James Oberstar

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I shall not object, but I reserved the right in order to point out the flaw of the process. The process of Corrections Day is a real shortcut of the legislative process that we have followed in this House for well over 100 years, and the Suspension Calendar was the appropriate means for bringing legislation to the floor. Even the rules that the majority have adopted do not provide them the flexibility that they now seek through a unanimous-consent request, and that is my concern. I will withdraw my reservation, but I did so in order to point out the flaws of the process.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker, I do so for the purpose of inquiring of the gentleman from North Carolina for what purpose he makes this unanimous-consent request.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, the bill before us makes grave changes in the Nation's highway safety law, repealing national speed limits and mandatory helmet laws. The result will be a new, enormous unfunded mandate: Costs to the States as well as to the Federal Government and the general public of emergency, rehabilitative and long-term health care for those injured because these protections are gone; costs to employers of lost workdays; and costs to insurance companies, paid for by everyone who purchases insurance. An incalculable costs to family and friends, and to the victims themselves, who might have avoided injury or death if speed limits and helmet laws had remained in place. The amendment I intended to offer would have required States, prior to raising their speed limits, to take a snapshot of the current costs of motor vehicle crashes, and another snapshot 1 year later, after changes had gone into effect. If we are going to permit repeal of safety laws, we should at least know the consequences of these actions. The amendment agreed to with my good colleagues, which I offer now, is more modest. It requires the Secretary of the Department of Transportation, in cooperation with any State that raises its speed limit, to prepare a study of the costs to the State of deaths and injuries resulting from motor vehicle crashes, and the benefits associated with the repeal of the national maximum speed limit. To provide meaningful, useful information, the report should include information on the costs before the State changes its safety laws, and after. It would thus be my intent that the Secretary's report, due September 30, 1997, include information on the costs of motor vehicle crashes in the year before changes go into effect; and again a year later. That report should include, at a minimum, the costs of acute, rehabilitative and long-term medical care, sources of reimbursements and the extent to which these sources cover actual costs; and the costs to all levels of government, to employers, and others. All States are not alike. Each State will want to know its own data, so that it can determine whether its problems are coming from alcohol- related or speed-related causes, from not wearing seatbelts or helmets, or other causes, and perhaps adjust its laws accordingly. The report should therefore also include additional factors such as whether excess speed or alcohol were involved in the accident, whether seat belts and motorcycle helmets were used by those involved in the crash, and any other factors the Secretary may wish to add, or State to know. We do know that the costs of motor vehicle crashes are substantial, even with the current laws in effect. NHTSA's data indicate that the lifetime economic costs of motor vehicle injuries, fatalities and property damage that occurred in 1990 will be $137.5 billion. American taxpayers will pay $11.4 billion of that total to cover publicly funded health care ($3.7 billion), reduced income tax revenue ($6.1 billion) and increased public assistance expenses ($1.6 billion). The lifetime economic costs of alcohol-related motor vehicle injuries, fatalities and property damage that occurred in 1990 was $46.1 billion. Of this, the American taxpayer will pay $1.4 billion to cover publicly funded health care and $3.8 billion to cover reduced income tax revenue and increased public assistance. States and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [NHTSA] have good data now on which to base the first report. NHTSA has been working with the States to develop such databases. States want and need these data. The National Association of Governors' Highway Safety Representatives wrote on behalf of my original amendment: NAGHSR believes that such a requirement is both reasonable and necessary. It would allow every state to establish a baseline of data with which to determine the costs of motor vehicle crashes prior to the repeal of the mandatory federal safety requirements. It would also allow a state to determine the changes in these costs over time. States would be able to use the information to evaluate the effectiveness of their highway safety programs and Safety Management Systems. * * * The requirement will not be onerous to the States since crash cost information is already available through NHTSA. [[Page E 1872]] The Federal Government--and Congress--have a legitimate interest in knowing what is happening on a Federal transportation system. We are not preventing States from doing what they want, but we and the States have a responsibility to know and squarely face the consequences of our actions. We and the States need the facts. This report will provide the data and help guide future decisions. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Again, opposition to a national speed limit is being couched in terms of let the States decide. The unspelled-out argument is let the States go as high as they want. This is not a move to contain speed on America's highways. It is a move to allow the speed to rise, in some cases, to no limit. That is outrageous. This is a national highway system. The people that I represent in northern Minnesota have a right to be protected on highways they drive in other States, and when they drive on the highways of some other State, that they have a right to know that there is a reasonable limit on speed, that their life is not going to be endangered as they drive on America's highways in other parts of this country than the part that they come from. We have a responsibility, as national legislators, to act. We have it within our reach today to put a limit on speed. That limit should be 55. The House has spoken. It says, ``No, let people drive as fast as they want.'' Make no mistake, that is not a States' rights vote, the last vote cast. That was a move to raise speed limits all over America. People want to drive furiously at the risk of their own and other people's lives. They should not be allowed to do so. Those who drive with reckless abandon should know that there are limits and that they will be penalized and that this is a national will and we ought to find the national will in this Chamber to do so and stand up and speak. We all know speed kills. We all know what the dangers are. We all know what the costs are. We ought not to shrink from our responsibility and say leave it up to the States, because, you know the pressures there are going to be on a smaller legislative body, that can be cross- cut and cut many different ways and which will give in to the loudest voice. I regret the last vote. I regret even more a ``no'' vote on this amendment that puts a reasonable upper limit, gives States flexibility to set their own speed limit at any point, less than 65, and we ought to vote in favor of the very reasonable amendment that the gentleman from West Virginia has set forth. Enough is enough. Stop the carnage on America's highways. We can, with one vote, do so.