Federal Aid

California's education leaders on Saturday lauded the release of $3.1 billion in federal economic stimulus funds for education, which includes more than half a billion dollars for hard-pressed colleges and universities. The state's universities are facing budget-related enrollment cutbacks, higher fees and class reductions in the fall, and officials said they hoped some of the most painful cuts could be avoided.

The chilling realization that some things in high finance will never change, notwithstanding the current crisis, came to me the other day when I discovered that the Federal Reserve would accept only AAA-rated securities as collateral for its new program to finance consumer loans. On the surface this seems only prudent -- after all, what could be more gilt-edged than paper given a top investment grade by two of the three most-recognized credit rating agencies, as the Fed demands?

It is a six-mile stretch of guardrail near a manufactured lake in a desolate patch of the Oklahoma Panhandle. There's little reason for anyone to visit. Weeds are overgrown; the lake bed is virtually dry. Yet repairing the guardrail is on a list of projects developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to tap into President Obama's $787-billion economic stimulus program. The price tag: more than $1.1 million.

In February, when Congress approved President Obama's mammoth plan to stimulate the economy, transportation projects were supposed to be among the fastest-acting pieces of the $787-billion package. All 50 states moved quickly to qualify for their share of the money. But since then the pace has slowed considerably, particularly in California and Florida, where the effect of the economic crisis has been especially severe.

Faced with a new federal policy that opens the door for more embryonic stem cell research, conservatives have geared up for a political battle at the national and state levels that goes to the core of their beliefs about the sanctity of human life. Since President Obama lifted the eight-year ban on nearly all federal funding for stem cell research this week, conservative leaders have stepped up efforts to lobby Congress to preserve some restrictions, they said.

California has by far the largest delegation in Congress, almost 10% of the membership. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, is a Californian, as are five of its committees' chairs -- a collection of powerful positions unmatched by any state. The state's two senators chair important committees, and one holds a coveted seat on the Appropriations Committee.

The nation's top education official praised Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday for signing a bill that will make California eligible for competitive federal education funding. Schwarzenegger signed the bill, SB 19 by Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), on Sunday, striking a clause in a 2006 law Simitian wrote that bars state use of testing data to determine educator pay or promotion. "This is a victory for children," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a telephone interview Tuesday.

In these uncertain times, you take your certitude where you find it. Platoons of academic economists and business commentators spent all weekend griping about the emerging details of the Obama administration's latest attempt to mount a bank bailout. Then Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner unveiled the plan in detail Monday morning, and the stock market delivered a decisive thumbs-up, with the Dow Jones index rocketing nearly 500 points higher.

Congress has hit the brakes on a Bush administration program to give Mexican trucks wider access to U.S. roads, putting President Obama in the middle of a politically sensitive trade dispute. A $410-billion spending bill that passed the Senate on a voice vote Tuesday would end funding for the cross-border trucking program, one of the most contentious issues to arise out of the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement. The House approved the spending measure last month.

With the White House positioned to reshape the future of the auto industry, Republican Sen. Bob Corker was so concerned about the prospects for his home state of Tennessee that he delivered a personal warning to the administration's point man on the issue. Don't keep plants open in Ohio and Michigan, which voted for President Obama last year, at the expense of a plant in Tennessee, which is solidly Republican, he said. "I wanted to know: Would they employ a blue-state, red-state strategy?"