1. Wilderness Preservation/Stop New Roads Through National Wilderness Areas: During consideration of the Emergency Supplemental spending bill to provide financial assistance to victims of devastating spring floods in North Dakota and California (S. 672), Sen. Stevens (R-AK) attached a rider to allow states to pave roads through national parks, monuments, wildlife refuges and wilderness areas, using a 130-year old law known as "R.S. 2477." This rider would have opened the door to thousands of roads across parks and wildlife refuges including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and newly created Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah. Sen. Bumpers (D-AR) offered an amendment to remove the Stevens rider from the bill. Sen. Stevens offered a motion to table (kill) the Bumpers amendment. Motion to table adopted 51-49 on May 7, 1997. PUBLIC INTEREST VOTE: NO

2. Alaska Wilderness/Stop Bulldozing of Road Through Alaska Wilderness: Alaskan Senators Frank Murkowski and Ted Stevens introduced this bill that will bulldoze a road straight through the heart of the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge and Wilderness Area in Alaska. The "King Cove Health and Safety Act of 1997" (S.1092) mandates the construction of an unnecessary 30 mile long highway through critical habitat for millions of migrating waterfowl, including threatened Stellarâs eiders, tundra swan and the entire Pacific brant population. The road would cost as much as $30 million to construct and federal highway funds are expected to pay for 90 percent of the construction expenses. The bill passed 59-38 on October 1, 1998. PUBLIC INTEREST VOTE: NO

3. Environmental Preservation/Stop Weakening of Land Use Protections: Sen. Hatch (R-UT) introduced a bill, with the assistance of the National Association of Home Builders, that threatened both federal environmental laws and local zoning. This bill would significantly amend most federal environmental laws, allowing polluters another opportunity to challenge long settled federal environmental protection decisions. This bill would also circumvent local land use decisional procedures and give developers a big stick to intimidate local governments who do not have the resources to defend against expensive federal lawsuits. S. 2271 was opposed by the National Governorsâ Association, the Dept. of Justice, Attorneys General from 37 states, the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conferences of Mayors, and the U.S. Judicial Conference. Senators Leahy (D-VT) and Chafee (R-RI) led the opposition to this bill. The Senate voted 52-42 on a motion to proceed to consideration of S. 2271 ö short the 60 votes need to cut off debate and bring the bill up for a final vote ö on July 13, 1998. PUBLIC INTEREST VOTE: NO

4. National Forests/Cut Timber Industry Road-Building Subsidy: The U.S. Forest Service encourages logging in our national forests through a variety of mechanisms, including building roads so that the timber industry can gain access to national forests, and selling the trees for less than the cost of administering the timber sale program. There are currently more than 440,000 miles of roads crisscrossing our National Forests ö more than ten times the size of the entire Federal Interstate Highway System. New road-building causes soil erosion and stream sedimentation, degrades water quality, and fragments wildlife habitat. An amendment to cut $60 million from the road-building budget in the Interior Appropriations bill offered by Sen. Bryan (D-NV) failed by a 49-51 vote on September 17, 1997. PUBLIC INTEREST VOTE: YES

5. Public Lands/Stop Delay of Mining Reforms: The fiscal year 1999 Senate Interior Appropriations bill (S. 2237) contained an unrelated legislative provision, or "rider," that would have delayed the enactment of new regulations on the hardrock mining industry. New regulations are desperately needed to replace outdated 1981 regulations, which do not address any of the destructive mining methods that have developed in the last 18 years, to allow federal officials to weigh other values besides mining when considering approval of mines, and to prevent mining companies from abandoning their depleted mines and leaving taxpayers with tens of millions of dollars of cleanup costs a year. Senators Bumpers (D-AR), Feingold (D-WI), and Landrieu (D-LA) offered an amendment to strip the delaying rider from S. 2237. The Senate voted to table the amendment 58-40 on September 15, 1998. PUBLIC INTEREST VOTE: NO

6. Nuclear Waste/Stop Dangerous Nuclear Waste Transport: S. 104, The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1998, would needlessly mandate the transportation of highly radioactive waste through 43 states. This would put millions of Americans at risk; preempt state and local laws and portions of key federal laws including the Safe Drinking Water Act; and set a radiation standard for a permanent repository that would result in one excess cancer death per 1,100 exposed individuals. The Senate approved S. 104 by a 65-34 vote on April 15, 1997. PUBLIC INTEREST VOTE: NO

7. Tobacco/Prevent Grant of Special Legal Protection to Tobacco Industry: The Senate considered Sen. McCainâs (R-AZ) bill, S. 1415, to codify the tobacco damages settlement negotiated by state Attorneys General. In return for agreeing to settle certain Medicaid claims with the states, which it could easily pay for with modest price hikes, the tobacco industry asked for numerous conditions. Among the most egregious was its demand for sweeping and unprecedented immunity from future lawsuits against it. If it won, the industry faced a win-win situation. Not only could it profitably pay off the statesâ modest damage claims with price hikes that its addicted customers would easily absorb, but it would eliminate future lawsuits from the victims of its 50-year conspiracy to market an addictive, carcinogenic product to children. This vote was on a procedural motion by Sen. McCain to table the Gregg (R-NH)-Leahy (D-VT) amendment, which eliminated special legal protections and other immunity for the tobacco industry from S. 1415. On May 21, 1998, the motion to kill the Gregg-Leahy amendment was defeated 37-61and all special legal protections for the tobacco industry, including an annual cap on liability to victims, were removed from the final bill. PUBLIC INTEREST VOTE: NO

