THIS SEARCH THIS DOCUMENT THIS CR ISSUE GO TO
Next Hit Forward Next Document New CR Search
Prev Hit Back Prev Document HomePage
Hit List Best Sections Daily Digest Help
Doc Contents
(21) Sec. 350: Prevent Grizzly Bear Reintroduction--would be disastrous for grizzly bear recovery and sets a very dangerous legislative precedent. This language prohibits the Department of the Interior and all other federal agencies from expending funds in any fiscal year to introduce grizzly bears anywhere in Idaho and Montana without express written consent of the governors of those two states. The language requires federal agencies to get state permission to implement a federal law on federal lands and sets a
[Page: H10664] GPO's PDF
Status: Unchanged as passed by the full Senate on 9/24/99 and negotiated by the House-Senate conference committee as of 10/18/99. On 7/27/99, this provision was stricken from the Senate bill in order to comply with Senate Rule XVI, which was reinstated after a four-year suspension by a Senate floor vote of 53-45 one day earlier. Rule XVI restricts the addition of unrelated policy riders to appropriation bills on the Senate Floor. However, on 9/14/99 Sen. Burns (R-MT) and Sen. Craig (R-ID) successfully re-offered the provision which still prohibits funds for the physical relocation of grizzly bears into the Selway-Bitterroot ecosystem, but limits the prohibition to fiscal year FY2000. Although amended, the provision remains objectionable.
(22) Sec. 355: Delays Improvements to White River Forest Plan--would further delay the revision of the forest plan for Colorado's White River National Forest by extending the comment period on the revised plan for another three months. The Forest Service has already granted a 90-day extension making the comment period six-months long more than ample time for all interests to make their views known. This forest is one of the most popular national forests in the country, containing the world-famous Maroon-Snowmass Wilderness along with Vail, Aspen and several other ski areas. In its draft management plan, the Forest Service has proposed for the first time trying to better manage rampant recreation by limiting it to its current levels to the outrage of the motorized recreation and ski industries. The rider is a thinly veiled attempt to delay the new forest plan until the next Administration in hopes of permanently sandbagging any attempts by the Forest Service to rein in corporate ski area expansions and rampant off-road vehicle use.
Status: Unchanged as negotiated by the House-Senate conference committee as of 10/18/99. This provision was added in conference by Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO).
(23) Sec. 357: Blocks Stronger Hardrock Mining Environmental Regulations--would further delay the Department of Interior's attempt to strengthen environmental controls applicable to hard rock mines (the so-called ``3809 regulations''). Specifically, the rider would extend the moratorium on stronger hardrock mining regulations through the end of fiscal year 2000.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. GOSS), the vice chairman of the Committee on Rules.
(Mr. GOSS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. HASTINGS), for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule and the Interior conference report, and I wanted particularly to commend the Committee on Appropriations, particularly the gentleman from Florida (Mr. YOUNG) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. REGULA), for including funding increases in areas such as the Park Service and the wildlife refuge system, particularly in this difficult year.
This bill is critically important to my home State of Florida. It is not just my home State. It is the destination of many visitors as well. Since it serves as the main vehicle for Everglades restoration funding, I am pleased that this year as in past years the committee has made sure that Congress continues to lead the charge in restoring the Everglades, unquestionably a unique national treasure which gives great enjoyment to a great many people.
In addition, I am grateful that the committee was able to make available land acquisition fund for the J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge which happens to be in my district and in fact comprises about 50 percent of my hometown of Sanibel, another area that is enjoyed by literally millions of visitors.
Some of my colleagues have expressed some concern about certain riders in this conference report before us. I know that I generally share the opinion of my colleagues on the Committee on Appropriations when I say these issues really are best handled through the authorization process, which is why we have authorizers and authorizing committees.
Of course, as my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. REGULA), is well aware, however, that since 1983 Florida has benefited from a legislative rider on this bill that protects our coastal areas from offshore oil and gas drilling. We have been trying to deal with the issue in the authorization committee, but so far we have been unable to get the job done so I want to express my appreciation and I think the appreciation of the full Florida delegation that the committee has once again included this stop-gap rider to protect Florida offshore waters from oil and gas drilling, which is a position our State holds very strongly and some other States do as well.
