Clinton Vetoes Energy, Water Measure

WASHINGTON —  President Clinton vetoed a $23-billion budget bill for energy and water programs Saturday, saying it was “deeply flawed” and threatened major environmental harm.

The veto, which had been expected, will likely be sustained. The bill passed last week in the Republican-led Senate, 57 to 37, or 10 votes shy of the two-thirds needed to override a veto.

One week into the new fiscal year, only two of the 13 spending bills for fiscal 2001 have been signed into law.

The president has twice signed stopgap legislation to keep the government funded temporarily, even though there is not yet agreement on the new budget.

Clinton urged Congress to quickly produce a new energy and water bill that he could sign.

“Today I vetoed a deeply flawed energy-water appropriations bill that threatens major environmental harm by blocking our efforts to modernize operations on the Missouri River,” Clinton said in a statement.

The president took issue with a portion of the bill that would block federal agencies from raising the spring flow on the heavily controlled Midwestern river to resemble its more seasonal flow to benefit wildlife.

“This anti-environmental rider would not only jeopardize the survival of three threatened and endangered species but would also establish a dangerous precedent aimed at barring a federal agency from obeying one of our nation’s landmark environmental statutes,” Clinton said.

Missouri lawmakers say that raising the spring flow would flood farms, endanger cities and hurt the barge industry on their stretch of the river.

But lawmakers from upriver states, led by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and backed by environmentalists, said that the management of the river for years has sacrificed recreation and wildlife in their states for Missouri’s farm and barge interests.

Clinton also criticized the bill for funding scores of “special projects for special interests.”

He said that it failed to provide sufficient funding for priorities in the national interest, such as the environmental restoration of the Florida Everglades and the California-Bay Delta and the administration’s strategy to restore endangered salmon in the Pacific Northwest.

“It also failed to fund efforts to research and develop nonpolluting sources of energy through solar and renewable technologies that are vital to America’s energy security.”

Clinton’s decision to support Daschle and the upriver states was seen as a risk for his vice president, Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore.

The move risks losing support for Gore in the hotly contested presidential race in Missouri.