Frank Pallone

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank everyone who participated in this special order today. I think we really brought out a lot of good points.

Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Brown] for coming here today and expressing what he just said, and I would just like to follow up on two points, and maybe you could, you know, respond to what I am saying. There are many points that you made, but the two that stick in my mind right off the bat: First of all, you are pointing out that not only are a lot of these tax breaks going to wealthy Americans; we know that the lion's share does, but that actually for many Americans who are working that are lower income, they are actually having to pay a tax increase because this Republican Gingrich budget actually repeals the earned income tax credit. So maybe we should get into that a little bit and explains how that works. The way I understand, and you correct me, is that right now people who are below $25,000 to $30,000, whatever, who are working, they are able to get a tax credit which can be something like $1,500 a year, whatever, depending on their income, and that what the Republican budget has done is to either eliminate that for some or cut back significantly so that if you are making under $30,000 now, you may actually be paying more taxes under this budget proposal.

Mr. PALLONE. I thank the gentlewoman. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts. I know we only have a minute or two left.

Mr. PALLONE. The other thing is that one of the major concerns that we have had in this Congress, in the previous Congress, on a bipartisan basis is the need for welfare reform, to get people off of welfare and to have them work, and if you cut back on this earned income tax credit, which basically is affecting many people who maybe just got off welfare and have been encouraged to work, they will find, if they are not making that much money, that maybe it is more beneficial for them to stay on welfare. Also, and you were in the State legislature so you know, as I was, that oftentimes what happens is if--the State legislature have made the effort over the last 10 years to try to expand Medicaid coverage to cover working people, even though Medicaid is for low-income people, oftentimes it covers people who work. And we have expanded Medicaid coverage to people that are working who may be making a little more than people on welfare to encourage them to work because now they have Medicaid benefits. Well, if those are likely to be the first ones that are back because they are a little higher income than the people on welfare, so that if you deny them their Medicaid benefits, and you deny them their earned income tax credit, they will have less incentive to work, and we actually end up reversing what we are trying to accomplish. More people go back to welfare, and less people work, so it makes no sense. I would like to yield--joined by the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Olver].

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate what the gentleman is saying. I would like to yield now to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi].

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by following up on what the previous speaker said about tomorrow. As many of us know, tomorrow is the day when the continuing resolution expires. This was the agreement that both Democrats and Republicans, both Congress and the President, agreed a few weeks ago that they would extend operations, Government operations and not shut down the Government while we continued to try to work toward a budget agreement. It is unfortunate that tomorrow is about to arrive and we still have not worked out that budget agreement. But I think the most important thing is that the Government not shut down again and that tomorrow, even if a budget agreement is not going to be reached, which I do not think is likely at this point, that we pass another continuing resolution so that the Government continue to operate. I was very upset this morning when I read that, although President Clinton had offered a continuing resolution to continue the operations of the Government for at least another week or possibly beyond, and although the Republican leadership in the Senate had agreed to a similar continuation, that Speaker Gingrich and the Republican leadership in this House had not. I would hate to see, once again, that after tomorrow the Government shuts down. I would urge the Speaker Gingrich and the Republican leadership in this House, along with what the Senate has decided and what President Clinton has decided, which is that we should put our differences aside and not use the Government shutdown as leverage toward trying to pressure one group or the other into its own ideology. My view is that the Government should continue to operate while the President and the Congress, while the Democrats and the Republicans try to find common ground on the budget. Let me also add that as the previous speaker said, there really is no disagreement anymore that we should achieve a balanced budget or even on the timetable of approximately 7 years. But there are still major disagreements over the priorities. I would suggest that part of that agreement a few weeks ago on the continuing resolution to keep the Government open specifically said that the priorities would include Medicare, Medicaid, the environment and education and that these programs, particularly Medicare and Medicaid, would continue to be viable and cover the people who are now eligible for them in a manner which ensures quality health care for Medicare and Medicaid recipients. The President put forth a 7-year balanced budget within the last week or so that made sure that Medicare and Medicaid, the environment and education were properly provided for and guaranteed that those programs would continue to cover everyone and that quality health care would be ensured for seniors and low-income individuals under the two Federal health care programs. But the Republican leadership has not come back with a similar proposal. So far they have not put forward any compromise plan that would not only achieve a balanced budget in 7 years but also put sufficient funds in the Medicare and Medicaid programs and provide a guarantee that those people who are now eligible for Medicare and Medicaid would continue to be provided for. I want to stress today in the time that I have allotted to me the problems that would occur, particularly with regard to the Medicaid program, if the budget that was passed by the Republicans in this House and in the Senate and the one that was vetoed by the President were to take effect. We now know that this budget is not going to take effect because the President has vetoed it. When he vetoed it in his message he specifically said that Medicaid was a major reason for the veto and that the major problem he had with the Republican Medicaid proposal under this budget was that it failed to guarantee health care coverage for those people who are now covered by Medicaid. When we talk about Medicaid, we are talking about health insurance for low-income people in this country. Most of those are either senior citizens or children or the disabled or, in some cases also, pregnant women. Right now under Federal law people below a certain income who are not covered by any other health insurance are eligible for Medicaid. The Federal Government guarantees them that as an entitlement, as we say. And they are also provided with certain standard coverage. In other words, not only are they guaranteed health insurance but they are given certain things as part of an overall health care package which is similar to what most Americans get, although in many cases maybe not quite the same quality or the same extensive coverage. It is a pretty good health care package. The problem that the President has with the Republican budget and the problem that I and most of the Democrats have is that this Medicaid program under the Republican proposal would basically be turned over to the States. The money would be block granted. It would be up to the States to decide who would be eligible and what they would be eligible for. So for the first time in probably 30 years since Medicaid was enacted here in this House, for the first time you would no longer have an entitlement or a guarantee that the people who now receive Medicaid could continue to have the coverage. If we block grant the money and the amount of money which is allocated is significantly less, which it is under the Republican proposal, it is a cut of about $163 billion. Then we are not only not guaranteeing coverage for a lot of the people who now have Medicaid coverage, but we are also making sure that because less money is going to the States in real terms, that the States will have to cut back on who is eligible or perhaps cut back on the kind of benefits that are provided to those who they plan to cover under Medicaid. This is a major problem. It is a major problem because what it ultimately would lead to is that the ranks of the uninsured in this country would grow. Right now we estimate that there are about 35 to 40 million Americans who have no health insurance, many of them working. If we are now going to increase the ranks of those people and add 5 or 10 million more people to the ranks of the uninsured, that puts a tremendous burden on our health care system that either people do not get care or someone else has to pay for it. You pay for it yourself either because your Blue Cross or your health insurance rates will go up to cover these other people's care or they do not get any care at all. One of the problems that--these are just some of the general problems, I should say, that exist with the Republican Medicaid proposal, but I wanted to get into a few more specific ones, some of which have been cited by the President, that have an impact not only on low-income Americans, but also on many other Americans. One of the things that needs to be pointed out is that right now the majority of the people who receive nursing home care in this country have that nursing home coverage paid for by Medicaid. In fact we estimate that 68 percent of all nursing home residents rely on Medicaid to pay bills that average $38,000 a year. Now just as there is no guarantee that children, or disabled people, or people who are in the community would be covered by Medicaid under the Republican proposal, there is a guarantee that nursing home coverage would be provided or that the people who now receive Medicaid to cover their nursing home bills will continue to have the Federal Government pay for their nursing home care. In fact, based on the level of cuts that is provided under this Republican budget, we estimate that about 330,000 people could be denied nursing home coverage at the end of the 7-year period that the budget covers, in other words, the year 2002. And then the question becomes who is going to pay, where are those people going to get the money if the Federal Government under Medicaid does not pay for it? Well, one of the things that is built into this Republican proposal is basically an effort or the ability for the first time for the Government, be it the State or whatever level of government, to go after the spouses or the children of nursing home recipients, those who would be eligible for nursing home care, and to seek the spouses' assets or the children's assets in order to pay for the care that is not covered by the Federal Government. What happens is that the right of individuals essentially right now under the current law, certainly assets of the spouse or the children are simply not eligible as assets for the Government to take, but that is essentially repealed or changed significantly under this Republican budget so that what we will see is a lot of people, a lot of spouses and children, having to contribute perhaps in a major way in order to pay for their parents' or their spouse's nursing home coverage. The other thing that is kind of insidious, I would say, in this whole proposal is that right now, under current law, Medicaid is a matching fund. Fifty percent is paid by the Federal Government, and 50 percent is paid by the State government. So, if the Federal Government puts up 50 cents, or say the Federal Government puts up a dollar, the State has to match it, and $2 are then available, so to speak, for Medicaid recipients. But the funding formula was changed in the Republican budget so that essentially no State would have to spend more than 40 cents to qualify for 60 cents in Federal money. What that means is that some States may decide because of a budget crunch that rather than put up the full dollar to match the Federal dollar they will only put up 40 cents and get 60 cents in Federal dollars, which means that half as much money is then available, or significantly less money is then available, for the Medicaid Program. This simply contributes again to the whole question of how much money is going to be available for Medicaid under the Republican proposal and how much the States are going to seek to cut back, either by denying eligibility to certain individuals or cutting back on the coverage that is available for the individuals who are now eligible for Medicaid. I want to, if I could, get into some of the other problems that have been raised with regard to Medicaid in this budget, but before I do that, I think maybe the best thing, because someone always says to you, well, what is your answer; my answer is very simple. If you look at the level of Medicaid cuts and Medicare cuts in this Republican budget bill, basically what it is being used for is to finance tax breaks primarily for wealthy Americans. There are about $243 billion in tax breaks primarily for wealthy Americans that are included in this budget. If you were to eliminate those tax breaks, money could go back into Medicaid as well as into Medicare, and we would continue to have viable programs, we would not have to block grant, we would not have to change the current guarantee of eligibility. So that is the real answer in my opinion in this whole budget deal and what needs to be done as part of the whole budget negotiations. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Brown].

