Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
AMSA CITES LUNTZ POLL TO BOOST U.S. FUNDS FOR WATER INFRASTRUCTURE
Date: February 9, 2004 -
SANTA MONICA, CA -- Faced with a host of hurdles, the Association of
Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies (AMSA) is planning to use a new poll by
Republican pollster Frank Luntz to boost nationwide support for a federal trust
fund to finance large-scale water infrastructure projects.
The Bush administration opposes increased federal spending on water
infrastructure and is seeking to shift the burden of new infrastructure
financing to local authorities.
But AMSA and other water groups, along with a bipartisan group of lawmakers, are
pushing legislation that would significantly increase new federal spending on
water infrastructure. However, release of the poll comes as AMSA is struggling
to win broad support for its effort to create a federally financed trust fund.
Wastewater and drinking water groups remain divided over how to finance any new
trust fund and key Republican leaders oppose broadly supported legislative
provisions that mandate prevailing wages for water projects that receive federal
funds. Some Senate Republicans are now preparing to introduce legislation that
would revamp the existing state revolving loan fund (SRF) program.
Luntz's poll finds that 69 percent of those surveyed believed that clean water
is a national issue that requires dedicated national funding, while 25 percent
of those surveyed believe clean water is a local problem. "In short, Americans
believe [clean water] is a national problem that requires a national solution,"
Luntz noted in a January memo to the group.
The poll also says that 53 percent of those polled believed the federal
government should be responsible for funding necessary infrastructure
improvements, 21 percent believed local authorities should be responsible and 20
percent felt both should pay.
The poll also finds that 91 percent of the 800 people interviewed nationwide
agree that if the federal government is willing to invest billions of dollars
annually in highways and airways, it should be willing to invest in the nation's
waterways. The poll results also show that a majority of the respondents would
be more likely to vote for a member of Congress who supported a trust fund.
However, the poll also notes that many respondents believe any federal trust
fund to finance water infrastructure needs to be dedicated to spending on water
projects. "This money -- this dedicated national funding -- cannot simply get
lost in the bureaucratic pipeline that connects Main Street to Washington, D.C.
A tax for water must be spent on water," the Luntz memo says.
AMSA is planning to promote Luntz's poll, scheduled for release Feb. 9, to
wastewater treatment officials, congressional staff and the media.
The poll surveyed 800 registered voters nationwide, as well as select focus
groups in Los Angeles, Baltimore and Nashville.
The latest poll follows an earlier AMSA-commissioned survey by Luntz released
last May that showed 70 percent of people polled would support a one percent tax
increase if the money were spent on water infrastructure, while 84 percent would
back legislation to create a trust fund (Water Policy Report, June 2, p15).
Luntz has won notoriety as the pollster who tested the legislative ideas behind
House Republicans' 1994 Contract with America. Luntz has also faced criticism
over a 2000 memo that seeks to provide Republicans with an environmental
communication plan that critics charge provides a template for how the Bush
administration and other Republicans promote weak environmental policies as
balanced.
AMSA officials said at their winter conference here last week the new survey
indicates broad national support for a trust fund to pay for infrastructure
projects, despite the rift between drinking water and wastewater utility groups
about how such a trust should be financed.
Drinking water groups including the American Water Works Association
(AWWA) and the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA) say they oppose
a trust fund financed by a federal tax on water, which the groups believe would
be costly to drinking water ratepayers while disproportionately benefiting
wastewater customers. Instead, the drinking water group has suggested expanding
the state revolving loan fund (SRF) program to finance infrastructure
improvements.
AWWA sent a Jan. 26 letter to its water utility members to assure them that the
group is "proactively addressing the country's water infrastructure needs,"
while solidifying their position against a trust fund if it is funded by a
federal water tax "which is the usual method of providing capital for such a
fund," the letter says. Relevant documents are available on InsideEPA.com.
The divide between drinking water and wastewater groups on how to finance a
trust fund has weakened the Water Infrastructure Network (WIN) lobbying
coalition, a joint coalition of wastewater and drinking water groups, which has
been pressing Congress to pass legislation to fund water infrastructure
improvements.
After drinking water groups threatened to leave the coalition over the tax
issue, wastewater officials said they would seek to recruit new members, such as
environmentalists and industry groups, to make up for any lost support. The
drive for new members is also aimed at broadening the coalition's base so they
can potentially gain support for the trust fund idea from a wider constituency
of interest groups, which have broader political sway among voters than the
wastewater and drinking water groups that currently make up WIN's base
membership.
While AMSA officials considered eliminating the water tax idea to gain AWWA and
AMWA support, they decided against it because they say the Luntz survey
indicates there is ample support among Americans for a trust fund, even if it
were financed by water or sewer rate increases.
AMSA officials say they plan to draft a bill to establish a trust fund, but do
not expect such a bill to move through either chamber of Congress this year.
However, having a legislative proposal on the table could "give people something
to rally around," which AMSA could use in its long-term push for a trust fund,
one AMSA source says.
Meanwhile, AMSA is advocating revising the SRF process as an alternate means to
gain funding in the event water infrastructure funding legislation does not gain
immediate congressional attention. The group sent a letter Jan. 30 to key Senate
environment committee members suggesting an overhaul of the program, based on
POTWs' responses to a recent survey on the SRF process. "Nearly all the POTWs
who responded to a . . . recent request from AMSA to comment on the SRF program
concluded that the program is dated and an overly cumbersome bureaucratic
financial mechanism that includes requirements that are a relic of the clean
water grants program from 20 years ago," the letter says.
AMSA included in the letter a host of recommendations from its POTW members to
improve the SRF program, which include extending the term to pay back a loan
from 20 years to the "term of the useful life of the project"; revising the
funding formula to make it based on need; and eliminating the need for
environmental review of projects to meet the EPA guideline and, instead,
requiring them to meet state and local guidelines.