News From ASET - May 5, 2004

Highway Bill to Move to Conference

The House marked up the highway reauthorization bill a few weeks ago and unfortunately ASET's legislative language was not included in the mark-up or in the final bill. While this is disappointing, we will move ahead to the conference between the House and Senate in an attempt to have our legislation included in their final bill. ASET has met with House committee staff, Congressman Rehberg and his staff, and Colin Chapman, our lobbyist with the Rhoads firm in the past few weeks to discuss this strategy. While it may be difficult and seem unusual for legislative language to be included in conference when it did not exist in either the House or Senate version of the bill, committee staff have confirmed that this happens more often than one might think and in fact several provisions made it into the highway bill six years ago when it was last reauthorized. Similar policy initiatives were added to the recent energy bill as well.

We have learned that several Members of Congress tried to attach specific amendments to the overall bill to increase truck weights. Although most of these provisions did not survive the final House bill, it is clear that several Members would like to see weight productivity legislation make it into the final bill that comes out of conference. ASET will work with these offices to coordinate an effort to roll many of these exemptions into one, broader provision. The keys to our success will be whom House and Senate leadership name as conferees and whether Chairman Young will actively support our issue. If we have a few strong supporters in conference and Young on board, then we will have a legitimate opportunity to succeed. The conferees will be our top priority and ASET company members who have specific relationships with conferees will take the lead in lobbying for their support.

Sources tell us that our timeline should be close to the November elections – either soon before or immediately after – because there still remain several obstacles facing all involved in the highway bill. In fact, a recent meeting between the Bush Administration and House and Senate leaders proved fruitless. If this continues to be the case, we should see a final bill come out of conference in late September or in a lame-duck session in mid-November. Speaker Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Frist should name conferees within the next several days (as of May 5).

If you would like to help push the ASET proposal through conference, please call us as soon as possible at (703) 549-9467.

New Member of ASET

Plum Creek Timber Company has joined as the newest member of the ASET coalition. Plum Creek Timber Company, Inc. is the second largest private timberland owner in the United States, with 8 million acres located in the Northwestern, Southern, and Northeastern regions of the country.