Sherry Boehlert

Mr. BOEHLERT

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this bill. H.R. 3893 will increase the deficit, harm the environment, undermine the States and give charity to oil companies, while doing virtually nothing, virtually nothing, to help consumers. The whole premise of this bill is faulty: Refining capacity in U.S. is increasing. Let me repeat that: Refining capacity in the U.S. is increasing, and it has been increasing for a decade. Yes, the number of refineries has declined, but that is irrelevant. Saying that we have less refining capacity today because we have fewer refineries is like saying that we have fewer crops today than we did in 1920 because fewer Americans are farming. It just does not make sense. It does not pass the laugh test. Not only that, the marketplace offers incentives, and plenty of them, for oil companies, all the incentives they need to build more refineries. They have record profits and demand for their products keeps increasing. Refining capacity is likely to increase even more with or without this bill responding to the market demand. But with this bill, we burden taxpayers by sending their hard-earned tax dollars into the pockets of oil companies through rebates and special payments. With this bill, we interfere with environmental rules designed to improve public health. With this bill, we take away, take away, authority from the States and local governments. What we do not do with this bill is take any steps to reduce demand for oil, the only step that will actually reduce the price of gasoline, not to mention to make our Nation more secure. I urge opposition. The priorities are all wrong.

Mr. BOEHLERT

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, to my distinguished colleague from Utah for whom I have great respect, I point out that the infield for the Cleveland Indians has improved significantly since his reference. In fact, at shortstop they have a very able player, and they are hot in the middle of a pennant race. That assurance to the gentleman is very important, as is this assurance: both bills offer landowners technical assistance, but it is only the bipartisan substitute that allows the Secretary to give priority to smaller landowners who cannot afford expensive consultants. Having said that, I rise in strong support of the rule and in strong opposition to the base bill which we hope with a substitute, the bipartisan substitute, to improve substantially and make it a product worthy of the support of the entire House. But, frankly, we should not be having this debate today. The current version of the bill was not available until Monday afternoon. Everyone concerned with endangered species both inside and outside of government has been scrambling to understand what is H.R. 3824. The Congressional Research Service, a bunch of outside groups that we look to for some advice and counseling, they are scrambling. There has not been enough time for Members to fully digest the bill or work out any differences. I do not think that it should go forward in this manner. There is no reason for this rush except to limit discussion and maybe confuse us as we try to understand the full implications. The other body is not exactly about to rush to judgment with a measure on the floor. We should not be dealing with the most fundamental rewrite of an environmental statute in 15 years in this manner. There are so many areas of agreement that we have, let us find common ground. I urge opposition to the base bill and strong support for the bipartisan substitute amendment.

