Analysis: As hurricanes loom, Florida insurance lives on borrowed time

By David Adams

MIAMI (Reuters) - Mother Nature has been kind to Florida's coastline lately with a record run of seven years without a hurricane making landfall, allowing property insurers time to re-stock their depleted coffers.

As a result, when the new six-month hurricane season gets underway on Saturday, state insurance officials say the industry is ready to withstand a major storm. "We are better positioned today than I have seen in 10 years," Kevin McCarty, who heads the state's Office of Insurance Regulation, told Reuters.

Still, industry experts question whether Florida's state-controlled insurance system is able to cope in the long term.

"It's very fortunate for Florida that is has been able to build up its reserves, but the fact of the matter is that Florida is living on borrowed time," said Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute.

Just this week, Republican Governor Rick Scott signed a new property insurance law designed to reduce the state's exposure to hurricane losses by gradually steering homeowners towards private insurers. The new law also slashes the value of homes that the state-run Citizens Property Insurance can cover, down from $2 million to $700,000.

Because of its size and geographical position, with 1,200 miles of coastline on a peninsula sticking out into the warm waters where the Caribbean meets the Atlantic, Florida is a uniquely risky insurance market. Most of its insured residential and commercial property - 79 per cent - lies in coastal areas vulnerable to both wind damage and flooding.

Coastal property is valued at just under $3 trillion, according to a report due to be released next week by AIR Worldwide, a global leader in catastrophe risk modeling. Florida accounts for almost 30 percent of the nation's entire $10 trillion coastal exposure, AIR found.

Only New York has as much exposure, with $3 trillion in coastal property, and that compares to $239 billion in South Carolina and $107 billion in Georgia.

Florida is peculiar in other ways too. Unlike most other states where private companies dominate the market, Florida's insurance system is tightly controlled by the state, and requires all companies to pay into a state-run Hurricane Catastrophe Fund which acts as a safety net. Louisiana has a similar system for its state property insurer, also called Citizens, and California has its own safety net for earthquakes.

Florida's private insurance industry was ravaged in 1992 by Hurricane Andrew, which caused $26 billion in damages in Miami-Dade county. The state was badly hit again when a series of storms hit south Florida in 2004 and 2005.

Designed as a state-run insurer of last resort, Citizens has been left holding more than 1.3 million policies, making it the state's largest property insurer, with about 21 percent of the entire residential market. Due to the lack of recent storms, Citizens has managed to build up a cash surplus of about $6.6 billion, plus another $1.8 billion in reinsurance.

Citizens has tried to manage its exposure by issuing catastrophe bonds, which allow insurance companies to transfer risk to private investors. Buyers of so-called cat bonds receive enhanced returns in exchange for the risk that their principal could be wiped out in the event of disasters of a certain kind or size.

By the end of this year cat bonds will provide well over $10 billion in coverage to the south-east and Florida, according to John Seo, co-founder at cat bond investor Fermat Capital Management.

Still, critics say the state's consumer-wary politicians have allowed Citizens to charge below-market rates, leaving the insurer under-funded. They note that its total insured exposure has more than doubled since 2005, and it faces a potential $21 billion payout in the event of a once in a 100 years storm.

"With the risk transfer we have really narrowed the gap. We haven't closed the gap but we have narrowed the gap significantly," Sharon Binnun, Citizens' chief financial officer, told Reuters.

VULNERABLE TO A ONE-TWO PUNCH

Property insurance typically does not cover hurricane-related flood damage, which has to be insured separately. Private insurers don't cover many coastal homes in Florida which are insured instead by the federal flood insurance program.

The state's 'Cat Fund', created to back up private insurers after Andrew, has also managed to build a large surplus, amassing almost $12 billion to pay potential claims in the event of a major storm, according to its director, Jack Nicholson.

Although he denied it was under-funded, Nicholson said the fund was vulnerable to volatility in the municipal bond market, which it relies on to meet a $17 billion obligation mandated by the state.

A.M. Best, the main credit ratings agency for the insurance industry, said Friday it recognized the Cat Fund's position had improved of late.

