Letter: Anti-environmental measures hidden in appropriations bills

I am deeply concerned about the way Congress is doing business lately, hiding highly controversial and very dangerous anti-environmental measures in huge, complex spending bills.

When Congress returns from celebrating America's birthday, its members will quickly take up a bill that could destroy much of America's birthright -- our natural heritage. Members will be voting on the Interior Appropriations Bill -- a bill that contains spending for our national parks, forests and wildlife refuges. Sounds like motherhood and apple pie, right? Wrong.

The Interior Appropriations measures they will be voting on contain a whole host of anti-environmental measures that fly in the face of everything America stands for. Thirty million in taxpayer dollars to blaze a road through a remote wildlife refuge in Alaska, a mandated doubling of logging levels on America's only temperate rain forest, the Tongass Forest in Alaska.

Putting the brakes on efforts to restore salmon populations in the northwest, weakening the law that protects endangered species, encouraging overgrazing and destructive mining activities on our Western public lands.

These riders put America's natural heritage at risk. We're seeing our community's open spaces swallowed up by development almost by the day. The last thing we need is for Congress to promote irresponsible road building and development in our last publicly owned wild, unspoiled special places.

Join me in urging President Clinton to stand tall and veto these anti-environmental riders. Our grandchildren's natural legacy is depending on him.

Sincerely,

Mary J Feldman

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