BUDGET RIDERS COULD GET EXPENSIVE FOR U.S.; EXISTING LAWS WEAKENED BY PASSAGE OF ADD-ONS TO FEDERAL LEGISLATION.

Byline: Martin Schlageter and Evan Thomas Paul

The smoke-filled room may be a thing of the past in Washington, D.C., but back-door politics is alive and well, and this time the deals being cut may affect our air, our water, our health and even our weather.

It's budget season in the nation's capital, and that means it's open season for budget riders.

What are budget riders? A sneaky way of making public policy, a budget rider is an amendment attached to a budget bill. The idea is that the amendment will ``ride'' the budget bill, which must pass to fund federal programs and agencies, all the way to final enactment.

Some 58 budget riders now coming out of Congress threaten to undo much of the progress our nation has made in protecting our environment. There's one that would stop the EPA from enforcing certain clean air standards against power plants and factories.

There's another that would allow federal officials to ignore sound science when deciding whether to allow logging that might harm wildlife and natural habitat.

There's another that would loosen the rules on mining companies dumping their toxic wastes on public lands they lease from the government. And the list goes on.

Earlier this year, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, offered the Defense of the Environment Act to help solve the problem of riders, proposing that any motion to lessen environmental laws would have to be specifically voted on by members of Congress. The defeat of that act, at the hands of neighboring Rep. James Rogan, R-Pasadena, among others, allowed an abundance of anti-environmental legislation to hitch rides on budget bills as quietly as hobos catch a boxcar.

Is each budget rider related to the subject of the budget bill itself? Not necessarily. Will our elected representatives get a chance to vote on each rider, apart from the budget bill? Unlikely.

Will the voters back home ever hear anything about these riders? Probably not. If these riders pass, will a few special interests benefit at the public expense? Undoubtedly.

Despite all this, each of these budget riders stands a better-than-even chance of passing, simply because each is attached to a budget bill that must pass or the government shuts down - an outcome that neither the president nor Congress desires.

That, of course, is the beauty of the budget rider. Riders are a great way to enact into law policies that few politicians would ever want to vote for because few voters would ever support them. And that's why they're such a great way to roll back our federal environmental protections.

Clinton stood up to Congress over similar anti-environment budget riders in the winter of 1995-96, when the government briefly did shut down. Since then, however, despite promises to the contrary, the president has approved federal spending bills containing nearly 50 anti-environmental budget riders, including, for example, one that prevents the government from requiring cars, SUVs and light trucks to get better gas mileage, which would not only help curb global warming but also save consumers money and let our kids breathe easier.

The president can wait and see what kind of budget bills Congress sends to the White House. Or he and his staff can tell members of Congress exactly which anti-environmental riders will trigger a presidential veto.

That's just what the president's staff did when they discovered a budget rider that would have accelerated development of fragile wetlands in an energy- and-water-programs spending bill. After the White House threatened a veto, congressional budget writers removed the rider.

Clinton should follow the same strategy on every rider that threatens our air, our water, our health, our safety and our natural heritage. The president should use his veto threat, and if Congress fails to respond, he should use his veto pen, to protect our environment.