 Legislature
The 2010 session ended on April 29. Check back in early May for UCR's review of the 2010 session. For a thorough analysis of the 2010 session related to water issues, see the Georgia Water Coalition Legislative Round Up below. Georgia’s legislative session begins during the second week of January each year and lasts 40 working days, usually ending in late March or early April.
An informed electorate makes a difference! Here's what you can do:
Decisions on legislation directly affecting natural resources, agency budgets, and capital project funding can protect or enhance natural resources, or they can accelerate deterioration. UCR actively works to educate elected officials and policy makers at all levels about matters related to the protection and restoration of the Chattahoochee River Basin. We also conduct lobbying activities, defined as promoting or opposing the passage of legislation, which includes statutory law, local legislation (limited to particular jurisdictions), and appropriations acts. Since 1994, UCR has helped promote important river protection legislation at the state level and worked to defeat anti-environmental bills.
Contrary to popular belief, nonprofit groups can lobby. The IRS has set limits on how much lobbying a 501(c)(3) organization can undertake and on the amount of money that can be spent on direct and grassroots lobbying. Therefore, UCR is very careful not to exceed these limits in our lobbying activities, most of which take place at the State Capitol.
GWC 2010 Legislative Round-Up
May 3, 2010
1. Water Conservation
2. Interbasin Transfer Protections
3. ATVs in Streams
4. Clean Water Rollbacks We Opposed
5. GWC Partner Meeting - May 13
The 2010 Legislative Session, the longest in modern times, ended at midnight Thursday, April 29. The session saw successes on a number of our priorities and a few setbacks to the clean water protections we fight to protect. Read on to see a round-up of the 2010 Legislative Session.
1. Water Conservation
The 2010 legislature adopted the Water Stewardship Act of 2010 in response to the Judge Magnuson decision limiting Metro Atlanta's access to Lake Lanier for water supply and to help the water sharing negotiations with Alabama and Florida. The GWC worked for a number of years calling for many of the measures included in the bill and provided extensive input to the Governor's Water Contingency Task Force, which was formed in part to make recommendations to be included in the bill. The bill includes the following measures:
• Mandates a permanent outdoor watering schedule that permanently restricts outdoor watering between the hours of 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, with exceptions for commercial agriculture, new landscapes, golf courses and athletic fields, hand-watering and other outdoor uses.
• Requires all multi-tenant residential, commercial and industrial buildings permitted on or after July 1, 2012 to install submeters and bill tenants according to their individual water use.
• Requires all new construction after July 1, 2012 to install high-efficiency plumbing fixtures. These include 1.28-gallon flush toilets, showerheads, lavatory and kitchen faucets, and urinals.
• Requires all new construction after July 1, 2012 to install high-efficiency cooling systems.
• Requires public water systems to conduct water system audits and implement water loss detection programs according to International Water Association standards.
• Orders several state agencies to identify incentives for voluntary water conservation, including rules and regulations where appropriate.
• Establishes a Joint Committee on Water Supply that is directed to study the “current status” of the state’s reservoir system and is to analyze the “strategic needs for additional water supply,” including identification of “creative financing options.” The Committee is to issue a final report no later than December 31, 2010.
The GWC will diligently work to ensure that Joint Committee on Water Supply and other parts of the bill do not serve to justify the construction of costly reservoirs or controversial Interbasin Transfers when much remains for Georgia to do to secure water supply in the quickest, cheapest and most environmentally sound manner possible - through water conservation and efficiency.
A loss for Water Conservation in 2010 is the absence of a tax holiday for the purchase of water and energy efficient appliances, a victim of budget cutting, along with the popular "Back to School" tax holiday. One measure that passed, HB 1069, may offer some opportunities for water and energy savings, if additional federal stimulus funds become available to fund it. The bill provides a state income tax credit of $2500 or 25% of the cost of a project for water and energy conservation equipment and installation for any Georgia income taxpayer.
2. Interbasin Transfer Protections
Georgia legislators concerned about ensuring enough water for all Georgia communities introduced the River Basin Protection Act of 2010 to regulate transfers of water from one river basin to another. Twenty-four Georgia Senators and 68 Representatives signed on in support of these bills - an enormous show of support for these common-sense regulations.
