Earl Blumenauer

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. If the gentleman will yield further, I have four studies here now from 2001 that detail the deficiencies and inadequacies of the program. I am wondering what the gentleman expects to be accomplished by one more study that has not been already highlighted, documented and discussed with the gentleman and the committee over the course of the last 4 years?

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, the point I was trying to make earlier, with all due respect, is that the couple of hundred million dollars that we have here leaves the vast majority of sites with no expenditure whatsoever. Over 1,400, no expenditure. I just mentioned on the floor that we are having to suspend the work on the campus of American University and in Spring Valley because they are running out of money. My question is, why should we be continuing to play this sort of shell game when for a reasonable expenditure of funds we could clear 8 million acres or more from having this signage and having this risk?

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, earlier I had mentioned my concerns about Congress no longer being missing in action when it comes time to clean up unexploded ordnance. It is astounding to me how little awareness there is on the part of most of my colleagues how dire the situation is and how serious it is around the country. I have here one chart, Mr. Chairman, that speaks to the sites that we have, number of properties in various States and the territories around the country. One can see that it is every State in the union, every territory, and we are having a serious situation now, Mr. Chairman, in terms of losing ground. We have 2,300 sites, and we are still counting. At today's rate, it will take between 75 and 300 years in order to clean these up. There have been references to our doing the best we can, and I agree. There are lots of efforts that have been undertaken to try and deal with this problem, but how it breaks out in terms of these 2,300 sites around the country, we are dealing here with only $204 million total in proposed budget for 2005. That is less than we had in 2003 by a substantial margin, barely more than we had last year. Even though inflation continues, the costs go up. If I can put it in perspective, in terms of where we are spending the money, I have a chart here in terms of how much we are spending. We have 52 of these sites where we are spending $.5 million. Basically, it is kind of hold your own. It is kind of a maintenance effort. There are less than 2 dozen sites that are funded for over $1 million. And, Mr. Chairman, if this chart was to scale, the number of sites that we are spending nothing on would go from the bottom all the way to the ceiling, over 1,400 sites. This is serious business. In Southern California, there were two 8- year-old boys who were injured after discovering a live shell in Terra Sana, a northern San Diego neighborhood. Following the tragedy, the Navy swept 300 acres and discovered 184 shells. This was, sadly, 20 years ago, the tragedy that killed those two boys. When I took to the floor yesterday, I talked about a situation in North Carolina, right now at Fort Butner, where a family is forced to move out of their home when they find a bomb in the front yard, a year and a half later they cannot live in it, they cannot sell it, and they are on the verge of bankruptcy. There are thousands of acres around there that are now in private hands and are being sold where there will be liability in the future. Here in Washington, D.C., a 30-minute bicycle ride from where we are standing right now, on the campus of American University, is the site of where we manufactured and tested chemical weapons during World War I. They are still working on it. Three times they thought they were done. They just recently extended the deadline between 2008 and 2010. And you know what, they are stopping work this year because there is not enough money to finish the job. The child care center at American University is still vacant because of the arsenic levels. It has not been fully cleared to be used. And they are working in home after home in some of the most expensive neighborhoods in our Nation's Capital. I could go on at great length, going over the problems that are here that we are not addressing. I would offer up an amendment that would permit us to move in the direction of being able to have some wide area assessment so that we can go out and at least clear some of these properties so that they will no longer have to be off limits. I invite you to look at some of the material that is being put out by the Corps of Engineers: Coloring books for children telling them not to pick up unexploded ordnance. Now, I am sorry, Larry the Lizard is a great guy, but he is no substitute for Congress stepping up and putting money behind the cleanup on our public lands. Three times since I have been in Congress, we have had to pull firefighters out of the forests because the heat has exploded bombs around them. From New York to Arizona to Alaska. I would respectfully suggest the adoption of this amendment so that we can have some opportunity to clear millions of acres so that at least we will not have to have Larry the Lizard telling our children what they have to do when they visit our Nation's parks.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment. The Chairman. The Clerk will designate the amendment.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's kind words. I appreciate the difficult task that his subcommittee has. As I think of the challenges that we face, I cannot think of anybody with a more difficult challenge today, and my heart goes out to the difficulty my colleague has in terms of providing for the needs of our constituents that are overseas. But, as I say, I will not offer this amendment because I think it would be ruled out of order. I want to make the point that nobody in the Department of Defense to this day is in charge. There is no separate account that enables an appropriate accounting; and in the course of the debate this afternoon, I look forward to offering up some alternatives that may, in a small way, help my distinguished friends on this subcommittee who have what I truly believe is a difficult task; but I want Congress to no longer be missing in action on unexploded ordnance and military toxins that pollute millions of acres around this country. In fact, nobody knows how many are polluted.