[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 88 (Friday, June 14, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6258-S6259]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT EDUCATION ACT

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, yesterday I introduced legislation to 
reauthorize the National Environment Education Act. I am joined by most 
of the members of the Environment and Public Works Committee and will 
probably have all of those Members as cosponsors of this legislation in 
a very short time.
  The reason I am doing this is that there has been a lot of criticism 
that we are getting that there is too much emanating from Washington on 
our environmental laws and environmental education. People have said we 
are brainwashing our children. I feel that the better way to do this is 
to have this money going to the local level so that the curriculum can 
be determined by the local level.
  I can remember several scary stories about students coming home from 
school in the Northwest who happened to be sons or daughters of people 
working in the lumber industry saying that it is sinful to cut down any 
tree, and this type of thing. This is the type of thing that has to be 
stopped. I believe the only way we are going to be able to successfully 
do this is to reauthorize this legislation so that the safeguards are 
built in that anything that is used in the education of our young 
people has to be based on scientific facts and not just the normal 
scare type of things that we have been getting. So I believe we will be 
able to control this program.
  This, incidentally, was introduced at the same time by Congressman 
Klug in the House of Representatives.
  Mr. President, yesterday I introduced legislation to reauthorize the 
National Environmental Education Act. I am joined by my colleagues 
Senators Chafee, Lieberman, Faircloth, Kempthorne, Moynihan, and Reid. 
And I am joined on the House side by my colleague, Congressman Scott 
Klug of Wisconsin, who introduced an identical bill in the House 
yesterday.
  This bill will reauthorize the educational efforts at the National 
Environmental Education and Training Foundation and the EPA's Office of 
Environmental Education. These programs support environmental education 
at the local level. They provide grant money and seed money to 
encourage local primary and secondary schools and universities to 
educate children on environmental issues.
  With the importance of the environment and the continuing debate on 
how best to protect it, it is vital to educate

[[Page S6259]]

our children so that they truly understand how the environment 
functions.
  Over the last few years environmental education has been criticized 
for being one-sided and heavy-handed. People have accused environmental 
advocates of trying to brainwash children and of pushing an 
environmental agenda that is not supported by the facts or by science. 
They also accuse the Federal Government of setting one curriculum 
standard and forcing all schools to subscribe to their views. This is 
not how these two environmental education programs have worked, and I 
have taken specific steps to ensure that they never work this way. In 
fact, this legislation will prevent this from happening.
  The programs that this act reauthorizes have targeted the majority of 
their grants at the local level, allowing the teachers in our community 
schools to design their environmental programs to teach our children, 
and this is where the decisions should be made. In addition, the grants 
have not been used for advocacy or to lobby the Government, as other 
grant programs have been accused of doing.
  This legislation accomplishes two important functions. First, it 
cleans up the current law to make the programs run more efficiently. 
And second, it places two very important safeguards in the program to 
ensure its integrity in the future.
  I have placed in this bill language to ensure that the EPA programs 
are balanced and scientifically sound. It is important that 
environmental education is presented in an unbiased and balanced 
manner. The personal values and prejudices of the educators should not 
be instilled in our children. Instead we must teach them to think for 
themselves after they have been presented with all of the facts and 
information. Environmental ideas must be grounded in sound science and 
not emotional bias. While these programs have not been guilty of this 
in the past, this is an important safeguard to protect the future of 
environmental education.
  Second, I have included language which prohibits any of the funds to 
be used for lobbying efforts. While these programs have not used the 
grant process to lobby the Government, there are other programs which 
have been accused of this and this language will ensure that this 
program never becomes a vehicle for the executive branch to lobby 
Congress.
  This bill also makes a number of housekeeping changes to the programs 
which are supported by both the EPA and the Education Foundation which 
will both streamline and programs and make them more efficient.
  The grants that have been awarded under this program have gone to a 
number of local groups. In Oklahoma alone such organizations as the 
Stillwater 4-H Foundation; Roosevelt Elementary School in Norman, OK; 
Oklahoma State University; the Kaw Nation of Oklahoma; and the Osage 
County Oklahoma Conservation District have received grants for 
environmental education under these programs.
  This is an important piece of legislation, and I hope both the Senate 
and the House can act quickly to reauthorize these programs.

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