[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 13 (Monday, January 23, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H498-H528]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  UNFUNDED MANDATE REFORM ACT OF 1995

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Combest). Pursuant to House Resolution 
38 and rule XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the 
Whole House on the State of the Union for the further consideration of 
the bill, H.R. 5.

                              {time}  1652


                     in the committee of the whole

  Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the 
Whole House on the State of the Union for the further consideration of 
the bill (H.R. 5) to curb the practice of imposing unfunded Federal 
mandates on States and local governments, to ensure that the Federal 
Government pays the costs incurred by those governments in complying 
with certain requirements under Federal statutes and regulations, and 
to provide information on the cost of Federal mandates on the private 
sector, and for other purposes, with Mr. Emerson in the chair.
  The CHAIRMAN. When the Committee of the Whole rose on Friday, January 
20, 1995, the amendment offered by the gentleman from New York [Mr. 
Towns] had been disposed of, and section 4 was open for amendment at 
any point.
  Are there further amendments to section 4?
  Mr. CLINGER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  As we continue debate on H.R. 5, I want to address some concerns I 
have about where we are going and how we are going to get there.
  Mr. Chairman, last Friday we spent almost 5 hours debating just four 
amendments to this legislation. We have presently at least, at last 
count, about 160 amendments pending, and this is under an open rule, 
and it is an open rule that I think is well merited in this instance. 
But I think, Mr. Chairman, if we proceed as we have been going at the 
very, very slow pace we have been going, we could be here for months on 
this particular piece of legislation.
  I think that perhaps one of the reasons we have seen so many 
amendments offered is because there is a fair amount of 
misrepresentation and misinformation circulating about the bill which 
may account for some of these amendments. I do not question the motives 
of anybody who has introduced any amendment, although I know that there 
are some who in very good faith believe that this bill represents a 
very, very dramatic step back from where we are in terms of regulatory 
control.
  Nevertheless, we do have these amendments, and I think there is 
misinformation and perhaps it might be helpful to reemphasize just some 
basic facts about this bill. This bill has very strong support.
  The bill has very strong support, I would point out again, not only 
from the seven major public interest groups, but also the major groups 
representing the private sector, and among others the legislation is 
strongly endorsed by the National Governors' Association, the National 
Conference of Mayors, the National Conference of State Legislatures, 
National Association of Counties. This legislation is also endorsed by 
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent 
Business, the National Association of Realtors, the National 
Association of Homebuilders, among others.
  So, Mr. Chairman, the list really does go on and on. This has very 
broad-based support.
  The bill also, I would point out, did not arrive just sort of out of 
the blue. It represents many, many years of hard work by Members on 
both sides of the aisle, and passed by the Committee on Government 
Reform and Oversight by a voice vote. I know there were serious 
concerns about the process that got us to
 this point, one reason that I supported the open rule, so that we 
would have a full and open debate on many of the issues that have 
concerned some Members.

  But given the fact that we have this very broad support, I guess the 
question is: Why would there be this kind of resistance?
  The problem is that there seems to be, as I say, misinformation about 
what the bill does and does not do. This bill does not, I would stress 
again, and as will be stressed throughout this whole debate, undo 
environmental and social legislation that is already on the books. The 
bill does not stop future environmental and social legislation from 
being passed or costs imposed on State and local governments.
  This bill does not stop future reauthorizations or, indeed, it would 
not convert existing unfunded mandates into mandates subject to a point 
of 
[[Page H499]] order through the reauthorization process.
  What this bill does do is provide a lot of much-needed information 
about the costs of future legislation, about what we are doing to State 
and local governments, and what we have done over the years. We in 
Congress will become accountable and be forced to make informed choices 
about how legislation impacts State and local governments and 
ultimately the American taxpayer. That is really it in a nutshell.
  We find ourselves at this juncture with over 50 amendments that would 
exempt all types of programs from this bill. I would say to the 
chairman if I were to accept all of these amendments they would 
literally gut the heart of the legislation and render it totally 
useless.
  It is not that we do not, all of us, support these programs. I think 
many of them are very meritorious and obviously have won and deserve 
the support of the American people. So it is not we do not support 
these programs. It is just that we believe Congress and the American 
people have a right to be, and need to be, informed about what the 
costs of these programs are and what they are doing to State and local 
governments.
  It does not preclude us from imposing the requirement on State and 
local governments. It just says we are going to know what we are 
requiring them to spend to do them.
  Mr. Chairman, for these reasons, I must say, and I hope the majority 
of my colleagues will continue to oppose all amendments, all amendments 
seeking exemption under section 4 with the exception of ones that may 
clarify what is already contained in the legislation. These amendments 
are unnecessary to protect future and existing mandates and would 
simply preclude analysis of future mandates to State and local 
governments.
  So I will still resist all of the amendments to section 4 except 
those that I think clarify what we intended to have in there. We do 
have, I think you know, we have a number of amendments that are going 
to be offered to other sections of the bill. These are going to deal 
with very substantive, very important issues that need to be fully 
debated on judicial review, on the impact on private and public-sector 
mandates, the effective date of the legislation, the threshold below 
which or above which we should impose a mandate. There are a number of 
very substantive issues.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. 
Clinger] has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Clinger was allowed to proceed for 3 
additional minutes.)
  Mr. CLINGER. Mr. Chairman, we have had a thorough debate on two of 
the proposed exemptions, both of which were rejected by substantial 
votes. So I think we have made it pretty clear we do not intend to 
accept these.
  Hopefully some of these would be withdrawn or not offered so we can 
move on to consider some of the other very important issues that need 
to be debated.
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last 
word.
  Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the chairman of my committee, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger], expressing his concern about 
the reason there are a number of amendments, and I would not use the 
term misinformation as much as considering our committee had one 
weekend to look at this bill and never even had a public hearing during 
this session of Congress. So what we are doing during this floor debate 
is actually developing legislative intent.
  A lot of these amendments that we are talking about in the debate 
that you are going to hear and we heard last week and this week was to 
establish legislative intent on this bill, because we did not have the 
time in the committee.
  Now, I understand our chairman was told he had to move the bill. But 
that does not mean that we should short-circuit the legislative 
process, and so when we do that in our committees, and maybe we can 
learn for our other committees, that by doing that in our committee 
process, we are going to make it longer on the floor. Instead of just 
our committee members dealing with it, now we have 435 Members who want 
to have questions and answers to this bill.

                              {time}  1700

  So we are establishing legislative intent.
  Let me talk a little bit about--just today in the Houston paper, and 
I was going to say the Post, but it was not the Washington Post, it was 
the Houston Post, so we will not get confused with inside the beltway 
or outside the beltway. They had an editorial about the unfunded 
mandate bill that says, ``No easy answers.'' This is daily newspaper. 
It talks about--again, it is not inside the beltway--it says, 
``Unfunded mandates is a term that is overly used and often 
misunderstood when we talk about misinformation.'' And it is part of 
the Contract with America or on America or for America or whatever.
  But State and local officials across the country complain about 
Washington being too quick to tell them what to do, whether it is clean 
air, fair labor standards, family leave. But is it fair, and let us go 
back and use their analogy, again from the Houston Post. It says,

       An analogy of a teenager in his car. Clearly, it is wrong 
     for his parents to force him to use his money to pay for gas 
     to run errands. But what if they simply order him to repair 
     his transmission so it does not leak in the driveway? Instead 
     of saying, ``We want you to clean up your driveway, son or 
     daughter, and that is what we are talking about.'' That is a 
     mandate that parents give to their child, they are not 
     telling him to use his money to pay for gas to go run 
     errands, they are just saying, ``Well, if you want to keep 
     that car in the driveway, we want the transmission not to 
     leak on it, at least.'' So we are unfunding that mandate for 
     you to clean up your transmission.

  It is easy to talk about unfunded mandates, and I agree that the bill 
needs to be passed, but I also think we would be doing a disservice to 
our constituents and to the people of this country if we do not 
recognize what we are doing by taking as much time as we need, if not 
in committee then on this floor for the whole world to see, about the 
unfunded mandate issue.
  We are 1 country, but we are 50 States. What we come together on as a 
country is important to us. It may be called an unfunded mandate, it 
may be a national issue instead of a local issue. But I still think it 
deserves the time on this floor of this body to consider it 
judiciously. I think that is what we are doing.


                    amendments offered by mr. skaggs

  Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendments numbered 112 and 115 and 
ask unanimous consent that they be considered en bloc.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendments.
  The text of the amendments, numbered 112 and 115, is as follows:

       Amendments offered by Mr. Skaggs: Section 4 is amended by 
     striking ``or'' at the end of paragraph (6), by striking the 
     period at the end of paragraph (7) and inserting ``; or'' and 
     by adding after paragraph (7) the following new paragraph:
       (8) pertains to air pollution abatement or control.
       The proposed section 422 of the Congressional Budget Act of 
     1974 is amended by striking ``or'' at the end of paragraph 
     (6), by striking the period at the end of paragraph (7) and 
     inserting ``; or'' and by adding after paragraph (7) the 
     following new paragraph:
       ``(8) pertains to air pollution abatement or control.

  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Colorado that the amendments be considered en bloc?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Chairman, stated very simply, this amendment would 
exempt clean air laws and regulations from this bill. Without this 
exemption, the bill, I think, will hurt the environment and actually 
unwittingly promote a kind of socialism in this country, a fact that 
may come as a surprise to my colleagues.
  I am utterly astonished at this, I assume, unintended consequence of 
the bill. But it would certainly be one of its effects, which I will 
explain in a moment.
  Clean air laws can be an unfunded mandate, primarily when local or 
State governments own and operate major sources of pollution. Just like 
other entities and persons, they run power plants, they drive vehicles, 
and operate other sources of pollution. State and 
[[Page H500]] local governments own almost 600 electric utilities, 
which generate something like 4 million tons of air pollutants a year. 
They operate untold thousands of motor vehicles. In my area in Denver, 
for instance, the regional transportation system has over 800 buses, 
and no one should doubt that they can be a source of air pollution.
  When Congress or the EPA adopts a nationwide air pollution standard, 
it applies to all power plants or landfills or all vehicles. Such a 
standard would be considered an unfunded mandate on States and local 
governments under the bill that is now before us.
  If it were to pass in its current form, Congress would have three 
basic choices of how to deal with a future clean air bill. The first 
choice would be simply to exempt State and local governments from any 
new clean air mandates. We could just let them off the hook and not 
require them to comply to the extent that others in our society would 
have to follow the same rules.
  If we make that choice, then we would have condemned American 
citizens to breathe dirtier, more unhealthful air. And--and this gets 
to the socialism question--and we would have given State and local 
governments a great competitive advantage. A power plant that happened 
to be owned by a public utility, a publicly owned utility, would not 
have to make the same pollution control expenditures that power plants 
owned by the private sector would have to. That is certainly unfair to 
the private sector. In the highly competitive power industry, avoiding 
the full costs of clean air compliance would give publicly owned plants 
a great advantage.
  So, without this amendment, this bill would create a kind of perverse 
incentive to socialize the utility industry. This is the type of ironic 
and amazing result of trying to push a bill like this through without 
taking the time, or holding any hearings, to think it through.
  Letting State and local governments off the hook wouldn't be our only 
choice. The second option would be for the Federal Government to pick 
up the tab, making them funded mandates. Then it would be the Federal 
taxpayers, however, who would be paying for the pollution of publicly 
owned utilities, transportation districts, or whatever. This second 
option is also absurd. Why should all the taxpayers in the country pay 
for pollution cleanup at a power plant that happens to be municipally 
owned? It has always been the rule that the polluter should pay for his 
pollution.
  If taxpayer dollars are spent this way, then State and local 
governments would still have an economic advantage over their 
competitors in the private sector, and, again, we would be headed down 
the road to socialism.
  The only other option we have, the third choice, would be to vote to 
overrule the point of order that this bill would create as an obstacle 
to passing any new clean air legislation.
  That, I gather, is what those who wrote this bill and who are 
managing it on the floor today claim it will do. Fine, if that is what 
we are going to do, let us do it now. If everybody is in agreement that 
we do not really want to make it impossible or much more difficult to 
pass future clean air legislation, then let us go ahead and vote that 
way today by putting this exemption in the bill.
  Let us remember it is already plenty difficult to pass a clean air 
bill. Last time we did it, it took over a decade to work out the 
details.
  Let us remember the American people want us to do more, not less, to 
clean up the air they breathe. Why should we make it harder to pass a 
clean air bill? I do not think we should.
  So, I urge this House to make the decision now that we are not going 
to create a new procedural obstacle to clean air bills. I urge adoption 
of the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk, No. 112. I ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  I ask unanimous consent to have amendments No. 112 and No. 115 be 
considered en bloc.
  Stated simply, this amendment would exempt clean air laws and 
regulations from this bill. Without this exemption, the bill will hurt 
the environment, and it will unwittingly promote socialism.
  It may not be surprising that this second bill brought forward by the 
new majority would hurt the environment, by making it more difficult to 
pass laws and adopt regulations to clean up the air and otherwise 
protect the environment.
  But I'm utterly astonished the new majority party would support a 
measure that would actually promote socialism. I trust this is not an 
intended consequence of the bill, but it certainly would be its effect. 
And if the people who wrote the bill don't want to do that, then, I 
hope they'll support the change which this amendment would make.
  Let me explain.
  Clean air laws can be an unfunded mandate primarily because State and 
local governments own and operate major sources of pollution, just like 
any entity or person who runs a powerplant, drives a car or bus, or 
operates any other source of air pollution.
  State and local governments own 590 electric utilities, which operate 
powerplants that put out nearly 4 million tons of air pollution a year.
  State and local governments also operate untold thousands of motor 
vehicles. In the Denver metropolitan area, for example, the regional 
transportation district operates 825 buses. And anybody who has been 
stuck in traffic behind a bus knows that buses pollute.
  When Congress or the Environmental Protection Agency adopts a 
nationwide air pollution standard that applies to all powerplants, or 
all landfills, or all buses in this country, that standard would be 
considered an unfunded mandate on State and local governments, under 
the bill as is now written.
  If the bill were to pass in its current form, Congress would have 
three basic choices when considering a future clean air bill.
  The first choice would be simply to exempt State and local 
governments from any new clean air mandates. We could just let them off 
the hook, by not requiring them to clean up these sources of pollution 
to the extent others in our society would be required to clean up 
identical powerplants, cars, and trucks. The 590 powerplants owned by 
State and local governments could be allowed to pollute freely at 
higher levels than everyone else, without any regard to the effect on 
public health, acid rain, or anything else. The 20 million tons of 
emissions from some 2,500 municipal landfills would not be subject to 
the same constraints that apply to BFI or waste management. In 
Colorado, the regional transportation district could be allowed to buy 
and operate buses that didn't meet the emission standards that apply to 
a private charter company.
  If we make that choice, then we would have condemned American 
citizens to breathe dirtier, more unhealthful air.
  And we would have given State and local governments a great 
competitive advantage. A powerplant that happen to be owned by a public 
utility wouldn't have to make pollution-control expenditures that 
powerplants owned by the private sector would have to. That's certainly 
unfair to the private sector. In the highly competitive power industry, 
avoiding the full costs of clean air compliance would give publicly 
owned plants a great advantage and ability to expand.
  So, without my amendment, this bill would create a perverse incentive 
to socialize the utility industry. The new majority, according to their 
words, wants to privatize government operations, not have the 
government take over private sector operations. But this is the type of 
ironic and amazing result of trying to rush a bill through, without 
taking the time or holding any hearings to think it through.
  Letting State and local governments off the hook by exempting them 
wouldn't be our only choice. A second option would be to mandate 
cleanup State and local governments, but have Federal taxpayers pick up 
the tab. This would make them funded mandates. Then, it would be the 
Federal taxpayers would pay for pollution controls on publicly owned 
powerplants. And it would be the Federal taxpayers who would pay for 
the costs of the pollution controls on the buses the regional 
transportation district buys, and for the maintenance of the buses so 
they meet clean air standards.
  This second option is also absurd. Why should all the taxpayers in 
the country pay for pollution cleanup at a powerplant? Why should all 
taxpayers in the country pay for emission controls on RTD buses? It's 
always before been the polluter who pays in this country.
  And if taxpayer dollars are spent this way, then State and local 
governments would still have an economic advantage over their 
competitors in the private sector, and again we'd be headed down the 
road to socialism.
  The only other option we'd have, the third option, would be to vote 
to overrule the point of order that this bill would create as an 
obstacle to passage of a new clean air bill. That, I gather, is what 
those who have written this bill and who are managing it on the floor 
today claim is what we will do.
  Fine, I say. Let's just do it now. If everybody is in agreement that 
we don't really want to 
[[Page H501]] make it impossible, or even more difficult, to pass a new 
clean air bill, then let's go ahead and vote that way now.
  One way an automatic point of order would jeopardize the next clean 
air bill is to thwart the need to respond to science as it finds that 
pollution is increasing. This seems to be true for ozone and 
particulates in particular. Current science is indicating that these 
problems may be getting worse, not better. As a result, we may need to 
respond by tightening the national standards for these pollutants to 
protect the health of our constituents. The automatic point of order in 
H.R. 5 would pose an enormous obstacle to doing the right thing.
  Let's remember that it's already plenty difficult to pass clean air 
legislation. The last time we did so, it took a full decade of 
strenuous debate and negotiation.
  And let's remember that the American people want us to do more, not 
less, to clean up the air they breathe. Whey should we make it harder 
to pass a clean air bill?
  I don't think we should, and so I urge this House to make the 
decision now that we are not going to create a new procedural obstacle 
to clean air bills.
  The Clean Air Act also includes unfunded mandates on State 
governments as governmental bodies, as opposed to those they face as 
the owners and operators of sources of pollution. For example, States 
are required under the act to prepare State implementation plans to 
meet the national air quality standards. But in the absence of the 
national framework for cleaning up the air that the Clean Air Act 
represents, each State would still have its own air pollution cleanup 
program, anyway. In any event, ti's worth remembering what State and 
local leaders said about this mandatory national framework when 
Congress last reauthorized the Clean Air Act, including:

       The Governors * * * have unanimously agreed that the 
     Congress must take tough measures.--The National Governors 
     Association.
       Reauthorization of the Clean Air Act is one of the National 
     League of Cities' top priorities.--The National League of 
     Cities.

  Let's not kid ourselves. Without this amendment, we will put at some 
serious risk continued progress in cleaning the air our fellow 
Americans breathe. There's no reason to take that risk. I urge my 
colleagues to adopt the amendment.
  Mr. CLINGER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
  I do so reluctantly because the gentleman from Colorado is one of the 
more thoughtful Members and contributes a great deal to our debate.
  But I think it is fair to say we all want clean air. There is no 
disagreement about the fact that we are all interested in preserving 
the quality of air throughout out Nation. That is certainly not the 
question.
  H.R. 5 in no way is going to abrogate that. It is about having 
information on the costs of clean air programs.
  Among others, they will work with Federal, State, and local 
governments to provide solutions that will work for everyone, as 
opposed to the current pattern of Federal dictates. So a majority is 
needed to pass the Clean Air Act, that is not going to change under 
H.R. 5. What will change is that Congress will have adequate cost 
information and debate on the unfunded mandates issues. The alternative 
is to legislate as we have been doing, which is with a blind eye toward 
the impact of these mandates on States and localities. It is no 
exaggeration to say that some communities will vote for putting 
policemen on the streets and improving all other services in order to 
afford compliance with the environmental mandate. They will have to 
make very tough decisions, faced with the mandates imposed by the 
Federal Government and the needs they have in their local communities.
  Counties are going to spend over $2.6 billion to comply with the 
Clean Air Act in fiscal 1994 through 1998. This is money that could be 
used for other purposes: For education, for housing, and other 
community priorities.
  So I must oppose the gentleman's amendment.
  Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CLINGER. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. 
Skaggs].
  Mr. SKAGGS. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, do I understand your position correctly--and I have 
great regard for the gentleman from Pennsylvania--that he believes that 
we should have essentially a presumption here that a municipal-owned 
power plant or a municipal bus company or a county-owned landfill 
should not be held to the same clean air standards as their private 
sector counterparts.

