To expand communications between Washington and California, the California Institute provides periodic faxed bulletins regarding current activity on Capitol Hill which directly impacts our state. Bulletins are published weekly during sessions of Congress, and occasionally during other periods. The e-mail edition is made possible in part by a computer server donation from Sun Microsystems.
Bipartisan California Delegation Meets with Bliley, Riordan
Natural Disaster Insurance Bill
Co-Sponsors For Dellums Bill
Line-Item Veto Overrides
Senate To Hold Hearings on New U.S.-Japan Aviation
Agreement
State’s Domestic Migration is Positive for First
Time in Six Years
Subcommittee Votes To Ease State’s Penalty on Child
Support
B-2 Commission Begins Deliberations
Bipartisan California Delegation Meets with Chairman
Bliley Regarding Utilities, Mayor Riordan Regarding Airport Growth
Half of the members of the California Congressional Delegation,
including an even number of Democrats and Republicans, met in a luncheon
session on Wednesday on Capitol Hill. Invited by California delegation
chairs Jerry Lewis (Redlands) and Lucille Roybal-Allard (Los Angeles),
the members met with Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan regarding plans
for expansion of Los Angeles International Airport and with House Commerce
Committee Chair Tom Bliley (VA) regarding electric utility restructuring
legislation.
California delegation members attending the session were Reps.
Berman, Bilbray, Brown, Calvert, Campbell, Cunningham, Doolittle, Dreier,
Farr, Fazio, Harman, Horn, Kim, Lewis, McKeon, Millender-McDonald, Miller,
Packard, Rogan, Roybal-Allard, Sherman, Tauscher, Waxman, and Woolsey.
Also present were representatives of the State of California, the City
of Los Angeles, and the California Institute, as well as Los Angeles City
Council Member Ruth Galanter.
During remarks, Chairman Bliley stated that he hopes that any
electric utility restructuring legislation passed by Congress would provide
a grandfathering exemption for states such as California which have “stepped
up to the plate early” with their own state level measure.
Banking Subcommittee Reports Natural Disaster
Insurance Bill
The House Banking and Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing
and Community Opportunity reported out a bill establishing a federal natural
disaster reinsurance program after agreeing to an amendment in the nature
of a substitute to the original bill, H.R. 219. The bill would allow
states that offer natural disaster insurance programs to residents to join
a federal reinsurance program, which would cover excess losses from earthquakes
and hurricanes up to a maximum federal payout of $25 billion annually.
Currently, only California, Florida, and Hawaii have state insurance programs
eligible under the bill for federal reinsurance.
The subcommittee accepted an amendment offered by Rep. James
Maloney (CT) that increases the amount of money states must commit to mitigation
efforts to reduce natural disaster damages. Under the Maloney amendment,
mitigation reserves must be 10 percent of a state’s income from the program,
whereas the substitute bill originally called only for a five percent reserve.
The amendment was approved by voice vote.
Before reporting the bill to full Committee by a vote of 16-6,
the subcommittee defeated two amendments offered by Ranking Member Joseph
Kennedy (MA). Rep. Kennedy’s first amendment would have ensured that
insurance companies benefitting from the program were not discriminating
in providing insurance in minority areas. It was defeated 2-10.
His second amendment would have required the Departments of the Treasury
and Commerce to study the availability and affordability of natural disaster
insurance and report on alternative federal programs that could be enacted.
That amendment was rejected 7-14.
In his opening remarks, Chairman Rick Lazio (NY) committed to
continuing to work with interested parties in refining the bill before
it is taken up by the full House Banking Committee. Action at the
full committee level has not yet been scheduled.
Co-Sponsors Being Gathered For Bill To Honor
Dellums
Reps. Jerry Lewis (Redlands) and George Miller (Martinez) are
seeking co-sponsors to a bill to designate a federal building in Oakland
the “Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building” in honor of Rep. Dellums.
After 27 years of service in the House of Representatives, Rep. Dellums
retired this week. The bill will be introduced next week. Members
interested in co-sponsoring should contact Jeff with Congressman Lewis
at 225-5861 or James with Congressman Miller at 225-2095.
Packard Leads House in Overriding Mil-Con Line-Item
Vetoes
Nearly closing the book on a lengthy procedural process, the
House of Representatives Thursday voted 347 to 69 to override President
Clinton’s vetoes of 38 military construction projects. Rep. Ron Packard
(Oceanside), who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military
Construction, led the effort. The House vote was well in excess of
the two-thirds majority required to override the vetoes. The President
struck 38 projects worth $287 million from the $9.2 billion military construction
appropriations bill (see Bulletin, Vol. 4, No. 36 — 10/23/97), including
$28 million in California. The process represents the first override
of a Presidential line-item veto. The Senate is expected to take
up the override question early next week.
Senate To Hold Hearings on New U.S.-Japan
Aviation Agreement
On February 12, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold
a hearing on the impact of the recently negotiated U.S.-Japan bilateral
aviation agreement. Called an “open skies” agreement, the U. S. finalized
negotiations with Japan in late January. The agreement expands U.S.
air carrier’s rights to fly into and beyond Japan and is expected to increase
both passenger and cargo carriage between the U.S. and Japan. As
a government-to-government agreement, congressional approval is not needed,
but Congress will exercise its oversight jurisdiction to examine its impact
on the U.S.
In September of last year, 43 members of the California delegation
wrote Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Secretary of Transportation
Rodney Slater supporting an open skies agreement with Japan.
State’s Domestic Migration is Positive Again
for First Time in Six Years
California’s Department of Finance released its annual report
on state and county population estimates for 1997 last week. The
state’s population grew by 1.8% to over 32.9 million, or an increase of
574,000 people over the prior fiscal year. The increase is comprised
of two factors: a natural increase of births over deaths (315,696) combined
with a net foreign and domestic in-migration (258,304). Last year,
more people began to move to California rather than leave the state, reversing
a six year trend of domestic out-migration that began during the recession
of the early 1990s. In 1996-97, migration into California was composed
of rises in both net domestic (21,000) and net foreign in-migration (237,304).
According to the California Association of Realtors, seven counties
experienced a shift to net domestic in-migration in 1997, including Alameda
(+13,924), Monterey (+9,966), Orange (+1,987), San Diego (+23,480), San
Mateo (+2,935), Santa Barbara (1,137), and Ventura (669). Los Angeles County
continued to experience substantial net domestic out-migration (-73,199)
from 1996 to 1997, but foreign in-migration and natural increase still
gave Los Angeles the largest year-over-year population gain, of 128,200.
California’s three largest counties had the largest numeric increases
in population, but their percentage growth rates — Los Angeles (1.4%),
San Diego (2.5%), and Orange (2.1%) — did not rank them among the state’s
fastest growing. Only four (Mariposa, Mono, Sierra, and Trinity)
of the state’s 58 counties experienced no population increase, whereas
13 counties had reported losses in the previous fiscal year.
For further information, visit the Department of Finance’s web
site at <http://www.dof.ca.gov>.
Subcommittee Votes To Ease State’s Penalty on
Child Support
On Tuesday, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources
voted unanimously to approve a bill relaxing the financial penalty imposed
on states who fail to implement a statewide computer system for collection
of child support. The bill, H.R. 3130, would assist California and
the 15 other states currently without a uniform tracking system by allowing
the use of a few dissimilar county-based enforcement systems and modifying
the current non-compliance penalty formula.
Under current law, California would be penalized $4 billion in
federal child support enforcement funds this year for failing to install
a central computer system that tracks the whereabouts and employment status
of absent parents owing child support. However, under the newly drafted
bill, the state would be allowed to consolidate operation of a few dissimilar
county-based enforcement systems and be liable for only $12 million this
year and $24 million in 1999. In addition, the bill allows for states
to recover 75 percent of a year’s penalties if their systems are eventually
certified by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in that
year. (The bill calls for a sliding penalty scale of 4% loss of federal
child support enforcement funds the first year of non-compliance, 8% in
the second year, 16% in the third and 20% in the fourth.).
Last week, Senator Dianne Feinstein testified before the subcommittee and
asked for a lower 2,4,6 and 8% penalty formula. The Senator is expected
to lead a drive to lower the penalties of the House version when the measure
is taken up by the Senate in the coming weeks.
B-2 Commission Begins Deliberations
A blue-ribbon panel created to study the future of the B-2 bomber
began deliberations this week. Congress created the commission as
part of the FY1998 defense appropriations bill and charged it with examining
the military’s future needs for long-range bombers and specifically to
consider whether to acquire more than the 21 B-2 bombers already purchased
by the Pentagon. The commission is expected to report its findings
to Congress by April.
NOTE TO BULLETIN SUBSCRIBERS: The California Institute prepared a cursory analysis of the impact on California of the Administration’s FY 1999 budget proposal on Monday evening, 2/2/98. If you did not receive a copy of the document and would like one, please contact the Institute or refer to the document online at <http://www.calinst.org/bulletins/BULL504W.htm>.