To restore the prohibition on the commercial sale and slaughter of wild free-roaming horses and burros.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Boren).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt).

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

Mr. Chairman, I like a good demagoging just like anybody else, but this is not terribly relevant to everything we have said here to this bill or what has actually happened.

Mr. Miller a little while ago made an analogy to a loan that could be changed from time to time. The problem is if you have got a 4 percent rate for 10 years fixed and the bank comes along and says, it has been 5 years and I want to take that up to 8 percent, you are going to say forget you, I have got a contract that keeps me at 4 percent for 10 years, not 5. And then the courts are going to uphold what you are saying. Also if you say, well, I have got a way here where I can blackmail you and you will come across, the court is going to come down on you like a ton of bricks.

Now, we could do that that the gentleman suggests, but the problem is we are going to spend lots of money, the courts are going to uphold the law because the Constitution and the law are still in place in this country.

Now, a lot of people might not want it to be. I cannot remember and do not know why the Clinton-Gore administration overlooked this and did not put a rate after the rates rose a certain number and royalties were beginning to flow, but they did not. Now, that was caught and after that any drilling in that area is going to pay a royalty.

We have got a small period of time. We cannot do anything about it. If I sell my car for $200 and then later find out it is worth $600 and I have signed a contract, we have a law that says I have got to sell that car for $200. And if I try to get around that, I will pay twice because I will pay all my legal fees, I will pay any sort of penalties, any blackmail money, and I will still lose my car for $200.

So that is pretty much where we are now, and I would say we need to vote against this. We do not want to waste any more money from the mistake that was made in 1998 and 1999.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, we accept this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment requires Federal agencies to comply with the requirements of an Executive Order that deals with instituting energy efficiency improvements in Federal buildings and reporting on progress in that regard.

We have no objection to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young).

(Mr. YOUNG of Alaska asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce).

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

Mr. Chairman, we are talking about roads. The roads are used for many things, recreation, all those sorts of things. Over 90 percent of the Tongass is unroaded, won't be roaded and so forth.

It ought to be that forests in America, managed the best in the world, should be providing the resources for all over the world. For instance, if we don't have wood, we will have to rely on steel or plastic. Steel takes lots more energy, about eight times as much to make a steel 2 by 4 versus a wooden 2 by 4, and plastic, we know what that comes from.

Mr. Chairman, I urge defeat of this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the amendment.

If the gentleman will yield.

The gentleman from New York is right, the National Park Service has notified the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee that due to its inability to complete an open bid before the expiration of the current extension in April 2007, the Park Service will have to temporarily

extend Circle Line's contract once again to prevent the disruption of service to Liberty Island.

I agree with the gentleman from New York that the Circle Line contract set to expire March 2007 should not be extended. I look forward to working with the gentleman from New York, the chairman of the authorizing committee and the ranking member of this subcommittee to ensure that the new contract is in place as soon as possible and those responsible for the current delay are held accountable.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, we will accept the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I understand there is opposition being included in the Special Resource Study currently being conducted by the National Park Service.

Would the gentleman agree to work with the ranking member and myself to see if we can resolve that?

Mr. Chairman, I have no objection to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of point of order and claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would like to oppose this amendment strongly. On January 9, 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that there must be a significant and important connection between traditional navigable waterways and the wetlands or waters to be regulated by Federal agencies.

The EPA and the Corps of Engineers issued guidance to their field staff in 2003 clarifying that the Clean Water Act jurisdiction did not extend to isolated waters that are both intrastate and non-navigable. This guidance also clarifies that field staff should continue to assert jurisdiction over traditional navigable waters and adjacent wetlands and their tributaries systems and adjacent wetlands. Field staff was directed to make jurisdictional and permitting decisions on a case-by- case basis.

The plain text of the Clean Water Act emphasizes that Congress constructed the statute in a manner that intended, as the Supreme Court has articulated, to ``recognize, preserve, and protect the States' primary authority and responsibility over local land and water resources.'' Misguided efforts to expand the geographical scope of the Clean Water Act will create and exacerbate local land and water resource decisions with burdensome and costly Federal controls.

I will give you an example. Right now the Clean Water Act is being used in farms, with livestock, cattle primarily, to try to clean the streams where cattle are grazing.

If we allow the situation we have here for navigable waters to be translated to ditches, small tributaries with an ounce of water, the soil conservation today, and we are providing grants for soil conservation to take those streams, provide drinking water for cattle, and then enable them to go back into a stream which is fenced off, if we rule according to what has been asked here, we will find that the soil conservation will be barred from doing any sort of work in cleaning water. We will actually get dirtier water. We could have up to six agencies get involved in trying to clean up water on a farm. Not only will the cost be prohibitive, but the bureaucracy, because many of those agencies do not agree in this thing.

Eliminating this guidance will create confusion and could lead to the classification of ditches, drains, curbs, roads, gutters and erosion features as ``navigable water of the United States.'' Clearly, this goes beyond common sense, but it won't be the first time that the Federal Government has tried to force something like this.

Such an expansive regulatory reach would have the Federal Government interfering and frustrating local decisions regarding construction, operation, maintenance, management, transportation, flood control, and agricultural production.

