Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, let us just get this straight one more time: no impact on research. Companies that are investing in research are free to continue to research. They are free to continue to consult with the FDA. But what we want is a full scientific analysis of the potential impact of the release of these transgenic fish into the environment. That is what we are talking about. The FDA has no qualifications in the area of environmental science. They admit it. They have deemed, under their authority, that transgenic fish are new drugs. Therefore, they have the authority to pass on the viability of a new drug and the safety of a new drug; but the drug that they are approving is a living fish, a fish that will grow at many times the rate of its natural cousins; and it will outcompete them for food, outcompete them for mating activity, and ultimately bring extinction. Mr. Chairman, in the Pacific Northwest we are spending $400 million a year to try and recover endangered salmon. Just a few of these transgenic salmon released into the environment could wipe out some of the remaining stocks which are struggling to survive. We are spending $400 million on one side and we are going to release something that threatens that on the other side. ``Well, we will not release them. We will put them in net pens.'' They get out of them all the time. Storms come, they slosh out. Birds come, pick them up, then they drop them. That is an accepted fact. They say, ``Do not worry, they will not be able to mate.'' Then the same companies that are manufacturing these transgenic fish admit that, ``Actually, our process is not quite foolproof, some probably can mate. But do not worry about it, do not worry about it, we do not think there will be a problem.'' The companies go on to say that they have not evaluated the problem. They have not evaluated the potential impact on native fish stocks. They have not evaluated the environmental impacts. But they say, ``Do not worry, the FDA has approved it.'' The FDA has approved transgenic fish as a new drug, not as a living creature to be released into the environment to interbreed with existing species. This is extraordinary. The agency that should have jurisdiction perhaps would be the National Marine Fisheries Service. They know about fish. Maybe it would be the Environmental Protection Agency. They know a little bit about the environment. No, we are doing this in the FDA. Here is what the agricultural coordinator for the National Marine Fisheries Service said. He was surprised to hear that the FDA was overseeing the environmental review regarding new salmon and making decisions on such things as whether fish would be grown in net pens. Mr. Rhodes said, ``The National Marines Fishery Service, not the Food and Drug Administration, has the expertise to make such decisions and would need to be involved.'' That was May 1 of last year. Yet now we are rushing forward for the profits of a few companies to endanger the environment of the United States and the world. These fish should not be released into our environment until we fully understand the effects. This amendment does not affect consultation between the FDA and the manufacturers, it does not in any way impact their research or their development, but it does say, ``Before we allow you to put them into the common environment of the United States of America, into our bays, our tributaries, our rivers, or even our ponds, because sometimes they get out of there, too, we want to know what the potential impact is on other species of fish.'' That is all we are asking for here. It is a simple request: Bring in an agency that knows something about fish, not the people at the FDA. Find one person at the FDA who has a degree in marine biology and I will buy dinner. There are not any over there. They do not know a darned thing about this issue or the potential impacts on the environment and other species of fish. So this is a very, very prudent and conservative amendment. I urge Members to adopt it.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, we have heard a lot from the other side of the aisle about the FDA is the gold standard. It is fool's gold. Guess what? U.S. drugs are manufactured mostly in Puerto Rico with major components imported from China and India with no mandatory testing. None. This bill would impose mandatory testing, a whole new regime. The EU has been doing this for 25 years. What is the result, counterfeit drugs and people dying? No. The result is drugs are much cheaper in the European Union; and in Britain they are on average 36 percent cheaper, and there has not been a single incidence of all of these chimaeras that are raised. What really happened was the pharmaceutical industry was caught napping last year. The seniors that I have seen divide their pills in half, against doctor's orders, and I have seen spouses that have to choose, one gets drugs and the other does not. We are doing nothing about that. We are supporting the profits of this industry. If the other side reverses their vote from last year, they will be held accountable by the tens of millions of Americans who cannot afford their pharmaceutical drugs. This is not about safety, it is about affordability, and it is about lives.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, from the other side of the aisle we hear platitudes about choice, which consumers do not want, and competition, which does not exist. For months, the mounting evidence of manipulation in the energy markets has been piling up and piling up while the Bush administration, and their hand-picked appointees to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, have taken a hands-off attitude. After all, it is some of their most generous campaign contributors, many of whom are based in Texas, who are making obscene amounts of money by manipulating the energy markets. Mr. Speaker, we would not want to offend them just to help consumers. A month ago it turned out Reliant Energy of Texas had tied its energy traders to the plant operators and had them shut down the plant to drive up the price. Duke Energy employees have stated that they were told to sabotage the plant and throw away the repair parts to drive up the price of energy on the west coast. The reaction on that side of the aisle is, oh, let us not make this a partisan issue. Oh, let us be nice. Mr. Speaker, consumers are being fleeced. It is time for real action. Sign the discharge petition, and this Congress will take a stand for consumers against the price gouging.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. The previous speaker in the well talked about this being a thinly veiled safety amendment. It is not thinly veiled. This is all about safety. Plain and simple that is what we are talking about, the safety of the driving American public on U.S. highways paid for with taxpayer dollars, and they can expect a little bit of protection from their Federal Government. I think. I hope. We do inspect U.S. trucks. We do pull them off the roads when they are unsafe. We do require drug and alcohol testing. I went through that debate here on the floor of the House, and I supported that. We do require log books. We do require restrictions on duty time. And we enforce those laws. For the most part those laws do not exist in Mexico, and where they do exist, they are not enforced. Now, no one has contested that fact. They are saying, oh, that we just do not want to be good neighbors. We want to be good neighbors, but we do not want to be good neighbors with people who are endangering the lives of the traveling public. My district has I-5 running right through the heart of it, and that is where those trucks are going. Now, the gentleman from Texas got up earlier and said, ``My people have done really well. I have such a long border with Mexico, and we have got so many jobs out of this, and you want to hurt that.'' No, actually he is arguing to hurt them, because if this amendment does not pass, those trucks are going to steam right through his district. Right now all those trucks have to stop in his district, and they have to reload onto safe American trucks. But when this goes into effect, those trucks are going right through his district and right up to mine. They are not going to stop. In fact, he is going to lose many jobs in his district. I am a bit perplexed by the arguments on the other side of the aisle. For the most part they have been arguing our side, but in a knee-jerk way at the end they are going to come to a conclusion that we have just got to go ahead, that this is about NAFTA and about free trade. We are having huge trade with Mexico, a huge and growing trade deficit with Mexico under NAFTA, although they promised us surpluses. That is not to be debated here today. That would not be impeded one wit by this amendment. But what would happen is these trucks that we know are heavier, with drivers who generally are not meeting U.S. standards for safety, for training, for drug testing, for log books, for records of offenses being kept in a central data file, perhaps for insurance, for labeling for hazardous materials, 25 percent of the trucks coming across the border carry hazardous materials; 1 in 14, 7 percent, are labeled. What is going to happen when one of those goes over somewhere on I-5 in California or in a heavily populated part of Oregon or Washington? We will not know what is in it. We will not know how to deal with it. We are going to not only put the traveling public at risk, we are going to put communities at risk. We are going to put the firefighters and the first responders at risk. No, let us have the Mexicans adopt stringent laws for safety, then enforce those laws, and after they do that, then we will be great neighbors, and we will be happy to welcome their fully inspected, safely driven trucks into the United States of America. But until they meet those standards, no, no, no, no, no. This will kill Americans. People will die for profit, and that is not right.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. Mr. Chairman, I just want to clarify. I am sorry, I had a different number on mine. I want to make sure we all agreed on the same amendment. With that, I thank the chairman, and I thank the ranking member.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Yes, Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is correct.

