George Miller

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. That is what I am trying to determine.

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, can the gentleman from Alaska sing for 5 minutes? We are looking for the gentleman from New York [Mr. Nadler]. I think I need to protect his rights to offer his amendment. Maybe the gentlewoman from Arkansas can offer her amendment.

Mr. MILLER of California. The question is, is that impacted by the Boehlert amendment? I do not know if the gentleman from New York [Mr. Boehlert] is going to offer his amendment now.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell].

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. When the gentleman talked about ``your'' language, he is talking about his language in the en bloc amendments that he is going to offer, is that correct?

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want to say that I think that he is correct and that I concur on the plain reading of the amendment and I have some concerns with it. And that is that when we originally discussed this, I believe the original Pombo amendment was to go to the creation of a new refuge, that Congress ought to be involved in that decision and that ought to take a direct authorization. I think there was sort of general agreement about that, but what we have here is not only the creation but the expansion of that new refuge. And I think what the gentleman from New York [Mr. Nadler] is reading is in fact correct on its face; and that is that any expansion, be it 20 acres or 200 acres, would require a direct authorization. I think that would be even true in the case where you have a willing seller and a willing buyer. So you would have to come back to Congress and wait around for that. There has been the discussion of an emergency situation, but there is no reference or I do not understand the reference to an emergency situation of 20 or 30 acres, because it says quite specifically, pursuant to recommendations of the Fish and Wildlife Service to create or expand a new refuge, that it cannot be done without specific authorization of Congress. And that goes to the expansion, and there is no acreage limitation on the issue of expansion. Very often we have willing sellers and willing buyers, either that are inholdings or on the boundary, that seek to have the purchase of their lands made. And I think in that particular case we ought not to require that to come to Congress. So, Mr. Chairman, I would hope prior to either the acceptance of this amendment, or if it would be voted on or what have you, I do not know if it would be prevailed on or not; but I think that language should be corrected because I think it is going to be an obstacle. And if we are concerned, and I think in our committee we had some legitimate concerns raised----

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, where we had the notion of creating a new refuge, and some of that may or may not have been speculative in nature, and landholders did not know what was going to happen or not happen, and that the authorization was a way to tell people what their situation was with respect to the creation of that. It is not a speculation that could go on year after year after year after year and inhibit people's ability to possibly use or sell their land. But I think this amendment goes way beyond that. I think this amendment does not do what the author wants it to do and it ought to be reconfigured certainly with respect to the problems regarding expansion. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words and I yield to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Nadler].

