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   The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ferguson). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.

   Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I have come to the floor today, now that we are approaching Earth Day on April 22 this year, since this is a good time to review the policies of the United States in regard to the environment. I think it is a time where it is appropriate, particularly, to review the performance of the President's administration when it comes to that vital task of protecting our clean water, our clean air, and our tremendous and beautiful natural lands across the country.

   I think that is appropriate because the presidency of the United States has been an office that has been used to great beneficial effect over the years for the environment, to the benefit of the environment, as a positive force for the environment. Take a look at what Teddy Roosevelt did earlier in the century that in fact helped so much to establish this precedent of protecting our natural lands.

   So today we think it is appropriate for the next while to review this administration's performance on the environment, and to ask in fact whether this administration has done the job it should do to protect our clean water and our clean air and our natural lands, which is its obligation.

   Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, when we have reviewed this administration's policy, we have seen nothing but abject failure. We have seen time and time again this administration taking actions not only just not to go forward on the environment but to actually go backward: to reduce our protection for clean air and clean water, to reduce our protection of natural land, to reduce the ability of the Federal Government to assure American kids will have clean air to breathe so they are not subject to asthma.

   We now have had a chance to review over a year of the administration's performance in that regard. What we have found is an unbroken litany of actions against the environment. That is very sad to say. We were very hopeful at the beginning of this administration that it would follow the creed and spirit of Teddy Roosevelt, rather than Ken Lay and the oil and gas industry. Unfortunately, this administration has followed an environmental policy that has been consistent with the attitude of Mr. Lay and the oil and gas industry, and inconsistent with those who started the first Earth Day some years ago.

[Time: 15:15]

   And I just want to review with you, Mr. Speaker, some of the nine items that we have kept tabs on in the administration, and I just want to read nine items in that regard and then I will address each in more depth.

   Arsenic in the water. The administration acted against the environment.

   Mining reform. The administration acted against the environment.

   The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The administration acted against the environment.

   Protecting clean air so kids do not have increased asthma. The President acted against the environment.

   Climate change, global warming. The President acted against the environment.

   CAFE standards, our average mileage standards for our vehicles. The President acted against the environment.

   The Superfund clean-up fund. It is designed to remove toxins from our most dangerous landfills in America. The President acted against the environment.

   National monuments, monuments that protect some of our most precious natural lands around the country. The President even today is acting against the environment.

   Someone strikes out with three strikes. These are nine strikes against the environment. And it is very, very sad when this country has had such a deeply ingrained and obvious commitment to protect our children's clean air, our children's clean water, our national parks, our national monuments. This is something that is very deep within the American character. It started with Teddy Roosevelt and, unfortunately, that has been dropped today.

   I would like, if I can, to talk a little bit about each one of those strikes that are now striking against the American environment. And I do so in the hopes that this administration and that the leadership of this House will change its behavior and change its habits. I am hopeful that it will change. I believe it can change, but it cannot change unless the American people know what is going on here in Washington, D.C. and unless we talk about it here on the floor of the House.

   So let me start with arsenic. Arsenic, everyone in America knows the problems related to arsenic. The National Academy of Sciences has done over the years very, very extensive work about the dangers associated with arsenic. And as a result of that, a rule was adopted, proposed to go into effect, to assure there was a maximum level of arsenic in our water. That is pretty common sense. It is really not that much rocket science, I suppose, to pick some level.

   Unfortunately, when that rule was established in the very early days of the administration, the President's administration essentially threw the rule out, said I am not going to abide by these recommendations of a present rule to limit the amount of arsenic in our water. And what happened? Well, fortunately there was a firestorm in America when people heard about this. And we got busy here in Congress trying to roll back this repeal of the arsenic standards. The National Academy of Sciences came out with a report that showed the health dangers associated with these arsenic rules. We thought it was a mistake for the administration to be in league with the polluters on the arsenic question, we thought they should be in league with those of us who want to drink water, which is a very high percentage of the American public.

   And we eventually, because of public pressure, forced the administration to recant, and the good news is that the rule is going to be restored. So I will tell you the good news is that even though the administration wanted to increase the ability of putting arsenic in the water, they did ultimately change their position after listening to the country. And that is one of the reasons I am here today to talk about this litany of problems in the hopes that the administration will change its direction to the American public.

   The second issue is mining reform. We have found that a very, very large percentage of the toxins, including arsenic and cyanide, that are in our waters come from mining areas, particularly those that are abandoned, that are not restored. And, as a result, the Federal Government issued rules to assure us additional tools to make sure that the mining industry does not allow these mines to be left abandoned so that cyanide and arsenic and other toxins, selenium, and a whole bunch of heavy metals, do not leach into our drinking water. These rules were established. They were about to go into effect. America was within inches of allowing this mining reform to go into effect.

