Earl Blumenauer

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's leadership on this set of issues. Mr. Speaker, I am touched by the range of issues that are involved here in terms of the protection of our public lands. I appreciate what the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) was talking about. The gentleman referenced the roadless area rule in the Pacific Northwest. I think it is important to note that we had so many of these roads that are not properly maintained that are actually posing a threat to habitat. I like the philosophy of being able to take advantage of the opportunity to manage what we have. It is very, very important to move forward with the codification of these measures. I am proud to join the gentleman in the cosponsorship of his legislation that would put into law the protection for those roadless areas. A moment ago we had our colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), on the floor; but, unfortunately, the gentleman had a commitment and we were unable to recognize him in a timely fashion. But he is moving forward to introduce his Yellowstone-specific legislation this Thursday that I mentioned earlier. It is particularly timely that the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) moves forward because earlier today officials from the National Park Service announced that they were going to overrule the January 2001 rule that phased out snowmobile use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. While many of the specifics of their new rule are not known, the park service officials indicated that their preferred alternative will be a combination of the alternatives that appeared in the supplemental environmental impact statement, the SEIS, issued last March, a combination of alternative of two and three. What is known is that it will force snowmobile use in this environmentally sensitive area. It will mean increased use and significant impacts on the park and wildlife. It could allow for increased number of snowmobiles in the park while also opening up additional miles for trail use. Under this plan, it is likely that the Clean Air Act and other National Park Service air-quality regulations will be violated. It is clear there will be an increase in health risks to the public and the employees over the original rule which would have banned snowmobiles. I find a certain irony with today's rollback that will jeopardize the environmental integrity of Yellowstone National Park, ignoring as it does science, law, and public opinion. I am pleased that the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), and over 100 of us who are already cosponsoring this legislation are going to fight it. I find no small amount of irony that the President in his campaign for office referred to the national parks as ``silent places, unworn by man.'' Yet the President seems determined to allow man to wear down these lands with loud and damaging vehicles. I was impressed under the previous administration with the leadership of the superintendent of Yellowstone Park, Michael Finley, where the National Park Service opposed a phase-out of snowmobiles in Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Park. They made this decision following 13 years of scientific study and 3 years of nationwide public comment. Let me repeat that. Thirteen years of study. I had several meetings with Superintendent Finley, and I must say with a little bit of chauvinistic pride as an Oregonian, he revealed to me that over 80 percent of the public comments that were received in the process of this rule were in favor of banning snowmobiles. Finally, the Environmental Protection Agency joined in this effort recommending the banning of snowmobiles because of the carbon monoxide emissions which were threatening the health of not only the park's ecosystem but, candidly, it was a risk to the health of the park employees. Yet the Bush administration has decided to undercut the National Park Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, and ignore the American public. I hope that it is not too late for this Congress to step forward, to listen to the science, the will of the American public and legislate a ban on these vehicles in Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Parks. It is, Mr. Speaker, an amazing volume of activity. This is not just an occasional recreational vehicle user going through an otherwise pristine environment. We are talking about 80,000 people using snowmobiles; and they are producing, in one of the ecological treasures of this country, more air pollution each year than all the cars and the trucks that carry 3 million other visitors into the park. Think about it for a moment. By overturning this phaseout, it has the effect of doubling the air pollution from the 3 million visitors. It is like having that population double to 6 million. We have found, Mr. Speaker, that the pollution from the snowmobiles impairs the visibility in the park. It contributes to pollution levels that are higher than allowed in a national park, and these are violations of the Clean Air Act. The noise from the snowmobiles is audible as much as 95 percent of the time in popular sites, interfering with the enjoyment of other visitors. But it is not just the human visitors that are harassed, because these 80,000 visitors regularly harass wildlife. They are chasing bison back and forth between the roadside snow banks, forcing them to expend energy they need to make it through the harsh winter conditions. Based on the science, the Park Service concluded that snowmobile use is impairing the resources in the parks in violation of the Organic Act's mandate that the Service-managed parks, to leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. The Service also found that the snowmobile use is inconsistent with the requirements of the Clean Air Act, Executive Orders 11644 and 11989 by Presidents Nixon and Carter relating to offroad vehicle use in public lands, that the National Park Service general snowmobile regulations and management objectives for the park are also violated. All these requirements are based on long-standing bipartisan commitment for our national parks be given the highest standard in applying the highest level of protection. The strictest and most detailed government standards applying to snowmobile use in the parks were adopted by President Nixon and during the Reagan administrations. The irony is that this important environmental work, bipartisan in nature, strong congressional input, would be thrown out the window by a President who claimed during his campaign to be a friend of the National Park Service. Mr. Speaker, I have more material that I wish to offer up and that the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) would have done in my stead, but I notice that we have been joined this evening by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey), a gentleman who has been tireless in his support of these national treasures, a gentleman who I am pleased to note serves on the critical Interior Subcommittee of Appropriations where he has spent a huge amount of time visiting these resources, fighting in Congress and with the general public. I am honored that he is here this evening and would see if he would like to enter into this discussion.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, my recollection is that we had some of the people when we had the horrible cycle of fires that the gentleman and I are aware of in the Pacific Northwest, we heard the same drum beat; that somehow this was the problem, that we did not aggressively log the forest. My recollection is that during that period of time the forests that had the greatest loss were the ones that were the more intensely logged.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, as always, the gentleman's two cents are worth a great deal to us. I thank the gentleman for putting in context, as we watch some of the most massive forest fires raging across four States now, one thinks of the consequences of continued global climate change, tinderbox forest lands, the problems that we can face across the country with wild fires, forest fires, that we could be involved in a vicious cycle; and I think the gentleman's message is a timely one this evening.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's strong voice for a balanced approach to parks and recreation and making sure that it meets the needs of all our citizens. I think the gentlewoman touched on an important point, because we have so many people who have limited opportunities for travel. There are people for whom, even if they have opportunities to travel, the day-to-day existence needs to be softened by opportunities for urban park and recreation programs. I look forward to working with the gentlewoman on her legislation and appreciate her strong voice for making sure Congress has a broad view of that responsibility. Mr. Speaker, we have also been joined this evening by the gentleman from the State of Washington (Mr. Inslee), who, among other things, is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health of the Committee on Resources, a person who has been a strong champion in the Pacific Northwest for issues that relate to livability. I have had the opportunity of watching him in action in the Arctic wilderness a year ago, surveying and listening to his observations about the issues that would deal with drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, and I appreciate his strong environmental voice of leadership not just in the Pacific Northwest but around the country. So I am happy to yield to the gentleman to join in this discussion this evening.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to spend a few minutes this evening with some of my colleagues discussing the situation that we face as Americans across the country prepare to enjoy the July 4 holiday. For many people, it is an opportunity not just to reflect on the Declaration of Independence, the patriotic history of our country, but it is also an opportunity for families to come together to use this opportunity to join for family recreation, to vacation; and it sort of marks the first serious week of heavy utilization of our outstanding national park system. These are an area that have proven to touch the hearts of many Americans. It dates back to the tenure of President Teddy Roosevelt, who was such an outstanding leader in terms of the park system and conservation; but sadly, Mr. Speaker, today more and more Americans as they turn to the park system are going to be looking at a state of our national parks and public lands that, frankly, is going to disappoint them. They are going to be assaulted in areas where there should not be allowed motorized vehicles. There are problems of poor air quality that plague these jewels of our national park system. Air quality is a problem in the Grand Canyon, in Yosemite, in Yellowstone. We have serious problems in terms of what has happened with the extraction of our country's mineral resources, where sadly our policies of today have not kept pace with the demands that have been placed upon them and what we now know about protection of the environment. Sadly, the Mining Act of 1872 continues on the books exactly, exactly as it was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant 130 years ago. During his Presidential campaign, George W. Bush spoke of protecting national parks as an ongoing responsibility and a shared commitment of the American people and their government. Mr. Speaker, I was one of the Americans who was cheered by these words by then Governor Bush