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment and to say that we have looked at this amendment and we do not object to the acceptance of this amendment.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring the attention of my colleagues to the following Earth Day editorial which appeared in the April 22, 1996, New York Times. This editorial correctly points out that the American public will not be fooled by the hollow illustrations of environmentalism displayed today in the districts of many congressional Republicans--the same Members of Congress who, over the past year, have consistently voted for legislation to repeal decades of environmental protection for our air, our water, and our public lands. Planting a tree, collecting litter or visiting a zoo today will do little to mask the year-long environmental assault orchestrated by the Republican Congress. As noted in the editorial, the persistent Republican efforts to include antienvironmental riders on the appropriations bills for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior are most egregious. Although both of these bills have been vetoed by President Clinton, Republicans still insist on including many of the most offensive provisions in an omnibus budget bill to fund the agencies through the end of the fiscal year. Even Speaker Gingrich has acknowledged that including objectional policy riders in appropriations bills greatly reduces their chances of eluding another Presidential veto. Today's Washington Post quotes the Speaker as estimating that the chances of passing a funding bill for the remaining agencies is ``probably about 50-50'' but that the odds improve if the contentious policy riders were removed and debated separately. I commend the New York Times for its continually excellent editorials and note that the 1996 Pulitzer Prize awarded to Robert B. Stemple, Jr., for his editorials on environmental issues is richly deserved. Defunding Mother Nature The television networks and cable channels are falling over each other to satisfy a growing public appetite for nature programming. An article in The Times last week noted that wildlife programs, once the preserve of the Public Broadcasting Service, have spread like mangroves to NBC, Turner Broadcasting, the Discovery Channel and Disney, among others. This is welcome news. Quite apart from the fact that such programming is of a higher order than most television fare, its popularity is further evidence of what the polls have already told us. Americans care about what is left of their natural resources and the threatened creatures who inhabit them. Viewers would be equally well served, however, if television stole just a few minutes from the air time now devoted to wolves, wildflowers, sharks and salmon and trained its cameras on the denizens of the United States Congress, where a less inspiring show is taking place. Undaunted by a string of Presidential vetoes, heedless of public opinion and deaf to the pleas of their moderate colleagues, conservative Republicans and a few stray Democrats are pressing forward with their efforts to undermine the country's basic environmental laws. There are many destructive proposals on the Congressional agenda, including several bills that would transfer millions of acres of public land to state and commercial jurisdiction. But the most urgent example of bad legislation is an omnibus appropriations bill now under consideration in a House-Senate conference. The bill sharply reduces appropriations for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department and contains a dozen or so crippling anti-environmental riders. The worst of these riders would authorize increased logging in old-growth forests, reduce protection for the Mojave National Preserve, strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its power to protect wetlands and extend an earlier moratorium on any new listings of endangered plants and animals under the Endangered Species Act. The listings rider should be of special interest to the viewers of those nature programs. Under law, the Interior Department cannot act to preserve the habitat of an endangered species unless it is listed as such. Among the 250 species that scientists think are dangerously close to extinction, but cannot now be listed by the department's Fish and Wildlife Service, are three that occasionally pop up on TV--the Florida black bear, the Atlantic salmon and the Mexican jaguar. Unless Congress comes to its senses, these and other creatures may survive only on celluloid. Today marks the 26th anniversary of Earth Day. In full knowledge of that, House Speaker Newt Gingrich recently formed a 77-member Republican environmental task force. Although 36 members of this task force earned ``zero'' ratings from the League of Conservation Voters for their routine support of anti-environmental legislation, many of them are likely to spend the week planting trees, visiting zoos and striking friendly poses next to recycling bins. But the best thing Mr. Gingrich could do for his country and his party would be to recognize that what counts here is content, not imagery--and remove those riders from the appropriations bill.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, today we have learned that not only are the Republicans opposed to the minimum wage, but their leadership in a joint statement issued today said that they will simply not allow the minimum wage to come to the floor of the House. Instead they will have a substitute package that prevents, prevents millions of Americans from ever getting an increase in the minimum wage. Mr. Speaker, if you are a student who is working while you are going to college to help pay for your college education, under their plan you will never get an increase in the minimum wage. If you are a single person who is working at the minimum wage, today you are working 8 hours a day, you are working 40 hours a week, and you are still ending up poor under their plan, you will never get an increase in the minimum wage. If you are a working person with a child or working person with two children, you will get an increase but you will not get it from the