To all, the Shafer family sends every best wish for a joyous Holiday Season and happy and prosperous New Year!

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State Senators serve two year terms (as opposed to six year terms for United States Senators), and I will be on the ballot again next year in 2008.
We had a fundraising reception in Duluth yesterday evening for my campaign. I am grateful to Governor Sonny Perdue, Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle and the many members of the host committee for their participatin in this event. Special thanks to my good friend John Fretti, the Mayor of Valdosta, who traveled the longest distance to be there in support of my campaign.

I have no announced opposition yet in either the Republican Primary or General Election but will keep you posted.

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My wife has had trouble making up her mind about who to support for President.  About two weeks ago, after watching her third or fourth Presidential debate, she advised me that she had settled on Mike Huckabee.  She was impressed, among other things, with how he is able to communicate his conservatism in an optimistic and ”nonjudgmental” tone.

Today I told her that, as President of the Arkansas Baptist Convention, Huckabee had signed a letter stating that women should graciously submit to the authority of their husbands.  She paused a moment and then informed me that if I thought that would cause her to abandon the candidacy of Mike Huckabee, I was sorely mistaken.  I told her, no, that I was simply suggesting that she should follow his advice and graciously submit to her husband’s endorsement of Fred Thompson.  That did not work either.

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I was surprised last night to be honored by the Gwinnett County Republican Party with its Reagan Roundtable Award.  Chairman Greg Howard presented me with a plaque at the party’s annual Holiday dinner.  He said that I had been chosen by County Executive Committee because my legislative service reflected the “spirt of Ronald Reagan.”

I am grateful for the recognition. 

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I spent yesterday morning visiting with Dr. Matthew Schure, President of the Philadephia College of Osteopathic Medicine, at the school’s 2 year old campus in Gwinnett County.  Although new to Georgia, the 108 year old medical school is older than Emory, Mercer or Morehouse.

Georgia ranks 40th in the number of doctors per capita, and particularly in rural areas, is confronted with serious doctor shortages.  PMOC is playing an important role in facing this challenge.  Its new campus in Suwanee, by design, draws over half of its students from Georgia and almost 90% from the southeast.  It will graduate its first class in 2009.

However, most doctors settle not where they graduate medical school but where they complete their post-graduate residency programs.  That means that we must expand residency training opportunities in Georgia.

One of the major challenges is that federal regulations discourage the expansion of existing residency programs.  Therefore, hospitals which wish to begin residency programs must start with a as large of a program as they can envision (the so-called “big bang”).  They must be willing to accept two or three years of large, unreimbursed expenses before the federal funds that pay for most residency programs begin to flow.

I have developed some ideas of my own on how to deal with this problem.  You will hear more from me as I work through the details. 

After the meeting, I joined President Schure and his top administrative staff in serving a Holiday dinner to the faculty and students of the College.

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Today I co-chaired a hearing on global warming at the State Capitol.  The idea for the hearing originated with Senator Ross Tolleson, who chairs the Senate Natural Resources and Environment Committee.  He asked me to join him because I am the chairman of the Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee, which deals with energy issues.

As I said at the hearing, glaciers once covered most of North America.  They have steadily receded over the last several thousand years as the world has grown warmer, and most of that warming has had nothing to do with human activity.  In fact, it is pretty clear that the temperature of the sun, which rises and falls in cycles, is the driving natural phenomenon.

As to whether human activity has accelerated the warming in the last hundred years, it seems logical that we have had some impact.  The controversy arises in determining the extent of that impact and what should be done about it.

Senator Tolleson arranged for us to hear from two witnesses.  Martin Rickerd, the British consul general, discussed his country’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including incentives and penalties on energy-intensive businesses and on automobile owners.  Dr. Harold Brown, professor emeritus from the University of Georgia, urged caution, saying that the human impact on climate is difficult to ascertain.  He also pointed out that climate experts were predicting a new Ice Age as late as the 1970s and demanding government action to “warm up” the planet.

More hearings are planned.  Global warming was an issue at the National Conference of State Legislatures meeting in Boston last summer.

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