[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 71 (Tuesday, May 2, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H4489-H4494]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


         DISTRICT APPROVAL OF FIRST 100 DAYS OF 104TH CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Latham] is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. LATHAM. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to take the opportunity 
tonight to reflect a little bit as to what we heard back on recess. I 
personally, in my district in northwest Iowa, which is primarily 
agricultural, held 16 town meetings and attended four agricultural 
hearings. And, Mr. Speaker, I will tell you, the people in the Fifth 
Congressional District of Iowa are 100 percent behind what we did in 
the first 100 days in the new 104th Congress.
  People told me to keep going, do not give up the fight, continue the 
ideas and the motivation behind the Contract With America. They were 
very, very pleased to hear what we did on the very first day as far as 
reforming this Congress itself, how we do business, cutting the number 
of people in committee staff, cutting the number of committees, 
limiting the terms of the chairs of the committees and subcommittees, 
limiting the term of the Speaker himself, and, most importantly, on the 
very first day when we passed the Shays-Grassley Act, it held Congress 
subject to the same laws that the rest of the country has to abide by.
  Also, we received tremendous support at every meeting for the items 
in the contract itself, when you talk about the balanced budget 
amendment, the welfare reform, doing away with the outrageous 
regulations that we have had in the past few years, having the first 
vote forever in this body on term limits, something that people have 
tried for years and years and it was never allowed to happen before.
  But, again, Mr. Speaker, the people in the Fifth District of Iowa 
told me to continue the fight. They believe that it is a refreshing 
wind blowing through Washington when you have a group of people who go 
to Washington and work very, very hard to make real change and reform, 
and, most importantly, to keep their word as to what they said during 
the campaign. It is a major change. People are responding. People do 
not believe the liberal pledge that they are getting from Washington. 
They know the facts.
  I have another gentleman here, would you like to comment, the 
gentleman from Georgia?
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  I, too, have a district which is somewhat similar to the gentleman's. 
My district, which is in the very heart of the State of Georgia, 
stretches from the middle of the State all the way to the Florida line. 
I have three military installations in my district, two Air Force bases 
and a Marine Corps logistics base, and the balance of my district is 
made up primarily of agriculture and agribusiness industry as 
[[Page H4490]] well as some heavy manufacturing industry.
  You know, we cover 32 counties in my district, and I did not get to 
all of them during the 3 weeks, but I got to most of them. I had a 
representative at some 15 town hall meetings that we did and another 
probably eight or nine civic club speeches that we gave. And everywhere 
we went, I heard the same echo of what you have just said, and that is 
we appreciate what you folks did during the first 100 days. We are 
proud to see that Congress has finally done something in the first 
place, but, more importantly, has done what it said it was going to do.
  I talked a lot about the fact that on September
   27 of last year, we on the Republican side of the aisle made history 
in American politics. We not only made promises to the American people, 
but we were willing to put those promises in writing. For the first 
time in a long time, a group of politicians, the first time ever in 
American political history, a group of politicians came together and 
made promises to the American people and did every single thing we said 
we were going to do. And I kept hearing that over and over again in my 
district, not only that you made those promises and we are proud you 
kept them, but also, like you said, we do not want you to quit doing 
what you did. You have made a great start, but in order to get this 
country turned around, we have got to keep putting common sense back 
into Washington. Something that has long been missing up here. By doing 
what we did, we put a lot of common sense back into Washington, and I 
made a pledge to my folks in the Eighth District of Georgia that we are 
going to continue to do that.

  There were a couple of things that were of particular importance to 
the folks in my district. No. 1 was the balanced budget amendment. They 
were extremely disappointed that the Senate was unable to pass the 
balanced budget amendment, which is so crucial to the financial 
stability of this country. Congress over the past 25 years has shown it 
cannot balance the budget itself, and the people of this country 
demanded that a balanced budget be passed, and unfortunately we were 
not able to do that. But they have encouragement because of the fact 
that we in the Republican Conference have made an unconditional pledge 
that we are going to balance the budget of this country by the year 
2002. While the folks in my district do not like to have their programs 
cut, nobody does, the folks in my district are willing to share in the 
reforms that have got to be made in order to get this country back on 
track and in order to get to that glide path to a balanced budget and 
in order to ultimately balance that budget by the year 2002.
