George Miller

Mr. MILLER of California

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman is correct. Many of these properties are subject to congressional designation. Many these properties have a cloud on their title in one fashion or another because of what has taken place around them. And the question is do we start to whittle down that backlog? Let us understand something here. There is $11 billion in the land and water conservation fund and the agreement was with the American people that we would allow oil drilling off of the coast of this country and we would use those resources to add to the great resource base of this country for recreation and for public use. That promise was never kept; not by any Congress, not by any administration. It is a little bit of the kind of fraud that we have sometimes around the highway trust fund or the airport trust fund. We put the money in there and we say this is going to go for airport safety or this is going to go for improved highways. But then somehow this Congress starts dipping their fingers into this trust fund or one administration or the other wants to make the budget deficit smaller than it does. Who are the victims? The victims are the people who paid for the gasoline that expected better roads and safer roads. The victims are the people who bought an airline ticket and expected safer airlines. The victims are the people who agreed to have this oil explored [[Page H 6973]] off their coast and said that the tradeoff will be that we will create this trust fund. We have been robbing this trust fund for years. Now all we are suggesting is that we authorize them to spend some of the $11 billion. I do not think the Committee on Appropriations in the last few years has spent more than $100 million out of the trust fund for acquisition. That is how you get a backlog. You lie to the American people. You lie to the American people. All of these things that are on this list for acquisition are because Members of Congress thought they were terribly important and voted to pass them. We ought to keep faith with the American people, faith with the budget process, and vote for the Miller amendment. It is a hell of a good deal.

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

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

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, yesterday a special congressional panel heard stories of growing threats and attacks against public officials, law enforcement officers, environmentalists, and women advocates by extremist right-wing groups and militia in this country. This week the Nation was shocked by extremist campaign material produced by the National Republican Congressional Committee in the name of Speaker Gingrich that suggested Democratic Members of the House are wanted criminals just for disagreeing with the Republican Contract for America. That extremist rhetoric endangers democracy and encourages a lunatic fringe of this Nation. As a Nation we have learned that when you preach hate; you get hate, when you preach violence, you get violence. Thirty-two years ago another wanted poster was distributed in Dallas, TX, on November 22, 1963, accusing President Kennedy of selling out America to the United Nations and being anti-Christian. This wanted poster ended in a tragedy. We should understand that we cannot have the leading politicians of this Nation preaching hatred, preaching the suggestion that politicians who disagree are somehow criminals. Speaker Gingrich should repudiate this poster and withdraw this campaign rhetoric from the public.

Mr. MILLER of California

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 and members of the committee, I would hope that we would oppose this rule tonight and vote this rule down. I do so because of the numerous areas in which this legislation seeks to legislate on an appropriations bill in violation of the rules of the House of Representatives. The rule provides for waivers so this can be done, but what in fact this means is that we rush to judgment in a number of areas where the committee of jurisdiction has not been allowed to have the debate and to weigh the merits of the various proposals being put forth. These areas affect the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, the Emergency Wetlands Resources Act, the California Desert Act, the American Indian Trust Fund and Management Resources Act. These are changes that were made in consideration with everybody on the committees of jurisdiction, and now they are seeking to change those without the debate and without the hearings. Mr. Speaker, I have for many years opposed legislation on appropriations and tried not to do it when I was chairman of the committee and tried not to let the Committee on Appropriations do it, and in the last few years we have not done it. But here we see in a wholesale manner this take place. Others, I think, should consider opposing this legislation because of what it does to environmental policy in this country. This is a dramatic step backward in time. It is a dramatic step away from science. It is the inhibiting of science. It is very interesting that people say, with regard to the Endangered Species Act, they want decisions made upon science. Yet when we have the opportunity to gather that evidence, to protect our environment, to make rational decisions, to allow processes to go forward, we now see that they restrict the ability to even gather the evidence. In my area, the National Biological Survey, and those kinds of efforts, use volunteers. They use volunteers from Chevron Corp., from Dow Chemical, from du Pont and others; employees who go out and do these counts and figure these issues out to help so we can provide for open space, habitat protection, and provide for economic development in our areas so that we can get on with home building and address those issues. This says we can no longer do that. We can no longer conduct those surveys if we are using volunteers and, in fact, even if we have the permission of the landowner. That is a step back in my area in terms of economic development, and I think it is wrong. This bill also lifts the moratorium on the leasing of Federal lands for mineral exploration. That means that we go back to the law of 1872. We continue to give away Federal resources for $2, $3, $4, $5 an acre and those mining companies can take hundreds of millions, and in some cases billions, of dollars of resources off the Federal lands and pay no royalties. On the leases that they have right next door on private lands, they pay royalties for the privilege of doing that. But we are going to once again engage in that practice, because of what the committee did in lifting that moratorium. This bill also goes in reverses: Reverses the decision made in the previous Congress with respect to the California Desert Wilderness bill and denies funding for the transfer of the East Mohave Preserve and does not allow us to carry out the decisions and the laws of the land with respect to the East Mohave, even over the objections of the local chambers of commerce, local supporters of that effort, newspaper editorials throughout the South and throughout the State of California asking that we go ahead with that provision to protect the East Mohave. Mr. Speaker, I think that what you will see if you go through this legislation is that we have a fit of pique here against the environment, against a number of programs that have been very helpful to the protection of the environment in this country. I would also say that the legislation on appropriations that is provided in this rule not only pertains to the Committee on Resources, it also pertains to the other committees, the Committee on Commerce and other committees where those actions have been taken. Mr. Speaker, we should reject this rule. We should go back and write a rule that complies with the House rules, and we should get on with the debate and let the chips fall where they may. But we should not write special privilege into the bill and then protect it by the rule for those who seek to have a vote on that matter. I urge rejection of this rule.