Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

On a voluntary basis in the first year. The gentleman did not use the word voluntary. In the second year, then they have to work it out if there has not been a voluntary agreement in the first year.

I just wanted to clarify that point.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule for the consideration of the fiscal year 2004 Interior Appropriations Act. I oppose the rule because it did not allow an important amendment to be offered by the ranking Democratic member of the full Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). The Obey-Dicks amendment, which I strongly supported, would have added $569 million to the bill to restore the Conservation Trust Fund.

I regret the Obey amendment was not allowed, because I believe it was the only real way that we could have addressed the shortfall of over half a billion dollars in the Interior bill. Obviously, we could never find the offsets within our allocation to fully fund the trust fund, and we should not have to. The conservation agreement provided for an additional allocation to our subcommittee and was never intended to come at the expense of other programs in the bill.

The bill under consideration today shortchanges the Conservation Trust Fund by $569 million, providing only $1 billion of the authorized $1.56 billion. In fact, the fund is $208 million below last year, despite built-in increases under the program through 2066.

Nobody wants to see increases in this area more than I do, but we must be honest that we cannot find the money from within our bill. The Conservation Trust Fund that was established in 2000 called for a separate allocation to our subcommittee and to the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, Judiciary and Related Agencies to be used specifically for these purposes. It was never intended to come from within our 302(b) allocation to the Subcommittee on Interior.

The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) should have been allowed to offer his amendment, and we should have been able to have a real debate on a real amendment to restore this important program.

And I want to reiterate what was said earlier, that the President, when he was campaigning for President, said he was going to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund. That is $450 million Federal and $450 million for State-side programs. That budget request has not gotten up here. They tried to change certain things and call them land and water conservation, but in fact it was not the bill as enacted.

I would also point out that over the years a surplus has accrued under the title of the Land and Water Conservation Fund of about $13 billion, and that is why the CARA movement was so powerful a few years ago. I think over 315 or 320 Members of the House voted for CARA, which would have created mandatory spending of $3 billion for the next 15 years. Some of the most senior and influential Members on conservation issues in this body strongly supported it and advocated it; and we in the Committee on Appropriations came up with this alternative, which the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I sponsored, along with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula). That is why there is such concern out there in the conservation community that we have not kept this commitment.

So I regretfully urge people to vote against the rule. There are other issues in this bill, but we will have a chance to discuss them once we get into general debate.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I want to again thank our new chairman, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor), for the way he has approached the process this year. He and the staff have worked with us and tried to craft a balanced bill within a limited allocation. And I want to also commend the staff of the committee, Debbie Weatherly, Chris Topic, Loretta Bowman, Joel Kaplan, Greg Kanadle, Mike Stevens and Lesley Turner. We have a very collegial working relationship, and it is something that, I think, the House would be proud of.

During committee consideration, I offered two important amendments that I felt would have significantly improved this bill. The first amendment sought to add money for wildland fire accounts in an attempt to lessen the massive borrowing to fight forest fires. I was extremely pleased that the administration came forward last week with a $289 million request as part of an emergency supplemental, and I plan to strongly support those funds being provided as quickly as possible.

The second amendment that I offered related to the conservation funding and the shortfall in the Conservation Trust Fund. The amendment was not adopted, and the Committee on Rules would not allow a similar amendment to be offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) on the House floor today. I find that unfortunate because the issue of the Conservation Trust Fund is enormously important to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I, as co-authors of the trust fund with the former chairman, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula).

We reached a deal in 2000 as a compromise to the CARA legislation that would have created a new $3 billion mandatory program and instead created this trust fund to elevate funding levels for critical programs without a new entitlement.

The new trust fund raised conservation spending for key programs in this bill from $514 million up to $1.2 billion and added built-in increases that would have brought conservation spending in this bill to $2 billion in 2006. I was pleased that the committee stuck to its word for the first 2 years of the agreement.

This year, however, the interior bill falls $569 million short. The shortfall impacts each and every program under the trust fund: both Federal and State programs under Land and Water Conservation Fund; the Forest Legacy Program; Cooperative Endangered Species; the North American Wetlands Conservation Fund; State Wildlife Grants, Historic Preservation, Payments in Lieu of Taxes; and the Urban Parks Program.

Most of these programs are either below the President's request or below last year, despite the fact that the trust funds provided for increases. And while I am deeply disappointed in the funding levels for conservation programs, there are other aspects of this bill that I strongly support.

The bill provides $115 million above the President's request for the National Fire Plan, which I strongly support. It includes money to continue two national environmental restoration projects by the National Park Service, the Everglades Restoration Project in Florida and the Elwha River Recovery Project in the State of Washington.

Additionally, the bill contains important language related to the Everglades that protects the Federal interest and ensures that the State of Florida is meeting its obligations to improve the quality of water entering the Everglades.

The bill also contains language relating to competitive sourcing that I believe is necessary to ensure that Congress has a clear understanding of what the administration's intentions are in this area. This committee recently learned that both the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service had plans to spend several million dollars on these activities without following standard reprogramming guidelines and without clear direction from Congress.

I consider this bill a work in progress and am hopeful that we can work together on areas of this bill that I believe still need improvement.

At the appropriate time, I intend to offer an amendment with my colleague, the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), to increase money for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. We were successful with a similar amendment last year, and I hope this year we can again come together and show the full support of the House for the two endowments.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking Democratic member of the full committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey), a member of the subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a valued member of the House and a person who is very interested in environmental issues in the Pacific Northwest.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Rothman), a valued member of the Committee on Appropriations to engage in a colloquy with the chairman of the subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver), our distinguished colleague and member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), one of the leading environmental advocates in the House of Representatives.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I ask the gentleman if it is true that the President of the United States when he ran for President said we were going to have full funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, $450 million for Federal, $450 million for state-side, and now we are down at $197 million for both programs?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall).

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

Mr. Chairman, I want to be heard on the point of order.

I would just say that I, first of all, want to associate myself with the remarks of the chairman. I think he has made very clear why the committee felt it must do what it did do. I would also say to the new chairman of the authorizing committee, it is time for action on this issue. We can no longer let this slide or neglect or not bring this to attention, because millions and millions of dollars are being wasted on lawyers and accountants instead of going out for Indian health service and all the other issues.

I concur with the chairman. We have to concede the point of order, but I would urge the chairman, please do not let us down again this year. We need action on this issue. I know the gentleman has taken over, and I urge him to take action and get a settlement. We cannot let this thing go on and on and on. I concede the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment.

I want to commend the delegation from Florida for working on this issue. This has been something that I have personally taken an interest in, gone down to Florida, seen the work on this incredible project, the work of the Park Service and all of the Federal agencies. This is truly a national environmental restoration objective, and many of us were concerned who followed this issue about the actions of the Florida legislature earlier this year; but I want to commend the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart), our new member, for the work they have done in crafting this legislation. We even out in the West are concerned about the Everglades, and we want to see them restored; and we want to see the commitments kept between the State and Federal Government. We need to go year by year, and I think the funding for this project depends on moving the ball forward and keeping things moving in the right direction. So I commend all of the work that has been done to straighten this out, and we look forward to the first report.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words, and I rise in support of the Slaughter amendment and am proud to be a cosponsor of this amendment.

We have offered this amendment successfully over the last 4 years, and I just want to say to my colleagues that I was on this committee when we were funding the arts and humanities at a much more robust level, and I agree, it is amazing that the endowments do as well as they do with the reduced funding that Congress has given them.

This modest amendment, in my judgment, will do a great deal with the Challenge America program and at the Endowment for Humanities. In fact, the President asked for more money in humanities than we are giving him this year. So I think this is a very modest amendment.

I can tell from my own State of Washington the appreciation of the arts organizations for the grants that they get from the National Endowment for the Arts, the universities, the people, the professors, teachers, all those who apply to the National Endowment for the Humanities, who also does an outstanding job, but at a time when our country needs to support job creation, the charts that were shown earlier, the number of people that are employed by the nonprofits that work in the arts is very substantial.

This is an important part of our economy. This is not just in New York or Chicago or San Francisco. This is also in many of the smaller communities like my hometown of Bremerton, Washington. The Admiral Theater, they are having a group come in from Missoula, Montana.

Arts education was mentioned. I can remember Jane Alexander taking me to Garfield High School in Seattle to see a whole group of African American youth working in an arts program. Dale Chihuly with glass in Tacoma, his hometown, one of the most prolific glass artists in the world.

I think this is such a small part of the budget but such an important part,

and I am so pleased that so many of my colleagues stayed this evening after the last vote to express their support. I hope that tomorrow morning we will be able to have another victory, and I urge everyone to be here early and to help work the body and get the same great vote that we had last year when we won by 42 votes, with bipartisan support.

I urge everyone who is watching this back in their offices to be here early to support this amendment tomorrow morning when we will vote on it.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to discuss the Impact Aid program, which is critically important to me and many of my colleagues across the country. The Sixth Congressional District of Washington State, which is impacted by several large and vital military installations. Our region willingly hosts thousands of Active Duty personnel, who represent a large economic force in the Pacific Northwest. Washington is also home to 27 federally recognized Native American tribes. However, with these advantages comes a drawback: the loss of substantial property areas from the local tax base.

As my colleagues know, military bases and tribal lands do not pay most State and local taxes, but local school districts are still required to provide an education to children that live on these lands. Often this imposes millions of dollars in additional costs to these districts. Congress created the Impact Aid program to address this glaring problem.

I was extremely disappointed when the President submitted a budget to Congress earlier this year that contained a cut of more than $170 million to this important program. This proposal was very poorly considered, coming at a time when hundreds of thousands of troops were preparing for deployment around Iraq. As it becomes more and more apparent that large numbers of American troops will be required to remain in Iraq for the foreseeable future, the decision of the President to cut funding for educating their kids is more difficult to comprehend.

I commend the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for coming to the rescue of Impact Aid and rejecting the Bush proposal. However, even with that, the Department of Education estimates that another $583 million is necessary to meet these needs. With the hundreds of billions of dollars that the Congress and the President have dedicated to tax cuts, it is astounding that we cannot find just a half billion in this budget to fully meet the needs of the children of our men and women who are fighting overseas on our behalf.

For years I have worked closely with dozens of Democrats and Republicans to make this a bipartisan proposal. Again, I commend the chairman and ranking member for fixing part of the problem, but we still have more to do.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, it is true that it does cost a substantial amount of money in the first few years; but there is no question that, long-term, billions and billions of dollars have been saved because of the BRACs we have had in the past. So I think we should move forward on this, and it would be wrong to do it in this bill. It would be an authorization matter. I think it is a mistake, and I support the chairman in his opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to commend Chairman Knollenberg and Ranking Member Edwards for their work on this bill. They have done their best with an unreasonable and unacceptable allocation. I know they share my deep disappointment over this level of funding, which is $1.5 billion less than was appropriated for Military Construction & Family Housing last year.

Unfortunately this cut makes a bad situation worse. When the Bush administration came into office, they found a Department of Defense where the recapitalization rates for facilities varied from 80 to over 100 years in the various services. They rightly condemned this situation. However, under this budget, the recapitalization rate for the active Air Force will increase to 183 years. The Navy recapitalization rate will increase to 140 years. The recapitalization rate for the Marines actually goes down, but is still an unacceptable 88 years. And the Army recapitalization rate in this budget increases to 144 years. The DOD goal is 67 years. I strongly support the effort by Mr. Obey to increase funding for Military Construction and Family Housing in this bill by $1 billion. This funding, and much more, is sorely needed.

I would like to thank the Chairman and Ranking Member for working with me on the vital installations in Washington state. We will make a start in this bill on fixing a Navy pier at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard which today is not up to Navy standards for performing its mission, which is mooring nuclear powered aircraft carriers. And the bill includes several important projects to build barracks at Ft. Lewis, refurbish the Mission Support Center at McChord Air Force Base, and rebuild the service pier at Subase Bangor. Also, this bill continues to support the privatization of family housing at Ft. Lewis, WA. Mr. Chairman, beautiful new houses have been built and are under construction there, and this Congress can be proud about the new houses being built for military families through this innovative program.

