[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 73 (Wednesday, May 19, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H3373-H3379]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              LOOKING AT THE RECORD OF THE VICE PRESIDENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker, tonight marks the second in a series of 
special orders that House conservatives hope to hold on the record of 
Vice President Al Gore.
  The Vice President has been particularly aggressive in attacking the 
work of congressional Republicans. He likes to call us names and say 
that we are extreme. That is a frequent theme from the Clinton-Gore 
administration.
  Conservatives 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 common sense 
environmental policies so contemptible. To do this, we must look at Al 
Gore's record.
  At a future time we plan to call attention to the fact that while in 
Congress, Al Gore voted to raise taxes more than 50 times. He even 
voted to raise taxes after he left Congress. As Vice President he broke 
a tie vote in the Senate in favor of the 1993 Clinton-Gore tax 
increase, the largest tax hike in our Nation's history.
  We also will examine his record on spending, which cannot under any 
definition be seen as moderate. In fact, he was given the dubious title 
of ``big spender'' 14 of his 16 years in Congress.
  Tonight we will continue the examination of Al Gore's views on the 
environment. This examination is important because, upon being elected, 
President Bill Clinton ceded control of his administration's 
environmental policy to Vice President Al Gore. In fact, Mr. Gore was 
given the authority to select the EPA administrator and other high-
ranking environmental policy positions.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I have read accounts where people expect us to 
ridicule Mr. Gore by quoting from some of his writings. The ridicule 
will have to be done perhaps by the listener. I would just observe that 
we are not here tonight particularly to focus upon his exaggerated 
claim to have been, he and his wife, the model on which ``Love Story'' 
was based, that movie of many years ago, or indeed his claimed 
fatherhood of the Internet, which frankly is outrageous and laughable, 
or indeed most recently his claim to being the originator of the idea 
of a certain web site designed to protect children, to assist parents 
in protecting children from the dark side of the Internet, the 
pornography that is available there.
  No, tonight I plan to focus on policy. What is the policy of this man 
who is the Vice President, who has stood largely in the shadow of the 
President, but who in reality is a key policy-maker and whose views are 
actually set forth by his own hand in his own book, ``Earth in the 
Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit,'' a book not actually ghost 
written but in fact written by the Vice President himself.
  So this book is a valuable document because it is in his own hand and 
reflects his own thinking, thinking which he has repeatedly and very 
recently backed up and acknowledged that, indeed, this book continues 
to reflect his views. So I think it is very timely to look into some of 
these issues.
  In the first special order a couple of weeks ago we did this, we 
looked at one of his writings. I think just by way of review, it would 
be good to go over this again. Quoting from ``Earth in the Balance,'' 
he wrote that ``Modern industrial civilization as presently organized 
is colliding violently with our planet's ecological system. The 
ferocity of its assault on the Earth is breathtaking, and the horrific 
consequences are occurring so quickly as to defy our capacity to 
recognize them, comprehend their global implications, and organize an 
appropriate and timely response.''
  There is a recurring theme throughout his writings of promoting this 
idea of a crisis and the need for extraordinary measures in responding 
to this crisis, just as if we are not in a normal situation where we go 
through normal processes, but because it is a crisis, it justifies 
extraordinary approaches.
  Another quote on the Holocaust and global warming: ``New warnings of 
a different sort signal an environmental Holocaust without precedent. 
Today the evidence of an ecological crystalnacht is as clear as the 
sound of glass shattering in Berlin. It is not merely in the service of 
analogy that I have referred so often to the struggles against Nazi and 
Communist totalitarianism, because I believe that the emerging effort 
to save the environment is a continuation of these struggles.''
  Many, I think, Mr. Speaker, would certainly feel this is gross 
exaggeration at a minimum. Actually, when we think of the very idea of 
bringing in the Holocaust where people lost all their freedoms, 
including their lives, lost many of their family members, indeed entire 
families were wiped out by this horrific, historic event, it seems 
demeaning to me to be talking in these terms and implying that whatever 
situation we may face today is in any way related in kind or in degree 
to what went on during the Holocaust.
  Well, here again, we have a very dramatic statement on the coming 
civil war: ``We now face the prospect of a kind of global civil war 
between those who refuse to consider the consequences of civilizations' 
relentless advance and those who refuse to be silent partners in the 
destruction. More and more people of conscience are joining the effort 
to resist, but the time has come to make this struggle the central 
organizing principle of world civilization. God and history will 
remember our judgment.''

                              {time}  1945

  Very, very strong terms that he is using here, implying really that, 
if we are not on his side, we are not a person of conscience, implying 
that if we do not refuse to be a silent partner in a destruction, so to 
speak, that if we are not with them, we are against them, that if we 
are not part of the solution, we are part of the problem. Very much 
that kind of dogmatic expression here and really impugning all those 
who do not join in this particular view of the situation.

