Current Issues
GCP Advocacy is working on a number of issues on the local, state and federal level. Current issues include:
Governor's first State of the State address highlights several GCP priorities
In his first State of the State address, Governor Ted Strickland indicated his intention to hold every state department accountable for making job creation and retention a priority, not just the Department of Development. This is an idea that the Greater Cleveland Partnership has been discussing with other metropolitan chambers over the past few months.Other significant initiatives are:
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A broadening of the Third Frontier program ($250 million annually) over the next four years in tax exempt bond authority to leverage funding for advanced energy programs, including befouls, fuel cells, clean coal and renewable energy.
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Creating a higher education compact that would require state-supported colleges and universities not to increase tuition for the 2007-2008 school year and cap tuition increases for the following year at 3 percent. In return, instructional subsidies to those institutions would increase by 5 percent the first year and 2 percent the second year.
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Increase the state's portion for primary and secondary education to 54 percent by 2009, up from today's allocation of slightly less than 50 percent. He proposes to securitize $5 billion in tobacco settlement funds, using $2.2 billion to meet current School Facilities Commission obligations and $2.8 billion over the next three years to create $250 million savings annually in the General Revenue Fund for each of the next 20 years. Those funds would be used to expand the Homestead Property Tax Exemption to cover the first $25,000 of valuation for all homeowners over the age of 65 or those who are disabled.
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Increasing by 3 percent per pupil funding; increasing parity to schools by 7 percent over two years; and increasing poverty-based assistance to schools by 22 percent over the biennium.
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Providing access to health care coverage for every child under the age of 21 whose parents' income falls below 300 percent of the federal poverty line. Parents with higher income would be able to buy into Medicaid coverage for their children.
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Increasing Medicaid eligibility to those whose incomes are at or below 100 percent of the federal poverty line and 200 percent for pregnant women.
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Seeking federal government permission to use Medicaid funds for the purchase of private health insurance for families living at 150% of the federal poverty line.
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Elimination of the School Choice voucher program, except for the means-tested program in Cleveland, and a moratorium on new charter schools, as well as a prohibition of for-profit ownership of charter schools.
The GCP is reviewing the Governor's budget and will advocate for the interests of the business community as this proposal moves through the General Assembly.
The Governor's address can be found here.
The Governor's budget can be found here.
Memo on the Governor's budget: The FY 2008-2009 Biennial Budget: Perspectives on Policy and Politics
NASA Glenn
NASA Glenn Research Center’s Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio, is one of the state’s best kept secrets. That is about to change.
History
The Plum Brook Station was created in 1941 by the Department of War to construct a munitions plant. After World War II, the station remained idle until 1956 when the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (later known as NASA) obtained 50 acres to build a nuclear reactor to study the effects of radiation on materials used in space flight. The facility has since been decommissioned. By 1963, NASA had obtained the remaining acres – now totaling 6,400 acres of some of the most pristine land in Ohio.
In 1973, after accomplishing the lunar landing, budget constraints caused many NASA facilities across the country to cease operations. While the smaller facilities at Plum Brook were dismantled, the larger ones were maintained in standby mode, capable of being reactivated. In recent years, several of these facilities have become the backbone of some of the nation’s most important space testing.
Unique facilities
Four world class facilities reside at Plum Brook:
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Space Power Facility;
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Spacecraft Propulsion Research Facility;
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Hypersonic Tunnel Facility; and
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Cryogenic Test Complex.
NASA Glenn’s history is in aeronautics, not space flight.
The first “A” in NASA stands for “aeronautics” and NASA Glenn is one of the nation’s premier aeronautics research labs. Aeronautics will always be important and NASA Glenn will be a key player. But the future of NASA is in human space flight – NASA missions include a return to the Moon and exploration of Mars. Of the 10 NASA Centers, the ones that specialize in space flight will be the winners.
Until now, there have been four states in “the Space Club.”
NASA Centers that have played essential roles in human space flight are Houston, Texas; Johnson Space Center in Florida; Huntsville, Alabama; and Stennis, Mississippi. All of the big space assignments typically went to these centers. That changed in 2006.
NASA Glenn competed for and won a key contract for testing the next space vehicle – Orion.
The Space Shuttle will soon be history. The next generation of space flight vehicles – the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) – is called Orion.
On June 5, 2006, NASA announced that the Glenn Research Center had been awarded important new work related to the CEV and Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV), which is the upper stage rocket that pushes the astronauts into orbit. Glenn will also have crucial testing and quality control responsibilities while the CEV is being developed. The capabilities of Plum Brook were a major factor for NASA Glenn being awarded the contract work to do important testing of Orion.
