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American Rivers Policy Update: For the week of October 26-30
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Omnibus Bill for FY'99 Passes
After weeks of prolonged debate, Congress and the Administration finally passed the omnibus FY'99 appropriations bill, overriding the objections of some to "anti-environmental" riders on the legislation. The House approved the bill 333-95 Tuesday night, the Senate passed it 65-29 on Wednesday, and President Clinton signed the legislation later that day. The $487 billion bill includes funding for eight annual appropriations bills, $21 billion in emergency funds, and numerous legislative provisions. Agencies funded by the bill include Agriculture, Interior, Commerce, State, and Transportation.
Separately, Clinton also signed the FY'99 VA-HUD appropriations bill that contained $7.6 billion for the US EPA and fully funded his Clean Water Action Plan. Refusing to bow to pressure from conservative members of Congress, Clinton vetoed a bill to authorize payment of $1 billion bill in back dues to the United Nations due to anti-abortion restrictions for international family planning aid included in the legislation.
Despite efforts by the environmental community, the final version of the omnibus bill included more than 20 anti-environmental riders. In addition to the riders, the bill was deemed an environmental disaster based on sheer size - 4,000 pages for a single copy.
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After intense debate over 29 environmental riders, the White House and Congressional leaders finally agreed upon $13.9 billion funding level for the Interior Department. Despite efforts to offer compromises on some contentious provisions and riders, environmental groups remained opposed to the final bill. Instead of authorizing construction of a road through an Alaska wildlife refuge, the bill will provide funds for other airport and roadbuilding projects. Language encouraging the Forest Service to remove all marketable timber before conducting prescribed burns remained in the omnibus bill, but other directives, such as a requirement that the agency inventory and eliminate all unauthorized forest roads before removing permanent roads, were stripped from the measure. The bill also included $8 million for a controversial pilot project of logging and creating "fuel breaks" aimed at stopping wildfires in a section of California national forests.
Final spending levels for the various branches of the Interior Department were: $1.2 billion for the Bureau of Land Management; $802 million for the Fish and Wildlife Service; $1.75 for the National Park Service; $798 million for the Geological Survey; $124 for the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation, and Enforcement; $2.75 billion for the Forest Service; and $1.32 for the Department of Energy.
The omnibus measure contained two provisions from the original Interior bill: one measure extended the recreation fee demonstration program by two years and allowed agencies to keep 100 percent of the new fees; and another measure to cancel the timber purchaser credit program that allowed logging companies to deduct the cost of building roads from the amount they paid for timber.
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Mining and grazing: The Administration accepted another one-year moratorium on new regulations governing mining on public lands and a provision making it easier for ranchers to renew grazing permits on public lands without comprehensive environmental reviews.
Climate change: Spending for energy-related research programs intended to prevent global warming would total slightly more than $1 billion, $120 million more than Congress had approved but less than the president's request of $1.3 billion.
Clean water: Congress agreed to spend $1.7 billion on the president's clean water proposals, a figure $150 million more than previously approved.
Land acquisition: The Land and Water Conservation Fund received a funding increase over last year of $55 million, bringing the total for FY'99 to $325 million.
Forestry: Congressional negotiators dropped a provision that would have required an 18% increase in timber harvests in national forests, ordered the US Forest Service to cut down trees before burning underbrush, delayed revisions to forest-management plans and blocked work on eliminating old logging roads. Republicans agreed to drop a provision that would have allowed a road through part of Alaska's Chugach National Forest.
Columbia Basin: In addition to agreeing to make the Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project more sensitive to local concerns, Congress added another $35 million to the program, making up for cuts made earlier this year.
NOAA: The final bill opted to set funding levels for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's three major programs closer to the higher Senate-passed figures than to the House figures: $376 million for the National Marine Fisheries Service; $287 for the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research program; and $258 for the National Ocean Service. Funding levels for the Commerce, Justice and State departments and their subsidiary agencies -- including Commerce's NOAA and NMFS - are provided only through June 15, however, due to an unrelated dispute over how to conduct the 2000 census.
Oil royalties: A proposed Interior Department regulation that would increase the royalties that oil companies pay for drilling on public land will be delayed.
Superfund: Legislators could not resolve their differences over proposals to include piecemeal fixes to the Superfund toxic-waste cleanup program. As a result, the package will neither reinstate the Superfund corporate tax nor provide limited liability exemptions to certain categories of small polluters.
