In his letter (“Cut the propaganda,” Aug. 25), it’s clear that Ian Tanner missed the point of our Aug. 18 commentary, “Worst. Bill. Ever.”—namely that a Congressional spending bill freighted with non-budgetary anti-environmental amendments has nothing to do with spending and everything to do with corporate kowtowing, making Mr. Tanner’s retort (“the USA can’t afford it anymore”) a non sequitur.

We are pleased to report that the rest of the country did understand the threat to the environment and public health and safety represented by the dozens of extreme anti-environmental riders that House Republicans piled onto H.R. 2584, the Interior spending bill. After the Sierra Club and other environmental groups across the country sounded the alarm, H.R. 2584 was “tabled” indefinitely and is unlikely to reappear with its laundry list of toxic riders in place.

But I have to ask Mr. Tanner: When dozens of anti-environmental amendments to a bill are proposed by Republican members of Congress, how is it that you don’t consider that “partisan,” but you do consider reporting that simple fact to be partisan, and “demoniz[ing]”?