[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 203 (Monday, December 18, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H15061-H15065]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




DEPARTMENTS OF VETERANS AFFAIRS AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND 
 INDEPENDENT AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1996--VETO MESSAGE FROM THE 
          PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (H. DOC. NO. 104-148)

  The SPEAKER pro tempore laid before the House the following veto 
message from the President of the United States:

To the House of Representatives:
  I am returning herewith without my approval H.R. 2099, the 
``Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development, 
and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 1996.''
  H.R. 2099 would threaten public health and the environment, end 
programs that are helping communities help themselves, close the door 
on college for thousands of young people, and leave veterans seeking 
medical care with fewer treatment options.
  The bill includes no funds for the highly successful National Service 
program. If such funding were eliminated, the bill would cost nearly 
50,000 young Americans the opportunity to help their community, through 
AmeriCorps, to address vital local needs such as health care, crime 
prevention, and education while earning a monetary award to help them 
pursue additional education or training. I will not sign any version of 
this appropriations bill that does not restore funds for this vital 
program.
  This bill includes a 22 percent cut in requested funding for the 
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), including a 25 percent cut in 
enforcement that would cripple EPA efforts to enforce law against 
polluters. Particularly objectionable are the bill's 25 percent cut in 
Superfund, which would continue to expose hundreds of thousands of 
citizens to dangerous chemicals and cuts, which would hamper efforts to 
train workers in hazardous waste cleanup.
  In addition to severe funding cuts for EPA, the bill also includes 
legislative riders that were tacked onto the bill without any hearings 
or adequate public input, including one that would prevent EPA from 
exercising its authority under the Clean Water Act to prevent wetlands 
losses.
  I am concerned about the bill's $762 million reduction to my request 
for funds that would go directly to States and needy cities for clear 
water and drinking water needs, such as assistance to clean up Boston 
Harbor. I also object to cuts the Congress has made in environmental 
technology, the climate change action plan, and other environmental 
programs.

  The bill would reduce funding for the Council for Environmental 
Quality by more then half. Such a reduction would severely hamper the 
Council's ability to provide me with advice on environmental policy and 
carry out its responsibilities under the National Environmental Policy 
Act.
  The bill provides no new funding for the Community Development 
Financial Institutions program, an important initiative for bringing 
credit and growth to communities long left behind.
  While the bill provides spending authority for several important 
initiatives of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), 
including Community Development Block Grants, homeless assistance and 
the sale of HUD-owned properties, it lacks funding for others. For 
example, the bill provides no funds to support economic development 
initiatives; it has insufficient funds for incremental rental vouchers; 
and it cuts nearly in half my request for tearing down the most 
severely distressed housing projects. Also, the bill contains harmful 
riders that would transfer HUD's Fair Housing activities to the Justice 
Department and eliminate Federal preferences in the section 8, tenant-
based program.
  The bill provides less than I requested for the medical care of this 
Nation's veterans. It includes significant restrictions on funding for 
the Secretary of Veterans Affairs that appear designed to impede him 
from carrying out his duties as an advocate for veterans. Further, the 
bill does not provide necessary funding for VA hospital construction.
  For these reasons and others my Administration has conveyed to the 
Congress in earlier communications, I cannot accept this bill. This 
bill does not reflect the values that Americans hold dear. I urge the 
Congress to send me an appropriations bill for these important 
priorities that truly serves the American people.
                                                  William J. Clinton.  
  The White House, December 18, 1995.
  
[[Page H15062]]

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The objections of the President will be 
spread at large upon the Journal, and the veto message and the bill 
will be printed as a House document.


               motion offered by mr. lewis of california

  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Lewis of California moves that the message, together 
     with the accompanying bill, be referred to the Committee on 
     Appropriations.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California [Mr. Lewis] is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 15 minutes to the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stokes] for the purposes of debate only, and 
yield back 30 minutes.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Lewis].
  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I regret that the committee finds itself at this point 
in receipt of the President's veto of this very important measure. It 
clearly reflects a considerable disservice to the President on the part 
of his staff, who obviously have misinformed him regarding the work of 
the conference committee that presented this bill and sent it to the 
President's desk.
  It is very apparent that they have not been straightforward regarding 
the variety and mix of the efforts the committee went through. The 
conference met on November 16 of this year. In the midst of that 
conference, we met with the President's representative, Mr. Panetta of 
California. During that discussion, Mr. Panetta indicated to the 
conferees that the President was likely to veto this bill unless the 
bill had $2 billion to $2.5 billion more in allocation. So it was 
apparent that the President does not like the allocation that this 
committee received.
  Presuming that there was no additional money available to the 
committee, it was clear that we would not be able to meet all of the 
President's targets as we allocated the money that was available to us. 
The President's representative indicated to the members of the 
conference that he really believed it was likely that $2 billion or 
more would be forthcoming from somewhere. The implication was that that 
money would come from a reallocation of what Mr. Panetta kind of 
assumed would be a veto of the defense measure. As we all know, the 
defense bill became law, and that appropriations availability did not 
come to our subcommittee.

  So there was nowhere to move in terms of many of the areas the 
President is concerned about. At that point in time, over a month ago, 
we said to Mr. Panetta and anybody else who would listen, ``Please, 
tell us what you would do from your perspective with these allocations 
to make this bill better. Please, help the President come to the desk 
or come to the table and talk with us about these very important 
programs.''
  First, I think it is important for us all to revisit one more time: 
This bill represents in excess of $80 billion of expenditure, important 
programs that involve areas such as VA medical care, significant 
programs like EPA, all of the country's housing programs.

                              {time}  1845

  They also provide the funds for NASA and those programs the President 
is concerned about that relate to our international partnership with 
the Russians and others as we explore space, for example, very 
difficult and competitive allocations.
  We urged the President's people to come to the table. He suggests 
that one of the problems with this bill is that there is not adequate 
funding, and, indeed there is no funding, for the national service 
programs, namely AmeriCorps. That program under the President's 
proposal would increase by some 300 percent over 3 years, and yet the 
program has had no evaluation to this point. Clearly, programs that 
work well deserve support. Programs that have not been evaluated at 
least ought to be evaluated before their funding is expanded.
  It would appear that much of the President's objection to this bill 
involves his desire to expand the funding for the Environmental 
Protection Agency. If that is the case, we are willing to listen to the 
President's case. We simply ask him to come to the table. We have only 
got so much money to go around in this bill. If we are to shift money 
as we send it back to conference, to EPA, where does it come from? 
Would the President suggest it should come from veterans' medical care? 
If so, let the President step up to the table and say so. Money is not 
going to suddenly appear from nowhere.

  It is also very apparent that the President has been misled relative 
to what this bill contains as it relates to EPA and EPA legislation. 
Literally we have stripped from this bill most of the serious 
contentions that flowed around riders as the bill left the House. There 
are four pieces of legislative language in the bill; three of them 
involve language that has been in a bill in the past that has been 
acceptable to the administration. It is very clear that the President 
is really objecting to this bill because there is not enough money 
here. As my colleague from Ohio said in the previous bill, the 
President seems to want to go forward with business as usual. He 
actually believes that we can tap the till, spend money we do not have, 
and go on blithely forward suggesting that future generations will pick 
up the tab when it is their turn.
  Mr. President, this is the bill that begins the point where we move 
toward balancing the budget in a 7-year period. You have made that 
commitment. No other bill has more discretionary spending that can be 
impacted in a way that makes sense for the American public and the 
American taxpayer. We are asking you, Mr. President, to reevaluate 
this, come to the bargaining table, tell us what your priorities are, 
and we are more than willing to work with you. I must say the time 
frame is very narrow and the window for cooperation is closing quickly. 
Mr. President, we are looking for your leadership. We would hope that 
your people would move away from the rhetoric and come to the table and 
bargain in good faith.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, when this bill was on the floor approximately a week or 
10 days ago, we said to the House at that time that it was the 
intention of the President to veto this bill. At that time I enumerated 
the various reasons that the President has specified as to why he would 
veto this bill, and this morning when the President vetoed this bill, 
he enunciated many of the very same reasons that I had stated when I 
told the House that this bill was going to be vetoed.
  It is true that allocation is a very real part of the reason that the 
President has vetoed this bill, and the fact that sufficient money has 
not been prioritized and put into those areas of the bill that the 
President is particularly concerned about in terms of his own 
priorities for the American people.
  But all of the rationale for his vetoing this legislation cannot be 
attributed to the allocation alone. I think it is very important for us 
to take just a few moments to understand what the President has said 
with reference to his reasons for vetoing the bill.
  In his message he said, ``The Republican Congress has shut down the 
Federal Government because they have not passed a budget for this year 
and because they want to make the price of opening the Government up my 
acceptance of 7 long years of unacceptable cuts in health care, 
education, and the environment; in research and technology, cuts that 
are not necessary to balancing the budget, and would have an adverse 
effect on our way of life and on the strength of our economy.''
  He said further, ``It is wrong for the Congress to shut the 
Government down just to make a political point the week before 
Christmas. It is unfair to the American people and unfair to the public 
employees.'' The President said, ``This is a season of peace and it 
should be a season of cooperation, not rancor or threats. The Congress 
should reopen the Government.'' He is ready to work with them to 
balance the budget in a way that reflects our values, and that is 
consistent with the resolution to which we both agreed when the 
Government was reopened a few weeks ago.
  He says in his veto message, ``I say again when I said a few weeks 
ago I 

[[Page H15063]]
would work with the Congress to balance the budget in 7 years, that the 
Congress commit to a budget that protects the environment. These bills 
I veto today I do so because they do not meet that test. For 25 years 
leaders of both parties have recognized that our party is stronger when 
we control pollution and protect public health. Environmental 
protection is not, or at least it never has been until now, a partisan 
issue. It is an American issue. It is an American issue outside 
Washington. The Republicans in this Congress have attempted to roll 
back decades of bipartisan environmental protection.'' The President 
said ``It is wrong, and I cannot permit it to happen.''
  He said, ``They have sent me legislation that would give our children 
less clean drinking water.'' He doesn't say anything about money there. 
He says ``legislation that would give our children less clean drinking 
water, less safe food, dirtier air. If I sign these bills, I would be 
condemning more than 10 million children under the age of 12 to living 
near toxic waste sites that might not be cleaned up for years. 
Therefore, in the interests of our children, I am vetoing these 
measures, because they would cripple these kinds of environmental 
protections.''
  The President goes on and cites many other substantive reasons why he 
has vetoed this legislation, so I do not think it is fair to castigate 
the reasons for the veto here by referring to the allocation alone as 
being the principal reason for the vetoes.
  The President has some very substantial reasons, those of which I 
have enumerated here. I think that it is important for the House to 
understand that we could have avoided this veto by forcing the 
subcommittee to take the kind of action the President has requested 
that they take so he would not have had to veto this legislation. Now 
that he has had to veto it, pursuant to that, I think we have to accept 
the fact that it is important for us to commit this bill back to the 
appropriations subcommittee and alter the bill in such a way that it 
can go to the President for his signature.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield such time 
as he may consume to the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], the 
chairman of the Committee on Appropriations.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rose a little while ago with an air of incredulity 
that the President vetoed the Interior bill, and now I have to echo 
that incredulity. I am just astounded that the President chose to veto 
this bill, because, as I understand the gentleman's statement, the 
President did not engage the gentleman or any of the members of the 
subcommittee to any substantive degree about the details of this bill.
  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is absolutely 
correct. I was astonished to have a personal conversation with the 
President's representative, Mr. Panetta from California. I talked to 
him on the phone about the details of this bill several weeks ago. It 
was very apparent that he and/or the President had not addressed the 
details; that Mr. Panetta came to our conference meeting and it was 
apparent they were looking for another $2 or $3 billion for this bill 
to come out of nowhere.
  That money was not forthcoming. The President clearly has either not 
had a chance to come to the table or has been misled by his advisers.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the President's 
position through apparently Mr. Panetta, his chief of staff, is that 
there is not enough money for this bill. I would like to carry that 
forward. We have been through the budget allocation process. We have 
assessed what it will take for the discretionary budget to meet the 
targets so that we can hit that balanced budget by the year 2002.
  Mr. LEWIS of California. That is correct?
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. The President has signed on to the principles of a 
balanced budget by the year 2002 as recently as 6 weeks ago and signed 
that continuing resolution, which said that he approved of a balanced 
budget target by the year 2002, scored by the Congressional Budget 
Office. Just tonight, we saw an overwhelming vote from Republicans and 
Democrats alike, 351 Members out of 435 voted overwhelmingly to ask the 
President to live up to his commitment to that balanced budget by the 
year 2002.
  This is the first step. This bill makes the most major contribution 
to that balanced budget. Without this bill, one cannot get there, is 
that right?
  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue 
to yield, the chairman is exactly on target. The fact is that this is 
one of the major pools of discretionary money. The entire bill involves 
some $80 billion of spending, over $60 billion of it discretionary. We 
are never going to get to a pathway of 2002 and balancing the budget 
unless we restrain spending within that discretionary pool. The 
President's people know that. It is a shame they have not given the 
President the opportunity to evaluate what that means in terms of a 
balanced budget.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the President is in effect saying ``I am 
for a balanced budget by the year 2002,'' and I love his use of the 
word ``values,'' he uses that a lot, ``but the Congress has to live up 
to my values,'' whatever those are.
  But the point is that the President is saying, ``I am for a balanced 
budget, but do not make any cuts, and if you do make any cuts, I do not 
like that one, and I do not like that one, and I do not like that one, 
but I am for a balanced budget.''
  Now, what in effect he is saying is he is for the status quo. He is a 
stalwart of the status quo. He is for trying to keep the bureaucracy in 
place. He is for keeping all of the spending that was assessed by the 
last Congress, the Democrat Congress, in place, locked in, with 
duplication, inefficiency, heavy spending, heavy taxes that he imposed 
on the American people 2 years ago. He really does not want any change. 
Am I wrong?
  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue 
to yield, I would say to the chairman, I must say that I believe that 
if some of us could ever get in a room and sit down and talk to the 
President about the details of a bill like this and show him the 
importance of impacting this discretionary spending if we are going to 
balance the budget, that we could get him to respond.
  I know he is very busy and has lots to do, but we are now at the 
point where the rubber meets the road. We are either going to balance 
the budget or not. This bill is critical to that, and the President has 
yet to come to the floor.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if I recall correctly, the gentleman has 
protected veterans benefits beyond what they were last year.
  Mr. LEWIS of California. The gentleman is exactly right. The veterans 
medical care programs, the one account that is higher in 1995 in this 
bill by some $400 million, now, that raises the critical point: If the 
President wants us within our allocation to increase the Environmental 
Protection Agency, for example, where would one take the money? Perhaps 
he would suggest VA medical care. But please come to the table and show 
us your priorities. It is impossible for us to change this bill without 
some reasonable input.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Of course, the President says he does not want to 
take it out of NASA.
  Mr. LEWIS of California. He does not want to take it out of NASA. I 
am sure he does not want to cut VA medical care. Where do we take the 
money?
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. That is the critical question. Unfortunately, I think 
where we are is that the President simply has not come to the table to 
tell us where he would take it from.
  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue 
to yield, let me just say, a number of the agency heads have been 
extremely forthcoming. Henry Cisneros, in the housing program, has 
worked closely with us. Dan Goldin in NASA has been very helpful. We 
have heard little from EPA. For example, everybody knows that the 
Superfund is broken and we are spending billions of dollars over years 
in Superfund getting almost no results. Yet we have not heard a thing 
from the Secretary regarding the way she would fix the Superfund.

