George Miller

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, in a rush to cut governmental spending, the Republicans seem intent not to look at whether or not programs are effective, whether or not programs have been successful, but simply to cut and to block-grant those programs so that they can realize the savings that they want to pay for the other things that they wish to do, whether it is an increase in the defense spending or to provide tax cuts to the very wealthy of this country. Unfortunately, the programs caught up in that whirlwind happen to be the nutrition programs. These are among some of the most successful programs in the history of this Government and the history of this Nation. These are the programs that have lifted our elderly out of desperate situations when they did not have enough income to feed themselves, have dramatically reduced the incidence of low-birth-weight and very-low-birth-weight children to pregnant women, to families, to prevent them from suffering the setback and the disappointment and the heartbreak of birth defects of a critically ill child at the moment of birth, and at the same time to alleviate the taxpayers and others of the cost of the thousands of dollars a day it takes to bring a very- low-birth-weight child up to normal weight and the efforts so that they can take that child home. These are the programs that have allowed our senior citizens to live in their own home. One of the leading causes of people being put into nursing homes is that they can no longer cook for themselves. So we used a program called Meals on Wheels. I have delivered the meals, my wife has delivered the meals, our children have delivered the meals to the elderly in our community. That is the reason they can live in a surrounding that they are comfortable with. They can no longer cook, but we can deliver a nutritious meal to those individuals. What happens when we do that? We reduce the nursing home cost, the health care cost, and the whole Nation benefits, and those people get to live in a surrounding they are comfortable with. These are the programs that have allowed people to go into their homes and to cook for those individuals so that they could stay in those surroundings. These are the programs that when people find themselves unemployed, through no fault of their own, they went to work every day, they worked in the steel mills, in the automobile factories, in the insurance companies, at IBM or Xerox, and all of a sudden they had no family income, because of restructuring or downsizing or layoffs or unemployment, whatever the words are that you want to use. But they had to feed their families. So they were entitled to go over, and to get food stamps to give them help while they were unemployed. Their children might be eligible for a school lunch because they have no family income. Now we say we are going to cut those programs across the board? We are going to cut those programs across the board for Americans that went to work every day. And they worked hard. They just happened to be so unfortunate that their job was yanked away from underneath them. I do not think that is the message that America wants to send to its families, but that is what these nutrition programs are about. they are about the prevention of birth defects. They are about letting families have an opportunity to have healthy babies. They are about our elderly living out the twilight of their life with dignity, and the security of their own surroundings, and not bankrupting their children or themselves because they have to go to a nursing home because there is no one to take care of them in the city in which they now live. That is what these programs are about. And they are about making sure that there is in fact a safety net for working Americans so that when hard times come they can get some help until they can get the next job. Twenty percent of the families receiving Food Stamps are working families in this Nation. The go to work every day. They have not lost their job, but they do not make enough to be above the poverty line. Some of those families are in the U.S. military. They are serving this country. But they do not make enough, so that they are eligible for Food Stamps, and to make ends meet for those military families they go down and they participate in the Food Stamp Program. That may be a shame that that is the situation with the military families in this country but it is a fact. In fact, if we look at these nutrition programs, they are an indictment of this country, for our inability to provide jobs to create wages so people can feed themselves, so that people that find themselves in tough economic straits can get a bridge out, to get temporarily help. But we do not. We see homeless people on our streets. In 1980 the Reagan administration said it was an emergency and temporary. They said they were there because they wanted to be. And in 1990 they were counted in the census as a permanent part of the American landscape. That is unacceptable and, the nutrition programs stand between millions of Americans and that fate. And that should be block granted. Mr. Speaker, the question I put to you today is: Where is the mandate? Who is mandating the repeal and block granting of the Federal nutrition programs? No one has contacted my office to support a nutrition block grant, and hundreds have written opposing it. Exactly who is asking for the demolition of these programs that have proven so successful in saving the taxpayers' money, preparing our kids to support themselves when they get older, and increasing the health of our seniors? The Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee had to cancel a hearing this morning on the nutrition block grant because they couldn't get a Republican Governor to testify in support of it. The Governors themselves have serious concerns about the negative impact the block grant will have on our citizens and our country. Speaker Gingrich is mandating this block grant to pay for his tax cut for the rich. In order to save a few billion dollars to pay for disregard of the merits of these food assistance programs, the Republicans are risking incurring significant long term Federal, State, and local cost of health care, remedial education, and decreased worker productivity. Of course, there is room for improvement in the programs--we work on this every year. Congress is constantly working to improve efficiency, decrease paperwork, and end fraud in these programs. Last year the Ed. and Labor Committee reauthorized the School Lunch Act. I worked with Members on both sides of the aisle to add a strict penalty for anticompetitive bid-rigging by food suppliers. Almost every year Mr. de la Garza and the members of the Agriculture Committee have passed legislation to curb fraud in the Food Stamp Program. These programs are good for the recipients and the taxpayers. The block grant contains no requirement that the food programs States create maintain any uniform nutrition standards. The recommended daily allowances for kids and adults in California is the same as those in New York. Only the ability of the children and their families to pay for that food varies. The current taxpayer savings the Republicans are putting in jeopardy are: Every $1 spent in the WIC program saves between $2 and $4 dollars in Federal Medicaid costs. Every $1 spent on elderly programs--Meals-on-Wheels and Congregate Meals program--saves $3 on Federal Medicare, Medicaid, and veteran's health care costs. Malnourished patients stay in the hospital nearly twice as long as those who are well-nourished, costing an additional $2,000--$10,000 per stay. Malnutrition permanently impairs brain development and a child's ability to learn, causing an increase in the number of children failing in school and a significant increase in the local and Federal cost of remedial education. Nutrition programs significantly decrease anemia in adults as well as children and the elderly. Studies show anemia lowers worker productivity and ability to learn new and emerging fields, hurting our ability to compete in global economy. In my district, as in all other districts across our country, this block grant means more than a loss in food assistance. In Contra Costa County alone it means almost 400 fewer grocery store jobs, $6.6 million less in wages, and the closure of over a dozen food stores. I understand the Republicans want to move quickly in debating their proposed legislation in order to meet their 100 day-deadline. However, if the cost will be measured in taxpayer dollars and human lives, it would be unconscionable of the Republicans not to slow down. Please, talk to your constituents, visit a WIC center, eat a school lunch, and find out why these programs are so popular and successful. You owe at least that to yourself, our children, and our country.