Dear CTPP News Recipients:
The US House of Representatives, Committee on Government Reform,
Subcommittee on the Census, held a hearing this past Thursday, July
20th, on the American Community Survey.
Written testimony presented at this meeting is included on
Congressman Dan Miller's web site, at:
http://www.house.gov/danmiller/census/hearing/hearing.html
I would encourage census data users to review Congressman Miller's
opening remarks, the statemement by the Census Bureau director,
Kenneth Prewitt, and statements by: John Spotila (OMB), David Crowe,
(National Association of Home Builders), and Chuck Fluharty ((Rural
Policy Research Institute), and Kulka and Lessler (Research Triangle
Institute.) Obviously this is the written testimony, and I can't
"read between the lines" so I'm uncertain what was the tenor of the
congressional subcommittee in terms of support or antagonism towards
ACS.
Dr. Prewitt mentioned that the 1999 ACS data for 21 of the 31 areas
would be released the week of July 24, 2000. I've check the Bureau's
ACS web site, and haven't seen the '99 data yet. To me, it's kind of
like waiting for the Nouveau Beaujolais....
http://www.census.gov/CMS/www/
Chuck Purvis, MTC
From: Census2000 <Census2000(a)ccmc.org>
Justice Department Withholds Judgment
On Alaska Anti-Sampling Redistricting Law;
Continues to Spar with Virginia Over Similar Measure
Plus: Census Funding Bill Clears Senate Committee;
Senate Confirms Mineta To Be Commerce Secretary;
Update on Census Operations
The U.S. Department of Justice has notified Alaska state officials that
it cannot determine, until Census 2000 data are available, whether a
change to the state Constitution and a related provision of law violate
the federal Voting Rights Act. "[U]ntil the Alaska block-level 2000
census data are released," wrote Joseph D. Rich, Acting Chief of the
Voting Section, "we cannot properly evaluate the effect of the proposed
limitations in HJR 44 and SB 99 on the political participation
opportunities of Alaska's minority voters in future legislative
redistricting plans."
The July 7th letter to Alaska Assistant Attorney General James L.
Baldwin is the latest step in the 'preclearance' process required by
section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act; Alaska is one of 16 states with
a history of election-related discrimination covered by section 5. Last
summer, state officials asked the Justice Department to sign off on two
new measures that, in relevant part, prohibit the use of statistically
adjusted numbers to redraw legislative district boundaries following the
census. A provision of House Joint Resolution No. 44, enacted in 1998,
amends the Alaska Constitution to require the use of official decennial
census data by the state's Redistricting Board. A provision of Senate
Bill 99 (Chapter 18), enacted in 1999, defines "official" census data as
the population numbers used for congressional apportionment, which the
Supreme Court ruled cannot be derived through sampling methods under
federal law. The two provisions limiting the type of census data that
may be used for redistricting cannot take effect without Justice
Department approval. The Census Bureau is required by law to transmit
detailed population figures to the states by April 1, 2001, for use in
the redistricting process.
The State of Virginia, also covered by section 5 of the Voting Rights
Act, continued to seek quick approval from a federal court for a law
enacted last spring that bars the use of statistically corrected
population data for congressional and state legislative redistricting.
Bypassing the Justice Department's preclearance process, Virginia asked
the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in April to rule
that the law complies with the Voting Right Act. The department
subsequently asked the three-judge panel to delay consideration of the
case until 2000 census data are released. In addition, ten Democratic
state legislators and the American Civil Liberties Union, all of who
oppose the new law, filed requests to intervene in the lawsuit.
Earlier this month, in response to the proposals to delay a judicial
decision, Virginia Attorney General Mark L. Earley asked the district
court to rule expeditiously in favor of the new law. The motion for
summary judgment notes that the state is one of a handful to hold
odd-year elections, leaving little time after block-level census data
are released in 2001 to draw new legislative districts.
Census Bureau appropriations update: The Senate Appropriations Committee
unanimously approved a funding bill that includes money for the
decennial census and other Census Bureau programs in fiscal year 2001.
The Commerce, Justice, and State, The Judiciary and Related Agencies
Appropriations bill (not yet numbered) cleared the panel on July 18; the
House of Representatives passed its version of the measure (H.R. 4690)
on June 26. The full Senate is likely to consider the bill this week
before adjourning for the traditional August recess.
