No Poison Pill Riders in the Minibus, Coalition Letter to Congress Demands
Congress Should Pass Clean, Lawful Funding Bills in a Timely Manner Through Regular Order
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The ‘minibus’ appropriations package should contain no poison pill policy riders, the Clean Budget Coalition insisted in a letter sent to all 535 members of Congress today. The letter also urges Congress to pass legislation that does not unilaterally violate the Budget Control Act, which requires commensurate increases for defense and non-defense funding. The letter calls on Congress to fulfill its most basic responsibility: passing clean funding bills in a timely manner under regular order.
With funding for FY 2017 expiring on Sept. 30, improper funding increases and inappropriate riders in the minibus are risking another pointless and avoidable government shutdown. The letter highlights a number of particularly egregious riders – special favors for corporate interests and ideological extremists – that could not become law on their own merits and must be removed.
“This bill creates a new level of damaging riders by adding in a controversial rider to provide funding for a border wall that is unrelated to any of the four bills into the language,” the letter reads. “In addition, there are numerous other poison pill policy riders included that would damage our environment and our water, like allowing the Army Corps to exempt certain fill material from protections granted under the Clean Water Act, halting the implementation of the commonsense and bipartisan National Ocean Policy and circumventing the longstanding legal process to repeal the Clean Water Rule, among others.”
The Clean Budget Coalition is made of 173 local, state and national organizations who have joined together to oppose appropriations riders. Coalition members represent an incredibly broad and diverse cross-section of the public interest community. Earlier in July, the coalition launched a new website to draw attention to the hundreds of harmful appropriations riders that Republican lawmakers have proposed for inclusion and that should be taken out of any final deal. In the months ahead, the coalition will continue to educate lawmakers, the press and the public about the threat of riders and pressure Congress to oppose them.
###