because, frankly, although I disagreed with him about a number of his environmental policies and his stewardship in the State of Texas and while I was frankly dismayed as I saw the stewardship that occurred with the State park system in Texas, I was heartened by his words that were optimistic as far as what may occur with our national treasures. However, Mr. Speaker, I am sad to say that since President Bush has assumed office I do not think any objective observer would suggest that he has followed in the footsteps of Teddy Roosevelt, who President Bush called America's first environmental President. My colleagues and I are here today to talk about the various threats to the serenity and wildlife of our national parks and to look at the unfortunate record that has been developed by the administration, although it is not too late to reverse course, and on behalf of the American public, we hope that they will. The administration, as we speak, is moving to undo a national park service plan to phase out snowmobiles in Yellowstone in the Grand Teton National Parks, despite strong scientific evidence and overwhelming public support for a ban. This week, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) and the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) will be introducing legislation to require as a matter of law the ban that was put in place by the Clinton Administration. I am proud that there are over 100 of us already in Congress who will be original co-sponsors of that legislation. The administration has yet to argue forcefully and provide in its budgets new money to address the maintenance backlog in the national parks system. We have seen the administration propose a rollback of the Clean Air Act provisions which will actually increase air pollution in national parks from nearby power plants; and the President has claimed that he does not want to create any new parks, although he did sign a bill, in fairness, in February to create the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home National Historic Site. Meanwhile, there are bills for a number of important park sites that are not moving forward; and in the 2003 budget, the President has in his proposal eliminated funding for the Urban Parks and Recreation Recovery Program, an unfortunate development which I am hopeful Congress will be able to step up and countermand. I am pleased to be joined this evening by the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis), and I yield to the gentlewoman if she has some observations that she wishes to offer up at this point.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, it was appalling yesterday to have the administration finally come forward with its plan for Amtrak. It is appalling that when the administration finally comes forward with its plan for Amtrak, it is basically to dismember the system, arguing somehow that Amtrak should be self-supporting. When this Congress and administration gave $5 billion to the airline industry, on top of the $11 billion for air traffic control, for an industry that has never shown a profit over its 75 years is a little bit disingenuous, to say the least. Amtrak plays a critical role in our transportation system. To dismember it now, to privatize a few profitable lines and then walk away from our commitment when we have never, never provided the money that was authorized originally, would be a sad day. Luckily, there is broad bipartisan support in this Congress. Over 162 Members support the approach of the gentleman from New York (Chairman Quinn) and the ranking member, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Clements), to fund it for this year. A majority of the Senate agrees. Hopefully, we will be able to step up where the administration is failing in nerve.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, it is getting harder to vote for tax legislation, even provisions that I actually strongly support. This bill misses the mark because it eliminates provisions for small savers and it continues an incremental approach to making permanent the massive tax cut of last year despite the changed economic and national security situation. Most troubling, is that we continue to ignore the major issues that demand our attention in reforming the tax structure. This bill does not speak to the highest priorities of the American public. It does not move us towards a fiscal framework that is necessarily sustainable and it is certainly not done in a context of long-term consequence. Congress must begin to address the most critical unresolved tax issues that will create fairness and fiscal stability. Alternative Minimum Tax--Increasingly burdensome, this tax now affects millions of taxpayers to whom it was never intended to apply. In a few short years tens of millions of taxpayers will be penalized by additional taxes and more burdensome tax preparation. Estate Tax--It is time to stop playing politics. The estate tax can be reformed to be fair and equitable by removing family-owned farms and businesses from its scope, raising exemption levels, changing the marginal rates, and indexing for inflation. State Tax Consequences--Future changes should be in the form of specific credits that will not penalize state tax systems that are tied to the federal code. Payroll Taxes for Medicare--Currently the Medicare system is dramatically shortchanging Oregon and other states billions of dollars a year. Until the federal government stops penalizing Oregon and other low-cost states for being efficient, the tax should be reduced. It will be increasingly difficult to vote for any tax adjustment that does not speak to these larger needs. I reluctantly vote yes because this is something I have long supported, is not particularly expensive, and is an important signal in times of economic uncertainty. Mr. KIND, Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support the Retirement Savings Security Act (H.R. 4931) to ensure that working Americans will continue to have the opportunity to save for a financially secure retirement. Retirement benefits are critical to ensuring that older Americans have the income to live out their Golden Years. According to the Social Security Administration, many retirees received 19 percent of their income from employer provided pensions. However, half of private sector workers have no pension coverage at all. Further, only 20 percent of small businesses offer pension plans. My colleagues, Representatives Rob Portman and Ben Cardin, have worked tirelessly to correct these problems and assist more worker is in saving for their retirement. Provisions from the original Portman- Cardin pension reform bill, which I supported, were included in the large tax bill last year. I am pleased that the House has the opportunity today to make these provisions permanent. H.R. 4931 permanently expands pension coverage and will encourage companies to provide retirement plans for those workers who are currently without coverage. It also increases the amount an individual can contribute to an Individual Retirement Account form the current limit of $2000 to $5000 and allows individuals 50 and older to make ``catch-up'' contributions to ensure they have a secure retirement. In addition to H.R. 4931, I also support the Democratic alternative. Not only does the Democratic alternative repeal the sunset provision, but it also includes corporate governance measures that will ensure that executives are held accountable and live by the same rules as rank-in-file workers. Specifically, executives should not be rewarded for moving their company overseas to avoid paying taxes when the nation is engaged in a war against terrorism. The Democratic substitute would ensure that corporate executives of expatriate companies pay their fair share. In addition, the Democratic substitute provides pension security for all workers. In specific, the substitute permanently extends the tax credit for low- and moderate-income individuals in order to help them make contributions to their own retirement savings. In the next 15 years, 76 million Boomers will retire. It is time that Congress repeal the sunset and pass permanent legislation that will encourage retirement and pension savings for all workers. With the Social Security Trust Fund expected to be exhausted by 2037, we must act now to ensure the financial security of our future generations. H.R. 4931 is a step in the right direction.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, as we speak this morning, the administration is distributing a statement that will cut ground out from underneath the efforts of Amtrak to deal with its $200 million shortfall. They are ignoring the wishes of over 160 Members of this House who have joined with us, and a majority of the Senate, to support the bipartisan compromise that has been worked out by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Quinn) and the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Clement). We can long debate the merits of their destructive proposals to gut long runs across the country, to privatize the most profitable lines, and to abandon any semblance of a rail system in this country, but every Member should push back now to protect Amtrak. The irony of our giving $5 billion to the airlines after we give them $11 billion in subsidy, despite declining passengers, yet we are going to cut Amtrak off when it is growing, is the worst possible message at the worst possible time. I hope this House will reject the proposals from the administration.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, one of the most troubling problems for our communities facing the struggle for liability deals with our homeless population. The problem of homelessness, if not worse today, is certainly more complex. As a result of deinstitutionalization, many of these people now live on the streets; and one of the most serious consequences is violence against the homeless. Stories of the abuse of homeless and the mentally ill are appearing with stark and frightening regularity, setting a homeless woman on fire, random beatings, even murders. We know last year there were 18 murders and dozens of assaults on the homeless. These are the stories that were reported to the authorities and found their way into the media. Because of the hidden, often forgotten, world these people inhabit, we know that incidents are underreported and that the known violence is just the tip of the iceberg. I have been appalled at the people who would not just avoid helping but actually are seeking to exploit the homeless, and the worst example I have seen is a recent video entitled ``Bumfights'' that films the abuse and violence against the homeless. ``Bumfights,'' the brain child of two recent graduates of the University of California and USC film schools, sets a new standard for the cruel exploitation of damaged human beings. In less than a month, these people have sold 10,000 copies of a video depicting homeless men assaulting each other on the streets of Las Vegas. A vagrant struggles to escape the punishing punches, kicks and body slams of his attacker. Another scene with a man standing in a dark alley, hitting himself on the head as he realized that his hair is on fire. A purported crack addict smoking the drug and defecating on the sidewalk, and then there are films of a homeless man extracting his own teeth with a pair of pliers. A segment entitled ``Bumhunter'' parodies television's Crocodile Hunter, with a man in safari clothing binding, gagging and measuring and marking various homeless men on the streets of Las Vegas before releasing them to their national habitat. These