Burr gets a look at the center his bill created

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr received a personal tour Tuesday of the Health and Human Services emergency operations center that he helped create a year ago.

The center in Washington, staffed Tuesday by nearly 20 people, is charged with maintaining a constant vigil on the nation's health -- monitoring weather, news, health crises and the international path of the bird flu virus.

It is part of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act that Burr wrote. President Bush signed it into law a year ago. The bill aims to help the federal government work with local and state governments in responding to crises. Among its provisions was the hiring of a new assistant secretary, Navy Rear Adm. Craig Vanderwagen.

Tuesday morning, Vanderwagen offered a briefing on the center, housed inside the Health and Human Services agency about a block from Capitol Hill. Nine big, flat-screen televisions ringed the room on three sides. On the fourth, an entire wall displayed Web sites ranging from a weather radar map to the National Drought Monitor.

On one screen, Vanderwagen had displayed a Google Earth satellite image of Burr's Winston-Salem office.

"I think in a year, since you spearheaded getting that act through, we have done amazing things," Vanderwagen told Burr.

Also on the tour were Leah Devlin, North Carolina's public health director, and Bill Atkinson, president and chief executive officer of the WakeMed medical network in Raleigh.

Burr based much of his bill on the emergency preparedness of North Carolina's public health system. And one of the first grants awarded by the new program went to WakeMed, which is building the nation's first hospital-based emergency operations center.

The agency will include a smaller office also created by Burr last year: the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. The office will manage private and university-based research on vaccines and drugs for national medical emergencies.

Burr said that the authority already has begun making grants for drug research but that this week's omnibus spending bill in Congress threatens to cut that funding.

The Senate had $189 million for the biomedical research agency for next year; the new omnibus bill cut the amount to $103 million. Burr said the cut would reduce the amount of grants the agency could award for research.

"It means we've got to pick and choose potential threat areas," Burr said.

The biomedical research authority also might be close to hiring its first director, Vanderwagen told Burr during the tour.

Lt. governor debates set

Debates are set for the Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor.

The N.C. Federation of College Democrats has organized six debates across the state and invited all four primary candidates.

Canton Mayor Pat Smathers and Winston-Salem City Council member Dan Besse have committed to the schedule. Raleigh lawyer Hampton Dellinger has said he wants to debate, while state Sen. Walter Dalton is not expected to attend.

The debates will be held Jan. 19 at UNC-Asheville, Jan. 24 at Fayetteville State University, Feb. 7 at Salem College in Winston-Salem, Feb. 21 at a college in Raleigh, March 1 at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte and March 20 at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington.

A wish comes true

U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx got her Christmas (tree) wish.

In addition to passing the mega-spending plan for the United States for the coming year, the U.S. House of Representatives also voted Monday on a resolution by the Banner Elk Republican honoring Christmas trees.

The resolution pays tribute to the economic and cultural contributions of the Christmas tree industry, said Foxx, who said she is a former Christmas tree farmer.

North Carolina is the country's No. 2 tree-growing state.

Hunt wasn't there

Jim Hunt was not at a Bill Clinton fundraiser Monday night.

In an article Tuesday, Dome noted that a Raleigh woman said she met Hunt while inside a fundraiser for U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign at the Brier Creek Country Club.

The media were not allowed inside, and the woman was mistaken, our colleague Michael Biesecker writes.

Howie Devane, an assistant to the former governor, said Hunt was actually on his way to an engagement in Pinehurst when he was reported to have been in Raleigh.

But, he added, it would be useful if Hunt had the ability to be in two places at once.

"He was nowhere near the Clinton event," Devane said. "But if y'all find out who it was, please let me know. We could use a good impersonator, with all the competing requests we get for speaking engagements."