May 24, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE H 5557

Reich, Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, and then Secretary Lloyd Bentsen of the Treasury,

all members of the Clinton cabinet,

said:

The federal hospital insurance trust fund,

which pays inpatient hospital expenses, will

be able to pay for only about seven years and

is severely out of financial balance in the

long range.

The trustees, therefore, have logically called for prompt, effective and

decisive action to save the fund from

its own insolvency. As well the bipartisan commission on entitlement and tax

reform, headed by Senator BOB KERREY

and Senator John Danforth came to

the same conclusion.

This impending disaster only came to

light very recently. The Clinton administration had tried to sweep it under

the rug. His fiscal year 1996 budget proposes no changes or solutions to Medicare’s problems, and he even did not

bring that up when he had the White

House Conference on Aging. It was not

even addressed by him.

As Medicare travels the road toward

bankruptcy, President Clinton has

been AWOL, absent without leadership,

on this issue. He has even refused to

participate in a bipartisan effort to

save Medicare. Not until the Republicans had come forward to talk openly

and honestly about how we can save,

preserve and protect Medicare has the

problem been described and the options

been discussed.

House Republicans are determined to

work with House Democrats to save

Medicare by using new approaches, new

management, new technologies to improve it, preserve it and protect it.

Congress has an unprecedented opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to undertake a

fundamental reform of this important

Medicare Program.

One of the steps many of us are taking are Medicare preservation task

forces, where we have senior citizens,

people involved with AARP, RSVP,

groups across our country like my own

in Montgomery, Pennsylvania to make

sure we include seniors in the solution.

Seniors need to be served. We want to

make sure we hear from them about

options on making sure we protect it

not only for seniors now but for generations to come.

The General Accounting Office has

estimated that there is $44 billion that

is wasted on fraud and abuse in the

Medicare and the Medicaid funds. As

much as 30 cents of every $1 is simply

wasted or lost due to mismanagement.

House Republicans will increase Medicare spending under our proposal from

$4,700 per retiree to as much as $6,300

per retiree by 2002. This is a 45-percent

increase in Medicare spending per retiree.

We will preserve the current Medicare system but we need to develop a

new series of options for our senior

citizens so they can control their own

future. I believe that by working together both sides of the aisle we can

save Medicare, preserve and protect it

so that we can provide the best possible

health care at the lowest cost to our

senior citizens so they can control

their destiny. And we working together

with them, we will in fact have a

bright future.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under

TIMBER SALVAGE

fthe Speaker’s announced policy of May

12, 1995, the gentleman from North

Carolina [Mr. TAYLOR] is recognized for

60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr.

Speaker, we are here today to talk

about the Presidential veto of the timber rescission or timber salvage

amendment that is part of the rescission package that has passed this

House, passed the Senate, has been

confirmed, from the conferees, by the

House and is waiting confirmation in

the Senate.

The President has promised to veto

the entire rescission package, and that

includes the timber salvage amendment. The salvage amendment was put

together after considerable consultation with the Forest Service, with

many groups; in fact, the final amendment reflected a good many suggestions from the White House itself, and

still the White House wishes to veto

the entire rescission package, including the timber amendment.

What we are talking about with the

timber amendment tonight is to tell

people what is going to be the result of

that Presidential veto. First of all, we

have to look at what is happening to

our forests and what is happening to

the jobs related to forest harvesting.

Our forests are deteriorating in health

because we are not managing them

along the lines of our best scientific

knowledge in forests. We have a wellfunded special interest of environmental groups in Washington that take

in over $600 million, and they take in

that money by scaring people into

thinking the last tree is going to be cut

tomorrow or some other fantasy in

order to bring those hundreds of millions of dollars in to themselves. This

does not meet with true science or with

what is actually happening in the forest.

The forests are deteriorating because

of the bad management that has been

pushed by these organizations creating

the policy over the last several years.

The salvage amendment was an effort

to try to return sensible environmentalism and sensible science back to

the harvest of our timber. And what

else is at stake? Is it better environmental policy for us not to harvest

dead and dying wood in our forests, to

lose tens of thousands of jobs because

we do not allow that harvest, to make

the people of our country have to use

alternative resources other than wood?

And what is the consequence of using

alternative resources other than wood?

We will make this podium, these

chairs, this table out of either wood,

metal or plastic. If we make them out

of plastic, then we have to import the

oil from the Middle East. We have to

fight to get it out, many times. We

spill it several times along the way.

The toxicity in the manufacturing is

greater than it is in wood manufacturing. And it is much harder to recycle or

to dispose of when its usefulness is

over.

The same thing with metal. We dig it

from the ground. A great deal of energy

in the smelting process, and it is much

harder to recycle than is the renewable

resource of wood. Also, both of those

items are finite resources; when they

are gone, they are gone.

The renewable resource of wood managed on a perpetual yield basis can

take our lands, our best suited lands

for timber and grow over and over

again the multitude of products that

we need for all of our home products,

paper, many resources that otherwise

we would have to use finite resources.

Now, it is better for us to use the renewable resource of wood or use up our

finite resources?

We are today importing over onethird of the timber that we need, over

16 billion board feet. Often this is harvested from far more sensitive environmental areas than we have available to

us in the United States.

So by forcing these imports, we are

damaging tropical rain forests in many

cases and other more sensitive parts of

land.

What we tried to do with the timber

amendment, a bipartisan amendment

that had the support of the United

Brotherhood of Carpenters, the United

Paperworkers International Union,

Western Council of Industrial Workers,

National Association of Home Builders,

Realtors, Women in Timber and many

other small business organizations. It

was to craft language that would provide us with 59,000 more jobs during the

three years in the timber communities.

