Billy Tauzin

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone], ranking minority member of the Subcommittee on Energy of the Committee on Commerce.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, the amendment before the House today is to strike from the bill the provisions that would allow the Government to sell 7 million barrels of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Why on earth would we want to sell 7 million barrels of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, especially when we are going to sell it at one-half the price we acquired it for? Why would we want to sell one drop of that oil when we know how critical it is, how critical it was during the Persian Gulf conflict, in maintaining the price of oil for Americans, so that Saddam Hussein could not beat us at home economically when he could not beat us in the field of battle. Mr. Chairman, this amendment needs to be adopted. We are more dependent on foreign oil today than ever in our history. DOE has recently confirmed it to the President, and said maintenance of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is essential to national security. This is a bad move. This amendment corrects it. Members ought to vote for it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I will tell you a quick story. I was privileged to join senior members of the Congress in a visit to the Persian Gulf right before the outbreak of hostilities there. When we returned, the President asked us to the White House to seek our advice on anything we had noticed, anything we had seen that he ought to know about before we entered that period of crisis. He called upon me for a word of advice. When you are called upon by your President in a period of crisis, you think long and hard. The one advice I gave the President then was, ``If and when hostilities break out and the price of oil begins to ratchet up rapidly as the oil traders take advantage of us, be prepared to announce in that severe crisis that the strategic petroleum oil is available to our marketplace.'' The President, whether he took my advice or others, did exactly that. The oil traders, when the outbreak of hostilities occurred, immediately began to ratchet the price up. The price of oil began going up rapidly every day as that crisis accelerated. The President announced that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would be available in the American marketplace if it went any higher and immediately the price dropped. That is how critical this reserve is. Do not sell a drop of it. Vote for the Schaefer-Tauzin amendment.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell], the ranking minority member of the Committee on Commerce. (Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, as a Member of the House, there was a time once upon a time when committees of Congress had the power to veto stupid regulations. That power was taken away from us by the Supreme Court when it ruled that the right to regulate under any statute we create belonged to the agency, the executive agency. We can no longer veto regulations that we have authorized in legislation. The President of the United States can veto bills, but he cannot veto regulations, and, worse than that, the Supreme Court ruled, that if an agency wanted to change a regulation, get rid of a regulation, it has to go through the same process it used to create that regulation in order to get rid of it. What we have got in America is a situation where the bureaucrats have more power than the legislature and more power than the President himself under our Constitution. A day like Corrections Day makes sense. It is a day when we in Congress can do what the Supreme Court says we ought to do, be a little more careful when we write laws, what we allow people to regulate, a day for us to correct those mistakes in a legal, constitutional way.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I take this special order this afternoon to report to you and to the American public on a hearing that was just completed by the Commerce Subcommittee of the Committee on Commerce, a hearing designed to explore the possibility that may have existed as long as 25 years or more ago to render ammonium nitrate fertilizer insensitive to its use as a bomb material in America. I hold in my hand a patent that was issued by the U.S. Patent Office on January 20, 1968, a patent developed by Mr. Sam Porter in Arlington, VA, here, that literally details how a simple addition of diammonium phosphate to ammonium nitrate fertilizer in the manufacturing process could, in fact, desensitive the product so that it cannot be turned into a bomb, much like the bomb which may have been used to detonate the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. My interest in this subject matter goes back a long time. It was in 1970 that a Mr. Bob Colbert of Kansas was in Louisiana, building, in fact, or helping in the construction of an ANFO plant. An ANFO plant is a plant that takes industrial grade ammonium nitrate and converts it into blasting material. He was in the State on behalf of his company, and my father and uncle were doing electrical work for him in the construction of that facility. I came to know him. As a young practicing attorney in the State then many [[Page H5372]] years ago, he requested and I performed for him an incorporation of a company known as DEFGAN for desensitizing fertilizer grade ammonium nitrate. The company was incorporated, in fact, to own and to market the Sam Porter process that was patented in the patent I just described to you. As a result of that incorporation, Mr. Colbert and Mr. Porter and their colleagues tried in Louisiana and Wisconsin and other places to interest the fertilizer industry in using that process. They did so because they were concerned, as we should all be concerned, with the ease in which ammonium nitrate fertilizer in large quantities available very cheaply on the marketplace can and has been converted into bomb material used in terrorist acts and the ease in which in fact under some improper storage conditions ammonium nitrate can cause a great accident and damage to people and property. In 1947, for example, a shipload of ammonium nitrate fertilizer being loaded aboard a ship in Texas City exploded accidentally, killing over 500 people and I believe injuring as many as 3,000 people as it almost devastated the entire community. Similar accidents in Europe, leading to the deaths of not hundreds but thousands of people, have led many European countries to require that ammonium nitrate fertilizer be desensitized with certain additives before it is put on the marketplace. The Sam Porter process is simple, the simple addition of about 5- to 10-percent diammonium phosphate, which is another fertilizer, the simple addition of that fertilizer to ammonium nitrate fertilizer in the manufacturing process. When the stuff is trilled down in granular form, it creates a single fertilizer process and product with the integrated crystaline structure that is not easily separated, we are told, may not be easily separated, we are led to believe, and may, in fact, produce a process for making sure that ammonium nitrate fertilizer, sold commonly in feed stores and garden stores across America, cannot be turned by a terrorist into bomb or blasting material. Now, how much of this ammonium nitrate fertilizer is on the marketplace today? We are told that in 1993, 2.2 million tons, that is 4.4 billion pounds, of ammonium nitrate fertilizer grade product was sold commonly in America, across the counter in fertilizer, farm, and garden stores. The bomb material used in Oklahoma City lightly comprised about 5,000 pounds out of this 4.4 billion pounds that is sold and marketed in our country. That does not include another several million tons of industrial grade ammonium nitrate that is produced and is unregulated by any Federal agency until it is converted into ANFO for blasting material purposes. What a huge volume of ammonium nitrate is manufactured and sold in America, unregulated, not desensitized as it is in other foreign countries and available for terrorists or anyone to turn into a bomb. I do not have to remind Americans that today the Internet is filled with kitchen formulas for turning that material into bombs, that in Ohio today on the AP wire two children were, in fact, suspended for 3 days for carrying to school formulas for changing this ammonium nitrate fertilizer into a bomb. The material is widely distributed today, widely understood and known today. The material is easily available and easily converted into a bomb. So we had this hearing today. We had Mr. Sam Porter there. We had Mr. Colbert there. They told the story how in the late 1960's they tried to encourage one chemical company after another to get interested in this process only to be turned down at every turn. They told a story how in 1970, I was able to get a bill introduced in the State legislature by a Senator friend of mine who is now deceased, Senator Harvey Belchate, Jr. How that bill was easily defeated in the State senate in Louisiana. How a similar bill introduced in Wisconsin had a hearing but was also easily defeated by the chemical lobby who had decided to spend whatever it took to make sure that they were never required to use this process. Let me tell you what we learned today in the hearing. We learned, one, Mr. Porter's patent has to be studied further and that it deserves additional study. We learned from the Office of Technology Assessment that a study lasting no more than 3 to 4 weeks could determine for us whether or not this process was, in fact, as good as it appears to be and whether or not, in fact, the process could be easily reversed. Mr. Porter tells us he thinks it cannot be easily reversed. We need to study it to find out. We do know that Mr. Porter conducted enough research to obtain a patent. We do know that Atlas Chemical produced several tons of his product and did some tests that confirmed Mr. Porter's primary claims that his process desensitized ammonium nitrate fertilizer so that it could not be made into a bomb. We do know that all of the witnesses testifying today, all of them, including Mr. Porter, Mr. Colbert, representatives of the ATF, and the OTA, as well as the fertilizer institute, which communicated with us via letter, have all indicated support for more study on the Porter process as required, by the way, in the President's domestic anti- terrorism bill, H.R. 1635, which has been filed in this House. Statistics indicate to us, we have also found out, that the number of fertilizer bombs used in the United States has been relatively small, but the numbers are increasing, as many as 27 in the last 6 years, and that the Oklahoma City bombing where ammonium nitrate fertilizer was probably used was the most extensive use of that material in a bombing. We were also told that the size of that bomb could easily be doubled and tripled and multiplied with exponential results as easily as that bomb was likely produced. We do know that it is easy to obtain information on how to make these