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Show Page A10 THE DAILY HERALD, Provo, Utah. Thursday, July 16, 1998 Congress cracking down on dishonest sales of salvaged cars By GLEN JOHNSON Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON At more than $20,000, the used Jeep Cherokee didn't come cheap. But it had a truckload of options and less than 12,000 miles on the odometer, so Warren Hill thought he was getting a fair shake when he bought the 1991 vehicle from a used car dealer in 1992. He was wrong. When Hill, an employee at the National Arboretum, went to trade in his Jeep two years later, another car dealer told him something surprising: The vehicle had previously been in a major accident. Hidden behind the white paint and beige interior were a damaged frame, body parts of unmatched colors and a $6,000 repair job riddled with missing welds. "We don't want it, it's worthless," Hill remembers the dealer saying. Experiences like this are behind a move on Capitol Hill to crack down on the sale of salvaged cars to unsuspecting buyers. Like Hill's, some were crashed and repaired. Others were damaged by floods or other natural disasters. The House approved a bill last fall to warn buyers when a car has been repaired after suffering major damage. The Senate is expected to do the same in the next few weeks, all in the name of protecting consumers. Consumer groups don't like the bill, nor do 38 state attorneys general. They accuse Congress of supporting legislation that would actually exempt most used cars from the proposed rules, a potential boon to auto dealers and insurers. "It's one of those Orwellian doublespeak kinds of bills," said Rosemary Shahan, president of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety in Sacramento, Calif. "Heaven help us from friends like this." Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said the legislation "is being sold as a bill, but this bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing." Currently, there is no national standard for reselling salvaged cars. States have an array of regulations, ranging from no rules to strict ones such as Iowa's. Used cars there must be declared "salvaged" if they had repairs costing more than 50 percent of their value before being damaged. The differing rules allow unscrupulous sellers to move from state to state, er ing damaged cars in lerjient states. The attorneys geaeral estimate the sales have cost consumers and other unsuspecting buyers $4 billion in inflated sticker prices. 4 A bill sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, would require stalUs to a put designation on the titles of vehicles that have been salvaged. Similar to the measure passed by the House, it also would require placement of a decal on the vehicles and outlaw false statements about a vehicle's history. "The number of victims in the rebuilt salvage vehicle industry is growing and it must be stopped," Lott said when he introduced his bill, which now has 47 But the measure does not apply to all vehicles. Damaged cars would have to be less than seven years old to qualify for a "salvage label." Cars older than that would need to be worth more than $7,500 to get branded. The vehicles then would have to have been declared totaled by an insurance company or undergone repairs worth more than 80 percent of their value before being damaged. Critics say those restrictions would exempt most used cars. The average car on the road is 8.5 years old, according to the Consumer Federation of America. At the same time, the 80 percent threshold would let some substantially rebuilt vehicles avoid being labeled "salvaged," say critics, who favor a 65 percent threshold. State Farm Insurance Cos., the nation's largest underwriter of automobile policies, said it supports the 80 percent figure because cars with more damage are typically declared a total loss and scrapped. It views the age limit as a way of preventing unfair labeling for older cars, since a relatively minor accident could push them over the damage threshold. Company counsel Peggy Echols said much of the opposition is based on misinformation. "This stuff is difficult to understand, and everybody gets out front with a position before they understand what the situation is and what the bill would do," Echols said. Hill, the Jeep owner, recently won a sizable judgment against the car dealer who sold him his truck, but he declined to give the specific dollar figure. The dealer is considering an appeal. "It's really unfair to the public and it's unethical," Hill said. "Had I got in an accident, there would have been a real bad China denies export allegations BEIJING (AP) China accused the Senate's top Republican on Wednesday of trying to sabotage progress in U.S. Chinese relations with allegations that China used U.S. to satellite exports enhance its military capability. Although he was not mentioned Senate by name, Trent Leader Lott was Majority clearly the target of the remarks