[[Page H3374]]

  And again, whatever we may think of the circumstances we face in the 
environment, I guess I would just observe we made great strides in the 
environment by any dispassionate standard.
  For example, I grew up in Los Angeles as a young person and I 
remember my eyes smarting so badly on any number of days and the 
tremendous air pollution that we had there extending up into the early 
1960s. And then we go back today and we do not experience that kind of 
thing anymore, and on a number of occasions we will find clear days 
there.
  So I mean, I just point out, and the statistics do bear it out beyond 
my anecdotal experience, but there has been dramatic improvements in 
the area of for example air pollution, in the area of water pollution, 
dramatic improvements in the way that we treat the environment.
  So I honestly find it difficult to fathom these illustrations of a 
civil war, of an environmental Holocaust. I mean, it is shameless 
exploitation. It is a gross exaggeration. It is not indeed the reality.
  Well, here is the quote I guess we read last time, Al Gore on the 
American century:

       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 crises 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.

  I mean, this is an unbelievable quote. Every time I read it I marvel 
there is so much to pull out of that. There again we see the Holocaust 
being pulled into it, two world wars, and then the reference again to 
what we face as the global environmental crisis, implying that when it 
is a crisis, it is like a world war, it is like the Holocaust, implying 
that extraordinary measures are called for and, frankly, implying, when 
we read the rest of the book, that the compromise of our freedoms is 
justified in order to meet this crisis, just as in wartime in the 
United States the Government becomes much more powerful and is able to 
impose things on the citizenry that it could not do in peacetime 
because it is involved in a struggle for national survival. And this is 
the framework that is being set here by the Vice President.
  And then this last part I find interesting, paradoxical, frankly, in 
light of the Vice President's own actions. ``We retreat into the 
seductive tools and technologies of industrial civilization.''
  Well, this is the man who has claimed authorship of the Internet. 
That is about as high tech as we can get. That is a futurist, if you 
will. And yet, by his other writings, some of which we have read off 
these charts tonight, I mean, he is almost anti-technology, almost pre-
Colombian, getting back to the time before the European male disturbed 
everything in the world and caused this environmental crisis, if you 
will, that we presently suffer from according to him.
  I just think these are interesting views for someone holding the 
second highest office in the United States to have.
  Look at the future on cars that he has. Quoting again from the book:

       Within the context of the Strategic Environment Initiative, 
     it ought to be able to establish a coordinate, a global 
     program, to accomplish the strategic goal of completely 
     eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a 25-
     year period.

  Well, the internal combustion engine has been a great blessing to 
modern mankind, perhaps more than anything else we can think of. I do 
not know about my colleagues, but the thought of having a battery-
powered car spewing off horrendous amounts of ozone fumes being highly 
toxic, we think we have problems with toxic disposal now, what are we 
going to do when everybody is driving one of these electric cars that 
has six, seven, or eight huge batteries in it?
  By the way, these cars do not have a very long range. I think they 
are about a hundred miles or so. They are not nearly as fast or as 
powerful as today's cars. And that is a problem if we are trying to go 
over the mountains or up a hill or any number of things that sometimes 
vehicles are called upon to do. We would have to ask ourselves what is 
really involved.
  It says a global coordinated program. A lot of things I read in Al 
Gore's writings are linked to this globalism. I mean, is the U.N. going 
to own a department on this too to supervise and wipe out the use of 
our internal combustion engine? Are we going to have to fill a report 
as one of the countries giving some U.N. czar an accounting of how we 
are making progress on this front?
  I mean, it is truly alarming the amount of intervention by the United 
Nations in what has traditionally been regarded as the sovereign 
affairs of this Nation. So I find that a very bizarre idea as well, 
talking about getting rid of the internal combustion engine.
  By the way, a lot of jobs in this country depend upon the internal 
combustion engine. And I do not know what would happen to those people, 
and Mr. Gore does not really offer that in his book.
  Former senior ABC news correspondent Bob Zelnick has written a book 
actually about the Vice President. It is called ``Gore: A Political 
Life.'' I am sorry I do not have these quotes up on the chart, but I 
will just share a couple of them with my colleagues, one by Mr. 
Zelnick, referring to this book ``Earth in the Balance,'' which I 
encourage everybody to buy a copy of and to read. He says the 
following:

       The book is pathetically one-dimensional in its view of 
     Western Civilization, shabby in its ignorance of economics, 
     simplistic in its approach to problem solving, and grandly 
     certain of a crisis that has not been proved to exist despite 
     a massive scientific effort funded by the U.S. Government to 
     the tune of more than $2 billion a year.

  Then economist Robert W. Hahn said the following, again in comment 
upon the book. He said, the book contains ``an incredible laundry list 
which can easily result in central planners selecting environmentally 
and politically correct products and technologies. It is nothing less 
than environmental socialism.'' Again, Mr. Hahn's quote on this book 
written by the Vice President. ``It is nothing less than environmental 
socialism.'' Very disturbing.
  Well, there are some factual contradictions, many, to the assertions 
made by the Vice President. Let us look into a few of the claims.

  Al Gore has claimed that urban sprawl or suburbanization is rapidly 
reducing the amount of open space, rural areas, and farmland at an 
alarming pace that strict growth controls are needed to preserve scenic 
open spaces and protect the Nation's food supply.
  So once again, it is a crisis, it is an alarming pace. I left out a 
word, ``such an alarming pace that strict growth controls are needed to 
preserve these open spaces.'' So, once again, extraordinary measures to 
meet extraordinary events. That is the advantage. If they are a 
demagogue trying to justify intrusions into one's freedom, they have 
got to set the stage by advancing this crisis, this idea that we are 
literally under seize, that we are at war, that we need, therefore, to 
have extraordinary responses. That is why I think Mr. Hahn refers to 
these writings as ``environmental socialism.''
  My colleagues heard the claim, loss of our open space so alarming at 
its pace that we have got to have strict growth controls. Here is the 
reality: Only 4.8 percent of the land area of the United States is 
developed; and in more than three-quarters of the States, over 90 
percent of the land is used for rural purposes, such as forestry, 
pasture, wildlife preservation, and parks.
  Indeed, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, each year only .006 
percent, that is six ten-thousandths of one percent, of land in the 
continental United States is developed.
  Mr. Gore has made another claim. ``An increase of 1\1/2\ degrees 
Farenheit in global temperatures since 1850 is proof that manmade 
carbon dioxide emissions are dangerously heating up the planet.'' Have 
we not heard a lot about that out of the Clinton-Gore administration? 
And yet here is the fact on that: This claim ignores the fact that the 
Earth's temperature naturally rises and falls over the course of 
several centuries.
  If we think about it, they cannot even get the weather forecast right 
for tomorrow let alone deducing that somehow our temperature has risen. 
Since the last Ice Age ended nearly 11,000 years ago, there have been 
seven

[[Page H3375]]

major warming and cooling trends. Of the six trends preceding the 
current period of warming, three produced temperatures warmer than 
today, while three produced temperatures colder than today.
  The pattern of the most recent warming, this proves an alleged human 
contribution. One degree of the warming occurred between 1850 and 1940, 
when human carbon dioxide emissions were negligible in that 90-year 
period. Between 1940 and 1979, the temperature increased only one-half 
a degree Farenheit when rapidly rising amounts of carbon dioxide 
emissions should have been causing warming to accelerate.
  NASA's T-ROSE series of satellites indicate that there has indeed 
even been a slight cooling trend of .02 degrees Farenheit since 1979, a 
cooling trend. And yet we heard his assertion that we are dangerously 
heating up the planet through carbon dioxide emissions.
  These results have been collaborated by weather balloons, the results 
of the T-ROSE satellite that show that, indeed, far from heating up the 
planet, there is a cooling trend since 1979. The source for this is 
``Talking Points in the Economy: Environmental Series'' from the 
National Center for Public Policy Research.
  I have just got three more claims, and then I am going to call on my 
distinguished colleague from Indiana (Mr. McIntosh) to offer his 
thoughts. By the way, I observe that he has been very involved, through 
his subcommittee, on analyzing the Kyoto Treaty and measures relating 
to it dealing with global warming.
  Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield for one second 
before he continues on that?
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I yield to the gentleman from Indiana.
  Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Speaker, let me congratulate the gentleman for 
bringing these issues before the House because they are extremely 
important in the current business of this Congress. He mentioned how 
Vice President Gore has advocated and recently said he stood by every 
word in the book that we should begin a martial plan of sorts to phase 
out the automobile, or at least the internal combustion engine.
  Well, it seems to me a very relevant fact for the oversight hearings 
that our subcommittee is having on implementing this global warming 
treaty. It is a policy that it is very clear this administration is 
implementing even without the Senate approval of that treaty. And 
tomorrow, in fact, we are having a joint Senate and House hearing where 
the administration is testifying about what steps they have taken to 
follow requirements in last year's appropriations bill to justify all 
of the spending that they are using in the area of climate change and 
global warming.
  So my colleague brings forward to this House information that is 
critical to our pursuit of that oversight capacity of this 
administration on current policies. And some of the goofy ideas that 
the Vice President put forward and says he still believes in are having 
a direct effect today on policies in the Clinton-Gore administration 
and something I think, when most Americans realize, the AFL-CIO even 
said it could cost us a million jobs if we implemented that treaty as 
part of this martial plan for the environment.

