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Billboard Relief Dropped
Washington, D.C.—Utah Senator Bob Bennett has been a leading voice in the efforts to rebuild billboards destroyed or damaged by Hurricane Katrina one year ago. This past June, though, his efforts were dropped during negotiations on the Gulf Recovery bill.
According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Bennett had amended the Gulf recovery bill to exempt billboards wrecked in the hurricane from a federal law that prohibits rebuilding older signs that do not conform with current rules. Federal law prohibits rebuilding billboards near federal highways that were erected before the Highway Beautification Act of 1965. Bennett’s provision would have allowed signs in thirteen states affected by hurricanes to be replaced. Bennett pushed the exemption on behalf of Utah-based Young Electric Sign Co.
The senator told the Tribune through a spokeswoman that the Gulf recovery bill is meant to “alleviate the human suffering and economic damage” to business in the region and the billboard industry took a hit in the hurricane. But since House conferees objected to the provision, it was struck.
“I had many priorities in the agriculture section of the bill that I had to fight for, this one had to be put at a lower priority and didn’t survive,” Bennett said in a statement to the journal. “That doesn’t mean its cause wasn’t worthy; it’s just that other priorities prevailed this time.”
According to the Tribune, Lamar Advertising (which owns signs in the Gulf region) gave $2,500 to Bennett in 2004, and the Outdoor Advertising Association of America donated nearly $10,000 to Bennett in his 1998 and his 2004 campaigns. Young Electric Sign gave $2,250 to Bennett in 1997.
Michael Young, president of Young Electric Sign, says the decision was disappointing. “I just feel like we have to give them every possible hand up that we can give them,” Young said as quoted in the journal, “and not take away important business tools that they have enjoyed in the past.”
—Lori Andreozzi
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