[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 8 (Wednesday, February 6, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H181-H184]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1830
          BUSH ADMINISTRATION DOWNGRADES ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shuster). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, this evening I would like to highlight the 
negative aspects of the Bush administration's environmental record. I 
do not come to the floor lightly. I am not here because I particularly 
want to be critical of the President or this administration; but it has 
been upsetting to me, particularly because I think in the aftermath of 
the September 11, because the Nation and I personally have focused so 
much on defense and the war on terrorism and homeland security issues, 
many times when efforts were made by the administration to weaken 
environmental laws or change agency rules in ways that weaken 
environmental protection, it has been difficult to get the public to 
pay attention to those issues or to even get the media's attention to 
the fact that in many cases environmental regulations have been watered 
down or changed in a way that is not good for the environment.
  I was hoping that was just a coincidence and it would not continue, 
but it has continued. There are reports which have come out, one of 
which I would like to go into in a little detail tonight, which shows 
that this administration continues to downgrade, if you will, 
environmental protection.
  When the President came forth with his budget last Monday, there was 
another strong indication of his willingness to downgrade environmental 
concerns because of the level of funding proposed in his budget for 
some key environmental programs.
  I do not think that anyone really expected when President Bush took 
office that this administration would be strong on environmental 
issues, but many times there was rhetoric that suggested maybe we were 
wrong and maybe there would be some heightened concern over the 
environment. But the fact of the matter is that the administration's 
actions are very much the opposite. They continue, whether by 
regulation or through their spending policies, to take action which I 
think ultimately hurts the environment.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to start out this evening by going through 
briefly a report that was put out by the Natural Resources Defense 
Council, the NRDC on January 23, just a couple of weeks ago. Basically 
what they looked at was agency actions over the spectrum of the 
Nation's most important environmental programs, whether that be 
protecting air, water, forest, wildlife or public lands. The report is 
actually entitled ``Rewriting the Rules: The Bush Administration's 
Unseen Assault on the Environment.'' It basically provides a review of 
agency action since September 11, and it shows very dramatically that 
there, basically, has been an intensification of efforts after 
September 11 to downgrade environmental protection.
  I think it is unfortunate that this is the case because I believe 
most Americans feel that not only is the environment an important 
issue, but it is a

[[Page H182]]

 quality-of-life issue that everyone should be concerned about. I find 
in my district in the State of New Jersey, it does not matter whether a 
Member is a Republican or a Democrat, Americans want to protect the 
environment.
  Let me review some of the points that this report makes. Again, it is 
called ``Rewriting the Rules: The Bush Administration's Unseen Assault 
on the Environment.'' The first is with reference to clean air. We know 
that there is a fundamental requirement of the Clean Air Act that older 
electric power plants and other smoke stack industries must install 
state-of-the-art cleanup equipment when they expand or modernize their 
facilities, in other words when utilities are in the process of 
expanding an older facility. The older facilities may be exempt from 
certain standards of the Clean Air Act, but if you expand an old 
facility or build a new facility, then the company has to come under 
the provisions of the Clean Air Act. It is the grandfathering that is 
exempt.

  But what we find is that the Bush administration is trying to 
basically allow expansion of these older, dirty power plants without 
meeting the new requirements or the new rules. There is a new source 
requirement that says that for new industrial facilities and power 
plants, that industry has to put in place air quality improvements. 
That needs to be done for older, expanded plants, the same way as is 
required for new plants. But the Bush administration is saying that 
older plants may be expanded without having to upgrade equipment.
  Mr. Speaker, when the Clean Air Act was passed, it was understood 
that even though the older plants were grandfathered, that they would 
be phased out and at some point there would only be the new plants 
which met the stricter environmental criteria. If this administration 
allows the older plants to essentially retool and expand under the old 
rules, not only will those plants continue to have a life of their own, 
but now there will be even more power generated using old and outmoded 
methods that allow the air to be more and more polluted.
  The second issue that the NRDC report references with regard to 
wetlands. For more than a decade, the cornerstone of America's approach 
to wetlands protection has been a policy that calls for no net loss of 
wetlands. This actually originated with the first President Bush, with 
the first Bush administration. But with no public notice or opportunity 
for comment, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers moved to effectively 
reverse this long-standing policy by issuing a new guidance on wetlands 
mitigation. These weaker standards would mean the loss of tens of 
thousands of acres of wetlands that provide flood protection, clean 
water and fish and wildlife habitat. This reversal of the no net-loss 
policy, which has occurred since September 11, is just one component of 
a broader Bush administration effort to diminish wetlands protection.
  The President made a pledge during Earth Day of this year that he 
would preserve wetlands; but if we look at what his administration is 
doing, they supported relaxing a key provision of the Clean Water Act, 
the National Permit Program, which regulates development and industrial 
activity in streams and wetlands. So the Corps of Engineers is 
loosening the permit standards and making it easier for developers and 
mining companies to destroy more streams and wetlands.
  Mr. Speaker, a third area is mining on public lands. Mining 
activities have despoiled 40 percent of western watersheds, according 
to the EPA. But instead of addressing this problem, the Bush 
administration is making it worse. In October, the Department of the 
Interior issued new hardrock mining regulations reversing environmental 
restrictions that apply for mining for gold, copper, silver, and other 
metals on Federal lands. Under the new rules, the agency has renounced 
the government's authority to deny permits on the grounds that a 
proposed mine could result in substantial irreparable harm to the 
environment. So the new rules also limit corporate liability for 
irresponsible mining practices, undermining cleanup standards that 
safeguard ground and surface water.