For instance, soil water conservation, which would be working with the farmer, has an elected delegation inside the county, as well as the State delegations elected, and they are trying to do the right thing, and we are spending Federal money to help it. This could be stopped by the Corps of Engineers simply for bureaucratic action.

Eliminating this guidance would require Federal oversight of ditches, storm drains and sewers. These are local structures that are constructed and managed and maintained at the local level. We don't want the Corps of Engineers and all the bureaucracy that would be entailed to get down to a small storm drain or a small ounce of water on a farm. The cost would be prohibitive, and it would go against what the Clean Water Act is trying to do, and that is clean water for a special agriculture problem.

One critical consideration is the Supreme Court is expected to rule in two new Clean Water Act cases prior to the expiration of the current term in June. The decisions in these cases will provide important clarification of the geographic scope of the Clean Water Act jurisdiction. We should not act at this time on issues that are being actively deliberated by the Supreme Court.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson).

Mr. Chairman, we have one more.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman ought to go talk to his farmers more, because if this passes the farmer will soon find out, Mr. Chairman, that he no longer can drain even a few drops of water out of his ditch and try to collect it or put it in a way that he can responsibly manage his farm, even if that has been done for years and years.

The Soil and Water Conservation has tried working with the EPA in this Clean Water Act to put common sense into these measures, to try to see that reality happens, that you can farm in a responsible way. In fact, they are doing more to clean up the water, especially in farms, by putting in systems that are drained into a central watering spot that is covered by fabric and stone, and then the cow will not contaminate the water that goes in it, rather than going into the streams themselves.

Now, there is much government money going into this. But the Corps right now will stop that any time, any time that they get a chance. And I know that in my home. And that is why the Farm Bureau is against this group, the Home Builders, the American Forest and Paper, the National Association of Realtors, the National Rural Electric Cooperatives, and the Edison Electric Institute, the National Grange, the National Association of Counties, the National Cattlemen, and the National Corn Growers, because it goes beyond common sense.

We have been successful. I worked with the EPA, and we have tried to fund the EPA for clean water. But what we find often is if we have a rule, some people think that if we double or triple that rule it will be better. Actually, after you start and get a certain distance with that rule, it becomes corrupting in the sense that it disrupts the whole purpose of the original rule.

And that is what we are about to have here. The individuals landowners and the taxpayers certainly know what they can do inside small watershed areas. And the Soil and Water Conservation would be directly against this type of program, because they cannot have six agencies trying to manage the farms of the American people.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would only point out that the gentleman's recommendation is entirely contrary to what is happening in a sense. The Soil and Water Conservation is trying to put small tributaries underground, put into a pond, a clean water pond, with fabric around it, and so forth, to cow's activities getting involved in the water.

Now that is what they are trying to do. The Corps is trying to oppose them in my own State, time after time. And we may have to get back and take money away that the Federal Government put forth for the Soil and Water Conservation, because the Corps bureaucratically says that one drop of water is in their control and the Corps has no authority.

Now, if you want to pollute streams, enact this bill and you will see on farms more and more activities that will be ignored. No farmer would get involved in this, and we will have to have a police state to go by every cow and every animal to see that there is any compliance.

Right now the farmer knows best and is the best steward of his lands. He is working with the Soil and Water Conservation, with elected members from that community, and they are doing a good job. Put more bureaucracy in it, we will bring it to a halt and create more pollution.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the clean water amendment offered by my colleagues Mr. Leach, Mr. Oberstar, and Mr. Dingell.

This is an important amendment for public health and safe drinking water, for hunting, boating, and swimming, for protecting homes and businesses from floods, and for our economy, much of which depends on a clean environment, especially clean water.

That is why the 1972 Clean Water Act is one of the nation's most fundamental and popular environmental protection laws. Clean water is vital to almost every aspect of quality of life in our nation.

The policy adopted by the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers in 2003 undermines the Clean Water Act's promise of clean water for all Americans and is contrary to the letter and spirit of the law. It threatens to reverse decades of progress in cleaning up the nation's waters.

This policy is leaving many wetlands as well as headwater and seasonal streams without federal limits on water pollution. The policy tells the agencies' field staff they must get permission before applying Clean Water Act protections to certain so-called isolated waters, although that term is not used in the Clean Water Act to exclude waters from the law, nor is the term even defined in the policy, leaving it unclear at best what is and is not protected. No permission is needed before the EPA or Corps staff can deny protections for waters, and leave them open to pollution from sewage and industrial wastes, or even destruction.

The total number of streams at risk across the country--and consequences for drinking water health and safety--are significant and potentially severe.

Maintaining safe drinking water requires protecting the sources of drinking water--both surface water and groundwater supplies--from pollution. The EPA recently concluded that the majority of public drinking water systems that rely on surface waters get their water from ``source water protection'' areas that contain headwater streams or seasonal and intermittent streams.

Again, these are the very types of streams both I and my colleagues offering this amendment believe are most at risk of losing federal Clean Water Act protections under the agencies' policy.

According to the EPA's letter:

In total, over 90 percent of surface water protection areas

contain start reaches or intermittent/ephemeral streams.

Public drinking water systems which use these intakes (as

well as other sources) are estimated to provide drinking

water to over 110 million people.

