Congressional Record, Volume 145 Issue 55 (Wednesday, April 21, 1999)

[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 55 (Wednesday, April 21, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H2253-H2260]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

DEMOCRATS CELEBRATE EARTH DAY

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ney). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone)
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, this year the Democrats are celebrating
Earth Day, which is tomorrow, by continuing our efforts to leave a real
environmental legacy for this year and future years, for this
generation and for the next generation. And we are proving that
environmental protection and economic competitiveness are not mutually
exclusive. In fact, they will be

[[Page H2254]]

even more compatible as technology continues to advance and as we head
into the next millennium under a Democratic administration.
On the other hand, my colleagues on the other side, the Republicans,
and particularly the Republican leadership, will once again try to look
green for a day on Earth Day. They will tout their one or two token
environmental bills.
I already heard the gentleman from the Committee on Rules, I believe,
report one of those bills which is ready for tomorrow. They are going
to tout these one or two token environmental bills that actually are
far weaker than Democratic alternatives.
Let us really compare our agendas. Already this year the Republicans
have defeated the defense of the environment amendment, designed to
hold Republicans accountable for back-door attempts to roll back 25
years of environmental protection. The Republican budget also would
drastically cut environmental funding by $5.3 billion over the next 5
years. And the American people can do the math, they can see through
the Republican Party's empty Earth Day gestures.
For Earth Day last year, the Republicans held a rally, and Newt
Gingrich, the then Speaker, visited a zoo. However, the Republican
majority spent the rest of the year gutting environmental programs in
the budget and loading up appropriation bills with anti-environmental
riders. These riders attempted to construct roads through national
parks and forests, delay the release of important environmental
standards, allow the dumping of PCBs into other nations' rivers, and
increase haze in our national parks.
In fact, last year was a record year, with over 40 anti-environmental
riders. In 1995 the Republicans' inability to give up on these kind of
riders resulted in a government shutdown. And during the 104th
Congress, the Republicans introduced the dirty water bill, which would
have significantly lowered treatment standards for nearly 7,000 toxic
pollutants, allowed more sewage to be dumped in the ocean, and exposed
much of our remaining wetlands to pollution or development. They also
proposed changes to Superfund that would have let major Fortune 500
companies off the hook for hazardous waste pollution they caused. So do
not let them fool my colleagues, not even for a day.
Meanwhile, the Democrats and the Clinton-Gore administration have
been working hard to strengthen health, safety, and environmental
protection across the Nation, and will continue to do so into the next
century.
Together, the Democrats in Congress and the administration have
worked to preserve precious land, fight water pollution, improve air
quality, and protect communities and children. President Clinton and
Vice President Gore have completed twice as many Superfund cleanups in
the last 5 years as in the previous 12 years of Republican
administration, and the Clinton-Gore administration established tough
new clean air standards to protect our Nation's children from asthma
and other illnesses.
This year the Clinton-Gore administration's Lands Legacy Initiative
will protect, enhance, and expand our national parks, forests, and
wildlife refuges. The initiative will also set aside $150 million for
urban parks.
Now, while the Republicans were busy gutting the environment, the
Democrats also enacted legislation to protect children's health, fully
funded right-to-know and water monitoring initiatives, and issued a
directive extending the moratorium on offshore oil drilling. Vice
President Gore, I should add, spearheaded a nationwide Smart Growth
Initiative to build livable American communities as a foundation for
continued economic competitiveness in the 21st century.
Mr. Speaker, speaking on the subject of economic competitiveness, as
I said at the outset, Democrats have continually proven that we can
protect the environment without harming the economy. In fact, many
environmental improvement efforts actually create jobs. Jobs and the
environment, job creation and environmental protection go together, and
we have proved that as Democrats.
Brownfields development, for example, conserves resources by turning
abandoned waste sites into productive industrial property, instead of
using pristine land and encouraging urban sprawl. This creates jobs in
the construction industry. But the Republicans have repeatedly held
funding for Brownfields cleanups and they hold it hostage to their sham
of an environmental agenda. They refuse to do it.
Let me talk about energy efficiency and renewable energy programs
promoted by the administration that save energy and money and
simultaneously improve environmental protection. Development of newer,
more efficient and renewable technologies also creates jobs, and such
efforts also enhance our competitiveness both domestically and
internationally.
The administration's Smart Growth Initiative I mentioned serves as
another example of providing tools to protect the environment and
preserving economic competitiveness and, yes, creating new jobs. An
example of the administration's success in preserving the environment
and protecting our economic security can best be found in my own
backyard in New Jersey, in my district. Let me give my colleague this
example.
The Port of New York and New Jersey generates $4.6 billion in annual
revenue for the New Jersey and New York region and supports over
160,000 jobs. Maintaining the port's depth, the depth, if you will, for
the ships to come in, is critical to the region's economy. But the Port
of New York and New Jersey requests for dredging permits were
continually delayed over objections of the disposal of dredge
materials.
Let me explain that the traditional practice, and this was off the
coast of my district, was to dispose of contaminated dredge spoils at
an ocean dump site about 6 miles off the coast of my district, 6 miles
really off the coast of where I live in my town, literally in our
backyard. We felt that this practice was unacceptable not only to our
area but for the environment in general, because of the impact on the
ocean of that contaminated dredge material.
Well, the result, though, was that because the Port could not be
dredged because the material could not be disposed of because of the
objections to the contaminants in the disposed dredge materials, that
dredging was not taking place, and there was a potential impact on the
Port of New York and New Jersey in terms of jobs if shipping moved out
or commercial cargo could not come in.
Well, there was a struggle. The industry and the labor people
struggled for many years because of these delays. Both sides threatened
litigation. But all of a sudden Vice President Gore came along and he
brought everyone to the table. He brought the environmentalists who did
not want the toxic dredge spoils dumped in the ocean. He brought the
industrial representatives who wanted to be able to ship their goods in
and out of the New York/New Jersey Harbor. And he brought the labor
representatives who were concerned about the jobs.

