The official poverty measure is $9,435, she said. TWO GOVERNMENT benefit programs whose eligibility stan-

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Scott unlikely to realize full value of Kentucky's offer

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) Scott Paper Co. officials expect to decide by the end of the year between Posey County, Ind., and Daviess County, Ky„ as the site for a S2OO million tissue plant A company official said the firm probably could not take full advantage of $l4O million in tax benefits offered by Kentucky as part of competition with Indiana for the company’s new plant HARRIS CALLED the $l4O million estimate on the value of Kentucky’s incentive offer “pretty high fetched. I don’t see us recovering that level of benefit through KREDA.” Harris noted that to get such a benefit the new plant would have to produce about a fifth of the company’s profits though it would be only one of about two dozen paper plants Scott operates worldwide. Kentucky’s package of incentives “certainly has not closed

dards are tied directly to the official poverty measure food stamps and Medicaid use cutoffs substantially higher, around 130 percent of the poverty line. “These higher eligibility thresholds are perhaps an implicit acknowledgement that our current poverty thresholds do not represent a realistic minimum standard of consumption,” Ruggles said. A bill passed by the House

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October 5,1990 THE BANNERGRAPHIC

the door on Indiana,” Scott spokesman Rutherford C. “Rullie” Harris said. SCOTT’S PROFITS and tax liability would determine how much savings it would realize through the Kentucky Rural Economic Development Authority, Harris said. Though the new plant is expected to be the company’s flagship U.S. operation, that kind of profitability is not likely, Harris said. Scott’s worldwide profits last year were about $375 million. Kentucky proposes to issue bonds through KREDA to help Scott build the plant. Scott would be responsible for paying off the bonds but could deduct the payments from its state income taxes. HOOSIER OFFICIALS have said Indiana doesn’t have $l4O million to offer Scott.

would provide for a National Academy of Science study of revisions to the poverty line. It awaits Senate action. HALL SAID MANY were reluctant to redraw the poverty lines because the numbers of poor would be increased. But he said a more accurate count “will lead to a new sense of just how urgent our fight against hunger and poverty in America really is.”

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