The Volume of Water Bills in the 1999 Virginia General Assembly

The Virginia General Assembly held its 1999 session from January 13 to February 27. During the regular session, lawmakers considered 2,735 bills and resolutions, compared to 2945 measures considered in the longer 1998 session. Of the more than 2,700 bills and resolutions that legislators debated in 1999, 115 were—in some way—water-related; that is, their provisions would have had some impact on water resources or on water-related activities, such as boating and fishing. To identify these water-related bills, we used the Internet site of the General Assembly’s Legislative Information Service (http://leg1.state.va.us/). Using the system’s subject index, we checked first the two categories under which most water-related bills fall: “Waters of the State, Ports and Harbors” and “Water and Sewer Systems.” We then searched under several other relevant categories, which are identified in the list of bills that begins on page 2. Our list includes solid-waste bills because water quality is a key issue in current solid-waste discussions. Due to space, however, the list does not include 14 measures dealing with land conservation or taxation, although these measures may eventually affect water resources. Nor does the list include the final budget bill, HB 1450, which of course determines any water-related funding, such as in the budgets of natural-resource agencies. One passed water-related bill, HB 2272 (Impact of piers on oyster grounds), was vetoed by the governor. Following the bill inventory is a Feature Article from the June 1999 Water Central examining bills that received the attention of various water-resource and public-policy professionals.