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, at the end of last week, the makeup of the Ethics Committee was announced by the Speaker and by the minority leader. We know as Members of this House that that is among the most difficult task Members can be called upon to perform, and, that is, to sit in those rare occasions when they must in judgment of their colleagues in this House for actions or allegations of behavior. The difficulty of that task was recognized by Speaker Gingrich back in 1988 when the conduct and questions of the former Speaker was called into question, and he said that the Speaker of the House, a position which is in third line for succession to the presidency and the second most powerfully elected position in America, this investigation has to meet a higher standard of public accountability and integrity. I think he is probably correct. It certainly must meet the same standards as for Members of the House, but clearly sitting in judgment of the Speaker is a far more difficult task than sitting in judgment upon regular Members of the House because of his position of power and prestige and his integral being to the workings of this House and to the success of Members of his own party and of the House generally. It is for that reason that while we applaud finally that there is an Ethics Committee in place, that we must raise the issue of the appointment of an outside counsel. Serious allegations have been made against the Speaker in his dealings with the potential publication of his book, the funding of his college class, the solicitation and the disbursement of fundings for GOPAC, a PAC which he controls and which many Members of the House have benefited from or been involved in over the last year. It now turns out that three of the Members, or two, maybe three of the Members on the Republican side of the Ethics Committee have had dealings with GOPAC and been involved in one fashion or another with that. I think again unfortunately in this House we do not get to deal with simply the facts. We must also deal with the appearance when we do the public's business. And the appearances of a conflict within the Ethics Committee must be dealt with and they must be dealt with in a timely fashion and they must be dealt with immediately. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out in its discussion of the makeup of the Ethics Committee and about the potential conflict of the members of that committee, it went on to quote Senator Dole, the Republican leader in the Senate, who said on ``Face the Nation'' that ``the American people want us to move forward. We are not doing that. All the focus is on Newt Gingrich.'' I think that is quite clearly the mood in this body and the mood in the public and that is that we must move forward with the agenda, whether it is the contract as represented by the Republican Members of the House or the plight and the well-being of the American working family as represented by Democratic Members of the House, we must go forward with that agenda. We will not be able to do that until this issue is resolved, and this issue must be resolved in favor of the House of Representatives as an institution and must be resolved in favor of the confidence of the American people in this House and it must be resolved in a fair, full disclosure of these allegations and a fair and full investigation. That cannot be done when we have members of the Ethics Committee who have been involved with the organization called into question. This should be done sooner rather than later and it must be done by resorting to an outside counsel as Speaker Gingrich recognized when he was embroiled in a conflict with the previous Speaker of the House. It simply requires the appointment of an outside counsel so we can remove it from the floor of the Congress, we can remove it from our daily workings. We have already seen where Speaker Gingrich has suggested that this would be tied up in the issue of Mexico, that somehow the issue of the bailout or the loan guarantees to Mexico could not be properly considered if this issue continued to be raised. This issue must continue to be raised until it is settled. And the way you can keep it from being raised on the floor of the Congress is to have it put into the hands of an independent and outside counsel to remove it from this institution. This issue was raised in the telecommunications policy where we see the Speaker as a beneficiary of the contract with a company owned by Rupert Murdoch, has now met with Mr. Murdoch, with his lobbyist about telecommunications policy, then engaged in a private meeting for Republicans only on telecommunications policy, and then threatened to tell the owners of these companies that they ought to get their reporters in line. So this conflict is spilling over onto the floor of the Congress, onto public policy. It must be separated. The only way it can be separated is with the timely and immediate appointment of an independent and outside counsel in the matter of the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich] versus the questions of his operation and GOPAC and in the funding of his college class and his book contract.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman makes a very important point. We are now the recipients of a vast amount of knowledge that is imparted to use because of the advances in photography and in the satellite monitoring. And obviously what we see and what we show our schoolchildren and our families and others and the citizens of this country is the ramifications of local actions that spread far beyond the borders. The areas of Arizona and Colorado and New Mexico receive most of their pollution out of the southern California air basin. The people who travel and spend their hard-earned money to go visit the Grand Canyon cannot see across the rim not because of what happened in Arizona or in the Grand Canyon but what happened hundreds of miles away in southern California. If you look at the satellite photos and you see the pollution that comes out of Alabama, out of Georgia, moves down to the Florida Bay, moves around into the Florida Keys, and up the other side of Florida, and if it is not treated. And what this legislation says, if those same mayors and those same Governors that do not like unfunded mandates, do not like the cost, do not like timetables and do not like standards prevail, then everybody goes their own way. You put in the pollution at the top of the Ohio River or you put it in in the Mississippi River and then other people who want to try to clean up their water, either because they want to use it or they are responsible in putting it back into the river, find that it is far more expensive for them to do that. That is not a united nation. That is not about citizenship. That is about making individual, little decisions about how you can push it off onto somebody else. Because as we advance, as we find out more about air pollution and water pollution, then if we do not, as a Federal Government, agree to pay that and they can prevail on the point of order, and we do not waive that, I understand the mechanism here. I also understand this is a democracy. If they prevail on the point of order, then we simply lose the ability to put that technology out there for the benefit. Let us look at what we have achieved in this country. Under this great burden we have achieved the highest standard of living in the world. We have achieved the cleanest air and the cleanest water in the world. The point is that those are the ramifications of when 220 million people try to live together. We can look everywhere else in the world and see the ramifications.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. (Mr. MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, just as we do not allow families or members of families to be dysfunctional, we cannot allow cities, States and counties to choose not to do what is socially responsible for the good of the people of this Nation. We have had these basic fights. We have had the people of New England fight against the people in the Ohio Valley about scrubbers on coal plants and obligations and fuels to be burned. We have had the struggles between the automobile companies and the manufacturers of gasoline in cities, and in the city of Denver the gentlewoman has been through this. Why do we do this? Because it is our social responsibility. I thank the gentlewoman for raising this point.

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I rise in support of this. I think this amendment really highlights one of the concerns that we have, and that is to some extent some of the duplicity of the Governors who have come here and talked about unfunded mandates and the burdens that the Federal Government pushes on to the Governors, even if it is for a local purpose and a Federal purpose, and then those very same Governors turn around, do the same to local government in their States. They accept responsibility. Then they decide they cannot handle the financial aspects of it, they turn around to the counties. In our own State of California, in this last year, we have watched the Governor come and scoop up local revenues, take them to the State level, and then tell the counties that they had an additional burden for mental health and health care of individuals and for probation and all these other programs. They said you have to take care of it, but the money has now gone to the State. That historically has happened in State after State after State. Yet these Governors come to the Federal legislature somehow wanting us to believe that they have clean hands when they come before us and suggest they would never think of such a thing as an unfunded mandate. Yet everybody here who has worked in local government knows it happens to you each and every day. In California they are so brazen, when the legislature passes an unfunded mandate, they pass boilerplate language that says, ``Under S.B. 90, this is not an unfunded mandate, and do it anyway.'' And that is the situation that the gentlewoman from California is trying to get at is that it is not good enough, if you believe in this arrangement that you are talking about in this legislation. All you have really done now is made things more difficult for the most local forms of government as they continue to receive these State unfunded mandates, if you will, as the States continue to agree with the Federal Government about the purposes of these programs.

