Avalanche of Proceedings Slows Contested Hearings
August 19, 2008
Written by legal expert and Certified Mine Safety Professional Adele Abrams and appearing in the July edition of Rock Products magazine.
“Litigation between the Mine Safety and Health Administration and the mine operators and contractors that MSHA regulates is on an upswing. In all of FY07, there were 2,488 new cases filed with the Federal Mine Safety & Health Review Commission; in FY08 (October 1 to June 1, 2008), there were already 6,251 new cases initiated. In March and April 2008, several weeks registered more than 300 new cases per week! It appears that about 90% of the new cases are “penalty cases” while only 10% are “contest” cases…”
Ms. Abrams proceeds to provide some guidance on due process and informal conferences. The rest of the article available at www.rockproducts.com or by the below link.
Georgia EPD Air Protection Branch Chief Resigns
August 19, 2008
Heather Abrams, Chief of Georgia EPD’s Air Protection Branch, has resigned effective September 12. Chuck Mueller, a senior policy adviser for EPD, will serve as the acting Chief.
The full press release from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources is available in the following link.
Georgia EPD Air Protection Branch Chief Resigns
Sruggling Economy Won’t Slow The Push To Fix Transportation Woes
August 19, 2008
The following article is from Insider Advantage and contains quotes from Sen. Jeff Mullis, Rep. Vance Smith, Governor Sonny Perdue, Speaker of the House Glenn Richardson, Georgia Chamber of Commerce CEO Georga Isreal and Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce President Sam Williams.
Struggling Economy Won’t Slow The Push To Fix Transportation Woes
BY Dick Pettys
(8/18/08) The downturn that’s forcing the state to look for $1.6 billion worth of spending cuts and has pushed unemployment to the highest level in 15 years is going to put a damper on lots of things in next year’s legislative session – but one of them isn’t the push to find new revenue sources for transportation.
Despite the continuing spate of bad news for the state’s economy and the continuing high price of gas, the momentum that nearly got a fix approved during the 2008 session shows no sign of being stalled.
“I’m still going to try to move the ball down the field,” says Senate Transportation Chairman Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, one of the effort’s most fervent advocates. “My foot’s still on the gas.”
Rep. Vance Smith, R-Pine Mountain, the House transportation chairman and equally as fervent an advocate, said, “We know the economy is a little soft right now, but the economy is going to rebound and the need is still there.”
Sam A. Williams, president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, says the whole country knows about Atlanta’s traffic congestion and it’s hurting the city’s effort to attract new business.
“For us to say we have an economic situation so we’re going to put it (a transportation fix) on the back burner again furthers hurts us. I think Charlotte would love it if we said we’re not going to do anything yet again, much less Tampa and Dallas,” he said.
This effort isn’t a new idea. There have been a number of efforts in the past to raise the gas tax or take other steps to put more money into the transportation network. But this is the first that’s had such a huge coalition of business, industry and mass transit advocates behind it, and it’s the first that’s had such staggering numbers to back its push: nearly $20 billion in unmet transportation needs over the next six years and only $11 billion to fund them.
This time last year, a joint House-Senate study committee was hard at work holding hearings around the state to try to plumb the depths of the problem. The panel, co-chaired by Mullis and House Transportation Vance Smith, heard a lot about the problem and a lot about possible solutions, but in the end could not agree on a single solution. So its report to the 2008 General Assembly split the baby, suggesting that lawmakers consider either a statewide sales tax increase for transportation needs or a regional, local option approach.
The Senate passed one version – a proposed constitutional amendment allowing counties alone or in partnership with other counties to ask their voters for permission to impose up to an additional 1-cent sales tax for specific transportation improvements. The House, taking more of a regional approach, passed a measure that would allow regional planning districts to come up with projects and to propose an additional sales tax of up to 1 cents in all the counties of the region if voters approved.
To make a long story short, they countered and counter-offered for most of the session and finally on the last day and in the closing minutes submitted a proposed compromise to both chambers. The proposed constitutional amendment cleared the House 134-34 but in the Senate, the 35-18 vote fell three short of the necessary two-thirds to pass.
There was more to this than the usual House-Senate politics.
For starters, there was the tax relief program that Speaker Glenn Richardson made the Number One issue of the session. Since it died on the last day, too, there was some squeamishness about passing a measure that already had been branded a tax hike by some activists and which others said had a lot of devils in the details.
