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WESTERN STATES WATER - ;!.." June 10, 1994 Issue No. 1047 o recycled paper conserves water TIIE WEEKLY NEWSLETIER OF TIIE WESTERN STATES WATER OOUNCH.. Creekview Plaza, Suite A-201/942. East 7145 So. / Midvale, Utah 84047 / (801) 561-5300 / FAX (801) 255-9642 Chairman. Dave Kennedy; Executive Director - Craig Bell; Editor. Norm Johnson; Typist. Carrie Curvin CONGRESSIONAL UPDATE Unfunded Federal Mandales , The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee will meet on June 16 to mark up the Small Governments Regulatory Improvement and Innovation Act (S.1604), introduced by Chairman John Glenn (D-OH). The bill is aimed at federal regulatory and legislative burdens on smaller governments that are saying, "Stop passing the buck, without the bucks." The cost of federal mandates has risen dramatically in recent years. Senator Glenn states, "Laws protecting public safety, human health, and the environment are vital and necessary. However, that doesn't mean we can't use a little more common sense, ..,reducing their costs and burdens on those directly affected." S. 1604 would require the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to carefully review federal regulations. It also requires agencies to identify their most expensive regulations and come up with more flexible and less costly alternatives. It establishes an advisory Council on Small Governments to analyze regulations and sets up Small Government Coordinators in major regulatory agencies. S, 1604 is a comparatively modest bill designed to increase regulatory flexibility and encourage cost-effective innovation. , Senator Dirk Kempthorne (R-ID) has introduced a more simple and direct bill. S, 993, the Community Regulatory Relief Act, reads, "Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a requirement under a federal statute or regulation that creates a federal mandate shall apply to the state or local government only if all funds necessary to pay the direct costs incurred by the state or local government in conducting the activity are provided by the federal government for the fiscal year in which the direct cost is incurred." It has 53 cosponsors, including six of the thirteen members of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. Senator Kempthorne points out, "Thousands of cities, large and small, are struggling with how to comply with mandates imposed by Congress and the federal government." Arizona Governor Fife Symington has declared, "Mandates from the federal government have stripped us of our fiscal sovereignty and have stripped the people of their right to representative government at the state level." Chicago Mayor Rich Dailey calls unfunded mandates, "hidden federal taxes, bleeding our limited resources and cutting into direct services." Kempthorne, the mayor of Boise for seven years, said, "To have federal bureaucrats thousands of miles away in Washington, D,C. mandate expensive programs that deprive cities of additional police officers or firemen is simply not right." However, a prohibition on any mandate that is not fully funded is unlikely. On May 18, the Senate tabled a similar amendment to S. 2019, reauthorizing the Safe Drinking Water Act, by a 56-43 vote I;NSW #1045). The proposal by Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) would have waived any penalty assessment against a political subdivision if its noncompliance resulted from an unfunded federal mandate, Gregg stated, "It is really a quite simple approach and says no funds, no fines.... I do not understand how, in fairness, we can say to communities first that you must do something; second, that we are not going to pay for it; and third, if you do not do it and do not pay for it, we are going to fine you for not having done it." The Senate did recently approve the conference report accompanying the budget resolution with a "sense ofthe Congress" provision saying, "The federal government should not shift the costs of administering federal programs to the states and local government,"