1. APPROPRIATIONS:

• Appropriations Process Overview

• Interior Conference Report

• Anti-Environmental Riders

• Commerce-Justice-State Departments Appropriations Bill

2. WILDLIFE & WILDLANDS:

• Everglades Restoration and the Water Resources Development Act

• Marine Package Approved in Senate

• Bear Protection Act

• Great Apes Protection Act

CONGRESSIONAL CALENDAR

APPROPRIATIONS

• APPROPRIATIONS PROCESS OVERVIEW

  For a current list of the status of all 13 federal appropriations bills click here: http://lcweb.loc.gov/global/legislative/appover.html This week’s negotiations on the final spending bills has been marked by continued delays and slow progress on the remaining bills. The District of Columbia Appropriations bill is being held in reserve as a vehicle for attaching any remaining priority legislation such as the Everglades Restoration bill (more below) that the congressional leadership wants to move. Although congressional sources had optimistically hoped to wrap things up by Friday, October 20 when the latest continuing resolution expires, another one has been approved, this time funding the government through October 25. President Clinton has declared that he will oppose any further continuing resolutions longer than two or three days.

• Interior Appropriations Conference Report

  On October 11, President Clinton signed into law an historic funding package providing billions of dollars in new, dedicated funding for a broad range of federal and state conservation programs in the Conference Report on H.R. 4578, the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001. We reported on this new package in the previous Capitol Hill Report. The funding package is the product of efforts over the past two years by the Clinton-Gore Administration, Congressional supporters, and conservation interests. The House overwhelmingly passed the conference report on October 3 by a vote of 349-68. The Senate vote, on October 5, was 83 to 13. For federal and state land acquisition programs, the legislation establishes a new, multi-year, multi-billion dollar, dedicated fund that replaces the current paper funding authorization that in years past has only led to ever larger ‘conservation deficits’. These critically needed funds will help protect the last vestiges of open space, wildlife habitat, and wildlands across our country before they are lost forever. The package sets aside dedicated funding over the next six years for numerous conservation programs, including the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). Although the LWCF was established in 1964 to provide significant annual funding for federal and state land purchases for conservation and recreation purposes, the program has been chronically underfunded by past congresses and presidents, who have diverted the funding to other programs. Funding is also provided for other important conservation programs including ones to aid endangered species and other declining wildlife, fight urban sprawl, preserve forest land, protect coasts, and promote historic preservation. Over the next six years, the dedicated fund for all the programs totals $12 billion - almost all of which is new funding. The funding package is a compromise between a Lands Legacy proposal made by President Clinton in his February budget request to Congress, popular bipartisan legislation called the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA) and a proposal made during negotiations by Representative Norm Dicks (D-WA).

• Anti-Environmental Riders

  A rider in the FY2001 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill blocking efforts to protect and restore habitat for the piping plover, least tern and pallid sturgeon in the Energy and Water appropriations bill was dropped after the bill was vetoed by President Clinton. Unable to muster enough support to override, Senate leaders convinced Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) to withdraw his rider. The rider had been in the same bill for the last four years and this was one of the few cases when one of the "old riders" (those that were on previous spending bills) was dropped. Special thanks go to Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Tom Daschle (D-SD) who lead the floor fight, to the 37 Senators who voted against the Energy and Water conference report and to the President who steadfastly refused to compromise on a spending bill until the rider was dropped. The revised Energy and Water Appropriations bill has since been combined with VA/HUD spending bill and awaits final approval by the House which is expected as is that by the Senate once some House added pork projects are digested. The President is expected to sign the bill into law once it reaches his desk. Senate passage of the VA-HUD bill came after a heated battle to remove anti-environmental riders led by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA). In the end, several riders remained including Kyoto Protocol language that does reject some very bad language in the House committee report and returns to the fiscal 1999 language barring new rules that would implement or prepare to implement the unratified accord. Another rider delays plans to designate communities and counties around the country as not complying with tougher smog standards and one provides for a six-month delay in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) drinking water regulations for naturally occurring arsenic. The conference report also directs the EPA to delay dredging of waters containing toxic sediments such as PCBs where a plan has not been adopted by October. 1, 2000, or where dredging is not occurring, until a National Academy of Sciences study, due out in January, is complete.

• Commerce-Justice-State Departments Appropriations Bill

  The Interior bill signed into law on October 11 sets aside funding for coastal and marine conservation that must still be allocated to specific programs in the Commerce-Justice-State (CJS) appropriations bill, but environmentalists remain concerned over efforts underway in the Senate to allow these funds to be used for harmful activities in the coastal zone. Harmful uses of coastal funding has been one of the main points of contention in the CARA legislation. These precious conservation dollars are needed to protect the fragile coastal zone, not further damage it with new roads, ports, and other harmful infrastructure. Defenders of Wildlife wants to make sure that any authorizing language restricts how the states can spend any impact assistance and coastal conservation funds that end up in the CJS bill, and prevent a future administration from putting incentives for OCS activity back in to the allocation formula. The House CJS bill was passed in June but it has never seen full Senate action. As the CJS Conference report continues to be negotiated, another big threat looms - a possible rider to undermine court-ordered protection of the Steller sea lion's critical habitat. Despite 10 years of evidence that the sea lions are declining because industrial trawlers are taking their food supplies, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has acquiesced to industry pressure and balked at any changes in methods of fishing to protect the sea lions. With young sea lions starving and the population dropping to 20% of 1980s levels, the courts finally intervened and forced the NMFS to prevent the sea lions from starving to extinction. NMFS has been ordered by the courts to revise its biological opinion and provide greater protections for sea lions. The court also ordered all trawlers out of sea lion critical habitat while NMFS completes its studies this fall. The opinion is due sometime in late October but the industry and its supporters in Congress, including the powerful Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee Ted Stevens (R-AK), don't want to risk receiving the bad news that the trawlers will have to fish elsewhere so that the sea lions can survive. Many observers expect him or others to attach a 'midnight rider' undermining the court order in the last days of Congress. DEN members have been alerted to this critical issue and have been pressed to send a fax to their Representative and Senator and also to send an e-mail to the White House urging them to remove this anti-endangered species rider.

WILDLIFE AND WILDLANDS

• Everglades Restoration Authorization and the Water Resources Development Act

  The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday approved a comprehensive framework for restoring the Florida Everglades and authorized an initial 14 restoration projects costing $1.4 billion. The legislation, part of the Water Resources Development Act of 2000 (WRDA 2000), creates a framework for a plan that would be the world’s single largest environmental restoration project. The project is ultimately expected to cost $7.8 billion and take 30-40 years, with funding coming equally from the federal government and the State of Florida. Passage of this legislation represents historic victories for the Everglades, wildlife, and the citizens of our nation. Restoration of the Everglades has gained broad bipartisan support in Congress, and with conservationists, the government of Florida, and agriculture, homebuilding, and utility interests in Florida. The Florida Everglades is one of our nation's and nature’s crown jewels. For generations, tourists from the U.S. and around the world have come to see this unique place and the wildlife that depend upon it. The Everglades is home to more than 300 bird species, 11,000 species of plants, and numerous species of fish and marine mammals like the endangered Florida manatee. The Everglades also provides some of the last remaining habitat for 68 federally listed threatened or endangered species, including the American crocodile and the Florida panther. Years of draining its wetlands and encroachment by an ever-increasing Florida population have taken a toll on the now-endangered ecosystem. Water, the most fundamental resource in the Everglades, has been diverted and rerouted out to sea, away from the plants and animals that need it. Despite these problems, restoration of the Everglades is within sight. Last year, the Army Corps of Engineers released an ambitious and historic blueprint for restoring this troubled treasure. As the bill moves into conference, environmentalists are working to ensure that anti-environmental provisions in WRDA 2000 are removed. Apart from Everglades restoration, there is extreme concern with other provisions in WRDA 2000 that would have adverse impacts on wildlife and their habitat. For example, Section 313 in the Senate-passed version of the bill would limit efforts to protect and restore habitat for Missouri River fish and wildlife, particularly for federally endangered and threatened species. While the authorization of Everglades restoration funding should be applauded, at the same time Congress must not jeopardize other environmentally-sensitive areas through Corps projects.

• Marine Package Passes Senate

  The Senate has passed with minor amendments, a package of marine-related bills which include: the reauthorization of the Coastal Zone Management Act for five years; the discouragement of shark finning (the practice of catching sharks, removing their fins and dumping the carcasses back into the ocean). Note that the House passed a measure that would halt the practice altogether in U.S. waters (H.R. 3535, H. Rpt. 106-650) and the Senate version combines that language with a provisions encouraging the federal government to begin collecting data on which other nations engage in shark finning, and to negotiate to reduce the practice internationally); the reauthorization of the 1984 Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act; the renewal of the Fisherman’s Protection Act, which includes provisions to allow continued operations of a U.S. panel to advise on conservation of salmon stocks in the Yukon River and to ban spotting planes in Atlantic bluefin tuna fishing in New England (H.R. 1651 and H.R. 1652).; the reauthorization of the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act, which governs management plans for such species as American lobster, bluefish, shad, herring, summer flounder and horseshoe crabs. (H.R. 4840, H. Rpt. 106-804); the establishment of a program of grants to promote protection and conservation of corals, based on two Senate bills (S. 725 and S. 3133); funding to provide federal aid for efforts to save marine mammals stranded on American shores.

• Bear Protection Act

  The Senate passed by unanimous consent legislation (S. 1109, S. Rpt. 106-484) banning traffic in bear viscera. The Bear Protection Act would prohibit the import, export, and interstate commerce of the bear's internal organs, such as the gallbladder. Faced with dwindling bear populations in Asia, poachers are now turning to North America to fuel the increasing demand for bear parts used as medical remedies in many Asian countries. The bill aims to protect the American bear population from a growing number of poachers who kill bears for parts such as gall bladders and bile commonly used in traditional Asian medicine and as ingredients in luxury shampoos and cosmetics. Thanks to the over 10,000 DEN members who sent faxes to their Senators urging them to pass this legislation.

• Great Apes Protection Act Passes Senate

  The Senate cleared by voice vote a measure to fund worldwide conservation efforts to protect great ape populations. The legislation will authorize $5 million per year to fund projects to protect populations of chimpanzees, gorillas, gibbons, and orangutans - all of which are endangered. The funds will be used for such activities as habitat loss, population fragmentation, the establishment of ape sanctuaries, community outreach and rehabilitation programs. The House passed the bill in July and the President is expected to sign the measure into law in the next several days.

© Defenders of Wildlife 2000