I urge my colleagues to support this rule, which is fair and traditional for this type of legislation. I urge them to consider the conference report carefully and support it, because it is a compromise conference report; but I believe it is a very good one under the circumstances.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. GEORGE MILLER).
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this conference report. This legislation defies the will of the American people by severely underfunding our national effort to protect and preserve the national lands and because it contains anti-environmental riders that interfere with the proper management of the public's resources.
This report drastically underfunds the President's land legacy initiative that is designed to protect the endangered lands and resources that are threatened by development. It is ironic that this legislation should take such an extreme and anti-environmental position on such an issue at a time when we are working mightily to fashion on a bipartisan basis a resource initiative .
Throughout this country, hundreds of thousands of people from soccer moms to sporting goods manufacturers, from environmentalists to hunters to park professionals to inner-city police organizations have come together to reach and support legislation that would expand, not constrict as this legislation does, the amount of investment we in Congress would make with the resources of this country.
The President requested $413 million for his land legacy and the land water conservation fund for the year 2000. The conference report provided less than $250 million. The administration sought $4 million for urban parks programs. The conference report provided half of that amount of money. We have to understand that the people of this country want these resources protected. They want the opportunities expanded. Ninety-four percent of all Americans support more funding for the land and water conservation fund. That is a Republican pollster taking that poll. Eighty-eight percent of the American people agree we must act now or we will lose these special places.
This bill does not act now, and it does so in the riders. In the riders it continues to give away public land for the mining companies to dispose of their waste and their toxic waste on these lands , and it overrides the limitations in the 1872 mining law; but they will not override those limitations to try to get the American people the royalties and rents for the use of those public lands .
This land also continues to allow the oil companies to underpay the royalties that my colleague, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. MALONEY), has worked so hard on. This continues to let them underpay $60 million in royalties that they owe the people of this country, $6 million in the State of California that goes to the education system in our State for young people.
This report continues to let the oil companies have a royalty holiday on lands that they drill oil from, that they take from the American people, and they underpay the resources. That should not be allowed to continue.
This bill also fails to provide the kind of support that is necessary so the Indian tribes of this Nation can continue to take over the functioning of those programs where the Government acted on their behalf in a most paternal manner, that the Indians can now
[Page: H10665] GPO's PDF
This legislation is bad for the environment. It is bad for the taxpayers. It is bad for school children. It is bad for the public that supports our parks and public lands , and we ought to reject it.
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. NETHERCUTT).
Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. HASTINGS) for yielding time to me.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to serve as a member of the Committee on Appropriations and the Subcommittee on Interior and was part of the conference committee that worked so hard with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. REGULA), a tremendous chairman in this case, trying to craft a measure that would be balanced and sensible under the limitations that we have funding-wise.
We worked hard in the conference committee with Senator GORTON, our colleague from Washington State in the other body, who worked very hard on behalf of the Senate to try to craft a measure that makes some sense.
What I have heard the speakers on the other side say in the last 15 minutes or so defies reality; it defies logic. On the one hand, they say this bill is inadequate and they want to spend more money. On the other hand, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. OBEY) says we are spending too much money in this bill; that we are over our allocation.
Well, the lands legacy program that the gentleman from California (Mr. GEORGE MILLER), the gentleman just spoke of, is $413 million.
My point is, they want to spend more money and they want to frustrate this bill. They do not want this conference report to pass under any circumstance because they know that if it passes and goes down and the President has to address the issue of whether it is adequate, then they are going to have a problem because they want this to go in an omnibus bill. They do not want to have any allocation made on the merits of this particular bill.
One had to be there, Mr. Speaker, to understand the diligence that went into trying to craft this measure and have it be acceptable. We are $77 million over last year on the National Parks Service. We are $50 million over the Bureau of Land Management for last year. We are $55 million more for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; the Indian Health Service, $2.4 billion, a $130 million increase. When is enough enough?
We are trying to balance this bill, meet the objections of the other body, meet the objections of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and also their preferences. So I must say, with respect to the mining issue and the patent issue, what we tried to do was have agreement between the two sides on the issue and come up with something that is acceptable to both as best we could.
Was it perfect? Is it a perfect bill? Certainly not, but my goodness let us be reasonable in adopting this rule, moving this process along, not frustrating it and waiting until the end so that then we are down to the White House with millions and millions in more dollars in the final package. That is not acceptable.
So I must say, I think the objectors in this case are not thinking it through carefully in terms of what is good for this country and what is good in this bill. It is a good bill. It is a bill that was crafted by a very diligent chairman in conference committee on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the Capitol.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. NETHERCUTT. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
Mr. OBEY. Let me say the gentleman has misconstrued what I said. I did not say that this bill had spent too much money. What I said was under the rules of the House, the rules prohibit this bill from being considered at this point because it exceeds the budget ceiling that the gentleman's party assigned to the subcommittee; and, therefore, under those circumstances a vote for this rule is a vote to exceed the ceiling that the gentleman's party itself imposed. What we are suggesting is that that needs to be fixed and a lot of other things need to be fixed, and the only way to do that is to sit down and fix it, rather than send a bill to the President that we know is dead on arrival.
Mr. NETHERCUTT. Reclaiming my time, I appreciate yielding to the gentleman but these ceilings are adjustable and the gentleman realizes that, I believe, that they are adjustable. They have to be adjustable based on our conditions.
Mr. OBEY. They sure are.
Mr. NETHERCUTT. That is the nature of this process, it is, and the bottom line, though, with regard to those who object is that they want to spend millions and millions and millions of dollars more. That is really what is happening here. I guarantee if we do not pass this bill and send it down to the President and let him make his judgment as he should under the Constitution, either veto it or sign it and then tell us why he has vetoed it, if he will, then we are going to be in an omnibus and all of those of us who care deeply about preserving Social Security and all of those on the other side of the aisle who profess that they do are going to be breaching their own commitment to that goal.
So I urge my colleagues, vote for this rule. Vote for this bill. Support the conference committee's best efforts to make this work and let us get the President to either accept or reject that under the Constitution, which is his obligation.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. MALONEY).
(Mrs. MALONEY of New York asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks, and include extraneous material.)
Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. SLAUGHTER) for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and to the underlying bill. I would say to my friend on the other side of the aisle, who says that we want to spend more money. Actually we are trying to save money. One of the terrible, anti-environmental riders is also very anti-taxpayer. It is an undisputed fact that the oil rider that is attached costs the American taxpayer $66 million a year. This is money that could go to education, to our schools.
We just had a bill on the floor where people talked about the need for more money for education. This is where we could save some money, where we could save some money by doing what is right. I would just like to say that what basically has happened is for decades the oil companies have underpaid the Government for oil extracted from federally owned lands . They got caught by the Department of Justice, by the Department of Interior, and I would say by the Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology headed by the gentleman from California (Mr. HORN), who held many hearings on the underpayment of oil royalties, the royalty holiday of the oil companies stealing money from the American taxpayer.
They had to pay $5 billion in penalties for what they ripped off in the past.
So what we have before us is a number of anti-environmental riders that are terribly unacceptable. I must say that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. DICKS), who is the ranking member, and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. REGULA) did a wonderful job keeping them off of the House version, but we need to keep them off the conference report, too. So I hope that my friends on the other side of the aisle will join us in voting against this rule, against the unacceptable oil riders and other riders that hurt the environment, that steal money from the taxpayers that could be going to education. It is just a bad bill. We need to stand up for America's schools, for the American taxpayers, and stand up against the anti-environmental rip-off and oppose this conference report.
[Time: 16:30]
There is no reason why we should continue paying big oil companies $66 million that they do not deserve, because they pay themselves market price. But when it comes to paying American schoolteachers and the government for federally owned land, they
[Page: H10666] GPO's PDF
If my colleagues are fiscally conservative, vote against this bill just on the oil rider alone.
Mr. Speaker I rise in strong opposition to this conference report.
Because it contains an unacceptable rider, that will let big oil companies, continue to steal money from our nation's schoolchildren, to fatten their own wallets.
Mr. Speaker, these oil companies, have been caught cheating, on the royalty payments they owe, for drilling oil on federal land.
Royalty payments, that benefit our schools, our environment, and the American taxpayer.
THIS SEARCH THIS DOCUMENT THIS CR ISSUE GO TO
Next Hit Forward Next Document New CR Search
Prev Hit Back Prev Document HomePage
Hit List Best Sections Daily Digest Help
Doc Contents