Hill Bulletin

National Voter, Jan-Feb, 2004 by Shirley Tabata Ponomareff

As Congress reconvened in late January, two major bills awaited Senate decisions--the omnibus spending bill containing seven of the 13 appropriations bills to finance the federal government in fiscal 2004 (including HAVA implementation and the controversial energy bill). At the time the Voter went to press, no final action had been taken on either legislation. Both bills are highly relevant to the League's legislative priorities--election reform, clean air and global warming issues.

ENERGY

The Energy Policy Act was approved by the House in November 2003, but blocked by the Senate after continued pressure from citizens nationwide. The League joined with many other concerned organizations to successfully oppose this bill, which would have undermined clean air, worsened global warming and done little to achieve energy conservation. Proponents of the legislation, which contains many pork barrel projects, encourages the use of fossil fuels, and increases air pollution, have promised to come back and try again in the early days of the next session.

This energy bill contains provisions that are harmful to public health and the environment. Chief among these is a provision that guts Clean Air Act protections. For over 30 years, the Clean Air Act of 1990 has greatly reduced air pollution levels by setting strong standards to significantly reduce pollution emissions from industrial sources. It has effectively improved public health and protected the environment.

The Clean Air Act created air quality classifications for metropolitan areas with associated deadlines for improving air quality. If a city is unable to meet the deadline, it is reclassified to the next higher level and is required to adopt stricter pollution controls associated with the higher pollution classification. For the last few years, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has provided extensions to those areas that were unable to meet the deadlines without requiring them to reclassify to the higher pollution level. In three instances, federal courts ruled this practice of extension in violation of the Clean Air Act. Now, language has been incorporated into the energy" bill to authorize and expand the EPA's illegal extension practices.

According to a 2002 EPA report, more than 1,30 million Americans live in areas that violate clean air safeguards. The energy bill will not only undo the work of 30 years, but will delay relief to those still living with dirty air and will compromise the health of the elderly, people with lung disorders and children.

The Energy Policy Act also fails to take affirmative steps to curb global warming and, in fact, will dramatically increase air pollution and global warming through huge new incentives for burning coal, oil and gas. Emissions from power plants and automobiles that burn these fuels are known as "greenhouse gases." Increased greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere will result in a rapid increase in the Earth's temperature. Likely outcomes include rising sea levels, an increase in drought and flooding, coastal destruction, a rise in infectious disease rates and the extinction of some plant and animal life.

Finally, the Energy Policy Act fails to provide for real energy conservation--the key element for any good energy" policy. Significant energy conservation is vital if we are to take the necessary steps to reduce our nation's dependence on coal, oil and gas. The bill does not improve fuel economy standards for motor vehicles and does not direct the executive branch to develop and implement necessary, plans to reduce oil consumption through energy conservation.

What You Can Do:

Contact your Senators today and urge them to block the Energy Policy Act from becoming law Tell them the bill undermines existing environmental protections under the Clean Air Act, makes global warning worse and does not provide for needed energy conservation measures.

ELECTION REFORM

Just before adjourning in December, the Senate confirmed the Election Assistance (Commission's (EAC) four members (among them is Gracia Hillman, former executive director of LWVUS). The EAC is charged with helping states meet the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and is authorized to distribute federal aid to this end. Because of the delay, most of the HAVA funding appropriated in fiscal 2003 has not been distributed to the states to fund changes required by HAVA as well as other improvements such as poll worker training. The League has written to the new members outlining key steps that should be taken before the 2004 election to build voter confidence, including measures to improve security of voting machines, implementation of provisional ballot requirements and protections against erroneous purging.

The Congress did not complete action on the Omnibus Appropriations Bill, which included full FY 2004 funding for HAVA implementation. The overall bill is controversial, but will presumably pass at some point since the continuing resolution that funds much of the government in lieu of that appropriation expires in late January. Inclusion of the HAVA funding was a major victory, that came after Senator Dodd (D-CT) successfully pushed an amendment on the floor for full HAVA funding for FY 2004.