Lloyd Doggett

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, the willingness and desire of our colleagues from New England to put this nuclear garbage as far away from there as possible out into west Texas is quite understandable. The silence in some cases and the open invitation of Governor George W. Bush that we accept all that nuclear garbage is a little bit more difficult to understand. It is difficult to understand, particularly because some of the latest reports suggest that we do not need as many radioactive waste dump sites as are currently planned, that economically it does not make sense. We should consider the fact that none of these dump sites have been licensed for almost 20 years, despite the fact that some compacts have been formed. If we get on the fast track in Texas to put all that nuclear garbage out in Sierra Blanca, guess where the major waste dump site for the country is going to be located? Right there in that poor Texan Hispanic neighborhood. I think that is one of the reasons why in June of this year some 95 environmental groups and legislators in both Mexico and the United States asked Governor Bush to keep his word and to stop this ongoing project. Unfortunately, that has not happened. I find interesting the emphasis on the word ``low,'' when talking about nuclear waste or radioactive waste. Low. It reminds me a little bit of one of those late night commercials on television where someone is talking about ``how low can you go'' when buying a car or mobile home or something else that they might want to sell on there. Well, let me tell my colleagues how low this radioactive waste is. It is low enough to kill you. It is low enough to kill people for thousands of years to come. It is low enough to kill people who exist on this planet today and anyone in the future that might exist on this planet that would ever remember those of us that are gathered here on the floor of this Congress today. It is low for public relations purposes. It may be lower than the highest level of radioactive waste, but it is high enough to be lethal and deadly and not to be placed in Sierra Blanca.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I am aware of the limitation and the application starting this out. But we are approving a compact that is to last for the ages. My concern is that, as the gentleman just pointed out, and I could not agree with him more, that all 50 States would like to send their garbage to Texas. My guess is that with the kind of hospitality that they are being shown by Governor Bush and others who have been even more silent than he has, that they will all have a chance to put Sierra Blanca on the map. It is a small place, heavily Hispanic, very poor. It is one of those places you can drive through and hardly know you have been through it when you are going down I-10 on the way to El Paso. It is going to be a point on the dot that they know about in Alaska and Vermont and Michigan and New York and all over this country, because it is going to be send your nuclear garbage there. Get a little bit in there now and a whole lot later when we amend the application.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I know the gentleman is familiar with the terms of some of the other compacts that have been approved in the country for other States. We have heard so much about this Congress approving other compacts. Is it not true that some of those other compacts have provided representation for the very county and the very region where the regional facility would be located and that this particular compact does not give the people of El Paso or Sierra Blanca or Van Horn or Pecos or any of the area affected or any of the places through which that waste might be moved like Austin, Texas, they do not get any representation guaranteed in this compact agreement, do they?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, and then I noticed an editorial in my hometown paper, the Austin American Statesman, back in April that was entitled, ``Okay, If You Must, Keep It As Just Three.'' It concludes, if a three-State compact really means just three, no one should fear putting that into law. It is the very least that can be done to reassure Texans they are not getting suckered. I want to ask the gentleman if he feels that the people of Sierra Blanca and west Texas will be suckered if this kind of proposal without the three-State limitation is approved.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield, indeed, did not the former governor of Connecticut already inquire and try to become associated with this compact?