  The other program that is extremely important to the folks in my 
district was the welfare reform bill we passed here in the first 100 
days. I think, and the folks in my district absolutely wholeheartedly 
agree with me, that that is the cornerstone of the contract, and that 
is the most important thing that we did during the first 100 days. We 
have too many people in this country who need to go to work, who would 
go to work if work were available and if they did not have the 
incentive to stay on welfare, and folks out there are absolutely tired 
of the failed and dismal welfare system that we have in this country.

                              {time}  1745

  They were really pleased and encouraged by the fact that finally a 
group of Congressmen were willing to stand up and say, by golly, we are 
going to reform this program, and we are going to put dignity back in 
the welfare system. And we are going to require those folks who can 
work that are on welfare, that are getting food stamps, to go to work. 
And the blue-collar folks out there, the white-collar folks, all the 
way up and down the line, the folks who work hard every week and pay 
taxes every week are simply tired of that system, and they were 
extremely encouraged by what we did with our welfare reform package.
  And I made another promise to them, that we are going to continue to 
work on that type of reform in this Congress.
  Mr. LATHAM. I yield to the gentleman from San Diego [Mr. Bilbray].
  Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you very much. I represent the 49th District of 
California. It is a beautiful district that stretches from my home town 
in Pearl Beach on the Mexican border up north to the beautiful wooded 
hills of La Jolla, from the communities of Ocean Beach and Pacific 
Beach on the blue Pacific to
 the foot hills of the Sierra Nevadas, what we call the San Diego foot 
hills.

  And I was greeted by citizens at every community that we were 
visiting, very, very encouraged with the factors that my colleagues 
have said, that there was some credibility given back to Congress, 
something that had been lacking for so long; the fact that promises 
were made, promises kept, something that was rare and unseen for a long 
time.
  And one of the encouraging things was the fact that we have actually 
heard people say that there may be concerns about our legislative 
agenda, about specifics, but at least they feel that Congress cares and 
that Congress is listening. And I think that one of the things that 
shocked the people I spoke to was that rather than what has happened 
for the last 100 years in this country, where freshmen were brought in 
and stuck in corners and not allowed to speak, that the new voices of 
the people's concerns were muted, this time for the first time in the 
history that anybody remembers, the freshmen, the new wave of fresh 
faces was not only not stopped, they were absorbed and they were 
actually embraced. Many of us in the freshman class have been 
encouraged to participate on this floor the first day, allowed to serve 
on committees and actually had chairmanships, which really kind of 
astonished people, that the voices of the American people are being 
heard and are being incorporated and that we do not fear the change for 
the good.
  Frankly, I have got to point out that one of our frustrations was 
that, as I came in to San Diego and enjoyed the beautiful blue waters 
of the Pacific, we also are reminded what a failure our Federal 
Government has been at times, especially with issues of environmental 
quality which are very, very important to those of us in San Diego and 
California for good reason. We are blessed by the Lord of having one of 
the most beautiful environments in the world. But at the same time that 
I had to state how much we enjoy our environment, I have got to point 
out that we were greeted this week to over 30 million gallons of 
untreated raw sewage from a foreign country, Mexico, that our State 
Department and our EPA department found reasons to ignore and not to 
stop, that you or I would be fined very quickly by our own Government 
and by our own Federal agencies. But they have turned their head on a 
major environmental disaster that is occurring again and again and 
again for those of us that live along the border.
  All I would say is that next week, when we talk about the Clean Water 
Act, that we start recognizing that the Clean Water Act, for those of 
us in San Diego County, is a misnomer. We look at the Federal 
bureaucracy and the Federal agencies that have administered it, too 
quick to fine American citizens, too quick to find fault with other 
people, and too seldom are willing to tackle the real tough problems 
like 30 million gallons of raw sewage pouring from a foreign country, 
polluting wildlife preserves, killing wildlife in an area of endangered 
species that is quite critical and closing almost 10 miles of 
California beach front.
  So I hope that those of us, as we next week start addressing the 
Clean Water Act, will be brave enough to have the guts to rise up and 
say, it is a good start, but we darn well have to improve this act to 
make sure it protects the environment and that the agencies that are 
working on this must be held responsible for pollution problems such as 
we face in San Diego County.
  Mr. LATHAM. I thank the gentleman.
  I, like both of you, I think when I was back at my meetings, the 
balanced budget amendment was paramount. Very disappointed what 
happened in the Senate, encouraged by the idea that it will be brought 
up again and probably passed in the next 60 to 90 days. If not, it will 
be brought back again next year.
  In my district, in the 30 counties in northwest Iowa, it is 
absolutely essential that we have a balanced budget 
[[Page H4491]] amendment. And I thought it was interesting, when we had 
a lot of discussion on welfare reform, how far ahead the people in my 
district are compared to what is being spewed about on the floor here 
in the House about supposedly cuts in funding for school lunch 
programs.
  Every meeting I said, OK, how many here raise your hands if you 
believe that a 4.5-percent increase is a cut? And obviously we had no 
hands go up. Apparently the new math that has taken place in Washington 
has not hit Iowa, because we still understand what real math is and 
what the truth and the facts of the matter are.
  And people tell us, if you do anything else, get rid of the failed 
welfare system that we have in this country and bring back a system 
with accountability and responsibility and give the people 
opportunities for the future and do not keep them tied into a system 
that takes away hope for their families and their future.
  Mr. BILBRAY. In San Diego, this has been a real tough battle for 
almost two decades now where San Diego County has a welfare system 
larger than 32 States of the Union. It is 2.6 million with a very large 
welfare problem. And every time we try to do something, the Federal 
Government was always in the way of the people of San Diego trying to 
reform and restructure this. And in fact, I point out that in 1978, the 
people in San Diego were called ruthless and heartless and cruel 
because they came up with a radical idea, they said, that was cruel 
called ``workfare,'' in 1978. And just the last few years, to show you 
how frustrating it is working with the Federal Government, when you are 
trying to make some sanity out of this situation, that when we found 
there was welfare fraud, we realized we wanted to put a picture ID on a 
welfare card. And Federal agents were saying, we do not think you can 
do that because we think it may violate the privacy of the welfare 
recipient. I have to say that any person who truly is in need, any 
person who really wants to participate in a good program would 
obviously not be opposed to having their picture on the welfare card. 
In fact, I think any of us who has any kind of identification, driver's 
license, do we feel our privacy has been violated because we have a 
picture?
  I think that gives you an example of how we have got to break up the 
concept that Washington is the only well of knowledge and compassion, 
that the local communities do have the ability to address these 
problems, to straighten out these problems, if we must give them the 
right to do the right thing. That is really what my people in San Diego 
keep crying for us to do here in Washington.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. I think you make a good point there, the fact that I 
have confidence in the local people in my home county and every single 
one of the 32 counties in my district that they can do a better job of 
running local programs than a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington can. 
That is the whole concept behind what we are doing now. The block 
granting that is going to be taking place is being done in a very 
thought-out manner. It is not being done hastily. It is being done only 
with programs that we have given serious consideration to, have 
listened to serious testimony about and have made conscious decisions 
that local folks are better able to spend their own tax money on their 
own programs than somebody in Washington.
  And I heard that time and time again. Thank goodness the folks in my 
district for the most part had seen through the school lunch debate 
before I ever got there. When I got to my town hall meetings and talked 
about school lunch programs, we had nothing but compliments for the 
fact that we are willing to give the local folks credit for the fact 
that they are capable of running these programs. They are the ones that 
run it anyway.
  Mr. BILBRAY. I was in a community called Navajo where the lady who 
runs the school lunch program came forward and said, I did not know 
about you Republicans. I was not sure. But thank you for giving us the 
program so we do not always have to have Washington tell us how to do 
it. We can serve kids more lunches and be able to serve the kids better 
because you are getting the Federal Government off our backs so we can 
do it. She said it quite clearly. She said, what do you people in 
Washington or the people in Washington think, that Washington cares 
more about our children than we care about our own children?
  I think that was probably the best message we could receive.
  Mr. LATHAM. And it goes back, another subject that came up many times 
in my town meetings, and it goes back to the idea of local control 
again, is education. People are outraged today in the 5th district of 
Iowa that they want to put together basically a Federal school board to 
tell our local school boards exactly what they can and cannot teach, 
what restrictions they can put on and what restrictions they cannot. 
Everybody believes that there is a role for the Federal Government as 
far as ensuring that every one has access to education, that because of 
race, creed, color, handicap, whatever, that you are not deprived of 
that opportunity. But everyone also believes that it is the State's 
responsibility to fund education in our State and also the control has 
to stay with the local school boards.
  And I had a vote down in Boone County. It was
   interesting. I asked, after we had had this discussion, I said, how 
many of you want to do away with the Department of Education? And the 
vote was 38 to 2 to do away with the Department, to bring back the 
responsibility at the local level, to not put it away to some 
bureaucrat here in Washington today, let the people at the local level 
make the decisions for their children's education because they do know 
best and they are going to be able to help them the most and ensure a 
quality education.

  We are not going to do it again from Washington.
  Mr. BILBRAY. I had it pointed out to me that the more money that we 
have spent on the federal Department of Education, the more the test 
scores of our students in this country have dropped. I do not believe 
that you can blame it on the Department of Education, but I think that 
what it tells us is just throwing money at a Federal agency will not 
help to educate our children.
  It is the teachers and the parents of America that will educate the 
children. And what we need to do in the Federal Government is get out 
of the way and let them do what they do best, take care of the 
children. If any of us had a vehicle where we spent more money on the 
vehicle and the vehicle ran worse every time we added money, we would 
kind of think twice about the idea of how much money we are spending 
here and maybe we should try a different vehicle.
  I think the best vehicle is allow parents to do what parents do best, 
allow teachers to do what teachers do best and get off their backs and 
let them get the job done.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. My wife has taught school in the public school system 
in Colquitt County, my home county, for in excess of 20 years. My 
daughter is in her first year of teaching kindergarten in the public 
schools. I see what both of these ladies do on a weekly basis as far as 
teaching kids. That is where the core of our education system is. They 
do not go home at 3 in the afternoon. They are there until 5 or 6 in 
the afternoon. They are there at night. They are there on Sunday, 
working, preparing to teach those kids because they love what they do.
  That is what makes our education system in this country so great. It 
is not the bureaucrats in Washington that contribute to the positive 
side of the education system in this country, and that is what the 
folks at home are tired of. They are tired of bureaucrats in Washington 
dictating to them not only what their children will eat, but what 
school books that folks can choose from, what curriculum they will be 
taught and how they will be taught it.
  It is absolutely time that we did what the Founders and Framers of 
the Constitution of the United States intended, and that is to return 
the government of this country to the people of this country. And 
education is a prime area where I look for the Republican side of the 
House to really step forward and to do that, because by dismantling the 
Department of Education, which I am advocating that we do over some 
period of time, we are going to return the education of our children to 
the folks in the States and 
[[Page H4492]] in the local communities. That is were it ought to be.
  We do owe an obligation to the school systems of this country to help 
fund them. That is what our tax money needs to be spent for. But the 
folks on the local level need to be making decisions about how their 
children will be taught.
  Mr. LATHAM. I think it is very unfortunate that so much of our 
resources in the schools today, and I heard it time and time again, are 
going to help children who are not now motivated to learn English and 
that is the town of, and I am sure it is a big issue with you, in the 
town of Storm Lake, IA today we have 22 different languages in our 
school district. In Sioux City, IA, we have 18 different languages.
  I heard time and time again in the town meetings that English should 
be the national language, and we should encourage every one to learn 
English, that that is the thing that holds this country together. And 
rather than being a melting pot like we used to be, we are a tossed 
salad, that we need English, we need English as the thing to hold us 
together.
  You look at the resources we are expending today, just trying to have 
a special teacher going through with each, like in Storm Lake, 22 
different languages.
  Mr. BILBRAY. As somebody who was raised in a very multicultural 
neighborhood, my home town was very, very multicultural. The fact is 
that we have got to remember that language is one of the bonding 
elements that hold us together. Common culture, common language, common 
economics. We can share other cultures.
  My community, we celebrate September 16 or Cinco de Mayo just as much 
as anybody else would.
                              {time}  1800

  It is one of the joys. The problem we get into is when people want to 
destroy that common ground where all Americans can meet, and that 
common ground, one thing that is very critical is language. We should 
learn from what is happening in the Continent of Africa and what has 
happened in Yugoslavia, where people have drawn lines and maintained 
separate lines just to make sure they do not communicate. Language is 
absolutely essential, not just for the culture, but for the individual.
  In my community and my district, a lot of Mexican nationals send 
their children up into the United States to be educated, and their 
first priority is for their children to learn English, because even in 
Mexico, language, the English language, is essential if you want the 
economic and social prosperity for your children. Those of us that love 
our children should do no less for our future generations than to make 
sure that everyone, everyone in the United States has the right to 
proficiency in the English language.
  That has not necessarily happened. In certain segments where English 
is not a major part of the educational system, and where it has not 
been well implanted, the dropout rate is over 50 percent. We are 
denying these individuals the potential for free access, the right and 
freedom of the pursuit of happiness.
  I think we really need to raise this issue of saying we want to do 
this as a compassionate step so we have equal opportunity, and we 
cannot have equal opportunity in any society unless there is a common 
language. I think it is quite clear.
  The people of California, though, I want to point out, have passed a 
citizens initiative that identifies English as the official language, 
and let me point out that those of Latino extraction actually were 
major supporters in the voting ranks for that, because they, more than 
anyone else, understand that you have to have that common bond. That 
English language is our common language.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Switching subjects, Tom, but along that same line 
again of reducing the Federal bureaucracy and particularly taking the 
Federal Government out of our daily lives, one thing that I heard at 
every single town meeting I went to was the flat tax. Folks want to 
know ``tell me about the flat tax: Do we really have a chance of 
getting the flat tax passed?'' Without even knowing all the details of 
the flat tax, the reason I found that people were so excited about the 
flat tax is that it reduces the Government involvement from the 
standpoint of the Internal Revenue being less involved in our daily 
lives.
  I use an example. I carry a 3 by 5 card with me, this is not exactly 
3 by 5, but I use that example of taking your W-2 form and using the 
gross receipts that you received on your W-2 form, multiplying it by 17 
percent, and you come up with a figure, you write the Government a 
check for that amount of money, you sign it. That is your tax return.
  The reaction I got on that was just extremely positive, because that 
is what has people in this country excited about this term of Congress. 
We are doing some things to finally dismantle the Federal bureaucracy, 
and to get things back to where the Founders of this country intended 
for them to be to start with.
  I do not know whether you heard anything about the flat tax or about 
the consumption tax, but I have sure heard a lot about it.
  Mr. LATHAM. I have had questions asked me at every meeting on the 
same subject, at each of the 16 meetings, talking about the flat tax 
and a national sales tax. There are reservations about the flat tax, 
that maybe some group is going to get away a little better than what 
they currently are, and the national sales tax, as far as the 
possibility that it would maybe be regressive for some groups, but the 
idea, the beauty of the sales tax, would be, and I am still listening 
to the people at home on this, but there is a real underground economy, 
a cash economy, in this country.
  If we would tax consumption, that would be a positive step forward as 
far as getting benefit from that underground economy and making sure 
that everybody, even if it is illegally gotten money, that they are 
going to pay some tax on it as they go ahead and buy things in the 
future.
  Mr. BILBRAY. I heard that from a tax consultant in my own living 
room, actually in the kitchen.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Where you spend most of your time, right?
  Mr. BILBRAY. You have your kitchen Cabinet, I have mine. But the fact 
is, as this tax consultant pointed out, is that if Members of Congress 
could see what the average American citizen has to go through every 
April 15, or to get ready for April 15, if the average Member of 
Congress saw what happens to the citizens, this cruel and unusual 
punishment that we call the IRS taxing system, the income tax process, 
that there is no way morally you could stand up and defend the existing 
taxation structure.
  In fact, this consultant said flat out that she would prefer to be 
put out of business and go to a consumption tax or a flat tax, I think 
she favors a consumption tax, because the argument is everybody should 
understand that we all pay taxes. There are certain people on public 
assistance who we say ``do not pay any taxes,'' but we all do, directly 
or indirectly. One thing about a consumption tax, it makes everybody on 
U.S. territory who buys anything pay part of that.
  I will tell you, the greatest speech I probably ever heard about 
taxation happened that day. She said, ``Put me out of business. I do 
not want to be part of this cruel punishment of the American citizens 
that we call the income tax system.''
  Let me point out, that tax consultant was my wife, and all I said to 
her is ``Karen, we need you to testify before Congress, because I think 
it says a lot when a business person says `The system is so rotten that 
you should put me out of business.''' I think if you talk to most 
people who work in the tax business, they are frustrated with the fact 
that the system is neither equal nor fair, it is cruel, and it does not 
do the job properly, and it does not do it in a way that I think we can 
be proud of as American citizens.
  Mr. LATHAM. My district is made up of thousands of small businesses 
and farmers, and you are talking about putting somebody out of 
business. One thing that I heard time after time after time was ``thank 
you'' for doing something about the regulatory burden we are putting on 
small businesses and farmers in today's environment with the Federal 
Government.
  It is outrageous, I think, when a small business person on Main 
Street is more concerned about somebody coming in his door from the 
Government, 
[[Page H4493]] supposedly to ``help them,'' than they are about any 
competitor down the street. They can compete with that other person, 
they can offer a better service, they can work harder, they can give a 
better quality of product, but they absolutely feel helpless with 
someone from the
 Government coming in and dictating to them exactly what they can and 
cannot do.

  If I heard one thing time and time again, it is ``thank you for 
trying to at least start some regulatory relief to get the Government 
off our backs. It is bad enough they are deep in our pockets, but 
please help us get the Government off our backs. Let us operate, let us 
grow, let us prosper. We will be responsible, because our children live 
here. We are going to take care of things to make sure that we have a 
good quality of life and a safe working place, but this regulatory 
overkill is simply stifling business and stifling opportunities in my 
district.''
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Tom, that was not only true with the large 
manufacturers, whom we think of as being the ones who have the major 
problems with regulation by OSHA or EPA or whoever. Virtually every 
town meeting I had, and again, I had small business men, I had farmers, 
just folks on the street complaining to me about the various 
regulations that the Federal Government has issued that they are having 
to comply with, and they make absolutely no sense at all.
  Unfortunately, that is the shift which we made in this country over 
the last several years. We have gotten to where we have overregulated 
every segment of our society, and again, I heard the same thing you 
did.
  Folks are just so pleased that we have started moving in the right 
direction, that we again bring common sense back into the regulation 
industry in this country, and whether it is EPA, clean water, clean 
air, whatever it may be, we have to use common sense in adopting these 
regulations and allowing our agencies to issue these regulations. 
People were just extremely pleased that we are moving in that 
direction.
  Mr. BILBRAY. I heard a lot of frustration with what we call the 
Federal bureaucracy. I think one of the things I tried to do is to make 
sure I clarify that they should not blame the agents.
  The fact is the blame for the absurdity of the Federal Government and 
the abuse of the Federal Government rest with Congress, and it is our 
responsibility, it is the President's responsibility, it is the 
Senate's, but we are the ones who bear the responsibility.
  The people who are out there working for the Federal Government are 
taking a very hard hit from a lot of different directions, when in fact 
it is our obligation to straighten this out. I think if there is 
anything else, that we really planted the seed out there, that there is 
hope that the Federal Government will soon come back to the position of 
being an ally and an aid all the time, so Congress makes things change.
  That is a real goal that we have as freshmen, of bringing that dose 
of reality in from the streets of America and implanting it here in the 
Chambers of the House of Representatives, so that when the laws leave 
here, when the regulations are made, they are made always remembering 
we are here as servants of the public. We exist for the public, the 
public does not exist for the Federal Government.
