Missouri River Basin Association

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Missouri River Basin Association

Monitoring Stakeholder Forum

Kansas City, Missouri

December 11-12, 2003

Remarks by Olivia Barton Ferriter

         Legislation 101: How Bills Get Passed Through Congress                

I appreciate the opportunity to be here today.   In my prior life, I spent time on Capitol Hill meeting with Members and staff on Missouri River issues in the context of U.S. Geological Survey scientific research.    I also organized and participated in congressional field trips on the Upper Mississippi River with the USGS and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and on the Lower Missouri with USGS and other partners.  So, I know what you are trying to accomplish with a monitoring program on the Missouri.   And, I understand the pressures and competing interests among your various stakeholders.

I imagine that you sometimes think you are not making progress - especially in the legislative arena.   But, there is tremendous value in having a forum like this where you can discuss your issues because if and when the Congress takes up your legislation - they will want to know what the different constituencies think about it.  In fact, the congressional legislative process is designed to hear and consider all sides.  Both Houses of Congress have to approve a proposal before it becomes law.  So there are many checks and balances along the way for public discourse to improve a bill, to make significant changes to it, to win passage or to defeat it.     And, that’s what I’m here to talk about.  I’ve also been asked to talk about the difference between authorization bills and appropriations bills.  And, I will describe what it is like to work on Capitol Hill.

            I first came to Washington about twenty years ago as a reporter covering the Alabama congressional delegation.  I was pretty clueless about how things worked.  I got a lot of phone calls from congressional press secretaries wanting to send me press releases announcing grants and contracts.  These were for all sorts of things from sewer projects to lighting for ball fields.  This was not my idea of Pulitzer Prize winning material.  I wanted to write about the big, incredibly important pieces of legislation the Members were working on.  It wasn’t until I went to work as a press secretary for a Member of Congress that I realized how competitive the congressional offices were with each other in making grant announcements.    And, it wasn’t until I began handling other issues in the congressional office that I realized the full spectrum of what they do - from the day-to-day monotony of responding to mass mailings to the rare thrill of victory in passing legislation.  The truth is that opportunities to pass legislation significant to constituents at the local level are few and far between.   That’s why we scrambled to take credit when federal dollars were going to the state - even if we had nothing directly to do with it.  We were constantly looking for the Alabama angle - so we could tell our constituents we were doing something for them.

            Most Members pay attention to the federal presence in their state.  They advocate for their constituents with the federal agencies, trying to help them get federal services, programs and facilities. The constituent work performed by Members and congressional staff can take as much time and energy as legislative activities.  Often, in trying to help constituents, Members seek ways to steer federal dollars to their states.   Some are better positioned than others to do this.  I worked for a Member of the House Appropriations Committee who was also the long-time Chairman of the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee.   He was very skilled at obtaining federal dollars for Alabama – especially through the Army Corps of Engineers and he was one of those who always made the annual list of Members with a lot of “pork projects.”  The syndicated columnist Jack Anderson once called him “the pasha of pork.”  My boss said he wished Anderson had called him “the king of pork,” because the man-on-the-street knew what a king was.

            The congressman was very concerned about doing things for the folks back home.  He might co-sponsor a piece of legislation on a big national issue and take credit when it was introduced or when it passed a legislative milestone.  We kept track of his voting record on various issues to ensure consistency. But, he did not spend much time actually working on these bills - primarily because he did not serve on an authorizing committee.

An authorizing committee such as the House Committee on Resources has day-to-day jurisdiction over legislative issues.  These committees manage legislation to approve or “authorize” the establishment of new programs, projects and policies.  They also provide oversight for the ongoing activities of federal agencies.   The Missouri River Enhancement and Monitoring Act of 2004 is under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Resources in the House and its companion bill is under the jurisdiction of the Environment and Public Works Committee in the Senate.  In some cases, legislation that is broad in scope will fall under the jurisdiction of more than one authorizing committee.  This makes it even more difficult to move through the legislative process—especially if one of the committees fails to act.

