[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 91 (Wednesday, June 19, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H6517-H6518]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE INTERIOR APPROPRIATIONS BILL

  (Mr. DICKS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to the so-
called Riggs amendment. In the full committee, on the Appropriations 
Committee, we took up the Interior appropriations bill. After last 
year, I think all of us learned that we should be very careful about 
extraneous riders to that bill. But the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Riggs] decided to offer an amendment that would knock out a crucial,

[[Page H6518]]

critical habitat designation under the Endangered Species Act for some 
important marbled murrelet habitat in northern California.
  I urge the House today to support my amendment, which will be offered 
as an amendment to strike this provision, section 116, when the bill is 
considered later today. There is a way to deal with this problem for 
the company in California that I know Congressman Riggs is concerned 
about, and that is to get that company to do a multispecies habitat 
conservation plan under the Endangered Species Act. That is the proper 
way to proceed, not with this rider.

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