RALEIGH, N.C. – Congressional ethics investigators say North Carolina Rep. Heath Shuler did not act inappropriately when a residential development that he was involved in sought lake-access rights from the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Top lawmakers on the House Ethics Committee said in a letter to Shuler that it was closing the matter after reviewing a TVA investigative report. The lawmakers said that report concluded that TVA’s inspector general found no evidence that Shuler or staff used his position to exert influence over the approval process.

Shuler was once a member of a House committee with oversight of TVA. He is an investor in The Cove development that has a deal pending with TVA for 145 feet of water-access rights on Watts Bar Lake near Knoxville, Tenn.

ASHEVILLE, N.C. – North Carolina Rep. Heath Shuler is meeting with educational, business and environmental leaders to discuss the future of his mountain district.

Shuler will speak Friday in Asheville about green-collar jobs, developing a work force, growing the economy and combatting global climate change. The Democratic lawmaker will be joined by Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton and other leaders from the region.

President Obama has said he wants to focus on building a green economy by retraining workers, and the $787 billion stimulus bill he signed last month includes tax incentives for clean energy, guarantees loans for companies that develop clean energy technologies and invests in research designed to reduce climate change.

ASHEVILLE, N.C. – On Saturday, March 21, the Young Democrats of North Carolina will hold their 51st statewide convention in Asheville.  The largest assembly of Young Democrats to take place this year, the convention will showcase the role that individuals under age 35 played in the 2008 general election and what their agenda will be approaching the 2010 midterms.

Featured speakers will include Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, Congressman Heath Shuler, Lt. Governor Walter Dalton, Charlotte City Councilman and mayoral candidate Anthony Fox, North Carolina Democratic Party Chair David Young, and numerous other officials — each of whom will be available for comment.

“Young people have become engaged in grassroots political activism with an energy and vigor unlike any seen in North Carolina for many years,” said President of the Young Democrats of North Carolina Zack Hawkins. “I am looking forward with great excitement to building on the momentum of 2008 and unveiling our plans for the future at our 51st statewide convention in Asheville, in the company of officials such as Governor Bredesen, Congressman Shuler, and many others.”    

WHAT:  Young Democrats of North Carolina Annual ConventioN
WHO: Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen
U.S. Representative Heath Shuler (NC-11)
Lt. Governor Walter Dalton
Charlotte City Councilman and Mayoral Candidate Anthony Foxx
Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy
N.C. Democratic Party Chair David Young
N.C. Rep. Tricia Cotham
N.C. Rep. Jane Whilden
N.C. Rep. Grier Martin
Fmr. N.C. Sen. Cal Cunnungham
Asheville City Councilman Brownie Newman
Watauga County Commissioner Tim Futrelle

WHEN: Saturday, March 21 – 12:30 p.m.
WHERE: Marriot Renaissance Asheville Hotel, 31 Woodfin Street
Asheville, North Carolina 28801

By SEAN MUSSENDEN
Media General News Service

WASHINGTON-It’s almost guaranteed that when Rep. Health Shuler’s opponents criticize him, they’ll knock his football career.

So it was no surprise to see a football-related slam from a top aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid after Shuler said House and Senate leaders had failed to craft a truly bipartisan stimulus package.

“Let me get this straight — this is coming from a guy who threw more than twice as many interceptions than touchdowns?” Reid spokesman Jim Manley asked a reporter for Politico.

As everyone in his district surely knows, Shuler was a great quarterback in college at the University of Tennessee and a high NFL draft pick. But he was terrible during his four years in the pros, throwing 32 interceptions and 15 touchdowns.

Shuler’s been out of football for more than a decade. Perhaps it’s time to come up with some new attacks.

COFFIN FLAGS
Rep. Walter Jones, R-Farmville, got a boost last week for his push to allow the news media to photograph the flag-draped coffins of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Pentagon under President George Bush expanded a ban on the practice, which critics said was intended to shield the true cost of war from Americans.

A bill sponsored by Jones would force the military to reverse the policy and allow photographs of coffins when they return to the United States. This week, Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates both said they were reviewing the ban.

“If the needs of the families can be met, and the privacy concerns can be addressed, the more honor we can accord these fallen heroes, the better,” Gates said.

Jones also sponsored legislation last week to ban the importation of American flags made in other countries, especially China.

“Especially at a time when our nation’s economy is hurting, it is just plain common sense that the American flag…should be manufactured here in the United States,” Jones said.

TEXTILE AMENDMENT
An amendment sponsored by Rep. Larry Kissell, D-Biscoe, that would force the Homeland Security Department to buy uniforms made in the United States survived in the stimulus package that passed the House and Senate last week.

Kissell’s measure was sponsored in previous years by Rep. Robin Hayes, the Republican he defeated in the fall, but it never passed.

Free traders worried that the Homeland Security provision, along with another giving a boost to the domestic steel industry, would cause problems with big trading partners like China.

Kissell’s amendment was in the House bill but not in the Senate’s version. A conference committee that worked out differences included the measure in the final version that passed last week.

