Copyright 2000 The Washington Post
The Washington
Post
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May 18, 2000, Thursday, Final Edition
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A07
LENGTH: 497 words
HEADLINE:
WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
BODY:
Panel Cuts Parks
Budget
A House panel voted yesterday to slash President
Clinton's plans for purchasing new parklands next year by 70 percent, prompting
Democratic warnings that a veto battle lay ahead.
The cuts were part of
a $ 14.6 billion measure financing the Interior Department and cultural programs
in fiscal 2001. The measure has other environmental provisions the
administration also opposes, including a prohibition on improvements in the four
national monuments Clinton has created this year in California and Arizona.
The overall bill, approved by voice vote by a subcommittee of the House
Appropriations Committee, provides $ 300 million less than this year and $ 1.7
billion less than Clinton requested. Democrats declared the bill unsalvageable
for now.
Telephone Tax Repeal Likely
A federal tax on telephone service originally imposed to pay for
the Spanish-American War would be repealed over three years under legislation
approved unanimously by the House Ways and Means Committee.
Bipartisan
support for the bill, which the full House is likely to pass next week, was
tempered by a letter from Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers expressing
support for the concept but warning that its five-year, $ 20 billion cost must
be considered in an overall budget and spending blueprint.
FBI
Issues Puerto Rican Files
The FBI director released decades-old
surveillance files on suspected Puerto Rican independence leaders to a New York
member of the House. Director Louis J. Freeh also pledged increased cooperation
in releasing additional files, Democratic Rep. Jose E. Serrano said after he and
lawmakers from Puerto Rico's Senate met with the FBI leader.
"The
meeting for me was historic, dramatic and important because I saw from the
director a desire to deal with this ugly part of our history," said Serrano, who
was born in Puerto Rico.
The FBI only recently acknowledged that it
played a role in police surveillance in Puerto Rico that produced more than
135,000 secret dossiers spanning more than three decades. FBI officials did not
immediately return a phone call seeking comment.
McCain on
Climate Change
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) expressed concern
about the "mounting evidence" pointing to global climate change and the
potential for harm but said any action should be based on science "and not on
rhetoric or political expedience."
The former GOP presidential contender
made good on a campaign promise and held a hearing before his Senate Commerce
Committee on global warming. A half-dozen scientists told him that the surface
of the Earth is warming, that concentrations of "greenhouse gases" have
significantly increased in the atmosphere and that there's plenty of evidence
humans have something to do with it.
McCain had been dogged during his
unsuccessful presidential campaign by a group of environmental activists,
especially in New Hampshire, who pressed him on the climate issue.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: May 18, 2000 
