The House prefers a two-tiered system that would enable people already licensed in Maryland to renew without documenting their legal status. Those licenses would be marked "not federally compliant."
The Senate is insistent on a more straightforward approach. Under its version, neither those seeking renewals nor first-time applicants would be able to obtain a Maryland driver's license without documents proving lawful presence in the United States.
With tax revenue falling far below expectations, both the House and Senate have pared the state's roughly $14 billion annual operating budget by hundreds of millions of dollars. Negotiators began work on Saturday to reconcile dozens of differences, and the conference committee will continue to meet early this week before sending the compromise measure to the floors.
Among the differences are how much money to devote to stem-cell research and whether to freeze inflationary formulas for several areas of the budget in future years. Education advocates have objected to proposed changes in funding formulas for public elementary and secondary schools.
While many education and other cuts were averted with the influx of federal funding from the economic stimulus package this year, revenue shortfalls are projected for the next several years, and lawmakers are wary of future commitments.
"We're going to have to take steps so we don't have a deficit facing us every year we come back here," said Del. Norman H. Conway, chairman of the Appropriations Committee and an Eastern Shore Democrat.
Lawmakers also must finish work on the capital budget and decide how much to devote to replacing an aging medevac helicopter fleet and how to fund the state's land preservation program.
It remains unclear whether lawmakers will approve O'Malley's proposal to re-regulate the electricity market for residential and small commercial customers, a reversal of the legislature's 1999 decision to deregulate on the theory that competition would lower rates and boost power supplies in the state. While the plan, which calls for a surcharge to pay for new generation, has been approved in the Senate, it faces resistance in the House.
Del. Dereck E. Davis, chairman of the Economic Matters Committee, said the panel could vote late this week and send a bill to the floor. But that leaves little time to work out any differences with the Senate on the complicated proposal.
