George Nethercutt

Mr. NETHERCUTT

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Speaker, ``if American agriculture does not grow, it dies.'' Those are the words of the current Secretary of Agriculture. I represent a district with some of the richest farmland in America, the 5th district of Washington State. I know firsthand that the growth of world markets for Washington wheat and other commodities is essential to the survival of our farmers. Secretary Glickman's words do not match the actions or, better said, the inactions of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Our government has failed miserably to aggressively address the increasingly aggressive trade policies of competing nations which are glad to help their farmers capture markets abroad. Yet our government does not use the tools Congress made available to this administration to allow our farmers to compete against other governments who help their farmers. This administration cuts agriculture research funding, opposes free market farmer assistance, will not use the export enhancement program, resist tax relief for farmers, and slashes the Foreign Market Development Program. Mr. Secretary, please start helping our farmers.

Mr. NETHERCUTT

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I was hoping to rise before the point of order was ruled upon to support the amendment offered by my colleague on the Drug Task Force, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham). Under current Federal law, individuals who are injured by the Federal drug trade have only one remedy and that is criminal prosecution. The problem with this is that while the drug dealer goes to jail, the victim or victims have no personal civil remedy. The Latham amendment would have changed that. The gentleman's amendment introduced the concept of civil liability to the Federal drug code. The amendment is modeled after civil liability laws in 11 States. In those States not only do the dealers face jail time, they open themselves up to civil judgments every time they sell drugs. Parents of drug users, drug babies, employers, health insurers and local governments in those 11 States now have legal standing to recover the negative costs associated with drug use. Under this law, as the gentleman from Iowa stated, the city of Detroit recently was awarded $7 million in damages for drug treatment expenses in its jails. Mr. Chairman, earlier today we passed the Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act. I was a cosponsor of that bill because I believe we need to dedicate more resources to the interdiction of drugs before they get to the United States. But I also believe that Congress needs to focus more attention on reducing the demand for drugs stateside. One way to address the drug demand is to ensure that drug dealers are punished more severely, both criminally and personally. The Latham amendment does that. It says to the drug dealer that you will be held both criminally and civilly liable for the drugs you deal. This amendment is not about abdicating the responsibility of the drug user. Under this amendment, a drug user could pursue a civil remedy, a civil suit against the drug dealer only if the user cooperates with authorities, has not used drugs within the 90 days prior to the filing of the lawsuit and remained drug-free during the duration of the lawsuit. Mr. Chairman, the Latham amendment reduces the incentive for individuals to become involved in the drug trade. It was a good amendment. It is a good amendment. I would hope that it will receive further attention and widespread support.

Mr. NETHERCUTT. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. NETHERCUTT

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Speaker, I want to again voice my opposition to the proposed removal or breaching of dams on the Snake and Columbia Rivers in Washington State. Some advocate that these dams be destroyed in an effort to restore wild salmon runs. I am concerned about recovery of wild salmon runs, but I also believe that we must not destroy our multiple use river system that has been created over the past 40 years. I seek to implement a salmon recovery plan that is science-based, maintains a healthy environment for other fish and wildlife species, but balances the needs of our local economy and our rural way of life in the Northwest. There are serious environmental effects of replacing hydroelectric power with fossil fueled generation. Dams are a clean and renewable energy resource. To replace this source of electricity with natural gas fired turbines would add thousands of tons of pollutants and chemicals into the atmosphere annually. We must examine all sources of fish loss. Ocean conditions, predator populations and over-harvesting on the river have yet to be fully addressed. Salmon recovery can be accomplished using developing technology and sensible harvest limits. Damn removal will irreversibly remove jobs, harm the economy and the environment, while the benefits to the salmon would remain uncertain.

Mr. NETHERCUTT

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise to request that the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) engage in a colloquy with me and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula).

Mr. NETHERCUTT. I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman is aware, the committee report provides additional resources to the DARE program through the use of unobligated balances in the COPS program. I would like to thank the gentleman from Kentucky and the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan) for their continued support of programs which will help reduce drug use among our Nation's youth. Mr. Chairman, the committee has received a significant appropriation request for the DARE program in order to improve and expand the DARE curriculum to more middle schools.

