John Peterson

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, here we go again. Another effort to back-door the Kyoto treaty. The Knollenberg language that is in this bill is appropriate. It has been put into law year after year, and it says that we are not allowed to implement and spend billions of tax dollars implementing the Kyoto Protocol which has not been put before the Senate, when it has not been debated, when it is not in the appropriate setting. There is no reason for the language that is being offered. There is no good reason. There is no prohibition of exchange of information. There is no prohibition of us doing the normal things that our environmental agencies do from country to country. This creates a loophole that one could drive a Mack truck through. This administration, year after year, has budgeted billions of dollars to sell their theories, to sell the American public on this concept. Mr. Chairman, that is not what this is all about. Solemn science should rule and we should have a scientific debate. Most of America is concerned about this proposal that is before us right now. The people that create the jobs in this country realize that the Kyoto Protocol, as implemented by the back door as the Gore administration wants to do, will take jobs out of this country and put them into Third World countries faster than anything that has been done. The Kyoto Protocol, as was mentioned the other day, is a horrible idea. It is a horrible concept. It leaves the Third World countries out and will have our businesses buying credits from them so they can continue to process and manufacture in this country. It makes no sense and we must not let this administration implement it in the back door.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise to make sure today that everybody in this body understands a serious problem for a family in State College, Pennsylvania; and a problem for, I think, the security of this country. On my left is Edmond and Cheri Pope. They are a couple who have lived for many years in State College, finished raising their family there, highly regarded and respected there. Edmond Pope was a businessman who traveled the world, often went to Russia to do business. Eleven weeks ago, Edmond Pope was arrested and thrown in a Russian prison. For 11 weeks, Cheri, his wife, had no communication, could not get a letter to him, could not get a phone call to him, could not get any kind of communication from him; really did not know what was happening to her husband. Visas were canceled. Finally, last week, I helped arrange a trip where two of my staff went with her. She went to visit her husband for the first time in 11 weeks. I will just read to my colleagues a little bit of a news story on that. ``On Tuesday, they met for the first time in 3 months, just a few feet from a watchful prosecutor in a Lefortovo prison. Edmond and Cheri Pope hugged and belatedly wished each other a happy 30th anniversary. Then Cheri Pope said the first thing he said to me was, `Cheri, I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't,' and I said to him, `I never thought for a minute you did.' '' In an emotional interview on Tuesday after that reunion, Cheri Pope said that her husband, whom the Russians had accused of spying, was strikingly thinner, and he had a rash. He had lost a lot of weight, and he has a pallor about him and some skin problems. She said, ``Even though he didn't look well, he still looked beautiful to me.'' The last time she saw her husband was March 14 as he was leaving their home in State College, Pennsylvania on what seemed to be another routine trip to Russia, his 27th. While Redmond Pope remained cut off from the world in one of Russia's most infamous maximum security prisons, Cheri Pope struggled through months of anguish, grasping morsels of information while trying to cut through an international maze of red tape to visit him. Over the weekend she was minutes away from boarding a plane for the long-awaited meeting, when her son called her to tell her her 74-year-old mother had passed away. What a decision Cheri had to make. She knew that she had to go and encourage her husband, and that is what she did. Edmond Pope needs to come home. He needs to come home to his wife, to his children, to his seriously ill father of 75 years; he needs to come home so his health can be monitored and maintained. He has had cancer that was arrested, he has Graves' disease, but he needs to be monitored closely. He is not a spy. His itinerary was printed and available, his visa explained why he was there. It was his 27th trip. In fact, his friends and neighbors tell me that he spoke fondly of the Russians. He wanted to help build a business relationship between these two countries. He was helping take Russian technology and helping them commercialize it. Edmond Pope is no spy. He does not belong in a Russian prison. I will be sending a letter to be delivered to Mr. Putin the first of this week, and it will say, President Putin, if you value our friendship, send Edmond Pope home. It will say, President Putin, if you value the growing business relationships beneficial to both of our countries, send Edmond Pope home. It will say, President Putin, if you value the many ways we aid you financially, send Edmond Pope home. I will be asking this body, Mr. Speaker, next week to get unanimous consent to pass a Sense of the Congress resolution, again, for this Congress speaking to Mr. Putin and the Russian leaders that it is time to send Edmond Pope home. Edmond Pope is a man who was there on sound financial business reasons. He is not a spy. He needs to be home with his family to help his grieving wife. He needs to be home to visit his father, who is seriously ill. He needs to be home to have his own health monitored, and he needs to be home so that the relationships between Russia and America continue to grow and prosper to the benefit of both. Edmond Pope is no spy. Edmond Pope does not belong in a maximum security prison in Russia where he got very little care. Edmond Pope needs our help and our support. Mr. Putin, send him home.