Billy Tauzin

Mr. TAUZIN

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

Mr. TAUZIN. And Louisiana wants to regulate it a different way than when the National Government regulates it, let us say for example oilfield waste which is a pretty common problem in the Southwest, in Louisiana, in Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas, particularly a problem in our area, not a big problem nationally, a big problem regionally. We have got laws now in Louisiana dealing with oilfield waste, we have a standard right now, a regime for regulating that that is a model for other States. We developed it at home and we pay for it at home and we make the polluters at home pay for it. We set that standard up in our own State. But if on the other hand we had a problem that affected the air of the United States, and that required a mandate here in Washington for us to require that all polluters, all persons affecting the air of the United States be part of a program, what this bill says is that in the future we should have the courage of our convictions and say that this is something good for all Americans, it affects the air that we all breathe, we are going to set down a mandate to clean it up and we will raise the money and pay for it in Washington. That is what this unfunded mandates bill is all about. The day you make an exception because you happen to like one set of mandates instead of another is the day you begin to unravel the principle of unfunded mandates which ought to be something we all agree upon here in Washington.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, our Constitution contains an interstate commerce clause. It does so because our Founding Fathers recognized that this Government in Washington, DC had in fact an obligation to make laws and to set order in the operations of the various States of the Nation which may from time to time come in conflict with one another. I rise in opposition to the amendment offered today to the unfunded mandates bill. I do so because, most importantly, this amendment raises the question of the entire debate of unfunded mandates I think as clearly as any other amendment might raise it. Yes, this Government has a responsibility to write clean air laws. It has a responsibility to write clean water laws. It has a responsibility to protect wetlands. It has a responsibility to protect endangered species. In short, it has a responsibility to do good environmental things for this country which may not be able to be done by the various States because they are sometimes in conflict. The issue here is not whether we ought to do those things. The issue is here whether we believe them enough to pay for them or whether we want to do those good things and leave it to somebody else to pay for them. Who else? Somebody at home. Whether we as politicians who get elected and come serve in this Congress should set the rules for these good environmental causes and then ask somebody else to bear the burden. That is it in a nutshell.

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

Mr. TAUZIN. Oh, no.

Mr. TAUZIN. I do not fundamentally disagree with the proposition.

Mr. TAUZIN. I will yield when I finish the entire thought. If I do not have time, I will ask for more time to yield to the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs]. Mr. Chairman, the issue here is not whether we should have good environmental law for the country. The issue is when we decide to have a general environmental policy for the country whether we believe in it enough to pay for it here. Or whether we ask some other taxpayers to bear that burden, or worse yet, some other citizen to bear that burden who may be a private property owner, may be a private business person in this country. That is the only issue here. So this bill prospectively by the way, not retroactively, not affecting the old Clean Air Act, only affecting what reauthorizations we might pass for it, says to all of us, ``Be careful. Before you pass a law that leads to a regulation that compels someone to do something that you think is good, you had better be ready to raise the money and to spend it here in Washington, not make someone else spend it at home in your various States.'' Yes, indeed clean air is a good and worthy goal. I supported the last Clean Air Act. But let me tell you something: If you don't have to pay for what you do, what restrains you from being excessive? What restrains the regulators here in Washington from being extraordinarily excessive, demanding much more than is required in cleanup if they never have to put up the money to pay the bills, if somebody else has to put up the money? What restrains the agencies of Government, for example, from declaring that 60 percent of the State of California is a wetland, and they almost did in 1989, or that 80 percent of the State of Louisiana is a wetlands, and they almost did in 1989, if they don't have to worry about the cost of that decision? You see, if we in Washington really believe in a clean air law or a wetlands policy or an endangered species policy, and we should, if we really believe it, we ought to be ready and willing to raise the resources and to spend those moneys to carry out these interstate, these national programs as we see fit. And when we do not believe in them enough to do that, we ought to leave it to the States and the communities to write their laws affecting their local environments, their local policies, as they see fit as they can afford them. That is what this bill is all about. If you go around excepting this particular area of environmental law, if you want to except this one and except the next one and except the next one, you have got no unfunded mandates bill. You have blown the principle. If you believe in the principle that when we make a mandate, and very often we need to, we have to believe in it enough to pay for it here in Washington, DC, then you will reject the Skaggs amendment as you will reject similar amendments trying to gut this bill, and you will live as we should live in the future by the principle that when we believe enough in an environmental law, we raise the money and we pay for it here in Washington. If we do not believe in it enough to pay for it, then we should leave it to the States and the local communities to make their own decisions about just what they want to do with their own environments.

Mr. TAUZIN. No; I do however believe that when pollution runs across State boundaries that you need a national law to regulate that situation and in those cases the people of the Nation benefit collectively as we all do when we clean the air of the Nation and we ought to be willing to pay for that here in Washington by raising sufficient sums to pay for the mandates.

Mr. TAUZIN. I will be happy to yield to my friend the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs].

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I particularly want to thank my friend the gentleman from California [Mr. Condit] who has put in so many hours and so much time as one of our chief leaders in this effort to end unfunded mandates in this Congress and in this land. It is important to know what this bill does and what it does not do. Let's talk about what it does not do first. This bill does not end the responsibility of this Congress to pass mandates when they are important for the public health and safety or for other valid public policy reasons in this country. If it is a critical need in this country to stop pollutants from entering the Mississippi River, we have an obligation to pass mandates that that practice end, so that those of us who live at the bottom end are not infected with someone else's garbage. If it is an important and critical item in this Nation's agenda that every schoolchild with a handicap is specially educated in this country, we ought to make that a mandate in this country. [[Page H357]] What this bill does not do is prevent us from doing those things. It simply says that when we here in Washington think we know better than the folks back home, so that we are going to mandate those things upon the Nation, we ought to have the courage of our beliefs. We ought to raise the money and we ought to pay for the mandates we produce. Let me tell you what the bill also does not do contrary to some of the things you have heard up here today. It does not prevent us here in Washington from putting together programs to incentivize the States and localities to do good things that we do not necessarily think ought to be mandated. We can, for example, put together programs that say if you want to share in a government program at a 50-50 level, a 90-10 level, a 70-30 level, we have got a program here you can participate in if you want to, and these are the conditions of participation. You can do that. We can continue to do that even with this bill passed. What we cannot do after this bill passes is to say that you must participate, you must do it, and the only way for you to do it is to come up with a 30-percent match or 10-percent match. This bill ought to pass. We ought to have the courage of backing up what we believe with the money to carry it out. That is what ending unfunded mandates will do for America.