Mr. NETHERCUTT. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. NETHERCUTT

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite of number words. Mr. Chairman, I rise very strongly in opposition to this amendment, and I think that my colleagues need to understand really what it does and what this amendment seeks to do as it relates to veterans health care. The VERA system was mandated by legislation passed into law in the 104th Congress. It is strongly supported by the Veterans Administration. In the second half of fiscal year 1997, the VA began implementing the VERA system, the Veteran Equitable Resource Allocation system. This allocates health care resources according to the numbers of veterans served in each veteran's integrated service network, VISN, in the country. Historically, funding for the VA flowed into hospitals in the east where veterans were originally concentrated. Each year, this funding was increased, even as veterans began to migrate away from these regions. Over time, a serious mismatch developed between numbers of veterans needing care and the number that the system was capable of serving. VERA corrects this divergence of linking funding within each visit to the actual population served. What is happening now, Mr. Chairman, is that veterans are moving south and they are moving west, but yet those who support this amendment want to keep the money that supports those veterans in the areas from which veterans are leaving and not give the resources to the areas to which the veteran population is going. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey), in support of his argument, has argued that the current allocation is not equitable for the Northeast; but, simply stated, this VERA formula is straightforward. It does not allow the inequities that existed in the old system. It is an equitable system. The system matches workloads with annual allocations. It takes into account numbers of basic and special care veterans, national price and wage differences in education and equipment differences. Now, it may well be that VISN number 3 is having difficulty adopting to the VERA system, but that is because the most inefficient network is VISN 3, it is most inefficient in the country. So the VERA system does not reward inefficiency, it forces networks to develop a resource plan that makes the most of limited funds. If we look at the historic resource consumption per patient, a standard industry measure of efficiency, it reveals that while my VISN in Portland, Oregon, which serves the West, was more than 20 percent more efficient than the system as a whole, Chicago and the Bronx were 20 percent more inefficient than the system as a whole. The VA has, I would tell my friend, $50 million in reserve that it sets aside to address the quality of care issues associated with VERA implementation. If, in fact, the Secretary feels that the quality is being impacted, he can use this $50 million reserve to assist VISN 3 without eliminating the entire VERA system. The VA does not know what would happen to veterans' funding if the Hinchey amendment was adopted. There is no fall-back option if the VERA system is eliminated, and that should be very much of concern to all of us who have veterans in our district, and especially those districts that are increasing in their veteran population. The most likely option we would have would be to revert to the formula that created this massive funding shortfall in VISNs across most of the country and return then more money to the Northeast. That is not equitable to veterans. It is not equitable to veterans of the West and the South, where all the veterans seem to be moving. If we reverted to fiscal year 1996 allocations, my VISN in Portland, Oregon, would lose $80 million. Dallas, Texas, would lose the same amount. Jackson, Georgia, would lose $120 million. Bay Pines, Florida, would lose $110 million. San Francisco, California, would lose about $50 million. And Long Beach, California, would lose some $40 million. How about those veterans? They have needs and priorities as well, and they would be then underserved. On the local level, what would these massive cuts mean for rural VA hospitals in the West and the South? It would mean that the uniform benefits that the VA is striving to provide would be unavailable. My local hospital in Spokane, Washington, has told me that they would have to eliminate all of the subspecialty care that they have recently subcontracted for with the new VERA dollars. So they would lose specialists in the fields of cardiology, enterology, neurology and ophthalmology. The bottom line is VERA is equitable. Until last year, small VA hospitals across most of the country did not have the funds available to provide this care on site. The Hinchey amendment would end this specialty care. I urge that we vote against the Hinchey amendment.

Mr. NETHERCUTT

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I listened with interest to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) try to set a comparison about how we spend money in the Government. And I want to commend the chairman, also a member of the Committee on Appropriations, not the subcommittee, but the whole committee, and I appreciate the chairman and the subcommittee allocating the funds appropriately in a very tough budget climate. I would just say to my colleagues, what is it worth to cure cancer, that is what we are talking about, or helping cure diabetes, or helping cure paralyses? There is a great body of scientific research going on through NASA that is planned for the International Space Station to cure these diseases, to grow cells and try to see what impact microgravity or near-zero gravity has so that we can employ that kind of technology and research and information and bring it here on earth and replicate it and cure disease. So I think I make the argument very forcefully that I think we are going to do perhaps more to help people in the years ahead through the International Space Station through medical research. It has got a tremendous potential to help people in need. And there is nothing that has a greater need in our society than health care for our people and in combating disease. I was in Huntsville and went to the Marshall Space Center just about 2 or 3 weeks ago and had a wonderful opportunity to see what is going on there. And I can say to my friends from firsthand experience, and I do not know if the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) or the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp) or others have gone there, but if they have not, I suggest they do to get a sense of what is being planned. They can see the American portion of the Space Station built. It is being built now in a very high-tech environment, in a high-energy environment I might say. Certainly, Boeing is the contractor and has an interest in this, which has an interest in my state. Well, that is fine. But I tell my colleagues, the morale of the people working on the Space Station is extremely high. They have great hope and great interest in the good things that will come of this Space Station. So I would just say to my friends and my colleagues, I think this has great, great future value, this whole Space Station concept and all the medical research. Just from a medical research standpoint, I think there is tremendous potential in the disease areas that I mentioned earlier, cancer, diabetes, microgravity and paralysis. I mean, there is a tremendous potential here that we should not overlook and be short- sighted about. So I urge rejection respectfully of the Roemer-Camp amendment because I really think this is something we have to do in order to meet the future needs of our country and pay attention to the future and certainly the health future of this great Nation and the world.