   And what happened? This administration went back and essentially gutted the rules. They took away the tools

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   They took away a tool that would require there be certain clean water protections by mines when they

   abandon their mine. They took away a tool for the Federal Government to assure that if there are particularly sensitive environmental lands involved, that a mining permit will not be allowed to happen. They took tools that were designed for the American people to keep their water clean for mines and they threw the tools away, and they abandoned that protection and they did it unilaterally. They did it without a vote of the House or a vote of the Senate or anybody else. They just did it, and it was wrong.

   It was wrong because the science is compelling that mines continue to be a clear and present danger to the health of this country. We had the ability to do something about it, and in its second strike the administration took away the tools to deal with mining reform.

   Third strike, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We have, and I can state from personal experience because I have been there, one of the most magnificent places in America is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It was set up by a Republican President. Teddy Roosevelt was the only Republican who has done good things for the environment. Dwight David Eisenhower had the wisdom to set up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The reason he did it was because he realized that we Americans have something unique in there, the largest intact ecosystem in the North American Continent that protects and provides for the porcupine caribou herd. It has untrammeled pristine areas in the Arctic.

   If you think you are not related to the Arctic, if you look outside your home and you see a bird, it just may be one that actually breeds in the Arctic.

   I live on a little island called Bainbridge Island, Washington. If I go down there today, I will see birds out there on the water on Bainbridge Island. They are there because we have the Arctic National Wildlife that provides the breeding place for them. And that is why a Republican President had the wisdom to establish an Arctic Wildlife Refuge.

   Now we have an administration that wants to stick an oil dagger right in the heart of the breeding area for these creatures, and it is wrong. And it is wrong for several reasons to kowtow to the oil and gas industry in this regard. It is wrong, number one, because it is not a solution to our problems to drill in the Arctic. America knows by now that if you got all the oil you ever could out of the Arctic, it only provides you about 6 months' worth of America's fuel. It is not enough to solve our problem, because the fact of the matter is unless and until we develop additional nonfossil fuel-based resources, we are still going to have to be kowtowing to the royal house in Saudi Arabia.

   And the fact that the President wants to go drill in the Arctic instead of trying to develop alternative renewable resources that our technology now has available to us, will continue our addiction to Mideast oil, because it is an international market and the market is decided and determined largely by what the Mideast does. So continuing this addiction to oil is not going to solve our energy problems and certainly not with the Arctic.

   Perhaps that is one of the reasons you do not actually hear any of the major oil companies very excited about it. Perhaps that is one of the reasons. But a second reason is when you look at the science.

   I have to say, Mr. Speaker, that is one of the most disturbing things I have seen. We have professional scientists that have been reviewing this issue for years. And they issued a report recently on the Arctic. What they concluded was that drilling in the Arctic had a substantial risk of damaging these porcupine caribou herds amongst other wildlife in the Arctic. And they wrote a report to that effect. And these are

   nonpartisan, these are civilian scientists. They are not Republicans. They are not Democrats. They are not yin, they are not yang. They are scientists. And they have written a report for us. It said there was a danger to the wildlife in the Arctic. They issued that report. And what did the Secretary of Interior do? He said, no, that is not the answer I wanted. Go back and rewrite it.

   That is not the way we should do science in this country. The American people deserve to know the real science and not the partisan science. Sure, that report got rewritten because the administration told them to rewrite it. Imagine if the politicians had told NASA how to run the Moon shot, where would we have ended up? Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.

   In fact, the administration has had a blackout on this science and they are making a bad decision as a result. That is why we are very hopeful that the Senate will reject this proposal that is not going to solve our energy crisis, is going to damage a precious resource that Dwight David Eisenhower started.

   Strike number three, as an anti-environmental action by the administration.

   Number four, we have a remarkable resource right now and it is in States all over the country, and that is our roadless areas in our national forests. We have about 50 percent of our national forests have already been carved up by roads that have been built by us, by taxpayers, so people could clear-cut timber on the national forests. So about 50 percent of it is gone from the standpoint of it being an intact system of forests untrammeled by clear-cutting. We only have about 50 percent left. About 18 percent of that has been protected in wilderness areas, leaving about less than one-third that is available for protection; but we have not protected it, except for this. Here is the good news. We had a rule that was adopted that protected that remaining one-third of our roadless areas so that our children could be assured that our national forests would be protected from clear-cutting so that when our grandkids go out to these national forests they do not see a row of stumps, they see trees; and that is a pretty significant asset.