                              {time}  2000

  That is 1 million American jobs that will be sent to Mexico because 
they are not part of the treaty, or China because they are not part of 
the treaty, or North Korea or Latin America or India because they are 
not part of the treaty. And so it has a real impact on the daily lives 
of at least those 1 million American families that would be affected by 
the loss of their job when these ideas are implemented by Mr. Gore and 
the administration. I want to commend the gentleman for bringing this 
forward. I look forward to hearing his other examples and then have a 
couple that I would like to add as well.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I thank the gentleman. I thank him as well for doing 
his excellent work on this subject with his subcommittee in bringing 
out these important facts.
  Here is another claim by the Vice President. He has said, ``Global 
warming is responsible for 1998 being the hottest year on record.'' 
Some of these are just so patently false and absurd that it makes you 
smile when you read them. The hottest year on record. I mean, that is 
either true or it is not.
  The fact is it is not. This last year's hot weather in North America 
did not even set records. North America's record high was reached on 
July 10, 1913 when Death Valley in my State of California hit 134 
degrees Fahrenheit. That is pretty hot. None of the other seven 
continents broke records last year, either. Africa hit its record high 
in 1922, Asia in 1942, Australia in 1889, Europe in 1881, South America 
in 1905, Oceana in 1912 and Antarctica in 1974.
  Here is another claim. Al Gore has maintained that all old growth 
forests in America will be wiped out within 20 years. Here is the fact 
on that. There are a lot of people that have, I think, been misinformed 
on this, precisely because of comments like this by the Vice President.
  The fact is as of 1993, there were 13.2 million acres of old growth 
forests left in America, old growth defined as forests containing trees 
over 200 years old. Eight million of these acres were totally protected 
in national parks and wilderness areas and can never be harvested. So 8 
million of the 13.2 million acres of old growth can never be harvested 
in this country. Furthermore, the harvesting rate for the remaining 5.2 
million acres of old growth forest is approximately only 1 percent per 
year.
  Here is another statistic that I will throw out. There is more 
standing timber in the United States of America today than at any time 
in the 20th century. That is also a fact. In fact, there is so much 
standing timber, that is why our forests face catastrophic threat of 
forest fire. If we quadrupled the cutting of the trees right now, we 
could not catch up with the amount of growth that is occurring each 
year. That is how serious this threat really is.
  Lastly--lastly for the night--of course there are many other absurd 
claims that we will focus on, but for the night this is the final one I 
will address. ``The United States is running out of space for 
landfills.''
  Here is an interesting statistic, an interesting fact. All garbage 
produced in the United States for the next 500 years would fit in a 
single landfill measuring 20 miles by 20 miles. That is an interesting 
statistic. So I do not think we are running out of landfills.
  With that, I am going to now call upon the gentleman from Indiana 
(Mr. McIntosh), who by the way is chairman of the Conservative Action 
Team, a group of conservatives in the House, organized to try and 
increase their effectiveness in promoting that philosophy. I yield to 
the gentleman from Indiana.
  Mr. McINTOSH. I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle) 
for yielding. I should point out to our viewers and our colleagues the 
gentleman's modesty. He was one of the four founders of the 
Conservative Action Team and has been a true strength of keeping those 
principles alive in this Congress and in the previous Congresses. I 
thank him for that diligent work.
  Mr. Speaker, one of the anomalies that some of the research showed 
was this question of whether or not depleting the ozone layer would in 
fact cause more cancer. All of us are horrified by the increases in 
cancer rates, and I think all of us can say we have seen loved ones or 
friends or family members who have been struck by that terrible 
disease. And so certainly we would want to do everything possible to 
try to make sure that that was prevented and every step possible to 
make sure it was in fact cured and treated.
  One of the false claims that I understand has been made is that 
somehow the depletion of ozone will affect the incidence of melanoma, 
skin cancer. In fact, the scientific studies show that ultraviolet A 
rays do affect that. Therefore, we need to be very careful about 
exposing people to that. But ultraviolet B rays do not. The facts are, 
the scientific community has confirmed this, ozone has nothing to do 
with ultraviolet A, which is the cancer-causing rays, but does block 
ultraviolet B which are not linked to increased incidence of cancer. So 
the claims that having to worry about the ozone layer could increase 
the incidence of cancer do not seem to be substantiated by the science.
  But even more profound, as I was reading through the Vice President's

[[Page H3376]]

book, he talks about one of the promising new treatments for cancer, a 
drug called Taxol which can be produced from the Pacific yew tree. I 
want to read to you so you can get an idea where this man is coming 
from, what he had to say about that.
  ``The Pacific yew tree can be cut down,'' and, by the way, this is on 
page 119 of his book, ``Earth in the Balance.'' I do recommend people 
try to read it and get a better understanding of what philosophy is 
driving this administration and Vice President Gore's actions in 
particular. On page 119, he says:

       The Pacific yew can be cut down and processed to produce a 
     potent chemical, Taxol, which offers some promise of curing 
     certain forms of lung, breast and ovarian cancer in patients 
     who would otherwise quickly die. It seems an easy choice. 
     Sacrifice the tree for a human life, until,

  and this is the part I would like people to focus on,

       until one learns that three trees must be destroyed for 
     each patient treated. Then it becomes a close question.

