[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 10 (Wednesday, January 18, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1018-S1019]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           UNFUNDED MANDATES

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I was listening intently as the majority 
leader expressed a concern over the lack of progress that we are 
making; and certainly we are not making progress.
  I also listened intently yesterday to the very distinguished Senator 
from West Virginia, as he quoted history and he quoted many of our 
Founding Fathers, concerning the subject at hand of unfunded mandates.
  I have felt that unfunded mandates are the product of an assertive, 
greedy Government that has arrogantly injected itself into the 
dictatorial position that was feared most by our Founding Fathers.
  And, you know, we deal with these subjects as if they are 
contemporary subjects, Mr. President, and they are not. Because in all 
of these subjects that we have been discussing that might be associated 
with the Contract With America, but certainly those things that 70 to 
80 percent of the Americans want, our Founding Fathers dealt with these 
issues. They dealt with term limitations. It was their intent to have a 
citizens legislature for people to have to live under the laws that we 
passed. And, of course, we discussed that under the accountability 
bill, and such things as the budget balancing amendment.
  It was Thomas Jefferson who came back and said:

       If I could have made one improvement in the Constitution, 
     it would have been to severely limit the abilities of our 
     Government to incur debt.

   And now we are looking at unfunded mandates, which, I think, at the 
crux of unfunded mandates is the 10th amendment to the Constitution. 
Certainly, James Madison was very eloquent in his discussion of the 
10th amendment.
  Just so that I do not misquote it, I will read it. The 10th amendment 
provides that:

       The powers not delegated to the United States by the 
     Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are 
     reserved to the States respectfully, or to the people.

  When you stop and remember what our Founding Fathers came over here 
to escape, it was, in fact, tyranny. So many of the problems that we 
are looking at in a contemporary way were addressed in the past.
  I remember so well, if you think back in the history of this country, 
as was discussed by the distinguished Senator from West Virginia 
yesterday, we remember that here we were, a handful of farmers and 
trappers over here, and we took on the greatest army on the face of 
this Earth, knowing that we were signing our own death warrants to do 
so, but knowing it was worth it to escape tyranny. That was what it was 
all about when that tall redhead stood in the House of Burgesses and 
said:

       We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means 
     which the God of Nature has placed in our power. Three 
     millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and 
     in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by 
     any force which our enemy can send against us.

  Patrick Henry was saying that we are escaping the tyranny that we 
left behind in a foreign country.
  Now, where have we come today? Right back to that same tyranny. And 
while it is not a contemporary debate, it is now being debated 
contemporarily.
  I think if you look around and you see of all of those items in the 
Contract With America, this is the one that transcends all ideological 
lines. It transcends all party lines and interests. This is something 
that all of the American people are for.
  I listened to the Senator from California [Mrs. Feinstein], I believe 
it was a couple of days ago, and she said it so well about what 
happened out in San Francisco back when she was the mayor.
 And while Mrs. Feinstein and I--perhaps there are no two Senators 
further apart ideologically. We certainly agree we have one thing in 
common in our backgrounds. We were both mayors of major cities in 
America at the same time. In fact, Mr. President, we were on the board 
of directors of the U.S. Congress of Mayors at the same time. No one is 
going to say, by any interpretation, the U.S. Conference of Mayors is a 
conservative operation.

