Dana Rohrabacher

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman, are there any, of the 12 agencies that are now involved with global climate change, would he eliminate any of them from that job? Is there any one that the gentleman would agree should refocus their efforts, and perhaps maybe only 11 agencies or 10 agencies should be involved? What agencies would the gentleman agree should not be involved in this?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Speaking for the majority, Mr. Chairman, the gentleman's amendment is accepted.

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

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, am I incorrect in my assumption that the impact of the amendment would be that all of the other areas of Environmental Protection Agency research would suffer as a result of this amendment because the funds that would have to be spent according to this amendment would be coming from all of those other areas? Is that not what we are talking about here?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I appreciate the role the former chairman is playing.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield further, this type of research has broad based benefit, rather than benefit that is aimed at one particular interest group. Usually the main thing we have complained about on this side of the aisle, I can just speak for myself, is that quite often when the government is spending money, that it ends up spending money in an area of research that benefits a specific special interest group, and, quite often, who could afford to spend that money on their own. In this case, this type of research has a broad base of benefit. [[Page H 9939]]

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield further, the gentleman is correct. If I could answer the gentleman's question, there are some times in legislation, as the gentleman is aware, that things are not totally defined because we, during the hearing process, expect to receive a better understanding of an issue. We have scheduled hearings on the issue of global warming. I expect that perhaps next year we might have a more definitive position. But at this point it has been more beneficial to have a little more open- minded approach than to state it that my beliefs happen to be the law of the land.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield. I would say that if the gentleman is asking my opinion, it would be that yes, that is a special interest group, and it is benefiting from and believes it might be benefiting from global warming research.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Liberal clap trap is the expression the gentleman is looking for.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield further, this is because we believe that this is where the best use of the money would be, but we do not limit it and restrict it from being used elsewhere.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Basically, then, we believe that this amendment is vague and is nonproductive and could cause some confusion, which it already has on this floor.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Nothing in the bill prohibits NOAA from doing this. It just expresses that we would like it to focus on certain other areas.

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

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Reclaiming my time, we did not limit it. We focused it, and there is a difference between focusing and limiting. So if you say none of the money in here shall be spent for this, that is something else. But by focusing the efforts away from what I consider to be trendy science and a lot of other people believe the global issue is nothing more than trendy science, trendy liberal science, we have permitted people to look into this area, but tried to focus it on the areas that we considered to be responsible and practical and have some effect on our citizens.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is vaguely worded. It is a vaguely worded statement as to not inhibit NOAA from doing climate change research, and this issue was taken up in committee, and our bill received overwhelming bipartisan support. But let me, just for the record, state that we have not eliminated climate research but instead what we have done in our bill, which it seems, although it is rather vague in the amendment, it seems to be her purpose to change this focus. We have focused the research of NOAA on more important functions, more important phenomena, for example, El Nino, which is vital to the safety and to the prosperity of people on the west coast and actually farmers throughout the United States. We have not in any way, for example, eliminated long-term climate research and, in fact, the bill authorizes long-term climate research at $26 million. However, in terms of what we believe that NOAA should focus on, if I can read from the report, the committee believes that this restructuring will ensure that climate and global change research will be focused on improving our understanding of near- and mid-term climatic events, and that is really what the crux of this issue is about, whether or not we should be looking and spending our limited resources at phenomena like El Nino that affect the lives of our people, or whether or not we will succumb to what I have called or at least what I believe to be, politically [[Page H 9938]] inspired, politically inspired scientific exploration. I believe that global warming, which is basically what we are talking about hare, was generously funded by the administration over the last few years, and this basically is as a result of political rather than scientific pressures. We plan, by the way, to have hearings into the global warming issue, in which we will have scientists on both sides of the issue to discuss openly and try to have an honest dialog about the issue of global warming. Unfortunately, when we had our last hearing on the ozone problem, and, by the way, I think it was a good, a very substantial hearing, we had fine representatives on both sides, we were attacked by Vice President Gore and the administration because we had both sides of the argument at our hearing. Well, for far too long what we have gotten is basically PC scientists who basically want to steamroller us on issues like ozone and like global warming, but the fact is that we believe that these issues should be looked at in toto, and we have, as I said, $26 million authorized for long-term climate research. But we basically have combined it with interannual and seasonal climate change studies, which makes sense. Instead of having basically huge chunks of our budget dedicated to this trendy global warming issue, instead we are going to take a balanced approach, spend $26 million and put it in relationship with other long-term global climate change issues. So I think that first of all this amendment is vaguely worded. We should not inhibit NOAA from involving itself in this type of research. The fact is that we have tried to focus NOAA on things that are meaningful and things that will affect the lives and property and safety of our citizens and the economy of our farm population, especially on the west coast. So I would strongly oppose the Lofgren amendment.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. We will accept this amendment. It prods the DOD to increase the quality of its portion of the weather modernization system, and we would like to commend my colleague, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Thornberry], for his diligence and hard work on this issue.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Is it your position that the Cramer amendment, the end result in all of it would not be more safety but instead would be a waste of the taxpayers' dollars? I believe that is where we are coming from. Because we have already, as the chairman of the subcommittee and chairman of the committee, guaranteed and given our word that we would work and have reached out to work with those people who say they are affected in a detrimental way. But there seems to be a breakdown in communication here. A moment ago I asked my colleague from North Dakota to yield and what I wanted to ask him was he was saying that the weather stations are going to be this far away and the radar is going to be that far away. I wanted to ask him whether or not he had any technical experts that had told him whether or not that was inadequate. The fact is today technology permits us to do things in a cost- effective way that used to cost the Government a lot more money, you had to have a lot more stations out there, a lot more people on payroll but now technologically we are capable of doing these things.