  Well, quite frankly in my book it is a very easy question. Three 
trees versus a human life, three trees versus the ability to prolong 
someone's life who is suffering from cancer. I would pick the 
individual, the person, the human being who is a cancer patient and 
suffering from that dreaded disease and say it is clear three trees are 
worth it. We can sacrifice three trees to save one human life. But the 
Vice President apparently does not think that is so clear. He goes on 
to discuss that in his book.
  That to me is an indication of the larger differences in philosophy 
that are approached by this administration and many of us in the 
Conservative Action Team. We set as our priority having government 
actions that help people, that maximize freedom of individuals, that 
allow individuals to pursue their lives, that allow businesses to 
pursue remedies for cancer, whether it is in yew trees or other 
research. They feel it is better to regulate that, have the government 
make that larger question, is it worth three trees to save a human 
life?

  Our philosophy is, let the individual make those choices. For me, the 
answer is clear. It is worth it. But let individuals make that. If they 
want to seek that remedy, that aid, that treatment for their cancer, 
give them the opportunity to do it. Do not interpose Al Gore's 
government to make that decision for us and say, ``We have to consider 
the larger social ramifications because we think those trees may be 
important to save and, yes, we regret that some people may lose their 
lives to cancer but we have these larger considerations.''
  That difference in philosophy is profound. It ends up being part of 
every decision that we make here in Congress. Do we add more 
regulations and thereby take away freedom in the name of this cause? Do 
we increase taxes so that government can decide how we should 
distribute resources among different individuals? To both of those, the 
Conservative Action Team says no. And let no more regulations unless 
you can show there is a definite benefit that outweighs the cost. And 
no more taxes. In fact, we want to reduce the cost of government so 
that we can lower taxes to allow people to keep more of their hard-
earned income.
  It is important that we have those fundamental debates from time to 
time here on the House floor, because they come up bill after bill 
after bill. There is something that often we do not focus on. And so 
one of the things that I think is critical as we continue this effort 
of bringing forward the record of a very important official in our 
government, someone whose decisions are making an impact on each of our 
lives every day, that we know both the record but also those 
philosophical differences that can be discerned from their writing.
  If you had told me that perhaps this was written before Vice 
President Gore had had a chance to be the number two executive in the 
government, and that he has learned since then that perhaps some of 
these ideas were a little farfetched, a little bit goofy, perhaps a 
little bit out of context for the modern world and that he had 
rethought some of them, I would understand that perhaps we should not 
be bringing them forward today and focusing on them. But I am told that 
as recently as a couple of months ago when asked about it, Vice 
President Gore said categorically he stood by every word in this book. 
And so it is in fact relevant to today's thinking what exactly is 
written in this book.
  I was surprised, as I read through many of the pages there, that it 
is a completely different description of what our goals and aspirations 
are and should be. I do not think the modern world is like the Nazi 
Holocaust. I think the modern world has provided incalculable benefits, 
that people are better off today than they were 10 years ago or 20 
years ago or 50 years ago; that we have miracles of modern science that 
allow us to treat cancer patients, that allow us to extend life, that 
allow us to provide a better hope for the future for all people; and 
that that progress has gone forward in spite of the thinking that we 
need to restrain it because there might be this almost Nazi-like 
Holocaust in the world if we do not reverse course and undo much of the 
modern society, much of modern technology, much of the learning that 
has accrued to our benefit in the last 50 years.
  So I do appreciate the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle) 
leading this effort. I hope to be able to join him in the coming months 
to bring forward other topics. As I understand it, we will be looking 
at the Gore tax on long distance calls, a tax that Al Gore promoted, 
that actually was never voted on directly by this House of 
Representatives, but now every person who places a long distance call 
in this country pays to the FCC because of this man. I understand that 
we will also be looking at some of his record when he was in the 
Senate, what did he vote for, what were his prerogatives, what were his 
preferences on taxes.
  Somebody told me, and we are going to track this down before we say 
it categorically, but somebody estimated they thought he might even be 
more liberal than Teddy Kennedy. It takes a lot of work to be more 
liberal than Teddy Kennedy in the United States Senate. We will look at 
the record and bring it out and tell the American people that.
  I thank the gentleman from California for giving me an opportunity to 
participate today.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I thank the gentleman. I would just observe the motto 
of the University of California is lifted from the Bible, ``Let there 
be light.'' We intend to shine as much light as we can so that, as the 
Bible says, ``The truth shall make us free.''
  With that, I would like to now acknowledge our distinguished 
colleague from Florida (Mr. Weldon) who will share insights with us and 
perhaps will explain why Al Gore was not allowed to make the taxpayers 
fund his pet project of raiding money from NASA to show constant images 
of the earth from outer space.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding, and I commend him for arranging this special order to talk 
about some of the issues that our Vice President has promoted and some 
of his policy positions.
  Recently I had the opportunity in the Committee on Science, as we 
were marking up the NASA authorization bill, to offer an amendment 
cutting the funding to a satellite that had been promoted by the Vice 
President. The satellite was called Triana.
  The Vice President originally announced his concept for this on March 
13, 1998 in a speech that he gave at MIT. He is quoted as saying, ``It 
will help us reach new heights of understanding and insight.'' All this 
satellite really is is a picture of the sunlit side of the earth that 
would be available on the Internet; interestingly, a service that is 
already available right now on several Internet sites. Simply what they 
do now is, they take several weather satellite images and combine them 
together to produce what Al Gore wants to spend $70 million producing 
and then maybe another $100 million launching into orbit.

