[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 57 (Tuesday, March 28, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H3809]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


        TIME TO CLOSE THE BOOKS ON THE LAKE CHAMPLAIN BASIN PLAN

                                 ______


                        HON. GERALD B.H. SOLOMON

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 28, 1995
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, in 1990, Congress enacted the Lake 
Champlain Special Designation Act and authorized $25 million for a 5-
year environmentalist study of a region encompassing over 8,000 square 
miles, including much of the Adirondack-North Country area.
  I opposed this undertaking at the time out of a genuine concern that 
it was setting in motion a process which would almost inevitably 
produce an imbalanced plan. Now that a draft basin plan has been 
released for public reaction, it turns out that my concerns were very 
well founded.
  In reading and analyzing this complex and far-reaching document, I am 
profoundly struck by several overriding and preconceived notions which 
place the entire effort in enormous doubt:
  A rush to recommend policies, mandates, and potential regulations 
based on generally inconclusive studies and information.
  Unfunded mandates on everything from municipal treatment facilities 
to farmers to the owners of all paved areas in the region.
  A total failure to assess and consider economic impacts and jobs as 
part of developing the plan's recommendations, with a very inadequate 
and attempt at economic analysis.
  Numerous recommendations aimed at increasing the size and complexity 
of Government in an era when we need to all be working on making 
Government smaller and simpler.
  Many recommendations or suggestions which have troubling implications 
for the rights of property owners in a region where these rights have 
already been greatly compromised.
  These critical concerns emanate not just from one or two of the 
plan's recommendations, which would be fixable, but from virtually 
every chapter, revealing a process and approach which was clearly 
misdirected from the start.
  Mr. Speaker, I have asked my colleague and friend, Bob Livingston, 
chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, to close the books, 
once and for all, on this ill-advised and dangerous scheme.
Vol. 141


WASHINGTON, TUESDAY, MARCH 28, 1995

No. 57


House of Representatives