[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 55 (Wednesday, April 21, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H2241]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               VICE-PRESIDENT GORE'S VIEWS ON ENVIRONMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker, today marks the first in a series of 
special orders members of the Conservative Action Team and Western 
Caucus hope to hold on the record of Vice President Al Gore.
  For the past 6\1/2\ years Al Gore has been Bill Clinton's point man 
on the environment and on a number of key issues. He has been 
particularly aggressive in attacking the work of congressional 
Republicans, often portraying the positions of congressional 
Republicans as being very extreme and very anti-people, if you will.
  The members of the Conservative Action Team believe it is important 
for the American people to understand why Al Gore finds our record of 
cutting taxes, balancing the budget, eliminating wasteful government, 
and restoring commonsense environmental policies so contemptible, and 
to do this we think we must look at what Al Gore actually stands for.
  Today we will examine the Vice President's views on the environment. 
This examination is important because, upon being elected, Bill Clinton 
ceded control of his administration's environmental policy to Al Gore. 
In fact, Gore was given the authority to select the EPA Administrator 
and other high-ranking environmental policy positions.
  The timing of this special order also is important because tomorrow 
is Earth Day. Earth Day is a curious event, curious because we will not 
hear as much talk about protecting the environment, which all Americans 
support, as we will about what the Federal Government and Federal 
bureaucrats can do to curtail individuals' rights to use private 
property.
  What makes Earth Day more curious is that the first such celebration 
took place in the 100th anniversary of communist revolutionary Vladimir 
Lenin's birthday.
  One thing we have come to expect is that Al Gore will use Earth Day 
to criticize Republicans for not micromanaging every river, wetland, 
and estuary across America from Washington, D.C.
  Al Gore's extreme views on the environment have not been given the 
attention they deserve, despite the fact that he has written an entire 
book explaining them. That book is entitled ``Earth in the Balance,'' 
and I would encourage all of my colleagues to buy a copy and to read 
it. I think it will be most instructive. Let me just cite a couple of 
things out of the book in the limited time I have:
  ``The 20th century has not been kind to the constant human striving 
for a sense of purpose in life. Two world wars, the Holocaust, the 
invention of nuclear weapons, and now the global environmental crisis 
have led many of us to wonder if survival, much less enlightened, 
joyous and hopeful living, is possible. We retreat into the seductive 
tools and technologies of industrial civilization, but that only 
creates new problems as we become increasingly isolated from one 
another and disconnected from our roots.''
  Does any reasonable person really sit here and wonder if survival is 
even possible? I mean, this is unimaginable. And to compare this threat 
that he sees to the two world wars or to the Holocaust? And yet we live 
in a time of unimagined prosperity and a time when people in many ways 
are more well off than ever. I just think this is an interesting 
observation, to see that someone of this high office actually holds 
this kind of view which is so far out of the mainstream.
  The Vice President made a statement about the future of cars, and 
that is in the book and I will quote within that. Mr. Speaker, I will 
end on this note: Within the context of the Strategic Environment 
Initiative, which I understand to be a proposal the Vice President has 
worked on, it sought to be able to establish a coordinated global 
program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the 
internal combustion engine over, say, a 25-year period.
  Let me just observe, the internal combustion engine has been a great 
blessing to Americans and to people around the world. I have never 
really heard of an adequate replacement for it. And it has certainly 
been the source, in the manufacture of that and related industries, 
that has created hundreds of thousands of jobs. And yet here the Vice 
President is essentially lauding the elimination of the internal 
combustion engine.
  We will conduct further discussions on this in the weeks ahead.

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