DATELINES

...That increase was to cover costs of operating the utility's Byron I nuclear-power plant...

...Congress worked on the proposal to meet various objections, Republican Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon attached the Peace Institute legislation to the Pentagon's $274 billion funding authorization, and the Institute slipped into being...

...To rally support, they point to a U.S...

...We don't have that much opportunity.' " —Patty Somlo (Patty Somlo is an associate editor of Pacific News Service...

...We educate our members to respect other languages," he says...

...The chairman is John Norton Moore, a law professor at the University of Virginia who has also chaired an advisory group on oceans policy of the Republican National Committee...

...Further reductions are scheduled for 1988...

...One look at the Reagan-appointed board, which was filled after months of dawdling by the Administration, tells why...

...Allen Weinstein, professor at Georgetown University and editor of The Washington Quarterly...

...Stewart also cites deregu-latory problems...

...Many plan to try the strategy in their own communities to press for Pentagon transfers to fund human-needs programs...

...Many are people who used to see little opportunity and few options for themselves but now feel empowered...

...It's a great local handle for the peace movement," says Fox...

...And I guess that's a legitimate concern...

...Back in the days when Congress was debating whether to create the Institute, conservatives worried that it would become a stronghold for leftist causes...

...Amy Simmons (Amy Simmons is a free-lance writer in Washington...

...They have been allies of CUB in the past, especially Hartigan...

...Sensitivity to cultural differences is at the heart of Local 2's program and success, according to its vice president, Rafael Espinoza, thirty-six, who immigrated from El Salvador about twenty years ago...

...in 1987, only $1.5 billion is proposed...

...And that includes legal challenges to Edison worth $2 billion to consumers...

...As commercial lenders increasingly shy away from farm loans, credit becomes even tighter...

...With a vague mandate to "promote international peace," the Institute board—on this morning, a homogeneous group of white men—turned its attention to the business of dispensing grants...

...No pacifist or religious groups are on the receiving end of the Institute's largess...

...Farmers Plow Up Pentagon's Budget DES MOINES, IOWA To turn swords into plowshares is the dream of a coalition of farmers, community activists, and religious leaders in Iowa...

...Others are more critical...

...Activists have focused on this Republican lawmaker, hoping he will sponsor the bill authorizing the funding transfer...

...The agreement turns operation of nuclear plants over to a subsidiary to be regulated not by the ICC but by the Federal Government, which she says is much more lenient than the state...

...They were gathered to announce the results of negotiations between their representatives and Commonwealth Edison, the local electric utility...

...He became a shop steward last year after taking the Local 2 training course in Spanish and is now an active member of the Core Committee, which makes decisions for all union employees in the thirty-six largest hotels...

...Hartigan press secretary Jeanne Marie Schultz says Edison approached her boss last November with a draft of the current plan, which was agreed to in principle pending the reaction of consumer groups...

...The back-of-the-house workers know, 'This is it...

...Before Local 2 began negotiating with the city's large and small hotels, more than 4,000 members signed "solidarity pledges...

...Thompson praised Edison for making "extraordinary concessions": a five-year freeze of electric rates after an initial increase in 1987...

...The Institute is stillborn," laments Max Miller, legislative aide to U.S...

...The Foreign Policy Institute in Philadelphia got $58,704 to study "nonofficial peace movements in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe"—a topic that the Institute lists as a top priority...

...Some observers are hopeful that future board appointees, to be announced later this year, will be more "varied" in their backgrounds...

...They want to transfer $581 million from the Pentagon's budget to Iowa's Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) loan program, and they see it as the last chance for scores of the state's farmers...

...Their ideas began to change when the owners didn't want to give them the same contract, but wanted to take away what they already had...

...Evron Kirkpatrick, author of several books, including Target: The World Communist Propaganda Activities, and husband of Jeane Kirkpatrick...

...Espinoza believes the solidarity pledges were key...

...it has a lot of potential...

...Local 2 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, the largest private-industry union in the city, is predominantly made up of immigrants and members of minority groups...

...His colleagues on the board include: ¶ Dennis Bark, associate director of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace...

...Such a funding transfer might have far-reaching effects, Espey thinks...

...The workers in the front of the house depend on tips and speak English," says Espinoza...

...Rates will not be raised or lowered after the initial increase (a record 14 per cent), she explains...

...So were Illinois Attorney General Neil Hartigan and State's Attorney Richard Daley of Cook County...

...Since the first convening a year ago, in fact, Perle, who serves ex-officio on the board of this independent Government agency, has missed most of the meetings...

...Besides the busy Perle, who represents his busier boss, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, there are Max Kampelman, the President's arms-control negotiator, sitting in for Secretary of State George Shultz, General Richard Lawrence of the National Defense University, and Kenneth Adelman of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency...

...It made them think that we were trying to pull a fast one," says Thompson spokesman Jim Prescott...

...All they wanted to do was pay their dues and have the same contract...

...Thousands of Iowa farms have failed in the past two years, and at least twenty banks have gone under...

...The governor and attorney general claim they never intended to circumvent consumer groups...

...I can't think of another time, except now, when we haven't been on the same side of an issue...

...The pending lawsuit, which CUB won at the circuit-court level, calls for repeal of an earlier Edison rate hike and refunding of $400 million collected under it...

...Hawks Nest on Peace Board WASHINGTON, D.C...

...General Accounting Office investigation that discovered almost $61 billion in unobligated funds within the Pentagon's budget...

...The forums have been successful, Espey says, and Senator Charles Grassley has been getting the message...

...ICCI and other groups such as the National Training and Information Center (NTIC) in Chicago are pushing their proposal for a funding transfer at the grass-roots level...

