[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H111-H120]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 
1996--VETO MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (H. DOC. NO. 
                                104-147)

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The unfinished business is the further 
consideration of the veto message of the President of the United States 
on the bill (H.R. 1977) making appropriations for the Department of the 
Interior and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 
1996, and for other purposes.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is, Will the House, on 
reconsideration, pass the bill, the objections of the President to the 
contrary notwithstanding.
  The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula] is recognized for 1 hour.

                              {time}  1200

  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Yates].
  Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of debate on this subject. I have a 
number of Members that would like to speak on it, so I will reserve my 
remarks for the closing.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Calvert].
  Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Speaker, I just want to urge my colleagues to 
support the motion to override. For the sake of the American people we 
need to reopen our national treasures. There is no good reason why the 
parks are closed. There is no good reason why the monuments are closed. 
There is no reason why our constituents here in Washington cannot go to 
some of the great places around this District.
  This bill is fair, balanced. It protects our natural resources while 
ensuring a fair return to the American taxpayers. I urge all my 
colleagues to support the motion to override.
  Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Farr].
  Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me.
  I also thank the chair of the committee who does outstanding work and 
is an outstanding chair, but I must rise to urge that we not override 
the veto.
  The veto is there because the President found that there were things 
in this bill that were broken, that need fixing, and we in Congress can 
fix those things. The President rejected the clear-cutting of the 
Tongass National Forest. The President rejected the jeopardizing of the 
Columbia River Basin ecosystem management plan. The President 
recognized that this bill kills the California Desert Protection Act 
that Congress enacted last year.
  This bill prohibits the protection of the habitat for endangered 
species and further prohibits any further listing of endangered 
species. This bill walks away from the commitment of the Indian Health 
Service and Indian education. It walks away from the National Endowment 
for the Arts and the Humanities. In particular let us talk about that 
for a moment.
  I think the shutdown of the Federal Government has drawn national 
attention to the importance that the arts play particularly here in 
Washington, DC. Indeed our country has said that these things are 
important. This bill cuts funding for those important programs. This 
bill was vetoed because Congress failed to hear the recommendations of 
the White House conference on tourism which met here just a few months 
ago, the private sector, at the invitation of the President, to 
recommend to Congress and to the executive department of how we should 
best support tourism in the United States. This bill undermines those 
recommendations.
  So my colleagues, this committee has worked hard. It has an 
outstanding chair and outstanding members because it has recognized the 
interest of special interests in this and is certainly a bill that 
ought to be vetoed, as it was by the President. I ask my colleagues to 
sustain that veto.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Michigan [Mr. Ehlers].
  Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding 
time to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I happen to be a staunch environmentalist. I opposed 
this bill in some earlier versions. In fact, Members may recall that 
this is the third try which finally managed to get past the House. I 
voted against it the first two times because I was concerned about 
environmental issues. But I am satisfied that this bill in its present 
form is the best bill we are going to get out of the House. I believe 
that the environmentalist concerns are largely satisfied.
  In regard to the National Endowment for the Humanities, I was also 
one of those who worked to maintain funding for the National Endowment 
for the Humanities. In fact, we managed to get 

[[Page H112]]
it increased considerably over some of the earlier proposals.
  Once again, I believe this is the best bill that we can get from this 
House as it relates to funding for that organization. I read the veto 
message from the President, and to me it seems like a rather thin veto 
message. I suspect if this bill had hit his desk by itself and not in 
the company of the other two bills he vetoed the same day, this bill 
would have been signed and passed into law because the objections are 
not that strong.
  I believe it is very important that we vote to override the 
President's veto on this bill. It is important that we open our 
national parks, our wildlife refuges, our national forests, put 130,000 
Federal employees back to work, open our museums and the Smithsonian in 
particular do a good service to the American public by once again 
allowing them to use and visit these national treasures which we have.
  I urge my colleagues, particularly those on the other side of the 
aisle, who are concerned about these issues to recognize that this bill 
in its present form is a good bill, certainly the best we are likely to 
get through this Congress, and I urge them to override the President's 
veto and put this into effect.
  Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from California [Mr. Waxman].
  (Mr. WAXMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to sustain President 
Clinton's veto of the Interior appropriations bill. The legislative 
riders in H.R. 1977 mandate extreme changes in national environmental 
policy that cannot stand public scrutiny on their own. Otherwise, they 
would not be hidden in this funding bill.
  One of the riders in H.R. 1977 would end a hugely successful energy-
efficiency program that was enacted 8 years ago during the Reagan 
administration. At that time, a broad industry coalition that included 
all major appliance manufacturers agreed to efficiency standards to 
make refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, dishwashers, 
and gas furnaces more efficient. On average, these Federal efficiency 
standards have brought savings of $1,300 per U.S. household--a total of 
$130 billion in economic savings.
  Why would Congress terminate a program that has brought such great 
savings to our constituents and dramatically reduced emissions of 
carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to global warming? It is 
not because global warming is not a problem. Today's New York Times 
reports that last year was the warmest year since records were first 
kept in 1856; and that the years 1991 through 1995 were warmer than any 
similar 5-year period on record. Why would we raise the cost of energy 
to our constituents to allow for greater pollution of their environment 
and an increase in global warming?
  Innovative companies like Whirlpool, Frigidaire, and Maytag support 
the Federal efficiency standards and are developing new technologies 
that lead to more efficient appliances. Unfortunately, other companies 
have not stepped up to the challenge and now want Congress to reward 
their poor performance.
  This rider brushes aside consumer interests, technological 
innovation, and environmental protection to please a select group of 
companies who have lobbied for a special interest gift. The winners are 
the whiners--the least efficient companies, the ones that pollute the 
most. The losers, again, are our constituents who are being threatened 
with policies they do not support that would deplete our natural 
resources and bring great harm to our environment.
  This is awful policy, and it should be deleted from this bill. 
Support the President's veto.

                [From the New York Times, Jan. 4, 1996]

      '95 the Hottest Year on Record as the Global Trend Keeps Up

                        (By William K. Stevens)