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow is the deadline for the continuing resolution, and once again it appears the Speaker, Newt Gingrich, is prepared to shut down the Government because of the disagreements over the budget. I have said before, and I will say it again, we may have differences between Democrats and Republicans on the budget, but the negotiations should continue and the Government should not shut down because the Speaker cannot come to an agreement. Already the President has said that he wants to continue the Government operations for at least another week, if not beyond. The Senate leadership on the Republican side has also agreed to that. Speaker Gingrich once again says ``no'' because of his own ideology. We should work out our differences on the budget. I think right now there is no question that the American people feel that Medicare and Medicaid must be preserved and the Republican leadership in the House must come up with a budget proposal that protects Medicare and Medicaid, protects our environmental protection, our education programs. They have not done so. The President has agreed even to the 7-year balanced budget that the Republicans have proposed, but now it is up to Speaker Gingrich and the Republicans in the House to come up with a program that agrees with the priorities of the American people.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, Democrats favor a balanced budget, but they also want to make sure the priorities such as Medicare, Medicaid, the environment, and education are protected during these budget negotiations. The President drew the line last week when he vetoed the Republican budget bill and unveiled a new plan of his own, but one of the things that President Clinton stressed is that we must have a Federal guarantee of Medicaid coverage for those low-income Americans, pregnant women, children, the disabled, who right now do have health care coverage under Medicaid. Mr. Speaker, during these budget negotiations one of the most important things that must happen is that we guarantee health care for those low-income citizens. The Republicans' plan to eliminate that guarantee, and send money to the States in a block grant and give them the discretion to decide who will be eligible for Medicaid, and whether anyone, or what categories of people would be eligible for Medicaid is certainly the wrong way to go, and I want to commend the President and ask him to stand strong on the notion that we must guarantee Medicaid coverage for those who are entitled to it today.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, today was National Medicaid Day, and myself, and Senator Lautenberg, and a number of other Members of Congress, participated in an event on the front lawn of the Capitol where we stressed the fact that the Medicaid changes that have been proposed by the Republican leadership will have a severely negative impact on the low-income people, be they seniors, children, the disabled, who now benefit from the Medicaid Program, which is the Federal program that guarantees health care for low-income people. I was very pleased to see that yesterday when the President signed his veto and sent his veto message to Congress in reaction to the Republican leadership budget that he stressed the extreme impact, if you will, and the unacceptable changes in the Medicaid program that were set forth in that Republican budget. I am hopeful that during the negotiations that are taking place now over the budget where the President and the congressional leadership, particularly the Republican leadership, seek to come together on a compromise budget bill, that the bill will successfully keep Medicaid intact and guarantee health care coverage for those people that are currently covered by the Medicaid Program. What I think is most important during these negotiations is that the Medicaid guarantee, the guarantee that has been around here now for 30 years, that low-income people have health care coverage, that those same eligible people be eligible in guaranteed health [[Page H 14209]] care under whatever comes out of these budget negotiations. There has been a lot of talk about flexibility on the Republican side, and specifically today a number of Republican Governors came down to the capital and stressed that they would like to have flexibility in the Medicaid Program and how it is administered, and I agree with that concept of flexibility. But the flexibility should not go so far that they can declare certain people ineligible for Medicaid and, therefore, have no health insurance, or set the standards and the coverage for the Medicaid Program so low or so slim, so to speak, that the type of coverage that is now provided where certain services, certain health care services, are provided, would not be provided or the quality of care would be diminished. So I am hopeful that we will not only see in these negotiations a Medicaid Program that guarantees coverage for those who are not eligible for Medicaid, but also that certain minimum standards be put in place as to what a health care coverage or what a policy would include for low-income people, and lastly that sufficient funding be put back into the budget bill for the Medicaid Program so that we do not see a decline in quality for the program. The President mentioned in his veto message five concerns that he had about the Republican budget when it dealt with Medicaid. I would like to go through those briefly. First, he said that the Republican budget cuts Federal Medicaid payments to States by $163 billion over 7 years, a 28 percent cut by the year 2002 below what the Congressional Budget Office estimates is necessary for Medicaid spending. So the concern here is that if you cut Medicaid by 20 percent over what we estimate we need for those who are currently eligible for Medicaid, that by the year 2002 States with the lesser funds would have to eliminate that many people from the Medicaid Program. Second, the President mentioned that the Republican bill converts Medicaid into a block grant with drastically less spending, eliminating guaranteed coverage to millions of Americans and perhaps forcing States to drop coverage for millions of the most vulnerable citizens, including children and the disabled. This is really the key during the budget negotiations. We do not want to eliminate what we call the entitlement status of Medicaid, so that certain people are not eligible because States decide that they do not have enough money and will not cover them. Third, the President said that the Republican budget purports to guarantee coverage to certain groups but does not define a minimum level of benefits. There again, it is not only important that a eligible Medicaid recipients continue to be eligible, but that whatever package is put together of coverage for them, that those same minimum level of services be included for a national standard so that individual States can change it. Fourth, the President said that the Republican budget purports to protect certain vulnerable populations with set-asides, but would cover less than half of the estimated needs of senior citizens and people with disabilities in the year 2002. The best example of this are those particularly vulnerable seniors who are low income, who now have their Medicare part B coverage paid, but would not necessarily have it under this proposal. As I said again, Mr. Speaker, we will be talking about this a lot more. It is most important that Medicaid be guaranteed for those low-income people.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to follow up on what the gentleman from California said, and that is that the rule should be defeated with regard to this conference report, if only because we have continued to have this battle over authorizing language or riders in the bill. As you know, on two occasions in this House, we have asked and we have voted to remove the antienvironmental riders that apply to the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA. Yet we still have some of them in the bill. We have the rider that deals with wetlands that essentially guts the EPA's ability to veto a bad wetlands decision. We also have the rider that says that no Superfund sites can be added to the national priority list. And many of the 17 riders that we voted against on the floor of this House twice still exist in the report language of the bill. If I could just talk about the two provisions that remain in the statute itself, one with regard to the Superfund Program. The Superfund Program is actually cut back in this legislation by about 19 percent. If no new sites can be added, it really cripples, if you will, the efforts to the EPA when they find hazardous material and contaminated hazardous sites. When they reach a certain level that they should be added by the Superfund, all of a sudden they cannot be considered and cleaned up pursuant to the Federal program. When you talk about wetlands protection, particularly from my home State of New Jersey, this is a very serious problem in areas which are rapidly developing. The EPA has not traditionally exercised its authority on wetlands that much. They are very discreet, I would say, in exercising their veto over the Army Corps of Engineers' actions. So it makes absolutely no sense to say in this appropriations bill, in this conference report, that EPA's ability to deal with wetlands protection is simply taken away. Overall, the bill continues this onward thrust to dismantled our ability to protect the environment. The cuts in the EPA are around 20 percent overall. The cuts in enforcement are 25 percent. I have said over and over gain, if we cannot enforce good environmental laws, what is the use of even having them. And I am afraid that is what this is all about. There are many people here who simply do not want to see our environmental laws enforced, so they go, in a roundabout way, to make sure they cannot be enforced, to make sure the polluters are able to do their thing, so to speak, by cutting back on enforcement. Mr. Speaker, this is not the way to go. We should defeated the rule and we should also defeat the conference report.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, buried on page 127 of this conference report is language designed to reopen the Ocean Dumping Ban Act of 1988. This language was not considered by the House and it was not considered by the Senate, rather it was added by the conferees. The language on page 127 would have the Federal Government spend taxpayer dollars to develop a demonstration project on the deep ocean isolation of waste, which is a fancy way of saying ocean dumping. This type of study has already been rejected by the Commerce Department, also by the Naval Research Lab. As an environmentalist and as a member of the Resources Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans, I am outraged over these efforts to go behind the backs of our subcommittee and the American people to reopen the issue of ocean dumping. Ocean dumping under current law is illegal. It is irresponsible and wrong to use taxpayer money to fund experiences into ocean dumping of any kind of waste. I would ask my colleagues, let us not threaten the health of our citizens again and the environment just to please some corporate special interests. This is a technology that has been rejected by the government agencies. It is only because some corporate interest decided to spend some money on it that it now appears in this conference report. Mr. Speaker, I think it is totally inappropriate when neither House, neither appropriations committee considered this language, none of the authorizing committees considered this language, even though there is a bill pending before our subcommittee, and yet now we find it in the conference report. We should vote against the rule just for that reason alone.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that colloquy, and particularly what the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Saxton] said. But I must warn that I am concerned that this very research program, which is in the report language, is the very thing that we are opposed to. In fact, if the research program goes ahead, which hopefully it will not based on what the gentleman from New Jersey just said, but if this research program were to go ahead, it is essentially openended. That would allow a significant amount of ocean dumping to take place of various contaminated materials. Mr. Speaker, this is why the Department of Commerce, in a letter to the chairman of the Committee on Resources on July 28 of this year, specifically said that they were opposed to this research project because it is openended; there is no guidance, and ultimately there would be ocean dumping taking place of various contaminated materials. Mr. Speaker, I would also point out that the Naval Research Laboratory in a report issued this year in the early part of 1995, specifically said that this tethered container concept was analyzed and determined to be unacceptable from both the production rate capability and because of handling system problems. Mr. Speaker, there is no reason to do this research. It has already been done and it has been found to be unacceptable.