George Miller

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I would hope that we would reject this legislation. Yesterday we sat in the Committee on Resources along with our colleagues from the Committee on the Budget and the Committee on Appropriations as members sat stunned when they were told of the deficiencies in the accounting system of the off-budget funds in the Forest Service. We were told that it is some $215 million that the Forest Service could not identify how it spends. We were told by the IG of the problems of the off-budget funds. Yet this legislation now comes along and takes money from one off-budget fund to put it into another off-budget fund. It takes it from a fund that is trying to restore the forests from all of the damages of roads and constructions and logging that has taken place in the past and now puts that in to promote salvage and thinning, a proposal that this Congress and the administration has turned down time and again. In this legislation they removed the words ``salvage'' because they knew they could not stand by them, but they went right back to the legislation and authorized the very same practices. It is those very same practices, both financial and forestry practices, that have caused the Secretary of Agriculture to say that he would recommend to the President a veto of this legislation. It is those very same practices, both financial and forestry practices, that tell the League of Conservation Voters that they will score this vote as an anti-environmental vote. This bill is not necessary. This bill engages us in the same old practices that have brought us the disaster on America's forests. Time and again our committee and the Committee on Agriculture and others have listened to the scientists that told us the forests that are in the most trouble, the forests that have suffered the most damage, are those forests that have already gone through the logging. The healthiest forests, the best forests in this country, are those that have not gone through the logging, and yet this legislation would put us back into the same old tired discredited forest practices. We should not do that in this legislation, my colleagues. We should understand that and reject this legislation.

Mr. MILLER of California. Yes, Mr. Chairman. We would like to see the amendment, would be the first point of order.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, reserving a point of order, I want to make sure we have the right amendment.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, we are back to the basic problems. Not only do they raid the national forests with the practice allowed under this legislation, they raid the national Treasury. They raid the national Treasury, because all of the money that would be derived from selling these trees is not put into the Treasury for the taxpayers of this country, who paid for this function, who you are asking to put up $100 million over the next 5 years. They do not get a return on the money they put. No. We give it to the local community, to try to provide an incentive to cut more trees. That makes no sense at all. It makes no sense at all, and we should not do it. Finally, let me say that this continues the process of creating unappropriated funds. Without regard to annual appropriations, a fund is created here. We sat in shock, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, and conservatives, in our committee hearing yesterday, members of the Committee on the Budget, the Committee on Appropriations, the Committee on Resources, as we listened to the Inspector General, the CRS, the GAO tell us of the shambles, the unaccountability, the loss, the waste, the abuse of money within these funds that no longer come back to Congress and are accountable. We ought not to create those funds and re-create that mistake. For reasons of fiscal policy, for reason of forestry policy, this legislation should be rejected. This is legislation that cannot be fixed. Members ought to vote against it. Amendment Offered by Mr. Bass