{time} 1630

He brought them all to the table, and he was critical. He was
critical in brokering an agreement to close the mud dump site, the
toxic waste site in the ocean, and simultaneously allow critical
dredging projects at the port to move forward. So now we have major
funding to do the dredging, we have closed the ocean dumping site so
that the environment is no longer threatened, and we are developing
beneficial reuse alternatives for the dredged material which allows the
material to be used for other purposes, perhaps on land, and doing all
this essentially promotes the port's viability, allows the commercial
shipping to increase, allows the environment to be protected and allows
even more jobs to be created in the port.
I use that as an example because I want to stress on the eve of Earth
Day the leadership that the President and Vice President Gore have
taken not only on environmental issues but in an effort to try to deal
with environmental concerns in a way that also protects jobs and leads
us toward a new technology and a new future where the environment and
industry and jobs all basically work together for growth and for a good
environment.
There are a lot of other examples I could use like that to show how
the environment and jobs and the economy can work together.

[[Page H2255]]

The reason I mentioned it in part is because I think it is wrong for
the Republican leadership on the other side of the aisle to make these
sort of stealth attacks on the environment that they have been making
for the last few years since they have been in the majority here in the
House as well as in the Senate, and I think that they do not understand
that by trying to break down the last 25 years or 26 years of
environmental protection that has been a hallmark of the Democratic
years in Congress since the first Earth Day, that by making these
stealth attacks and trying to break down the legislation, the laws that
protect the environment, that they are very much out of touch with the
American people and what the American people want.
Mr. Speaker, the American people understand that you can have a good
environment and good jobs, and they want us here in this Congress,
together with Vice President Gore and President Clinton, to promote
that agenda.
So I just want to say one last thing, and then I would like to yield
to one of my colleagues.
On this Earth Day I am proposing a challenge to the Republicans.
First, I challenge them not to do anything on the environment; in other
words, try to do something progressive. I also challenge them not to
gut the environment by sneaking harmful riders into the appropriations
bills. That appropriations process is about to begin, Mr. Speaker. I
challenge them not to sneak the harmful riders into the appropriations
bills this year. I also challenge my colleagues on the other side not
to cater to corporate interests and not to slash funds for important
environmental health and safety programs. Rather than just making a
little show tomorrow on Earth Day with one or two bills that are not
very meaningful, I would challenge the Republicans to join us in
creating a real environmental legacy for our children by passing the
administration's livable communities and lands legacy initiatives on a
broadly bipartisan basis.
And let us say that on the eve of Earth Day 1999, let us once again
talk about truth. The truth is the health of our environment is in
jeopardy at the hands of the Republican majority in this Congress, and
the truth is that Democrats and President Clinton and Vice President
Gore are the true protectors of the environment.
Mr. Speaker, with that I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr.
Dicks), who is here with some others to join me this evening.
Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment my colleague, the
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), for his outstanding leadership
and his record as a Member of this Congress in support of the
environment.
All of us are saddened today of course by the events yesterday out
near Denver, Colorado. Our sympathies go out to the families and to the
schoolchildren who suffered through that terrible crisis yesterday, and
none of us here today, and I think all of us are saddened by that, and
we are not about to get into a partisan fight, but I think it is
obvious to me that on the day before Earth Day we should take the floor
to talk about the record of the Democratic Party in the Congress, the
record of the Vice President and the President.
I am proud to be a Democrat because of our consistent record over the
years in support of environmental legislation. I can remember when I
was a staffer working in the other body when the Clean Water Act was
passed, the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act was enacted, and
it is interesting. As my colleagues know, there were some Presidents in
the past like Richard Nixon who signed some of these important
legislative vehicles into law, and there was broad bipartisan support
in the 1970s here in this Congress for improving the environment.
So I hope that today we will remember that this is the 29th
celebration of Earth Day. The first one was April 22, 1970, and it is
appropriate to call attention here in the House of Representatives to
the progress that has been made in those past three decades, and
certainly to the progress we have made during the 1990's to the
initiative of the Clinton- Gore administration, and that is why a lot
of us were concerned when we saw in the Roll Call this week that the
majority leader of the majority party had decided that he was going to
form a truth squad to talk about the Vice President's record on the
environment.
Mr. Speaker, if it is a truth squad, it is going to be a very
positive report then, because I do not think there has been a public
official in my career that has done more during their term of office to
work on environmental issues than Vice President Gore .
Now under this administration we have made great progress in
protecting the environment, toughening enforcement of clean air and
clean water laws, improving the safety of our drinking water and the
food we eat, and, as my colleagues know, a couple years ago we had a
terrible disaster in the State of Washington related to E. coli, and,
as my colleagues know, I came back here, I talked to Secretary
Glickman. We wanted to make certain that we got tougher standards for
our meat packing plants in order to protect our kids from E. coli.
Frankly, I was shocked in the Committee on Appropriations when one of
my colleagues got up to offer a limitation to stop those regulations
from going into effect, and it was enacted at the Committee on
Appropriations level and then later was dropped. And I was glad that it
was dropped here on the floor of the House because it would not have
strengthened these safety regulations, it would have in fact weakened
them. And so we were glad that that was prevented.
Also, this administration, and I can talk to my colleagues about
this, has been active in restoring and preserving roadless and
wilderness areas across the Nation, and we have done all this while the
Federal budget has been brought into balance and largely while the
majority party here in the Congress has fought against our
environmental protection efforts.