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. As usual, I find this a very interesting and stimulating discussion. We never really have the time to get into the details, because it is very complicated. But why should we be suspicious of language changes, as we were here, when we received the recent language change? The Clinton-Gore administration year after year in their budget process have tried to fund implementation of the Kyoto Treaty. It was obvious that there were billions of dollars tucked into our budget originally, a treaty that he did not present to the Senate, a treaty that was not debated and properly approved. I guess the question I would ask is why would any bright representative of our government agree to such a horribly flawed concept as the Kyoto Treaty? This is an agreement negotiated by our Vice President who would force American businesses to purchase credits from Third World developing countries who are not a part of the agreement. Now, think about that. We debate foreign aid here a lot. We are going to be requiring American businesses under this agreement to be giving dollars to foreign-country developing businesses to compete with us. Horribly flawed concept. Now, I do not have time to get into detail, but we just heard from the last speaker about such agreement. More than half of the scientists in this country do not agree to the global warming concept. It is a debate that should continue. But there is not agreement out there. In fact, the evidence shows that most of the warming was preindustrial age, not since we have been into fossil fuels in the last few decades. This CO2, this evil force that we are proclaiming, it is what is needed for plant life in this country. It is what makes vegetation grow. Vegetation makes the exchange from CO2 to oxygen. It is part of the life chain. Many of those who are crying scare tactics on this are also against cutting forests, but young growing forests are the best exchanger and absorb more CO2 and give us more oxygen back. This is a debate that unfortunately has not happened in this Congress. But we continually hear the scare tactics that the seas are rising, the shorelines are going to disappear, and that this country is going to be in a disaster state. Mr. Chairman, I say to my colleagues, that is far from a fact, and we should not be scaring people into this. This is a legitimate discussion we should have, and no administration should be allowed to use funds to sell their theory. They can exchange ideas with other countries, there is no prohibition of that. But they should not be using resources to sell their global warming scare concepts.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I join to oppose the DeFazio amendment for the following reasons: How dependent do we have to get on unstable parts of the world before it concerns us? In my view, there is no issue facing America more important than energy self-sufficiency. Just a year and a half ago we had $10 oil, and we had it for quite a while. We became drunk on cheap oil in this country. We had no energy policy, we had no incentives for production in this country, and our dependency continues to grow. In a few short months, unstable parts of the world that we cannot trust suddenly engineered price increases that tripled the price of oil will per barrel. There is nothing to prevent them from doubling it again. What would happen to the American economy if oil became $60 a barrel? It could devastate the economy of this country. I am not opposed to where the gentleman is putting the money. I am very pro recreation. But I cannot support taking the money away from energy self-sufficiency when we have allowed ourselves to become dependent on parts of the world that we cannot trust, that are unstable, and who care nothing about our future. I believe it is very poor public policy to take money out of energy self-sufficiency, to take money out of improving our own ability to produce oil. We are looking at sonification, where we would double and triple the amount of money that we would get out of existing old oil wells without drilling new ones. We are looking at sonification programs that have a lot of promise by using soundwaves down the well hole where we would drastically increase the amount of oil we got out of those wells, reviving many old wells in this country. Now, it needs a little more work. It needs a little more research. Those are the kind of projects we need to be dealing with. Those are the kind of incentives. There has been no incentives in this country. $10 oil destroyed this country's oil business. We do not have rigs in this country to drill. We have a fraction of the rigs to drill wells that we used to. We are on a course and the DeFazio amendment will push us down that road to where we will be dependent on Iraq and Iran and countries like that for our economic future, and it is ludicrous.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I think it is an indictment of the Clinton-Gore administration with a complete lack of energy policy and an inappropriate management of research dollars. Yes, I think it is an indictment of the last 5 years previous to that of this administration, who had had no energy policy and helped us become dependent on foreign countries.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, the gentleman absolutely misses the point. With $60 oil, people are not going to be able to afford to go on vacation, people will not get out to have recreation, people will not be running motorboats, people will not be having vehicles out there driving. I want to tell my colleagues, if it does not scare them when oil can go from $10 a barrel to $32 a barrel in a few short months because foreign countries like Iran and Iraq can manipulate this country, if that does not scare my colleagues in the future, I do not know what does. We have the ability in this country in environmental and sound ways to produce a lot more of our oil. If we produce 60 percent of our oil instead of 48 percent of oil, we would be less dependent on these unstable parts of the world. I think that is a greater threat to our economic future and the defense of this country than any other foreign power. I think the energy crisis that is looming out there and our vulnerability to it, and there is no reason that we cannot have $40 oil in a month. We can have $50 oil in 2 months. All they have to do is slow down what they are going to sell us, and we are vulnerable; and there is nothing we can do about it. And until we become more self-sufficient and get people we can purchase oil from that are our friends that we can trust, we better be investing in our own security and our ability to produce energy.