[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 65 (Friday, May 16, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H2862-H2863]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           ENVIRONMENTAL EXTREMISTS FAVOR BEETLES OVER PEOPLE

  (Mr. SCARBOROUGH asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Chairman, I have had a fairly good environmental 
rating over the past couple of years, but what happened last week shows 
us how far environmentalists will go; actually, not even 
environmentalists, but

[[Page H2863]]

environmental extremists, how far they will go to pursue their agenda.
  We had an opportunity last week to allow people in California to make 
repairs on a levee that had already broken several times and it 
actually killed Americans after the levee broke. Yet, when we had an 
opportunity to allow people to go in and make repairs on that levee, 
the environmentalists went absolutely crazy and said that they would 
not allow anybody to fix the levee that had already killed people 
without waivers.
  They said that there was a beetle inside of shrubbery that was so 
precious that they could not allow these life-saving measures to be 
taken. So the shrubbery caucus decided that the life of beetles and the 
life of shrubbery was obviously more important than the life of human 
beings.
  Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Traficant] says, beam 
me up. That just does not make sense.

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