Ralph Regula

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, it is our understanding, and this was negotiated with the President and the BLM last year. We put the identical language in this year. We do not think it would be appropriate next year because it is our hope that the BLM will have the resources to process the expiring grazing permits in conformance with the court's decision. Perhaps rather than remove it, we could change a word or two to give the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) some comfort to at least accomplish what we think is being the effect of the language.

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings) for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I would point out to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall), who mentioned Indian health services and so on, that we do have increases; not as much as we would like nor as much as the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall) would like, but we have increased Indian health service over last year. We have increased the BIA operation of Indian programs and we have increased BIA education. Now we are going to hear during the debate a lot about cuts, and I just want to say to all of my colleagues those cuts that they talk about will be cuts from the President's proposals. It was easy for the President to propose 1.7 million additional dollars without having to identify a source for those dollars. We have tried to work within the confines of the allocation that was provided to our committee, recognizing that it is $300 million under last year. But in the process, we have addressed the needs of the land agencies in every way. I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutsch) for his comments on the Everglades issue, and I regret, too, that there will be a point of order on the language that would give the Department of Interior a voice in the way the water is distributed, because the whole mission of the Everglades restoration is to have adequate water supply so that the ecosystem will flourish. Hopefully, in the process of a conference and final wrap-up on this bill we can get some language that will accomplish this goal in perhaps a somewhat different way, because I think all the parties on the Everglades restoration need to be at the table. The State of Florida, the Southeast Florida Water District, the mako sica Indians, but also the Federal Government, because we are putting a billion dollars of Federal money from 50 States into this restoration. The great interest on the part of most of the people across this Nation would be restoring the asset and preserving the asset known as the Everglades. So we will try to address that. I do not want to take time to get into the other merits. We will have time during the debate to discuss those. I simply want to say that I think the Committee on Rules did a great job here. They gave us a balanced rule. It is fair, as is the bill. Everybody will have their opportunity to be heard through the amendment process. Hopefully, out of all of this will come a constructive addressing of the problems that confront our national lands, almost 700 million acres.