So I think the Vice President, certainly Vice President Gore, must be
given a large share of the credit for this administration's successes.
I know from my State of Washington how involved and constructive the
Vice President has been in helping us address some of our toughest
environmental challenges in the last 6 years. He was there with
President Clinton at the Forest Summit in early 1993, one of the first
acts of the Clinton-Gore administration, helping to balance the need to
protect habitat for endangered species and the need to sustain a way of
life in the timber communities in our State. The Vice President's
leadership was critically important at that time in assembling the
Northwest Forest Plan which has been a great success. He was there for
us when we needed help in approving several habitat conservation plans
in Washington State which have become blueprints for balancing the
requirements of protecting critical habitat and providing certainty for
people and businesses who make their living off the land, and he is
still there today helping Washington and three other West Coast States
address the new challenge of the salmon listings.
I asked the Vice President and the President if they would not add
$100 million in the budget for a west coast salmon recovery initiative,
and that money was added, and we are very much appreciative of it. I
also asked the Vice President if he could help us with a conservation
reserve enhancement program between the Department of Agriculture and
the State of Washington, and he intervened to help make sure that that
happened, sent Secretary Glickman again out to our State to work with
us on these important issues.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from California (Mr.
George Miller).
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the
gentleman for yielding, and I want to build just for a minute on the
remarks that he said.
I do not know where this attack or the truth squad comes with respect
to the Vice President, but clearly his record is unparalleled not only
in getting our country to address and be aware of problems concerning
the environment, but as a troubleshooter and as a problem solver.
We all remember the Forest Summit. Prior to that in the previous
administration all we had was a train wreck where nothing was being
done, more and more people were losing their job, it looked like more
and more endangered species were going to be threatened, and nothing
was being done. And

[[Page H2256]]

as a result of the Vice President and President Clinton's work and your
work and others, we have started to work our way out of that problem.
We have started to put new jobs back into the forest, we are starting
to reconstruct some of the damage that has been done in the past, we
have worked out habitat conservation areas. But that is true in the
Everglades under the leadership of the Vice President. That is true on
the Conference on the Oceans. That is true in Lake Tahoe. These huge
natural assets, wonderful ecological environmental assets that are the
jewels in this Nation, the forests of the Pacific Northwest, the
Tongass, the rain forest in Alaska, the Everglades, the southern Utah
wilderness areas, Lake Tahoe I have already mentioned, Monterey Bay
Sanctuary; these are areas where we had nothing but controversy before,
nothing but controversy and arguments and at the same time having the
ecosystems deteriorate and go downhill.
This administration, under the leadership of the Vice President,
stepped in and started to get communities to work together so we see in
the most recent and dramatic listing of the salmon, we see the City of
Seattle, we see the Governor of Washington, the Governor of Oregon, the
Mayor of Portland, people talking about making this an event that they
can work with, that they can help bring economic activity to the area
and save the environment at the same time.
That has been the thinking of this Vice President, that the
environment could be a win-win. He has also told America about the
markets that are available in trade on environmental equipment to help
clean up the environment in other countries. He has pushed to open
those markets, billions of dollars in business that is available for
companies in the United States.
So I think that, as the gentleman points out, and I will have more to
say about those who would attack them and what their record would be on
the environment, but my colleague makes an incredibly important point,
that he has been a troubleshooter and he has brought communities
together, he has given people a seat at the table where they never had
one before, and as a result of that in a number of these instances we
are working out a consensus, we are working out a consensus on
California water, a consensus on the Everglades, a consensus on the
marine resources in this Nation because people have been given a stake
in the outcomes of those arrangements.
So I think you have raised a very, very important point about his
role and his effectiveness over the last several years.
Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the gentleman for his
statement, and I always appreciate working with the gentleman from
California (Mr. George Miller), who probably, as our ranking member on
the Committee on Natural Resources, has probably been the strongest
advocate for protecting the environment that there is in the Congress.
And his point about the northwest timber situation was so absolutely on
point. We were enjoying, there were zero sales coming off the Federal
timber lands.
Now, as my colleagues know, there are some people in my district who
were not thrilled about the levels that we got to, but at least we got
something going, and at the same time the Vice President worked to get
1.2 billion over 5 years to help all these communities in northern
California, in Oregon, in Washington State that had been affected by
this and helped them diversify their economies, helped them get into
other new businesses.
So it was not just leaving these people out there. They resolved the
problem and then helped the communities deal with the transitional
period.
Mr. Speaker, that is why I think that instead of attacking the Vice
President, we should be praising the Vice President for that kind of a
problem-solving, constructive, sensible approach to dealing with
environmental issues.