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I think it is important to counteract the comment that has been made that this is just a handout to large oil companies. The vast majority of oil and gas produced in America is by small independent producers with less than 20 employees. Eighty percent of these independent companies are family owned. They are small companies that drill 85 percent of the new wells in this country. Not many wells have been drilled. Of the oil research projects funded in this bill, more than 95 percent of them will be carried out by small independent companies, oil field service companies, universities, and laboratories. They also deal with fuel efficiency. They also deal with cleaner burning of fuels. That is what we are taking money from. Mr. Chairman, this is a bad amendment. The people who have offered it do not understand who produces energy in this country. I come from the original oil patch where the Quaker States and the Pennzoils began, where all the energy began in this country, in western Pennsylvania. The oil was never produced by them. The vast majority was produced by little mom and pops. It is true across this country, in the Texas and the Oklahomas. Most of it is individuals, small companies. It is not the majors. The majors are the marketers and the sellers. They do not produce the energy in this country out of the ground, the vast majority of it. We need to be more fuel efficient. We need to be using fuels and burning them cleaner. We need to continue to research. Just like we have realized that in health, research is vital to the health of this country. Research is vital to the economic health and being energy efficient in this country and being energy self-sufficient. If we follow the course of those who want us to stop producing oil energy in this country, this country will have no future. I certainly do not want to depend on the Irans and the Iraqs and countries like that for our future. Today we are. They can turn the key. They can make us squirm in a moment. They could double our energy costs in the next 2 months. We must not let that happen.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, the issue of fish and wildlife management is what we are talking about. I ask all Members, how much time do you spend in the forest? I am not a golfer, I am a gardener, and I have spent a lot of time in the forest. I grew up as a youngster, I camped out in the forest more than I did anything else. I have always loved nature and the forest, and a healthy forest is the most important thing to fish and wildlife management. A healthy forest is the most important thing to fish and wildlife management, and we do not have a healthy forest in this country, not what we should have. It was already mentioned, 65 million acres at risk; 39 million for fire, 26 million with disease- insect infestation, and 1,200,000 acres have burned this year. How much wildlife and what kind of quality of streams do you have in a forest that is burned? A few years ago I was with the Speaker and the leaders of the House, and we were out in Idaho and went over the burned area, 400,000 acres. There was not a blade of grass, there was not a live tree, there was no greenery. The streams were sliding into the rivers, the rivers were ruined, the streams were decimated, and wildlife was not there. A healthy forest will bring us the fish and wildlife management that we need. Let us look at the record. Our forest is growing by 23 billion board feet a year. We have six billion board feet that blow down and die annually, and we are cutting less than three billion, so we are having a net gain of 14 billion board feet a year on Forest Service land. Over the last 5 years, that is an average. That is 70 billion board feet of additional timber than we had 5 years ago. And the wildlife will be flourishing on the land that is healthy. Wildlife will be extinct, will not be endangered, it will not be there, and the fish will not be there when a forest burns. Where do you find grouse in the woods? Where do you find deer, wild turkey, and song birds? Where the forest has been adequately pruned and the forest is healthy. Somebody else mentioned, you do not hear much about it, a fast growing forest that is growing fast and has been pruned is a carbon dioxide reducer. It is a carbon sink. It takes the CO2 out of the air, which we are worrying about. An old dying forest adds CO2 to the air and adds to the air pollution. Not a healthy, well-mature, well-managed growing forest. The Forest Service has 200 million acres. They have the wilderness and the roadless areas which are appropriate. The GAO study says we should be treating three million acres a year at a minimum, and we are treating about 200,000. We are not managing it, and the gentleman's amendment will prevent us from treating more, and we are treating too little already. Mr. Chairman, I understand the concept of wildlife habitat, but allow them to manage the forest adequately. Let them make the investment. Let them prune the forest where it is too thick and there is a lot of fire danger. Let them cut out the diseased trees so it does not infest the acres nearby. That is how you manage a forest, that is how you keep it healthy, that is how you have a home for wildlife and creatures. The gentleman's amendment takes us in the wrong direction. We need to be managing our forest, we need to be treating our forest. It is like a garden, and, when you ignore it, the weeds take over and you do not have much of anything. Our forest is a valuable resource for this country. It is also a job creator. We have not even talked about the economics. But areas that are basically owned by the Federal Government, there has been no dependency, because the Federal Government, you cannot depend on it to adequately market any amount of timber. Many counties in the West and parts of other States, their economies have been decimated, and for no good reason. We can manage our forests, we can prune them properly, we can enhance wildlife habitat, and we can do it without the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent for the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Hill) to offer his amendment out of order.