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I do not plan to use the entire time. What I wanted to do tonight and what I will do is to explain the budget and appropriation bills that have been proposed or passed by the Republican majority in this House and how they have a negative impact on the environment. As you know, Mr. Speaker, we had some previous speakers who gave 5- minute special orders previously: The gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Lowey], the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro], and also the gentleman from New York [Mr. Hinchey], that outlined some of the concerns that myself and Democrats in general have about the impact on the environment of the budget bill that has been passed by the Congress and which the President today fortunately vetoed, and also the appropriations bill that funds the Environmental Protection Agency, the VA-HUD-and independent agencies, an appropriations bill which has already been sent back to Congress twice but which will come back up again, probably as early as tomorrow. Throughout this Congress, we have watched the Republican leadership step by step as they work to completely undermine 25 years of environmental progress in order to make it easier for special interests to pollute the environment at the expense of Americans' health and environmental heritage. Despite what the Republicans may think, the election last year was not a mandate to roll back our most successful environmental laws. In fact, a recent Harris poll found that 76 percent of Americans think that air and water laws as they now stand are not strict enough; not that they should be downgraded, but they are not strict enough. Despite this, undercover efforts by the new Republican majority to attack environmental protection through budget and appropriation bills is the paramount example of what lengths the leadership will go to fulfill their promises to special interests, despite the potential impacts to Americans' health, environmental heritage, and economic well-being. Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased tonight, as we were waiting to address the House during the special orders, that we actually received from the President his veto message on the budget bill. One of the things that he stressed, and I would like to just read some sections from his veto message, is that this budget bill impacts the environment in a very negative way and takes away too much money from environmental protection. If I could just read some excerpts from his veto message to the House of Representatives, he says: ``As I have repeatedly stressed, I want to find common ground with the Congress on a balanced budget plan that will best serve the American people, but I have profound differences with the extreme approach that the Republican majority has adopted. It would hurt average Americans and help special interests. My balanced budget plan reflects the values that Americans share''; and among those values that the President mentioned was to protect public health and the environment. He stressed in his veto message that ``the budget proposed by the Republicans would cut too deeply into a number of programs, and specifically hurt the environment.'' He went on to explain how various programs in title V of the program of the budget bill were specifically geared toward downgrading environmental protection. What I wanted to do tonight, Mr. Speaker, was to talk about, if I could, some examples of how in fact the budget bill, as well as the appropriation bill that we are likely to consider tomorrow, will turn back the clock on environmental protection. In fact, one of the previous speakers tonight, I believe it was the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro], specifically said that what the Republicans are doing in these spending and budget bills is turning back the clock on environmental protection. My friend, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Hinchey], who spoke previously, talked about how, specifically with the Clean Water Act, we have made so much progress in the last 10 or 15 years. When I was first elected to the Congress back in 1988, the main reason why I believe that I was elected was because in the summer of 1988, we experienced in my district along the shore in New Jersey, a summer where all kinds of material washed up on the beaches: medical waste, sludge material, plastics. You name it, was on the beach. Most of our beaches were closed for the summer, and we lost billions of dollars to our local economy because of the tourists that did not come. After 1988, in the Congress, and it was on a bipartisan basis, laws were passed that prohibited ocean dumping, that tried to protect against the disposal of medical wastes into the waters of the New York and New Jersey harbors. And, lo and behold, after two or three years, the beaches started to come back, the water quality improved, we did not have the washups that we had during the summer of 1988. So this year, this summer, in 1995, we had probably one of our best beach seasons ever, and people constantly remarked about the improvement in water quality. But the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Hinchey] pointed out that if you look at these appropriation bills and if you look at the budget, you are seeing significant cutbacks in the amount of money that is available under the Clean Water Act. Loans that the Federal Government provides to municipalities and counties throughout the country to upgrade their sewage treatment plants are severely cut, so that makes it more difficult for the communities to actually get sufficient funds to upgrade their sewage treatment plants. Specifically in New Jersey, in the part of New Jersey that I represent, we are very concerned about what we call combined sewer overflow. In many of the municipalities in north Jersey, as well as New York City and outlying areas of New York City, in the metropolitan area, there are sewage systems which are combined with stormwater systems, which means that essentially when it rains, the sewage and the stormwater get combined and there is an overflow, and raw sewage goes out into the New York harbor, and of course, makes its way down to the Jersey shore. What we need are Federal dollars which have now been available and continue to be available over the last few years to try to either separate those sewer and stormwater systems, [[Page H 14147]] or at least prevent the overflow that occurs during the storm. If we do not provide funding on the Federal level for loans or grants to upgrade sewage treatment plants or to separate combined sewer systems, sewer overflow problems, then what we are going to have is an increase, once again, in the sewage and the pollution that goes into our harbor areas and ultimately down to the Atlantic Ocean. That is what the gentleman from New York was talking about. Mr. Speaker, the amazing thing about clean water and the efforts for clean water, and this was something that my predecessor, Congressman Howard often remarked to me before I was elected to Congress, was that this was one of the few environmental areas where money makes a difference. You could take a small amount of money in the overall terms of the Federal budget and use it to actually upgrade your sewage treatment and improve your water quality. The technology exists, with a relatively small amount of money, to do that. So why cut the funding that is coming from the Federal Government in order to clean and upgrade our water? It makes no sense from a health point of view, it makes no sense from any kind of environmental point of view, whether it is to upgrade sewage treatment plants or to provide for some of the other things that improve our water quality. The gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro] talked about the Superfund program. The Superfund program, she stressed, works. A lot of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle act like the Superfund program does not work. It may be that all the Superfund sites have not been cleaned up, but a lot of them have. She specifically mentioned the Raymark site in Stratford, CT as a model for the Superfund program. What is happening with the Republican budget and with the Republican appropriations bill with regard to the Superfund program? We find that the Superfund program in the VA-HUD appropriations bill, the EPA appropriations bill, is cut by 19 percent. There is a rider in it that says that no new Superfund sites can in fact be designated. The bottom line is that that means that the Superfund program will be downgraded, that a lot of sites that need to be put on the national priority list will not be, and that sites like Raymark in Stratford, CT, which serve as models for the Superfund program, will not get additional funds necessary, or other sites will not get additional funds necessary to continue the cleanup of hazardous waste sites. That is not what the American people want. Over and over again they indicate, through polling or through contact with us, that clean water and the cleanup of hazardous waste sites are very important to them. Let us not turn our back on the Superfund program the way that is being proposed with this budget and also with the appropriations bill that deals with the EPA. The President specifically mentioned in his budget message tonight a number of provisions that were actually placed in the budget bill. This is the example of the undercover efforts that I mentioned by the new majority, that if they cannot get a bill passed through the normal course of things, they put language into the appropriations or into the budget bill to try to get environmental programs, or to try to despoil the environment. One of the things that the President mentioned in his veto message tonight is he specifically says, and I quote: ``Title V of the budget would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,'' ANWAR, as it is called, ``to oil and gas drilling, threatening a unique pristine ecosystem in hopes of generating $1.3 billion in Federal revenues, a revenue estimate based on wishful thinking and outdated analysis.'' This is one of the major points that was raised by the President in vetoing the budget, and rightly so. We know that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a very pristine area, a very delicate ecosystem where oil and gas drilling could effectively destroy the whole nature of the refuge area. Yet, in the budget bill we have language that not only says that we are going to drill for oil and natural gas, but that we have to start within the next year, and specifically eliminates any environmental safeguards or any environmental impact statements that have to be done before that drilling were to take place. Again, why? Special interests. Obviously, the oil companies want to be able to drill. They suggest that somehow there is a significant amount of revenue that is going to be made available. Yet those involved in Alaska oil know that the reality is very different. It is seriously questionable whether the Federal Government will ever get any of the revenue from the drilling. In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, no effort really has been made by this majority in this Congress to try to deal with our energy dependence. Some of the advocates for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge say, ``This is good. We can drill for more oil domestically. We will not have to depend so much on foreign oil.'' But they do not do anything or they do not do anything significantly to increase mass transit, they do not look into alternative fuel vehicles, they do not look into what I call renewable resources, as opposed to nonrenewable resources, that will make us less energy-dependent. Instead, they just want to go ahead and drill. I suggest that the President was right. I commend him not only for vetoing the budget bill, but for specifically mentioning the ANWAR or the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as one of the reasons why he decided to veto the bill. Mr. Speaker, let me give a few more examples of how this whole process of legislating through the appropriations bills is taking place. Traditionally in this Congress and in this House, if you want to legislate as opposed to appropriate or spend money, you go to the authorizing committees. For example, with the Arctic National Wildlife, you go to the Committee on Resources, you would have a hearing, you would vote out a bill that allows drilling for oil and natural gas, for example. It would come to the floor, it would be passed here after open debate. The same thing would happen in the Senate. It would go to conference before it went to the President. All that is being bypassed with these appropriation and budget bills. These provisions are being put into the spending bills, if you will, without all those initial processes taking place. That is not the way to proceed, and we are seeing it happen over and over again. It happened today. I was on the floor today and it happened today with regard to what we call deep ocean disposal, a form of ocean dumping. Those of my constituents at the Jersey shore know that ever since 1988 we have had the Ocean Dumping Act passed, which specifically prohibits offshore dumping of sewage sludge as well as a number of other things that were contaminating our coastal environment. Just yesterday I was informed that an ocean dumping provision was sneaked into the appropriation conference report for Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary, which we voted on today, just a few hours ago. This provision, which was not in either the House or Senate version of the appropriations bill, authorizes NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to study deep ocean waste and isolation technologies, and basically to start a research program that has unlimited possibilities to dump sewage sludge and other kinds of contaminated material in the deep ocean off the coast of New Jersey or wherever; again, an effort to sneak in this kind of anti-environment legislation into the appropriations bill. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the VA-HUD and Independent Agencies appropriations bill, the one that covers the EPA, which we will probably take up as early as tomorrow, had 17 riders like this when it originally came to the floor of the House of Representatives, 17 anti- environmental provisions that were simply thrown into the bill that had absolutely nothing really to do with spending money or with the appropriations process. Twice on the floor of this House we had to vote by majority vote, bipartisan, we had to vote to take those riders out. Even though we voted twice to take the riders out, the conference report came back just last week and still had some of the riders in it. It had riders in it that bar the EPA's role in wetlands permitting, in the wetlands permit process. Right now the EPA basically has the ability to veto development in wetlands if they think it has a terribly [[Page H 14148]] damaging impact on the environment. That is taken out in a legislative rider that is still in the bill, even though the House voted twice to take it out. It also has the provision which I mentioned before, which says the EPA cannot add new Superfund sites to the national priority list without some additional approval. So again, that is in the bill, even though we voted twice to take it out. In fact, if you look at the VA-HUD appropriations conference report, which will come again to the floor tomorrow, it actually cuts the EPA by 21 percent. It cuts funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by 21 percent and it cuts enforcement of our environmental laws by the Environmental Protection Agency by 25 percent. So not only are they cutting the overall agency's budget, but they are also cutting enforcement even more severely. Why? Because essentially, in many cases, they want the laws to not be enforced. They would rather that the polluters get away with not having to pay the fine, not getting caught. The EPA and environmental protection are cut more than other agency in this whole Federal budget, in this whole appropriations process, more than any other agency in the Government, and that shows again the Republican leadership and the bias against environmental protection in an effort to try to undercut all efforts, or most major efforts, to protect the environment. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to give a few more examples, if I could, of how efforts were made in this budget process to put antienvironmental provisions in. One example, again, that we voted on, on the House floor, was H.R. 260, the National Park System Reform Act, which after being defeated on the floor of this House under suspension of the rules, mysteriously appeared in the budget reconciliation bill. This is a bill that would set up a commission, and as one of its purposes, choose national parks and recreation areas that would possibly be closed. I took it to heart because within my own district at Sandy Hook, Sandy Hook is a unit of Gateway National Recreation Area, the sponsor of the legislation actually mentioned Sandy Hook as one of the national park units that he thought possibly should be closed or suggested should be closed by this commission. However, even though we worked hard to defeat that bill on the floor of the House so that this commission to close the parks would not be set up, all of a sudden it came up in the budget reconciliation bill that was about to come to the floor of this House. We managed again, through a coalition of Democrats and some Republicans who were concerned about the environment, to make sure that that provision was ultimately not in the conference report; and it fortunately was not in the conference report, but there were a lot of other things that were. Another item that the President mentioned in his veto message was the transfer of Federal land for a low-level radioactive waste site in California without public safeguards. This is an interesting provision that was put into the conference bill. In fact, what happened is that in the State of California, there was an effort to set up a low-level radioactive waste site to take waste not only from California, but from a number of other States. The Secretary of the Interior said about a year ago that he would agree to this transfer subject to certain conditions being met to protect the environment. In other words, Secretary Babbitt wanted to go through a process whereby there were hearings, there was an opportunity for the public to be heard, and certain limitations would be put on the types of radioactive waste or the amount of radioactive waste that could be put into this site before the land transfer would be approved. This is Federal land in California, not very far from Los Angeles, that essentially now is under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management. This budget bill would transfer the land for the purpose of setting up a low-level radioactive waste site for the State of California and other States without any safeguards. In other words, the conditions that Secretary Babbitt had articulated were simply eliminated and not mentioned in the budget bill. Instead, the budget bill said that it was not necessary to meet environmental safeguards; it was not necessary to do the public process with the hearings, and we would just transfer the land, and the State of California and the other States could do whatever they want and use it for a low-level radioactive waste site. Again, a bill was introduced by a California Member to do this; it was put into my subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Energy and Power which had jurisdiction over it. We never had a hearing, the bill never came up, we never reviewed the bill. All of a sudden it is in the budget bill. But thankfully, now the President has indicated that this is another one of the antienvironmental measures, if you will, that is in the budget bill that he is not going to accept, and that he is going to insist be taken out in whatever negotiations are going to occur. Mr. Speaker, I mention these items not because I think that there are not a lot of areas where we need to improve environmental protection, not because I think that we need to spend money endlessly on environmental protection, but because I believe very strongly that the normal process is being evaded and that the American public is really not being made aware of what is happening with regard to this budget, this Republican budget, and the appropriations process and environmental protection. I want to stress before I conclude this evening that we, myself and the other Democrats who feel strongly about environmental protection, will not allow the Republican leadership to try to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people with regard to cuts in environmental protection so that the essential interests can get away with environmental delinquency. The budget and appropriations bills are not to be used as a vehicle for environmental destruction. The President has promised to veto several of these bills, as he did this evening, based on the hateful environmental provisions that are contained therein. I and my colleagues on the Democratic side, along with some Republicans, fully support him and commend him for his strong environmental stance. As this budget negotiation continues over the next few weeks, and we hopefully come to an agreement on the budget bill that balances the budget and at the same time protects the environment, I think we need to be very vigilant to make sure that whatever is finally negotiated does not give away the store, if you will, to the polluters and strengthens environmental laws and strengthens enforcement, rather than weakening it and turning the clock back over the last 10 or 20 years on what this House and what the Senate have done to try to protect the environment in this country.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, as we know, negotiations continue, or at least we hope they are going to continue, over the budget, with this Republican budget that has passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, which President Clinton wisely says he cannot accept, and so negotiations are going on to try to see if the President can come to an agreement with the Republican leadership in the Congress. I just wanted to spend a little time today putting what I call a human face [[Page H 13932]] on some of the numbers. We talk about the budget, and I have said over and over again we need to make sure that whatever is resolved with the budget, that Medicare is preserved, that Medicaid is preserved, that those programs are not cut in order to finance tax breaks for the wealthy, and also that we are concerned with environmental priorities and education priorities. I just wanted to give some information about numbers and how some of those priorities transfer into real terms and into the effects on the average American, particularly with regard to Medicare and Medicaid. The Republican-proposed budget cuts Medicare by $270 billion and increases costs on beneficiaries. In effect, these cuts increase direct and indirect costs on Medicare beneficiaries, on our senior citizens, placing a huge financial burden on seniors and people with disabilities. If you look at it, the cuts in the Medicare Program alone basically are $1,700 per beneficiary, per senior citizen, by the year 2002, and premiums for those seniors increase to $89 per month in 2002, an annual increase of about $440 per couple. If you also look at the amount of money that is going to be available to Medicare by reference to the amount of money that would be available for someone who is getting health care in the private sector, the $270 billion Medicare cut would limit spending per Medicare beneficiary to a rate that is more than 20 percent below the projected private insurance per person growth rate over the next 7 years. So Medicare now will not be keeping up with the amount of money that is available for those who are paying for their health insurance privately. Even more important, right now Medicaid pays for the Medicare premiums, coinsurance, and deductibles for people who are below 100 percent poverty. In other words, a lot of low-income senior citizens have their part B premium covered by Medicaid. They do not have to pay coinsurance and they do not have to pay deductibles. Well, all that is gone under the Republican proposal. So all those people now would have to take that money out of their pocket. Of course, they cannot afford to do so, because they are in fact low income. What we are going to see happen under these Republican Medicare cuts is essentially quality and access for a lot of senior citizens will suffer. When you get to Medicaid, it is even worse, because Medicaid right now is an entitlement program for low-income people, whether they be seniors, children, pregnant women, the disabled, whatever. Under this Republican proposal, there no longer is any guaranteed health car for those low-income people under Medicaid. Instead, a block grant goes to the States and we estimate that about a 28-percent cut will be available. The amount of money that will be available will be about 28-percent less under this Republican proposal block granted to the States than what is available now under Medicaid. What that means is a lot of States simply will not cover people under Medicaid. They will make no categorizations of who is covered and who is not, and that means a lot of low-income people will not have access to health care. We also estimate that about 330,000 people could be denied nursing home coverage, because right now Medicaid pays for most nursing home care and essentially guarantees nursing home coverage for those seniors who cannot afford to pay for nursing home care privately. That is all gone. There is no guarantee of nursing home care anymore, because, again if the States decide they do not want to provide for certain categories of people, they simply will not. If you look at where the tax breaks are going under the Republican proposal at the same time, the tax breaks are mostly going for the well-to-do. Nearly half of the benefits under the Republican tax package, about 48 percent, go to the top 12 percent of families, those of incomes of $100,000 or more. If you are actually making less than $30,000 a year, you are probably going to end up paying more in taxes because the earned income tax credit that goes to a lot of working low- income people is cut severely. So a lot of people who are making less than $30,000 a year and who are working essentially are going to be paying more taxes instead of less. Last, I wanted to talk about the impact of this Republican budget on the environment. It funds enforcement of public health and environmental safeguards 25-percent less than what we have now. So, again, the environmental priorities are essentially downgraded, and we hope that the President is able to negotiate a better budget bill to preserve these priorities.