                              {time}  1845

  These were again put into place in October, in the aftermath of 
September 11, essentially when most of us, including the media, were 
not paying too much attention.
  A fourth area that I would like to mention that is in the NRDC report 
is particularly important to me, because when I was first elected to 
Congress back in 1988, basically I ran on a platform that I was going 
to put an end to ocean dumping off the coast of New Jersey, off the 
coast of my district. I have been very successful with my colleagues 
from New Jersey, with my other Members of the House, with the Senators 
from New Jersey over that 14-year period now to basically put an end to 
all direct dumping, if you will, in the ocean, whether it be sewage or 
toxic dredge material or the other types of materials. We had all kinds 
of garbage and different things that were placed out in the ocean.
  Sewage, of course, contains bacteria, viruses, fecal matter and other 
wastes, and it is responsible each year for beach closures, fish kills, 
shellfish-bed closures and human gastrointestinal and respiratory 
illnesses. In 1988 in New Jersey, because of all the medical waste and 
the sewage sludge that was washing up on the beaches in the summer, we 
actually had to close all the beaches in the State, or almost all the 
beaches in the State. It cost New Jersey billions of dollars. People 
were getting sick, the economy was suffering, it was really a bad 
situation, both healthwise and economically speaking.
  According to the EPA, there were 40,000 discharges of untreated 
sewage into water bodies, basements, playgrounds and other areas in the 
year 2000. Before the Bush administration took office, the EPA issued 
long-overdue rules minimizing raw sewage discharges into waterways, and 
requiring public notification of sewage overflows. The proposed rules, 
however, were blocked by the regulatory freeze ordered by the Bush 
administration last January. A year later, the administration still has 
not issued the final sewage overflow rules. Technically, they remain 
under internal review at the EPA, but in practice they are languishing 
in regulatory limbo.
  This was an action that was taken by the Clinton administration, by 
the prior President, in an effort to try to minimize raw sewage 
overflow into our rivers, oceans and streams, and the Bush 
administration when they came into office basically got rid of that 
regulation, but promised they would come up with new ones. A year later 
we do not have them. Once again we have an example where clean water, 
like clean air, like wetlands, all these things are suffering because 
of either action or inaction by this current administration.
  The last thing that the NRDC mentions in the report is OMB's 
centralized assault. The full-scale regulatory retreat at Federal 
environmental agencies is only part of the story, according to the 
NRDC.
  Over the long term, the most telling indication of the Bush 
administration's intentions is the role played by the Office of 
Management and Budget. The Bush administration has given unprecedented 
new power to OMB to gut existing environmental rules and bottle up new 
ones indefinitely. And the OMB has carried this effort a step further 
by reaching out to polluters and their champions on Capitol Hill to 
develop a hit list of environmental safeguards they plan to weaken. The 
list provides a road map of upcoming regulatory battles that include 
safe drinking water standards, controls on toxins, Clean Air Act 
requirements, water pollution limits, pollution from factory farms, and 
forest planning regulations.
  The problem that I see, Mr. Speaker, is that this administration 
started out basically saying that they were going to try to improve the 
environment, making that commitment. A lot of us doubted that that 
commitment was real, and now in the aftermath of September 11 we see 
that it is not real, and, in fact, every effort is being made to gut 
environmental protection. I think that the public increasingly will not 
stand for this. If anything, the Enron scandal points out that the 
public is very wary of big business, corporate interests being able to 
extend their political influence on Capitol Hill to do things that are 
not in the interest of the little guy, that are not in the interest of 
the general public. I have no doubt that the environment is something 
that the public sincerely cares

[[Page H183]]

about and that once these administration actions are brought to light, 
we can see mounting support to oppose any kind of changes that seek to 
basically downplay or degrade the environment.
  I wanted to mention, Mr. Speaker, if I could, what happened and some 
of the highlighted cuts that the President brought forward in his 
budget last Monday. I think that, as with everything related to the 
environment, the key is having good laws on the books, having agencies 
that will carry out those laws, but those agencies cannot carry out 
those laws unless they have the funding to do so, and in many cases 
they do not have the enforcement arm to make sure that permits are not 
violated and that people are basically not going along with the laws 
that exist, the good laws that exist on the environment.

