Public Lands Service Corps Act of 2010

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1192 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz- Balart ). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 1192.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

House Resolution 1192 provides a structured rule for consideration of H.R. 3644, the Ocean, Coastal and Watershed Education Act, with 1 hour of debate in the House equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources.

The rule makes in order the amendment in the nature of a substitute that is printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules, if offered by Representative Capps of California or her designee, which shall be separately debatable for 20 minutes. The rule also makes in order the amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute printed in part B of the report of the Committee on Rules, if offered by Representative Flake or his designee, which shall be separately debatable for 10 minutes.

The rule also provides for consideration of another bill, H.R. 1612, the Public Lands Service Corps Act of 2009, under a structured rule. The rule provides 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources.

The rule makes in order the further amendments printed in part C of the report of the Committee on Rules, each of which may be offered only by a Member designated in the report and shall be separately debatable for 10 minutes.

Finally, the rule provides one motion to recommit for both H.R. 3644 and H.R. 1612.

I think this is a very fair rule. The rule provides for consideration of two bills under a structured rule. For H.R. 3644, two of the three amendments that were submitted to the House Rules Committee are made in order, including one Republican amendment and one Democratic amendment. For H.R. 1612, two of the six amendments submitted were made in order, both of which are Republican amendments. So for both of the bills combined, three out of the four amendments that are made in order under this rule are sponsored by Republicans.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the rule and the underlying bills, the Ocean, Coastal and Watershed Education Act and the Public Land Service Corps Act. The programs within both of these bills benefit districts all across our Nation, from Florida to Alaska, Texas to Minnesota and Colorado. So it is no surprise that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle across the country support these programs.

I would like to thank Chairman Rahall for his leadership on this important issue and my colleagues, Representatives Capps and Grijalva, for their hard work on these bills.

Madam Speaker, we have before us two excellent pieces of legislation, one which would expand and reinvigorate an existing program, the Public Land Corps, by streamlining its management, modernizing its scope and providing new tools to help the program accomplish its mission, and another bill which would expand two National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grant programs that are aimed at enhancing environmental education related to water resources upon which economic development and human health depend.

H.R. 1612 will help repair and restore our Nation's public lands while employing and training thousands of young Americans and promoting a culture of public service.

This legislation will help provide real employment and training to young people who need it, particularly in a recession, while improving the condition of our priceless natural and cultural resources. We live in a time when environmental science education is just as critical for a healthy environment as land conservation or wildlife protection. Our citizens are empowered by being informed and educated enough to make important decisions in their own daily lives about environmental issues based on sometimes complicated scientific evidence. We need to supply our children and the next generation across our country with enough scientific knowledge to tackle the environmental challenges that they will face in the coming years and to make educated choices as consumers.

This bill also takes a decisive step forward in finishing desperately needed work on our national park lands, forests, wildlife refuges and historic sites. As I have said previously, protecting and maintaining our public lands is one of the most important duties that we have as citizens. I was lucky enough to grow up in Boulder, Colorado, hiking in Mount Sanitas, as I did just last weekend when I was back, the Flat Irons and Flagstaff Mountain. If we don't defend America's truly great public lands, we run the risk of being the last generation to enjoy them.

America and Colorado are really defined by our natural character. America is beautiful and needs our help to remain so. We must not let our ``spacious skies,'' our ``amber waves of grain'' and our ``purple mountains majesty'' become nothing more than forgotten lines in a song.

The bill recognizes the importance, as well, of our coastal and marine systems and our national marine sanctuaries. Those previously have not been eligible for Public Land Corps projects but are just as worthy and just as important a part of our national heritage for those who reside on the coast.

While Members of this body as well as the American public review the historic health care reform bill we will be taking up in the next few days, we have the opportunity to consider this vital program that has bipartisan support providing our youth the education and experience they will need to find meaningful employment while gaining civic pride, scientific education and personal responsibility while maintaining and improving our public lands and National Park System.

This program will invest in our young people, reduce youth unemployment, and prepare young people for a lifetime of work experiences. At the same time youth will be repairing and restoring our National Park System and preserving it for the next generation, we also are able to whittle away at the massive backlog of work that has doubled over the last decade to levels around the $10 billion mark of backlog work that needs to be done. The National Park System has been called America's best idea, and it is past time we give our best attention and respect to the National Park System that it deserves.

Preparing our park system for future generations and preparing young people to face the scientific and environmental challenges that are only beginning to come to fruition is an undertaking of great national importance.

H.R. 3644, the Ocean, Coastal and Watershed Education Act, formally codifies and authorizes two existing programs that have already made great strides in expanding ocean, atmospheric, and environmental literacy in the United States. These programs, the Bay-Watershed Education and Training, which we call B-WET, and the Environmental Literacy Grant, ELG, program deserve Federal recognition and funding for their good work providing educational opportunities from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade.

This legislation gives us an opportunity to consider these vital programs, programs which provide our youth the education and experience that they will need to find meaningful employment in advancing our Nation's progress in science, technology, engineering and math to help keep America globally competitive.

H.R. 3644 codifies two existing environmental education grant programs that were established through the annual appropriations process and are administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Over the past 7 years, these two NOAA education programs have been essential towards advancing ocean and environmental education in the United States. Both programs are very popular in the education community, and in fact, requests for environmental literacy grants are 10 times greater than the appropriated funding levels can support.

Since 2002 and 2005, respectively, the B-WET and ELG programs have connected school children from kindergarten all the way through high school with their ocean and coastal environments. These programs help school children learn about the effects that everyday actions they take have on the environment.

Let's make no mistake about it. Our society is faced with a fundamental lack of scientific understanding, where special interests on all sides frequently undermine the vast scientific consensus on key issues simply by flashy public relations campaigns. We need to make sure that our country is the world leader in innovation and science in order to ensure that our country can overcome new challenges and protect its public health and natural wonders.