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, our earlier speaker, the gentleman from Wisconsin, said he was struck by three facts. Pulling off the road thinking about highways in Wisconsin, he was just lucky not to be struck by three cars going at a high speed. He would have wound up in a hospital. My good friend from Texas said we do not want speed limits set by some bureaucrat in Washington. I appeal to the gentleman, I am not some bureaucrat in Washington. I am not some bureaucrat in Washington. I protest. And I do not propose to speak for the people of Texas or to say that I know better about their road segments than they do. But Interstate 35 either starts in Duluth or ends in Laredo, TX, or vice versa, and goes right through the gentleman's district. People in my State and district have a right to be protected against excessive speed on Federal aid highways in other States. We have something to say about how people drive on those roads. Make no mistake about it; this issue is not about whether we are going to drive faster or slower or whether States should have responsibility. This issue is about giving the States the right to increase speed limits. Opponents of national speed limits do not want these speed limits removed so people can drive slower. States want, and people in States around the country, some people, not all of them, for goodness sakes not all of them, want to drive faster. It is a fact of life that we drive faster. We kill people. We have just this summer been celebrating the end of World War II; 440,000-plus Americans were killed in action. Every decade we kill more people on America's highways than we did in World War II. That ought to stick with us. There is a war on America's highways and we have an opportunity to put a limit on it and say we shall not drive faster than this. Why can we not do that? We must do it.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, this is one of the most important amendments we are going to consider on this National Highway System legislation. In this amendment we are dealing with the lives, livelihoods, and family life of drivers on America's highways. Those who are involved in accidents such as the driver of the car that caused the accident or the driver or passenger in another vehicle that was struck by the errant driver suffer long-term consequences, loss of mobility, loss of income, high cost of hospitalization, and, of course the ultimate tragedy, loss of life. Several years ago when we first considered in this Chamber during my service in the Congress legislation to extend the drive 55 highway speed limit, I happened to be out in the southern part of my district meeting with Minnesota Highway Patrol officers. One of them had just come back from a tragic accident, a high speed accident on the highway. I said: ``the day after tomorrow we are going to consider the matter of limiting speed on America's highways and keepin the drive 55 limit in place.'' This officer looked me square in the eye with the burden of that tragedy still in his mind and blood on his uniform, and he said, It is at speeds of 75 and 80 and 85 when we see the torn aortas, and you cannot put them back together again, when the victim is lying there bleeding uncontrollably in a tangled mass of steel and you cannot cut him out soon enough to save the life. And if you allow at the national level the States to raise the speed limits, they will, and we will, out on the highway, be seeing more deaths and more tragedies and more broken families and more broken lives. Our former chairman, the late Jim Howard, in the debate in committee and on the House floor, said there are few occasions in your career in public service when you have an opportunity to save 5,000 lives a year. This is one of those opportunities. We can save a minimum of 5,000 lives by keeping the highway speed limit in place. I know that the thrust and the drive in this 104th Congress is to give States more responsibility, turn these authorities over to them, and that Congress should not set national standards, limits, requirements. But we, too, are responsible at the national level for what happens on America's highways. We, too, pass legislation. We impose the fuel tax, we set the conditions under which our National Highway System is constructed and operated, and we have a responsibility to the same people in our respective States that our Governors and State legislators have. My vote in this Chamber is not relevant just to Minnesota; it is relevant to the whole country, as is the vote of every other Member in this Chamber. I have a responsibility to safety on the highways in every State, not just in Minnesota. At the dawn of the interstate era, when the Congress was considering establishing the national system of interstate and defense highways, the death toll on America's highways was going up at such a rate that it was estimated, if we did not build such a system of safe highways, in 15 years we would be killing 108,000 people a year on the Nation's highways. That was in 1956. The death toll went up to as high as 57,000 on the Nation's highways, until the energy crisis caused us, for reasons of energy conservation, to lower the speed limit to 55. Then we found the hidden benefit, that lowering the speed limit, as everybody knew and suspected but did not have the public courage to act upon, would save lives. And it did. Dramatically, the speed limit caused a lowering of the death rate. As chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, I held hearings on highway safety, on roadside hazards that are built into the highway system that cause deaths when a person loses control of a car. We have made a great deal of progress in removing roadside hazards, in building safer highways, hazards that may occur when a person falls asleep at the wheel, or is otherwise distracted, caught in a snowstorm or rainstorm, and leaves the traveled roadway, that may cause injury or death. Instead of being impaled on a light pole, we have breakaway light poles. Instead of crashing into a metal barrier that decapitates the driver of the car, we now have the New Jersey barrier that guides the vehicle back on to the roadway. We have about reached the limit of what we can do in building safer highways, safer bridges, educating the driving public to drive more safely. There are just some things that must be imposed upon people, and a speed limit is one of them. Now, I have heard the discussion earlier today that well, you know, at 55, people are passing you, they are going 65, and all the 65 speed limit did was to ratify what people were doing on the highways. If you set it at 65, the highway patrol officers will tell you, people will drive another 10 miles an hour faster on the roadways. Just a couple of weeks ago, before we began this debate, I met with highway patrol officers in Minnesota. They told me the same thing as others did 15 years ago: ``If you raise the speed limit, people will again drive 10 or more miles per hour above it.'' Keeping the speed limit in place is a brake upon people's drive, ambition to go ever faster and risk their lives and those of other innocent people on America's roadways. In the name of States rights, in the name of human rights, in the name of family rights, keep the speed limit in place.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the chairman of the subcommittee and the chairman of the full committee for their cooperation, and the gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Rahall] for his participation. This is simply a safety report.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this bill. I shall vote for the bill on final passage, notwithstanding the outcome of votes which we will have on highway safety issues. I want to make it very clearly I urge all Members on our side, all Members of the House, to support this legislation. I want to compliment the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Shuster] on his first highway bill, not exactly his first highway bill, but his first as chairman. He has been a partner with us on this side of the aisle for many years as we have crafted highway legislation. He has been a partner in developing what is the world's finest highway system bar none anywhere, in any country, and I know that his continued vigilance and enthusiasm for the highway program will ensure that we stay on track of maintaining the Nation's portfolio of highways, bridges, and seeing to the future growth needs of America which are founded upon our Nation's highways and bridges. [[Page H 9270]] Nonetheless, Mr. Chairman, I do have some reservations about this legislation. It is in vogue in this 104th Congress to turn responsibilities back to the State or to give States new responsibilities, but the highway program is unique. On the interstate highway; 90 percent of the funds are Federal, 10 percent State. The noninterstate, 80 percent with matching funds provided by the State or local governments. The Federal Government raises the money, but States decide where the roads go, except for the Interstate System, which was thrashed out at the national level in consultation with State governments, and we are at the same point again, designating the post- Interstate Highway System, the National Highway System. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Chairman, I think this legislation surrenders more authority to States for decisions on highways than is proper, than should be the appropriate balance of Federal and State responsibilities and one of the reasons Members over the last 10 years have come to the chairman and ranking member on the former Committee on Public Works and Transportation, now Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, with complaints, is that States have not been responsive, sufficiently, to local concerns. They say: ``This highway or high-priority item in my district is not being built.'' The fundamental reason was the State made a decision not to do it or not to do it for 10, or 15, or 20 years, and ultimately we took on the responsibility of including in national legislation specifically designated highway segments that were of national significance and said to the State, ``You shall build these segments.'' I think in a couple of years we will be back here again with complaints from Members saying the Governor, or the State Highway Department, is not responsive to my constituents. They are not building the roads that are high priority, necessary for economic growth, progress, not repairing the bridges, and would we, please, put something in the highway bill to do it, or they will go to the Committee on Appropriations and ask them to do it. Mr. Speaker, that is the reservation I have about this bill as a policy matter, and I hope that in time we will address that matter and focus more authority at the national level as I think Members should have input because, after all, these roads go through our districts, serve our constituents, our communities, our local economic growth. The other concern that I have about the legislation, and I will offer an amendment to deal with it, is the safety issue. This amendment will focus on gathering information. It is not a new mandate. It is not a new requirement. It does not require any cost of the States. It does not take money away nor give them incentives to do anything. It just says, ``Gather information with the tools you already have about crashes, who pays, who gets hurt in crashes, how long are people hospitalized, what are the economic consequences locally, what are the consequences for health care providers.'' Mr. Chairman, if we are going to take actions to diminish national highway safety standards, then the public ought to know what the consequences are, and we ought to have that information gathered so that at the appropriate time we can make the right policy judgments on highway safety. Before concluding though, Mr. Chairman, I wanted to take this opportunity to pay very special tribute to our departing former chairman, the current ranking member, my friend, my seatmate of nearly 21 years, the gentleman from California [Mr. Mineta]. We unveiled his portrait in the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on Monday evening. There was a beautiful outpouring of praise. At the appropriate time I shall have that included in the Congressional Record because those words need to be memorialized. There is no person of greater integrity, commitment to public service, commitment to duty, commitment to fellow legislators, than the gentleman from California [Mr. Mineta]. He has been a personal friend, a professional friend, a person impeccable integrity who leaves an aura of great distinction upon this body. Mr. Chairman, when asked, on the day he made his announcement of leaving the Congress, what he would like to be remembered for, the gentleman from California [Mr. Mineta] simply said, ``For all the people in my district, that I never forget their names.'' There is no greater example of public service and of caring for people than that remark or than this person, my friend, Mr. Mineta.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Markey amendment. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Markey-Shays amendment to retain regulation of cable rates until cable systems face actual competition. Following defeat of the Conyers amendment to ward off concentration of competition-stifling economic power in the marketplace, the point we have reached in consideration of this legislation is very similar to where we were with airline deregulation in 1978. In the rush to deregulate aviation, Congress and the administration kept the Justice Department on the sidelines, in an advisory capacity to the Department of Transportation on antitrust and monopoly issues arising out of proposed airline mergers and acquisitions. The result of this bifurcation of authority--the Justice Department making recommendations, but the DOT making the final decisions on antitrust matters--was that virtually no antitrust action was taken by either Department to sustain competition by preventing monopoly- producing mergers and acquisitions. Within 5 years of passage of the Airline Deregulation Act, there were 22 new entrants into air carrier competition; but, within 10 years, only 1 of those new competitors remained--all the others were either swallowed up by the major carriers, driven into bankruptcy, or reduced to a minor regional carrier status. In the consideration of legislation to chart the future of the multibillion dollar telecommunications sector, we should learn the lessons of the past. We should not allow in this legislation the same opportunities for concentration of cable TV market power, rate gouging, and the potential for control of all news media in selected markets as we allowed for the airline industry to swallow up competition and create fortress hubs with such great economic power that they can deny market entry to any new potential competitor. The Communications Act of 1934 clearly has been surpassed by both events and technology and needs to be updated. While technology has changed with astonishing rapidity, human nature has not changed. The 1934 act was more about constraining human avarice and the tendency of power to corrupt than it was about regulating technology. We need to keep America on the cutting edge of technology; we need to assure that all regions of this country, small, rural communities, as well as major urban centers, can be connected to the entire world through fiber optic cable--the whole paraphernalia of cyberspace--so that anyone can set up business in a community as small as my hometown of Chisholm, MN, and have full access to the worldwide communications network. The key to realizing that goal is to assure access for all people at affordable prices--and that means protection against the evils of monopolistic control of economic power in the marketplace, the central principle of the 1934 Communications Act. The underlying principle of communications law has always been to assure universal access, diversity of technology, and local options. This bill, absent the Conyers amendment and the Markey-Shays amendment, will not have enough regulatory power to prevent either the long- distance companies, or the regional Bells from dominating markets in both the broadcast and cable media. This bill opens the way to rapid and massive media market domination by a few economic powerhouses who will quickly gain control of cross-media mergers. I have great fear that, just as commercial aviation in the deregulation era has bypassed small communities, denying them even essential air service, the same small communities will be bypassed in the communications field, denied adequate universal service, or have to pay exorbitant fees for such service and, in fact, be isolated. Although the bill does include some exemptions for small phone and cable companies from competitive requirements. They are hardly sufficient to protect small rural communities from monopolistic practices. I have heard the appeals of small radio and cable TV stations, expressing the fear that they'll either be bought out or swamped by the competition and I concur with them. Telecommunications technology is becoming one of the cornerstones of freedom of speech in our society. The information and access to the marketplace of ideas provided by telecommunications and the ability through it to conduct business, to enjoy entertainment anywhere, however remote in this country, is so crucial to a free society that, if we are going to tinker with the Communications Act, then we ought to do it right, rather than live to see monopolies dominate the marketplace of communication and regret today's legislative action. My conclusion, Mr. Chairman, is that, absent the protections of the Conyers and Markey amendments, the effect of this bill will be monopolistic consolidation of economic power and technological control of the future of telecommunications, producing the [[Page H 8483]] very antithesis of a free and open society.