                              {time}  1710

  Mr. CLINGER. The debate on private/public sector issue, and there is 
an issue there that I think will be debated, is going to go forward. I 
do think--we are not suggesting that this is in any way going to 
undermine, or impede, or undercut existing mandates imposed on the very 
entities--and indeed on the private sector as well--
  Mr. SKAGGS. But if the gentleman would yield further, we can assume, 
given the evolution of the science of air quality and air pollution, 
that at some point this Congress will consider in the future tightened 
standards, and that is really what we are speaking to, and I am talking 
prospectively. At that time in the future is the gentleman standing for 
the proposition that publicly owned utilities, vehicles, landfills, 
should have to adhere to a lesser standard than everyone else?
  Mr. CLINGER. Certainly not----
  Mr. SKAGGS. Then why do we not go ahead and write that into the bill 
today?
  Mr. CLINGER. What I am suggesting is that there is language in the 
bill now that will require an analysis of what, in fact, the impact 
would be and what
 the--that this equilibrium that might be developed by a private/public 
sector----

  Mr. SKAGGS. If the gentleman would continue to yield, I have no 
problem with the informational requirement. It is the point of order 
that would have to be overcome by a majority vote in the body that 
stands as a real impediment to again holding publicly owned polluters 
to the same standard as privately owned polluters, and why do we not go 
ahead, and clear that up, and get rid of that problem now?
  Mr. CLINGER. This is an issue that I think deserves to be debated, 
but I do not think it needs to be debated at this point. What we are 
talking about here are exemptions, total exemptions, from the existing 
law. We are going to have, I am sure, a very spirited debate about the 
implications as to private and public sector. At this point, this is 
asking for a total exemption from the application of the point of order 
to an entire statute, and I just cannot accept that.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I do not think it is inappropriate to discuss these 
issues and discuss them right now. What has been inappropriate, in my 
estimation, is the way this bill has been steamrolled through this 
Congress without even hearings in committee.
  We pass legislation with all sorts of consequences; a lot of them are 
unintended consequences and the best way to avoid negative, unintended 
consequences is to know what we are doing to the best extent possible.
  It is ironic that the legislation, which claims to give the Congress 
more tools through all the analysis of what may be an unfunded mandate 
to what extent it will put a burden on the taxpayers of local and state 
governments; information that would be useful is being pushed through 
so that we will not have the full information available to us in 
understanding what this legislation would in fact do.
  Now the best--one of the best examples of what are clearly unintended 
consequences is to look at the environmental area. The legislation 
before us would say that, if there is a mandate on local governments, 
it has to be paid for by the Federal Government. But there are 
environmental laws that apply across the board, whether the polluter is 
a government owned polluter or a privately owned polluter. first of 
all, people's lungs do not know the difference, if it is a toxic 
pollutant coming from a municipal owned incinerator or a privately 
owned incinerator. The laws should be the same if we are going to 
require pollution reductions, whoever may own that particular facility. 
But this legislation would deem the costs for a publicly owned 
polluting source, incinerator, power plant, whatever, to be an unfunded 
mandate.
  What are the consequences of that? The government would have to pay 
the costs that would be borne by the publicly owned entity or say that 
they are not obligated. Well, we would have the privately owned 
polluting source regulated, but the publicly owned one not 
[[Page H502]] regulated. That makes no sense because pollution is 
pollution, and, second, it puts a disadvantage to the privately owned 
enterprise when it is in competition to that which is publicly owned. 
That, seems to me, makes no sense.
  We have interstate air pollution and environmental problems, and 
because of that reason we have to look
 to the Federal Government to set the standards, and for that reason we 
ought not to consider these unfunded mandates. Why would any local 
government want to spend the money to reduce pollution that affects 
somebody else? And there are a lot of examples of this:

  Probably the best is what we fought over for so many years dealing 
with the acid rain problem. We have power plants in the Midwest, some 
of which are publicly owned power plants that emit SO2 pollution 
that is carried long distances into the northeastern part of the United 
States and comes down in that area in the form of acid precipitation. 
Well, we adopted legislation to use market forces to reduce that 
pollution. Some of those existing laws are going to be affected by this 
legislation. We have heard over and over that is not the case because 
this is only prospective, but it is going to be retroactive to existing 
laws like the Clean Air Act because a lot of those laws have not yet 
been implemented through regulations. When regulations are adopted in 
the future to enforce these existing laws like the Clean Air Act, the 
Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act, then there is going to be 
this unfunded mandate obligation that will be triggered, and those 
regulations can be tied up in court for years, an issue we are going to 
discuss sometime down the road as we look at this bill. But we have 
acid rain coming from States like the Midwest, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. 
New York in the Northeast will be affected.
  The Long Island Sound is another good example. In Long Island there 
is pollution from sewage discharges from New York City. Under this bill 
the Clean Water Act provisions controlling these discharges by New York 
City would be considered unfunded mandates. So, if we do not pay New 
York City to stop polluting, the people in Connecticut are going to 
suffer, and, when we have these competitions between the privately 
owned and the publicly owned polluting sources, we should have a level 
playing field. These are things that one would not ordinarily think 
about when they hear about a bill called unfunded mandates, but in fact 
that is what is going to occur, and that is why I think the gentleman 
from----
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from California [Mr. Waxman] 
has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Waxman was allowed to proceed for 1 
additional minute.)
  Mr. WAXMAN. That is why the amendment that is being offered today 
that would say, ``Let's look at environmental issues as one where we 
are not going to consider it an unfunded mandate in order to make sure 
that we don't put private enterprise at a disadvantage to publicly 
owned enterprise; secondly, that we can deal with interstate problems; 
and, thirdly, so we can protect the public from environmental hazards 
which can be great indeed when these environmental hazards can cause 
lung problems, can cause cancer, can cause very serious diseases that 
we hope can be prevented through wise policies.''
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, let me just quickly correct a couple of statements that 
my colleague, the gentleman from California, made with regard to this 
legislation to make clear what we are doing here this evening. He said 
that the options would be, No. 1, to pay the public utilities; or, 2, 
to not have the mandate take effect as the chairman of the committee 
has noted. This evening, and many times in the debate on Friday, that 
is in fact not the sole option before this Congress under this 
legislation.
  Let me be very clear. This forces a cost accounting which is not 
currently available. It then forces a debate on the floor as to the new 
unfunded mandate and finally forces a vote. It is a majority vote. So 
by a majority Congress could continue to exercise its judgment and 
continue to have the mandate take effect with or without funding.
  Another correction needs to be made, and that is with regards to 
existing laws where regulations are not yet promulgated. The gentleman 
from California said that the unfunded mandate process would be 
triggered by that. That is not correct. Existing laws are not covered 
by this legislation in terms of the point of order being raised against 
unfunded mandates. New regulations, which would be promulgated pursuant 
to existing statutes, would not be covered by the point of order on the 
floor of the House that we have talked about many times now. There are 
certain requirements on the Federal agencies. They are reporting 
requirements as to the costs, again of the new regulations being 
promulgated, if they are above a threshold of $100 million.

                              {time}  1720

  I think it is important, Mr. Chairman, to continue to emphasize that 
this bill is not the broad-based bill that the opponents to the 
legislation or the proponents of this amendment and other amendments 
which exempt whole areas of the law would have us believe. This is a 
carefully crafted measure. This is a measured response. This is 
something that gives us information and accountability.
  Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PORTMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to any amendment 
that would exempt the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws from 
the unfunded mandates. Mr. Chairman, I represent the 16th District of 
Illinois. One of our counties is McHenry County, part of the Chicago 
metropolitan statistical area. That area has been denominated as a 
severe ozone nonattainment area, which means that any company which has 
in excess of 100 employees is forced to carpool. It is called employee 
commute option. This is a mandate from the U.S. Congress through the 
amendments in 1990 to the Clean Air Act.
  The CRS has put out a report showing a cost-benefit analysis. The EPA 
administrator herself, Carol Browner, stated in a meeting this past 
week here on Capitol Hill that as far as she is concerned and as far as 
Mary Nichols is concerned, and Mary Nichols is the assistant EPA 
Administrator, that car pooling simply does not work under any 
circumstances. It is not proved to be cost efficient. But we are stuck 
with it. It is in the law.
  To exempt the Clean Air Act from the unfunded mandates bill simply is 
saying we are going to take a bill, a provision of a law, that does not 
work, but because it relates to environmental quality, therefore, it 
should not be looked at with the scrutiny of an unfunded mandate.
  The Chicago Tribune this past Saturday headlined, ``U.S. Car Pool? 
Never Mind.'' This is the EPA administrator urging Members of Congress 
to ignore an existing statute. The only think we can do at this point, 
aside from opening up the Clean Air Act, is to ask that the Clean Air 
Act, along with other statutory enactments, be looked at by the 
Unfunded Mandates Commission for the purpose of saying this simply does 
not work, we should do away with it, and allow people the ability to 
drive to work as opposed to being forced to carpool.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, let me be very clear: 
This new legislation does not apply to the Clean Air Act, it does not 
apply retroactively, it applies prospectively only. The discussion here 
on this amendment is as to new mandates that might arise under clean 
air and other environmental status.
  Again, to emphasize the point, the Clean Air Act which was passed by 
this Congress by a majority vote would not be covered under the 
provisions of the point of order that we discussed earlier.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PORTMAN. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, the reason why I disagree with the 
gentleman is not because we are going to have the Clean Air Act on the 
floor. If we were to have it on the floor and 
[[Page H503]] made some changes, it might be affected by prospective 
consideration of unfunded mandates.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Portman] has 
expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Portman was allowed to proceed for 2 
additional minutes.)
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Waxman].
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, whenever EPA wants to revise their 
regulations to meet problems that were not otherwise foreseen which are 
consistent with existing law, those regulations would have to undergo 
the analysis as to whether they constitute an unfunded mandate.
  Now, I have no problem with the analysis. What I find difficult is 
the fact that those regulations can be held up ad infinitum because of 
the judicial review that anybody who disagrees with the regulation 
could use to say that they did not want it go into effect, the analysis 
was not good enough. That seems to me to allow a situation that we 
would not tolerate if it were a prospective piece of legislation, 
because we would reserve to ourself a point of order which can be voted 
on by a point of order overturned, but could not be overturned except 
through lengthy court legislation. I think that makes no sense.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, to reclarify again, 
because we are beginning to fuzz the lines between the point of order 
and the regulatory requirement. The regulatory requirement is simply a 
requirement that before new regulations are promulgated, there be an 
assessment of the costs. Those costs will go into a written report 
which will be provided to the OMB and the Congress.
  It seems to me that is a very sensible approach. It is actually not 
even as general and broad as the current Executive order that President 
Clinton has issued to the Federal agencies in these sorts of 
situations. All we are asking is there be judicial review of those 
assessments of cost. Let us be very clear on that. I understand now the 
gentleman's point, which you had not made previously, which is it 
really is the judicial review section that troubles you. That, of 
course, will be subject to considerable debate, I believe, later this 
evening or perhaps tomorrow. But with regard to judicial review, it is 
only as to the agency action, and, again, the agency action is 
information on an assessment of the costs and benefits.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, there are two ways we are going to have an 
unfunded mandate provision apply. One is if it is legislation to be 
brought up, not existing legislation but new legislation, and if it is 
brought up in the Congress, it will have the cost analysis of an 
unfunded mandate and we will permit a point of order if there is an 
unfunded mandate above a certain amount of money, but we reserve the 
right of the Congress by majority vote to allow that legislation to go 
into effect anyway and to impose the unfunded mandate anyway.
  That is the congressional route. But there is another separate route 
where unfunded mandates can stop prospective actions, and that is in 
terms of regulations enforcing existing laws. So I take issue with the 
statement that existing laws are not going to be impacted. They are 
definitely going to be impacted.
  For example, if the Environmental Protection Agency wanted to adopt a 
regulation dealing with toxic emissions, emissions that are hazardous, 
that can cause cancer, can cause birth defects, if they want to under 
the existing Clean Air Act adopt regulations dealing with these toxic 
emissions, and if the source of the toxic emissions is a publicly owned 
facility, then the EPA has to do this long analysis about how much it 
is going to cost the publicly owned polluter.
  Now, I have no problem with that requirement. But let us understand 
what will be imposed upon the EPA to do this. They are going to have to 
look at the anticipated cost to the States, what impact it is going to 
have on the national economy, on our national productivity, on economic 
growth, on full employment, on productive job creation, international 
competitiveness, all of these things, which I do not think the 
Environmental Protection Agency is equipped to do. But they will do it, 
because we want to have them know, and the Office of Management and 
Budget and others involved in the administration, know the full cost 
impact.
  But after they have done that, it is not enough, because there is no 
point of order that can be made, there is no majority vote that will 
say it is in the best interests of the country to have the regulation 
go forward. What happens then is they issue the regulation because they 
think it is appropriate, but the judicial review that can be then used 
to second-guess whether they did this analysis adequately
 can lend itself to anybody who disagrees with the regulation, and by 
anybody I mean a polluter, a corporate polluter, an industry that does 
not want to be regulated, can go into court and say they really did not 
look adequately at the international competitiveness of the United 
States if this particular hazardous pollution emitter is going to have 
an unfunded mandate that is going to be a burden upon them.

  There are facts that are going to have to be determined under this 
legislation by the Environmental Protection Agency, as an example, that 
are going to be rigorous, and so rigorous that one may not be 
adequately done and, because it cannot be done adequately, becomes a 
loophole for the polluting source to tie it up.
  Then we have to recognize, as the gentleman from Colorado so well 
pointed out, we are talking only about a polluting source that is 
publicly owned. We will have to say at that point that the regulations 
will not go into effect for that polluting source because it is 
publicly owned, but the privately owned polluting source would be 
regulated. It is unfair competition between the two, and it strikes me 
as peculiar for Republicans particularly, who argue they want more 
private initiative, to tilt things in favor of the publicly owned 
polluting source.
  So I think that it makes good sense to exclude these environmental 
issues from the requirement of an unfunded mandate. They should not be 
considered unfunded mandates, especially since it is going to be such a 
burden to allow a regulation in the national interest, in the interests 
of protecting the public health, of protecting the environment, from 
being put into effect prospectively.

                              {time}  1730

  I take issue with the idea that this bill only applies to future law. 
It will apply to existing law because of this provision that applies to 
regulations. I stand in support of the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I have just a couple of questions I wanted to ask, if I 
could, the chairman of the committee.
  As I have heard the discussion, first, the bill does require, does it 
not, for the first time that the public and private sector competition 
issue be considered by Congress before it enacts such legislation?
  Mr. CLINGER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DAVIS. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. CLINGER. The gentleman is correct. This is really the first time 
that we have that provision in here. Heretofore there has been no such 
requirement or no such mandate to in fact make that determination or to 
study the impact of it on the private-public sector dichotomy.
  Mr. DAVIS. In point of fact, does not this legislation specifically 
require the committee reports to include an analysis of how funding a 
mandate would affect the competitive balance between the public and the 
private sector?
  Mr. CLINGER. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, 
the gentleman is absolutely correct.
  Mr. DAVIS. Also it is my recollection that the U.S. Chamber of 
Commerce, the NFIB, the National Association of Home Builders and 
Browning-Ferris, all private sector entities that could be adversely 
affected through this public- 
[[Page H504]] private competition, that the gentlemen on the other side 
of aisle are concerned about, are all endorsing this legislation in its 
present form?
  Mr. CLINGER. That is correct. In fact, the language really was done 
in consultation with private sector interests to ensure that they would 
not be disadvantaged by the language of the statute.
  Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment. I, like the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Waxman], represent the Los Angeles Basin 
and was a strong supporter of the Clean Air Act, as he knows. In fact, 
several years ago, while I never had the privilege of serving on the 
powerful Committee on Energy and Commerce, I did spend time with the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Waxman] and other members of the 
Committee on Energy and Commerce dealing with this very important 
issue.
  In fact, the area which I represent in southern California happens to 
have the highest number of first stage smog alerts in the entire 
country. It is the Inland Empire area, the eastern suburbs of Los 
Angeles. I say that simply to underscore my strong commitment to 
improving air quality.
  But in looking at that, we have to realize that the Clean Air Act 
over a five-year period, which began last year, is imposing a cost on 
cities throughout this country of $3.6 billion. Our city of Los Angeles 
alone is shouldering a burden of $787 million.
  I had breakfast this morning with Mayor Richard Riordan, mayor of Los 
Angeles. We were talking about this. Mayor Riordan and I and others of 
the area are strongly, strongly committed to improving air quality. But 
the fact of the matter is, this cost burden is overwhelming, 
extraordinarily onerous, and I have to rhetorically ask the question, 
at what level of spending will we possibly be able to attain a level of 
satisfaction for every Member of this House?
  It seems to me, from my perspective, we have reached that point.
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite 
number of words.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Skaggs amendment. Let me say, 
my colleague from Illinois who was here earlier and talked about his 
frustration with the trip reduction, I was in that meeting with him 
last week with the EPA because we were concerned about emissions tests 
in Texas, the system that the State of Texas had set up.
  But one of the problems he may recognize though is that that was a 
state plan that was established. And it was a state plan that put so 
much weight on emissions, so much weight on industry, and also the trip 
reduction, although EPA did come in and give him some flexibility on 
trip reduction just like I think they are doing with us on our 
emissions testing in Texas. But it was a state plan.
  In 1990, the Clean Air Act was passed here with bipartisan support 
and signed by a Republican President, and I am sure it had a vote 
somewhere on it on the floor that said, this gives the flexibility of 
the States. It may be a mandate on the States to reduce your pollution, 
but it is giving the States the ability to make that decision on their 
own.
  Pollution knows no boundaries. We are just fortunate in the State of 
Texas that if we pollute in Houston it is all within our boundaries 
most of the time. We do not have that in other parts of the country, 
whether it be the Midwest or the Northeast or California to the 
mountain States.
  So that is why I think it is important that we prioritize and say we 
are against unfunded mandates. We recognize that it is wrong. But there 
are also things that bring us together as a country. Pollution does not 
know state lines or county lines or city lines. And that is why 
oftentimes in Congress we have to address it, and the Clean Air Act is 
one of those examples. But they can be fine tuned by our States to 
recognize whether it is emissions or by the trip reduction, and my 
colleague from Illinois has had so much trouble with it. They have 
responded in there and they are working on it here in Washington.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. WAXMAN. I think he makes an excellent point. We do give the 
States the flexibility in that responsibility that they take to devise 
their own plans for reducing emissions so that the health of the public 
will be protected. But I would suggest that when we hear about all 
these private enterprises like the chamber of commerce, thinking that 
they are not going to be at a competitive disadvantage, I suspect that 
some of these private industries think, well, if it is going to be an 
unfunded mandate the government-owned polluter, perhaps we will not put 
any regulations on either of them.
  I suspect that that is what a lot of them would like. They do not see 
themselves ever being at a competitive disadvantage. They think that 
none of the polluters will have regulations placed upon them.
  I think that would be a disservice to the people whose lungs are 
going to have to breathe in pollution when we deal with these air 
pollution problems.
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, the people 
who breathe that do not know whether it comes from a municipal waste 
incinerator or a commercial weight incinerator. And so if we are going 
to, by this bill, create disparity in the regulations, that is the 
concern that we need to recognize.
  Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number 
of words.
  Mr. Chairman, as somebody who was involved with the Clean Air Act, I 
rise in strong support of the Skaggs clean air amendment. I think what 
the gentleman from California [Mr. Waxman] has done is pointed out the 
tremendous potential for us, if we pass this legislation, to seriously 
usurp the Clean Air Act. If we move ahead with this bill, what is going 
to happen with the various states and some of the standards? 50 
different clean air standards? No uniform protections from automobile 
factory manufacturing emissions?
  And unless we pass this amendment, I think this whole issue is going 
to be unclear. We need to make sure that we are exempting clean air 
regulations from this unfunded mandates legislation. Otherwise, we are 
going to have a lot of angry people, angry communities and you are 
going to have a public asking us immediately to revoke this ill-timed 
legislation.
  Many of us were here in 1990, when the House passed the Clean Air Act 
by 401 to 25. The vote was clearly representative of the American 
people's public desire for effective responsible federal regulations. 
But that is not what other advocates of the unfunded mandates 
legislation are telling us. They must think that the American public 
does not care about the quality of air that we breathe. And they must 
think that a double standard is okay.
  As currently written, the unfunded mandates legislation exempts only 
state and local governments. That is right. Despite all the rhetoric 
about relief from regulation for the American people, the bill would 
continue to subject individuals and businesses to any new laws. I do 
not know what that means, but I can only guess that the backers of the 
bill think that states and local governments should be given unfettered 
power to do whatever they want to public health and safety standards 
for clean air.
  And yes, mayors and county commissioners are powerful and they are 
elected, but we should not give them the green light to do whatever 
they want. That is not right. The American people want protection. They 
want responsible action, not legal loopholes and weekend federal 
standards.

                              {time}  1740

  In survey after survey the public has said they overwhelmingly 
support strong, effective environmental regulations, the last one being 
in December of 1994: ``Sixty-two percent of the American people feel 
that environmental laws and regulations do not go far enough or strike 
the right balance for protection for public health and safety.''
  When we passed the Clean Air Act amendments in 1990, we culminated a 
decades-long struggle to pass meaningful legislation to protect our 
air. The new requirements we overwhelmingly 
[[Page H505]] endorsed were supported by everybody, elected officials 
included.
  In fact, in 1989 the National Governors' Association wrote to 
Congress that they ``unanimously agreed that the Congress needed and 
did take tough measures.'' In the same year the National League of 
Cities told Congress that ``As a national municipal policy, reducing 
air pollution to safe levels is equal in importance with employment, 
housing, and economic development, and revitalizing and conserving 
cities.''
  According to the Clean Air Network, ``Despite the tremendous progress 
we have already made towards cleaner air, nearly 100 million Americans 
live in areas that still have unhealthy levels of one or more of the 
six major pollutants.''
  So how many more of our constituents are we going to put at risk if 
we pass this legislation without proper safeguards and proper and 
extended debate?
  Mr. Chairman, we just passed laws mandating that Congress live under 
the same laws as the rest of the country. We all voted for it. That is 
a good idea. However, I find it ironic that while we increased the 
application of the laws to ourselves, we are reducing the application 
of public health protections that the American public holds dear.
  We keep hearing that the 1994 elections delivered a message of change 
for the American people. That American people have spoken loudly and 
clearly. What is important to them? Are we going to have legislation 
that comes at the expense of their health and their air? Will we ignore 
this message again?
  If this amendment is so bad, and I have heard some of my colleagues 
on the other side say that we are not exempting the clean air 
legislation, why do we not pass the Skaggs amendment to make sure it is 
correct? We are giving the green light to courts and other arbitrative 
bodies around the country to say ``Well, you passed the unfunded 
mandates legislation, so City of San Diego, of Albuquerque, and others, 
you do not have to meet clean air standards. You can let the pollution 
come in, as long as it is going to bring jobs.''
  Mr. Speaker, this is a good amendment. Let us not rush too fast. Let 
us make sure that we are doing the right thing. Let us pass this very 
good amendment and move on to ensure that the public is protected.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise today to support the Skaggs amendment, which I 
believe is a necessary improvement to H.R. 5. While I am sensitive to 
the burdens that Federal legislation may impose on State and local 
governments, I believe that the responsibility which is borne by all 
levels of government to protect the environment, defend worker safety, 
prevent worker discrimination, and secure basic rights for all citizens 
is paramount and must be met by our government.
  As I listened to our colleagues debate this legislation and the 
various amendments to it, it sounds as if what some people would like 
to see is unmandated funding, rather than unfunded mandates, so I think 
we have to have more balance than H.R. 5 presents.
  I commend the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs] for bringing this 
important issue to the floor, which would restrict the scope of H.R. 5 
in terms of the Clean Air Act. Last week, sadly, this body rejected 
amendments from the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Taylor] and the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Towns] which would have restricted the 
scope of H.R. 5 in terms of the interstate ramifications for the public 
health and safety of residents in other States.
  I think this was unfortunate, because those amendments, like those of 
the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs] today I think were necessary 
improvements to the legislation. In our clamor to get Government off 
our backs, we risk a great loss, the loss of environmental protection 
that we have struggled for decades to ensure.
  We hailed the industrial revolution and later the arrival of dramatic 
new technology as great advances in our civilization. However, with 
this progress came the realization we were risking massive depletion of 
the resources responsible for our success.
  In reaction to this, the Federal Government sought to strengthen our 
environmental laws, so that future generations would not inherit a 
crippling environmental debt that threatened their security and their 
lives. Today in our 100-day stampede we are putting at risk the 
fundamental environmental protection laws we struggled, as I mentioned 
before, for decades to bring about.
  The Federal Government, in its direction to the States, has provided 
the continuity necessary for our environmental laws. A national problem 
deserves a national plan. Our States do not exist autonomously. They 
are State united by common, often overlapping, problems and national 
solutions. Many of my colleagues, and most recently the gentleman from 
Texas [Mr. Gene Green] pointed out that pollution, et cetera, knows no 
geographic boundary.
  On December 21 the results of a national poll and voter attitudes 
towards environmental protection were released. They showed that by 
over 2 to 1 the American public believed the current environmental 
protection laws do not go far enough, as opposed to 18 percent who 
believe that the laws go too far. Even the voters who voted for 
Republican congressional candidates indicated that they do not want 
environmental laws rolled back.
  In explaining this poll, the National Wildlife Federation stated 
``The poll demonstrates that when the American people voted for change 
in the congressional leadership in last month's election, they did not 
endorse an attack on 25 years of environmental protection.''
  I heard my colleagues talk earlier about many ideas which I associate 
myself with, which I have concerns about in H.R. 5. The gentleman from 
California [Mr. Waxman] talked about the judicial review, and I know we 
will be getting around to that later, but I also want to associate 
myself with his remarks in that regard.
  Others of our colleagues have talked about measuring the amount of 
money, assessing the amount of money that this legislation, the 
amendment of the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs], would cost. It 
is impossible for us to talk about money and the environment without 
understanding how costly it will be for us not to protect the 
environment.
  The need to clean up pollution and mitigate other environmental 
problems should translate into a backlash against the pollution, not 
against the programs implemented to clean them up. The direct costs of 
mitigating pollution reflect only part of the price society must pay 
for environmental degradation.
  Environemntal problems impose significant costs on society: disease 
and death, lower fishing yields, reduced recreational activities, loss 
of jobs, and the list goes on. Toxics and pollution pose a major threat 
to human health. Pollution has been linked to chronic respiratory 
problems, cancer, and even birth defects. In addition, numerous studies 
have shown that environmental damage can significantly harm the 
Nation's economic performance.
  The debate today is not about relieving States of an unnecessary 
burden. It is about dismantling environmental laws that protect the 
health of our Nation's citizens.
  Federal mandates serve an important purpose in motivating States to 
perform responsibly, as parts of the whole, and with the same 
requirements we have for the private sector. Without these mandates to 
ensure environmental protection, the health and lives of our future 
generations of Americans will be at risk.
  Once again, I urge my colleagues to support the Skaggs amendment, at 
least all of our colleagues who would like to breathe clean air.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, it is indeed heartwarming to have heard the impassioned 
pleas on behalf of private industry from the other side of the aisle. 
They have suggested that if we pass this act as is, private industry 
will be at a competitive disadvantage with publicly owned, say, 
utilities, for example, because the utilities will be in some way 
exempt from a mandate and private enterprise will not be exempt.
  Mr. Chairman, I would point out that one solution to that would be to 
pass a 
[[Page H506]] similar piece of legislation, exactly applying the 
unfunded mandate of this legislation to private enterprise, just as we 
are now proposing to do so with State and local government, and that 
would level the playing field. I submit, however, that that would make 
sense both ways.
  Such legislation would actually make sense for both State and local 
government and for private enterprise because, once again, we are 
proposing a point of order with respect to new and future legislation 
that would raise the cost. It does not prevent the Congress from in 
fact proceeding to enact such legislation.
  Second of all, addressing in particular the Clean Air Act, there is, 
again, a supposition that if a Government action with respect to clean 
air is proposed, it must be good, it must be beneficial, and there is 
no reason to examine it, either at the legislative or at the rulemaking 
level.
  Mr. Chairman, I submit that is not the case. This is the same debate 
we had about clean water last week. With respect to clean water, and we 
all want clean water, the Environmental Protection Agency was prepared 
to back up a proposed rule that would have required the city of 
Albuquerque to make the Rio Grande, which passes through the city of 
Albuquerque, up to drinking water standards. The Rio Grande has never 
been up to drinking water standards, and it is an impossibility to 
place a requirement on a municipal government or anyone else to achieve 
something which has never been achieved, but the Environmental 
Protection Agency was prepared to do it in the name of clean water.
  Similarly, I can turn to the city of Albuquerque again as an example.

