The White House Wednesday said President Clinton would veto the omnibus parks conference report filed Tuesday night. In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., OMB Director Raines said despite extensive changes made to the bill, the conference report still includes provisions that are unacceptable to the administration.
Raines contended the administration "repeatedly stated our strong willingness to work with you to develop bipartisan, compromise legislation that protects our nation's natural resources," but added, "This conference report does not meet that test."
The White House is willing to work on including a parks compromise in the FY97 omnibus appropriations package, Raines added.
The House is set to take up the parks bill today, while Senate consideration, sought Wednesday by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Murkowski, R-Alaska, was held up by Democrats who wanted more time to review the measure.
On a separate track, House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee staff were said by sources to be working on parks legislation to attach to the omnibus appropriations bill that included a few of the most sought-after parks measures. However, Murkowski and Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Slade Gorton, R-Wash., on the floor Wednesday said they would block any parks measures on the appropriations package. "This measure will pass intact," Murkowski said of the parks conference report, "or it will not pass at all." Gorton said the current legislation "is the only train in town."
In the letter, Raines said, "We have repeatedly stated our strong support for legislation to improve the management of the Presidio in San Francisco, use federal funds to help acquire the Sterling Forest [in New York] ... and establish the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas."
Provisions opposed by the administration in the conference report include: modification of the Ketchikan Pulp Company contract in the Tongass National Forest; permanent changes in the process for regulating rights of way across national parks and other federal lands; erosion of coastal barrier protections in Florida; and changes that would alter the Tongass land management plan.
Murkowski charged Raines' letter "is full of factual errors an appears to be based on the false hope any related bills will move separate from the conference report." "They had better do their homework and get back to me in the morning," Murkowski added.
House Resources Chairman Young Wednesday told the House Rules Committee the conference removed the provisions on which the White House had promised a veto, but House Resources ranking member George Miller, D-Calif., said the parks package was not based on consensus and had been negotiated in secret for four months.
Miller added the package is opposed by all major environmental groups.
Opponents of the measure may offer a motion to recommit it to conference when the House takes it up, sources said. One source said the conference report caught the leadership in both houses by surprise, as the leaders were expecting to be able to review the measure first.
NEXT STORY: Perot the Manager