[[Page H15064]]

  It is time for the President's people to be serious about governing 
and come to the table.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I know that the gentleman does not have 
energy conservation in this bill, but I have to say that I was 
interested that one of the reasons for his vetoing the Interior bill 
was because it did not provide enough of what he thought were key 
energy conservation projects, that is, corporate welfare or pork 
projects for big corporations to provide energy saving initiatives that 
have not worked for the last 20 years, and at the same time his Energy 
Secretary flies around the world with an entourage of as many as 150 
people, wasting taxpayers dollars. It is all illustrative of a point 
that comes home to me in watching this process at any rate from fairly 
up close, that the President is not serious about negotiating. He is 
only serious about rhetoric.

                              {time}  1900

  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman 
that it is very important that we get the Government back to work. We 
need the President at the table. We are willing to work with him, and I 
certainly hope this discussion helps with that.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the gentleman for 
working very hard. In fact, this was a very difficult bill. This bill 
was not easy to pass, as the gentleman well knows. We had differences 
with the Senate. We have had differences among ourselves, Republicans 
and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, and the gentleman worked 
hard to get this bill in such a form as to meet all of the concerns of 
Members of Congress, or at least most of the concerns, so that we got a 
majority in both houses.
  And then the President vetoes this bill without putting his own input 
into the confection of the bill. It is just astounding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman and I 
reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], the distinguished ranking minority member of the 
full Committee on Appropriations.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I have said on more than one occasion that the 
worst mistakes one can make in this town is to believe one's own 
baloney. I hope that the two friends of mine who just spoke do not 
believe their own baloney because it is baloney.
  The fact is the President made very clear that he would oppose this 
bill because it did not meet his standards in terms of a balance in 
funding, and it also did not meet his standards in terms of keeping 
special interest provisions off the bill.
  The President made clear that he was not going to accept a 22-percent 
reduction in funding for environmental protection and he made very 
clear that what he wanted was a different allocation between the 
subcommittees so that we can, in fact, fulfill the commitment that all 
of us signed on to when we supported the last continuing resolution.
  Despite all of the talk today by Members of the majority party about 
a balanced budget in 7 years, that talk reminds me of Ronald Reagan in 
the old movie ``King's Row.'' After Reagan woke up in the hospital, his 
legs had been amputated, and he said, where is the rest of me? My 
question is where is the rest of my colleagues? They are talking about 
the need for a balanced budget in 7 years, but they are forgetting that 
the other half of the deal was that Congress would agree that that 
balanced budget must protect future generations, it must ensure 
Medicare solvency, reform welfare and provide adequate funding for 
Medicaid, education, agriculture, national defense, veterans and the 
environment.
  I do not know which dictionary my colleagues use most of the time, 
but I would doubt that anybody's dictionary would allow one to conclude 
that we have adequately protected the environment by cutting back by 22 
percent the funding that we are providing in this bill for 
environmental protection.
  Now, Members can say all they want about veterans health care, but 
the fact is that veterans health care is funded at a level $213 million 
below the amount in the original House bill, and that House bill was 
brought to us by the Republican majority; and yet they had 
$1,500,000,000 more to deal with in the conference than they had in the 
original House bill.
  It just seems to me that on its face those numbers demonstrate that 
the majority party is not meeting the commitment it signed on to when 
it passed the continuing resolution. That is why the President is 
vetoing the bill and that is why he should have vetoed the bill.
  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I have no additional requests 
for time and I reserve the right to close.
  Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California [Ms. Pelosi].
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank our distinguished ranking member for 
giving me this time and for his leadership on the committee.
  I rise today to talk about why we are where we are today. Many of my 
colleagues know by now that there are three bills in play, the balanced 
budget bill that we have been talking about for over a period of time, 
the continuing resolution, and the appropriations bill.
  We also know that we would not be here today if we had come to 
agreement on our appropriations bill. That disagreement has 
necessitated a continuing resolution. Our Republican colleagues have 
tied the balanced budget bill to the continuing resolution, and that is 
why we are here. But if we had our work done, if we had come to 
agreement on the appropriations bill, there would be no need for a CR. 
We could debate the values of a balanced budget bill without the 
pressures of all of these other legislative tactics.
  The distinguished gentleman from Louisiana, and I am sorry he is not 
here right now, the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations said in 
his colloquy with the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Lewis], that the President did not agree 
with our budget because it does not agree with his values, whatever 
they are. Well, the gentleman is distinguished, and I know in the heat 
of the discussion sometimes an impression comes across that is less 
than distinguished, and I think that remark was. Because the President, 
and we all share the value of providing for our children's future, and 
the President has been very specific in terms of what his disagreement 
is and what his values are in this budget negotiation. That is to 
protect Medicare and Medicaid; that is to protect the environment; that 
is to protect education, the defense budget, veterans and agriculture. 
It has been said over and over and over again.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I think the President has made very clear what his 
values are for our country and very clear what his values are in this 
negotiation. The environment is one of the important issues that the 
President values.
  I want to reiterate what some of my colleagues have said and 
reference the President's veto message when he says that he vetoed the 
bill because the bill includes a 22-percent cut in requested funding 
for the Environmental Protection Agency, including a 25-percent cut in 
enforcement that would cripple EPA's efforts to enforce laws against 
polluters.
  What this does is make it less safe for our children in terms of 
clean air and clean water. If there is one thing that parents cannot do 
for their children it is to control the environment around them, the 
physical environment around them. If there is one thing that Government 
can do, it is to enforce environmental laws. That is something we 
cannot do for ourselves. We can adopt good environmental habits and 
contribute to protecting the environment, but the polluters never stop 
polluting under the honor system. We must have a Federal role and a 
Federal participation to protect the environment.
  So I thank the President for using the veto on this message. As we 
all know, veto means I forbid. I thank the President for forbidding 
this Congress to make the air less clean and the water less clean that 
our children have to breathe and drink.
  Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
New York [Mrs. Lowey].
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me this 
time. 

