Editorial: Anti-environmental riders are bad policy

Another emergency appropriations bill in Congress is the victim of unnecessary anti-environmental amendments that have nothing to do with the bill. Legislation that would provide desperately needed funding for humanitarian relief efforts in Central America and military aid in Kosovo now is cluttered with amendments, usually referred to as "riders," that in this case seeks to undo environmental policies.

The Wilderness Society and other environmental groups note that one of these riders would overturn an important compromise reached last year between the Clinton administration and Congress to open Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska to limited commercial fishing. Another rider would delay implementing a rule guaranteeing that large oil companies pay their share of royalties for the oil they get from public lands; postponing the rule could cost taxpayers from $66 million to $100 million a year. Still another rider could postpone by one year Bureau of Land Management regulations that could stop what the Wilderness Society believes is irresponsible mining.

If Congress were to vote individually on these matters they would never stand a chance of becoming law. Some members of Congress who befriend oil companies, mining companies and other business interests cynically attach these riders to emergency appropriations bills. The riders' authors know the president and Congress will find it politically hard to hold up critical funding for humanitarian efforts over issues that may pale in comparison. These appropriations bills increasingly are flypaper for measures that never could stand on their own.

Congress should not cave in to business interests that want to rewrite environmental laws and regulations through such backdoor means. The anti-environmental riders should be removed from this pending legislation.

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