Mr. BOEHLERT

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to correct a couple of things. First of all, this is mandatory spending we are talking about. Secondly, we do not allow the taxpayer protection in this bill that is allowed in highway cases. That is important to distinguish between the two. Mr. Chairman, we are all in agreement. There is broad and justifiable consensus that the act is overdue for reform, but reforming the law should not be a euphemism for gutting the law, and that is exactly what the bill would do. The list of areas of disagreement are very strong, but I would also point out that we in the substitute bill embrace many of the provisions in the base bill because they need to be addressed in a responsible way and, in many cases, we take the exact language. But section 13 is totally unacceptable. That is the big controversy; opening up an open- ended entitlement, putting the taxpayers at great risk. I urge opposition to the base bill. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the bill. I have no quarrel with the stated purpose of the bill--to reform the Endangered Species Act. Chairman Pombo is correct, there is broad and justifiable consensus that the Act is overdue for reform. But ``reforming'' the law should not be a euphemism for ``gutting'' the law, and that's what this bill would do. I urge my colleagues to look beyond the descriptions of the bill and to examine the bill itself. The most advertised feature of the bill is that it gets rid of the current ``critical habitat'' provisions of the law and replaces the habitat requirements with flexible, comprehensive, science-based ``recovery plans.'' Sounds pretty good. And it would be pretty good if that were a full description of what the bill did. But what the sponsors have obscured is that, under the bill, the recovery plans are utterly unenforceable. No one ever has to abide by them. Not only that, the plans will be written through a process that guarantees delay, but does not guarantee that the best science will be used. So is there a way to get rid of the current ``critical habitat'' burdens and to use recovery plans without weakening the law? Of course there is. And our Bipartisan Substitute shows how. We eliminate all the provisions of current law that require critical habitat designations just as in H.R. 3824, but we make recovery plans enforceable and we ensure that they have strong scientific basis. That's how you get real reform while still protecting real species. It's not impossible to balance the need for reform with the need to protect species. But instead, we have a bill before us that is balanced in its rhetoric, but not in its effect. The bill weakens just about every feature of law designed to protect species--for example, the review of federal actions to make sure they do not unduly harm species. Now I am not trying to suggest that H.R. 3824 is all bad news. In fact, many of its provisions--the incentives for landowners to protect species, the public information requirements, the requirements to better involve the states--are largely improvements to the law. That's why our Substitute includes all those provisions, often in language identical to that in H.R. 3824. So we commend the Resources Committee for so many of the bill's provisions and we embrace them. But there is one provision of H.R. 3824 that our Substitute does not include at all. And that's Section 13, which creates an open-ended entitlement that will open the federal treasury to provide mandatory payments to developers. This is a bad idea on philosophical and legal grounds, but this is an especially bad time to expose taxpayers to such a burden. We don't have to endanger taxpayers in order to reform the Endangered Species Act. We don't have to make it easier for species to become extinct to reform the Endangered Species Act. All we need to do to reform the Act is to make sure that common sense isn't trumped by ideology. I urge my colleagues of defeat H.R. 3824, which just waves the banner of reform to distract attention from its actual content. Vote instead for real reform. Vote for the Bipartisan Substitute.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the substitute. I want to thank all of our co-sponsors for their support, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton), the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Johnson), and the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass). That is a pretty good sampling of Congressional centrists because there is a moderate, targeted solution. Our substitute truly reforms the Endangered Species Act without endangering any species or the American taxpayer. And that is where it differs from H.R. 3824. But before I describe the differences, I want to emphasize the similarities. Both the bill and the substitute eliminate the current requirements for setting aside critical habitat and rely instead on recovery plans to save endangered and threatened species. They are identical. Both the bill and the substitute offer new financial incentives and legal protections to landowners to save species. Both the bill and the substitute require greater involvement of States in decisionmaking involving species. Both the bill and the substitute ensure that the public will have greater information about and a greater role in the decisionmaking. In fact, while it is hard to quantify, I would guess about 80 to 90 percent of the language in the substitute is identical to the base bill. That is because we developed the substitute by reading through the base bill, once we could seize a copy, and by incorporating into our substitute every word of H.R. 3824 that we possibly could. What we could not accept was language weakening the Act by, for example, making recovery plans unenforceable, sit on a shelf, gather dust or making it too easy for the Federal Government to take actions that would harm species. And most of all what we could not accept was the new mandatory spending required by this bill which would open the federal purse to developers while eliminating basic taxpayer protections. I laid out my specific concerns for that provision during the general debate. I urge support for the substitute and opposition to H.R. 3824 as presented. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest), a valued member from the Committee on Resources.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton), an informed and valued member of the Committee on Resources.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle).

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This all boils down to a principal difference. There are a number of differences, but a principal difference. The substitute does not have the controversial section 13 in it; the base bill does. Here is something that could actually happen under section 13. A developer could buy a parcel of land knowing that part of it could not be used because of the presence of endangered species. The developer then could request permission to build, say, a hotel on the property without doing much more than outlining the proposal on the back of an envelope. The developer would not even have to try to get necessary State permits or local zoning variances before submitting a claim. When the Federal Government says that the hotel could not be built, that developer could get a payment from the government based upon what his appraiser said it was worth without providing much evidence that the project was realistic or serious. Then the developer could propose to build a landfill on the same site and go through the same process again and get money from the government again. Then the developer could propose to build a store on the same site and get money from the government again because the store could not be built. In the meantime, the developer could proceed with the same project on other portions of the property, make substantial profits on his property, and never have that affect the steady stream of payments coming from the government from what was always known to be a problematic site. This is no exaggeration, and it shows how right the provision is for abuse. The bill puts the taxpayers at risk. That is why the same concerns that we have expressed to our colleagues on the floor today have been expressed by the administration in the Statement of Administration Policy, which is otherwise supportive of the bill, in part because of the provisions that we also have in our substitute. The Statement of Administration Policy warns: ``The new conservation aid program for private property owners provides little discretion to Federal agencies and could result in a significant budgetary impact . . . The bill would affect direct spending. To sustain the economy's expansion, it is critical to exercise responsible restraint over Federal spending.'' We want to help exercise responsible restraint by eliminating section 13. Mr. Chairman, there is no doubt about it. The Endangered Species Act has to be revisited. That is the responsible thing to do. The Committee on Resources has put a lot of hard work into and has come up with a product that, in many respects, is just wonderful, necessary. That is why we embrace the product. But section 13 is absolutely, totally unacceptable for a whole lot of very good reasons, and it is unacceptable to the taxpayers of America because, boy, does this impose a burden on them. I urge support for the substitute. It is responsible. It is bipartisan. It is thoughtful. It eliminates section 13. It provides more opportunity for good science. It emphasizes the need of small property owners, and we want to help them. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BOEHLERT

