Ralph Regula

Mr. REGULA

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

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, we have to rise and object to this amendment. We are faced with $15 billion in backlog maintenance in our parks, in our forests, and our other Federal agencies. In 1999 every State had a surplus. All States have a surplus. Forty-nine States had a surplus in 1998. It seems to me it is time for them to measure up in meeting their own needs. The fact of the matter is they probably ought to send us some money to support our parks, because every national park, every national forest, every fish and wildlife facility, every BLM is in a State, and it is providing recreation. It is providing all kinds of benefits for the people of these States, and I think these facilities need additional support. The States should accept responsibility. I can remember when there was a State-side program. A lot of the money went into golf courses, marinas, swimming pools, tennis courts, and other facilities of that type. I do not think it is the Federal responsibility to fund these programs for the States. They should meet their own needs. They have the money to do it with. Thirteen States had a surplus in excess of $1 billion in 1998. Twenty-one States had a surplus in excess of 10 percent over their annual funding. One State has three times what it needs to manage its annual budget. Yet here we are talking about sending out some of the desperately needed money that we should use for additional land acquisition, where we have inholdings in our parks; to meet the maintenance needs of our parks; to do a responsible job of managing these parks. For these reasons, Mr. Chairman, I think that the States should take their own responsibility and use their surplus funds to meet their needs, because many of these programs are coordinated with the Federal facilities, and certainly it is something that they have the resources to do that with. The responsible position on this amendment is to vote ``no,'' to retain these funds for the Federal challenges that we have. And, of course, the offset is fossil energy. This is an important program. The fossil energy program guarantees our future in terms of energy. Just this week it was announced that the price of gasoline was going up. How do we know there will not be another OPEC crisis? In this bill we are trying to provide the resources to DOE to ensure that that does not happen. If the States are to continue that kind of prosperity that is giving them these huge balances, they need to have a strong economy. A strong economy is built on energy all across the board. And to take a bite out of fossil energy research is certainly shortsighted in this day and age, because we have no idea what the needs will be. Our energy programs are not only useful in terms of developing new techniques to use the resources we have, coal, natural gas, and the other types of energy that is part of the ownership of the United States, but these programs also generate jobs in the United States because we sell this technology to other countries. China, with 1.2 billion people is very energetically trying to get into the 21st century, and they need power. They need to use their coal resources. They will buy the technology that we develop in our fossil programs. That is good for America and good for jobs.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, on that I reserve a point of order.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, if my colleague likes, we have one, an amendment from the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. McCrery), which I will offer; and we are going to accept it. And the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) has an amendment he wants to offer, and we could do UPARR.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw the point of order.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on this amendment.

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

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman makes a good point. We would hope that if there are additional funds available, that we might be able to do this. The Great Lakes are a very precious resource. Water, I think, generally is going to grow in its importance. Therefore, one of the great efforts we should make as a Nation is to preserve freshwater supplies. We have heard the stories that some States want to build pipelines up to the Great Lakes to tap into that water supply, and we have a responsibility to this Nation to maintain and improve the quality of our freshwater lakes and supply that is part of our Nation's resources.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such additional time as I may consume. I want to talk about some positive things we observed during our visit to parks and forests in the Northwest. We saw a lot of volunteers there. I think one of the great stories of this bill and of our public lands is how many people, particularly senior citizens, volunteer their time. One gentleman at Mount St. Helens who was telling the people all about what had happened there said he drove 60 miles each way every day to come up there and lecture, and he did a great job. He is doing this as a volunteer. We are advised there are almost 300,000 people who volunteer their time, their energy and their knowledge serving in our public lands. I think that is a great story about the American people. Secondly, in the number of visitors, we had over 1 billion 225 million visitor days in our public lands. I think this, too, illustrates how much the American people care about these lands. Lastly, a little vignette that I observed at one of the places where they have the recreation fee demo program. They also had a place one could deposit some extra money if one chose to do so, and the jar was getting pretty well filled up, which said people are not only willing to pay a pretty modest fee, which they knew would stay in the parks or the forests or the wildlife refuges or BLM, as the case might be, but they also want to contribute some extra money. So I think there are some really positive dimensions to this whole program in terms of how the American people feel about their public lands. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman was critical of the legislature for taking the money back, but I would have to point out that if this were to be done on a substantial scale, we ought to take it out of the 378 national parks. It has to come from somewhere. I know initially it is possible, but in setting up priorities, it could very well come out of parks.

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

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, the Land and Water Conservation Fund was reduced from 300 million to 25 in a Democrat Congress under the leadership of Mr. Yates, and I believe the gentleman in the well was a Member of the House at that time. I wonder how he felt about it at the time.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, it is not just the United States that needs clean energy technology but that the rest of the world have it because otherwise we pay the price along with their own people.

Mr. REGULA. I thank the gentleman for yielding. It just struck me that we visited Mount St. Helens last week and they said that some of the ash from that disaster went all the way around the world and came back to Mount St. Helens. That illustrates how pollution travels worldwide. The point the gentleman makes is absolutely correct.

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

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I think it depends on the definition of the gentleman of ``conservation.''

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, that is correct. But we are also spending a lot of money on maintenance and conservation, which was part of the intent.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, that is correct.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I think the point the gentleman made, it is the ``Land and Water Conservation Fund.'' Conservation includes taking care of maintenance. It means conserving the resources. We are using the money in this way. We did not use all of it to buy land, but we use it for conservation of our national resources.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I am advised that they are using some of the rec. fee money for immediate solutions or assistance. The gentleman makes the point that we otherwise would be waiting, and this is a peak visitation time of year. So I am pleased that they are moving ahead and again serving the public, which was the objective of this program to begin with.

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

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I appreciate the gentleman's comments, and based on that we accept the amendment.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt), a valued member of the subcommittee.

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. For the Members' information, what we plan to do is to rise from the Committee temporarily so that we can file Treasury Post Office, and we will then reconvene. We have about four amendments that I think will be noncontroversial. We will try to get those out of the way, and that will conclude the business for the evening. There will be no more votes today. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

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 the bill (H.R. 2466) making appropriations for the Department of Interior and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000, and for other purposes, and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.