                              {time}  1750

  We have achieved Federal clean air standards for the last several 
years. Assuming legitimacy of placing Federal clean air standards 
across the country, the city of Albuquerque is still under the belief 
that they may have to upgrade at cost the way they do vehicle emissions 
to further please the Federal Environmental Protection Agency.
  If in fact the city of Albuquerque has attained clean air standards, 
why should there be further compulsion on the city of Albuquerque to 
take further actions? It does not make any sense.
  It is for those reasons that there is nothing about clean air and 
clean water regulation or legislation that should put it above 
analyzing the cost of what is being required versus the benefits.
  Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, our Constitution contains an interstate commerce 
clause. It does so because our Founding Fathers recognized that this 
Government in Washington, DC had in fact an obligation to make laws and 
to set order in the operations of the various States of the Nation 
which may from time to time come in conflict with one another.
  I rise in opposition to the amendment offered today to the unfunded 
mandates bill. I do so because, most importantly, this amendment raises 
the question of the entire debate of unfunded mandates I think as 
clearly as any other amendment might raise it.
  Yes, this Government has a responsibility to write clean air laws. It 
has a responsibility to write clean water laws. It has a responsibility 
to protect wetlands. It has a responsibility to protect endangered 
species. In short, it has a responsibility to do good environmental 
things for this country which may not be able to be done by the various 
States because they are sometimes in conflict.
  The issue here is not whether we ought to do those things. The issue 
is here whether we believe them enough to pay for them or whether we 
want to do those good things and leave it to somebody else to pay for 
them. Who else? Somebody at home.
  Whether we as politicians who get elected and come serve in this 
Congress should set the rules for these good environmental causes and 
then ask somebody else to bear the burden. That is it in a nutshell.
  Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. TAUZIN. I will yield when I finish the entire thought. If I do 
not have time, I will ask for more time to yield to the gentleman from 
Colorado [Mr. Skaggs].
  Mr. Chairman, the issue here is not whether we should have good 
environmental law for the country. The issue is when we decide to have 
a general environmental policy for the country whether we believe in it 
enough to pay for it here. Or whether we ask some other taxpayers to 
bear that burden, or worse yet, some other citizen to bear that burden 
who may be a private property owner, may be a private business person 
in this country. That is the only issue here.
  So this bill prospectively by the way, not retroactively, not 
affecting the old Clean Air Act, only affecting what reauthorizations 
we might pass for it, says to all of us, ``Be careful. Before you pass 
a law that leads to a regulation that compels someone to do something 
that you think is good, you had better be ready to raise the money and 
to spend it here in Washington, not make someone else spend it at home 
in your various States.''
  Yes, indeed clean air is a good and worthy goal. I supported the last 
Clean Air Act. But let me tell you something: If you don't have to pay 
for what you do, what restrains you from being excessive? What 
restrains the regulators here in Washington from being extraordinarily 
excessive, demanding much more than is required in cleanup if they 
never have to put up the money to pay the bills, if somebody else has 
to put up the money? What restrains the agencies of Government, for 
example, from declaring that 60 percent of the State of California is a 
wetland, and they almost did in 1989, or that 80 percent of the State 
of Louisiana is a wetlands, and they almost did in 1989, if they don't 
have to worry about the cost of that decision?
  You see, if we in Washington really believe in a clean air law or a 
wetlands policy or an endangered species policy, and we should, if we 
really believe it, we ought to be ready and willing to raise the 
resources and to spend those moneys to carry out these interstate, 
these national programs as we see fit. And when we do not believe in 
them enough to do that, we ought to leave it to the States and the 
communities to write their laws affecting their local environments, 
their local policies, as they see fit as they can afford them.
  That is what this bill is all about. If you go around excepting this 
particular area of environmental law, if you want to except this one 
and except the next one and except the next one, you have got no 
unfunded mandates bill. You have blown the principle. If you believe in 
the principle that when we make a mandate, and very often we need to, 
we have to believe in it enough to pay for it here in Washington, DC, 
then you will reject the Skaggs amendment as you will reject similar 
amendments trying to gut this bill, and you will live as we should live 
in the future by the principle that when we believe enough in an 
environmental law, we raise the money and we pay for it here in 
Washington. If we do not believe in it enough to pay for it, then we 
should leave it to the States and the local communities to make their 
own decisions about just what they want to do with their own 
environments.
  Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. TAUZIN. I will be happy to yield to my friend the gentleman from 
Colorado [Mr. Skaggs].
  Mr. SKAGGS. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. Let me just engage 
you for a moment if I may on this proposition because it seems to me 
what you are saying is, and I want to make sure I understand you----
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Tauzin] 
has expired.
  (At the request of Mr. Skaggs and by unanimous consent, Mr. Tauzin 
was allowed to proceed for 2 additional minutes.)
  Mr. SKAGGS. When the gentleman from California pointed out accurately 
a few minutes ago that there are publicly owned powerplants in the 
Midwest putting out what may be found to be excessive quantities of 
SO2 that are affecting the quality of life in New England, why 
should my constituents in Colorado or yours in Louisiana be forced to 
help that local government comply with a national clean air standard on 
its public powerplant when their public powerplants are in compliance?
  [[Page H507]] Mr. TAUZIN. And here is the answer. The answer is that 
if we want to protect one State from doing damage to another State as 
the interstate commerce clause predicted we would have to be doing when 
it came to commerce among the States, then we need a national law that 
mandates a standard that we all live by. And when we need one of those 
national laws that mandates a national standard so one State cannot 
hurt a neighbor, we, in Washington, have to have the courage and the 
will and the commitment to that national standard to raise the money 
and pay for it. So that all taxpayers, those who live in the State 
where the pollution may be originating and those who will receive the 
benefit of the program we pass here in Washington, all taxpayers share 
in the public duty to pay for that cleanup.
  Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield further?
  Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. SKAGGS. Then you fundamentally disagree with the proposition that 
the polluter should pay?
  Mr. TAUZIN. Oh, no.
  Mr. SKAGGS. Why should that publicly owned powerplant not pay for 
cleaning up its own pollution?
  Mr. TAUZIN. I do not fundamentally disagree with the proposition.
  Mr. SKAGGS. That is what you just said, that they should not have to 
pay.
  Mr. TAUZIN. No; I do however believe that when pollution runs across 
State boundaries that you need a national law to regulate that 
situation and in those cases the people of the Nation benefit 
collectively as we all do when we clean the air of the Nation and we 
ought to be willing to pay for that here in Washington by raising 
sufficient sums to pay for the mandates.
  Mr. SKAGGS. Why does it not make sense for the owners of that dirty 
powerplant to pay the cost of controlling emissions?
  Mr. TAUZIN. If the gentleman will let me complete the answer. If on 
the other hand something is occurring in Louisiana that does not go 
across State lines and Louisiana wants to regulate----
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Tauzin] 
has again expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Tauzin was allowed to proceed for 2 
additional minutes.)
  Mr. TAUZIN. And Louisiana wants to regulate it a different way than 
when the National Government regulates it, let us say for example 
oilfield waste which is a pretty common problem in the Southwest, in 
Louisiana, in Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas, particularly a 
problem in our area, not a big problem nationally, a big problem 
regionally.
  We have got laws now in Louisiana dealing with oilfield waste, we 
have a standard right now, a regime for regulating that that is a model 
for other States. We developed it at home and we pay for it at home and 
we make the polluters at home pay for it. We set that standard up in 
our own State.
  But if on the other hand we had a problem that affected the air of 
the United States, and that required a mandate here in Washington for 
us to require that all polluters, all persons affecting the air of the 
United States be part of a program, what this bill says is that in the 
future we should have the courage of our convictions and say that this 
is something good for all Americans, it affects the air that we all 
breathe, we are going to set down a mandate to clean it up and we will 
raise the money and pay for it in Washington.
  That is what this unfunded mandates bill is all about. The day you 
make an exception because you happen to like one set of mandates 
instead of another is the day you begin to unravel the principle of 
unfunded mandates which ought to be something we all agree upon here in 
Washington.
  Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. SKAGGS. I would assume then that the gentleman would make no 
distinction between the publicly owned and the privately owned 
powerplant that pollutes in the Midwest?
  Mr. TAUZIN. If this gentleman had written the law, I promise I would 
have applied it to private mandates as well as public mandates. I think 
we should. I like the part of the law that says we are going to 
evaluate the effects on private individuals and businesses. I think we 
probably ought to someday decide here in Washington that we are not 
going to create mandates out there for the good of the public at large 
that we make anyone individually pay for by themselves.

                              {time}  1800

  For example, I am fighting, as Members know, a battle to make sure 
private property owners do not have to bear the burden of wetland 
protection or endangered species protection.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Louisiana has again 
expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Tauzin was allowed to proceed for 1 
additional minute.)
  Mr. TAUZIN. If you really want to use my property, if you really need 
my property to accomplish this national goal of wetlands protection or 
endangered species protection, my position is you as a people, all of 
us as a people ought to be willing to compensate me for that property 
taken from me. I ought not to have to bear that cost as a little 
landowner in my own State.
  So when a national policy is designed to protect something we all 
need protected cross State lines, this law, as it is now proposed, and 
as we should pass it, should simply say if we want to do that, we can 
and we should. We simply ought to put the money up to accomplish those 
purposes.
  Mr. SKAGGS. I appreciate the forthcomingness of the gentleman, who 
makes it very clear that he fundamentally disagrees with the 
proposition that those who cause pollution should pay to clean it up, 
and he holds to his position consistently and I think would carry it 
through consistently.
  Mr. TAUZIN. If I can reclaim my time, the gentleman is not going to 
get away with characterizing my words or my philosophy. I do not and 
have not said that polluters should not be responsible.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Tauzin] 
has again expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Tauzin was allowed to proceed for 30 
additional seconds.)
  Mr. TAUZIN. What I have said, Mr. Chairman, is when we make a 
standard that is good for all of the people of country and that 
requires us to pass a law affecting all of the States, we ought to have 
the courage to put up the money to carry it out, as we do in Louisiana. 
When we set a policy protecting something in Louisiana, we very 
carefully make sure the persons responsible for polluting actually pay 
for it.
  I do not consider taking my land away to protect a wetland, by the 
way, an instance of pollution. I consider that an instance of good 
public policy that ought to be compensated for.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number 
of words.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment, and I would like 
to say first of all on unfunded mandates, most of us have been fighting 
the battle for the last few years. It is not only a question of costs, 
but it is a question of States rights.
  I look at an unfunded mandate and I look at the document we have here 
on those that want to exempt hundreds and hundreds of different 
organizations and groups from unfunded mandates. That is what the 
problem is. Governor Pete Wilson from California has stated that it is 
breaking his State.
  Illegal immigration is a classic one of an unfunded mandate that the 
Government has refused to fund or have a current policy to change.
  We take a look at States rights, and I know even Al Gore, our Vice 
President, made a statement, ``Let us get government off our backs and 
walk beside the American people.'' But for too long Government has been 
using a bullwhip on the backs of those American people.
  I look at the costs. The problem most of us have on this side of the 
aisle is Members on the other side of the aisle have supported 
continuously extremist views, and those extremist views, that is a 
weapon. I look at the California clean water problems we have. We have 
a sewage problem like a lot of other areas in the United States. The 
Scripps 
[[Page H508]] Oceanographic Institute has made statements time and time 
again that secondary treatment is not necessary; the law was written 
for sewage effluents going into rivers and lakes. We have it going into 
the ocean, but it is the other side, and clean water and EPA have been 
unreasonable enforcing that which would cost just the city of San Diego 
over $3 billion.
  If they do that, if they are forced for those $3 billion, then you 
will hear arguments of we need more money for education and law 
enforcement. But when you do not have the money, there is only one 
thing you can do to obtain it and that is raise taxes to pay for it.
  What we are saying is take a reasonable look at unfunded mandates. 
Look at the costs of the motor-voter in the State of California. The 
people who blew up the World Trade Center could vote under motor-voter. 
It is an unfunded mandate. In the State of California there were 
hundreds of documented cases in the last November 8 election, but yet 
there is no funding there to take care of the oversight of the motor-
voter.
  I look at the California desert bill that we passed last year. 
Property rights. There was even on the other side of the aisle 
arguments against the protection of someone receiving a fair price for 
their property. They did not want the Government to have to pay a 
higher price or estimated value.
  I look at the environment, the Endangered Species Act, and wetlands. 
We have wetlands at 12,000 feet that are frozen, and we take a look, we 
cannot change that or even define under a lot of people's views, 
wetlands. We need reasonable laws and reasonable ascertations to help 
the planet.
  We take a look at the same thing with the wetlands. We had a pig 
farmer in Arkansas, the President's own State, that over the last 
decade has raised thousands of pigs. They hollowed out an area; it was 
wet. They wanted to build on it; no, he could not, because that area 
had become a wetlands.
  It is not only property rights and States rights but America's 
rights, and I think Americans need to have a cost assessment tied in 
with every unfunded mandate that is forced on them by this Government.
  Mr. GEJDENSON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  There is a very practical consideration on why every bill should not 
end up at the Federal desk, even though it may make good sense as 
national policy, and I will give two examples.
  I grew up in Connecticut, and one of the great advantages of being an 
old State in a nation is that we have very small geography, but we are 
broken up into hundreds of political subdivisions. We have 169 towns in 
an area less than the size of El Paso County, and when board of 
education members make decisions on whether or not to educate kids with 
special needs, the long-term benefits of educating those kids that face 
the challenges really does not come back to the community necessarily, 
because that child may grow up and get a college education and get to 
be a productive member of society, but moves on to the next community. 
The same thing happens if that child does not turn out so well. If that 
child does not get an education and goes on to jail, those dollars come 
from the State treasury.
  So what we do is we try to set a standard. An example would be curb 
cuts. If we wanted to make something accessible not just for the 
handicapped but it also benefits parents with strollers and what have 
you, and we set that standard nationally, it makes sense. We ought to 
have that same standard across the country. A person with a handicap, 
with a challenge that needs a wheelchair or a parent with a child in a 
stroller should not be limited to selected States.
  But if we sent the bill back to the Federal Government, it would be a 
far more expensive process. As a local responsibility, they find the 
most efficient way to pay for it, the most inexpensive way to provide 
that service and that opportunity.
  So the danger of what we are doing here is, we will either break down 
into a country with not just 50 standards for our citizens, but 
thousands of standards. As the same kind of attitude rolls back to the 
States, the towns will then say to the State that the State should not 
tell us what to do unless they are willing to pay for every standard 
and protection.
  In Connecticut the Connecticut River and the Thames River, both of 
which run through my district, are cleaner today because of Federal 
mandates and they did not necessarily provide every dollar, although 
they helped immensely in the cleanup of water that
 came from Massachusetts and other northern States.

  We have a responsibility as a Nation not to mandate things that do 
not make sense, to make sure that we do not place burdens on people 
simply for the sake of passing laws. But if it is the right thing to 
do, we need to make sure that this legislative body that represents all 
of the citizens of the country comes here and passes the legislation.
  Oftentimes we do pay for it. Most communities, when they add up the 
dollars that come from the Federal Government, find they get much more 
from the Federal Government than they send here, especially for the 
kind of things that help people with special needs.
  We need to make sure that this country does not turn back to creating 
obstacles for people in wheelchairs or people with educational needs. 
Federal mandates have cleaned up the air and the water in this country. 
We have given people more opportunity. Simply a closed mind to passing 
reasonable legislation that is voted on by a majority of the elected 
representatives, because it fits into this newly created category of 
mandates does not make any sense. The laws that pass here, pass here 
because we do represent the people of the country, we listen to their 
voices and we bring their challenges here, and they should not be 
rejected wholesale, because it seems to me what happens here is you 
cannot argue these on their merits, so you are trying to lump them into 
one big category. On the merits, they have passed the House, they have 
passed the Senate, they have been signed into law by Presidents, 
Republicans and Democrats. The same goes for the future and it is that 
categorization where Members try to undercut national support for 
things that make sense and have been good for the country.

                              {time}  1810

  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  (Mr. VOLKMER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to follow on with the words 
of the gentleman from Connecticut, because as I have listened to this 
debate last week and today, it becomes very apparent to me that this 
legislation, although attempting to do well, really has put the apples 
and the oranges and the bananas and the kiwi fruit and everything else 
all together in one box and says it is all the same.
  Ladies and gentlemen, that is not true. All Federal mandates are not 
the same thing.
  I just listened to the gentleman from California, from San Diego. He 
talked about the various ones, the different ones that applied to 
California and how they applied differently. There is no question that 
we should recognize that, but this legislation does not recognize that. 
This legislation applies to all mandates. It applies to local 
governments and State governments the same. It makes no distinction 
about the purpose of that mandate. It makes no distinction about why 
that mandate originally first came about.
  That brings me right to where we are with this amendment. Because I, 
as one, can reflect back to this country, at least my community, my 
Mississippi River, not mine, but our Mississippi River, the Missouri 
River, the Ohio, all the major streams of this Nation, the Rio Grande, 
and all where they were 40 and 50 years ago and where they were going, 
and without the legislation that we have today, I dare say, I mean, 
without the legislation that is on the books, clean water acts, those 
things, I dare to say you would not be drinking the water even though 
it is well treated from any of those streams.
  Because what was happening, and the gentleman in the chair may 
happen, I do not know if they did in Cape Girardeau, but I know along 
the Mississippi River in my area and in my 
[[Page H509]] hometown years ago every bit of the waste was dumped 
right into that river, and then we built a treatment plant. It did not 
work. Sometimes the water, when it flooded, et cetera, went right into 
the river, too, and it was later on through the EPA funds that we built 
a brandnew one. It cost us 10 percent of the funds, if I remember 
right.
  But we now have a real good wastewater treatment plant, and we do not 
put any effluent into that Mississippi River. You can go to other towns 
along the Mississippi like Louisiana, MO; Quincy, IL; Clarksville, MO; 
and I can go on and on all the way along up to Iowa, up to Minnesota, 
all the way down to
 New Orleans, none of that is taking place anymore, and that is all 
over the United States.

  That is a little bit different than motor-voter, but this bill makes 
no difference, no distinction.
  I can well remember when I was back in the 1950's when I was going to 
school at Saint Louis University down in Saint Louis, I was working my 
way through and would have to go out of the dormitory to go to work 
downtown, and taking a bus to get there, waiting on the street corner 
for the bus, and my hair would get sooty. That is right, folks, my brow 
would get sooty. What was that from? That was from pollution, folks. 
That was from pollution in the city of Saint Louis.
  So there are times you could not hardly see the Sun in daylight even, 
in the summer, just not in the winter, because industry and others used 
it.
  Now, the question is now, would all of these changes that have taken 
place in this country that are beneficial to all of us have taken place 
if we would have had this legislation on the books 30 or 40 years ago 
and the Federal Government would have been prohibited from passing this 
legislation that has been passed except if we funded it all, we had to 
fund every bit of it?
  That leads me to my last argument as to why this bill has serious 
defects, and it should have been taken more time with in committee.
  What incentive would there have been and will there be if this bill 
becomes law for any community in the future to do anything on their 
own, to improve either the air, water, or other polluting areas? What 
incentive? None. In fact, the incentive is all the other way under this 
bill. As long as you do not do anything, the Federal Government is not 
going to require you to do it unless the Federal Government pays for 
it.
  So there would be no incentive, none whatsoever. The incentive is the 
other way.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] 
has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Volkmer was allowed to proceed for 2 
additional minutes.)
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, this bill builds in for States and local 
governments not to do anything, to let the Federal Government come in 
and tell you to do it, and then they are going to give you all the 
money. So why should you? The cities, local governments, the States are 
all strapped just like we are strapped. They will not do anything just 
like they did not do it before.
  As the gentleman from Louisiana earlier spoke, he said, ``Well, we 
should make all of this apply to private as well as public.'' I dare 
say that if you did do that, then why should the chemical companies 
anymore have to put pollution devices on? Because the Federal 
Government is gong to pay for it, not the private companies. They are 
not going to worry about generating power and dumping it all in the 
rivers and streams. Why should they worry about it? Because if they 
have to correct it, the Federal Government is going to pay for it. They 
should not have to pay for it. Their stockholders will not have to pay 
for it. So what we have here is a box full of all kinds of fruits and 
vegetables, all mixed in.
  And I have the sponsors tell me they are all the same. Well, to me it 
is a fruit salad, and it is not one apple or a whole bunch of apples in 
the box. You have got a fruit salad, and it is all messed up.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendments offered by the 
gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs].
  The amendments were rejected.
  The CHAIRMAN. Are there further amendments to section 4?
             Amendments Offered by Mrs. Collins of Illinois

  Mrs. COLLINS of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, I offer two amendments. They 
are amendments Nos. 69 and 70.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendments.
  The text of the amendments, numbered 69 and 70, is as follows:

       Amendments offered by Mrs. Collins of Illinois: In section 
     4, strike ``or'' after the semicolon at the end of paragraph 
     (6), strike the period at the end of paragraph (7) and insert 
     ``; or'', and after paragraph (7) add the following new 
     paragraph:
       (8) provides for aviation security or airport security.
       In section 301, in the proposed section 422 of the 
     Congressional Budget Act of 1974, strike ``or'' after the 
     semicolon at the end of paragraph (6), strike the period at 
     the end of paragraph (7) and insert ``; or'', and after 
     paragraph (7) add the following new paragraph:
       ``(8) provides for aviation security or airport security.

  Mrs. COLLINS of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that 
the amendments numbered 69 and 70 be considered en bloc.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman 
from Illinois?
  There was no objection.
  Mrs. COLLINS of Illinois. Mr. Chairman airport security is one of the 
most important concerns in the public's mind. Nearly a decade ago, 
there were a number of incidents involving airport and aviation 
security, including hijackings, the carrying of weapons on board 
aircraft, and other lapses that give cause for great concern to those 
of us who fly. Several years ago when I was chair of the Government 
Operations Subcommittee on Transportation, we held numerous hearings on 
lax security procedures at our Nation's airports.
  During those investigations, we found that doors to ramps leading to 
airplanes were often not locked. That unauthorized person had easy 
access to the tarmac. We found that it was extraordinarily easy for 
weapons to be smuggled onto aircraft because security personnel were 
often lax, inadequately trained and/or supervised.
  We brought these facts to light, and as a result there is much better 
security at our Nation's airports today. What would happen if we 
couldn't require local communities to improve their airport security 
unless the Federal Government paid all of the tab? Perhaps many, or 
most, of them would simply ignore sound security measures. Isn't this 
an issue that is comparable to national security? I believe it is.
  This is not an issue which pertains just to Chicago, where I am from, 
and its O'Hare Airport. Airport and aviation safety is an issue for all 
of us who fly any place. We, the flying public, has a right to feel 
secure when they enter an airport or when they fly on any type of 
aircraft. The security standards are imposed by the Federal Government. 
They are not and should never be allowed to become discretionary on the 
part of local governments who happen to run their municipal airports.
  Mr. Chairman, aviation safety is on everyone's minds lately and the 
Federal Aviation Administration has been extremely responsive to those 
concerns. Last year's crashes of commuter prop planes due to icing on 
their wings was tackled by the FAA through tough restrictions on 
flights until more tests could prove conclusive of the causes of those 
disasters.
  We cannot and must not let this type of authority by the FAA to be 
taken away. If that were to happen, airline safety would become merely 
a matter of convenience, not a requirement. The public would lose all 
confidence in the Nation's aviation system and people's lives would be 
needlessly endangered.
  Under this legislation, the ability of Congress to authorize an 
agency like the FAA to impose standards for aviation safety are placed 
in great jeopardy. I do not believe any of my colleagues would like for 
this sensible responsibility to be taken away.
  Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I urge Members to support my amendment so 
that aviation and airport security does not become a victim of this 
legislation.
                              {time}  1820

  Mr. CLINGER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in reluctant opposition to the 
amendments.
  [[Page H510]] Mr. Chairman, for several years I served as ranking 
member on the Aviation Subcommittee, serving under Mr. Oberstar's 
chairmanship. Like him, I would indicate I stand second to no one in my 
desire to ensure the safety of the traveling public. But I would say 
again that this amendment is based upon a fundamental misunderstanding 
of what the bill does. The bill does not prevent Congress from passing 
laws, or the FAA from issuing rules and regulations to protect 
passenger safety. It merely requires that Congress and the agency to 
think about the costs of what they do. It will not in any way undercut 
or dilute existing rules, regulations, and laws on the books to protect 
aviation safety, to protect against terrorism or anything else.
  Mr. Chairman, a little more than a year ago President Clinton's 
National Airline Commission identified the cost of complying with 
regulations as one of the main reasons for the airline industry's 
financial problems. It recommended a number of actions to address that 
problem.
  This bill, Mr. Chairman, goes a long way toward implementing that 
recommendation. However, the amendment that is proposed would undercut 
that. The fact is, Mr. Chairman, that he airline industry has lost over 
$12 billion in recent years, in the last 2 or 3 years. That is a loss 
that you cannot sustain forever.
  So all we are saying is yes, safety is paramount, has to be 
paramount, has to be a very top consideration of what we do. But 
clearly, if the proposed mandate on airline safety comes forward and 
the case is made that this is a necessary addition to the regulations 
and rules and mandates already in effect, something that is very 
definitely needed, I think I would be the first one to support passing 
that through without Federal funding. But at this point it would not 
require that.
  Mrs. COLLINS of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CLINGER. I am happy to yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois 
[Mrs. Collins].
  Mrs. COLLINS of Illinois. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, the gentleman just mentioned that the airline industry 
has lost a great deal of money. That is certainly true. But the airline 
industry has also caused a great number of people to lose their lives. 
I do not think that could be equated in dollars at this point or any 
other point in time, as a matter of fact. It seems to me that all these 
rules and regulations that we have and may need to be imposed in the 
future that deal with the security and safety of our aviation industry 
and our airports is just too important not to become a part of this 
particular legislation in the exclusion section of this bill.
  Mr. CLINGER. Reclaiming my time, I was certainly not in any way 
suggesting that a mandate that was clearly going to improve the safety 
of passengers in this country should not be passed through. But what I 
am saying is that, given the perilous condition of the airline industry 
today and the fact that they have lost a great deal of money and we are 
potentially putting our employees at risk, that just to approve every 
potential safety-improving mandate without at least considering the 
cost I think would be a mistake. For that reason I would have to oppose 
the amendments of the gentlewoman.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I have thousands, tens of thousands of flight hours 
both in the military and civilian aircraft, and in the future I plan to 
get thousands of more flight hours.
  Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman is correct that we have lost a lot of 
lives in aviation. If I thought for 1 minute that we could pass 
something that would prevent that, then I would pass the amendment, but 
I rise in opposition to the amendment. There is nothing that stops this 
body from passing a funded mandate onto States or Government agencies. 
If we feel it is important, whether it is endangered species, clean 
water, clean air, or, in the case of the gentlewoman's amendment, then 
we should fund it. It is only logical, when we fund it we should have a 
cost assessment to help all the Members figure out what those costs are 
going to be to the States, because if we pass on an unfunded mandate, 
then I imagine the States, and I imagine the State of the gentlewoman 
and the State of California, none of us has enough money to do all of 
the things we want to do in the other services that we talked about, in 
education, law enforcement, social services and the rest.
  But when we pass that unfunded mandate, it makes the States take a 
look at a priority, and quite often those priorities are not in 
agreement with the individual Members passing on the mandate. So I 
would suggest to the gentlewoman that a funded mandate of this type--
and I would support a funded mandate, but not an unfunded mandate, to 
the organization because I do think we need oversight in availation 
safety. I personally do, and I know the gentlewoman flies home, plus I 
fly privately and in the military; so I think in all of those cases it 
is not too much off the wall to ask that we, A, have a cost assessment 
and, B, to fund the mandates that this body regulates on enterprise or 
on the States.
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite 
number of words.
  (Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, Representative Collins of 
Illinois is talking about her amendment mainly on airport safety and 
talking about airline safety. Let me bring up another point.
  Just like my colleague from California, though he has a little bit 
further to go, but I go home every weekend to be in my district in 
Texas, which is just halfway to California.
  But I also feel a lot safer when I have to go through that airport 
security and those scan devices, simply because it makes me safer in 
the Houston airports. That was not put there because the city of 
Houston, our airport authority, did that out of the goodness of their 
heart. They did that because there were Federal mandates to do that. 
Also, they utilized enterprise funds, local funds that are made up of 
money that we pay as passengers to provide that airport security. We 
have some of the best, secure airports in the world because a lot of us 
have been to a lot of other places and we know we are really concerned 
about walking through some of those machines and we do not know if they 
work or not. But we know in our airports they do because they have to.
  Again, if we could compete, whether it be Houston, San Diego, Los 
Angeles, or somewhere else, we might have different standards for each 
of them if we do not have some kind of recognition nationwide of 
airport security needs, not just from terrorism, or pilot training or 
private pilot training. That is a mandate. It is in some ways funded 
because I am sure FAA provides some funding for it. But some of it is 
unfunded because it is also made up of local tax dollars and local 
money paid for out of airline tickets that pays for that. So it is 
unfunded from the Federal Government. We may vote for that next week, 
if there is some new technology that comes out, but what is going to 
happen if we pass this without recognizing that the next Congress may 
say we are in a bad budget, we are in a $4 trillion debt. But I am 
willing to pay for funded mandates, sure I will, but I am not sure that 
there are going to be 218 Members of Congress who will do it. So we 
will see the standards in our airports possibly go down because of the 
threat of terrorism. Also, we do not have to go very far to know some 
countries only pay lip service to it whereas in the United States we 
put teeth into it. It is paid for most of the time by local funds 
because they also benefit by having a major airport in their community.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Cunningham].
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I thank my friend for yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, I agree with the gentleman. Airport safety, especially 
in times when we had fundamentalist problems, for example, during 
Desert Storm, those things are required. But I say to my friend, if it 
is important enough--and I believe there is not a Member here who is 
not going to support it, I do not believe there is--that will not 
support safety in airports, since we all ride those things, that we 
would not fund that.

[[Page H511]]

                              {time}  1830

  Our only request is that, when we think something is important enough 
to mandate it, let us fund it, and I will support the gentleman.
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. And I understand that, and, reclaiming my 
time, we will, we very well may do that some future time, if we find 
some new technology. It may cost a million dollars to provide new 
technology to discover some new type of weapon that somebody may try 
and smuggle in our airport. We must fund it from here, but also those 
local communities benefit from having that airport there, so they 
should also participate in. That is what we are doing now.
  I just want to say we all are supporting, and I support, the bill. I 
just want to make sure that we recognize that some future Congress may 
say, ``Oh, no, that's an unfunded mandate,'' and the standard of living 
that we have become accustomed to in these great States will go down 
because some future Congress may say, ``Well, we have to take an 
unfunded mandate vote,'' and I am so against unfunded mandates, but we 
cannot increase the national debt because of that. We are just going to 
have to take our gamble, and may be some terrorism from wherever else 
in the world may be able to slip through. We need to recognize that 
today when we are debating this bill because it will have an impact on 
the gentleman's and my constituents.
  Mrs. COLLINS of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois.
  Mrs. COLLINS of Illinois. I would like to engage for just a minute 
the gentleman from California, if I can, because, when I look at the 
section on the limitation of application, I am looking at particularly 
there is a requirement that would eliminate the required compliance 
with accounting and auditing procedures for prospective grants and 
other----
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Gene Green] 
has expired.
  (On request of Mrs. Collins of Illinois and by unanimous consent, Mr. 
Gene Green of Texas was allowed to proceed for 3 additional minutes.)
  Mrs. COLLINS of Illinois. It requires compliance with accounting and 
auditing procedures with respect to grants or other money for property 
provided by the Federal Government; No. 4, provides for emergency 
assistance or relief at the request of any State and local government, 
or tribal government, or any official of such a government; or No. 5, 
is necessary for the national security, or the ratification or 
implementation of international treaty applications, and so forth.
  It just seems to me there is nothing more important than the national 
security of the people who have to live in this country, and who will 
fly on these airplanes and make their living through going on 
airplanes, vacationing. I would just hate to see a situation where the 
flying public feels they are not going to be safe, they are not going 
to be secure, they are not going to be provided for in any kind of way 
to make sure when they board a plane, or when they go through an 
airport, they are not going to be able to come off that plane safely or 
even get on the airplane safely.
  As my colleagues know, some of the problems that we have when we were 
doing these investigations, that we actually put FAA officers, people 
who work for FAA, along with our investigators, to walk through 
airports, and, when we go through an airport now, we see little numbers 
on these doors before we get ready to get on the plane. Those have 
numbers on there. That is a result of the kind of mandates they had to 
do. It was necessary because people were walking right on.
  We also found that there were actually--we put toy guns, if my 
colleagues will, at that time on luggage, and the FAA officials were 
with us when they did it, and they passed right through the security 
screening every single time. They were surprised. We even were able to 
walk on the tarmac of airports, not just small municipal airports, but 
huge international airports in our country. We were able to do those 
things, and the FAA, because it had the responsibility that we gave it, 
we mandated that these airports be made safe and secure.
  For us to ignore that kind of national security, it seems to me, is 
just to disregard all that has been done. Because of that we do not 
have the number of hijackings that we had a number of years ago. We do 
not have the number of planes falling out of the sky every other day 
that we had before. We do not have possible bombings as we have had in 
other countries where people were walking in an airport, and the whole 
thing goes up in smoke. As my colleagues know, we do not have that 
because of the fine work of the FAA and because we in Congress mandated 
these kinds of security measures.
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Let me just mention that there are some 
exceptions in the bill that we are amending on section 4, and, as the 
gentlewoman from Illinois [Mrs. Collins] mentioned, No. 5, it is 
necessary for national security, ratification or implementation of 
international treaty. This amendment may be under this bill right now. 
But since we did not have a public hearing, we could not ask those 
questions of the experts in the FAA. We were not able to find out, and 
so that is why we are having to take this time on the floor of the 
House tonight.
  Mrs. COLLINS of Illinois. The gentleman is absolutely right.
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, colleagues, there are two areas of unfunded mandates 
issues that are of great concern to me in the field of aviation. One is 
security; the other is safety.
  Security measures should not be subject to a mere point of order, 
that they could be stricken by a single point of order made against a 
measure that would improve security for American air travelers at home 
and abroad, at our airports and abroad, our airlines and foreign 
airlines. Certainly an issue of that matter ought to be subject to a 
majority vote, but not by a simple point of order. A motion to strike 
is always in order. But a point of order against a matter so important 
as security, this legislation would undermine, would gut, the ability 
of Congress and Federal agencies to impose needed security and safety 
measures on airport operators and on United States and foreign 
airlines. All major airports are now run by agencies of State or local 
government. When we consider laws that we have enacted in the past, 
that would have been jeopardized by a provision such as this had it 
been in effect at the time we enacted or brought on to the floor such 
legislation.
  On December 21, 1988, terrorists succeeded in blowing PanAm 103 out 
of the skies over Lockerbie, Scotland; 270 of our fellow citizens died 
in that tragedy. As a result of the breach of security and the 
devastating results, President Bush asked for, and the Congress 
enacted, legislation creating a commission on security and terrorism, 
on which I served and of which our former colleague, John Paul 
Hammerschmidt on the Republican side, served, and produced a report 
with 64 recommendations which we then drafted in a legislative form, 
introduced in the House and the Senate, and got enacted into law, and 
the President signed all of those provisions into law. Now I look back 
on the work that we did in that legislation, and I shudder to think 
what would have happened had we brought that bill to the floor, and any 
one of those provisions could have been subject to a mere point of 
order.
  Now there is no way that we could fully fund with Federal funds all 
the requirements that were necessary to go into effect to protect 
security, protect the security of American travelers on U.S. airlines 
at U.S. airports and protect the security of American travelers 
overseas, at foreign airports, aboard foreign airlines. They, too, have 
a responsibility to security. They, too, have a responsibility to the 
people that travel aboard domestic and foreign airlines, and to say 
that, no, that that responsibility can be knocked out on a point of 
order does not make sense without even subjecting it to a matter of 
debate on the House floor. When millions of flights take off, nearly 40 
million a year in this country, when they take off and land safely, 
when there is no loss of life because of terrorist action, which there 
has not been in the domestic United States since 1969, we do not see 
headlines about it, but we 
[[Page H512]] know that lives have been saved because of the 
legislation that we have enacted. But this Congress has had the 
responsibility to come forward and deal with, and that we have accepted 
that responsibility, and we have acted, and I say, ``But if you have 
one hijacking aboard a domestic airliner, or one airport invaded by 
terrorists because of a breach of security, and you go back and find, 
well, it happened because we didn't have sufficient laws in place, 
because we didn't have sufficient security measures in place, and then 
if you were to go back further and say, `Yes, we tried, but it was 
stricken on a point of order on the House floor,' sure doesn't make 
sense to me.''
  It certainly seems to me that the provisions in this unfunded mandate 
legislation undermine the responsibility we have to our fellow citizens 
to ensure that aviation be maintained safe and secure. The same 
argumentation applies to the safety side of aviation.
                              {time}  1840

  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Oberstar] 
has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Oberstar was allowed to proceed for 2 
additional minutes.)
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, we have enacted legislation to provide 
for safety aboard American airlines and at American airports, and there 
is already a very heavy burden of responsibility on the FAA to 
undertake in conjunction with each safety rule making a benefit-to-cost 
study as they proceed in the rulemaking process.
  That has enormously bogged down the FAA. One of the most important 
considerations now in light of tragedies that happened last year in the 
commuter airline sector is to have a single standard of safety between 
part 121, the major airlines, and part 135, the commuter and regional 
airline operators. It has taken months, it will soon be over a year, 
for the FAA to issue regulations in this area, where the commuters are 
agreed and that majors are agreed that those safety regulations ought 
to go into effect.
  Now, they have been bogged down because of this need to conduct the 
cost-benefit analyses for 15 different signoffs within the FAA and DOT 
and the Office of Management and Budget. If you add to that someone can 
stand up on the floor and make a point of order, and say no, you can't 
do that, what are you doing to safety?
  I just think it is an egregious affront to safety to provide this 
kind of procedure, where on a simple point of order, in initiatives 
such as emergency escape path markings, seat cushions that will not 
catch fire readily, protective breathing equipment for use by flight 
attendants in emergency, improved cabin interior materials that burn 
less readily and do not put out toxic fumes aboard new aircraft.
  When FAA went to move on those safety improvements, they had to run a 
gauntlet of procedural hoops and second guessers in the Department and 
the Office of Management and Budget. Please do not add another hoop and 
another gadget and another hostility here on the House floor to safety 
and security in aviation. You travel also, each one of us travels 
aboard aircraft, and we want it safe for ourselves and our 
constituents.
  Mr. MINETA. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the amendment.
  The pending bill will make it far more cumbersome and time-consuming 
to adopt needed new laws and regulations to ensure the security of air 
transportation. A delay in security regulations might result in a 
tragedy which could have been prevented. The Collins amendment will 
correct this unfortunate consequence of the bill by exempting laws and 
regulations promoting aviation security.
  It already takes FAA far too long to adopt needed security 
regulations. To cite just one example, a few years ago we lost an 
airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland and the terrorism threat soared. In 
response we passed a law, the Aviation Security Improvement Act of 
1990, making extensive improvements in security, including a directive 
to FAA to develop regulations to require that persons with access to 
airline aircraft undergo employment investigations, and criminal 
history checks. More than 4 years have elapsed and the necessary 
regulations are still not in place.
  The recent bomb threats in East Asia have shown that there continues 
to be a substantial threat that bombs will be placed on-board aircraft. 
We cannot tolerate further delays in the background check regulations 
which are designed to prevent terrorists from gaining access to parked 
aircraft. New regulations might prevent another Lockerbie tragedy.
  The extensive delays in the FAA rulemaking on safety and security are 
partially attributable to the existing requirements for extensive 
studies of the costs and benefits of regulations, their impact on State 
and local government, and their impact on small businesses. The 
additional studies required by the pending bill would produce little 
valuable information, while further delaying a process which is already 
too slow.
  Title II of the bill before us is going to make it much slower and 
more difficult for FAA to issue new standards to respond to aviation 
safety and security problems as they arise. It will tie the FAA up in 
more redtape and make it harder to act to protect the public interest. 
And that would also be true for new safety standards such as the new 
commuter airline safety standards which FAA is working on.
  Title III of the bill before us would make it harder and slower to 
respond to aviation safety and security threats when a legislative 
response is necessary. New redtape and studies would be required before 
we could bring the bill to the floor, and additional points of order 
and votes would be required. The aviation security bill we passed in 
1990 would have been subject to a point of order if this unfunded 
mandate bill had been law then.
  Both title II and title III would make it unnecessarily difficult and 
slow to respond to aviation security issues. There is no good reason 
why aviation security should not be exempted from H.R. 5.
  I strongly urge adoption of the pending amendment to prevent further 
delays in laws and regulations which would enhance aviation safety and 
security.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendments offered by the 
gentlewoman from Illinois [Mrs. Collins].
  The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes 
appeared to have it.


                             recorded vote

  Mrs. COLLINS of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 169, 
noes 256, not voting 9, as follows:
                             [Roll No. 25]

                               AYES--169

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Barcia
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Beilenson
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boucher
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Bryant (TX)
     Cardin
     Chapman
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Coleman
     Collins (IL)
     Collins (MI)
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Danner
     de la Garza
     Deal
     DeFazio
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fazio
     Filner
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gibbons
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hastings (FL)
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Holden
     Hoyer
     Jackson-Lee
     Jacobs
     Jefferson
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson, E.B.
     Johnston
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kleczka
     Klink
     LaFalce
     Lantos
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney
     Manton
     Markey
     Martinez
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy
     McDermott
     McHale
     McKinney
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Mfume
     Miller (CA)
     Mineta
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moran
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pastor
     Payne (NJ)
     Payne (VA)
     Pelosi
     Peterson (FL)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reed
     Reynolds
     Richardson
     Rivers
     Rose
     Roybal-Allard
     Sabo
     Sanders
     Sawyer
     Schroeder
     Schumer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Skaggs
     Skelton
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stokes
     Studds
     Stupak
     Taylor (MS)
     Tejeda
     Thompson
     Thornton
     Thurman
     Torres
     Torricelli
     Towns
     Traficant
     Tucker
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Volkmer
     Ward
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Williams
     Wilson
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wyden
     Wynn
     Yates

                               NOES--256

     Allard
     Andrews
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baesler
     Baker (CA)
     Baker (LA)
     Baldacci
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Bevill
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blute
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Brewster
     Browder
     Brownback
     Bryant (TN)
     Bunn
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Chrysler
     Clinger
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins (GA)
     Combest
     Condit
     [[Page H513]] Cooley
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cremeans
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Davis
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dornan
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Fields (TX)
     Flanagan
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Franks (CT)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frisa
     Funderburk
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Geren
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Graham
     Greenwood
     Gunderson
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hamilton
     Hancock
     Hansen
     Harman
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Heineman
     Herger
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hoke
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kim
     King
     Kingston
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Laughlin
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Lightfoot
     Lincoln
     Linder
     LoBiondo
     Longley
     Lucas
     Manzullo
     Martini
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     McNulty
     Metcalf
     Meyers
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Minge
     Molinari
     Montgomery
     Moorhead
     Morella
     Myers
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Orton
     Oxley
     Packard
     Parker
     Paxon
     Peterson (MN)
     Petri
     Pickett
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Portman
     Poshard
     Pryce
     Quillen
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Riggs
     Roberts
     Roemer
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roth
     Roukema
     Royce
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer
     Schiff
     Seastrand
     Sensenbrenner
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stockman
     Stump
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tate
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Torkildsen
     Upton
     Vucanovich
     Waldholtz
     Walker
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Zeliff
     Zimmer

                             NOT VOTING--9

     Bishop
     Fields (LA)
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Livingston
     Quinn
     Rush
     Slaughter
     Tiahrt

                              {time}  1857

  The Clerk announced the following pair:
  On this vote:

       Ms. Slaughter for, with Mr. Tiahrt against.

  Mr. EDWARDS, Mr. SCHUMER, and Mr. RANGEL changed their vote from 
``no'' to ``aye.''
  So the amendments were rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The CHAIRMAN. Are there further amendments to section 4?
             amendments offered by mr. gene green of texas

  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendments 73 and 153 
and ask unanimous consent that they be considered en bloc.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Texas?
  There was no objection.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendments.
  The text of the amendments is as follows:

       Amendments offered by Mr. Gene Green of Texas:
       In section 301, in the proposed section 422 of the 
     Congressional Budget Act of 1974, strike ``or'' after the 
     semicolon at the end of paragraph (6), strike the period at 
     the end of paragraph (7) and insert ``; or'', and after 
     paragraph (7) add the following new paragraph:
       ``(8) regulates the licensing, construction, or operation 
     of nuclear reactors or the disposal of nuclear waste.
       In section 4, strike ``or'' after the semicolon at the end 
     of paragraph (6), strike the period at the end of paragraph 
     (7) and insert ``; or'', and after paragraph (7) add the 
     following new paragraph:
       (8) regulates the licensing, construction, or operation of 
     nuclear reactors or the disposal of nuclear waste.

  (Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, the amendments that we are 
considering now would exclude regulations on licensing, construction, 
and operations of nuclear reactors, and also on disposal of nuclear 
waste from the point of order procedure in this bill. We have actually 
two amendments that deal with two sections of the bill.
  The NRC is a national agency. Very seldom do States get involved in 
some of the regulation. However, Mr. Chairman, many States, not only my 
State of Texas but also New York, South Carolina, and a great many 
other States, have nuclear powerplants that are often either locally 
owned, State-owned, or in our case in Texas, are actually cooperatively 
owned by private business, ratepayer companies.
  Mr. Chairman, the issue at hand is whether we should have national 
regulation of nuclear reactors and nuclear waste disposal, or whether 
it should be exempted from the unfunded mandate issue. The Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission is a national agency; in fact, an independent 
agency.
  The problem where it comes in is that in south Texas and in other 
States we have cooperative nuclear power plants that are owned by 
investor-owned companies, but also by local municipalities. The issue 
that it brings up in this bill is what happens if we have, as in our 
case in south Texas, the managing partner who is an independent 
company, investor-owned utility, but the owners of it or partial owners 
of it are municipalities who provide electricity to their citizens in 
different parts of the State. How do we differentiate?
  The concern I have, and that is why this is an amendment to section 4 
of the bill, would exempt out that. Very seldom do we have State 
regulation of nuclear facilities, although we have an example of a bill 
now that has been introduced by the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Fields], 
that I have cosponsored, that would provide for waste disposal in a 
cooperative effort.
  When I was in the Texas Legislature 3 years ago, we had to pass 
enabling legislation for that. The concern I have is that we are going 
to have nuclear reactors or nuclear waste that really should be a 
national issue. The Three Mile Island, the Pennsylvania tragedy back 
years ago, did not know State lines, any more than Chernobyl knew 
international lines. We need to have a regulatory
 commission that is not subject to the whim or a point of order 
procedure here on the floor of the House. They should not be shielded 
from that, whether it be on the power or the waste disposal.

  Mr. Chairman, as the bill presently reads, a competitive advantage 
could be accrued to publicly owned utilities, often publicly owned 
facilities. That point of order procedure would block the mandates on 
States and localities, but not those local entities.
  How does it affect the part-owned, part-public owned and part-private 
owned, as I first mentioned? The point of order standards place a new 
hurdle to pass on the safety regulations for nuclear power.
  I am not anti-nuclear. I have been pro-nuclear. I think nuclear power 
plays a part in our energy policy, and it should, but it should not be 
to the whim of local governments or even States. It should be a 
national issue and not something that we deal with on 50 jurisdictions, 
or maybe hundreds of thousands of jurisdictions, based on our locality.
  Mr. Chairman, this bill had no public hearings on it. The only person 
we could hear from was the sponsor of the bill, the gentleman from Ohio 
[Mr. Portman], who is very knowledgeable on unfunded mandates, but we 
could not ask any questions on how it affected nuclear power or nuclear 
waste disposal, because we needed to have a hearing to discuss it so we 
can find out. We did not have that. That is why we have to run with not 
only this amendment but a number of amendments here on the floor.
  Mr. Chairman, we need to learn the impact of how this is happening. 
That is why we are having not only this amendment but other amendments, 
to develop a legislative history so somebody down the line can say 
``This is what the intent of Congress on unfunded mandates was.''
  I mentioned earlier today an editorial in the Houston Post, and 
again, for those who were not here earlier, it is not the Washington 
Post, it is an outside-the-beltway paper, that Republicans and many 
Democrats support the unfunded mandate bill, but we also realize it is 
not a panacea, and we need to realize what we are doing with this.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Gene Green] 
has expired.
  [[Page H514]] (By unanimous consent, Mr. Gene Green of Texas was 
allowed to proceed for 2 additional minutes.)
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. In brief, let me say Republicans and many 
Democrats are going along with this effort, and want us to believe most 
mandates of Federal Government are not reasonable simply because the 
Feds love to meddle in our lives. While there is no denying that 
Congress and Federal bureaucracy do have a tendency to overregulate, 
that is not always the case.
  The point needs to be remembered that many of the regulations were 
adopted in response to lack of action by local or State officials to 
protect people's lives and rights.

                              {time}  1910

  If we do not do this on nuclear power, what can we do with waste 
disposal?
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, I would also like to add to the list a situation where, 
for example, the Federal Emergency Management Agency of the Department 
of Energy is also promulgating nuclear safety rules.
  Let us take the case of Seabrook, where Seabrook is on the Maine, New 
Hampshire, and Massachusetts borders. What if there is a decision made 
with regard to nuclear safety that the State of New Hampshire does not 
want to comply with because of their own budgetary constraints? What 
recourse does the State of Massachusetts or Maine have with regard to a 
nuclear safety decision which could clearly affect large areas of both 
of those States if in fact there has been a budgetarily driven decision 
with regard to whether or not a safety or health-related decision 
should be implemented?
  I thank the gentleman for raising this very important health and 
safety issue, and I would urge support for the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Gene Green]. This amendment would preserve 
strict safety standards at nuclear facilities and maintain vital 
emergency evacuation plans around nuclear sites.
  As we consider ways to reduce burdensome Federal mandates, we must 
not weaken the ability of the Federal Government to ensure a safe and 
secure environment for all Americans. This amendment is prosafety, not 
antinuclear.
  The issue here is only the ability to protect citizens around nuclear 
facilities, nothing more. As accidents at Three-Mile Island and 
Chernobyl should remind us, laws and regulations designed to improve 
safety and evacuation procedures around nuclear plants must not be 
compromised in a dangerous scorched Earth policy to do away with 
Federal regulations.
  I do not believe we have adequately examined just how this bill would 
affect the health and safety of Americans:
  For example, what would happen if a State or local government owns 
and operates a nuclear powerplant? What regulations would the State be 
mandated to follow? In New York, the State purchased the Shoreham 
nuclear powerplant for the purpose of dismantling it. What Federal 
regulations would New York State or any potential State-owned nuclear 
facility have to follow if it ran a nuclear plant? What obligations 
would a State-run nuclear facility have in disposing of nuclear waste?
  In the future, would weak safety and disposition regulations be 
permitted simply because they were cost-effective? I ask my colleagues 
to examine the human costs of passing this legislation unamended.
  I understand that regulations promulgated by independent agencies 
such as the Nuclear Regulatory Agency are exempt from provisions in the 
bill. However, are important nuclear safety and evacuation guidelines 
established by the Energy Department and the Federal Emergency 
Management Administration [FEMA] subject to the bill's restrictions?
  And how about a nuclear powerplant that sits on a State border? The 
Seabrook plant site in New Hampshire between Maine and Massachusetts. 
If New Hampshire refuses to meet a Federal nuclear safety standard, 
Massachusetts and Maine are exposed. Are these multi-State decisions 
solely subject to the budgetary constraints of a single State?
  This amendment would alleviate concerns that the bill would hinder 
the Federal Government's ability to establish important safety 
protections. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support the Green 
amendment.
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts 
[Mr. Markey].
  Mr. Chairman, in the last minute or so that I have, he made a great 
point. The Department of Energy plays a role in regulating nuclear 
waste disposal and it needs to be considered as important even though 
it is not an independent agency that may or may not be exempted under 
this bill. But again since we had no public hearings, we do not know 
whether it is or not.
  I ask for a positive vote on the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I include the following for the Record:

     No Easy Answers: Issues Around Unfunded Mandates Not So Simple

       Unfunded mandates--the term has become one of those overly 
     used but often misunderstood catch phrases.
       The new Republican majority in Congress has made 
     eliminating unfunded mandates part of their battle cry. It 
     can even be found in the House Republicans' Contract with 
     America. Both houses are considering bills to make more 
     difficult enacting legislation imposing costs of more than 
     $50 million on states and municipalities.
       If you have trouble understanding what it's all about, 
     picture a teen-ager complaining about his parents' ordering 
     him to run errands for them without providing the money for 
     his car's gasoline. While the concept is that simple, the 
     issue is not so simple.
       For years, local and state government officials across the 
     country have complained that Washington is too quick to tell 
     them what to do but that it hardly ever provides them the 
     money to help them comply.
       The Clean Air Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family 
     and Medical Leave Act--all were imposed on state and local 
     governments by Washington. While some have come with federal 
     grants, much of the billions it has cost states and cities to 
     implement them has to be raised locally.
       Is that fair? It depends. Going back to the analogy of the 
     teen-ager and his car, clearly it is wrong for his parents to 
     force him to use his money for gas to run their errands. But 
     what if they are simply ordering him to repair his 
     transmission so that it won't leak on their driveway?
       It is the kid's car and his problem, but it is damaging the 
     family's property. Should the parents have to pay for the 
     repair just because they ordered him to get it fixed?
       Suddenly it's not so simple, is it?
       Now apply this to the government level. What if, as has 
     happened repeatedly across the country, a city refuses to 
     repair its sewage system to prevent
      the pollution of a local waterway? When the federal 
     government finally steps in and says, ``Look, you have to 
     quit endangering people's lives with your raw sewage,'' 
     should the federal government be required to pay for the 
     sewage-treatment plant repair?
       Obviously not.
       The Republicans--and many Democrats who are going along 
     with them--want us to believe that most mandates from the 
     federal government are unreasonable orders issued simply 
     because the feds love to meddle in our lives. While there is 
     no denying that Congress and the federal bureaucracy do have 
     a tendency to overregulate, that is not always the case.
       The point that needs to be remembered is that many of the 
     regulations were adopted in response to lack of action by 
     local and state officials to protect people's lives or 
     rights.
       A second point that bears remembering is that regardless of 
     whether the money comes from Washington or Austin or Houston, 
     it originates in our pocketbooks.
       The only difference is that we lose a lot of it when we 
     send it to Washington first because it goes through so many 
     bureaucratic layers.
       Finally, we should recognize that the point of the war on 
     unfunded mandates is not to get Uncle Sam to pay for 
     mandates, but to keep it from making mandates in the first 
     place. It's part of an intense anti-regulation campaign.
       The unfunded mandates solution being considered by Congress 
     is like the balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution and 
     other quick-fix ideas in that it helps lawmakers avoid hard 
     decisions on specific issues.
       While seeking to ease the burden on cities and states is a 
     good idea, there is nothing keeping Congress from doing that 
     right now.
       Congressional proponents of the unfunded mandates measure 
     have the votes to pass it, but it deserves careful scrutiny 
     before it becomes law.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, once again in proposing an amendment, the gentleman has 
raised a very important issue, just as the issues that have already 
been raised dealing with airline security, dealing with clean water are 
important issues.
  I would point out at least insofar as this particular issues is 
raised, however, that in the definition section, an agency does not 
include an independent 
[[Page H515]] agency like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
  So I believe that there is an exemption in the bill stated for the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission identified by the gentleman.
  Further, where there are licensing procedures, there is nothing in 
this bill that prevents the revocation of a license for not being in 
compliance with any requirement that one had to be in compliance with 
in order to receive a license in the first place.
  Mr. Chairman, my point is that I believe that there are already 
exemptions in this bill which go a long way in addressing the issues 
that the gentleman from Texas has raised. But with respect to other 
issues that might remain, it still comes down to the fact that Congress 
should be accountable for those mandates it is passing on to State and 
local government.
  Once again, we have to reiterate as supporters of the bill that there 
is nothing in this bill that prevents Congress from in fact passing 
unfunded mandates on to State and local government. There are those, 
and we may see an amendment before consideration of this bill is 
finished in this committee which would change the bill to make that 
requirement. But as the bill stands now, there is a requirement to 
identify costs and upon a point of order force the Congress to vote 
independently on whatever mandate is proposed if it does not include 
funding.
  Just as with the other important issues that have already been 
debated on this floor, there is simply no reason why this particular 
issue should make Congress exempt from accountability if it is going to 
make State and local government take action at the expense of the State 
and local government.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I listened closely to what the gentleman from New 
Mexico said and also the gentleman from Massachusetts, and I think 
there is even more reason based on their comments to support and pass 
the Green amendment.
  The issue basically of the safety of our Nation's nuclear facilities, 
of disposal of waste and the other regulation that goes along with it I 
think is too important really for us to question exactly how this 
legislation will impact that area.
  For that reason, I think that we need to pass this amendment. I think 
that H.R. 5 affects a lot of important public policy concerns and 
deserves the careful consideration that we have been giving it on the 
floor, but as has been mentioned by the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Gene 
Green] and others, it has been pushed through the legislative process 
in a manner I think that leaves a lot of questions unanswered.
  The way the bill is currently drafted, it seems to set up an inequity 
between publicly owned and privately owned nuclear facilities. I think 
it can be interpreted that way. It can provide less protection
 to citizens living near publicly owned nuclear reactors or disposal 
sites than for those who live around privately owned facilities. This 
is a kind of patchwork effect that I think is unjustifiable. How are we 
going to explain to our constituents who are concerned about nuclear 
waste and nuclear safety that the relative safety or their peace of 
mind where they live is going to depend on who owns the nearby power 
plant?

  In terms of business equity also I do not think we can justify 
creating an unequal playing field for different types of utilities, one 
which allows publics to escape certain costs while privates have to pay 
full freight for the safety.
  I hope my colleagues will support the Green amendment to ensure that 
nuclear safety will not be compromised.
  As you know, the bill provides similar protection for a lot of other 
important societal values like civil rights, Social Security, and 
national security. It seems to me that environmental protection, 
particularly in this sensitive area of nuclear safety, deserves the 
same degree of uniform application and bottom-line assurance as these 
other important concerns.
  I know there is going to be a lot of talk about how if you read the 
bill a certain way that certain agencies are exempted and that one of 
these includes the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But I still think 
there are a lot of questions there and the issue of nuclear plants and 
the safety of those facilities is too important in my opinion that it 
should be left alone. We have to in my opinion support the Green 
amendment because this area is so important and so sensitive.
  Mr. SCHAEFER. I move to strike the requisite number of words, Mr. 
Chairman.
  Mr. Chairman, I certainly do understand the intention of the 
gentleman from Texas. However, with the NRC, whenever we are looking at 
the construction or the safety aspects of nuclear facilities throughout 
this country, they have certainly done a good job. We have not had one 
single death attributable to nuclear power in this country. The one 
thing I do not think we should be even talking about is a difference in 
the regulation of a private and a public utility, particularly when it 
comes to nuclear.
  Our particular subcommittee deals with all of these issues and I 
think that when we start talking about a difference and a different 
type of law that they would have to follow or rule that they have to 
follow, fine. Now if there is something out there that is unfunded as 
far as the safety or the construction or the operation of a particular 
power plant, then the Federal Government certainly should be involved 
in the funding of that particular mandate. But I think this goes along 
the same way as the Clean Air Act, the airport safety, and everything 
else, that if indeed it is unfunded, it should be funded by the Federal 
Government. When it comes to nuclear power facilities, they should all 
be treated the same. We should look at public and private the same for 
the safety of the people in our country who live around these.
  Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite 
number of words.
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Mrs. MEEK of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. I thank the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. 
Meek] for yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, let me respond to some of the concerns that were raised 
by the other side of the aisle. One, and I understand that they say 
that the NRC is not included, but it is. The point of order on this 
floor still applies to the NRC or to the Department of Energy.
  Also if we are going to regulate nuclear energy and the disparity to 
my colleague from Colorado is that we have local agencies, local units 
of governments, the city of Austin. Some of them wish they did not own 
portions of nuclear power plants now, but they do. And how are they 
going to be treated when the managing partner is a private investor-
owned utility that would have to be paying part of a mandate if it is 
not included?
  That is the problem with the bill. I think the bill in the definition 
section even though it does pull out independent agency, the point of 
order still lies here on the floor and that is the concern. It could 
slow up responsiveness by this Congress to a nuclear disaster, whether 
it be Chernobyl or Three Mile Island or whether it be something in the 
future that we on this floor may not know tonight.

                              {time}  1920

  It affects not only this amendment, but it affects airport security 
mentioned in earlier testimony. It mentioned even the Clean Air Act, 
because even though we all may have questions about the Clean Air Act, 
particularly those of us in Texas about the emissions, we still know 
that we have an ability to deal with that through the EPA, as some of 
us did last week from the State of Texas. But a point of order still 
applies on this no matter what this bill says on the floor.
  Again, expanded even more, even though NRC may be an independent 
agency, and it is under the definitions, but the Department of Energy 
also has input into and has regulations on disposal of nuclear waste, 
and they are.
  Granted, I want them all to come under the provisions of the bill. 
Most of the time they do. In fact, I do not know of a case where they 
have not consulted with local units of government that are impacted, 
and that is great, and that is why I support generally the bill.
  [[Page H516]] But I also know we have to look into the future and say 
there are some exceptions that need to be made, and we are talking 
about nuclear waste, nuclear power, because again we have not only a 
national track record but an international track record to know that 
when we need to respond, we do not need to throw any other roadblocks 
in the way.
  Mr. SCHAEFER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Mrs. MEEK of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. SCHAEFER. Mr. Chairman, I know the gentleman understands the fact 
that the NRC has absolute authority over nuclear facilities, and the 
thing that I have been certainly concerned with is if an independent 
nuclear operation is moving in a different direction from which all 
others are, that if something did happen out there that there would be 
less response time, and that is the concern I have with the gentleman's 
amendment.
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. If the gentlewoman will continue to yield, 
my concern is that we are throwing up more roadblocks to respond and 
not listing them, and we may just have a difference of opinion on this, 
but I think when we require the NRC to go through it or the Department 
Energy or even on the floor of this Congress to have a separate point-
of-order vote against something, one Member can require it, and we are 
run by majority, as the gentleman well knows. But we could still slow 
up the responsiveness to a nuclear incident or nuclear accident.
  Mrs. MEEK of Florida. I commend the gentleman on his amendment.
  Mr. BROWN of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite 
number of words.
  (Mr. BROWN of California asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BROWN of California. Mr. Chairman, I think it is regrettable that 
we have to go through this extensive, long, drawn-out process of 
seeking to correct some of the problems in this bill. I will point out, 
as many others have, that we could have avoided this through a more 
careful process of hearings and more extended consideration in 
committee. That same point has been made by others.
  Most of us agree that some unfunded mandates can be bad, can 
adversely impact State and local governments, and can be difficult to 
defend on rational grounds. Most of us would like to correct that 
situation to the fullest extent possible. But the question, is how do 
we go about that process of correcting it?
  The bill before us, H.R. 5, proposes a draconian solution by making 
all mandates more difficult and in many cases impossible, even when 
they have an obvious value to the public welfare and to the quality of 
life in this country.
  While I am supportive of reasonable efforts to correct the problems 
of unfunded mandates, the bill before us does not meet that goal, and, 
as I said, this is reflected in the large number of the amendments 
proposing reasonable improvements to the bill.
  One of these is the amendments that we have before us by the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Gene Green]. I commend him for offering this 
amendment.
  There are many reasons why the nuclear industry should not be within 
the purview of this bill, including the reasons that it is going to be 
next to impossible for the Congress or the OMB to estimate either the 
cost or the benefits of regulation of the nuclear industry.
  Literally thousands of man-years have been spent trying to evaluate 
the possibility of an accident, for example, and that is a key 
consideration in determining whether or not to regulate. If there is a 
possibility that some practice or some activity in the nuclear industry 
is going to cause serious problems, we need to know how serious, what 
is that possibility, and frankly, we are not in a position to provide 
that information with any degree of accuracy.
  I doubt very seriously if most of the Members of Congress are going 
to be able to actually understand what the possibilities of serious 
accidents are and what the importance of correcting that accident
 through a proper regulatory measure are. I know how we have acted in 
the past. We have tended to use the best judgment that was available 
from experts who appeared before our committees and gave us that 
information, and then we have distilled that and provided the necessary 
authority to the NRC to take the actions that it would require.