Mr. NETHERCUTT

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I am rising in opposition to the gentleman from New York's amendment that affects this easement language that is contained in our subcommittee report and the bill. I have lived in Alaska, spent a year continuously there, and spent 4\1/2\ years traveling literally throughout the entire State of Alaska and, in fact, worked on the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in the U.S. Senate as a staff person. So I have some sense of the agreement that was reached then and the respect under which it was given. In fact, I agree, in many, many respects, with the gentleman from Alaska relative to the commitment that was made to the Native American peoples under the Native Claims Settlement Act. I believe that the amendment of the gentleman from New York strikes a blow against the Native American private property owners. The amendment strikes a provision that is necessary for the Federal Government to keep a promise it made in 1982. I suggest that any of us in Washington State or New York or any other State of the Union would be offended if we had to wait from 1982 to 1998 to have the Federal Government fulfill a commitment that was made to our people. I have great respect for the gentleman from Alaska for standing up for his State; he should and he is. All too common, Mr. Chairman, in this country, in this body, people from outside the area of concern are trying to influence what happens in the States, whether it is my western State, people from the East Coast trying to influence what happens in my State and tell our residents what is good for us. The same is true especially of Alaska. I think this Congress many times has taken great liberty with the State of Alaska. I have lived there. I have seen what impact it has on the people who are there and this is another example of that. In our bill, in the chairman's bill, the Subcommittee on Interior of the Committee on Appropriations, on which I serve, made clear that this 250 foot easement was just that, it is an easement for purposes of constructing a roadway into the land of the people who own it. It has been a 16-year saga of trying to get that decided. This is not some superhighway or freeway that the native people there are trying to build. It is just not the case. It is a roadway to get from point A to point B into their own lands and use it for their own purposes, which are legitimate. In our bill, we say nothing in this section waives any legal environmental requirement with respect to the actual road construction. It does not waive environmental laws. It is not trying to put up a high-rise on this 250 easement. But 250 feet in Alaska is different than 250 feet in the lower 48 in terms of the needs of the area there to do the construction that is necessary, to just build a two-lane road. And that is the commitment they have made. So I really think it is offensive that the Native American people, the Chugachs, have to fight this battle for 16 years to try to get some relief. That is all this is, is trying to get some relief so they can get what is rightfully theirs. It is clear that without this road, that the natives cannot get access to lands that Congress gave them. There was extensive debate in this body and in the other body settling the claims of the Alaskan natives. It is a breach of that commitment and that agreement and that settlement for now us having to be here fighting off this finality which I think is very important to the State of Alaska and the people of Alaska. In 16 years, the Federal Government has not given the natives the easement necessary for access to their lands, not somebody else's lands, their own lands. This bill grants that easement. The chairman is right. We sat in the full committee and acceded to the amendment of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) on the representation that this was what was necessary by the Forest Service and acceptable to the Forest Service for this construction and this easement to occur. This will go on and on and on in grand unfairness to the people of Alaska and the natives of Alaska if we do not resolve this today. The gentleman's amendment will enable the Federal Government to continue to breach its promise. I urge that it be rejected.