The recent run of weather luck may have saved the state from bankruptcy, said Hartwig of the Insurance Information Institute, noting that if a major storm had hit Florida in the midst of the recession, the state would likely have been turned away by the bond market.

Nicholson worries that unless the Cat Fund increases its cash reserve, one big storm could leave it empty, exposing insurers to the next big storm.

If it has to borrow money to meet claims, the Fund is required to place an "assessment" on almost all insurance policies in the state, from homes to cars, no matter if they live in inland areas not prone to hurricanes. Such assessments are decried by some as a tax that provides "welfare" for wealthy beachfront homeowners. Policy holders are still paying off an assessment from the last hurricane, Wilma in 2005.

The bill signed by Governor Scott on Wednesday aims to steer homeowners away from Citizens and cap the value of homes that can be insured by the state-run company. The legislature rejected a tougher bill that would have accelerated that process by charging new Citizens enrollees much higher premiums.

"Citizens has gotten way too big...There was no way in a significant hurricane that Citizens was going to be able to pay," Scott told emergency officials in Miami on Thursday.

(Additional reporting by Sarah Mortimer in London, Harriet McLeod in South Carolina and Kevin Gray in Miami; Editing by Claudia Parsons)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-hurricanes-loom-florida-insurance-lives-borrowed-time-121045974.html

Inaugural Ball julio jones j crew san francisco 49ers san francisco 49ers stan musial Mega

BP rig supervisors challenge manslaughter counts

NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? Two BP rig supervisors charged in the deaths of 11 workers in the Deepwater Horizon disaster claim the manslaughter counts in their indictment must be dismissed because they don't apply to conduct on a foreign-owned vessel operating outside U.S. territory.

Court filings Thursday by Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine's attorneys also argue that 11 of the 22 manslaughter counts don't extend to their clients because they weren't responsible for marine operations, maintenance or navigation of the rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. is tentatively scheduled to hear arguments on the motions to dismiss on Aug. 7. Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr declined to comment but said prosecutors would respond in court at the appropriate time.

Kaluza and Vidrine pleaded not guilty last year to the charges in their 23-count indictment, which accuses them of botching a key safety test and disregarding abnormally high pressure readings that were glaring signs of trouble before the blowout of BP's Macondo well.

They also face one count of violating the Clean Water Act. Thursday's court filings don't seek the dismissal of that charge.

The Deepwater Horizon, a rig that BP leased from Transocean Ltd., was about 48 miles from the Louisiana coast and operating under the flag of the Marshall Islands at the time of the deadly blast.

Kaluza and Vidrine's attorneys argue that 11 counts of involuntary manslaughter should be dismissed because the charges only apply to U.S.-owned vessels, whereas their clients were on a rig owned by a Swiss-based company. The other 11 counts of "seaman's manslaughter" don't apply to a foreign-flag vessel outside U.S. territory that isn't erected on the Outer Continental Shelf, they claim.

"In 5,000 feet of water, the Horizon was not 'erected on' the seabed," the attorneys wrote. "Rather it floated on giant pontoons, kept in place by thrusters and engines, not legs or even anchors."

The defense lawyers also argue that the seaman's manslaughter counts don't apply to Kaluza and Vidirine because, as BP's well site leaders, they supervised the drilling operations and weren't part of the marine crew.

Kaluza and Vidrine's trial is scheduled to start in January 2014.

The Justice Department secured a separate, two-count indictment last year against former BP executive David Rainey, who was charged with concealing information from Congress about the amount of oil that was spewing from BP's blown-out well.

On May 20, however, U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt dismissed the charge that was the backbone of the government's case against Rainey. Engelhardt ruled that Rainey's indictment failed to allege that he knew of the pending congressional investigation he was charged with obstructing.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-05-31-Gulf%20Oil%20Spill-Indictment/id-1e621a16edb3405e85968d6694ff238d

Art Modell Frank Ocean Gay bill clinton andy roddick Costa Rica Earthquake sandra fluke costa rica

U.S. soldier at center of WikiLeaks case set to go on trial Monday

By Ian Simpson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The American soldier accused of the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history, which prosecutors say put lives at risk, goes on trial on Monday in a case that raises questions about the limits of secrecy and openness in the Internet era.

