George Miller

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me just say that I hope that this debate does not get redundant, because I think there is a point at which, obviously, both parties to this debate believe that these studies should, in fact, be conducted so that we can make some determinations about how to clean up the Salton Sea, if in fact that is possible to do. But we have already heard some suggestions about how we are going to do that, and the suggestions are being made here in advance of those studies, and that is a problem we have. In 1992, we tried to step up those studies and we passed legislation to step up those studies but, unfortunately, the appropriations for those studies have not been forthcoming. So here we are again now asking the Secretary of the Interior to engage in these studies and to report back to us in 18 months. The substitute that the gentleman from California (Mr. George Brown) and I will offer to this legislation later in the debate does exactly that. It coordinates a project, scientific studies, for 18 months, some of which the Secretary of the Interior has already started to undertake, and it requires an interim report after 9 months delineating what they think some of the alternatives will be and what the status of those alternatives and the studies are, and to have oversight hearings and to identify additional authorities if they need it. This puts the studies on the same timetable. Then we would do what I think this bill does unconstitutionally, we would then come to the Congress, to the Committee on Resources, and ask them what is this project that we want authorized; do we want to authorize this project or do we not; do we want it this scale, smaller; or if there is going to be alternatives which the studies lay out, which alternative do we want to do. I think that is simply a prudent use of the taxpayers' money. It does not slow this project down at all unless we believe that somehow by doing it this way today they are stealing the money and Members of Congress will not understand that we are talking about $380 million in a single project. Then I guess we want to do it today. Otherwise, we would do it in the regular order, as all Members of Congress do when they are representing projects that they are interested in. For those reasons and for those distinctions between the bill, that is why the administration opposes this legislation. That is why almost every major environmental group opposes this legislation. It is why Taxpayers for Common Sense oppose this legislation. Because we have a terrible history in this Congress of authorizing water projects sometimes that are not thoroughly studied, and we go back and spend billions of dollars trying to correct the mistakes that were made because we did not put the proper foresight into them, or because we had the political rush on to do something that overwhelmed our good judgment, overwhelmed the science, and then we ended up funding something that, in fact, did not work, and either spent a lot of time with the Federal Government inheriting a huge amount of liability or trying to correct horrible environmental consequences of these projects. And that has been true, and that is the life of these projects, whether this is the central Arizona projects, the Central Valley project in California, the central Utah project, the Garrison project. All of these were projects in the hundreds of millions of dollars where we ended up having to come back later and make major, major changes because of the unforeseen consequences and because of inadequate studies and because of an overwhelming political pressure to get this done. Whatever it is that we do that we want to get done should be done based upon the sciences, and the Congress should have the opportunity to review that and then to authorize, and the key word there is to ``authorize,'' as the Justice Department points out in the President's statement of administration policy. That is the order. That is what the Constitution requires. I think, in fact, that the Miller-Brown substitute will speed this process up because I think that is the alternative that has the best chance of being taken up in the Senate and passed by the Senate. This legislation will probably not pass the Senate. The chairman of the committee over there has said that he opposes this legislation. Our two Senators have opposed this legislation. Senator Lott says if it is controversial and takes more than an hour, it probably will not go to the floor in the Senate. So the purpose here of the gentleman from California (Mr. Brown) and myself is to offer an amendment that we think preserves the intent, the purposes and the outcomes that everybody wants with respect to the Salton Sea in California, but does it, I think, in a simpler manner, in a more timely fashion, and one that is geared toward greater chance of success as the closing days of this session come into sight. And that is an important part of this consideration. Finally, I would just say that no matter what funds we look at with respect to this project, whether the money comes out of the Atlanta Water Conservation Fund or whether the money comes out of EPA or the money comes out of the Bureau of Reclamation, we are talking about a major, major commitment of funds in this day and age. As every Member can tell us, as they line up before the Committee on Appropriations and ask for small amounts of money to keep projects going, this one is a major commitment of any of the funds within any of those budgets with respect to construction projects in this day and age and in the budget constraints that we have. And I think that is another reason why we owe the regular order to the Members of Congress and to the taxpayers to do the studies and then come back and, if we determine it is justified, to reauthorize the project and to do it without all of these offenses to the Clean Water Act, to the questions of liability of the Federal taxpayers if things go wrong in this project and to holding other people harmless who should have a stake in this legislation. For those reasons, Mr. Speaker, when the time is appropriate, the gentleman from California (Mr. Brown) and myself will be offering an amendment when it is allowed under the rule. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette).

Mr. MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. MILLER of California. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, the troubles of the Salton Sea are not new to any of us in California. In fact, the Salton Sea has had serious biological problems for many years. They have been well publicized fish kills and die-offs of migratory waterfowl that raise both environmental concerns and issues involving international treaty obligations. Various scientific studies have attempted to pinpoint the biological cause of the enormous fish kills and the bird die-offs that afflict this body of water. In 1992, the Congress passed legislation that I wrote expanding these studies and the Department of Interior is engaged in that additional research, although there have not been the appropriations in the last couple of years to finish that research or to move it very far down the line. There really is no mystery about some of the aspects of the problems of the Salton Sea. It is an artificially created body of water formed through an engineering catastrophe earlier in this century. It is growing increasingly salty and contaminated because most of its inflows come from agricultural wastewater and municipal wastewater, loaded salts and heavy metals and pesticides and contaminants. The fact of the matter is the only real source of any water of any volume for the Salton Sea is contaminated, polluted wastewater. That is some of the best water that is in this sea at the current time. Yet the inflows of the better quality of water in the sea itself, these waters are questionable over the next few years, and we continue the problem of the increased salinization of this area. The question really is, what do we do about the Salton Sea? How do we arrive at a program that will work? The suggestion that we have made tracks much of what is in this legislation, and that is that we go out, the minority has decided that we would spend a million dollars a month or more than a million dollars a month over the next 18 months and direct the Secretary to conduct these studies and come back and tell us what will work or what will not work. And then at that time, based upon those alternatives, authorize this project or not authorize this project based upon what the Congress deems to be feasible or not feasible. The point is this, with the passage of this legislation, the Salton Sea will immediately become the second largest construction program within the Bureau of Reclamation. Only the Central Arizona Project will be larger, if one works it out over a 10-year period of time which is, of course, the time line that has been set by the concerns of the supporters of this legislation. I think before we commit the Congress of the United States and the taxpayers of the United States to a $300 million decision, we ought to know what those facts are. We ought to make those determinations, but, as somebody said, if we do the studies first and then we come back to the Congress, the Congress will not give us the money. So what they want to do is, they want to take the money up front today, before the studies come back and tell us what it is, and the project will be authorized without regard to those studies. The authorization will be squirreled away. The point is this, this is a very complex problem. It is not just the issue of salinity. It is the issue of nutrient loading. Many of the scientists say we can deal with some of the salinity problems with the diking program and others, but the problem is that we still have not dealt with what may be killing many of the birds and the wildlife in this area. So the point is that I think that we have an obligation to treat this project as we treat all other projects: That is, we authorize studies to come up with the feasibility to determine what is feasible, to determine what the costs are going to be, and then we come back and we authorize that project for the purposes of appropriation, if those studies work out. That is how everyone else in this Congress gets their projects authorized. The fact of the matter is, in some cases after we do the studies, we make determinations that that is really not worth the expenditure of the public's money or a project has to be redesigned or we scale a project down. Those are all determinations that are made within the process of these projects. I also want to point out that this legislation has a number of problems on it that have been raised, concerns, by statement of administration policy from the Clinton administration. They have problems with letter funding mechanisms of this legislation, the fact that the bill currently takes the funding from the Land and Water Conservation Fund. This is a trust fund that is to be used for the purchase of public lands and the maintenance of our parks and wilderness areas on the public lands. And this would invade that to the extent of over two times of what we authorize in a single year would be taken out for this single project. The cost sharing would exempt irrigators from the cost-sharing responsibility for project implementation. So we are putting that load on the taxpayers. The limitations on liabilities, we find what we are doing is we are taking the liability for anything that goes wrong in this project, we are taking that off of the back of everybody else that is around the Salton Sea and saying we are going to load that liability, if things go wrong, on the back of the Federal taxpayer. Clean water exemptions have already been addressed. The administration has problems with those. And the congressional review, the Department of Justice has advised that the provisions granting congressional committee authority to approve or disapprove executive actions without the enactment of legislation would be unconstitutional. So this is a piece of legislation that may very well pass this House, but it certainly is not going to get consideration in the Senate. Senator Chafee has already indicated that their committee would not have time to take this legislation up in this condition. They would hope that we would send them a clean bill so they could pass the legislation, and we can get on with the studies that are necessary to be done. There is nothing in the substitute that delays those studies. There is nothing in the substitute which does not require the Secretary then to report back the results of those studies. But I think it is a way to get this bill enacted so that we can get on with those studies. We can cut down the time frame in which to deal with the problems of the Salton Sea and make some determinations. As Members know, the majority leader of the Senate said if it takes more than an hour, it is not coming up in the Senate between now and adjournment.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Brown). (Mr. BROWN of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman knows my first preference was to remove the exemption from the legislation. We were then asked technically on how you would do it if you were going to do it the way you wanted to do it, and we said that is how you would do it the way you wanted to do it. Our first preference was to take it out of the bill, as recommended by the administration and others.

