[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 53 (Tuesday, April 23, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H3661-H3662]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   VARIOUS REFUGE BILLS ON SUSPENSION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Hinchey] is recognized 
during morning business for 4 minutes.
  Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I am from the State of New York where we 
have a long history of protecting the environment on a bipartisan 
basis. As a matter of fact, New York was the State that gave to the 
Nation Theodore Roosevelt, who more than any other person was 
responsible for the establishment of our system of national parks. It 
is also the State where Nelson Rockefeller was the Governor, a great 
Republican Governor, one who led the fight in the early 1960's for 
environmental protection and particularly in cleaning up our waterways 
with the New York Clean Water Act.
  Unfortunately in this Congress the sense of bipartisan responsibility 
and protection for the environment has just flown out the window. It is 
completely absent. However, later on this afternoon, we will see part 
of what can only be described as a great American confidence game, a 
con game.
  In a con game what happens is this, the confidence man or person 
tries to gain your confidence so that he can put

[[Page H3662]]

a fast one over on you. That is what is happening here this afternoon. 
The Republican majority of this Congress will try to gain the 
confidence of the American people with regard to the environment by 
passing some very simply, noncontroversial environmental bills, while 
all the time hiding the fact that over the course of the last year and 
a half throughout this Congress, they have systematically gone 
aggressively forward with attempts to destroy the environment. The 
figleaf of this confidence game that they will be promoting this 
afternoon, when that is taken away, shows clearly what the record is. 
There it is.
  They voted earlier this year for including waivers of environmental 
laws to mandate salvage logging in the national forests. That will 
result in the cutting of old growth trees in national forests in the 
Northwest and all across the country. Fiscal year 1995 rescission bill, 
H.R. 1158, vote No. 204, on March 15, 1995, the Yates amendment to 
delete the salvage rider, the Republican vote was 208 to 17 in support 
of that kind of cutting, logging without laws, rollcall 204. They voted 
also for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas 
development. That was the Budget Reconciliation Act, H.R. 2491, vote 
No. 812 on November 17 of last year. The Republicans voted 232 to 1 in 
favor of the budget bill with the ANWR Act in it, oil drilling in the 
wildlife refuge, opening up the wildlife refuge to rapacious oil 
drilling. At least twice they voted for an Interior appropriations bill 
which guts the Endangered Species Act, increasing logging in the 
Tongass National Forest, allowing pesticides to be used in national 
wildlife refuges and undermining the Mohave National Preserve. That was 
the fiscal year 1996 Interior appropriations bill, H.R. 1977, vote No. 
853. It occurred on December 13 of last year. And on that vote the 
Yates motion to recommit to conference was opposed, and the Republicans 
voted 229 to 3 against recommiting that measure to conference.
  Also the veto override, vote No. 5 on January 4, 1996, the Republican 
majority in this House voted 225 to 4 in favor of overriding the 
President's veto; 98 percent of them voted for that veto override, 
which gutted the Endangered Species Act. And also they voted for 
slashing the Land and Water Conservation Act programs which protect 
fish and wildlife habitat, fiscal year 1996 Interior Appropriations 
Act, H.R. 1977, vote No. 502, which occurred on June 12, 1995.
  The gentleman from California, George Miller, introduced an amendment 
to restore the administration's $235.1 million budget request for Land 
and Water Conservation Act land acquisition. The Republican majority 
voted 228 against that act. So they slashed the land and water 
conservation fund.
  So let us not be conned. Let us not be conned by the figleaf of 
environmental protection when what has really been happening here on a 
systematic and aggressive basis is an attempt by this majority to 
undermine every significant environmental protection law that this 
country has.

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