Mr. BOEHLERT. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of H.R. 250, and I want to congratulate the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers) and all the members of the Committee on Science on both sides of the aisle who contributed so significantly to this bill; but before I begin to speak about the bill, let me say something about the rule because I was not available to participate in the debate. The Committee on Rules acted reasonably, following my request, for not making the amendments on the Advanced Technology Program in order. We did debate ATP fully in committee. I suspect we will debate ATP again during a motion to recommit. This is not a subject on which anyone has been denied process. But our goal with this bill is to improve the lot of American manufacturers. ATP is a controversial issue that will weigh down the progress on this bill. There is no reason for that to happen. We ought to debate this bill on its merits, which are not contested, and then handle ATP separately. I support ATP. I helped create the program. I will work with the appropriators to try to keep it funded. But I also support this bill, and I see no reason to kill this important bill to allow a political debate on ATP. Now, let me turn to the bill we are actually debating. This bill passed the House by voice vote last year, and this time around we should have enough to get time to get this measure to the President's desk. I expect another strong show of support from the House today. It is easy to see why this bill has garnered such overwhelming support. It deals with a real problem by bolstering successful programs and authorizing innovative new approaches based on those programs. The problem the bill addresses is the decline of U.S. manufacturing. Our Nation needs a diverse economy, and that economy must include manufacturing. We cannot be wholly dependent on others for the goods that enable American families and American businesses to function. Manufacturing provides high-paying jobs and helps us hone our technical edge. Yet the signs of manufacturing decline are all about us. So what can we do? Well, for starters, we can be sure we are adequately funding programs that have already proven themselves successful at helping domestic manufacturers. This bill does that by authorizing funding for the laboratories of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, for its Manufacturing Extension Partnership, and for the Advanced Technology Education program of the National Science Foundation. All these programs have proven track records. NIST, the Nation's oldest Federal laboratory, has long been a reliable partner of the private sector, conducting research needed to keep American industry at the cutting edge of technology. The MEP program, which provides technical assistance to small- and medium-sized manufacturers, has helped ensure that smaller businesses can apply the latest advances in technology and manufacturing know-how. Every study of this popular program has found that it has saved and created new jobs. And the ATE program has channeled critical funding to community colleges to enable the U.S. to have the technical workforce we need to retain manufacturing jobs. So this bill targets money to programs that have truly made a difference in helping American manufacturing. But we cannot rest on our laurels, because the U.S. manufacturing sector is still not as robust as we would like. So while being mindful of fiscal constraints, and we have to be mindful of that, our bill authorizes pilot efforts to see if programs like MEP can be made even more effective. We create a program that would bring manufacturers and universities together to conduct research on specific problems of concern to manufacturers. We create fellowships to encourage more students to pursue research in areas related to manufacturing. In short, this is a targeted, practical bill that will provide real assistance to the Nation's manufacturers. For that reason, the bill is endorsed by the National Association of Manufacturers, and I urge my colleagues to continue their overwhelming bipartisan support for this meritorious bill. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Madam Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), the very distinguished author of this bill. And I say that with some reservations, because as is the habit of the Committee on Science, bills are reported out after very thorough and complete consultation with the minority, and so a lot of fingerprints are all over the bill. But the driving force behind this very important legislation is my distinguished colleague from Michigan.

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

Mr. BOEHLERT. Madam Chairman, I want to thank the gentlewoman for offering this amendment, particularly the timing of it. It is very significant. I understand the gentlewoman will be asking for a rollcall vote, and I will proudly vote ``aye.''

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I will make one comment. I have been here 22 years, and I go home every single weekend. I take great pride in that. I have never had a constituent say to me, I want you to create a new Under Secretary within the Department, and I want you to change the title of an Assistant Secretary. All they want are results, and we are beginning to get results. And we have got to add to that impetus, and we are doing so with the base bill. I urge the adoption of the base bill and opposition, reluctantly, to the Larson amendment.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, let me just point out to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price), for whom I have the highest regard, he said if all we are going to do is fund it at about the current level, that is not good enough. I would agree that is not good enough. That is why we are increasing it by 33 percent. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Inglis).

Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Manzullo), one of the most outspoken and effective advocates for manufacturing.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart), who is a leader in the manufacturing and steel caucuses, and so many other caucuses that are involved with protecting American jobs and growing American jobs.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent), who is one of the Members who gets it, who understands how important it is to protect our manufacturing base.

Mr. BOEHLERT. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Before I close on a bill that we can all be proud of, Republicans and Democrats alike, I want to thank the staff on both sides of the aisle who have worked on this bill over the past several years, including, not exclusive, but including Olwen Huxley and Amy Carroll, and particularly Eric Webster of our committee staff. I want to give special thanks to Mr. Webster, who is leaving the Hill this week, after 12 years, to join the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. We are sure Mr. Webster will be just as effective at prodding NOAA from the inside as he has been for us, and that is very effective. We will sorely miss Eric Webster, who started in my office several years ago as an intern and became our top legislative assistant and also worked for the very distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest) as legislative director before coming to the Committee on Science. He has added immeasurably to the products that we have produced in our committee, and all of us want to thank him for his efforts. And we want to wish him, his wife Natalie, and daughter Gabriella, all the best as they go forward in this new chapter in the continuing saga of ``Eric Webster Comes to Washington.''

Mr. BOEHLERT. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BOEHLERT

Mr. BOEHLERT. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 250, as amended.