Year-end suspense
As the first half of the 110th Congress ends, lawmakers leave behind a full slate of unresolved issues important to local governments. In the short period between the Thanksgiving recess and the end of the year, much of Congress’ focus will be on 11 unfinished appropriations bills. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also has identified several bills he hopes to complete before going home, including the farm bill and an energy package that has been held up since summer.
Local officials are hopeful, yet guarded, about the outlook for completion of the energy bill, which sets up an energy efficiency block grant program to fund local climate protection initiatives. Congress has reached agreements on several contentious issues, and the House and Senate are likely to approve the bill. However, a presidential veto threat looms.
That veto threat worries county officials even more now that House and Senate lawmakers have reached a deal to include a measure in the energy legislation to assist rural counties and provide funding for counties with large amounts of federally owned land. The agreement reached by Congress would extend until 2011 the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, which expired in 2006, and would include one year of full funding for the Payment-In-Lieu-of-Taxes (PILT) program. The measures will be approved only if the energy legislation makes it to the President’s desk and is signed by him.
Rural counties and others that manage federal lands face lay-offs and service reductions if Congress does not reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act. Failure to reauthorize that bill and fund the PILT program would mean a loss of $47 million for Lane County, Ore., alone, according to Commissioner Bobby Green. “Failure to have those funds would result in 250 lay-offs in our county, particularly in our public safety department,” Green says. “This would seriously hamper our abilities to provide services for our growing population.”
The tight schedule leaves little time for other issues local governments were hoping Congress could complete. Congress could extend the continuing resolution into next year and take up the bills after the holidays, or approve one omnibus spending bill, either of which could be harmful to certain programs. Unfinished bills include those that fund the Community Development Block Grant program and other housing programs, transportation needs such as bridge upkeep and repair, and public safety programs.
“Another issue we’ve been watching closely is reform of the mortgage finance system,” says Carolyn Coleman, legislative director for the Washington-based National League of Cities. There has been positive support for mortgage reform bills in this session from both the House and Senate, she says, but there are differences to be worked out. Two bills, the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act and the Expanding American Homeownership Act, have been passed by the House and await Senate action. “Lawmakers agree the status quo is not acceptable. As homeowners default on loans and houses go vacant, that’s bad for neighborhoods,” Coleman says. “But, with the environment like it is now in Congress, it might take until next session to complete” the measures.
The author is the Washington correspondent for American City & County.