people you are working for. You will get it from the taxpayers, because the Republicans have decided, rather than ask the employers of this country to pay a livable wage, to pay an increase in the minimum wage, what they are going to do is ask the taxpayers to subsidize those jobs for those individuals who are working. Mind you, today for an individual working at the minimum wage, a single parent with one child, the taxpayers are already paying $175 a month in AFDC payments, $28 a month in food stamps, $179 in EITC, and they are losing $56 on Social Security. We are already subsidizing low wage jobs in America. Rather than have the marketplace, which so often we hear people pledge their allegiance to, rather than have the marketplace provide livable wages, rather than have McDonald's or Burger King increase the minimum wage, what they have decided is they are going to provide a government subsidy to those employers. What that means is never again will McDonald's hire other people other than a single worker because those workers will never be entitled to an increase in the minimum wage. If they hire somebody that happens to have a child, they will know that whatever increases in living standards those people acquire, it will be acquired from the taxpayers, not from their hard work, not from the sweat of their brow and not certainly from their employers. This is a complete capitulation to the special interests, the restaurant association, the fast food industries, and so many others opposed to an increase in the minimum wage. But now we find out that the Republican leadership in the joint statement of the Speaker and the House majority leader who said they will not bring the minimum wage to the floor of the House of Representatives. They have said that they are also going to go on the attack against the 8-hour day, the 40-hour work week, the Fair Labor Standards Act that protects people that, if you work more than 8 hours a day, if you work more than 40 hours a week, you are entitled to overtime compensation for that work. What they are going to do is get rid of that standard. They have already done it in the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities where they have voted out legislation to deny people the guarantees of the 8-hour day, the 40-hour work week, and people ought to understand this. Mr. Speaker, they have also decided that they say they are going to try and protect individuals' pensions. This comes from the same people who just a few months ago allowed people to raid the pension funds of employees. How are they going to provide this increase in the living standards of people who work at the minimum wage? They are going to increase the taxes on low income single working people, on low income students who happen to be single. They are going to tax those individuals, take away their earned income tax credit and give it to poor working people, poor working people who happen to have children. So we are going to tax the poorest people in the country who are working every day. We are going to tax them and give that to other working poor people who happen to have children. We are going to do that under the Republican plan rather than ask the employers to provide an increase of 90 cents in the minimum wage over 2 years or $1, as some of our Republican colleagues have suggested, over 2 years. This is a massive subsidy to employers who choose not to pay the minimum wage. The employer need not show that he cannot pay the minimum wage, that he cannot afford to pay the minimum wage, that their business would go on the rocks. There is no showing at all. You simply do not pay the minimum wage, and the taxpayers come in and subsidize your place of employment. You simply choose not to provide a livable wage to a single person, and that person has no right to any further remuneration because of their work or because of a loss of purchasing power that we have seen people who are currently at the minimum wage. So what we have is we had a promise by Majority Leader Armey that he would fight the minimum wage with every fiber of his being. And now that we see he is carrying out that promise and that promise is in his joint statement that the minimum wage will not come to the floor of the House, they will not allow us to vote on it. Mr. speaker, we are entitled to that vote. We should have a clean vote up or down on the minimum wage and give the American hard-working people the minimum wage that they need. They need a raise.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I would just say that if the Yankees had such heavy hitters in their lineup as you have against the environment, they would win the World Series. The gentleman from Georgia, [Mr. Deal], who just spoke earlier in the well in favor of this legislation, in fact has a perfect record of voting 5 for 5 against the environment, against protecting children from arsenic in their drinking water and against adequate funding for our Nation's toxic waste cleanup to allow corporate polluters to dump 70,000 chemicals in our Nation's rivers and to allow industry to pollute our drinking water and to stop the EPA from protecting America from arsenic, dioxin, lead and other cancer-causing pollutants. So, again, a perfect score for Mr. Deal of Georgia against the environment. Once again, he has earned his fig leaf, but he will not be allowed to hide it when his real environmental record is exposed against the legislation today.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. The previous speaker in the well quite properly predicted he too will earn a fig leaf. He quite properly stated he will not be able to hide behind it because right now we are sending all the heavy hitters against the environment to the well. He, too, had a perfect score of five for five against protecting children from arsenic in their drinking water, against adequate funding for our Nation's toxic waste cleanup programs to allow industry to pollute our drinking water and an effort to stop EPA from protecting Americans from exposure to arsenic, dioxin, lead and other cancer-causing pollutants. The gentleman has a perfect score; he earned his fig leaf.

