B4 ez re the washington post.monday, february 24 , 2020
reject the assault weapons bill for
the year, sending it to the state’s
Crime Commission for study. The
vote was 10 to 5.
The only real surprise was
Surovell, who wrote on his blog
afterward that he does not sup-
port civilian ownership of assault
weapons as someone who “lived
through the 2002 D.C. sniper
attacks while crouching in my c ar
getting gas to avoid being shot.”
But Surovell, like the others,
had issues with how the bill
defined the weapons. He was
concerned by a provision forcing
owners to give up large-capacity
magazines. Without a buyback
program, which the bill lacked,
the mandate could constitute an
unconstitutional “taking” of
property, he said.
Surovell said he believes those
problems can eventually be
worked out but said doing so
would take more time than legis-
lators can spare amid this year’s
legislative avalanche.
“In a part-time legislature,
there’s only so much oxygen in
the room,” he said. “I was just
voting to continue the discus-
sion.”
[email protected]a better chance.”
Senate majority Leader rich-
ard L. Saslaw (D-fairfax) had
submitted his own version in
November but struck it a few days
into session. That left the Senate
with no assault weapons bill to
consider — until the House ver-
sion, proposed by Del. mark H.
Levine (D-Alexandria), squeaked
out of that chamber hours ahead
of the feb. 11 “crossover” dead-
line.
T he Senate Judiciary Commit-
tee docketed the bill right away,
even before Northam’s seven oth-
er gun-control bills, which
cleared the House nearly two
weeks earlier and will be heard
monday. Northam, Public Safety
Secretary Brian moran and
House Speaker Eileen filler-Corn
(D-fairfax) spent the days ahead
of last week’s meeting asking for
more time to address objections.
“This was no surprise to any-
one that we were going full steam
ahead on these eight bills,” moran
said.
Last week, four of the nine
Democrats on the Senate com-
mittee — Petersen, Deeds, Ed-
wards and Scott A. Surovell (fair-
fax) — sided with republicans tolitia groups from across the coun-
try, would flock to an annual gun
rights rally that typically draws a
few hundred to the Capitol.
on the eve of the legislature’s
Jan. 8 opening day, Petersen and
Democratic Sens. r. C reigh Deeds
(Bath), John S. Edwards (roa-
noke) and Lynwood W. Lewis Jr.
(Accomack) told their caucus
they would not support the as-
sault weapons bill.
Deeds and Edwards said the
legislation’s definition of “assault
firearm” was imprecise. Lewis —
who was not on the committee
that ultimately killed the bill —
said a ban on future sales would
be ineffective given the “tens of
thousands” already in private
hands in Virginia.
“The sanctuary nonsense kind
of got people spooked,” said Sen.
mamie E. Locke (D-Hampton),
who supported the measure.
Northam had asked Sen. Adam
P. Ebbin (D-Alexandria) to intro-
duce his proposed ban in the
Senate. It never materialized.
“I did spend a lot of time
working on that,” Ebbin said.
“However, I can also count votes
and... I d ecided to focus on a few
things that I thought might haveiron out differences in every bill
that hasn’t passed both chambers
in identical form, gun measures
included.
Gun control became a rallying
cry for Democrats after last year’s
mass shooting in Virginia Beach,
especially after republicans
swiftly gaveled in and out of a
special session on guns that
Northam called in the aftermath,
refusing to consider the gover-
nor’s eight gun-control bills.
All eight seemed headed for
passage after Democrats won the
House (55-45) and Senate (21-19).
Gun owners were alarmed, par-
ticularly by the assault weapons
bill. As originally proposed, it
would have forced owners to give
up certain legally purchased fire-
arms.
Even after Northam promised
a grandfather clause — banning
future sales but allowing people
to keep assault weapons they
already owned — the uproar
swelled.
more than 110 counties, cities
and towns would eventually de-
clare themselves Second Amend-
ment “sanctuaries” where new
gun laws would not be enforced.
