Wayne Gilchrest

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. But in 1995, my question is, considering the gear type we have in 1995, considering the number of fishermen that are out there, considering the number of boats out there, considering all of the technologies----

Mr. GILCHREST. I would like to ask the gentleman from Louisiana a couple of questions. If we were debating this issue in 1901, then I would agree that all of this discretion is fine.

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

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would like to extend my compliments to the chairman of the full committee for coming up with a bill that goes a long way in protecting a huge natural resource and a very strong part of the U.S. economy, and that is the fishing industry. I also rise in support of the amendment offered by the gentleman from California, and I think because of several reasons that this body ought to vote for that amendment. First, it was in the original bill. I think the idea of this provision being in the original bill was to give the councils some discretion to place an emphasis on one of the most important aspects and parts of the fishing industry, and that is habitat, where these fish spawn. They have the discretion; to the extent practicable, they can use this in the formulation of their plan. One striking detail, or one striking fact, shows the necessity, in my judgment, of this amendment, and that is you could stop fishing today. You could stop all fishing in the coastal areas and still lose 75 percent of the commercially valuable fish to habitat loss. Now, this does, to be honest, involve some of the recommendations and some of the insights into gear types between different competing fishermen. But the emphasis here is to protect habitat laws, and the emphasis needed for the council to use this discretion is overpowering. To lose 75 percent of the commercial fish because of habitat loss is a striking fact. We also see problems with water quality being degraded by a whole range of sources. In any one [[Page H 10226]] given year in this country, actually in any one given day, one-third of the shellfish beds throughout this country are closed because of problems with habitat. So the bill has gone a long way to protecting the fishing industry in this country. I think we should stick with the original language, including ``to the extend practicable'' from the gentleman from California, and I urge a ``yes'' vote on the amendment.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, as far as Atlantic mackerel is concerned, we could catch 60 times more than we are catching now under my amendment. I do not think my amendment would prevent catching this particular mackerel to raise the stock of the ground fish.

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

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Just a comment very quickly to the chairman of the full committee, and also I would say the ranking member of the full committee, the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Studds]. These two gentlemen probably know more about fishing than anybody else in this Congress. I also want to compliment the gentleman from Alaska for dealing with this issue to protect the fishing industry. Just a couple of quick comments about my amendment and how it would impact arrow tooth flounder. Right now, the allowable catch for arrow tooth flounder is 312,000 tons. What is being caught right now is 45,000 tons. So we can continue to catch a huge amount. I am not sure what you would do with it, but you can catch a huge amount more, and not come close to maximum sustainable yield. I see the gentleman from Massachusetts, the other gentleman from Massachusetts, who has an issue with Atlantic mackerel, the allowable catch for Atlantic mackerel is 850,000 metric tons. What is actually harvested right now is 12,500 metric tons. So that means you could incurease both of these enormously without impacting the yield of this particular species. What you need to do to catch more mackerel or more arrow tooth flounder is to find a market for it. But my amendment does not impact in any way the complexity of the ecology of the fisheries. I also want to make one other comment about the number of organizations and people that are supporting this amendment. I have three pages of organizations, from fisheries institutes, from fishermen, from scientists, and so on.

