🚀 go-pugleaf

TO:       All Forest Activists
FROM:     Steve Holmer
DATE:     January 24, 1996
 
SUBJECT:  Congress Makes Final Offer on Interior Bill
 
 
     Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA) and Rep. Ralph Regula (R-OH),
respective Chairmen of the House and Senate Interior
Appropriations Committees, issued a Jan. 23 press release detailing
their final compromise offer on the FY 1996 Interior bill.  The
release states that if this final offer is not accepted by the White
House, the Congress will pass a Continuing Resolution or bill
funding the Interior Dept. and Forest Service at 75 percent of its
1995 levels.  This would kill many of the riders unless they are
attached to the Continuing Resolution.
 
     The list of compromises offered by the Congress include an
offer to delete the provision of the bill affecting the Marbled
murrelet nesting protocol.  On the Columbia Basin, Congress offered
to allow the Administration to use all available scientific information
in the development of forest plan amendments, including
information on fisheries and watersheds, leaving intact the ban on
the consultation requirements of Section 7 of the ESA.  
 
     On Section 2001(k) of the rider, Congress offered the
Administration the discretion to substitute volume for sales required
by the rider.  This language is reportedly unacceptable to the White
House.  Other unresolved issues of contention include the ESA
listings and critical habitat moratorium, the Tongass, the Mojave
National Preserve and funding for Indian programs and energy
conservation.
 
     Activists have one last opportunity to urge the President to
oppose any compromise on the Interior bill that includes these anti-
environmental riders.  Please contact President Clinton at 202/456-
1111 (9-5 EST), fax 202/456-2883, president@whitehouse.gov
 
     Thanks to everyone who has made calls on this horrible
Interior Appropriations bill...one more call, and we could be finished
with these riders (for awhile).