Page 20: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 1984)

AWO (continued from page 20) would be necessary under this for- mula (NOTE: under P.L. 95-502 the inland waterways industry pays a fuel user tax of 8

In Sept. 1983, the AWO Board of Directors voted to support H.R. 3678, as approved by the Public

Works and Transportation Com- mittee, and to oppose any at- tempts to impose new or addi- tional user fees for shallow-draft waterway operators, inland and coastal.

To assist in educating Congress and the public about the need to enact comprehensive water re- sources legislation, specifically H.R. 3678, AWO formed a broadbased group of Washington corporate and association representatives. This group continues to assist both in lobbying and public affairs efforts.

General debate on the House floor was held June 18, with final action, June 28—29. At the last minute, the Administration got into the picture, through the Of- fice of Management and Budget (OMB), sending up four pages of amendments to the bill. These amendments were designed to bring H.R. 3678 in line with the

Senate bill, S. 1739. No member of the House, not even a conservative

Republican, would offer these amendments of behalf of the

Administration.

Subsequently, OMB Director

David A. Stockman issued a let- ter expressing Administration support of an amendment to be of- fered by Rep. Thomas A. Petri (R-WI). The Petri amendment re- quired local interests to provide "upfront" financing for port devel- opment and other types of projects authorized in the bill, with the ex- ception of inland waterway proj- ects. For these latter projects, the

Petri amendment—vigorously op- posed by AWO—called for an an- nual federal cap on inland water- way expenditures beginning at $586 million, declining each year by $35 million until the cap reached $201 million. Also sup- porting the Petri amendment were the League of Women Voters, Na- tional Wildlife Federation, Na- tional Taxpayers Union, United

Transportation Union, National

Audubon Society, Americans for

Democratic Action, Friends of the

Earth, Wilderness Society, Envi- ronmental Policy Institute, Sierra

Club, Competitive Enterprise In- stitute, Grace Commission, Amer- ican Rivers Conservation Council,

Railway Labor Executives Associ- ation and the Association of Amer- ican Railroads.

AWO mounted a major lobbying effort to defeat the Petri amend- ment, which was voted down by a vote of 213-85. 22

Rep. Ron Wyden (D-OR) circu- lated a "Dear Colleague" later op- posing the Petri amendment as did Rep. Nick Joe Rahall (D-WV) to members of the Congressional

Coal Group.

The House Public Works Com- mittee leadership—Reps. James

J. Howard (D-NJ), committee chairman; Gene Snyder (R-KY), ranking Republican; Robert A.

Roe (D-NJ), Water Resources

Subcommittee chairman; and Ar- lan Stangeland (R-MN), ranking minority member of that Subcom- mittee—also circulated a letter to each member of the House urging opposition to a number of amend- ments, including the Petri proposal.

While a major hurdle has been overcome with the passage of H.R. 3678, the Senate version, S. 1739, has languished. This bill, intro- duced by Sen. James Abdnor (R-

SD), chairman of the Senate Water

Resources Subcommittee, was in- troduced in Aug. 1983. It con- tained a number of new concepts never before addressed, but was subsequently approved and re- ported by the committee in Nov. 1983, without benefit of hearings on these new concepts.

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