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, tonight I bring before the House the fiscal year 2001 interior appropriations bill. Before I begin, however, I would like to take the opportunity to reflect upon the previous, including this year, 6 years. Under the rules of the House, this year is my last year as chairman of the House Subcommittee on Interior of the Committee on Appropriations. I have served on this subcommittee for the past 26 years, first as a junior member, later as its ranking member and most recently as chairman. This committee has been a labor of satisfaction for me. I believe it is a vitally important committee in the Congress; and even though I will not serve as its chairman next year, I intend to remain very involved in it and hope to continue the many positive initiatives begun over these years. Upon reflection, three themes come to mind. First, I have tried to improve management within the agencies funded in the bill. Too often, government managers do not focus on the difficult issues of responsible and accountable actions and decisions. Over my tenure as chairman, I have held 25 oversight hearings with the underlying focus on improving management. I believe these efforts are producing results. We have brought management reform to the national parks services construction program ensuring that the American taxpayer will no longer be asked to foot the bill for a $784,000 outhouse in a national park. We have eliminated duplication in our Federal agencies with the abolishment of the Bureau of Mines which had jurisdiction over programs already being conducted by OSHA, the Department of Labor and the Department of Energy. Next, over my years of service, I have grown increasingly concerned about our lack of attention to maintaining our federally owned lands and the facilities on them. Through an oversight hearing conducted by our subcommittee, I learned that I was correct in my concern. The four land management agencies, the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, provided estimates that the maintenance backlog totals nearly $13 billion. To address this unacceptable situation, our committee initiated a recreation fee demonstration program in fiscal year 1995. Under the program, the land management agencies are permitted to collect a nominal fee at up to 100 sites. The fee stays at the site where it is collected and is used at that site for maintenance or other projects to enhance the visitors' experience. The fees are expected to generate $500 million over the period of this demonstration. The fee program is working well as facilities and trails are now being maintained better today than we would have been able to do so through appropriations alone. Further, we have evidence that vandalism is down in sites where people are paying fees as they feel they have a stake in the park or forest they are visiting. Let me emphasize, however, that recreation fees are not carrying the sole responsibility for maintenance of our public lands. Under my chairmanship, our committee has set maintenance funding as a priority and over these past 6 years we have provided several hundred million dollars in maintenance funding and, most importantly, we have required the land management agencies to assess their maintenance requirements, establish common criteria for what deferred maintenance is and develop 5-year master plans to address the situation. Our attention to the maintenance issue is making a difference. Finally, each year I have brought the bill before this body for consideration, we have been faced with the difficult challenge of meeting the countless needs of the 35 agencies within the constraints of a tight budget environment. We have tried to balance these needs with the simple test: Must do items, need to do items, and nice to do items. We have always done the must do. We have done many of the need to do and some of the nice to do. Using this test as our guide, I believe our committee has done our best over these years to use the taxpayers' money wisely while meeting our Federal responsibilities. I want to express particularly my appreciation to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), who has served as the ranking member of the subcommittee. He has been a real partner, as we have worked together on a number of policy priorities of the committee, including the backlog maintenance issue. Next I would like to compliment the able staff members who have assisted during my tenure as chairman. I particularly express my appreciation to our clerk, Debbie Weatherly, as well as other subcommittee staff members, Loretta Beaumont, Joe Kaplan and Chris Topik. On the minority side, I want to thank Leslie Turner on the staff of the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), and welcome Mike Stephens, a long-time committee veteran who returned to the Committee on Appropriations this year following the retirement of Del Davis. I appreciate the professionalism of each of these people and the many dedicated hours they have provided this House over the years. Mr. Chairman, today I present before the House the fiscal year 2001 interior appropriation bill. This year, the subcommittee received more than 550 letters from Members of the House requesting funding for more than 3,400 individual items totaling $152 billion, all for interior and related agency programs. For fiscal year 2001, we received an allocation of $14.6 billion, which is $300 million below the fiscal year 2000 enacted bill. As we can see, we have had to make some tough choices, and the bill reflects this challenge. Again, I want to say the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) has been a real teammate in addressing these. I know that he has not agreed with the allocation. In some respects, I have not myself but we have made the best of what we had to work with. I think that took a real team effort. I think the fact that we have had the requests of over $152 billion demonstrates the popularity of this bill and the important projects that are out there if we had the means to provide the funding. Within the constraints of our allocation, we were unable to fund the President's lands legacy initiative. However, we have included $164 million in Federal acquisition funding and an additional $20 million for state-side land acquisition. Mr. Chairman, as we become an increasingly stressed urban population, the respite that our Federal lands offer our society becomes even more important. Recreation on these lands continue to grow. Last year, the four land management agencies received more than 1.2 billion visitors. Funding to maintain the pristine resources of these lands, from national treasures like Yosemite within our national park system, to the 93 million acres of national wildlife refuges, to the hundreds of millions of acres of BLM lands and national forests, is clearly a priority in the bill. We have provided a $62 million increase in National Park Service Operations, a $30 million increase for the Bureau of Land Management, a $22 million increase for national wildlife refuges, and a $60 million increase for the National Forest System. I emphasize that each of these land agencies receive increases to ensure that the public has a quality experience in the use of our lands. This became a number one priority given our limited resources to make sure that the places