[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 117 (Friday, August 2, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H9908-H9912]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           A WAR ON THE WEST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. Cooley] is recognized for 60 
minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. COOLEY of Oregon. Mr. Speaker, I come before the House today to 
discuss something I think is very, very important in concept and also 
to the American people.
  We see something in the West that is happening to us. We like to 
refer to it many, many times as a war on the West, and it is a war. But 
I want to tell the people of America and the people here in the 
Chamber, a Member of this House, that if it can happen to us in the 
timber industry, it also can happen in other industries as well. I want 
my colleagues to think about this when they hear about what goes on and 
what is happening to us in the West, because this might be an issue now 
that is not addressed, does not concern others, but, remember, this 
lesson can be applied to any issue that we may see coming before you 
concerning your private property, your interest, your educational 
systems, and even your self-governing systems.
  This is not a fault of any political attitude, it has nothing to do 
with the executive branch, although I will point out what is happening, 
but it has to do with the concept of America.
  We have a cultural battle going on, a battle of self-determination, 
of individuality, of being responsible against a culture of liberalism 
and to a one-world conflict or a big national social government. In 
this body, if people examine this body, they will see that there are 
not Democrats or Republicans in this body; there are conservatives in 
this body and there are liberals. I think that is what the ultimate 
goal will turn out to be. Who will win this conflict, I think, will be 
determined in the very, very near future. We are starting to have some 
very, very serious problems concerning the attitude of a one-
government, big-brother-knows-all continuous responsibility for 
everything that everybody does with no self-responsibility for the 
individual or the local control by the local communities.
  We passed a timber salvage bill, and here is a good example of what 
is happening in my district, and I want to be able to point this out. 
We passed an emergency salvage bill in 1995 on June 7. On June 8, the 
President vetoed it. Between June and July, 1995, there was negotiation 
between Congress and the administration and a letter from Dan Glickman 
implementing the program. The President signed the legislation in a 
rescission bill.

  The bill was signed on July 21, 1995, revising the salvage measure 
and passed by Congress. On July 27, the President signed this bill. 
What this bill did in very simple terms is that it would allow the U.S. 
Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to salvage dead and 
dying and burnt trees.
  At the same time, a law that was passed in 1988 which was referred to 
as rule No. 318, had to do with green-cut sustainable yields in the 
Northwest. At the same time the salvage bill went through the process 
in the U.S. Senate, we added the 318 section to the salvage bill, which 
was actually passed by Congress, and signed by the President of

[[Page H9909]]

the United States back in 1988 but had never, ever been awarded.
  Remember, these contracts were awarded following all the 
environmental laws, but because of the way our litigation is set up 
through the appeal process, many contractors who had put their down 
payments down, their bonds down to cut these trees, were not allowed to 
do that through litigation. This lasted from 1988 to 1995.
  By the way, I want to tell my colleagues that people who put their 
bonds up in the U.S. Government collect no interest, and some of these 
bonds ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
  In August 1995, the President writes the Cabinet members expressing 
his reservations about the measure that he signed on July 27. The 
reason for that is that there was a national uproar by the extreme 
preservationists that this was a terrible thing, that it was logging 
without laws, and going on and on.
  The President at the time started feeling the political pressure, so 
he writes a letter. On August 10, the undersecretary, Mr. Lyons, says 
the program is on track. That was a report to Congress. In late August, 
the President publicly recants his position on the legislation saying: 
I really did not know what I was doing, I am sorry I did this, it was 
not prudent of me and I should not have done it.
  The White House on October 28 issued a statement that they will 
pursue legislative remedies to change the program.
  In November, Chief Thomas reaffirms the commitment of the Forest 
Service and BLM to carry out the goals of the program. We are not sure 
if the goals of the program were the original goals of the program or 
the legislative goals of the program, as the President said that he 
wanted to change and remedy the legislative procedure process.

