[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 38 (Wednesday, March 1, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H2459-H2473]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                PRIVATE PROPERTY PROTECTION ACT OF 1995

  Mrs. WALDHOLTZ. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, 
I call up House Resolution 101 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 101

       Resolved, That at any time after the adoption of this 
     resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 1(b) of rule 
     XXIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the 
     Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of 
     the bill (H.R. 925) to compensate owners of private property 
     for the effect of certain regulatory restrictions. The first 
     reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. Points of order 
     against consideration of the bill for failure to comply with 
     section 302(f), 308(a), 311(a), or 401(b) of the 
     Congressional Budget Act of 1974 are waived. General debate 
     shall be confined to the bill and the amendment recommended 
     by the Committee on the Judiciary and shall not exceed one 
     hour equally divided and controlled by the chairman and 
     ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary. 
     After general debate the bill shall be considered for 
     amendment under the five-minute rule for a period not to 
     exceed twelve hours. It shall be in order to consider as an 
     original bill for the purpose of amendment under the five-
     minute rule the amendment in the nature of a substitute 
     recommended by the Committee on the Judiciary now printed in 
     the bill. The committee amendment in the nature of a 
     substitute shall be considered as read. Points of order 
     against the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute 
     for failure to comply with clause 7 of rule XVI, clause 5(a) 
     of rule XXI, or section 302(f), 311(a), or 401(b) of the 
     Congressional Budget Act of 1974 are waived. No amendment to 
     the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute shall 
     be in order unless printed in the portion of the 
     Congressional Record designated for that purpose in clause 6 
     of rule XXIII before the beginning of consideration of the 
     bill for amendment. Amendments so printed shall be considered 
     as read. Points of order against the amendment specified in 
     the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this 
     resolution to be offered by Representative Canady of Florida 
     or a designee for failure to comply with clause 5(a) of rule 
     XXI are waived. Pending the consideration of that amendment 
     and before the consideration of any other amendment, it shall 
     be in order to consider the amendment thereto specified in 
     the report of the Committee on Rules to be offered by 
     Representative Tauzin of Louisiana or a designee. At the 
     conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the 
     Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with 
     such amendments as may have been adopted. Any Member may 
     demand a separate vote in the House on any amendment adopted 
     in the Committee of the Whole to the bill or to the committee 
     amendment in the nature of a substitute. The previous 
     question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and 
     amendments thereto to final passage without intervening 
     motion except one motion to recommit with or without 
     instructions.
       Sec. 2. After passage of H.R. 925, it shall be in order to 
     consider in the House the bill (H.R. 9) to create jobs, 
     enhance wages, strengthen property rights, maintain certain 
     economic liberties, decentralize and reduce the power of the 
     Federal Government with respect to the States, localities, 
     and citizens of the United States, and to increase the 
     accountability of Federal officials. All points of order 
     against the bill and against its consideration are waived. It 
     shall be in order to move to strike all after section 1 of 
     the bill and insert a text composed of four divisions as 
     follows: (1) division A, consisting of the text of H.R. 830, 
     as passed by the House; (2) division B, consisting of the 
     text of H.R. 925, as passed by the House; (3) division C, 
     consisting of the text of H.R. 926, as passed by the House; 
     and (4) division D, consisting of the text of H.R. 1022, as 
     passed by the House. All points of order against that motion 
     are waived. The previous question shall be considered as 
     ordered on the motion to amend and on the bill to final 
     passage without intervening motion except one motion to 
     recommit with or without instructions.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Utah [Mrs. Waldholtz] 
is recognized for 1 hour.
  Mrs. WALDHOLTZ. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Beilenson], 
pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the 
purpose of debate only.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman 
from Ohio [Ms. Pryce].
  (Ms. PRYCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Ms. PRYCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the rule.
  Mr. Speaker, as my distinguished colleague from Utah ably explained 
in her opening remarks, this rule provides for the fair and orderly 
consideration of one of the most significant regulatory reform 
proposals to be debated on the House floor in recent memory, and that 
is the fundamental idea of compensating private property owners when 
the use of their property is limited by over-reaching Federal 
regulations.
  This is a very complex issue, Mr. Speaker, and the legislation before 
us has understandably prompted legitimate concerns about the future of 
Federal rulemaking. To afford Members amply opportunity to discuss 
changes in the bill, this rule provides for 1 hour of general debate, 
followed by up to 12 hours of amendment under the 5-minute rule.
  While I know the minority would prefer to have unlimited debate on 
this legislation, I am confident that the rule provides the minority 
with an ample block of time to manage as they see fit in order to 
organize and prioritize amendments they would bring to the House floor.
  The rule also enables the House to consider two very important 
amendments. First, in the 
[[Page H2460]] continuing effort to be more fiscally responsible, the 
rule makes in order a substitute to be offered by the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. Canady]. This substitute, which requires only a single 
waiver of House rules, pursues essentially the same goals as the bill 
reported by the Judiciary Committee, but it links compensation for 
property owners to the availability of appropriations.
  The rule also allows the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Tauzin] to 
amend the Canady substitute by narrowing the scope of the legislation 
to apply only to the Endangered Species Act, wetlands regulations, 
water rights, and parts of the 1981 Food Security Act.
  These amendments reflect bipartisan efforts to reach a compromise, 
and I urge my colleagues to consider them very carefully.
  The notion of protecting private property rights is not a new 
concept. It has its roots in our Nation's most sacred document, our 
Constitution. But those rights have steadily been eroded by excessive 
regulations which force farmers, ranchers, and other property owners to 
bear the full burden of the law, which the public receives the benefits 
and pays none of the costs.
  If the fifth amendment is going to be worth more than the paper it is 
written on, then private property protection must be strengthened.
  A strong system of property rights in America is an essential means 
of protecting individual liberty, and the bill before us provides the 
appropriate balance between the power of government, the rights of 
individuals, and the betterment of our society.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support both the rule and the 
bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mrs. WALDHOLTZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.

                              {time}  2000

  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, for too long the Federal Government has trampled on the 
rights of private property owners. Federal agencies have made rules and 
taken actions that have severely impacted private citizens, drastically 
reducing the value of their homes and property. Yet because of 
restrictive interpretations by the Courts of the ``takings'' clause of 
the Constitution, these citizens have had no means of redress to be 
compensated for their losses.
  This bill will change that and protect the interests of private 
citizens where the government restricts the use of their property. H.R. 
925 requires that the Federal Government compensate a property owner 
when a limitation placed on the use of their property by a federal 
agency action causes the fair market value to be reduced by 10 percent 
or more. If a Federal agency refuses to compensate a property owner for 
their losses, the bill allows the owner to seek compensation through 
the courts. Further, the bill recognizes the need to protect public 
health and safety by exempting actions taken by an agency that would 
prevent identifiable hazards to the public.
  Under amendments to be offered under this rule, the compensation to 
the private citizen will not come out of a new fund to be established, 
or through more deficit financing, but directly from the budget of the 
agency that harmed the property. In other words, this bill is based on 
the radical idea that people harmed by the Government's actions deserve 
to be compensated and that the agency that caused the harm should pay 
for it out of their existing budget.
  This idea is so radical that our current budget rules do not even 
allow us to consider this legislation without waiving certain budget 
rules. So, we've got to waive certain budgetary procedures just to be 
able to bring this bill to the floor for debate. The budget waivers 
will simply clarify a disagreement over the technical interpretation of 
the rules necessary to bring the bill to the floor for debate. 
Accordingly, we have crafted a rule that is admittedly somewhat 
technical in nature, as it waives certain budget rules against both the 
committee bill and the committee substitute.
  The Canady substitute, which is made in order under this rule, 
clarifies our intent to pay for losses to property by simply 
reallocating current agency spending rather than create new
 entitlement authority. Accordingly, neither that amendment nor the 
Tauzin amendment, which will be considered as an amendment to the 
Canady amendment, require budget waivers. As a result, Mr. Speaker, the 
intent of our budget rules is preserved by the structure of this rule, 
despite technical waivers necessary to consider this important 
legislation.

  The rule makes in order the committee substitute from the Judiciary 
Committee and provides for 1 hour of general debate followed by up to 
12 hours of amendment under the 5-minute rule. The rule makes it in 
order to first consider the Tauzin amendment to the Canady amendment 
and requires that all amendments to the committee substitute be 
preprinted in the Congressional Record. The rule also provides for one 
motion to recommit with or without instructions.
  Section 2 of the rule provides that after passage of H.R. 925, it 
will be in order to consider H.R. 9, and then combine the text composed 
of four regulatory reform bills as passed by the House. Those bills are 
H.R. 925, H.R. 830, the Paperwork Reduction Act, H.R. 926, the 
Regulatory Reform and Relief Act, and H.R. 1022, the Risk Assessment 
and Cost-Benefit Act. This allows us to send one bill to the Senate for 
consideration, as was done last year with the crime bill.
  This modified-open rule provides for fair and open debate. This rule 
will allow for a total of 14 hours of floor debate on this bill--1 hour 
for the rule, 1 hour for general debate, and 12 hours for amendments. 
Fourteen hours is more than adequate to discuss the merits of this 
legislation.
  I am sure some Members on the other side of the aisle will question 
the time limit. We discussed it in the Committee on Rules and I am sure 
we will discuss it more here. But I am confident that the 12-hour time 
limit will give the minority adequate time for consideration of 
amendments. Of course, it will require a prudent management of time to 
ensure that the most important amendments receive priority 
consideration, but Mr.
 Speaker, managing our time wisely is one of the responsibilities we 
all must shoulder in order to accomplish the people's business.

  I know some concern may be expressed about the preprinting 
requirement. However, Members have not been shut out from offering 
amendments to the bill. While the pre-printing requirement applies to 
the committee substitute because of the critical nature of clarifying 
the budget impact of the means of payment, Members had sufficient 
notice of this requirement. Further, that requirement does not apply to 
amendments to the Canady and Tauzin amendments, which it is anticipated 
will shortly become the base text of this legislation. Members of this 
body will have ample opportunity to offer their amendments on the 
floor.
  Mr. Speaker, since there is a good chance that the Canady substitute 
may be adopted, Members are encouraged to re-draft their amendments to 
be offered to the Canady substitute rather than the base bill. In that 
way the time of the House will be saved and Members will be protected 
against having their amendments nullified by the adoption of Canady.
  Mr. Speaker, the Private Property Protection Act is a very important 
bill and this is a fair rule for its consideration. I urge my 
colleagues to support both the rule and the bill.
  Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, we are opposed to this rule, and to the bill it makes in 
order, the so-called Private Property Protection Act of 1995.
  Mr. Speaker, this rule contains the same kind of time restriction on 
the amendment process that has been used for the consideration of five 
other bills the House has considered recently.
  Although we do appreciate the fact that the majority proposed 
lengthening the time for the amendment process from the usual 10 hours 
to 12 hours, we are still concerned that Members who want to offer 
amendments to this bill may be denied that opportunity.
  In fact, we were advised that 15 hours would be needed just to 
accommodate the minority members of the Judiciary Committee who wanted 
to offer amendments. The 12-hour limit--which is actually a 9- or 10-
hour limit on debating amendments themselves, because it includes time 
spent on recorded votes--will most certainly deny some Members the 
opportunity to offer the amendments they wish to present.
  Mr. Speaker, we understand the desire of the majority to have H.R. 
925 considered in a timely manner. And, as 
[[Page H2461]] our Republican colleagues have frequently pointed out, 
rules issued by the Rules Committee when Democrats were in the majority 
often did place time limits on amendments. What we take issue with is 
not whether the time caps exist, but whether they are fair.
  When we issued rules with time limits, in earlier Congresses they did 
not preclude any Member from offering an amendment. We have two charts 
which show the contrast between what happened under rules with time 
limitations during the 103d Congress, and what has happened during this 
Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record information regarding floor 
procedures in the 104th Congress and the amount of time spent on voting 
under the restrictive time cap procedure in the 104th Congress.
  The material referred to is as follows:

                                      FLOOR PROCEDURE IN THE 104TH CONGRESS                                     
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                       Process used for floor      Amendments in
        Bill No.                  Title              Resolution             consideration              order    
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
H.R. 1.................  Compliance.............  H. Res. 6         Closed......................           None.
H. Res. 6..............  Opening Day Rules        H. Res. 5         Closed; contained a closed             None.
                          Package.                                   rule on H.R. 1 within the                  
                                                                     closed rule.                               
H.R. 5.................  Unfunded Mandates......  H. Res. 38        Restrictive; Motion adopted             N/A.
                                                                     over Democratic objection                  
                                                                     in the Committee of the                    
                                                                     Whole to limit debate on                   
                                                                     section 4; Pre-printing                    
                                                                     gets preference.                           
H.J. Res. 2............  Balanced Budget........  H. Res. 44        Restrictive; only certain            2R; 4D.
                                                                     substitutes.                               
H. Res. 43.............  Committee Hearings       H. Res. 43 (OJ)   Restrictive; considered in              N/A.
                          Scheduling.                                House no amendments.                       
H.R. 2.................  Line Item Veto.........  H. Res. 55        Open; Pre-printing gets                 N/A.
                                                                     preference.                                
H.R. 665...............  Victim Restitution Act   H. Res. 61        Open; Pre-printing gets                 N/A.
                          of 1995.                                   preference.                                
H.R. 666...............  Exclusionary Rule        H. Res. 60        Open; Pre-printing gets                 N/A.
                          Reform Act of 1995.                        preference.                                
H.R. 667...............  Violent Criminal         H. Res. 63        Restrictive; 10 hr. Time Cap            N/A.
                          Incarceration Act of                       on amendments.                             
                          1995.                                                                                 
H.R. 668...............  The Criminal Alien       H. Res. 69        Open; Pre-printing gets                 N/A.
                          Deportation                                preference; Contains self-                 
                          Improvement Act.                           executing provision.                       
H.R. 728...............  Local Government Law     H. Res. 79        Restrictive; 10 hr. Time Cap            N/A.
                          Enforcement Block                          on amendments; Pre-printing                
                          Grants.                                    gets preference.                           
H.R. 7.................  National Security        H. Res. 83        Restrictive; 10 hr. Time Cap            N/A.
                          Revitalization Act.                        on amendments; Pre-printing                
                                                                     gets preference.                           
H.R. 729...............  Death Penalty/Habeas...  N/A               Restrictive; brought up                 N/A.
                                                                     under UC with a 6 hr. time                 
                                                                     cap on amendments.                         
S. 2...................  Senate Compliance......  N/A               Closed; Put on suspension              None.
                                                                     calendar over Democratic                   
                                                                     objection.                                 
H.R. 831...............  To Permanently Extend    H. Res. 88        Restrictive; makes in order              1D.
                          the Health Insurance                       only the Gibbons amendment;                
                          Deduction for the Self-                    waives all points of order;                
                          Employed.                                  Contains self-executing                    
                                                                     provision.                                 
H.R. 830...............  The Paperwork Reduction  H. Res. 91        Open........................            N/A.
                          Act.                                                                                  
H.R. 889...............  Emergency Supplemental/  H. Res. 92        Restrictive; makes in order              1D.
                          Rescinding Certain                         only the Obey substitute.                  
                          Budget Authority.                                                                     
H.R. 450...............  Regulatory Moratorium..  H. Res. 93        Restrictive; 10 hr. Time Cap            N/A.
                                                                     on amendments; Pre-printing                
                                                                     gets preference.                           
H.R. 1022..............  Risk Assessment........  H. Res. 96        Restrictive; 10 hr. Time Cap            N/A.
                                                                     on amendments.                             
H.R. 926...............  Regulatory Flexibility.  H. Res. 100       Open........................            N/A.
H.R. 925...............  Private Property         H. Res. 101       Restrictive; 12 hr. time cap             1D.
                          Protection Act.                            on amendments; Requires                    
                                                                     Members to pre-print their                 
                                                                     amendments in the Record                   
                                                                     prior to the bill's                        
                                                                     consideration for                          
                                                                     amendment, waives                          
                                                                     germaneness and budget act                 
                                                                     points of order as well as                 
                                                                     points of order concerning                 
                                                                     appropriating on a                         
                                                                     legislative bill against                   
                                                                     the committee substitute                   
                                                                     used as base text.                         
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: 71% restrictive; 29% open. These figures use Republican scoring methods from the 103rd Congress. Not      
  included in this chart are three bills which should have been placed on the Suspension Calendar. H.R. 101,    
  H.R. 400, H.R. 440.                                                                                           


          AMOUNT OF TIME SPENT ON VOTING UNDER THE RESTRICTIVE TIME CAP PROCEDURE IN THE 104TH CONGRESS         
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Bill No.                    Bill title               Roll calls         Time spent       Time on amends 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
H.R. 667................  Violent Criminal                               8     2 hrs. 40 min.     7 hrs. 20 min.
                           Incarceration Act.                                                                   
H.R. 728................  Block grants.................                  7     2 hrs. 20 min.     7 hrs. 40 min.
H.R. 7..................  National security                             11     3 hrs. 40 min.     6 hrs. 20 min.
                           revitalization.                                                                      
H.R. 450................  Regulatory moratorium........                 13     3 hrs. 30 min.     6 hrs. 30 min.
H.R. 1022...............  Risk assessment..............                  6             2 hrs.             8 hrs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

             Members Shut out by a Time Cap 104th Congress

       This is list of Members who were not allowed to offer 
     amendments to major legislation because the 10 hour time cap 
     on amendments had expired. These amendments were also pre-
     printed in the Congressional Record. This list is not an 
     exhaustive one. It contains only Members who had pre-printed 
     their amendments, others may have wished to offer amendments 
     but would have been prevented from doing so because the time 
     for amendment had expired.
       H.R. 728--Law Enforcement Block Grants--10 Members; Mr. 
     Bereuter, Mr. Kasich, Ms. Jackson-Lee, Mr. Stupak, Mr. 
     Serrano, Mr. Watt, Ms. Waters, Mr. Wise, Ms. Furse, Mr. 
     Fields.
       H.R. 7--National Security Revitalization Act--8 Members; 
     Ms. Lofgren, Mr. Bereuter, Mr. Bonior, Mr. Meehan, Mr. 
     Sanders(2), Mr. Schiff, Ms. Schroeder, Ms. Waters.
       H.R. 450--Regulatory Moratorium--15 Members; Mr. Towns, 
     Bentsen, Volkmer, Markey, Moran, Fields, Abercrombie, 
     Richardson, Traffcicant, Mfume, Collins, Cooley, Hansen, 
     Radanovich, Schiff.
       H.R. 1022--Risk assessment--3 Members (at least three other 
     Members had amendments prepared but were not allowed to offer 
     them Mr. Doggett, Mr. Mica, Mr. Markey); Mr. Cooley(2), Mr. 
     Fields, Mr. Vento.
       The Republican stall: The ayes were called and amendments 
     were passed by voice vote on the following votes during 
     consideration of the Regulatory Moratorium bill. However, 
     recorded votes were aksed for.
       Mr. Clinger asked for a vote on the Norton Amendment as 
     amended by McIntosh which passed on a vote of 405-0.
       Mr. Clinger asked for a vote on Hayes amendment which 
     passed on a vote of 383-34.
       Mr. Tate asked for a vote on his amendment which passed on 
     a vote of 370-45.
                     Timecaps in the 103d Congress

       I. Time caps specifically excluded voting time in the 103rd 
     in 4 out of 5 cases
       In the 103rd Congress, there were 5 bills considered under 
     rules with time caps on the amendment process; four in 1994 
     and one in 1993. All four of the time caps from last year 
     specifically excluded voting time. The single exception in 
     the 103rd, from 1993, was H.R. 1036, ERISA Amendments Act. 
     The Rules Committee asked for amendment in advance and 
     received only 2 (Reps. Fawell and Berman). On the floor, Mr. 
     Fawell offered his; it was defeated. Mr. Berman did not 
     offer. No other amendments were offered and the total 
     consumed by the amendment process (including votes) was about 
     one hour and 15 minutes.
       II. The test of whether a time cap is restrictive is not 
     the amount of time allotted but whether Members are excluded 
     from offering germane amendments.
       In the 103rd Congress, no bills considered under a time cap 
     consumed the entire amount of time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                            Floor time  
              Bill                    Rule      Time cap     consumed   
------------------------------------------------------------------------
H.R. 1036.......................  H. Res. 299     4 hour         75 min.
H.R. 2108.......................  H. Res. 428     3 hour   2 hrs 25 min.
H.R. 3433.......................  H. Res. 516     3 hour         80 min.
H.R. 4799.......................  H. Res. 551     4 hour         70 min.
H.R. 5044.......................  H. Res. 562     4 hour   3 hrs 20 min.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

       III. Bottom line: look at Committee of the Whole rising.
       In the 103rd Congress, there was not a single case in which 
     the full time allotted was consumed. That means no one in the 
     103rd Congress was shut out by a time cap. No Member with a 
     germane amendment to a bill considered under a time cap was 
     denied the opportunity to offer because the time has expired.
       Before the Committee rose, on each of the time-cap rules in 
     the 103rd Congress, the Chair asked, ``Are there any 
     additional amendments?'' and then said, ``If there are no 
     further amendments, under the rule the Committee rises.''
       In the 104th, on each and every time-cap rule so far, the 
     Chair has been forced to state that all time for 
     consideration of amendment has expired. In each and every 
     case, there were identifiable Members with preprinted 
     amendments that were shut out--3 on risk assessment, 15 on 
     regulatory moratorium; 8 (with 9 amendments) on defense 
     revitalization; 10 on law enforcement block grants. Who knows 
     how many others who did not print their amendments in advance 
     were shut out?
  Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, as these charts show, last Congress, no 
Members were precluded from offering amendments under rules with time 
limits on amendments; this Congress, at least 36 Members have been 
denied the opportunity to offer amendments to five bills which have 
been considered recently, even though their amendments were preprinted 
in the Congressional Record.
  [[Page H2462]] During consideration of this rule in the Rules 
Committee yesterday, we offered an amendment to strike the 10-hour time 
limit on the amendment process, since it was our first preference not 
to have any time limit at all. That amendment was rejected on a 
straight party-line vote.
  We also offered an amendment to exclude time spent on recorded votes 
from the ten-hour limit that was originally proposed. Instead of 
accepting that change, the rule was amended to provide for twelve hours 
for the amendment process.
  While we appreciated getting 2 more hours, the inclusion of the time 
it takes to hold recorded votes is still a problem for us. If voting 
time is not excluded, sponsors of amendments are put in the 
uncomfortable position of having to choose between seeking a recorded 
vote, or foregoing a recorded vote in order to increase the likelihood 
that other Members will get a change to offer their amendments. It is 
simply not fair to put Members in that position.
  The argument that was made against excluding voting time from the 
time limit was that such a change would encourage dilatory tactics--
that opponents of the bill would call for recorded votes on every 
amendment. But, in fact, by not excluding voting time, a parliamentary 
tactic of another sort can be employed by the bill's proponents--and, 
in fact, has been.
  Three times during consideration of amendments to the Regulatory 
Transition Act, Members who agreed with the outcome of the amendments 
on voice vote nonetheless called for recorded votes in order to consume 
time allotted for considering amendments.
  Mr. Speaker, we have other objections to the rule besides the time 
limit.
  First, we have very serious concerns about the Budget Act waivers 
that are included in this rule. This rule contains four waivers of the 
Budget Act against consideration of the bill and three against 
consideration of the committee substitute. In both cases, two of the 
waivers represent violations of the most important safeguards that our 
Budget Act provides against increasing federal budget deficits.
  One of those safeguards is Section 302(f), which prohibits 
consideration of measures that would cause the appropriate subcommittee 
or program-level ceiling to be breached. This is the provision which 
keeps committees from reporting bills that spend more money than they 
are allocated to spend under our budget resolution.
  The other important safeguard is Section 311(a), which prohibits 
consideration of legislation that would cause the new budget authority 
or outlay ceilings to be breached. This is the provision that keeps the 
House from considering legislation that exceeds total spending allowed 
under the budget resolution.
  This bill requires these waivers because in its current form, as Mrs. 
Waldholtz correctly pointed out, it creates a new entitlement--a new 
expenditure of an unknown amount to compensate property owners who are 
able to claim that their property has been subjected to a regulatory 
taking.
  Although the Canady substitute would eliminate the need to waive the 
Budget Act, I think it is important for Members to understand that the 
legislation made in order by this rule seriously violates the rules we 
have established to prevent us from spending more money than we have 
agreed to spend under our existing budget resolution.
  Moreover, the Canady substitute, while technically eliminating the 
entitlement to compensation, will not change the fact that this 
legislation could be extremely expensive. The Statement of 
Administration Policy on this bill states that ``preliminary estimates 
indicate that the effect of this bill would be to increase the deficit 
by at least several billion dollars during fiscal years 1995-1998.''
  We also object to the procedure for amending this bill that will 
result from making the Judiciary Committee substitute in order as 
original text, rather than the Canady substitute. In effect, the rule 
cuts off one degree of amendment, which limits the opportunities to 
change the Canady substitute.
  Members need to be ready to offer amendments both to the Canady 
substitute, and to the Judiciary Committee substitute, which is the 
original text. This is a parliamentary situation that could cause a 
great deal of confusion--and cost some precious time--as we work 
through the amendment process.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, we have grave reservations about the bill 
itself that this rule makes in order.
  As we will hear in the ensuing debate, the Private Property 
Protection Act would severely limit the government's ability to respond 
to the public's demand for laws ensuring health and safety, and we 
believe it will have severe and unintended policy and fiscal 
consequences.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on this rule.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.


         Removal of Name of Member as Cosponsor of H.J. Res. 2.

  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Hilleary was given permission to speak out 
of order.)
  Mr. HILLEARY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have my name 
removed as a cosponsor of House Joint Resolution 2.
  The Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Goodlatte). Is there objection to the 
request of the gentleman from Tennessee?
  There was no objection.
  Mrs. WALDHOLTZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the chairman of the Committee on 
Rules, I would like to correct something that is perhaps a misstatement 
by my colleague on the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Beilenson].
  That is that I did not believe that the base bill created an 
entitlement, but there was a question as to interpretation of the 
language. That is the reason that we are bringing forward a rule that 
requests budget waivers, so that in the case it was determined through 
a reading of the bill with which a number of us disagree that 
entitlement was created by this bill, that we can consider the bill and 
move to an amendment that will clarify that no entitlement is being 
created.
  I wanted to clarify that before we move forward.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman 
from New York [Mr. Solomon], chairman of the Committee on Rules.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, for yielding time 
to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I will not take time to explain the rule, because it has 
been more than adequately explained by the gentlewoman from Utah. I 
would like, however, to speak later about the merits of the bill this 
rule makes in order, but first I would like to speak to the fairness 
issue.
  Mr. Speaker, this modified open rule for the Property Protection Act 
is the 19th rule issued by the Rules Committee on legislation in this 
104th Congress.
  Of those 19 rules, 16 or 84 percent have been open or modified open 
rules and only 3 have been modified closed.
  Compare this, if you will, to the 103d Congress in which only 44 
percent of the rules were open or modified open and 56 percent were 
closed or modified closed.
  And yet the Democrat minority this year, the same people who foisted 
all those restrictive rules on us, are now complaining about modified 
open rules that only place an overall timecap on the amendment process.
  Mr. Speaker, I have gone back and looked at the first 17 rules issued 
by the Rules Committee in this Congress and the last Congress to find-
out how different the amendment process has been on this House floor.
  What I found is truly an eye-opening contrast between the way the 
Democrats ran things and the way we Republicans are running things.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SOLOMON. I am glad to yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to ask the chairman to 
reiterate one very important figure. Would my colleague share again the 
number of open and modified open rules that we have had in the 104th 
Congress, juxtaposed to what happened in the 103d Congress?
  [[Page H2463]] Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, again, with the amendments 
that we have offered under the rules we brought to this floor, truly 84 
percent of them were open, 84 percent have been open, compared to 70 
percent that we closed down last term.
  Mr. DREIER. In the 103d Congress. I thank my friend for yielding. It 
is a very important point that needs to be reiterated.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, let me just dramatize that a little bit, 
without taking up too much time.
  In the Democrat-controlled 103d Congress, again, let me just say that 
if we look at those first 17 rules in the last Congress, we will find 
that there were just 4 that were open and the other 13 were closed or 
modified.
  In the Democrat-controlled Congress, of those 13 rules on which the 
Committee on Rules made amendments in order, listen to this, only 52 
amendments were allowed, while 219 amendments filed with the committee 
were denied. That means that 219 Members of this Congress were 
literally gagged, and many of them from Members on the Democrat side of 
the aisle, conservative Democrats.
  While my minority colleagues like to lament about how many amendments 
could not be offered due to the time caps, I suspect it is nowhere near 
the 219 shut out by the Committee on Rules in the last Congress on the 
first 17 rules.
  Moreover, if you take a very close look at the amendments offered in 
this Congress, I think you will see that the Democrats are doing quite 
well, especially the conservative Democrats who are smiling like 
Cheshire cats, I see one sitting over here right now, look at that 
smile on his face, because they are no longer gagged by their own 
Democrat leadership.
  Of the 180 amendments offered, 49 were by Republicans and 181 by 
Democrats. Of those 180 amendments, 94, or roughly half, were adopted, 
and listen to this, including 50 by Democrats. In other words, 53 
percent of the amendments adopted in this Congress have been offered by 
Democrats and just 47 percent by Republicans, so I do not really 
understand all this whinning and complaining from the other side about 
how they are somehow being unfairly treated in this amendment process, 
when they have offered 73 percent of the total amendments considered 
and can take credit for 53 percent of the amendments adopted.
  Mr. Speaker, let me just conclude by saying to those who complain 
that the glass is only one-fifth empty. I want them to cheer up and 
consider just how full that glass really is. We are all benefiting from 
a legislative process that is both fuller and more open then it has 
ever been in some two decades. Think about that.
  I am very proud of our leadership and of our Committee on Rules for 
allowing such an open and deliberative process in this new House.
  Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the following extraneous 
material:

                    AMENDMENTS OFFERED TO BILLS IN HOUSE UNDER SPECIAL RULES, 104TH CONGRESS                    
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Bill and subject            Rule and type        Amendments offered        Adopted             Rejected     
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
H.R. 5--Unfunded          H. Res. 38--Open........  53 (R:7;D:46)......  17 (R:7;D:10)......  36 (R:0;D:36)     
 Mandates.                                                                                                      
H.J. Res. 1--Balanced     H. Res. 44--Mod Closed..  6 (R:2;D:4)........  2 (R:2;D:0)........  4 (R:0;D:4)       
 Budget.                                                                                                        
H.R. 101--Land Transfer.  H. Res. 51--Open........  0..................  0..................  0                 
H.R. 400--Land Exchange.  H. Res. 52--Open........  0..................  0..................  0                 
H.R. 440--Land            H. Res. 53--Open........  0..................  0..................  0                 
 Conveyance.                                                                                                    
H.R. 2--Line Item Veto..  H. Res. 55--Open........  17 (R:3;D:14)......  6 (R:2;D:4)........  11 (R:1;D:10)     
H.R. 665--Victim          H. Res. 60--Open........  1 (R:0;D:1)........  1 (R:0;D:1)........  0                 
 Restitution.                                                                                                   
H.R. 666--Exclusionary    H. Res. 61--Open........  6 (R:0;D:6)........  5 (R:0;D:5)........  1 (R:0;D:1)       
 Rule.                                                                                                          
H.R. 667--Prisons.......  H. Res. 63--Mod. Open...  23 (R:11;D:12).....  14 (R:11;D:3)......  9 (R:0;D:9)       
H.R. 668--Alien           H. Res. 69--Open........  5 (R:4;D:1)........  5 (R:4;D:1)........  0                 
 Deportation.                                                                                                   
H.R. 728--Law Block       H. Res. 79--Mod. Open...  19 (R:7;D:12)......  13 (R:6;D:7).......  6 (R:1;D:5)       
 Grants.                                                                                                        
H.R. 7--National          H. Res. 83--Mod. Open...  17 (R:5;D:12)......  11 (R:4;D:7).......  6 (R:1;D:5)       
 Security Act.                                                                                                  
H.R. 831--Health          H. Res. 88--Mod. Closed.  1 (R:0;D:1)........  0..................  1 (R:0;D:1)       
 Deduction.                                                                                                     
H.R. 830--Paperwork       H. Res. 91--Open........  5 (R:2;D:3)........  3 (R:2;D:1)........  2 (R:0;D:2)       
 Reduction.                                                                                                     
H.R. 889--Defense         H. Res. 92--Mod Closed..  1 (R:0;D:1)........  0..................  0                 
 Supplemental.                                                                                                  
H.R. 450--Regulatory      H. Res. 93--Mod. Open...  15 (R:2;D:13)......  11 (R:2;D:9).......  4 (R:0;D:4)       
 Transition.                                                                                                    
H.R. 1022--Risk           H. Res. 96--Mod. Open...  11 (R:6;D:5).......  6 (R:4;D:2)........  5 (R:2;D:3)       
 Assessment.                                                                                                    
H.R. 926--RegFlex.......  H. Res. 100--Open.......  ...................  ...................  ..................
H.R. 925--Property        H. Res. 101--Mod. Open..  ...................  ...................  ..................
 Protection.                                                                                                    
                                                   -------------------------------------------------------------
      Totals............  ........................  180 (R:49;D:131)...  94 (R:44;D:50).....  86 (R:5;D:81)     
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Congressional Record, Daily Digest.                                                                     

  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I would simply like to compliment him on an excellent 
statement; the fact that within the past 56 days we have seen the kind 
of openness when it comes to amendments, debate, the opportunity to 
participate in the process that has not existed for years and years and 
years, not just the 103d, Congress, but for, unfortunately, several 
Congresses before that.
  Mr. Speaker, I think Members on both sides of the aisle have been 
able to benefit from that degree of openness. I think it is very 
unfortunate that some in the minority today are trying to claim that we 
have been more restrictive than they have been, and I think that the 
very important figures that the chairman of our committee has provided 
clearly show that the openness has existed under the 104th Congress, 
and I know under his leadership it is going to continue.
  Mr. SOLOMON. The gentleman can count on it.
  Mr. Speaker, let me rush to the bill itself because it is so very 
important.
  On this particular rule today we begin consideration of one of the 
most important elements of the Contract With America, and that is, the 
Private Property Protection Act, more commonly known as the takings 
bill.
  Mr. Speaker, the fifth amendment to the United States Constitution 
includes the following language: ``nor shall private property be taken 
for public use without just compensation.'' The problem is that the 
courts have interpreted that language so narrowly that it does not 
adequately protect private property owners from loss in value due to 
some burdensome Federal regulations.
  The bill before us today is designed to establish as policy of the 
Federal Government the proposition that no law and no agency action 
should limit the use of privately owned property so as to diminish its 
value, and this is the key, ``Without fair compensation for that lost 
value.''

                              {time}  2045

  Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, for the purposes of debate only, I yield 
4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Sabo].
  Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule 
because of the long list of Budget Act waivers it contains.
  These Budget Act waivers are needed because H.R. 925 creates a 
massive new entitlement program.
  Under the bill, property owners who successfully claim that the value 
of their property has been diminished by a government regulatory action 
would be entitled to compensation. The new right to payments would be 
enforceable through binding arbitration or in court. Payments would be 
required even for regulatory actions that the government is absolutely 
required to take under other existing laws.
  The cost of this new entitlement program is difficult--if not 
impossible--to calculate with precision, but the cost could be 
extremely large. Under the bill, landowners would have an incentive to 
apply for all sorts of Federal 
[[Page H2464]] permits--even for actions they never previously planned 
to take. If any of the permits were denied, the landowner would be 
entitled to a check.
  Compensation would be due even when the Government was simply denying 
permission for an activity that the landowner knew would not be allowed 
when he acquired the land.
  The Office of Management and Budget states that ``preliminary 
estimates indicate that the effect of the bill would be to increase the 
deficit by at least several billion dollars during fiscal year 1995 
through 1998.''
  The Congressional Budget Office cost estimate says that CBO has not 
yet completed its analysis of the costs of this legislation, but that 
those costs could be significant.
  The report of the Rules Committee acknowledges that H.R. 925 creates 
a new entitlement, and that this entitlement requires numerous Budget 
Act waivers. In fact, the rule is waiving almost every major provision 
of the Congressional Budget Act.
  It waives section 302(f)--the point of order against bills that 
breach the allocations of spending authority to committees. It waives 
section 311(a)--the point of order against bills that breach the 
ceiling on total spending set by the budget resolution. It waives 
section 308--the rule that requires committee reports on new 
entitlement bills to disclose and justify the new entitlement.
  And finally it waives section 401(b)--the point of order against new 
entitlements effective before the start of the new fiscal year.
  This rule marks at least the fifth time this year that our Republican 
colleagues have asked us to waive or circumvent the Budget Act.
  Ironically, many of the same Republicans who denounced Budget Act 
waivers in previous Congresses are now supporting waivers in this 
Congress.
  We should not be repeatedly waiving our basic budget controls--and 
especially not for bills like H.R. 925 that have the potential to be 
huge budget busters. I therefore urge defeat of this rule.
  Mrs. WALDHOLTZ. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss], my colleague on the Committee on 
Rules.
  (Mr. GOSS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Salt Lake City, 
UT, for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, the conflict between private property and ``public well-
being'' is as old as government itself. The takings issue is a 
complicated subject that cannot be resolved with one bill; in fact, 
it's fanciful to believe that the legislative branch of the Federal 
Government alone can solve all our private property rights problems.
  Land use and zoning cases by their nature are unique, and are best 
considered on a case-by-case basis at the local level, sometimes with 
the assistance of the courts, not through some one-size-fits-all 
Federal formula. Mr. Speaker, the rule we are considering is itself 
unique--and probably not one we can expect to see on this floor very 
often. But after we get past the technicalities, it is
 clear that this rule is well crafted to allow a fair debate on the 
takings issue--as we promised in the Contract With America. I am 
pleased that this rule allows us to immediately consider two 
improvements to H.R. 925: the Canady substitute and the Tauzin 
amendment.

  The substitute offered by my friend from Florida fixes several of the 
potential budget conflicts in the bill, including an important 
clarification that H.R. 925 would not, repeat not, create a new 
entitlement whatever ambiguity there may have been. The Tauzin 
amendment will limit the scope of the bill to just four specific areas: 
endangered species, wetlands, water draining and food safety.
  In addition, the Rules Committee voted to extend the open amendment 
process to 12 hours, a full dozen, and I hope that colleagues will take 
advantage of that time to make further improvements to this bill. For 
instance, I am very concerned about the practicality and affordability 
of the 10-affected-property threshold in this bill; I intend to offer 
an amendment to raise this threshold to 30 percent of total parcel 
market value.
  I also look forward to debating the Gilchrest/Wyden proposal, which 
focuses on the negative impact that questionable development can have 
on individuals' private property rights--questionable development that 
could be allowed, if not encouraged, under H.R. 925.
  Messrs. Porter/Ehlers/Farr may offer a measure that would replace the 
potentially costly and unwieldy compensation formula in H.R. 925 with 
comprehensive Federal agency reporting requirements.
  Mr. Speaker, I have much front-line experience with the takings 
issue--from zoning board, planning commissions city council, county 
commission, State planning boards, court cases, and Federal agency 
hearings, ad infinitum. I confidently predict that this will not be the 
last takings debate we have in this body. As the coming debate will 
show, there are very unhappy people on both sides of this issue. H.R. 
925 is not a magical fix because there is no magical fix--trying to 
strike a balance is as close as we will come to a real solution. I urge 
support of the rule so that we can move forward with this important 
debate.
  Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield 4 
minutes to the gentleman from Oregon [Mr.Wyden].
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for 
yielding me this time. I want to commend the gentleman from Florida, 
the previous speaker, for his balanced statement. It seems to me, Mr. 
Speaker, when most Americans look at the title of the bill, they see 
this sweeping name, ``the Private Property Protection Act,'' and they 
walk away and believe that this bill protects all of our citizens. The 
fact of the matter is that this legislation protects only a limited 
group of private property owners, those property owners whose use or 
development of their property is regulated by the Federal Government.
  The typical homeowners in our country, and there are 65 million of 
them, want to continue to enjoy the use of their property even when the 
Federal Government is not involved in regulating it. I believe that the 
typical homeowner is not fairly represented in this legislation, and on 
a bipartisan basis, the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Gilchrest] and I 
will try to correct this legislation to make sure that the voice of 
that typical homeowner is heard.
  One way that we could go about doing that, and making sure that the 
typical homeowners got a fair shake would be to expand the exceptions 
when compensation is not paid. Right now the legislation provides two 
exceptions when agencies do not have to pay compensation for agencies' 
actions that diminish the value of private property. The first is when 
the agency action prevents a public health or safety hazard, the second 
is when it prevents damage to specific property.
  It would also be helpful to make sure that these 65 million typical 
homeowners in our country get a fair shake to create a third exception 
when agencies do not have to pay compensation, and this would apply 
when the agency's action would prevent or restrict any activity likely 
to diminish the fair market value of private homes.
  This amendment would enable agencies to avoid having to make a 
Hobson's choice of either restricting development and incurring 
liability to the developer or allowing the development to proceed and 
have those homeowners in our country suffer the devaluation of their 
property.
  When agencies take action to protect the value of private homes they 
would not incur liability to developers whose ability to develop their 
property is limited by the agency's action.
  In contrast to H.R. 925, this approach also provides protection for 
homeowners in situations where there has been no physical damage to 
homeowners' property but the market value is likely to be diminished by 
development activity adjoining the home. This would be the kind of 
situation where we would have the filling of a wetland that would 
increase the risk of flooding the homes, but there has not yet been any 
damage.
  What it comes down to, I would offer to may colleagues, is that the 
gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Gilchrest] and I hope that this 
legislation can have a bit more balance.
  [[Page H2465]] I would like to stipulate, and my seatmate from 
Louisiana on the Committee on Commerce has made this case over the 
year, that there are takings and there are takings that warrant 
compensation. But let us before we finish this bill make sure that the 
65 million typical homeowners who use their property in a fashion that 
is not regulated by the Federal Government get the same voice in this 
legislation as those developers and others who also deserve a fair 
treatment and likely to get it under this bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure 
that this legislation has a bit more balance, and that the voice of the 
typical homeowner is heard.
  Mrs. WALDHOLTZ. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield such time as he 
may consume to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady], the author of 
the amendment that will show this is not a new entitlement, that this 
is not a budget buster that requires agencies to pay out of existing 
funds for the harm that they cause.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for 
yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the rule on H.R. 925.
  Regulatory restrictions on private property have increased 
dramatically in the 20th century, but the question of who pays for the 
public benefit that ensues from the regulations has not been adequately 
addressed. H.R. 925 is the answer to the question of who should pay for 
benefits to the general public.
  The act provides for the Federal Government to pay compensation to 
those individual property owners who are singled out to bear the cost 
of intrusive regulation that benefits the public at large.
  I believe the rule allows a generous amount of time for amendments 
and encourages a productive floor debate on amendments to this 
important legislation.
  Under the rule we will first take up a substitute amendment which I 
will offer, and then we will consider Mr. Tauzin's amendment to my 
substitute. Together, these amendments form a bipartisan compromise on 
the Private Property Protection Act.
  The compromise sets the threshold diminution in property value 
required for compensation at 10 percent of the portion of property 
affected and allows a property owner to force the Federal Government to 
buy the portion of property affected outright if that portion's value 
is diminished by 50 percent or more.
  The compromise also narrows the scope of the legislation to cover 
only agency actions taken under the Endangered Species Act, wetlands 
regulations, and specific statutes relating to water rights.
  Members on both sides of the aisle who value property rights support 
this compromise legislation.
  I urge my colleagues to support this open rule so that we can move 
forward with consideration of this important issue.
                              {time}  2030

  Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield 4 
minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers], the 
ranking minority member on the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this rule.
  At a time when the Senate is considering passage of the balanced 
budget amendment, here comes the new majority proposing a massive new 
spending program. The only way it can do that is to waive nearly every 
budget rule.
  This rule waives budget rules restricting new entitlements. The rules 
say that a committee cannot enact new entitlement authority beyond that 
allocated by the budget resolution. This rule waives that budget 
discipline requirement in the Budget Act.
  Current rules requires legislative reports accompanying legislative 
reports on bills creating new authority to fully explain the 
entitlement implications. This rule waives that requirement.
  Budget Rules require that any new entitlement spending conform with 
total outlays or make the proper adjustments. This rule waives that.
  Budget rules prevent new entitlements too late in a fiscal year to 
make other needed budgetary offsets. This rule waives that.
  Want some more? Let us try the appropriations side.
  House rules prevent appropriations authority in legislative bills. 
This rule waives that.
  House rules require germaneness of amendments and substitutes. 
Republican members have argued the need for strict adherence on 
germaneness for decades. This rule waives germaneness requirements.
  Mr. Speaker, the only people being ``taken'' by this taking bill are 
the American people. This bill will be a massive raid on the Treasury. 
Its costs are so incalculable, that even CBO said that its costs, while 
unscorable because of the speculative nature of future agency actions, 
could be enormous. The bill will allow for potentially tens of 
thousands of claims against the Government, legitimate and 
illegitimate, and for endless attempts to raid the U.S. Treasury just 
when Congress has promised to bring it into balance.
  The bill would also require a vast new bureaucracy. Someone is going 
to have sift through the thousands of claims against the Government. 
Administrative proceedings will have to be held to adjudicate claims. 
New bureaucracy will spring up everywhere. At a time when the Clinton 
administration has reduced the Federal bureaucracy beyond that 
accomplished by any Republican presidency, this bill will create a 
massive new bureaucracy to process what could easily become hundreds of 
thousands of claims that would ensure any such act.
  Better this bill be entitled the ``Bureaucrats and Lawyers Relief 
Acts?'' Just for the price of a 32-cent stamp, anyone who believes that 
any governmental action reduced his property value by more than 10 
percent could trigger a vast bureaucracy into motion to determine how 
much compensation should be paid. Imagine all the new jobs for 
assessors, evaluators, arbitrators and--of course--lots and lots of 
lawyers. There will be mounds of new paperwork and swirls of new red 
tape: all leading clearly to more government, not less.
  And what bothers me most is the likelihood that many of these claims 
could be fraudulent ones. This bill sets up the possibility that greedy 
land speculators could make false claims on the United States saying 
that actions deprived them for use of property that they never intended 
to use in the stated fashion.
  Mr. Speaker, if you want to waive every budget rule imposing 
discipline, if you want to raid the Treasury, increase bureaucracy, set 
up a situation for swindlers scheming against the U.S. Government, then 
this rule is for you.
  Mrs. WALDHOLTZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maryland [Mr. Gilchrest].
  Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I support the rule because I think it 
offers an opportunity for us to debate this most controversial bill and 
this most controversial topic. I will say a couple of things before we 
get lost in the debate as to the importance of some of the issues that 
will be raised, I am sure, tonight and tomorrow. All of us understand 
that the fifth amendment protects property rights. I say, ``If your 
property is taken away for the public good, you should be compensated. 
There is no question about that. The question, I guess, arises, if your 
property is regulated to prevent public harm, should you be 
compensated? My judgment on this, based on the fifth amendment, is that 
you should not be compensated.''
  Now there is something else that may get lost in this debate, and 
that is the importance because we are going to focus in a little while 
on wetlands and endangered species. Let us not throw the baby out with 
the bath water. Wetlands provide an invaluable service to us in this 
country for a number of reasons: filtration into waterways. It offers 
habitat for a variety of species. It is, at last in my district, very 
important economically.
  Also there is the fact of biodiversity and how useful that is to 
maintain the quality of our lives in many areas, one of which is 
medicine. Biodiversity offers us a whole series of opportunities to 
cure diseases like cancer, dreaded problems of depression, glaucoma, 
heart disease. All of these come from the natural environment. So, when 
we 
[[Page H2466]] are talking about the endangered species, when we are 
talking about the takings bill tomorrow, it is vitally important for us 
to understand the nature of our existence on this planet, and let us 
not give away the thing that we need to hold on to, the quality of our 
life, and that is biodiversity on the planet.
  Tomorrow the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. Wyden] and I will be offering 
an amendment which seeks to provide home owners. If we are going to be 
to the point where we are going to compensate people through this 
legislation, we also need to make sure that we provide home owners with 
a means to obtain compensation from polluters whose action adversely 
affects their property. In cases where federally permitted polluting 
action has direct impact on a person's home, that person should be able 
to be compensated by the polluter who reduced the value of their 
property. If we are going to provide compensation to people whose 
property values are compromised by Federal requirements that they not 
pollute, then the least we can do is to provide compensation to those 
whose property values are hurt by the resulting pollution.
  Mr. Speaker, I cannot imagine a bill which fails to protect the 
property rights of the Nation's 65 million home owners can seriously be 
called a property rights bill. Our constituents have the right to be 
secure in the knowledge that the Federal Government will protect their 
property from the polluting effect of others.
  I say to my colleagues, ``When we deal with this issue, let's deal 
with it in a very comprehensive way. Let's understand that the 
Endangered Species Act protects biodiversity, which is the quality of 
our lives, yet there are many good positive functions for wetlands, and 
there are many more home owners out there who don't seek Federal 
permits that should be protected by our actions.''
  Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield 5 
minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Farr].
  Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong apposition to the rule.
  We are here tonight to debate the rule. I think in the opening we 
heard how complex this rule has been. What was not explained is that 
this rule really violates the law.
  The bill is a very serious issue. It opens a major debate and changes 
existing law. The existing law deals with takings, this bill deals with 
givings, and in that it is a budget buster. It is the biggest waiver in 
the history of the Budget Act. It is a violation of the Budget Act. If 
we are serious about the issue, then we have got to be honest about the 
consequences.
  The Committee on Rules knew this bill was so controversial that they 
just waived all of the provisions. The bill, as reported by the 
committee, creates an entitlement because it creates a right to payment 
regardless of whether appropriations are available on the budget. The 
basic rule of the Budget Act is that new entitlements have to be 
provided for in the budget resolution or they have to be paid for. This 
bill does neither.
  Accordingly, Mr. Speaker, it violates, the rule, section 302(f), the 
basic rule that any new spending bills have to be within the committee 
spending allocation. The Committee on the Judiciary has zero allocation 
for entitlement authority.
  Section 311(a) is the rule against bills that breach the total 
ceiling on spending set by the budget resolution. We have no cost 
estimates.
  It violates section 308, the reporting requirement. Every bill must 
have a spending report. I say, ``When you have a bill, committee 
report, it should compare the spending, disclose and justify new 
spending, but the Committee on the Judiciary report on the Canady bill 
does really none of these things. The explanation in the report is that 
the CBO report was not complete, but duty lies with the committee, not 
with the CBO.''
  It violates section 401(b) which prohibits new entitlements before 
October 1.
  OMB cost estimates are that several billion dollars during the fiscal 
years 1995-98 will occur. In fact, Mr. Speaker, let me read the 
Executive Office of the President, the Office of Management and Budget, 
and their statement on here is that the administration strongly 
supports property rights and is continuing to implement regulatory 
reforms that will provide relief to property owners. However H.R. 925, 
as reported by the Committee on the Judiciary, would impose, without 
regard for the Government's important role in protecting the general 
welfare, an arbitrary compensation requirement for reductions in 
property values attributable to regulatory or other actions by Federal 
agencies. This is unacceptable and an extreme requirement.
  First, it seriously undermines the Federal Government's ability to 
protect the general welfare. Second, it imposes an almost unlimited 
fiscal burden upon the American taxpayer. Third, it creates a 
potentially costly new direct spending program as well as a new and 
costly Federal bureaucracy to evaluate compensation claims. Fourth, it 
supplements 200 years of constitutional jurisprudence under the fifth 
amendment.
  For these reasons the administration strongly opposes H.R. 925. The 
administration is prepared to work with Congress to provide relief and 
does not impose new burdens on the American taxpayer which would create 
new bureaucracy, or costly spending programs, or threaten the public 
welfare.
  Pay-as-you-go scoring: H.R. 925 would affect direct spending. 
Therefore it would be subject to pay-as-you-go requirements of the 
Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1990. Preliminary estimates indicate that 
the effect of the bill would be to increase the deficit, increase the 
deficit by at least several billion dollars in the fiscal year 1995 
through 1998.
  The bill does not contain provisions to offset the increased deficit 
spending. Therefore, if the bill were enacted, its deficit effect would 
contribute to a sequester of the mandatory programs. Such a sequester 
would force automatic reductions in Medicare, veterans readjustment 
benefits, various programs providing grants to States, child support 
administration, farmer income and price support payments, agricultural 
export promotion, student loan assistance, foster care and adoption 
assistance, and vocational rehabilitation.
  This estimate is based upon a preliminary analysis and is likely to 
increase as agencies analyze the bill's full effect. Thus final scoring 
of this legislation may deviate from this estimate.
  In closing I urge defeat of the rule.

                              {time}  2045

  Mrs. WALDHOLTZ. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield three minutes to 
my colleague the gentleman from Farmington, UT [Mr. Hansen].
  (Mr. HANSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. HANSEN. Mr. Speaker, most of us who have come to this place have 
come out of the city councils, the county commissions, the state 
legislative bodies. In those particular bodies we had the right to 
practice eminent domain. If we needed some place for a water system or 
a road or whatever it my be, we would have that ground in a matter of 
minutes and we would take that ground over. But it may take months and 
years before we paid the property owner. We would haggle it in court, 
but eventually we would have to pay the person because we took his 
land.
  Today we are now looking at things where people have thought of a way 
around that. We have the 1973 Endangered Species Act; we have the 
Wetlands Act. And now we take a person wherever he may be in this 
United States and we walk in and say we just found the desert tortoise 
on your ground, or there is a wetland there.
  In my little state of Utah there is a grape farmer, a fourth 
generation farmer in a little place called Clearfield, poor old Joe 
Jenson. Joe made the mistake of letting his irrigation system break, 
and in two years there were wetlands around.
  For four generations they farmed that area, but in swaggered the 
Corps of Engineers with the swagger stick and said ``Mr. Jenson, if you 
farm this, we are going to charge you $17,000 thousand a year.'' Mr. 
Jenson said ``I have been doing this for years. My father and 
grandfather did it. What are you talking about?'' But Mr. Jenson is no 
longer farming his property.
  [[Page H2467]] All up and down this great country, in the Mississippi 
Delta and other areas, you hear more horror stories on the takings for 
wetlands or endangered species than you do on food stamps. Every day 
there is a new one in my office.
  Let us not be deceived by saying this is a raid on the budget. This 
is a raid on people who own ground, and they have a right to use it. 
Little by little the extremists have taken this over, and no longer can 
we use it the way we wanted to.
  Government trying to take property for their use without paying, this 
is not new. The first recorded attempt at a taking occurs in the Bible, 
in I Kings, Chapter 21. King Ahab wanted Naboth's farm, but he would 
not sell it to the king. So Queen Jezebel by official decree ordered 
him stoned to death, and Ahab had his farm.
  Well, now, the only difference in this story I want my colleagues to 
see is they first wanted to buy it. They first wanted to pay for it. 
But, no, they would not take it, so they took it away from him.
  In walks the Secretary of Interior in my little place in Cedar City, 
Utah, and says, ``Sure, we will buy it from you.'' And the man said, 
``I paid 30 thousand dollars an acre for it 10 years ago, and I intend 
to develop it.'' They say, ``It is not worth that anymore because we 
found the slimy slug,'' or whatever it is on it, I can't remember the 
species, ``but we found that on the property, so therefore we will give 
you $600 for it.''
  You people say that is a raid on the budget? You are taking the man's 
farm. You are taking the man's property. My goodness gracious, is not 
this Constitution supposed to take care of people, the private property 
owner?
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this great rule we have got here 
and also of the bill. Let us take care of these people that we have 
pushed around and not given them just compensation.
  Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Louisiana [Mr. Tauzin].
  Mr. TAUZIN. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the rule under which we are 
finally going to take up the issue of private property rights in this 
body in an affirmative way that I hope will lead to a victory for the 
private property owners of America against the uncompensated takings by 
the Federal Government.
  The opponents of this rule have complained that the rule waives the 
rules on entitlements, budgets and appropriations. Let me tell you why. 
It is the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution which creates the 
entitlement here. It says ``Nor shall private property be taken for 
public purposes without just compensation.''
  Property owners in America are entitled to that compensation when 
their property is taken by virtue of the civil right guaranteed in the 
fifth amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.
  To my friend from Maryland who says he does not think they deserve 
compensation, he happens to disagree with the Supreme Court in the case 
of Lucas, which said that the right of compensation for wetlands taken 
is guaranteed under that fifth amendment. He disagrees with the case of 
Dolan versus the City of Tigert, a Supreme Court decision of just last 
year, which said in effect that the right to receive compensation for 
government takings by regulation is a right as sacred as the rights 
guaranteed of free speech, free religion, free press, assembly, and all 
the sacred civil rights contained in our Bill of Rights; no less sacred 
than any one of the others. In fact, the Court said it is not a distant 
cousin. It is entitled to the same respect and dignity as any one of 
those other rights. So maybe my friend has not read the Supreme Court 
decision.
  When we debate this bill tomorrow, I will be offering an amendment, 
an amendment to limit this bill to the central acts that we have been 
debating for the last several Congresses when my friend the gentleman 
from Texas, Jack Fields, and I, have led the effort to get this body 
one day to consider the obligation of this government to compensate 
private property owners for government regulatory takings.
  We will offer an amendment to limit the scope of this bill to the 
issues we have debated for several Congresses now in an effort to get 
it before this floor. The bills involved the Endangered Species Act and 
the wetlands controls under the 404 section of the Corps of Engineers 
Clean Water Act, and the sodbusters provision of the Food Security Act. 
And we will also provide in our amendment protection for water rights 
out West, which to westerners are as sacred as land rights are to 
easterners.
  Let me tell my friend from Oregon who spoke earlier, this bill 
protects every property owner in America, particularly the small 
property owners who cannot afford a trip to the Supreme Court, as some 
have had to do, at $500,000 of court costs and legal fees. Every 
property owner ought to have a chance at home to get the remedies and 
the rights he is due or she is due under our Constitution and the Fifth 
Amendment. That is why we will debate tomorrow. I hope this rule passes 
and we get that chance.
  Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the 
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Vento].
  (Mr. VENTO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks and include extraneous matter.)
  Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and to the 
bill. This rule I think makes a mockery of the deliberate consideration 
of matters before this House. This is an issue of significant 
importance, but yet the Committee on Rules and the committees of this 
House have chosen to in fact have a deliberate consideration of the 
various issues that are inherent in this. It touches the most important 
and fundamental rights of citizens and people of this country.
  The problem is, as has been stated, not only is it inconsistent with 
the Budget Act that we have that was passed in 1974, and subsequently 
amended, to try and provide and steer the policy path of prudence and 
protection of the taxpayers' pocketbook in that property right, but it 
also of course violates the appropriation measures and the idea of 
appropriating directly on the House floor here, as well as the 
germaneness rules of this House.
  It baffles I think the mind, boggles the mind, that the committees of 
the House could not sit down and write this up. I mean, we are patching 
together here two or three amendments made in order which are not 
germane in terms of trying to understand what the policy direction and 
some degree of clarity of what is intended here.
  The fact is what is going on, of course, is we have split up and 
subdivided many of the topics and trying to put them back together this 
way regards to some political contract that is being wrapped in the 
virtue of property rights. Quite candidly, I think it is a rather 
transparent veil that hangs over it in terms of what the impact and 
what the goals are here that is going on.
  What is happening is these issues on their merits to be dealt with 
should be forthrightly dealt with. If you are concerned about the 
Wetlands Act, I would suggest that the measure, the new majority has 
the authority to bring that up in the House and debate it, or the 
Endangered Species Act.
  The fact of the mater is the Republican contract, which is so proudly 
proclaimed a contract with the people, does not in fact mention the 
word ``environment.'' Yet as you look through the fabric of that 
contract and the specifics, time and time again a goodly portion of it 
has a significant adverse impact on what constitutes 25, 30, 40 years 
of environmental law.
  I would just suggest to my Republican colleagues, the new majority in 
this House, that in all deference, these are not Democratic laws. The 
reasons that we stayed in a position of responsibility is because we 
often did respond to these laws which are very important and very 
significant to the people we represent.
  I would just suggest you ought to deal with these issues 
forthrightly. I think there is a very substantial change that is being 
perpetrated here in terms of the public, and that is, of course, 
increasing the cost of doing business. These regulations represent very 
often, this assault regulation, these regulations represent the wheels 
on the vehicle that puts laws into effect. Can you not put laws into 
effect 
[[Page H2468]] unless we can sit here and precisely write in detail all 
of that?
  My good friend and colleague Mo Udall used to say there are two kinds 
of people in Washington, those that don't know and those that don't 
know they don't know. The Members of the House will be well-advised to 
recognize the limitations we have and the responsibilities that we give 
to the Executive in terms of putting laws into effect. These rules and 
regulations that are being beat about the head these days are the basis 
of putting laws into effect.
  What we are doing here, of course, is trying to write regulations and 
specifics for the Court with regards to the fifth amendment of the 
Constitution. I would say in doing that, cutting it out of whole cloth, 
so-to-speak, and defining what constitutes a property right, a takings, 
we are doing a great injustice in terms of putting a burden on the 
Federal Government and limiting its ability to carry out the public 
good in this country. If that public good is manifested in 
environmental and regulatory laws, and I know the amendments you have 
you are going to specifically target in on the environmental laws 
specified in the Tauzin amendment. I understand that. But I think in 
terms of doing it and attempting to superimpose this particular ruling 
and takings, we are doing great injustice and causing great expense on 
the taxpayers. We should not have to pay the polluters, in essence pay 
them so they will not pollute, Mr. Speaker. I would ask Members to 
defeat this rule and this bill.
           [From the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Feb. 25, 1995]

           Environment--Did America Vote To Trash Regulation?