The Senate bill includes $389.7 million for Census 2000 activities,
about $3 million less than the Clinton Administration's request of
$392.8 million (but about $300,000 more than the House bill) to close
down local census offices and data processing centers, finish the
Accuracy and Coverage Evaluation (A.C.E.) program, and tabulate and
disseminate data collected in the census. In their report explaining
the bill's provisions, the appropriators directed the Census Bureau, in
concert with the State Department, to count private American citizens
living abroad "in future censuses when appropriate."
The bill allocates $21.6 million for continued development of the
American Community Survey (ACS), less than the $25 million the
Administration requested but more than the House-approved $20 million.
(Funding for the ACS falls under the 'continuous measurement'
category.) If fully implemented in 2003, the ACS could eliminate the
need for a traditional 'long form' in the 2010 census by gathering data
on housing, most population characteristics, commuting patterns, and
economic status from a rolling annual sample of three million households
throughout the decade. (The House Subcommittee on the Census held a
hearing on July 20 to review the Census Bureau's plans for the American
Community Survey. The Census 2000 Initiative will report on the
highlights of this in-depth oversight hearing in a future News Alert.)
Overall, Senate appropriators came closer than their House counterparts
to meeting the Administration's request of $719.2 million for the Census
Bureau in the fiscal year starting October 1, 2000. The Salaries and
Expenses ('S&E') account, one of the Bureau's two broad funding
categories, received $158.4 million for ongoing surveys of the
population and economy, $18.4 million more than the House allocation but
$15.4 million short of the requested $173.8 million. The Senate
committee provided funds to develop a new measure of electronic business
(part of the Commerce Department's 'E-Commerce' Initiative) and to
survey minority-owned businesses more frequently. The Periodic Censuses
and Programs ('Periodics') account, which covers activities related to
the decennial census and other cyclical programs, received $535.2
million, $5.6 million more than the House figure but $10.2 million below
the budget request. For all Census Bureau activities, the Senate
appropriations committee bill falls $25.6 million short of the
Administration's request, while the House-passed version is $51.8
million below the request.
Following Senate passage of the Commerce spending measure, each chamber
will appoint members to a conference committee that will iron out
differences between the two versions of the bill.
Mineta nomination moving through Senate: Former California Rep. Norman
Mineta became the first Asian American to serve in a cabinet position
after the U.S. Senate confirmed his nomination to be Secretary of
Commerce. The Senate approved the nomination by voice vote and without
debate on July 20, after the Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation endorsed President Clinton's pick to succeed William
Daley earlier in the day. Mr. Daley resigned from his post last month
to head up Vice President Gore's presidential campaign. The Census
Bureau is an agency of the Commerce Department.
Secretary Mineta represented the San Jose area in Congress for 20 years
before resigning in 1995 to take a senior executive post with Lockheed
Martin Corporation. He was active in policy debates during the 1990
census, opposing efforts to exclude undocumented residents from the
state population totals used for congressional apportionment and
supporting the collection of detailed data on Asian Americans and
Pacific Islanders.
Census 2000 operations update: Census 2000 counting activities continue
across the country, as census takers gather information from homes built
after the pre-census address listing effort ended last fall and revisit
housing units identified as vacant or nonexistent in earlier
operations. A separate group of more seasoned enumerators is completing
interviews of 314,000 households in the Accuracy and Coverage Evaluation
(A.C.E.) survey, to check the quality of the direct counting effort and
provide a basis for correcting under- and overcounts using statistical
methods.
The Census Bureau also decided to recount households in several areas
where they believe some census takers cut corners to finish their
nonresponse follow-up caseloads, possibly at the urging of local census
managers. Enumerators are revisiting about 9,000 households in Chicago
and 71,000 households in Hialeah, Florida. Bureau officials said they
ordered the recounts after learning that census takers might have sought
information from neighbors or other surrogate sources of information
before making six attempts (three in person and three by telephone) to
contact the residents of a household, as required by census rules.
Stakeholder activities: The Census Bureau's advisory committees will
meet jointly on Friday, July 28, to review the American Community
Survey, planning for the 2010 census, and the status of Census 2000
operations. The committees include the five panels focused on racial and
ethnic populations, the professional association representatives, and
the Commerce Secretary's 2000 Census Advisory Committee. The meeting
will be held at the Doubletree Hotel, 300 Army Navy Drive, Arlington,
VA, from 8:30 a.m. - 5:15 p.m.; it is open to the public.
Questions about the information contained in this News Alert may be
directed to Terri Ann Lowenthal at 202/484-2270 or, by e-mail at
terriann2k(a)aol.com . For copies of previous News Alerts and other
information, use our web site www.census2000.org
<http://www.census2000.org>. Please direct all requests to receive News
Alerts, and all changes in address/phone/fax/e-mail, to the 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.
Hello All.
Regarding the NPTS 2000 Survey, in which Congress deleted the funding for
this "every five years" household survey, I don't believe this is a "done
deal", yet, the funding could still be revived, with some congressional
decisions to be made this week. Can anyone confirm this?
For those so inclined to send emails of support for a worthy cause, here is
a web site with the names and email addresses of all members of the
Subcommittee on Transportation:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/cgi-bin/commpage.cgi?committee=happrop_tra
ns
This is a very long URL address, so if you can't just click on it, you can
copy it and paste it into your browser.
Ken Cervenka
North Central Texas Council of Governments
-----Original Message-----
From: ed christopher [mailto:berwyned(a)mcs.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2000 11:50 AM
To: ctpp-news maillist
this was posted to another listserve but serves as a response to Jerry
Everett's NPTS question from yesterday.
*************
Congress deleted the line item for the Nationwide Personal Transportation
Survey (NPTS) for 2000. FHWA is working on their response.
I think many of us do not realize how instrumental the NPTS is to a lot of
what we do. The NPTS is the only source of travel-characteristic data for
the
nation, allowing us to track trends since 1969 when the first survey was
done.
NPTS data was used to develop the household trip generation rates in the
update of the old NCHRP 187, published as the NCHRP 365, *Travel Estimation
Techniques for Urban Planning*. Many, many areas use it for bench-marking
their locally collected data. It offers comparative data for any area to see
the similarities and differences to regional and national trends.
A number of States and MPOs use the NPTS data as a source of default values
when no other data is available, especially for smaller population groups
such
as elderly drivers. State-wide models are being developed using the NPTS
data to fill in rural areas or smaller towns and cities.
The web site (http://www-cta.ornl.gov/npts/) was a real step forward to make
accessing the data easy, and is a good resource for special studies and
topic
papers, such as the one on trip chaining.
The 2000 survey would have been a valuable tool to address contemporary
transportation needs and topics because of the extension of the previous
data
as well as the addition of new data items directed to emerging issues.
The TAZ Verification program to verify the updated TAZ layer in the TIGER
database has been completed. 278 agencies responded on-time to accept or
revise the new TAZ layer for 1454 counties. A database of agency and county
information has been placed on the CTPP website for your reference. To access
the file, please visit:
http://www.mcs.com/~berwyned/census/tazinfo.html
or alternately:
http://members.tripod.com/~TRBstate/ctpp/tazv0717.pdf
*Thank you* for your participation and on-time response. We are sure your
contributions will help in a timely delivery of CTPP 2000.
If you have any questions, please call me at 202-366-5021 (e-mail:
ctpp(a)fhwa.dot.gov)
Nanda Srinivasan
Congress deleted the line item for the Nationwide Personal Transportation
Survey (NPTS). FHWA is working on their response.
I think many of us do not realize how instrumental the NPTS is to a lot of
what we do. The NPTS is the only source of travel-characteristic data for the
nation, allowing us to track trends since 1969 when the first survey was done.
NPTS data was used to develop the household trip generation rates in the
update of the old NCHRP 187, published as the NCHRP 365, *Travel Estimation
Techniques for Urban Planning*. Many, many areas use it for bench-marking
their locally collected data. It offers comparative data for any area to see
the similarities and differences to regional and national trends.
A number of States and MPOs use the NPTS data as a source of default values
when no other data is available, especially for smaller population groups such
as elderly drivers. State-wide models are being developed using the NPTS data
to fill in rural areas or smaller towns and cities.
The web site (http://www-cta.ornl.gov/npts/) was a real step forward to make
accessing the data easy, and is a good resource for special studies and topic
papers, such as the one on trip chaining.
The 2000 survey would have been a valuable tool to address contemporary
transportation needs and topics because of the extension of the previous data
as well as the addition of new data items directed to emerging issues.
I received some disturbing information today indicating that the NPTS data
collection planned for this fall will not be occurring. I was told the
funding for the program has been or will be cut from the FY 2001 DOT
budget. Has anyone else heard this? If so can you confirm that it is
true? Is FHWA cutting the funding or is it being cut by congress.