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

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, without the amendment that this House and the Senate approved, there is absolutely nothing to keep a group of unelected commissioners, appointed by the same governors who may have said, as in our case, one thing in Texas and another thing up here in Washington about this compact, from taking that nuclear waste from any of those States; or maybe some of the ones that are in compacts already but are part of those compacts that have been unable to get a licensing agreement since way back in 1980, almost 20 years ago?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that the States of Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey are not a part of the compact at present. My question is, are there not a number of very large States with a significant amount of potential to generate nuclear garbage, specifically Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey, that do not have a compact partner right now and would love to send their garbage down to Sierra Blanca?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, as the gentlewoman from New York has pointed out quite eloquently, regardless of one's position on the merits of this compact, the rules of the House have been violated and the instructions of the Senate and of the House have been disregarded. When this measure went to the conference committee, there were guarantees to protect the folks in Texas, that they would not be taking waste from States other than Maine and Vermont. There were guarantees that the people, the poor people of the Sierra Blanca area in the district of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla), would have some rights and remedies if their interests were abused, as they surely will be if this waste site is located in Sierra Blanca. But this is more than a matter of abuse of the rules of the House and the Senate and of parliamentary procedure and insider talk. I would suggest to my colleagues that anyone who has come to Texas has learned that one of the great qualities of our entire State is something called Texas hospitality. If you choose to visit our State, you will get more than just a pleasant ``Howdy,'' you will get nods and smiles, and ``How are you doing,'' from folks that do not even like you down there. We believe in genuine hospitality. It is a warm State in more than the temperature at this time, and those of us who grew up in Texas take a special pride in that Texas hospitality. But a very good and rare quality is being taken just a little too far when it comes to this compact, because there are those in Texas who basically are saying, ``Send us your radioactive garbage.'' Unfortunately, at the top of the list is our Governor, George W. Bush. It seems to me that the slogan that one can find on one pickup truck after another around Texas, and even a few other vehicles, ``Don't mess with Texas,'' is being converted by that administration into another slogan, ``Send us your mess; and in particular, send us your nuclear mess.'' Governor Bush and other Statewide officials in Texas mostly have become largely silent on what is to become a nuclear waste dumping ground for this entire country, and that is the Sierra Blanca waste dump site in far West Texas. On April 19 Governor Bush was quoted in the Houston Chronicle with some very positive comments about the issue that this conference committee has now dumped. He said, ``My pledge is to make sure that those are the only two States beside our own to use this dump site.'' I was very encouraged by his comments, though he had been largely silent. Then I learned that within only a few days of that comment in Texas, that Governor Bush signed a letter on April 22 of 1998, within the same week, in which he urged the conferees to end the provisions that would provide the very protection that in Texas he said he was for. He was quoted the other day down in Brownsville as saying that he believed that this concept of limiting the dump to Texas, Vermont, and Maine, two small New England States sending a minimum amount of radioactive poisonous content to Texas, was such a good idea that he would be willing to write a State law to deal with this issue. The only problem is that if you have signed a compact ratified by Congress that provides otherwise, how are you going to write a State law? If it is such a good idea in Texas and Brownsville and in Houston to limit the nuclear radioactive garbage that is about to be dumped in the pay toilet out in West Texas, if it is such a good idea to write a State law, then why not speak up vigorously for what has been done by the United States Senate and the United States House, and that is to write it into Federal law that we were limiting that amount of garbage that will come to Texas, not to the world but to those two small New England States, which was the original justification for having this compact? We cannot have it both ways. Either we are in favor of protecting the people of Texas, as the Houston Chronicle called for yesterday in an editorial, we are either in favor of protecting the people of Texas, or we are in favor of extending that Texas hospitality a little too far and saying to the people of the United States, wherever they are, all of them who are in States who, since 1980, have not been able to get a single licensing agreement for a radioactive waste garbage site, ``We are sorry you had problems, but we in Texas love having nuclear radioactive garbage from all over the country, and send it down to the poor people of Sierra Blanca. Send it to the good people, send all your nuclear garbage to the good people of Sierra Blanca down in the district of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla), on the edge of the district of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes), because they love to have your garbage.'' I want to tell the Members that the folks of that area do not want the nuclear garbage, and neither do many people across the State of Texas. The more they learn about the dangers of this dump site, the less they are going to want it. There is a significant question here about why this particular site was chosen in the first place. I understand, and I am sure Members will hear that, oh, no, this does not have anything to do with the selection of a particular