8. Tobacco/Allow Final Vote on Tobacco Bill: Following the improvement of S. 1415, the McCain (R-AZ) tobacco bill, by a number of pro-health provisions, this vote was a pro-health motion to end debate (invoke cloture) and allow a final vote to occur on that national tobacco control bill. The bill had been strengthened by a number of floor amendments, especially by the Gregg-Leahy amendment above, which blocked special legal immunity and other protections for the tobacco industry. Amendments to the bill also ensured that it would have improved Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority over the industry, imposed severe financial penalties for tobacco marketing targeted at children and teenagers and increased tobacco taxes by $1.10 per pack to reduce the incidence of youth smoking. The Senate voted 57-42 (60 votes needed invoke cloture) not to end debate, killing the bill on June 17, 1998. PUBLIC INTEREST VOTE: YES

9. ATM Fees/Ban ATM Surcharges: Sen. DâAmato (R-NY) introduced legislation to ban unfair ATM surcharges. Since 1996, new rules of the bank ATM networks allow ATM owners to surcharge, or collect two fees from non-accountholders using their machines. Historically, ATM owners had always been compensated by receiving a portion of the "off-us" fee a consumerâs own bank charged its accountholders for using another ownerâs ATM. While charging consumers twice to use the ATM only once is unfair, ATM surcharging also reduces competition, since it unfairly benefits high-fee big banks, which have larger ATM networks, and harms low fee small banks and credit unions. PIRGâs 1999 ATM fee report found that 93% of banks impose surcharges averaging $1.37, which combine with average off-us fees of $1.20 to total $2.57 in fees to use an ATM not owned by your bank. This motion by Majority Leader Lott (R-MS) was to table, or kill, the DâAmato amendment to ban ATM surcharges. The Senate voted 72-26 to table the amendment on September 17, 1998. PUBLIC INTEREST VOTE: NO

10. Higher Education/Increase Student Loans and Grants: The 1965 Higher Education Act (HEA) was passed to provide equal access to postsecondary education for all Americans regardless of their economic circumstances. Federal support for higher education has been an essential building block of our society and is vital for the health of the democracy. Over the last two decades college costs have soared, the spending value of the Pell grant has been cut in half, and loan debt has more than doubled. S. 1882, the reauthorization of the HEA introduced by Senators Jeffords (R-VT), Kennedy (D-MA), Coats (R-IN) and Dodd (D-CT) provided some significant relief to college students by strengthening the Pell Grant and State Student Incentive Grant (now the LEAP Grant) and by lowering the interest rate on federal student loans. The interest rate reduction, established in prior law, was reformulated to maintain an interest rate reduction to students by .8 of a percent while also ensuring the continued availability of private capital in the federal loan programs. Student borrowers over the next five years will save an estimated $11 billion from the lower interest rate. PIRG supported the version of S. 1882 passed on July 9, 1998 by a vote of 96-1. PIRG did not support the bill as reported out of the House and Senate conference committee due to several provisions that were added that denied the lower interest rate for borrowers who consolidate their loans, weakened a Senate provision to establish an Office of Student Loan Ombudsman, and increased subsidies to lenders at the expense of student borrowers who end up in Bankruptcy. PUBLIC INTEREST VOTE: YES

11. Student Loans/Reduce Fees on Student Loans: Sen. Harkin (D-IA) introduced an amendment to S. 1882 that would have eliminated the "Insurance Fee" charged to the neediest borrowers of the Federal student loan programs. The result of the Harkin amendment would have been to eliminate the taxation of student loans that results in borrowers not receiving the full amount of the loan at the time they borrow. The savings to students from elimination of the insurance fee would have been up to $171 for undergraduate students. The "Insurance Fee" that would have been eliminated under the Harkin Amendment was established in 1993 as a temporary measure to ensure stability in the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program under assumed competition from the new Federal Direct Loan Program. Five years since the creation of the temporary fee, loan volume held by the FFEL lenders has increased by 11%, thus eliminating the assumed need of the "Insurance Fee." The Harkin amendment was supported by PIRG, the U.S. Student Association, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the American Council on Education, the Association of American Universities, and many other student and education associations. The amendment was opposed by private lenders and guarantors in the FFEL program. The amendment was defeated by a vote of 41-56 on July 9, 1998. PUBLIC INTEREST VOTE: YES

12. Campaign Contributions/Amend Constitution to Limit Contributions and Spending: Senators Hollings (D-SC) and Specter (R-PA) brought a proposed constitutional amendment (S.J. Res 18) to the Senate floor to authorize the Congress and the states to set mandatory limits on campaign spending and contributions. Congress set spending limits in 1974, but they were invalidated by the controversial Supreme Court decision, Buckley vs. Valeo, which extended First Amendment protection to unlimited spending in elections. The amendment was defeated by a vote of 38-61 on March 18, 1997. PUBLIC INTEREST VOTE: YES

13. Campaign Finance Reform/Ban "Soft Money" Contributions: Senators. McCain (R-AZ) and Feingold (D-WI) brought S. 1663 to the floor of the Senate to ban soft money contributions in federal elections. Soft money is unlimited and unregulated funds from corporations, labor unions, and wealthy individuals given to political parties as a way to get around the legal limits on contributions to candidates. While the bill fell short of comprehensive reform, it would be an important first step. A motion to table the bill was defeated by a vote of 48-51 on February 24, 1998. Despite the fact that a majority of Senators supported the bill, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) did not bring it to a final vote due to a filibuster by Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY). PUBLIC INTEREST VOTE: NO