Private First Class Bradley Manning, 25, is charged with providing more than 700,000 documents to WikiLeaks, an anti-secrecy website.

He said the move was intended to spark renewed debate on U.S. military action. But the government says the leaks damaged national security and endangered American lives. He faces a possible life sentence if convicted.

The military trial at Fort Meade, Maryland, about 30 miles northeast of Washington, is expected to run until at least late August. Prosecutors have said they expect to call more than 100 witnesses.

Civil liberties groups say the court-martial has been shrouded in secrecy and has had a chilling effect on whistleblowers.

Manning faces 21 counts, including the most serious one of aiding the enemy, as well as prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917.

"It's probably the most dramatic example of the administration's use of the Espionage Act to prosecute leaks of information to the media," said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Liberty and National Security Program.

"It's quite dramatic, and the government will say that it's proportionate to the crime."

'CLEAR CONSCIENCE'

Manning, an intelligence analyst, was arrested in May 2010 while serving in Iraq. He was charged with downloading intelligence documents, diplomatic cables and combat videos and forwarding them to WikiLeaks, which began releasing the information that year.

Manning testified in February that he had released the files to spark a domestic debate on the military and on foreign policy in general.

"I take full responsibility for my actions," he said at the time. "I felt I accomplished something that would allow me to have a clear conscience."

One of the leaked U.S. military videos showed a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters that killed a dozen people in Baghdad. They included two Reuters news staff, photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver Saeed Chmagh.

The judge in the case, Colonel Denise Lind, said last month she would close parts of the trial to the public to protect classified material. Rather than face a jury, Manning has chosen to have Lind decide his case.

Manning pleaded guilty in court in February to 10 lesser charges that he was the source of the WikiLeaks release. But prosecutors rejected the pleas and are pursuing the original charges.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has taken refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden for alleged sex crimes.

Nathan Fuller, a spokesman for the Bradley Manning Support Network, called the case a harbinger for U.S. media because the trial means posting government documents on the Internet could be construed as aiding the enemy.

"It's already chilled a lot of whistleblowers, a lot of soldiers don't want to talk to the press anymore. A lot of reporters are saying their sources are drying up," he said.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Scott Malone and Xavier Briand)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-soldier-center-wikileaks-case-set-trial-monday-110114710.html

all star weekend 2012 giada de laurentiis howard hughes nationwide race wanderlust gone tyler perry good deeds

Pretesting cervical tumors could inform treatment

Public release date: 31-May-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Julia Evangelou Strait
straitj@wustl.edu
314-286-0141
Washington University School of Medicine

Doctors at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that testing cervical tumors before treatment for vulnerability to chemotherapy predicts whether patients will do well or poorly with standard treatment. The study supports the future possibility of personalized medicine for cervical cancer, a tumor normally addressed with a one-size-fits-all approach.

"Even though this is a small study, its strength is that it links a lab test of the tumor's chemotherapy response to survival outcomes for the patients," said Julie K. Schwarz, MD, PhD, assistant professor of radiation oncology. "Very few cancers have been studied this way, and this is the first such report for cervical cancer."

Since 1999, nearly all cervical cancer cases have been treated the same way: daily radiation therapy targeted to the tumor plus a weekly intravenous infusion of the chemotherapy drug cisplatin.

"We believe that radiation does the majority of the work with cervical cancer," said Schwarz, who treats patients at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine. "But a randomized trial published in 1999 showed that combining it with cisplatin chemotherapy improved survival outcomes."

Even today, according to Schwarz, doctors have no way of knowing who will do well or poorly with the combined radiation and chemotherapy that every patient receives. Now, Schwarz and her colleagues have shown that the tumor's response to chemotherapy, independent of radiation, may be a major deciding factor in whether a patient will do well with the standard treatment.

The study appears online in the journal Gynecologic Oncology.

"This is evidence that cisplatin is not just helping the radiation work better," Schwarz said. "It is having some direct toxic effect on cancer cells that may be hiding elsewhere in the body, some place where the radiation is not hitting it, since we target the radiation so precisely to the main tumor. We think it would be beneficial for that drug to be selected appropriately for the patient's individual tumor."

