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[Page: S9911]  GPO's PDF

   Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?

   Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I am in line for time, but I would be happy to yield to the Senator for 5 or 10 minutes.

   Mr. GRASSLEY. Ten minutes.

   Ms. LANDRIEU. I just need the 30 minutes that were reserved for me. I would be happy to yield to the Senator from Iowa.

   Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

   The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

   Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

   Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I come to the floor today, as I have many times in the last couple of months, to speak about an issue that is so important for so many Members in the Senate, and our colleagues on the House side, and to supporters everywhere, the Conservation and Reinvestment Act .

   We will be voting on the Interior appropriations bill in just a few moments. I plan, with all due respect to those who have worked on this bill--and I acknowledge their hard work--to vote no because it fails to embrace the principles outlined in the Conservation and Reinvestment Act .

   I express my respect for the members of the Appropriations Committee. They have a very tough job. They are charged with a great responsibility. While we have disagreed over this particular issue, we have worked together as we have tried and continue to try to reach a bipartisan compromise over this great battle for a legacy for our environment.

   In particular, I thank Senator TED STEVENS from Alaska, our chairman, and Senator ROBERT BYRD from West Virginia, our ranking member, who have been very attentive to the calling and the requests of the CARA supporters in this regard. While we have disagreed on this issue, it has not been personal. My remarks today are intended strictly to be constructive and hopefully to help us chart a course to navigate in the future on this important issue.

   I will read into and submit for the RECORD the excellent comments from individuals and Governors and mayors reflected in newspapers around our country, literally from the west coast to the east coast, from the south to the north, from interior communities to coastal communities, literally thousands and

   thousands of positive editorials and articles written about what we are attempting to do. From the State of Illinois, we have had some of our best editorials on this subject, of which the Presiding Officer has been a supporter.

   From the Seattle Post, May 18, a few months ago this year, talking about CARA:

   It is a bold approach to environmental conservation and restoration. If ever there were a win-win for all the squabbling factions permanently encamped in the corridors of Capitol Hill to argue about the environment, this bill has to be it.

   From the Providence Journal, RI, September 19:

   Even with the unusual level of bipartisan support that this measure has, it could easily get lost in the last days of an election-year session. Citizens should press Congress to get it on to the desk of President, who would sign it.

   While time is short, where there is a will there is a way, and the people of Rhode Island surely believe that.

   From the Los Angeles Times, September 18:

   This measure should be plucked from the pack and made law.

   Chicago Tribune, from the home State of the Presiding Officer:

   As Congress churns through its last days before adjournment, one issue of environmental impact should not be left in the dust, the Conservation and Reinvestment Act , or CARA.

   The New York Times just last week:

   Before adjourning next month, Congress should approve two of the most important conservation bills in many years. One bill, the Conservation and Reinvestment Act , would guarantee $45 billion over 15 years for a range of environmental purposes, including wilderness protection.

   Again, from my own paper, the New Orleans Times Picayune, which a few months back, actually, in its frustration in trying to communicate our message, said:

   Senators from inland states don't seem to understand why Louisiana and other coastal states should receive the bulk of this environmental money generated by offshore revenues and maybe that is because their states aren't disappearing.

   From the Tampa Tribune:

   The Conservation Reinvestment Act is a necessary and sensible measure that would allow our nation to safeguard its natural heritage. It deserves Senate support.

   Finally, from the Detroit Free Press, one of our most supportive editorials, in June of this year:

   One of CARA's most exciting aspects, in fact, is the ability to focus on smaller projects than the Federal Government normally would, including urban green spaces, walkways, small slices of important habitat. For those with visions of a walkable riverfront in Detroit, of selective preservation of natural spots in the path of development, CARA is a dream come true--if the Senators controlling its fate will set it free.

   I don't think CARA is going to get set free in the vote that we are going to have in just a few minutes, but that is the process. We will continue our fight. We will continue to talk about this important issue, and we will be organized and ready for next year.

   In addition, there are still days left in this session where CARA could be, or something more like it, set free so that

   we can begin and can continue some of the very important environmental work going on in the country.

   Let me say, not all of that environmental work takes place in Washington, D.C. Not all of that environmental work takes place among Federal agencies, although they have a role. A lot of this work takes place in our hometowns all across the Nation, with our Governors' offices, with our mayors and our county commissions, on ball fields and soccer fields, on cleanup days and Earth Days all over the Nation. That is the hope that CARA would bring that will be left on the table today.

