[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 26500-26516]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 26500]]

    WAIVING POINTS OF ORDER AGAINST CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 2466, 
  DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 
                                  2000

  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the 
Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 337 and ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 337

       Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be 
     in order to consider the conference report to accompany the 
     bill (H.R. 2466) making appropriations for the Department of 
     the Interior and related agencies for the fiscal year ending 
     September 30, 2000, and for other purposes. All points of 
     order against the conference report and against its 
     consideration are waived. The conference report shall be 
     considered as read.

                              {time}  1545

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shimkus). The gentleman from Washington 
(Mr. Hastings) is recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, for the purposes of debate 
only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York 
(Ms. Slaughter), pending which I yield myself such time as I may 
consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is 
for the purpose of debate only.
  Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 337 would grant a rule waiving all points of 
order against the conference report to accompany H.R. 2466, the 
Department of Interior and Related Agencies Appropriation Act for 
Fiscal Year 2000 and against its consideration. The rule further 
provides that the conference report shall be considered as read.
  Mr. Speaker, the conference report to accompany H.R. 2466 
appropriates $14.5 billion in new fiscal year 2000 budget authority, 
which is 599 million more than the House-passed bill and 236 million 
more than the fiscal year 1999 level; but it is 732 million less than 
the President's request.
  Approximately half of the bill's funding, 7.3 billion, finances 
Interior Department programs to manage, study, and protect the Nation's 
animal, plant and mineral resources. The balance of the bill's funds 
support other non-Interior agencies that perform related functions. 
These include the Forest Service, conservation and fossil energy 
development programs run by the Department of Energy, the Indian Health 
Service, as well as Smithsonian Institute and similar cultural 
organizations.
  Mr. Speaker, I applaud the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) and the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) for their ongoing efforts to 
resolve a large number of complex and controversial issues contained in 
this legislation. As it is every year, theirs has been a difficult 
task, but one that they have taken with the customary fairness and 
balance. Accordingly, I urge my colleagues to support both the rule and 
the conference report itself.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings) for 
yielding this time to me.
  I rise in opposition to the consideration of House Resolution 337, 
the rule governing consideration of H.R. 2466, the Interior 
appropriations conference report for Fiscal Year 2000. Mr. Speaker, 
approving the rule would allow this House to consider a conference 
report which richly deserves defeat. Voting down the rule would send a 
message to our friends on the conference committee that they need to go 
back to the drawing board.
  This conference has a little bit of something for almost everyone to 
dislike. Many of its provisions are nothing short of a slap in the face 
to the majority of this House which voted on specific instructions 
which the conferees ignored.
  The conference report is saddled with some truly offensive 
environmental riders which allow mining companies to continue doing 
damage to the public lands on which they operate, permits oil companies 
to operate under sweetheart deals on public lands, relaxes forest 
management practices and permits more timber to be taken from the 
Tongass National Forest in Alaska, just to name a few. The conference 
report is also woefully short of the mark on the administration's lands 
legacy effort which is designed to save environmentally sensitive and 
important land across this Nation and for which this Nation wants 
attention.
  Mr. Speaker, Members looking for a reason to vote against this bill 
based on a concern for the environment have an embarrassment of riches 
from which to choose. As Chair of the Congressional Arts Caucus, let me 
address for a moment another egregious shortcoming in this bill.
  Last month the other body took the responsible position of increasing 
funding by $5 million each for the National Endowment for the Arts and 
the National Endowment for the Humanities. In keeping with that 
position this House voted to instruct the conferees to accept the 
higher funding levels. The conference committee, presumably acting 
under direction of the House leadership, choose to ignore our 
instructions. Sadly NEA funding has once again been hijacked by a small 
number of individuals who long ago put on their blinders and now refuse 
to take them off.
  In fiscal year l996 the NEA had its budget cut by 40 percent, a cut 
from which very few agencies could even recover. Since that time NEA 
opponents have made it their obsession to oppose a complete recovery. 
They have chosen to obfuscate the facts by falsely characterizing the 
agency's work and by demeaning the value of art and culture to our 
society.
  Had the conferees gone along with the modest funding increase 
provided by the other body and endorsed in a vote on the floor of this 
House, it would have been the first increase in arts funding since 
1992. It would have allowed the NEA to broaden its reach to all 
Americans by partially funding its proposed Challenge America 
initiative which is expressly designed to provide grants in communities 
which have been underserved by the agency because of its lack of money. 
Some of our colleagues rail against the NEA, saying it has ignored 
their districts but now withhold the very funding which would correct 
the problem.
  This funding increase would have given the Endowment the resources to 
undertake the job that we in Congress have asked it to do to make more 
grants to small and medium-sized communities. In addition, the agency 
has spent the past few years implementing reforms to make itself more 
accountable to the American people, and I strongly believe they have 
earned the opportunity to pursue this plan.
  The arts are supported by the United States Conference of Mayors, the 
National Association of Counties and by such corporations as CBS, Coca-
Cola, Mobil, Westinghouse, and Boeing, to name just a few. These 
organizations support the arts because they provide economic benefit to 
our communities. With one hundredth of 1 percent of the Federal budget, 
we help to create a system that supports 1.3 million full-time jobs in 
States, cities, towns, and villages across the country providing $3.4 
billion in income taxes to the Treasury. I do not think we make any 
investment here with a greater return.
  Mr. Speaker, while I am pleased that the committee allowed a $5 
million increase to the NEH, I cannot support legislation shortchanging 
the NEA for yet another year. This is not about budget caps. The 
benefits that we receive for our economy, for our children, and for our 
communities far outweigh the small financial investment we are making.
  This is not about public support. As opinion polls show, without a 
doubt the American people are overwhelmingly in favor of a Federal role 
in the arts. And this is not about support in this body that was 
demonstrated on the

[[Page 26501]]

floor of this House just 17 days ago. This is about a small number of 
individuals who want to run against the NEA at election time.
  Mr. Speaker, let us put those campaigns to rest and put to rest the 
campaign of misinformation which is keeping the NEA from continuing and 
expanding its valuable work. I urge my colleagues to send this 
legislation back to the conference committee so that we can give our 
leaders another opportunity to finish the job that we have asked them 
to do on numerous occasions.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge a no vote on the resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may 
consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the 
distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend yielding this time to 
me. I thank the gentleman from Washington for his fine leadership on 
our committee.
  I rise in very strong support not only of the rule but of the stellar 
work that has been done by our friend from Ohio, the chairman of the 
Subcommittee on Interior (Mr. Regula). Every year there are millions of 
Americans and foreign tourists who come from all over the world to take 
advantage of what is clearly the best park system on the face of the 
Earth, whether it is the Everglades in Florida, part of which is 
represented by members of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart), or the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), or 
the Angeles National Forest, which I am privileged to represent along 
with my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Rogan). 
Incidentally, the Angeles National Forest happens to be the most 
utilized of our national forest system.
  These are very, very important, very, very precious items that need 
to be addressed; and I will tell my colleagues that the work that has 
been done by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) is very key to the 
continued success of that important system.
  I want to specifically express my thanks for dealing with the problem 
that we in southern California regularly face, and that is fires. We 
know that as we approach the fire season, we have now seen $24 million 
for the National Forest Service state fire assistance program, which is 
a $3.2 million increase over last year; and I want to again express my 
thanks for the attention that has been focused on that important 
problem that we have.
  Now I finally would like to raise one issue of concern that the 
gentleman from Ohio and I have discussed on more than a few occasions, 
and I would like to say at this point I offer what is at best sort of 
wavering support for the adventure pass; and it is in large part due to 
some of the issues which I suspect the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) 
will raise during debate on this issue, and that is the question of 
whether or not people who are in the area paying into the adventure 
pass are actually seeing any kind of tangible benefit from the fact 
that they have put dollars into that adventure pass.
  In the Angeles National Forest, as I said, the most utilized of all 
in our Nation's system, many of my constituents have been obviously in, 
just going through, been forced to pay for the adventure pass; and yet 
they do not see any kind of real tangible benefit, and that is why I am 
pleased that there is an additional $1.1 million that has been added 
for the Angeles National Forest to improve the basic infrastructure 
there, which is a concern. So I will say that we look forward to 
further reports on the pilot program of the adventure pass, and I am 
going on record, as I have before, raising the concerns that many of my 
constituents have pointed to; and I hope that we are able to work 
closely with the Forest Service so that we can see real tangible 
benefits from that.
  So, having said all of those things, I strongly support the rule, 
urge my colleagues to vote for it, and I also urge strong support for 
what I think is the best possible conference report that we could get 
at this juncture.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for the time.
  Mr. Speaker, first of all could I ask the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Young) a question about this bill. I would like to ask the 
distinguished gentleman:
  The latest report on the revised allocations of budget authority and 
outlays filed by the Committee on Appropriations is dated October 12 
and is printed in the House as Report 106-373. That is the 302 
allocation. The document indicates that the discretionary budget 
authority allocation for the Subcommittee on Interior is $13.888 
billion and that the discretionary outlay allocation for the 
subcommittee is $14.354 billion.
  Is it the understanding of the gentleman that the number I just 
mentioned, that the numbers do in fact represent the latest target 
allocations for the subcommittee?
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman's figures 
are correct; however, the gentleman also knows that before we complete 
the appropriations process totally, there may be needed some 
additional.
  Mr. OBEY. Right. So at this point that is the latest published 
allocation to the subcommittee; is that not correct?
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. That is my understanding.
  Mr. OBEY. I have a table prepared, Mr. Speaker, by the Committee on 
Appropriations dated October 15, which indicates that the discretionary 
budget authority included in the interior conference agreement totals 
14,506,491,000 and that the discretionary outlays total 14.523 billion. 
If these are the correct numbers for this conference report, it appears 
that the conference agreement exceeds the latest budget authority 
allocation by $618.491 million and exceeds the latest outlay allocation 
by $169 million, and that being the case, that is why a number of us 
are dubious about the wisdom of proceeding with this bill at this 
moment.

                              {time}  1600

  The problems within this bill, in addition to some of the others that 
I will mention in just a moment, another major problem is that we 
simply do not at this point know where this bill fits into the overall 
budget scheme. We do know that bills that have passed the House to date 
have exceeded the President's budget request by almost $20 billion.
  Given that fact, we know that there is a squeeze on the remaining 
bills, and at this point, given the meeting that we saw at the White 
House where we thought there was going to be an arrangement on how to 
proceed between the White House and Congressional leaders (they being 
the four-star generals in this place, we being the light colonels), it 
seems to me it is very difficult even to justify proceeding on this 
bill when we do not know whether this is going to further add to the 
excess of spending that is being alleged in the budget process or 
whether it is not. That is why I raised the question that I just asked 
of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), because all we know at this 
point is that this bill exceeds the spending authority which was 
allotted to it the last time the Committee on Appropriations met under 
the requirement of the Budget Act.
  In addition to that concern, Mr. Speaker, I would simply point out 
the following problems with this bill. It excludes funds for many 
unique and ecologically important land parcels which can be lost 
forever to development if they are not purchased now. This bill falls 
way short of where it ought to be in the Lands Legacy proposal. It 
rewrites the 1872 mining laws to allow mine operators who are paying 
next to nothing to extract minerals from public lands to inflict even 
more environmental damage on those lands. It requires that western 
ranchers who enjoy the privilege of grazing permits be

[[Page 26502]]

granted automatic 10-year renewals without completion of the review of 
the impact of current grazing practices. It includes $5 million not 
requested by the President to facilitate additional timber sales from 
the Tongass National Forest. It blocks an Interior Department 
regulation requiring major oil companies to finally pay something 
approaching market value for the taxpayers' land that they are pumping 
oil out of. It has a number of other problems. It rejects any added 
funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.
  I would simply say this in closing: None of what I am saying is in 
any way critical of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) or the 
distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) who chairs this 
subcommittee. In fact, in that subcommittee, and I am sure anybody who 
was there will verify this, he tried mightily to prevent some of these 
riders from being attached. We think that he did make a strong effort. 
The problem is that we still do not believe that this will meet the 
standards that would be required to defend the public interest. So for 
a variety of reasons that I have just listed, we feel constrained to 
oppose this bill and would hope that by the time it finally becomes 
law, that it will be in far better shape.
  I know that if this bill reaches the White House it will be vetoed. 
The White House has made that quite clear to us and the press. Under 
the circumstances those circumstances, I think it is ill-advised for 
this bill to even be here in light of the meeting that took place at 
the White House. But we have no choice, if the majority is going to 
bring the bill to the floor, we have no choice at this point to oppose 
it.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for honestly 
answering my question.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4 
minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the chairman of the 
Committee on Appropriations.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding 
me this time.
  I want to respond to the gentleman from Wisconsin. As usual, his 
numbers are correct.
  However, I want to highlight a difference in how we are proceeding 
this year. The Office of Management and Budget would like us to package 
up all of these appropriations bills and put them into one package so 
that we could have another disaster like the omnibus appropriations 
bill that we had last year. We are determined not to do that.
  It is our intention and our plan, and we are on course, to send the 
individual bills to the President's desk for his consideration. The 
reason we want to do that is that we would like to know if he has 
specific objections to those bills. We would like to know what they 
are, not in generalities, but specifically, so that we can actually 
focus on what the differences really are. Our experience has been that 
the only way we find exactly what the President's opposition is, is in 
a veto message where he must be specific and he must put it on paper so 
that we can read it and understand it.
  But I want to assure the gentleman from Wisconsin that whether we 
have an omnibus bill such as the Office of Management and Budget wants, 
or whether we are going to have individual bills the way that we want, 
we will not go above the budget agreement. We will not use any money 
out of the Social Security Trust Fund. The Sequestration would not be 
triggered unless all bills were signed into law and exceeded the budget 
agreement. That is not going to happen. But we are going to deal with 
these bills one at a time so that they retain their identity and so 
that we can deal with specific objections from the White House rather 
than generalities.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this rule and the 
conference report on the Department of the Interior and Related 
Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2000. This is the twelfth 
fiscal year 2000 appropriations conference report to come before the 
House. Number 13 should be ready soon.
  This is a good conference agreement. It provides important funding 
for the highest priority needs of operating and maintaining our 
existing national parks and wildlife refuges. It includes funding to 
manage our Federal lands. Important to my State is funding for the 
Everglades restoration.
  At this point, I want to make note of the fact that this is the 
anniversary of the enactment of last year's omnibus appropriations 
bill. Because the terms and conditions of many of the appropriations 
bills that were included in that legislation still have effect today 
because of the terms of the continuing resolution we were operating 
under, I take this time to highlight one such provision that is 
important to the Office of Management and Budget and to the 
administration. That is that the continuing resolution will preserve 
the President's authority under section 540(d) of the Foreign 
Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 
1999, to waive section 1003 of Public Law 100-204.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for 
clearing up the question with respect to the Public Law. I think that 
is a very useful clarification.
  But I do want to take issue with his interpretation of why we should 
not have an overall approach to resolve our remaining budget 
differences. The gentleman said that the majority party does not want 
to go into an omnibus meeting because last year when they did, we wound 
up with all kinds of gimmicks. Let me point out that last year, we 
wound up with $21 billion worth of so-called emergency spending. Now, 
if spending is called emergencies, under these crazy budget rules, it 
does not count in total spending. So it is, in fact, hidden.
  The problem is, this year, without going into those meetings with the 
President, bills passed by this House already contain $25 billion in 
emergency spending. So we have already gone far beyond where the 
gentleman was concerned we would go if we ever sat down with the 
President.
  This second chart demonstrates that there are $45 billion in gimmicks 
already contained in the budgets that have been passed by the majority 
through this House. My colleagues can see the categories for 
themselves: $25 billion in phoney designation of the emergency 
spending, $17 billion that we hide by telling the Congressional Budget 
Office to pretend that programs are going to cost less than, in fact, 
the Congressional Budget Office has told us they are going to cost. 
Then they move billions of dollars into the next year in order to hide 
the fact that we are actually appropriating it this year. And what we 
have really done is we have a menu, we have a multiple choice menu. We 
have column A, which is the OMB, the White House numbers; column B, 
which is the Congressional Budget Office which we are supposed to 
adhere to in determining how much money is spent. And instead of 
deciding one or another, we have picked one from column B, one from 
column A. They always pick the numbers that are the lowest, and that is 
the way they hide the fact that they are spending billions of dollars 
more than we are actually spending. That is why we think we need to get 
together.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 
minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen).
  Mr. HANSEN. Mr. Speaker, let me just express the great respect that I 
have for the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), the chairman of the 
subcommittee, and the absolutely difficult job that he has done. I do 
not know of a harder thing to work out than he has done on this 
legislation. I fully intend to vote for the rule and for the conference 
report.
  However, I do have one concern. As the chairman of the Subcommittee 
on Public Lands and National Parks, we had a hearing and this hearing 
was about the Everglades Recovery Plan. In that area, there are 8.5 
square miles,