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, what I am suggesting in this regard is to redirect a mere $5 million from the research account to be able to deal with the wide area assessment. This is one of the numerous studies. This was done by the Defense Science Board task force on unexploded ordnance. This is for the Department of Defense itself. They have been looking under the direction of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, what do you do with the 10 or 15 million acres? Remember a few minutes ago I talked about ``Larry the Lizard,'' the coloring book to try and tell children not to pick up exploded ordnance. There is a way that we can find out where the problems exist and what the unexploded ordnance report for the Defense Science Board concluded was having a wide area assessment. What they recommended was to do $200 million a year. With $200 million a year over 5 years, we could assess 10 million acres. That would not tell us what type of ordnance is under the acres that are polluted, but what it would do would tell us areas that there is not ordnance. Their estimate is that by doing this simple billion dollars over 5 years, $200 million a year, we could open up 8 million acres that could be used safely. We would not have to be telling kids through Larry the Lizard. Or I have a great one here that tells people when they go to the park in the Jefferson proving area in Indiana that you have to sign a waiver to use the park because of exploded ordnance, and they tell you if you find unexploded ordnance on the trail, do not use your cell phone because it might detonate it, in our Nation's parks. With all due respect, I would suggest that by starting with a simple assessment, not $200 million but merely $5 million, so my colleagues would actually see that it works, that we can have an opportunity to start eliminating, because $5 million, frankly, is a scandal in my judgment, out of over $400 billion, we can protect our children, we can protect our forest rangers, our firefighters and be able to do an assessment that would take it all. Mr. Chairman, I would respectfully request the adoption of this amendment to have $5 million for the pilot study on the wide area assessment. But I hope that this minimal initial step is something that will encourage the House of Representatives to start taking this seriously and not consign Larry the Lizard to take care of our children or wait a quarter of a millennium or more to do what we should be doing today. I urge the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, what I am trying to get at is to not be at the same place next year that we are now. Last year we were trying to get a little money for research, but we were trying to focus some attention so we would do more. Where I see the problem is that we are actually spending less than we did 2 years ago, that we have reasonable proposals from the Department of Defense for doing something about it, and now I am back here hearing that here is $5 million for a pilot project and we will have a study and come back next year.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's offer of help.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I wanted to explain what I hope to accomplish. My goal is to be in a situation where we can actually make some significant progress for expenditures to solve the problem, not to continue to study it or to do tests. I appreciate the courtesy that has been offered by the Chair and ranking member to try to help out for 5 million. I am trying to respond to this question about what I am trying to achieve. I do not want to be back here next year and see the funding level going down, the cost going up, needs unmet, and people looking at me like it is hard to understand what I am trying to achieve. That is what I am trying to do.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I will seek to work with the committee, but my ironclad commitment is to help make sure that there is a way that we focus on the floor so we are not back here with another study and a pilot project, no increase in funding and a problem that continues to get worse year after year after year.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. For the last 230 years, the United States has evolved from a ragtag collection of determined colonials who were able to meet the most powerful military in the world to today being the most powerful Nation. There are many chapters to that story. It was achieved at tremendous cost in human life and sacrifice, many lessons that we have learned, sometimes painfully. This long, rich, varied history created the power that is the United States today and is, frankly, too little understood. We have tallied and documented the casualties, the missing and the maimed; but it does not tell the full story. Our Nation's military history has a footprint that extends across the country and across the globe. Our military is the largest user of energy in the world. It is the largest manager of infrastructure, but 250 years of fighting and training around the country and around the world has produced a toxic legacy today. People have forgotten about the unexploded bombs used in training, the discarded munitions, particularly in times past when our country appeared so large, the installation so remote, and the challenges we faced so dire. The cleanup of our toxic legacy has always been left to the future. It is my hope today that Congress will send a signal that when it comes to the toxic legacy of the past, the future is now; we will no longer avoid our responsibilities and look the other way. There are many reasons for addressing the cleanup other than just the arguments of the environmentalists. There are clear and conservative, fiscal and military imperatives. These problems do not go away. We have millions of acres that are off limits