Norm Dicks

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. I take it the gentleman is not going to answer the question. Let me give my colleagues a few choices. Range management, wild horses and burrow management, oil and gas, coal management, mineral management, Alaskan minerals for the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), hazardous materials management. I mean, I think if the gentleman is going to cut something, he ought to be able to at least identify an account or two and how he would like to cut it. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DICKS. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, the Bureau of Land Management, just in case some people would like to know, for the multiple use management protection and development of a full range of natural resources, including minerals, timber, rangeland, fish, wildlife habitat and wilderness of about 262 million acres of the Nation's public lands, and for management of 700 million additional acres of federally owned subsurface mineral rights, the bureau is the second largest supplier of public outdoor recreation in the Western United States. Under the multiple use and ecosystem management concept, the bureau administers the grazing of approximately 4.3 million head of livestock on some 161 million acres of public land ranges and manages over 48,000 wild horses and burros, some 262 million acres of wildlife habitat, and over 117,000 miles of fisheries habitat. Grazing receipts are significant as are other receipts. I would just like to ask the gentleman who sponsored the amendment, tell me one account in this bill that he would like to cut. Can the gentleman tell me one specific line item that he would cut with his meat cleaver instead of his meat ax? Can the gentleman tell me one line item in this bill that he would like to cut, and name it specifically?

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, we certainly will help and cooperate and do everything we can to be supportive.

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

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

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, one of the things about this bill, it generates $6 billion in revenue. This is a revenue-producing bill, and a large amount of that revenue comes from the Bureau of Land Management. I want to point out to Members, this amendment will cut into the BLM and will hurt our ability to gain this revenue. This comes from oil leasing, cattle leases, mine leases, grazing leases, all of the various ways that we raise money through this bill. Also, some Member said this is not a big cut. This is a 20 percent reduction in the activities of the Bureau of Land Management. It is $149 million below the President. It cuts $6.8 million from wildlife and fisheries. It cuts $21.4 million from energy development. It cuts $19 million from transportation on Federal lands. It cuts $15 million from resource protection, and many other important accounts. The chairman of the Committee on the Budget said he can support this bill. The President has set up his statement of administration policy. He can support this bill. What we have here is a small group of Members who are intent on making a point. I think they have made it, and I think the House now has to vote down this amendment and show them that they support the work of the Committee on Appropriations, and that we are in a position now to get some action on these 13 bills. We have a responsibility to the country. Let us get moving on these bills.

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

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I do not think we want to go back to the days of massive continuing resolutions where this House has not even had a chance to exercise its goodwill and judgment on these individual bills. That is where the real mischief can occur. These bills are responsible. We ought to deal with them, each one of them. That is the most effective thing we can do, fight amongst ourselves, get the best numbers that we can. But to go straight to continuing resolutions puts the power in just a handful of people, and this House, and its views on spending issues will be completely ignored.

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

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, the point is that, what is it, 67 percent of the budget is entitlements. We are talking about one-third of the budget, when we look at discretionary spending, a significant part of that is defense. A significant part of it is HHS with very crucial and sensitive programs. I just hope that the same zeal and vigor will be applied by the people who are bringing us the Agriculture bill with that big expenditure that just went through this House of Representatives and when they look at tax cuts for the wealthiest people in this country. But to come after these bills that have been worked out on a bipartisan basis, that restrains spending, we can go through this exercise, but we all know what this is about. As the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) would say, you have a few people here posing for holy pictures, that is what this is all about. I would hope that we would quit wasting the committee's time and move forward and vote on this amendment and defeat it like it should be defeated.

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

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I just want to commend the gentleman on a very thoughtful statement, to remind those people who have spoken earlier, if there is no money, if the BLM is cut by $162 million, then there is not going to be money for them to borrow to fight the fires; these accounts in the BLM, the money that is borrowed that is used to fight the fires. So if that money is taken away in a meat ax approach like this, then they are not going to have that. The gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) is absolutely right about the maintenance. We have to maintain these parks, these facilities, et cetera. It has been a high priority of this committee to do a good job on that and we have increased the money for the maintenance. We still have, as the gentleman points out, this long backlog. So a meat ax approach is not going to solve this problem. The gentleman should remind his colleagues that the President supports this bill and the chairman of the Committee on the Budget supports this bill. So what is the problem?

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

Mr. DICKS. Is the gentleman from Indiana using the chart?

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I have a point of order. Does the chart have to be taken down when the person who speaks is no longer speaking?

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise in very strong opposition to this amendment. First of all, this amendment would cut $162 million. It is a 20 percent reduction, $149 million below the President's budget request. Remember, the President of the United States in his statement of administration policy says he supports this bill. It would cut $6.8 million from wildlife and fisheries, $21.4 million from energy development, $19 million from transportation on Federal lands, $15 million from resource protection. As our former colleague, Silvio Conte, would say, this is nothing but a meat-ax approach by Members who have not read the bill, and their only possible course is to do across-the-board cuts rather than make specific cuts. I rise in opposition, and I urge that we vote down the amendment and move along.

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

Mr. DICKS. Point of order, Mr. Chairman. Does the gentleman want this chart?

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega), a strong supporter of this committee's activities. (Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DICKS. I thank the gentleman.

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

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, how much time do we have remaining?

Mr. DICKS. I thank the gentleman. We wanted to make sure we could see it.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes. First of all, I want to join those who have complimented our chairman, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen). He has done a great job as chairman of the Subcommittee on the Interior, coming after the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) who was another outstanding chairman, and I would like to look back to the days of Sid Yates, who was also an outstanding chairman. We have had great leadership and great bipartisan cooperation on the Subcommittee on the Interior, and the chairman properly mentioned all the staff people. I just do not think we could have a better staff on both sides of the aisle than we do on the Subcommittee on the Interior. They work with all the Members. They listen to everybody's concerns. This truly is a bipartisan bill that deserves the support of this institution. I see the gentleman from Alaska, my good friend. I also want to mention that we are very pleased, for the third year in a row now we have fulfilled the commitment when we created the conservation trust fund a few years ago. When the other body would not enact the gentleman's legislation on CARA, we stepped in, and this year I want my good friend to know that we have taken the money from the original 2000 account, about $680 million, we are up to $1.44 billion, and the whole, we put Commerce-Justice-State together with Interior, $1.92 billion. So we are keeping our commitment and living up to what we said that we would do in the days of CARA. So I am proud of that. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) worked on that. This has been a bipartisan effort. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) was involved. This has been a bipartisan effort on creating this conservation trust fund that allows us to deal more appropriately with all of these problems. The other thing I am pleased about in this bill is an initiative that I took on dealing with the problem in the Northwest of culvert replacement. The forest service and the BLM, have not been doing a good job in replacing culverts that block salmon, from being able to go up and down the Columbia River, up and down all the rivers in the Pacific Northwest. There are about 5,000 of these culverts that need to be replaced, and we have to start on that this year. This is a modest start, but one that I am proud of and that the committee responded to due to a GAO report in a hearing that we had on this issue this year. So I am pleased to be here to support this bill, and I want to also compliment the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen), who has had an outstanding career, 22 years here. He has no enemies in this institution. He only has friends. And he will go back to New Mexico and enjoy the good life, as he deserves; but I want everyone to know that he has been a joy to work with. He has been a friend. We have traveled together, particularly on the Subcommittee on Defense, and I have really enjoyed working with him. We are going to miss you, but we are going to fight and get this bill passed. And I want to remind everybody on that side of the aisle, this bill is supported by the Bush administration, and I think that is important. They accept the level. They say they would like to have this trimmed or that trimmed to have money to add back into things they want, but they accept this bill. So I hope that the Members on the other side of the aisle will join us in a bipartisan spirit and get this bill passed tonight. I hope we can do it in a timely way. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.