On the Motion to Table S.Amdt. 899 to H.R. 2217 (Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2002) - To direct the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take certain actions for the recovery of the lost river sucker and the shortnose sucker, and to clarify the operations of the Klamath Project in Oregon and California, and for other purposes.

Constitutional Vote: No

Vote Date: July 12, 2001

Klamath Basin. During consideration of H.R. 2217, Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) offered an amendment aimed at ending the federal policy that has denied water to, and devastated the livelihoods of, farmers in the Kiamath Basin of southern Oregon and northern California. The water was ostensibly withheld so that endangered suckerfish could survive a drought. Smith explained that his intent was "to go back to a biological opinion … that would have permitted this drought to be managed as were the droughts in 1992 and 1994, in which the suckerfish survived, as did the agricultural community around it."

The Senate voted 52 to 48 on July 12, 2001 to table (kill) the Smith amendment (Roll Call 232). We have assigned pluses to the nays.