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Energy Appropriations Summary
President Clinton signed the FY'99 energy and water appropriations legislation, H.R.4060, which includes $20.9 billion in new discretionary spending authority for the Department of Energy, Army Corps of Engineers, and other independent agencies. One area of strife was spending levels for the non-power programs of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which includes navigation and flood control programs. Northeast and Midwest legislators remained firm on their decision to cut federal funds for non-power TVA programs despite pressure from Southeastern appropriators. Appropriators instructed TVA to use revenue from power programs to fund non-power initiatives and called for the agency to transfer its non-power programs to the Army Corps of Engineers if elimination of appropriated funds forced it to raise power rates. The Tennessee Valley congressional delegation did succeed in persuading other lawmakers to refinance TVA's debt at $3.2 billion, appropriate $50 million for operating non-power programs, and allow TVA to continue to manage the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area.
For the Corps, the bill added $673 to its construction account, for a total of $1.46 billion. The Administration had requested $754 million. The Corps received $161 million for general investigation, $321 million for flood control, $1.6 billion for operations and maintenance, and $140 for remedial action at formerly utilized sites. Conferees also appropriated $60 million for the Columbia River fish mitigation programs that fall within Corps programs.
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FY'99 appropriations for energy and water programs, which President Clinton signed with little debate, provided renewables programs with a moderate increase in funding to a total of $365 million.
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New Mexico Monument Boundary Bill
The House passed by voice vote a bill to allow the National Park Service to purchase from willing sellers land or conservation easements around the 32,737-acre National Monument near Los Alamos, NM. Already passed by the Senate, the bill now awaits President Clinton's signature. The bill modifies the boundaries of the park to incorporate another 935 acres, within which the NPS is authorized to buy either land or easements. The bill does not give the NPS condemnation authority.
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Appropriations
The $93.4 billion FY'99 VA, HUD, Independent Agencies appropriations bill, signed by President Clinton on October 21, included $7.56 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency. The omnibus bill included another $309 million for EPA, making the total funding for the agency $7.59 billion.
Under pressure from Democrats and the White House, conferees amended a House-imposed ban on EPA approval of dredging to remove contaminated sediments, primarily polychlorinated biphenyls, from riverbottoms. The final version urges, rather than requiring, EPA to await the results of a National Academy of Sciences report on the issue.
EPA's environmental programs and management account received $1.85 billion, boosting several small and rural water projects at universities and foundations by $14 million over the Administration's request. The bill acknowledged the growing threat of polluted runoff from agricultural sources by increasing funding for half a dozen programs dealing with phosphorous and nitrogen runoff, Pfiesteria, hog farms, and poultry waste. The programs received $7 million more than the Administration's request. Conferees also increased funding for two similar programs under EPA's science and technology account by nearly $1 million.
Final appropriations for the Department of Agriculture will seriously curtail a number of USDA conservation and environmental initiatives. Due to heated debate over a number of issues, ranging from abortion to emergency farm assistance, the bill was rolled into the omnibus funding measure.
Funding for the Natural Resource Conservation Service, the branch of USDA responsible for carrying out a number of conservation programs, received a slight increase of $8 million to a total of $641 million. That increase must be used for furthering partnerships with state and local agencies involved with conservation activities and cannot be used for NRCS conservation programs. NRCS and conservation groups expressed disappointment over the funding level, the fact that appropriators denied finding to two important environmental plans - a water quality project and a related initiative concerning agricultural waste, and the lack of funding for the department's regulatory plan for large animal operations. The goal of the plan is to limit the amount of animal waste that enters streams and seeps into groundwater, either from storage and treatment facilities or from fields where it is used as fertilizer.
The USDA appropriations bill also included $174 for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program; 120,000 acres (45,000 acres below the Administration request) for the Wetlands Reserve Program; and $20 million for the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program.
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Despite support in the Senate for a $1.5 billion, 22-project Water Resources Development Act bill, the House failed to mark-up the legislation due to controversy over the Auburn Dam. The Senate 1998 WRDA bill would have altered the Administration's "Challenge 21" flagship plan, a new program to focus more Corps attention on nonstructural methods of flood control and prevention. Instead of the Administration's requested $325 over six years, the Senate scaled the program back to $75 million over two years. The Senate bill also included an amendment from Sen. Dirk Kempthorne (R-ID) to provide the Corps with $46 million for dam projects aimed at restoring salmon and steelhead populations on the Columbia and Snake Rivers and changed Corps policy regarding use of fees collected at recreation sites and its monetary contribution to shore protection efforts. Efforts to push the bill through the House died because of the controversial Auburn Dam, which Water and Power Subcommittee Chair John Doolittle (R-CA) wants to build on the American River. Opposition from the environmental community has succeeded in blocking the dam's construction since the 1970s.
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The House passed legislation to authorize a study of reclamation efforts on the Salton Sea in California, clearing the bill for President Clinton's signature. Although the House passed a more aggressive and ambitious version of the measure last July (H.R.3267) that authorized initiation of the reclamation project, the Senate halted progress on the project October 13 by amending the bill to authorize only a study.
