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NRDC's Legislative Watch

© Kenneth Friedman

Newspapers cover what you would expect, news. One of the criteria for deciding what constitutes news is relevance, reader relevance. This means that to get into a paper, news must be of interest to the newspaper's readers. This is why most of the news in local papers is, well, local. National newspapers, such as The New York Times and Washington Post provide much broader coverage to their readers. Specialty papers, such as the Wall Street Journal, don't even cover local news. So, chances are, you don't read much about most of what is going on in environment unless it is locally relevant, nationally relevant, or of broad interest (like endangered species, natural disasters and the like).

Be assured, you cannot keep up even if you want to, but you can follow legislation, thanks to the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) Legislative Watch e-mail service and web site. Here's a sample of one NRDC summary from June, edited down but otherwise verbatim. I'm sure NRDC won't mind the reprint, since this is an advertisement for this excellent service. "The information in this bulletin -- and more -- is also available at our World Wide Web site. The web version links to the text of bills and Congressional web pages."

"7/1/99: Appropriations season is in full swing, with both the Senate and House appropriations committees acting on a spending bill for the Interior Department. The Senate version of the bill contains many of the same anti-environment riders considered last year, plus a few new ones. In other environmental news, negotiations are underway that may break the logjam on nuclear waste and Superfund bills.

"On 6/24, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a spending bill (S. 1292) for the Department of the Interior that provides a total of $13.9 billion for Interior and related agencies, well short of President Clinton's request for $15 billion. The bill includes several of the controversial anti-environment riders considered last year, such as one that would block reintroduction of grizzly bears anywhere in Idaho and Montana without express written consent of the governors of those states. The bill also contains a rider that would overturn an Interior decision restricting the number of individual mining sites (called "mill sites") and waste dumps at hardrock mines.

"On 5/14, a three-judge federal appeals panel overturned vitally important new standards designed to reduce smog and soot pollution that endangers the health of millions of Americans. The standards were issued in 1997 over the objection of oil companies, auto manufacturers and other polluters, some of whom brought the lawsuit resulting in the court's decision. The panel said in its decision (American Trucking Association v. EPA) that the EPA must more precisely identify the criteria it uses to set air quality standards under the Clean Air Act, otherwise the power Congress gave the agency under the act would be "an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power." This ruling is at odds with decades of successful clean air programs and 50 years of judicial history regarding delegation of powers. The EPA has announced plans to appeal the decision and environmentalists are urging the agency to take its appeal to the Supreme Court if necessary.