For the Week Ending December 15, 2000
This weekly report is written by the American Society of Civil Engineers? 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 by e-mail or at 202/789-2200.
Due to the upcoming holidays, This Week in Washington will not be published for the next two weeks and will resume on January 5. Have a safe and happy New Year!
Inside This Week:
- Congress One Bill Short of Adjournment
- Clinton Signs Water Resources Projects Bill Into Law
- Congress Passes Housing Bill
- Environmentalists Urge Clinton to Keep ANWR from Oil Exploration
- Bush-Cheney Transition Team Up and Running
- State Government Update
1. CONGRESS ONE BILL SHORT OF ADJOURNMENT
The 106th Congress has one piece of must-pass legislation left before final adjournment. The legislative package will include the last three appropriations measures setting FY 2001 funding for Labor-Health and Human Services-Education, Treasury-Postal, and the Legislative Branch. The bill will provide $127.3 billion in funding. Of interest to ASCE members is the $1.2 billion for school construction bonds, a significant increase over recent years.
Final passage is expected the evening of Friday, December 15. A last minute disagreement between the Clinton Administration and Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee over Alaskan fishing rights had delayed passage but, as of press time, a deal had been reached and a vote was expected on the bill as early as 5 p.m. The House of Representatives and Senate are expected to permanently adjourn the 106th Congress shortly afterward.
2. CLINTON SIGNS WATER RESOURCES PROJECTS BILL INTO LAW
President Clinton signed the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2000 into law on December 11. The Act, Pub.L. 106-541, authorizes $7 billion for flood control projects, navigation improvements, environmental protection and restoration efforts, and other water resource projects.
A key feature of the legislation authorizes the first stages of a plan for the Army Corps of Engineers to revitalize the Florida Everglades over the next 36 years. The Everglades plan is widely supported by federal, state, and local governments, and environmental, agricultural, and development groups.
The WRDA 2000 also includes provisions related to Corps of Engineers procedural and policy reforms. Among the reforms are National Academy of Sciences studies on independent peer review and project analysis of Corps projects, cost sharing based on a sponsor?s ability to pay, and monitoring of completed projects.
3. CONGRESS PASSES HOUSING BILL
Congress has passed and President Clinton is expected to sign H.R. 5640, the American Homeownership and Economic Opportunity Act of 2000. The bill contains a variety of housing and banking reforms and changes. Of interest to ASCE, the bill makes significant changes to the National Manufactured House Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974.
ASCE staff has been unable to review the final language in the bill, however we have learned the bill has been significantly improved over earlier drafts. Early versions of the legislation would have essentially let the manufactured housing industry police itself. A yearlong effort by ASCE has lead to significant improvements. ASCE however, remains concerned that the Act strays from the time tested consensus setting process administered by the American National Standards Institute, and used in most other areas of standards setting.
4. ENVIRONMENTALISTS URGE CLINTON TO KEEP ANWR FROM OIL EXPLORATION
Environmental groups have urged President Clinton to grant the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge monument status, thereby protecting a hotly debated area in the northern portion of the refuge from oil drilling. President-elect George W. Bush has said he would open the area to drilling, but a monument designation by Clinton would prevent that, unless Congress overturned the designation.
Opening ANWR's coastal plain, a 1.5-million-acre expanse also known as the 1002 area, is "not only a bad environmental idea, it's a bad economic idea and it's bad energy policy," said Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Kennedy said "it's a trivial amount of oil" that will not even lower gasoline prices at the pump by one penny. The people who would benefit would be oil company executives, who have contributed generously to the GOP, he said.
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who in the past has recommended monument designations to the president, opposes designating a national monument in ANWR because of the strong objections of many Americans, including members of Congress. Sen. Bob Smith (R-NH), chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has said he opposes any oil exploration in the ANWR, however. Congress has the power to override an executive order establishing a monument, and Babbitt fears that if Congress did so on ANWR, other monuments would also be vulnerable to repeal.
5. BUSH-CHENEY TRANSITION TEAM UP AND RUNNING
President-elect George W. Bush and Vice President-elect Dick Cheney have set up a web site for those interested in applying for an appointment to their Administration. The site is located at http://www.bushcheneytransition.com. ASCE?s Committee on Government Affairs can endorse politically and technically qualified persons for political appointments. For guidelines on the ASCE endorsement process, contact Nora Smith at 202-789-2200 or govwash@asce.org.
6. STATE GOVERNMENT UPDATE
ASCE provides updates on individual state government matters affecting civil engineers. For more information on the following items, or any other state government relations matters, please contact Austin Fulk, ASCE?s Manager of State Government Relations, at (202) 789-2200 or via email at afulk@asce.org.
Transportation in Washington
Washington Governor Gary Locke is proposing spending $50 billion over the next 20 years on new highways for the state. Among the projects the governor proposes to fund are a $1.1 billion suspension bridge across the Tacoma Narrows, two floating bridges linking Seattle and Bellevue across Lake Washington, a freight corridor from the port of Seattle, and solutions to the traffic bottleneck at I-90 and State Route 520.
It is unclear how the spending will be financed. Among the methods proposed by Locke are 11 new taxes, including a $.02 "odometer tax" on every vehicle mile driven; a two percent surcharge on sales of cars and car parts; an 8.2 percent tax on gasoline at the wholesale level; and an increase of the state's fuel tax from $.23 to $.29. Also, while the Washington Supreme Court recently overturned a 1998 ballot initiative that repealed the state's tax on vehicles, a major source of transportation revenue, backers of the initiative have vowed to re-enact it.
