[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 9 (Tuesday, January 17, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H278-H285]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                          THE FEDERAL MANDATE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Miller] for 60 minutes.
  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the Members of 
the House that at the end of this week and the beginning of next week 
the House will consider a proposal dealing with the issue of unfunded 
mandates. More importantly, what we will be dealing with is a most 
serious attack led by the Republicans in the Congress on the basic laws 
in this country that hold this Nation together as a society and deal 
with our common interests and our common concerns for the purposes of 
achieving social progress in this country.
  This is the body of laws that has moved us from a dangerous and 
polluted workplace and from a dangerous and polluted society to one 
where we now take into account those measures to protect our 
environment and to protect our workplace. These are the laws that 
protect our workplace. These are the laws that protect the waters of 
our lakes and our rivers and make those waters safe to drink, along 
with the ground waters and the basins that run from State to State. 
These are the laws that protect the air that we breathe, the laws that 
guarantee that a handicapped child can go to school, and that mandate 
background checks for child-care workers so that we know that when 
parents drop their children off in the morning, they will not be 
victimized by child molesters or others who would seek to take 
advantage of them.
  It is these laws that require those background checks and the 
fingerprinting that are now in place. It 
[[Page H279]] is these laws that protect our children against the 
exploitation of child labor and at the same time make sure that when 
their mothers and fathers go off to work in the morning, they will work 
in a safe workplace and they will be paid at least a minimum wage. 
These are the laws the form the basis of a partnership between the 
basic levels of government, Federal, State, and local, that have 
provided unparalleled social progress for this country for the 
experience that we have all had over the last 50 years.
  It has not always been a willing partnership because very often local 
governments are not interested in cleaning up the sewage that they 
freely pump into the rivers of this Nation. The State governments that 
surround and have an impact on the Chesapeake Bay or San Francisco Bay 
or Houston Bay or Santa Monica or the Florida Bay are not always 
interested in cleaning up their water-treatment facilities or stopping 
the runoff from their farmlands and the pesticides that flow into those 
bays that now threaten the very environment and the existence of the 
Florida Keys, or the Florida Bay, that generate millions and millions 
of dollars in the tourist economy as Americans and visitors from around 
the world come to experience the beauty, the assets, and the recreation 
of the Florida Keys and Florida Bay. And yet if the State of Alabama 
under this law chose not to meet the clean-water mandates, it would 
make no difference what the cities and the counties and the State of 
Florida do in terms of cleaning up Florida Bay.
  If the States along the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers and the 
municipalities decide that they are not going to clean up their sewage, 
that they simply are going to do as they have done in the past because 
it has always been cheaper in the short term to pump the sewage, to let 
it flow into those rivers, it will make no difference what the States 
of Louisiana and Mississippi do to protect their fisheries, to protect 
the economy that relies on the river and on that great delta, because 
the pollution knows no State boundaries, no municipal boundaries. It 
does not know a conservative mayor from a liberal mayor. It makes no 
difference whether a city council votes for the money or does not, the 
pollution moves out throughout our society.
  That is why we have national laws--the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water 
Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act--in this country, because we know 
we must have a unified effort, we know we must overcome the local 
politics where people decide in cahoots with industry or with a certain 
group in their neighborhoods that they do not want to spend the money 
to clean that up.
  It also happens in the education field, where before the Education to 
the Handicapped Children Act, children with cerebral palsy, children 
with Down's syndrome, children with retardation, and children in 
wheelchairs or on crutches or with the aid of walkers or breathing 
machines were told that they could not come to school, that they could 
not participate in our classrooms, but because we have a Federal law 
that says, ``If you want education money, you're going to have to 
educate these handicapped children,'' millions of children that were 
not given an opportunity now not only have gotten an education but they 
have had an opportunity to get a job and to live independently and to 
provide for themselves and in many instances for their families. And I 
have to tell the Members that there is not a Member of Congress that 
has not had a parent of a handicapped child come to us and say, ``But 
for that Federal law, my child would have never gotten an education,'' 
because the school board thought it was too expensive, the school board 
wanted them to go to a special school, or the school board thought it 
would be better if they stayed home.
  That is not the hallmark of this Nation. The hallmark of this Nation 
is bringing us together for common purposes and to protect the rights 
of those who are disadvantaged, whether it is economically, whether it 
is socially, or whether it is because of handicaps or where they happen 
to live.
                              {time}  1310

  You should know that when you go to any city in America, that you can 
get safe drinking water. But that is not necessarily true and certainly 
would not be true if the Federal mandates are removed.
  Now, we have a lot of governors beating their breasts and talking 
about how we tell them to do things that they can't afford to do or 
they don't want to do and they ought to make the decisions. That is how 
we got into the situation with the rivers of Ohio that actually caught 
on fire in the early 1970's. Because they decided they didn't want to 
do it, they couldn't buck the political pressure of the steel mills and 
chemical companies and eventually the Cuyahoga River caught on fire. 
And I think you have to ask yourself if that is what we want to go back 
to.
  Certainly it is expensive to clean up our waters and clean up the 
air. I can remember as a young man when I could smell San Francisco Bay 
before we could ever see it as we drove down the road, because the 
pollution of the cities was being dumped into that bay and the 
fisheries disappeared. But now because we have the Clean Water Act, the 
fisheries are back. As I went to the airport yesterday, you could see 
the trawlers in the south end of the bay, fishing for a commercial 
crop, employing people, lending to the tourism, lending to the economy 
of the bay area.