In addition to my time growing up in Colorado, I also spent a lot of time in San Diego growing up where the community is as physically, emotionally and economically tied to the ocean and coast as Colorado is to its mountains. Regardless of where someone lives in our great and vast country, whether it's the plains, the mountains, the forests, the coasts or the tundra, our Nation's public spaces, wildlife and environmental health are truly our greatest national treasures, an important part of our national character and who we are. And these pieces of legislation go a long way in our effort to protect them.

I reserve the balance of my time.

There will be, and I certainly look forward to joining my colleague from Florida, a debate this weekend on the health care bill.

I am glad to see, on issues of our national parks and oceans, we are able to come together. And there are certainly other issues where Members of the body don't agree, but there will be a debate and there will be a rule proposed for that debate. I personally believe there should be several hours of debate, and I am hopeful that there will be 2 or 3 or more hours, which would then give Members on both sides who desire to present their positions the ability to do that.

I do take some issue with the characterization that there has not been a vetting of these issues involved. There have been, over the past year, dozens of hearings, even, very recently, a bipartisan summit that the President convened on health care. There have been many ideas and amendments from both sides of the aisle that have been incorporated into the bill that our committee will be doing a hearing on tomorrow and referring, for consideration of the House as a whole, a rule to consider that important piece of legislation.

Both of these bills that we have before us today under this rule are supported by national, regional, State, and local advocates. They are supported by leaders in education, environment, conservationists, service communities, and business communities.

Through passage of these bills, we are able to bring together the desire of this Congress of a meaningful impact on creating jobs for young people, training for young people to occupy the jobs of the future, and doing some lasting good in preserving the historic character of our open spaces.

The B-WET and ELG programs are exactly the kind of innovative learning that we need to cultivate an environmentally minded workforce that can compete in the increasingly green economy of the future. By teaching our children not only to enjoy but also appreciate the value and effect of our endangered national treasures, we can truly create a workforce, a community, and a society that values our environment and our national heritage and in which the environment and economy are increasingly intertwined.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I have no additional speakers.

Madam Speaker, I have here a letter which I will quote, in part, and then submit from a number of environmental groups under the auspices of the Campaign for Environmental Literacy, a group that I have also had the opportunity to work with on education legislation. What I would like to read is a paragraph that describes ELG and B-WET's contributions to our country.

``The ELG program enables NOAA, as the Nation's leading expert on weather, climate, and ocean information, to partner with the Nation's top nonprofit organizations and educators to put this information to good use.'' ELG funds will allow ``the American Association for the Advancement of Science to update climate education standards that are used to guide science education in classrooms and across the country to reflect state-of-the-art science.''

``The B-WET grants programs support environmental education which promotes locally relevant, experiential learning in the K-12 environment.''

I submit the entirety of the letter for inclusion in the Record.

Campaign for Environmental

Literacy,

Mar. 18, 2010.

Hon. Lois Capps,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representative Capps: We write to you to indicate our

strong support for passage of the Ocean, Coastal, and

Watershed Education Act (H.R. 3644). This bill authorizes and

strengthens the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration's existing Bay-Watershed Education and

Training (B-WET) and Environmental Literacy Grants (ELG)

programs.

Over the past seven years, these two NOAA education

programs have been essential to advancing ocean, atmospheric,

and environmental literacy in the United States, a major goal

of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy Report and the U.S.

Ocean Action Plan. They have been well received by the ocean

and environmental literacy communities, and in fact, ELG

requests for proposals have been oversubscribed by a factor

of 10.

The ELG program enables NOAA, as the nation's leading

expert on weather, climate and ocean information, to partner

with the nation's top non-profit organizations and educators

to put this information to good use. For example, these

grants have enabled more than 20 million people to gain

access to compelling up-to-date weather, climate and ocean

information through the Science on a Sphere and Ocean Today

Kiosk from Alaska to Hawaii to California to Massachusetts.

ELG funds have also allowed the American Association for the

Advancement of Science (AAAS) to update climate education

standards that are used to guide science education in

classrooms around the country to reflect state-of-the-art

climate science. In addition, ELG grants to the National

Science Teachers Association have given thousands of teachers

access to the most accurate scientific information on

climate, corals and hurricanes.

The B-WET grants programs support environmental education

which promotes locally relevant, experiential learning in the

K-12 environment. A fundamental goal of the programs are to

demonstrate how the quality of the watershed affects the

lives of the people who live in it. B-WET programs have now

expanded to include the Chesapeake Bay, California, Hawaii,

Pacific Northwest, Gulf of Mexico and New England, and this

bill will add five new regions as well. B-WET awards to state

and local education organizations have provided opportunities

to over 125,000 students and 6,200 teachers in 2008 alone.

It is important to now establish these programs in law,

consistent with the education mandates provided to NOAA in

both the America COMPETES Act (PL 110-69, Sec. 4002) and the

Omnibus Public Land Management Act (PL 111-11, Sec. 12304).

They are vital to NOAA's ability to execute the educational

function of its mission. They have demonstrated their

effectiveness, as well as their value to stakeholder

communities. And as our nation begins to grapple with the

complexities and challenges of a changing climate (and ocean

and landscape), they are timely and highly relevant.

Thank you for your consideration of this request. For

questions about this letter, please contact James Elder,

Campaign for Environmental Literacy (978-526-7768,

elder@FundEE.org).

Sincerely,

National Organizations

American Fisheries Society (Gus Rassam, Executive

Director);

American Fly Fishing Trade Association (Gary Berlin,

President);

American Forest Foundation (Tom Martin, President);

American Hiking Society (Gregory A. Miller, President);

American Sportfishing Association (Mike Nussman, President

& CEO);

Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher

Education (Paul Rowland, Executive Director);

Association of Zoos and Aquariums (Steve Olson, Vice

President);

Biodiversity Project (Jennifer Browning, Executive

Director);

Camp Fire USA (Pamela Wilcox, National Interim CEO);

Challenger Center for Space Science Education (Daniel

Barstow, President);

Climate Literacy Network (Tamara Shapiro Ledley,

Coordinator);

Coastal States Organization (Kristen M. Fletcher, Executive

Director);

Consortium for Ocean Leadership (Bob Gagosian, President

and CEO);

Council of Environmental Deans and Directors (Stephanie

Pfirman, President);

Council on Environmental Education (Josetta Hawthorne,

Executive Director);

Earth Day Network (Kathleen Rogers, President);

EarthEcho International (Philippe Cousteau, CEO);

Earth Force (Lisa Bardwell, President);

Ecological Society of America (Katherine S. McCarter,

Executive Director);

Federation of Fly Fishers (Leah Elwell, Conservation

Coordinator);

National Association for Interpretation (Tim Merriman,

Executive Director);

National Audubon Society (Judy Braus, Vice President for

Education);

National Council for Science and the Environment (Peter

Saundry, Executive Director);

National Estuarine Research Reserve Association (Matt

Menashes, Executive Director);

National Marine Educators Association (J. Adam Frederick,

President);

National Marine Sanctuary Foundation (Jason Patlis,

President and CEO);

National Project for Excellence in Environmental Education

(Bora Simmons, Director);

National Science Teachers Association (Jodi Peterson,

Assistant Executive Director);

National Service-Learning Partnership (Nelda Brown,

Executive Director);

National Wildlife Federation (Kevin Coyle, Vice President

for Education);

North American Association for Environmental Education

(Brian Day, Executive Director);

Ocean Alliance (Roger Payne, President);

Ocean Conservancy (Vikki Spruill, President and CEO);

Ocean Conservation Research (Michael Stocker, Director);

Ocean River Institute (Rob Moir, President);

Project WET Foundation (Dennis Nelson, President and CEO);

SandyHook SeaLife Foundation (Mary M. Hamilton, Executive

Director);

Second Nature (Anthony Cortese, President);

ServeNext (Zach Maurin, Co-Director and Co-Founder);

Sierra Club (Jacqueline Ostfeld, National Youth

Representative);

Student Conservation Association (Dale Penny, President &

I'll yield for a question.

I will yield some of my time to Mr. Lungren in just a moment.

Again, I would like to emphasize that the gentleman from California's criticisms are not about this rule or any rule that we have before us. Tomorrow the Rules Committee will be meeting to decide under what rule we will consider health care.

The gentleman has made some remarks with regard to a common practice that is within House resolutions referred by the Rules Committee that involves self-executing language. In 1996, the Republican-controlled House adopted a resolution to consider as adopted the conference report on line-item veto. I would also like read a quote from Thomas Mann who is quoted by USA Today. He is a scholar at the Brookings Institute, who said that the ``deem and pass'' move is not very unusual, has been used 36 times in 2005 and 2006 by the Republican Congress, 49 times in 2007 and 2008 by the Democratic Congress.

I think what's important for people to know is that the Rules Committee doesn't have any special ability to do these rules unilaterally. They only exist by the good graces of a majority of the House. If a majority of the House wants to pass the Senate health care bill as part of a rule, they can. There will be a debate and a discussion over that Senate health care bill, and the Senate bill will be presented to the President and signed, if it passes, before the reconciliation bill reaches the Senate floor.

The House, under the Constitution, is given a great ability to do what it wants to do and to conduct its own affairs as it wants to conduct its affairs. Just as today we have a House resolution, 1192, and that House resolution provides for the consideration of two bills, those bills will only be considered by the House if this rule, this House resolution, passes the full House with a majority of the votes. It will be the same with any rule that is referred out of the Rules Committee tomorrow with regard to the consideration of health care. That rule will only have any force, any effect, if a majority of the House passed that rule and whatever is in that rule, just as they would consider any bill under the House of Representatives.

This rule is a very fair rule. These two bills, I believe, have bipartisan support, a strong consensus to help create jobs, prepare kids for our future, educate kids about the environment, and preserve our great natural resources.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on the rule.

I yield back the balance of my time and move the previous question on the resolution.

The previous question was ordered.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I, as well as many who are here on the floor, am just pleased to be here on a Saturday morning to discuss the bill that is the significance and the reason why we are here, and also the side-view of being able to count the number of arm splints that we see today so we can be part of an historical occasion.

This bill I do think happens to be one of the metaphors perhaps for this entire session as we begin this weekend reality play that definitely does fit into the theater of the absurd. This is a good program, but there is much common good for which we could have found a great deal of common support had this bill been allowed to have some bipartisanship with it.

Both the ranking member of the full committee and the ranking member of the subcommittee had amendments that had been proposed in the committee that were withdrawn under the assumption that they would be worked upon and added to the final bill when it came here to the floor. That was not simply the case. So what could have been an easy bill to pass with common assumptions to it that would have been one of the things that could have been done in a bipartisan way has now been turned into something that has a partisan flavor to it, as the only rule bill that we have for this weekend so far simply because of the standards that we have had in this proposal. This is indeed a metaphor for what we are doing and what we have been doing for much of this session.

I do have some concerns, Madam Speaker, for this bill in three basic areas. First of all, the concept of funding and fiscal responsibility. Secondly, the concept of curriculum that will be involved in this program. And third, what I would probably call is the genealogy of this particular program.

One of the amendments and one of the requests that we had is that this bill should be sunsetted in some particular way. In fact, there will be an amendment that will be brought to the floor to add a sunset provision to this particular bill. This bill as currently administered spends $12 million a year. For some people, that is considered a lot of money. Around here, I realize that is simply a rounding error. But what it does, if you pass this particular bill, it takes off the cap that caps this program at $12 million a year and allows it to be funded at any level one assumes. The CBO made the assumption that would be $120 million over 5 years. How they reached that assumption no one really knows.

