It's happening a lot in Washington these days: sneak something into an appropriations bill that's already passed both houses, and create another corporate giveaway. This time it's the billboard industry, which wants to be able to flout the Highway Beautification Act and trash up our roads with impunity.
On May 4, HR 4939 was coming out of the Senate headed for conference committee. This is the pork-laden bill that the prez has "threatened" to veto. So, an amendment "found" its way in, without any legislator actually casting a vote on it. Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah submitted SA3805, which would let non-conforming billboards be re-built if they were destroyed by a hurricane. It's a blatant attempt by the billboard companies to gut the HWBA so that they can have free reign over our highways.
Basically, billboard companies are trying to take advantage of a national disaster to skirt the law and to strong-arm local jurisdictions who are trying to clean up their areas of billboard clutter. And Sen. Bennett, whose own state is not affected, is up to the same ol' Republican tricks.
Remember, we're only talking about billboards that don't comply with the HWBA. They could not legally be built today. But the law allows these 30+ year-old boards to be removed only by outright purchase or destruction from natural causes. This amendment effectively eliminates natural causes as a way to remove them, leaving communities nearly helpless against permanent billboard blight.
We've had several billboard fights here in Alabama recently, especially in the lovely town of Daphne, which is the gateway to the beautiful Gulf beaches of Alabama (y'all come visit!)
On the Gulf Coast of Alabama and Mississippi, Lamar Advertising of Baton Rouge is the big dawg of billboards. The company's corporate officers have been quite generous to the Republican party, but their post-Katrina largesse appears to have been repaid by Democrat Sen. Landrieu's approval of this amendment. Lamar has been thumbing its corporate nose at cities in Baldwin County, Ala., by rebuilding their illegal boards even in the face of court orders (see al.com/mobileregister for articles)
I'm tired of sneak attacks on the law, which seem to have become modus operandi for the Republicans. If you're interested in this particular issue, go to www.scenic.org for action alerts. Alabama Senator Richard Shelby is on the conference committee, and I encourage you to contact him.
If we want to argue about highway beautification, it should be done in the open, with everyone participating, not in the back rooms of the Senate.