[CTPP] NEWS ALERT

September 22, 1998 From: Keri Monihan <kmonihan(a)ccmc.org> Senate Committee Hears from Census Director Nominee Bureau Operating under Temporary Funding Measure As Congress Tries to Complete Work on FY99 Bills The Senate committee with oversight responsibility for the census held a hearing last week to consider President Clinton's nominee for Census Bureau director. After an introduction by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), Dr. Kenneth Prewitt received a cordial welcome from committee Chairman Fred Thompson (R-TN) and ranking minority member Sen. John Glenn (D-OH). Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) also listened to Dr. Prewitt's brief prepared statement and joined in the questioning. The Committee on Governmental Affairs has scheduled a business meeting for September 24 and may vote on the Prewitt nomination at that time. Dr. Prewitt told the committee that he had not yet visited the Census Bureau and could not comment specifically on elements of the 2000 census plan. In written responses to questions submitted earlier by the committee, the nominee cited four primary responsibilities for the Bureau's director: management, constituency relations, planning and professional standard-setting. At the hearing, he said the success of the census must be judged not only by its numerical accuracy but by whether the public has confidence in the process and results. Sen. Thompson emphasized the importance of "formidable management skills and a vision for the future" for the next director. The chairman did not press Dr. Prewitt for a firm position on the use of sampling methods in the census but instead sought a pledge that the nominee would speak openly if he concluded that the Bureau's plan was technically unsound or operationally unfeasible. Census Bureau operating under temporary funding bill: Late last week, Congress approved a continuing funding resolution to keep government agencies running past the end of the fiscal year on September 30 while legislators continue to work out final agreements on most of the 13 regular appropriations bills. While most agencies must operate at current spending levels, the temporary funding measure, which runs through October 9, allows the Bureau to spend at a higher rate set for decennial activities in the House-passed Commerce appropriations bill. The House allocation of $952 million is $104 million more than the Administration had requested for Census 2000 activities in fiscal year 1999. The additional funds are for the Bureau to prepare for a census without sampling methods. The Commerce Department said the temporary spending allowance was enough to keep decennial census preparations running on schedule in October but cautioned that 2000 census preparations would require three times the amount allotted in the temporary bill in November. House panel continues to focus on sampling methods: The House Subcommittee on the Census held a hearing on September 17 to review the Integrated Coverage Measurement (ICM) component of the Census Bureau's 2000 census plan. The ICM includes a quality-check sample survey of 750,000 households designed to measure under- and overcounts in the initial enumeration for various demographic subgroups and adjust the numbers accordingly to produce a final count. Majority (Republican) members of the panel invited five statisticians to testify: Dr. Leo Breiman (University of California at Berkeley); Dr. Lawrence Brown (University of Pennsylvania); Dr. Robert Koyak (Naval Postgraduate School); Dr. Martin Wells (Cornell University); and Dr. Donald Ylvisaker (UCLA). In general, the group believed that a post-census survey to gauge the accuracy of the initial count could add more mistakes into the census because it involved difficult matching and statistical procedures. Dr. Brown concluded that the ICM procedure would worsen the distribution of population among states and other areas, which he said was more important than achieving more accurate population totals. Dr. Breiman said that mistakes in conducting the quality-check survey were magnified when applied to the larger population. The five witnesses did not discuss any specific alternative methods to reduce the undercount of minorities and the poor. The subcommittee's minority (Democratic) members were allowed to choose three additional witnesses: Dr. Barbara Everitt Bryant, Census Bureau director in the Bush Administration; Dr. Eugene Ericksen (Temple University); and Dr. Stephen Fienberg (Carnegie Mellon University). Dr. Bryant said that unless the Supreme Court overturns the recent federal court ruling that sampling cannot be used to supplement a direct headcount, the prohibition "virtually guarantees [an] undercount" in the 2000 census. She told the panel that the 2000 census plan "[was] not a scheme conceived by the present Administration," but was based on evaluations of the 1990 count and research both within the Bureau and by independent experts. Dr. Fienberg said it was a "myth" that the 1990 census was 98.4 percent accurate because evaluations revealed as many as 25 million counting mistakes, a ten percent gross error rate. Dr. Ericksen disagreed with the earlier criticism of the ICM process, saying that changes in the post-census survey planned for 2000 should reduce matching and estimation problems associated with the 1990 statistical process. Census Monitoring Board activities: The meeting of the Census Monitoring Board originally scheduled for September 18 was postponed. The Board has not yet announced a new date for the meeting. Questions about the information contained in this News Alert may be directed to TerriAnn Lowenthal at (202) 484-2270 or, by e-mail at <terriann2k(a)aol.com>om>. Please direct all requests to receive News Alerts, and all changes in address/phone/fax/e-mail, to Census 2000 Initiative at <census2000(a)ccmc.org> or 202/326-8700. Please feel free to circulate this information to colleagues and other interested individuals.