Duncan Hunter

Mr. HUNTER

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

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I want to address some of the concerns that have been voiced here by the last speaker, my good friend from Michigan (Mr. Vento). First, this is a bipartisan bill, and this is a bill that is the subject of enormous compromise. I want to tell my colleagues first about part of that compromise. A number of the groups that have written in saying they have some problems with the bill, and the first biggest problem has been taken care of, and that was using the Land and Water Conservation Fund. That is now no longer a problem. They said there was another problem. They said, you are changing the Clean Water Act. Well, once again, we have a legal opinion voiced by a number of attorneys who should know who say that one cannot clean up a river using wetlands under the present tight construction of the Clean Water Act because, it says, if one takes a bucketful of water out of a river, one has to return that bucketful of water in drinking-water form. Now, one cannot do that if one builds a series of marshes along the New River, as we intend to do. We intend to build one of the biggest wetlands projects in America that will host hundreds of thousands of birds, hundreds of species, and yet, because of the way we wrote the Clean Water Act, we cannot do it, so we live with the most polluted river in North America in New River. Now, we worked with all sides on this thing, and I have here the author of this much-hated provision, and the author, according to my memorandum, is the gentleman from California (Mr. Miller). Because the gentleman from California (Mr. Miller) sent a memo over to the chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster), or his staff did, saying, in general, the gentleman's preferred course of action is to amend Title I of the bill, as reported, et cetera, and they go on to give us the language that they would like to have. The language says, ``Subsection D, authorization of appropriations for river reclamation and other irrigation of drainage water actions under this section, there are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary for Land and Water Conservation Fund 3 million.'' That is the $3 million that goes into cleaning up New River. And above that, ``No permit shall be required under section 402 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, 33 USC 1342, for a wetland filtration or constructed wetlands project authorized by subsection A-1 of this section.'' We took the gentleman's exact language that he gave us to put in the bill to take care of the problem, and now we are told that it is still a problem. I guess I would say to my friend from California (Mr. Miller), I want the gentleman to take yes for an answer.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of compromise, however, the gentleman did provide language and we did put in, I would say to the gentleman, his precise language. Now, let me go to the second point, and that point is the 18 months. We had a 12-month period for study before construction, although this thing has been studied 30 years, as the gentlewoman and the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert) had mentioned. We had given a 12-month period for study. We sat down in a good talking session with Secretary Babbitt at the Salton Sea, with Secretary Babbitt, his staff and himself. He said essentially to me, I do not think I can do it in 12 months, but he did say in that conversation they thought they could do it in 18 months. We worked with his staff. His staff sat in on a number of these meetings, and they said 18 months. When we met with Senator Boxer, she wanted us to move from 12 to 18 months, so we did it. We said, we will compromise, we will give 18 months. Another thing we were concerned about, of course, was judicial review. We did not want lawsuits to stop action on the sea while the sea died. I think the gentleman can understand that, because as the gentlewoman from California (Mary Bono) has shown us, the sea is on a death watch. It is very predictable. At 60,000 parts per million, as it gets saltier and saltier, all the fish die, so we have to move now. And if somebody sues us and the court date is not set for 2 years, and then another suit is filed and that court date is not set for 2 years, the sea expires. The sea dies while we are tied up in court. So what we said was, okay, to Senator Boxer and others who wanted to have judicial review, we said we will. Let us just say that we have to have expedited judicial review. We said we wanted to direct the court in this language to expedite review. That means when you have a temporary restraining order, if somebody sues and says, I do not like this because I live down here and I do not want to have the sea saved because I think the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento) is right, it is an ecological disaster, so let us have it die, and they happen to get a TRO from somebody, a temporary restraining order, we will say you have to go to trial in 60 days. That means do not put the thing off for 2 years while the sea dies, that means you go to trial in 60 days. So we have put in expedited judicial review instead of eliminating judicial review, so in all areas we have made compromises. I say to my friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Miller), I called one of my constituents last night who had signed one of the letters from one of the environmental organizations that said, we are against it for umpteen reasons. I explained the reason for the clean water change. He said, that makes perfect sense. He said, that is not what they told me when they called me and said they wanted me to sign it. I think if Members explain that to the people who really care about the 380 bird species, they are going to agree to. So let us get on with this bill. Let us get it passed. I thank the gentleman for taking the unanimous consent to make the land-water conservation fix that was offered by this side, but this is the right action to take. Once again, let us go back to Sonny Bono, who said, why can not we just get this thing done? Let us get started, at least.

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

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the gentleman that he has been this year appropriating some money to get the process started, he has already moved out on the project. We deeply appreciate that action. It was really timely, and we are going to be able to move this year. I understand the administration is moving this year.

