Denny Rehberg

Mr. REHBERG

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Speaker, for the first time in history, seniors across the country are about to have an option of choosing Medicare prescription drug coverage if they so desire. Beginning May 3, thanks to the improvements we made to Medicare, each beneficiary will be entitled to select a prescription drug discount card of their choice that will provide immediate savings, including a $600 credit for qualifying low-income individuals. Those who voted against these changes do not seem to want seniors to know that the new prescription drug coverage will help 14 million low- income Medicare recipients who need it most, those who are having to choose between food and medicines they need. For the past 4 months, those who have voted against the drug coverage have not been sharing with seniors information about the new opportunity to sign up for prescription drug coverage. Why should seniors not be allowed to learn that they will soon have choice and control over their prescription drug plans? Do seniors not have the right to know that their new coverage will give them better access to more prescription drugs at lower prices? Do they not have the right to know that if they already have prescription drug coverage that they can stay with their plan if they like it? Ten days from now seniors will be free to choose for themselves.

Mr. REHBERG

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Speaker, this spring as we complete another tax season, families and small businesses have reason to celebrate. Thanks to our $350 billion tax relief bill which the President signed into law last year, working taxpayers are getting back more of their hard-earned money. Families now have more money to put food on the table, pay their mortgages, and pick up school supplies for their kids. These families know the truth about taxes, that it is their money, not Washington's money. Letting them keep their money has helped put the economy back on track. This relief has given families and working taxpayers a smaller tax bite, an increase in the child credit to $1,000, and yet another reduction in the marriage penalty. No wonder families this year have reason to celebrate. I am happy to report for the first time in a long while unemployment is down in my home State of Montana. Montana's jobless rate is now just 4.6 percent. Why? Because government does not create an economy, businesses do, one job at a time.

Mr. REHBERG

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Speaker, I am proud of the Medicare prescription drug legislation we passed not long ago that will give more seniors more access to prescription drugs at lower costs. Sadly, a lot of seniors have not gotten the word yet. They have not heard that Medicare will now give seniors choice and control over their prescription drug plans. They have not heard that Medicare will now pay 75 percent of drug costs and 95 percent of catastrophic drug costs. They have not heard that those who choose to enroll in the prescription drug program will receive discount cards this spring entitling them to save up to 25 percent off the cost of their medications. In fact, by 2006, seniors who have elected to sign up for their new prescription benefit will pay a monthly premium of as little as $35. On top of that, low-income seniors will receive a $600 cash subsidy to defray the costs of their medications. Plus, those with incomes below the Federal poverty level will see their drug bills virtually eliminated. Their deductible and monthly premiums will be waived, and their copays will be as little as $1 per prescription. Groups like AARP, the American Medical Association, and the American Hospital Association agree, we have given seniors the right prescription to better health.

Mr. REHBERG

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Speaker, I would like to add my voice to the chorus of accolades thanking the various chairmen and subcommittee chairmen and Members who have worked so hard on this piece of legislation. It is ironic in this country when something like September 11 occurs, or a tornado or a flood that creates massive destruction quickly, we roll up our sleeves and we get to work rebuilding. Yet the cancer that is caused by drought and insect infestation, disease and such that is occurring within our forests somehow is treated differently. What have we seen over the years? In 1988 we burned a large area of Montana, the Yellowstone ecosystem. We assumed that something would be done, but it was not. It got stuck back in Washington, D.C., and what did they do? They talked and talked and talked. And over the years, while we talked about solutions, what have we done? We have talked our forests to death. And eventually we go to the corners, and then we sue our ways back out. It is stupid. It is ridiculous. That is not the way to present a better forest. This piece of legislation in fact will now manage the lawsuits. Please support this compromise. It is a good one.

