RECOMMENDATION(S): (CONT'D)
3. DIRECT the County Administrator's Office to return to the Board of Supervisors, as necessary, to update the County’s 2015 Legislative Platforms to reflect intervening legislative actions.
4. DIRECT the County Administrator's Office to review legislation to identify bills that affect the County's adopted legislative platforms and to recommend appropriate positions on specific bills for consideration by the Legislation Committee and/or the Board of Supervisors.
5. AUTHORIZE Board members, the County’s federal and state legislative representatives, and the County Administrator, or designee, to prepare and present information, position papers and testimony in support of the 2015 Federal and State Legislative Platforms.
FISCAL IMPACT:
No direct impact to the County from the acceptance of the Year-End reports and the adoption of the Legislative Platforms.
BACKGROUND:
In January of each year, Year-End reports are submitted to the Board of Supervisors on the County’s federal and state legislative programs and activities for the prior calendar year. At the same time, the Board of Supervisors also considers and acts on the proposed Federal and State Legislative Platforms for the coming year.
Year-End reports for 2014 were prepared by the County's federal advocate, Mr. Paul Schlesinger of Alcalde & Fay and by the County's state advocate, Ms. Cathy Christian of Nielsen Merksamer Parrinello Gross & Leoni LLP.
Despite an increasingly partisan and immobilized Congress, and in the face of the continuing restrictions on earmarks, we are pleased to report that significant progress was made in 2014 on several federal fronts of importance to Contra Costa County.
To begin, funding was obtained for water resources projects that are high on the County’s priority list. In the years since Congress self-imposed an earmark ban, appropriations bills have contained additional, unallocated funding for the Army Corps of Engineers, with instructions that the Corps itself determine how these additional monies be spent as part of a work plan to be submitted to Congress.
Our federal advocates worked with County staff and officials in securing, as part of the Army Corps Work Plan prepared for FY 2014 and released in March 2014, $930,000 for the Pinole Shoal Management Study, an additional $30,000 for San Pablo Bay/Mare Island Strait (in addition to the $750,000 initially requested by the Administration, for a total of $780,000), and an additional $100,000 for the San Francisco Bay to Stockton Navigation project, bringing the total for that project for the year to $800,000. As a result of these efforts, the following amounts were provided in FY 2014 for Army Corps of Engineers projects of particular interest to the County:
Investigations
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San Francisco Bay to Stockton - $800,000
Operations & Maintenance
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San Pablo Bay/Mare Island Strait Maintenance Dredging: $780,000
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Suisan Bay Channel Maintenance Dredging: $2,026,000
In addition, in the
FY 2015 Omnibus Appropriations bill enacted with the President’s signature in December 2014, Army Corps funding was included for the following County priority projects, in the following amounts:
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San Pablo Bay/Mare Island Strait Maintenance Dredging: $2.4 million
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Suisun Bay Channel Maintenance Dredging: $2.4 million
We are working now to secure/increase funding for all Army Corps’ projects of interest to the County as part of the FY 2015 work plan. As you will recall, and consistent with past few years, Congress does not add money for specific projects to the amounts requested by the Administration, as doing so would constitute an earmark (though they may reduce amounts). However, as with past few years since its self-imposed earmark ban was instituted, the bill adds funding to each of the major funding accounts and directs the Corps to determine how the additional funding will be applied for projects not funded or under-funded, in the President’s request, and to report to Congress with this work plan within 60 days of enactment.
2014 also saw the June enactment of the
Water Resources Reform and Development Act(WRRDA), authorizing Army Corps programs and substantially revising the manner in which Corps projects are authorized. This legislation was used as a vehicle to advance solutions to policy and process issues with the Army Corps, including levee vegetation policy issues and credit for work-in-kind. With respect to levee vegetation, Section 3013 requires the Corps to re-issue regulations regarding vegetation on levees that incorporate regional characteristics, habitat for species of concern, and levee performance.
Also included in the WRRDA bill (Section 6004(a)) is a provision requested by Contra Costa County that de-authorizes the lowest reach of Lower Walnut Creek. This de-authorization will facilitate improvements to the existing facilities in a manner that will enhance ecosystem values without undue federal interference by taking it out of Army Corps control. De-authorizing this four-mile segment eliminates unnecessary U.S. Army Corps bureaucracy and allows the Contra Costa County Flood Control and Water Conservation District to directly perform flood control and habitat restoration on the remaining 18 miles of the Walnut Creek Project.
Section 1018 of WRRDA will overturn an Army Corps interpretation of law and require them to provide credit toward our non-federal share of the Wildcat Creek project based upon work that the County has already performed.
Funding for Mt. Diablo Mercury Mine Clean-up
We continued to work in 2014 toward securing federal funding in the amount of $483,000 for clean-up of the Mt. Diablo Mercury Mine. Given the current moratorium on earmarks, we recognized that it would not be possible to secure a line-item appropriation for this important project. However, with the language that we previously worked to include in the Statement of Managers accompanying the 2007 Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), which directed the Army Corps to give priority consideration to the Mt. Diablo Clean-up when allocating funds made available for the Remediation of Abandoned Mine Sites program (RAMS), we also recognized that any funding made available in Appropriations bills for the general RAMS program is almost certain to be provided for our project.
We are pleased that the Omnibus Appropriations bill, at the County’s request, includes $2 million for the RAMS program. Senator Feinstein has been the champion in securing funding for this program. Her staff has been quite explicit in telling us that the funding is intended to assist with our project. In separate discussions that County staff and our advocate had during the year with Corps staff responsible for implementing this program, we understand their intent to make available for our project such funds as might be necessary and timely for its moving forward. So, it would appear that there will be sufficient funds to allow the Corps to provide the $483,000 we require for the Mt. Diablo Mercury Mine Clean-up Project.
Advocacy related to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
Our federal advocate has worked dililgently with County officials and staff in advocating with the federal government to achieve the County’s objectives with regard to the Delta. Alcalde & Fay's efforts on the County’s behalf have been in conjunction with other federal advocates working on behalf of their clients; other members of the Delta Counties Coalition (DCC). Moreover, they have assisted the County in playing a lead role within the DCC on developing and implementing Delta strategies as they relate to the Army Corps of Engineers.
During DCC trips to Washington, Alcalde & Fay secured meetings with senior Corps officials, in addition to coordinating scheduling for the DCC and arranging for many of the meetings scheduled with Congress and the Executive Branch. Alcalde & Fay have been the lead among DCC advocates with regard to work not just with the Corps and the Office of Management and Budget, but with the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, the Senate and House Appropriations Committees, Senators Boxer and Feinstein, as well as Congressmen Miller, McNerney, Thompson, Huffman, and Swalwell.
Related to the work with the County on the Delta, Alcalde & Fay also provided a channel of communication and information between the County and the Hill on the various iterations of drought-related legislation that were moving through the legislative process over the course of the year.
Other Advocacy Projects
In addition to managing the issues on the County’ legislative platform, our federal advocates have also assisted the County when new issues surfaced that required attention or communication with our delegation. Below are a few examples that illustrate the breadth of their support for the County:
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Communicated County’s support to our Delegation and others on the Hill of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Act;
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Assisted the County related to its concerns about increased shipments of crude oil by rail;
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Worked to maintain level funding for the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund and its Habitat Conservation Plan subaccount;
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Worked to maintain funding for Title IV-E funding under the Administration for Children and Families;
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Worked to maximize federal funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP).
Activities such as these certainly contribute to the perception around Capitol Hill and elsewhere in Washington that Alcalde & Fay serves as the County’s office here in town; a place that these offices can call, trusting that they will be communicating, if through an agent, with appropriate County officials.
As always, it has been a privilege to represent the County with their efforts as they relate to the federal government. Alcalde & Fay would be pleased to elaborate on any aspect of this work, and look forward to continuing our efforts in the year ahead.
Each fall, the County Administrator’s Office initiates the development of the coming year’s State and Federal Legislative platforms by inviting members of the Board of Supervisors, Department Heads and key staff to provide recommended changes or additions to the current, adopted Platforms. In October 2014, departments were invited to meet with our State lobbyist in person and/or provide suggested changes to the State Platform by submitting input in writing. Staff also consulted the UCC Priorities and Policies for 2015, which informed the County’s Proposed 2015 State Platform.
