Volume 148, No. 86 covering the 2nd Session of the 107th Congress (2001 - 2002) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“PROTECTING OUR NATIONAL PARKS” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H3920-H3926 on June 25, 2002.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
PROTECTING OUR NATIONAL PARKS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to spend a few minutes this evening with some of my colleagues discussing the situation that we face as Americans across the country prepare to enjoy the July 4 holiday. For many people, it is an opportunity not just to reflect on the Declaration of Independence, the patriotic history of our country, but it is also an opportunity for families to come together to use this opportunity to join for family recreation, to vacation; and it sort of marks the first serious week of heavy utilization of our outstanding national park system.
These are an area that have proven to touch the hearts of many Americans. It dates back to the tenure of President Teddy Roosevelt, who was such an outstanding leader in terms of the park system and conservation; but sadly, Mr. Speaker, today more and more Americans as they turn to the park system are going to be looking at a state of our national parks and public lands that, frankly, is going to disappoint them. They are going to be assaulted in areas where there should not be allowed motorized vehicles.
There are problems of poor air quality that plague these jewels of our national park system. Air quality is a problem in the Grand Canyon, in Yosemite, in Yellowstone.
We have serious problems in terms of what has happened with the extraction of our country's mineral resources, where sadly our policies of today have not kept pace with the demands that have been placed upon them and what we now know about protection of the environment. Sadly, the Mining Act of 1872 continues on the books exactly, exactly as it was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant 130 years ago.
During his Presidential campaign, George W. Bush spoke of protecting national parks as an ongoing responsibility and a shared commitment of the American people and their government.
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Mr. Speaker, I was one of the Americans who was cheered by these words by then Governor Bush because, frankly, although I disagreed with him about a number of his environmental policies and his stewardship in the State of Texas and while I was frankly dismayed as I saw the stewardship that occurred with the State park system in Texas, I was heartened by his words that were optimistic as far as what may occur with our national treasures.
However, Mr. Speaker, I am sad to say that since President Bush has assumed office I do not think any objective observer would suggest that he has followed in the footsteps of Teddy Roosevelt, who President Bush called America's first environmental President.
My colleagues and I are here today to talk about the various threats to the serenity and wildlife of our national parks and to look at the unfortunate record that has been developed by the administration, although it is not too late to reverse course, and on behalf of the American public, we hope that they will.
The administration, as we speak, is moving to undo a national park service plan to phase out snowmobiles in Yellowstone in the Grand Teton National Parks, despite strong scientific evidence and overwhelming public support for a ban. This week, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) and the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) will be introducing legislation to require as a matter of law the ban that was put in place by the Clinton Administration. I am proud that there are over 100 of us already in Congress who will be original co-sponsors of that legislation.
The administration has yet to argue forcefully and provide in its budgets new money to address the maintenance backlog in the national parks system. We have seen the administration propose a rollback of the Clean Air Act provisions which will actually increase air pollution in national parks from nearby power plants; and the President has claimed that he does not want to create any new parks, although he did sign a bill, in fairness, in February to create the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home National Historic Site.
Meanwhile, there are bills for a number of important park sites that are not moving forward; and in the 2003 budget, the President has in his proposal eliminated funding for the Urban Parks and Recreation Recovery Program, an unfortunate development which I am hopeful Congress will be able to step up and countermand.
I am pleased to be joined this evening by the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis), and I yield to the gentlewoman if she has some observations that she wishes to offer up at this point.
Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate this opportunity to have this special hour dedicated to our parks. Because as we go into our holiday season preparing for the 4th of July, there is going to be over 60 million people that will visit our Nation's national parks; and national parks create a place for families to recreate, to enjoy each other, to enjoy natural resources and learn about the world around us. All of our parks to me are national treasures and I know to many people.
Some of our most used parks are ones that I represent in my own district in the San Gabriel Valley in East Los Angeles out in California, and it is surprising, but the studies that I have seen regarding park space is despicable when it comes to low-income communities and where individuals do not have the opportunity to have open space. In fact, according to a study by the University of California Sustainable Cities Program, three to four acres of open space or green space are needed per 1,000 people to be considered a healthy environment. But in my own district in Los Angeles, there is less than a half acre per 1,000 people. Imagine that. Packed in like sardines.
