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Legislative Update
February 1997

The 105th Congress is beginning to gear up for a busy legislative agenda -- some of which will address issues of importance to AMSA. While decisive action toward a reauthorized Clean Water Act (CWA) does not appear to be imminent, there is activity in the both the House and Senate on Superfund reform, and talk of CWA hearings in the House this Spring. The following will bring you up-to-date on recent key legislative developments.

Heard from the Hill

In the House. . .
Representative Bud Shuster (R-PA) will again serve as the Chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Representative Sherwood Boehlert (D-NY), as the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee chair. Representative Boehlert will also return as the Co-Chair, along with Representative Richard Pombo (R-CA) of Speaker Newt Gingrich's Task Force on the Environment, classified as a "consultative body" that brings Republicans together, not to set legislative agendas, but to share information and focus on regional issues and desirable changes to law.

During the 105th Congress, the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee will remain the House's largest committee, with 66 members to date -- and potentially more to be added in the future. It appears that, at the full committee level, the 36 Republicans and 30 Democrats will their attention on the reauthorization of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Act (ISTEA) early in the 105th Congress. Representative Boehlert's subcommittee, however, will turn its attention to reform of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund). Ben Grumbles, Counsel to the Water Resources & Environment Subcommittee, has indicated that attention is likely to be paid to the "unfinished business" of last Congress -- reauthorization of Superfund and the Clean Water Act (CWA) -- with Superfund to be considered first, building on past collaboration with the House Commerce Committee.


While Superfund reform legislation has yet to be introduced in the House, AMSA staff has met with Jeff More, professional staff to Chairman Boehlert, who reiterated the Chairman's support for AMSA's amendment addressing municipal liability for hazardous waste that may escaped from POTW collection systems and indicated the Subcommittee's willingness to work toward a bipartisan introduction of AMSA's amendment at the appropriate time.

Committee staff has yet to receive definitive guidance on how to proceed on CWA reauthorization. Grumbles has indicated that the approach may be to go more slowly than in the last Congress. In recent press accounts Subcommittee Chair Boehlert has suggested that many House members would prefer that the Senate take the first steps to reauthorize the CWA.

With 14 new Republicans and six new Democrats on the Committee, not to mention the significant work done on program administration at the Environmental Protection Agency and court actions taking place since the House passed H.R. 961 during the 104th Congress, the approach to reauthorization will undoubtedly be different. Key staff have strongly suggested that they will start their efforts with an "aggressive series of hearings" addressing issues such as total maximum daily loads, stormwater and nonpoint source pollution. Ken Kopocis, Minority Counsel, has cited funding, wet weather flows (nonpoint, stormwater, combined sewer overflows and sanitary sewer overflows) as issues that "have to be addressed" in any reauthorization vehicle. Both identified increased bipartisan cooperation as essential to the process. According to Kopocis, "the views of both parties will have to be scaled back."

In the Senate. . .
Senate Environment & Public Works (EPW) Committee staff have offered a somewhat bleaker prognosis for progress on Clean Water Act reauthorization. Sen. John Chafee will return in the 105th Congress as Chair and plans to retain jurisdiction over CWA at the full committee. EPW members did have the opportunity to discuss a preliminary agenda when they met in early December. All indications are that the substantial work on the issue of interstate waste control began by the Committee last year will be completed as a first priority. Also high on the agenda will be Superfund reauthorization and the Endangered Species Act, followed closely by ISTEA.

Efforts to reform Superfund have, in fact, begun in the Senate with the introduction of S.8, The Superfund Cleanup Acceleration Act of 1997, on January 21st. The legislation is a sweeping reauthorization bill that would overhaul the program's liability provisions and clean-up decision making process comprehensively. The bill carried with it the sponsorship of Senate Superfund Subcommittee Chair Robert Smith (R-NH), Environment & Public Works Committee Chair, John Chafee (R-RI) and Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS).

The Superfund Cleanup Acceleration Act brings with it a few key provisions from S.1285 of the 104th Congress, but also offers several new reforms for the statute's liability scheme, the role of states in the Superfund program and natural resources damages. AMSA's National Office is in the process of reviewing the legislation. Although this first pass at Superfund reform does not include AMSA's
amendment clarifying municipal liability under the statute, the National Office will soon reinitiate negotiations with key Senate staff and members to secure their support.

Majority Leader Lott has made Superfund reform one of his top ten priorities for the 105th Congress and has predicted that action will be completed on a bill within the next six months. The environment seems to be high on the Senator Majority Leader's overall agenda, as he has also established a Senate Republican Task Force on the Environment to be headed by Senator Larry Craig (R-ID). The Task Force is slated to convene for about two months, and like the House Task Force, is not expected to produce legislation.