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

Mr. GILCHREST. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. What I would like to do is just give a demonstration of what overfishing is. If you look at this chart up here, sustainable fishing, you can only take what the fish can make. I am going to show you what a sustainable fishing management plan does. If you look at the green fish up here, this is considered that catch. If you look down here, you see breeding and juveniles. These are the fish that actually have the potential to reproduce themselves. Sometimes fish have to be 9 years old before they can reproduce. Sometimes they have to be older than that. A sustainable fishery plan works as follows. Just watch this. You take the catch. You look down here, those 10 fish can be replaced with the number of spawning fish at the bottom. This is like being back in a classroom. Now they are replaced. What we can do down here, there are still a number of fish that can grow and respawn. That is a fishery management plan that brought the rockfish or the striped bass back in the mid-Atlantic States. I am going to show you what happens if you do not have a management plan. You exceed maximum sustainable yield. You take more of the spawning in the catch than can be replaced. When you do down that far, the only thing that can be replaced are now three. The next year, since fishermen are used to catching what they have caught the previous year, you are going to go further down into the breeding population, into the juvenile population, and what you have is a fishery that collapses. We have seen it in New England. We have seen in the Gulf of Mexico. We have seen it around the coastal areas of the United States. The United States has more coastal fisheries waters than any country in the entire world, but unfortunately, because occasionally there has been mismanagement, we are a net importer of fish. If we want to sustain the fishing industry, which is worth billions of dollars, if we want to sustain fishermen who need to support their families, I will give you an example: In 1986, in the Gulf of Mexico, the average wage for a fisherman was $39,000. Now, 1995, the average wage for a fisherman in the Gulf of Mexico is $29,000. That is because they expend much more time trying to catch fewer fish. I encourage you, let us put some sense back into the management of one of the greatest laws this country has had, the Magnuson Act. I urge we include some science, we include some data to relieve the burden of the management councils from making these decisions. They receive this information from the National Marine Fishery Service, from the scientific statistical committee, from an advisory panel. They get this information. Let them use this information. They can allocate the amount of time you will be out there fishing. They can allocate the number of fishermen. They can allocate the months of the year that you do it. Unless we manage the fisheries wisely, we are going to lose the fisheries in this country. I urge adoption of my amendment.

Mr. GILCHREST. Reclaiming my time, what we want to do is sustain.

Mr. GILCHREST. I made a comment about the percentage of fish caught and percentage wasted. When I said we are a net importer of fish, I did not include a percentage of any particular species of fish.

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

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the gentleman from Louisiana, as a Member from Maryland, I will do everything in my power to sustain and to continue the livelihood of those families that are engaged in these shrimp fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico. I think the last thing I and Members of this committee want to do is to eliminate that particular industry. The last thing we want to do is to import more shrimp rather than to use our domestic shrimp, and the last thing we want to do is to impose burdensome gear types that are unworkable. I want to make a couple of points. The gentleman was talking about rush to judgment on using different gear types, on reducing by-catch. There was a study that cost well over $1.7 million. That study has been going on for 5 years. The study is ready to be implemented, and the gulf council, the South Atlantic council are gearing up to implement the study that was approved by a full range of groups, including a number of fishermen. So the last thing we want to do is to put people out of business. We are not rushing to judgment. This study has been completed, and it is ready to go. What the gentleman from Louisiana wants to do is postpone it yet another year. I am not sure the ecology of the fishing industry in the Gulf of Mexico or the South Atlantic can wait that long. By-catch and waste are currently the greatest threat to the commercial fishing industry. Fishery managers around the country are faced with the problem of how to reallocate what is thrown overboard toward a more beneficial use. A fish that is caught and thrown back dead does not add anything to the economy. It does not put food on the table. It does not keep the shrimp fishery families in business, and it will certainly not produce generations of fish that will yield economic benefit in the future. Discards represent 80 percent of what the gulf shrimp fishing industry pulls in over the side. Throwing away 80 percent of what they catch, we cannot sustain that. Something has to be changed. As this Congress endeavors to find ways to diminish a staggering Federal deficit, as we contemplate the exploitation of some of our most fragile natural resources to address that, I find it absolutely unconscionable that we will allow this sort of waste to continue as we try to stretch taxpayers' dollars to assist communities in New England that once relied on the collapsed Georges Bank stocks. It is astounding that we prevent these two councils, South Atlantic council and gulf council, from managing the stocks under their jurisdiction to prevent a similar catastrophe for red snapper fishermen and so on. Fishery managers in this country are charged with the duty of managing marine resources to the maximum benefit of this Nation. We do not want to interfere with the fishing industry in the Gulf of Mexico, but I do not think Washington, DC, should tell the gulf council that is deciding to implement some of the advice of this 4- or 5-year-long study and the South Atlantic council that are ready to implement some of the recommendations, I do not think we here in Congress should at the last minute, which is what is happening, deny those councils the right to do that. It does not necessarily mean in all cases a FED, a fish excluder device. It does not necessarily mean the FEDs are going to be implemented in all of the ships. My last point, we waste, just in that area of our coastal waters alone, try to imagine, 50,000 10-ton garbage trucks. That is how many fish are wasted each and every year. We cannot afford to continue that waste. While we are wasting fish, even though we have more territory than any other nation in this world as far as the ocean is concerned, we are a net importer of fish. This is a study that has taken 5 years. It is a study that has cost $7.4 million. It is a study that the gulf council and South Atlantic council are willing and ready and gearing up to implement, and I do not think we, as a Congress, in the last minute should deny them that right.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the following committees and their subcommittees be permitted to sit today while the House is meeting in the Committee of the Whole House under the 5-minute rule: The Committee on Commerce, the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities, the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, the Committee on International Relations, the Committee on the Judiciary, the Committee on National Security, the Committee on Resources, the Committee on Science, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It is my understanding that the minority has been consulted and that there is no objection to these requests.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a comment about Medicare and the proposal that are going to be up this week for a vote on the House floor. After reading the material and understanding that the long-term sustainability of Medicare as it stands right now is not in good condition, what we need to do to protect seniors right now and protect those people that will move into that category in the very near future is to reform Medicare so it is sustainable over the long haul. In order to do that, we have to reduce the amount of cost to each senior citizen. We have to slow down the rate of growth for Medicare from about 10 percent to about 5 percent. We have to protect Medicare part A. These reforms do that. We have to protect Medicare part B. These reforms do that. We have to give seniors more options, more health care, and better quality health care. These reforms do that. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues, when the vote comes up on Thursday to vote for the reforms.

Mr. GILCHREST

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

Mr. GILCHREST. Any existing law remains in effect at this time, yes.

Mr. GILCHREST. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I want to compliment the gentleman on about 98 percent of the content of his amendment. There was one part of the amendment on which we had some confusion with the language referring to stipends for those contractors who were not selected with the award. The gentleman withdrew that section of the amendment, and we have worked out a compromise where we will hold hearings on this portion of the amendment. I am sure we can resolve this problem.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, we are not going to solve this war by doing nothing. Where is the door to hell on the planet right now? The door to hell resides in this bad peace in Bosnia. What has caused the 200,000 deaths in Bosnia? What has caused the 3 million refugees? What has caused the continuing nightmare of rape and mayhem? What has caused evil to prosper in Bosnia? Dogma, ignorance, arrogance, apathy, the Nation's community who have had a sense of deliberate deafness to suffering. Are we as a nation becoming a nation of tortured ghosts because we do not know what to do? What has caused this evil to prosper, this door to hell to remain open in Bosnia for good men like us to do nothing? The Bosnians are far better off defending themselves than relying upon platitudes and international bureaucrats.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a comment about who the special interests are that want an ``aye'' on this vote. They are seniors, they are children, and everybody else in between, that wants safe drinking water, clean water, and clean air to [[Page H 7942]] alleviate the problems of asthma or allergies and all those other things. So those are the special interests that want an ``aye'' on this vote. Earlier, Mr. Chairman, someone said this is a back-door strategy to end reform. Well, my colleagues, this amendment is a front-door strategy to continue environmental progress. This amendment is a front- door strategy to separate the problems in the regulatory bureaucracy from clean water and clean air that we accumulated in the last 20 years. Mr. Chairman, I guess that the members of the Committee on Appropriations are saying to themselves, ``Boy, we showed the EPA a thing or two.'' Under the language in this bill EPA would pretty much be prohibited from enforcing much, if not all, of its laws. It seems that we began in an effort to scale back even reasonable environmental restrictions, and this has turned out to be an all-out huge scare war against environmental protection, and I think that just simply cannot happen. I guess the great secret of the 1994 election was this. The great secret of the 1994 rollover election was this: Our constituents are furious about clean water. They do not want clean water. They are furious that some of the asthma problems are being relieved by clean air. We all seem to pay lip service to EPA. We pay lip service to clean water. We all want clean water. But the fact is, where the rubber hits the road, it takes a little more rigorous mental effort to untangle the tangled web of regulations without denying the American public, those interest groups that want clean water. Let us put forth a little more rigorous mental effort. One other thing. I hate to hammer this point home about how many times we talk about whether or not we should appropriate, use the Committee on Appropriations, to legislate. That is what the authorizing committees are for. All of my colleagues out there that are on an authorizing committee, they are simply giving away their responsibility, totally giving away their responsibility, and to my friend and colleague, the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, who I work with all the time to preserve agriculture in the United States, I say, ``How many farmers have children with asthma? How many farmers have children with allergies? How many people out there depend on good environmental laws to protect their livelihood?'' To a large extent we are pitting one job against another job, and we should not do that as Members of Congress. I urge my colleagues to do the right thing seriously and vote for the amendment.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I really appreciate the compromise that has been worked out on both sides of the aisle. A couple of quick comments to show the Members the importance of these little-known issues: The National Marine Fisheries Service is the entity that collects the biological data on coastal fisheries worth billions and billions of dollars to this country. Even if we stopped fishing in all the oceans, we could still lose 70 percent of the commercially caught fish if we did not have any sense of where these fish spawn and where these fish spend a good deal of their life. The National marine Fisheries Service collects that biological data, and I appreciate the increase in the amount of money. The Great Lakes is an enormous attribute to the United States, so we need to have some sense of the fisheries in that area. The coastal ocean program forged grants, which is very valuable to coastal States, the Coastal Zone Management Act, a voluntary organization which provides valuable data on the biological health of our coastal economies. I would ask the Members though, as we pursue this effort, the National Marine Sanctuary program should use a little bit of attention as we move along on this issue.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I would like us to all ponder a question: What is the role of the Federal Government in economic development. What is our role? We hear a lot about the private sector. I think everybody here believes in the private sector. I believe that the role of the Federal Government is to create an environment conducive for economic productivity in the private sector. Once in a while, the Federal Government needs to play that particular role. The new Republican majority has raised a lot of questions as to what the role is that Government should play in the private sector, and I think we can all agree that in certain circumstances, the Federal Government needs to provide the infrastructure, whether it is highways, water projects, certain basic needs that the community cannot provide for itself. I want to make one other point here. This is not a giveaway program. This whole program has been reformed, and to a large extent this program provides grants so communities can make them into loans, and these distressed communities can create much more diversity in their economy. The EDA reform bill, which our subcommittee recently reported, will make significant changes in the way the agency is structured. The Washington bureaucracy of EDA, and listen to this, the Washington bureaucracy of EDA, is entirely eliminated. It will be replaced by eight regional commissions that will be controlled by the States. I might add that under the reforms we have passed, EDA will no longer be dependent on the Department of Commerce. If the Department of Commerce, if it is the will of the House and the Senate to get rid of it, EDA can continue. Finally, we will get back to focusing on the mission of EDA, which is creating infrastructure, but I want to make one last important point. The second main mission is one that is gaining in importance with each new round of base closings. Many communities stand to be devastated by the loss of defense- related jobs. The bill before us directs significant resources into defense conversion. EDA is the largest program aimed at weaning communities off these defense-related agencies. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Hefley amendment.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, a couple more facts here: Last year 130,000 people applied for what we used to call the farmer's home loan, and that is 130,000 that applied, 15,000 were able to take advantage of the money that was available. This year, under the present conditions, it would only be 8,000 people able to take advantage of it. Two years ago 27,000 people were able to take advantage of it. We have reduced those important farm programs by just a small amount. That small amount can be transferred into rural housing. The importance of rural housing cannot be expressed enough. We have people that are working with children that must rent. They are not really contributing to the tax base of the community, they are not building up equity for their family. With a small amount of rural home loans by the Federal Government we are not only going to help those rural families, we are going to contribute to the community, and many of those rural families that we are helping with this loan money are children of farmers who deserve the dollars. Mr. Chairman, I encourage my colleagues to vote for the Castle amendment.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I would like to give an analogy here as to what we are doing and people saying we are saving money or we are not saving money. Try to imagine that you have a 1965 Chevrolet pickup, eight cylinders, that you are renting, you are leasing. You do not own it. It is 1995, and you are having all kinds of problems. You are running on seven cylinders instead of eight cylinders, you have bald tires, you have a leaky engine with oil, and you name it, and you are going to keep it and you think you are going to save money with fuel and repairs. It does not work that way. The FDA is operating out of buildings that were old chicken houses. They are operating in 22 different facilities that are breaking down. If we want to save money, if we want to do something about the scatter of buildings, then it is time that we consolidate it in a state-of-the-art facility rather than use the 22 old buildings. I would encourage people to understand that if we continue the way we are going now, we are throwing good money after bad. We are wasting taxpayers' dollars. If we want to save tax dollars, then we ought to let the authorizing committee decide whether or not FDA's program is good, not run this thing through the appropriations. Let us do it in the authorizing committee. If we want a food advocate petition to go through faster, we need the consolidation. If we want medical applications processed faster, we want a new consolidation. If we want to own the property that costs less rather than continue to lease property which costs more, we need to consolidate. Think about the 1965 Chevrolet pickup and a new one.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I understand what the gentleman from Tennessee is trying to do and I understand why he is trying to do it. I believe that my amendment will serve the gentleman's goals, but I do not believe that we should kill the FDA consolidation program at this point because that in the long run will cost much more money. My amendment will prohibit any outlays from the Public Buildings Fund until such time as a prospectus for the FDA project is passed. I am aware that the Committee on Commerce intends to exercise its oversight functions over the FDA, and that the committee may decide to change FDA in such a manner that the campus consolidation will no longer be necessary. As the chairman of the Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Economic Development, I would have no intention of scheduling a markup on such a prospectus until the Committee on Commerce has had time to review the FDA consolidation. The gentleman from Tennessee, who is a member of the subcommittee, will have ample opportunity to make himself heard on this subject and on the effect of the prospectus. As the gentleman knows, our subcommittee and the full committee have decided to get tough on public buildings. We have already established a moratorium on courthouse construction and we will be looking at the cost of construction on other projects. If the prospectus for the FDA project in Maryland indicates that we are building a Taj Mahal, then I will work with the gentleman to modify the prospectus or to outright kill the project. But if we want FDA to function more efficiently, and I think we all want that to happen, then it makes sense to consolidate its functions. We have all heard complaints about how long it takes for the FDA to process an application. Is it any surprise that an agency which is scattered over 22 separate locations is inefficient? If we do not consolidate the FDA, then we will continue to waste money on aging and inadequate leased space. Here is something else: The Federal Government will save money if we own the land and own the building instead of continuing to lease inefficient buildings and costly space. The other thing is, there is a strong possibility that we will save, if we continue to move forward, large sums of money with the base closing of White Oak, a naval facility in Maryland. The FDA consolidation can move most if not all of these new buildings to the White Oak area, which is what the FDA is looking for, 150 acres. White Oak will save us millions of dollars, and we will own the land if we move forward now. I agree with the gentleman, while the FDA consolidation is technically authorized, it is wrong that our subcommittee has never been given the opportunity to exercise its oversight of public buildings and grounds on this project. If the Duncan amendment goes through, if it is successful, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure will never be able to rule on a prospectus for the FDA. I promise the gentleman from Tennessee that our subcommittee will exercise rigorous oversight of the project and that the Committee on Commerce will have a chance to exercise their oversight as well. I encourage people to vote for the amendment to the amendment.