US Congress Defeats Measures to Slow Logging
6/26/96
OVERVIEW & SOURCE by EE
Five days ago, by a razor-thin margin, the U.S. House of Representatives
defeated an attempt to decrease logging in U.S. national forests. Further,
spending for national parks continues to be slashed. Republicans in the
House are accused of a "continuing war on the environment." And thus U.S.
environmental leadership wanes further; making U.S. pleas to developing
countries to reduce logging that much more hypocritical. Following is the
Reuters report on the matter.
g.b.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
House narrowly defeats measures to slow logging
June 21, 1996
Copyright 1996 Reuters Limited
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- On razor-thin margins, the House Thursday defeated
two measures sought by environmentalists to decrease logging in the
national forests, one of which failed only after Republican leaders
demanded a second vote.
The lawmakers then went on to pass, by 242-174, a bill providing $12.1
billion for the Interior Department, the national parks and federal arts
agencies for the coming 1997 financial year.
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt criticized the spending bill, saying it
"badly underfunds parks, refuges and recreation areas, and lays waste to
Indian programs, and also assaults the legal rights of Indian tribes."
He reiterated his threat to recommend a presidential veto unless funding
was increased and restrictions on environmental enforcement were lifted.
The bill runs about $500 million below the current 1996 level and is $800
million below the president's request for the 1997 fiscal year starting
October 1.
Interior Appropriations subcommittee chairman Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, told
the House the bill paid for necessary expenses. "This bill recognizes the
fact that we have a limited amount of money," he said.
But Babbitt said the bill was part of the House Republican's "continuing
war on the environment."
In the most dramatic of the two votes, the House reversed itself and killed
211-211 an amendment offered by Democratic Rep. Joe Kennedy of
Massachusetts that sought to bar spending on new logging roads. It had
passed late Wednesday 211-210. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia, who
usually does not vote, cast his ballot both times against Kennedy's
amendment.
The House also rejected 211-209 an amendment by Rep. Elizabeth Furse, D-
Oregon, to repeal the sale of salvage timber from federal lands. The sale
of downed and diseased timber was approved in 1995 but has come under
attack from environmentalists, who argue it permits logging companies to
take healthy trees.
The votes were a disappointment for environmental groups who had won
victories Wednesday with the passage of an amendment to protect an
endangered seabird, the marbled murrelet, in California.