| For Immediate Release | |
| September 15, 1999 | |
| Contact: | Jesal Mehta
202-682-9400 x284 (Media) |
| Marybeth Beetham 202-682-9400 x231 (Program) |
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Senate Interior Appropriations on Floor: Washington D.C. - Rodger Schlickeisen, President of
Defenders of Wildlife said today at a Capitol Hill press conference that
sneak anti-environmental riders on appropriation bills pose "the biggest
legislative threat to the environment".
"This Congress is once again up to its stealth tactics. It will be
remembered as the Covert Congress. If the Interior Appropriations Bill
passes with the current riders, our nation’s wildlife and public lands
will suffer immensely. We have seen what kind of damage these riders can
do and, the conservation community will not stand for it, Defenders
along with others will keep fighting the ‘green’ battle," said
Schlickeisen. "If the damaging riders survive the House - Senate
conference, we ask the President to use his veto pen. He has taken a
stand against anti-environmental riders in the past and we call on him
to do so again."
The Senate Interior Appropriations bill, currently under
consideration on the Senate floor, contains at least 10 anti-
environmental riders, some of which would be extremely damaging to
critical wildlife conservation efforts.
One of these would undermine science-based management of National
Forest and Bureau of Land Management lands and the National Forest
Management Act by giving the agencies sole discretion over whether to
conduct wildlife population surveys when making land management
decisions. Without adequate wildlife surveys and monitoring, the Forest
Service or Bureau of Land Management has no way of knowing what impacts
logging or other management activities have on the populations of
individual species or on the broader ecosystem.
Another rider attacks a critical effort to recover grizzly bears by
reintroducing them into the Selway-Bitteroot ecosystem of Idaho and
Montana. An initial version of the rider was stricken when the bill was
brought to the floor in order to comply with the recently reinstated
Senate Rule XVI, which prohibits legislating on appropriations bills.
The initial version of the rider would have ensured that no bears could
be reintroduced into Idaho and Montana without written consent from the
governors of those states and it would have made this requirement apply
forever, not just to a given fiscal year.
This rider would have created an unprecedented situation in which a
U.S. Endangered Species Act program on federal lands would be regulated
by the states. Before the bill is passed by the Senate, Senator Conrad
Burns (R-MT) is expected to offer a different version of the provision
that would prohibit reintroduction of the bears in the upcoming fiscal
year, thus derailing this collaborative effort by local timber,
conservation, and labor interests to restore grizzly bears into Idaho
and Montana. Senator Burns has been heard on many occasions to vow his
intention to kill this crucial grizzly recovery effort.
A list of the latest anti-environmental riders is available, contact
Jesal Mehta.
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