[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 117 (Wednesday, July 19, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H7182]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                LAWS ARE MEANINGLESS WITHOUT ENFORCEMENT

  (Ms. FURSE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. FURSE. Mr. Speaker, question: What is the best way to gut a law 
when you do not want people to know what you are really doing?
  Answer: Do what the new majority is doing, cut all the funding for 
enforcement, and call it fiscal responsibility.
  It is obvious that they do not want to be seen for what they really 
are, antienvironment. So they have decided to take all the money away 
from enforcement. Everybody knows a law is meaningless if you cannot 
enforce it.
  The new strategy is so simple, but it is so wrong. Here is how it 
works. If you and your cronies do not like the Clean Air Act 
regulations, just slash the enforcement funding, and you gut the act 
without having to vote against the act.
  If you and your special interest friends do not like the 
environmental protection of the Clean Water Act, just zero out the 
enforcement budget. If you and your buddies do not like the Endangered 
Species Act and wildlife protection laws, cut all the enforcement 
money, and poachers and habitat destroyers will go scott free.
  The cuts this Republican Congress is making to our environmental 
protection laws are extreme, unwise, and underhanded.


                          ____________________