Communities like mine are in need of park opportunities, and they are waiting for this release now. In the 2003 budget, the President has eliminated funding for the Urban Parks and Recreation Recovery Program, a program that provides $29 million annually to urban communities to preserve park land and develop recreational opportunities in their communities. Oddly enough, this administration recently touted the urban park grants for 2002 as one of their accomplishments, despite their intention to defund it.
The President claims that it is time to tighten our financial belts and merely maintain parks that we have now. The administration says they do not want to add any new parks, but, in fact, as my colleague, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), said, back in February President Bush signed a bill creating the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home National Historic Site. Meanwhile, other bills are lingering in committee waiting to be heard.
I happen to have a bill that is waiting to be heard. It is H.R. 2966; and it would create a study to find out if we could create a national park for Cesar Chavez, a leading figure in the Latino community who fought on behalf of farm workers, fought against the use of pesticides for farm workers, and looking for equal justice for all people, for all workers. Would it not be wonderful to have the first national park to recognize a Latino leader in the United States?
I ask that question because it is time. Our communities are diverse, and it turns out that recent polling that I have seen indicates that the Latino community or Hispanic community is indeed in favor of open space and open parks and more space so that they can have the ability to recreate. And what is happening? We are going in the opposite direction. We are not doing enough to diversify and even allow for urban parks to be established.
I have another bill that will be heard shortly in the Committee on Resources to establish, hopefully, a study for one of the largest urban parks in California. Currently, a state conservancy exists in our community known as the River Mountain Conservancy where over 7 million people live alongside this river that covers over 31 miles.
I would hope that the administration and our colleagues on the other side will work with us in a bipartisan manner so that more funding will go into parks and recreation. Our communities need it, urban America needs it, and the diversity of our country desires that.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's strong voice for a balanced approach to parks and recreation and making sure that it meets the needs of all our citizens.
I think the gentlewoman touched on an important point, because we have so many people who have limited opportunities for travel. There are people for whom, even if they have opportunities to travel, the day-to-day existence needs to be softened by opportunities for urban park and recreation programs.
I look forward to working with the gentlewoman on her legislation and appreciate her strong voice for making sure Congress has a broad view of that responsibility.
Mr. Speaker, we have also been joined this evening by the gentleman from the State of Washington (Mr. Inslee), who, among other things, is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health of the Committee on Resources, a person who has been a strong champion in the Pacific Northwest for issues that relate to livability.
I have had the opportunity of watching him in action in the Arctic wilderness a year ago, surveying and listening to his observations about the issues that would deal with drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, and I appreciate his strong environmental voice of leadership not just in the Pacific Northwest but around the country. So I am happy to yield to the gentleman to join in this discussion this evening.
Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman so much. I am glad the gentleman has brought us together to talk about these issues.
I want to add two messages to talk about our incredible public lands that we have in this country that we ought to think about. The first is the area in our Forest Service lands, which is such a treasure. People all around the world come to see our forest areas, but they run a risk now because the Bush administration has threatened to essentially reduce the protections for our Forest Service lands and our pristine unroaded, uncut forests.
I wanted to alert people to the potential of protecting these pristine forests and ask my colleagues to join us as cosponsors in the Roadless Area Conservation Act, which the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), a Republican, and myself are prime sponsors of. We now have 175 cosponsors. The reason this act is so important is that it would codify the existing area, roadless area rule, a rule that was adopted with the positive comments of over 1.2 million Americans who basically asked the Federal Government to protect the parts of the United States forest areas that have not been subject to having roads built on them yet. We think this is a very common-sense approach, because Americans value their pristine unroaded areas in our U.S. Forest Service lands.
What this bill would do is essentially just put into law the rule that was previously adopted under the previous administration that would protect the areas in our Forest Service that have been designated as unroaded areas.
The reason this is so important, and a lot of people think just from an environmental perspective, of protecting our unroaded areas from an environmental perspective, but it is important for a fiscal reason as well. That is because we already have 350,000 miles of roads that Uncle Sam has built in our Forest Service areas. Those roads, many of them, are now falling apart. They are literally washing out into streambeds and contaminating the gravels and ruining the fish habitat in our streams.