   This roadless area rule was adopted a couple years ago to protect that remaining one-third of our uncut national forestland. But what happened? You guessed it. The new administration came in after the Attorney General of the United States, John Ashcroft, pledged, pledged to the U.S. Senate, he would protect this roadless area bill. You know what he did? He took a dive. He refused to effectively defend it in Federal court. He allowed it to lapse. He let down the American people. And that roadless area rule is now in jeopardy. We are very concerned that the administration is going to whittle that rule down to essentially gut it like it has on so many areas of environmental policy.

   So instead of having a rule that will protect the last one-third of unprotected non-clear-cut areas in our national forests, the President's administration has jeopardized this remaining heritage of our children. And I will state, I have talked to a lot of people in my State of Washington and they are very angry about this. They are very angry because they were involved in making this roadless area bill. This rule was adopted after the largest public input process in American history. More Americans, something like 1.1 million Americans took time to write the Federal Government to tell them what they thought of this roadless area policy. Over 600 meetings were held. And the American voice was very strong. The American voice was this: Protect our remaining roadless areas. And we had a rule that did that until this administration chucked it overboard. So that is strike number four.

   Number five, clean air. You know, I think you may know people who have children who have real bad asthma problems. And it is becoming, if not an epidemic, at least an increasing concern in this country.

[Time: 15:30]

   We have new science which has shown that very small particulate matter, soot, very small particles of a potentially deadly nature that we did not understand 10 years ago, the National Academy of Sciences just came out with a report in the last month or so that showed tens of thousands of Americans die as a result of this small particulate matter, soot, in the air.

   As a result of that, the Federal Government adopted a rule some time ago that would require polluters to improve their anti-air pollution control

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   The new science makes it even more important that we adopt this, what is called the new source review. It is a fancy term basically requiring large polluting industries to have additional available technology to reduce these fine particulates.

   What happened? Well, in a refrain, the administration tossed the rule overboard and the administration again gutted the rule, and it is extremely disturbing to me, having seen kids with terrible asthma problems, to think we have existing technology that can help solve these problems with our air pollution, we have an existing rule that would do it; and the President, his administration, in order to get in line with the big polluters, are reducing the protection for clean air for kids in this country.

   That is a pretty bold indictment of the action by the White House, but I make it because it is true. They are wrong, and Americans have got to know what is going on back here in Washington, D.C., that these fundamental commonsense measures we have adopted to protect our air and water are being gutted every single week.

   It seems like every Monday when I open the newspapers there is a new attack on our clean air and clean water bills, the statute and rules; and we have got to know about it to stop it, but we are going to do everything we can to roll back the administration's decision in this regard because Americans deserve it. That is strike number five.

   Strike number six, and this may be the granddaddy of them all when it comes to our children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren, and that is the problem of global climate change. The science is now clear. It is unambiguous. It is certain. It is no longer debated in credible scientific circles, and that is this simple fact is happening in the world today.

   We are accumulating certain gases in our atmosphere called global climate change gases. Those are principally carbon dioxide and methane. Carbon dioxide comes anytime we burn anything, coal, oil, gas, anything else. What carbon dioxide does is it goes up in the atmosphere, and it lingers, sometimes for over a century, stays in the atmosphere for a long time; and carbon dioxide is not a bad gas as gases go in a lot of ways, but it has one feature that is a problem.

   That when carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere, light can come in as ultraviolet light, which it does from the sun, but when it gets bounced out as an infrared beam of energy, it cannot get out, and that is called the greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide works the same way a pane of glass does in a greenhouse. Light comes in, it gets reflected back, but it is trapped by the windowpane and carbon dioxide does the same thing.

   Every credible scientist essentially who has been involved in this understands that phenomena, and now we have convened an international panel of scientists who have concluded that this phenomenon is changing the world's climate in unpredictable ways. Generally speaking, it is warming the Earth. It is going to continue to warm the Earth as long as that concentration of carbon dioxide and other climate-change gases increases.

   Why am I concerned about that? I am concerned about that because I kind of like the way the world is. I like having glaciers in national park, glaciers that are now disappearing. In 50 years to 100 years there may not be glaciers in Glacier National Park. We will call it sort of like the artist Prince, the National Park Formerly Known as Glacier.

