The Great Unfunded-Mandate Debate Local Governments Say They Can’t Afford Them, But Some Say Repeal Would Undermine Federal Authority

Sandpoint doesn’t need a fifth sewer plant worker. It’s hired one anyway. Mayor Ron Chaney says four workers can run the plant just fine, but federal law requires five.

“He just dings around, painting, mowing, doing cleanup,” Chaney said. “It’s just a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

In the tiny southern Idaho town of Fairfield, Mayor Reuben Miller says it would cost his city $5 million in road work to comply with federal stormwater management rules. That’s $175 per month from each household - for the next 20 years.

In St. Maries, residents have been drinking water from the same mountain creek for 60 years. They now face a $3 million to $5 million price tag to comply with federal water rules - up to $1,785 for each man, woman and child in town.

These cases are the result of federal rules - or “mandates” - that many local officials say are spinning out of control.

Unfunded mandates are under heavy fire this year, largely because the issue is a key plank in the Republicans’ “Contract With America.”

Idaho Republican Sen. Dirk Kempthorne ramrodded a mandate-limiting bill through the Senate, 86-10. On Friday, a House and Senate committee approved a compromise version of the bill.

It is common for federal law to call on states, counties and cities to help develop - and pay for - regulatory programs that Congress thinks are a good idea. Examples include federal clean air and water laws, anti-discrimination regulations, health inspection requirements and worker safety standards.

To meet the federal rules, local governments spend money from their own budgets. The city of Boise spends a third of its $57 million annual budget on such “unfunded mandates.”

Meanwhile, direct federal aid to state and local governments is dropping - from $47 billion in 1980 to $20 billion in 1990. A 1992 study determined that there are at least 172 separate pieces of federal legislation that impose duties - and costs - on state and local governments.

Idaho lawmakers also are debating unfunded mandates. In Boise, the state Senate last month passed Senate Bill 1003, which prohibits the state from passing down more mandates - unless money’s attached.

“It would cause us to pause,” said Sen. Gordon Crow, one of 21 senate co-sponsors. “It’s become too easy, even for a small state like ours. We’re kind of saying ‘stop us.”’

A state House committee is considering the bill.

In addition, state senators have proposed three other bills and a non-binding “memorial” - all blasting unfunded federal mandates.

Such legislation has the enthusiastic support of mayors, county commissioners and other local officials who argue that federal mandates are a hidden tax. They say they shouldn’t be picking up the tab for federal decisions.

“If it’s worth doing, it’s worth paying for,” said Mayor Miller, in Fairfield. “If the rivers are burning or the water’s polluted, then send the money to fix it.”

“A lot of it on the surface makes sense, until you boil it down to who pays for it,” said Boundary County Commissioner Bob Graham. “Taxpayers are not interested in putting out millions of dollars to retain some microorganism, when those millions could be better spent on the kids in schools.”

The idea of stripping away federal mandates, however, has some people nervous - and suspicious of lawmakers’ motives.

Under the guise of helping out local government, critics say, conservative lawmakers are actually trying to undermine the federal government’s power to regulate. Critics say the money issue is only a smokescreen.

“This is really a way to cripple environmental legislation without having to say it,” said Rick Hind, legislative director of the Greenpeace Toxics Campaign in Washington, D.C. “Washington doesn’t have a nickel to stand on right now, so nothing’s going to be funded.”

“Some of the most essential citizen protection rules we have come from this (federal process),” said Melinda Harm, lobbyist for the Idaho Conservation League, citing as an example the Clean Drinking Water Act. “If you neuter the legislation, it no longer has its ability to protect citizens.”

At the Boise Statehouse, Sen. Tim Tucker, D-Porthill, was one of only a handful of senators voting against the state’s unfunded mandates bill.

“I think ‘unfunded mandates’ is a 30-second sound bite that, when translated into public policy, means trouble,” Tucker said.

The state Legislature is already extremely sensitive to the local funding results of state laws, he said. The “unfunded mandates” label, Tucker said, quickly scuttles any discussion of worthwhile - and needed - legislation.

“By labelling it an unfunded mandate, it can’t be debated on its merit,” Tucker said.

The way to reduce bureaucracy and red tape, Hind suggests, is to prevent the problems that make regulation necessary.

“If people want to do away with regulations, prevent pollution in the first place,” he said.

And Gary Bass, chairman of the Washington, D.C., lobby group “Citizens for Sensible Safeguards,” points out that Kempthorne’s bill, which applies only to future legislation, would do nothing to alleviate the current woes of Sandpoint, Fairfield and St. Maries.

He acknowledges the bill could prevent further demands from being piled on the cities. But the fastest, most direct solution, Bass suggests, is for the federal government to simply pick up more of the tab for the current regulations.

“The whole reason for this debate is the current situation,” he said.

In Fairfield, Mayor Miller is willing to accept some of the blame for his city’s stormwater management woes. When regulators sent paperwork suggesting the city take steps to comply, he said, he ignored it.

“I couldn’t meet it and I pitched it. I couldn’t read a lot of it,” Miller said, who has been mayor for the past 12 years. “We don’t have the time to read the Federal Register to see what’s coming down the pike at us. You’re just overwhelmed.”

Such environmental regulations, he said, are “a good idea that’s gotten out of control.” He objects to onesize-fits-all regulations, he said, when his city can’t afford the necessary attorneys and engineers and planners.

“Everyone wants clean water and managed solid waste,” he said. “We’re not trying to avoid complying.

“We’re trying to be able to afford to comply.”