Wayne Gilchrest

Mr. GILCHREST

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

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, we will continue to look at this very closely. That certainly is not our intent. Our intent with this legislation is to ensure that all participating parties improve the quality of the Great Lakes Basin, not to give one any more advantage over another.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1481, the Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act. I want to compliment the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) for his outstanding leadership and tireless commitment to moving this legislation. This measure arose from the need to coordinate management, protection and restoration of fish and wildlife resources within the Great Lakes Basin. The Great Lakes, which cover approximately 95,000 square miles in surface area, provide unique challenges for resource managers. In many respects, the Great Lakes are more comparable to oceans than lakes and require ocean-type vessels to accomplish management and research tasks. With respect to our fishery laws, we must remember that fish do not understand or recognize geographical boundaries. It is critical, therefore, that regulatory schemes are developed throughout their ranges. H.R. 1481 establishes necessary cooperative agreements between States and Federal agencies to ensure that fish passing through jurisdictions of many management regions get the proper attention they need to sustain viable populations in the future. The Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act uses cooperative agreements between States, Native American tribes, and the Federal Government to manage Great Lakes resources. The act encourages all interested parties to participate in the implementation of recommendations in the comprehensive study. These management and restoration activities were deemed necessary to restore Great Lakes fish and wildlife resources. Finally, this bill was designed to evaluate and, where appropriate, implement the recommendations of the Great Lakes Fishery Resources Restoration Study. This 5-year study identified 32 recommendations which should be undertaken to restore the fishery resources of the Great Lakes Basin to sustainable levels. Mr. Speaker, while I will let my Great Lakes colleagues discuss some or all of the 32 recommendations, I will point out that one of the suggestions was to conduct a cormorant fishery predation study. Since this issue has been of interest to several Members of the House, I would hope that this study would occur. Mr. Speaker, this legislation authorizes the Department of the Interior to spend $8 million per year to carry out fish and wildlife restoration in the Great Lakes Basin. This is a sound investment in a very important region of the country. Mr. Speaker, I urge an ``aye'' vote on H.R. 1481, and I look forward to early positive action by the other body on this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. GILCHREST asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I have spoken with the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton), and he agrees there is a legitimate issue of fairness involved. As the gentleman from Michigan may know, his home State of New Jersey is another State that suffers under the present system. He would be interested in working with the gentleman and other members of the committee to find an alternative in the near future.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) to further add to this great piece of legislation. (Mr. LaTOURETTE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1481) to amend the Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act of 1990 to provide for implementation of recommendations of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service contained in the Great Lakes Fishery Restoration Study Report, as amended.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a comment about the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr) and the noncompetitive nature of some of the deals that have been made in the past to find some alternative crop to grow in Latin America that we are keenly aware of those facets and we will continue to work to make sure that farmers in this country, whether they grow flowers or vegetables or chickens or whatever, are on a very level playing field with the international marketplace. We do not want to give anybody a particular advantage over another. I also want to emphasize that this is not a rush piece of legislation. The information that has gone into this legislation has come from various committees over two years. There was a two-year operation in the Caribbean called Frontier Shield in which the Coast Guard worked not only with the Defense Department and other various agencies of this government but they worked with the international community in the Caribbean and European countries. They showed very, very clearly that they could put a net around the island of Puerto Rico and reduce significantly the amount of drugs coming into that particular island. So what we want to do is expand this program. Just for a second, if people will in their mind imagine the United States and its coastal areas, the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Caribbean and the Gulf. This is a finite region. It is not infinite. We have without a doubt the expertise, the technology, the manpower to cut off drugs coming into this country. We can create a web, a steel web that will interdict these drugs before they reach our shores. We have the expertise, the technology, the manpower. This piece of legislation gives us the will. It is without a doubt a moral imperative for responsible adults to enter into this rather large program to reduce drug use in the United States. Do we need treatment? Yes. Do we need education? Yes. Do we need hospitals? Yes. Do we need drug interdiction? The answer is yes. I urge my colleagues to vote for the legislation.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I, too, share the reservations of the gentleman from Missouri about interrupting the normal committee process with a major new initiative. However, the normal committee process, in my judgment, was a part of this task force from start to finish. As chairman of the Subcommittee on The Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, over the last almost 2 years, we have held several subcommittee hearings on the Coast Guard's ability to work with other agencies with the Defense Department, even with other countries to figure out a plan to interdict drugs coming into the Caribbean area, the Eastern Pacific, and the United States. I think what we have done is create a plan that needs to move forward. We can interdict drugs on the high seas. At this point, I am convinced, this might sound astounding, but I am convinced that we as a country by about the year 2005 or 2006 can interdict 80 percent of the illegal drugs coming into this country across the high seas. It is possible to do that. We have the technology, the will, the initiative, and this is the first step in that direction. So I urge my colleagues to vote ``aye'' on this rule.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. The gentleman from Alabama's words are well spoken. Maryland was a border State. We stayed with the union. But this is not about a fight between the North and the South. This is about a battle that all of us take together to sustain the resources of this great country for future generations. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The issue that we are dealing with right now, this motion to strike, is to take the language out of the appropriations bill dealing with extending the State jurisdiction in the Gulf of Mexico of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama from 3 miles to 3 leagues, or 9.2 miles. I have grave reservations about this language in the appropriations bill. Number one, mainly because it has not gone through a process, it has not gone through the authorizing committees. We do not know the kinds of management plans that we will deal with in these that are now presently Federal waters. There are a whole host of other problems that I think the authorizing committees could deal with and in the next session of Congress we may, and I feel fairly confident could come up with a way to find a compromise or a solution to this particular problem. The other issue here is an issue, and I recognize this is an issue in dispute, but it deals with unfunded mandates. If these State waters are extended out to three leagues, the Governor of Louisiana has told us that he does not have the money to create a fisheries management plan and he does not have the money for enforcement. The Secretary of Marine Resources in the State of Mississippi has said basically the same thing. So this is going to cost those States a little money. The other issue is conservation. The conservation issues which deal with these are Federal waters. The Gulf of Mexico, these waters, do not recognize any kind of boundaries. It is inherent in the marine ecosystem that these fish swim from one place to another. There are no barriers. There are no political boundary lines. There is just a fishery. So to ensure a sustainable fishery, we have created basically through the Magnuson-Stevens Act a method by which the Federal Government works with the States to sustain these fisheries. If we carve up these waters, especially the waters in these particular sensitive areas, that fisheries management plan to sustain the fisheries will not work and will basically collapse in my judgment. I feel that we should hold hearings on this issue. I know it is important to the people in the region, many people depend on jobs in this particular area, but the process is to go through the committee, the questions will be answered about conservation, unfunded mandates, the State synchronizing their management plans, and I feel the process will work a lot better. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this motion to strike. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to say also with great humility that the gentleman from Alabama has expressed himself extremely well. This is an issue that we will revisit. I would look forward to working with him and the other gentleman on this amendment in the future very closely.

Mr. GILCHREST. I yield to the gentleman from Alabama.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise in reluctant opposition, because I think the motivations on the part of the people that want to extend the State jurisdiction for Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana are of the highest, and I think they want to do their best for people that they represent in this particular area. My opposition comes in three areas. One is an area that we always discuss here on the House floor, the difference between an appropriation jurisdiction and an authorization jurisdiction. There were no hearings held in this particular legislation. We do not know its impact on the States. We do not know its impact on the commercial fishery. We do not know its impact on the charter boat fishery. We do not know its impact on the shrimp fishery. There is a whole range of questions that are still out there that we do not have any real answers for that could be resolved through hearings. Let me discuss briefly some of the volatile debates we have had around here that have been resolved during the course of hearings. We have always had problems with logging issues. Through the course of hearings, we came up with, in northern California, the Quincy Library solution, with the gentleman from California (Mr. Wally Herger). We have seen solutions with the Committee on Agriculture on logging and grazing. A couple of years ago this Congress, in a bipartisan way, came together to deal with the Magnuson Act, which was to have a plan across State boundaries, across the wide oceans of the jurisdiction that the United States has in its coastal areas, to understand the need for good, science-based management plans on a resource that can be overfished. So, number one, it is really important, it is vital, not only for this Congress but for the very fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico, for us to understand the full ramifications of what this amendment will do, what this rider will do, without any hearings. Number two, this, I guess, could be stated as an unfunded mandate. I want to read two short paragraphs, one from the Governor of Louisiana and one from the Department of Marine Resources in Mississippi. The Governor of Louisiana says: ``I am also advised that the bill is an unfunded mandate, and provides no funds for Louisiana's Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to perform the functions required,'' and that the bill may be effective as early as, and we now know it would not be effective until July 1, 1999. We are looking into the issue of an unfunded mandate. Basically Mr. Woods from Mississippi says the same thing. How will they develop their management plan? What will that cost? What are the costs of enforcement? I would like to make a quick comment about the Coast Guard in response to my good friend, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan). While the Coast Guard is out there monitoring the fisheries, they are also monitoring illegal immigrants to our country. They are also checking out drug interdiction. They are also looking into environmental pollution. There is a whole range of things that the Coast Guard does with fisheries enforcement, not to mention the fact it is a huge, many multibillion dollar industry, that the Coast Guard is out there preventing many other countries from illegally fishing in our waters. The last comment I want to make is about conservation. I want to focus on the red snapper in particular. The red snapper, mature red snapper fish are for the most part caught outside State waters. That is outside of 9 miles if this passes. That is fine. But the immature red snapper, 80 percent of the immature red snapper fish are within State waters. Many of those red snappers, without bycatch reduction devices, are lost to bycatch. That means they never grow up and they can never be caught by the commercial fishermen outside these territorial waters who, by the way, the commercial fishing communities, the red snapper commercial fishermen are opposed to this amendment. If we do not have some sense of where the waters flow, about how to consistently manage and sustain these resources, we are going to lose these resources. So for a conservation effort to increase the stock of red snapper, to find the way to manage the shrimp trawling industry, we need to defeat this particular amendment by the gentleman from Alabama. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert). (Mr. BOEHLERT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton).

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, Alaska has a 3-mile jurisdiction, not a 12-mile jurisdiction, and there is only one other situation, that is the State of California, where we have had hearings, and they are managing the Dungeness crab. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr).

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. The point I would like to make, Mr. Chairman, is that there is a lot of money that is carried over from year to year. We have problems in numerous areas in the NOAA account. The point is that this particular issue, which we would like to bring before the House tonight, is that there simply is not enough money to deal with the problems of nonpoint-source pollution among our coastal areas, including the Great Lakes. There simply is not enough money, since we realize that 100 percent of the Great Lakes are under a fish advisory for consumption by people. The Great Lakes will tell women that are pregnant, do not eat any fish. In the Delaware estuary and the Delaware River, in the coastal areas around Maryland and Delaware and New Jersey, women that are pregnant are told not to eat the fish. I recognize the problems with not enough money, but we certainly need to understand the nature of the problem of nonpoint-source pollution in our coastal areas, and we need to recognize an even more serious problem of persistent toxic chemicals that not only are a problem of yesterday, are not only a problem of today, but unless these problems are dealt with they are a problem for generations to come.

Mr. GILCHREST. I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. I know the difficulty of transferring money from one account do another account, and I realize and understand the $8 million would account for close to, if not including, $15 million from these various accounts. It is my understanding, though, that there is a fairly large pot of money that is in unobligated funds carried over from one year to the next, but I do not want to get into a discussion about fine-tuning the amounts of how much money is available for satellites and Weather Service and how much money for other areas.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, and I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.

Mr. GILCHREST. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.