George Miller

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I would say to the gentleman that he is correct.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I would say the gentleman is correct.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding, and I just wanted to say I was remiss in not mentioning his name when I was thanking those who had made this agreement possible so that the chairman and the ranking member could come to this agreement. As the gentleman knows, he has the battle scars of many contentious battles on this floor over forest policy and road policy, and I want to thank him for his efforts last year, along with the members of the committee that dealt with the first step in this process, and for his support for this amendment, and again to the chairman and to the ranking member for their efforts in the markups of this legislation before it came to the floor.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is very simple. Currently, the CNMI territories have a built-up account of unspent Federal moneys in excess of $80 million that they have been unable or unwilling to match that we have appropriated to them. That is over 5 years of funding under the current regime that we have for these purposes. Because they have been unwilling or unable to match that funding, I am suggesting that we take $4 million out of that and put it into the very important and bipartisanly supported Urban Parks and Recreation amendment known as the UPARR program for recreation recovery. This $4 million would allow a number of States that had had their proposals for grants turned down because funding was not provided: Alabama, 200,000; California, 630,000; Florida, 288,000; Georgia 569,000; Maryland, 249,000; Massachusetts, 600,000; Texas, 330,000; North Carolina, 88,000; Ohio, 500. These are States that have come forward and have programs to provide for the recovery of recreational facilities, worn-out facilities. We heard earlier today about the problems that soccer teams and Little League teams and Pop Warner teams are having to find facilities to offer recreational opportunities. That is why this legislation is supported by the National Association of Police Athletic Leagues. The police associations understand the importance of giving young people constructive activities to participate in from 3 to 6 in the afternoon, but if they do not have these opportunities, unfortunately some of them go into crime and other destructive behavior. We believe it is important to fund these efforts. There is so many, there is such a backlog of need, it will not harm the CNMI due to the fact that they have a tremendous backlog of appropriated moneys that this committee has appropriated and that they have been unable to spend. This committee has made essentially the same decision in removing $5 million from that amount of money for the purposes of giving it to other territories who are in need of this, who have programs, who have the demand, are willing to come up, in many instances, with the money that is to be spent with a match by the local effort. I would not support this effort if this money was to come out of the other territories' budgets for that purposes, but because of the way the rules changed, I have to offer it in this fashion, but it is my intent to keep consistent with what the committee did with respect to other funds with regard to CNMI, and I would hope that the committee could support this amendment. As my colleagues know, there has been a dramatic resurgence in support from environmental organizations, from the Conference of Mayors, from the League of Cities and from the Police Athletic Leagues, from the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, all of which are prepared and are raising money to help in this effort; and this Federal money, again, is used on a matching basis. Local governments must make this a priority, they must put up their own money, and this money is used to help out so many of those States like Ohio and Washington.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise in very strong support of the McGovern-Campbell-Holt and Hoeffel amendment, and I rise also to commend the chairman of this committee, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) for the job that they have done with this legislation under very, very difficult circumstances; and those difficult circumstances are one of the reasons that this amendment is here. I believe that this amendment is an improvement to this legislation. I think it is an important amendment, it is an important amendment about the future of our local communities, about the quality of life, about the recreational opportunities of our families and about the preservation of important lands and important assets that provide the quality of life that most of us want for ourselves and for our constituents. The Land and Water Conservation Fund is a fund that was developed out of a bargain between the development of the offshore oil and the preservation of nonreoccurring assets in our communities and throughout our Nation; and in the past, since 1965, we have appropriated some $3 billion to local governments, States and local governments, to help them protect and provide and conserve these assets. They have matched that with an additional $3 billion. That tells us the kind of priority that our local communities place upon this program. But in 1995 it all stopped, it all stopped. One of the most successful programs that we have at the Federal level stopped. Since that time, if we were to put the money that this program was truly entitled to, there would have been an additional $2.5 billion that would have then been matched by another $2.5 billion, $5 billion going into improve the quality of life and to protect and conserve natural resources and assets and local communities based upon the priorities of those local communities. Many speakers have gotten up here and told about how their States have passed bond issues to help to do this. Local jurisdictions have added to their tax revenues, they have added on to their sales tax, they have added on to their gas tax to try and protect these resources, and this money flows into that in a partnership with not only those local governments but with foundations and private individuals and corporations and others that contributed. This money becomes a catalyst for billions of dollars that benefit our local constituents and our local communities; and it is a very, very important amount of money. It is very important in the sense that the opportunities are being lost in so many of our communities through rapid growth to kind of provide the kind of protection that is necessary so we can have open spaces. Yes, it might include a swimming pool or two; and, yes, it might include a swimming lagoon on important rivers and important reservoirs in areas that are regional facilities. And it might include trails, and it might include a lot of assets that local communities believe are important if they are going to provide the kind of quality of life that attracts families, that attracts businesses and that allows communities to thrive and to have a thriving economy. That is what this legislation was set up to do, but the oxygen has been cut off, the money has been cut off for no good reason. Because it was not about this being a bad program or an unsuccessful program or a wasteful program. It was just a decision that was made. And yet the law remains on the books. It says we are supposed to