  When you talk about cutbacks in the areas that I am going to discuss, 
that has a major impact on the ability to improve environmental 
quality. If the money is not there to clean up the water, to clean up 
the air, to take the action, to do the enforcement, then we will 
continue to see a policy of environmental degradation.
  I wanted to get into a little detail about some of the budget 
concerns that I have in what the President proposed last Monday. In the 
first instance, I would like to talk about the Land and Water 
Conservation Fund. This is really an open space issue.
  At the end of the 106th Congress, the work of numerous Members, 
administration officials and literally thousands of conservation, 
environmental and recreation interests across the country culminated in 
what was the greatest piece of conservation funding legislation enacted 
in our lifetime. This was at the end of the last Congress. There was a 
bipartisan deal that set aside a total of $12 billion over a 6-year 
period, from 2001 to 2006, to fund an array of important programs, 
including the Land and Water Conservation Fund that protected open 
space, wildlife habitat, wildlife and cultural treasures, and supported 
recreation. This fund, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, is 
dedicated and protected for these purposes. It cannot be used for any 
other budget purposes.
  The fund started out at $1.6 billion and is slated for 10 percent 
increases each year to reach a total of $2.4 billion by fiscal year 
2006. The fund is large enough to fully fund the open space program 
that Congress enacted, but the administration in its budget proposal 
cut this historic program by $250 million below its authorized level of 
$1.92 billion for the next fiscal year.
  The Bush administration's budget also erodes the original purpose of 
this Land and Water Conservation Fund, first by cutting existing 
programs such as the Land and Water Conservation Fund by $88 million, 
State and tribal wildlife grants by $25 million, and the Endangered 
Species Fund by $5 million; and also zeroing out the Urban Parks and 
Recreation Program. It substantially increases the level in the fund 
for Federal lands maintenance, and this was supposed to be 
complementary, not part of the effort to acquire more open space.
  So what we see is a promised program, the Land and Water Conservation 
Fund, which was supposed to be money set aside just for specific open 
space purposes, now being cut even though there was a commitment over 
this period of time to make sure that it was fully funded.
  There is a similar problem with wildlife refuges. The wildlife refuge 
system celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2003. Defenders and a number 
of other organizations have called for more than doubling the refuge 
system's budget to a total of $700 million so that it has the funds to 
carry out its mission. In other words, there was supposed to be a 
significant increase in this fund. But what has happened, what the Bush 
administration has proposed, is to basically cut back on staff. Nearly 
200 refuges have no staff on site, and at its fiscal year 2002 funding 
level, needed operation increases are five times greater than needed 
maintenance increases. What the administration is doing again here is 
not providing enough funding to actually run the wildlife refuge 
programs and making it more and more difficult to maintain the refuges 
around the country.
  We have a similar situation with endangered species. The 
administration has requested $125.7 million, level funding, for the 
Fish and Wildlife Service core endangered species program. But this 
amount falls far short of the $275 million recommended for the next 
fiscal year by environmental groups. They do not have enough funding in 
the Fish and Wildlife Service to complete action on more than 250 
species that are currently candidates for protection. This is the 
listing of the species under the Endangered Species Act. So if you do 
not have the money to actually go out and list species and decide what 
is going to be on the endangered species list, essentially there is no 
protection for those species.
  Last year, the Service estimated that it needs $120 million, or $24 
million per year over 5 years, just for the process of eliminating the 
backlog for listing critical species. This does not account for a lot 
more that could be looked at and placed on the list. The administration 
has requested just $9 million for listing. Again, this is a way through 
the budget that the Bush administration makes it more difficult, if not 
impossible, to enforce the Endangered Species Act, by not providing 
enough funding to do the process of listing species. That is just the 
listing process.
  At the same time, the Fish and Wildlife Service is desperately short 
of funding needed to recover species; in other words, those that have 
already been listed and need actions by the Federal Government to make 
sure that they recover. At least 40 currently listed species could 
become extinct, even though they are listed and protected, because 
there is not enough funding for needed recovery actions. I will not 
list all of these, but the Florida panther is one, and a number of 
Hawaiian birds and plants. Again, this is another area where the 
administration is basically allowing a program to degrade because we do 
not have the money to either list an endangered species or to protect 
them.

