George Miller

Mr. MILLER of California

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield to Mr. Yates.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Yates] for his remarks because I think he is quite on point. This amendment is a very blunt instrument to go on what the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Istook]) perceives to be some wrong that the Indian nations of this country would engage in economic activity and that they would do that on tribal land, which is sovereign land and which they have the right if they so desire not to charge a tax on the sales of those products. The gentleman from Illinois just pointed out, people drive across the State line into Nevada to buy goods, because they do not have a sales tax because they have gambling. People drive to Oregon from California because they do not have a sales tax, because they have got an angry constituency that will not let them have one, so people go there to buy their goods. People call up L.L. Bean and Lands End and they buy goods by mail to avoid the sales tax, and we are not shutting down all mail order houses in this country. We are not shutting down the service station across the State line. People go to Juarez, Mexico across the line to buy pharmaceuticals, and we do not shut down the country of Mexico because it is sovereign. We made a decision a long time ago that Indian lands in this Nation were going to be sovereign and they were going to be treated like States and they were going to be treated like foreign nations. That is what this is about. The suggestion here that because somebody has put up a competitive truck stop on Interstate 50 or Interstate 80 or whatever the highway and that now we should shut down, and that is what this amendment does, shut down the ability of Indian nations to bring additional land into tribal land and take away the right of the Secretary of the Interior to engage in that process, is ludicrous. It is ludicrous. We act like there is a run on the lands of this country. The fact of the matter is there is not. The fact of the matter is the Indians have lost more lands out of trust than they have brought into trust. The gentleman cites the suggestion that somehow the Indians are taking a huge amount of land. Yes, they have applications. What has the general rule been? The general rule has been if there is a local controversy, if the Governor does not like it or the local State legislature does not like it, the Secretary more or less has hands off. Why? Because we try to tell people to sort it out. The fact of the matter is that a number of States, 200 tribes, 18 States have tax treaties, tax policies, lands have been brought into trust and there have been various controversies. Very often the tribes have said we will accede to this, we will agree to that, we will agree to that condition, that is a process of negotiation. But that is a process of negotiation between equals, between a sovereign State, a sovereign tribe and the Secretary of the Interior, someone who is an arbiter. That is the process as it is designed to be. That is the process that should be allowed to continue. Sometimes we argue over lands being brought into sovereignty, whether or not they should have gambling or not. Some tribes have said, we will agree not to do that; California in one instance, and I think in North Carolina. Other questions may be taxable, they have been engaged in tax treaties. Other policies about the uses of those lands, the riparian uses of those lands, forest practices. A lot of this has been negotiated and discussed and hammered out. But what we do not do is, we do not take away the rights of every Indian nation in this country because we have got some problem with truck stops. That just is not going to work.

Mr. MILLER of California. Absolutely. One of the things that is made part of the whole question of lands being taken into trust by the Secretary in behalf of various Indian nations is that a number of applications have been made remote to the land base that the tribes have now or some people believe to be the historical base that the tribes have and that has always been controversial. There was a controversy in Milwaukee a few years ago about those lands being brought into trust. But that is the process of negotiations. That is the process that the State or the State legislature or the local county officials or interested citizens comment on, and that is the process where the Secretary makes the decision for the purposes and the use of these lands and the connection of the tribes to these lands and the rightful claim to these lands. That is a process. The Istook amendment wipes that process out and says no other lands can be brought into trust by an Indian nation. It is just an unacceptable suggestion to what may not even be a real problem. The House ought to reject this amendment.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and I rise in strong support of the Juvenile Crime Control and Delinquency Prevention Act because I believe prevention programs that provide help to our troubled at-risk kids are key to reducing juvenile crime. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs], the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Greenwood], the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott], the gentleman from California [Mr. Martinez], and the staff on both sides for all of the work that they have put into this legislation. I also support this bill because it retains four core mandates in the current law, especially the mandate that conditions funding under the bill to a bar on incarcerating juveniles in adult facilities. Overall, children in institutions are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted, twice as likely to be beaten by staff, eight times more likely to commit suicide, and 58 percent more likely to be attacked with a weapon than in a juvenile facility. Originally the bill provided an exception to that mandate for rural areas that I believe did not have enough safeguards; but because of the extreme dangers juveniles face in adult facilities and the bar placed on this practice for kids in metropolitan areas, I have worked with the subcommittee chairman to ensure that the rural exception is used only after great consideration and caution, and only under limited circumstances. In that respect, Mr. Speaker, I would like to engage the subcommittee chair in a colloquy, and ask of the chairman whether or not I am correct that the chairman's mark incorporates changes that will help us achieve those goals of providing for the safety of these people under the exception?

