Mr. James F. Hinchman
Acting Comptroller General of the United States
General Accounting Office
441 G Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20548

Dear Mr. Hinchman:

We request that the General Accounting Office conduct a preliminary survey of available information concerning Federal programs and policies that affect the ability of local communities to sustain themselves and to make their own choices concerning patterns of growth.

Projections of growth patterns in many communities indicate that the pace of urban and suburban land development will outstrip projected growth in population. This low density development and loss of population in central cities and older suburbs can lead to losses of productive farmland, impaired environmental quality, public safety risks from flooding, increased costs for existing older suburbs and central cities, and other consequences. While local and State governments are responsible for determining patterns of growth, Congress needs to understand whether these pattern of growth are driven or significantly affected by Federal policies and subsidies in a way that encourages sprawl, or growth with negative consequences.

In our view, Federal programs must recognize the primacy of local and State decisionmaking on issues that affect land use. They should also:

- minimize inadvertent subsidies that encourage patterns of growth that are contrary to the wishes of communities.

- encourage collaborative working relationships among communities in regions and different levels of government on issues like transportation and environment that can go beyond the boundaries of single communities.

- help provide information to communities and State to make their own decisions.

While there is ongoing research on Federal subsidies encouraging sprawl, the information has not been compiled in any systematic or comprehensive fashion. We are requesting this survey as a first step toward a more reliable and complete perspective on Federal programs. The following areas are examples of programs and questions needing further investigation:

Environmental protection: Do policies on air quality and requirements for water quality treatment (including combined sewer overflows) encourage development in greenfields, rather than existing urban and suburban areas?

Taxation: Do Federal estate taxes encourage the conversion of farmland that is located near an urbanizing area? Do federal subsidies that create a tax advantage for more expensive housing tend to favor low density development outside existing urban and suburban areas?

Utility pricing: Do Federal energy providers subsidize development at the suburban fringe, because pricing on an average cost basis subsidizes development that is more expensive to serve than development within existing communities?

Siting of Federal and postal properties and facilities: Are existing Executive orders adequate for considering the impacts of Federal facility locations and Federal property transfers? Is there an effective process for considering the potential impact of post office relocation on existing communities?

Agriculture: Do rural development programs support the objective of maintaining prime agricultural land in urbanizing areas?

Transportation: Do Federal programs encourage construction of new highways at the expense of maintenance or enhancing the efficiency of existing highway systems.

Housing: Does the availability of varying classes of credit encourage exurban growth at the expense of existing communities? Do low-income housing tax credits favor construction of new structures rather than the refurbishment of existing housing?

Federal grant and loan programs: To what extent do Federal programs tend to support the building of new infrastructure, rather than operation, maintenance and upgrading of existing infrastructure?

Federal courts: Does access to Federal courts on local and State land use issues affect the ability of local and State governments to manage growth effectively?

Coordination: Are there vehicles for coordinating the development of policies at the Federal level, to increase the possibility that different arms and levels of government can be more consistent in the signals that they send to landowners?

Regulatory review process: Does the regulatory review process adequately consider or assess the impact of Federal actions on patterns of growth?

We appreciate the potential magnitude of this exercise, and are requesting a preliminary scoping, rather than a comprehensive or definitive assessment. We would appreciate any recommendations on how further investigations could be structured to get more definitive answers in specific areas.

We would like this preliminary survey completed by October 1998. We encourage your staff to meet with our staffs to help focus this inquiry further.

Sincerely,

James Jeffords
Carl Levin