where the public interfaced with the public land, that there would be adequate money for them to meet their fixed costs, and they could maintain the staff and the quality experience that the public is entitled to. The Department of Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act is an environmental bill, and I am pleased with the work that we are doing in areas such as abandoned mine restoration, which we have increased to $198 million this year. Through the work of premier scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, we are gaining greater understanding of the earth's processes and national resources. These scientists conduct important work in the area of hazards such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, water quality and quantity and coastal erosion. The newest members of the USGS scientific team, the Biological Resources Division, are working with the land management agencies to provide the important scientific information needed to effectively manage our Nation's biological resources. I want to say we have emphasized science in our bill. We recognize that wise management requires good science. Some Members may be aware of the three funding limitations of the bill, and I understand there will be amendments offered to remove them. I remind my colleagues that these funding limitations are for 1 year only, as they are in this annual appropriations bill. They are not permanent law. They simply give the Congress more time to reflect on the issues of some of the activities taken by the executive branch. I am a great respecter of the separation of powers. Our responsibility is to make policy. The responsibility of the President and his team is to execute policy. Sometimes I think those two get confused. Of course, then we have the courts that interpret the impact of these laws. Through the Interior bill, we have the obligation of the Federal Government to meet the needs of the American Indian and native Alaska populations in the vital areas of health care and education. While I would like to have been able to do more, we have increased funding for the Indian health service by $30 million and for education programs through the Bureau of Indian Affairs by $6 million. I would mention here that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt), a member of our committee, has focused on juvenile diabetes and diabetes generally, which is a serious problem for the Native American population. Here again, we have tried to address that, thanks to his leadership. Over these past 6 years, I have worked with Members on both sides of the aisle to achieve balances on Forest Service issues where conflicting goals have often clashed. Under my chairmanship and with the support of the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), the ranking minority member, we have eliminated the $50 million purchaser road credit. That has always been a sore spot, and I am pleased that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) provided the leadership to make this problem get solved. We have reduced the annual allowable cut of timber on National Forests to 3.5 billion board feet. In fiscal year 1990, this level reached a low of 11.1 billion board feet, in other words, almost a 70 percent reduction. I think it reflects the fact that, on a bipartisan basis we have been sensitive to the environmental impact in maintaining our forests and recognizing that the forests are great carbon sequestering facilities. Finally, we are working to return accountability and sound management to the Forest Service. For years, the GAO and the Inspector General, the Department of Agriculture have been producing critical reports on the Forest Service. We all heard about those or read about them. This year the subcommittee requested assistance from the National Academy of Public Administration to make recommendations for improving this agency, and we are putting into place changes to bring true accountability to this agency. I might add here that the National Academy of Public Administration does excellent work and their service to us, to our committee has been highly commendable. Next, I call my colleagues' attention to energy research programs. The bill provides $1.1 billion for these programs. It achieves a delicate balance to meet our Nation's energy needs as we try to utilize our energy in the most efficient and lowest polluting ways possible and, at this point in time, at the least cost possible. Research on our domestic, natural, energy resources, including coal, natural gas, and oil remain paramount to the continuation of our strong economy. I remind my colleagues that this research is not the cost of research and development of renewable energy such as solar and wind power or biomass. Funding for these energy sources are contained in the Energy and Water Appropriations bill. Some of our Nation's most treasured national cultural institutions are funded in the Interior bill. I call to my colleagues' attention the fine work of the National Gallery of Art, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Kennedy Center, and the Smithsonian Institute. Each of these organizations provides a wonderful service to the American people, not just to those who visit or live in the Nation's capital; but now through the Internet and the further outreach programs, these entities are able to play a role in communities and classrooms across the country. I encourage each American to take advantage of the opportunities they offer. I want to say these agencies are doing a great job of taking their resources to the Nation through the Internet, through the outreach. I think that is highly commendable. I conclude my remarks by thanking my colleagues on the subcommittee. I have greatly enjoyed working with each of the Members. It is a great subcommittee, and particularly including my dear friend Sid Yates who retired from this House at the end of the 105th Congress following a long and distinguished career in this body and contributed much to our Nation's resources, our interior resources. What a marvelous legacy he left as a result of his chairmanship. Over these years, the Members on both sides of the aisle worked together in a bipartisan way to craft balanced bills that meet our responsibilities to the American people in managing our Federal lands, in conducting energy research, and in operating our cultural agencies. I appreciate their support and look forward to continuing to work with them in the future. Mr. Chairman, I insert for the Record a table detailing the various accounts in this bill, as follows: [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T13JN00.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T13JN00.002 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T13JN00.003 Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. REGULA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Washington for those kind remarks, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), my ranking member, for those kind comments. It really has been a great team. I failed to mention that also Lori Rowley is my staff person who works on this and does a marvelous job on my behalf as the appropriations staffer for Subcommittee on Interior. We appreciate her work a great deal. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt), an extremely valuable member of our subcommittee.