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman. Again, for a State to be in compliance under the bill, a juvenile in a rural area shall be detained in a juvenile facility unless the judge consults with the juvenile and his attorney and receives the consent of the juvenile's parent, decides that it is in the best interest of the juvenile for that child to be housed in a nearby adult facility. But such a juvenile may only be incarcerated in an adult facility prior to adjudication and sentencing. Additionally, a parent may withdraw his or her consent to such an incarceration at any time. Again, we intend for the rural exception to be invoked only in very limited situations. While we have not detailed in the bill the criteria a judge should consider before invoking the exception, I will submit for the Record a list of criteria we believe that the court should consider.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, once again reclaiming my time, I want to thank the gentleman for his remarks and again I want to thank him very much for his willingness to work on these concerns with both sides of the committee, and I do believe he has reported to the floor a bill that all Members of this House should support. The criteria mentioned follows: Criteria for Rural Exception Under H.R. 1818 The court, in deciding whether to place a juvenile in an adult jail, should consider the following: The potential impact on the juvenile's general welfare from being housed in an adult facility; Whether the nearest juvenile detention facility is so far away as to preclude a parent from visiting the child; Whether the child would have to be put into solitary confinement in the adult jail in order to comply with the separation requirements of this title; Whether the staff in the adult jail is able to appropriately supervise the child due to training in the supervision of juveniles, and due to relevant staff/inmate ratios; Whether, in the adult jail, there are appropriate intake procedures for juveniles, including medical and mental health screening; Whether the adult jail would provide needed services for the child, especially educational services, social services and mental health services; Whether there is a classification system in the adult jail that allows vulnerable juveniles to be separated from violent offenders; and Whether the juvenile's counsel will have access to the juvenile to prepare properly for adjudicatory or other proceedings.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1, rule I, I demand a vote on agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal.

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. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, it is already starting. The Wall Street Journal this morning tells the wealthy what to do. Ready, get set, here is how to profit from your big cut in capital gains. What the Journal describes is how the rich can manipulate their income so they avoid paying the same tax rate that wage earning Americans pay every day of their life; how the rich can pay a 20-percent rate while those who are getting a paycheck every day pay a 28-percent rate on their income; how they can manipulate their stock dividends so as not to pay ordinary tax on their dividend income; how to avoid paying estate taxes even though the estate taxes are going to be reduced. What the Republican bill does is shower these benefits on the wealthy of America while denying hard-working families even the right to the child tax credit. What they are saying to millions of working families who get up every morning, go to work, they work hard they just do not make a lot of money, that they are not going to share the benefits of this tax bill with those families because they have given too much to the wealthy and there is just not enough left over for wage earners in America.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, I think I have to concede that the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula] is correct. I wish the rule had been written otherwise. But, in fact, the gentleman is correct.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for his reservation of his point of order. The purpose of this amendment which I am offering is to try to reinsert into this bill, the legislation that is before us, the $700 million, for the Land and Water Conservation Fund for the acquisitions that were discussed within the Committee on the Budget and within the budget agreement agreed to between the leadership of both Houses and the President of the United States. The Land and Water Conservation Fund, as most Members understand, was intended by Congress to provide the resources to protect, enhance, and expand our Nation's parks, wildlife refuges, public lands and forests. The trust fund has accumulated some $12 billion and is growing at the rate of nearly $1 billion a year. So when the conferees to the budget agreement provided for priority land acquisitions of some $700 million, they were not being fiscally irresponsible at all. What they were trying to do is to get this Congress to meet its obligation to the people of this country to make sure that the legacy of this country with respect to the greatest of our natural resource assets, our parks, our refuges, our wilderness areas and those areas yet waiting to be acquired is preserved. Two of the most important to me in this fiscal cycle is that which is to deal with the buyout of the New World Mine, which was a mining development which was providing the threat to Yellowstone National Park above the Clark's Fork River. I think the administration and the mining company came to a wise agreement not to go forward but certainly they were entitled to compensation. The other is in the Headwaters Forest in northern California, where we have one of the last remaining stands of old growth forests, of redwood trees, that clearly the Nation has made a decision they would like to preserve. Certainly the people of California recognize that these forests say a great deal about the heritage of this country and the importance of those forests to the American people. Again, negotiations have been entered into, including the State of California, the Federal Government, this administration, Members of Congress to try to come to an agreement for the purchase price. This $700 million would allow these two purchases to go forward and also providing additional money for other purchases and priority projects within the agreement. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that some people who perhaps do not know as much about the priorities and the needs of the Park Service got involved in suggesting to the committee maybe where this money should have been spent, and they would have been better off not doing that. But I am also terribly afraid that we will lose the opportunity to have this money be used for this purpose should this bill pass without this amendment to it, and we will lose the opportunity both for the acquisition of the Headwaters and of the New World Mine and the backlog. It is interesting, as we told Members we were going to offer this amendment, a great many Members have called our office saying could they be included. That is not our purpose in offering this amendment. That is a proper question for the Committee on Appropriations. Let me just say, and then I will be glad to yield, that I offer this amendment in the spirit of many of the Members who are on the floor today with deep concern about our natural resources. That is not to in any way minimize the struggle and the work product of this committee, because this committee has been handed a menu of desires by Members of Congress on an urgent basis and the committee simply does not have enough money to meet all those needs. So I say that because I think this committee has done an outstanding job. I just would hate to lose the opportunity that this money within the budget agreement provides us.

