In recent weeks, Senator Harry Reid has done an extraordinary job in holding together a razor-thin majority (consisting of 48 Democrats and 2 Republicans) in support of a gradual phase down of our involvement in Iraq. This was accomplished through a 50-48 vote to defeat the Cochran amendment to delete the withdrawal language from the supplemental funding bill for the Iraq war on March 27. Two days later, the bill containing the Iraq funds (with the phase-down language) (H.R. 1591) was passed by the Senate on March 29 by a vote of 51-47 and awaits a conference with the House on similar legislation. For this extraordinary achievement, Harry Reid deserves high praise and much gratitude.
But I turn now to focus on the bad part of Harry Reid - the part of him that wheels and deals behind closed doors on behalf of special interests and tries to hide special interest legislation in larger bills. This is exactly the type of legislative practice that must be stopped if the American people are ever to gain control of their government.
At the very same time as Senator Reid was displaying outstanding leadership on funding for the Iraq War, he was pushing for inclusion of special interest legislation of the worst sort in the very same funding bill. I am not referring to the widely publicized spinach subsidies and other subsidies that were included in the Iraq supplemental funding bill in connection with securing majority support for a proposal that lays the ground work for eventual withdrawal of our forces from Iraq. (For such a laudable goal, I can understand the need for compromises and concessions to cobble together the necessary majority.) Rather, I am referring to an effort by Senator Reid to slip a measure into the Iraq supplemental bill to protect the billboard industry and to further delay implementation of billboard regulations established in 1965 by the Highway Beautification Act.
Fortunately, this measure was blocked by, of all people, Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. He raised a "point of order" to the provision (on the ground that that the provision involved an attempt to legislate in an appropriations bill (i.e., that the provision was not germane to the underlying measure)) and it was struck from the bill on March 29 when no one objected to his point of order. Senator Reid has claimed that he added this amendment to the Iraq funding bill because it was a "constituent issue." What his amendment would have done was to allow owners of nonconforming billboards to build new billboards in the place of billboards that have been damaged or destroyed by hurricanes although current law prohibits the replacement or reconstruction of such billboards.
The 1965 Highway Beautification Act attempted to establish standards as to size and location of billboards located adjacent to various federally-financed highways. It was Lady Bird Johnson's pet project. The compromise agreed to at the time of its enactment in 1965 was to allow existing "nonconforming" billboards to remain in use until they were destroyed or damaged by the forces of nature. In effect, the nonconforming billboards were grandfathered by the law for the remainder of their useful lives but were not to be replaced by new billboards.
The Reid amendment was slipped into the Iraq funding bill by means of the "manager's amendment" to the funding bill on March 26. The amendment would have allowed billboard owners to replace or rebuild nonconforming billboards destroyed or damaged by hurricanes in 13 southeastern and southwestern states (Reid's original plan was to apply the amendment to billboards in all 50 states). Here is the language of the Reid amendment as inserted into the Iraq funding bill:
SEC. 3001. Notwithstanding part 750 of title 23, Code of Federal Regulations (or a successor regulation), if permitted by State law, a nonconforming sign that is or has been damaged, destroyed, abandoned, or discontinued as a result of a hurricane that is determined to be an act of God (as defined by State law) may be repaired, replaced, or reconstructed if the replacement sign has the same dimensions as the original sign, and said sign is located within a State found within Federal Emergency Management Agency Region IV or VI. The provisions of this section shall cease to be in effect twenty-four months following the date of enactment of this Act.
Here's what Senator Alexander had to say about this provision and the Highway Beautification Act on March 29 after the Reid amendment was struck from the bill on his point of order:
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I wish to make remarks about three matters of importance to the great American outdoors, all of which have been happening this week and which are important for our country.
First, I wish to comment on a provision the Senate struck from the Iraq supplemental appropriations bill this morning when we were considering it. We struck it in a procedural move based upon a point of order I raised. The provision was a billboard amnesty proposal that was inserted into the middle of legislation that was supposed to be in support of our troops.
I called it a billboard amnesty proposal because it suddenly would have treated as legal billboard sites that have been illegal for 40 years and effectively would have gutted the Highway Beautification Act of 1965, which is one of the legacies of a former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson.
I think this deserves a little attention and a little explanation before we leave it because it was a full-scale assault on one of the most important pieces of legislation that helps keep our country beautiful at a time when we are growing and struggling to preserve open spaces.
There are three problems with this billboard amnesty proposal, as I saw it. First, the proposal would have done for the billboard industry something the law doesn't allow for churches, doesn't allow for schools, doesn't allow for businesses, doesn't allow for any other structures that since 1965 have been on illegal or nonconforming sites.
This is what was happening. In 1965, at the urging of President Johnson and Mrs. Johnson, the Nation decided it would restrict billboards, both in terms of their location and their size. As we often do with legislation, we looked ahead and said the billboards could not be located in some places and had to be within a certain size. As the interstate system grew across the country, much of it is relatively free of large billboards or has a limited number of billboards.
The question then arose about what do we do about the billboards and signs that were already up prior to 1965. The decision was made by the Congress at that time to say we will leave those signs up, we will grandfather them in. As long as they stay up, they are fine, but when they fall down, they will be gone. In other words, we have been waiting for 40 years for those sites to die a natural death. That was the compromise in 1965. Many of these billboards are large billboards and are in places we don't want--rural areas, scenic areas across the country--but that was the decision we made.
The problem with this legislation, as it came into the supplemental appropriations bill for troops, is it said suddenly all the billboards in 13 States that are on sites where it would be illegal to put a new billboard were suddenly legal. In other words, it was instant amnesty, overnight amnesty for illegal billboards.
There are a lot of billboards like this. For example, in the State of Tennessee, there are nearly 3,000 billboards on sites where they would not be permitted under current law, but when those billboards fall down, they can't ever put them back up. We have known that for 40 years. In North Carolina, there are probably 2,600 illegal sites, in the sense that when the billboards wear out, fall down, act of God knocks them out, they can't be put back up. In South Carolina, there are 2,200; in Florida, 6,000; in Oklahoma, 1,400; and in Alabama, 912. In a moment, I will put in the list of those in each State.
What the provision that we struck from the bill said was, because there were some hurricanes down South, in all these places where billboards on illegal sites were knocked down by a hurricane, they could be put back up. That raises a lot of questions. What is the difference between a billboard being destroyed by a hurricane and being destroyed by lightning, or it becoming water damaged, or it falling down because it is rotting, or some other act of God?
The whole idea in 1965 was when the billboards wore out, or an act of God destroyed them, they were gone. They were gone. We have been waiting for 40 years for that to happen. So in comes the billboard lobby and, suddenly, we have first a proposal to exempt all these billboards across the country--instant billboard amnesty for all the billboards in every State--even though the hurricanes were in the South.
Finally, that original proposal from the billboard industry got narrowed down to 13 States, which included Tennessee--we don't have a lot of hurricanes in Tennessee--and Kentucky. Hurricanes in Kentucky?
I think what is happening here is the billboard lobby is doing its best to reclaim all those billboards that have been illegal for 40 years by saying because of this hurricane or that drought or that lightning strike, suddenly we want them rebuilt in every State. That is a pretty good thing for all the billboard companies, because by and large they have bought them up from all the small farmers. They weren't worth very much because the owners knew when they fell down, the billboards could never be replaced. So what could be better for the big billboard lobby than to suddenly get instant amnesty for all these sites and instant riches overnight for those companies?
I don't blame them for trying, but I think the Senate was exactly right to say, wait a minute, we can't do this. Not only is it an affront to the troops to be cavalierly talking about a wet kiss to the billboard lobby in the middle a debate when we are supposed to be helping the troops in Iraq, I think it is an affront to Lady Bird Johnson and all those across America who, for 40 years, have tried to keep our country, about which we sing, beautiful. One of our greatest values is we sing and believe in America the beautiful.
This motion was put into the legislation by the Democratic leader. I want to make very clear I don't question his motives, and I respect what he does. I appreciate the courteous way in which he treated the discussion he and I had on this. I told him if there were some injustices that have to do with States in the South that have been somehow unevenly treated by the law or impacted by the hurricanes in a way nobody anticipated, I would be glad to work with him and other members of the Environment and Public Works Committee, on which I serve, to correct those injustices. But the Senator from Florida, Mr. Martinez, was a cosponsor of my amendment to get rid of this provision. The Senator from Alabama, Mr. Shelby, was a cosponsor of my amendment to stop this billboard amnesty. So who is the billboard lobby trying to protect here, when the Senators from those States--Tennessee,
[Page: S4141]Alabama, and Florida--say we don't need that sort of protection? But I am happy and willing to work on that legislation.
. . .
Our people want to see our beautiful country and they want reasonable limits on what we are doing. They certainly don't want to see us, in the middle of legislation to support our troops, to have suddenly attached to the appropriations bill an instant billboard amnesty proposal. I am glad that is out of the bill, and I congratulate the Senate for doing what we did this morning. It will come up through the regular committee, if we ever need to do that. The proposal was a big wet kiss to the billboard lobby, and a kissing line in which I don't care to stand, and I appreciate the Senate action.
If even Senator Alexader could recognize this proposal as a "big wet kiss to the billboard lobby," why is Senator Reid involved in such shameless shenanigans with one of our sleazier industry groups? In both procedural and substantive terms, this is the worst type of legislating. It is something that the Democratic leader should have the sense to stay away from as it is business as usual as was practiced by the Republicans for years. I would hope that the Democrats would at least strive for a cleaner legislative process and that the Democratic Leader would try to show the way regardless of his attachments to the billbord industry and the seamier legislative demands that may come his way as a result of his representation of Nevada.