sad, pathetic images are described as hilariously shocking. I call it criminal. They say it is voluntary, since they reward the men with food, clothing, shelter and small change. I charge them of preying on the despair of those without the basic necessities to sustain life or the facilities to cope. Who among us would willingly be filmed extracting our teeth with a pair of pliers? Of course, the film makers are already planning a sequel. When I read about this video, I was appalled. Not surprisingly, it was promoted on Howard Stern's television show and soon being shipped to people nationally and internationally. This is not about committee jurisdiction or the geography of the people we represent. It is about our basic humanity. If we cannot act to protect our most vulnerable, what does this say about us all? We need to fix this problem. I have started with inquiries to the heads of the Las Vegas Federal investigative offices of the FBI, Customs and the U.S. Postal Service. I have asked them specifically to explain what steps they intend to take, and if they decline to open a case, whether it is because they lack resources, they have other priorities, or whether there simply is not a legal action. I believe that this is already criminal conduct. First of all, in their own press releases, the film makers admit that they are paying homeless actors to commit crimes such as assault and kidnap. They are, therefore, accessories or aiders and abettors. This activity is not protected by the first amendment anymore than the so-called ``snuff flick'' might be protected pornography. All three of the Federal agencies investigate pornography, and they know the difference. The FBI should have jurisdiction because of the interstate nature of the business and the possible conspiracy to violate State laws. Customs should have jurisdiction because the material is being distributed internationally, and the postal service should have jurisdiction because the mails are being used to further the distribution. If these agencies claim they do not have the resources, then perhaps Congress should act to earmark funds, because this is a serious public safety issue. If these agencies claim they have other priorities, then perhaps we should examine the setting of their priorities; and if they claim that there is no specific law that authorizes them to investigate this activity, then perhaps we should enact one. A Congress that will push the constitutional limits on fighting pornography and that will appropriately outlaw crush videos that depict the torture of animals should do no less for our fellow human beings. This violence against the homeless is not just a crime against them. It is an assault against us all. We should do all we can to stop this outrage and punish those who would torture, degrade and exploit some of our most vulnerable citizens.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, my goal in Congress is to assure that the Federal Government is a better partner to State and local communities, especially in developing infrastructure. Through its construction of water projects, the Army Corps of Engineers has been a major player in this career throughout our Nation's history. Recently some have questioned the Corps' planning and construction process and its ability to economically and environmentally justify its projects. I have joined with other Members of Congress in calling for reform and modernization of the Corps of Engineers, including updating the principles and guidelines by which it operates, addressing and prioritizing the Corps' enormous project backlog, and developing a system of independent review. Perhaps most important, I think we need to examine the role that Congress itself plays in pushing through poorly conceived water resources projects. Last week, the General Accounting Office issued a document which illustrates why Corps reform is urgently needed, especially a new process for independent review of Corps projects. The GAO report specifically examined the Corps' economic justification for the Delaware River channel deepening project. It found ``miscalculations, invalid assumptions and outdated information'' led the Corps to overestimate the project benefits by over 300 percent. It found that the Corps had violated basic economic principles in its economic feasibility studies, projecting benefits of over $40 million a year, when, in fact, the GAO found the benefits would be approximately one-third of that amount. According to the GAO, the Corps had ``misapplied commodity growth rate projections, miscalculated trade route distances, and continued to include benefits for some import and export traffic that has declined dramatically over the last decade.'' One of the most egregious examples of bad economics in the report found that the Corps assumed the same one-way distance for each of several trade routes, including the distance from Pennsylvania to Australia, to South America, Europe and the Mediterranean. The Corps is supposed to have a system of controls in place to catch these errors. Unfortunately, the GAO report concluded that the Corps' quality control system was ``ineffective in identifying significant errors and analytical problems.'' In order to restore the public confidence in the Corps, we need to ensure that other Corps projects around the country do not suffer from the same economic errors. It is clear that the system currently in place is not functioning correctly if it failed to catch such errors as the Delaware project's. That is why I am working with my colleagues in the Corps Reform Caucus to propose a system of independent peer review for Corps projects. Many of the mistakes identified by the GAO report could have been identified and remedied by independent peer review. This process that my colleagues in the House and the Senate and I are proposing would not lengthen the Corps' investigation and construction process. Indeed, contrary to the claims of some critics, a streamlined review process could be applied to Corps projects around the country that meet certain criteria, actually speeding up the study and construction progress. Take the Delaware River project, for example. It has been studied for 10 years, since 1992. Now the GAO is recommending after a decade that the Corps prepare a new and comprehensive economic analysis of the project's costs and benefits, address uncertainties, engage an external independent party to review the economic analysis, and then resubmit that to Congress. This extra review could take years to complete and could have been avoided entirely with independent peer review. The Army Corps of Engineers has made enormous contributions to our Nation's history, to its infrastructure development, and continues to play an essential role in water resources management. However, as the GAO report pointed out, this is one of several incidents that have eroded the public's trust in this planning process. I look forward to working with my colleagues to make sure that all the Corps projects are economically justified and based on sound environmental science. Currently our Subcommittee on Water Resources of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure is working on the reauthorization of the Water Resources Development Act, which directs these Corps operations. This is a timely opportunity to develop legislative language to achieve these reforms.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, last year the administration and Republican leadership brought forth a tax cut and budget proposal. I opposed that proposal for its unrealistic assumptions and potential for leading us down a fiscally dangerous path. A year later we are witnessing the deficits and raiding of Social Security and Medicare that were all but inevitable. Now, with the reality of deficits staring us in the face, the Republican leadership brings to the floor another in a series of bills that repeal the sunset provision of a part of their tax cut package. Reducing the marriage penalty is the right thing to do, but it must be part of a responsible budget framework. H.R. 4019 will cost nearly half a trillion dollars over the next two decades. The Republican leadership offers no plan to take these funds from anywhere but the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. I support the Democratic substitute amendment, which would permanently extend marriage penalty relief if the Office of Management and Budget certifies that the repeal will not result in funds being taken from Social Security. Congress must adhere to budget policies that will return fiscal responsibility to the Federal Government. The American people expect us to produce a responsible budget and honor our commitments--a task that only becomes more unlikely with the bill before us today.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, for the second time in this 107th Congress, Republican leadership is bringing before the House this measure to amend the Constitution to require a super-majority vote to adopt tax increases. I continue to oppose this measure, which would simply provide greater obstacles for the Federal government to properly react to economic conditions. This amendment is fundamentally inconsistent with majority rule and would make it more difficult to react to the potential need to close corporate tax loopholes or to protect Social Security of Medicare. This Congress needs to face current fiscal realities that have led to growing deficits. The President's tax cuts are compromising the government's ability to ensure security, fund domestic priorities, and honor our commitments to Social Security and Medicare, without burdening future generations with enormous debts. It is time for Congress to deal with the tax code and budget responsibly--not use the Constitution as a political prop.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, last month's enactment of the agriculture authorization bill signaled that we are at a crossroads here in America, not just as it relates to agriculture, but very interesting developments for the environment, community development, and even the huge increase in agricultural funding could not conceal the cracks that are emerging as these issues are coming forward. Hidden behind all of the fireworks that surrounded the agricultural bill, we have ended up with it being further removed from the needs of most farmers. It is not only removed from the public we are supposed to serve, not only removed from the agricultural interests, but it is even removed from the will of the Members of this body. I recall on this floor working hard on a motion to instruct the conferees of the House to vote in favor of provisions of the Senate that would have placed a $275,000 payment limit. Despite the fact that it was passed by 265 of our colleagues, it was ignored by the conferees in favor of a $360,000 payment limit that itself was riddled with exemptions which will make it largely meaningless. Mr. Speaker, I am afraid we are having two very different visions of the agricultural future of this country emerge as a part of those deliberations. One is for the status quo which is a mutation of over 70 years of depression-era subsidization which no longer meets the needs of average farmers, consumers, and certainly not the environment. This vision is opposed to one that is economically sound, a sustainable future, that is in fact healthy for the farmers, the environment, consumers and the taxpayer. What matters? Why would a city representative like me become so interested in farm policy? Well, we cannot deal with the governments of this country without focusing on the role that agriculture plays. It is firmly grounded in American lore, our history and our tradition. Think back to Thomas Jefferson's agrarian ideals. Ignore for a moment that this was sort of an effete intellectual who never turned a profit on his many acres of land and several hundred slaves, never mind that he was hopelessly in debt, and eventually lost his estate at his death to his creditors. Nevertheless, that vision, that agrarian ideal of Thomas Jefferson persists; and agriculture still is essential today to America, even though only 2 percent of our population is actively involved with farming, versus 25 percent or more in the 1930s. There are still 2 million family farms and ranches that cover nearly 50 percent of the land area in the lower 48 States. Americans spend 10 percent of their income on food, and that is one of the lowest ratios in the world. However, this 10 percent that we spend is disguised by a variety of subsidies and tax payments. Indeed, 40 percent of net farm income comes from the Federal Government. So there are a great number of tax dollars that are claimed. There are huge environmental costs that are associated with our current system of production which I will talk about in a few minutes, and consumers are paying exorbitant prices for commodities like sugar, more than twice the world market, pay dearly for avocados, peanuts, and the list goes on. The environmental impacts of agribusiness is something that I think is important for us to focus on. It is, for instance, in many areas extraordinarily water-intensive. It is not just a problem occasionally when we have some parts of the country as they are today facing drought and water quality problems. Although even the administration seems to acknowledge that we are going to be facing serious problems associated with global climate change, they are not prepared to offer up any solutions for that, but that is going to have potentially very profound effects on how water is supplied in the future. Mr. Speaker, it takes a tremendous amount of water for us to be involved in some grotesquely inappropriate activities. We are providing heavily subsidized water for subsidized crops, like growing cotton and rice in the desert. In the Pacific Northwest, we have been having problems in the Klamath River basin where we have water-intensive agriculture in an arid plane. It takes an enormous amount of water to produce meat for human consumption. 1,000 tons of water for one ton of grain; and increasingly, our cattle are grain fed and it requires almost 5 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef for human consumption. If we do the math, you see the huge amount of water that is involved in the production of cattle. Agriculture also poses many of the most important challenges to water quality. It contributes to poor water quality in 60 percent of the Nation's impaired river miles, which is more than the dams, sewage discharges, and urban storm drainage combined. Think of it. Agriculture produces 60 percent of the water quality problems in the Nation's impaired river miles, more than dams, sewage discharges, and urban storm drainage combined. We have a situation where the petrochemical fertilizers are also extensively required. It takes on average approximately 1.2 gallons for every bushel of corn. And then there is the oil production for energy. A typical cow will consume the equivalent of 284 gallons of oil in their lifetime, the energy necessary to sustain that animal. We have essentially transformed cattle from solar-powered animals to fossil fuel machines. It is also a diet that is unhealthy and unnatural for these animals. It has turned once bucolic agricultural enterprises into an extension of the modern factory. And it has not just made these animals' lives miserable, based entirely on eating, adding weight until they can be slaughtered, but there is persuasive evidence that it is actually changing their metabolisms and their digestive systems, producing meat that is demonstrably less healthy to consume in the short-term, and maybe having long-term consequences that are extraordinarily negative for overall human health. There have been studies which have contrasted some of the natural, grass-fed beef in Italy where there is approximately 15 percent of the fat, as opposed to grain-fed beef and 38 percent of the calories of standard cattle. It goes beyond just the fat content. There are concerns about developing resistance to medicines due to the indiscriminate use of antibiotics. It is estimated that 80 percent of the total quantity of antibiotics used in the United States are administered to food animals, putting that in the food chain. It may well be that the kind of meat that we are eating today as a society is much less healthy because of the increased presence of these antibiotics which in turn build up resistance from the germs and create a cycle which makes us more susceptible to stronger germs, and having less ability to use antibiotics to protect us. And of course, dealing with the fat, our House physician has been working with Members in this chamber to encourage more awareness of our life-style, the problems of saturated fat. Now that the cows are eating more corn instead of grass, the meat contains more saturated fat. There is another health and environmental problem dealing with prodigious quantities of animal waste. We are finding that county after county in States like Nebraska are now moving into areas of land-use planning because they are being overwhelmed by the consequences of these concentrated feed lot operations. In Iowa, it is an issue of hog waste. A hog can produce up to 10 times the waste of a human. U.S. factory farms generated 1.4 billion tons of animal waste in 1996 according to the EPA. Imagine a farm of 100,000 hogs. It could produce the waste of a city of almost a million people, yet we will look at a State like North Carolina, where there are no requirements for the sewage treatment plant of these vast hog operations. Think of that. Living next to a city of 100,000, 500,000, up to a million people, and not having adequate sewage treatment. We would not stand for it. Sadly, in this country, in many rural areas, the States do not have adequate protection to ensure that these vast quantities of waste are going to be adequately processed to protect against damage to water quality. Again, in some States they have bent over backwards in fact to protect these interests at the expense of people. In Iowa, their State legislature in its wisdom has prevented local governments from providing land use protections against the damage that is brought about by these vast hog factory farms. In fact, it was interesting recently in Iowa there was a special election for a State Senate position where the incumbent, a Republican in a very safe Republican district, had been appointed by the President to some administrative position. There was a special election. The outrage in this Republican district was such that with a 62 percent vote, they elected a Democrat to take that position. There is slowly at the grassroots level a realization that States and the Federal Government that are not dealing with the protection of the citizens, are doing them a disservice. People in Iowa again cannot sue for damages as long as some minimum spacing requirement is maintained. There have been people who have basically lost the entire value of their property with no recourse as a result of it. In North Carolina, I am sad to say, the Members of this House in the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd a couple of years ago, and Members may recall in the aftermath of that terrible hurricane, the damage that was done. Our hearts went out to the people of North Carolina. We stepped up, provided money and disaster assistance, but who can forget the disgusting photos of the bloated bodies of hogs, or hogs perched on floating debris. As a result of those floods, there were massive problems associated with hog lagoons in flood plains that resulted in a leaching of these animal wastes, these toxins, out into the environment for months after the hurricane. Unfortunately, Federal money was spent to rebuild those hog lagoons in the flood plains, back in harm's way, where again in the future, as sure as anything, we are going to be faced with that tragedy again, the damage to the environment. We are finding that in State after State there are problems with large farm operations that change the hydrology of farm country. There is creation of vast amounts of soil erosion that takes the toxins and the fertilizers and washes it into waterways, actually waterways that did not used to be there. Throughout the upper Midwest, we have these vast fields today that are a result of miles and miles, hundreds of thousands of miles, of drainage tiles that have been installed. Yet we have not taken the steps that are necessary in the main to protect the further erosion of the soil, the toxins, into those waterways. And it is not just a case of erosion, pesticides, toxins. We are losing vast acreages of farmland still to sprawl. More than 90 million acres of farmland across this Nation are threatened by sprawl today, and we lose more than 2 million acres every year to urban development. That is more than all the topsoil that is eroded. We cover it with blacktop. The number of acres of farmland lost to sprawl has doubled over the last 6 years, most of which was amongst our most productive farmland. Think back in history. What was the most productive farm county in the United States in 1950? Los Angeles County. From what we have seen, this pattern continues. Because the settlement patterns were in areas that were rich agricultural arenas, people moved there. That is where the settlements started. There were trade activities. People radiated out from them in areas that were the most productive farmland. Thus it is today that most of our major metropolitan areas are in and around extraordinarily productive farmland. But we are watching this farmland being lost at a dramatic rate. It took us approximately 350 years to create America's footprint of urban development and settlement. Three hundred fifty years. But 15 percent of that footprint occurred in the years 1992 to 1997. We developed an area approximately 17 million acres. This is approximately the size of West Virginia. It is important, Mr. Speaker, for us to focus on the need of this country to be able to protect that delicate area where the urban and the farm areas intersect, and we must do a better job. There are some that suggest that this is an area or that it is something that the Federal Government does not belong in, that if we are talking about land use and agricultural policy, that is something that is local and State. I would beg to differ. American agriculture has developed as a direct result of Federal Government policy. It started when the Federal Government enforced taking land away from Native Americans and giving it to European settlers to farm during the beginning of the Republic. We had major pieces of legislation that exploded, the Homestead Act of 1862, legislation that created the land grant colleges where we had the agricultural colleges and universities. There were the vast reclamation projects that changed the hydrology of whole ecosystems. I mentioned earlier in the Pacific Northwest, the Klamath Basin. This has been an area of great agitation and concern because we had these interests clash this last year when we had extreme drought conditions, and it sort of put a spotlight on the fallacy of the Federal programs over the last 100 years. We committed as a Federal Government far more in terms of water than we could deliver to those farmers that we lured to that area. We lured them a century ago, we did it again after World War II when we encouraged returning veterans to settle in the Klamath Basin, but a terrible price has been paid. We have overallocated water rights to farmers and ignored critical habitat requirements. This vast Klamath River Basin is an area where the flightway for 90 percent of the north-south migratory waterfowl stop. It is an area where there are significant commitments to other wildlife and, Mr. Speaker, one of the areas that we have made, I think, a serious misstep deals with our commitments to Native Americans. Native Americans in this region and elsewhere, particularly in the arid West, had claims for fishing and hunting. Their water rights are not being properly acknowledged and respected. So in total in the Klamath River Basin as we have seen elsewhere in the West in particular, there is more than the U.S. Government and Mother Nature can now deliver. But there was a front page story in the New York Times 10 days ago that talked about the problem that is being faced by the city of Atlanta, where there is a three-state struggle over scarce water in an area where people think of it as being rich and certainly water not being a problem. But it is. We have other areas here where we are dealing with the vast range of Federal programs that the Federal Government built, railroads at government expense that helped promote agriculture. I will, I guess, not go into that because the time is late and I want to deal with some of the other issues that relate to the way that the industry is structured today. Today's agricultural industry looks far different than it did even a generation ago. We have huge agribusiness processing plants that are dominating the commodities, processing, meat packing. Eighty percent of the beef cattle born in this country are slaughtered and marketed by four giant meat packing companies. There is a similar concentration in poultry, in hog farming. We are seeing increasingly with our agricultural programs, and the most recent farm bill sadly brings it to a new level, that we are concentrating those farm subsidies to large farms, large corporate interests, shutting out smaller operations and changing the nature of how people choose to farm based on government programs, not on what the marketplace requires. One example that struck me was a story earlier this year in the New York Times celebrating how cotton was now king again in certain areas of Mississippi and Texas, that farmers did not have to grow soybeans, that somehow cotton was more in keeping with their traditions, and they liked it. But as you read the text of the article, it was not because somehow there was an upsurge of demand for cotton or that there has been a lack of interest in soybeans. It is just that for the time being, the rate of subsidization for cotton exceeded the rate of subsidization for soybeans, so we were growing cotton now. Cotton was king, not because that is what the marketplace wanted or demanded; it is because that is what the Federal Government's subsidies made more lucrative. We have talked on the floor of this Chamber, and I have worked since I have been in Congress with my colleague, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Dan Miller), joined with the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), dealing with the outrageous situation we have in this country dealing with the sugar quota system. It is hard to imagine a cycle that is more frustrating for the taxpayers, more damaging for the environment and frankly makes us look more foolish. Over the last 40 years, we have dramatically increased the acreage of sugar cane production in Florida's Everglades. It was approximately 60,000 acres. Today it is in the neighborhood of 450, 460,000 acres, an increase of more than seven times in 40 years. This has been fueled because the United States has a restrictive quota system that mandates that we in this country will pay two or three times the world price of sugar, and people that can grow it more cheaply or more efficiently are not able to bring it into this country. In fact, we are growing so much sugar that we are paying millions of dollars this year to store the surplus sugar. But it is not just that the American consumers are paying more for the sugar and that they are paying to store the surplus sugar. We are also driving confectioners out of this country because people who are making candy rely heavily on sugar as a principal ingredient and sugar is so much more inexpensive just across the border in Canada or in Mexico that it does not make sense to manufacture these products in the United States. So Lifesavers, that quintessential American icon, is now moving its production out of the United States, in part because we are shooting ourselves in the foot with the environment, with the economy. And of course, there is no small irony that this Congress in recent years has been patting itself on the back, the last two administrations have celebrated that we are investing $8.5 billion as a down payment to clean up the Everglades which are appropriately targeted for investment because they are a precious natural resource, a national treasure. But we are paying to clean up what we are subsidizing people to pollute at the same time we are paying the world market times two or three; and because of the sugar prices, we are driving candy manufacturers out of the United States. It is hard to imagine a textbook case that more vividly underscores how our environmental, trade and agricultural policies are bumping into each other, running amuck. Indeed, I think you do not have to look very far to find examples where the farm bill is a pretty good barometer about how far out of whack things are. It is hard to get a good handle on the actual costs, because the official estimates that we used for the arcane sort of budget scoring were based on some numbers from April 2001 that by the time March of 2002 came around, earlier this spring, it was quite clear that the assumptions were wrong. Because of the overproduction that would be stimulated, prices would be lower. Because there is more support, it would encourage more production. So there will be more participation at lower prices which means the gap is not going to be assumed by the marketplace, and is not going to be assumed by the farmers who will bear the price of producing too much that the world markets do not want. The gap is going to be paid by the American taxpayer. We already know that our estimates from a year ago are probably at least $12 billion understated, and it is very likely as time goes on, as we find out all the little provisions that are in this bill, as the media is exploring new protections for lentils and chick-peas, as it is clear that we are going to have a new transitional payment on top of what we are doing for peanuts to try to pay them to move into the future, that there is going to be additional costs that are buried. This Congress had a chance to draw a line and establish some reasonable limits and caps. I mentioned earlier that there was an effort on the part of the Senate, and I tip my hat to Senator Harkin. I appreciate the strong voice that has been offered by Senator Lugar to try to focus on ways to reign this in. The gentlemen had different approaches, but they were moving in the right direction. The House had limits of $450,000. We stepped forward, my colleague, the gentleman from the State of Michigan (Mr. Smith) in particular, it was a great pleasure to work with him, carried this measure to the floor, and we were able to find support for the Senate cap of $275,000, but unfortunately the House in its wisdom was not able to persuade its own conferees to listen to it, and they fell back on a system that is going to raise the limits to $360,000 and have exemptions that are going to render that largely meaningless for very large producers, defeating the intent of the House. We have, to be sure, some areas of this bill that deal with conservation that look on the surface positive. This is something that was pushed on the floor of the House. There was a very strong vote that came very close to passing that would have, when it was here in its original form, have cut 15 percent of the commodity payments and shifted them into conservation. There was a successful measure that I was pleased to cosponsor with the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton) that took a couple percent of the commodities to deal with rural development, with conservation, with planning. The message got through a little bit that conservation was at least in some small way going to have to be addressed. There is what appears on paper to be a 79 percent increase, although it is only $20 billion. But unlike the commodity payments, where you open the spigot and the payments go out and the only condition is how many people participate and how low the prices go and how much of a gap the taxpayer pays, that is automatic. Conservation is authorized, but it requires each year an appropriation, and as we continue to hemorrhage red ink, as we have gone from, in a little over a year, thanks to the blueprint that the President advanced and some of our Republican colleagues here embraced with massive tax cuts, the slowdown in the economy, the massive increase in the farm bill, increase in defense, you name it, we are spending a great deal of money on seemingly everything except what we promised in the last election, like prescription drug coverage for senior citizens. We have gone in a little over a year from the greatest projected surplus in our history to now looking at borrowing about a trillion and a half dollars from Social Security, driving up over a trillion dollars of additional interest payment. In the face of these escalating costs, increased red ink, and what are going to be increased agricultural payments through the commodities, do we think we are going to get fully funded the environmental requirements? I think not. I think as a practical matter, these being backloaded, as they will, means that we are not going to see all of the money that is in fact authorized. There are other rather perverse twists in this story that end up looking bad for the environment. We have got the great Environmental Quality Incentives Program which helped livestock producers clean up their waste. This is an important program. For this program and others like this that would have helped people with small scale operations, there were some 200,000 unmet claims that averaged about $9,000. There was a current limit of $10,000 under these claims. Well, as we started going through this process in Congress this year, we did not speak to putting more money into that program, keeping the funding level even. The House argued in the bill that came through here that we would raise those limits to $50,000. The Senate argued, well, just $30,000. Either way, it was going to be a great increase in payments to larger operations. When it came time for the conference, the Washington Post had a great line, I wish I could quote it exactly, but we had the $50,000 that the House wanted, the Senate would cap it at $30,000, and instead of splitting the difference, they added it together and raised the limit to $75,000, and then allowed large operators to get 6 years payments in 1 year, raising it effectively to $450,000, subsidizing the extreme largest operations, depleting scarce resources, making it less likely that the people that are out there now, the smaller operations, remember, I mentioned they average just $9,000 in payments, we had a couple hundred thousand of them that were not met because there was not adequate funding. But by raising the levels for the largest operations, we are going to make it even less likely that they get what they want, and there is going to be more that is going to be bled off to the largest operations. Well, sadly, that is very much the case with how these subsidies work. As a result of this farm bill, we are going to see half the benefits flow to only six States. The majority of them, the vast majority, are going to go to producers of 13 commodities. Two-thirds of the subsidies will go to 3 percent of the farmers, most with annual incomes over $250,000 a year. It is estimated that the top 10 percent of these 2 million family farms are going to get close to three- quarters of the total benefit. It means in a State like mine, in Oregon, the pattern is exceedingly frustrating. I have heard from agricultural interests who would like some help. But in our State, like most of the agriculture in this country, it is not unique in my State, we deal a lot with nuts and berries, the specialty crops, the orchards. These people are off on their own. They do not get the support. Oregon gets a small fraction of the agricultural subsidy in terms of the national average, far less than the big producers of the commodities. Illustrating the perverse nature of it, one-quarter of the entire Federal subsidy for the last 6 years in Oregon went to one small county that just happened to grow wheat. We are, I am sad to say, Mr. Speaker, dealing with a situation today where our agricultural policy is going to continue to be concentrating benefits to a few. We are going to continue to lose family farms. Small family-scale operations are going to be forced out of business, on one side by increased urbanization. Their neighbors are encroaching on them as sprawl moves into their backyard. We do not have adequate protections. As the costs of compliance with the environment continue to go up, small operations are not going to get their fair share. We are going to be concentrating benefits to the largest producers, which means that they can produce even more, which is going to drive down the prices for everybody. They are going to get a larger subsidy, they are going to have the money to buy out the smaller producers, and we are going to continue this cycle, losing family farms, concentrating the benefits of the Federal taxpayer on fewer and fewer farmers who are more and more disconnected from the market. It is bad for the environment, it is bad for people who care about the humane treatment of animals, it is bad for people who want to protect against the incursion of suburban sprawl, it is bad for people who care about having the rich diversity of farm product in terms of vegetables, in terms of nuts, berries, specialty crops, that could make such a difference in so many parts of the country. I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that it is appropriate for us to start envisioning a new future for agriculture in this country. First and foremost, we have to stop the lunacy of subsidizing people to grow things that the market does not want, disconnecting them from a responsibility to the environment, rewarding larger and larger scale operations, while we say we are supporting small operations. We need to make sure that our payments go to farmers across the country, not to grow particular things that we do not need, but to behave in ways that we as a society value; pay them to protect water quality; pay them to be stewards of the land; pay them to respect this buffer between urban and rural areas; pay them to preserve, not develop their land, or protecting scenic easements. There are a wide range of areas that the public desires that would not interfere with our trade policies, that would actually save money for things like water quality and flooding, and that would make sense in terms of what we say our stated values are. Second, I think it is important that we work to reconnect people with their food supply. There is an explosion around the country of farmers' markets. We have a half a dozen in my community. I am going to go to a neighborhood in Portland where they are celebrating the opening of yet another farmers' market. They are in Milwaukee, in Gresham, in Beaverton. We are seeing farmers' markets in Washington, D.C. There are half a dozen of them here in our Nation's Capital, and all around the country. This is an opportunity for people to connect with local production. It tends to be a higher quality product. People are connecting with the folks that actually produce it. They cut out the middleman or woman so that they deal direct. It is more profitable to them. It just makes good sense. There are extraordinarily thoughtful people that are thinking about ways to apply these principles more broadly. Alice Waters in Berkeley, California with the famous restaurant, Chez Panisse, has a vision of being able to have the children in that school district be able to be a part of knowing where the food comes from and, in some cases, actually growing it and preparing it. They can be part of the educational process, and make for healthier, as well as smarter, kids. There is burgeoning activities of community gardens in urban agriculture; the slow food movement, organic. There are people who are taking a hard look at meat production in this country. I have talked earlier about the health benefits of having, whether it is the free- range chicken, or the grass-fed cattle, or the hogs that are not in confined factory farm operations. It is more humane, it is healthy, it has properties that those who are qualified to comment suggest that it is better in terms of flavor, texture; it is a better value for consumers, and it is produced in a more humane fashion. Mr. Speaker, I think that we have reached a point where I hope this agriculture bill was sort of the high water mark for low water politics; where we felt that if we throw enough money at enough little interest groups, a little bit for dairy here, a little bit for apples over there, lentils, peanuts, if we give a tiny increase in the food support for school lunch and for nutrition programs, for food stamps, which actually were a very small increase, but an increase nonetheless, that somehow we could sort of balance things out and get that legislation passed. Well, I hope this is the last gasp of a system that is bad for the environment, bad for the economy, bad for the health of the American public; that is clearly a bad signal for those who care about international trade. We are only 4.7 percent of the world's population. There is 95.3 percent out there that are potential markets, and we are sure sending a very negative signal to them. I am hopeful, Mr. Speaker, that we will no longer stand for shortchanging the environment, sidestepping animal welfare issues, and turning fundamental fairness on its head. It was interesting to watch. As this bill worked its way through Congress, we were able to see a chorus that was formed by newspapers. Virtually all of the editorial writers around the country, the Times, the Post, the Wall Street Journal, conservatives and liberals alike; we saw environmentalists join with fiscal conservatives. The vast majority of farmers in this country who were shortchanged, there is a consensus emerging, there is a coalition that is possible. And if, and if, this unfortunate bill serves to unite these forces for better agricultural and environmental policy, perhaps in some way, it will be worth it. Mr. Speaker, I will conclude my remarks this evening. But first, I wanted to just add a brief comment about what we have seen with the administration dealing with the declaration that air traffic control is no longer going to be an inherently governmental act. A number of my colleagues earlier in the evening took to the floor to express deep reservations about that, and I must join them. I find great irony at a time when finally Congress and the administration have given the American public what they wanted in terms of federalization and professionalization of baggage inspection, but the administration would somehow conclude that the sensitive, critical function of air traffic control is no longer essential, and we can just sort of farm that out to the lowest bidder and throw that into chaos. We saw what those dedicated men and women did on September 11, landing 5,000 planes in 100 minutes, maybe a little more, without incident, smoothly, under great stress. We have seen this in my community where people have undertaken problems with malfunctioning equipment, be able to rise to the occasion. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, with hundreds of thousands of situations across this country every day, I do not want us to be rolling the dice with some sort of evolutionary effort and the conclusion that this is not an inherent governmental function. I think we have only to look at the very rocky performance in Great Britain, in Canada, problems in Australia. This is not an area that we need to go at this point in time. Mr. Speaker, I am hopeful that we are not going to engage in another battle here that is I think going to doom us to hopefully just get back to ground zero; I guess that is an ill-advised term; I did not mean it in that context, but just get us back to where we are today at best. We cannot afford to waste that time, that energy, and the expertise of these dedicated men and women. I see my colleague from Texas is here. I serve with him on the Committee on Transportation. I know he has deep concerns about the integrity of our air transport system, and I would yield to him if he would wish to comment.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's analysis. I was struck; I was here earlier in the evening when the gentleman gave eloquent testimony to the need to support our rail investment. The gentleman talked about what a difference it made in east Texas, how people had moved forward, how Texas has had ridership increase on the order of 9 percent where the State had been investing, where the private sector had been there. The gentleman was talking about the legislation that we have worked on in our Subcommittee on Railroads of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, under bipartisan leadership of the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Clement), the ranking minority member; the chairman, the gentleman from Buffalo, New York (Mr. Quinn), the Republican chair, that has been virtually unanimous on the part of our committee to move forward to keep on track. I was struck with what the gentleman was talking about in terms of supporting that and the need to move forward with our bipartisan consensus to protect Amtrak, with the absolute failure to work with the committee structure, to look at the evidence and come forward with a program that made sense for the American public. I thought that the contrast between the gentleman's two comments, one, the importance of preserving what the committee could do on behalf of rail, contrasted with what had not happened with air traffic control and safety, was stunning.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's insightful comments. If I may just direct a question to the gentleman. The gentleman serves on the subcommittee which has been dealing with some of the most critical areas of air safety in our country. I know it has been accelerated here in the last 9 months. I am curious if the gentleman has had any evidence that has been presented to the subcommittee, or if the administration heretofore had brought forth any indication that there were problems with our air traffic system that merited this drastic action and the conclusion that air traffic control was not an inherently governmental function.