       The earth's average surface temperature climbed to a record 
     high last year, according to preliminary figures, bolstering 
     scientists' sense that the burning of fossil fuels is warming 
     the climate.
       Spells of cold, snow and ice like the ones this winter in 
     the northeastern United States come and go in one region or 
     another, as do periods of unusual warmth. But the net result 
     globally made 1995 the warmest year since records first were 
     kept in 1856, says a provisional report issued by the British 
     Meteorological Office and the University of East Anglia.
       The average temperature was 58.72 degrees Fahrenheit, 
     according to the British data, seven-hundredths of a degree 
     higher than the previous record, established in 1990.
       The British figures, based on land and sea measurements 
     around the world, are one of two sets of long-term data by 
     which surface temperature trends are being tracked.
       The other, maintained by the NASA Goddard Institute for 
     Space Studies in New York, shows the average 1995 temperature 
     at 59.7 degrees, slightly ahead of 1990 as the warmest year 
     since record-keeping began in 1866. But the difference is 
     within the margin of sampling error, and the two years 
     essentially finished neck and neck.
       The preliminary Goddard figures differ from the British 
     ones because they are based on a somewhat different 
     combination of surface temperature observations around the 
     world.
       One year does not a trend make, but the British figures 
     show the years 1991 through 1995 to be warmer than any 
     similar five-year period, including the two half-decades of 
     the 1980's, the warmest decade on record.
       This is so even though a sun-reflecting haze cast aloft by 
     the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines cooled 
     the earth substantially for about two years. Despite the 
     post-Pinatubo cooling, the Goddard data show the early 1990's 
     to have been nearly as warm as the late 1980's, which Goddard 
     says was the warmest half-decade on record.
       Dr. James E. Hansen, the director of the Goddard center, 
     predicted last year that a new global record would be reached 
     before 2000, and yesterday he said he now expected that ``we 
     will still get at least a couple more'' by then.
       Dr. Hansen has been one of only a few scientists to 
     maintain steadfastly that a century-long global warming trend 
     is being caused by mostly by human influence, a belief he 
     reiterated yesterday.
       Other experts would go no further than the recent findings 
     of a United Nations panel of scientists in attributing the 
     continuing and accelerating warming trend to human activity--
     specifically the emission of heat-trapping gases like carbon 
     dioxide, which is released by the burning of coal, petroleum 
     products and wood.
       The United Nations panel concluded, for the first time, 
     that the observed warming is ``unlikely to be entirely 
     natural in origin'' and that the evidence ``suggests a 
     discernible human influence on climate.''
       Previously, few scientists apart from Dr. Hansen had been 
     willing to go even that far, contending that the relatively 
     small warming so far could easily be a result of natural 
     climate variability. Even now, most experts say it is unclear 
     whether human activity is responsible for a little of the 
     warming or a lot.
       ``I think we're beginning to see it,'' Dr. Phil Jones of 
     the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia said of the human 
     influence on climate, adding that he agreed with the United 
     Nations report.
       ``I don't think you can say much from one year's values,'' 
     he said, ``but this figure from '91 to '95 is quite 
     illuminating.'' He said it was nearly half a degree above the 
     1961-90 benchmark average of 58 degrees.
       Both the 1995 record high temperature and the strikingly 
     warm half-decade of the early 1990's are ``consistent with 
     the sort of expectation we have of the interplay between 
     natural and manmade influences.'' said Dr. Tom M.L. Wigley of 
     the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, 
     Colo. If things had not turned out that way, he said, ``we 
     would have been pretty surprised and maybe a little 
     concerned'' about the United Nations panel's conclusion. 
     Nevertheless, he said, ``it's not the sort of thing you want 
     to overinterpret or overemphasize.''
       Dr. Wigley was a member of a subcommittee of the United 
     Nations panel that dealt specifically with the question of 
     detecting a human role in climate change.
       The panel predicted that the heat-trapping gas emissions 
     would cause the average global temperature, now approaching 
     60 degrees Fahrenheit, to rise by a further 1.8 to 6.3 
     degrees, with a best estimate of 3.6 degrees, by 2100.
       By comparison the world is 5 to 9 degrees warmer now than 
     in the last ice age more than 10,000 years ago. The predicted 
     warming, if it materializes, would likely cause widespread 
     climatic disruption, the United Nations panel said.
       The margin of seven-hundredths of a degree by which the 
     1995 global average exceeds that of 1990, according to the 
     new British data, sounds small. But it represents an increase 
     of nearly half a degree from the post Pinatubo low, in 1992. 
     As scientists had previously predicted, the recovery from the 
     Pinatubo cooling became obvious last year, though no record 
     was set.
       The 1995 figure is all the more remarkable, Dr. Hansen 
     said, because it was established at a time when two natural 
     warming influences were neutralized. The solar energy cycle 
     was at a low ebb, and the warming effect of El Nino, the pool 
     of warm Pacific water that appeared in early 1995, was offset 
     by a turn to cooler-than-normal conditions in the tropical 
     Pacific later in the year.
       A different picture emerges from an analysis of satellite 
     measurements of global temperature by Dr. John R. Christy of 
     the University of Alabama and Dr. Roy Spencer of NASA's 
     Marshall Space Flight Center in Hunstville, Ala. While their 
     data show temperature fluctuations roughly paralleling 

[[Page H113]]
     those in the surface measurements, the values are lower: 1995 was only 
     an ordinary year compared with the data set's 1982-91 
     average.
       But that was a warm period to start with, said Dr. Christy. 
     And, Dr. Jones said, the satellite measurements combine 
     temperature readings for the entire lower atmosphere, rather 
     than measuring just at the surface, while the most prominent 
     warming--over the Northern Hemisphere continents--does not 
     extend very far upward. That explanation of the difference in 
     the data sets ``makes sense,'' Dr. Christy said, adding, ``Of 
     course we only live in the bottom'' of the atmosphere.
       In the past, skeptics about global warming have cited the 
     satellite data. But Dr. Christy said that even the rate of 
     warming measured from the satellites has begun to move into 
     the range scientists expect to result from human-caused 
     warming.

  Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WAXMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.
  Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman for this, his 
observation. There are many things, all these riders do not belong in a 
spending bill. This is not just about spending. It is about bad policy 
and it is about bad priorities in this bill.
  In fact, the veto of this bill was not even a close call, I would not 
think, of the President. What has happened here is we have had 
Republicans in the House and Senate, after 14 months, agreeing with 
themselves and not making any effort or not a substantial enough of an 
effort to in fact come to resolution on these issues which have been 30 
years of environmental policy by both Democrats and Republicans, 
Presidents and Congresses.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Arizona [Mr. Kolbe], an excellent member of our subcommittee.
  (Mr. KOLBE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me.
  Mr. Speaker, earlier I spoke about the importance of overriding the 
President's veto of the Interior appropriations bill. I want to take a 
couple of minutes to talk about some of the negotiations that went on 
with this administration, because I think it is an important 
illustration of the problem we are facing on the entire budget.
  Back in September, before these bills had finished their work in the 
House and the Senate, there was a discussion between staff and between 
the chairmen with the administration about some of their key funding 
priorities. Here is what they said about some of them. Here is what the 
conference did.
  On the Bureau of Indian Affairs, something that affects my State 
tremendously, the administration said they needed a minimum of $110 
million more, and we ended up giving $135 million more, $111 to the 
Senate level for the BIA and we added $25 million to the Indian Health 
Service. So we added more than the administration said was necessary in 
order to meet their objections to that.
  In the Department of Energy, this is a department where the 
administration's idea of conservation is chartering jets for Hazel 
O'Leary to fly to South Africa, in the Department of Energy they said 
the Energy Information Administration needed to be much closer to the 
House funding level. We added $7.5 million. We split the difference 
between the Senate and the House. It is a compromise which all 
appropriation bills represent, as they have in the past, as they do 
this year.
  In the Forest Service they said they needed to increase the 
stewardship incentive program to double the Senate level. We did not 
double the Senate level. But we provided $4.5 million, whereas the 
House had not originally provided that.
  Then some of the key legislative appropriation items, they said they 
needed to have the House mining patent moratorium. Yes, we went back 
and forth on that and twice in this House took this issue to the floor 
here. But it is in there. So it is an item that the President said that 
he needed to have in there. Tongass, I will not discuss that. It has 
been discussed enough here on the floor. It is a compromise between the 
two positions.
  The California Desert, the administration said they needed to have 
the National Park Service in charge, that the House language would not 
work. We modified the language so that the park service can use 
planning and use of seasonal employees. The Bureau of Land Management 
will operate it in its coming fiscal year while they are developing the 
plan for management of it.

