Legislative status report from John Wickman

06/14/03 00:00:00    

By Michael Mealling

June 14, 2003 - It is time to give you a picture of the situation as best we know it. Senate bill S724 has been scheduled to be “marked up” two times and both times it has been postponed. The “mark up” is to permit members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to make changes to S724. Senator Enzi is not a committee member and has no direct input on how the bill will be changed by the committee.

Senator Enzi's staff have been working to get S724 through the committee. Some progress was made. Senate Judiciary staffers were talking to House Judiciary staffers where opposition to the bill was strong. Senator Enzi had persuaded Senator Hatch to give the bill a higher priority in the calendar. However, Senator Hatch did not see any point in passing a bill out of his committee that the House would not approve. Senate Judiciary staffers thought the ATFE storage requirements for the motors were extreme. It looked like that issue could be resolved with only the elimination of permitting left to be overcome. Senator Kohl was opposed to the bill and went on the record with his constituents that rocketeers could simply get ATFE permits for motors over 62.5 grams. While Kohl was strongly opposed to the bill many other Democrats had indicated to their constituents that they would support S724.

At some point during May, the situation in the committee started to spin out of control and degenerated into a discussion of weight limits. Up until this time, the answer to Senators asking for a weight limit was no. Someone in the process either said yes or gave the impression that weight limits were now on the table. ARSA was repeatedly asked by Senate staff about weight limits and our answer was not only no, but that such a discussion would sink the bill. The last week of May, ARSA was informed by staffers that key Senators on the committee were determined to only pass the bill with a weight limit. We said that was not acceptable and we needed to educate these Senators so that they could see weight limits were not necessary. We had tentatively scheduled a new letter and phone campaign for these Senators the week after the ATFE and House letter campaign.

Unexpectedly, the Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled S724 for “mark up” on June 5th. It was initially believed that this “mark up” would be minor technical corrections submitted weeks earlier. However, it soon became clear that something bigger was in the wind. Candice Cotton, Senator Enzi's legislative assistant assigned to S724 was on vacation during that week and had no knowledge the committee planned to take action on the bill. Fortunately, the committee delayed action on the bill. It was clear to ARSA at this point, the future of the bill was in serious doubt.

This last week we have tried to determine what is the status of the bill and what happened. As feared the bill got on the slippery slope of weight limits, which caused support for the bill to fragment. Here is the situation as best we know it comprised from staffers and other sources involved in the process. Senator Kohl is opposed to the bill and all Democrats on the committee, except Senator Durbin, will vote for whatever Kohl tells them to vote for. If Kohl says no, they vote no. If he says vote yes with this limit, they will vote that way. They will simply follow his instructions. Senator Durbin supports the original S724 and is a cosponsor. It is our understanding that the two Republican cosponsors, Sessions and Craig are not for weight limits. Senator Hatch wants weight limits. What the remaining Republicans will do is unknown.

We have been told that the weight limits being discussed within the committee are extremely low and not anywhere near 50 pounds as many people assume. It is ARSA's position that weight limits are not acceptable. We do not feel this is unreasonable when congress permits the unlimited purchase of smokeless powder without ATFE permits. An average of almost 2,200 bombings occur in the United States each year with smokeless power used in 10% of them. Over 300 Americans are killed or injured each year from bombings. Not a single rocket propellant has been used in any bombing in the United States.

from the ARSA congress page