Norm Dicks

Mr. DICKS

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

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in sympathy with this amendment. I know the chairman may want to comment on this as well. I saw the article in the paper which affects the Nebraska and Tallahassee sites. We tried to deal with 2004 and new starts, as I understand it. A lot of money has been spent without getting proper congressional approval. I am very troubled by these incidents. I appreciate the gentleman raising this issue on the floor, and I look forward to hearing from the chairman.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall). (Mr. HALL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I want to again thank our new chairman, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor), for the way he has approached the process this year. He and the staff have worked with us and tried to craft a balanced bill within a limited allocation. And I want to also commend the staff of the committee, Debbie Weatherly, Chris Topic, Loretta Bowman, Joel Kaplan, Greg Kanadle, Mike Stevens and Lesley Turner. We have a very collegial working relationship, and it is something that, I think, the House would be proud of. During committee consideration, I offered two important amendments that I felt would have significantly improved this bill. The first amendment sought to add money for wildland fire accounts in an attempt to lessen the massive borrowing to fight forest fires. I was extremely pleased that the administration came forward last week with a $289 million request as part of an emergency supplemental, and I plan to strongly support those funds being provided as quickly as possible. The second amendment that I offered related to the conservation funding and the shortfall in the Conservation Trust Fund. The amendment was not adopted, and the Committee on Rules would not allow a similar amendment to be offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) on the House floor today. I find that unfortunate because the issue of the Conservation Trust Fund is enormously important to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I, as co-authors of the trust fund with the former chairman, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula). We reached a deal in 2000 as a compromise to the CARA legislation that would have created a new $3 billion mandatory program and instead created this trust fund to elevate funding levels for critical programs without a new entitlement. The new trust fund raised conservation spending for key programs in this bill from $514 million up to $1.2 billion and added built-in increases that would have brought conservation spending in this bill to $2 billion in 2006. I was pleased that the committee stuck to its word for the first 2 years of the agreement. This year, however, the interior bill falls $569 million short. The shortfall impacts each and every program under the trust fund: both Federal and State programs under Land and Water Conservation Fund; the Forest Legacy Program; Cooperative Endangered Species; the North American Wetlands Conservation Fund; State Wildlife Grants, Historic Preservation, Payments in Lieu of Taxes; and the Urban Parks Program. Most of these programs are either below the President's request or below last year, despite the fact that the trust funds provided for increases. And while I am deeply disappointed in the funding levels for conservation programs, there are other aspects of this bill that I strongly support. The bill provides $115 million above the President's request for the National Fire Plan, which I strongly support. It includes money to continue two national environmental restoration projects by the National Park Service, the Everglades Restoration Project in Florida and the Elwha River Recovery Project in the State of Washington. Additionally, the bill contains important language related to the Everglades that protects the Federal interest and ensures that the State of Florida is meeting its obligations to improve the quality of water entering the Everglades. The bill also contains language relating to competitive sourcing that I believe is necessary to ensure that Congress has a clear understanding of what the administration's intentions are in this area. This committee recently learned that both the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service had plans to spend several million dollars on these activities without following standard reprogramming guidelines and without clear direction from Congress. I consider this bill a work in progress and am hopeful that we can work together on areas of this bill that I believe still need improvement. At the appropriate time, I intend to offer an amendment with my colleague, the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), to increase money for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. We were successful with a similar amendment last year, and I hope this year we can again come together and show the full support of the House for the two endowments. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Rothman), a valued member of the Committee on Appropriations to engage in a colloquy with the chairman of the subcommittee.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver), our distinguished colleague and member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), one of the leading environmental advocates in the House of Representatives.

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

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I ask the gentleman if it is true that the President of the United States when he ran for President said we were going to have full funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, $450 million for Federal, $450 million for state-side, and now we are down at $197 million for both programs?