site. We are just going to arrange for all the garbage from around the country to roll into Texas. There is no guarantee it is going to go to Sierra Blanca. Indeed, some administrative law judges in Texas have recently questioned the Sierra Blanca site. The Sierra Blanca site was not chosen because it was the best place in the United States to locate nuclear garbage, or even the best place in the State of Texas. It was not chosen because it happens to be near a fault that recently had an earthquake and has had tremors, and might well expose this nuclear waste to flowing down the Rio Grande River, since it is so near the Rio Grande, poisoning the water supply for literally millions of people on both sides of the Rio Grande River. It was not chosen for those reasons. It was chosen because it was perceived that the people of Sierra Blanca lack the political power to be able to do something to protect their neighborhood; that it was okay to take this garbage from across the United States and put it into a poor neighborhood that would not be able to resist. That is just not my comment on it. I turn to the comments of some two Texas A&M professors, employed by who actually promote this dump. This is in an article that appeared in the Texas Observer on October 24 of last year. They said, ``The findings of this survey suggest that a broad-based public information campaign designed to familiarize the general public with all aspects of waste disposal siting might prove detrimental. A preferred methodology might be to develop public information campaigns targeted at specific populations. One population that might benefit from such a campaign is Hispanics. This group is the least informed of all segments of the population. The authorities should be aware, however, that increasing the level of knowledge of Hispanics may simply increase opposition to the site.'' And indeed, that is exactly what has happened. The more that particularly the heavily Hispanic population of West Texas has learned about the dangers of this dump site, the more they have questioned it. Indeed, the more people of any ethnic origin in Texas, including, I am sure, the readers yesterday of the Houston Chronicle, learned that this is about to become a dump site for garbage from all over the country, the more they are going to resist the idea, and say, ``We still like the sign that we see on the bumper stickers on the back of pickup trucks all over Texas: ``Don't mess with Texas.'' Don't send us your nuclear garbage. Another phony argument that the supporters of this compact advance is that if we do not have this dump site, we are going to practically end medical and academic and industrial research in this country. Ninety-nine, to be charitable to the supporters of this dump, 98 percent of the garbage that is going to be dumped here does not have anything to do with medical, academic, or even industrial research. Most of this garbage is coming out of decommissioned nuclear power plants. It may well be that some with Maine Yankee Power think they can cut a better deal to put it somewhere else, and then assign their rights to others who have nuclear garbage around the country. That is why this provision is so anti-Texas, and why it is so strange that, as we gather here today, despite a vote of the United States Senate and of the United States House in favor of limiting this dump to Texas, Vermont, and Maine, that the conference committee has taken that protection off, that it has removed the protection to the people of Sierra Blanca and the surrounding area that Senator Wellstone put in, and why this rule should be rejected.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, before coming to this Congress, I worked each day in a much different place, in a courtroom, as a judge on the highest court in Texas. I was called a justice, as were my colleagues, and asked to do justice. And yet, time after time, I found my hands and those of my colleagues tied by a Federal law. We saw victims of injustice, who had suffered not only some grievous loss in terms of an illness or an injury, but the same families who suffered abuse at the hands of insurance companies, and, because of a law that was passed in this National capital, we were powerless to do anything about it. Recently the State of Texas became the first state to pass a new law to try to hold these managed care companies accountable for what they were doing. And, wouldn't you know it, the same insurance companies that used to come into my court went into another court to try to block this new state accountability law. Today that same group of health care companies finds willing allies over here from the Republican leadership to help them continue to do the very same thing. They are folks who would deny help to the infirm. What is happening here is much like a firefighter, who sometimes builds a small fire in order to stop a much larger fire. There is a fire of outrage burning across this country, as one family after another suffers abuse and limitation of care at the hands of managed care companies. So the Republican leadership has come forward today in a very contrived fashion. They tried to provide the least amount of reform possible and still call it ``patients rights,'' while doing essentially nothing to untie the hands of judges all across this country to provide a remedy. Mr. Speaker, they say that what they are about is providing help to patients and not getting lawyers in the process. But, you know, that is false under their whole procedure. They keep lawyers involved in the process. They keep them involved only for the insurance company, not for the victim of the insurance company's abuse. They say that it is okay to have the lawyers that write the loopholes, that counsel the insurance companies to interfere with some clerk, who never had any health care experience, in the best recommendations of a physician or other health care provider to help that physician's patient get well. But Republicans would deny any enforcement, any accountability, for that insurance company. They say they are opposed to getting juries involved in this process, and that is also false. They simply leave the only jury as not a jury of one's peers, but an insurance company, that acts as judge, jury and, in too many cases, executioner when it comes to providing health care. We would remedy that through the Dingell proposal, not through some election year sop.