Washington in Five Minutes

HOUSE

New drilling ban unlikely, says Rahall

Environmental advocates urged Congress on Wednesday to reinstate the broad moratorium on offshore oil drilling, but a key congressman said on that issue “the ship may have already sailed.”

Rep. Nick J. Rahall II, West Virginia Democrat and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said the political reality is that the broad moratorium across 85 percent of the country’s Outer Continental Shelf - lifted by Congress last fall - is unlikely to be reimposed.

But Mr. Rahall, who opened the first of three hearings on offshore drilling, said Congress may need to establish protective buffer areas and place certain regions - including some waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts - off limits.

“If we are going to start drilling in new areas offshore we’re going to have to be aware of what the trade-offs are … that it can be done safely,” Mr. Rahall said. He argued that the “vast majority” of Outer Continental Shelf oil resources are already in federal waters, available for leasing.

MILITARY

Four recent suicides worry West Point

Following four suicides at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, officials said Wednesday they are emphasizing to cadets that seeking help for mental health problems won’t jeopardize their military careers.

In the past seven months, two cadets, a faculty member and a staff member at the academy have taken their own lives. The suicides were the first at the school in upstate New York since 1999.

They are part of a larger trend as the strained military wages war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army had its highest rate of suicide on record in 2008 and is investigating a spike in the number in January.

Academy Chaplain Col. John Cook, who addressed the issue Wednesday at a board meeting on Capitol Hill, said there does not appear to be a common denominator among the four West Point suicides - the most recent of which occurred in January. None of the four had faced a recent deployment, for example.

In addition to the suicides, two cadets recently attempted to take their own lives, he said.

HOUSE

Panel advances labor nominee

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