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise with great sorrow to inform the Members of the House of Representatives of the passing of our friend and coworker, Stanley Scoville, last Saturday morning. For nearly a quarter of a century, Stanley Scoville served as a valued, knowledgeable, and dependable colleague on behalf of our former colleague, Hon. Morris K. Udall, and in a variety of positions on the staff of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. Stanely was born in Phoenix, and retained a great appreciation and attachment to the Southwest throughout his life. He attended both undergraduate and law school at the University of Arizona, and served as a clerk for U.S. District Court Judge James A. Walsh in 1971-72. At the end of his clerkship, he joined the staff of Congressman Udall in Washington, and from that day forward until his retirement earlier this year, he held a succession of positions on Mo's personal and committee staff, including staff director and counsel, and special counsel to the chairman. I first met Stanley when I came to the Congress in 1975 as a junior member of the committee, and we worked together on a wide variety of issues, including on the Ad Hoc Select Committee on the Outer Continental Shelf. Stanley brought to his job a thorough knowledge of energy and environment policy, and a sharp political sense that was invaluable to a vast array of issues that came before our members every year. Stanley also had a deep commitment to the institution of the House of Representatives itself, and he continued to work with the committee through great personal difficulties because of his belief in our laws and our system of government. His loss will be deeply felt by all those who work on these issues and all those who were fortunate enough to know and work with him. A memorial service is being held at 1 p.m. this Friday in the Morris K. Udall Hearing Room of the Committee on Resources, 1324 Longworth Building. I hope that Members and their staffs would attend to show their respect and appreciation for this talented and dedicated public servant.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 1905 making appropriations for the energy and water development for fiscal year 1996. This bill provides funds for critical flood control and navigation projects in Contra Costa County and the San Francisco Bay Area of California. I appreciate the Committee's continued support for these projects. H.R. 1905 and the accompanying Committee report also raise several issues which I will address in my capacity as Ranking Democratic Member of the Committee on Resources. First, H.R. 1905 will fund important individual projects and program activities of the Bureau of Reclamation. The Bureau of Reclamation has demonstrated consistent leadership in the Administration's efforts to implement significant reforms to Federal water management and construction programs. Second, H.R. 1905 includes significant funding to implement various programs authorized by P.L. 102-575, the Reclamation Projects Authorization and Adjustment Act of 1992. In particular, title 34 of the law, the Central Valley Project Improvement Act [CVPIA], includes many innovative measures to conserve water and to restore fish and wildlife habitat that has been adversely affected by the development of water and power projects in California. Water marketing, changes in project operations and water allocations, incentives for conservation, and specific goals for fish and wildlife restoration are all included in this title. I am in complete support of the Bureau of Reclamation's efforts to fairly and promptly implement the provisions of the CVPIA, and I strongly oppose any attempts to amend this law through the appropriations process. I specifically note at this time my strong objections to language contained in the Committee Report accompanying H.R. 1905 (House Report 104-149), which ``directs that the $1,000,000 requested for the San Joaquin River Basin Resource Management Initiative not be expended for that purpose.'' As my colleagues are well aware, this study is required by law; it is not optional. The study was authorized so that we could determine what needs to be done to restore fish to the San Joaquin River, where irrigation water deliveries have wiped out several stocks of commercially valuable anadromous fish. [[Page H 6781]] The Appropriations Committee is obviously determined to kill this study and prevent people from learning the truth about the destruction of fishery resources in the San Joaquin River. The effort to kill this study is important only to a small group of CVP beneficiaries who continue to profit from their subsidized water supplies at the expense of California's commercial and sport fish resources. I wish to associate myself with the views of my colleague from California, Ms. Pelosi, who correctly noted that ``the San Joaquin study has been authorized by Congress and is being conducted properly by the Bureau of Reclamation. It should be allowed to proceed without interference from special interests.'' Third, with regard to the repayment of costs of cleaning up Kesterson Reservoir and conducting the San Joaquin Valley Drainage Study Program, I am concerned that the Appropriations Committee is again attempting to legislate matters of policy without consulting the authorizing Committee. My colleagues will recall that the Federal Government has spent approximately $35 million for the cleanup of Kesterson Reservoir, a series of ponds in the San Joaquin Valley that were built in the 1970's to contain subsurface irrigation drainage water collected from farms in the Bureau of Reclamation's San Luis Unit, part of the Central Valley Project. The Kesterson facility was closed in March of 1985 by then- Secretary of the Interior Donald Hodel because the drainage water was contaminated with selenium and other chemicals. Many migratory birds using the Kesterson ponds were being killed in violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Other birds were hatched with grotesque deformities caused by selenium poisoning. Congress has appropriated tens of millions of dollars to clean up this mess on behalf of the project beneficiaries of the San Luis Unit, and we have also funded extensive multi-disciplinary and multi-agency studies of how to reduce or eliminate irrigation drainage contamination. There is no legislative language in H.R. 1905 that would amend current law regarding repayment responsibilities for cleaning up Kesterson Reservoir and conducting the San Joaquin Valley Drainage Study Program. The report accompanying H.R. 1905, however (House Report 104-149), refers to a recent report from the Bureau of Reclamation, and concludes that San Luis Unit contractors should work with the Bureau of Reclamation ``to develop a reasonable and cost-effective drainage solution''. The Committee Report also contains the following statement regarding the subject of Kesterson and drainage study repayment: The Committee believes it is premature for Reclamation to collect any costs before these