If this policy continues, some or all of these source waters could lose federal Clean Water Act restrictions against water pollution, and the people who rely on these waters will either pay the price: either with dirtier water or higher costs for safe drinking water.

I hope all of my colleagues will join me today in voting to reaffirm protections from all of the nation's waters, including streams and wetlands, as the Clean Water At has always done. Vote for the Oberstar- Leach-Dingell clean water amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I certainly agree with the gentleman that the Federal regulations should be based on sound science, that rural communities should not be unfairly asked to pay additional, unnecessary costs for their drinking water.

I commend the gentleman for his efforts on the part of his constituents and for all the rural water users who are facing similar problems. I commit to work with the gentleman to see what can be done to fix this problem. The committee will be glad to facilitate a meeting with the EPA to address this important issue and see what can be done as we move this bill through conference with the Senate.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce, along with Senators Brownback, Clinton, Santorum, Landrieu, Ensign and Durbin, the Children and Media Research Advancement Act, or CAMRA Act. We believe there is an urgent need to establish a federal role for targeting research on the impact of media on children. From the cradle to the grave, our children now live and develop in a world of media--a world that is increasingly digital, and a world where access is at their fingertips. This emerging digital world is well known to our children, but its effects on their development are not well understood. Young people today are spending an average of 6 and a half hours with media each day. For those who are under age 6, two hours of exposure to screen media each day is common, even for those who are under age 2. That is about as much time as children under age 6 spend playing outdoors, and it is much more time than they spend reading or being read to by their parents. How does this investment of time affect children's physical development, their cognitive development, or their moral values? Unfortunately, we still have very limited information about how media, particularly the newer interactive media, affect children's development. Why? We have not charged any Federal agency with ensuring an ongoing funding base to establish a coherent research agenda about the impact of media on children's lives. This lack of a coordinated government-sponsored effort to understand the effects of media on children's development is truly an oversight on our part, as the potential payoffs for this kind of knowledge are enormous.

Consider our current national health crisis of childhood obesity. The number of U.S. children and teenagers who are overweight has more than tripled from the 1960's through 2002. We think that media exposure is partly the cause of this epidemic. Is it? Is time spent viewing screens and its accompanying sedentary lifestyle contributing to childhood and adolescent obesity? Or is the constant bombardment of advertisements for sugar-coated cereals, snack foods, and candy that pervade children's television advertisements the culprit? How do the newer online forms of ``stealth marketing'', such as advergaming where food products are embedded in computer games, affect children's and adolescents' purchasing patterns? What will happen when pop-up advertisements begin to appear on children's cell phones that specifically target them for the junk food that they like best at a place where that food is easily obtainable? The answer to the obesity and media question is complex. A committee at the National Academy of Sciences is currently charged with studying the link between media advertising and childhood obesity. Will the National Academy of Sciences panel have the data they need to answer this important question? A definitive answer has the potential to save a considerable amount of money in other areas of our budget. For example, child health care costs that are linked to childhood obesity issues could be reduced by understanding and altering media diets.

Or take the Columbine incident. After two adolescent boys shot and killed some of their teachers, classmates, and then turned their guns on themselves at Columbine High School, we asked ourselves if media played some role in this tragedy. Did these boys learn to kill in part from playing first-person shooter video games like Doom where they acted as a killer? Were they rehearsing criminal activities when playing this game? We looked to the research community for an answer. In the violence and media area, Congress had passed legislation in the past so that research was conducted about the relationship between media violence and childhood aggression, and as a result, we knew more. Even though much of this data base was older and involved the link between exposure to violent television programs and childhood aggression, some answers were forthcoming about how the Columbine tragedy could have taken place. Even so, there is still a considerable amount of speculation about the more complex questions. Why did these particular boys, for example, pull the trigger in real life while others who played Doom confine their aggressive acts to the gaming context? We need to be able to answer questions about which children under what circumstances will translate game playing into real-life lethal actions. Investing in media research could potentially reduce our budgets associated with adolescent crime and delinquency as well as reduce real-life human misery and suffering.

Many of us believe that our children are becoming increasingly materialistic. Does exposure to commercial advertising and the ``good life'' experienced by media characters partly explain materialistic attitudes? We're not sure. Recent research using brain-mapping techniques finds that an adult who sees images of desired products demonstrates patterns of brain activation that are typically associated with reaching out with a hand. How does repeatedly seeing attractive products affect our children and their developing brains? What will happen when our children will be able to click on their television screen and go directly to sites that advertise the products that they see in their favorite programs? Or use their cell phones to pay for products that they want in the immediate environment? Exactly what kind of values are we cultivating in our children, and what role does exposure to media content play in the development of those values?

A report linked very early television viewing with later symptoms that are common in children who have attention deficit disorders. However, we don't know the direction of the relationship. Does television viewing cause attention deficits, or do children who have attention deficits find television viewing experiences more engaging than children who don't have attention problems? Or do parents whose children have difficulty sustaining attention let them watch more television to encourage more sitting and less hyperactive behavior? How will Internet experiences, particularly those where children move rapidly across different windows, influence attention patterns and attention problems? Once again, we don't know the answer. If early television exposure does disrupt the development of children's attention patterns, resulting in their placement in special education programs, actions taken to reduce screen exposure during the early years could lead to subsequent reductions in children's need for special education classes, thereby saving money while fostering children's development in positive ways.