dedicate this money. This is very similar to the debates that we are having with respect to Social Security and we had with the Highway trust fund. We told the people of America that this money in this fund would be used for this purpose. There is a lot of concerns now that the offset is SPRO, or the offset is one of the energy funds. Well, let me tell my colleagues the Stateside Land and Water Conservation Fund has been an offset for everything else this government has wanted to do because the money has been pirated out of this fund and used for whatever purposes to make the deficit look smaller or for whatever programs the Congress of the United States wanted to do. We owe this fund billions of dollars, and here we have an effort by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) to restore $30 billion for the next fiscal year so our communities can get on with improving the quality of life and protecting these assets. And as flush as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) will tell us the States are, I do not see people saying we are not going to send them PILT or we are not going send them money, so this is about priorities. But as flush as those States are, the list of projects that are essential and necessary to continue the growth; otherwise, do my colleagues know what they get? They get what we have in so many communities now, no growth, no improvements, no transportation improvements, because people see with congestion, the lack of quality of life, that they are not going to engage in that kind of economic growth. This is one of the buffers that allows our communities to continue to be a decent place to live, a decent place to raise our children and to enjoy and to do business.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Why would I do that when the gentleman is stealing all the money?

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues will recall, I have worked for several years now, along with Mr. Conyers of Michigan and others here, to have the United States declassify documents concerning Gen. Augusto Pinochet's 1973 military coup in Chile and its aftermath and what the United States knew about Pinochet's connection to human rights violations and acts of terrorism both in Chile and abroad. A Spanish court is trying to extradite General Pinochet to stand trial in Spain for international human rights violations. The documents held by the United States are expected to shed important light on Pinochet's activities that will help clarify his personal role in this bloody period of history. Yesterday, the first significant release of documents took place. I commend to my colleagues the articles below, from the New York Times and the Washington Post concerning the 5,800 documents released at the National Archives. As you will note from the articles below, it is suspected that there are still many more relevant documents that have not been released, particularly from the Central Intelligence Agency, which only contributed 490 documents to yesterday's release. I applaud the Administration for releasing yesterday's documents but I strongly urge them to continue to release documents on a timely basis from all branches of the Administration, including the CIA. The search for the truth is important not only for the historic case against General Pinochet, but for Americans too who wish to know what role their government may have played in a violent period of history and how we may avoid playing such a role in the future. The New York Times notes also that not only will the documents help Spain, but that Spain has already helped provide information to the United States that might help the Justice Department complete its still open case against those responsible for the assassination of Chilean exile Orlando Letelier and his American assistant Ronnie Karpen Moffitt in Washington, D.C. in 1976. It is widely believed, but has not yet been proven, that General Pinochet personally ordered Letelier's execution. The documents released yesterday further demonstrate that the United States was well aware of atrocities taking place during and after the coup and that despite this knowledge the Nixon Administration sought to maintain close ties to General Pinochet. ``U.S. Releases Files on Abuses in Pinochet Era,'' The New York Times, July 1, 1999, Page A11. ``Documents Show U.S. Knew Pinochet Planned Crackdown in '73,'' The Washington Post, July 1, 1999, Page A23. [From the New York Times, July 1, 1999] U.S. Releases Files on Abuses in Pinochet Era (By Philip Shenon) Washington, June 30--The C.I.A. and other Government agencies had detailed reports of widespread human rights abuses by the Chilean military, including the killings and torture of leftist dissidents, almost immediately after a 1973 right-wing coup that the United States supported, according to once-secret Government documents released today. The 5,800 documents which the Clinton Administration decided last year to declassify and make public could provide evidence to support the prosecution of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who seized power in the coup and was arrested in Britain last October. Spain is seeking his extradition, charging that his junta had kidnapped, tortured and killed Spanish citizens. The documents were released as Clinton Administration officials confirmed that the Justice Department has been conferring with Spanish authorities, in part to exchange information about General Pinochet, including his possible involvement in the 1976 car-bomb assassination in Washington of the Chilean Ambassador to the United States, Orlando Letelier, and a colleague, Ronni Moffitt, of the Institute for Policy Studies. Because the Justice Department considers the Letelier investigation to be ongoing, the Government withheld documents related to the murders, officials said today. Historians and human rights advocates, who were busily trying to sort through the nearly 20,000 pages released today by the National Archives, agreed that the documents did not offer startling revelations about American ties to the Chilean junta under General Pinochet. Instead, they said, the documents provide rich new detail to support the long-held view that the United States knew during and after the coup about the Chilean military's murderous crackdown on leftists. On Sept. 21, 1973, 10 days after the coup, one C.I.A. report said: ``The prevailing mood among the Chilean military is to use the current opportunity to stamp out all vestiges of Communism in Chile for good. Severe repression is planned. The military is rounding up large numbers of people, including students and leftists of all descriptions, and interning them.'' The report noted that ``300 students were killed in the technical university when they refused to surrender'' in Santiago, the capital, and that the military was considering a plan to kill ``50 leftists'' for every leftist sniper still operating. In a summary of the situation in Chile a month after the coup, a C.I.A. report dated Oct. 12 found that ``security considerations still have first priority with the junta.'' ``The line between people killed during attacks on security forces and those captured and executed immediately has become increasingly blurred,'' the report continued. It said the junta ``has launched a campaign to improve its international image; the regime shows no sign of relenting in its determination to deal swiftly and decisively with dissidents, however, and the bloodshed goes