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

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, we did schedule these hearings long before we knew when this bill would be coming to the floor, and as the chairman of the subcommittee, and with the full support of the chairman of the full committee, we are moving forward methodically to make sure that there are no gaps in our reform measures. The gentleman's proposal, the gentleman's amendment, does indeed come at the problem from a certain way. I am just saying that it is counterproductive and may in the end cost the taxpayers money, where we can solve the problem by looking at it independently and not setting down guidelines that, in the end, will cost the taxpayers money. I recognize the gentleman's point. He is very concerned about his constituents. Everyone who is going to be speaking here on this issue is concerned about the lives of their constituents and the lives of other citizens of the United States. I just think we can handle it in a better way, and modernization does put--even as we have said, the Doppler radar is going into effect. We have a whole new radar system that we have approved and authorized the money for, so we are very concerned about safety, enough to spend money on this new radar system.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I yield to the gentleman from Alabama.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, in our bill we have eliminated the union-written certification requirements that have stymied efforts to consolidate Weather Service offices from 215 to 118. The Cramer amendment, while not going back to the old certification requirements, offers a new and streamlined version, yes, but a version that will still result in the maintaining of unnecessary Weather Service offices and maintaining a process that is unnecessary. What we are talking about is jeopardizing a $35 million savings over 5 years. The NOAA IG supports our position, and that maintaining the system, even if it is streamlined, is unnecessarily costly, and we are trying to come about and trying to solve a problem. Mr. Chairman, for years we have had a number of Weather Service offices that were just not necessary. There is legitimate concern which we will hear from several Members in a moment. I am sure that their areas may in some ways be affected detrimentally. Let me say for the record that we have noted their concerns, and that there will be a hearing next week on this issue to ensure that each and every one of the people who Members will hear in one moment, supporting the Cramer amendment, that their concerns are dealt with, and that their concerns and their problems that might erupt from the situation, that it is corrected. There is no reason why we should pass a Cramer amendment in order to solve the problems we are going to hear about in the next couple of minutes. What we need instead is to have an honest approach to the issue, so that we can, if anybody is left out, if there are some gaps in the plan, that they be taken care of, rather than set in law a streamlined process, yes, from what the old process is, but a process that will still result in offices that are unnecessary being left open, and add to the cost of closing offices that are unnecessary, as the NOAA IG has already stipulated. This amendment was brought up and defeated in committee, and let me again state, the problem that are emerging, in that some areas are not being covered adequately, which we are going to hear in a moment, are being taken care of. There is no reason for us to pass the Cramer amendment. In fact, passing the Cramer amendment will be counterproductive and will cost the taxpayers unnecessary money, because the problems that will arise can be handled in a different way. We are already on the road to handling these problems.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So we have $26 million in there, and that is in the appropriations bill.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Reclaiming my time, that is because that money was folded into the interannual and seasonal climate change study.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. If the gentleman will yield further, some of us on this side of the aisle are even more committed budget cutters than others on this side of the aisle.