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, it may seem incongruous in these days of 90-degree weather and high humidity to be talking about home heating assistance, but in northern Minnesota, although the glacier retreated, it makes a return attempt every fall, and lasts well into April and sometimes May. Last year we had wind chill temperatures of 77 below zero, midwinter. I visited a home in Duluth where the Energy Assistance Program was conducting weatherization for an 84-year-old widow with one leg amputated. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mill in Duluth and left her a modest little pension. Her total income is about $480 a month. Half of it was going to pay the energy bill. The Energy Assistance Program weatherized the home and helped her buy a new furnace so she could stay in her home and not have to go to a nursing home. In the city of Duluth alone, 3,746 households last year received primary heating assistance. Look at the record of this program in Duluth, alone: 374 households received primary heating assistance; their average income was $9,208 a year. Furnaces were replaced in [[Page H 8319]] 107 of more households, making it possible for the homeowners to remain in their homes, rather than seek public assistance in the form of welfare or be committed to a nursing home. Heating system repairs were made in an additional 560 households. Of the total number of households receiving LIHEAP assistance, 926 have children under the age of 6 and the average household income is $11,400. Senior citizens account for 712 of the total households served; their average income is $8,286. There are AFDC families assisted under this program, they have an average household income of $7,631. The point I want to drive home is that this program is preeminently designed for and targeted to the poorest families, the neediest among us. Cutting these funds, altogether, as this heartless Republican majority proposes to do, will reduce these people the most among us to a condition of abject dependency, cause each of them needless anguish and anxiety, emotional, as well as physical stress, and simply shift the cost from the weatherization program to welfare or Medicaid and Medicare. Cutting off these funds will not make the problem go away; it will only worsen the condition. But, I want my colleagues to hear the beneficiaries of the Energy Assistance Program tell the story in their own words, as expressed in letters to the Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency, which serves a seven-county area of northeastern Minnesota, which is geographically about the size of New England, excluding Maine: I've been a widow since 1989 and as time goes on, I find it very difficult to adjust to all the changes. I live on a fixed income and with costs of living always rising, I don't even dare to think of the future. I thank the Lord and ask him to bless all the people that makes the Fuel Assistance Program possible. Thank you so much for the fuel assistance. If it weren't for this program, I wouldn't be able to afford to live in my own house. I thank God for the very existence for your agency. Never in my wildest dreams did I, as a former middle class American worker, believe that I could be reduced to poverty level in 3 years. I've always been proud of myself as a self-employed carpenter, but now have no work to be proud of. I am a diabetic, and if it weren't for the Energy Assistance Program, I'm certain I would have a tough decision to make in deciding between insulin or fuel oil. I do not know what these previous speakers are talking about on the other side of the aisle, but if you cut home heating assistance, you are making people choose between life or death, and that is not right.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, minerals are the building blocks of modern industrial society. Americans consume 75 percent of the world's entire minerals production: four billion tons a year--that's 20 tons per capita, the highest per capita mineral consumption of any country in the world. Yet, our domestic self-sufficiency in minerals has deteriorated over the last decade and a half, as the mining industry has, increasingly, turned to ore deposits that are leaner, deeper and more costly than those of the past. Minerals exploration has declined in America; new mine development has dropped; and, smelting and refining of American ores have regressed. Yet, mineral demand has increased and will continue to grow. Last year, our output of raw, nonfuel minerals was estimated at $34 billion--a value growth of about 6 percent over 1993. In 1974, the year I was elected to Congress, the value of both raw and processed minerals imported into the United States was $9 billion. Three years later, when former Congressman Jim Santini and I organized the Congressional Minerals Caucus, we pointed out, in a White House meeting with then-President Carter, that mineral imports had jumped to $21 billion. Today we import $44 billion in nonfuel minerals and we have a $17 billion deficit in minerals trade. More alarming than the trade deficit figures, is the fact that of the 44 strategically important minerals, the United States imports 25 of them to the extent of more than 50 percent of domestic needs: 100 percent of our manganese, 79 percent of our cobalt, and 66 percent of our nickel--all of which, incidentally, are vitally important to steelmaking. Moreover, for a wide range of strategic and critical minerals, we are dependent upon countries with a history of social and political instability, making the United States vulnerable to events over which we have little influence or control. These are sobering facts for this $360 billion industry, which employs almost 2 million workers and provides a more than $4.5 billion payroll. We, in Minnesota, know how crucial minerals are to the economic strength of the Nation and to our national security--we have supplied the iron ore for the domestic steel industry to carry America through two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, and other military actions of this century--nearly 4 billion tons of iron ore. Our mining industry must have the most efficient extraction, processing, and refining technologies possible to lower the minerals trade deficit, and without the Bureau of Mines and a coherent national minerals policy our economy will be hurt, and we will be limited in our ability to compete in the global marketplace. We northern Minnesotans also know that research has been the key to keeping our iron ore mining industry competitive. For us, that has meant the University of Minnesota School of Mines and brilliant researchers, lie Dr. E.W. Davis, the father of taconite, and the Twin Cities Research Center of the U.S. Bureau of Mines. The Taconite Enhancement Committee that I founded 3 years ago has worked hard to combine the School of Mines, the U.S. Bureau of Mines, the Natural Resources Research Institute, and private sector engineering and research capabilities into a coherent, cohesive