  You know what? A lot of cities in San Francisco Bay cleaned up their 
sewage. But the city of San Francisco didn't want to. The city of San 
Francisco said we can't afford to. We are not going to do it. We had to 
go to court to make them do it. Because all of the other cities on the 
bay that wanted to enjoy the bay and the citizens that want to enjoy 
it, said no matter what we do, it will make no difference if the 
largest single polluter doesn't clean up their sewage, their storm 
water, their pollutants.
  Yet those are the laws that this Congress this Friday will be asked 
to basically overturn by allowing this assault by the governors who 
simply don't want to comply, by governors who will not take the 
political heat at the local level or mayors that won't take the heat. 
They somehow think this is going to make their job easier. Private 
industry thinks this is going to make their job easier. But when the 
mayor of Philadelphia finds out that it will make no difference about 
the air quality in Philadelphia if the other mayors in the States and 
the region don't cooperate, he will find that his task is far more 
expensive.
  In the early seventies, we had smog warnings more days than not in 
the Los Angeles Air Basin. Today we don't have that. It was true in 
Denver, CO. But what did we do? We passed a Clean Air Act and forced 
industries, we forced automobile manufacturers to manufacture 
automobiles with less pollutants. We now have reformulated gasoline on 
the market to try and help with the air pollution problem. Automobile 
engines are getting more sophisticated because of the Clean Air Act, 
because the States now have the ability to enforce the Clean Air Act.
  Somehow, somehow in a rush to judgment, with no hearings this year, 
the Republicans in Congress want to tell us that this should all be 
overturned.
  We should understand that these are the laws that brought America 
into the forefront of social progress. These are the laws that after 
too many American families experienced the loss of their spouse, or 
their father, or their uncle, or their brother, in the steel mills, in 
the coal mines, in the automobile plants, in the chemical plants of 
this Nation, these are the laws that said workers have a right to a 
safe workplace.
  But under the unfunded mandates legislation being brought to this 
floor, that is all called into question with the reauthorization of 
OSHA. That is all called into question if somehow the Federal 
Government does not pay 100 percent of the bill.
  I want to know why the Federal Government should have to pay 100 
percent of the bill of cleaning up San Francisco Bay. The benefit 
doesn't run to the taxpayer in Indiana or in New Jersey or in Alabama. 
Clearly there is a national benefit because as the economy of the San 
Francisco region does better and we attract foreign tourists and 
business people and conventions, we all share that as part of our 
national economic product. But doesn't San Francisco, don't the cities 
on that bay, don't the cities in Florida benefit by 
[[Page H280]] putting up their money? That is the partnership that was 
created. In some cases the Federal Government has put up 75 percent of 
the money, in some cases we have put up 50 percent of the money, in 
some cases we have put up 25 percent of the money. But that was all 
negotiated at the passage of the legislation. But now we are down to 
the hard part, the implementation. And what we see is this kind of 
comprehensive assault led upon this body of laws to wipe out 
environmental laws, workplace safety laws, toxic laws.
  Imagine the audacity of the Federal Government saying to local 
employers and to the private sector that a worker, a worker has a right 
to know whether he or she is working around toxic substances that can 
end their life or disable them, and we all know that has happened, 
whether it was asbestos, whether it was benzene, whether it was all of 
the chemicals that are in the workplace. That is what the attack is 
about, is about taking away that right to know.
  What about the right of communities? What about communities that say 
we want to know what you are releasing into the air in our 
neighborhoods? We want to know what you are putting into the 
groundwater, to protect our drinking water.
  We have whole communities in the United States where water now has to 
be brought in overland because the groundwaters are contaminated, they 
are no longer secure, they are no longer there for the benefit of those 
communities, because somebody thought that was their garbage dump. 
Somebody thought that is where they could dump their sewage, put their 
toxics. And
 it just isn't about the old industries. It is not just about the steel 
mills in the forties, fifties, and sixties. In silicone valley, entire 
aquifers are now off limits to the cities and taxpayers and to the 
property owners in the south of San Francisco because the newest 
industries in this country polluted the groundwater in violation of law 
or because the local economy was so hungry for the jobs they didn't 
want to tell them that they couldn't spoil the environment.

  A lot of people criticize the environmental movement. But as we do an 
audit now on those countries where there wasn't an environmental 
movement, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of square miles of 
the Soviet Union where nobody can live, where life has ceased to exist, 
because of pollution. We all witnessed the horror of Chernobyl, where 
thousands of people have died, where you can no longer grow 
agriculture, and people have been moved to entirely new regions of the 
country; where milk has to be checked all of the time because the 
pollution spreads across the French countryside, across the German 
countryside.
  We chose a different route in this country. We decided that in fact 
we would invest in a clean environment, that it would be good 
economics, it would be good public health, it would be good for our 
citizens, it would maintain property values in our communities.