We want no child left behind in the 21st century. Many of us believe that time spent with computers is good for our children, teaching them the skills that they will need for success in the 21st century. Are we right? How is time spent with computers different from time spent with television? What are the underlying mechanisms that facilitate or disrupt children's learning from these varying media? Can academic development be fostered by the use of interactive online programs designed to teach as they entertain? In the first six years of life, Caucasian more so than African American or Latino children have Internet access from their homes. Can our newer interactive media help ensure that no child is left behind, or will disparities in access result in leaving some behind and not others?

The questions about how media affect the development of our children are clearly important, abundant, and complex. Unfortunately, the answers to these questions are in short supply. Such gaps in our knowledge base limit our ability to make informed decisions about media policy.

We know that media are important. Over the years, we have held numerous hearings in these chambers about how exposure to media violence affects childhood aggression. We passed legislation to maximize the documented benefits of exposure to educational media, such as the Children's Television Act which requires broadcasters to provide educational and informational television programs for children. Can we foster children's moral values when they are exposed to prosocial programs that foster helping, sharing, and cooperating like those that have come into being as a result of the Children's Television Act? We acted to protect our children from unfair commercial practices by passing the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act which provides safeguards from exploitation for our youth as they explore the Internet, a popular pastime for them. Yet the Internet has provided new ways to reach children with marketing that we barely know is taking place, making our ability to protect our children all the more difficult. We worry about our children's inadvertent exposure to online pornography--about how that kind of exposure may undermine their moral values and standards of decency. In these halls of Congress, we acted to protect our children by passing the Communications Decency Act, the Child Online Protection Act, and the Children's Internet Protection Act to shield children from exposure to sexually-explicit online content that is deemed harmful to minors. While we all agree that we need to protect our children from online pornography, we know very little about how to address even the most practical of questions such as how to prevent children from falling prey to adult strangers who approach them online. There are so many areas in which our understanding is preliminary at best, particularly in those areas that involve the effects of our newer digital media.

In order to ensure that we are doing our very best for our children, the behavioral and health recommendations and public policy decisions we make should be based on objective behavioral, social, and scientific research. Yet no Federal research agency has responsibility for overseeing and setting a coherent media research agenda that can guide these policy decisions. Instead, Federal agencies fund media research in a piecemeal fashion, resulting in a patch work quilt of findings. We can do better than that.

The bill we are introducing today would remedy this problem. The

CAMRA Act will provide an overarching view of media effects by establishing a program devoted to Children and Media within the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. This program of research, to be vetted by the National Academy of Sciences, will fund and energize a coherent program of research that illuminates the role of media in children's cognitive, social, emotional, physical, and behavioral development. The research will cover all forms of electronic media, including television, movies, DVDs, interactive video games, cell phones, and the Internet, and will encourage research involving children of all ages--even babies and toddlers. The bill also calls for a report to Congress about the effectiveness of this research program in filling this void in our knowledge base. In order to accomplish these goals, we are authorizing $90 million dollars to be phased in gradually across the next five years. The cost to our budget is minimal and can well result in significant savings in other budget areas.

Our Nation values the positive, healthy development of our children. Our children live in the information age, and our country has one of the most powerful and sophisticated information technology systems in the world. While this system entertains them, it is not harmless entertainment. Media have the potential to facilitate the healthy growth of our children. They also have the potential to harm. We have a stake in finding out exactly what that role is. We have a responsibility to take action. Access to the knowledge that we need for informed decision-making requires us to make an investment: an investment in research, an investment in and for our children, an investment in our collective future. The benefits to our youth and our nation's families are immeasurable.

By passing the Children and Media Research Advancement Act, we can advance knowledge and enhance the constructive effects of media while minimizing the negative ones. We can make future media policies that are grounded in a solid knowledge base. We can be proactive, rather than reactive. In so doing, we build a better nation for our youth, fostering the kinds of values that are the backbone of this great nation of ours, and we create a better foundation to guide future media policies about the digital experiences that pervade our children's daily lives.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

s. 579

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of

the United States of America in Congress assembled,

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is legal, it is simple, and it is fair. All we are asking is to preserve existing contracts but that those firms that fail to renegotiate fairly would then not be granted new oil or gas leases.

Not to accept this amendment is to take sides, is to choose to stand by an industry that has posted the highest profits of any industry in modern history by charging consumers about $50 every time they fill up their gas tank. Those profits are coming from our constituents. And not to support this amendment is to decide we are going to side against our constituents. We are going to give up as much as $80 billion, $80 billion over the next 25 years. That is money that should be our constituents' because it is their Federally owned land that the oil companies are drilling on.

We have a responsibility to represent the American people before we represent a very wealthy and profitable industry. And to decide that we are going to figure out a way to let them continue with these contracts that never should have been signed this way in the first place, that gives up $80 billion of American taxpayers money, is wrong. It is wrong.

It is wrong that our consumers are paying so much when these oil companies are making tens of billions of dollars more than they have ever made. Here is an opportunity, legal, fair and simple, to represent the interests of our constituents, the American taxpayer.