on.'' However, a C.I.A. report dated March 21, 1974, insisted that ``the junta has not been bloodthirsty.'' ``The Government has been the target of numerous charges related to alleged violations of human rights,'' it said. ``Many of the accusations are merely politically inspired falsehoods or gross exaggerations.'' An estimated 5,000 people were killed in the coup, including Chile's democratically elected President, Salvador Allende, whose body was recovered from the bombed remains of the Presidential Palace, which had been attacked by military jets. Thousands more died or were tortured at the hands of the military during General Pinochet's 17-year rule. Last week, the Chilean College of Medicine reported that at least 200,000 people had been tortured by Government forces at the time. Under the Nixon Administration, the Central Intelligence Agency mounted a full-tilt covert operation to keep Dr. Allende from taking office and, when that failed, undertook subtler efforts to undermine him. The C.I.A.'s director of operations at the time, Thomas Karamessines, later told Senate investigators that those efforts ``never really ended.'' The C.I.A. has never provided a full explanation of what it knew about human rights abuses carried out by the Chilean military during and after the coup. But internal Government documents released since have shown that the agency's knowledge of the violence was extensive. The Clinton Administration announced last December that, as a result of the arrest of General Pinochet, it would declassify some of the documents. The Administration described the move as an attempt at Government accountability, and it was the first sign that the United States intended to cooperate in the criminal case being built against General Pinochet. The vast majority of the documents released today--5,000 of the 5,800--came from the files of the State Department. The C.I.A. released 490 documents, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 100, and the Pentagon, 60. Human rights groups said they were surprised by the paucity of documents declassified by the C.I.A. ``The C.I.A. has the most to offer but also the most to hide,'' said Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archive, a public-interest clearing-house for declassified documents. The documents that were released today, he said, ``show that the C.I.A. was well-apprised of the vicious nature of the Chilean regime.'' The public affairs office at the C.I.A. did not respond to phone calls early this evening. The documents released today date from 1973 to 1978, ``the period of the most flagrant human rights abuses in Chile,'' said James Foley, a State Department spokesman. The White House said in a statement that ``a limited number of documents have not been released at this time, primarily because they relate to an ongoing Justice Department investigation'' of the murder of Mr. Letelier and Ms. Moffitt. Administration officials, speaking on condition that they not be identified, said that the inquiry was active, in part as a result of information available to the United States from Spanish prosecutors seeking to try General Pinochet. In April, they said, a senior criminal prosecutor from the Justice Department, Mark Richard, traveled to Spain to meet with Spanish authorities to discuss whether Washington and Madrid could swap information in their investigations. Prosecutors here have long been interested in whether there is evidence that General Pinochet or his deputies ordered the murders in Washington because Mr. Letelier was an opponent of the Pinochet regime. The killings here are believed to have been part of an orchestrated campaign of violence known within the Pinochet Government as Operation Condor, in which opponents of the junta were targeted for assassination in and out of Chile. A State Department document dated Aug. 18, 1976, only a month before Mr. Letelier's murder, shows that Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and other senior department officials were warned of ``rumors'' that Operation Condor might ``include plans for the assassination of subversives, politicians and prominent figures both within the national borders of certain Southern Cone countries and abroad.'' Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch, who unearthed the document, said it ``shows the United States was very aware of the terrorist activities that General Pinochet and his colleagues were engaging in there, as well as abroad.''

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the Contra Costa Times, my hometown newspaper in the East Bay of San Francisco, got it right today when they took the President to task on the issue of land mines. ``Hypocrisy on Land Mines,'' an editorial, points out that while President Clinton is now giving his compassion and his warnings of safety to returning Kosovar refugees because their homeland is wired full of land mines, it was the same President Clinton who refused to sign the international treaty to ban land mines two years ago. Over 100 other nations signed the treaty and the United States should have taken the lead to see this treaty enacted and enforced. Instead, all the United States can do now is hope that not too many Kosovar refugees have their limbs blown off as they venture home after the war. Tens of thousands of civilians are killed by land mines around the world every year. The world needs America's leadership to bring an end to this cruel form of warfare where the main victims, in fact, are civilians. I commend the editorial below to my colleagues and to my President. [From Contra Costa Times, July 1, 1999] Hypocrisy on Land Mines President Clinton gave good advise when he warned Kosovar Albanians to delay their return to Kosovo because of the many land mines still scattered about the countryside and in towns. But there must have been much gnashing of teeth at the office of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, whose members watched two years ago as Clinton and the United States refused to sign a treaty that would have banned land mines around the world. Why they must have wondered is it all right for Angolan and Cambodian children to be exposed to these deadly weapons, but not Kosovars? Clinton was in full ``caring'' mode as he spoke with refugees in Macedonia last week. ``I know a lot of people are anxious to go home,'' he said. ``But you know there are still a lot of land mines in the ground, on the routes into Kosovo and in many of the communities. You have suffered enough. I don't want any child hurt. I don't want anyone else to lose a leg or an arm or a child because of a land mine.'' The president neglected to mention that while the retreating Serb army left many of those land mines, much of the danger to returning civilians comes from unexploded ``bomblets'' from cluster bombs dropped by NATO planes. Unexploded ordnance dropped by NATO aircraft floods the province. Two NATO soldiers died trying to deactivate some of it, and some children died when they tried to play with it. Cluster bombs contain 202 of the bomblets that scatter over a wide area. The bomblets' purpose is to kill enemy troops. But of course, as with land mines, it is civilians who pay the price. None of this is new. There are more than 100 million land mines in the ground around the world, many of them in unmarked fields where even the soldiers who put them there cannot find them. Most were sown during regional conflicts, such as the decades-long Angolan Civil War. Afghanistan and Angola have roughly 9 million land mines each. The mines kill or maim some 26,000 civilians yearly. Despite full knowledge of these obscene numbers, Clinton refused to sign the land mines treaty two years ago, even though 100 other nations did sign it. Now here he is in Macedonia warning civilians and their children about land mines, the spread of which he did nothing to stop, and cluster bomblets, which NATO deposited on Kosovar land. It is heartening to see the president of the United States acknowledging the danger of land mines. Perhaps now he will turn his attention to halting their further proliferation.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to Joyce Gaines and her family, from Vallejo, California in my congressional district. Joyce is an amazing mother who believes higher education is a necessity for her children. In order to pay for the enormous expense of her daughter Tieaesha's college education, she worked 3 jobs and commuted 200 miles a day, despite the chronic pain of five ruptured disks in her back from a previous work related injury. Due to her mother's tremendous sacrifices, Tieaesha is the first in her family to receive a college education, with a degree in sociology from Grambling State University. Congratulations to Joyce and Tieaesha Gaines for all your accomplishments. I have the highest respect for this single mother of four, who put the needs of her daughter and her education ahead of her own. She is a role model for her children and for young people everywhere. It is unfortunate, however, that she had to make such tremendous sacrifices just to pay the price of her child's education. We must do more to make higher education accessible and affordable to all who choose it. I am not the only one to praise this amazing woman. President Clinton paid tribute to Joyce Gaines in his commencement speech at Grambling State University in Louisiana. I am submitting the following article which appeared in the Vallejo Times-Herald so all of my colleagues can read this inspiring story. [From the Vallejo Times-Herald, June 3, 1999] Presidential Praise (By Mary M. Leahy) For five years, Tieaesha Gaines of Vallejo prayed daily that she and her mother would be recognized at her college graduation for the sacrifices they'd made. Gaines had no idea God would use the leader of the Free World to answer her. At her graduation from Grambling State University in Louisiana last week, President Clinton, in a commencement address, asked 22-year-old Gaines to stand. He then acclaimed her as ``a tribute to her mother's love and sacrifice.'' ``Listen to this,'' Clinton told the crowd. ``Even through the pain of five ruptured disks in her back, Joyce Gaines (Tieaesha's mother) worked three jobs and commuted 200 miles a day to put her daughter, Tieaesha, through Grambling.'' Clinton, who used the address to promote a broader pro- family agenda, continued, ``Stories like this remind us what people can achieve when they set their minds to it, but they also remind us of how hard it can be to raise a child right, especially today in our very busy society with its very demanding economy.'' Tieaesha was videotaping the president from the second row of graduates when she heard him say her name. ``I was thinking, `That's me! That's me!' '' she said. ``I was astonished, amazed. I didn't even know he knew who I was. When he said `five ruptured disks' I knew automatically, `That's my mom.' When he pointed at me, I got so excited, I jumped up and screamed, `I love you Mom.' I guess I got in the way of the camera because someone saw it on CNN.'' Vallejoan Joyce Gaines was sitting in the stands surrounded by family when she heard Clinton mention her. ``Chills went up and down my spine.'' she said. ``It was so phenomenal having my name mentioned by the President of the United States.'' Joyce Gaines had been interviewed three days earlier by a Grambling official, who had heard about the sacrifices she made for her daughter. Although she was told the president might use the information in his speech, she was also told many other parents were interviewed. She put it out of her mind. Surely someone else would be chosen, she thought. ``Exciting things like that never happen to me,'' she said. ``I'm a quiet person who's usually in the background. I didn't tell my daughter because I didn't want her to be disappointed when he didn't mention me.'' Joyce Gaines is a single mother of four who endured much to send Tieaesha to Grambling. Tieaesha is the first in her family to get a college education. Twenty years ago, Joyce Gaines injured her neck and back while pulling cable lines for PG&E. Despite permanent spinal problems, she gave up part of her disability benefits so she could work around the clock and pay Tieaesha's college expenses. One of Joyce's three jobs required driving 200 miles a day to the outskirts of Sacramento and back. She worked the graveyard shift at a residence facility for Alzheimer's patients. Another job included cleaning up after exotic birds. ``There were a lot of nights I sat up spraying anesthetic spray on my neck to numb the pain. I took anti-inflammatory medication and pain pills. I gave up buying clothes for myself to send her money.'' she recalled. When Joyce and Tieaesha talk about it, they inevitably end up crying. ``I knew I'd been through a lot and my mother had been through a lot'', Tieaesha said. ``When you graduate, you get cards and the dinner and everybody says you did a great job. But nobody really recognizes the nights you stayed up all night typing papers or the nights you couldn't eat because you were waiting on the Western Union to come through. ``Grambling barely has a post office,'' Tieaesha said. ``So if you miss getting the mail Friday, you miss eating on the weekend. You go through so much being away from your family, hoping everybody's thinking about you as much as you're thinking about them.'' For Joyce Gaines, just seeing Clinton was ``a dream come true,'' let alone becoming the recipient of his praise. ``It was like a mirage having the President there. I was so excited just to be in his presence. He's such a fantastic President, the best the United States has ever had. He's done so much for the country,'' Joyce said. If Clinton's speech wasn't divinely inspired, Tieaesha doesn't know what is. ``Sometimes you pray and pray and wonder, `Is this a sign or is that a sign?' '' Tieaesha said. ``But that was a clear, Tieaesha Gaines, here you go. Do what you were put here, what you were destined to do,'' said Tieaesha, who plans to one day open the home for abused children she's dreamed of since age 11. ``You can be something, no matter where you come from,'' she said.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. I do not think anyone in today's modern society can deny the power of the entertainment industry, of the movie industry, of the TV media. We know that this is an industry that can make us cry, that can raise goose pimples on our skin. It can make the hair on the back of our neck stand up. The industry should never deny its power. In conversations with many executives, they have thought from time to time it was rather foolish for an industry that can convey all of these emotions, that can change the direction of society with uplifting movies, can repeat the history in realistic movies, to deny that power. But we also know that where we run into trouble with the media industry is where the media industry has access to our children in a vacuum, where the media, the entertainment industry has access to our children in a disproportionate number of hours during the day, when the media and the entertainment industry become substitutes for what families should, in fact, be doing. Because the same research that tells us rather convincingly that the media can have a very powerful impact on our children, that the entertainment industry can help desensitize our children to violence, to the acts of violence, that it, in fact, can teach them how to perpetrate violence, the same research and additional research makes a very important point. Where they have strong family bonding, effective teaching of moral values and norms, and effective monitoring of behavior, the effective exposure to violence on TV is probably negligible. So, really, what this amendment is about is about whether or not we are prepared to choose, whether or not we as families with children and grandchildren are prepared to choose. We can let the media, we can let the entertainment industry become a substitute for our families. We can let our children have access to it without guidelines, without some sense of discipline. We can let it become the teacher of our children, or we can choose to become the teacher of our children. We can let it baby-sit de facto, become the baby-sitter for our children, provide day care for our children; or, in fact, we can spend time with our children. We can decide whether or not it becomes a substitute for our reading to our children. We can decide whether it becomes a substitute for our conversations with our children on values, on ethics, on sex. That is the decision that we have to make. Because it is not the media in and of itself, it is not the entertainment industry in and of itself that creates this problem. It is in combination with the vacuum that is created by families that creates a vacuum, because they, in fact, have made other choices in their life, some out of necessity, some out of neglect, and some because simply that is what they want to do. But they have made choices, as we have documented time and time again. They are spending less time with their children. They are having fewer conversations with their children. They are spending less time at the breakfast table, at the dinner table, some because they have very long commutes, some because I guess they choose not to spend time with their children. That is where the problem in this intersection of this very powerful industry comes into play. I do not think they can solve that by having a blanket condemnation of that industry. I do not think they can do that, because I do not think, then, it is realistic to the children who they are trying to address. They understand the differences between uplifting movies, movies like ``Schindler's List,'' movies like ``Star Wars,'' movies like ``Notting Hill,'' movies that portray life as they see it, and movies that have nothing to do but pursue the exploitation of women, sex, and violence.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) for all of their hard work in pulling this legislation together. I want to thank them for accepting the language that the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Roukema) and I have offered on mental health services and the screening programs within this legislation. I think that this legislation is key, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) pointed out in his remarks, to really dealing with the long-term problems within our society and with dealing with chronic delinquency and our best efforts at trying to prevent that behavior. We are here today reacting because of what 6 or 8, 10 kids have done across this country, killing dozens of young schoolchildren, but the fact is, 20 million children went to school last year, or this year, day in and day out and caused relatively little problem. We do now know from a great deal of study and research that a relatively small group of people contribute rather dramatically to the crime figures among young people in this country. But that same research and those same studies tell us that many of these children come as a confluence of a series of events in their lives, sometimes very early on, because of the status of the mother during pregnancy, because of neurological and biological factors during birth, low verbal ability, neighborhood characterized by social disorganization and violence, parental criminality, substance abuse, inconsistent and harsh parental practices. All of these combined, and the researchers tell us this is a very lethal combination of events in a young child's life. And when they come together, these children who now, in many instances, we are able to diagnose and to look at, and the question is will we be willing to treat them and be able to prevent the kind of horrible activity that they later engage in. This is a complicated problem and a complicated issue. There is not a silver bullet amendment that will answer this. We can attack Hollywood, we can attack Marilyn Manson, we can attack video games such as Mortal Kombat. What we really know is those are really insignificant if a child has had strong bonding and strong guidance and strong counseling from their parents, and they have a healthy relationship with their parents. But if they do not have that, and they do not have these resources to call upon, and then they engage in that kind of, or are subject to that kind of bombardment from media and from entertainment, they are candidates for serious problems. So this legislation that the Education and Labor Committee struggled with long and hard, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) especially, I think gives our country one of the best hopes we have in dealing with juvenile delinquency and hopefully preventing juvenile delinquency, because that is really our goal. It is not to be here next year reacting to the next set of violent activities by young people, but it is to give our communities, our schools, and our juvenile justice system the tools to try and treat these children and to prevent this activity from taking place. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend our committee for working in such a bipartisan fashion to come to this conclusion.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Norwood amendment. I have come to have a great deal of affection for the gentleman from Georgia because of his rough and tumble style and his straightforwardness, but on this amendment I must disagree with him. I guess I have been here a long time. I was here long enough to write the education for all handicapped children's act along with other Members of Congress. I wrote the language that said that these children were entitled to a free and appropriate education and they were entitled to an education in a least restrictive environment. Many years later, I also wrote the first Federal gun-free school legislation that was passed several years ago which said if you bring a gun to school, you are out for a year, because I thought we needed very clear and bright lines. Then when we rewrote the education for handicapped children, what is now known as IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, we pondered and discussed this problem and had hearings and went around and around in our committee and this bill passed, I think he said, 400 something to 3, or unanimously in both Houses. And we recognized that there were two distinct populations. There were children with disabilities, and there were children who we call normal, if you will, and those children with disabilities, children with Down's Syndrome, retarded children, children who have cerebral palsy, with conduct disorders, with multiple sclerosis, with attention deficit disorder, those children were different, and yes, there is a different policy. But if either of those children bring a weapon to school, they can both be immediately suspended from school or expelled from school. If you are a child with disabilities, you can be suspended for 10 days, and then we have to sit down and figure out why did you bring this weapon to school. Was it because of your disability? Is this something you understood or you did not understand? One can be out for 45 days. There is no requirement that one go back to that school, one go back to that classroom. One can be put in an alternative setting. And in that alternative setting, those schools in Florida and Iowa, and those districts, California and others, in Iowa, after adopting a program to deal with children who act out in class, who present a threat, not with guns and knives, but because of their own behavior, because of their disability, these are children who are trapped with a disability. They have cerebral palsy, they act out, they flail around. They have multiple sclerosis, they have Down's Syndrome, they bump into other kids, they threaten and they say things. You do not think they would give up that disability in a minute, in a minute? But they cannot, they cannot. But in Iowa, after adopting model management programs, they took the suspensions of disabled children from 220 a year to zero, to zero. We can work with these children, we can help these children. But what does this amendment do? It says, if you bring a weapon to school, you go out on the streets, and that is why the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) told us, police chiefs and prosecutors and victims of crime have said do not do this. Work with these children. What do we know about how we can do this? We can do this because we understand the disabilities, and we sit down with the parents and we work out a plan to deal with this violence. This is not some kid who knows what he is doing and cavalierly, recklessly walks in with a gun in school or a knife in school: You are out. That is a law I wrote. We should have zero tolerance. But with a child where that may be as a result of their disability, we ought to know that before we have them pay that kind of price. Because again, as the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) pointed out, when we throw these children out of school, they do much worse, and as the police chiefs have pointed out to us, they engage in one heck of a lot of activity. Some have suggested when we throw them out, give them back a gun and a mask, because they certainly show up in the crime statistics after they are out of here. But we should not be doing this. We should not be doing this to these young kids. Mr. Chairman, there is two distinct populations. Let me just say, 20 million children went to school day in and day out this school year, and a dozen of those children, for what reasons we have not yet to fathom, engaged in violence against their schoolmates and killed and injured their schoolmates. Not one of those children was an IDEA child. This is the equivalent of hitting the Chinese Embassy. This is the equivalent of bombing the Chinese Embassy. We are trying to deal with those children who are shooting other children, who are engaging in that kind of violence against other children in schools, and now we have chosen to target in some ways the most vulnerable population in those schools, those children with disabilities, those children with disabilities. If we want consistency, let us not take the child that has a disability and have them pay a greater price, although I think we can deal with them in the same way in terms of suspension and expulsion, as long as they have some educational services. Here we have children that are targeted. The kid in Oregon that shot his schoolmates was suspended with no services, no education, no nothing; came back to school later and shot them. We now have kids who are crying for them, and your answer is to throw them out of school with no requirement to engage them in a plan. That does not sound to me very encouraging for parents who are worried about school safety, and it certainly does not deal with these children as we know we must under the laws of this land. We must deal with them with respect to their civil rights and make sure that we are not discriminating against them. Mr. Norwood said these children have preferences. I want to meet the child with Down's Syndrome who has a preference or cerebral palsy that has a preference, or a child with serious attention disorder, that has a preference? No, they have a disability. Mr. Chairman, because they have the courage and their parents have the courage and school districts have the courage, they have an opportunity to possibly get a decent education and become productive members of this society, and this Norwood amendment would throw this all out. It should be rejected out of hand.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the amendment that the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer) is offering. I would hope that it would not be necessary, and maybe he can withdraw it. I say it for this reason. The study that he cites from the Center on the Prevention of Violence, and I think it is actually in Denver, Colorado, has gone through a number of these programs that we have authorized and appropriated money for over the last several years. I think the study draws the right conclusions. We are spending a lot of money on a lot of programs that have not been properly tested, that politically are quite popular. The DARE program, every politician, every police department loves it, it just does not happen to do much good. In fact, I think the Center for the Study of Violence found that it was probably, in many cases, at the lower grades counterproductive. Either it kind of made icons out of some drug dealers, or the kids could not assimilate the information. Because of the Center study, DARE is now being reformulated and, apparently with some success, being offered in the middle school as opposed to with very young children. I do not think we need the GAO. I think what we need is, when the appropriations bill comes to this floor later this year, we ought to ask whether or not there is any proof of efficacy of some of the programs. Now, a lot of our colleagues are going to get upset about that, but we should forget the GAO, do not pay for the GAO, take that study the gentleman from Colorado has in his hand, and what he will find out is, when he is talking about youth violence and he is really talking about the problems of serious delinquency and chronic delinquency, there is probably about four or five programs in the Nation that are really doing this in a comprehensive fashion. Most of them are things that politicians do not want to hear about. They are dealing with very young children in a very comprehensive fashion who have very serious problems. But in some cases, it is 7, 8, 10 percent of the kids who are 61 percent of the crimes; in other words, 20 percent of the kids are 70 percent of the crimes. So we are able to identify many of these kids, but when we do, it requires the kind of help that most politicians do not want to deliver. They would rather cut a ribbon. They would rather have a grant. They would rather lean on our appropriators to fund these programs. But as the Center properly points out, in most cases, these are not terribly effective programs. For this kind of money, the taxpayers ought to get a bigger bang for the buck. I would hope that the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer) would withdraw his amendment, but I think he raises a very important point. I am concerned about the sunset, because the unintended consequences of Congress, as the gentleman knows, can be rather dramatic. I think that we ought to make sure, and I know that the gentleman knows we did this with some of the education programs, we want nationally tested, effective programs, and that is what we ought to be funding and not every pilot program that walks through the door that politically sounds great because it involves the police department or involves somebody else, but has no effect in terms of the outcomes of violence. So I would oppose the amendment if the gentleman continues, but I would hope that, instead of spending money on a GAO study, we take the work of the National Center and put it up against the appropriations process and then ask our colleagues, is this what they really want to spend money on? I think they would have trouble answering, in light of that study and other studies that the Center has sponsored, answering in the affirmative if they really want to deal with the problems of youth violence.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, if the gentlewoman will yield, I thank the gentlewoman. I think that conversation and responsibility also has to take place in our families. That conversation has to take place.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, this is a place in America where debate is supposed to be the freest and the most open. This is the place where the first amendment protects all speech made on the floor of the Congress, and yet we find each and every time that we come next to it, to an important issue that confronts our country, in this case, the safety and the future of our children, the role of violence in our society and the future, the future of this country, and the increased violence in our society, we see the Republicans once again want to close down debate, want to limit free and open debate, want to limit the amendments, not make in order amendments that they are afraid might pass. That should not be the hallmark of the Congress of the United States, but unfortunately the Republicans have decided that they will let the NRA, the National Rifle Association, design this debate, design the amendments, say what amendments will be in order and what amendments will not be in order. They have chosen to side with the NRA against free and open debate. As my colleagues know, this is the House of Congress which this year has mastered working 2 and 3 days a week, 1 and 2 hours a day, but now we are told that all of this has to happen in a very brief period of time without free and open debate. It is a travesty again the first amendment, and it is a travesty against the Members of this House.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, today we honor Rosa Parks for her heroic acts that helped change race relations forever in this country. She lit a fire under the civil rights movement when on December 1, 1955 she bravely refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. Many other people were instrumental in the struggle, but her act of defiance of an unjust segregation law visibly rallied people together and helped change our nation. Congress is awarding Mrs. Parks a Gold Medal because we are proud that she stood up for what was right and set in motion the chain of events which ultimately led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which ensured that all black Americans had the right to equal treatment under the law with white Americans. We are proud that her arrest rallied people against segregation in a year-long bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama that finally ended when the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of transportation was illegal. Several years ago in Richmond, Calif., in my congressional district, I had the privilege to join with the Richmond NAACP to honor Rosa Parks at its annual dinner. She passed on her powerful story to younger generations of Americans who are working every day to achieve racial justice America. This medal we bestow upon Mrs. Parks sends an important message not just about the history of the civil rights movement but about the struggles that our society faces today. The Gold Medal for Rosa Parks, I hope, is a message to all Americans to have the courage of your convictions and to stand up--or to sit down, whichever may be more appropriate--for what you believe is right. As Mrs. Parks wrote in her memoir, ``our mistreatment was just not right, and I was sick of it.'' More than forty years after Mrs. Parks' arrest, despite significant improvements, racial divisions are still strong. They show up in all elements of society and are still reflected in the huge gaps between blacks and white in income and employment, in health and in educational achievement. Progress is being made, to be sure, but it is slow. These gaps should be intolerable to all Americans, not just to those who must suffer their consequences. Most recently, many of my colleagues here have also correctly denounced the practice of profiling, where police officers stop black motorists for no other reason than they fit the profile that the police have decided fits that of a criminal. Profiling is being challenged as violation of these motorists civil rights and this practice should indeed be brought to an abrupt halt. As we thank Rosa Parks and honor her with a Congressional medal, we must also dedicate ourselves to carry out her dream of a just and tolerant society. Her bold action inspired thousands of Americans to join together to demand change. It should still inspire us to make our society a more just and humane place. Many people have commemorated the courageous action of Rosa Parks, including the popular and very talented group, The Nevill Brothers, who wrote a tribute to her. I could not agree with them more when they sing. Thank you Miss Rosa You were the spark That started our freedom movement, Thank you Sister Rosa Parks.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, Today I am introducing the Public Resources Debt Reduction Act to eliminate many wasteful and environmentally destructive subsidies. My bill would save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars per year and end environmentally harmful practices that have continued for too long under antiquated laws. The array of subsidies for mining, timber, irrigation and other industries that use natural resources belonging to the America people is truly astounding. Multinational mining companies take gold and silver from public land without paying the public a dime of the value. Each year the taxpayers ante up millions to build roads into previously pristine areas of the National Forests so that timber companies can cut down the trees. Irrigators will pay back less than half of the cost of dams and water projects constructed for their benefit--and that repayment takes 50 years with no interest charges. These direct subsidies are only the beginning of the support we give to natural resource developers. On top of the discount rates for use of the public's resources, each of these industries also receives other benefits, from tax breaks to farm payments. While these corporations profit handsomely from the public's resources, they often create environmental damage that the public finds itself paying to repair. Abandoned mines litter the West. Unstable clear-cuts in the forests have produced dangerous mudslides this year, as well as damaging wildlife habitat and harming fishing streams. Dams and diversions for irrigation destroy river reaches and wetlands while interfering with annual salmon migration. Why should the industries that despoil our environment continue to receive heavy subsidies from the American people? Why should these ``corporate welfare'' benefits remain sacrosanct when we have eliminated welfare support for many poor people? The answer, of course, is that these subsidies should not remain in place. We cannot pass up this opportunity to eliminate wasteful spending, decrease the deficit and simultaneously reduce environmental damage. That is why, along with 19 original cosponsors, I have introduced the Public Resources Debt Reduction Act. This measure, which was supported by nearly 60 co-sponsors in the last Congress, would reduce the flagrant waste of billions of dollars in taxpayer money on free minerals, cheap timber, subsidized water and other benefits for those who use our natural resources. The provisions of this bill (some of which have previously been adopted by the House of Representatives or House Committees) include: Requiring a fair return for oil and gas leases, grazing leases, and utility rights of way. Establishing that fees for using federal resources recover all the costs of making those resources available, with a separate provision eliminating timber sales at prices that do not cover administrative costs and overhead. Halting the give-away of hardrock minerals and sales of mineral lands for next to nothing. Charging full costs for federal water used to irrigate surplus crops. Moving receipts from federal timber sales back ``on budget.'' Mandating annual budget reporting of the cost of natural resource subsidies The special deals and subsidies given to natural resource development on public lands are relics of another time, a time when the West was young and natural resources were seen as the best incentive to settle the land. Now the West has long been settled, and we can no longer afford the environmental destruction or the loss to the Treasury resulting from nineteenth century development policies. In the twenty-first century, industry must be required to pay a fair price for using public resources.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, as introduced, H.R. 150 had significant problems. The bill would have amended the Recreation and Public Purposes Act to provide for the transfer of national forest lands to local education entities for use as elementary and secondary schools, including public charter schools. At the Committee on Resources hearing on H.R. 150, the administration testified in opposition to the bill. While they supported the objective of making Federal lands available in certain circumstances for public purposes, they testified that the legislation was burdensome. One of the problems with the bill was that the Recreation and Public Purposes Act was designed to apply to public lands only. H.R. 150 tried to shoehorn national forest lands into that law and it was not a very good fit. The problem was not only with using the Recreation and Public Purposes Act, but also the fact that the bill sponsor was seeking waivers or changes to the normal requirements of land conveyances. We should not be setting different requirements for school lands than applied to public lands used for hospitals or other public purposes. Further, we had no definition of a public charter school and, as such, we did not know what such use would entail. During the Committee on Resources' consideration of H.R. 150, an amendment in the nature of a substitute was adopted and made substantial improvements to this legislation. As reported by the Committee on Resources, the bill is now a freestanding measure that provides discretionary authority to the Secretary of Agriculture to make available certain national forest system lands at nominal cost to qualifying entities for use as elementary and secondary schools and related facilities. The bill requires that in order to make such a conveyance, the Secretary must determine that, one, the land will be used for the intended purposes, two, that the conveyance will serve the public interest, three, that the land to be conveyed is not otherwise needed for the national forest system, and four, the total acreage to be conveyed does not exceed the amount reasonably necessary for the proposed use. In any event, the conveyance is limited to 80 acres, and the mineral rights are reserved to the United States. In addition, the committee amendment includes the reverter clause that would be applicable if the lands were to be used, without consent of the Secretary, for use other than the use for which the lands were not conveyed. Mr. Chairman, H.R. 150, as amended by the Committee on Resources, is a significant improvement from the bill as it was introduced. Although the administration objects to the bill because the lands are authorized to be conveyed for less than full cost, I do not think that what the bill provides in this case is unreasonable, given the discretionary nature of the bill and the public interests being served. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, as I said before, we do not deny the bill has been, we believe, substantially improved with the substitute, as proposed, to the bill, as amended. We have no problem with this. I would say I do not think this bill is going to solve the education problems in this country. There is much for this Congress to do. While we are happy to help pass this legislation, we wish that the majority would get on with the rest of the agenda that the people in this country want with respect to schools, and clearly part of that is to protect our students and schools from violence. We wish that before the break you had taken up the legislation dealing with background checks at gun shows, child safety locks, and other measures to try to prevent the easy access and irresponsible access of young people to guns that have played out in the tragic incidents, oft too often, in this country. We appreciate that this legislation may impact 40, 50, maybe 60, 70 districts that may have access to some lands, but there are millions of students that are in schools that are crumbling, that are not ready for the next century, that have not been wired, and we really think that the Federal Government ought to participate in helping, whether it is through the Tax Code or whether through loans or grants, to rebuilding some of these crumbling schools in America that are both urban and rural so that children can have a decent setting in which to learn and in which knowledge can be conveyed and can be acquired by these children. So this is an interesting piece of legislation, but it falls far short of what the country expects out of this Congress with respect to the children's education in this Nation. And we would hope at some point, since we are only working a couple of hours a week around here, that we would find time to address that legislation and deal with the issue of revitalizing the infrastructure of education in this country. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.