Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank Mr. Waxman for his constant, credible leadership. He is saying what all Americans should be aware of. This is an incredibly important piece of legislation. Mr. Chairman, power plants emit 96,000 pounds of mercury into the air we breathe every year. Yet this bill would prevent EPA from regulating mercury.

Mercury is an extremely dangerous neurotoxin. It damages children's developing brains, reducing their IQ and their ability to learn. At low levels of exposure, it causes insomnia, neuromuscular changes, headaches, disturbances in sensations, changes in nerve responses and impairment of cognitive functions. Hundreds of thousands of people have been affected in this way. But at higher exposures, it affects kidneys, causes respiratory failure and death.

One gram of mercury, a tiny drop, can be enough to contaminate 200 million gallons of water, which is the size of a 20-acre, 30-foot deep lake. All but one State, Alaska, have issued health advisories warning their residents against eating fish caught in their waters because of mercury contamination. It goes up in the air from the power plants, then when it rains, it goes into the water, it poisons the fish, and ultimately it poisons human beings. Two States, Oklahoma and Maine, have issued Statewide fresh water advisories that you should be wary of eating any large fish due to the possibility of mercury poisoning.

Think of this: Despite this acknowledged danger, each year, power plants release 96,000 pounds of mercury into the air.

EPA's proposed Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule requires power plants to meet the same requirements that other industries have already met using proven emission control technologies that will reduce mercury emissions by 91 percent. It can be done. And the cost of meeting both regulations pales in comparison to the economic benefits Americans will receive with cleaner air.

The proposed Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule has a quantified benefit of between 5 and 13 times its cost. And the pollution reductions required by the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule will yield benefits of $120 billion to $280 billion per year, which is between 150 to 350 times its cost.

This bill serves the interest of no one but a few CEOs and the politicians who are supported by them, who refuse to accept responsibility for the harm their unregulated power plants have imposed on the rest of us.

Mr. Chairman, this bill itself is deliberately deceiving. In fact, the title of the bill implies something that is not true. The Environmental Protection Agency is fully transparent, and it has already performed a Regulatory Impact Analysis on the cost of its Clean Air Act regulations. And the intent of the bill is not what it claims. The true intent of this bill is to slow down or block implementation of EPA's obligations under the law to regulate our environment. It specifically suspends further action on two regulations--the Cross- State Air Pollution Rule and the proposed rule on Mercury and Air Toxics Standards--that are required under the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990.

Pass this bill and you will condemn tens of thousands of Americans to a premature death, you will sentence millions more to a lifetime of health complications, and you will straddle our economy with unnecessary costs and employers with millions of additional sick days.

The goal of a cleaner environment and a healthier population should not be sacrificed in order to keep this Nation's dirtiest power plants from doing what almost every other industry and all governments have done to reduce harmful air pollution.

What we're being given here is a false choice peddled by, as I say, a fraction of CEOs in the utility industry who refuse to clean up their antiquated coal-fired power plans.

We can have clear air and more jobs. History provides us with proof it is possible because it has already happened. Hundreds of thousands of people owe their life today to the environmental movement and leaders in Congress like Mr. Waxman and the White House who pushed for and passed the landmark environmental laws--back in the 1970s in the Nixon administration, and in 1990--that required polluters to clean our waters and reduce the pollution in the air we breathe. In the decade after the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments were signed into law by George H.W. Bush, our unemployment declined, our economy grew, and we reduced acid rain-forming gases by more than 30 percent.

I thank the gentleman.

I want you to listen to this, Mr. Chairman. The cost of meeting the emission reductions was actually 75 percent less than what EPA had originally predicted in 1990, and it was far below what opponents had claimed. But there are still a number of provisions of the Clean Air Act that have never been implemented, and now we have much more scientific and medical evidence to inform our decisionmaking. We know that a drop of mercury can poison an entire lake. We know these things now. We know the harm of mercury and toxic chemicals. We know how much is coming from power plants.

The rule for power plants is long overdue. It's been in development for close to 20 years. If one wants to talk about uncertainty, how about allowing certainty by letting EPA finalize its rules on mercury, on air toxics, and on cross-State air pollution. Then we will protect the health of our people. Then our plants will know exactly what is expected of them.

The fact is municipalities do this for their waste recovery plants and their medical waste incinerators. They are required to do it. And no municipality ever went bankrupt over this regulation. And medical wastes are disposed of today in a safe and reliable manner.

We can do this, we should do this, and we should defeat this bill.

Mr. Speaker, last year, I read on the House floor a letter from an active duty servicemember in Afghanistan. He shared how he and his partner of 10 years had managed the hardship that comes along with three deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite their shared sacrifices, his partner received no support from the military and would not be officially informed of his death.

While serving on active duty, he became aware of a number of other soldiers who were gay. In one case, it was only after a friend died of wounds from an IED, and he received a letter from the deceased soldier's partner, expressing how much he had loved the Army. Of course, this letter had to be sent anonymously because, until yesterday, its very existence could have led to the soldier's discharge.

The indignity of concealing who you are and who you love in order to protect your country has ended. No longer will we subject the brave men and women who volunteer to serve our Nation to a shameful vow of silence, asking them to lie about themselves. This policy was wrong; and now it's history, and our Nation and our military are stronger as a result.

To all who serve our Nation in uniform, we are so proud of each and every one of you.

Mr. Speaker, today the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2587, the Protecting Jobs from Government Interference Act. This legislation, should it become law, would destroy a pillar of America's economic prosperity when we need it most. The bill strips the National Labor Relations Board of its ability to sanction companies that retaliate against employees seeking to exercise a basic constitutional right.

The facts of the case, though often misreported or obscured by partisan disdain for working people, are clear. Under a federal statute that has been in force since 1935, workers at the Boeing Corporation complained that the corporation moved a manufacturing plant to a different state in direct retaliation for labor strikes. The National Labor Relations Board, as is prescribed in the same statute, investigated the case. As part of their investigation, NLRB investigators collected evidence from both parties. The NLRB has not yet determined whether this evidence warrants a complaint against Boeing. In short: the process which has been in place for more than 75 years is working as designed, but it has not been completed. This bill would halt the investigation of this legally introduced complaint, and it would gut the statute that governs the relationship between workers and bosses.

At a time when the President and others have correctly argued that the U.S. government should not be assisting corporations to ship jobs overseas, we are gutting the U.S. government's role in ensuring that workers have a fighting chance to improve their lives, provide for their families, and keep quality jobs.

We should all be in this together: workers, corporations, and the federal government. We ought to be working as a team to boost U.S. efforts to remain competitive in a tough global economy. The American middle class today faces devastating attacks on its health care, retirement security and real wages, while corporate profits and CEO salaries are skyrocketing. I strongly oppose this misguided effort to gut protections for America's workers.

The fact is that under the NLRA, a corporation may outsource jobs for practically any reason, just not for an illegal reason. Under the law, due process protects corporations and workers, ensuring that both sides have their say. In fact, even if the NLRB rules that Boeing has acted illegally, a decision would not infringe Boeing's--or any corporation's--right to open manufacturing facilities anywhere. They just can't do it to punish the workers they rely on to compete.

This legislation throws those critical worker protections away for the short sighted purpose of rewarding one Fortune 500 company that has been able to compete globally in a tough business environment by hiring qualified workers to build the best planes in the world. Now Republicans in the House of Representatives want to turn those workers and their families out on the street for exercising their right to bargain.

In order to recover from the recession, the United States needs to address the growing disparity in wealth in our country. Despite the recession, corporations today are bringing home more profit than ever before. Tax rates are the lowest they have been in decades. What corporations need is consumers, and if we don't protect the middle class through sensible, longstanding safeguards such as those set out by the NLRA, the economy will never recover.

Sadly, those on the other side of the aisle are desperate to return to policies that created the recession. They want tax cuts for the richest and deregulation across the board. We have seen this before, and we know where it leads.

Future prosperity calls for a different approach. Collective bargaining is part of one of the foundational rights set out in the First Amendment of the Constitution, the right to free assembly. It has worked for America's workers, it has been essential to the creation of our broad middle class, and it is essential that we preserve it.

Madam Speaker, today we learned that 46 million Americans are living in poverty. More people are suffering economically than at any time since the Great Depression. But we learned from an excellent article by Scott Lilly of the Center for American Progress that history may be repeating itself.

In 1937, conservative Republicans succeeded in virtually eliminating the Federal jobs programs of the New Deal, so as to eliminate the Federal deficit. But the results were catastrophic to America's economy and society. Half of the 8 million jobs that had been created by the New Deal were lost, and unemployment went over 19 percent.

Economists generally classified the economic reversal in 1937 and 1938 as a second depression. Not until military spending began to revive activity in 1940 did unemployment again drop to less than 15 percent.

That was a long and painful experience. It would be tragic if we permitted the new conservative crowd in Washington to repeat it by killing President Obama's jobs act and sending us back into a double- dip recession.

Those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 20th Anniversary of NewsChannel 8. This highly regarded news organization has been serving local viewers continuously for 175,320 hours, consistently providing critical local news, community information, local political coverage and emergency updates in its 20 years of existence.

Established on October 7, 1991, NewsChannel 8 was the first independent local news channel in the country. Its innovative zoned delivery of news provides hyperlocal and distinct coverage to Washington, DC, Virginia, and Maryland.

NewsChannel 8 programming is wired into over 15,000 Federal offices in the House of Representatives, Senate, Supreme Court, and the White House, and has become an invaluable resource to all decision makers on Capitol Hill, many of whom are regular guests or contributors to NewsChannel 8's tireless political coverage.

NewsChannel 8 has been dedicated to serving its surrounding communities, providing immeasurable service to the people of the Washington DC metro area. Serving as a critical outlet for local government officials including Congressional Representatives, Senators, Mayors, County Supervisors, Council Representatives, School Board Officials and Emergency/Public Safety Administrators, NewsChannel 8 is the leader in making sure constituents are well-informed. Additionally, NewsChannel 8 provides a unique forum for state and local political candidates to inform and educate voters.

NewsChannel 8's parent company, Allbritton Communications Company, and its cable partners, including Comcast, Cox and Verizon, are to be commended for forging a local programming and distribution partnership that is the envy of the nation. In honor of their achievements, the House of Representatives shall designate October 7, 2011 as ``NewsChannel 8 Day'' in recognition of their outstanding public service.

