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Clinton and Congress prepare to duel over public-land use.
By Michael
Doyle
The Fresno Bee - September 19, 1998
The annual funding bill that keeps Yosemite National Park open is now the
focus of the most important environmental showdown of the 105th Congress.
The pending test of wills between President Clinton and the Republican-controlled
Congress, in an unpredictable new climate, will shape the future of public-land
policies as well as Clinton's future relations with lawmakers.
It's also a showdown with particular relevance for Yosemite-area communities,
which bitterly remember the government shutdown of 1995-96 and resulting loss
of tourist revenue.
"We may run into a potential government shutdown, and I don't think the American
public wants that," Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Friday.
Baucus is leading a Senate effort to strip eight particularly controversial
environmental measures from the Interior Department's $13.4 billion spending
bill. The so-called legislative riders, all opposed by the White House, cover
ground ranging from mining, grazing, and logging policy to the construction
of a 30-mile road through Alaskan wilderness.
Though not specially tailored for California, some of the riders would none-the-less
affect the state where 40% of the land is owned by the federal government.
For instance, one measure would postpone new environmental regulations governing
the 30,000 public-land mines California. Another would block the Interior
Department from obtaining more money from the oil companies that drill off
California's coast. A third imposes a moratorium on new management plans governing
the 24 million acres of Forest Service land in California.
"We're coming up to the point where we need to do it," said Janice Gauthier,
spokeswoman for the Forest Service's California office. "The [management]
plans should reflect the current information that's out there, and a lot has
happened in the past 10 years or so."
The environmental riders - about two dozen in total - are attached to the
must-pass bills funding the federal government for fiscal 1999. If the bills
don't pass by Oct. 1, some government agencies could shut down.
The riders are largely embraced by the 70-some members of the House Western
Caucus, a mostly Republican group whose vice chairman is Mariposa Republican
George Radanovich.
"You decry riders when you don't like them," Radanovich aide Tom Pyle said,
but "these are products of long-standing disagreements over how public lands
are managed."
The first political question is this: Is a scandal-weakened president more,
or less, likely to veto such crucial spending bills over legislative language
he doesn't like? The answer to that may depend on another political question:
If the government shuts down because the funding bills are vetoed, will Clinton
or Congress get blamed this time around?
Democrats and Republicans are now seeking answers.
"The current circumstances make it more likely that he'll veto thebill," Baucus
predicted Friday. "The president must look strong."
Added Rep. Frank Pallone, an environmentally active New Jersey Democrat, "If
anything, we're going to see him more inclined to veto [bills], to
show that he's strong."
Republicans have been saying for weeks that Clinton may sling vetoes about,
to do just that: change the subject from the sex-and-deception scandal that's
been dogging him.
"When all is said and done, the test will be down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,"
said Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., who's often allied with environmental
groups. "The White House has to stand strong."
The White House succeeded, in 1995 and 1996, in making sure the Republican-controlled
Congress shouldered the public blame for a three-week government shutdown.
Republicans still wince at the memory-"at all costs, a government shutdown
will be avoided," Boehlert said-as do the California communities that felt
the brunt of it.
Yosemite-area businesses, for instance, lost an estimated $8.9 million in
tourist-related revenue during the shutdown, according to a study by the National
Parks and Conservation Association. Mariposa County lost $10,000 a day in
tax revenues.
"We've discussed on several occasions in this office how to avoid a repeat
of the Yosemite closure," Pyle said.
With these concerns ripe among Republicans, a government shutdown appears
unlikely. Still, Clinton and Congress will have to dance the
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