Authorizing legislation often establishes the amount of federal dollars that may be spent for programs and projects.   But, the passage of this type of legislation does not guarantee that any money actually will be spent to initiate those programs and projects.  For example, the Corps of Engineers’ Environmental Management Program on the Upper Mississippi is authorized at $33 million a year.  The President requested the full amount in FY2004, and the Congress provided $19 million.  Just as in previous years - it has been very difficult to get any where near the full authorized amount for that program through the appropriations process.  That outcome is not determined by the authorizing committees.  This is the domain of the Appropriations Committees in both the House and Senate which pass the spending bills to operate the federal government.  These measures have to be acted upon every year – or the government would shut down.   There are 14 appropriations subcommittees with jurisdiction over the budgets of the federal agencies.   When the President’s budget is submitted to the Congress in early February, these committees begin having hearings featuring the federal agencies and their stakeholders.  Before they begin actually writing the bills, the subcommittees are allocated a certain dollar amount.  They have to fit everything in under that amount.  So, they take into consideration what the President wants and they take into consideration what their constituents want.  The appropriations bills written by the subcommittees reflect both Presidential and Member priorities. Everyone doesn’t get everything they ask for – including the President.

If the committees’ work is not completed by the start of the new fiscal year, the Congress will pass measures continuing appropriations for those agencies usually at last year’s spending level.  If they aren’t finished by the time Congress plans to adjourn, they will roll all the unfinished bills into one huge spending package called Omnibus Appropriations.  That’s what they’ve tried to do this year with a number of the bills.  That measure has been put on hold until January.

My boss spent the majority of his time on appropriations - since that was the committee he served on.  He worked actively with other Members not only to get what he wanted but also to help them get what they wanted.  He took a lot of pride in the fact that his appropriations bill which funded the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Energy and other smaller agencies generally passed the House with a wide margin of bi-partisan support.  When the congressman did introduce authorizing legislation of importance to Alabama, he called in a lot of favors he had done in appropriations for Members of the authorizing committees.  He relied heavily on their good will to get his legislation out of committee and on to the full House.   Once the legislation passed the House, the Senate was another matter.  He had to persuade the Alabama senators to introduce a companion bill and to shepherd it through the Senate.  It helps when there are outside groups who can generate grassroots support to push for the legislation in both Houses.  It also helps when the administration supports the legislation on behalf of the federal agencies that are involved.  Typically, Members will work with interest groups and affected agencies to craft programs and projects that are doable.  At any point along the way in the legislative process, something can go wrong.  Thousands of pieces of legislation are introduced in each Congress and are sent to the committees for action.  An average of 94 percent of all bills introduced fail to reach enactment and, thousands are never acted upon at all.   Given the low percentage of bills enacted into law, only those bills vigorously promoted among colleagues and given active support by outside interest groups will advance.  Members who champion certain pieces of legislation that fail in one Congress may come back and reintroduce the legislation in the next Congress.  Anything that doesn’t pass during the two years that a Congress is in session is dead until reintroduced.  So, our legislative process has been described as “the survival of the fittest.”

Because the appropriations bills leave the station every year – some Members will try to add legislative provisions onto these bills as a way to get them enacted without going through the authorization process.  This is tricky business because the authorizers can raise a point of order on the floor to have these measures removed.   But, it is not uncommon for funding to be provided in an appropriation bill for a program or project that is not specifically authorized.  One example is the California Bay Delta Ecosystem Restoration Program.   The Bureau of Reclamation gets authority and funding to conduct CALFED-related activities through its appropriations bill even though the authorization for the CALFED Bay-Delta Program has not passed Congress.   The language in the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill specifically states that no funds are included in this account.  But, the language goes on to say that funds are provided for activities that support the goals of the program.  They also left the door open to provide funding directly for CALFED in FY 2005 should the authorization bill pass. In many cases, general authorities for an agency will cover work under a new proposal such that getting the appropriation is what really matters.  This is where it pays to communicate effectively on the Hill.

            As you know, congressional staffs - especially on the House side - tend to be small.  That means staffers juggle numerous issues and may be expert in few to none. They handle everything including environmental issues, health care, defense, veterans, senior citizens, the indigent, education, foreign affairs, you name it.

            In addition to serving as the press secretary, I managed the accounts for Interior and for Military Construction appropriations and all environmental legislative issues.  I wrote congratulation letters to people who had been married for 50 years and condolences when there was a death in the family. I prepared souvenir photographs for the boss to personally autograph, and I set up the annual high school art competition in the district. I also answered the phone and helped open the mail.  I was not unusual.

            Most congressional staffers have a full plate.  It leaves them very little free time to study issues in depth and it leaves little time for lengthy meetings with outside groups.  We would typically schedule meetings for the congressman every 15 minutes.  Fifteen minutes for waterway associations, 15 for the energy industry, 15 for scientists, 15 for the arts and humanities, 15 for the environmental groups and so on.   The overflow was handled by staff, especially when meetings were interrupted by votes or when the congressman needed to be in committee.  At best, these meetings could be described as courtesy visits.

            Staff - and probably the congressman - would be sitting there thinking - what does this person want me to do?  What is my action item?  I think it is important in these meetings to be brief, concise and to-the-point – especially if you want your courtesy visit to be a surgical strike.

            Each year, I had to write a letter to the chairmen of House Interior Appropriations and Military Construction requesting support for certain projects and programs.  Most of our requests related to Alabama; very few of them were national in scope unless the state connection had been well laid out.  I had one file for groups who came in with information on how their programs related to Alabama.  Typically, that file was very small, because most groups came in with a lot of fancy folders and thick, glossy reports and did not bother to do a one-pager that was quick and easy to read and understand.  That stuff all went into a large stack on the floor behind my desk that became the leaning Tower of Pisa.  When it fell over, I just started a new stack.  I never looked at any of that stuff again and I didn’t file it.  I pitched it all at the end of the year. Meanwhile, I used my thin Alabama folder to write the request letters to the committee chairmen.

            When I first started writing those request letters - it was before the days of deficit reduction.  The President’s budget would come up to the Hill, we would look at it and then we would figure out what we wanted to add to it.  Those days are long gone.  In more recent years, if a Member wants to add something to an appropriations bill, they typically have to find something else to cut.  That means that “new project” might not be with “new” dollars.  It could be coming out of existing programs.  Members have to be a lot more selective now about what they say they really want. I remember one year naively writing a letter that included support for some of the President’s big ticket initiatives in addition to our Alabama projects.  The note came back from the Chairman saying - here’s what we’re giving you Mr. Congressman - this big ticket initiative which of course, they planned to fund anyway.  What we really wanted wasn’t in there.  So, I learned a valuable lesson and I was really careful to ask for things we had to have.  At the bottom, I would list things that would be nice to have. I didn’t bother with things that weren’t relevant to us.

Some examples of things we had to have in the Interior bill included safety equipment for a national park in our district, hiking trail construction, land acquisition for the park and for a national forest, funds to construct handicapped- accessible bath facilities in a federal recreation area and funds to keep a national fish hatchery open.  Some times these things were in the President’s budget and some times they weren’t. I mention the fish hatchery because it was so small.  I think it had maybe three employees at the most.  The Fish and Wildlife Service put it on the chopping block to be shut down.  But, my boss knew the facility manager.  In fact, he’d been invited out there for Senior Citizen Fishing Day and other community events.  You would have thought Fish and Wildlife was proposing to close the Taj Mahal.  My boss really went to bat for that fish hatchery and those employees.   We saved it a couple of years and then finally arranged to turn it over to the State with a provision for the employees. 

The point is: this was a federal facility in our district that the congressman cared about.   It represented the federal investment at the local level.

We were always suspicious of budget gamesmanship on the part of the agencies.  We frequently thought they under-funded our projects and priorities – knowing we would put the money back.   This is also known as the Washington Monument strategy.  I think that budgets are so tight these days that agencies almost have to shave some funding off their Washington monuments because that’s where the money is.  And, none of them can be assured that funding will be fully restored.

I want to allow time for questions if we can.  So, I’ll close with these thoughts: a great many people care about the resources you have in the Missouri River Basin. Your ability to communicate with each other and with your congressional delegations is one of your great strengths.  Look for opportunities to invite Members and staff to get out in the field with you – and do it together.  It is extremely beneficial for Members and staff to understand the big picture of what you are trying to accomplish.

Recognize that Washington is a dynamic place - with a lot of ebb and flow - comings and goings.  Administrations change, Members change and staffs change.   But, the need for good communications does not change.  It is an ongoing process.  If you don’t get your legislation in this Congress, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep trying.