Ralph Regula

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to say as to Senator Dole that my observation of his service as a legislator was that of a caring person. I noticed that in his speeches, in his legislative programs, that he had a great empathy for the people of this Nation, and would reach out to them. I think it reflected his background, coming from Kansas and coming from a family and community situation where people worked hard and lived our cherished American values. Senator Dole showed these in the way that he dealt with legislative issues, that he cared about people. As far as Carl Stokes, my first term as a member of the Ohio Legislature I had the good fortune to be placed on the Judiciary Committee, and one of my colleagues was Carl Stokes. I came from a rural area, he came from Cleveland, and yet we discovered we had sympatico and we had the same concerns for people. Carl was a great warm human being, and that was reflected in his approach to legislative issues. He was helpful to me as a new member of the Committee on the Judiciary, and we became good friends. I was there when he was inaugurated as the mayor of Cleveland. Our friendship continued over the years. He visited with his family at our home. We live on a farm about 60 miles south of Cleveland, and I will never forget Carl saying, ``Well, one thing I would like to do is to have a farm.'' He just had a real yen for living in the rural area, and I was somewhat surprised given the fact that he was a product of the big city, but that is something that really appealed to him. The other thing is that in one of--I guess it tells us a lot about Carl that in one of the political races in which I was involved, Carl went out of his way to endorse me before a group in my district for a Senate race. Given our political differences, that came as a little bit of a shock to quite a few people, but that is because Carl made his decisions based on personal relationships, and we had the same approach on a lot of issues. He therefore felt that the would like to support me even though we were of different parties. And I think again that tells us a lot about Carl Stokes. The important thing with him is what people were, what they stood for and how we could best serve them, and he was willing to support people who approached things in the same way even though of different political parties. I am pleased that we are naming the courthouse in Cleveland. I am confident that knowing Carl, he would be very pleased and proud to have this type of recognition. The same would be true with Senator Dole. I was proud to work on his campaign for President. I think he is a great American in the finest sense of the words.

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Speaker, Vice President Gore recently announced the final adoption of U.S. EPA's clean air standards for ozone and particulate matter. I, like many other members of the Ohio delegation, am particularly concerned with the more stringent regulations' implications on Ohio's economy. Eric Peters' recent editorial published by the Akron Beacon Journal, entitled ``Clean-Air Rules: Taking a Bite Out of All Paychecks?'' cuts to the heart of this issue. I encourage my colleagues to take time to read Mr. Peters' comments and to evaluate the impact of these regulations on their congressional districts. Because of the standard's effect on my district, I have cosponsored H.R. 1984, legislation introduced by Representative Ron Klink. The bill would enact a 4-year moratorium on the promulgation of the standards and require EPA to conduct a more complete scientific review of ozone and fine particles. I urge all my colleagues to consider supporting H.R. 1984. Let's give the current Clean Air Act regulations a chance to continue to clean our Nation's air without further expense and job dislocation to our precious economic base. [From the Akron Beacon Journal, June 23, 1997] Clean-Air Rules: Taking a Bite Out of All Paychecks? (By Eric Peters) If you were disposed to being facetious, you could say the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's proposed new clean-air standards for ozone and particulate matter--English translation: smog and soot--contain both pluses and minuses. On the one hand, the standards require significantly higher utility bills for American ratepayers and significantly higher price tags on a wide range of manufactured goods for American consumers. On the other hand, they almost certainly will result in fewer jobs, lower wages and less economic growth. Don't take my word for it. Take the word of President Clinton's own Council of Economic Advisers, which predicts the national costs of reaching full attainment with the EPA standards will total upwards of $60 billion--far exceeding the $1 billion value of the benefits it projects. Even in Washington, D.C., a 60:1 ratio of cost to effectiveness is totally out-of-whack. Indeed, if science and sound economic policy served to guide EPA policy recommendations, the agency's current clean air agenda would never have seen the light of day. While virtually every state would lose under the Draconian EPA proposals, some states would clearly lose more than others. The economies of such disparate states as Ohio, Virginia, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Indiana, West Virginia and Missouri all would receive sledgehammer blows from tighter standards that studies show would produce no overall measurable improvement in the nation's air quality. Ohio is a particularly good case in point. Although the Federal EPA estimates that the national compliance costs of its tougher ozone restrictions would be only $600 million a year, Ohio's Environmental Protection Agency projects that the annual capital expenditures for Ohio utilities alone would exceed $730 million a year. The added expenditures would boost utility rates for Ohio ratepayers and consumers by as much as 17 percent in some areas, and would force an average increase of 7 percent throughout the Buckeye State. Ohio manufacturers also are in a bind. G&S Titanium, a company in northeast Ohio, desperately needs to expand to satisfy the demands of its current customers. Right now, the company uses the most modern technology available and complies with all Federal and local environmental standards. It won't be able to comply with the new EPA rules for one simple reason: The technology for complying with the standards isn't available. As Ohio Gov. George V. Voinovich pointed out to a House Commerce Committee hearing last month: These proposals are creating a catch-22. ``If they (businesses) do not expand,'' the Republican governor said, ``They risk losing customers and market share. If they expand and the new standards are implemented, they risk being out of compliance.'' Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., who long has fretted about the erosion of America's manufacturing base, has urged President Clinton to recall the EPA's new clean-air standards and correct their major defects. Failure to do so, Dingell observes, will permanently alienate working men and women--and doom the Democratic Party`s chances of retaking the U.S. House and Senate. Officials at the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Transportation and Agriculture, as well as at the Small Business Administration, have echoed Dingell''s warnings in private meetings with White House officials. Nevertheless, EPA Administrator Carol Browner adamantly defends the proposed new rules--particularly her agency's attempt to regulate particulate matter (soot) as tiny as 2.5 microns (about one-fortieth the width of a human hair). This despite the fact that the Federal Government's own figures show that some 83 percent of all such emission are generated by ``fugitive dust,'' which comes from such benign sources as farmers plowing fields, animals with dandruff and pollen released from flowers, weeds and other fauna. Most of the remaining 17 percent of particulate matter comes from burning wood, stoked-up barbeques and idling internal-combustion engines that already have reduced emissions by more than 98 percent. Since the Nation's ambient air quality has improved exponentially over the past two decades, one can only wonder about the EPA's motives in pursuing standards that are virtually impossible to meet. Rather than voluntarily cut back its staff and budget and earn grateful applause from American taxpayers, the agency apparently has decided to try its hand at regulating areas and items that literally defy regulation.