negotiations are complete and appropriate drainage service is provided. Therefore, the Committee directs that the Bureau of Reclamation take no action to collect costs associated with the Kesterson Reservoir Cleanup Program or the San Joaquin Valley Drainage Program until drainage service negotiations are complete, drainage service is provided, or the authorizing Committee has acted on this issue. The above conclusion and Committee directive to the Bureau of Reclamation are unwarranted and are not supported by any facts whatsoever. Without even consulting the authorizing committee, the Appropriations Committee has decided to indefinitely forgive the repayment of tens of millions of dollars in expenses associated with the cleanup of Kesterson Reservoir and the completion of the San Joaquin Valley Drainage Study Program. Under current law, these costs are a legal responsibility of the water users whose contaminated irrigation wastewater has caused this massive pollution problem. They should be required to pay their bills just like everybody else. I also remind my colleagues that committee report language from last year's Energy and Water bill specifically noted that repayment of these cleanup and study costs should begin soon after the Bureau's report was made available: It was and is the intent of the Committee that the [forthcoming Interior Department] report be used as a resource to assist in the fair and just apportionment of Kesterson and other drainage related costs and not serve as a method of delaying indefinitely repayment obligations. (House Report 103-533). Since FY 1991, House Appropriations Committee Report language has directed the Department specifically not to collect payments from water users until the Bureau of Reclamation completed the report on allocation of costs. That report was received over four months ago. Now that the Bureau of Reclamation has submitted the report we requested, the water users have decided that they don't like the conclusions of that report and they have asked the Appropriations Committee to indefinitely delay the repayment. This is directly contrary to representations made to this House by the water users regarding their intention to proceed with repayment once the results of the Bureau's study were made available. The fact of the matter is that the Central Valley Project and San Luis Unit water users are accountable by current law for the money that has been spent on Kesterson cleanup and the San Joaquin Valley Drainage Program. Until the authorizing Committees and the Full House and Senate and the President have had an opportunity to review information on cleanup costs and decide whether changes to current law are appropriate or not, the Secretary of the Interior is obligated to begin collecting money. The study released this year by the Bureau of Reclamation supports that conclusion. There is no basis whatsoever for the Appropriations Committee to indefinitely forgive the proper repayment of these costs, and this language is not and should not be construed as binding on the Secretary. Fourth, the elimination of funding for the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers to assist salmon migration in the Columbia River basin is outrageously short-sighted. These are not trivial actions by the Bureau and the Corps; the agencies agreed to take these steps only in response to a court order. The court concluded that ``business as usual'' in the Columbia basin could place endangered salmon in jeopardy of final extinction. In part as a result of the court's decision, the agencies have tried to find the most cost-effective and least disruptive solution to salmon migration. The Bureau of Reclamation has been purchasing water from willing sellers in the Snake River basin and the Corps has been studying the possibility of lowering the John Day reservoir during migratory periods. These measures enjoy broad regional support, while the measures suggested by the Appropriations Committee will encourage conflict and will probably do little to sustain the salmon. If the agencies cannot take the regionally-supported steps towards salmon recovery, far more disruptive and costly actions may be required to make sure the salmon are not driven to extinction. Forcing the agencies into this position defies common sense. Finally, I note that the Committee recommendation includes $94,225,000 for construction of the Central Arizona Project, a generous $1,500,000 above the budget request. While I am generally supportive of plans to complete this project, I note that recent attempts to negotiate a ``restructuring'' of repayment terms for the Central Arizona Project have failed. It is likely that the project sponsors will soon begin a costly legal battle to settle their disputes with the United States over the amount of money owed for repayment of project construction costs. At the present time, hundreds of millions of dollars are in dispute, and there is no guarantee that these costs will ever be repaid. It should further be noted that we have already provided tens of millions of dollars to make extensive repairs to the CAP water delivery system, and I suspect we have just started to understand how much this project will eventually cost the taxpayers.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, rolling back the clock on crucial California water policy reforms will have three enormously unfortunate results: First, over 30 million residents of the largest and most diverse State will resume a divisive and costly war that has stifled economic development for over a quarter of a century; second, major improvements in resource management and protection--such as the landmark Bay-Delta accord--will be placed in extreme jeopardy; and third, the Nation's other 230 million taxpayers will continue to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in annual subsidies to many of the largest and richest agribusiness interests in the world. Congress resolved these issues in 1992 when we passed, and President Bush signed, the Central Valley Project Improvement Act [CVPIA], Public Law 102-575. That law won broad support throughout California; urban residents get a fraction of the project's water under current contracts; 85 percent goes to irrigators; business interests; environmentalists; the recreational and sport fishing organizations; the commercial fishing industry; and newspapers throughout the State. The subsidized irrigators, who have enjoyed nearly exclusive claim to the Central Valley Project's subsidized benefits for decades, quite naturally opposed the CVPIA with a vengeance, as would any special interest told it must share taxpayer-developed resources more equitably. They tried to have the law overturned in the courts, but lost. Now, they are trying to start the war all over again in hopes of improving their ability to retain their special largesse. A handful of Members representing these subsidized irrigators has introduced H.R. 1906, which was written almost entirely by lobbyists and attorneys for California growers to set back the cause of water policy reform a quarter century. Repeal would assure these irrigators of indefinite domination of the water resources of California, with billions of dollars in water subsidies, for decades to come at the expense of all other interests in the State and U.S. taxpayers. Fifteen members of the California delegation have written to the President outlining our vigorous objections to this harmful legislation. Herewith is a recent editorial about H.R. 1906 that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. I would be pleased to discuss