09-23-2000

APPROPRIATIONS: Wildfires Burn Conferees On Interior Spending Bill

House and Senate conferees this week picked up their shovels and loaded
the fiscal 2001 Interior appropriations bill with lots of election-year
largesse, but some provisions included in the conference report could draw
the ire of the White House and prompt a veto.


At press time, conferees were still discussing funds for the President's
cherished Lands Legacy Initiative. But they agreed to compensate
private-property owners for losses stemming from this summer's record
number of wildfires, and accepted a proposal by Sen. Pete V. Domenici,
R-N.M., to spend $240 million to help at-risk communities curtail the
possibility of future wildfires.


Conferees began negotiations on Sept. 20. "This bill has come a long
way since it passed the House," said Rep. Norman Dicks, D-Wash., the
ranking member of the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee.


Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., the chairman of the Senate Interior
Appropriations Subcommittee, said conferees tentatively agreed on a fiscal
2001 budget of about $18 billion, a $3 billion increase over fiscal 2000.
But more than half of that increase is for emergency spending to help the
federal government deal with this summer's Western wildfires, some of
which are still burning.


The conference report would appropriate nearly $1.8 billion for the
effort, which includes the $1.6 billion requested by the Administration.
Most of the money would go to replenish accounts used to fund firefighting
activities. The rest would go to environmental restoration and to help
rebuild federal facilities destroyed by the fires.


While both political parties accepted that firefighting proposal, they
were more uneasy about accepting some lawmakers' requests for additional
funds for their home states. Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Conrad Burns,
R-Mont., proposed spending an additional $320 million in emergency money
to help fire-ravaged areas in their states, but several Senators said
appropriating that much money, in addition to the $1.8 billion already in
the legislation, would be excessive.


Conferees agreed to appropriate $130 million for state and
private-property compensation in all states hurt by the fires-with a
supplemental spending bill picking up the rest of the tab next
year.


In a related matter, conferees accepted a proposal by Domenici to
appropriate $240 million, split evenly between the Forest Service and the
Bureau of Land Management, to help certain areas located near forests to
clear out underbrush and other hazardous materials as part of an effort to
prevent future wildfires in those areas.


On the Lands Legacy Initiative, conferees boosted funds for the program
into the $400 million range, a significant increase over both the House-
and Senate-passed Interior bills. But Democratic aides said that is still
about $550 million short of the President's request. Gorton said he is
willing to negotiate a higher funding level for the program, but he was
unwilling to make its land preservation initiative permanent, as the White
House would like to do.


Meanwhile, Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., narrowed his proposal blocking
the Administration from proceeding with the Columbia Basin Ecosystem
Management Project. Conferees accepted provisions that would force the
Interior Department to study the effect the plan would have on small
communities before moving forward. Democrats said the proposal was an
improvement, but warned the Administration still opposed it.


The White House will also probably oppose the inclusion of another
provision, included at the behest of Gorton, to enact a one-year
moratorium preventing the Administration from tearing down dams-or even
studying the possibility-on the lower Snake River to help save endangered
salmon. Democrats complained that the White House has never endorsed such
a proposal and that the issue was brought up for "political
means."


On another key issue in the Interior spending bill, the National Endowment
for the Arts, negotiators sought a compromise between the agency's critics
and supporters. The House agreed to provide funds for the agency at the
Senate-approved level-$105 million, or $7 million more than the House
originally appropriated. But to satisfy House conservatives who have
opposed the NEA, that $7 million increase would be put into a new account,
the Challenge America Arts Fund, for public outreach and education
activities.


Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Interior Appropriations
Subcommittee, called the account a "good solution" to his
dilemma, but the overall total for the NEA is still about $50 million
short of the Administration's request. Rep. David R. Obey, D-Wis., the
ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, said the White House
would insist on an increase before signing the bill.


Bill Ghent

National Journal