In fact, we have an $8 billion backlog, an $8 billion backlog of maintenance needs on our existing 350,000 miles of roads in our Forest Service lands. So we think it makes a lot of sense to use maintenance money in the Forest Service to maintain what we have of these roads, because we have this epidemic of roads that are washing out. So we think we should protect what we have before we go punch new roads into unroaded areas.
From an environmental perspective, Americans have spoken. When this rule was under consideration in the previous administration, we had the largest outpouring of citizen input of any rule under any agency in American history. In over 600 public meetings, 1.2 million Americans gave their input that said they want a strong roadless area rule. They want to protect the roads we already have and not build additional ones in our roaded areas. If my colleagues can show a bigger outpouring of public support for anything, I have not seen it in this country.
The difficulty now is that the administration, even though the Attorney General of the United States during his confirmation was asked by the U.S. Senate whether he would preserve and protect and defend this rule and he said he would do so, unfortunately, he has not done so. And in litigation in an Idaho court, the best thing we could charitably say is that the U.S. Attorney took a dive and did not defend this rule and let the court run over the rule.
The administration has now made threats to try to impinge on the rule, to cut it down in various ways and has refused to honor the rule.
So we need to act in the U.S. House. We need to pass a law, we need to codify this, and we hope that more colleagues will join us. We hope the majority party allows a vote on this bill, because we think the majority of the House will support this bill. A very important issue.
Second issue, if I can, and this is a big issue, one for, I suppose, several hours discussion, but I think it is important to talk about. When we think about our national parks and our national forest lands, they are under the threat of an invisible foe right now. There is an invisible threat to our national parks, and that is the threat of global warming.
Our park system today runs the risk of very significant changes as a result of unchecked global warming. We can already see changes in our national parks today of this phenomena which is occurring. As we know, 8 of the last 10 years we have had the hottest years in the last thousand years, and as a result of this trend we are already seeing changes in our national forests and our national parks.
In Glacier National Park, glaciers are melting dramatically. Scores of glaciers are on the cusp of disappearing. If this trend continues, which it will unless we change some of our national policies, someday it will be the park formerly known as Glacier. Maybe we will name it after presidents who did nothing about global warming. It is one way to get a national park named after you, I suppose, but that would not be the direction we want to go.
In Denali National Park, I was there last summer while looking at the Arctic Refuge, I talked to forest rangers who has been working there for about 20 years and who had seen the tree line move north several miles just during their very brief tenure. What is happening is that the types of trees that we have, the vegetation, is essentially moving because the atmosphere and the environment is changing.
The Alpine meadows that we now enjoy in the Rocky Mountains, and I know John Denver could sing Rocky Mountain High, but those Alpine meadows may not be there in 100 years because the environment is changing enough that the biosphere changes and then there is no more mountain left to go to once we reach certain elevations.
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So the fact is that we, because of our lack of an energy policy, are causing significant changes to our national parks. We can see it right in our homes, and today with the sweltering heat in D.C., it should be obvious, but over the long term, we are changing the substantive environment of our park system in a way that perhaps we do not fully understand.
I would like to note, too, that the administration issued a report. We had a debate for some period of time about whether global warming was taking place and if it was, were humans causing it. Well, that debate is done. The Bush administration issued a report a week ago which was the cumulation of scientific knowledge from various Federal agencies, and they concluded several things. President Bush's White House issued a report saying global warming is occurring, and this is an accepted global fact.
Number two, a significant portion of that is caused by human conduct. But despite the fact that the administration of the President of the United States concluded that global warming is occurring and humans are responsible for it, the President's response was just get used to it because I am not going to deal with the problem.
As a Member who feels strongly about the national parks, that is not an acceptable position because what the President said was, I am not going to act as a result of this report. That is unacceptable to the American people. It should be unacceptable because our national logo, if you will, is the eagle, not the ostrich. This ostrich approach by the President of the United States is not going to solve this problem. We need leadership from the President of the United States, which he is capable of providing. He has provided the country leadership in the war against terrorism, and we need the President to provide leadership on the war against global warming.
