Federal regulations steamroller cities - controversy over cost of federal mandates assumed by state and local governments - includes related article on what constitutes policymaking

Insight on the News, Feb 14, 1994 by William Tucker

What drives these absurdities? Is it simply stupidity, miscommunication or bad management? None of these, say students of the problem. There is a clear method to the seeming madness.

"The reason so much decision-making has been moved to Washington is because that's the way bureaucrats and public policy groups want it," says Roger Pilon, director of the Center for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. "Over the past 40 years, a huge army of central planners has come to Washington, become ensconced in the political branches, and is now seeking to impose its vision of the good society upon the country."

Public policy groups also support the trend for three important reasons:

* You don't have to run 50 different campaigns to get things through legislatures.

* Any rule made in Washington trumps state law, giving people with influence in Washington enormous leverage.

* You don't run into grass-roots opposition in Washington.

Says Pilon: "The political feedback mechanism to the Capitol is so uncertain and attenuated that interest groups can leverage their activities in Washington, knowing full well that the costs and,inconveniences that fall on local taxpayers are unlikely to translate into political repercussions."

An infbrmal check among Washington's major policy-making groups reveals little concem for the storm of discontent that is brewing at the local level.

"I've heard a lot of these stories about frustrations among municipal officials, but so far I have not identified any of these anecdotes that turns out to be correct," says Bob Adler, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The laws are very flexible. There are exemptions and exceptions that are available m each of these instances." Adler sees no problem, for example, in making municipalities responsible for the water that comes out of homeowners, taps. "It's a very simple process to raise the pH so the water from the municipal system doesn't corrode," he says.

It's not fair to label everything Congress does as a useless mandate," echoes Gerald McEntee, international president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. "What we need is more federal resources to meet the vital needs of our communities."

David Vladeck, director of the Public Citizen's Litigation Group, is willing to acknowledge that local governments are being "sandbagged," but says they are partly to blame for not joining the lobbying process. "The point the municipalities are raising has some validity," says Vladeck. "They're being hit with bolts out of the blue from Washington that they feel are unjustified. But local governments have done an extremely.poor job of organizing a Washington presence for themselves. They need to get a seat at the table. It's ironic that in some ways local governments need a Civics 101 lesson in how to organize their own interests."

Despite the business-as-usual attitude in Washington - or perhaps because of it - the temperature is rising outside the Beltway: