Advocate Summary

Issue:  Smart Growth and Transportation Reauthorization
Advocate:  Ducks Unlimited – David Gagner
Date of Interview: 7/16/02

Basic Background
We haven’t been that active yet, it was ironic yesterday I was looking at some materials, and we are just now working up some stuff. On the transportation bill what we will do is go after dollars for refuges and as well as make sure, we know that a couple of members have plans to put roads through refuges right now, that’s frowned upon, it’s not just frowned upon, I think it’s illegal. There is an argument at this point that we won’t help, because we don’t care anymore considering some of the things he did in the farm bill. He’s not a friend, he showed his colors during the farm bill, so I don’t have to help him anymore. We won’t go after him, it’s not our style but the fact of the matter is that we will make sure this road he wants to put directly through a wildlife refuge, which will severely impact habitat, and it is a big habitat area, he wants to put a road connecting two towns to create more commerce. You know what it’s only a 20 mile drive, it’s either ten miles or twenty miles, go the 20 because that land isn’t supposed to be developed, that’s the whole point of having a wildlife refuge, which creates jobs and opportunities in that area and he wants to put a road through it. So we’re going to fight that tooth and nail and some other things that come up like that. There will be politics played in there. I think there is this feeling in Congress these days that you can do anything you want and they go after things like that even if it’s illegal. And you know what maybe we need to take a step back some times and look at our priorities. Is it going to create more jobs? – it would create more jobs, it may take some jobs as well. It’s gong to create some jobs to build the road we know that, but it’s also going to destroy habitat and that’s an investment, and too often we forget that. And on our side we need to look at the investment in that community that we’ve made and say “we need a balance” along with that wildlife refuge there is a road that goes around it, that’s balance that they have that opportunity to get where they need to go. I think to often they say just tear it down and build over it. And that doesn’t work anymore, there’s too much support out there and this president knows that, and won’t let that happen. 

Transportation’s going to be interesting but it’s not going to happen this year, and that means that it won’t happen right away in the next congress, which means I have plenty of time. So that’s how I’m thinking about it. 

Smart Growth, I’d say is almost getting to be a little passé, I haven’t heard much talk about it recently. It doesn’t seem to have the energy it did, of course there is an election coming up in a few months and that way it might get more. I’m not trying to put down smart growth, I’m a believer in those aspects, I helped pout some language in the past Clinton report that they did, but it used to be smart growth, smart growth, smart growth, and right now they don’t really seem to be focusing on it. Before you had all these vehicles, the CARA bill, ISTE, you had other things, that smart growth made sense, right now it doesn’t make much sense to worry about because there is nothing being pushed. There is no big piece of legislation making a lot of noise, so it’s just not there. I’d imagine it will come out on the next transportation bill, and they’ll talk, well they’ll probably try to take care of some wetlands provisions. We lost a supreme court decision called SWANK that allows people to plow everything over, so we’ll probably try to go after something like that, so that they don’t tear everything out, or if they do that they have to mitigate every acre and maybe go two for one or something, that’s kind of a popular idea. On the surface, enough dollars to pay for the roads on the refuges. And probably some standards stuff, just making sure that some of the road and bridge building standards are done in such a manner that they’re not destroying things. I think one of the things that will happen on that is down south they’ll have some of the encroachment issues on the shores, that was in ISTE as well.
That was the last transportation bill: Inter-modal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act. That wasn’t even the final name, the final name was T21, but ISTE sounded better.

Prior Activity on the Issue 
[Indicated they were active on the last transportation reauthorization]

Advocacy Activities Undertaken
We haven’t been that active yet, it was ironic yesterday I was looking at some materials, and we are just now working up some stuff.

I know stuff’s going on, we’re just not that concerned yet. We have some friends on T&I (Transportation and Infrastructure Committee) so we’ll work with some of those guys. We get into things like boat launches and bridges and roads into refuges. And there are roads on refuges now, they’re usually dirt roads that need to be maintained and bridges for maintenance purposes, 300 total bridges on refuges today, we need to make sure they stay on them. The numbers I saw just yesterday is like 200, 300 million dollars needed to deal with these transportation issues on refuges, we’ll see. But I’ll look at it some more and we’ll get more active in the near future. It’s got a ways to go. We’re they type of organization that we’ve got a couple friends there on the committee and respective House and Senate Committees, we can tag them, maybe not for as much money as we want. I don’t think this bill is going to be nearly what it was last time, Shuster’s not here and I don’t think the administration, I don’t think any administration would allow what happened last time, with all the pork. They just have to reign it in, hopefully, we’ll see. 

Future Advocacy Activities Planned
[Will be deciding where they want to go with it, what to focus on]

Key Congressional Contact(s)/Champions
I’d have to get the book out I just know there are some staff and members over there in T&I.

Targets of Direct Lobbying
None mentioned.

Targets of Grassroots Lobbying
None mentioned.

Coalition Partners: Names/Participants
There’s a Smart Growth Coalition and then there are a couple transportation organizations, Kevin Mc-something runs one of them. I don’t remember.
[Are you part of the Smart Growth Coalition?]
You know, I honestly don’t know, I’ll have to find out, I don’t know that we are, and I don’t know a reason why. 

Other Participants in the Issue Debate
None mentioned. 
Ubiquitous Argument(s) and Evidence
None mentioned. 

Secondary Argument(s) and Evidence
None mentioned. 

Targeted Arguments, Targets, and Evidence
None mentioned. 

Nature of the Opposition
We’re going to be small, we’re not going to be that big of a chunk. We are going to fight some of the development. They’ll want more development and we’re not going to let them have that. And they’re going to push hard enough and they’re going to get plenty of money anyway. They’re going to have plenty of jobs we’ll see where that goes. 

Ubiquitous Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition 
None mentioned. 

Secondary Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition
None mentioned. 

Targeted Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition (and Targets)
None mentioned. 

Described as a Partisan Issue
No.

Venue(s) of Activity
House and Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Committees 

Action Pending or Taken by Relevant Decision Makers
The transportation reauthorization will be going on all of next year.

Policy Objective(s) and Support for/Opposition to the Status Quo
Will be working to get funding to maintain refuge access roads as well as block major roads through refuges.

Advocate’s Experience: Tenure in Current Job/Previous Experience
I’ve been here about 15 months, before here I worked for Conservation Districts, I ran their shop and before then, I was at ICF Kaiser, doing some of their government affairs on energy issues and before that I was working for a private consulting company lobbying on ethanol and alternative fuel issues. I went to Bowling Green and had a job waiting for me because of an internship I had, so I was a grunt for a long time doing that and then came out here. And I enjoy what I do. 

Reliance on Research: In-House/External (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
All in-house, since we have the scientists in-house and the research in-house, we can go that way. A lot of it is conducted with various universities across the country, so we are using those studies to justify why we want more dollars; various duck numbers up and down, how the species are going, goose, dicky birds, just how they are doing and how the habitat effects them. We get that from in-house and through some of our partner organizations. We didn’t use think tanks or talking groups, that’s just not our deal. We know what we’ve got in terms of membership

Number of Individuals Involved in Advocacy (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
Three

Units in Organization Involved in Public Affairs/Policy (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
There are three of us, well sort of two, one retired he’s only in about once a month.

Advocate’s Outstanding Skills/Assets (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
None mentioned.

Type of Membership: None, Institutions, Individuals, Both (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
Individuals 

Membership Size (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Organizational Age (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Miscellaneous