  The administration said they needed Senate language on AmeriCorps, 
and it has the Senate language on AmeriCorps. The administration said 
it needed to have the grazing reform moratorium for a maximum of 90 
days and it retains the moratorium for a maximum of 90 days.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill is one that we can support. It is one that 
represents a compromise between the interests. It is one that 
represents an opportunity to fund the vital agencies of this 
Government, and I urge my colleagues to vote yes, to put Federal 
employees back to work, to open the national parks.
  Let me take my remaining time to say one word about the issue that 
has been raised about Mount Graham because there too is a good example 
of the kind of back and forth that this administration has done over 
the last 6 years. For last 6 years the Justice Department of three 
administrations has defended the position of this Congress and of the 
administration to build those telescopes on Mount Graham in a way that 
protected the red squirrel and allowed science to go forward. To say no 
now to that after we had passed it and made it very clear that that is 
what we intended to do is to say no simultaneously to protecting the 
squirrel, to protecting the environment, to the endangered species and 
to say no to good science. That is the kind of thing that we have seen 
here today, the kind of hypocrisy that we have heard about.
  I urge my colleagues to vote to override this veto.
  Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas 
[Mr. Coleman].
  (Mr. COLEMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, the Republicans just do not get it. They do 
not get it. They do not understand. Some of us served in the majority 
under Republican Presidents and when a bill was vetoed because the 
President, by the way, has that authority in the Constitution of the 
United States, they are not the President, the majority is not the 
President, the majority does not run the whole country, believe it or 
not, I know that is hard to accept, especially by their freshman 
Republicans, but I have got to tell them something. When the President 
vetoes a bill, what we try to do is work out what it is that we need to 
do in order to see to it that the President can sign the bill. We 
negotiate.
  Instead what they have taken the position of doing is saying, it is 
our way or no way. So let us not do this hype business about the reason 
that parks are closed is because the President vetoes a bill. Some of 
us have served in the majority under Republican Presidents who have had 
to deal with vetoed legislation. We did not shut the Government down 
for 3 weeks like Republicans are about to do. Is it not about 21 days? 
I think so, 19 or 20. So I just say to my colleagues, try to understand 
the process. It is called the Constitution of the United States.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Radanovich]
  Mr. RADANOVICH. Mr. Speaker, I am a Republican freshman and I am very 
proud of it. I made a decision recently to not pass continuing 
resolutions until we got the President to deal realistically about a 
balanced budget scored in 7 years.
  However, upon that decision, that led to the closure of Yosemite 
National Park in my district. Not only do my Federal employees suffer, 
but also the communities of Mariposa, Oakhurst, Coarsegold, Three 
Rivers, and Auberry. Private property owners, private businessmen who 
are not being, who will not be repaid, one motel owner Jerry Fisher has 
lost a quarter of a million dollars so far.
  I am proud of what I am doing and what I stand for. My community is 
suffering. I ask my colleagues to override this veto. This is a 
reasonable bill. It is a fair compromise. It should not be used as a 
pawn in this game. I want this bill overridden.
  Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New 
Mexico [Mr. Richardson].
  (Mr. RICHARDSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.) 

[[Page H114]]

  Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Speaker, there are policy reasons why this bill 
should be rejected, serious and substantial policy reasons. There are 
three basic broad reasons.
  First, this is a bill that is unacceptable because it would unduly 
restrict our ability to protect our natural resources and our cultural 
heritage. The second reason this bill does not promote the technology 
that we need for long-term energy conservation and economic growth.
  Third, the one perhaps most important to me and many others that have 
native American populations in their States, is that this bill 
seriously undermines our commitment to provide adequate health, 
educational and other services to native Americans.
  Let me also talk about the Tongass. I have been to the Tongass. Just 
because you may represent that area does not mean that you have all the 
wisdom of that area. In the Tongass, this bill would allow harmful 
clear-cutting, require the sale of timber at unsustainable levels. And 
it would dictate the need for an outdated forest plan for the next 
fiscal year.
  In the Columbia River basin, the bill would impede implementation of 
a comprehensive plan. The result, gridlock, court challenges on timber 
harvesting, grazing, mining and other important activities.
  In the California Desert, the bill undermines our designation of the 
Mojave National Preserve by cutting funding for the preserve and 
shifting responsibility for its management from the Park Service to the 
BLM. The bill would also put a misguided moratorium on future listings 
and critical habitat designations under the Endangered Species Act. The 
bill slashes funding for DOE's energy conservation program so our 
commitment to energy conservation and renewable energy once again is 
suspect.
  Native Americans perhaps are hit the worst than anybody. If you look 
at the effect of the shutdown, it is native Americans that are 
suffering the most. This bill would make it worse. Funding for Indian 
Health Service totally inadequate, Indian education programs, cuts at 
BIA programs that are important for child welfare, adult vocational 
training, law enforcement, detention services, community fire 
protection and general assistance to low income Indian individuals and 
families.

                              {time}  1215

  Moreover, the bill would unfairly single out certain self-governance 
tribes in Washington State for punitive treatment. Specifically, it 
would penalize these tribes financially for using legal remedies in 
disputes with non-tribal owners of land within reservations.
  Finally, the bill represents a dramatic departure from our commitment 
to support for the arts and humanities. It cuts funding of the National 
Endowments for the Arts and Humanities so deeply as to jeopardize their 
capacity to keep providing the cultural, educational, and artistic 
programs that enrich America's communities large and small.
  Mr. Speaker, we have seen poll after poll say that the American 
people care about the environment, and hopefully there are moderate 
forces on that side, on the majority side, that will see that and are 
seeing that, and I acknowledge several Members from midwestern, from 
eastern States that recognize that there is no reason why we should not 
keep our commitments to the environment.
  There is no reason to sign bad bills. The President constitutionally 
can veto bad policy bills, and the argument just does not wash that, if 
we just sign this bill, everyone will go back to work at the national 
parks or the BLM. There are no good reasons to sign this bill.
  I come from a Western State, and I realize many of my colleagues on 
that side will disagree. This is a bad bill for Western States that 
want quality of life, that want to have balance on timber harvesting 
and mining and grazing.
  I urge rejection of this bill.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maryland [Mr. Gilchrest].
  Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. 
Regula] for yielding this time to me.
  I would like to respond to the last couple of speakers. One a couple 
a speakers ago said Republicans do not get it. I would hope that we, 
and, as my colleagues know, this place is inherently political, so we 
are going to talk about politics here, and politics enters into the 
veins of what goes on in this House, but I do not see this Interior 
bill as a political issue. I see this Interior bill as an issue to get 
the Nation back to work, to open up the Park Service, to talk about 
legitimate policy differences, and it is my understanding that 
basically we worked out the policy differences before the bill left the 
House floor. There was a great deal of discussion on this for a period 
of many weeks, so I think we solved those problems, and, as a 
representative of the State of Maryland, I think the Interior bill is 
not a perfect bill, it is not an excellent bill. It is a moderate 
approach to solve the problems of the Federal lands, and I think it 
should be voted on, and I think we should override the Presidential 
veto.
  On a couple of the policy differences, restricting our natural 
resources with this bill I do not think is correct. I think this bill 
goes a long way in enhancing the policies to improve the natural 
resources of the United States. It is not perfect, but there is no 
utopia.
  Let us move in the right direction. This did not take a huge step in 
the right direction, but it did take a couple of steps in the right 
direction. We continue to work on this to promote technology for 
conservation. I think we have shifted in the right direction.
  One of the things this country can do, this Government can do, to 
enhance conservation is to enhance the environment conducive in the 
private sector to look for the technology to do that. We cannot do 
everything here in Government.
  Native Americans. We increased the amount of money from what the 
President wanted. Now, if we look at native Americans and we look at 
reservations today, I think we are improving the quality of life for 
native Americans.
  I want to say something quick about Tongass. The President did not 
like the fact that there could not be legal challenges. We changed 
that. We moderated that.
  The President did not like the fact that we were not going to protect 
goshawks, we did not have conservation areas. We changed that. We now 
have those changes.
  There is a lot of discussion about how is there going to be clear-
cutting. There is nothing in the bill that states there is going to be 
clear-cutting, and the Forest Service manages the way the trees are 
going to be cut, and I trust this Interior Department so that there 
will not be clear-cutting.
  I think we ought to override the President's veto.
  Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, I have the greatest respect for the gentleman from 
Maryland [Mr. Gilchrest]. I know that he is a reasonable person and 
that he goes into these issues very carefully. I think he has come to 
the wrong conclusion if he believes that the environmental deficits of 
this bill have been settled. If it were true, that there were no 
environmental flaws and big environmental flaws in this bill, why then 
would the Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, the 
Wilderness Society, Defenders of Wildlife all be opposed to this bill?
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Hawaii [Mr. 
Abercrombie].
  (Mr. ABERCROMBIE asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding 
this time to me, and the reason that I asked for the time was to reply 
to the rather astounding claim for preferential treatment by the 
gentleman from California representing the area around Yosemite 
National Park, Mariposa County, and adjoining counties. I fail to 
understand how the gentleman can come to the well of the House and say 
that he is proud to be a Republican freshman who is going to impose or 
try to impose his ideology over the welfare of the general citizenry 
and at the same time ask us now to override the President's veto 
because people in his district are hurting, because business in his 
district is hurting.
  I think I can speak about tourism at least as well as the gentleman 
from California, having represented the No. 1 tourist destination area 
in the world for more time in more legislative 