The growing support for regulation of interbasin water transfers has been fueled by recent proposals to pipe water to Metro Atlanta from as far away as Lake Burton in Rabun County and wells in South Georgia.
Opponents of the proposed regulations, including the Metro Atlanta and Georgia Chambers of Commerce and members of the state's leadership, were successful at stalling and stopping a hearing and a vote on the bills in both the Senate and House. Both Rep. Lynn Smith and Sen. Ross Tolleson, Chairs of the House and Senate Natural Resource Committees, did not allow hearings or votes on the bill. In fact Sen. Tolleson was quoted in an Atlanta Business Chronicle article as saying during a meeting of his committee: “I’m the gatekeeper here, if I wasn’t, an interbasin transfer bill would be flying out of this building like a streak of greased lightning.”
The stonewalling didn't stop legislators who wanted interbasin water transfer protections. Led by Rep. Doug McKillip, the House Natural Resources Committee voted to amend SB 442 to include IBT regulations, however, the House Rules committee never allowed the bill to come before the full House for debate and a vote.
3. ATVs in Streams
The 2010 Legislature passed HB 207, sponsored by Rep. Chuck Sims, a bill that subjects those caught riding their ATVs in rivers and streams to fines and other penalties imposed by a probate court.
4. No Rollbacks
• HB 406 – APPROVED: Sponsored by Rep. Mike Coan. This bill undermines existing intergovernmental water service agreements, discouraging water utilities from investing in existing water systems and may have statewide impacts on the revenue bond market. This bill was adopted primarily to allow the State to permit and fund a 440-acre pump-storage reservoir from the Chattahoochee River in south Fulton County. This special interest lake would pump 32 million gallons of water a day from the river for the purpose of providing water to communities that already have a water supply. The project will destroy 5 miles of river and 30 acres of wetlands for what is in fact an amenity lake for a private development. HB 406 failed to get the majority vote needed to pass the Senate last year and was sent back to the Senate Natural Resources & Environment Committee where it was taken up again in the final days of the 2010 session and amended to apply only to the south Fulton reservoir project and was passed out of that committee and then passed by the Senate. On the final day of the session, the House rejected the Senate’s amended version, 39-115, after several Representatives brought up nearly all the problems pointed out by the GWC during fantastic debate on the bill. However, the Senate still had an opportunity to revert back to original bill passed by the House last year and pass that version, which it did.
• SB 321 - DEFEATED: Sponsored by Sen. Chip Pearson. This bill would have allowed private corporations to build and operate reservoirs for drinking water supply. This bill passed the Senate with three amendments, but was not allowed out of the House Committee.
• SB 486 - DEFEATED: Sponsored by Sen. Tolleson. This bill would have weakened the appeals process for permits issued by EPD, the Coastal Marshlands Protection Committee and the Shore Protection Committee. After this bill passed the Senate Natural Resources Committee, but before the bill reached the Senate Floor, its sponsor offered an amendment that was equally harmful to the appeals process for environmental permits. Nonetheless, GWC partners and friends, together with the critical support of Sen. Seth Harp, responded with a vigorous defense. Consequently, the bill never came out of the Rules Committee in time to be heard on the Floor by Crossover Day.
• HB 244 - APPROVED: The sell off of as much as $450 million of the Georgia Fund, as a bond package, to provide $290 million towards the state budget shortfall was approved when the Senate passed a version of HB 244 amended to include the sell-off, which was agreed to by the House. The Georgia Fund is a state revolving loan fund that has provided more than $594 million for water and sewer improvements over the last five years via low-interest loans to cities, counties and water authorities. The state of Georgia is facing a massive budget deficit, but changing state law to sell off funds for water and sewer improvements threatens our clean water supply and economic growth. Governor Perdue’s FY2011 budget recommended the sell off. This proposal eliminates important funding for local governments and water authorities at a critical time when we need them to invest in fixing leaky pipes and upgrading water and sewage systems to provide plentiful clean water. Local governments will likely have to pay higher rates to get the funds they need elsewhere and these higher costs will be passed onto ratepayers and important projects that create jobs and provide clean water may be delayed or even eliminated.
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