It would bring in an additional $2 billion in payroll for timber workers in

communities all over this country. It

would provide over $450 million in additional tax revenue, and it would put

over $423 million returned to the Treasury directly. Two hundred three million dollars would be shared with the

counties, mostly going to education,

which is where the counties put funds

coming from the harvest of timber.

It would also bring us a lower cost in

fighting forest fires, which utilized $1

billion in Federal cost in 1994 and cost

us 32 lives in this country fighting fire.

The President plans to veto this bill,

the entire rescission bill and the timber salvage provision. That would put

people back to work, reduce expenditures on forest fires, and improve forest health.

Included also was section 318 timber.

Many people have said that the timber

salvage bill is not needed because the

Government has a process now for harvesting salvaged timber. It does. But it

has been used in such a way by many

organizations through the appeals
H 5558 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE May 24, 1995

process, through delaying processes,

that they render the harvest in salvaging of timber useless. If timber in the

Northwest, in the Southeast, the

Southwest, is not utilized within 6 to 24

months, then it usually is lost as far as

any practical use and the ability to salvage it.

So it must be done quickly. Appeals

and other actions by special interests

in this country delay it for years.

For instance, the section 318 timber,

it is in Washington and Oregon, this

area has already met all the environmental requirements. This is green

timber but it has not yet been released.

It has been waiting since 1990, over 5

years. And this meets all the environmental requirements, and it meets, it

has already been approved to move, but

it has been held up for over 5 years

while people in Washington and Oregon

are without jobs.

I think the salvage bill itself provides an opportunity to review environmental laws. It requires the secretary

of agriculture to see that those laws

are followed; if he feels that a tract can

be salvaged following the Environmental Species Act and the Forest

Acts and some other group disagrees

with him, they have the right to appeal. They cannot have endless appeals.

They must appeal directly to a federal

judge, a district court judge and they

have 45 days in which the judge will

hear the evidence and then make a ruling, and then that is the end.

If he feels the environment is endangered, then he can declare the sale unacceptable. If he thinks there is no environmental damage to be done, he can

declare the sale to move ahead, and

that is the end of the appeals process.

b 1900

The Forest Service itself then puts

together, through professionals, the

sale, and puts it out to the highest bidder. There is no forest giveaway, there

is a sale to the highest bidder for the

timber to be utilized.

Mr. Speaker, the fact that this legislation brings in revenue, puts people

back to work, uses our best science,

and gives full protection for environmental laws should mean that the

President should not veto this legislation, but should pass it.

Mr. Speaker, I will yield to some of

the people affected by this. I yield to

the gentleman from California [Mr.

DOOLITTLE].

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker, I

thank the gentleman for yielding to

me. I wish to acknowledge the gentleman’s leadership on this salvage issue

as a member of the Committee on Appropriations and a member of the conference committee. He is to be commended for the work that he has done.

Mr. Speaker, this will definitely result in a vast improvement for the

quality of our forest health, which is so

desperately needed in many parts of

my district. In many parts of California and the Sierras, the percentages

range up to one-third of dead and dying

trees. A third of the Sierras in parts

are dead and dying trees.

I believe the gentleman is the only licensed forester in the United States

Congress, so the gentleman has an expertise that no one else really does, not

to the degree that the gentleman does.

He understands what happens when we

have a forest fire, and the environmental damage that that does when it

burns so hot. He understands that if we

do not take this dead and dying timber

while it still has commercial value,

then the taxpayer is burdened by shelling out money out of, I guess, the general fund to go remove these trees.

There is nothing to be regained in

terms of repaying the Treasury.

Is that your understanding?

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. This

is true, and not only that. I doubt if we

could get that money expended, and

the wood would not go to create jobs,

in most cases, if it was harvested that

way.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Yes, because it has

a no value. So at that point they are

just doing something to improve the

health.

I would comment, we have had a

highly slanted, unfair, biased report

called the Green Scissors Report,

which is a coalition of, I believe, Earth

First and the National Taxpayers

Union and Citizens Against Government Waste, which is, I think, just

shocking in terms of the distortion

that is in that report. One of the things

they attack is so-called below-cost

timber sales.

What I find interesting is that many

of these self-professed groups that profess to protect the environment drag

out the appeals process as long as they

can, so they make sure that timber has

no commercial value, and then, when

money is spent to get rid of that timber to protect the health of the forest,

I believe that counts against the overall tree program, and so it is

bootstrapping. They make sure that it

does not recover the costs, and then

they try and show ‘‘Look what pork

barrel scandal support of industry we

have here, because the taxpayer money

is going to support the timber industry,’’ when in reality, their own actions have guaranteed that result.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr.

Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from

Washington [Mr. METCALF], whose

State is also involved in this, if he

would talk to us about the impact in

his area.

(Mr. METCALF asked and was given

permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. METCALF. Mr. Speaker, the

President will soon have on his desk

legislation that would make good use

of a valuable natural resources. However, without the President’s signature, this resource will rot away.

Tonight I will tell Members the story

of just one tree, one in thousands in

western Washington State. The Forest

Service estimates that over $20 billion

board feet of dead, dying, or downed

timber is now in our forests. This tree

on this picture and many others like it

blew down in a windstorm on the

Olympic Peninsula.

This is not an uncommon occurrence

in this Washington State coast. While

this tree grew in a region that is perfect for its growth, the unique combination of heavy rainfall, wet soil, and

high winds caused trees like this giant

500-year-old growth Douglas fir tree to

blow down. Thousands of these blowndown trees are lying on the forest floor

right now.

However, this tree had a chance to be

different. Mr. Jim Carlson, in the picture, tried to purchase this tree from

the Forest Service, to be cut up in his

sawmill and sold to the public. His sawmill used to employ about 100 people.