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's leadership and eloquence in summarizing that. I do not say it any better.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy in allowing me to speak on this resolution. I think it is important for us to spend a few minutes not just celebrating it in a verbal sense, but thinking about what Congress can do to step up to actually make it possible for citizens to lead more healthy lifestyles. We have already heard the statistics from my colleagues about obesity. We have heard about premature deaths. We have heard about problems that are related to that. Well, I think it is pretty simple for us, because I was thinking about this as I rode my bicycle over to the Capitol to make this presentation. It is not rocket science to be able to deal with making these programs successful. We ought to, first of all, focus here in this Congress by leading by example. If we know that a third of adults, less than a third of adults engage in recommended amounts of physical activity, what is it that we can do here to make a difference? Well, first and foremost, we can do something to make sure that our communities are welcoming for people to exercise. I look at what has happened in Atlanta. The gentleman talked about obesity. Atlanta has seen the highest rate of increase in obesity. The Centers for Disease Control in the last decade was looking at that. What is the problem in Atlanta? Well, as part of their rapid expansion, the most rapid expansion in the history of human settlement, they have sort of left out things that make it possible for people to be physically active, like sidewalks, safe places to bicycle. The air is not healthy in Atlanta, and so people are complaining even if they had an opportunity to have the facilities to exercise, it would not be healthy to do so. The Surgeon General has recommended that communities create safe playgrounds, sidewalks, walking trails, particularly in urban areas; that employers should provide time for workers to get physical activity on the job; that schools provide physical education on a daily basis in every grade. What has this Congress done to advance those objectives? I would suggest not very much. These advances really pay for themselves. The incremental costs per person, if we are going to talk about obesity, are higher than smoking and twice the cost of alcoholism. Employers pay an average of $4,400 per year more for employee beneficiaries who have diabetes. The USDA has estimated that $71 billion could be saved if inactive Americans become active. Well, I would suggest that part of what we are doing here in Congress ought to be looking at those facilities around the country. We are going to soon be re-enacting the Surface Transportation Act. The physical environment has a tremendous impact, as I mentioned relative to Atlanta. St. Louis University has done a study of 17 new rural trails, and after the building of those trails, 60 percent of the trail users report they are more physically active than before the construction. One of the things we do with the bicycle caucus as we are asking people to focus on it is to ask people to stop and reflect how many people in America right this minute are stuck in traffic on their way to ride a stationary bike in a health club. By providing the facilities that make it safe and convenient for people to get the over 150 million bicycles in this country out of the garages, out of the attics, out of the basements and put them on the street where people can use them, it is going to make a difference. Think about in how many communities it is not safe for children to walk or bike to school. A generation ago, 90 percent of the children could get to school on their own safely. Today, that ratio has reversed, where only 10 percent of the children can do that; and it means there is a rush hour twice a day because people are trying to get the kids off-loaded at school, as well as having the attendant congestion air quality problems and lack of exercise. I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that we in Congress ought to take the lead, it is something each Member of Congress can do, by scheduling two or three meetings, of which we have a gazillion every week. And maybe if we have two or three of them that are involved with walking or running, a meeting on the move, we will be healthier; they will probably be shorter; our constituents will like it; we will have less caloric intake; and I would think it would be an opportunity for us to help shape ourselves up, our staff, and the people that we work with. Make sure that the next authorization of the surface transportation act, and if Members will remember, we had ISTEA in 1991, we had TEA-21 in 1997, and the next one ought to be green tea, where we have an opportunity to be able to make our communities more livable with that investment. Last but not least, I would suggest that in the time our Committee on Ways and Means is involved with all sorts of tax changes, maybe one tax change they could make would be to make sure that pedestrians and bicyclists have the same commuter tax benefit as people who drive or take transit, a very simple change of very low cost, but would send the right sort of signals for people to be physically fit in our country. I would suggest that Congress should not just pass a resolution, but we ought to lead by example and do something about it to make sure that our communities are more livable and that our families are safe, healthy, and more economically secure.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, the health and safety of our citizens is a central part of a livable community. We in Congress have a special responsibility to ensure that the federal government is doing all it can to make our communities safe. Sadly, in the area of pipeline safety we have fallen short. Between 1986-1999, 23 fatalities, 113 injuries, and $68 million in property damage resulted from 411 pipeline accidents. In the Pacific Northwest, two ten-year-old boys were killed in a 1999 pipeline explosion in Bellingham, Washington. The bill before us today is a much-needed attempt to improve the federal government's role in pipeline safety, guarantee compliance from pipeline operators, and promote a more environmentally sound operation of natural gas and hazardous liquid pipeline systems. Four areas in particular I would like to see improved are integrity management, environmental review, whistleblower protection and the public's right to know. Of these priorities, one that is of great importance to the families who live in communities with pipelines is the right to know the locations of these pipelines. Citizens have the right to know if a pipeline crosses near a school, hospital or important community landmark. These are not state secrets and the community's access to this information does not impair our nation's security. Many pipeline maps are already in the public realm and are posted on various public interest group web sites. Increasing public access to this information can only make our communities safer as the public will be more knowledgeable of where spills or leaks could occur. While I support efforts to improve pipeline safety, I am concerned with any approach that would limit community awareness of the potential hazards of pipeline facilities. The public and the pipeline industry recognize the need to increase safety through appropriate federal supervision and protection. We must not fall short on our federal responsibility.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, this Congress should delay any further tax cuts until we establish a budget that allows us to recognize current fiscal realities while we: ensure our security at home and abroad; meet our domestic priorities; and fulfill our Social Security and Medicare commitments. That said, this is a frustrating process for me. I have advocated reform of the estate tax since, as a state legislator, I worked with the late Representative Mary Rieke to fix Oregon's tax. There is no reason we cannot reform the existing system to be more equitable and protect closely held businesses. Again, the Republican leadership chose to play politics rather than make the system better. Instead of adopting immediate and much greater permanent relief now, the choice was to make most people pay more tax for 9 years, be subject to a capital gains tax and onerous recordkeeping, and trust that the ever-larger deficit doesn't unravel the whole program. I voted for the Democratic substitute, which would have given more relief, sooner to 99.6 percent of estates. I hope that we will someday stop playing politics to fashion a bipartisan solution that works and is fiscally responsible.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, I support H.R. 3983, the Maritime Transportation Antiterrorism Act. This legislation takes critical steps to address the security of our ports and the cargo that passes through them. However, I do have concerns about a provision that requires the development of a cargo identification and screening system that would require detailed information to be provided to U.S. Customs Service 24 hours prior to the time the cargo is loaded at its origination point. The level of detail required and the timing of its delivery to the U.S. Customs Service for the more than six million containers that are shipped to the United States each year may be unduly burdensome to the ports, importers, customs brokers, and freight forwarders that will be saddled with this task. As 95 percent of our international trade arrives via the oceans, I fully support the aims of this bill. Though, I hope the concern I have expressed can be alleviated in conference.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy in permitting me to rise today in support of the conference committee report. I think we have heard already on the floor of this Chamber that the Ex-Im Bank is good for American business and it is not free money. It charges interest and it is overwhelmingly a net benefit to the United States Treasury. I have had the pleasure previously to talk about how it is good for my State, which is definitely an export- dependent State, in Oregon. We have seen in the last 5 years Ex-Im finance a quarter billion dollars in Oregon exports, supporting 59 businesses, 44 of which are small businesses: in my community, Danner Boot, a small high-quality boot product; Calbag Metals Company, an outstanding family-owned environmentally sensitive metals and recycling company. I talked previously about the freightliner company that pays union family wages to machinists and painters that help create high-quality trucks. Without Ex-Im they would not have had an opportunity to sell these high-end units in Latin America. But my special interest as a Member of Congress deals with protection of the environment, and I have been pleased to watch the work that has been done here demonstrating the evolution of the Ex-Im Bank in environmental exports programs. Last year Ex-Im supported $12.5 billion dollars of United States exports, almost a half billion of which were environmentally-beneficial goods and services. Environmental technology in this country is a $200 billion industry, but only 11 percent of that is currently exported. Our competitors export almost twice as much of that. I have seen in my own community and around the country that this is an emerging market. With the help of the Ex-Im Bank, we will be able to help American business with critical environmental services that will improve the quality of life around the world. I urge support for the conference report.