[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 9 (Tuesday, January 17, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H286-H287]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          ON UNFUNDED MANDATES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Gillmor] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  (Mr. GILLMOR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. GILLMOR. Mr. Speaker, this country needs an end to unfunded 
mandates by the Federal Government on State and local governments. I am 
delighted to see that this concept is finally receiving broad support 
from both the public and from this Congress.
  I introduced a constitutional amendment a year and a half ago to end 
those unfunded mandates by constitutional amendment, and what a 
difference a year and a half makes.
  When I first proposed it, most people thought there was almost no 
chance of ever seeing a constitutional amendment voted on or adopted in 
this body. But after the November election and after increasing concern 
shown by Governors and State legislators, we have an excellent chance 
of getting this issue before both Houses and to a vote.
  There is legislation pending to curtail unfunded mandates by statute. 
I support that. I cosponsored it last 
[[Page H287]] year, and I am cosponsoring it again this year. But the 
weakness of a statute is that it can be changed by a simple majority 
vote. And the only real long-term protection is by a constitutional 
amendment.
  During my 22 years in the Ohio Senate, including several terms as 
Senate President, I witnessed a tremendous increase in the cost and the 
number of mandates being forced on the States. When the States 
originally ceded power to the Federal Government, they could not have 
envisioned a situation where State law would be so lightly overthrown 
and where State funds would be subject to Federal raids.
  Unfunded mandates permit the Federal Government to avoid 
responsibility for its actions. They give the Federal Government the 
power to reorder and to distort State and local budget priorities. 
States have had to curtail services they feel are priorities because of 
those mandates. States have had to cut schools. They have had to cut 
police protection, programs for senior citizens. They have had to cut 
police protection.
  And examples of unfunded mandates are both large and small. For 
example, the mayor of Columbus, OH, our capital city, has estimated the 
cost of unfunded mandates for his city as $800 per year for every 
single individual in the city. In 1993, shortly after I introduced the 
original amendment, I heard from the fire chief of Van Wert, OH, a 
small city in my district, complaining about Federal regulations that 
required him to replace the breathing tanks his men use when they enter 
smoke-filled areas. Not a single one of the tanks were defective or 
needed to be replaced, but it cost him $9,500 to replace them.
  At the same time he was forced to cut his budget for volunteer 
firemen. For that $9,500, the chief could have had 20 volunteer firemen 
instead of having his force cut down to 5.
  There is an EPA requirement that sets atrazine limits at three parts 
per billion in drinking water. That sounds good until you consider that 
it would cost one city $80 million to comply and will not increase 
public health or safety at all.
  How much water does a person have to drink, based on that standard, 
to have even a remote chance of having any adverse effect on their 
health? An individual would have to drink 38 bathtubs full of water 
every day for the rest of his or her life; and for the same amount of 
money, that city could have hired 3,700 schoolteachers. What has 
happened is that Congress has been irresponsibly freeloading on the 
backs of State and local government.
  Congress passes a requirement. It takes the credit. But it refuses to 
pay the burden for the mandates that are created. State and local 
governments pay the cost. They get the political blame.
  Contrary to what some opponents say, this does not prevent Congress 
from passing anything on health and safety. It just says, pay for your 
actions like anybody else. There are some in the Federal Government who 
have been freeloading and have been irresponsible for so long that they 
think that freeloading and irresponsibility are virtues.
  Now is the time to restore a proper balance in Federal relations. 
This amendment does not in any way endanger public health or safety. It 
enhances it by helping assure that public resources are effectively 
spent and not wasted.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Mineta] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MINETA. Mr. Speaker, this morning, as billions of people around 
the world know, the cities of Kobe and Osaka in southern Japan were 
struck with a devastating 7.2 magnitude earthquake.
  As of noon today, Washington time, nearly 1,600 people were known 
dead, more than 1,000 were missing, and more than 6,000 were injured.
  No words are necessary beyond reading that toll to know that the 
family lives disrupted by this epic tragedy will never heal completely.
  And no words are necessary beyond reading this next tally to know 
that the tremendous physical damage will not soon be repaired:
  More than 4,000 buildings were destroyed this morning. Expressway and 
rail service has either been severed or disrupted in much of western 
Japan. Power and telecommunications systems have been cut.
  These people are now in crisis, and I know that Americans everywhere 
share in the sadness caused by this tragedy.
  We do so because of the suffering involved. And we do so out of a 
feeling of a deja vu that hits still closer to home.
  The sad irony of this earthquake in Japan is that this day also marks 
the 1-year anniversary of the Northridge Earthquake--a 6.7-magnitude 
quake which killed 61 people and caused 20 billion dollars' worth of 
damage in the Los Angeles area.
  The lesson we should be learning is that the forces of nature 
continue to strike at will.
  The lesson we should be learning is that in our increasingly 
developed world, the costs of responding to natural disasters and 
repairing the damage keeps going up--and that we do not have a 
bottomless checkbook.
  Unless and until we act as a nation to mitigate the potential for 
damage,
  Unless we make it possible to recover from natural disasters with 
lives and communities more intact than is possible under present law,
  We will pay a higher and higher cost in lives lost, in the cost to 
rebuild, and in the dislocation to our economy and society while we 
rebuild.
  As chair of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee in 
the last Congress, I can tell you that the 1994 Northridge Earthquake 
and the 1993 Midwest flooding became cases in point--as did hurricanes 
Andrew and Iniki, and the Loma Prieta Earthquake in earlier years.
  Today, California also suffers from statewide flooding in addition to 
the Northridge memories of a year ago.
  Since last Wednesday, I have spent several days examining the 
destruction caused by the floods in my State. I have looked at which 
systems worked, which did not, and how Government agencies and 
nonprofit voluntary agencies worked to save lives and help communities 
recover.
  These floods reminded me again that we as a nation are not helpless, 
but that clearly we are not doing all that we can in advance to stave 
off the human and financial costs of natural disasters.
  In the last Congress, the Public Works and Transportation Committee 
approved legislation--the first of its kind--to get ahead of this 
particular curve.
  This legislation--the Natural Disaster Protection Partnership Act--
would create the first public-private partnership to reduce the cost of 
natural disasters and to keep disaster insurance available and 
affordable to homeowners so that less of the cleanup and repair cost 
would be at taxpayer expense.
  We would accomplish these two goals in four ways. First, through 
better preparedness. Second, through spreading out the financial risks, 
which would lower the costs to homeowners and ensure that coverage 
would be available.
  Third, through better State and local government enforcement of 
building standards. And fourth, through Federal coordination and 
required financial backstops to existing insurance pools.
  Just about every group affected--from homeowners associations, to 
consumer advocates, to insurance companies, to emergency service 
officials--has agreed that the Natural Disaster Protection Partnership 
Act has the right combination of ideas to end the fear and create 
greater security, and to do so by putting greater reliance on the 
private sector.
  This is why I was delighted when a bipartisan House task force 
endorsed the provisions of my bill last month.
  If there is any single piece of legislation that cries out for 
enactment early in this new Congress, it is this one.
  Today's earthquake in Japan was another reminder, and warning.

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