With regard to Clean Water Act reauthorization, Jimmie Powell, majority professional staff to the Committee, suggested that a "plain vanilla" approach -- focusing largely on making "tools" like watershed management, multi-media permits, alternative compliance, wetlands banking and effluent trading available on an "experimental basis" may bring more resources and inspire new a new "spirit" in the clean water program. Mike Evans, Minority Counsel to the Committee, suggested that any reauthorization effort will need to offer a "win/win" scenario for both the environment and economy.

AMSA Readies Positions & Priorities

AMSA Strategies for 105th Congress:
During the 1996 Leadership Retreat at AMSA's Summer Conference attention was focused on AMSA's Legislative Strategy -- for both the remaining days of the 104th Congress, and in anticipation of the 105th Congress in 1997. At the Strategy Session time was spent brainstorming on potential means through which to move Congressional attitudes and actions toward broad-based support of watershed management provisions in a reauthorized Clean Water Act -- thus allowing each watershed to effectively address all sources of pollution. As a result of those discussions, the leadership requested that National Office staff develop a discussion paper fleshing out the broadest possible range of approaches and initiatives to carry AMSA's priorities forward in the new Congress. AMSA's future legislative strategy was also the topic of continuing discussion at the Fall meeting of AMSA's Board and Leadership in late September.

During the September 23-24 Leadership Meeting in Washington, AMSA's Board and Committee leaders directed the National Office staff to review various sections of the Clean Water Act and provide recommendations as to how these sections could be made more "watershed friendly." Staff-developed recommendations on watershed-friendly revisions to the CWA were recently forwarded to AMSA's leadership. Discussions are underway regarding a future AMSA Legislative Strategy Session and a Legislative Briefing is featured on the program for the Winter Conference.

While full committee assignments have been made in both the House and Senate, subcommittee assignments have been delayed until sometime in early February. In the meantime, much groundwork is currently being laid by AMSA's National Office, contact in earnest will begin following the announcement of subcommittee assignments. In the near term, key National Office staff actions include:

AMSA 1997-1998 Position Statements

The leadership of the Regulatory Policy and Legislative Policy will convene this week as the Positions Workgroup. The Workgroup will meet on Tuesday, February 4, to consider revisions to AMSA's Positions Statements for 1997-1998. The Association's special committees have already had input into this process. Following the Workgroup's consideration of recommended revisions, the revised Statements will be forwarded to membership for review and comment. As always, the new 1997-1998 AMSA Position Statements will be adopted by the membership in May.

Clean Water Act Reauthorization - Other Organizations

Clean Water Industry Coalition
The Clean Water Industry Coalition is a industry group supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that meets on a regular basis to discuss legislative and regulatory priorities. The Clean Water Industry Coalition's (CWIC) steering committee has been meeting to determine the coalition's strategy for addressing water/environmental issues during the 105th Congress. During an early December meeting, the committee distributed a draft workplan designed to promote the goals of the Coalition. The workplan (in outline form) includes among the Coalition's CWA reauthorization issues: pollution prevention and regulatory flexibility; integration of sound science, risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis, water quality criteria, ten year permits.
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Clean Water Network
The Clean Water Network, a national coalition of 900 environmental groups, met in Washington in early December to discuss their legislative priorities. Approximately 150 local and national environmental activist attended the early December meeting. AMSA has learned that Network members had difficultly reaching consensus; however, they did identify the following critical legislative issues for attention: 1) nonpoint source pollution; 2) phasing out toxic discharges; 3) Right-to-Know issues (beach and shellfish advisories, TRI, etc); 4) enforcement; and 5) wetlands. There was no specific discussion regarding watershed management, POTWs, biosolids, stormwater or privatization.

Following the meeting they sent (via news release) a challenge to the President, Congress and the states to "keep the promise" and meet the goals of fishable/swimmable and zero discharge of the Clean Water Act during its 25th anniversary year. In the news release they challenged national leaders saying, "No more loopholes, no more delays. Strengthen and enforce the Clean Water Act. We don't want the 'Bridge to the 21st Century' to be over dirty water." The Network release cites the following actions as necessary to ". . .keep the promise to protect America's waters": 1) Ensure clean water to protect families and children (specifically, "no toxics in our water, beaches safe for swimming, fish safe to eat, no manure or sewage in streams, water safe enough to drink, enforce the law"); 2) Protect river and wetland habitat from the source to the sea (specifically, "save our wetland and coastal habitats, stop polluted runoff, keep clean waters clean"); and 3) Tell the whole truth so citizens can act to protect themselves from pollution in their water (specifically, "the right to know about pollution dumping, the tools to take action to protect ourselves, the right to know about wetlands lost").