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, for anyone who sacked out back in 1995 and pulled kind of a mini Rip Van Winkle and just woke up this week, we are right where they left off when it comes to clean air and clean water, because the same anti-environmental spirit that dominated this Congress back in 1995 is alive and well tonight. Now, most Americans remember 1995. They remember not the words of Democrats, perhaps, but the words uttered at that very microphone by one of the top three members of the Republican House leadership, who stood there and said of the chief environmental law enforcement agency in this land, his words were ``It is the Gestapo of America. It has its claw holds in the backs of Americans.'' That is the philosophy of the House Republicans. It has not changed. The attitude is still there. The philosophy is still there. The effort is still there. But they have become a little more subtle in their tactics, and that is what this Waxman amendment is all about, the subtlety of those tactics. The American people want clean air. They want their children to have clean water to drink, they do not want it full of mercury or PCBs. They want their children to have a healthy environment. So, unable to come to this floor and legislate directly on these issues, these Republicans come and do it indirectly by legislating on an appropriations bill; and, in some cases, even more subtly, afraid to legislate in the appropriations bill, they just write a command into the committee report. I have enjoyed the Republican responses to our concerns: ``Oh, don't worry. We just wrote it in the report. It doesn't really make any difference.'' Well, they were not writing it in the report to just fill white pages with black ink. There was a purpose in writing it in the report. These are the folks that write the budgets for the people that enforce our Nation's clean air and clean water laws. What do my colleagues think those people think when they get a command from the people that write those laws, that also happen to write their budget, that sets their salary, that sets their travel, that sets all the support money that they have to enforce the laws of this land for clean air and clean water? They do not just view it as an idle thought. They view it as a command. That is why even this more subtle tactic of sticking it in the report is very, very important. When we look through these riders we find the same Republican Party that talks about less government and less red tape, trying to tie up the chief environmental law enforcement agency in this country and prevent it from doing its duty of enforcing the law of the land. Let us look at the specifics. The requirement that the EPA, though authorized under existing law to reduce the dangerous levels of mercury into the air, they want to force the EPA to study that some more. Mercury has been responsible for killing fish in 50,000 different bodies of water across this land. It can have life-threatening effects, and yet they say that the Environmental Protection Agency cannot make any regulatory determination; that they must study and study some more. The same thing with reference to the food supply for infants and children. The only study they really want there is to study how to exempt more food providers from those rules. Let me tell my colleagues about these studies. They are being urged by the same group of people that when they heard from the Surgeon General in 1964 that tobacco causes lung cancer and emphysema, they are the same folks that are still studying it today, and not wanting to do anything about it on the floor of this Congress. They are going to study it until time eternal rather than taking effective action to do something to protect our clean air and our clean water. Then the other excuse that was advanced this evening was the suggestion that if we dealt with haze, the kind of haze we hear about down on the Rio Grande River or the kind of haze that sometimes lingers over the Grand Canyon, spoiling that wonderful vista, that if we dealt with haze in the air, that that might be because, and they do not have all the documents they contended, that might be some way that they are actually going to do something about global warming. Heaven forbid. The very thought that the ostrich would take its head out of the sand, getting hotter all the time, and actually do something about global warming before the glaciers melt and the forests and the farms are burnt up. What a horrible thought that is that they might actually do something.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, so eager are they to thwart even the possibility that someone might study this growing danger of global warming, of the greenhouse effect, of the fact that a lot of this planet is warming up, much warmer than this debate I must say, and the threat that that poses to the health and safety of the future of all the people on this world, so eager are they to prevent even a study that they have come in and tried to limit a study of haze that relates to the ability to see the great national wonders in our national parks and forests across this land. That is the same extreme position that led one of the Republican leaders to talk about our environmental law enforcers and to denigrate them as the gestapo of America. Then there is the issue of PCBs in our water. It was only a few decades ago that one of our Nation's leaders was said to have commented about the Housatonic. There is no tonic quite like the Housatonic. Well, I do not think he had in mind a river that was full of PCBs. The EPA is talking about trying to do something about it. There is a fear that they might actually go ahead and do something about it. All this talk about things just being report language, when is it that we are going to see in a report that we want the Environmental Protection Agency to do a more vigorous job of enforcing our laws, cleaning up our water, cleaning up our air, protecting our natural resources so they will be there for our children in future generations? That is the kind of report language I would like to see in this report instead of tying the hands and crippling the efforts of this agency to do its job. That is what is going to happen when we adopt the Waxman answer and reject this extremist agenda.