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the remarks of my colleague with regard to the national debt, and I certainly agree with him that we need to balance the budget. However, I would suggest that we all agree that the budget needs to be balanced, and in fact, the President has also said many times that he wants the budget balanced. The problem is how do we do it. That is where the priorities come into place. One of the points that President Clinton has made and that I have made and that many of the Democratic leaders have made is that we have to look at this budget in human terms. What are the impacts? What do the numbers mean in real terms in terms of working American families, students, older Americans, the environment and many of the other priorities that President Clinton has articulated. The bottom line is that if we look at the Republican budget that passed this House and the Senate and is now on the President's desk, the priorities are misplaced. Too much of the emphasis is on cutting taxes or on giving tax breaks primarily for wealthy Americans and not enough emphasis is being placed on helping the average working person. Many of the cuts are on programs for senior citizens, education, particularly for student loans for students that want to go on to colleges or universities, and for the environment. One of the things that I keep pointing out is how much of the impact in terms of tax cuts or tax breaks go to wealthy Americans. According to the numbers of the Joint Committee on Taxation, 51 percent of taxpayers with incomes under $30,000 would, as a group, have a net tax increase under the Republican budget plan and nearly half of the benefits under the Republican tax package or under the budget, 48 percent, that is, go to the top 12 percent of families, those with incomes of $100,000 or more. So we certainly want to balance the budget, but we want to do it in a way that does not give tax breaks to the wealthy and does not cut critical programs that are important to seniors, to students, and also to the environment, among other things. One of the things that received a lot of attention today in this regard was the Medicaid Program. Medicaid was the health care program that the Federal Government and States pay for for low-income people. Nearly 37 million people are currently covered by Medicaid, and about half of them are children. Well, surprisingly, in a way, but I am not surprised, because I know that doctors do care about health care for low-income people, today the American Medical Association, the main national association of physicians, came out with a statement that was very critical of the Republican Medicaid plan. Basically, they criticized the fact that under the Republican proposal as part of this budget, Medicaid would no longer be guaranteed, no longer be an entitlement, and it would be up to the [[Page H 13976]] States to decide who they were going to cover. So for those 37 million Americans who now receive Medicaid payments or Medicaid benefits, all of a sudden, some of them may not receive it, and it would be up to the States to decide. President Clinton has asserted that it is crucial to maintain a Federal guarantee for Medicaid for those 37 million people, and that is one of the reasons he is going to or is likely to veto this bill, because it does not guarantee their coverage. Basically, what the doctors are saying, what the AMA is saying, is that they are concerned that States, because of the budget crunch, because they may not have the money to make up for the loss of Federal dollars that are going to come to the States in a block grant under the Republican proposal, will simply cut back on the number of people who are eligible, or on the quality of care. Basically, what they are saying is that because of the budget crisis that States face, they are going to have the same problem and they are not going to be able to actually cover all of these people. The AMA said today in The New York Times that the Federal Government should establish basic national standards of uniform eligibility for Medicaid, and should prescribe the minimum package of benefits that would be available to poor people in all States, basic standards of uniform, minimum, adequate benefits of Medicaid recipients. So what they are saying is that there should be a Federal standard, there should be a Federal guarantee for who is eligible for Medicaid, who gets the health insurance, and what kind of quality care will be provided for those low-income people. The trustees of the AMA also said, there needs to be an appropriate balance between States interest in securing increased flexibility in light of fewer Federal funds for Medicaid and the very real needs of the people the Medicaid program is intended to serve, most of whom have no other means of access to health care coverage. One of the arguments that the Republican leadership have put forth is that Medicaid should be more flexible and that is why it should go back to the States. However, what the doctors are saying is, it is very nice to have flexibility, but we have to make sure that the people who are covered by Medicaid now do have health care coverage. I know that that is going to be an important consideration for the President during these negotiations.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I will try not to use the entire 60 minutes, but I do appreciate the opportunity to address my colleagues about the budget. As I am sure that most of us can tell from listening to the debate on the House floor, the biggest issue right now is the budget which is being negotiated between the President, the White House, and Congress, both the Senate and the House, and over the next couple of weeks or so hopefully decisions will be made so that there can be a compromise worked out between the Republican leadership budget which passed the House and the Senate about a week ago and the priorities that have been articulated by President Clinton and most of the Democrats in Congress. The chief concern of myself as well as most of the Democrats is the fact that the Republican budget as passed essentially cuts Medicare and Medicaid by significant amounts in order to provide tax breaks primarily for wealthy Americans. If you look at the chart over here which I have pointed to many times, you can see that the cuts in the Medicare Program, the health care program for seniors, of $270 billion roughly translate into the tax breaks primarily for wealthy Americans of $245 billion. I contend that during this budget negotiation, the only way that we are going to preserve and protect Medicare as well as Medicaid, which is the health care program for low-income Americans, is if we eliminate most if not all of these tax breaks for the wealthy and put that money back into the Medicare or Medicaid Program. Without that happening, and I hope that the budget negotiators accomplish that, but without that happening, it would not be possible in my opinion to preserve the Medicare and Medicaid Program. The consequence would be that many seniors and many low-income people would not have health care, would not have health insurance, or if they do have it, they would have the quality of that care significantly reduced. This not only impacts seniors and low-income people but also all Americans, because the cuts in Medicare and Medicaid directly impact every hospital in this country, every health care provider. The quality of our hospitals will deteriorate. Many of our hospitals will close because we are taking so much money out of the health care system, because of the dependence of hospitals and health care providers on the Medicare and the Medicaid programs and the Federal dollars that go along with it. One of the things that I wanted to start out with this evening is to point out that repeatedly the Republican leadership has suggested that these tax breaks that are in the budget bill that they approved would somehow be helpful to all Americans, it would not primarily be for well-to-do Americans. In fact, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Archer], who is the chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, has repeatedly defended the budget bill by saying that there will be benefits for all Americans, proportionately and in a fair way. Well, the Treasury Department just came out in the past couple of days with an analysis of this Republican budget, and it was put forward or summarized, so to speak, in an editorial a few days ago on November 23 in the New York Times that definitively showed, in my opinion, that the Treasury's analysis is correct and essentially shows that most of the tax breaks go to wealthy Americans. I just wanted to read briefly, if I could, from the editorial in the New York Times. It says that the Treasury Department estimated that the richest 1 percent would rake in almost twice as much, or 17 percent of the tax breaks. The Treasury figures are solid evidence that the Republican tax cut is heavily weighted toward the rich. If you look at this analysis on the chart here, it shows the Treasury's version based on the fully phased-in law, and as can be seen, the significant amounts of the tax breaks go to wealthy Americans: 23.8 percent to those that make more than $200,000; 23.7 percent to those that make between $100,000 and $200,000; 19 percent for those who make between $75,000 and $100,000; 19 percent again to those who make between $50,000 and $75,000; to the point where if you are making less than $20,000, you actually pay a tax increase under this Republican budget. I just want to put that to rest, because I know we have heard a lot of discussion and statements on the other side of the aisle suggesting that this is not the case, but it is the case. One of the reasons why, and again I will go back to the New York Times editorial, one of the reasons why the Republican analysis is wrong and the Treasury Department is correct is because of the Republican distribution tables and the way they distort the bill. The New York Times says that the Republican distribution tables are distorted in at least four ways. I would like to go through those four ways. First, they underestimate the benefit to wealthy investors of the cut in the tax on capital gains. There is a major cut in capital gains that goes mostly to wealthy Americans. Second, the Republicans' estimates ignore the distribution of corporate tax cuts which help the wealthy more than the poor. Again, a big part of these tax cuts are for corporations. Third, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Archer], again the Republican chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, his numbers look only at the first 5 years of the tax cut. The Treasury's estimates calculate the benefit when the taxes are fully phased in, so we are looking here at the full phase-in of the taxes over the 7 years of the budget bill. And, fourth, the figures of the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Archer] fail to consider the fact that many low-income families will lose rebates they now receive under the earned income tax credit, a subsidy for low-wage workers. Again, the Republican analysis ignores the fact that if you are in this $20,000 or below, you are getting what we call an earned income tax credit, which means that if that is taken away, which the Republican bill does in significant ways, you are actually going to pay more in taxes than you pay now. I think that this is important because I honestly believe that the only way, and I will repeat, the only way that we can arrive at a budget bill negotiated between the President and the Republicans in Congress that actually saves Medicare and Medicaid is if we eliminate or at least significantly cut back on these tax breaks for the wealthy. I hope, I sincerely hope, that that is a big part of the budget negotiations, so that we can save Medicare and save Medicaid. I wanted to next, if I could, move to two reports that came out in the last week that talk about the impact of these Republican budget cuts on Medicare and Medicaid. The first report was done by the Leadership Council of Aging Organizations. They put out a report this Tuesday, November 28, that