Te ns of thousands, including mi-laws since her daughter was
wounded in the Virginia Te ch
mass shooting in 2007. “A nd the
notion that incremental is some-
how the way to go... it’s ridicu-
lous.”
Petersen said such complaints
miss the big picture: Both cham-
bers have passed a host of gun-
control bills, including those that
require background checks on all
gun sales, cap handgun pur -
chases at one per month and
create a “red flag” law allowing
authorities to temporarily seize
weapons from people deemed a
threat.
“We’ve passed more bills on
gun safety i n the last 30 days than
we’ve done in the last 30 years,”
he said. “A nd by the same token, I
like to be able to say, ‘You know,
we did listen to the other side. We
did dial a couple things back. We
did say “no” t o a couple people.’ ”
The bill’s failure could exacer-
bate House-Senate tensions — a
day later, House Democrats killed
Petersen’s bill to allow part-time
law enforcement officers to buy
their service weapons when they
retire. But Democrats in the two
chambers will have to find a way
to work together if they are tomidst of a revolution, with the
House, Senate and Executive
mansion under Democratic con-
trol for the first time in a quarter-
century. Legislation that routine-
ly died with republicans in
charge has flown out of both
chambers, including measures to
raise the minimum wage, shift to
clean energy, decriminalize mari-
juana, ban anti-LGBT discrimina-
tion and let localities remove
Confederate monuments.
But there are limits to how far
some Democrats want to go, even
on gun control — the party’s
marquee issue in the November
elections.
The Senate — whose members
are older, more tenured and less
racially diverse — has taken less
liberal positions than the House
in many areas, including labor
and immigration. Still, the defec-
tions on the assault weapons bill
infuriated advocates and House
Democrats given the issue’s
prominence in fall campaigns.
“There’s almost 30 years of
pent-up policy waiting to get
passed,” fumed Lori Haas, who
has been lobbying for tighter gun
virginia from B1
In gun-control fight, some Va. Democrats draw l ine at assault weapons ban
case.
“It’s hard to separate the Appa-
lachian Trail from the scenic
beauty that hikers come here to
see,” she said, standing on a li-
chen-covered rock and gesturing
down at the bare stretch of forest,
streaked with pockets of ever-
greens. “Some of the best tracts of
Appalachian Trail are through na-
tional forest land. That’s what
makes this route particularly
painful.”
Greg Buppert, a lawyer with the
Southern Environmental Law
Center, accused Dominion of
pushing the approval process too
aggressively. “This is a protected
landscape,” he said. “I think the
problems we’re seeing with the
pipeline are self-inflicted prob-
lems.”
Nallo countered that the com-
pany has gone to great lengths to
satisfy environmental concerns.
The pipeline’s pathway will be
covered with grass and native
plants, she said, adding t hat much
of the landscape is already altered
by human activity.
“I visited the trail a couple of
times,” Nallo said. “You’re very
close to the Blue ridge Parkway at
that point. When the leaves were
down, I could see some of the
houses and the roads down in the
valley.... I think it’s a good exam-
ple of how we try to achieve that
balance as humans of being able
to enjoy nature but being able to
use those areas.”
The consolidated cases the Su-
preme Court will hear monday
are U.S. Forest Service v. Cowpas-
ture River Assn. and Atlantic
Coast Pipeline LLC v. Cowpasture
River Assn.
[email protected]
[email protected]would meet the trail is west of
Charlottesville on the edge of
George Washington National for-
est. The builders want to tunnel
through a mountain some 700
feet below the level of the trail,
which runs along the ridgetop
and intertwines with the Blue
ridge Parkway.
“The pipeline will be complete-
ly invisible from that crossing,”
Dominion spokeswoman Ann
Nallo said. “This project, even
from the start, has always been
designed w ith the environment in
mind.”
opponents concede that the
crossing itself won’t physically af-
fect the Appalachian Trail but say
the pipeline and its long approach
to the mountain will change the
landscape.