                              {time}  2015

  Now the Washington Post ran an article about the Vice President's 
speech where they stated, quote, that Gore almost literally dreamed up 
the idea in his sleep about a month ago, so that would have been in the 
middle of February of 1998, waking up at 3 a.m. one night, according to 
a White House official, and I would like to point out to

[[Page H3377]]

my colleagues that there were a lot of people waking up at 3 a.m. 
around that same time in my congressional district, not because they 
were getting great wonderful ideas for new satellites that they could 
order NASA to go ahead and produce, but because they had gotten pink 
slips from NASA because they were supposedly short of money. Indeed, 
there were actually 600 people laid off because of a supposed $100 
million shortfall in the shuttle budget. But then miraculously, after 
Mr. Gore proposed this idea, NASA, the agency that he to a certain 
degree has been ceded control over by the President, found tens of 
millions of dollars has been put towards this project.
  Now in my opinion not only was this satellite as proposed by Al Gore 
not necessary, as it is already available on the Internet, and not only 
was it a waste of taxpayers' money, but as well it is really bad 
science. As I understand it, there was really no peer review to 
indicate that this science project was really needed. Indeed the only 
peer review that actually occurred, according to my understanding of 
it, was the peer review of how to build the satellite.
  It is planned to be launched on a shuttle mission. This will take up 
space on the shuttle, space that could be used to deploy other more 
important research projects.
  As I stated, a lot of people were waking up around the same time that 
Al Gore was waking up worried in my congressional district whether or 
not they were going to have a job. But I would like to point out to my 
colleagues that I believe if Al Gore is allowed to fulfill his true 
environmental vision for America, there are going to be a lot of people 
waking up in the middle of the night because they do not have a job.
  We just heard tonight from the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Doolittle) about his position on the internal combustion engine and his 
desire to totally eliminate the internal combustion engine. How many 
hundreds of thousands of jobs currently are involved in producing 
automobiles, selling automobiles in the United States, and he would 
like to eliminate the automobile? And I, for one, could tell my 
colleagues that there are a lot of good purposes that come out of the 
use of the internal combustion engine.
  Might I just mention that most ambulances run on the internal 
combustion engine, most fire trucks run on the internal combustion 
engine, and yet Mr. Gore would like to eliminate the internal 
combustion engine and probably put millions of Americans out of work 
currently in the auto industry, and they, too, will be waking up in the 
middle of the night, but not with brilliant ideas for new satellites, 
but instead waking up in the middle of the night because they do not 
have a job.
  Might I also point out that Al Gore is the biggest champion of the 
so-called global warming treaty that would call for the United States 
to eliminate 25 percent of its industrial production in order to come 
within these supposed caps on carbon dioxide elimination, something 
that the Chinese do not have to adhere to, most South American 
countries, African countries, Asian countries. It is believed by many 
economists that if we actually implemented this treaty that Al Gore 
wants us to implement, it could result in the loss of thousands of 
American jobs.
  And then I am so pleased that my colleague from Indiana mentioned the 
section in Al Gore's book on Taxol. I have taken care of cancer 
patients who have gotten Taxol, and what a great drug that has been, 
what a great tool it is in the hands of oncologists as they treat 
patients suffering from cancer, and to cite in his book that maybe we 
should not be harvesting this drug from these trees because we have to 
cut down three trees for every person we save, in my opinion it is 
shameless.
  When I got elected to the United States Congress and left my medical 
practice and realized that I would be coming to this town and having to 
work in a government under the authority of Bill Clinton and Al Gore, I 
got Earth in the Balance, and I read Earth in the Balance, and let me 
tell my colleagues it caused me to wake up in the middle of the night 
knowing that the second in command in this country had such values and 
opinions where he places the value of a tree over that of a person, and 
I highly commend my colleague the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Doolittle) for calling this special order. Reading Earth in the Balance 
to me was a real eye opener. It clearly lays out the reality of Al 
Gore's true values, and might I point out that he stated those very 
clearly in his acceptance speech at the Democrat National Convention 
back in 1992 where he stated that he thought the thing that united all 
Americans together was the environment.
  Point of fact: All Americans support a clean environment, as I do, 
and there is plenty of evidence to indicate that the Clean Air Act and 
Clean Water Act are having their desired effect. Water quality 
standards are improving, air quality standards are improving, and there 
is not an environmental crisis. We are making good headway in this 
problem area. If there is an environmental crisis anywhere, it is in 
these Third World and Communist countries where they do not enforce any 
kind of environmental standards, it is not here in the United States, 
and for Al Gore to cite that the environment was the thing that unites 
all Americans in my opinion is a tremendous insight into what his true 
values are.
  Now I am not going to stand here tonight and speculate on what unites 
all Americans. We can have great debates about that, whether it is 
freedom that we all cherish, the right to free speech, worship as we 
wish, the right to start our own business. We could go on and on about 
what is it that unites us all. We are truly a diverse Nation. But to 
cite the environment as the thing that unites us all in my opinion is a 
tremendous insight into the distorted value system that this Vice 
President has, and I strongly would encourage all my colleagues and all 
Americans to read Earth in the Balance, particularly those that work in 
the automotive industry, to get a better understanding of the values of 
Vice President Al Gore.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. McIntosh).
  Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Speaker, let me take up on a comment that my 
colleague, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon), pointed out. Part 
of my concern about current policy and the Vice President's leadership 
is that in fact it is not good for the environment even because he is 
so interested in making a political statement about this that the 
actual effects end up being negative, and I will give my colleagues an 
example from my subcommittee, the oversight hearing that we had on 
EPA's regulation of particulate matter and ozone which came out about 
two years ago. We heard testimony from governors who told us do not go 
forward with this, we are making tremendous strides in cleaning up the 
air in our State based on the old standards. If you go forward in what 
many think is an illegal rulemaking, and turns out the courts just last 
week validated that rule. They said they threw it out and said it is 
unconstitutional, but the governor warned: If you go forward, there 
will be all this controversy, there will be lawsuits, and the programs 
in his state, and this was Ohio, will be put on hold effectively 
because all of the businesses will wait to see which standard do they 
have to meet.