   I like having an ice sheet in the Antarctica that just broke up in this massive breakup of the Antarctic ice sheet recently. It totally stunned the scientific community to see such a rapid, radical change in such a huge area that is as big as Delaware or Rhode Island or some State, I cannot remember which one. I like the fact that Denali National Park has a certain system, has a tree line where it used to be, and now it is going north because the temperature is increasing.

   I like polar bears, and polar bears when the ice sheet continues to decrease in the arctic will not be able to stay hunting close to shore and may be extinct in 150 years. A lot of things we cannot predict about the

   environment; but the one thing we know for sure is we are changing it, and I mean all of us.

   As a result, the President, when he ran for President, in a very hopeful statement, when I heard him say this I was very, very hopeful, he said he was going to do something about this problem. He said he was going to help us use these new technologies and energy, solar, wind, geothermal, cars that get better mileage, conservation technologies, so that we save energy in our houses. He said he was going to do something about this to try to reduce these climate-change gases.

   Well, what did he do? First thing he did is he told the world he was not going to talk to them about a climate-change treaty that the rest of the world had agreed to in Kyoto; and there may have been some imperfections in that treaty, but he basically told the world he did not want to talk to the rest of the world about this, America was just going to go on its own. I think that was a mistake. I think we need to talk to some of our neighbors across the world on how to deal with this problem.

   Okay, if he did not like that treaty, what else was he going to do? Well, unfortunately, he essentially has ended an American attempt to deal with climate change, and I think this may be the most significant failure on an environmental perspective in the last 2 years because what he did is when he offered his climate-change proposal, do my colleagues know what it was?

   He called it a volunteer proposal, and I do not mean any disrespect by this because I think the President's done a good job dealing with the Taliban in Afghanistan. I think he has done a good job rising to the occasion of dealing with this tremendous security threat to our country, and we should be happy that he has risen to that occasion; but we have another huge threat of a longer termination of global climate change, and his proposal was essentially to go to the polluting industries and say, pretty please, will you stop doing it.

   They are going to stop doing it just as fast as the Taliban would have left if we had gone to them and said, pretty please, let go of Afghanistan. It is not going to work. We need leadership from the White House. We need leadership from this President. We need leadership of a President who has rallied the Nation in our actions in Afghanistan. We need him to act when it comes to do with climate change. Failing that leadership, we are heading for bad times when it comes to the climate on a global perspective. Strike number six.

   Number seven, I will tell my colleagues something that may shock them and I was not aware of until about a month ago, but the cars we drive get worse gas mileage on total than they did in 1980. Think about that. We have technological geniuses in this country that have developed the entire software industry since 1980, a good part of the biotechnology industry since 1980. We have come up with all these tremendous new technologies, but the cars we drive that have been given to us get worse gas mileage than they did in 1980.

   To me, this is a stunning failure to use our technological genius of this country; and now we have cars that fit my frame and I am kind of a bulky guy, I am six-two and about 205. We have got cars now that are wonderful, five, six passengers in. They get almost 45, 50 miles a gallon; and yet what did the White House do when we suggested a modest improvement in our mileage standards of our fleets overall? We were not trying to get rid of SUVs or anything else. Americans like their SUVs. We simply proposed as an average that we increase the average of the cars on our streets a few miles a gallon, nothing radical, something within our technological ability, something we have the technology to do today.

   The administration again refused to do even modest increases in our mileage standards, and those are called CAFE standards. It is an acronym for increasing our mileage standards, and we can do this today and drive the same size vehicles that we drive. We do not have to give up the luxuries that

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   In these vehicles we have got fuel cell technology coming on. The only thing that comes out of the tailpipe is water. We have got existing hybrids that get 45, 50 miles a gallon that we ought to be using today. We ought to be insisting that we do not give up the markets to Japan, which we are doing again like we did in the 1970s. In the 1970s we gave up our markets to the Japanese. We are doing it again today. We are letting them come in with hybrid vehicles, and we are not producing them.

   Now I hope and I am told that our local domestic producers are going to start to do that in the next couple of years. I am very happy about that, but we need the administration to help us increase our mileage standards, and they have refused to do it. It is strike seven on the environmental list of what we have been working on environmentally in the last 2 years.

   Number eight, the Superfund. The Superfund. The Superfund is a fund that was started on as a basic idea and that idea was that polluters would pay for the toxics they put in the ground in these Superfund sites. There is a Superfund site, just to tell my colleagues one I am familiar with in the State of Washington, it is on Bainbridge Island. It is across from where I live. It is a place where there was a creosoting plant that put creosote in lumber; but the creosote, thousands of gallons went down and were stuck on top of the water table and land, and the idea of the Superfund site was to clean that up.