The Quinault Ranger District refused

to sell this tree to him. Mr. Carlson

later came back to the Forest Service

and asked to buy the tree, pay money

for it, the lumber to be used in the construction of an interpretive building

that he wanted to build on this ranch

as part of an economic diversification

project. This would have allowed Mr.

Carlson to get into the tourism business which, as long as we are going to

put him out of the timber business,

seems to me about the least we could

do.

The request was also denied, in spite

of the fact that provisions for this type

of sale were contained in the Grays

Harbor Federal Sustained Yield Unit

Agreement.

The taxpayers are the big losers in

this story, though. This tree contained,

just look at this tree, it contained

21,000 board feet of lumber. The sale of

this tree by the Federal Government to

Mr. Carlson would have brought the

taxpayers, would have brought the

Federal Government, $10,000 to $20,000.

Mr. Carlson would have been able to

manufacture that lumber from this one

tree and sell it for approximately

$60,000 on the retail market. That is

the value of that one tree.

Mr. Speaker, the sad end for this tree

came in a perfectly legal, though terribly wasteful manner. An out of-work

timber worker, armed with a firewood

permit and a chain saw, cut up this

grand old giant for $5 a cord and paid

about $115, $115 to the taxpayers of this

Nation, instead of the $10,000 to $20,000

that that tree was worth when it fell.

The rest of the story, as Paul Harvey

likes to say, is that this past year this

timber worker had his home sold on

the steps of the county courthouse, because he could not pay $932 in back

taxes, while the Quinault Ranger District that would not sell him the tree

for lumber did not have enough money

to purchase the diesel fuel to run their

road grader.

The extreme environmentalists oppose harvesting downed or diseased

timber. For those who feel good to

have that fine timber rot on the forest

floor, for those people, I remind them

that 15 billion board feet that lies there

now will rot. There are no roads to get
May 24, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE H 5559

to it. It is not accessible, and it will

rot.

I feel good about the 6 billion board

feet that we can salvage. The environmentalists claim these trees are necessary for the nutrients they provide to

the forest floor. However, if we check

with the forestry scientists, they will

tell us that 90 percent of the nutrient

value is found in the crown of the tree.

That is what stays in the forest when

you take out the lumber. It stays in

the crown of the tree, while 80 percent

of the fiber is found in he trunk. That

80 percent that we need, and which can

be put to good use, contains less than

10 percent of the nutrient value.

It is possible, therefore, Mr. Speaker,

to have the majority of the fiber we

seek from these trees and at the same

time leave the majority of nutrients

behind. With a sensible salvage policy,

we can have our cake and eat it too,

and at a profit to the Federal Government.

Mr. Speaker, there are thousands of

trees just like this one in the Pacific

Northwest. When in full operation, Mr.

Carlson could have run his mill with

only 150 trees like this each year. He

would employ 60 direct, full-time workers, with a payroll of over $1 million,

from a yearly sales total of $7.5 million

to $9 million. He would pay $200,000 to

$400,000 per year in corporate income

tax, he would pay $1 million to $2 million in Forest Service stumpage fees.

That is what the Federal Government

gets directly.

His employees would pay personal income tax of over $1 million. They

would have complete company-paid

medical care for themselves and their

families. In addition, Mr. Carlson

would employ up to 40 other people in

subcontractor positions. These would

include the loggers and those people

that would help get the logs out of the

forest.

To the State of Washington alone,

this legislation would mean 7,500 manyears of direct, indirect, and induced

employment. These are jobs we desperately need, as well as making wise

use of a resource that would otherwise

go to waste.

Sadly, if these giants are not harvested within 2 years of being blown

down, or fire or disease-damaged, they

are of no value as timber. They begain

to deteriorate within 2 years. Thus,

they are of no value to us as taxpayers.

This is part of the emergency situation

we face in our forests.

Unless the President signs this important legislation, giant trees like

that will rot back into the forest floor

from which they sprang. It is my hope

that he can see the common sense in

this legislation, and make the best use

of our forest resources.

The forest communities all over the

Pacific Northwest are dying. Our people are dying, in economic terms. This

salvage timber opportunity is here

now, and it is something that we deeply need in the State of Washington. We

can wait no longer for consideration

and meaningful action addressing this

situation. We desperately need President Clinton to help by signing the bill

which authorizes the timber salvage.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr.

Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his

comments. Of course, he has given an

exact case, something very close to

home, where individual lives are being

impacted by a policy that does not realize science, and does not realize the

reality of forest management, but is

trying to pander to an elite group of

special interests in Washington.

Mr. Speaker, I would say to the

President of the United States that if

he is serious about helping working

people, and if he is serious about providing a balanced budget and providing

resources to carry out a number of programs that he would like to see in that

budget, then we have an opportunity

here to restore hundreds of millions of

dollars to the taxpayers, to the budget,

and to put tens of thousands of people

back to work.

I was mentioning a moment ago that

we have section 318 timber that has

been approved. If the President signs

this bill, we will get the benefit of 8,942

instant jobs, in addition to the ones in

the salvage bill, because part of the

timber salvage amendment includes

three phases. It includes the timber

salvage portion, it includes the section

318 timber that has been approved and

been waiting 5 years now, past all regulations, been waiting 5 years to be put

on the market, and the option 9 that

the President himself recommended.

With the 318 money we will put 8,942

people to work immediately, $313 million in additional payroll funds for

timber workers, $47 million in additional tax revenue, $184 million returned to the Treasury, and $61 million

to be shared with the counties for

whatever uses they need and see fit.

Good-paying jobs are not government-trained jobs, they are reality,

they are what is needed in the marketplace. We have 151 job training programs, yet here we could put tens of

thousands of people back to work without the taxpayer training.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman

from California [Mr. HERGER], who also

has a personal experience. He has a personal experience of what is going on in

the mismanagement of forests in California.

Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, I thank

the gentleman for yielding to me, and

for all of his hard work. I believe he is

the only certified forester in the House

of Representatives. I thank him for his

leadership in this area.

Mr. Speaker, when the President

threatened to veto the 1995 Supplemental Appropriations and Rescission

Bill, H.R. 1158, he stated, among other

things, that he ‘‘really objected to the

timber salvage provision of the bill.’’ I

was quite surprised to hear this, particularly in light of what the amendment stands for in terms of wildfire

prevention, forest health, jobs, and the

preservation of rural schools all over

the country.

What I would like to do for the next

few minutes, Mr. Speaker, is outline

just what the President means when he

says he objects to the amendment.

That is, where his priorities lie, and

what that means to the rural communities in my district in northern California and in other regions throughout

the country.

b 1915

Apparently the President is objecting

to wildfire prevention and forest

health.

Mr. Speaker, last year nearly 4 million acres of forestland nationwide and

some 375,000 acres in my district alone

were consumed by wildfire. This was

due primarily to the excessive buildup

of natural fuels, that is, dead and dying

trees in our forests.

Mr. Speaker, of the 8 national forests

in my northern California congressional district, I have areas where as

much as 50 to 80 percent of the trees

are dead and dying due to disease, insect infestation caused primarily because of 7 out of 9 years of severe

drought. In fact, tree mortality in my

district is so severe that the California

State Board of Forestry has declared

much of the area as a zone of infestation.

When these dead and dying trees ignite, they burn with such intensity

that virtually everything in the forest,

live trees, riparian habitat, owl nesting

sites and even the soil is consumed.

This kind of wildfire brings the health

of the forest to its lowest ebb. Nature

is unable to repair itself for years, even

if man does everything within his

power to help. Wildfire also does not

discriminate between animal and

human habitat.

Last year the city of Loyalton, for

example, in my district was threatened

to be burned to the ground 3 times by

the same fire. Each time the town was

spared by changing winds. Next year

the families who live in Loyalton may

not be so fortunate.

Our salvage amendment offered the

President the tools to protect our forests and forest communities from this

kind of catastrophe, but apparently the

President finds this proposition objectionable. Apparently the President

would rather see our forests and the

towns adjacent to them, the Loyaltons

in States throughout the country, blow

up in fire storms than remove the dead

and dying trees that cause this kind of

disaster.

The President apparently also objects to putting unemployed people

back to work. Mr. Speaker, since 1987,

51 mills have closed in northern California due to drastic decreases in Federal timber sales and the listing of the

Northern Spotted Owl. Forty-two of

these mills have closed since the beginning of 1990. Twenty-nine are in my

district.

These closures have literally devastated many small timber-dependent

communities. Thousands of workers

have been dislocated, causing unemployment to exceed 20 percent in some
H 5560 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE May 24, 1995

areas. Welfare rolls have ballooned and

domestic violence has risen sharply. It

has simply been a social travesty.

When the President held his Western

Forest Health Summit in 1992, he

promised to help these people. What

has he done since then? Since he made

his highly touted promises to the people of northern California, Forest Service timber sales in the region have fallen to approximately half of their 1992

levels and to approximately one-third

of their historic levels.

Year 1995 looks even more bleak for

the timber communities. Of the 20 timber purchasers which currently have

outstanding timber contracts in the

Klamath and Sierra Provinces of

northern California, only 7 of these 20

will have outstanding contracts at the

end of 1995. The bottom line is, the industry is being bled dry.

How ironic it is to consider that at

the same time we have a desperate

need to remove the dead and dying timber from our forests, we also have a

work force in desperate need of jobs.

Mr. Speaker, common sense says that

we have the wherewithal to kill two

birds with one stone, to save our forests and put a number of people back

to work. But again, Mr. Speaker, the

President apparently finds this objectionable. The fact is that he is turning

his back on the promises he made in

1992 and to the people to whom he

made them.

Finally, the President apparently

also objects to infusing money for

schools and roads into depressed rural

communities which have not the

money for either. Mr. Speaker, 25 percent of the receipts of all Federal timber sales are returned directly to counties to fund schools and road construction. Any county school superintendent in northern California would tell

you of the devastating impact reduced

timber sales have had on the schools in

his or her district.

Plumas County, for example, has had

its annual school budget cut by as

much as $5.3 million from its 1992 levels. Siskiyou County has lost over $1.7

million annually since 1992. These drastic cuts to school budgets which are

very small to begin with, Mr. Speaker,

have forced school boards to eliminate

some of the most basic scholastic programs which most school districts take

for granted.

Our salvage amendment would give

county school districts and road funds

an infusion of a projected $380 million.

This money would also help restore

basic programs in rural schools. But,

again, Mr. Speaker, the President apparently finds this proposition objectionable. Apparently his ‘‘people first’’

philosophy does not include children in

poor rural communities.

So what does the President not object to? If he objects to fire prevention,

job creation, and the preservation of

rural schools, what does he not object

to? He apparently does not object to

continuing what he began the day he

took office, an all-out war on the West

spurred on by environmental extremists and special interest groups, a preservationist war that apparently he will

continue waging until our forests are

locked up completely and the enemy,

the people who have lived and managed

them for generations, have been vanquished.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman

from North Carolina [Mr. TAYLOR] for

his leadership in having this special

order and bringing this to the attention of not only the Members of the

Congress but to the American people.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. I appreciate the gentleman’s commitment

to his constituency and the people of

this country and his willingness to tell

them the truth about what is happening in your district, and it is happening

in districts all over the United States.

I would like to ask the gentleman a

question. The President when he indicated that he would veto this bill, he

made a statement, and I am quoting

from it. He says, ‘‘I object to this

amendment which would basically direct us to make timber sales to large

companies.’’

The people who harvest the timber

out in your area, are those the major

companies, the Weyerhausers and the

other larger corporations? In our area,

it is mostly mom-and-pop outfits, they

hire maybe under 100 people, they are

people in the community, and most of

those folks are right there in the community. These are not large companies.

These are basic community small businesses.

Is that the case in your area?

Mr. HERGER. That is absolutely the

case in our area. Again there is probably not any other industry that has as

many small business type family organizations than in the timber business,

that business which provides our Nation with our paper products, provides

us with the wood products to be able to

build our homes, to be able to have affordable homes, essential needs. Yet as

the gentleman mentioned, these are

primarily done by family small businesses.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. I

would suggest that the President get

away from the elite environment that

he is surrounded by at the White House

and go out and talk to these folks and

see how many businesses are involved.

Major timber companies that have

millions of acres of land do not need

this to produce their forest products,

but small businesses do. They are being

devastated to the point of tens of thousands of jobs all over this country.

I think the gentleman brought our

another point, homebuilding. The average cost of a home has gone up over

$7,000 just over what has happened in

the Pacific Northwest, and expected to

go higher. We are using today metal

studs for construction purposes as well

as other metal components instead of

the renewable resource of wood.

How can you possibly be an environmentalist and want to use a finite

product that is hard to recycle, hard on

the environment when it is brought in

and smelted and produced as opposed

to a renewable resource like wood, easily recyclable and can be used over and

grown over and over again?

Mr. HERGER. I thank again the gentleman for bringing this out. Again we

are talking about a renewable resource.

As I mentioned earlier in my talk, I

have some eight national forests, all or

parts of them in my district. Of that

part, during the time when we were

under historic levels and were harvesting, approximately 75 percent were offlimits to any type of harvesting at all.

They were in preserves, they were in

national parks, in wilderness areas. So

we really had about 25 percent of the

pie that could be harvested, and

through our California laws could not

be harvested any more rapidly than

they were growing back.

At this point, even that 25 percent

has been locked up. Maybe there is

about 5 percent or even less that we are

able to harvest. Again, we are talking

about a renewable resource. These steel

studs that you are referring to or even

in our grocery store, the plastic. Plastic is not renewable. Steel studs are

not renewable. But yet our forest products are renewable. Again, it is a tragedy to our environment to see this happening, that not only are our forests

rotting and burning but our communities are being deprived of their very

livelihoods. Again, this is a tragedy,

and I thank the gentleman for bringing

this out.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. The

gentleman makes another good point.

We are not talking about any harvest

in national parks. We are not talking

about harvesting in wilderness areas or

wild and scenic river areas. As you say,

75 percent of the national forests even

are off-limits from this harvest. Only

about 25 percent of the area which is

already being used and harvested from

a commercial standpoint, or at least

eligible—it is not being harvested

now—for harvesting will be impacted.

A very small part, one-third, of this

Nation’s public lands that the Government owns today.

I would also remind, and I think the

gentleman pointed out a moment ago,

management of the forest and thinning

of the forest is important for forest

health, whether it is down wood or

standing wood. There was a wire today,

a green wire that came out that pointed out that aspen trees in New Mexico

and Arizona are on a rapid decline.

It points out that in 1962, there were

486,000 acres and it is down to 263,000

acres now, a 46 percent decrease of

aspen, and the primary reason is the

aspen, and I am quoting from it, needs

open spaces to grow. They need to clear

the forests so the younger trees can

grow out, and that can be done, according to this green wire, in several ways.

One is by wood harvest. That is important in managing today’s forest. If you

are going to have a wealthy forest, it

has to be managed, and harvest is part

of that management.
May 24, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE H 5561

I would go back and talk again about

what the President said in his statement. He went on in addition to saying

this was made up of large timber companies, we were directing the cuts in

sales to large timber companies, and

that is entirely false. I would say it is

close to 99 percent of these companies

that are going to be harvesting, that

will be winning bids on forest sales,

come from small family firms and

would be classified as small businesses

under all the definitions of small business.

He also mentioned there would be a

subsidy to the taxpayer. The Congressional Budget Office saw no subsidy,

the taxpayer was not subsidizing these

sales. In fact, they saw tens of millions

of dollars coming into the treasury,

and I think we quoted from those figures a moment ago.

Then he went on to say that this legislation would essentially throw out all

environmental laws, and that is ridiculous. If he would talk to his own chief

of the U.S. Forest Service, he would

tell them that the environmental laws

are not being thrown out, that the Secretary is required to follow a number of

the environmental laws. If there was

no requirement for following them,

there would be no reason for an appeal,

and there is an appeal process.

I would go to the last segment in the

salvage amendment, and, that is, that

was inserted by the Senate. It was option 9 timber harvest.

b 1930

The President himself went to the

Pacific Northwest directly after his

election and promised the people that

he would start seeing that the forests

there were being harvested. Now he cut

the harvest down to approximately 20

percent of what it would be or what it

had been in the past, but even that is

not happening. The extreme elements

who are influencing the administration

are seeing that is not happening. Of the

1.2 billion board feet that were selected

for harvest under Option 9, almost

none of that timber has been cut since

the plan was selected by the administration.

It was tested in district court, was

upheld in district court in December,

and the conference language would require that it now proceed and it would

insulate it from further judicial review

so that we do not have to subject the

tens of thousands of employees to endless appeals on this process.

In real terms if we restore and bring

the Option 9 procedures ahead, it would

restore almost 19,000 jobs for timber

workers in the communities in the socalled spotted owl areas, it would add

$664 million in additional payroll for

timber workers, it would add $54 million in additional tax revenue, and $360

million would be returned to the Treasury; $120 million would go to the counties to be shared as we mentioned a

moment ago primarily for education.