I congratulate NewsChannel 8 on their success in the delivery of informative, first-rate local news.

Mr. Speaker, tonight the President will try, once again, to restart this economy. But the problem is not with the President or his policies. It's here with the House majority who will oppose whatever he proposes. They will say that we tried the stimulus and it didn't work. But one of the reasons why the economy is slowing down is that stimulus dollars are drying up.

They will say that we need to cut corporate tax rates. But corporate after-tax profits are at an all-time high. They will say that we need to deregulate the financial markets, but it was that kind of deregulation that put us into this mess in the first place.

What we need is the faith to invest in this country's future. There are $2.2 trillion of infrastructure projects that need to be funded. Every billion dollars that goes into this country's infrastructure creates 47,500 more jobs and, in fact, generates $6.2 billion of additional economic activity.

That's what we need to do. That will work. That will make our country stronger, will reduce the deficit and will put people back to work.

Mr. Speaker, we have never cut our way out of an economic recession. We have always grown our way out. But we have never grown our way out by investing less than 15 percent of our GDP in our people's potential. In fact, the last time we cut back in the way we are about to do today was in 1937, and that sent us right back into an economic depression. But this time, we're not going to have World War II to rescue our economy.

It's interesting to note that the Federal investment in homeownership and higher education for our returning GIs and the subsequent infrastructure investments and interstate highway system and the like created a permanent middle class after the war that lasted for two generations. But the middle class has never been more threatened than it is today, and this will condemn those struggling to make it into the middle class to years of struggle without the help that we could, and should be providing them.

And it's not because we're a poor country. Our largest corporations are experiencing record profits. The top 25 hedge fund managers are making more than a billion a year. Our corporations are sitting on more than $2 trillion of cash.

Mr. Speaker, the point is I understand that this train is leaving the station, but it's going in the wrong direction. We need to be investing in this country, not taking away the resources that will enable it to grow, it is through education, training, research and development and infrastructure investment that has made our country great but this agreement will make us smaller, weaker and far less able to tap our most valuable resource, the potential of all the American people.

Madam Speaker, this is a Republican-contrived bankruptcy.

A decade ago, the majority party inherited surpluses as far as the eye could see, and then they promptly took away the revenue that enabled us to balance our budget. They crippled this country with deep tax cuts. In fact, we have the lowest revenue that we've had at any time since before Medicare and basically at any time since before the Great Depression.

What this is going to do and the reason we oppose this is that if this were on the books, we never would have had the ability to rescue the world from the Great Depression in the 1930s; we never would have had the ability to win the war for democracy in the 1940s; we never would have created a permanent American middle class with the GI Bill that provided the working class with homes and higher education, we never would have won the race to space for the free world in the sixties; we never would have been able to establish Medicare and civil rights legislation in the mid-sixties.

And certainly, had we been stuck in this fiscal straightjacket, President Clinton never could have raised the needed revenue to balance the budget so we never would have been able to create 20 million new jobs as we did in the 1990s, and reduce poverty, and expand the middle class, and create all those trillions of dollars of projected surpluses that the majority inherited and promptly squandered.

This bill will make us a weaker, poorer and smaller country, and that's why it should be defeated.

Mr. Speaker, according to Grover Norquist, who's apparently the real Republican strategist, this is about ensuring that Democrats will never again have the revenue to govern as Democrats. But what does he mean by that? Is he talking about when Roosevelt rescued us from the Great Depression in the 1930s or when we saved the world for democracy in the forties or when we built the middle class with the GI Bill in the late forties? Or when we won the race to space in the early sixties or when we started Medicare and passed civil rights laws in the mid-sixties? Or when President Clinton raised taxes, balanced the budget, generated 20 million new jobs, cut poverty, grew the middle class, passed on projected surpluses as far as the eye could see, and enabled those at the top tax rates to take home more after-tax income than in any prior time in American history?

The fact is that Democrats have made this Nation great by investing in all our people and by raising the revenue necessary to meet our obligations and to secure our future. This is the alternative. This is about an ideology that lowers our sights, diminishes our stature and sells short our future. That is why it should be rejected.

Well, first of all, I would like to ask my good friend: Why is this not an earmark? Why is this not an earmark for one particular national preserve?

While we are considering that, perhaps Mr. Young can come up with an explanation. And I share the ranking member's great affection for Mr. Young. He is a good friend. But this also creates a precedent. Any time something happens on a national preserve or park land, they could come to the Congress and say, all right, no more inspections, and we could get a proliferation of these kinds of things specific to individual national reserves or parks.

The fact is that if the Park Service has jurisdiction, then they have responsibility. And I'll bet you anything that if we were to say there were to be no boat inspections, something's going to happen and some serious accident is going to occur, and then people are going to ask why in gosh name wasn't the Park Service there to do inspections? And it's going to go back to this, where we set a precedent of not allowing any boat inspection or safety check.

I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, in response to my very good friend, it appears that the conduct--it appears--the conduct of these park rangers was wrong. So they have been reassigned. And I'm sure that whoever has responsibility now in that jurisdiction has been told you don't do this.

Now, these kinds of things happen all over the country, if not all over the world, clearly. Some people in authority abuse their power. It happens with local police departments. It happens with State police. It happens with other people with a badge. And so they get disciplined. Sometimes they get taken to court. But normally we don't change national policy to deal with misconduct, if that's what it was, on the part of certain individuals. We don't change national policy. And that's what you're trying to do.

Let me put into this discussion and deliberation the fact that they had to go through national park land to get to that State water. They do. And the National Park Service runs the concessions. So the National Park Service does have responsibility for some of the vehicles on this water. They don't know if there's contraband stuff coming. They don't know what's on the vessel.

My guess is--I don't know for sure--my guess is it's very seldom that they're going to stop and board any boat. They would probably have to have some reason. I'm sure now, after this incident, they have to have very substantial reason. But it's entirely conceivable that at some point in the future they're going to have very substantial reason to stop and board a boat. And we have precluded their ability to carry out their responsibility.

So that's why we're concerned about the precedent. We're not concerned about the fact that if there was misconduct, that these folks have been reassigned. We're sure that the instructions that have been given by superiors have changed now to ensure that this incident is never repeated. But we really don't think that the solution is to change national policy, which would have repercussions for other national preserves around the country, and it might have very serious ramifications on this particular one in the future. We can't tell right now.

I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Reclaiming my time, it's clear that's not just the waterway. That includes all of the land. The entire park on this national preserve, they can't carry out their responsibilities. We're not just talking about the water.

I yield to the gentleman from Alaska.

I yield to my very good friend from Alaska to try to clarify what seems to be inextricable.

Reclaiming my time, the language is clear it applies to all waters, not just navigable waters.

It's possible if the language was more specific, we wouldn't have quite the trouble with it.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

I would be happy to yield to the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee.

I was happy to yield.

Reclaiming my time, I would respond to the gentleman, the Coast Guard really doesn't spend much time on rivers. It's normally coastal waters. It may have responsibility, but the fact is the Coast Guard normally doesn't apply much in the way of resources.

I would like to know how large is this national preserve, because I suspect it's a very expansive national preserve that we're talking about. Do we know?

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

I thank the Chair.

I think a number of very good questions have been raised by the ranking member of the full committee--Appropriations Committee--and we are concerned about this precedent. We're also concerned about the safety of people who use this national preserve. We can understand Mr. Young's angst, but nevertheless we have a responsibility not to establish precedent that may come back to haunt us.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the distinguished gentleman for yielding.

We hear from a number of people and organizations around the country who are concerned about this because without the ability to seek injunctive relief from the courts, opponents of a grazing decision are very much handicapped. Meanwhile irreparable damage to a resource may occur while the administrative appeals process is being exhausted. So that's our concern. I know that's the concern of the ranking member of the full committee.

But let me share another concern that I think underlies this whole issue of grazing. Currently--I know the ranking member's aware of this--the Federal Government charges $1.35 per month, per cow to graze on federally owned lands. In the meantime, States like Idaho charge four times that, $5.12; Montana, $6.12. Nebraska can charge up to $41 per acre to graze on State-owned land. Texas--I know the gentleman is aware of this--Texas will charge $65 to $150 per acre per cow. But the Federal Government charges $1.35.

Now that's the kind of Federal subsidy that we really think we ought to go after. When we're cutting deeply into the bone programs for people who are destitute, programs that are absolutely necessary to protect our environment or needed infrastructure in this country, we're giving this kind of a subsidy, $1.35 to graze on Federal land versus as much as $65 to $150 that the great State of Texas charges to graze on State land. And then private land is oftentimes even more expensive. So that's the kind of subsidy that I don't think passes the test of fairness, if the taxpayer was really aware of the kind of subsidy they're providing some grazers on their federally owned land. It ought to be rectified. But this particular issue simply rubs salt into that wound.

Will the gentleman yield?

It's only if a Federal court finds that the agency failed, or was unable to make information timely available during the administrative review, according to this language. So it's probably an unreal situation.

Will the gentleman again yield?

I would like to make two points. One is that this is clearly authorizing language on an appropriations bill. If we're going to change the law, then it ought to be done by the authorizing committee.

But, secondly, I know the gentleman is aware, you can only get an injunction from a Federal judge if you can prove that you are likely to win your case, or if there is imminent harm. So I don't know why the gentleman is so concerned about the existing legal situation.

My only observation is it's ironic that the majority doesn't seem to trust anything that Secretary Salazar does, except if it involves the delisting of wolves. This rider does undercut the public's right to petition a Federal court to review an agency's decision. So, we're establishing a precedent here with regard to wolves. It blocks the court's ability to carry out its customary authority to review executive branch decisions.

That's the way the system's supposed to work. The executive branch makes a determination and, in our system, if there are individuals or organizations that don't agree, they have recourse to the judicial system. This says, no, we're going to suspend that part of the Constitution. No, you don't, you can't go to the courts. The executive branch is inviolate here. They make a decision, that's it. Permanent.

We like Secretary Salazar, and we support Secretary Salazar far more consistently than the majority does, if the majority supports him on anything. But we don't really see why we need to suspend the constitutional process in this particular specific unique circumstance.

So I would support the gentleman's amendment.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Some on the other side may be thinking, well, what's a guy from a heavily residential suburban area in the Washington area and with no cattle in his district know? So I would have thought this would have been a perfectly fine amendment: What do you need to have restrictions for livestock moving from one place to another?

