[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 108 (Monday, July 28, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H5834-H5836]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NEW MEXICO STATEHOOD AND ENABLING ACT AMENDMENTS OF 1997
Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
Senate bill (S. 430) to amend the act of June 20, 1910, to protect the
permanent trust funds of the State of New Mexico from erosion due to
inflation and modify the basis on which distributions are made from
those funds.
The Clerk read as follows:
S. 430
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. PERMANENT TRUST FUNDS OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO.
(a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``New Mexico
Statehood and Enabling Act Amendments of 1997''.
(b) Investment of and Distributions From Permanent Trust
Funds.--The Act of June 20, 1910 (36 Stat. 557, chapter 310),
is amended--
(1) in the proviso in the second paragraph of section 7, by
striking ``the income therefrom only to be used'' and
inserting ``distributions from which shall be made in
accordance with the first paragraph of section 10 and shall
be used'';
(2) in section 9, by striking ``the interest of which only
shall be expended'' and inserting ``distributions from which
shall be made in accordance with the first paragraph of
section 10 and shall be expended''; and
(3) in the first paragraph of section 10, by adding at the
end the following: ``The trust funds, including all interest,
dividends, other income, and appreciation in the market value
of assets of the funds shall be prudently invested on a total
rate of return basis. Distributions from the trust funds
shall be made as provided in Article 12, Section 7 of the
Constitution of the State of New Mexico.''.
(c) Consent of Congress.--Congress consents to the
amendments to the Constitution of the State of New Mexico
proposed by Senate Joint Resolution 2 of the 42nd Legislature
of the State of New Mexico, Second Session, 1996, entitled
``A Joint Resolution proposing amendments to Article 8,
Section 10 and Article 12, Sections 2, 4 and 7 of the
Constitution of New Mexico to protect the State's permanent
funds against inflation by limiting distributions to a
percentage of each fund's market value and by modifying
certain investment restrictions to allow optimal
diversification of investments'', approved by the voters of
the State of New Mexico on November 5, 1996.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from New
Jersey [Mr. Saxton] and the gentleman from American Samoa [Mr.
Faleomavaega] each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Saxton].
Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, S. 430 is identical to H.R. 1051, a bill introduced by
my colleague, the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Skeen]. S. 430 is a
result of very hard work by the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Skeen]
and the entire New Mexico delegation and has no opposition from the
Administration. Furthermore, this bill is very beneficial to citizens
of New Mexico.
[[Page H5835]]
I would also like to commend my other colleague, the gentleman from
New Mexico [Mr. Schiff], who has added his support to the bill. S. 430
would amend the New Mexico Enabling Act of June 20, 1910, in order to
protect the permanent trust funds of the State of New Mexico from
erosion due to inflation by modifying the basis on which distributions
are made from those funds and by loosening the current investment
restrictions. The modifications include changing the payout to a fixed
percentage of the fund, thereby allowing a portion of the interest and
dividend income received to be reinvested. This bill would also loosen
investment restrictions and allow broader investments options and
opportunities.
Mr. Speaker, this bill has already been overwhelmingly endorsed by
the voters of New Mexico, has been passed by the Senate, and I urge my
colleagues to support S. 430.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
(Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, S. 430 is an important housekeeping measure that amends
the act of June 20, 1910, which provided statehood to the territory of
New Mexico. The bill changes the manner in which State permanent funds
are invested and also changes the distribution formula for fund
revenues.
Mr. Speaker, the voters of New Mexico approved these changes to the
New Mexico State Constitution in 1996 in an effort to maximize the
returns of the funds, which are used for education and the care of the
poor and needy in the State of New Mexico. Since the revenues in the
two New Mexico funds are derived from activities that occur on former
Federal lands granted to the State under the Enabling Act of 1910, it
is necessary to obtain the consent of Congress before the State's
constitutional amendments can be implemented.
The Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands held a hearing on
H.R. 1051, the House companion bill to S. 430, on June 17, 1997. The
legislation is supported by the entire New Mexico congressional
delegation. The administration has no objection to the measure, and I
am not aware of any controversy associated with this bill. I support S.
430 and recommend that the House approve this proposed legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Skeen], the author of the House bill,
who has worked untiringly to bring this bill to the floor, and my
gratitude to the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Skeen] for the hard
work that he has pursued on this measure.
Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr.
Saxton] for yielding me the time. Also, I want to thank majority and
minority groups for the rapidity with which they have responded to an
emergency situation insofar as this kind of enabling act is concerned.
I want to express the greatest appreciation to the majority and
minority leadership for their help in expediting the consideration, and
I also want to express my sincere thanks to the leadership of the House
of Representatives committee and their staffs.
Members on both sides of the aisle have gone out of their way to help
New Mexico, and I want to express our greatest appreciation to all of
them for doing this in a timely fashion. I am not going to spend a lot
of time on this because I think the responses from the two gentleman
that are handling the bill today indicates the nature and why it is
here before us.
And once again, I will say it over and over again, this proves that
this body can move rapidly to a situation and with much appreciation
for the rapidity in which they have done this because it was becoming
an emergency kind of situation for New Mexico.
Thanks once again to the entire body and members of the staff and
those folks who support this bill.
Mr. Speaker, I am here today to support passage of S. 430, a bill
amending the New Mexico Statehood and Enabling Act of 1910. The entire
New Mexico delegation supports this legislation as well as Gov. Gary
Johnson and the State legislature.
