Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Riders trample nature

Thursday, Feb. 13, 2003 | 9:18 a.m.

DON'T YOU BELIEVE that the White House is so absorbed with Saddam Hussein that domestic issues have been put on the back burner. A majority of Americans, Democrats and Republicans, may not like what the Bush administration is doing with environmental issues, but it is busy doing plenty.

The latest attack on the environment has been a number of riders attached to the Omnibus 2003 budget bill. They were slipped in without open debate by Alaska's Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young. This has shocked Democrats and moderate Republicans to the point that eight of the House Republicans sent the following letter to Young:

"We are writing to urge you to defend the original House position on the Fiscal Year (FY) 2003 appropriations bills and reject attempts we understand are being made to add riders and limitations that would weaken protections for the environment.

"Leaving aside the many substantive issues the riders might raise, it would seriously undermine the legislative process to add new provisions behind closed doors and at the very last minute to a must-pass spending bill that is already four months late. Any provisions added at this point obviously will not receive the public scrutiny and debate they deserve.

"Completion of the FY 2003 appropriations is too important to allow the process to be jeopardized by issues that are beyond the scope of the conference. We urge you to reject attempts to add such provisions and insist on the original House position. ..."

Several riders have upset people who realize that wars start and end but destruction of nature and its results cannot be repaired as quickly as diplomatic relations:

The New York Times noted in a Feb. 12 editorial that, "Potentially the most troubling amendment, involving not just Alaska but the entire forest system, would broaden the reach of the so-called forest stewardship program. Under this program, now in the pilot stage, timber companies are allowed to harvest trees as payment in kind for other projects like road clearing or the thinning of underbrush to prevent forest fires. Conservationists fear the open-ended, broadly drawn stewardship contracts will give the loggers license to cut huge tracts that would otherwise be spared."

What should bother all of us is the next Times paragraph: "As threatening as these provisions are to the health of the forests, they are no less distasteful for their cavalier disregard of due process. ..."

President George W. Bush has talked a good environmental philosophy but the action of his Cabinet members and his Republican majority in both the House and Senate show they are back to their old habits. I hope there are enough Republicans left in both houses who still believe that the conservation dreams of President Theodore Roosevelt shouldn't be violated. Many of them stepped forward several years ago when the Newt Gingrich followers attacked our environment.

Using the cloud of terrorism and war as a cover for these attacks on the environment is especially despicable. The 2003 budget bill is a necessity, and to load it up with this kind of legislation is both wrong and unacceptable for responsible legislators on both sides of the aisle.