FreeLists / va-richmond-general / [va-richmond-general] Write if you care: anti-environmental riders on omnibus bill

[Larry R Lynch <birder6@xxxxxxxx>]

Forwarding the attached note by request.  Our current system of adding
totally unrelated riders to important legislation really makes me wonder
what our founding fathers would think. That is also how so many pork
barrel bills get approved. 

Off my soapbox and back to birding....

Larry Lynch
birder6@xxxxxxxx

--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: mmetcalfe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: birder6@xxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 03 21:12:24 GMT
Subject: Alert: Get the riders off the 'bus'

Dear Larry,

Virginia Representatives Jim Moran and Frank Wolf are members of the
conference committee on the so-called "omnibus" appropriations bill. 
This is the bill to cover all the government funding Congress postponed
last fall, waiting for the new ones to arrive in 2003.  It is filled with
new anti-environmental riders, as well as terrible spending cuts.  

Following is an alert from the folks in D.C. about the omnibus bill,
including details about specific anti-environmental riders on the bill. 
Reps. Moran and Wolf need to hear from Virginians who are opposed to
these cuts and these riders.  Their contact information is:

The Hon. Jim Moran
phone: 202-225-4376
FAX: 202-225-0017
email: http://www.house.gov/writerep/

The Hon. Frank Wolf
phone: 202-225-5136
FAX: 202-225-0437
email: http://www.house.gov/writerep/

THANK YOU!
Melissa Metcalfe, SE Organizer
Endangered Species Coalition

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACTION ALERT: GET THE RIDERS OFF THE BUS!

Last week, the Senate passed a large Omnibus Appropriations bill for the
Fiscal Year that began October 1, 2002.  The bill combines 11 of the 13
appropriations bill needed to run the country.  The Senate was forced to
cut spending for a number of programs to meet the demands of the
President.

In addition to the funding cuts, twice as many anti-environmental riders
made it on the omnibus than were in the original committee mark-ups of
each individual bill.  These include a rider that would harm potential
Wilderness designations in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. 
Another dangerous rider would authorize the draining of 200,000 acres of
wetlands by the Yazoo Pumps Project in Mississippi.  In addition, at the
very end of debate, Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) inserted a revised amendment
which may allow him to add an anti-ESA provision concerning the flow of
the Missouri River in conference.  These are just a few of the riders
that made it in to the final Senate passed bill.

As we all know, this is not a proper way to legislate important
environmental issues.  These very significant issues should be discussed
in the light of day through the normal legislative process.  It is very
important that you contact members of the conference committee and urge
them to report out a funding bill free of such damaging
anti-environmental riders.  

ACTION:  Call Representatives Jim Moran and Frank Wolf as members of the
conference committee, and urge them to remove the existing
anti-environmental riders and to oppose any further attempts to attach
such riders.  

In addition, if you want to contact any other members of the committee,
or would like to share this information with like-minded friends in other
states, here are the main phone number and a list of all the conference
committee members.

CAPITOL SWITCHBOARD: 202-224-3121

CONFERENCE COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
House members: Young (FL), Regula (OH), Rogers (KY), Wolf (VA), Kolbe
(AZ), Walsh (NY), Taylor (NC), Hobson (OH), Istook (OK), Bonilla (TX),
Knollenberg (MI), Kingston (GA), Obey (WI), Murtha (PA), Dicks (WA), Sabo
(MN), Mollohan (WV), Kaptur (OH), Visclosky (IN), Lowey (NY), Serrano
(NY), and Moran (VA).

Senate members: Stevens (AK), Cochran (MS), Specter (PA), Domenici (NM),
Bond (MO), McConnell (KY), Burns (MT), Shelby (AL), Gregg (NH), Bennett
(UT), Campbell (CO), Craig (ID), Hutchison (TX), DeWine (OH), Brownback
(KS), Byrd (WV), Inouye (HI), Hollings (SC), Leahy (VT), Harkin (IA),
Mikulski (MD), Reid (NV), Kohl (WI), Murray (WA), Dorgan (ND), Feinstein
(CA), Durbin (IL), Johnson (SD), Landrieu (LA).

