This week Congress passed the Conservation And Reinvestment Act (CARA) which ensures offshore drilling fees intended for maintaining and restoring national parks and conservation efforts will actually be used for that purpose. I have always believed in truth in taxation. For too long, our government claimed it was collecting taxes for one purpose, but using the money to support unrelated deficit spending.

Over $4 billion per year has been collected from offshore oil and gas lease payments that are intended for rehabilitation or reinvestment in existing parks and lands, but this money has been diverted to cover deficit spending. That meant our national parks often got short-changed, The Government Accounting Office estimates that our parks have an over $8 billion backlog in construction and maintenance, despite increased park entrance fees. This hurts our seniors and families who use our national parks.

The Conservation And Reinvestment Act (CARA) will provide our parks and conservation efforts with stable annual funding of $2.85 billion per year out of the revenues paid by companies drilling for oil or gas on the outer continental shelf. These fees are finally being allocated for the purposes for which they are collected.

It has always been my goal to ensure taxes collected for a certain purpose are not re-directed for other projects. This explains my efforts to ensure gasoline taxes collected for transportation needs are spent for transit, highway, and other transportation purposes and that airport ticket taxes and aviation fuel taxes are used for aviation purposes. This is also the principle that payroll taxes collected for Social Security are not used to fund other government spending.

There were some concerns about CARA that we addressed through an amendment introduced by Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona. With these changes, CARA cannot contribute to deficit spending, and also provides more property right protection. The bill limits the ability of federal agencies to force unwilling landowners off their property to expand a park. If a seller is unwilling, the bill makes makes the democratically-elected Congress, not a court or bureaucratic agency, the final authority if land is to be condemned for acquisition. The bill also requires that just compensation be paid for all land acquisitions.

Fiscal responsibility is guaranteed because spending under CARA cannot take place unless Congress certifies that it is on track to eliminate all publicly held debt by 2013, that it is not running an on-budget deficit, and that Social Security and Medicare are not predicted to run a deficit within the next five years.

Each year, under CARA, Georgia will get approximately $7 million for coastal impact assistance, $16 million for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, $9 million for wildlife conservation, $2 million for urban parks and recreation recovery, $2.4 million for historic preservation, $2 million, for federal land maintenance, $1 million for farmland protection, and $1.3 million in payments in lieu of taxes for local governments. The bill should support Georgia’s recently enacted green space preservation program.

This bill will benefit our wildlife and environment by increasing federal funding for local, state, and federal projects. It will benefit property owners by increasing protections. It also benefits taxpayers because it ensures that money collected for the purpose of maintaining and restoring our parks and environment will be used for that purpose. Finally, it will benefit those millions of Americans who pay taxes to maintain our national parks and then pay fees to use them.. With any luck, we should be able to revisit those fees and see if we can now scale them back.

Congress is entrusted with protecting our nation’s environment and natural resources, and this bill is an important step in fulfilling that trust.

Identity theft using Social Security numbers is a growing problem, so the Social Security Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee held hearings this week to learn about the problem and listen to recommendations for solutions. The biggest problem is that criminals find it easy to use the Internet to learn a person’s Social Security number (SSN) and use that number to steal that person’s identity.

Witnesses testified that thieves use the stolen identity to either directly enter the victim’s credit card and savings accounts, or to take out loans, telephone numbers and credit cards in a victim’s name. Before the victim realizes it, huge debts can be run up. Surveys show that the average victim is stuck with over $18,000 in debts, and has to spend 175 hours to clear up the problems.

The subcommittee heard from victims of identity theft, as well as experts from consumer groups, industry groups, and the government. The Social Security Administration’s Inspector General, James G. Huse. The experts discussed how the numbers are used legitimately and how they are abused. Stalkers have acquired SSNs to track down victims. In a widely publicized incident, Amy Boyer of New Hampshire was stalked and killed by a former 10^th grade classmate after he obtained information about her from the Internet.

This is an issue of great importance to a great many persons due to the issue of obtaining credit for fraudulent purposes. It is a complicated problem, because as computers become increasingly important, some method of identifying people will be needed. Whether the numbers is the Social Security number or another number, there will still be persons who will try to learn those numbers for criminal purposes The Social Security Subcommittee will continue to examine this issue and weigh the various approaches offered to protect us all from those who try to steal our Social Security numbers. Congress should see that every American’s privacy is respected.

Members of the National Association of Homebuilders discussed housing and property issues.

Kathy Bruce, her son, Parker Bruce, and Bunkie Rinkin, of the Suicide Prevention Advocacy Network visited to discuss measures we can take to prevent the tragedy of suicide. The Ryans, of Jackson, visited the Washington office. St. Paul's Lutheran School from Peachtree City took a tour of the Capitol. Together with Rep. Sanford Bishop we held a reception for Gen. LeMoyne, commander of Ft. Benning after the post recieved the Army Communities for Excellence award yet again. Ft. McPherson, which is also in the Third Congressional District also won an award.

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