Congressional Record, Volume 141 Issue 9 (Tuesday, January 17, 1995)

[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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