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“ Democratic priorities are clear: we will fight to get the economy back on track, we will create jobs, and we will help unemployed workers. ” |
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Pelosi: 'Republican Congress Sells the Environment Short in Interior Funding Bill'
Washington, D.C. -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi opposed the Interior funding bill for 2004, which passed the House of Representatives late last night by a vote of 216 to 205.
"The Republicans are systematically rolling back 30 years of bipartisan environmental progress," Pelosi said. "The Interior funding bill shortchanges the environment and fails to protect our children’s heritage. It breaks promises on conservation funding, drops a ban on privatizing National Park Service jobs, and allows the Bush Administration’s plan to build roads in national parks and refuges to go forward. What is in the bill is damaging anti-environmental riders."
Key Issues in the Interior Bill
Left in: Anti-Environmental Riders -- A series of anti-environmental measures were added to the Interior bill without any public debate. The riders allow oil drilling to move forward in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, severely undermine protections for old growth forests in Montana and Alaska, allow continued overgrazing of rangelands across the West, and set back efforts to protect endangered salmon and steelhead in Oregon and California.
Left out: Conservation Funding -- Three years ago, a broad coalition of environmental, hunting and fishing, recreation, and historic preservation groups came together to support increased conservation funding. Congress responded with a bipartisan pact to boost conservation funding significantly over six years -- for protecting wild places, improving urban parks and recreation facilities, saving endangered species and wildlife, and preserving historic sites and buildings. This year, the Republican leadership broke that historic pact and abandoned the Conservation Trust Fund. The Interior bill provides $1.1 billion, $447 million short of the promised amount.
Left out: Protections Against Roads in Parks -- Earlier this year, the House approved an amendment to block the Bush Administration from allowing construction of new roads through national parks, wildlife refuges, national monuments, and wilderness areas. Using an antiquated law that was passed in 1866 to open up the West, the Administration wants to turn over large swaths of public and private lands for road building. This amendment was dropped in the final bill.
Left out: Ban on Privatizing National Park Service Jobs -- The House version of the bill would have prevented the Administration from privatizing much of the National Park Service. The final bill drops the ban on the Administration’s plan to sell off National Park Service jobs.
“ Democrats are united in presenting a New Direction for America, one that will make our nation as strong as its people, one that brings opportunity, security, and prosperity to all Americans. ”
Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi
