The Sacramento Bee from Sacramento, California • 41

SCENES El UIHER B8 SJ-SI'NISS D1 No safe harbor in market storm SPORTS Cl First no-hitter of baseball season Sunny 6746 See The Bee's new color weather page Fir Nice Guy From Roseville to Nick von Esmarch same old FOUNDED 1857 THURSDAY April 5 200 1 wwwsacbeecom Statefinal 50 cents Tax-cut status These are the components of President Bush's 1 6 trillion tax-cut proposal and where they stand in Congress Component Estimated 10-year cost House Senate Slashing income tax rates $958 billion Passed Pending on March 8 The Senate votes to shrink the $16 trillion plan as budget also falters By Lawrence O'Rourke BEE WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON President Bush's $16 trillion tax cut proposal ran into serious trouble in the Senate on Wednesday even as the House rounded out its endorsement of the president's plan by voting to eliminate estate taxes over 10 years In the Senate the president's goal of winning approval this week of a blueprint for his $16 trillion tax cut hit twin setbacks The Senate delivered one blow when it voted 53-47 to scale back the tax cut by $450 billion In a second setback Sen James Jeffords R-Vt announced that he would probably vote against the Bush budget "unless a miracle Approving an amendment by Sens Tom Harkin D-Iowa and Paul Wellstone D-Minn the Senate directed that half the $450 billion go to federal education programs with the other half devoted to paying down the national debt Three Republicans Jeffords Aden Specter of Pennsylvania and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island broke from their party and supported the rollback Although Republican leaders reserved the right to a second vote on the provision the GOP defections sent shock TAXES page A18 Reducing penalty $400 billion Passed Pending and increasing child tax credit on March 29 Phasing out estate taxes $193 billion Passed Pending Wednesday Source Bee news services Bee State boom winds down US offers regrets to an angry China By Gilbert Chan BFE STAFF WRITER Colin Powell will be jolted by a recession this year a downturn marked by California's economic boom increasing layoffs by technology fueled largely by the Internet companies and sliding home gold rush of the 1990s is nearing prices the researchers an end as the state grapples with in a forecast released a troubling energy crisis and a Wednesday Nationally the UCLA researchers predicted the United States will head into a mild recession later this year the first in a decade before recovering next year going to have to make some fundamental lifestyle UCLA management professor Edward Learner wrote in the Anderson Business Forecast summing up ahead The forecast now in its 50th year is produced by the Anderson School the graduate business school and is closely watched by corporations and cSv ECONOMY page A12 BEE NEWS SERVICES WASHINGTON The Bush administration sought Wednesday to break the impasse over detention of a US spy plane and its crew expressing regret for the apparent death of a Chinese pilot in a midair collision but rejecting Beijing's demands for an apology "We regret that the Chinese plane did not get down safely and we regret the loss of life of that Chinese pilot" Secretary of State Colin Powell said "But now we need to move There was no immediate response from China Earlier Wednesday in Beijing China hardened its position regarding Sunday's midair collision with President Jiang Zemin insisting that China receive an official apology and the country's foreign minister accusing the regret the loss of life of that Chinese pilot But now we need to move on" United States of being wrongheaded and making "groundless accusations" Other US officials including the US ambassador to China also expressed regret after collision between the US EP-3E Aries II surveillance plane and a Chinese F-8 fighter jet The expressions of regret Wednesday by Powell White CHINA page A18 New lead found in serial rapes Total nonfarm employment (in millions) California forecast "91 "92 93 94 "95 96 98 99 00 During the past decade booming technology industry fed retail sales and demand for new housing and pushed the jobless rate to lows not seen since the 1 960s But experts forecasting for 2001 and 2002 say the ride is over Personal Income (in billions of dollars) After decades DNA links the East Area Rapist to crimes in Orange County By MS Enkoji and Ralph Montafio BEE STAFF' WRITERS For a time he was the most hunted feared man in Sacramento County Terrified men and women flooded hardware stores shooting ranges and alarm companies in desperate attempts to ward off the East Area Rapist From 1976 to 1978 the rapist preyed on dozens of people many of them sleeping couples in the eastern neighborhoods often tying up the male before raping the female Anyone who could read knew about how the intruder balanced dishes on the bound men and threatened more violence if the crockery tumbled and broke And jusl about anyone knows he slipped away leaving 36 rape victims after a two-year reign of terror on to unsuspecting towns leaving behind baffled and frustrated ranks of authorities Now his trail may have been unearthed New scientific evidence appears to link him with a RAPIST page A18 Residential building permits (in thousands) 4q1 49 151 96 86 Taxable sales (in billions of dollars) -b 91 92 93 94 95 96 '97 98 99 '01 91 9293 '94 95 96 97 98 99 '00 '02 Source UCLA Anderson Forecast 91 92 9394 95 96 97 98 99 00 91 '02 BeeOlivia Nguyen INSIDE THE BEE A push for regional unity Bush plan would alter school meat testing the Democratic lawmaker said fear if they keep competing rather than cooperating lose But even supporters of Assembly Bill 680 say it be easy to win consensus within the region where serious concerns exist that cities and counties could be left holding the bag if the bill is approved now and the Legislature later changes the terms will undoubtedly be controversial said Martin Tuttle executive director of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments which has not yet taken a position on AB680 think any time you deal with local government finance dealing with a bread-and-butter issue for a city manager or county administrator" he said "If you want to tweak the formula going to be sensitive AB 680 targets Sacramento Yolo Placer El Dorado Sutter and Yuba coun- REGION page A14 Bill would allocate sales tax funds in six counties based on population By Jim Sanders BEE CAPITOL BUREAU Hoping to spark regional cooperation a Sacramento assemblyman has proposed legislation to fundamentally change the way sales tax revenues are distributed in six local counties and to reduce the competition over massive auto or shopping malls Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg said his goal is to eliminate a situation in which cities and counties feel pressure to compete for big-bucks commercial development even if it would worsen regional traffic sprawl or pollution "We and want to impede progress but cities and counties have to work together to make sure that what makes this area soispecial remains that SPORTS Cl River Cats opener Jon Ratliff takes the mound tonight when the Cats open Year II at Raley Field Darrell Steinberg The salmonella tests were ordered in June by the Clinton administration and were met with fierce opposition by the meat industry which complained that the tests were not scientific and were burdensome The industry has since lobbied to scrap them a variety of reasons the new specifications had no basis in public health" said Sara Lilygren a spokeswoman for the American Meat Institute Zero tolerance for salmonella is unnecessary because the bacteria is killed in normal cooking she said But the decision was criticized by consumer groups and some legislators who noted that the tougher standard had resulted In MEAT pagt 14 BEE NEWS SERVICES WASHINGTON The Bush administration has proposed dropping testing for salmonella in ground beef for the school lunch program and allowing schools to serve beef that has been irradiated a controversial procedure that kills salmonella and other harmful bacteria The US Department of Agriculture is moving to change the Clinton administration policy after concluding that less costly alternatives for protecting meat safety could be as effective Officials also said that the current program for salmonella in school lunch meals was not scientifically rastified Complete index page A2 2001 The Sacramento Bee Volume 289 The Sacramento measure seeks to end competition among neighboring cities and counties for development that brings revenue 1 12499 040' ft i.