[[Page 26503]]

and there are farms in that area, Mr. Speaker, and there are people who 
came from Cuba, and they came from Cuba, most of these people, because 
Fidel Castro was taking away their property, just abstractly taking it. 
So they came to America so that they would not have to have that.
  Now, a lot of people said, oh, the only way we can ever recover this 
Everglades thing is to take that 8.5 square miles. That was in 1989. In 
1999 in my hearing, the Corps of Engineers, the State of Florida, the 
Federal South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force all said they do 
not need 8.5 square miles.
  So here we are putting these people in the same condition they were 
in and saying all right, we are taking away your ground now, and just 
imagine how they feel at this point.
  I am sure we can probably work this out, and I hope we can. But, Mr. 
Speaker, let me point out that it seems kind of the most ironic thing I 
have seen in a long time to think here they are in Cuba having their 
land taken away from them, and then we are in this bill taking it away. 
So I am sure the people of the stature of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Regula) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and others can do 
their very best not to do this, and I would hope the other Members of 
the other body would not do this. Because it seems to me that on this 
piece of legislation that we are truly legislating on an appropriations 
bill, but because I think it will be worked out, I fully intend to 
support this bill and support the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) 
and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula).
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Colorado (Mr. Udall) whose late father, Morris Udall, chaired the 
Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs with great distinction.
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the 
gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, funding for the Interior Department and the Forest 
Service and the other agencies and programs covered by this 
appropriations bill is very important for our Nation and especially for 
the West, which is my area of the country. So I regret that I cannot 
support this conference report. There are many problems with the 
report, but they can be summed up pretty easily. It does not do enough 
of the right things, and it does too many bad things.
  It does not do enough to respond to the urgent need for protecting 
open space threatened by growth, sprawl and development. It does not do 
enough to properly manage our Federal lands and the fish, wildlife, and 
ecosystems that they support. It does not do enough to meet our 
national responsibilities to our Native Americans. It does not do 
enough to support arts and arts education. And it does not do enough to 
help us make progress in making more efficient use of our valuable 
energy supplies.
  But in other areas, it does too much. It does too much to revise 
certain parts of the mining law of 1872 through the appropriations 
process. Instead of letting the Mill site issue be considered in the 
context of other aspects of that 125-year-old law, including the 
question of whether the taxpayers get a fair return for mineral 
development on our and their public lands. It does too much to block 
efforts to reform the accounting methods to determine how taxpayers and 
our public schools will share in the proceeds from oil and gas taken 
from Federal lands, and it does too much to legislatively interfere 
with sound and orderly management of Federal natural resources and the 
protection of the environment.

                              {time}  1615

  It would undermine the established processes for a rising national 
forest plan, for managing the public lands managed by the BLM and for 
protecting the peace and quiet of the national parks.
  It would unduly restrict our efforts to work with other countries, to 
work on the problems of global warming and climate change and would 
weaken our commitment to those communities that want to work hard to 
make sure that the natural, environmental, and cultural resources found 
along America's heritage rivers are preserved.
  Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Regula), the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), and the other House 
conferees. I recognize there are important and good things in this bill 
but, on balance, it falls short and so I cannot support it.

                  Interior Bill--Objectionable Riders


                      1. oil valuation moratorium

       Conference Agreement: Continues the moratorium for an 
     additional 6 months while GAO studies the regulations 
     proposed by the Department. This would be the fourth 
     moratorium on these regulations. As requested by the 
     Congressional supporters of the moratorium, the Minerals 
     Management Service has conducted extensive outreach to the 
     industry during the prior moratoria.


                            2. mining waste

       Conference Agreement: Prevents the Department from 
     implementing for many mining operations a provision of the 
     Mining Law of 1872 that limits the mine operator to one 5 
     acre millsite per mining claim. Millsites are typically used 
     to dump mine waste.


                 3. hardrock mining surface management

       Conference Agreement: Imposes a one year moratorium on 
     issuance of regulations to improve environmental compliance 
     in the operation of hardrock mines. Requires that the 2001 
     budget include legislative, regulatory and funding proposals 
     to implement recent recommendations of the National Academy 
     of Sciences concerning surface management of hardrock mines.


                             4. everglades

       Conference Agreement: Makes the FY 2000 grant to Florida 
     for land acquisition in support of Everglades restoration 
     contingent on a binding agreement between the Federal 
     Government, the State and the South Florida Water Management 
     District providing an assured supply of water to the natural 
     system of the Everglades and water supply systems for urban 
     and agricultural users.


                          5. wildlife surveys

       Conference Agreement: Gives the Forest Service and BLM 
     discretionary authority to conduct wildlife surveys before 
     offering timber sales.


                             6. mark twain

       Conference Agreement: Suspends for one year the authority 
     of the Secretary of the Interior to segregate or withdraw 
     land in the Mark Twain National forest from hardrock mining. 
     Also prohibits issuance of permits for hardrock mineral 
     exploration in the Forest for one year. Funds a study to 
     assess the impact of lead and zinc mining in the Forest.


                     7. grizzly bear reintroduction

       Conference Agreement: Prohibits reintroduction of grizzly 
     bears into the Selway-Bitteroot Mountains in Idaho and 
     Montana during FY 2000. The Fish and Wildlife Service has 
     been working for several years on an innovative, 
     collaborative process with local stakeholders.


                               8. grazing

       Conference Agreement: For FY 2000, automatically renews 
     expiring grazing permits for which NEPA has not been 
     completed for new 10 year terms.


                    9. interior columbia river basin

       Conference Agreement: Requires publication of a report 
     describing goods and services in the 144 million acre 
     Interior Columbia River Basin prior to the release of the 
     final environmental impact statement on the Administration's 
     effort to develop a coordinated strategy for management of 
     Federal lands in eastern Washington and Oregon, Idaho, and 
     western Montana.


                      10. american heritage rivers

       Conference Agreement: Prevents agencies and offices funded 
     in the bill from using funds to support the American Heritage 
     Rivers program administered through the Executive Office of 
     the President and the Council on Environmental Quality.


                   11. BIA/IHS Contracting Moratorium

       Conference Agreement: Continues the 1999 moratorium on 
     tribes assuming additional duties through new or expanded 
     P.L. 93-638 contracts, grants and self-governance compacts. 
     The continued moratorium applies only to contracting and 
     compacting by BIA and HIS and exempts two programs: education 
     construction and IHS programs to Alaska Tribes.


                       12. NPS/Grand Canyon Noise

       Conference Agreement: Prohibits the Department from 
     spending funds to implement sound thresholds or standards in 
     the Grand Canyon until 90 days after the NPS provides a 
     report to Congress.

[[Page 26504]]



                                                  DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR--TITLE I APPROPRIATIONS: KEY BUDGET NUMBERS--CONFERENCE ESTIMATE**
                                                                               [Current BA in millions of dollars]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                                                       2000 estimate difference from 1999    2000 estimate difference from 2000
                                                                                                                                     enacted                         pres. budg. request
                                                               1999 enacted*     2000 President's      2000 conf.    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                  budget request        estimate         Millions of                           Millions of
                                                                                                                           dollars            Percent            dollars            Percent
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total, Interior & Related Agencies.........................              6,940              7,769              7,277               +366               +4.8               -492               -6.3
BIA;/Indian Trusts Total...................................              1,786              2,002              1,912               +126               +7.0                -90               -4.5
Land Management Operations composed of.....................              2,665              2,856              2,825               +159               +6.0                -32               -1.1
  BLM Operations...........................................                716                743                743                +27               +3.8                 +1               +0.1
  FWS Operations...........................................                661                724                716                +55               +8.3                 -8               -1.1
  NPS Operations...........................................              1,288              1,390              1,365                +77               +6.0                -25               -1.8
Wildland Fire Management...................................                287                306                292                 +5               +1.9                -14               -4.4
  Interior Science.........................................                798                838                824                +26               +3.3                -15               -1.7
Interior Land Acquisition composed of......................                211                295                187                -24              -11.3               -108              -36.7
  BLM Land Acquisition.....................................                 15                 49                 16                 +1               +6.2                -33              -68.3
  FWS Land Acquisition.....................................                 48                 74                 51                 +2               +5.2                -23              -31.4
  NPS Land Acquisition.....................................                148                172                121                -27              -18.4                -52              -30.0
Interior Construction composed of..........................                415                420                437                +23               +5.5                +17               +4.1
  BLM Construction.........................................                 11                  8                 11                 +0               +3.9                 +3              +36.8
  FWS Construction.........................................                 50                 44                 55                 +4               +8.2                +11              +25.3
  NPS Construction.........................................                230                194                224                 -5               -2.3                -30              -15.7
  BIA Construction.........................................                123                174                147                +23              +19.0                -27              -15.7
Departmental Offices (w/o OST).............................                214                229                222                 +9               +4.1                 -6               -2.8
      All Other Funds......................................                689                997                725                +36               +5.2               -272              -27.3
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Does not include supplemental funds, special apporpriation for King Cover, Glacier Bay, subsistence. Does not include Y2K mitigation transfers.
**Does not include any billwide reduction.


                                                        FY 2000 ANNUAL APPROPRIATED (CURRENT BA) BY BUREAU: ESTIMATED CONFERENCE OUTCOME
                                                                                    [In millions of dollars]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                                     Con. Estimate      Outcome change                        Outcome change
                           Bureau                              1999 Estimate       2000 Request          Amount           from 1999*       Percent change       from req.*       Percent change
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bureau of Land Management..................................              1,190              1,269              1,234                +44               +3.7                -35               -2.8
Minerals Management Service................................                124                116                117                 -7               -5.6                  1                0.9
Office of Surface Mining Recl'n & Enforcemer...............                279                306                287                 +8               +2.9                -19               -6.2
U.S. Geological Survey.....................................                798                838                824                +26               +3.3                -14               -1.7
Fish and Wildlife Service..................................                802                950                871                +69               +8.6                -79               -8.3
National Park Service......................................              1,748              2,059              1,809                +61               +3.5               -250              -12.1
Bureau of Indian Affairs...................................              1,746              1,902              1,817                +71               +4.1                -85               -4.5
Departmental Office:
  Departmental Management (99 comp.).......................                 60                 63                 63                 +3               +5.0                  0                  0
  Insular Affairs..........................................                 87                 89                 88                 +1               +1.1                 -1               -1.1
  Office of the Solicitor..................................                 37                 42                 40                 +3               +8.1                 -2               -4.8
  Office of the Inspector General..........................                 25                 28                 26                 +1               +4.0                 -2               -7.1
  Office of Special Trustee................................                 39                100                 95                +56             +143.6                 -5               -5.0
  NRDAR....................................................                  4                  8                  5                 +1              +25.0                 -3              -37.5
Departmental Office........................................                252                330                317                +66              +26.2                -13               -3.9
                                                            ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Subtotal, Interior Bill (current BA).....................              6,939              7,769              7,277               +337               +4.9               -492               -6.3
                                                            ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bureau of Reclamation......................................                781                857                769                -12               -1.5                -88              -10.3
Central Utah Project Completion Act........................                 42                 39                 39                 -3               -7.1                  0                  0
  Adjustments for Mandatory Current Accr...................                -57                -57                -57                  0                  0                  0                  0
  Adjustment for Discretionary Offsets.....................               -100                -47                -47                +53                  0                  0                  0
                                                            ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Total Net Discretionary BA.............................              7,605              8,560              6,981               +376               +4.0               -580               -6.8
      Total Current BA.....................................              7,763              8,665              8,085               +323               +4.2               -580               -6.7
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Does not include 1999 supplemental, appropriations or transfers, Glacier Bay funds, subsistence funds.