{time} 1645

I have known this man. He was in my class. We came to Congress
together. He deeply cares about these issues, and I will say this,
there is nobody who is more informed. He does his homework. He looks
into these matters in great detail, whether it is national security
issues, environmental issues or economic issues.
The other point my colleague makes that is so important here is that
the economy today in the United States is as good as it gets. As the
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) said, here we are, we have
decided as a country we are going to protect the environment, that
Earth Day means something to us, and we still have the lowest
unemployment, the lowest inflation.
The Vice President has been in charge of doing a lot of work on
reinventing government to try to deal with regulations that are
unnecessary and to help in those respects.
I do not think the House floor should be used to go out and attack
people, especially when we have an agenda. We have to get down and get
busy now and start dealing with Medicare. We have to get busy on
education. We have to get busy on Social Security. We have to start
passing the appropriations bills.
So for the majority to say they are going to waste the time, I think,
of the House getting into a partisan attack, it just does not make any
sense. We should be spending that time trying to work together in a
bipartisan way to deal with these issues.
One of those issues, by the way, is the environment. I will say this,
one thing that I am pleased about is that there is a sensible group of
people on the other side of the aisle who have joined with the
Democrats, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), the gentleman
from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest) and people of that nature who have joined
with us on the important environmental issues and, frankly, I think we
have a majority, a significant majority in this House in favor of
protecting the environment.
So I think we should make this an issue that is bipartisan, that we
work together on, not trying to go out and scapegoat, take partisan
advantage. There is plenty of time for politics when we get to the year
2000. I think we have to do the people's business now, work on
legislation, develop a record, and we can all go home and run again in
2000 on the basis of getting something done rather than playing
political games.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentleman from Washington
(Mr. Dicks) for his remarks. Just briefly, if I could support some of
the things the gentleman said.
I was listening to what the gentleman said about the Republicans, and
it is true there are some Republicans on the other side, and
historically we have had Richard Nixon supporting most of the
environmental legislation in the seventies, signing the law; Teddy
Roosevelt with the conservation movement. I just do not understand why
the Republican leadership now and for the last 4 or 5 years has taken
this track of basically trying to tear down every major environmental
legislation; and now, as the gentleman has said, based on this article
in Roll Call, literally discussing coming to the floor to attack the
Vice President rather than to do something constructive.
I just wanted to say, I was listening to what the gentleman from
California (Mr. George Miller) said about the Vice President bringing
people together, developing a consensus, giving people a seat at the
table. It was amazing, when we had this whole battle over the Port
Authority, how true that was. Until he came in, everybody was at odds;
everybody was fighting. Nobody wanted to do anything. Nobody even
wanted to sit down. We could not even get people to sit down at a table
and talk, but when he showed up and then took the initiative from
there, all of a sudden people were willing to listen, and they ended up
standing on a stage together signing an agreement that I never thought
was possible. He managed to achieve that.
I just wanted to say one more thing in that regard. The gentleman
from Washington (Mr. Dicks) pointed out how there are important issues
here legislatively that can be dealt with in this same way. I will just
use the example of the Clean Water Act. For the last 5 years now, every
effort that we have made to try to reauthorize the Clean Water Act has
failed because the Republicans do not want to do it. The Republican
leadership refuses to bring it up.
Interestingly enough, I went to a New Jersey building trades meeting

[[Page H2257]]

earlier this week, and the number one issue that the building trades
were concerned about was the Clean Water Act. They said we need the
jobs that are created, because if we do not have the money and higher
authorization levels for infrastructure needs, to build new sewage
plants or other ways to deal with clean water that creates all kinds of
jobs that we would like to have, those needs are unmet.
There again is an example of how we can do something to protect the
environment, clean up the water, and at the same time create jobs. They
recognize it themselves. Labor recognizes it themselves. So this notion
that somehow jobs and the environment and economic growth do not go
together is false.
The kinds of things that Al Gore has done to point out how we can
bring people together to achieve those goals together is a perfect
example of why it can be done if we just have a positive attitude.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Pallone) for yielding and very much appreciate being able
to join two of the gentlemen from the West who know firsthand the
importance of preserving the environment. Since I join them out West in
Texas, a State that appreciates open space, I too come to the floor to
share the shining examples that have benefited Texas but as well the
Nation.
If I might join my colleague, the gentleman from Washington (Mr.
Dicks), in saying how sad I am that we have to even have this kind of
debate in the shadow of the tragedy that has befallen our friends in
Colorado, and to their families and to the young people that have been
injured and those who have lost their lives. I clearly think that we
will have a time in the future to collaborate on saving lives of young
people, ending the violence.
Tragically, the day before Earth Day we are here because we hear
rumors that some will come to the floor, my friends on the other side
of the aisle, and begin throwing dirt one day before Earth Day about
who is better for the environment or who is not, or whose position is
contrary to that which promotes economic development, promotes economic
stability, and I am saddened that we would do that.
This is a day, of course, that I want to offer all of my sympathies
to those families.
I think it is important that we speak more positively, and in
speaking more positively, I think it is important to note the facts. In
particular, let me note the Vice President's assistance and support for
some of the activities that we think are important in Texas. I am
reminded of the hard work of former land Commissioner Gary Mauro, who
worked for some 12 years in the State of Texas to promote cleaning up
beaches and keeping those areas attractive for all of Texas and all of
America to enjoy.

