WASHINGTON - Fourteen years after his impeachment, former President Bill Clinton is about to get a big building named after him in Washington.
While partisan divides continued to prevent lawmakers from avoiding the "fiscal cliff" the country faces, the Senate and the House voted unanimously this week to rename the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building.
The Clinton building stands one block from the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, between the Capitol and the White House.
Clinton and Reagan are among a handful of presidents with major buildings or monuments bearing their names in the capital.
"President Clinton not only protected the environment, which saved thousands of lives, he also maintained a strong economy and created jobs," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who sponsored the measure honoring Clinton.
The unanimous votes in the two chambers of Congress came almost 14 years to the day after the House impeached Clinton on party lines, accusing him of perjury and obstruction of justice in testimony about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The Senate later acquitted him on the charges.
Republican lawmakers spent much of Clinton's presidency in the 1990s trying to hamstring the EPA by weakening the landmark laws it's charged with enforcing, the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act, and many Republicans still accuse the agency of hampering business with excessive regulations.
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