The Advocate (Baton Rouge) - 10/2/2000

WHITE HOUSE FENCE-STRADDLING MAY HURT CARA

By JOAN McKINNEY Advocate Washington Bureau

The White House created mass confusion last week with a two-track (some would say "two faced") negotiating posture on Louisiana's favorite legislation in Congress.

That's CARA, the Conservation and Reinvestment Act. It would give billions in federal offshore oil and gas royalties to coastal states and would funnel billions more in royalty sharing to environmental, outdoor recreation, parks, land purchasing and habitat protection nationwide.

It would be guaranteed spending -- an environmental "entitlement."

The congressional appropriations committees hate it, Republican and Democrats alike. They say a new entitlement would be bad fiscal policy. It would tie Congress' hands and prevent flexible responses to national emergencies or other domestic needs, such as education or health.

Rubbish, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said last week.

The appropriations committees members long have been called the "cardinals" of Congress, and they simply want personal control of all that money, she said.

Whatever the merits of those arguments, the appropriations committees are in the process of trying to gut CARA. They've written a pale substitute and placed it into the fiscal 2001 Interior Appropriations bill. The substitute would earmark the royalties for many CARA-like programs -- but the substitute has less money overall and lets the appropriations committees retain control of when (or if) the royalties actually are released.

That was done in closed-door negotiations. Sometimes White House negotiators were in the room; sometimes they were not.

By late Friday, when everybody went home for the weekend, the White House had not said what it thinks of the "compromise."

President Clinton last week told CARA sponsors that he would support their bill. He also made a couple of public speeches supporting CARA by name. But the president did not say that he would oppose any alternative to CARA.

When word of the president's actions circulated, irate members of the appropriations committees walled White House aides off from their private talks. White House Chief of Staff John Podesta told reporters that the White House likes CARA, but he didn't rule out an alternative that also might meet the president's demand for more spending on the environment.

Meanwhile, CARA supporters kept hearing reports that George Frampton, an aide allied with Vice President Al Gore, was actively working for a CARA substitute.

"Podesta has made statements that they support CARA. Frampton's been less articulate on that," said R. Max Peterson, representing an alliance of fish and wildlife agencies.

"I think it's an environmental thing," said U.S. Rep. Chris John, D-Crowley.

Frampton might be unhappy with CARA's protections for private-property owners, or might still be suspicious of allowing oil and gas coastal states to control so much federal money, John speculated.

Others said Frampton firmly and sincerely believes that congressional control is required over federal funds to guarantee that national environmental policies are implemented at the state level.

So what IS the White House position?

"I don't know. I can't get a straight answer from anybody," Landrieu said.

"Maybe it's good-cop, bad-cop," said a Democratic congressional aide – different demeanors from two sets of White House aides, one set dispatched to the appropriations committees and another to the CARA folks.

Even if the appropriation committees' bill passes, Clinton and Gore can still claim an environmental legacy, the aide said.

"It's very much to their credit that they held out for something better" when the appropriations lawmakers initially pushed an even weaker version of CARA, the aide added.

"Maybe we're being BTU'ed," said an aide to U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-Chackbay, referring to Tauzin's claim that Clinton promised him one thing on an energy tax, and then did something else.