The Week Ending March 10, 2000
This weekly report is written by ASCE's Government Relations staff. If you have questions or comments about any items in this report, please contact Brian Pallasch, Michael Charles, Martin Hight, Austin Fulk, or Liz Hermsen at 202/789-2200.
Inside This Week:
Senate Passes AIR-21, House Will Consider it Next Week
On Wednesday night, the Senate passed with a vote of 82-17 the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill (H.R. 1000) known as AIR-21. The House of Representatives is expected to pass the final legislation on Tuesday. President Clinton is expected to sign the bill when he receives it.
The final conference report authorizes $40 billion over the next three years for the FAA, of which $33 billion would be guaranteed from the Airport and Airway Trust Fund. The bill compels lawmakers to spend on aviation each year all the annual Airport and Airway Trust Fund receipts and interest. A stipulation in the report would allow any legislator to raise a point of order against an appropriations bill that did not fully fund capital improvement programs for aviation. ASCE supports spending all funds in the Airport and Airway Trust Fund and providing general funds for FAA operations so that all the Trust Fund money is used for its intended purpose - capital improvements to the nation's airports.
The legislation also included a provision to allow airports to increase the Passenger Facility Charge from $3 to $4.50 per flight segment, which is expected to raise approximately $700 million per year for safety, security, noise mitigation, and capacity projects that are not funded through other programs. Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater noted that the report includes the funding levels that the Administration requested for general FAA operations and said that the department plans to work closely with congressional appropriators to ensure that they allocate the authorized funding level.
ASCE Proposes Amendment to Manufactured Housing Bill
The House Banking and Financial Service Committee is scheduled to mark up legislation (H.R. 1776) on Tuesday that would alter the way the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) establishes regulations for manufactured housing. The bill would form a standard-setting group that, at present, would not meet the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) requirements for standards developing groups. The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee marked up similar legislation this week but did not include an amendment proposed by ASCE.
ASCE has proposed an amendment to the House and Senate bills that would provide greater protections for the buyers of manufactured homes, ensure a fair rulemaking process, prevent possible industry influence over the enforcement of federal regulation and energize the long-delayed regulatory process at HUD. ASCE agrees that legislation is needed to push HUD to modernize current manufactured housing regulations that have not been significantly altered in more than twenty years. However, ASCE is concerned that the legislation, strongly backed by the manufactured housing industry, would blur the long-standing practice of developing industry safety standards apart from any consequent regulations.
ASCE's amendment would delete provisions of the bill requiring a 21-member "consensus committee," which is composed in part of industry representatives, to review or approve HUD's proposed enforcement strategies. It would replace the provision with a requirement to engage in a standards-setting process accredited by ANSI. The amendment would also delete a provision in the bill that would weaken federal regulations by retaining the requirement in current law that any construction and safety standards meet the "highest" standards of protection. Further, ASCE's amendment would establish a judicially enforceable deadline of 18 months for the finalization of new construction and safety standards and require HUD to update the standards no less often than every three years.
Earlier this month, ASCE had sent a letter to all members of the Senate Committee expressing concern with the proposed legislation. ASCE is currently working with members of the House to include the amendment in the bill mark-up.
House Passes Bill to Cut Taxes and Raise Minimum Wage
Late last night, the House of Representatives passed a $45.7 billion tax cut for small businesses and a minimum wage increase of $1 over two years. Intended to lessen the affect of the minimum wage increase on small businesses, the tax include provisions to:
- Make health insurance for the self-employed fully deductible by 2001
- Increase equipment deduction amounts to $30,000 from $19,000
- Increase the business meal deduction from 50 percent to 60 percent beginning in 2001
- Reduce the top estate tax rate from 55 percent to 50 percent by 2002 and reduce all estate tax rates by one percentage point per year in 2003 and 2004
- Increase 401(k), and other, pretax salary contribution limits to $14,000, phased in beginning in 2001
- Create 15 new renewal communities that would be eligible for initiatives including brownfield industrial site clean-ups, effective in 2001
The President has threatened to veto the bill because of the size of the tax cuts.
State Legislative Update
ASCE continues to provide updates on state legislation affecting civil engineers as state legislative sessions progress. For more information on the following bills, or any other state legislative matters, please contact Austin Fulk, ASCE's Manager of State Government Relations, at (202) 789-2200 or via email at govwash@asce.org.
Election News:
On March 7- "Super Tuesday"- voters in a number of states cast their primary ballots for president. Additionally, some initiatives of interest to civil engineers were also voted on around the country.
California voters approved almost all bond issues that were on the statewide ballot, with a total value of around $4.5 billion, including:
- Proposition 12, which authorizes $2.1 billion to build and improve state, city and county parks, zoos, and playgrounds.
- Proposition 13, which authorizes almost $2 billion for water infrastructure projects.
- Proposition 14, to issue $350 million worth of bonds for new library construction.
- Proposition 15, authorizing $220 million to renovate local crime labs, was defeated by a small margin.
Voters also narrowly rejected, by a 51-49 percent margin, an attempt to weaken California's original Proposition 13, which was passed in 1978 and requires a two-thirds majority of voters to approve all tax increases. Proposition 26, which would have amended the state constitution to allow local school bonds to be approved by a simple majority vote, rather than the two-thirds margin now required.
School bonds were also popular in Ohio where, statewide, 109 of 161 local ballot initiatives authorizing new school bonds were passed.
Legislative News:
Wyoming Governor Jim Geringer, in his State of the State address, proposed putting a sales tax on professional services as "the most effective" way to raise an estimated $26 million for state coffers. A bill to implement this tax was prefiled, but due to the nature of Wyoming's legislative procedure it needed a two-thirds vote to be introduced this year. The bill did not receive the needed margin of support, and is thus dead for the year. ASCE members in Wyoming should, however, be prepared to face this idea again next year, when the bill will not have such a steep hurdle to be introduced.
Thanks to strong opposition from ASCE members in Virginia, S.B. 728 was defeated. The bill would have weakened Virginia's QBS requirement by allowing public bodies to ask that price information be included in a Request for Proposal. Faced with a great deal of opposition, the bill's sponsor withdrew the bill before it could even be heard.