  That is really our jobs, especially as freshmen, this new breeze that 
has blown through this facility, that we have to remind our senior 
Members on both sides of the aisle that we serve at the pleasure of the 
public, and the public is why we exist, and why we need to continue to 
listen to their concerns, and not just try to shut them off.
  Mr. LATHAM. I think you have hit a fundamental point, and that is is 
the Government a servant to the
 people, or as it appears today, that role has reversed, and almost the 
people today are servants of the Government? It is wrong. The 
Government is here only to serve the people. It is a free country.

  Talk about regulatory relief, in my district wetlands is a huge 
issue, where today we have people from the Government coming out and 
delineating a small pocket or pothole in a farm that has been in 
production for 90 to 100 years, and their forefathers--my own farm has 
been in our family for 105 years. A lot of that ground was hand tilled, 
dug by hand 80 or 90 years ago.
  Now someone is coming in and telling us how we can and cannot use 
that land, because somebody somewhere in Washington or wherever says 
that that eighth of an acre there is an official wetland. By some of 
the definitions today, over half of my congressional district in 1993, 
the flood year, could have been a permanent wetland by their 
definitions.
  It is absolutely outrageous, and I am very proud of the fact that we 
put the pressure on the administration to finally get a moratorium as 
far as wetlands delineation.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. The wetlands issue, as you mentioned, is a classic 
example of overregulation by the Federal Government. Right now if you 
have a wetlands problem in a particular area in any county in the 
United States, any one of four agencies, the EPA, the USDA, Fish and 
Wildlife, can come in, and the Corps of Engineers can come in, and make 
a determination on that as to whether or not it is a wetlands, and what 
you have to do about it.
  Why should you have four Federal agencies involved in one issue like 
that? The sad part about it is that you may get four different answers 
from all four of those agencies. I had one gentleman at one of my town 
hall meetings who gave me a personal experience of exactly that, that 
he had all four agencies involved in his particular wetlands issue, and 
he got three different--he didn't get four, but he got three different 
answers to a question that he had about his wetlands problem.
  Mr. BILBRAY. What we really have to look at, too, though, is that it 
is just not about protection, because many times, if not most of the 
time, when a regulation is overkill and inappropriate, it is not only 
hurting the individual and taking away precious rights, but it is also 
not protecting the wetlands it was meant to protect.
  The people in my neighborhood would love the Federal Government to do 
something to protect the estuarine preserves in the Tijuana Valley, but 
when it goes beyond finding blame and you have to find answers, the 
agencies just tend not to be so inspired.
  I think we have to get back, it is our responsibility to help 
redirect this, to make sure that our regulations not only have 
compassion, but are smart and get the job done, because my district 
wants to see the environment protected, but every time we waste our 
resources on protecting something that should not have been done or a 
regulation that is being implemented inappropriately, that is that much 
resources that could have gone to the wildlife and to preservation that 
is not going to go there.
  Mr. LATHAM. That is an excellent point. There is no one more 
concerned about conservation, the environment, than these farmers that 
these regulations are just strangling today. These are the people who 
want to pass their land on to the next generation. They are the ones 
who are raising their children on a farm that are drinking the water 
out of the wells that are being regulated.
  They are the ones who want to preserve the quality of the soil 
itself, because that is livelihood. They are the ones directly 
concerned, and it would impact them greatly if it is destroyed. There 
is no farmer anywhere who is going to pollute his well and make his 
children drink that. It is simply outrageous.
  No one in agriculture is saying that there are not wetlands out 
there, and that they should be preserved, because there are. People 
want--they love to hunt in my district, they love to fish, they love to 
see the ducks come in, even if you do not hunt, but to have someone 
come on your farm after it has been in production for 80 or 90 years 
and tell you then that you can do longer use your land anymore is 
simply outrageous.
  It is not a matter of people being against the environment, but it is 
absolutely overkill by the Federal Government, and that is what people 
are so outraged about.
