Ralph Regula

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. In other words, they would appropriate the money?

Mr. REGULA. I think we can agree on that.

Mr. REGULA. I assume under the gentleman's bill he plans to have this money matched.

Mr. REGULA. How does the gentleman plan to do it?

Mr. REGULA. The gentleman can appropriate money.

Mr. REGULA. I think we can work it out. Of course, even with the money in the Interior subcommittee, we require a match. Sometimes it gets into, we will put up a tennis court to match what the Federal government does. We want real money.

Mr. REGULA. Exactly. We will get it worked out.

Mr. REGULA. If the gentleman will yield, Mr. Chairman, that is correct.

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

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

Mr. REGULA. That is exactly right, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, that is correct. We object to in-kind.

Mr. REGULA. What is the source of that?

Mr. REGULA. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Chairman, we want to make sure that the State is putting in the same amount of cash that the Federal government is, so that we are doubling, in effect, the impact and preserving resources for the public.

Mr. REGULA. I guess it is a matter of how we define ``foundation''. Is the foundation money State revenues?

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

Mr. REGULA. If the gentleman will continue to yield, it depends how it is earmarked. If that money was given and became part of the State's assets or Treasury, then money is money.

Mr. REGULA

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.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Idaho (Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage).

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan).

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I am in opposition to the rule because I do not think this is the kind of legislation we should be considering for a number of reasons. First of all because it creates a new entitlement program. We are elected by the people to make judgments. We are elected to take the revenues that are available to the Federal government and make priority judgments as to how best to use those revenues. An entitlement takes away the responsibility that is ours as elected representatives of the people. I recognize that the proponents have amended--changed--the bill because originally it waived the Budget Act. Now it does not. Nevertheless, it takes $2.825 billion and deposits into a new CARA fund. It does that regardless of any other needs we might have. It does this for a period of 15 years. This body would no longer be able to make priority decisions in terms of that particular amount of money for coastal protection, State and Federal land acquisition, urban park funding, historic preservation, and monitoring and protection of species under the Endangered Species Act. We have to decide whether we want to go down the path of continuing to create entitlements. We fund a number of these programs, but when we look at the Federal budget, we are only dealing now with about one- third of it as discretionary funds. About half of that goes to defense. So we are left with one-sixth of the Federal budget to meet all these needs: to properly maintain and expand, when appropriate, our 379 National Parks, our National Forests; our national wildlife refuges; our other lands, about one-third of the United States. That is just part of it. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is a responsibility of this body. The facilities, schools, hospitals are deteriorating. But we are going to take this money out of the budget of the Committee on the Interior and commit it to the States. Every State has a surplus. The State of California has a $3 billion surplus. The State of Alaska has a $3 billion surplus. In Ohio, there was a news story the other day that they are contemplating reducing taxes. The State of New York is enjoying a very substantial surplus. I could go on and on. Yet, by the testimony of Secretary Babbitt, by the testimony of the director, Bob Stanton, by the testimony of the Secretary of the Smithsonian and other agencies, we are faced with a bill for backlog maintenance of anywhere from $13 billion to $18 billion. That means we have neglected taking care of these properties. Yet, here we propose to create a new entitlement to reduce the amount of discretionary funds that we have. We have not neglected these programs in the Interior bill. We have put in $300 million to $400 million in Federal land acquisition, $40 million in State land acquisition, and other programs, such as urban parks and endangered species. But with the amount of backlog that we are facing, I think it is not a good government matter to take $2.8 billion and take it off-budget, in effect, by making an entitlement of it. Of this amount, about $2.4 billion of the CARA fund would go directly to the States. Let me point out something that is not well known. Under the present law, States receive about $1.7 billion of money that is generated by Federal leases, by Federal activities such as harvesting of forests, such as the various mining interests that take place on Federal lands and other activities. We already distribute to the States $1.7 billion, yet the CARA bill would give them an additional $2.4 billion, while we sit with all this backlogged maintenance. The end result is to take the Congress out of the decision-making process for funding natural resources programs, and it would certainly create a lot of problems in the future. Most of all, I think the principle that is involved here is wrong. It is wrong to continue to expand entitlement programs. Next year it will be some other group that says, we should have a guaranteed revenue stream, and it goes on and on. Already we have a very limited amount of the Federal budget that we have available to meet the responsibilities that we are elected to meet in terms of the natural resources of this Nation.