Mr. NETHERCUTT

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise in very strong opposition to the McDermott amendment, for a number of reasons. I have been listening to my colleague from Washington State make mention of the reasons why he supports his own amendment. Obviously, he does, and I respect that. However, let me put a clear perspective on this study, and that is exactly what it is, Mr. Chairman, it is a study. In 1993, without authorization, and I say that again, without any authorization, without one single hearing, without any consideration by the authorizing committee of this Congress, some money was stuck into an appropriations bill to do a study of Washington and Oregon to look at the so-called ecosystem of these two regions relative to endangered species. What developed from that ministerial duty, I will say, of putting some money in and saying let us do a study, has developed into a 7- State, 144 million acre monstrosity. Volumes of documents and scientific analyses have apparently been done, and so now this so- called initial study on the short-term has taken on a life of its own that has become a nightmare in the Pacific Northwest and in the 7-State region that this study encompasses, all in the name of so-called ecosystem management. Let me tell my friends why this is so serious to the Pacific Northwest and all the Western States. It is a study that is never ending. It is a study that will cost the taxpayers an estimated $1.25 billion over the next 10 years. The country has already spent $40 million on a study, a study, that has now created volumes of documents, staff galore, a lot of bureaucracy frankly, in the name of ecosystem management. What this amendment does is essentially continue this bureaucracy that has existed since 1993, at a cost of $40 million unauthorized. Let me tell my colleagues who is against this amendment by the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott): The National Labor Management Committee, the Pulp and Paperworkers, which consists of the pulp and paperworkers and the carpenters and the machinists. It is opposed by 65 percent of all of the county governments of the 7-State, 144 million acre region. I have that documentation right here, the Western Legislative Forestry Task Force, have all of the counties that oppose this study and oppose the continuation of the expense of this study. Here is volumes of material, letters and messages saying this study has gone beyond its original expectations; it is going to ruin the Pacific Northwest and the 7-State region, not only from a resource management standpoint but from a private property rights standpoint. What we need to do in this case is reject the McDermott amendment and allow the amendment that we put into the subcommittee that passed without any objection, went to the full appropriations subcommittee without any objection and now is here on the floor, again without one hearing by the authorizing committee, a $40 million cost to the taxpayers already. What we do is we say, let us terminate this project. Let us use the science. I object to my colleague asserting that the science is wasted. It is not. Particularly in our amendment, it says, let us use the science that has been accumulated. Let us also use the social and economic information that has been accumulated to make sure we do not ruin the small communities of the Pacific Northwest, the timber communities and the resource areas of our great part of the world. What this amendment will do will be to perpetuate the bureaucracy, and I must say the environmental community is not pushing this. They do not like the study, the east side ecosystem study, the Interior Columbia Basin study for different reasons that I do not like it, but they still do not like it. They are not here on board supporting the McDermott amendment, to my knowledge. It is the White House, and it is Mr. Gore's office who really is pushing for this concept nationwide, worldwide, of ecosystem management, and the test case, the test place for it, is the Pacific Northwest. So I would say to my friends, to my colleagues, we must reject this amendment. It is a destructive amendment to the way of life of people in the Pacific Northwest. It is a waste of taxpayers' money to continue this massive study that has gone beyond its original purpose. It is opposed by labor. It is opposed for other reasons, I am informed, by the environmental community, and what we need to do here is oppose this amendment so that we can be sure that there is a way of life in the Pacific Northwest relative to resource management. There is nothing in the ecosystem study that prevents lawsuits, but it does allow the scientific information to be used in the forests that are affected by this scientific information. I think it is significant that 65 percent of the county governments, which were supposed to be an integral part of this study and its findings, have rejected the findings and the study and the continuation of the study by the Department of Interior and its land agencies. So I know there are other Members here who want to speak out on this today because it is a very serious breach, in my judgment, of the initial expectation of this study and it is a breach of the property rights of those of us in the Northwest who want to preserve the environment but also not shut down the entire forest system and public land system in the Pacific Northwest in the 7-State region containing 144 million acres that are covered by this study. So I implore my colleagues, reject this amendment. Make sure that we preserve the resources of the Pacific Northwest.

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, I would make a point to the gentleman. The estimate is that it will cost $125 million a year to implement any scientific findings and there is, in this study, no prevention from there being any litigation. Does the gentleman realize that?

Mr. NETHERCUTT. If the gentleman will yield further, I do not know if the gentleman knows that there was a hearing between the Senate and the House of these land agencies.

Mr. NETHERCUTT. The testimony was that if they could not get the money, and this budget is strapped, they would do nothing. So, therefore, the forests deteriorate more and they are stuck sitting there without any kind of a management plan as long as this study continues. My argument is, let us use the science that is there and let the managers on the ground implement these plans and take the findings and get something done rather than wait.