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks, and that I may include tabular and extraneous material, on the bill, H.R. 4578.

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to honor Mr. Miles Lerman for the great service he has provided this country. Few individuals can match the contributions that Mr. Lerman has made in creating and shaping the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. His efforts in turning a dream into a reality and in the museum's achievements under his guidance and leadership represent the apex of an extraordinary life. Culminating in his serving on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council since its inception in 1980 and as its chairman from 1993 until April of this year. As a native of Tomaszow, Poland, Mr. Lerman was born into a family that had, for 6 generations, operated flour mills near the site of what would become the Nazi death camp, Belzec. He was captured by the Nazis and imprisoned in a slave labor camp where he was forced to break up tombstones taken from a Jewish cemetery, some of them 300 years old, so that the Nazis could construct a highway they would use in their advancement into the Soviet Union. In 1942, he escaped, organized a resistance group, and spent the next 2 years fighting the Nazis as a partisan in the forests of southeastern Poland. Following liberation, he returned home, only to find that his mother and some of his siblings had been murdered and that the world of his youth had been virtually wiped from the map. Of the 8,000 Jews who had lived in Tomaszow, only 11 were still alive. Lerman married his wife, Chris, an Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor, after liberation. Following 8 months in a displaced persons camp, they arrived in the United States and eventually settled in Vineland, New Jersey. In recognition of his contributions to the Holocaust remembrance, in 1978 he was appointed to the advisory board of President Carter's Commission on the Holocaust. At the Commission's first meeting, he testified that in 1945, he had searched for the reason for his survival. But with the goal of creating a museum, he concluded, I feel there was meaning and purpose to my survival in being here today. Mr. Lerman quickly became a driving force in the creation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Following his service on the advisory board, he was appointed to the first Memorial Council in 1980. He has been reappointed to the council by every President since; and with each reappointment, Mr. Lerman has recommitted himself to 3 vital goals: building and securing the future of a permanent national living memorial to the victims of the Holocaust; establishing the international relationships necessary to ensure the museum's preeminence in fostering Holocaust documentation, education, and scholarship; ensuring the museum's mission of remembrance, education, and conscience is transmitted to future generations. Mr. Speaker, early on Mr. Lerman recognized that collections would be vital to the museum's creation and ultimate success. Through his hard work, the museum's collections now number more than 35,000 objects and 12 million pages of archival documents, in addition to tens of thousands of photographs, films, and oral histories. Similarly, Mr. Lerman's commitment to Holocaust scholarship led to the creation of the Museum's Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, which promotes research on the Holocaust and ensures the ongoing training of future generations of scholars. It incorporates the Lerman Center for the Study of Jewish Resistance, founded because Mr. Lerman felt strongly that this long-neglected aspect of Holocaust history merited more attention. Mr. Speaker, let me conclude my remarks by calling attention to the words of Senator Robert Kennedy taken from the Congressional Record of June 6, 1966, and I quote: First is the danger of futility, the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills, against misery and ignorance, injustice, and violence. Yet, many of the world's great movements of thought and action have flowed from the work of a single man. Thank you to Miles Lerman for being that single man, for giving so much of himself to our country. In leading the effort to create the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, not only has he been a guiding hand in the establishment of a remarkable national memorial, but in doing so, he has also provided a powerful and important reminder to all Americans of what can happen when citizens abandon their responsibilities to in a democratic society.

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 3916.

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Appropriations may have until midnight, June 1, 2000, to file a privileged report on a bill making appropriations for the Department of the Interior and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2001, and for other purposes.

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I have been a long-time advocate of 2-year budgeting as a management tool. We are the directors of the largest corporation in the world today. We collect taxes and we deliver services. The challenge to all of us is to deliver these services in the most efficient way, because the more efficient we can be in our distribution of services, the less we have to collect in taxes. I think we need to think about how we can manage these resources in the most effective way. Two-year budgeting provides that kind of opportunity. Through the first year, we would establish the appropriation for a 2-year budget cycle. I might say, I served in the Ohio State legislature. We did it that way in Ohio and it worked very effectively, and many other States operate on a 2-year budget. The second year would be devoted to oversight. In our subcommittee, we have had over 25 oversight sessions over the last several years. We have discovered that in so doing, we have found ways in which we can more efficiently write our bills to ensure that the money is used wisely and produces the greatest benefit to the people of this Nation. I think also another advantage of 2-year budgeting is that we have time to do planning. Too often I find that we are so consumed, we no sooner finish one budget than we start on another one. We do not have time to think about how we can plan effectively. Just using the Subcommittee on the Interior, for example, I think we need to think about how we can manage the resources that will leave a legacy that will be valuable to the people of this Nation 50 or 100 years from now, because what kind of a legacy they will inherit, what kind of parks and forests and fish and wildlife, and the Bureau of Land Management, the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center, the National Gallery, what they will be like 50 years from now is being decided today. Therefore, we need time to do oversight, we need time to do planning, to ensure that we get the best possible management of the resources that come our way as a subcommittee. Secondly, I think so much time is devoted to establishing budgets that we do not get the time we need to think about the ways in which we can be more effective. The other advantage I see is that the people that manage these enterprises, the superintendents of parks, the directors of the various agencies, could plan more efficiently in the purchase of products, simple things like gasoline and food and so on, if they could contract on a 2-year basis, if they could manage the resources that they are provided under our appropriations process in a way that would be most efficient in the use of these materials. A 2-year budget would give managers an opportunity to use their time, their resources in a more effective way. I suspect that most industries have longer than a 2-year budget cycle in terms of managing the resources that they have to produce products for the marketplace. I think the previous speaker, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) has a point. Perhaps we ought to try it. But I believe, based on the experience that our States have had with 2-year budgeting, that it is an effective tool in terms of management of the resources available. I believe we should certainly try this, because as government and life gets more complicated, it becomes more important than ever that we have time for oversight, that we have time to visit facilities. We have found in our subcommittee if we can get out and look at some of our facilities, if we have time to do that, that it helps us a great deal in making the decisions that will provide a legacy for future generations that we can all take pride in. Certainly, we are elected by the people, as the previous speaker said, to make policy decisions. That is the role of the Members of this body. That is the separation of powers. We constitutionally have a responsibility for policy, and the executive branch has the responsibility for executing that policy. To do it well, I believe a 2-year budget cycle would be very constructive. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the two-year budget amendment that we will consider later today. I consider two-year budgeting as a management tool. As Members of Congress, we are the directors of the largest U.S. enterprise--namely the U.S. Government. We can no longer view the federal government as just a provider of services. In today's world-- with increasing populations and increasing needs--we need to approach the federal budget in a more businesslike manner. We need to determine how we can manage resources and provide services to the American public in the most efficient way within our budget constraints. I believe that two-year budgets would provide us with a mechanism to budget more efficiently and to provide more oversight over federal spending. In the first year we would appropriate funds. The second year would be devoted to oversight and planning for the next budget cycle. A two-year cycle would reduce significantly the number of repetitive votes that Congress takes on budget issues every year. It would allow more time for oversight hearings. Since becoming Chairman of the Interior Subcommittee, I have chaired more than 25 oversight hearings to closely examine the more than 30 agencies funded in the bill. These hearings have allowed Members of the Subcommittee to explore management reforms within these agencies that encourage the agencies and programs to be run more efficiently. A two-year budget would allow for more oversight and follow-up to ensure that reforms are fully implemented. Furthermore, I believe a two-year budget process would allow agencies to be more effective. It would allow program managers and agency heads to do their planning on a two-year cycle. As a practical matter, they could contract for supplies for a two- year period instead of just one. They wouldn't spend as much time putting together a budget every year and preparing the huge budget justifications that are sent to Congress every year. A two-year cycle would give agency managers more time to engage in long-term planning and in implementing management reforms. Historically, we have not viewed the federal government as a management challenge. I believe that it is time to do so. A two-year cycle would allow the time necessary to explore and implement positive management policies for the federal government. I urge you to support the two-year budget amendment.