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking Democratic member of the full committee.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey), a member of the subcommittee.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a valued member of the House and a person who is very interested in environmental issues in the Pacific Northwest.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I want to be heard on the point of order. I would just say that I, first of all, want to associate myself with the remarks of the chairman. I think he has made very clear why the committee felt it must do what it did do. I would also say to the new chairman of the authorizing committee, it is time for action on this issue. We can no longer let this slide or neglect or not bring this to attention, because millions and millions of dollars are being wasted on lawyers and accountants instead of going out for Indian health service and all the other issues. I concur with the chairman. We have to concede the point of order, but I would urge the chairman, please do not let us down again this year. We need action on this issue. I know the gentleman has taken over, and I urge him to take action and get a settlement. We cannot let this thing go on and on and on. I concede the point of order.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment. I want to commend the delegation from Florida for working on this issue. This has been something that I have personally taken an interest in, gone down to Florida, seen the work on this incredible project, the work of the Park Service and all of the Federal agencies. This is truly a national environmental restoration objective, and many of us were concerned who followed this issue about the actions of the Florida legislature earlier this year; but I want to commend the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart), our new member, for the work they have done in crafting this legislation. We even out in the West are concerned about the Everglades, and we want to see them restored; and we want to see the commitments kept between the State and Federal Government. We need to go year by year, and I think the funding for this project depends on moving the ball forward and keeping things moving in the right direction. So I commend all of the work that has been done to straighten this out, and we look forward to the first report.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words, and I rise in support of the Slaughter amendment and am proud to be a cosponsor of this amendment. We have offered this amendment successfully over the last 4 years, and I just want to say to my colleagues that I was on this committee when we were funding the arts and humanities at a much more robust level, and I agree, it is amazing that the endowments do as well as they do with the reduced funding that Congress has given them. This modest amendment, in my judgment, will do a great deal with the Challenge America program and at the Endowment for Humanities. In fact, the President asked for more money in humanities than we are giving him this year. So I think this is a very modest amendment. I can tell from my own State of Washington the appreciation of the arts organizations for the grants that they get from the National Endowment for the Arts, the universities, the people, the professors, teachers, all those who apply to the National Endowment for the Humanities, who also does an outstanding job, but at a time when our country needs to support job creation, the charts that were shown earlier, the number of people that are employed by the nonprofits that work in the arts is very substantial. This is an important part of our economy. This is not just in New York or Chicago or San Francisco. This is also in many of the smaller communities like my hometown of Bremerton, Washington. The Admiral Theater, they are having a group come in from Missoula, Montana. Arts education was mentioned. I can remember Jane Alexander taking me to Garfield High School in Seattle to see a whole group of African American youth working in an arts program. Dale Chihuly with glass in Tacoma, his hometown, one of the most prolific glass artists in the world. I think this is such a small part of the budget but such an important part, and I am so pleased that so many of my colleagues stayed this evening after the last vote to express their support. I hope that tomorrow morning we will be able to have another victory, and I urge everyone to be here early and to help work the body and get the same great vote that we had last year when we won by 42 votes, with bipartisan support. I urge everyone who is watching this back in their offices to be here early to support this amendment tomorrow morning when we will vote on it.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. On a voluntary basis in the first year. The gentleman did not use the word voluntary. In the second year, then they have to work it out if there has not been a voluntary agreement in the first year. I just wanted to clarify that point.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule for the consideration of the fiscal year 2004 Interior Appropriations Act. I oppose the rule because it did not allow an important amendment to be offered by the ranking Democratic member of the full Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). The Obey-Dicks amendment, which I strongly supported, would have added $569 million to the bill to restore the Conservation Trust Fund. I regret the Obey amendment was not allowed, because I believe it was the only real way that we could have addressed the shortfall of over half a billion dollars in the Interior bill. Obviously, we could never find the offsets within our allocation to fully fund the trust fund, and we should not have to. The conservation agreement provided for an additional allocation to our subcommittee and was never intended to come at the expense of other programs in the bill. The bill under consideration today shortchanges the Conservation Trust Fund by $569 million, providing only $1 billion of the authorized $1.56 billion. In fact, the fund is $208 million below last year, despite built-in increases under the program through 2066. Nobody wants to see increases in this area more than I do, but we must be honest that we cannot find the money from within our bill. The Conservation Trust Fund that was established in 2000 called for a separate allocation to our subcommittee and to the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, Judiciary and Related Agencies to be used specifically for these purposes. It was never intended to come from within our 302(b) allocation to the Subcommittee on Interior. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) should have been allowed to offer his amendment, and we should have been able to have a real debate on a real amendment to restore this important program. And I want to reiterate what was said earlier, that the President, when he was campaigning for President, said he was going to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund. That is $450 million Federal and $450 million for State-side programs. That budget request has not gotten up here. They tried to change certain things and call them land and water conservation, but in fact it was not the bill as enacted. I would also point out that over the years a surplus has accrued under the title of the Land and Water Conservation Fund of about $13 billion, and that is why the CARA movement was so powerful a few years ago. I think over 315 or 320 Members of the House voted for CARA, which would have created mandatory spending of $3 billion for the next 15 years. Some of the most senior and influential Members on conservation issues in this body strongly supported it and advocated it; and we in the Committee on Appropriations came up with this alternative, which the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I sponsored, along with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula). That is why there is such concern out there in the conservation community that we have not kept this commitment. So I regretfully urge people to vote against the rule. There are other issues in this bill, but we will have a chance to discuss them once we get into general debate.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to discuss the Impact Aid program, which is critically important to me and many of my colleagues across the country. The Sixth Congressional District of Washington State, which is impacted by several large and vital military installations. Our region willingly hosts thousands of Active Duty personnel, who represent a large economic force in the Pacific Northwest. Washington is also home to 27 federally recognized Native American tribes. However, with these advantages comes a drawback: the loss of substantial property areas from the local tax base. As my colleagues know, military bases and tribal lands do not pay most State and local taxes, but local school districts are still required to provide an education to children that live on these lands. Often this imposes millions of dollars in additional costs to these districts. Congress created the Impact Aid program to address this glaring problem. I was extremely disappointed when the President submitted a budget to Congress earlier this year that contained a cut of more than $170 million to this important program. This proposal was very poorly considered, coming at a time when hundreds of thousands of troops were preparing for deployment around Iraq. As it becomes more and more apparent that large numbers of American troops will be required to remain in Iraq for the foreseeable future, the decision of the President to cut funding for educating their kids is more difficult to comprehend. I commend the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for coming to the rescue of Impact Aid and rejecting the Bush proposal. However, even with that, the Department of Education estimates that another $583 million is necessary to meet these needs. With the hundreds of billions of dollars that the Congress and the President have dedicated to tax cuts, it is astounding that we cannot find just a half billion in this budget to fully meet the needs of the children of our men and women who are fighting overseas on our behalf. For years I have worked closely with dozens of Democrats and Republicans to make this a bipartisan proposal. Again, I commend the chairman and ranking member for fixing part of the problem, but we still have more to do.

Mr. DICKS

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

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, it is true that it does cost a substantial amount of money in the first few years; but there is no question that, long-term, billions and billions of dollars have been saved because of the BRACs we have had in the past. So I think we should move forward on this, and it would be wrong to do it in this bill. It would be an authorization matter. I think it is a mistake, and I support the chairman in his opposition to the amendment.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to commend Chairman Knollenberg and Ranking Member Edwards for their work on this bill. They have done their best with an unreasonable and unacceptable allocation. I know they share my deep disappointment over this level of funding, which is $1.5 billion less than was appropriated for Military Construction & Family Housing last year. Unfortunately this cut makes a bad situation worse. When the Bush administration came into office, they found a Department of Defense where the recapitalization rates for facilities varied from 80 to over 100 years in the various services. They rightly condemned this situation. However, under this budget, the recapitalization rate for the active Air Force will increase to 183 years. The Navy recapitalization rate will increase to 140 years. The recapitalization rate for the Marines actually goes down, but is still an unacceptable 88 years. And the Army recapitalization rate in this budget increases to 144 years. The DOD goal is 67 years. I strongly support the effort by Mr. Obey to increase funding for Military Construction and Family Housing in this bill by $1 billion. This funding, and much more, is sorely needed. I would like to thank the Chairman and Ranking Member for working with me on the vital installations in Washington state. We will make a start in this bill on fixing a Navy pier at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard which today is not up to Navy standards for performing its mission, which is mooring nuclear powered aircraft carriers. And the bill includes several important projects to build barracks at Ft. Lewis, refurbish the Mission Support Center at McChord Air Force Base, and rebuild the service pier at Subase Bangor. Also, this bill continues to support the privatization of family housing at Ft. Lewis, WA. Mr. Chairman, beautiful new houses have been built and are under construction there, and this Congress can be proud about the new houses being built for military families through this innovative program. I hope as this bill proceeds through the Congressional process, that additional funds can be found to make this a truly responsible piece of legislation. Having voiced my deep concerns, I will vote today in support of this bill in order to ensure that those important projects which do receive funding here are allowed to move forward.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me this time. I want to commend the chairman and Mr. Turner for the work that has gone on on this particular legislation; and I want to rise, too, to raise my concerns about this whole homeland security effort. I have had several meetings with Tim Lowenberg, the head of the National Guard in Washington State and Governor Locke's coordinator for homeland security. We have discussed on two or three occasions our mutual concerns about the resources getting back to those first responders in the State of Washington. In fact, I have contacted my fire department and police department in Tacoma and in Bremerton, the two biggest cities in my district. I have convened a meeting of the officials, and very little of the money that Congress has authorized and appropriated has actually gotten back to those first responders. I think this is something we have got to get straightened out. The Congress has to get this straightened out. I also have been out to Northern Command. I regret that I could not be with the chairman on their recent trip twice now to talk to General Eberhart about the role that the military of the United States is going to play. As strange as it may seem, for many, many years we did not have a CINC that was in charge of protecting the United States. We took it for granted that somehow we were secure from an attack. That is one thing that 9-11 certainly did change. We now recognize the vulnerability of our country and the vulnerability of our infrastructure. I agree with the comments that I have heard here this morning. We need to continue to do more. We have got to get the private sector to protect its critical assets. We have got to work with them to make certain that they are doing it. The chemical industries, our nuclear reactors, our energy plants, the transmission lines for our power grids and facilities, all of these things have to have a plan for protection. The States have to have, I believe, an individual plan for their protection. So there is a lot of work that has to be done. I want to make the same plea. I worked with the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) on a select committee on transfer of technology to China. I have great confidence in his leadership and in his willingness to take on a tough issue. But we have to have the courage in this body, this institution, to tell the administration when they are doing a good job, but also tell them when they are not doing enough. I worry that when you have the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution taking independent looks at what has happened in the last 2 years since 9-11 and the conclusion is that not much has really changed, then we in this body have a responsibility to make certain that the job, in fact, is getting done. Let us continue to work on a bipartisan basis, but let us make sure the job is getting done.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) and I led the investigation into the transfer of technology to China, and one of the things that we found in our investigation was the great difficulty of verifying what the end use in fact was. We have to look at the possibility that they could use this to upgrade their nuclear weapons capability. I think this is very serious and dangerous. I do not think we should do this. I think to end all export controls in 120 days is irresponsible, and that is what the amendment will do.