Craig Thomas

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that an intern from our office, Steve Ripley, be granted the privilege of the floor for today.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I send to the desk an amendment.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I move to waive the pertinent section of the Budget Act, and I ask for the yeas and nays. I also have to add, we did not even know about this until 10 minutes ago. We have not even had time to look at what they are talking about. The Budget Committee is not able to tell us. I guess if my colleagues want to play this game, we can do it on the whole bill.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I rise to send a series of amendments to the desk and ask for their immediate consideration en bloc.

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendments be dispensed with.

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I thank the chairman for his cooperation in finding some areas on which we are in agreement and on which we can move forward. This electric title of the energy bill is a very important one. Probably nothing affects more people than the electric aspect of energy. We are very pleased. We do have several more amendments in this area, some of which will come up for a vote. Certainly being able to agree on these and move them forward is a great advantage. I appreciate the cooperation of the Senator from New Mexico.

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, these amendments are from Senator Thomas of Wyoming and Senator Bingaman of New Mexico. They have been cleared on both sides.

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I rise to discuss an event that happened last week in which I was very disappointed. It was a hearing we had on the FAIR Act or private contracting of Government activities where it is appropriate under what is called the FAIR Act, which was passed in 1998. This was to have been a committee hearing about how you can best do what has been a policy for a very long time; that is, to take those activities within the Federal Government which are not integral to the Government and give the private sector a chance to bid and do those kinds of things. Even though it has not been implemented as it could be and should be, it has been the policy for a very long time--20, 25 years--to do that, to take those things that are not specifically and inordinately Federal activities that could be done and could be done more efficiently by the private sector. So in 1998, we passed a bill called the FAIR Act which required that there be an analysis of all the Government activities in most of the agencies, determine which of those would be eligible for outside contracting, and then move forward on that. I had hoped to testify before the committee. It turned out that I was not available, and also, they thought they had a balance. As I read about it--and I have a couple things I want to put in the Congressional Record--it turned out not to be a balanced hearing at all. It turned out to be kind of a pro-union rally in which they accidentally had to have it at a time when practically all the Government unions were meeting here. So they had about 250 members there, which is fine except they didn't have a balanced approach to the program. I was advised that the hearing was going to be evenly balanced, and it couldn't have been more unbalanced, according to what was written about it. It was regarding the Government contracting. This is a very important issue to me for several reasons. One is, it is the most efficient way to get some of the jobs done that are available to be done in the Federal Government. The other is, I am one who thinks it is a good idea to reduce and hold down as low as possible the numbers in the Federal Government and allow the private sector to do all those jobs that can be done by the private sector. And that was the idea of the FAIR bill which was signed into law in 1998. Again, it was designed to identify positions within the Federal agencies that are not inherently governmental. For about 50 years we have had a policy that said basically: It will not start or carry out any commercial activities to provide a service or product for its own use if such product or service can be procured from private enterprise through ordinary business channels. That has been the notion that, in my view, has not been implemented nearly as it might be. Nevertheless, it is the concept, and it is a great concept. Unfortunately, this hearing indicated that several of the members who were there certainly don't want to find any ways--to generally quote them--that we would diminish the size of Government, that we would put at risk any Federal jobs. The fact is, this seldom puts at risk Federal jobs. What it does is, as new jobs come up, new programs and projects come up that are not inherently governmental. Then they can be put out to the private sector and, indeed, be competitive. Conceptually, I certainly agree with this. I am surprised to find a number of members who were at the hearing who apparently do not agree with that and don't agree that the private sector ought to be able to compete at all with the Federal Government. They were very precise about that. I do not agree with that. We were able to pass a bill with a number of hearings last year, Chairman Thompson and his committee. He was there, by the way, and said some pretty reasonable things about it. This was widely heard last year and passed very strongly. It requires the Federal agencies to list commercial jobs. Inventories showed in 1999, kind of the initial inventory, that nearly 1 million Federal employees are engaged in commercial activities. These are services that can be found in the yellow pages from small businesses and firms throughout the country. Under the Clinton administration, the FAIR Act inventory served as no more than a list. Nothing was ever done about it. So last year, the Bush administration announced it was requiring all Federal agencies to convert 5 percent of the jobs listed in the FAIR Act as public and private competition or contract to the private sector. In the course of the hearing, of course, the witnesses they had said the percentages were not necessarily the only percentages that could be considered. But the fact is, it did begin for the first time a planned effort to point out those kinds of jobs that could be in the private sector. I know this is fiercely denied and opposed by those who want more Government, who want to actually spend more and have larger Government. That is not really what this is all about. The fact is, we do need to find a way to have an inventory, to find a way to have an opportunity for the private sector to look into those jobs--not all the jobs, of course, only those that are inherently not involved as governmental functions. I hope we can go back to the core of what that bill is about. And that is the objective way, not putting at risk public employees but finding, as these jobs are created, that there is a place to be able to do that in the private sector. I am hopeful we can continue to explore that, as, in fact, it is a law. Therefore, I would like very much to be able to pursue that. I want my friends on the committee to know I, for one, fiercely oppose the idea to gut the FAIR Act, and I want to make that point and continue to pursue it as time goes by.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, we had a meeting this morning with the veterans. Over the last several months we have had a number of press conferences and meetings with all kinds of different interests in this country that support us doing something, in a balanced way, about energy policy. We have heard from agriculture, the Farm Bureau, the Farmers' Union. Of course, the labor unions have been very much in support of what is there so we can get on with energy production. We have had small businesses. We have had Native Alaskans here and the veterans associations. I have been impressed with the breadth of support for an energy policy. I think it indicates in some ways the depth of involvement, how this touches everyone in this country, having an affordable, adequate energy supply, and doing it in a balanced way. It touches everyone's life. Unfortunately, in terms of moving on something, when last year we were having all the problems in California, of course, the shortage of electricity and the high prices, and gasoline prices were very high, there was great interest in it. Now gasoline prices are down. The California crisis is over. But I hope we do not lose our intensity, knowing that is not going to last unless we have a policy that leads us in the direction, in the future, of having an adequate domestic supply so we are not 60-percent dependent on foreign imports. Beginning to move towards more diversity in energy certainly ought to be part of our plan. We ought to do that. In a balanced bill, we will have research money to be able to look for new sources of energy, to have clean coal research so we can use those resources more thoroughly, and we should have renewables. All of us are interested in that. At the same time, we have to do something about production. I guess that is my main criticism of the bill before us, that it leans so much toward conservation and renewables, but it does not take into account what our needs are going to be in the next number of years. If nothing else, we have to look at a balanced energy policy that recognizes that we have to modernize and increase conservation, we have to modernize and expand our infrastructure, we have to have diversity in our supplies, and we have to improve environmental protection--among other things. We have spent a good deal of time on transportation of electric energy. It is also true of gas and oil, but you can generate all the electricity of the world right here, and if you don't have a way to get it to the market, then you have not accomplished your goals. We need to do something dramatic in this whole area of transportation of electricity. We need to build a network. We have an interstate grid that moves wholesale power, and hopefully we would have regional transportation organizations, RTOs, along there to take it into areas-- run by the States. These are things that are pretty much accepted as being necessary ingredients as we move forward with an energy bill. One of the things that is troublesome--I happen to be on the Energy Committee--is the process that has brought us here. The committee did not have an opportunity to deal with these difficult and detailed questions. That should be done at least initially in committees. We did not do that. The majority leader determined to take the bill out of the committee and bring it here to do this. It has been changed several times since we have been on the floor. That makes it difficult to deal with the details of an energy bill. Every amendment that comes up here is going to have to be dealt with in such detail, you would think, my gosh, that is the kind of thing that ought to be done in committee. But given the situation, the fact that the majority leader chose to do it that way--I happen to think it is a flawed process--nevertheless we are here. We have had no hearings, no markups, so we are going to be trying to do some of those things. We will be dealing right now with an amendment having to do with a $20 billion pipeline from Alaska which never had a hearing, never had an opportunity to find out the facts. That is not a good way to legislate. We will be pushing forward on those issues. I am hopeful that we can move forward. I am hopeful we will have an opportunity to deal with some of the difficult issues such as CAFE standards. I don't think anybody would argue with the idea that we would like to have vehicles that do what we need to do with better mileage. But we cannot be unrealistic, moving it over in just several years, given the costs associated with that --particularly to those who live in the West. Live where I live and look on the road and you seldom see anything except a pickup and an SUV. I realized part of the reason for that when I was there. I would never have gotten out of my driveway without a four-wheel drive. This is realism. This is the way it is. We can make some changes, but we can't substitute those future movements for where we need to be now. With regard to the security of this country, military security, terrorism--these things require