WASHINGTON -The NBA's steroids policy was branded pathetic and a joke by lawmakers yesterday, and the head of a congressional panel said he will propose a law creating drug-testing standards for the four major professional sports leagues.
House Government Reform Committee chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., opened the hearing by focusing on the NBA and saying he'll produce a uniform testing bill next week. Davis promised the legislation he's drafting with ranking Democrat Henry Waxman of California and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will have more teeth than other bills introduced.
Davis didn't go into specifics, but Waxman said their legislation would follow the Olympic model and would call for a two-year ban for a first offense and a lifetime ban for a second offense.
Those mirror the penalties in the Drug Free Sports Act, introduced last month by Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., chairman of a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee conducting a separate inquiry into steroid use.
Testifying before that panel yesterday, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said Stearns' bill is not appropriate to be enacted in its present form. ... At least as it applies to the NFL
we feel that it is unnecessary.
At the same time, in a nearby hearing room, Davis' committee was directing the sort of criticism at NBA commissioner David Stern and union leader Billy Hunter that it heaped on Major League Baseball officials in a March 17 hearing.
Since then, though, commissioner Bud Selig has proposed toughening baseball's drug policy, including punishing first-time offenders with 50-game suspensions instead of 10-day bans, issuing lifetime suspensions for a third offense, and banning amphetamines.
Our investigation already has spawned results evidenced most profoundly by Major League Baseball's abrupt about-face on the need for more stringent testing Davis said.
He said the bill he'll propose would cover baseball, the NBA, the NFL and the NHL.
Washington Wizards guard Juan Dixon and Houston Rockets trainer Keith Jones also testified Thursday, and both said they didn't know of any steroid use in the NBA.
Certainly
the NBA is not suffering under the same cloud of steroid-use suspicion that has been hovering over other professional sports
Davis said.
But, he continued, How do we know for sure there's no steroid problem in the NBA if its testing policies are so weak?
Waxman called the NBA's policy simply inadequate. Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., called it a joke. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said the NBA's policy is weaker than the NFL or MLB's. And Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., said: It is
in my opinion
rather pathetic.
Stern repeated what he told Stearns' subcommittee Wednesday: He has told Hunter that he wants to add more in-season tests, double the penalty for a first offense to 10 games and kick players out of the league for a third positive test.
The union supports some changes
Hunter said.
That didn't draw much enthusiasm from lawmakers, with Mark Souder, R-Ind., telling Stern: It's a little too little
and it's a little too late.
Stern and Hunter said the issue will be addressed in negotiations to replace their collective bargaining agreement, which expires June 30. The league broke off talks Wednesday, and Stern painted a bleak picture Thursday.
I'm not confident
because we're confounded as to how we can make a deal at this point
he said after testifying. I'm concerned that there will be a lockout.
During the hearing, Lynch pointed out that the NBA's current program calls for in-season testing of veteran players only if there is reasonable cause. Noting that one of the effects of steroid use is violent behavior, the congressman asked Hunter whether the melee involving players and fans at a game in November between the Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons constituted such cause.
That led to the most contentious exchange of the day, with Hunter calling Lynch's question a quantum leap.
I'm not saying it was caused by steroid use. I'm saying you don't know
