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Back to top or back to home page or back to Whats New House Agriculture Committee: The House Agriculture Committee will meet on Wednesday, January 20 for its organizational session. The procedural meeting will be held at 1:30 pm in 1300 Longworth Building. Back to top or back to home page or back to Whats New The House Appropriations Committee has scheduled a closed meeting for Tuesday, January 19 to organize into subcommittees. Newly selected Chairman Bill Young (R-FL) and other committee Republicans finished reorganizing the full committee earlier in January. Representative Ron Packard (R-CA) has been appointed Chair of the Energy and Water Development subcommittee and Representative James Walsh (R-NY) will be Chair of the VA-HUD Independent Agencies Subcommittee. Representative David Obey (D-WI) remains in the top minority position on the full committee. Ranking Democratic positions will be decided on Friday. With Democrats gaining a new committee slot, the ratio on the committee will be 34 Republicans to 27 Democrats. Back to top or back to home page or back to Whats New Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee have not yet announced their subcommittee assignments. They must fill positions on four subcommittees vacated by retired Senator Dale Bumpers (D-AK). Back to top or back to home page or back to Whats New Earlier this month, Committee Chair Thomas Bliley (R-VA) announced his organizational plan. The two new subcommittee chair announcements were Representative Fred Upton (R-MI) as Chair of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee and Representative Joe Barton (R-TX) as Chair of the Energy and Power Subcommittee. Although House Commerce Committee Democrats will not announced their subcommittee organization until after a closed meeting later this week, they have written to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) to urge him to correct the lopsided party representation on the committee. While the Republicans hold 51.3 percent of the House, their representation in the Commerce Committee is 54.7 percent. On the committee, Republicans hold 29 seats while the Democrats have 24. Back to top or back to home page or back to Whats New Senator John McCain, Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, has called an organizational meeting at 9:30 am on Wednesday January 20 in 253 Russell Building to set subcommittee assignments. Back to top or back to home page or back to Whats New Senate Environment Committee: Chair John Chafee (R-RI) has called a meeting of the full Senate Environment and Public Works Committee for Wednesday January 20 at 9:30 am in 406 Dirksen to outline the committee's agenda, introduce four new members, and adopt rules. Two new members will chair subcommittees: Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) will chair the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee and Mike Crapo (R-ID) the Drinking Water, Fisheries, and Wildlife Subcommittee. The other two new Republican committee members are Senator Day Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Senator Robert Bennett (R-UT). The Democratic membership of the full committee has not changed, but several reassignments will be announced on Wednesday. Back to top or back to home page or back to Whats New President Clinton Announces $1 Billion Plan to Fully Fund the LWCF: On January 12, President Bill Clinton unveiled a proposal - "Lands Legacy" - to provide wilderness, parks, and coastal areas with an additional $1 billion in fiscal year 2000 through the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Although the initial $1.03 billion for the LWCF is a one-time allocation, President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore will push legislators to set up permanent funding for the program in FY'01. LWCF was enacted in 1965 as a two-pronged fund providing revenue from offshore oil and gas receipts for federal purchases and matching land grants to states for similar projects. Although the program can receive as much as $900 million annually, it has dwindled over the years. According to Congress, the LWCF has an $11 billion credit because the money is often used for other purposes, including balancing the budget. "Lands Legacy" preserves LWCF's federal component - funded at $442 million, and retools the stateside program - funded at $588 million, to underwrite matching grants for land acquisition, planning, farmland protection, urban parks, forest protection, and other conservation programs, including protection of oceans and reefs through coastal zone management and restoration efforts. For further details, see the White House's web site at www.whitehouse.gov. At the January 12 announcement, President Clinton also urged Congress to designate an additional five million acres of wilderness land in Arches, Big Bend, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Crater Lake, Glacier, Grand Teton, Great Smokey Mountains, Rocky Mountain, Yellowstone, and Zion national parks; Cedar Breaks, Colorado, and Dinosaur national monuments; Assateague Island National Seashore/Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge; and Cumberland Gap National Historic Park. Back to top or back to home page or back to Whats New House Resources Committee: The House Resources Committee will gather at 3:00 pm Tuesday January 19 in 1324 Longworth Building to announce subcommittee assignments and adopt the committee rules and hiring resolution. Subcommittee chair assignments are not expected to change. Among the scheduled meetings announced by the committee are: Back to top or back to home page or back to Whats New Salmon Advocates Tell Administration to Honor its Promise on Salmon Recovery: On
January 15, American Rivers, Trout Unlimited, and Save Our Wild Salmon called on the Clinton Administration to honor its promise to produce its long term recovery plan for Snake River salmon in December 1999, despite a new delay in the release of the Army Corps of Engineers' Draft Environmental Impact Statement. In order to avoid intervention by a federal judge in response to a lawsuit challenging the Clinton Administration's 1995 Biological Opinion, the Administration promised to provide a long term recovery plan for Columbia Basin salmon by December 1999. The choice is basically between partially removing the four federal dams on the Lower Snake River or continuing the strategy of barging and trucking young fish around the dams. The Army Corps of Engineers was scheduled to produce its Draft Environmental Impact Statement in April, but the Corps just announced that the DEIS will be delayed to allow for more economic studies. The Corps continues to focus only on the costs of partially removing the four dams. Salmon advocates are asking for studies of the benefits of salmon recovery and of the consequences of letting these fish go extinct, and for the Administration to produce an Economic Transition Plan that provides assistance to the affected communities in the Northwest. The Corps' EIS is not the only source of information for the December 1999 decision, nor will the Corps actually make the decision. The final decision will be made by the Administration. For more information, see the American Rivers webpage at http://www.amrivers.org/salmon2-press.html. American Rivers, 1025 Vermont Avenue, NW, Suite 720 Washington, DC 20005, (202) 347-7550 CHECK OUT OUR HOMEPAGE!! http://www.amrivers.org 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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