I hope as this bill proceeds through the Congressional process, that additional funds can be found to make this a truly responsible piece of legislation. Having voiced my deep concerns, I will vote today in support of this bill in order to ensure that those important projects which do receive funding here are allowed to move forward.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me this time. I want to commend the chairman and Mr. Turner for the work that has gone on on this particular legislation; and I want to rise, too, to raise my concerns about this whole homeland security effort. I have had several meetings with Tim Lowenberg, the head of the National Guard in Washington State and Governor Locke's coordinator for homeland security. We have discussed on two or three occasions our mutual concerns about the resources getting back to those first responders in the State of Washington. In fact, I have contacted my fire department and police department in Tacoma and in Bremerton, the two biggest cities in my district. I have convened a meeting of the officials, and very little of the money that Congress has authorized and appropriated has actually gotten back to those first responders. I think this is something we have got to get straightened out. The Congress has to get this straightened out. I also have been out to Northern Command. I regret that I could not be with the chairman on their recent trip twice now to talk to General Eberhart about the role that the military of the United States is going to play.

As strange as it may seem, for many, many years we did not have a CINC that was in charge of protecting the United States. We took it for granted that somehow we were secure from an attack. That is one thing that 9-11 certainly did change. We now recognize the vulnerability of our country and the vulnerability of our infrastructure. I agree with the comments that I have heard here this morning. We need to continue to do more. We have got to get the private sector to protect its critical assets. We have got to work with them to make certain that they are doing it. The chemical industries, our nuclear reactors, our energy plants, the transmission lines for our power grids and facilities, all of these things have to have a plan for protection. The States have to have, I believe, an individual plan for their protection. So there is a lot of work that has to be done. I want to make the same plea.

I worked with the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) on a select committee on transfer of technology to China. I have great confidence in his leadership and in his willingness to take on a tough issue. But we have to have the courage in this body, this institution, to tell the administration when they are doing a good job, but also tell them when they are not doing enough. I worry that when you have the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution taking independent looks at what has happened in the last 2 years since 9-11 and the conclusion is that not much has really changed, then we in this body have a responsibility to make certain that the job, in fact, is getting done. Let us continue to work on a bipartisan basis, but let us make sure the job is getting done.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member.

The amendment I am offering today is straightforward and noncontroversial. It would authorize the Secretary of the Navy to transfer a small parcel of land to the city of Bremerton, Washington, my hometown in my district.

The property in question sits on the eastern end of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and has been determined to be surplused on the Navy's immediate and future needs. It has been used in the past several years largely as a laydown area for steel. The shipyard has found ways to reduce its inventory of steel and transferred the storage of this material closer to the machine shop where it is used.

The property is not well positioned for any other shipyard function, and the installation would prefer not to pay for the upkeep of the property in an empty condition.

The City of Bremerton has proposed to use the property for a Maritime Park and Naval Museum, functions that are consistent with the security needs of the Navy industry and which enhance the mission of the shipyard. The shipyard is also acquiring other property in the City for security purposes. The conveyance of this unneeded property will keep the shipyard footprint from growing substantially and avoid increasing the maintenance costs of the installation to the Navy.

The amendment includes provisions for the city to compensate the Navy through renovations to Navy property acceptable to both sides. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is good for the Navy and good for the taxpayer. I urge my colleagues to support it and to support the en bloc amendments.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) and I led the investigation into the transfer of technology to China, and one of the

things that we found in our investigation was the great difficulty of verifying what the end use in fact was.

We have to look at the possibility that they could use this to upgrade their nuclear weapons capability. I think this is very serious and dangerous. I do not think we should do this. I think to end all export controls in 120 days is irresponsible, and that is what the amendment will do.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment for two reasons. Conventional precision guided munitions are a better technical solution than the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator for hardened and deeply buried targets, and because the fallout, both figurative and literal, from the use of nuclear weapons will make the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator an expensive showpiece rather than a usable weapon. If we start this program it is more likely to be simply A BUST, rather than RO-BUST.