that we have an adequate supply of energy. Much of it comes from the Middle East. Because we are having the problems we are having over there--and foreseeably we will be having them for some time--we have to do more. I live in a part of the country where we are one of the large energy producers in this Nation. We are the highest producer of coal. We have large reserves of gas, methane gas, and oil. But much of it is very difficult. We need to have access to public lands, among other things. We need to be able to utilize those resources in an environmentally sound way. We have done that and can do that. So I think the idea that somehow we can substitute production with some kind of renewables or some kind of scientific process that we do not even have before us is a little bit of dreamland, I am afraid. I am hopeful we can move forward and be realistic in what we do. We ought to have an opportunity, certainly, to be able to deal with these issues in a way in which everyone gets an opportunity to have amendments and to get something together that will be generally acceptable to all of us. As I said, I come from a State that is rich in resources. We have very high coal and oil and gas reserves. We also have an adequate supply--sometimes overadequate supply--of wind. We can convert some of that into electricity, of course. We should, indeed, do it. We need a realistic policy that encourages fuel diversity, that utilizes all of our domestic resources in a very broad way, that takes economic and environmental factors into account. In relation to economic factors, we need to be realistic about what we are going to do. We need to provide a cleaner and more secure energy future. We need an overall energy strategy that increases conservation and energy efficiency and boosts supply and promotes alternative energy. I think we can do that. Some of what I hear in this Chamber, however, would indicate that we do not need to worry about increasing our gas and oil supply because we are going to take care of it with renewables or with raising the standards in mileage. Fine, but you are not going to do that immediately. There is no way. I hope we are realistic enough to deal with it. One of the areas, of course, that is going to be very controversial is ANWR. We will all have to deal with that and see if we can't determine what the real impact is. I have been to Prudhoe Bay and out in that area particularly. I have seen the work they are doing there now, which, by the way, is very impressive. I have a little idea of what the wildlife refuge looks like. Sometimes we hear in this Chamber it would be a brandnew idea to have production on a wildlife refuge. It is not a new idea. It is done on a number of wildlife refuges now. The proposition is to have a very small footprint to be able to have a rather large impact. That is the kind of coming together there has been that makes that a possibility, that makes it a necessity, as a matter of fact, to do something there. We need to move forward with coal. We need to move forward with nuclear. We can do that. We can get more clean coal technology. That is our greatest reserve of energy for the future. Everyone in this country is affected by electricity, its availability and price. So this isn't just theoretical; this is something that really impacts everyone very directly. One of the issues we have to understand as thoroughly as we can is technology breakthrough. We need incentives for that, but they do not happen overnight. You cannot just regulate that they are going to do that. They don't just happen. That is not the way it is. Furthermore, it takes away the choices we have, where we ought to be able to do some things by incentive which I think are very possible. I am hopeful we can move forward through our differences and have legislation that will work. One of the areas that some of us have been working on, and I suspect will continue to work on for some time, is the electric component. Again, there have been debates and discussions about this. The House bill currently does not have an electric title. But there are a number of issues, certainly, that most people would agree need to be reviewed and that we need to do some things in the electric area. We have an opportunity to deal with some of those issues. One of them is reliability. We have talked about reliability for a very long time. We talked about it in great detail during the time we were having difficulty in California. We really have not done a great deal about that, but we have an opportunity to do so. We are going to have to make some choices about the way we handle these matters. Quite frankly, we have been through this for some time. We have been through it in terms of reregulation and deregulation. I thought we had come to the conclusion that those things that are clearly interstate could fairly well be defined and those things that clearly belong on the national level with FERC could fairly well be defined, that those things that have to do with retail and distribution and the unbundled distribution of electricity to homes and businesses within the State would be done by the State. Certainly, that is the way I believe it ought to be done. Having had a little bit of experience and background in the electric business through the rural electrics, I really think that is the way it ought to be. The needs you have in Pennsylvania and the needs you have in Wyoming are sometimes not the same. So we need to have some flexibility to do that. I am hopeful we will. This bill, as presented to us now, is really heavy on FERC. It gives FERC all the decisionmaking authority in almost every aspect of electricity. Many of us do not believe that is the way we ought to proceed. Many of us believe we can fix that. There needs to be some overall jurisdiction, of course, with FERC, which is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, but there are also opportunities for the North American Reliability Council, for Governors, and others. As a matter of fact, the Western Governors have put forth very detailed ideas of what they would like to do. I happen to agree generally with what they are doing. So I hope we can deal with this language and deal with how we can best establish