 Anti-Environmental Riders on the FY 2000 Interior Appropriations Bill 
                             as of 10/19/99

       This list was compiled by Defenders of Wildlife using 
     write-ups received from numerous groups in the conservation 
     community.
       (*) indicates a provision that has been deleted or amended 
     and no longer objectionable.
       _ indicates new provisions added in conference.


                interior appropriations bill (h.r. 2466)

       (1) Sec. 122: Special Deal For Washington Grazing 
     Interests--would renew and extend livestock grazing within 
     the popular Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area in 
     Washington. This provision undercuts a National Park Service 
     decision that livestock grazing was not an authorized 
     activity within the Recreation Area, and benefits 10 ranchers 
     at a cost to the thousands of visitors using the National 
     Recreation Area. Unlike the Senate provision the House 
     language places no limits on how long the renewals could 
     last. Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area is a popular 
     destination spot for water-sports enthusiasts and 
     recreationists along the Columbia River in Washington. The 
     National Park Service found that livestock grazing should not 
     be authorized within the Recreation Area in 1990, and gave 
     the existing ranchers using the National Park Service lands 
     several years to transition out of the use of this area. In 
     1997, all livestock grazing ceased within the National 
     Recreation Area. The rider re-instates the grazing practices 
     to the benefit of a small handful of ranchers on 1000 acres 
     of National Park System lands within the National Recreation 
     Area.
       Status: Unchanged as passed by the full Senate on 9/24/99 
     and negotiated by the House-Senate conference committee as of 
     10/18/99.
       (2) Sec. 123: Allow Grazing Without Environmental Review--
     requires the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to renew 
     expiring grazing permits (or transfer existing permits) under 
     the same terms and conditions contained in the old permit. 
     Expanded by Senator Domenici (R-NM) in full Committee, this 
     automatic renewal will remain in effect until such time as 
     the BLM complies with ``all applicable laws.'' There is no 
     schedule imposed on the Agency, therefore necessary 
     environmental improvements to the grazing program could be 
     postponed indefinitely. This rider affects millions of acres 
     of public rangelands that support endangered species, 
     wildlife, recreation, and cultural resources. The rider's 
     impact goes far beyond the language contained in the FY 1999 
     appropriations bill, in which Congress allowed a short-term 
     extension of grazing permits which expired during the current 
     fiscal year. As written, this section undercuts the 
     application of any environmental law, derails both litigation 
     and administrative appeals, and hampers application of the 
     conservation-oriented grazing ``standards and guidelines'' 
     that were developed under the ``rangeland reform'' effort. 
     Because BLM will be required to reissue (transfer) grazing 
     permits under the old terms and conditions, the agency will 
     have no reason to consider public comments or to allow 
     administrative appeals of permit-related decisions. As 
     written, the language covers permits that expire ``in this or 
     any fiscal year'' and may therefore undercut existing 
     litigation and administrative appeals brought by the 
     conservation community to protect wildlife and improve 
     rangeland protection. To make matters worse, because it has 
     been restated to apply to the Department of Interior and not 
     just the BLM, it will actually undercut efforts by the NPS to 
     apply NEPA and change grazing permits to protect the 
     environment in places like the Mojave Desert National 
     Preserve. This section provides a perverse incentive for the 
     BLM to delay its NEPA and related environmental analysis, as 
     it will be politically easier to simply extend permits.
       Status: Amended but remains objectionable. The provision 
     was amended to make minor changes in conference but 
     essentially retains the same objectionable provisions in the 
     original Senate rider. The reference to ``this or any fiscal 
     year'' was deleted but the bill language is still

[[Page 26505]]

     unclear as to the duration of the rider. Weakly-worded report 
     language was also added calling for a non-mandatory permit 
     schedule to be developed absent a specific time frame. Sen. 
     Durbin (D-IL) offered an amendment on the Senate floor on 9/
     9/99 to limit the scope of this rider and establish a 
     schedule for the completion of processing expiring grazing 
     permits by the BLM. The amendment was tabled (rejected) by a 
     vote of 58-37 and remains in the bill.
       (3) Sec. 133: Give Away 2,500 Acres of Public Land in 
     Nevada for Development--would direct the Secretary of 
     Interior to convey over 2,500 acres of public lands in 
     Eastern Nevada to the City of Mesquite free of charge. There 
     are no restrictions on the uses of this land, and the city is 
     apparently contemplating creating or expanding an airport 
     corridor. The rider exempts the land conveyance from 
     applicable administrative procedures and would likely 
     preclude a full environmental review of the environmental 
     impacts of this action. Development of this land could affect 
     endangered fish species inhabiting the Virgin River, 
     including the wondfin minnow, Virgin River Chub, Virgin River 
     Spinedace and other species which live nearby such as the 
     southwest willow flycatcher. This rider also provides for 
     about 6,000 acres to be sold to the city for development. The 
     Department of Interior opposes this amendment, because it 
     gives away land that is currently being used by the Interior 
     Department without any compensation to the federal 
     government. Also, the Federal Aviation Administration has not 
     completed a suitability assessment for the airport site to 
     determine whether it is appropriate for aviation.
       Status: Unchanged as passed by the full Senate on 9/24/99 
     and negotiated by the House-Senate conference committee as of 
     10/18/99. This provision was inserted into the bill as part 
     of a managers amendment on the Senate floor on 9/14/99 on 
     behalf of Senator Reid (D-NV).
       (4) Sec. 135: Prevent Restoration of Glen Canyon and the 
     Colorado River--would prevent land managers from studying or 
     implementing any plan to drain Lake Powell or to reduce the 
     water level in Lake Powell below the range required to 
     operate Glen Canyon Dam. This effectively prevents any 
     restoration efforts for Glen Canyon and the Colorado river 
     near the Utah-Arizona border. Glen Canyon, one of America's 
     greatest natural treasures, was flooded in 1963 by the 
     construction of the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell. The dam 
     has also caused environmental damage to fish and wildlife 
     downstream on the Colorado River. This rider would tie the 
     hands of land managers, prevent full consideration of 
     restoration options, and prohibit meaningful scientific 
     review of the dam.
       Status: Unchanged as passed by the full Senate on 9/24/99 
     and negotiated by the House-Senate conference committee as of 
     10/18/99. This provision was inserted into the bill as part 
     of a managers amendment on the Senate floor on 9/14/99 on 
     behalf of Senator Hatch (R-Utah).
       (5) Sec. 136: Expand Exemption for Fur Dealers to Include 
     Internationally Protected Species--would effectively amend 
     and expand an already controversy exemption for fur dealers 
     approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service by including 
     internationally protected species under the Convention on 
     International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and 
     expanding the scope of the exemption to include all fur 
     traders. This rider, offered as part of a group of ``non 
     controversial'' manager's amendments, goes dramatically 
     beyond the existing exemption which was itself strongly 
     opposed by a number of conservation organizations. 
     Specifically, the provision would: (1) increase the existing 
     exemption from 100 to 1000 furs--a 10-fold increase; (2) 
     include shipments involving internationally threatened and 
     endangered species (CITES-listed) such as lynx, river otter, 
     bobcat, and black bear in the exemption; and (3) expand the 
     existing exemption to apply to any person or business, 
     whereas the current exemption is restricted to the person who 
     took the animals from the wild, or an immediate family 
     member. The practical effect of the amendment is that each 
     and every fur shipment imported or exported will be crafted 
     to fit this exemption in order to avoid paying user fees (ie, 
     a shipment of 5000 furs will simply become 5 shipments), 
     causing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to forego a 
     significant amount of revenue used to support an already 
     underfunded wildlife inspection program, and further 
     endangering species already shown to be threatened by trade.
       Status: Amended but remains objectionable. After being 
     passed by the full Senate on 9/24/99, the provision was 
     amended in conference to cap the annual volume of fur 
     shipments per person under this exemption at 2,500. This 
     change does not substantively address the major concerns 
     articulated above. This provision was inserted into the bill 
     as part of a managers amendment on the Senate floor on 9/14/
     99 on behalf of Senator Murkowski (R-AK).
       (6) Sec. 137: Delay Efforts to Reduce Noise Pollution in 
     the Grand Canyon--would prohibit the National Park Service 
     from expending any funds in FY 2000 to implement sound 
     thresholds or other requirements to combat noise pollution in 
     the park until a report on such standards is submitted to 
     Congress. Years of public discussion have resulted in 
     agreement that the natural sounds of the Canyon need to be 
     restored and protected from air tours and other sources. This 
     amendment was introduced on behalf of the air tour industry 
     that wants to delay the implementation of those agreements 
     and force the National Park Service to spend additional time 
     and money defending its decisions in an additional study on 
     the subject.
       Status: Unchanged as passed by the full Senate on 9/24/99 
     and reported from the House-Senate conference committee on--
     ----. This provision was inserted into the bill as part of a 
     managers amendment on the Senate floor on 7/14/99 on behalf 
     of Senators Bryan (D-NV) and Reid (D-NV).
       (7) Sec. 141: Allow the Oil Industry to Continue 
     Underpaying Royalties--would delay the implementation of an 
     oil valuation rule by the Minerals Management Service (MMS) 
     for the fourth time. The MMS' rule would force the largest 
     oil companies to stop underpaying, by $66-$100 million a 
     year, the royalties they owe the American public for drilling 
     on public lands. These royalties would otherwise go to the 
     federal treasury, to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, 
     and to state public education programs. This rider was 
     attached by Senators Domenici (R-NM) and Hutchison (R-TX) in 
     full committee mark up.
       Status: Amended but remains objectionable. After being 
     passed by the full Senate on 9/24/99, the provision was 
     amended in conference to delay the new rule for 6 months 
     pending a study by the Comptroller General of the General 
     Accounting Office (GAO). The GAO has already released a study 
     on the oil valuation rule in 1998 and it is unclear what 
     further study would yield. On 7/27/99, this provision was 
     stricken from the Senate bill in order to comply with Senate 
     Rule XVI, which was reinstated after a four-year suspension 
     by a Senate floor vote of 53-45 one day earlier. Rule XVI 
     restricts the addition of unrelated policy riders to 
     appropriation bills on the Senate Floor. However, the 
     provision was re-offered by Sen. Hutchison (R-TX) on the 
     Senate floor. To keep the provision out of the bill, Senator 
     Boxer (R-CA) and others filibustered the amendment until the 
     Senate leadership forced a vote on cloture. On 9/13/99, that 
     vote failed to get the required 60 votes (55-40) which should 
     have spelled the end of the amendment. However, proponents of 
     the rider demanded a re-vote due to the absence of 5 
     senators. On 9/23/99 the revote on cloture succeeded by a 
     margin of 60-39. The Senate immediately voted to add the 
     amended Hutchinson's rider which is limited to FY 2000 to the 
     bill by a vote of 51-47.
       (8) Title II: Increase Timber Subsidies for the Tongass 
     National Forest--would allocate an extra $11.55 million to 
     the Alaska Region of the Forest Service to force a three year 
     supply of timber. This rider creates a special fund to ensure 
     that Alaska's Tongass National Forest will continue to offer 
     far more timber for sale than will be purchased. In Fiscal 
     Year 1998 the Forest Service sold only 25 million board feet 
     of the 187 million offered. When the public's old-growth 
     trees were re-offered for sale at rock-bottom rates, still 
     only have the volume sold. This rider guarantees that the 
     Tongass remains the nation's largest money-losing timber sale 
     program. The rider's supporters hope the flood of taxpayer-
     subsidized timber will spur the creation of a highly 
     automated veneer slicer. Veneer slicers provide even fewer 
     jobs per tree than the region's defunct pulp mills. To add 
     insult to injury, this comes on top of the $34 million 
     increase the Senate added nationwide to the Forest Service's 
     timber request for FY 2000.
       Status: Amended but remains objectionable. After passing 
     the full Senate on 9/24/99, the provision was amended in 
     conference to reduce funding for this program by $6.55 
     million for a final total of $5 million. Unfortunately, most 
     of the reduction was used to increase funds for a damaging 
     and unnecessary powerline through Alaska's Tongass National 
     Forest (See write up at end of the Interior section). This 
     provision was originally inserted into the bill as part of a 
     managers amendment on the Senate floor on 9/14/99 on behalf 
     of Senator Stevens (R-AK).
       (9) Title II: Lead Mining in Ozark National Scenic 
     Riverways--would prohibit the Secretary of the Interior from 
     taking any action to prohibit mining activities in the 
     watersheds of the Current, Jacks Fork, and the Eleven Point 
     rivers in the Missouri Ozarks until June 2001. Under the 
     Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the Secretary of the 
     Interior may remove federal lands from access by mining 
     companies. This provision, added by Senator Bond (R-MO) in 
     full Committee, would block the Secretary from exercising 
     that authority. Missouri conservation organizations, 
     Missouri's Attorney General Jay Nixon, and the National Park 
     Service had requested that Secretary Babbitt begin procedures 
     to prohibit mining activities in these critical watersheds. 
     The Doe Run Company had targeted the area for exploratory 
     drilling, but withdrew the applications under protest. These 
     lands were purchased for watershed and forestry resource 
     protection--and the groups and entities requesting the 
     withdrawal are concerned that lead mining would conflict with 
     these purposes.
       Status: Unchanged as passed by the full Senate on 9/24/99 
     and negotiated by the House-Senate conference committee as of 
     10/18/99. On 7/27/99, this provision was stricken from the 
     Senate bill in order to comply with

[[Page 26506]]

     Senate Rule XVI, which was reinstated after a four-year 
     suspension by a Senate floor vote of 53-45 one day earlier. 
     Rule XVI restricts the addition of unrelated policy riders to 
     appropriation bills on the Senate Floor. However, the 
     provision was re-offered on 9/9/99 on the Senate floor by 
     Sen. Bond (R-MO) (for Sen. Lott (R-MS)). The amendment passed 
     by a vote of 54-44 and remains in the bill.
       (10) Sec. 321: Delay National Forest Planning--would impose 
     a funding limitation to halt the revision of any forest plans 
     not already undergoing revision, except for the 11 forests 
     legally mandated to have their plans completed during 
     calendar year 2000, until final or interim final planning 
     regulations are adopted. There is concern that this provision 
     will put pressure on the Forest Service to hastily promulgate 
     new regulations, rather than carefully incorporating recent 
     recommendations developed by an independent Committee of 
     Scientists. Sec. 322 in the bill would halt funding to carry 
     out strategic planning under the Forest and Rangeland 
     Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA).
       Status: Unchanged as passed by the full Senate on 9/24/99 
     and negotiated by the House-Senate conference committee as of 
     10/18/99.
       (11) Sec. 327: Divert Trail Fund for ``Forest Health'' 
     Logging--would allow the ten per cent roads and trails fund 
     to be used to ``improve forest health conditions.'' Since 
     there are no restrictions limiting the use to non-commercial 
     activities, and logging is considered a ``forest health'' 
     activity, this fund could be used to fund timber sales. It 
     also represents a back door method to fund more logging roads 
     for salvage and commercial timber operations. This rider also 
     eliminates the requirement that the roads and trails fund be 
     spent in the same state the money is generated when used for 
     these purposes. This opens the distribution of these funds to 
     the political process, allowing all the funding to go to one 
     state or region with more political clout. Since there is a 
     salvage fund and other sources such as vegetation management 
     monies already available for this type of use and considering 
     the consensus that exists regarding the great financial needs 
     of the agency's road maintenance program, this rider is 
     unnecessary and potentially destructive.
       Status: Unchanged as passed by the Full House on 7/14/99 
     and negotiated by the House-Senate conference committee as 
     10/18/99.
       (12) Sec. 328: Block Restoration of the Kankakee River--
     would prohibit use of funds made available in the act from 
     being ``used to establish a national wildlife refuge in the 
     Kankakee River watershed in northwestern Indiana and 
     northeastern Illinois.'' The Grand Kankakee Marsh was once 
     one of the largest and most important freshwater wetland 
     ecosystems in North America, providing essential habitat to a 
     spectacular variety of waterfowl, wading birds and other 
     wildlife. Today, however, 95-percent of the Grand Kankakee 
     March has been drained for agriculture and development. The 
     U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed establishing the 
     Grand Kankakee National Wildlife Refuge along the Kankakee in 
     order to restore and preserve 30,000 acres (less than one-
     percent of the land within the river basin) of wetlands, oak 
     savannas, and native tallgrass prairies. The proposal is 
     currently undergoing an Environmental Assessment. Although 
     the public overwhelmingly support the proposed refuge, for 
     the second year in a row, certain members of Congress are 
     attempting to derail the proposal by including a legislative 
     rider in the House Interior Appropriations bill.
       Status: Unchanged as passed by the Full House on 7/14/99 
     and negotiated by the House-Senate conference committee as of 
     10/18/99.
       (13) Sec. 329: Undermine Consensus-based River Management--
     would prohibit Federal resource agencies such as the Fish and 
     Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, National Park Service 
     and others, from participating in the American Heritage 
     Rivers Initiative (AHRI). This voluntary presidential 
     initiative was designed to coordinate the efforts of federal, 
     state, and local agencies with interests in the economic, 
     cultural, and ecological management of our nation's most 
     heralded rivers. AHRI's purpose is to streamline management 
     of river resources and facilitate efficient allocation of 
     federal, state, and local funds. This program explicitly did 
     not include any additional regulations or funding but instead 
     relies on coordination of existing programs, staff, and 
     funding. Last year, ten rivers were selected from around the 
     nation that reflected broad political support. This rider 
     would essentially prohibit these agencies from coordinating 
     with other river managers at a time when citizens are working 
     toward improving local/federal coordination. This would 
     cripple the management funds of the Council on Environmental 
     Quality (CEQ))/Executive Office of the President for the 
     American Rivers Initiative and sent a dangerous precedent for 
     coordinating other environmental cross-agency programs.
       Status: Amended but remains objectionable. After being 
     passed by the full Senate on 9/24/99, the provision was 
     amended in conference to allow for ``headquarters or 
     departmental activities'' to be associated for with the AHRI 
     program but still specifically prevents funds from being 
     transferred or being used to support the management fund at 
     the Council for Environmental Quality (CEQ) for this program.
       (14) Sec. 331: Limiting Preparation for Climate 
     Protection--would limit the federal government's ability to 
     address the international implications of climate change and 
     help other countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, 
     thereby prolonging the emissions of dangerous carbon dioxide 
     and other global warming pollutants. The rider ignores the 
     United States' existing commitments to reduce emissions under 
     the 1992 Senate-ratified Rio Treaty. Specifically the 
     provision, offered by Representative Joseph Knollenburg (R-
     MI) in full committee, would prohibit use of federal funds by 
     federal agencies ``to propose or issue rules, regulations, 
     degrees, or orders for the purpose of implementing, or in 
     preparation for the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol.'' 
     Similar language has been inserted in the House versions of 
     the FY 2000 Commerce/State/Justice, Energy and Water, VA-HUD, 
     Agriculture, Foreign Operations, and Interior Appropriations 
     bills.
       Status: Unchanged as passed by the full Senate on 9/24/99 
     and negotiated by the House-Senate conference committee as of 
     10/18/99.
       (15) Sec. 333: Tongass Red Cedar Rider--would continue the 
     failed policy of exporting wood and jobs off the Tongass 
     National Forest by leveraging the amount of Western Red Cedar 
     available for export to the lower 48 and international 
     markets against the percent of the Tongass' allowable sale 
     quantity (ASQ) that is actually sold. Alaska's Western Red 
     Cedar is a valuable export item and has become scarce in the 
     forest as it only grows in the southern Tongass. The 
     remaining old-growth Red Cedar provides important habitat for 
     brown bears and wolves. The rider stipulates that the only 
     way in which interested manufacturers in the lower 48 can 
     have access to all of the surplus Alaska Red Cedar logged in 
     FY 2000 is if the forest's entire allowable sale quantity is 
     sold. Moreover, the rider requires that the sold timber must 
     have at least a 60 percent guaranteed profit margin for the 
     purchaser, continuing to maintain the Tongass's timber 
     program as our National Forest System's largest money loser.
       Status: Unchanged as passed by the full Senate on 9/24/99 
     and negotiated by the House-Senate conference committee as of 
     10/18/99.
       (16) Sec. 334: Undermine Science-based Management of 
     National Forest and Bureau of Land Management Lands--would 
     attempt to provide the Secretaries of Agriculture and 
     Interior broad discretion during FY 2000 to choose whether or 
     not to collect any new, and potentially significant, 
     information concerning wildlife resources on the National 
     Forest System or Bureau of Land Management Lands prior to 
     amending or revising resource management plans, issuing 
     leases, or otherwise authorizing or undertaking management 
     activities. This section (formerly ``Section 329'') seeks to 
     overturn a February 18, 1999 decision by the United States 
     Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit that the 
     Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia had violated the law 
     by not maintaining population data on management indicator 
     species as required under 36 C.F.R. 219.19, or sensitive 
     species as required under its own forest management plan. 
     However, the implications of Section 329 extend far beyond 
     any single national forest. For example, the Forest Service 
     could attempt to use the language of Section 329 to undercut 
     full implementation of, and accountability under, the NW 
     Forest Plan. This section's ``don't ask, don't tell'' 
     approach may invite the Forest Service to take a shortcut 
     around the information collection and analysis required by 
     the plan--undercutting the basis on which Judge Dwyer upheld 
     the plan, as well as recent Ninth Circuit case law. Beyond 
     seeking to undermine existing law, Section 329 directly 
     contradicts the overall direction recommended by the recent 
     findings of the Committee of Scientists for land management 
     planning on national forests. Its attempt to provide agencies 
     the discretion to bypass existing information gathering 
     requirements on wildlife resources prior to making land 
     management planning and activity decisions undermines the 
     very ability to arrive at scientifically credible 
     conservation strategies. Section 329 is not the first ``don't 
     ask, don't tell'' rider offered in an attempt to allow the 
     government to forego the collection and consideration of 
     important scientific information. The 1995 salvage logging 
     rider also adopted this approach in some significant ways 
     with harsh results for government accountability and ultimate 
     credibility.
       Status: Amended but remains objectionable. After being 
     passed by the full Senate on 9/24/99, the provision was 
     slightly amended in conference but still seeks to waive the 
     requirement that the USFS and BLM survey for wildlife before 
     authorizing timber sales, grazing permits, and other 
     activities on public lands. The revised language in Section 
     334 is further exacerbated by a new provision that seeks to 
     grandfather in Northwest Forest Plan timber sales that were 
     illegally authorized without wildlife surveys. Sen. Robb (D-
     VA) offered an amendment to strike the provision on the 
     Senate floor on 9/9/99. The amendment was defeated by a vote 
     of 45-52.
       (17) Sec. 336: Weaken 1872 Mining Law--would weaken the 
     1872 Mining Law by removing toxic mining waste dumping 
     limitations on federal public land. The rider was attached by 
     Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) in

[[Page 26507]]

     full committee. In the only provision of the 1872 Mining Law 
     that protects the environment and taxpayers, the millsite 
     section states that for every 20-acre mining claim, mining 
     companies are allowed one, and only one, 5-acre mill site for 
     the processing or dumping of mine wastes. Craig's rider would 
     strip the millsite provision entirely, legalizing unlimited 
     mine waste dumping on public lands. The Craig rider 
     represents a sweeping change to the 1872 Mining Law, and in 
     the process it removes the only incentive the mining industry 
     has to seriously negotiate environmental and fiscal reform to 
     one of the most destructive public lands laws on the books.
       Status: Amended but remains objectionable. As currently 
     written, the conference language would exempt from the 
     millsite waste dumping limitation: existing mines, expansions 
     to existing mines, grandfathered patent applications and 
     mines proposed before May 1999. It also could be viewed as 
     rescinding Congress's 1960 acknowledgment of the millsite 
     provision as law. On 7/27/99, Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), 
     Richard Durbin (D-IL), and John Kerry (D-MA) offered a floor 
     amendment to strike this rider. That amendment was tabled 
     (i.e., rejected) by a vote of 55-41 and the rider was 
     retained. Additionally, Nick Rahall (D-WV), Christopher Shays 
     (R-CT), and Jay Inslee (D-WA) offered an amendment to the 
     House Interior Appropriations bill (H.R. 2466) on 7/14/99 to 
     prevent the unlimited dumping of toxic mining wastes on 
     public lands. The amendment, which passed on the House floor 
     by a vote of 273-151, and was followed by a successful motion 
     to instruct the house conferees to keep the Rahall language, 
     directly contradicted the Senate provision which would 
     eliminate the millsite provision of the 1872 Mining Law. 
     Despite these votes, the House capitulated to the Senate in 
     conference.
       (18) Sec. 341: Stewardship and End Result Contracting 
     Demonstration Project--would permit the Forest Service to 
     contract with private entities to perform services to achieve 
     land management goals in national forests in Idaho and 
     Montana, and in the Umatilla National Forest in Oregon. A 
     similar provision was inserted and passed as part of the FY 
     1999 Interior Appropriations bill. Land management goals 
     include a variety of activities such as restoration of 
     wildlife and fish habitat, noncommercial cutting or removal 
     of trees to reduce fire hazards, and control of exotic weeds. 
     While the stated land management goals, provision for multi-
     year contracts, and annual reporting requirements are worthy, 
     there are three major drawbacks contained in the language of 
     the FY 1999 law: undefined community roles, the lack of 
     provisions for monitoring and oversight, and the funding 
     mechanism for desired work. This provision was added at the 
     request of Senator Conrad Burns in Subcommittee.
       Status: Amended but remains objectionable. After being 
     passed by the full Senate on 9/24/99, the provision was 
     amended in conference but does not substantially address the 
     concerns articulated above.
       (19) Sec. 343: Delay Critical Land Acquisition--would 
     significantly compromise the public land acquisition process 
     in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area and would 
     establish a dangerous precedent for land protection 
     elsewhere. This provision would require duplicative 
     appraisals for leach land purchase and add unnecessary 
     bureaucracy, delays, and complexity to the process. Moreover, 
     it would foster an unjustified presumption that the existing 
     land valuation process is flawed, creating a basis of 
     hostility and antagonism likely to frustrate willing-seller 
     negotiations. As a result, this extreme departure from 
     longstanding acquisition policies would be a substantial 
     impediment to continued conservation in the Columbia Gorge 
     and would set the stage for similarly unproductive 
     ``reforms'' in other conservation areas.
       Status: Amended but remains objectionable. After being 
     passed by the full Senate on 9/24/99, the provision was 
     amended in conference to but does not substantively address 
     the concerns articulated above.
       (20) Sec. 346: Effectively Waives NEPA requirements for 
     Interstate 90 Land Exchange (WA)--would require the Secretary 
     of Agriculture to complete a land exchange in Washington 
     State with Plum Creek Timber Company within 30 days. Such 
     mandate could circumvent the National Environmental Policy 
     Act's public participation and environmental review 
     requirements. The proposal to give Plum Creek the Watch 
     Mountain roadless area and old growth groves in Fossil Creek 
     (both now parts of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest) has 
     sparked significant opposition. The rider could cut short 
     full consideration of the public's concerns and block 
     judicial review of the adequacy of the environmental analysis 
     that has been done. The rider also orders the Forest Service 
     to identify further lands to be traded to Plum Creek.
       Status: Unchanged as passed by the full Senate on 9/24/99 
     and reported from the House-Senate conference committee. This 
     provision was originally inserted into the bill as part of a 
     managers amendment on the Senate floor on 9/14/99 on behalf 
     of Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA).
       (21) Sec. 350: Prevent Grizzly Bear Reintroduction--would 
     be disastrous for grizzly bear recovery and sets a very 
     dangerous legislative precedent. This language prohibits the 
     Department of the Interior and all other federal agencies 
     from expending funds in any fiscal year to introduce grizzly 
     bears anywhere in Idaho and Montana without express written 
     consent of the governors of those two states. The language 
     requires federal agencies to get state permission to 
     implement a federal law on federal lands and sets a broad 
     precedent, both for other endangered species recovery actions 
     and for all other federal laws. Moreover, this provision 
     would derail a five-year collaborative effort initiated by 
     local timber, conservation, and labor interests to restore 
     grizzly bears to the Selway-Bitterroot ecosystem in Idaho and 
     Montana, the largest roadless area remaining in the lower 
     forty-eight states. This reintroduction is vital to grizzly 
     bear recovery in the lower forty-eight states. Finally, both 
     Idaho and Montana have existing populations of grizzly bears 
     outside the Selway-Bitterroot ecosystem. This restrictive 
     language is so unclear and broad that it could prohibit 
     actions such as population augmentations or the movement of 
     problem bears within existing recovery populations (e.g. 
     Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks).
       Status: Unchanged as passed by the full Senate on 9/24/99 
     and negotiated by the House-Senate conference committee as of 
     10/18/99. On 7/27/99, this provision was stricken from the 
     Senate bill in order to comply with Senate Rule XVI, which 
     was reinstated after a four-year suspension by a Senate floor 
     vote of 53-45 one day earlier. Rule XVI restricts the 
     addition of unrelated policy riders to appropriation bills on 
     the Senate Floor. However, on 9/14/99 Sen. Burns (R-MT) and 
     Sen. Craig (R-ID) successfully re-offered the provision which 
     still prohibits funds for the physical relocation of grizzly 
     bears into the Selway-Bitterroot ecosystem, but limits the 
     prohibition to fiscal year FY2000. Although amended, the 
     provision remains objectionable.
       (22) Sec. 355: Delays Improvements to White River Forest 
     Plan--would further delay the revision of the forest plan for 
     Colorado's White River National Forest by extending the 
     comment period on the revised plan for another three months. 
     The Forest Service has already granted a 90-day extension 
     making the comment period six-months long more than ample 
     time for all interests to make their views known. This forest 
     is one of the most popular national forests in the country, 
     containing the world-famous Maroon-Snowmass Wilderness along 
     with Vail, Aspen and several other ski areas. In its draft 
     management plan, the Forest Service has proposed for the 
     first time trying to better manage rampant recreation by 
     limiting it to its current levels to the outrage of the 
     motorized recreation and ski industries. The rider is a 
     thinly veiled attempt to delay the new forest plan until the 
     next Administration in hopes of permanently sandbagging any 
     attempts by the Forest Service to rein in corporate ski area 
     expansions and rampant off-road vehicle use.
       Status: Unchanged as negotiated by the House-Senate 
     conference committee as of 10/18/99. This provision was added 
     in conference by Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO).
       (23) Sec. 357: Blocks Stronger Hardrock Mining 
     Environmental Regulations--would further delay the Department 
     of Interior's attempt to strengthen environmental controls 
     applicable to hard rock mines (the so-called ``3809 
     regulations''). Specifically, the rider would extend the 
     moratorium on stronger hardrock mining regulations through 
     the end of fiscal year 2000.

