Trade deal with Peru approved in House

The House on Thursday approved a free-trade agreement with Peru, the first under a Democratic majority in Congress that has declared that labor rights and the environment must be central parts of all such pacts.

The vote was 285-132. Trade deals have always been a hard sell among House members, mainly Democrats who have equated them with job losses and soaring trade deficits.

"This is not ... NAFTA," Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said of the 1994 trade agreement with Mexico and Canada that has strong detractors.

Not all Democrats were convinced, with 116 of the 225 voting Thursday opposing the bill. In the Washington state delegation, Republican Dave Reichert joined the Democrats in voting for the legislation. Republicans Doc Hastings and Cathy McMorris Rodgers voted against it.

The accord with Peru would eliminate duties on some 80 percent of U.S. industrial exports and two-thirds of farm exports. It could increase U.S. exports by $1 billion a year. A Senate vote would allow the accord to go into effect.

Senators to propose delay on FCC vote

Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Trent Lott, R-Miss., said they will propose legislation to force regulators to wait at least three months before voting on an impending Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposal to ease rules governing media ownership.

The proposal would prevent a Dec. 18 vote sought by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.

Under the proposal, the FCC would have to allow 90 days of public comment before voting on rule changes that Martin may propose next week, Dorgan said at a Senate hearing Thursday. The agency also would have to finish studying broadcasters' effectiveness in serving their communities and allow a separate 90-day comment period on that, before voting, he said.

Martin and the FCC's four other members will be in Seattle today for the last of six public hearings on the issue.

Waterboarding called torture

A former Navy survival instructor subjected to waterboarding as part of his military training told Congress on Thursday that the controversial tactic should plainly be considered torture.

Malcolm Wrightson Nance, a counterterrorism specialist who taught at the Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape school in California, likened waterboarding to drowning and said those who experience it will say or do anything to make it stop, rendering the information they give nearly useless.

"It is an overwhelming experience that induces horror and triggers frantic survival instincts. ... As the event unfolded, I was fully conscious of what was happening: I was being tortured," Nance said Thursday at a House oversight hearing.

His testimony came as Democrats on Capitol Hill press for a ban on the technique and others like it that have been used by the CIA in interrogating terrorism suspects.

Seattle Times news services