[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 108 (Monday, July 28, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1536-E1537]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       ENVIRONMENTAL SLEIGHT OF HAND IN REPUBLICANS' BUDGET DEAL

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                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 28, 1997

  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, once again the Republican 
leadership of the Congress has demonstrated its very strong hostility 
to policies to promote a strong environmental policy for this country.
  I am sure that every Member of this House remembers that when the 
budget agreement was signed by the congressional leadership and 
President Clinton, it included at the President's insistence sufficient 
funding to acquire lands threatened with ruinous development that would 
present severe dangers to California's ancient redwood forest and to 
our first national park, Yellowstone. These development plans could 
result in the cutting of some of the most significant trees in North 
America--one of the very last ancient stands--and in the locating of a 
massive mine just upstream of Yellowstone Park.
  Now, we included in the budget agreement sufficient moneys to acquire 
these lands, and then to provide additional acquisitions from the Land 
and Water Conservation Fund. As you know, some $900 million each year 
comes into that fund from offshore oil and gas development on Federal 
lands, and that money by law is to be used for land acquisition. 
Instead, the Congress has refused to appropriate sufficient funding to 
keep up with the need to protect our national resources, and a $12 
billion surplus has developed in the fund.
  The President thought he had struck a deal with the Republican 
leadership to provide $65 million for the New World Mine lands, and 
another $250 million for the Headwaters redwood grove, and then an 
additional $295 million for other long-awaited acquisitions. That was 
an important part of the budget deal. And, frankly, I would have 
thought that a party whose environmental reputation is as justifiably 
low as the Republican Party's would have honored its commitment and its 
promise.
  But instead, the Republicans have reneged on their agreement and, in 
the midst of the summer when tens of millions of Americans are enjoying 
our parks and other public lands, the Republicans in Congress have 
repudiated their commitment. The House bill provides no funding for 
these high priority park purchases, and the Senate bill is hardly 
better, adding additional, unnecessary bureaucratic steps that everyone 
knows will doom the funding.
  I hope the public understands this Republican sleight of hand that 
clarifies once again that leadership's utter indifference to our 
national parks and other public lands. And I

[[Page E1537]]

would like to enter into the Record an editorial from today's New York 
Times that correctly challenges the Republicans in Congress for their 
failure to keep their promises on environmental protection.

                     Environmental Promises to Keep

       As part of their budget agreement with President Clinton 
     last May, Republican leaders in Congress pledged to provide 
     funds to protect several particularly vulnerable pieces of 
     the American landscape from further degradation. They would 
     give Mr. Clinton enough money to carry forward the largest 
     environmental rescue operation ever undertaken--the 
     restoration of Florida's Everglades. They would also approve 
     generous funds for Federal land acquisition that would allow 
     Mr. Clinton to purchase a potentially ruinous gold mining 
     operation near Yellowstone National Park and to acquire 
     California's Headwaters Redwood Grove from a private lumber 
     company.
       So far, Congress has not lived up to its end of the 
     bargain. This puts a special obligation on senior Republicans 
     like the Senate majority leader, Trent Lott, and Senator Pete 
     Domenici, who helped negotiate the budget deal, to remind 
     their colleagues that their party may suffer if they break 
     good-faith commitments. It also means that the Administration 
     cannot relax its vigil. Indeed, Mr. Clinton might think about 
     threatening to veto any spending bills that do not contain 
     the promised funds--a weapon he used to good effect in the 
     last Congress when Republican conservatives tried to dynamite 
     the country's basic environmental laws.
       The Yellowstone and Headwaters projects are especially at 
     risk. The House has refused to provide a penny of the $700 
     million in extra money promised for land acquisitions, 
     including $65 million for the mine and $250 million for the 
     redwoods. The Senate appropriations committee approved the 
     $700 million but then added a caveat that could doom the 
     Yellowstone and Headwaters purchases. The purchases cannot be 
     consummated, it said, until Congress passes separate 
     legislation specifically authorizing them. That would throw 
     the matter back to the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources 
     Committee, which is full of people eager to deny the 
     President an environmental triumph.
       The truth is that no separate authorizing legislation is 
     required. The Interior Department and the Forest Service, 
     which would carry out the deals, have pre-existing authority 
     to make the acquisitions as long as the money is there. Mr. 
     Lott and Mr. Domenici must see this mischievous and 
     unnecessary language for what it is--an opening for 
     anticonservationist Republicans to torpedo Mr. Clinton--and 
     make sure it is removed when the bill comes to a floor vote.
       The news about the Everglades is much better, at least so 
     far. The appropriations committees in both houses have 
     provided full funding for the Interior Department's 
     Everglades Restoration Fund--a $100 million program aimed 
     primarily at creating buffer zones between the Everglades and 
     two of its greatest threats, the agricultural regions to the 
     north and the exploding urban populations to the east. This 
     is only a small down payment on the Federal share of a 
     restoration effort that may eventually cost $3 billion to $5 
     billion. But it is an important start.
       At the same time, however, both the Senate and House have 
     denied the Administration more than half the $120 million it 
     requested for restoration projects to be undertaken by the 
     Army Corps of Engineers in South Florida. The corps plans a 
     massive replumbing project aimed at replicating the historic 
     flow of clean water from Lake Okeechobee southward to the 
     Everglades and Florida Bay. This is a vital part of the 
     overall scheme and for that reason was specifically promised 
     in the budget agreement. To honor their word, Mr. Lott, Mr. 
     Domenici and their counterparts on the House side. should 
     make sure that these funds are restored.
       The Republicans keep saying that they want to spruce up 
     their environmental credentials. Breaking pledges on matters 
     of transcendent interest to environmentalists is not the way 
     to go about it.

     

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