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Grassroots 2005: AIA Congressional Issue
Agenda
“The AIA’s Congressional issue agenda for the 109th
Congress, which starts this week, covers a wide range of vital values and
practice issues,” says Ron Faucheux, vice president of AIA Government
Advocacy. “It is an agenda developed through a transparent, inclusive
process that involves the AIA membership, knowledge communities, and
components.”
The official launch of the new agenda will be the Grassroots 2005
conference in Washington, D.C., which begins February 9, 2005, when AIA
members and leaders will visit offices of U.S. Senators and House members
in search of support for both immediate and long range
issues.
“We’re setting our markers with this new, more aggressive
agenda so that Members of Congress know where we stand on issues that
impact not only architects and the design profession but also values that
impact the built environment in the larger world,” continued
Faucheux.
Faucheux said the AIA’s Government Advocacy Team has
analyzed the responses of members to the October 2004 “Grassroots Issue
Call” as well as a survey of the AIA membership conducted in September
2004. In addition, the Government Advocacy Team has consulted with various
AIA Knowledge Community leaders as part of a comprehensive assessment of
federal legislative opportunities for the 109th Congress, which begins in
January 2005, and beyond.
“It is our mission to advance a proactive
multi-year legislative agenda linked to the AIA public policy framework
that directly addresses the values and practice needs of our membership,”
he said. “We’re listening to the membership, and we’re responding with
specific action.”
Faucheux cautioned, however, that many of these
proposed initiatives – because of technical complexities, “omnibus bill”
structuring, committee work schedules, parliamentary factors, federal
budgetary constraints, and the changing realities of the political
environment – “are to be viewed as long-term priorities that may take
years and multiple sessions of Congress to execute fully and
successfully.”
“Specific initiatives were developed after extensive
discussions with Members of Congress and staffers,” said Tom Wolfe, senior
director of AIA Federal Affairs. “They reflect opportunities that
either exist or may develop over time.”
“We have already identified
Congressional sponsors and champions for some of these initiatives, which
makes them ripe for immediate action," he went on. "Other issues will take
more time to develop the depth of support needed to make progress on them.
All of our proposals will require extensive cultivation of bipartisan
support and cosponsorships as well as numerous coalitions with other
advocacy, professional, and association groups.”
“As the
legislative process evolves during the 109th Congress over the next two
years, it is likely that the feasibility of pursuing some of the
initiatives and options presented here will diminish because of outside
factors,” said Faucheux. “It is also likely that new openings will present
themselves on these issues and related initiatives. It is essential that
we are able to maintain a high level of flexibility and nimbleness to
react to new, unanticipated threats and opportunities on issues and
legislative vehicles important to architects and the AIA throughout the
process.”
“This is a very ambitious and wide ranging issue agenda,
which underscores the need for the AIA to build a strong grassroots
network of members to push for legislative action,” said Adam Melis,
manager AIA Grassroots Advocacy. “Ultimately, we will be successful only
if our membership participates through direct legislator contacts as part
of the new Grassroots Leadership Action Network mobilization operation we
started building during these past 10 months.”
Melis added that AIA
members will soon receive a mailing packet that will include a
three-minute government advocacy questionnaire and provide information on
how members can join the grassroots advocacy network.
The following
represents the current version of the AIA’s Congressional Issue Agenda for
the 109th Congress and beyond:
Energy Issues and the Built
Environment
The AIA will take a leadership role on a range
of energy issues, especially as they relate to proposed comprehensive
energy legislation, resource conservation, and the built
environment.
Initiative 1: The AIA will advance
legislation that calls upon the General Services Administration to
establish a photovoltaic energy commercialization program that will
procure and install solar electric systems in new and existing federal
buildings. Its purpose is to jumpstart a market for these systems and
drive down the production costs of photovoltaic equipment by providing an
assured public sector market, as well as stimulate the use of life-cycle
costing in federal procurement.
