More than a year after Congress forswore earmarks, the oft-criticized legislative gimmick that financed pet projects, communities that relied on federal money for legitimate needs say they are facing a harsh budget reality.

Across the country, dozens of small local governments say they are using the few dollars they have to increase their Washington lobbying efforts to try to compete against bigger and better financed localities for federal grants.

While most of the criticism has cast a spotlight on questionable projects like studies on the mating habits of crabs or construction of an indoor rainforest in Iowa, local officials say a vast majority of the work financed with earmarks related to roads or sewers.

Now the loss of earmark money, along with fiscal stress resulting from stagnant or declining local tax revenues, has made it difficult for local governments to pay for much-needed projects, officials say.

“It’s especially tough for small cities,” said Jerry Pacheco, city manager for Pueblo, a university town of roughly 106,000 people about 110 miles south of Denver. “Before the ban we would contact our Congressional delegations and ask them to help. Now we have to try and navigate the vast federal maze of agencies to see what funding is out there. It’s much more difficult.”

mCapitol specializes in representing local governments in Washington — and making sure their priorities are met. Learn more about our local government relations and lobbying practice here.

The State Department on Wednesday will reject the Keystone XL pipeline, multiple sources following the project told POLITICO.

The formal announcement is expected at 3 p.m. from Deputy Secretary of State William Burns. Although the permit would be rejected, TransCanada would still be allowed to continue to work on and pitch an alternative route through Nebraska.

Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail have endlessly attacked President Barack Obama for putting environmental interests and the green lobby ahead of a project that they say would create thousands of jobs. Republicans scored a rare win this Congress by including a 60-day deadline for Obama to make a decision on the pipeline as part of the year-end deal on extending the payroll tax holiday.

But administration officials have been clear from the beginning that forcing a decision within 60 days would not yield enough time to make a final decision and that Republicans were doing so merely to create a new set of political talking points.

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Here are a few excerpts from the piece, which you read in its entirety here:

Werner’s 2012 focus concerns tribes seeking to offer online poker.

“It will be important for them to have a level playing field for entrance into the marketplace,” he says. “Tribes will also have to protect their sovereign status in relation to gaming states like Nevada and New Jersey, not to mention state lotteries.”

How does he lobby? Push for one side of an issue, but look at both.

“My role for the tribes is to communicate to federal policy-makers rational reasons why tribes should not be steamrolled,” he says. “Non-tribal gaming interests need to agree that Indian tribes, provided they can effectively regulate the games, should have the same start line. For their part, tribes should be willing to work with the federal government to agree on effective regulation levels without sacrificing their sovereignty.”

…

Werner served as Reid’s legislative director from 1992 to 1998, and Reid became the highly influential Senate majority leader. In Washington, Werner faced high-profile lobbyists and gained an education about how to effectively become one.

“You appreciate how to communicate with people who currently work on the Hill,” he says. “I remember when lobbyists used to come in and try to bully their way into getting what they wanted. That definitely didn’t serve their interests. So, I work very hard in my current role to show respect to the staff. The No. 1 rule of lobbying is to not go around the staff.”

Rule No. 2? Contradict the stereotype of lobbyists seeking only to make rich people richer.

“One issue I worked on with a number of other tribes was to prevent the IRS from taxing as personal income the health care benefits that tribes provide their members,” he says. “Keep in mind that the federal government often does not fully meet its trust obligations to provide health care to Indians. Tribes that had the means stepped into the vacuum and provided Health Care to members. The IRS was contemplating taxing those benefits, and we acted to prevent that from happening.”

A top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) official is calling for wider study of the potential public health effects of natural-gas development, comments that will likely embolden opponents of the widespread drilling method called hydraulic fracturing.

“Studies should include all the ways people can be exposed, such as through air, water, soil, plants and animals,” said Christopher Portier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health, in an email to The Associated Press.

“We do not have enough information to say with certainty whether shale gas drilling poses a threat to public health,” he said. “More research is needed for us to understand public health impacts from natural-gas drilling and new gas drilling technologies.”

The Environmental Protection Agency is already preparing a major study of how hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” might affect drinking water resources.

But Portier, according to AP, said that research should also examine “livestock on farmed lands consuming potentially impacted surface waters; and recreational fish from potentially impacted surface waters.”

Portier’s comments add a new wrinkle to the ongoing lobbying and political battle over expanded production of gas from shale formations tapped through fracking.

Find out more about mCapitol’s Energy and Environment practice here.

From the Washington Post story:

At first glance, the pizza-size hole that popped open when a heavy truck passed over a freshly paved District street seemed fairly minor.

Then city inspectors got on their bellies with a flashlight to peer into it. What they discovered has become far too common. A massive 19th-century brick sewer had silently eroded away, leaving a cavern beneath a street in Adams Morgan that could have swallowed most of a Metro bus.

It took three weeks and about a million dollars to repair the sewer, which was built in 1889.

Time and wear “had torn off all the bricks and sent them God knows where,” said George S. Hawkins, general manager of the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority. “We have to find them and see if they’re plugging up the system somewhere farther down the line.”

If it were not buried underground, the water and sewer system that serves the nation’s capital could be an advertisement for Band-Aids. And it is not much different from any other major system in the country, including those in many suburbs and in cities less than half as old as Washington.

Although they are out of sight and out of mind except when they spring a leak, water and sewer systems are more vital to civilized society than any other aspect of infrastructure.

Rapidly deteriorating roads and bridges may stifle America’s economy and turn transportation headaches into nightmares, but if the nation’s water and sewer systems begin to fail, life as we know it will too. Without an ample supply of water, people don’t drink, toilets don’t flush, factories don’t operate, offices shut down and fires go unchecked. When sewage systems fail, cities can’t function and epidemics break out.

“All the big cities have these problems, and to me it’s the unseen catastrophe,” Hawkins said. “My humble view is that the industry we’re in is the bedrock of civilization because it’s not just an infrastructure that is a convenience, that allows you to get to work faster or slower. At least with bridges or a road, people have some idea of what it is because they drive on them and see them. ”

And just like roads and bridges, the vast majority of the country’s water systems are in urgent need of repair and replacement. At a Senate hearing last month, it was estimated that, on average, 25 percent of drinking water leaks from water system pipes before reaching the faucet. The same committee was told it will take $335 billion to resurrect water systems and $300 billion to fix sewer systems.

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NARC is honored to announce Gary LaPaille, president of mCapitol Management, Inc, as a keynote speaker at the 2012 National Conference of Regions. A government relations expert and former Illinois State Senator and Vice Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Mr. LaPaille will detail issues dominating DC and discuss ways to find, build and refine business development opportunities for your region and local governments.

Registration
NARC Member: $475; NARC Non-Member: $575
Click HERE to register.

Conference Hotel
The Ritz-Carlton, Washington, DC
Call 800-558-9994 and mention you are with the NARC meeting OR
click HERE to reserve your room online and use the code “narnara” to make your reservation.

Contact Lindsey Riley, lindsey@narc.org or 202.986.1032 x220 with questions.

The firm is honored to be among the most active and influential governmental relations firms in Florida.

Shares of the company’s common stock are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RPM and are owned by some 300 institutional investors and 82,000 individuals.

RPM employs more than 9,000 people worldwide and operates 78 manufacturing facilities in 18 countries. Its products are sold in approximately 150 countries and territories.