The investigators tested tumors from 33 cervical cancer patients before their treatment began. They divided the patients' tumors into three categories responsive, intermediate response and nonresponsive based on how well cisplatin killed the tumor cells growing in a dish.

For tumors categorized as responsive those cancer cells that cisplatin killed most easily 100 percent of the patients were alive and disease-free after two years. For those that showed an intermediate response, 83 percent of the patients were alive and disease-free after two years. And for those tumors deemed nonresponsive, only 58 percent of patients had two-year disease-free survival.

Cervical cancers can be divided into two main types based on how they look under a microscope squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma. The nonresponsive number was even worse for patients diagnosed with the more common squamous cell carcinoma, with 46 percent disease-free survival at two years.

"Ideally, we would like to be able to design clinical trials for the nonresponsive patients," Schwarz said. "One chemotherapy drug isn't working for everyone, but there isn't going to be one explanation for why the chemo doesn't work. It's going to be 50 different explanations, and figuring that out is the challenge."

Schwarz is quick to point out the weaknesses of this study. In addition to the small number of patients, the lab test used was not ideal and should not be used to decide therapy for patients, she said. The investigators initially evaluated 75 tumors for chemotherapy response. And though some patients' data was not included because they did not adhere to the treatment regimen, 31 patients were excluded from the analysis because their tumor cells did not grow well in the lab.

"This is definitely not the definitive test," Schwarz said. "But I think our results should prompt investigators to think outside the box and start generating new ideas about how best to treat this disease. The bottom line is a one-size-fits-all treatment for each patient is going by the wayside. As we develop personalized strategies, this is the sort of testing that can guide it."

###

Julie K. Schwarz is supported by a K12 career development grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), grant number 5K12HD00145910.

Grigsby PW, Zighelboim I, Powell MA, Mutch DG, Schwarz JK. In vitro chemoresponse to cisplatin and outcomes in cervical cancer. Gynecologic Oncology. Published online before print April 13, 2013. doi: 10.1016/j.ygyno.2013.04.005

Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.

The Siteman Cancer Center, the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in Missouri, is ranked a top 10 cancer facility by U.S. News & World Report. Comprising the cancer research, prevention and treatment programs of Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, Siteman is also Missouri's only member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 31-May-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Julia Evangelou Strait
straitj@wustl.edu
314-286-0141
Washington University School of Medicine

Doctors at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that testing cervical tumors before treatment for vulnerability to chemotherapy predicts whether patients will do well or poorly with standard treatment. The study supports the future possibility of personalized medicine for cervical cancer, a tumor normally addressed with a one-size-fits-all approach.

"Even though this is a small study, its strength is that it links a lab test of the tumor's chemotherapy response to survival outcomes for the patients," said Julie K. Schwarz, MD, PhD, assistant professor of radiation oncology. "Very few cancers have been studied this way, and this is the first such report for cervical cancer."

Since 1999, nearly all cervical cancer cases have been treated the same way: daily radiation therapy targeted to the tumor plus a weekly intravenous infusion of the chemotherapy drug cisplatin.

"We believe that radiation does the majority of the work with cervical cancer," said Schwarz, who treats patients at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine. "But a randomized trial published in 1999 showed that combining it with cisplatin chemotherapy improved survival outcomes."

Even today, according to Schwarz, doctors have no way of knowing who will do well or poorly with the combined radiation and chemotherapy that every patient receives. Now, Schwarz and her colleagues have shown that the tumor's response to chemotherapy, independent of radiation, may be a major deciding factor in whether a patient will do well with the standard treatment.

The study appears online in the journal Gynecologic Oncology.

"This is evidence that cisplatin is not just helping the radiation work better," Schwarz said. "It is having some direct toxic effect on cancer cells that may be hiding elsewhere in the body, some place where the radiation is not hitting it, since we target the radiation so precisely to the main tumor. We think it would be beneficial for that drug to be selected appropriately for the patient's individual tumor."

The investigators tested tumors from 33 cervical cancer patients before their treatment began. They divided the patients' tumors into three categories responsive, intermediate response and nonresponsive based on how well cisplatin killed the tumor cells growing in a dish.