[[Page H115]]
venues than anybody in this Congress. When we cannot issue visas, we 
cannot get people to come to this country, let alone to Hawaii to be 
able to help with our balance of trade deficit. Tourism is the positive 
force in that area, and yet someone can come here to the floor and say, 
``Your people stay out or work, but put my people back to work,'' and 
then claim some kind of moral high ground in a political debate about 
being proud to shut the country down, standing up for the principle of 
I want mine, but my colleagues do not get theirs?
  Some people have come into this Congress happy that they have never 
had any legislative experience, citing that as some kind of virtue. I 
think that kind of claim is so blatantly exposed with that kind of 
rhetoric to come here on the floor and say, ``I want mine. I don't want 
to take responsibility for what I'm doing to the rest of the people of 
this country, but help me out because I have got a political problem.''
  I say to my colleagues, ``Shame on you, grow up, learn what a 
legislature is all about.''
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Washington [Mr. Nethercutt], an excellent member of our subcommittee.
  Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to strongly support 
overriding this Presidential veto that the President has signed 
recently on this particular bill that affects so many people in the 
Department of Interior.
  As my colleagues know, we have heard a lot of talk about putting 
Federal workers back to work, Mr. Speaker, in the Department of 
Interior and agencies that come under the Department of Interior, and I 
am all for that. I think it is time that we do that, but I think we 
have to understand that the President of the United States, in the 
stroke of his veto pen, sealed the fate of Federal workers, but he also 
sealed the fate of non-Federal workers who rely on the forests for 
their livelihood.
  The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula] and a lot of Democrats and 
Republicans worked very heard to present a bill to the President that 
would be acceptable, and I heard the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula] 
say earlier today that the goalpost had moved, and they consistently 
moved during the negotiation period. That is true. We made a special 
effort to talk to the President, talk to the Interior Department and 
get a bill that would be acceptable to everybody, and we sent it down 
to the White House, and the President, as I say, as my colleagues know, 
boldly strokes his veto pen and seals the fate of people in the 
Department of Interior and people out of the Department of Interior, 
and, so I say, he sealed the fate of non-Federal workers in our 
Nation's forests who have been devastated by the no-harvest policy of 
this administration, and that is the crime here, is that the President 
in vetoing this bill not only hurts people who are Federal workers, but 
he hurts people who are non-Federal workers who rely on the forest for 
jobs.
  In addition I have to ask the question of my friends on the other 
side, ``Who is thinking about the jobs of the people who are non-
Federal employees?'' Anyone who votes to override this veto will think 
about and will support jobs in the private sector that would come about 
by this signing, overriding this bill, and also the people in the 
public sector, and I urge my colleagues to vote to override this veto.
  Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Markey].
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, the President was wise in vetoing this bill. 
This is terrible energy policy, terrible environmental policy. It is an 
all-out assault upon the environment in our country. We can go down the 
litany from Tongass to California Desert, through all of the parks 
decisions which are made under the guise of an appropriations bill, but 
there is a 50 percent cut in money for low income weatherization, 
thousands, thousands of poor and elderly across this country dependent 
upon this money--cut 50 percent for the poor in this appropriations 
bill. The energy efficiency standards that were put on the books in 
1987, 1989, 1991, which have improved the efficiency of stoves, of 
refrigerators, and people say, ``Who cares?'' I will tell my colleagues 
who cares. Because of those laws we have saved 4 billion barrels of oil 
from having to be imported in the United States from Saudi Arabia and 
Kuwait, 4 billion in the last 8 years. We saved the need for us to 
build 50 500-megawatt nuclear power plants in this country. We saved 
consumers in this country $132 billion in electricity costs, untold 
billions of dollars in nuclear power plants that would have had to have 
been constructed, and they say, well, this is just a small compromise. 
No new energy standards for any refrigerator, or stove, or light bulb, 
when we know the gains that are made by working smarter and not harder 
in environment, in energy efficiency in energy.
  This is terrible policy. It is a direct assault upon the environment 
of this country. This bill must be vetoed, the veto must be sustained, 
if we are to have an environment in this country that is worth 
respecting.
  Please, instead of having the EPA turn into every polluter's ally, 
support the President and sustain the veto.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New 
Jersey [Mr. Saxton].
  Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula] 
for yielding this time to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the motion to override the 
President's veto. While it is true that the fiscal year 1996 Interior 
appropriation bill does not provide for the same level of funding we 
have seen in previous years, it does provide funding for such important 
functions as management of our Nation's parks and refuges which, I 
think, is very, very important. The American people want a balanced 
budget, and all areas of the Government must contribute toward this 
goal, and they want their parks and refuges open. As long as the 
President's veto is able to stand, our Nation's treasured 369 parks and 
504 refuges will remain closed, and the people who we hire to manage 
them will be out of work.

                              {time}  1230

  These parks and refuges are funded by millions of American taxpayers' 
dollars who paid for them with entrance fees, excise taxes, duck stamps 
and income tax payments. It is unfair for the American people to 
continue to be shut out of these lands.
  No bill is perfect. Would I write this one differently? Yes, I would. 
But it does achieve two primary goals: It provides funding to maintain 
the park and refuge system, and it moves us toward the all-important 
goal of a balanced budget.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' so Americans can once again have 
access to the parks and refuges for which they have paid.
  Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Vento].
  (Mr. VENTO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to 
override the President's veto. The fact is that this, as I said 
earlier, is not a close call. I understand, and I think most Members 
understand, there is a new majority in this House. We understand there 
is not enough money in the Park Service or the BLM or the Forest 
Service, and some of that I guess I do not like. They are not my 
priorities, if that was all that this bill did in terms of changing 
funding, if it did not target things like the Low-Income Energy 
Assistance Program for the poor.
  I, as a Representative, feel a special obligation to defend and 
represent the powerless in our society, not the powerful, the special 
interests. But this bill goes way beyond that.
  We have heard a litany of suggestions about the fact that if we do 
not pass an appropriations bill, the parks cannot open up, the refuges 
cannot function, the Smithsonian remains closed. That is because, of 
course, the majority in this body will not take up the Dole resolution 
which, in fact, would provide a CR, which is the normal course of what 
has been done year in and year out with few exceptions. This is 
unprecedented, to be in the 20th day of a shutdown without 
appropriations.
  The fact of the matter is that this is a sham, the suggestion you 
could pass this and the parks would be open, because we know that at 
the end of this month, the debt ceiling is going to have to be 
addressed, that issue is 

[[Page H116]]
going to have to be addressed, and then not just the Park Service, but 
everything, the advocacy here; and make no mistake about it, I 
understand it and you understand it.
  You know what the scheme has been since last year when the Speaker 
announced that he would bring the Government to a halt to get what he 
wants in terms of issues.
  Now, I do not think that there is anything wrong with a balanced 
budget. I commend you for the emphasis and effort and impetus that has 
been brought to that particular issue. I commend Ross Perot for the 
impetus that has been brought to that. But the fact is that a balanced 
budget and the good things here with parks and others that you want to 
hold up as a shield to deflect the bad policy that lies behind it is 
where the concern comes.
  You have to compromise. You have to address those issues. You cannot 
step back and suggest that we want a balanced budget; everyone wants 
that. I would just like to mention to my friends, you are not the first 
that have been here with a plan for a balanced budget in 4 years or 5 
years or make it 7 years. Intuition? I think not. I think, more, 
political motivation to justify getting reelected. But it is a tough 
goal to accomplish.
  You cannot justify a balanced budget with bad policy. Good 
environmental policy will, in fact, lend itself to achieving that 
particular balanced budget. But you cannot pour more money into the 
southeast part of Alaska for building roads and losing money on timber 
and all of the other natural resources that you have in here; in other 
words, in the Pacific Northwest, reneging on the Columbia Basin.
  Mr. Speaker, science to this group seems to be very selective. 
Everybody wants to have more science, but science seems to this new 
majority to be what the Inquisition was to religion. You just cannot 
selectively use that. If you wore this bill out in public, you would be 
arrested for indecent exposure.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Florida [Mrs. Fowler].
  (Mrs. FOWLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Mrs. FOWLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of this vote 
override. We need to reopen our national parks, wildlife refuges, 
museums, and monuments.
  The fiscal year 1996 appropriations bill for the Department of the 
Interior was vetoed by the President on December 18. Had it been signed 
into law--along with the many other appropriations bills that the 
President has chosen to veto--our precious national parks would be open 
today. Park guides and wildlife managers would be at work as we speak. 
Children would be touring our national museums on class trips and 
history would be relived for the many visitors to our national 
monuments.
  Instead, these national treasures remain closed--not because of our 
inability to pass an appropriations bill, but because the President has 
refused to open them.
  In my district, this means that the Timucuan National Preserve is 
closed to the countless visitors it enjoys on a daily basis. The 
Timucuan Preserve includes wetlands, forests, prehistoric 
archaeological sites, and historic sites. This veto means that the Fort 
Caroline National Memorial and Fort Matanzas National Park are unable 
to accommodate visitors and school children wishing to learn about the 
area's rich 16th century history. Further, the President's veto means 
that visitors to the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, a 
historic fort in St. Augustine, are unable to actually enter that 
historic fort.
  I urge my colleagues to support the override to open our national 
parks and send these Federal workers back to work.
  Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Markey].
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I do not think that any of us can tolerate 
the misrepresentation of why the parks are closed down. The parks are 
closed down for one very simple reason. The Republicans have yet to 
receive their crown jewel in the Contract With America, which is a $245 
billion tax break for the rich in America. You guys are holding up the 
whole Federal government in order to get that. Whether it be the parks 
or Medicare or student loans, you are going to hold your breath until 
you get that $245 billion to fulfill your contract with the country 
club in America.
  Do not lay off the closing of the Federal parks on Bill Clinton. All 
he is saying is, open the parks, but do not expect me to cut Medicare 
and student loans and give a big tax break to the wealthy as the price 
for doing it. You can open the parks this afternoon if you want to, but 
you do not want to because you cannot as a result stop the Federal 
Government from operating in order to give your huge tax break for the 
corporate officials and country clubs across this country.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New 
Mexico [Mr. Skeen], a distinguished member of our subcommittee.
  (Mr. SKEEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that the louder the voice, the weaker the 
argument, and we have heard a lot of loud voices. But the basic thing 
that is wrong with this whole exercise is inconsistency. We are lobbing 
grenades at one another time after time over every minute issue in 
every bill, and this is another veto override that I think should 
happen.
  There is nothing wrong with this bill, the Interior bill from an 
environmental standpoint, from a practicality standpoint; and just to 
illustrate to you that you should not cave in, Carlsbad Caverns was 
kept open because the local communities dug up the money with the State 
to keep it open.
  If you want these people to go back to work in the Federal sector, 
override these vetoes and put them back to work.
  As an illustration, and as an example, the Agriculture Appropriations 
Subcommittee bill passed. The Department of Agriculture is operating 
today. Every bureau, every system that has anything to do with 
agriculture is working today. If you also want to see an inconsistency, 
here is the IRS, one of our greatest examples of bureaucracy thievery, 
extracting from people who are on half-time withholding on income tax 
during this period of time. Another inconsistency.
  Folks, I think it is about time we quit beating ourselves over the 
head and get down to the business of actually doing something definite 
about providing these bills and this legislation by overriding the 
foolish kind of a veto, to stop proposing foolish kinds of rhetoric and 
keep our voices down a little bit and have respect for one another.
  Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  I have the utmost respect for my good friend from New Mexico, but I 
insist that his was not a foolish veto by the President of the United 
States. There is a difference between a good bill and bad bill, and the 
President recognized that this was a bad bill. His veto was entirely 
justified, and in spite of all of the suggestions that the President 
ought to sign this bill and put people back to work, it still remains a 
bad bill, and his act in rejecting it was totally justified.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
[Mr. Foglietta].
  (Mr. FOGLIETTA asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. FOGLIETTA. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this 
resolution. The majority leader and the front-running candidate for the 
Republican nomination for President right: Enough is enough. It is time 
to put the government back in business again.
  This override attempt is just public relations. This debate we have 
been having over the last month is, what is the Government supposed to 
do and who is it supposed to help?
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], my friend 
and the chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, gave away 
just how the Republicans view this debate and how they view our 
government. That happened right after the President signed the Defense 
appropriations bill.
  My dear friend, Mr. Livingston, said that the President has lost his 
negotiating edge because he and the Democrats were the only ones who 
had an interest in the constituencies involved in 