Mr. HUNTER. Madam Speaker, I will try to be almost as brief as I was this morning. My colleagues, we have a real opportunity here to do three things that are very important. One is we have an opportunity to right what is perhaps the worst environmental disaster in our Nation, and that is the continuing pollution and continuing salinization of this huge 360- square-mile body of water next to the Mexican border in southern California. It is fed by the New River and the Alamo River, and the New River is considered to be the most polluted river in North America coming north from Mexicali, traveling 50 miles through the California desert, and emptying into the Salton Sea. In going through Mexicali, it goes through the industrial area of Mexicali, takes a lot of waste. If one goes down there, it is somewhat like America was in parts of this country in the 1930s, literally with yellow toxins spewing out of pipes directly into the river; also, with the sewage system in Mexicali that is attached to that river. So we have an opportunity to right what is right now one of the most difficult environmental disasters we have ever had in this country. Secondly, in cleaning up the sea, which we are going to do with this bill, we have the opportunity to expand one of the greatest natural resources and recreational resources in this country. One of the great things about the sea that the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Bono) loves so well and Sonny loved so well is the fact that it is so close to a lot of working Americans. It is within driving distance of about 8 percent of America's population. That means that the average guy and his wife and his kids on the average weekend can get in their camper in Covina or Los Angeles or the Inland Empire or San Diego or Orange County and drive to the Salton Sea. He can enjoy what up until a couple of years ago was the most productive fishery in the United States. He can enjoy, or could, up until a couple of years ago, great waterskiing. That family could enjoy great camping opportunities, and they could do that without having to have the financial resources to jet off to New Zealand, to go fly fishing, to do other things that some people can do but others cannot do. The Salton Sea is a great opportunity for working America to have a wonderful recreational site. Thirdly, we have the opportunity to do something that I think Sonny Bono taught us so well, and that is what the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Bono) is continuing to teach us, and that is to use common sense. We are using common sense in this bill. We changed judicial review at the request of a number of the environmental folks to an expedited judicial review, nonetheless, not cutting it off completely. But as the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Mary Bono) said, the sea is on a death watch. It is going to die in 10 years or so when it gets up to 60 parts per million of salinization. We cannot let lawsuit after lawsuit tie up the project until the sea is dead. We are undertaking the project in Mexicali to wean the Mexicali industrial waste and their industrial waste from the New River. That project is going to break ground here in the next couple of months, so it is important and it is necessary and it is appropriate that we get to going on the sea and we start the project. As one North Salton Sea resident said in one of the articles, he said that this Congress studies the sea and then they disappear, and come back a couple of years later and study it again. We are committing, with this bill, with this authorization, to fix the Salton Sea; that is, to take care of the salinization problem. We have literally volumes of studies that have been done that have narrowed down the options to basically two options, and that is diking, or else having an infall or outfall; that is, exporting saline water or importing nonsaline water. We have those two options. Secretary Babbitt is going to decide which one works best. He is going to come back and tell the Congress which is best. Then we will act. He said he could do it in 18 months. The only exception, you have 18 miles of river feeding the Salton Sea, and we have come up with an environmentally friendly way of cleansing that river. We are going to have 50 miles of marshes, and we are going to filter the New River through those 50 miles of marshes, but we cannot do it, some lawyers tell us, under the Clean Water Act because the Clean Water Act says if you take a glass of water out of the New River, you have to pour it back in in drinking water quality. You cannot incrementally clean up a river under that law. You cannot filter part of it in the first mile and part in the second mile and part of it in the third mile. You are totally stopped, so you do not do anything. The sea continues to get polluted. This is a great bill. I thank the Committee on Rules for bringing it up. Let us have an overwhelming vote in favor of the rule and the bill.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss an issue that is extremely important, private property rights. All of us have heard from constituents in our districts who are frustrated with the process by which the government provides compensation to landowners for the private property it acquires. As you know, the federal government obtains private property for all types of reasons, from community and infrastructure development to environmental concerns. Unfortunately, it is common for this process to take several years, during which, the property owner is discouraged from conducting any type of development or improvement activity upon their land. It is for this reason that I will soon be introducing The Prompt Compensation Act of 1998. Currently, the federal government has two alternatives available in acquiring private property. The first is termed as a ``straight condemnation'' procedure where a landowner receives notification that a federal agency has requested the Justice Department to file a complaint in condemnation in an attempt to acquire their property. The complaint is filed with the district court of the district where the land is located and the appropriate compensation is ascertained. Once this process is completed, the federal government is afforded the option of paying this amount and assuming the title of the land or moving for dismissal, in which case, the title of the property