Last-Hour Additions to Funding Bill Trouble Environmentalists

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-riders19nov19.story

Last-Hour Additions to Funding Bill Trouble Environmentalists

By Elizabeth Shogren, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON — As Congress raced Thursday to cobble together a massive bill to fund much of the federal government and wrap up its 2004 session, influential Republican senators tried to attach several industry-friendly measures to the package.

One would exempt large livestock and dairy farms from some environmental laws. Another would provide billions of dollars for Army Corps of Engineers water projects. A third — which would have exempted pesticide users from Endangered Species Act rules — was stripped from the bill when it was deemed so controversial that it might delay the entire spending bill, which lawmakers hope to vote on by this weekend.

These so-called riders can become law without the scrutiny and give-and-take of the normal legislative process.

Members of Congress frequently try to attach controversial or pet measures to big spending bills in the hope that opponents will be unwilling to jeopardize the legislation that provides funds for basic government services. The technique is particularly effective at the end of the year, when lawmakers are eager to go home for the holidays.

"This is a pork-barrel extravaganza," said David Conrad, senior water resources researcher at National Wildlife Federation, an environmental group. "It's one of the worst I've ever seen, and I've been doing this 25 years."<snip>

must be manufacturing their own water and air.

attach every peice of environmental legislation they can dig up to the bill recommending the amendment to the Constitution allowing foreign born citizens to run for President!!!