His response to date has been a volunteer program. He will ask major corporations in America to volunteer to reduce their emissions. Well, voluntary programs may work for PTA bake sales, but they are not going to work to change the course of global warming on this planet. We are urging the President to become engaged in dealing with this issue. It is vital that he do so, and it is vital for us in Congress to take steps as well, first by adopting a meaningful United States energy policy which is important not only for environmental concerns but for our security concerns so we do not have to remain addicted to whatever the political situation is in Saudi Arabia. We are hopeful the energy conferees will adopt a plan to move us toward a more sustainable energy policy to reduce our dependence on Saudi Arabia and whatever peculiar politics are happening there.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for this opportunity to talk about two very important issues, adoption of the roadless area bill so we can protect our pristine areas in the national forests, and this overarching problem of global warming which is going to significantly reduce the character of our national forests and our national parks if we do not act. I thank the gentleman for this opportunity to add my two cents' worth on these issues.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, as always, the gentleman's two cents are worth a great deal to us. I thank the gentleman for putting in context, as we watch some of the most massive forest fires raging across four States now, one thinks of the consequences of continued global climate change, tinderbox forest lands, the problems that we can face across the country with wild fires, forest fires, that we could be involved in a vicious cycle; and I think the gentleman's message is a timely one this evening.
Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield, the report that I made reference to from the White House specifically said that a likely result of global warming are these prolonged drought conditions in the western United States, and what we are seeing now is what we can expect to see in the future in spades.
To comment on the fires, some Members who are not of an environmental lilt have tried to blame these fires on environmental laws and people who care about the environment who enforce environmental laws. That is really, to be charitable, poppycock about this issue.
We had the chief of the forest service, Mr. Bosworth, before the Committee on Resources; and some Members on the other side of the aisle were arguing that the reason Colorado was on fire was because an environmental group had filed an appeal of a proposal to do logging in a relatively small area, and they were arguing that was the reason that these fires had been cataclysmic. I asked Mr. Bosworth is that the reason these fires have become so huge. And he said no, there is no way that that caused these fires. He said these projects, some of which we do need to do to reduce the fuel load that has built up over decades, some of these projects we need to do; but those projects are going to take 10 years. There was an appeal that delayed a project 5 months and the chief, Mr. Bosworth, a Bush appointee, said those delays were not, repeat, not the reason for the fires in Colorado. The other thing is this is such a tiny measure, something like only 300,000 acres. It is the drought conditions which are so dangerous.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, my recollection is that we had some of the people when we had the horrible cycle of fires that the gentleman and I are aware of in the Pacific Northwest, we heard the same drum beat; that somehow this was the problem, that we did not aggressively log the forest. My recollection is that during that period of time the forests that had the greatest loss were the ones that were the more intensely logged.
Mr. INSLEE. Because of drought and dryness conditions, it is going to burn through anything even if you have done preventive thinning in these extremely dry forests. The sad fact is, yes, there is some work that we can do to remove fuel loads in some of these forests; but when they are this dry, they are going to burn. Yes, Democrats and Republicans for decades suppressed fires so much that we allowed fuel to build up. But if they are going to be this dry for the next 200 years, we are not going to have national forests if we do not do something about global warming. The White House has the study, and we just need for them to act.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's leadership on this set of issues.
Mr. Speaker, I am touched by the range of issues that are involved here in terms of the protection of our public lands. I appreciate what the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) was talking about. The gentleman referenced the roadless area rule in the Pacific Northwest. I think it is important to note that we had so many of these roads that are not properly maintained that are actually posing a threat to habitat. I like the philosophy of being able to take advantage of the opportunity to manage what we have. It is very, very important to move forward with the codification of these measures. I am proud to join the gentleman in the cosponsorship of his legislation that would put into law the protection for those roadless areas.
A moment ago we had our colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), on the floor; but, unfortunately, the gentleman had a commitment and we were unable to recognize him in a timely fashion. But he is moving forward to introduce his Yellowstone-specific legislation this Thursday that I mentioned earlier. It is particularly timely that the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) moves forward because earlier today officials from the National Park Service announced that they were going to overrule the January 2001 rule that phased out snowmobile use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.
While many of the specifics of their new rule are not known, the park service officials indicated that their preferred alternative will be a combination of the alternatives that appeared in the supplemental environmental impact statement, the SEIS, issued last March, a combination of alternative of two and three. What is known is that it will force snowmobile use in this environmentally sensitive area.
It will mean increased use and significant impacts on the park and wildlife. It could allow for increased number of snowmobiles in the park while also opening up additional miles for trail use. Under this plan, it is likely that the Clean Air Act and other National Park Service air-quality regulations will be violated. It is clear there will be an increase in health risks to the public and the employees over the original rule which would have banned snowmobiles.
I find a certain irony with today's rollback that will jeopardize the environmental integrity of Yellowstone National Park, ignoring as it does science, law, and public opinion. I am pleased that the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), and over 100 of us who are already cosponsoring this legislation are going to fight it.
I find no small amount of irony that the President in his campaign for office referred to the national parks as ``silent places, unworn by man.'' Yet the President seems determined to allow man to wear down these lands with loud and damaging vehicles.
I was impressed under the previous administration with the leadership of the superintendent of Yellowstone Park, Michael Finley, where the National Park Service opposed a phase-out of snowmobiles in Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Park. They made this decision following 13 years of scientific study and 3 years of nationwide public comment. Let me repeat that. Thirteen years of study.
I had several meetings with Superintendent Finley, and I must say with a little bit of chauvinistic pride as an Oregonian, he revealed to me that over 80 percent of the public comments that were received in the process of this rule were in favor of banning snowmobiles.
Finally, the Environmental Protection Agency joined in this effort recommending the banning of snowmobiles because of the carbon monoxide emissions which were threatening the health of not only the park's ecosystem but, candidly, it was a risk to the health of the park employees. Yet the Bush administration has decided to undercut the National Park Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, and ignore the American public.
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I hope that it is not too late for this Congress to step forward, to listen to the science, the will of the American public and legislate a ban on these vehicles in Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Parks.
It is, Mr. Speaker, an amazing volume of activity. This is not just an occasional recreational vehicle user going through an otherwise pristine environment. We are talking about 80,000 people using snowmobiles; and they are producing, in one of the ecological treasures of this country, more air pollution each year than all the cars and the trucks that carry 3 million other visitors into the park. Think about it for a moment. By overturning this phaseout, it has the effect of doubling the air pollution from the 3 million visitors. It is like having that population double to 6 million.
We have found, Mr. Speaker, that the pollution from the snowmobiles impairs the visibility in the park. It contributes to pollution levels that are higher than allowed in a national park, and these are violations of the Clean Air Act. The noise from the snowmobiles is audible as much as 95 percent of the time in popular sites, interfering with the enjoyment of other visitors.
But it is not just the human visitors that are harassed, because these 80,000 visitors regularly harass wildlife. They are chasing bison back and forth between the roadside snow banks, forcing them to expend energy they need to make it through the harsh winter conditions.
Based on the science, the Park Service concluded that snowmobile use is impairing the resources in the parks in violation of the Organic Act's mandate that the Service-managed parks, to leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.
The Service also found that the snowmobile use is inconsistent with the requirements of the Clean Air Act, Executive Orders 11644 and 11989 by Presidents Nixon and Carter relating to offroad vehicle use in public lands, that the National Park Service general snowmobile regulations and management objectives for the park are also violated.
All these requirements are based on long-standing bipartisan commitment for our national parks be given the highest standard in applying the highest level of protection. The strictest and most detailed government standards applying to snowmobile use in the parks were adopted by President Nixon and during the Reagan administrations. The irony is that this important environmental work, bipartisan in nature, strong congressional input, would be thrown out the window by a President who claimed during his campaign to be a friend of the National Park Service.
Mr. Speaker, I have more material that I wish to offer up and that the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) would have done in my stead, but I notice that we have been joined this evening by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey), a gentleman who has been tireless in his support of these national treasures, a gentleman who I am pleased to note serves on the critical Interior Subcommittee of Appropriations where he has spent a huge amount of time visiting these resources, fighting in Congress and with the general public. I am honored that he is here this evening and would see if he would like to enter into this discussion.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for giving me the opportunity to enter into this discussion.
I was particularly interested in his remarks a few moments ago about the Nation's national parks. These national parks were set aside initially under the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, that is when they first began, a very respected Republican President who was one of the most environmentally sensitive and far-seeing Presidents in our history. It is unfortunate that this present administration, another Republican President, has sought to degrade the national parks in the ways in which we have just heard.
One of the most serious elements of that degradation has to do with air quality. The national parks were set aside initially in the first instance during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt; and when he initiated the first national parks, he talked about the need for Americans, for people, to have a quiet place, a place where they could go and be in touch with the natural elements and get back to a sense of real nature, a place that is pristine, quiet, a place for reflection and a place for us to understand our own relationships with the natural world. That was really the foundation for the national parks.
I am paraphrasing the words of President Theodore Roosevelt, but that was one of the essential aspects of the message that he laid out when he first began to form our series of national parks.
Under this administration, the degradation of air quality and also the proliferation of noise as a result of the extraordinary use of snowmobiles in the winter months is causing serious harm to the national parks themselves and, of course, to the natural setting and is absolutely destroying the sense of quiet, the sense where people can go to get a deeper understanding of the natural world and of themselves. And, of course, the effect on air quality by these snowmobiles is such that the air quality on the western end of Yellowstone, for example, at times is worse than it is, and this is frequently occurring, at frequent times, in major urban areas as a result of the burning of the fossil fuels to propel the snowmobiles.
Of course, the parks are there for everyone. We all want an opportunity to enjoy them, and they are there for recreational use. But there needs to be a realization that one particular aspect of use cannot destroy the joy and the experience that other people have who want to use the national parks in other ways, for hiking, for cross-
country skiing, things of that nature. So I am very distressed, along with everyone who has a deep care about our national treasures, Yellowstone, Yosemite, the other wonderful national parks that make up this unique array of park systems in our country and how it is being degraded and in some sense actually destroyed by the unlimited use of snowmobiles.
I also noticed that earlier there was a discussion with regard to clean air. It also ought to be brought to people's attention how the administration's proposal, in effect gutting serious elements of the Clean Air Act, is having on air quality in many places around the country, not just on national parks but all across the country. The Clean Air Act has been one of the most effective tools to provide a cleaner and healthier environment for all Americans that we have seen in the history of the country. Over the course of now more than 30 years, since 1970, the effect of the Clean Air Act has been to reduce air pollution on average across the country by about 30 percent. That effect will continue. Except that the administration now has said that they are going to remove an important part of the Clean Air Act, known as new source review.
I think that everyone knows, Mr. Speaker, that a major source of air pollution in this country is the generation of electricity through the burning of fossil fuels and the fact that when the Clean Air Act went into effect, many of these old power plants were, in effect, grandfathered. In other words, they did not have to put on the modern cleaning technology which scrubs out the pollutants before they get into the air.
But a provision of the Clean Air Act stipulated that whenever the owner of one of these power plants upgraded the plant in some way to increase the amount of electricity that was being produced or in some other significant way to gain some economic benefit, additional economic benefit from the plant, that at that point new source review kicks in and that the owner of the power plant would then have to install equipment to clean the air coming out of those plants. The administration is now eliminating new source review through the Environmental Protection Agency.
That is going to have a debilitating effect on air quality in many places around the country but especially in the Northeast. In New York, for example, where the Adirondack Mountains suffer from the pollutants that come from these power plants in the form of acid precipitation, acid rain, snow, sleet, hail that falls on the growth in these mountains and also on the lakes, the effect of that has been to completely eliminate all life forms in more than 300 lakes and ponds in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. A similar effect is being experienced in Vermont, in New Hampshire, Maine and other places.
So the effectiveness of the Clean Air Act, which has been an enormously successful instrument to provide a cleaner, healthier environment for Americans, is being subverted by this administration by the elimination of this provision known as new source review.
This is important not just from an aesthetic point of view, not just from the point of view of all of us, I believe all of us who appreciate the quality of a natural environment, to go into a wooded area, to climb a mountain, to go into some back country and breathe the clean air, not only that loss and the loss of the life forms in those more than 300 lakes and ponds in the Adirondacks and similarly in other States, but by gutting the Clean Air Act in this way, by eliminating new source review, by putting more pollutants into the atmosphere, it also degrades the quality of our lives in a very material way. We will see increased incidence of asthma and other lung ailments as a result of the poor quality of air. It is, in fact, a genuine and real health problem.
For all of these reasons, we are deeply concerned about the attitude that has been expressed by the majority of the Members in this House, particularly over the course of the last several years that they have been in the majority, and also the attitude that is apparently being expressed by the administration recently in removing new source review from the Clean Air Act and thereby causing substantial additional pollutants to go into the air and also by degrading the national parks by the unlimited, unregulated use of snowmobiles in those national parks.
I thank the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for setting aside this time for us, Mr. Speaker, so that we could have the opportunity to discuss in some detail these important environmental issues which are also important public health issues.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman joining us and rounding out the discussion to take on the dimensions of public health.
He made an observation that I thought was important, and I would like to pursue one slight distinction. I, too, have been concerned that our Republican colleagues in the leadership have been pursuing an environmental agenda that I think is very much out of sync with what is practiced by most of the American public, the views and attitudes. But the irony is that their limited approach in cutting off debate and not allowing a full range of options to be discussed, actually, they have denied a majority of the House an opportunity to be heard and move important protective legislation forward. I think it is sad, because I know that there are some of our friends on the other side of the aisle who feel uncomfortable with these environmental initiatives.
There is a majority of the House, when we get clean votes for air quality, when we get clean votes for clean water, more often than not the majority will of the House is such that it is in keeping with what the majority will of the American public is in terms of its environmental ethic. But, sadly, we are not permitted to have these straight up or down votes and this full and honest debate.
Mr. HINCHEY. Of course, what the gentleman from Oregon is pointing out here is an undermining, even an abrogation of the basic democratic system under which this Congress is supposed to function. This Congress is set up as a place where the issues that are of most importance and of deepest concern to the American people can be debated freely and openly.
{time} 1915
Certainly, this environmental issue in all of its aspects, its aesthetic aspects, its environmental quality aspects, its public health aspects, is an issue that ought to be debated fully. We ought not to be here in the evening, during the period of Special Orders, although it is a good thing to do, we really ought to have the opportunity to exchange these views with Members on the other side of the aisle, the Republican Party who is in charge of this House and sets the rules in this House. We ought to be able to engage them in substantive debate on these issues so that people can see the differences that exist between them and us, and so that they can then make a decision as to what kind of representation they want.
The gentleman reminding us of the way in which basic democratic principles have been undermined here and the way the House is governed also points out to me the fact that the most important vote that we cast here at the beginning of each Congress every 2 years is the vote that establish the leadership of the House, because it is the leadership of the House that determines the agenda of the House and determines the way in which this House of Representatives is not just organized, but the way it conducts its business day in and day out. It is supposed to be done in an orderly and progressive way; but unfortunately, we have not seen that to be the rule here over the course of the last several years.
So it would be much better if we had an opportunity to discuss the environmental issue, just as it would be much better if we had the opportunity to discuss the energy issue, which I know the gentleman touched on earlier this evening and the fact that our energy policy is one that is devoted almost entirely, almost exclusively, to exploitation of natural resources, and the burning of fossil fuels, rather than focusing, in part, on significant energy conservation and the production of energy through alternative means that are nonpolluting.
That debate is one that we ought to have as well, because I believe the American people want us to develop an energy policy which is multifaceted, which is broad-based, which conserves our natural resources, and which improves the quality of the environment just as they want us to have an open and full environmental debate on these issues as well.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. I come from a background, Mr. Speaker, in a State where there are nominally partisan politics; but when I got started in the political process, the issues of protecting the environmental heritage of the State of Oregon was something that Republicans and Democrats could often come together on. There was a great Republican environmental leader, Tom McCall, that actually gave me my very first governmental assignment when I was still a college student to be on Oregon's livable community, it was a livable community commission. I worked with some key Republicans when we were doing legislative protections of the environment when I was a State legislator in the 1970s.
The protection of our environmental heritage should not be partisan, and I am sorry that it has reached that point today. It is interesting, however, that the men and women who run for national office and increasingly, even on the State level, embrace the rhetoric of environmental protection, hence some of the quotations that I gave earlier this evening from candidate Governor Bush when he was running and how he was going to respect and honor the environment.
It is interesting that through the manipulation of the political process that there are acts that are undertaken, criticism of the last administration, for example, for using the antiquities act to protect some great national monuments in this country. But now, all of the smoke and fury has subsided. There is a Republican in the White House, there is a Republican leadership, but are they introducing leadership to repeal President Clinton's monument designations? No. There is not a single bill that is coming forward to repeal them. Instead, what we see is that there is actually legislation that some of our Republican colleagues are proposing that would tie the hands of President Bush and future Presidents to designate monuments as sort of I guess a signal to some of their antienvironmental supporters, but not stepping forth to try and roll anything back because we know the American public will not stand for it.
Mr. Speaker, I think our challenge here is to make sure that the American public understands what is happening with the rollback that we talked about earlier in terms of the rule that would have phased out the use of snowmobiles, that we are having the Padre Island National Seashore, Gulf Shore Islands National Seashore, Cape Lookout National Seashore where there was a national park superintendent of those areas had proposed that there be a ban on jet ski use in those waters. But now, these proposed bans which had broad public support and to deal with the massive environmental damage, it is not just the noise of the jet skis. Most of these, for 4 gallons of gasoline that is burned, one goes into the water.
Well, now the administration and some of our Republican House Members are pressuring the National Park Service to override the superintendents. Now these parks must do a new environmental assessment and rulemaking to allow jet ski use to continue, despite the environmental damage, despite the public opposition. It is unfortunate that we are seeing example after example.
The gentleman referenced the situation of the National Park Service and our illustrious President Teddy Roosevelt. It is frustrating to see the actual purpose, the Organic Act, under which the National Park Service was organized that called for the conservation of scenery, the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such a manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations, the enjoyment of future generations. Nothing, nothing could be further from obtaining, enforcing, celebrating the requirement of that original act and what we see is being infested upon the American public as we speak.
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I am sure if Teddy Roosevelt were President today, the approach to environmental issues would be much different. It is really a shame in a way, because we have had a number of Republican Presidents who developed and nurtured very sound policies with regard to the environment. If they were in office today, one of the first things that they would turn their attention to is probably the most serious environmental problem of all, most serious because it is global in nature, most serious because it has the potential to alter the environment in very basic and fundamental ways all around the Earth, and we are seeing the effects of that already.
What I am speaking of, of course, is the phenomenon of global warming and the fact that so much of the warming that we have been experiencing in recent decades comes about as a result of the activities of our species on this planet, and it is the burning of fossil fuels and the placing in the atmosphere of these gases, particularly carbon dioxide.
Last year was the second warmest year on record. Two years earlier, it was the warmest year on record. The decade of the 1990s was the warmest decade on record. The one before that was the decade of the 1980s. I mean it does not take a genius to see what is going on here. Not long ago, a part of the Arctic ice cap, the Antarctic Ice Sheet, in fact, dropped off, a size of the State of Rhode Island. That came about as a result of rising temperatures and the melting of the ice.
There was an amazing story on the front page of the New York Times just about a week ago which talked about the effect of global warming in Alaska, how in one situation, an island which had been inhabited for a long, long time, I do not think anyone knows precisely how long, but very, very long, as being inundated because of the fact that the polar ice caps are melting and the sea level around the world is rising. An island such as this one in Alaska is being inundated and people are going to have to move off of that island to live somewhere else. Roads are buckling because of the warming in Alaska. That is happening because the permafrost is no longer perma.
In other words, it is no longer permanent. The frost there is melting; and as a result of that, we are getting heaves of the Earth and the roads are buckling as a consequence of that. I think it was spoken of earlier that global warming is, in some measure, causing the dryness that is contributing to the fires that we are seeing around the country, and it is also contributing to the changes in weather patterns that we are experiencing, drier climates in some areas, and a whole host of things that are becoming more and more evident with each passing day, each passing week, month and year.
Mr. Speaker, we need to do something about it. We need to focus our attention on it. Every other industrial country in the world is taking a responsible position on global warming, cutting back their emissions. This administration has decided to turn its back on the issue, and I can remember it was just a few years ago when in debating an Interior Appropriations, Republican members of that committee wanted to strike from the bill the phrase ``global warming'' because they contended that it did not exist, that it was fanciful and there was no point in having such a phrase in legislation because they contended it was a complete fix.
Mr. Speaker, it is shocking that this level of ignorance exists, but there it is for everyone to see. This is a problem that we need to pay attention to.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman taking us back into the global scope of things. I would just conclude by turning our attention back to where we began this evening in terms of the public lands and the President's promise when he was candidate Governor Bush to deal with improving the stewardship. Not only are they rolling back protections for motorized vehicles, dealing with just the nuts and bolts that the gentleman from New York is going to have to deal with on the Interior committee in terms of the budget where we are going to eliminate a $5 billion budget cap. This year I note that the gentleman has been given a Presidential appropriation request, $2 million above last year's enactment.
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