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WASHINGTON (AP) Documents indicate eight congressional leaders were briefed about the Bush administration’s terrorist surveillance program on the eve of its expiration in 2004, contradicting sworn Senate testimony this week by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The documents underscore questions about Gonzales’ credibility as senators consider whether a perjury investigation should be opened into conflicting accounts about the program and a dramatic March 2004 confrontation leading up to its potentially illegal reauthorization.

A Gonzales spokesman maintained Wednesday that the attorney general stands by his testimony.

At a heated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, Gonzales repeatedly testified that the issue at hand was not about the terrorist surveillance program, which allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on suspects in the United States without receiving court approval.

Instead, Gonzales said, the emergency meetings on March 10, 2004, focused on an intelligence program that he would not describe.

Gonzales, who was then serving as counsel to Bush, testified that the White House Situation Room briefing sought to inform congressional leaders about the pending expiration of the unidentified program and Justice Department objections to renew it. Those objections were led by then-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey, who questioned the program’s legality.

“The dissent related to other intelligence activities,” Gonzales testified at Tuesday’s hearing. “The dissent was not about the terrorist surveillance program.”

“Not the TSP?” responded Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. “Come on. If you say it’s about other, that implies not. Now say it or not.”

“It was not,” Gonzales answered. “It was about other intelligence activities.”

A four-page memo from the national intelligence director’s office says the White House briefing with the eight lawmakers on March 10, 2004, was about the terror surveillance program, or TSP.

The memo, dated May 17, 2006, and addressed to then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert, details “the classification of the dates, locations, and names of members of Congress who attended briefings on the Terrorist Surveillance Program,” wrote then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte.

It shows that the briefing in March 2004 was attended by the Republican and Democratic House and Senate leaders and leading members of both chambers’ intelligence committees, as Gonzales testified.

Schumer called the memo evidence that Gonzales was not truthful in his testimony.

“It seemed clear to just about everyone on the committee that the attorney general was deceiving us when he said the dissent was about other intelligence activities and this memo is even more evidence that helps confirm our suspicions,” Schumer said.

Bush acknowledged the existence of the classified surveillance program in December 2005 after it was revealed by The New York Times. In January, it was put under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for judicial review before any wiretaps were to be approved.

Asked for comment on the documents Wednesday evening, Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Gonzales “stands by his testimony.”

“The disagreement referenced by Jim Comey in March 2004 was not about the particular intelligence activity that has been publicly described by the president,” Roehrkasse said. “It was about other highly classified intelligence activities that have been briefed to the intelligence committees.”

The disagreement over whether to renew the program led to a dramatic, and highly controversial, confrontation between Gonzales and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft on the night of March 10, 2004.

After briefing the congressional leaders, Gonzales testified that he and then-White House chief of staff Andy Card headed to a Washington hospital room, where a sedated Ashcroft was recovering from surgery. Ashcroft had already turned over his powers as attorney general to Comey.

Comey was in the hospital room as well, and recounted to senators in his own sworn testimony in May that he “thought I just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me.”

Ultimately, Ashcroft sided with Comey, and Gonzales and Card left the hospital after a five- to six-minute conversation.

Gonzales denied that he and Card tried to pressure Ashcroft into approving the program over Comey’s objections.

“We never had any intent to ask anything of him if we did not feel that he was competent,” Gonzales told the Senate panel Tuesday. “At the end of his description of the legal issues, he said, ‘I’m not making this decision. The deputy attorney general is.’ And so Andy Card and I thanked him. We told him that we would continue working with the deputy attorney general and we left.”

Democrats and Republicans alike expressed disbelief at Gonzales’ version of events.

“There’s a discrepancy here in sworn testimony,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said after listening to Gonzales, raising the possibility of a perjury inquiry. “We’re going to have to ask who’s telling the truth, who’s not.”

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, top Republican on the panel, also disregarded Gonzales’ description. “I do not find your testimony credible, candidly,” he told the attorney general.

House and Senate lawmakers who attended the Situation Room briefing are divided on the accuracy of Gonzales’ account of that meeting, which he said concluded by a “consensus in the room from the congressional leadership is that we should continue the activities, at least for now, despite the objections of Mr. Comey.”

Three Democrats Д House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller and former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle Д dispute Gonzales’ testimony. Rockefeller called it “untruthful,” and Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said the speaker disagreed that it should be continued without Justice Department or FISA court oversight.

On the other hand, former GOP House Intelligence Chairman Porter Goss, “does not recall anyone saying the project must be ended,’ spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise Dyck said. And former Senate Republican leader Bill Frist stopped short of confirming or denying the meeting’s outcome.

