Congressional Record, Volume 142 Issue 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)

[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 2 (Thursday, January 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H98-H111]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT,
1996

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. This is a privileged motion.
The Clerk read as follows:

Mr. Regula moves to discharge the Committee on
Appropriations from further consideration of the veto message
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 SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Ohio [Mr. Regula] is recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the
customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Yates].

general leave

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on
the motion to discharge the Committee on Appropriations from further
consideration of the veto message of the President to the bill H.R.
1977 and on the veto message itself, and that I may include tabular and
extraneous material.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Ohio?
There was no objection.
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, today we have an opportunity to
correct a serious problem, and that is the lack of access to the
Nation's treasures that result from the veto by the President of the
Interior appropriations bill.
It is a good bill. We worked hard on it on both sides of the aisle.
It was recommitted twice to the conference to take care of the problems
of the Tongass to satisfy the environmental concerns and also to take
care of the need for a mining moratorium. Those issues were addressed,
and I think out of the give and take of the conference and the
recommittals, we arrived at a good bill, a bill that is fair and a bill
that is nonpartisan.
There are many projects that need to be finished that were in
Members' districts, both Republican and Democrat. The parks, of course,
serve all of the people of the United States, as well as do the
cultural institutions downtown.
I want to say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that on
December 20, 89 Members of the minority voted to override the President
on securities litigation reform. That is a pretty esoteric bill, and I
am going to borrow a phrase from my good friends on the other side of
the aisle and say that was an override for the rich, because people
involved in securities are pretty much well-to-do people; they
certainly are not the average American.
They found it in their hearts to override the President's veto on a
bill with a very narrow constituency, a bill that will be beneficial to
a limited number of people.
Today we are asking my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to
join us in voting to override a bill that affects 260 million
Americans. This is an override for the people, and I would hope that
the 89 Members of the other party that voted to override the President
on a very sophisticated piece of legislation, affecting only a handful
of Americans relatively, certainly would want to do the same for the
260 million Americans that want access to the treasures of this Nation.
Today we have an opportunity to open the facilities that Americans
care about, to give them an opportunity if they come to the Nation's
Capital to visit the Vermeer exhibit, one of the world's great
treasures, at the National Gallery, which is scheduled to leave, I
think, February 11, a very limited opportunity of time; an opportunity
to see the marvelous exhibits at the Smithsonian; an opportunity for
sportsmen that like to hunt ducks that are coming down the flyways and
are stopping at the various facilities, one

[[Page H99]]
in Arkansas that I am aware of, the season I think opens or should have
opened January 1; an opportunity for people that want to go to
Philadelphia and see the Liberty Bell; an opportunity to visit the
Holocaust Museum.
All we need is for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, or
for the 89 that wanted to override the securities legislation to say,
let us open up these facilities to the American public, let us open our
parks, let us open our forests.

{time} 1045

What does a vote ``yes'' mean? A vote ``yes'' means that we can keep
Indian schools open, it will provide welfare assistance to needy Indian
children. A vote ``yes'' will ensure that essential services on Indian
reservations, including health services, law enforcement, education,
continue to be provided.
What will a ``no'' vote mean? A ``no'' jeopardized the health, the
education, and the safety of over 1 million native Americans. Let me
say here that we added, at the request of the administration, in the
bill that they vetoed, we added prior to the veto, an extra $50 million
for Indian programs. This was something I know that the ranking member
of the Committee on Appropriations was interested in.
A vote to override the President's veto will ensure the collection of
Federal revenues. Most people do not realize that from mining, oil and
gas leasing, and timber harvesting, we collect $8 billion, not million,
$8 billion in Federal revenues. But those collections agencies, such as
MMS, are paralyzed because of the fact that they do not have people on
the job. We could very well lose a substantial amount of money.
A ``no'' vote will jeopardize the collection of the $8 billion that
are generated by the activities in this bill.
A ``yes'' vote will put 130,000 Federal employees back to work. It
will ensure that they can provide for their families.
All we need today is for the 89 that voted to override on securities
legislation to vote to override the President today, and we will put
those 130,000 employees on the job as early as tomorrow.
What does a vote ``no'' mean? It means they still live in an era of
uncertainty. They have difficulty meeting their monthly payments.
What will a ``yes'' vote do for our national parks? Some 369 national
parks will open their doors. I call on 89 of you to help us open the
doors. It will open 500 national wildlife refuges, our 150 national
forests, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian, our natural and
cultural treasures will be opened to the public.
A ``no'' vote will lock the doors, will deny 260 million Americans
access to those things that they treasure, the parks, the forests, the
fish and wildlife facilities, the National Gallery, the Smithsonian,
the Holocaust Museum. A ``no'' vote is to keep them out. It is very
important that the American public understand that a ``no'' vote today
is to deny access to these marvelous facilities.
What will a ``yes'' vote do for the American people? It means that
they will have the things that they treasure. It means that they can
appreciate their great out-of-doors, the public lands, the forests, the
hiking and the camping areas, and these are a part of what we talk
about in family values. A ``yes'' vote means that that family that
wants to camp out in a national forest or a national park will have an
opportunity to do so. A vote ``yes'' is a vote for the American people.
A vote ``no'' is to say you are locked out, no access to the things
that you treasure so much and that belong to all the Americans.
So I say to my colleagues, the right vote today is a vote ``yes.'' If
you can vote ``yes'' to take care of a handful of lawyers that deal in
securities litigation, you certainly can vote ``yes'' to let 260
million Americans have access to the things they treasure, to the
things that they own, to the things that are part of their heritage of
this great Nation.