  In November, Chief Thomas reaffirms the commitment of the Forest 
Service to carry out the goals. In March there is a letter from the 
President, Mr. Clinton, asking the Senate to repeal the salvage bill, 
which is Public Law 104-19.
  In May 1995, Chief Thomas takes an inspection and tour and announces 
implementation of the program is excellent. In other words, we are 
following the proposed cuts as required under the salvage program.
  On July 1996, the Secretary issues a directive to significantly 
modify the implementation of the program. On July 16, 1996, acting 
under the Office of Management and Budget, the Director Writes Congress 
urging the repeal of the program.
  I want to tell my colleagues what is happening specifically now. This 
is the kind of flip-flopping and things that are going on concerning 
just a minor piece of legislation that has to do with the Northwest.
  Between 1980 and 1990 sustainable yield harvests in the Northwest 
forests were running at about 4.5 billion board feet. The forest plan 
by the U.S. Forest Service was 4.1 billion.
  In 1993 the President came to Portland, OR they and developed a 
forest plan called the President's forest plan. He authorized under 
that in order to handle any kind of objections from the extreme 
preservationist group that we would cut 1 billion board feet. In 1994 
we cut 1.9 billion feet. In 1995 we cut 340,000 board feet. In 1988, we 
had 480 mills operating in the Northwest. Today we have 310. At that 
time we cutting about 10 billion board feet on private and public 
lands. We are down to 1.9 billion board feet.
  We are losing jobs in the Northwest which is drastically affecting 
our ability to function as a community. It is requiring more and more 
people to go onto the welfare programs and it is creating havoc 
economically in the area.
  I do not know if you are able to see this, but here is a typical 
example of Malheur Forest of dead and dying trees that are beetle-
killed. These trees do not contribute anything not only to the forest, 
to the environment, to wildlife or anything else. These are dead and 
dying and they contribute nothing. If we want to have perpetual 
forests, in perpetuity, we need to go in and clean these out and 
replant as under the Forest Practices Act under Public Law 104-19, we 
should go in and harvest this material out of there while it still has 
some value and require under law to replant so we can have forests in 
the future not only for this generation but for generations to come. 
This is not happening. This still stands like this today.

  Here is an example of the Sunrise timber sale in Malheur County where 
a fire went through. As you can see in this fire, the trees are black, 
the ground is brown, and nothing is growing in that area. Yet with the 
President's flip-flopping back and forth, we cannot even go in and 
salvage this program. We are letting this forest die for lack of any 
kind of management whatsoever. Bad management.
  Here is an example of a 30-inch diameter tree. The blue line, if you 
can see this on television and you in the audience, is a Douglas fir; 
the red line is a Ponderosa pine; and the lighter green here is a white 
fir. After we have a fire, this is a logical thing by the U.S. Forest 
Service of how long the wood still has some salvageable interest and 
some monetary return. If we wait under the programs that are presently 
in place, if we wait from 3 to 4 years before we can go in and cut, we 
are going to lose as much as 60 percent, down to 20 percent of the 
value.
  Remember, this is an asset, an asset that we all own. This is public 
land. If we allow this asset to deteriorate, we should absolutely 
criticized for this. Yet we are allowing to do this under this guise 
that if we go in there and touch these dead and dying trees, as I 
showed here previously, dead and dying trees, if we go in and remove 
those, that in some way we are destroying the environment. These are 
assets, moneys that could be used in communities around every area 
where this is involved.
  In most areas, and let us go back specifically to in my particular 
area, the Second Congressional District, 75 percent of all revenue 
gained from dead and dying or salvage or cutting in the trees goes into 
road funding and 25 percent goes into the school funding portion of 
these country revenues.
  Specifically let us look at some of the counties and what has 
happened to our yearly receipts. The black county here is Crook County, 
and the white county here below us is Wheeler County. Crook County is 
larger than about six States in the United States alone because I have 
a very large district. But the population of that county is 15,700.

  The principal industries in that county are livestock, timber and 
some recreation. The total budget to run that county is only $33 
million. The timber receipts in 1991 and 1992 before the strict 
restrictions that came in were $5.1 million. In 1996 and 1997, it had 
dropped their portion of the timber receipts, to $688,000 an 87 percent 
drop in revenue.
  The Federal Government owns 49 percent of that total county. With a 
population of 15,700, remember, this takes in women, children, how are 
they expected to raise enough revenue in order to meet the common needs 
of a county of this size of land mass with the $33 million that they 
have to raise when they have been getting from timber receipts on 
sustainable yields $5 million and that has dropped down to $688,000?
  Their schools and roads are suffering. Their social programs are 
suffering. We have high unemployment, and we have a high problem 
socially with people that are distressed. In this county here, you 
cannot sell a home because there is no job. So a person who is locked 
into this is literally enslaved into these counties. Either that or 
they have got to take their family and walk away from it and hope 
someday that somebody will come along. And if people out here in the 
East want to find a home, a nice home, for under $50,000, come out to 
my part of the country because there are a lot of them available.
  Let us go to a worse situation. Let us go down to Wheeler County. 
Wheeler County is larger than two or three States on the East Coast. 
Its population is 1,550. Its total budget, though, is only $5.9 million 
a year, and its chief principal industries are agriculture, timber and 
a little tourism. Total receipts from 1991 were $1.6 million. This year 
the receipts were $269,000, or an 86 percent drop in revenue.
  This particular county has the highest unemployment rate in the 
Pacific Northwest, and it is running anywhere between 30 and 40 percent 
of everyone living in this county does not have employment.

