Last week, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank proposed a bill that would attach taut strings to the rest of the money.
In the last six years of his presidency, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, Mr. Clinton used a veto threat to block more than 70 riders attached to budget bills that would have relaxed rules in areas like forest and wildlife protection, mining on public lands, air and water pollution, food safety and wetlands preservation.
This week, I've been working with fellow progressives in the House to attach language to appropriations bills that would limit the expenditure of federal funds on war.
A second line of attack might originate in Congress, where members hostile to the rules will be tempted to attach legislative riders to appropriations bills that would overturn the Clinton rules.
The House and the Senate have both attached language to pending spending bills that would restrict the Postal Service from closing post offices.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro was able to successfully attach an amendment to several appropriations bills that would prohibit any company that inverted in Bermuda or the Cayman Islands from engaging in federal contracts.
What's more, the measure, attached to a bill that would reduce inheritance taxes, could imperil favorite road, highway, bridge and safety projects, opponents asserted.
Yet the fiercest debate seemed to center on 39 riders attached to the bill that would hobble the regulation of big polluters and direct an additional $55 million in subsidies to oil and gas companies.
"Let's get something for it," said Representative Jeff Duncan, Republican of South Carolina, who mentioned a policy provision he would like attached to a bill that would halt the Obama administration's Syrian refugee program and said he was seeking support from the Senate on a possible impeachment of John Koskinen, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.