...he has worked at the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National War College, and he is co-author of The Front Is Everywhere and editor of Safeguard: Why the ABM Makes Sense...

...The largest grant, $91,400, went to the James Madison Foundation in Washington for "reconsidering basic religious and ethical questions regarding war and peace...

...Representative Ron Dellums...

...In 1985, FmHA loans totaled $3.14 billion nationwide...

...But Edison could petition the ICC for a rate boost in several circumstances, including acts of God, major economic disruptions, or other factors that create a financial emergency that "threatens Edison's ability to maintain a high quality of service...

...At a recent NTIC organizers' conference in Des Plaines, Illinois, activists representing urban constituencies came to learn about the campaign...

...he served in President Reagan's 1980 campaign on the "task force on Western Europe...

...Consumers Out in the Cold CHICAGO Illinois Governor Jim Thompson was all smiles at the press conference...

...They realized that everyone had made a pledge to each other...

...The game plan," she says, was for Edison "to line up the support of the political leaders, build enthusiasm by billing it as a rate freeze, and then force it on us...

...Peace Institute gathered on the morning of January 15 for its ninth meeting, Richard Perle, noted peacemaker and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, was not present...

...Workers delivered these pledges to hotel owners and managers...

...William Kinner, former ambassador to Thailand and president of the Foreign Policy Research Institute...

...Most have the possibility of getting different jobs...

...We show workers that we respect them by making sure they understand the union program...

...People felt they were making a commitment to each other, not to the union," he says...

...Even if CUB had been included all along, it would never have agreed to the final product, says Stewart...

...Bruce Weinrod, director of foreign policy and defense studies at the Heritage Foundation...

...Thompson and Hartigan were more or less duped into this, Stewart says...

...But the work goes on without him...

...But one San Francisco union, adopting a back-to-basics strategy, managed to get fair contracts with wage-and-ben-efit packages reminiscent of better times...

...Eighteen have been awarded so far, for a total of $576,304...

...ICCI has sponsored a series of forums on farm credit in small towns throughout Iowa...

...Not smiling—not even present—were officials of the 175,000-member Citizens Utility Board, a consumer watchdog group created by statute in 1983...

...When Sanchez first began encouraging fellow workers to get involved with the union, he met resistance...

...The critics needn't have worried...

...Blackmail" and "steam-rolling" are what CUB executive director Susan Stewart calls the deal...

...We hold meetings in different languages...

...Local 2's strongest supporters come from the "back of the house"—workers, like Sanchez, who are the lowest paid, do the least rewarding jobs, and are predominantly non-English-speaking immigrants...

...As a consequence, many farmers are unable to borrow the money they need for spring planting...

...In Iowa alone, the direct-loan program has been cut from $404 million in 1985 to $126 million for 1987...

...At the same time, the FmHA—farmers' last resort for credit—has seen its lending authority slashed by the Reagan Administration...

...Alejandro Sanchez is a dishwasher at one of the city's luxury hotels...

...We're excited about it...

...Marshall Helmberger (Marshall Helmberger writes regularly for the Echo in Ely, Minnesota, and for other publications...

...It was a deal that was arranged in the back room between Edison and the governor and the attorney general...

...they also held rallies, engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience, and went to the bargaining tables with union officials...

...In the event of a strike at a hotel other than the one where the signer works, the pledges promised support in the form of $5 or four hours' work per week...

...ICC approval of the plan has been delayed while discussion with CUB progresses...

...one of the newest is a Filipino field representative hired to communicate with a growing group of Ta-galog-speaking members...

...That allowed us to raise the possibility of a strike...

...Meetings, union literature, shop-steward training courses, and some of the press conferences are held in English, Spanish, and both Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese...

...These optimists include Robert Con-Ian, executive director of the National Peace Institute Foundation, a citizens' support group for the Institute...

...But Conlan also says the grants awarded by current board members prove "they have no political ax to grind" and "in fact, they're bending over backward...

...People working on the local level can now have an impact in reorienting the country's priorities...

...Union staff members speak a variety of languages...

...In his native El Salvador, he worked in a nonunion factory and earned less than the minimum wage...

...Then someone leaked everything to the press...

...We pretty much heard about it at the same time everyone else did," says CUB president Howard Learner...

...On the other hand, about the only condition that would warrant consumer petitioning for a rate reduction is a change in the tax laws creating a windfall for Edison...

...They were caught off guard...

...CUB is also seeking to block construction of another plant, the need for which has already been questioned by the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC...

...The union strategy has been to pick out leaders within the various ethnic groups and train them as organizers...

...CUB wasn't invited...

...In October 1984, retired Army Major General William A. Patch circulated a letter warning that the Institute "stands as a new weapon in the freezeniks' tactical arsenal...

...Many people said that the union was bad," he recalls...

...If the agreement goes down the drain, though, the old rate-basing system will be reinstated, and Edison will seek a 28 per cent rate increase...

...When the board of directors of the U.S...

...Most family operations are in their final harvest, according to Hugh Espey of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (ICCI...

...It didn't receive an invitation to any of the negotiations, either—despite the fact that the new agreement says CUB will drop its lawsuit against Edison pending before the Illinois Supreme Court...

...Mike Ervin (Mike Ervin is a free-lance writer in Chicago...

...Four Government officials also serve ex-officio...

...Grassley has acknowledged the existence of the unobligated Pentagon funds and said the objectives of the ICCI and NTIC parallel his own...

...We give farmers a choice: Save your farm and all that you've worked for, or protect the Pentagon slush fund," says NTIC organizer Tom Fox...

...Why keep a cadaver there when it's not doing anything...

...It comes down to fairness, and even farmers who have been Republican and pro-military all their lives are siding with us...

...The agreement is one-sided and its many loopholes make it no rate freeze at all, she adds...