[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 25722]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




        EXPRESSING FRUSTRATION REGARDING APPROPRIATIONS PROCESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Speaker, as we conclude the 108th Congress, I 
think all of us who served in this body feel a great sense of pride and 
accomplishment for the legislation that we passed that will have a 
positive impact on our Nation. I think also many of us have a great 
deal of regret over legislation that did not pass that we needed to 
pass to address serious issues facing our great Nation.
  I am really reluctant at this time to talk about matters that I find 
frustrating for me personally, but I am not going to be critical of any 
Member, of course. But one of the processes that seems to be taking 
place certainly in the House of Representatives is that each year we 
take up more and more of the legislative calendar to pass appropriation 
bills. It seems that each year we do not pass all of the appropriation 
bills. Then what happens is at the end of the year we come forth with a 
gigantic omnibus bill. This year was no exception. That is one of the 
reasons that a few years ago on this floor, we had a vote to go to a 2-
year appropriation cycle so that one year we could appropriate money 
for the government, and the next year we could debate substantive 
issues.
  But as I stated earlier, we find ourselves this year with a gigantic 
omnibus bill once again. The sad thing about it is that when that bill 
went over to the Senate, many provisions were placed into that bill, 
and the Members of the House of Representatives never had an 
opportunity to vote on the bill. I just want to give one example of a 
substantive policy that was made because of legislation adopted on the 
Senate side that was never, we never had an opportunity to vote for on 
this side.
  The Bureau of Land Management oversees approximately 261 million 
acres of public lands, and more than 29 million acres of that land is 
used for wild horses and burro grazing. Now, because of section 142 
being inserted into the omnibus bill on which there was no disclosure, 
no one knew about it; as I said earlier, we never had an opportunity to 
vote on it on the House side, 31 years of policy relating to public 
lands and wild burros and wild horses grazing on those lands were 
changed. As a matter of fact, the change will no longer protect those 
wild horses and burros on the public lands. Someone, and it is unclear 
who, will decide that there may be an excessive number of these animals 
out there, and those animals will be disposed of.
  Now, prior to this year's omnibus bill, in every appropriation bill 
relating to BLM lands, it said, ``Appropriations herein made shall not 
be available for the destruction of healthy, unadopted wild horses and 
burros in the care of the Bureau or its contractor.'' Of course, the 
omnibus bill eliminated that language as well.
  So we leave here at the end of this 108th Congress by action taken in 
the dark of night, without the knowledge of anyone, that changes 31 
years of policy relating to the way we manage Bureau of Land Management 
and the animals, the wild horses and burros on those properties.
  I, for one, am quite frustrated by this process. It seems that each 
year we come with gigantic omnibus bills. This one exceeded I have been 
told over 3,000 pages. Most Members, of course, do not know what was in 
it. But the really disappointing thing to me, and I stress that, was 
the fact that on the House side, we never had an opportunity to vote on 
those changes made by the Senate.

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