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Clean Air Act. First passed 1970, the must be reauthorized this year, and Senators of both parties from northern industrial states are lining up behind Democrat Gary Hart of Colorado to fight for tougher restrictions on sulfur emissions, in order to reduce acid rain. The Administration will probably attempt to ease many of the bill's existing restrictions as part of its campaign against Government regulations which could lead to a pitched battle with Hart and his allies.
Voting Rights Act. The key provisions of this 1965 statute, which bars the use of literacy tests and other schemes that once blocked racial minorities from registering and voting, do not expire until 1982. Nonetheless, both supporters and opponents are already preparing for battle on whether the law should be extended. Republican Strom Thurmond of South Carolina is leading the opposition. He is counting on White House support, but Reagan has not yet decided what stand, if any, to take on the renewal of the law. The legislative fight promises to be a bruising one, since blacks, Hispanics and their supporters are already charging that a failure to extend the law would undo much civil rights progress of the past 15 years.
With political minefields like these littering Capitol Hill, it is not surprising that Reagan has requested a hold on legislation involving the emotional social issues that interest his conservative backers. Yet that tactical decision members might just be swept aside— and by members of his own party in Congress unable or unwilling to wait. Indeed, Reagan may discover in the coming months that his efforts to reach a consensus in Congress on a variety of issues may be scuttled not so much by recalcitrant Democrats as by conservative idealogues on his own side of the aisle.
While the President continued his remarkable recovery, another victim of the assassination attempt suffered a setback. White House Press Secretary James Brady, who had been recuperating smoothly from a bullet wound in the head, suddenly turned groggy last week; doctors discovered that a buildup of air was pressuring his damaged brain. Dr. Arthur Kobrine first drained the air and then, in an operation that lasted 5½ hours, found the source of the leak—a hole in the membrane covering the brain near the sinuses—and patched it with muscle tissue from Brady's temple. By week's end Brady was alert and talking again, though Dr. Dennis O'Leary, spokesman for George Washington University Hospital, cautioned that it would be several days before doctors could judge if the operation had been a success. His employer, however, was confident. Asked if he was going to keep the press secretary's job open for Brady, Reagan replied with a smile: "Oh, you bet."
—By James Kelly. Reported by Johanna McGeary/Washington