[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 111 (Friday, August 7, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1630-E1631]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE, JUSTICE, AND STATE, THE JUDICIARY, AND RELATED 
                   AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1999

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                         HON. MICHAEL P. FORBES

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, August 5, 1998

  The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union 
had under consideration the bill (H.R. 4276) making appropriations for 
the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and 
related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1999, and for 
other purposes.

  Mr. FORBES. Mr. Chairman, I commend Chairman Rogers, Ranking Minority 
Member Mollohan, the entire subcommittee staff, both Republican and 
Democrat, and the rest of my colleagues on the Appropriations 
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State and the Judiciary for crafting 
an equitable bill that addresses many of the problems facing coastal 
areas like Long Island.
  Brown Tide is a micro-algae bloom that was first reported in the bays 
of Long Island in June of 1985, devastating Long Island's million 
dollar scallop industry and reducing a harvest of 278,532 pounds in 
1984 to just 250 pounds by 1988. Virtually every coastal state has 
reported some type of harmful algal bloom. In this bill we have given 
$19 million dollars to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration's (NOAA) Coastal Ocean Program (COP), $1.2 million above 
the President's request and $1.8 million above Fiscal Year 1998.
  NOAA's Coastal Ocean Program, is collaboration with the New York Sea 
Grant Program operating out of Stony Brook University, has implemented 
efforts to improve management strategies for effectively reducing 
harmful algae blooms like Brown Tide. These efforts are a crucial first 
step towards developing a comprehensive, multi-agency, national 
capability for understanding and controlling algae blooms in our 
national coastal waters.
  I am particularly pleased that the Committee directed NOAA to give 
maximum priority to continuing the focus they have given over the last 
three years to the Brown Tide problem in the Peconic, Moriches and 
adjacent Long Island bays and inland waterways--a program that has come 
to be known as the ``Brown Tide Research Initiative'' (BTRI). NOAA's 
focus on the Brown Tide problem has resulted in $1.5 million over the 
last three years being devoted to the BTRI and I will work closely with 
NOAA to see that this funding priority continues to be addressed in 
this manner, as the committee has directed in this legislation.
  Also included in this legislation is an additional $450,000 to 
conduct a study utilizing the expertise of Long Island's university 
research programs, like those already in place at the State University 
of New York at Stonybrook, to initiate separate research on the impact 
environmental problems like Brown Tide have on the development of hard 
clam species in the South Shore Estuary Reserve on Long Island. I am 
pleased that the Committee has increased the ``Resource Information'' 
account in the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) budget to allow 
NMFS to provide support for work on the South Shore Estuary Reserve 
(SSER).
  The hard clam has been an economic and ecological cornerstone of the 
South Shore Estuary area, but harvests have dropped precipitously since 
the 1970's. While it has long been recognized that this decline may be 
attributable to a number of factors, some evidence suggests that the 
situation may be further changing. A key acquaculture company in New 
York, Bluepoints, just announced that it will be discontinuing its hard 
clam production due to a great decrease in growth rates. Other reports 
indicate that natural clam recruitment (settlement, growth, and 
survival) is at an unprecedented low level.
  Clam-related studies funded by New York Sea Grant Program in the 
early 1980's gave the industry and managers much-needed knowledge, but 
conditions are evolving and a critical reexamination and new 
investigations are essential at this time. The SSER Technical Advisory 
Committee has identified the study, ``Hard Clam Population Dynamics,'' 
as its highest priority. I thank the Committee for providing these 
funds needed to preserve an important estuary and an industry on Long 
Island.
  Billions of dollars in economic growth, thousands of jobs and 
countless recreational opportunities are being wasted as a result of 
over-fishing our commercial and recreational fisheries. I support the 
priorities set within the nearly $3.4 million of funding the Committee 
has provided for NMFS. The Committee has increased the ``Resource 
Information'' account in the NMFS budget $200,000 over last year's 
level, providing funds for Southampton College of Long Island 
University to establish a Cooperative Education Marine Research (CEMR) 
program with NMFS. I will work closely with Southampton College and 
NMFS to ensure an education and research program is developed at 
Southampton College that will address problems with the bluefish and 
striped bass fisheries off Long Island.
  Also, I fully support the Committee's decision to examine the problem 
of unavailable and sometimes incomplete scientific information that 
make management decisions difficult, to say the least. It is unfair to 
ask those who fish for lobster and scallops to spend thousands of 
dollars on new equipment to reduce fish by-catch and whale 
entanglements without clear evidence that these efforts will be 
effective, and we have begun to address this problem by funding new 
scientific, comprehensive studies of changes in fish stocks, 
particularly to determine whether stocks have declined or merely moved 
offshore--an issue of extreme importance also to the Bluefin Tuna 
fishermen of Long Island.
  There are still some serious issues that need to be addressed, such 
as the National Marine Fisheries Service's often controversial, and I 
would say faulty, quota allocations among elements of our fishing 
industries. Long Island's Bluefin Tuna fishery has closed prematurely 
during the past three years, creating severe economic hardship for many 
Long Island fishermen, due to these faulty quotas. Also included is a 
provision to address the National Marine Fisheries Service's (NMFS) 
repeated closures of the Altantic Bluefin Tuna Fishery and its impact 
on Long Island's fishing industry.
  Relying on those inaccurate figures, NMFS has tried to maintain its 
quotas in each of the past three years by closing the fishery just as 
the Bluefin Tuna moves into New York's ocean waters in late summer. 
NMFS's management of the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna has been an 
embarrassment and their repeated closures of this fishery have wreaked 
havoc with Long Island's multi-million dollar recreational and 
commercial fishing industries. In this bill the Secretary of Commerce 
is directed to report to the Committee on the Department's efforts to 
fully resolve this problem caused by NMFS's reliance on faulty 
reporting practices that produce inaccurate estimates on the number of 
Bluefin Tuna caught.