Even the Forest Service estimates

that if we do not proceed it may be

years and years before option 9 can

move ahead, and that in effect is the

President denying the people even that

part of his promise that he made in the

Pacific Northwest.

We have a section that is called the

4–D areas, a provision that legitimizes

future action for the administration’s

4–D section on Endangered Species Act

rulings for relief of small landowners

which was also included by the conferees. When the administration finishes its 4–D rules, millions of small

landowners will be out from under the

ESA restrictions on timber harvesting.

It would free up hundreds of thousands

of board feet of new timber by small

property landowners.

The acceptance of this provision was

basically a good-faith attempt to show

that Congress is willing to work with

the administration’s plan to utilize

section 4–D of the ESA to provide relief

for small landowners.

In other words, the President has

made many representations. What we

are trying to do is to bring those representations to fruition. Certainly the

President can support that.

The President’s veto means that the

administration’s commitment to provide relief in timber communities will

not happen. The President’s veto

threat and comments on the timber

provisions in the rescission bill is proof

that his campaign pledge to put people

first has been breached.

The number of jobs in the entire rescission bill, including the salvage portion, 318 and option 9, would create

over 88,000 jobs; in other words, it

would put that many people who have

been unemployed this period of time

back in their jobs all across this country. Instead of that, the President is

willing rather to see that the forests

rot or burn than to see that good

silviculture, good management, forest

health management is put in place.

I would remind him that his promise

was to help bring economic activity

back to the area. His veto of this legislation will kill that entirely. His signing of that bill will give 88,000 people

across this country and primary in the

Pacific Northwest immediate employment.

There are numerous opportunities for

us to evaluate this bill. The Congress

had hearings, the Committee on Agriculture and Committee on Resources

had joint hearings before they requested that I sponsor this amendment

in the Committee on Appropriations.

We had debate in the Committee on

Appropriations, we had debate upon

the floor. There were 277 members of

Congress who supported this bill; it

was opposed by 149. It passed with almost two-thirds of this Congress’ support. It passed in the Senate. It came

back and was approved, the conference

language in the House was approved

overwhelmingly, as it will be in the

Senate. And so, this is the people

through their representatives speaking

for what is needed in this country and

what they want.

The President is vetoing it because

he is being asked by a group of ill-informed special interests in Washington

not to do it.

If you read the Wall Street Journal

of 2 weeks ago last Friday you will see

why. The environmental organizations

in this town, the special interest to

which I refer that take in the $600 million and lavish it out to political special interests, were polled as to their

support. The report said they were basically left-leaning, 93 percent who support the President of the United

States, voted for President Clinton in

the 1992 election. And he now is reaching out to pander to that very elite

special interest and forget 88,000 honest

taxpaying citizens who can be put back

to work immediately.

I would remind them of one other

statement that was made by the group,

an environmental group who spoke

positively about the President’s threat

to veto, and I am quoting the Oregonbased Headwaters organization, and it

said ‘‘By preventing these clear cuts,

President Clinton today saved the marble murrelet from extinction.’’ Now

that defies sensibility. We are talking

about dead timber, we are talking

about timber that in many cases has

already blown over on the ground, we

are talking about timber that has been

burned, we are talking about timber

that is insect-infested. Clearcutting

dead and dying timber is ridiculous,

and how you could have saved anything, the marbled murrelet from taking out salvaging dead timber remains

to be seen.

I yield to the gentleman from California, Mr. RIGGS, whose district also is

impacted by this legislation, who has

real people who are suffering because

of the policies of this administration

and because of the veto threat of this

administration.

Mr. RIGGS. I thank the gentleman

for yielding, and I commend him for his

extraordinary leadership in helping to

steer this very important piece of legislation properly called the emergency

timber salvage amendment through the

House and making sure it survived the

House and Senate conference committee.

I want to tell the gentleman that I

am dismayed to put it mildly that the

President might specifically point to

our emergency timber salvage amendment as grounds for vetoing the emergency supplemental appropriations and

rescissions package, first of all because

the bill as the gentleman well knows

appropriates Federal assistance, Federal aid for disaster victims in California, many of whom live in my congressional district and were victims of last

winter’s severe flooding, but also because, frankly, we need to ensure a

greater supply to timber, and what better source than the dead and dying

trees on Federal forest lands for the

independent mills in the north part of

my congressional district, which are
H 5562 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE May 24, 1995

very much a part of that regional economy, and the independent mills, frankly, are almost the backbone of our regional economy and have been beset by

any number of pressures in recent

years, not least of which is in my view

an overregulation of our Federal forest

lands and a moving away from utilizing

those forest lands to produce a resource that the mills can then use to

turn into products and to create and to

save jobs.

Let me point out to the gentleman

what I am sure he has already mentioned here tonight, and that is our

amendment is vitally needed for firesupression purposes and the health of

the forests. Our amendment would save

lives and save, frankly, the Federal

Government millions of dollars in firesuppression costs that have been spent

combating these raging wildfires that

have burned out of control particularly

in the western United States in recent

years.

Second, it would generate revenues

for the Federal Treasury by again allowing the salvage harvesting of these

dead and dying trees on Federal forest

lands. Our amendment, which the gentleman was able to incorporate into

the appropriations bill when it left the

full committee, was actually one of the

revenue-positive aspects of that piece

of legislation, and was one of the measures that were used to pay if you will

for the expenditures in the bill, not

least of which again was Federal disaster assistance for emergency victims in

California.

Second, I would like to point out, as

again I am sure the gentleman has

stressed here tonight, that our amendment is designed at taking some of

these dead and dying and diseased trees

out of Federal forest lands at a rate,

frankly, that is far below the annual

mortality rate on Federal forest lands,

so what we have proposed here is a

very reasonable amendment, one that

is good for the environment, again

good for forest health purposes, it is

good forestry technique or silvicultural

technique in that it allows the selective thinning of our forest lands

targeting dead and dying trees,

thinning those forest lands and managing those forest lands for again foresthealth and fire-suppression purposes.