bombs and that in other European countries, particularly Spain and Northern Ireland, homemade fertilizer bombs are the preferred option for terrorists. According to OTA's testimony, studying Mr. Porter's product is important for no other reason than it may hold some promise for decreasing the possibility of accidental detonations of large stores of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and industrial grade ammonium nitrate. Large amounts, indeed, are being sold in America as we speak. Large amounts are out there in storage in America as we speak. We were told that it would take as much as 10 years to get rid of the shelf life of all the ammonium nitrate fertilizer that is currently available in nondesensitized form. There are economic and technical issues about Mr. Porter's product that deserve study today. Certainly the cost of manufacturing the product is important. We were told today that the cost of ammonium nitrate fertilizer is about $180 a ton; the cost of diammonium phosphate is in the range, we think, of about $250 a ton. The addition of 5- to 10-percent diammonium phosphate to the ammonium nitrate fertilizer would not likely increase the cost of the product desensitized by more than about 2 or 3 percent. Is that extra cost worth the margin of safety? Is that extra cost worth having a product that cannot easily be turned into a terrorist bomb? I suggest to you we ought to know those answers. We need to know if there are any agricultural or agronomic reasons why Mr. Porter's product would not work. He has told us and others have confirmed to us that the addition of diammonium phosphate to the ammonium nitrate fertilizer may product a better product, not, indeed, a product in any way less important as the fertilizer to America's farmers. Finally, there are other technical issues that deserve serious analysis, such as whether the process can be reversed chemically and if so, how easily it could be reversed and whether the effectiveness of the Porter process can be circumvented by simply coming up with one of these reversal processes. We know there is no silver bullet for preventing terrorist attacks in America, but we also know that there is something fundamentally wrong about closing off Pennsylvania Avenue, about going into a bunker mentality here in America. How many more streets will we have to close up? How many more public buildings will we turn into virtual bunkers because of this product [[Page H5373]] out there that is so easily converted into a major bomb? How far do we go out of fear into this bunker mentality? How will Americans, in fact, resist this temptation to be held hostage to that kind of fear? We suggest that America will not be hostage to that fear, that solutions such as the Porter process may, in fact, be available, may have been available for 27 years and certainly cannot be ignored today. Even if Mr. Porter's process is completely effective, as he intended, we know that ammonium nitrate can be chemically produced relatively easily instead of purchased. There are many other ways to make an explosive, other than using fertilizer in our country. In fact, according to ATF statistics, most criminal explosives in the United States involve something other than fertilizer and there would need to be effective compliance by fertilizer manufacturers worldwide if we are going to get control of this problem. So I do not want to leave the impression that ammonium nitrate fertilizer is in and of itself a present and clear danger to the public. It can safely be used and stored; in fact, it is. The bottom line is that experts have concluded that it should be relatively easy to look at the technical and economic issues regarding Mr. Porter's patent developed and issued in 1968 and that it is highly desirable for us to conduct those studies not in the near future but in the very near future. In light of the commonly available information on fertilizer, its low cost, the commonly available information on how this common fertilizer can be converted into this huge bomb material, as well as the tragic incidents we have seen, when, in fact, someone has become so insane as to do what we saw in Oklahoma City, it would be irresponsible for us to fail to follow up on the work Mr. Porter conducted 30 years ago. Thirty years ago, 28 years ago, 25 years ago, this Nation and the fertilizer industry were asked to take this issue seriously. Today, can we fail, after having seen what happened in Oklahoma City, after having seen how easy it is for that to happen again anywhere in America, if someone is insane enough to conduct that kind of terrorist attack upon public or private buildings, can we not take it seriously today? Do not Mr. Porter and Mr. Colbert deserve our attention to that issue today? Mr. Porter appeared today after his patent has long expired, after he has no financial interest whatsoever in this process, he appeared today to urge us to take it seriously. Mr. Colbert came from Kansas City on his own nickel to fly to Washington, DC, without a financial interest left in this issue, to come and tell us to take it seriously. Can we not heed their advice? Can we not heed, I am sure, the message of Oklahoma City and take seriously what may be one of the answers, not all of the answers, to making this country a little more safe, to ending some of this fear which causes us to close down avenues like Pennsylvania, and to shut ourselves up into some kind of bunker mentality? Mr. Speaker, I urge those within near reach of this special order to encourage this Congress, to encourage all who have something to say about what may be done in the next several weeks or months, to study this issue to make sure that it is not ignored in 1995 the way it was ignored in the late 1960's, the way it was ignored in 1970 and later on in Wisconsin when lawmakers had a chance then to visit this issue seriously and do something about the problem.