Clinton Signs a Spending Bill for the Interior Department
11/14/97
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Headline: Clinton Signs a Spending Bill for the Interior Department
Source: Reuters
Date: 11/14/97
Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited
Copyright 1997 Cable News Network, Inc. A Time Warner
Company
WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - President Clinton signed a
$13.8 billion spending bill for the Interior Department on
Friday that had been strongly opposed by environmental
groups concerned it will harm national forests.
In a lengthy statement explaining his decision to sign the
measure into law, Clinton complained that it ``includes
several provisions that attempt to interfere with the
responsible management of our national forests.''
He also announced that he intended to use his line-item veto
power to remove a provision that would make ``an unjustified
transfer of millions of dollars of mineral rights to the
state of Montana.''
The federal mineral rights had been intended as compensation
for Montana in exchange for the blocking of a gold mine that
was to have been developed near Yellowstone National Park.
Environmentalists claim the bill was larded with provisions
to increase commercial logging in national parks and to
allow a special fund -- that had been intended for new
federal land purchases -- to be used instead for repairs and
maintenance at existing sites.
One provision of the bill calls for the sale of $208 million
worth of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve this
fiscal year. The administration had opposed the sale, which
was to generate money to operate the reserve for a year.
The bill also would continue funding for the National
Endowment for the Arts, a key compromise reached after the
House threatened to close down the beleaguered agency.
Clinton said he was ``concerned'' that NEA funding had been
reduced to $98 million, $1.5 million than in the previous
year.