To turn down this amendment is to choose one of the major political contributors in this corrupt political system instead the interest of our constituents.

Pass this amendment.

Mr. TAYLOR or North Carolina. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle).

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to support this amendment to help save a national treasure--the wild horse.

The wild horse is known throughout the world as a symbol of the American West and we should be doing everything we can to protect it.

In the 1800s, more than 2 million wild horses roamed the American West. Today, that number is down to 35,000.

Due to a provision slipped into the 2004 omnibus appropriations bill, the sale of any wild horse that has been rounded up and is more than 10 years old is now allowed. This language was placed into law without any hearings or public debate.

This rider removed protections under the Wild Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act, which was passed in 1971 after the public demanded that something be done after the shooting of hundreds of thousands of horses and burros for pet food and meat in European restaurants.

Already, at least 41 horses have lost their lives due to this irresponsible language, and the lives of 8,400 horses now being held by the Bureau of Land Management are in jeopardy.

This is an inhumane slaughter against these majestic animals, and there is no need for it to continue.

There are other options we can explore.

The Bureau of Land Management could reopen over 100 herd management areas or use animal contraception methods to keep the size of the herds manageable.

There is simply no reason for these horses to be slaughtered for use as meat in other countries.

The American public want the wild horses protected. In my district alone, countless constituents have asked me to stop this senseless slaughter.

The horse is more than just an animal to our country. It is a beloved literary figure, a character in a movie or television show, a symbol of adventure, a friend of the cowboy, and an important part of our history.

Poet and author Pam Brown says, ``A horse is the projection of people's dreams about themselves--strong, powerful, and beautiful--and it has the capability of giving us an escape from our mundane existence.''

I cannot say it any better, and encourage all of my colleagues to support this amendment and help save the wild horse.

Protect America's Wild Horses

After 34 years, protections for wild horses from sale to

slaughter were removed through an omnibus rider. No bill, no

hearings, no debate. Late in 2004 (and late into the night),

Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) attached this highly

controversial rider to the omnibus appropriations bill. The

amendment, passed with no hearings or public review, reversed

longstanding federal policy of protecting wild horses from

being sold at auctions and subsequently shipped to slaughter

plants. Representatives Nick J. Rahall (D-WV), Ed Whitfield

(R-KY), John Sweeney (R-NY), and John Spratt (D-SC) will

offer the Rahall-Whitfield-Sweeney-Spratt Wild Horse

Amendment to the FY 2007 Interior Appropriations bill. Just

last year, the House overwhelmingly approved an identical

amendment, as well as another similar appropriations

amendment to prohibit horse slaughter, but the Department of

Agriculture has thwarted Congress's will and used private

funding to enable the grisly slaughter of horses to continue.

``A public outcry has again begun across the United States

over the change in law that now allows the commercial sale

and slaughter of these animals, `` said Rahall. ``We need to

act before it is too late for thousands of these animals.''

It is already too late for 41 mustangs. On April 15, 2005,

six horses were purchased by Oklahoman Dustin Herbert. Only

three days later, these horses were sent directly to a

foreign-owned slaughter plant in Illinois. Mr. Herbert told

the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that he intended to use

the horses for a church youth program. Another 35 were killed

at the same slaughter plant one week later after being traded

unwittingly by the Rosebud Sioux Tribe soon after they were

sold by BLM. By pure chance, another 52 were snatched from

the slaughterplant line in a last minute effort to preserve

their lives by fast-thinking officials. We have graphic

evidence in hand now that sale authority is not a workable

solution.

Horse slaughter is fundamentally inhumane. The cruelty of

horse slaughter is not limited to the slaughter itself.

Economic rather than humane considerations dictate transport

conditions, as horses are shipped in crowded trucks,

frequently over long distances, and are typically given no

food, water or rest. The truck ceilings are so low that

horses are not able to hold their heads in a normal, balanced

position. Heavily pregnant horses, horses with broken limbs,

and horses missing one or both eyes may be legally shipped

for many days to slaughter. Inappropriate floor surfaces

cause slips and falls, and sometimes even trampling. Some

horses arrive at the slaughter house seriously injured or

dead. Horses are required to be rendered unconscious prior to

slaughter, usually with a captive bolt pistol, which shoots a

metal rod into the horse's brain. Some horses are improperly

stunned and still conscious when they are shackled and

hoisted by a rear leg to have their throats cut. In addition,

conditions in the slaughterhouse are stressful and

frightening for horses. Death at the slaughterhouse is not a

humane end for horses. All three of the remaining horse

slaughterhouses in the United States are foreign-owned.

Congress acknowledged this in the strong, bipartisan votes

cast on the FY2006 interior and agriculture appropriations

bills in both the House and Senate (House Interior 249-159;

House Agriculture 269-158; Senate Agriculture 69-28), yet the

United States Department of Agriculture undermined the will

of Congress by constructing a private payment system

specifically to enable the continuation of this brutal

practice.

The number of horses in the US is dwindling. In the 1800s,

over two million wild horses roamed the American West. When

Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act

(WFRHBA), there were 60,000. Today, the combined number of

wild horses and burros is approximately 35,000. That

represents a nearly 50% reduction of wild horses out on the

range since Congress passed federal legislation to protect

them. The entire wild horse and burro populations of six

western states have been completely eradicated.