It was the Clinton administration, the Clinton-Gore administration,
that was most helpful in those efforts to recognize that our beaches,
our waterfront areas, are national treasures; and therefore led the
fight, along with former Commissioner Gary Mauro, to excite the people
of Texas to clean up their beaches and to have the resources to do so.
I remember very much joining with members of this caucus and Members
of this House to fight against eliminating the Environmental Protection
Agency, which is something that had been sought by those who did not
see the value. Vice President Gore was out front in preserving the
Environmental Protection Agency.
How many of us remember growing up with brown water, or knowing what
can happen when one turns on their faucet and the water is not clean?
So I am very grateful that Texas has been the beneficiary of some of
the valuable efforts by the administration to clean up water, such as
with new sewage resources. The City of Houston is in the process of a
major overhaul of its sewage wastewater system, something that is
extremely important, a local issue that impacts our day-to-day lives.
Particularly I think the Vice President has been a leader on tough
limits on smog and soot, accelerating toxic waste cleanups, expanding
the public's right to know about toxins released to air, water and
land. Talk to those who suffer from asthma and other respiratory
ailments and they will say who has been soft on the environment. They
will say how they are pushing for us to do more about the Clean Air
Act, how they are pushing to ensure that they do not have to walk
around every day, whether it is in Houston, Texas, or Washington, D.C.,
with the air inhaler because of the difficulties in breathing.
So I think it is important to really take this day and highlight the
needs of this Nation and really call a spade a spade, or to call the
facts. Let us call the roll on what the Vice President has been able to
do.
I will tell a personal story. Houston is known for its enormous
geography, its wide spaces, enormous freeways and round-abouts and
everybody in their cars, and that creates just a terrific traffic jam;
the frustration of the early morning traveler, the late evening
traveler; and also its desire, although we have still a long ways to go
to preserve green space, to sort of encourage people to get into green
spaces so that hopefully the air will be clean enough for them to be
outdoors.
We are a very warm city but we are encouraging that, and in doing so
we have a commitment to more hike and bike trails because we want
people to get out in nature in the cities. We want the inner city to be
warmly receptive to families and children. So it was the Vice
President's leadership, along with the President's leadership, that
helped this transportation bill not only to be a bill of rebuilding
hard infrastructure but also to focus on hike and bike trails.
I am very proud that we were able to secure some of those resources
so that inner city residents in Houston, Texas, and particularly in my
district, will have hike and bike trails constructed as we speak, to
give them the opportunity to experience the beauty of nature, along
with our clean air, to walk the trails, to see the trees, to enjoy the
birds. That is all at the leadership of the Vice President.
So I think it is extremely important that we do more, and I join the
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) in welcoming the efforts of the
Livable Communities Task Force. I am a member of it. The legislation
that they offered today, what a perfect example to show our
constituents that we can work together on things that pain them:
suburban sprawl, the difficulty of living in an urban area, everyone in
their cars, the lack of public transportation.
I hope we can get that legislation moving. I certainly am supporting
it, certainly will be encouraging the City of Houston to join in. I
would simply say that it is of great desire that we do something
positive and not do something negative as it relates to the
environment. That is why I am here today, to say let us move the engine
of change for promoting the environment and not listen to rumors about
who has been doing the best and who has not. The Vice President has
been at the forefront of these very important issues.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman
yield?
Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentleman from California.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman
from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) for her remarks. She raises a number of
very important points. We have talked about what the Vice President has
done in the past, but also the fact that the Vice President has vision
in talking about the future and clearly talking about issues in terms
of livable communities that all of our constituencies struggle with on
a daily basis.
I represent a district on the east side of San Francisco Bay where
people find themselves locked in on the Interstate 80, which runs
through my district, at 15 miles an hour on a good morning. People have
to get up at 4:00 in the morning to commute long distances to their
work.
The Vice President has asked that we start to address these issues
and start to use his influence to get people to address these issues so
that people can have a more livable community. That shows the kind of
vision he has.
I think also when we read in the newspaper that there is going to be
an attack by the leadership, the Republican leadership, on the Vice
President, maybe it is a compliment. Maybe we

[[Page H2258]]

know a man by his enemies, because if we look at the Republican
leadership it is rather shocking.
Senator Lott has a zero rating with the League of Conservation
Voters. Senator Nickles has a zero rating with the League of
Conservation Voters. Our Speaker, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr.
Hastert) has 17 percent; the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), the
Majority Leader Armey, 17 percent; the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay)
has 10 percent; Senator Murkowski, Chairman Young, 3 percent.
Maybe we know the Vice President's effectiveness. Maybe we know his
vision and maybe we know his record by those who would seek now to
attack him and somehow try to diminish his stature in the environmental
movement, not only in this country but around the world.
We have to understand that just in the last session, when we had the
McGovern amendment to restore State park funding, 78 percent of the
Republicans voted against it. The Waxman global climate change
amendment, 88 percent of the Republicans voted no. The amendment I
offered to stop subsidized road construction in the Tongass National
Forest, 93 percent of the Republicans voted no.
We used to have a coalition here, Conservation in the United States.
It was a bipartisan coalition. Many people go back and properly give
Teddy Roosevelt credit for starting that. It is interesting that
Business Week, hardly a voice of environmental activism, laments that
the Republican Party tradition under Teddy Roosevelt of protecting land
is being trashed, and it is shameful. It is the leaders of that effort
who are now somehow going to attack the environmental credentials of
the Vice President or say that he is wrong-headed.