I must say I am perplexed by the

President’s position on this particular

issue. It seems like his administration

has been, frankly, talking on both sides

of this issue. In fact the very day before the President mentioned in his

veto threat our emergency timber salvage amendment as grounds for a potential Presidential veto I has been assured by our former colleague and the

new Secretary of Agriculture, Dan

Glickman from Kansas, that he as the

Agriculture Secretary intended to do

all that he could as a key representative of the administration to ensure

that we began selling more timber off

of our Federal forest lands, and as the

gentleman pointed out in his opening

remarks when he was kind enough to

introduce me and yield ti me to me, my

congressional district, the First Congressional District of northwest California, is home to all or part of four

Federal forest lands. Our economy, our

regional economy in northwest California is very much resource-dependent.

We have traditionally relied upon the

forest products industry as the primary

source of steady, good-paying, industrial-type jobs, and, frankly, I would

hope that the administration will reconsider their position, allow us to

begin extracting that resource off of

Federal forest lands for the benefit of

our economies and the benefit of our

local communities in our congressional

district, in your congressional district,

and in many congressional districts

across the country.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina.

Would the gentleman perhaps consider

this question: If the President signs

this rescission package, he will put

88,000 people back to work, and these

are good, high-paying jobs, that is why

we have at least three or four union endorsements here, we have the National

Home Builders, we have many organizations endorsing this.

At a time when unemployment is relatively high across the country and especially high in the Pacific Northwest

and other areas that would be impacted

greatest by this, why would the President not sign a bill that would put

88,000 people back to work, would improve the forests’ health, would actually by his own Forest Service admission, would really create a healthier

forest? Why would he not do that?

Mr. RIGGS. If the gentleman would

yield, I would be the last one to speculate for the administration on this particular question, and I know that the

gentleman’s question is somewhat rhetorical in nature. But he makes a very,

very good point.

First of all we are talking about jobs

that are not easily replaced in the local

economies of resource-dependent communities. And I cannot fathom his motivation, except for the possibility that

the President is afraid of frankly antagonizing a core constituency in the

national Democratic Party, and that is

the more militant environmental element which has made professional environmental activism a movement in

America in recent years. They are the

forces, the entrenched forces of the status quo on this particular issue. They

are the ones that are frankly saying let

those dead and dying trees rot on the

forest floor rather than use those trees

as a resource to produce a value-added

product and again ensure good paying

jobs in the forest products industry and

the communities that depend on that

industry as the primary source of their

economic livelihood and economic

well-being.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. A

little while ago I mentioned the study

that was published in the Wall Street

Journal a couple of weeks ago pointed

out this special interest in Washington

of the environmental movement, and

this is to be distinguished from genuine, honest, working people out there

that are concerned about the environment. I have three children, I am concerned about the environment.

b 1945

Many people across the country are

concerned. I am talking a special interest here that takes in over $600 million

by frightening people and does not

come close to putting out the truth of

what is happening. It is an organization that, according to the Journal report, is very far left. It voted 93 percent

for Mr. Clinton in 1992. I know it is a

special interest group that backs him.

But pandering to that group at the

expense of these tens of thousands of

wage earners out in that part of the

country and doing it against the recommendations that he made himself,

promises he made himself, with option

9 and other promises to get these people back to work, I cannot understand

why he is picking this very left-wing

group over this large part of America’s

working people, labor unions that want

to go back to work, members, others,

and I am just confused as to why this

administration would pander to this

small, elite group as opposed to mainstream America, why he would fly in

the face of nearly two-thirds of the

House of Representatives.

This was a bipartisan effort.

To get two-thirds, we had over 70

Democrats who voted and worked hard

for the bill. The gentleman from Washington [Mr. DICKS] was particularly

helpful to get the bill passed; the gentleman from Texas [Mr. WILSON], others were involved in this, as well as the

gentleman from California [Mr. RIGGS],

and it is all of us who are looking to

help these working men and women get

their jobs back, high-paying jobs in

most cases, to get them back in the

mainstream economy, and here the

President is threatening to do that, to

veto it. He is threatening because of

the pressure from a group that does not

know a sourwood from a white pine.

I had one of them testifying in the

Committee on Interior the other day

who testified he was an environmental

educator. After he told me all the

things that were happening in the forest, the world was coming to an end, I

tried to ascertain his qualifications. I

found out he did not have a degree in

anything, and his practical knowledge

was void. I asked him what portion of

the country was owned by the Federal

Government. It is about a third. He did

not have a clue. I asked him how many

acres were in the U.S. Forest Service

system. It is 191 million acres. He did

not know. I asked him how much of

that 191 million acres could be harvested today. He said it all could. Less

than 25 percent of it can be harvested

today.

What I am saying is, with that kind

of misinformation, the President would

do well to listen to the working men

and women in California and Washington and Oregon and other parts of this
May 24, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE H 5563

country as opposed to listening to a

very elite special interest group that is

giving him very bad information.

Mr. RIGGS. If the gentleman will

yield, I think the gentleman makes an

excellent point, and I would simply add

that again the hard-core professional

environmental element, which again

has become, giving, I guess, the devil

its due, a well-organized and well-funded movement in this country in recent

years, having lost this debate through

a fair and open process at the full Committee on Appropriations level when

the bill was marked up, in fact, when

the gentleman’s amendment was voted

on on an up-or-down basis, having lost

the debate out here on this House floor

when we debated at some length the

merits of the gentleman’s emergency

timber salvage amendment, then employs a back-door mechanism, goes to

the White House and convinces the certain figures in the President’s administration that he really ought to veto

this bill, which, as the gentleman

pointed out, passed the House with

strong bipartisan support, and I want

to say that the President, frankly, is

not, in my just intuitive sense here, he

is not heeding his instinct. He is not

doing what I think, frankly, he knows

is the right thing.

