George Miller

Mr. MILLER of California

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I would support the gentleman. We can do it right now.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Nobody has been more diligent in trying to warn this Congress and the country about the backlog in the national parks and in the public lands with respect to maintenance and even, to some extent, and clearly, in acquisition. But let me say that is not the competition that this amendment is. This is money that is put into an account for the Northern Marianas. They have been unwilling over the last several years to match that money; and there is now, according to the budget, about $80 million sitting in that account. All I am suggesting is that we take that $2 million and help these cities. People are volunteering their time here. I work every weekend with organizations and try to help organizations that are paying for the ball fields and trying to recover these facilities so that they can use them for their children. So we are not matching volunteers here. We are matching an account that has more money in it than they can possibly use as opposed to this program where people can use it for recreational opportunities for the young people.

Mr. MILLER of California. Now the gentleman is going to steal the money from me. No good deeds go unrewarded.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, on the point both he and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) have made, if we go back into our childhoods, we all know the value of a coach, the value of the mentor, the value of the after-school recreation director that helped us get over some trouble spots when we were young children, when we were adolescents. That opportunity and that relationship is being denied to too many children today in America. This is a small effort. This is not going to solve a problem, but this has been an effective effort when we put the money into it. Unfortunately, the last couple of years it has languished, and I just think it is an important one that should be embraced by the House.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer this important amendment to the Interior appropriations bill which will provide urgently needed recreation and after-school opportunities for our Nation's youth. This amendment will rejuvenate the Urban Park Recreation and Recovery Program, or UPARR program which has languished for the last couple of years. The UPARR program, the Urban Park Recreation and Recovery Program, provides competitive matching grants of up to $200,000 to local communities to help them design programs to meet youth recreation needs. Research shows that many of our most serious youth-related problems, including juvenile crime, drug use, gang activity and teenage sexual activity occur most frequently during the hours immediately after the end of school when 5 to 7 million children go home alone every afternoon. The Urban Parks Program helps local communities to fund programs to reduce juvenile crime, to provide safe havens for our youth and to offer constructive academic or recreational opportunities after school. That is why the Urban Park Program is supported by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, the National Association of Police Athletic Leagues, Major League Baseball, the National Recreation and Park Association and the National Council of Youth Sports. Many other organizations support this effort. This program enables and makes small grants to communities to try to recover, to revitalize, to rehabilitate the recreational facilities in their communities so that they will then be able to offer young people an alternative to doing nothing or to getting into trouble in after- school hours and on the weekends. This is an effort to try to reclaim a baseball field, to try to reclaim maybe a tennis court, to reclaim a recreational area for young people, swimming pools, bathhouses. Very often some of our older facilities have fallen into disuse. They have not been kept up. Now, what we see is in partnership with organizations like the Professional Golf Association, in partnership with the National Basketball Association, with the Sporting Goods Manufacturers, with Major League Baseball, we are coming together, attracting private money with these grants to revitalize these recreational facilities. This money is offset because I take it from an account where we are giving $11 million to the Northern Mariana Islands, and I am reducing that by $2 million for the purposes of the Urban Parks and Recreation Program. I am doing that because the money that goes to the Northern Marianas to date, they have been unwilling to match that money and that is a requirement of that money. Yet what we see is communities all over the country seeking to match the money from the Urban Parks Program. They have put up their money, they have gotten local sponsors, they have gotten the private sector to buy into these, and they want to use the money. But we see an account with respect to the Northern Marianas where there is over $80 million that is sitting there, sitting in their account, and they are unwilling to match it and now we are going to add another $11 million. What I am suggesting is we would be better to give that money to the city of Phoenix or to Pueblo or to Bridgeport or to Savannah or to Peoria or to Kokomo or Kalamazoo, where these communities are hungry to do something for their young people, they are hungry to try to combat crime problems, to combat drug problems, to create sporting activities, to create sporting teams, to create academic programs combined with sports programs so that young people will have these kinds of alternatives. Rather than have this money languish in an account where the recipient of the money refuses to match it, we ought to give it to those communities that they are seeking to match it. There is a huge backlog of communities that are desiring this effort that have gone out and made the push, made the push within their private sector to gather resources to get in-kind contributions or to get monetary programs that have worked with citizen programs where people volunteer to rebuild, to paint facilities, to recapture much of what many of us have experienced when we grew up when we knew the importance that recreation played in our childhood, and teaching us the rules of sportsmanship, and teaching us the discipline of practice, and teaching us how to engage with other individuals, and giving us productive time to use when we were not in school or not engaged in other activities. That is why it is important that we adopt this amendment. It will not harm. It will not harm the account with respect to the Marianas because, as I pointed out, they have a huge backlog of money that they have been unwilling to match for the purposes for which Congress has appropriated that money. So I would urge my colleagues, many of you have heard from your mayors, many of you have heard from the sporting good manufacturers, many of you have heard from volunteer organizations in your communities that are struggling, struggling to try to rebuild and recapture and revitalize these facilities.