remains with the original owner. It is important to remember that during this process, the landowner's opportunity to conduct any type of development is severely limited, depriving these individuals of time, revenue and, in some cases, overall value in their land. The second alternative is termed a ``quick-take'' procedure where the title of the property is immediately transferred to the federal government and an amount, which the government presumes the land is worth, is provided to the owner. Normal protocol is then followed, a condemnation complaint is filed and the court determines just compensation. If this amount is more than that originally provided, the federal government is required to pay the difference with interest. The Prompt Compensation Act of 1998 will require the federal government to provide just compensation to the property owner within 90 days or forfeit its interest. In other words, this legislation will simply make the ``quick-take'' procedure the only option available to the federal government. The Prompt Compensation Act of 1998 will require the federal government to strongly consider all viable alternatives before attempting to acquire new land and prevent landowners from losing valuable time in developing their property. I urge all my colleagues to become a cosponsor of this bill and to strongly consider the significant impact this legislation will have in curbing the taking authority of the federal government, while at the same time, strengthening the private property rights of America's landowners.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, in an hour or so we will have an opportunity to vote for the Sonny Bono Salton Sea Restoration Act. I would urge every Member to vote for this great, commonsense conservation project. It will take the Salton Sea, which is some 360 square miles in size, and it will convert that sea or rehab that sea into a wonderful fishing resource, a great place for birders, for people that like all the water sports. It is within driving distance of about 6 percent of America's population. This is a great blue collar playground where people who cannot afford to go off for fly fishing on New Zealand on their holidays will have an opportunity to recreate. The gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Bono) will be leading our efforts on the floor in just about an hour, along with the gentlemen from California, Mr. Jerry Lewis and Mr. Ken Calvert. I hope every Member votes for this great conservation project.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan), of the ``Duncan Caucus,'' for that fine speech that he just made and I will be chairman next year, hopefully, and then he can follow me in these special orders. Mr. Speaker, let me give my kudos to a great athlete, one of the greatest athletes who ever resided in the county of San Diego where I live, and where my good golfing buddies the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Packard) also live, two pretty good athletes themselves, because Billy Casper is one of the greatest golfers who ever lived on the face of the Earth. He had a record of over 50 victories, including three majors. Now after his playing time on the regular tour, PGA tour has long since passed, Billy Casper just did something this last week that is quite extraordinary. He went to Utah to play in Johnny Miller's champion's challenge and Johnny Miller's champion's challenge, if you read the list of the players who participated, read like the book of champions. Included in the field were Gary Player and his son, Johnny Miller and his son, Jack Nicklaus and his son, Hale Irwin and his son, John Daley, Laura Davies, Julie Inkster, Lisssolette Neuman, two of the great players on the women's tour, Craig Stadler and Fuzzy Zoeller and, of course, Billy Casper and his own son Bob. Billy Casper in this tournament, which was a two-man scramble, I understand there was a $500,000 tournament, $125,000 to the winners, Billy Casper and Bob Casper, his son, won that tournament at 11 under par. Billy Casper was always remembered as being one of the finest putters, probably the finest putter and short game player in the history of the game. He had a putting stroke that was unmatched by anybody. And when we had the recent U.S. Open at the Olympic Golf Course in San Francisco just this last week, we were all reminded of 1966, when Billy Casper trailed Arnold Palmer by 7 strokes with only 9 holes to go in the championship, tied him on that last 9 holes, Billy Casper, our Billy, shot a 32 to Arnold Palmer's 39 and Billy then won the playoff the next day. The trophy in this particular Champion's Challenge was made by Mark Martinson, one of our great western artists. It is a wonderful trophy. It is a bronze trophy entitled, Champions in the Making, and Mark Martinson is one of our budding artists and also a great golfer who accompanied Billy Casper to this tournament in Utah. So San Diego recognizes you, Billy, as being one of the greatest champions whoever lived and whoever graced our wonderful county in San Diego. We hope to see you win a lot more tournaments.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, let me add my strong support to that of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence), and on behalf, I think, of the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States in all the services, for the Neumann budget. We asked the service leaders to tell us what they needed, what they were short this last year. They were pretty gutsy. Even though their commander in chief, I am sure, was not happy, they came forward and said, ``This is the list of things that we need,'' and they gave us a list of things like ammunition, spare parts, components for systems that cannot fly now. All of those things added up to $58 billion. The Neumann substitute stops the slight in national defense. It does not give us a lot of things, no new systems, but at least allows us to have enough ammunition so we can carry out the two-war scenario. If we really care about the mothers and fathers of this country, the best service we can give to them is to make sure that their youngsters come home alive in the time of a conflict. The Neumann substitute is the only vehicle we have here that keeps, as the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) said, the head of our military above the water. Please vote for the Nuemann substitute.

Mr. HUNTER

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

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I offer a modification to my amendment at the desk, and I ask unanimous consent that my amendment be considered in accordance with this modification.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, there is concern. Because when we move to a credit card system, the government buyers are under an obligation to try to look at the entire market, the entire array of sellers to the best of their ability. They are required to try to be good purchasers, to get the best value. That means, in most cases, the lowest price. But not always. And there is always a fear in the small business community that we are going to have a buyer who is going to choose their favorite seller, if you will, or their favorite company and simply move contracts that way. And so, small businesses are always concerned about this. On the other side, sometimes we end up, because we have a very complicated system of contracting, we end up paying $500 for $100 desks after we have gone through all the competitions and all the things that attend that and, ultimately, write a fairly complicated contract. So the idea is let us give our buyers for the small amounts for the small goods, let us assign them a certain element of discretion and presume that they are going to be honest and have good judgment, and that when they go down to buy office equipment and other things that come up under the $2,500 threshold, that they are going to use good judgment and that they are going to use the small business community in a practical way and they are going to spread these purchases around. And that means that we pay $100 for the $100 desk instead of $500. So there is a certain fear on one side; and, on the other hand, there is a certain efficiency to be gained. So this simply asks the question and requires a study as to what the results will be.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would further yield, first, this does not affect or change the ability of the government to bundle contracts. But we want the GAO to look at that also, the idea of loading up or bundling contracts.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment. The Clerk will designate the amendment.

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

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this is simply a request for a study, and it is a study in an area where we are trying to make some headway in bringing the Department of Defense up to speed with domestic civilian practices; and, particularly, we are now undertaking a program whereby we use credit cards instead of lengthy contract orders to purchase items up to $2,500. The Department of Defense and the Administration would like to move ahead and increase that limit from $2,500 to $10,000. There are a number of people in the small business community who have concern about that. They feel that there may be problems. They want to know what the impact is. And so, we now have a modification to this amendment, which, for practical purposes, simply requests the GAO to study the issue and to give us what it believes to be the impacts on small business and also on savings that could accrue to the Department of Defense should we move that threshold from $2,500 to $10,000. That is the essence of the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, this just says if you are stationed around the world and you may have been renting your home out for two of the last five years because of the extraordinary demands on uniformed service people, you can designate that home as your place of residence even though you may be deployed in a different place. I thank both the authors of this legislation. They have done a lot to help our uniformed folks.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I thank our chairman for yielding me the time. I want to yield to the gentlewoman from Washington and to the gentleman from North Carolina to explain a very important provision which will give the same tax breaks to our uniformed folks that we have given to the rest of the country with respect to a home sale. I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. Linda Smith).

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones).

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. And I appreciate everything he has said, and I think it goes right to the heart of the Bereuter amendment, which prohibits the U.S. participation in what we call these post-launch failure investigations or debriefings involving the launch of a satellite from China. The problem is that the Long March rockets, which are used in their strategic systems that are nuclear tipped, some of which are aimed at U.S. cities, are the same rockets that we launch these satellite payloads on. And the way that Loral and Hughes got into trouble here was after a launch went down and they lost a $200 million package, they realized it was in their economic self-interest to show the Chinese how the missile worked. Once again, it was like the guy laying under the guillotine saying, ``I think I see your problem,'' when the guillotine sticks. So by banning these post-launching debriefings after a failure, which is exactly what the very wise gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) does here, we take away the temptation from American companies to not only show them how they messed up on this particular launch, but to give them a little more liability for future launches, because they know the profit margin of their stockholders are in part riding on the reliability of these Chinese missiles, which also carry nuclear warheads, which are sometimes aimed at U.S. cities. So we have got this conflict between commercial interests and national security interests, and the Bereuter amendment is right on point.

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

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I rise in strong support of this amendment that is offered by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman). The total umbrella of American issues with the Chinese, and there are lots of issues, most of them commercial issues, a lot of them technology transfer issues, is largely governed by the administration's policies that are brought about in these discussions with Chinese leaders. There is going to be an upcoming presidential summit. That has been pointed out. A lot of the things that we are concerned about, like Chinese membership in the Missile Technology Control Regime, the waiver the gentleman from South Carolina mentioned of the Tiananmen Square sanctions, increases in space launches, a number of those critical issues are going to be discussed. I think it is very important for this House to lay down its marker right now and let the administration know that we are very concerned on a national security basis of what he is doing in this next meeting with Chinese leaders. I think this is an absolutely appropriate amendment. I hope everybody would vote ``yes''.

Mr. HUNTER. If the gentleman would continue to yield, he is absolutely right. We are going to be seeing a requirement for greater and greater American deterrent force to go to places like Taiwan as we see the strategic missile capability of the Communist Chinese increase. He is right on point.