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Shopping Centers Today -> January 2002
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LOBBYISTS HOPEFUL FOR NEW YEAR
By Dave Bodamer
Lobbyists are optimistic that legislation favorable to the industry will move forward this year.
The Sept. 11 attacks and the subsequent war in Afghanistan delayed several pieces of key ICSC-supported legislation, including bills addressing permits for building on brownfields and a bankruptcy bill that would protect owners’ rights when dealing with insolvent tenants.
However, officials in ICSC’s Government Affairs office remain hopeful that these and other pieces of legislation will be realized, perhaps even early this year.
The biggest reason for the optimism was that there is no turnover in Congress between 2001 and 2002.
“Fortunately, since we are in the middle of the 107th Congress, work on many of these issues will continue when Congress reconvenes for its second session in late January,” said Rebecca Sullivan, ICSC staff vice president for government affairs.
Different versions of a bankruptcy bill were approved by the House and Senate in early 2001, but Congress never agreed on a final form. The House and Senate conferees were slated to meet on Sept. 12 to work out some of the differences, but that meeting was postponed until mid-November.
Sullivan said ICSC supports both the House and Senate-passed versions of the bill, since they contain provisions that would benefit the shopping center industry. Provisions would limit the time period a debtor has to assume or reject leases to 120 days, plus another 90 days “for cause,” and require a trustee to obtain adequate assurance that a lease’s provisions, including its use clauses, will be adhered to upon assignment. Sullivan added that House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) is committed to getting the bill through.
William Hoffman, manager of environmental issues for ICSC, said that brownfield reform legislation will likely be advanced in the spring. The legislation under discussion now would provide prospective and innocent landowners liability protection, he said. The Senate passed the original version of the legislation in spring 2001 by a 99-0 vote. After several months of lobbying and negotiation, the House was scheduled to introduce a similar bill on Sept. 11. But with all that has happened since then, the bill was not introduced.
“The Senate and House want to pass this brownfields legislation, and it has the full support of the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency,” Hoffman said. “The outlook is optimistic that brownfields reform legislation will be passed and signed by the President in 2002.”
Not much progress is expected in the near future on efforts to collect taxes on Internet purchases, however. The three-year moratorium on Internet access taxes and new and discriminatory taxes on e-commerce expired on Oct. 21, as the Senate could not reach agreement on sales tax collection language prior to the deadline. On Nov. 15, the Senate voted to approve legislation identical to the House-passed bill that would provide a two-year extension to any new, multiple or discriminatory taxes on the Internet. During this debate, an ICSC-supported amendment was brought to the floor by Senators Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) that would provide a mechanism to allow states to collect tax on remote sales. But, at the urging of ranking Senate Commerce Committee member John McCain (R-Ariz.), it was tabled by a vote of 57 to 43.
“The fact that the moratorium was only extended for two years, as opposed to previous discussions of five years or permanently, allows the states additional time to work on their own simplification/collection plans and also leaves the door open for Enzi/Dorgan to come up again within the next session of Congress,” Sullivan said.
Both Senators McCain and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) pledged to work with Enzi and Dorgan to try to resolve the sales tax collection issue. In addition, ICSC will continue working with Utah Governor Michael Leavitt (R) as he leads an educational effort to inform state legislators and local officials on the impact of state and local sales tax and the need for developing a simplified, streamlined collection process.
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