by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Tang Guoqiang. "A few people in America, in disregarding the facts, make stories out of nothing, creating rumors and trouble. The aim is to obstruct and damage the improvement and development of China-U.S- . relations," Tang said. "Their attempts are bound to fail," Tang added. Tang was responding to Lott's renewed assertions Tuesday that the Clinton administration failed to safeguard U.S. technology when it allowed China to launch satellites. Lott says this has compromised U.S. security. "We have reiterated many times that the Chinese side would not and could not acquire American military technology in the course of supplying launching services for U.S. satellites," Tang said. Controversy over whether China got sensitive technology e satelby launching -- U.S.-bui- lt U.S.-mad- lites and whether President Clinton allowed the exports in return for campaign donations persist despite Clinton's widely praised visit to Beijing last month. In a sign of the cooperation Clinton's nine-daChina tour y furthered, high-rankin- g Chinese and U.S. military officers ended two days of talks Wednesday on avoiding conflicts at sea. Tang characterized China-U.cooperation on satellite launches as normal, commercial activity that "accords with the interests of both sides." characterized Lott, his comments as "an interim report" from a Senate inquiry into Clinton's decision to let two U.S. aerospace companies, Loral and Space Communications and Hughes Electronics Corp., export satellites for launch atop Chinese rockets. "Senate investigators have found that sensitive technology related to satellite exports has been transferred to China ... in violation of stated U.S. policy," Lott said. "China has received military benefit from U.S. satellite exports." Lott offered no specifics and his remarks drew criticism from the opposition Democrats and polite skepticism from at least one senior Republican colleague. Clinton Suicide awakens Portland toj fts drug probteri J I f them. By AMALIE YOUNG The- couple, Michael Douglas and his Mora fiancee, McGowan, were heroin addicts whose habit left them broke, tormented and hopeless. "I think I've decided on an public hanging," Douglas wrote in a journal found in the book bag slung over his shoulder. The Steel Bridge shall be my gallows. ... Mora and I go together on the Steel Bridge." The very public suicide July 1 shocked this city, at least for a moment, into the realization that many of the young people who live on the streets here are addicts and there is little help available for them. "A lot of us really took this to heart," said Donna Mulcare, a volunteer at the Oregon Associated Press Writer As PORTLAND, Ore. afternoon traffic rumbled by, a young couple in grunge clothes and combat boots climbed over the rail of the downtown Steel Bridge, slipped twin nooses from a single rope around their necks and jumped to their deaths. For nearly an hour, the bodies dangled side by side about 50 feet above the Willamette River. Cars slowed. A crowd gathered on the banks. Workers in office buildings rushed toward the windows. Amtrak passengers were warned to close their curtains as their train drew near the lower level of the bridge, where the bodies hung at eye level until police could remove ld 13-pa- Partnership's drug and alcohol K cides per 100,000 populati Douglas had once worked Helpline. Heroin is responsible for a tattoo artist and landscape more deaths in Oregon than any Ms. McGowan as an assista other drug, according to Dr. manager for a downtown beau Larry Lewman, state medical salon. They got engaged jai examiner. In 1997, there were moved in together a year anc d 221 deaths in half ago, and had been respon Oregon; of those, 161 involved ble about paying their rent mi : heroin. last August. Those who knew Dotigl In a study released this month by the Office of National said drugs were always a part Drug Control Policy, nearly 14 his life. When he andR percent of the men arrested in McGowan began using hew Portland and 27 percent of the they started pawning evei women tested positive for hero- thing they owned of any vfel in or related opiates. The rate to feed their habit. At least once, Ms. McGow; among the Portland women was the highest of all 23 major U.S. tried treatment but failed cities studied. despair, she tried suicide by Just over 1 million people ting her wrists, but her molh live in the Portland metropolirushed her to a hospflti tan area. Douglas tried to come up &n the nation's the money to buy enough hejtf has Oregon suicide rate, at 17 sui for an overdose, but he couldtt I drug-relate- 10th-highe- st c . til I fuft 1 This Friday and Saturday, July 17 and 18 1 Sale $399 Sale $249 Panasonic Panasonic stereo Reg. $399 This powerful compact model features a i! ! jfy- - - player :j Reg. $499 Features Dolby digital, surround sound system, channel ,i;r.i; separation and outputs ready for AC-- 3 decoder. 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