Conferees

ANNAPOLIS -- Gov. William Donald Schaefer nudged stubborn House and Senate tax conferees into a face-to-face meeting last night, raising the hope that the legislature's budget and tax deadlock might be broken before Monday's scheduled midnight adjournment.The conferees settled nothing during their 90-minute discussion, but seemed on the verge of a compromise that could be completed when they meet again today.The biggest sticking point, it appeared, was whether a new 6 percent income tax bracket for the wealthy, proposed by the House, should be permanent or, as the Senate suggested, should expire after two or three years.

Budget negotiators for the Senate and House met briefly Monday afternoon but both sides held fast to entrenched positions over income taxes and made no progress toward a resolution of the issues threatening to push the General Assembly into an extended session for the first time in two decades. The Senate is insisting on a plan under which most taxpayers would pay at least a small amount more in income taxes because of a reduced personal exemption. The House is insisting that individuals making less than $100,000 and joint files making under $150,000 see no increase.

WASHINGTON -- House and Senate conferees agreed yesterday to a $3.1 billion supplemental defense appropriations bill requested by the White House, but they unexpectedly added a Republican-drafted provision that threatens to cut off all future loans and guarantees to Mexico.The sponsor of the amendment, Rep. Christopher Cox of California, said it was in retaliation for President Clinton's refusal to provide detailed information on his financial aid plan for Mexico that Congress demanded a month ago.The measure, which would need the approval of the House and Senate, would take effect only if the administration failed to make the documents available.

Good news folks. The House and Senate budget conferees are set to go back into session at 3 p.m. this afternoon, a piece of information we're going to hope means there's been some progress in the House-Senate standoff. The House is set to go back for an evening session at 5 p.m.

ANNAPOLIS -- Senate conferees on tax legislation agreed today to go along with a House proposal to raise Maryland's tax on cigarettes by 20 cents a pack -- to 36 cents from the current 16 cents.It was the only point of agreement in today's first meeting of the six conferees."We don't like it, but we'll go with it," said Sen. John A. Cade, R-Anne Arundel. The Senate had proposed a 10 cents-a-pack increase.The House, which initially opposed any increase in the cigarette tax, approved the 20-cent hike only after Gov. William Donald Schaefer threatened to veto the entire budget balancing tax package if it did not contain an increase of at least that magnitude.

WASHINGTON -- After an unexpectedly fractious start yesterday to the House-Senate conference on President Clinton's tax proposals, an exasperated Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan pulled aside his chief tormentor with a pointed question."

In a drab hearing room on the second floor of the Senate office building in Annapolis, six lawmakers have gathered six times in the past week to hammer out the differences between two rival bills addressing Pfiesteria in Maryland waterways.The conference committee -- of state senators and delegates -- is one of many such deliberations as the annual session of the Maryland General Assembly builds toward adjournment Monday. But some Annapolis veterans say these talks are like few others -- in that lobbyists are not only attending but participating.

WASHINGTON -- Federal employees will receive annual pay increases of about 5 percent between 1992 and 1994, along with extra pay in the following years to close any gaps between government employees and their private counterparts, as part of a sweeping $4 billion pay agreement reached yesterday between Congress and the Bush administration.Federal employees in high-cost areas -- such as New York, Los Angeles and Washington -- where there are problems of retaining and recruiting workers would also receive "locality" pay increases in addition to the across-the-board salary increases.

ANNAPOLIS -- Unable to agree on taxes, Maryland lawmakers shifted their attention back to the state budget yesterday, hoping they can at least get that approved before the 90-day session expires at midnight Monday.But even that effort fell apart last night.House and Senate conferees on the budget abruptly decided there was no sense in meeting because the House wanted nearly $50 million in appropriations for expanded local aid programs, while the Senate conferees did not.The aid would include a $30 million grant to Baltimore and five poor rural counties, and would provide $17 million to finance educational placements for disabled students.

FOR A GLIMPSE of Congress at work, take a quick hard look at the $243 billion defense appropriations bill just approved by Senate and House conferees. The measure, richly deserving a presidential veto, contains two big-ticket items that cause fiscal indigestion not only among Democratic liberals but among Republican deficit hawks intent on balancing the budget.Before conferees assembled a few weeks ago, the Senate had gone on record against added funds for the B-2 bomber and the House had voted to reject a third Seawolf nuclear submarine.

