Legislation

Government bureaucrats want your water softener. The Culligan Man is fighting back. The company behind the renowned "Hey Culligan Man!" advertising campaign of the 1950s has launched a political and public relations offensive to kill a bill targeting its signature product. That proposal would allow regulators to ban conventional water softeners that discharge salt into municipal sewer lines.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has approved two major initiatives that will require utilities to pay consumers for generating extra power and will boost the payoff for certain solar facilities. Homes, businesses and schools that have solar panels or wind turbines previously had no financial incentive to use less electricity than they generated. But AB 920, written by Assemblyman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), will encourage efficiency, supporters say. SB 32, by state Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod (D-Chino)

In mid-spring, when the prospect of a global warming bill passing Congress seemed like an Al Gore pipe dream, President Obama invited Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) down to the Oval Office. "He realized that this was a very tough bill to get through," Waxman remembers.

The American Medical Assn., after 60 years of opposing any government overhaul of healthcare, is now lobbying and advertising to win public support for President Obama's sweeping plan -- a proposal that promises hundreds of billions of dollars for America's doctors. Of all the interest groups that have won favorable terms in closed-door negotiations this year, the association representing the nation's physicians may have taken home the biggest prizes, including an agreement to stop planned cuts in Medicare payments that are worth $228 billion to doctors over 10 years.

Capping months of work, House Democratic leaders on Tuesday introduced their plan for a sweeping remake of the nation's healthcare system. Among the provisions in the 1,018-page bill: creation of a new government insurance option, increased regulation of the insurance industry and other steps to ensure near-universal medical coverage for the first time in U.S. history. The bill would also set out new initiatives to begin curbing costs in a healthcare system that is expected to consume nearly $2.

The Senate on Wednesday passed a $34.3-billion energy spending bill that backs up President Obama's promise to close the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility in Nevada. The bill, passed by a 85-9 vote, also covers water transfers to help farmers in California and hundreds of water projects by the Army Corps of Engineers. The House passed a similar bill two weeks ago. Once the measures are reconciled, the bill will go to the president for his signature.

Religious and labor leaders called upon Congress and President-elect Obama to pass a comprehensive immigration package this year and said that the U.S. economy could not be restored without legalizing the nation's undocumented immigrants. "Immigration reform is a necessity in order to fix the American economy," John Wilhelm, president of Unite Here's hospitality-industry division, said Thursday during a national teleconference call on immigration reform.

Leave it to the banks to try to turn passage of credit card reform legislation Tuesday into bad news for many cardholders. Here's the deal: Banks are basically saying that because they're going to have to change some lending practices to comply with the bill, they'll be facing greater risk.

The half-century battle to complete the 710 Freeway through Pasadena and South Pasadena using a surface route could come to an end as early as today if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs legislation that would bar aboveground construction on a route that has long been considered the missing link in L.A.'s highway system. The bill would eliminate the possibility of completing the final leg of the 710 Freeway from where it ends at Valley Boulevard at the edge of Alhambra to Pasadena using a surface route.

In the Ozark Mountain town of Rogers, Ark., more than 250 business owners gathered for lunch at a construction company last month to focus on what they saw as a major threat -- a proposal in Congress to make it easier to form labor unions. At each place setting, attendees found pre-stamped postcards and pre-written letters to be sent to Arkansas' U.S. senators, Democrats Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln, who had supported the labor bill in the past.