DuBois column

The omnibus appropriations bill means more spending and more regulation

Omnimonster

Congress has passed the bipartisan Omnibus spending bill and if you are affected by federal environmental policies, the news is not good.

The bill contains 2,232 pages – equivalent to the length of two bibles – and the text was not released until the night before the vote. That gave Members of Congress seven waking hours to read the bill.

President Trump’s budget proposed cutting $54 billion from nondefense discretionary spending. This bill increases nondefense discretionary spending by $63 billion, and that’s a total of $117 billion more than the President requested.

Compared to last year, the Park Service budget was increased by $270 million,  the US Fish and Wildlife Service budget is a + $75 million, the BLM received an increase of $79 million, and the Forest Service received a total (nonfire) appropriation of $3.054 billion, which is a whopping $627 million increase over the previous year’s budget. And EPA received an increase of $763 million. The bill also increased the funding for land acquisition by $25 million.

The Republicans had attached approximately 80 riders on environmental policy to the bill. This included items like delisting the wolf in Wyoming and the Midwest, prohibiting protections for the sage grouse, the lesser prairie chicken and the Preble’s jumping mouse. Among these riders                                                                                       were language on the Waters of the U.S. rule, and the prohibition of using funds to limit hunting and shooting on federal lands and to prohibit funds to be used for legal fees under the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.  There were also provisions on livestock grazing and NEPA and making available vacant grazing allotments.

At the very last minute, all of these riders were dropped from the bill, even though many of them had appeared in previous budget bills. Why? Republican leadership stated they feared losing the support of their more conservative members and so had to court Democrat votes to pass the bill. The riders were dropped to make it more attractive to the Democrats. Yes, we were nothing more than trading fodder to get the bill passed.   

There are a few positives in the bill for Ag producers. One is a provision that exempts livestock haulers from the Electronic Logging Devices (ELD) regulations until September 30, 2018; another section would relieve livestock producers from the emissions reporting requirements under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation & Liability Act (CERCLA); and another fixes the so-called “grain glitch” caused by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

One can’t help but note that none of those receiving relief had a direct link to federal lands.

The bill is hot off the press as I write this and I’m sure more issues will come to light. For instance, in 2009 the Office of Personnel Management issued a rule making it easier to conduct a Reduction-In-Force (RIF) of federal employees. This bill has a provision that overturns that rule. In other words, this Congress is not only refusing the President’s proposals to cut budgets, they are also making it harder for him to layoff federal employees.

I don’t look forward to “discovering” what else is in this bill.

A PRAC?    

The Chairman and ranking minority member of the House Natural Resources Committee, Rob Bishop (R-Utah) and Colleen Hanabusa (D-Hawaii) have penned a piece they call “A Bipartisan Solution To Our National Parks.” They inform us the Park Service has an $11 billion dollar maintenance backlog for infrastructure and exactly what that infrastructure entails: 5,500 miles of paved roads, 1,700 bridges and tunnels, more than 17,000 miles of trails, and nearly 1,300 campgrounds. The NPS maintains more than 24,000 buildings (including over 500 visitor centers), 425 park lodges and hotel buildings, and 3,870 housing units all lit by more than 500 electrical systems. All of this is undergirded by 1,000 miles of water pipelines serving 1,500 water systems, 1,800 wastewater systems and 3,700 restrooms.

They then propose a “bipartisan” solution to fix this backlog. “Part of the solution is the creation of a dedicated fund that would draw a stable revenue stream from energy leases the federal government owns, as has been proposed in the President’s FY2019 budget. While some may object to using oil and gas leasing revenues to promote conservation, this isn’t a new idea. It has been a longstanding policy and priority of the United States to be good stewards of the revenues created by energy production to further conservation efforts. In fact, this is a similar type of funding method used in the Land and Water Conservation Fund”, say the Congressman.

Things are always “bipartisan” when it comes to increasing spending, but I say wait a minute, there are questions to be answered and alternatives to be considered.

Over the same amount of time this maintenance backlog was accruing, how much was spent for land acquisition?  Where would the backlog stand if all the money for land acquisition had been spent on maintenance? And how much of that $11 billion is attributed to these new acquisitions?
Shouldn't there be a tradeoff here? No moneys for acquisition until the backlog is met? After all, lands that have a high priority for acquisition could still be acquired by exchange.

Further, we know there are many Parks that aren't really deserving of that designation. They are only there because a particular Rep. or Senator was in a powerful enough position to have them so designated.  We have a BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure Commission) to address this issue for military bases. Isn't it time we have a PRAC to review our national parks and monuments?

Congress should consider both of the above prior to establishing a permanent fund to increase spending for our park system. No additional land acquisitions until the backlog is completed and establish a Park Realignment and Closure Commission to carefully review each existing national park and monument.

Dilly, dilly.

Until next time, be a nuisance to the devil and don’t forget to check that cinch.

 Frank DuBois was the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003, is the author of a blog: The Westerner (www.thewesterner.blogspot.com) and is the founder of The DuBois Rodeo Scholarship and The DuBois Western Heritage Foundation

This column first appeared in the April editions of the NM Stockman and the Livestock Market Digest