[[Page H9910]]

                              {time}  1745

  I want my colleagues to all think about what happens in these 
situations. We have allowed outside interests to be concerned with 
local problems to a point where they do not care any more. These 
counties are literally going to go bankrupt or dry up; 1,550 people. 
Who cares? Fifteen thousand five hundred. Who cares?
  This the backbone of America. We here, as legislators in this body, 
do not want to take the responsibility to understand that we cannot 
allow outside interests to determine the productivity and the culture 
of particular areas, and we have done that because we do not have the 
courage.
  These people are good stewards of the land. They want the trees there 
in perpetuity. They are even agreeing not to cut the green trees, but 
allow them to harvest the dead and dying and beetle kill. Remember that 
this has nothing to do with man-made problems. This beetle kill that we 
see here in this dead forest has to do with the lack of managing these 
forests as we had in the past.
  In the past, when we had beetles, we could do some spraying and some 
other preventive efforts to combat that kind of devastation. But 
because of certain laws, which I agree with many of them, we cannot do 
that any more. But at least we should have enough incentive to go in an 
reap some of the profits out of that dead and dying forest so it can be 
used for the counties and provide some revenues, and also be able to go 
back and replant and make sure that we have a healthy forest in our 
future generations.
  I think this principle has been pointed out enough, but I want all 
Americans to understand that this concept could happen to them and 
other industries. I think we need to send a strong message to Congress 
and to the administration and to the agencies that we need to have good 
management, we need to have sound business practices, we need to have a 
good environment. But we need to manage our environment, and we are not 
doing that and it is literally cutting us to pieces.
  We do not have anything in this society that we do not grow or mine. 
Stop to think about it. If we cut this back to where we can no longer 
harvest the sustainable yields, we can no longer harvest the 
sustainable yields, we can no longer harvest a renewable resource in a 
managed way, we are going to devastate our civilization on progress. 
Remember, we do not have anything that we do not grow or mine in a 
modern civilization.
  Mr. Speaker, I think this is a message that should be spoken loud and 
clear and should be understood by everybody. It is just not a timber 
problem, it is a problem with other industries across this country when 
we have special interest groups that have the power and the influence 
to shut down logic, shout down rational behavior, shut down basically 
the growth of civilization through different types of laws and 
political pressure.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield the remainder of my time to my colleague here 
from Maine.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Weldon of Florida). Without objection, 
the gentleman from Maine is recognized for up to 40 minutes.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. LONGLEY. Mr. Speaker, I want to build on my remarks, and again I 
appreciate the gentleman from Oregon yielding this time to me. I 
appreciate that very much.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to build on some earlier remarks I made tonight 
marking the introduction of H.R. 3950, the GI bill of health. As I 
indicated, it is a measure authorizing the Department of Veterans 
Affairs to begin to receive third-party health insurance 
reimbursements, as well as to incorporate concepts of innovative 
managed care principles which could provide for increased medical care 
options for eligible veterans and their dependents.
  I indicated that we have seen up to $1 billion in increases in annual 
veterans affairs medical care funding in the last 2 years. At the same 
time, just in the past 2 weeks we have seen the passage in this Chamber 
of H.R. 3118, the Veterans Health Care Eligibility Reform Act of 1996, 
designed to simplify the very complex eligibility rules of the veterans 
affairs eligibility system; and just within the past day the passage of 
H.R. 3103, the Health Coverage Availability and Affordability Act, 
which is designed to improve access to health insurance for all 
Americans.
  What do these three facts have in common? They have in common the 
fact that we are attempting as a Congress to deal with health care 
issues through existing health care delivery systems, by finding ways 
to deliver medical care in a more efficient, more practical, more cost 
effective fashion.
  I am introducing the GI bill of health to build on these three 
phenomena, to focus on the next step in the progression of our health 
care system, which is to move to a seamless system of access that 
includes veterans of military service, where the first priority will 
become health care and not whether or not one is eligible under any one 
of a number of the very complex VA eligibility rules.
  What is truly dynamic about our proposed GI bill of health is that it 
will expand choices available to veterans, it will integrate Medicare 
and those Veterans who are eligible under Medicare or other health 
insurance coverage reimbursement plans into the existing health care 
system. This will be a tremendous plus for veterans and a strong 
financial shot in the arm to the VA hospital system.
  What this in effect means is that a veteran who is qualified for 
Medicare could, in effect, choose to have that medical care delivered 
at the local VA hospital or at a veterans facility, if that is what he 
or she chooses.
  Having been actively involved in the future of health care for all 
Americans, including veterans, I am excited that this bill is coming to 
the table so that we can continue to address the fundamental question 
of how to best provide quality health care for those who have served 
this Nation in our Armed Services.
  As I mentioned, the plan incorporates enhanced funding concepts, 
including third-party VA reimbursement and Medicare subvention to the 
financial soundness of the Veterans' Administration. The plan assures 
continued access for those currently eligible under the current system 
due to service-connected illness or disability at current or possibly 
even reduced charges.
  The GI Bill of Health will reverse recent restrictions imposed on the 
VA system because of lack of funds. The GI Bill of Health will 
fundamentally change how the VA is reimbursed for the health care it 
provides. The GI Bill of Health will change not only how health care is 
provided and who can receive care but how it is paid for.
  The Bill of Health is a prescription that will reduce pressures on 
the VA health care system, pressure that comes from an aging veterans 
population, a growth in population that is placing increasing demands 
on an already strained system, more pressure which can come from 
Government funding and the difficulties of addressing medical care 
needs through the existing structure when we recognize that funding 
alone will not keep up with the rising health care costs that we are 
experiencing as a society.
  When we look at the VA we need to understand, how can this 
underfunded system meet these challenges? The Bill of Health is 
designed to reduce the system's dependency on tax dollars by opening it 
up to funding from individual health benefit plans. It will allow 
veterans, and this might be controversial, and possibly their families, 
to use the system to stay healthy, a form of preventive medicine.
  Most importantly, what the bill attempts to do is to bring these 
questions to the table, so that when we examine what we are doing with 
the VA system we can consider any conceivable option that will protect 
the integrity of the system for the benefit of veterans, and that might 
include providing access to their families. Again, allowing the VA 
system to benefit from the third-party reimbursements that various 
health insurance coverages, including Medicare, might bring to the 
system.

