[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 48 (Tuesday, April 16, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H3481-H3486]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   ITEMS IN THE CONTRACT WITH AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Collins of Georgia).
  Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
[Mr. Fox] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I want to take this time to 
speak with my colleagues about the items in the Contract with America 
and other items that have received legislative approval in this House 
for which I think there can be bipartisan pride. Many items have come 
forward to this House and have received almost unanimous Republican 
support and overwhelming support from the Democratic side of the aisle 
as well. I think they are worth repeating tonight so that people could 
put a perspective in this House where we have gone and how far we need 
to go.
  Mr. Speaker, the first item I want to mention would be that we have 
passed the congressional accountability law. That is a law introduced 
by Congressman Chris Shays to make sure that the laws that we in fact 
have passed that affect everyone else, I am speaking of civil rights 
laws, the Fair Labor Standards law, OSHA, prior Congresses, bills were 
passed and Congress, congressional employees were in fact exempt from 
the benefits of those laws.

                              {time}  2200

  Mr. KINGSTON. Before yielding to the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. 
Hayworth], I want to make one final point. None of that money was 
raised in your district. It all came out of Washington, DC from special 
interest groups.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I thank my friends for yielding, and lest, Mr. Speaker, 
those viewing on television and in the gallery would misunderstand what 
we are saying, we do not have any problem with good, honest debate in 
the American political system. We do not have any problem with honest 
differences of opinion. But it is more than ironic, indeed I daresay it 
is hypocritical of those on the left who would repeatedly use the 
lexicon of special interests and big money and power and extremism 
applying to members of the new majority and yet as my colleague from 
California has outlined, actually take money from outside States and 
congressional districts, take Washington money and pour it into a 
certain district.
  There is one other further distinction. Because, Mr. Speaker, the 
people of the United States who have come to view this endeavor quite 
cynically might honestly ask, well, what is the difference? There is a 
major difference. When union bosses take union dues and without the 
permission of union members take those compulsory dues and donate them 
directly to the Democrat National Committee, and indeed even as we have 
derided the increase in taxes, even as we have pointed out the Arkansas 
shuffle from a campaigner-in-chief who spoke of balancing the budget in 
5 years only to renege on that promise, from a campaigner-in-chief who 
spoke of tax breaks for the middle class, only to renege on that 
promise, from a campaigner-in-chief who talked about ending welfare as 
we know it, only to renege on that promise, veto those measures in all 
three instances, now again comes another irony of saying one thing and 
doing another. The Beck decision, a mechanism my good friend from 
Pennsylvania, well versed in the law, is aware of, effectively said to 
end that practice of compulsory, nonvoluntary donations. And yet this 
President and his Justice Department refuse to enforce that decision.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I do not blame the American people for their 
cynicism, but I believe a little background is in order. For the 
difference is if people can freely give to candidates of their choice, 
then so be it. But it should be a donation freely made. Not in the 
realm of compulsory action.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me ask the gentleman about this Beck decision. Are 
you telling me that a paper mill worker in my district who is prolife, 
antigun control, and anti-NAFTA has his money, his dues going to, say, 
President Clinton's reelection campaign, and he does not have a say-so 
in it, the union employee does not know his money is being used for 
those causes, even though they may be things that he does not stand 
for?
  Mr. HAYWORTH. If the gentleman will yield further, that is exactly 
what I am saying. Or the experience I had on one occasion, flying here 
and some of the folks on the flight, some of the flight attendants 
involved in their union made clear their displeasure with the incumbent 
President and members of the liberal minority and said that they called 
the local chapter of their union to put in their two cents worth and 
those members of the union were amazed to hear that a portion of their 
dues were going, even really without their knowledge, to guardians of 
the old order, guardians of the special interests, folks who would put 
bureaucracy above people and folks who would trust Washington, DC more 
than the American people. Those folks were absolutely flabbergasted. 
That is exactly what I am saying and to my friend from Georgia, I will 
say something else. It has been noted that Boss Sweeney of the AFL-CIO 
has asked for what sounds like the Clinton tax hike, an increase in 
those dues. Even as they bemoan the so-called stagnation in earning 
power, these bosses are asking for an increase in those dues, ergo a 
compulsory donation to the guardians of the old order without one whit 
of personal conviction from many members of unions. Indeed by some 
estimates almost half the members of unions are conservatives who vote 
consistently with the new majority. It is one of the ironies of life 
here in Washington.