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. I would not see any reason why they could not. They would have to have some kind of a plan, because they are going to get a check. We want to be sure that they will match that money with their own State funds. That of course doubles the amount that will be available.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today to offer an amendment to title II requiring States to have their own State-funded land acquisition budgets in order to receive funding under the Stateside Land and Water Conservation Fund. While the current State conservation grants program provides matching grants to States and through States to local units of government for the acquisition and development of public outdoor recreation areas in and other projects, the States often do not match these funds with direct funding. In fact, few States actually use State revenues for land acquisition. According to a study by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, only 14 States fund these programs in their State budgets by direct appropriation. Many have special bond funds, lottery revenues, or even in-kind contributions in providing their required match. This fact is especially disconcerting when we learn that every State in the Nation has a balanced budget and many actually have large budget surpluses, including California and Alaska, with $3 billion each as a surplus. The States stand to receive billions of dollars in Federal funding under the provisions of this bill for 15 years. Mr. Chairman, my amendment simply requires that they match these State land acquisition funds with their own revenues. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Basically, it makes the State responsible. If they are going to receive the Federal funds, they should have a program to match it with State revenues. Of course, if the purpose of this bill is to protect the resources, as we have heard over and over tonight, to enhance the States' ability to acquire and protect the land resources in each of the respective States, they would want to have their own money. It seems to me they would want to have a plan. I think this is a very reasonable amendment and ensures that there will be good management of the Federal dollars that would be available. Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``yes'' vote for this amendment.

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

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, that is essentially right, that they have a system, and only 14 do, whereby they know where they are going to have their matching fund. Because we find many States want to use in-kind and all kinds of other various devices. If really our mission is to protect resources for the public, we would want to have an assurance that the States would have a plan before they received the Federal monies.

Mr. REGULA. What we are really saying is that they have to have created some type of fund. They can get the money for that from whatever source they choose, but they have to have a fund with the cash to match it.

Mr. REGULA. Yes, real money they will get from the Federal Government. In effect, it doubles the impact of the money that comes from the Federal government.

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, first of all, let me point out and clarify something, and that is this bill defines coastal States according to the Coastal Zone Management Act, and that includes the Great Lake States, not according to OCS Lands Act. This provision is something that was established in the bill. Mr. Chairman, let me say again this is simply a matter of fairness. Three and a half States produce 98 percent of the revenues, and yet we are proposing to share these with States, particularly the States like California and Alaska, on a much different basis. In fact, the coastal States that are producing the revenues would get less, and I do not think that is fair. I believe a vote for this amendment is a vote for fairness in the way we manage our OCS revenues. Now, having said that, I do not think the bill itself is a good bill, because we are giving away our responsibility that we are elected to do. We are creating a new entitlement, and this will just be the precursor of many more. I would urge a vote against the bill. I urge a vote for this amendment, simply to bring fairness to this legislation. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to strongly support this amendment. I think it is an excellent amendment. It points out the economic impact this could have. And I think it clearly also points out that what we are creating is an entitlement, as the gentleman from Arizona points out. This money is going to be spent if we are running a deficit and the ultimate result would be to dip into the Social Security trust fund, because we have to spend it every year. We are creating an entitlement. And I commend the gentleman for what he is proposing and I urge our colleagues to vote for it.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I regret that I do not have a copy of the letter that I received from the chairman of the authorizing committee last year requesting me to put in a number of authorizing provisions in our bill, since he seems to feel that we abused that privilege. But I am pleased that he feels we should address the backlogged maintenance. It seems to me if the gentleman is saying he wants three to one, he certainly should be supporting this amendment, which is only one for one. All we are saying in this amendment is that as we buy land, for each dollar we spend on land, we should spend $1 on maintenance. Certainly that makes a lot of sense. Here is the list: The National Park Service, $3 billion: toilets that do not work, roads that are not safe, bridges that are not safe, campgrounds that are not safe; Bureau of Land Management, $100 million; Fish and Wildlife, $790 million; the Forest Service, $8.9 billion. Yet, all of these agencies, and particularly the Forest Service, they have tripled the visitor days of the Park Service, and look how this maintenance has been neglected. We have been working at it, but if we take the money away from the Committee on Appropriations, they are not going to be able to address this. The amount the gentleman provides does not help to solve the problem, because we will have many other demands that will be made on the money available to us. What I want to read is a poll that was done by Vox Populi Communications. They did a poll on CARA. I want to read just one paragraph: ``Even more adamant,'' and this is speaking of the people who responded, ``Even more adamant was the opposition to new land acquisition and park creation in the face of a massive maintenance backlog. Simply put, by more than six to one, voters want the maintenance backlog addressed before more money is spent on acquiring additional lands or creating new parks. This desire to address present needs was consistent across gender and party lines, and even Gore supporters saying that we needed to work on current problems before buying more land.'' Yet, this bill would propose us to buy more land. It proposes to give the States money, free money, that they can spend as they choose. We keep hearing a lot about how this will enhance the resources. Maybe it will, maybe it will not. We do not know what the States will do with it once they get it. They are not that restricted under the terms of this bill. As the gentleman from Wisconsin pointed out so very eloquently, our responsibility is to take care of the 379 parks, the 200 million acres under the Bureau of Land Management, the probably almost 150 million acres in the Forest Service, and all the refuges. We created something like five last year, 30 in the past several years. We have an enormous backlog of maintenance, but we cannot do it without having money available. The bottom line of this bill is that it is going to take that money away, it is going to send it out to the States, and leave us with the lack of ability to meet these very significant needs. It seems to me as responsible government at the very minimum, if we are going to buy more land, as the amendment proposed by the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings) would provide, for every $1 we spend on land, let us spend $1 on maintenance. It makes a lot of sense in view of this $13 billion deficit. Those are safety issues. Those are the enjoyment. Go to a park, and as it was in Yellowstone, one of the campgrounds is closed because of lack of maintenance of the sewer system. That could be repeated many times over. So at least with this amendment, we get a beginning and we make sure that we are balancing off land acquisition with maintenance. I urge support for this amendment. And in view of the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) endorsing the idea of maintenance so emphatically, I would hope that he would be very supportive of this amendment because he believes in maintenance.

Mr. REGULA. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I think the decision we have today is whether we want to put the government on automatic pilot. Are we going to have more entitlement programs? When do we stop? That is what really is at issue here. We give this money to the States, about $2.4 billion. There are no restrictions. My colleagues keep talking about how we are going to save resources; the resource may be a swimming pool or a tennis court. There is no guarantee as to how it will be used. We, in our positions of responsibility, make those decisions. We are going to abdicate that responsibility to the others for $2.4 billion worth of funding, in the face of $15 billion, plus or minus, of backlog maintenance, in the face of the fact that we already give the States $1.7 billion out of the Federal resources that are generated from leases on public lands, some that comes already from drilling, in the face of the fact that every state in the Nation has a balanced budget. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen of the House, I think that we have a responsibility to set the priorities for this government, for the people of this Nation, to take care of the 379 parks that are in the portfolio, to take care of the millions of acres of national forests, of the many U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service facilities, and the lands that are under our jurisdiction, as well as the responsibility to the Indian tribes, the responsibility for the cultural institutions in this city, the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center, the National Gallery of Art, and the Holocaust Museum. They all, too, have great needs. The States should take their responsibility. We should take ours. I think to create a new entitlement could just be the beginning of many more of these. This bill is certainly a case of abdicating responsibility that we are elected to make, in terms of priority decisions and the allocation of this Nation's resources.

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