  We all know that a health care revolution is underway in America. At 
the heart of that revolution is the desire to contain escalating health 
care costs. The GI Bill of Health calls for the VA system to use 
managed care principles to provide medical care for veterans and their 
families. It will allow additional options for veterans to choose the 
VA as their primary health care provider, if that is the choice they 
wish to make.

[[Page H9911]]

  This plan will, in my opinion, reduce the overall cost of health care 
and still maintain the quality of health care. The GI Bill of health 
will assure all veterans, those with service-connected illnesses or 
disability ratings of 50 percent or greater, continued access to the 
same VA services that they are eligible for right now at no charge.
  The GI Bill of Health will assure access to VA health care either at 
no charge or at a reduced charge for several other types of veterans, 
including special category veterans, poor or indigent veterans, or 
veterans with a service-connected disability that might be rated at 
less than 50 percent.
  The GI Bill of Health assures access to the system for all 
catastrophically-ill veterans. The GI Bill of Health will allow 
veterans, military retirees and their dependents to pay for VA services 
with existing health care plans, including plans available to DOD, 
Department of Defense, retirees.
  And individual would be able to use Medicare, Medicaid, CHAMPUS, Tri-
Care, a third-party payer or an employer plan to pay for care at a 
Veterans administration medical facility.
  The GI Bill of Health offers veterans and their dependents the 
opportunity to enroll in various health care plans. It allows the VA 
system to collect and retain payment for the services it renders, a 
provision that it currently is not allowed to do.
  If this were to be facilitated, it would be a big step forward in the 
direction of enhancing the financial soundness of the Veterans' 
Administration system.
  I think we all know there is a better way to handle the medical needs 
of people who serve their country. Americans veterans and their 
families need an improved health care delivery system, one that is more 
in tune with the times, one that can bring them into the 21st century.
  Retirees, who, as we all know, have been suffering the loss of 
medical services through base closing and realignments deserve a system 
that can help address their needs in an improved fashion. The GI Bill 
of Health will meet those needs. It will make a vital health care 
system more accessible to more people and it will take a load off the 
backs of the taxpayers. We could not ask for a better deal that than.
  The VA's hospitals are worth saving. They uphold a health care 
covenant between veterans and the Government and the country that they 
have served. But those VA hospitals do more for the country than most 
people realize. There are aspects of the VA medical care system that 
many Americans do not understand, including the fact that VA hospitals 
are currently teaching and research centers for many major medical 
schools.
  VA hospitals play a significant role in medical research advances. VA 
hospitals back up the military health care system in times of war, and 
VA hospitals provide medical support for the Federal emergency 
management agencies when disasters strike, disasters such as hurricanes 
and floods.
  These hospitals serve a variety of purposes and we do not want to do 
away with them. We must ensure that VA hospitals do what they are 
supposed to do, but we must also consider opening up new funding 
streams that will allow the VA health care system to better serve 
existing veterans.
  There are a series of principles, Mr. Speaker, that were developed by 
the Partnership for Veterans Health Care Reform. This partnership 
includes the American Legion, the American Veterans of World War II, 
Korea and Vietnam, otherwise known as AMVETS, the Blinded Veterans 
Association, the Disabled American Veterans, Jewish War Veterans of the 
USA, Military Order of the Purple Heart of the USA, the Non 
Commissioned Officers of the USA, Paralyzed Veterans of America, 
Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, and Vietnam Veterans of 
America, Inc.
  The partnership is designed to enunciate the key principles that we 
must look to when we evaluate the need for veterans health care reform.
  No. 1, reform eligibility. Provide access to a full continuum of care 
and improve the efficiency of services for all currently eligible 
Veterans.
  Mr. Speaker, we did that in the past week when we passed H.R. 3118 
designed to reform the eligibility system for veterans.