[[Page H3482]]

  Mrs. SEASTRAND. It is interesting the gentleman mentioned that. I had 
earlier commented about the ads playing in my district, on the 800 
number. This has been going on for a year, but it has been interesting 
because I field calls in my office, being a Californian, here in 
Washington, DC, we have a 3-hour edge so the folks back home, it is 7 
o'clock, it is now 10 o'clock, so when I am working in the office, 
people will call, I will answer the phone and it is interesting because 
they said, ``I just saw that ad on television, it's an 800 number, I 
have to go through shenanigans to get to it.'' I guess they are hooked 
up to the union switchboard. They take their name and address I guess 
for future fund-raising efforts. ``But I want you to know I'm outraged 
to know my dollars are used in this way. I'm a union member, always 
have been and believe in some of these things, but I also agree with 
you that we have to get big government under control.''

  It was interesting to note when I was home these last 2 weeks, there 
was a very well-organized protest outside my district office in San 
Luis Obispo. But it was interesting to note that the people that came 
were the union organizers. They came from San Francisco, there was one 
from Los Angeles, one from San Jose. And then the executive secretary 
of the local union who is the hired bureaucrat and another gentleman 
were all part of this. Everybody else, the union members, the ones they 
work for, are hard at work trying to make a living for their family. I 
agree. They say 40 percent of members are good Republicans, pleased 
with what we are doing and it is firsthand knowledge, that is what I am 
hearing. In fact one went on television to tell the world that she was 
very upset to see her dollars being used in such a way for union ads 
when she was pleased about what we are doing here in the House.
  Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KINGSTON. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.
  Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Allow me to compliment and put in 
perspective what these freshman Members of Congress, and we have two 
with us tonight, have done. And not only the freshmen but the gentleman 
from Georgia [Mr. Kingston], a Member of the 103d Congress. In the 102d 
Congress when I came in, we had a Congress that had been controlled for 
almost 50 years at that time by one party. We had a situation where in 
the House bank, Members were writing checks freely. They were not 
paying the money back. They were laundering money and selling drugs 
from the post office, which is not a U.S. post office. We are not 
making these things up. There have been numerous convictions and 
investigations to prove this to be true. That party from this side that 
had controlled the House for so long could have reformed it. They did 
not. Seven of us, became known as the Gang of Seven, started unraveling 
the twine with a request for an investigation. We finally after 8 
months forced an investigation because the people of this country 
demanded it and we started with the investigation into the House bank, 
which followed in the post office and made the changes.
  Even after all of that became known, we could not make the changes in 
Congress that needed to be made until this 104th Congress and our 
majority with our freshman class came on board. And now during the last 
18 months for the first time in the history of the country, we have had 
an audit, an audit that has disclosed discrepancies in the past in the 
House. We have had numerous changes with the Contract With America that 
was offered. This House has passed most every aspect of that, certainly 
with the majority in Congress, and has sent it on, most of it has been 
sent to the President who has vetoed tax reform, tax relief for people 
in this country. They have vetoed welfare reform and other areas that 
the freshmen of this group have put through. There answer to the 
American people has been not to join and do what the American people 
want, not to pass the reforms the American people have demanded and 
that this freshman class and this Republican majority Congress has 
given. It has been to try to go back to the dirty politics side, try to 
run ads with millions of dollars against freshman Congressmen and try 
to win back control.