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Mr. REGULA. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, my good friend from Ohio is trying to continue a
coverup. I do not understand, Mr. Speaker, why he does not come in with
a good bill, a bill of which we on the committee can be proud, instead
of trying to revive a dead, discredited bill.
We should approve not only a clean continuing resolution, and then we
can pass an Interior bill the President can sign, not this bill, which
the President rightfully vetoed. The gentleman did not indicate the
defects in this bill, and we know why the President vetoed the Interior
conference bill, because it is a bad bill and it would have been wrong
on the part of the President to sign this bill.
My good friend, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livington], the
chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, at the last time this bill
was on the floor, got up before the House and said that we all know why
the Government is shut down, it is because the President vetoed this
bill. Well, of course the President vetoed this bill because it was the
right thing to do. He vetoed the bill because it slashes funding for
the Native Americans by $325 million.
My friend from Ohio talks about the additional $50 million they have
put in. That is a sop, a pittance, when one realize that the original
cut to the funds for the Native Americans was over $400 million by the
Senate, almost a half billion dollars.
The President vetoed the bill because the low income weatherization
program is gutted by lack of appropriations. He vetoed the bill because
the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities are cut in half.
He vetoed the bill because America's greatest forest, the Tongass
National Forest in Alaska, will be increased in its cut of timber by
one-third. If its harvests in the past are any indication, the cut will
be a clear-cut, as well. It treats the Native Americans like second-
class citizens. It suspends the environmental laws that give the public
a right to protest the breaches to the environmental laws that the
increases in the cuts are liable to make.
My good friends in the majority do not believe this veto override
will be successful. My friend from Ohio points out all the things that
an override of this veto will bring. Well, the evils in this bill are
such that the President could not possibly have signed the bill. Those
wrongs will continue, because I am sure that the President continues
the same frame of mind.

There has been no effort on the part of the majority to rework this
bill. The conference took care of the moratorium for mining and little
else.
As I indicated, the chairman of the committee, and it is indicated,
also, by my friend from Ohio that the veto of the President was
responsible for the closing of the Government. The fact is that the
wrongs in this bill were emphasized by the House's veto on two separate
occasions of this bill. Motions to recommit the bill to committee were
approved by the House. So they believed, along with the President, that
this was not a good bill. If it is not a good bill, why, then, does the
gentleman from Ohio ask for an override?
All of these wrongs could be satisfied by passing a clean continuing
resolution, as has been pointed out so frequently. Because that
continuing resolution is not passed, because this is such a bad bill,
our national parks are closed, the National Gallery of Art is closed,
and the Vermeer exhibition is barred from showing to the public through
the expenditure of public funds, although the Mellon Foundation, as it
has done so frequently in the past, has come to the rescue of the
Vermeer exhibition, and the public will be allowed to see it until its
scheduled time for closing takes place.
The Smithsonian is shut down. Millions of Americans whose livelihood
depends upon the Interior Department, the Forest Service, and upon
other agencies are left out in the cold.
Mr. Speaker, let me give some examples of what is happening as a
result of what the closedown of the Government is doing to this bill.
Welfare assistance to 53,000 Indian families has been ended. Child
welfare assistance to 3,000 Indian children in foster homes and
orphanages is cut off. Indian tribes that rely on funding from the
Bureau of Indian Affairs are having to furlough employees, close
schools, and close tribal jails. Over 383,000 visitors have been turned
away from the national parks, having a devastating effect on towns and
businesses that rely on that tourism.
Local communities are losing over $14 million every day because of
the park closures. Thousands of service industry workers have lost
their jobs as a result.
The Park Service has been forced to evict people who are camping in
the Everglades National Park in Florida. The Minerals Management
Service is prevented from issuing permits to begin exploration or
development of authorized offshore oil and gas deposits. A Federal
criminal trial against an international wildlife smuggling ring in
Chicago has been delayed because the Fish and Wildlife Service cannot
provide crucial assistance to the Justice Department. The National
Biologic Service has been prevented from investigating an alarming
increase in the death of bald eagles and sea otters.

The list of hardships and tragedies, Mr. Speaker, goes on an on. The
Nation burns and the House of Representatives fiddles. We should have
had meetings of the full committee, not just of the chairman of the
House subcommittee and the chairman of the Senate subcommittee, to
decide what will go into the bill. Other members of the committee have
contributions to make, as well.
I believe, Mr. Speaker, we must defeat this motion to override the
President's veto, and only then can we have a serious discussion of how
to fix up the Interior bill which the President was so correct in
vetoing.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we respond to the gentleman
from Illinois.
Number one, he made a great case for overriding the President's veto.
He pointed out all of the things that are happening, how people are
being penalized in so many different ways, how the health is in
jeopardy for Indians and so on. There is a very simple way to cure
that, I would say to the gentleman, my friend from Illinois, and that
is, vote to override the President's veto.
This bill, as we well know, has a lot of good things in it. Let me
just mention a couple.
We are talking about the Native Americans being second class. One-
fourth, 25 percent of the money in this bill is for Native Americans,
$3 billion. They are hardly second class when we are appropriating 3
billion taxpayer dollars to support the many and varied programs. As I
would point out, we did respond, actually we put more in the conference
and in the bill that finally went to the White House than was requested
by the President during earlier negotiations.
Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. REGULA. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
Mr. YATES. The gentleman knows that the amount requested by the
President was $1.9 billion. The amount that the conference approved and
which is in this bill is $325 million less than the amount requested by
the President.
Mr. REGULA. As the gentleman would recognize, though, that in the
negotiations, and I want to address that, the gentleman said that we
made no attempt to work with the White House. We did and I have a whole
list of things here that we changed in response to the White House.
They said initially, and I would add they keep moving the goal posts,
that is part of the problem; we no sooner respond to the White House's
request than the goalposts move.

{time} 1100

They asked for $110 million, this is not the original request, this
is after we were in conference, they asked for $110 million over the
Senate-passed level. We ended up with $111.5 million over the Senate,
plus $25 million additional for the Indian Health Service. And I could
go through the whole list of things that the White House requested
during the conference to which we responded, perhaps not totally, but
as much as possible.
Part of what is at issue here is how much we are going to spend. I
have to

[[Page H105]]
agree, we are not spending as much as the minority party would like.
But the American people have said, we are not willing to borrow money
from our grandchildren to fund today's programs. So the allocation to
us was 10 percent under 1995's appropriation.
Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, does
the gentleman think the American people want the Indian children to be
deprived of their food and of their necessities of life? This bill and
the failure to provide a clean continuing resolution are doing that.
The gentleman knows it as well.
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I would only point out that with $3 billion,
they are not actually being deprived. That is a lot of money. It goes
to these many programs. The person that is depriving the Indians of
access to these funds is the President of the United States. I hope
that 89 of my colleagues will recognize that today, as they did on the
securities litigation legislation, and will support the fact that we
want this $3 billion to go to the Indian programs.
The gentleman mentioned increasing cuts. Certainly we had to reduce
spending to meet the 10 percent reduction goal. But I have to say that
I think we have done a responsible job, given the fiscal constraints.
The gentleman and I have served on this committee for many years
together and in the past years we were always able to spend more each
year. That made life easy. We just added another 5 percent to
everybody's program or 3 or whatever the number was, and everybody was
happy. Because the American people, in November of 1994, said, wait a
minute, we do not want to put our grandchildren in debt. They already
owe $20,000 apiece. We do not want to add to that for Government
programs. So as a result the Committee on the Budget gave us 10 percent
less than 1995. So instead of having an increase, as we have had in the
past, we had a reduction. So we did it and we worked together in many
respects.
We did the must-dos. We flat funded the parks, the Smithsonian, the
National Gallery so they can stay open for the public, the Forest
Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service. We did the need-to-does, things
that needed to be fixed, repairs and so on. The nice-to-dos took a hit.
There is no question about it. We abolished the Bureau of Mines. We did
a number of other things. But frankly, unless we are willing to
continue borrowing money from future generations, we are simply going
to have to restrain our spending. That is what we did here. We tried to
do it in a fair manner. I do not think the gentleman would disagree
that given the fiscal constraints we had that we were at least
bipartisan in allocating the money.
Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, will
the gentleman tell me why the majority, the Republican majority agreed
to increase the cut for the Tongass forest by at least a third?
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman that the
original was, I think, something like 450. We got it back to 418. But
the money we put in the bill, which is the real world, limits the cut
to exactly or a little less than has been cut in the past during the
time that the gentleman was chairman of this committee.
Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman be surprised in the event
that the cut went beyond the amount that he says will be authorized by,
paid for by the 320?
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I would be surprised because history tells
us that the money we put in will probably result in a smaller cut, and
I would also point out to the gentleman that it is the President's
chief of the Forest Service, appointed by the President, that is
managing the Tongass as part of the Forest Service. Therefore,
decisions that are made along the lines the gentleman is discussing
will be made by the employees or certainly the executive branch
appointees that have responsible positions. There is no way that they
can, by magic, create money out of the air so that with the money that
is in the bill, the cut really is restricted to what we have had in the
past.
Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman tell us why the Republican
majority agreed to nullify the environmental laws by depriving the
public of the right to protest the increases in the cuts?
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I would tell the gentleman No. 1, in the
recommittal we took out the sufficiency language with the exception of
one sale. This is a parallel to what happened when the gentleman was
chairman on the Oregon situation at the request of Senator Hatfield.
Any further sales other than the one that is just changing the location
are subject to sufficiency language, which means it has to go through
the courts, through the EPA and all the requirements.
Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, has the sufficiency language been taken out
of the cut in the Northwest States of the United States?
Mr. REGULA. The language that was placed in the bill that the
gentleman was chairing?
Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, the bill that I chaired that had sufficiency
language goes back something like 8 or 9 years. There was no
sufficiency language after that. It was done for one time only. Yet
there is sufficiency language for the amendment that was introduced by
the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Kolbe]. The people of the State of
Arizona, the environmental community is deprived of the opportunity of
protesting because of sufficiency language.
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I notice that the
President never even mentioned that in his override message.
Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, does the gentleman know why?
Mr. REGULA. Because they were a party to it.
Mr. YATES. On the contrary, Mr. Speaker, it was put in because the
amendment of the gentleman from Arizona was put in after the
President's statement had been drafted.
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, how could he write the
statement until he had the bill? He vetoed the bill at 11 a.m. We did
not get the veto message until 5 p.m. explaining his decision. So he
had 6 hours, if he wanted to get it in there.
Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, the
fact remains that the gentleman has not replied to my point about the
sufficiency language being in the bill as being applicable to the cut
that takes place in the forests of the Northwest.
Mr. REGULA. Well, we are having a good discussion. I do not want to
use too much of my time here.
Mr. YATES. But the gentleman has not really answered my question.
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what the gentleman is
referring to. We had one instance, just as he had one instance when he
was chairman, of sufficiency language being included and that was on a
sale in the Tongass that has already gone through all the environmental
steps. It is just that the people that were going to purchase it are
out of business so it is a moving of that sale to another purchaser.
But the environmental requirements had all been met. That is the reason
we put sufficiency on that one item. I agree we had it in originally on
the Tongass generally, but we took that out. That was one of the things
that was negotiated on the recommittals.
Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, what about the marbled murrelet provision?
The marbled murrelet provision, is that not still subject to
sufficiency language?
Mr. REGULA. The marbled murrelet is in the bill that went to the
White House.
Mr. YATES. It is subject to sufficiency language, is it not?
Mr. REGULA. No, that is not. That is a different issue, and we only
had the one sufficiency, similar to what the gentleman had in the bill
for Oregon some years ago.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from
Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], ranking member of the Committee on
Appropriations.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I am simply stuck here, forced to repeat much
of what I said yesterday on two previous veto overrides. Nothing real
is happening here today. There is no real legislation which is being
pursued here today.
Everybody knew the President was going to veto this bill. He made it
quite clear. He indicated he was not going to sign a bill which has a
huge increase in logging in the Tongass, one of the few temperate rain
forests left in the world. He made it quite clear that he was not going
to accept the reversal of

[[Page H106]]
the California Desert Protection Act, which passed last year. He made
it quite clear he was not going to support other provisions, including
major reductions in weatherization programs for low-income people
trying to stay warm in a cold winter.
But this is not about the veto. Everybody knows this veto is not
going to be overridden. The only reason we are having this silly debate
on the floor here today is because the majority party is trying to keep
off the floor any effort to open up the entire Government. So this is a
time filler. We are going to waste 2 hours on something which is going
nowhere.
Now, I would simply point out, in contrast to what my good friend
from Ohio has said, the President did not shut down the Government.
Presidents have for time immemorial vetoed legislation which they
thought was out of whack. Those vetoes did not shut down the Government
because previous Congresses were responsible enough to pass continuing
resolutions so that the Government remained open.
This Congress has refused to do that because there is a strategic
decision which has been made by Mr. Gingrich and his clones. That
decision has been that unless the President is going to accept their
reductions in Medicare, their reductions in Medicaid, their reductions
in education, and their other demands in the 7-year budget negotiations
going on in another room on other subjects--unless the President is
going to cave on that collection of issues, that in order to put the
squeeze on the President--they are going to keep the Government closed.
That is the decision that my colleagues on that side of the aisle have
decided that they are going to make. They are apparently willing to
take all the heat from the public that is going to be generated in
order to get their way.
Collectively, they are holding their breath and turning blue until
the President caves. That is what is going on.

Now, it seems to me that that is not what the public sent us here to
do. I want to congratulate the action taken by the Senate majority
leader, Senator Dole. I think that action has defined the difference
between fighting for principles within a rational construct and simply
behaving like nihilists, pretending that you are principled. I really
believe that the only way we are going to get out of this impasse is
for our moderate friends on the Republican side of the aisle to
recognize that sooner or later they are going to have to make a choice
between following the rational leadership of someone like Bob Dole or
following the irrational leadership, in my view, of someone like Mr.
Gingrich.
Until my colleagues make that choice, the taxpayers are going to be
stuck with the incredible spectacle of first seeing Government workers
prevented from doing the work that they are being paid for and then
later on seeing the spectacle of workers being required to work for
which they are not getting paid. It is really an Alice-in-Wonderland
world.
What ought to happen is very simple. My colleagues ought to stop this
2-hour charade. They ought to bring to the floor legislation which
opens up the Government and allows everyone to go back to work. But
that is not going to happen. The chairman of this committee summarized
several weeks ago why it is not going to happen. He held a press
conference after the President signed the defense appropriations bill
and then said the following:

If the Government shuts down on December 15 and 300,000
people are again out of work, most of the people going out
will be his people; I think he is going to care more than we
do.

That was said by the distinguished chairman and my good friend, the
distinguished chairman of this committee, Mr. Livingston.
Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the truth of this statement has been
demonstrated. It is apparent that there is very little concern on that
side of the aisle for the 300,000 Government workers who are being
forced into these silly circumstances, and there is very little concern
for the taxpayers who have a right to get the services for which they
have already paid taxes. They have a right.
The Congress ought to quit this silly game. My colleagues ought to
follow the lead of Senator Dole. They ought to bring up that clean
continuing resolution to open the Government so that we can continue to
discuss our other differences like adults, without shooting innocent
people in the process. Until they face up to their responsibilities and
open up the Government, that is exactly what is happening.

{time} 1115

All my colleagues are doing is shooting the innocent because of
incredible arrogance that some people in this House have, the
incredible arrogance to think that their political ideology is more
important than the service we are supposed to provide our constituents.
That is outrageous.
Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
Missouri [Mr. Volkmer].
Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, I wish to first thank the gentleman from
Illinois [Mr. Yates] for giving me 4 minutes, and I have to agree with
everything that the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] has just said,
and I would like to maintain that thought just a little longer because
to me, what I am seeing happen in this House, and I have seen it since
December 15, is something that I, who have served here now starting my
20th year, have never seen before, and I say that in the history of
this country no one has ever seen before, no Member of this House in
all those 207 years has seen the cynicism of what I call the radical
right wing Republicans led by our Speaker in the approach to how we run
the Government, and that approach is, Mr. Speaker, they use blackmail.
If they cannot get their way on a balanced budget provision or
reconciliation bill which they call a Balanced Budget Act, then they
are going to shut down the Government until the President agrees to
what they want in a balanced budget.
Now that is as simple as that, my colleagues. It is pure blackmail. I
never thought that I would ever see a Member of Congress elected by his
constituents elect to use a shutdown of the Government in order to get
their views on something. We are seeing it right here today on this
bill.
It is very apparent to me that the gentleman from Ohio, the gentleman
from Arizona, the gentleman from Alaska, those on that side, are going
to say, ``Well, we let you have a vote to override the President.''
Purse cynicism. Then they are not going to do anything more. They know
the vote is not going to be in their favor, as the gentleman from
Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] has rightly proven. We are not going to override
the President because there are things in this bill that many of us
cannot accept.
Mr. Speaker, we are willing to compromise, like the President is, to
work it out, but, no, not them. They have got to have their way, and
their way only, and, if they do not get their way, then there is not
going to be a CR.
We had the opportunity yesterday. Every one of us had that
opportunity yesterday to keep the Government running, to let everybody
go back to work. The people; like in my district I had a lady call me
yesterday, my colleagues. She got a $50 paycheck yesterday. I asked,
``How would you like to--how would this staff, how would your staff,
like to get a $50 paycheck?'' No, my colleagues are smart.

The gentleman from California, Mr. Speaker, who heads up the
Legislative Subcommittee, yes, he was smart. The President was not
quite seeing exactly what my colleagues were going to do.
I wish the President had never signed that legislative appropriation
bill. He should never have done it. He should never do it next year. He
should not sign the Defense appropriation bill next year. He should not
sign his own next year until all the rest of these have been done
because my colleagues are not just doing it now, they are going to
propose--it is very clear to me that under the operation of Gingrich,
under their operation under Speaker Gingrich, they plan to do this
every time, not just this year, not just for this bill for this fiscal
year, but for next year also. They are willing to put people in
hardship, to let kids starve, just so that they can say we have to have
our balanced budget.
Mr. Speaker, I want a balanced budget, too. I voted for one, I voted
for one. But I do not want one with a big tax cut in it like my
colleagues have got, I will not vote for one with a big tax cut

[[Page H107]]
like my colleagues have, and the President will not ever sign one with
a big tax cut like my colleagues have got. I will not vote for one that
cuts Medicare for my elderly citizens like my colleagues have got, the
President will not sign one like that. And my colleagues say, ``Okay,
we'll shut down the Government,'' and that is just what they have done.
I ask, ``Why don't you do like your Presidential candidate, Senator
Dole? Why don't some of you, just 20 of you, come with us? We'll open
up the Government.''
Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes and 30 seconds to the
gentleman from Alaska [Mr. Young], the distinguished chairman of the
Committee on Resources.
(Mr. YOUNG of Alaska asked and was given permission to revise and
extend his remarks.)
Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult for me to sit
here and listen to the rhetoric that comes out from that side of the
aisle, the outright mistruths very nearly close to the mistruths have
been spoken by the President of the United States.
When I hear people talk about the Tongass, the gentleman from
Illinois [Mr. Yates], and, no, I will not yield. I listened to that
tirade a while ago, and I will not yield. The Tongass does in fact--the
provision of this bill froze the amount of timber that could be
harvested. It froze it to 1.7 million acres. . . .
Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, I ask that the gentleman's words be taken
down.
Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, there are no truths in----
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I demand that the gentleman's words be taken
down.
Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. The gentleman has to prove that he is telling
the truth, and he is not.

Parliamentary Inquiries

Mr. VOLKMER. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The gentleman will state his
inquiry.
Mr. VOLKMER. My parliamentary inquiry is how far back will the
stenographer, the reporter, go because it is our--at least my--when I
asked for the words to be taken down, that the gentleman had used the
word ``mistruth'' way back and continuously in reference to Members and
to the President, and I would like for all of those words to be taken
down.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the words most
immediately complained of.

{time} 1130

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The gentleman from Wisconsin
will state his parlimentary inquiry.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, how do I make certain that the words which are
going to be read back are the words to which I was objecting? Because
the words to which I was objecting were the words that indicated that
the gentleman from Illinois had uttered mistruths and had known that.
Those are the words that I am specifically addressing.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair will direct the Clerk to report
the words.
The Clerk read as follows:

The gentleman keeps talking about the Tongass. It will be
90 percent in wilderness, and he knows it, and you told a
mistruth every time on this issue, and you know that it is a
mistruth. There is absolutely no truth, there is no truth. .
. .

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw
the words.
Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection?
Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, I object.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin objects.
Mr. OBEY. No, I did not object.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Missouri objects.
Mr. VOLKMER. I withdraw my reservation.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I am reserving the right to object because, in
my view, when a Member accuses another Member of purposely misleading
the House, he owes it to the House to apologize. I will be happy to
withdraw my objection if the gentleman apologizes to the gentleman from
Illinois.
Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, it is rare that I apologize when I
know I am speaking from my heart. It is rare that I ask this House to
listen to a gentleman's understanding as he sees the issue. It is rare
that I have to apologize when other gentlemen do not take the
opportunity to read the facts on an issue.
The gentleman and I have discussed this for many, many years, and he
and I know we differ. He knows my emotionalism on this. He knows I have
lost over 42 percent of my working people in this area. He knows that I
am a gentleman that would never impugn another gentleman. The gentleman
knows that.
Mr. YATES. I do not know that.
Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Well, then, I apologize to you personally.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Does the gentleman withdraw his objection?
Mr. OBEY. Yes, I withdraw my objection, in light of the apology.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Alaska may proceed in
order.
Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, may I again go back to what I said
happened in the Tongass.
We froze the amount of timber to cut. We know, in fact, that it is 90
percent a wilderness. These are facts, my friends, facts, not fiction.
In fact, we know that only 10 percent, and only 10 percent, over 100
years would be cut. We know that there are 42 percent of my people out
of work in southeast Alaska today because of action of this body, and
we heard a lot about it is a shame that the President vetoed this. Then
we talked about the people's hardships and the people that are out of
work.
What about the people that are blue collar workers? Have I heard
anybody on this floor defend them, other than myself and a few of my
colleagues? I heard a gentleman a while ago say, we are going to hold
our faces blue until we get our way. I would rather be blue than red.
I am going to suggest respectfully that this veto is wrong. The
President shut down these parks; the President shut down the monuments.
There is a letter today in the Washington Post about the police were on
hand at the parks. Where were they before? They are issuing tickets to
people, taxpayers. Where were they before?
This administration and this Secretary of Interior are using this for
a political gambit. This is what this is all about. We did our job. We
sent a bill to the President that the President could have signed and
should have signed.
By the way, we heard a lot about the American natives. The American
natives want to stand on their own, they want to manage their own
affairs, they want to be able to decide their own destiny. They do not
want to continue with handouts as the minority has been doing over
these years to make them subservient. They want to be their own people.
The best way, they have said to me, is we will take our cuts as long as
everybody else does too. But this President has kept those moneys away
from those people.
It is time that this Congress overrides this President, and you have
that responsibility too.
Make no mistake about it. Mr. Speaker, the Interior appropriations
veto was politics, pure poll-driven politics.
If you read the President's veto message and compare it to the White
House press release, they are identical. Was the President trying to
seriously communicate with the Congress or was this just a public
relations exercise? I have never seen anything like it.
The President vetoed this bill with a press release, threw thousands
of workers out of work right before the holiday, and then blamed the
Congress. Shame on you, Mr. President.
This is a slap in the face of Chairman Regula and Chairman
Livingston. They sent a balanced bill to the White House that was
sensitive to every concern raised by the President's staff.
This veto message also insults my constituents who live and work in
the Tongass National Forest. It singled out a carefully drafted
provision that would bring stability to my constituents who live and
work in the Tongass.
The Tongass provision did 2 things: First, froze the amount of timber
that could be harvested over 100 years at 1.7 million acres and,
second, allowed the Forest Service to

