Charles Taylor

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina

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

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my request.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, there is a lot of hysterical comments on the floor, and I share the gentleman's concern about high gas prices. The unfortunate thing is we are not spending any money now to buy gas. No funds are being expended here. We expect the next 39 million barrels will come in as royalties. We cannot sell the oil with this amendment. This merely says no funds in this act shall be used to maintain more than 647 billion barrels of crude oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Now, if it ever gets back down to 647, and that would take a complicated movement to get it back down there, then the gentleman's amendment might apply. But I do not see that it does what he is intending it to do, and certainly it is not going to lower the price of gas.

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 gentlewoman from Guam for raising this issue. The committee encourages the Office of Insular Affairs to take into account financial accountability performance. The committee also wants the OIA to consider the capital infrastructure needs mandated by Federal court orders in the Territories. This is important to Guam and to other Territories and to the committee.

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

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson) is correct in his assessment that a permit tracking system is needed, and we will work with the gentleman on this issue in the future and hope we can succeed. Amendment No. 4 Offered by Mr. Holt

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman knows, this is a complicated issue. With two Federal courts dueling, one ruling that the National Park Service's 2003 plan was invalid and the other that enjoined the plan of the Clinton administration. Caught in the middle are the local business people that rely on winter use and the visitors who 90 percent prefer the use of snowmobiles to access during the winter in Yellowstone. Together the courts have found that the environmental studies in place are flawed and must be redone. This will take 2 to 3 years. In the meantime, to ensure snowmobile use this winter, the National Park Service has initiated a temporary winter use plan to allow for their use while the long-term study is being completed. Now there is a whole plethora of rules and regulations, but the committee supports the National Park's efforts to ensure continued winter use that balances visitors in the park and resource protection until the courts can get back to it again.

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

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I would be happy to work with the gentleman on exploring promising solutions to the Klamath situation and with the California delegation and the Oregon delegation, also; and I commend the gentleman for his work.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I would like to reserve a point of order on the amendment. The Chairman pro tempore (Mr. Bass). The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor) has reserved a point of order. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner) for 5 minutes.

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

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, while I may be sufficiently galled and while I appreciate the gentleman's welcome to New York, I must make a point of order against the amendment because it imposes to change existing law and constitutes legislation in an appropriations bill, and therefore, violates clause 2 of rule XXI. The rule states in pertinent part: No amendment to a general appropriation bill shall be in order if changing existing law. The amendment gives affirmative direction, in effect. I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

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

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, we have no objection to the amendment.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his point of personal privilege and his comments on the commitment to the restoration of the Everglades. He and I have spoken about the importance of ensuring that all communities affected by this restoration project be involved in the decision-making process and understand how the project affects their lives. I am committed to working with him and with this bill as it goes forward to conference to encourage the Department of Interior and the Army Corps of Engineers to be sensitive to the restoration outreach and assistance in minority and other disadvantaged communities. I thank the gentleman for bringing it to our attention.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the bill (H.R. 4568) making appropriations for the Department of the Interior and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005, and for other purposes, and that I may include tabular and other extraneous material.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 4568, and that I may include tabular and extraneous materials.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, today we bring to the House floor the fiscal year 2005 budget recommendations for the Department of Interior and related agencies. This bill includes $19.5 billion, which is $156 million below the budget request and $257 million below the enacted level. Given our allocations, this is a balanced bipartisan bill. It provides significant operation increases for our national parks. It increases funding above the level requested for Indian schools and hospitals and clinics. It provides increased wildland fire programs and continues to make forest health a high priority. We have fully funded the healthy forests initiative. There is an additional appropriation, in title IV of the bill, for urgent fire suppression. It includes $500 million for fiscal year 2004 and $500 million for fiscal year 2005. These funds will be made available to the extent they are needed to fight fires in those fiscal years. Given our past problems with insufficient fire fighting funds, the budget resolution includes a special allocation adjustment for this purpose. The bill reported out of committee maintains funding for proven, mission-essential grant programs that are strongly supported by Congress and restores funding to ensure that core programs in the bill are continued. We have partially restored critical energy research programs to protect the investment the Congress and the taxpayer have made to ensure that energy is used more efficiently and cleanly. It just does not make sense to terminate arbitrarily successful research programs before they reach a logical conclusion, and that is why we have taken this measure. The committee transferred jurisdiction for the Weatherization Assistance Program from the Interior bill to the Labor, Health, and Human Services bill, which has the responsibility for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. LIHEAP already includes a set-aside for weatherization, and it is, logical to keep these two programs together in the same bill. We have made difficult but sensible decisions in the energy area. Overall, energy research funding is reduced by 7 percent, after adjustments for jurisdictional change for weatherization. We hope to be able to increase this as we move forward with the bill in conference. In order to restore funding for mission essential programs, we have reduced new construction, land acquisition and grant programs. This is a challenging year, but this is a bill that is balanced and fair, and I urge all Members to support it. I want to thank my friend, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), the minority ranking member, for the hard work that he has done in producing this bill, as well as the entire committee, and both the majority and minority staff for their work on this. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, relating to the operation funds, we hope maybe in the conference we will be able to provide more money, after we work with the Senate, for the Interior bill. But we have a letter from the parks director, and this is the second letter that they have sent; and also in public testimony they pointed out that there is not going to be any reductions in visitors' services or access to the park facilities this year. Let me repeat that. Her instructions to the National Park Service field management was clear that the parks facilities are to be available at the same level as they were in the last year, with some amounts for changes for operating hours where individual work might be going on. So we do not expect parks to be closed. We do not expect any different changes in visitation for our people who will be vacationing at national parks. We put $1 billion into parks operation. That was a $55 million increase; and while we all want to look for more money for our entire public lands, we think this is adequate, and we have the Parks Service's guarantee that we will not be closing parks under any circumstances this year. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I commend the gentleman. The San Marcos National Monument in St. Augustine, Florida, is one of the outstanding examples of parks for the east coast, and his effort is commendable. As the gentleman can appreciate, we cannot make commitments on future appropriations, but we will certainly consider the gentleman's request once the project is authorized.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, year after year we try to massage our conscience for the failure in education to address a lot of the problems of the arts and humanities. We spend billions of dollars there and we never mention this in the education budget or any of the related budgets, so we think a few million dollars in the humanities or the arts will solve all the problems. It will, as one gentlewoman said, or gentleman, where the arts are disappearing from the community, it will solve that problem. The bureaucracy that is funded here and the limited programs that are funded here will not even begin to do that. We find that there is a need to raise the cultural level in the United States, both in the arts and the humanities. There is a need for us to see that young people recognize the documents vital in our Nation's history. I take tours through the Capitol with young people. Most of the teachers and the young people have not a clue about the paintings and the things that are going on in the Capitol. But it will not be solved by increasing the amount of money for the arts and the humanities. Our committee has a tough job. We have to increase the funding, natural funding for the forests and parks and various others, Indian health, the environment. We were cut $257 million enacted and we kept the NEA at last year's level and we increased NEH $3.5 million. There is a demand now that we increase it $13.5 million more. Based on the cuts that were in the overall bill, it was important to note that we increased both NEA and NEH. In fiscal year 2002, we increased some $15 million to the NEH and the NEA $13 million in 2003. We have grown the fund more than the rate of inflation, but it will not solve the problems of the men and women who spoke here and the dream that they are going to solve all these problems in the arts and the humanities. But it can do this. The amendment reduces administrative funds. The gentleman from Washington and I realize that we are short in that area, anyway. We know that they are going to be called on for funds and we know that that is going to be a problem. When we get to the conference, we hope we can increase that. It is not clear that the vehicle offset that the gentlewoman from New York discussed will be sufficient. And so we risk the chance that the amendment will impair the on-grounds operation of environment protection, Indian programs, it could reduce the department's funding, including hearings and appeals and support for Indian trust reform. The committee is watchful certainly, the gentleman from Washington and I both, in areas of administrative abuse in trying to rein in excessive spending and travel in other areas and Members can count on our oversight to try to look in any other areas. But moving the money around as suggested could be very dangerous for the balance we have in this bill. I ask Members to join me in opposition to this amendment.

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

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