[[Page H117]]
the remaining appropriations bills. But that is so wrong.
  The veterans who need health care are not Democrats; they are 
Americans who need our Government. The pregnant women and the mothers 
who need help getting a decent meal for their babies are not Democrats; 
they are Americans who need our Government. The people who count on the 
government to keep the environment clean are not Democrats; they are 
Americans. And the people who yearn to visit our historic sites, our 
national museums and national parks are not Democrats; they are 
Americans.
  The President was right to veto this bill. It cuts too much and would 
hurt our environment. Let us bring the bill back and do it right.
  Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], the chairman of the Committee on 
Appropriations.
  (Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity before us today 
to send 133,000 Federal employees back to work and at the same time 
reopen all of the national parks and museums of which we have heard so 
much about in recent weeks. I ask my colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle to vote for this override.
  A vote ``yes'' on the override will also provide welfare assistance 
to Indian children, keep Indian schools open and ensure essential 
services on Indian reservations. A vote ``yes'' will continue the 
mining patent moratorium and stop the giveaway of Federal lands.
  The problem that we have is that this was indeed a carefully crafted 
piece of legislation that met demands from liberals and conservatives, 
Republicans and Democrats, on both sides of the Capitol; and despite 
the fact that it was returned to conference on many occasions, when it 
went to the President, he vetoed it.
  Let me underscore that. He vetoed this bill, and the parks, the 
museums and all of the other good effects of this bill were shut down 
for the Christmas holidays. He kept 133,000 Federal employees from 
returning to work before Christmas. He has shut down the parks and the 
Smithsonian and the National Gallery which now I am glad to see has 
reopened. He is the one that told the native Americans that they cannot 
get welfare assistance for Indian children, funding for Indian schools. 
So what we are trying to do is simply fix the problem.
  We have heard a lot of rhetoric on both sides. The time has come to 
put aside the rhetoric. The time has come to accept a good, a carefully 
crafted bill.
  Understand, this is the best we can do. Override the President's 
veto. Send it back to him. Let us put these people back to work. Let us 
open the parks, be done with politics. We have already overridden his 
veto last week on a bill that was far less significant than this issue. 
This is a good bill.
  I invite my friends on both sides of the aisle to override the 
President's veto and put these people back to work.
  Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Minnesota [Mr. Vento].
  Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, I think the point is that you can blame 
whomever you want. You can blame the House, you can blame the Senate or 
the President in terms of this measure. It has been around, and the 
fact that communication has not gone forward to resolve the differences 
is clear when we get a veto from the President.

                              {time}  1245

  So whatever the good intentions of my colleagues in trying to iron 
out the differences, they did not achieve it.
  Nobody consulted me on this particular bill. I have worked on this. 
What is wrong with this is, this is a spending bill but nevertheless it 
has in it many, many policy provisions that should not be in a spending 
bill.
  And some of the priorities of course in terms of spending, I 
understand my colleagues' difficulty, but there is no reason to suspend 
the reform efforts in terms of the roaded or unroaded areas in the West 
which are in this bill, to suspend the grazing reforms which are 
present in this bill. There is no reason to undo the Columbia Basin 
study areas and to put that science to use so it can serve us in these 
needs. There is no reason to address the policy issues.
  These are measures that do not belong in a spending bill. These are 
the riders that are being put in here at the insistence of extreme 
individuals in the House and the Senate that do not belong in these 
particular bills and, often supported by various interest groups, they 
do not belong in here.
  So you brought into this the fact that you do not want to bring these 
issues up on the floor and debate them in the normal process that is 
afforded the House and the Senate to consider these issues, so they are 
being jammed into this particular proposal. As I said, even if this 
bill were to pass and we could open it up, we would be right back to 
the same problem because of the debt ceiling, and you know that that 
debt ceiling is going to be used for the same purposes with the same 
goal.
  You can wrap yourself in a balanced budget mantra all you want in 
terms of no matter how often you repeat it, but it is not going to 
happen. You cannot do that with bad policy. You cannot have a balanced 
budget, you cannot deal with the deficit if you are going to create an 
environmental deficit, and that is what is going on here.
  Much of what has passed as legislative process this past year has 
been a direct assault, a covert assault, I might say, on the 
environment, but nevertheless having a devastating effect. That is why 
we need to reject this effort to override.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Oregon [Mr. Bunn], a member of the subcommittee.
  Mr. BUNN of Oregon. Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the debate with 
interest, and I have listened as we have been told that the parks are 
closed because of tax cuts, the parks are closed because of Medicare 
changes, the parks are closed because of veterans' issues.
  Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought this was the Interior 
appropriations bill that we were talking about. I served on that 
committee and I worked, as we looked at an account-by-account basis, 
trying to make the changes, to set the priorities. We did save $1.4 
billion in this as we moved toward balancing the budget.
  I heard speaker after speaker talk about wanting to balance the 
budget on the other side. But we do not balance the budget unless we 
take action, and this budget does take action. It does preserve 
priorities, and it will get 133,000 people back to work if we will just 
vote to override.
  We have the opportunity today to open the parks, to open the 
monuments, to open the museums, and stay on track to balancing the 
budget. It will not happen with talk. It will happen with action. This 
bill takes the action necessary.
  Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Markey].
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, once again, the Government for 200 years 
stayed open when a President vetoed a bill. The Congress could sustain 
the veto, the Congress could override the veto, but the Government 
continued to work.
  The only reason the Government is shut down is the Republicans have 
decided, after 200 years, they are going to use as a technique laying 
off hundreds of thousands of employees and the services that they 
provide for Americans, including their ability to walk into national 
parks across this country.
  Why are we going to suspend that constitutional, historical, and 
successful way of governing this country? Because there is an emergency 
in this country, and the emergency is that the one thing the 
Republicans cannot do is get this $245 billion tax break for the 
wealthy in America. That is what the whole debate is over.
  The bills which they are insisting upon the President passing include 
other parts of the Contract With America which include gutting of 
environmental laws. The historical mechanism by which we change 
environmental laws was through the appropriations process, by which you 
brought the EPA, Superfund, and the national parks laws out here 
separately. They do not want to do it that way. We are in emergency, 
martial law, to get that tax break for the wealthy. We will hold every 
ordinary Federal employee hostage. America held hostage to this tax 

[[Page H118]]
break for the wealthy. That is what it is all about.

