Copyright 2000 The Times-Picayune Publishing Co.
The Times-Picayune
May 12, 2000 Friday, ORLEANS
SECTION: NATIONAL; Pg. A01
LENGTH: 1025 words
HEADLINE:
U.S. HOUSE OKS BILL TO FUEL CONSERVATION
BYLINE: By Bruce Alpert Washington bureau
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:
A bill that would significantly increase money for
conservation programs passed the House handily Thursday, but
still faces an uphill fight in the Senate. Even so, Louisiana officials are
already formulating plans for how to spend the bill's potential $311
million-a-year windfall.
Of the 50 states, Louisiana would be the
second-biggest beneficiary -- after California -- from the $2.8 billion-a-year
Conservation and Reinvestment Act, passed 315 to 102.
"We've already started the planning process with our own money so that
we'll be ready to go," said Jack Caldwell, secretary of the Louisiana Department
of Natural Resources.
Louisiana, together with the Army Corps of
Engineers, has agreed to pay for a three-year, $6 million study to preserve the
Barataria Basin -- an early part of a planned $14 billion strategy to protect
the entire Louisiana coast, Caldwell said.
"Getting this legislation
through will be such a huge help to us in restoring our declining coastline, and
I'm delighted with the House action," Caldwell said.
The bill, which
passed after more than 12 hours of sometimes acrimonious debate, now goes to the
Senate, where property rights advocates vow an all-out effort to kill it.
--- 'No better legacy' ---
The bill would use royalty revenue
from offshore oil and gas drilling to finance conservation,
wildlife, recreation and historic preservation programs.
Some critics,
including Rep. William "Mac" Thornberry, R-Texas, complained that the bill
provides a disproportionate share of money to Louisiana and would leave future
Congresses unable to pay for other priority programs, such as education and
veterans health care.
But Louisiana members said that nearly 90 percent
of the offshore drilling occurs off the state's coast and that its environmental
needs are well-documented.
"We lose 25 square miles of coastline a year,
a football field a day," said Rep. Chris John, D-Crowley. "I can think of no
better legacy to leave not only my twin sons, but also the future generations of
this whole country, the outdoors that I have enjoyed living in in south
Louisiana, fishing in the estuaries that are so rich and plentiful with fish and
ducks and shrimp and crawfish, but also the open spaces."
Rep. Billy
Tauzin, R-Chackbay, joined with John and others to defeat an amendment by
Thornberry that would have delayed the coastal impact assistance for five years
and added further private property protection that they said could have
threatened the bill's passage by angering environmentalists.
Tauzin, in
a speech on the House floor, said that Louisiana "can't afford to wait five
years."
--- $45 billion over 15 years ---
The bill, the most
ambitious environmental legislation before the Congress in recent years, would
commit nearly $45 billion over the next 15 years for a host of programs
nationwide, ranging from coastal restoration, acquiring property to save
endangered species and habitat, buying land for urban and suburban parks, ball
fields and bike paths, and rebuilding eroding beaches.
The coastal
impact assistance comes without a matching requirement, meaning that Louisiana's
precarious financial status won't impede projects, Caldwell said.
One
amendment that did pass over the objections of supporters requires the
Congressional Budget Office to certify that the federal debt will be paid off by
2013 before money can be released for many of the act's proposals.
John
said the amendment would stall many projects, because the CBO is "on record as
saying that it can't make such a certification, giving the difficulty predicting
future economic surges or declines that determine future revenue streams."
"I'm hoping that we can get this amendment out of the bill in the
Senate, or when it goes before the conference committee," John said.
---
Significant safeguards ---
Reps. David Vitter, R-Metairie, and John
Cooksey, R-Monroe, voted for the amendment, with Vitter saying he came to
Congress committed to fiscal discipline. But he said the provision shouldn't
block any of the bill's major spending from moving forward.
For the most
part, supporters beat back amendments designed to make it harder for the
government to buy land for conservation.
Tauzin, long a
champion of the property rights movement, said the bill already contained
significant safeguards, including a provision that barred the government from
using the Land and Water Conservation Fund to buy land from
unwilling sellers.
An amendment proposed by Rep. Richard Pombo,
R-Calif., would have slashed the money available for land purchases, but it was
defeated 315- 95.
"This bill does not hurt private property," said Rep.
Don Young, R- Alaska, chairman of the Resources Committee. He compared the
legislation, developed during months of negotiations, to a "delicate house of
cards" - - a balance of political interests that will fall apart if tinkered
with. All but a few of the more than two dozen amendments offered were defeated.
The bill, sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., is
endorsed by a wide range of groups, including all 50 governors, the National
Wildlife Federation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Environmental groups said
the key provision requires that the 36-year-old Land and Water
Conservation Fund spend at its authorized level of $900 million
a year -- three times what is now spent on federal and state land purchases.
"This is the single most significant commitment our nation has ever made
to investments in wildlife and wild places. The benefits will be felt in every
state for generations to come," said Mark Van Putten, president of the National
Wildlife Federation.
But Pombo and other property rights advocates said
the federal government already owns too much property, much of which it lacks
the resources to maintain properly.
Property rights groups say that
Pombo's colleagues in the Senate will be able to filibuster to prevent the
bill's passage there. But Landrieu said House passage of the
Conservation and Reinvestment Act builds momentum that
opponents will find hard to stop.
"I'm optimistic that we will prevail,"
Landrieu said.
GRAPHIC: ROLL CALL How members of the
Louisiana congressional delegation voted on a bill to create a $45 billion,
15-year conservation fund. The bill passed 315-102. YES: Baker,
R-Baton Rouge Cooksey, R-Monroe Jefferson, D-New Orleans John, D-Crowley
McCrery, R-Shreveport Tauzin, R-Chackbay Vitter, R- Metairie.
LOAD-DATE: May 12, 2000 