effort to keep the mining and processing of Minnesota ores ahead of the state-of-the-art and to keep our region economically competitive. The House Appropriations Committee's action to abolish the U.S. Bureau of Mines will be a very serious blow to our future competitiveness. Should this nefarious proposal succeed, it will eliminate a program that has created more jobs and generated more tax revenue every year than any other governmental initiative on behalf of the mining, minerals, and metal industry. The Bureau has a long tradition of innovation that has advanced the state of the art of mining and minerals processing, creating new industries, revitalizing old ones, and in some cases saving industries that have been threatened with extinction due to economic or regulatory constraints. I am going to mention just a few of the Bureau's contributions, beginning with the Tilden Mine operation in the Upper Peninsula, Michigan. The Bureau developed a process called selective floatation to treat the low-grade ores now being mined at Tilden during a 10-year research project whose investment totaled $2.5 million--from 1961-1971. During the subsequent 21 years that the Tilden has been operating, over 98 million gross tons of high-grade iron ore pellets have been produced with a value of over $3 billion. Total production taxes generated over this time period were approximately $85 million. In 1994, production at the Tilden Mine was 6.1 million gross tons which represents approximately 11 percent of America's 56.7 million gross tons of iron oxide pellets and well over 800 employees are currently employed. That is an impressive return on investment--a very modest investment, at that. gold and silver mining technology Gold and silver mining in this country was in rapid decline until the Bureau developed advanced technologies which reversed that trend. The Bureau's contribution in these technologies over the last 10 years is approximately $9 million. In 1993 there were 68 active heap-leaching operations in Nevada alone, using Bureau technology. The gold mining in Nevada contributes $2.7 billion to the economy. Only South Africa and Russia produce more gold than the State of Nevada. Considering the nature of the Nevada gold deposits, without Bureau technology, the industry would likely be only 20 percent of the current output. reactive metals industry The Bureau's $10 million investment developed the Kroll Process and the consumable-electrode, arc melting process which are used to extract titanium and zirconium. Titanium is used in making jet engines and zirconium is an essential component in nuclear reactors. Without the developments of these processes, we would lose over $140 million in annual production, and our aviation industry would be dependent on foreign mineral resources and our nuclear power plants would be much less safe. manganese Here, in Minnesota, the Bureau has been vigorously involved over the past 8 years in a research project now reaching fruition to extract the more than 2 billion pounds of manganese reserves on the Cuyuna Range and to produce an economically competitive product, the mining and processing of which can restore jobs and renew economic vitality on the Cuyuna Range. The Bureau of Mines has already taken its fair share of funding reductions and they are already going through a reorganization and downsizing which can be felt throughout the mining industry--facilities in Denver, Reno, Anchorage, and Spokane will be closed, the Mineral Institutes program, which supports minerals research at 32 universities, will be eliminated, and administrative and informational offices across the country will be streamlined. The Bureau of Mines continues to succeed in its mission to help ensure that the Nation has an adequate and dependable supply of minerals and materials for national security and economic growth at acceptable economic, human, and environmental costs. We need national research centers for the development of minerals technologies and we need a national minerals policy, and I am afraid that without a coordinating agency, like the Bureau, to work in cooperation with industry, communities which depend economically on mining will drastically suffer. I deplore the action to terminate the Bureau of Mines, in an appropriation bill--without debate or opportunity to amend that provision. I urge the Senate to restore viable funding for the Bureau, and I further urge the House conferees to recede to the Senate on this point, and preserve this small, highly productive agency.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer] for yielding this time to me. Mr. Chairman, last year I voted against unilateral lifting of the sanctions. I have changed my mind. The administration's best efforts have not been supported by the international community, the killing continues, the balance of power continues to shift to the numerically larger and stronger Bosnian Serbs. The Bosnian Moslems do not have the equipment they need to defend themselves, their families, and their land. If the international community, the United Nations and NATO, are not willing to launch sustained, massive air strikes with overwhelming force against the Bosnian Serb Army to deter the aggression, then the allies must in fairness lift the embargo and allow the Bosnians to defend themselves. I have no illusions about the consequences. There will be increased security risks for the UNPROFOR peacekeepers. It may be necessary to introduce United States troops directly into Bosnia to help withdraw the peacekeepers. More arms in the country will mean more killing, a widening of the conflict, and prolonging the war. But, in the current circumstances, the war does continue under international auspices, and that is what my conscience cannot condone. If we are not willing to risk American lives in Bosnia--and we should not; if we are not willing or able to seal the arms and economic embargo against the Bosnian Serbs and their ``greater Serbia'' patrons, then we should remove the shackles from the Bosnian Moslems, who seek only to defend their homeland and their families and pass this resolution.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise also to pay tribute to Dev O'Neill, who I first knew when I was administrative assistant to my predecessor, John Blatnik, and Dev was an apprentice, or Keith was an apprentice, to Dev O'Neill, which our preceding speaker just noted. Dev O'Neill was, to say the least, a character, but a photographer. Keith Jewell has been a professional looking at this body through the eye of his lens, and I think we all owe him a great debt of appreciation and gratitude for making us all look a little better than we really are when that negative meets the paper and the print finally comes out for recording our meetings with our family, our friends, constituents, our committee hearings, our serious business in this House. He has recorded it for us and for history. He has been a true professional in the field of photography. Mr. Speaker, I wish him well in all that he seeks to undertake in the future, good health, happiness, and some time of his own to look at the rest of the world through the eyes of that camera and see something other than the Capitol dome and the heads of Members of Congress.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman three decades ago ``Night Comes to the Cumberlands'' described the abject poverty and desperate economic conditions in which people in rural Appalachia lived, and the Nation responded with the Appalachian Regional Commission, an issue we settled on the floor last week. Similar conditions exist in rural areas and in pockets of poverty in urban areas around this country, and the Congress responded to their needs with the Economic Development Administration. Every year, the jobs created by EDA exceed the total amount of Federal investment by over $6 billion a year in Federal, State, and taxes paid from the jobs created by EDA. Mr. Chairman, let us not chop this program from the Federal budget. Let us give hope to the economically depressed areas, the investment- starved areas of this country, so that, for them, ``Night Comes to the Cumberlands'' will become ``Morning Comes to America.''

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the House debated its first Corrections Day bill: H.R. 1943, the San Diego Coastal Corrections Act. The British poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in ``The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner,'' evoked ``the mystique of the ocean, dark, mysterious, heaving and endless.'' Mysterious and heaving it is; endless it is not. H.R. 1943 is assumes that the ocean is endless, that it can absorb any amount of pollution. But, just as we are finding that it is not an inexhaustible store of fish to be mined with impunity, so we will find that it cannot assimilate all man's insults. This bill is a fitting first Corrections Day bill. H.R. 1943 amends a law which already weakened the Clean Water Act, to weaken it even further. It provides a waiver that the city of San Diego has not sought, ignoring relief the city has been assured by EPA under last year's law, rejecting any discharge standards, permitting the city to provide less treatment for its sewage than it is doing now and discharging almost raw sewage into the Pacific Ocean. The Ocean Pollution Reduction Act of 1994 (P.L. 103-431) last year gave San Diego the relief it sought from requirements which every other municipality in the country has met or is in the process of meeting. EPA is ready to grant the waivers to the Clean Water Act, as required under that act. The House has already passed this bill as part of H.R. 961, this year's amendments to the Clean Water Act. Mr. Speaker, the Clean Water Act Amendments of 1977 opened a brief window for cities with long outfall pipes discharging into deep ocean to continue to do so. San Diego chose not to avail itself of this relief at the time. The window has long since closed. Now, Congress is asked to reopen that window in a way to let all the flies in. The Committee on Public Works and Transportation, now the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, held hearings on the ocean waiver in connection with the 1977 amendments. Some witnesses supported ocean discharges as a way of enriching the nutrient-poor depths of the Pacific. But they didn't advocate discharging virtually raw sewage, with its toxins and pathogens, as this bill would permit. The 1977 language in section 301(h), hard-fought-out between both sides, contained numerous assurances that water quality standards and aquatic life would be protected, and defined primary treatment to mean treatment by ``screening, sedimentation, and skimming adequate to remove at least 30 percent of BOD and suspended solids.'' Even those requirements may not apply in this case. At the committee markup of H.R. 1943 the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure rejected an amendment that would have imposed at least some standards on the discharge. Under H.R. 1943, San Diego would be free to discharge almost raw sewage. The bill requires chemically enhanced primary treatment only. The problem is that there is no definition of ``chemically enhanced primary treatment'' in the bill, or in any law. Does this mean that the city doesn't even have to run its sewage through a screener? That they can just dump a bottle of chlorine into it and call it enhanced primary treatment? This bill rewards almost two decades of foot-dragging by the city, granting San Diego more bounty than it asked for, while your constituents and mine have paid, and are paying, the full costs of achieving clean water. How fittingly ironic it would be if the beaches of San Diego had to be closed during the Republican Convention because of pollution-- disease-bearing bacteria, viruses and floatables--washing up on the beach.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I was chairman of the Subcommittee on Aviation of the Committee on Public Works and Transportation when this program was initiated. At the time we included a provision in the AIP program to convert military airfields to civilian use or to joint use, we were experiencing enormous delays costing over $7 billion to air travelers in the late 1980's and early 1990's. In fact, last year there were 248,000 delays of 15 minutes or more at America's major airports. That is down 20 percent since we initiated this language providing for conversion of military airfields and since we initiated expansion of our airport capacity. There are 500 million passengers traveling by air in the United States. Ninety-four percent of all paid intercity travel in America is by air. We have half of all the world's air transportation in the United States. We cannot expand infinitely all existing airports. We need to make use of the available resource of military airfields that are being closed down and convert them to either all civilian use or joint use with military facilities, and we are doing that. Our committee last year held hearings on the GAO report that the gentleman from New Jersey has referenced, and we made corrections, we made adjustments as GAO recommended, and we included those [[Page H 7602]] changes in the legislation. There is no need for further delay, stop now, take another look, do not proceed with this program. It is extremely important that we proceed to use the capacity of existing military airfields, so we do not have to spend the billions of dollars that it will take to build new airports, or billions of dollars to expand existing airports, but use those facilities that are already in place for a very modest percentage of what it costs to build a new airport. Defeat the amendment. It is ill timed and ill advised.

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, the cornerstone of this debate over 13(c) is the argument that repeal will somehow cut operating costs. Why do these cost cutters always want to take it out of the hide of labor? Why do they not look elsewhere than workers' paychecks? No, it seems to me that the Republican side always is consistent. Whenever there are sacrifices to be made, they want to take it out of the hide of labor. Let labor take the hit. They do not go to capital to take cuts. They do not go to management to give up benefits. They go to workers. You give up pay and benefits, you shoulder the burden. This is wrong. This is the wrong approach. We ought to have this whole issue hammered out in the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, make some changes to put a 60-day limit on the time for DOT certification of 13-c compliance in transit grants, but let us not gut the rights of the working people of this country with this amendment. Vote for Coleman.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Hefley amendment. Mr. Chairman, I strongly oppose the Hefley amendment. To my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I say: if you believe in fairness in transportation policy, you should vote ``no.'' I'm for reform of the ICC, but I am adamantly opposed to this senseless gutting of the ability of the ICC to carry out its duties under the law to enforce the captive shipper protections which Congress wisely wrote into the Rail Act years ago, and which are the responsibility of the FCC. The Hefley amendment would slash the funding and eliminate the staff of the ICC, with the result that the authority to protect captive shippers would remain, but there would be no means, no staff to enforce those protections, it would be a hollow law. Bulk commodities such as taconite--a processed, high-grade form of iron ore--coal, phosphate, limestone are products that uniquely move mine mouth to consumer by rail--and, often, on a single railroad company's line. Without the oversight of the ICC, communities dependent on mining for their livelihood, would be at the mercy of these powerful rail shipping interests for their economic future. We should not take so drastic an action within the inflexible context of an appropriation bill, which does not allow us leeway to protect the legitimate interests of mining communities and the industries and their workers, to whom these bulk commodities are shipped. Vote ``no'' on Hefley.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, several years ago when I chaired the Economic Development Subcommittee in partnership with my good friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger], we held hearings here in Washington and throughout Appalachia and elsewhere around the country in distressed areas. One of the witnesses, the mayor of Sneedville, KY, said to the committee, ``Before the Appalachian Regional Commission came along, we were so far down, we had to look up to see bottom.'' What characterized Appalachia for the nearly 100 years before 1965 was 80 acres and a mule. It was isolation. You have heard about the hills and the mountains of Appalachia. People being isolated. It would take 30 miles for one community to visit another, to go around through the hollows. And why there were generations of intestinal illness from people drinking their own sewage because of the hard pan that would not allow the sewage to filter through, and they needed advanced sewage treatment systems and they could not afford them. You have head about the domination of King Coal throughout the Appalachian region, and the whole purpose of ARC was to break that domination, to break the isolation, to build roads, to provide communication, to provide access to markets, to give people an opportunity, to build clinics, to provide health, to build the educational/vocational training centers and the health clinics, to give them an opportunity to get out from looking up to see bottom. At the time the Appalachian Commission was created, the people throughout the 13-State region averaged 45 percent of the average national income. Forty-five percent. After 20 years of ARC, they were up to 82 percent of national income. The previous speaker talked about growth in Appalachia during the 1980's. That was because of the investments made during the 1960's and the 1970's. That was because there were wise investments made, job opportunities created, industrial parks developed, vocational training centers developed, and skills and jobs came to Appalachia. At Tennessee, we heard from Tilda Kemplin, director of a day care center, a day training center for children of poor families, who talked about how they had elevated the level of education of these children who had little children who had little opportunity. In concluding her statement, she said, ``Gentleman, when you go back to Washington, please try to look over the top of the dollar and don't see George Washington but see a child. See a child whose life has been rebuilt and reborn.'' That is what Appalachia is all about. Sure, you can go around and you can pick up any number of projects and say, oh, that was a waste, building a stadium, building this and building that. But that is your judgment. That is a Washington judgment. Those projects were decided by people who live in the area, who have suffered with poverty, who have lost jobs, who made a decision based on a plan of economic development on what suits them best, what can help them grow. That was a local decision. You are going to say, ``We are going to substitute our judgment for yours''? No. That is wrong. We have made changes in the way the Appalachia Regional Commission functions. During the time when I was chairman and the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger] was the ranking Republican, we brought that bill to the floor. We have reformed the way the Federal Economic Development Administration operates, changed the eligibility standards to terminate those counties that were grandfathered in to require new ways of determining eligibility, and those bills have passed this House on a basis of 4-to-1 votes during the Reagan administration, the Bush administration, on a bipartisan basis, because people realized that this is a commission that works, this is a program that helps people, this is a program that gets to the real needs, helps create real jobs and lift people out of poverty. It was in West Virginia that we went to, I think it was Martinsburg, WV, where we held a hearing, and the mayor of the city took us to his little store and in back of the cash register on the wall hung a sign that said, ``God Never Put Nobody in a Place Too Small To Grow.'' God never put nobody in Appalachia to be condemned to a life of poverty. Mr. Chairman, we are a country. We worked together to build America. Let's work to build Appalachia.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the conference report on the budget resolution for fiscal year 1996 and to delineate for my colleagues the specific impacts this budget resolution is likely to have on the Federal Aviation Administration. I say ``is likely to have'' because the conference report does not spell out the details of the cuts proposed for the FAA budget; but, given the general numbers and spending targets set down in the budget agreement we can calculate what the effects will be on specific FAA programs, such as the agency's new ``zero accident'' goal. As ranking member of the House Aviation Subcommittee, I want all my House colleagues to understand the critical mission of the FAA. This Agency manages the world's largest air traffic control system, through which move half of all the 1 billion passengers who travel worldwide every year by air. They operate the Air Traffic Control system 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, handling, on average, two flights every second. On an average day, FAA safety and security professionals will conduct nearly 1,000 inspections on pilots, planes and airports, ensuring that they remain airworthy and safe. FAA maintains over 30,000 pieces of complex safety equipment and facilities across this Nation, operating at a reliability factor of 99.4 percent--a safety record envied by the rest of the world. FAA issues more than 1,000 airport grants annually to improve airport safety and infrastructure. FAA conducts 355,000 inspections annually to enforce safety standards and to issue certificates and licenses for aviation products and operators. FAA takes more than 12,000 enforcement actions each year. The FAA has taken its share of cuts in the last 2 years as its contribution toward deficit reduction: FAA has cut 5,000 employees since 1993 for a current total of 48,000 employees. Of that number 36,000 have direct hands-on involvement in the ATC system, which includes 14 of the 15 busiest airports in the world. In this era of deregulation, with extraordinary growth in both passengers and air traffic operations, we have seen a growth of 6 percent in air traffic during the last 2 years as the airlines have recovered from the serious economic decline and $12 billion in losses of 1990-92. But while air traffic has jumped 6 percent these last 2 years, the FAA budget has suffered a real decline of 6 percent, which translates into a $600 million cut. This Budget Resolution Conference Agreement chops an additional $10 billion from transportation spending, which if spread, as expected, to the FAA will jeopardize the safety and efficiency of the Nation's aviation system. Under this budget resolution, FAA's ability to improve weather and safety equipment and prevent accidents would be compromised. Introduction of Global Positioning Satellite navigation technology would be delayed at least 5 years, costing airlines millions of dollars a year in lost efficiency. The ability of the aviation security system to maintain its vigilance against domestic and international terrorism would be cut by one-third. FAA's obligation to certify new aircraft engines and parts would be greatly compromised and might even have to be contracted out to private interests which, in my judgment, clearly is not in the best interest of safety. The weather services to general aviation and to commercial aviation provided through the Nation's Flight Service Stations would be greatly impaired as FSS and control towers would be closed, costing jobs and air traffic services to hundreds of communities in all 50 States, and delays to an estimated 105,000 flights annually at an estimated cost to carriers and passengers of more than $2.3 billion. I am just touching the tip of the iceberg on the impact of these cuts projected out over the next several years for the FAA as a result of this budget resolution. The dedicated professionals of the FAA deserve better. They deserve our full support for full funding out of the Aviation Trust Fund to maintain our air traffic control system at its highest level of safety and efficiency.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the conference report on the budget resolution for fiscal year 1996 and to delineate for my colleagues the specific impacts this budget resolution is likely to have on the Federal Aviation Administration. I say, is likely to have, because the conference report does not spell out the details of the cuts proposed for the FAA budget; but, given the general numbers and spending targets set down in the budget agreement we can calculate what the effects will be on specific FAA programs, such as the agency's new zero accident goal. As ranking member of the House Aviation Subcommittee I want all my House colleagues to understand the critical mission of the FAA. This agency manages the world's largest air traffic control system, through which move half of all the one billion passengers who travel world-wide every year by air. They operate the Air Traffic Control system 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, handling, on average, two flights every second. On an average day, FAA safety and security professionals will conduct nearly 1,000 inspections on pilots, planes and airports, ensuring that they remain air worthy and safe. FAA maintains over 30,000 pieces of complex safety equipment and facilities across this Nation, operating at a reliability factor of 99.4 percent--a safety record envied by the rest of the world. FAA issues more than 1,000 airport grants annually to improve airport safety and infrastructure. FAA conducts 355,000 inspections annually to enforce safety standards and to issue certificates and licenses for aviation products and operators. FAA takes more than 12,000 enforcement actions each year. The FAA has taken its share of cuts in the last 2 years as its contribution toward deficit reduction: FAA has cut 5,000 employees since 1993 for a current total of 48,000 total employees. Of that number 36,000 have direct hands-on involvement in the ATC system, which includes 14 of the 15 busiest airports in the world. In this era of deregulation with extraordinary growth in both passengers and air traffic operations, we have seen a growth of 6 percent in air traffic during the last 2 years as the airlines have recovered from the serious economic decline and $12 billion in losses of 1990-92. But while air traffic has jumped 6 percent these last 2 years, the FAA budget has suffered a real decline of 6 percent, which translates into a $600 million cut. This budget resolution conference agreement chops an additional $10 billion from transportation spending, which if spread, as expected, to the FAA will jeopardize the safety and efficiency of the Nation's aviation system. Under this budget resolution FAA's ability to improve weather and safety equipment and prevent accidents would be compromised. Introduction of global positioning satellite navigation technology would be delayed at least 5 years, costing airlines millions of dollars a year in lost efficiency. The ability of the aviation security system to maintain its vigilance against domestic and international terrorism would be cut by one-third. FAA's obligation to certify new aircraft engines and parts would be greatly compromised and might even have to be contracted out to private interests which, in my judgment, clearly is not in the best interest of safety. The weather services to general aviation and to commercial aviation provided through the Nation's flight service stations would be greatly impaired as FSS and control towers would be closed, costing jobs and air traffic services to hundreds of communities in all 50 States, and delays to an estimated 105,000 flights annually, at an estimated costs to carriers and passengers of more than $2.3 billion. I am just touching the tip of the iceberg on the impact of these cuts projected out over the next several years for the FAA as a result of this budget resolution. The dedicated professionals of the FAA deserve better. They deserve our full support for full funding out of the aviation trust fund to maintain our air traffic control system at its highest level of safety and efficiency.

Mr. OBERSTAR

Mr. OBERSTAR. What he went on to say was the miners learned they do not have a legal right to join mine safety inspectors. Standards are only advisory and not mandatory. And only when they had tough inspection standards, mandatory fines, mandatory inspections, did we get safety in the mines. I just want to say that in all of America's history, more men and women have died in the industrial workplace in our country than died in all the wars combined. Let it not be the epitaph of our generation that we let another decade come to pass when mine safety took a back seat to economics.

Mr. OBERSTAR. I thank my colleague for yielding and I join my colleagues in complimenting the gentleman for calling this special order to focus on the industrial workplace and safety. I have seen the face of tragedy in mining. I have lived with it. I am here because, for me, it is real, it is personal, it is family. My father worked 40 years in the iron ore mines of northern Minnesota, 26 of those years in the underground Godrey Mine between my hometown Chisholm and nearby town of Hibbing. I never worked in the underground. He never let me go down there. I worked in the open pits. But I will never forget the day my father came home from a cave-in, where he heard the timbers cracking, and in a drift, he pushed his two coworkers out the mouth of the drift, and the ore caved in right around him and stopped right at his throat. The timbers cracked because the mining company was not willing to put in new timbers. They were not willing to put in bigger and stronger oak in the mines, and he almost lost his life. I will never forget him as chairman of the mining safety committee in the underground saying the most horrible memory was the awful screams of the men when the cables broke on the cage, and they went plunging to their death 100, 200, 300 feet, with nothing to save them. No safety catches. Nothing to break the fall of the cage. We heard our colleague Bob Wise talk about how dark it is in a mine. My father told me about the time when the storm above ground cut the power, and there they were, 600 feet underground, he and a partner who had a heart condition, and all the light went out and the water was trickling in. They switched on their head lamp, but there was no power, because the mining company would not replace the batteries, though the men appealed and asked for them to be replaced. They knew they were weak, knew they were down, but the company said no, it costs too much. And you could not move. You could not see your hand in front of your face. And they waited for three hours while the water crept up, waist high and armpit high. And, finally, someone got the power going. I will not tell the rest of the story about getting the pumps going to start draining the mine. The year that I was born was the year of the Milford Mine disaster in the Cuyuna Mountain Range south and west of where I lived. The miners were told to keep digging for that rich load of ore, until they were well under a lake. And they could see the water seeping in, and they knew it was dangerous. But the mining company said, ``Go on, go on, dig further and deeper, and keep going.'' then, one day, the lake caved in, and an entire shift was wiped out. Thirty-four men, only three survived, as the lake swept into the underground and drowned them all. There was no mine inspector. There was no Federal law. There was a weak little State act that had been drafted by the mining companies and run through the legislature. It did nothing to protect lives. Then later I had my own experience in the Alworth Pit, watching helplessly from afar while a 15-ton ore truck backed over and crushed an elderly man. Natali never had a chance. No one had ever taught him how to back a truck up. He had no training. And yet later when we got Mine Safety and Health Act passed, companies protested about the requirement for training and safety, how to back a truck up, how to operate equipment safely. ``Oh, that is second nature. People know how to do that.'' He did not know how to back up a 15-ton ore truck, and it ran right over him. It snuffed his life out. That isn't just ancient history. Last year, 1994, February, Duluth News Tribune. ``Tragedy reminder of mining's risks.'' It reads: Twisted backs. Crushed feet. Ruptured tendons. Disabling injuries are common among workers at Iron Range taconite mines. That's because operating and repairing the heavy-duty machinery used daily in iron ore mining has inherent risks. Over the past century, Iron Range miners have learned to live with those risks. But sometimes the odds finally catch up. When Louis DeNucci died as a result of tons of compacted ore dust falling on him Thursday at Eveleth Mines' Fairlane taconite pellet plant, the impact was felt by thousands of miners across the Range. It is never very far away. In the 1930's we had an average of 230 deaths a year from metal and nonmetallic mining. In the past 10 years, that has dropped to 53 fatalities a year. But the danger is still there, and the significance of the Mine and Safety Administration was brought up by testimony given by Peter Minsoni, district director of Steel Workers 33. I introduced him at a hearing of the Committee on Education and Labor on mine safety and health as the committee was preparing the legislation we know today as MSHA. I was a cosponsor of that original bill and helped draft it. Because when I came to the Congress, there was one thing I wanted to do, and that was to erect a memorial to the men and women who died in mining, who had given their arms and legs and limbs and eyes to make it a safer place to work. Pete Minsoni said, talking about the action of the then Ford administration to abolish the Federal Advisory Committee on Mine Safety Standards, it had been enacted in 1966, 5 years later they were proposing to abolish it. It finally happened in 1975. He said, ``Abolishing the Mine Safety Review Board caused me concern, to think that because the review board had no work, some Members of Congress and the public will be misled into thinking that the Government deserves a pat on the back for finally abolishing a Federal agency.'' He went on to say, ``The reason the Mine Safety Board did not have any work is there was no law to enforce.'' There was nothing to review. There were no teeth in mine safety legislation. He went on to talk about a good example. The White Pine Copper Mine in upper Michigan where the steel workers unions represents some 2,600 workers employed in one of the largest mines in our country. A fatality occurred when a foreman picked up a hot cable. The Mine Enforcement Safety Administration inspectors found improper grounding and a lack of control boxes for electrical cable throughout the mine, a mandatory standard set by the Mine Safety Act not enforced, paid no attention to.