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, we owe it to our children. We now understand, there are studies, there, you stack them up, they are taller than I am, that tell us the most important time to capture the time of young people is that time from after school until the time that their parents or guardians come home. That is when most of the crime is committed by young people. That is when young people get into trouble most of the time. But in many, many communities, and if you look at the list of the communities that are making applications for this program, in many communities they simply do not have a constructive alternative to offer to these young people. We have done this with the UPARR program. We can continue to do it with the UPARR program, and we can do it in the constructive fashion so that we can take advantage of the energies of these young people and the willingness of the local communities to come up with the matching money, to come up with the local energy to create these facilities. I would hope that the House would approve this amendment, and I ask for an aye vote on this amendment.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I would just want to commend the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Furse) for offering her amendment. Persistence is a word that we will long identify with her in this effort. The gentlewoman from Oregon and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy), who was here earlier, have been two very, very persistent people who have started off in amendments that received very few votes. The gentlewoman did it on the rider. The gentleman from Massachusetts has done it on forest roads. We saw this Congress arrive at a point where both of those policies have been discredited. They have been dramatically changed. And as was pointed out, we are headed in a direction now for the first time with this agreement that recognizes what I believe is the reality of the forests, the reality of the West.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, if the gentlewoman would continue to yield, that reality is that our populations, along with the national populations, seek to have these forests properly managed, not there just for a single purpose. Many of our colleagues on the other side and many on our side have talked about multiple use. For the first time we are talking about real multiple use that recognizes the watershed value of these forests, that recognizes the timber value of these forests, that recognizes the habitat value of these forests, that recognizes the recreational value of these forests. Many of the problems that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) and the members of the committee are having to deal with and spend money on are having to make up for very bad forest policy in the past, where we have huge scars on our landscape and huge scars on our waterscape. Now we are spending billions of dollars to go back and try to restore these forests, to reclaim these forests, to replant these forests. And it is much more expensive to do it this way than to do it right the first time, the kind of policy that has been articulated on behalf of our forests in the past by the gentlewoman. This amendment that the gentlewoman is offering to move these monies toward those priorities, recognizing the need, recognizing the urgency, I do not have to tell the gentlewoman as a resident of the Northwest, or myself as a resident of California, we are on an urgency timetable here if we are, in fact, going to salvage some of these species that are at risk in terms of the fisheries and in terms of that habitat. So, I also want to recognize the gentlewoman's very serious and pragmatic judgment about the withdrawal of this amendment because of the agreement that is in place. But that agreement is in place because of her persistence over the years, along with others, on these amendments. Mr. Chairman, it was lonely in the beginning, but it turned out to be the majority position, and I think clearly recognizes in the agreement in this bill that this is the majority position of this Congress. I think we have further to go. I think we have more to do. And we do really in fact have to make these multiple use lands so they recognize all of the competing values for these forest lands. It is not just the value of timber, as important as that is. So, I thank the gentlewoman from Oregon, one, for offering the amendment; two, for her decision here; but thirdly, for her service in Congress and especially on these issues where I have had a chance to work with her. For really being a voice of reason and a voice of change with respect to forest policy in this country, I thank the gentlewoman.