Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1999 12:40:47 EDT
Subject: Congress takes a crack at the environment Monday, June 28, 1999
Congress takes a crack at the environment
Monday, June 28, 1999
http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1999/06/062899/legoverview_4030.asp
Congress has made a habit of dealing with environmental issues through
riders on budget bills, allowing them to pass legislation without debate
or specific votes. Since January, when it was sworn in, the 106th
Congress has pretty much ignored the environment — up until now. In the
last 10 days or so, Congress has moved on from gun control and started
tackling the annual budget bills that must be passed by Oct. 1. And with
budget bills comes environmental riders.
Issues beginning to wend their way through the halls of Congress
include:
Parks and mining
The Senate Appropriations Committee worked on the FY 2000 budget for the
Interior Department. The bill provides $13.942 billion for 40 agencies,
$19 million more than current funding. President Clinton had requested
$15.048 billion. Clinton proposed spending $1 billion next year for what
he labeled his "lands legacy" initiative, which would finance land
purchases by the federal, state and local governments for conservation
and recreation. It was one of very few major initiatives proposed by the
Clinton administration, and the bill trims the request covered in the
Interior budget of $412 million to $237 million.
The same committee voted 16-9 to exempt some mines from a 1997 Interior
Department ruling limiting the amount of land that mining operations can
use to process or dump waste. Environmentalists have long criticized the
1872 mining law as being a prime example of a government hand-out to
industry. The mining waste exemption reforms the only piece of the 1872
law that protects the public interest, says the U.S. Public Interest
group.
Terrorists vs. right to know
Congress jumped into an ongoing battle between the EPA and chemical
manufacturers over how much information should be released to the public
regarding emergency plans for chemical plants should they experience a
catastrophic release. The Senate June 24 passed the Fuels Regulatory
Relief Act to protect against certain information about chemical plants
falling into terrorists' hands and to exempt flammable fuels like
propane from EPA's risk management program. Under the bipartisan
agreement, "off-site consequences" information about catastrophic
accidents at chemical plants would be disseminated to state and local
emergency responders, but would be exempt from the Freedom of
Information Act for one year. The administration would be required to
formulate a rule governing restrictions on disclosure of the information
to the public.
Tree huggers unite
The same day, a bipartisan group of 166 members of the House of
Representatives sent Clinton a letter asking him to impose a permanent
ban on building new roads in the national forests. Clinton imposed an
18-month road-building ban in February that expires in August 2000, but
it covers only certain forests. Over half the 191 million acres of
wilderness designated as national forests are crisscrossed with roads
used for logging, mining and oil drilling. The Sierra Club says the
current logging roads are eight times longer than the nation's
interstate highway system.
Greenhouse gases
Not content to devote themselves to domestic affairs, a group of
Republican senators accused the Clinton administration of violating a
congressional ban against carrying out the global warming treaty by
planning a pilot program with Russia to jointly cut greenhouse gases
June 23. Last year Congress banned the administration from implementing
any aspects of the Kyoto treaty drafted in 1997. Administration
officials insisted that the project is voluntary and not intended to
comply with the emission-reduction requirements of the treaty.
The senators say that if the administration doesn't quit it voluntarily
they'll add language to the EPA funding bill.
Wetland preservation
A rider attached to the Senate energy and water development
appropriations bill would allow developers to appeal if the Army Corps
of Engineers decides that a wetlands exists on private property.
Neighbors or people downstream from the wetland could not appeal. Even
the corps opposes the bill, fearing more red tape. The rider is headed
to the House for debate and the Audubon Society is campaigning heavily
to get the House to kill it.
DOE: The ugly stepsister
The Department of Energy has been the ugly stepsister almost since its
inception, and every year someone is calling for it to be abolished. The
recent revelations of breaches in national security at the energy labs
hasn't done a thing to improve its credibility, and a bipartisan
coalition of senators is calling for "fundamental changes" in the
management of the nation's nuclear weapons program.
At a highly unusual hearing of four Senate committees — Armed Services,
Intelligence, Energy, and Governmental Affairs — a report by the
president's intelligence advisory board was summarized by former New
Hampshire Sen. Warren Rudman. The report's conclusion: the Energy
Department "is badly broken and it's long past time for half measures"
to ensure nuclear weapons security. Rudman chaired the advisory board
that wrote the report. Expect legislation creating a semi-autonomous
nuclear agency.
Drilling in Alaska
Alaskan Republicans Sen. Frank Murkowski and Rep. Don Young June 16
introduced a proposal to allow oil and natural gas drilling on about
12,000 acres of the coastal plain of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Environmentalists have opposed drilling in any of the refuge's 19
million acres. Similar drilling legislation was passed by Congress in
1995, but vetoed by President Clinton.
Yucca compromise
In a groundbreaking move, Senate Republicans offered a compromise June
17, loosening their stand on creating a temporary storage site in Nevada
for disposal of commercial nuclear waste. The proposal to keep the waste
at nuclear reactors in 34 states, with the federal government taking
ownership of the waste, cleared the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee by a 14-6 vote. All 11 Republican members of the panel voted
for the measure, which now awaits Senate floor action.
During the five-year controversy over what should be done with the more
than 40,000 tons of highly radioactive waste kept at nuclear reactors,
legislation to create a temporary central storage site in Nevada has
been repeatedly stymied.
Under this proposal, the waste remains where it is, the government takes
responsibility for it and utilities would drop lawsuits against the
Energy Department for failing to take the waste. There are still some
deal breakers in the formula. Murkowski's proposal calls on the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission to set radiation exposure standards, stripping EPA
of responsibility. EPA is known for pushing more stringent standards,
including a groundwater-protection requirement.
Copyright 1999, Environmental News Network, All Rights Reserved
Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
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