Jeff Bingaman: “today we are voting on the conference report for the 2006 Energy and Water Development appropriations Act. On the whole…”

“today we are voting on the conference report for the 2006 Energy and Water Development appropriations Act. On the whole, the conference report contains many items well worth supporting, including funding for a number of important water and energy projects in New Mexico. Regardless of my support for the report as a whole, I would like to take this opportunity to express my strong concern with a provision inserted into the legislation without any debate, and which I believe represents a setback to sound public policy. Section 121(b) of the bill is a very short provision addressing endangered species issues in the Middle Rio Grande in New Mexico. It amends an existing law enacted in Public Law 108-447 which holds that a March 2003 biological opinion addressing water operations in the Middle Rio Grande fully satisfies the requirements of the Endangered Species Act, ESA. I had supported the original provision because a thorough review of that biological opinion indicated that it was based on a credible interpretation of the best available science and contained re- openers that ensured the biological opinion would be amended if it failed to meet its objectives. Section 121(b) goes much farther and provides legal protection to any amendments to the 2003 biological opinion.…”