The Advocate (Baton Rouge) - 9/17/2000

ROYALTY SHARING BILL HAS ONE LAST SHOT

By JOAN McKINNEY Advocate Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- It's last-gasp time for the legislation that would give Louisiana and other coastal states hundreds of millions in federal offshore oil and gas revenue. And if it has any chance at all, the royalty-sharing bill probably will have to travel on the back of the 106th Congress' last-minute, last-gasp budget legislation.

That's the probable tactic now: Roll the royalty-sharing bill (official name: Conservation and Reinvestment Act, or CARA) into the monstrous, end-of-year budget package.

Currently under intense negotiation between congressional Republicans and President Clinton, the budget bill eventually will come to the House and Senate as a take-it-or-leave-it package. The budget package isn't amendable, so anything that's squeezed into that package will have a huge advantage. Budget hawks and property-rights protectors would have to gather enough votes to kill the entire budget agreement -- and thus risk shutting down the government -- in order to kill CARA.

The budget hawks object to CARA's automatic diversion of federal funds to the coastal states and to environmental projects. These programs may be worthy, but they should compete for funding each year with all the other worthy federal programs -- such as veterans, or housing, or education, or defense, according to the budgeteers.

The property-righters say that the federal government already owns too much land, and CARA will fund a government "land grab."

In the Senate, the budgeteers and the property-righters are far outnumbered by CARA's Senate supporters. But the opponents have a powerful weapon -- the filibuster threat -- that has more than evened the score. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., is a coastal-stater who supports CARA. Nevertheless, he isn't willing to send CARA to the floor -- and to inevitable, prolonged debate -- because that would make a bigger mess of the Senate's already messy, over-crowded, over scheduled attempt to adjourn by early October.

Officially, CARA's chief sponsors -- among them Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. -- still are trying to persuade Lott to schedule CARA as a stand-alone bill. Last week, Landrieu was on the verge of getting 60_plus senators' signatures on a pro-CARA letter. Sixty is the number of votes needed to break a filibuster, so crossing that threshold is important. But the letter alone isn't likely to get CARA to the floor, as opponents still would have procedural rights to a lengthy debate and Lott can't afford that lost time.

More likely, Landrieu is sending a message. The 60 signatures should reassure Lott that, if he'll persuade other GOP leaders to place CARA in the budget package, the vast majority of the Senate will approve. Clearly, the majority in the House would. That chamber already has approved the royalty sharing bill.

Why hasn't Lott acted sooner?

First and foremost reason: that packed Senate schedule.

Second reason: the fall election and Lott's fight to keep the Senate in Republican hands.

As one Democratic senator said last week, Lott wants CARA, but he doesn't want it enough to roll several endangered Republican senators, principally Slade Gorton, D-Wash. Gorton's in a tight race and is appealing, for votes and for money, to the property-rights faction.

How dicey is it for CARA?

Landrieu's office insists the royalty sharing bill is still alive. A plugged-in Senate aide says it's technically alive, but "comatose."

When Congress took its Labor Day recess, outside lobbyists working to pass the royalty sharing legislation said a stand-alone CARA bill couldn't get through the tangled year-end process unless Lott moved CARA in the first or second week after Labor Day. If Lott acted that quickly, CARA might have a 60-40 chance of becoming law, one said.

Lott didn't act that quickly. So, the budget bill has become the fallback strategy.