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Handout C: House Bill Sample 2

Amy Junick

Student Congress 2016

House Bill No. 11

Creating a municipal law that will clean up Albuquerque,
New Mexico and make city property drought-friendly.
Ms. Junick introduced the following bill,
which was introduced to the Committee on __________________________________________

An Act

Be it enacted by the Student Congress,

  1. SECTION 1: SHORT TITLE
    This act may be cited as the Conserving Water and Making Albuquerque Beautiful act.
  2. SECTION 2: PURPOSE
    To make our city reflect the natural beauty of its surroundings by landscaping the freeways, on and off-ramps, and roads using drought-tolerant plants. Also, to conserve our water for the use of future generations, xeriscaping city property will be completed. This example by the city will encourage citizens of Albuquerque to conserve even more water. Our city will be more appealing and welcoming to out-of-town guests, thus creating more tourism and bringing more money to our city.
  3. SECTION 3: DEFINITIONS
    Xeriscape – the use of drought-tolerant plants native to New Mexico (instead of grass, etc.).
    Landscape – land around the buildings and roads, also used to describe the finished product of
    the property after the xeriscape. City Property – surrounding any city building, (e.g. court house). Parks are not included but medians and any land around highly-traveled roads (not residential area roads) are included. Arterial Road – from the root artery, describing a main city street of at least two lanes in each direction designed to handle a large volume of traffic at speeds of 35 mph or higher.
  4. SECTION 4: MAIN PROVISIONS
    This act will create a new division of city workers that will xeriscape all city property and roads within the Albuquerque city limits. The division will also maintain this land in order for our city to sustain this new-found beauty. Maintaining the land includes: picking up trash, pulling out weeds, cleaning off any graffiti within a close proximity, and anything else along those lines. City
    property will include approximately 10 police substations, 20 fire stations, 10 community centers, 10 libraries, and 20 office and miscellaneous buildings for a total of 70 buildings. In addition there are approximately 15 north/south and 15 east/west arterial roads about 15 miles long for a total of 450 miles of median to xeriscape.
  5. SECTION 5: APPROPRIATIONS
    Materials should cost about $2,000 per building for a total of $140,000. Media material cost should be about $5,000 per mile times 450 miles equaling $2,250,000. The city will need to hire up to 500 workers to get the job started and after all the landscaping is finished, this city will have to maintain a staff of no less than 100 workers. At an average salary of $35,000, this will total $17,500,000 for labor. This brings the total project costs to $19,890,000, with continuing costs of $3,500,000 per year for maintenance. This money shall come from a .4% increase on cigarette and alcohol taxes until all of the landscaping is finished, at which time the tax will decrease to .2%.
  6. SECTION 6: PENALTY CLAUSE
    None.
  7. SECTION 7: EFFECTIVE DATE
    This program will go into effect in October 2004.