WASHINGTON -- Gov. George Allen of Virginia vowed yesterday not to let Disney's proposed theme park in Prince William County "languish in needless red tape" following legislative setbacks this week for his proposed financing package.
There are "some serious details to work out before the end of the session" on March 12, Allen told a briefing held for the Greater Washington Board of Trade and the Northern Virginia Technology Council, two business groups that strongly support the $650 million project.
A six-member House and Senate conference committee is now trying to work out a compromise bill for financing the theme park, known as Disney's America. The two houses passed their own bills after the Senate voted to make funding wait for regulatory approval of the project and the House voted to delay final consideration of Allen's package altogether.
Allen sought a $163.2 million package that included issuance of $141.9 million in revenue bonds for road improvements. The House and Senate bills would require greater contributions from Disney and reduce state expenditures on roads to service the park.
Allen's bonds legislation "contains elements that are critical to the project's success," Disney spokeswoman Mary Anne Reynolds said earlier this week. She would not specify what alternatives Disney might find acceptable.
At yesterday's briefing, Allen said the House indulged in "unusual posturing" when it voted to delay final action on a package until a special legislative session this spring. Allen called the move "a dilatory hindrance."
Two residents of Prince William County who oppose the theme park tried to take part in the briefing, which was in McLean, Va. The business groups called the local police to keep them out.
Supporters of the theme park "don't let people in and they are just not sharing information," said project critic Robert Dennis, president of the Piedmont Environmental Council of Warrenton, Va., when told of the exclusion.
One of the excluded residents, Gaert Sime, said the project should be delayed until better information is available. "This is all happening so fast that nobody has a chance to learn anything about it," he said.
"The thing we believe most strongly is that the General Assembly doesn't know what the hell it is doing," said Dennis.
Sime and Dennis are concerned, among other things, about the lack of information on political contributions to Virginia officials and legislators that may be connected to the project.
One environmental group, the Clean Water Action Project, tried to obtain information about contributions from the Virginia Board of Elections but found that Disney has not registered a political action committee in the state. in the state.
Without using a PAC, Disney can still contribute to the political parties or ask executives and other individuals to contribute to particular lawmakers. Such contributions are especially difficult to track, said Marie Kulich, Virginia program director with the clean water project. The group opposes the park because of possible damage to the Occoquan River watershed.
Disney spokeswoman Reynolds could not be reached for comment on contributions.
The Senate this week passed a bill that would prevent the sale of bonds to finance road improvements until Disney obtains regulatory approvals from local and regional authorities. The bill would also require Disney to agree to pay $5.6 million a year for 20 years to cover half of the debt service on the bonds for road work.
The House version would require Disney to pay $44.5 million up-front for road projects, to be reimbursed by the state in yearly payments of $3.5 million, contingent on the park remaining open.
Both houses cut $15.1 million outright from the bond package for roads.
The Senate dropped an earlier proposal, one opposed by Disney, that would have imposed an admissions tax.
The bonds proposed by Allen would be secured by annual appropriations by the General Assembly and Transportation trust fund revenues.
Money would not be diverted from other transportation projects, at least not for improvements "attributable only to Disney," Allen said. Much of the road work for Disney is needed with or without the park, he said.
But national environmental groups recently issued a statement saying Virginia taxpayers are being asked "to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to subsidize a new wave of sprawl" that would pollute the air and aggravate transportation gridlock. Other transportation projects would suffer by having dollars diverted to Disney, the groups said.
The need for state subsidies could be substantially reduced by moving the proposed 3,000-acre site, now planned for the Haymarket, Va., area, to a more developed part of the state, the statement says.
The groups were the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, and the Conservation Law Foundation.
Disney probably would have to pay more for land closer to Washington, but less bond authority would be needed to improve infrastructure, said Michael Replogle, transportation specialist with the Environmental Defense Fund, at a recent news briefing.
The groups urged Allen in a Feb. 11 letter to postpone action on the Disney road package until more information becomes available on how it would affect regional air quality. The groups estimated that the Disney project would add 70,000 more auto trips a day between Washington and the proposed site.
"Unless this emissions growth is offset by other specific transportation measures, the entire region -- including Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia -- risks losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal transportation funds," the groups said.
Under amendments added to the Clean Air Act in 1990, regions with air pollution problems must submit to a regional planning board a plan that includes transportation measures for reducing air pollution. An unacceptable plan could lead to cut-off of federal road and transit funds, Replogle said.
Virginia has not yet factored the Disney proposal into this planning process, Replogle said. Virginia and its neighbors already face a transportation funding shortfall of more than $600 million a year under its current long-range plan, he said.
Allen has not responded to the groups' letter.
"The Walt Disney Company has every intention of complying with the Clean Air Act for Disney's America," the company said in a terse statement. "The premature and unsubstantiated statements released" by the environmental groups "ignore, demean and short-circuit the local, state and regional reviews already under way as the Clean Air Act requires," it said.