                              {time}  1800

  No. 2, is the need for guaranteed funding, that we provide adequate 
funding for the provision of health care services. As I indicated, I 
think we have made substantial increases in the funding available for 
VA medical care, but yet we are continuing to see, despite the fact 
that we have increased funding by up to a billion dollars a year on top 
of a $16 or $17 billion VA medical care budget, we have increased it by 
a billion dollars here in Washington, I still see nothing but talk of 
cutbacks and layoffs back in my own district. Something is wrong with 
the system, something that I think we need to pay attention to.
  By carefully considering the principles of the GI Bill of Health, we 
may find that we can make the changes that we need to provide the 
stable funding that the VA needs as well as maintain the continuous 
services, including valuable services provided to veterans in my State.
  Mr. Speaker, No. 3, protect the VA's specialized services. VA has a 
number of specialized health programs which include spinal cord injury 
medicine, blind rehabilitation, advanced rehabilitation prosthetics 
amputee programs, posttraumatic stress disorder treatment programs, 
extended mental health and long-term care programs, many of which are 
service unique and veteran unique.
  Again we need to protect those services, and by providing stabilized 
funding and hopefully a reformed system we are going to protect their 
existence in the future.
  No. 4, advance the VA's unique missions. In addition to the 
specialized services that I discussed, we need to preserve the VA role 
as a backup to the Department of Defense in a time of emergency to 
advance the Veteran Administration leadership role in award winning 
research and health professions education, and again I think we are 
taking steps in that direction.
  No. 5, retain alternative funding sources and, No. 6, streamline the 
bureaucracy, are both issues which we are attempting to address in H.R. 
3950, the GI Bill of Health. By allowing local facilities to retain 
third-party reimbursements and Medicare payments, I think we can 
provide for more efficient and more sensitive provision of health care 
to veterans.
  At the same time, by decentralizing the VA's management operations, 
we can improve efficiency and empower local managers and increase their 
responsiveness to veterans health care needs. Deregulating, 
contracting, resource sharing, and personnel management function are 
issues that can be addressed.
  Consider what I said earlier about giving something and expecting 
something in return. As I mentioned, 6 years ago today we saw the 
invasion of Kuwait, and 31 years ago today we saw the Gulf of Tonkin 
Resolution, which sent hundreds of thousands, if not millions of 
Americans to serve their country in Vietnam and over 50,000 to give 
their lives.
  There was a commitment, and in exchange for that commitment there was 
an expectation of care, particularly for the sick, the disabled, those 
who needed the help, those who were injured or wounded in the course of 
serving their country.
  Veterans and their families have sacrificed for the benefit of all 
Americans. Allowing veterans to use a health care system that is 
designed to serve them is the right thing to do. It is a choice that we 
cannot ignore.
  I have a proposition for you, Mr. Speaker. Support this plan. I call 
on other Members to support this plan. Put the issues on the table so 
that we can begin a full and healthy debate and discussion about the 
future direction of our health care system. I urge others to do the 
same. Let us give the VA health care system a clean bill of health: The 
GI Bill of Health.
  The GI Bill of Health is a vision for change. It is a vision for 
progress. It is a vision for excellence in veterans health care. The GI 
Bill of Health, in my opinion, is the right thing to do for those who 
sacrificed for this great Nation, and considering the need for reform 
of the VA system in the context of the other steps that we are making 
to improve access to health care for all Americans, as well as for 
veterans, I think it is the right step to make and it is the least that 
we can do for those

[[Page H9912]]

who have served our country and those who have sacrificed for our great 
Nation.

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