  What will they be winning back control to do? To return back to the 
same situation we had before, where house bank scandals and house post 
office scandals were common.
  I commend their class for the work you have done. Those of us that 
fought in the 102d Congress and later when the gentleman from Georgia 
[Mr. Kingston] came in the 103d Congress and fought, are being joined 
by you, and I think the people will make the same decision. In my first 
race, I won by about 3,000 votes. They immediately gerrymandered my 
district and put 30,000 votes against me by taking 15,000 from one 
party out and putting 15,000 new in. And although the President, 
President Clinton, carried by district, I won in a hard campaign by 55 
percent. Last year all the liberal organizations joined, the Democratic 
women's organization of Emily's List that you are going to find and 
those contributions do not have to be reported. They can be bundled and 
slip under the law in a method that allows hundreds of thousands of 
dollars to go to campaigns unreported. And we won 61 to 39 percent.
  What I am saying is the people out there are living and listening to 
what is happening and the things you are doing and I think they will, 
with knowledge of what is going on, return you to office in order that 
reform may continue in this body, that you are carrying out and have 
been working on. I want to commend you for the work you have done.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I will ask the gentleman from Georgia to yield so I can 
respond to my friend from North Carolina.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Yes.
  HAYWORTH. First of all, Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentleman from 
North Carolina for his membership and his actions as part of the Gang 
of Seven, and I point out now there is a gang of 73 and a new majority, 
and the gentleman from North Carolina is quite right. For in the midst 
of this talk of reform comes one legitimate question that the gentleman 
from North Carolina touched on, Mr. Speaker.
  If this newfound embracing of reform by the liberals in this House 
were so genuine, where was it during their long years of domination of 
this institution, their complicity with the forces of big government 
and the forces that would always use the same tired equation, the 
answer of tax-and-spend, tax-and-spend, tax-and-spend. Where was that 
commitment? And make no mistake. If we retreat, Mr. Speaker, one can 
imagine a new liberal majority coming to this institutions, having 
learned its lesson in what through misleading claims and the politics 
of fear and the complicity of many liberals in the journalistic 
endeavors might wish to take place here, they would turn on this 
institution and that notion of reform in a heartbeat. Their notion of 
reform would be as the actions taken by ancient Rome against the 
Carthaginians. They would move metaphorically to lace the soil with 
lime to ensure that the full honest flour of reform would never take 
root again in this Chamber for the foreseeable future, and to return to 
an iron grip with rules completely out of proportion, a majority that 
would border on tyranny. In short, the same type of tyrannical majority 
we saw in this institution at the tail end of those 40 years of one-
party domination.
  Mrs. SEASTRAND. If the gentleman would yield, if you watch, you talk 
about the reform, how there would be no reform, let me tell you, if you 
look at these ads, negative ads, there is no hope. Everything is 
negative, negative, negative in the attack I am taking. Bad balanced 
budget, bad welfare reform, bad tax relief, bad this and that. There is 
no hope in these ads. And because there is nothing, let us fact it, 
their ideas are bankrupt after 40 years. There is no hope in their 
ideas. And so what do they do? All they have left is to just condemn 
and to attack. And it would be something if they could offer 
alternatives to the situations at hand today for the problems that need 
to be solved across this Nation, but it is all the same.

                              {time}  2215

  Their answer is usually more, bigger, more dollars here from 
Washington, DC.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let us talk about some of these basically Republican 
solutions, but they are anti-Washington

[[Page H3483]]

bureaucrat solutions, some of the things that I think that we have been 
trying to work for: more choice in medicare, a balance in environmental 
policy, more local control in education, more State flexibility in 
poverty and welfare programs.
  Thinking of the Medicare policy, here we have in April last year, a 
Clinton trustee saying Medicare is going bankrupt and in two years, it 
will be out of money. Well, they missed that by 11 months. In February 
for the first time in the history, Medicare ran out of money. So we 
went in there, said okay, people want traditional Medicare, we 
understand that. But if our seniors want options, like physician 
service plans, and if they want to join a managed care plan or take an 
individual medical savings account, let us give them those options, and 
by offering the options we can reduce the growth from 11 percent each 
year in Medicare to 4 percent and head away from the insolvency and the 
bankruptcy. We can save, protect and preserve Medicare and increase 
spending per recipient from $4,800 to $7,100 at the same time.
  Mr. Speaker, a key component of that, as you two know, is cracking 
down on fraud and abuse. I have with me a Derma-Gran bandage, which a 
friend of mine in business has sent to me. He said this bandage 
actually cost 94 cents to produce. It is sold to health care providers 
for $6. And Medicare, on this 94-cent $6 purchase, gets $36.44 with it.
  Now, your mother is paying for that and your father is paying for 
that, and it is going at the price of their health care, a diagnosis or 
something down the road. My friend's math on it, he just pointed out to 
me, that does not sound like that much of a problem, does it? But the 
fact is potentially, listen to this. Potentially 20,000 nursing home 
patients each day use this. That would mean this is costing American 
taxpayers at that $36 rate $21 million per month or, $262 million in 
nothing but waste and almost fraud but certainly abuse in Medicare. And 
this is what we were trying to resolve, and this is what the President 
vetoed, cracking down on these.
  Again, we are just giving seniors choices and protections that we 
need for the program.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. If the gentleman would yield, I think it is important 
again to articulate something, because it is lost in the politics of 
hyperbole, in the grand political theater of the propaganda on the 
Nation's radio and television stations right now. And incidentally, I 
would challenge my former colleagues in television to do their reality 
checks that they often reserve for the political campaigns. I would 
challenge my former colleagues in television news around the country to 
apply the truth ads to these cynical, manipulative, untrue 
announcements and maintain the vigilance now that they reserve for the 
election campaign.
  But the gentleman from Georgia brings up an interesting point. I do 
not know anyone, despite the extreme rhetoric of those outrageous 
claims made on television and radio, I do not know anyone in the new 
majority who would for a moment wish that his parents would have 
inadequate health care, desire for his grandparents inadequate health 
care, purposely move to starve children and deprive them of the basics 
of life, nor doom America to drinking dirty water and breathing impure 
air. The claims are outrageous, and my colleague from Georgia correctly 
points out the challenge is met.