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, let me correct perhaps a statement that I am sure was not made on purpose. We are not revoting the Boehlert amendment. The Boehlert amendment was an amendment designed in fact to place the coastal zone management nonpoint source pollution back in the bill. It had been repealed by the original bill. This amendment does not take it back out. In fact, it says, any State that wants to can, in fact, implement that coastal zone nonpoint source pollution program, just as they would without this amendment. The only thing this amendment does is say to States, which want to use a section 319, with the enforceability provision still in the bill, they have to do the nonpoint source program but they do it under section 319 instead of under this new reinvented wheel program. It gives the States the flexibility. It does exactly what the gentleman from New York [Mr. Boehlert], I think, said he wanted to do, and that is give the States the real chance to run their program the way we intended. If, in fact, if, in fact, the purpose of the Boehlert amendment was to represent the will of the States, as it was presented on the floor of the House, then this is a perfecting amendment. This makes it very clear that the States make the choice. The States have the option. I want to point out to you that the existing coastal zone management program was indeed a voluntary program. It involved land use decisions which had been traditionally and correctly reserved for the States. It was not a program where the Federal Government came in and dictated the coastal zone boundaries, nor was it a program where the Federal Government dictated land use decisions within that coastal zone boundary. The amendment we offer preserves that voluntary State-managed program under CZM. It gives a certain amount of assurance that there will be coordination in the program, because it says that now one agency, the EPA, rather than two agencies, NOAA on the one hand, EPA on the other hand, are managing two very similar programs that might collide with one another. Lastly, it aids in the success of nonpoint source pollution control in that it allows the moneys that are available to be used in implementing the program not just planning. I think most Americans are rather fed up with the notion that so much Federal money gets spent on studies and planning and so little actually is used to accomplish the good that a program is designed to accomplish. To that end, this amendment makes sure that money can be used to actually carry out the program, not just to plan it. So for those very good three reasons: First, the States ought to have the flexibility to coordinate the programs as the States feel work best in their own State, particularly when you consider that CZM has always been a State-run voluntary program; second, that coordination under a single Federal agency makes sense, why have two different agencies running two programs at a parallel that might in fact and generally do collide running, run into conflicts with one another; and third, why not provide, as we do in this amendment, that moneys available under the program can in fact be used to implement it, not just to plan and keep planning and keep planning ad infinitum and wasting Federal and local resources in planning processes when we could be using it to actually begin controlling nonpoint source pollution in the coastal zone. I urge the Members of the House, again, to consider, we are not repealing the Boehlert amendment, not at all. We are saying that Boehlert amendment stands. The CZM Program stands. If your State wants to implement it as the Fed wants you to do, you can go right ahead. It simply says that a State like Louisiana, which wants to coordinate its 319 programs with the CZM nonsource program, can do so and further that it can use the money to implement the program and it will be coordinated by only one Federal agency, not a pair of agencies which are often in conflict. That makes sense. If this session of Congress is about rationalizing programs, ending duplication, creating flexibility for those on the local level who implement the programs, this amendment, the Petri-Tauzin amendment is exactly the way to make the Boehlert amendment work well. I will say it again, either you really meant what you said when you said that you were trying to represent the will of the States in this point of view or you did not. if you really meant to represent the will of the States, this amendment perfects that. It gives the States the flexibility, the option to make the decisions that best suit the CZM Program in a given State, a program that has always been voluntary, always been State-run, always been defined by State law and regulated, and managed by State managers. If you believe that, if that is the purpose of the original Boehlert amendment, this amendment strengthens it, makes it clearer that States do have that option. If your State wants to run it the way it is currently run, you have full authority to do so under this amendment. If your State is one like mine that wants to coordinate it under section 319, this amendment gives you that power. I urge the Members to adopt this amendment.