   We should not have to pay for it. The American public should not have to pay for the discharge of creosote over years and years that contaminated these sites. Who should have to pay for it? The polluters, and it was a pretty commonsense idea.

   The Superfund bill was created so that the polluters would pay for the right, the privilege, the enjoyment of putting toxics into the ground; and that system worked for years, and it was funded through a charge on polluters. Essentially those who manufactured, presented the risk of this discharge would have to pay so that the American people did not have to with their taxes.

   That bill has come up for renewal, and in strike number eight, the administration dropped the ball and refused to help us reinstitute this Superfund provision so that the polluters would pay instead of the American people, and that is wrong. Americans should not have to pay for this pollution. The polluters should, and we have yet another example of the administration working with the polluting industries to avoid responsibility to try to keep our water clean and toxins out of our water. We would like the administration to change its feelings in that regard, to help us. We hope that happens.

   On the ninth strike, in our national monuments, and this will be my closing discussion, and that is that our national monuments, again, this idea was started by Teddy Roosevelt. It is the idea that Presidents can establish for the American people in perpetuity our beautiful landscapes; and Presidents have done this, almost every President, except a couple in the last two decades. This has been very important to protect areas from certain natural resource industries that can threaten these areas.

   Again, today, the Departments of the Federal Government are thinking about opening these up for mining for oil, drilling for who knows what, without congressional approval. This Chamber voted against that. This Chamber passed a measure that would slow that down, if not prevent it. We would like the administration to follow that vote. We think that is the right thing to do. We are calling upon them to do so.

   So we have gone through a sorry litany of environmental degradation of our laws. It is not a happy thing to talk about this. I would rather be here, not only complimenting the President for what he has done in Afghanistan, but complimenting him for environmental progress; but we cannot do that because in nine separate ways we have just talked about, in fact America's gone backwards.

   Our protection of clean air has gone backward; our protection of clean water has gone backward and it is important that people know this. It is important, Mr. Speaker, that we talk about this on the floor of this House because when we go backwards in so many ways, we are going to end up back where we were in the 1950s and 1960s. We made real progress in this country cleaning up our air and water. We have done good things.

[Time: 15:45]

   Mr. Speaker, I remember when the river in Ohio caught fire. That was before America started to do things positively for the environment. Things can go backwards as well as forwards. Now with our new science about how children can be affected, morbidity and mortality rates can be affected by cleaner water, this is not the time to go backwards. We hope the administration will, in fact, start to review their administration policies.

   Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis).

   Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to be here tonight with the gentleman from Washington to talk about this issue. It is something that is very, very deeply felt amongst my community. Many from my district and the 31st Congressional District in California know that we are faced with some tremendous challenges, some that the gentleman spoke about tonight, that resonate with the constituents that I represent.

   The district that I represent is, for lack of a better word, one under siege because we have a lot of environmental impacts that have affected this district for the last 50, or maybe 75 years.

   I happen to represent a district that has 17 abandoned mining pits, pits that will never be filled at this point in time, that affect the health of children and seniors that live in the surrounding community. Businesses do not want to locate in that surrounding area because property values have gone down. What do we do with those empty pits and the families and children that are faced with increasing rates of asthma, heart disease and cancer attributed to the deaths and the particulate matter the gentleman spoke of earlier? We need to do something besides talk about it. We need to provide legislative relief and funding so research can be done into this area.

   I am very concerned about the lack of leadership on the part of this administration to move forward in putting forth environmental justice legislation. I have to say, while as a member in the State Senate in California, after two trials of getting a law put forward, we finally were able to get environmental legislation passed and signed by our Governor. That was the first piece of legislation signed into law in the country. Shame on us, and shame on this administration and others that have not taken note of that dire need to do something for our communities.

   People in my district right now are crying out to see that laws that are currently in place are enforced. We find also that many of the water tables that are in my district are also contaminated and polluted. I represent a district that has four Superfund sites, two that were just recently closed. The BKK, now in my neighboring district, will be in my new district. People are concerned. The city wants to build a golf course and other entertainment and physical activities, sports related; but what measures are being put in place to safeguard the people that will use that facility? EPA needs to be at the table to have the resources to clean up these toxic sites and do something about it.

   I am also concerned about the fact that materials are not published in different languages for communities that I represent. My district is 58 percent Latino. Many in that community are not English speakers. They are either Asian or Latino. What are we doing about making sure that our communities of color, just because they are low income does not mean that they do not care about environmental justice and how their children are raised.

   We need to put some enforcement and make sure that the language capabilities are put in place so people can understand the dangers of having their house next to a site that is toxic. Or if there is a landfill that a person lives nearby, that the contaminants that are in that landfill, while they seep through our water table, how that affects our drinking water.

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   The gravel pits, what about the dust and particulate matter that has an adverse effect on the health of children and senior centers? We need to do much more in terms of enforcement and protections for our communities.

   In fact, Latinos, almost by 96 percent, feel we ought to be doing more to prioritize the environment. Study after study after study show that the Latino community is ready to see these protections put in place. Let us put our money where our mouth is.

   As Earth Day approaches, I would ask my colleagues to join in activities at our districts to help bring greater awareness amongst people of color and the disadvantaged who need to understand that policymakers like ourselves truly want to see some changes with respect to the environment so that we protect and value Mother Nature and our Earth.

   I am working very hard to try to get the National Park Service to come in and do a study on one of the largest urban conservancies in the country where 7 million people reside. Many of those people are low income, many are people of color. This is one of the last acreages that is available where we still see wildlife and habitat, where the watersheds are not paved over like the L.A. River in California. We do not want our rivers paved. We want open space and ability for our communities to recreate, to enjoy open habitat and wildlife.

   Mr. Speaker, we need to have resources and we need to have a hearing on this bill. That is why I am joining with the gentleman and congratulate the gentleman for bringing this issue to the floor, because it is something that is imperative for the community I represent.

   Mr. Speaker, ``muchos en mi districto quieren mejorar esta communidad y limpiar el agua y el aire.'' The translation is, ``Many in my district are supportive of improving our community and cleaning the water and air.''

   Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis) for such an eloquent statement. The gentlewoman has expressed better than I can the outrage that Americans are feeling that this administration is ignoring asthmatic children to favor the polluting industries.

   I heard over and over again in my district, people would come up and say, we understand there is a war on, but we cannot allow that to be camouflage for having a war against the environment. That is essentially what we are having right now. The administration is removing clean air rules that protect asthmatic children, trying to remove rules against arsenic in the water.

   Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) who has been a voice on a variety of environmental issues.

   Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis) for the job she has been doing representing her constituents and the leadership she has been providing in this Congress on these very important issues. And I also commend the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee). We serve on the Committee on Resources, and we have teamed up to work on a variety of issues. Now is the time that we should be discussing these issues.

   Yes, we stand united in the war against terrorism, but there are other issues that demand public debate and scrutiny. That is the essence of our democracy, to have a discussion of these important issues: How can we promote economic growth while still being sensitive to the ecology and the environment? I think it is important

   that we put together an environmental policy in this country that we can work together on in a bipartisan fashion. We have an opportunity.

   I also serve on the Committee on Agriculture, and we have been hard at work trying to pass a farm bill that could in fact be implemented over the next 10 years. This is an opportunity to change in a significant way farm policy in the country so perhaps we are not giving as much direct subsidies to a few but very large commodity producers, mainly out West, encouraging them to produce more because they are getting paid by production rather than what the marketplace would buy, and move some of those resources into the conservation title so that the farmers who are looking for additional assistance so they can practice good land stewardship initiatives on their private lands in producing the crops in this country will have the resources to tap into.

   These are voluntary, incentive-based programs. Right now three out of four farmers that apply for technical assistance in conservation program funding are turned away because of the inadequacy of resources. Yet if we can increase the area of this farm bill with more resources, we will be able to benefit more family farmers in all regions of the country rather than skewing the next farm bill to a few very large producers.

   This is important because we can also provide economic assistance to our producers through these conservation programs; and through these conservation programs, it will lead to better watershed management, which means better-quality drinking supplies in this country, which is important to farmers and communities.

   It will also lead to the protection of important wildlife and fish habitat, and ultimately the protection of valuable farmland and topsoil itself. Right now we are losing so much topsoil, affecting the productive nature of agriculture, and we are losing $300 million of applied nitrogen that runs off the farm fields because they do not have the conservation programs to prohibit that from occurring. It is affecting the water quality in the rivers and streams.

   I am confident in standing here today predicting in the 21st century, quality water supply is going to be a huge issue in our country and throughout the world. We can do this with sensible farm policy that recognizes the value and the value added to these incentive-based conservation programs.

   The gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and I have been hard at work trying to shape the next energy bill. In the Senate they are debating a variety of provisions on it. We share the common goal that we wish to have seen coming out of the House an energy policy that was going to devote more in investment and resources into developing a more sustainable and self-reliant energy policy for the 21st century. That means being serious in investing in R&D and alternative and renewable energy sources, and the tremendous potential that fuel cell development holds in this country.

