The U.S. Congress last week passed several key measures that promote conservation issues in the federal budget. The House approved amendments that will help keep wetlands and rivers clean, prevent logging in wild forests, and maintain a moratorium on offshore drilling.
By a vote of 217-203, the House approved the Puttnam-Capps-Jim Davis-Foley-Bill Young-Pallone amendment to maintain the offshore drilling moratorium. Bipartisan support for the offshore drilling moratorium remains strong, even as the rhetoric in Washington over energy rises. The House also passed by 237-181 the Oberstar-Leach-Dingell amendment to restrict subsidies for clear-cut logging in the Tongass National Forest. In 2005, the U.S. Forest Service spent nearly $49 million of taxpayer money on the logging program and logging roads in the Tongass National Forest. Yet private timber companies paid the federal government only $500,000 in return for the privilege to cut down hundreds of acres of old-growth rainforest. Finally, Congress voted 222-198 to prohibit the EPA from implementing a 2003 policy directive that eliminates Clean Water Act protections for many small streams, wetlands, ponds, and other waters around the country.