But upon further investigation, what is not immediately apparent becomes very important. As the gentleman has said, we're talking about very wide swaths of land that are covered by these livestock movements, and they don't just take a few hours or a few days to cross. Sometimes they can take weeks. When you've got very large herds of cattle, you can cause quite a bit destruction to the soil, to the brush, to waterways, to any number of environmental resources in the process of major transfers from one area to another of very large herds of cattle. There can be very substantial environmental destruction. That's why those who are involved in this feel there ought to be a NEPA review. The National Environmental Policy Act will review it, it will tell us what the ramifications will be, what are the consequences, and then based upon that information it empowers those who have land or interests that would be adversely affected by large movements of cattle from one place to another. That's why the NEPA review has an appropriate place and role to play in this, and that's why I think the gentleman's amendment makes a lot of sense and I would support it.

I thank the gentleman. Not surprisingly, I fully agree with the gentleman that this language again is inappropriate in here. It's punitive. It requires excessive record-keeping, and ironically, because normally we are getting complaints there is too much record- keeping. Well, now what we do is we're requiring in this bill even more detailed records that are not now required. It is going to expand the bureaucracy. They have to provide quarterly reports on any oil and gas permit or plan that wasn't approved by the agency.

So in other words, the intention is to discourage the agency from not approving anything even if they feel that the oil and gas drilling operation might not be a safe one, that they don't have the requisite rules in place to prevent a Deepwater Horizon tragedy.

It says for each such document that the bureau receives, they have to provide the date the document was returned to the applicant, the date the document is treated by the bureau, and the date of final agency action, and on and on. More and more records that are not necessary.

We know what the intent of this is. It's to tell BOEMRE, the new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement, it's in your interest to just speed these along. Don't hold up any of these permits because if you do, you're going to have this very burdensome requirement on you. Here it's 16 months after Deepwater Horizon, and the Congress hasn't enacted a single significant safety reform. And the majority wants us to return to the good old days of very lax reviews, quick approvals of every oil and gas permit and

plan. And if you don't, we're going to impose this very burdensome requirement on BOEMRE. That's just not in the interest of safety. It works against our resolve not to let a Deepwater Horizon tragedy occur again.

I'm using this acronym BOEMRE. For those who don't know what it means, it's the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. It's the new agency that was set up to prevent any future Deepwater Horizon tragedies. So here we're seeing language that is intended to mitigate against BOEMRE being able to do its job. I strongly support the intention of the ranking member of the full committee in striking this burdensome language.

Will the gentleman yield?

Thank you.

You have this deep-seated concern about why we did not ask for a vote; so I can clarify that. The reason is we were overwhelmed with more than 40 amendments and we were trying to look to the welfare of the rest of the committee. There's only so many of these issues that you can call a recorded vote on, so we tried to be reasonable.

Will the gentleman yield?

The gentleman is quite right that there are now 1.6 billion barrels per day being drilled. Today, 67 new shallow water well permits have been issued since the implementation of these new standards. They're averaging six per month. The average before the disaster had been eight. So they're catching up. Just three of these permits are currently pending. Eight have asked for more information, have not been denied.

In terms of deep water, 75 permits have been issued. There are 25 pending. Twenty-two have been asked for additional information. Mostly, that information is with regard to containment, which is exactly what we instructed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to do: are they sure, can they assure us that they can contain any spill.

So things are not quite as dire as you might believe.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, as the amendment states, I seek to strike section 124 of this bill because section 124 prohibits expenditures for the Bureau of Land Management to carry out its lawful duties under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976.

Secretary Salazar issued an order appropriately. It was called 3310. It stated the policy that BLM, the Bureau of Land Management, should act consistently with the law. Section 201 of the law, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, requires that the Interior Department maintain a current inventory of land under its jurisdiction and that it identify within that inventory of land the resource values including wildernesses of those lands.

Now, section 101 of the Federal Land Policy Act also says that certain public lands should be maintained in their natural state. Now, that's the law, the law since 1976. Secretary Salazar is simply attempting to implement that law.

Despite what some have claimed, Secretary Salazar's order does not create any de facto wilderness. One of the reasons that I would strike section 124 is that it will then return BLM wilderness policy to the way that it has operated for 27 years until it was unilaterally changed by then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton in 2003 in the Bush administration.

Now, the order that Secretary Salazar has issued directs BLM to develop recommendations to the Congress regarding wilderness land designations. And it directs public involvement in the development of those recommendations. Now what could be wrong with that--make recommendations to the Congress and have public involvement?

But section 124 of this bill removes the requirement for public involvement. Why are we afraid of public involvement? And it also removes the requirement for the Bureau of Land Management to provide recommendations to the Congress.

Why does this bill want to prevent the Secretary of the Interior from making recommendations to the Congress and for having public involvement?

It's not going to prevent the Congress from designating wilderness. What it does do is to prevent the Congress from being properly informed before we can consider those designations.

The Secretary's order is the kind of good government process that encourages public involvement and forward thinking. As a demonstration of that forward thinking, Secretary Salazar reached out to the Congress in June, just a short while ago, and asked for Members' input into the wilderness characteristics of lands within their districts. Isn't that what we want them to do, reach out to the Congress, ask for our input?

I don't know what more we can ask from the Secretary or from the Bureau of Land Management but an open, public process with congressional input.

But this section that I think should be struck, this section 124, wants to foreclose that process, foreclose that open, public process with recommendations to the Congress.

It was a process that the majority and the committee report applauded.

Let me say further that wildlands do have real benefits. They have economic, they have environmental, and they have aesthetic benefits. It's important that we protect not only public land in its natural state but that we protect our ability to make informed decisions about which areas should or should not be designated as wilderness areas.

I do think we need the secretarial order so that we can be informed so that we can make the right decisions with regard to those designations. Wilderness areas are important, but it's also important that we maintain our responsibility. The Secretary makes recommendations to us for us to make these designations within the context of a public process.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I must agree with the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee and object to this amendment. I want to make a number of points. One is that the amendment adds funds for what are called geographic programs. That is a pretty broad category. It includes the Chesapeake Bay, the Puget Sound, the Great Lakes, and other water bodies that need restoration projects. So if the amendment passes, I trust the gentleman understands that the funding will be and should be divided up amongst all of those programs.

Now, I do support the efforts of the Congress to clean up the Great Lakes and to deal with these invasive species. Clearly, it is a very serious problem. Asian carp is horribly destructive. But I think it is worth pointing out that it was during Democratic leadership in the Congress that the Great Lakes Restoration Project received its largest increases. In fiscal year 2010, the program received $475 million, and this current year they're getting $300 million. With all due respect, it would seem that the funding level of $250 million, which is in this bill, that cuts far more dramatically many other programs, would be seen as something of a success. I think if anything, Mr. Simpson should be thanked for protecting this program.

I will let Mr. Dicks speak about Puget Sound--but the Chesapeake Bay was funded at $17 million below the request, and it's only getting $50 million. Now, I understand the gentleman's frustration that more could not have been done in this bill for all of the geographic programs.

But the reason why we are in this position of underfunding these admittedly critical water programs is because of two actions. I know the gentleman will remember those two actions because he supported them. One was the so-called Ryan Republican budget resolution that the gentleman voted for; and the second was the 302(b) allocation to the Interior Department. I think that set the stage. It really set parameters that were far too tight to be able to provide the kinds of funds for many programs, including Great Lakes restoration, that are needed.

Now, another point that needs to be made is that the GAO reported to the committee, and I quote: ``Progress remains slow as the program has delisted only one of the 31 areas of concern.'' EPA officials said that the program set less ambitious goals for fiscal year 2012 because it has had such trouble in meeting past goals. The agency did set lower goals in 2012, and so it does seem to make some sense that reduced funding might be appropriate in view of those lesser goals.

But I also want to point out that the offset is really untenable. It reduces EPA's science account and environmental programs with what I think is the express intent of cutting additional climate change and clean energy programs.

Now, I also want to point out, and I know that the gentleman offering the amendment may not be excited about this, but it does seem a bit hypocritical, the gentleman offering this amendment, to add funds for the Great Lakes restoration also offered language which was put in the bill to defund the Great Lakes restoration over the ballast water standards. That amendment would save----

I will yield when I'm finished.

If we want to help the Great Lakes get the kind of money they need, it doesn't seem to me that we should be offering amendments that would completely defund all EPA programs for the States bordering the Great Lakes if they don't meet adequate ballast water standards, which is the amendment that the gentleman put in the bill.

So I think that is a sufficient number of points to urge defeat of the amendment.

Now I will be happy to yield to my very good friend from Ohio.

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would eliminate the ENERGY STAR program, even though a great many American consumers rely on it to choose appliances that meet Federal energy efficiency standards, such as windows, refrigerators, dishwashers, and clothes washers.

The program has improved since an Inspector General report highlighted flaws with the program. In response to the IG's report, ENERGY STAR moved away from allowing manufacturers to self-certify that they comply with efficiency standards, and now it requires third-party certifiers. Well, I'm sure there's room left for further improvement in the program.

As the gentleman from Louisiana has stated, many, many consumers have come to rely on this program in their everyday purchases and would, frankly, be stunned to think that this program is now being targeted. Americans, with the help of ENERGY STAR, saved nearly $18 billion on their utility bills last year alone and enough energy to avoid greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those from 33 million cars. Isn't that a good thing?

This is a voluntary program that works. We've heard so much railing coming particularly from the other side about EPA's regulations, and now the majority wants to attack a voluntary pro-consumer program. The underlying bill already contains a very substantial cut to the ENERGY STAR program, notwithstanding the fact that it has saved hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars and has enabled consumers to be much better informed as to what their appliances might cost them in terms of energy requirements.

But the ENERGY STAR program has been funded in this bill at the 2008 level, 4 years ago. Since then, the population has expanded, the number of appliances and things that use a great deal of electricity, particularly computers, has expanded almost geometrically. People's bills are going up. They want to know what are the most energy- efficient products, so they rely upon the ENERGY STAR program, again, a voluntary program and one that has been improved since the IG report. They have third-party certification now as to what they are saying so that we should have some confidence now in the ENERGY STAR imprimatur, if you will, on appliances.

It doesn't seem that this is the kind of thing that we should be cutting. This is a pro-consumer, voluntary effort that works. So I strongly oppose this amendment.

I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.