  So the result of very radical posturing on the environment, and by 
the way, one of the reasons they threw this out was that EPA could not 
justify the rule itself made any difference on protecting health and 
safety and the environment, but they wanted to ratchet down the 
requirements and say we have done something; the result was that for 2 
years people all over the country who are trying to comply with the 
Clean Air Act did not know whether the old standard would apply or the 
new standard would apply, and so any innovative future-looking plan to 
reduce emissions, to come up with more efficient engines, to cut back 
on the use of energy, those were effectively put on hold until they 
knew which standard they had to meet.
  So my problem in part with Vice President Gore's approach towards the 
environment, of making it such a political statement that you come up 
with the goofy analogies that he has got Nazis in the book is that it 
does not really do a service to legitimate conservation efforts which 
people are every day taking part of in this country.

[[Page H3378]]

  So I thank the gentleman for bringing up that point.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I am going to 
yield here in just a second to our good colleague from Florida, but 
just to observe, to corroborate what you said, the very thing Mr. Gore 
claims to support, the environment, his policies are actually hurting. 
It is the same thing in the area of national forests. I said earlier we 
have more standing timber than at any time in the 20th century. We also 
have the worst forest health than any time in the 20th century. Great 
over growth in the forests, huge amounts of dead and dying trees, all 
brought about by the horrific forest management policies of the 
Clinton/Gore administration catering to these sorts of extreme, 
bizarre, goofy views, and I yield now to the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Weldon) for his comments.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding again, and I just want to amplify on what my colleague from 
Indiana was talking about. If you look at all these new areas where the 
Federal Government has gotten itself involved in in the latter half of 
the 20th century or the second half of the 20th century, a lot of what 
the Federal Government has done has really not had a positive effect, 
and the best example there is education.
  The Federal Government in the 1970s, really dating back to the 
1960's, began to involve itself in the educational system, and 
concomitant with that actually educational performance standards in the 
United States have deteriorated. But the one area where the Federal 
Government has passed some laws that seem to have had a beneficial 
effect is in the area of the environment where we have had a good 
marked improvement in air quality standards and water quality with the 
implementation of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
  What is very important about what my colleague from Indiana just said 
is we are not done with implementing the features of the Clean Air Act 
and I believe also features of the Clean Water Act, and there are 
governors and States and municipalities that are still working to 
adhere to that standard, and it is believed by many who are truly 
knowledgeable people in this arena that if we just simply allow them to 
continue, and my colleague is correct in that they have suspended 
action for the past 2 years because of this concern of a new standard, 
if we just leave them go, that water quality standards and air quality 
standards would continue to improve and actually get better.
  And I just cite all this to point out that to claim that we have this 
crisis when actually the air is better and the water is better, I know 
I did my medical school training at Lake Erie, and Lake Erie was a 
mess, and now Lake Erie is a clear lake, it is dramatically improved.
  I grew up on Long Island not far from New York City in the mouth of 
the Hudson River. The Hudson River was a disaster. It is now much 
better. There is still more clean up that needs to be done, but we are 
heading in the right direction.
  And for the Vice President to claim that literally the world is 
falling apart, that we have this absolute environmental crisis, I 
believe is absurd, and it certainly is absurd to entertain a serious 
discussion of a person with such extreme, extreme values be placed in 
the position of Commander in Chief of the United States, and I really 
thank the gentleman for yielding again. He has been very gracious in 
yielding his time.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Let me just say again, citing another example, of how 
Gore, Mr. Gore's views actually are hurting the objective he claims to 
advance, namely protecting the environment. The Clinton-Gore 
administration has absolutely resisted any change to the disastrous 
Endangered Species Act which has probably more than any other single 
act been of detrimental effect to so many taxpayers who own private 
property throughout the country, and oddly enough there is a very 
perverse incentive that the federal law now creates, specifically the 
Endangered Species Act. If an endangered species should be found on or 
about your property, you become subject to extensive Federal regulation 
that can cause the massive loss of value of your property, like up to 
90 percent.