One of the things we should do if we were fiscally responsible would be to make sure that there was a specific cap on this program and that there was a sunset provision so it could be reviewed. One of the things we all realize around this country, especially as we talk about the increasing deficit of this country, is that there are some things that the Federal Government must do. Defense of this country is one of the things we must do. There are some things we should never do. And there are some things that fall into those limited categories of it would be nice to do if it meets with our priorities and we have the means to provide them. Providing for the Park Service, healthy forests is one of those things we should do. But it must be set in the environment of how much money we have and where our priorities lie.

Having kids being groomed to be future managers is a nice thing to do on

these public lands if it fits into our priorities. And that is why this program should be reviewed at a regular basis by Congress. Once these types of programs are passed on indefinitely and become embodied within the budget itself, it is never reviewed by this body again, which is our function and our responsibility.

If anything was done in a self-executing rule, the amendment we will talk about later to actually put a cap on this program and make sure that we review it on a regular basis, that should have been self- executing because it is our responsibility as Congress, and we should not abrogate that particular responsibility.

The second concern I have is what I call the curriculum of this particular program. It has been portrayed by groups to us that this is like a new version of the CCC coming along trying to make changes and improvements in public lands. If that were the case, we would probably have very little concern about it. But that is not necessarily what will be allowed if this bill actually goes into effect. See, when this program was originally started the goal was to have kids working on projects that would benefit specially our Forest Service and public lands. But unfortunately as this is now altered, there is no guarantee of where the funds will go and what the priorities may be, which is one of the things we simply wanted. Keep the program doing what the program was intended to do.

This time the government will send money, much of which will be handled by the Student Conservation Association. They will be the ones who will facilitate programs and give grants. How it's structured no one knows. Because once again, instead of ensuring that this is done to the betterment of public lands, this allows for money to go to political issues under the guise of some kind of conservationship. For indeed, this group has had an agenda in the past which has been anti- affordable energy, anti-coal fired plants, pro-higher taxes and energy costs.

Our staff had the opportunity of looking on the Web site of this particular group. They sponsored a conference here in Washington several years ago sponsored by the National Park Service, some funding from the National Park Service in which the curriculum for that conference was not just about how we improve our public lands, but also how one stages protests, how one can do a sit-in to prevent a timber harvest from taking place. In fact, as you look at their Web site their organizing chart lists to start small and then grow and make it fun in the process.

Now, once again, that is not what this program was intended to do, nor should it be the program. And there are no prohibitions to say that this program will not evolve into that form. Had they simply added amendments we wanted to say what the purposes and the directions of this program were, once again it would be a very good bipartisan bill. But that was not allowed. It was not allowed by leadership here or in the Rules Committee to take that place and form.

This Student Conservation Association once again has taken a great deal of stimulus funds that were added in the stimulus bill. In each of those, once again, there was much that was involved that was advocacy outside building our public lands. One of the funds got 18 grand into my community to assist in building a public library so that they could associate at the refuge center with conservation efforts. One hundred twenty thousand dollars was given to this group so they could go to New England and show legal techniques and practices of how they could use the legal system to reach goals that they had. That is political activism, which is not what this program was about, not to which this program should evolve into itself.

One of the things, Madam Speaker, that was funded as part of this program is the Mo Udall Legacy bus tour. Actually, it was a 54-day bus tour promoted by the National Park Service. You can see their logos all the way around here, as well as Department of Interior, to promote sustainability in biodiesel buses. According to the kids, it was a wonderful 54-day trip. However, most of them actually said how great it was as they visited microbreweries in every one of those areas, especially biodiversified microbreweries.

Actually, I don't know how successful this tour was. I don't drink anything harder than Dr. Pepper, so I am going to ask some of the rest of you around here to see if their touring, their visiting to all of the bars they had in the cities in which they went on this particular trip really was worthwhile in making that particular kind of evaluation.

Nice trip. There is nothing wrong with these guys doing this as long as they do it on their own dime; not on the government's dime under the guise of creating some kind of better lands for our public services.

National Park Services, which will be in charge of the oversight of this, does not have a great record in that. In 2007, the IG in the Department of the Interior came up with this in one park service- managed job corps center--$3 million of misreported expenditures and $200,000 of improper charges. And that is the oversight that we're going to have. Those types of things should have been added to the bill.

We asked those to be added to the bill. It would have solved the problem of this particular bill, but they weren't done; therefore, we're here complaining about something which should have been and could have been a great program of bipartisan support, and it isn't.

Let me talk about the genealogy, for, indeed, this Student Conservation Association that will be managing this new program was an offspring created by the National Park Conservation Association, the godfather of this program, a special interest group with a history of what I consider to be extreme agendas--a history of filing lawsuits against this government, filing lawsuits against the Second Amendment rights, efforts to restrict hunting and recreation that are currently permitted on public lands, and presently involved in a national courtroom crusade to destroy the benefits of coal-fired plants with letters, with testimony. Once again, their motives may be pure, fine. It's okay to do that, but not on the government dime. And this bill is written so loosely that it is not clear if any money goes indirectly or directly back to this point to do it.

This bill, when originally established, this program, when originally established, was there to inspire use and needs and build needed programs on public lands. When this program was originally established, by law, it's highest priority was to generate a new generation of land managers trained specifically to improve public lands and specifically to implement the bipartisan Healthy Forest Restoration Act.

That was, under the current system, the highest priority: to help our lands, stop catastrophic fires, to improve our forests. It was managed for that. Seventy-five percent of the money went to that particular issue. That is what should be done.

But once again, in committee, when we said let's restate that at least as one of the important criteria--because, you see, when this bill was written, they removed anything that related to healthy forests from the language. Reinstate that. We actually said, Why don't you reinstate it so at least 50 percent of this goes to improving the forests of this country? And that wasn't allowed either.