Mr. DeFAZIO. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo).

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Yes, Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Kentucky, the able chairman, is absolutely correct.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Yes, I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers).

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, this amendment, which is coauthored by the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) and myself, would enable American consumers to have a centralized place to go to file complaints on a toll-free number with the Department of Transportation. An office already exists, but in lengthy hearings last year over the delays at the Detroit airport involving Northwest Airlines, one aggrieved consumer stood up and said, you know, I spent over $100 on toll bills before I found out there was anybody at the Department of Transportation in a subcategory of the General Counsel's Office who would listen to my complaint. This office generally has labored in obscurity merely to compile statistics with a phone recording, people leave their complaints, and sometimes to advocate on the behalf of those with disabilities. This amendment would increase the rescission of funds on line 25 by $720,000, and it would allocate those funds in the Secretary's office to the Office of General Counsel, to the people who handle it in the Aviation Consumer Protection Division. It would be funds that could establish a 1-800 number and would also provide for some funding for staff for that number. I have consulted with the former general counsel a number of times over this over the years and have contacted the Department. They feel that, although this is a relatively modest amount of money, that given the existing number of complaints and the complaints they feel would warrant further action by the Department of Transportation and by that office, they believe it would be adequate funds to begin to better serve aviation consumers.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, it is true, this would take some money from fossil energy. For instance, Chevron, whose profits last year were $5.2 billion, up from $2 billion in 1999, that is a $3 billion 1-year increase, they will get $5 million or more under this bill as they did last year. The Phillips Petroleum, profits 1999 only $700 million, last year $1.9 billion. They got $7 million from this program last year. Am I being told that Phillips Petroleum and Chevron will not make these investments themselves, and they cannot afford to make it themselves? That is not true. There are millions of Americans who cannot afford to make even more cost-effective investments themselves in weatherization. We can get three or four times as many kilowatts with weatherization for the price in today's market. We can get three or four times more with conservation programs than we can in the most efficient fossil-fired fuel plants in this country. This amendment makes sense for individual Americans and for residential ratepayers; but it does not, I must admit my colleagues are right, it does not make sense for Westinghouse, Phillips Petroleum, GE, and other companies that just cannot afford to make these investments on their own.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, as far as the debate earlier on the recreation fee demo amendments, they are something that should be subject to the Committee on Resources, on which I serve, which is a tax on the average American people. It is hidden in this bill to avoid accountability and responsibility. Now here hidden in this bill is the authority to go into and drill on national monuments. If my colleagues want to undo the national monuments, have the courage of their convictions. Introduce legislation. Hold hearings. Have a debate. Bring it to the floor. Have a vote. See if it can be gotten out of the House of Representatives. Mr. Chairman, I do not think that is going to happen. I do not believe this body is going to undo formally any monuments. So do not have this subterranean subterfuge of drilling. Be honest. If my colleagues want to undo the monuments, introduce the legislation and let us have a vote on it up or down.