[[Page H15065]]

  Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening in very strong support of the 
President's veto of the Republicans' devastating cuts in environmental 
protection and housing programs.
  This bill is one of the more glaring indications of the extremist, 
anti-environmental policies of the Republican majority.
  We should not be here having this debate. We should have funded the 
EPA, Housing and Veterans Program 2\1/2\ months ago. But the Republican 
leadership insists on adding extremist provisions, and I applaud the 
President for having the courage to reject them.
  How anyone who is truly committed to ensuring clean water and clean 
air can, in good conscience, stand before the American people tonight 
and support this bill is more than I can fathom.
  This bill is an attack on our natural resources and the environmental 
health and safety of the American people, plain and simple.
  This bill cuts the Environmental Protection Agency by more than 20 
percent, but that's only the tip of the iceberg: The Devil is in the 
details:
  A 30-percent cut in loans to States that help keep raw sewage off our 
beaches and out of our rivers,
  A 45-percent cut in funds that provide critical assistance to local 
communities to keep drinking water safe, a 20 percent cut in the 
program that cleans up hazardous waste sites, a complete termination of 
the EPA's authority to stop toxic dumping in wetlands and a 27-percent 
cut in EPA enforcement activities--that means the environmental cop 
will not be on the beat. So much for getting tough on crime.