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Perhaps the gentleman would like to exercise a point of order. Seriously, Mr. Chairman, let me say to the gentleman that I think he is making a terribly important and valid point and that is why I alluded to, in my remarks, that I wished when the deal was cut they had spent some time with people who had spent most of their legislative life dealing with these issues and a better package could have been put together. The gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks] suggested there may be an opportunity over the life of this bill to get some of this money included, and I would hope it would be. I also hope it would be included with the full input of the Committee on Appropriations so that we can go to where the priorities are. I would say that there is a lot at stake both with respect to the New World Mine and the Headwaters. I would also just say that the United States recently won a very important court case that said that we owned the lands that were contested off the coast of Alaska, and it is about $1.5 billion. I have introduced legislation. I would hope this committee would take a look at whether or not that money could be put into restoration and the backlog that has so troubled the chairman and the rest of us. Because the gentleman's priorities are exactly right, but somehow we have to find the money to deal on both fronts, both with acquisitions and with the standard of care we owe the American people with the current resources.

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman very much for his remarks, and again I hope that people understand the spirit in which this amendment was offered. I appreciate the chairman reserving his point of order rather than making it at the outset so we would have an opportunity to discuss a matter which is obviously very, very important to those of us in California, but I think also to many of our colleagues, as we struggle to provide for the backlog of acquisitions and maintenance and repair to the public resources in this country. I want to again commend the chairman. I wish I could have stood up and had a colloquy with the gentleman, because everyone was doing so well in these colloquies, but, unfortunately, I only had an amendment so it has not worked out quite as well as I wanted it to. But I appreciate the gentleman's reservation and allowing me the time to offer this amendment.

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

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting refutation we just heard. What we heard is that with respect to people who are struggling to get off of welfare, the Republicans are prepared to take care of old disabled people. We thought they would do that anyway. But the fact of the matter is for the workers under this legislation that they have sent to conference, those workers who are struggling to get off of welfare, who have taken the direction of this Congress, they are second-class citizens with respect to the protections that other workers receive. That is a matter of the law in the bill that we have sent to the conference committee. That is true with respect to sexual harassment. That is true with respect to the minimum wage. That is true with respect to worker protections under OSHA. We have to ask ourselves, why is it the Republicans are so hell bent, so hell bent on punishing working people? Earlier we saw that they wanted to deny them the minimum wage. Then they wrote a tax bill that showered the benefits onto the wealthy. Now we see, to balance the budget, they have decided that people who go on welfare should not be given the same benefits as other people they are working alongside of in the workplace. It simply is not fair. It is inequity, and it is simply un-American with respect to the treatment of working people. Working people deserve better and that is why we are going to ask for a vote on the motion to instruct.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio].

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank the gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio], who has been very busy here the last hour and a half on the floor trying to help us hammer out this agreement, and for taking part in these discussions and serving as a go-between. I want to thank him for that effort. Both the gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio] and the gentleman from California [Mr. Herger] are the closest representatives to this area and clearly, as the gentleman from Alaska [Mr. Young] tries to remind us all the time, have the concern with the greatest impact. I think that this is a balanced approach that the gentleman has worked on, and I appreciate and thank him for your efforts.

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from California [Mr. Farr].

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Vento]. (Mr. VENTO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)