Many Anti-Environment Provisions Defeated In Final Budget

The pitched legislative battle over final budget legislation ended with mixed results for the environment, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) said today. Many of the major anti-environmental riders were defeated, such as the mountaintop removal mining rider and an anti-clean air rider, but some riders, such as those that may hinder US participation in climate change negotiations, remain. A rider is legislative language that does not go through the proper hearing process and is attached to an unrelated funding bill.

“While a massive effort to repeal environmental laws in appropriations bills has been largely thwarted, this budget bill still delivers a blow to the environment,” said Elizabeth Thompson, EDF legislative director. “This year’s fight to add anti-environmental amendments to appropriations bills was a bad process and a bad precedent. The strong leadership demonstrated by the White House and some in the Congress, combined with public concern, helped change the tide.”

The mountaintop removal rider would have allowed the continued coal mining practice used in parts of West Virginia of dumping the tops of mountains into valleys, obliterating streams and much else in the valley. The anti-clean air rider would have exempted power plants from certain enforcement actions regarding their compliance with pollution standards contained in the Clean Air Act.

“We have to thank Reps. Brian Bilbray (R-CA), Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), (Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), Jay Inslee (D-WA), Rick Lazio (R-NY), David Obey (D-WI), Christopher Shays (R-CT), and Bill Young (R-FL) for demonstrating leadership in fighting these riders,” said Thompson. “On the Senate side, Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Rick Durbin (D-IL), Jim Jeffords (R-VT), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Joe Lieberman (D-CT), Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), and Paul Wellstone (D-MN) led the way.”

Unfortunately, some anti-environmental climate change riders remain, as well as some other anti-environment provisions. EDF has criticized the climate riders for their potential to inhibit voluntary actions to reduce greenhouse gases and undermine international negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol, the international climate treaty, and diminish ongoing research into the effects of global climate change.

“EDF urges the Clinton Administration to ignore the bullying tactics of some members of Congress,” said Michael Oppenheimer, EDF chief scientist. “It’s time for governments to provide real leadership on climate change, by finalizing and ratifying the Kyoto Protocol as soon as possible and jumpstarting early reductions of dangerous greenhouse gas pollution.”