East Riders
By Debbie Gilbert
AUGUST 10, 1998:
Only one road crosses Denali National Park, a 6-million-acre wilderness
in the heart of Alaskas Interior. Unpaved for most of its 90-mile
length (it terminates at Wonder Lake, in the shadow of Mt. McKinley),
the road is off-limits to private vehicles. Visitors leave their
cars near the park entrance and travel through the backcountry
on free shuttle buses, getting on and off as they wish. Because
there is little traffic, Denalis wildlife roam freely, unaffected
by humans. Grizzlies, moose, and caribou can often be seen from
the road.
Denalis shuttle system works so well that other national parks
have aspired to copy it, returning the land to a more natural
condition and eliminating traffic jams.
But Alaskas legislators want to build a second road through Denali,
ostensibly to access old mining claims. This road would be linked
to the existing one to form a loop, which would then be opened
up to automobiles. For years, pro-development advocates have tried
to push this project through Congress, and in June, they finally
succeeded. The $1.5 million allocation was attached to a massive
$203 billion highway bill that was ridiculed in the media for
being loaded with pork. But this little project, which could forever
change the character of Denali, went unnoticed.
How did this happen? It helped that the chairman of the House
Resources Committee (the word natural no longer precedes Resources,
which tells you something right there) is Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska),
and that the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee is Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska). And, oh yeah the
chairman of the all-important Senate Appropriations Committee
is Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).
What matters, though, is not what these lawmakers did but how
they did it. Determined not to make the same error as the 104th
Congress, the current class has figured out how to make bad environmental
decisions and still score high on public-opinion polls.
You may remember the 104th Congress. Emboldened by the Contract
With America, legislators attempted to do away with some of the
countrys major environmental laws, such as the Clean Water Act
and Endangered Species Act. They assumed voters wouldnt care.
President Clinton vetoed those appropriations bills, leading to
a shutdown of the federal government in December 1995. To the
astonishment of congressional Republicans, they, not the president,
took the heat for this, propelling Clinton toward reelection.
This time around, theyve learned the value of subtlety or subterfuge.
In the 104th Congress, there were a lot of overt, free-standing
bills against the environment, but they took a lot of flak for
that, says Debbie Cease, legislative director for the Sierra
Club. Now, theyre doing whats known as flying under the radar.
Attacks [on the environment] were originally through the front
door, then the back door, and now its through the basement.
The trick is to put anti-environmental legislation where the public
wont notice it, in the form of riders. There are 13 gigantic
appropriations bills that must be signed by the president every
year in order for the government to continue operating. If a congressmans
request for, say, more logging in one of his states national
forests gets attached to one of these legislative monsters, it
goes along for the ride. The president might object, but he usually
wont veto an entire package based on a few riders. Thus, one
by one, these amendments chip away at environmental protection,
mostly out of public view. The Denali road project is the tip
of the iceberg.
There are currently a dozen or more Alaska riders on appropriations
bills now going through Congress, says Bill Reffalt, the Wilderness
Societys program director for Alaska and national parks.
On July 23rd, the House of Representatives passed an Interior
Department appropriations bill that would cut funding for wilderness
land acquisition and endangered species protection, while continuing
the Forest Services money-losing logging operations.
Its 1995 all over again, complained Interior Secretary Bruce
Babbitt when he heard the news. Rather than attempting to repeal
or gut these laws head-on, theyre doing it by starving the programs.
A few days later, the House passed a VA/HUD appropriations bill
that happens to also be the funding vehicle for the Environmental
Protection Agency. Riders on this bill would prevent EPA from,
among other things, combating air pollution and haze in our national
parks. And theres a controversial provision that forbids EPA
from developing any global-warming programs that would comply
with last years climate-change treaty. The hard-fought agreement
reached in Kyoto is meaningless if Congress refuses to fund it.
Not all legislators want to trash the environment, of course,
but some may feel they have little choice. Rep. Harold Ford of
Memphis, for example, usually takes a pro-environment stance,
and he had originally planned to vote against the VA/HUD bill.
But according to his spokesman, Ford changed his mind at the last
minute because the bill included funding for the homeless and
for low-income housing that the congressman felt he couldnt say
no to.
Even if a legislator objects to a rider, he or she may not get
an opportunity to voice that opinion. Ordinarily, a bill is first
considered in its committee of origin before being debated and
voted on by all members of the House. A different version of the
bill goes through the same process in the Senate. Finally, there
is a joint House-Senate conference to hammer out a compromise
bill that will be sent to the president.
Trouble is, many anti-environment riders are now tacked on at
the last minute, in the joint conference, where they are never
voted on in committee and never debated on the floor. To reverse
this trend, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California) introduced the Defense
of the Environment Act. This bill, co-sponsored by Representatives
Dick Gephardt (D-Missouri) and George Miller (D-California), doesnt
call for new regulations or change existing laws. It merely says
that congressional committees must identify any piece of legislation
that may harm the environment, and that any member of Congress
may ask for 40 minutes of debate and a vote on each of these riders.
This would insure an opportunity for discussion before an amendment
is signed into law.
Waxman first put forth this bill in October 1997, and it failed
to make any headway in Congress. In May, the three co-sponsors
wrote a letter to their colleagues asking for reconsideration,
pointing out that over the last three years, riders were used
to increase clearcut logging in our national forests,
stall
the Superfund program, backslide on energy-efficiency standards,
and much more. The legislation failed again this summer, but Waxman
intends to keep reintroducing it until it passes.
As for the two mammoth spending bills recently approved by the
House, the Sierra Clubs Cease believes that they will make it
through the joint conference with anti-environmental provisions
intact, only to be vetoed by the president.
And that road in Alaska? There may yet be reason to hope, according
to Reffalt of the Wilderness Society: Most people believe the
law isnt sufficient to require the building of the road, even
though the money has been allocated. And the $1.5 million will
probably only pay for the environmental impact statement, not
construction.
Ultimately, its possible that the fate of Denali may have to
be decided in the courts rather than in the halls of Congress.
On the state level, feathers are still ruffled over a bit of environmental
game-playing that occurred in July. The Tennessee Department of
Environment and Conservation had known since November about an
EPA report that was highly critical of TDECs air-pollution-control
division, but state legislators didnt find out about it until
after they agreed, in June, to reduce the fees charged to major
polluters. In fact, according to Sen. Jim Kyle, the state never
showed lawmakers the report; they obtained it from the Tennessee
Environmental Council instead.
TDEC commissioner Milton Hamilton argued that since his department
had already corrected 98 percent of the deficiencies noted by
the EPA, the report was moot. And TDEC spokesperson Lola Potter
said that the EPA document was not intended for the public, so
TDEC was under no obligation to share it.
I find that reprehensible, says Alan Jones, director of the
Tennessee Environmental Council. I think it is a public document
maybe not legally, but ethically. Here is a critical audit directly
relevant to state rule-making, and for TDEC to say that the public
has no right to know about it, I think is offensive.
Kyle says that when the state senates Government Operations Committee
meets again in September, he wants to see evidence that TDEC has
cleaned up its act. I want to give the department the benefit
of the doubt, but the burden of proof is on them to show theyre
doing a good job. I expect a written report with details.
Attorney Tracy Carter, who took over last week as TDECs new director
of air-pollution control, says TDEC has dropped the probationary
program that EPA deemed too lenient, and has streamlined the enforcement
process. I dont think its accurate to say weve gotten rid
of our backlog, she admits, but the EPA is satisfied with our
plans to speed up enforcement.
As for criticisms from Tennessee politicians that TDEC is understaffed
and underfunded, Carter says her divisions 154 employees and
$9.4 million budget both represent increases over the previous
year.

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