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, first I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert) for all of the work he has attempted to do on this legislation and the substitute that he was working on, because I think he addressed a number of important problems that certainly are not cured or addressed in this legislation, the most fundamental of which is the roads and the ability to go into roadless areas under this legislation. As we have heard time and again in our committee, the most degrading conditions in the forest are those due to past mismanagement, which include the clear-cutting of old growth, and which leads, then, to very crowded, less fire-resistant, disease resistant second growth, the roadbuildings, overgrazing of these lands, and the fire suppression policies. We do not need roads to go back and to improve the health of those forests and restore them to make them viable for us. This legislation does not do that. Instead, this legislation pushes forward, including road construction, in the name of forest health. I think the point is this, that this legislation works on the premise that the only way you can restore the health to the forest is to engage in large-scale commercial logging once again to improve forest health. All of the past practices over the past 50 years suggest that it is just the opposite of that, that that is exactly what got us into this crisis. It was not just that these forests all of a sudden have become susceptible to fire and diseases, but because of the management in the past, that relied heavily on commercial logging that far outstripped the sustainability of the forests to engage in that level of cut. Somebody said earlier that they wanted us to remember that trees are renewable resources. I would like to take them to vast areas of southern Oregon, vast areas of northern California, where 30 years ago, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, trees were replanted because of the cuts on steep grades, and in unsustainable levels. They planted trees. If you go out on those 30-year cuts you will find those trees barely come up to your knees. Why? Because the manner in which they practiced forestry, they cut down the trees, the top soil gets washed down into the streams, it kills the streams, kills the fishery, and the replanting has no value. It has no value. What are we left with? We are left with high elevation desert landscapes that are denuded of any ability to support forests. Do Members know what? The Forest Service and the timber industry count those replants as sustaining the yields so that it can cut more trees, because they say in 30 years those trees will be on line. It is 30 years, Mr. Chairman, and those trees are not fit for a Christmas tree in a one-room apartment, but they want to pretend that somehow that is commercial forests, and the way to get these forests healthy is to continue that process. It has been discredited. This Congress has refused to engage in that practice. We went through a great deal of pain in the Pacific Northwest, in the State of California because of this kind of mismanagement, and in other areas of the Rocky Mountain northern tier. We are not going to go back to those days. It is not supported by our communities, it is not supported by the constituents throughout our States. Mr. Chairman, this legislation in fact again allows large-scale commercial timbering in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We have received report after report in recent times here that the Sierra Nevada is absolutely a fragile forest, that we have to make some very difficult decisions if we are going to maintain any of the late succession of old growth forest, if we are going to retain any of the ancient forests in the Sierra Nevada. Yet, this legislation will allow them as part of these plans to push right on into those roadless areas, the last vestiges we have in a State of 30 million people, a State soon to be at 45 million people, that want to use these forests with their families for a whole series of multiple uses. They do not want them sacrificed under a disguised salvage policy. This Nation looked on in shock as this country was shut down over a salvage rider on an appropriations bill, as we shut down the government when the President would not accept it. They could not believe that would happen. Finally, we sorted it out and Congress rejected that approach to forest practices. This legislation is designed to go back to those practices. They have dressed it all up, they have camouflaged it the best they can, but we are back to basic salvage policy.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we are about at the end of this debate, under the rule. I want to say to my colleagues who have been listening to the debate, we were told at the outset of this debate that this legislation had nothing to do with salvage. During the debate we learned it had a lot to do with salvage. Although we changed the words, it was still basically a salvage and commercial timber bill. We were told with the offering of the Smith amendment this debate and this bill had nothing to do with roads. Now we see, with the debate of the Smith amendment, it has everything to do with roads, because the proponents of this legislation do not believe that we can have forest health if we do not continue to push roads into roadless areas, into areas that have not yet been logged. Yet, all of the scientific data that we have gathered says that in fact the areas where there are already roads, where there is a $10 billion backlog in the Federal effort to go back and try to restore and clean up those forests, those are the forests that are most devastated. Those are the forests that are the most denigrated by past policies. Yet, we are told by the proponents of this bill that unless we push roads into new areas we cannot have forest health. We cannot take care of the 380,000 miles of roads we have today. We have not even begun to repair those areas. We can do all of the salvage logging that the Federal budget will handle off of existing roads, and yet somehow they insist that they must have the right to push in tax- subsidized roads into roadless areas. The roads we have in the national forests are greater than the roads we have in the National Highway System. We have more miles in the national forests than we have in the National Highway System. We have enough roads in the national forests to go around the world 16 times. Those roads are killing our national forests. Yet, the proponents of the Smith amendment, the proponents of the Smith bill, insist that they cannot have forest health without spending millions and millions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize roads into the new areas. That is why they are speaking so strongly in front of the Smith amendment. That is why the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert) was forced to offer this amendment, to say stop, to say stop, because the Smith amendment provides for increased roadbuilding in the national forests. When my colleagues come here to vote on the floor, they have to vote for the Boehlert amendment to have any opportunity to restore forest health, and they have to vote against the Smith amendment, because it simply increases the waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars to build subsidized roads to take logs off of the forests, which continues to create the forest health problems we have. If we go to the top areas in the forest across the country where we have forest health problems, they are areas that have been heavily logged, they are areas that have been heavily roaded, and it has been devastating to the pocketbook of the taxpayer, it has been devastating to the local environment. Mr. Chairman, this is not about rural voters. In the State of California we have so over-roaded the Sierra Nevada that we now risk losing the entire forest in that area. Yet, our colleagues would have us believe that the only way we can save the Sierra Nevada is to punch more roads into it. We now find ourselves in the middle of every rainstorm having huge landslides that continue to destroy more of the forests, they destroy the roads, and they destroy the streams. That is the policy that this administration is trying to fix. That is the policy that the Smith amendment does not agree with. That is why they are pushing for the Smith amendment, to increase the obscene mileage of roads that are already in the national forests. That is why they need $150 million out of the current trust funds to pursue this. That is why they need another $100 million in taxpayers' money to pursue these roads. This should not be allowed to happen. We should vote yes on the Boehlert amendment and no on the Smith amendment.

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, in talking about hearings on the Boehlert amendment, how many hearings were there on the Smith bill in the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health?

