In a roundtable setting, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton answered a host of questions from Long Island reporters representing weekly newspapers for well over an hour last week. Jokingly, she began by saying that any and all questions could be posed even "the downgraded status of Pluto in our solar system."

And so it was that she spoke with vigor on international issues ranging from Iraq to North Korea circling back to local issues of escalating property taxes, lack of affordable housing and the proposed Broadwater project.

She had just come from a joint meeting with Eliot Spitzer and some Long Island constituents. Barring some unimaginable monkey wrench thrown into Spitzer's smooth running machine that is on a straight path to the governor's mansion, she is very optimistic about the possibilities for a strengthened bond between a Democratic statehouse and the U.S. Congress. Senator Clinton envisions that the compatibility of goals, coupled with the mutual respect that exists between the two reformers, will pay off for New Yorkers big time. She is also hopeful that there will be a shift in the balance of power in Washington if more Democrats are elected to Congress potentially paving the way for reforms.

Senator Clinton thinks that the two most inexorably intertwined morasses from which almost all other national problems teeter, are the gaping abyss, better known as the federal deficit, and our reliance on fossil fuels and the foreign powers from which they flow. She said that our borrowing at a rate of $90 billion a month has weakened our international position saying, "How can we get tough with our bankers?" She added, "It is the worst of both worlds...we are creating a huge burden for our children."

While Senator Clinton supports the development of more efficient technologies for alternative sources of energy such as biofuels, wind farms, geothermal and clean coal fuels, she has been adamant in her opposition to the Broadwater project, a floating natural gas barge, approximately the size of the Queen Mary II, that is proposed for Long Island Sound. The Coast Guard recently submitted a long awaited assessment of the safety and security requirements that would be necessary to ensure that the project would not result in an environmental liability. Senator Clinton said, "The Coast Guard report confirms what we have been saying all along - that there are significant concerns associated with the project...It is just wrong for the Sound."

The fight to make this country more energy independent goes beyond the obvious according to the senator because "petrol dollars are fueling and funding terrorism." She says, "Imported oil accounts for about one-third of our trade deficit, with much of that money going to regimes we would never choose to subsidize."

Championing a positive approach, Senator Clinton calls for the creation of a "strategic energy fund" that would be funded with oil company windfall profits to provide incentives for consumers and companies who want to invest in alternative energy sources. In lieu of paying into the fund, companies that invest in alternative technologies on their own would be exempt from paying.

"It's going to be an uphill struggle and will also require more conservation, but we can do it," she adds.

Senator Clinton appears dismayed that the Bush administration continues to try the same strategies over and over again even when they show no good results. She says flatly, "George Bush has been surprisingly stubborn." She made this point during her discussion of North Korea's recent nuclear testing and her view of the regime. "They act like a teenage gang trying to get acknowledgement, trying to get respect... They are wantonly indifferent to the suffering of their people." Senator Clinton thinks that it is a mistake not to have talks with our enemies and says that, if in charge, she would work toward sending inspectors in and put pressure on, but also would offer help with energy and critical food needs.

One of her recommendations to help stabilize Iraq along with other conditions, before deploying American troops, would be the establishment of an oil trust based on the Alaska model where each Iraqi would have a stake in oil production and would perhaps curb those who would blow up the pipelines.

As far as the senator is concerned, national mandates to the states that were not adequately funded have had a disastrous effect on local governments. She ticks off No Child Left Behind, flawed Medicare provisions that give the pharmaceuticals a blank check, cuts in Homeland Security funds to a high risk area, Metro New York, and un-enforced immigration laws as examples of how the federal government is not shouldering its responsibilities.

On the topic of affordable housing on Long Island she noted that Nassau County is very developed, but "we have a lot of brownfields (polluted land) on Long Island, and if we had the right incentives for cleaning up those brownfields, we could put up more affordable housing. We have cores of downtowns that need renovation - again, we could build more affordable housing."

Generous incentives are required because the state's Department of Environmental Conservation requires a more stringent clean-up for land that is to be used for housing than land to be used commercially.

On the barbed immigration issue, the Senator says that she favors border controls, both by better and longer fences and by "smart" technology patrols. She says that such a measure will save lives lost in attempting to cross hostile countyside. Regarding those illegal immigrants already here, she says that rather than cracking down on the people, the crackdown should be on the employers who hire them. She voted for the Guest Worker program.

No one took Senator Clinton up on Pluto's plummet from the planetary family, but after the meeting, we asked if she was aware that the Environmental Protection Agency had announced that it is closing access to the public from its main D.C. library and some regional libraries. This move has alarmed environmental risk scientists. The senator frowned and said, "I wasn't aware of that, but it is so typical of this administration to try to limit information to the public...and limit scientific investigation." She quickly called for one of her legislative assistants to exchange business cards with this reporter. That same afternoon her office was in touch with us for more information on the topic.