Just north of the tunnel, the
trail emerges onto a rocky outcrop
at Cedar Cliffs, with a spectacular
view of the Shenandoah Valley far
below. The pipeline route would
march across the valley, t hreading
past farms and villages and then
slicing through an unbroken tract
of the national forest.
Even though the pipeline is
underground, it would have a 50-
foot-wide cleared path along its
length.
“It will be very visible,” said
Lynn Cameron, a board member
for the Virginia Wilderness Com-
mittee, one of the plaintiffs in thelife; that the agency didn’t take a
hard enough look at l andslide and
erosion risk; and that the forest
Service rejected alternate routes
without fully analyzing them.
federal law requires consider-
ing the feasibility of other routes
before approving a pipeline c ross-
ing in a national forest.
A spokeswoman for Dominion
said the company is working with
federal agencies on all three of
those elements and is confident it
can address them.
The site where the pipelineand improperly. Earlier this year,
the court threw out a state permit
for a pumping station in a historic
African American community in
Buckingham County, Va., saying
the builders failed to consider
whether the facility would unduly
harm a minority group.
The ruling on the Appalachian
Trail crossing had three other ele-
ments that are not part of the
appeal to the high court. The judg-
es also said the permit didn’t c om-
ply with mandatory standards for
protecting soil, water and wild-The high court’s ruling could
determine the fate of the Atlantic
Coast Pipeline, a controversial
project that has drawn national
attention from environmental-
ists, including former vice presi-
dent Al Gore. Approved by the
federal Energy regulatory Com-
mission in 2017, the pipeline ini-
tially was projected to cost about
$5 billion but has ballooned in
price with multiple delays.
fourth Circuit judges struck
down a number of the project’s
permits for being awarded hastily2,200-mile barrier separating
critical natural resources from
the eastern seaboard,” l awyer Paul
Clement wrote in a brief on behalf
of the pipeline.
The plaintiffs note that pipe-
lines already cross the trail at 34
locations.
The Trump administration has
weighed in on behalf of the proj-
ect, with Solicitor General Noel
francisco arguing that while the
National Park Service adminis-
ters the trail, the land beneath it is
controlled by the forest Service.
Environmentalists opposing
the construction argue that no
pipeline has been granted a right
of way across the trail on federal
land since it became part of the
park system. other crossings are
on private or state lands or on
easements that predate federal
ownership.
Tr ying to separate the land
from the trail is an “elusively
metaphysical distinction” that
“contradicts the government’s
own long-standing approach to
administering the Trail,” accord-
ing to a brief from lawyer michael
K. Kellogg, who will argue for the
environmental groups in mon-
day’s hearing.
Virginia Attorney General
mark r. Herring (D) has filed a
brief on behalf of the project’s
opponents, arguing that the pipe-
line threatens “several of Virgin-
ia’s most cherished places.” Her-
ring also questions whether there
is any economic need for the pipe-
line, noting that “the demand for
natural gas will remain flat or
decrease for the foreseeable fu-
ture and can be met with existing
infrastructure.”
pipeline from B1
Justices to consider whether pipeline can run underneath Appalachian Trail
Photos bY norm shafer for the Washington Post
a view from the appalachian Trail in virginia shows where the atlantic coast pipeline would be
tunneled. environmentalists lynn cameron and greg Buppert oppose the plan for the gas pipeline.lynn cameron greg Buppertaligned with the city’s needs,
auditors said.mason’s priorities include de-
veloping majors that will lead to
careers in the city. In recent
years, the school has hired 80
new faculty members, forged a
research partnership with Penn-
sylvania State University and
garnered more than $17 million
in awards from agencies and
organizations such as NASA and
the National Science founda-
tion.
Through a new strategic plan,
university leaders hope to triple
the school’s graduation rate, ex-
pand enrollment to nearly 9,000
students and help more students
land jobs after graduation.
for mason, a more robust
investment in UDC is not just a
matter of his own survival. The
District’s residents depend on it.
“I don’t think the District can
be a sustainable, resilient, equi-
table city without a strong public
institution of higher learning,”
mason said. “A nd we’re it.”