Wild horses and burros have been federally protected for

decades. In 1971, Congress

passed the WFRHBA in response to enormous public outcry over

the shootings of hundreds of thousands of horses and burros

and the slaughter of horses for pet food and human

consumption in European restaurants. The Burns rider removed

crucial protection under the WFRHBA by requiring that the BLM

sell wild horses over the age of ten or those offered for

adoption more than three times. The lives of 8,400 horses now

being held by BLM--and more in the future--are in jeopardy

due to this controversial rider and the law must be changed.

BLM's current removal policy is costing taxpayers over $39

million a year. According to the U.S. Geological Service,

$7.7 million could be saved annually through the use of

contraceptive measures alone. Since 1988, seveeral wild horse

populations have been controlled under pilot programs using a

contraceptive vaccine (PZP) developed with the help of The

Humane Society of the United States. Additionally, there are

other, less expensive alternatives available. A 1990 GAO

Report states that, ``[r]educing authorized grazing levels

would likely be cheaper than wild horse removals to achieve

the same reduction in forage consumption.''

Cattle outnumber wild horses and burros at least 100 to 1

on public lands. BLM's private livestock grazing program

encompasses 214 million acres of public lands and costs over

$130 million to manage annually. Over 4 million head of

private cattle enjoy subsidized grazing on public lands. A

congressionally-mandated study by the National Academy of

Sciences found that, in one year, livestock consumed 70% of

grazing resources on public lands, while wild horses and

burros consumed less than 5%. The WFRHBA mandates that wild

horses and burros be provided 47 million acres of public

lands on 303 herd areas. Since 1971, the BLM has reduced the

number of herd areas to 201, taking approximately 13 million

acres of land from these federally protected animals.

Horses are not crusing rangeland degradation. The 1990 GA0

study detemined that (1) the primary cause of rangeland

degradation is poorly managed domestic livestock grazing, (2)

wild horse removals have not demonstrably improved range

conditions, (3) wild horse behavior patterns make them less

damaging than cattle to vulnerable range areas, and (4) wild

horse removals are occurring in some locations not being

damaged by widespread overgrazing (GAO/RCED-90-110, Rangeland

Management--Improvements Needed in Federal Wild Horse

Program).

Americans want wild horse protection. Support for the

Rahall-Whitfield-Sweeney-Spratt Amendment to protect our

cherished wild horses crosses all social, cultural, and

political boundaries. When it was revealed that wild horses

had been sent to slaughter since the enactment of the Burns'

rider (with widespread media coverage in Peole Magazine, CNN,

MSNBC, and dozens of papers across the country), Americans

made sure their voices were heard, resulting in BLM

temporarily suspending their sales program. Without the

passage of protective legislation, sales will resume.

The answer is simple. There is no need to sell off and

slaughter America's Western heritage. With the millions of

acres of public land in the US, we can surely make room for

35,000 horses. Americans do not wish to have their tax

dollars spent on the sale and slaughter of this last living

icon of our American heritage.

Mr. President, I am introducing the Information Security and Protection Act. It has to do with a subject matter about which we have had breaking news over the course of the last several days, and that is identity theft.

Two weeks ago we found out a company named ChoicePoint, a Georgia company, because of the conviction in a plea bargain with someone who had under false pretenses broken into the database of this information broker, had 400,000 individual records stolen and thus subject to the taking of the personal identity of those 400,000 people. Of those we know of, 10,000 of them are in my State, and I can tell you, having met with a group of Floridians we picked at random in the central Florida area I met with a week and a half ago, it has been a tale of extraordinarily horrific circumstances for these Americans when their identity was stolen to, No. 1, stop the theft, and then, No. 2, to reclaim their identity and to get back their identity, for example, with a credit card on which bills have been run up and therefore their credit becomes bad. Trying to get back their good name and their good credit has become a horrific process.

One of the central Floridians I met with is a truckdriver who has a special license to drive trucks with hazardous materials. This particular individual is so frustrated because whenever he goes to this Government agency or that Government agency, they always send him to another one, saying we can't help you. There is someone out there with his identity who keeps violating traffic rules and laws all over the country and he keeps getting summonses to courts in States all over the country, and he can't get back his identity.

That is just one example. Or take the example of the mom recently widowed, so her grown daughter takes over the paying of her bills, and because the mom has always been frugal, the daughter sees a charge on the credit card for $10,000 and thinks, well, my mom is suddenly going to start spending a little on herself. The daughter continues to pay these kinds of bills until she finally gets a call from a store in San Francisco and the clerk says, I want to see if you will approve this $26,000 charge for your mother. And she says, well, that is not my mother because my mother is not in San Francisco, she is here with me in Cocoa, FL right now. Fortunately, the game was up. They stopped that process, but that daughter had already paid $40,000 worth of bills thinking they were legitimate charges by her mother, and she will never get back that $40,000.

