November 14, 2003 Senate Tries, Fails to Complete Action on FY04 Commerce Appropriations Bill Plus: Revised Census 2000 Population Totals Give N.C. and Utah Heartburn. Earlier this week, the U.S. Senate started – and then stopped – consideration of the Fiscal Year 2004 Commerce, Justice, and State, The Judiciary and Related Agencies Appropriations bill, as unrelated disputes between Republicans and Democrats delayed the chamber’s regular business. It now appears that House and Senate negotiators will try to iron out differences between the House-passed version and Senate Appropriations Committee version of the bill. The compromise measure could later be rolled into a catch-all spending bill for Fiscal Year 2004 (FY04), which began October 1. The Commerce spending bill contains funding for the Census Bureau. The Senate committee bill appropriates $550.9 million for Census Bureau programs, $111 million less than the Bush Administration requested. In a Statement of Administration Policy issued this week, the White House urged the Senate to restore full funding for the Census Bureau. “This reduction would severely impact the Economic Census, the 2010 Census reengineering effort, and other important activities to improve the availability and quality of our Nation’s key economic, social, and demographic statistics,” the Administration warned. The Senate Appropriations Committee passed its version of the spending bill (S. 1585) in September, but several controversial provisions unrelated to the census have slowed progress on the legislation. Senior White House advisers said they would recommend a presidential veto if the final Commerce-Justice-State bill contains three provisions in the Senate committee bill that the Administration strongly opposes. Those provisions relate to a new Federal Communications Commission rule on media ownership, foreign aid for family planning groups that distribute information on abortion, and contracting out certain crime prevention and control activities at the Justice Department. The U.S. House of Representatives, which approved its version of the bill (H.R. 2799) last summer, allocated $662 for Census Bureau activities, the amount requested by the President. Roughly $260 million of that amount would fund the three main components of the Bureau’s 2010 census planning strategy: Reengineering the census design; updating the Master Address File and digital geographic maps; and replacing the traditional long form with the American Community Survey (ACS). At a Decennial Census Advisory Committee meeting in October, Director C. Louis Kincannon said the Census Bureau would launch the ACS nationwide late next year as planned, even if Congress does not approve all of the money requested for agency programs. The Bureau instead would consider scaling back a major field test and an overseas enumeration test in 2004, and slow the pace of fixing misaligned features in the ‘TIGER’ map database. Last week, Congress passed a third temporary funding bill, as it continues to debate FY04 federal agency spending bills. The so-called ‘Continuing Resolution’ extends funding at Fiscal Year 2003 levels through November 21, for agencies whose FY04 appropriations bills have not been signed into law. The current fiscal year began on October 1. Apportionment would narrow, not change, under revised census counts: Changes in state population totals resulting from the Census 2000 Count Question Resolution (CQR) program would have increased the likelihood that Utah would have gained a fourth seat in Congress and North Carolina would not have picked up a 13th seat, but the apportionment outcome ultimately would not have changed. The Census Bureau informed Congress on September 30, the closing date of the CQR program, that a duplication problem at University of North Carolina dormitories resulted in an overcount of 2,673 in Chapel Hill. Bureau officials said some students mistakenly received, and then mailed back, census forms; dormitories are counted with assistance from university officials under the ‘group quarters’ program. According to an analysis of the revised state population totals prepared by the Congressional Research Service (an arm of the Library of Congress), the margin for the 435th seat in the U.S. House of Representatives would narrow substantially based on the revised numbers from CQR. North Carolina would still win a 13th seat, with 309 persons to spare, instead of the 3,084-person margin calculated using the official state population figures. Utah would miss gaining a fourth seat by 87 instead of 855 persons. The North Carolina mistake was the largest discovered through the CQR program, which gave local, state, and Tribal officials an opportunity to challenge Census 2000 housing unit and group quarters counts. The Census Bureau did not collect any new information in the field during CQR. Nationwide, the CQR program added or subtracted 7,183 persons from the state population totals issued immediately following the census, resulting in a net change of 1,427 to the apportionment population. Missouri had the largest gain (+1,472); Utah picked up 29 people. Utah’s three House members reiterated their belief that the state deserved another congressional district, calling the newly discovered duplicates “an egregious error” and saying they “intend to do everything possible to get the new seat.” Utah filed two unsuccessful lawsuits after the 2000 census, claiming it was entitled to a fourth seat in Congress. One case challenged a statistical technique known as ‘imputation,’ which assumes the existence and characteristics of some people who are not counted on a census form or in person. The other claimed that private American citizens, such as Mormon missionaries, living abroad during the census should have been counted for apportionment purposes. Members of the armed forces and federal civilian employees stationed overseas were included in the state apportionment totals. 2004 Census Advisory Committee meetings announced: The Census Bureau’s five Race and Ethnic Advisory Committees (REACs, which represent the African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, Hispanic, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander populations) will meet jointly on May 5 – 7 and November 8 – 10, 2004. The Commerce Department’s Decennial Census Advisory Committee (DCAC) will meet on April 29 – 30, and October 28 – 29, 2004. The Census Bureau has not yet announced a location for the meetings. Census News Briefs are prepared by Terri Ann Lowenthal, an independent consultant in Washington, DC. Please direct questions about the information in this News Brief to Ms. Lowenthal at 202/484-3067 or by e-mail at TerriAnn2K(a)aol.com. Please feel free to circulate this document to other interested individuals and organizations. The Communications Consortium Media Center (CCMC) has posted News Briefs through April 2003 on the Census 2000 Initiative web site, at www.census2000.org. If you would like copies of Census News Briefs distributed after April 2003, please contact Ms. Lowenthal directly. -- Ed Christopher Planning Specialist Resource Center Federal Highway Administration 19900 Governors Drive Olympia Fields, Illinois 60461 708-283-3534 (V) 708-574-8131 (cell)