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, over the last several months I have had the distinct pleasure of working with an incredible group of young people on the development of a Congressional ``Kids's Page'' web site. These aspiring web designers were students from the 4th, 5th and 6th grade classes at Washington Elementary School in Richmond, California. Washington Elementary is an ethnically diverse neighborhood school situated between an affluent bayshore community and the inner-city streets. The oldest school in the West Contra Costa Unified School District, it was slated for closure in 1991 because of falling enrollment and poor academic achievement. Yet the Washington School of today is a thriving learning environment, full of energy and life. Its enrollment has more than doubled, test scores are quickly rising and it has been recognized by the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative as a Leadership School. The catalyst for Washington's transformation has been school principal, Kaye Burnside. Kaye's personal commitment and perseverance are responsible for Washington's dramatic turnaround. She has worked to assemble a team of teachers, educational professionals and community volunteers who mirror her passion and creativity, and who have created a place alive with learning. Under Kaye's leadership, many educational partnerships have been forged, including Break the Cycle, a project with the University of California which provides after-school math tutors for approximately 90 students, and Project SEED, a program which introduces elementary students to algebra and other higher math. Washington has been designated a science magnet school and in keeping with their school mascot--the dolphin--a core marine science curriculum has been developed which runs as a theme throughout the many facets of school life. Kaye's efforts have also resulted in recognition from the Annenberg Foundation which has named Washington as an Annenberg Leadership School and provided support for Washington's contract with Early Childhood Resources to provide peer coaching of classroom teachers. Recognizing that technological literacy is an important element of any student's future success, Kaye has strived to ensure that Washington students are fully versed in utilization and application of informational technology. Kaye recruited the talent which has brought to Washington a state-of-the-art computer learning center and integrated technology into the broader school curriculum. Development of the ``Kid's Page'' is just one example of this successful integration, with Washington students undertaking a project which challenged their hands-on computer skills while simultaneously asking them to research and explore various aspects of representational government and the legislative process. Kaye has always envisioned that Washington would be more than just a school. She has built a true community center, a place in which neighbors feel a sense of pride and ownership. Washington has become the focus of the Many Hands Foundation, an exemplary community partnership which has brought together parents, business leaders and a cadre of volunteers in support of educational excellence. The Many Hands Foundation provides three business sponsors for each of Washington's classrooms. Many Hands also sponsors the Spirit of Excellence program, a program which rewards academic achievement with scholarships to summer Science Camp and purchase of a home computer. The Many Hands Foundation, believing that Kaye has developed something truly special at Washington Elementary, will soon be awarding Kaye a grant enabling her to document the story of Washington's transformation. Washington is a model for replication in communities throughout our country, and I am personally honored to have been involved with its success. I invite my colleagues to join me in recognizing the tremendous contributions of Kaye Burnside and the Washington School community in the education of our young people.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, today is the 54th anniversary of the terrible explosion and loss of life at Port Chicago Naval Weapons Station during World War II. A number of survivors, their families and community supporters are gathering today at a memorial on the site of the explosion to mark the anniversary and continue the effort to clear the names of sailors that were wrongly convicted of mutiny after refusing to resume loading munitions in the aftermath of the tragedy. I was proud to write the law in 1992 that established a National Memorial at the site of the explosion and where the ceremony today is being held. A little over a half century ago this site was a vital supply center during the crucial phase of World War II in the Pacific. From this site, the munitions that liberated much of Asia from totalitarianism were shipped, and the history of the world was changed. But as we know, we remember Port Chicago today for another reason as well. Fifty-four years ago tonight, one of the largest pre-nuclear explosions in world history occurred right here. Two supply ships, a supply train, and hundreds of brave and dedicated sailors were vaporized. The devastation was unparalleled in the history of World War II here in the United States with the singular exception of Pearl Harbor. Today, most of the scars of WWII have healed, and from the ashes of that war a new Asia has arisen. But not all the scars are healed. For several years, as many of you know, I have been leading an effort, along with the help of our colleague Representative Pete Stark and our former colleague Ron Dellums, to close the books on the one remaining issue in the Port Chicago story: purging the convictions of the sailors who did not return to ship loading operations immediately following the explosion. Those sailors were neither traitors nor deserters, as some have suggested. They sought the same post-traumatic leave as was allowed their white officer counterparts--leave they were denied because of their race. They sought remediation of the unquestionably hazardous conditions involved in loading the ships which undoubtedly contributed to the events leading to the explosion, including the dangerous competition among loading crews provoked by officers. Now, along with 40 or our colleagues in the House of Representatives, I am seeking the personal intervention of President Clinton to clear these records. As many of you know, the Navy has already acknowledged that race was an important factor in many aspects of life in the Navy and at Port Chicago in 1944. Their race denied black sailors the opportunity to serve in combat situations. They were assigned to loading operations exclusively because of race, and they were subjected to hazardous conditions in those loading operations because they were black. And ultimately, they were denied equal treatment from the Navy after the explosion solely because of their race. Their convictions were wrong because they resulted from a system that the highest military officials of this nation now acknowledge was racially biased against black people. The time has long passed for these convictions to be overturned. As the San Francisco Chronicle editorialized on March 1 of this year: The United States should be a strong enough country to acknowledge that it makes mistakes, especially in the fervor of a world war, and its harsh judgment of these men was indeed a mistake. That is why the State Legislature unanimously voted to ask President Clinton to intervene: when race taints one aspect of an issue, when it creates the context in which a condition exists, it is a factor in what results from those conditions. That is why these convictions must be expunged. Whenever I speak out on behalf of the Port Chicago sailors, there is always someone who writes to criticize my efforts. But recently, someone wrote with another perspective that I want to share with you today, a man in Rancho Mirage, California, whose late uncle, a long- time Navy man, was severely injured by the Port Chicago explosion. Here is what he wrote: [I]t certainly is understandable that those who were loading the ammunition and who were treated so shabbily by their superiors (almost as if they were completely expendable fodder) would definitely not want to go back into the situation. I wouldn't either. These men deserve to have their names cleared and their dignity restored. I don't doubt that my uncle would have wanted the same thing. So, on this 54th anniversary on this historic tragedy, let us both recall the bravery and sacrifice of those who served and those who died here at Port Chicago in pursuit of peace and justice. And let us include a prayer for those who served here and who still seek justice from the government they risked their lives to defend. I will continue my efforts to secure a fair hearing and justice for the sailors of Port Chicago, and their families and survivors, and with the support of the survivors, their families, the families of the victims and the community at large we will secure that justice that has eluded these men for a half century.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, today millions of Americans will visit their family physician seeking medical care, and, for thousands and thousands of those Americans, they will be told by their family physician that they will not be able to see the specialist that they need to see, they will not be able to get the medicine that the physician thinks they need, they will not be able to get the medical procedure that their physician believes they should have. They cannot do that because some HMO bureaucrat is saying, we are not going to allow you to do that. We are not going to allow you to do that because we are going to try to save money, as opposed to dealing with your real health care needs. The Democratic patient protection bill ensures that Americans have access to specialists, that Americans have access to the medicines they need, that Americans have access to the operations that are necessary to preserve their health. It does this in the patient protection bill that the President will be coming to Capitol Hill to support today. Yesterday the Republicans introduced their HMO protection bill. They decided that rather than protect the Americans for health care, they would protect the HMOs. While they say they extend protections to Americans, they leave 100 million uninsured Americans out of these protections, 100 million Americans that will not be able to get the medicines, that will not be able to see the specialists, that will not be able to get the medical procedures necessary for their health care.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Sanders amendment. I do so for many of the reasons that have already been articulated by some of our colleagues; and that is, simply, we are being told that this stabilization fund cannot do business if it has to get engaged in a little bit of democratic process. And that is that we have a fund here with $38 billion that was originally designed for the stabilization of currency. We have had interventions time and again, many of which have not been certainly questioned by the Congress, many of which have been unsuccessful, some of which have been successful when they are coordinated on a multilateral basis. But the fact of the matter is now what we have is we have a means by which we circumvent whether or not some of the activities that the IMF is able to do or not able to do or willing to do or not willing to do and we are now making investments of substantial amounts of the American taxpayer dollars. And we ought to have disclosure of that, we ought to have debate of that, and we ought to have approval of that. Because we have moved out of the minor leagues in this day and age. We are moving into now the movement and the quick movement of billions of dollars. And depending upon the timing of that movement, sometimes it is wise and sometimes it is not. And sometimes, as we see, the early decisions about the commitment of those monies have turned out to be the wrong decision. I think that it is time that this Congress have some ability to have some say in this process. This money is getting moved further and further away from the people that provide this money, the taxpayers of this country. It is getting moved further and further away from the decision-making process within the Congress of the United States, who should be making the decisions about the utilization of these funds. That is what the Sanders amendment requests. This is not a unilateral economic disarmament. It is nothing of the sort. This is not surrendering. This is not recognizing that we do not have problems around the world in various economies, whether it is in Asia or Russia or elsewhere. All of that is still on the table. What this suggests is that we ask people to come and be accountable to the Congress for the decisions they make about the commitments of these resources. Why do we do that? Why do we do that? Because if we do not do this properly, even as we look at Asia and as we look at Russia, if we do not look at this properly, what we become, we become the enablers, we become the enablers of the flow of capital for people who now go beyond reasonable risk, go beyond a reasonable return, go beyond speculation. They head deep into greed. They head deep into greed with the commitment of money by private sources; and then when it goes wrong, they come back to the IMF, they come back to the Economic Stabilization Fund, and they say they have got to bail them out. They have to take our private decisions, many of which in the late stages of these games in Indonesia or Malaysia or Korea or Russia were driven by greed. They were not driven by economics. They were not driven by cost- benefit studies. They were not driven by determination of market or cash flow. They were driven by greed. Now they want to make those debts, those private decisions, public. But in order to do that, they need a partner, and that partner becomes the U.S. taxpayer. I think the U.S. taxpayer has a right to ask us, as though sitting on the board of directors, what the hell is going on and what do you know about this. Now, there is private meetings. The Secretary of Treasury and others move through the corridors of Congress and they talk to this group and that group and they say this is what they are going to do. But what they do not do is they do not come out here and debate it on the floor. Now maybe we are going to have that debate when the IMF comes up in the next appropriations. But the Economic Stabilization is part of that debate, because this fund has become something for which it was not originally intended. I appreciate we can put a very expansive decision on currency stabilization. But most people understood that to be the kind of traditional interventions. We are going way beyond that at this stage. We are talking about loans being made to stabilize countries, many of which I appreciate money has not been lost, but there is also a great prospect that it will not be recovered on a timely basis for a considerable period of time. And it is about our job as Members of Congress, as elected delegates of the people to have some say, to have some review, not just in reports submitted to us months afterwards, but up front and before the determinations are made about the commitment of money. Maybe this fund should be reduced. Maybe there is another use for the billions of dollars here. That is part of the debate, too. Because this is about priorities. I think we all understand that we are going to have to have commitments around the world to help stabilize the world economy. But the size of that commitment, the timing of that commitment and whether or not that is a wise plan, we should be able to exercise some judgment, too. That is part of democracy. That is part of democracy. They are going to have the debate in the Russian Duma whether or not they want to accept this plan and whether or not they think this is good for Russia or is not. But we are already going to commit the money. We already are going to commit the money. If we meet with enough people from the Russian Duma, we wonder if any of this would be possible. So the Sanders amendment is about democratization of this process.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, let me just say in closing on this amendment, I think what this amendment does is it ensures the probability that this legislation will become law, and that we can get on with curing the problems of the Salton Sea. It also ensures that when we go to cure those problems, that we know exactly what we are doing, and that the decisions we make and the money we spend will be spent in a scientifically sound fashion; that we will not deal with just one part of the problem of the Salton Sea, which is the salinization, the continued increased salinization of the Salton Sea, but we will also deal with the other concerns with respect to the fish kills and the bird die-off that is taking place today, before the salinization reaches the levels people have talked about in the coming decade. That is the problem of the Salton Sea currently today. Also, let me say this, that this amendment removes all of the objections of the Clinton administration. It removes all of the objections of the Taxpayers for Common Sense. It removes all of the objections of the environmental legislation. That means that this legislation, if amended with my substitute, would have the ability to go to the Senate, be taken from the desk, and bypass all of the committee considerations and all of the things that we know happen to you when you go to the Senate late in the legislative year. I believe that with the commitment of the coalition, the commitment of the gentleman from California (Mr. Brown) and the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Bono) and everybody else to this process, that we will in fact see the results of these studies enacted into law. I think we have a better opportunity of seeing that done with this amendment. We have accepted the change, I was hoping to offer the amendment but the rule did not allow for that, but we accepted the unanimous consent request by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert) to remove the funding from the Land and Water Conservation Fund. That is an improvement. But let me reiterate and emphasize to all of my colleagues that that does not remove the objections of the environmental organizations. That does not remove the objections of the Clinton administration, objections which are substantial, objections that are serious to this legislation. I would hope that the Members of the House would vote for this substitute because it does deal with the problems of the Salton Sea. It does deal with them on the timetable suggested by the majority, but what it does not do is it does not preauthorize an unknown $350 million project. It does not waive the Clean Water Act or limit judicial review. It does not make the U.S. taxpayers 100 percent liable for all of the activities that will take place around the Salton Sea. And it does not contain an unconstitutional review scheme. It does preserve the purpose, the intent and the outcomes that are sought in the legislation but without all of the harmful provisions that are currently embodied in the bill as it came from the committee. I would hope that Members would support the substitute by myself and the gentleman from California (Mr. Brown). Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar). (Mr. OBERSTAR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento).

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, continuing on my reservation, just one point here is as I read the manager's amendment, it says, ``May be appropriated to the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Secretary of the Interior in amounts to ensure that neither the administrator nor the Secretary is appropriating substantially all of the construction costs.'' So I do not know if that means they split them, but I just think again, since this is a preauthorization of this $350 million project, Members ought to understand that the rational reading would be about half of it is going to come out of EPA, which is receiving reductions in funding, and half of it is going to come out of the Bureau of Reclamation, which is receiving reductions in funding and not able to meet the demands that the Members already place on those two funds. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the right to object for the purpose of having the gentleman explain his amendment.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this amendment has been described earlier in the debate. It is offered on behalf of myself and the gentleman from California (Mr. Brown). The purpose of this amendment, somebody said they want to be plain speaking, is let us just do something about the Salton Sea. The point is this: When we make a decision to commit the $350 million, we ought to do that which we know works. The many shortcomings in the current bill that is before us have been outlined in both the objections by taxpayer groups, by environmental groups and by the Clinton Administration with respect to serious problems that exist in bill. But with respect to the studies, let me say that the legislation offered by the committee goes ahead and does some studies relating to feasibility. With respect to dealing with the salinity, there is a whole other body of studies that are in that legislation and in our legislation. There are scientific studies that deal with this issue of nutrient loading, that deal with the issue of botulism, that deal with other concerns that are killing the fish and wildlife at the current time that have got to be developed, and any project that we develop for the Salton Sea should make sure that it deals with the full array of problems that are presented by the current conditions in the Salton Sea. That is terribly important, because we know that the salinization of the Salton Sea is going to continue to get worse. We also know that some of the best water that flows into the Salton Sea currently, about 1 million acre feet, or over 1 million acre feet of agricultural drain water, that maybe half a million acre feet of that water may leave the Salton Sea because water is going to be sold into other markets. Discussions are under way to sell water to San Diego and elsewhere, so that drainage water will not necessarily flow to the Salton Sea. That will make this problem even worse. There is nothing any of us can do about that. That is the right of the water rights holders and the contractors there in the Imperial Irrigation District and elsewhere, should they so decide to enter into that contract and if that is approved. What our amendment says is the same timetable as the majority amendment, the same set of studies, but what we do is we require you to coordinate these studies so you, in fact, make these decisions based upon the evidence, not simply one part of this problem that everybody admits is going to get worse over the next decade. But the birds and fish and wildlife are dying today. That is because of what we do not know yet as to what is causing that. People want to portray this as somehow that nobody paid attention to this. In 1992, we passed a bill. The majority party has not provided the appropriations for that legislation to do these studies. Everybody in the State wants to do something about the Salton Sea. The reason things have not been done is because we do not know what to do. We can spend a lot of money, we can run around and build a lot of projects, but unless we know they are going to work, we are not keeping faith with the taxpayers and with the Members of Congress in terms of the authorization of the money. That is the purpose of the substitute that is offered by us. My conversations with the Senators from our State, my conversations with the environmental groups and with the leadership in the other House lead me to believe that this also has the best chance of being passed by the Senate and in fact becoming law. If we send this legislation over here with all of these bells and whistles, with the united opposition of the environmental groups, with some of the taxpayer organizations against this legislation, with the statement of administrative policy that has serious problems with this legislation, we are dramatically reducing the likelihood that we can get on with curing the problems of the Salton Sea. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes just in response. First of all, let us understand that the timetables for the studies is identically the same. The difference is that we asked for a coordination of the scientific studies and the salinity studies to see whether or not we can, in fact, come up with a solution. The bill offered by the majority only deals with salinity. The birds and the fish are dying off today. It is not the salinity itself that is killing them. The salinity will get worse and in all likelihood will have a greater adverse impact on the fish kills and the bird die-offs. But that is the point of how we constructed the study. So we have the information. There is no requirement in the bill to require the Secretary to consider all the available findings and reports that the science subcommittee established pursuant to this legislation. And we think that this is a very important part, because when we talk to the scientists, the scientists will tell us that it is not the salinity alone that is the problem. The salinity is an egregious problem, but it does not solve the problem of the Salton Sea. So people obviously can say whatever they want, but they should not suggest that somehow this legislation is a diversion to lengthy studies. The time frame is the same. The studies are the same. The coordination is better. And the report back and the interim actions by the Secretary during those 18 months study so Congress will have the fullest amount of evidence and the best evidence available as they make a decision to commit $350 million, that is called for in this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).