  The challenge is presented by the waste, fraud, and abuse in the 
current vacuum in a Washington-based, one-size-fits-all system that is 
devoid of the very compassion it claims to give to people, for it 
denies the most essential element of our freedom: The opportunity to 
choose. When my parents turn 65 next year, when that happens, there 
will be no federally provided shopper to accompany them out of their 
homes and to decree what department store they will visit, what 
clothing they will buy, what car they will drive. And yet in the 
current health care system, in the one-size-fits-all anachronistic plan 
of the 1960's, which we hope to update, improve, transform and, yes, 
even save, a vacuum exists. A massive bureaucracy exists that invites 
the very waste, fraud and abuse that the gentleman spoke of.
  Mrs. SEASTRAND. If the gentleman would yield.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I yield to the gentlewoman.
  Mrs. SEASTRAND. It is interesting that the gentleman mentions the 
waste, fraud, and abuse, but I think one of the things, particularly in 
the ads from the big labor unions, the statements they make is we are 
cutting Medicare. My mom is on Medicare, and she was concerned about 
this, that her daughter was going to be doing something that she was in 
need of. And I just want to tell people that that is the worst thing to 
say, to scare our senior citizens. And I know some of them actually, 
people went into with their propaganda into nursing homes to scare our 
older and elderly that are in nursing homes and convalescent homes 
across the Nation.
  I just want to set the record straight. We actually increased 
Medicare spending from $4,800 per beneficiary starting now to $7,100 in 
7 years. Now, I am just an old fourth-grade school teacher that did a 
lot of old math without calculators. But if we subtract that, we get a 
difference, and that difference has a big plus sign in front of it. 
Very, very hard to get that point across, especially to some of the 
reporters today. I guess they were brought up on new math.
  But we are increasing Medicare spending over the next 7 years by 
$2,300 per beneficiary, and that is with more and more seniors coming 
into the system. So you can tell we are spending a lot more. And that 
is one of the falsehoods in the ads that is hitting and attacking some 
of the freshmen, myself included, today on television.
  Another interesting point was I know in the ads, and we heard it all, 
we hear it from the other side of the aisle, that we are just taking 
care of our rich friends with tax relief. Well, you know, I have been 
through this litany. What am I doing here for the rich? A $500 per 
child tax credit that would benefit 29 million families; a capital 
gains tax credit that will create 6.1 million jobs; relief from the 
marriage penalty that would allow 23 million taxpayers to receive $8 
billion in tax relief; an adoption credit that would have allowed 
parents to claim a $5,000 annual tax credit for up to five years in 
order to help with their child adoption expenses; or how about an 
elderly care deduction that would allow 1 million taxpayers a $1,000 
deduction for the care of a parent or family member?
  Mr. Speaker, now maybe for some of those union bosses that live high 
on the hog here in Washington, DC, that do not understand what the 
working families back in each of our districts have to face, this is 
what I voted for and what we proposed is for working families across 
this nation, and I do not know about any rich people.
  Mr. KINGSTON. The gentlewoman had mentioned also about some of the 
putting common sense into some of the environmental laws. One of the 
things that happened in California that we know of, Riverdale, 
California, the endangered kangaroo rat. Now, you know, my view is I do 
not want to lose a species. I am committed to the Endangered Species 
Act. Riverdale, CA had kangaroo rat, and the EPA would not let them cut 
fire breaks in the residential area because it would endanger the 
habitat of the kangaroo rat. So what happened? A fire came and it 
destroyed 30 homes.
  But in addition to that, it also destroyed 25,000 acres of kangaroo 
rat habitat. So we have got lose-lose policy for both the private 
property owner and the kangaroo rat. We see this kind of impracticality 
over and over again. In fact, I think it was in Arizona, may have been 
New Mexico, where the Boy Scout was lost last year in a wilderness 
area.
  They discovered him I think 48 hours later, and the Park Service 
would not let a helicopter land there because it was a motorized 
vehicle. And under the Wilderness Act, you cannot have any sort of 
motorized vehicle in the park area. So here is this kid 14 years old, 
12 years old, I am not sure of the age, and he is hungry, he is 
starving, he has been sleeping on rocks, and the helicopter comes and 
it won't rescue him. You know, it is just out of balance.