  But now, with the new Republican majority in this Congress, they have 
decided one of the first items on their Contract on America is to take 
away the protections of these laws. That somehow if the Federal 
Government does not fund 100 percent, then the people in one State or 
another should be free to choose their own way. It doesn't matter if 
when they choose their way in Nebraska, they pollute the aquifer that 
goes all the way to Texas. It doesn't matter if they choose their way 
in New Jersey, the people in New York have to breathe the air. It 
doesn't matter if they don't clean up the steel mills or power plants 
in the Ohio Valley, it kills the trees in Maine.
  That is what this clean air law is about. That is what the clean 
water law is about. That is what OSHA is about. That is what community 
right to know is about.
  Somehow these Republicans have such a terrible trouble. They are all 
for democracy and openness, but they don't want to tell people in the 
community what is going on in their communities. They don't want to 
tell workers the substances they are working around. People should have 
to experience birth defects, miscarriages, before we get to them? I 
don't think so. Why should we visit that on a family because they are 
forced to take a job out of economic necessity, and then we put them in 
a dangerous situation and they suffer that kind of tragedy in their 
family. That is the price of a job? It is when you vote for the 
unfunded mandates bill, because we no longer get to have the common 
concern and the common interest of this country, about improving the 
social progress of our children, of our families, of our workers, 
because that is what this body of law is about.
  These are the successes. These are the successes that set America 
apart from other countries. These are the successes in terms of our 
economic growth, in terms of our economic activity, and an environment 
that is unparalleled elsewhere in the world. And if we don't lead the 
way, let us not believe that China will follow suit. That they will 
think if we decide that clean air is not important here, how do we tell 
China that clean air is important there? And yet they have the 
potential, if they stay on track with their economic growth and the 
building of their coal-fired power plants, to erase everything we have 
done in clean air in this country.
                              {time}  1320

  That is the volume of pollutions that they will put into the air. But 
we are now going to take away our ability to have tough laws in this 
country and yet we are going to lean on China or India or Indonesia to 
come into the first world in terms of environmental protection, not a 
chance, not a chance. Where we have not done this, we have lost whole 
industries. Where we did not do this in the Northwest, we lost a good 
portion of the logging industry, and we have lost a good portion of the 
commercial fishing industry and the sports fishing industry.
  The coasts of our States now, great areas, great fishing banks off of 
New England, you cannot make a living because the local people did not 
have the courage to impose the moratoriums or the limits so we simply 
strip mined the oceans. We are about to set in motion strip mining of 
the bays and seas off of Alaska. That is why you have a Federal 
Government. Because a lot of these Governors and a lot of these mayors 
cannot take the heat. They do not want to buck the industries. They do 
not want to tell them the truth. They do not want to tell them ``no''. 
Well, when it got to such a point that we could not breathe our air, 
our rivers were catching on fire, you could not swim in the bays and 
the fisheries were disappearing, we changed the law. We changed it for 
the good of the Nation.
  I would hope that some of these people would stop whining about the 
kind of social progress that we have made. I would hope that these same 
Governors who do not like us saying that if you take the public's 
money, you have to do the public good, what they are really saying is 
all they want is the public's money. You cannot have it both ways. If 
you are going to spend the public's money, you have to spend it in the 
public interest. That is an important component of this.
  Surely, there was debate. It took us, I think it took us almost 6 
years to reauthorize the Clean Air Act, because we had this debated, 
because we made the compromises, because we apportioned out, we 
apportioned out the participation. But if anybody thinks that the 
question of whether or not Santa Monica Bay is going to get cleaned up 
depends upon 100 percent Federal funding, then I guess Santa Monica Bay 
is not going to get cleaned up, if they do not have the local willpower 
or the local finances to do that. That is true all up and down our 
region.
  This is a union of States, but those States are not entirely 
contained within their boundaries. Their activities spill over onto 
others. This is about being a good neighbor.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin].
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the gentleman for taking this special order. It 
is timely because this week Congress will be voting on this unfunded 
mandate legislation.
  If you read the description of this legislation on its face it seems 
so simple, so clear, so easy. It is legislation to discourage lawmakers 
from telling State and local governments what to do without providing 
them the money to do it. That is so basic who could argue with it? But 
life is a little more complicated.
  [[Page H281]] As the gentleman from California has just told us, when 
you start applying it in specific instances, it raises a lot of 
questions. Some of the more conservative Members of the House and 
Senate that I have spoken to over the last several days, in positing 
questions to them, how would it affect environmental laws and the like, 
they said, well, I never thought of that; there must be an exception in 
the bill for that.
  The fact is there is not. It is a good concept, but the Republicans 
in the House have taken the concept of unfunded mandates, they have 
gone too far, they have gone too fast, and they have gone to extremes.
  Just consider when the committee sat and met on this bill, just last 
week, a few days ago, the chairman, the Republican chairman of the 
committee decided after they, the panel had defeated three Democratic 
proposals for committee rules changes on party line votes, they ended 
up saying that they would not have a hearing on this bill. They were 
just going to mark up the bill. No witnesses came in from the outside 
to testify. This bill was pushed through as part of the ``100 day 
breakneck speed, let us get it all done and get out of here'' approach. 
It is headed to the floor this week.
  In their haste to pass unfunded mandates, the Republicans have 
ignored very real health and safety problems. They would create with 
this legislation concerns that every American family has to sit up and 
take notice of. Let me give you an example.