Mr. REHBERG

Mr. REHBERG. I thank the gentleman from Virginia for taking on an issue that we find very important in the State of Montana and throughout the Nation and, that is, healthy forests. I have been involved in the issue since 1988. We saw the fires exist in our State to the tune of almost 1 million acres. As an observer, I assumed our elected officials would do something about that. Over the course of the next few years, I watched nothing happen. Our forests continued to deteriorate. In the year 2000 in the State of Montana, we saw almost 1 million acres burn again, and I assumed something would be done. Again, nothing was done. When I joined the Congress, I was impressed by the fact that our chairman now of the Committee on Resources and my chairman of the Committee on Agriculture were willing to hold hearings to try and find the solution to healthy forests. It does not take rocket scientists to figure out what is wrong. I manage resources. I am in the agriculture business in Montana. I clearly understand a mineral cycle, a water cycle. I understand that when you have undergrazed grass, it kills grass as much as overgrazed grass. I notice that when you have timber, when you have underthinned timber, it creates the same devastation as clear cutting. But there are those within our Federal Government and there are those within this Congress that do not understand that. When I see various Members of the body from the other side of the Capitol making exceptions for their State, understanding that you need a management plan to thin their timber to create a healthier environment and they do not want to provide that same opportunity for us, there is something hypocritical. Shame on them. It is time that this Congress understands that healthy forests are created. But I understand that there are only a certain level of tools that can be used to manage our forests. What are those tools? Prescribed burn can be a tool. Uncontrolled fire is a catastrophe. It is stupid. But prescribed burn is a tool. Grazing, which is something I know something about because I have grazing animals on my operation to thin the undergrazed properties, creates a healthy environment. So what do we do? Move some livestock in and graze and take care of that undergrazed property. Logging. Why do we find that timber companies are bad things? On forest properties, on Federal properties, we tell them what to cut, when to cut, how to cut and we ask them to use their capital, their labor and their equipment. How can that be a problem? Unless, of course, we do not do it right. We have some of the best environmental laws in this country. Let us use those logging companies as a tool to manage our forests. But we cannot get beyond the politics of creating some kind of an argument that we do not want logging companies in our forests. Let us use them as a tool. Let us talk about holistic management of our forests. Let us move beyond the politics. I think that we have a plan that we have sent to the Senate; we have asked them to consider an opportunity, we have asked them to consider a holistic approach to management. What do we hear? ``We have a perfect plan. We want the House to accept it without any debate.'' How arrogant. I have only been here for 3 years, I say to the chairman of my Committee on Agriculture. I have only been here for 3 years, but the arrogance of the attitude that we have got the perfect piece of legislation being sent from the Senate is incredible. I do not understand that kind of a concept. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. REHBERG. The arrogance of somebody who makes a determination that we do not have a dog in this fight, that we do not have an opinion, that we do not understand the holistic management of our forests is incredible to me. I think the taxpayer ought to be appalled. I think the Nation ought to be appalled. And I think it is time that we make a determination to do what the gentleman from Virginia has done in the Committee on Agriculture with all the hearings that I sat through as a freshman on his subcommittee and that our chairman of the Interior and now Resources Committee has done to consider the whole healthy forests initiative. I think we ought to take the high road; we ought to take the approach that we have sent over to them and say, it is not entirely about safe communities, which safe communities are important, but it is about healthy forests. And we sent over a healthy forests policy. And so what we really need to do is we need to sit down in the conference committee, work out the differences, pass something along to the President, and do what the gentleman initially suggested a number of years ago and, that is, create truly a healthy forest policy. I thank the gentleman for what he has done in his committee.

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Speaker, if I might ask the gentleman from Virginia a question. What possible reason would others within the United States Congress want to create an exception for their own forests or their own State and not provide the same opportunity for Virginia, Washington, Idaho, Colorado, now California, and certainly Montana?

Mr. REHBERG. Another question, Mr. Speaker, if I might of the gentleman from Virginia. Is there any reason why this has not happened in the past based upon the majorities of the Congress and the fact that within the last year and a half this is the first time in 40 years we have had an opportunity to effect change? Would we not now try a different management approach? Not to say we are entirely blameless, because certainly we supported Smokey Bear, we believed that putting fires out, we believed that the management plan that existed in the past perhaps had some credibility. But recognizing that it has failed, would it not be incumbent upon us now in our new majority position to come up with a new and more exciting, more vibrant opportunity to see not only a healthier wildlife and a healthier environment but certainly a safer environment for our forests?

