Rules Committee Reversal Clears Way for Passage of National Land Use Policy Act

On May 15, 1974, the House Rules Committee reversed itself and voted 8-7 to clear the National Land Use Policy Act¹ for consideration by the full House. The bill, which would provide $800 million to the states over eight years to develop land use plans in accordance with federal guidelines, has already passed the Senate. A floor fight is expected, as conservatives of both parties will press for enactment of a weak substitute bill.

In late February, passage of the bill seemed near, as it enjoyed broad bipartisan support in the House and had the backing of the White House. Only the month before, the President had called enactment of the bill a "high priority" of his Administration. But with the impeachment crisis making his continued tenure in office more and more dependent on the continued backing of conservative Republicans who oppose the measure, the President executed a behind-the-scenes about face, and House Republicans were instructed to scuttle the bill. By a 9-4 vote, the Rules Committee refused to let the bill reach the House floor. Rep. Sam Steiger (R-Ariz.) took credit for the switch; he had, he said, explained the bill's features to Mr. Nixon in the course of a recent visit to the White House. Since the Administration had supported the concept of the bill for three years, the implication that the President was unaware of its provisions until the eve of its passage was not accorded wide credence. Subsequently, the White House announced its support of a substitute measure, sponsored by Rep. Steiger, to provide $40 million over four years for state land use planning, without the detailed federal guidelines called for in Udall's bill.

After the February vote, Rep. Udall denounced the President's turnaround as "the kind of immoral White House double dealing we've come to expect on environmental issues." CEQ and EPA were not notified in advance of the top-level switch on the bill, and John Quarles, EPA's Deputy Administrator, confessed that he was "dumbfounded." Though many observers believed the bill was dead for this session of Congress, Udall immediately renewed his efforts to secure a floor vote. EPA Administrator Russell Train and CEQ Chairman Russell Peterson reiterated publicly their support of strong land use legislation. Udall conducted three further days of hearings on the bill, and agreed to accept some amendments. Several groups which had lobbied strongly against the proposed act, including the home builders, realtors, and shopping center developers, withdrew their opposition. By the time the Rules Committee voted again, three members, including Chairman Ray Madden (D-Ind.) had switched sides to support the bill, and Rep. Spark Matsunaga (D-Hawaii), who had not been present when the Committee bottled up the bill in February, flew in from Hawaii to cast the deciding vote in favor of the bill.

Udall's bill is the House version of The National Land Use Policy Act, sponsored by Sen. Henry Jackson (D-Wash.), which passed the Senate first in 1972 and again in 1973. Assistance would be provided to states adopting land use plans determined by the Secretary of the Interior to conform to federal standards. States would also be required to exercise direct regulation over five types of land use of "more than local concern." These include:

1) all development in areas of "critical environmental concern," e.g., beaches, wetlands, important wildlife habitats, and historic sites;

2) key facilities, such as major airports, highway interchanges, and recreational facilities; 3) large scale developments, such as industrial parks, shopping centers, and major subdivisions;

4) regional public or private facilities, such as solid waste disposal or sewerage systems that significantly affect surrounding land uses; and

5) major recreational or second-home development of rural land.

The bill would require complying states to develop plans for the first four categories within five years of enactment; for the fifth category, because of the urgency of the problem it addresses, a plan must be prepared within three years. Originally, the bill would have provided a stick as well as a carrot: federal funds for highway development, airports, and recreational land acquisition would have been cut back seven percent annually for three years if a state failed to adopt a plan in compliance with statute. This portion of the bill was later deleted, however.

On its face, the bill appears relatively innocuous; it leaves to local planning authorities their traditional [4 ELR 10067] autonomy over purely local uses of land and gives the states considerable discretion as to the type of plan to be adopted. Federal supervision is designed primarily to ensure that state plans are procedurally sound, rather than to regulate their substance. Though the bill's most enthusiastic supporters, including Sen. Jackson himself, predicted that the bill's impact on the quality of life would be massive, and its opponents were equally certain that traditional American freedoms would be drastically curtailed, a reading of the bill suggests that both views are exaggerated.The bill would not prevent growth, but would instead attempt to direct development into areas best suited to the particular use, while preserving areas of greatest environmental value from unnecessary destruction.

Perhaps what both proponents and detractors of the bill recognize is that passage of the measure would set the United States on record as having adopted a national land use policy and could serve as the opening wedge of ultimately much more far-reaching federal regulation of land use. In addition, a land use bill mild on its face might well be expanded in scope by judicial interpretation: NEPA offers an obvious example of a declaration of policy which evolved through the judicial process into substantive law, conferring rights and responsibilities scarcely imagined when the statute was first passed.

1. H.R. 10294. The Senate version of the bill is denominated S. 268. For a thorough discussion of the bill's features, including the opposing views of conservative Congressmen, see House Rep. No. 93-708, Land Use Planning Act of 1974, submitted to the House on Feb. 13, 1974.