Budget bill riders set anti-environmental policies
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13/02/2003
Republicans slid a host of anti-environmental riders into the final text of the $397.4 billion spending bill passed by Congress yesterday. One rider blocks appeals against a pending decision on whether to expand protection for Alaska's Tongass National Forest. Others cut funding for land conservation, weaken the national organic labeling standard, and expand a pilot forest thinning program that environmentalist decry as a further subsidy for timber companies.