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Mr. Chairman, I listened with interest to my friend, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), make his points. With regard to the environmental community which opposes this study, I do not think I am overstating it. The gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) said, well, certainly they will sue. They are opposed to the study, and they are opposed to a record finding because it does not go far enough. So they probably will. But what I think is so very important in this case is that if you have the scientific information that is being used to amend the 74 plans, they are all going to have to be amended anyway, if there is a record of decision. But the difference is there is not one preferred alternative that affects all seven States and all 144 million acres. So we have got one particular record decision and preferred alternative for Oregon and Montana and Washington and Nevada, and that may not apply to eastern Washington. What we are trying to do by terminating the study, but using the scientific findings in the interests of amending the plans anyway, we are not trying to have the alternative that may apply to Oregon, which has a different climate than my east side of the State of Washington, have it apply there. So the method in this madness is to use the science, and not be stuck with a one-size-fits-all policy that assumes that this entire region is one region, and we all have the same issues and the same environmental conditions, and preserve this local autonomy that my friend, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings), mentioned so well. I have great respect for my predecessor. Certainly he stuck the money in. But he stuck the money in so the bull trout would not be listed. Well, guess what? The bull trout has been listed. After five years, roughly, of $40 million of expenditure, we are still fighting that issue. I do not buy the argument that if there had been some record of decision, it would not have been that somehow the bull trout would not have been listed. I just think this is a continuation of bureaucracy that will never end, and I mean that sincerely. I think now they want another $5.8 million this year in our bill. We could not afford that. We are trying to save money for parks and other things, but still not waste the science and $40 million that has been out there. So this local decisionmaking and wise use of the information that meets the alternatives and the needs of the local communities, I think, just makes sense. I must say to my friend, you have got the labor union movement that is affected in my part of the country saying, ``Don't do this. We object to the continuation of this study. We think it ought to be terminated, because it means jobs for those who are in the pulp and paper industry.'' Now, I want to preserve jobs too, and I just do not think there is any sense that this record of decision that affects all seven States with one preferred alternative is going to be the salvation of jobs in the Pacific Northwest and in the whole Western States region. So I just urge my colleagues, look at it again. It is 144 million acres, it is $125 million conservatively of implementation costs. If you just look at the Northwest Forest Plan, you can about quadruple that number, if not more than that, in terms of cost, in doing the sub- basin studies. It is a tremendous cost. So my view is, let us let these local decisionmakers make judgments about the needs of the regions that differ from one another. Use the science, but do not have a one-size-fits-all policy at a cost that this Congress and the taxpayers cannot afford. I yield back to my chairman, with the understanding that there is not the money in this budget. We are tight as it is, trying to get this all done.

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, let me respond to my friend. There is nothing in the Interior Columbia Basic Ecosystem Management Project that prevents lawsuits. The gentleman assumes that a seven-State, 144 million acre plan with one preferred alternative is the answer. It is not the answer. I submit respectfully to the gentleman, I am willing to work through all of this. I have talked to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) and said let us work through this in conference. The Senate has a little different feeling about this. But this is not the answer to not having lawsuits, and, in my sense, the courts are going to look and say is there a scientific study, which my predecessor was trying to accomplish. Have a study. There is a study. It did not say a preferred alternative or record of decision or a seven-State, 144 million acre study. It said a study. We have a study. We have adequate scientific information to allow any court, in my judgment, to resist any challenges, notwithstanding the fact that there is not a record of decision. So I understand the gentleman's concern, but I am concerned also. I want to have some productivity and multiple use out of our forest system, but I do not come to the conclusion that a Federal program, such as it has been identified, I think accurately, as a bureaucracy, that is top down, not locally decided, which is what was expected in the first place, is the answer. There is no assurance in this. We want to have some language that says ``no lawsuits.'' I will join into that.

Mr. NETHERCUTT

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. NETHERCUTT. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the chairman for his comments, and I must agree with him. I think that the goal here is laudable, but I think the Miller amendment goes too far. It is an extreme approach to the reasoned approach that the subcommittee has taken deliberately, not without consideration. I have just been in hearings regarding the Forest Service and regarding the need to control and limit their expenses. Our subcommittee has been deliberate about this. And I think the representations of the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture are very well taken. He makes a good point. We will have hearings, we will have an analysis of the problem, but to, in sort of an extremist way, say we are just going to cut this off now, without good knowledge, I think makes no sense. So it does go too far too fast. With all due respect to the gentleman from California, I just think we need to be very careful about how fast and how deliberate we are on this whole issue. The Interior bill, the one that we are going to vote on here today, takes an important, responsible, incremental step to management improvement. And that should be our goal, not this whacking away at this account and really harming the environment. Frankly, I think that is what the consequences will be. Chairman Smith, Chairman Regula and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) all mentioned the environmental protections that I think would be lost by adopting this amendment. So I urge very clearly that we vote no on this amendment and continue our deliberation of this whole issue and try to resolve it in a reasoned manner, not slashing and cutting.

