Committee Members and Meetings
Legislation & Policy Committee Members: Sue Lowry has been reappointed Committee Chair, following the elections at our annual Members Business Meeting in Sacramento. The Board of Directors adopted an updated list of Committee members in January 2009. The Committee has agreed to meet for 1 hour on the last Thursday of each month by telephone starting at 9am Mountain Time. The meetings are open to any Member and the agenda will be distributed during the week before each meeting. Any Member interested in joining this Committee is encouraged to contact Sue or Peter Evans.
Priorities of the Committee: Current priorities include support for the USGS water data and science programs (principally, the CWP and NSIP), promoting state and interstate roles in implementing the Economic Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009, supporting the Corps' assessment of state & interstate water planning and monitoring its implementation of WRDA projects, and monitoring the development of the National Integrated Drought Information System (“NIDIS”). Committee meetings are open to all Members; contact Sue Lowry or
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for details.
“Water For America” Initiative Funding: During our 2008 Washington Roundtable, which we coordinated with the Western States Water Council and the Association of State & Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators, learned more about the Administration's proposal to initiate a new sequence of regional water budget assessments, which USGS has described as a “national water census.” The purpose and need were generally supported, but concerns related to funding (and the risk of drawing funds away from the National Streamflow Information Program, which is barely 20% complete) resulted in letters to the USGS and to House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittee leadership. At our 2008 Annual Meeting in Sacramento, we engaged an expert panel with USGS leadership to continue our effort to improve the Water census plans and address the concern that its initiation will require funding that might otherwise be available to the NSIP and CWP. Additional background on their initiative is available on the USGS website. Let
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know if you have any suggestions or questions.
Federal Legislation
Economic Recovery & Investment Act of 2009: The “stimulus package” continues to be the subject of intensive negotiations, with the President pressing for bi-partisan support while the Democratic leadership moves draft legislation forward and Republican leaders withhold support until new spending provisions are trimmed and taxes are reduced. The House proposal has been assessed by the Congressional Budget Office and the Senate draft (CBO’s Assessment) that will include more provisions the Republicans want but cost even more than the House version.
Omnibus FY-09 Appropriations: In the midst of the economic recovery provisions, the House expects to move a package of appropriations bills to the floor for action a single “omnibus” bill. Until action on these appropriations is completed, all the major federal water programs (at EPA, Interior and the Corps) are operating under temporary funding through March 6, 2009
Major Federal Water Programs Lose Support: nate Energy & Natural Resources Committee staff calculate that, compared with the FY-2001 federal budget appropriations, President Bush's budget request for this year (FY-2009) represented a 26% reduction (in inflation-adjusted dollars) for water programs at the EPA, Bureau of Reclamation, Corps of Engineers, USGS and Department of Agriculture. By contrast, using those same (inflation-adjusted) calculations, the President's FY-2009 request includes a 23% increase in federal discretionary spending (not including the supplemental funding for the war). As a fraction of federal discretionary spending (i.e., everything “on-the-books” except our Social Security payments and interest on our national debt), the water programs accounted for about 1.5% in FY-2001 and would drop to about 0.88% in the proposed FY-2009 budget.
In the years following the “stimulus” funding for infrastructure, aid to states, tax cuts, etc, we should probably anticipate an overall reduction of federal spending while the White House, Congressional leaders, the Fed, OMB, the CBO and all the other watchdogs and policy makers rebalance our federal spending and revenue picture; it may not happen but, especially in light of the adverse trend we see over the past 8 years, we should be ready to provide our best thinking on the “rebalance.”
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