  We are going to gut environmental laws, we are going to cut Medicare, 
but we cannot keep the Government going. For 200 years, and, by the 
way, there are a lot of things that can be said about the Democratic 
Party, but for the 60 years we ran this place, the Government did not 
shut down. Once the Republicans get in charge, the whole thing comes 
down around their ears.
  That is why we should sustain the President's veto and ensure that 
regular constitutional process is continued.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Virginia [Mr. Davis].
  Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Speaker, let me just say to my friend from 
Massachusetts, this Government closed down nine times under the Reagan 
and Bush administrations when Congress did not come up with the 
appropriate resolutions and there was a veto and an impasse. The 
difference was in those days that it never lasted longer than 3 days or 
a weekend because the President would be up here after a veto trying to 
work out the differences. We have not seen that in this case.
  I think our side is equally responsible. We ought to bring a 
continuing resolution and move it through, but I do not think you are 
blameless in this. Frankly, the President can end this right here by 
signing this bill.
  The issues that you claim are policy issues are not enough money for 
weatherization, not enough money for the National Endowment for the 
Humanities, not enough for native Americans, but what is in this bill 
is a lot more than what you have got on the table right now, which is a 
Government shutdown altogether.
  This bill will put 133,000 Federal workers back to work. It will open 
up our national parks. It will open up the U.S. Geological Survey, 
which is doing a lot of research on earthquakes, on health and safety, 
water quality assessment, that is not being done right now. We have to 
balance the good this bill does against a few of what I think are 
ideologically driven objections on the other side.
  Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy].
  Mr. KENNEDY of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I have listened with great 
interest over the course of the last several months to the passion with 
which the Republicans have attacked the welfare system of this country, 
talking time and time again about a system of dependency, a system 
which instead of breaking a cycle of poverty in fact maintains a cycle 
of poverty.
  But it is interesting to me that when we talk about a different form 
of welfare, a welfare where taxpayers are robbed of their paychecks in 
order to pay huge subsidies to our mining companies, in order to pay 
huge subsidies to our timber companies, all of a sudden there is quiet 
on the Republican flank for that kind of welfare, that kind of 
dependency, that kind of denial of free market tactics. Why do we not 
stand and ask our lumber companies to really determine whether or not 
on their own, without taxpayer subsidies, they go into the Tongass?
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KENNEDY of Massachusetts. I will yield in one brief moment.
  Why do we not ask whether foreign mineral companies would come and 
mine on our lands if in fact they had to pay the below-surface value of 
those mines rather than just the surface value of those mines?
  What we have here is the denial of a real corporate kind of equity in 
America. We have a situation where we have welfare for the rich and 
free enterprise for the poor. That is the kind of system that the 
Republicans want to put upon the people of this country. It is time 
that we are consistent with what we expect the poor standards to be as 
well as what we expect the corporate standards to be in this country.
  I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. REGULA. Is the gentleman aware there is a moratorium on issuing 
mining patents which is included in this bill?
  Mr. KENNEDY of Massachusetts. I am also aware that the gentleman from 
Ohio [Mr. Regula] was very much involved in trying to get a better law, 
which he was not successful in convincing his fellow Republicans to do.
  What you have essentially done is given them the keys to Fort Knox, 
you have given them the rights of Fort Knox, but you have not asked 
anybody to pay for the gold.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa 
[Mr. Ganske].
  Mr. GANSKE. Mr. Speaker, let us put into perspective what seems to be 
one of the most contentious parts of the Interior appropriations bill, 
harvesting part of the Alaska Tongass Forest.
  If this table represented Alaska, the Tongass Forest would represent 
a postage stamp. The area that we are talking about for harvesting 
would represent the size of a pinhead. Is this what the President and 
the Democratic Members of this body are willing to close down the 
Government about?
  I lived in the Pacific Northwest for a number of years. There should 
be balance in weighing the benefits of logging versus the environment. 
This bill makes reasonable compromises in the use of this forest, and I 
respect Members such as the gentleman from New York [Mr. Boehlert] and 
the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Gilchrest], who are strong 
environmentalists and who support this bill. We should vote to override 
this veto.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to some of the rhetoric that has been 
on the floor this morning. The President's veto has more to do with 
politics than with the substance of this bill.
  Now in the 20th day of current partial Government shutdown, the 
reason the national parks are closed is the direct result of bad faith 
bargaining by President Clinton. This ought to be crystal clear to all 
of the furloughed Government workers who are affected by this bill. If 
the President had not vetoed this appropriations bill, they would be 
back to work and citizens who want to visit their national parks would 
be having a good time.
  The citizens in this country should take notice. Those who vote 
against this veto override are as responsible for this stalemate as the 
President.
  Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank].
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, we are being given an 
extraordinary constitutional argument, namely that when the President 
of the United States exercises his constitutional right to veto, he is 
then to be held responsible for a shutdown of the Government. That is 
of course nonsense but it is confirmation of what we have here: people 
who want to make very drastic changes in public policy, who lack the 
two-thirds that the Constitution says you need to override a veto, who 
in the absence of the two-thirds want to hold the Government hostage.
  But even on its own terms the arguments fail, because the problem is 
that the appropriations bills, this one included, were not passed by 
this congressional majority until months after they were supposed to. 
We are in a crisis in part because of the absolute incompetence of the 
majority, which kept them from passing the great majority of 
appropriations bills for months, did not get any passed on time, or 
maybe one. That is why we are in this crisis.
  The Constitution allows the President to veto a bill, and then we 
have time for him to have the veto override considered, and then 
negotiations. When you wait 2\1/2\ months after the deadline and pass 
the bill, you have lost your right to complain about a veto.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Louisiana [Mr. Tauzin].
  (Mr. TAUZIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, we are in this crisis on this bill I think 
for one reason. It probably was summarized in a letter the President 
sent to the Senate committee considering the bill on property rights.
  His letter said, ``I don't care how you modify the bill, I don't care 
how you modify the environmental reform that the House passed, I will 
veto that bill. I will stand in the schoolhouse door and veto any 
environmental reform because I don't want to see any changes in the 
status quo.'' We see it reflected here. The President of the United 
States has said, ``I don't like the environmental reforms, I don't want 
any more trees cut in the Tongass Forest, so I will put 133,000 workers 
at risk of 