Mr. TAUZIN. I thank the gentleman for his statement. I want to point out that when I was a young State legislator, many years ago, that I managed a CZM bill through the Louisiana Legislature. I remember all the promises that were made then, that the State would always run its program, define its boundaries, decide land use practices. In fact it was always going to be a State-run program. This amendment perfects the Boehlert amendment to make sure that process is kept, that each State runs its program in the way that makes sense, that it is coordinated properly, and that moneys can be used to carry out the intent of the Boehlert amendment. I commend the gentleman for his support and urge other Members to do the same thing.

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

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

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

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, this is the property rights vote, 1995. This amendment strikes property rights from the wetlands bill. Now, just a few short weeks ago 205 Republicans and 72 Democrats voted in favor of property rights compensation to landowners in wetlands regulations. Today is a real test. We are going to see today whether 205 Republicans who signed a contract promising to assist American landowners in their property rights battles with the Federal Government in wetlands regulations are ready to keep that contract, or whether they just signed a piece of paper. We are going to see whether 72 Democrats who voted for their farmers, for their homeowners, for the landowners of America regulation, that nobody ever passed into law, that regulators simply built upon, one regulation after the other, we are going to find out whether 72 Democrats really believe in private property rights, or whether they just vote for it one day and vote against it another day. If there is one thing people in America are sick and tired of, it is the old politics as usual. Vote for something one day and claim you were for it, and vote against it another day when it really counts. Well, today it really counts. Today it really counts. The President of the United States has declared on Earth Day before a throng of his environmental friends that he intends to veto the property rights bill we passed just a few short weeks ago. That bill is on its way to death, and it has not even been considered by the Senate. This bill today is your chance to say you really meant it when you voted for property rights just a few weeks ago. This is your chance to put property rights in the wetlands bill, where it belongs. So make sure that when the Government takes people's property by regulation, that it does what the Constitution says it ought to do, that it pays them fair and just compensation. That is simple. There is no way around this. In just a few short minutes this debate will end and people will come from their offices back to this Chamber, and we will find out whether 205 Republicans really meant it when they signed a contract in favor of property rights, and whether 72 Democrats really meant it when they voted for property rights. We will find out today if they are prepared to vote ``No'' on this Boehlert amendment, and stand up for Americans who deserve and are entitled to be compensated when regulations take away the use and value of their property. Mr. Chairman, there is the day of reckoning. There will be other smaller amendments offered on the property rights issue, but this is the big one. This is the property rights vote of 1995. This vote and the one that will come on endangered species when we finally take up the reform of the Endangered Species Act, will really tell Americans how you stand on this issue central to this debate. If you believe, as I do, that regulations to protect wetlands are certainly important and regulations to protect endangered species are certainly important, but so are people, so land and rights, so are property rights, so are jobs, so is the economy in this country, and there ought to be a balance, that when the Government regulates people's land in such a way that they cannot use it anymore or their use is heavily restricted, if you believe as I believe, as most in America I think believe, then this is your chance to vote no on the Boehlert amendment.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I join him in offering this amendment. I want to point out to the House again, this amendment does not repeal or even undercut the Boehlert amendment nor the CZM program. It simply does what the gentleman from New York [Mr. Boehlert] said he wanted to do, give the States a choice to either use that program or in fact work with section 319 of the clean water bill. It, second, harmonizes those two sections by allowing the coordination of management under the EPA, and it does a very good thing I think the gentleman from New York [Mr. Boehlert] would like. It allows the funds for the program that can only be used right now to plan the CZM nonpoint source pollution program, to be used to implement that plan. So it really extends and further implements the plans if the States want to in fact go forward with them. In short, it allows for State option to either use a CZM program or to in fact use section 319 and to operate their program accordingly. I want the House to know the first thing I received when we began talking about this amendment was a notice from Mr. Kanjorski, head of our program in Louisiana, saying this is exactly what the State of Louisiana would like. I suspect that more States would prefer doing exactly this, giving the States the flexibility to use one or the other programs, to harmonize them under one agency and to use the funds not only to plan, but to actually implement those plans. Mr. Chairman, I commend the gentleman for the amendment and join him in offering it, and urge its adoption by the House.

Mr. TAUZIN. As I understand, Mr. Chairman, the compromise goes to literally ensure that when the States have made their selection, and actually put together their plans, that EPA has some say as to whether or not that plan is adequate, and actually addresses the problem. I think that is a workable compromise, but I, like the gentleman, reserve the right to continue to work with the gentleman through the conference to make sure that we have this thing tied down properly, where the balance is respective between the States and the Federal Government.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. TAUZIN. Reclaiming my time, if the use is one that damages your neighbor, you don't get compensated under the bill, and you know it.

Mr. TAUZIN. Well, you said it but you cannot really mean it. The President of the United States stood up on Earth Day and in effect said, ``I don't care what's in the private property rights bill that's over in the Senate right now, how it's completed, what ti says, what's in it, I'm going to vote ``no'' on it by vetoing it.'' That bill has already been vetoed by the President in a speech he made on Earth Day. If we are going to protect private property rights, we now have to do it in the bills where it pertains, in the wetlands reform bill and in the endangered species reform bill. That is our only chance of giving compensation to landowners.

Mr. TAUZIN. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, you cannot say that.

Mr. TAUZIN. I am certainly glad we had that conversation today.

Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. TAUZIN. I will be happy to answer the question. There is law in all of our jurisdictions, I know in my State, I assume in Maryland, that provides if I use my property and damage my neighbor, I am answerable to him, I am answerable to him in the State court for my damages. That is current law. [[Page H4951]]

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, the current law says that if you do something to your property to damage your neighbor, you have got to pay for that. The bill on property takings that we wrote makes it clear that the only time you get compensated is when the use that has been denied you is not a zoning use prohibited, is not a nuisance use prohibited but only a use that is designed to protect environmental wetlands. Second, let me say to my friend, I am not saying the law should not protect the wetlands in the Florida Rock case. Maybe they should have been protected. All I am saying is that if they are protected and the use of that property is denied the owner as in Florida Rock, that he ought not to have to spend from 1968 to 1995 trying to get an answer as to what he should be compensated for.