       Did the Republican triumph in last fall's elections mean 
     that voters wanted to eliminate major environmental, public 
     health and safety protections? According to polls and common 
     sense, the answer is no. Instead, the public wants less 
     bureaucracy and more flexible regulation. What they will get 
     if Congress passes the bills sprouting from HR 9, the so-
     called ``Job Creation and Wage Enhancement Act,'' is less 
     protection for the public, more bureaucracy and higher costs.
       Federal regulation and bureaucracy can be burdensome and 
     senseless, as with ``one size fits all'' regulations that 
     impose identical landfill design requirements for dry Arizona 
     and swampy Louisiana. Sometimes the cost to remove the last 
     few parts per billion of a toxic compound from a water supply 
     simply does not justify the expense. And red tape can be 
     voluminous. Business groups have good reason to target 
     reduction of regulations as their top legislative priority.
       Reasonable regulations must take appropriate risk-benefit 
     calculations into account. And reasonable regulations must be 
     based on hard science, not public hysteria or political 
     influence. But the solution to an occasional problem is not a 
     wholesale abrogation of 35 years of legislation that has 
     demonstrably improved public and environmental health. Yet 
     that's what the convoluted bills growing out of HR 9 could 
     do. Consider:
       Risk/benefit analysis? HR 926 requires an assessment of 
     regulatory costs--but not benefits--before a rule can be 
     promulgated. Health benefits may be difficult to quantify, 
     but it's stupid to leave them out. ``Radical'' organizations 
     such as the American Lung Association are dismayed at the 
     public health disaster such mindless accounting will bring, 
     reminding Congress that current, successful pollution 
     regulations were created only after extensive local efforts 
     failed to curb pollution.
       Less bureaucracy? Adding 22 or 23 additional analytical 
     exercises prior to any rulemaking action involves more 
     bureaucracy, not less.
       Tort reform to reduce the influence of lawsuits and 
     lawyers? This legislation offers a feast for lawyers wishing 
     to impede regulatory processes. The law allows numerous new 
     avenues for lawsuits including--wildly--suits against 
     individual regulators.
       Save money? EPA director Carol Browner estimates that 
     compliance within her agency alone would require nearly a 
     thousand additional employees and $200 million annually. The 
     cost to business and public inefficiency would be much 
     higher.
       Cut entitlements? HR 925 would create a whole new 
     entitlement, requiring reimbursement of landowners if their 
     property value was reduced by 10 percent due to a regulation. 
     That's a huge new fiscal burden, and of course no mention is 
     made of requiring private property owners to share with 
     taxpayers the financial benefits they routinely receive as a 
     consequence of government actions.
       The bills resulting from HR 9 are overt efforts to gum up 
     Washington, not make it more efficient. Congress should 
     reject such wholesale, ideologically based trashing of this 
     nation's environmental laws, then go about saving business 
     from inappropriate regulation the old-fashioned way: with 
     common sense, one regulation at a time.
  Mrs. WALDHOLTZ. Mr. Speaker, most of the debate tonight has centered 
on budget waivers, and it is appropriate that when we decide to waive 
the requirement of the Budget Act in a rule, that we take it very 
seriously.
  The new Republican majority in fact takes the budget so seriously 
that we enacted rule XI, clause 4(e) that states as follows: ``Whenever 
the Committee on Rules reports a resolution providing for the 
consideration of any measure, it shall to the maximum extent possible 
specify in the resolution the object of any waiver of a point of order 
against the measure or against its consideration.''
  We take this seriously, Mr. Speaker. And because we took it 
seriously, we outlined in this rule every budget waiver that we are 
asking this body to consider so that we can consider this very 
important legislation.
  But, Mr. Speaker, it has been alleged tonight that this is the most 
serious waiver of the budget rules that has ever happened to this 
House. Nothing could be further from the truth.
  Mr. Speaker, I refer the House to the survey of activities of the 
House Committee on Rules of the 103d Congress, the last Congress. In 
that Congress, 193 rules were offered to this House and passed. Of 
those 193 rules, 114 rules waived all of the rules of the House. All of 
the rules of the House, including the Budget Act. This does not even 
begin, Mr. Speaker, to be the most egregious example.
  Now, why are we trying to waive budget rules tonight? Not because we 
intend to create a new entitlement. We do not. Not because we are going 
to allow this to be a budget buster. It is not. The reason that we are 
trying to waive these rules tonight is to allow us to bring forward 
legislation that will address this, and to make in order an amendment 
that will make it clear that the authors of this bill did not intend to 
create a new entitlement, did not intend to add 1 more dollar to the 
budget deficit or appropriate 1 more dollar to agencies.
  What they did intend and what the amendments will establish is that 
agencies who take the property of private citizens of the United States 
will have to pay for that property out of their existing budgets.
  So, Mr. Speaker, we ask tonight to waive these rules to allow us to 
bring forward legislation that will make it clear that we are not 
creating a new entitlement, that we are not adding 1 more dollar to the 
budget deficit that is far too high already, and that we are not 
appropriating a single extra dollar to agencies to pay for their 
invasion of the rights of private citizens.
                              {time}  2100

  What we are doing is bringing forward a rule that allows us to get to 
this radical idea of making agencies pay through existing funds for the 
actions that they take. That is the intent of this rule. That is the 
intent of this legislation, and that is what this rule will provide.
  Let me address one other thing, Mr. Speaker. It has been suggested 
that one of the greatest failings of this bill is there is no estimate 
from the CBO as to how much this bill will cost.
  Mr. Speaker, when these amendments pass that are made in order 
specifically under this rule, there will be no additional cost. But I 
would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the fact that the Congressional Budget 
Office today does not even know how much we are costing private 
citizens every year through taking their property is the best argument 
there is for passing this bill, becuase the Government of the United 
States, which is here to protect these private citizens, is taking 
hundreds of thousands, if not millions or billions of property away 
from private citizens every year without compensating them.
  We do not even know, Mr. Speaker, how much we are costing them 
becuase we have been so cavalier in the past.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a fair rule. It is a rule that will allow us to 
enact the intent of the authors to make agencies compensate citizens 
through existing funds.
  I urge my colleagues to support this rule and the bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the following information.



                                                                                                                
[[Page H2469]]
     THE AMENDMENT PROCESS UNDER SPECIAL RULES REPORTED BY THE RULES    
              COMMITTEE,\1\ 103D CONGRESS V. 104TH CONGRESS             
                          [As of March 1, 1995]                         
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                               103d Congress          104th Congress    
                         -----------------------------------------------
        Rule type          Number of  Percent of   Number of  Percent of
                             rules       total       rules       total  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Open/Modified-open\2\...          46          44          16          84
Modified Closed\3\......          49          47           3          16
Closed\4\...............           9           9           0           0
                         -----------------------------------------------
      Totals:...........         104         100          19         100
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\This table applies only to rules which provide for the original      
  consideration of bills, joint resolutions or budget resolutions and   
  which provide for an amendment process. It does not apply to special  
  rules which only waive points of order against appropriations bills   
  which are already privileged and are considered under an open         
  amendment process under House rules.                                  
\2\An open rule is one under which any Member may offer a germane       
  amendment under the five-minute rule. A modified open rule is one     
  under which any Member may offer a germane amendment under the five-  
  minute rule subject only to an overall time limit on the amendment    
  process and/or a requirement that the amendment be preprinted in the  
  Congressional Record.                                                 
\3\A modified closed rule is one under which the Rules Committee limits 
  the amendments that may be offered only to those amendments designated
  in the special rule or the Rules Committee report to accompany it, or 
  which preclude amendments to a particular portion of a bill, even     
  though the rest of the bill may be completely open to amendment.      
\4\A closed rule is one under which no amendments may be offered (other 
  than amendments recommended by the committee in reporting the bill).  


                          SPECIAL RULES REPORTED BY THE RULES COMMITTEE, 104TH CONGRESS                         
                                              [As of March 1, 1995]                                             
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  H. Res. No. (Date                                                                                             
       rept.)               Rule type             Bill No.                 Subject           Disposition of rule
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
H. Res. 38 (1/18/95)  O...................  H.R. 5..............  Unfunded Mandate Reform..  A: 350-71 (1/19/   
                                                                                              95).              
H. Res. 44 (1/24/95)  MC..................  H. Con. Res. 17.....  Social Security..........  A: 255-172 (1/25/  
                                            H.J. Res. 1.........  Balanced Budget Amdt.....   95).              
H. Res. 51 (1/31/95)  O...................  H.R. 101............  Land Transfer, Taos        A: voice vote (2/1/
                                                                   Pueblo Indians.            95).              
H. Res. 52 (1/31/95)  O...................  H.R. 400............  Land Exchange, Arctic      A: voice vote (2/1/
                                                                   Nat'l. Park and Preserve.  95).              
H. Res. 53 (1/31/95)  O...................  H.R. 440............  Land Conveyance, Butte     A: voice vote (2/1/
                                                                   County, Calif.             95).              
H. Res. 55 (2/1/95).  O...................  H.R. 2..............  Line Item Veto...........  A: voice vote (2/2/
                                                                                              95).              
H. Res. 60 (2/6/95).  O...................  H.R. 665............  Victim Restitution.......  A: voice vote (2/7/
                                                                                              95).              
H. Res. 61 (2/6/95).  O...................  H.R. 666............  Exclusionary Rule Reform.  A: voice vote (2/7/
                                                                                              95).              
H. Res. 63 (2/8/95).  MO..................  H.R. 667............  Violent Criminal           A: voice vote (2/9/
                                                                   Incarceration.             95).              
H. Res. 69 (2/9/95).  O...................  H.R. 668............  Criminal Alien             A: voice vote (2/10/
                                                                   Deportation.               95).              
H. Res. 79 (2/10/95)  MO..................  H.R. 728............  Law Enforcement Block      A: voice vote (2/10/
                                                                   Grants.                    95).              
H. Res. 83 (2/13/95)  MO..................  H.R. 7..............  National Security          PQ: 229-100; A: 227-
                                                                   Revitalization.            127 (2/15/95).    
H. Res. 88 (2/16/95)  MC..................  H.R. 831............  Health Insurance           PQ: 230-191; A: 229-
                                                                   Deductibility.             188 (2/21/95).    
H. Res. 91 (2/21/95)  O...................  H.R. 830............  Paperwork Reduction Act..  A: v.v. (2/2?/95). 
H. Res. 92 (2/21/95)  MC..................  H.R. 889............  Defense Supplemental.....  A: 282-144 (2/22/  
                                                                                              95).              
H. Res. 93 (2/22/95)  MO..................  H.R. 450............  Regulatory Transition Act  A: 252-175 (2/23/  
                                                                                              95).              
H. Res. 96 (2/24/95)  MO..................  H.R. 1022...........  Risk Assessment..........  A: 253-165 (2/27/  
                                                                                              95).              
H. Res. 100 (2/27/    O...................  H.R. 926............  Regulatory Reform and      A: voice vote (2/28/
 95).                                                              Relief Act.                95).              
H. Res. 101 (2/28/    MO..................  H.R. 925............  Private Property           ...................
 95).                                                              Protection Act.                              
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Codes: O-open rule; MO-modified open rule; MC-modified closed rule; C-closed rule; A-adoption vote; PQ-previous 
  question vote. Source: Notices of Action Taken, Committee on Rules, 104th Congress.                           

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the 
previous question on the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Klug). The question is on the 
resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 5 of rule I, further 
proceedings on this vote will be postponed.
  Pursuant to the order of the House of today and rule XXIII, the Chair 
declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of 
the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 925.

                              {time}  2102


                     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 consideration of the bill (H.R. 
925) to compensate owners of private property for the effect of certain 
regulatory restrictions, with Mr. Shuster in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of today, the bill 
is considered as having been read the first time.
  Under the rule, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady] will be 
recognized for 30 minutes, and the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. 
Conyers] will be recognized for 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady].
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise tonight in support of H.R. 925--a bill which 
provides a reasonable means of redress for landowners who are subjected 
to Federal regulation which substantially reduces the value of their 
property.
  We can appropriately begin our consideration of H.R. 925 by referring 
to a recent court decision. Chief Judge Loren Smith of the Court of 
Federal Claims recently voiced his concern over the inadequacy of the 
law of takings at addressing the impact of regulation on private 
property rights. In Bowles v. United States, Judge Smith stated:

       This case presents in sharp relief the difficulty that 
     current takings law forces upon both the federal government 
     and the private citizen. The government here had little 
     guidance from the law as to whether its action was a taking 
     in advance of a long and expensive course of litigation. The 
     citizen likewise had little more precedential guidance than 
     faith in the justice of his cause to sustain a long and 
     costly suit in several courts. There must be a better way to 
     balance legitimate public goals with fundamental individual 
     rights. Courts, however, cannot produce comprehensive 
     solutions. They can only interpret the rather precise 
     language of the fifth amendment to our Constitution in very 
     specific factual circumstances. . . . Judicial decisions are 
     far less sensitive to societal problems than the law and 
     policy made by the political branches of our great 
     constitutional system. At best courts sketch the outlines of 
     individual rights, they cannot hope to fill in the portrait 
     of wise and just social and economic policy. (Bowles v. 
     United States 31 Fed. Cl. 37 (1994).

  H.R. 925 is aimed at filling in ``the portrait of wise and just 
social and economic policy'' with regard to private property rights.
  It will establish a mechanism which represents in the words of Judge 
Smith a ``better way to balance legitimate public goals with 
fundamental individual rights.''
  It provides a workable way to ensure that property owners receive 
compensation when Federal regulation causes a significant reduction in 
the market value of the owners' property.
  It is important to understand some things this bill does not do.
  The bill expressly prohibits compensation for any agency action 
undertaken to prevent an identifiable hazard to public health and 
safety or identifiable damage to specific property other than the 
property whose use is limited.
  Contrary to the claims of some critics, this bill will not pay 
polluters to stop polluting.
  The bill provides that any payment made under the act shall be paid 
from the annual appropriation of the agency whose action resulted in 
the limitation on the use of the property.
  If the agency does not have sufficient funds to compensate the owner, 
the agency head is required to seek the appropriation of such funds in 
the next fiscal year. Contrary to the claims of some opponents of the 
bill, it does not create a new entitlement. This point is made clear 
beyond any doubt in the amendment in the nature of a substitute which I 
will offer.
  H.R. 925 will force agencies to recognize that when they limit the 
use of an owner's property, there are economic consequences. Agencies 
will have to weight the benefits and costs of their 
[[Page H2470]] actions carefully--paying close attention to the impact 
of those actions on individuals and the general public. Agencies also 
will be more accountable to Congress, and therefore, will be more 
likely to carry out the true intent of the statutes they are charged 
with enforcing--rather than continually extending their bureaucratic 
reach.
  Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story many years ago stated that, ``One 
of the fundamental objects of every good government must be the due 
administration of justice; and how vain it would be to speak of such an 
administration, when all property is subject to the will or caprice of 
the legislature and the rulers.''
  H.R. 925 will help to ensure that private property is not subjected 
``to the will or caprice of'' agencies. I urge my colleagues to support 
this important legislation.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  The opposition to this measure comes from the view of compensating 
private property owners under the Constitution's taking clause when 
Government regulation results in reducing the fair market value of 
private property by more than 10 percent. This is a serious departure 
from long-established Supreme Court doctrine in an effort that, I 
think, is very clear and is getting clearer the more this debate goes 
on, to undermine the Government's ability to promote the common good by 
providing for clean skies, fresh water, and safe and fair work places 
that the American people have come to expect.
  The result of such a measure passing would be, as one witness 
testified, hard-working American taxpayers will be forced to watch as 
their hard-earned wages are collected by the Government, as taxes are 
paid out to corporations and large landowners as takings compensations 
and large landowners as takings compensation. And all this at a time 
when the Government downsizing is the rallying cry with the new 
majority in the contract.
  This measure senselessly creates a vast new bureaucracy and a new 
entitlement program with so much uncertainty that endless litigation is 
a distinct likelihood.
  Oh, yes, there is another motivation for takings legislation, to 
undermine the enforcement of one of the Nation's most important civil 
rights laws, the Americans with Disabilities Act, which will surely 
occur once a measure of this drastic nature is brought into our law.
  This measure radically expands subtle Supreme Court law and leads to 
an absurd result and windfalls to investors of every stripe.
  For centuries now the courts have grappled with the essential 
questions arising from the few words in the fifth amendment which 
drives the takings law. What uses are public and how much compensation 
is just and what is property and what amounts to a taking? In the 
Armstrong versus the United States case, the Court described the 
takings clause underlying purpose:

       The fifth amendment's guarantee that private property shall 
     not be taken without just compensation was designed to bar 
     the government from forcing some people alone to bear burdens 
     which in all fairness and justice should be borne by the 
     public as a whole.

  In several subsequent cases, there have been further definitions of 
the ways that a taking can occur. We proceed in this general debate 
absolutely stunned at the way we would turn this concept of taking on 
its head.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith].
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida 
for yielding time to me.
  Mr. Chairman, there is a giant sucking sound in America in 1995. It 
is the governmental grabbing of private property through ruinous 
regulation.
  Our farmers in the Midwest and across the Great Plains are unable to 
use their farmland because the Government calls their dry lands 
``wetlands.''
  Property owners on the east coast are denied the right to build homes 
for their families because bureaucrats oppose construction.
  Across Texas, homeowners, ranchers, and farmers are warned they may 
not be able to use private land if a golden-cheeked warbler decides to 
nest there.
  And in southern California, ranchers, farmers, and homeowners are 
denied access to water because of a fairy shrimp upstream.
  These are today's forgotten Americans. Their rights are trampled by a 
government that forces them to shoulder the entire costs of ruinous 
regulations. These citizens are denied the productive use of farms, 
ranches, and businesses acquired after a lifetime of hard work.
  And many of those who claim to speak for society's neglected and left 
out are strangely silent and often hostile to the plight of these 
citizens.
  Mr. Chairman, today help has arrived. Through a bipartisan effort in 
the people's House, these Americans will be forgotten no longer. The 
people who do the work, pay the taxes, and pull the wagon will have the 
same rights as the golden-cheeked warbler, fairy shrimp, and blind cave 
spider.
  The private property rights legislation we are considering stands for 
a fundamental and very simple principle of basic fairness: If a 
landowner is prevented from using a portion of his or her land in order 
to provide a public benefit like a wetlands reserve or wildlife 
preserve, the costs of acquiring these benefits should be shared by the 
public as a whole. It's not fair to force the individual landowner to 
shoulder the entire burden.
  The Private Property Protection Act of 1995 will not eliminate our 
Nation's environmental laws. It won't prevent the protection of 
endangered species or preservation of wetlands. It will permit us to 
protect as many endangered species and as many wetlands as we the 
people are willing to pay for.
  The Private Property Protection Act of 1995 is about fairness, 
accountability, and shared responsibility. It's about holding the 
Federal Government to standards of public accountability. And it's 
about putting people first.
  On November 8, 1994, the American people demanded that their 
government reduce its size, scope, and burden. Regulatory burdens 
imposed in the name of protection of the environment are among the most 
onerous. The Private Property Protection Act of 1995 would relieve 
those burdens, fulfill the American people's mandate, and restore 
freedom and fairness to all Americans.
                              {time}  2115

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Farr].
  Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise on the general debate on 
the bill, and I think we really ought to take a very close look at 
this, because this bill shifts the law, really shifts the law from an 
issue which has been long held in our Constitution, that when the 
Government takes something, they ought to pay for it.
  Certainly that is the role of our courts, to determine, if landowners 
and Government regulators cannot agree on it, exactly what that taking 
process is and what the value is.
  This bill shifts that. Just in the bill itself, it says that this 
bill relates to diminishing the fair market value of the property by 10 
percent. Let me repeat that again. This bill goes to any action that 
diminishes the fair market value of the property by 10 percent.
  That, Mr. Chairman, is absolutely ridiculous. What is the fair market 
value? Who determines fair market value? Is it what we thought we would 
make if we got a big windfall in a big development? Is that the fair 
market value: expectation?
  What is the price of that? What is 10 percent? My God, when you went 
out and bought a house, there was an appraisal on that house. You 
probably did not pay full price. You bargained it down. But this bill 
says no, if the value of the owner is diminished by 10 percent, then 
you trigger a taking.
  This legislation is going to cost State, Federal, and local 
governments billions of tax dollars. It is going to increase the 
government bureaucracy, not only for the government agencies to try to 
figure out what a taking is and whether 10 percent is diminished, but 
then the argument will be carried out by appraisers, land appraisers, 
lawyers.
  This is a wonderful bill for lawyers, because it is going to 
guarantee a full- 
[[Page H2471]] time employment act for them. It is going to clog our 
court systems. It is going to create a new entitlement program.
  Just think, you can own a piece of land and you know that land may be 
thousands of acres, but you have a couple of acres that are in a 
wetland. Maybe you have a couple of acres that are in that habitat of 
an identified endangered species; not the whole property, just that 
couple of acres.
  You can say, ``All right, I want to do all my development right on 
those couple of acres.'' You know that the government will prohibit you 
from taking, and you can then trigger and say, ``That is a taking. You 
have taken my land. Compensate me for it. Then I am going to use that 
compensation to build all over the rest of the land.'' That indeed is 
going to create chaos.
  Mr. Chairman, I think we ought to look at the people that are down in 
the trenches. I have been there as a county supervisor dealing with 
land use regulation and master plans and zoning and elements of those 
master plans that require that the zoning be consistent.
  I have dealt with the State legislature in those issues when I was in 
the California State Legislature, a very complex State. Look at the 
people down in the trenches. What do the State legislatures say about 
it? The National Conference of State Legislators' policy resolution 
passed this last year strongly opposes any legislation or regulations 
at the national level that would, one, attempt to define or categorize 
compensable takings under the fifth amendment of the U.S. Constitution, 
or, two, interfere with the State's ability to define and categorize 
regulatory taking requirements requiring State compensation.
  Let us look at the League of Cities, all the cities in the United 
States; these are the people that do this land-use regulation at the 
local level. They oppose this.
  Let us look at the State attorneys general, who have to go to court 
and defend what State and local governments have done. The attorneys 
general oppose this legislation.
  Virtually everybody who knows anything about land-use planning at the 
local level opposes this legislation. It is a bad bill, and I urge 
Members to defeat it.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Bryant].
  Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding to me.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 925.
  It is time Congress injected some substance into the spirit of the 
fifth amendment.
  Perhaps James Madison put it best when he said ``No land or 
merchandise shall be taken directly even for public use without 
indemnification to the owner.''
  I could not agree more.
  And neither could the people of middle and west Tennessee who I 
represent.
  Time and again, I hear from propertyowners who have seen their land 
values decline.
  This is thanks to the propensity of this Government to regulate and 
mandate and to effectively limit the use of this property.
  I have a good friend, Anthony Bolton, from my hometown of Henderson, 
TN, who is experiencing this right now.
  He and his family own about 500 acres on the Forked Deer River in 
west Tennessee.
  The land used to consist of about 50 acres in production with the 
other 450 acres in prime hardwood.
  But a beaver built a dam, and that's where their nightmare began.
  The 500 prime acres have since become nothing more than a muddy 
swamp, with no real economic value.
  Now rather than earning money with the land, he instead only gets to 
pay its taxes.
  Why? Because the Federal Government says they can't remove the beaver 
dam because it has created a wetland.
  Where is the common sense in this?
  Why does this Government deem it necessary to place unnecessary 
financial burdens on hard-working taxpayers?
  It is time we reverse these unfair burdens on America's landoweners.
  That is exactly what H.R. 925 will do.
  This legislation will not take away the sovereignty of this 
Government.
  It will begin to put the constitutional rights of landowners before 
the rights of spotted owls, woodpeckers, and kangaroo rats. And yes, 
beavers too.
  If we as a government and society want to conserve something, that is 
fine.
  But we should not place that entire burden on the shoulders of 
property owners.
  Mr. Chairman, the issue before us is paramount.
  There are few rights more important in this republic than the right 
to own property.
  It is indeed one of the basic elements on which our Founding Fathers 
crafted our Constitution.
  Therefore, it is imminently fair to compensate a property owner for 
the taking of their property by declaring it a wetland or a sanctuary 
for endangered species.
  Why can't we put this commonsense philosophy into law?
  I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 925.
  The Anthony Boltons of this country deserve it.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Nadler], a member of the committee.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this bill. It is a 
truly radical piece of legislation and goes against the entire thrust 
of the constitutional history of the United States Government for the 
last 200 years.
  Mr. Chairman, the Supreme Court has said that in construing the 
takings provision of the fifth amendment, the court has defined that, 
``Elimination of the most profitable use of the property is not a 
taking.''
  It has stated that, ``A reduction of property value occasioned by 
government regulation must generally be severe or total for there to be 
a taking; a mere diminution in the value of property, however serious, 
is insufficient to demonstrate a taking.''
  It is not a taking if ``the property owner retains some viable use of 
the property (as measured by the owner's reasonable investment backed 
expectations).'' Those are all from the Supreme Court.
  Why? Why have the courts consistently read the fifth amendment this 
way? The answer is because to read it any other way, to read it the way 
this bill would read it, would totally undermine the ability of the 
Federal Government, or if applied to local government, of local 
governments, to protect the general welfare. The Federal Government was 
instituted to protect the general welfare.
  With this bill, Mr. Chairman, we say that if the Federal Government 
wants to protect the air or the water or any other environmental 
aspect, or anything else, in a way that imposes any kind of burden on 
the piece of property, then it may not do so unless it will compensate 
for the change in value of that property, which would be infinite, 
almost infinite.
  I note that this bill does not provide, and the gentlewoman from Utah 
[Mrs. Waldholtz] says it has no fiscal impact because the agency would 
have to pay from its own money. How could an agency pay from its own 
money when any action that may impose a burden on the property may 
impose it on hundreds or thousands or millions unpredictably?
  The philosophy of this legislation is radical because it says that 
private property is absolute and that the rights of the public are 
greatly subordinate. Teddy Roosevelt said to the contrary. President 
Roosevelt, the great Republican President, said, ``Every man holds his 
property subject to the general right of the community to regulate it 
to whatever degree the public welfare may require it.''
  I have carried this around in my pocket for the last 12 years, 
waiting for an appropriate occasion to read it, and this is the 
appropriate occasion, to remind the people here that the proper 
philosophy of government is that private property is not absolute. The 
right of the public ultimately is superior, and that to legislate this 
bill would say that the public welfare has no bearing in this country.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Fields].
  [[Page H2472]] Mr. FIELDS of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support 
of this legislation, and specifically, I rise in support of an 
amendment that will be offered tomorrow by the gentleman from Louisiana 
[Mr. Tauzin] and myself.
  Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FIELDS of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana, to 
clear up a statement made earlier, that was made in error.
  Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, one of the things that is going to happen, 
I suppose, in this debate is that we are going to be debating the old 
bill, the bill that was filed in some other year, perhaps, or some 
other bill that is not before us.
  The bill that will be before us tomorrow, that would have been today, 
is a bill that applies only to Federal statutes and only gives a cause 
of action for recovery for takings under Federal statutes, not State 
statutes, not local statutes, city statutes.
  The bill will only cover the right of property owners to be 
compensated when Federal regulations take away their property. 
Tomorrow, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Fields] and I will be offering 
an amendment to even limit the Federal statutes we are dealing with to 
a very few, the Endangered Species Act, wetlands regulations under 404, 
and sodbuster provisions and Federal statutes dealing with water 
rights.
  It will be those limited Federal statutes only, so the objections of 
Attorneys General and cities and counties and States to us meddling 
with their problems with taking laws are objections that are not well 
founded when it comes to the bill that will be before us tomorrow.
  Mr. FIELDS of Texas. Mr. Chairman, people are probably wondering why 
are we standing here at this later hour debating this issue. This is a 
significant issue, becuase we are talking about something that is basic 
and fundamental to all Americans. That is the ability to not only own 
but to beneficially use our private property.
  I got involved in this issue becuase of some specific instances in my 
home State of Texas. I had a road that was very important, that needed 
to be built, connecting a major subdivision called Kingwood in 
Tuskakita with a major beltway system. Local property owners came 
together and donated the property for that road.
  All of sudden, some people walked through and said, ``That road 
cannot be built becuase we see what we think is an abandoned eagle's 
nest.'' My family had lived in that area since the 1860's. We had never 
seen an eagle's nest. We hope eagles are there. No one could prove it 
was an abandoned eagle's nest, but because of that, the property owners 
had to mitigate, as if the eagle flew back to that one specific tree, 
if it was an eagle, rebuilt the nest, reestablished, climbed down the 
tree, and then walked a distance to Lake Houston.
  We thought that was the problem and that it was over. The landowners 
had given up more of their property.
  Then as we begin to go further with the road, someone walked in and 
said, ``Oh, my gosh, you have upland hardwood, wetlands.'' For me it 
was a little hit hard to understand that if something was upland, how 
it could be a wetland. The property owners came together, mitigated 
once again.
  Then we though the road was going to be built. Then someone walked in 
and said, ``Oh, my gosh, you've got prairie dawn,'' which is a dressed-
up word for bitter weed. The property owners played the game one more 
time and said, ``We will find property to mitigate.'' They found 
property without the prairie dawn, but someone said, ``This property 
does not have prairie dawn, but it is conducive for the growth of 
prairie dawn.''
  It took approximately 5 years to finally get the permits needed to 
built a very short piece of road. It just is not that problem. North of 
us we have a red cockaded woopecker. If that lands on your property and 
a colony is established, you lose the ability to use your property.
  West of us in Travis country there is the black-capped vireo, the 
golden-cheeked warbler. That has cost Travis county in Austin, TX, 
literally hundreds of millions of dollars in property value. The local 
ranchers in the hill country cannot cut their cedar because of those 
particular species.
  One last example, a darter in the Comel Springs and also in New 
Braunsfels, the springs there, have forced the city of San Antonio to 
look for a new water supply that could end up costing that city 
billions of dollars, with the farmers and ranchers west of there having 
to have there wells permitted, their use restricted, and at some point 
in the future of total abrogation of their rights.
  Mr. Chairman, this is not right. Their must be reform. The most 
important thing that has been lost by the conservation community, they 
have lost most of the hospitality and the cooperation of the landowner.
                              {time}  2130

  Without that cooperation, species will not be saved, and wetlands 
will not be preserved.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the 
gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs]. I presume that will leave me with 
15 minutes for tomorrow?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is correct.
  The gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs] is recognized for 4 minutes.
  Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the ranking member for 
yielding the time to me.
  In a 1-minute speech this morning I told you, in brief, the story of 
the deadly Summitville Mine--Colorado's worst environmental disaster in 
a decade. Tonight I'd like to tell you more about that catastrophe, and 
about the insult that this takings bill would add to that injury.
  For about 6 years, Summitville was an active gold mine near Del 
Norte, CO, in the spectacular San Juan Mountains. Like many such mines, 
the Summitville operation used cyanide to leach the gold from the ore 
that was taken from the site.
  In 1991, during the spring run-off from the melting winter snowpack, 
the mine's poorly designed holding ponds overflowed, sending a 
poisonous surge of cyanide, heavy metals, and other toxins into Alamosa 
Creek. The contamination was so severe that fish and other river 
creatures were killed for 17 miles downstream. Lesser effects of the 
contamination were felt more than 50 miles downstream. We don't yet 
know the extent of the lasting environmental consequences--on other 
wildlife, on downstream farmers, on drinking water supplies.
  A year and a half later, Summitville Consolidated Mining Company, the 
foreign-owned company that leased the property and had been running the 
mine, declared bankruptcy and walked away, avoiding all responsibility 
and liability for preventing further contamination. We were left with 
an environmental time bomb, with no protection against future overflows 
or collapse of the impoundments holding the cyanide wastes. The 
companies that owned the land--Aztec Minerals, Gray Eagle Mining, and 
South Mountain Minerals--did nothing to step in to protect the 
environment, or their downstream neighbors, or even their own property.
  At the request of the State of Colorado, the Environmental Protection 
Agency took over, designated the mine a Superfund site, and began 
emergency action to prevent more poison from finding its way 
downstream.
  So the American people have already paid twice for this disaster. 
First, we've suffered environmental damages. Second, we're paying for 
the EPA to prevent future spills, an effort which is costing the 
taxpayer about $30,000 a day, more than $50 million so far.
  Now here's where insult is added to the injury. The corporate owners 
are now suing the Federal Government,
 claiming that EPA's emergency cleanup amounts to a governmental taking 
of their property. They claim that they should be compensated because 
the Government's cleanup of the abandoned, leaking, poisonous mine on 
their property is keeping them from using it to turn a profit.

  So the bizarre scenario we're faced with is corporate landowners and 
a foreign mining company abdicating all responsibility for an 
environmental catastrophe, refusing to lift a finger to protect or 
clean up their own property, and running for the hills. And when the 
Government steps into the emergency to clean up the property, the 
companies show up in time to sue the Government for its trouble.
  [[Page H2473]] This is the sort of mindlessness the Republicans want 
to encourage with the takings bill.
  Of course, the irony of this is that the Constitution is already 
perfectly clear in saying that private property owners are protected 
from genuine takings. The fifth amendment says that property can't be 
``taken for public use, without just compensation,'' and the courts 
have made plenty of consistent rulings on what this means. As recently 
as 1994, in Dolan versus City of Tigard, the Supreme Court held that a 
city government could not require a hardware store owner to build a 
bicycle pathway on her property as a condition for getting a permit to 
increase the size of her store and build a parking lot. And if the city 
did require it, she'd have to be compensated.
  Under the Constitution, this ridiculous Summitville suit, which is a 
money grab, and not a genuine taking, would be thrown out of court. But 
if the takings bill passes, the suit would no doubt prevail, and every 
American taxpayer would pay for this catastrophe a third time when 
they're forced to write a check to Aztec Minerals, Gray Eagle Mining, 
and South Mountain Minerals.
  If the takings bill passes, here's the choice we'd face at 
Summitville: EPA could continue to contain the chemicals at the plant, 
and protect the people and environment downstream. The companies who 
are suing the Federal Government would win their ridiculous suit, and 
the taxpayers would be forced to pay them who knows how much money. Or, 
in order to avoid the lawsuit, EPA could stop the containment efforts, 
pull up stakes, and let cyanide run down the river. That's the choice--
the absurd, incredible choice.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to the amount 
of time remaining for each side?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady] has 14\1/2\ 
minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers] has 15 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. CANADY of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.
  The motion was agreed to.
  Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mrs. 
Waldholtz), having assumed the chair, Mr. Shuster, 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. 925) to 
compensate owners of private property for the effect of certain 
regulatory restrictions, had come to no resolution thereon.


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