{time} 1700

The fact is, through his efforts both in the House and in the Senate,
and as the Vice President of the United States, he has led the efforts
to clean up our air, to clean up our water, to clean up the toxic sites
in this Nation; to clean up the Superfund sites that plague our
communities, the brownfields campaign that he started that allows us to
take these toxic sites and turn them into economic opportunities, and
as we have seen now in Palo Alto, California, in Richmond, California,
in communities that now have economic opportunities that did not exist
there before that kind of program under the leadership of this
administration.
So we know what the Republicans have been doing, and we know
certainly what the Republican leadership has been doing, and that is
that they have launched, the minute the Gingrich revolution came to
town, their first effort was to launch an attack on the basic and
fundamental environmental laws of this Nation.
Now let us look at what the Vice President has been doing. He has
been going out to communities that have great environmental strife,
that have had all kinds of controversy, and he has brought people
together to try to sit down and work those things out. Most recently in
California where we had the headwaters forest deal, where we were going
to lose some of the last of the ancient grand redwoods in this Nation
on the face of this Earth, it was the involvement of the Vice President
and this administration that finally secured a deal. I do not like all
of it, but I will tell my colleagues, it secured a deal by which we can
protect those redwoods, we can allow some timber activity to continue,
and the economy in that area can continue. That had been years of
controversy before the administration got involved.
The same is true in California water, where the administration has
brought people together to solve one of the most difficult problems,
the survivability of San Francisco Bay, the survivability of the San
Francisco Bay delta. In our huge, complex Federal and State water
systems that are the cornerstone of our future economic growth in
California, there has been the involvement and the leadership of the
Vice President.
The Everglades speaks for itself. The Everglades speaks for itself.
Working with the Florida delegation, making sure that the Corps of
Engineers thought about the future as opposed to the past, changed the
manner in which the Kissimmee River flowed, the flow of the water
through the Everglades, the cleaning up of the marine resources, all
with the leadership of the Vice President working with local
communities. That has been the hallmark.
Finally today let me say, I know that there are many on the other
side that want to attack the Vice President for his positions on global
warming. Today I sat in my office with the CEO of an energy company
that is building a new generation of gas-fired turbines to replace the
old that will clean up the air, will provide new jobs that did not
exist before, will provide a lower rate of energy because of the
efficiency of these new generators, and will allow us in California, he
is one part of a large industry that will allow us to start trading in
the old polluting industries, get higher efficiency, lower cost out of
a new generation, because of the concern. And they are willingly doing
this. They have investors, they are putting venture capital into this,
putting money at risk to clean up the air, recognizing and responding
to the concerns about global warming.
So I want to thank the gentleman for bringing this special order. I
agree with the gentleman from Washington that it is sad that we have to
do this; it is sad that somehow some on the Republican side would
believe that Earth Day should be celebrated by attacking the vice
presidential environmental credentials, his motives and his actions and
his work that has been so sterling and has meant so much for this
Nation, for the health of our water, the health of our air and the
health of our families and our communities. It is unfortunate.
I believe we are in the process of restoring that bipartisan
environmental coalition. More and more we see Democrats and Republicans
working together. But the Republican leadership apparently still has
not gotten the message, and somehow they want to try to make mileage by
attacking the Vice President. It is a horrible mistake for them, and
the biggest problem of it is it simply has no credibility, it is not
true, and their record does not allow them to speak with any
credibility about the environmental record of the Vice President or
anyone else in this Nation.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman, and
particularly for this idea of what Vice President Gore and this
administration have tried to do is to be people of action. They think
that we can accomplish some of these environmental goals and still save
jobs and still have economic growth. There are so many examples we can
use of things that need to be done in the future: Superfund, clean
water, brownfields, whatever, and they have the positive attitude. Now
we have the Republicans on the other side just wanting to waste our
time with all of these personal attacks.
I yield to another gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).
Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me.
It is a great opportunity to address on Earth Day an interesting
thing, and I think it is interesting that we are here today just before
Earth Day.
I am told that some of my colleagues across the aisle are going to
have some occasion where they seek to attack Vice President Al Gore on
the environment, which seems to me a bit like attacking Mohammed Ali
for not having a quick left hook. But nonetheless, we are here to
discuss an important issue. Maybe somebody has already said this, but
sort of attacking the Vice President the day before Earth Day on the
environment, it is sort of disappointing to me. This ought to be Earth
Day, not Dirt Day, and trying to spread a little dirt is disappointing.
Nonetheless, I want to add my voice to those who say that we have
someone in leadership on environmental issues that are important to
real people with real problems. I think when we test anyone's
leadership, we ought to test it in five ways. I am going to give five
tests that we ought to test the Vice President on. We ought to test
whether his leadership has been real rather than abstract; we ought to
test whether it has been practical rather than pie-in-the-sky; we ought
to test on whether it is based on optimism rather than pessimism; and
we ought to test whether he is out front and not behind; and whether or
not he is a fighter or he has just given up.

[[Page H2259]]

I want to test him on those five issues. I want to start with whether
he is a realist instead of just in the abstract. I want to tell my
colleagues that I think America, Mr. Speaker, is waking up to the fact
that Vice President Al Gore has come to address real, tangible,
everyday concerns of commuters and workers in my district in north
Seattle who are sitting in traffic, wasting their time when they could
be home with their children, sitting in traffic because we have not
adopted the public transportation solutions we need and we have not
fully come to grips with creating livable communities. There is no one,
no one, myself included, who has been as vigorous an advocate, Mr.
Speaker, to say that our communities should be armed with the tools to
develop livable communities, to be able to do the land use planning to
stop urban sprawl. I point this out because this is not an abstract
issue of my constituents; it is whether they can get home at night to
play catch with their kids. That is a real issue, and this Vice
President has been a realist, not an abstract, thinker.

