Charles Taylor

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from California for yielding to me and greatly appreciate her continued leadership on this issue. I look to continue work with her during the conference on this very important issue.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I assure the gentleman that the subcommittee continues to support this very important effort. Allocation constrained us from increasing funding for the program in our fiscal year 2005 recommendations, but we have included a general increase of $2 million for invasive species research, and I think that this program may qualify for some of those funds.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of title I be considered as read, printed in the Record and open to amendment at any point.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I reluctantly rise in opposition to this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I share the gentlewoman's concern for forests, as our entire committee did. We restored much of the money in the healthy forest initiative. It has $500 million for fighting fire in 2004 and $500 million for fighting fires in 2005, and we hope we can get through conference so we can get that 2004 money as quickly as possible for this year. We also have a $58 million increase for hazardous fuel reduction. This is a large increase, and we think it will be ample, especially given the tight situation we have this year, the tight allocation. On the other hand, we are 7 percent below in our energy programs, and we have restored a number of those above what the administration wanted at the time, and we hope we can restore more and maybe during the conference. I would oppose this, not because I am against the gentlewoman's enthusiasm for preventing fires, but we have adequate money, I think, for this coming year to give that prevention, as well as fighting fires in this tight budget year.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I certainly share the gentleman's concern, and we will work with the gentleman. It is outrageous, and we appreciate the gentleman bringing this to our attention; and we will work toward that.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. The gentleman is correct.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. I look forward to working with the gentleman from Virginia to find a way to appropriately implement the E- Government Act as we move towards conference.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I commend the gentleman for his work on this difficult situation. I will commit to working with him and the Fish and Wildlife Service to see what can be done to address his concerns.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. The gentleman makes a positive argument, but the State's energy program grants have been increased above the level that we have had and the State energy programs will be making a decision on this. We have tried to stay away from earmarks. In fact, many, many people have asked for earmarks which would take the bill in a different direction and we have tried to avoid any earmarks. The State energy program grant may well take care of what the gentleman has asked for, but I oppose the amendment to have earmarked $1 million in this program.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. As the gentleman knows, this committee has been extremely generous to the national parks. Over the last 10 years, we have provided an additional $515 million specifically for park-based increases. This bill includes another $55 million. That amounts to a total of $1 billion for 388 park units in fiscal year 2005. The committee has been concerned over the last several years that OMB has required the parks to absorb pay costs, antiterrorism requirements and costs associated with catastrophic storm damage. These absorbed costs total $171 million. However, there is another side to the story. As the gentleman may be aware, the Park Service is not managing the funds we have provided. The gentleman from Washington and I have raised issues with the Service related to excessive travel, too many large conferences and meetings, and the Park Service's inability to control major new initiatives, including the 100 partnership construction projects with a price tag of $300 million. These are projects that the Park Service has committed to without this committee or the United States Congress' knowledge or approval. Even if only a fraction of these projects went forward, they would have a devastating impact on both the backlog maintenance projects and park operations. I will be pleased to work with the gentleman and my friend and ranking minority member the gentleman from Washington on securing additional funds to address the absorption issue as we head into conference. This will require securing funds above the current allocation and not having more amendments like the Slaughter amendment to take money out of this program, and I hope we will be able to increase that.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota for his consideration of this issue. I would be happy to work with my friend to look into this issue with the BIA.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the gentleman, and I am not opposed to the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I reluctantly rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I can sympathize, I feel, with what I hope is the intent of this motion. However, the motion is so broad. If we could sit down prior to conference and work on this, we might be able to do something. But I would have to reluctantly oppose it. Mr. Chairman, I have the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians in my district. I work with them many times on burial sites, which are both outside the Reservation and in, to try to preserve those sites and do everything we can to honor those sites. In the Smokey Mountain area now, the parks, a portion of parkland that was deeded to the park in 1946 encompasses a number of cemeteries. The government promised to put a road to those cemeteries. The government has not honored its commitment because there are many people bringing numerous complaints, environmental complaints, about building a road that will allow people to come to those cemeteries, and I am working with them to try to get the respect due for those sites. But the Clinton executive order which addresses this issue and is tied to it in this amendment is so broad, it is almost impossible to identify what is a sacred site. Now, we have a 1988 report submitted by the Legacy Resource Management Program to the Department of Defense, for instance, and edited by Professor Vine DeLoria of the University of Colorado. For those that are not familiar with Mr. DeLoria, he is a radical Native American historian whose books include ``Custer Died For Your Sins'' and ``Red Earth, White Lies.'' We can hardly say that he is accused of being anti-Indian. In the report, he identifies several kinds of potential sacred sites that could have impact, for instance, on the Department of Defense, which would come under this bill also with the Federal wildlife management. Burials and ruins would be understandable. The mourning and condolence areas is vague. Ceremonial areas; linkage to ceremonial areas; creation story locations and boundaries; sacred portals recalling star migrations; universal center locations; historical migration destiny locations; places of prehistoric revelations; traditional vision quest sites; plant and animal relationship locations; historical past occupying sites; spiritual sites; recent historical event locations; plant, animal and mineral gathering sites; and sanctified ground. As you can see, with all these categories, every acre of Federal lands could almost come under this definition, as well as military bases. Now, if the gentleman is trying to protect those areas that he and I, I hope, would agree are sacred sites, we can sit down and try to work something out, because we certainly want to protect those sites. But we cannot pass a bill that is so broad that it may disrupt all activity in our national parks. For instance, what does this amendment do to recreation activities on public lands? What does the amendment do to the oil and gas drilling on any Federal land? What does the amendment do to the Fish and Wildlife Service's activities on military lands? How does this amendment affect existing rights on Federal lands? I believe that this could be a lawsuit heaven, and it should not be, because the gentleman's argument, what he would like to do and what I would like to do, is to define it in some way that we could have vital protection of sites. So I have to disagree and oppose this amendment.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. I do, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment. I appreciate the gentleman's argument. I am also a fiscal conservative, but this amendment is wrong- headed. First of all, the amendment would prevent the Forest Service from doing road maintenance on a large area of southeastern Alaska. Most of these communities have no road access to the outside world, but they need their Forest Service roads to get around on daily activities. Also, only 4 percent of the forest is suitable for commercial timber harvest, and only half of that amount is within the inventoried roadless areas. The existing forest plan allows timber harvest on only 300,000 acres, about 2 percent of more than 15 million total acres of the roadless areas on the forest; and this of course is no threat at all. The Tongass National Forest is indeed a wonderful place; but under the existing forest management, approximately 90 percent of the 16.8 million-acre forest, over 15 million acres, is roadless and undeveloped right now. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo).