[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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