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, either this bill is not on the level, or we desperately need the amendment of the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Taylor]. Because the suggestion is, somehow, when we bump up against the hard question of whether or not we are going to regulate and bring in as a matter of national policy, that effluent be cleaned up from our rivers and our waterways, we will simply overrule the point of order and go on with a majority vote and we will go on about our way, because we recognize national important issues when we see them. Well, then you cannot have all of the rhetoric about stopping unfunded mandates. Because, in fact, the process that we go through today, the way that we arrived at the Clean Water Act and the 10 years we spent in the reauthorization of the Clean Air Act, is exactly that process. We went through 10 years of hearings, 10 years of combat, 10 years of acrimony, 10 years of scientific studies by the National League of Cities, by the great city mayors, by rural America, by the League of Counties or Organization of Counties. All of these organizations came in and said this is what it is going to cost, you are only paying a part of this, not all of this, back and forth. But we also knew something else: None of those cities could do it by themselves, and none of them were willing to do it without Federal money. And they also wanted protection from being sued by their neighbor if they could not do it immediately. So when you look at the Sacramento River or look at San Francisco Bay or the immense problems of the Mississippi, it would make little difference if my hometown of Martinez decided to clean up its sewage before it discharged it into the bay, if the city of Sacramento was not doing that or a huge city like San Francisco was not doing it. So we wanted to know that if we made this effort, we would benefit from the effort, we would end up with a cleaner bay, as opposed to a cleaner effluent into the bay. That is why we have national laws that bind us together for this obligation. But we knew and the mayors knew and the county people and the State knew that this was never about the Federal Government paying 100 percent. This was about the Federal Government collecting the taxpayers' money to help these cities meet what was a political problem, an environmental problem in their localities, to clean up the rivers and waterways. And had not the Federal Government provided both the catalyst in terms of the mandate and the catalyst in terms of grants for wastewater cleanup or development block grants that provided additional money or the earmarks in Federal legislation, the rivers and the waterways of this country simply would not have been cleaned up because they were not prepared to go to their local taxpayer and say ``We will pick up 100 percent of the cost.'' What they were prepared to say to the taxpayer was if you will put up some money, we got a way to get some Federal money. You used to call it free, free Federal dollars for wastewater. What we found out is, they are not free. They are coming out of the same taxpayer's pocket. But let us not suggest there is some attempt here to erase history. This is the process. This is the legislative agenda. This is how it works. We weighed these competing interests, we balanced them out, and in the case of clean air, in the case of clean water, we determined that it was in the national interest to embark upon a program over several decades to clean up our waterways, to keep them clean, and to be able to respond to advantages in technology and knowledge and threats to the safety of our air supply and our water supply. Now, under this legislation, the suggestion is you could not really do that by regulation, that that would be an unfunded mandate or certainly be challenged such that you would be back in court. The overruling of the point of order only helps you with respect to the legislation. But that is the process. What you are telling us is you are going to go through that same process, because you are going to weigh that, have the competing studies, have the reports from the agencies, we will put it all on the table, and we will still make a determination. So the legislation, what the legislation does is dramatically drag out the process and make it far more complicated rather than stopping unfunded mandates. Now, the other possible thing to do is simply return it all, add up what we spent, the $60 or $70 billion, give it back to the taxpayers over the next 10 years, and let the mayors and city governments make their own decisions about whether or not they think they should do it. But that is obviously unacceptable to them, and it is unacceptable to the Nation as a matter of national policy.

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

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, this legislation strikes at the very heart of the body of laws that bind us together as a progressive society, and with the highest standard of living in the world, the body of law that ensures that no matter where you live in this country, you can enjoy clean water; that no matter where you live in this country, local government and the private sector are working every day to improve the air that you breathe, so we no longer have to send our children indoors because it is too smoggy out. We no longer have to tell our senior citizens they cannot go out for a walk because the air quality is too bad, or we cannot drive to work because they do not want the automobiles on the road. These are the laws that accomplished those successes. These are laws that said ``Yes, if you take money from the Federal Government, we are going to put onto you an obligation to educate the handicapped children of this Nation,'' because before that was the law, the handicapped children of this Nation could not get an education in the public school systems run by the States and localities that we now say are so ready to do the job. But for that law, tens of thousands of handicapped children, because they have cerebral palsy, because they have Downs syndrome, would not be allowed in our public schools, but that is a Federal mandate. Yes, we pay part of the freight, but this law would say ``Unless the Federal Government presents 100 percent of it, no school district would be required to educate that handicapped child. Unless the Federal Government spends 100 percent of the money to clean up the local water supply, the local sewage treatment, the city would have no obligation.'' What happens along the Mississippi River in Indiana or Minnesota if they choose, or in Ohio, if they choose not to clean up the municipal sewage because the Federal Government will not pay 100 percent? That means the people in Mississippi and Louisiana have to inherit that sewage. An unfunded mandate upstream is untreated sewage downstream. What does that mean to the fishermen, to the commercial enterprises, and to the tourist industry in those States? It means they suffer. That is why we have national laws. When I was a young man you could smell San Francisco Bay before you could see it, but now we require all of the cities, not just the town that I live in, not just the oil industry, not just the chemical industry, but the cities upstream and downstream. Some of them, we had to take them to court to tell them to clean it up. Today San Francisco Bay is a tourist attraction. Commercial fishing is back. People can use it for recreation. That is what these mandates have done. Yes, we have not paid 100 percent, but we have put billions and billions and billions of dollars into helping local communities make airports safe so they could become international airports, so people would have confidence in going to those cities. We have cleaned up their water and air. We have made it safe to drink. That is what this legislation is an assault on. Mr. Chairman, the proponents of this legislation would have us believe this is a simple and straightforward initiative: Congress should mandate the States and local governments to do nothing that Congress is not willing to pay for in its entirety. In fact, this legislation strikes at the very heart of the entire concept on which our Government is based. Government does have the responsibility to require that those in our societies--private individuals, businesses, and State and local governments--meet certain responsibilities. Even the drafters of this legislation recognize that some mandates need not be paid for. They are ideologues of convenience. They do not require we pay for compliance with civil rights and disability laws. But they would compel funding for actions relating to public health and safety, protection of the environment, education of children, medical services to our elderly, safeguards to our workers. And they would require