Senator Wyche Fowler (D-GA) offered an amendment to the FY90 Interior Appropriation which would reduce the road-building funds appropriated to the Forest Service by $65 million. $40 million would be re-allocated to environmental programs within the Forest Service, and the remaining $25 million would be returned to the Federal Treasury. The National Forest Service has been required by law to build roads so that timber interests would have easy access to their harvests. Environmentalists believe that the federal government should not be subsidizing the industry's cost of doing business, especially when this business is a chief source of environmental degradation and resource exploitation.

On July 26, 1989, Senator James McClure (R-ID) offered a motion to kill the Fowler amendment. McClure's motion was rejected 47-52. NO is the pro-environment vote.

Following McClure's defeat, the Senate passed the Fowler amendment by a margin of 55-44. YES is the pro-environment vote.