these issues with you at any time. [From the San Francisco Chronicle, June 23, 1995] Breaking the Peace in the Water Wars The long and destructive California water war, which was quieted by a sensible legislative cease-fire three years ago, is on the verge of full-scale resumption, thanks to the unquenchable greed and incurable myopia of Central Valley agricultural interests and their water carriers in Congress. Unless Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer take a firm stand against these troublemakers when their legislative assault reaches the upper house, California could be swept back into a political whirlpool that will threaten not only the environment but the state's fragile economic recovery. The new declaration of war comes in the form of legislation introduced this week by Representative John Doolittle and other Central Valley representatives that seeks to overturn the 1992 Central Valley Project Implementation Act, signed into law by President Bush. That law brought badly needed reform to an archaic and expensive system of subsidized farm irrigation that had wreaked disaster on the aquatic environment and nearly destroyed the commercial fishing industry. Doolittle's rear-guard attack would ``reform'' those reforms by, among other things: stripping them of virtually all of the additional water that had been promised for fish and wildlife restoration; eliminating a study of fisheries in the San Joaquin River; restoring overly generous, subsidized, 40-year water delivery contracts to growers; reducing fees for an environmental fund; scrapping a requirement for doubling the salmon populations; and turning fish restoration programs over to the state. Save San Francisco Bay Association director Barry Nelson called the Doolittle bill ``the legislative equivalent of a drive-by shooting,'' a statement that reflects the depth of divisiveness this legislation could re-engender. Indeed, until the Republicans captured Congress last November, a productive if fragile process of cooperation was growing among the state's competing water interests--farmers, environmentalists and urban users. The main fruit of that consensus was last fall's voluntary Bay-Delta Accord, which dealt with improving water quality standards for fish and wildlife in the delta and bay in order to meet Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act requirements. But the Bay-Delta Accord was built on the framework of the Central Valley Project reforms of 1992. If those are gutted, the 1994 water quality accords and the state water board's brand new water allocation plans would become virtually meaningless. Senators Feinstein and Boxer represent the best hope for disarming these unreconstructed water warriors so that, one day, sensible policies and predictable supplies may prevail in California.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, government employees don't have much of a cheering section these days. The men and women who work diligently and conscientiously to serve our citizens and make government operate seem to be bearing more than their portion of the blame for what's perceived to be wrong with the world. The critics are relentless. So, it is particularly noteworthy that in a recent commencement address at the University of California at Berkeley, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, Dan Beard, a self-confessed public servant with much pride in his years of service, extolled the virtues of public service. His message to the graduates was that the public employees who are being denigrated are not strangers but our friends and neighbors, whose responsibility is foremost to serve the public good. I know the Commissioner to be an exemplary public servant from his service as the Staff Director of the Water and Power Subcommittee during my chairmanship, and later as the Director for the Full Committee during my tenure as chairman. And I am gratified that he has taken this opportunity to speak out on behalf of public servants, and to challenge those who demean their contributions and their service. I would call to my colleagues' attention the following excerpt from the Commissioner's address at Berkeley printed earlier this month by the San Francisco Chronicle. The article follows: [From the San Francisco Chronicle, June 14, 1995] The Myth About Public Servants (By Dan Beard) I have a confession to make: I have worked in government for more than two decades. Even more scandalous, I am a political appointee who believes it is an honor to work with career public servants. I guess those are dangerous things to admit these days, given the strong undercurrent of suspicion and mistrust surrounding public service. But they are beliefs I have expressed throughout my career--and they are especially important to emphasize now that I am leaving government. We seem to be awash in a steady media diet of supposed examples of government employees who have gone too far. Of power-mad bureaucrats harassing private citizens or squeezing the life out of small businesses and property owners. For a growing number of critics, everything that government does is viciously wrong, or at least hopelessly wrong-headed. According to them, we cannot rely on public servants to strike a fair balance between the public good and economic security. Most of the critics of government rely on a volatile mixture of myth and innuendo to make their case. They ignore the amazing contributions that millions of government workers have made to American prosperity, peace, happiness and yes, freedom. How completely different is today's atmosphere from the beginning of this century, an era dominated by the first true Republican reformer, Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt believed most deeply and passionately in the values of public service. ``The first duty of an American citizen,'' he once said, ``is that he should work in politics; the second is that he shall do that work in a practical manner; and the third is that it shall be done in accord with the highest principles of honor and justice.'' Roosevelt spent five years as a member of the U.S. Civil Service Commission, and as its leading reformer worked to dismantle the spoils system and institute what we have today: a merit-based civil service system. Before we malign government workers, let's think about who they really are. They are the people who led the rescue in Oklahoma City--not who caused it. They are the ones who are charged with apprehending those suspected of being responsible. Every day, they make their contributions to society, ensuring our food is safe to eat, the water fit to drink, and the air clean enough to breathe, teaching our children to read and write, protecting our neighborhoods and our nation as a whole. Public servants are not monsters, and they are not strangers. All of us know them--they are our neighbors, friends, parents, children. They are not, as the National Rifle Association would have us believe, ``jack-booted thugs'' who thrive on intimidating law-abiding citizens. They are there to serve. Yes, they should be held strictly accountable and be efficient. And yes, sometimes they will do things that annoy us. Who wants to be given a parking ticket--until someone blocks us in or out by parking illegally. Who wants to be made to conform to strict environmental laws--until we want clean water and air. Who wants government at all--until we want well-maintained highways, first-class public universities, tremendous medical and scientific technology, incredible national security and so on. Public servants should not be castigated for doing their jobs. Most do a job that we couldn't do without. They deserve our respect. The highest reward for any work is not what you get for it, but what you become by it. It is the goal of most government workers that our country becomes better by their work. We should and do have vigorous and honest debate about what our government should be involved in. But, we can have it without vilifying public servants. To all our nation's public servants, I say ``thank you.'' You do a great deal of good for this country and the world-- much, much more than many now give you credit for.