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

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mineral extraction is not paid for, there is no royalty. It is $3.50 cents an acre under the 1872 mining law. I am glad the gentleman will support a fee on mining. I will have a bill to him in the near future.

Mr. DeFAZIO. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Chairman, I would ask him, how about oil, gas, mining, and mineral extraction? Would the gentleman be agreeable to a fee for mineral extraction from Federal lands?

Mr. DeFAZIO. So I would ask the gentleman, Mr. Chairman, he wants to charge for users of public lands?

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

Mr. DeFAZIO. I appreciate that the program is better than when it started, and we do not need 15 different forest passes in Oregon again. But the gentleman from Washington and the gentleman from Ohio keep referring to parks. There is a huge infrastructure backlog in the parks. This amendment does not go to the parks, it goes to undeveloped recreation sites, off-logging roads, in the national forests and on BLM land. If I could, one further point, the gentleman who preceded the gentleman, I would disagree with what he said, that people do not differentiate between parks and Forest Service land. I am certain that the people in Oregon, as they do in Washington, discriminate between the parks and the forest lands. No one is contesting charging park fees. We are talking about a new fee on using Forest Service lands and BLM lands.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I ask the gentleman to consider this.

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

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

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, here we are again. We are about to extend a tax which nicks the American people least able to afford it, people living in rural areas; certainly, some people who recreate on Federal lands can afford the $35, but many whom I represent in depressed logging communities and former mill communities cannot. To say that somehow we should extract $35 from each family so they can take the kids out, park the car by the side of a logging road and swim in their favorite stream that they have been swimming in for generations, or to go hunting for rocks or go hunting in the fall. This is extraordinary to me. These are public lands. These are not developed areas. These do not require recurring costs to the Federal Government. We are creating a new king's domain. I mean let us be straight about it here. Let us admit we are charging the American people for something they have already paid for in their tax dollars. We are charging them to use logging roads and turnouts that were subsidized by their tax dollars. We are charging them to drive on public lands and park their car, public lands that are paid for and maintained out of the general fund of the United States in terms of forest firefighting and other issues. Should those people be charged and be caused to bear those costs? I think not. This is not a fair fee or a fair tax. The amendment I am offering, since the committee has turned down a reasonable proposal; I suppose perhaps there is something to hide here. Perhaps we do not want to go through the regular authorizing process as the subcommittee chairman promised me we would do 2 years ago; perhaps we do not want to hold hearings in areas that are affected by this tax. Perhaps we are worried about the outcome. Perhaps the people on the Committee on Resources on which I sit, who represent people in the areas which are most affected, might not be totally receptive to this. Perhaps it would be a risk. Perhaps the program would be modified, changed, or maybe it would not even get through. That would be a true legislative process. Instead, buried deep in an appropriations bill without a single hearing is a 4-year extension of a new tax created in 1996. That is not right. It is not fair. If my colleagues have confidence in this, because I heard in the debate last year, oh, people love this program. Of course, the Forest Service says something different. The people who are trying to enforce it are being abused and threatened. They have had more vandalism of the signs for this program than anything else. A lot of people do not even know where to pay the fee. The sign does not tell you. You get to the end of the logging road, this has happened to me, and there is a sign there saying, you must pay a fee to use the site. It is too far from anywhere for them to put one of those dead-man kind of collection things because someone will pull it out and take the money out of it. So it just says, you have to pay this fee somewhere, somehow, some time, or you are going to get a ticket if you park here. People do not even know where to go. Yes, the program has been slightly simplified. No longer do you have to have 50 or 60 different passes to drive throughout forests in the Western U.S. In the Northwest, you can get away with just a couple. That is $70. Seventy bucks is a lot of money for an average working family. I know it does not nick people in this place too much, but it certainly does the people who I represent. It is not fair to do this and it is not right to do this without going through the authorizing process, without holding hearings, without taking public testimony, without assessing the next GAO report on how much of this is going to administrative costs and collection costs because in the first cut, almost 40 percent of this program was going to administration costs and collection costs. Forty percent of a new tax. So every American family paying $35 is contributing 40 percent of that for bureaucracy and maybe the other 60 percent goes to something they care about. Since this money is not centrally controlled or not spent according to any plan, it is up to the discretion of the local forests. Some forests have done better than others in spending these excess funds out of this new tax. Others have not. They spend it in ways that the people who paid it do not want to see it happen. So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, to strike this section from the bill. It would still run for 1 year from next October, even if this is struck from the bill, and that would give the Committee on Resources a year to read and digest the GAO report, report an authorization, and take it up before the entire House. That is the way we normally do things around here, except when we have something to hide, and I guess in this case we have something to hide: an unfair tax on the American people that has never been properly authorized or commented upon.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.