 Legislature
The 2010 session of the Georgia General Assembly began on January 11. 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.
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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.
UCR Preview of the 2010 Georgia Legislative Session - Water on the Agenda
Three events that occurred in the past year have pushed water to the top of the legislative agenda for the 2010 session:
• the three-year drought that ended last summer,
• the federal court ruling and 2012 deadline for Atlanta’s use of Lake Lanier for water supply, and
• the historic flooding in the metro area last fall.
Water issues were supposed to have been resolved by the legislature in 2008, when it passed a bill to create a statewide comprehensive water plan. That effort largely has been left behind by the above events and the sudden resignation last October of Dr. Carol Couch, the water plan’s architect and director of the Georgia EPD.
The 2010 General Assembly must now return to water issues and the possible options are many and varied—from water conservation measures, to regulation of the piping of water from one river basin to another, to new interstate water compacts.
Sub-Metering, One Supply Solution
Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper continues to offer solutions to the region’s water supply problem, emphasizing water conservation and efficiency (see cover story). An example of a conservation bill is HB 158 which would require new multi-family residential construction to install individual meters for each unit, a practice called “sub-metering”.
Currently, multi-family residential properties have one meter, and property managers split the utility bill among all tenants without regard to actual water usage. Consequently, tenants have no incentive to fix leaks or reduce water consumption. Case studies show that, if implemented aggressively either through mandates or incentive programs, sub-metering will achieve predictable and guaranteed water savings in the millions of gallons. The sub-metering bill passed the House last year, but must pass the Senate in 2010 to become law.
Threats to Smart Water Management
Two bills continue to threaten sustainable water management. During the 2008 session, the General Assembly passed HB 1281, which prohibits cities and counties from applying outdoor watering restrictions that are more stringent than those required by the state without first getting approval from EPD. Because this law takes away an important tool for our local governments to use in safeguarding our water supplies, our goal is to make certain it expires as planned in July 2010.
We also will be working to defeat a proposed amendment to the state’s local government Service Delivery Act (SDA), introduced last year as HB 406. The SDA is an important law that ensures that public services, such as water, sewer, health and safety, are provided to taxpayers in an efficient manner. Developer lobbyists are working with cities in south Fulton County to amend the SDA. Essentially, the developers want to allow the cities to bypass the SDA requirement in order to receive state permits and funding for water projects. If HB 406 passes, it will make it much easier for developers to dam our waterways for subdivision lakes masquerading as water supply reservoirs.
Interstate Compact Legislation?
Last summer’s federal court ruling finally prompted the Governors of Florida, Alabama and Georgia to meet, although it took them until December to do so. Subsequently, they said that the states' legislatures, and Congress, hope to enact new interstate compacts in 2010 to allocate the water of the Apalachicola-Flint-Chattahoochee (ACF) River Basin. UCR was deeply engaged in the enactment of the first pair of compacts in 1997 and will be just as interested in any new versions presented to the legislature this year.
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