[Senate Report 109-244]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



                                                       Calendar No. 406
109th Congress                                                   Report
                                 SENATE
 2d Session                                                     109-244

======================================================================



 
                        UKRAINE FAMINE MEMORIAL

                                _______
                                

                 April 20, 2006.--Ordered to be printed

                                _______
                                

   Filed under authority of the order of the Senate of April 7, 2006

   Mr. Domenici, from the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, 
                        submitted the following

                              R E P O R T

                        [To accompany H.R. 562]

    The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, to which was 
referred the Act (H.R. 562) to authorize the Government of the 
Ukraine to establish a memorial on Federal land in the District 
of Columbia to honor the victims of the manmade famine that 
occurred in Ukraine in 1932-1933, having considered the same, 
reports favorably thereon without amendment and recommends that 
the Act do pass.

                         PURPOSE OF THE MEASURE

    The purpose of H.R. 562 is to authorize the Government of 
Ukraine to establish a memorial on Federal land in the District 
of Columbia to honor the victims of the famine and genocide 
that occurred in Ukraine in 1932 and 1933.

                          BACKGROUND AND NEED

    During 1932 and 1933, Soviet leader Josef Stalin moved to 
suppress nationalist and anti-Bolshevik urges among ethnic 
Ukrainians. To pacify the Ukrainians, Stalin set impossibly 
high grain quotas. Farmers who failed to meet the quotas had 
their other food confiscated. Those who were found in 
possession of even meager portions of grain reserved for their 
families were often executed for ``withholding'' grain.
    As a result of Stalin's actions, millions of Ukrainians 
starved to death during the winter of 1932-1933. Ukrainians 
call this forced starvation the Holodomor and historians 
estimate that between 5 and 10 million people died during the 
event. Twenty-six nations, including the United States, have 
recognized Stalin's ``famine'' as an act of genocide.
    H.R. 562 would authorize the government of Ukraine to 
establish a memorial to the famine victims on Federal land in 
the District of Columbia. The bill would require the memorial 
to comply with the Commemorative Works Act. However, the bill 
would exempt the memorial from 4 provisions of the Works Act: 
two provisions that require memorials to commemorate American 
history and two provisions that require the Secretary to 
maintain and preserve the memorial. The memorial would be built 
with non-Federal funds.

                          LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

    H.R. 562 was introduced by Representative Levin and others 
on February 2, 2005. The bill passed the House of 
Representatives on November 16, 2005, on a voice vote. It was 
referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on 
November 17, 2005. The Subcommittee on National Parks held a 
hearing on H.R. 562 on February 16, 2006. At the business 
meeting on March 15, 2006, the Committee on Energy and Natural 
Resources ordered H.R. 562 favorably reported.

                        COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION

    The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, in open 
business session on March 15, 2006, by a unanimous voice vote 
of a quorum present, recommends that the Senate pass H.R. 562.

                      SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS

    Section 1(a) authorizes the government of Ukraine to 
establish, on Federal land in the District of Columbia, a 
memorial to victims of the Ukrainian famine and genocide of 
1932 and 1933.
    Subsection (b) requires compliance with the Commemorative 
Works Act, with four minor exceptions: It waives two provisions 
that require the memorial to commemorate American history and 
two provisions that require the Secretary to maintain and 
preserve the memorial.
    Section 2 states that the United States government will not 
pay any expenses for the establishment or maintenance of this 
memorial.

                   COST AND BUDGETARY CONSIDERATIONS

    The following estimate of the cost of this measure has been 
provided by the Congressional Budget Office:

H.R. 562--An act to authorize the government of Ukraine to establish a 
        memorial on federal land in the District of Columbia to honor 
        the victims of the manmade famine that occurred in the Ukraine 
        in 1932-1933

    CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 562 would have no impact 
on the federal budget. Enacting the legislation would not 
affect direct spending or revenues. H.R. 562 contains no 
intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the 
Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would not affect the budgets 
of state, local, or tribal governments.
    H.R. 562 would authorize the government of Ukraine to 
establish a memorial honoring the men, women, and children who 
perished by famine under communist rule in Ukraine from 1932 to 
1933. The legislation would require that the establishment of 
the memorial comply with the major provisions of the 
Commemorative Works Act. As a memorial gift from a foreign 
nation, the government of Ukraine would be responsible for 
constructing, maintaining, and preserving the memorial. No 
federal funds could be used for those purposes.
    The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Matthew 
Pickford. This estimate was approved by Peter H. Fontaine, 
Deputy Assistant Director for Budget Analysis.