STANDING OVATION
When Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., announced this week that he would not serve as President Barack Obama’s Commerce Secretary, he cited irreconcilable differences with the new administration over economic issues and the census.

Minority advocacy groups were concerned that Gregg would undercount blacks and Hispanics, so the White House decided to directly oversee the census.

Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-Cherryville, blasted that move as a partisan power grab, and his vocal criticism helped bring more attention to the issue.

Gregg’s withdrawal was seen as an embarrassment for Obama, who wanted another Republican in his cabinet.

At a party caucus meeting, McHenry’s Republican colleagues gave McHenry a standing ovation for drawing public attention to the census issue.

ASHEVILLE, N.C.  – North Carolina Rep. Heath Shuler is one of only seven Democratic lawmakers who broke from party leadership to oppose the economic stimulus package.

The House approved President Barack Obama’s $787 billion plan on Friday. No Republicans voted for the measure.

Shuler said in a statement that he would prefer a stimulus plan that focuses more on infrastructure and other investments that have an immediate economic impact. The conservative Democrat from western North Carolina also said he was disappointed that House leadership would rush a vote on the bill without giving members time to fully review it.

The 1,071-page measure combines $281 billion in tax cuts for individuals and businesses with more than a half-trillion dollars in government spending.

RALEIGH, N.C.  – With banks weighed down by bad debt, long-delayed infrastructure spending offers a way to both generate jobs and rebuild the country’s flagging optimism, current and former politicians said Monday.

“We can do big and bold things that can last a long time,” said former Gov. Jim Hunt, who created the annual Emerging Issues Forum nearly a quarter-century ago.

The two-day forum hosted by North Carolina State University brings together public policy leaders to discuss looming challenges. This year’s focus on infrastructure deficiencies came just as Congress and the Obama administration grapple with a federal stimulus package that includes spending to repair highways and bridges, expand railroad and mass transit routes, and update public water systems.

But while President Obama has urged quick spending on public projects to put people to work, less than 8 percent of the Senate’s $827 billion package is directed at infrastructure projects. About 11 percent of the House’s $820 billion version is for public construction needs.

That boosts the $1.1 trillion in annual U.S. infrastructure spending, but it’s a fraction of the estimated $2.2 trillion in needs over the next five years, according to a report last month by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

A quarter of the country’s bridges are deficient; in North Carolina a third of the spans aren’t up to the demands of their use, ASCE president Wayne Klotz said. Seven billion gallons of clean drinking water just leaks away because water systems in some cities are a century old, he said. The country’s average grade was D in 15 areas including aviation, dams and bridges evaluated by the society, Klotz said.

“Our infrastructure system’s parts are not serving their intended purposes,” Klotz said, and are not adequate for a growing economy.

The risks of failing to maintain public works were captured most dramatically when levees protecting New Orleans failed from insufficient maintenance and investment, flooding the city during Hurricane Katrina, Klotz said.

But the need for improved public works is being recognized at the same time the U.S. economy needs a jolt that business investment or consumer spending seem unable to provide, said U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.

“To do things differently, you need to begin thinking differently,” Dodd said, calling the infrastructure spending in the federal stimulus package “downpayments on the long-term needs of our nation.”

Infrastructure construction has fueled nearly every successful society in history, Dodd said, from the Roman water-delivery networks still in use today, to the highways the Incas built across South America’s Andes mountains, to the Erie Canal that opened trade from the Great Lakes frontier to East Coast ports in 1825.

Today, China is building super-modern airports and mag-lev trains to climb into the ranks of leading economies.

But America’s big challenge creates opportunities, like an idea for a high-speed, coast-to-coast freight railroad between Long Beach, Calif., and Wilmington that could compete with the Panama Canal as a faster way to move goods from Asia to Europe, Dodd said.

Rural electrification, massive dams and other public projects built during the Depression continue to deliver benefits today, Dodd said. But those efforts also restored confidence “that Americans can push back against any odds,” a benefit that would come from new infrastructure projects, Dodd said.

By SEAN MUSSENDEN
Media General News Service

WASHINGTON-Regular C-SPAN viewers may have noticed that Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-Banner Elk, has received more face time on the cable network of late.

Since joining the House Rules Committee in January – a powerful body that sets the framework for debate on bills that come to the floor – Foxx has helped manage the Republican opposition to a handful of Democratic bills.

Last week, she led floor debate against a Democratic push to postpone until June the transition from analog to digital TV signals. The measure passed largely along party lines.

Foxx said party leaders asked her to manage the debate, and she was happy to oblige.

“I don’t seek to be in the spotlight, I don’t seek being on C-SPAN,” she said in an interview.”

“What I have told the Republican conference is that I want to help where they need me to help. If they need me to speak on the floor, I’ll speak on the floor. If they need me to stuff envelopes, I’ll stuff envelopes,” she said.

PRAYER BREAKFAST
At prayer breakfasts each week, members of Congress gather to read scripture, share stories, and pray. And they sing hymns – usually not very well, Rep. Heath Shuler, D-Waynesville, told the crowd at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington Thursday.

