Max Baucus: “at some point soon the Senate must either return to the consideration of the Interior appropriations bill or else…”

“at some point soon the Senate must either return to the consideration of the Interior appropriations bill or else consider an omnibus bill that includes provisions relating to the appropriations for the Interior Department or, dare I say, at a time when perhaps the Interior appropriations bill would come to the Senate, not directly to the floor, but via a conference report, where the conference report is not debatable. But when any of those events occur, we are going to face the issue of antienvironmental riders which are currently in the Senate Interior appropriations bill. In anticipation of that debate, I will take some time this afternoon to explain why I and several of my colleagues intend to offer an amendment that would delete many of those riders. Three years ago, there was an attempt to fill appropriations bills with various riders--you know, those attachments that go on to appropriations bills that have virtually nothing to do with the bill-- riders that made very controversial changes to our Nation's environmental laws: riders that would weaken, for example, the Clean Water Act, weaken the Clean Air Act, slow down the cleanup of hazardous waste sites, and prevent the protection of any more endangered species. We all remember what happened. The President vetoed the bills, demanding that the riders be deleted. Congress refused. There was a standoff. The Government was shut down.”