   Yet we feel that the House-passed version of the energy bill fell short and was inadequate in this area. The key to understanding our energy needs in the 21st century is to understand that we cannot produce with fossil fuels alone the energy that we are going to need to consume in this country in this next century. That means we have to look at alternative energy sources: the wind, the power, the geothermal, fuel cell development.

   Mr. Speaker, the gentleman and I went on a trip last year to Norway, Denmark, and Iceland to look at their alternative and renewable energy programs. Norway is heavily dependent on hydropower. Denmark has windmills and wind farms generating a lot of their electricity needs.

   Iceland was interesting. Of course, they have a lot of geothermal, but they have a 10-year plan in place right now and are working hard at being the first hydrogen-powered society in the world. They are converting their auto, bus and fishing fleet, which is huge in Iceland, to fuel cell-powered vehicles. They are getting this technology, in part, from a company located in Middleton, Wisconsin. So we have some local, home-grown company in this country developing the technology and assisting another country to make this conversion and pivot off from fossil fuel consumption and into hydrogen-powered energy, which is really breaking the barriers down and proving to the rest of the world, and especially our country, that if we have the leadership and the political will and the support within the community, we can do this.

[Time: 16:00]

   I think the American people are really looking for this type of leadership right now, understanding that we are not going to produce enough oil in order to meet our energy needs. Right now we are consuming 25 percent of the oil that is being produced throughout the world for our own energy needs; yet we only have 3 percent of the oil reserves, which by its very nature tells

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   We have seen how volatile now the Middle East and the Persian Gulf region really is. I look forward to working with my colleague from Washington State and also my good friend, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), as we continue to look at good policy that will sustain our environment; that will protect our valuable natural resources and the ecosystems that we all live in and that our communities would like to see us do a better job of protecting and see if we can put together a long-term, commonsense energy policy that recognizes the potential that exists with alternatives and renewables and with fuel cell and with the technology that is being developed right now in private industry in this country.

   Hopefully, we will be able to work in partnership with the private sector in order to make this conversion in the 21st century. I thank the gentleman for giving me a little bit of time today to talk about this very important issue. We will look forward to working with both of you in the future.

   Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate the gentleman from Wisconsin's comments, because I think it gave the lie to this sort of myth that if it is good for the environment, it must be bad for the economy. I think that wrongheaded thinking has led, frankly, to a lot of the administration proposals that have gone backwards on the environment, because the fact is that somebody is going to make a ton of money on these new technologies, in hydrogen and wind power and solar, in new hybrid cars. Somebody is going to get filthy rich on this, and it should be us.

   Mr. KIND. What is really interesting is it is almost as if the private sector is way ahead of the curve in regards to the policymakers in Congress and with the administration because they are already starting to invest in a lot of this technology. They are already trying to build more energy-efficient buildings because they know that that is going to be a plus on the bottom line of their businesses. They also know that it is not a healthy situation to be so dependent on foreign energy sources for our needs. The private sector, I think, is leading the charge and looking for comparable leadership by the policymakers of this country. We just need to dovetail into what a lot of companies are already investing in and what they are already encouraging by their own practices.

   Mr. INSLEE. We are going to try to change that orientation where right now 85 percent of all the resources here in the House-passed bill goes to the old industry and only 15 percent to the new. We are going to try to change that.

   Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), who has been doing a great job.

   Mr. HOLT. I thank my friend from Washington for yielding. I am pleased to be here with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), who understands the word ``sustainable'' and tries to build that into the agriculture bill to protect topsoil and water. It is a key word, sustainable, here.

   If I may take issue with my good friend from Washington, perhaps the phrase should not be ``filthy rich,'' but we will become ``clean rich'' if American industry takes advantage of the opportunity for developing sustainable technologies. It is not a matter of growth or environmental protection; and we cannot emphasize that too strongly, because we have got to beat down this misconception that the administration appears to have, and that I must say the leadership here in the House seems to have, that environmental protection is somehow costly. As the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis) points out, the cost of not doing anything is great, the cost in child asthma, the cost in public health.

   But let me turn to something here that emphasizes it in a way that I think even the most hard-nosed business type would understand. This is an article that just appeared a few days ago, written by the chief executive officer of BP, one of the world's largest corporations. They not only produce energy and drill for oil but they also, of course, use a lot of energy. They decided, 5 years ago, that they should cut their energy use and that they could cut their energy use. The reason was that the emission of carbon into the atmosphere was changing the climate for the worse and that to do nothing would be costly to society and perhaps, they thought, even costly to themselves.