Mr. MILLER of California. Again, Mr. Speaker, I want to award a fig leaf to the gentleman from Colorado who has voted five out of five times against improving our environment and allowing arsenic to continue in the drinking water of children and against adequate funding for cleaning up the Nation's toxic waste program and to continue to allow corporate polluters to dump up to 70,000 chemicals in our Nation's rivers and lakes. The gentleman has a perfect score of five for five that he was on the wrong side of the environment, and he earned his fig leaf.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I appreciate the sensitivity of the gentleman because he too will earn a fig leaf since he voted wrong three out of five times. The issue is not about these bills. The issue is about the continued record that has not been bipartisan, where Members have again chosen time and again to increase the ability of polluters to dump pollution, to dump toxics into the rivers, the lakes, and the waterways of this Nation. That is the gentleman's voting record. The gentleman is not going to hide that voting record by voting on bills that have basically unanimous support and that are noncontroversial, and then suggest that represents his environmental voting record, at the same time that we see the Committee on Appropriations continuing the riders that have been so detrimental to the environment. Those are the facts and I appreciate the gentleman's sensitivity.

Mr. MILLER of California. Again to state, Mr. Speaker, that we will be delivering a fig leaf to the gentleman from Wisconsin's office so he can use it to try to hide his environmental record when earlier this year he voted to stop EPA from protecting against the dumping of 70,000 chemicals in our Nation's rivers and allowing industry to pollute our drinking water. Voting to recycle batteries will not cover that up, and the fig leaf will be delivered to his office later today.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time and for his support and work on this legislation. Let me just say, Mr. Speaker, that this legislation will not clean up. It may recycle batteries, but it will not clean up the record of the Republicans on the environment as this agenda is supposed to do. I note the previous speaker, the chairman of the subcommittee, that just spoke, recently voted five times against protecting our environment, against protecting children from arsenic in their drinking water, against adequate funding for our Nation's toxic cleanup program, to stop EPA from protecting America's exposure to arsenic, dioxin, and other cancer causing pollutants, to allow corporate polluters to dump 70,000 chemicals into our Nation's rivers, lakes, and streams, and to allow industry to pollute our drinking water. So while the gentleman and others who will speak on this bill from your side of the aisle can earn a figleaf, and we will be glad to give them a figleaf to cover themselves when they support this legislation, but, under that figleaf, what you will see is in fact their environmental record for the past 16 months, which has been against environmental protection and, in many instances, providing much more pollution than we will ever be able to prevent by passing this recycling bill. This is a good bill, but it does not erase that record.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, today the Republican leadership of the House will bring forward several noncontroversial bills that are designed for one purpose only, to camouflage the Republican Party's dreadful and irresponsible record on the environment in the 104th Congress. We know that is the spin of the Republican leadership, thanks to a March 29 memo from Majority Leader Armey advising Republican Members how to drive our Republican themes home each week. This week, following Earth Day, their theme is trying to make the Republican voter believe that antienvironment Republicans really care about protecting the environment and public health despite their horrible voting records. But these bills are not about making the environment green, they are about giving a faint green cover to the Republican Members who have voted time and again against clean water, against national parks, against endangered species, and against protecting Americans from pollution that threatens their health and safety. Four out of five Americans want the Environmental Protection Agency maintained or strengthened and they are shocked by the statements of Majority Whip Tom DeLay who declared the EPA the Gestapo of government. Eighty-five percent of Americans who say they are environmentalists are baffled when they hear Resources Chairman Don Young denigrate them as a despicable group of individuals, a self- centered bunch of waffle-stomping, Harvard-graduating, intellectual bunch of idiots. They are outraged when they hear Congresswoman Chenoweth say that environmentalism is repugnant to America's values. The fact is that simply is not true, but the effort is underway to create some political coverage and as they bring these bills to the floor as a result of discussions, apparently within the environmental task force that the Speaker promoted to suggest that the Republicans care about the environment, we now see, we now see that the average voting record on environmental issues of that task force is only 18 percent and nearly half of the members of that task force have earned a zero on their record. Later today as we watch a parade of Republicans come down here and tell us how they support the environment by supporting these noncontroversial bills, we will offer them a figleaf, a figleaf that shows that while the vote on the noncontroversial coastal zone management legislation to give them a better environmental record, what we really see is that they voted in the past of this session killing coastal zone nonpoint pollution control, the dirty water bill, more sewage in oceans, ocean dumping of sewage, keeping the antienvironmental riders on legislation to harm the ability of that agency to clean up the Superfund sites and our coastal zones and gutting the wetlands protection provisions of legislation, of which 70, 80, and 90 percent of the Republicans voted for that very