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I rise to oppose two specific sections of the Customs Border Security Act. Section 141 would provide greatly expanded immunity to Customs officer conducting searches. This is another one of the post ``Patriot Act'' erosions of constitutional protections and judicial oversight that we should all find particularly troubling. Customs officers, like other federal law enforcement officers, are already entitled to qualified immunity. Judges and juries respect the needs of agents to conduct searches in exigent circumstances. Especially since Congress has recently expanded law enforcement powers, it should not simultaneously contribute to by-passing the courts' ability to guard against abuses of those powers. Just two years ago, the GAO found disturbing evidence of Customs' use of racial profiling in searching African American citizens nine times more often than their white counterparts, even though they did not discover contraband with any greater frequency. This is not a record upon which we ought to base less redress for the victims of illicit searches. Section 144 would allow warrantless inspection of outgoing international mail, again circumventing judicial oversight. Even the U.S. Postal Service said of this intrusion: ``There is no evidence that eroding these long-established privacy protections will bring any significant law enforcement improvements over what is achieved using existing, statutorily approved law enforcement techniques.'' [Letter to Chairman Oxley from the USPS, dated 10/11/01). Postal officials can always hold mail while they wait for a court to issue a warrant. These two provisions play right into the hands of the terrorists, for whom the ``rule of law'' was intended as a primary victim of the September 11th attacks. We should not allow that to happen. I hope that my colleagues will join me in opposing these two misguided provisions of H.R. 3129. They will not make our borders any safer.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I have only the highest respect for the leadership that we have heard from on the other side of the aisle from the Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Florida, the gentleman from New York, the gentleman from California, and I listened carefully to what they were saying. For example, I agree with much of what the gentleman from New York had to say, but I sincerely believe he is wrong if he thinks that I or some of my colleagues here are seeking to avoid hard choices, for example, on the debt limit. It is not something that I seek to avoid. I am happy to have a debate on this floor on the budget on our fiscal situation dealing with these difficult, difficult choices that I know our friends on the Committee on Appropriations are dealing with on an ongoing basis. Sadly, what we have here today, however, has little to do with fighting the war on terrorism or dealing with hard fiscal choices. If that were the case, we could have an honest debate and reach resolution quickly. If it were just about funding our war against terrorism, we could have that debate in minutes and have unanimity and be done with it. Sadly, the defense supplemental is only an excuse; it is a label. We are seeing, for instance, that the purpose of the bill and the rule under which it is presented to us is precisely a way to avoid having that debate, to avoid dealing directly and honestly with the debate limitation. But it goes far beyond fiscal policy. It goes far beyond the war on terrorism. I have one other sad example that concerns me, as we see inserted in the supplemental appropriations bill a provision to grant the Department of Defense an exemption from environmental regulations to deal with responsibility for water consumption that occurs ``outside a military installation and beyond the direct authority and control of the Department of Defense Secretary.'' The reason this provision is in has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility, has nothing to do with the war against terrorism. It is simply to avoid environmental protection for the San Pedro River in Arizona, one of the richest biological reserves in all of North America that was designated by this Congress after deliberation by a committee of jurisdiction in 1988 as a national riparian conservation area. But this river, this resource is being dewatered as a result of the activities of the Department of Defense operation at the nearby Fort Huachuca. The amendment in the bill we are debating today means that the fort's action in the future, adding activity, contracting out that will increase water consumption, can occur without any consideration to the extent to which they jeopardize the river, without any consideration of the alternatives. This has nothing to do with fiscal policy. This has nothing to do with the war against terrorism. In addition to irreparably damaging an ecosystem in Arizona, it is an additional terrible precedent for the way that this House operates. Throughout my tenure in Congress, I have been dedicated to the proposition that the Federal Government should be a better partner with State and local governments, with the private sector, with individuals, to make communities more livable, to lead by example, not lots of rules and regulations and imposition of things that are difficult. Just step up and walk the talk. But this is sad commentary, Mr. Chairman. The House does not legislate very often. It is hard for people to feel comfortable debating on the hard decisions. But this act does not solve America's problems. Stealth attacks on the environment are not a part of the war against terrorism. Stealth evasion of fiscal policy, the debt limit, and what we should be doing in the future, are not part of the war against terrorism and, most important, Mr. Chairman, having a bizarre provision under this rule that creates false conflicts on this floor are not, are not a part of the war against terrorism. The American people deserve better.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, during my tenure in Congress, I have worked hard for the Federal Government to be a better partner to promote the liveability of our communities by walking the walk, by acting the way that we are asking the rest of America to behave. Yet, here today, we are going to be asking in the supplemental to exempt the Defense Department, the largest manager of infrastructure in the world, from being a good environmental citizen. This bill contains an amendment that would relieve the Department of Defense from its responsibility for dealing with water consumption that occurs outside the control of the Secretary of Defense that is a direct result of the military installation. In particular, this is focused on the San Pedro River in Arizona, one of the richest biological reserves in all of North America. It has over 82 species of mammals, 385 species of birds, and was designated by this Congress as a National Riparian Conservation Area in 1988. But as a result of this amendment, snuck in without debate by the substantive committee, that will not be substantively argued on this floor, we are going to basically give them a free hand to damage the environment. It is wrong.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, even though the hour is late, I appreciate your courtesy. Mr. Speaker, we have heard on the floor this evening why the supplemental appropriations bill before us is not fiscally responsible. We have heard how we are not having an honest vote or even vigorous debate on key issues like raising the debt ceiling and what we are going to do with Social Security. People who have listened to the debate so far this evening have heard how this bill is setting the stage to surreptitiously increase the debt limit. Remember a year ago, the administration predicted we would not need a debt limit increase until the year 2008. Now after $4 trillion has disappeared from the expected surpluses, now we are going to continue to increase the Nation's debt instead of honestly assessing proposals dealing with the ongoing tax cuts and domestic spending program. We have heard how all the funds that are available for the debt limit increase must come directly from Social Security and Medicare trust funds. And we have heard that the interest payments on this mounting debt are estimated to increase over $1 trillion over the next decade above what was projected just a year ago. But, Mr. Speaker, I am most concerned and it is something that is going to be buried in terms of legislative consideration, about the signal that the Congress is sending by its efforts to legislate in the supplemental appropriations found in areas dealing with the environmental policies of this country. There will be a proposal that we will have buried in this provision that would exempt the Department of Defense from environmental regulations having to do with water consumption off the immediate adjacency of the properties under control of the Secretary of the Defense, but nonetheless directly affected by it. I find it sad, because I have long argued on this floor and in communities around the country, that the most effective way to enhance the environment is not passing new rules and regulation, taxes and fees. The most powerful tooling to protect the environment is for the Federal Government to simply lead by example, to model the behavior that we expect from the rest of America. Here we have a provision that would exempt the largest manager of infrastructure in the world and one, sadly, with a decidedly mixed environmental record, from compliance with its environmental responsibilities. The latest count shows that there are about 150 Department of Defense facilities on the Superfund national priority list and another five proposed for listing. Indeed, I think we can safely assume that the Department of Defense is the largest Superfund polluter in the United States. The last thing we want to do is to grant this important Federal agency with vast environmental impact, sweeping exemption from environmental laws, at least without going through the appropriate legislative process involving the stakeholders having an honest debate with the American public. Yet that is exactly what we are given under this supplemental. The exemption provision in this bill would not only do irreparable damage to an important eco-system in Arizona, and that is the purpose of this amendment, to deal with the San Pedro River which is slowly being dewatered because of the impacts of the Department of Defense, but this sets a terrible precedent for the effects of the Department of Defense actions on the environment around the country. Now, I would be the first to admit on occasion there must be accelerated decisions, shortcuts that are necessary for the sake of military necessity. We do not do an environmental impact statement for every bomb we drop, nor should we. However, it is embarrassing that what we are doing today with this provision is to relieve a Department of responsibility for its foreseeable environmental impacts which are under the control of the Department. The amendment is unwarranted and at the very least premature. Even the Government Accounting Office says the Department of Defense has not done the research and investigation necessary to determine whether such an exemption is justified. Mr. Speaker, it is yet another example why this House should reject the supplemental appropriation that is coming before us.