[[Page H108]]
convert timber sales from one purchaser to another. It did nothing more
and nothing less.
The fact is, every issue raised by the Clinton administration was
addressed in the bill.
The administration said it wanted the ability to use good science, so
we allowed them to use sound scientific data under Chairman Regula's
bill.
The administration said it did not want a permanent ban on habitat
conservation areas, so Chairman Regula's bill removed the ban at their
request.
After the bill passed the Congress, the President's staff had to find
an excuse for him to veto it. The Environmental Mecca, the Tongass
National Forest, served as excuse No. 1.
The veto message/press release makes it sound like the whole 17-
million-acre forest would be clear-cut tomorrow if the bill became law.
The fact is only 10 percent of the forest will ever be harvested during
a 100-year period. The other 90 percent is off limits in wilderness
status or not available for harvest.
It seems to me that your advisors told you about the wrong Tongass
provision, Mr. President.
The reality for my constituents is that 42 percent of the timber
employees in the Tongass are out of work. Timber is part of a well-
rounded Alaskan economy. We have enough preservation in the Tongass to
protect the resources and environment. We need some stability, Mr.
President.
I urge my colleagues to override this poll-driven veto.
Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
California [Mr. Miller].
(Mr. MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise
and extend his remarks.)
Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker and Members, this committee,
the Subcommittee on Interior of the Committee on Appropriations, does a
lot of great work; and in this legislation there are a lot of very good
provisions. Unfortunately, this bill, which does so much for native
Americans, which does so much for the natural resources of our country,
is being held hostage by the Senator from Alaska and by those who seek
to have special privilege in the Tongass National Forest, the only
temperate rain forest in North America, the only one that belongs to
the American people.
What they are seeking to do is to go back in time. In 1990 we passed
a Tongass reform bill. They seek now to nullify that even though the
Alaska delegation at that time said that they would agree to it if they
could have 10 years of peace under the requirements of that bill.
What they seek to do now is to go back to a plan which received
thousands and thousands of comments about its inadequacy for
sustainability, about its inadequacy for Native rights, about its
inadequacy for the environment; and they seek to legislate that plan in
this bill. Why? Because the Pacific Timber Co. wants it that way; there
are no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
The reason the Washington Monument is closed and the reason the
Liberty Bell is seeking private donations, and the reason you cannot go
snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park is because of the Louisiana
Pacific and this legislation.
This is the worst of special-interest legislation. You cannot do what
they want to do under this bill unless you waive the environmental laws
of this Nation. You cannot do what they want to do under this bill
unless you put in sufficient language to protect this corporation from
a lawsuit that they have already lost in court.
We are here doing that in this legislation, and we are holding Indian
children hostage. We are holding the health of Indian natives of this
country hostage. We are holding the tourism economies of Yosemite
National Park, Mariposa County, hostage, because Louisiana Pacific
wants to do legislatively what they are afraid to do and come before
our committee, the Committee on Natural Resources, and debate this
openly about the Tongass.
The gentleman from Alaska previously said the Tongass is 90 percent
wilderness. No, it is not. And when he says he only wants to cut 10
percent, he has to recognize this. The vast majority of Tongass is ice,
rocks, lakes, and other things. The timber base is a very small
business.
When you want to clear-cut 10 percent of that timber base and you
want to do it without regard to the environmental laws of this country
and without regard to the public planning process, you do great
devastation to the remaining land base and the timber base in that
area. That is why the Governor of Alaska is opposed to this process.
That is why the Anchorage Daily News is opposed to this process. That
is why the Alaska Outdoor Council, some 10,000 members, hunters, and
fishermen, are opposed to this process. That is why the Alaska
Wilderness Recreation and Tourism Association is opposed to this
process, because you are legislating on them a single use for a great
natural resource that is in fact increasing the economy of Alaska. It
is diversifying the economy of Alaska.
The reason the logging economy went down in Alaska is because of a
Japanese-owned mill that cannot get more Federal dollars and subsidies,
for the taxpayers quit. They went out of business because they just
could not get enough subsidies. Well, excuse me. Try the marketplace.
Now what we have is a struggle to try to get those lands that they
have locked up under an old 50-year contract without environmental
reviews, they are trying to bring that into the land base for this. So
what? So they can get pulp and send it to Japan; so they can get logs
and cant them and send them to Japan. There is no value added here for
the American economy. But there is $102 million in the last 3 years
lost in preparing these sales and cutting these roads.
So without $102 million of subsidies, these logs would never leave.
These logs would continue to be trees. They would be vertical instead
of horizontal. That is why. That is why.
That is why we must sustain the veto. We cannot have the special
interests come into the Halls of Congress and dictate and say that we
must set aside the laws so that they can have the special privilege of
not having to put up with public input and public debate and a public
planning process, so they do not have to suffer the indignities of
losing a court case, so they do not have to suffer the scrutiny of the
public subsidies to their private corporations.
That is what is holding hostage the National Park System, the Indian
health system, the endangered species system in this country, the
special interests of Louisiana Pacific and their associates.
The people of Alaska oppose this legislation; their newspapers oppose
this, their tourism association and the Governor of the State oppose
this legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I include the following material for the Record.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this effort to override
the President's veto. President Clinton stood up for the environment
and the taxpayers. We should support him.
Mr. Speaker, the American people deserve to know what's going on
here. There's a hidden agenda in this bill that the Republicans do not
like to highlight.
Why are our national parks closed and thousands of loyal employees
out of work? It is because the Republican leadership allowed this
spending bill to become a grab bag of legislative gifts for special
interests who want to exploit our natural resources at taxpayer
expense.
The Republicans apparently believe that it is more important to
dictate a forest plan that will increase Federal spending to cut down
400-year-old trees in the Alaska rainforest than it is to reopen the
national parks and put people back to work. But the Republicans just
can't say no to Louisiana Pacific. That's what this fight is about--
more taxpayer dollars to subsidize Louisiana Pacific and increase
logging in the Tongass National Forest by over 40 percent.
Mr. Speaker, there is absolutely no valid reason to hold Federal
workers, private sector contractors, and the rest of the public hostage
to the Alaskan pulp mill barons. This Tongass rider doesn't belong on
any appropriations bill. It hasn't been the subject of a single day of
public hearings in the Resources Committee. The only thing the chairman
from Alaska has pending in committee is his bill to give away the
entire 17-million acre Tongass National Forest, abolishing the
wilderness areas and national monuments in the process. It's no wonder
that the Governor of Alaska is joined by so many other Alaskans in
opposing this Tongass rider.
This bill is full of other antienvironmental legislative riders that
wouldn't see the light of day if considered in the normal process. It
guts the California Desert Protection Act. It stops progress in
improving land management in the Columbia River Basin. It undercuts the
Endangered Species Act. The list goes on.
Mr. Speaker, I would have hoped that we learned a lesson from the
timber salvage rider

