Fisheries and Conservation News from the Pacific
Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations and the
Insititute for Fisheries Resources
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BREAKING NEWS: Acting just hours before the expriation of the 13th
stop-gap "Continuing Resolution" and a third widespread closure of the
government, hardpressed GOP budget negotiators acquiesced to most
of the Administration's demands to remove various anti-environmental
riders or provided the President the authority to waive them. Among the
provisions which directly affect the health of the nation's fisheries are the
removal of a rider stripping the EPA of its independent review authority
over wetlands fill permits; the restoration of funding to complete the
"Eastside EIS" analysis of logging and other salmon fishery impacts in the
upper Columbia River Basin; and authorityfor the President to block otherwise
mandatory increases of logging in the Tongass National Forest in amounts and
areas that would severely damage key salmon runs.
While first-hand details are still hard to come by, the press also states
that the ESA listing moratorium has also been lifted and some funding
restored to the listing and prelisting protection program. The exact press
quote is:
"The Interior Department will get $4 million, about half what it got in
1995, for adding new varieties of plants and animals to the list of those
protected under the Endangered Species Act. Congress' year-long
moratorium on adding new wildlife to the protected list will end
immediately." (Knight-Ridder)
The White House was also able to strip language in the bill inserted by
Senator Hatfield which would have made the "timber salvage rider"
exemption from all environmental laws PERMANENT for Section 318 sales,
but was not able to insert language calling for the repeal of the rider
itself -- a fact that weighs heavily on some of the Northwest's key salmon
runs in those cuts, and greatly disappoints those working for the logging
rider's repeal. However, there may be some language allowing for more
flexible timber substitutions for the worst sales.
The Ninth Circuit also today upheld the enormously destructive
"salvage rider" expansion by Judge Hogan, coming as a double blow to
efforts to repeal the logging rider. The Ninth Circuit said, basicly, that
Congress did indeed intend to exempt most salvage logging from all
environmental laws and that therefore Judge Hogan's ruling was correct.
We are still awaiting confirmation of these facts. In the meantime, here
is a roundup of the press coverage and bulletins we have received so
far. -- The Editor (Glen Spain)
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BUDGET COMPROMISE SUMMARY
By David Hess and Heather Dewar
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON -- Like any compromise, the belated deal struck on the 1996 budget
by the White House and congressional Republicans had winners and losers.
But to hear leaders on both sides exult about it Thursday, you'd think that
everybody won.
That's the essence of compromise, said freshman Rep. David Weldon, R-Fla.,
one of the House's most conservative members. ``You could never get a deal
unless both parties could come away from the table and declare victory.''
The House approved the $160 billion package by a resounding 399-25 vote and
the Senate prepared to do likewise Thursday night. The bill funds the federal
government through the rest of fiscal 1996, which ends Sept. 30. President
Clinton, claiming victory for the American people, said he would sign the
measure as soon as it reached his desk.
In the end, Republican negotiators caved in to the president on a range of
issues from education and the environment to community policing and summer
jobs for youth. The president also prevailed in his efforts to shield
Medicare and Medicaid from sharp cutbacks.
``Much of the education funding was restored, summer jobs money was restored,
we got significantly more funding for low-income heating assistance, and they
backed off of their indefensible attacks on the (Environmental Protection
Agency) and environmental enforcement,'' said Rep. Martin Olav Sabo of
Minnesota, the senior Democrat on the Budget Committee.
But Republicans boasted that they managed to cut $23 billion in spending from
the level in last year's budget, to go along with another $20 billion they
stripped from previously approved 1995 spending. That makes for a grand total
in savings of $43 billion since the GOP took control after the `94 elections.
``That's about $700 in savings for every working family in America,'' said
House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. ``No, we didn't get everything we liked,
but it's a remarkable step in the right direction toward balancing the
budget.''
Republicans also cited anti-abortion initiatives that remained in the bill,
including one that sharply cuts funding for family-planning services
overseas.
Perhaps more important, the Republicans managed to alter the whole thrust of
the longstanding argument over national spending priorities. They have forced
Clinton to accede to the goal of balancing the budget in seven years. And
they prompted him, in his State of the Union message last winter, to
acknowledge that ``the era of big government is over.''
Gingrich said the 1997 and subsequent rounds of budget-cutting will have to
focus on welfare and health-care spending. That will be accomplished in part,
he said, by shifting the responsibility for welfare and Medicaid programs to
state governments and by cutting back on Medicare spending.
Some of the last issues to be resolved in the 1996 budget bill involved
environmental issues.
The compromise leaves some controversial Republican-backed environmental
provisions in the bill, but allows the president to waive them, meaning that
they will never become law. One participant in the negotiations called the
compromise ``a fig leaf'' that allows Western conservative legislators to
tell their constituents they won the battle, but leaves the White House
winning the war.
If the president exercises the authority he won in the compromise, the EPA
will retain its rarely used power to veto development permits for especially
valuable wetlands. It will also get an additional $40 million for enforcing
anti-pollution laws.
The Interior Department will get $4 million, about half what it got in 1995,
for adding new varieties of plants and animals to the list of those protected
under the Endangered Species Act. Congress' year-long moratorium on adding
new wildlife to the protected list will end immediately.
An Interior Department spokesman said 243 kinds of plants and animals are
considered on the brink of extinction and are awaiting listing, from New
England's Atlantic salmon runs to a host of Hawaiian plant species.
White House negotiators were unable to reinstate money for an EPA program
setting energy-efficiency standards for air conditioners, refrigerators and
other home appliances. The congressional conservatives also succeeded in
waiving environmental laws for construction of a controversial astronomical
observatory in the Arizona desert.
``We're not dancing in the streets, but we're feeling pretty good,'' said Ben
Beach of The Wilderness Society. ``We won more than we lost.''
The Republicans abandoned their hard-line stance on the budget after polls
showed little public support for the earlier government shutdowns and growing
public approval of Clinton.
``We realized we had to get this stuff behind us,'' said California Rep.
George Radanovich, president of the GOP's rowdy freshman class. ``We now know
we need to change the subject, to formulate a positive message about
`changing America for the better' rather than the negative message we've had
about cutting programs. We lost the battle of public opinion, now it's time
to regroup. We need to do a better job of explaining why we're here.''
``We just decided we had to do it and move on,'' said freshman Rep. Linda
Smith, R-Wash., another conservative. ``A legislative body is a place that
makes sausage. It isn't pretty, and there comes a time when we have to
deliver the sausage.''
And Florida Rep. Mark Foley, another conservative newcomer, regrets that it
took so long to do what should've been done last winter to minimize the
damage to chastened GOP candidates. ``There's no question now about what our
constituents want,'' he said. ``There's a clarion call out there for us to
stop fighting and yelling and screaming and finger-pointing -- and start
solving some problems.''
Some of the older hands in Congress say it was a learning experience for
their fiery and impatient young colleagues.
``It was an object lesson,'' said Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the
Judiciary Committee, who has served 21 years in the House. ``When you don't
have the votes to override a veto and the president stands fast, you've got
to compromise. Up to now, that's been a concept that was hard to come by
around here.''
(This story is from the Knight-Ridder Washington bureau.)
(c) 1996, Knight-Ridder Newspapers. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
AP-DATAPORT-NY-04-25-96 1820EDT
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WASHINGTON, April 25 (Reuter) - With nearly seven months of the fiscal
year gone, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly approved a compromise budget for
1996 on Thursday and sent it to President Bill Clinton who has said he will
sign it into law.
Passage came just hours before the midnight deadline when temporary funds
for many federal agencies run out. The $159.4 billion bill funds nine Cabinet
departments and dozens of agencies to the October 1 start of the next fiscal
year.
With no debate, the Senate voted 88 to 11 for the bill, all votes against
it were by Republicans. Earlier, it passed the House 399 to 25 for the bill,
losing 20 Republicans and five Democrats. The compromise ends the most
protracted budget battle in history and clears the way for difficult budget
fights over 1997 spending.
In both the Senate and House, Republicans hailed spending cuts in the
bill as making a down payment on cutting the deficit. To reach agreement,
Republicans restored $4.8 billion requested by the White House for education,
environmental protection, job training and crime fighting.
The bill terminates 200 federal programmes, mainly in the departments of
Labour and Health and Human Services.
20:18 04-25-96
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PRESIDENT SETTLES FOR HALF-LOAF IN SPENDING DEAL
96-04-25 23:53:10 EDT
From: (Western Ancient Forest Campaign)
The 1996 Spending Agreement between Congress and the
Administration has removed the Hatfield Salvage Rider Extension, and riders
affecting wetlands and the Clearwater National Forest. Section 314
affecting the Columbia basin was replaced with innocuous language
that limits the use of funds for implementing regulations or
requirements to regulate non-Federal lands as part of the project.
Riders affecting the Tongass National Forest, the ESA Moratorium,
and the Mojave Preserve remain, but the President has been granted
special authority to "waive" these provisions from being
implemented when he signs the bill.
Unfortunately, despite promising to veto the bill if any riders
remained, several riders were agreed to by the Clinton
Administration, including the Mt. Graham rider that suspends the
ESA on the site. Other riders that were accepted include an energy
efficiency rider, and two other riders affecting radon exposure and
the Superfund program.
The Job's Not Done
Thus, President Clinton held the line on some of the riders,
but not all of them, and he did not make repealing the logging rider a
"deal breaker" issue in the negotiations, if he raised it at all.
Activists need to thank the President for stopping the destructive
riders that he did, but also to express our dismay at the apparent
lack of resolve to stop all riders and to insist on a repeal of the
logging rider. Urge the President to endorse Rep. Elizabeth Furse's
Rider Repeal bill, H.R. 2745, and to cancel the contracts of all
environmentally destructive sales under the rider.
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EPA WETLANDS RIDER SCRATCHED FROM BUDGET BILL
Bulletin from the Clean Water Network
As far as the latest information, the rider cancelling EPA authority
to protect wetlands has been removed from the final Budget Bill.
We also heard that the final EPA budget was 98% of what the
President had requested. This is a far cry from the 33% cut
originally proposed for the EPA.
We are trying to get a copy of the exact legislative language on
the bill and will send out an alert with specifics on which
riders are out, which remain, and which ones remain but are
subject to a Presidential waiver. Congress is still has to vote
on the bill, but we do know that some riders are still in the
bill without waivers which is disappointing. These riders include
no new listing of Superfund sites, no new rules on radon in
drinking water, and a suspension on the ESA listing of the red
squirrel for approval of a telescope on Mt. Graham.
Since they have negotiated a deal, both the Senate and House are
supposed to debate and pass the bill today, and the President is
supposed to sign the bill by midnight tonight, when the 13th
continuing resolution (CR) expires.
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