Initiative 2: The AIA will
identify other energy and resource conservation issues related to the
built environment that are related to the sustainability of the built
environment—such as the possibility of funding Regional Energy Centers and
measures related to the Water Resources Development Act
Reauthorization—and join coalitions in support of proposals that are
offered to comprehensive energy and water resources
legislation.
AIA policies/values link: Sustainability,
energy and resource conservation.
Green Buildings
Collaborative Initiatives
The AIA’s objective is to increase dramatically the number of
green buildings constructed in both the public and private sector. Public
and elected official understanding of the life-cycle benefits of building
green is minimal. To address the realities surrounding this issue and the
use of objective standards necessary to measure compliance, it is proposed
that the AIA play a major leadership role in taking the following
sequential steps: (a) demonstrating the advantages of green buildings
through congressional study and hearings; (b) funding pilot projects that
exemplify these advantages; and, finally, (c) providing broad government
incentives for private sector action. The initiatives below represent
logical and feasible implementation steps in this long-term
process:
Initiative 1: After researching the status of
federal initiatives to build “green” public buildings, seek a
congressional hearing on the matter and organize the most knowledgeable
AIA architects to testify.
Initiative 2: Advance an
amendment to the National Science Foundation and/or National Institutes of
Health appropriations bills to research and quantify the potential for
environmentally sensitive design to reduce environmental and human health
costs in the U.S.
Initiative 3: Seek legislation that
would fund a pilot project to demonstrate the life-cycle cost
effectiveness of green design in public buildings (possibly for schools
and justice facilities).
Initiative 4: Advance legislation
to create tax incentives (accelerated depreciation) for private-sector
owners of green buildings. Base this tax relief on a third-party consensus
standard that includes building design and performance as well as building
materials. Task a recognized national or international standard-setting
body (e.g. USGBC, ASTM, ANSI, ISO) to create a green buildings standard
that takes life-cycle costing, regional climate differences, environmental
context, and building type differences into account.
AIA
policies/values link: Sustainability, energy conservation, livable
communities.
Affordable Housing / Community Revitalization
/ Historic Preservation
The AIA will advance legislation
to assist in the rehabilitation of existing communities, preserve historic
buildings and address the urgent national priority to create more
affordable housing units in the U.S.
Initiative 1: The AIA
advocates legislation sponsored by U.S. Reps. Rob Portman and William
Jefferson to update the current rehabilitation tax credit to promote
affordable housing by eliminating the “basis reduction” required of
properties using the credit, increasing the credit for “difficult to
develop areas,” and allowing tax credits to be used for residential rental
property.
Initiative 2: The AIA will support legislation
to establish the National Affordable Housing Trust fund in the Treasury of
the United States to provide for the development, rehabilitation, and
preservation of decent, safe, and affordable housing for low income
families. During the 108th Congress, the AIA endorsed the discharge
petition sponsored by a broad-based coalition of housing groups to move
this legislation (H.R. 1102) out of committee for floor consideration. The
AIA will also advance putting Green Housing incentives in the
bill.
AIA policies/values link: Affordable housing,
diversity, equitable design, financial health of the
profession.
Brownfields Redevelopment
Initiative
The AIA will support legislation sponsored by
U.S. Rep. Mike Turner and others to create tax exempt bonding authority
for local/municipal/state authorities to clean up contaminated sites in
disadvantaged neighborhoods and enhance sustainable revitalization of
existing communities.
AIA policies/values link advanced:
Sustainability, healthy communities, quality of life, equitable
design.
21st Century Schools: Modernization / Healthy
Design
The AIA will support legislation to modernize school buildings and
encourage healthy built environments in the American educational
system.
Initiative 1: The AIA will explore options to find
funding for a study to quantify the effects of well designed, healthy,
safe, and sustainable educational facilities on the well being of children
and academic achievement.
Initiative 2: The AIA will
support funding the National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities, a
public service that provides information on planning, designing, funding
building, improving, and maintaining schools. The Clearinghouse would be
funded with a grant from the U.S. Department of Education and is managed
by the National Institute of Building Sciences, a nonprofit created by
Congress in 1974.