  In many ways unfunded mandates legislation proposed by the 
Republicans puts the health and safety of our families at risk. The 
gentleman from California has talked about the clean air provisions, 
the clean water provisions. My district is on the Illinois River and 
the Mississippi River. And frankly, what is dumped in that river 
upstream is what we have to live with downstream. This is not a State-
by-State concern. This is a national concern. It is one where we want 
to have consistent standards. If the Republican unfunded mandate 
approach prevails, future regulations of municipal discharges into that 
river will frankly be unenforceable. So they can set their own 
standards. And if some town upstream decides it, just by their own hook 
or crook, they are going to put in that river what they want to, we 
live with it downstream. That becomes our water supply. That becomes 
our channel for commerce in the Middle West. We have to live with what 
they dump because we are not going to go so far as to say, it is a 
Federal mandate.
  The same thing is true when it comes to radioactive waste disposal. 
There are States which own nuclear powerplants. We have provisions in 
Federal law which apply to the privately owned plants as well as the 
government-owned plants in terms of their operation, safety and 
disposal of nuclear waste. If the Republican approach passes, future 
reauthorization of those bills establishing those standards will 
exempt, exempt the government-owned nuclear powerplants. Does that make 
any sense at all? Should we not have one consistent standard in America 
when it comes to safety?
  Let me tell you another one. Where I live in central Illinois, 
because we have a lot of land out there, we have become dumping grounds 
for landfills taking the waste from all over the eastern seaboard. I 
have a lot of affection for my colleagues from New York City and 
particularly Brooklyn, NY, but I go to Taylorville, IL, and look at the 
landfill and see these boxcars coming in full of waste from Brooklyn, 
NY, being dumped in my backyard in Taylorville, IL, bad enough. But 
consider the fact that across the United States, there are 7,000 
landfills owned by State and local governments which will now be exempt 
from future standards and changes in regulations by this Republican 
unfunded mandate bill. It means that Waste Management and other giants 
in the industry will be governed by Federal standards; those owned by 
State and local governments, those landfills will not. Do the families 
living in those communities around there think that is a better deal? I 
doubt it.
  When they are concerned about the quality of water, the aquifer, the 
runoff, when they are concerned about the health of their children, 
serious concerns about cancer and disease, they want a consistent 
national standard. Who can blame them. That is what I want for my 
family.
  Workplace safety, the gentleman from California spoke to. Let me 
mention one other: disaster standards. Think of the money this Federal 
Government spends every year on disasters. And we come in and say, we 
are going to establish standards so that in Illinois and California, 
Florida and wherever, if you want to qualify for Federal disaster 
relief, then for goodness sakes, help us out. Do not let people build 
on the flood plain. Do things to lessen damage, do not come to us and 
ignore these standards and hand us the bill.
  But guess what? Republican unfunded mandate legislation, when it is 
all said and done, will say to your Governor, Pete Wilson, Mr. 
Rohrabacher, do what you want. Set your own standards. But then come 
rattling the cup afterwards, when you have a mud slide or earthquake. 
That is not fair. That is not fair to the Federal taxpayers. But 
because the Republicans put this bill together so quickly and in such 
haste to put it on the floor, they never stopped to consider the impact 
this is going to have.
  This bill, the Republican unfunded mandate bill, unless it is changed 
on this floor, is a deadbeat's dream. Deadbeat fathers who do not pay 
child support, deadbeat companies that are polluting, deadbeat 
government units that will not accept their responsibilities, they are 
going to be doing what they want and we are going to end up holding the 
bag at the Federal level.
  Let me say, I think the concept behind unfunded mandates is correct. 
I think the review of Government decisions that have an economic impact 
on local units of government is the right thing to do. But because we 
tried to do this overnight, in a hurry, slap it together, put it on the 
books and get moving, we are not stopping to think of the consequences.
  I tell you this, we will be living with them. We will be living with 
the consequences. Because down the line, when it does not work, when 
thing have fallen apart, guess whose door is going to get knocked on? 
The same door that your Governor, Pete Wilson, knocks on every time he 
is in trouble, Uncle Sam's door. Please bail us out.
  I do not think that is fair.
                              {time}  1330

  That may be your view of new federalism. It is not mine.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield for a 
question?
  Mr. MILLER of California. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, If the Federal Government is mandating 
the actions and priorities of the States, no wonder the people of 
California and the State government of California are unable to put 
themselves into a position of preparing for a crisis and have to come 
to the Federal Government, when their own moneys are being mandated and 
how they will spend their own moneys is being mandated by the Federal 
Government. Shouldn't we leave that decisionmaking, shouldn't we let 
people in the States be able to make decisions that are most applicable 
to the States, so if there is an emergency they can then afford to take 
care of those problems?
  Mr. MILLER of California. Reclaiming my time, that is exactly the 
point. If you leave it in that fashion, and if you take the Mississippi 
River as the example, if all of the States and all of the cities do not 
contribute to cleaning up the river, then it makes no sense for anybody 
to contribute to cleaning up the river. If we look at the Great Lakes, 
if the cities on the Great Lakes don't clean up their discharge, then 
it makes no sense for any of them to do it.
  Who goes first? When do you do it? That is why you have the unifying 
effect of Federal laws, because our actions in California--we think 
most of the pollution in the Grand Canyon is coming out of southern 
California, so here we have taken one of the great assets of this 
Nation, and we have destroyed it in terms of its beauty and the ability 
to enjoy it for visitors all over the world and our own citizens.
  However, it is not about what happened in Arizona or New Mexico, it 
is about what happened in southern California. That is why you cannot 
let this simply be a local determination. We 
[[Page H282]] had that before and we lived among the worst pollution in 
the history of this country.
  I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Your argument is that what the Republicans are 
suggesting is a far swing of the pendulum in the wrong direction, but I 
would hope that you would admit that this is in reaction--I would not 
admit it is going too far, however, but I hope that you would admit 
that it is in reaction to a pendulum that has swung so far in the other 
direction that today, local governments find themselves mandating, 
whether it is for environmental reasons, which you have gone through 
earlier on in your talk, or for any number of other areas, they find 
their budgets are being totally mandated or to a great degree mandated 
by the Federal Government. Thus, local government and the prerogatives 
of the local voters are being taken away and coopted by the Federal 
Government.
  Mr. MILLER of California. Reclaiming my time, that is not necessarily 
so. Very often local governments don't do things, not because the local 
voters don't want them to do things, but because the local power 
structure doesn't want them to do something, whether it is the local 
industry or the largest taxpayer in that city which decides ``If you do 
that, I'm going to have to spend x millions of dollars.''
  But they also, those same people, the power structure, the local 
industry, others may very well have a social obligation to clean up the 
river and to clean up the air. It is not that that can always be 
overcome. Let's not pretend that every time the local voters get their 
way with the local city council or the local mayor or the governor or 
the county board of supervisors. That simply is not so. That simply is 
not so.
  To suggest that somehow all righteous answers are at the local level 
is simply not the case. That is why very often we come to the Federal 
Government to try to pass a law that will unify us in terms of progress 
in this country, and in terms of the concerns of the people of this 
country.
  The benefits, however, are not 100 percent on behalf of Washington, 
DC. If Santa Monica Bay is cleaned up, the benefit is also local, so we 
say we will share that. There are none of these mandates where the 
Federal Government has not put up hundreds of billions of dollars to 
help these local communities meet these mandates.
  The other issue, have some mandates gone too far, clearly they have. 
Has the imposition, the regulation, the enforcement of some of these 
laws gone too far? Clearly it has.
  However, this is not about the pendulum swinging, this is about 
cutting the cord on the pendulum and letting it fly out of control at 
one of its apexes, and that should not be allowed. Should we review 
these? Should we have cost assessments? Should we go into it opening 
our eyes? Yes, we should, and yes, we did.
  Let us not pretend, like we debated the clean air law or the clean 
water law without people--with every economic study on the impacts, the 
automobile industry, the chemical industry, the refining industry, 
local governments, transit districts, toll bridges, the whole gamut, 
that was debated for months, for years on this floor, and we arrived at 
a series of laws that we think will continue to clean up the air of 
this Nation. That is what is put at jeopardy here.
  Mr. DURBIN. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. MILLER of California. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that this debate is a 
much bigger debate, obviously. When you are talking about government 
mandates, they don't stop at Federal Government and State and local 
government, they go on to the local units.
  I remember as a youngster growing up, one of the
   most notable tragedies in our area in my lifetime was a fire in 
Chicago at Our Lady of Angels School which unfortunately claimed the 
lives of scores of children. As a result of that fire, our State of 
Illinois established a health safety code and said that every school 
building in our State has to meet certain basic requirements in terms 
of fire exits and the like, and every school district or unit that is 
running a school has to comply with that health safety code.

  We didn't pay for all of it by a long shot, but we basically said to 
the families living in my State, as I'm sure in your State, ``If you 
should move from one school district to the next, you have got to ask a 
lot of obvious questions about teachers and courses and all the rest, 
but you can be certain that every school is going to pass the basic 
test that your child is physically safe from fire in that building.''
  That is a mandate, a government mandate from a higher government to a 
lower government, but for the peace of mind of the families and kids 
involved in it, we said, ``That is the appropriate thing to do for the 
common good.''
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Would you do that at the Federal level, as well?
  Mr. DURBIN. No. I think in some areas you have to draw lines where 
you can go too far. I don't argue that you can.
  Let me say to the gentleman, I think many times what the Republican 
Party misses is that aspect of our Federal Government which talks about 
the common good. The common good in many instances requires us all to 
basically give up some of our power and authority so as a nation we are 
doing the right thing.
  I am sure the gentleman would agree that that is something that is 
very important to our country, and yet it seems the Republicans are so 
troubled by that that they would push through this unfunded mandate 
bill so quickly and so extreme that when you sit down and apply it to 
specific instances, it just doesn't make sense.
  Mr. MILLER of California. If the gentleman will yield, I think the 
gentleman makes an important point. Many of these Governors who are 
sort of leading the band on this one are engaged in exactly the same 
process.
  Pete Wilson handed the local counties of California a whole series of 
mandates last year on mental health, on medical care for people in the 
counties, a whole range of issues. They weren't funded. They weren't 
funded.
  Somehow they want to pretend like they come here with clean hands, 
that they are opposed to this. We have laws in California called S.P. 
90, no unfunded mandates. What the legislature does is every year it 
says ``In accordance with S.P. 90, this is not an unfunded mandate.'' 
Tell that to the counties who are having to live with that.
  That doesn't make that process right, but let us not pretend that 
these are somehow unfunded mandate virgins who are coming to the 
Congress, that they have never done this. It is like Pete Wilson saying 
``You balance your budget. I have had to balance mine.'' He didn't 
balance his budget last year, he went to the banks and borrowed money 
to make ends meet.
  Somehow they think they speak with greater moral authority: ``Do as I 
say, not as I do.'' that is sort of the lesson of these Governors.
  The fact is, they know that for the good of their States, every now 
and then, whether it is a fire code, whether it is flood protection, or 
workers' compensation, they must mandate that certain laws be abided 
by, and they don't say ``Every city make up your mind, every county 
make up your mind, and get back to me with what you did.'' That is not 
the nature of our system of government in this country.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. If the gentleman will yield, the gentleman noted or 
gave as an example the cleanup of the Santa Monica Bay, which is 
something I know about, coming from Southern California.
  Mr. MILLER of California. I assume you spent a lot of time in the 
Bay.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. As a young man I body-surfed there and spent a lot 
of time in that water. That is probably the best example of why the 
decisions, environmental decisions like the cleanup of Santa Monica 
Bay, should be left to local people.
  The question is, at the local level, how pure should we make the 
Santa Monica Bay, because the people of the local area know that you 
can have it 90-percent pure and not lose any jobs, but if you push to 
an environmental extremist position of trying to make it 99-percent 
pure, hundreds of thousands of people will be thrown out of work.
  One of the complaints that we have had about Federal Government 
regulations is just that.
  [[Page H283]] Mr. MILLER of California. Let me reclaim my time, 
because that is like orphanages. The laws now require that people that 
endanger their children should have their children taken away, and 
provides a mechanism for doing that, so we don't have to talk about 
orphanages.
  We don't have to talk about whether or not we go too far. That is not 
what this legislation is about. This legislation is about gutting the 
basic laws. You won't even be able to engage in that debate in Santa 
Monica over fecal matter in the bay and whether or not the beaches will 
be closed or not.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. The local people will be doing that.
  Mr. MILLER of California. It is also Federal money that is enabling 
that bay to be cleaned up, in part. That is true of the whole 
California coast. So that is the partnership that has been arranged.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. To the degree that Federal money is involved, the 
Republicans have no problem with us setting regulations for the use of 
that Federal money. It is just that in this whole mandate debate, it is 
about when we mandate things and do not provide the money.
                              {time}  1340

  Mr. MILLER of California. That is not what the legislation says.
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield so I 
can ask the other gentleman from California a question?
  Mr. MILLER of California. I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi.
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I ask the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Rohrabacher], of the estuaries that feed Santa Monica Bay, how many 
other States are involved in that?
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. That is a very good example, because unlike the 
Mississippi where many States are involved, the Santa Monica Bay is 
totally within the State of California and thus having the Federal 
Government mandate the solution would be questionable.
  Mr. MILLER of California. Unless you live up or down the coastline 
from the bay.
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. If the gentleman will continue to yield, I 
wanted to contrast that with my home State.
  Over one-third of the Continental United States drains past my home 
State. The actions of 80 million Americans, whether clean actions or 
actions that are not so clean, affect my home State: The tourism in 
Natchez and Vicksburg, recreational opportunities along the Mississippi 
River. The most productive fishing grounds in the whole country are at 
the mouth of the Mississippi River, for shrimping, for oystering, and 
that directly affects my district during the springtime when the river 
floods.
  Do you think it is fair for the people of Chicago to deprive the 
oystermen of Pass Christian, MS, the opportunity to make a living? Do 
you think it is fair, because they want to cut back a little bit on 
their sewage treatment. For Vicksburg and Natchez to lose their tourism 
industry because the river is so filthy no one wants to go down to the 
gaming boats?
  I am in total agreement. I was a city councilman and a State senator. 
We have to get a handle on mandates. But to throw them out the window 
makes no sense at all. It is just not fair for the people upstream from 
the Mississippi to ruin our State so they can save a couple of bucks. 
Because just as it is unfair for the Federal Government to push its 
problems off on the locals, it is equally unfair for local communities 
to push their problems off on the Federal Government.
  That is precisely what happens in the nature of wastewater. It is 
just not fair for New York to poison the beaches of New Jersey. It is 
just not fair for this city, Washington, DC, to poison the water that 
the people of Alexandria, VA, are going to drink tomorrow, because the 
water for Alexandria, VA, is within one tidal cycle of what they call 
the Blue Plains sewage treatment plant here in Washington, DC. So if 
Mayor Marion Barry decides he is going to save a few bucks, or spend it 
on things other than wastewater, is it really fair to him to poison the 
people of Alexandria?
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. If I could be given the opportunity to answer.
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Sure. I am asking the question.
  Mr. MILLER of California. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. I think what the gentleman is showing are the 
complexities, but that does not negate the solution.
 That is, just as in the Santa Monica Bay, it might be better for the 
people of California and people of southern California in particular to 
determine what type of regulation they want for the cleanup of the 
Santa Monica Bay. In the same way with the Mississippi River, it would 
not be a good thing to tax everyone in the country in order to 
basically implement a policy along the Mississippi River when a 
solution might be made among the States that are on the Mississippi 
River to facilitate that solution.

  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. But, I say to the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Rohrabacher], I was a city councilman when they cut 
back on Federal revenue sharing. I was a city councilman when the 
biggest issue we had was to upgrade the sewage treatment plant. Had it 
not been for the Federal mandate, the wastewater from my hometown would 
still be flowing into St. Louis Bay, still be poisoning the oyster 
reefs off Pass Christian and Long Beach and Biloxi. That is not right. 
That is why we are lawmakers. We came here to be lawmakers for the 
Nation.
  The folks on your side of the aisle have made an excellent point. We 
need to be extremely judicious in the laws we make. We need to be 
extremely fair in the laws that we make. But we should also remember 
that we came here to be lawmakers and that we should have some laws 
that are common throughout the country, and some of those laws have to 
be that each community does not become a burden on the community 
downstream from them as far as wastewater, as far as toxic metals, as 
far as clean air. You will agree with that.
  I think what many of us are asking for on this particular bill, since 
there was not a hearing on the unfunded mandate bill, that there be 
clear and concise language in that bill that says we are not undoing 
anything from the past. We are just going to start talking more about 
what it is going to cost for locals when we pass something. We are 
going to give it greater thought than we did before, but there has to 
be, and there is not in the bill as yet, clear and concise language 
that says we are not undoing present laws. Some of the present laws 
make a heck of a lot of sense.
  Mr. MILLER of California. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. At the outset, I want to thank the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Rohrabacher] for joining us. I hope we can encourage 
more of this type of dialog during the special orders instead of the 
monologs to an empty Chamber which has characterized them in the past. 
I thank you for joining us and hope we can do this in the future.
  But let me add this, if I might. There has been a larger hearing on 
unfunded mandates in Capitol Hill in the last 45 minutes than at any 
time when this legislation has been making its way to the floor. We 
have heard testimony from the gentleman from Santa Monica, testimony 
from the gentleman from Mississippi, and testimony from the gentleman 
from Illinois about the impact of the Republican bill. We have heard 
more testimony right here in the last 45 minutes than we heard in the 
committee that reported this bill to the floor of the House of 
Representatives for a vote this week.
  The bottom line is, unless and until we consider the complexity of 
this bill, the ramifications it has on the States of Mississippi and 
Illinois and California and Florida and others, we are doing a great 
disservice to the voters of this country.
  The Republican leadership wants to slam-dunk every provision of this 
contract without a hearing, without deliberation, and frankly without 
the kind of concern
 which I think they should have for the impact and ramifications.

  We cannot hope that the Senate will save us on this bill. I hope they 
will. Maybe the President will have to. But somewhere along the line, 
someone has to step back and say the responsible thing to do is to sort 
out these mandates where the Federal Government has overstepped and 
where, in fact, the Federal mandate makes sense for a 
[[Page H284]] Federal policy that affects the whole country.
  One last point I will make. One of the provisions in the Republican 
Contract With America goes after lawyers. Too much litigation. You want 
to see a lot of litigation? Pass this unfunded mandate bill and watch 
what happens. You will have every locality, every township, every 
community, every city, every village, every county, every State with 
lawyers backed up to the courthouse door saying, ``We are challenging 
this Federal law because it violates your Federal mandate provision. It 
imposes a duty and does not pay for it, and we dispute the Federal 
conclusion that you did pay for it,'' and on and on and on. This is a 
lawyer's dream. I think frankly the Republican Party which is trying to 
spare us too much litigation is really stepping in it when they pass 
this kind of legislation.
  Mr. MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman.
  Let me just conclude that the notion that somehow the Governors of 
the cities along the Mississippi River will all arrive at a common 
decision to keep the Mississippi clean so that the people in the Gulf 
States are not punished economically or in their quality of life simply 
defies political logic in the history of this country.
  But for these unfunded mandates, I said that many parents have come 
to me and other Members of Congress and said, ``But for that law of 
education to handicapped children, my child would have never gotten an 
education.'' But let me also say, but for these laws, the plan to 
rescue the Everglades in Florida would have never come about, because 
the political structure in Florida was unable to deal with the growers, 
to deal with the landowners, to deal with the water districts and all 
that that meant in that political equation, try as they might, and this 
Governor and Lieutenant Governor have pushed the envelope on reaching 
consensus, but for the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, 
the agreement that is now in place to provide to start on the 
restoration of the Everglades, one of the wonders of the world, one of 
the major generators of economic activity in Florida, would never have 
happened.
  In my own State of California, we just reached an agreement between 
local government, the environmental community, the agricultural 
community and the State for the protection of the Sacramento-San 
Joaquin Delta for the commercial fisheries, for the landowners, for the 
industries, for the cities, for the sports fishing, for recreation. 
That agreement would have never come about but for Clean Water and 
Endangered Species, because Governor Wilson, like every other Governor 
in the State of California, because of where they take their political 
contributions, could have never stepped up to the table, because the 
growers would never let them. Not Democratic Governors, not Republican 
Governors.
  But all of a sudden they had to step up to the table because the 
Federal Government made them do it, because we took the political heat 
in Washington.