And then there was Gov. Sonny Perdue, who had been arguing all session that DOT was in a mess and until his hand-picked commissioner, Gene Abraham, could get things straightened out, there was no point giving the agency more money that it couldn’t handle effectively, anyway. And, he said, cutting some taxes and raising others was just plain “silly.”
But to the business community, the whole thing showed a lack of leadership in some quarters, and as the dust settled they made certain their take on things was understood where it mattered most.
Some things have happened since. Perhaps the most important is that Perdue declared in a news conference in mid-June that he’s now ready to pitch in to find transportation solutions, in part because he likes the way the board of transportation is working with Abraham.
A team now is at work to look at the broad picture, he said, and this effort will be a cooperative one that involves all the interested parties and the Legislature.
“No options are off the table,” he said at the time. “I think we’ve got to look at a multitude of solutions, and nothing should be off the table until it’s proved to be unproductive.”
But that was before we knew the state would need to tap its reserves to the tune of $600 million to stay in the black when the fiscal year ended on June 30, or that the budget that began on July 1 would need to be cut by $1.6 billion.
One solution Perdue put on the table: eliminating the $428 million tax relief program for homeowners, although legislative leaders quickly said “no” to that. Still, their rejection of that proposal means deeper spending cuts and probably furloughs and layoffs will be needed next year. And there’s no telling when the economy will pick back up or where gas prices will be.
So on the surface, it may not be the best climate for a renewed transportation effort.
But that’s not what we’re hearing.
Speaker Glenn Richardson said last week at a big fundraiser hosted for him by the business community that transportation will be one of the items he’ll focus on next year (along with tending to the state’s budget problems.)
And we’re hearing from Senate sources that there is a renewed realization of what a “top-tier” issue this is, as well as of the consequences of failing to help the state dig out of its transportation hole.
Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley said the governor believes that the current state budget problems make it all the more important for Georgia to look at what it’s doing in transportation and make certain it has a plan for the future.
Perdue’s problem with this year’s proposal, he said, was that lawmakers decided on which tax to use and then established the framework of a plan for how that would be used “without looking to see if that was the amount we needed and those would be the projects we needed first.”
George Israel, president and CEO of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, said he believes state leaders are moving in the right directions now and that lessons have been learned on both sides.
From the advocates’ standpoint, “I think we also learned a lesson on our side of getting to a solution a little faster” (instead of letting the issue drag into the chaotic closing hours.)
He said the economic climate will make the job a little tougher, but drew a distinction between the short-term and long-term view.
The current economic problems are cyclical, he said, and things should moderate in a matter of time. But for the long-term, the state needs to address quality-of-life and economic development issues by digging out of its transportation hole.
DOT Overhauling the Way It Handles Road Projects
August 19, 2008
The following article appeared in the August 13th edition of the Macon Telegraph.
DOT Overhauling the Way It Handles Road Projects
By S. Heather Duncan
Wondering if your favorite – or least favorite – road-widening project, new truck route or turn lane still is going to be constructed after this year’s shake-up at the state Department of Transportation?
You’ll have to wait a little longer to find out.
When DOT Commissioner Gena Abraham took over the department nine months ago, she discovered more than 9,000 projects on the books and a $1 billion budget shortfall. Road projects that weren’t already under building contracts were put on ice until the state could reprioritize.
The department can only complete about 270 projects a year, said Mark McKinnon, a DOT spokesman.
Projects will be ranked. Those that aren’t high enough on the priority list to be completed within about six years will be eliminated, said DOT spokeswoman Crystal Paulk-Buchanan. The DOT will no longer keep projects on the books that can’t be finished for half a century, she said.
What will get the ax?
“Everything is on the table,” she said, including the Eisenhower Parkway Extension project in Macon and the timeline for a new Interstate 16/Interstate 75 interchange.
“The commissioner (Abraham) has made it clear things are going to be done differently from now on. You won’t be able to come to Atlanta and kiss the ring and have the state promise to do your project.”
Projects within the same congressional district will basically compete with each other for a pot of federal funding allocated by the state, Paulk-Buchanan said. Under this system, Macon won’t have to compete with Atlanta for the same dollars.
The DOT is working on a formal process for prioritizing projects, using a list of factors that are assigned different weights according to the rural or urban nature of the community. The factors now include:
• Reducing congestion.
• Increasing safety by reducing accidents.
• Connecting with another recent project (a bridge widening to complement a recent road-widening, for example).
• Maintaining consistency with local land use and the long-term plans for the area. (For example, are strip malls an anticipated land use for a divided highway area, or is the neighborhood residential?)
• Reducing travel time on noninterstate truck routes.
• Encouraging economic growth.
