Washington in 5 Minutes

SOUTH CAROLINA

Official seeks probe of Sanford’s flights

COLUMBIA, S.C. | South Carolina’s attorney general said Thursday that he wants state ethics commissioners to review Gov. Mark Sanford’s use of state aircraft and any other potential violations of state law.

The letter from Attorney General Henry McMaster to the chief of the state Ethics Commission follows Associated Press investigations into Mr. Sanford’s use of state aircraft for personal and political trips as well as his flights on commercial airlines.

“This is to request the South Carolina Ethics Commission to investigate these allegations involving the use of state planes and any other potential violations of the State Ethics Act,” Mr. McMaster wrote in a brief letter to Herb Hayden, executive director of the commission, which enforces the state’s ethics laws.

The next step would be for the ethics commission’s staff to investigate the complaint and determine whether there is probable cause for a full hearing.

Mr. Sanford has called the AP characterization of some of his flights “misleading,” saying they are taken out of context in part because he has used state planes less than his predecessors. He also says he’s ridden in the same types of seats as other governors on commercial flights.

SENATE

Webb to meet Myanmar ruler

Sen. Jim Webb, Virginia Democrat, plans this week to become the first high-level American official to meet Myanmar’s junta chief, his office said Thursday, days after the regime extended the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Mr. Webb is expected to hold talks with military strongman Than Shwe.

“Later this week, U.S. Senator Jim Webb is scheduled to meet with leaders at the highest levels of the national government in Burma (Myanmar), including Senior General Than Shwe,” a statement from Mr. Webb’s office said.

“If the Shwe meeting takes place it will be the first time that a senior American official has ever met with Burma’s top leader,” it said, noting also that no member of Congress has visited Myanmar in more than a decade.

Mr. Webb - a Vietnam veteran who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific affairs - kicked off a two-week regional tour Thursday in Laos and is scheduled to visit Myanmar this weekend.

On Tuesday, opposition leader Mrs. Suu Kyi and an American man who swam to her lakeside house were convicted.

COURTS

U.S. to support roadless forests

The Obama administration says it will defend a 2001 rule imposed by President Clinton that blocked road construction and other development on tens of millions of acres of remote national forests.

The administration’s decision was contained in court papers filed Thursday in a case in Wyoming that could help settle the fate of remote federal forests. The administration is siding with environmentalists in the case.

Conflicting court opinions have variously upheld and blocked the so-called Roadless Rule, which prohibited commercial logging, mining and other development on about 58 million acres of national forest in 38 states and Puerto Rico. A subsequent George W. Bush administration rule had cleared the way for more commercial activity there.

A spokesman for the Justice Department said the appeal notice, filed in U.S. District Court in Wyoming, meets a Friday deadline to preserve the government’s right to pursue the appeal.

LABOR RELATIONS

Flight controllers, FAA reach deal

Government air traffic controllers and the Obama administration have reached a tentative contract agreement that both sides said they hope will end years of severely strained relations.

Arbitrators recently decided a handful of remaining issues involving pay and vacation time, clearing the way for Thursday’s contract announcement by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. Union members have 45 days to ratify the contract.

President Obama told controllers when he was running for the White House that he would address their problems with the FAA. Earlier this year, he appointed former FAA Administrator Jane Garvey, who is popular with controllers, to oversee negotiations.

The nation’s more than 15,000 controllers have been working without a contract since 2005.

AVIATION

FAA to discipline 2 in collision

The Federal Aviation Administration has placed two employees on administrative leave in connection with last week’s deadly midair collision over New York’s Hudson River.

The FAA said Thursday night that it has begun disciplinary proceedings against an air-traffic controller who was handling the small plane that collided with a tour helicopter and against a supervisor on duty at the time.

The FAA said the controller was involved in “apparently inappropriate conversations” on the telephone at the time of the accident and the supervisor was not in the building at the time as required. Nine people died in the crash.

SETTLEMENT

Boeing to pay U.S. $25 million

Boeing Co. agreed Thursday to pay the U.S. government $25 million to settle claims that the company performed defective work on critical military refueling planes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The settlement arose out of a whistleblower lawsuit filed in Texas by two former Boeing workers who will now receive $2.6 million for drawing attention to the issue.

The Justice Department had investigated the Chicago-based aerospace giant for suspected defective work on the Air Force fleet of KC-10 Extenders, which are used for in-flight refueling in the Iraq and Afghanistan war theaters.

The work was performed during maintenance on the planes at the Boeing Aerospace Support Center in San Antonio.

From wire dispatches and staff reports