  The other thing is, the decision to dig fire breaks in Riverdale, 
California, or to rescue a 14-year-old in a western State does not need 
to be made out of Washington by a Washington bureaucrat. I think that 
the Park Service people and the local county commissioners

[[Page H3484]]

and the residents can probably figure it out, keep it in Federal 
guidelines. They can solve their own problem without Washington 
bureaucrats.
  Mrs. SEASTRAND. Well, if the gentleman would yield, I think a lot of 
the bureaucrats that work here in Washington, DC have never been to our 
districts. Unless they read National Geographic, they have never come 
to the middle kingdom of California to see the Monterey Bay Sanctuary 
or the Channel Island Sanctuary. So what do they do? They do 
regulations that one size fits all, and it does not fit our particular 
needs at the local level.
  Mr. Speaker, every one of us wants clean water, a better environment. 
After all, we are going to leave this place and I hope to leave it in a 
better way for my children and my grandchildren than I found it. But it 
is interesting, another area that when we are dealing with the 
environment is to look at the Superfund. And the folks back home say, 
hey, my tax dollars are going and where are the Superfund sites being 
cleaned up? And what do we find out? We are spending it on bureaucrats 
in Washington, DC, who are attorneys and using those dollars to 
litigate, litigate, litigate. In the meantime, the sites remain dirty. 
And we want to cut through that so we can take those precious tax 
dollars, put them into the sites, clean them up and get on with the 
business of the day at hand.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. If the gentlewoman would yield, indeed the current 
Superfund legislation, in stark contrast to the genuine reforms the new 
majority would propagate, which we advocate, the current Superfund 
legislation could well be renamed the special interest and lawyer 
subsidy act with an incidental tip of the cap to the environment to 
camouflage its true purpose. I mean that is a long title, but that is 
in essence what has transpired here. Come to think of it, may not be 
entirely grammatically correct. I would bow to my friend who taught the 
fourth grade so capably for many years in that regard.
  But regardless of the fractured syntax, it does not take away from 
the validity of the observation of the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. Speaker, I can recall on another occasion just prior to our 
recent recess when we returned home to the districts, where I came to 
this floor along with the gentleman from Georgia, a gentleman from 
Maryland, a gentleman from Michigan. No, we do not agree on every jot 
and tittle of what should transpire with meaningful reform to 
conservation and environmental legislation, and yet there were some 
common themes. One just rearticulated by the gentleman from Georgia 
dealing with the notion of local control and State control now being 
perhaps the most capable way to address many of these problems.
  Indeed, I do not believe anyone would argue of the necessity of the 
action taken in the early 1970's in the Nixon administration to create 
an Environmental Protection Agency. The question now becomes, however, 
with 50 States with their own departments of environmental qualities, 
in other words, 50 State-run EPA's, in effect, a legitimate question 
can be asked, should everything be centered in Washington? Indeed, the 
gentlewoman from California referred to one of the main problems, and 
let me pause here so no one will misunderstand. I do not discredit the 
millions of hard-working people who are in the employ of the Federal 
Government. I realize many of them work hard to do the jobs they are 
given. But sometimes those jobs are ill defined, or worse, the dynamics 
or the situation into which these employees are thrust leads to 
impracticalities, such as the notion of being deskbound instead of in 
the field looking at problems.
  On an occasion which we were discussing Indian housing, and there are 
more native Americans living on reservations in the Sixth District of 
Arizona than anywhere else in the continental United States, one of my 
constituents offered the story. There was a body of water on the 
reservation land in that district that the people had come to call 
Twelve Mile Lake.

                              {time}  2230

  Well, there was some contentious debate with an EPA administrator, I 
believe from San Francisco so the story goes, according to my 
constituent. And during many telephone conversations, the EPA official 
in San Francisco behind a desk was adamant, certainly there must be 
significant wetlands protection for that body of water known as Twelve 
Mile Lake. The tribal administration, my friend who recounted the 
story, said, sir, you don't understand, it is not a significant body of 
water, it is a tiny body of water. It is akin to a mud puddle. Oh, 
certainly you exaggerate, said the EPA official. There must be these 
safeguards.
  Well, miracle of miracles, the U.S. official, the San Francisco 
bureaucrat, left that beautiful city by the bay and traveled to the 
reservation land, and the tribal officials took him to what in essence 
was a mud puddle. My constituent said, evoking images of Madison 
Avenue, it made for a Kodak moment to see the expression of 
stupefaction that crossed the bureaucrat's face. He said something to 
the effect of, you're right, it is a mud puddle. Why do you call it 
Twelve Mile Lake? And the tribal official said, well, you see, sir, 
that's what we've been trying to tell you. The reason this particular 
small body of water is called Twelve Mile Lake is not because of its 
dimensions but because, you see, it is 12 miles from the center of town 
to this particular body of water.
  And I think the story speaks volumes, and I daresay a disturbing 
tendency would be the overzealousness to abandon the context of what is 
reasonable to have almost the unbelievable advocacy of saying that mud 
puddle should be equated with a navigable water and should be a wetland 
that is protected. And that is the next course of action that has been 
taken on many different fronts. What should always undergird our 
mission in this Congress is a standard test of the law of Western 
civilization. What is reasonable? What would a reasonable person do?
  Mr. KINGSTON. Our friend Frank Luntz uses this illustration. Do you 
know that the State of Indiana does not participate in daylight savings 
time? They do not spring forward and fall backward.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. If you would yield for a second, let me also say the 
great State of Arizona does not subscribe to savings time either.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Did you know that Indiana did not? I did not know that 
of Arizona. Did you know that?
  Mrs. SEASTRAND. Yes, I did.
  Mr. KINGSTON. You two are exceptionally brilliant. Four hundred 
thirty-five Members, I can almost promise you that 90 percent of us do 
not know that. But don't you think that is relevant to the people in 
Arizona and Indiana, that they do not spring forward and fall backward 
on their time? And don't you think that would be relevant for a 
business doing commerce in either of those two States, or a visitor or 
a government?
  And isn't it ironic that I can vote, as can any other Member of 
Congress on things affecting the people of Arizona and Indiana, and not 
even know such a fundamental thing about their culture? And yet we do 
it routinely, just like you talked about with the Twelve Mile Lake.
  The bureaucrat in Washington can set the rule, having no idea that 
the lake is not 12 miles wide, simply that, and not knowing that it is 
just simply 12 miles from town. But they are experts on everything, and 
they are from the government and they are here to help and they are 
going to tell you how to run your town and your State.

  Mrs. SEASTRAND. It was interesting, I have just been appointed to the 
Speaker's Environmental Task Force. I am serving on the steering 
committee. And during the recess, I naturally organized a task force 
for my two countries of my district and invited, as a jumping off 
period, a first meeting, some 28 people from different agencies and 
local groups that are active within the environment. And when you start 
thinking about this, this is vast. We can have a lot of great 
discussions, and I am looking forward to our monthly meetings.
  But it was interesting at that first meeting, an attorney who makes 
his living on litigation said, I hate to say this because I make my 
living this way, but I deal every day trying to make sense of the 
regulations from Washington, DC. And because some of these laws were 
written some 20, 25 years ago, technology is advanced,