that we pay only when that burden is imposed on entities of government. Private industry, many of which compete with State and local government in the provision of services, is accorded no relief. And those who work for Government, performing exactly the same services as those in the private sector, are potentially denied such basic protections as minimum wages, worker right to know about hazardous substances, and OSHA protections. Never mind that the same State and local governments to whose aid we are rushing impose precisely the same unfunded mandates on lower levels of government. So, I think this clearly demonstrates what is going on here: this is not about unfunded mandates: It is about undermining this Nation's environmental, education, health and labor laws, and wrapping the attack in the flag of unfunded mandates. The last time we tried this deceptive tactic--cutting away at the basic role of Government in the name of cost savings--we tripled the national debt in 8 years. But let me take issue with the very name of this concept--unfunded mandates. Unfunded? Really? We have spent tens of billions of dollars helping States and local communities meet these mandates by improving water systems, upgrading drinking water supplies, building and improving transportation systems, improving education programs, and on and on. Have we funded every mandate fully? No. Should the Federal Government have to pay States and local communities to protect their employees, their environment and their public health and safety? Because let's remember: A lot of them were not protecting those people and those resources before the Federal mandates came along. No, we haven't funded every dollar. But have we covered 50, 75, 90 percent of the cost of many of these projects? Time and time again. And have we provided these same State and local governments with hundreds of billions of dollars to build, expand and improve highways, rapid transit and harbors and to respond to disasters--even when there was no Federal responsibility to provide a dollar? Have we provided money to assure that communities are safe from nuclear power plants and hazardous waste sites? Have we provided money to educate the handicapped, to train the jobless, and to house tens of millions of Americans? I have little doubt that those who champion this legislation fully expect that its passage would have no effect on our willingness to fund their future actions in these areas. They are very wrong. Every State and community should be aware that the appetite of the Congress for funding local projects and programs that fail to meet a Federal standard of quality and protection and performance is going to be very minimal, particularly in light of the coming effort for a balanced budget amendment that would slash Federal spending radically. So I think we should proceed with some caution here. If the States and local communities don't want the mandates, don't expect the Federal dollars either. I find it somewhat ironic that in my own State of California, for example, the Governor has failed to come up with his promise of matching funds for the $5 billion in Federal disaster aid following last year's Northridge earthquake. Now he wants more Federal money for earthquake assistance; and he will want more still for the flooding, and he'll probably throw in a few billion dollars' worth of dams and other infrastructure from Federal taxpayers. Yet he is one of the biggest proponents of this unfunded mandates legislation--and the same time that he forces unfunded mandates down the throat of every county and city in California. We see that kind of hypocrisy in the legislation before us today. In case you didn't read the fine print, this mandate ban neglects to include the dozens of new unfunded Federal mandates contained in the Republicans' Contract With America. Just the mandates in the welfare bill alone could bring the States to their knees. But all those new mandates are exempted, even though none of them have yet been enacted into law. So much for being honest with the American people. [[Page H356]] Let's be very clear what this legislation is going to do to some of the most important laws this Congress has passed and has spent billions of dollars helping States and local communities implement. Safe drinking water. We have upgraded the water supply across this Nation, virtually eliminating disease, contamination and danger. Much of that has been paid for by Federal dollars. Which local community would like to have taken on that task without Federal assistance? Which Americans want to put the future and the consistency of our safe drinking water at risk through this legislation? Clean water. You used to be able to smell San Francisco Bay before you could see it. You used to need a battery of shots if you stuck your toe in the Potomac River. The sewage and waste water of 80 million Americans from a score of States flows out of the mouth of the Mississippi River, and for years contaminated the commercial fishing areas. A few years before the Clean Water Act was passed, the Cuyohoga River in Cleveland was burning. Want to go back to those days? You tell me which financially strapped city and State will take on that burden without Federal assistance? Nuclear safety. Should nuclear power plants and generators of radioactive wastes--which exist in every large city and many small ones--be able to ignore Federal safety standards for operations and waste disposal? Deadbeat parents. We are collecting hundreds of millions of dollars a year from parents who have ignored their financial responsibilities to their children, thanks to Federal law. Should we just abandon that program? The list of inequities goes on and on. What happens to reauthorizations of existing laws? What if those reauthorizations are delayed for years by obstructive tactics in Congress. The answer is: We don't know. And the reason we are legislating in the dark here is because this complex bill, which would fundamentally alter the entire nature of Federal-State relations, was drafted in haste, denied public comment and public hearings, and marked up in a haphazard and manipulated process that made thoughtful review all but impossible. Of course we should examine whether Federal funding of mandates has been adequate? In fact, that process was begun last year by Democratic members of the House. But let us not rush to pass a deeply flawed, confusing, and deceptive bill, drafted behind closed doors and without adequate public review, a bill that misrepresents not only the need for mandates, but ignores the billions of dollars we have given to State and communities to help meet those mandates.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. I thank my friend for yielding and taking this time to discuss this issue. On the point that the gentleman raised on what is going to happen to United States workers with the Mexican economic crisis is a very important question. Just a few short months ago, the administration and others came to the well of the House and to the Senate and told us that the NAFTA Agreement was a win-win situation for American workers and that not only would the jobs that are lost to Mexico be recreated in new industries in this country, but the broad power to open up the country of Mexico to United States exports would create additional jobs in this country so that we would be a net winner. And when those of us raised concerns about the disparity between the wages in Mexico and the United States, we were told that was not a factor, that in fact the peso was strong, that things were going well, and they presented Mexico as a First World country in terms of economics. That has turned out not to be true. Not only has it turned not to be true now, but it turned out to not true quite a while ago. But between the Governments of the United States and Mexico, they kept up the facade that Mexico was strong, Mexico was ready to participate in First World economics, and that was done to get past the Mexican presidential elections and also to get past the vote on NAFTA on the floor of the House of Representatives and in the Senate. What was then presented as a win-win situation, we are now confronting our constituents, the American workers, with a lose-lose situation. Not only will their wages be now less competitive with manufacturing and other occupations in Mexico, but we see the fact that those wages are going to be discounted by perhaps 30 percent. At the same time, the same Federal Reserve Board that is coming in here and asking us to support the economy of Mexico, to make these concessions and to put taxpayer dollars at risk, is talking about jacking up interest rates for the seventh time, interest rates that have the potential of closing off the economic recovery, of taking the newly hired people and putting them on layoffs, of dampening