  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), the vice chairman of the Committee 
on Rules.
  Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. Hastings), for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule and the Interior 
conference report, and I wanted particularly to commend the Committee 
on Appropriations, particularly the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) 
and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), for including funding 
increases in areas such as the Park Service and the wildlife refuge 
system, particularly in this difficult year.
  This bill is critically important to my home State of Florida. It is 
not just my home State. It is the destination of many visitors as well. 
Since it serves as the main vehicle for Everglades restoration funding, 
I am pleased that this year as in past years the committee has made 
sure that Congress continues to lead the charge in restoring the 
Everglades, unquestionably a unique national treasure which gives great 
enjoyment to a great many people.
  In addition, I am grateful that the committee was able to make 
available land acquisition fund for the J.N. Ding Darling National 
Wildlife Refuge which happens to be in my district and in fact 
comprises about 50 percent of my hometown of Sanibel, another area

[[Page 26508]]

that is enjoyed by literally millions of visitors.
  Some of my colleagues have expressed some concern about certain 
riders in this conference report before us. I know that I generally 
share the opinion of my colleagues on the Committee on Appropriations 
when I say these issues really are best handled through the 
authorization process, which is why we have authorizers and authorizing 
committees.
  Of course, as my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), 
is well aware, however, that since 1983 Florida has benefited from a 
legislative rider on this bill that protects our coastal areas from 
offshore oil and gas drilling. We have been trying to deal with the 
issue in the authorization committee, but so far we have been unable to 
get the job done so I want to express my appreciation and I think the 
appreciation of the full Florida delegation that the committee has once 
again included this stop-gap rider to protect Florida offshore waters 
from oil and gas drilling, which is a position our State holds very 
strongly and some other States do as well.
  I urge my colleagues to support this rule, which is fair and 
traditional for this type of legislation. I urge them to consider the 
conference report carefully and support it, because it is a compromise 
conference report; but I believe it is a very good one under the 
circumstances.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. George Miller).
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong 
opposition to this conference report. This legislation defies the will 
of the American people by severely underfunding our national effort to 
protect and preserve the national lands and because it contains anti-
environmental riders that interfere with the proper management of the 
public's resources.
  This report drastically underfunds the President's land legacy 
initiative that is designed to protect the endangered lands and 
resources that are threatened by development. It is ironic that this 
legislation should take such an extreme and anti-environmental position 
on such an issue at a time when we are working mightily to fashion on a 
bipartisan basis a resource initiative.
  Throughout this country, hundreds of thousands of people from soccer 
moms to sporting goods manufacturers, from environmentalists to hunters 
to park professionals to inner-city police organizations have come 
together to reach and support legislation that would expand, not 
constrict as this legislation does, the amount of investment we in 
Congress would make with the resources of this country.
  The President requested $413 million for his land legacy and the land 
water conservation fund for the year 2000. The conference report 
provided less than $250 million. The administration sought $4 million 
for urban parks programs. The conference report provided half of that 
amount of money. We have to understand that the people of this country 
want these resources protected. They want the opportunities expanded. 
Ninety-four percent of all Americans support more funding for the land 
and water conservation fund. That is a Republican pollster taking that 
poll. Eighty-eight percent of the American people agree we must act now 
or we will lose these special places.
  This bill does not act now, and it does so in the riders. In the 
riders it continues to give away public land for the mining companies 
to dispose of their waste and their toxic waste on these lands, and it 
overrides the limitations in the 1872 mining law; but they will not 
override those limitations to try to get the American people the 
royalties and rents for the use of those public lands.
  This land also continues to allow the oil companies to underpay the 
royalties that my colleague, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. 
Maloney), has worked so hard on. This continues to let them underpay 
$60 million in royalties that they owe the people of this country, $6 
million in the State of California that goes to the education system in 
our State for young people.
  This report continues to let the oil companies have a royalty holiday 
on lands that they drill oil from, that they take from the American 
people, and they underpay the resources. That should not be allowed to 
continue.
  This bill also fails to provide the kind of support that is necessary 
so the Indian tribes of this Nation can continue to take over the 
functioning of those programs where the Government acted on their 
behalf in a most paternal manner, that the Indians can now run those 
programs of the Indian health service from the Bureau of Indian 
Affairs, and they can do it more efficiently. They do it with greater 
enrollment and greater care for the members of their tribes, and yet 
this legislation does not speak to those in a proper manner.
  This legislation is bad for the environment. It is bad for the 
taxpayers. It is bad for school children. It is bad for the public that 
supports our parks and public lands, and we ought to reject it.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt).
  Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington 
(Mr. Hastings) for yielding time to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I am proud to serve as a member of the Committee on 
Appropriations and the Subcommittee on Interior and was part of the 
conference committee that worked so hard with the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Regula), a tremendous chairman in this case, trying to craft a 
measure that would be balanced and sensible under the limitations that 
we have funding-wise.
  We worked hard in the conference committee with Senator Gorton, our 
colleague from Washington State in the other body, who worked very hard 
on behalf of the Senate to try to craft a measure that makes some 
sense.
  What I have heard the speakers on the other side say in the last 15 
minutes or so defies reality; it defies logic. On the one hand, they 
say this bill is inadequate and they want to spend more money. On the 
other hand, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) says we are 
spending too much money in this bill; that we are over our allocation.
  Well, the lands legacy program that the gentleman from California 
(Mr. George Miller), the gentleman just spoke of, is $413 million.
  My point is, they want to spend more money and they want to frustrate 
this bill. They do not want this conference report to pass under any 
circumstance because they know that if it passes and goes down and the 
President has to address the issue of whether it is adequate, then they 
are going to have a problem because they want this to go in an omnibus 
bill. They do not want to have any allocation made on the merits of 
this particular bill.
  One had to be there, Mr. Speaker, to understand the diligence that 
went into trying to craft this measure and have it be acceptable. We 
are $77 million over last year on the National Parks Service. We are 
$50 million over the Bureau of Land Management for last year. We are 
$55 million more for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; the Indian 
Health Service, $2.4 billion, a $130 million increase. When is enough 
enough?
  We are trying to balance this bill, meet the objections of the other 
body, meet the objections of our colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle, and also their preferences. So I must say, with respect to the 
mining issue and the patent issue, what we tried to do was have 
agreement between the two sides on the issue and come up with something 
that is acceptable to both as best we could.
  Was it perfect? Is it a perfect bill? Certainly not, but my goodness 
let us be reasonable in adopting this rule, moving this process along, 
not frustrating it and waiting until the end so that then we are down 
to the White House with millions and millions in more dollars in the 
final package. That is not acceptable.
  So I must say, I think the objectors in this case are not thinking it 
through carefully in terms of what is good for this country and what is 
good in this bill. It is a good bill. It is a bill that

[[Page 26509]]

was crafted by a very diligent chairman in conference committee on both 
sides of the aisle and both sides of the Capitol.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. NETHERCUTT. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. OBEY. Let me say the gentleman has misconstrued what I said. I 
did not say that this bill had spent too much money. What I said was 
under the rules of the House, the rules prohibit this bill from being 
considered at this point because it exceeds the budget ceiling that the 
gentleman's party assigned to the subcommittee; and, therefore, under 
those circumstances a vote for this rule is a vote to exceed the 
ceiling that the gentleman's party itself imposed. What we are 
suggesting is that that needs to be fixed and a lot of other things 
need to be fixed, and the only way to do that is to sit down and fix 
it, rather than send a bill to the President that we know is dead on 
arrival.
  Mr. NETHERCUTT. Reclaiming my time, I appreciate yielding to the 
gentleman but these ceilings are adjustable and the gentleman realizes 
that, I believe, that they are adjustable. They have to be adjustable 
based on our conditions.
  Mr. OBEY. They sure are.
  Mr. NETHERCUTT. That is the nature of this process, it is, and the 
bottom line, though, with regard to those who object is that they want 
to spend millions and millions and millions of dollars more. That is 
really what is happening here. I guarantee if we do not pass this bill 
and send it down to the President and let him make his judgment as he 
should under the Constitution, either veto it or sign it and then tell 
us why he has vetoed it, if he will, then we are going to be in an 
omnibus and all of those of us who care deeply about preserving Social 
Security and all of those on the other side of the aisle who profess 
that they do are going to be breaching their own commitment to that 
goal.
  So I urge my colleagues, vote for this rule. Vote for this bill. 
Support the conference committee's best efforts to make this work and 
let us get the President to either accept or reject that under the 
Constitution, which is his obligation.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
New York (Mrs. Maloney).
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from 
New York (Ms. Slaughter) for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and to the underlying 
bill. I would say to my friend on the other side of the aisle, who says 
that we want to spend more money. Actually we are trying to save money. 
One of the terrible, anti-environmental riders is also very anti-
taxpayer. It is an undisputed fact that the oil rider that is attached 
costs the American taxpayer $66 million a year. This is money that 
could go to education, to our schools.
  We just had a bill on the floor where people talked about the need 
for more money for education. This is where we could save some money, 
where we could save some money by doing what is right. I would just 
like to say that what basically has happened is for decades the oil 
companies have underpaid the Government for oil extracted from 
federally owned lands. They got caught by the Department of Justice, by 
the Department of Interior, and I would say by the Subcommittee on 
Government Management, Information, and Technology headed by the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Horn), who held many hearings on the 
underpayment of oil royalties, the royalty holiday of the oil companies 
stealing money from the American taxpayer.
  They had to pay $5 billion in penalties for what they ripped off in 
the past.
  So what we have before us is a number of anti-environmental riders 
that are terribly unacceptable. I must say that the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. Dicks), who is the ranking member, and the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Regula) did a wonderful job keeping them off of the 
House version, but we need to keep them off the conference report, too. 
So I hope that my friends on the other side of the aisle will join us 
in voting against this rule, against the unacceptable oil riders and 
other riders that hurt the environment, that steal money from the 
taxpayers that could be going to education. It is just a bad bill. We 
need to stand up for America's schools, for the American taxpayers, and 
stand up against the anti-environmental rip-off and oppose this 
conference report.

                              {time}  1630

  There is no reason why we should continue paying big oil companies 
$66 million that they do not deserve, because they pay themselves 
market price. But when it comes to paying American schoolteachers and 
the government for federally owned land, they underpay to the tune of 
$66 million a year. It is wrong. It is terribly wrong.
  If my colleagues are fiscally conservative, vote against this bill 
just on the oil rider alone.
  Mr. Speaker I rise in strong opposition to this conference report.
  Because it contains an unacceptable rider, that will let big oil 
companies, continue to steal money from our nation's schoolchildren, to 
fatten their own wallets.
  Mr. Speaker, these oil companies, have been caught cheating, on the 
royalty payments they owe, for drilling oil on federal land.
  Royalty payments, that benefit our schools, our environment, and the 
American taxpayer.
  As a result, they have to pay almost five billion dollars in 
settlements.
  But now, every time that the Interior Department has tried to fix the 
rules so that they pay the money they owe.
  The supporters of big oil, have come to this Congress, and blocked 
them from doing it.
  This time, they were a little more creative, they decided to delay 
the rules until the General Accounting Office, can audit Interior's 
rulemaking process.
  But we all know, that this is just another delay, designed to get us 
to the next must-pass appropriations bill, when they'll attach another 
rider, so we can start this process all over again.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, GAO has already issued a report on Interior's 
rulemaking process, and found that Interior has been extremely 
thorough, and gone out of its way to respond to the comments of the oil 
industry.
  Mr. Speaker, I listened yesterday as my colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle promised to do everything they could, to save every penny 
in the social security trust fund.
  So I cannot understand why when we're cutting the COPS program: 
Cutting the NEA; cutting the Land and Water Conservation Fund; When 
we're cutting all these vital programs--we're telling deadbeat oil 
companies, that owe the American taxpayer millions. ``It's OK--we 
really don't need the money.''
  Mr. Speaker, this is absurd and illogical.
  I urge my colleagues to stand up for the American taxpayer.
  Stand up for America's schools. Stand up against this anti-
environmental rip-off. And oppose this conference report.
  Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the following documents:

               [From the New York Times, Sept. 27, 1999]

                         The Senate's Oily Deal

       Though it was little noticed at the time, a donnybrook over 
     Senate rules last week illustrated the outsized role of 
     special interests in government. The issue was a money grab 
     by oil businesses, which want to lower the royalties they 
     have to pay the Government for drilling on Federal land. When 
     Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin tried to block an 
     amendment that would let them keep their royalty payments 
     artificially low and pointed out that oil-sector campaign 
     donations were calling the shots, several senators objected. 
     Their reason? Mr. Feingold's recitation of campaign donations 
     was not ``germane'' and therefore not allowed during the 
     debate.
       How quaint of the senators to disparage the germaneness of 
     campaign contributions. In fact, nothing could be more 
     relevant than the power of donors to call the tune in 
     Congress. Fortunately, Mr. Feingold was allowed to continue, 
     in spite of complaints from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of 
     Texas, the amendment's sponsor, and Senator Craig Thomas of 
     Wyoming. Unfortunately, the measure passed. The bill to which 
     it is attached contains objectionable anti-environmental 
     features, and President Clinton should veto it.
       It is perverse for the Senate to cut school aid, housing 
     and other domestic programs on the ground that the budget 
     needs to be balanced, and then to cut revenues even more by 
     handing out a big break to oil companies. Mr. Feingold, in 
     raising the campaign reform issue, knew that simply pointing 
     out what everyone knows is true would be embarrassing. If 
     embarrassment moves the senators to act, it should be not to 
     stop someone

[[Page 26510]]

     from telling the truth, but to pass the ban on unlimited 
     ``soft money'' to parties sponsored by Mr. Feingold and John 
     McCain of Arizona.
       Mr. Feingold likes to point out that he is an heir to the 
     Senate seat of Robert La Follette, the progressive hero of 
     nearly a century ago, who used to ``call the roll'' of 
     railroads and other big donors who got their way in 
     government. La Follette's ability to embarrass his colleagues 
     led eventually to the ban on corporate donations to 
     individual candidates of 1907, a ban that is now being undone 
     by the ``soft money'' scam whereby the money is given to 
     parties, not candidates. Mr. Feingold's ``Calling of the 
     Bankroll'' has pointed out how health insurance donors 
     influenced legislation governing health-maintenance 
     organizations, how the tax-cut bill got packed with treats 
     for businesses, and how big donations by Chevron, Atlantic 
     Richfield and BP Amoco led to the break on oil royalties.
       This season of Republican-touted budget restraint was 
     enlivened by the influence of a different special interest in 
     the defense area. Trent Lott, the majority leader, wants a 
     half billion dollars to start building a ship, the LHD-8. The 
     Navy says it does not need the money or the ship, Naturally, 
     the Senate has approved the money. Not all spending restraint 
     is healthy, at least to some senators. Perhaps it is germane 
     to point out that the ship would built at a shipyard in Mr. 
     Lott's home state of Mississippi.
                                  ____



                  Oil royalty settlements, July, 1999

Alaska...................................................$3,700,000,000
California..................................................345,000,000
Louisiana...................................................250,000,000
Private owners..............................................180,000,000
Federal Governments..........................................45,000,000
Texas........................................................30,000,000
Alabama......................................................15,000,000
New Mexico....................................................7,000,000
Florida.......................................................2,000,000
                                                       ________________
                                                       
  Total...................................................4,600,000,000

Note: This list includes financial settlements from oil royalty 
valuation lawsuits and government investigations. Figures may include 
taxes paid to state governments resulting from the settlements.