“I recall being briefed with the others about the program and it was stated that Gonzales would visit with Ashcroft in the hospital and that our meeting was part of the administration’s responsibility to discuss with the leadership of Congress,’ Frist said in a statement.

Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, is an avid hunter who voted to repeal a ban on assault weapons in the 1990s. A devoted outdoorsman, he led a fight in 2004 to overturn a ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park. Each time, he aroused the ire of some in his own party.

He even plays guitar in a rock band full of Republicans.

Today, Peterson will join forces with rural state lawmakers from both parties as he pushes a controversial $286 billion farm bill. Once again, it’s a fight along philosophical and regional lines that has little to do with party affiliation.

The bill, which provides spending for farm subsidies and other programs over five years, has been blasted by the Bush administration and Democrats such as Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin as a boondoggle that funnels money to millionaires while hurting small farmers, the environment and taxpayers.

To the critics, such as Ken Cook of the non-partisan Environmental Working Group, Peterson is the affable face of the status quo, a longtime friend of agribusiness who never met a farm subsidy he didn’t like. He turned aside proposals by President Bush to cap subsidies and shift the money into areas such as renewable fuels. Instead, he crafted a bill that largely preserves the crop supports already in place: a system that hands out the bulk of the benefits to the richest farms.

Peterson, an eighth-term former accountant who flies his own plane around his vast northern Minnesota district, says he achieved what changes were politically possible, including barring payments to farmers who earn more than $1 million a year.

“We have done something that people thought could never be done,” he said, sitting in his office in front of a placard that reads “No Farms, No Food.” When pressed, though, he acknowledges that he never supported payment caps.

“Some people want to make everything about the rich and the poor,” he said. “They do it on taxes, whatever Ц it’s kind of a phony argument, but a lot of people have bought into it, and it’s what I have to deal with. That’s politics. Some of my constituents will lose their benefits.”

The Agriculture Department says 7,000 people nationwide will be effected by the $1 million income cap. In Peterson’s district, which includes sugar beets, wheat and poultry, 58% of the $2.8 billion paid out in crop subsidies from 1995 to 2005 went to 10% of recipients, according to the Environmental Working Group, which tracks farm spending. The chairman says he has no problem with that. “Ten percent of the farmers produce 90% of the food,” he says.

Peterson, who has not had a serious re-election race since 1996, has taken in hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from agriculture interests in recent years. Of $938,128 that he raised in 2005 and 2006, $388,186 came from agribusiness, the vast majority from outside his district, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which counts campaign contributions. He has raised $359,962 through June, and 43% Д $153,667 Д came from farmers or agribusiness interests, records show.

“People give you money based on what committees you are on I guess,” Peterson said. “But I haven’t made a single [fundraising] call.” He says he supports full public financing of campaigns.

As he fends off brickbats, Peterson holds an ace: He won early support for his bill from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who in 2002, supported far-reaching cutbacks to farm subsidies. The two bonded when Pelosi visited his sprawling district last summer, he said.

“She, I think, trusts me that I know what I’m doing,” he said. “She’s a practical politician like I am.”

Contributing: William Risser

CONCORD, N.H. —Gay couples in New Hampshire will be able to join in starting next year under a bill Gov. signed into law Thursday.

“We in New Hampshire have had a long and proud tradition taking the lead and opposing discrimination,” Lynch said. “Today that tradition continues.”

Couples who enter civil unions will have the same rights, responsibilities and obligations as married couples. Same-sex unions from other states also would be recognized if they were legal in the state where they were performed.

Legislators who gathered for the bill signing packed the governor’s chambers and overflowed into an adjoining sitting room. They snapped photos and burst into applause as he signed it.

“I’ve listened and I’ve heard all the arguments,” said Lynch, a Democrat. “I do not believe that this bill threatens marriage. I believe that this is a matter of conscience and fairness.”

Episcopal Bishop also attended the bill signing. He and his longtime partner plan to take advantage of civil unions.

Massachusetts alone among the U.S. states allows gay marriage. Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, Maine, California and Washington allow either civil unions or domestic partnerships, and Oregon will join the list with New Hampshire in January. Hawaii extends certain spousal rights to same-sex couples and cohabiting heterosexual pairs.

New Hampshire is the first state to embrace same-sex unions without a court order or the threat of one. Connecticut adopted civil unions two years ago while a lawsuit was pending.

The bill’s success was a turnabout from two years ago, when a study panel recommended against any meaningful consideration of civil unions and endorsed a constitutional amendment to limit marriage to unions between a man and a woman.

But Democrats won control of the Legislature last fall for the first time in more than a century. Civil unions passed both Houses largely along party lines, and Lynch promised to sign it.