the appetite of American manufacturing to engage in expansion of new plants and facilities and job creations. So the American worker is put at a disadvantage because of the Mexican economic crisis and then he is put at a second disadvantage because his or her job is threatened or the potential for a job is threatened because the same Federal Reserve Board is going to hike interest rates in the American economy. We have already seen the National Association of Manufacturers and others state, ``Don't do this, because it precludes the kind of growth that is necessary in durable goods, in automobiles, home construction,'' those things that drive the fundamental job makeup in this country. So we have Mexican goods coming in cheaper than ever before, Mexican labor being cheaper than ever before, and the comparative advantage of Mexican workers at a much greater level than ever before. Then you put on top of that the willingness of the Mexican Government to thwart any attempts by Mexican workers to organize so they can better their standard of living, so that they can participate in a decent standard of living, and a decent workplace so that all of a sudden we do start to get some comparables. Then we have the use of troops to keep unionization from happening, keep workers from organizing, and what you really have now is the same old group of people in Mexico, the very wealthy families, the new billionaires sitting on top of the shoulders of the Mexican workers and telling them if they want a job they are going to have to be unorganized and they are going to have to work at historically low wages so that they can send their cheap goods into the United States and displace American workers. The gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior] is asking exactly the right question, and that is what the Republican leadership and others have got to respond to: What does this do for American workers? You promised us one thing a few months ago and did not deliver on that promise, and the situation is far worse than you ever represented to the American workers it would be, and now you are telling us to trust you again, trust you and the Federal Reserve. They seem to have a real problem with Americans going to work. Every time we get unemployment down to 6 percent, they want to close off the recovery and say, ``That is all the jobs, folks. Everybody will have to wait until the next time around, everybody else will not be able to provide for their family.'' I think this bailout of the Mexican economy to put money into this system--you know, if you were in Las Vegas, they would tell you not to do this because this is called putting good money after bad. As was pointed out already, we already have billions and billions of dollars' worth of pesos sitting in Fort Knox. We have no more gold in Fort Knox, there is only the Mexican peso. We have to think of what the ramifications of that are for the American workers. I thank the gentleman for raising this issue.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, the plot surrounding our Speaker's book deal continues to thicken. We find that while the Contract With America is committed to open meetings that the Speaker is, in fact, committed to a series of closed meetings; first, the closed meetings between he and Rupert Murdoch at which $4.5 million is on the table and the future of telecommunications policy and foreign ownership of our airwaves is also on the table, a meeting the Speaker said never took place, and now there are four or five versions of what took place at that meeting. Now we see that the Republican leadership is now committed to a closed meeting between the heads of the telecommunications corporations in this country and the Republican membership, no cameras, no press, no Democrats, no balance, but to privately have a meeting because it is only in private that they could have an honest discussion about the future of America's airwaves and multi-billion-dollar decisions for the consumers. Somehow the Contract With America's commitment to open meetings rings a little hollow when the real meetings are held in private and in violation of House rules. The plot thickens.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. That is not what the legislation says.

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

Mr. MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman. Let me just conclude that the notion that somehow the Governors of the cities along the Mississippi River will all arrive at a common decision to keep the Mississippi clean so that the people in the Gulf States are not punished economically or in their quality of life simply defies political logic in the history of this country. But for these unfunded mandates, I said that many parents have come to me and other Members of Congress and said, ``But for that law of education to handicapped children, my child would have never gotten an education.'' But let me also say, but for these laws, the plan to rescue the Everglades in Florida would have never come about, because the political structure in Florida was unable to deal with the growers, to deal with the landowners, to deal with the water districts and all that that meant in that political equation, try as they might, and this Governor and Lieutenant Governor have pushed the envelope on reaching consensus, but for the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, the agreement that is now in place to provide to start on the restoration of the Everglades, one of the wonders of the world, one of the major generators of economic activity in Florida, would never have happened. In my own State of California, we just reached an agreement between local government, the environmental community, the agricultural community and the State for the protection of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for the commercial fisheries, for the landowners, for the industries, for the cities, for the sports fishing, for recreation. That agreement would have never come about but for Clean Water and Endangered Species, because Governor Wilson, like every other Governor in the State of California, because of where they take their political contributions, could have never stepped up to the table, because the growers would never let them. Not Democratic Governors, not Republican Governors. But all of a sudden they had to step up to the table because the Federal Government made them do it, because we took the political heat in Washington. This administration took the political heat and turned back the 11th- hour pleas not to do it. What is the result? That the Delta will now have a recovery plan so we can sustain the recreation and the quality of life and the environment. The cities in southern California will get more water. The growers will have to start paying for their water and conserving it and using it in a modern age as opposed to how they used it with high Federal subsidies in the 1950's. This is the 1990's. But no Governor would have made that deal without the threat of Federal action and going to court. In the Northwest, no Governor, nobody had the guts to tell those loggers to stop decimating those forests, to stop cutting them faster than they could be regrown, so that they could be sustainable. And for years it happened, and whole mountainsides now are denuded of vegetation. Forget getting trees to grow again. What brought it about? The Endangered Species Act and the Federal Government saying we had to reach agreement between the environmental community and industry and the local communities and the salmon fishing industry, the commercial industries and recreation, and the people of Oregon and Washington about their quality of life, why people invested in homes. The local power structure did not want to tell Weyerhaeuser that, they did not want to tell the mill down the street that, they did not want to tell these people with all of their lawyers and all their lobbyists that they had to quit destroying America's forests, that they had to stay out of the ancient forests, that they could not decimate the salmon fisheries. They did not have it. They did not have it. But it happened because of these laws that those same Governors, those same mayors now seek to decimate, acting like they would all of a sudden have the courage to bring into concert those very parties that they rely on for campaign contributions, that they kowtow to all of the time and that they cannot look in the eye and tell them to start doing the people's business in the public interest. That is why these Federal laws are here. These Federal laws are not here because of some overwhelming desire of Washington to regulate the world. They came here because people were dying on the job, and they would not clean up the workplaces. People were getting killed in coal mine explosions, in grain elevators that were blowing up around the Midwest and the Mississippi River and killing people. They were working around benzene and finding out they had cancer. They were working around other toxic substances and they found out they had a child with birth defects, because that is what they were told to do that is why these laws are here. The automobile makers did not want to put air bags in automobiles. They resisted us for 15 years. Now most families would not buy an automobile without an air bag. They did no want seat belts. Now we would not think of an automobile without seat belts. They did not want to put child restraints in. When I was young and had my children, we held them on our lap and we drove around. And we were killing the children in wrecks. Now they are in a seat restraint system and the children are living. I appreciate that people do not want to do business other then the way they want to do business. But that is what brought about, that is what brought about these Federal laws. It was the irresponsibility of many, many individuals and entities in this country that thought that they could use your rivers as their sewage plant and thought they could put their dirty air high enough into the sky that it would blow into some other State and somebody else would have to breathe it. That is what is at risk here with this Republican legislation. That is what is at risk here in terms of the unity of this Nation, the social progress of this Nation, and that cannot be given away in short debate without a hearing and in a rush to somehow get it done in 100 days. We have spent 30 years cleaning up the environment of this Nation, making it a model for the rest of the world to provide a standard of living and security in our food supply, security in our air travel, security in our highway travel, security in our job place, security in our own homes, because other people just chose to make a buck. But the Federal Government thought we ought to make laws in the public interest. Now what we see is in one piece of legislation with no hearings, where you cut off debate in the committee last, week, we now see an effort to overturn those 30 years of social progress, turning back the forces who seek to exploit the environment, to exploit the worker, to exploit the family, to make a fast buck, to make a big profit and let the chips fall where they may. That is Bhopal, India, that is Chernobyl, that is the Ukraine, that is the Soviet Union where the lands have been destroyed and families broken and people are living in toxic waste. That is not the United States of America, that is not this country, and it is not this country because of these laws. To simply allow this assault to go on unfettered, to do it all in one piece of legislation, to not pull it apart and say what is the impact on nuclear safety, what is the impact on low-level waste being put in your communities, what happens to radioactive wastes from stored in our own communities, how do we provide for the safe disposal, what happens to the reactor rods we take out of nuclear reactors, are they going to be in your community or my community, what are the conditions under which they will be disposed of when they are stored, what are the protections to the citizens in those areas; that is the kind of debate we should have, and that is the discussion they should have had in the committee. The Republicans were just not up to it. On the first day they said their contract required open meetings and the Speaker stood before this House and said let the great debate begin. Apparently it was not as great as we thought. They decided to close the meetings, they decided to rule amendments out of order because they simply did not want any more time, not that the amendments were not germane or did not have an impact or were not worthy of consideration. They decided it was 6 o'clock, time had come to leave. These were people who said they were going to work every day around the clock, Monday to Friday, 100 days. They could not find time to have hearings on a bill that decimates the laws of this country. I hope we will have better debate on the floor and the Republicans will reconsider their assault, and I hope the American people will turn them back from this assault. I will urge the President to veto this bill, because in one swoop of his pen he undoes 30 years of social progress in the environment and in the workplace and in the security of American families. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. MILLER of California. I assume you spent a lot of time in the Bay.

Mr. MILLER of California. If the gentleman will yield, I think the gentleman makes an important point. Many of these Governors who are sort of leading the band on this one are engaged in exactly the same process. Pete Wilson handed the local counties of California a whole series of mandates last year on mental health, on medical care for people in the counties, a whole range of issues. They weren't funded. They weren't funded. Somehow they want to pretend like they come here with clean hands, that they are opposed to this. We have laws in California called S.P. 90, no unfunded mandates. What the legislature does is every year it says ``In accordance with S.P. 90, this is not an unfunded mandate.'' Tell that to the counties who are having to live with that. That doesn't make that process right, but let us not pretend that these are somehow unfunded mandate virgins who are coming to the Congress, that they have never done this. It is like Pete Wilson saying ``You balance your budget. I have had to balance mine.'' He didn't balance his budget last year, he went to the banks and borrowed money to make ends meet. Somehow they think they speak with greater moral authority: ``Do as I say, not as I do.'' that is sort of the lesson of these Governors. The fact is, they know that for the good of their States, every now and then, whether it is a fire code, whether it is flood protection, or workers' compensation, they must mandate that certain laws be abided by, and they don't say ``Every city make up your mind, every county make up your mind, and get back to me with what you did.'' That is not the nature of our system of government in this country.

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

Mr. MILLER of California. Reclaiming my time, that is not necessarily so. Very often local governments don't do things, not because the local voters don't want them to do things, but because the local power structure doesn't want them to do something, whether it is the local industry or the largest taxpayer in that city which decides ``If you do that, I'm going to have to spend x millions of dollars.'' But they also, those same people, the power structure, the local industry, others may very well have a social obligation to clean up the river and to clean up the air. It is not that that can always be overcome. Let's not pretend that every time the local voters get their way with the local city council or the local mayor or the governor or the county board of supervisors. That simply is not so. That simply is not so. To suggest that somehow all righteous answers are at the local level is simply not the case. That is why very often we come to the Federal Government to try to pass a law that will unify us in terms of progress in this country, and in terms of the concerns of the people of this country. The benefits, however, are not 100 percent on behalf of Washington, DC. If Santa Monica Bay is cleaned up, the benefit is also local, so we say we will share that. There are none of these mandates where the Federal Government has not put up hundreds of billions of dollars to help these local communities meet these mandates. The other issue, have some mandates gone too far, clearly they have. Has the imposition, the regulation, the enforcement of some of these laws gone too far? Clearly it has. However, this is not about the pendulum swinging, this is about cutting the cord on the pendulum and letting it fly out of control at one of its apexes, and that should not be allowed. Should we review these? Should we have cost assessments? Should we go into it opening our eyes? Yes, we should, and yes, we did. Let us not pretend, like we debated the clean air law or the clean water law without people--with every economic study on the impacts, the automobile industry, the chemical industry, the refining industry, local governments, transit districts, toll bridges, the whole gamut, that was debated for months, for years on this floor, and we arrived at a series of laws that we think will continue to clean up the air of this Nation. That is what is put at jeopardy here.

Mr. MILLER of California. It is also Federal money that is enabling that bay to be cleaned up, in part. That is true of the whole California coast. So that is the partnership that has been arranged.

Mr. MILLER of California. Reclaiming my time, that is exactly the point. If you leave it in that fashion, and if you take the Mississippi River as the example, if all of the States and all of the cities do not contribute to cleaning up the river, then it makes no sense for anybody to contribute to cleaning up the river. If we look at the Great Lakes, if the cities on the Great Lakes don't clean up their discharge, then it makes no sense for any of them to do it. Who goes first? When do you do it? That is why you have the unifying effect of Federal laws, because our actions in California--we think most of the pollution in the Grand Canyon is coming out of southern California, so here we have taken one of the great assets of this Nation, and we have destroyed it in terms of its beauty and the ability to enjoy it for visitors all over the world and our own citizens. However, it is not about what happened in Arizona or New Mexico, it is about what happened in southern California. That is why you cannot let this simply be a local determination. We the history of this country. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the Members of the House that at the end of this week and the beginning of next week the House will consider a proposal dealing with the issue of unfunded mandates. More importantly, what we will be dealing with is a most serious attack led by the Republicans in the Congress on the basic laws in this country that hold this Nation together as a society and deal with our common interests and our common concerns for the purposes of achieving social progress in this country. This is the body of laws that has moved us from a dangerous and polluted workplace and from a dangerous and polluted society to one where we now take into account those measures to protect our environment and to protect our workplace. These are the laws that protect our workplace. These are the laws that protect the waters of our lakes and our rivers and make those waters safe to drink, along with the ground waters and the basins that run from State to State. These are the laws that protect the air that we breathe, the laws that guarantee that a handicapped child can go to school, and that mandate background checks for child-care workers so that we know that when parents drop their children off in the morning, they will not be victimized by child molesters or others who would seek to take advantage of them. It is these laws that require those background checks and the fingerprinting that are now in place. It exploitation of child labor and at the same time make sure that when their mothers and fathers go off to work in the morning, they will work in a safe workplace and they will be paid at least a minimum wage. These are the laws the form the basis of a partnership between the basic levels of government, Federal, State, and local, that have provided unparalleled social progress for this country for the experience that we have all had over the last 50 years. It has not always been a willing partnership because very often local governments are not interested in cleaning up the sewage that they freely pump into the rivers of this Nation. The State governments that surround and have an impact on the Chesapeake Bay or San Francisco Bay or Houston Bay or Santa Monica or the Florida Bay are not always interested in cleaning up their water-treatment facilities or stopping the runoff from their farmlands and the pesticides that flow into those bays that now threaten the very environment and the existence of the Florida Keys, or the Florida Bay, that generate millions and millions of dollars in the tourist economy as Americans and visitors from around the world come to experience the beauty, the assets, and the recreation of the Florida Keys and Florida Bay. And yet if the State of Alabama under this law chose not to meet the clean-water mandates, it would make no difference what the cities and the counties and the State of Florida do in terms of cleaning up Florida Bay. If the States along the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers and the municipalities decide that they are not going to clean up their sewage, that they simply are going to do as they have done in the past because it has always been cheaper in the short term to pump the sewage, to let it flow into those rivers, it will make no difference what the States of Louisiana and Mississippi do to protect their fisheries, to protect the economy that relies on the river and on that great delta, because the pollution knows no State boundaries, no municipal boundaries. It does not know a conservative mayor from a liberal mayor. It makes no difference whether a city council votes for the money or does not, the pollution moves out throughout our society. That is why we have national laws--the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act--in this country, because we know we must have a unified effort, we know we must overcome the local politics where people decide in cahoots with industry or with a certain group in their neighborhoods that they do not want to spend the money to clean that up. It also happens in the education field, where before the Education to the Handicapped Children Act, children with cerebral palsy, children with Down's syndrome, children with retardation, and children in wheelchairs or on crutches or with the aid of walkers or breathing machines were told that they could not come to school, that they could not participate in our classrooms, but because we have a Federal law that says, ``If you want education money, you're going to have to educate these handicapped children,'' millions of children that were not given an opportunity now not only have gotten an education but they have had an opportunity to get a job and to live independently and to provide for themselves and in many instances for their families. And I have to tell the Members that there is not a Member of Congress that has not had a parent of a handicapped child come to us and say, ``But for that Federal law, my child would have never gotten an education,'' because the school board thought it was too expensive, the school board wanted them to go to a special school, or the school board thought it would be better if they stayed home. That is not the hallmark of this Nation. The hallmark of this Nation is bringing us together for common purposes and to protect the rights of those who are disadvantaged, whether it is economically, whether it is socially, or whether it is because of handicaps or where they happen to live. You should know that when you go to any city in America, that you can get safe drinking water. But that is not necessarily true and certainly would not be true if the Federal mandates are removed. Now, we have a lot of governors beating their breasts and talking about how we tell them to do things that they can't afford to do or they don't want to do and they ought to make the decisions. That is how we got into the situation with the rivers of Ohio that actually caught on fire in the early 1970's. Because they decided they didn't want to do it, they couldn't buck the political pressure of the steel mills and chemical companies and eventually the Cuyahoga River caught on fire. And I think you have to ask yourself if that is what we want to go back to. Certainly it is expensive to clean up our waters and clean up the air. I can remember as a young man when I could smell San Francisco Bay before we could ever see it as we drove down the road, because the pollution of the cities was being dumped into that bay and the fisheries disappeared. But now because we have the Clean Water Act, the fisheries are back. As I went to the airport yesterday, you could see the trawlers in the south end of the bay, fishing for a commercial crop, employing people, lending to the tourism, lending to the economy of the bay area. You know what? A lot of cities in San Francisco Bay cleaned up their sewage. But the city of San Francisco didn't want to. The city of San Francisco said we can't afford to. We are not going to do it. We had to go to court to make them do it. Because all of the other cities on the bay that wanted to enjoy the bay and the citizens that want to enjoy it, said no matter what we do, it will make no difference if the largest single polluter doesn't clean up their sewage, their storm water, their pollutants. Yet those are the laws that this Congress this Friday will be asked to basically overturn by allowing this assault by the governors who simply don't want to comply, by governors who will not take the political heat at the local level or mayors that won't take the heat. They somehow think this is going to make their job easier. Private industry thinks this is going to make their job easier. But when the mayor of Philadelphia finds out that it will make no difference about the air quality in Philadelphia if the other mayors in the States and the region don't cooperate, he will find that his task is far more expensive. In the early seventies, we had smog warnings more days than not in the Los Angeles Air Basin. Today we don't have that. It was true in Denver, CO. But what did we do? We passed a Clean Air Act and forced industries, we forced automobile manufacturers to manufacture automobiles with less pollutants. We now have reformulated gasoline on the market to try and help with the air pollution problem. Automobile engines are getting more sophisticated because of the Clean Air Act, because the States now have the ability to enforce the Clean Air Act. Somehow, somehow in a rush to judgment, with no hearings this year, the Republicans in Congress want to tell us that this should all be overturned. We should understand that these are the laws that brought America into the forefront of social progress. These are the laws that after too many American families experienced the loss of their spouse, or their father, or their uncle, or their brother, in the steel mills, in the coal mines, in the automobile plants, in the chemical plants of this Nation, these are the laws that said workers have a right to a safe workplace. But under the unfunded mandates legislation being brought to this floor, that is all called into question with the reauthorization of OSHA. That is all called into question if somehow the Federal Government does not pay 100 percent of the bill. I want to know why the Federal Government should have to pay 100 percent of the bill of cleaning up San Francisco Bay. The benefit doesn't run to the taxpayer in Indiana or in New Jersey or in Alabama. Clearly there is a national benefit because as the economy of the San Francisco region does better and we attract foreign tourists and business people and conventions, we all share that as part of our national economic product. But doesn't San Francisco, don't the cities on that bay, don't the cities in Florida benefit by created. In some cases the Federal Government has put up 75 percent of the money, in some cases we have put up 50 percent of the money, in some cases we have put up 25 percent of the money. But that was all negotiated at the passage of the legislation. But now we are down to the hard part, the implementation. And what we see is this kind of comprehensive assault led upon this body of laws to wipe out environmental laws, workplace safety laws, toxic laws. Imagine the audacity of the Federal Government saying to local employers and to the private sector that a worker, a worker has a right to know whether he or she is working around toxic substances that can end their life or disable them, and we all know that has happened, whether it was asbestos, whether it was benzene, whether it was all of the chemicals that are in the workplace. That is what the attack is about, is about taking away that right to know. What about the right of communities? What about communities that say we want to know what you are releasing into the air in our neighborhoods? We want to know what you are putting into the groundwater, to protect our drinking water. We have whole communities in the United States where water now has to be brought in overland because the groundwaters are contaminated, they are no longer secure, they are no longer there for the benefit of those communities, because somebody thought that was their garbage dump. Somebody thought that is where they could dump their sewage, put their toxics. And it just isn't about the old industries. It is not just about the steel mills in the forties, fifties, and sixties. In silicone valley, entire aquifers are now off limits to the cities and taxpayers and to the property owners in the south of San Francisco because the newest industries in this country polluted the groundwater in violation of law or because the local economy was so hungry for the jobs they didn't want to tell them that they couldn't spoil the environment. A lot of people criticize the environmental movement. But as we do an audit now on those countries where there wasn't an environmental movement, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of square miles of the Soviet Union where nobody can live, where life has ceased to exist, because of pollution. We all witnessed the horror of Chernobyl, where thousands of people have died, where you can no longer grow agriculture, and people have been moved to entirely new regions of the country; where milk has to be checked all of the time because the pollution spreads across the French countryside, across the German countryside. We chose a different route in this country. We decided that in fact we would invest in a clean environment, that it would be good economics, it would be good public health, it would be good for our citizens, it would maintain property values in our communities. But now, with the new Republican majority in this Congress, they have decided one of the first items on their Contract on America is to take away the protections of these laws. That somehow if the Federal Government does not fund 100 percent, then the people in one State or another should be free to choose their own way. It doesn't matter if when they choose their way in Nebraska, they pollute the aquifer that goes all the way to Texas. It doesn't matter if they choose their way in New Jersey, the people in New York have to breathe the air. It doesn't matter if they don't clean up the steel mills or power plants in the Ohio Valley, it kills the trees in Maine. That is what this clean air law is about. That is what the clean water law is about. That is what OSHA is about. That is what community right to know is about. Somehow these Republicans have such a terrible trouble. They are all for democracy and openness, but they don't want to tell people in the community what is going on in their communities. They don't want to tell workers the substances they are working around. People should have to experience birth defects, miscarriages, before we get to them? I don't think so. Why should we visit that on a family because they are forced to take a job out of economic necessity, and then we put them in a dangerous situation and they suffer that kind of tragedy in their family. That is the price of a job? It is when you vote for the unfunded mandates bill, because we no longer get to have the common concern and the common interest of this country, about improving the social progress of our children, of our families, of our workers, because that is what this body of law is about. These are the successes. These are the successes that set America apart from other countries. These are the successes in terms of our economic growth, in terms of our economic activity, and an environment that is unparalleled elsewhere in the world. And if we don't lead the way, let us not believe that China will follow suit. That they will think if we decide that clean air is not important here, how do we tell China that clean air is important there? And yet they have the potential, if they stay on track with their economic growth and the building of their coal-fired power plants, to erase everything we have done in clean air in this country. That is the volume of pollutions that they will put into the air. But we are now going to take away our ability to have tough laws in this country and yet we are going to lean on China or India or Indonesia to come into the first world in terms of environmental protection, not a chance, not a chance. Where we have not done this, we have lost whole industries. Where we did not do this in the Northwest, we lost a good portion of the logging industry, and we have lost a good portion of the commercial fishing industry and the sports fishing industry. The coasts of our States now, great areas, great fishing banks off of New England, you cannot make a living because the local people did not have the courage to impose the moratoriums or the limits so we simply strip mined the oceans. We are about to set in motion strip mining of the bays and seas off of Alaska. That is why you have a Federal Government. Because a lot of these Governors and a lot of these mayors cannot take the heat. They do not want to buck the industries. They do not want to tell them the truth. They do not want to tell them ``no''. Well, when it got to such a point that we could not breathe our air, our rivers were catching on fire, you could not swim in the bays and the fisheries were disappearing, we changed the law. We changed it for the good of the Nation. I would hope that some of these people would stop whining about the kind of social progress that we have made. I would hope that these same Governors who do not like us saying that if you take the public's money, you have to do the public good, what they are really saying is all they want is the public's money. You cannot have it both ways. If you are going to spend the public's money, you have to spend it in the public interest. That is an important component of this. Surely, there was debate. It took us, I think it took us almost 6 years to reauthorize the Clean Air Act, because we had this debated, because we made the compromises, because we apportioned out, we apportioned out the participation. But if anybody thinks that the question of whether or not Santa Monica Bay is going to get cleaned up depends upon 100 percent Federal funding, then I guess Santa Monica Bay is not going to get cleaned up, if they do not have the local willpower or the local finances to do that. That is true all up and down our region. This is a union of States, but those States are not entirely contained within their boundaries. Their activities spill over onto others. This is about being a good neighbor. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin].