[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 115 (Monday, July 17, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H7016-H7017]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


               REPUBLICAN SNEAK ATTACK ON THE ENVIRONMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House the 
gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that the new Republican majority 
in the House is carrying out what is in effect a sneak attack on public 
health, on environmental protection and on our national park system, 
among other things.
  Following the unfortunate example of James Watt, they are distorting 
the normal legislative process around here, acting against House rules 
by using the appropriations process to rewrite law and reshape policy, 
so that they can achieve, by stealth, objectives that lack real public 
support.
  We saw the start of this pattern with the first rescissions bill, 
with its pages of legislative language waiving environmental and forest 
management laws, language that under the normal rules of the House 
should not have been in any bill of that kind.
  We are seeing it again now in the Interior appropriations bill, which 
we will take up again later today, with its provisions to dissolve the 
National Biological Service, transfer its functions to the U.S. 
Geological Service, again, legislating on an appropriations bill, 
again, an attack on research and on sound wildlife conservation; also, 
in the same bill, with its provisions to essentially eliminate the 
Mojave National Preserve in California as a unit of the National Park 
Service, by a back door attack instead of a straightforward proposal to 
repeal or amend the California Desert Protection Act.
  Later this week we will see it in even more outrageous ways when the 
full Committee on Appropriations takes up the bill to fund the 
Environmental Protection Agency. That bill has more riders than the 
Long Island Railroad. Most of them are intended to prevent the 
government from doing its job in protecting our water, our air, our 
wetlands, our health. Let us just take a look quickly at the passenger 
count, the number of riders on that bill.
  In just 7 pages of the bill dealing with the EPA, there are 21 anti-
environment riders, including the following provisions: blocking 
enforcement of air pollution permits; limiting enforcement of storm 
water and sanitary sewer provisions in the Water Pollution Control Act; 
handicapping the EPA's ability under the Clean Air Act to regulate 
toxic emissions from certain refineries; putting other limits on 
enforcing environmental laws affecting other parts of the oil and gas 
industry; stopping EPA from taking steps to keep arsenic, radon and 
other radionuclei out of our drinking water; limiting the EPA's efforts 
to control toxic releases from cement kilns and other incinerators; 
restricting the gathering and publishing of information about the use 
of chemicals; restricting the protection of the country's wetlands, 
blocking efforts to encourage car pooling; restricting efforts to 
improve water quality in the Great Lakes; and, undermining the 
regulation of pesticides in foods.
  Mr. Speaker, the pattern could not be clearer. Just take a look at 
it, page after page of regressive anti-environmental and underhanded 
provisions aimed at handcuffing efforts to protect our food supply, 
keep our air and water clean, protect vital wetlands, all things vital 
to our natural systems all over the country.
  It is no wonder, Mr. Speaker, that Carol Browner, the EPA 
administrator, has concluded that we are seeing ``an organized, 
concerted effort to undermine public health and safety and the 
environment.''
  If anything, Carol Browner understates the situation. The American 
people need to know what is going on. They need to know that this new 
Republican majority is determined to undermine the progress that we 
have made in the last several decades in protecting our environment, 
progress that the American people are proud of and want to see 
continued. They need to know that we are in the midst of a full-fledged 
attack on the safeguards of the water we drink and the air we breathe. 
They need to know because, when they do know, they will reject this 
assault on public health, public safety and public lands.
  We need to be doing more, not less, to clean up the environment and 
to protect people's health.
  For instance, two new studies this year tell us that 53 million 
Americans are drinking tap water that is below standards. What is the 
response of the new majority here in the Congress to this? To do more 
to clean up the nation's water? No. The Republican response is to come 
up with eight different legislative riders to determine the Clean Water 
Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. Hard to imagine.
  This Republican sneak attack on the environment should not and will 
not go unopposed. The American people did not vote last November to 
roll back 25 years of environmental progress. They 

[[Page H 7017]]
did not vote for more pollution or for backhanded legislative 
shenanigans to under cut environmental standards just to satisfy the 
greed and the campaign access paid for by many industrial polluters.
  Together with other members of the Committee on Appropriations and of 
this House as a whole, we must do all that we can to spread the word 
about this sneak attack and to keep it from succeeding.
  Nothing is more important than protecting our air, our water, our 
lands, the public's health.


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