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On October 19, President Clinton signed into law H.R.1481 to boost restoration activities aimed at replenishing fish and natural resources in the Great Lakes Basin. Both H.R.1481 and companion legislation in the Senate received wide support in both houses. H.R.1481 amends the Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act of 1990 to allow for the implementation of recommendations included in the "Great Lakes Fishery Restoration Study Report," a comprehensive look at the status, management, and restoration needs of fishery resources in the region. Under the bill, the federal government will provide $1.5 million for Great Lakes management offices and $3.5 million annually until 2002 for fish and wildlife restoration projects.
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Endangered Species Act
Despite enthusiasm for passing a comprehensive Endangered Species Act reform bill, S.1180 did not make it through the Senate this fall due to a number of controversial amendments. The bill, sponsored by Senate Endangered Species Subcommittee Dirk Kempthorne (R-ID), lost its initial supported by Democrats when Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) added some divisive provisions and stated that he would not bring the bill to the floor if the amendments were removed. The contentious items included provisions to make recovery implementation agreements voluntary for the federal government, grant greater power to states, and alter standards for candidate. The funding issue further deflated support for the bill, especially language forwarded by Senate Budget Committee Chair Pete Domenici (R-NM) that would have provided $350 million in set-asides for landowner incentives programs such as safe harbor agreements, habitat conservation plans, and recovery plan implementation agreements. Democrats, the White House, and the environmental community opposed the funding language because the money would come mostly from revenues generated from the sale of public lands by the Bureau of Land Management.
Kempthorne's last ditch attempt to get the bill passed by attaching it to the FY'99 omnibus legislation failed. Strongly supported by industry and landowner groups, the bill faced heavy opposition from environmental groups who argued that the bill would jeopardize recovery programs and bowed too low to development interests.
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On October 26, the House Resources Committee will hold an oversight hearing on the Endangered Species Act in New Mexico, the second ESA field hearing in New Mexico this year. The last hearing, held on August 14, was called by the Resources Forest Subcommittee and held in Espanola. The August hearing focused on several lawsuits filed by two New Mexico environmental organizations that challenged federal land management agencies, in particular the US Forest Service, over their enforcement of the act. Last July, the House Resources Committee held a full hearing in Washington, DC, to discuss various aspects of ESA enforcement and federal land management in the northern part of New Mexico.
Representative Richard Pombo (R-CA) will chair the October 26 hearing. Rep.
Pombo chaired a special Resources Committee task force on the ESA in the 104th Congress. The hearing will be held at 9 AM in the Clovis Room at the Holiday Inn, 2700 East Mabry Drive, Clovis, NM. For more information, contact Kurt Cristensen, Majority, 202-225-2761 or Jean Flemma, Minority, 202-226-2311.
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President Clinton signed into law on October 5 a measure that will provide to wildlife refuges the benefits of increased volunteer activities, private donations, and public awareness. H.R.1856, the National Wildlife Refuge System Volunteer and Partnership Enhancement Act, will help the nation's 93 million acres of wildlife refuges by directing the Department of the Interior to conduct volunteer pilot projects at wildlife refutes and providing a federal match and funds for the projects. The projects will be funded at $2 million annually through FY'02, not to exceed 20 projects nationwide.
President Clinton is also expected to sign S.2094, which would give greater freedom to the US Fish and Wildlife Service to "permit more effective use" of proceeds received from the sale of fish and wildlife products, even those containing endangered species parts, confiscated by the federal government.
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On Monday, October 26, the House Resources Committee will hold an oversight hearing on the Endangered Species Act. 9 AM, Clovis Room, Holiday Inn, 2700 East Mabry Drive, Clovis, NM. For more information, contact Kurt Cristensen, Majority, 202-225-2761 or Jean Flemma, Minority, 202-226-2311.
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From the Associated Press, October 22, 1998
"Wetlands Could Offer Remedy Against Water"
"CORCORAN, Calif. (AP) -- Scientists may have stumbled upon a natural remedy against a chemical found in farm wastewater that has poisoned waterfowl and other wildlife.
"An unrelated oil cleanup project provided intriguing evidence that some types of wetlands can convert toxic, inorganic selenium into nontoxic gas forms of the trace element.
""I really think it has a great chance of succeeding as a way of cleaning up ag drainage water," said Norman Terry, a biologist studying how to use plants as ecological warriors at the University of California, Berkeley.
""If it works, the whole western United States would be able to benefit from the technology," he said.
"Common in the Southwest, selenium is vital to humans and animals in tiny amounts, and is commonly sold in pill form to enhance anti-oxidants that fight cancer and aging.
"But it can be harmful in higher doses, and is a threat worldwide."
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QUESTIONS? Contact Suzy McDowell, Conservation Outreach Coordinator at smcdowell@amrivers.org or 202-347-7550x3040
Legislative information taken from many sources including: Congressional Green Sheets, Environment and Energy Weekly, Greenwire, and Roll Call.
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