http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/nation/story/5101880p-6108214c.html

Senate shift means major committee changes

GOP control will affect everything from flood control to wilderness bills.
By Michael Doyle and David Whitney -- Bee Staff Writers
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Thursday, November 7, 2002
WASHINGTON -- The Republican takeover of Congress means changes for California, potentially influencing everything from wilderness legislation to Sacramento flood control.

The prospects for some California-specific bills may dim. The power of individual lawmakers will ebb and flow, and bipartisanship takes on new meaning.

"The majority leader controls what comes to the floor," Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Wednesday. "This clearly means that if I (want) to get anything done, I would have to have Republicans buy into it sufficiently to be able to say we have Republican support."

Committee positions are the most obvious, and potentially most significant, change resulting from a shift in majority control. The state's two Democratic senators, Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, will lose to Republicans their subcommittee chairmanships that both have used to highlight California priorities.

Feinstein has led the Senate Appropriations Committee's military construction panel and a Judiciary Committee panel on technology and terrorism. That's enabled her, among other efforts, to champion funding for Travis and Beale Air Force bases and Lemoore Naval Air Station in Kings County. Boxer has been chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's waste cleanup panel and the terrorism panel of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Feinstein stressed, though, that she's worked well with the two Republicans who will now take over the panels she's been chairwoman of since last year.

"Losing the majority in the Senate is terrible," Boxer noted. "I'll still be the ranking Democrat on these subcommittees and in a position to influence hearings, but much less so."

Feinstein and Boxer, who took office in 1992 and 1993 respectively, are about midrange in Senate seniority. This will likely protect them from being kicked off desirable committees, as happened to Feinstein after the Republican takeover in 1995.

On the House side, where Republicans widened their margin of control, Californians could gain greater influence.

Rep. John Doolittle, R-Rocklin, is expected to win his first leadership job next week when Republicans caucus to elect their top echelon. A close associate of Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, who is expected to be elected majority leader, Doolittle has gathered the votes necessary to be the caucus secretary. That position places him in the inner sanctum of the leadership where decisions are made on policy and agenda.

Tracy Republican Richard Pombo likewise hopes to move up, as he's been campaigning to become chairman of the House Resources Committee. The competition is fierce, pitting Eastern vs. Western Republicans, moderates vs. conservatives.

"(He) is still charging hard for it," Pombo press secretary Doug Heye said Wednesday.

Among House Democrats, Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco is prepared to make a bid as early as next week for her party's top job if House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri steps down, as expected. Gephardt is scheduled to state his plans today.

Besides personnel, policy, too, gets rewritten because of the election results.

Boxer, for instance, was author of legislation to designate 2.5 million acres of federal land in California as protected wilderness. This includes big swaths of the Sierra Nevada, including the first wilderness designations in Nevada County, new wilderness along the American River in Placer County, and a new Mineral King Wilderness Area in the Sequoia National Forest.

With Republicans controlling the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, it is uncertain when -- or even if -- wilderness legislation will make it onto the agenda. The current senior Republican is Larry Craig of Idaho, who consistently scores at the bottom of the League of Conservation Voters' annual voting scorecard.

He could be bumped by New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici, whose record is somewhat more moderate.

"This sure makes it a lot harder to get a wilderness bill out," Boxer said. "But there are ways to work this, and we'll try. I've gotten a lot of things done before under Republican control."

The committee is also less likely to heed Western Democrats, like Feinstein, who have been pressing to restore government regulation of energy trading after the electricity meltdown in 2000-2001. The current Democratic chairman promised a hearing next year on Feinstein's bill, but Republicans are under no obligation to go forward with it.

Feinstein cited her Cal-Fed bill, authorizing hundreds of millions of dollars for California water programs, as one causing recurring concern.

Even on parochial matters such as Sacramento flood control, the legislative road is likely to contain more twists and turns.

Rep. Robert Matsui, D-Sacramento, is leading the push for raising Folsom Dam to improve protection for Sacramento from American River flooding. That legislation ran into trouble this year from Doolittle, who favors building a multipurpose dam at Auburn, and the Folsom project was not among the projects authorized by the House Transportation Committee.

With Doolittle virtually certain to have a greater voice in the House leadership and a Republican-led Senate more likely to listen to his concerns, the prospects of Folsom legislation could dim.

"Now you don't have a counterbalance (to Doolittle) in the Senate," said Aileen Roder, California water projects coordinator for Taxpayers for Common Sense. "I don't think this helps Representative Matsui."
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thank god!!!!!!!!!!! now we have some hope:) .

Originally posted by larryboy
thank god!!!!!!!!!!! now we have some hope:) .

We only have hope if we demand the President's Administration to give us greater representation for access and recreation issues.

This is not the time to remain silent, because we can be assured the oppostion will not remain silent, and the commercial development interests will enjoy a greater voice (and may not want the public in close proximity to their investments). This is the threat we have to be tuned to recognize, that the Administration may use brokered approval of green demands to prohibit mechanized recreation access, as a barganing chip (a compromise) to gain commercial development approval (we have already experienced this with ESA issues).

In basic terms if we remain silent we may get enhanced commercial mining and logging, on targeted public lands, at the expense of more prohibitions on mechanized recreation on these same lands (or other lands). We have to block all attempts of "compromise" with the greens, attempts that give them Wilderness or ESA protections, as a reward for silence on Administration development proposals.

More letters to Congress will be needed, and our hope is to take advantage of Congress and the political pitfalls of opposing the will of majority of Congress (for us in CA, this is something Boxer is sure to maintain, and Senator DiFi may find as an unreasonable position due to the threat to achieving her other goals).

We can party, but we have to remain clear headed to recognize when our values are being traded for political gains.

Happy Trails!