Mayors Decry Costly U.S. Regulations, Vow Revolt : Cities: They say environmental and other rules are sapping local treasuries. The leaders plan to form an ‘urban caucus’ in Congress to press for relief.

Nearly 200 U.S. mayors vowed Sunday to press an all-out lobbying campaign in Congress against mandates that force cities to comply with “burdensome” federal regulations at a cost to city governments of hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

Calling the federal compliance requirements--or unfunded mandates--secret taxes that are passed on to their constituents, the mayors began planning to marshal public opinion around their cause.

They also threatened lawsuits and said they would try to form an “urban caucus” in Congress to press for relief from environmental and other federal regulations that they say are sapping their municipal budgets.

“For too long Congress’ attitude has been to pass the bill and pass the buck. The time has come to draw the line,” said Sen. Dirk Kempthorne (R-Ida.), former mayor of Boise.

Kempthorne is the sponsor of a bill that would require the federal government to reimburse states, cities and counties for the cost of complying with a maze of regulations that have accompanied steadily diminishing federal aid.

The mayors said they intend to highlight dramatic “horror stories” of federal bureaucratic insensitivity to deficit-burdened cities, such as that told by Mayor Richard Clay Dixon of Dayton, Ohio, who said that in order to comply with federal environmental regulations, his city had to test pesticides that are only used in Hawaii to protect pineapple crops.

Philadelphia Mayor Edward G. Rendell said that as a result of the recently adopted Motor Voter Act Philadelphia will be required to foot the bill for making all polling places accessible to the disabled, including the 40% of the city’s polling stations that are rented by the city for only two days each election year.

Dixon said that to comply with federal environmental regulations Ohio spends over $1 billion a year.