and potentially contaminated. There are vast challenges from yesterday's legacy. Until these dangers are cleaned up, the longer we wait, the greater the cost to the taxpayer through escalating costs, as munitions decompose, toxins migrate in the groundwater and memories fade as to where the bombs might be. Cleanup delayed inevitably makes cleanup more expensive as the problems get worse and inflation drives the prices higher. Mr. Chairman, I had an amendment that I was seeking to offer that would do something about it, to be able to enable us to do a better job. The first thing we ought to have done was put one person in charge. My amendment would have established a separate line item for cleanup of UXO in the Defense appropriation bill, entitled ``Military Munitions Response Program,'' separating UXO from the hazardous waste cleanup to provide the focus that the UXO efforts needed. The amendment would also have established an assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Military Munitions Response to the Deputy Under Secretary for Defense Installations and Environment at the Department of Defense. I have been trying for the last 5 years to be able to help us get a handle on this by having one person in charge and be able to know exactly what the status is. Unfortunately, despite working through both the authorizing and the Committee on Appropriations, we still face the situation today where it is fractured, where no one person is in charge. I hope that our failure to act on this toxic legacy can be reversed. I will not offer the amendment because I know that it would be ruled out of order, but I wanted to make the point as we are dealing with this massive bill.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. The amount of money that is required according to the Defense Science Board to be able to do the 10 million acres which could free up an estimated 8 million is $200 million a year. The $5 million that I was talking about was a pilot study that would maybe demonstrate to people the effectiveness of it. It is not going to solve the problem at all, but it would move us in a direction so that maybe we could demonstrate to people the effectiveness and we could get to the point where we are spending serious money. My colleagues know what serious money is. They spend billions. They spend billions on things that are controversial even within defense experts. I am trying to get a little bit of money, serious money but small in the scheme of things, that would actually make a difference. I do not know if that is responsive.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, often we take to the floor to speak to the American public. Well, today I would like to speak to my colleagues in the House of Representatives and the men and women who are preparing their work for our floor action this week. I would call to their attention that according to the Defense Department's own data, the program to clean up unexploded ordnance on formerly used defense sites will take as much as 252 years. That means in the year 2255 that Congress passing spending bills will still be appropriating money to deal with the problem that we could solve today. Why, if we have technology that has already realized $100 million saving at the former Lowry Bombing Range outside of Denver, Colorado, why are we not moving forward to address this problem? Despite the fact that this Defense Science Board has proposed 5 recommendations that would allow us to address this problem, 80 percent of it over the next 5 years, why do we do nothing but continue to study it? Worse yet, we have actually decreased the funding that is crippling the Department of Defense. It is burdening other Federal land management agencies and it is endangering the health and safety of the American public. We have to ask why. Is it because we need another tragedy to occur like what happened in San Diego when 2 boys were killed when they discovered bombs in their neighborhood that, unknown to the residents, sat on top of a former bombing range? Is it because somehow we do not need 8 million acres of land that we could put in productive use in 5 years instead of 252 years? Is it because we believe somehow this contamination exists only in isolated places when, in fact, it is in every State in the Union and almost every Congressional district? Are we somehow unaware that when wildfires strike our public lands from New York to Colorado to Alaska that many of these lands are former ranges? Three times since I have been in Congress we had to pull men and women out of the front lines fighting the fires because the extreme heat is exploding bombs around them. Is it because we are unaware of the plight of a North Carolina couple with 5 children who are risking bankruptcy because they moved out of their home when their young son found an old bomb in their front yard and they feared for the safety of their family? It is now a year-and-a- half later and they are still paying the mortgage on a home they cannot live in. They cannot sell it because the clean up has yet to begin because we underfund these programs. Are we unaware that in the same area of North Carolina, the former Camp Butner, the Army Corps of Engineers has determined that they need to investigate another 20,000 acres for unexploded ordnance contamination? Yet, developers are buying up land and building homes before clean-up has even begun. Can we in good conscience risk the health and safety of future residents? Is it because we do not know that other residential and business developments already exist or are being proposed in Texas, South Carolina, California, Colorado, here in Washington, D.C., and Massachusetts? Others will surely follow. Is it because we are unaware that many of these unexploded bombs and discarded munitions are on tribal lands, thereby posing yet another hazard to the highly at-risk Native American population? Are we somehow unaware that the Federal land managers in the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife system, the National Forest Service, the National Park Service, where many of these former ranges are located, do not have the capacity needed to ensure the public safety? Or is it despite the fact that the Department of Defense believes that ordnance and munitions on these formerly used sites poses enough of a national security risk to remove critical information about the sites from the public because they are afraid terrorists may find out, but we do not believe these same sites left untouched pose a risk to our citizens? Or is it simply that we hope that we can avert a tragedy in our lifetime and just pass this risk off to further future generations? Whatever the reason, it is simply unacceptable. It is indeed unconscionable that we continue to turn a blind eye to a responsibility that we should be undertaking now. After years of working on this issue and seeing Congress still missing in action, I will work this week to make sure that my colleagues have a chance to be heard, to take action that might help protect people at risk in the future.