A number of senators have tacked anti-environmental riders onto an emergency spending bill that would fund NATO’s air war in Yugoslavia and send relief money to hurricane-stricken Central America. House leaders are unhappy with the Senate add-ons and are likely to try to strip them during conference committee this week, and the White House has threatened a veto over riders. But enviros are worried that some measures could slip through. One rider would allow a mining company to open a huge waste dump in eastern Washington state in violation of the 1872 Mining Law. Others would allow commercial fishing in protected areas of Glacier Bay National Park; suspend a pending increase in off-shore oil drilling royalties; and keep the Alabama sturgeon from being listed as an endangered species.
