Critics See Favors In Interior Bill, Seek Veto Spending Bill Passed Easily, Despite Environmentalists’ Plea

Environmentalists urged President Clinton Wednesday to veto an Interior Department spending bill they say is loaded with special favors for livestock ranchers and the timber industry.

Rep. Peter DeFazio joined the veto plea, and Sen. Ron Wyden was one of the few senators who opposed the bill, partly because they are concerned one provision could undermine a federal ban on exports of raw logs from national forests.

Wyden, D-Ore., also is worried about a provision environmentalists say would prevent the Forest Service from making needed changes in forest management plans, said his press secretary, David Seldin.

Environmentalists have objected to more than a dozen amendments attached to the bill, including those cited by Wyden and DeFazio, D-Ore.

Wyden was the only Northwesterner who opposed the appropriation bill, which passed the Senate on Tuesday, 84-14.

It includes “a number of provisions that would potentially disturb the delicate balance between environmental protection and concerns for communities and our natural resource policies,” Seldin said.

Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Slade Gorton, R-Wash., Gordon Smith, R-Ore., Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Dirk Kempthorne, R-Idaho, all supported the bill, which includes $3 million for acquisition of two Elwha River dams in Washington state and $8 million for acquiring lands in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area.

DeFazio led a charge against the log export provision when the House approved the bill on Friday, 233-171.

“This bill is rife with special interest, anti-environmental riders, in addition to a rider which effectively repeals the ban on the export of federal logs,” DeFazio said.

Gorton, Murray, Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., and others say the changes - easing restrictions on timber exporting companies that buy and sell federally owned timber - are intended to increase domestic milling of the wood.

But DeFazio said it would send more raw logs overseas. He pointed to a USDA inspector general report that concluded the measure could “effectively gut” a 1990 ban on exports of unprocessed logs from federal lands.

Clinton had not made a final decision on the bill but had special concerns about the effect on Northwest forests, said Lawrence Haas, spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget.