House Votes Alarm Environmentalists

Conservation groups are bracing for what they fear will be another major assault by congressional Republicans on federal environmental regulations, despite assertions by GOP leaders that the new Congress would be less partisan than its predecessor.

The environmentalists were alarmed by a pair of little-noticed votes in the House last week in which lawmakers approved measures to exempt first-time violators of federal reporting requirements from fines and to make it easier for opponents to block future regulatory bills.

Republicans portrayed the measures as long-overdue efforts to ease the burden of environmental and health regulations on businesses. But conservation groups fear that they signal GOP intentions to revive the attacks it launched last year against environmental rules.

“The agenda this time seems to be the same: to weaken environmental enforcement through any way they can,” said Gregory S. Wetstone, a legislative strategist for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The skirmish underscores predictions by some analysts that, for all the talk about increased bipartisanship in the wake of the presidential impeachment battle, prospects loom for a pitched battle between the two parties on several fronts.

In 1998, Republicans attached about 50 separate riders to routine appropriation bills in efforts to limit the effect of a broad array of environmental regulations. Although the White House eventually squelched many of the riders, a dozen finally made it into law.

Environmental groups charged that the GOP tactics amounted to an abuse of the lawmaking process, since in most cases the riders were exempt from hearings, debate or often even formal votes.

Although House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has said he plans to insist that all appropriation bills be free of such riders this year, environmentalists said that last week’s House action suggests Republicans are preparing another salvo of the riders this session.

“It’s an odd kind of way to build bipartisanship,” said Steve Cochran, a lobbyist for the Environmental Defense Fund. “It’s not encouraging to see the House start off that way.”

Republicans insisted that the environmentalists are jumping the gun. They point out that the measures last week each passed with support from about 60 Democrats--more than a quarter of the party’s House members.

They also contended that, with the Republican majority at 223 to 212 in the wake of November’s election, GOP leaders are likely to keep their word about fashioning their legislation so more Democrats can support it.

“I think you’re going to see that anything that comes out of Congress this year is going to be a consensus piece of legislation,” said an aide to a key House Republican leader.

The House action that riled environmentalists involved two separate pieces of legislation: the Federal Mandates on the Private Sector Act and the Small Business Paperwork Reduction Act. Both measures have been sent to the Senate for action there.

The paperwork reduction act would exempt first-time violators of federal agencies’ reporting requirements from civil fines, except when their infractions threaten public safety or would permit a crime to go undetected.

Rep. David M. McIntosh (R-Ind.), the measure’s sponsor, cited the case of a fertilizer maker in Oklahoma who switched to a more environment-friendly bulk storage system but was fined $5,000 by federal regulators because he forgot to submit a pesticide production report.

The mandates bill would make it easier for lawmakers to throw up procedural barriers to federal regulatory legislation that could impose high costs--anything totaling $100 million a year or more--on U.S. business and industry.

Under its provisions, lawmakers could challenge any such proposals simply by raising a point of order--a move that would trigger additional debate on the issue, to be followed by a roll-call vote in which a simple majority could block further consideration of the bill.

Daniel J. Weiss, the Sierra Club’s political director, said the floor action on the federal mandates bill included the GOP-aided defeat of an amendment by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) that would have made it easier for House members to force a debate on environmental riders. The amendment was defeated, 216 to 203.