                Background Material On The Big-Oil Rider


             prepared by the office of rep. carolyn maloney

       The current Senate version of the Interior Appropriations 
     Bill contains a rider that would prohibit the Department of 
     the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) from 
     implementing its new oil-valuation rule. The rule governs the 
     royalty payments made by private oil companies that drill oil 
     on federal land.
       All companies that drill on federal land are required to 
     pay the government a royalty--generally 12.5 percent of the 
     value of the oil--to the taxpayer. Money from royalty 
     payments helps to fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, 
     the Historic Preservation Fund, and the U.S. Treasury. In 
     addition, states and Indian tribes received a share of the 
     royalty payments. Many states, including California, put the 
     money directly into their public school system.
       For decades, states and independent observers have accused 
     oil companies of deliberately undervaluing their oil in an 
     effort to reduce their royalty payments. As a result, several 
     states and private royalty owners have filed suit against 
     several major companies, and have collected over five billion 
     dollars in settlements to date. The Justice Department 
     recently decided to sue several companies for underpayment of 
     federal royalty payments; one company has already settled, 
     and several others are rumored to be nearing settlements.
       MMS has attempted to fix this problem permanently by 
     introducing a new rule which will link royalty payments with 
     the fair market value of the oil. It is estimated that the 
     new rule will save taxpayers at least $66 million per year. 
     Furthermore, MMS estimates that the new rule will impact only 
     5 percent of all oil companies--primarily large, integrated 
     companies. Ninety-five percent of companies, including all 
     independent producers, will not be affected.
       On three separate occasions, oil-industry allies in the 
     Senate have attached rides to must-pass appropriations 
     measures to block the new rule. The current rider expires at 
     the end of this fiscal year, and oil industry supporters, led 
     by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) attached a rider to 
     the Senate Interior Appropriations Bill that would extend it 
     until October 1, 2000. The rider passed on a narrow 51-47, 
     after supporters barely mustered the 60 votes to beat a 
     filibuster led by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA).
       Attachments: Editorial dated 9/27/99 from the New York 
     Times, Editorial dated 9/15/99 from the Washington Post, New 
     York Times article from 9/21/99, Floor Statement by 
     Congresswoman Maloney, Press Release from Congresswoman 
     Maloney, Recent settlements against the oil industry for 
     underpayment for royalties, Letter to the President from 
     Congresswoman Maloney and Senator Boxer, Disbursement of 
     Royalty Revenues, 1982-1998.
                                  ____


                             Budget Values

       To stay within spending limits, most House Republicans and 
     some Democrats voted last week to squeeze federal housing 
     programs for the poor. This week House Republican leaders 
     acknowledged they were considering deferring billions of 
     dollars in income support payments to lower-income working 
     families as well. But congressional zeal in behalf of budget 
     savings appears to extend only so far.
       The Senate currently faces the question of ending what 
     amounts to income support, not for low-income families but 
     for oil companies. The Interior Department would require the 
     companies to begin paying royalties based on the open market 
     value of oil and gas extracted from the federal domain. Sen. 
     Kay Bailey Hutchison has an amendment to the Interior 
     appropriations bill that would allow them in many cases to 
     continue to pay less. On a test vote Monday, she was able to 
     marshal 55 of the 60 votes she needs to cut off debate and 
     put the amendment in place. The remaining votes are said to 
     be at hand: all 54 Senate Republicans, the lone independent, 
     former Republican Bob Smith, and five wayward Democrats.
       In the end, it is well understood that Congress will breach 
     the spending limits, which are artificially tight. In the 
     meantime, we have pretense to the contrary. But even the 
     pretense produces winners and losers. Oil wins, poor people 
     lose; those are the values of this Congress.
       The spending caps represent no one's idea of the true cost 
     of government. They were set in the 1997 budget deal between 
     the president and congressional Republicans to make it appear 
     that the politicians could, too, balance the budget while 
     granting a tax cut. Now it's time to adhere to them, and 
     there aren't the votes. Nor should there be, given the long-
     term damage that adherence would do. The question isn't 
     whether they'll be exceeded but by how much, how honestly, 
     and who will bear the blame.
       To avoid the appearance of breaching them, Congress has 
     been using all manner of gimmicks. Ordinary expenditures for 
     such things as the census and defense have been classified as 
     emergencies, because under the budget rules, emergencies 
     don't count. Various devices have likewise been used to alter 
     not the amount of spending but the timing of it, to move it 
     out of next fiscal year. That's what the House leadership is 
     contemplating with regard to the earned income tax credit, 
     which provides what amount to wage supplements to the working 
     poor. They should be the last victims of budget-cutting, not 
     the first.
       A third device has been to avoid deep cuts in the smaller 
     domestic appropriations bills by ``borrowing'' funds from the 
     larger final ones, for veterans' affairs, housing, labor, 
     health and human services and education. But that has merely 
     concentrated the problem, not solved it. Meanwhile, the 
     housing programs are essentially frozen in a period in which 
     the general prosperity masks increasing need.
       The president and Congress knew the appropriations caps 
     they set in 1997 were unlikely ever to be met. The caps were 
     set for show; they were an official lie to which both parties 
     put their names, and from which they continue to try to 
     extricate themselves. The projected surplus in other than 
     Social Security funds over which they have been fighting all 
     year--the one Republicans would use to finance their about-
     to-be-vetoed tax cut--exists only if you assume that most 
     domestic spending will be cut by more than a fifth in real 
     terms, as the caps require. But the votes don't exist for 
     even the first of these cuts, much less the full mowing; nor 
     is it just Democrats who are turning away. They're living a 
     lie, both parties; that's the reason for the gimmicks. Only 
     the oil subsidy seems unaffected. Are there really no 
     Republicans in the Senate who think it wrong?
                                  ____


               [From the New York Times, Sept. 21, 1999]

         Battle Waged in the Senate Over Royalties on Oil Firms

                            (By Tim Weiner)

       Oil companies drilling on Federal land have been accused of 
     habitually underpaying royalties they owe the Government. 
     Challenged in court, they have settled lawsuits, agreeing to 
     pay $5 billion.
       The Interior Department wants to rectify the situation by 
     making the companies pay royalties based on the market price 
     of the oil, instead of on a lower price set by the oil 
     companies themselves.
       A simple issue? Not in the United States Senate. Instead, 
     it has become a textbook example of how Washington works. The 
     battle over royalties shows how a senator can use legislation 
     to right a wrong, in the view of Senator Kay Bailey 
     Hutchison, a Texas Republican who is blocking the Interior 
     regulations. Or it shows how Congress does favors for special 
     interests, in the view of Senator Hutchison's opponents.
       The issue could come to a vote this week, and it appears as 
     if the Senate might side with the oil companies.
       Senator Hutchison, who has received $1.2 million in 
     contributions from oil companies in the last five years, has 
     been winning the battle to block the pricing regulations 
     since the Interior Department imposed them in 1995. The 
     department estimates that oil companies are saving about $5 
     million a month,

[[Page 26511]]

     money that would otherwise be flowing to education, 
     environmental programs and other projects.
       Senator Hutchison calls the regulations a breach of 
     contract and an unfair tax increase. She says she represents 
     ``the overwhelming majority of the Senate who want to do the 
     right thing, who want fair taxation of our oil and gas 
     industry.''
       For 4 years, she has placed amendments and riders into 
     annual spending bills to keep the Interior Department 
     regulations from taking effect. To do otherwise, she argues, 
     would be ``to let unelected bureaucrats make decisions that 
     will affect our economy.''
       Senator Hutchison's chief antagonist has been Senator 
     Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who has condemned the 
     underpaying of royalties as a scheme intended to ``rob this 
     Treasury of millions and millions of dollars.''
       ``We shouldn't have a double standard just because an oil 
     company is powerful, just because an oil company can give 
     millions of dollars in contributions,'' Senator Boxer said.
       The Senate has never actually voted on Senator Hutchison's 
     measure. It has been inserted into must-pass spending bills 
     that provide a perfect vehicle for controversial measures 
     that might attract public notice if they were openly debated.
       This year, however, the Senate decided it would stop 
     attaching such riders to appropriations bills. Now the 
     Hutchison amendment has turned into a running battle on the 
     Senate floor.
       The Interior Department first proposed the regulations in 
     December 1995, nearly 10 years after the State of California 
     first began to suspect that energy companies were underpaying 
     the royalties they owed on oil pumped from Federal and State 
     land. The royalty is 12.5 percent for onshore drilling and 
     16.67 percent for offshore production.
       For the industry's giants, the royalties are a small 
     fraction of earnings. For the Exxon Corporation, they 
     represent about one-eighth of 1 percent of company revenues. 
     According to Interior Department figures, the new regulations 
     would cost Exxon $8 million, an additional one-hundredth of a 
     percent of revenues.
       The money goes to the Treasury, which sends it to 
     environmental and historic-preservation projects, and to 24 
     states, many of which use the money on education.
       But instead of basing their royalties on the actual market 
     price of oil, the energy companies have been using a price 
     they set that has run as much as $4 a barrel less than the 
     market price.
       According to the sworn testimony of a retired Atlantic 
     Richfield executive in a California lawsuit in July, the 
     policy of his company and others was to pay royalties based 
     on a price ``at least four or five dollars below what we 
     accepted as the fair market value.'' The retired executive, 
     Harry Anderson, said his company's senior executives had 
     decided ``they would take the money, accrue for the day of 
     judgment, and that's what we did.''
       The testimony was first reported by Platt's Oilgram News, a 
     trade publication.
       This practice allowed 18 oil companies, including Shell, 
     Exxon, Chevron, Texaco and Mobil Oil, to avoid paying 
     royalties of about $66 million a year, according to Interior 
     Department figures published in the Congressional Record.
       Sued by state governments, and now under investigation by 
     the Justice Department, most of the major oil companies have 
     signed settlements totaling about $5 billion with seven 
     states.
       But Ms. Hutchison says forcing the companies to pay 
     royalties based of the true market price of oil amounts to an 
     unfair tax increase.
       ``They are breaking a contract and saying: `We are going to 
     raise your taxes,' '' she argued on the Senate floor this 
     week.
       ``If we allow that to happen, who will be next?'' the 
     Senator asked. ``Who is the next person who is going to have 
     a contract and have the price increased in the middle of the 
     contract? Contract rights are part of the basis of the rule 
     of law in this country, and we seem to blithely going over 
     it.''
       If the Hutchison amendment comes to a vote--and it might 
     this week--it appears likely to pass, with support from 
     almost all the Senate's 55 Republicans and a few oil-state 
     Democrats.
       If the Senate lets the regulations take effect, says 
     Senator Frank Murkowski, an Alaska Republican who supports 
     the amendment, the message will be clear: ``We will be 
     saying, `Go ahead. Raise royalties and taxes. We, the U.S. 
     Senate, yield our power.' ''


                         http://www.nytimes.com

       Graphic: Photos: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, left 
     (Stephen Crowley/The New York Times), is seeking to protect 
     companies that drill on Federal land. Senator Barbara Boxer 
     says they are underpaying. (Ed Carreon for The New York 
     Times)
                                  ____


Remarks of the Honorable Carolyn B. Maloney on the Big-Oil Rider in the 
              Interior Appropriations Bill--July 13, 1999

       I rise today in support of this legislation. I would like 
     to applaud the Appropriations Committee for wisely rejecting 
     efforts to load this bill up with controversial anti-
     environmental riders. Unfortunately, the version of this bill 
     passed by the Appropriations Committee in the other body 
     contains numerous riders that would never pass on their own 
     and have no place in this legislation.
       One of these riders, in particular, robs the American 
     taxpayer of over 66 million dollars per year. this rider 
     would permit big oil companies to continue to underpay the 
     royalties they owe to the Federal Government, States and 
     Indian tribes, cheating taxpayers of millions of dollars. It 
     would do this by blocking the Interior Department from 
     implementing a new rule which would require big oil companies 
     to pay royalties to the Federal Government based on the 
     market value of the oil they produce.
       Earlier this year, I released a report demonstrating how 
     these companies have cheated the American taxpayer of 
     literally billions of dollars of the past several decades. 
     They do this by complex trading devices which mask the real 
     value of the oil they produce. By undervaluing their oil, 
     these companies can avoid paying the full royalty payments 
     they own.
       The Justice Department investigated these practices and 
     decided that they were so egregious that it filed suit 
     against several major companies for violating the False 
     Claims Act. As a result, one company decided to settle with 
     the government, and paid 45 million dollars. Numerous other 
     companies have settled similar claims brought by states and 
     private royalty owners for millions--and in one case 
     billions--of dollars.
       Mr. Chairman, the rule that the Interior Department is 
     proposing is simple. It requires that oil companies pay 
     royalties based on the fair market value of the oil they 
     produce. But these oil companies that have been cheating the 
     American taxpayer for years are now trying to block the 
     Interior Department from implementing a new rule, using every 
     excuse imaginable.
       Mr. Chairman, this rider robs money from our schools, our 
     environment, and our states and Indian tribes. It does this 
     to benefit the most-narrow special interest imaginable--big 
     oil companies with billions of dollars in profits.
       I applaud the Appropriations Committee for leaving this 
     issue to the experts at the Interior Department, and I call 
     on my colleagues to reject these efforts to benefit big oil 
     at the expense of the American taxpayer.
                                 ______
                                 