                      REGULATORY IMPACT EVALUATION

    In compliance with paragraph 11(b) of rule XXVI of the 
Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee makes the following 
evaluation of the regulatory impact which would be incurred in 
carrying out H.R. 562. The bill is not a regulatory measure in 
the sense of imposing Government-established standards or 
significant economic responsibilities on private individuals 
and businesses.
    No personal information would be collected in administering 
the program. Therefore, there would be no impact on personal 
privacy.
    Little, if any, additional paperwork would result from the 
enactment of H.R. 562, as ordered reported.

                        EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS

    The views of the Administration on H.R. 562 were included 
in testimony received by the Committee at a hearing on the bill 
on February 16, 2006. This testimony follows:

   Statement of John Parsons, Associate Regional Director, National 
   Capital Region, National Park Service, Department of the Interior

    Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for 
the opportunity to appear before you today to present the 
Department of the Interior's views on H.R. 562, a bill to 
authorize the Government of Ukraine to establish a memorial on 
Federal land in the District of Columbia to honor the victims 
of the man-made famine that occurred in Ukraine in 1932-1933.
    The Department opposes enactment of this legislation 
because it duplicates efforts currently underway to establish a 
memorial that would honor all victims of communism worldwide. 
This memorial, the Victims of Communism Memorial, was 
authorized by P.L. 103-199 on December 17, 1993.
    H.R. 562 would authorize the Government of Ukraine to 
establish a memorial on Federal land in the District of 
Columbia to honor the men, women, and children who perished by 
famine under communist rule in Ukraine from 1932-1933. The bill 
would require that the establishment of the memorial comply 
with the major provisions of the Commemorative Works Act, but 
contains minor exceptions to four provisions. Two provisions 
require a commemorative work to have significance to the 
American Experience, and two relate to the requirement that the 
Secretary maintain and preserve the memorial. As a memorial 
gift from a foreign nation, the Government of Ukraine would be 
responsible for establishing, constructing, maintaining and 
preserving the memorial.
    The people of Ukraine were brought to the verge of physical 
extinction in 1932-1933 when a man-made disaster resulted in 
the deaths of millions of innocent men, women, and children. 
The Soviet Government, under the political control of Joseph 
Stalin, used food as a weapon to annihilate or suppress the 
political and cultural identity of the Ukrainian people. To 
fill impossibly high grain quotas, assigned brigades seized the 
1932 crop from one of the world's most fertile farmlands. Those 
who resisted giving up their crops were killed. Millions of 
people starved while stockpiles of seized grain rotted by the 
tons. Attempts were made by the United States Government to 
intercede at the height of the famine to provide food and other 
necessary supplies to help the starving people of Ukraine. In 
1988, the United States Commission on the Ukraine Famine 
reported that the people of Ukraine were victims of genocide, 
or ``starved to death in a man-made famine.''
    The National Capital Memorial Advisory Commission 
(Commission), established in 1986 to review proposals to 
establish memorials and provide its recommendation to the 
Secretary of the Interior and committees of Congress, reviewed 
this proposal on March 15, 2005. While it supported a similar 
proposal in the 108th Congress, the Commission has since 
considered revisions made by the Victims of Communism Memorial 
Foundation (Foundation) to expand its effort as a two-fold 
commemoration. The Foundation is proposing a memorial to 
victims of communism worldwide that would be supplemented by a 
virtual museum to tell the history of the impact of communism. 
The Commission also concluded that because the Victims of 
Communism Memorial would encompass the history of the Ukraine 
Famine as well as that of 120 different nationalities, ethnic 
groups, and countries that were also victims of communism, it 
would not endorse legislation proposed to provide a separate, 
specific recognition of this or other national or ethnic groups 
that already would be recognized in the Victims of Communism 
Memorial.
    We agree with the approach of commemorating the millions of 
victims of communism worldwide, including those who suffered 
immeasurably during the horrific Ukraine Famine, through the 
Victims of Communism Memorial. While the victims of the Ukraine 
Famine obviously deserve recognition, we believe that creating 
separate memorials for individual groups would detract from the 
overall message of the Victims of Communism Memorial and could, 
potentially, create an unfortunate competition amongst various 
groups for limited memorial sites in our Nation's Capital. The 
Foundation envisions the Victims of Communism Memorial as a 
visible symbol for all those who have suffered atrocities to 
human rights and perished. The Foundation secured site 
approvals for placement of the Victims of Communism Memorial 
within sight of the United States Capitol and design approvals 
in 2005. The Foundation plans to begin construction on the 
memorial this spring.
    Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to comment. 
This concludes my prepared remarks and I will be happy to 
answer any questions you or other committee members might have.

                        CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW

    In compliance with paragraph 12 of rule XXVI of the 
Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee notes that no 
changes in existing law are made by H.R. 562, as ordered 
reported.

                                  