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me this time. It has been a pleasure to serve as vice chairman with the gentleman from Virginia in crafting what I think is a responsible bill. There are three elements I would mention. We have talked a lot about a balanced budget. A balanced budget depends on economic growth. That is the key to it. And the key to economic growth is transportation: air, highways, rail. This bill addresses those very well because they are the arteries of a nation's economic well-being. Second is safety. We are all concerned about safety; highway safety, air transport safety. This bill has a lot of good features that impact on highway safety; innovative programs, 18 of them to be exact, for increased air safety. So I think that, too, recommends it highly to Members. And, third, it is a people bill. We have passed a welfare reform bill which envisions people going to work. To go to work they need mass transit, and this bill recognizes that need throughout the Nation by providing funds for mass transit. Those are all three elements that make this bill responsible. I strongly urge the Members to support this legislation.

Mr. REGULA

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, this amendment will have no adverse impact on the delivery of health services to Alaska Natives. It simply codifies IHS's current policy with respect to the compact between the agency and the Indian health care corporations. To the best of my knowledge, there is no opposition. We are prepared to accept the amendment on this side. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks].

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

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I regret that the legislative procedures of this body forces the gentleman to offer this amendment as a limitation on the appropriations bill. I am sympathetic to the concerns that the gentleman has and I think his legislative language targets those much more precisely than the limitation before us and should be addressed by the authorizing committee. Unfortunately, the authorizing committee has chosen, at least to this point, not to have hearings, and I think it is a subject that deserves a full hearing in the authorizing committee. Because the gentleman from Oklahoma is forced to use a limitation amendment, it is broader than we should have it because it prohibits acquiring through gift or exchange any interest, for essentially any purpose, and there are a lot of reasons why there should be lands transferred that have nothing to do with this question of taxes. Another problem with this approach is that it is only a 1-year limitation. Because of being on an appropriations bill, it cannot be extended beyond 1 year, and I think it would be very difficult for any group to make economic decisions either to construct or to open up a facility, knowing that in 1 year this could be changed by virtue of the fact that this limitation language would expire at the end of fiscal year 1998, which would be September 30, 1998. I hope that the authorizing committee will address this problem. I might point out that there are already in existence 200 agreements with 18 different States where the States and the tribes, exercising their sovereign rights, have addressed this problem. I would hope that a lot of tribes and States would continue on that path to bring about fairness in the marketplace, but at this point, because of the sovereignty of the Indian nations, this is a decision that has to be made by the tribes and the States.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, we have no problem on this side with the amendment. We are prepared to accept it.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. We would have no objection to a limited amendment for the purpose described by the gentleman from Nevada [Mr. Gibbons]. I think this is an important sentence in the Department's letter. It says, ``The Department will consult with the State and local jurisdictions, including appropriate planning and regulatory agencies and other interested persons, concerning the sale of such lands.'' We have no objection. We think this is a good amendment and support it.

