September 19, 1972
Page 31205
AMENDMENT No. 1524
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I have one more amendment to offer, and I will not ask for a rollcall vote. I offer the amendment because I indicated in my opening statement I would do so.
Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment which is a revision of amendment No. 1524.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment will be stated.
The legislative clerk proceeded to read the amendment.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment may be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered; and, without objection, the amendment will be printed in the RECORD.
The amendment is as follows: On page 74, line 25, strike "and"
On page 75, between lines 2 and 3, insert the following new paragraphs:
"(15) the preparation and continuing revision, in cooperation with local governments, of a statewide system of valuation and assessment of property values and a program for assuring that property or other land use related taxation by the state and local governments is consistent with the state land use program; and
"(16) the preparation and continuing revision, in cooperation with local governments, of an inventory of the adequacy and uniformity of availability of state and local services supported by property tax or other land use related tax revenues and the impact upon availability of these revenues and services of decisions resulting from the Statewide land use planning process.
On page 82, between lines 7 and 8, insert a new paragraph as follows:
(3) The President shall not make a grant pursuant to this Act until he has determined that the State and its local governments are maintaining a system of property and other land use related taxation which is consistent with and supportive of the state land use program and that the State is prepared to assume in whole or in part, as may be necessary, the present obligations and costs for maintaining existing levels of services of any local government that has its tax base reduced in value or its revenue sources reduced in yield as a result of state action.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, it is obvious that the majority of the Senate does not agree with me as to the weaknesses in this bill, so I see no point in pressing it; but I am going to offer this one amendment simply to document my concerns about another weakness in the bill.
I indicated yesterday that land use inevitably affects property tax revenue, land values, and the flexibility that local governments need to finance local public service. I cited the Lake Tahoe situation yesterday.
Zoning, as Senators know, pulls the plug on speculative values of land. A great many people own land for that reason. When one pulls the plug on speculative values, he pulls the plug on local tax revenues. It is as simple as that.
Perhaps I can explain this amendment best by reading it. This amendment would require, for land use planning, the preparation and continuing revision, in cooperation with local governments of a statewide system of valuation and assessment of property values and a program for assuring that property or other land use related taxation by the State and local governments is consistent with the State land use program; and
The preparation and continuing revision, in cooperation with local governments, of an inventory of the adequacy and uniformity of availability of State and local services supported by property tax or other land use related tax revenues and the impact upon availability of these revenues and services of decisions resulting from the statewide land use planning process.
Finally, the President shall not make a grant pursuant to this act until he has determined that the State and its local governments are maintaining a system of property and other land use related taxation which is consistent with and supportive of the State land use program and that the State is prepared to assume in whole or in part, as may be necessary, the present obligations and costs for maintaining existing levels of services of any local government that has its tax base reduced in value or its revenue sources reduced in yield as a result of State action.
In other words, all this amendment requires is that the State take into account the impact on its State land use policies on the local taxable property, on local property tax revenue, before it mandates changes in land use that affect those two items.
It seems to me irresponsible not to consider the impact on local government revenues of a national land use policy. We have just enacted revenue sharing to send back to communities a share of Federal revenues to help them bear the cost of local government. Here at the next breath we adopt a land use policy that gives no consideration whatsoever to its impact upon land values and property tax revenue. It makes absolutely no sense.
I have tried without success to impress this point on the sponsors of the legislation. I have not succeeded. Since I have not succeeded, either, with respect to the other two issues I have raised, I see no point in pressing this one. I see no indication of the kind of concern I have with this legislation.
It may be wrong, but in any case, I offer this amendment. I do not ask for a roll call vote, and I will offer no other amendment. The amendments already rejected lead me to the conclusion that I cannot support the bill. No further amendments that I could offer would so improve it as to overcome the objections I now have to it. One of the objections I have to it is this failure to consider the impact on property tax revenue of land use decisions.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. JACKSON. I certainly support the goals and the objectives of the Senator from Maine, but certainly it would be an unconstitutional exercise, in my judgment, of congressional power, to attempt to dictate payment of compensation for losses incurred by the local government ...
to legislate away a portion of the State police power.
We do not have any such rider on the air and water quality legislation, to my knowledge. I would assume the Senator from Maine would not want to attach that kind of rider to those statutes.
In my judgment, it is simply not a workable proposal. In any event, I do not think we have the constitutional authority to lay down such a requirement.
I hope the Senate will reject the amendment.
I am prepared to yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, as I understand it, the Senator's position is this. It is constitutional and proper that the Federal Government can enact national legislation which diminishes or could diminish the local tax base of communities across this country, but it is unconstitutional to do something about offsetting that loss of local tax revenue.
If the Federal Government does not have the power or the authority to offset that unfavorable impact upon local government, then it ought not to exercise the power that it has, if it has it, to diminish local revenue.
I find that an incomprehensible point of view and one to which I do not subscribe.
Mr. JACKSON. Mr. President, let me just ask, is it the business of Congress to tell the States that they have to compensate local governments in the case of loss of tax revenue? This is what we are trying to avoid here, Federal intervention in a matter that is purely State and local. It is up to the States. If they wish to limit their police power to provide a way to compensate local governments for loss of tax base. But, should the Federal Government dictate to the States – tell the States that the States have to provide that compensation to the local government? That is what State legislatures are for.
Mr. MUSKIE. I find the Senator's indignation rather narrowly focused. Here he is writing legislation that permits the Federal Government to tell the States that they must impose on State and local governments land use policies which will have the effect of shrinking their revenues. Yet, somehow, it is not a proper subject for legislation that has this purpose to also tell the States that they ought to be concerned with offsetting those losses in State and local revenues, and to say that this is unconstitutional.
I find the double standard incomprehensible.
Mr. JACKSON. I wonder if the Senator would attach such an amendment to the air and water quality statutes.
Mr. MUSKIE. If the Senator will suggest to me the ways in which that legislation is comparable to this act, I will be glad to consider them. The water act does not restrict development. That is what we are talking about here. Meaningful land use which is sensitive to environmental values is going to restrict development. It is going to restrict speculative values that restrict the local tax base. The water bill does not do that.
Mr. JACKSON. Will the Senator yield on my time?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. JACKSON. In my hometown two pulp mills are closing due to the pollution legislation. If the Senator does not think that is a loss of the tax base, I would like to find a better example of it. There is a substantial loss of tax revenues to my hometown of Everett, Wash.
Why does not the Senator run his amendment to that kind of situation?
Mr. MUSKIE. May I say to the Senator that we are now considering in committee legislation to deal with the problem of economic dislocation as related to environmental pollution.
The Senator is arguing that we ought to repeal the environmental pollution laws. That is his prerogative. But what I am saying is that we can consider that problem in connection with tax relief, tax incentive, economic relocation. We have, in the last 14 years in Congress, enacted the Appalachian Regional Development Act, to do what? To offset the cost of economic dislocation. We have enacted economic development legislation, area redevelopment legislation, and all of that is a perfectly appropriate exercise.
But that is not applicable here. This legislation is not applicable to those programs at all, because there is no specific result on which you can focus attention. You cannot prove the negative as to what economic opportunities were lost that never existed in the first place.
I favor land use legislation. My disagreement with the Senator from Washington is that I think we ought to say in this legislation what it is we are trying to do, especially when it means the potential of limiting of local tax revenue. If you are not ready to bite the whole bullet, you ought not to try to swallow any part of it.
Mr. JACKSON. Mr. President, I shall be brief, and then conclude.
If the Senator from Maine is concerned about this, he knew or should have known that in the establishment of air and water quality standards, plants would have to close and there would be loss of tax base. Nevertheless, I supported the air and water quality bills. I gave the Senator the most concrete example I could imagine, the closing of two pulp mills in my home State, throwing hundreds of people out of work. If he wanted to insist on that kind of legislation, he knew, or should have known, when he brought in the bills on air and water quality and we passed them here, that some plants were going to close. And when plants close, you lose tax base as well as jobs. To come in here and insist, where we are leaving it to the States to say what their land use policies shall be, that the State governments shall be required to do so and so, I believe, is contrary to the whole spirit of this legislation, which is to make it possible for the States to enforce States rights. I hope the amendment will be rejected.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, let me add my observations on the Senator's comments.
In the first place, in our Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, we have considered the problems of economic dislocation, and have written into the pending water pollution law programs to assist local industries to meet the responsibilities which we impose on them with that legislation, and to minimize the process of economic dislocation.
We considered the problem and dealt with it, and in addition, in committee, are considering legislation to deal with economic dislocation generally – not just that caused by environmental legislation, but that caused by trade legislation, or simply the movement of private economic forces.
What we are talking about here is a piece of legislation that pretends that no such problem exists, that has not considered it as far as I know. There is no reference to it in the committee report and no provision for it in the bill.
The water bill does not restrict development nor the tax base if the development is consistent with water quality requirements and effluent limits. There is no analogy between that and the basic land planning which the States and localities are required to assume under this bill.
May I say, finally, that even if clean air and water pollution control did restrict development, they do so expressly in order to protect public health, a reasonable basis for restriction; in this bill there is not a single policy justification nor anticipation of the controls that would be imposed by State and local governments.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further discussion? If not, the question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator from Maine. Is all time yielded back?
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I withdraw the amendment, as I indicated earlier I would. There is no point in pressing the Senate to votes on amendments which the majority of the Senate appears to disapprove.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is withdrawn. The bill is open to further amendment.