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Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of the conference report to accompany the Interior appropriations bill (H.R. 2466) making appropriations for the Department of the Interior and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.
The report will be stated.
The clerk read as follows:
The committee on conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the amendment of the Senate to the bill, H.R. 2466, have agreed to recommend and do recommend to their respective Houses this report, signed by all of the conferees.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senate will proceed to the consideration of the conference report.
(The conference report is printed in the House proceedings of the RECORD of October 20, 1999.)
Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I further ask consent that the conference report be considered as read, the report be agreed to, with the motion to reconsider laid upon the table, and I ask consent that any statements be printed in the RECORD.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The conference report was agreed to.
THOMAS PAINE MEMORIAL
Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, seven years ago legislation was enacted, with my support, to create a memorial on the National Mall honoring Thomas Paine. A site has been selected and approved at 1776 Constitution Ave. However, the memorial project needs to be reauthorized until 2003 in order to raise the necessary funding to complete construction. Today I want to spend a moment to recognize the great American patriot, Thomas Paine.
Thomas Paine thrived on new ideas, was broad minded and progressive. Through brilliantly written persuasion, he advocated four concepts which have since become cornerstones of American society and governance: independence, representation, unity, and leadership. Thomas Paine was the first patriot to call for a ``Declaration of Independence'' and a ``Continental Charter'' which proposed the basic principles of our constitution: ``securing freedom and property ..... and above all things, the free exercise of religion.''
Another cornerstone was laid when Paine had the foresight and courage to publicly advocate a representative, democratic/republican form of government for this country. He influenced George Washington and numerous other Revolution leaders as he stressed that government was a necessary evil which could only become safe when it was representative and altered by frequent elections. The function of government's role in society ought only be to regulate society and therefore be as simple as possible.
Paine also introduced our status as a united, sovereign country with due regard for individual and states rights. He coined the phrases ``Free and Independent States of America'' and ``United States of America.''
The last cornerstone that Thomas Paine set for our country was the concept of a world leader fighting for human rights. Paine publicly denounced chattel slavery and was the first patriot to publish a defense of the rights of women in America. In his papers American Crisis I, Paine wrote:
These are the times that try men's souls....... Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; ..... What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods, and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.
Paine has often been quoted by the leaders of this country on the great ideas of American independence, freedom and democracy--concepts which he was and still is unmatched in expressing. Without Paine's vision and initiative, our country would not be the republican world power that it is today.
I am honored to have been able to help authorize his memorial seven years ago. I introduced S. 1681 to reauthorize the memorial until 2003 and I am glad that language from S. 1681 has been included in this bill to let this important work continue. Americans will be remembering Thomas Paine for generations to come, because of what we are doing today.
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, as chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, I rise today to congratulate Senator GORTON on his good work on the fiscal year 2000 Interior appropriations bill. I know the negotiations which led to this conference report were difficult but I believe Senator GORTON and the other Senate conferees did an excellent job under these trying circumstances. I hope that President Clinton recognizes this and signs this appropriations bill into law.
Today, I want to highlight one particular program which has been the subject of recent focus both in the Congress and in the Clinton Administration--the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The LWCF Act authorizes the expenditure of monies from the LWCF for two purposes only: the acquisition of Federal land by the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the United States Forest Service; and formula grants to states for park and recreation projects. The LWCF Act creates a balance--between the State and local communities and the Federal government; between urban and rural communities; between the western and eastern states--for the development of outdoor recreation resources.
Unfortunately, over the last four years the balance between the state and Federal-sides of the LWCF has been eliminated. With the action of the Clinton Administration and the Congress to shut-down the state-side LWCF matching grant program in fiscal year 1996, the LWCF has become a Federal-only land acquisition program. As I have expressed before, I believe the loss of this balance is a tragic mistake and serves to increase the already significant pressure on the Federal government to meet the recreation demands of the American public.
I have worked tirelessly over the last 3 years to restore the state-side LWCF matching grant program. This year those efforts have reaped results. Interior conferees provided $20 million for the state-side matching grant program. While I wish more money could have been provided, with tough budget targets, it was not easy to find $20 million in such a lean bill. It is a start.
I also would like to thank Senator GORTON for ensuring that no limitations are placed on the expenditure of this money. It is important that States and local governments have the flexibility to determine how best to meet the recreation needs of their citizens.
There may be a need for changes to the state-wide LWCF matching grant program. However, it is not appropriate to make these changes on an appropriations bill. The President's budget proposal sought to fundamentally restructure the state-side matching grant program authorized by the LWCF Act. The LWCF state-side program is a formula grant program which provides monies to States and local communities for the planning, acquisition, and development of parks and recreation facilities. The President proposed to replace this program with a competitive grant program to the States for the purchase of land and open space planning. This proposal would have changed the focus of the state-side program and undercut the Federalism inherent in the existing program. The Federal government should not dictate a one-size fits all mandate for the administration of this program.
State-side LWCF matching grants, which address the highest priority needs of Americans for outdoor recreation, have helped finance well over 37,500 park and recreation projects throughout the United States. The state-side of the LWCF has played a vital role in providing recreational and educational opportunities to millions of Americans. The state-side program has worked because it has provided States and local communities--not the Federal government--with the flexibility to determine how best to meet the recreational needs of its residents. This $20 million will begin the process of saving this important program.
The Interior conference report also provides more than $230 million for land acquisition by the four Federal land management agencies including $40 million for the acquisition of Baca Ranch in New Mexico. A few months ago the President announced an agreement to purchase this property for $101 million. I have not taken a position on the merits of the Baca Ranch acquisition but have an interest in this matter as chairman of the authorizing committee.
No money can be appropriated from the Land and Water Conservation Fund for the acquisition of Federal land, including Baca Ranch, in the absence of an authorization. The Federal-side LWCF program provides monies for the Federal land management agencies to acquire lands otherwise authorized for acquisition. The LWCF Act does not provide an independent basis for Federal land acquisition. Rather, the LWCF Act establishes a funding mechanism for the acquisition of Federal lands which have been separately authorized. Section 7 of the statute specifies, with limited exceptions, that LWCF monies cannot be used
for a Federal land purchase ``unless such acquisition is otherwise authorized by law.''
The Interior conference report recognizes this limitation by making the acquisition of the Baca Ranch contingent
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The Interior conference report also requires that the General Accounting Office review and report on the Baca Ranch appraisal. The Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Act requires an appraisal of the fair market value of private property the Federal government desires to acquire, whether through negotiations or condemnation. An appraisal has been done on the Baca Ranch. However, the appraisal was conducted not by the Federal government but rather the seller. While I have no reason to doubt the validity of the appraisal, before Congress spends this significant amount of money to purchase the Baca Ranch, Congress owes it to the American taxpayer to ensure that the $101 million sale price represents the actual fair market value of the property. The General Accounting Office is the appropriate entity to conduct this review and report to the appropriators and the authorizers.
As many of us remember from two years ago, the conditions imposed on the Baca Ranch purchase are consistent with the requirements the Senate imposed on the Headwaters Forest and New World Mine purchases. Unfortunately, these conditions were eliminated in conference and both acquisitions were authorized on the fiscal year 1998 Interior appropriations bill. That is wrong. Clearly by agreeing to placing these limitations on the Baca Ranch acquisition, the House has realized that authorizing, the Headwaters Forest and New World Mine acquisitions in the appropriations bill was bad public policy. It is the role of the authorizing committee--not the appropriators--to make sure that any addition to the Federal estate is warranted.
There has been talk about the next step in the process. There are rumors that the President will not sign this conference report because he is disappointed that his Lands Legacy proposal was not totally funded. I hope that is not true but if it is I find this reasoning nonsensical. The Lands Legacy proposal is nothing but budget gimmicky. It seeks to charge against the $900 million LWCF ceiling the increased funding of a variety of programs not authorized to derived monies from the LWCF. These programs, which may or may not warrant increased Federal funding, already have independent authorizations. By engaging in this accounting game, the President artificially reduces the amounts available for programs authorized by the LWCF Act, including the state-side matching grant program. If the President seeks to fund these programs from the LWCF, he needs to introduce appropriate authorizing legislation and work with the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to accomplish this goal.
Finally--and most disturbing to me as chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee--are indications that the Clinton Administration wants to permanently authorize the use of revenues from the Outer Continental Shelf for the Lands Legacy proposal in either the Interior appropriations bill or an omnibus appropriations bill. I support the use of OCS revenues as a permanent funding source for a variety of important conservation programs, in fact I introduced S. 25, the Conservation and Reinvestment Act of 1999, to accomplish this goal.
However, no matter how strong my support is for this goal, providing this authorization on any appropriations bill is wrong. This proposition is extremely controversial. In the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, we have held hearing after hearing on S. 25 and other OCS revenue sharing proposals. Since completion of those hearings, committee members have struggled to reach a compromise. We have struggled because, while every committee member cares about the conservation of this nation's natural resources, we each have a different vision as to how best to conserve and protect these resources. But no matter how difficult this challenge, we will continue to strive to reach an agreement that is acceptable not only to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee but also to the Senate.
What the Clinton administration is contemplating would be a unrivaled usurpation of the authorizing committees. If the most significant piece of conservation legislation introduced in the last 30 years is enacted on an appropriations bill without any public input or participation, all of us who are authorizers should turn in our gavels.
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