Australia has taken a step towards setting up a greenhouse emissions trading scheme, after the state and territory environment ministers agreed to a plan for mandatory reporting.

The deal will see companies emitting more than 25,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases each year having to disclose those emissions from July 1 next year.

Environment ministers have met in Cairns today, where they have considered the plan put forward by Victorian Minister John Thwaites.

Mr Thwaites says a trial has been successful in Victoria and after agreement from the other environment ministers, it will go national next year.

He says the states have had to act because the Commonwealth has failed to do so.

“The Howard Government has spent the last 10 years delaying real action on climate change,” he said.

“They have still not come up with a proper system of reporting for emissions from major industry and so the states have stepped in and required a reporting of emissions from the 1st of July next year.”

He says the decision is very important.

“Unless you can monitor and report on greenhouse gases, you’re not going to start reducing greenhouse gases, tackling climate change,” he said.

“This is the first national step to ensuring that we report on greenhouse gas emissions and start reducing them.”

Mr Thwaites says he expects industry to respond well to the National Pollution Inventory, after the pilot scheme worked in Victoria.

“It was the lowest-cost way of reporting on greenhouse gases, so over time I’m sure that industry will see the benefits of this,” he said.

“Of course, in the short term, there will always be those who don’t agree with requirements that lead to reporting of greenhouse gases but the time for delaying has passed, the time for action is now with us.”

(AP)Documents indicate eight congressional leaders were briefed about the Bush administration’s terrorist surveillance program on the eve of its expiration in 2004, contradicting sworn Senate testimony this week by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The documents, obtained by The Associated Press, come as senators consider whether a perjury investigation should be opened into conflicting accounts about the program and a dramatic March 2004 confrontation leading up to its potentially illegal reauthorization.

A Gonzales spokesman maintained Wednesday that the attorney general stands by his testimony.

At a heated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, Gonzales repeatedly testified that the issue at hand was not about the terrorist surveillance program, which allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on suspects in the United States without receiving court approval.

Instead, Gonzales said, the emergency meetings on March 10, 2004, focused on an intelligence program that he would not describe.

Gonzales, who was then serving as counsel to Bush, testified that the White House Situation Room briefing sought to inform congressional leaders about the pending expiration of the unidentified program and Justice Department objections to renew it. Those objections were led by then-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey, who questioned the program’s legality.

“The dissent related to other intelligence activities,” Gonzales testified at Tuesday’s hearing. “The dissent was not about the terrorist surveillance program.”

“Not the TSP?” responded Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. “Come on. If you say it’s about other, that implies not. Now say it or not.”

“It was not,” Gonzales answered. “It was about other intelligence activities.”

A four-page memo from the national intelligence director’s office shows that the White House briefing with the eight lawmakers on March 10, 2004, was about the terror surveillance program, or TSP.

The memo, dated May 17, 2006, and addressed to then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert, details “the classification of the dates, locations, and names of members of Congress who attended briefings on the Terrorist Surveillance Program,” wrote then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte.

It shows that the briefing in March 2004 was attended by the Republican and Democratic House and Senate leaders and leading members of both chambers’ intelligence committees, as Gonzales testified.

Bush acknowledged the existence of the classified surveillance program in December 2005 after it was revealed by The New York Times. In January, it was put under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for judicial review before any wiretaps were to be approved.

Asked for comment on the documents Wednesday evening, Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Gonzales “stands by his testimony.”

“The disagreement referenced by Jim Comey in March 2004 was not about the particular intelligence activity that has been publicly described by the president,” Roehrkasse said. “It was about other highly classified intelligence activities that have been briefed to the intelligence committees.”

The disagreement over whether to renew the program led to a dramatic, and highly controversial, confrontation between Gonzales and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft on the night of March 10, 2004.

After briefing the congressional leaders, Gonzales testified that he and then-White House chief of staff Andy Card headed to a Washington hospital room, where a sedated Ashcroft was recovering from surgery. Ashcroft had already turned over his powers as attorney general to Comey.

Comey was in the hospital room as well, and recounted to senators in his own sworn testimony in May that he “thought I just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me.”

Ultimately, Ashcroft sided with Comey, and Gonzales and Card left the hospital after a five- to six-minute conversation.

Gonzales denied that he and Card tried to pressure Ashcroft into approving the program over Comey’s objections.

“We never had any intent to ask anything of him if we did not feel that he was competent,” Gonzales told the Senate panel Tuesday. “At the end of his description of the legal issues, he said, ‘I’m not making this decision. The deputy attorney general is.’ And so Andy Card and I thanked him. We told him that we would continue working with the deputy attorney general and we left.”

Democrats and Republicans alike expressed disbelief at Gonzales’ version of events.