  I do not think that this bill represents any improvement on the 
processes we have been following. My guess is we should not have put it 
into the bill in the first place.
  So I urge support for the amendment offered by the gentleman from 
Texas [Mr. Gene Green] largely because I am so uncertain about the 
range of its implications.
  I might indicate there is a difference here on the floor of whether 
even the NRC is included within the purview of this bill. That is 
certainly one of the simpler things that should have been explored 
before the bill was bought to the floor, so we could get a definitive 
answer on that question.
  I am also uncertain of the range of questions that the regulatory 
review and point-of-order procedures included in H.R. 5 will have on 
our ability to deal with legislative regulatory issues in the nuclear 
industry. H.R. 5 is not the appropriate legislative vehicle to cope 
with issues of this sort.
  I urge the adoption of the Green amendment.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words, and I rise in opposition to the amendment.
  Quickly, to clarify points made by the gentleman from California and 
respond to the gentleman from Texas on the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission again, it says it will be very difficult to mandate in the 
future. In fact, it says impossible in some cases. I do not know where 
that comes from.
  Again, this allows us to have a cost estimate, allows us to have a 
debate on the floor, a vote up or down. It will not be an impossible 
task simply to have a majority of this body simply consider whether the 
new mandates make sense.
  With regard to Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it is very clear under 
title II of the bill it is in fact an independent agency and thus is 
exempt. That is under title II of the bill. That point was made 
previously.
  With regard to the legislation itself and the existing exemptions, 
and this is in response to the gentleman from Texas's earlier concern 
about emergencies, there is a specific exemption for emergencies, and 
that is found in section 4.
  Finally, as the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Schaefer] said 
previously with regard to the NRC, they certainly currently have 
statutory authority to react to an emergency.
  So I think, Mr. Chairman, the points that have been raised, although 
they are important and that is a very important issue that has been 
addressed, I think this legislation is a measured approach. I say to 
the gentleman from California, it is not draconian. It does allow us to 
mandate in the future. We just have to be thoughtful about it.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendments offered by the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Gene Green].
  The question was taken; and the Chairman pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device and there were--ayes 162, 
noes 259, not voting 13, as follows:

                              [Roll No 26]

                               AYES--162

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Barcia
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Beilenson
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boucher
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Bryant (TX)
     Cardin
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Coleman
     Collins (IL)
     Collins (MI)
     Conyers
     Coyne
     Danner
     de la Garza
     DeFazio
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fawell
     Fazio
     Filner
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gibbons
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hastings (FL)
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Holden
     Hoyer
     Jackson-Lee
     Jacobs
     Jefferson
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnston
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kleczka
     Klink
     LaFalce
     Lantos
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Maloney
     Manton
     Markey
     [[Page H517]] Martinez
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy
     McDermott
     McHale
     McKinney
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Mfume
     Miller (CA)
     Mineta
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moran
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pastor
     Payne (NJ)
     Pelosi
     Pomeroy
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reed
     Reynolds
     Richardson
     Rivers
     Rose
     Roybal-Allard
     Sabo
     Sanders
     Sawyer
     Schroeder
     Schumer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Skaggs
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stokes
     Studds
     Stupak
     Taylor (MS)
     Tejeda
     Thompson
     Thornton
     Torres
     Torricelli
     Towns
     Traficant
     Tucker
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Ward
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Williams
     Wilson
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wyden
     Wynn
     Yates

                               NOES--259

     Allard
     Andrews
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baesler
     Baker (CA)
     Baker (LA)
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Bevill
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blute
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Brewster
     Browder
     Brownback
     Bryant (TN)
     Bunn
     Bunning
     Burr
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chapman
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Chrysler
     Clinger
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins (GA)
     Combest
     Condit
     Cooley
     Costello
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cremeans
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Davis
     Deal
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dornan
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fields (TX)
     Flanagan
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Franks (CT)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frisa
     Funderburk
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Geren
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Graham
     Greenwood
     Gunderson
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hamilton
     Hancock
     Hansen
     Harman
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Heineman
     Herger
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hoke
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kim
     King
     Kingston
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Laughlin
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Lightfoot
     Lincoln
     Linder
     Lipinski
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Longley
     Lucas
     Manzullo
     Martini
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     McNulty
     Metcalf
     Meyers
     Mica
     Molinari
     Montgomery
     Morella
     Myers
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Orton
     Packard
     Parker
     Paxon
     Payne (VA)
     Peterson (FL)
     Peterson (MN)
     Petri
     Pickett
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Poshard
     Pryce
     Quillen
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Riggs
     Roberts
     Roemer
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roth
     Roukema
     Royce
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer
     Schiff
     Seastrand
     Sensenbrenner
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stockman
     Stump
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tate
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thurman
     Tiahrt
     Torkildsen
     Upton
     Volkmer
     Vucanovich
     Waldholtz
     Walker
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Zeliff
     Zimmer

                             NOT VOTING--13

     Baldacci
     Bishop
     Burton
     Fields (LA)
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Luther
     Miller (FL)
     Moorhead
     Oxley
     Rush
     Slaughter
     Tauzin

                              {time}  1942

  The Clerk announced the following pair:
  On this vote:

       Ms. Slaughter for, with Mr. Miller of Florida against.

  Mrs. CHENOWETH changed her vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
  So the amendments were rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The CHAIRMAN. Are there further amendments to section 4?


                   amendments offered by mr. sanders

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendments Nos. 107 and 108.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendments.
  The text of the amendments is as follows:

       Amendments offered by Mr. Sanders:
       In section 4, strike ``or'' after the semicolon at the end 
     of paragraph (6), strike the period at the end of paragraph 
     (7) and insert ``; or'', and after paragraph (7) add the 
     following new paragraph:
       (8) establishes a minimum labor standard, including any 
     prohibition of child labor, establishment of a mimimum wage, 
     or establishment of minimum standards for occupational 
     safety.
       In section 301, in the proposed section 422 of the 
     Congressional Budget Act of 1974, strike ``or'' after the 
     semicolon at the end of paragraph (6), strike the period at 
     the end of paragraph (7) and insert ``; or'', and after 
     paragraph (7) add the following new paragraph:
       ``(8) establishes a minimum labor standard, including any 
     prohibition of child labor, establishment of a minimum wage, 
     or establishment of minimum standards for occupational 
     safety.

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that amendments 
Nos. 107 and 108 be considered en bloc.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Vermont?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment along with my 
colleagues, Mr. Clay from Missouri, and the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Becerra].
  Mr. Chairman, this amendment is simple and not controversial. It 
exempts Federal legislation that establishes minimum labor standards, 
including prohibition of child labor, establishment of a higher minimum 
wage, and establishment of minimum occupational safety standards. State 
and local governments are employers just like the private sector. So 
minimum labor standards are unfunded Federal mandates. This bill could 
have very serious consequences on the health, safety, and fair 
treatment of American workers.
  Mr. Chairman, in the 102d, 103d, and in this Congress, I have 
introduced bills that increase the minimum wage. They provide for a 
moderate increase from the current $4.25 to $5.50 an hour and index 
future increases to the annual cost of living.
  Mr. Chairman, today the minimum wage buys only 65 percent of what it 
did 10 years ago. At its current level, it is a hunger rate that 
results in full-time workers earning just $8,840 per year and falling 
well below the poverty level for a family of four. Any attempt to raise 
the minimum wage in this and future Congresses would be banned under 
this unfunded mandate legislation. This amendment protects hard-working 
Americans who deserve a livable wage.
                              {time}  1950

  Occupational safety and health standards that protect State and 
government employees, as well as private sector employees, are also 
considered as unfunded mandates that are banned by H.R. 5. This 
amendment would permit the establishment of minimum occupational safety 
and health standards that respond to newly discovered occupational 
hazards. Without this amendment, no minimum standard for indoor air 
quality relating to tobacco smoke, toxic dust, asbestos, radioactive 
and other cancer causing chemicals could be established for work areas. 
This amendment protects the safety of working America.
  Mr. Chairman, more than 50 years ago, at the urging of President 
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Congress established a basic minimum working 
age of 16 nationwide. This was done as a societal commitment that young 
Americans should be getting a good education in school rather than 
working in factories or sweatshops. Now the commercial exploitation of 
children in America is back with a vengeance in the 1990's, and this 
legislation would preclude the Congress from doing anything about it.
  Consider these alarming facts:
  Reported child labor violations are up more than 150 percent in the 
past decade,
  There are fewer than 40 Federal investigators and compliance officers 
to enforce child labor laws and 50 other fair labor standards 
nationwide,
  In the 1980's the average fine leveled on unscrupulous employers of 
minors who were killed on the job was all of $740.
  In short, the scourge of child labor is spreading all across America 
again. If this amendment is not approved, this legislation would 
hamstring the Congress from doing anything to extend 
[[Page H518]] fundamental protection to young Americans in the 
workplace at a time when many of them are struggling to strike a good 
balance between getting a good education and gainful employment.
  Mr. Chairman, every civil society on Earth has seen fit to extend 
fundamental rights and to establish minimum labor standards for working 
people. The United States and more than 160 other nations are legally 
obligated to adopt and enforce laws promoting respect for 
internationally recognized worker rights and labor standards. If this 
amendment does not pass, the United States would signal our wholesale 
retreat from fundamental worker rights and minimum international labor 
standards. It would be a serious scar on America's credibility if we do 
not set minimum Federal standards that affirm our commitment to treat 
American workers with the same fundamental dignity and respect that 
they deserve.
  There is another aspect of H.R. 5 that I believe is ambiguous. As 
costs increase, the cost of States and localities to meet the same 
standards also increase. Thus, if it costs States more money to enforce 
the same occupational safety standards----
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Sanders] 
has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Sanders was allowed to proceed for 1 
additional minute.)
  Mr. SANDERS. Thus, if it costs States more money to enforce the same 
occupational safety standard, there is arguably a new unfunded mandate 
that can be banned. I am seriously concerned that current minimum labor 
standards are in serious jeopardy.
  I offered this amendment during the committee markup. Many of my 
colleagues have voted against the adoption of the amendment, said that 
they did not want H.R. 5 to apply to minimum labor standards. They were 
in agreement. I find it disingenuous that these same colleagues claims 
to support my amendment, yet voted against it. Let us make it clear 
today that we value the safety and well-being of working Americans. I 
urge all Members to support this amendment.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I have to say once again the gentleman from Vermont, 
like other people, have offered amendments on the House floor, and the 
committee before him, have selected an important area of consideration. 
I would point out, first, however, that there is nothing in this bill 
that retroactively repeals any bill already enacted into law by 
Congress. This obviously would include present child labor laws. I 
think the meat of the amendment goes to the Occupational Safety and 
Health Administration, [OSHA] and future rulemaking that they might do 
or future legislation that Congress might make with respect to worker 
safety.
  Giving a personal note, Mr. Chairman, I understand the importance of 
worker safety, as we all do, but close up because I was an OSHA 
inspector for the Air National Guard. For 6 years of my more than 20-
year career in the New Mexico Air National Guard I was a ground safety 
officer, and among other duties with that responsibility was inspecting 
the facility for worker safety under the Air Force's version of OSHA. 
But I want to say that, although I understand the importance of labor 
standards and being concerned about worker safety, I have been seen and 
heard my share of horror stories. Business after business has come to 
me since I was elected to Congress with regulations imposed by the 
Occupational Safety and Health Administration which appear to be 
imposed without any regard to how practical they are, how needed they 
are, what their costs are, oftentimes apparently by people who have 
never worked in the workplace themselves and hardly have the 
qualifications to be imposing that on either State government and its 
employer or anyone else, and therefore, what this comes down to is 
there is simply no reason why the issue of worker safety should be 
exempt from the consideration of this bill.
  If the Congress upon due consideration, if this bill is enacted into 
law, decides that the cost of a particular new piece of legislation is 
warranted, and if Congress does not have the funds to pay for it, then 
by majority vote we can still enact it. Once again we are requiring 
accountability. We are not precluding any action on the part of the 
Congress.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman I am pleased to offer this amendment, along with my 
colleagues, the gentleman from Vermont and the gentleman from 
California.
  The sponsors of the bill acknowledge in section 4 that some matters 
are of such fundamental Federal interests that they should be exempt 
from the bill. In my view laws protecting the health, safety, and 
welfare of American workers belong in that category, as well as laws 
covering the minimum wage, the Family and Medical Leave Act, OSHA, and 
the Employee Polygraph Protection Act.
  H.R. 5 creates needless procedural hurdles to the ability of the 
Federal Government to regulate the conduct of State and local 
governments. There is no conceivable justification for treating State 
and local governments differently with respect to laws designated to 
protect our workers. Yet, if the proponents of this bill think that the 
Congress has not given due consideration to the impact of labor 
statutes on public employees, let me correct that faulty assumption.
  Mr. Chairman, I was a member of the Committee on Education and Labor 
when the Congress extended the Fair Labor Standards Act to State and 
local governments. I was actively involved in the enactment of the 
Family and Medical Leave Act and the Employee Polygraph Protection Act, 
and in every instance throughout the entire legislative process the 
views of public employees were fully considered by the Congress. We do 
not need the unfunded mandate bill to force us to continue careful 
consideration of the impact of our decisions.
  State and local public employees face the same pressures to provide 
for themselves and their families. The fact that one may work for a 
public employee does not lessen the need to earn a living wage. The 
public employee does not age differently than one in the private sector 
and should be accorded the same protection under the age discrimination 
law. Those working for a public employer are no more immune from 
occupational disease or accident than those who work for private 
employers and should be afforded the same protection under our worker 
safety laws. H.R. 5 could well force us to adopt inequitable workplace 
statutes.
  Mr. Chairman, the Congress does not enact labor statutes in order to 
impose costs upon employers. The Congress enacts labor statutes because 
it has determined that the need to protect the American workers is a 
matter of great national interest, and I urge my colleagues to support 
this amendment.

                              {time}  2000

  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Chairman, I rise to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I believe that my friends from Vermont and from 
Missouri and from California are very sincere in offering this 
amendment, and I think it is well-intentioned all the way around. But 
the fact of the matter is we once again have come to the point where we 
are imposing another mandate on State governments.
  Before I was elected to the Congress and I had the privilege of 
serving here, the only elected office I ever held was that of student 
council officer in high school. But the fact of the matter is, there 
are very many distinguished former State legislators who serve here. I 
look at my friend, the gentleman from California [Mr. Martinez], who 
had a distinguished career as a member of the California Legislature, 
and I have to say as I look at this amendment, we were basically saying 
to legislatures that you cannot make this kind of decision.
  Well, on the issue of labor and minimum wage standards, 36 States 
have minimum wage laws which have a rate that is equal to or higher 
than the Federal minimum wage standard.
  I happen to be one who has a great deal of confidence in those State 
legislatures. My State legislature out in California right now is going 
through more than its share of problems, but, nevertheless, I do 
believe very sincerely that those States should have the opportunity 
and really the power to make these kinds of decisions.

[[Page H519]]

  So while I congratulate my friends for offering this amendment, I 
believe that it once again moves in a very, very bad direction, 
jeopardizing the rights of States. For that reason I am opposed to it.
  Mr. MARTINEZ. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DREIER. I am very happy to yield to my friend from Monterey Park.
  Mr. MARTINEZ. Mr. Chairman, as my colleague from California knows, I 
served on the local level in the State legislature, but I also served 
as a council member and mayor for the city of Monterey Park.
  Now, let me tell you what happens with us and our budgets as a local 
elected official when we try to develop our priorities and how we are 
going to serve our constituents. Let me tell you something: There are 
certain things we have a responsibility to, but we will ignore them 
because we feel that the higher priorities for that money are what is 
going to make our constituents happy to get us elected. All right, that 
is a simple fact of life at every level of government.
  Mr. DREIER. Not here.
  Mr. MARTINEZ. So what we are doing here, even here we are gaining 
votes on many of the actions we take. But even so, somebody has to 
determine, and I think it is the Federal Government's responsibility, 
the responsibilities that we have in regard to civil rights or in fact 
to the point where people, their rights are being violated and they are 
being treated in an abusive way.
  Sometimes it is easier for us to make a decision because we are 
farther removed than those local elected officials are, and we have to 
live up to that responsibility.
  I would say to my friend that there are certain things that we in the 
Federal Government are going to have to mandate, but we do not 
necessarily have to provide the money for, because actually they are 
the responsibility of the local governments and the State governments.
  Mr. DREIER. If I could reclaim my time to respond to my friend, this 
legislation does not eliminate unfunded mandates. It simply creates a 
requirement that we be accountable for those decisions. I know my 
friend would be very supportive of that. We have to go on record here, 
rather than sneaking provisions that have been snuck in in the past 
into legislation, imposing unfunded mandates on State and local 
governments, we have to stand here and say yea or nay, which is I 
believe is what the American people want us to do.
  Mr. MARTINEZ. If the gentleman will yield further, let us say that we 
could agree that there are certain things that the Federal Government 
does mandate to local governments, that since it is their idea, they 
ought to pay for them. There comes a question of us being able to raise 
the taxes. Now, if you have the supermajority that everybody is talking 
about passing, it is going to be very difficult for us to raise the 
taxes for it. So we are not going to be able to.
  So when it comes to judging whether or not there is a cost involved, 
the idea of measuring the benefit versus the cost is going to be a very 
subjective thing, because there are people that do not see any value in 
a lot of things we do, like for example ombudsmen to take care of frail 
people and elderly people in nursing homes, and 20/20 just did an hour 
on that.
  But we are not going to be able to do that if we say we are going to 
have to raise the taxes. So we have to say that the State governments 
have that responsibility and have to do it.
  More than that, if we say that this is a Federal mandate, but you 
have to do it on the local basis, and we are going to say weigh the 
benefit in an objective way, not a subjective way, and I still maintain 
that will be done subjectively here, because in the first place the 
only reason you want an unfunded mandate law that says you have to 
weigh those benefits before you make that decision it is to be able to 
have some reason to deny. And that is the plain and simple truth.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier] 
has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Dreier was allowed to proceed for 1 
additional minute.)
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Chairman, I would simply respond to my friend by 
saying again that he had the privilege of serving as a city council 
member, a mayor of a great city in California, and as a member of the 
State legislature. The unfortunate thing for me is I, having not done 
that, I have so much confidence in your successors in those bodies that 
I believe we should give the right to make those decisions to them at 
the State and local level, and if we make the decision that they cannot 
handle it, we still can impose that unfunded mandate. We just have to 
be accountable in doing it.
  Mr. CLAY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DREIER. I yield to my friend, the gentleman from St. Louis.
  Mr. CLAY. Will the gentleman cite for the Record which bills we 
sneaked through here?
  Mr. DREIER. Well, sneaked through, I am thinking of a wide range of 
legislation in which, for example, the Clean Air Act----
  Mr. CLAY. We sneaked that through, sir?
  Mr. DREIER. I am talking about the unfunded mandate aspect.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier] 
has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Dreier was allowed to proceed for one-half 
additional minute.)
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask my friend from St. 
Louis if he knew that during this 5-year period that we would be 
imposing on States the responsibility of paying $3.6 billion to comply 
with the Clean Air Act? We did not know that. So all I am saying is 
that while many unfunded mandates have been included in legislation in 
the past, when I say ``snuck in,'' it meant that we have not been 
accountable for them because we have not been required to have an up or 
down vote on whether or not that mandate should be imposed. And that is 
what I meant by that.
  Mr. WYNN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  (Mr. WYNN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. WYNN. Mr. Chairman, I rise this evening in strong support of the 
amendment sponsored by the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Sanders]. I 
think this is an opportunity in which we in Congress define our role. 
Not too long ago we stood and raised our hands and took an oath, and 
the essence of that oath was that we would protect the national 
interests. That is the interests of all Americans. And I submit that in 
the areas of occupational safety, minimum wages, and, most importantly, 
child labor laws, that this is an appropriate area for national 
decisionmaking and that we have in fact an obligation to protect the 
Nation's best interests.
  Let me say, it was interesting listening to the discussion a few 
moments ago, that I too served in the State legislature for 10 years. 
And in the State legislature I was a strong advocate for limiting 
unfunded mandates. I support the concept today, but I feel strongly 
that the bill can be improved, and that is why I am supporting this 
amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, my colleagues on the other side have attempted to paint 
themselves as the advocates of the working class. Well, I will tell 
you, working class people are in trouble and the issue is wages. The 
bill in its current form makes this situation worse.
  The current minimum wage of $4.25 an hour has only increased $4 since 
its creation under the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. At this rate 
the average family of two is just above the poverty level at $8,840. 
This minimum wage only buys 65 percent of what it could buy 10 years 
ago. The problems of homelessness, poverty, all go back to the question 
of wages.
  I think when I listen to some of the opponents of this amendment that 
they would have us resort to the levels of under developed countries 
and eliminate all wage standards.
  It was interesting, Mr. Chairman, in a recent show the question of 
the minimum wage was discussed. Opponents of the increase in the 
minimum wage said this would cause us to cut jobs. Then they talked to 
a seamstress who did piecework and asked her, you are a minimum wage 
worker, and if they increase the minimum wage, could this 
[[Page H520]] cost you a job? You know what she said? She was a mother 
with children. She said I will take my chances with the increase in the 
minimum wage. I think there are jobs out here, but I need a decent 
wage.
  So we at the Federal level have a responsibility to respond to that 
seamstress. If we take on that responsibility, we should not have our 
intentions abrogated or intercepted by virtue of this bill.
  I think it is very important, therefore, Mr. Chairman, that we 
support the gentleman's amendment. Similarly in the area of child labor 
laws, we got into the business of child labor laws about 50 years ago 
when someone said, you know, it might make sense for us to impose some 
national standards on what age children should be allowed to work and 
under what conditions.

                              {time}  2010

  And I find it hard to believe that some of the Members in this 
Chamber would say we should turn back the clock 50 years and say the 
Federal Government has no role. Yes, as a State legislator, I, too, 
have a great deal of confidence in the judgment of State and local 
officials, but I feel when I stood up and took that oath, I said, I was 
going to look out for the national interest. I was going to make sure 
we had fair minimum standards for occupational safety and minimum wages 
and child labor laws, and I think, in order to keep my oath, I have to 
support this amendment. And I certainly urge my colleagues to do 
similarly.
  Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  (Mr. BECERRA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Chairman, I rise today as a cosponsor of this 
amendment with the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Sanders] and the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Clay] to urge its adoption. I think we all 
know that we have one of our jobs here to protect those of our workers 
in America who are out there producing for America.
  But let me focus my attention, if I may, on one particular aspect of 
our labor force. And that is our children, the most vulnerable group of 
people in our society that are out there sometimes working.
  As currently drafted, H.R. 5 would pull the rug out from under these 
members of our society that are not yet prepared to go on and become as 
productive and fully participatory in our society as we would like. 
This unfunded mandate bill makes no effort to preserve our children's 
future health and safety through child labor laws. Under H.R.5, any new 
child labor laws would be suspect.
  This amendment that we are proposing here today would simply exclude 
child labor laws from the effects of this unfunded mandates bill. 
Across the country exploitation of child labor is unfortunately making 
a vicious comeback. From New York to California, employers are breaking 
the law by hiring children who put in long hard hours and often work in 
dangerous conditions.
  In 1990, the Department of Labor detected over 42,000 child labor 
violations, an increase of over 340 percent since 1983. And that is 
just what was detected. Who knows how many child labor violations 
actually occurred during those years?
  Rising injuries, lack of labor law enforcement, rampant child labor 
law violations in agriculture and elsewhere all contribute, if 
anything, to the need for a renewed Federal attention to child labor.
  Let me give some quick examples: In Los Angeles, many children who 
should be in school are instead working in garment industry sweatshops 
that are dirty, crowded and often contain hazards like locked fire 
doors. In California and Texas, young children work beside their 
parents for up to 12 hours a day as migrant farmers. Augustino Nieves, 
at age 13, was picking olives and strawberries in California. He missed 
months of school that particular year, working from 6:30 a.m. until 8 
p.m. with a 20-minute lunch break, 6 days a week at less than minimum 
wage.
  This is not an anomaly. It happens all the time across the country.
  Another situation that is becoming more common is the hiring of 
children for candy selling scams. Candy sellers hire children, 
sometimes as young as 7 years of age. They pile them into a van; then 
they drop them off in unfamiliar neighborhoods to go door to door. 
These children sell their candy for $5 and usually they get to keep 
about a dollar. Brandy, a girl who started selling candy at age 11, 
said, ``On a good night, I could sell 10 boxes. Sometimes the kids 
drank in the van or used drugs. One time the driver left a boy in 
Napa,'' that is in California, ``and he had to walk 15 miles home at 
night. Another night I waited for 2 hours on the corner to get picked 
up.''
  This is frankly embarrassing. It is disgraceful that in the United 
States of America, the model for developing countries, we have kids who 
should be on the playgrounds but who are instead waiting on the corners 
of some strange street for a stranger to remember to pick them up and 
take them home.
  Since 1990, several States have updated their child labor laws, 
making significant advances in protecting minors. Unfortunately, the 
vast majority of States have not updated their laws in close to 50 and, 
in some cases, 80 years. It seems ironic that H.R. 5 would stymie 
Federal regulation of child labor laws, which were originally requested 
by the States themselves.
  Walter Trattner wrote, in 1933, in his reform-oriented study called 
Crusade for Children.

       Sweatshops and fly-by-night plants were exploiting children 
     for little or no pay, moving at will across State lines to 
     take advantage of laws of nearby States. The individual 
     States were unable to halt these abuses which had far-
     reaching effects, including the complete breakdown of wage 
     scales.

  Trattner then concludes by saying the following: ``Everywhere people 
were looking to Washington for help and direction.''
  The massive illegal employment of children damages the United States 
in two major ways: First, it has a negative impact on the education and 
thus the future of our young people. Who are they but the Nation's 
future work force. And we should be doing what we can in this 
particular work force that we will be counting on so tremendously to be 
able to say that they will get educated. And second, this massive 
illegal employment has as a result, in many cases, the death and 
serious injury of many young workers.
  According to the Children's Defense Fund, young people who work more 
than 20 hours a week have diminished investment in school.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from California [Mr. Becerra] 
has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Becerra was allowed to proceed for 1 
additional minute.)
  Mr. BECERRA. According to, as I was saying, the Children's Defense 
Fund, young people who work for more than 20 hours a week have 
diminished investment in school. They are more likely to be delinquent 
in school and are more likely to use drugs. Over one-third of working 
adolescents in a study said they took easier classes in order to manage 
their school work while they were employed.
  In a hearing before the Committee on Government Relations or 
Government Operations last session, real life horror stories were 
relayed by the victims or survivors of accidents which occurred as a 
result of child labor violations, whether it was a pizza delivery young 
man who ends up dying because he is trying to drive around and he is 
lucky enough to have a license or unlucky enough to his life or whether 
we are talking about the boy who lost his leg because it was torn off 
by a dryer which did not have a safety lid, in which case the company 
paid a $400 fine, we find that there are violations that are occurring.
  We must change this. The States have asked us to do this, and what we 
should do today is understand that in unfunded mandate legislation, we 
should not abandon our children.
  Mr. FOX. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I want to make it clear in this body tonight that there 
are 170 unfunded mandates over the last 5 years, and this is according 
to the President's National Performance Review.
  As a former State representative for 7 years and a county 
commissioner for 3 years, I can tell Members that they 
[[Page H521]] are looking to us for assistance in not sending more 
unfunded mandates.
  The fact of the matter is, every Member of this Congress wants to 
make sure we have safe child labor laws. We have safe labor laws on the 
books now. This is only prospective in nature. We need to make sure 
that everyone who is voting on this will realize that section 4 of the 
bill does not in fact provide for emergency assistance relief and any 
other kind of presidential emergency legislation, should that be 
necessary. But we cannot have another vote for another unfunded mandate 
when in fact this matter should be handled separately. And the 
legislation that we have here today that is going to protect America so 
we know that we have what the costs are upfront. And by making sure we 
have this bill passed we will know up front at any time in the future 
what the costs will be.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FOX. I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted, since I did not want 5 
minutes, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I just want to rise and say that one of the things what has been 
fascinating about this debate is that we have learned a lot, I think, 
from each other during the course of the days that we have had what is 
truly an open rule. It is the first time in my time in Congress where 
we have actually had a give and take and a dialog between and among 
Members.
  I just want to say to my colleagues that as someone who has a record 
of supporting environmental laws and health laws and safety laws and 
labor laws, including my intention, if it is a reasonable increase in 
minimum wage, to support the President, if he requests a rise in the 
minimum wage, if it is logical and meaningful.
  I just make a point to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, 
this mandate bill that was designed really by Members on both sides of 
the aisle, allows us the opportunity to have the full kind of debate we 
are having right now.

                              {time}  2020

  If a minimum wage is desired by more than a majority of the Members 
of Congress, or OSHA safety laws, we simply can override the point of 
order by a simple majority.
  It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that some of the dialog we have been 
having is a dialog that would legitimately happen when those particular 
bills come before us. However, at least then we know the cost of the 
legislation if we do not want to fund them.
  I thank my colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox], for 
yielding to me, but I also oppose this amendment. This amendment, like 
any other amendment that has been offered, would really kind of gut the 
concept of the bill. If we have a mandate bill, a simple majority can 
override the mandate requirement point of order.
  Mr. VENTO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FOX. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.
  Mr. VENTO. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, I would like to respond to the gentleman from 
Connecticut [Mr. Shays], because repeatedly this has been said this is 
prospective in nature. I think that is not with regard to 
reauthorization, which obviously could affect many laws that we have 
that have a term in terms of time.
  However, in addition to that, on page 18 of the bill, and the 
gentleman is very familiar with it, this statement to accompany 
significant regulatory actions, here it goes through 13 separate steps. 
It says ``Any final rule that indicates any Federal mandate that may 
result in expenditures of States'', and here we are dealing with the 
rules that are promulgated by the agencies, ``any rule that has an 
intergovernmental nature or any rule this has an effect of having 
$100,000.''
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FOX. I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, it is just, in that instance, an assessment 
of cost. That is the point.
  Mr. VENTO. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I 
would suggest that he look at this, and this section, section 202, is 
not prospective in nature. It is retroactive. It affects any new rule 
that is promulgated that deals with the types of labor law problems we 
are talking about here.
  We are talking about any reauthorization. Therefore, at the very 
least I think this is what concerns many of the Members here. We are 
really putting in place a vehicle that we do not know how it will work.
  Mr. FOX. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I yield further to the 
gentleman from Connecticut.
  Mr. VENTO. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I 
just want to finish my statement.
  Mr. FOX. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I yield further to the 
gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays].
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, we are new at this. We are learning the 
process.
  Mr. VENTO. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman operating in good 
will, if he will continue to yield to me, just to finish my sentence.
  Mr. FOX. I have lots of good will, Mr. Chairman, but I want to make 
sure that my colleague, the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays], 
could finish his thought.
  I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.
  Mr. VENTO. I think this is not prospective. It is very significant. 
It is a vehicle we have not tried. It is untried. There are 13 separate 
steps here. Some are questions like how many angels can dance on the 
head of a pin.
  I think as we look at this, they are much more complicated. The whole 
vehicle has never been tried. Show me an example.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox] 
has expired.
  (On request of Mr. Vento and by unanimous consent, Mr. Fox was 
allowed to proceed for 1 additional minute.)
  Mr. FOX. The fact of the matter, what people of America want us to do 
is, if we are going to pay for an additional item, we want to have it 
voted up or down in this Chamber. This bill allows us to do that. The 
fact is that we need to pass H.R. 5.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, if it is the objective of the gentleman from 
Connecticut [Mr. Shays] to know the cost of the legislation, and not 
have any unintended effects, I believe he will have an opportunity 
later during the consideration of this bill to vote on the Moran bill 
which passed out of committee in the last Congress, which in fact does 
that without complications. It will be offered as a substitute.
  Another gentleman rose earlier, Mr. Chairman, to talk about his 
experience in local government. I was a county commissioner in the 
early 1980's. There are a couple of ways to put burdens on local 
government.
  One is unfunded mandates, and I believe we should address that 
problem. The second is to jerk funds out from underneath counties and 
local governments, which was done by President Reagan and the Congress 
when they killed revenue sharing and used the money for Star Wars.
  We have to look out for both of those things. We have to get our 
priorities straight around here. Where is the money better spent?
  Mr. Chairman, beyond that, during this last week I have heard a lot 
said about book deals here on the floor. However, if we fail to pass 
this amendment, Mr. Chairman, we are taking a page out of another book, 
a book by Dickens. We will be turning back the clock to an earlier and 
dark time when children were exploited and oppressed for their labor.
  I know it is certainly not and could not be the objective of the 
authors of this bill to turn back the laws to the days of abuse of 
child labor or the days of Sinclair Lewis and The Jungle, with unsafe 
and unsanitary workplaces, or finally to prevent the imposition of a 
Federal minimum wage, where the various States, if we saw this new 
vision, could perhaps engage in a bidding war. Perhaps we could drive 
down wages to the level of Mexico, and then we would no longer have to 
fear the loss of our jobs under the NAFTA agreement.
  Child labor, unsafe and unsantiary workplaces, sweatshops, 
subpoverty 
[[Page H522]] wages, those certainly could not be the objectives of the 
authors of this bill. I would urge them, Mr. Chairman, since that is 
not their objective, to adopt this amendment.
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, our Democrat friends seem to have ignored one of the 
major factors that they have introduced into labor law in this Congress 
in the last four years. It is called an earned income tax credit. It 
actually was invented by our friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. 
Petri], but they thought it was such a great idea that in this last 
session of Congress we put in the earned income tax credit.
  The nice part about the earned income tax credit is the Federal 
Government pays the cost. If we take the minimum wage today and add to 
it what could be the additional income that the people at the bottom of 
the wage scale get, there is $1.21 an hour that people could add to the 
minimum wage right now because of the beneficence of this Congress, the 
Democrats and Republicans.
  If they want to continue this and they want to help out local 
government without mandates, all they have to do is increase the earned 
income tax credit. The great part about that is the local government 
does not pay it, the State government does not pay it, the Federal 
Government pays it in an earned income tax credit.
  This is a wonderful idea they have invented, and all of a sudden now 
the minimum wage has become the great wonderful thing. It does not get 
the aid to the people that need it, Mr. Chairman. The majority of 
people that earn the minimum wage are not poor people, they are a bunch 
of young kids working and getting into the whole labor market.
  Mr. Chairman, when we increase the minimum wage, we increase the 
level of the beginning. The people that are really hurt there are 
people that are looking for jobs, the ones that cannot cut it anyhow. 
Why not put in the earned income tax credit?
  The major idea is, the earned income tax credit is something that has 
been invented. It is a good idea and does a great deal more.
  One other thing I would like to bring up: OSHA, which I am sure has 
been discussed already, OSHA, which is administered by 23 States at the 
present time on a voluntary effort on their part, has nothing to do 
with this bill at all. They have already voluntarily accepted OSHA, and 
nothing happens in this bill that is going to change that, unless the 
Federal Government forces some sort of new regulation and they give 
over $500 million more to bring that about. OSHA is safe. The earned 
income tax credit solves the problem they are speaking about.
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite 
number of words.
  Mr. Chairman, I appreciate my colleague, the gentleman from North 
Carolina [Mr. Ballenger], bringing up the earned income tax credit. 
Last session of Congress not one Republican Member voted for that 
earned income tax credit. To take credit for it tonight, maybe it was 
their idea, but to put it into existence, the people on this side of 
the aisle did that. That is why minimum wage is so important.
  I appreciate my colleagues, the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Sanders], 
the chairman of the EEOC Committee, and my ranking member, introducing 
this amendment.
  The case for minimum wage, and we hear that we are not talking about 
issues tonight, we are talking about unfunded mandates, but we are 
talking about issues, because to deal with safe drinking water, to deal 
with nuclear regulatory issues, to deal with minimum wage, we are 
putting up the roadblocks tonight to deal with those issues. To say we 
are not doing it, Members are casting aspersions and making the 
American people not realize what has actually happened. That is why 
this amendment is so important.
  The case for minimum wage needs to be made tonight and hopefully, 
when we get a bill, here on the floor. We cannot raise a family on 
minimum wage, even with the earned income tax credit.
  Many people in my district are required to live on that. At $4.25 an 
hour as a single person they make $8,840. It is barely above the 
poverty line for individuals. That is $7,360. If they have one child, 
the poverty line is $9,840. That puts them below the poverty level, 
even at minimum wage.
                              {time}  2030

  The purchasing power of the minimum wage measured in constant dollars 
is about the same as it was in the 1950's. Teenagers and young adults 
make up about half the minimum wage population. The gentleman from 
North Carolina [Mr. Ballenger] was correct, according to the Economic 
Policy Institute. But the other half of hardworking adults, working 
Americans who need to have that increase, if we throw up another 
roadblock tonight for public employees not be paid a higher minimum 
wage, then that is doing a disservice to those people.
  I also served many years in the Texas Legislature, 20 years in the 
legislature, so I know about unfunded mandates. I also know that in a 
minimum wage issue, it is a national issue and should not be dealt with 
on the State level.
  Why should we be excluded from this bill? We have been discussing 
raising the threshold for passing the income tax. This Congress 2 weeks 
ago and maybe this week will make it a three-fifths requirement to 
require an income tax increase. Particularly in 1993 we raised taxes on 
the 2 percent of the wealthiest income earners. Yet we are going to 
make it even harder to pass a minimum wage on the people who are the 
lowest hardworking workers?
  Why should we put procedural hurdles to raise the income of working 
Americans when we are putting a procedural hurdle to where it is harder 
to raise the taxes on the richest? We are protecting the people at one 
end of the earning scale but we are making it harder to help those at 
the other end.
  It was a few year ago when I made minimum wage and I was glad 
Congress raised it then from $1.25 an hour. I remember where I come 
from. I hope that a lot of Members of Congress remember where we come 
from and recognize that we do not need to throw additional hurdles, 
particularly for public employees to make increase in minimum wage.
  Mr. VENTO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.
  Mr. VENTO. I want to commend the gentleman for his statement and the 
point about minimum wage. I want to commend my colleague from North 
Carolina for his statement about the earned income credit. I would like 
to have had more support 2 years ago when we passed it, but that is no 
excuse.
  We believe in the private enterprise system in providing some minimum 
opportunities for people to get adequate compensation. We should not 
have to unless there are unusual circumstances to rely on the Tax Code 
and the income transfers that go in that direction. In fact, we are 
going to be talking about those income transfers a little later this 
week. I though maybe some of our colleagues were anticipating that 
debate.
  The earned income tax credit is necessary, but it is limited in terms 
of what we can do. We want the private sector to pay adequate wages and 
compensation and benefits so that people can support their families.
  I support the gentleman's statement and his concern, he is doing it 
with great aplomb, and I credit him for it.
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. I thank the gentleman.
  Let me remind Members the earned income credit was a great bill and 
it passed in 1993. But that does not mean we should not also consider 
what we need to do with the minimum wage, and to separate out public 
employees, whether they work for cities, counties or States, to treat 
them separately from private individuals or private companies is wrong 
because they have to support families just like private employees have 
to.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I move today in support of the amendment of the 
gentleman from Vermont.
  All of us believe that we must find ways to ease the budget burden on 
States and municipalities. That is not, however, what we are really 
debating 
[[Page H523]] today. We are not deciding whether we will make a serious 
effort to get our budget under control and legislate more reasonably. 
We are deciding whether in a frantic, unreasonable rush to claim that 
we are not passing on costs to localities, whether the Congress of the 
United States will completely abandon its vital role in protecting 
American working people.
  A vote for H.R. 5 without this amendment is an unconditional 
surrender, an unconditional surrender of our obligation to ensure that 
American workers earn a decent wage and that they work in decent 
conditions.
  Is our drive to congratulate ourselves and pretend we are helping 
States and localities so great, so immense that we are willing to risk 
the safety of working people all across our Nation?
  Is our desire to take credit for so-called accountability so great 
that we are willing to risk child labor and minimum wage standards?
  If, Mr. Chairman, in this committee, in the People's House we will 
not stand up for American workers, stand up so that they are paid a 
decent salary, stand up so that their children will not be forced to 
work, stand up so that they can all work in safety, then, Mr. Chairman, 
who will stand up for the American working men and women?
  We all want to help States and localities. I want to help the city of 
Chicago. But we should not do it by risking the health, the safety, and 
the protection of American workers.
  This is not an abstract problem, Mr. Chairman. The dangers are real.
  In 1990, there was a 177 percent increase in child labor violations. 
If we pass this bill ignoring this important amendment, we will not be 
able to take steps to remedy this growing crisis.
  My friends, we do not have to say no to workers, especially on a day 
like today when we have seen tens of thousands of marchers for pro-
life. Is it not pro-life to guarantee that a mother can raise and feed 
and clothe and educate a child? Is it not pro-life that once that child 
is here with us, that we guarantee that that child is able to work 
under some reasonable conditions of safety and not at a young and 
tender age?
  Is it not pro-life, and I see my colleagues on the other side 
smiling. They deny a woman's right to choose and then say we will not 
protect the children once they are here with us. Is it not pro-life to 
guarantee that people can smell the air and drink decent water and that 
our environment is not contaminated? Is that not what life is really 
all about? That we can raise our children, educate them and live in 
peace.
  Mr. SHAYS. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Excuse me, I have not spoken on this House floor in 2 
years and I am going to speak today.
  It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that if we are truly going to be about 
life and the sanctity of life, it should be at all phases, at all steps 
along the way, not merely here on a debate. And it seems incredulous to 
me that we will pass a law that will make it more difficult to 
guarantee minimum wage and the same proponents will say to the richest, 
the wealthiest Americans here in the United States of America, we are 
going to give you a tax cut on your capital gains, on your investments, 
but we are not going to make a real investment in American men and 
women in this country by affording them a decent salary.
  Mr. Chairman, that is what this debate should be all about. We were 
sent here to do the people's work. I do not know, there may be young 
people, I see them, flipping hamburgers and trying to make a living in 
high school so they can help their parents and their economy of their 
household along. But I also see them early in the morning, Mr. 
Chairman, grown men and women working very hard.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  (At the request of Mr. Gene Green of Texas and by unanimous consent, 
Mr. Gutierrez was allowed to proceed for 1 additional minute.)
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Chairman, if we are going to guarantee, if we are 
going to talk about fairness in this the People's House, then we should 
not say that while we have a deficit here in this country, that while 
we have a looming deficit that is going to affect the children of this 
country, that is going to affect the families of this country, that the 
only tax cut that we can give is a capital gains tax cut; that the only 
way that we can ensure that men and women earn more money, lift 
themselves from poverty, is the earned income tax credit.
  Mr. Chairman, just to finish, we have been into striking words of 
Members when we do no like them here. We should probably have a new 
rule.
  When we use the word ``we'' as I heard it expressed by one of my 
colleagues from Texas on the other side of the aisle in reference to 
the earned income tax credit, when the ``we'' on that side of the 
aisle, not a single ``I'' on that side of the aisle contributed to the 
``we'' for the American men and women, I think that we should move to 
strike those kinds of words, also.
                              {time}  2040

  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, this amendment before us goes to the core of the proper 
role and responsibility of the Federal Government. Not that many years 
ago, industrial centers like New York City were notorious for 
sweatshops and deathtraps. Thousands of workers, many of them children, 
toiled before dangerous machinery and equipment for long hours, for 
little pay, and with few rests. Many were killed or injured. Those who 
complained were shown the door and tainted with a black mark that might 
prevent them from ever working again.
  This body eventually assumed its responsibility to protect citizens 
and residents and enacted landmark legislation--what many would now 
criticize as unfunded mandates. Many of the most extreme abuses were 
reversed with the Fair Labor Standards Act, the National Labor 
Relations Act, and OSHA.
  Things improved for working people. However, problems remain, and 
where there is abuse, there is a proper Federal rule. Indeed, many of 
the abuses that gave rise to our labor protection laws and regulations 
persist. The sweatshop, one of the most common symbols of abuse, 
persists in New York, Los Angeles, and elsewhere.
  In 1989, the GAO documented a steady rise in sweatshops, which they 
defined as business that regularly violate both safety or health and 
wage or child labor laws. Three-fourths of the Federal officials 
interviewed at that time said that sweatshops were a serious problem in 
at least one industry in their geographic area. They found too few 
inspectors and inadequate penalties.
  This past November, the GAO revisited the issue. They found that the 
sweatshop problem in the garment industry had not improved. In many 
cases it had worsened. It found deplorable working conditions when it 
accompanied Federal and State authorities on raids in New York and Los 
Angeles. It is estimated that there are between 2,000 and 2,500 illegal 
garment factories in my home city that operate outside of the law and 
its protections.
  Our labor standards are being circumvented at an alarming and rising 
rate. The solution may be tougher regulations, or improved legislation. 
Without this amendment and similar ones offered this evening, the 
Federal Government puts itself into a straightjacket. The cumbersome 
procedures and points of order erected by this bill slow this body's 
ability to act swiftly, decisively, and effectively. In this time of 
rising competition, child labor is growing, minimum wages and maximum 
hours are being ignored, and occupational safety and health corners are 
being cut. Now is not the time to cut back on our ability to maintain 
minimum workplace standards. I urge my colleagues to support this 
crucial amendment.
  Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. However, I am 
advised that we should never amend a bad bill, and tonight I feel like 
a legislative cop on the highway of unfunded mandates. And I am asking 
my colleagues to slow down, stop, look, analyze even before they vote 
on this important bill.
  The bill before Members is not, is not an unfunded mandates bill. It 
is a gridlock bill. It designs gridlock.
   [[Page H524]] I do not think there is a Governor in the United 
States that if they had this bill before them would sign it.
  Yes, there States and local governments want unfunded mandates 
legislation. But they do not want H.R. 5. California, the State I 
represent, has a constitutional requirement to fund unfunded mandates. 
The State has over 6,000 subunits of local government. Each keeps track 
of unfunded consequences of State action, and if it costs them money 
then the local government may make a claim for reimbursement. Unlike 
H.R. 5, the burden is not on the State legislatures to prove before 
they enact legislation that it will cost local governments money.
  The legislature's job is to make good law and to pay for its 
consequences. This bill puts all of the burden on Federal agencies and 
on partisan congressional staff to determine the costs before they are 
incurred.
  I would rather have cops on the beat, teachers in the classroom, 
nurses in the hospital determine the costs than people here in a 
partisan political arena.
  The intent of this bill is to stop Federal legislation, to prevent 
having an equal playing field, to allow each State to go in their own 
direction on the environment, on job safety, and on many other social 
issues.
  I ask the Governors of the States supporting this bill if they would 
sign such legislation in their own States. Look for example on page 18, 
line 9 which reads and I quote,

       Effects on the Private Sector.--Before establishing any 
     regulatory requirements, agencies shall prepare estimates, 
     based on available data, of the effect of Federal private 
     sector mandates on the national economy, including the effect 
     on productivity, economic growth, full employment, creation 
     of productive jobs, and international competitiveness of 
     United States goods and services.

  If that does not swell the size of the Federal bureaucracy, what 
will?
  Next time your Governors wonder why legislation enacted to help your 
State has not been implemented, it is because the studies of the 
regulations necessary to implement your legislation are tied up in 
trying to determine the effect of mandates on the national economy, on 
productivity, on economic growth, on full employment, on creation of 
productive jobs, and on international competitiveness of U.S. goods and 
services. Do not hold your breath while hired lawyers and economists 
dispute these issues over the draft of a simple regulation.
  Yes, my colleagues, we need unfunded mandates legislation, the same 
legislation that California and other States have adopted. But not H.R. 
5 as it is on the floor today.
  How do we put a price tag on saluting the flag, on the value of 
military music, on the cost of leaving a stream unpolluted? Our role in 
Congress is not only understanding the cost, but also explaining the 
benefits.
  Please, Mr. Chairman, do not turn this place into a Congress that 
knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number 
of words.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the pending amendment.
  It is interesting as we proceed to discuss many issues in this House, 
we talk about being family friendly, we talk about emphasizing the idea 
of allowing people to seek an opportunity. As we look to the future we 
realize that people are desperate for work, we realize as we talk about 
welfare reform that the cornerstone of the proposals is to put people 
to work.
  If we are to send people out into the work force and then disallow 
the safety in the workplace, we are then throwing the whole issue in 
support of family friendly, the encouragement of welfare reform, to put 
people to work, we are abandoning the tenets of this House and 
commitment to make sure they are safely provided for.
  I think as we go forward on unfunded mandates, many of us have 
different opinions. I come from local government and understand the 
burden that has been borne by cities and States alike. But I cannot 
offer and support welfare reform, encouraging people in to the 
workplace, realizing the children that are already in the workplace, 
and then take away the responsibility of a safe workplace.
  Mr. Chairman, I think it is very important that as we seek to be 
responsible in this House that although we share viewpoints on not 
burdening our respective jurisdictions, we cannot allow them to move 
away from the clarity of the importance of assuring when the American 
people go into the workplace that it is a safe place.

                             {time}   2050

  And certainly as it relates to children, we must understand that it 
is important for statements to be made that do not allow for 
sidestepping of responsibility for child labor laws.
  And so, Mr. Chairman, I think it is very important, as we look 
forward to resolving the unfunded-mandates issue in this House, that 
there are certain guidelines that must be kept and those guidelines 
must include the safety of our working men and women and certainly the 
protection of our children.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I know something about unfunded mandates 
and municipal government. I was the mayor of the largest city in the 
State of Vermont for 8 years.
  But I also know something about the responsibility of the Federal 
Government and the responsibility of the U.S. Congress to all the 
people in the United States.
  There may be some people in this Chamber and there may be State 
legislatures in America who are not concerned that we have millions of 
Americans working for starvation wages. There may be no concern on that 
area. But it does seem to me to be appropriate that here, in the U.S. 
Congress, we stand by boldly and say that if you are going to work in 
the United States of America, you should be working for a wage that can 
provide adequately for your family.
  A gentleman earlier talked about the earned-income tax credit. Well, 
you know what, I voted for that bill. But I will tell you something, I 
do not believe that the working people of America and the middle class 
through increased taxes should be subsidizing McDonald's and Burger 
King and other low-wage employers in America.
  If somebody is going to employ somebody, they should be paying a 
living wage and not a starvation wage, and this Congress should not put 
roadblocks in the way of those of us who want to raise the minimum wage 
to a living wage.
  Now, there may be some people here in Congress who are not concerned 
that in terms of worker safety we have one of the worst records in the 
industrialized world in terms of the number of accidents and the death 
that takes place for workers in America. There may be some mayors and 
State legislatures that are not concerned about that issue.
  But we are in the U.S. Congress, and our job is to make laws which 
protect all of the people in America, and I think we should make sure 
that we have the highest standards for worker safety in the world, and 
not put roadblocks in the way of those of us who want to protect worker 
safety.
  Several of my colleagues have already alluded to the fact that child 
labor exploitation is growing in America. This, colleagues, is not 1910 
or 1870. We are talking about 1995 and children being exploited all 
over America. Some of us want to protect those children.
  This issue, Mr. Chairman, really comes down to what those of us 
believe is the proper responsibility of the U.S. Government. We 
understand unfunded mandates. We are against unfunded mandates, but we 
are not going to take away the responsibility of this Chamber to 
protect those people who are hurting the most, those people who are the 
weakest, those people who are the most vulnerable.
  I urge support for this very important amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendments offered by the 
gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Sanders].
  The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes 
appeared to have it.
                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  [[Page H525]] A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 161, 
noes 263, not voting 10, as follows:
                              [Roll No 27]

                               AYES--161

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Baldacci
     Barcia
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Beilenson
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Bevill
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boucher
     Browder
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Bryant (TX)
     Cardin
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Coleman
     Collins (IL)
     Collins (MI)
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Danner
     de la Garza
     DeFazio
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Durbin
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fazio
     Filner
     Foglietta
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gibbons
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hastings (FL)
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Holden
     Hoyer
     Jackson-Lee
     Jacobs
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnston
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kleczka
     Klink
     LaFalce
     Lantos
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney
     Manton
     Markey
     Martinez
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy
     McDermott
     McHale
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Mfume
     Miller (CA)
     Mineta
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pastor
     Payne (NJ)
     Pelosi
     Pomeroy
     Poshard
     Rahall
     Reed
     Reynolds
     Richardson
     Rivers
     Rose
     Roybal-Allard
     Sabo
     Sanders
     Sawyer
     Schroeder
     Schumer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Skaggs
     Skelton
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stokes
     Studds
     Stupak
     Thompson
     Thornton
     Torres
     Torricelli
     Towns
     Traficant
     Tucker
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Volkmer
     Ward
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Williams
     Wilson
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wyden
     Wynn
     Yates

                               NOES--263

     Allard
     Andrews
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baesler
     Baker (CA)
     Baker (LA)
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blute
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Brewster
     Brownback
     Bryant (TN)
     Bunn
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chapman
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Chrysler
     Clinger
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins (GA)
     Combest
     Condit
     Cooley
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cremeans
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Davis
     Deal
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dornan
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Fields (TX)
     Flanagan
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Franks (CT)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frisa
     Funderburk
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Geren
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Greenwood
     Gunderson
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hamilton
     Hancock
     Hansen
     Harman
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Heineman
     Herger
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hoke
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kim
     King
     Kingston
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Laughlin
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Lightfoot
     Lincoln
     Linder
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Longley
     Lucas
     Manzullo
     Martini
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     Metcalf
     Meyers
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Minge
     Molinari
     Montgomery
     Moorhead
     Moran
     Morella
     Myers
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Ortiz
     Orton
     Oxley
     Packard
     Parker
     Paxon
     Payne (VA)
     Peterson (FL)
     Peterson (MN)
     Petri
     Pickett
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce
     Quillen
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Riggs
     Roberts
     Roemer
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roth
     Roukema
     Royce
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer
     Schiff
     Seastrand
     Sensenbrenner
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stockman
     Stump
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tate
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Tejeda
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thurman
     Tiahrt
     Torkildsen
     Upton
     Vucanovich
     Waldholtz
     Walker
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Zeliff
     Zimmer

                             NOT VOTING--10

     Bishop
     Fields (LA)
     Flake
     Graham
     Jefferson
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Rangel
     Rush
     Slaughter

                             {time}   2106

  Mr. DEUTSCH and Mr. SPRATT changed their vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
  So the amendments were rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The CHAIRMAN. Are there further amendments to section 4?


                    amendment offered by mr. spratt

  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:
  Amendment offered by Mr. Spratt:

       In section 4, strike ``or'' after the semicolon at the end 
     of paragraph (6), strike the period at the end of paragraph 
     (7) and insert ``; or'', and after paragraph (7) add the 
     following new paragraph:
       (8) regulates the generation, transportation, storage, or 
     disposal of toxic, hazardous, or radio-active substances.

  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I offer this as a perfecting amendment so 
that H.R. 5 will not apply to the regulation, to any regulation, with 
respect to the generation, transportation, storage or disposal of 
toxic, hazardous or radioactive substances.
  Mr. Chairman, 2 weeks ago some 1,800 containers of hazardous waste, 
waiting to be incinerated in my district, caught fire and burned out of 
control, burned so intensely that they virtually melted the metal 
building in which they were contained. This waste came to Rock Hill, 
South Carolina, from Fishkill, New York. Eighty to ninety percent of 
all the wastes that comes to this particular incinerator comes down the 
eastern seaboard or up the eastern seaboard from out of state to this 
location, and there is precious little South Carolina can do about 
regulating the inflow of that waste because virtually any regulation we 
try to impose pretty quickly runs into the interstate commerce clause 
or into Supreme Court decisions like New Jersey versus Philadelphia in 
a case called ``Don't Dump on Washington.''
  There is very little we can do, and so in South Carolina we have 
hazardous waste landfill, one of the largest in the Southeast, two 
substantial commercial incinerators, a medical waste incinerator and 
landfill, a low-level, or two low-level, nuclear waste disposal 
facilities--at one time we would take in half or more of this Nation's 
low-level nuclear wastes--and several solid waste disposal facilities 
where garbage from out of state comes to our State. Much of this waste 
comes from private business, but a good part of it comes from city, and 
county, and State owned hospitals, burnt oils from city transit 
authorities. PCBs from municipal electrical distribution operations, 
low-level wastes from State universities and hospitals, and there is 
very little, as I said, a State like mine, a waste importing State 
against its will, can do about all this waste except look to the 
Federal Government.
  Mr. Chairman, as I was saying, there is very little that a State like 
South Carolina can do about all this waste which comes from out of 
State except look to the Federal Government which has preemptive 
authority under the Constitution and the laws we have adopted, look to 
the Federal Government and hope that the Federal Government will be 
rigorous, and vigilant, and fair and firm, and now we have a bill which
 purports to help States, all States, but really breaks faith with 
States like mine because it sets up a double standard, and this 
amendment goes to that standard and goes to a fundamental flaw in this 
bill which has been raised by other amendments that we have already 
considered. It goes to two basic problems in this bill:

  First of all, many State and local governments, as I said, generate, 
transport and dispose of toxic waste, hazardous waste and radioactive 
substances. This amendment ensures that when Congress passes new laws 
that control the generation and disposal of hazardous, toxic and 
radioactive wastes, in the handling of these substances these laws will 
apply to the public and private sector alike equally, in the same 
[[Page H526]] manner to each. Without this amendment, Mr. Chairman, any 
bill in the future that steps up the regulation of these dangerous 
substances, many of which end up in States like mine, will be subject 
to a point of order unless, one, we exempted State and local 
government; or, two, we paid out of the Federal Treasury for the cost 
of complying with these new and additional regulatory mandates.
  To my way of thinking, either option has problems. It would be a 
mistake to pass laws governing radioactive waste, in my opinion, but to 
exempt State and local governments. We would be saying it is all right 
to expose the public to dangers from radioactive wastes so long as the 
waste is publicly generated, and I think it would be a mistake, too, to 
give publicly owned facilities that generate the disposal of this type 
of waste a clear advantage over the private sector, which would be 
given if we allowed them to operate without these restrictions.
  So, this simply tries to level the playing field. It says there are 
some matters, some dangers such as the disposal and handling of toxic 
and nuclear wastes, where State and local governments should be held to 
the same strict standards as anybody else who undertakes to operate in 
this area.
  I urge my colleagues to recognize that this is not a weakened 
amendment. This is a perfecting amendment. It goes to a fundamental 
problem in this bill.
  Join me in supporting this amendment to protect the public against 
the risk of hazardous, toxic and radioactive wastes regardless of 
whether they are generated and disposed of by public or private 
facilities.
  Mr. CLINGER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment 
offered by the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt] and would be 
very brief in my opposition.
  Mr. Chairman, I am sympathetic to the problem the gentleman from 
South Carolina raises, and it is one we have discussed with him, but 
again this is an issue, an exemption, and the question we have to ask 
ourselves is:
  Are any of the programs or statutes that have been suggested should 
be exempt from the provision of this law, do they rise to the level 
that there should not even be any discussion of the costs or the 
implications for State and local government?
                              {time}  2120

  I would point out that we have now dealt with about eight out of 50 
proposed exemptions to the H.R. 5, eight out of 50. Every Member I 
think who has spoken on this matter, particularly those on the other 
side who have been introducing the amendments requesting exemptions, 
every Member has indicated they support unfunded mandates, that they 
support eliminating the opportunity for the Federal Government to pass 
through these things, and are in support of their local and State 
governments in opposition to unfunded mandates. Yet they are against 
them except for the program which they ask to be made exempt.
  If we were to exempt all of the 50 or so that have been suggested 
here to rise to a level where they should not be allowed to even debate 
the cost that they would impose, we would basically have gutted the 
bill.
  So I think, Mr. Chairman, the question is, is any program that has 
been suggested here so sacrosanct, so immune from consideration, so far 
above the pale, that we cannot even discuss or consider what the cost 
of that program will be, what the cost will be imposed into State and 
local governments?
  I would stress again this is a bill that is only prospective in its 
operation. It will not in any way affect reauthorizations of existing 
programs, unless there are additional added mandates included in it, 
and it does not preclude us, after due consideration and debate, it 
would not preclude us from passing through that mandate without 
providing the funds. It just requires us to consider carefully what we 
are doing and making sure we are not going to impose unnecessary 
burdens on State and local governments.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CLINGER. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, in the bill itself you have some 
exemptions. The bill says if it is a statutory right that prohibits 
discrimination, we will not look at the cost of that. That, of course, 
involves civil rights laws and the Americans With Disabilities Act, 
which do involve costs.
  The bill provides an exception where it is emergency assistance or 
relief at the request of any State or local government, or necessary 
for the national security or the ratification of implementation of 
international treaty obligations.
  Why should an international treaty obligation not even be considered 
for the costs involved, but yet some of these interstate environmental 
problems, where the Federal Government has a clear responsibility, 
should be blocked by this legislation?
  Mr. CLINGER. Reclaiming my time, we did indeed as the gentleman 
indicated provide certain exceptions. One very important one is those 
matters that do affect civil rights. I think the gentleman would agree 
that that has a constitutional implication that we should not be 
tampering with.
  I think the reason for the exemption in terms of treaty obligations 
was that we would be extending perhaps the authority of this body to 
affect international authorities, and that would be an exemption we 
should not engage in.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, there are limits in this bill on the application of the 
legislation. I do not want to disagree with them. I think there are 
reasons why we ought to have exceptions for the application of the 
bill, enforcing constitutional rights of individuals, enforcing 
statutory rights that prohibit against discrimination, and requiring 
compliance with accounting and auditing procedures with respect to 
grants or other money or property provided by the Federal Government. 
Now, that last one is sort of interesting. I could see the rationale 
for it. There are rationales for all of this.
  But the amendment before us seems to me to have a very compelling 
rationale. If we are talking about an interstate problem of toxic 
pollution, why should a State be forced to look at the prospect of 
either not having the regulation in effect because it is an interstate 
problem, or that the Federal Government should have to pay for it? We 
are really talking about situations where there is a publicly run 
business versus a privately owned business. They ought to be treated 
the same. We ought not to say because it is publicly owned we are going 
to consider it something where the Government would have to and 
taxpayers would have to pay the costs.
  I think that the argument by the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. 
Spratt] was a compelling one. I think this too ought to be made an 
exemption, along with others in the bill, and I rise in support of the 
amendment.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WAXMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I think it is important to clarify a 
statement made by the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt], and 
also by the gentleman from California [Mr. Waxman] with regard to the 
options we would be facing. The two options that the gentleman states 
and the option Mr. Spratt stated, were, No. 1, to fully fund the 
mandate, and, No. 2, not to impose the mandate.
  Again, to be very clear, there is also a third option. The third 
option is for Congress to exercise its will on an issue of importance 
to the Nation, and that is to go ahead and impose the mandate. I think 
sometimes I feel as though we are not talking about the same 
legislation. But it is very clear in this bill, and I think it is very 
important in the context of Mr. Spratt's amendment.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, if I might respond, the 
gentleman is absolutely correct. There is the option of waiving the 
point of order and requiring a vote on the House floor. But that could 
have been the same application for the exception in section 4 on page 4 
of the legislation. We could have said that if it requires compliance 
with accounting and auditing procedures with respect to grants or other 
money or property provided by the Federal Government, that we could get 
the analysis, have a vote and a point of order, that it would have to 
be overcome by an affirmative 
[[Page H527]] vote of the majority. The same for emergency assistance 
or relief or national security or emergency legislation.
  I do not disagree with the exceptions that are in the legislation. 
But it seems to me that since we have a publicly owned enterprise 
competing against a privately owned enterprise, unless we apply the 
same rules to both, we may well find ourselves in the situation where 
we might well vote to overcome the point of order, but we may not. In 
that case, a privately owned toxic waste facility would be treated much 
more harshly in terms of regulations than a publicly owned one.
  Mr. PORTMAN. If the gentleman will yield further, not only will 
Congress have that issue before it and Congress will be able to debate 
that issue, much as we have debated the issues tonight, but the 
committees under this legislation are specifically required to consider 
the public-private ramifications of any new mandate legislation that 
comes through the process. In many respects, I would say to the 
gentleman from California, this bill strengthens existing law with 
regard to that public-private distinction.
  Mr. WAXMAN. It does not prohibit existing law. It strengthens what 
would otherwise be in the legislation itself.
  Mr. PORTMAN. If the gentleman would yield further, I would say it 
strengthens existing law to the extent that is not currently considered 
by the authorizing committees.
  Mr. WAXMAN. It without this legislation becoming law does not make a 
distinction between privately and publicly owned. If there is a 
regulation to protect the consumers or environment or to protect public 
health, it would apply equally. There is no reason why we ought to even 
put them in a position where one ought to be regulated and the other 
not, if the reasoning for the regulation is sound.
  Mr. PORTMAN. If the gentleman will continue to yield, I would say 
currently when an authorizing committee such as your own might consider 
new legislation, there is no requirement to consider the very issue 
that the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt] raises. Where this 
bill improves this process is that it specifically requires the 
committees for the first time to consider in passing new mandates the 
issue of the competition between the public and the private sector.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from California [Mr. Waxman] 
has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Waxman was allowed to proceed for 1 
additional minute.)
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman. I would indicate this is not an improvement 
to have a committee have to consider public versus private owned 
operations to see whether they ought to be put in the same competitive 
situation. Except for this legislation, we would have never tried to 
put one against another. Specifically I cannot imagine that we would 
want to aid a publicly owned business, so-to-speak, in competition with 
a privately owned one. I do not think this legislation is an 
improvement in that regard. The improvement would be if we exempted 
these very clear Federal responsibilities of dealing with interstate 
environmental problems, especially one as serious as hazardous nuclear 
waste disposal.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt].
  The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes 
appeared to have it.


                             recorded vote

  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 161, 
noes 263, not voting 10, as follows:
                              [Roll No 28]

                               AYES--161

     Ackerman
     Baldacci
     Barcia
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Beilenson
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boucher
     Browder
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Bryant (TX)
     Cardin
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Coleman
     Collins (IL)
     Collins (MI)
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Danner
     de la Garza
     Deal
     DeFazio
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fazio
     Filner
     Foglietta
     Ford
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gibbons
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hastings (FL)
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Holden
     Hoyer
     Jackson-Lee
     Jefferson
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson, E.B.
     Johnston
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kleczka
     Klink
     LaFalce
     Lantos
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney
     Manton
     Markey
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy
     McDermott
     McHale
     McKinney
     Meek
     Menendez
     Mfume
     Miller (CA)
     Mineta
     Mink
     Mollohan
     Moran
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pastor
     Payne (NJ)
     Pelosi
     Peterson (FL)
     Pomeroy
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reed
     Reynolds
     Richardson
     Rivers
     Roybal-Allard
     Sabo
     Sanders
     Sawyer
     Schroeder
     Schumer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Skaggs
     Slaughter
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stokes
     Studds
     Stupak
     Taylor (MS)
     Tejeda
     Thompson
     Thornton
     Thurman
     Torres
     Torricelli
     Towns
     Traficant
     Tucker
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Volkmer
     Ward
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Wilson
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wyden
     Wynn
     Yates

                               NOES--263

     Allard
     Andrews
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baesler
     Baker (CA)
     Baker (LA)
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Bevill
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blute
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Brewster
     Brownback
     Bryant (TN)
     Bunn
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chapman
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Chrysler
     Clinger
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins (GA)
     Combest
     Condit
     Cooley
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cremeans
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Davis
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dornan
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Fields (TX)
     Flanagan
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Frank (MA)
     Franks (CT)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frisa
     Funderburk
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Geren
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Graham
     Greenwood
     Gunderson
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hamilton
     Hancock
     Hansen
     Harman
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Heineman
     Herger
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hoke
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Jacobs
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kim
     King
     Kingston
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Laughlin
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Lightfoot
     Lincoln
     Linder
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Longley
     Lucas
     Manzullo
     Martini
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meyers
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Minge
     Moakley
     Molinari
     Montgomery
     Moorhead
     Morella
     Myers
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Orton
     Oxley
     Packard
     Parker
     Paxon
     Payne (VA)
     Peterson (MN)
     Petri
     Pickett
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Poshard
     Pryce
     Quillen
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Riggs
     Roberts
     Roemer
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Rose
     Roth
     Roukema
     Royce
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer
     Schiff
     Seastrand
     Sensenbrenner
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stockman
     Stump
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tate
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Torkildsen
     Upton
     Vucanovich
     Waldholtz
     Walker
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Zeliff
     Zimmer

                             NOT VOTING--10

     Abercrombie
     Bishop
     Fields (LA)
     Flake
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Martinez
     Metcalf
     Rush
     Williams

                              {time}  2142

  Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts changed his vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
  So the amendment was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.

[[Page H528]]

  The CHAIRMAN. Are there further amendments to section 4?
  Mr. PACKARD. Mr. Speaker, just like old wild west outlaws dodging the 
law, the Federal Government uses unfunded mandates to dodge 
responsibility for their expensive regulatory schemes. But the American 
taxpayer voted in a new sheriff, and we have a new weapon to fight this 
sneaky crime. The Unfunded Mandate Reform Act will stop the Federal 
Government from riding off into the sunset, leaving expensive 
regulatory dust in their wake and passing the buck to State and local 
government.
  In the State of California alone, mandates cost the taxpayer over $8 
billion annually. Blanket, one size fits all mandates, eat up precious 
local and State resources, reducing flexibility and adaptability. State 
and local governments must sacrifice scarce funds to pay the Federal 
tab.
  The people want control of their own lives--not Federal Government 
``Dos and Don'ts.'' Unfunded mandates rob Americans of prosperity and 
freedom. The Federal Government must stop these reckless acts of 
intrusion. Abolishing unfunded Federal mandates will restore trust and 
accountability in the Federal Government. I urge my colleagues to vote 
in favor of H.R. 5.
  Mr. CLINGER. Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee do now rise.
  The motion was agreed to.
  Accordingly, the committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. 
Thomas) having assumed the chair, Mr. Emerson, Chairman of the 
Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, reported that 
that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 5) to 
curb the practice of imposing unfunded Federal mandates on States and 
local governments, to ensure that the Federal Government pays the costs 
incurred by those governments in complying with certain requirements 
under Federal statutes and regulations, and to provide information on 
the cost of Federal mandates on the private sector, and for other 
purposes, had come to no resolution thereon.


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