   And so they thought that they would take preventive action. They have cut their carbon emissions to below their 1990 level. Back in 1997 when they set themselves on this course, they set a 10-year goal. Already halfway into that time period, they have already achieved their goal of cutting their carbon emissions below the 1990 level by 10 percent. But get this, here is the clincher. Today, says Lord Browne, we can assert two things with confidence: savings from reduced energy inputs and increased efficiency outweigh all the expenditures involved. In other words, they did it at no cost. And growth is not at risk from this precautionary action.

   If BP can do it, any company can do it. And if they can do it, a country can do it. Unfortunately, the administration here in the United States has taken the approach that, Well, no, we cannot cut our carbon emissions. What we are going to do is not let our carbon emissions grow quite so fast. We won't let them grow quite as fast as our gross domestic product is growing. I have news for the President. That has been true since 1975. Our carbon emissions have been growing less fast than our economy. In other words, the President is saying, let's take a do-nothing approach to the greatest environmental insult that we are, our country, our globe, placing on the environment. And we have right here very good evidence from a hard-nosed business person that we can cut these greenhouse gases at no cost to our economic growth.

   As you and the gentleman from Wisconsin point out, with other technologies, we can even contribute to our economic growth. There is money to be made in clean, sustainable environmental technologies. We should be there taking advantage of them. I applaud my colleague for not only taking the time now to make these good points that he has made but for all the work he is doing day in and day out on these environmental issues. I am pleased to be here in the company of such a devoted environmentalist.

   Mr. INSLEE. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey. I am sure at least some of the people who have heard you realize that you are, I think, the only physicist in the House. Is there another physicist in the House or are you the only physicist in the House?

   Mr. HOLT. As a physicist I am sure I have spent more time on energy questions and energy technology than any other Member of the House. It is something that I think is so important to do, because, as I was alluding to before, I would say the number one insult to our planet is the way we produce and use energy. We have to turn attention to a way to do that in a sustainable fashion.

   Mr. INSLEE. As our only physicist, we really appreciate you coming down here today to talk about this. I agree with you. The most important insult is the climate-change issue, the one that I think has got to be most demanding; and what I really liked what you said was, we are not the pessimists in this debate. We are the optimists. We are the guys with the can-do spirit. We believe America can deal with this problem effectively, but sticking our head in the sand and taking the posture of an ostrich is not effective. Unfortunately that is what the administration has done.

   What I liked from what you said is that essentially we are capable from a scientific and economic standpoint of dealing with climate change; but we lack one thing, and that is leadership. We lack somebody at the White House telling America that we can get this job done. I think that is what Teddy Roosevelt would have done. He would have said, What do you mean we can't build new technologies? You mean the

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   technologically advanced than Americans? That is nuts. Yet right now the White House has taken this position of surrender to these other countries that are leading us in these new technologies. I appreciate your words of optimism because I believe they are the right ones. I want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey for his comments.

   Mr. Speaker, to summarize here and comment, we have been talking about a disappointing aspect of our American public policy. The disappointment is that on a whole host of issues, the leader of the free world, the administration that has the capability of rallying this Nation to tremendous positive change from an environmental perspective, the administration that has within itself the ability to adopt rules to try to reduce kids from having asthma, is going the wrong way. The administration that has the ability to reduce the amount of arsenic and selenium and cyanide in our drinking water is going the wrong way. The administration that has the ability to assure that the last one-third of our national forests that have not been clear-cut so our grandkids will be able to see those forests some day is going the wrong way.

   The administration that has the ability to lead the world to deal with this problem of climate change so that we can keep this general system as we have it, the way we grew up, so that it rains when it should and it gets cold when it should, is going the wrong way. The administration that has the ability to make sure that mines do not leak toxic substances is going in the wrong way. The administration that has the ability to make sure that our Superfund site rules, so that you do not have to pay for the toxics in the soil that get the cleanup, the polluters have got to pay for it, is going the wrong way. The administration that has the ability to get our cars to be some modest level, better efficiency to save us money and save the environment is going the wrong way. It is a sad story to have to say this today, because we are a great, optimistic, and creative people and we have the ability, the heart and the desire to leave this planet as good as it was when we were born.

   I stand here today to say that this House should join the U.S. Senate and the administration to go forward on the environment rather than backwards, and this administration is going to turn on a dime and go 180 degrees different from where it is going right now, which is backwards on the environment. I urge anybody that feels the way I do to take every step you can to see to it that we go that way.

END