[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 109 (Wednesday, August 5, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H7182]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                NATIONAL GAMING IMPACT STUDY COMMISSION

  (Mr. GIBBONS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, well, here we go again. The counterfeit 
logic of some Washington bureaucrats is once again putting the 
sovereignty of every state in this Nation at risk.
  On January 22 of this year, the Secretary of the Interior 
unilaterally made a regulatory decision that would literally strip 
every state of their most fundamental rights, rights established under 
the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. It seems the Secretary's new 
regulation would give him the sole individual authority to approve 
Indian gaming in any state. Not the voters, not even the governor, nor 
the elected officials of that state would have a decision.
  This unconscionable trampling of the Tenth Amendment is taking 
reserved rights from us, from our states, from our governor, from our 
elected officials and unilaterally vesting them in some Washington 
bureaucrat.
  Fortunately, the nonpartisan National Gaming Impact Study Commission, 
which was created by Congress to study the impacts of gaming, made a 
bold but necessary policy decision telling the Secretary to rein in his 
proposed Indian gaming rules and to reestablish fair and equitable 
relationships between the States and respective Indian tribes.

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