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from Oregon for yielding, because she makes a very important point, that is, why we had so many roads; because nobody had to figure out the cost- benefit of those roads. But if anybody wondered what the impact of the Smith amendment is without the Boehlert amendment, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Smith) got up and said he wanted to offer his amendment because it would take road building out of this bill. Yet the very people who have gotten up and spoken said the Smith amendment is key to continue road building. They cannot envision the bill without the Smith amendment, because they cannot envision this bill without road building, so therefore they want the Smith amendment. I think it is very clear that we need the Boehlert amendment, because the Smith amendment would eviscerate the moratorium with respect to these projects. These projects are so loosely defined that they can be a whole national forest. So we all know that the current law would not prohibit the road building that the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Smith) talked about. In fact, under the Smith amendment, and the reason these people support the Smith amendment who have gotten up to speak here is because they are in support of road building, and they wanted more roads, and that is what the Smith amendment allows. So we should vote aye on Boehlert and no on Smith.

Mr. MILLER of California. And to pretend that they are going to take it out, because they are not going to do it where it is prohibited by Federal law. I suggest they could not do it where it was prohibited by Federal law, because that would be FIRM law and where there is land management plans, except that they know that the land management plans do not prohibit road building. So the Boehlert amendment must be adopted if we are going to protect the Federal Treasury, if we are going to protect the national forests, if we are going to protect the local users of these forests. We must have the Boehlert amendment at a minimum. If we take the Smith amendment, all bets are off, we are just back to using Federal dollars to build roads where they are not needed, and it is these very roads that have caused a great deal of the forest health problems that supposedly this bill is addressing. I urge my colleagues to support the Boehlert amendment and oppose the Smith amendment.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman, and he makes the exact point. As my colleagues know, okay, the Smith bill just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar because they are going to allow increased road building, that Congress for the most part is against increased road building, the administration has a moratorium on it. So now they are trying to offer some camouflage in this amendment to pretend like they are going to take road building.

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, the Smith amendment does not do what the gentleman from Oregon said that it does do. I appreciate while he would prohibit Federal roads prohibited by any Federal environmental law, of which would obviously be, that is just current law, and the second one, any applicable land management plan. The problem is most land management plans, one, are out of date and, two, never spoke to the issue of creating roads because most of the land use management plans for the national forests were designed to allow for the continued construction of roads because that is what they were predicated upon. We are undergoing a review in California in the Sierra Nevada of the land management plans for the very reason that they do not address these issues. That makes it imperative if the Smith amendment is going to be accepted that it be accepted with the Boehlert language, because the Boehlert language speaks to the reality of what is taking place; that is, that we have some 380,000 miles of roads in the national forests. We have a $10 billion backlog in these forests because they are deteriorating. We cannot take care of the ones that we have. They are starting to wreak havoc with good portions of the forests as they fall into disrepair. They are destroying the fisheries and the streams and the watersheds of some of our most valuable rivers for the production of fish for sports purposes and for commercial purposes. That is why the Secretary of Agriculture has asked for a moratorium so they can sort out the road policy. Now the gentleman from Oregon wants to come in and impose a road policy on this legislation that does not stop road building from taking place, it allows it to continue because the forest plans allow it to continue, and we need the Boehlert amendment. It is very interesting that now we are going to rush to make a road policy in the Smith bill when 2 days ago in the Committee on Resources they were asking for 120 hearings before we could consider any change in the road policy. They wanted every national forest to hold a hearing before they tampered with it at all. But now all of a sudden we are going to create a road policy here that under the Smith amendment allows you to continue to build roads and ignores the moratorium by the Secretary. That is the purpose of this amendment, because everybody here who is knowledgeable in the land management plans knows that the land management plans when they were drafted were designed to continue the commercial harvesting of the forests and part of commercial harvesting of the forests is the continuation of road building. So the land management plans would not outlaw and in fact you could continue to go into roadless areas. There is no designation, there is no Federal law, there is no land management plan. It really concentrates these dollars, if you will, on the roadless areas. That is why we have got to have the Boehlert amendment. We should vote aye on the Boehlert amendment. If it is not accepted, we should vote no on the Smith amendment.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, yesterday the Republican majority brought together three committees, the Committee on the Budget, the Committee on Appropriations, and the Committee on Resources, to hear the General Accounting Office and the Inspector General tell us that the Forest Service had lost and could not find $250 million. Later today, the Republican majority will ask this Congress to give the Forest Service another $250 million to go back to the old, discredited policies that gave us this kind of devastation of our national forests: clear-cuts and ravages of riparian watersheds that will not be corrected, will not be brought back for decades and decades after they cut the logs. Madam Speaker, we must stop the Smith forest bill because it is not about forest health, it is about a waste of the taxpayers' money and it is about devastation of our national environment, of our national forests. We should not give $250 million more to an agency that cannot account and cannot find and cannot tell us how they spent the $250 million we gave them last year.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, over the last 15 months many, many Members of the House of Representatives and Members of the Senate, on a bipartisan basis, have worked to try and see whether or not we could reform the campaign finance system in this country. The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) worked very hard on the Republican side, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) on the Democratic side, the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr) on the Democratic side, and many, many others, to see whether or not we could present a system of campaign finance to the American public that would start to restore their faith in how we elect people in this country; that the race just does not go to the person with the most money, that the race just does not go to the person with the most special interest money, that the decisions are not made here based on campaign contributions and who gave money to whom. If you give $10,000, you get more say than somebody who gave $1,000, and more than somebody who gave you $5; and try to see if we could return this system, that has become awash in money, that has distorted the basic decision-making process in the House of Representatives and in the United States Senate and in the administration. Our basic democratic institutions are threatened by the vast amount of money that is now finding its way into campaigns. It comes in straight-up contributions to individual Members, it comes from Political Action Committees, it comes from soft money, it comes from independent expenditures. We are having a primary in California. The primary is in June. This is only the end of March. Three candidates have already reported almost $25 million being spent for the Governor's race. One candidate has reported $18 million being spent. Pretty soon, this will be a hobby for rich people, or this will be a place where only those who have the money of the special interests will come to work, and the people will take second best. Mr. Speaker, we all know, those of us who serve here, those of us who go through campaigns, we all know that the influence of money is getting more and more pervasive in every decision made in the Congress of the United States; that it is distorting the decision-making process; that it is corroding the underpinnings of the democratic institutions. And we cannot allow it to continue. But what did we find out today? After many, many disruptions last year in the House of Representatives to try to get the Republican leadership to give us a vote, to give us a fair and open debate on competing plans, to debate this subject in front of the American public, what did we find today? That Speaker Gingrich has decided that we will get 20 minutes on each side of an issue to decide campaign finance reform. Mr. Speaker, we just spent 5\1/2\ hours here debating a bill of no urgency, a bill that was eventually defeated. We could have debated it all day today. We could have debated it in the weeks where the Congress has only worked 1 and 2 and 3 days a week. We get paid for 5 days a week, we get paid for 7 days a week, but most of this year we have been working 2 and 3 days a week. We could have debated campaign finance on any one of those days. But they waited right until we get to the Easter break, and then they said we will give 20 minutes. Why did they give us 20 minutes and why did they hand-pick the bill that we would vote on? Because they know that that bill does not have enough support to pass. They know there is in this House a bipartisan bill that will reform this system, that will pass, and they will not let us vote on that. Twenty minutes or no 20 minutes. They are cooking the books, they are rigging the game, they are tilting the field, all against reform. Even those huge majorities in this country want the current system of finance, of campaign finances reformed and changed and made more democratic. But the Republican leadership does not even want to let us debate the bill. They do not want to let us amend the bill. They do not want to let us change the bill. They want to put a bill out here that they know will not pass, and force us to kill it, and then they can blame Democrats or Republicans or liberals and conservatives and say, ``They killed campaign finance reform.'' No, Mr. Speaker; Newt Gingrich, the Speaker of the House who sets the agenda, who sets the calendar, he killed campaign finance reform because he was afraid of the debate. He pledges allegiance to the flag every day. He talks about democracy. And he is afraid of the debate in front of the American people. Mr. Speaker, how cynical can one become when they cannot trust the American people and cannot trust their representatives, so they have to schedule the debate so they can get an outcome that a majority of the House does not want? It is a terrible, terrible day for democracy and it is a terrible day for our democratic institutions, and it is a terrible day for the American voter because the race will continue to go to the people that accept more special interest money and the most money and not the best candidate in the race.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. I thank the Speaker. I would just say that the cloakrooms ought to inform Members that if campaign finance reform is brought up, they should expect procedural votes on Monday.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, it would not be in order, so a motion to adjourn would, at a minimum, be in order.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, would a quorum call be in order?

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, a further parliamentary inquiry. Would a motion to adjourn be in order?

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, if the debate is held during the afternoon, are procedural votes in order during the debate, before and after the suspensions?

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, if the debate is held on campaign finance reform during the day, is the House going in at 12:00, first of all?

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, after 15 months, after 15 months and campaign scandals across this country, the best the Republican leadership can come up with is to give Members in the House of Representatives 20 minutes of debate on handpicked, hand-selected pieces of the campaign finance reform issue. It is an insult to the American people, it is an insult to the membership of this House, it is an insult to the constituents that we represent, because we tell them that we can come here and debate the great issues that confront this country, but Newt Gingrich and the Republicans have decided they cannot stand an open debate on campaign finance reform. They cannot stand a little bit of sunshine on an issue that plagues our democratic institutions, scandals that are across this country, scandals that beset every officeholder in this country, but we cannot debate it in front of the American people. While Members are away at a funeral, they are going to debate it and then vote later that night. It is an insult. It is no wonder, 20 minutes after 15 months, 20 minutes. That is the best that Speaker Gingrich can come up with. What a fraud, what a deception. No wonder we are adjourning on April Fools Day. No wonder we are adjourning, because the fools are going home without doing campaign finance reform.