So there is no criteria. There is no reference once again to the purpose of this bill originally, which was to make sure that we had a healthy forest. Instead, we have an open-ended bill that could do anything, that could go anywhere, that may make any kind of function.

And see, Madam Speaker, all of this could have been avoided. These are not tough issues. This is not one of the bills that is going to make or break the Republic. It could be avoided if simply the Democrat majority had decided to try and do something in a bipartisan way. If they said, These are your objections. Let's draft something to make sure that your restrictions are what we do as well. We didn't need to be here.

As I said, the committee promised that they would work on this before it came to the floor. I was not privy to those negotiations. I don't know where it went down, but something happened that did not need to happen.

And the Rules Committee, we once again took these amendments to the

Rules Committee and, in their typical fashion, the Rules Committee dropped all of them except for two. That didn't need to take place. Typical of what we're doing around here is simply trying to push things through when we don't need to do it. If we had really had a spirit of bipartisanship, this is something that could easily be accomplished.

So you can sit back, if this happens to pass today, and simply tell yourself it could have been great. It could have been a united bill. It could have been something which we all could say of which we are now proud. But because of the process that we are using, that does not take place. In fact, Madam Speaker, what we are doing here is duplicative.

AmeriCorps, if you look on their enacting legislation on page 22 and page 24, everything this program--which was designed to help public lands, especially healthy forests--everything this is now opened up to do is done by AmeriCorps. It's part of their program. Why not funnel all of the money there and avoid the duplication?

What we are doing now is building a program that has no latitudes, no restrictions on what their options are, no restrictions on their funding. This is a hole so wide you could drive a Toyota Prius through it because there is nothing involved that could stop it. That is not the way you do good legislation. This is not the way you do good legislation. But it could be, and it should have been.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire of the gentleman from Arizona, my good friend, wrong on all the issues, but still a great guy, if he has any other speakers?

I will reserve.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The first gentlelady from California who spoke talked about how important it was to start this program. May I reiterate, once again, we are not starting anything new. We have a program. All we are doing is changing things in that program. The current program has specific dollar amounts going which will be reviewed and specific programmatic responsibility, all of which were stripped out in this particular version.

The gentlelady from Texas, actually, I appreciate everything she said, she was right on. Everything for which she argued that is necessary is what the original program was intended to do. The problem we have is--and we could have easily, easily gone along with the expansion of this program if they had actually allowed us to come up with some kind of limitations, because unfortunately, as I mentioned before, what we have now done with this program, 75 percent of which was to go to make sure that we have healthy forests, where the actual priority was to go to help public lands, is you have taken out all that language and we have simply replicated AmeriCorps.

Once again, go on to the language of the legislation that created that document. On page 22 they list what they can do. It's exactly the same thing that has now opened up this possibility. Page 24, where can they go? Exactly the same thing. All we are doing is making a duplicate of a program that's already there when we have a good program with a specific goal, a specific recommendation, and we have taken out those specifics.

Now I suggested that there is plenty of opportunity for abuse in this particular program if you don't try and limit it to what we want it to accomplish, because we all agree on what we want it to accomplish. The unfortunate thing is the language in this bill doesn't say that. It doesn't specify that. And so indeed we can have instead people going in there to provide not jobs, but to provide internships for people to go in and have them assist professional staff in identifying problems, formulating legal strategies to address those problems, providing legal education and direct response representation, engaging in policy development.

There is nothing wrong with doing that, but not on the government dime. I don't have a problem with having a tour of this country talking about sustainability of processes and having drinking parties and all. That's fine, but not on the government dime. I don't mind actually having an agency that has a program here in Washington sponsored by the National Park Service, but not if it's going to teach people how to lead protests and sit-ins, not on the government dime. You can do all of these, but not subsidized by government funding. And that's what should be specified, that those type of activities should be beyond the opportunity and beyond the appropriation and beyond the concept of this program. That is what should have been in the bill. And had we done that, we would also all be singing Kumbaya or anything else that you want to with that.

But this bill, as I said before, is somewhat of a metaphor for everything that we have been doing for a large part of this session. It's simply, once again, a bill that there were assurances made in the committee that amendments would be applied to this bill. For whatever reason, they are not. Instead, we are standing up here protesting a bill which should have been and could have been a great piece of legislation to move us forward towards a common goal, but for whatever reason it was not allowed to be written in that form.

We are standing here on a bill that actually presents itself with a visual of why we need systemic change in this body. If the vast majority of Members were here on the floor to hear what these arguments are, I think they would say, yes, this is a logical limitation, it should be there. But as you look around, the vast majority of Members are not on this floor right now. So far too often we do things in a vacuum of understanding, which is why this body needs systemic change in the process that we use to reach conclusions.

Nothing, nothing more than the changes, nothing more than the process we are going through this weekend, reeks of the need for some kind of systemic change. Because if we did that systemic change and the expectation were the people were here to listen to the debate, they were there in the committees to hear the testimony, there were there in the committees to be part of the markup process, I am still convinced that we could have a better product and a bipartisan product.

But the process does not encourage that. The process encourages the exact opposite. We have a process that has evolved in the wrong direction, and if anything else, this weekend should show that we need systemic change in the process.

This bill, this program, is still a decent program. And with some limitations on the amount of spending, some review on a regular period, and some limitations on what the product will be, what the kids will be working on as they go through these internships, we could have a very, very good positive program. And I hope before this bill actually goes all the way through the system, those kinds of limitations are put back in the bill so we can have something of which we can actually be proud.

I urge defeat of this bill until those changes are made.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank the gentleman for the courtesy on this floor. I admire courtesy and civility here. I just wish we had more of it on both sides from time to time, particularly as we are in these contentious days dealing with one of the most important issues of our time--the health care bill.