For tumors categorized as responsive those cancer cells that cisplatin killed most easily 100 percent of the patients were alive and disease-free after two years. For those that showed an intermediate response, 83 percent of the patients were alive and disease-free after two years. And for those tumors deemed nonresponsive, only 58 percent of patients had two-year disease-free survival.

Cervical cancers can be divided into two main types based on how they look under a microscope squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma. The nonresponsive number was even worse for patients diagnosed with the more common squamous cell carcinoma, with 46 percent disease-free survival at two years.

"Ideally, we would like to be able to design clinical trials for the nonresponsive patients," Schwarz said. "One chemotherapy drug isn't working for everyone, but there isn't going to be one explanation for why the chemo doesn't work. It's going to be 50 different explanations, and figuring that out is the challenge."

Schwarz is quick to point out the weaknesses of this study. In addition to the small number of patients, the lab test used was not ideal and should not be used to decide therapy for patients, she said. The investigators initially evaluated 75 tumors for chemotherapy response. And though some patients' data was not included because they did not adhere to the treatment regimen, 31 patients were excluded from the analysis because their tumor cells did not grow well in the lab.

"This is definitely not the definitive test," Schwarz said. "But I think our results should prompt investigators to think outside the box and start generating new ideas about how best to treat this disease. The bottom line is a one-size-fits-all treatment for each patient is going by the wayside. As we develop personalized strategies, this is the sort of testing that can guide it."

###

Julie K. Schwarz is supported by a K12 career development grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), grant number 5K12HD00145910.

Grigsby PW, Zighelboim I, Powell MA, Mutch DG, Schwarz JK. In vitro chemoresponse to cisplatin and outcomes in cervical cancer. Gynecologic Oncology. Published online before print April 13, 2013. doi: 10.1016/j.ygyno.2013.04.005

Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.

The Siteman Cancer Center, the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in Missouri, is ranked a top 10 cancer facility by U.S. News & World Report. Comprising the cancer research, prevention and treatment programs of Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, Siteman is also Missouri's only member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/wuso-pct053113.php

Lemon phillies phillies bryce harper dodgers game of thrones Kevin Ware

Justin Bieber: Ignoring Pleas to to Hire a Driver

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/05/justin-bieber-ignoring-pleas-to-to-hire-a-driver/

marinol flight attendant pau gasol trade michael madsen day light savings day light savings spring forward

Human activity echoes through Brazilian rainforest

May 30, 2013 ? The disappearance of large, fruit-eating birds from tropical forests in Brazil has caused the region's forest palms to produce smaller, less successful seeds over the past century, researchers say. The findings provide evidence that human activity can trigger fast-paced evolutionary changes in natural populations.

Mauro Galetti from the Universidade Estadual Paulista in S?o Paulo, Brazil, along with an international team of colleagues, used patches of rainforest that had been fragmented by coffee and sugar cane development during the 1800's to set up their natural experiment. They collected more than 9,000 seeds from 22 different Euterpe edulis palm populations and used a combination of statistics, genetics and evolutionary models to determine that the absence of large, seed-dispersing birds in the area was the main reason for the observed decrease in the palm's seed size.

The study appears in the 31 May issue of the journal Science.

"Unfortunately, the effect we document in our work is probably not an isolated case," said Galetti. "The pervasive, fast-paced extirpation of large vertebrates in their natural habitats is very likely causing unprecedented changes in the evolutionary trajectories of many tropical species."

In general, researchers estimate that human activity, such as deforestation, drives species to extinction about 100 times faster than natural evolutionary processes. However, very few studies have successfully documented such rapid evolutionary changes in ecosystems that have been modified by human activity.

Galetti and the other researchers found that palms produced significantly smaller seeds in patches of forest that had been fragmented by coffee and sugar cane plantations and were no longer capable of supporting large-gaped birds, or those whose beaks are more than 12 millimeters wide, such as toucans and large cotingas. In undisturbed patches of forest, on the other hand, large-gaped birds still make their homes and palms continue to produce large seeds, successfully dispersed by the birds, they say.

