Aggregated News
California's budget stalemate will delay until next year a key lawmaker's effort to change how the state's stem cell agency is governed to reflect recommendations made by an independent state oversight commission in a just-released study.
The delay also sets the stage for a showdown with the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the state's most vocal patient advocate - both of whom oppose the findings by the Milton Marks "Little Hoover" Commission on California State Government Organization and Economy.
The chair of California's state Senate Health Committee, Elaine Alquist (D-San Jose), said through a spokesman last week she will wait until 2010 to introduce legislation to restructure the governance and some operations of CIRM.
The delay reflects the expectation that she and chairs of other state committees will be too busy this year scrambling to plug a $27 billion shortfall in the state budget, still being hammered out for the fiscal year that began on Wednesday, Alquist spokesman Russell Lopez told BioRegion News.
"That's what the Senator has been really concentrating on," Lopez said Wednesday. "There's nothing going on...
The delay also sets the stage for a showdown with the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the state's most vocal patient advocate - both of whom oppose the findings by the Milton Marks "Little Hoover" Commission on California State Government Organization and Economy.
The chair of California's state Senate Health Committee, Elaine Alquist (D-San Jose), said through a spokesman last week she will wait until 2010 to introduce legislation to restructure the governance and some operations of CIRM.
The delay reflects the expectation that she and chairs of other state committees will be too busy this year scrambling to plug a $27 billion shortfall in the state budget, still being hammered out for the fiscal year that began on Wednesday, Alquist spokesman Russell Lopez told BioRegion News.
"That's what the Senator has been really concentrating on," Lopez said Wednesday. "There's nothing going on...