[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 53 (Tuesday, April 23, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H3664]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    LAND AND WATER CONSERVATION FUND

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from California [Mr. Farr] is recognized during 
morning business for 4 minutes.
  Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on Earth Day to 
remind us that Mother Earth giveth, but the 104th Congress taketh away. 
Look at the battle of this year: Tried to take away Medicare benefits, 
affordability of Medicare, tried to take away the school lunch program. 
And now on Earth Day we see that they are trying to take away the 
Endangered Species Act, but that is not all.
  Mr. Speaker, we have heard earlier today that the 104th Congress 
decided also to take away the public enjoyment of public lands and sell 
those to private interests. They want to sell the mountains to the ski 
resorts, the forests to the logging companies, the rivers to hydropower 
and to development. They want to sell wildlife refuges to oil and gas 
development and to hunters. They want to sell the minerals that belong 
to the people to the mining companies. Lastly, they want to take the 
Indian lands and sell those to the gambling interests.
  In addition to these takeaways from the U.S. public, because the 
public owns these lands, and give these to private interests, they also 
want to take away the money that has been derived from the sale of all 
these resources because we receive value for when we sell the land and 
water of this country and the grazing lands and so on. What do they 
want to do with that money? It is our money, sitting in a trust account 
here in Washington called a lockbox, known as the land and water 
conservation fund. The lockbox now has our money, $12 billion in there 
that cannot be spent.
  Should we tolerate this? I say no. Look what we can do. Look what 
happened with a little politics in this House last week, for a similar 
lockbox. In the transportation funds, the Highway Trust Fund, this 
House voted 284 to 143 to open that box and allow that money to be 
spent on the public interests.
  In fact, the leader of that movement, the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania, Chairman Shuster, said, Congress imposes taxes on 
gasoline, on airline tickets and other transportation goods with the 
assurance that those funds would be spent on the infrastructure 
improvement, but the problem is that the accumulated surpluses of these 
dedicated user-generated trust funds are not being spend to build 
anything. They are just sitting in bank accounts. He went on to say, 
this is patently unfair to the American traveling public. Well, it is 
also unfair on Earth Day to the American public that enjoys the out-of-
doors to lock up all of their moneys in a trust fund, $12 billion.
  My colleagues, the 1995 Republican budget resolution called for a 
moratorium on the land and water conservation funds. The total balance 
in that fund is $12 billion, as I said. What is good for the goose is 
good for the gander. Good roads leading to bad environment sounds like 
the road to hell paved with good intentions.

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