I mean, after all, this is a President

who campaigned on a promise of putting people first. Well, I want to point

out to the President that the independent timber mills of this country have

launched a new campaign called Putting Family Businesses First, so if the

President met his campaign rhetoric, if

he really does believe in putting people

and families first, he can begin by reconsidering his threat to veto the gentleman’s outstanding emergency timber salvage amendment.

Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. That

falls in line with the President’s declaration that these are large companies. These are not large companies.

These are small, family-size businesses.

THE REAL ENVIRONMENTAL

EXTREMISTS

fThe SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr.

NETHERCUTT). Under the Speaker’s announced policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. LEWIS] is

recognized for 30 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.

Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker,

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio

[Mr. BROWN], my friend and colleague.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I

just sat here listening for the last hour

as the gentleman from Georgia [Mr.

LEWIS] did, and my friend, the gentlewoman from North Carolina [Mr. CLAYTON] talking about environmental extremists and environmental extremism.

The fact is that 70 percent of the

American public wants to see not

weaker but stronger environmental

laws, and the real extremists and the

real radicals in this environmental debate are not people that support the

clean water laws and not people that

support the clean air laws and not people that support public health laws, but

the real extremists are a good many

Republicans in this body who literally

want to privatize some of the national

parks, sell the national parks to large

corporations, want to roll back a lot of

the environmental laws, clean air laws,

safe drinking water laws, laws that affect, that we have built a consensus in

this country around that have given us

the best public health in our history,

that have given us the best, strongest

laws in the world to protect our citizens against everything from breast

cancer to tuberculosis. We have done

that well in this country in the last 3

or 4 decades, something I am proud of.

I live in Lorain, Ohio. My back door

looks out over Lake Erie. Twenty

years ago, Lake Erie was declared dead

in many parts. Part of the Cuyahoga

River in Cleveland caught on fire.

Becuase of the efforts of the U.S.

EPA, because of the commitment of a

lot of people in Lorain, Cleveland, Medina, and all of northeast Ohio and

other areas, we as a Nation were able

to clean up that lake, so my daughters,

Emily and Elizabeth, can now swim in

Lake Erie, and other people, we drink

the water, we can enjoy that lake

recreationally, and it helps create jobs.

It helps attract people to the Great

Lakes to build their businesses and

build their industries and employ people.

The extremists and the environmental issue are not those 70 or 80 percent of the American people that want

clean air, pure food, safe drinking

water for their children and their families and their grandchildren, but the

people that want to sell off the national parks and allow the chemical

companies and other polluters to write

the laws that dismantle the best environmental laws in our history and the

best environmental laws in the whole

world, and that is what concerns me

when I hear this kind of debate on the

House floor.

Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. I say to my

friend, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr.

Brown] I must agree with you. There is

nothing radical about wanting to know

what is in the air we breathe, what is

in the water we drink or what is in the

food we eat. I thank the gentleman

very much for his comments.

I yield to the gentlewoman from

North Carolina [Mrs. CLAYTON].

CELEBRATING THE MOTOR-VOTER LAW

Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, I also

want to applaud my colleague, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. LEWIS] for

organizing this special order and his

dedication and commitment to the

cause of voting and the rights of civil

rights. He has an impeccable reputation, and those people who know of his

record know that, indeed, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. LEWIS] is a

long-distance runner in the struggle for

civil rights and the opportunity for

basic rights that the Constitution affords all Americans, the right to vote

for all our citizens.

He has faced all manner of discouragement, and yet he has never been

discouraged. I just want to thank you,

I say to the gentleman from Georgia

[Mr. LEWIS], for not only this special

order but for the life that you have

lived and showing that America should

be there for everyone and living the

life that is exemplary, what you are.

And so I am delighted to participate

with you.

Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. I thank the

gentlewoman for those comments.

Mrs. CLAYTON. The right to vote is

a precious right because all rights derive from the voting right. Freedom of

speech, which we know as the First

Amendment, has far less meaning without the right to vote and to elect those

persons who will uphold that fundamental freedom.

Freedom from illegal search and seizure, which we know as the fourth

amendment, has little meaning if those

who hold elective office do not stand up

and protect those basic freedoms.

The term due process, the fifth

amendment, providing important procedural safeguards, guaranteed by the

Constitution, become mere words if

those who we elect fail to protect

them.

And the equality of treatment under

the law, the 14th amendment, is a

platitude we talk about that becomes a

living reality only when, now only

when, those we vote into office become

champions of those rights.

The Constitution is a living and

breathing document that gets its life

from people we elect.

It is, therefore, clearly the best way

to safeguard all of our rights is to exercise our most fundamental right, and

that is the right to vote. And the first

step in exercising that right obviously

is to register. We in Congress have

made registering to vote easy. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993,

the so-called motor voter bill, was

passed by Congress and signed into law

by President Clinton May 20, 1993.

The motor voter act took effect January 1 of this year. It requires basically that we get our drivers license,

we can register by mail, any time we

get public services, those three areas

allow us to register very easily. With

this simplified registration, we expect

citizens will register to vote.

Indeed, in North Carolina, since implementation of the motor voter law,

some 88,000 new voters have registered,

88,000. The reason for the simplified

registration procedure is actually to

encourage more people to participate,

and we know there has been a declining

participation of citizens in elections,

so we need to do that.

One author has said the deadliest

enemy is not really those who live in

foreign lands but really it is within

ourselves. I want to say to you, JOHN,

that the same thing could be applied to

us in our own community or in our own

private life: The deadliest enemy is not