Congressional Record, Volume 146 Issue 127 (Thursday, October 12, 2000)

[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 127 (Thursday, October 12, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H9868-H9874]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

URGING ENVIRONMENTAL DEBATE BETWEEN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I want to spend this time this evening
dealing with an issue that I hope will get the attention that it
deserves yet in this election. We just had the second Presidential
debate last night. I still hold out hope for an environmental debate
between the candidates for President as well as leaders in both parties
up and down the ticket.
The significance of the environment to the American public is not
just a matter of public opinion polls, although I note with interest
recently a publication of the Clean Air Trust where they had conducted
a survey of voters that indicated that 4 in 10 suggested that they
would shun a Presidential candidate who opposed tougher new clean air
standards, according to their national poll by the nonprofit Clean Air
Trust. They were conducting this survey to determine the impact of just
this one key environmental issue, clean air.
At the same time, nearly 6 in 10 voters say they would reward a
Presidential candidate who fought to support clean air standards. These
are entirely consistent with results of a separate Clean Air Trust
survey of likely voters in the battleground State of Michigan. But we
do not have to just look at public opinion polls.
I note with interest that, when we open up the newspapers in our
communities from coast to coast, border to border, they are filled with
issues of environmental concern to our citizens. A lot of the work that
I do in Congress focuses on livable communities and what the Federal
Government can do to be a better partner in promoting an environment
where our families are safe, healthy, and economically secure.
I am pleased that the Vice President has been a champion of the
Federal partnership in promoting livable communities. His activity on
behalf of the President's Council for Sustainable Development, indeed,
he has been pushing and probing across the board in the Federal
Government for each and every agency to have their program of
sustainable development, of livable communities, of ways to promote
environmental enhancement.
The contrast with Governor Bush I think could not be more stark.
There is no comprehensive State program in the State of Texas dealing
with environmental quality and livability. Indeed,

[[Page H9869]]

there is no indication that Governor Bush has chosen this as an area
that he wants to promote Federal involvement and partnership.
When we look at the response to local communities in the State of
Texas to try and deal with those problems, it appears that he does not
really look with favor at initiatives at the local level.
I would quote from a recent column by Neal Peirce, one of the
national journalistic experts in this arena who has been following
livability environment and what happens in our metropolitan areas for
several decades. He had indicated that the question about Governor Bush
is why he seems oh so indifferent to America's growth quandaries. He
constantly stresses local control.
But The Austin American-Statesman reports that, when the growth-
deluged city of Austin, the capital, moved to regulate development and
water quality, Governor Bush approved State legislation to negate all
its efforts.
So it appears that he does not have a comprehensive program in the
State of Texas. He does not support a comprehensive approach on the
part of the Federal Government. He is willing to cut active
local governments like the capital city of Austin off at the knees.

This, I think, speaks volumes to the American public about the most
important challenge that we are going to be facing in terms of
enhancing and maintaining our quality of life.
I think a further elaboration of the difference between the record of
the Vice President and the Governor of Texas is enlightening.
The State of Texas ranks near the bottom in spending on the
environment, 44th out of the 50 States in per capita spending on
environmental programs, according to The Los Angeles Times last April.
Texas is the third worst in the country for toxic water pollution last
year. It was ranked third worst in terms of dumping chemicals into the
water supply. It also ranked second worst for omitting known and
suspected carcinogens to water in the country.
In 1998, Texas also had the record with the third most pollution in
the country and ranked third in omitting reproductive toxins into the
waterways, and second worst in dumping nitrate compounds into that
State's waterways.
Governor Bush selected as his Vice Presidential nominee Dick Cheney,
a gentleman, a former colleague of many in this Chamber where he served
for some dozen years in the 1980s and 1990s. Secretary Cheney, as a
Member of this body, voted seven times against authorizing clean water
programs, often as one of a small minority of Members who voted against
the authorization.
In 1986, Secretary Cheney was one of only 21 Members to vote against
the appropriations to carry out the Safe Drinking Water Act. In 1987,
he was one of only 26 Members who voted against overriding President
Reagan's veto of the reauthorization of the Clean Water Act.
The contrast here with Vice President Gore is stark. As a Senator,
Gore fought for cleaner water. He was an original cosponsor of the
Water Quality Act of 1987. He has been part of an administration that
has set aside more lands for Federal protection than any administration
since the man who got the ball rolling, Republican President Teddy
Roosevelt almost a century ago.
He has been an active promoter of critical partnerships to protect
habitat. As my colleagues know, 70 percent of the continental United
States is in private hands, and any successful effort to maintain and
restore the Nation's wildlife must include these private landowners.
One of the most valuable tools that has evolved is the habitat
conservation plan, which is a long-term agreement between government
and land owners that helps ensure the survival of threatened wildlife,
while still allowing productive use of the land.
Prior to 1993, only 14 such plans existed. This administration, with
the Vice President as the point person on the environment, has since
forged another 250 plans, protecting more than 20 million acres and 200
threatened species, voluntary programs with private landowners to
protect wildlife.
I think it is also clear that the Vice President would continue to
protect and perhaps even expand national parks and monuments. This has
been an item of some modest concern on the floor of this House, and we
have had an opportunity to discuss it. I think the Vice President is
clear that he would be supportive of those efforts, and he would seek
full funding of the land legacy initiative that the administration, Mr.
Gore, proposed.
They have supported full and permanent funding for the Land and Water
Conservation Fund. As part of the 2001 budget proposal, the President
and Vice President requested $1.4 billion for the Land Legacy
Initiative. I have every confidence that, as President, Al Gore would
continue to insist that the Land and Water Conservation Fund be fully
funded.

