[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 75 (Tuesday, May 20, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H4261-H4262]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              FISCAL YEAR 2004 DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to talk about the fiscal 
year 2004 Defense authorization bill. Earlier this year, the Department 
of Defense approached Congress with a request to exempt itself from 
several of the fundamental environmental laws in order to strengthen 
our military readiness.
  At the time, this kind of shocked many of us because we saw that our 
readiness of our military was among, if not is, the best in the world, 
but that the state of some of our natural resources is certainly not 
the best in the world.
  Then things went from bad to worse. The Committee on Armed Services 
reported out a bill that went way beyond and way above what the Defense 
Department had originally asked for. H.R. 1588, the Defense 
authorization bill this year, contains provisions that fundamentally 
change the Environmental Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act 
and, most importantly, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, two major 
pieces of legislation that directly affect the coastal communities of 
the United States and particularly my District in California.
  There are many species listed under the ESA in my home District. 
There is the California condor. We have done a good job of trying to 
restore that condor into the wilderness. In fact, the Secretary of the 
Interior has been out to release those birds and has personally seen 
the effect of being able to reestablish a threatened species. There is 
the San Joaquin kit fox. There is the steelhead trout that are in our 
coastal streams, and the snowy plover, which is a shore bird that nests 
on our beaches.
  The continued existence of many of these species relies on the 
designation of what they call the critical habitat which is basically 
the homes and breeding grounds that are necessary for survival.
  For example, the Santa Cruz long-toed salamander only has six 
breeding ponds on which the whole species depends. Without the 
designation of these breeding ponds as critical habitat, the salamander 
would be left out without a vehicle for bringing it back from the brink 
of extinction.
  I might point out, many people thought the sea otter was extinct. In

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1950 we saw a small group of sea otters, and today that population has 
grown to about 1,000. It is threatened, but on the other hand, what it 
has done is increased tourism because people come out and look for that 
creature.
  So this bill that the Defense Department is asking for aims to make 
critical habitat designation only when it is necessary and not when it 
is prudent and determinable as the law now currently requires.
  When would it be necessary to designate a critical habitat? I am not 
sure necessary is defined in the bill. So basically the Secretary of 
the Interior and the Secretary of Commerce will be able to make a 
decision with no set criteria.
  The Bush administration has clearly stated its belief that critical 
habitat provides no protection, and as such, this provision could 
result in more species without homes and breeding areas, and the list 
goes on and on.
  The Marine Mammal Protection Act not only guts that, but it puts 
whales and dolphins in jeopardy by changing the Marine Mammal 
Protection Act, and my colleagues have already heard from several 
Members who have spoken on it. The intent of the Act is to prevent the 
harassment of marine mammals. The language in this bill weakens the 
definition of harassment, not just for DOD-related activities but also 
for all the people who use our oceans and coasts.
  The waters of Monterey Bay in my home District have been designated 
by the Federal Government as a national marine sanctuary. It is the 
home to sea otters, sea lions and harbor seals and serves as a 
migratory route for the majestic humpback and blue whales. These 
animals are important for economic resources because people visit the 
coastline to see watchable wildlife. They go to see the sea birds, the 
sea lions, the whales and so on.
  Likewise, the people travel to see the orcas in the waters off the 
Puget Sound in Washington or the whales off the gulf of Maine or the 
manatees along the coast of Florida, and we all know as Members from 
those Districts we do everything we can to protect those.
  Currently, the Marine Mammal Protection Act language aims to protect 
these animals from being harassed, being injured and even from being 
killed, but the bill drastically weakens this protection and would 
allow an increasing number of harmful interaction, such as oil and gas 
exploration, high intensity sonar testing, and such increase in 
harassment and harm to marine mammals would go largely unchecked by 
wildlife agencies and left unmonitored and unmitigated.
  Struggling sea otters are currently dying at record levels in the 
State of California. We do not know the exact cause, but we are going 
to be looking for that and hopefully trying to remedy it.
  This bill does not help us with those remedies. We ought to take 
pride in the fact that the military has led in a lot of our 
environmental areas. The navy has been the first and most remarkable 
agency at recycling at sea, of taking all their garbage on ship and 
treating that. The navy painted their ships with safe paint. So the 
military has been a good environmental steward. There is no need to 
change that position with the passage of this legislation.

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