I've had the opportunity to visit this Spring with the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base. The 509th operates the 21 B-2 bombers that constitute the most advanced and effective weapons in the United States military arsenal. These were the pilots who were assigned the mission in Iraq to attack the very kinds of targets we are discussing today, hardened and deeply buried targets. I can tell you that the 509th today can attack, disable, and destroy, these targets. The 509th employs a penetrating version of the JDAM, as well as a 5000 lb. bunker buster. These weapons already beat the ground penetration capability of any nuclear weapon in our arsenal, and new capabilities will do even more. The B-2 will soon be able to employ the EGBU-28 bunker buster thanks to support in Congress to field this capability. And advanced research of binary warhead weapons and the use of conventional highly energetic materials will yield even more effective approaches for conventional alternatives.

Indeed, the Tauscher amendment would add funding to three program elements of the Air Force and OSD R&D budgets which are working on just these conventional ground penetration approaches. I believe these conventional capabilities offer technical solutions not just equal to, but superior to those offered by even so-called ``low-yield'' nuclear approaches.

Vote for the Tauscher amendment and support the development of weapons our military can really use.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this supplemental appropriations bill.

I want to compliment the chairman and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha), for giving specificity to this bill in terms of how the money was appropriated. I think that was the right decision, defending the constitutional prerogatives of the legislative branch.

We are all proud of what our men and women are doing over in Iraq. The gentleman from California (Chairman Lewis) and I had a chance to visit right before the war started and to see the troops. It was truly outstanding.

We also had a chance to see the great work that is being done in the area of intelligence, the Predator, and all of the new capabilities that we have given our troops to know where the enemy is.

The thing that I am most proud of are the tremendous aerial capabilities that we have been able to provide with the B-2 bomber, the B-1, the B-52, giving smart weapons to them, smart conventional weapons which have worked so effectively in degrading the military capabilities of the Iraqis. We have seen this in the last few days with the collapse of the Medina and Baghdad divisions of the Republican Guard.

This is an enormously important bill because we have to replenish these smart weapons that we have used, because 10,000 smart weapons, precision weapons, have been used. We have flown over 21,000 sorties.

The one thing that is wrong with this bill is we have not done enough for homeland security. I completely concur with the gentleman from Wisconsin

(Mr. Obey), who has taken the time to go out and investigate the needs of all of these agencies. We are underfunding the security of the United States of America here at home by not adequately funding homeland security.

We are doing a great job in Iraq; we are doing a great job in Afghanistan, but we are only doing a marginal job here at home in terms of protecting our ports, our cities. This is us. This is our families. This is our children, our grandchildren. We have to get serious about this. This administration has to get serious about this.

They can not continue to not provide the resources necessary for homeland security. Maybe we will not correct it here today, but I guarantee you once the American people understand that we are not providing the necessary resources, they will make certain that we correct it and hopefully in a bipartisan fashion.

Mr. Chairman, I guarantee my colleague we are being careful, careful almost to the extent where I think we are leaving the country vulnerable, and I really do disagree.

I think we have got a responsibility to get a plan in all the States. We do not have all 50 States under the National Guard program, to give each State a unit in support of local officials in a crisis. We still do not have that done. There is a lot of things we need to do, and money is important in getting it done.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, outside groups like the Council on Foreign Relations, Senator Rudman, Senator Hart, the Brookings Institute, they have looked at these numbers, and they have said they are completely inadequate to do the job. That is why we are so upset that we have not been offered the chance to present an amendment today.

The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) presented it in the full committee. It was a close vote. This is something that worries me deeply.

I think we do a great job in Iraq and in Afghanistan, but we are not doing the job we need to do right here at home to protect the United States of America; and it is not right, and we have got to do something better than that. I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me.

Mr. Chairman, I want to first of all again congratulate the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young), the gentleman from California (Chairman Lewis), and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) for the way they crafted this legislation. We have made the Defense Department be accountable for this money.

But I must say, cutting $19 million out of this fund, or $19 billion, excuse me, is not going to help the troops. We are in the middle of a war. This money must be replenished. We have used 10,000 precision weapons very effectively. We have these troops in the field, and they need to have the resources in order to complete this task and get this job done.

I do not mind people making their speeches and exhorting their position on the issues; but when it is going to hurt the people in the field, it is unacceptable. This will hurt the troops in the field. I urge the House to reject overwhelmingly the Kucinich amendment, which I will request a record vote on.