I would stand in support of all the things that the gentleman from Florida said about this rule making in order these two bills. It is not unusual for us to make in order two bills under a rule, but what I would suggest is that that is somewhat different than what we evidently are going to be asked to do later this weekend. As I understand it from the ranking member on the

Rules Committee, it is contemplated that we will have a rule that will be ``self-executing'' dealing with a substantial portion of the American economy, that is the entire arena of health care. I don't think enough attention has been given to the difference between the appropriate procedure that we are enacting here versus that which is to go forward later this weekend.

I served in this body in the 1980s and then left and came back about 6 years ago. In the intervening time there was an effort, on a bipartisan basis, made by this House and the Senate, with the signature of the President, on a piece of legislation that was called the line- item veto. The line-item veto was a process that was contemplated which would allow the President of the United States to receive an appropriation bill from the Congress and then to look at that appropriation bill and find out and decide whether there were certain items that he thought were not appropriate, there's too much spending in an overall appropriations bill. It would have given the President the right to sign the overall bill, but on the one hand, to take out, X out, line out certain items. And so this provided a constitutional question before the Supreme Court in the case of Clinton v. City of New York, because they had to wait until the President actually exercised the right presumably given to him by the legislation passed by this Congress.

And so the question was: Was that manner in which laws were passed consistent with the requirements of the Constitution? And the Constitution sets out the terms under which we're able to pass laws. Essentially, it says three things must happen: It must pass the House of Representatives; it must pass the United States Senate; and it must be presented--it's called presentment--presented to the President and signed by the President.

Interestingly enough, in the majority opinion written by Justice Stevens--I believe the longest-serving member of the U.S. Supreme Court at the present time--when he investigated it, he said this. He said, The Constitution requires that it be the exact text in all three circumstances. Those are his words. The exact text. He went on to say that if in fact a paragraph were absent from the law that the President signed, meaning the President exercised his line item veto and had taken it out, it would invalidate the constitutional requirement for passage of a law because it would not be the exact text.

So, as I understand it, contrary to the rule that we are debating here today, the contemplated rule to cover the health care bill will say something along the lines of: We incorporate a bill which will be deemed to have passed if we pass the rule; or other language to say: thereby passing. So then you will have the interesting question of whether or not we are acting on--that is, I as an individual Member of Congress representing my constituency--I am voting on the ``exact text'' as was voted on in the Senate, which then goes to the President for signature. And I would argue that if you cannot remove a paragraph from the ``exact text,'' as the Supreme Court told us, in any of the three aspects of the bill, that you cannot add text. And that is, if you have a rule which incorporates the bill, you naturally have other language that goes along with it, particularly if it makes reference to other subject matter.

And so in contrast to the rule we have here, which should be supportable under the circumstances that it does not violate the Constitution in any way, shape, or form, even though it is a little different than when we adopt a rule that permits two bills to come to the floor, in the instance of having a self-executing rule we will then be presenting to the Supreme Court a constitutional issue upon which they have not directly ruled. It is, however, my interpretation of their ruling in Clinton v. City of New York that it is the mirror image of what the court found to be unconstitutional. That is, if the exact text requirement cannot be fulfilled by removing a single paragraph from the text; similarly, if you add language to the text in the vote that is presented to the membership, it would be not the same thing, so that we would be prohibiting the Members of this institution, the House of Representatives, from their constitutional obligation to vote on the exact question presented in the other body so that that same exact question can be presented to the President of the United States for his signature.

Now I understand that some say, Aha, there's another section of the Constitution which says that the House of Representatives and the Senate in their respective bodies shall be the sole arbiter of the rules of their Chambers. And that is true. But it is also true that we cannot, by our rules, do what is otherwise unconstitutional. And so Members should understand that while, unfortunately, when we debate rules often times there's the absence of many of our Members here, because the rules process is considered to be technical, in some ways taken for granted, in other ways nonobjectionable, not rising above the ordinary, with all due respect to the members of the Rules Committee. In the instance of a self-executing rule, so-called, on one of the most controversial issues presented to this Congress, certainly in my years of service here, we cannot blithely dismiss legitimate questions about what our obligation is here. I have said on this floor before, and I continue to say, the Constitution is an inconvenient truth.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to be in a meeting with Justice Scalia. Justice Scalia made an interesting point. He said, The essence of a democracy or a democratic republic such as ours is, majority rules. If majority rules, you don't have a democracy. But he said one of the unique things about America is that we have some limitations on majority rule. Those limitations are found in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They limit what the majority can do and protect minority rights. But he said, The interesting thing is, those limitations were imposed on the majority by the majority. In other words, it is through the adoption of the Constitution that the majority has limited itself. And he suggested that that should give caution to members of the court to not supersede their legitimate authority by finding new limitations on the majority that were not contemplated by those who adopted the Constitution, and if you need further limitations or protections of minority interests, the way to do that is to amend the Constitution, which is again done by the majority.

Similarly, I would suggest, that those of us who take an oath to uphold the Constitution as representatives of our constituents in this body must follow the dictates of the Constitution and the limitations of the Constitution. In some language in that case that I cited earlier, the 12-year-old case of Clinton v. City of New York, the court talked about how it may or may not be a good public policy that the law that was otherwise found to be unconstitutional, that the fact that it may or may not be good public policy is irrelevant to the question of whether it's constitutional.

So the argument that we have presented to us here most recently in a nationally televised interview by the President of the United States, that whatever vote takes place is going to be on health care and therefore it's okay, and he'll sign it, forgets the inconvenient truth that the Constitution does not permit us to do that, and it does not permit the President to do that. So while a lot of people are talking about the fact we're going to be here over the weekend--and that's extraordinary--I would wish that we would concentrate on the more extraordinary question of whether we are following the Constitution. Because if in fact we circumvent the Constitution by ``allowing'' a bill to become law in which each Member of the House and the Senate did not have the opportunity to vote on the exact language, we are not punishing the Members of Congress; we are punishing our constituents, who have a constitutional right to have laws passed in the way that is articulated in the Constitution, which provides specificity as to how that is done so that the power of the Federal Government will be exercised in the limited sense that was given to it by the people through the Constitution.

