Volume 141, No. 115 covering the 1st Session of the 104th Congress (1995 - 1996) 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.
“REPUBLICAN SNEAK ATTACK ON THE ENVIRONMENT” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H7016-H7017 on July 17, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
REPUBLICAN SNEAK ATTACK ON THE ENVIRONMENT
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that the new Republican majority in the House is carrying out what is in effect a sneak attack on public health, on environmental protection and on our national park system, among other things.
Following the unfortunate example of James Watt, they are distorting the normal legislative process around here, acting against House rules by using the appropriations process to rewrite law and reshape policy, so that they can achieve, by stealth, objectives that lack real public support.
We saw the start of this pattern with the first rescissions bill, with its pages of legislative language waiving environmental and forest management laws, language that under the normal rules of the House should not have been in any bill of that kind.
We are seeing it again now in the Interior appropriations bill, which we will take up again later today, with its provisions to dissolve the National Biological Service, transfer its functions to the U.S. Geological Service, again, legislating on an appropriations bill, again, an attack on research and on sound wildlife conservation; also, in the same bill, with its provisions to essentially eliminate the Mojave National Preserve in California as a unit of the National Park Service, by a back door attack instead of a straightforward proposal to repeal or amend the California Desert Protection Act.
Later this week we will see it in even more outrageous ways when the full Committee on Appropriations takes up the bill to fund the Environmental Protection Agency. That bill has more riders than the Long Island Railroad. Most of them are intended to prevent the government from doing its job in protecting our water, our air, our wetlands, our health. Let us just take a look quickly at the passenger count, the number of riders on that bill.
In just 7 pages of the bill dealing with the EPA, there are 21 anti-
environment riders, including the following provisions: blocking enforcement of air pollution permits; limiting enforcement of storm water and sanitary sewer provisions in the Water Pollution Control Act; handicapping the EPA's ability under the Clean Air Act to regulate toxic emissions from certain refineries; putting other limits on enforcing environmental laws affecting other parts of the oil and gas industry; stopping EPA from taking steps to keep arsenic, radon and other radionuclei out of our drinking water; limiting the EPA's efforts to control toxic releases from cement kilns and other incinerators; restricting the gathering and publishing of information about the use of chemicals; restricting the protection of the country's wetlands, blocking efforts to encourage car pooling; restricting efforts to improve water quality in the Great Lakes; and, undermining the regulation of pesticides in foods.
Mr. Speaker, the pattern could not be clearer. Just take a look at it, page after page of regressive anti-environmental and underhanded provisions aimed at handcuffing efforts to protect our food supply, keep our air and water clean, protect vital wetlands, all things vital to our natural systems all over the country.
It is no wonder, Mr. Speaker, that Carol Browner, the EPA administrator, has concluded that we are seeing ``an organized, concerted effort to undermine public health and safety and the environment.''
If anything, Carol Browner understates the situation. The American people need to know what is going on. They need to know that this new Republican majority is determined to undermine the progress that we have made in the last several decades in protecting our environment, progress that the American people are proud of and want to see continued. They need to know that we are in the midst of a full-fledged attack on the safeguards of the water we drink and the air we breathe. They need to know because, when they do know, they will reject this assault on public health, public safety and public lands.
We need to be doing more, not less, to clean up the environment and to protect people's health.
For instance, two new studies this year tell us that 53 million Americans are drinking tap water that is below standards. What is the response of the new majority here in the Congress to this? To do more to clean up the nation's water? No. The Republican response is to come up with eight different legislative riders to determine the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. Hard to imagine.
This Republican sneak attack on the environment should not and will not go unopposed. The American people did not vote last November to roll back 25 years of environmental progress. They did not vote for more pollution or for backhanded legislative shenanigans to under cut environmental standards just to satisfy the greed and the campaign access paid for by many industrial polluters.
Together with other members of the Committee on Appropriations and of this House as a whole, we must do all that we can to spread the word about this sneak attack and to keep it from succeeding.
Nothing is more important than protecting our air, our water, our lands, the public's health.
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