[ACDP-Announce] Sen. Creigh Deeds

Mon Feb 19 19:42:11 EST 2007

The following is the newsletter from Creigh Deeds. . . .    

Fred

Session Newsletter
Senator R. Creigh Deeds
February 19, 2007

      The 2007 session of the General Assembly is winding down.  With just a few days left, many of the controversial issues have been resolved and many remain to be worked out.  

      In 2002, the General Assembly regulated the payday loan industry.  Since that time the industry has had a significant presence in Virginia.  Last year alone, over 470,000 Virginians took out payday loans.  This year there were numerous efforts to rein in this short-term, low-dollar, but high-interest type of service.  The compromise bill, which is backed by the industry, imposes modest limits on the number of loans that can be made to an individual each year and establishes a statewide database of the names of people who take out payday loans.  Attempts to cap the interest rates on these loans have failed in both the House and Senate.  

      The Governor has voiced some concern for payday loans, and his office has been involved in the final negotiation of the bill.  After meeting with final approval by the legislature, the bill will now go to the Governor’s desk.  I am uncertain whether he will attempt to put forth amendments to further restrict the availability of this service in Virginia.  

      Bills were introduced this year to dramatically change the way natural resources are managed in the Commonwealth.  Bills to combine the air, water, and waste boards into one Board of Environmental Quality with a great centralization of authority with the director of DEQ, have now passed both houses, with a significant amendment.  The bills now include a reenactment clause that will require the introduction and passage of an identical bill during the 2008 session of the General Assembly before it goes into effect.  Like most legislation, this will go to the Governor, who has supported the bill, and he can offer further amendments.  However, it is my hope that he will leave the reenactment clause in place.  Combining the boards may indeed be the best way to manage Virginia’s natural resources; however, because of the broad nature of this change, and because so few stakeholders have been involved in this legislation, I firmly believe we should allow for a year to study
 the issue.

      The biggest issues for this year’s session of the General Assembly remain outstanding.  There has been considerable news coverage with respect to the Dominion Resources bills.  Roughly twelve years ago, Virginia charted a course toward deregulation of electric power.  Because a market place never developed under the legislative scheme adopted in Virginia, there has been growing pressure to reregulate the industry.  Bills have advanced in both the House and the Senate, and work on those bills continues.  I expect this legislation to be resolved, one way or the other, in the last minute of the 2007 session.

      The overreaching issue, as I have pointed out before, is transportation.  Transportation remains unresolved as we head down the stretch of this year’s session.  Different approaches have been adopted by the House and the Senate, neither of which will provide an adequate new source of funding for transportation, but either of which would be a start in the direction of pumping more money into transportation.  The approach adopted in the House is one that takes General Fund dollars for the first time in a dedicated, continuing fashion and puts them to transportation.  I have opposed this approach in the past and will continue to do so.  Use of General Fund money on a continuing basis for transportation has been rejected by the Virginia legislature for many years.  The time has not come to put highways in competition with schools, public safety, and public health for state dollars.  For this reason, we have had a dedicated source of funding for transportation since the
 1920s, a tradition we should continue.  Both the House and the Senate approaches rely on debt, too much debt in my view, but it appears to be one of the few areas around which consensus can be built.  Politics is about compromise, and it is important that we stop delaying action on this critical issue.  The transportation proposals remain in conference committee and, as with the electric reregulation bill, will ultimately be settled in the closing hours of the session.

      In past years, I have spent a great deal of time using this column to discuss the budget and the budgetary process in the General Assembly.  My focus this year has been on transportation and efforts to redirect General Fund dollars to transportation.  However, the budget is also an issue that is in conference committee and because of the transportation debate, will likely not be resolved until the last minute.  The economy continues to do well in Virginia, and we are fortunate, like many other states, to be running a surplus this year.  When the General Fund is in the black and there are surplus dollars, it seems to me appropriate to use some of those dollars for transportation.  The real contention lies, however, with the notion that there should be a continuing dedication of money from the General Fund.  That is a threshold we have never crossed in Virginia.

      The fate of the bills I introduced has been settled, for the most part.  The redistricting reform bill that I have been working on for six years has been killed in the House of Delegates.  In general, my efforts to strengthen public safety in our parks have been embraced.  My bills on behalf of the State Faculty Senate did not fare well.  My bill to update our welfare to work laws has passed, as has my bill to modernize the office of the State Fire Marshall.  While much work remains, many of my goals have been advanced.

      In these last critical days of the session, legislators are tired and eager to return home.  In my experience, mistakes are often made in circumstances like this.  I urge all of you to pay close attention to the work of the Assembly in the next few days, and if issues arise which you do not think are getting proper attention, please contact me as soon as possible at (804) 698-7525 or district25 at sov.state.va.us.

      As you know, session is scheduled to adjourn on Saturday, February 24.  After that, I can be reached in Hot Springs at (540) 839-2473 or (800) 545-5899.  Or, you can reach me in my Charlottesville office at (434) 296-5491 or P. O. Box 5462, Charlottesville, VA  22905.

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