Second, as he suggested, practical solutions. Well, I want to tell my
colleagues, we have a real challenge up in the Northwest right now on
salmon issues. We are losing our salmon runs and they are now on the
endangered species list, and we have real challenges. This Vice
President has not sat around in an ivory tower just sort of abstractly
thinking about this problem. He has rolled up his sleeves, he has come
to the Pacific Northwest more than any Vice President in American
history, and he has gotten down literally in the trenches and the
streams to talk about how we are going to solve those salmon problems,
how we are going to improve habitat for salmon, how we are going to
make sure salmon can spawn. He is not in Washington D.C.; he is in my
district helping communities solve these salmon problems. I appreciate
that, and so do the people of these communities. He is practical.
The third issue, is he an optimist or is he one of those guys that
sort of says, Chicken Little, the sky is falling. Well, if we listen to
what this Vice President has been saying, for instance, about the
greenhouse gas problem, and everybody knows we have a problem,
CO2 emissions are going up huge amounts, this is creating a
greenhouse effect, and people are fully familiar with that. But what I
have heard this Vice President say, instead of wringing our hands and
saying we are going to be destroyed by this problem, he has shown
optimism which good leaders need to do. Because what he has said is, we
are going to go out and we are going to develop the technologies, the
alternate technology sources that do not create these greenhouse gases.
That is optimism, and that is what leadership is. Without a vision,
people will perish. The good book was right. And having a vision saying
that our country is going to have the best technology in the world and
we are going to make money off of this technology, and there is nothing
wrong with making money, we are going to have the most competitive,
energy-efficient technology in the world and it is going to be good for
our economy. That is optimism and that is what we need when we talk
about the environment.
The fourth issue, is he out front. Is he up front or is he behind the
parade? I want to tell my colleagues a little story about Al Gore,
those who happen to be watching this on C-SPAN. We ask ourselves, who
was the first member of this body to give a speech that the American
people could actually see unless they were lucky enough to get one of
these few seats up in the Chamber, and it was Al Gore who gave the very
first speech on C-SPAN because he was the fellow who fought to open up
this Chamber to the American people so that they could watch it at home
on C-SPAN. He was way ahead of the curve, way ahead of the curve when a
bunch of fuddy-duddies were around here saying we cannot let the
American people know what we are doing. That is typical of his efforts
to be out front, and he is out front on the environment too.
The fifth issue, is he a fighter or does he give up? I want to tell
my colleagues that when some of my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle came to try to weaken the Clean Air Act, came to try to weaken
our safe food provisions which are really important. We had E. coli
deaths, kids dying of E. coli poisoning in my hometown a few years ago,
and incredibly, people in this body wanted to, and still want to reduce
some of our food protections in our food inspection system, incredibly.
Who stood up and said no to those efforts to reduce our food safety?
Who stood up and fought them tooth and tongue and even said, even if
you threaten to shut down the Government of the United States, I am not
going to yield on that issue. It was Al Gore. He had a little help from
President Bill Clinton as well.
He was right, and the American people knew he was right, and even
though the folks on the other side of the aisle shut down the U.S.
Government, he did not yield, he stood as a stone wall and said, you
are not going to weaken the environmental laws of this country, and
America knew it and America said, in part; some people, including
myself, to stand up for the environment.
So, Mr. Speaker, I would like to suggest that by any test of
leadership we have a Vice President who has been real, who has been
practical, who has been optimistic, who has been out front, and who is
a fighter, and it does not get much better than that.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman. I thought
that test that the gentleman brought forward was really a good way to
show how valuable the Vice President has been on these environmental
concerns and just in general.
Mr. Speaker, it is interesting. I have been listening to what some of
the speakers have been saying about different programs where one can
both protect the environment and save jobs and where the economy can
grow, and I think it was the other gentleman from Washington (Mr.
Dicks) that said that the problem with the Republican leadership is
that they do not want to move forward on this agenda.
A very good example of that, I think someone mentioned, is
brownfields. I live in the most densely populated State in the country.
We have more Superfund sites and more hazardous waste sites that are
not on the Superfund list, but still need to be cleaned up, than any
other State. Yet, at the same time in our urban areas where a lot of
these sites are located, if they could be cleaned up and used again for
commercial or industrial or other purposes, it would mean such an
economic boost to those communities because jobs would be created, new
businesses would be created, and Vice President Gore has been pushing
forever since he was the Vice President and when he was in the Senate
and the House that we take the initiative on brownfields. Yet, this
Republican leadership has continued to say, well, they do not want to
deal with that, we have to deal with Superfund in general; maybe we
will take it up in the context of Superfund, and they never get to it.
So there are so many examples like this where we need to move in a
positive way. As the gentleman said, Vice President Gore has been very
optimistic and knows we can be positive about these things, but we are
constantly stymied by the other side, so I want to thank the gentleman.
I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois, (Ms. Schakowsky).
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding his
time.
Tomorrow is Earth Day, and I remember well as a young mom in 1970
when Earth Day was established, and at that time, we really had an
environmental crisis. We had a desperate need for passage of
legislation to guarantee clean air and clean water. We had toxic waste
sites that were crying out for something to be done. So Earth Day
highlighted that. As a result, we did see the passage of this important
legislation.
We have made progress, and this is a time to really celebrate that
progress. We now have Superfund legislation to clean up toxic sites,
the clean air and clean water legislation, and we have a booming
economy, and that is a surprise to some, not to me and others on our
side of the aisle, but those are compatible concepts, that they go hand
in hand, a booming economy and environmental protection.
The environment really is a nonpartisan issue when one goes to a
national park or one breathes clean air,

[[Page H2260]]

regardless of whether one is a Democrat or a Republican, these issues
are important. But unfortunately, over the recent years, it has become
just that, and it is so unfortunate, even today, that it has been
raised in a partisan context.

{time} 1715

It does, however, give us the opportunity, as Democrats, to celebrate
our Democratic administration and all that it has done to fend off
efforts to turn back the clock, if we look at what happened in 1995
when the Republicans actually allowed corporate lobbyists to draft
attacks on environmental standards. Or when the Republicans passed
bills that cut environmental funding by 25 percent, or what I really
want to talk about for a minute is the regulatory reform bill that
would have actually dismantled the food inspection program.
In my district lives a woman named Nancy Donley, who, because of her
own personal tragic situation, that is, the death of her 6-year-old son
Alex from eating meat poisoned with E. Coli bacteria, created an
organization. She turned her tragedy into an organization that will now
fight to make sure that no other children die called STOP, Safe Tables
Our Priority.
As a result of working with this administration, and in particular
Vice President Al Gore, the food safety initiative was adopted. They
were able to defeat the so-called regulatory reform which would have
dismantled the meat and poultry inspection system in this Nation, and
actually pass new regulations that began in 1998, more sophisticated
ways of inspection.
That inspection program was really initiated in the Upton Sinclair
days at the beginning of the century and really required updating, not
dismantling. So we now have a more sophisticated system that is being
phased in over time. It began in 1998, and the establishment of a food
safety initiative.
As part of that initiative I know that Nancy had, Nancy Donley, had
Vice President Al Gore, at the announcement of what we call PulseNet,
which is a new program that we have to track food-borne illness
outbreaks over the Internet, so we are now able to link an outbreak of
food poisoning in Maine with one that might happen in Montana, and be
able to see that it is from the same cause.
In fact, there was a terrible outbreak of Listeria, which is a
virulent form of foodborne illness, deli food, soft cheeses, et cetera,
last year that resulted in major recalls across the country of those
foods, and has already proven itself to save lives.
At the announcement of PulseNet, our Vice President, Al Gore, was
there to talk about it as an initiative that would save lives. As we
know, he has been the person who has figured out how to use the most
high-tech systems to bring them down to protecting families and now
protecting our food supply.
So as we look forward to Earth Day this year and we look forward to
the 21st century, I think we can be happy that we have someone who has
been our point person on the environment, who has been an advocate and
a fighter, and has implemented already those programs that will make
our air, our water, and our world safer for our families.
Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank the gentlewoman. Mr. Speaker, I yield to
the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey).
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
Last year when the appropriation bills were folded into an omnibus
bill, the majority here added a long list of anti-environmental riders.
They could not get those proposals through on their own merits, but
they tried to hold funding for all Federal programs and services
hostage to those riders. They figured that their opponents in Congress
would be forced to swallow them, and that the President would agree to
accept them to keep other programs operating.
But the President did not accept them. He insisted that they be taken
out of the appropriations bill before he would sign it. That surprised
the people who wrote the riders.
The factor they did not count on in their strategy was the Vice
President of the United States, Al Gore. The President relies on Al
Gore for advice on environmental matters, and it was Al Gore who said
no, we cannot allow these things to happen. We have to take a stand. We
have to take a stand, so that the riders faded away.
Let me give some examples of what Al Gore would not allow. He said no
to proposals that would have blocked the EPA from conducting research
or educational activities on global warming, a gag rule to block even a
discussion of what may be the most serious environmental problem of our
time.
He said no to a proposal that would have blocked clean-up of toxic
PCBs, even in places where children could be affected.
The Vice President said no to proposals that would have blocked the
EPA from reducing children's exposure to pesticides, and we now know
that pesticides pose a much greater risk to children than they do to
others, much more than we thought.
He said no to proposals that would have canceled environmental
reviews on timber sales, where logging could threaten wildlife. He said
no to a proposal to build a road through the middle of a migratory bird
refuge, a place that is supposed to be wilderness.
He said no to proposals that would have required uneconomical logging
that would have permanent damage to one of our most pristine forests.
He said no to proposals that would have barred EPA from trying to
improve air quality in our national parks. Because Al Gore took a firm
stand, those proposals were blocked.
He has stood with us when we blocked efforts to roll back 25 years of
work on cleaning up our rivers. He stood with us when we blocked
efforts that would have prohibited EPA from doing more to clean up the
air that we all breathe.
He stood with us on protecting children's health from asthma caused
by airborne pollution, illness caused by food poisoning, and pesticide
poisoning, permanent damage caused by toxic wastes let loose in the
environment. The Vice President stood with us on all those issues.
The American people want clean air and water. They want freedom from
pollution and contamination. They want protection of our beautiful
public lands and forests, and they want protection for our wildlife. Al
Gore wants them, too, and he wants all of them to have them as well. He
is willing to stand up and fight for it to see that they get it.
He has been a very big help by having the courage to say no and to
mean it. I am looking forward to seeing what he can do when he gets the
opportunity to say yes.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman, and everyone
who participated in this special order this evening. It is the eve of
Earth Day. Earth Day is tomorrow. I think there is a lot of talk up
here about what the truth is.
The truth is that the health of our environment is in jeopardy at the
hands of the Republican majority in the Congress. The truth is that the
Democrats and the Clinton-Gore administration are the true protectors
of the environment for this Earth Day and the Earth Days in the future.

____________________