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate very much the comments that the gentleman from Wisconsin made and particularly highlighting the long-standing contribution of our friend, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) who I have been privileged to work with the last 6 years on this bill, but I know he has been working on this issue and is a recognized congressional expert, one of the gentleman's many areas of expertise. I think it is also important to note the cooperation with the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Oxley), the gentleman from Massachusetts (Ranking Member Frank) who worked with us as we were maneuvering with our friends in the Senate. I think this is a better bill for the effort. We have also had a great deal of back and forth from other Members who are from States that have suffered from repetitive-flood loss; and as a result of their efforts, and the work in the Senate, I think we actually have a bill that provides better and broader protections than when we had first begun this work. Last but not least, I note on the floor the presence of Kyle Gilster, who has done outstanding work staffing this on behalf of the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter). I note that we also have Janine Benners who has been doing this in my office. Mr. Speaker, I would insert at this point in the Record the remainder of my comments. Thank you to Mr. Frank, Senator Bunning, Senator Shelby, and Senator Sarbanes. I also want to thank the staff of Representative Bereuter, Kyle Gilster, and Representative Frank, Jeff Riley, for their work on this issue. The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is crucial and good example of working with local communities to reduce impact of disasters. Benefits economy, environment, and individual property values. NFIP started in 1968--private insurance companies suffered high losses and stopped offering coverage for flood damage. NFIP helps homeowners deal with flood losses and gives communities tools to prevent future flood damage. Program has already lowered flood damage by 25 percent below the level that would have occurred without the program. Some problems with the program: in some cases, federal flood control policy encourages floodplain development by financing the construction and repair of levees and underwriting the risk of flooding. FEMA was concerned about this problem during the Clinton and Bush administrations. Mr. Bereuter and I worked with former FEMA Administrator James Lee Witt to develop our proposal to fix NFIP problems. The Office of Management and Budget has pointed out that in too many years the program has expenses greater than its revenue from insurance premiums which prevents building long-term reserves to handle the costs of flood insurance. Twenty-five percent of the policyholders pay substantially subsidized premiums, with the Federal Treasury and other policyholders paying the difference. Losers of the NFIP are people who live in areas that require flood insurance, even though they do not have their property flood often, pay dramatically high rates. The program is currently self supporting from premium income. However, in the 1980s federal taxpayers had to make up a shortfall of $1.2 billion when the income from the low premiums was not enough to cover the flood claims. The chances of this happening again are high. Repetitively flooded properties are a significant strain on the NFIP. FEMA reports that just 1 percent of the properties account for 25 percent of NFIP flood loss dollars. Many of these properties have received more in flood insurance claims payments than the building's value. Subsidizing people to live in repetitively flooded areas does not make sense. It is bad for the federal taxpayer, bad for the environment, and bad for the families that are continually placed in harm's way. Property owners are trapped in a dangerous and expensive cycle. We do flood victims no favors by rebuilding their homes in harm's way. The legislation we are considering today will avoid many of the injuries, deaths, and damages before they occur, and give property owners the option of moving to a less hazardous area. Our approach helps build disaster resistant communities and safe homes by providing mitigation assistance to communities. This bill has a number of benefits: Most importantly, it will move people out of harm's way and discourage newcomers from moving there. This bill will save lives by moving people to higher ground. Often overlooked, it will save the federal government millions of dollars in avoided flood damages. FEMA reports that mitigation and building standards already in place have resulted in over $1 billion annually in reduced flood losses. Our bill will significantly increase these savings by increasing funding for mitigation. Savings to ratepayers in the National Flood Insurance Program. Mitigating repetitively flooded properties will reduce the pressure to raise flood insurance rates. The Association of State Floodplain Managers estimates that avoiding just one 10 percent rate increase could save the 4.4 million policyholders $175 million each year. Finally, this bill will significantly benefit the environment. If property-owners choose to relocate, the land will convert to