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Thirty dollar oil has not turned a lot of them on.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, it was interesting to hear the gentleman's comments about producers turn their wells right back on. That shows the gentleman does not understand the oil industry.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane), the chairman, for putting this together tonight and for bringing this issue to this Congress. I guess a year or two ago, we heard the demagogues say that the capital gains tax did not need to be cut; that it was going to cost necessary revenues for this country to run off. It was going to cause all kinds of economic chaos. What happened when we cut the capital gains tax from 28 percent to 20 percent? It released capital. People began to sell properties and sell stocks and sell things that they paid capital gains on, because that 28 percent tax had been reduced to 20 percent. They were willing to pay 20 percent where they were not willing to pay 28 percent. What happened the first year? $38 billion of additional revenue came into the Federal Government. It did not cost to cut that tax. I think if we would have cut it to 15 percent last year as we talked, we probably would have increased revenues again. We certainly would have helped the growth of business. Today and this week we are going to be dealing with the death tax, the estate tax. We are going to hear the same arguments, we heard it tonight, that it is about billionaires. It is not about billionaires. It is about small business, small farmers, small sawmills, small manufacturers, supermarket operators, locally-owned ones, locally-owned hardware stores, the people that are in our communities that serve on our borough councils, that serve on our local advisory boards, that serve in the recreations commission that give back to their community. It is not corporate America. It is the local business people. We heard that it was about billionaires. Well, here are the numbers. 53 percent are 1 million or less, 39 percent are 1 million to 2\1/2\ million, 7 percent from 2\1/2\ million to 5 million, and 3.7 percent of the cases are over 5 million. You do not have to have a very big business today to have a couple million dollar business. You can have 4 machines in a building, a couple of trucks and some other office equipment, and you have a several million dollar business. Let us say it is a family business and the children are involved. Oftentimes, the children helped grow the business. It was a partnership between fathers and sons and mothers and daughters, and as they made this business grow and the parents passed on, the only way they could protect themselves was to spend a lot of capital and buy insurance to pay the taxes, and some do that. It takes money that they might need to buy another machine to expand to grow the business. This tax is not about large corporations. The public-held corporations do not pay this tax. And where is the future of America? The future of America is small business. The strength and growth of our economy has been new businesses. The record of new businesses is not always real good. Indirectly small business owners, the major producers of most new jobs are forced to hire fewer workers than they desire because of the high capital costs associated with death taxes. Likewise, with death of a small business owner, many employees lose their jobs when relatives of the deceased owners are forced to liquidate the business to pay the death taxes. This occurrence is not rare; 70 percent of all businesses never make it past the first generation. 87 percent do not make it to the third generation, and only 1 percent make it to the fourth generation. One of the major reasons for this phenomenon appears to be the death tax. A recent survey conducted by Prince & Associates demonstrated that 90 percent of successors to family-owned businesses that were forced to liquidate within 3 years of the original owner's death claiming that paying death taxes was one of the major culprits of the company's demise. Now, when you stop and look at our individual communities, the backbone of our communities are not the national corporations, though we are fortunate if we have a plant there, or if they have businesses there, but the real strength of our communities are the local entrepreneurs, the local businesses, the local sawmill, the local hardware store, people who have lived their life there, who are vitally a part of that community. Yes, one third of small business owners today will have to sell or liquidate part of their business to pay estate taxes. Half of those who liquidate to pay death taxes will have to eliminate 30 or more jobs. So if we want job growth, this is a tax that prohibits businesses from continuing the growth cycle they are on. Mr. Speaker, maybe they were a business that had two restaurants and were ready to go to number three, and one of the parents die, and suddenly they have to sell one of the restaurants to pay the death taxes. They stop the growth cycle whenever they were going to go to restaurant number 4 or restaurant number 5, or they were going to add machine number 5 or machine number 6 that would