WASHINGTON -
October 19 - U.S. PIRG today blasted the proposed Omnibus Appropriations bill. The
group was particularly outraged at the many anti-environmental provisions or
"riders" that are still in the proposed bill.
"If the proposed bill is enacted, polluters win big and the public and the
environment lose," said Anna Aurilio, a staff scientist with U.S. PIRG. "We are
outraged that the budget negotiators in the U.S. Congress have proposed a bill that would,
among other things, weaken protection for the ozone layer, rip off taxpayers while
subsidizing oil companies, and destroy public lands," she added.
In addition to the many retrograde riders in this bill, new riders continue to surface.
"This bill already stinks, but now its getting smellier as new assaults on the
environment are uncovered," said Kim Delfino, a staff attorney with U.S. PIRG.
This bill includes riders that will:
- Double the amount of timber cut on three national forests in
California under the Quincy Library Group proposal.
- Potentially allow a road to be built through environmentally
sensitive lands within the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. It also provides $17.5
million to the East Aleutian Borough for improvements to the King Cove airport and medical
clinic and $20 million for the construction of an access road to a Cold Bay marine link.
Even though the original Izembek rider was modified to exclude the construction of
the road through a wilderness area, the rider remains objectionable because it allows the
access road to be sited within the Refuge.
- Encourage the development of fragile and flood-prone coastal
areas in Florida and South Carolina by removing these areas from the Coastal Barrier
Resource System, thereby making them eligible for federal flood insurance.
- Delay for eight months a new oil royalty rule that would
force the oil industry to stop underpaying the royalties it owes for the billions of
dollars worth of oil it extracts from public lands. The revenue from these royalties would
go to environmental programs and state public education funds. By delaying the new
rule, this provision allows the oil industry to cheat taxpayers and school children out of
approximately $44 million.
- Delay for one year much-needed environmental regulations on
mining. Right now, the mining industry does not have to comply with any environmental
standards, or guarantee that it can pay for the cleanup of environmentally destructive
mines. By delaying the mining regulations, this rider leaves the environment
unprotected and ensures that taxpayers will end up paying for more cleanups of toxic
mining sites.
- Perpetuate environmentally-destructive grazing practices by
allowing the Bureau of Land Management to reauthorize grazing permits affecting at least
25 million acres without conducting any environmental review.
- Allow private companies to chop down trees in exchange for
performing certain forest protection activities. Some of these stewardship
activities may be environmentally worthy, but the rider sets up the program to be abused
by failing to provide for any oversight, and also creates a perverse cycle of chopping
down the forests to help save them.
- Encourage the logging of more old-growth trees from the
Tongass National Forest in Alaska, by tying the sale of much-demanded red cedar to the
amount of timber sold in Alaska overall.
- Remove a rider that would dictate massive increases in
logging from the Tongass National Forest, but only in exchange for increasing the
commercial timber sale and roadbuilding budget for the Tongass by $12.5 million.
- Prevent federal agencies from using any funds to reintroduce
grizzly bears into the Selway-Bitterroot ecosystem of Idaho and Montana.
- Deny funding for the removal of dams on the Elwha River in
Washington, hampering restoration efforts for threatened and endangered species of salmon.
- Pay for a $15 million road to a privately owned ski resort
across environmentally sensitive land in Utah, and allow the road to be constructed
without any environmental review.
- Impede Alaska parkland acquisition by requiring the
government to seek to exchange public lands for private lands in parks instead of giving
the government flexibility to decide to do a land exchange or a buy out.
- Circumvent environmental review for three highway projects
in California, New York, and Alabama. The California highway project is to be built
within a state park that contains fragile wetland coastal habitat and is home to at least
six threatened or endangered species.
- Transfer the Land Between the Lakes forest, a valued 170,000
acre hardwood forest in Kentucky, to the Forest Service and open it up to logging.
This rider waives compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act and sets up
a perverse funding mechanism that funds the Land Between the Lakes Forest with money from
logging and mining.
- Undermine the Wilderness Act by shifting the emphasis in
managing wilderness areas from solitude to recreational use.
- Divert 10% of the Roads and Trails Fund which is used to
repair and improve roads and trails to unspecified "forest health" projects.
In other words, this provision takes roads and trails money and puts it toward
timber sales.
- Push back four years, from 2001 to 2005, the phase-out date
of methyl bromide, a major culprit in the depletion of the ozone layer.
- Block the Department of Transportation from updating CAFÉ
standards (miles-per-gallon standards) for cars and light trucks, even thought these
standards have not been significantly updated since 1985. Current standards reflect
neither improvements in technology nor the types of vehicles on the road.
- Require the Office of Management and Budget to develop
burdensome and duplicative cost-benefit analyses that will be "peer reviewed" in
secret. The public will not be given an opportunity to comment on these analyses.
"Anti-environmental riders like the Quincy Library
Group proposal and the methyl bromide rider run roughshod over our public lands and
threaten public health and safety," said Kim Delfino.
U.S. PIRG commended White House negotiators for stripping some anti-environmental riders,
including several which would have restricted salmon recovery plans on the Columbia and
Snake Rivers, waived endangered species protections, and increased logging in certain
national forests. U.S. PIRG also praised the $120 million increase in energy efficiency
and renewable energy programs.
"While we applaud the Administration's success at stripping certain
anti-environmental riders and increasing funding for clean energy programs, this proposed
bill still contains unacceptable anti-environmental riders which cheat the American public
out of a clean environment while handing our hard-earned tax dollars and precious natural
resources to polluters," said Lexi Shultz, a staff attorney with U.S. PIRG.
"Last week, the President said that he would veto a bill that did 'unacceptable harm
to the environment.' Well, this is where the rubber hits the road," said Kim
Delfino. "Unless the remaining anti-environmental riders are removed, we call
on President Clinton to live up to his promise and veto this bill," she added.
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U.S. PIRG is the national lobbying office for the state
PIRGs. The PIRGs are non-profit, nonpartisan consumer and environmental watchdog
groups active across the country.
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