Thank you for your help in this first environmental battle of the 108th
Congress!  We know that there will be many more and that you will be
right there with us the whole way.

MORE INFORMATION ON SPECIFIC RIDERS

Yazoo Pumps Would Harm the Mighty Mississippi - This anti-environment,
anti-taxpayer rider is intended to lock the Army Corps of Engineers into
building one of the most wasteful and environmentally harmful water
projects in history, the Yazoo Pumps project in Mississippi.  It would
require the Corps to award "continuing contracts" to supply the Yazoo
Pumps.  This is intended to obligate the federal government - and federal
taxpayers - to pay the full cost of the Pumps in future years, $181
million -- locking in this project before the environmental and economic
analyses of the Pumps are even completed.  EPA has concluded that the
Yazoo Pumps will drain and damage more than 200,000 acres of ecologically
significant wetlands in the Mississippi flyway - more than 7 times as
many wetlands as are destroyed in an entire year nationwide under the
Clean Water Act § 404 permit program.  An independent economic analysis
demonstrates that the Pumps cannot be economically justified, and that
the Corps has overstated just the agricultural benefits by $144 million.
While billed as a flood control project, the study also concludes that
the project would really do no more than "help landowners grow crops on
land that is farmed only to earn farm subsidy payments."  Those subsidies
are substantial; in just the 2-year floodplain of the project area -
where 150,000 acres of wetlands will be damaged - 51 landowners split
$15.3 million in federal farm subsidies in the six years from 1996
through 2001. One of those landowners received $2.7 million during that
time, while four others received more than $1 million each.

Tongass Anti-Wilderness Review Rider ? seeks to shield a ?yet-to-be-made?
decision by the Forest Service concerning the agency?s ongoing
court-ordered review of 115 roadless areas in the Tongass for possible
Wilderness protection from administrative appeal and judicial review. 
The agency?s draft proposal released in May 2002 indicated that of the 9
million acres eligible for Wilderness consideration, the agency was
considering recommending that not a single acre merited protection.  In
response, over 95 percent of the more than 170,000 public comments
received on the proposal supported more Wilderness protection for the
Tongass.  It is also significant that more than 85 percent of Alaskans
who testified at the agency?s public hearings held throughout the forest
supported more Wilderness protection on the Tongass. Moreover, Sec. 326
is an affront to democracy in that it attempts to shut the public out of
further involvement in this process, regardless of whether or not the
agency is responsive to their comments.

Devil?s Lake Project Would Pollute Sheyenne River - would authorize and
appropriate $5 million for the construction of the Devils Lake project. 
The entire project, costing $100 million, is a scheme to relieve rising
water levels in Devils Lake by pumping the highly polluted water into the
Sheyenne River, a major tributary of the Red River. The project would
consist of a pumping plant and 13-20 miles of pipes, dams, and canals
that would reduce the surface elevation of Devils Lake by a only a few
inches a year - less than 10% of the current annual rise - while damaging
water quality and increasing flooding downstream.  The outlet would be
the first intra-basin linkage between the Devils Lake Basin and the
Hudson River Basin.  Besides authorizing construction, the rider attempts
to weaken consultation requirements under the Boundary Waters Treaty of
1909 between the United States and Canada.  The Canadian government has
expressed concern that any outlet that links Devils Lake with the
Sheyenne River and the Red River, which flows north into Canada,
threatens not only to degrade water quality, but also could introduce
invasive species into the Hudson Bay. 

Halt Strategic Planning on National Forests  -  would halt funding to
carry out important long term strategic planning under the Forest and
Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA). A similar provision has
been included in the final bills signed into law since FY 1998.

Forest Plan Revisions Stalled ? would exempt national forests from
meeting a fifteen-year deadline for updating forest plans.  Under the
National Forest Management Act, each of the roughly 155 national forests
throughout the country developed a master plan that guides how that
forest is to be managed, governing such issues as wildlife management,
logging, recreation, and roads.  These forest plans are required to be
updated at least every fifteen years.  This new rider continues one that
was added last year and bars, for another year, legal challenges based on
the failure of a national forest to meet the fifteen-year deadline unless
it is proven the agency is dragging its heels, or unless the Forest
Service is failing other forest planning duties.  Most national forests
already operate under outdated forest plans that reflect the Forest
Service's priority in the 1980s ? logging ? not the public's priority of
today, which is balanced, environmentally sensible forest management. 
While there are virtually no lawsuits based on this deadline, it is
inappropriate and unnecessary to set a precedent for barring citizen
suits, and to remove a tool that could help bring the Forest Service into
the modern era. A similar provision was included in the final bill signed
into law in FY 2002.

Stewardship Contracting Rider Undermines Real Restoration- authorizes the
Forest Service to enter into 28 new ?stewardship contracts,? which allow
the Forest Service to combine several activities in one project, such as
timber sales, road repair, forest thinning, and habitat or stream
rehabilitation.  While the Forest Service needs to address restoration
needs in a comprehensive manner, this rider, as with similar riders in
past years, increases the existing incentive for forest managers to pay
for environmentally important work with environmentally destructive
timber sales.  The rider creates a direct link between restoration and
commercial activities by allowing forest managers to trade goods for
services in stewardship contracts, and by allowing commercial timber
sales to be tucked in with other projects.  The Forest Service does not
need new authority to conduct meaningful restoration, and should maintain
a separation between commercial logging projects and restoration
projects.  Using similar stewardship contracting authority passed in
recent appropriations bills, the Forest Service has proposed a number of
harmful ?stewardship? projects that call for extensive logging. Similar
stewardship contracting provisions have been included in the final bills
signed into law since FY 1998.

Allow Damaging Grazing on Public lands to Continue Without Environmental
Review ? seeks to allow grazing on public lands to continue without
environmental review - regardless of the environmental damage that is
occurring. The rider is included in the bill notwithstanding prior
congressional commitment not to enact this rider for BLM again, and would
extend it to Forest Service lands for the first time and, unlike the
House version, attempts to apply its provisions retroactively. This rider
tries to allow the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service
to extend indefinitely grazing permits that expire or are transferred or
waived in the coming fiscal year without reviews required under federal
environmental statutes, including the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA), the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and the Endangered
Species Act- even though in FY2000, Congress explicitly stated in the
report that accompanied the appropriations bill, that it would suspend
these laws for the BLM for one year only. Despite this promise, the FY03
rider, just like its predecessors, seeks to require that expiring or
transferred permits be reissued on their original terms regardless of the
resource damage that has resulted. This year?s rider, like prior year?s
appears to prohibit any changes in existing practices. We believe that a
legal argument can be made that interim changes, i.e., the annual
operating permits, can still be made unless and until the agency has
complied completely with all applicable laws and regulations- even when
there is a resource emergency. This rider attempts to prevent the public
from being able to force Interior Department and Forest Service agencies
(through appeals or litigation) to take action, while allowing ranchers
to always challenge the ?completeness? of the process. In short, this
provision would preserve the status quo for livestock at the expense of
the public?s lands and resources for yet another year. A similar
provision restricted to the BLM has been included in the final bills
signed into law since FY 1999.

Bond Missouri River Rider:  Senator Bond has proposed a rider that would
override a biological opinion issued by the Fish and Wildlife Service
which protected endangered shore bids.  This rider was amended to direct
the Missouri River states and tribes to come to an agreement in 2003 on
Missouri river operations.  Although the rider in its current form is not
environmentally damaging, it does give Senator Bond the opportunity to
change the language in conference. 
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