[[Page H119]]
not going to work because I am going to veto this bill.''
  This President is not about to negotiate these changes. He is simply 
against them. He has promised his environmental friends he will stand 
in the schoolhouse door and veto bill after bill after bill that makes 
any attempt to modestly restrain the environmental extremists who have 
written some of these laws and regulations into existence. He will veto 
risk assessment/cost-benefit analysis, he will veto property rights, he 
will veto reforms in environmental legislation. He will veto them even 
if it means putting 133,000 workers out of business and the parks 
closed.
  That is what this is all about. We ought to override that veto. We 
ought to put those workers back to work. We ought to make these modest 
reforms. It is a bill that has been approved by this House and by the 
Senate, by numbers sufficient to represent the majority will of the 
people of the United States. This President will not negotiate with us. 
We ought to override the veto.
  Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the distinguished 
gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Hefner].
  Mr. HEFNER. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman takes some poetic 
license here. I would like to see a copy of that letter where the 
President says, I will put 133,000 workers out and I will veto this 
bill because I do not want any reforms. The gentleman is taking some 
poetic license with this in quoting the President of the United States. 
I would like to see a copy of the letter.
  Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HEFNER. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.
  Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, the letter I referred to is a letter he sent 
to the Senate committee on property rights.
  Mr. HEFNER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to see the quote in the letter 
that says, I will put 133,000 people out of work. The gentleman may 
produce that.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
Louisiana [Mr. Tauzin].
  Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, the letter I referred to, I will tell my 
friend, is a letter the President sent to the committee considering 
property rights legislation, one of the environmental reforms we have 
been fighting for on this House floor.
  The letter I referred to is a letter from the President telling the 
chairman of that committee: I do not care how you change this bill, I 
will veto any bill on this subject matter that hits my desk regardless 
of how you change it. That is the upshot of his letter.
  I will send the gentleman a copy of it. What I said is that that 
letter reflects the attitude of the White House. They will not 
negotiate with us on the environmental reforms. They will simply veto 
legislation.
  Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
North Carolina [Mr. Hefner].
  Mr. HEFNER. Mr. Speaker, but the point I am making, the gentleman 
stood in the well and he said the President said, I will put 133,000 
people out of work. I do not believe he has that in print from the 
President of the United States. I do not care what rhetoric he uses 
about a letter that he sent to the other body. Show me in print where 
the President of the United States said, I will put 133,000 people out 
of work.
  Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HEFNER. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.
  Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, the President said that when he vetoed this 
bill. When he vetoed this bill, he said I would rather have 133,000 out 
of work than sign legislation that has modest environmental reforms.
  Mr. HEFNER. Mr. Speaker, that is a conclusion; that is not a fact. 
And the gentleman knows it.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
New York [Mr. Hinchey].
  Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I think that it is quite clear what is 
happening here. The Government is shut down for one reason. That is 
because we have not passed a bill which passed the Senate. All we have 
to do is get that bill out on the floor here. With regard to the 
provisions of this bill before us now, what is happening simply is 
this: The Republicans want to override a veto.
  The President vetoed that bill for a host of very good reasons. Among 
them is the fact that this bill would provide for the expedited 
application of mining patents, mining patents that are worth literally 
billions of dollars. Under the provisions of this bill, which the 
President vetoed, those applications would have to be processed in an 
unprecedented short period of time, in effect giving away to mining 
companies, many of whom are foreign mining companies, billions of 
dollars of American resources at bargain basement prices. That is what 
is at stake here.
  These people tell us that they want to balance the budget. If they 
really wanted to balance the budget in a responsible and appropriate 
way, they would allow us to treat the resources of this country in 
accordance with their true value. If we believe in the free market, let 
that free market principle apply to public resources as well as private 
resources. Stop giving away the treasury of the country. Stop giving 
away the resources which will be passed on to future generations. You 
are allowing those resources to be exploited at bargain basement 
prices. Stop it. That is what this veto is all about.
  Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a bad bill. No amount of rhetoric about men out 
of work or Federal workers out of employment can change that fact. That 
it is a bad bill was recognized on two occasions by the House in voting 
to recommit the bill. The President was right in vetoing this bill. It 
is a bad bill, and his veto should not be overridden.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. 
Regula] is recognized for 4\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, this bill deserves to be supported, and we 
should override the President's veto.
  I wanted to just get some facts out here in the little time I have 
left. Indian education is above 1995. Indian health is above 1995. The 
native Americans get one-fourth, 25 percent of this bill, about $3 
billion goes to native American programs.
  I want to point out that we negotiated with the White House people, 
but they kept moving the goal posts. To show you how reluctant they 
were, they vetoed the bill, and then it took them 6 hours to decide 
what should be in a veto message. Normally you decide why to veto a 
bill and then veto it, but they were uncertain about what was wrong 
because they recognized that it basically was a good bill.
  This is not about the EPA, that is not in this bill. It is not about 
welfare, that is not in this bill. It is not about Medicare. I have 
heard all these things from my colleagues on the minority side. It is 
about a mining moratorium. We just heard a speaker say we are going to 
give away our mineral resources. The moratorium in this bill stops 
that, but the President vetoed it. He wants to go ahead and give out 
all these patents and give away our mining lands because without this 
bill there is no moratorium.
  My colleagues, we have an opportunity to vote ``yes'' to open the 
parks. We have an opportunity to vote ``yes'' to put 133,000 people 
back to work. We have an opportunity to vote ``yes'' to open up 500 
national wildlife refuges. We have an opportunity to vote ``yes'' to 
open up 155 national forests. We have an opportunity to vote ``yes'' to 
support the Indian schools, an opportunity to vote ``yes'' to welfare 
assistance to Indian children, an opportunity to vote ``yes'' to the 
opening of the Smithsonian, the National Gallery of Art, the Holocaust 
Museum, an opportunity to vote ``yes'' to retain the patent moratorium, 
an opportunity to vote ``yes'' to collect $8 billion in revenues that 
are generated by the Federal lands.
  I would say to the 89 Members that voted ``yes'' to override the 
President to help securities litigation lawyers, I would think that, at 
a minimum, you would vote ``yes'' to open up all of the resources to 
the 260 million Americans that this bill represents. I urge all of my 
colleagues to vote ``yes'' to override the President's veto and open up 


[[Page H120]]
these facilities that belong to all Americans.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time has expired.
  Without objection, the previous question is ordered.
  There was no objection.
  The question is, Will the House, on reconsideration, pass the bill, 
the objections of the President to the contrary notwithstanding?
  Under the Constitution, the vote must be determined by the yeas and 
nays.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 239, 
nays, 177, not voting 17, as follows:

                              [Roll No. 5]

                               YEAS--239

     Allard
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker (CA)
     Baker (LA)
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blute
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Brownback
     Bryant (TN)
     Bunn
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Chrysler
     Clinger
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins (GA)
     Combest
     Cooley
     Cox
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cremeans
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Davis
     Deal
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dicks
     Doolittle
     Dornan
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Flanagan
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Franks (CT)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frisa
     Funderburk
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Greenwood
     Gunderson
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hancock
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hefley
     Heineman
     Herger
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Horn
     Houghton
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kim
     King
     Kingston
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Laughlin
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Lincoln
     Linder
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Longley
     Lucas
     Manzullo
     Martini
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     Metcalf
     Meyers
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Molinari
     Montgomery
     Moorhead
     Myers
     Myrick
     Neal
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Nussle
     Orton
     Oxley
     Packard
     Parker
     Paxon
     Petri
     Pickett
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Reed
     Regula
     Riggs
     Roberts
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roth
     Roukema
     Royce
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer
     Schiff
     Seastrand
     Sensenbrenner
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stump
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tate
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Torkildsen
     Traficant
     Upton
     Vucanovich
     Waldholtz
     Walker
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Zeliff
     Zimmer

                               NAYS--177

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Andrews
     Baesler
     Baldacci
     Barcia
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Beilenson
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Bevill
     Bishop
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boucher
     Browder
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Campbell
     Cardin
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Coleman
     Collins (IL)
     Collins (MI)
     Condit
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Danner
     de la Garza
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fields (LA)
     Filner
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Geren
     Gibbons
     Gonzalez
     Green
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hamilton
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hayworth
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Holden
     Hostettler
     Hoyer
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jacobs
     Jefferson
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnston
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kleczka
     Klink
     LaFalce
     Lantos
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney
     Manton
     Markey
     Martinez
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McCarthy
     McDermott
     McHale
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Miller (CA)
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moran
     Morella
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pastor
     Payne (NJ)
     Payne (VA)
     Pelosi
     Peterson (FL)
     Peterson (MN)
     Pomeroy
     Poshard
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Richardson
     Rivers
     Roemer
     Rose
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanders
     Sawyer
     Schroeder
     Schumer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Skaggs
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Spratt
     Stokes
     Stupak
     Taylor (MS)
     Tejeda
     Thompson
     Thornton
     Thurman
     Torres
     Torricelli
     Towns
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Volkmer
     Ward
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Williams
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wynn
     Yates

                             NOT VOTING--17

     Brewster
     Bryant (TX)
     Chapman
     DeFazio
     Fazio
     Fields (TX)
     Hoke
     Lightfoot
     Mfume
     Norwood
     Quillen
     Stark
     Stockman
     Studds
     Visclosky
     Wilson
     Wyden

                              {time}  1328

  The Clerk announced the following pair:
  On this vote:

       Mr. Quillen and Mr. Lightfoot for, with Mr. DeFazio 
     against.

  So, two thirds not having voted in favor thereof, the veto of the 
President was sustained and the bill was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The message and the bill are 
referred to the Committee on Appropriations.
  The Clerk will notify the Senate of the action of the House.

                          ____________________