  In the area I represent, Federal loans are critical in helping clean 
up Long Island Sound and preserve the purity of the New York City water 
supply. And yet this bill cuts more than $750 million from these funds 
to the States.
  There is no denying that these environmental rollbacks will cripple 
the EPA's ability to protect the quality of our air and water and 
because of their insistence on these extremist provisions, the 
Government is now shut down--less than 1 week before Christmas.
  Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, what is the time situation here?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hastings of Washington). The gentleman 
from Ohio [Mr. Stokes] has 2 minutes and the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Lewis] has 2 minutes and the right to close.
  Mr. STOKES. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, we have heard from the other side allegations that the 
President is not interested in balancing the budget. The President 
clearly, in his veto message today, answered that. Here is what he said 
in his message.
  He said:

       I am vetoing the bills not only because of the impact they 
     have on the environment we leave our children, but also 
     because of other things that they do that violate our values. 
     They completely eliminate the National Service Program, which 
     has been very successful, broadly supported by people across 
     partisan lines in communities all across America. They cut 
     innovative programs for economic development in our cities, 
     the areas which have been left most untouched by the economic 
     recovery of the last 3 years. They cut health care for 
     veterans.

  None of these things, the President says in his message, are 
necessary to balancing the budget.
  Then, lastly, with reference to the whole question of medical care, I 
think it is important for us to listen to what the President said. He 
said the bill provides less than I requested for the medical care of 
this Nation's veterans. It includes significant restrictions on funding 
for the Secretary of Veterans Affairs that appear designed to impede 
him from carrying out his duties as an advocate for veterans. Further, 
the bill does not provide necessary funding for V.A. hospital 
construction.
  Now, obviously, the President has addressed these things which he 
deems to be values which he, as the President of the United States, has 
a responsibility to carry out.
  Finally, the President says this:

       This bill does not reflect the values that Americans hold 
     dear, and I urge the Congress to send me an appropriations 
     bill that has these important priorities that truly serve the 
     American people.

  That is the responsibility the President has to the American people. 
He has today exercised that responsibility. It is certainly incumbent 
upon the Congress to follow the direction given by the President of the 
United States.
  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of our time 
to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay], our whip.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the committee and I 
commend the ranking member. He is, indeed, an honorable man and is 
trying to protect his values.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Wisconsin, the distinguished ranking 
member of this committee, said he did not know what kind of dictionary 
we used. I would just challenge him to go look up the word ``truth.'' 
There is a lot of stuff going on around here that has a hard time 
meeting that definition in the dictionary.
  The President is telling the American people that the Congress has 
shut down the Government and we have not done our work; that he wants 
to balance the budget, but because of his values he is having a hard 
time agreeing with Congress and what bills he is being sent. If the 
President was so concerned with the balanced budget or the Government 
shutting down, he should have signed the first balanced budget in 26 
years. Twenty-six years. He vetoed it.
  The President vetoed the Interior appropriations bill. The Interior 
Department hires 133,800 employees.

                              {time}  1915

  He could have opened up all the parks, all the monuments, by signing 
this bill.
  He vetoes this bill that employs over 293,000 employees, and if we 
combine the two, that is 426,800 employees that could be going to work 
right now, being paid, and those offices would be open.
  Mr. Speaker, we have done our work. We worked all year long putting 
these bills together and bringing them to the floor under the auspices 
of balancing the budget by the year 2002. But the President is like a 
procrastinating Christmas shopper. He has not thought about balancing 
the budget or these appropriations bills all year long, and here at the 
last minute, a week before Christmas, he decides he wants to be 
involved in the process.
  We are at a crucial time in our history. On one hand, the President's 
values want to spend more money in Washington. On our side, we think we 
ought to empower the family, stop the credit card, and provide 
empowerment for the local and State government.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hastings of Washington). Without 
objection, the previous question is ordered.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Lewis].
  The motion was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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