a reliable distribution and generation system. Things have changed. It was not many years ago when you had an electric system, you had the service area, and whoever had that service area generated the electricity they needed. So it was sort of self- confined. Now we find ourselves more or less deregulated in the generation aspect of it. You have many private market generators that are dealing in it by selling to the distributors. So you have to move it. That is some competition there. I think it can work. We have to recognize times have changed and we have to do the same thing. I think we have some unrealistic demands for renewables in this bill. We ought to be moving on renewables, but the idea to put in the bill that it is going to be this percentage or this many tons or this many kilowatt hours by renewables I don't think is a realistic way to do that. We ought to offer incentives, that type of thing. But to put those numbers in there, and say this is the way it is going to be, I think is unrealistic. We have a number of areas in which we could modify what FERC's authorities are going to be in terms of some things that could better be done on the State level. There are a number of things in the bill that preempt States' rights. I think most of us, or many of us at least, are not of the mind that that is the way we ought to do that. The Daschle bill basically gives FERC exclusive authority over reliability. It has a renewable portfolio mandate, billions of dollars in consumer cost. It has FERC authority over State matters. It does not need to be that way. So I think we are in the process of developing a number of amendments which we hope to file and offer as we go forward, particularly in this area. I am sure there will be many amendments in other areas as well which is proper, particularly since we didn't have committee involvement. We are really doing committee work now on the floor, and that will take some time and effort, but it is necessary in order for us to come out of here with a bill that can be accepted by the Senate, can go to a conference committee, can come out and be accepted by the President. We have a real challenge before us. I look forward to it and hope we can stick with this issue until it is finished and not come back to campaign finance or something in the middle. We ought to stay with it and keep working, keep as open as we can to other people's ideas, recognizing that it is going to take a long time. But the way it has been brought to us, it has to take a long time.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I am delighted that we are into the energy package. We have been talking now for some time, of course, about an energy policy in this country. The President has talked about it for a very long time. He has put forth, with the help of the Vice President, an energy policy. So I am pleased that we are into that, and I hope we continue to work on it until we are able to successfully put together a bill that will meet our collective notions. I ask unanimous consent several letters I received this morning be printed in the Record. This one comes from the Vietnam Veterans Institute. These are all directed to Senator Daschle in support of the energy program. This one is from the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, also voicing their support for energy policy. This one comes from the AMVETS, this one from the Catholic War Veterans, and this one from the American Legion.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Nancy Perkins, of Senator Gregg's office, have the privilege of the floor throughout the consideration of the energy bill.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I rise today to say goodbye to a good friend of mine, someone who has worked by my side for the last 13 years. Dan Naatz has been my chief of staff for the last 2 years, but his commitment to me and Wyoming has lasted much longer then that. I first met Dan back in 1989 when he joined my office in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was one of the first staff members I hired after being elected that year in a special election to fill the seat left open by Dick Cheney who was nominated to be our Secretary of Defense. After several years, Dan made the decision to return to school and earn a master's degree from the University of Virginia. I was disappointed to see him go then, but after he earned that degree I was fortunate enough to convince him to come back and serve as my legislative director. Dan was with me when I was honored to win a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1994 as well. Our history together goes way back. It is never easy to lose someone like Dan, who has been with me since the beginning. He has held nearly every position in my office and did them all very well. None better than the job he did of leading my staff and our legislative agenda for Wyoming. It was inevitable though that Dan would be recognized outside of this body though for his expertise in crafting successful legislation and public policy. Over the years, he has been a key advisor and good friend. Particularly, Dan played a significant role in our efforts to reform and strengthen the National Park System. As Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on National Parks, he and I spent many hours together, first writing and developing changes that would improve the system for visitors and the valuable resources, and then, as the engine that helped see it through to public law. I was proud of all the work he did, and he should be proud of the changes he helped make, because they will make a difference for future generations who will visit and experience our parks. Dan has joined CHEP USA. I wish him and his wife Cindy and their family the best of luck, and I know the Senate body does as well.