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

The gentleman from California is a valued member of our subcommittee, and on almost all defense issues we agree. Unfortunately, today, I must rise in opposition to this amendment.

As everyone here knows, yesterday Secretary Powell met with the leadership of Turkey. Immediately following that meeting, the border was opened and supplies on trucks were flowing into northern Iraq for the U.S. forces that are there. These are supplies, not ammunition or weapons; but it is a significant step forward.

Also, we were able to use the air space of Turkey in order to bring in forces into northern Iraq by air lift. Bombers have flown into Iraq using turkey's airspace.

So I think they have made a very significant contribution, and people sometimes forget that 90 percent of the people in Turkey are opposed to this war. They are on the border with Iraq. It was much different in 1991 when Saddam Hussein was invading another country like Kuwait, and therefore, they could join as a NATO ally and work with the United States to get Saddam out of Kuwait. This is a different circumstance.

I think they have done almost everything they could. If 90 percent of the people in the United States were opposed to this war, we might not be there. I think we have to understand, this is a new government with a new parliament; and Turkey has been a reliable ally for many, many years.

This was in the President's budget request. Condoleezza Rice has written a letter to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) expressing the support of the administration for keeping this money in this bill.

We also have to look at the long term. Once we get through with this war, and I hope and pray it is over very quickly, we are going to have to rebuild our alliances, not only with NATO, but with all the countries in the region; and I think showing some good faith at this point and supporting this $1 billion to help Turkey, who has serious financial problems that were caused by their participation in the original Gulf War in 1990 and 1991. They have been hurt economically by this because of humanitarian problems and economic problems that they are facing.

They desperately need this aid and assistance, and they are a democratic secular country that in my mind deserves the support of the United States. They have been involved with us in every military conflict since the Korean War and through Afghanistan; and on the floor of the House, to undercut the agreement that was reached just yesterday with Secretary Powell, I think, would be a terrible mistake.

We should show Turkey that we understand their problem and we want them to recover economically and we want them to work with us through NATO to be a good ally and a good friend. Please vote against the Cunningham amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the Cunningham amendment. Condoleezza Rice, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, wrote us a letter:

``Secretary Powell addressed important military, political, and economic issues when he met this week with the Turkish leadership. Both sides agreed to an unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid to north Iraq, and access by American forces to supplies sent through Turkey. Turkey continues to grant overflight rights, and is committed to enhance cooperation on terrorist threats and possible refugee flows into the region, without moving additional Turkish military forces into Iraq. These are very positive steps.''

The President of the United States has requested this $1 billion. We will be acting like the Turkish Parliament acted if we cut this money out. It will be a mistake. This is not the way to rebuild and treat a NATO ally. Let us defeat the Cunningham amendment and move this bill forward.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on the rule for the omnibus appropriations bill to support the motion to recommit that will be offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

The motion to recommit would direct the conferees to strip three controversial provisions added to the Interior section of the omnibus during conference negotiations and ask that certain critical natural resource programs are increased to levels requested by the President.

The three legislative provisions include section 335, which exempts the Tongass National Forest plan from all administrative or judicial review; section 323, which significantly expands the Forest Service's stewardship contracting project to a permanent program with little agency oversight of

private-contract timber harvest; and language that removes the House provision restricting funds for activities related to oil drilling in

I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, and I appreciate the gentleman's comments, I just want to point out on the Interior appropriations bill, as the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) pointed out and I did as we discussed the rule, our only major concern is the fact that on the conservation spending category we, for 2 years, kept a commitment that was made by the Republican and Democratic leadership of the Committee on Appropriations; and this year we did not get a good allocation in the conference, and we had to cut approximately $700 million out of our bill.

A lot of the most important conservation spending categories were substantially reduced, which I deeply regret, because we had made a commitment to people outside of the Congress that we were going to stay with this trust fund and increase the level of conservation spending by about $160 million each year until we got up to $2.4 billion. Of course, this year we did not make our goal.

I just would point out to my colleagues that the League of Conservation Voters urges us to support a motion to recommit, which the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) will offer, on the fiscal year 2003 omnibus appropriations bill. They say, ``We strongly oppose the numerous antienvironmental riders that were added in conference and by the Senate, and we are concerned about the substantial funding cut the bill makes to the conservation trust fund.''

I would also point out to my colleagues, many on both sides supported a very modest amendment to create increased funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities. Both sides put an increase in, but when we got to conference, it was stripped out at the direction of the leadership on the Republican side. I think the Endowment for the Arts and Humanities does wonderful things for our country, and I was really kind of shaken by the fact that after this was cut in half during the Reagan administration and we were starting to move in the right direction, giving modest increases for both the arts and the humanities, that that money was, that increase was, stripped out.

So I wish I could tell my colleagues that this bill, when it left the House this year, was a very good bill. But now that we get the conference report, we are now $800 million below where we were when this bill was before the House.

I must point out also there are a whole series of categories within the Forest Service where we borrowed money last year to fight forest fires, and much of that money has not been repaid. So I hope, as we go through the year, if we have a supplemental appropriations bill, that we can go and readdress some of these important issues and do a better job.

The fact that we are below the President's request on the Park Service, or the House level on the Park Service, is also of concern to me.

I am going to vote for this bill. We have to preserve the prerogatives of the Congress. And I see the Speaker here on the floor. When the Speaker was elected he made a speech and he said, we are going to run these railroads on time. Well, I am confident this year we are going to go back to the regular order and pass our 13 appropriation bills in time, and I support that endeavor.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a great American, Mr. David K. Morris. After 8 years as the Superintendent of the Olympic National Forest, David has accepted a position in the Peace Corps as the Country Director for the African country of Zambia.

David has worked for the National Forest Service for 37 years, including as the Superintendent at Crater Lake National Park and Katmai National Park. In addition, he served as assistant superintendent for Canyonlands and Arches National Parks and Natural Bridges National Monument. David has also served the Park Service in Hawaii and San Francisco.

David began his service as the Superintendent of the beautiful Olympic National Park in November 1994. During his tenure at Olympic, David has overseen a number of important improvements and accomplishments, including purchase of the two Elwha River darns, establishment of the Friends of Olympic National Park and initiation of the park's General Management Plan. In addition, he has worked toward the general rehabilitation of visitor's centers, park roads, and over 600 miles of park trails. Under David's leadership, the Olympic National Park has become one of the most visited National Parks in the Nation.

The National Park Service has recognized David's work with two awards, the Superior Service Award in 1991 and the Meritorious Service Award in 1999.

David's career has included two foreign assignments, first as a Peace Corps park planner in Malawi, Africa, between 1974 and 1976 and later as a National Park advisor to Sri Lanka from 1987 to 1988. Additionally, he completed short-term advisory assignments in American Samoa, Costa Rica, Hungary, Argentina, the Republic of Georgia, Russia, United Arab Emirates, and South Africa.

I thank David for his tremendous service to the Olympic National Park. I wish David all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this legislation to reinstate the extended unemployment benefits program. These are bad economic times we are living in and few places have it tougher than my home state of Washington which had a 6.6 percent unemployment rate in November. I know from my constituents that these extra weeks of benefits are a vital lifeline which I wish we had extended back in December. While I am relieved that we finally are passing this bill, I wish that we had the chance to vote on an unemployment package that more fully meets the needs of those Americans who are out of work.

While I am grateful that this bill contains a provision that provides an additional 13 weeks of extended benefits for states with exceptionally high jobless rates--which includes Washington State and two others--it is a mistake that the eligibility requirements are so stringent that the jobless in 47 states cannot receive them. These additional benefits will result in 26 weeks of extended benefits for those of my constituents who have been unable to find new employment. But I do not understand why those unfortunate people living in other states who find themselves in a similar dire situation are limited to only 13 weeks of extended benefits because the unemployment rate is lower in their home state. Being out of work is devastating for people and their families wherever they live and Congress should pass a bill reflecting that reality.

The extended benefits authorized by this legislation expire at the end of May. It is doubtful that the economy will have improved significantly by then. Therefore, we will need to re-visit this issue before these benefits expire. I hope at that time we will pass legislation that better meets the tremendous needs of those Americans who are having a hard time finding new jobs. Compassion demands that action.