As co-chair of the annual breakfast, Shuler introduced President Barack Obama, telling an international audience that included former British Prime Minister Tony Blair that his young children were moved by Obama’s inauguration and said, “Daddy, let’s pray for the president.”

“Children, politicians and everyday citizens around the world are showing their hope, their faith, through their prayers for this president,” he said at the breakfast.

Before introducing Obama, Shuler introduced Casting Crowns, a Christian rock group whose performance, he said, spared the audience from listening to members of Congress sing.

“I think God really appreciates that,” Shuler said.

CENSUS CONTROVERSY
A decision by Obama to have the White House directly oversee the 2010 Census brought fierce opposition from Republicans.

In a letter to the Obama administration last week, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-Cherryville, the top Republican on a subcommittee that oversees the Census, said he was “shocked and dismayed” by the decision, which he called an attempt to “politicize the operations of the Census Bureau and jeopardize the fairness and accuracy of the 2010 Census.”

Traditionally, the Census is overseen by the Commerce Department. But Hispanic advocates questioned whether Obama’s nominee to head the department, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., would conduct a fair accounting of minority groups.

ADOPTED DOG
Rep. Walter Jones, R-Farmville, will be honored by the Humane Society of the United States on Tuesday for helping the family of a Marine killed by a rocket blast in Iraq adopt his German Shepherd, a military bomb-sniffing dog who was injured in the attack.

The military initially denied the adoption request from the family of Cpl. Dustin Lee, saying the dog, Lex, had to remain in service for another two years. That changed after Jones, whose district includes Camp Lejeune, lobbied top Marine officials to allow the adoption to proceed.

Lee’s family and are planning to bring Lex to Washington for the ceremony.

By SEAN MUSSENDEN
Media General News Service

WASHINGTON-It’s pretty rare for a freshman lawmaker to help shape an important bill like the economic recovery package that passed the House Wednesday.

But Rep. Larry Kissell, D-Biscoe, was given a prime slot on CSPAN to talk up his amendment that would require the Homeland Security Department to buy uniforms made by American textile and apparel companies. It was one of only a dozen or so changes Democratic leaders allowed to come to the floor for a vote and it passed easily.

That gave Kissell, a former textile worker, something to brag about in his textile-heavy district that has been hit hard by plant closings.

“I was asked by someone in the press once, ‘Do you feel as a freshman that you don’t have a voice?’ I responded by saying that if you run fast enough and shout fast enough, people will listen,” he said in an interview.

Perhaps, but a lot of freshmen are ambitious. The fact that Kissell is at the top of the Republicans’ target list in 2010 made it a no-brainer for Democratic leaders to hand him an early victory.

COPYCAT
Two North Carolina Republicans gave Kissell negative marks for originality on his amendment. They noted that the man he defeated, Republican Robin Hayes, pushed similar legislation for years. It didn’t pass in the last Congress, which Democrats controlled, or the previous one, which Republicans controlled.

“If it was his idea, he got it from Robin Hayes,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-Banner Elk.

“He took that out of Robin’s playbook,” added Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-Cherryville.

BANKING BLANK
Because North Carolina is a major banking hub, one would expect the state to have representation on the Senate banking committee. And it did, until Republican Elizabeth Dole lost her bid for reelection to Sen. Kay Hagan last year.

Hagan, a Democrat, wanted the slot. And her experience as a former banking executive suggested she would have a strong shot at joining the committee, which is playing a big role in shaping the government’s response to the ongoing economic crisis. But she got beat out by three other freshman senators from Virginia, Oregon and Colorado. Because of turbulence in the banking industry, competition for the high profile post was tough, Hagan said in an interview earlier this month.

She landed slots on the Armed Services Committee and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Her North Carolina colleague in the Senate, Republican Richard Burr also serves on those two committees.

PUTTING OUT FEELERS
Richard Burr is up for re-election in 2010 and the field of potential challengers is starting to emerge – very slowly.

One name at the top of the speculation list: Rep. Heath Shuler, whose district encompasses the state’s western tip. The buzz got louder after the Democrat held a $100,000-plus fundraiser last week with former President Bill Clinton in Raleigh – far from his mountainous district.

His spokesman, Andrew Whalen, said the fundraiser was held there because Clinton was giving a speech at North Carolina State University that day.

So is he thinking about running?

Whalen’s careful response: “Today, Congressman Shuler is running for re-election to the House.” Note the key first word of that quote.

The election might be almost two years away, but pollsters are already testing out a Burr-Shuler matchup.

A survey conducted in mid-January by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm in Raleigh, found voters favored Burr over Shuler 39-28 percent, with an extremely high number undecided. Polls are pretty meaningless at this point, since voters aren’t really paying attention. But they’re helping feed the Shuler speculation.

Democrats hope that Hagan’s and Barack Obama’s wins in the state portend a tough contest for Burr. But respected Washington political forecaster Charlie Cook currently ranks the contest as “Solid R,” suggesting a very difficult race for Burr’s challenger.

The PPP takes a look at Richard Burr’s approval rating, compared to Congressman Heath Shuler.