Even within the NASA organization, Plum Brook was not well understood.
It was considered “too old” or “impossible to get to” or “an outdated facility.” None of these facts were true.
NASA Glenn worked with the Greater Cleveland Partnership to mount an aggressive internal campaign to persuade NASA officials and private contractors to take another look at Plum Brook. Team NEO, Ohio’s elected officials and many others assisted in the efforts. The State of Ohio played a key role. Former Lt. Gov Bruce Johnson provided a $5 million grant to help with the facility upgrades and $200K to conduct a land-use study of Plum Brook’s 6,400 acres.
Governor Strickland and Lt. Governor Fisher have both committed their support for Plum Brook. Speaker Husted and Senate President Harris have also expressed support.
Once the Greater Cleveland Partnership got contractors to visit Plum Brook, the situation changed.
In the end, the contract that originally was meant for Houston was awarded to Plum Brook. The Greater Cleveland Partnership anticipates that this is just the first of many projects that will the beginning for Plum Brook.
With the contract announced in March 2007, came a $63 million to upgrade the Plum Brook facilities, making it even more viable for future uses – NASA, Defense, and private sector work will follow. This is a legacy project – it will mean jobs and a new life for NASA Glenn for the next 20 years. It also means that Ohio has a new opportunity to become one of the nation’s premier aerospace states.
Next steps: a runway for Plum Brook and Erie County.
The Greater Cleveland Partnership is working with the State of Ohio, the Ohio National Guard, the Cuyahoga and Erie Counties, and Members of Congress to determine how to obtain a runway for Plum Brook. A runway at Plum Brook would make a good facility even better and more accessible.
Cleveland Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS)
In 2005, Cleveland received the good news that Cleveland's Defense Finance and Accounting Services (DFAS) operation would not be eliminated by the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment (BRAC) process that was undertaken by the Department of Defense. This was the result of an aggressive community campaign led by the Greater Cleveland Partnership. The Cleveland Defense Industry Alliance (CDIA) was created and managed by the GCP. It included representatives from the business community and elected officials of all levels. The initial Department of Defense recommendation to close the Cleveland office was reversed and new jobs were secured.
One of the key factors in making this determination related to the downtown Cleveland building that houses the DFAS operation. Because there were concerns that the facility--the Anthony Celebrezze Building--could not meet the rigorous security standards imposed on Defense operations, the CDIA offered to work with DFAS to build a new DFAS Center that met all such requirements. Working with Cleveland developer Scott Wolstein, the CDIA proposed that a new facility be built in the new Flats East Bank community.
Discussions are underway with DFAS officials to study this proposal; GCP members will be kept informed as this work evolves.
The GCP also continues to work on the DFAS transformation by assisting DFAS officials in recruiting employees to Cleveland. The Workforce Development Board has developed a
website
to recruit DFAS workers around the country to relocate to the expanded Cleveland DFAS facility.
Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Water Resources Compact
In 2006, the Ohio General Assembly began consideration of legislation introduced to enact the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact last spring. And, while House Bill 574 (Dolan) passed the Ohio House, the bill died in the Senate at the conclusion of the 126th General Assembly.
The Compact is the Great Lakes Governors’ attempt to make significant statutory changes to the way water withdrawals, consumptive use, and diversions are managed at the state and regional levels—specifically from the lakes, streams, and ground waters within the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River Basin watersheds. In order for this Compact to become binding on Ohio, each Great Lakes state must enact identical legislation—and it must then be ratified by Congress.
Interested parties, including the GCP, as part of the Coalition for Sustainable Water Management, worked diligently with the Taft Administration, the House and Senate sponsors, and environmental groups to come to a consensus on how best to craft the legislation so these waters and water-dependent natural resources can be protected and used wisely (to include use for economic development purposes) well into the future. House Bill 574 (Dolan) passed the General Assembly with pro-business provisions that clarified the legislature's oversight of the process, and the scope of impact with respect to the decision-making standard—a key standard which would enable the approval or denial of a particular water withdrawal. Unfortunately, the coalition was unsuccessful in amending the Compact. Instead, coalition's concerns were addressed in the Ohio Revised Code outside of the Compact. This is significant because if the Compact is passed by all Great-Lakes states and subsequently ratified by Congress, it essentially becomes federal law and Ohio is bound by contract to the terms and conditions therein. Having the business coalitions concerns addressed outside of the compact, while helpful in clarifying the intent of the legislation, is useless if or when litigious environmental groups attempt to use the Compacts provisions to shut down economic development by opposing specific projects.