  I wanted to also mention the Cooperative Conservation Initiative. The 
administration is proposing $100 million for a new Cooperative 
Conservation Initiative while mandated actions and current programs are 
crying for funds. They are coming up with this new program proposed 
that supposedly is going to deal with conservation issues, but it is 
not at all clear what its purpose is, at the same time that they are 
cutting back on funding for some of the other programs like the Land 
and Water Conservation Fund and the endangered species program.
  There are two other areas I wanted to mention this evening, Mr. 
Speaker. One deals with oil and gas development on public lands. The 
other deals with our national forests. What the Bush administration is 
doing in their budget, the President's budget, boosts oil and gas 
development on our public lands. Under the Bureau of Land Management, 
the administration is requesting a $10.2 million increase to expand 
energy and mineral development on public lands, including expedited 
permitting and increased leasing, energy-related rights of way and 
further development on Alaska's North Slope, including plans for 
drilling, of course, in ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in 
Alaska. The administration's budget includes assumptions of receipts 
from lease sales in ANWR in 2004. It also requested a $14 million 
increase for the Bureau of Land Management land use plans, some of 
which are for national conservation areas, but some are for energy 
development.
  I am not saying that it is always a bad thing to increase oil and gas 
drilling, but in many of these cases these actions are being taken in 
environmentally sensitive areas, particularly ANWR. Obviously the 
administration, the President, continues to push for drilling in ANWR, 
which from an environmental point of view would be very damaging to the 
wildlife refuge and to the environment in general in Alaska.
  The last thing I wanted to mention relates to national forests. The 
Forest Service budget includes a damaging pilot charter forest 
legislative proposal that establishes forests or portions of forests as 
separate entities outside of the national forest system structure and 
reporting to a local trust entity for oversight, so basically to get 
rid of the oversight requirements that currently exist.
  This is nothing more than a giveaway of portions of our national 
forests, which, of course, are irreplaceable

[[Page H184]]

 ecosystems that belong to all the American people. The budget also 
includes a timber sales offer level of 2 billion boardfeet, a 
substantial increase from the 1.4 billion boardfeet in recent years. 
This reflects a return to the timber targets of the Reagan years when 
politicians set logging levels that had no basis in science. It is also 
a clear departure from the practice of recent years to manage for the 
health and sustainability of the land, with outputs a by-product of 
good land management, not a good goal. The Forest Service is heavily 
subsidized to meet these harvest goals.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, sometimes it is difficult, I think, to understand 
a lot of these measures, whether it be the budget measures or the 
agency actions that I mentioned before in the aftermath of September 
11. It is hard to monitor and to realize the impact of a lot of these 
actions because they are in specific agencies, they impact certain 
parts of the country. But if you add them all up, both the budget cuts 
as well as the agency actions in the last few months, you can see that 
this administration is clearly moving more and more in intensifying its 
efforts to try to cut back on environmental protection.

                              {time}  1900

  I think the only way that we are going to stop this is if more and 
more people speak out. It is being done basically under the cover of 
September 11, when a lot of the media are not paying attention, and I 
hope that over the next few months we are able to bring more and more 
attention to some of these measures and to get the administration to 
stop intensifying their efforts.
  I notice that since I have been in Congress, if an action is taken to 
weaken the Clean Air Act or Clean Water Act in committee or on the 
floor of the House, because it is legislative, Members are usually 
aware of it and they can come in committee or to the floor and object 
to it and usually put a stop to it because of the public outcry.
  But when it comes to agency actions, when it comes to cutbacks in 
funding for some of the agencies in the fashion that I have described 
this evening, it is a much more insidious process and much more 
difficult I think for the public to understand what is going on or to 
focus on it; and I just think it is extremely unfortunate that the 
President has taken advantage of this period since September 11 to 
intensify his efforts to degrade the environment and to take both these 
agency and budget actions.
  Obviously, we have an opportunity during the appropriations process 
to turn this around and not accept the President's budget on a lot of 
these environmental initiatives, and that has to be part of what we try 
to accomplish over the next few months as we move through the 
appropriations process.
  I will say once again, it is my intention to come to the floor again 
and bring other colleagues to draw more and more attention to the 
President's anti-environment policies. They are not in sync with the 
American people, and they are certainly not in accordance with the 
promises that he made when he first ran for President.

                          ____________________