{time} 1745

The Vice President is also on record to support reform of the
antiquated mining law to help pay for conservation. Currently, the
Mining Act of 1872 remains on the books exactly as it was signed by
President Ulysses S. Grant more than a century and a quarter ago. It
grants, effective today, allowing patents for hard rock minerals on
public lands to be mined for $2.50 or $5 per acre.
Since taking office in 1993, just in the course of the last two
administrations, the 1872 Mining Law has required the Department of the
Interior to sign 40 mining patents that deeded away publicly owned
resources valued in the billions of dollars, one estimate is more than
$15 billion, to individuals and private mining companies. No guarantee
that those private mining companies are even American companies. In
return, the taxpayers have received a little more than $24,000.
The Vice President supports modernization of this law to take
advantage of changed circumstances. We are no longer needing to bribe
people to exploit the wilderness and settle the West. We can use the
money from any mining royalties that we ought to grant to help pay for
incentives to protect open space and help communities support local
parks.
Again, as I look back and reflect on the difference that there would
have between the Vice President and Governor Bush, I think this record
is stark. If one reviews the record of Governor Bush, who cites his
stewardship, now in his second term as governor of our country's second
largest State, and look at what he has done for parks or public land in
the State of Texas, I think any objective review of that record would
find that it is indeed sparse.
Texas ranks number 49 out of all the States in the amount of money it
spends on State parks. That is number 49, I might add, from the top to
the bottom. It is next to the last. A 1998 State audit found that Texas
had a funding backlog of $186 million just for maintenance of its
existing parks. In 1999, the Texas Parks Commission tried to remove a
cap on the sporting goods tax to increase its revenues so it could do
something to help this desperate situation in the State of Texas. The
governor, sadly, did not support the proposal and the measure died.
There was at least some lip service that was given by the
administration of Governor Bush when he appointed a task force to find
solutions to these problems. He created a task force on conservation
which he ``charged with finding ways to ensure that Texas leaves a
legacy for our children and grandchildren, a legacy of unwavering
commitment to protect and preserve our treasured lands.'' Sounded good.
But when he had an opportunity to translate this into action, the
governor ignored the request for additional funding from the Texas
Parks Commission.
One of the most exciting proposals that has developed in this
Congress, and something that has excited the attention of Americans
across the country, has been fully funding the Land and Water
Conservation Act, the CARA legislation, which passed this Chamber with
an overwhelming bipartisan vote under the leadership of the gentleman
from Alaska (Mr. Young), chairman of the Committee on Resources, and
the ranking member, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).
That was really an artful piece of legislation that would have the
opportunity of really transforming the use of our public land. It had
resources for urban parks, for nature areas, for habitat restoration,
conservation, purchase and

[[Page H9870]]