  Managing our coastal resources must go beyond managing fish stocks. 
We must also focus on habitat restoration and clean-up. Since 1985, 
Long Island Sound has been recognized as an ecologically diverse and 
threatened estuary by Congress. It was one of the first estuaries 
included in the National Estuary Program. The federal government has 
spent about $1.725 billion on environmental clean-up and assessment of 
pollution in Long Island Sound. We have provided $63.5 million in this 
bill for NOAA's Coastal Zone Management program to preserve, protect 
and, where possible, restore and enhance our coastal resources, like 
Long Island Sound.
  Yet despite these tremendous efforts, the U.S. Navy was allowed to 
dump over 1 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment into Long 
Island Sound. I have crafted the ``Long Island Sound Preservation Act'' 
(H.R. 55), to put an end to this practice that compromises the billions 
of dollars spent on environmental restoration of Long Island Sound. It 
runs counter to public opinion that we should protect and conserve our 
oceans, coasts and beaches and counter to the intent of Congress to 
develop and implement comprehensive environmental protections.
  Finally, it is unfortunate that I must mention my concerns about 
whether the terms of the U.S.-Japan Insurance Agreement of 1994 and 
1996 are being violated by one Japanese company involved in selling 
insurance products in Japan's third sector insurance market. In a 
recent meeting, the US Trade Representative committed to several 
Members of Congress that she would hold an open, fair and complete 
interagency review of this matter. I understand that government 
officials outside of

[[Page E1631]]

the USTR are calling for a full 30-day investigation of facts raised in 
that meeting. I urge the USTR to heed the advice of other agency 
officials calling for a full investigation.
  As Appropriators and as Representatives in the people's House, we 
face enormous pressure to cut the federal budget. Republicans and 
Democrats have to give a little to get our deficit under control and 
balance our budget. This bill does not fulfill all of Long Island's 
coastal and environmental needs, but it is a good bill and I hope that 
as we go to Conference my colleagues will keep these priorities in 
mind.

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