                   Maloney Exposes Oil Company Fraud


              allegations to be discussed at hearing today

       Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney (NY-14) today released a 
     report exposing how several major oil companies have 
     defrauded the U.S. government of millions of dollars by 
     undervaluing oil produced on federal land for royalty 
     purposes.
       ``This report confirms what we knew all along,'' said 
     Maloney. ``It proves that big oil companies have stolen money 
     from our nation's taxpayers, our schools, and our 
     environment, only to fatten their own bottom line.''
       These allegations, along with the Interior Department's 
     efforts to make oil companies pay the money they owe, will be 
     discussed at a hearing held today by the Government Reform 
     Committee's Subcommittee on Government Management, 
     Information and Technology. The hearing will be held at 2:00 
     p.m., in room 2247 of the Rayburn House Office Building.
       Under federal law, all companies which drill oil on federal 
     and state land are required to pay a royalty based on the 
     value of the oil they produce (generally from 12.5% to 16%). 
     Big oil companies under report the value of the oil they 
     produce, thus allowing them to pay less in royalties than 
     they owe. It is estimated that this scam costs taxpayers 
     between $66 million and $100 million each year.
       In 1974, the State of California and the City of Long Beach 
     sued several major oil companies for underpayment of oil 
     royalties. This report is based on an exhaustive analysis of 
     material obtained by Congresswoman Maloney from the Long 
     Beach litigation. Representative Maloney requested the 
     material in her role as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on 
     Government Management, Information and Technology, a post she 
     held during the 105th Congress. Most of the documents date 
     from the 1980's and cover a wide variety of trading 
     practices. None of the information contained in the report is 
     proprietary or could be damaging in any way to any individual 
     company.
       Congresswoman Maloney has repeatedly pressured the 
     Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service 
     (MMS), as well as the Justice Department, to expose the 
     fraudulent practices of many major oil companies. This report 
     is the first comprehensive analysis of internal company 
     documents that reveals exactly how major oil companies 
     engaged in suspect trading practices to reduce the amount of 
     royalties.
       The report reaches the following conclusions:
       Companies regularly traded California crude oil with each 
     other at one price--the market price--and reported royalties 
     based on another (called ``posted prices'') which were lower 
     than market. As a result, they paid less in royalty than 
     required under the law.
       Companies were aware that market prices were actually much 
     higher than posted prices.

[[Page 26512]]

       Companies used complex trading devices to conceal the fact 
     that posted prices were often well below the true market 
     price of the oil. These included:
       Inflating transportation costs, which are then deducted 
     from the sale price of the crude oil to lead to a royalty 
     basis which is far below market value.
       Engaging in ``overall balancing arrangements'' between 
     companies to sell each other undervalued crude. These 
     arrangements are complex trading schemes in which companies 
     sell each other equivalent amounts of oil at reduced prices 
     in such a way that neither company loses money on the 
     transaction.
       Selling oil at prices above posted prices without making 
     any attempt to explain the discrepancy between posted prices 
     and the sale price.
       Companies recognized that Alaska North Slope Crude Oil 
     (ANS) is traded at prices much higher than California posted 
     prices, even when adjusted for relative quality. As a result, 
     they considered California oil a bargain.
       The ability of the major oil companies to trade at prices 
     below actual value reveal that the California oil market in 
     the 1980's was dominated by a few major players with 
     substantial market power. This situation can only get worse 
     in the wake of the recent wave of oil mergers, as the recent 
     rise in California gas prices demonstrates.
       The totality of this evidence reveals that major oil 
     companies engaged in a deliberate plan to defraud the U.S. 
     government of royalty money it was entitled to under the law.
       The report is particularly timely because the Interior 
     Department's Minerals Management Service (MMS), the agency 
     which oversees royalty collection, is attempting to implement 
     a new rule which would require that oil companies pay 
     royalties based on the fair market value of the oil they 
     produce, however, the Supplemental Appropriations Bill, which 
     passed the House last night, contains a rider added at the 
     request of big oil companies which prohibits implementation 
     of the new rule prior to October 1, 1999.
       Copies of the report can be obtained by contacting the 
     office of Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney at (202) 225-7944.


                                Congress of the United States,

                                 Washington, DC, October 13, 1999.
     The President,
     The White House,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. President: We are writing to urge you to veto any 
     legislation passed by the Congress which prohibits the 
     Interior Department from implementing its proposed oil-
     valuation rule. If this new rule is blocked, big oil 
     companies will continue to cheat American taxpayers and 
     schoolchildren by deliberately underpaying the royalties they 
     owe.
       When oil companies drill on federal land, they are required 
     to pay a royalty to the federal government. A share of this 
     royalty is given to the state, and the remaining money is 
     used by the federal government for the Land and Water 
     Conservation Fund and the Historic Preservation Fund. In many 
     states, including California, the states' share provides much 
     needed funds for public education.
       For years, big oil companies have deliberately undervalued 
     the oil produced on federal land in order to avoid royalty 
     payments. To fix this problem, the Interior Department 
     proposed a fair and workable rule that will simply require 
     major oil companies to pay royalties based on the fair market 
     value of the oil.
       On three separate occasions, legislative riders included on 
     appropriations bills have prevented the Interior Department 
     from implementing this fair rule. If the supporters of big 
     oil companies are successful again, they will have managed to 
     block implementation of this rule for two and a half years, 
     at a total cost to taxpayers of over one-hundred and fifty 
     million dollars.
       We urge you to stand up to this special-interest rider and 
     veto any legislation that would prevent American taxpayers 
     from getting the oil royalties to which they are entitled.
       Thank you for your prompt attention to this important 
     issue.
           Sincerely,
     Carolyn B. Maloney,
       Member of Congress.
     Barbara Boxer,
       United States Senator.

                       Royalty Management Program

                                     Disbursement of Federal and Indian Mineral Lease Revenues--Fiscal Years 1982-98
                                                           [Revenues in Thousands of Dollars]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                             Historic      Land & Water
                                           Preservation    Conservation     Reclamation    Indian Tribes    State Share    U.S. Treasury       Total
                                               Fund            Fund            Fund         & Allottees                    General Fund
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1982....................................        $150,000        $825,095        $435,688        $203,000        $609,660      $5,476,020      $7,700,318
1983....................................         150,000         814,693         391,891         169,600         454,359       9,582,227      11,562,770
1984....................................         150,000         789,421         414,868         163,932         542,646       5,848,044       7,908,911
1985....................................         150,000         784,279         415,688         160,479         548,937       4,744,317       6,803,700
1986....................................         150,000         755,224         339,624         122,865       1,390,632       4,983,055       7,741,400
1987....................................         150,000         823,576         265,294         100,499         990,113       4,030,979       6,360,461
1988....................................         150,000         859,761         317,505         125,351         767,621       2,627,721       4,847,959
1989....................................         150,000         862,761         337,865         121,954         480,272       2,006,837       3,959,689
1990....................................         150,000         843,765         353,708         141,086         501,207       2,102,576       4,092,342
1991....................................         150,000         885,000         368,474         164,310         524,207       2,291,085       4,383,076
1992....................................         150,000         887,926         328,081         170,378         500,866       1,624,864       3,662,115
1993....................................         150,000         900,000         366,593         164,385         543,717       1,945,730       4,070,425
1994....................................         150,000         862,208         410,751         172,132         606,510       2,141,755       4,343,356
1995....................................         150,000         896,987         367,284         153,319         553,012       1,541,048       3,661,650
1996....................................         150,000         896,906         350,264         145,791         547,625       2,866,509       4,957,095
1997....................................         150,000         896,979         442,834         196,462         685,554       3,867,865       6,239,694
1998....................................         150,000         896,978         421,149         191,484         656,225       3,663,532       5,979,368
                                         ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Total.................................       2,550,000      14,482,414       6,327,561       2,667,027      10,903,163      61,344,164      98,274,329
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining 
on both sides?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shimkus). The gentleman from Washington 
(Mr. Hastings) has 13\1/2\ minutes remaining. The gentlewoman from New 
York (Ms. Slaughter) has 7 minutes remaining.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 11 
minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), chairman 
of the Subcommittee on Interior.
  Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, it has been interesting to listen to this 
debate, because this bill passed the House by about 380 votes, and a 
majority of the Members from the other side of the aisle voted for the 
bill. Essentially, it is the same bill, only with some extra funding 
in. I will address the issue of the riders. Perhaps we should do that 
right up front.
  Now, we have good riders and bad riders. The good riders are, one 
cannot drill offshore. Everybody likes that one. The good rider is that 
patents giving away mining lands are on a moratorium. That is a good 
rider.
  But the riders that were in the Senate, we found objectionable. But 
in the conference, with the support of the gentleman from Washington 
(Mr. Dicks) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and other 
Members on both sides of the House team, we got those riders modified. 
Let me take each one in order.
  The mill sites question. Basically the responsibility for mine reform 
rests with this body and not the Solicitor General. I think that the 
issue of how we deal with mill sites should be resolved by our 
authorizing committees and by this legislative body. It is a 
legislative issue. We cannot very well have attorneys, such as the 
Solicitor, making law; otherwise, we might as well close up shop.
  Now, of course I think the Senate provision overturned the 
Solicitor's opinion indefinitely. That is too long. So we modified it 
with give and take in the conference. My colleagues have to remember 
that we have a two-house system here. When we go to conference, and 
this is a conference report, it has to be worked out. There has to be 
some degree of compromise and negotiation.
  What the conference agreement does is water down the Senate 
provision. We say that the Solicitor's opinion which, in effect, he is 
in the mode of writing legislation, cannot impact on existing mining 
plans. One cannot very well look back. One cannot even legislate

[[Page 26513]]

ex-post facto, after the fact. So we said one cannot possibly change 
the rules. A lot of people have made a lot of investments.
  We also provide that plans in operation submitted prior to May 21, 
1999, are exempt. We went back as far as we thought was appropriate, 
and patent applications grandfathered pursuant to the current patent 
application moratorium in place since 1995, at this time this 
committee, under the leadership on our side of the aisle and support 
from the minority, did put in a moratorium on patents. So it is 
substantially less. Keep in mind this is a 1-year bill.
  Oil valuation. The gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) just 
talked about that. The Senate included a provision prohibiting the 
Minerals Management Service from implementing a new rule on oil 
valuation throughout the year 2000. We said that is too long. There is 
a problem here that needs to be addressed.
  So the conference agreement prohibits the rule from being implemented 
for a period not to exceed 6 months or until the comptroller general, 
that is GAO, reviews the proposed regulation and issues a report. Let 
us get the expert opinion from the GAO. This is a nonpartisan group. 
They can give us an unbiased opinion. We say it can only be in place 6 
months or until we get the GAO report, and then we need to address it 
legislatively. That is our responsibility.
  The grazing issue. The Senate included a provision which would have 
extended all expired Bureau of Land Management grazing permits based on 
existing terms and conditions. These permits are currently for 10-year 
periods. What did the conference agreement do? It continues a 1-year 
provision similar to the last year's law, similar to what we had last 
year. This provision clearly states that the authority of the Secretary 
of Interior to alter, modify, or reject permit renewals following 
completion of all required environmental analyses is not altered.
  We have also included additional funding for the BLM to accelerate 
the processing of these permits. We said, let us get on with the job. 
We know that there has to be an EIS on every permit. Under the 
conference compromise worked out by both parties, the agreement is that 
they can renew the permits for 10 years; but if the EIS shows that 
there is any violation of the standards established in the law and by 
the regulations, immediately, the Secretary can terminate those 
permits.
  This is a question of fairness. We have got to treat people fairly 
whether they live in the West or whether they live in the East. What we 
have done in modifying what I thought were too strenuous conditions 
imposed by the Senate language, we have modified to make the conditions 
fair. But I think they are reasonable, and I think they protect the 
interest of the American people.
  On the hard rock mining, we have said, as soon as the National 
Academy of Science, again, a nonpartisan, independent group, as soon as 
they give us the report, we can take action. In the meantime, we have a 
moratorium. All these things are a matter of fairness.
  Now, let me just tell my colleagues what a vote yes for this bill 
will do. A vote yes will give the parks $77 million more than they had 
last year; the Bureau of Land Management, $50 million more; an 
additional $55 million to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
  We continue the recreational fee program. I am advised by the Park 
Service that that will generate over $100 million which they get to put 
right back in the park where the fee is generated.
  Do my colleagues know what the law was before we worked on this? If 
the parks collected a fee, they sent it to the Treasury. Not much 
incentive to be out there collecting fees; paying one's team to collect 
a fee so one can send it to Washington. Now they get to keep it. They 
have done many improvements with the fee money.
  I have been visiting the parks. Without exception, and I think the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) was with us when we visited the 
parks, we heard this from the team at Olympic how much that meant to 
them to have the fees to fix up different things that have been 
neglected.
  Speaking of that, we address backlog maintenance. When we started 
here, we were told it was up to anywhere from $12 billion to $14 
billion of backlog maintenance. Most of us have homes. We fix the roof. 
We fix the driveway. We fix it if there is a problem with the plumbing.
  Yet, we were allowing our parks, our forests facilities, the 
Smithsonian, many others to be neglected. On their own testimony, 
backlog maintenance was up to almost $14 billion. We decided, as a 
policy, that we need to address the backlog problem. We need to take 
care of maintenance. We have been putting in probably twice as much 
money as was going into maintenance simply to ensure that we are taking 
care of what we have. We all understand how important that can be.
  The conference report ensures environmental protection for the 
Everglades, including a national park in Biscayne Bay. There is a lot 
of money in this report to restore the ecosystem and the water flow in 
the Everglades. How important that is in preserving this great system 
for the future generations.
  Funding for the Forest Service is $10 million over the 
administration's request and $16 million over the administration's 
request in trail maintenance. Trails, people love trails. If one has a 
trail in one's area one knows how much it is used. We recognize that 
even to a greater extent than the administration did.
  This bill is designed for people. It is designed to allow them to use 
the forest for recreation, to make the parks safe, to make sure they 
have nice conditions when they go there to visit. So we maintain the 
sewage systems. We maintain the camp sites. We maintain the things that 
are important to people.
  Funding for the North American Wetlands Conservation Fund continues 
at $15 million. We increased Indian Health Services by $130 million, 
very important in the Indian community. Again, a concern for people. We 
have tried to address that throughout the bill.
  We have the money to buy the Baca Ranch in New Mexico which will add 
a great piece of land to the base of this Nation, some 95,000 acres 
with an elk herd of 6,000 that just roam. Think of what that will mean 
for people to have an opportunity to visit. That is what my colleagues 
are going to vote yes for if they vote for this bill.
  We, earlier today, had an amendment on science. I have seen op ed 
pieces on how important science is in our schools. We provide in this 
bill for science and research at the USGS, one of the premier science 
agencies of this Nation. It gets a total $824 million.
  How about this one, a vote yes on this bill is a vote to clean up 
abandoned mine sites. We really neglected this country and our land 
when we allowed the rape of lands with mining, open pit mining. We have 
$191 million, a $6 million increase, to address the problems of open-
pit mines, to stop the acid rain runoff that goes downstream and goes 
far beyond the mine site.
  Well, there are a lot more things in here that I can talk about. I 
only can say this, that a vote yes for this bill is a vote for the 
people of this Nation.
  We have done the best we could with the money we have had. We tried 
to be fair. I think our friends on the other side of the aisle will 
recognize that, in terms of projects, programs, that each side was 
treated equally, and that we made our judgments on the merits of the 
programs and the projects rather than any political decisions.
  In view of that, I think we should get support from all the Members, 
as we did on the original bill. This bill is not that much different. 
It is, maybe, better in some respects, more funding because of what the 
Senate did. I certainly urge the Members here to respect the people of 
this Nation and support this legislation.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Bonior).
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York for 
yielding me the time.
  Mr. Speaker, let me just say at the outset how much I respect the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) for his

