News

4:00PM EST

Attendance
Jeremie Greer – LISC
Alia Anderson – Reconnecting America
Allison Bishins – WRI
Chrissy Nichols – Metropolitan Planning Council (Chicago, IL)
Betsy Otto – American Rivers
Alison Van Gorp – Cascade Land Conservancy
Lacy Strohschein – Center for Planning Excellence
Mary Kyle McCurdy – 1000 Friends of Oregon
Elisa Ortiz, Jon Zeidler, Stephanie Potts, Natalie Robles, Rayle Bellis – SGA

Federal Policy Updates (Stephanie Potts)

• Presidential Budget: Details about the budget were sent out last week in the SGA Washington Update, which is also posted on the SGA website. If you didn’t receive the update or have follow-up question, contact Stephanie Potts.
  • We will be doing more appropriations work than usual in support of the new HUD, DOT, and EPA programs. We will also be doing some lobby meetings in DC to talk about these programs. Action Item: we would love for everyone’s help with lobbying—let us know if you want to be part of this effort, contact Kate Rube.
  • In the next few weeks SGA will be hosting webinars and conference calls with people from the three main agencies involved. We will keep the coalition updated about when to expect these.
• Jobs Bill: T4 has taken the lead on this. If you’re interested in an update or in helping out with their efforts feel free to contact
• Questions: More on Livable communities act and the timeline
  • We have just heard that they are planning to introduce it sometime next week. We will be asking partners in the coming weeks to make calls to their representatives.

Climate Report Update (Stephanie Potts)

• Report is looking at whether or not state transportation policies are helping states meet their climate goals. We have changed the report from a ranking to an A through F grade in response to concerns that a ranking made the highly-ranked states look like they were doing better than they actually are. For more details, contact Stephanie Potts

Water Policy Update (Jon Zeidler)

• EPA is working on developing a new storm water standard for development and redevelopment. We have been putting comments together for this. We are taking a position that we want the new standard to advantage redevelopment. We will continue to put in comments over the next year, so people that want to get involved should contact Jon.
• State revolving fund reauthorization—we are hoping to work with EPA to help states modify revolving fund programs to be more smart growth friendly
• We are also working on integrating smart growth policies with issues surrounding the Chesapeake Bay
• Questions:More background on the Bay work:
  • One piece of legislation is in the house, and one in the senate. A presidential executive order directed agencies to work together in clamping down on the clean-up process. There’s also the new legislation, which provides a lot of funding for cleanup and research efforts. The work we’re doing is largely concerned with trying to bring the smart growth effort to the forefront, since storm water runoff is one of the primary causes of water quality degradation.
• Q: Does SGA have Puget-Sound on its radar? The Puget Sound partnership action agenda has a lot of similarities to what’s going on in the Chesapeake area in terms of challenges.
  A: Not as of now. What we’re thinking with our Chesapeake work is that a lot of this will be relevant to other groups in the coalition and what they’re working on in terms of stormwater. We’re always interested in what other states are doing around this issue.

SGA Coalition Meeting

There is a full coalition meeting coming up on Wed., April 28th in the afternoon. The next morning, the 29th, will be a lobby day. There will be an SGA board meeting that afternoon. We will be developing a draft agenda soon and asking for feedback from the coalition.

State Updates

• Seattle: They are working on a livable communities comment letter for their meeting. Kate will probably be following up with them.
• Alia, Reconnecting America: New Starts report—if you’re interested or have projects in your area, RA will be monitoring this. There have been some changes to the way projects are scored—with a greater focus on livability. SGA and RA are thinking about putting together a webinar for the coalition to explain the new scoring process.

Reminder Next call will be Thursday, March 25th at 4:00pm EST.