  This administration took the political heat and turned back the 11th-
hour pleas not to do it. What is the result? That the Delta will now 
have a recovery plan so we can sustain the recreation and the quality 
of life and the environment. The cities in southern California will get 
more water. The growers will have to start paying for their water and 
conserving it and using it in a modern age as opposed to how they used 
it with high Federal subsidies in the 1950's.
                              {time}  1350

  This is the 1990's. But no Governor would have made that deal without 
the threat of Federal action and going to court.
  In the Northwest, no Governor, nobody had the guts to tell those 
loggers to stop decimating those forests, to stop cutting them faster 
than they could be regrown, so that they could be sustainable. And for 
years it happened, and whole mountainsides now are denuded of 
vegetation. Forget getting trees to grow again.
  What brought it about? The Endangered Species Act and the Federal 
Government saying we had to reach agreement between the environmental 
community and industry and the local communities and the salmon fishing 
industry, the commercial industries and recreation, and the people of 
Oregon and Washington about their quality of life, why people invested 
in homes.
  The local power structure did not want to tell Weyerhaeuser that, 
they did not want to tell the mill down the street that, they did not 
want to tell these people with all of their lawyers and all their 
lobbyists that they had to quit destroying America's forests, that they 
had to stay out of the ancient forests, that they could not decimate 
the salmon fisheries. They did not have it. They did not have it.
  But it happened because of these laws that those same Governors, 
those same mayors now seek to decimate, acting like they would all of a 
sudden have the courage to bring into concert those very parties that 
they rely on for campaign contributions, that they kowtow to all of the 
time and that they cannot look in the eye and tell them to start doing 
the people's business in the public interest. That is why these Federal 
laws are here.
  These Federal laws are not here because of some overwhelming desire 
of Washington to regulate the world. They came here because people were 
dying on the job, and they would not clean up the workplaces. People 
were getting killed in coal mine explosions, in grain elevators that 
were blowing up around the Midwest and the Mississippi River and 
killing people. They were working around benzene and finding out they 
had cancer. They were working around other toxic substances and they 
found out they had a child with birth defects, because that is what 
they were told to do that is why these laws are here.
  The automobile makers did not want to put air bags in automobiles. 
They resisted us for 15 years. Now most families would not buy an 
automobile without an air bag. They did no want seat belts. Now we 
would not think of an automobile without seat belts. They did not want 
to put child restraints in. When I was young and had my children, we 
held them on our lap and we drove around. And we were killing the 
children in wrecks. Now they are in a seat restraint system and the 
children are living.
  I appreciate that people do not want to do business other then the 
way they want to do business. But that is what brought about, that is 
what brought about these Federal laws. It was the irresponsibility of 
many, many individuals and entities in this country that thought that 
they could use your rivers as their sewage plant and thought they could 
put their dirty air high enough into the sky that it would blow into 
some other State and somebody else would have to breathe it.
  That is what is at risk here with this Republican legislation. That 
is what is at risk here in terms of the unity of this Nation, the 
social progress of this Nation, and that cannot be given away in short 
debate without a hearing and in a rush to somehow get it done in 100 
days.
  We have spent 30 years cleaning up the environment of this Nation, 
making it a model for the rest of the world to provide a standard of 
living and security in our food supply, security in our air travel, 
security in our highway travel, security in our job place, security in 
our own homes, because other people just chose to make a buck. But the 
Federal Government thought we ought to make laws in the public 
interest.
  Now what we see is in one piece of legislation with no hearings, 
where you cut off debate in the committee last, week, we now see an 
effort to overturn those 30 years of social progress, turning back the 
forces who seek to exploit the environment, to exploit the worker, to 
exploit the family, to make a fast buck, to make a big profit and let 
the chips fall where they may. That is Bhopal, India, that is 
Chernobyl, that is the Ukraine, that is the Soviet Union where the 
lands have been destroyed and families broken and people are living in 
toxic waste. That is not the United States of America, that is not this 
country, and it is not this country because of these laws.
  To simply allow this assault to go on unfettered, to do it all in one 
piece of legislation, to not pull it apart and say what is the impact 
on nuclear safety, what is the impact on low-level waste being put in 
your communities, what happens to radioactive wastes from 
[[Page H285]] hospitals that is being stored around our cities, being 
stored in our own communities, how do we provide for the safe disposal, 
what happens to the reactor rods we take out of nuclear reactors, are 
they going to be in your community or my community, what are the 
conditions under which they will be disposed of when they are stored, 
what are the protections to the citizens in those areas; that is the 
kind of debate we should have, and that is the discussion they should 
have had in the committee. The Republicans were just not up to it.
  On the first day they said their contract required open meetings and 
the Speaker stood before this House and said let the great debate 
begin. Apparently it was not as great as we thought. They decided to 
close the meetings, they decided to rule amendments out of order 
because they simply did not want any more time, not that the amendments 
were not germane or did not have an impact or were not worthy of 
consideration. They decided it was 6 o'clock, time had come to leave.
  These were people who said they were going to work every day around 
the clock, Monday to Friday, 100 days. They could not find time to have 
hearings on a bill that decimates the laws of this country. I hope we 
will have better debate on the floor and the Republicans will 
reconsider their assault, and I hope the American people will turn them 
back from this assault.
  I will urge the President to veto this bill, because in one swoop of 
his pen he undoes 30 years of social progress in the environment and in 
the workplace and in the security of American families.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  

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