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

Mr. MILLER of California. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. MILLER of California. So it is the gentleman's expectation this would come out of the Bureau of Reclamation budget and/or the EPA budget?

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, let me back up here then. My problem is we are preauthorizing in this legislation. What are we authorizing it from? We were going to authorize it from the land and water conservation fund. Now what are we authorizing it from?

Mr. MILLER of California. So the Bureau of Reclamation remains the source of funding then for this legislation?

Mr. MILLER of California. But what is the gentleman's expectation? And I do not have the language that has been removed.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I guess I am trying to determine what is left with respect to the authorization?

Mr. MILLER of California. What is authorized to be used?

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I thank the gentleman for the changes that he has made, which would completely remove the use of the land and water conservation funds for this legislation. I think that is important. I would, again, reiterate in our discussions with many of the environmental coalitions opposing this legislation this does not remove their opposition to that legislation. They have numerous items that they are in opposition to. But I would, if I might, ask the manager of the bill, as we remove this source of funding, the land and water conservation fund, what then becomes the source of funding here? What is left? EPA and Bureau of Reclamation?

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute, Amendment No. 1, printed in the Record.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman wants to go ahead without prejudice and work out this language, I am be glad to do that.

Mr. MILLER of California. I think the gentleman amends proposed section 101(g)(4), which does what the gentleman said it does. But in another section of the bill, in section 102(e) and section 201(d), there is additional monies coming from the land and water conservation fund. I would just ask that those also be made a part of this amendment so that we do not use any of this for unauthorized purposes.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for his last point, because the environmental groups continue to oppose this legislation even with this amendment, should it be accepted. I would also like to raise the question, because I think the amendment needs to be fixed here for a second, because land and water conservation funds are also used for the wildlife studies and for the river reclamation and drainage and water treatment to the tune of about $8 million. I would ask that the gentleman's amendment include those, since those are unauthorized purposes for which the land and water conservation fund is created.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to say congratulations and Hafa Adai to our fellow citizens in Guam on marking the centennial of the American flag being raised on the island. In one hundred years Guam and its residents have provided a vital service to our national security and international relations within the Asian- Pacific region. In recognition of the centennial anniversary, Delegate Robert Underwood has introduced H. Res. 494 to bring our attention to the relationship between Guam and the United States and to highlight the work that still remains to be done. I am proud to be an original cosponsor of Mr. Underwood's legislation. When the Japanese military temporarily seized control of Guam during World War II, many Guamanians suffered greatly for their loyalty to the United States. Although its residents were not yet American citizens, many hid and protected Americans throughout the occupation and did so at their own peril. The patriotism and bravery shown was unflinching and should never be forgotten by the people of our nation. Many of Guam's residents wish to change the current relationship with the Federal government. I firmly believe in the right of Guamanians to determine for themselves what is best for their future welfare. If the people of Guam believe that is best achieved through a change of status and becoming fully self-governing, then I will assist in that endeavor. In addition, we have had a hearing on Guam's Commonwealth legislation this Congress and we need to continue to work on that proposal. Many activities continue to be held here in Washington and across Guam to mark the centennial anniversary. Some are light and joyous while others are more somber and reflectful--but while the festivities continue in Hagatna and throughout Guam--let us be mindful of the past but with an eye towards the future. Mr. Speaker, I call on you to schedule Congressman Underwood's legislation, H. Res. 494 for consideration by the House of Representatives before the August recess so the people of Guam know that this congress is respectful of the unique history we have with them and the commitment to their future.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment. It cuts funding for the animal damage control portion of USDA's ``Wildlife Services'' Program. These are nice names for an ugly business that needlessly and painfully slaughters wildlife, excusing ranchers and farmers from the responsibility to seek more humane and creative ways to limit damage to crops and livestock from wildlife. Today, there are a variety of low-cost, humane approaches to controlling wildlife. The trend all across the country is to try to find ways to live with wildlife, on both public and private lands. Yet USDA continues to use leghold traps, poison, and aerial gunning to kill bears, mountain lions, coyotes, and other wildlife. In addition, leghold traps and poisons are indiscriminate methods that end up killing non-target species, including threatened and endangered species. It is high time for Congress to stop forcing taxpayers to subsidize this senseless slaughter. This program is a throwback to a happily bygone era when we ``managed'' bison, wolves, grizzly bears, and other species by nearly extirpating them from the landscape. Shouldn't we clean house before the beginning of the 21st century and repeal this program? I urge the House to support the amendment.