The vote is on the Conte (R-MA) amendment to the Continuing Appropriations bill (H.J. Res. 631) to block funds for the Garrison Diversion. This project would ultimately cost over $1 billion, and would flood nearly as much productive farmland as it would irrigate, providing an $800,000 subsidy to each farm that benefited. It would cause more damage to the National Wildlife Refuge system than any other project in history, destroying or damaging 12 such refuges, many of them major breeding grounds for waterfowl and an important part of the flyway for migratory birds. It would also destroy large areas of native prairie and prairie wetlands, and pollute rivers flowing into two other states and Canada. The Canadian government claims that the project violates the U.S. - Canadian Boundary Waters Treaty.

Amendment adopted 252-152; December 14, 1982. YES is the pro-environmental vote. (Money for the Garrison was included in the Senate Appropriations bill, and retained by the House-Senate Conference Committee. Environmentalists will try again to kill the project in 1983.)