[[Page H3485]]

science knows so much more, and we need to look at science, we need to 
look at the technology today and reform and change some of these laws. 
Not throw them out, but let us change what can fit 1996 for a better 
way, a better environment.
  It was interesting, one of the Federal agencies' representatives 
said, you know, in my job I have a standard, and I have the State 
official from the agency following me right behind, and we are doing 
the same work. In other words, repetition. The taxpayer is not getting 
good use of people sharing resources.
  Another gentleman said from one of the other Federal agencies, you 
know, I would do anything to be able to have a local advisory group to 
give me input as to what they feel about situations that affect what I 
am doing here. So it was interesting, in that short 1-hour beginning 
meeting of a task force, I was able to learn and get from other people 
that have to deal in this area every day, their feelings of what we 
have talked about in this new Congress with this new attitude.
  We want to give incentives to people, not penalize them so if they 
find an endangered species on their property, they are worried about it 
and they do not want to tell anybody. I want them to be able to tell a 
government official about it, so that they can get an incentive and 
figure out how they are going to continue having the endangered species 
on their property and still have property rights to see that they can 
utilize that land.
  So it is interesting. We have a long way to go. It will be an 
exciting time to be part of the environmental task force so that we can 
come together and discuss the policy for the 21st century.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Now, one of the things I hear, and you mentioned 
earlier on the Superfund, is that Superfund is 15 years old. We have 
spent $25 billion on it and yet we have only cleaned up 12 percent of 
the national priority polluted sites.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Would you yield just a second? I want you to repeat the 
amount of money spent on this over 12 years, over 15 years.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Over 15 years we have spent $25 billion on 
environmental cleanup and only cleaned up 12 percent of the sites.
  Mrs. SEASTRAND. And may I add, if the gentleman would yield, I want 
to add this statistic. The Justice Department spent over 800,000 man-
hours just on Superfund litigation between 1990 and 1992. That is a lot 
of hours.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I understand that translates to about 43 cents on the 
dollar going to the cost of litigation. Now, it does not matter where 
you are on the environmental debate, we all should come together and 
say this is broken and we need to fix it.

  Mr. HAYWORTH. And if the gentleman would yield, numerous examples 
from the great Grand Canyon State of Arizona, one in particular from a 
couple of years ago, bears out what I talked about in an abbreviated 
fashion this morning in responding to my good friend from Georgia on 
this floor, and what we have talked about tonight, and indeed what is 
one of the basic tenets of this new practical, realistic, common sense 
majority, and that is one size does not fit all.
  Phoenix is not the same as Philadelphia, nor is Flagstaff the same as 
Fargo, ND. And, indeed, something that transpired 2 years ago in the 
desert City of Tucson, Arizona, offers a stirring example.
  There was a violent windstorm in the desert. Those wind storms blow 
up great dust devils, great amounts of dust in the air. Visibility is 
poor. There was a car crash on Interstate 10, one of those long 20-car 
tangos, if you will. But also, even as that was transpiring on the 
interstate, moving through Tucson, Arizona, technical data collection, 
equipment provided by the Federal Government to monitor the Clean Air 
Act, showed that at the same time Tucson was technically in violation 
of the provisions of the Clean Air Act.
  Now, the particulates in the air on that day did not come from the 
cars involved in the accident on the interstate, it came from the 
particulates in the air. When you live in a desert and a windstorm 
blows up, there will be more particulates in the air; ergo, Tucson is 
not the same a Tacoma. Different places, different areas of this 
Nation, different climatic conditions offer different challenges.
  And, yes, while there are some technologies that are common, 
certainly the circumstances of those respective areas should be taken 
into account, not for Washington standards but for local standards that 
are realistic, reasonable and move to protect the environment.
  Mr. KINGSTON. And with the Federal presence, guidance, and oversight, 
but not necessarily Washington bureaucratic micromanagement.
  Now, I think probably the biggest failure of the Washington 
bureaucracy to manage a problem is local poverty control. You know, the 
folks on welfare in Savannah, GA, have to do what the bureaucrats tell 
them to do in Washington, and it is the same bureaucrats telling your 
folks in California what to do, and the people in California in Mrs. 
Seastrand's district have to do what the folks in Arizona in your 
district do, and you have one Washington bureaucracy command 
controlling poverty. As a result, since 1964 we have spent $5 trillion 
on poverty. The poverty rate then was 14 percent, and the poverty rate 
now is 14 percent. It has not worked. We need local control and 
flexibility.
  You know what? I cannot solve Mrs. Seastrand's poverty problem, and I 
cannot solve Mr. Hayworth's, and maybe I cannot solve mine. But you 
know what? I can do a heck of a lot better job on mine than I can on 
yours. Just give me the tools and I think I can do it.
  That is one reason why you want State block grants. Cut out the 
poverty brokers and put the control in the hands of the local people.
  Mrs. SEASTRAND. If the gentleman would yield. I had a firsthand 
experience in what you are saying. I served in the State assembly in 
California. And so often the folks back here in Washington, DC, in this 
House, would vote a particular bill, legislation, change the law, and 
then it would come down to us and they would hold the hammer over our 
head. If you do not follow these rules the way we want you to do it, we 
are going to hold back on transportation funds or welfare funds or 
whatever.