have employed three more people, one more for each shift, and more people for the office and more people to truck the goods in and out. It is a tax that makes no economic sense. It is also one that is not easy to collect. It costs considerable. It is 65 percent of the tax, 65 percent of the tax that is collected is costs of collection. That is not a very efficient tax. And when you want less of something, tax it heavily. When you tax something 37 percent to 55 percent, you are going to have a whole lot less of it, and that is what we are doing to successful businesses in this country. We are taxing them 37 percent to 55 percent when they want to transfer that business from the parents at their death to the children. There is nothing right about that. A study by George Mason University Professor Richard Wagner showed that eliminating the death tax would have a substantial impact on lowering the costs of capital and thus increase the health of the economy. Wagner found that within 8 years of eliminating the death tax, the gross domestic product would be $80 billion larger than expected, resulting in the creation of 250,000 additional jobs and $640 billion larger capital stock. Ladies and gentlemen, cutting this tax will not lose revenue for this country. In the long run, it will be a stimulus to our country. It will help the small businesses who are competing with the large corporate entities of this world. The future lies with the Bill Gates' of the future who may start in their garage, who may start in a little warehouse someplace in the corner of it and start to grow a new business, providing new service, with a new concept, a new idea, and when suddenly that generation passes on, the next generation can continue. Yes, even liberals support this. A University of Southern California Law Professor Edward McCaffrey, a self-described liberal, stated in testimony before the Senate Committee on Finance recently, the death tax discourages behavior that a liberal democratic society ought to like. It discourages work. It discourages savings. It discourages bequests, and it encourages behavior that such a society ought to suspect, the large scale consumption, leisure, giving of the very rich. It is a tax on working and savings without consumption. It is a tax on thrift, on long-term savings. There is no reason, even a liberal populace supports it. The current gift and estate tax does not work. It is a deep tension with liberal ideals and lacks strong popular or political support; that is from a liberal. Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for us to do away with the death tax. It will have a positive economic impact on the future growth of America. It will grow new jobs. It will inspire our economy to grow, and it is time we eliminate it.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, as we conclude this discussion on this legislation, it is one thing that is obvious to me; there is no plan, there is no focus, and that enough land is not enough land for the government to own. But the Federal Government owning a third, when we combine State and local, we are close to half. The strength of America has been private property ownership. We certainly have enough Government ownership. The example I gave of the Fish and Wildlife Service will continue. They have their own pot of money. Congress somewhere along the way erred and gave them the ability to buy land without Congressional approval. And they are going to continue to do that, five refuges a year, growing them into thousands-of-acre refuges. This we to maintain. We are building a backlog. We already have a backlog on Federal land owned from 30 to 50 billion dollars. And we just wink at that and we take every nickel and dime we have to buy more land, as if we do not have enough public land. Now, we may not always have the right land, because we do not want to trade. We do not want to have no net gain. This body has resisted anything that would bring common sense to this legislation. I urge my colleagues to think seriously that, as we obligate the taxpayers of the future, we ought to focus on what land is appropriate, and inholdings seem they ought to be first, and when we complete our inholdings we can change it and do something else, but we ought to complete what we start, we ought to inventory what we own, how much it is going to cost to maintain it, and we ought to pay for it and we ought to pay our taxes before we buy another acre of land that is PILT.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle).

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I urge the founders of this legislation to join in this amendment. Let us look at the history of PILT. Everybody says they are for PILT. PILT has never been fully funded. Why do we have PILT? We take hundreds of millions of acres out of rural counties, rural communities and we take them out of the tax base, and PILT is allowed, it says we are going to pay you so much back to help with local services. Last year, $320,000 million authorized, we only funded $135 million, and that is historic. It has never been funded. If you are serious about mandating $480 million worth of purchases by the Federal Government, $480 million worth of purchases by the States hereafter, live up to the law of PILT. Make it mandatory funding. Do not make local governments go without services, fire services, emergency services, road services without a tax base. Our rural lands that people go to, we need services. PILT was set up to pay for that. We pay pennies per acre. In Pennsylvania where I came from, we paid $1.20 an acre for every acre. That was not enough, in my view. You are taking money out of the land base. PILT is a formula to help local government provide the services that are necessary for the people who are going to use that land. In fairness, join us tonight and make PILT mandatory funding so we do not have to have this battle that we have launched year after year after year. Rural America has taken it in the neck long enough.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo).

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, how much time is remaining?

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I find it interesting, to listen to the last speaker, you would think that every person that owns a land next to Federal land who wants to sell it, the Federal Government should buy it. When the Federal Government owns a third of America, I believe we ought to focus on completing the parks, completing the areas that we have already started, completing our State parks, national parks instead of having in-holdings that are valueless to people in them. We ought to be focusing there. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the amendment before us this evening will help us to focus on our land purchases. It is my view, in America, we have not focused on what we are purchasing. It is like we purchase everything that we possibly can purchase; and sometimes it is appropriate, and sometimes it is not. We own one-third, over 700 million acres of America at the Federal level. When we add the States, we are approaching 45 percent land ownership by government. When we add local government, we are approaching 50 percent of America owned by government. So I think it is important now that we are going on a track where we are going to be purchasing a mandated amount each and every year hereafter that will be mandated through this legislation. This legislation will focus to purchase within the boundaries and including the National Park System, the National Wilderness Preservation System, the National Wildlife Refuge System, the National Forest System, the National System of Trails established by the National Trail System Act, federally administered components of the National Wild and Scenic River System, and the national recreation areas administered by the Secretary of Agriculture. It will keep us busy for many years finishing the projects we have started. I think it is important that we focus. Just a few weeks ago, at a hearing in the Subcommittee on Interior, it was obvious that the Fish and Wildlife Service is focused. They are starting five new refuges each year without legislative authority, without any approval by anybody. One was with two-thirds of an acre. In the last 6 years, they have started 30 new refuges without legislative approval. Those refuges must be maintained by the taxpayers of this country. We do not get even adequate reporting on how much it costs to maintain them and to complete them. So I think it is important in this legislation that we focus on our priorities and that we finish the projects we have started. Should we pay our current taxes before we buy more land? We had that argument earlier, and we lost it. I do not think any of us would advise our children if they could not pay their taxes to buy more land. But this Congress has never paid its taxes, which is PILT, as legislated by law to the county and townships and the boroughs across this land that lost their tax base. It is not urban America. It is not suburban America. It is rural America that continues to lose its tax base. We buy more land, and we do not pay our taxes or PILT. It is our tax payment. We should pay PILT first. We should focus on our inholdings. We should have some sense as to why we are buying what we are buying. We should put our resources to complete the projects we started. That is the reason I have offered this amendment, and I ask for your support. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas) for giving me this opportunity and for his leadership on this issue. Mr. Chairman, we have just heard a lot of rhetoric. And that is what it is. It is rhetoric. It is not fact. E-commerce is a vital building block in America's future. We are being told that the changes in the next decade will quickly overshadow the changes of the 1990s. Think about that. We are going to overshadow this progress that we have made in the last decade in a couple years. And it has been hard for me to fathom the changes that we have seen in just the last few years. What should we do? My father was an 8th-grade-educated steelworker but wise beyond his formal education. When I got in government, he said to me, Son, when you get in government, first do no harm. Do not get in the way. Do not stop progress. Do not let government overregulate, control, or tax success that is the major force in growing our quickly changing economy in this society. If we want something to slow up, tax it. If we want something to stop growing, tax it some more. If we want something to go away, tax it again and regulate it. What should we do? Well, I was a bricks-and-mortar retailer for 26 years. We heard their defense today. If I were a retailer today, I would be using e-commerce to expand my business, not for defense. By using the Internet, every American entrepreneur has the chance to go to a global marketplace without building further infrastructure. We must try to get everyone to understand the potential of the Internet, that is where we need to put our time, and teach them how it use it, promote access, and make sure they all have the fast pipeline, that they can use the Internet in the most efficient way. Let me tell my colleagues what we have not heard enough talk about is adjusting our educational system to the high-tech society of today. We are not preparing the workforce of today for the technology jobs of today. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of jobs are going begging in this country, good paying jobs, because we are not up to speed with the technology changes. So let us keep government out of the way, what we are doing with this legislation; let us not promote and allow further taxation to stop this growth; let us have incentives to educate the public so they understand how to use it and benefit from it, incentives to expand the pipeline so everybody has the high-speed pipeline; and last, but not least, drastically look at our educational system and expand technology education in this country by big numbers, because the academic system we have is not training people for the high-tech jobs of today, and the companies that are growing and paying the taxes that will fund our governments need high-tech workers that we need to make sure are available for their future.