Mr. NETHERCUTT

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, we ran out of time in the general debate, because I wanted to lend my words of respect and admiration to not only our chairman of our subcommittee, who has done such a wonderful job of putting this bill together, but certainly the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Yates) for all of his service and humor and wisdom in our subcommittee. But, also, I think the fact that he made the statement that the members of the subcommittee are of high character and quality is personified, not only in him, but in the chairman of our committee as well as the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), and other Members on our side, especially the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Skaggs), who worked so hard on the Democrat side to make this committee a success. Mr. Chairman, I do support this bill. It is a good bill, crafted well. When many Americans think of the natural beauty of our country, they think of the area as managed by the agencies funded by this bill, our national parks, our forests, our monuments, our cultural treasures. The bill also provides funding for Native Americans through the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service. I am pleased that our chairman, along with our subcommittee, have made Native American health a priority in this bill. The lowest life expectancies in this country exist among Indian populations, and they are the lowest of any nation in this hemisphere except Haiti. Despite the President's emphasis on health care, this is an area that was miserably overlooked in the President's request to Congress. He really shortchanged the Indian population and their health needs. The Indian Health Service received the lowest funding increase in the Department of Health and Human Services budget request at less than 1 percent, while the overall funding request for HHS averaged a 7 percent increase. In the area of diabetes, the chairman has included language tightening reporting requirements for Native American tribes receiving funds for diabetes prevention and treatment to monitor the usage and effectiveness of the program. Also in the bill is $1 million for an innovative diabetes program to be administered by the Joslin Diabetes Center, a leading center in diabetes research in our country. I also want to bring Members' attention to the provisions in the bill addressing the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project. There may be an amendment to modify or strike the provisions contained in this bill through the subcommittee and then again through the full committee. This project started as a simple scientific assessment of the public lands in eastern Washington and Oregon. Once begun, it took on a life of its own. This occurred back in 1994. Money was inserted into the Interior bill without authorization. And 4 years later, now, we have spent at least $40 million on the planning process of ecosystem management, whatever that really means to whoever wants to define it, and there is no end in sight. The implementation, according to the agencies involved, would cost upwards of $125 million a year for 10 years. That is not possible in this bill. It will not be possible over the next 10 years. The language in the bill brings this unauthorized regional planning process, and that is really what it is, back down to the local level where managers better understand the capabilities and the challenges facing the land in a particular area. The administration has objected to this concept. If they would come forward in a constructive manner, I, speaking for myself only, would be willing to work with the administration on appropriate language. But I cannot support the imposition of a one-size-fits-all standards on our forests and BLM districts from northern Nevada to western Montana. So I hope that the Members in this body will take particular care to look into the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project itself, understand what those of us in the West face regarding ecosystem management, and support the committee's version of this particular provision. I also encourage my colleagues to support this bill and approve of all of the provisions within it, because it is a finely balanced and finely tuned bill.

Mr. NETHERCUTT

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I had a chance to listen for a few minutes to the comments of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) about the space station, and came over to the floor just to address that for a minute. I was in Huntsville, Alabama, a couple of weeks ago and had a chance to go to Marshall Space Center and look at literally the construction of the space station, the American portion of the space station, that is ongoing there as we speak. It has been a terrific project, and it has great application, I would submit, to medical research. There is high morale among the space station personnel who are employed by Boeing, the prime contractor, and others, but, more importantly, I see some great benefits in the future that will be derived from the use of this international space station for purposes of medical research. While I have the highest respect for the judgment of the gentleman from Indiana, I disagree with the gentleman on this one. This Space Station is going to lead the way in medical research, which is going to help cure diseases for those of us on Earth because of the kind of research that deals with microgravity. Microgravity offers a unique opportunity to study medical research and study diseases and cure diseases in our country. I got a good briefing. I encourage my colleague, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer), to go to Huntsville, if he has not already had a chance to listen to the great presentations that are being made there and the great progress being made there, not just in medical research, but in technology. So I wanted the remarks of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) not to go unnoticed, because I see some great value in the space station.

Mr. NETHERCUTT. I yield to the gentleman from Indiana.

Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, that is 2 out of the about 10,000 that support this station.