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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1997
(House of Representatives - June 19, 1996)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages H6537-H6607] [[Page H6537]] DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1997 The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 455 and rule XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 3662. {time} 1209 in the committee of the whole Accordingly the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 3662) making appropriations for the Department of the Interior and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1997, and for other purposes, with Mr. Burton of Indiana in the chair. The Clerk read the title of the bill. The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as having been read the first time. Under the rule, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula] and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Yates] will each control 30 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula]. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me say at the outset, Mr. Chairman, that the gentleman from Illinois and myself have worked closely on this bill along with the other members of our subcommittee. I think we bring to the Members today a very responsible bill given the fiscal constraints. I would point out the chart that is in the well demonstrates that we appropriate a total of about $12 billion and save the taxpayers, save future generations $500 million plus the interest that they would have to pay on that money. But at the same time we take care of the things that are vitally important and that people care about in this country, our public lands, in many instances, the parks, the forests, the fish and wildlife facilities, the grazing lands managed by the BLM. They are the jewels of this Nation and I think we have a great responsibility to manage these facilities and this resource well so that we can leave it as a legacy to future generations. I would like to start by giving some little known facts about this bill. Let me start with the Forest Service. The National Forest System covers 8 percent of all the land in America. Of all the land, 8 percent is in national forests. The national forests produce 55 percent of the water for 16 western States. I think that is a significant fact. Fifty- five percent of the water that they use for irrigation, for municipal water supplies, for the many, many purposes, for industrial uses, 55 percent of that in the 16 western States comes from our public lands. Three hundred million recreational visitors to the Forest Service lands every year, 300 million Americans enjoyed these lands. Half of the Nation's ski lift capacity is on forest land. For those that like to ski undoubtedly if you have gone out in the western States, you have been on public lands. Half of the Nation's big game and cold water fish habitat is on the national forest lands. With respect to timber harvest, I might say there has been a lot of concern about the fact that we have been excessively harvesting timber, recognizing the importance of it for multiple use, recognizing the importance of timber lands in providing water supply, that we might be doing too much. But let me point out that we are on a downward glide path. We harvested 11 billion board feet, in 1990. It this bill today it provides for 4.3 billion board feet, almost one-third of what we were allowing in 1990. I think it is a recognition that the national forests have far greater value in terms of multiple use and in terms of our watershed than perhaps just for timber harvest. Little known facts is the Department of Energy. Fossil energy research focuses on cleaning up the environment and reducing energy consumption. We hear a lot about clean air and clean water and how important these are to our Nation and to the people in our society. Well, the fossil energy program is directed right at that need and the importance of cleaning up the environment. Low emission boilers will reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by 80 percent once we develop the technology. I mention these things because during the course of handling this bill, there will be an amendment to reduce-- maybe several--to reduce our fossil energy commitment in terms of research, but keep in mind, any vote to cut fossil research, and we have already reduced it considerably, a vote to do that is a vote against the environment, it is a vote against reducing energy consumption. Advanced turbine systems will dramatically reduce emissions and reduce energy consumption while supporting 100,000 high-paying U.S. jobs and the export of 3 billion dollars' worth of technology. We hear a lot about the balance of payments. Again, a vote to reduce the fossil budget and I think the gentleman from California [Mr. Brown] addressed it well during the rule debate, is a vote against increasing exports, it is a vote against U.S. jobs, against cleaning up our environment. I would point out also in the Office of Surface Mining in the bill, we fund $4 million for a new Appalachian clean streams. Again, an effort to clean up the water to preserve this resource for the future. Public lands, Interior and the Forest Service, are about one-third of the Nation's land mass. We manage it for clean waters and for open space and we try to preserve as much as possible the pristine values of our wilderness lands, [[Page H6538]] the vast wetland and forests that naturally cleanse the water and the air and replenish the aquifers. {time} 1215 But at the same time, Mr. Chairman, as evident by the charts up here, we are also recognizing that part of our legacy to future generations should not only be clean air, clean water, a land mass that can be enjoyed in terms of parks and forests and fish and wildlife facilities and the BLM lands, but at the same time, we are reducing the amount of expenditures. It points out in the chart that we are recommending $12 billion. While expending $12 billion, we are reducing spending by $500 million under 1996 and $1.5 billion under 1995. At the same time, we will increase national park operations by $55 million; national wildlife refuge operations by $18 million; native American programs by $52 million; forest health by $72 million; and Smithsonian and other cultural institutions by $16 million. While doing that, we cut $114 million from energy programs. We cut $25 million from Washington and regional bureaucracy. We are getting people out of Washington and into the field, and we are also moving the expenditure of administrative-type funds out to the field where the problems need to be solved. As can be noted from the chart, the $114 million cut in energy programs has already been taken. So let me again caution all of the Members, evaluate the amendments that will be proposed that would do harm to our energy programs. They are vitally important for the future of this Nation, both in terms of clean water, in terms of clean air, and in terms of reducing our dependency on other nations outside the United States for energy. I think if Members look at the numbers, they will realize that probably in terms of petroleum, we are importing over one-half of our usage and we need to become more energy independent. We have tried to maintain the programs that are vitally important to the Nation's future. I would mention the same thing in terms of being responsible to the native American programs. We have treaty obligations. We have rights that were generated in the historical development of Indian programs, so we have had to increase those by $52 million over 1996. We put the money in these areas: $10 million for tribal priority allocations, $10 million for Indian school operations, $20 million for new hospital staffing, and $12 million for health care professionals. I would mention these things, Mr. Chairman, because under our treaty obligations, we have a responsibility for health, for education, and for the tribal priority needs. We have tried to address these in our bill. In terms of forest health, and I reemphasize a point I made earlier, and that is that in the western States, 55 percent of their water comes from forest lands. A healthy forest is important to their future in terms of having clean water, in terms of having adequate water supplies. To recognize those forest health problems, we have increased by $72 million the overall program, $16.5 in forest health management, $40 million in wildfire preparation and prescribed burns, and $10.5 million for thinning and vegetation improvement. We have had $4 million for road maintenance and reconstruction and $1 million for Forest Service research. We recognize, as in the case with energy, that knowledge is very important, that knowledge in managing forests or parks or any of the public lands becomes an important element. We have maintained the United States Geologic Survey at last year's level because that is the science arm of the Department of the Interior. In terms of the Everglades, we added $13 million for scientific research because we recognize that we are going to embark on a major program to undo some of the great mistakes of the past; but to do that in a responsible way, we need to have good science. Therefore we, as a starter in restoring the Everglades, put a large increase in the funding for the Everglades research and science that will go with that. I think when we look at the total bill, it is a responsible, commonsense approach to challenges. We all treasure the public lands and what it means to the quality of life in this country, and we have tried to recognize that. We have avoided programs, starting new programs that have high downstream costs, because both sides of the aisle, starting with the President, are committed to getting the budget deficit under control; and to do that, we have to avoid programs, we have to avoid acquiring facilities that have big costs downstream because we need to continue this effort to manage the programs as well as possible. So, Mr. Chairman, I certainly say to all of my colleagues, I hope that they will give this bill their consideration. I hope they will take time to understand what we have tried to do here. It is a nonpartisan bill. When it came to doing projects, we have an even balance between Members on each side of the aisle. In the subcommittee, we had very little partisanship. We worked as a team to try to use the resources that were allocated to us to do the best possible job of managing this marvelous resource called forests and parks, and so on, in the way that is constructive for the American people and that we can be proud of as far as a legacy to future generations. I urge all the Members to give us the support that we need and deserve on this bill. Mr. Chairman, I include for the Record the table detailing the various accounts in the bill. The information referred to is as follows: [[Page H6539]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH19JN96.000 [[Page H6540]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH19JN96.001 [[Page H6541]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH19JN96.002 [[Page H6542]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH19JN96.003 [[Page H6543]] Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. YATES. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I honor my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio, Ralph Regula, for this hard work and his very great diligence in formulating this bill. It could have been a much better bill, if we only had the money that is required to do the job properly. To properly care for the vast natural resources of the United States and the magnificent museums and galleries which are funded in this bill, money is needed, and that money has not been allocated to us in the 602(b) allocation. For some reason, Interior continues to be the stepchild of the 602(b) bosses. This bill has been saddled with many burdens. We have been forced to take a cut of $482 million in our 602(b) allocation, which comes on top of the $1.1 billion reduction this bill enjoyed in the previous fiscal year. To add insult to injury, this malnourished bill had two legislative riders foisted on it in the full Committee on Appropriations. One deals with native American taxation, the other deals with the endangered marbled murrelet. Mr. Chairman, the first rider added by the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Istook], will effectively cripple the ability of many native American tribes to operate successful retail establishments, like gas stations or convenience stores, on their property by forcing native American tribes, who are sovereign under the decisions of the Supreme Court and under treaties established with the United States to charge State sales taxes at their establishment. The second troubling rider was added by the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs], and deals with protection of the endangered marbled murrelet. The Riggs amendment was precipitated by a court ruling that ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service to designate areas in California, Oregon, and Washington as critical habitat for the elusive seabird. What the Riggs provision seeks to do is to prevent the Fish and Wildlife Service from enforcing this designation on private lands in California. Not only does this ill-conceived provision set a dangerous precedent for suspending the Endangered Species Act, but it could very well lead to the extinction of the marbled murrelet in the Headwaters forest. Mr. Chairman, even our full committee chairman, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], recognizes that these riders could sink the Interior bill. That is why he voted against both of them in committee. Our good friend, the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Boelhert] has also been quoted as saying these riders present real problems for floor consideration. Inclusion of these riders is especially ironic in light of an article that ran in the Washington Post on Monday with the headline, ``GOP Buffs environmental Image''. If the Republican Party seeks to improve its environmental image, then they can join us in striking the marbled murrelet rider. Mr. Chairman, the legislative riders are not the only problem with this bill, and while the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula] did his best to minimize the pain of our reduced allocation, there are major problems with the funding of this bill, critical problems which I cite. For example, funding for the National Park Service has been cut by $40,095,000. Funding for the Fish and Wildlife Service is down by $19,200,000. Funding for vital agency support from Interior Departmental management has been punitively cut by $3,221,000. Funding for the Forest Service has been reduced by $56,281,000. Funding for energy efficiency programs are cut by $37,519,000. Funding for low- income weatherization is cut out by another $11,764,000. Funding for Indian health service facilities has been reduced by $11,257,000. Funding for the Smithsonian Institution has been decreased by $8,700,000. Funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities has been cut by $5,506,000. At the same time that important programs are being cut, other nonessential accounts have been increased, including an increase in corporate welfare for the timber industry in the form of an additional $14 million over the fiscal year 1996 amount for timber roads and timber sale management and $12 million over the administration request for the PILT program. Finally, I want to express my support for the funding contained in this bill for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities. The issue of funding the endowments has long been very controversial in this bill. The funding that is in this bill is the result of the agreement that was reached last year by the members of the Republican Party to continue the NEA for 2 years and the NEH for 3 years. Given these austere budgets, representing a cut of nearly 40 percent for each agency from fiscal year 1995, I hope my colleagues will oppose any amendment to cut or eliminate additional funding for the endowments. Mr. Chairman, in closing, I want to commend my chairman, my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio, Ralph Regula, for his hard work, for his friendship, for his warm association and for his cooperation. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, just a footnote. I concede that we have reduced some of these programs, but it was land acquisition, construction of things that have downstream costs, and the only way we can save money is to cut spending. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Kolbe], a very able member of our subcommittee. Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I want to voice my support for the Interior appropriations bill which is before us today and add my thanks to both the chairman and the ranking minority member and their staffs for the work that they have done on this. Mr. Chairman, you are going to hear a lot of concerns expressed here today, some in support of this, some in adamant opposition to the bill. But, before we take too seriously some of the expressions of discontent, we should all be aware of the budget parameters under which our subcommittee was operating. {time} 1230 Our initial 602(b) allocation was $1.1 billion below fiscal year 1996 funding levels. That is $1.1 billion below. Fortunately, when the House approved the budget resolution, we found there was an additional $3.9 billion of discretionary funding which the Committee on Appropriations was able to reallocate among the subcommittees. Despite this infusion of money, the Interior Subcommittee's fiscal year 1997 budget is still $482 million less than last year. Is this fair and equitable? Perhaps it is not for those concerned about these particular programs. But what is important is not what we do not have. What is significant is what we have done with the money that we do have available to us. This Interior appropriations bill reflects increases for our national parks, for the Everglades restoration, for forest health, specifically fire management and research, for USGS earthquake research and cooperative water research, and we have $4 million for a clean streams initiative. We have also increased or at least maintained fiscal year 1996 funding levels for native American programs, like the vital and multipurpose tribal priority allocations account, for Indian education, Indian health, and increased the funding levels of major cultural institutions, like the Smithsonian, the Holocaust Museum, the Kennedy Center, and the National Gallery of Art. We have attempted to ensure that sufficient funds are available to fulfill our responsibilities as stewards of the Nation's natural treasures. Did some agencies incur reductions or even terminations of programs? Absolutely. But this is necessary as a subcommittee, as a body for us to do this, to keep our commitment to the American people that we would exercise fiscal responsibility, that we would balance the Federal budget in 7 years. And, all told, we have saved nearly $500 million in doing that. Let us not fool each other about what is going to happen. There are going to be a lot of amendments to increase funding levels for programs and agencies. Members will speak with great conviction about the merits of these programs, and in many cases they will be right about whether the program is good or not. [[Page H6544]] But, what I have said before needs to be said again. The appropriations process is not about numbers. It is not about whether we spend $12.1 billion, as this bill recommends, or $13.1 billion. It is not even about whether we cut a particular program, whether we increase a program, or whether we terminate a program. This and the other appropriations bills that are working their way through the legislative process is an opportunity for Congress and our political parties to make a philosophical statement about the direction we believe this country should be going. It is an opportunity to say something about where we think our future is. It is an opportunity for each party in Congress to set forth its vision, its hopes and dreams for our future and our children's future. This bill does that. I urge support for this legislation. Mr. Chairman, I want to voice my strong support for the Interior appropriations bill before us. I know that you have heard many of my colleagues express their support for or adamant opposition to this bill. But before the opposition continues their litany of discontent, I'd like to make you aware of the budgetary parameters under which the subcommittee was operating. Our initial 602(b) allocation was $1.1 billion below fiscal year 1996 funding levels. That's $1.1 billion. Fortunately, when the House approved the budget resolution there was an additional $3.9 billion in discretionary funding which the Appropriations Committee was able to reallocate among the subcommittees. Despite this infusion of money, the Interior Subcommittee's fiscal year 1997 budget authority is still $482 million less than last year. Is this fair and equitable? Probably not. But what's important is not what we don't have. What is significant is what we did with the money we were provided. The fiscal year 1997 Interior appropriations bill reflects increases for our national parks, for Everglades restoration, for forest health-- specifically, fire management and research, for USGS earthquake research and cooperative water research, and we provide $4 million for a clean streams initiative. We have also increased or maintained fiscal year 1996 funding levels for native American programs like the vital and multipurpose tribal priority allocations account, Indian education, Indian health, and increased the funding levels of major cultural institutions like the Smithsonian, the Holocaust Museum, the Kennedy Center, and the National Gallery of Art. We have attempted to ensure that sufficient funds are available to fulfill our responsibilities as stewards of this Nation's natural treasures. Did some agencies incur funding reductions or program terminations? Absolutely. But this was necessary for us to keep our commitment to the American people that we would exercise fiscal responsibility and balance the Federal budget in 7 years. All told, this bill saves the American taxpayers almost $500 million. Let's not fool each other about what is going to happen. Several amendments will be offered to increase the funding levels for various programs and agencies. Members will speak with great conviction about the merits of these programs, and in many instances they'll be right. But I've said it before, and it needs to be said again. The appropriations process is not about numbers. It's not about whether we spend $12.1 billion--as this bill recommends--or $13.1 billion. It's not even about whether we cut a program, whether we increase a program, or whether we eliminate a program. This bill and the other appropriations bills working their way through the legislative process is an opportunity for Congress, and our political parties, to make a philosophical statement about the direction we believe this country should be going. It is an opportunity for us to say something about where we think our future is. It's an opportunity for each party in Congress to set forth its vision for America; its hopes, its dreams for our future, and for our children's future. Mr. Chairman, in its entirety, this appropriations bill reflects this vision. When you dissect and place the funding level of each program, each agency and each line item under a microscope you won't get a true indication of the overall picture. But if you step back and look at this bill in its entirely, keeping in mind that these numbers reflect a promise we made to our children--the promise that we would no longer burden them with our fiscally irresponsible actions--then you get a clearer perspective. This appropriations bill is not perfect. But I believe it reflects a thoughtful and balanced approach given this Nation's $5 trillion debt. I urge all of my colleagues to support its passage. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs]. Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Chairman, I want to start out by paying tribute to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula], the chairman of the subcommittee, who has been a joy to work with throughout the process of shaping this bill. He is invariably willing to listen and try his best to accommodate in a bipartisan fashion the interests of other members of the subcommittee, and I am proud to serve on his subcommittee. I wish that I could transfer all of the enthusiasm that I feel about Mr. Regula personally to the legislative product that we have before us this afternoon. I am afraid that probably the best thing I can do is to say it is better than last year's bill. But last year's bill, as we all recall, had some problems. Just to get what I think is the appropriate framework, this Interior appropriations bill is the primary way that this Congress and this country makes a statement about the precious responsibility we have as stewards of the country's natural and cultural resources. So it really is a very important indication of what is important to us as a people. In that context, I am afraid that this bill does not meet the fundamental responsibilities we in Congress have to protect and preserve those very vital natural and cultural resources which we all are proud to claim as citizens of this country. There is an increase in many of the accounts, as the gentleman's opening comments indicated, over last year's levels, but we are still falling behind. Even with, for instance, the increase for the Park Service, we are not keeping up with the increasing backlog of deferred maintenance which is showing itself, whether in my home area at Rocky Mountain National Park, with trails being closed and visitor services being curtailed, or as is being repeated elsewhere around the country. One of the bill's more serious shortcomings has to do with the energy conservation and efficiency efforts. If we are so shortsighted as to fail to appreciate the threat to this country's national security and its economic security by continuing our profligate ways on energy, we are going to be in very, very sad shape. I will have an amendment later on that addresses this point to a modest degree, far from curing what I think are real shortcomings in that part of the bill. I wish as well that we could find the wherewithal to do the honor that we should as a Nation to our work in the humanities and the arts. The funding levels for both of those endowments are way below what American civilization ought to dedicate to the furtherance of the humanities and the arts and I regret that very much. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Utah [Mr. Hansen], the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Lands of the Committee on Resources. (Mr. HANSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. HANSEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this appropriations bill and recognize the great work that the gentleman from Ohio, Chairman Regula, has done and the many of us who have spend hours talking to him about this. I notice that people talk about an increase in payment in lieu of taxes. I hope that Members realize what this is. Out in the West, many of us are owned by the Federal Government. In the little county of Garfield, you take, for example, 93 percent is owned by the Federal Government. All these folks from around the world and especially the East come out there and they want to play, and they want to look at things and fish, hunt, camp, et cetera. So we are saying, pay your share, if you will. They are the ones that put the debris down that has to be picked up. They are the ones that start the fires. They are the ones that find themselves breaking a leg and you have to go out and take care of them. All we are saying is pay your share. So I commend the gentleman for adding money to payment in lieu of taxes. They also tell us where to put it in wilderness, how to use it for grazing, what we can mine and cut. We are saying if you are going to tell us how to run it, at least pay a little bit. I also hope the Members realized over the past year there has been sensational news stories about closure of [[Page H6545]] park facilities, resulting from dramatically increased visitation to national parks and cuts in park budgets. Actually, this is a result of disinformation, Mr. Chairman, on the part of the Secretary of Interior. Contrary to what you have heard, and I could name the cities and towns that this has been said, including the President of the United States, including the Secretary of Interior, that the Republicans are going to close parks, that there is a list of 312 parks somewhere. Let me tell you, as chairman of that committee, there is no list. H.R. 260 has no place in it, absolutely no place, where it closes one single park. I stand in the well and would eat the bill if someone could tell me where it closed one park. It does not do anything like that. However, that does not stop the Secretary of Interior from engaging in this partisan politics, going on fishing trips on Government time and running partisan things when he should be running his department. There are two indisputable facts: First, is visitation to parks have been flat for nearly a decade. Second, funding for parks has dramatically increased in recent years. The fact is increased funding for parks has been supported by both Democratic and Republican administrations in Congress. As a direct result of the effort of Chairman Regula, and before him Chairman Yates, annual base funding for parks has risen from $394 to $666 million in the last 7 years, an increase of 69 percent. As GAO has testified before my subcommittee last year, these increases have far outpaced inflation. Meanwhile, total visitation to parks has remained flat for a decade. In fact, total park visitation last year was, do you know, about 5 percent from its peak year of 1988. Using two parks as illustrations, Zion in Utah and Yosemite in California, funding increases have far outpaced both of these. These facts have not stopped Secretary Babbitt from saying we are shutting those down. The park newspaper at Yellowstone Park declares the park facilities were closed due to budget shortfalls. Last winter during the lapse in appropriations, Secretary Babbitt shut down all the parks and concession facilities, even though the parks reported they actually had more rangers on duty during the shutdowns than before. Meanwhile, the Forest Service, also without a budget, did not shut down a single ski area, outfitter, or any other concessionaire on Forest Service lands. They continued to welcome the public, and for that I salute Secretary Glickman. Overall budget cuts at the Forest Service have been much higher, but that agency has sought out innovative ways to continue to serve the public. Rather than shut down its campgrounds, the Forest Service contracted them out to the private sector. Secretary Glickman has contracted out 70 percent of Forest Service campgrounds to the private sector this year. That provides for a vivid contrast with Secretary Babbitt, who runs around the country complaining about budget shortfalls. Mr. Chairman, I think we need a Secretary who puts protecting and managing our parks above politics. Mr. Chairman, I would urge support of this good piece of legislation. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio]. Mr. FAZIO of California. Mr. Chairman, as we consider this very important bill, I think it is important that we revisit the issue of the timber salvage rider that was part of the rescissions bill last year. While I felt at the time that it was important to address the problem of dead and dying trees, and the issue of forest health in general, in hindsight it was clear we dealt with it in too much haste. I did not vote on the Yates amendment when it was considered on the floor last year because I was with my wife at the hospital while she had minor surgery. I did vote for the bill on final passage, however, both because it helped to provide disaster relief to California and because it had the administration's support. At the time I think few Members of Congress were aware that the salvage timber rider allowed section 318 timber sales to be reinstated as well. If they had been aware of the deficiency, I do not think this rider would have gotten through. The 1990 section 318 sales were intended to allow the development of a compromise in the Northwest but they did not succeed and were halted due to environmental concerns. These sales only affect old growth timber. The issue of salvage timber--or the attempt to glean the forest of dead or dying trees particularly after drought periods like the one recently in California--is a different concern altogether. To my knowledge, these two issues were never intended to be intermingled. Fortunately, the Appeals Court has stepped in to stop the expedited 318 sales of old growth trees so we will have a chance to deal with option 9 in a responsible manner. Given the vagueness of the definition of salvage timber, it was not unexpected that this provision could be ill used to harvest healthy trees. We should not have gone forward with the salvage timber rider without tightening up how the Forest Service implemented the program in the first place. In practice, the program allowed for more than dead and dying trees to be cut. For those of us in this Congress who see a real threat to forest health and who have a strong desire to find the appropriate solution, the salvage timber rider simply went too far. Instead of merely allowing the timber companies some flexibility in helping to prevent future wildfires, those pursuing a different agenda took advantage of the opportunity and sought to cut health trees and old growth timber as well. I would like to cite an example of how such sales can be extremely detrimental. Recently in my district the Forest Service sought to reinstate the Barkley timber sale in the Lassen National Forest. I personally appealed to the Department of Agriculture to stop the sale because it would have seriously unraveled the cooperative local efforts among landowners, conservationists, and government officials to produce a collaborative strategy for resource management. In particular, the Quincy Library Group is a broad-based organization which worked hard to come to an agreement on timber harvests in the Sierra Nevadas. The Barkley timber sale would have jeopardized that carefully balanced effort. In response to my concern, the sale was stopped. We must seek an appropriate balance in identifying solutions that will work overtime. I support the amendment before us to restore environmental review to the timber salvage process. We need to provide a check to the extreme actions being undertaken under the guise of harvesting dead and dying trees. We need to come up with a definition of salvage similar to those that have been introduced by Members of both bodies, but which have yet to become law. Mr. Chairman, this is an important issue that hopefully can be not only debated clearly today, but resolved once and for all, so the Congress can send a clear message about how it wants to deal with the issue of forest health. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. FAZIO of California. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, does the gentleman recognize that it is the Secretary of Agriculture that has to approve these sales that he is discussing in his remarks? I think that is an important point. It is the administration's Secretary that is doing it. Mr. FAZIO of California. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, typically they are really approved at the forest level. I think typically these decisions are made by Forest Service personnel at the regional level. They of course come from many different perspectives on these issues. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield further, in drafting the regulation, we did not spell out that the Secretary in effect has approval responsibility. So I think that is an important element that we should just bring to the attention of our colleagues in discussing this question. Mr. FAZIO of California. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I think the key is to come up with a definition of dead and dying trees that would warrant a salvage operation. The gentleman from California [Mr. Condit] had proposed, for example, 70 percent. If we had that kind of clarity in the law, then we would not have the problem of green trees being cut in some areas and the program working perhaps more appropriately in other areas. [[Page H6546]] {time} 1245 And, of course, the 318 inclusion, which occurred in the Senate during the conference, was very much a troubling aspect for people across the spectrum who were interested in the forest health issue. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Taylor], a very fine member of our subcommittee. Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula], the staff of the committee, and the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks], and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Yates], for the bill that has been put together. I think it is an outstanding bill, as has been said on the floor. So far, it does recognize many areas in forest health and it recognizes areas of park maintenance. It is probably the largest effort that has been made toward maintenance that we have had in a long time, and that is especially important in a time when there is so much pressure on reducing the budget. I would like, though, as a member of the committee and a sponsor of the timber salvage bill, to correct some misstatements. A lot of the organizations outside that have never understood this legislation, never really cared about forest health, have been trying to promote its demise. First of all, the 318 legislation that was put in by the Senate, as the gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio] indicated earlier, will expire September 30 of this year, so it is pretty much a moot question. As he mentioned a moment ago, the sales that people in that region felt were a problem, they have appealed. The court has spoken in this area and that is going to be pretty well handled, and there is no reason to address it on this floor at all. As it deals with salvage, to say that this language ought to be changed or we should have used this language is to fail to understand that the salvage language used in the timber salvage bill was the identical salvage language that has been used for years in the Forest Service's procedure in salvaging timber. It was only a few years ago that environmental organizations decided they needed to move another step forward and stop cutting in the national forest, as they have openly now said they want to do, and they put in a provision against salvage timber at the time. We simply removed that provision with the salvage amendment. The language is the same, that has never been contested over the years, as was used by the Forest Service. Second, to talk about its being used abusively, there is not one single case, and I challenge anyone to come with me, an it is hard to do on the floor, but I challenge anyone to come with me and prove there is a single case where that has been abused. And the final point is that green trees, when we are trying to wipe out disease and insects, for instance, with insects, the green tree is the host tree of the insect; it is a peripheral area just around the dead trees. If all we were cutting were the dead trees when we try to wipe out insects, we would never cut that out because the insect has already moved on to a living tree. So we have to come around to a peripheral area to get rid of the insects. And if we do not get rid of the insect, it will take the entire forest. And that was the reason for the salvage bill; it was for forest health. So I think the legislation has been misunderstood. We will address it more specifically in the debate, but it is a good piece of legislation that has worked well. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Doyle]. Mr. DOYLE. Mr. Chairman, I want to acknowledge the efforts of the gentleman from Ohio, Chairman Regula, and the ranking member, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Yates, for the bill they bring before us today. They have done their best to protect a wide variety of important programs in a difficult budgetary climate. While there are many parts of this legislation I support, there is one in particular that I want to highlight, and that is the Department of Energy's fossil energy R During the debate today many Members will come to floor and seek to plus up other accounts at the expense of fossil energy. While I do not necessarily disagree with the programs they seek to plus up, I believe that their efforts to cut fossil energy are misguided at best. As you can see from this chart, the Energy Information Agency has predicted that 20 years from now, we will still be dependent on fossil energy for 89 percent of our energy needs. Since this will still be the primary source of our energy supply, it make sense to pursue technological advancements that will allow us to make better use of these fuels. There is one area which I wish had received greater funding than is in the bill, and that is energy conservation R For the same reasons that I support fossil R, I think it is important that we maintain a strong commitment to conservation R, as they deal with improving combustion-based energy. However, I will oppose efforts to raise the conservation line at the expense of fossil. I believe that such efforts are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of these two programs. Those who propose to increase conservation by reducing fossil are proposing no net gain for meeting our energy needs, they only move funds from one good program to another. The only difference is the name ``conservation'' sounds more politically-correct than fossil. I realize that because fossil fuels have been around for awhile, that there is a tendency to think that the utilization technologies have been improved to their maximum. If this logic was applied to nuclear R, you would come to the conclusion that since atoms haven't changed since the beginning of time, that there is no more work to be done in this area. Or in the case of renewables, since wind has been around since the formation of the planet, we shouldn't fund wind energy research. While these arguments make no sense, neither does the argument that we should cut fossil R, because they are currently in use. We are not talking about the fuel, but the way in which it is used. The Department of Energy, should be praised for the way in which they have managed to live within the confines of last years Interior Appropriations bill, which calls for a 10 percent reduction per year for the next 4 years. This is allowing for a gradual phase-out of the fossil energy program, without throwing away tax dollars already invested in research projects that yet to be completed. The amendments being offered to reduce fossil are being offered by those who either don't understand or don't care about the way their proposals will impact our energy security. I urge Members to oppose them all, as fossil energy should not be penalized with further reductions for adhering to its downsizing plan. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs], a member of the full Committee on Appropriations. Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Ohio, Chairman Regula, for yielding me this time, and I look forward to the debate coming up. Colleagues, first of all, in this very brief 2 minutes, I want to address something the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks] said during debate on the rule. He said that my amendment in the full Committee on Appropriations last week to prohibit the Fish and Wildlife Service from enforcing the critical habitat designation for the marbled murrelet on private lands, privately owned property, would render the marbeled murrelet extinct in northern California. The question I have for Mr. Dicks is, when was the last time he visited us in northwest California? Because that critical habitat designation in my district alone, and this goes to the gentleman's staffer, too, who wrote his remarks, in my district alone this critical habitat designation applies to 693,000 acres in Humboldt, Del Norte, and Mendocino Counties, and that breaks down as follows: 477,300 acres in Six Rivers National Forest, Federal property; Redwood National Park; the King Range National Conservation Area; and some parcels of Bureau of Land Management land. That is all federally owned property. And, in addition to that, the critical habitat designation applies to the 175,000 acres of State land, including State redwood parks, the Sinkyone [[Page H6547]] Wilderness State Park, and some Mendocino State parks. I am talking about protecting the property rights of 10 private property owners, 10 private property owners who own 32,000 acres in Humboldt County, the largest county in my congressional district. Some of those property owners are here today. They are not just timber companies, by the way. Some of them are longtime ranching and farming families, properties that have been in the hands of these families for generations, such as the Gift family, 501 acres designated critical habitat, taken without just compensation to the Gift family; the Bowers family, 156 acres taken without just compensation to the Bowers family; Harold Crabtree, his entire 254-acre ranch taken without just compensation from the Federal Government. So I conclude, 99 percent of this critical habitat designation is on public lands. We are talking about the final 1 percent, the remaining 1 percent, that is privately owned property. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 6 minutes. I would say to my distinguished friend from California that I, too, represent an area that has been as affected as any in the country by listings under the Endangered Species Act, and my approach has been to try to work with the private companies and the State of Washington in order to get them to enter into a multispecies habitat conservation plan, an agreement between the Fish and Wildlife Service and the private company to protect the species on the private property lands and to help in the conservation effort. For that, they get 100 years of certainty. Now, I checked yesterday with the Fish and Wildlife Service and asked them about the company involved here, and whether they had seriously attempted to negotiate a multispecies HCP, and the answer was a resounding no. Now, that is the way for the gentleman to solve his problem, to sit down with his company and with the Fish and Wildlife Service and try to get them to work out on a voluntary basis a multispecies HCP. That is how the Endangered Species Act allows one to get the incidental take permit that is necessary. Let me just also say to my friend from California, even with a critical habitat listing, the company still can log. All it cannot do is have a taking of a species that is either threatened or endangered, and so they can use this private property. I just want to make that point. If he is going to have a taking, the only way he can get around a taking is to have an incidental take permit. And the way one gets an incidental take permit, a large private landowner, is to do it by negotiating a multispecies HCP. I have worked with the Murray Pacific Co., Plum Creek, Weyerhaeuser, the major timber companies in the Northwest, to get them to do that. What the gentleman is doing today by walking into the full committee and offering an exemption for one large lumber company in his district is not only undermining the Endangered Species Act, but he is undermining my efforts and the efforts of other Members of Congress who are trying to work with their private timber companies to get them to do these multispecies HCP's. I am sure the gentleman has a different interpretation of his intent, but the bottom line is, this is what is occurring. So I am urging my colleagues today to join with me in striking out the Riggs amendment, and I urge the gentleman to go back and do it the old-fashioned way, to sit down and get a multispecies HCP through the Fish and Wildlife Service. Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. DICKS. I yield to the gentleman from California. Mr. RIGGS. First of all, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding, and I want to give him an opportunity to respond to the point I made that we are talking about 10 property owners. Mr. DICKS. But the gentleman would admit that the predominant landowner here is the Pacific Lumber Co.; is that not right? Mr. RIGGS. If the gentleman would continue to yield, I would not stipulate to that. We are talking about nine other private property owners, some of which are---- Mr. DICKS. But the Pacific Lumber Co. has 33,000 acres. Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would give me an opportunity to finish, there are nine property owners who own collectively 8,000 acres. And I am going to introduce in the debate to come, on the gentleman's motion to strike, letters from these property owners that say they have never had a single contact from the Fish and Wildlife Service. Not once. The properties have not been inspected. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I take back my time. The gentleman knows fully if they have a species on their property, it is their responsibility. They do not have to do it, but if they do not do it, they do not get an incidental take permit. If they want to risk taking a species without an incidental take permit, then they will violate the Endangered Species Act. The way to do it is to go in and enter into an agreement. Now, in many cases, small landowners are given, as a matter of course, an incidental take permit. It is the large landowner that is asked to do the multispecies HCP. {time} 1300 In this case, the company involved did not negotiate in good faith to get a multispecies HCP. If they had done that and they were willing to do that on all the lands that they own in this area that the gentleman's amendment affects, I am told by the Fish and Wildlife Service that they would have bent over backwards to try to enter into such an agreement. The facts are that they came in and made it very clear from the very first instant that what they wanted to do was to file a lawsuit that would raise the issue of a constitutional taking. That is, in fact, what they did. And in fact the Federal judge, Judge Rothstein, is the one who directed the Fish and Wildlife Service to designate critical habitat. In this instance, 78 percent of the critical habitat was on Federal lands, and only 1 percent was on the private lands. In my judgment, the only reason it is on the private land is because the area involved is crucial to the survival of the spotted owl in that area. So I would just say to the gentleman from California, not only in this amendment is he undermining the Endangered Species Act, he is also threatening the survival of the marbled murrelet. There are a lot of fishermen who have written me saying, please oppose the Riggs amendment. They are fearful that, if we do not protect the marbled murrelet and it becomes endangered rather than threatened under the Federal law, even more onerous restrictions will be put on the fishermen in my colleague's area as well. Now, I sympathize with the gentleman from California. He and I have worked on things together in the past, but what I do not like here is what he is doing. By coming in here and getting a specific exemption, it is undermining all of the rest of us who are trying to get our private companies to do the right thing by entering into a multispecies HCP. That is what the gentleman should be doing, not coming here and undermining the Endangered Species Act, threatening the marbled murrelet and threatening the old growth in this particular area which is crucial to the survival of the marbled murrelet. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Jersey [Mrs. Roukema]. Mrs. ROUKEMA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I want to thank him for his hard work in bringing this bill to the floor. These are very difficult issues. As we have heard by the previous speakers, the chairman has had to deal with situations where there are very meritorious but competing interests. I think he has done an admirable job here. But I rise today to revise and extend my remarks with respect to an issue that is of paramount importance here to us in the State of New Jersey. Included in this legislation is the Sterling Forest issue, which is located in my district. It is being put in this legislation as one of the Nation's top two priorities for land acquisitions. This legislation recommends that Sterling Forest receive $9 million as a downpayment on the Federal Government's purchase price. [[Page H6548]] I want to point out, by the way, I thank the chairman. He and I have worked for a number of years on this together. I do appreciate his cooperation and his commitment to this particular project. I also want to point out that the Speaker this last March visited our State and Sterling Forest and has made a commitment that he would see to it this year that this would be accomplished. However, although this is an important step, it is a significant step. It strictly undermines the contention that I have had from the beginning, which is that time is of the essence and that Sterling Forest owners cannot be expected to wait forever, even though they are willing in a willing compromise, a negotiated compromise to deal with the Federal Government. But I must point out here that, even though this is set as a priority under this authorization, not only is time of the essence but we must not lose sight of the fact that we need authorization for this to be effective. This Sterling Forest is not yet authorized. I will be pressing ahead with every fiber of my being to see to it that it gets authorized in the very near future. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Nevada [Mrs. Vucanovich], an excellent member of our subcommittee. Mrs. VUCANOVICH. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 3662, the fiscal year 1997 Interior and related agencies appropriations bill. This bill is $482 million below last year's funding and within our budget allocation. Given the need to reduce Federal spending, and the resulting lower funding allocation the subcommittee and full Appropriations Committee is working under this year, this is a good bill, and I commend Chairman Regula and his staff for putting this measure together. H.R, 3662 represents the tough choices that have to be made if we are going to get spending under control. So while I call it a good bill and urge all of my colleagues to support the bill, I also recognize that there is something in here for everyone to dislike. It is impossible to both cut spending and to fund everything that all of us would like to fund. On the other hand, compared to last year, H.R. 3662 increases funding for operating our National Park System by $55 million; it increases forest health initiatives like pest suppression and wildfire management by $72 million; and it allows $52 million more for Native American programs than last year. Mr. Chairman, on balance, this bill represents a tremendous effort to balance spending cuts with stewardship of our natural resources. I urge a ``yes'' vote. Mr. YATES. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, this is a very good bill. I hope the Members will take a good look at it, especially the amendments, as we go along. We will accept some, but we will have to resist a number of them. We want to finish the bill today, and we want to move along as quickly as possible. Mr. POSHARD. Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned about the numerous amendments, notably the Farr, Walker, and Richardson amendments, in the Interior appropriations bill for fiscal year 1997 that cut valuable funding of up to $138 million for the Department of Energy's Fossil Energy Research and Development Program. We hear a great deal today about how the United States has become overly dependent on foreign sources of oil. A main reason for this is because over the past decade strict limitations have been put on the burning of certain types of coal. These moneys address such crucial energy issues by enabling research into vital clean coal technology, as well as ways to increase domestic oil and gas production. In addition, programs such as the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council that provide for the transfer of technology between independent producers would be eliminated. Rural economies have been especially hard hit by the limitations on coal, and the decreased production of oil and natural gas. In my district alone, thousands of people employed in these industries have been affected, whether they are displaced coal miners or small oil companies that can no longer afford to operate. These citizens represent the backbone of our domestic energy production, and stand ready to provide alternative energy options to foreign petroleum. In Illinois, the Fossil Energy Research and Development Program will account for almost 30,000 jobs in the first decade of the next century. Moreover, the budget for fossil energy programs has already been cut 10.5 percent from last year's levels, and 30 percent from fiscal year 1995. Hence, these amendments would seriously endanger the future of energy development in this country, as well as many local economies. I urge all of my colleagues to retain funding for this important research. Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Chairman, I ask permission to revise and extend my remarks. I rise today in support of the funding in this bill for California Natural Communities Conservation Planning [NCCP] program. The fiscal year 1997 Interior appropriations bill, which will be considered by the subcommittee this afternoon, contains $5 million for the program. I would also like to support the amendment offered by my California colleague Rep. Ken Calvert. His amendment will shift $1 million from the Forest Service General Administration Account to the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund. By cutting bureaucracy, the Calvert amendment will further our goals for protecting and preserving sensitive species in southern California. The NCCP pilot program in southern California is the Nation's most advanced cooperative approach. The program was initiated 5 years ago as an attempt to create a multispecies approach to preserving species. By increasing funding in the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund, Rep. Calvert's amendment will help us to fund the NCCP at the administration's requested level. Even in a time of unprecedented fiscal constraints, I would like to commend Interior Subcommittee Chairman Ralph Regula for recognizing the merit of this process and supporting the program. The NCCP represents the future of conservation, and it is a giant leap forward over the historical project-by-project, command and control methods of most environmental strategies. The system we have in place now sets us up for confrontation, conflict, and gridlock. The NCCP will replace that system and create a framework for comprehensive conservation planning to protect natural resources and sensitive species in southern California while allowing for reasonable growth. The NCCP is part of a collaborative effort between Federal, State, and local officials, as well as land owners and environmental groups. The planning process' goal is to protect a variety of species and sensitive natural habitats, to prevent the need to list other species in the future as endangered, and allow growth and economic development to occur in balance with sound resource conservation. The NCCP includes conservation and development plans for nine separate areas within the southern California planning region. Again, I urge support of the Calvert amendment, and final passage of this bill. Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased that Chairman Regula and the Appropriations Committee has included in the fiscal year 1997 Interior appropriations bill $4.58 million in reimbursement to Guam for the costs incurred as a result of the Compacts of Free Association. These compacts with the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau, allow open and free migration to the United States. Of course, Guam receives the greatest share of this migration which puts a tremendous strain on our local resources and this impact continues to grow. Guam is geographically located closest to these new nations. Their economies are less developed than Guam's, and for many of their citizens, the economic

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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1997
(House of Representatives - June 19, 1996)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages H6537-H6607] [[Page H6537]] DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1997 The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 455 and rule XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 3662. {time} 1209 in the committee of the whole Accordingly the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 3662) making appropriations for the Department of the Interior and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1997, and for other purposes, with Mr. Burton of Indiana in the chair. The Clerk read the title of the bill. The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as having been read the first time. Under the rule, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula] and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Yates] will each control 30 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula]. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me say at the outset, Mr. Chairman, that the gentleman from Illinois and myself have worked closely on this bill along with the other members of our subcommittee. I think we bring to the Members today a very responsible bill given the fiscal constraints. I would point out the chart that is in the well demonstrates that we appropriate a total of about $12 billion and save the taxpayers, save future generations $500 million plus the interest that they would have to pay on that money. But at the same time we take care of the things that are vitally important and that people care about in this country, our public lands, in many instances, the parks, the forests, the fish and wildlife facilities, the grazing lands managed by the BLM. They are the jewels of this Nation and I think we have a great responsibility to manage these facilities and this resource well so that we can leave it as a legacy to future generations. I would like to start by giving some little known facts about this bill. Let me start with the Forest Service. The National Forest System covers 8 percent of all the land in America. Of all the land, 8 percent is in national forests. The national forests produce 55 percent of the water for 16 western States. I think that is a significant fact. Fifty- five percent of the water that they use for irrigation, for municipal water supplies, for the many, many purposes, for industrial uses, 55 percent of that in the 16 western States comes from our public lands. Three hundred million recreational visitors to the Forest Service lands every year, 300 million Americans enjoyed these lands. Half of the Nation's ski lift capacity is on forest land. For those that like to ski undoubtedly if you have gone out in the western States, you have been on public lands. Half of the Nation's big game and cold water fish habitat is on the national forest lands. With respect to timber harvest, I might say there has been a lot of concern about the fact that we have been excessively harvesting timber, recognizing the importance of it for multiple use, recognizing the importance of timber lands in providing water supply, that we might be doing too much. But let me point out that we are on a downward glide path. We harvested 11 billion board feet, in 1990. It this bill today it provides for 4.3 billion board feet, almost one-third of what we were allowing in 1990. I think it is a recognition that the national forests have far greater value in terms of multiple use and in terms of our watershed than perhaps just for timber harvest. Little known facts is the Department of Energy. Fossil energy research focuses on cleaning up the environment and reducing energy consumption. We hear a lot about clean air and clean water and how important these are to our Nation and to the people in our society. Well, the fossil energy program is directed right at that need and the importance of cleaning up the environment. Low emission boilers will reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by 80 percent once we develop the technology. I mention these things because during the course of handling this bill, there will be an amendment to reduce-- maybe several--to reduce our fossil energy commitment in terms of research, but keep in mind, any vote to cut fossil research, and we have already reduced it considerably, a vote to do that is a vote against the environment, it is a vote against reducing energy consumption. Advanced turbine systems will dramatically reduce emissions and reduce energy consumption while supporting 100,000 high-paying U.S. jobs and the export of 3 billion dollars' worth of technology. We hear a lot about the balance of payments. Again, a vote to reduce the fossil budget and I think the gentleman from California [Mr. Brown] addressed it well during the rule debate, is a vote against increasing exports, it is a vote against U.S. jobs, against cleaning up our environment. I would point out also in the Office of Surface Mining in the bill, we fund $4 million for a new Appalachian clean streams. Again, an effort to clean up the water to preserve this resource for the future. Public lands, Interior and the Forest Service, are about one-third of the Nation's land mass. We manage it for clean waters and for open space and we try to preserve as much as possible the pristine values of our wilderness lands, [[Page H6538]] the vast wetland and forests that naturally cleanse the water and the air and replenish the aquifers. {time} 1215 But at the same time, Mr. Chairman, as evident by the charts up here, we are also recognizing that part of our legacy to future generations should not only be clean air, clean water, a land mass that can be enjoyed in terms of parks and forests and fish and wildlife facilities and the BLM lands, but at the same time, we are reducing the amount of expenditures. It points out in the chart that we are recommending $12 billion. While expending $12 billion, we are reducing spending by $500 million under 1996 and $1.5 billion under 1995. At the same time, we will increase national park operations by $55 million; national wildlife refuge operations by $18 million; native American programs by $52 million; forest health by $72 million; and Smithsonian and other cultural institutions by $16 million. While doing that, we cut $114 million from energy programs. We cut $25 million from Washington and regional bureaucracy. We are getting people out of Washington and into the field, and we are also moving the expenditure of administrative-type funds out to the field where the problems need to be solved. As can be noted from the chart, the $114 million cut in energy programs has already been taken. So let me again caution all of the Members, evaluate the amendments that will be proposed that would do harm to our energy programs. They are vitally important for the future of this Nation, both in terms of clean water, in terms of clean air, and in terms of reducing our dependency on other nations outside the United States for energy. I think if Members look at the numbers, they will realize that probably in terms of petroleum, we are importing over one-half of our usage and we need to become more energy independent. We have tried to maintain the programs that are vitally important to the Nation's future. I would mention the same thing in terms of being responsible to the native American programs. We have treaty obligations. We have rights that were generated in the historical development of Indian programs, so we have had to increase those by $52 million over 1996. We put the money in these areas: $10 million for tribal priority allocations, $10 million for Indian school operations, $20 million for new hospital staffing, and $12 million for health care professionals. I would mention these things, Mr. Chairman, because under our treaty obligations, we have a responsibility for health, for education, and for the tribal priority needs. We have tried to address these in our bill. In terms of forest health, and I reemphasize a point I made earlier, and that is that in the western States, 55 percent of their water comes from forest lands. A healthy forest is important to their future in terms of having clean water, in terms of having adequate water supplies. To recognize those forest health problems, we have increased by $72 million the overall program, $16.5 in forest health management, $40 million in wildfire preparation and prescribed burns, and $10.5 million for thinning and vegetation improvement. We have had $4 million for road maintenance and reconstruction and $1 million for Forest Service research. We recognize, as in the case with energy, that knowledge is very important, that knowledge in managing forests or parks or any of the public lands becomes an important element. We have maintained the United States Geologic Survey at last year's level because that is the science arm of the Department of the Interior. In terms of the Everglades, we added $13 million for scientific research because we recognize that we are going to embark on a major program to undo some of the great mistakes of the past; but to do that in a responsible way, we need to have good science. Therefore we, as a starter in restoring the Everglades, put a large increase in the funding for the Everglades research and science that will go with that. I think when we look at the total bill, it is a responsible, commonsense approach to challenges. We all treasure the public lands and what it means to the quality of life in this country, and we have tried to recognize that. We have avoided programs, starting new programs that have high downstream costs, because both sides of the aisle, starting with the President, are committed to getting the budget deficit under control; and to do that, we have to avoid programs, we have to avoid acquiring facilities that have big costs downstream because we need to continue this effort to manage the programs as well as possible. So, Mr. Chairman, I certainly say to all of my colleagues, I hope that they will give this bill their consideration. I hope they will take time to understand what we have tried to do here. It is a nonpartisan bill. When it came to doing projects, we have an even balance between Members on each side of the aisle. In the subcommittee, we had very little partisanship. We worked as a team to try to use the resources that were allocated to us to do the best possible job of managing this marvelous resource called forests and parks, and so on, in the way that is constructive for the American people and that we can be proud of as far as a legacy to future generations. I urge all the Members to give us the support that we need and deserve on this bill. Mr. Chairman, I include for the Record the table detailing the various accounts in the bill. The information referred to is as follows: [[Page H6539]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH19JN96.000 [[Page H6540]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH19JN96.001 [[Page H6541]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH19JN96.002 [[Page H6542]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH19JN96.003 [[Page H6543]] Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. YATES. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I honor my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio, Ralph Regula, for this hard work and his very great diligence in formulating this bill. It could have been a much better bill, if we only had the money that is required to do the job properly. To properly care for the vast natural resources of the United States and the magnificent museums and galleries which are funded in this bill, money is needed, and that money has not been allocated to us in the 602(b) allocation. For some reason, Interior continues to be the stepchild of the 602(b) bosses. This bill has been saddled with many burdens. We have been forced to take a cut of $482 million in our 602(b) allocation, which comes on top of the $1.1 billion reduction this bill enjoyed in the previous fiscal year. To add insult to injury, this malnourished bill had two legislative riders foisted on it in the full Committee on Appropriations. One deals with native American taxation, the other deals with the endangered marbled murrelet. Mr. Chairman, the first rider added by the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Istook], will effectively cripple the ability of many native American tribes to operate successful retail establishments, like gas stations or convenience stores, on their property by forcing native American tribes, who are sovereign under the decisions of the Supreme Court and under treaties established with the United States to charge State sales taxes at their establishment. The second troubling rider was added by the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs], and deals with protection of the endangered marbled murrelet. The Riggs amendment was precipitated by a court ruling that ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service to designate areas in California, Oregon, and Washington as critical habitat for the elusive seabird. What the Riggs provision seeks to do is to prevent the Fish and Wildlife Service from enforcing this designation on private lands in California. Not only does this ill-conceived provision set a dangerous precedent for suspending the Endangered Species Act, but it could very well lead to the extinction of the marbled murrelet in the Headwaters forest. Mr. Chairman, even our full committee chairman, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], recognizes that these riders could sink the Interior bill. That is why he voted against both of them in committee. Our good friend, the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Boelhert] has also been quoted as saying these riders present real problems for floor consideration. Inclusion of these riders is especially ironic in light of an article that ran in the Washington Post on Monday with the headline, ``GOP Buffs environmental Image''. If the Republican Party seeks to improve its environmental image, then they can join us in striking the marbled murrelet rider. Mr. Chairman, the legislative riders are not the only problem with this bill, and while the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula] did his best to minimize the pain of our reduced allocation, there are major problems with the funding of this bill, critical problems which I cite. For example, funding for the National Park Service has been cut by $40,095,000. Funding for the Fish and Wildlife Service is down by $19,200,000. Funding for vital agency support from Interior Departmental management has been punitively cut by $3,221,000. Funding for the Forest Service has been reduced by $56,281,000. Funding for energy efficiency programs are cut by $37,519,000. Funding for low- income weatherization is cut out by another $11,764,000. Funding for Indian health service facilities has been reduced by $11,257,000. Funding for the Smithsonian Institution has been decreased by $8,700,000. Funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities has been cut by $5,506,000. At the same time that important programs are being cut, other nonessential accounts have been increased, including an increase in corporate welfare for the timber industry in the form of an additional $14 million over the fiscal year 1996 amount for timber roads and timber sale management and $12 million over the administration request for the PILT program. Finally, I want to express my support for the funding contained in this bill for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities. The issue of funding the endowments has long been very controversial in this bill. The funding that is in this bill is the result of the agreement that was reached last year by the members of the Republican Party to continue the NEA for 2 years and the NEH for 3 years. Given these austere budgets, representing a cut of nearly 40 percent for each agency from fiscal year 1995, I hope my colleagues will oppose any amendment to cut or eliminate additional funding for the endowments. Mr. Chairman, in closing, I want to commend my chairman, my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio, Ralph Regula, for his hard work, for his friendship, for his warm association and for his cooperation. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, just a footnote. I concede that we have reduced some of these programs, but it was land acquisition, construction of things that have downstream costs, and the only way we can save money is to cut spending. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Kolbe], a very able member of our subcommittee. Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I want to voice my support for the Interior appropriations bill which is before us today and add my thanks to both the chairman and the ranking minority member and their staffs for the work that they have done on this. Mr. Chairman, you are going to hear a lot of concerns expressed here today, some in support of this, some in adamant opposition to the bill. But, before we take too seriously some of the expressions of discontent, we should all be aware of the budget parameters under which our subcommittee was operating. {time} 1230 Our initial 602(b) allocation was $1.1 billion below fiscal year 1996 funding levels. That is $1.1 billion below. Fortunately, when the House approved the budget resolution, we found there was an additional $3.9 billion of discretionary funding which the Committee on Appropriations was able to reallocate among the subcommittees. Despite this infusion of money, the Interior Subcommittee's fiscal year 1997 budget is still $482 million less than last year. Is this fair and equitable? Perhaps it is not for those concerned about these particular programs. But what is important is not what we do not have. What is significant is what we have done with the money that we do have available to us. This Interior appropriations bill reflects increases for our national parks, for the Everglades restoration, for forest health, specifically fire management and research, for USGS earthquake research and cooperative water research, and we have $4 million for a clean streams initiative. We have also increased or at least maintained fiscal year 1996 funding levels for native American programs, like the vital and multipurpose tribal priority allocations account, for Indian education, Indian health, and increased the funding levels of major cultural institutions, like the Smithsonian, the Holocaust Museum, the Kennedy Center, and the National Gallery of Art. We have attempted to ensure that sufficient funds are available to fulfill our responsibilities as stewards of the Nation's natural treasures. Did some agencies incur reductions or even terminations of programs? Absolutely. But this is necessary as a subcommittee, as a body for us to do this, to keep our commitment to the American people that we would exercise fiscal responsibility, that we would balance the Federal budget in 7 years. And, all told, we have saved nearly $500 million in doing that. Let us not fool each other about what is going to happen. There are going to be a lot of amendments to increase funding levels for programs and agencies. Members will speak with great conviction about the merits of these programs, and in many cases they will be right about whether the program is good or not. [[Page H6544]] But, what I have said before needs to be said again. The appropriations process is not about numbers. It is not about whether we spend $12.1 billion, as this bill recommends, or $13.1 billion. It is not even about whether we cut a particular program, whether we increase a program, or whether we terminate a program. This and the other appropriations bills that are working their way through the legislative process is an opportunity for Congress and our political parties to make a philosophical statement about the direction we believe this country should be going. It is an opportunity to say something about where we think our future is. It is an opportunity for each party in Congress to set forth its vision, its hopes and dreams for our future and our children's future. This bill does that. I urge support for this legislation. Mr. Chairman, I want to voice my strong support for the Interior appropriations bill before us. I know that you have heard many of my colleagues express their support for or adamant opposition to this bill. But before the opposition continues their litany of discontent, I'd like to make you aware of the budgetary parameters under which the subcommittee was operating. Our initial 602(b) allocation was $1.1 billion below fiscal year 1996 funding levels. That's $1.1 billion. Fortunately, when the House approved the budget resolution there was an additional $3.9 billion in discretionary funding which the Appropriations Committee was able to reallocate among the subcommittees. Despite this infusion of money, the Interior Subcommittee's fiscal year 1997 budget authority is still $482 million less than last year. Is this fair and equitable? Probably not. But what's important is not what we don't have. What is significant is what we did with the money we were provided. The fiscal year 1997 Interior appropriations bill reflects increases for our national parks, for Everglades restoration, for forest health-- specifically, fire management and research, for USGS earthquake research and cooperative water research, and we provide $4 million for a clean streams initiative. We have also increased or maintained fiscal year 1996 funding levels for native American programs like the vital and multipurpose tribal priority allocations account, Indian education, Indian health, and increased the funding levels of major cultural institutions like the Smithsonian, the Holocaust Museum, the Kennedy Center, and the National Gallery of Art. We have attempted to ensure that sufficient funds are available to fulfill our responsibilities as stewards of this Nation's natural treasures. Did some agencies incur funding reductions or program terminations? Absolutely. But this was necessary for us to keep our commitment to the American people that we would exercise fiscal responsibility and balance the Federal budget in 7 years. All told, this bill saves the American taxpayers almost $500 million. Let's not fool each other about what is going to happen. Several amendments will be offered to increase the funding levels for various programs and agencies. Members will speak with great conviction about the merits of these programs, and in many instances they'll be right. But I've said it before, and it needs to be said again. The appropriations process is not about numbers. It's not about whether we spend $12.1 billion--as this bill recommends--or $13.1 billion. It's not even about whether we cut a program, whether we increase a program, or whether we eliminate a program. This bill and the other appropriations bills working their way through the legislative process is an opportunity for Congress, and our political parties, to make a philosophical statement about the direction we believe this country should be going. It is an opportunity for us to say something about where we think our future is. It's an opportunity for each party in Congress to set forth its vision for America; its hopes, its dreams for our future, and for our children's future. Mr. Chairman, in its entirety, this appropriations bill reflects this vision. When you dissect and place the funding level of each program, each agency and each line item under a microscope you won't get a true indication of the overall picture. But if you step back and look at this bill in its entirely, keeping in mind that these numbers reflect a promise we made to our children--the promise that we would no longer burden them with our fiscally irresponsible actions--then you get a clearer perspective. This appropriations bill is not perfect. But I believe it reflects a thoughtful and balanced approach given this Nation's $5 trillion debt. I urge all of my colleagues to support its passage. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs]. Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Chairman, I want to start out by paying tribute to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula], the chairman of the subcommittee, who has been a joy to work with throughout the process of shaping this bill. He is invariably willing to listen and try his best to accommodate in a bipartisan fashion the interests of other members of the subcommittee, and I am proud to serve on his subcommittee. I wish that I could transfer all of the enthusiasm that I feel about Mr. Regula personally to the legislative product that we have before us this afternoon. I am afraid that probably the best thing I can do is to say it is better than last year's bill. But last year's bill, as we all recall, had some problems. Just to get what I think is the appropriate framework, this Interior appropriations bill is the primary way that this Congress and this country makes a statement about the precious responsibility we have as stewards of the country's natural and cultural resources. So it really is a very important indication of what is important to us as a people. In that context, I am afraid that this bill does not meet the fundamental responsibilities we in Congress have to protect and preserve those very vital natural and cultural resources which we all are proud to claim as citizens of this country. There is an increase in many of the accounts, as the gentleman's opening comments indicated, over last year's levels, but we are still falling behind. Even with, for instance, the increase for the Park Service, we are not keeping up with the increasing backlog of deferred maintenance which is showing itself, whether in my home area at Rocky Mountain National Park, with trails being closed and visitor services being curtailed, or as is being repeated elsewhere around the country. One of the bill's more serious shortcomings has to do with the energy conservation and efficiency efforts. If we are so shortsighted as to fail to appreciate the threat to this country's national security and its economic security by continuing our profligate ways on energy, we are going to be in very, very sad shape. I will have an amendment later on that addresses this point to a modest degree, far from curing what I think are real shortcomings in that part of the bill. I wish as well that we could find the wherewithal to do the honor that we should as a Nation to our work in the humanities and the arts. The funding levels for both of those endowments are way below what American civilization ought to dedicate to the furtherance of the humanities and the arts and I regret that very much. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Utah [Mr. Hansen], the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Lands of the Committee on Resources. (Mr. HANSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. HANSEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this appropriations bill and recognize the great work that the gentleman from Ohio, Chairman Regula, has done and the many of us who have spend hours talking to him about this. I notice that people talk about an increase in payment in lieu of taxes. I hope that Members realize what this is. Out in the West, many of us are owned by the Federal Government. In the little county of Garfield, you take, for example, 93 percent is owned by the Federal Government. All these folks from around the world and especially the East come out there and they want to play, and they want to look at things and fish, hunt, camp, et cetera. So we are saying, pay your share, if you will. They are the ones that put the debris down that has to be picked up. They are the ones that start the fires. They are the ones that find themselves breaking a leg and you have to go out and take care of them. All we are saying is pay your share. So I commend the gentleman for adding money to payment in lieu of taxes. They also tell us where to put it in wilderness, how to use it for grazing, what we can mine and cut. We are saying if you are going to tell us how to run it, at least pay a little bit. I also hope the Members realized over the past year there has been sensational news stories about closure of [[Page H6545]] park facilities, resulting from dramatically increased visitation to national parks and cuts in park budgets. Actually, this is a result of disinformation, Mr. Chairman, on the part of the Secretary of Interior. Contrary to what you have heard, and I could name the cities and towns that this has been said, including the President of the United States, including the Secretary of Interior, that the Republicans are going to close parks, that there is a list of 312 parks somewhere. Let me tell you, as chairman of that committee, there is no list. H.R. 260 has no place in it, absolutely no place, where it closes one single park. I stand in the well and would eat the bill if someone could tell me where it closed one park. It does not do anything like that. However, that does not stop the Secretary of Interior from engaging in this partisan politics, going on fishing trips on Government time and running partisan things when he should be running his department. There are two indisputable facts: First, is visitation to parks have been flat for nearly a decade. Second, funding for parks has dramatically increased in recent years. The fact is increased funding for parks has been supported by both Democratic and Republican administrations in Congress. As a direct result of the effort of Chairman Regula, and before him Chairman Yates, annual base funding for parks has risen from $394 to $666 million in the last 7 years, an increase of 69 percent. As GAO has testified before my subcommittee last year, these increases have far outpaced inflation. Meanwhile, total visitation to parks has remained flat for a decade. In fact, total park visitation last year was, do you know, about 5 percent from its peak year of 1988. Using two parks as illustrations, Zion in Utah and Yosemite in California, funding increases have far outpaced both of these. These facts have not stopped Secretary Babbitt from saying we are shutting those down. The park newspaper at Yellowstone Park declares the park facilities were closed due to budget shortfalls. Last winter during the lapse in appropriations, Secretary Babbitt shut down all the parks and concession facilities, even though the parks reported they actually had more rangers on duty during the shutdowns than before. Meanwhile, the Forest Service, also without a budget, did not shut down a single ski area, outfitter, or any other concessionaire on Forest Service lands. They continued to welcome the public, and for that I salute Secretary Glickman. Overall budget cuts at the Forest Service have been much higher, but that agency has sought out innovative ways to continue to serve the public. Rather than shut down its campgrounds, the Forest Service contracted them out to the private sector. Secretary Glickman has contracted out 70 percent of Forest Service campgrounds to the private sector this year. That provides for a vivid contrast with Secretary Babbitt, who runs around the country complaining about budget shortfalls. Mr. Chairman, I think we need a Secretary who puts protecting and managing our parks above politics. Mr. Chairman, I would urge support of this good piece of legislation. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio]. Mr. FAZIO of California. Mr. Chairman, as we consider this very important bill, I think it is important that we revisit the issue of the timber salvage rider that was part of the rescissions bill last year. While I felt at the time that it was important to address the problem of dead and dying trees, and the issue of forest health in general, in hindsight it was clear we dealt with it in too much haste. I did not vote on the Yates amendment when it was considered on the floor last year because I was with my wife at the hospital while she had minor surgery. I did vote for the bill on final passage, however, both because it helped to provide disaster relief to California and because it had the administration's support. At the time I think few Members of Congress were aware that the salvage timber rider allowed section 318 timber sales to be reinstated as well. If they had been aware of the deficiency, I do not think this rider would have gotten through. The 1990 section 318 sales were intended to allow the development of a compromise in the Northwest but they did not succeed and were halted due to environmental concerns. These sales only affect old growth timber. The issue of salvage timber--or the attempt to glean the forest of dead or dying trees particularly after drought periods like the one recently in California--is a different concern altogether. To my knowledge, these two issues were never intended to be intermingled. Fortunately, the Appeals Court has stepped in to stop the expedited 318 sales of old growth trees so we will have a chance to deal with option 9 in a responsible manner. Given the vagueness of the definition of salvage timber, it was not unexpected that this provision could be ill used to harvest healthy trees. We should not have gone forward with the salvage timber rider without tightening up how the Forest Service implemented the program in the first place. In practice, the program allowed for more than dead and dying trees to be cut. For those of us in this Congress who see a real threat to forest health and who have a strong desire to find the appropriate solution, the salvage timber rider simply went too far. Instead of merely allowing the timber companies some flexibility in helping to prevent future wildfires, those pursuing a different agenda took advantage of the opportunity and sought to cut health trees and old growth timber as well. I would like to cite an example of how such sales can be extremely detrimental. Recently in my district the Forest Service sought to reinstate the Barkley timber sale in the Lassen National Forest. I personally appealed to the Department of Agriculture to stop the sale because it would have seriously unraveled the cooperative local efforts among landowners, conservationists, and government officials to produce a collaborative strategy for resource management. In particular, the Quincy Library Group is a broad-based organization which worked hard to come to an agreement on timber harvests in the Sierra Nevadas. The Barkley timber sale would have jeopardized that carefully balanced effort. In response to my concern, the sale was stopped. We must seek an appropriate balance in identifying solutions that will work overtime. I support the amendment before us to restore environmental review to the timber salvage process. We need to provide a check to the extreme actions being undertaken under the guise of harvesting dead and dying trees. We need to come up with a definition of salvage similar to those that have been introduced by Members of both bodies, but which have yet to become law. Mr. Chairman, this is an important issue that hopefully can be not only debated clearly today, but resolved once and for all, so the Congress can send a clear message about how it wants to deal with the issue of forest health. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. FAZIO of California. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, does the gentleman recognize that it is the Secretary of Agriculture that has to approve these sales that he is discussing in his remarks? I think that is an important point. It is the administration's Secretary that is doing it. Mr. FAZIO of California. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, typically they are really approved at the forest level. I think typically these decisions are made by Forest Service personnel at the regional level. They of course come from many different perspectives on these issues. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield further, in drafting the regulation, we did not spell out that the Secretary in effect has approval responsibility. So I think that is an important element that we should just bring to the attention of our colleagues in discussing this question. Mr. FAZIO of California. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I think the key is to come up with a definition of dead and dying trees that would warrant a salvage operation. The gentleman from California [Mr. Condit] had proposed, for example, 70 percent. If we had that kind of clarity in the law, then we would not have the problem of green trees being cut in some areas and the program working perhaps more appropriately in other areas. [[Page H6546]] {time} 1245 And, of course, the 318 inclusion, which occurred in the Senate during the conference, was very much a troubling aspect for people across the spectrum who were interested in the forest health issue. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Taylor], a very fine member of our subcommittee. Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula], the staff of the committee, and the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks], and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Yates], for the bill that has been put together. I think it is an outstanding bill, as has been said on the floor. So far, it does recognize many areas in forest health and it recognizes areas of park maintenance. It is probably the largest effort that has been made toward maintenance that we have had in a long time, and that is especially important in a time when there is so much pressure on reducing the budget. I would like, though, as a member of the committee and a sponsor of the timber salvage bill, to correct some misstatements. A lot of the organizations outside that have never understood this legislation, never really cared about forest health, have been trying to promote its demise. First of all, the 318 legislation that was put in by the Senate, as the gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio] indicated earlier, will expire September 30 of this year, so it is pretty much a moot question. As he mentioned a moment ago, the sales that people in that region felt were a problem, they have appealed. The court has spoken in this area and that is going to be pretty well handled, and there is no reason to address it on this floor at all. As it deals with salvage, to say that this language ought to be changed or we should have used this language is to fail to understand that the salvage language used in the timber salvage bill was the identical salvage language that has been used for years in the Forest Service's procedure in salvaging timber. It was only a few years ago that environmental organizations decided they needed to move another step forward and stop cutting in the national forest, as they have openly now said they want to do, and they put in a provision against salvage timber at the time. We simply removed that provision with the salvage amendment. The language is the same, that has never been contested over the years, as was used by the Forest Service. Second, to talk about its being used abusively, there is not one single case, and I challenge anyone to come with me, an it is hard to do on the floor, but I challenge anyone to come with me and prove there is a single case where that has been abused. And the final point is that green trees, when we are trying to wipe out disease and insects, for instance, with insects, the green tree is the host tree of the insect; it is a peripheral area just around the dead trees. If all we were cutting were the dead trees when we try to wipe out insects, we would never cut that out because the insect has already moved on to a living tree. So we have to come around to a peripheral area to get rid of the insects. And if we do not get rid of the insect, it will take the entire forest. And that was the reason for the salvage bill; it was for forest health. So I think the legislation has been misunderstood. We will address it more specifically in the debate, but it is a good piece of legislation that has worked well. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Doyle]. Mr. DOYLE. Mr. Chairman, I want to acknowledge the efforts of the gentleman from Ohio, Chairman Regula, and the ranking member, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Yates, for the bill they bring before us today. They have done their best to protect a wide variety of important programs in a difficult budgetary climate. While there are many parts of this legislation I support, there is one in particular that I want to highlight, and that is the Department of Energy's fossil energy R During the debate today many Members will come to floor and seek to plus up other accounts at the expense of fossil energy. While I do not necessarily disagree with the programs they seek to plus up, I believe that their efforts to cut fossil energy are misguided at best. As you can see from this chart, the Energy Information Agency has predicted that 20 years from now, we will still be dependent on fossil energy for 89 percent of our energy needs. Since this will still be the primary source of our energy supply, it make sense to pursue technological advancements that will allow us to make better use of these fuels. There is one area which I wish had received greater funding than is in the bill, and that is energy conservation R For the same reasons that I support fossil R, I think it is important that we maintain a strong commitment to conservation R, as they deal with improving combustion-based energy. However, I will oppose efforts to raise the conservation line at the expense of fossil. I believe that such efforts are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of these two programs. Those who propose to increase conservation by reducing fossil are proposing no net gain for meeting our energy needs, they only move funds from one good program to another. The only difference is the name ``conservation'' sounds more politically-correct than fossil. I realize that because fossil fuels have been around for awhile, that there is a tendency to think that the utilization technologies have been improved to their maximum. If this logic was applied to nuclear R, you would come to the conclusion that since atoms haven't changed since the beginning of time, that there is no more work to be done in this area. Or in the case of renewables, since wind has been around since the formation of the planet, we shouldn't fund wind energy research. While these arguments make no sense, neither does the argument that we should cut fossil R, because they are currently in use. We are not talking about the fuel, but the way in which it is used. The Department of Energy, should be praised for the way in which they have managed to live within the confines of last years Interior Appropriations bill, which calls for a 10 percent reduction per year for the next 4 years. This is allowing for a gradual phase-out of the fossil energy program, without throwing away tax dollars already invested in research projects that yet to be completed. The amendments being offered to reduce fossil are being offered by those who either don't understand or don't care about the way their proposals will impact our energy security. I urge Members to oppose them all, as fossil energy should not be penalized with further reductions for adhering to its downsizing plan. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs], a member of the full Committee on Appropriations. Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Ohio, Chairman Regula, for yielding me this time, and I look forward to the debate coming up. Colleagues, first of all, in this very brief 2 minutes, I want to address something the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks] said during debate on the rule. He said that my amendment in the full Committee on Appropriations last week to prohibit the Fish and Wildlife Service from enforcing the critical habitat designation for the marbled murrelet on private lands, privately owned property, would render the marbeled murrelet extinct in northern California. The question I have for Mr. Dicks is, when was the last time he visited us in northwest California? Because that critical habitat designation in my district alone, and this goes to the gentleman's staffer, too, who wrote his remarks, in my district alone this critical habitat designation applies to 693,000 acres in Humboldt, Del Norte, and Mendocino Counties, and that breaks down as follows: 477,300 acres in Six Rivers National Forest, Federal property; Redwood National Park; the King Range National Conservation Area; and some parcels of Bureau of Land Management land. That is all federally owned property. And, in addition to that, the critical habitat designation applies to the 175,000 acres of State land, including State redwood parks, the Sinkyone [[Page H6547]] Wilderness State Park, and some Mendocino State parks. I am talking about protecting the property rights of 10 private property owners, 10 private property owners who own 32,000 acres in Humboldt County, the largest county in my congressional district. Some of those property owners are here today. They are not just timber companies, by the way. Some of them are longtime ranching and farming families, properties that have been in the hands of these families for generations, such as the Gift family, 501 acres designated critical habitat, taken without just compensation to the Gift family; the Bowers family, 156 acres taken without just compensation to the Bowers family; Harold Crabtree, his entire 254-acre ranch taken without just compensation from the Federal Government. So I conclude, 99 percent of this critical habitat designation is on public lands. We are talking about the final 1 percent, the remaining 1 percent, that is privately owned property. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 6 minutes. I would say to my distinguished friend from California that I, too, represent an area that has been as affected as any in the country by listings under the Endangered Species Act, and my approach has been to try to work with the private companies and the State of Washington in order to get them to enter into a multispecies habitat conservation plan, an agreement between the Fish and Wildlife Service and the private company to protect the species on the private property lands and to help in the conservation effort. For that, they get 100 years of certainty. Now, I checked yesterday with the Fish and Wildlife Service and asked them about the company involved here, and whether they had seriously attempted to negotiate a multispecies HCP, and the answer was a resounding no. Now, that is the way for the gentleman to solve his problem, to sit down with his company and with the Fish and Wildlife Service and try to get them to work out on a voluntary basis a multispecies HCP. That is how the Endangered Species Act allows one to get the incidental take permit that is necessary. Let me just also say to my friend from California, even with a critical habitat listing, the company still can log. All it cannot do is have a taking of a species that is either threatened or endangered, and so they can use this private property. I just want to make that point. If he is going to have a taking, the only way he can get around a taking is to have an incidental take permit. And the way one gets an incidental take permit, a large private landowner, is to do it by negotiating a multispecies HCP. I have worked with the Murray Pacific Co., Plum Creek, Weyerhaeuser, the major timber companies in the Northwest, to get them to do that. What the gentleman is doing today by walking into the full committee and offering an exemption for one large lumber company in his district is not only undermining the Endangered Species Act, but he is undermining my efforts and the efforts of other Members of Congress who are trying to work with their private timber companies to get them to do these multispecies HCP's. I am sure the gentleman has a different interpretation of his intent, but the bottom line is, this is what is occurring. So I am urging my colleagues today to join with me in striking out the Riggs amendment, and I urge the gentleman to go back and do it the old-fashioned way, to sit down and get a multispecies HCP through the Fish and Wildlife Service. Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. DICKS. I yield to the gentleman from California. Mr. RIGGS. First of all, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding, and I want to give him an opportunity to respond to the point I made that we are talking about 10 property owners. Mr. DICKS. But the gentleman would admit that the predominant landowner here is the Pacific Lumber Co.; is that not right? Mr. RIGGS. If the gentleman would continue to yield, I would not stipulate to that. We are talking about nine other private property owners, some of which are---- Mr. DICKS. But the Pacific Lumber Co. has 33,000 acres. Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would give me an opportunity to finish, there are nine property owners who own collectively 8,000 acres. And I am going to introduce in the debate to come, on the gentleman's motion to strike, letters from these property owners that say they have never had a single contact from the Fish and Wildlife Service. Not once. The properties have not been inspected. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I take back my time. The gentleman knows fully if they have a species on their property, it is their responsibility. They do not have to do it, but if they do not do it, they do not get an incidental take permit. If they want to risk taking a species without an incidental take permit, then they will violate the Endangered Species Act. The way to do it is to go in and enter into an agreement. Now, in many cases, small landowners are given, as a matter of course, an incidental take permit. It is the large landowner that is asked to do the multispecies HCP. {time} 1300 In this case, the company involved did not negotiate in good faith to get a multispecies HCP. If they had done that and they were willing to do that on all the lands that they own in this area that the gentleman's amendment affects, I am told by the Fish and Wildlife Service that they would have bent over backwards to try to enter into such an agreement. The facts are that they came in and made it very clear from the very first instant that what they wanted to do was to file a lawsuit that would raise the issue of a constitutional taking. That is, in fact, what they did. And in fact the Federal judge, Judge Rothstein, is the one who directed the Fish and Wildlife Service to designate critical habitat. In this instance, 78 percent of the critical habitat was on Federal lands, and only 1 percent was on the private lands. In my judgment, the only reason it is on the private land is because the area involved is crucial to the survival of the spotted owl in that area. So I would just say to the gentleman from California, not only in this amendment is he undermining the Endangered Species Act, he is also threatening the survival of the marbled murrelet. There are a lot of fishermen who have written me saying, please oppose the Riggs amendment. They are fearful that, if we do not protect the marbled murrelet and it becomes endangered rather than threatened under the Federal law, even more onerous restrictions will be put on the fishermen in my colleague's area as well. Now, I sympathize with the gentleman from California. He and I have worked on things together in the past, but what I do not like here is what he is doing. By coming in here and getting a specific exemption, it is undermining all of the rest of us who are trying to get our private companies to do the right thing by entering into a multispecies HCP. That is what the gentleman should be doing, not coming here and undermining the Endangered Species Act, threatening the marbled murrelet and threatening the old growth in this particular area which is crucial to the survival of the marbled murrelet. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Jersey [Mrs. Roukema]. Mrs. ROUKEMA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I want to thank him for his hard work in bringing this bill to the floor. These are very difficult issues. As we have heard by the previous speakers, the chairman has had to deal with situations where there are very meritorious but competing interests. I think he has done an admirable job here. But I rise today to revise and extend my remarks with respect to an issue that is of paramount importance here to us in the State of New Jersey. Included in this legislation is the Sterling Forest issue, which is located in my district. It is being put in this legislation as one of the Nation's top two priorities for land acquisitions. This legislation recommends that Sterling Forest receive $9 million as a downpayment on the Federal Government's purchase price. [[Page H6548]] I want to point out, by the way, I thank the chairman. He and I have worked for a number of years on this together. I do appreciate his cooperation and his commitment to this particular project. I also want to point out that the Speaker this last March visited our State and Sterling Forest and has made a commitment that he would see to it this year that this would be accomplished. However, although this is an important step, it is a significant step. It strictly undermines the contention that I have had from the beginning, which is that time is of the essence and that Sterling Forest owners cannot be expected to wait forever, even though they are willing in a willing compromise, a negotiated compromise to deal with the Federal Government. But I must point out here that, even though this is set as a priority under this authorization, not only is time of the essence but we must not lose sight of the fact that we need authorization for this to be effective. This Sterling Forest is not yet authorized. I will be pressing ahead with every fiber of my being to see to it that it gets authorized in the very near future. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Nevada [Mrs. Vucanovich], an excellent member of our subcommittee. Mrs. VUCANOVICH. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 3662, the fiscal year 1997 Interior and related agencies appropriations bill. This bill is $482 million below last year's funding and within our budget allocation. Given the need to reduce Federal spending, and the resulting lower funding allocation the subcommittee and full Appropriations Committee is working under this year, this is a good bill, and I commend Chairman Regula and his staff for putting this measure together. H.R, 3662 represents the tough choices that have to be made if we are going to get spending under control. So while I call it a good bill and urge all of my colleagues to support the bill, I also recognize that there is something in here for everyone to dislike. It is impossible to both cut spending and to fund everything that all of us would like to fund. On the other hand, compared to last year, H.R. 3662 increases funding for operating our National Park System by $55 million; it increases forest health initiatives like pest suppression and wildfire management by $72 million; and it allows $52 million more for Native American programs than last year. Mr. Chairman, on balance, this bill represents a tremendous effort to balance spending cuts with stewardship of our natural resources. I urge a ``yes'' vote. Mr. YATES. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, this is a very good bill. I hope the Members will take a good look at it, especially the amendments, as we go along. We will accept some, but we will have to resist a number of them. We want to finish the bill today, and we want to move along as quickly as possible. Mr. POSHARD. Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned about the numerous amendments, notably the Farr, Walker, and Richardson amendments, in the Interior appropriations bill for fiscal year 1997 that cut valuable funding of up to $138 million for the Department of Energy's Fossil Energy Research and Development Program. We hear a great deal today about how the United States has become overly dependent on foreign sources of oil. A main reason for this is because over the past decade strict limitations have been put on the burning of certain types of coal. These moneys address such crucial energy issues by enabling research into vital clean coal technology, as well as ways to increase domestic oil and gas production. In addition, programs such as the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council that provide for the transfer of technology between independent producers would be eliminated. Rural economies have been especially hard hit by the limitations on coal, and the decreased production of oil and natural gas. In my district alone, thousands of people employed in these industries have been affected, whether they are displaced coal miners or small oil companies that can no longer afford to operate. These citizens represent the backbone of our domestic energy production, and stand ready to provide alternative energy options to foreign petroleum. In Illinois, the Fossil Energy Research and Development Program will account for almost 30,000 jobs in the first decade of the next century. Moreover, the budget for fossil energy programs has already been cut 10.5 percent from last year's levels, and 30 percent from fiscal year 1995. Hence, these amendments would seriously endanger the future of energy development in this country, as well as many local economies. I urge all of my colleagues to retain funding for this important research. Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Chairman, I ask permission to revise and extend my remarks. I rise today in support of the funding in this bill for California Natural Communities Conservation Planning [NCCP] program. The fiscal year 1997 Interior appropriations bill, which will be considered by the subcommittee this afternoon, contains $5 million for the program. I would also like to support the amendment offered by my California colleague Rep. Ken Calvert. His amendment will shift $1 million from the Forest Service General Administration Account to the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund. By cutting bureaucracy, the Calvert amendment will further our goals for protecting and preserving sensitive species in southern California. The NCCP pilot program in southern California is the Nation's most advanced cooperative approach. The program was initiated 5 years ago as an attempt to create a multispecies approach to preserving species. By increasing funding in the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund, Rep. Calvert's amendment will help us to fund the NCCP at the administration's requested level. Even in a time of unprecedented fiscal constraints, I would like to commend Interior Subcommittee Chairman Ralph Regula for recognizing the merit of this process and supporting the program. The NCCP represents the future of conservation, and it is a giant leap forward over the historical project-by-project, command and control methods of most environmental strategies. The system we have in place now sets us up for confrontation, conflict, and gridlock. The NCCP will replace that system and create a framework for comprehensive conservation planning to protect natural resources and sensitive species in southern California while allowing for reasonable growth. The NCCP is part of a collaborative effort between Federal, State, and local officials, as well as land owners and environmental groups. The planning process' goal is to protect a variety of species and sensitive natural habitats, to prevent the need to list other species in the future as endangered, and allow growth and economic development to occur in balance with sound resource conservation. The NCCP includes conservation and development plans for nine separate areas within the southern California planning region. Again, I urge support of the Calvert amendment, and final passage of this bill. Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased that Chairman Regula and the Appropriations Committee has included in the fiscal year 1997 Interior appropriations bill $4.58 million in reimbursement to Guam for the costs incurred as a result of the Compacts of Free Association. These compacts with the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau, allow open and free migration to the United States. Of course, Guam receives the greatest share of this migration which puts a tremendous strain on our local resources and this impact continues to grow. Guam is geographically located closest to these new nations. Their economies are less developed than Guam's, and for many of their citizens, the

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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1997
(House of Representatives - June 19, 1996)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages H6537-H6607] [[Page H6537]] DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1997 The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 455 and rule XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 3662. {time} 1209 in the committee of the whole Accordingly the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 3662) making appropriations for the Department of the Interior and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1997, and for other purposes, with Mr. Burton of Indiana in the chair. The Clerk read the title of the bill. The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as having been read the first time. Under the rule, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula] and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Yates] will each control 30 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula]. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me say at the outset, Mr. Chairman, that the gentleman from Illinois and myself have worked closely on this bill along with the other members of our subcommittee. I think we bring to the Members today a very responsible bill given the fiscal constraints. I would point out the chart that is in the well demonstrates that we appropriate a total of about $12 billion and save the taxpayers, save future generations $500 million plus the interest that they would have to pay on that money. But at the same time we take care of the things that are vitally important and that people care about in this country, our public lands, in many instances, the parks, the forests, the fish and wildlife facilities, the grazing lands managed by the BLM. They are the jewels of this Nation and I think we have a great responsibility to manage these facilities and this resource well so that we can leave it as a legacy to future generations. I would like to start by giving some little known facts about this bill. Let me start with the Forest Service. The National Forest System covers 8 percent of all the land in America. Of all the land, 8 percent is in national forests. The national forests produce 55 percent of the water for 16 western States. I think that is a significant fact. Fifty- five percent of the water that they use for irrigation, for municipal water supplies, for the many, many purposes, for industrial uses, 55 percent of that in the 16 western States comes from our public lands. Three hundred million recreational visitors to the Forest Service lands every year, 300 million Americans enjoyed these lands. Half of the Nation's ski lift capacity is on forest land. For those that like to ski undoubtedly if you have gone out in the western States, you have been on public lands. Half of the Nation's big game and cold water fish habitat is on the national forest lands. With respect to timber harvest, I might say there has been a lot of concern about the fact that we have been excessively harvesting timber, recognizing the importance of it for multiple use, recognizing the importance of timber lands in providing water supply, that we might be doing too much. But let me point out that we are on a downward glide path. We harvested 11 billion board feet, in 1990. It this bill today it provides for 4.3 billion board feet, almost one-third of what we were allowing in 1990. I think it is a recognition that the national forests have far greater value in terms of multiple use and in terms of our watershed than perhaps just for timber harvest. Little known facts is the Department of Energy. Fossil energy research focuses on cleaning up the environment and reducing energy consumption. We hear a lot about clean air and clean water and how important these are to our Nation and to the people in our society. Well, the fossil energy program is directed right at that need and the importance of cleaning up the environment. Low emission boilers will reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by 80 percent once we develop the technology. I mention these things because during the course of handling this bill, there will be an amendment to reduce-- maybe several--to reduce our fossil energy commitment in terms of research, but keep in mind, any vote to cut fossil research, and we have already reduced it considerably, a vote to do that is a vote against the environment, it is a vote against reducing energy consumption. Advanced turbine systems will dramatically reduce emissions and reduce energy consumption while supporting 100,000 high-paying U.S. jobs and the export of 3 billion dollars' worth of technology. We hear a lot about the balance of payments. Again, a vote to reduce the fossil budget and I think the gentleman from California [Mr. Brown] addressed it well during the rule debate, is a vote against increasing exports, it is a vote against U.S. jobs, against cleaning up our environment. I would point out also in the Office of Surface Mining in the bill, we fund $4 million for a new Appalachian clean streams. Again, an effort to clean up the water to preserve this resource for the future. Public lands, Interior and the Forest Service, are about one-third of the Nation's land mass. We manage it for clean waters and for open space and we try to preserve as much as possible the pristine values of our wilderness lands, [[Page H6538]] the vast wetland and forests that naturally cleanse the water and the air and replenish the aquifers. {time} 1215 But at the same time, Mr. Chairman, as evident by the charts up here, we are also recognizing that part of our legacy to future generations should not only be clean air, clean water, a land mass that can be enjoyed in terms of parks and forests and fish and wildlife facilities and the BLM lands, but at the same time, we are reducing the amount of expenditures. It points out in the chart that we are recommending $12 billion. While expending $12 billion, we are reducing spending by $500 million under 1996 and $1.5 billion under 1995. At the same time, we will increase national park operations by $55 million; national wildlife refuge operations by $18 million; native American programs by $52 million; forest health by $72 million; and Smithsonian and other cultural institutions by $16 million. While doing that, we cut $114 million from energy programs. We cut $25 million from Washington and regional bureaucracy. We are getting people out of Washington and into the field, and we are also moving the expenditure of administrative-type funds out to the field where the problems need to be solved. As can be noted from the chart, the $114 million cut in energy programs has already been taken. So let me again caution all of the Members, evaluate the amendments that will be proposed that would do harm to our energy programs. They are vitally important for the future of this Nation, both in terms of clean water, in terms of clean air, and in terms of reducing our dependency on other nations outside the United States for energy. I think if Members look at the numbers, they will realize that probably in terms of petroleum, we are importing over one-half of our usage and we need to become more energy independent. We have tried to maintain the programs that are vitally important to the Nation's future. I would mention the same thing in terms of being responsible to the native American programs. We have treaty obligations. We have rights that were generated in the historical development of Indian programs, so we have had to increase those by $52 million over 1996. We put the money in these areas: $10 million for tribal priority allocations, $10 million for Indian school operations, $20 million for new hospital staffing, and $12 million for health care professionals. I would mention these things, Mr. Chairman, because under our treaty obligations, we have a responsibility for health, for education, and for the tribal priority needs. We have tried to address these in our bill. In terms of forest health, and I reemphasize a point I made earlier, and that is that in the western States, 55 percent of their water comes from forest lands. A healthy forest is important to their future in terms of having clean water, in terms of having adequate water supplies. To recognize those forest health problems, we have increased by $72 million the overall program, $16.5 in forest health management, $40 million in wildfire preparation and prescribed burns, and $10.5 million for thinning and vegetation improvement. We have had $4 million for road maintenance and reconstruction and $1 million for Forest Service research. We recognize, as in the case with energy, that knowledge is very important, that knowledge in managing forests or parks or any of the public lands becomes an important element. We have maintained the United States Geologic Survey at last year's level because that is the science arm of the Department of the Interior. In terms of the Everglades, we added $13 million for scientific research because we recognize that we are going to embark on a major program to undo some of the great mistakes of the past; but to do that in a responsible way, we need to have good science. Therefore we, as a starter in restoring the Everglades, put a large increase in the funding for the Everglades research and science that will go with that. I think when we look at the total bill, it is a responsible, commonsense approach to challenges. We all treasure the public lands and what it means to the quality of life in this country, and we have tried to recognize that. We have avoided programs, starting new programs that have high downstream costs, because both sides of the aisle, starting with the President, are committed to getting the budget deficit under control; and to do that, we have to avoid programs, we have to avoid acquiring facilities that have big costs downstream because we need to continue this effort to manage the programs as well as possible. So, Mr. Chairman, I certainly say to all of my colleagues, I hope that they will give this bill their consideration. I hope they will take time to understand what we have tried to do here. It is a nonpartisan bill. When it came to doing projects, we have an even balance between Members on each side of the aisle. In the subcommittee, we had very little partisanship. We worked as a team to try to use the resources that were allocated to us to do the best possible job of managing this marvelous resource called forests and parks, and so on, in the way that is constructive for the American people and that we can be proud of as far as a legacy to future generations. I urge all the Members to give us the support that we need and deserve on this bill. Mr. Chairman, I include for the Record the table detailing the various accounts in the bill. The information referred to is as follows: [[Page H6539]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH19JN96.000 [[Page H6540]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH19JN96.001 [[Page H6541]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH19JN96.002 [[Page H6542]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH19JN96.003 [[Page H6543]] Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. YATES. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I honor my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio, Ralph Regula, for this hard work and his very great diligence in formulating this bill. It could have been a much better bill, if we only had the money that is required to do the job properly. To properly care for the vast natural resources of the United States and the magnificent museums and galleries which are funded in this bill, money is needed, and that money has not been allocated to us in the 602(b) allocation. For some reason, Interior continues to be the stepchild of the 602(b) bosses. This bill has been saddled with many burdens. We have been forced to take a cut of $482 million in our 602(b) allocation, which comes on top of the $1.1 billion reduction this bill enjoyed in the previous fiscal year. To add insult to injury, this malnourished bill had two legislative riders foisted on it in the full Committee on Appropriations. One deals with native American taxation, the other deals with the endangered marbled murrelet. Mr. Chairman, the first rider added by the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Istook], will effectively cripple the ability of many native American tribes to operate successful retail establishments, like gas stations or convenience stores, on their property by forcing native American tribes, who are sovereign under the decisions of the Supreme Court and under treaties established with the United States to charge State sales taxes at their establishment. The second troubling rider was added by the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs], and deals with protection of the endangered marbled murrelet. The Riggs amendment was precipitated by a court ruling that ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service to designate areas in California, Oregon, and Washington as critical habitat for the elusive seabird. What the Riggs provision seeks to do is to prevent the Fish and Wildlife Service from enforcing this designation on private lands in California. Not only does this ill-conceived provision set a dangerous precedent for suspending the Endangered Species Act, but it could very well lead to the extinction of the marbled murrelet in the Headwaters forest. Mr. Chairman, even our full committee chairman, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], recognizes that these riders could sink the Interior bill. That is why he voted against both of them in committee. Our good friend, the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Boelhert] has also been quoted as saying these riders present real problems for floor consideration. Inclusion of these riders is especially ironic in light of an article that ran in the Washington Post on Monday with the headline, ``GOP Buffs environmental Image''. If the Republican Party seeks to improve its environmental image, then they can join us in striking the marbled murrelet rider. Mr. Chairman, the legislative riders are not the only problem with this bill, and while the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula] did his best to minimize the pain of our reduced allocation, there are major problems with the funding of this bill, critical problems which I cite. For example, funding for the National Park Service has been cut by $40,095,000. Funding for the Fish and Wildlife Service is down by $19,200,000. Funding for vital agency support from Interior Departmental management has been punitively cut by $3,221,000. Funding for the Forest Service has been reduced by $56,281,000. Funding for energy efficiency programs are cut by $37,519,000. Funding for low- income weatherization is cut out by another $11,764,000. Funding for Indian health service facilities has been reduced by $11,257,000. Funding for the Smithsonian Institution has been decreased by $8,700,000. Funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities has been cut by $5,506,000. At the same time that important programs are being cut, other nonessential accounts have been increased, including an increase in corporate welfare for the timber industry in the form of an additional $14 million over the fiscal year 1996 amount for timber roads and timber sale management and $12 million over the administration request for the PILT program. Finally, I want to express my support for the funding contained in this bill for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities. The issue of funding the endowments has long been very controversial in this bill. The funding that is in this bill is the result of the agreement that was reached last year by the members of the Republican Party to continue the NEA for 2 years and the NEH for 3 years. Given these austere budgets, representing a cut of nearly 40 percent for each agency from fiscal year 1995, I hope my colleagues will oppose any amendment to cut or eliminate additional funding for the endowments. Mr. Chairman, in closing, I want to commend my chairman, my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio, Ralph Regula, for his hard work, for his friendship, for his warm association and for his cooperation. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, just a footnote. I concede that we have reduced some of these programs, but it was land acquisition, construction of things that have downstream costs, and the only way we can save money is to cut spending. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Kolbe], a very able member of our subcommittee. Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I want to voice my support for the Interior appropriations bill which is before us today and add my thanks to both the chairman and the ranking minority member and their staffs for the work that they have done on this. Mr. Chairman, you are going to hear a lot of concerns expressed here today, some in support of this, some in adamant opposition to the bill. But, before we take too seriously some of the expressions of discontent, we should all be aware of the budget parameters under which our subcommittee was operating. {time} 1230 Our initial 602(b) allocation was $1.1 billion below fiscal year 1996 funding levels. That is $1.1 billion below. Fortunately, when the House approved the budget resolution, we found there was an additional $3.9 billion of discretionary funding which the Committee on Appropriations was able to reallocate among the subcommittees. Despite this infusion of money, the Interior Subcommittee's fiscal year 1997 budget is still $482 million less than last year. Is this fair and equitable? Perhaps it is not for those concerned about these particular programs. But what is important is not what we do not have. What is significant is what we have done with the money that we do have available to us. This Interior appropriations bill reflects increases for our national parks, for the Everglades restoration, for forest health, specifically fire management and research, for USGS earthquake research and cooperative water research, and we have $4 million for a clean streams initiative. We have also increased or at least maintained fiscal year 1996 funding levels for native American programs, like the vital and multipurpose tribal priority allocations account, for Indian education, Indian health, and increased the funding levels of major cultural institutions, like the Smithsonian, the Holocaust Museum, the Kennedy Center, and the National Gallery of Art. We have attempted to ensure that sufficient funds are available to fulfill our responsibilities as stewards of the Nation's natural treasures. Did some agencies incur reductions or even terminations of programs? Absolutely. But this is necessary as a subcommittee, as a body for us to do this, to keep our commitment to the American people that we would exercise fiscal responsibility, that we would balance the Federal budget in 7 years. And, all told, we have saved nearly $500 million in doing that. Let us not fool each other about what is going to happen. There are going to be a lot of amendments to increase funding levels for programs and agencies. Members will speak with great conviction about the merits of these programs, and in many cases they will be right about whether the program is good or not. [[Page H6544]] But, what I have said before needs to be said again. The appropriations process is not about numbers. It is not about whether we spend $12.1 billion, as this bill recommends, or $13.1 billion. It is not even about whether we cut a particular program, whether we increase a program, or whether we terminate a program. This and the other appropriations bills that are working their way through the legislative process is an opportunity for Congress and our political parties to make a philosophical statement about the direction we believe this country should be going. It is an opportunity to say something about where we think our future is. It is an opportunity for each party in Congress to set forth its vision, its hopes and dreams for our future and our children's future. This bill does that. I urge support for this legislation. Mr. Chairman, I want to voice my strong support for the Interior appropriations bill before us. I know that you have heard many of my colleagues express their support for or adamant opposition to this bill. But before the opposition continues their litany of discontent, I'd like to make you aware of the budgetary parameters under which the subcommittee was operating. Our initial 602(b) allocation was $1.1 billion below fiscal year 1996 funding levels. That's $1.1 billion. Fortunately, when the House approved the budget resolution there was an additional $3.9 billion in discretionary funding which the Appropriations Committee was able to reallocate among the subcommittees. Despite this infusion of money, the Interior Subcommittee's fiscal year 1997 budget authority is still $482 million less than last year. Is this fair and equitable? Probably not. But what's important is not what we don't have. What is significant is what we did with the money we were provided. The fiscal year 1997 Interior appropriations bill reflects increases for our national parks, for Everglades restoration, for forest health-- specifically, fire management and research, for USGS earthquake research and cooperative water research, and we provide $4 million for a clean streams initiative. We have also increased or maintained fiscal year 1996 funding levels for native American programs like the vital and multipurpose tribal priority allocations account, Indian education, Indian health, and increased the funding levels of major cultural institutions like the Smithsonian, the Holocaust Museum, the Kennedy Center, and the National Gallery of Art. We have attempted to ensure that sufficient funds are available to fulfill our responsibilities as stewards of this Nation's natural treasures. Did some agencies incur funding reductions or program terminations? Absolutely. But this was necessary for us to keep our commitment to the American people that we would exercise fiscal responsibility and balance the Federal budget in 7 years. All told, this bill saves the American taxpayers almost $500 million. Let's not fool each other about what is going to happen. Several amendments will be offered to increase the funding levels for various programs and agencies. Members will speak with great conviction about the merits of these programs, and in many instances they'll be right. But I've said it before, and it needs to be said again. The appropriations process is not about numbers. It's not about whether we spend $12.1 billion--as this bill recommends--or $13.1 billion. It's not even about whether we cut a program, whether we increase a program, or whether we eliminate a program. This bill and the other appropriations bills working their way through the legislative process is an opportunity for Congress, and our political parties, to make a philosophical statement about the direction we believe this country should be going. It is an opportunity for us to say something about where we think our future is. It's an opportunity for each party in Congress to set forth its vision for America; its hopes, its dreams for our future, and for our children's future. Mr. Chairman, in its entirety, this appropriations bill reflects this vision. When you dissect and place the funding level of each program, each agency and each line item under a microscope you won't get a true indication of the overall picture. But if you step back and look at this bill in its entirely, keeping in mind that these numbers reflect a promise we made to our children--the promise that we would no longer burden them with our fiscally irresponsible actions--then you get a clearer perspective. This appropriations bill is not perfect. But I believe it reflects a thoughtful and balanced approach given this Nation's $5 trillion debt. I urge all of my colleagues to support its passage. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs]. Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Chairman, I want to start out by paying tribute to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula], the chairman of the subcommittee, who has been a joy to work with throughout the process of shaping this bill. He is invariably willing to listen and try his best to accommodate in a bipartisan fashion the interests of other members of the subcommittee, and I am proud to serve on his subcommittee. I wish that I could transfer all of the enthusiasm that I feel about Mr. Regula personally to the legislative product that we have before us this afternoon. I am afraid that probably the best thing I can do is to say it is better than last year's bill. But last year's bill, as we all recall, had some problems. Just to get what I think is the appropriate framework, this Interior appropriations bill is the primary way that this Congress and this country makes a statement about the precious responsibility we have as stewards of the country's natural and cultural resources. So it really is a very important indication of what is important to us as a people. In that context, I am afraid that this bill does not meet the fundamental responsibilities we in Congress have to protect and preserve those very vital natural and cultural resources which we all are proud to claim as citizens of this country. There is an increase in many of the accounts, as the gentleman's opening comments indicated, over last year's levels, but we are still falling behind. Even with, for instance, the increase for the Park Service, we are not keeping up with the increasing backlog of deferred maintenance which is showing itself, whether in my home area at Rocky Mountain National Park, with trails being closed and visitor services being curtailed, or as is being repeated elsewhere around the country. One of the bill's more serious shortcomings has to do with the energy conservation and efficiency efforts. If we are so shortsighted as to fail to appreciate the threat to this country's national security and its economic security by continuing our profligate ways on energy, we are going to be in very, very sad shape. I will have an amendment later on that addresses this point to a modest degree, far from curing what I think are real shortcomings in that part of the bill. I wish as well that we could find the wherewithal to do the honor that we should as a Nation to our work in the humanities and the arts. The funding levels for both of those endowments are way below what American civilization ought to dedicate to the furtherance of the humanities and the arts and I regret that very much. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Utah [Mr. Hansen], the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Lands of the Committee on Resources. (Mr. HANSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. HANSEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this appropriations bill and recognize the great work that the gentleman from Ohio, Chairman Regula, has done and the many of us who have spend hours talking to him about this. I notice that people talk about an increase in payment in lieu of taxes. I hope that Members realize what this is. Out in the West, many of us are owned by the Federal Government. In the little county of Garfield, you take, for example, 93 percent is owned by the Federal Government. All these folks from around the world and especially the East come out there and they want to play, and they want to look at things and fish, hunt, camp, et cetera. So we are saying, pay your share, if you will. They are the ones that put the debris down that has to be picked up. They are the ones that start the fires. They are the ones that find themselves breaking a leg and you have to go out and take care of them. All we are saying is pay your share. So I commend the gentleman for adding money to payment in lieu of taxes. They also tell us where to put it in wilderness, how to use it for grazing, what we can mine and cut. We are saying if you are going to tell us how to run it, at least pay a little bit. I also hope the Members realized over the past year there has been sensational news stories about closure of [[Page H6545]] park facilities, resulting from dramatically increased visitation to national parks and cuts in park budgets. Actually, this is a result of disinformation, Mr. Chairman, on the part of the Secretary of Interior. Contrary to what you have heard, and I could name the cities and towns that this has been said, including the President of the United States, including the Secretary of Interior, that the Republicans are going to close parks, that there is a list of 312 parks somewhere. Let me tell you, as chairman of that committee, there is no list. H.R. 260 has no place in it, absolutely no place, where it closes one single park. I stand in the well and would eat the bill if someone could tell me where it closed one park. It does not do anything like that. However, that does not stop the Secretary of Interior from engaging in this partisan politics, going on fishing trips on Government time and running partisan things when he should be running his department. There are two indisputable facts: First, is visitation to parks have been flat for nearly a decade. Second, funding for parks has dramatically increased in recent years. The fact is increased funding for parks has been supported by both Democratic and Republican administrations in Congress. As a direct result of the effort of Chairman Regula, and before him Chairman Yates, annual base funding for parks has risen from $394 to $666 million in the last 7 years, an increase of 69 percent. As GAO has testified before my subcommittee last year, these increases have far outpaced inflation. Meanwhile, total visitation to parks has remained flat for a decade. In fact, total park visitation last year was, do you know, about 5 percent from its peak year of 1988. Using two parks as illustrations, Zion in Utah and Yosemite in California, funding increases have far outpaced both of these. These facts have not stopped Secretary Babbitt from saying we are shutting those down. The park newspaper at Yellowstone Park declares the park facilities were closed due to budget shortfalls. Last winter during the lapse in appropriations, Secretary Babbitt shut down all the parks and concession facilities, even though the parks reported they actually had more rangers on duty during the shutdowns than before. Meanwhile, the Forest Service, also without a budget, did not shut down a single ski area, outfitter, or any other concessionaire on Forest Service lands. They continued to welcome the public, and for that I salute Secretary Glickman. Overall budget cuts at the Forest Service have been much higher, but that agency has sought out innovative ways to continue to serve the public. Rather than shut down its campgrounds, the Forest Service contracted them out to the private sector. Secretary Glickman has contracted out 70 percent of Forest Service campgrounds to the private sector this year. That provides for a vivid contrast with Secretary Babbitt, who runs around the country complaining about budget shortfalls. Mr. Chairman, I think we need a Secretary who puts protecting and managing our parks above politics. Mr. Chairman, I would urge support of this good piece of legislation. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio]. Mr. FAZIO of California. Mr. Chairman, as we consider this very important bill, I think it is important that we revisit the issue of the timber salvage rider that was part of the rescissions bill last year. While I felt at the time that it was important to address the problem of dead and dying trees, and the issue of forest health in general, in hindsight it was clear we dealt with it in too much haste. I did not vote on the Yates amendment when it was considered on the floor last year because I was with my wife at the hospital while she had minor surgery. I did vote for the bill on final passage, however, both because it helped to provide disaster relief to California and because it had the administration's support. At the time I think few Members of Congress were aware that the salvage timber rider allowed section 318 timber sales to be reinstated as well. If they had been aware of the deficiency, I do not think this rider would have gotten through. The 1990 section 318 sales were intended to allow the development of a compromise in the Northwest but they did not succeed and were halted due to environmental concerns. These sales only affect old growth timber. The issue of salvage timber--or the attempt to glean the forest of dead or dying trees particularly after drought periods like the one recently in California--is a different concern altogether. To my knowledge, these two issues were never intended to be intermingled. Fortunately, the Appeals Court has stepped in to stop the expedited 318 sales of old growth trees so we will have a chance to deal with option 9 in a responsible manner. Given the vagueness of the definition of salvage timber, it was not unexpected that this provision could be ill used to harvest healthy trees. We should not have gone forward with the salvage timber rider without tightening up how the Forest Service implemented the program in the first place. In practice, the program allowed for more than dead and dying trees to be cut. For those of us in this Congress who see a real threat to forest health and who have a strong desire to find the appropriate solution, the salvage timber rider simply went too far. Instead of merely allowing the timber companies some flexibility in helping to prevent future wildfires, those pursuing a different agenda took advantage of the opportunity and sought to cut health trees and old growth timber as well. I would like to cite an example of how such sales can be extremely detrimental. Recently in my district the Forest Service sought to reinstate the Barkley timber sale in the Lassen National Forest. I personally appealed to the Department of Agriculture to stop the sale because it would have seriously unraveled the cooperative local efforts among landowners, conservationists, and government officials to produce a collaborative strategy for resource management. In particular, the Quincy Library Group is a broad-based organization which worked hard to come to an agreement on timber harvests in the Sierra Nevadas. The Barkley timber sale would have jeopardized that carefully balanced effort. In response to my concern, the sale was stopped. We must seek an appropriate balance in identifying solutions that will work overtime. I support the amendment before us to restore environmental review to the timber salvage process. We need to provide a check to the extreme actions being undertaken under the guise of harvesting dead and dying trees. We need to come up with a definition of salvage similar to those that have been introduced by Members of both bodies, but which have yet to become law. Mr. Chairman, this is an important issue that hopefully can be not only debated clearly today, but resolved once and for all, so the Congress can send a clear message about how it wants to deal with the issue of forest health. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. FAZIO of California. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, does the gentleman recognize that it is the Secretary of Agriculture that has to approve these sales that he is discussing in his remarks? I think that is an important point. It is the administration's Secretary that is doing it. Mr. FAZIO of California. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, typically they are really approved at the forest level. I think typically these decisions are made by Forest Service personnel at the regional level. They of course come from many different perspectives on these issues. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield further, in drafting the regulation, we did not spell out that the Secretary in effect has approval responsibility. So I think that is an important element that we should just bring to the attention of our colleagues in discussing this question. Mr. FAZIO of California. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I think the key is to come up with a definition of dead and dying trees that would warrant a salvage operation. The gentleman from California [Mr. Condit] had proposed, for example, 70 percent. If we had that kind of clarity in the law, then we would not have the problem of green trees being cut in some areas and the program working perhaps more appropriately in other areas. [[Page H6546]] {time} 1245 And, of course, the 318 inclusion, which occurred in the Senate during the conference, was very much a troubling aspect for people across the spectrum who were interested in the forest health issue. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Taylor], a very fine member of our subcommittee. Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula], the staff of the committee, and the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks], and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Yates], for the bill that has been put together. I think it is an outstanding bill, as has been said on the floor. So far, it does recognize many areas in forest health and it recognizes areas of park maintenance. It is probably the largest effort that has been made toward maintenance that we have had in a long time, and that is especially important in a time when there is so much pressure on reducing the budget. I would like, though, as a member of the committee and a sponsor of the timber salvage bill, to correct some misstatements. A lot of the organizations outside that have never understood this legislation, never really cared about forest health, have been trying to promote its demise. First of all, the 318 legislation that was put in by the Senate, as the gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio] indicated earlier, will expire September 30 of this year, so it is pretty much a moot question. As he mentioned a moment ago, the sales that people in that region felt were a problem, they have appealed. The court has spoken in this area and that is going to be pretty well handled, and there is no reason to address it on this floor at all. As it deals with salvage, to say that this language ought to be changed or we should have used this language is to fail to understand that the salvage language used in the timber salvage bill was the identical salvage language that has been used for years in the Forest Service's procedure in salvaging timber. It was only a few years ago that environmental organizations decided they needed to move another step forward and stop cutting in the national forest, as they have openly now said they want to do, and they put in a provision against salvage timber at the time. We simply removed that provision with the salvage amendment. The language is the same, that has never been contested over the years, as was used by the Forest Service. Second, to talk about its being used abusively, there is not one single case, and I challenge anyone to come with me, an it is hard to do on the floor, but I challenge anyone to come with me and prove there is a single case where that has been abused. And the final point is that green trees, when we are trying to wipe out disease and insects, for instance, with insects, the green tree is the host tree of the insect; it is a peripheral area just around the dead trees. If all we were cutting were the dead trees when we try to wipe out insects, we would never cut that out because the insect has already moved on to a living tree. So we have to come around to a peripheral area to get rid of the insects. And if we do not get rid of the insect, it will take the entire forest. And that was the reason for the salvage bill; it was for forest health. So I think the legislation has been misunderstood. We will address it more specifically in the debate, but it is a good piece of legislation that has worked well. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Doyle]. Mr. DOYLE. Mr. Chairman, I want to acknowledge the efforts of the gentleman from Ohio, Chairman Regula, and the ranking member, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Yates, for the bill they bring before us today. They have done their best to protect a wide variety of important programs in a difficult budgetary climate. While there are many parts of this legislation I support, there is one in particular that I want to highlight, and that is the Department of Energy's fossil energy R During the debate today many Members will come to floor and seek to plus up other accounts at the expense of fossil energy. While I do not necessarily disagree with the programs they seek to plus up, I believe that their efforts to cut fossil energy are misguided at best. As you can see from this chart, the Energy Information Agency has predicted that 20 years from now, we will still be dependent on fossil energy for 89 percent of our energy needs. Since this will still be the primary source of our energy supply, it make sense to pursue technological advancements that will allow us to make better use of these fuels. There is one area which I wish had received greater funding than is in the bill, and that is energy conservation R For the same reasons that I support fossil R, I think it is important that we maintain a strong commitment to conservation R, as they deal with improving combustion-based energy. However, I will oppose efforts to raise the conservation line at the expense of fossil. I believe that such efforts are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of these two programs. Those who propose to increase conservation by reducing fossil are proposing no net gain for meeting our energy needs, they only move funds from one good program to another. The only difference is the name ``conservation'' sounds more politically-correct than fossil. I realize that because fossil fuels have been around for awhile, that there is a tendency to think that the utilization technologies have been improved to their maximum. If this logic was applied to nuclear R, you would come to the conclusion that since atoms haven't changed since the beginning of time, that there is no more work to be done in this area. Or in the case of renewables, since wind has been around since the formation of the planet, we shouldn't fund wind energy research. While these arguments make no sense, neither does the argument that we should cut fossil R, because they are currently in use. We are not talking about the fuel, but the way in which it is used. The Department of Energy, should be praised for the way in which they have managed to live within the confines of last years Interior Appropriations bill, which calls for a 10 percent reduction per year for the next 4 years. This is allowing for a gradual phase-out of the fossil energy program, without throwing away tax dollars already invested in research projects that yet to be completed. The amendments being offered to reduce fossil are being offered by those who either don't understand or don't care about the way their proposals will impact our energy security. I urge Members to oppose them all, as fossil energy should not be penalized with further reductions for adhering to its downsizing plan. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs], a member of the full Committee on Appropriations. Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Ohio, Chairman Regula, for yielding me this time, and I look forward to the debate coming up. Colleagues, first of all, in this very brief 2 minutes, I want to address something the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks] said during debate on the rule. He said that my amendment in the full Committee on Appropriations last week to prohibit the Fish and Wildlife Service from enforcing the critical habitat designation for the marbled murrelet on private lands, privately owned property, would render the marbeled murrelet extinct in northern California. The question I have for Mr. Dicks is, when was the last time he visited us in northwest California? Because that critical habitat designation in my district alone, and this goes to the gentleman's staffer, too, who wrote his remarks, in my district alone this critical habitat designation applies to 693,000 acres in Humboldt, Del Norte, and Mendocino Counties, and that breaks down as follows: 477,300 acres in Six Rivers National Forest, Federal property; Redwood National Park; the King Range National Conservation Area; and some parcels of Bureau of Land Management land. That is all federally owned property. And, in addition to that, the critical habitat designation applies to the 175,000 acres of State land, including State redwood parks, the Sinkyone [[Page H6547]] Wilderness State Park, and some Mendocino State parks. I am talking about protecting the property rights of 10 private property owners, 10 private property owners who own 32,000 acres in Humboldt County, the largest county in my congressional district. Some of those property owners are here today. They are not just timber companies, by the way. Some of them are longtime ranching and farming families, properties that have been in the hands of these families for generations, such as the Gift family, 501 acres designated critical habitat, taken without just compensation to the Gift family; the Bowers family, 156 acres taken without just compensation to the Bowers family; Harold Crabtree, his entire 254-acre ranch taken without just compensation from the Federal Government. So I conclude, 99 percent of this critical habitat designation is on public lands. We are talking about the final 1 percent, the remaining 1 percent, that is privately owned property. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 6 minutes. I would say to my distinguished friend from California that I, too, represent an area that has been as affected as any in the country by listings under the Endangered Species Act, and my approach has been to try to work with the private companies and the State of Washington in order to get them to enter into a multispecies habitat conservation plan, an agreement between the Fish and Wildlife Service and the private company to protect the species on the private property lands and to help in the conservation effort. For that, they get 100 years of certainty. Now, I checked yesterday with the Fish and Wildlife Service and asked them about the company involved here, and whether they had seriously attempted to negotiate a multispecies HCP, and the answer was a resounding no. Now, that is the way for the gentleman to solve his problem, to sit down with his company and with the Fish and Wildlife Service and try to get them to work out on a voluntary basis a multispecies HCP. That is how the Endangered Species Act allows one to get the incidental take permit that is necessary. Let me just also say to my friend from California, even with a critical habitat listing, the company still can log. All it cannot do is have a taking of a species that is either threatened or endangered, and so they can use this private property. I just want to make that point. If he is going to have a taking, the only way he can get around a taking is to have an incidental take permit. And the way one gets an incidental take permit, a large private landowner, is to do it by negotiating a multispecies HCP. I have worked with the Murray Pacific Co., Plum Creek, Weyerhaeuser, the major timber companies in the Northwest, to get them to do that. What the gentleman is doing today by walking into the full committee and offering an exemption for one large lumber company in his district is not only undermining the Endangered Species Act, but he is undermining my efforts and the efforts of other Members of Congress who are trying to work with their private timber companies to get them to do these multispecies HCP's. I am sure the gentleman has a different interpretation of his intent, but the bottom line is, this is what is occurring. So I am urging my colleagues today to join with me in striking out the Riggs amendment, and I urge the gentleman to go back and do it the old-fashioned way, to sit down and get a multispecies HCP through the Fish and Wildlife Service. Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. DICKS. I yield to the gentleman from California. Mr. RIGGS. First of all, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding, and I want to give him an opportunity to respond to the point I made that we are talking about 10 property owners. Mr. DICKS. But the gentleman would admit that the predominant landowner here is the Pacific Lumber Co.; is that not right? Mr. RIGGS. If the gentleman would continue to yield, I would not stipulate to that. We are talking about nine other private property owners, some of which are---- Mr. DICKS. But the Pacific Lumber Co. has 33,000 acres. Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would give me an opportunity to finish, there are nine property owners who own collectively 8,000 acres. And I am going to introduce in the debate to come, on the gentleman's motion to strike, letters from these property owners that say they have never had a single contact from the Fish and Wildlife Service. Not once. The properties have not been inspected. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I take back my time. The gentleman knows fully if they have a species on their property, it is their responsibility. They do not have to do it, but if they do not do it, they do not get an incidental take permit. If they want to risk taking a species without an incidental take permit, then they will violate the Endangered Species Act. The way to do it is to go in and enter into an agreement. Now, in many cases, small landowners are given, as a matter of course, an incidental take permit. It is the large landowner that is asked to do the multispecies HCP. {time} 1300 In this case, the company involved did not negotiate in good faith to get a multispecies HCP. If they had done that and they were willing to do that on all the lands that they own in this area that the gentleman's amendment affects, I am told by the Fish and Wildlife Service that they would have bent over backwards to try to enter into such an agreement. The facts are that they came in and made it very clear from the very first instant that what they wanted to do was to file a lawsuit that would raise the issue of a constitutional taking. That is, in fact, what they did. And in fact the Federal judge, Judge Rothstein, is the one who directed the Fish and Wildlife Service to designate critical habitat. In this instance, 78 percent of the critical habitat was on Federal lands, and only 1 percent was on the private lands. In my judgment, the only reason it is on the private land is because the area involved is crucial to the survival of the spotted owl in that area. So I would just say to the gentleman from California, not only in this amendment is he undermining the Endangered Species Act, he is also threatening the survival of the marbled murrelet. There are a lot of fishermen who have written me saying, please oppose the Riggs amendment. They are fearful that, if we do not protect the marbled murrelet and it becomes endangered rather than threatened under the Federal law, even more onerous restrictions will be put on the fishermen in my colleague's area as well. Now, I sympathize with the gentleman from California. He and I have worked on things together in the past, but what I do not like here is what he is doing. By coming in here and getting a specific exemption, it is undermining all of the rest of us who are trying to get our private companies to do the right thing by entering into a multispecies HCP. That is what the gentleman should be doing, not coming here and undermining the Endangered Species Act, threatening the marbled murrelet and threatening the old growth in this particular area which is crucial to the survival of the marbled murrelet. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Jersey [Mrs. Roukema]. Mrs. ROUKEMA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I want to thank him for his hard work in bringing this bill to the floor. These are very difficult issues. As we have heard by the previous speakers, the chairman has had to deal with situations where there are very meritorious but competing interests. I think he has done an admirable job here. But I rise today to revise and extend my remarks with respect to an issue that is of paramount importance here to us in the State of New Jersey. Included in this legislation is the Sterling Forest issue, which is located in my district. It is being put in this legislation as one of the Nation's top two priorities for land acquisitions. This legislation recommends that Sterling Forest receive $9 million as a downpayment on the Federal Government's purchase price. [[Page H6548]] I want to point out, by the way, I thank the chairman. He and I have worked for a number of years on this together. I do appreciate his cooperation and his commitment to this particular project. I also want to point out that the Speaker this last March visited our State and Sterling Forest and has made a commitment that he would see to it this year that this would be accomplished. However, although this is an important step, it is a significant step. It strictly undermines the contention that I have had from the beginning, which is that time is of the essence and that Sterling Forest owners cannot be expected to wait forever, even though they are willing in a willing compromise, a negotiated compromise to deal with the Federal Government. But I must point out here that, even though this is set as a priority under this authorization, not only is time of the essence but we must not lose sight of the fact that we need authorization for this to be effective. This Sterling Forest is not yet authorized. I will be pressing ahead with every fiber of my being to see to it that it gets authorized in the very near future. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Nevada [Mrs. Vucanovich], an excellent member of our subcommittee. Mrs. VUCANOVICH. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 3662, the fiscal year 1997 Interior and related agencies appropriations bill. This bill is $482 million below last year's funding and within our budget allocation. Given the need to reduce Federal spending, and the resulting lower funding allocation the subcommittee and full Appropriations Committee is working under this year, this is a good bill, and I commend Chairman Regula and his staff for putting this measure together. H.R, 3662 represents the tough choices that have to be made if we are going to get spending under control. So while I call it a good bill and urge all of my colleagues to support the bill, I also recognize that there is something in here for everyone to dislike. It is impossible to both cut spending and to fund everything that all of us would like to fund. On the other hand, compared to last year, H.R. 3662 increases funding for operating our National Park System by $55 million; it increases forest health initiatives like pest suppression and wildfire management by $72 million; and it allows $52 million more for Native American programs than last year. Mr. Chairman, on balance, this bill represents a tremendous effort to balance spending cuts with stewardship of our natural resources. I urge a ``yes'' vote. Mr. YATES. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, this is a very good bill. I hope the Members will take a good look at it, especially the amendments, as we go along. We will accept some, but we will have to resist a number of them. We want to finish the bill today, and we want to move along as quickly as possible. Mr. POSHARD. Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned about the numerous amendments, notably the Farr, Walker, and Richardson amendments, in the Interior appropriations bill for fiscal year 1997 that cut valuable funding of up to $138 million for the Department of Energy's Fossil Energy Research and Development Program. We hear a great deal today about how the United States has become overly dependent on foreign sources of oil. A main reason for this is because over the past decade strict limitations have been put on the burning of certain types of coal. These moneys address such crucial energy issues by enabling research into vital clean coal technology, as well as ways to increase domestic oil and gas production. In addition, programs such as the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council that provide for the transfer of technology between independent producers would be eliminated. Rural economies have been especially hard hit by the limitations on coal, and the decreased production of oil and natural gas. In my district alone, thousands of people employed in these industries have been affected, whether they are displaced coal miners or small oil companies that can no longer afford to operate. These citizens represent the backbone of our domestic energy production, and stand ready to provide alternative energy options to foreign petroleum. In Illinois, the Fossil Energy Research and Development Program will account for almost 30,000 jobs in the first decade of the next century. Moreover, the budget for fossil energy programs has already been cut 10.5 percent from last year's levels, and 30 percent from fiscal year 1995. Hence, these amendments would seriously endanger the future of energy development in this country, as well as many local economies. I urge all of my colleagues to retain funding for this important research. Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Chairman, I ask permission to revise and extend my remarks. I rise today in support of the funding in this bill for California Natural Communities Conservation Planning [NCCP] program. The fiscal year 1997 Interior appropriations bill, which will be considered by the subcommittee this afternoon, contains $5 million for the program. I would also like to support the amendment offered by my California colleague Rep. Ken Calvert. His amendment will shift $1 million from the Forest Service General Administration Account to the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund. By cutting bureaucracy, the Calvert amendment will further our goals for protecting and preserving sensitive species in southern California. The NCCP pilot program in southern California is the Nation's most advanced cooperative approach. The program was initiated 5 years ago as an attempt to create a multispecies approach to preserving species. By increasing funding in the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund, Rep. Calvert's amendment will help us to fund the NCCP at the administration's requested level. Even in a time of unprecedented fiscal constraints, I would like to commend Interior Subcommittee Chairman Ralph Regula for recognizing the merit of this process and supporting the program. The NCCP represents the future of conservation, and it is a giant leap forward over the historical project-by-project, command and control methods of most environmental strategies. The system we have in place now sets us up for confrontation, conflict, and gridlock. The NCCP will replace that system and create a framework for comprehensive conservation planning to protect natural resources and sensitive species in southern California while allowing for reasonable growth. The NCCP is part of a collaborative effort between Federal, State, and local officials, as well as land owners and environmental groups. The planning process' goal is to protect a variety of species and sensitive natural habitats, to prevent the need to list other species in the future as endangered, and allow growth and economic development to occur in balance with sound resource conservation. The NCCP includes conservation and development plans for nine separate areas within the southern California planning region. Again, I urge support of the Calvert amendment, and final passage of this bill. Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased that Chairman Regula and the Appropriations Committee has included in the fiscal year 1997 Interior appropriations bill $4.58 million in reimbursement to Guam for the costs incurred as a result of the Compacts of Free Association. These compacts with the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau, allow open and free migration to the United States. Of course, Guam receives the greatest share of this migration which puts a tremendous strain on our local resources and this impact continues to grow. Guam is geographically located closest to these new nations. Their economies are less developed than Guam's, and for many of their citizens, the economic

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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1997
(House of Representatives - June 19, 1996)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages H6537-H6607] [[Page H6537]] DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1997 The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 455 and rule XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 3662. {time} 1209 in the committee of the whole Accordingly the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 3662) making appropriations for the Department of the Interior and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1997, and for other purposes, with Mr. Burton of Indiana in the chair. The Clerk read the title of the bill. The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as having been read the first time. Under the rule, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula] and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Yates] will each control 30 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula]. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me say at the outset, Mr. Chairman, that the gentleman from Illinois and myself have worked closely on this bill along with the other members of our subcommittee. I think we bring to the Members today a very responsible bill given the fiscal constraints. I would point out the chart that is in the well demonstrates that we appropriate a total of about $12 billion and save the taxpayers, save future generations $500 million plus the interest that they would have to pay on that money. But at the same time we take care of the things that are vitally important and that people care about in this country, our public lands, in many instances, the parks, the forests, the fish and wildlife facilities, the grazing lands managed by the BLM. They are the jewels of this Nation and I think we have a great responsibility to manage these facilities and this resource well so that we can leave it as a legacy to future generations. I would like to start by giving some little known facts about this bill. Let me start with the Forest Service. The National Forest System covers 8 percent of all the land in America. Of all the land, 8 percent is in national forests. The national forests produce 55 percent of the water for 16 western States. I think that is a significant fact. Fifty- five percent of the water that they use for irrigation, for municipal water supplies, for the many, many purposes, for industrial uses, 55 percent of that in the 16 western States comes from our public lands. Three hundred million recreational visitors to the Forest Service lands every year, 300 million Americans enjoyed these lands. Half of the Nation's ski lift capacity is on forest land. For those that like to ski undoubtedly if you have gone out in the western States, you have been on public lands. Half of the Nation's big game and cold water fish habitat is on the national forest lands. With respect to timber harvest, I might say there has been a lot of concern about the fact that we have been excessively harvesting timber, recognizing the importance of it for multiple use, recognizing the importance of timber lands in providing water supply, that we might be doing too much. But let me point out that we are on a downward glide path. We harvested 11 billion board feet, in 1990. It this bill today it provides for 4.3 billion board feet, almost one-third of what we were allowing in 1990. I think it is a recognition that the national forests have far greater value in terms of multiple use and in terms of our watershed than perhaps just for timber harvest. Little known facts is the Department of Energy. Fossil energy research focuses on cleaning up the environment and reducing energy consumption. We hear a lot about clean air and clean water and how important these are to our Nation and to the people in our society. Well, the fossil energy program is directed right at that need and the importance of cleaning up the environment. Low emission boilers will reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by 80 percent once we develop the technology. I mention these things because during the course of handling this bill, there will be an amendment to reduce-- maybe several--to reduce our fossil energy commitment in terms of research, but keep in mind, any vote to cut fossil research, and we have already reduced it considerably, a vote to do that is a vote against the environment, it is a vote against reducing energy consumption. Advanced turbine systems will dramatically reduce emissions and reduce energy consumption while supporting 100,000 high-paying U.S. jobs and the export of 3 billion dollars' worth of technology. We hear a lot about the balance of payments. Again, a vote to reduce the fossil budget and I think the gentleman from California [Mr. Brown] addressed it well during the rule debate, is a vote against increasing exports, it is a vote against U.S. jobs, against cleaning up our environment. I would point out also in the Office of Surface Mining in the bill, we fund $4 million for a new Appalachian clean streams. Again, an effort to clean up the water to preserve this resource for the future. Public lands, Interior and the Forest Service, are about one-third of the Nation's land mass. We manage it for clean waters and for open space and we try to preserve as much as possible the pristine values of our wilderness lands, [[Page H6538]] the vast wetland and forests that naturally cleanse the water and the air and replenish the aquifers. {time} 1215 But at the same time, Mr. Chairman, as evident by the charts up here, we are also recognizing that part of our legacy to future generations should not only be clean air, clean water, a land mass that can be enjoyed in terms of parks and forests and fish and wildlife facilities and the BLM lands, but at the same time, we are reducing the amount of expenditures. It points out in the chart that we are recommending $12 billion. While expending $12 billion, we are reducing spending by $500 million under 1996 and $1.5 billion under 1995. At the same time, we will increase national park operations by $55 million; national wildlife refuge operations by $18 million; native American programs by $52 million; forest health by $72 million; and Smithsonian and other cultural institutions by $16 million. While doing that, we cut $114 million from energy programs. We cut $25 million from Washington and regional bureaucracy. We are getting people out of Washington and into the field, and we are also moving the expenditure of administrative-type funds out to the field where the problems need to be solved. As can be noted from the chart, the $114 million cut in energy programs has already been taken. So let me again caution all of the Members, evaluate the amendments that will be proposed that would do harm to our energy programs. They are vitally important for the future of this Nation, both in terms of clean water, in terms of clean air, and in terms of reducing our dependency on other nations outside the United States for energy. I think if Members look at the numbers, they will realize that probably in terms of petroleum, we are importing over one-half of our usage and we need to become more energy independent. We have tried to maintain the programs that are vitally important to the Nation's future. I would mention the same thing in terms of being responsible to the native American programs. We have treaty obligations. We have rights that were generated in the historical development of Indian programs, so we have had to increase those by $52 million over 1996. We put the money in these areas: $10 million for tribal priority allocations, $10 million for Indian school operations, $20 million for new hospital staffing, and $12 million for health care professionals. I would mention these things, Mr. Chairman, because under our treaty obligations, we have a responsibility for health, for education, and for the tribal priority needs. We have tried to address these in our bill. In terms of forest health, and I reemphasize a point I made earlier, and that is that in the western States, 55 percent of their water comes from forest lands. A healthy forest is important to their future in terms of having clean water, in terms of having adequate water supplies. To recognize those forest health problems, we have increased by $72 million the overall program, $16.5 in forest health management, $40 million in wildfire preparation and prescribed burns, and $10.5 million for thinning and vegetation improvement. We have had $4 million for road maintenance and reconstruction and $1 million for Forest Service research. We recognize, as in the case with energy, that knowledge is very important, that knowledge in managing forests or parks or any of the public lands becomes an important element. We have maintained the United States Geologic Survey at last year's level because that is the science arm of the Department of the Interior. In terms of the Everglades, we added $13 million for scientific research because we recognize that we are going to embark on a major program to undo some of the great mistakes of the past; but to do that in a responsible way, we need to have good science. Therefore we, as a starter in restoring the Everglades, put a large increase in the funding for the Everglades research and science that will go with that. I think when we look at the total bill, it is a responsible, commonsense approach to challenges. We all treasure the public lands and what it means to the quality of life in this country, and we have tried to recognize that. We have avoided programs, starting new programs that have high downstream costs, because both sides of the aisle, starting with the President, are committed to getting the budget deficit under control; and to do that, we have to avoid programs, we have to avoid acquiring facilities that have big costs downstream because we need to continue this effort to manage the programs as well as possible. So, Mr. Chairman, I certainly say to all of my colleagues, I hope that they will give this bill their consideration. I hope they will take time to understand what we have tried to do here. It is a nonpartisan bill. When it came to doing projects, we have an even balance between Members on each side of the aisle. In the subcommittee, we had very little partisanship. We worked as a team to try to use the resources that were allocated to us to do the best possible job of managing this marvelous resource called forests and parks, and so on, in the way that is constructive for the American people and that we can be proud of as far as a legacy to future generations. I urge all the Members to give us the support that we need and deserve on this bill. Mr. Chairman, I include for the Record the table detailing the various accounts in the bill. The information referred to is as follows: [[Page H6539]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH19JN96.000 [[Page H6540]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH19JN96.001 [[Page H6541]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH19JN96.002 [[Page H6542]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH19JN96.003 [[Page H6543]] Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. YATES. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I honor my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio, Ralph Regula, for this hard work and his very great diligence in formulating this bill. It could have been a much better bill, if we only had the money that is required to do the job properly. To properly care for the vast natural resources of the United States and the magnificent museums and galleries which are funded in this bill, money is needed, and that money has not been allocated to us in the 602(b) allocation. For some reason, Interior continues to be the stepchild of the 602(b) bosses. This bill has been saddled with many burdens. We have been forced to take a cut of $482 million in our 602(b) allocation, which comes on top of the $1.1 billion reduction this bill enjoyed in the previous fiscal year. To add insult to injury, this malnourished bill had two legislative riders foisted on it in the full Committee on Appropriations. One deals with native American taxation, the other deals with the endangered marbled murrelet. Mr. Chairman, the first rider added by the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Istook], will effectively cripple the ability of many native American tribes to operate successful retail establishments, like gas stations or convenience stores, on their property by forcing native American tribes, who are sovereign under the decisions of the Supreme Court and under treaties established with the United States to charge State sales taxes at their establishment. The second troubling rider was added by the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs], and deals with protection of the endangered marbled murrelet. The Riggs amendment was precipitated by a court ruling that ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service to designate areas in California, Oregon, and Washington as critical habitat for the elusive seabird. What the Riggs provision seeks to do is to prevent the Fish and Wildlife Service from enforcing this designation on private lands in California. Not only does this ill-conceived provision set a dangerous precedent for suspending the Endangered Species Act, but it could very well lead to the extinction of the marbled murrelet in the Headwaters forest. Mr. Chairman, even our full committee chairman, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], recognizes that these riders could sink the Interior bill. That is why he voted against both of them in committee. Our good friend, the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Boelhert] has also been quoted as saying these riders present real problems for floor consideration. Inclusion of these riders is especially ironic in light of an article that ran in the Washington Post on Monday with the headline, ``GOP Buffs environmental Image''. If the Republican Party seeks to improve its environmental image, then they can join us in striking the marbled murrelet rider. Mr. Chairman, the legislative riders are not the only problem with this bill, and while the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula] did his best to minimize the pain of our reduced allocation, there are major problems with the funding of this bill, critical problems which I cite. For example, funding for the National Park Service has been cut by $40,095,000. Funding for the Fish and Wildlife Service is down by $19,200,000. Funding for vital agency support from Interior Departmental management has been punitively cut by $3,221,000. Funding for the Forest Service has been reduced by $56,281,000. Funding for energy efficiency programs are cut by $37,519,000. Funding for low- income weatherization is cut out by another $11,764,000. Funding for Indian health service facilities has been reduced by $11,257,000. Funding for the Smithsonian Institution has been decreased by $8,700,000. Funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities has been cut by $5,506,000. At the same time that important programs are being cut, other nonessential accounts have been increased, including an increase in corporate welfare for the timber industry in the form of an additional $14 million over the fiscal year 1996 amount for timber roads and timber sale management and $12 million over the administration request for the PILT program. Finally, I want to express my support for the funding contained in this bill for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities. The issue of funding the endowments has long been very controversial in this bill. The funding that is in this bill is the result of the agreement that was reached last year by the members of the Republican Party to continue the NEA for 2 years and the NEH for 3 years. Given these austere budgets, representing a cut of nearly 40 percent for each agency from fiscal year 1995, I hope my colleagues will oppose any amendment to cut or eliminate additional funding for the endowments. Mr. Chairman, in closing, I want to commend my chairman, my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio, Ralph Regula, for his hard work, for his friendship, for his warm association and for his cooperation. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, just a footnote. I concede that we have reduced some of these programs, but it was land acquisition, construction of things that have downstream costs, and the only way we can save money is to cut spending. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Kolbe], a very able member of our subcommittee. Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I want to voice my support for the Interior appropriations bill which is before us today and add my thanks to both the chairman and the ranking minority member and their staffs for the work that they have done on this. Mr. Chairman, you are going to hear a lot of concerns expressed here today, some in support of this, some in adamant opposition to the bill. But, before we take too seriously some of the expressions of discontent, we should all be aware of the budget parameters under which our subcommittee was operating. {time} 1230 Our initial 602(b) allocation was $1.1 billion below fiscal year 1996 funding levels. That is $1.1 billion below. Fortunately, when the House approved the budget resolution, we found there was an additional $3.9 billion of discretionary funding which the Committee on Appropriations was able to reallocate among the subcommittees. Despite this infusion of money, the Interior Subcommittee's fiscal year 1997 budget is still $482 million less than last year. Is this fair and equitable? Perhaps it is not for those concerned about these particular programs. But what is important is not what we do not have. What is significant is what we have done with the money that we do have available to us. This Interior appropriations bill reflects increases for our national parks, for the Everglades restoration, for forest health, specifically fire management and research, for USGS earthquake research and cooperative water research, and we have $4 million for a clean streams initiative. We have also increased or at least maintained fiscal year 1996 funding levels for native American programs, like the vital and multipurpose tribal priority allocations account, for Indian education, Indian health, and increased the funding levels of major cultural institutions, like the Smithsonian, the Holocaust Museum, the Kennedy Center, and the National Gallery of Art. We have attempted to ensure that sufficient funds are available to fulfill our responsibilities as stewards of the Nation's natural treasures. Did some agencies incur reductions or even terminations of programs? Absolutely. But this is necessary as a subcommittee, as a body for us to do this, to keep our commitment to the American people that we would exercise fiscal responsibility, that we would balance the Federal budget in 7 years. And, all told, we have saved nearly $500 million in doing that. Let us not fool each other about what is going to happen. There are going to be a lot of amendments to increase funding levels for programs and agencies. Members will speak with great conviction about the merits of these programs, and in many cases they will be right about whether the program is good or not. [[Page H6544]] But, what I have said before needs to be said again. The appropriations process is not about numbers. It is not about whether we spend $12.1 billion, as this bill recommends, or $13.1 billion. It is not even about whether we cut a particular program, whether we increase a program, or whether we terminate a program. This and the other appropriations bills that are working their way through the legislative process is an opportunity for Congress and our political parties to make a philosophical statement about the direction we believe this country should be going. It is an opportunity to say something about where we think our future is. It is an opportunity for each party in Congress to set forth its vision, its hopes and dreams for our future and our children's future. This bill does that. I urge support for this legislation. Mr. Chairman, I want to voice my strong support for the Interior appropriations bill before us. I know that you have heard many of my colleagues express their support for or adamant opposition to this bill. But before the opposition continues their litany of discontent, I'd like to make you aware of the budgetary parameters under which the subcommittee was operating. Our initial 602(b) allocation was $1.1 billion below fiscal year 1996 funding levels. That's $1.1 billion. Fortunately, when the House approved the budget resolution there was an additional $3.9 billion in discretionary funding which the Appropriations Committee was able to reallocate among the subcommittees. Despite this infusion of money, the Interior Subcommittee's fiscal year 1997 budget authority is still $482 million less than last year. Is this fair and equitable? Probably not. But what's important is not what we don't have. What is significant is what we did with the money we were provided. The fiscal year 1997 Interior appropriations bill reflects increases for our national parks, for Everglades restoration, for forest health-- specifically, fire management and research, for USGS earthquake research and cooperative water research, and we provide $4 million for a clean streams initiative. We have also increased or maintained fiscal year 1996 funding levels for native American programs like the vital and multipurpose tribal priority allocations account, Indian education, Indian health, and increased the funding levels of major cultural institutions like the Smithsonian, the Holocaust Museum, the Kennedy Center, and the National Gallery of Art. We have attempted to ensure that sufficient funds are available to fulfill our responsibilities as stewards of this Nation's natural treasures. Did some agencies incur funding reductions or program terminations? Absolutely. But this was necessary for us to keep our commitment to the American people that we would exercise fiscal responsibility and balance the Federal budget in 7 years. All told, this bill saves the American taxpayers almost $500 million. Let's not fool each other about what is going to happen. Several amendments will be offered to increase the funding levels for various programs and agencies. Members will speak with great conviction about the merits of these programs, and in many instances they'll be right. But I've said it before, and it needs to be said again. The appropriations process is not about numbers. It's not about whether we spend $12.1 billion--as this bill recommends--or $13.1 billion. It's not even about whether we cut a program, whether we increase a program, or whether we eliminate a program. This bill and the other appropriations bills working their way through the legislative process is an opportunity for Congress, and our political parties, to make a philosophical statement about the direction we believe this country should be going. It is an opportunity for us to say something about where we think our future is. It's an opportunity for each party in Congress to set forth its vision for America; its hopes, its dreams for our future, and for our children's future. Mr. Chairman, in its entirety, this appropriations bill reflects this vision. When you dissect and place the funding level of each program, each agency and each line item under a microscope you won't get a true indication of the overall picture. But if you step back and look at this bill in its entirely, keeping in mind that these numbers reflect a promise we made to our children--the promise that we would no longer burden them with our fiscally irresponsible actions--then you get a clearer perspective. This appropriations bill is not perfect. But I believe it reflects a thoughtful and balanced approach given this Nation's $5 trillion debt. I urge all of my colleagues to support its passage. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs]. Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Chairman, I want to start out by paying tribute to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula], the chairman of the subcommittee, who has been a joy to work with throughout the process of shaping this bill. He is invariably willing to listen and try his best to accommodate in a bipartisan fashion the interests of other members of the subcommittee, and I am proud to serve on his subcommittee. I wish that I could transfer all of the enthusiasm that I feel about Mr. Regula personally to the legislative product that we have before us this afternoon. I am afraid that probably the best thing I can do is to say it is better than last year's bill. But last year's bill, as we all recall, had some problems. Just to get what I think is the appropriate framework, this Interior appropriations bill is the primary way that this Congress and this country makes a statement about the precious responsibility we have as stewards of the country's natural and cultural resources. So it really is a very important indication of what is important to us as a people. In that context, I am afraid that this bill does not meet the fundamental responsibilities we in Congress have to protect and preserve those very vital natural and cultural resources which we all are proud to claim as citizens of this country. There is an increase in many of the accounts, as the gentleman's opening comments indicated, over last year's levels, but we are still falling behind. Even with, for instance, the increase for the Park Service, we are not keeping up with the increasing backlog of deferred maintenance which is showing itself, whether in my home area at Rocky Mountain National Park, with trails being closed and visitor services being curtailed, or as is being repeated elsewhere around the country. One of the bill's more serious shortcomings has to do with the energy conservation and efficiency efforts. If we are so shortsighted as to fail to appreciate the threat to this country's national security and its economic security by continuing our profligate ways on energy, we are going to be in very, very sad shape. I will have an amendment later on that addresses this point to a modest degree, far from curing what I think are real shortcomings in that part of the bill. I wish as well that we could find the wherewithal to do the honor that we should as a Nation to our work in the humanities and the arts. The funding levels for both of those endowments are way below what American civilization ought to dedicate to the furtherance of the humanities and the arts and I regret that very much. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Utah [Mr. Hansen], the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Lands of the Committee on Resources. (Mr. HANSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. HANSEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this appropriations bill and recognize the great work that the gentleman from Ohio, Chairman Regula, has done and the many of us who have spend hours talking to him about this. I notice that people talk about an increase in payment in lieu of taxes. I hope that Members realize what this is. Out in the West, many of us are owned by the Federal Government. In the little county of Garfield, you take, for example, 93 percent is owned by the Federal Government. All these folks from around the world and especially the East come out there and they want to play, and they want to look at things and fish, hunt, camp, et cetera. So we are saying, pay your share, if you will. They are the ones that put the debris down that has to be picked up. They are the ones that start the fires. They are the ones that find themselves breaking a leg and you have to go out and take care of them. All we are saying is pay your share. So I commend the gentleman for adding money to payment in lieu of taxes. They also tell us where to put it in wilderness, how to use it for grazing, what we can mine and cut. We are saying if you are going to tell us how to run it, at least pay a little bit. I also hope the Members realized over the past year there has been sensational news stories about closure of [[Page H6545]] park facilities, resulting from dramatically increased visitation to national parks and cuts in park budgets. Actually, this is a result of disinformation, Mr. Chairman, on the part of the Secretary of Interior. Contrary to what you have heard, and I could name the cities and towns that this has been said, including the President of the United States, including the Secretary of Interior, that the Republicans are going to close parks, that there is a list of 312 parks somewhere. Let me tell you, as chairman of that committee, there is no list. H.R. 260 has no place in it, absolutely no place, where it closes one single park. I stand in the well and would eat the bill if someone could tell me where it closed one park. It does not do anything like that. However, that does not stop the Secretary of Interior from engaging in this partisan politics, going on fishing trips on Government time and running partisan things when he should be running his department. There are two indisputable facts: First, is visitation to parks have been flat for nearly a decade. Second, funding for parks has dramatically increased in recent years. The fact is increased funding for parks has been supported by both Democratic and Republican administrations in Congress. As a direct result of the effort of Chairman Regula, and before him Chairman Yates, annual base funding for parks has risen from $394 to $666 million in the last 7 years, an increase of 69 percent. As GAO has testified before my subcommittee last year, these increases have far outpaced inflation. Meanwhile, total visitation to parks has remained flat for a decade. In fact, total park visitation last year was, do you know, about 5 percent from its peak year of 1988. Using two parks as illustrations, Zion in Utah and Yosemite in California, funding increases have far outpaced both of these. These facts have not stopped Secretary Babbitt from saying we are shutting those down. The park newspaper at Yellowstone Park declares the park facilities were closed due to budget shortfalls. Last winter during the lapse in appropriations, Secretary Babbitt shut down all the parks and concession facilities, even though the parks reported they actually had more rangers on duty during the shutdowns than before. Meanwhile, the Forest Service, also without a budget, did not shut down a single ski area, outfitter, or any other concessionaire on Forest Service lands. They continued to welcome the public, and for that I salute Secretary Glickman. Overall budget cuts at the Forest Service have been much higher, but that agency has sought out innovative ways to continue to serve the public. Rather than shut down its campgrounds, the Forest Service contracted them out to the private sector. Secretary Glickman has contracted out 70 percent of Forest Service campgrounds to the private sector this year. That provides for a vivid contrast with Secretary Babbitt, who runs around the country complaining about budget shortfalls. Mr. Chairman, I think we need a Secretary who puts protecting and managing our parks above politics. Mr. Chairman, I would urge support of this good piece of legislation. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio]. Mr. FAZIO of California. Mr. Chairman, as we consider this very important bill, I think it is important that we revisit the issue of the timber salvage rider that was part of the rescissions bill last year. While I felt at the time that it was important to address the problem of dead and dying trees, and the issue of forest health in general, in hindsight it was clear we dealt with it in too much haste. I did not vote on the Yates amendment when it was considered on the floor last year because I was with my wife at the hospital while she had minor surgery. I did vote for the bill on final passage, however, both because it helped to provide disaster relief to California and because it had the administration's support. At the time I think few Members of Congress were aware that the salvage timber rider allowed section 318 timber sales to be reinstated as well. If they had been aware of the deficiency, I do not think this rider would have gotten through. The 1990 section 318 sales were intended to allow the development of a compromise in the Northwest but they did not succeed and were halted due to environmental concerns. These sales only affect old growth timber. The issue of salvage timber--or the attempt to glean the forest of dead or dying trees particularly after drought periods like the one recently in California--is a different concern altogether. To my knowledge, these two issues were never intended to be intermingled. Fortunately, the Appeals Court has stepped in to stop the expedited 318 sales of old growth trees so we will have a chance to deal with option 9 in a responsible manner. Given the vagueness of the definition of salvage timber, it was not unexpected that this provision could be ill used to harvest healthy trees. We should not have gone forward with the salvage timber rider without tightening up how the Forest Service implemented the program in the first place. In practice, the program allowed for more than dead and dying trees to be cut. For those of us in this Congress who see a real threat to forest health and who have a strong desire to find the appropriate solution, the salvage timber rider simply went too far. Instead of merely allowing the timber companies some flexibility in helping to prevent future wildfires, those pursuing a different agenda took advantage of the opportunity and sought to cut health trees and old growth timber as well. I would like to cite an example of how such sales can be extremely detrimental. Recently in my district the Forest Service sought to reinstate the Barkley timber sale in the Lassen National Forest. I personally appealed to the Department of Agriculture to stop the sale because it would have seriously unraveled the cooperative local efforts among landowners, conservationists, and government officials to produce a collaborative strategy for resource management. In particular, the Quincy Library Group is a broad-based organization which worked hard to come to an agreement on timber harvests in the Sierra Nevadas. The Barkley timber sale would have jeopardized that carefully balanced effort. In response to my concern, the sale was stopped. We must seek an appropriate balance in identifying solutions that will work overtime. I support the amendment before us to restore environmental review to the timber salvage process. We need to provide a check to the extreme actions being undertaken under the guise of harvesting dead and dying trees. We need to come up with a definition of salvage similar to those that have been introduced by Members of both bodies, but which have yet to become law. Mr. Chairman, this is an important issue that hopefully can be not only debated clearly today, but resolved once and for all, so the Congress can send a clear message about how it wants to deal with the issue of forest health. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. FAZIO of California. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, does the gentleman recognize that it is the Secretary of Agriculture that has to approve these sales that he is discussing in his remarks? I think that is an important point. It is the administration's Secretary that is doing it. Mr. FAZIO of California. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, typically they are really approved at the forest level. I think typically these decisions are made by Forest Service personnel at the regional level. They of course come from many different perspectives on these issues. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield further, in drafting the regulation, we did not spell out that the Secretary in effect has approval responsibility. So I think that is an important element that we should just bring to the attention of our colleagues in discussing this question. Mr. FAZIO of California. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I think the key is to come up with a definition of dead and dying trees that would warrant a salvage operation. The gentleman from California [Mr. Condit] had proposed, for example, 70 percent. If we had that kind of clarity in the law, then we would not have the problem of green trees being cut in some areas and the program working perhaps more appropriately in other areas. [[Page H6546]] {time} 1245 And, of course, the 318 inclusion, which occurred in the Senate during the conference, was very much a troubling aspect for people across the spectrum who were interested in the forest health issue. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Taylor], a very fine member of our subcommittee. Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Regula], the staff of the committee, and the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks], and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Yates], for the bill that has been put together. I think it is an outstanding bill, as has been said on the floor. So far, it does recognize many areas in forest health and it recognizes areas of park maintenance. It is probably the largest effort that has been made toward maintenance that we have had in a long time, and that is especially important in a time when there is so much pressure on reducing the budget. I would like, though, as a member of the committee and a sponsor of the timber salvage bill, to correct some misstatements. A lot of the organizations outside that have never understood this legislation, never really cared about forest health, have been trying to promote its demise. First of all, the 318 legislation that was put in by the Senate, as the gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio] indicated earlier, will expire September 30 of this year, so it is pretty much a moot question. As he mentioned a moment ago, the sales that people in that region felt were a problem, they have appealed. The court has spoken in this area and that is going to be pretty well handled, and there is no reason to address it on this floor at all. As it deals with salvage, to say that this language ought to be changed or we should have used this language is to fail to understand that the salvage language used in the timber salvage bill was the identical salvage language that has been used for years in the Forest Service's procedure in salvaging timber. It was only a few years ago that environmental organizations decided they needed to move another step forward and stop cutting in the national forest, as they have openly now said they want to do, and they put in a provision against salvage timber at the time. We simply removed that provision with the salvage amendment. The language is the same, that has never been contested over the years, as was used by the Forest Service. Second, to talk about its being used abusively, there is not one single case, and I challenge anyone to come with me, an it is hard to do on the floor, but I challenge anyone to come with me and prove there is a single case where that has been abused. And the final point is that green trees, when we are trying to wipe out disease and insects, for instance, with insects, the green tree is the host tree of the insect; it is a peripheral area just around the dead trees. If all we were cutting were the dead trees when we try to wipe out insects, we would never cut that out because the insect has already moved on to a living tree. So we have to come around to a peripheral area to get rid of the insects. And if we do not get rid of the insect, it will take the entire forest. And that was the reason for the salvage bill; it was for forest health. So I think the legislation has been misunderstood. We will address it more specifically in the debate, but it is a good piece of legislation that has worked well. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Doyle]. Mr. DOYLE. Mr. Chairman, I want to acknowledge the efforts of the gentleman from Ohio, Chairman Regula, and the ranking member, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Yates, for the bill they bring before us today. They have done their best to protect a wide variety of important programs in a difficult budgetary climate. While there are many parts of this legislation I support, there is one in particular that I want to highlight, and that is the Department of Energy's fossil energy R During the debate today many Members will come to floor and seek to plus up other accounts at the expense of fossil energy. While I do not necessarily disagree with the programs they seek to plus up, I believe that their efforts to cut fossil energy are misguided at best. As you can see from this chart, the Energy Information Agency has predicted that 20 years from now, we will still be dependent on fossil energy for 89 percent of our energy needs. Since this will still be the primary source of our energy supply, it make sense to pursue technological advancements that will allow us to make better use of these fuels. There is one area which I wish had received greater funding than is in the bill, and that is energy conservation R For the same reasons that I support fossil R, I think it is important that we maintain a strong commitment to conservation R, as they deal with improving combustion-based energy. However, I will oppose efforts to raise the conservation line at the expense of fossil. I believe that such efforts are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of these two programs. Those who propose to increase conservation by reducing fossil are proposing no net gain for meeting our energy needs, they only move funds from one good program to another. The only difference is the name ``conservation'' sounds more politically-correct than fossil. I realize that because fossil fuels have been around for awhile, that there is a tendency to think that the utilization technologies have been improved to their maximum. If this logic was applied to nuclear R, you would come to the conclusion that since atoms haven't changed since the beginning of time, that there is no more work to be done in this area. Or in the case of renewables, since wind has been around since the formation of the planet, we shouldn't fund wind energy research. While these arguments make no sense, neither does the argument that we should cut fossil R, because they are currently in use. We are not talking about the fuel, but the way in which it is used. The Department of Energy, should be praised for the way in which they have managed to live within the confines of last years Interior Appropriations bill, which calls for a 10 percent reduction per year for the next 4 years. This is allowing for a gradual phase-out of the fossil energy program, without throwing away tax dollars already invested in research projects that yet to be completed. The amendments being offered to reduce fossil are being offered by those who either don't understand or don't care about the way their proposals will impact our energy security. I urge Members to oppose them all, as fossil energy should not be penalized with further reductions for adhering to its downsizing plan. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs], a member of the full Committee on Appropriations. Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Ohio, Chairman Regula, for yielding me this time, and I look forward to the debate coming up. Colleagues, first of all, in this very brief 2 minutes, I want to address something the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks] said during debate on the rule. He said that my amendment in the full Committee on Appropriations last week to prohibit the Fish and Wildlife Service from enforcing the critical habitat designation for the marbled murrelet on private lands, privately owned property, would render the marbeled murrelet extinct in northern California. The question I have for Mr. Dicks is, when was the last time he visited us in northwest California? Because that critical habitat designation in my district alone, and this goes to the gentleman's staffer, too, who wrote his remarks, in my district alone this critical habitat designation applies to 693,000 acres in Humboldt, Del Norte, and Mendocino Counties, and that breaks down as follows: 477,300 acres in Six Rivers National Forest, Federal property; Redwood National Park; the King Range National Conservation Area; and some parcels of Bureau of Land Management land. That is all federally owned property. And, in addition to that, the critical habitat designation applies to the 175,000 acres of State land, including State redwood parks, the Sinkyone [[Page H6547]] Wilderness State Park, and some Mendocino State parks. I am talking about protecting the property rights of 10 private property owners, 10 private property owners who own 32,000 acres in Humboldt County, the largest county in my congressional district. Some of those property owners are here today. They are not just timber companies, by the way. Some of them are longtime ranching and farming families, properties that have been in the hands of these families for generations, such as the Gift family, 501 acres designated critical habitat, taken without just compensation to the Gift family; the Bowers family, 156 acres taken without just compensation to the Bowers family; Harold Crabtree, his entire 254-acre ranch taken without just compensation from the Federal Government. So I conclude, 99 percent of this critical habitat designation is on public lands. We are talking about the final 1 percent, the remaining 1 percent, that is privately owned property. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 6 minutes. I would say to my distinguished friend from California that I, too, represent an area that has been as affected as any in the country by listings under the Endangered Species Act, and my approach has been to try to work with the private companies and the State of Washington in order to get them to enter into a multispecies habitat conservation plan, an agreement between the Fish and Wildlife Service and the private company to protect the species on the private property lands and to help in the conservation effort. For that, they get 100 years of certainty. Now, I checked yesterday with the Fish and Wildlife Service and asked them about the company involved here, and whether they had seriously attempted to negotiate a multispecies HCP, and the answer was a resounding no. Now, that is the way for the gentleman to solve his problem, to sit down with his company and with the Fish and Wildlife Service and try to get them to work out on a voluntary basis a multispecies HCP. That is how the Endangered Species Act allows one to get the incidental take permit that is necessary. Let me just also say to my friend from California, even with a critical habitat listing, the company still can log. All it cannot do is have a taking of a species that is either threatened or endangered, and so they can use this private property. I just want to make that point. If he is going to have a taking, the only way he can get around a taking is to have an incidental take permit. And the way one gets an incidental take permit, a large private landowner, is to do it by negotiating a multispecies HCP. I have worked with the Murray Pacific Co., Plum Creek, Weyerhaeuser, the major timber companies in the Northwest, to get them to do that. What the gentleman is doing today by walking into the full committee and offering an exemption for one large lumber company in his district is not only undermining the Endangered Species Act, but he is undermining my efforts and the efforts of other Members of Congress who are trying to work with their private timber companies to get them to do these multispecies HCP's. I am sure the gentleman has a different interpretation of his intent, but the bottom line is, this is what is occurring. So I am urging my colleagues today to join with me in striking out the Riggs amendment, and I urge the gentleman to go back and do it the old-fashioned way, to sit down and get a multispecies HCP through the Fish and Wildlife Service. Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. DICKS. I yield to the gentleman from California. Mr. RIGGS. First of all, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding, and I want to give him an opportunity to respond to the point I made that we are talking about 10 property owners. Mr. DICKS. But the gentleman would admit that the predominant landowner here is the Pacific Lumber Co.; is that not right? Mr. RIGGS. If the gentleman would continue to yield, I would not stipulate to that. We are talking about nine other private property owners, some of which are---- Mr. DICKS. But the Pacific Lumber Co. has 33,000 acres. Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would give me an opportunity to finish, there are nine property owners who own collectively 8,000 acres. And I am going to introduce in the debate to come, on the gentleman's motion to strike, letters from these property owners that say they have never had a single contact from the Fish and Wildlife Service. Not once. The properties have not been inspected. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I take back my time. The gentleman knows fully if they have a species on their property, it is their responsibility. They do not have to do it, but if they do not do it, they do not get an incidental take permit. If they want to risk taking a species without an incidental take permit, then they will violate the Endangered Species Act. The way to do it is to go in and enter into an agreement. Now, in many cases, small landowners are given, as a matter of course, an incidental take permit. It is the large landowner that is asked to do the multispecies HCP. {time} 1300 In this case, the company involved did not negotiate in good faith to get a multispecies HCP. If they had done that and they were willing to do that on all the lands that they own in this area that the gentleman's amendment affects, I am told by the Fish and Wildlife Service that they would have bent over backwards to try to enter into such an agreement. The facts are that they came in and made it very clear from the very first instant that what they wanted to do was to file a lawsuit that would raise the issue of a constitutional taking. That is, in fact, what they did. And in fact the Federal judge, Judge Rothstein, is the one who directed the Fish and Wildlife Service to designate critical habitat. In this instance, 78 percent of the critical habitat was on Federal lands, and only 1 percent was on the private lands. In my judgment, the only reason it is on the private land is because the area involved is crucial to the survival of the spotted owl in that area. So I would just say to the gentleman from California, not only in this amendment is he undermining the Endangered Species Act, he is also threatening the survival of the marbled murrelet. There are a lot of fishermen who have written me saying, please oppose the Riggs amendment. They are fearful that, if we do not protect the marbled murrelet and it becomes endangered rather than threatened under the Federal law, even more onerous restrictions will be put on the fishermen in my colleague's area as well. Now, I sympathize with the gentleman from California. He and I have worked on things together in the past, but what I do not like here is what he is doing. By coming in here and getting a specific exemption, it is undermining all of the rest of us who are trying to get our private companies to do the right thing by entering into a multispecies HCP. That is what the gentleman should be doing, not coming here and undermining the Endangered Species Act, threatening the marbled murrelet and threatening the old growth in this particular area which is crucial to the survival of the marbled murrelet. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Jersey [Mrs. Roukema]. Mrs. ROUKEMA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I want to thank him for his hard work in bringing this bill to the floor. These are very difficult issues. As we have heard by the previous speakers, the chairman has had to deal with situations where there are very meritorious but competing interests. I think he has done an admirable job here. But I rise today to revise and extend my remarks with respect to an issue that is of paramount importance here to us in the State of New Jersey. Included in this legislation is the Sterling Forest issue, which is located in my district. It is being put in this legislation as one of the Nation's top two priorities for land acquisitions. This legislation recommends that Sterling Forest receive $9 million as a downpayment on the Federal Government's purchase price. [[Page H6548]] I want to point out, by the way, I thank the chairman. He and I have worked for a number of years on this together. I do appreciate his cooperation and his commitment to this particular project. I also want to point out that the Speaker this last March visited our State and Sterling Forest and has made a commitment that he would see to it this year that this would be accomplished. However, although this is an important step, it is a significant step. It strictly undermines the contention that I have had from the beginning, which is that time is of the essence and that Sterling Forest owners cannot be expected to wait forever, even though they are willing in a willing compromise, a negotiated compromise to deal with the Federal Government. But I must point out here that, even though this is set as a priority under this authorization, not only is time of the essence but we must not lose sight of the fact that we need authorization for this to be effective. This Sterling Forest is not yet authorized. I will be pressing ahead with every fiber of my being to see to it that it gets authorized in the very near future. Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Nevada [Mrs. Vucanovich], an excellent member of our subcommittee. Mrs. VUCANOVICH. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 3662, the fiscal year 1997 Interior and related agencies appropriations bill. This bill is $482 million below last year's funding and within our budget allocation. Given the need to reduce Federal spending, and the resulting lower funding allocation the subcommittee and full Appropriations Committee is working under this year, this is a good bill, and I commend Chairman Regula and his staff for putting this measure together. H.R, 3662 represents the tough choices that have to be made if we are going to get spending under control. So while I call it a good bill and urge all of my colleagues to support the bill, I also recognize that there is something in here for everyone to dislike. It is impossible to both cut spending and to fund everything that all of us would like to fund. On the other hand, compared to last year, H.R. 3662 increases funding for operating our National Park System by $55 million; it increases forest health initiatives like pest suppression and wildfire management by $72 million; and it allows $52 million more for Native American programs than last year. Mr. Chairman, on balance, this bill represents a tremendous effort to balance spending cuts with stewardship of our natural resources. I urge a ``yes'' vote. Mr. YATES. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, this is a very good bill. I hope the Members will take a good look at it, especially the amendments, as we go along. We will accept some, but we will have to resist a number of them. We want to finish the bill today, and we want to move along as quickly as possible. Mr. POSHARD. Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned about the numerous amendments, notably the Farr, Walker, and Richardson amendments, in the Interior appropriations bill for fiscal year 1997 that cut valuable funding of up to $138 million for the Department of Energy's Fossil Energy Research and Development Program. We hear a great deal today about how the United States has become overly dependent on foreign sources of oil. A main reason for this is because over the past decade strict limitations have been put on the burning of certain types of coal. These moneys address such crucial energy issues by enabling research into vital clean coal technology, as well as ways to increase domestic oil and gas production. In addition, programs such as the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council that provide for the transfer of technology between independent producers would be eliminated. Rural economies have been especially hard hit by the limitations on coal, and the decreased production of oil and natural gas. In my district alone, thousands of people employed in these industries have been affected, whether they are displaced coal miners or small oil companies that can no longer afford to operate. These citizens represent the backbone of our domestic energy production, and stand ready to provide alternative energy options to foreign petroleum. In Illinois, the Fossil Energy Research and Development Program will account for almost 30,000 jobs in the first decade of the next century. Moreover, the budget for fossil energy programs has already been cut 10.5 percent from last year's levels, and 30 percent from fiscal year 1995. Hence, these amendments would seriously endanger the future of energy development in this country, as well as many local economies. I urge all of my colleagues to retain funding for this important research. Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Chairman, I ask permission to revise and extend my remarks. I rise today in support of the funding in this bill for California Natural Communities Conservation Planning [NCCP] program. The fiscal year 1997 Interior appropriations bill, which will be considered by the subcommittee this afternoon, contains $5 million for the program. I would also like to support the amendment offered by my California colleague Rep. Ken Calvert. His amendment will shift $1 million from the Forest Service General Administration Account to the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund. By cutting bureaucracy, the Calvert amendment will further our goals for protecting and preserving sensitive species in southern California. The NCCP pilot program in southern California is the Nation's most advanced cooperative approach. The program was initiated 5 years ago as an attempt to create a multispecies approach to preserving species. By increasing funding in the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund, Rep. Calvert's amendment will help us to fund the NCCP at the administration's requested level. Even in a time of unprecedented fiscal constraints, I would like to commend Interior Subcommittee Chairman Ralph Regula for recognizing the merit of this process and supporting the program. The NCCP represents the future of conservation, and it is a giant leap forward over the historical project-by-project, command and control methods of most environmental strategies. The system we have in place now sets us up for confrontation, conflict, and gridlock. The NCCP will replace that system and create a framework for comprehensive conservation planning to protect natural resources and sensitive species in southern California while allowing for reasonable growth. The NCCP is part of a collaborative effort between Federal, State, and local officials, as well as land owners and environmental groups. The planning process' goal is to protect a variety of species and sensitive natural habitats, to prevent the need to list other species in the future as endangered, and allow growth and economic development to occur in balance with sound resource conservation. The NCCP includes conservation and development plans for nine separate areas within the southern California planning region. Again, I urge support of the Calvert amendment, and final passage of this bill. Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased that Chairman Regula and the Appropriations Committee has included in the fiscal year 1997 Interior appropriations bill $4.58 million in reimbursement to Guam for the costs incurred as a result of the Compacts of Free Association. These compacts with the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau, allow open and free migration to the United States. Of course, Guam receives the greatest share of this migration which puts a tremendous strain on our local resources and this impact continues to grow. Guam is geographically located closest to these new nations. Their economies are less developed than Guam's, and for many of their citizens, the