  Mr. BILBBRAY. We have the frustration, the misinterpretation of the 
Endangered Species Act, where we have children who were forced off of 
their Little League park by one Federal agency, and have been waiting 
for 2 years to get to be able to move onto an area that was farmed for 
100 years, but 
[[Page H4494]] they have been made to wait just because they need this 
test to see if a pocket mouse is in that area.
  The frustration here that the kids do not understand and the parents 
don't understand is ``Wait a minute, I thought that the private citizen 
was innocent in our society until proven guilty.'' However, with many 
of these regulations, the way they are being administered, and we need 
to address this, they do not have any rights until the Federal agency 
says ``OK.''
  I think we need to look at that. We are a Jeffersonian democracy. We 
are a democracy who believes that the individual is a premier element 
of our society, and that the individual's rights desperately have to be 
preserved and cannot be trod under by a well-intentioned but misguided 
majority.
  I do not think any of us that ever supported environmental regulation 
or environmental preservation expected the Constitution to be destroyed 
in the works.
                              {time}  1815

  Mr. LATHAM. The gentleman is absolutely right.
  Mr. CHAMBLISS. I think it is very remarkable that here, Tom, you are 
from Iowa, Brian, you are from California, I am from Georgia. We 
represent three different parts of the country, East to West and in the 
middle.
  I think it is very interesting that all three of us have heard the 
same concerns from our constituents over the last 3 weeks. Basically 
they are the same things that we all campaigned on last summer and that 
are contained within the Contract With America.
  It is exciting to me to see the people all over the country as 
excited about politics and about what is going on in Washington as they 
are. Obviously we all shared the same experiences concerning these 
issues.
  I think that is very interesting, and again goes to reinforce that 
the American people did speak on November 8, that the American people 
want changes, and even though they may not agree with every single 
thing we are doing in Washington right now, they understand we are 
doing something.
  I heard that again time after time: ``We may not agree with 
everything you're doing, but by golly, you guys are doing something, 
you're making progress, and just keep at it.'' That probably was the 
most constant theme I had the whole time I was home.
  Mr. BILBRAY. My district has over 10 naval military facilities there, 
in fact, one of them North Islands where I was born. That just shows 
you, you may think Californians move around a lot, but I am still 
living in my district.
  The fact is the military is learning, in San Diego, in California, 
across this country, a new reality. They are changing, adapting, 
becoming progressive, looking at ways of doing more with less. I think 
it sets an example for those of us in Congress and the way we look at 
our laws.
  The fact is there is a new progressive change that has taken over 
here. A lot of people call it conservative, but the fact is if you look 
at this by definition, you have citizens who are saying, ``We want you 
to do better. We want you to be brave enough to try new things.''
  The new majority, and especially led by those of us that are 
freshmen, are the progressives who are willing to say the old was fine 
for them, but not for
 the future. We not only have a right to change things for the better, 
we have a responsibility to do that.

  I would like to thank you two gentlemen for participating in part of 
the revolution that is moving this progressive agenda along.
  Mr. LATHAM. I thank the gentlemen for this great conversation.
  I just want to say, I pointed out at every town meeting that I had 
that the Contract With America was not passed just with the 53 percent 
in the House here that is Republican. On the average, in total, 78 
percent of the Members of Congress supported items in the Contract With 
America.
  It is not a partisan issue. The change and reform, new ideas, and the 
idea of bringing back responsibility and accountability to the 
Government is not a partisan issue. It is on both sides of the aisle, 
when you have over three-fourths of the Members supporting what was in 
the Contract With America. Obviously, there are some things that we 
differ on, but the American people know who is on what side. They will 
remember next year, whatever.
  Again, we have all mentioned it, but the thing that I was told time 
after time after time was, ``Tom, keep it up, don't let up. You have 
just started to turn the wheel of this great aircraft carrier we call 
the Government. It is just starting to turn, but there is a lot of work 
out there ahead. Keep up the pressure, redouble your efforts.''
  We are going to do that. As freshmen Members, we are going to keep up 
the heat, continue the efforts, and, folks, you haven't seen anything 
yet, like they say.

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