Wayne Gilchrest

Mr. GILCHREST

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, the main discussion here seems to be, on both sides of the aisle, the question of human rights violations, the question of religious persecution, immigration policy, and the issue of the POW and the MIAs. So how best do we deal with that particular issue right now 2 or 3 decades after the war is over? I think that the U.S. needs to exert its influence in those areas. So how best do we exert our influence to change that, when it seems to me very obvious America's absence of engagement will create a void that will be filled by a country with little or no interest in our POWs or MIAs, human rights violations or their emigration policy. It is the United States in this world that wants to be engaged in those kinds of problems. The Vietnamese government has shown significant improvement in all of these areas in the last couple years, especially since our former colleague, Pete Peterson, a former POW, is now the ambassador to Vietnam. With the Vietnamese and the Americans working side by side on roads, bridges, coastal hotels, dredging the harbors, et cetera, et cetera, with the Vietnamese paying the bill, with that kind of engagement, the human contact with this country and that country will make the difference. I urge a no vote on the resolution.

Mr. GILCHREST

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

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to thank the committee and the chairman for their efforts to increase the amount of money put into the Coast Guard budget. I especially want to thank the committee in their endeavors to try to find moneys to put into and increase the interdiction budget for the Coast Guard. The administration has lacked boldness and intensity in its effort to engage the problem of drug interdiction into this country. Mr. Chairman, I do think we need to continue to look for further resources. You have mentioned some examples a little bit earlier. I would also like to continue to pursue further funds in the conference committee. The interdiction that the Coast Guard provides for this country, I think, is very misunderstood by most Americans and many Members of Congress. We have a finite border in the United States. It is not infinite. With the collaborative efforts of the Coast Guard, Customs, DEA, military services and other agencies, it is possible, we have seen plans time and time again, we have seen examples of when these plans are put into effect that we could cut, we could interdict 80 percent of the drugs coming in by sea by the year 2007. It is possible. But we need to generate the resources in a collaborative fashion to make these predictions come true and they can come true. I as well as all of us here believe in many types of drug treatment, public and private. We believe in educational programs. I even believe in the graphic TV commercials that are put on television. We must do everything we can to reduce drug use and drugs coming into this country. It is possible if we work together to make this happen. I applaud the committee and their efforts to do so. I have one other comment in this bill, Mr. Chairman. There is some money taken from the fisheries program which helped bump up the money in the interdiction end of the Coast Guard process. I have a problem with that. We need more money in the interdiction program, that is true, but we have 2.25 million square miles of coastal waters that the Coast Guard needs to enforce our fisheries regulations. What do they do? They have search and rescue for fishermen, they provide enforcement so that many countries, mostly foreign, cannot use these high sea drift nets which are 25 miles long and longer. We protect the billions of dollars in the industry that this country depends upon. Fisheries is an important part of this program. It is an important part of this country. The Coast Guard not only enforces the safety aspect of this and saves people's lives at sea but they stop dead in their tracks foreign fishing vessels from encroaching on our waters. Mr. Chairman, once again I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia for his effort in this. The Coast Guard is one of those unseen entities that we need to continue to encourage, and I look forward to working with him.

Mr. GILCHREST. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. GILCHREST. Absolutely.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey) for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, it is a little quieter today in Washington in thoughtful reference for Mr. Gibson and Mr. Chestnut. Our hearts collectively here in the Nation's Capitol reach out to the families of Mr. Gibson and Mr. Chestnut, to comfort as best we can their sorrow. These two brave men have not only saved our lives, but these two brave men have changed our lives and this place forever. Their friendly presence and their warm smile will be with us as a Nation as we go to work, as we go to school, as we travel through the hallowed places of this country. We will feel the presence that Mr. Gibson and Mr. Chestnut have left. A summer afternoon at a ball game, we will feel their friendly presence. During the gentle spring rain or a cold winter night, we will feel their warm smile. When we experience joy, they and their spirit will be with us. When we experience sorrow, these two men will be there as well. Mr. Chestnut and Mr. Gibson, their lives were the essence of humility, commitment, compassion, faith, and love. They have set the mark for all of us to follow.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for yielding. I would just like to conclude that I compliment the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Fowler) for her cooperation in her disagreement tonight. I still have strong disagreements with the gentlewoman from Florida. I have strong agreements with the gentleman from Oregon, and I also want to compliment him on his efforts in bringing this issue to light before the Members. This is not an issue of 32 acres being taken out of the system. It is not an issue of 75 acres being taken out of the system. It is an issue of creating an environment where we begin to lose a few acres every year. I do not want the system to leak. Now, I have had discussions with the delegation from Florida, and Mr. Chairman, we have a strong commitment by the Florida delegation to work to ensure that we lose no more acres to the coastal barrier resource system in this country, that the 1.3 million acres that we have now in this system will stay intact. Because of that commitment, and the dialogue that we have had before we reached the floor, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

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

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment, Amendment No. 21.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this amendment. The Coastal Barriers Resource System was created by the Reagan Administration in 1982. It was recognized at the time that coastal barrier islands are just that: they are barriers. They protect the mainland from storms, tidal floods and a number of other things. Absent human involvement, these islands are not stable systems. Even with human habitation, they are very unstable systems. These islands are frequently subject to hurricanes, flooding, and shifting coastlines. They basically, Mr. Chairman, are very unstable and on a regular basis they are very dynamic. Oddly enough, however, they also represent prime oceanfront real estate and have been heavily developed in many areas. This development typically proceeds with full awareness of the risks involved, and worse, very often there is no thought given to the natural processes of these dynamic coastal barrier islands. As a result of that, we have seen for decades that large amounts of Federal assistance is provided then for disaster relief, flood insurance, beach stabilization, roads, et cetera, et cetera, after the inevitable storms roll through or nature takes its natural course. When the Coastal Barrier Resource System was created in 1982, approximately a half a million acres was included in the system. In 1990 it was amended where it was up to about 900,000 acres, and today in our system we have about 1.3 million acres in 22 different States in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Great Lakes coasts. The Coastal Barrier Resources Act was designed to limit development on coastal barrier islands, therefore limiting Federal aid in new development projects. The act does nothing to prohibit new construction on land within the system. That means if one wants to build a house within the system on a national barrier island, one can do that; we just with the act limit the amount of Federal responsibility to one's particular choice. The language in the Interior appropriation bill would remove 75 acres from the system in various areas around the State of Florida. It would designate 32 acres of a State park as otherwise, and it is already protected, but it would designate 32 acres of a State park as land within the system, and would add 7 acres to the Coastal Barrier System. By comparison, Mr. Chairman, 75 acres does not sound like a lot when you compare it to 1.3 million acres in the system, but that is not the question. The question is and the problem is that this provision in this bill, in effect, has a negative effect on the integrity of the whole system. These areas were the areas in question tonight and, in my judgment, were legitimately included in the Coastal Barriers Resource system. This provision in this bill sends a clear rifle shot signal to developers that the coastal areas are now, those coastal areas in this provision in the bill are now and must be the responsibility of the American taxpayers to be responsible for if a hurricane blows through. In units of the Coastal Barrier System, the act prohibits Federal expenditures on items such as, and right now those areas within the coastal barrier system, the Federal Government cannot expend money for bridges, sewers, roads, housing, shoreline protection, that is beach replenishment projects, water supply, wastewater treatment facilities, disaster relief, flood insurance claim payments, and so on and so forth. If we take an area out of the Coastal Barriers island system, then the Federal Government will be responsible for all of those items. Federal subsidies, according to the Congressional Budget Office, for coastal development costs the American taxpayer right now $82,000 per development acre per year on coastal barrier islands that are outside the Coastal Barrier Resource System. According to FEMA's own numbers, the Federal flood insurance program in 1997 had a net loss of $117 million, a net loss. Expanding opportunities to develop in high-risk areas will only worsen that condition for ratepayers and taxpayers. The National Weather Service says that in this fiscal year, well, they do not go according to fiscal years I guess, but in 1998 they say there will be 10 storms, 6 of which will be hurricanes.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. There are some good public housing projects that work well and there are some bad public housing projects that work terrible. What is the difference under the present regime? It is good management. It is not the people that live there that cause the problems of crime or drugs or rundown buildings. It is 100 percent of the responsibility of the management. If we have good management, we will have a good public housing project. If there is poor management, there will be rundown buildings, crime-ridden streets and people that live in despair and hopelessness. Accountability goes a long way, almost the whole way, in providing service, housing, safe housing, for people. What is the mystery of human initiative? Responsibility and dignity. The amendment the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lazio) offers us today provides a better opportunity and better quality housing than anything we have done up to this point. I urge my colleagues to vote for the amendment.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, there has been a great deal of talk this afternoon about free markets. There has been a great deal of talk about one region over another region having a benefit. That certainly is a discussion that we need to have. I think the House floor at this point is not the place to discuss whether the Northeast Dairy Compact has an advantage over the Wisconsin or Midwest dairy farmers. We are going to disagree on it. I strongly urge a no vote on this amendment. This can be taken up. We can extend it for 6 months. This is a discussion we need to have. Mr. Chairman, we should not be discussing ending a program that is unfair to one part of this country and then transfer that problem to another part of this country. That is going to be the result of this vote if it passes. I would like to take this to a slightly different perspective. This country was founded on four things, and that is why we are very successful: democracy, which is what we see here; character, which for the most part is what we see here; an abundance of natural resources; and an endless frontier. Our endless frontier is virtually gone. Our open space is becoming gobbled up by a lot of things, including development. Our natural resources are diminishing quickly. So what we have left to keep this country going, to keep the prosperity and the quality of life that people want for generations to come, is our ability to discuss in an intellectual fashion how we manage what we have left for future generations. The idea of a free market is what this country is founded upon, for the most part. General Motors prospers, Westinghouse prospers, industry prospers, but agriculture is different in some ways. General Motors can still work if it rains. Westinghouse can still work if there is a drought. If there is a severe drought in certain parts of this country, they prosper, and agriculture suffers and sometimes becomes eliminated. So unless we understand the mechanism of agriculture, and I know the gentleman from Massachusetts may not be here, but he talked about a free market system. A free market system is fine if we had an endless frontier, because we would have thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of acres in excess. But what we have is thousands and thousands and thousands of acres being developed every single year. Millions of acres are lost from agriculture to development in one form or another. So the idea that this country must continue to manage, yes, and the Congress needs to be engaged in that process, about how we can make it fair across the board. I think a 6-month extension is the right thing to do. I think Wisconsin and the Northeast Dairy Compact, the people in California, need to continue to debate and discuss over that period of time what they can do to ensure that the family farm, which is another issue of discussion here, and the family farm is different than the export farm by a long shot. The corporate farm turns farmers into employees. It does not take farmers and continue to allow them to be farmers, it turns them into employees. We can see that in the poultry industry. A poultry grower, for the most part, in this country, is not a farmer. He or she is an employee. We want to reverse that, if we can. We want to make sure that that does not happen in the dairy industry. One last comment. This is a complicated issue. People are talking about, let the prices take care of it. Let free markets take care of it. The price of a bushel of corn today is the same as it was, given the season, 40 years ago. The price of a bushel of corn that the farmer grows to feed his cow is the same as it was 40 years ago. The price of a combine that harvested that corn 40 years ago was about $25,000. Today it is well in excess of $100,000, and it is closing in on $200,000, so the small family farm is being squeezed. The gentleman from Wisconsin was talking about that, that the Wisconsin farmers are having a difficult time, but so are the farmers in Maryland and New York and Massachusetts and all over this country. We have to stop arguing bitterly with each other and make sure that we understand that the foundation upon the food source of this country is not corporate agriculture that will get out of it as soon as the profits are gone, but those who love the culture, those who love farming. That is the family farm. So I would urge a no vote on the amendment, with all due respect to the people from the Midwest and Wisconsin, and let us get together as soon as we can this summer, with those who represent the small family farms from all across this country, and discuss this problem.

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

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman continue to yield?

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to ask a question. Can we treat an industry like agriculture or the dairy industry in the same way we treat an industry such as General Motors, Westinghouse, Wal- Mart, in the same frame of understanding as we refer to as a free market system? Can we treat both those industries the same?

Mr. GILCHREST. Is it the same? Wal-Mart or General Motors can operate if they have 11 or 15 or 20 days of rain, but if you have 11 or 15 or 20 days of rain during the haying season, you lose a large crop, or you cannot plant our corn.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman McDade) for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman may know, Assateague Island National Seashore is in my district. This coastal barrier island has been home to feral ponies for more than 300 years, habitat for a number of endangered species, and protects homes on the mainland from the full force of Atlantic hurricanes. When the Ocean City Inlet was blown through by hurricanes in the 1930s, a jetty was constructed to protect the inlet from closing so the business enterprises could be protected. However, the flow of sand that naturally replenished Assateague was cut off and the island has been eroding every since. The Assateague restoration project is currently authorized at about $16.9 billion, of which we need in the near future about $4 million. Severe storms in January and February of this year caused a wash-over along 7 miles of the island and, as a result, the island is now under imminent threat of breach. Without the support of this Congress, it would be difficult to continue the project that is necessary to protect the island and mitigate the problems of the homes behind the barrier island.

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

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for his help on this. I also want to wish the gentleman Godspeed and a great retirement.

Mr. GILCHREST

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

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

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I think, number one, we, as Members of Congress, should continue to debate the kinds of language and the kinds of things that the overall American public would consider as real campaign advocacy. There is an election in New Mexico right now, I would tell my colleagues of this House, where the kinds of campaign rhetoric against one of the candidates, which happens to be a Republican, is absolutely false. There are blatant lies. That is what I would assume and strongly feel that this legislation would get at. I would never say that the Christian Coalition in its information packet about candidates and their voting record is masquerading as something other than what it is. I think they would be protected under Shays-Meehan. I do not see the Christian Coalition packet of information about Members of Congress any different from that of the League of Women Voters.

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

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