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Mr. Speaker, getting back to this whole issue of livable communities. The communities that I represent are pretty built out, and it really is this point about planning, planning how we do transportation, planning how we do

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   The most striking thing about Governor Bush's record in Texas, 6 years of being a governor there, and he has, the last time I checked, never visited an area along the southern border to Mexico that is called Los Colinas. This area in Texas has no planning. These are lots that are sold to individuals where there is no infrastructure. There is no sanitation. There is no water line. Nothing. No highways, no arterial highways, no local roads. Nothing. And what you get is really a shanty, not even a shanty town, but one shanty home after the other, where raw sewage is being spilled out there, where water needs to be trucked in, where people are very, very poor. There are probably about 300,000 people living in Los Colinas, this area along the border.

   Mr. Speaker, a medium income of a family in a household, if you can call their house a house, is less than $8,000 a year.

[Time: 14:45]

   This guy has been Governor of Texas for 6 years and he has not ever bothered to even go down and see what is in his own backyard? I have been to Las Colonias more often than Governor Bush has. If this is the Governor's idea of livable communities, his idea of planning, his idea of how we pay for infrastructure, of how we place urban parks, there are no urban parks in Las Colonias, there is nothing. It is destitute. It is a lot.

   There are not even roads decent enough to make sure that children who live in a shanty in Las Colonias can get to the schools, which are probably miles away from where the children are living. This is the record? This is what he has to go on?

   This is what people have to understand. America should really understand what kind of a Governor this is, someone who really does not understand about planning, about quality of life, about looking at how we raise our children, and that environment is just not how pristine something is or how we put a monument someplace, but more importantly, it is about our lives, and it is about our children's future.

   I thank my colleague, the gentleman from Oregon, for giving me some time to talk about Las Colonias.

   Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's focusing in for us on the concern that we should have in terms of what the Bush administration would represent based on what has happened in two terms now of the Governor of the State of Texas.

   Texas, if it were a country, would have the world's seventh largest emission of carbon dioxide. Texas, under the leadership of Governor Bush, has now seen that Houston has now emerged as the number one city in the country in terms of pollution, air pollution, surpassing Los Angeles. We will be talking more about that.

   I am privileged to have join us for a discussion of these issues the gentleman from New York (Mr. HINCHEY), a valuable member of the Committee on Appropriations and someone who has been a leader in environmental protection in this Congress.

   I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. HINCHEY).

   Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. BLUMENAUER) very much. I thank him particularly for organizing this special order today and giving us all an opportunity to talk about an issue that is important to the gentleman, important to me, important to many of the Members of this House, and I think important to all Americans.

   That is, the quality of our natural environment, and particularly the convergence of that issue with another one that is also critically important, the issue of energy, the issue of the availability and the use of energy in the United States currently, and as we foresee the availability of energy here in our country and the use of those energy resources on into the future.

   The convergence of these two issues is more than coincidental. They are inextricably intertwined, the issue of protecting the environment and the issue of the way we produce energy for our critical energy needs.

   I watched the debate last night, also. I heard in response to a question on the energy issue the Governor of Texas respond that he felt that it was important for us to deal with the energy issue by expanding drilling and searching for new sources of oil.

   I would simply point out that that is not going to solve our energy problem. He went on to say that we ought to be drilling in the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge, and that is a place where we would obtain significant amounts of oil for our energy future.

   There are two aspects of that suggestion which deserve attention; first of all, the fragility of that environment. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is in fact one of the most fragile environments on the planet. It is important for us to protect it. In fact, it is an essential obligation on our part to protect that fragile environment.

   We have here a photograph which I hope the camera would take an opportunity to focus upon so that those of us here in the room, as well as people watching this, can get an idea of what the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge looks like. We can see from the presence of wildlife and the presence of these huge and dramatic mountains and also the presence of the landscape, we can get an impression of the fragility of that landscape.

   It is important for us to protect fragile environments. It is also important for us to be realistic about our energy needs and where we are going to obtain the energy that we are going to need, both now and in the future.

   If we were to accept the Texas Governor's, Governor Bush's, recommendation that we drill to the extent that he would like to in the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge, what would be the results of that from an energy point of view?

   The results would be this. The maximum amount of oil that we could draw from the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge would supply the energy needs of the United States for approximately 6 months. So what he is suggesting is ravishing this very sensitive, critical, irreplaceable environment for a 6-months supply of energy needs in our country. Obviously, it is a very foolish notion.

   Furthermore, the implication that somehow this 6-months supply of oil would in some way supply our energy needs for any significant period into the future is obviously on its face just absurd.

   So it is important for us to point out the factual circumstances surrounding these issues so that the American people begin to get an understanding of what this issue is all about and the dimensions of this particular debate: a 6-months supply in exchange for the ravishing of this environment. It simply makes no sense.

   On the other hand, Vice President GORE laid out in some detail an energy plan that will take us where we need to be. Any energy plan that is worthy of the name must have among its components major provisions for energy conservation. We need to conserve more energy. We are simply expending too much energy in our country. We are using it, and much of the way we use it is wasteful.

   For example, we need to have CAFE standards for vehicles such as the SUVs that are finding their way increasingly on the streets and highways of America. Sometimes I get the impression that people who are driving these vehicles think they are going to be taking a trip across the Kalahari Desert instead of driving around the urban area of Washington, D.C., just as an example.

   These vehicles, that get about 12 miles to a gallon, are part of the problem, frankly. They are part of the problem because they are consuming precious resources in a very flagrant and sort of careless and unthinking way.

   So we need to have improved standards for our transportation needs. We need to have improved standards for appliances. We need to have improved standards for energy production facilities.

   If we do that, we will find that the greatest source of new energy for the United States, both now and in the future, but particularly in the future, the greatest source of our new energy needs, will be from conservation. We will have reduced the amount of fossil fuels that we are producing and thereby extended the life of the known available fossil fuels for our future energy needs.

   So energy conservation is the principal component of any rational energy

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   I would also like to call attention to some of the issues that the gentleman was talking about a moment ago with regard to the environmental legacy in Texas.

   Let me just read them here, because I think they are very illustrative of the way in which this particular Governor has husbanded the resources of this particular State of Texas. The Governor has had two terms down there. He has had an opportunity to establish the record. Let us take a look at the record and see what it looks like.

   We see first of all that Houston is ranked number one for the second year as America's smoggiest city. That is an honor that I think not many cities would like to have. Houston is the worst city in America for smog. Texas ranks number one in the number of chemicals polluting its air, and the effect of that on the people of Texas is, I am sure, not very welcome. We certainly do not want to see that kind of thing happen across the country.

   Texas ranks number one for the amount of toxins released into its atmosphere; again, not an enviable record. In 1997, Texas released over 260 million, 260 million pounds of toxic pollutants into the atmosphere, the number one State in the Nation in that regard, seventh biggest. If Texas were a country, it would be the world's seventh largest national emitter of carbon dioxide; again, not an enviable record.

   We have here what we are calling double trouble. Since Governor Bush took office, the number of days when Texas cities exceeded Federal ozone standards has doubled. So the record of this particular Governor with regard to his husbanding of the environment in the state of Texas is a very poor one, indeed, and one that I think we would not want to see inflicted upon the American people all across the country.

   I thank the gentleman very much for the opportunity to participate in this special order on an issue that is of critical importance to the future of our country.

   Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's contribution to this discussion. I would just make two comments before turning to another of our colleagues.

   First, as bad as this Texas environmental legacy is, and it is, as the gentleman pointed out, awful, what concerns me more than anything is somehow Governor Bush's lack of urgency about this. Where is his outrage about what has happened to his State in the last 6 years that he has been Governor? Where are his initiatives to try and do something about it?

   I find the lack of passion on the environment inexplicable, and it is something that I think ought to be of grave concern to every American.

   I do appreciate the gentleman putting up the picture of what we are talking about with the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This, after all, was something that was recognized as a national treasure by that radical Republican Governor, Dwight Eisenhower, in 1960, when he started setting aside these unique lands for protected status, America's Serengeti.

   The gentleman has pictured on that beautiful scene of the plain some of the large caribou herds, 130,000 of them, that calve and rear their young on that coastal plain, that provide subsistence to indigenous people that have a right to rely on that, and could be destroyed by the disruption of the herd.

   The gentleman has pointed out, as has our colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. MILLER), that this refuge is much more sensitive than Prudhoe Bay, and that the American public, we have talked about 70 percent of the American public opposes drilling here, as advocated by Governor Bush.