maintenance, and historic activities. There was something here that
excited, I think, the attention of environmentalists, conservationists,
and citizens all across the country.
According to the San Antonio Express News last year, when asked if he
would support the legislation, the governor did not know. I quote: ``I
do not know how to answer your question.'' And to the best of my
knowledge, I have not seen him adding his voice to try and pry this
legislation out of the death grip that it has with the Senate
leadership where it has not been permitted to move.
It is clear that Governor Bush would increase logging on public
lands, but it is less clear what that environmental impact would be. He
would reverse the roadless area protections that are encountered in the
administration's roadless areas initiative, and this came out of his
visit to Seattle, as quoted in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on June
26 of this year.
The vice presidential nominee of the Republican Party has been clear
that a Bush-Cheney administration would be very interested in reopening
the issue of the lands that have been protected from development by
this administration.
Another issue of great concern to those of us in the Pacific
Northwest, where we are struggling with how to balance the variety of
interests dealing with the problems of the Columbia River System, with
the issue of endangered species, with salmon, treaty rights to Native
Americans, where there are conflicts in terms of barge traffic on the
rivers, recreational users, and power, this is not an easy issue; and
one of the things that has been clear is that this administration is
willing to explore all options, and even some that are going to be very
difficult. Vice President Gore has reiterated the fact that he feels
that until we have a plan in place, that we need to keep all these
options on the table.
Unfortunately, Governor Bush has stepped into a difficult situation,
one that does not have an obvious solution, and is willing publicly, I
think sadly for political purposes, to rule out some options without
having anything in the alternative. For him, evidently, not complying
with the Endangered Species Act, not dealing with our commitments under
treaty obligations to Native Americans, the extinction of salmon runs
is, in fact, an option.
The area of clean air is another one that is of great concern, I
think, to all Americans; but I want to pause at this point because I
have been joined by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey). I am
going to begin a somewhat lengthy piece, but the gentleman from New
York, who is a member of the Committee on Appropriations and a tireless
champion for environmental interests in his district, in his State of
New York, and throughout the country, I know has been deeply involved
in a number of these issues. He is a member of the Subcommittee on
Interior of the Committee on Appropriations as well, and I would yield
to him if he has some observations or thoughts at this point as we have
been discussing these issues as it relates to the Vice President,
Governor Bush and the choices before us.

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me,
and I particularly thank the gentleman for taking this time to discuss
an important issue, which has not gotten the attention that I think it
deserves in the context of this particular Congress.
In fact, as a member of this Congress, I have often felt that we are
fighting a defensive action here, where we are taking actions that are
designed to prevent harm from being done rather than moving forward in
a positive direction on a number of environmental issues that really
need to be addressed. The Endangered Species Act is one, and I know
that the gentleman just referenced it, that deserves a great deal of
attention.
The issue of CARA, a piece of legislation which is designed to
protect public lands and open space, and provide also recreational
opportunities both in rural and urban settings, is a critically
important piece of legislation. A good portion of that was advanced in
the context of the interior bill, which we passed here just recently
and which was signed by the President just the other day.
Now, the reason that that provision advanced in the interior bill was
in large measure a result of the leadership provided by the
administration, both the President and Vice President Gore. That
interior bill contained a landmark preservation, if I am not mistaken
the amount was $12 billion, over a period of time for open space
protection, preservation, and also for recreational activities, again
in rural but also in urban settings in association with urban parks and
things of that nature.
One of the issues that I think that we really need to address, and
which has not gotten enough attention, is the issue of water resources,
particularly fresh water resources. It is true, and many people have
observed fairly recently, that fresh water resources around the world,
including those fresh water resources here in the United States, are
being depleted, particularly those resources that lie in aquifers
underground. We know that, for example, in the great Midwestern section
of our country there is a huge underground reservoir known as the
Ogallala, which runs from northern Texas up to the Dakotas, and covers
a huge vast area, or at least underlies a huge vast area of the central
plains.
That water resource contained in that Ogallala underground reservoir
is being depleted at a rather alarming rate. This is fossil water. In
other words, it is water that has lain underground for centuries and
there is no visible source of rejuvenation for this aquifer. The fact
that we are depleting it at such a rapid rate is something that ought
to be of increasing concern.
Now, the depletion is primarily for agricultural purposes, for
applications of an agricultural nature throughout that area, and, of
course, good purpose. But the idea that we can continue to drain a
resource in the belief that that resource is always going to be there
and will not be depleted is a false notion. It is a basic fallacy, and
it is one with which we have to come to grips.
So I think that this issue of fresh water resources is an issue that
is going to require a great deal of attention from this Congress in the
future and from the next administration. And that, of course, raises
the question of what kind of administration do we want to have in place
here to succeed the Clinton administration which will husband these
resources in a reasonable way; in a logical and rational and
intelligent way. I think the answer to that question becomes quite
apparent when we look at the choices that we have before us.
We have on the one hand Governor Bush, who has a record of depletion
and deterioration of resources in the State in which he is the
executive; and, on the other hand, we have Vice President Gore, who has
a very deep and long record of environmental protection and husbanding
of resources going back to the time when he served in this House, and
then later in the Senate, and all of which he brought to his position
as Vice President of the United States.
So I think as people make decisions with regard to this upcoming
election, and I think it is easy to lose track of time around here, but
I think it is somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 weeks now until
November 7, as people begin to think more closely about the decision
they are going to make with regard to who is going to be the leader of
our country for the next 4 years, I think one of the issues that they
ought to factor into their decision-making is the issue of the
environment and who among those who are holding themselves out for this
office for President of the United States is best equipped and has the
knowledge and the sensitivity and the ability to care about this issue.
Who is best equipped, then, in that regard, to assume the
responsibility of President of the United States.

{time} 1800

So this is one of the issues that is of concern to me as I think
about the upcoming election and I think about the kind of leadership
that we are going to need to carry us forward into the 21st century at
a time when environmental resources are going to be increasingly under
adverse pressure and forced into adverse circumstances.
So that is a question which I hope people will be thinking closely
about as they make their decision about the President and Members of
the Congress and Members of the Senate as they cast their vote on
November 7.

[[Page H9871]]

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would like if I
could, with the indulgence of the gentleman from New York (Mr.
Hinchey), yield to our colleague, the gentleman from the State of
Maryland (Mr. Cardin), who has a long and distinguished record as a
State legislator, as a private citizen, and as a Member of this
Congress for focusing in on many of these concerns that I know my
colleague shares.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, let me thank my friend for yielding to me
and thank him for bringing this issue before this body.
As he pointed out, in last night's debate, we had a little bit of a
discussion about the environment, not enough of a discussion on the
environment. There is a clear difference between the Vice President and
the Governor on the environmental issues.
The Vice President, as the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) has
pointed out, throughout his entire career has been one of the real
leaders on sensible environmental policies, policies that not only help
preserve our environment but also deal with economic expansion but not
at the cost of destroying our woods or our airs. He understands the
importance of smart growth. He understands the issues of being
sensitive to our environment.
I particularly appreciate the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer)
taking this time. Because when we contrast that to the record of
Governor Bush and the State of Texas, which has one of the worst
environmental records of any State in this Nation, and the Vice
President mentioned some statistics yesterday as related to health
care, it is very clear that the State of Texas has been at the bottom
of our Nation in providing health benefits for its citizens, but it is
also at the bottom of our Nation on its record on environment.
They have literally destroyed much of their environment at the cost
of trying to do certain types of growth when it was not necessary to do
that. It is certainly not the model of leadership that we need in this
nation.
This issue is particularly important to the people of Maryland,
important to all the States. But the quality of life in Maryland is
very much dependent upon the quality of our environment. We pride
ourselves on the Chesapeake Bay, the most important natural resource in
our State.
I must tell my colleagues, when I was speaker of our State
legislature, we took on the challenge to try to reclaim the Chesapeake
Bay. Because it was becoming unsafe in many areas for people to swim or
for people to use for recreational purposes. If they fell into our
harbor, they did not have to worry about drowning, they would worry
about whether they could survive the pollution that was coming in from
all sectors, from the industrial use, from the farming use, from just
not paying attention to our environment.
We made a commitment 25 years ago to do something about it. And we
have. We have done a pretty good job in helping to clean up the
Chesapeake Bay. But I must tell my colleagues, we need a clean air
policy because that affects the quality of the Bay and acid rain. We
need a smart growth policy because that affects the quality of the
waters leading into the Chesapeake Bay. We need a national policy on
environment. We need leadership in the executive branch that will be
sensitive to these environmental issues.
Mr. Speaker, there is such a contrast between the two candidates for
President on this issue. And I hope that in the remaining 3-plus weeks,
less than 4 weeks, before the election that we will focus as a Nation
on the environmental issues.
Look at the record of the Vice President and the Governor on the
issues that we have been talking about this evening. They are very much
related to the quality of life in our community, very much related to
our commitment to try to improve the quality of life in each of the
districts that we represent.
So I hope that we will take the time to compare the candidates who
want to be President of this great Nation as to where do they stand on
smart growth, that is placing people near where they work and where
they live so that we can put less stress on the commute times in this
country, less time on our energy dependency.
We are too dependent upon imported oil. We all know that. Part of the
solution, as the Vice President has said, is less use of fossil fuels
in our community, more smart growth in our community. That will help
the quality of life for people who live in my district and every
district in the Nation, and it will also help preserve the Chesapeake
Bay and the other great bodies of water in our Nation and our air that
we breathe.
I have been disappointed by what we have done in this session not
because of the administration but because we have been spending more
time trying to beat down some bad action by our colleagues,
particularly on the other side of the aisle, when we should be looking
at building a record that we can look back at with pride.
I very much hope that as we get into the last weeks of this campaign
that we will challenge the leadership of our candidates running for
President as to how they stand on these issues. I think there is no
comparison here between the Vice President, who in his entire career in
Government has shown leadership and sensitivity to the
interrelationship between all the environmental issues, and the
Governor, who has a record that none of us want to emulate from the
State of Texas.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the
gentleman for his comments.
Two observations. One, I appreciate his reference to growing smarter
in terms of wiser use of our resources and avoiding unplanned growth
and sprawl.
The State of Maryland has recently been cited as another national
model for experimenting with this. And I think it is important that,
unlike what some of the people who are attempting to be critical of
this, there is no effort with smart growth to deny choices to the
American public. The notion here is to give them more opportunities in
terms of where they live, how they move.
If the only way somebody can get their children to a soccer game or
to school is to drive them, if they cannot walk, if they cannot cycle,
if they cannot get there on their own, if they have no access to
transit, it narrows their choices. If there are neighborhoods that are
disposable, hollowed out, it narrows the choices.
One of the things that I am, I guess, most appreciative of for the
Vice President is taking the risk that some people will try and turn
these concepts on their head and suggest that somehow this is a war on
the suburbs or it is trying to deny choices, when nothing could be
further from the truth than trying to promote more opportunity.
I am prepared to talk a little further on clean air, but I notice we
have been joined by my colleague the gentleman from Southern California
(Mr. Sherman).
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I just want to associate myself with the
comments of my colleagues. I could speak a minute on this issue, but I
think I would simply repeat what the rest of them have said. I have
some comments about some of the fiscal issues and if the gentleman has
time at the end and wants to yield time to me to discuss that point, I
will. Otherwise, I thank the gentleman on the other side for agreeing
to allow me to have 5 minutes at the end of his remarks.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I continue to yield to the gentleman
from New York (Mr. Hinchey).
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, let me make an observation, if I may, in
connection with the comments that were made just a moment ago by the
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin).
I think that occasionally, if we look at these issues superficially,
we fail to recognize the co-relationship between issues that sometimes
are taken separately and distinctly and not joined together.
The gentleman mentioned the relationship, for example, between the
environment and energy. And there is a clear nexus there, obviously,
that needs to be dealt with. And in that regard, it gives another
opportunity to talk a little bit about the initiatives of Vice
President Gore and his leadership on both environmental and energy
issues in a way that addresses the complexities of both.
For example, we know that we are increasingly dependent upon foreign
oil. I think we are importing now something in the neighborhood of 56
percent of the

[[Page H9872]]

oil that we consume here in the United States from outside of our
borders. This becomes, at that level, an issue even of national
security. We are far too dependent upon outside sources for the fossil
fuel that we depend upon for transportation, for heating, and for a
variety of other uses.
Now, that is something that we have to deal with. We have to gain
energy independence to a greater degree. We have to reduce our reliance
on foreign oil. How do we do that? One of the ways in which we do it is
to develop alternative sources of energy. And this is an issue on which
Vice President Gore has taken a leadership position that in fact was
far ahead of its time. He was talking about these things when it was
not apparent to most people that it would be necessary to take any
action in this area.
For example, he was talking about the need to develop photovoltaic
cells, for example, and direct solar energy for the creation of less
electricity and, by the way, in so doing, creating a vast new industry
for America which will enable us to address other issues, such as our
balance of trade, balance of trade deficit.
If we are developing new sources of energy for a world that is going
to be crying out for new sources of energy, that enables us to deal
with our own energy situation more intelligently, reduce our dependence
upon fossil fuel, create energy alternatively, and at the same time
produce a product that will be desired by virtually every other country
in the world.
We have an opportunity, in other words, to take a leadership position
here in a new industrial venture that will enable us to accomplish a
variety of objectives in a very concise and particular way. And for
that I think Vice President Gore deserves a great deal of credit for
stepping out in front on this issue and directing the way toward its
solutions.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman
yield?
Mr. BLUMENAUER. I yield to the gentleman from California.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman
for yielding. I say to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) that I
could not agree with him more.
It is rather tragic at a time now when we see the great peril that
the Middle East is again embroiled in as the peace negotiations falter
and the acts of violence are currently playing themselves out, and we
think that if at the end of the Iraqi war if we had made a commitment
that we would not ever again put ourselves in a position where we had
to send American soldiers in the pursuit of oil or to protect the
Kuwaiti fields or to protect the Saudi Arabia fields, or what have you,
that we would have pursued this vast array of alternatives that the
Vice President has been talking about almost his entire public life,
that we could have, in fact, pursued alternatives in energy
consumption, in conservation, in technologies that would have, in fact,
really made us independent and insulated us in these kinds of
situations.
But, in fact, we chose to go another route. And that was massive
increases in consumption, the failure to go for the efficiencies, the
failure to recognize what was readily available on the market and use
that here domestically or to sell it overseas. And yet, even now we
continue to see the other side of the aisle and Governor Bush
suggesting, if we just had one more drilling of oil.
The fact is we have increased the production of oil in America over
the last 10 years rather dramatically. The hottest oil play in the
world is the Gulf of Mexico. Oil companies have spent tens of billions
of dollars to be able to go in and to drill there, and it has obviously
been worth their while. It is a fantastic find because of new
technologies in that field. But it has not made us any more
independent. It has not made us any more independent. It has continued
the addiction that we have had to foreign oil.
And so, rather than get our house in shape here and get our country
in shape as the gentleman has suggested and as the Vice President has
suggested over the last decade, we have done just the opposite, we have
made ourselves more dependent. And like any other addiction, it is very
difficult to break. But we ought to stop it at this point and recognize
the peril it places us in internationally, the peril it places our
economy in, and the unneeded expenditures by Americans for energy that
is not necessarily simply because of the waste that is involved.