open- space. Non-structural approaches to flood control, such as voluntary buyouts and restoration of natural floodplains, are often much more effective in controlling floods than structural approaches. Natural floodplains also prevent pollution problems from flooding. As the bill went through the process in the House and Senate, we worked with Members from coastal areas to make the reforms more sensitive to the plight of their constituents. I would like to highlight one change we were able to make in the Increased Cost of Compliance (ICC) program. The bill not specifically provides for use of the ICC program funds as local match monies. This program, created in the 1994 Flood Insurance Reform Act, uses a flood insurance premium surcharge to raise money for mitigation--but it hasn't yet functioned well. Freeing up these funds for use in mitigation of repetitive loss properties will help the affected property owners by dramatically reducing costs to them and will help all policy holders by stemming the drain on the Flood Insurance Fund from repetitive claims. I respectfully urge passage of the Bunning-Bereuter-Blumenauer Flood Insurance Reform Act of 204. This is one of the best fiscal and environmental opportunities for Congress this year. We can't stop natural hazards from threatening our communities, but we can try to minimize or stop them from becoming disasters, and that's what this bill does.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. BLUMENAUER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I listened to my friends who are advancing this amendment, and there are a number of things that I agree with them on. I would be happy to have a debate on this floor about corporate inversion and about tax policy. I am troubled by some of the outsourcing of our activities in this country. I think that there are a number of valid points that have been raised. I am concerned, though, about how we are mixing them. First of all, this is not, as has been referenced, a Stanley Works; this is a spin-off. I have been following this for a number of years, because the gentleman that I started in the political process with some 30 years ago founded the Arthur Andersen office in Portland, Oregon. He has been a close friend. He has not been associated with Arthur Andersen for some 20 years, but we have had many discussions about the travail of that once great accounting firm. Accenture is a result of a spin-off that was brewing between the consulting wing and the accounting wing, and this finally was formalized in 1987. Accenture has never been a United States corporation, a United States partnership. Never, not once. I have had this conversation with my friend, I have exchanged documents, I have requested information from them, and I have yet to receive, and I will welcome clarification on my colleague's time, anything that suggests what we are saying is not true. Never a United States corporation, not a United States partnership, spun off 15 years ago. I will enter into the Record the Notes To Consolidated Financial Statements from Accenture, LTD, that talks about the amount of tax that this entity pays on United States income. My friend, the gentleman from Arizona, pointed out the effective tax rate was actually higher than that of the competitors that were involved here. We are talking about almost a third of 1 million American jobs, including some in many of our districts. I am troubled that we mix apples and oranges here, that we are having a rhetorical flourish and driving home some important points and mixing it in the only vehicle that is available. I think my friends on the majority side actually invite this sort of debate because we so seldom have a chance to kick it around in an open and honest and direct way, but this is not the vehicle. Let me give one example in my community where I had to push back with friends on both sides of the aisle. I have the most productive truck manufacturing company in the world, Freightliner, headquartered in Portland, Oregon. There were people who wanted to push back against the purchase of the finest trucks in the world for our troops in Iraq because the ownership of this company that has been headquartered in my community for 50 years, employing union machinists, union teamsters and painters, was purchased by Daimler-Benz, a German company, and the Germans were not our friends in Iraq for a while. Now the Germans are our friends, because people find out we need them. But there was an attempt to punish a foreign corporation by making it impossible for my employees in my district to be able to bid on a contract. I would suggest the analogy is exactly the same. I pushed back to protect those jobs. I think we err if we mix apples and oranges and try and throw this contract out.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I listened a moment ago as my friend from New York talked about: ``dragging it out and messing it up.'' I can think of no better terminology to describe the bill before us today, because it has been ``drug out and messed up.'' I heard my friend, the chair of the Committee on Ways and Means, somehow assailing our side of the aisle for wanting to ``bend the rules'' when the rule that we are debating here today allows all points of order against the bill to be waived. So, they bend the rules for things that they want to protect; but if we are seeking an opportunity to have meaningful amendments, a meaningful alternative, somehow that is trying to ``bend the rules.'' Certified smart people of good faith could have found a way to have allowed a meaningful debate on this floor. We have a serious bipartisan alternative offered up by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Manzullo), people who have a proposal that is paid for, that would not increase the deficit, that would not be all ``messed up and drug out.'' But we are not going to permit that today. We are limiting debate on this proposal to 30 minutes, despite being something that has tied this Congress in knots for months and is a problem that is weighing against small manufacturers across this country. There are legitimate policy differences. There is a great deal of emotion. There is a great deal of significant policy underlying it. We are not going to have an opportunity to deal with that. There is no good reason to have permitted only 30 minutes of debate on the other side of the aisle. Maybe they think that is better, because this proposal is moving through this Chamber in a fog of over 700 pages of technical Tax Code and report language that the vast majority of this Chamber has had no access to and certainly has not had a chance to study it even if they had the time. I would suggest that this is a testimony to how far the rhetoric of the majority obscures their action and suggests contempt for people in both parties who disagree with them.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I find some small amount of irony with my friend on the other side of the aisle talking about secrets that somehow we do not want the American people to know. The American people can judge for themselves about the extent of this economic recovery who wins and who loses; and the prescription drug benefit, the seniors of this country have seen through the sham that it is. But for them to talk about secrets, I find particularly ironic, because Members of the minority party have to come to the floor today in the 1-minutes to talk about the important FSC bill, because that is a secret; and we are voting on it in a few minutes. There is not a printed copy that is available. Only the lobbyists are aware. There will not be adequate time for debate, a meaningful debate, in 30 minutes. They will not allow amendments. They will not even allow the bipartisan alternative to be voted on on the floor. I find a great deal of irony about their concern for secrecy. I think they ought to start by opening up the legislative process so at least their own Members have a chance to participate with people on the other side of the aisle.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chairman, because, as fellow westerners, I did not want there to be a misunderstanding, what I said when I was on the floor earlier was that there had been four decades of having buffalo grazing in the Grand Teton Park with cattle without incident. Does the gentlewoman have evidence that I misspoke, that there have been problems in the last four decades between the buffalo and the cattle in the Grand Teton National Park?

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. I am listening to the debate as it has proceeded. I speak with the trepidation of somebody who is even further west than Idaho, but I do not think that gives me any special knowledge or wisdom or right to speak on this any more than my colleague from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), who I know to have been deeply involved with issues that deal with natural resources, and I know that he was not originally from New Jersey. My colleague from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), who has been deeply concerned with issues that relate to national resources and has a wildlife refuge in his district, people do not recognize is in Connecticut. I just finished a day-long conference with my colleague, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), about the future of Mt. Hood, which is in my district. There is a national forest. There is a national scenic area. We were aware of the balance, the struggle to try and deal with the issues of urban life, of recreation, of competing demands. But we concluded in our community, as have most Americans, that it is a fallacy to say if you cannot get in and enjoy every square inch any way you want that you are shut out and you cannot enjoy it. We are not talking about putting a gondola to the top of Mt. Hood. There are areas that are too sensitive to have motorized dirt bikes or even pedal dirt bikes, and we are working with people who deal with that form of recreation to work with them in a way to manage and respect the resources. I have a friend, an Oregonian ex-pat, Mike Finley, who was the superintendent of Yellowstone. I have had conversations with him for years about this issue. The ban on snowmobile use in this particular area was the result of extensive study, not once but twice by the Park Service. It included the EPA, not once but twice. There was a massive involvement of public input, and this is a decision that was studied and was appropriate for the Yellowstone area that is unique. It is outrageous what is happening in terms of the noise and the air pollution in some of these sensitive areas, and the vast majority of the American public agrees. I am not opposed to all motorized, mechanized forms of recreation. There is a place for jet skis, for snowmobiles, for mechanized dirt bikes. But for heaven's sake, we have to recognize that there are some areas where they are not appropriate. There are hundreds of miles immediately adjacent to the areas in question where snowmobiles are allowed. This Congress and the Park Service are able to work with the recreation industry, the manufacturers, and the people who practice them to be able to make sure that they are not shut out in the future. That is not the intention. This is the culmination of over a decade's work. We heard my friend from Idaho talk about changing signals. Well, there are an awful lot of people who have been involved with this for a long time who think that the original proposal reversed by the Bush administration was itself a compromise. It was itself a studied, deliberative action that was thrown in reverse by the Bush administration for ways that I have not been able to understand and I think are inimical to the expectation of the vast majority of the American public. I hope that this body has the wisdom to approve this amendment; to reinstate the result of a long, careful, thoughtful, deliberate action; to not confuse this with denying access, which it is not, and for heaven's sake not fall into the trap that we have to continue the way we have done it in the past. If anything, we need to avoid further exploitation of sensitive resources to mechanized activities that are in many cases not appropriate. This is a balanced amendment. It is a studied effort, and I hope that we will approve it when the time comes.