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, each day we seem to have a clearer view of ways in which the Republican Congress intends to attempt to balance our Nation's budget--and this week's action by the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee is an alarming indication that it will be our Nation's most valuable natural resources that will play a major role in this balancing act. As a recent San Francisco Chronicle editorial laments the subcommittee's actions appears to be ``a national rummage sale, the effect of which will be to privatize, commercialize, pollute, and consume America's natural heritage.'' I believe that those of us who have worked for years to protect our natural resources would agree with the Chronicle's view that such actions are ``a sell-out, pure and simple.'' I commend the following editorial to my colleagues' attention: [From the San Francisco Chronicle, June 22, 1995] A Rummage Sale On the Environment Now we know how the Republican Congress is going to balance the budget: auction off the nation's most valuable natural resources, along with its own votes, to the highest bidder. Make no mistake, the legislation on offshore oil and gas leasing and the East Mojave National Preserve that passed the House Appropriations Subcommittee Tuesday is part and parcel of a giant national rummage sale, the effect of which will be to privatize, commercialize, pollute and consume America's natural heritage. It is a sell-out, pure and simple. The congressional assault on natural resources is far from being limited to the coasts and the desert. The House budget plan calls for selling--or even giving away--vast tracts of national forests, and other House legislation would set up a commission to study the closure of national parks. Still other proposals call for turning national wildlife areas over to the states to do with as they please. And an amendment to the vetoed budget rescission act, that would have doubled the cutting of timber in national forests while suspending all environmental protections, has risen from its well deserved grave and is heading back to the president's desk. In April, President Clinton promised to veto any bill that compromises America's clean water, clean air and toxic waste laws. If he is as good as his word, every single one of these ecological nightmares must be vetoed if and when they reach his desk. Let's look at just three of them. The so-called ``logging without laws'' amendment to the rescission bill would virtually hand national forest management over to timber barons with chain saws. Ostensibly intended to expedite salvage logging of dead and dying trees, it would direct the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to cut more than 6.2 million board- feet over the next 18 months with no regard to the protections stipulated in the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act, the Clean Water Act or the Endangered Species Act. [[Page E 1332]] The bill's definition of ``salvage'' timber would include all ``associated trees,'' ``insect-infected trees'' and ``trees imminently susceptible to fire or insect attack''--in other words, anything that can be cut. A recent BLM memo correctly characterized it as ``more or less a license for unregulated timber harvest.'' Second, the House Interior Appropriations bill would virtually zero-out funding for National Park Service management of the new Mojave National Preserve, created last fall as part of the California Desert Protection Act. Not satisfied with having won a battle to permit continued hunting and grazing in the preserve, Representative Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, along with ranching and mining interests, are pressing ultimately for a reversal of the Desert Protection Act, which took eight years to negotiate. It seems not to matter a whit to Lewis that many of his own constituents, including the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, which originally opposed the preserve, is now enthusiastic about winning full funding for it, having noted that tourist visits in the area have increased dramatically since the preserve was established. Finally, the same legislation would open up all federal waters on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to leasing by oil and gas extractors, reversing a 14-year moratorium on offshore drilling that has enjoyed bipartisan support, including that of Governor Wilson. Laughingly, congressional Republicans argued that the United States is too dependent upon foreign oil and that it would be irresponsible not to explore all domestic sources. But a Department of Energy study shows that there are approximately 726 million barrels of proven reserves off the California coast. This means that, in exchange for allowing oil derricks to threaten spills along the entire length of our coast, the nation would get all of 41 days worth of energy from proven oil reserves--a bargain that only members of Congress in thrall to oil companies could appreciate. President Clinton, get out the veto pen.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, having a baby is surely one of the most wonderful and important events for a family. Unfortunately, to maximize their profits, many insurance companies treat this event as just another opportunity to cut costs. Many insurance companies cover only 1 night's stay in the hospital after a normal vaginal delivery. For some women, this is enough time to recover from the delivery and get adjusted to breast feeding and caring for the baby. But for many other women, this is not enough time. Doctors are increasingly alarmed that babies are being discharged from hospitals within 24 hours. In that short time they cannot receive critical health assessments to prevent routine child illnesses from becoming serious health problems. Unfortunately, the decision to give more extensive care to a newborn baby and the mother--such as monitoring for early signs of jaundice--is in the hands of insurance companies, which either limit stays or pressure doctors to recommend short stays. Today I am introducing legislation with my colleague, Peter DeFazio, to require insurance plans contracting with the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program to cover a minimum stay in the hospital of 48 hours after a normal vaginal delivery, and 96 hours after a caesarean section. In the case of plans that offer at-home visits, this minimum is waived as long as the plan provides extensive at-home, post-partum visits. Mr. Speaker, let us start our babies off on the right foot. The health of the baby, not of insurance company portfolios, should be our No. 1 concern. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman very much for yielding and for calling this special order to address what is a very, very serious threat to American workers, and that is the demise of OSHA that is being presented to our Committee on Education and Labor in the guise of reform, but in fact it guts the basic tenets of OSHA and the basic enforcement mechanisms of OSHA. As the gentleman rightly pointed out when he took the well this evening, millions of Americans go to work every day, and they play by the rules, they work hard, and what they do not need is to engage in an accident at work or have an unsafe workplace take its toll on them or members of their family. When we send our spouses or our parents off to work or our brothers and sisters, we expect to see them come home in the evening in as good a shape as they left, but as has already been pointed out here this evening, for tens of thousands of workers a year that does not happen, and unfortunately for tens of thousands of workers it costs them their lives. What we know since the advent of OSHA obviously is that these accidents are preventable, and the workplaces of America can be made safe, they can be made safer if not completely safe, and the accident rate can be impacted in a very, very positive manner. In fact since OSHA came into being the accident rate has dropped by over 50 percent. In some of the toughest industries we see that the protective standards that have been set forth by OSHA have had an impact. In the construction industry, where there are protective standards now for trenches that are being dug, where before hundreds of people lost their lives and thousands of people were injured in the cave-ins in trenches, we now see that those accidents and fatalities have declined by 35 percent. In industries where lead and high concentration of lead is used, thousands of smelting and battery plant workers suffer from anemia, nerve disorders, seizures, brain damage, and even death as a result of prolonged exposure to lead before OSHA issued its standard in 1978. Now we see that those same workers with high concentrations of lead in their blood has dropped by 66 percent. Grain handling, where we had a rash of explosions, hundreds of workers and thousands injured in grain dust explosions prior to the standards in 1988. We now see that these fatalities have dropped since those standards by 58 percent, and the injury rate has dropped by 41 percent. We see cotton dust, where hundreds of thousands of America's textile workers contracted brown lung, the dust from the cotton processing, and we now see the dramatic drop in the cases affecting brown lung, and we also see there that it may have very well been responsible for making that industry competitive in worldwide competition as they were forced to modernize because of those standards. So what we really see is in the 3 years following an OSHA inspection and fine, injuries at the inspected workplace decline by as much as 22 percent, and we have seen that the injury and illness rates have fallen where OSHA has concentrated its enforcement, mainly in construction, manufacturing, oil and gas extraction. These are all testimonies to the fact that these protective standards have worked to protect the American families. They have worked to protect the American worker. They have saved both the employer money, the employee money, the health care system money, the workers' compensation system money, and that is the result that we said we wanted in 1970, and that is the result we are getting. [[Page H 6385]] Have some of these standards caused industries to strain to meet those standards? Yes, they have. But what we have also seen is that we have gotten back the benefits of those standards. We now see that where, as the gentlewoman from Maryland just talked about, cumulative repetitive motion distress, carpal tunnel syndromes, we now see a 770- percent increase in those injuries. We have got to figure out how to address that, to take sure that those people can continue to earn a living without being disabled and their employers can save the money from having a safer workplace. OSHA is trying new programs. They are trying to make sure that OSHA works better for the employers, for the employees. No longer are there quotas. No longer are people rated by the number of inspections they do or the penalties that are assessed. We have seen the simplification of the standards. We have seen compliance assistance, helping small businesses to meet these standards. I think some 24,000 small businesses have been helped with this and hazardous free inspections, no citations, no fine, helping the small businesses make their place for the worker. In a program in Maine they took the 200 most unsafe workplaces and they said, You can voluntarily inspect your own workplace or we will give you a wall-to-wall inspection. The workers for the most part, the employers decided they would inspect their own workplace for hazard. They found 100,000 hazards. 100,000 hazards; 14 times higher than OSHA's own rate of inspection in identifying hazards. And almost half of these have now been abated since that program was recently started. So what we see is that OSHA can work very well with employers. In my district, heavy concentration of the oil and chemical industry, we have hundreds of millions of dollars of refinery work going on now. The major oil refineries, Exxon, Union, Texaco, Chevron, and Shell. And we have hundreds of thousands of worker hours, because of safety committees, because of OSHA compliance, because of learning how to set it out and get a work plan together and where the workers in some of the most dangerous industries in this country are working hundreds of thousands of hours without job loss. Let me say before I came to Congress I worked in a lot of these industries. I have driven trucks. I have worked on tugboats. I was a firefighter. I worked in the oil refineries. I worked on the farms and ranches bailing hay. I have been a tree faller, in the construction industry, commercial fishing, in the merchant marines and oil tankers. I have seen the workers who have fallen from great heights and the workers who suffered damage from toxic chemicals. And I have shaken more hands in my district with three fingers on those hands than can be imagined, and they lost them in industrial accidents. I have seen workers hit by cables and snapped by ropes because safety procedures were not in place when I was working in those industries. I have seen workers go in the tank farms in the oil refinery, I have gone in, with no protective gear, no breathing gear or skin protection. And I have seen the workers suffer the consequences and pass out on the job from the fumes, unable to go back into those tanks and come into contact with those chemicals. I have seen people lose their hands in hay bailers. Why? Because safety procedures were not in place. Those are the same industries that are in my district today. All of those industries now have a safety record that was unheard of, unheard of prior to OSHA. And I would just hope that people would understand that this is not a fight between the AFL-CIO and the American Manufacturers Association. This is about the safety of America's families. People who go off to work every day to earn a living. And many of these people, millions of Americans earn those livings in dangerous workplaces. Simply because of the occupation, they are dangerous. But they can be and they have been made safer by the OSHA regulations. And we cannot succumb as a Congress, we cannot talk about the importance of our families, we cannot talk about the importance of a worker being able to sustain the economics of their family and household income and then resort to the kind of legislation that is being proposed to us in the Education and Labor Committee and being sent to the floor of this House basically on a party line vote by the Republicans that would take away the rights of