{time} 1815

That was clearly one of the choices that was presented in the debate
last night about whether or not we embrace this in terms of the future
and in terms of the knowledge that we now have about energy
efficiencies, conservations and technologies or whether we just say,
``Let's go back to what we were doing in Pennsylvania at the turn of
the century and just put another hole in the ground.'' It is wonderful
to get the oil, but it does not relieve the dependence and there is no
indication that it ever will relieve the dependence unless, in fact, we
go to these new technologies. I just want to thank the gentleman for
making that point.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Reclaiming my time briefly, I could not agree more
with my distinguished colleague from California. He points out that we
are, in fact, extracting more energy from more sources. But if we as a
Nation that represents 5 or 6 percent of the world's population
continue to use 25, 30 percent of the energy supply and if our primary
bets are on fossil fuels that are, in fact, finite no matter what some
would hope, we are on a downward path that can only lead to disaster.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. When 70 percent of the import is for
transportation, we deny the fact that readily available today at these
market prices, with no compromise in safety, speed or technology, a car
is available, you can get 35 miles to the gallon. Not a big push from
where we are today, but a dramatic change in our consumption pattern
and our independence, if you will. That could just be done today with
essentially no sacrifice being made. Not a dramatic runup in the price
of an automobile, not a dramatic compromise in the safety for you or
your families and your comfort or anything else. It is available today.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Could those vehicles, energy-efficient vehicles be
made here in the United States by American workers?
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Those vehicles could be made here
with no change. The difference is that all the advances that we have
made on engine efficiency, the dramatic increases that we have made in
efficiencies of the internal combustion engine have been loaded up with
weight so that you can drive a bigger and a heavier car rather than
returning the benefit to the economy, to the consumer and to the
environment. We just decided we would take all the improvement and we
would negate it by putting 9,000 pounds on top of it. So here we get
what the industry said they could do, what many of us in the Congress
wanted them to do, what the environment needs them to do, and then we
just larded it up. So rather than driving an ordinary car, we took all
those benefits and just put them in, if you will, to style. That is
costing the American consumer a huge amount of money, a huge amount of
money for no real benefit at all.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Is it possible that if we had at least studied the
CAFE standards, that if we would have applied the CAFE standards across
all of today's fleet, not having massive exemptions, that we could have
actually had the best of both worlds?
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. It is all there. It is there. But
obviously when we suggest to them that they can do this voluntarily,
just like when George Bush suggested to all those old polluters in
Texas to just do it voluntarily, they chose to do it another way. They
chose to do it to maximize profit and forget the public interest,
forget the needs to clean up the environment, forget the air quality,
forget the economy of people who are reaching into their pocket to pay
$2 for gasoline in a car that is getting them 20 miles to the gallon
when, in fact, they could be getting 35 with none of these trade-offs.
It could be done here, it could be done with American labor. They are
the best autoworkers in the world. That is not even a contest. But it
is not being done because huge, huge cars now are cash cows for the
automobile companies and that is more important

[[Page H9873]]