Initiative 3: The AIA will evaluate
opportunities for legislation designed to enhance the availability of
federal tax credits in lieu of interest on municipal bonds for renovation
and modernization of deteriorating public schools to eliminate health
hazards and better enable learning. This approach was used in the Taxpayer
Relief Act of 1997, which created the Qualified Zone Academy Bond (QZAB)
program. This program was reauthorized for 2004 – 2005 by the Working
Families Tax Relief Act of 2004. The AIA will ultimately seek to broaden
the availability of such bonds beyond Enterprise Zones and Empowerment
Zones when appropriate legislative vehicles are available.
AIA
policies/values link: Quality of life, healthy communities, equitable
design, sustainability, diversity, public education, architectural
practice.
Community Enhancement Transportation
Study
The AIA will continue to seek a federally funded
study of methods to enhance community design that can be obtained from
transportation projects undertaken under the Federal Surface
Transportation Program. The AIA lobbied for this study in the
Transportation Bill in the 108th Congress. That bill did not pass, but
will be reintroduced in the 109th Congress.
Possible options
for accomplishing this goal: Option 1: Advance legislative
language to be inserted in next year’s Transportation and/or Treasury
Appropriations bill that would instruct the Department of Transportation
to carry out the study. Option 2: Advance an amendment to the
Research title of the re-introduced Transportation bill to task the
National Academy of Sciences to carry out the study. Option
3:Advance an amendment to the Transportation and Community System
Preservation Pilot Program, which appeared in the Highway bill in the
108th Congress, to include the study.
AIA policies/values
link: Livable communities, sustainability, quality of life, and
equitable design.
Protect Historic Preservation Tax
Credits
In the 108th Congress, the AIA was successful in
fending off serious attempts to repeal preservation rehabilitation tax
credits as an “offset” to pay for other programs. The Bush Administration
has made tax simplification and reform a key element of its legislative
agenda for the 109th Congress, and that may put these credits in the line
of fire for weakening or elimination. The AIA will continue to oppose any
effort that weakens or abolishes these credits and will work to expand
their use to residential properties.
AIA policies/values
link: Historic preservation, sustainability, livable communities,
financial health of the profession.
Association/Small
Business Health Insurance
The AIA will support legislation
to provide access and choice for members of trade and professional
associations to purchase health care for their employees. Such plans
(association health plans, or AHPs) would allow AIA members to purchase
health insurance at advantageous group rates and with an exclusion from
certain state mandates on the coverages that must be offered. Similar
legislation (H.R. 660) passed the House in the 108th Congress. The Senate
version (S. 545) was referred to committee but not acted
on.
AIA policies/values link: Architectural practice,
employee retention, financial health of the
profession.
Broadening Use of “Cash” Tax Accounting for
Architects
Cash accounting is a practice that allows
architects and other qualified professional services corporations (QPSCs)
preferable tax treatment to its alternative – accrual accounting. Prior to
the 1986 Tax Act, cash accounting was widespread and accepted by the IRS.
After the passage of the 1986 law its use was limited to small QPSCs in
one of eight eligible fields (architects, engineers, attorneys,
accountants, etc.) with annual receipts below $5 million, and those firms
with receipts in excess of $5 million that met a rigid “ownership test.”
The ownership test requires that 95 percent or more of the ownership of
the QPSC must rest with professionals in the relevant field (architecture,
law, engineering, and accounting).
The AIA will support relaxing
the ownership test in several ways. First, count professionals in any of
the eight qualifying categories toward fulfilling the test (e.g.,
accountants with equity in an architecture firm). Second, allow retired
professionals and employees currently in a partnership or joint venture
with a parent corporation to participate in ownership without jeopardizing
the use of cash accounting. Finally, create the first formal definitions
in the tax code for each of the professions.
AIA
policies/values link: Architectural practice,
financial
Contact
We welcome and appreciate
all comments and questions regarding The Angle. Please contact
Meredith Braden at angle@aia.org.
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