The Advocate (Baton Rouge) - 9/30/2000 
CARA BILL CHANGES CHALLENGED 
By JOAN McKINNEY Advocate Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Congress is headed for a huge fight next week over a bill meant to guarantee Louisiana and other states hundreds of millions of dollars from federal oil and gas royalties.

Congressional appropriations committees have drafted a radically scaled-back version of the legislation, and a coalition of environmentalists, governors, mayors and sports-related business groups find the changes unacceptable.

The Louisiana congressional delegation also opposes the version of the fiscal 2001 Interior Appropriations bill.

U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., organized a news briefing Friday afternoon for officials claiming to represent 5,000 "grass-roots" organizations. They vowed to resurrect the Conservation and Reinvestment Act, or something close to it.

"What the House and Senate appropriators have done is not CARA," said Jim Lyon, legislative director of the National Wildlife Federation. "We are here to dispel the myth that what the appropriators are doing is conservation funding, and that the game is over."

Various versions of CARA would divert $170 million to $300 million of federal offshore oil and gas royalties to Louisiana each year, and would give other oil and gas coastal states a guaranteed annual share.

CARA would also guarantee billions more in royalty sharing for federal and state land purchases, habitat protection, historic preservation, parks and outdoor recreational programs.

But those plans ran into problems with members of Congress who sit on the House or Senate appropriations committees, which determine how federal money is spent.

The draft appropriations bill would fund many of the same programs as CARA.

But it has less money overall. And, more critically, the bill doesn't require the royalties to be released every year to the coastal states and conservation programs.

While the appropriations bill would earmark the offshore royalties for the same general purposes as CARA, it would let Congress continue to control the annual disbursals of the money. The House and Senate appropriations committees would have first crack at recommending when the money should be released.

Groups who oppose the changes say they don't trust the appropriations committees to spend the royalties on coastal states and environmental programs.

Theoretically, a 30-year-old federal law already requires the offshore royalties to be spent on the environment. But Congress has never fully implemented that law, the groups argue.

Tony MacDonald, who represents an alliance of coastal states, said state and local governments need to be able to count on continued royalty sharing in order to plan long-term projects.

R. Max Peterson, executive director of the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, said the appropriations committees have long controlled the offshore royalties.

"As a percentage of the federal budget, conservation spending is 50 percent of what it was 25 years ago," he added. "That's a recipe for disaster for conservation."

He called assurances from appropriations committee members that their bill guarantees funding for conservation "a bunch of baloney."

"If that's true, there would be no basis for them opposing CARA," he said.

Peterson accused those lawmakers of demanding control of the oil and gas royalties so they can route federal funds to their own favored projects.

But congressional appropriations committees have a long history of opposing almost all "entitlements," or guarantees that federal funds will be spent for specific purposes. Some appropriations committee members say an important fiscal policy is at stake.

They say a new entitlement for coastal states and the environment will further limit Congress' ability to respond to national emergencies or fund other domestic programs, such as education or health care.

Congress already has locked up billions of dollars in the highway and airport trust funds.

The appropriations committees are not split upon party lines over CARA. Both Democrats and Republicans oppose the mandatory nature of the legislation.

"There is no way in hell that CARA is going to be on an appropriations bill," said a Republican spokesman for the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Wisconsin Democrat David Obey, a senior member on the House Appropriations Committee, repeatedly delivered the same message to White House negotiators this week, according to several people involved in the closed-door discussions of the Interior appropriations bill.

President Clinton has endorsed CARA, but has not said he will oppose all alternatives to it.

While the pro-CARA lobbying groups agree that the draft appropriations bill is bad, they appear split on how to deal with it.

U.S. Rep. Chris John, D-Crowley, said CARA forces may try to "take down" the Interior appropriations bill by a procedural maneuver. In effect, they would vote against allowing the bill to come to the House floor, forcing the House-Senate negotiators to redraft and resubmit it.

John said Alaska Republican Don Young already has recruited at least 60 House members who are willing to obstruct the Interior spending bill. A stand-alone CARA bill has passed the House with 315 votes, indicating its supporters could win a procedural showdown, John said.

But the pro-CARA groups assembled Friday said they had not formulated a strategy for next week.

Some said they could live with passage of the small program in the Interior bill if they could later persuade Congress to put the bigger CARA program into the massive end-of-the-year budget bill.

Others warned that passage of the Interior appropriations bill might peel away some of CARA's supporters, who would be less motivated to wage a year-end budget battle.

The first of many skirmishes may come Monday. According to John's office, the House Rules Committee has tentatively scheduled an afternoon meeting to decide when to send the Interior appropriations bill to the House floor. The committee could also set the rules for debating and voting on the bill.

Be informed! Don't allow yourself to be snowed by CARA.