   I will submit all of these for the RECORD in my closing remarks.

   In addition, let me make the point that some people have claimed that the CARA legislation was just helping coastal States. I will submit for the RECORD a wonderful editorial today from a place right in the middle of our Nation, the Kansas City Star, about the Conservation Reinvestment Act , realizing that time is short, but I want to read what they say from Kansas and Missouri:

   This is not the time to give up. Despite the apparent bipartisan agreement, this latest version of the Conservation and Reinvestment Act , also known as CARA, should not be the one approved by Congress.

   Let us try to unite and find the will to salvage what we can, and perhaps there is a possible way to do that.

   Let me read for the RECORD, as I begin closing, a letter to the editor of all the ones that were received, and there were literally hundreds written by many distinguished people from around our country,

   the one we received that just stood out above all the others was a wonderful letter written by Lady Bird Johnson and by the distinguished leader, Laurance Rockefeller, who is the uncle to our colleague from West Virginia whom we so admire and respect and for whom we have such affection. Laurance Rockefeller is 98 years old. I will read into the RECORD what Lady Bird and Laurence Rockefeller said about the actions we should be taking now:

   The 20th century can rightly be called America's conservation century. From President Theodore Roosevelt forward, Americans began to embrace their land rather than just use it. This ethic of conservation has created, protected and preserved tens of millions of acres of open space in America, encompassing everything from national parks to neighborhood soccer fields.

   But conservation is not something that concludes just because a century does. We are not done, nor will we ever be. While protecting our natural resources is often a

[Page: S9912]  GPO's PDF

   They go on to write:

   The U.S. Senate has before it legislation that would do more to protect America's heritage than anything in a generation. The Conservation and Reinvestment Act is in the true spirit of the early conservationists: It plans for the future while solving the immediate; it provides for recreation as well as preservation; it ensures significant state and local input and control; and it has bipartisan support. The House has passed the bill and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has approved it. With the administration supporting the legislation, all that is needed is Senate action in the remaining days of this Congress.

   CARA's origins stretch back to 1958, when President Eisenhower created the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission to conduct a three-year inquiry into America's growing outdoor needs. Its findings suggested a new approach: Not only should the Federal Government step up its lagging land acquisition program to round out our National Park System, but it should also embark on a new venture to provide matching funds that state and local governments could use to meet a broader set of outdoor needs.

   In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law a bill creating the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which not only affirmed these commitments but set American conservation on a course it still follows.

   The foresight embedded in LWCF--an emphasis on Federal/state/local partnerships, long-term planning, permanent acquisition and urban recreation--was strengthened later in the 1960s by tapping money from offshore oil and gas leases to fund LWCF projects. The wisdom of doing so was strikingly simple: Utilize the exploitation of one public natural resource in order to protect and conserve another. Congress had made a promise and found a way to keep it. And for years, the LWCF worked wonders. More than 37,000 projects have been sparked by the initiative, helping states and localities acquire 2.3 million acres of parkland and adding 3.4 million acres of new Federal lands to our national bounty. The LWCF has funded open space in literally every county in America, and is responsible for everything from helping preserve Civil War battlefields to purchasing land for Rocky Mountain National Park to building the baseball field down the street from your house.

   After 15 years of generally faithful adherence to LWCF's unique bargain, Presidential administrations and Congress began to redirect large chunks of fund revenues from their intended purposes to other budget items. Since 1980, more than $11 billion has been diverted from these projects, creating a staggering backlog of Federal, state and local land protection needs.

   They continue and write:

   We urgently need to restore the promise. That's what CARA will do. CARA represents the first good opportunity in 20 years to set our conservation path back on track. It not only fully funds the LWCF, but also addresses critical needs in wildlife management, urban parks, coastal protection--

   Which is so important to my State and to many of our States, particularly Mississippi, Alabama, and all along the east and west coasts--

   and historic preservation. Most important, it establishes a dependable source of funding for these programs. The prescience of those who created the fund was that conservation especially could not be a haphazard thing; population growth, the inexorable march of development and simple wear and tear on resources require a permanent commitment. CARA returns us to that premise, providing approximately $3 billion a year and a firm precedent for future funding.

   CARA returns us to another important ideal: bipartisanship.

   Sometimes that is in too short supply here in Washington.

   Republican Don Young of Alaska and Democrat George Miller of California did a masterful job of steering CARA through the House, winning a 315-102 vote. In the Senate, Republican Frank Murkowski of Alaska and Democrat Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico brought the bill out of committee with support from Senators of both parties. In these gridlocked times, CARA's bipartisan treatment is a reminder that policy can sometimes overcome politics.

   They conclude by saying:

   We hope the full Senate will heed that reminder and act on CARA now.

   We have worked as partners on conservation issues for almost four decades. Our hope has always been that American leaders would act so that their children--all children--would have something to look forward to. By reviving the Land and Water Conservation Fund before Congress goes home this year, it can provide just that.

   Unfortunately, the bill before us does not do what this vision outlined. It does do many good things, but it falls short of this vision. In the last 10 minutes that I have, I want to finalize my comments by making just a few more points and submit a letter for the RECORD.

   According to the Webster's Dictionary, ``legacy'' means something handed down from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past, or to bequeath.

   For more than 3 years, many in this body, dozens of Members of the House of Representatives, hundreds of mayors and Governors, thousands of environmentalists and wildlife groups, and millions of Americans have been calling for a true environmental legacy.

   Those of my colleagues who will, in a few minutes, support

   the Interior appropriations conference report will do so for many good reasons. My great friend from Idaho, Senator CRAIG, spoke eloquently yesterday about the money in this bill to fight the wild fires raging across the western plains. That is a very good reason to support this bill.

   As the temperature gets ready to dip across America this winter, there is great need for a home heating oil reserve, and that is in this bill. That is a very good reason to support it.

   In my State of Louisiana, the Cat Island Refuge, which is the oldest cypress forest in North America--and it may be the only one left--gets money in this bill. The New Orleans Jazz Commission and the Cane River National Heritage Area, the oldest settlement in the Louisiana Purchase, are reasons to support this bill.

   However, if anyone here is looking for a true legacy, a long-term commitment to our vanishing coastlines, our disappearing wildlife, and our crumbling parks and historic treasures, you will not find that in this bill.

   The true legacy would have been the Conservation Reinvestment Act --a bill which has bipartisan support by a vast majority of the Congress and support from the President of the United States. However, today we will be asked to vote on what really amounts to sort of a CARA cardboard cutout--one that kind of looks like the real thing, but it is really flimsy and hollow, one which fails to deliver the great promise that we had at this opportunity for our children and our grandchildren.

   For 3 years, a monumental and historic coalition built around this bill and congressional leaders designed it in a way to merit support across the aisle and across the Nation.

   Early on, some environmentalists charged it was a pro-drilling bill. So we clarified the language to make sure it was drilling neutral to gather their support.

   I think--and there are some of my colleagues on the floor who can attest to this--that perhaps we failed to go as far as we should have. But I believe we made great strides in meeting the concerns of some of those who claimed that this bill would have compromised private property rights and would have allowed the Federal Government to buy up land without willing seller provisions and congressional approval.

   We worked mightily to meet those objectives, and we believe the compromise that we came up with was fair and good along these lines.

   I know for the past few years I have cajoled, bargained, and spoken to so many of my friends and colleagues to listen to the merits of this proposal. I am sure on more than one occasion when they saw me coming, they ran the other way. But I believe this is so important that we should take this step now.

   When I am asked how we can afford to do this, my answer is simple: How can we afford not to?

   Since 1930, Louisiana has lost more than 1,500 square miles of marsh. The State loses between 25 and 30 miles each year--nearly a football field of wetlands every 30 minutes in my State.

   By 2050, we will lose more than 600 square miles of marsh and almost 400 square miles of swamp.

   That means the Nation will lose an area of coastal wetlands about the size of Rhode Island--about the size of your State, Mr. President. We are about ready to lose it.

   In the past 100 years, as so eloquently spoken about yesterday by our colleague from Florida, Senator BOB GRAHAM, southern Florida's Everglades have been reduced to one-fifth their former size.

   In the past 30 years, the population of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay has been barely hanging on, much to the dismay, I know, of Senator MIKULSKI and Senator SARBANES, who fight

[Page: S9913]  GPO's PDF

   In the middle of this century, a boater could look down into Lake Tahoe's depths and see 100 feet. Today that is more like 60, or 70, and dropping every day. Senator FEINSTEIN and Senator BOXER know that CARA could be one of the answers--not the only answer but truly one of the answers to help.

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