Reclaiming my time, I would say to the gentleman, we have things like the Better Business Bureau which, frankly, doesn't have that kind of certification. Almost anybody can get designations. Sometimes it's helpful. Other times it's less so.

I think the American consumer wants some level of credibility in the organization that is certifying that an appliance is energy efficient. The Energy Star designation means something. And if this was self- policing, done completely in the private sector, you wouldn't have had an Inspector General report. You wouldn't have had this corrective mechanism that now says, you've got to fix this. You can't rely completely upon self-certification, which is exactly what you'd have under the private sector.

I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

I do rise in opposition to this amendment because it attempts to strip half of the remaining funding for EPA's greenhouse gas registry program. This amendment is part of an effort to ignore what the scientists tell us is the most serious environmental problem of our time, climate change.

Republicans have already passed a bill to repeal a scientific finding that greenhouse gases pose a danger to human health. The underlying bill we're considering says that no stationary source, no matter how large, or how lethal to human health, should ever have to reduce its carbon pollution.

But this amendment goes even further. It says that we should not even bother to find out how much pollution is being put into the air. I guess you could call it the ``ignorance is bliss'' amendment.

What we should be doing is the opposite of what the gentleman is trying to do. The bill already makes a 30 percent cut to the registry program in order to cripple the efforts of EPA with regard to greenhouse gases.

The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program simply requires the largest sources of carbon pollution, power plants, refineries, and the very largest factories, to tell EPA and the public how much they pollute. If we're ever going to deal responsibly with this pollution that is costing us billions in health care and shortening thousands of lives, we need to know where it is coming from and have some idea of how much is being emitted.

This amendment is yet one more example of putting the profits of industry, and particularly those industries that pollute the air and eventually clog the water, that poison much of our environment, to put their profits ahead of the public interest and the public's health.

We all know that pollution is dangerous to our health. The scientists tell us that, certainly the reputable scientists. Let's allow EPA to fulfill its core responsibility, which is to collect this information and inform the public.

I know our friends on the other side hate regulations because they believe that the Environmental Protection Agency doesn't understand the impact of those regulations on businesses and on the economy and on jobs and so on. EPA's job is to protect the public health, and in doing so, and in encouraging cleaner sources of energy, we will not only protect the public's health, but we will grow this economy, grow it in a more competitive and a healthier way and a far more sustainable manner.

I oppose this amendment vigorously.

At this point, I yield to the gentleman from Kansas, who offered the amendment.

I was happy to yield.

Reclaiming my time, it just seems to me that more information, accurate information, should not be a threat. Isn't it appropriate to let the public know--in fact, to let lawmakers know who might need to respond--how lethal is the pollution? How substantial is the pollution? What's the composition of the pollution coming from the very largest polluters? What are we doing to our people? What are we doing to our environment? What are the sources of much of the billions of dollars that we're spending in health care, twice as much as any other country spends on a per capita basis?

So all we're trying to do here is to have a registry--information. That ought not be threatening.

This amendment should be defeated.

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

I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I agree with the distinguished Member from California. I know my colleague--and she's more than a colleague, a friend--is very passionate about this program, and it has a sweet acronym, DERA. As I said during the H.R. 1 debate, the diesel emissions program is a good program. That's not the issue. Right now, with regard to this amendment, the issue is whether or not we should be raiding other EPA accounts to give this diesel program even more funding than it actually has already gotten in this bill.

Chairman Simpson funded the diesel program at $30 million, even though President Obama requested nothing for it. Now this amendment would add a mere $5 million, but it would take $10 million from EPA's buildings to pay for it. It may be politically attractive to take from a buildings account, until you know what it funds.

The following facilities would have to give up funding to add this $5 million to the diesel program: the Ann

Arbor, Michigan, national vehicle and fuel emissions lab; the Andrew Breidenbach environmental research center in Cincinnati, Ohio; the Region 9 office in San Francisco; the Research Triangle Park main laboratory in North Carolina. In that regard, the project in 2012 needs to be funded so we can save future lease costs that would be in jeopardy if we were to take this money away from the Research Triangle Park lab. The Narragansett, Rhode Island, research lab would be cut, and the air and radiation lab in Montgomery, Alabama.

All of these facilities have requests in this fiscal year 2012 budget for needed facilities improvements. To cut those in order to increase a program that was already plussed up $30 million above the request doesn't seem to me to be the right thing to do.

In addition, we have an amendment filed from another Member--and I see her here so I suspect it's going to come up right now--to take away the $30 million that's already in the bill. I would hope my good friend would stick around to strike the last word and address this amendment that would zero out the diesel program. I don't want to zero it out, but neither do I want to zero out money for six important EPA facilities. So I hope the supporters of the diesel program will stick around, will defend it against its elimination, which is an amendment that's coming up very soon, but right now it seems to me that the wisest thing to do is to try to protect the $30 million that's already in the program, which is $30 million more than the President requested.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I rise to oppose the gentlelady's amendment. I think it's instructive to point out, I offered an amendment to strike funding for this program during H.R. 1, back in February, so that we could add funds to the North American Wetlands Conservation Program.

Now my colleague from Tennessee, let me just check the record here, voted ``no,'' so I'm a little confused that now, a few months later, 5 months later, she has changed her mind. It seems to me, my amendment from February would have been preferable to the Members who have anglers and hunters in their district, which I suspect the gentlelady from Tennessee does. They rely upon healthy wetlands, which have been very much endangered by what was an elimination of the North American Wetlands Conservation Program in this bill.

This amendment simply throws away the needed funding. And I know the chairman of the subcommittee understands how needed those dollars are. So it does seem to me that our amendment to have restored money for wetlands made more sense.

But, not only did I lose that vote, Mrs. Blackburn voted against eliminating this diesel program. So we did not eliminate that money largely because of the compelling argument that was made by Ms. Richardson at the time. In the meantime, she has continued to lobby for this program. I found some of her arguments convincing. So we're not trying to take the money out that the chairman added. We can understand why it was added to the bill. So we would agree with the chairman. Let's leave it in the bill, even though it had been zeroed out by the President.

So I think Ms. Richardson not only won that vote back in February, but I think she should win this vote as well. The money should be kept in the program--$30 million does seem to be doing some good things. And so I would oppose the gentlelady from Tennessee's amendment to eliminate the program, and not even to use the $30 million for any other constructive purpose.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I simply rise to ask if we could see the amendment. It's pretty difficult to address it until we actually see the amendment.

I move to strike the last word.

I simply rise to associate myself with the very thoughtful, insightful comments of the gentleman from Idaho, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. We agree. The amendment should be defeated.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this is an organization that was established by President Nixon. It was Bill Ruckleshaus who was the first head of it. What it does is to coordinate the implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act. That act, as I recall, goes back to 1976. 1969. It was President Nixon that put it into effect.

The Council on Environmental Quality does the National Environmental Policy Act reviews, and it's a critical function. In addition to that, it coordinates the environmental programs throughout the Federal Government. If you didn't have CEQ, you'd have to invent it. I know if we didn't have it, we'd be creating it in this appropriations bill because this appropriations bill is replete with requests to the administration to coordinate environmental programs, particularly those related to climate change to avoid duplication. Well, that's the role of CEQ.

The Council of Environmental Quality is very inadequately funded. It's a relative handful of people. So the only thing that I can interpret from this amendment is that it's meant to be punitive. You're hardly saving any money, and what you're doing is eliminating the White House's ability to coordinate environmental programs to continue the same tradition that we have had since Richard Nixon. It's now been 40 years, and no one up till now has thought that the Council on Environmental Quality was not performing an important and valuable function.

I'm surprised that the gentleman would offer the amendment, but I would certainly oppose it. It's one of these things that you're only going to realize the full value of when it's gone. And though the small amount of money to save, this is an organization that, person for person, probably does as much as any other people, even in EPA or any of the other agencies of the government in terms of maintaining a consistent, focused policy on the environment.

I would really hope that this amendment would be soundly defeated. It was funded in the bill. There was no criticism registered in the report with regard to the Council on Environmental Quality.

I know they have been reaching out. They're more than happy to go to any Member's office. They're one of the people that, when you have local issues or State issues, they will respond. They'll explain the intent and purpose of the National Environmental Policy Act. And they want to ensure that the administration's actions are consistent with congressional intent.

This is not the kind of constructive amendment that we would expect to see, and I would really hope that this body would reject it. But I'm stunned that this amendment would have been offered.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the Smithsonian Institution is the world's leading museum complex. People from all over the world come to Washington, oftentimes with the principal intent of seeing the Smithsonian, but it is invariably part of their trip to our Nation's capital. It is something that every Member of the legislative branch should be very proud of. In fact, we should spend more of our time in those museums. They're extraordinary, every single one of them. They tell the story of our Nation's origin. They reflect the evolution of knowledge of the things that are relevant to our very existence.

In addition to the traditional museums along our National Mall, we have a National Zoo--again, known throughout the world. But this amendment that would cut $55 million would wind up eliminating 600 positions from the Smithsonian because 90 percent of the costs of museums are personnel.

We're told that given the existing costs that have continued to increase over the last 4 years, not just personnel but particularly energy costs, the costs of maintaining the world's finest museum complex, that the Smithsonian would have to close at least one if not two major museums, or the National Zoo. It doesn't seem to me that in order to save a relative fraction of a bill--this bill is about $27 billion--in order to save--what is that, half a percent?--that we would want to close one or two of the finest museums in the world.

If you did abolish 600 Federal positions at the Smithsonian, you would also have to pay severance costs and create personnel management turmoil for years. You would be saying to the Smithsonian, which makes us proud for the quality and really the efficiency of its operation, Sorry, but we don't think that you should be a priority. The reality is if you were to ask the Federal taxpayer, not just the people in this region but all over the country how important the Smithsonian is, it seems to me they would make it a priority.

One of the last things we want, it would seem, is that our visitors come from our constituencies, our congressional districts, to Washington, and then we have a sign on the front door of one of the major museums, Sorry, Closed Due to Short-Term Budget Cuts. Now, I trust that that would not be the final reality, but if we were to pass such an amendment when we vote on this, I think it would send a signal. It's a wrong signal. Just as the uncertainty about the debt ceiling is the wrong signal to be sending the rest of the world, for gosh sakes, this is the wrong signal to be sending to the people who work so hard at the Smithsonian to make us proud. It's the wrong signal to send to our constituents. It's the wrong thing to do.