And so while I support all of the comments made by the gentleman from Florida with respect to this rule and find this rule to be relatively noncontroversial and to be more of the same, the rule that we are being told of

that we will consider this weekend is not more of the same, is not ordinary, is in fact extraordinary, and I would suggest such an extraordinary stretch that it will be rendered unconstitutional. Why would we follow a procedure that will call into question the very constitutional foundations of the contents of the bill if in fact it is such an important issue? If it in fact is something that needs to be dealt with with such urgency, ought we not to follow the Constitution in each and every aspect and ought we not be guided by the most recent decision of the Supreme Court on a law which we thought was a good law on a bipartisan basis, but which, unfortunately, the Constitution does not allow us to enact.

And I would hope that my colleagues who may not be here on the floor but may have an opportunity to review these remarks will take seriously my concerns. We may very well be preparing to embark on an unconstitutional journey which not only will take the healthy skepticism that our Constitution provides for government--not rejecting government, but we have a healthy skepticism of the power of government that is a part of our constitutional process--but we will turn it from a healthy skepticism to an unfortunately destructive cynicism. And if there is anybody who believes that is good for this country, I would suggest they are wrong.

This is a tough issue that we're going to have to deal with later this weekend. Let us at least do it in a constitutional way, and let us not pass something for the American people that will be called into question in court challenge after court challenge after court challenge and delay the impact or implementation of whatever we believe on a bipartisan basis ought to be the governing law with respect to the health care system.

So with that, I thank the gentleman for his time, and I thank the gentleman for his courtesy.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1192, I call up the bill (H.R. 1612) to amend the Public Lands Corps Act of 1993 to expand the authorization of the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Interior to provide service-learning opportunities on public lands, help restore the Nation's natural, cultural, historic, archaeological, recreational, and scenic resources, train a new generation of public land managers and enthusiasts, and promote the value of public service, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 1612.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1612, a bill I introduced last year to help repair and restore our Nation's public lands while employing and training thousands of young Americans and promoting the culture of public service.

In 1993, when the Public Lands Corps was established through the good work of our late colleague Bruce Vento of Minnesota, there were huge backlogs of labor-intensive work on national park lands, forests, wildlife refuges, historic sites, and Indian lands. Unfortunately, we still face those challenges and more. Years of inadequate funding have put our Federal land management agencies further behind on vital maintenance work, while infrastructure continues to crumble.

Despite the best efforts of these underfunded agencies, natural and cultural resources are being neglected, and in many places the effects of climate change are magnifying earlier problems such as fire risk, damage by insects and invasive species, coastal erosion, and fragmented habitat. The stimulus bill we passed in the first session has begun to attack the problem, but is only a start. Much remains to be done on the public lands.

My bill, H.R. 1612, will expand and reinvigorate an existing program, the Public Lands Corps, by streamlining its management, modernizing its scope, and providing new tools to help the program accomplish its mission, putting young people to work repairing our most treasured resources. Young people participating in the Public Lands Service Corps will work side by side with professional land managers to collect biological data, preserve historic documents, rebuild roads and trails, attack invasive weeds, reduce fire risk and improve watershed health, paint visitor facilities, restore damaged wetlands, help build green buildings, and welcome visitors to our parks and public lands. These and a wide variety of other jobs will be available to Corps members for a period up to 2 years. Their term of service will include the training they need do these jobs.

My bill also allows the agencies to provide housing for Corps participants, and even allows the Corps members to build housing that can be used by future Corps members. The training and experience Corps members receive while working to improve the condition of our natural and cultural resources will give them a huge advantage when they enter the working world in such professions as science, land management, the building trades, academic disciplines such as history and education.

The legislation not only takes a decisive step forward in finishing desperately needed work on our national park lands, forests, wildlife refuges, historic sites and Indian lands, but also recognizes the importance of our coastal and marine systems and our national marine sanctuaries. This expanded public service initiative will introduce people from a greater diversity of social, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds to our Nation's parks, forests, and public lands not only as possible future employees, but also as lifelong advocates and enthusiasts.

The legislation takes advantage of an opportunity to provide meaningful employment and training to young people who need it, while also improving the condition of our priceless natural and cultural resources. President Obama and Interior Secretary Salazar have made national service a priority and have graciously supported this legislation. I am also proud to have the support of preeminent conversation corps groups, as well as leading national parks advocacy groups.

I ask my colleagues to support the passage of this measure. At a time when unemployment among our youth and particularly the urban areas is at an all time high, H.R. 1612 begins to address that crisis and also to address the unmet needs of our public lands.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, part of the process that we also see today, that we're going to experience today and have been experiencing for a while, is an effort on the part of my colleagues across the aisle to erase history and to assume that everything that we're doing today is somehow misconstrued to increase the deficit and that it is a government takeover, that it's not bipartisanship; and we're at this place to take corrective steps legislatively, including this legislation, because we are working on a history, a history of deficit spending, a history of no priorities, and a history that, although people want to erase it from memory, is there, and this is the reason that we're in the situation that we are right now.

As in terms of conspiracies in terms of this legislation, the American Camp Association endorsed it. The National Trust for Historic Preservation endorsed it. The Boys and Girls Club endorsed it. Girl Scouts of Northern California endorsed it. The Wellness Coalition endorsed it. The Student Conservation Association endorsed it. The Hispanic Federation endorsed it. The Coalition of National Park Retirees endorsed it, and the National Trust for Public Lands endorsed it, and the Muddy Sneakers: The Joy of Learning Outside endorsed it. So I'm assuming that they must be also part of this vast and nefarious conspiracy that is going on. Somebody should advise them of that.