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

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I know some of my colleagues will be interested in the schedule, so I might advise the body that it would be our intent to finish the amendments this afternoon, whatever amount of time that takes. We also have some limitations to debate. Then any votes will be rolled until 5 o'clock. We presently have the vote on the National Endowment for the Humanities pending, and I am sure there will be some additional votes. At 5 o'clock we will vote on the amendments, and then it is my understanding from the leadership that they would like to vote on the suspensions, and the Journal, and then we would hope to get to final passage on the Interior bill some time around 8 o'clock tonight. I might say to my colleagues I hope that in the intervening time this afternoon that they will take the opportunity to look at the bill. There are a lot of good features in this bill. I am pleased that we can say we are a little under last year's amount, but at the same time we have taken care of a lot of high priority items within the funds provided in this bill. It goes without saying we have dozens and dozens of Member projects in this bill. We had 2,000 requests from Members for projects. Many of them overlapped obviously. But we tried, as much as possible, to prioritize these without regard to party, or to region, then simply make the best judgment we could in light of the availability of resources. In terms of priorities, and I think this is very important, we added $78 million to the National Parks; that is a $78 million increase over last year, recognizing the pressures on the parks for visitations, to manage those who would seek the opportunity to visit our parks and to ensure that they have a positive experience. We added $57 million for the National Forest System. We are getting enormous pressure on the national forests. Most people do not realize how important these lands are for the recreation users. And I have repeated this fact many times, but it bears another statement, and that is that the National Forest System has triple the visitor days of the Park System. Why? Because it has available a multiplicity of uses: We can hunt, we can fish, we can camp, we can bird watch, we can hike. In some areas we can run an all terrain vehicle; some areas, a snowmobile, a wide diversity of opportunities that are available in the national forests. And I think a very important point is that the national forests provide an opportunity for family vacations, where the individual has got a couple weeks, can either rent or own a camper, go into a national forest and spend a couple of weeks with his or her family getting a better understanding of our natural heritage. The allowable timber cut in our national forests, which this committee establishes as a cap, has been declining. In 1990 it was more than 11 billion board feet. Today it is down to 3.8 billion board feet. And I would also point out in conjunction with that that we are growing each year 17 billion board feet, which means that we have a net increase in board feet in our national forests of almost 14 billion board feet. Also, I think one of the good features in this bill is that we have emphasized forest health. We have a forest health program to address the problem of insects, of diseases, of the many things that create problems for our national forests, and we have recognized also the President's Northwest Forest Plan, which was the result of a compromise that President Clinton and Vice President Gore worked out some years ago, and we have supported that with significant dollars and language. We often do not think of wildlife refuges necessarily in terms of visitors, but they are vital to the preservation of this Nation's wildlife resources. We have increased funding for the refugee system by $42 million. We have synificantly increased funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, $239 million, and I think there are many other good features in this bill, and I hope that our colleagues will, all of them, take a look at it between now and the time we go to final passage and recognize that in supporting this they are supporting a very responsible and a very productive approach to the challenges that confront the Subcommittee on Interior. Amendment Offered by Mr. Gibbons.

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

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I yield to the gentlemen from Minnesota [Mr. Vento].

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I understand the concerns of the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Vento]. This is one of the reasons that we have given the Park Service additional money to deal with backlog maintenance. This would fall within that category, and I emphasize that we are only contemplating this limitation for 1 year. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Stupak], who may want to comment.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that all debate on this amendment and all amendments thereto close in 60 minutes and that the time be equally divided.

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

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to join the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee] and the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Millender-McDonald] to discuss the important contributions of Sojourner Truth to the American woman's suffrage movement.

Mr. REGULA. If the gentlewoman will continue to yield, it is not the first time someone has made that mistake.

Mr. REGULA. If the gentlewoman will continue to yield. Sojourner Truth was a very powerful vocal voice in the suffrage movement. She was a renaissance woman who played a pivotal role in ensuring American women and African-American women the right to vote. As a nonviolent peaceful force for change in our history, Sojourner Truth proved that an equal society would make a better America.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I am well aware of her contributions to the suffrage movement. In her most famous speech at a woman's rights conference in Akron, OH, which is, of course, quite near my district, in 1851, she coined the phrase which continues to embrace the concerns of many women today: ``Ain't I A Woman.'' This powerful speech catapulted her to the forefront of the woman suffrage movement. It is my understanding that as a political activist, Sojourner Truth campaigned for Ulysses S. Grant in the Presidential election in 1868. She demanded that the board of registration place her name on the list of voters but was denied this right. Then in 1872, she went to Michigan, where she repeated her demand to vote and again was denied. Undaunted, she sat in President Abraham Lincoln's office until he personally heard her suggestion for dealing with freed and unemployed slaves. The President told her that he had heard her speeches long before.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I assure both gentlewomen that I will assist their efforts to identify appropriate means of recognizing these many accomplishments of Sojourner Truth, including identifying the appropriate source of funding and a location for a statue in the Nation's Capitol. I also thank the gentlewoman for giving us a great history lesson today.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.