CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
Entire Delegation Signs SCAAP Letter
Senate Banking Committee Reports Export Administration Bill
Californians Back F/A-18E/F Fighter
House Ways & Means May Consider Tax Extensions This Week
PPIC Study Finds Naturalization on the Rise in California, Though State’s Rate Still Lags National Average
Supplementary Table: PPIC Report Data on Immigrants by California County and Naturalization Status

All 51 members (one vacancy) of the California Congressional Delegation signed the letter to House conferees on the Commerce, State, Justice (CJS) Appropriations bill on funding for the State Criminal Aliens Assistance Program (SCAAP). The letter urges the House level of $585 million, rather than the mere $100 million in the Senate version. SCAAP provides funding to state and local governments to partially reimburse them for the costs of incarcerating illegal criminal aliens. See, Bulletin, Vol. 6, No. 29 (9/16/99). A date has not been set for the conference on the CJS Appropriations.
 

Senate Banking Committee Reports Export Administration Bill

By a vote of 20-0, the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday, September 23 reported the Export Administration Act of 1999. The bill would streamline export licensing procedures and establish the legal framework for the Department of Commerce to implement export controls for both national security and foreign policy reasons.

Under the bill, the Department of Commerce would have nine days to review an export application and refer it to other appropriate agencies, such as the Departments of Defense and State. With limited exceptions, if the agency did not provide a recommendation within 25 days to approve or deny the license, it would be deemed consent.

The bill also provides a “mass market” exemption, as well as a foreign availability exemption. If a product meets the criteria for either of these exemptions, it would be removed from the National Security Control List, and a specific license to export would not be required. The criteria for mass market status are that the item is: 1) produced and available for sale in large volumes; 2) widely distributed through marketing channels; 3) conducive to shipping by generally accepted commercial means; and 4) usable for its intended purpose without substantial or specialized service. The foreign availability criteria are that the product is: 1) available from sources outside the U.S.; 2) sold at a comparable price to the controlled item; and 3) available in such quantity that the control would be ineffective.

Of great importance to the agriculture industry and others are the provisions in the bill forbidding the use of foreign policy sanctions on the export of agricultural commodities, medicine, and medical supplies. Additionally, all current foreign policy sanctions on those goods would be terminated on the date of enactment. These exemptions, however, do not apply to Cuba or North Korea. Sen. Chris Dodd (CT) has indicated he will offer an amendment on the Senate floor to include Cuba in the sanctions exemption.

The bill also includes 17 recommendations made by the Cox report on China, including substantial increases in criminal and civil penalties for violating U.S. export laws.

During the markup, the committee accepted an amendment to require the Commerce Department to report to Congress on the effectiveness of tracking the end use of dual-use technology. The report would cover the activities of the Department’s overseas investigators; the types of goods or technologies subject to end-use verifications; and the ability of department investigators to detect the illegal transfer of high-risk dual-use goods and technologies.
 

Californians Back F/A-18E/F Fighter

In a letter to the leaders of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, a bipartisan group of California Members of Congress wrote this week to express support for the F/A-18E/F fighter. The letter, spearheaded by Reps. Steve Kuykendall (Rancho Palos Verdes) and Loretta Sanchez (Anaheim), expresses appreciation that the Committee provides funding for the planes, and urges that it agree to the Navy’s request for a multi-year procurement of the aircraft.

The letter states that, “While total program costs to date remain below $5 billion, a multi-year procurement contract would save the Navy an additional $500 million. These savings would allow the purchase of an additional 22 additional aircraft,” the letter adds.

In 1998, the Hornet program supported nearly 11,000 jobs in California at 747 companies with $465 million in annual revenue. Nearly half of the F/A-18 E/F program is in California.
 

House Ways & Means May Consider Tax Extensions This Week

In late developing news, the House Ways and Means Committee may mark up a tax bill on Friday. The bill is expected to carve out the tax extension portions of the $792 billion tax bill that the President vetoed on Thursday, September 23. The extensions expected to be included in the smaller bill include the research and experimentation (R&D) tax credit, and the welfare to work and work opportunity tax credits. Chairman Bill Archer (TX) stated that he plans to move the bill quickly, because the IRS had indicated that it must know the tax changes for calendar year 1999 by at least October 7, in order to print the correct tax forms. The vetoed tax bill included a five year extension for tax credits, which will probably be retained in the smaller bill.

Although the Senate is also expected to consider the extensions quickly, the bill may run into more obstacles in that body, because non-germane amendments will be in order.

California industries that must rely heavily on cutting edge research strongly support a permanent extension of the R&D tax credit.
 

PPIC Study Finds Naturalization on the Rise in California, Though State’s Rate Still Lags National Average

The Public Policy Institute of California issued a new report this week entitled, Taking the Oath: An Analysis of Naturalization in California and the United States. The report finds that after declining for many decades, the rate of naturalization rose sharply in the mid-1990s, with the most dramatic increases found in California.

According to the report, the naturalization rate for all legal immigrants in the U.S. declined from 63 percent in 1965 to 38 percent in 1993. Beginning in the mid-90s, however, the study finds that naturalization rates began to increase, especially among three population groups: all immigrants in California; Latino immigrants; and better educated immigrants.

In California, naturalization rates rose eight percent from March 1996 to March 1997, with a total growth rate in the number of naturalized citizens in California of 24 percent, or 500,000 people in one year. Belinda Reyes, author of the report, along with Hans Johnson, Laura Mameesh, and Elisa Barbour, credits most of this increase to INS efforts to eliminate its applications backlog, the increase in immigrants eligible for naturalization because of the 1986 amnesty program, and the desire of immigrants to protect their rights to government benefits and to participate in the political process.

California’s naturalization rate is among the lowest in the nation, however. At 43 percent, California ranks 49th among states (only Texas is lower, at 42 percent) in the proportion of adult immigrants in the U.S. longer than 5 years who became naturalized. The U.S. average rate was 53 percent, and the highest rate among states was Montana, at 76 percent.

A county-by-county naturalization table is reproduced below.

The full report can be obtained through PPIC’s website at: www.ppic.org .
 

Supplementary Table: PPIC Report Data on Immigrants by California County and Naturalization Status

	Noncitizen Immigrants	Naturalized Immigrants	% of Immigrants Naturalized	% of Immigrants in Population
Alameda	140,529	89,846	39	18
Alpine	9	9	50	2
Amador	526	593	53	4
Butte	7,050	3,796	35	6
Calaveras	307	623	67	3
Colusa	2,926	437	13	21
Contra Costa	58,883	48,177	45	13
Del Norte	1,000	493	33	6
El Dorado	4,502	3,260	42	6
Fresno	90,523	28,586	24	18
Glenn	2,551	678	21	13
Humboldt	2,262	2,354	51	4
Imperial	23,676	7,892	25	29
Inyo	531	325	38	5
Kern	45,637	20,504	31	12
Kings	9,744	4,586	32	14
Lake	1,428	1,267	47	5
Lassen	877	358	29	4
Los Angeles	2,113,398	781,668	27	33
Madera	9,864	3,288	25	15
Marin	17,379	13,110	43	13
Mariposa	115	256	69	3
Mendocino	3,662	1,804	33	7
Merced	27,225	8,132	23	20
Modoc	184	151	45	3
Mono	682	278	29	10
Monterey	52,900	23,766	31	22
Napa	8,687	4,278	33	12
Nevada	1,086	1,699	61	4
Orange	402,576	172,532	30	24
Placer	4,333	4,163	49	5
Plumas	202	317	61	3
Riverside	119,890	53,864	31	15
Sacramento	62,327	41,551	40	10
San Benito	4,763	1,504	24	17
San Bernardino	127,089	59,807	32	13
San Diego	274,438	154,372	36	17
San Francisco	142,700	103,334	42	34
San Joaquin	55,828	22,803	29	16
San Luis Obispo	9,403	6,809	42	7
San Mateo	95,565	69,202	42	25
Santa Barbara	43,811	18,776	30	17
Santa Clara	225,681	121,520	35	23
Santa Cruz	23,149	9,003	28	14
Shasta	2,262	1,927	46	3
Sierra	44	41	48	3
Siskiyou	760	892	54	4
Solano	22,557	21,673	49	13
Sonoma	21,252	14,168	40	9
Stanislaus	38,576	14,268	27	14
Sutter	6,620	2,449	27	14
Tehama	1,828	984	35	6
Trinity	84	196	70	2
Tulare	41,743	13,182	24	18
Tuolumne	1,073	878	45	4
Ventura	77,523	36,481	32	17
Yolo	14,230	6,099	30	14
Yuba	3,971	1,395	26	9
Total	4,452,421	2,006,404	31	22
SOURCE: Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). DATA SOURCE: 1990 census. [NOTE: Counts include immigrants in the United States less than five years and immigrants younger than 18 years of age.]

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