With that, let me now yield to the gentlelady from the Virgin Islands, a member of our Committee on National Resources, Dr. Christensen, for 3 minutes.

I yield the gentlelady an additional 1 minute.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from California, Ms. Barbara Lee.

I yield the gentlelady 30 additional seconds.

Let me yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from California (Mrs. Capps).

I yield the gentlewoman 1 additional minute.

I have one additional speaker.

I yield the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) 3 minutes.

I rise to encourage support for H.R. 1612. Part of the discussion today was to say, from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, that it's a bad time to spend money on this program because unemployment is high and the deficit is high. I would respond that it is the perfect time for such investment.

This program is an investment in reducing unemployment among young people and in the long run will save money by preventing these maintenance problems in our public lands from getting worse. I want to talk about what is in the bill. Much of the limitations that were talked about by my good friend are not part of--some of the points that he made are not even part of the legislation. But let's talk for a second what this bill does do.

H.R. 1612 will broaden the scope of the program to include more agencies within the Department of the Interior, NOAA, within the Commerce Department; to expand the purposes of this program to make clear that a central aim is to attract participants from diverse backgrounds who are underrepresented among visitors and managers of our public lands; require establishment of coordinators with each agency eligible to participate in the program so that implementation of the program will be more uniform and efficient; authorize these Federal agencies to enter into cooperative agreements with nonprofit youth or Conservation Corps to improve these partnerships; establish criteria and methodology for training programs for all participants; modernize the scope of eligible projects to include new challenges such as climate change and insect infestation; authorize participating agencies to provide housing for participants.

That is what the program does do. It is an appropriate time, it is a necessary time, and it is an investment that will pay huge dividends for our public lands and our young people, and I urge its adoption.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition to the amendment, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Madam Speaker, this amendment would ensure that the tribes would be among the governments and groups with whom the Secretaries would contract to provide temporary housing for Corps participants.

We support this amendment and appreciate the gentleman's efforts and appreciate the correction of an oversight.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would also urge support for the amendment and would also note that the Health Care Reform Act we are expecting to take up tomorrow includes the most sweeping changes to Indian health care in decades, long overdue.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I rise to claim time in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Speaker, under existing law, funding for Public Land Corps is capped at $12 billion annually. The bill before us, H.R. 1612, would remove this cap. The amendment offered by my colleague, Mr. Bishop, would not only leave the cap in place, but also force the program to sunset in 5 years.

Madam Speaker, as we all know, when the Republicans controlled this Congress and the White House, they presided over the largest increase in Federal spending in the history of this Nation. Amendments like this one provide important clues as to why that happened. Are we honestly worried about runaway spending on youth job, training, and education programs? Is it imperative that we clamp down on efforts to put young people to work repairing trails and visitor centers used by American families when they visit in parks and public lands? Of course not. This is the definition of being penny wise and pound foolish.

Republicans want to cap and sunset a popular, effective, bipartisan jobs program; but when they controlled the entire Federal budget, they spent like

sailors on leave. Big spending, runaway spending, all those analogies fit. This is a poor attempt to appear fiscally responsible after years and years of irresponsible free spending. This amendment is not necessary. The fact that this program is already incredibly popular, an enactment of H.R. 1612 would make it an even bigger success.

Many Members will continue pushing to put young people to work and give them the job training they so desperately seek.

Some in the minority can continue coming to the floor and nipping at the heels of these bills as we pass them. The American people will see which Members are serious about addressing unemployment and the condition of our parks and public lands, and which Members are just trying to mask that legacy of irresponsible spending.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I urge defeat of the amendment and remind that a review of this legislation is conducted every year by appropriators, and that committees of jurisdiction are not prevented in this legislation from conducting oversight of the programs. With that, let me urge defeat of the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

The current bill would expand the public lands program to a dozen agencies. By restricting the use of the money that would be appropriated for the legislation, you effectively put three-quarters of it into forest activities, thereby eliminating the opportunity to be able to engage young people in a variety and a comprehensive look at opportunities in our public lands and in our public lands agency.

The vast majority of the adults who participate in the program are Federal employees. The oversight is their responsibility in the agency. NPS rangers, forest rangers already get full background checks and full clearance. They already get full FBI checks. The minority failed to raise this issue during committees or at the Committee on Rules.

The other issue is the issue of due process. To prohibit an individual or organization from being able to seek redress in a court of law I think is not only undemocratic, but sincerely wrong.

The motion to recommit basically hamstrings the legislation, prevents it from being effective. It is a hodgepodge of items thrown in that were not before the Rules Committee and were not before the discussion on the full committee. I would urge a ``no'' vote.

Let me point out thus far that only $7.5 million has ever been appropriated for Public Land Corps, and all of that money was earmarked for forest health. Under this legislation before us today, it is our expectation that more funds will be available for all eligible projects, forest health as well as other programs.

Finally, we never hear the end of it from the other side, the need to take care of lands we own before we do anything else. This program does precisely that. The motion to recommit hamstrings the program, reduces its effectiveness, narrows the opportunity for young people in terms of where they work and what training and what education they will receive, duplicates the process by which people are checked that are going to be working with young people in this program, and prevents and neglects full redress under our laws for individuals and organizations. I think those three items have nothing to do with the legislation. They are there to hamper the legislation.

I would urge my colleagues to oppose the motion to recommit, to pass this legislation, and give full, meaningful employment opportunity for the young people that are right now suffering the most from a lack of jobs and for the young people that most need a second chance. This legislation is about opportunity. This legislation is about saving our public lands and educating our young people. The motion to recommit is about preventing that.

I would urge all my Members not to be duped into that presumption, to go forward with the bill and pass the legislation as is, and oppose the motion to recommit.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the instructions of the House in the motion to recommit, I report the bill, H.R. 1612, back to the House with an amendment.