When a bill becomes a different law

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

By Henry Sweets

Jackson, Wyo.-The last two federal bills I reported on were 1,200 pages each. Most people I interviewed had read, maybe, a small fraction of them.

The reporting I did renewed my frustration with last summer’s Presidential debates, when candidates made broad accusations against one another based on obscure bills with tricky language, riders and amendments that didn’t make sense to the American public, who were looking for lucid answers to difficult questions.

Though I found some answers on a public lands bill, the frustration I share with other voters about the convoluted process remains – even though it seems to work.
The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 contains two Wyoming-specific bills. One designates the Snake River and its headwaters as “Wild and Scenic.” The other protects more than 1.1 million acres of the Wyoming Range from ever being developed by energy companies. The bill is expected to pass this week.

Though the omnibus bill is popular and has bipartisan support, conservatives who supported the Wyoming specific bills have some tough pills to swallow - billions in new spending, duplication of government and lost fossil fuel reserves – in the more than 150 other bills with which it has been lumped.

Sen. John Barrasso, who championed Wyoming’s two components, released a statement last week distancing himself from the other bills by criticizing the way the Omnibus was bundled together.

Rep. Lummis flat-out admitted that she doesn’t support the two Wyoming bills as written, let alone the rest of the package.

Conservationists, river runners, hunters and outfitters are overjoyed that the bill will likely be jammed through the house – but Lummis thinks the process is unfair and opaque.

Here’s what happened:
After the Wyoming Range and Snake River bills were lumped into the Omnibus, the  Senate passed it and tried to fast-track it through the House using “suspension of the rules,” which is, according to a Senate document, “for bills which enjoy overwhelming but not unanimous support.” Such bills require a two-thirds vote to pass; however, the bill lost by three votes, including that of Rep. Lummis.

The Senate then made a few small tweaks and inserted it in another bill, called the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Battlefield Protection Act, that had already passed the house. Now it only needs a simple majority to pass.
The “little bit of trickery,” Lummis spokesman Ryan Taylor said, is not how Washington should work.

Barrasso agrees … maybe.
He said in a press release, “Congress should consider legislation individually in order to debate the clear purpose of each bill.”
But would Barrasso really want Lummis to have her way with the Wyoming Range and Snake River bills?

She wanted to remove a stretch of the Snake River from its “Wild and Scenic” designation, and would have redrawn the lines of Wyoming Range protection. Lummis’ amendments also would have ended that protection after 20 years if technology were developed that could extract the resources “with little or no impact.”

But the trickery worked.
Gary Amerine, a Daniel outfitter and co-founder of Citizens Protecting the Wyoming Range was told three years ago that he could never protect that much land from oil and gas development.
But lawmakers took an interest in Amerine’s cause.

 “If it had been strictly outfitters, it probably wouldn’t have happened,” Amerine said. “If it was just environmental groups it definitely would not have happened - not with the Republican Senators.”

Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance director Franz Camenzind observed that agendas were checked at the door to get the bill to the Senate, and that could be a framework for future legislation.

So even though Washington’s process seems confusing and questionable, it worked in this case because a wide cross-section of Congress and the public believed in public lands protection. But one Lincoln County Commissioner feels “heartburn” from the process that vastly impacted his county without even inviting his input.
Maybe next time I’ll feel like him, but for now, I don’t. PJH
PERMALINK:
When a bill becomes a different law | Planet JH News Article: Near JH

Leave a Comment