Negotiators for the Maryland Senate and House remain at an impasse over the state budget with only four full days remaining before the scheduled end of the General Assembly's 90-day session, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said Thursday. "We remain still at loggerheads between the House and Senate conferees," said Miller, a  Calvert County Democrat. He said Gov. Martin O'Malley is attempting to act as mediator between the two sides. The conference committees on the three unresolved bills that make up the budget package have met only sporadically since the negotiations began Monday, when talks stalled on the key measure raising income taxes.  Until that matter is resolved, budget negotiators won't know how much money is available to spend.

House and Senate negotiators squared off Monday over the issue of taxes -- and the question wasn't whether to raise them but who should pay. The five senators and five delegates on the revenue bill conference gathered in the afternoon at the Legislative Services Building next to the State House. It was part of a complicated series of negotiations that began Monday on the various bill that make up this year's budget package -- including the budget bill itself, a companion measure needed to achieve balance and the tax measure.

An effort to allow for-profit companies to provide debt management services to Marylanders failed during the last hours of the General Assembly when the legislature passed a bill to increase consumer protections for those seeking help from credit counselors. Now, only nonprofits can provide credit counseling and debt management in Maryland. But state regulators are expected to study whether for-profits can do the same job, and the issue may come up again next year. Two years ago, scandals erupted in the credit counseling industry with some nonprofits accused of overcharging consumers and channeling money to for-profit affiliates.

ROME - At the peak of her fame in the 1960s, Italian actress Sophia Loren was asked to share beauty secrets. Gesturing toward her shapely figure, she replied, "Everything you see is because of pasta." Times change. Loren is now co-starring with an enormous, slobbering dog in a popular commercial on Italian television, and pasta is in the doghouse, too, thanks to the Atkins diet and America's current terror of carbohydrates. Which explains why a group of nearly 300 scientists, chefs and nutritionists met in Rome last week to debunk myths about pasta's alleged nutritional deficiencies, and celebrate what is Italy's version of soul food.

The revival of oysters in the Chesapeake Bay will require major investments in hatcheries, as well as greater coordination and monitoring of restoration and planting efforts, a conference of top national oyster experts concluded yesterday. The group ended a two-day conference in Annapolis by laying out directions for future oyster research, not just in the Chesapeake but also in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Northwest. "These two days have really given us a strong list of things we need to do and research," said Jonathan Kramer, director of the Maryland Sea Grant College program, a sponsor of the conference.

There will be other terrorist attacks on America, and agriculture is among the attractive targets, a state authority warned farm marketing officials from 20 states, Canada and Mexico yesterday. "We will most likely get hit again, and it could be a hit on the agriculture community. It is the easiest to hit," Jacob Casper, coordinator of disaster services for the Maryland Department of Agriculture, told representatives attending the annual meeting of North American Agricultural Marketing Officials.

Schoolchildren were among the big winners yesterday as the Maryland legislature overwhelmingly passed a $380 million capital budget, including $82 million for school construction.Combined with other state funds, it brings the total money allocated for school construction next year to $106 million, $19 million more than this year. The sum reflects the need to accommodate a growing student population and to address the problem of aging buildings.Legislators also approved $38 million for part of a new prison in Western Maryland and $250,000 for a feasibility study for a possible sports complex to house the Washington Bullets and Capitals.

ANNAPOLIS -- Gov. William Donald Schaefer nudged stubborn House and Senate tax conferees into a face-to-face meeting last night, raising the hope that the legislature's budget and tax deadlock might be broken before Monday's scheduled midnight adjournment.The conferees settled nothing during their 90-minute discussion, but seemed on the verge of a compromise that could be completed when they meet again today.The biggest sticking point, it appeared, was whether a new 6 percent income tax bracket for the wealthy, proposed by the House, should be permanent or, as the Senate suggested, should expire after two or three years.

State, federal and industry officials, including a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, will gather at a hotel near Baltimore-Washington International Airport today to discuss Maryland's role in reducing the country's dependence on foreign energy. The all-day conference is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy in conjunction with the state Department of Agriculture, the Maryland Energy Administration and the Maryland Department of the Environment. It will focus on plans for the construction in Maryland of a $30 million ethanol production plant.

WASHINGTON -- The leadership of the House and Senate reported progress last night after meeting to resolve an F-22 funding problem that had reached a stalemate.Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican, summoned a high-powered group of lawmakers to his office yesterday, a day after conference committee negotiations broke down over how many of the Air Force fighter jets to buy with next year's military spending bill."We made a good breakthrough," House Majority Leader Dick Armey said after the nearly two-hour, closed-door session.