[[Page H109]]
that passed on the rescissions bill earlier this Congress. There were
no hearings on that legislative rider either. We were assured by
proponents that it applied only to dead trees and burned trees. But
what we later found out is that language was included to cut healthy
forests in the Pacific Northwest. We found out that exempting the
timber industry from the environmental laws of this country leads only
to disaster.
Mr. Speaker, the President has made clear from the outset that the
Tongass and the other legislative riders on this bill were
unacceptable. Yet Republicans made only cosmetic changes in response.
They alone share the blame by producing an Interior appropriations bill
that tries to legislate bad policy rather than allocate public funds.
They just can't say no to the special interests.
I urge my colleagues to vote against the veto override. Let the
Republican majority instead get to work on producing a clean bill that
is in the public interest. Let's get on with the business of governing
and reopen the parks, monuments, refuges, and forests that are so
important to the American people.
Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. MILLER of California. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.
Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman for his
statement and point out that 90 percent of the Tongass Forest is not
wilderness.
Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield,
of course it is not.
Mr. VENTO. Also, the 10 percent that we are talking about here may
make up 50, 60 percent of the whole timber base in that forest.
Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Utah [Mr. Hansen].
(Mr. HANSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. HANSEN. Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the Subcommittee on National
Parks, Forests and Lands, we oversee the national parks, the Bureau of
Land Management, and the Forest Service. On December 18, 1995,
President Bill Clinton vetoed the Interior appropriations bill which
would have provided funding to keep parks, forests, BLM recreation
areas open to the public. In a staged press conference, President
Clinton surrounded himself with children and said that for the sake of
maintaining clean air and clean water for the children, he would have
to veto the bill.
What the President failed to realize or point out was that the
Interior appropriations bill funds the Department of the Interior
agency and has nothing to do with the Environmental Protection Agency,
which is charged with regulating the Nation's air and water. Rather
than working with the Congress on resolving issues of substance,
President Clinton has simply chosen to play politics. The bottom line
is that the Clinton administration is using our national parks,
forests, and BLM recreational areas as part of their strategy to thwart
efforts to balance the Federal budget.
The national parks, forests, and all other Department of the Interior
facilities would be open if President Clinton had just signed the
Interior appropriations bill. His public excuses for not signing the
bill simply do not wash.
In addition to killing the funding for the parks, the administration
got enough Democratic support to kill a bipartisan bill in the House of
Representatives which has facilitated States providing the support
necessary to keep parks and wildlife refuges open during periods of
budget impasse. It is clear that the administration is simply keeping
facilities closed for political reasons alone.
In fact, it does not even require any legislation to keep parks open.
Secretary Babbitt has full authority to accept donations to fund park
operations, but the terms demanded by the Secretary are so onerous that
only the State of Arizona has agreed to them in order to keep the Grand
Canyon open.
Actually, this is a hot-button issue, Mr. Speaker. The President of
the United States and the Secretary of the Interior are going around
talking about closing the park. There is no park closing bill, and I
would urge this body to override the veto.
Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Vento].
Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the override of the
President's veto message on this important Interior appropriations
bill.
Unfortunately, this bill, under the mantra of repeating over and over
again a balanced budget amendment, something we would all like to do,
but the question is how you do it, when you look into the bowels of
what is in this particular bill and what is in the 7-year plan that our
Republican colleagues are trying to foist upon us, they are extreme
positions. They are positions that do not agree with the last three
decades of work that has been done in this Congress, that is the
product of the American people, the product I wish I could claim of
only Democrats, but I know that there are many Republicans that have
worked on that. But fundamentally it is in disagreement with the people
of this country.
In this spending bill, I think we see in clear view the fact that
this extreme agenda that is being delivered to this Congress by the
leadership in this House and the Republican Senate is inherent. They
are trying to put in here in a covert way, the chairman of the policy
committee rises and gives a speech, but the fact is the policy
committees have not done their work.
This is a spending bill, but yet within this spending bill, it is
laced with provisions that overturn fundamental policies of
environmental law, of land use law, of the endangered species, very
well worked out agreements such as the Tongass Forest agreement which
now they disagree with. This fact is they are trying to put it through
in a covert way.
If these proposals are so meritorious, why are they not put up on the
floor to be voted on and considered as they were passed into law
initially, in other words, to defund something that has been designated
a park? That is what is done in this particular legislation, in other
words, to renege on the establishment of the Mojave National Preserve
in California, to open up again the question of the Tongass which has
an agreement to cut 300 million board-feet a year, but to specify and
to suggest to override all environmental types of challenges that exist
in law for good reason; for good reason, to renege on the Columbia
Basin and prevent the establishment of an environmental impact
statement so that we can move forward with the Pacific Northwest
problem.
This bill deserves to be defeated, and I hope we will uphold the
President's veto.

{time} 1145

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Kolbe], a member of our subcommittee.
(Mr. KOLBE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, let us stop the rhetoric, misstatements, and
half-truths. The current budget crisis this Nation is facing is not
because Congress failed to do its job. We passed a bill. It is because
the President chose to veto the Interior appropriations bill, the VA,
HUD and independent agencies appropriations bill, and the Commerce,
Justice, State bill, and because Democratic Senators are filibustering
the Labor, HHS bill.
Again, let me reiterate why certain Federal employees have been
furloughed and why others are performing their duties without pay; it
is because the President has decided that it is more important for him
to engage in partisan politics than to allow Federal employees to go
back to work.
Today, we are going to have the opportunity to override the
President's veto of the Interior appropriations bill. If we are
successful, this $12.1 billion appropriations measure will reopen our
museums, the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, put back
to work those dedicated employees at the National Park Service, the
Bureau of Land Management, and the Fish and Wildlife Service, as well
as get the needed money to our Nation's Indian communities.
The President's shutdown of the Federal Government does not have to
continue. In fact, if you want to find out what kind of impact his
shutdown is having, I would encourage all of my colleagues to visit one
of the 23 tribal communities in Arizona. They have been devastated by
the President's veto of this important bill. Recently, the proud and
noble Chairman of the Hopi Tribe announced that he may have to release
the inmates in the tribe's jail

[[Page H110]]
because they do not have the money to heat the facility. I might add
that these funds are included in this Interior appropriations bill.
Again, we do not have to allow this type of suffering to continue.
The President's veto message was based solely upon polls conducted by
his political advisers. The President realized that most Americans are
concerned about the environment, and justifiably so. But he has taken
this posturing to an extreme and in the process hundreds of thousands
of hard working Americans are suffering the consequences.
I will speak more about this later. Let us do what all Americans want
us to do: Let us allow them to go back to work. Overriding the
President's veto of this bill will accomplish this and a lot more.
Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs].
Mr. SKAGGS. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.
Mr. Speaker, there are more than sufficient reasons for both the
President's veto and for our sustaining it.
But I think it is especially important to explain why this is not
about reopening the part of Government funded in this bill. The illogic
of the arguments that have been offered on this point is profound, if
not comic. Here is how it goes.
First, let us dillydally for months on even getting this bill to the
floor of the House of Representatives, having wasted months and months
on extraneous business at the first part of the first session of this
Congress. That is what happened on this bill.
Second, then let us yield control of much of the substance of the
bill in conference to some of the most extreme anti-environmental
forces and have it rejected, not once but twice, taking additional
weeks, not because of the President of the United States but because
moderate Members of the majority party could not swallow the fiscal and
environmental outrages in this bill. That is what happened.
Third, then let us waste several more weeks before finally getting a
bill to the House that could pass. That is what happened on this bill.
And, fourth, we then end up 2\1/2\ months into the fiscal year, 2\1/
2\ months late, 2\1/2\ months of irresponsible failure by the majority
party to manage the most basic business of the Congress. That is what
happened on this bill.
Fifth, we then wait another month after that, 3\1/2\ months into the
fiscal year, 3\1/2\ months late, 3\1/2\ months of failure by the
majority to manage the business of the House, and then we bring up a
veto override and have the temerity to suggest that it is the
President's fault for the circumstances that we are in? Give me a
break.
An absolutely astounding, stunning act of political chutzpah, to
suggest that having failed in our responsibilities for 3\1/2\ months to
take care of the people of America, funding critical natural resource
management responsibility, then to suggest that it is the President's
fault, that he is somehow responsible for these unfortunate
circumstances. It makes no sense. Truly an amazing act of political
illogic.
This partial closure is in fact the intended effect of the Speaker's
deliberate decision cynically to use the majority's failure to get its
work done on appropriations bills to leverage concessions on other
budget matters on which the American public and their President simply
disagree with the extreme views of many in the majority party.
We are in this fix because of the Speaker's refusal and no other
reason.
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
California [Mr. Packard].
(Mr. PACKARD asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. PACKARD. Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge my colleagues to override
the President's veto of the Interior appropriations bill. For 20 days
now, his veto shut the American people out of the Smithsonian Museums,
the national parks such as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and in my
district the Cleveland National Forest. These parks and museums provide
a quality of outdoor life and experience for millions of Americans.
I commend the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula], the chairman, and
certainly there is no other chairman that I know of that would write a
more fair and equitable bill than the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula],
the chairman. I commend him for his hard work in crafting this spending
bill for our Nation's national parks, national forests, public lands,
and national wildlife refuges during these times of budget constraints.
The Interior appropriations bill provides similar operating funds as in
1995, as we did previously, for national parks and monuments.
We will later today take up legislation to allow State employees to
voluntarily operate our national parks. I also support this
legislation. But this bill, overriding the President's veto, is the
much better long-range solution to the problem.

One hundred thirty thousand Federal employees are furloughed because
of the President's veto of this bill. These people deserve to be back
to work, allowing our national parks and forests and cultural
institutions to be open.
I urge my colleagues to override the President's veto and support
this bill.
Mr. YATES. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the
distinguished gentlewoman from California [Ms. Waters].
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The gentlewoman from California
[Ms. Waters] is recognized for 2 minutes.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, the Republican gentleman from Ohio [Mr.
Regula] has offered a motion to discharge from committee the Interior
appropriations bill that has been vetoed by the President. Normally the
committee would go to work, take into consideration the reasons the
President gave for his veto, reasonable policymakers would make the
necessary adjustments, and pass the appropriation.
Now the Republicans are trying to find a way to look better. They
have simply created a mess, not only on this bill but on the budget in
general. The Republican caucus has been led by the freshman class, that
group which has the least experience in the management of government.
The Republicans have gone too far. The Republicans have stepped way
over the line. They have jeopardized not only the National Park Service
in this bill, they have jeopardized Federal employees and veterans'
services, prison security, passport services, and Social Security
services.
Time and time again we heard that they were willing to shut this
Government down, that they would do this, and this is what they are
doing. Just yesterday they voted in the Committee on Rules to allow the
Speaker to recess in 3-day intervals. They are planning to go home. In
that Committee on Rules, Gerald Solomon, James Quillen, David Dreier,
Porter Goss, John Linder, Deborah Pryce, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Scott
McInnis, and Enid Waldholtz all voted to give the Speaker the power to
call a recess.
I urge my colleagues to sustain the President's veto. This is not
about good policymaking. This is about the continued efforts to force
all of us to do what that freshman class wants done. We cannot allow
that to happen. I think we are more responsible than that.
And if they decide to recess, let them go home. But the people on
this side of the aisle, my colleagues in the Democratic Party, I
believe, will stay here. We will stay here and do the work of the
people rather than use those kinds of tactics.
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
New York [Mr. Boehlert].
(Mr. BOEHLERT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this effort to
override the President's veto. In doing so, I must acknowledge that I
agree with the President on one thing: This bill is not perfect. But
guess what? The legislative process is not about producing legislation
that one side or another views as perfect. The legislative process is
about getting the most reasonable compromise possible among competing
viewpoints.
We need to remember the old adage, ``The perfect is the enemy of the
good.'' This bill represents a reasonable compromise.
Take the issue of the Tongass National Forest on which I worked. This
bill would allow the planning process

[[Page H111]]
to continue unimpeded. This bill would allow science to determine the
acreage and the allowable sale quantity that will eventually be
permitted in the forest. This bill allows for the set-aside of
additional environmentally sensitive habitat conservation areas. And
this bill would allow lawsuits to challenge the controversial
alternative P forest management plan.
Did we make some compromises to achieve these goals? Of course we
did. We made reasonable compromises with legislators with opposing
views to protect the long-run health of the forests and the integrity
of the planning process.
Let me repeat that. We made reasonable compromises with legislators
with opposing views to protect the long-range health of the forests and
the integrity of the planning process.
I urge an override.
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
I just want to say, in response to the gentlewoman from California,
that we have been negotiating with the administration on a continuous
basis. Some of the changes were in response to their requests. The only
problem is they kept moving the goal posts.
I thought it was interesting that it took them 6 hours after they
vetoed the bill to decide what the veto message would say, because I
think they had some problems. They recognized it was a good bill, and
yet they felt that they had a commitment to close the parks and close
the forests and close the Smithsonian and close the Holocaust and close
the National Gallery of Art. And so, after finally pondering as to why
they did veto the bill, we got a veto message late in the day.
I say to my colleagues that are wondering procedurally, we are not
going to call for a vote on this motion to discharge the bill from the
appropriations process, and we will go into the next hour of debate on
the override itself. But I hope at that time the 89 Members of the
minority party that voted to override the President for the securities
lawyers will vote to override the President for the people.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. 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 Ohio [Mr. Regula].
The motion was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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