employees to go to OSHA to demand a safe workplace, would take away the reporting of how many times did the employees tell the employer their workplace was not safe. The employer, under the new law, would not be required to keep records. They could disregard that. And when an accident takes place, an injury takes place, no penalty to be paid. You get a citation and are told to clean it up. And if you do not clean it up, you are still not held liable under the law. This is not the way to protect America's families. This is not the way to protect family's children from having to lose a mother or father in a workplace accident. And this is not the way to protect workers from those employers who will violate the law, as we saw in the tragic chicken factory fire in North Carolina where the employer thought they could get more productivity out of their workers if they chained the doors closed so that the workers couldn't get out in the fresh air. And then, when the fire started, the workers were burned up and people lost their spouses and mothers and fathers and lost their sons and daughters in that accident; an accident that did not have to happen in the first place. But the tragic loss of life and the injuries were completely avoidable had the law been followed and had we had people who respected the dignity and the rights of those workers. So I want to thank the gentleman for taking this time in this special order. I think we need to talk more about this. I think we have got to educate that it is OSHA that has provided the safe workplaces in this country for America's families and we should not have to go back, we should not have to go back where the workplace is based upon the whims of the employer as opposed to the right of a worker and their families to have a safe workplace. That is what OSHA provides today. But that is not, that is not what the OSHA legislation that the Republicans want to pass would provide for workers in the future. And I thank the gentleman. OSHA Works I. OSHA's Mission Congress created OSHA in 1970 ``to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the Nation safe and healthful conditions.'' OSHA's fundamental mission is as important to America's working families today as it was a quarter-century ago. The 1970 OSH Act authorized the agency to issue and enforce protective standards, and to provide compliance assistance through consultation, education, and training. The 1970 OSH Act gave states the option of establishing their own state OSH agency; to date, 23 states have done so. ii. why osha works By developing protective standards, and making employers more safety conscious, OSHA has made a real difference--often the difference between life and death--to millions of working Americans. Overall, the workplace fatality rate has dropped by over 50% since OSHA was created in 1970, according to the National Safety Council. a. OSHA's Protective Standards Save Lives. Here are just a few examples of how OSHA has saved lives and improved worker health and safety through the promulgation of hazard-specific protections: Trenches. Thousands of construction workers were buried alive in trench cave-ins before OSHA strengthened trenching protections in 1990. Since then, trenching fatalities have declined by 35%, and hundreds of trenching accidents have been prevented. Lead. Thousands of smelting and battery plant workers suffered anemia, nerve disorders, seizures, brain damage and even death as a result of prolonged exposure to lead before OSHA issued protections in 1978. The number of workers with high-lead concentrations in their blood dropped by 66% in the ensuing five years, markedly improving the health of workers in these industries. Grain Handling. Hundreds of workers were killed and thousands injured in grain dust explosions before OSHA issued protections in 1988. Since then, according to the grain industry's own data, the fatality rate has dropped by 58%, and the injury rate has dropped by 41%. Cotton Dust. Several hundred thousand textile industry workers developed ``brown [[Page H 6386]] lung''--a crippling and sometimes fatal respiratory disease-from exposure to cotton dust before OSHA issued protections in 1978. That year, there were an estimated 40,000 cases, amounting to 20 percent of the industry's workforce. By 1985, the rate had dropped to 1 percent. b. OSHA's Enforcement Program Saves Lives. Millions of working Americans have also benefitted directly from OSHA's enforcement program. Most employers have reported that their workplaces became safer after OSHA inspected them; a recent study confirmed that in the 3 years following an OSHA inspection and fine, injuries at the inspected worksite decline by as much as 22 percent. In fact, since 1975 injury and illness rates have fallen in industries in which OSHA has concentrated its enforcement activities--construction, manufacturing, and oil and gas extraction--while they have risen in other industries. In fiscal year 1994 alone, OSHA inspections helped make over 40,000 workplaces safer for nearly 2 million working Americans. There is no shortage of examples of successful enforcement efforts: Following a 1991 inspection, a West Virginia vending machine manufacturer instituted a safety program and lowered its lost workday injury rate by 73 percent. OSHA inspected a Cleveland construction site in 1994, insisting that workers wear safety belts while working on a scaffold 70 feet above the ground. Four days later the scaffold collapsed, but the workers were saved by their new safety belts. OSHA's 1989 inspection and $700,000 fine was the catalyst for Boise Cascade to improve worker protections. The company implemented a comprehensive safety and health program, cutting injury rates by 78 percent and worker's compensation costs by 75 percent. ``OSHA played a key role in these accomplishments,'' according to the company's counsel. Following a 1989 OSHA inspection and fine, an automobile carpeting manufacturer established an ergonomics program at two Pennsylvania plants. Cumulative trauma injuries declined by 94 percent and 77 percent respectively at the two plants over the ensuing 3 years. c. Safe Workplaces Save Dollars. Every workplace accident cuts into the employer's profit margin. In 1992, for example, workers' compensation claims amounted to $44 billion. Compliance with OSHA's protective standards helps save lives, reduce injuries and cut these unnecessary losses. For example, 2 years after OSHA issued a cotton dust standard to protect workers from respiratory disease, The Economist magazine reported that the required protections were helping to make the industry more efficient. iii. do we still need osha? OSHA has had notable successes, but its job is far from done: Every year, work-related accidents and illnesses cost an estimated 56,000 American lives--more than the total American lives lost in battle during the entire 9-year Vietnam War. On an average day, 17 working Americans are killed in safety accidents, an estimated 137 more die from occupational disease, and another 16,000 are injured. Meatpacking workers, for example, suffer an incredible annual injury and illness rate of 39 per 100 workers. These incidents have a devastating impact on thousands of America's working families each year. There are staggering economic costs as well: safety accidents alone cost our economy over $100 billion a year, and occupational illnesses cost many times more. We all bear these costs--as employers, as workers, and as taxpayers. New workplace hazards are emerging as our economy changes to meet the demands of the new global marketplace. For