  And we knew that we could do it a better way; that we here in 
California perhaps did not match what you needed to do for your folks 
in Savannah, GA, or the people in Arizona. And that was day in, day out 
that we were constantly told if we did not adhere to the new mandates 
from the Federal Government they would hold back something from us.
  So many times I would vote no to just protest, and then most of the 
folks, though, would vote yes and we would receive another mandate from 
the Federal Government that many times did not make sense to us at the 
State level.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. And if the gentlewoman would yield, it is worth noting 
that one of the genuine reforms and one of the few times in which the 
gentleman at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue in the big white 
house was willing to work with us was on this notion of unfunded 
mandates, where Washington bureaucrats decreed to local government 
officials you will do it this way.
  The frustration of that system has led the mayor of Winslow, AZ, to 
coin a new phrase. He calls it the idiocracy. The idiocracy which would 
mandate an action being taken without taking into account the 
realistic, common sense, reasonable notions of the good people who live 
right there in the area and also want to redress the problem but on 
their own terms, reflecting their own priorities, with no less of a 
commitment to solving that problem. That is what we must remember.
  Mrs. SEASTRAND. If the gentleman would yield. I know our time is 
coming to a close, but I would just say that all of Americans across 
this Nation I think have to be reminded that so many of them voted for 
a change in 1994 and that change has begun, but it is not going to be 
completed in such a short time. We have to chip away at so much that 
has been built after 40 years and we have to keep driving for that 
change.
  You know, I am pleased, being from California, that we have seen, in 
passing legislation off this floor regarding immigration reform, we 
talked about lowering taxes, and we talked about earlier the line item 
veto and returning government decisions to state and

[[Page H3486]]

local levels and to continue our push for a balanced budget. But we 
have to continue to do that. And I just would say that what we have 
seen happen here, there are forces that do not like what we have 
accomplished.

                              {time}  2245

  They are going to try their very best to more or less take some of us 
out in this next election so that they can take back that old status 
quo of big bureaucratic Washington-controlled government. I just am 
going to fight it, as I know you gentlemen will, too.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I would close with an observation by one of my 
constituents in the Navajo Nation, having spent Sunday in Window Rock, 
Arizona. A lady told the story of a young homemaker in a Navajo 
household cutting off a substantial portion of a hand. Kids asked her 
why. She said, I do not know; mom did it. So she went to great-grandma 
and she said, why did you cut off a major part of your hand. She said, 
well, it used to be a smaller pot and so I had to cut that off to make 
it fit in the pot, an example of a tradition for tradition's sake that 
defied common sense and needed to be changed, in much the same way we 
need to make changes here. Not because Washington said so, but because 
technology and the people living in those areas are willing to make the 
changes of their own volition. History does not occur in a vacuum and 
history is on the side of freedom.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, let me conclude with this. Last week a 
teacher in Darien, Georgia told me that in an 8-hour day she spends two 
to three hours filling our paperwork, about 50 percent of it is for the 
Federal Government. That is 10 to 15 hours a week that is not spent 
teaching Johnny how to read, write, and do arithmetic. She can teach 
her children better than the bureaucrats who are making her fill out 
the paperwork in Washington.
  What we are asking with that and all these other examples, let the 
local people do what they know how to do best and let the Washington 
bureaucrats stop the micromanagement, return freedom to the people and 
increase personal responsibility along the way.
  I thank Mrs. Seastrand of California and Mr. Hayworth of Arizona for 
being with me tonight.

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