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I will now talk a little bit about election reform. Of course, that is the bill that is before us now, but we have not been able to move it forward in the last day and a half or so. Whether we will be able to or not, I do not know. No one disagrees, of course, with seeking to do something to make elections fair; to make the changes, if there need to be changes made, to make elections available to everyone on a free basis, an open basis, and a legal basis. I am glad the Senate has taken up this bill. I happen to believe the major responsibility for voting, whether it be in Florida or whether it be in Wyoming, lies with the State. Where there are problems with voting, the State election officers, it seems to me, have the primary responsibility to do that. One of the issues that has come up--not unusually, I suppose; it comes up in many areas such as health care, education--there is a difference between how you do things in New York City and Meeteetsi, WY. That has kind of become an interesting issue with regard to setting up voting standards and the requirements that need to be made for voting precincts. When one has a precinct that has thousands of people in it, that is one thing. Go to Wapiti, WY, with a precinct that may only have 30 to 40 people in it; that is quite different. When I went home last weekend, we were talking about the proposal initially that there had to be a paved parking lot and access for the disabled. Everyone wants the disabled to be able to vote, and they were saying sometimes we have to look hard to find a place that has a toilet, so we need to do something about that. I have talked with the chairman, and certainly we could, I think, come to some kind of an agreement. This bill currently requires each polling place to have a machine that is adaptable for ADA. I am a great supporter of ADA, as a matter of fact, and have worked very hard on that, but I think we have to be realistic about how it is dealt with. We have curbside voting, for example. We can do that for people who are disabled. We have these certain kinds of machines in every county seat, but to require that in some 400 rural polling places, as we have in Wyoming, would be extremely difficult. Even though the return sometimes is, ``Well, the Government is going to pay for it,'' regardless of who pays for it, some of it is not good use of taxpayer dollars. I do not know exactly how it will end up. Perhaps we will not be having a bill if we cannot move it any more than we have. Perhaps we can continue to talk to the chairman, who seems to be receptive, knowing there are differences in how it is dealt with in one place or another. I do want to say we have talked with the elected officials in Wyoming. As I said, our voting has been very satisfactory. We have a good many registered voters. We had more voters last time than we had registered before the election who came in and could register on election day. It is really quite simple. We are concerned, if we were required to have very complicated machines in every polling place, that that would not be appropriate. Instead, if we could offer the flexibility to where they could make proposals as to how to deal with voting for disabled and other voters, those could be viewed, and if they were acceptable, then they could do it the way they wanted to do it in that community. In any event, I do not know whether we will have an amendment. If that becomes necessary--or perhaps we could have a colloquy with the chairman to deal with this in the conference committee--we can do that.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I object.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I, too, am supportive of wind energy and the alternatives, of course, but we have been waiting--talk about waiting, we have been waiting for months to get to an energy bill, which has been objected to and held up by the folks on the other side of the aisle. We are finally going to get to it, and certainly this issue ought to be part of an overall energy policy, not a stand-alone bill. So hopefully next week we will have a chance to get to energy. I do not think there is anything more important before this Congress than to have an energy policy in this country. We have talked about it now for months. I am on the Energy Committee, as well as the Finance Committee. We have talked about energy for a very long time. We did not have a chance to put it together in the committee but, rather, the majority leader took it away from the committee and brought it to the floor. So now we find ourselves in a very difficult position by putting together a very complex bill, but hopefully starting in the next day or two we will have an opportunity to do that. I hope my friend from North Dakota will have an opportunity to talk about wind energy and the opportunities to do something with it at that time. It seems to me that is the appropriate time to do it.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I have to respond just a little bit to my friend from North Dakota who talked about trade. Obviously, trade is very important for all of us. I am a little interested in how he thinks 435 people could negotiate a trade agreement. The idea is that the trade agreement needs to be negotiated and then brought to the Congress for approval. If it is not approved, it is not approved. I cannot imagine us trying to set up a trade bill and 435 folks trying to deal with that. So I am not in agreement entirely that we ought to take away the trade authority to negotiate and then bring it to the Congress. Presidents have had that, and hopefully they will continue to have that. The main constituency of the Senator from North Dakota, of course, is agriculture. Forty percent of agricultural products go into foreign trade. Obviously, we all want trade agreements to be fair and advantageous. I also have to respond a little bit to the molasses issue. We worked on that for several months, and it has been cured, as a matter of fact. The idea that nobody stood up to it is not accurate. The court has ruled, and that is no longer being done. It was being done, and it was wrong, but we brought it up through the court, and it is no longer the case. So trade is always difficult, and certainly I feel strongly about it from time to time, too. We are in a world where billions of dollars move around the world every day. We are going to have to trade. We are behind other countries in making trade agreements in South America, for example. So hopefully we can find a way to come up with agreements that will allow us to trade with other countries and, at the same time, of course, be as fair as possible. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, later this week I hope we will move on to our energy bill on which all of us have worked for so long, certainly recognizing that energy policy is one of the most important issues we will consider this year. Although we have the pressure of other bills-- campaign reform and so on--I hope we move, as was promised, to energy later on this week so that we can move forward. We need this policy out there. The President has put forth a policy. The House has passed a policy. We need to deal with the situation with regard to oil and gas, and of course the opportunity to increase our production domestically so we are not as reliant as we have become on foreign imports. We need to look, obviously, to a balanced bill and different energy sources such as renewables. We need to do more research in terms of coal, and clean coal, and using those resources which we have in abundance. We haven't yet really, it seems to me, defined where we want to go, particularly with the electric component of energy, but I have to tell you that I think it is very important. People are certainly touched as much by electric energy as any other source. The issue to a large extent is transmission and transportation. As we develop more and more opportunities to generate electricity, it has to be moved where the market is. Of course, selfishly, in my State, an energy-producing State, the problem is being able to move that energy to where the markets are. I hope we will try to get together to act. I am afraid we are going to get all wrapped up in Enron, and so on, which has very little to do, frankly, with the energy aspect of it. But we can take a long look at that and take action that will help us more efficiently use those energies that are available.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Idaho for the work he has done in this area. His background--as a matter of fact his legal background--much of it is in the water rights area. So he certainly brings to this Chamber a good deal of not only interest but also knowledge and insight, and I thank him for that. I rise to support the Crapo amendment in this instance. I think it has a great deal to do with the West, a great deal to do with our traditional use of water. There are, I believe, major concerns behind this idea of the water conservation program. It could result in permanent acquisition of water rights. It preempts State water rights. It extends authority over endangered species to USDA which, of course, is a different operation than we have had. Endangered species is a very interesting and important aspect to land and water management in the West. It proposes a radical change to the CRP, the conservation reserve, without addressing reforms to ESA, the Endangered Species Act. Interestingly enough, the concept was never discussed in our committee, and I think it makes it more difficult and less practical to bring it up for debate that way. I am a member of the Agriculture Committee and can attest to the fact it was never debated there. I am quite sure had it been, there are several members of the committee who represent States that experience real problems with how this would impact our lands, and we would have vigorously fought to keep it out. The allocation of water in the West is done by the States. This is a real tradition and an important States rights issue to us. This is a precious commodity a producer has, and the States vigorously defend any effort that would reduce their rights to make the water allocation. This new water conservation idea is another example of the Federal Government treading on State water rights. For my constituents, the compromise reached allowing the Governors to opt in is certainly not enough. One of the real difficulties is the possibility that it could result in permanent acquisition of water rights. Program enrollment language does not mention what happens to water upon termination. That is very important. A provision claims it is not intended to preempt State water. However, if that is the intention, safeguards need to be made. They are not there. The involvement with the Endangered Species Act, without addressing reform of ESA is very important to those in the West. The jurisdiction over endangered species is under the Department of the Interior. Changing this, then, places a new provision under the Secretary of Agriculture. Obviously that is a conflict. Certainly those in the West--and I just returned from home over the weekend--have strong points of view about it. Many say if this Reid amendment is included, they do not want a farm bill. That would be a shame. I yield to my friend from Montana.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, let me make a couple of comments. I have been very involved in this program over time. The Senator brought it up before. It seems to me there are some issues here about which we ought to talk. We didn't talk about it at all in committee. EQIP, in my view, and I think pretty much under the law, is designed to give technical assistance to do good for the environment. They are not tied to nutrients particularly or to any particular kind of action. They ought to be available to people who want take some action, whether it is changing a ditch to make it more workable for the environment, or whatever. Constantly we keep trying to limit it to certain sizes and you have to report the number of animals that you own. That is not part of the proposition. This idea of nuance was an idea that came up in the Clinton administration. It was never put in as a rule, and now we are going to put it into law. It seems to me that it is an unnecessary amount of detail and is singly trying to target certain areas when really the opportunity is broad. I was out in my home this weekend and was talking about this--in fact, I guess it was in Denver at the Cattlemen's--and people said: We need more money for EQIP, but we do not want to have more and more rules where every time we try to do something we invite EPA to be here on top of us, and all these other things. I feel fairly strongly about it. However, I do recognize we need to move forward, and I withdraw my objection.