                              {time}  2030

  So the perverse incentive is that far from wishing to conserve and 
help the endangered species, the incentive for the property owner is to 
get rid of the endangered species. There is a phrase, shoot and shovel 
and bury, something like that, whereby property owners, if they find 
one, try and get rid of it.
  Now, of course, one should not do that. That is a felony under the 
Endangered Species Act and it is wrong and undesirable, but 
nevertheless the law should be worded in such a way to encourage people 
to make the right choices.
  This law is just the opposite. It encourages people to make the wrong 
choices. It is very heavy handed. It is top down. It is punitive. Well, 
it is socialism. But, of course, as the economist observed, I think Mr. 
Hahn, whom I believe I cited earlier, he indicated that this is 
environmental socialism.
  What is the basis of socialism? Force. We can go back to George 
Washington, who understood that. In speaking of government, he said 
government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force, and like 
fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
  It appears that Mr. Gore likes the use of force, likes the use of 
government, and wishes to increase its use and increase the power of 
the government. In fact, on almost any issue he always has the same 
answer: more government.
  It does not matter what the question is. If the question is how do we 
stop the killings that occurred in that awful situation in Colorado, 
well, it is more gun control even though gun control had nothing to do 
with it. Even though there is no showing that that could possibly work, 
they always have an answer: more government.
  The Endangered Species Act, have to make it tighter; have to raise 
the fines; have to increase its applicability; we have to go from 
species to ecosystems and extend our control over the whole ecosystem.
  Campaign finance reform, we have to have more of that. That is from 
the mouth of Mr. Gore, if one can believe it, and yet the fact of the 
matter is the very reforms that Mr. Gore gave us that are in present 
law have created disastrous conditions that he now decries.
  What is the answer? We just do not have enough government. More 
fines, more punitive actions, more restrictions on our constitutional 
freedoms. This is the approach taken by our Vice President.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to Mr. McIntosh.
  Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate what the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Doolittle) is saying and would just contribute one more 
example of how the policies that Mr. Gore has put forward are 
counterproductive to the environment.
  The global warming treaty, the U.N. treaty that he signed on behalf 
of the United States of America, his maiden voyage into the area of 
foreign policy and representing this country, he neglected to insist in 
the negotiation that countries like China or Mexico or Latin American 
countries or India or South or North Korea be bound by the articles of 
that treaty. Instead, most of the restraint was on the United States.
  So it was a treaty that brought us more government here in America, 
government that would increase the price of gasoline by 50 percent; 
government that would force coal miners to lose their jobs throughout 
this country; government that would threaten our auto industry and cost 
us a million jobs as those jobs are sent to China, Mexico, Latin 
America and all of the countries that would be exempt.
  So he seems to be not concerned about government overseas but 
concerned about creating government here. The net result for the 
environment is that the worst polluters are left scot free. China will 
produce more global warming gasses in the next 20 years than the United 
States, and yet they will not be subject to this treaty.
  He cannot solve the global problem.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. If the gentleman will yield, our policy seems to be to 
bend over backwards and do everything we can for China, despite the 
fact they point their missiles at us and take advantage of us in every 
way.
  Mr. McINTOSH. In the end, the environment is the loser, and so are 
the American workers who lose their jobs.

[[Page H3379]]

  The only winners are those people who sought to make a political 
point and stand up and say, we are for the environment. To my way of 
thinking, that is not good government, and it reflects a 
disproportionate emphasis on short-term political gain and no 
consideration for what is in the best interest of the United States.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. McIntosh) for 
his participation tonight.
  I encourage everybody to read ``Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the 
Human Spirit.'' We will be back for the next chapter as we examine 
further the dangerous and extreme and outrageous and, as my colleague 
said, goofy views of the Vice President of the United States, Mr. Al 
Gore.

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