While the GCP recognizes that there is tremendous value in having a long-term conservation and usage plan that facilitates sustainable economic development, this pre-approval process for new or increased water withdrawals is an important issue to the businesses in the Great Lakes basin and Northeast Ohio. The coalition suggested changes to the Compact makes it clearer that a measurable impact on flow within just a few hundred feet of a stream, which occurs with many withdrawals, should not be enough to kill a project. In addition to its clarity, this change makes it more difficult for a litigious citizen or organization to kill an important proposal that could be essential to an economic development or job-creating project.
To learn more about the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Water Resources Compact, visit the
GCP Issues Library
.
Eminent Domain
The United States Supreme Court, in Kelo v. City of New London, 125 S.Ct. 2655 (2005), upheld a Connecticut city’s right to take private property by eminent domain for a downtown revitalization project based on the city’s plan for economic development.
The post-Kelo eminent domain landscape continues to evolve in Ohio. The 127th General Assembly is currently debating the merits of three different pieces of eminent domain legislation.
The 126th General Assembly enacted legislation (SB 167) which resulted in a moratorium on the use of eminent domain to take unblighted property from unwilling sellers for private development—and created a task force to study the issue. GCP’s Deb Janik, Senior Vice-President of Real Estate and Business Development, served on the Eminent Domain Taskforce created by State Senator Tim Grendell’s bill.
With the introduction of Senate Joint Resolution 1, House Bill 5 and Senate Bill 7, the 127th General Assembly appears to have made eminent domain “reform” one of its top priorities. SJR 1 (Coughlin) would enact Section 19b of Article I of the Constitution of the State of Ohio to provide limits on the power of a public authority to take private property for a public use. Specifically, the resolution would prohibit the taking of private property for public use for the purpose of increasing revenue. The resolution would clarify that municipal corporations have the same eminent domain authority as the state, so long as they adhere to state statutes enacted by the General Assembly to regulate takings by the state.
Working in tandem with SJR 1 are House Bill 5 (Gibbs) and Senate Bill 7 (Grendell). House Bill 5 seems to do less damage to the Eminent Domain Task Force recommendations than does Grendell’s Senate Bill 7. As GCP is completing its review of these bills and currently developing an appropriate advocacy strategy.
To learn more about eminent domain and to read the Eminent Domain Task Force report, visit the
GCP Issues Library
.
Product Liability/Public Nuisance Legislation
The GCP joined a statewide coalition of business groups to stop a recent trend in Ohio that saw out-of-state personal injury lawyers recruiting local municipalities to sue lead paint manufacturers in our state on a public nuisance theory of liability. GCP recognizes that companies look for fairness and predictability in the civil justice system when making decisions about where to expand existing operations or locate new facilities.
Senate Bill 117 went a long way in creating that certainty by clarifying that product liability claims can only be brought under the Ohio Product Liability Act and cannot be brought disguised as a public nuisance claim. The bill also would prohibit a violent, convicted felon from requiring the victim to re-litigate in a civil case the facts involved in the felony. It also permits plaintiffs in an insurance bad-faith case access, in certain circumstances, to conduct communications between an insurance company and its attorneys, and specifically permits consumers to recover under the Consumer Sales Practices Act (CSPA) $5,000 in non-economic damages and attorneys fees.
Governor Taft, however, refused to sign SB 117, citing his objections to the CSPA amendment. Specifically, he felt the $5,000 limit on noneconomic damages was “very small” and that the changes with respect to the CSPA weakened Ohio’s predatory lending laws and other consumer transactions. Consequently, Taft refused to sign the bill into law—instead letting the act become law without his signature (after the ten day waiting period)—or so he thought.
On Monday, January 8th, 2007, the first day of Governor Ted Strickland’s term, he requested and received the bill from Ohio’s Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, which had been sent to her by Governor Taft. Strickland then vetoed the legislation.
Legal questions remain as to the validity of Governor Strickland’s veto action. Attorney General Marc Dann has pledged to “vigorously” defend Strickland’s veto. Additionally, he has offered to appoint special counsel to the legislature if they wish to litigate the matter On April 3, 2007, Ohio's Attorney General filed suit against 10 paint manufacturers using Ohio's public nuisance law. GCP joined with other economic development organizations in Ohio to issue a statement opposing the Attorney General's action.
The American Tort Reform Association Attorney General Survey Results from Ohio