harmful legislation. But today most of them will vote for this and try to tell the people back home that they are for the environment. This is a sham. It is a bluff. It is inconsistent with the record of the Republicans in this Congress to date because when they had the votes, when they had the momentum, when they had the initiative, what they chose to do was to do the work of those who have spent so long bashing the environmental laws of this country. The fact is what they have now discovered is the clean environment, environmental protection is part of the ethic of the American value system. It is ingrained in us. It is ingrained in our children that we must preserve this environment. We must protect this environment to hand it on to future generations. But unfortunately, the Republican leadership and a vast majority of their caucus has sought to do otherwise when they voted to gut the Clean Air Act, when they voted to gut the Clean Water Act, when they voted to hamper the Environmental Protection Agency from working, when they voted to repeal water reform in California, when they voted to clearcut the Tongass forests. These are provisions that are destroying and harming our environment for future generations. So the figleaf will provide a little cover but what it will not cover up is the massive antienvironmental voting record of the Republicans in this Congress.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation, as I did with the previous legislation, and I want to commend the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Saxton] for his work on getting this reauthorization of the coastal zone management legislation passed in our committee and to the floor. This is a good bill. The substitute amendment that has been suggested has been agreed to on a bipartisan basis and has the support of the administration. Let me say, Mr. Speaker, that this discussion today is not just abut coastal zone management or not just about battery recycling. What we went through with the presentation of the previous bill, and with this bill also, is that at a time when we were talking about recycling batteries and, therefore, removing toxics from the environment, what we saw is that most of the people who came and supported recycling batteries and removing toxins from the environment, in fact, had voted five out of five times against, in crucial bills, in the clean water bill and regulatory reform and amendments and motions to recommit, had voted against removing arsenic from drinking water, had voted against removing arsenic dioxin, lead and other cancer-causing pollutants, had voted to liberalize the rules on pollution. So it was not about recycling batteries, and I daresay if the speakers on this legislation have the same voting record with respect to coastal zone management, then we, too, will award them fig leafs to show that they, in fact, cannot hide behind this good and noncontroversial bill when, in fact, they have voted previously in this session against coastal nonpoint pollution control to try to regulate many of the pollutions that flow into our coastal zones for dumping more sewage into our oceans. At a time when we want to regulate the coastal zone of our States and improve them for our citizens, they voted to liberalize how much more sewage we can put into the ocean. They voted against the protection of the wetlands in many of these same areas, an amendment that was offered on a bipartisan basis. They voted for gutting the Clean Water Act where, if we do not clean up our rivers and our streams and sewage and others, then it all flows into the coastal zone and we have an increased amount of pollution floating. So what we are saying is we cannot have it both ways, we cannot engage in hyprocrisy, we cannot say well, we are for coastal zone management because the whole Congress is for it, apparently. It is a unanimously supported legislation. It is a bipartisan bill. It is supported by the administration. But on these key issues earlier in this session of Congress, in this session of Congress, our colleagues voted five for five against the environment, just as many of the speakers on the previous legislation sought to support battery recycling, which is good, but the hypocrisy of their position when they voted not to remove lead and arsenic and dioxin and other materials from our environment. Those are the records. Those are the votes. those are the ones that are taken, and that is the record of their votes.

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Reclaiming my time, no; that is not the issue. the issue is whether my colleagues vote for or against the environment, whether they vote for or against the environment on a consistent basis. There is nothing liberal or conservative about taking arsenic out of the drinking water of children. There is nothing liberal or conservative about taking dioxin, lead, and other cancer-causing agents out of the environment of the children. There is nothing liberal or conservative about keeping people from dumping pollution into our oceans, about dumping sewage into our oceans that comes back to haunt the people who want to use the beaches, the wetlands, and the recreational area. This is not about liberal or conservatism. This is about people's voting records who, on the day after Earth Day, under the direction of the majority leader, want to present a theme to America that somehow the Republicans are back on the environment. The fact is for 16 months our colleagues have led the most comprehensive assault on the basic environmental laws of this country, and we think there is a certain amount of hypocrisy in that, and we are seeking to point that out. And it has nothing to do with ideology. It has to do with the recorded votes taken by Members of this Congress in the previous four sessions on dealing with these issues of nonpoint pollution control, on ocean dumping of sewage, on protecting wetlands, on the Clean Water Act, on the question of removing arsenic from drinking water, votes that we all remember that we had on the floor of this Congress where the gentleman and others, myself and others, are all recorded on those measures. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone].