Department of the Interior Appropriations (HR 12932). The vote is on the Curtis motion to prevent reconsideration of a vote to exempt water projects in the Colorado River Basin from having to prepare a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Western Senators were afraid that the pending NEPA lawsuit would halt construction of some of their pet water projects, which had been evaluated individually, but not collectively with regard to their cumulative impacts. Consideration of these cumulative impacts is badly needed because of increasingly serious salinity problems, the cumulative loss of critical fish and wildlife habitat, and because there is not enough water In the Colorado River Basin to meet the demands of all the projects and uses that are already authorized. The Carter Administration favored a strict application of NEPA and opposed Curtis motion to table. Agreed to 59-33; August 8, 1978. No is the correct vote.