It's kind of shocking that we would have such an amendment, frankly. The committee has looked at every line item, has cut every place they could, with very few exceptions, and we've pointed out those exceptions, but the committee, I'm sure, did not consider closing down one or two of our major museums on the National Mall in order to save a fraction of 1 percent of the cost of this appropriations bill.

So, I would very, very strongly oppose this misguided amendment, Mr. Chairman.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

I do think that it's important that we make this nominal investment in the cultural lives of our citizens and in our children's futures. I can't imagine how a Nation as rich and prosperous as ours would not consider it a priority to provide funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.

There's too much that divides us as a Nation. This is something that should be uniting, Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative. Everyone can appreciate the arts because it inspires us all. It inspires us to look past the parochial, the small-mindedness to see the big picture and to appreciate greatness.

This amendment should be defeated, and in it we should send a message that we understand what's important to the lifeblood of our national community.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, you've heard it. I will explain: I rose previously to claim the time in opposition, now I am rising to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, if this was not such a late hour, we would have had five or six times as many Members rising in opposition to this amendment. And I trust they reflect the general sentiment of the country.

Winston Churchill, at the height of World War II, was told by his budget director that to conserve money for armaments, they needed to cut the arts. And he turned to him and said, If we do that, what is it that we're fighting for?

The arts reflect the highest aspirations of our humanity. And in fact, in this country, they're a reflection of the true American spirit--our talent, our ability to communicate, our ability to relate to one another.

Now, let me be specific about what this amendment would do, because every single Member of this body has a direct grant from the National Endowment for the Arts going to that congressional district. If this amendment were to pass, more than $100 million in non-Federal matching funds for NEA awards would be lost. The number of Americans reached as a result will decline by 36 million compared to the number of Americans reached by NEA this year. The number of children and youth will decline by 3.6 million, and in fact there will be a near-17 percent decrease in State and regional partnerships.

I think if the Members fully consider the impact of this, they will realize this is one of the most effective Federal Government programs that we have. We have a gentleman whose name is Rocco Landesman. He could be making considerably more than he's making today in income, but he has chosen to devote his time and attention to leading the National Endowment for the Arts. In fact, he has suggested that, given the fiscal situation that confronts us, perhaps we should reduce the number of platforms for artists so as to save money. But he is determined not to reduce the quality of artistic performance in this country.

We have so many talented people, so much potential, and it is the NEA that reaches out and finds that potential all over the country. This is a fully national program. Every single congressional district benefits from grants from the NEA. And those grants expand the economy, the focus of the grant, multiple times--I'm trying to recall the number, I think it's five or six times at a minimum, many times 10, 20 times--the amount of money that is contributed to a particular artistic focus when the NEA decides that it's worthy of getting a grant.

They have maintained their credibility. In fact, when they were under attack in the 1990s, they made sure that every grant passes a very high level of scrutiny. Even though I think most of us don't believe in censorship, they understand all the competing political pressures. They have navigated those political waters. The Our Town program that the chairman of the subcommittee referred to is a terrific program. It really develops the best of what America is all about.

This has been a long night. We have tried to fight the good fight over here against any number of efforts to cut programs, to repeal legislation; but this is one of the most important.

I would urge this body to reject this amendment, to show our support for the National Endowment for the Arts, and really for the phenomenal artistic talent that it underscores and generates in this country.

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

Mr. Chairman, may I make a parliamentary inquiry?

If the Committee does now rise, an amendment has been offered, would not the body, the Committee of the Whole, take up the conclusion of that amendment when we reconvene on the same bill the next time the bill is brought up, whether it be tomorrow, Friday, or Saturday?

Mr. Speaker, I'll never forget the day that we voted for the Clinton tax rates. We were told by all of the Republicans that this was going to cause massive job losses, an unbalanced budget, and drive us into recession. And not one Republican voted with us. Well, we know exactly what happened: More than 20 million new jobs were created; we had the lowest level of poverty, the highest expansion of the middle class, three straight budget surpluses, and the people at the highest tax rates took home more after-tax income than at any time in American history. It worked. And we had over $5.6 trillion in surplus projected over the now past decade.

Then when the Republicans took power again, what happened? Immediately they cut taxes--but not across the board--in a way designed primarily to benefit the wealthy. That's why the top 1 percent have 42 percent of this

Nation's wealth; while the bottom 90 percent have 26 percent, the greatest income disparity ever. This is a manufactured crisis, Mr. Speaker. Do what Alan Greenspan recommended: Go back to the Clinton tax rates; balance the budget; pay for the wars; pay for tax cuts; pay for expansion of Medicare; meet your obligations; don't manufacture crises; and don't drive us to deadlines when the whole world is watching and wondering if we are serious about governing the world's strongest economy.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am a strong supporter of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. It's one of the great environmental success stories of the past 50 years. The $65.8 million that the bill contains for the Land and Water Conservation Fund is in fact, as has been stated, the lowest since the program was started back in 1965. This is a 78 percent cut from the current level of funding. But I have to oppose the Bass-Murphy amendment because it not only is too small but the offset used would in fact harm other important programs.

The $20 million for the Land and Water Conservation Fund that the Bass-Murphy amendment would restore is less than 10 percent of the $235 million cut from this year's level. But to fund this plus-up, the Bass amendment actually makes it worse by taking $20 million from the Office of the Secretary's account. Because what appears to be an increase in funding in the Secretary's office is actually the transfer of the revenue collection function from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement. The Office of the Secretary took that in so that the Interior Department can do a better job in collecting the royalties and payments that are due the American people from Outer Continental Shelf drilling. But if you take this $20 million away, it jeopardizes those collections.

The problem is that the Land and Water Conservation Fund is in fact funded with Outer Continental Shelf royalties. But if you take away the ability to collect those royalties, not

only are you taking the $20 million from the ability of the Secretary of the Interior to manage the office, but you could very well be costing the government much more than $20 million because they won't have the ability to collect those royalties that in fact pay for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Now, we couldn't agree more that it never should have been cut by 78 percent. It should be restored. We have said that in our statement. We support amendments to restore it, but certainly not to take it from the ability of the Secretary of the Interior to collect the very revenues that the government needs and that the American people are owed.

So that's why, regrettably, I have to oppose the gentleman's amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I wish that our friends who just spoke on an amendment to add $20 million were still around, because their points are well taken. We've already cut 78 percent from this program.

The gentleman from Colorado wants to eliminate it entirely. The Land and Water Conservation Fund is one of the premier environmental programs in this country. Most Americans have no idea how important it has been to their quality of life and to the ecology of this great country. But by wiping out these funds entirely, the amendment would force land management agencies to cease all work on congressionally approved projects that are now under way using previous year appropriations.

This mean-spirited amendment will hurt willing sellers--landowners who are willing to sell--because it's going to prevent agencies from finishing the commitments that are already in place. Among the willing sellers who would be unfairly thrown to the curb are owners who are partway through contracted sales and are counting on Land and Water Conservation funds to complete those sales, those contracts that they have already been working on. Many landowners, who range from elderly widowers and family trusts to ranchers and forest owners, have pressing financial needs that now depend on the completion of what are ongoing Land and Water Conservation projects. The amendment would also frustrate land exchanges that are currently in process. So it's not just the sale of land, it's exchanges of land that this amendment would prohibit. Many of them have been years in the making. And so it's very important for local and private economic development and for public land management.

Under this amendment, staff would not even be in place to accept and process donations of important natural historic and other properties. Donations to the public, you wouldn't even have staff to accept those donations. Without staff, right-of-way work to provide or maintain access to key public needs also would be impossible. The public, the American taxpayer, would be unable to secure critically needed routes for fuels and wildfire management or for watershed management or for access for sportsmen and other recreational use. I can't imagine that the sportsmen in this country could ever want to have this kind of prohibition in place that might prevent them from even getting access to important recreational areas for fishing and hunting and so on.

The amendment would exacerbate an already draconian cut--78 percent cut--to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a program that is already paid for using a very small percentage of oil drilling receipts. I would hope that my colleagues and anybody that might be listening to this debate would understand that Land and Water Conservation Fund moneys are not taxpayer dollars. They come from the receipts from oil and gas drilling--drilling that is on publicly owned land.

Those royalties come into the government, and that's what we use to fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, but this would eliminate that program. This amendment represents a complete elimination of a bipartisan program that has existed for 45 years. This proposal prevents revenues deposited in the Land and Water Conservation account from being used for their authorized purposes. These funds were a promise made to the American people in 1964. This Congress should not be breaking that longstanding commitment. I, obviously, oppose the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I move to strike the last word.

I was going to wait until other speakers spoke, but I felt it appropriate to engage in a discussion here with the chairman and to remind him that this bill includes funding for a multitude of expired authorizations.

The Bureau of Land Management isn't authorized. But you are funding the Bureau of Land Management because you like the Bureau of Land Management. The grazing program isn't authorized. Oil and gas isn't authorized.

I yield to the gentleman from Idaho.

Well, that's it.

Reclaiming my time, the shot across the bow goes right into the heart of the Endangered Species Act. So you are picking winners and losers. You could have picked any number of programs, but you like those. In fact, some of them you've increased--funding for grazing subsidies, funding for oil and gas subsidies. But the Endangered Species Act, the poor species who are in danger of extinction who can't speak up for themselves, they get targeted. They're the ones you are going to make an example of.

You know, not allowing listings of the designation of even the critical habitat that will protect endangered species doesn't change the fact that so many plant and animal species are at risk of extinction. There are 260 species that are in danger of extinction, but we're not going to protect them.

The lack of critical habitat designations not only hurts those species at risk, but it leaves in limbo landowners and businesses that need decisions made in order to make plans. We hear so much about uncertainty and how bad uncertainty is. This creates uncertainty.

The twist of irony: The bill allows funding to be used to delist species or reclassify them from endangered to threatened, to delist them or down-list them, but no funds can be used for listings or to reclassify them from threatened to endangered. Even if they become endangered, we can't classify them as endangered. We can only down-list them. It's a one-way street, a one-way street to less protection.

I too would like to see the Endangered Species Act authorized. Maybe we'll hear from the chairman of the authorizing committee why it's not being reauthorized. But this is not the way to deauthorize it. The fact is that this is legislating on an appropriations bill, basically. I thought we were not supposed to be doing that. But we make these poor endangered species that are at risk of extinction bear the cost of Congress' failure to reauthorize the Endangered Species Act.