Mr. DOGGETT. Reclaiming my time, well, we finally in the last couple of days have here in Washington the kind of weather that started out in Texas and much of this country back in May, the kind that leaves people sweltering. And while we cannot say every bit of that is the result of global warming, we do not have to wait for Alaska to have the kind of weather that we are having out here on the lawn at the front of the Capitol today or the kind that has disturbed the people of the South for the last several months before we begin to address this problem. So I am pleased that my colleague, at least through this amendment, will allow a little education perhaps to the Members of this body and certainly the American people about the gravity of this problem. But I would hope that eventually, perhaps as we work through the process on this bill, that some of the other restrictions that have been placed in this particular appropriations act bill would also be altered, because we need the greatest flexibility to look at this problem and provide the leadership to resolve it.

Mr. DOGGETT. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I think that Vice President Gore has demonstrated significant and important leadership on this topic that has far- reaching consequences for our generation, for future generations, for us not just as Americans but as citizens of this one planet. As I have listened to some of this debate, I have become convinced that perhaps this very debate and some of the comments that have been made during it make the strongest case for the Obey amendment that we really do need much more education. The Obey amendment is indeed a modest step forward. It does allow for some flexibility, and I would hope that it allows for more than just more talking on this subject. We do need to begin to start looking at some solutions to this problem, not just to talk about how severe the problem is but to actually begin to do something about it. Where I come from down in Texas, it is at this very moment sizzling in the shade. We got our typical Texas August about the beginning of May this year, and it has stayed that way. Many regions in our State have had triple-digit temperatures now for almost 3 weeks in a row. Eighty people have already died from the heat just in the State of Texas. And we have a lot of other folks down there that are concerned that our fields will burn, they are already burning; that our cedar breaks will catch fire, just like the ones over in Florida. And we have, of course, also felt more than most other parts of the country the severe impact of looking out at the sky at noon and not being unable to see the sun or anything else because of all the smoke that has filtered up as the rain forests of Mexico have burnt in some of the driest conditions that that area has ever faced. Meanwhile, the scientific data is mounting that at least a significant contributing factor is changing climatic conditions or global warming, and that the planet is getting hotter by the year. What a very strange time for this Congress, as these conditions exist, to be enacting what would essentially be the ``Mandatory Ignorance of Global Warming Act of 1998.'' The language, as originally proposed, seemed to tell the folks that are involved in environmental protection for this country, ``do not even think about global warming,'' a little like those parking signs we see ``do not even think about parking here.'' Well, the subject seems to be, do not even think about global warming or anything we can do about it. It goes far beyond the language necessary to have the very legitimate debate over the precise effect and cause of global warming that the gentleman from California just referred to. Rather, the approach of this language, as originally proposed here on the floor of the Congress, seems more consistent with redesignating our national bird from the eagle to the ostrich. Because they really are proposing to bury our heads in the sand, as the thermometer keeps counting for a rise in temperature, instead of trying to look at solutions to this problem. I have been interested to hear people suggest that we need to focus only on America and complain about these other countries that are not participating? Unfortunately, some of the same people who have tried to obstruct in every way how this country deals with the global warming challenge went over to China and to other countries and urged those countries not to participate on this entire problem. So it is a little bit of a conflict that they say they want to deal with this whole global warming issue in a constructive way that everyone ought to be a part of the solution, as indeed every country should be a part of the solution, and yet at the same time they were trying to twist arms and influence opinion makers abroad to keep them out of a global solution with reference to this whole matter. I do not believe that we have to wait until the glaciers melt or until the fields and the forests are burnt or until more and more people have skin cancer to begin to study and look for solutions to deal with this global warming challenge. There are many responsible corporations who feel that way, too. And without Government involvement to any significant extent, they are already out there working to try to find a way to reduce greenhouse gases. I believe we ought to provide them incentives, that we ought to encourage their activities to address this challenge, that recognizes that while we have 4 percent of the world's people, we are producing 25 percent of the greenhouse gases in this entire planet. I believe we have some responsibility not just to be a world follower but to be a world leader. To be a world leader, we, at a minimum, need to continue to focus on educating our own people, on educating the world about the challenge and not following the path of ``know-nothing-ism'' that was originally proposed in this bill.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I have the deepest personal respect for those whose religion or other personal conviction causes them to take a different view than I have on the question of abortion. But my respect does not go so far as to suggest that I believe they ought to be able to impose their religious views on this issue on someone who does not share those views. Further, I think personally of my own experience as a father. With my wife of 29 years, we have raised two wonderful daughters. And it is troubling to think that there would be a time in a crisis, including a crisis involving an unwanted pregnancy, when they would not want to come to one of us and discuss this matter. And yet, I know that this piece of legislation is not about strengthening family ties, because the whole difference of opinion that I have with those who feel so strongly on this abortion question is that the Federal Government and the Members of this House cannot replace broken family ties or the inability of families to communicate. This piece of legislation does not concern strengthening families, it concerns advancing an agenda of the most fanatical people with reference to this question of invading personal choice. If we read what they have written, the fanatics on this issue, we will find that they believe that in this country their ultimate goal is to make it a criminal offence, they view it as murder, for anyone at any time after conception to have an abortion. They want to put women who exercise this choice in jail. And they also want to place in jail every health care provider who provides for an abortion at any time after conception. And recognizing that that fanatic agenda which they have written about cannot be implemented because it is opposed by the vast majority of the American people, they have decided to approach this issue one group at a time and one procedure at a time. So they have done their polls. And next week I think we have a chance to consider this question of one very rare procedure that President Clinton had the courage to veto when they passed legislation last year. And so they are going to criminalize it one procedure at a time, and today they propose to criminalize it one group at a time. And this particular group includes people like big sisters, grandmothers, stepparents, best friends, even members of the clergy, that might be consulted by a young woman in a very troubled situation and advise or help her to cross a State line to receive these kind of services. That person could be put in jail. I maintain that what is at stake here today is this fanatic movement to ultimately criminalize the choice being exercised on this very private decision by a woman--to put women in jail and to put every health care provider involved in jail. And I see my colleague from New York (Mrs. Lowey). She knows, well, we face this same issue later today on other legislation. This same group of fanatics also wants to limit access to contraceptives because they seem to believe that the right of motherhood is more than that. It will be imposed without any choice on the part of women in our society. So it is essential that we vote down this agenda and stop the path toward criminalizing choice for women in this country. The surveys show that 30 percent of the young women who choose not to notify their parents, when you look at those who do not seek parental consent, are people that have been victims of family violence. I thought it was all summed up by a colleague of mine in the Texas Senate from west Texas, who said, when asked about these parental consent laws, ``well, you know, I have not met very many young girls who ask parental consent for conception. Why do we think they are going to ask it with reference to the choice of abortion?'' The idea of putting a grandmother in jail, putting a big sister in jail, putting a clergy member in jail because they were willing to help a desperate young woman make a tough choice is wrong, and we ought to vote down this bill.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, my thanks to the ranking member, my friend and colleague from Ohio (Mr. Traficant), and to the chairman of the committee for their favorable recommendation on this piece of legislation. It is with the greatest pleasure that I authored and now join in presenting this legislation as a tribute to the outstanding public service of Jake Pickle by naming the Federal Building in Austin in his honor. For 31 years, from the time that I personally was a senior at Austin High School with his daughter, Peggy, until the day I was sworn in as a Congressman representing the same district here in this House in 1995, Jake Pickle was the only Congressman who ever represented me, and he did that and his representation for all of us in central Texas with the very greatest distinction. For all but 3 of his 31 years in office, the first 3, he officed on East Eighth Street in Austin, Texas, in the building that will now bear his name. This is not, of course, the first structure in our community to bear his name. Our future in central Texas is already marked with the Pickle Research Campus and Complex at the University of Texas, and I am sure that this will not be the last such physical reminder of all that those decades of service have meant to our neighbors there in the Travis County and the broader central Texas area. James Jerald ``Jake'' Pickle was born in 1913 up in Big Spring, Texas, and a few years back I had the pleasure of attending one of his many birthday parties and found that there must be something really good up there in Big Springs in the springs because there were a number of people that he went to public school there in Howard County with who were there, and they brought the same degree of enthusiasm that I have always seen in his work as our Congressman. Jake went on to get his degree at the University of Texas in Austin back in 1938 where he served as Student Body President. He later worked as an area director for the National Youth Administration under President Roosevelt, and he served 3\1/2\ years in the Navy, as was mentioned, and I understand he even had a career as a night watchman over here in the Cannon Office Building where he later officed. Upon returning to Austin though after World War II, he worked in radio at KVET in public relations. He served as the director of the Texas State Democratic Executive Committee and as a member of the Texas Employment Commission. It was from his position at TEC that he resigned to run for Congress in 1963. He has established himself throughout his career as someone who is willing to stand up and be counted for what he believes in. It was only a short time after he arrived here in Washington that he faced the challenging decision, given the times, of whether to vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and he joined five other Members from the Southern States who voted for that legislation and still tells the tale of getting the call at I believe it was about 2:00 in the morning from President Johnson commending him on his support for the Civil Rights Act, and he went on the next year to support the Voting Rights Act and to continue his work on behalf of a broad range of people from our community in having opportunities for all of us to participate and share in the greatness of America. The service that he rendered was, of course, closely related to the service of President Lyndon Johnson, and President Johnson and of course still Lady Bird Johnson remain close friends of Congressman Pickle. Naming this building in Austin in Congressman Pickle's honor is particularly important and appropriate because it was constructed during President Johnson's administration and still has there President Johnson's Texas apartment and office that he used during his Presidency, and it is preserved today in about the same fashion that he left it in 1973. Jake has so many great stories that only he can tell in the appropriate way about the Great Society, about President Johnson and his work on that. All of it is really the stuff of political legend in Texas. He stands certainly as one of the few remaining personal historians of one have America's greatest Presidents. Jake also distinguished himself, and I know others will speak of this, in his work on the House Committee on Ways and Means. He served as the Chair of the Committee on House Oversight where he focused on issues concerning the Internal Revenue Service, concerning the Medicare system and trying to be sure that waste and fraud were eliminated in Medicare. He also served as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Security back in the 98th Congress and is widely credited with shepherding through major Social Security reform that extended the life of the Social Security system. But I think when folks back home in Texas think of him, they think not of all of his many votes and important committee work here in Congress, but they think of him as a person that, regardless of age, they call and feel comfortable in calling ``Jake'' because he was there when they had an individual problem or concern. His reputation for effective and efficient constituent service and community involvement is absolutely legendary. He set the highest standard for any Member of Congress, certainly for me, to emulate. Not only did he engage in tireless advocacy on behalf of his constituents, he also deserves a reputation for giving selflessly of his time and seemingly boundless energies for our community. Recently Jake and his daughter Peggy Pickle have authored a book about his life and reflections on his service here that many of our Members have obtained. It is a book that contains many wonderful anecdotes about Congress, LBJ and Texas politics, and it makes very clear his philosophy. He not only felt that each of us have a responsibility to one another, but that government has a responsibility to each of us to be fair and to be compassionate. He viewed that responsibility as both a duty and an honor, and while he never took himself too seriously and always had that great sense of humor that he brought to his work, he took this duty as a representative of government very seriously indeed, and he still does. These days, while Jake is retired from Congress, he is hardly retiring, but he is working very hard there in Austin. He has continued energetic involvement particularly in questions involving our transportation system. He is invaluable. He continues to inspire us and to provide great counsel to many of us who serve in public office. Based on these and other accomplishments that are too numerous to mention, I know that Congress will move promptly to name the Federal Building in Austin in Jake's honor, and short of having the security guards there pass out those plastic green pickles that all of us have to everyone who enters, I cannot think of a more fitting way to remind future generations of Texas how much he has really done for us. With 31 years of service to this community and to its people, J.J. ``Jake'' Pickle deserves nothing less than this very permanent memorial.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, until the gentleman offered his amendment, despite the months the gentleman has spent in a bipartisan effort to try to get this disastrous program reshaped, there was not any money allocated specifically for this purpose in this appropriations bill by the Republican majority; is that correct?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate very much the bipartisan spirit with which this piece of legislation is brought to the floor, but I regret to inform the House, as I did during the rule debate, that a bipartisan effort to try to get some attention on the tons of paper and bottles and cans that go through this building and to see that they are addressed with the same amount of environmental sensitivity that families across this country use and that many businesses use in having a competent recycling program has been totally missing from this House in the last 3\1/2\ years. Let me recite the facts: For 3 of the last 3\1/2\ years that this House has been under Republican control, there has been no recycling coordinator in this Congress. Indeed there is no recycling coordinator today. As we debate today this bill, there is no recycling plan in place. As we debate this bill there is no recycling of mixed paper in this House; indeed that is zero, zip, nada, being done with reference to recycling of mixed paper. Why is that particularly important? Because since there is no recycling coordinator and no real recycling effort, most people, even if they have the best of intent with regard to recycling, do not have correct information about how to recycle in a way that will be effective, and that is reflected in other facts. When the House did recycle, it earned 30 cents per ton on the paper that it recycled. Compare that with the Department of Housing and Urban Development which earned $60 per ton because it did it properly. From October 1996 to September 1997 the House did not earn a penny because its recycling was done in such a poor, incomplete, and contaminated way. Since the Republicans have been in charge of this House, the amount of bottle recycling has gone down 83 percent. The amount of can recycling has gone down 73 percent. If they just put the cans and the bottles out here on the sidewalk for the homeless to collect, we could have done better than has been done by the House leadership with reference to this recycling program. Look at the number of trees around this country that are cut down with the flow of paper through this building. We are talking about whole forests that go down to generate the tons of paper that go through this building. As best I can estimate, just the Washington Post alone delivers 15,000 pounds of newsprint here every week. Most of it is going right into the landfill instead of being recycled in the way that so many American families realize is best for the future of this country. I believe there is some bipartisan interest in this issue, as was voiced earlier, and I appreciate the willingness to accept the amendment of the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr). But it is going to take far more than a few dollars. It is going to require a significant change in attitude by the leadership of this House if we are going to reverse this very serious environmental problem here in the Congress. This Congress ought to be leading the way, it ought to be following the businesses and the schoolchildren and the millions of families across this country that recycle. Instead the performance of this House represents a national disgrace on this issue, and it needs to be corrected immediately.

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

Mr. DOGGETT. I guess the reason that it becomes an issue that relates to whether there is a commitment by the Republican leadership to address this, is our inability to get a recycling coordinator in place and our inability to even get a copy of the report.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, one of the real success stories of the environment in America has been the increased understanding of people across this country of the importance of recycling. From young students, to retirees, to small businesses, to very large multi- national companies--all participate in recycling across this country. When I go home to my hometown of Austin, Texas, there will be the blue recycling containers in front of each house with bottles and paper and other goods. When I go by the Texas State Capitol complex, I find a program in which some 30,000 State employees are participating in recycling. Another example of the success we have had is something that was originally started in Austin called Texas Recycles. Last year that program proved so successful that it became America Recycles, and it was celebrated right here in our Nation's Capital and across the country. We honored a number of businesses that recognize it is a good business practice to recycle, not only for the environment, but because it can be a profit center in eliminating waste. I noticed in the Washington Post from last November two retirees from Silver Spring who were honored in a ``Rewarding Week for Good Recyclers'' as a part of this America Recycles program. The same story reported that now the national recycling rate is 27 percent of eligible trash. What a contrast, unfortunately, and the real focus of my remarks today, is this House of Representatives with the rest of the country. Instead of being a national leader on this important environmental issue that every American can understand, simply recycling instead of filling up more landfill and garbage, the recycling rate here in the House borders on zero percent. The recycling program in the U.S. House of Representatives, instead of being a national leader, is indeed a national disgrace. It is a sharp contrast with the efforts of retirees and students. I think of the many elementary students that get honored each year by Keep Austin Beautiful, a program like many around the country. I can tell you there is not an elementary school classroom in Austin that is participating in the Keep Austin Beautiful program, that could not do a better job than this House Republican leadership with our recycling program. Let me tell you a little bit about the failings and disgraceful nature of this program. It is very, very difficult to determine whether the source of these problems is shear incompetence or total indifference. I tend to view it as probably more a problem of total indifference and insensitivity to our environment, that has characterized so many of the other attacks on clean air and clean water on the floor of this House. But what has happened during the course of this House Republican leadership, which is now entering, I guess it is on about the second half of its fourth year, is that for three years of this three-and-a- half year administration there has been no recycling coordinator in the House. They managed to hire a woman to serve as recycling coordinator for almost six months, but she was a little too honest for the job, so she is no longer involved in the program. In December of 1996, concerned about the lack of a recycling coordinator, I met face-to-face in my office with Superintendent Miley. He assured me it was a high priority to hire a recycling coordinator and make this program work. Well, it only took another 10 months before they hired the woman who stayed here for less time than they posted her job. Of course, the Superintendent, like the other people here in the House, can only establish the priorities and follow the emphasis of the House Republican leadership, and that emphasis on recycling is right down there in last place, zero percent.

Mr. DOGGETT. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. DOGGETT. That was the national average, 27 percent. It is much higher in Austin.