I do want to express our State's greatest appreciation to the
majority and minority leadership for their help in expediting the
consideration of the legislation. I also want to express my sincere
thanks to the leadership of the House Resources Committee and their
staffs.
Members on both sides of the aisle have gone out of their way to help
New Mexico and I want to express our appreciation.
This legislation is identical to H.R. 1051 which was cosponsored by
Representative Steve Schiff and Representative Bill Redmond. The Parks
and Public Lands Subcommittee of the House Resources Committee held a
hearing on the legislation June 17. There is no opposition to the
legislation and the administration has no objection to the legislation.
S. 430 passed the Senate on May 22, 1997.
Basically the issue behind this legislation involves the manner in
which the State of New Mexico invests its money and how it then
disperses the funds to our public schools, higher education, State
hospitals, the School for the Visually Handicapped, the School for the
Deaf, and others. The Enabling Act has governed the distribution of
State investment funds and related activities since statehood. However
as investment patterns changed it became apparent to New Mexico that
the system no longer was keeping pace with modern investment
strategies. Following an intensive review the issue was placed before
the voters last year as an amendment to the New Mexico Constitution.
The amendment passed by a 2 to 1 margin. All this legislation does is
amend the New Mexico Statehood and Enabling Act so it is in conformity
with this new change in the New Mexico Constitution.
In 1957 Congress amended the Enabling Act to allow State permanent
fund investments in corporate stocks for the first time. However, that
amendment made no provision regarding how distributions were to be made
from investment returns from the stock. So in fact it was ruled that
only dividends from stocks could be distributed which has the effect
that no significant investments were made in stocks. The real impact
meant that investments were in fact basically limited to investments
that were income based.
Mr. Speaker, New Mexico's budget year begins on July 1. Passage of
this legislation now will allow the State to disburse last year's
earnings for the benefit of meeting the educational needs of the
State's children. It is important that the New Mexico permanent fund be
managed in a modern and effective manner. These changes will allow that
to happen and further it will allow the State to preserve the two
permanent funds the State maintains for future generations. In closing
I once again want to thank everyone involved in helping New Mexico gain
passage of this important legislation.
Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I too certainly would like to commend
the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Skeen] as the chief sponsor of this
piece of this legislation. I am sure that on a bipartisan basis we are
able to work very well in getting this piece of legislation through
this Chamber. I thank the gentleman for being here and for the comity
on the work that both subcommittee members have tried earnestly to get
this legislation through.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr.
Pallone].
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I am in support of the bill at hand, but I
really got up because I would like to speak on H.R. 1855, which I know
just passed. I am very pleased over the fact that it did. This is an
important bill, H.R. 1855, that protects an important resource to
fishermen in my district from overutilization and depletion.
I would like to just summarize by saying that H.R. 1855 serves to
prohibit large fishing vessels from engaging in the harvest of Atlantic
herring and Atlantic mackerel within our EEZ waters. Mr. Speaker, these
large vessels should be temporarily restricted from the Atlantic
herring and Atlantic mackerel fishery until accurate information has
been collected. To date, no ship of this size has fished this
vulnerable fishery.
I must inform this Chamber that I am not concerned as to whether NMFS
has declared these stocks to be fully utilized or even underutilized.
These vessels have the potential of making any fishery overutilized in
a short period of time. Large fishing trawlers are highly efficient and
can catch five to six times more than any vessel currently registered
with NMFS on the Atlantic coast. Furthermore, the processing capacity
of large vessels is so great that they can fill quotas. As a result,
these ships will compromise the
[[Page H5836]]
Atlantic herring and the Atlantic mackerel fishing seasons.
As members of our committee are aware, stock quotas are spread over a
number of ships and are not meant to be filled by a small percentage of
ships. My fear is that a large, highly efficient ship could close a
fishery and reduce its stock simply because of the number of fish it
can catch. I am concerned with NMFS's ability to react if
overutilization occurs and this fishery needs to be shut down. If we
allow a ship of this size into a forage fishery and we are mistaken as
to the size of the stock, we will have a problem. And I would prefer
that we err on the side of conservation, not exploitation.
In the past, we have encouraged highly efficient gears to fish
underutilized stocks. I do not want to get into examples. But I have to
say that in the 1980's we encouraged the fishing gears to redirect
efforts toward the shark species. At the time, sharks were considered
to be underutilized. Since then, we have witnessed a drop in various
shark species as a result of this redirected effort.
Mr. Speaker, we should learn from that mistake and be cautious of
redirecting any highly efficient gear. I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that
a vote in favor of H.R. 1855 is a vote for protecting one of our
Nation's largest public resource. We have the opportunity to save the
fish stock not only for those fishermen who depend on this resource
along the Atlantic coast, but for future generations of fishermen as
well. That is why I strongly urge my colleagues to support and pass
H.R. 1855.
I want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Saxton] for all
the work that he has done on this legislation.
I would also like to note that with the depleted state of the North
Atlantic groundfish, and restrictions on other fisheries, certain New
England fishermen have been forced into the mackerel and herring
fishery. It is my belief that this highly efficient gear will most
likely compromise their needs and whatever relief these fishermen have
experienced through herring and mackerel fisheries.
Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers at this
time, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, we have no additional speakers at this time,
and I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Saxton] that the House suspend the rules
and pass the Senate bill, S. 430.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the Senate bill was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
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