Government Affairs Committee (GAC)
Purpose
The Government Affairs Committee serves on behalf of the NC AWWA-WEA as the professional representatives of the water and wastewater purveyors of North Carolina with the primary roles being to review and/or respond to proposed legislation and rule-making that may impact the water and wastewater industry of North Carolina and the membership as appropriate, to proactively propose initiatives for review and action by regulatory agencies, and to make the membership aware of such activities.
Organization
The Committee Chair shall be appointed by the Chair. The Committee Chair may designate a Vice-Chair who may succeed the Committee Chair upon completion of the Chair’s term, subject to the approval of the Chair. The Committee shall be open to all members of the Association however the Committee Chair will strive to recruit members as needed to ensure a diverse representation of the membership on the Committee. The Board will be represented with at least one Board member being a committee member in addition to the Board liaison. The Board liaison is the Association Chair.
Committee Communications
The Committee will meet on an as-needed basis with the primary method of communications being email in order to facilitate the dissemination of information and obtain committee member feedback in a timely fashion. For communication of information to the membership, the Committee will strive to include brief summaries of pending legislative or regulatory activity in the Association’s E-newsletter with more detailed information printed in the NC Currents publications and posted on the Government Affairs Committee webpage under Resources.
Communications with the Board will be from the Committee Chair through the Board liaison unless the Board liaison request that the Committee Chair communicate directly with the Board members.
Primary Roles and Activities
The Committee shall maintain meaningful contact with key representatives of regulatory and funding agencies, the Legislature, and other groups and associations whose actions, programs, or activities impact water and wastewater operations.
The Committee shall serve as a resource to review and evaluate proposed legislation or regulations and as an “information clearinghouse” for keeping the membership and the Board apprised of such activities. The Committee will maintain active participation in the NC League of Municipalities Planning and Technical Committee as a source of information and analysis of pending legislation and rule-making.
Reactive Role – The Committee will consider for each proposed legislative or regulatory action being reviewed what the potential impact is to the members of the Association and decide if a position paper in support of or opposed to is warranted. All position papers relative to proposed legislative or regulatory activity would be emailed to the Association Chair for concurrence by the Board prior to issuance. For issues where members of the Association are likely to have widely differing views the Committee would serve primarily to apprise the members of what actions are pending for their individual response or action.
The Committee will be available to serve as a “sounding board” to regulatory agency staff for changes to regulations or procedures being considered or to assist in solving problems being encountered by those agencies where the potential solution is a change of procedures or policies.
Proactive Role – As resources permit, the Committee will also consider initiatives for regulatory reform through the Committee working with the regulatory agencies and/or legislators. These initiatives would typically be proactive in nature with the goal being to facilitate regulatory changes that have broad applicability to the Association and membership and would be considered a benefit to the water and wastewater industry.
Program Committee Support
The Committee will also work in support of the Program Committee in dissemination of information to all membership by participating, upon request of the Program Committee, in programs of the annual conference and other conferences of interest.
The Committee shall also maintain contact and cooperate with the staff and Government Affairs Committees of AWWA and WEF.
2012 Committee Chair
Jennifer Bell, CH2M Hill
Phone: (919) 875-4311
Email: jennifer.bell@ch2m.com
2012 Committee Vice Chair
Mark McIntire, Brown and Caldwell
Phone: (919) 790-6770
Email: mcintire.mark@brwncald.com
Meeting Documents
July 15, 2010 Meeting: EPA’s Draft Numerical Nutrient Rules for Florida – Scott I. McClelland, CDM
Meeting Recording Part 1 (Windows Media Player File)
Meeting Recording Part 2 (Windows Media Player File)
March 22, 2011 Meeting: EPA’s Numeric Nutrient Rules for Florida – Scott I. McClelland, CDM
Meeting Recording (Windows Media Player File)