[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 164 (Thursday, November 18, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Page S14790]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 SOMETHING IS OUT OF BALANCE IN AMERICA

  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, it is easy when you come to work every day 
in the most historic and important building in the world to forget you 
are part of history--to forget you are in a sacred place where history 
has been made in the past. But it is even easier to forget you are 
making history now.
  But I am reminded that we are making history now when I listen to 
Senator Byrd speak with righteousness on behalf of the working people 
of West Virginia. And might I also say, I have never heard a more 
eloquent speech in the Senate than Senator Craig's speech that he gave 
earlier.
  Having heard those speeches--including Senator McConnell's and 
Senator Rockefeller's--I do not want to rise to talk about the 
substance. I do not think you can improve on what they had to say. But 
there is an important point, at least in my mind, that I want to make; 
and that is, something is wrong in America. Something is out of balance 
in America.
  If tomorrow in West Virginia a sub-species of crickets develop that 
have legs 6 millimeters longer than crickets as we know them, or that 
have brown or white specks on them, they would be protected before the 
law. They would be protected by the Endangered Species Act. There would 
literally be thousands of people who would be willing to troop to West 
Virginia and hold signs and demand that this new sub-species of 
crickets be protected.
  But yet when the livelihood of people who hear that alarm ring at 
4:30 a.m. in the morning--and if you grew up in one of those houses--I 
know Senator Byrd did--the next sound you would hear is those two feet 
hitting the floor. It is predictable. You know what is going to happen, 
whether it is raining or whether it is not raining. These are people 
who get up every day, who work hard, who struggle to make ends meet, 
who sit down around the kitchen table on the first day of the month and 
get out that stub they got with their paycheck. Then they take the back 
of an envelope, or a piece of paper, and they try to figure out how 
they are going to be able to pay their bills, and who they can get by 
without paying this month. They contribute to America by producing 
things America needs.
  I think something is out of kilter in America when our laws are more 
focused on protecting sub-species of crickets than they are focused on 
protecting people who earn a living with the sweat of their brow and 
with their hands.
  I think something is very wrong in America when there does not seem 
to be much focus on working men and women. And what was moving to me 
about Senator Byrd's speech is he was speaking on behalf of the people 
who work with their hands, and who work for a living, and who often do 
not have much of a voice in American Government.
  I am not here to criticize people who have focused, in some cases, 
their lives, their civic activity, and their leisure time activity on 
the environment. But I think something is wrong when, in focusing on 
the environment, we forget about people who work for a living and are 
affected.
  I think, in some cases, environmentalism has gone too far. I think, 
in some cases, that it has become anti-growth. Maybe that makes sense 
if you live in a fancy air-conditioned house and if your children have 
gone to college. If you have boundless opportunities, it makes sense to 
say we need to protect the environment at all costs and that there is 
no burden that is too great to bear. After all, the person saying that 
already has a piece of the American pie and has already generally lived 
the American dream.
  But I think what Senator Byrd has reminded us of is that not every 
American has lived the American dream. Not every American has gotten a 
piece of the pie.
  I think when we have focused so much on a sub-species of crickets, it 
is about time that people in the Senate stand up and say: What about 
people who make a living in the mining industries of this country--
people who have had placed on their livelihood less weight by American 
law than we place on the assumed well-being of subspecies of crickets? 
I think something is out of balance in America. I think we need to 
bring it back into balance. I think we need to remind people who are so 
concerned about one particular element of the environment that there is 
no more basic part of the environment than the ability of the people in 
West Virginia, or Kentucky, or Texas, or any other State in the Union 
to make their house payment, or their ability to earn a livelihood, or 
their ability to have self-respect in their own worth of what they do.
  We are not talking about tearing down America's environmental laws. 
No country in history has a better environment than we have. No country 
has spent more resources and legitimate effort on their environment 
than we have.

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