FORUM
Editorial
Commentary and Visitor Opinions
Washington DC: A Peek into the Crystal Ball
by Washington Lobbyist Howard Marlowe
December 4, 2006
Dear
Friends:
It's not
often that I get the chance to share my
view of developments here in Washington,
DC with our clients and others.
Obviously,
the elections are already having a major
impact on Congress. Even though the new
Congress doesn't start until January
3rd, the current Congress is showing
little inclination to do much of the
unfinished work on its agenda. Except
for three appropriations bills related
to the military and homeland security,
no FY '07 funding bills will be passed
until next year -- probably March. (FY
'07 started last October 1st)
For those
of you interested in the Water Resources
Development Act, the House and Senate
staffers who have been working hard on
this bill for many weeks, trying to
resolve the differences between the two
bills, appear to be at an impasse.
Having been in this business for 30+
years, I'm not supposed to get upset by
legislative glitches. Unfortunately,
this one borders on the tragic.
Whatever the causes of the stalemate --
and there are apparently a few -- the
failure to pass the one piece of
legislation which keeps the nation's
water resources program moving along
must bring smiles to the folks at the
Office of Management and Budget. They
have tried for years to kill the
nation's water resources program simply
because they have never been able to
control the agency that runs that
program - the Army Corps of Engineers.
In this long-term Executive Branch vs.
Legislative Branch duel, you would think
that Congress would want a bill to pass
so it could beat OMB at its game of
agency strangulation, but you would be
wrong.
There are
locks and dams to be repaired, ports
that need to be deepened, marshes to be
restored, and (yes) beaches to be
renourished. While this bill doesn't
provide a cent to any of these
projects, it does something more
important: It gives Congress the
authority to appropriate money to get
these projects done. Passage of this
"authorization" bill is four years
overdue! That would not be tolerated
for the nation's highways or aviation
systems. Congress should not tolerate
it for water resources, either.
Failing to
pass appropriations bills in a timely
manner has become a congressional
habit. However, this will be the second
time in the last decade when one
Congress has punted its appropriations
responsibility to the next Congress
[every "Congress" equals two years].
All bills start fresh in the new
Congress. That means that, if you
received funding for a program or
project in either a House or Senate
appropriations bill this year, you go
back empty-handed to square one in
January.
Hopefully,
the leadership of the next Congress will
not start from scratch, but will instead
take the House and Senate appropriations
bills that didn't get enacted into
law and simply re-introduce them as
passed by their respective chambers. (In
some cases, the Senate did not pass its
version of an appropriations bill.
However, the bills passed by the Senate
Appropriations Committee can serve as
the starting point). Given the fact
that Congress will have to begin working
on its fiscal 2008 appropriations soon
after its organizes in January and
February, it makes sense for the
leadership to move as quickly as they
can on the fiscal 2007 bills.
(Condolences to the congressional staff
who have to field funding requests for
FY '08 while still working to finalize
the FY '07 bills!)
There
appears to be a movement to make ethics
reform a congressional priority next
year. Given the poor behavior of some
members of Congress over the past couple
of years, shedding more light on ethics
isn't a bad idea. I'm just a bit jaded
on how much one can effectively
legislate ethics. Every time Congress
gets into this issue, it establishes a
bunch of rules and then an even larger
number of exceptions. That doesn't
help build public confidence in
Congress.
What is
needed most, but has the least support,
is campaign finance reform. It simply
costs too much to get elected. Large
sums of money going to the re-election
campaigns of members of Congress create
the perception (and the opportunity)
to blur the distinction between
a contribution made to help re-elect
someone and a contribution made to
influence that someone's vote. The
former is constitutionally-protected
speech; the latter is a crime. There is
a critical need to re-establish the
distinction.
There will
be new names at the head of every
committee and subcommittee of Congress.
We will keep you informed of these
changes and what they mean. For now, I
want to express the appreciation all of
us at Marlowe & Company have to the
many congressional staffers we have
worked with over the past year. To
those of you who have been forced by our
democratic process to look for new work,
please contact us if we can help.
Politics is a rough occupation, but it
gives all who participate in it the
opportunity to serve the public. We
hope those of you who have been
temporarily displaced from your jobs
will quickly find new opportunities to
serve.
Happy
holidays!
Howard
Marlowe
Howard Marlowe
Marlowe & Company, LLC
1667 K Street, NW/Suite 480
Washington, DC 20006
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