essentially identifies nine different ways how the budget hurts older Americans, our senior citizens. I would like to just go through those nine points and then maybe give a little more detail about some of the more important ones. The nine ways that the budget hurts older Americans, according to the Leadership Council are, first, that Congress cuts Medicare by $270 billion, and that means that part B premiums rise from $46.10 to almost $90 a month by the year 2002. Beneficiaries needing certain hospital outpatient services would pay even more than the 50 percent co- insurance they now pay, and many would lose extended home care coverage. So not only are we cutting Medicare, but we are also charging our senior citizens more. Part B is the health insurance program that covers their physician's care. The premiums that they pay for part B are doubled over the 7 years of the budget. Second, Congress cuts Medicaid long-term care. Medicaid spending would be cut by $164 billion over 7 years. Federal standards for eligibility, services, payment and quality would be seriously weakened. In other words, in order to accomplish this cut in Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income people, Federal standards would either be eliminated or relaxed. There would no longer be an entitlement to Medicaid. It would be up to the States, because the money from the Federal Government, a reduced amount of money in real terms, would go in a block grant to the States and they would decide who they would cover and how. So a lot of low- income people, whether they be children, senior citizens, disabled, would simply not be covered by Medicaid any longer because the States would not have the money to pay for their care. That includes seniors. Third, Congress cuts Medicaid acute care. So current Federal requirements to pay Medicare deductibles and co-insurance for low- income Medicare beneficiaries would be ended. What that means is that right now if you are a senior citizen, instead of paying your premium for your part B Medicare which covers your physician's care, right now if you are below a certain income, Medicaid pays that premium. However, under the Republican bill, Medicaid would no longer be required to pay that premium. Again, it would be up to the States, and if the States decided they did not want to pay, then Medicare part B premium for low-income seniors, they would not have to, and a lot of those seniors would go without having part B and having their physicians' bills covered by Medicare or Medicaid. Fourth, under human services, the Older Americans Act, Legal Services, aging research, training senior volunteers, cuts would mean 6.2 million fewer meals at senior centers, 5.6 million fewer to homebound elders, research on aging issues funded under the Older Americans Act. Right now, a lot of the programs that exist and that help senior citizens are funded under the Older Americans Act. Those of you who have been to a senior center in your community know a lot of times meals are provided to seniors at the senior center, nutrition programs, or if they are homebound, meals are delivered to them in their home. There are other services the Older Americans Act provides for senior citizens. That takes a huge cut in this budget and can be translated into fewer meals and fewer services for the elderly. Fifth, during the last decade the number of grandparents raising grandchildren climbed 40 percent, and most have household incomes under $20,000 per year. Reforms in the welfare system will make it more difficult to obtain aid for grandchildren. So incorporated in all of this is the fact, and in this budget, is the fact that a lot of children who are now raised by their grandparents will not get assistance to pay for various activities that are important to child care. Sixth, food stamps; block grants offer no assurance even minimal protections for older people would be retained by States by making access to benefits still more difficult. A lot of senior citizens depend on food stamps. The cutbacks in that will affect them. Seventh, supplemental security income, individual States may slash or eliminate SSI supplementary benefits. Again, a lot of senior citizens who are disabled and who receive cash benefits pursuant to social security disability programs would be cut. Eighth, housing assistance, older people make up approximately one- third of all public housing residents. Operating subsidies and modernization funds for public housing would be cut by 3.5 and 33 percent, respectively, from 1995 levels. When we talk about public housing, a lot of people forget a third of the public housing is for senior citizens. If you cut back on money available for new construction, modernization, they are also impacted and, again, have fewer and fewer places to live or more expensive costs to continue to rent or to live in subsidized housing. And lastly and ninth on this list is low-income home energy assistance programs. The Senate recommendation is for a 32-percent cut. Nearly 2 million households could lose their energy assistance. A lot of senior citizens right now basically have their energy assistance, their utility bills, if you will, supplemented through what we call this LIHEAP program. That also is cut. So our point and the point I am trying to make here is that not only with regard to Medicare and Medicaid but also with a lot of other programs, the impact on senior citizens in this budget is really great. They are disproportionately singled out for cuts that will make it much more difficult for them to have health care, for them to have proper nutrition, for them to be able to live in decent housing, and that is not fair. What we are doing is making those cuts in order to provide tax breaks primarily for wealthy Americans. The other report that came out this week and that I would like to briefly mention was a report that was put out by the Consumers Union and the National Senior Citizen Law Center. It is entitled ``What the Congress Isn't Telling You.'' Families of nursing home residents may face financial ruin under Federal Medicaid bills. And basically, what the report shows is that, under the Republican budget, an estimated 395,000 nursing home patients are likely to lose Medicaid payments for their care next year. Families of nursing home patients will face significant new financial burdens. This was actually put out; this is the report here that was put out within the last week or so, and again trying to highlight some of the people that the report makes, again it talks about the impact of the cuts in the Medicaid program which, again, is for low-income people, but affects seniors, children, disabled people. Basically, what they stress is that the budget transforms the Medicaid Program into a block grant called a Medigrant, a cash grant to each State, and there are few requirements as to how the money is spent, virtually no guarantees for benefits for any individual regardless of how poor or sick the individual is. Cuts in the Medicaid Program are $163 billion, and these cuts will reduce projected Federal spending on Medicaid by approximately 30 percent by the time the seventh year of the 7-year program goes into effect. What the Republican budget does is it caps the amount of money that is spent on Medicaid, and it basically sends a block grant to the States with that smaller amount of money than is necessary to keep the Medicaid going as a viable program. So what we are saying is that because of that reduced level of funding and because the States now have to administer Medicaid with less funding, millions of current Medicaid recipients and those needing services in the future are likely to lose all access to health insurance and not have their health care provided for. Now, this report basically says that an estimated 395,000 long-term patients are likely to lose Medicaid payments for their nursing home care if this bill is approved. The combination of drastic cuts and projected spending and elimination of important patient and family protections will cause State Medicaid programs and private nursing homes to adopt policies that will place additional financial pressures on families of people needing long-term care. Right now, Medicaid pays for the nursing home care for all of these low-income people that are on Medicaid. But if this bill passes, not only will the same amount of money not be available, but what the States will do, because they do not have enough money to pay out to nursing homes for these patients' care, is they will simply go after the families, the children, the grandchildren, whatever, and the assets, if you will, of those nursing home patients in order to make up the difference. Just to give you an idea of the type of things that will go on, if the Medicaid law is changed, basically families of nursing home patients may be forced to spend funds previously earmarked for their children's education or retirement. Family assets may be sold or even seized by Medicaid liens. Adult children, previously protected from liability, may now be held responsible for the nursing home bills of their patients. Protections against nursing homes that charge more than the amount Medicaid pays are weakened by the bill. Right now it is difficult for the nursing home to charge you more than what Medicaid pays. Families become vulnerable; there is no longer a guarantee of Medicaid eligibility for anyone. Liens on property and claims against the States are unrestricted under the proposed legislation. Hearings to dispute issues, such as who receives coverage, are completely eliminated. Financial planning for disabled children is no longer protected. States may even narrow coverage to exclude chronic nursing home care from their programs, and the limited income protections included in the bill for husbands and wives do not provide financial security for families. What we are basically saying here, and it is very clear, and this is what this study demonstrates, that the proposed transformation of Medicaid may force American families into financial ruin if a loved one needs a nursing home. It is a major change from the current law which provides, which basically says Medicaid right now guarantees nursing home coverage for those low-income seniors or any senior who runs out of money and does not have enough money to pay for their nursing home care. I am not sure if a lot of people realize that there are very few Americans who, if they become disabled and have to go to a nursing home, can afford to pay for that nursing home care for very long. Sometimes people can pay privately for a few months or even a couple of years, but eventually they run out of assets. That is where Medicaid comes in and pays for the care under current law, but would no longer be guaranteed under this Republican budget. I talked mostly so far about the impact of this budget on health care, and I believe that that is the worst impact of this Republican budget, the fact that our health care system, in general, will be negatively impacted and a lot of people will not receive health care or have access to health care and the quality of care will also be reduced. But there are other major impacts and other major impacts that President Clinton has specifically talked about. He has talked also about the need to make sure there is adequate funding for education, particularly student loans, and he has also talked about the need to prioritize funding for the environment. Because if you look at this budget, this Republican budget, as well as some of the appropriation bills that have been moving through the House of Representatives, you certainly notice that, again, like with senior citizens, the environment and the effort to protect the environment has taken too much of a cut in this overall budget bill. In other words, the amount of money that is taken away from those agencies on a Federal level that protect the environment or the money that goes to the States in grants and loans to protect the environment is cut back considerably more than a lot of other areas. Again, that is not fair, and that is totally inconsistent with the priority that most Americans give to environmental protection. Just to give you an idea of how this budget, not only the budget but also some of the appropriation bills that have been moving in this House, would impact the environment, again, a report was recently put out by the National Wildlife Federation that is entitled ``Funding Worth Fighting For: Your Guide to Proposed Reductions for Environmental Spending in Congress' Budget and Appropriation Bills.'' Again, this was produced and made available within the last couple of weeks or so. Essentially, it points out how this budget and how the appropriation bills make drastic cuts in environment protection. It is a very sinister aspect of this whole budget process because I think that many people in the beginning did not realize that the Republican leadership was trying to make such drastic changes in environmental protection. And so in putting together this report, the National Wildlife Federation, I think, did a very good job in explaining how these cutbacks affect the quality of our environment in this country. Basically, in its introduction, the report says that the congressional leadership intends to achieve its aims to weaken, dismantle, or dismiss environmental safeguards through the budget process. The tactic is to legislate through appropriations, to tear away at the enforcement and fabric of environmental laws in the budget process without the scrutiny of public debate and the straight votes on the merits. Oftentimes these things are put into the bills, and we are not necessarily made aware of it. There have not been public hearings. There has not been an opportunity to even comment on it, which is one of the reasons, I think, this report takes note of these changes. The budget and appropriation bills passed to date by Congress contain a regressive environmental and natural resource agenda that has no precedent in modern American history. If enacted, these measures will mark the first time the Nation has legislated a retreat in water and air quality, in conserving valuable wetlands, protecting beaches from being fouled by contamination and enforcing environmental protections for public health. In effect, this Republican leadership is proposing lower environmental quality of life for the average American as well as huge public land and asset giveaways to narrow special interests. As documented in this report, the hallmarks of this assault, and they basically say four areas where this budget assaults, if you will, the environment: One, sharp cuts to the core budgets of the agencies that protect the environment; two, elimination, in some cases, of entire environmental programs; third, suspension of environmental safeguards; and, last, expansive concessions to narrow interest groups. Now, I say this in the overall context of knowing, not only because I talk to people in my own district but also because of public opinion surveys that have been done, that show that Americans are very supportive of environmental protection and seek to prioritize funding for environmental protection and not have these kinds of cutbacks. I think the solid majority of Americans support upholding the environmental progress that we have seen in the last 10 or 20 years in this country and do not want to see us turn back the clock as is being proposed by the Republican leadership in this budget and these appropriation bills. I just want to summarize, if I could, because again I do not want to use all the time allotted to me, but I do want to summarize, if I could, some of the major provisions, some of the major changes that the National Wildlife Federation in its report points out are occurring or will occur if this Republican budget is passed, if these Republican appropriation bills are passed. Congress' fiscal year budget bill that we have talked about and the five appropriation bills discussed in this report contain changes in environmental, public lands, wildlife, and natural resources policy that would do the following, and let me just list some of these: First, it would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. Many are not aware that in Alaska the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge now is a very pristine area where oil and gas drilling is not allowed. This would allow it to occur. Second, the budget and appropriations would trigger sale of public lands under an industry-sponsored rewrite of the 1872 mining law. Essentially, what we are doing is giving away a lot of our public lands. It would also end the EPA's enforcement of wetlands law, very important in my home State of New Jersey. We have a lot of area that needs to be protected, a lot of wetlands that could be the subject of development, and right now the EPA provides a certain amount of protection for those wetlands. That would be eliminated under this budget and under these appropriations bills. It would also slash national wetlands inventory funding by 48 percent, reduce wetlands habitat conservation funds by 24 percent, and cut endangered species funding. Right now we have a very good endangered species protection program. This would cut out a lot of the funding for that protection. It would also suspend new listing for imperiled species and terminate endangered marine species research. It would slash funds for stabilizing world population by 38 percent. The United States contributes through international organizations in efforts to basically support family planning around the world, in many parts of the world. That is also slashed by a third under this budget. The Republicans would also reduce the Superfund budget by $400 million. We have in the United States and at the Federal level now a program that seeks to clean up the most seriously polluted hazardous waste sites pursuant to what is called the Superfund Program. The program has been successful in starting and in many cases actually completing the cleanup of many of these hazardous waste sites around the country. That budget would be reduced by $400 million under this proposal. It also stops new cleanups at hazardous waste sites, so if you are not already a Superfund site, the site cannot be added to the Superfund list for possible cleanup. It increases timber cuts in the Tongass National Forest. It cuts funding for drinking water and wastewater treatment. In my own area, I represent a good part of the New Jersey shore. We have made great progress in cleaning up our water, basically because of grants and loans from the Federal Government to upgrade sewage treatment plants. These are severely slashed under this budget proposal. It also cuts enforcement for strip mining law by 28 percent. It cuts funds for international environmental programs by 32 percent. It allows agribusiness to avoid $117 million in repayment obligations in unbudgeted new Army Corps of Engineers construction projects, and cuts global climate change research funds. Those of you who have been reading the newspapers in the last few weeks have noticed, I am sure, there has been a lot of information that has come out about how global climate changes are having negative impact on the environment around the world. We have contributed over the years to research on an international basis to try to study the problems related to global climate change. Again, that is cut significantly by this budget bill and by some of the appropriations. The list goes on and on. I do not want to continue going through it tonight. I think it is important over the next few weeks, as the negotiations take place between President Clinton and the Congress over where this budget bill is going and how a compromise is going to be achieved, that we continued to prioritize environmental protection, that we do what is necessary to make sure that Medicare and Medicaid are good programs and continue to serve our senior citizens and our low income people, because ultimately, I believe that if environmental protection is significantly degraded or if our health care system is significantly impacted in a way that the quality suffers or a lot more people are no longer eligible for health insurance, that ultimately, if any of those things happen, it is going to impact every American, and it is going to impact the quality of life for every American. So I think we need to continue to speak out to say that it is very important that money be put back in the budget for those health care programs, for environmental protection, and the easiest way to do that is to eliminate these tax breaks for wealthy Americans.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, it is crucial in the budget negotiations that are now taking place that the amount of the tax breaks for wealthy Americans be reduced in order to provide sufficient funds for Medicare and Medicaid. Otherwise, seniors and low-income Americans will not have quality health care, or in many cases will not have any health care at all. As we see from this scale that we have shown before, the amount of tax breaks almost equals the amount of Medicare cuts for seniors. if we do not reduce this, there is no way we are going to have sufficient funding for both Medicare and Medicaid. The Treasury Department recently came out with some statistics that showed conclusively that the Republican tax cut is heavily weighted toward the rich. they estimated that the richest 1 percent would rake in almost twice as much, or 17 percent of the tax cut. Mr. Speaker, the message has to go to these budget negotiators that they have to reduce these tax breaks for wealthy Americans if Medicare is going to survive, if Medicaid is going to survive, and if we are going to continue to provide quality health care under those two Federal programs.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased to see that the VA-HUD appropriations conference report, which, of course, includes funding for the Environmental Protection Agency, was recommitted to conference today, primarily because of two provisions related to the Environmental Protection Agency. One is that the amount of money that is appropriated to the EPA is probably one of the lowest amounts for any agency, and specifically with regard to enforcement, there is a 25-percent cut in terms of the EPA's enforcement. Already we know that the EPA has cut back significantly on inspections and on enforcement because of the level of funding that they have received pursuant to the continuing resolution. In other words, as we proceed in trying to put together an appropriations bill for the EPA, less money can be spent on a monthly basis since October 1, because we have not had an appropriations bill signed into law. Mr. Speaker, the point I was trying to make is that this conference report, which fortunately was sent back to conference today, cuts back on EPA's enforcement ability by about 25 percent. Since we are already into fiscal year 1996 and we are operating on a continuing resolution which significantly cuts back the amount of money available to the EPA, already inspections and other enforcement actions have been reduced at the Environmental Protection Agency. This 25-percent cut in enforcement will simply magnify that problem. What it means essentially is that, although we have good environmental laws on the books, they cannot be enforced. Polluters will go free, and there will not be the ability for the EPA to go in and even know exactly what is going on, whether someone, for example, is violating their discharge permit into waters. In addition to the problem with enforcement, this House has several times, at least on two occasions now, voted to take out riders that were in the EPA appropriations bill which I characterize as anti- environment, because they prohibit the agency from actually enforcing certain actions pursuant to the current law. Yet, we know that of the 17 House riders that were in the EPA appropriations bill, two of them remain in the conference report, and at least half of them have been placed into what we call report language. They are not actually in the law, but they are placed in the conference report, and normally Federal agencies have some sort of requirement to try to go along with what the report, what the conference report language says. Specifically, there are two provisions, two of the riders that are still in the bill and I hope will be taken out when this bill goes back to conference. One of the two would essentially say that the EPA has no ability to enforce wetlands protection. Right now the EPA has the authority under certain circumstances to permit the filing in of wetlands where the agency feels there has been substantial or will be substantial detriment to the environment. That has been taken out; that rider is still in the bill, but that prohibits the agency from providing any kind of wetlands protection. The other rider that still is in the bill is one that would prohibit the designation of new Superfund sites. Again, if we are supposed to use a scientific basis, which we traditionally have, for deciding whether or not a hazardous waste site would be put on the national priority list for Superfund status, then there is no reason why an appropriations bill, or a conference report in this case, should specifically say that no new Superfund site can be designated. In addition, through, Mr. Speaker, there are at least another eight or nine riders that are put into what we call report language. These are essentially loopholes that are created to provide [[Page H 13765]] special treatment; for example, utilities and other industries seeking to prevent the EPA from expanding its disclosure program under the Community Right To Know Act, refineries facing compliance with air toxic emission standards, cement kilns that burn hazardous waste, air permitting programs for the State of Virginia, bioengineering plants, State audit shields for polluters, natural gas processors. In each case there is conference language requesting the EPA to create loopholes or other special treatment in these various categories. Essentially, Mr. Speaker, I believe very strongly that since agencies are supposed to follow the dictates of the appropriators, this shift to report language, taking the riders out of the statute but putting in the report language, really means that a lot of the damage will still be done to the environment. I hope that the conferees, when this bill goes back to committee, will make some additional changes so we have more money for environmental protection.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the bill primarily because of the impact on the environment. No other agency faces the type of cuts in this House that the EPA does in this conference report. It has already been mentioned that EPA funding is cut by approximately 20 percent, with enforcement being the hardest hit in terms of cuts, almost 25 percent. We all read in the New York Times last week that the EPA has had to cut back on inspections and enforcement already. This will only make it worse. In addition, more than half of the original 17 antienvironmental riders have been included either directly or through report language in this conference report. Since agencies often have to follow the dictates of the appropriators, this shift to report language in my opinion does not mean that the damage to the environment will be any less. So I ask once again that we oppose this bill and that it go back to conference to improve in particular the funding for the EPA.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, right now the budget negotiations have begun, and I was very pleased to see that President Clinton over the last few weeks specifically identified the environment and protection of the environment as one of the key issues or one of the key priorities that must be maintained and strengthened during these budget negotiations. Today, Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity to vote on the appropriations conference report that contains the budget for the EPA. Unfortunately, inconsistent with the President's priorities and concern for the environment, this Republican leadership measure would actually reduce funding for the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, by 21 percent over last year. And specifically for enforcement, the amount of money that is appropriated is even less; and for the Superfund Program, very important to my State and many parts of the country, the funding is reduced by 19 percent. The President has already said that he intends to veto the EPA appropriations bill, and well he should.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, this week, we will be addressing the remaining appropriations conference reports, including the VA-HUD appropriations conference report which provides funding for the Environmental Protection Agency. Unfortunately, our environmental laws have taken blow after blow in the 104th Congress as bills spiked with antienvironmental measures pass the House floor, both out in the open as in the Clean Water Act reauthorization or through more mischievous measures, as through appropriation and budget bills like the VA-HUD conference report that we will be voting on this week, most likely tomorrow. No other Government agency is facing the kind of cuts that are included in this bill for the EPA. The bill cuts funding for the EPA to set and enforce environmental and public health standards for air pollution, pesticides, and clean and safe water by 17 percent from what the President proposed. Hazardous waste site cleanup is being cut by 25 percent, slowing efforts to make the Superfund Program faster, fairer, and more efficient. And EPA's enforcement funding is being hit even harder, with a 27- percent cut in enforcement of all environmental programs. On top of all the direct cuts to EPA's budget, this bill cuts by 30 percent funds that go straight to the States to help keep raw sewage off beaches and out of waterways. And State loan funds for use in protecting community drinking water nationwide are reduced by 45 percent in this bill. Restricting the EPA's ability to implement environmental protection programs and reducing funding to the States, in my opinion, is nothing less than an unfunded mandate on the States to maintain environmental quality. In the majority of cases where adequate Federal funds are not made available, State funding just is not there. This means that a virtual environmental protection vacuum will be created by this bill, where polluters get off scot free at the expense of environmental quality, and human safety and health. One must ask why funding for environmental protection is being targeted or why after three votes to remove restrictive riders from the VA-HUD appropriations bill, the majority of the riders were simply moved to report language and several riders still remain as actual legislative language in the bill. For example, incorporated in this bill is a rider that prevents EPA from stopping dumping of potentially harmful fill into wetlands. EPA is by no means overly zealous in its use of this authority over wetlands, and only 11 times in the history of the wetlands program has it stepped in to veto this type of dumping. Even in New Jersey, a State with one of the most stringent wetlands programs in the country, 94 percent of all wetlands permit applications are approved. So why is it necessary to put a rider in this bill prohibiting the EPA from protecting wetlands? Another measure that does not belong in this bill is the prohibition of EPA's authority to add hazardous waste sites to the national priority list under Superfund. The Superfund listing process is strictly scientific now. There are those in this Congress, however, who seem determined to politicize the process by placing all sorts of restrictions on listing Superfund sites. My committee, the Committee on Commerce, is now reviewing the Superfund Program, and I maintain the legislative process should simply be allowed to run its course. If this conference report is passed in its current form, the EPA's hands will be tied and the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink will suffer dramatically. I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill and send it back to conference in order to restore the EPA's ability to effectively protect the health and safety of our environment and our constituents. Essentially, if we send the bill back to conference again, those who represent the House and the Senate can get together and come up with a better bill that does not cut enforcement for environmental protection as much, that provides sufficient funding to the States so that they can continue to maintain a quality environment. This is what we should be doing in this Congress instead of passing this bill.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I have been very critical of the Republican budget plan because I believe that it cuts Medicare in order to provide major tax breaks primarily for wealthy Americans. This of course is disputed by some of the Republican leaders, most notably the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Archer], who is the chairman of the Republican, or in this case, the House Committee on Ways and Means, the tax-cutting committee. The New York Times last week put out an editorial based on the Treasury Department's figures. Basically the Treasury Department shows that in fact the tax breaks are primarily for the wealthy in this Republican bill. It says in the New York Times editorial that the Treasury estimated that the richest 1 percent would rake in almost twice as much, or 17 percent of the tax cut under the bill. Indeed, under the Republican bill the poorest 20 percent of families, taken as a group, would pay higher taxes as a percentage of their income. The Treasury figures are solid evidence that the Republican tax cut is heavily weighted toward the rich. As we proceed over the next 2 weeks in this budget battle, in negotiating a compromise, I am very hopeful that we will see a lot of money brought back into Medicare, to make sure that the Medicare Program is viable, and that we cut back on these tax breaks for wealthy Americans. It is not fair to cut Medicare and essentially destroy it at the expense of the average American in order to finance tax breaks primarily for those wealthier members among us.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank the gentlewoman again for emphasizing those priorities that are now in that continuing resolution. The last one that I wanted to mention, and the one she has already mentioned, is in regard to the environment. Again, the President reiterated that one of the problems that he has with this Republican budget that was adopted today is that it cuts funding or assumes cuts in funding for environmental programs too much. Perhaps the best example of that, again, which was alluded to by the gentlewoman, was this appropriations bill. We call it the VA, HUD and other independent agencies appropriations bill, which was supposed to come up today but was pulled from the floor, apparently because the Republican leadership does not have the votes. I want to say thank you for the fact that they do not have the votes because this is a very bad bill, particularly with regard to the Environmental Protection Agency. What it does with regard to the EPA is essentially decrease EPA funding by about 20 percent. In that funding cut, amongst the money that has been cut, the hardest hit is enforcement, which is cut almost 25 percent. I have said over and over again on the floor of this House, and will continue to say, what is the point of having good environmental laws if you do not have the money to hire people to go out and enforce those laws? It is like basically saying to the polluters, ``It's OK, you can do whatever you want, because we're not going to come after you, we're never going to indict you or punish you for violating the law.'' That is essentially what this bill says. It also makes particularly deep cuts in aid to the States for water pollution control. I find that particularly offensive because my district is largely along the Atlantic Ocean and also along the Raritan Bay and Raritan River, and we have benefited tremendously the last few years from Federal funding for upgrading our sewage treatment plants and for other provisions that make it easier for us to enforce our water quality standards. As a result, in Jersey and particularly in my district the ocean water quality has improved, the bay has improved and the river has improved. That has meant a lot to us economically because we depend on tourism for a good part of our income. Back in the late 1980's when I was first elected to the House of Representatives, we had our beaches closed for most of the summer because of the poor water quality. That has not happened again because the water quality has improved, and largely because of Federal dollars that went back to the States for water pollution control and also because of improvements in enforcement. The last thing that this appropriation bill does that I want to mention, it does a lot of horrible things to the environment, but another one that is particularly important to my district and something that I care a lot about is the Superfund Program. It is a number of years ago now that the Federal Government established a Superfund Program, which is essentially what it is, a Superfund, a large pot of money that is used to clean up the worst hazardous waste sites around the country in all 50 States. This appropriations bill that gladly was pulled from the floor today, but I am sure is going to come back, it makes a 19-percent cut in funding for the Superfund Program. What that essentially means is that the only sites that will be cleaned up are the ones that are already on the Superfund list. In fact, it actually says that the EPA cannot add a new hazardous waste site to the national priorities list for cleanup unless the State's Governor requests it. So basically what they are trying to do here, what the Republican leadership is trying to do, either through this appropriation bill or ultimately when they reauthorize the Superfund Program, is to basically say, ``This is a closed shop. We're not going to establish any more Superfund sites,'' in an effort to try and save money. That is not the way to go about handling a program which has been very important to many States, particularly in my home State of New Jersey, and it is also not a very rational or scientific way to proceed to simply say, ``Well, if you didn't get on the list now, we're not going to put you on the list anymore because we don't have any more money to pay for cleanup.'' Mr. Speaker, I would just like to conclude by saying I know that this budget bill passed today. It is a bad bill. The President is going to veto it. As the gentlewoman from Texas said, we hope that in the continuing resolution we establish the priorities, which are to preserve Medicare, to provide adequate funding for Medicaid, to provide enough funding so that we can have a good Student Loan Program and that we can protect the environment. I am hopeful that after the President vetoes this bill, serious negotiation will take place to emphasize those priorities and not use this budget as a way to simply provide more money for wealthy Americans through tax breaks.