[email protected]trict of Columbia had been there
and healthy and doing the work
that it’s capable of doing, it’s
clear to me that the picture
would not have been worse three
years later, it would have been
better,” mason said. “The ques-
tion is, w hat’s it g oing to look l ike
three years from now?”
mayor muriel E. Bowser (D)
said UDC should be the “first
choice for our students graduat-
ing from D.C. public schools.”
Bowser was on campus last week
to receive the school’s myrtilla
miner Award for Exceptional
Service to Society, the universi-
ty’s highest honor.
“We’re engaged in our budget
discussions for the upcoming
year right now,” Bowser said.
“Public education is frequently
the number one demanded item
in all of our budget engagement
forums.”
In the current budget year, the
D.C. government has allotted
$90 million for public higher
education, a 3.4 percent increase
from the year before.
When mason arrived at the
university i n 2015, the school was
in crisis. A 2014 audit had found
that UDC awarded student loans
in excess of federal limits, and
failed to obtain high school tran-
scripts and proof of residency
needed for the government’s stu-
dent aid programs. The school
set forth a cost-saving plan that
called for the elimination of
nearly two dozen programs and
the a ddition of majors that f it the
District’s economic priorities.
City auditors in 2017 reported
the school had cleared the finan-
cial aid hurdles. But the school’s
degree offerings were still notaccording to a recent report from
the D.C. fiscal Policy Institute,
an independent research group
that analyzes economic data in
the District.
mason compared that report’s
findings to data produced by the
institute in 2017 t hat also showed
black people in the District fare
worse financially than w hite peo-
ple. He argued that, with more
resources, UDC could help pro-
duce better economic prospects
for black Washingtonians.
“If the University of the Dis-“If we really want to invest in
the education of our long-term
residents, w e should be investing
in UDC,” Cooper said.
mason pointed to the econom-
ic prospects of most of the stu-
dents UDC educates, with
60 percent of its student body
coming directly from the city’s
public schools. Despite a flour-
ishing economy, black workers in
the District earn significantly
less than their white counter-
parts, and unemployment rates
exceed prerecession numbers,needs.
UDC serves the District in the
same way a land-grant u niversity
serves its state, Cooper said.
Those schools, she said, “were
founded many, many years ago
and they were created to serve a
public mission to really help
educate the citizens of the state
and allow the institution to be a
very viable economic engine to
really help create opportunities
for those graduates to then enter
the workforce of that particular
state.”Just 16 percent of first-time,
full-time students pursuing
bachelor’s degrees graduate
within four years, federal educa-
tion data show.
And the campus routinely
l oses the District’s top-perform-
ing students to other schools,
mason said. Through the D.C.
Tuition Assistance Grant —
known b y the a cronym D CTAG —
students can receive as much as
$10,000 a year to attend public
universities outside the city, or
up to $ 2,500 to enroll in a private
college in the Washington metro
area or at any historically black
college or university across the
nation.
The District’s sole public uni-
versity can’t p erform i ts job with-
out the appropriate investment,
said michelle Asha Cooper, p resi-
dent of the Institute for Higher
Education Policy, a nonprofit
education research group.
“If we really care about the
students who live here and we
want to make sure they have
viable options that put them on
the path to economic security
and economic mobility,” the city
should invest in rigorous, high-
quality public higher education,
Cooper said.
more than 4,200 students at-
tend the flagship UDC campus in
Van Ness, the law school and the
community college, enrollment
data show. UDC offers dozens of
degrees — from associates to
doctorates — and university
leaders are refining sought-after
health-care, technology and
teacher-training programs to re-
spond to the city’s economic
udc from B1
In a city dominated by private universities, UDC makes a pitch to residents
michael robinson chavez/the Washington Post
a c onvocation last week marked 44 years of the district’s public university. its president has ambitious
plans for improving economic prospects for black Washingtonians — at a cost of about $565 million.“If we really want to
invest in the education
of our long-term
residents, we should be
investing in UDC.”
Michelle Asha Cooper,
president of the institute
for higher education Policy