[[Page 26514]]

work in this Congress and for his concerns about the environment. But 
let me also say to him, as much as I hold him in high esteem for his 
abilities and for his care, he talked about this bill having some 
equity in it, and the only equity that I see in it is that the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the chairman of the Committee on 
Appropriations, was able to get about $87 million worth of projects for 
his State in this bill, a lopsided number to say the least, at the 
expense of, of course, many other Members. So there is no equity in 
that formula.
  I also want to say, Mr. Speaker, that the interior of our country is 
blessed with some of the most precious lands and forests in the world. 
Sometimes we take for granted Glacier and the Shenandoah and the Grand 
Canyon and Yellowstone and all these marvelous jewels that we have. We 
do not understand that somebody had the foresight years ago to make 
them a special place. It did not happen by accident. Legislators 
protected them from exploitation.
  I am sensitive to this exploitation issue because, in my home State 
of Michigan, we have had a history of exploiting what I think is the 
most beautiful State in the Union. It occurred in the 18th Century when 
the folks who wanted to trap came into Michigan, and they took 
everything that ran on four legs with fur on it, and almost made, in 
fact, did make extinct the wolverine and the martin, and took pelts in 
prodigious numbers, beaver. You name it, they went after it and 
basically took the fur in the State in a very short time and exploited 
it.

                              {time}  1645

  And then in the 19th century, when the Erie Canal opened up and my 
colleagues' ancestors from New York came over to Michigan, they went 
after the trees, in the biggest rush of natural resources this country 
has ever seen. Michigan had unbelievable growth of pine forests and 
other virgin old growth forests. Seven-tenths, eight-tenths of our 
State was forest, and by the end of that century it was virtually all 
gone.
  And they took with them the woodland caribou, they took with them the 
grayling fish, and they took with them the grey fox. The State was 
devastated. And it has taken us 100 years to recover as a result of 
that exploitation. We lost some of our special places due to lack of 
foresight.
  In the year 2000, as we do this appropriations bill for the Interior, 
we should reflect on some of these misguided policies of the past, and 
we should offer a vision for a better future. Unfortunately, the bill 
we have before us today lacks in very important areas. It provides less 
than half of the funding requested by the President's Land Legacy 
initiative, and it has the riders that we have been debating here 
allowing for the unrestricted dumping of toxic mineral waste and in 
placing a 1-year freeze on the hard rock mining regulation.
  The worst riders would grant grazing permit renewals without concern 
for the environmental impact, and it would also subsidize the oil 
industry by allowing them to pay, as the gentlewoman from New York 
(Mrs. Maloney) mentioned, below-market prices for royalties extracted 
from Federal lands and waters.
  And like much of 19th century Michigan, it even allows the trees in 
our national forests to be raided without any consideration given to 
the wildlife and the soil erosion and the human health concerns. So 
this bill lacks vision. It lacks vision. It cannot see the trees or the 
forests, and we should send it back to the dark ages, especially with 
respect to the riders. That is where this bill belongs.
  This bill is opposed by every major environmental organization in the 
country for the reasons we have enunciated on the floor today. I urge 
my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this conference report.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains on 
both sides?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shimkus). The gentleman from Washington 
(Mr. Hastings) has 2\1/2\ minutes remaining, and the gentlewoman from 
New York (Ms. Slaughter) has 3\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
South Carolina (Mr. Spratt).
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, we are playing catchup ball. We are rushing 
to conclusion trying to finish the budget because we are 20 days into a 
new year without a budget. And as these bills whirl past us, I think it 
is fair to stop and ask what is the score right now. Just where are we? 
How much have we spent against what we have got?
  To get an answer to that question we have only to look on page H10596 
of the Congressional Record. We can see that we are $599 million in 
this bill alone above where the House was, and that is why this rule is 
required, because we are above the 302(b) allocation. We split the 
available resources into 13 different bills early in the year, and now 
this bill comes to us $600 million more than the allocated share it is 
entitled to.
  This continues a trend that has gone on here repeatedly with the 
bills that are coming to the floor. The three largest bills in the 13 
appropriation bills are Defense, which is $8 billion more than the 
President requested; HUD-VA is $2 billion more than the President 
requested; and I am told Labor-HHS, which comes here tomorrow, is $2.2 
billion more than the President requested. And, of course, we have 
passed an Ag emergency bill that was not in the original calculus at 
$8.7 billion more than we originally contemplated. Those alone, back of 
the envelope, come to 20.7, and the surplus for next year is 14.4.
  That means, just on the back of the envelope analysis, that we are $6 
billion into the Social Security surplus. We have spent the on-budget 
surplus, and we are $6 billion into Social Security. But it is worse 
than that. If we take all the bills, according to the Committee on the 
Budget's analysis, we are $36 billion right now above what was 
allocated for discretionary spending. Thirty-six billion.
  Now if my colleagues are asking themselves, how did we do this, two 
gimmicks, basically. Number one, emergency spending. We have taken it 
to new heights. We have expanded the definition of an emergency to 
unprecedented extremes this year; $18.8 billion by our calculation, 
$24.9 according to the ranking member of the Committee on 
Appropriations. And then we have used creative scorekeeping. We have 
discarded, dispensed with, the scorekeeping that our own budget shop, a 
neutral nonpartisan CBO, congressional budget shop, would render of the 
budget authority we have provided, and said, no, it is at least $18 
billion, $17.1 billion less than what you say. That is how we got $36 
billion over the caps and into Social Security.
  So where are we, if we adopt this bill? If we back out the gimmicks, 
we are over, way over, the discretionary spending caps we set; and we 
are well into the Social Security surplus. If we pass this bill, we 
will be $600 million over the caps and in BA, $200 million more in 
outlays into Social Security. That is why this bill is not a good idea.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the 
gentleman from Guam (Mr. Underwood).
  Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I have 30 seconds to just raise one 
issue, and that is compact-impact aid for Guam.
  This is an unfunded mandate which, according to a Department of 
Interior report, costs the people of Guam $17 million a year. We were 
asking for only about 50 percent of that in this Interior 
appropriations measure. We were not able to get it.
  This is an unfunded mandate on citizens that are not fully 
represented here and stems from a series of treaties signed by the 
United States in the 1980s with three independent nations which are 
allowed free migration into the United States and they end up in Guam.
  So I rise in opposition to the conference report.
  I rise in opposition to the Conference Report on H.R. 2466, the 
Interior Appropriations bill. It is apparent from our on-going debate 
that this report does not meet the concerns important to our nation. 
The inadequate funding of

[[Page 26515]]

both the Land's Legacy Initiative and the National Endowment for the 
Arts will weaken our efforts to protect our national parks and forests 
and jeopardize our nation's appreciation for the diversity of arts and 
cultures. I also oppose this bill because it does not ensure that the 
smallest of concerns from our furthest American citizens in the Pacific 
are addressed. This causes me great concern because for my district, 
the Territory of Guam, an agreement made in 1986 between the U.S. and 
the Freely Associated States of Micronesia placed a federal mandate on 
our territory which costs the island nearly $17 million annually in 
public services for immigrants from the Freely Associated States of 
Micronesia.
  As background, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Republic 
of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and the Republic of Palau (RP) are Freely 
Associated States with the United States. The FSM and RMI began their 
respective Compact agreements with the U.S. in 1986 while the Compact 
relationship with the RP began later in 1994. A provision of the 
Compact agreements allows Freely Associated State citizens unfettered 
travel within the U.S. to seek employment or education. As the closest 
American territory to these independent nations, Guam is their primary 
destination. The resulting immigration has placed greater demands to 
provide social, health care, public housing, educational, and public 
safety services to FAS citizens residing on Guam. Without the proper 
attention and assistance from Congress, this unfair situation placed on 
a territory with a limited economy will only contribute to the 
continuing depletion of Guam's financial resources. This is not only an 
unfunded federal mandate--it is worse--it is an unfunded federal 
mandate upon U.S. citizens who are not fully represented here in 
Washington.
  Compact-impact aid assistance for Guam has been recognized by both 
the Congress and the Administration, but has not been fully addressed. 
In 1996, Congress authorized annual payment of $4.58 million to Guam 
until 2001 to offset costs associated with compact migration. A year 
later, a study paid for by the Department of the Interior calculated 
the annual cost to Guam for providing social and educational services 
to Compact migrants was approximately $17 million. As you can see, Guam 
shoulders more than two-thirds of the cost of providing public services 
to FAS immigrants.
  The budget requests from Delegates of the U.S. Territories in 
Congress are perhaps the greatest challenges we face during our terms 
in office. Without doubt, we have less influence in the appropriations 
process due in large part to our non-voting status in the Congress. Our 
needs are often misunderstood because our distances from the mainland 
U.S. are great. Apart from federal programs that both states and 
territories can participate in, any other requests outside of the norm 
can be a frustrating ordeal. We are vulnerable to federal interagency 
differences about how to treat the territories as well as having no 
leverage during the appropriations process.
  I am appreciative for the collaboration and support of the President 
for including Compact-impact aid increase for Guam as part of his 
Administration's priorities during the appropriations process. I remain 
confident that the President is committed to increasing Compact-impact 
aid for Guam and I remain committed to working with my colleagues to 
ensure that this issue is addressed this year.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of our 
time to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson).
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I have found this 
discussion interesting. When we look back at the House vote of 377 to 
47, and then hear the debate that we have heard in the last few minutes 
here on the rule, we would think this was a totally different bill.
  I sat on the conference committee, and I can tell my colleagues that 
I want to give it high marks. When I want somebody to negotiate for me 
with the Senate or anybody, I am going to send the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Regula), because I think he did one real fine job. He stood tough 
and fought for the House position again and again and again, and won.
  Now, sure, there is compromise. The President has some things that 
were added that he wanted changed so he might sign the bill. And the 
Senate had to have some victories. That is the process. Is it perfect? 
No. Do we ever pass a perfect bill? No. But this is a good bill, very, 
very similar to the bill that drew 377 votes. I think there is 
something good here.
  I have heard five different reasons, none related, as to why this 
bill is bad all of a sudden, but no evidence. This bill has $1.4 
billion for national park operations, a $77 million increase; $1.2 
billion for Bureau of Land Management, a $50 million increase; national 
wildlife refuge, a $30 million increase. The issues that are important 
to our environment, the agencies that are important to our environment 
have been thoughtfully funded.
  Some new initiatives: the Recreational Fee Demonstration program that 
allows our public lands to keep the fees and help with the backlog of 
maintenance. Everglades restoration, a new initiative. This bill, in my 
view, has been a very thoughtful, tough bill because we had 
constraints.
  I personally think there is a move here to just stop the process. 
Because when we listen to the evidence that we have heard today, it 
does not make much sense. It is not very clear and convincing. Because 
this is basically the same bill we passed, and 377 House Members 
supported it, rightfully so, and only 47 voted against.
  I urge my colleagues to support this bill. It is one that our 
committee fought hard for, our chairman worked hard for in the 
conference committee, and it is one that deserves our support so we can 
send it to the President.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered on the resolution.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 228, 
nays 196, not voting 9, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 527]

                               YEAS--228

     Aderholt
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Berkley
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Boucher
     Brady (TX)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Campbell
     Canady
     Cannon
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth-Hage
     Coble
     Collins
     Combest
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Cox
     Crane
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Fossella
     Fowler
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Green (WI)
     Greenwood
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill (IN)
     Hill (MT)
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Isakson
     Istook
     Jenkins
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Kasich
     Kelly
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kuykendall
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     LoBiondo
     Lucas (OK)
     Manzullo
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller, Gary
     Moran (KS)
     Morella
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Ortiz
     Ose
     Oxley
     Packard
     Paul
     Pease
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Schaffer
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shows
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Souder
     Spence
     Stenholm
     Stump
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Talent
     Tancredo
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune

[[Page 26516]]


     Tiahrt
     Toomey
     Traficant
     Turner
     Upton
     Vitter
     Walden
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson
     Wise
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NAYS--196

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baird
     Baldacci
     Baldwin
     Barcia
     Barrett (WI)
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Carson
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Condit
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Danner
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Forbes
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green (TX)
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hastings (FL)
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hoeffel
     Holden
     Holt
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Jackson (IL)
     John
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kleczka
     Klink
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Larson
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Lucas (KY)
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Martinez
     Mascara
     Matsui
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller, George
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moore
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Phelps
     Pickett
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Rodriguez
     Roemer
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sawyer
     Schakowsky
     Scott
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Sisisky
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Spratt
     Stabenow
     Stark
     Stearns
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Weygand
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn

                             NOT VOTING--9

     Camp
     Coburn
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Linder
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     Scarborough
     Towns

                              {time}  1718

  Ms. BROWN of Florida, Mr. UDALL of New Mexico, Mr. RAHALL, and Ms. 
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas changed their vote from ``yea'' to 
``nay.''
  So the resolution was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________