example, cumulative trauma disorders have increased roughly 770% in the past decade. Other federal programs may provide job training, civil rights protections, a minimum wage, or collective bargaining rights. But what good are they to a worker who is killed or disabled on the job? iv. making osha work better In the past, OSHA has been criticized for focusing too much on nitpicky technical violations, and too little on eliminating serious safety and health hazards. OSHA must improve its targeting of the most dangerous hazards and workplaces, particularly given the ever-widening gap between OSHA's resources (1,000 inspectors) and responsibilities (3.7 million workplaces). Under the leadership of Assistant Secretary of Labor Joseph A. Dear, OSHA has begun to refocus its mission to maximize its impact on worker safety: No Inspection Quotas. The number of inspections is no longer an agency performance measure. Neither is the amount of penalties assessed. Instead, performance measures will be based on real improvements in worker safety and health. Standards Simplification. In October 1994, OSHA asked the public and its field staff to identify outdated, vague, conflicting or duplicative regulations for simplification or elimination. That effort is in progress. Compliance Assistance. In FY 94, OSHA's consultants helped nearly 24,000 small businesses identify and abate hazards free of citations and fines, under OSHA's consultation programs. Targeting the Most Dangerous Workplaces. Under the Maine 200 program, the 200 most unsafe employers were offered a choice: implement a comprehensive safety and health program, or be put on a priority list for a wall-to-wall inspection. The vast majority of employers chose the first option, with stunning results. During the first 18 months of the program, participants identified nearly 100,000 hazards, at a rate over 14 times higher than OSHA's own rate of identifying hazards through inspections. More than half of these newly-identified hazards have already been abated. Targeting Real Hazards. OSHA is refocusing its enforcement program on the most dangerous hazards: Under a new focused inspection program, construction employers with safety and health programs will only be inspected for the four leading causes of on-the-job deaths (e.g., falls, electrocutions). Citations for the most common paperwork violations have declined by 35% over the past 4 years. Recognizing Excellence. OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program recognizes employers who have excellent safety and health records, exempting them from general inspections. OSHA expanded the VPP Program by 70% in FY94. Additional Initiatives. OSHA has taken many additional steps to refocus the agency on results including: increasing the involvement of stakeholders in setting the agency's regulatory agenda; redesigning the agency's field offices to streamline the complaint process, reduce paperwork, and focus more on results; establishing customer service standards (in a recent survey, over 75% of employers found OSHA inspectors to be professional and knowledgeable); establishing the Maine Team Concept Pilot Program to empower front-line inspectors to use their own judgment in deciding how to make the best use of their resources (In FY94, at the participating field offices, the number of inspection hours increased by 86%, delays between inspection and citation dropped by 30%, and the employer contest rate declined by more than 50% as inspectors adopted a less adversarial enforcement approach); establishing pilot programs to improve response time from complaint to abatement (reduced for nonformal complaints from 61 days to 9 in Cleveland and from 35 days to 5 in Peoria); simplifying recordkeeping requirements; and expediting FOIA request processing.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, why was that motion not debatable, but the previous motion was debatable?

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit with instructions.

Mr. MILLER of California. I am, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, finally, I would just say we have considered many amendments to this legislation. Many of those amendments have been about how we conduct our offices and how we pay for those offices and how we approach and hold ourselves out to the public. However, what we did not consider in this legislation was the question of gift giving by lobbyists to Members of this legislative body. It is a practice that must be ended. The leadership on that side had said they are going to end it. The question is when, because every time we have an opportunity to do it within the rules of the House, somehow we cannot find the will to do it. Mr. Speaker, this is a practice that must end. It must end now. If Members support the motion to recommit, it can be done away with today. I would urge all the Members to support the motion to recommit. point of order

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this motion to recommit is to send this bill back to committee with instructions for the purposes of reporting the bill back to the floor with a gift ban, to make sure we would finally end the practice of gifts from lobbyists, lobbying firms, and others involved in legislation, to Members of Congress. We have amended the rules of this House extensively, and we have done it on three different occasions. Each time we have been denied the opportunity to offer an amendment to end the practice of gifts by lobbyists to Members of Congress. This is an effort to do that through the legislative appropriations bill by denying those appropriations to those offices where Members have continued to accept gifts which they knowingly have been provided, directly or indirectly, by a paid lobbyist or a lobbying firm. Mr. Speaker, I would hope Members of this House, on a bipartisan basis, would vote to support the recommittal motion, so once and for all we can put an end to a practice that is unacceptable to the public, it is unacceptable in the conduct of the public's business, and it should be unacceptable in this House. That is ending the giving of gifts by lobbyists and lobbying firms to Members of this House while they have legislation under consideration.

Mr. MILLER of California. I thank the Chair.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I move to recommit the bill, H.R. 1854, to the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the language offered in this motion to recommit is in fact valid under the House rules. It is constructed to meet all requirements for a valid [[Page H 6231]] limitation under clause 2 of rule XXI. It does not impose ``substantial additional duties.'' While it is true such an amendment could have been blocked under section (d) of clause 2 by the motion to rise had such a motion been offered in the Committee of the Whole, in fact no such motion was offered. The Committee rose under the direct terms of the rule, House Resolution 169, rather than as a result of the motion of the majority leader or the manager. The House rules clearly permit a valid limitation to be offered when the manager or the majority chooses not to offer the motion to rise or if they fail to do so in a timely fashion. For this reason, a motion to recommit with instruction to include a simple valid limitation is in fact in order, and therefore the motion to recommit requiring a gift ban be reported back to the House is in order.

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

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

Mr. MILLER of California. A parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.