In addition, Paulk-Buchanan said, projects will be given precedence if local governments have already spent money on engineering designs or buying rights-of-way.
It’s still unclear exactly how the different factors will be weighted in different cities and counties, Paulk-Buchanan said. Originally the DOT had planned to use a single scale, but during meetings with transportation planning organizations throughout the state, DOT officials heard that different communities value different factors. For instance, reducing congestion is the No. 1 priority for Atlanta, but not necessarily for smaller cities such as Macon.
“Preservation or economic development might be of higher importance here in Macon due to our location on the interstate system or the development of our warehousing and distribution industry,” said Don Tussing, principal planner with the Macon-Bibb County Planning and Zoning Commission. “It’s kind of arbitrary as to where you fix the weight assignments.”
Tussing heads up Macon’s long-term transportation planning, as well as the air quality assessments required to go with it. (The Macon area doesn’t meet federal standards for fine particle pollution and ozone, the primary components of soot and smog.)
The DOT has updated Tussing and other metropolitan planners around the state about the status of re-examining the road projects, asking for feedback.
DOT is proposing a pretty standard set of factors to rank the projects, Tussing said. Local planning officials will probably respond more when DOT releases a final version, he said.
Bibb County and Houston County officials remain focused on the end result: The number of projects and amount of funding that are going to hit the highway.
“Nobody likes to be told, ‘We said we were going to do this and now we’re not,’ ” said Paulk-Buchanan. “At the end of this, at least we’ll be able to deliver what we promise. But it’s not an easy pill to swallow. It’s a change in how we do business.”
The DOT likely will finalize the scoring system around October, run it by local road planning organizations one more time for feedback, and then begin the nitty-gritty work of ranking, she said.
To contact writer S. Heather Duncan, call 744-4225.
Webinar on the new Georgia Gun Law
August 8, 2008
For those who participated in this Webinar, there are probably as many questions as answers. It was emphasized that the speed in which the legislation was drafted and passed has not allowed for sufficient legislative history or intent. Due to the newness of the law, there are no legal precedents to guide proper application. In general, it was posited that ‘property rights’ trump ‘gun rights’. With that perspective, it is still somewhat unclear how far the employer can limit or oversee an employee’s right to have a concealed gun in his vehicle on company property. It is much clearer that an employer can prohibit the possession of a gun in a company-owned vehicle.
Georgia and Florida now have gun laws allowing the concealment of guns by individuals possessing a valid gun license issued by the respective state. A similar law is going into effect in Louisiana and an injunction has put a gun rights law in Oklahoma on hold.
There were five points given as actionable items by employers.
- Review company gun policies and update as needed.
- Review and update company vehicle policies.
- Notify employees of any change in policies.
- Appropriate signage should be placed in company parking lots.
- Train supervision in the application of the company policy.
Elarbee Thompson, Thursday, August 7, 2008
Highway Trust Fund Fix/Tax Bill Blocked in Senate
August 6, 2008
On July 29, the Senate fell nine votes short of being able to limit debate and move forward on the bill that had the $8-billion Highway Trust Fund fix attached to it.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) attached the $8 billion HTF fix to S. 3335, a package of energy and tax extenders. Although 51 Senators supported the legislation, 60 votes were needed to move the bill. Four Republican senators-Norm Coleman (Minn.), Susan Collins (Maine), Elizabeth Dole (N.C.) and Gordon Smith (Ore.)-joined all voting Democrats in moving to debate the bill. Republican opposition to S. 3335 was due primarily to issues unrelated to the trust fund fix, although the White House specifically opposed it.
Following the vote, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calf.), and Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) spoke on the Senate floor about the consequences for the HTF with the blockage of S. 3335.
During the previous week, the House of Representatives voted 387-to-37 to pass a stand-alone bill that would transfer $8 billion from the general fund into the HTF. The purpose of the fix is shore up the HTF’s projected insolvency.
Now on its month-long August recess, the next earliest opportunity to pass the trust fund fix occurs when Congress reconvenes in September. Support for the funding fix has been overwhelmingly positive, but the matter of the legislative vehicle that best moves it through both the House and Senate has yet to be determined by leadership.
NSSGA continues to urge passage of the HTF fix this year before the 110th Congress adjourns in late September or early October. Also, NSSGA encourages its grassroots to contact their lawmakers during the recess to impress upon them the importance of ensuring solvency of the HTF. A draft letter and background information are available in NSSGA’s Legislative Action Center. If you questions or concerns, please contact the Government Affairs Division.
