By Judy Sheahan
January 17, 2011

President Obama signed S. 3481 on January 7, a bill that would require the federal government to pay local fees aimed to prevent stormwater pollution. The bill, which passed in the closing days of Congress, clarified that the federal government is responsible for paying “reasonable fees or assessments made for the purpose of stormwater management in the same manner and to the same extent as any non-governmental entity.”

Many local governments had difficulty in the past collecting these fees because the federal government would sometimes claim these fees were actually taxes and therefore they were exempt. For example, Seattle has an outstanding stormwater fee bill of $1.9 million from 2006-2010 from NOAA, Veteran’s Affairs, Army Corps of Engineers, and the Navy. And the District of Columbia has an outstanding balance of $2.4 million that they are awaiting payment.

The Executive Directors of the “Big 7” organizations – The U.S. Conference of Mayors, League of Cities, National Governors Association, National Association of Counties, National Conference of State Legislators, Council of State Governments, and International City/County Management Association – wrote a letter in early December urging Congress to pass this bill and “ensure the federal government pays its fair share of these federally imposed mandates.”

The Mayors Water Council also took up this issue at their December 9 meeting when mayors met with Cynthia Giles of EPA’s Office of Enforcement and John Cruden of the Department of Justice. Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield, when asked how the federal government could help, told them that they could start by paying their bills. “It’s a little hard for us to tell churches and others that they have to pay these fees when the federal government won’t pay, even though it is a federal mandate that we’re attempting to meet.”

The bipartisan legislation, sponsored by Senators Benjamin Cardin (MD), James Inhofe (OK), Patty Murry (WA), Maria Cantwell (WA), and George Voinovich (OH), passed by unanimous consent.

Inhofe, former mayor of Tulsa, said “This bill is yet another example of how we can reach across the aisle to pass common'sense legislation. Right now, some federal agencies are not paying these fees, imposing costly burdens on the communities in which the agency operates.”

Cardin said, “At stake has been a fundamental issue of equity: polluters should be financially responsible for the pollution that they cause, including the federal government.