  Yet, what was our major concern 15 years ago, when Mrs. Feinstein and 
I were both mayors of major cities? It was unfunded mandates. If fellow 
Senators will talk to any of the municipal leagues around America and 
ask them what is the major problem they are facing in their towns, as 
well as their cities and States, they will not say crime, they will not 
say welfare; they will say it is unfunded mandates.
  We wonder how we got in this situation. It reminds me a little of the 
two skeletons in the closet. One rattled to the other and said, ``How 
did we get in here?'' And the other said, ``I don't know. If we had any 
guts, we would get out.'' I think it is time to get out. I think we got 
in because of the propensity of Members of Congress to, in hopes of 
getting people something and not having the money to pay for it, find a 
way to do it, and that is to force somebody else to pay for it. That is 
exactly what is happening.
   If we look around--I can take you to the State of Oklahoma, in 
Oklahoma City alone. Keep in mind, in our infinite wisdom, we passed 
all these bills. In Oklahoma City, in order to comply with the Clean 
Water Act, the conservative estimate is $3 million for that city; to 
comply with the transportation regulations, and these were the 
reflective road signs, the metric conversions, and those things, that 
would be $2 million over a 5-year period; land use regulations, 
landfills, recycling, $2.5 million; the Clean Water Act, they cannot 
proximate it, but it is well over $2 million.
  Go to a smaller town or city, such as Broken Arrow, OK: Clean Water 
Act, storm water regulations, $100,000. A person may say, what is that? 
In Broken Arrow, OK, that is a lot. They are going to have to give up a 
police officer to comply with that mandate that came from the Federal 
Government. Waste water treatment regulations, $125,000. Safe drinking 
water regulations, $40,000. EPA regulations, solid waste, $32,000. Fair 
Labor Standards Act, $30,000.
  In my city of Tulsa, I checked and brought up to date the figures 
that were there back when I was mayor of Tulsa, the Clean Water Act, 
$10 million; Safe Drinking Water Act, $16 million; solid waste 
regulations $700,000; lead-based paint, $1 million. It goes on and on 
and on. I just listed $35 million worth of mandates that are imposed 
upon three cities in the State of Oklahoma.
  Now, those are direct costs. We get into indirect costs when we look 
at other laws that were passed. The Davis-Bacon Act--when I was elected 
mayor of the city of Tulsa, we had to make some additions. What do we 
do about our capital improvements, because they are in dire need; we 
were rotting out from within. So I had to go out on the line, and for a 
conservative to do this, it was a very difficult thing, Mr. President. 
But I passed a 1-cent sales tax increase for capital improvements; and 
it passed.
  In order to do this, we calculated, by having to comply with the 
Davis-Bacon Act, how much more it costs the taxpayers of this city of 
Tulsa, OK. What could we have done without the Davis-Bacon Act: 17 
percent more in capital improvements, 6 more miles of roads and 
streets, 34 more miles of water and sewer lines, and we could have 
hired 500 more people.
  I read in the Reader's Digest just the other day something I will 
share with Members. In Philadelphia, for example--and this is in 
December's Reader's Digest--electricians must be paid $37.97 an hour on 
Davis-Bacon projects, while private contractors pay an average of 
$15.76. In Oakland, carpenters get $28 an hour on federally funded 
projects, and they work for $15 an hour in the private sector. Many are 
paying the 
[[Page S1019]] price indirectly, and paying dearly, for the price of 
the mandates.
  I replaced a very distinguished former Senator, David Boren, when I 
was elected to the U.S. Senate this past year.
 David Boren--he is a Democrat and I am a Republican--was and is today 
one of my closest friends. I can remember in 1966, Mr. President, we 
were elected to the State legislature. We came up here, and three of us 
became very intimate friends: David Boren, myself, and a guy named 
Ralph Thompson, who is now a Federal judge, whose name has been 
mentioned very prominently as someone who might be a member of the U.S. 
Supreme Court someday.

  We came up in 1967, almost 30 years ago. What was our mission? On the 
first trip when we came to Washington, the mission was to protest the 
mandates of Lady Bird's Highway Beautification Act of 1965.
  Lastly--I do not want to go over my time, and I am afraid I am 
approaching that now--I will say what will happen if we do not do it. 
What is going to happen if we do not pass this bill that everyone, 
virtually everyone, in America is for? If we do not do it, it will be 
done for us. Just to the south of the State of the Senator from 
Colorado, in New Mexico, in Catron County, in frustration with dealing 
with the U.S. Forest Service, they enacted the U.S. Constitution as a 
county ordinance and put the Federal Forest Service on notice to show 
up at the county supervisors meeting to get permission to impose 
mandates.
  Recently, in Walter Williams' column, he talks about the fact that 
California has joined Colorado, Missouri, Hawaii, and Illinois in 
asserting 10th amendment rights demanding that the Federal Government 
cease and desist all mandates and interferences exceeding those 
delegated by the Constitution. Similar resolutions have been passed in 
12 other States.
  Mr. President, that is a total of 17 States. Just nine more States, 
and that will be a majority of those States. So I will conclude, and 
say that this is something that we will have to start discussing in a 
serious vein and actually bringing to a vote. I cannot think of 
anything that is more significant that we will be dealing with than 
this issue.
  As the Reverend Mark Dever said in his prayer, opening the session 
today, we want unity of purpose for which we are elected. Without 
overly dramatizing, I would say we must free our States and counties 
from the bondage to which they have been subverted.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. CAMPBELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The distinguished Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, before I make comments, I would like to 
associate myself with the comments of my friend, the Senator from 
Oklahoma, with whom I have had the privilege of serving for the last 8 
years here in the U.S. Capitol.
  He brings out certainly another example, and we have heard one after 
another, about the punitive action of the Federal Government in forcing 
States to comply with unfunded mandates.
  Mr. President, I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Campbell pertaining to the introduction of S. 234 
are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Inhofe). The Senator from Wyoming is 
recognized to speak for up to 10 minutes.

                          ____________________