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Speaker, if I may in conclusion to the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture just say very quickly that as I travel around the State of Montana and this country, I know and I talk to people about the fact that Federal properties in Montana, which I represent, are owned by the taxpayers. I understand that. And so when I ask them a question, what do you want to see from your forests, they usually tell me, I want to see healthy wildlife. Okay. I can accept that. They say they want to see a healthy environment. We do not get so specific as talking about the mineral cycle and the water cycle, but it is something that I understand. They talk about the fact that they want to see healthy trees. When I explain to them that a dead tree that has got beetles in it and the beetles pass on to another tree, a dead and dying tree creates a dead and dying forest, and unless we remove the cancer of that dead and dying tree, it will kill the forest. They say, that, I can understand. Then we move on to fire and I say, if you do not control the litter, the excess, the overgrowth and the dying trees, you will create a fire danger and that is not very bright. You know what they do? They usually go, yeah. You know, we did not realize. If you had just told us that we have dead and dying trees, we have wildlife that do not have enough grass, we are creating a canopy that is killing the grass, it is killing the trees, it is creating a safety danger and houses are burning up and people are losing their lives, they usually go, I can understand this issue. What do you suggest? And then I move into talking about the tools that are available, prescribed burn, grazing, logging, thinning and such. They go, well, we had no idea, because that's not the story we are hearing from our lobbyists and our special interests and our newspapers and television stations in places like Connecticut and Rhode Island and such. And, yeah, we own that land and we want to take care of that land and we thank you for understanding the issue. Thank you for supporting healthy forests. I thank the gentleman from Virginia for his hard work, his dedication and his effort to create the right kind of bill coming out of this Congress. I just hope that that is what we can pass on to the President of the United States.

Mr. REHBERG

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Speaker, today this body will consider the School Readiness Act of 2003, better known as Head Start. Since its inception in 1965, America's taxpayers have funded the Head Start program which has served nearly 20 million low-income children and their families. Unfortunately, the lobbying against this reauthorization legislation has been intense and, in many cases, misleading. When did we lose the desire in this country to make a program better? Despite the millions invested each year, test scores continue to remain low. There still has been a wide achievement gap between Head Start kids and their more advantaged peers. We have a long ways to go. Meanwhile, since 1996, funding for Head Start has nearly doubled in this Republican Congress. Do we think we can do better for these children? Yes. This is a modest attempt to improve a program. The demonstration program in this bill is voluntary, I repeat, voluntary, on the part of eight States who want local control to try and do better. Why not? What could possibly be wrong with that? The School Readiness Act of 2003 is a good bill and an improvement to the program.

Mr. REHBERG

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Chairman, how much time did I have to begin with in opposition? Was it 5 minutes?

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me this time. Smoke is being blown in the United States Congress. In fact, more smoke than is being blown by the snowmobiles in Yellowstone Park. I share with the Members what a dear colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey sent out, showing a picture of a park ranger with a gas mask. I will now share with the members the words from the environmental impact statement from the Governor of the State of Montana, who was charged with the responsibility of clean air violations. ``It is important to note that, despite public perception to the contrary,'' and the perception trying to be created on this House floor today, ``the West Yellowstone interest has not recorded any violation of State or national air quality standards during the past four winter seasons.'' There is a reason we established dude ranches in Montana, because a lot of dudes like to come out and they do not know which end of a horse to jump up on. I spent every weekend in Yellowstone Park growing up. I can honestly tell the Members the impact on the park is minimal. It is 2.2 million acres. The snowmobiles are required to stay on the minimum amount of land available to them, which is the roads. It is ironic that the sponsor of the amendment would say the best alternative is no human interaction. Frankly, if they did not want human involvement in Yellowstone Park, they are about 100 years too late. Snowcoaches as the preferred alternative by the Clinton administration? Have you been down there? Have you listened to the snowcoaches? They are the noisiest, loudest, smelliest way of transporting oneself around the park. In fact, they do not even make enough snowcoaches to deal with the volume of people that would like to go in. The economic impact alone is incredible, $33 million a year lost to West Yellowstone. We have spent a lot of time studying this issue. We have spent a lot of time having hearings, letting people look us in the eye and say, ``I am going to lose my job if you phase out snowmobiles.'' This amendment does not give them that opportunity. No guts in this House. Give these people an opportunity to look these people in the eye and say, I am the one whose family is going to lose their way of making a living, making a living that was encouraged by this Federal Government. Please establish yourself in the gateway communities around the park so that we do not have to build those facilities in the park. Allow an opportunity to create the business and an economy outside the park, and now we are going to pull the rug out from under them. It does not make any sense to me. Visitor access, multiple use. There is a way of dealing with this. And in fact, the snowmobile industry has stepped forward. They are saying, yes, we understand. Two-stroke engines are smelly and create too much emissions. They now have four-stroke. Have you been there? Have you listened to them? One can stand next to a snowmobile and not even hear it run, and one cannot smell it. They are quiet. They have worked real hard at creating an opportunity to move the snowmobiles around. Let me tell the Members what we are talking about here. Under our plan, there will only be 50 individual snowmobiles allowed through the north entrance, 250 through the south entrance, 100 in the east entrance, and 550 in the west entrance. That is not many individual snowmobiles. We have done everything we can to try to create the opportunity of a quality involvement in our national park system. This does nothing more than pull that consensus-building process out from under our ability to have a good economy, to have a good park experience, and understand that the park was created for enjoyment. These machines do not create the kind of damage that they are trying to blow smoke up our skirts with by putting this kind of garbage out. It is not true. Vote against this amendment.

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Chairman, I wish to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I do not have a lot of love for the Endangered Species Act. I think that is well known within this Congress. I served on the Endangered Species Act reform committee. I think there are flaws. There are problems. But the difficulty is this is not the way to make changes within the system. We had a hearing in Billings, Montana, not long ago with the general from the Army Corps of Engineers at which time we said, when are you going to get off the dime and do your job? We have been waiting for 13 years for you to put the master plan back in place. You were supposed to have done it 13 years ago. You have not to this time. There are problems, and he told us at any given time there are lawsuits being filed by one State or another. At any given time 11 States care and there is a lawsuit ongoing. I wish the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Janklow) was here. He was excused for health reasons, but I know I can speak for him. Because between his time when he was governor and governor, he was the attorney filing suit against the Federal Government because they had not gotten the master plan done. We cannot just ignore recreation upstate, we cannot just ignore the Endangered Species Act, and that is what this amendment does. So while I am willing to work with anybody in this Chamber to change the Endangered Species Act to make it make more sense, they cannot just ignore the judge's ruling of last week saying that there are three species that are endangered. We can, in fact, save those species. We would like to help in Montana. We have got the reservoir to do it, but let us have a master plan. We tell the Corps of Engineers, get their job done. We would not need amendments like this if we had it in place. We do not need this amendment, and I ask Members to oppose it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. I believe there is going to be other opposition. They asked for time. They do not seem to be in the Chamber, so I will just take 1 more minute of time. I do not deny that there are problems that need to be fixed. This is not the mechanism to do it. I have been to Nebraska helping my colleague deal with the endangered species issue. I agree with him on the endangered species issue. The problem is we cannot ignore the endangered species at this time until such time as we make the changes. Again, I call upon the Corps of Engineers to please get the master plan in place. Please let us end the litigation that continues. Let us get together, establish a consensus, work out a solution that can deal with barge traffic and recreation and the Endangered Species Act and all things that are entailed with the management of the Missouri River. But we cannot do it this way. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Chairman, I would like to leave enough time for the chairman to raise the point order, but I see one of my speakers is now here.

Mr. REHBERG. Not to this point. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).

Mr. REHBERG

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Chairman, the last speaker and the sponsor of this amendment act like nothing has been done over the last few years to try and manage the herds within Yellowstone Park. I can say that that is the farthest thing from the truth. This is 10 years of hard work. We have had agencies that disagreed, we have had States that disagreed, we have gone to court and sued each other and finally through the good sense of the Clinton administration and Bruce Babbitt, they signed a memorandum of understanding on the management of the park bison and they took it out of the court. In fact, they took it to court, and the court agreed with this memorandum of understanding. To make the statement that it has never been passed in the wild, that is ludicrous. You cannot manage something like that because you would have to see the cow lick the aborted fetus of the bison and then immediately kill the cow and test it. We do have proof that brucellosis has been passed from bison to elk. We do have proof that in captivity brucellosis has been passed from bison to cattle. This is also a human health issue. There are people all over this country and in the State of Montana that carry undulant fever, brucellosis; and they get it from these animals. The Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, which we passed and was signed by our President, the act specifies that the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services establish and maintain a list of biological agents and toxins that have the potential to pose a severe threat to public health and safety. I turn to page 1. There are only seven bacteria in this bioterrorism alert. Brucellosis is number two on the list. Anthrax is number one. This is a health issue. This is a management of the health of the bison issue. The National Academy of Sciences had a study that was released a number of years ago that said the carrying capacity of the park is being exceeded. It has a capacity somewhere between 1,700 and 3,500 bison. As of last week, there are 4,045 bison on the park premises and leaving during the winter. The riparian damage that they do, the damage that they do to the very environment we are trying to protect in the national park is one of the reasons that we signed this memorandum of understanding with the Federal Government. We finally came to a compromise. We finally took it out of the court. This amendment turns back 10 years' worth of compromise, 10 years' worth of consensus. Take it to a committee, bring it back to a discussion; but do not undercut the process creating a human health danger, a herd health danger, and danger to the environment of the national park. This amendment must be defeated.

Mr. REHBERG

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I consume. I want to thank the chairman of the subcommittee for this good consideration today and my colleagues for speaking on behalf of my amendment. I have not been around the Congress all that long. This is my second term. I was confronted with a brand-new farm bill. That is one way to get your feet wet, drinking out of the fire hydrant, stepping into the middle of that. When I hear the debate about the fact that there has not been enough conversation, enough debate, we do not know where this is taking us, I remind my colleagues that this does not get implemented until September of 2004. We have got well over a year to continue the hearings, to continue the work on it. Congress can continue to have hearings. We can help the process along the way and develop the right country-of-origin labeling. During the farm bill discussion that I was confronted with as a freshman, the country-of-origin labeling debate consumed 25 percent of the markup dialogue, 25 percent. So why are certain people reluctant to want to have beef or other meats labeled? Because they want to have the ability to blend cheaper products from other places for the purposes of marketing themselves. But are we seeing the cheaper price at the consumer level? Not always. It is interesting to watch the marketing of our meat products throughout this country. If the beef guys jump up and complain, somebody steps forward and pushes pork in front of them or they might push chicken in front of them. We at the local level, us small guys, do not control the marketing. We need this avenue. We are proud of our product. And at a time when we are in a recession, at a time when much of American agriculture is flat on its back, we need the opportunity to say America matters to us in agriculture, America matters to the consumer; and if we can marry the two, our agricultural producers throughout this country, the mom-and-pops in Iowa and Montana and Texas and California and Georgia and Connecticut will all know that they have done a good thing because we have said American products matter. We are not banning anything from a foreign country. We are not trying to create a competitive disadvantage. All we are trying to do is say give us the opportunity, us small guys to have the opportunity to have mandatory country-of-origin labeling so we know where our product is coming from, so we can take great pride in the product that we produce. The country-of-origin labeling gives American shoppers a choice. It gives American farmers and ranchers fairness. It gives us the opportunity to say buy America. Please support this amendment. Support the country-of-origin labeling. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. REHBERG. Mr. Chairman, I request to control the time for the proponent.