These are just a couple of examples of identity theft. But now the problem has gotten to be so much larger because these data collectors, which I call information brokers, with the advance of technology are able to gather billions and billions of records. This particular company that has come to light over the last couple of weeks with the theft of 400,000 records--ChoicePoint is the name of the company--has stored, now listen to this, 17 to 19 billion--that is with a B-- records. With that amount of data, they virtually have information on every American. It is not just credit reports that are protected by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. It is Social Security numbers and driver's licenses. It is job applications. It is DNA tests. It is medical records.

With this kind of information, centralized under the control of one company, if there is a penetration of the security of that company, then you see what the invasion of our privacy is about to cause.

Indeed, we are going to be in a situation where no American has any privacy, and we are going to continue to go through this process until we say, enough already, and the people stand up and say: You have to protect our privacy.

That is what the bill I am introducing, the Information Security and Protection Act, sets out to do. It is going to require legal safeguards, put some teeth in the law, that is going to require not just credit reports, which is covered by existing Federal law, but it is going to require these collectors of information who sell them for a profit-making business to have the safeguards to protect the consumers.

Additionally, it is going to have the safeguards for the consumers so they can have access to those records and see if, in fact, they are correct, and if they are not, correct them and have a list of the people who are seeking the information about them.

We had another case come to light a week ago, and that was the case of records that are missing. We do not know if they were destroyed, if they were lost, or if they were stolen, but they are the records of customers of the Bank of America. We are talking about 1.2 million customers. And, oh, by the way, some of those customers

are Federal employees who happen to have this particular card. It is the Federal travel card. This card is distributed additionally to the Members of the Senate.

On that stolen or missing information is the very personal and private information of 60 Senators in this Chamber. Let's hope we do not become the victims of identity theft and that we have to go through all of these horrific experiences I have heard in talking with some of my constituents. But, in fact, we may. Until we find out what happened to those records of 1.2 million individuals, Federal employees, then we are subject to these kinds of traumas that come from identity theft.

Today we have learned of a major breach at the Boca Raton based company called SizeNet. It is a part of Lexis-Nexis. Information that was accessed included names, addresses, Social Security and driver's license numbers; not the credit history, medical records, or financial information. This group said--and they put out a statement to the London Stock Exchange--that this was information on 32,000 U.S. citizens. It may have been accessed from one of the databases. The company said the breach, made on its legal and business information service, Lexis-Nexis, which had recently acquired this SizeNet unit, was being investigated by staff and U.S. law enforcement authorities. So here we have another 32,000 U.S. citizens who could possibly be the victims of identity theft.

Are we going to do anything about it? I sure hope so, and I am hopeful that we are going to have the Congress start to take action on a bill Congressman Markey in the House, a Member of the House Commerce Committee, and I, a Member of the Senate Commerce Committee, have introduced.

This bill requires the Federal Government to begin to regulate the products offered by information brokers. Under the legislation, the Federal Trade Commission would pass regulations that would empower consumers to have control over the personal information they have compiled in these databases. Consumers would be given, for the first time, the right to find out what files information brokers keep about them, and they would be given the right to make sure the information in the files is correct. They would be given the right to promptly correct the inaccurate information. They would be permitted to find out which people have asked for copies of their personal information.

What would be the responsibility of the information broker? It would require the Federal Trade Commission to come up with standards to ensure that those brokers know to whom they are selling that consumer information and the purposes for which it is being used. Those information brokers would be required to safeguard and protect the privacy of the billions of consumer records they hold.

Under present law, there is no protection unless you fall under a law such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act which protects consumer credit records. But all the amassing of this additional data is not protected under current law.

This bill I am filing also allows Government law enforcers and consumers to bring tough legal actions against the brokers if they violate the new regulations that the FTC would promulgate. Then it clearly gives a nod to the States to pass their own laws that they believe are necessary to effectively regulate information brokers.

This bill is not a catchall bill. This bill is meant to focus very narrowly on information brokers. It instructs the FTC to carve out appropriate regulatory exemptions that are in the public interest. So there is flexibility for the FTC to adjust to different circumstances.

After the FTC passes its new regulations, then the FTC, in our oversight capacity, would be reporting back to us and specifically would be reporting to our committees--the Commerce Committees in both the House and the Senate--and then Congress would determine whether further statutory changes were necessary, as is the prerogative to adjust and adapt as circumstances change.

I want to work with all the people who are involved in this situation. We do not want something that is overreaching, but were are getting to the point that with the advance of technology, something has to be done or virtually none of us will have any privacy.

By the way, there is another reason to pass this legislation. We are in a new kind of war, and that war is against terrorists. The terrorist deals by stealth, and one way is to assume the identity of someone else. If we do not have the protections of all our identities, there is another source for the terrorist.

What is it going to take to spur the Congress into action? I thank the time is here. We have three examples in the last 2 weeks-- ChoicePoint, Bank of America, and today Lexis-Nexis. I ask for the support of the Senate in passing the Information Protection and Security Act.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the chairman in opposition to this amendment. I have 8 years of local government experience, 30 years of small-town business experience, and 19 years of State government experience before I came here; and I can't tell you the time I have spent bringing reason to wetland designation in my district.

The problem we have had, and what I believe the creep here is, we are going

to bring EPA and put them in charge of wetlands in small-town USA neighborhoods that are not real wetlands; they are wet spots. They are spots where someone has put dirt in an appropriate place and water no longer drains, and we now have a few cattails and certain grass is growing, and it is determined a wetland.

I can't tell you the cases where companies who build a new building, when they did their soil movement afterwards, didn't get good drainage, had a wet spot, and when they went to expand their building, they couldn't because it was declared a wetland. It took a year or two for them to litigate it.

I have farmers who have had to stop farming fields because they were cleaning out the ditches and the corps came by and said you can't clean that ditch, a ditch your father put in with Federal support to drain so you could farm those fields.

I have one near Titusville, Pennsylvania where they stopped the construction of a new building. Do you know what the site was? It was wet. There was grasses and cattails growing there. There were three railroad tracks there where there used to be a factory. It was on top of a landfill. It was the old city dump.

Folks, it was not a wetland, but it was declared a wetland because it was wet on top. Drainage was no longer available. Water was standing there. Folks, our local soil conservation people are diligent in our rural areas in dealing with these issues. We do not need EPA officials and Corps officials boring down the backs and stopping what little growth and prosperity we have in rural America by regulating every wet spot and drainage ditch that has a cattail or certain grasses growing.

Mr. Chairman, we need to not expand their ability.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

I will take 2 minutes to respond to the opening comments, and then I will share time.

Why are we here tonight on an appropriations bill? Because for 25 years we have had authorizing language placed in the initial draft of an appropriations bill that has nothing to do with appropriating, but has a lot to do with the energy policy of this country.

This country is in an energy crisis, and the crisis in this country is natural gas. But natural gas is readily available in this country onshore and offshore. We are the only country in the world that has locked up its Outer Continental Shelf. That is from 3 miles to 200 miles. We are the only country in the world.

Now, my language that I placed in this bill, because it is all I could do in an appropriating bill; I can move authorizing language. I chose not to remove gas and oil because I think gas is the crisis that we can deal with. I removed the prohibition of natural gas only. I couldn't put my language in there from the bill I have that protects the shorelines for 20 miles. I couldn't do that. But we removed it for natural gas only. Still, we have a Presidential moratorium. Nothing can happen. We have a 5-year plan that anything that is leased, nothing can happen. We have to have authorizing language to allow gas leases only. Nothing can happen.

This is the beginning of a debate, folks, that you have all been avoiding. This debate has been avoided year after year as the gas crisis in this country has continued to skyrocket. We used to have gas for less than $2 about 6 years ago. Last year, the average price was $9.50 a thousand and peaked at 14 and 15 for 4 months. We have the petrochemical business moving away. We have lost half of the fertilizer business in the last 2 years. Polymers and plastics are moving away. Steel, aluminum, bricks, and glass cannot do business in this country with these gas prices.

It is important that we deal with this issue, and we start that debate tonight.

I yield to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) for 4 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Melancon).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This is the beginning of the debate. This is not the end. The gentleman from Florida knows, no drilling can happen. There is still a presidential moratorium. There is still a 5-year plan. We have to have legislation to allow gas only. Florida is rich in gas. They are not rich in oil. I am not about oil. We need gas in this country. We cannot drill our way out of oil.

We can help ourselves in other places, but natural gas is a richness this country has. It is the clean fuel. It has the least pollutants when you use it. It is the mother's milk of everything we make in this country. From women's face creams to every chemical we buy at the hardware store, the grocery store, polymers, plastic, carpet, drapes, it all is full of natural gas.

There is about 3 million jobs in those industries I have just mentioned, and every one of them are already moving offshore. They do not want to. They have to. We cannot put the disadvantage of $9.50 gas last year, $14 and $15, when South America is $1.80, Russia is about a buck, China and Taiwan 3-something.

This is about the economy of America. Drill only gas? Canadians have drilled 2,200 wells successfully, gas only. I grew up around the oil patch. I have never been in the oil business. I have never made a dollar off the oil business. They drill down through and they choose what they are going to produce. They mark it as they drill through it, and they produce what is there.

Florida is rich in gas. Florida uses 235 times more natural gas than they produce. They could be self-sufficient. They could have huge royalties, and there has never been a gas well that has polluted a beach. I have asked for examples. I was told the Santa Barbara spill. That was an oil well.

A gas well is a steel pipe in the ground. It is cemented at the bottom, and it is cemented at the top. It is open where the gas vein is, and you let gas out. In Lake Erie it runs underground onto shore. Citizens do not even know it is there.

Natural gas is not something to be afraid of. It is something this country needs. I am not for 3 miles offshore. I have legislation that protects us, but I cannot put that on this bill or I would. I can only start this debate tonight.

This debate has been put off. For 3 years I have been talking about this issue. From this day forward, we are going to debate this issue until we do what is right for the future of America.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy).

Mr. Chairman, let us not confuse medical waste off New Jersey. That was medical waste dumped in the ocean.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula).

Mr. Chairman, I have been having this debate with the Florida delegation and other delegations for some time, and I really appreciate and like all and respect them very much, but I find recently that poll data show me that Floridians are ahead. Over 60 percent of Floridians in all the recent polls I have seen support production of energy off their shores.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

Mr. Chairman, fear can be overcome with facts. And hopefully down the road here we will get the facts.

At this time I yield 2 minutes to my friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. Sherwood).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).

(Mr. GOODLATTE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)