Of course I support the Dicks amendment. Not only do we have 260 species at risk of extinction, but we don't even know the entire scope of the species whose very existence is at risk, and we don't know either the role they play in the ecology of our planet. There are so many species that we're only now learning--for example, there are many that catch insects or mosquitoes or whatever--that maintain the population of other species.

I do believe that every species has some role to play in the sustainability and the ecology of this planet. We don't know necessarily what that role is, but I do think we have some idea that they're there for a purpose. And while they're there for a purpose, it seems to me we have a purpose, a responsibility for enabling that species to be sustained on this fragile planet. And to say that we can't outperform our responsibility, we can't act responsibly toward these species, is irresponsible. It really is an embarrassment to this Congress.

So I very strongly support the Dicks amendment. I would hope that we would give species a break. Get this language out of this bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I do think it might be instructive that Mr. Pombo is no longer among our ranks and the principle reason is the Endangered Species Act authorization that he attempted to write which was so destructive of the original intent of the Endangered Species Act of 1965, and it was a Republican Senate that defeated it.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I have the voting record from February 16. I know the gentleman will recall H.R. 1 and the debate that ensued.

In H.R. 1, the North American Wetlands Conservation Fund was zeroed out, and so I had an amendment to restore $50 million to the North American Wetlands Conservation Program. What I find curious-- confusing--is that the very gentleman that now wants to put money into the program voted ``no'' against putting the $50 million into the North American Wetlands Conservation Program back in the spring.

Now, I do think it's an important program. I would like to see it continued. But I do have a problem with the fact that what we're doing when we want something to be funded, we take it out of the management of agencies--$3 million, $5 million, $6 billion--and when these amendments pass, you have a very damaging cumulative effect upon the ability of the agency to banish these programs. If this were to pass, we're now at $8 million that has been taken out of the management of

I move to strike the last word, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I want our side to go on record in support of what Mr. Tonko and Mr. Dent are proposing. We have worked with them on this amendment.

This is the kind of program that really ought to have unanimous support in the House. I mean, we're talking about very small amounts of money that are distributed throughout the country; oftentimes $150,000; sometimes it gets up to $700,000. But they are relatively small amounts of money.

And what they do is to bring local community leaders together. Local communities love it and, of course, it draws tourism. It gets into the newspaper, oftentimes into metropolitan newspapers suggesting this is a terrific day trip for families to go on. They follow the Heritage Trail.

It has that kind of national recognition and credibility that only the Federal Government oftentimes can provide to a National Heritage Area, because many people claim it. But when the National Heritage Program identifies it as one of the true assets of our country and places that should be protected and preserved and explained to the public, then more people come. And it generates jobs; it generates economic activity.

Mr. Wolf just put in an authorization. He probably won't get the full amount of money that's authorized, but it will get some for the Civil War Battlefield Crossroads Trail, and that's drawing people up with the sesquicentennial of the Civil War.

All over the country. The Hudson River, there was a gentleman on the other side that opposed it when Mr. Hinchey put it in, had it designated. And then when he saw how successful it was, he said, Let's get my part of the Hudson River included.

This is a really good program. It was funded at about $17 million, 50 percent cut though. What are we doing? Talk about being penny-wise and pound-foolish, really. A 50 percent cut in it. It hurts the economies of any number of areas around the country.

So we think that this is a very reasonable amendment, and we congratulate the caucus for coming forward and suggesting that the money be restored, and we hope that it will be.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

First of all, I'm not sure why you want the Beach Boys to be the issue here. We were just discussing Mr. Watt's tenure as Secretary of the Interior. That was not so successful when he came after the Beach Boys.

But be that as it may, what we're really talking about here are a number of nonprofit organizations, and these are national memorials. Ford's Theater, Wolf Trap. I guess because the Beach Boys performed at Wolf Trap they are an issue. Actually, I would recommend to the gentleman that he watch them perform. I guess it's more my age than yours that can relate to them, but it was a pretty good performance. But I digress.

We're talking about Ford's Theater, Wolf Trap, Carter Barron, all part of the National Park System. The Kennedy Center is a national memorial. These are performing arts right here on the Capitol grounds as well.

Now we're talking about nationally significant sites, and the performances that occur, in fact, are part of the mission of these sites. They were authorized for members of the public, the taxpaying public, to come to a nonprofit venue and, in fact, be entertained. The national parks do that. They entertain the public that pays for them, sometimes by seeing iconic sites, sometimes by hiking and camping, sometimes it's by performances. So the National Park Service is in keeping with its mission to interpret the purpose of these national sites.

These performances are seen by citizens, in fact, all over the country. Many people who visit our Nation's Capitol attend these performances as part of their trip to the District of Columbia. And the crowds that fill the West Lawn of the Capitol on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July are testament to the public's support for this program.

In fact, if you were there on Memorial Day or the Fourth of July and turned to see the crowd, there are people as far as the eye can see, people representative of this vast, diverse country, and every single one of them had a smile on their face. Every single one of them was delighted, overjoyed that they were able to participate and appreciate and enjoy the performance that was put on on the Fourth of July and Memorial Day. That's part of our Nation's heritage. It's a proud part.

This amendment would do real harm to programs enjoyed by millions of Americans.

I would also suggest that this line item has already suffered a virtually devastating cut. It was funded at about $10 million. It's been cut to about $2 million. I mean, it's just barely hanging on. And now this amendment would eliminate it?

I mean, think about this. I know that some of the Members, at least as many Members of the majority side as the minority side, were there for the Memorial Day concert. I saw them. I was sitting with them. The chairman of the full Appropriations Committee, the chairmen of the subcommittees, the leadership of the House and Senate were all there honoring our troops.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Not only were they there but Team 6 that had just dealt with Osama bin Laden in a fairly definitive manner, SEAL Team 6 was there. We couldn't identify them, but we all applauded for them, and they couldn't have been more overjoyed.

The gentleman makes a very good point. Colin Powell was basically the master of ceremonies.

Now, this is what we want to eliminate? This is what is such a threat to our budget as taking so much money? It's not taking that much money, and whatever money it's taking, it's giving back far more in return.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I move to strike the last word.

Madam Chairman, I think we have a problem in the amendment, itself, because it would specifically designate a study that might be interpreted as some type of earmark, which I don't think it really is.

I like what the gentlelady is trying to do. I think it's important. I think we ought to have a consideration by the Park Service of whether they are sufficiently flexible in dealing with local communities.

There was a recent article written in The Washington Post talking about some of the opportunities that exist to bring the community into local parks, urban parks, where far more people could be involved, people could participate, people could enhance the enjoyment of things that take place. For example, if there is a large soccer event at a park that is controlled by the National Park Service, you could bring the whole community in to watch it on a large screen.

There is no question but that we could find ways to discourage automobiles and encourage bikes--have bike sharing, for example, on The National Mall so that people could rent bikes and bike around The Mall. It wouldn't cause any environmental damage; in fact, it would preserve some of the lawn on our National Mall. Some people would enjoy it more and they would get a little exercise. Just all kinds of ideas that might be proposed by communities.

I remember being out in Washington State, San Juan Island. This was a little place. It's a national park because there was a bizarre military conflict that occurred out there. I won't go into the whole military conflict, but the people there love the bunny rabbits that are there. Well, the Park Service decided that they're really not a native species, there are too many of them, so the Park Service decided they're going to use the method they use at other places. First of all, they thought they would gas them, which the community was shocked by. Then they decided, well, we'll shoot them and so on, reduce the population. You know, if they had just sat down with members of the community, they could have figured out how to keep these bunnies that the community wanted, avoid a whole lot of negative attitude with regard to the Park Service, and in fact enhance the enjoyment of this little national park at San Juan.

I'm sure there are examples all over the country, in fact, all over the world, because the National Park Service has any number of parks outside the physical boundaries of our North American continent. We've got the Virgin Islands and so on.

I don't know what the local neighborhoods might suggest, but I do know that they have a lot of good ideas, ideas that the National Park Service ought to consider thoughtfully. And some will be rejected, but some might well be accepted. But the process of that kind of community input, it seems to me, would generate even more support for the National Park Service.

It's a great institution. Our parks are iconic assets to our Nation. But I do think that the local community could enjoy them more and appreciate the National Park Service's role more if we had the kind of dialogue with the Park Service that Ms. Norton is suggesting.

I don't see any harm in having that kind of study. I think we ought to be able to work with the gentlelady, maybe put together some report language, at least a letter to the head of the National Park Service suggesting that this is an area that the Congress itself, in a bipartisan way, thinks ought to be explored.

I yield to the gentleman from Idaho.

The gentlelady is smiling, so I will accept her concurrence. We will move forward in that fashion if the gentlelady wouldn't mind withdrawing her amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

I am not necessarily rising to oppose this, but to point out some deficiencies in the amendment itself. The claim is that the purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the National Park Service prioritizes its construction of law enforcement centers on national park lands, on the southern border in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.

First of all, there is some feeling that national parks not have basically prison sites on them because what happens is that when people are rounded up by the Border Patrol, they are taken to these law enforcement centers and detained until they--I don't know whether they are adjudicated or not, but then eventually they are moved to another place. But they are temporarily detained at these law enforcement centers, and there is some feeling that national parks are not an appropriate location for that purpose.

But the very wording of the amendment doesn't really do that. It increases money, then it decreases the same amount of money. If it did it, it would be an earmark. And, of course, we don't do earmarks in this bill.

So as I say, I don't rise in opposition because I'm not sure what the amendment does, but I think it is helpful to be informed as to what it doesn't do.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Reclaiming my time, I understand that the gentleman wants to make that point. I understand the challenges that are faced in the area that he represents.

I was similarly confused, though, when there was a substantial amendment to strip funding for environmental mitigation between the Homeland Security and Interior Departments that the gentleman previously suggested and, I think, was successful in doing. So I don't know, it's not an area that I'm particularly familiar with. I am becoming more familiar with it; but, again, I'm not sure that this amendment does anything other than draw attention to the issue.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I move to strike the last word.

I rise to agree with the chairman of the appropriations subcommittee just as I did with the last amendment.

The idea of a bloated bureaucracy, when you've taken $53 million out of the Secretary's office, it seems to me, is misplaced where we're talking about giving the Office of the Secretary of the Interior far more responsibility. And now, at every opportunity, we seem to be cutting the resources that are necessary to fulfill those responsibilities. Already tonight we've taken $20 million from the Office of the Secretary's account.

So just as I did with the prior amendment, I would also agree with the chairman's comments and associate myself with them. So I won't take any more of the body's time.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I move to strike the last word, Madam Chair.

I agree with the chairman of the committee again that this amendment should be opposed. But I would also mention that I don't know how fast the administration could issue drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico that would be fast enough. It's as though Deepwater Horizon never happened. When it did happen, people died. The ecology of the gulf area was severely and adversely affected. The economy was devastated. And we did a complete investigation and found that it was largely because the Minerals Management Service was not doing its job, that they were issuing permits too quickly without adequate review. Sometimes they were just letting permit forms be filled out by the oil companies themselves. Sometimes they had already made arrangements to go to work for the oil companies.

But for whatever reason, the fact is that they weren't doing their job. They were letting down the American public. They were letting down the workers on the drilling rigs. And they certainly contributed to a despoiling of the environment, the ecology of the gulf. So this Congress, both sides having been severely critical of the Minerals Management Service, reorganized it and instructed it to be very careful, at least much more careful than they had been in the past in terms of issuing drilling permits. That's what they're doing.

Now, there have been any number of drilling permits issued. They're being issued so fast, we don't have an exact number right now; but we know a lot have been issued. Again, I doubt that whatever the number was that it would be enough for Members that represent areas in the gulf to benefit from more drilling activity. But the American public-- this is a democracy, the majority of the American public, whatever State they're in--wants the Secretary of the Interior to have a process that reflects integrity, that reflects caution, that puts the safety of workers and the protection of the environment first.

So the Secretary is doing his job. We support the job he's doing. We know he's issuing a lot of permits, and we agree with the chairman that this amendment should be defeated.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I move to strike the last word.

Madam Chairwoman, this is a distinction without a difference. The money still goes away. The argument that was made by the chairman of the committee still stands, as far as I can see. And so even though the amendment may be worded a little differently, the reality is that the money is lost. And we don't see that this would be a constructive amendment anyway, so we would oppose it.

I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Reclaiming my time, I don't know this business about playing by the rules and punishing people who don't. It seems to me that the Interior Department is trying to play by the rules that the Congress instructed it to play by.

But, notwithstanding that, when you remove $420,000 from the bill, don't know where it goes, I think you lose it. So I don't think that this makes a difference.

What you're saying is that you're not going to put the $420,000 into this reduction account. What's the term of it? The Spending Reduction Account. That does away with the money.

But now what you're doing is basically taking it out of the bill, letting it fly away to who knows where, but the reality is it no longer exists. So it's coming out of the bill. And we don't think that's a good idea. We agree with the chairman that this amendment should be defeated.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

As I have said publicly and privately to the chairman of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, I congratulate him for taking the initiative and showing the commitment to the Indian Health Service by increasing it by $369 million this year. And dental health specifically is up by $13.8 million. That's above the existing level this year, and this year is above last year. Granted, the need is very substantial, and so I am very supportive.

The problem is that, with this amendment that adds another $4.3 million for the express purpose of increasing dental health further, it's the offset. The cut is to the solicitor of the Department that serves as the chief legal officer, and it's the solicitor that provides legal services to Native Americans on behalf of the Department. So you're taking the chief legal officer for the Native Americans of this country and making a substantial cut to the resources available for that position. It's kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

There are very substantial and serious legal issues that need to be dealt with on behalf of Indians throughout the country, and there are very difficult health issues that certainly need to be addressed. So I did not rise in opposition to the amendment, but I do think that taking the money from the solicitor is an unfortunate place to be finding a cut of $4.3 million.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this is a sad day, a sad day for the environment and for America's great natural and cultural heritage. H.R. 2584, with its deep cuts in important environmental and natural resource programs and shocking array of special interest riders and funding limitations, falls far short of meeting our responsibilities to protect and wisely use our Nation's natural resources.

The bill before the House today is more than $2 billion below the current spending level, and it's almost $4 billion below the President's request. It's even $324 million below the CR level of H.R. 1 that was passed by the House just in February.

Given the subcommittee's punishingly low 302(b) allocation, I do recognize the difficulties that Chairman Simpson of the subcommittee and Chairman Rogers of the full committee faced in crafting the bill. I do appreciate their efforts, Mr. Simpson's efforts particularly and Mr. Cole's, to protect funding for American Indian programs. I only wish that that protection could have extended to other important portions of this bill.

But as bad as the funding cuts are in this bill, what is most important is the extent to which the majority has filled this bill with extremist legislative riders and funding limitations. The bill is short on needed funds and long on antienvironmental riders.

H.R. 2584 is not so much a spending bill as the fulfillment of a wish list for special interests. Oil companies, cattle grazers, industrial agribusiness, miners, and those who wish to pollute our air and water for greater profit all have their special provisions tucked away into this bill. It is a dump truck of provisions for special interests.

In addition, this bill picks up where H.R. 1 left off and includes dozens of deep cuts in conservation and environmental protection programs, while the extractive or consumptive uses of our public lands are shielded from cuts and given a pass from complying with our Nation's landmark environmental laws. We continually hear from the majority that the pain of budget cuts has to be shared by all, but in this bill they have chosen winners and losers--the extractors and the exploiters and the despoilers of the forests are the winners and the animals and the people who depend upon clean air and water are the losers. The animals, the environment, the forests, the waterways, and humans who depend on clean air and water all lose.

This bill continues the majority's assault on the Environmental Protection Agency with deep cuts. After the EPA budget was cut by 16 percent in the current fiscal year, the majority is now proposing a further reduction of 18 percent for next year. In other words, a 34 percent cut in environmental protection. Cuts of nearly 40 percent are made to the clean water and safe drinking water grant programs, just at the time when the States and localities have run out of money to try to provide for clean water and to deal with storm water overflow and all of the plumbing infrastructure that is necessary throughout our country. When the majority says it wants to rein in the EPA, what they're really reining in is the ability to protect clean air and clean water. It also cuts more than 600 positions in EPA's regulatory workforce.

I am extremely disappointed at the majority's decision to prohibit funds for the Endangered Species Act listings and critical habitat designations. These are the vital first steps needed to begin the recovery process for 260 species currently at risk of extinction. Under the guise of sending a signal to the authorizing committee, this bill attacks the very heart of the Endangered Species Act. There are a great many unauthorized programs in this bill.

Wildlife programs overall are hard hit by this bill. State and tribal wildlife grants are cut by two-thirds, multinational species conservation by a fifth, and cooperative endangered species conservation by 95 percent. Even funding for the National Wildlife Refuge System will be cut by 7\1/2\ percent.

Our national parks and forests, wildlife refuges, wilderness areas, and other conservation units deserve better than what this bill provides. As stewards of these magnificent resources that were passed down to us, we have a responsibility to defend and preserve them for future generations. Spending reductions like the 78 percent cut to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a nearly 80 percent cut to the Land and Water Conservation Fund to the lowest level it has ever been, and a 33 percent cut to the National Landscape Conservation System will place at risk some of our most precious resources.

I would also like to note that this bill is about more than our natural resources and the environment, and while the cultural activities and institutions are a small portion of the bill, they are a vital part of our communities and they do enhance our economy and our way of life. Yet these programs and activities would receive substantial cuts under this bill as well.

I am also struck by the contradictions contained in H.R. 2584. Here are just two examples:

On the one hand, the bill allocates millions of dollars to restore the Everglades in Florida, yet the majority includes a funding limitation that will permit the pollution of the Everglades. The bill also includes funding to deal with the continuing fallout from uranium mining on the Navajo Indian Reservation, yet it includes language that will expose Grand Canyon National Park and the millions of Americans who depend upon the Colorado River for their drinking water to the well-known dangers of uranium mining, and they give away the publicly owned uranium to a foreign-owned Asian mining company. Imagine, giving away publicly owned uranium to a foreign firm.

The list of legislative riders and funding limitations in the bill is long: National Environmental Policy Act waivers, limitations on judicial review, and the blocking of air and water pollution controls. Whole legislative texts have been dumped into this bill. These riders and limitations have nothing to do with deficit reduction and everything to do with carrying out an extreme ideological agenda.

Repealing environmental regulations doesn't save money; it costs money. Keeping toxins out of our air and water is a great deal cheaper than cleaning up the damage or dealing with the adverse health effects. Preventing the Deepwater Horizon disaster would have been far cheaper than having to clean it up after the fact.

Each rider or funding limitation seems designed to benefit one industry or another. These provisions have become the new earmarks, with 39 such provisions already in the bill, and more are going to be proposed to be added.

While this bill rewards businesses and industries that seek to delay or undermine environmental protections, it penalizes others who try to do the right thing. As just one example, American Electric Power recently announced it's going to stop work on a low-carbon, coal-fired power plant, carbon sequestration, showing it can work, but they're going to stop work on it in light of the pullback in regulating emissions related to climate change. They see what the Congress is doing, they see what their competitors are doing, so they've decided not to do the right thing because we're making it too expensive to do the right thing.

With the funding cuts and special interest provisions, it's no wonder that the Statement of Administration Policy on H.R. 2584 runs five pages with its veto threat. I concur with the administration's views on the bill and under general leave will submit the administration's statement.

We owe it to our constituents and our communities to protect the air we breathe and the water we drink, to protect public health from the dangers of mercury and arsenic and lead. Imagine, we have more than 500 coal-fired power plants in this country and they emit more than 78,000 pounds of mercury, and yet one drop of mercury will poison an entire lake.

That's what we should be looking to, and not tying EPA's hands. We ought to be good stewards of the abundant natural and cultural heritage passed down to us. President Johnson noted in 1964, and I'm going to quote, ``If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them something more than the miracles of technology. We should be leaving them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.''

Mr. Chairman, H.R. 2584 falls far short of our responsibility to present and future generations. And so I obviously oppose the bill.

Statement of Administration Policy

H.R. 2584--Department of the Interior, and Related Agencies

Appropriations Act, 2012

(Rep. Rogers, R-KY)

The Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R.

2584, making appropriations for the Department of the

Interior, environment, and related agencies for the fiscal

year ending September 30, 2012. The Administration is

committed to ensuring the Nation lives within its means and

reducing the deficit so that the Nation can compete in the

global economy and win the future. That is why the President

put forth a comprehensive fiscal framework that reduces the

deficit by $4 trillion, supports economic growth and long-

term job creation, protects critical investments, meets the

commitments made to provide dignity and security to Americans

no matter their circumstances, and provides for our national

security.

The Administration strongly opposes a number of provisions

in this bill, including ideological and political provisions

that are beyond the scope of funding legislation. If the

President is presented with a bill that undermines ongoing

conservation, public health, and environmental protection

efforts through funding limits or restrictions, his senior

advisors would recommend he veto the bill.

While overall funding limits and subsequent allocations

remain unclear pending the outcome of ongoing bipartisan,

bicameral discussions between the Administration and

congressional leadership on the Nation's long-term fiscal

picture, the Administration has concerns regarding the level

of resources the bill would provide for a number of programs

in a way that undermines core government functions,

investments key to economic growth and job creation, as well

as protection of public health and the environment and

preservation of our Nation's natural resource heritage,

including, but not limited to:

Department of the Interior (DOI)

Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Conservation Grants. The

level of funding provided to the North American Wetlands

Conservation Act and State and Tribal Wildlife grants, as

well as the termination of Neotropical Migratory Bird

Conservation Act grants, would threaten the ability of States

and private organizations to conserve and provide access to

habitat, undermining the conservation of game and non-game

species.

Safety Inspection Fees. The bill does not include user fees

to cover inspections of oil and gas production facilities

offshore and onshore. Without these fees, taxpayers, rather

than industry, would have to shoulder the cost of these

operations, which are critical to ensuring safe and

responsible energy development.

FWS Operations. The funding provided for operations would

seriously degrade the ability of FWS to maintain the network

of National Wildlife Refuges and fulfill other statutory

responsibilities. This would result in delays in

environmental compliance reviews, which could impede major

infrastructure projects, including road construction, water

delivery, and other federally funded projects that directly

benefit State and local governments.

Landsat. The bill does not provide funding to begin the

acquisition of the next Landsat satellite, ending a 40-year

stream of data that is used by Federal, State, local and

Tribal governments and the private sector to make informed

land and resource management decisions and to assess the

impacts of those decisions over time.

DOI and Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service

Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). The funding in the

bill for LWCF programs would deny willing sellers the

opportunity to sell land holdings, and severely impair the

ability of Federal, State, and local officials, as well as

private landowners, to preserve and manage areas important to

wildlife, recreationalists, and sportsmen and women.

Wildland Fire Suppression. The bill's funding for

suppression is substantially below the 10-year average, which

is the accepted method for calculating suppression

requirements. While the bill directs DOI and the Forest

Service to use emergency fire suppression balances to make up

the shortfall, this strategy carries high risk given the high

fire activity to date and the cancellation of balances in FY

2011 appropriations.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

EPA Operating Budget. At the funding level provided, EPA

will be unable to implement its core mission of protecting

human health and the environment. Research necessary to

support this mission will be curtailed, and restoration of

key ecosystems such as the Great Lakes and the Chesapeake Bay

will be delayed.

State Revolving Funds (SRFs). The level of funding provided

in the bill would result in approximately 400 fewer

wastewater and drinking water projects, and impede EPA's

ability to reach the long-term goal of providing

approximately 5 percent of total water infrastructure funding

annually.

State Categorical Grants. The funding provided in the bill

for grants to States would impede States' ability to carry

out critical public health and environmental activities such

as air quality monitoring and water quality permitting. This

would greatly reduce core high-priority State environmental

programs at a time of declining State budgets.

Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Programs. The reductions in funding

for GHG programs and regulations severely limit actions the

Administration could take under current law to permit,

control, and monitor greenhouse gases and would block EPA's

efforts to reduce GHG emissions from vehicles and large

stationary sources.

Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI). The level of

resources for the GLRI would reduce the ability of Federal

agencies and their partners to clean up contaminated

sediments, fight invasive species, restore habitat, and

improve water quality in this critical ecosystem.

High Priority Ecosystems Funding. The level of funding

provided for the Chesapeake Bay would jeopardize the

successful clean-up of the Nation's largest estuary.

Responsible Energy Development and Oil Spill Response. The

level of resources in the bill would eliminate efforts to

increase the frequency of environmental compliance

inspections at oil facilities. In addition, the bill does not

include emergency transfer authority necessary to improve the

Government's ability to prevent and respond to oil spills.

Smart Growth. The bill terminates funding for EPA's Smart

Growth program, which contributes to efforts to assist

communities in coordinating infrastructure investments and

minimizing environmental impact of development.

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

The funding in the bill for the NEA, which is the largest

national funder of the arts in the United States, would cut

support for arts organizations across the country during a

time when private and State arts funding is also highly

constrained.

Council on Environmental Quality.

The Administration's ability to guide the Executive

Branch's environmental policies and programs will be

substantially reduced at the funding level in the bill.

The Administration strongly opposes problematic policy and

language issues that are beyond the scope of funding

legislation, including, but not limited to, the following

provisions in this bill:

Restrictions on Implementing the Endangered Species Act.

Preventing FWS from implementing key provisions of the

Endangered Species Act will only result in increased costs

and delays in the future.

Mountain Top Mining Reform. Preventing the Office of

Surface Mining from developing or implementing the stream

buffer zone rule could increase the risk of litigation and

potentially delay sustainable coal mining.

Mineral Withdrawal Prohibition. Prohibiting DOI from

restricting new mining claims on approximately 1 million

acres of Federal lands near the Grand Canyon will reverse a

temporary moratorium on new uranium and other mining claims.

The Secretary of the Interior is currently assessing the

impact to water quality in Grand Canyon National Park to

ensure that any future uranium or other mining activity in

the area does not lead to the human health and environmental

impacts seen from previous mining-caused contamination of

ground water and drinking water supplies.

Gray Wolves. The Endangered Species Act expressly gives the

public the right to challenge listing decisions. Restricting

judicial review of any published final rule to delist gray

wolves in Wyoming or the Great Lakes region from the

Endangered Species Act would deny the public an opportunity

to make sure that a future listing decision on gray wolves is

based on science.

Protecting Wilderness Characteristics Secretarial Order.

Prohibiting the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from

implementing Secretarial Order 3310, which directs BLM to use

the public resource management planning process to designate

certain lands with wilderness characteristics as ``Wild

Lands'' is unnecessary given the Department's policy that

includes collaboration with stakeholders to identify public

lands that may be appropriate candidates for congressional

designation under the Wilderness Act.

Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions from Stationary Sources.

Preventing EPA from regulating GHG emissions from stationary

sources would prevent the Agency from proposing or finalizing

new regulations to control GHG emissions from power plants

and petroleum refineries, increasing the risk of long-term

environmental consequences from GHG emissions. EPA is under

two settlement agreements to complete these rules in 2012.

Clean Air Act Permitting. Section 431(a)(2-4) of the bill

effectively overrides Federal and State- issued permits for

emissions from industrial facilities that are very large

emitters of greenhouse gases by stating that the Clean Air

Act's requirement to obtain a permit has no legal effect and

that no lawsuits may be brought against a facility due to

uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions.

Light-Duty Greenhouse Gas Standards. Section 453 of the

bill undermines Executive Branch efforts to set standards

that will save consumers money at the pump and reduce GHG

emissions through increased vehicle fuel efficiency on Model

Year 2017-2025 Light-Duty Vehicles.

Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT)/

Transport Rule. Section

462 of the bill blocks EPA from implementing its utility MACT

rule to control air toxics emissions, as well as the Cross-

State Air Pollution Rule controlling interstate transport of

nitrogen oxides and particulate matter emissions from power

plants. This provision interferes with the long-delayed

implementation of major air pollution rules covering

pollution from power plants.

Mountaintop Mining Coordination and Guidance. Section 433

of the bill prohibits implementing or enforcing an EPA/Army

Corps of Engineers (Corps)/Office of Surface Mining

coordination Memorandum of Understanding and EPA guidance on

the Clean Water Act/National Environmental Policy Act and

mountaintop mining. This issue is currently undergoing

judicial review and should be allowed to conclude without

congressional intervention.

Clean Water Act. Section 435 of the bill would stop an

important Administration effort to provide clarity around

which water bodies are covered by the Clean Water Act. The

Administration's work in this area will help to protect the

public health and economic benefits provided to the American

public by clean water, while also bringing greater certainty

to business planning and investment and reducing an ongoing

loss of wetlands and other sensitive aquatic resources. The

existing regulations were the subject of two recent Supreme

Court cases, in which the Court itself indicated the need for

greater regulatory clarity regarding the appropriate scope of

the Clean Water Act jurisdiction.

Outer Continental Shelf Drilling. Section 443 of the bill

limits EPA's Clean Air Act permitting authority for Outer

Continental Shelf drilling and would eliminate the Agency's

discretion in considering human health and environmental

protections when issuing these permits.

Integrated Risk Information System. Section 444 of the bill

withholds funding for EPA to take administrative action

following its assessment of risk for certain chemicals. This

provision would delay scientific assessment of environmental

contaminants and could delay regulatory or other Agency

actions designed to protect public health.

Limiting Compliance of the Endangered Species Act. Section

447 of the bill would prevent EPA from implementing a

biological opinion related to pesticides if the opinion

identifies modifying, canceling, or suspending registration

of a pesticide registered under FIFRA. This could undermine

efforts to protect species from being put into jeopardy from

a Federal project and could stop development and delay

issuance of permits.

Lead Renovation and Repair Rule. Section 450 of the bill

prohibits funding for EPA to implement the 2008 Lead

Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) rule, as amended, until

after industry develops and EPA approves different lead paint

test kits. This would undermine efforts to protect sensitive

populations from exposure to lead, a known toxin to children

and developing fetuses, during home renovation projects. The

currently available test kits allow renovators to comply with

the 2008 rule.

Reducing Emissions from Cement Facilities. The language

would prevent common sense deployment of technology that has

been around for decades that will improve public health by

reducing emissions of pollutants, including known carcinogens

such as dioxin, from cement facilities.

Fighting Fraud, Waste, and Abuse. Sections 449 and 451 of

the bill fall short of their intended purposes of protecting

the interest of the Nation's taxpayers. The Administration

looks forward to working with the Congress to achieve the

common goal of fighting fraud, waste, and abuse in Federal

contracts, grants, and other Federal assistance.

The Administration looks forward to working with the

Congress as the fiscal year 2012 appropriations process moves

forward to ensure the Administration can support enactment of

the legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.