News

2009 Priority Review and Evaluation

• Transportation – SGA is a co-chair of T4A and that coalition is expanding daily, has been successful in work so far; trying to create infrastructure and capacity to influence spending on transportation money once the bill is passed; time is on our side in terms of when the bill will come up for a vote – funding is the main issue, but we don’t have much control over that; next 6 to 8 months should be key as legislators write some policy framework but let it sit until they can identify a funding mechanism
• Climate – have been working with state and national partners to get some money directed to green transportation and get good policy language into the bill, were fairly successful and happy with the language that got included; the politics of the issue have made things difficult – Kerry, Graham, Lieberman bill was put on hold this weekend, now we’re on hold waiting for decisions to be made; its important for partners to stay involved and ensure that green transportation gets included in the bill – will be working on this during Lobby Day
  • Are the environmental arguments still working on this bill? The environmental community is trying to stress the jobs and economy messages, but polling shows that environmental messages still resonate
  • Blue Green Alliance is a group of environmental groups, unions and others to push the climate legislation linked to jobs and the economy
• Complete Streets – lots of progress on the state, local and national level (have gotten over 120 policies); several bills have been introduced nationally; check out the website if you have questions: http://www.completestreets.org/
• Funding for the EPA Smart Growth program – have been trying to increase their funding to $6 million, ended up getting $5.6 million in FY2010 budget
• Vacant Properties – worked on CRSI federal legislation in late 2009; have several House co-sponsors, 5 Senate co-sponsors
• Administrative and agency recommendations – made recommendations to Livability Partnership on administrative actions they could take in absence of legislative action; made clean water recommendations as well
  • Follow up – start talking about livable communities funding/policy now for next year’s budget discussion; have a call? Re: Kate
  • Can we do a call to share data on research projects? Yes – Re: PolicyLink

Recent polling and messaging feedback
See PowerPoint presentation and communications memo for more information

Overview of FY2010 Federal budget

• See budget attachments for more information
• Its important for SGA members to be active constituents advocating for these issues; contact your legislative offices about this, sign onto SGA letters, locate and point to specific projects that have been completed or could be completed if there were financing for these programs
  • Interested in sustainable communities grants: John Bailey, Bridget Jones, Peter Kasabach, David Crossley, Marc Draisen, Andre Leroux, Dru Schmidt-Perkins, Alia Anderson, Stewart Schwartz, Rachel Winer, Scott Wolf

2010 SGA Legislative Priorities

• For more information see SGA federal priority attachment
  • Livable Communities Act (Natalie is point),
  • Funding issues/appropriations (Kate),
  • Complete Streets bill (Stephanie is point),
  • Climate (Stephanie),
  • Brownfields (Mara)
  • Vacant Properties bill (Mara)

Federal legislative Opportunities

• Sustainable communities writ large
• Housing (mortgage reform, etc.), community development, preservation – opportunities to connect this with transportation
  • Next step: arrange a call with NTHP on preservation bill/tax credit bill
• Tax incentives or credits – location efficient criteria to asses development to give incentives to developers
• Administrative or agency recommendations – HUD, DOT, EPA
• Green Act – was part of the climate bill, but House Financial Services committee pulled it out of the bill to pass it separately; bill concerns greening affordable housing, sets targets toward location and energy efficient mortgages through FHA, etc.
• Healthy Food legislation
• Water issues – possibly establishing a trust fund for water with a unique revenue source
• Looking at rural smart growth through the farm Bill LaBorde

National Partner Policy Priorities

• EESI – focused on energy and environment issues
• NRDC – climate and transportation work
• Reconnecting America – intercity rail/HSR issues, transportation issues, advising the livable communities program
• TPL – increasing urban parks and focusing on other urban issues
• NTHP – preservation bills, climate bill, jobs bill
• Good Jobs First – working on recovery bill follow up, transparency issues

To download the full attendance list, click here.
To download the results from the recent national transportation poll commissioned by SGA, T4America and NRDC, click here.
To download the messaging memo for the above poll, click here.
To download SGA’s 2010 Federal Policy Agenda, click here.
To download the 2011 budget highlights for HUD, click here.
To download the 2011 budget highlights for EPA-DOT, click here.