The Legislation Committee reviewed the Proposed 2015 State Platform in November and December 2014; the Transportation, Water and Infrastructure Committee (TWIC) also reviewed relevant sections of the Federal Platform, and both Committees recommend that the Board of Supervisors adopt the Proposed 2015 Federal Platform as amended. (See Attachment C.)
Notable changes from the adopted 2014 are summarized below.
1. County Sponsored Legislation: New legislative proposal from the Department of Conservation and Development:
Pursue legislation to improve traffic safety around schools in an effort to increase the walk/bike rate to school. Specifically the bill would do three things –
1. increase the prescriptive size of the school zone to 1320 feet (a quarter mile);
2. authorize performance methods for further expanding the zone - essentially an agency could perform a traffic study to establish the need to further expand the zone to be reflective of actual pedestrian/bicycle access patterns around schools, and
3. enhance penalties for speeding violations in those newly defined zones.
2. Minor text changes to the
County Advocacy Priorities to reflect current status of issues.
3. Minor text change to
Agricultural Policy #3 regarding support for "revisions to State school siting policies" to protect and enhance the viability of local agriculture. (p. 6)
4.
Emergency Preparedness, Response Policy Addition #28: "SUPPORT legislation that expands
school safety improvement programs such as education regarding and placement of automated external defibrillator(s) (AED(s)) in schools." (p. 10)
5.
Health Policy Addition #83: "SUPPORT and encourage state, federal and/or private funding for pharmaceutical research for the development of new cannabis products which would meet Federal Drug Administration (FDA) standards of known strengths and attributes (and without unnecessary side effects) which would be dispensable through pharmacies and medical facilities consistent with State and Federal law." (p. 16)
6. Policy text changes to
Human Services Policy #84 to increase County flexibility in the use of CalWORKs funds and in program requirements in order to better support the transition of welfare dependent families from welfare-to-work to self-sufficiency. (p. 17)
7.
Human Services Policy Addition #95: "SUPPORT efforts to increase the number of subsidized child care slots to address the shortage of over 20,000 slots serving children 0-12 years of age in Contra Costa County; and SUPPORT efforts to enhance the quality of early learning programs and maintain local Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) for early learning providers.
Affordable child care is key to low-income workers remaining employed and there is a significant dearth of subsidized child care slots. Increasing quality of early learning is important to developing skills in the next generation." (p. 19)
8.
Human Services Policy Addition #96: "SUPPORT the restoration of funding for Facility Restoration and Repair (FRR) grants by California Department of Education. Increasing the funding amounts for facility restoration of early childhood education would allow for improved facilities at Head Start sites." (p. 19)
9.
Human Services Policy Addition #98: "SUPPORT alignment of verification requirements for CAlWORKS, CalFRESH and Medi-Cal programs to simplify the customer experience and reduce the potential for error. Consider letting all programs access the Federal Hub used through CalHEERs.
Currently these programs have different requirements for client verification, though they are all benefit programs. Alignment of verifications would make program administration more efficient and improve the client experience." (p. 19)
10.
Human Services Policy Additions #100-103: (p. 20)
100. SUPPORT ending the student restrictions that disallow CalFresh for poor students. Students should not be penalized for getting an education.
101. SUPPORT Allowing all individuals in receipt of Unemployment Benefits UIB) to be automatically eligible for CalFresh. Applying for UI and CalFresh is duplicative because requirements of both program sis so similar. This would increase CalFresh uptake in an efficient way.
102. SUPPORT A State Earned Income Tax Credit. Developing a state earned income tax credit would incentivize work and reduce poverty. The Federal EITC program is the most effective government antipoverty program and 22 other states have a state EITC.
103. SUPPORT establishing a State funded and administered General Assistance Program. The General Assistance Program is 100% County funded. Moving it to the State would relieve pressure on the County budget and appropriately direct costs to the State.
If the Board of Supervisors does not adopt a State and/or Federal Platform for 2015, the County will not have an approved platform from which to advocate for state and federal policies.