"Small seeds are more vulnerable to desiccation and cannot withstand projected climate change," explained Galetti. But, small-gaped birds, such as thrushes, that populate the fragmented patches of forest are unable to swallow and disperse large seeds. As a result of this impaired dispersal, palm regeneration became less successful in the area, with less-vigorous seedlings germinating from smaller seeds.

The researchers considered the influence of a wide range of environmental factors, such as climate, soil fertility and forest cover, but none could account for the change in palm seed size over the years in the fragmented forests. They performed genetic analyses to determine that the shrinkage of seeds among forest palms in the region could have taken place within 100 years of an initial disturbance.

This timescale suggests that the conversion of tropical forests for agriculture, which began back in the 1800's and displaced many large bird populations in the region, triggered a rapid evolution of forest palms that resulted in smaller, less successful seeds.

Long periods of drought and increasingly warmer climate (as predicted by climate model projections for South America) could be particularly harmful to tropical tree populations that depend on animals to disperse their seeds. About 80 percent of the entire Atlantic rainforest biome remains in small fragments, according to the researchers, and the successful restoration of these habitats critically depends on the preservation of mutualistic interactions between animals and plants.

"Habitat loss and species extinction is causing drastic changes in the composition and structure of ecosystems, because critical ecological interactions are being lost," said Galetti. "This involves the loss of key ecosystem functions that can determine evolutionary changes much faster than we anticipated. Our work highlights the importance of identifying these key functions to quickly diagnose the functional collapse of ecosystems."

The report by Galetti et al. was supported by the Funda??o de Amparo do Estado de S?o Paulo, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico and Programa Iberoamericano de Ciencia y Tecnolog?a para el Desarollo.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/FH7x3X-4kuY/130530141957.htm

Miranda rights Police Scanner boston herald mit nfl schedule brittney griner ied

Court backs border-state gun sale reporting rule

WASHINGTON (AP) ? A federal appeals court panel Friday unanimously upheld an Obama administration requirement that dealers in southwestern border states report when customers buy multiple high-powered rifles.

The firearms industry trade group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and two Arizona gun sellers had argued that the administration overstepped its legal authority in the 2011 regulation, which applies to gun sellers in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

The requirement, issued in what is known as a demand letter, compels those sellers to report to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives when anyone buys ? within a five-day period ? two or more semi-automatic weapons capable of accepting a detachable magazine and with a caliber greater than .22. The ATF says the requirement is needed to help stop the flow of guns to Mexican drug cartels.

Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, writing for the three-judge appeals panel, said the agency was within its legal authority when it issued the demand letter. She said that that the Gun Control Act of 1968 "unambiguously authorizes the demand letter." Henderson, who was appointed by Republican President George H.W. Bush, was joined by Judges Judith W. Rogers, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton, and Harry T. Edwards, an appointee of Democratic President Jimmy Carter.

Congress annually passes legislation banning the ATF from establishing a national firearms registry, but Henderson rejected arguments from the challengers that the requirement unlawfully created one.

Because ATF sent the demand letter to only 7 percent of federally licensed gun dealers and required information on only a small number of transactions, "the July 2011 demand letter does not come close to creating a 'national firearms registry'," she wrote.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation had argued that even if the ATF had the legal authority to issue the requirement, its decision to impose it on every retailer in the border states was arbitrary and capricious. In its appeal brief, the group wrote, "There is no rational law enforcement connection between the problem ATF sought to address ? illegal firearms trafficking from the United States to Mexico ? and merely conducting a lawful retail firearms business from premises located in one of the border states."

But the panel dismissed this challenge as well. Henderson wrote that an agency has "wide discretion" in making line-drawing decisions, and that the problem ATF sought to address is most severe in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation did not immediately return email and phone messages. An attorney for the two Arizona gun dealers that had challenged the requirement, J&G Sales, Ltd., of Prescott, Ariz., and Foothills Firearms, LLC, of Yuma, Ariz., also did not immediately return email and phone messages.

___

Follow Fred Frommer on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ffrommer

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-05-31-Gun-Reporting%20Lawsuit/id-ea2b609ba8ed4c9bac4d16989a854be3

collateral dick cheney heart umf elite eight stephon marbury the lion king suzanne collins