   I find even more interesting that Alaskans, who would stand to benefit from the oil drilling, even Alaskans have a slight majority, according to the public opinion polls, that oppose drilling in this precious area. It is obviously shortsighted and dangerous. I appreciate the gentleman focusing on it for us this afternoon.

   Now it is my pleasure to yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. PELOSI), another of the environmental champions in Congress, a woman who has perhaps one of the most challenging urban districts in urban America, the one that is keenly environmentally sensitive and concerned about livable communities.

   Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I especially want to thank him for his great leadership on protecting the environment. It is an issue about conservation and it is an issue about health. His championship of the livable communities initiative is one that will serve our children well, and their children and their children. It is about the future. That is what elections are about, especially presidential elections.

   So I was very disappointed to hear last night that Governor Bush was offering old suggestions, last century proposals, to challenges that we have into this new millennium.

   Livable communities, those are two words that the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) has championed.

   Community, that is what America is about: where we live, how we educate our children, where we go to work, how we get there, the air we breath, the water we drink, how we take care of our families in a community.

   Described by the word ``livable,'' what could be more basic and more commonsensical than that?

[Time: 15:00]

   That is what this discussion is about. Vice President GORE, along with House and Senate Democrats, favor long-term solutions about our livable communities. They propose solutions which reduce our reliance on imported oil and ensure a cleaner environment by supporting investments in renewable energy and energy efficiencies.

   We House Democrats support that as well. We support tax credits for producing electricity for renewable sources, expanded exploration of cleaner burning natural gas, consumer incentives to purchase energy efficient cars, trucks and homes by offering tax breaks.

   In addition to investments in renewable energy, we need to expand America's transportation choices by investing in alternatives such as light rail, high-speed rail, and cleaner, safer buses and other forms of mass transit. These are real solutions that benefit the consumer and the environment and not the cycle of corporate welfare.

   I think it is important to note that the Republican-led House appropriation of $650 million for energy conservation is $201 million less than the President's request and $95 million below the current year funding.

   We are going backward in our funding. In fact, since 1995, Republicans have slashed funding for solar renewable and conservation programs by a total of $1.3 billion below the Clinton administration request.

   I had much more to say about the Bush proposal, but he spoke for himself last night, as I say, in an old way about how we should go into the future, and I know there are other speakers here.

   I just want to say that this issue about how we take up this initiative of livable communities under the leadership of the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. BLUMENAUER), this issue about energy and the environment are not just conservation environmental issues.

   Where I live, the environment is not an issue in California. It is an ethic, it is a value. It is about our children's health. In other special orders, we can talk about environmental health and how we are impacted by the air we breathe, the water we drink, and what that means to our children's health and the rate of asthma among young children in African-American communities and breast cancer among so many women across the board in our community.

   I want to on behalf of my constituents thank the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. BLUMENAUER) for his outstanding leadership on this issue and thank him for giving this opportunity to point out the difference between Vice President GORE and Governor Bush as far as the future is concerned.

   Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I must say that I appreciate the gentlewoman from California (Ms. PELOSI) tying these pieces together, because as she mentioned, under the notion of livable communities, which the Republican leadership has attempted to sort of pass off as somehow a war against the suburbs or citizens, trying to pry

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   This administration, the Clinton-Gore administration has done more than any administration in history for the Federal Government to be a better partner, whether it is the environmental ethic, as the gentlewoman from California mentioned, that is being instilled in the Department of Defense, the General Services Administration, to the statements that the Vice President himself has made that indicates that, really, the best is yet to come if we have an opportunity for him to serve as President building on this legacy. I appreciate the gentlewoman's comments and her leadership.

   Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. WEINER). There are a number of issues that impact people in urban areas. The gentleman from New York represents one of the most urbanized areas in the country and has been a champion of neighborhood livability, metropolitan livability, and Congress being a better partner.

   Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

   Mr. Speaker, I have to tell my colleagues it was almost before I learned the name of the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. BLUMENAUER) that I had learned to associate him with the idea and concept of livable communities. I want to thank him for taking this time.

   Mr. Speaker, I come from a community that one might think would embrace the idea of exploring any sources of energy that we can find, perhaps even including the Alaska Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Nothing could be further from the truth.

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