to them than the public safety, the environment, household incomes,
expenses or our dependency on foreign oil.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Reclaiming my time, I was struck by your comment
about the voluntary emission reduction plan in Texas. This is one of
the innovations that has been cited by Governor Bush under his
leadership. There was legislation that was introduced, he supported,
Texas Senate bill 766 that took effect more than a year ago. It has
been touted as an approach to voluntarily clean up these 760 old plants
that were grandfathered in. I find it fascinating that as a result of
this effort, there have been 73 so-called pioneer companies out of the
760 that have taken part, that the majority of these plants, even of
the 73 that took part, there are only 28 that even applied for permits,
only 19 received them and only five of these volunteers with permits
that actually required reductions. So there are actually only five out
of 760 plants that are actually producing any result and it is
something like 0.3 percent.
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. That is the exact point. When you
say to these companies, there is going to be voluntary compliance, if
you can do it, do it, we would all appreciate it. You are also sending
the same signal that says, ``And if by the way you continue to pollute,
that's okay, too. If you choose to clean up, that would be nice, but if
you choose not to clean up, it's the same.''
Before we had the Clean Air Act and I know the gentleman is very
interested in the Clean Water Act, before we had the Clean Air and the
Clean Water Act, I do not remember companies walking in and saying,
``I'm going to voluntarily clean up the arsenic in the water,'' or
``I'm going to voluntarily clean up the benzene in the air, the lead in
the air or the pollution in the Hudson River.'' I do not remember that
happening. It was only because of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water
Act that these companies stepped forward. They did it because it was
the law of the land. What we have seen for 6 years in this Congress
under a Republican majority and what we have seen in the State of Texas
is continued efforts by corporate entities to lean on the political
system so it is not the law of the land. And if it is not the law of
the land, you will not clean up the Hudson River, you will not clean up
the Sacramento River, you will not clean up the Mississippi River, you
will not clean up these areas that America holds as treasures.
And so as the gentleman points out, when Governor Bush got all done
with his volunteer stepping forward, this is like a bad film of the
Army: I need these volunteers, now everybody take one step forward and
everybody steps back and one guy is left there as the volunteer. This
is like a bad movie. If we work at this rate on cleaning up pollution
in America that they are in Texas, we will all be choking to death. It
is not happening. The figures point it out. The Governor could sit
there last night and say, ``We have a plan and it's working.'' Well, if
this is his definition of ``working,'' there is a horror story in store
for the American public, because that does not address the needs of the
cities and others who have air pollution problems and toxic problems.
That is just unacceptable.
We have struggled in this Congress to try to get entities to step
forward and be responsible for Superfund sites, for water pollution and
air pollution. I think the gentleman makes a very important point about
the so-called voluntary program in Texas. You voluntarily get not to
obey the law is what you do. That is what you get to volunteer to do.
Mr. HINCHEY. The gentleman from California, I think, makes very
important points about it as well. It is even true that after you
require it in the law, if you do not have proper enforcement of the
law, even then you will find some of these corporations that were
responsible for the pollution in the first instance resisting taking
the appropriate and responsible action to clean up the mess that they
made.
The gentleman mentioned the Hudson River. That is one clear example
where you have had PCB contamination now for decades and the
responsible parties have not done anything to address that pollution.
In fact, what they have done is they have come here to the Congress,
they have gotten Members of the Congress to introduce amendments to
pieces of legislation which will, in fact, delay any act of
responsibility on their part. So not only do voluntary actions not work
but in addition to the law we have found in our experience that you
also have to have effective enforcement. No, absolutely not, they are
not going to do any of these things voluntarily because it costs them
money, and it should cost them money because they made enormous profits
in creating that pollution in the first place in most instances. But in
addition to having good, decent, powerful laws, you also have to have
consistent and effective and honest enforcement.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) who has been a leader on a whole host of
environmental and energy issues.
Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman very much, and I thank him for
holding this very important special order.
Mr. Speaker, on September 29 of this year, Governor Bush of Texas,
attempting to reassure the public that there was no choice to make
between oil production and preserving wilderness waxed eloquent on the
subject of the Arctic Refuge.
``We should open up a small fraction of the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge for responsible oil and gas exploration. The Vice President says
he would rather protect this refuge than gain the energy. But this is a
false choice. We can do both,'' said Mr. Bush, ``taking out the energy
and leaving only footprints.'' Leaving only footprints. A wonderful
image, is it not, leaving only footprints in the Arctic Refuge? Like
Robert Frost and his little cat's feet or Robinson Crusoe discovering
he was not alone when he spied the telltale footprints of Friday on the
shore of sand before the high tide washed them away.
An image of footprints in the Arctic Refuge that the petroleum
industry would leave and would love to have linger in our minds, these
footprints of Friday or cat's paws in the sand, children walking along
the beach. Footprints.
It is against the law, of course, as we know, to drill for oil in the
Arctic Refuge and the only way that will ever change is if the industry
manages to get Congress to change the law. They are very resourceful,
this industry. They have put together a dream ticket in the person of
an oilman for President and an oilman for Vice President. And now they
are engaging in industrial strength poetry as they try to win a license
to destroy the wilderness of one of the last places on God-created
Earth that man has yet to try to improve.
So Governor Bush says his plans would only impact about 8 percent of
the refuge. Well, it turns out that what they want to drill is in the
biological heart of the refuge, where polar bears den and caribou give
birth. Imagine your doctor telling you, ``This won't hurt. We're only
going to drill in a small fraction of your body, only about 8 percent,
only around the region of your heart, only that 8 percent of your body.
That is the only place we're going to operate. Don't worry, we won't
touch the rest of you. Only that 8 percent. The heart.'' The heart of
this refuge.
Now, let us take a look at the industrial footprints that have
already been left on the North Slope by environmentally sensitive oil
companies which want to drill in the heart of the refuge. These
pictures are from Dead Horse and from Prudhoe Bay. They are part of a
vast industrial complex that generates on average one toxic spill a day
of oil or chemicals or industrial waste of some kind. It seeps into the
tundra and becomes part of a new and improved North Slope as it is
viewed by the oil industry. This energy sacrifice zone already spews
more nitrogen oxide pollution into the Arctic each year than the city
of Washington, D.C.

{time} 1830

That is all of the pollution created in Washington, D.C. is not as
great as the pollution created by these sites already in this Arctic
North Slope area. As we can see, the drilling for oil takes a huge
amount of equipment for roads, for pipes, for wells, for pumping. All
the trappings of a massive industrial undertaking have been hauled or
flown

[[Page H9874]]

or barged to the North Slope around Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay. The
companies have been able to afford to bring everything in to such a
remote location because today they are making money. But guess what?
Tomorrow it will still be there, and tomorrow and tomorrow and
tomorrow. All this stuff never leaves. The roads, the pipes, the dry
holes, the bulldozers, the spent wells, the gravel pits, it all stays.
And together, it makes up a footprint that can only be described as a
world-class mess, and it is going to stay that way because once the
industry starts making money up there, the last thing they are going to
do is to go into debt in order to clean it up.
The industrial footprint extends for miles. When it is overlayed on
the refuge, we can see that it would end any notion of this treasured
corner of God Almighty's earth remaining wild, untrammeled, and
untouched.
Let me finish by noting that this is Federal land that has been set
aside for all of the people of the United States. It does not belong to
the oil companies. It does not belong to just one State. It is a public
wilderness treasure. We are all the trustees. As far as I am concerned,
we are going to have to work as hard as we can in order to make sure
that this incomparable wilderness is not touched. There are plenty of
other places that can be explored in Alaska; and as Joe Lieberman said
in his debate, if we just increase fuel efficiency of an automobile
three miles a gallon, it would produce more oil than all of this Arctic
wilderness.
Let me conclude and compliment the gentleman from Oregon (Mr.
Blumenauer) for holding this important special order. I think all of
these issues have to be discussed.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Colorado
(Mr. Udall) joining us, and I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Colorado (Mr. Udall), who has been active in these issues since long
before he came to this Chamber.
Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Oregon
(Mr. Blumenauer) for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I wanted to associate myself with the comments of my
colleagues and in particular acknowledge the articulate and eloquent
comments from the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) about the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. As I think he pointed out, the
geologists tell us we have probably something along the order of 6
months' supply in this area, and to me it would be a big mistake for
that short-term supply of oil to trample an area that was described in
such fashion. It is a trade-off that is not really acceptable, I think.
What is acceptable? Well, if we look at what Vice President Gore has
been talking about, what is acceptable is to throw ourselves into all
of these opportunities that we have to develop different types of
energy production methods that are really exciting technologies out
there. One hundred years ago, when petroleum was discovered, there were
only two or three obvious uses for it. What did we do as a country?
What did we do as a society? We said let us invest in research and
development.
The Federal Government stepped in, and now we have almost countless
uses for petroleum. In fact, some historians, I think, will tell us
that we wasted it in our automobiles in the latter half of the 20th
century.
We have very promising technologies in solar, as demonstrated by
phototechnologies. We have wind technologies where the price of
kilowatts is coming down dramatically. Biogas. We ought to be throwing
all of those kinds of technologies into the mix at this time. I think
we are going to see some enormously exciting things happen.
It is a false choice: it is going to hurt our economy, or it is going
to hurt our environment. It is truly a false choice and the Vice
President is saying, look, we have incredible opportunities in the
developing world to take these technologies to places like China and
Indonesia and India, and in the process do right by our economy, do
right by the economic development opportunities. So the Vice President
looking ahead, oil is going to be a thing of the past; the geologists
tell us that those supplies are limited, that in the next 100 years oil
as we know it will not be available to us. Let us look ahead, follow
the leadership and the vision of the Vice President.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hansen). The time of the gentleman has
expired.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. I am sorry, Mr. Speaker?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time has expired.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I had yielded the gentleman 2 of 3 of my
minutes.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Apparently he used more than the 2 minutes.
I am sorry if there is a misunderstanding, but the hour is up.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I would ask unanimous consent for 30
seconds.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. I would advise the gentleman that a
unanimous consent is not acceptable under a special order for
additional time.

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