Date: 1996-07-25
Speaker: DON YOUNG (republican)
Chamber: H

discovered that the Department of the Interior had failed to ask for or receive reimbursement for costs stemming from appearances by Babbitt on behalf of Democratic candidates during his travels. Under a policy that each White House has used for decades. the Government must seek reimbursement from each campaign for that portion of the Cabinet Secretarys travel related to a political event. Yet the Department of the Interior failed to bill a single one of the campaigns or organizations until Chairman YOUNG began an investigation into the travels of Mr. Babbitt. These costs stem from two dozen mixed trips. part political. part official. involving 35 events for campaigns or political organizations that Mr. Babbitt took in 1994 and 1995. This includes 4 organizations and 28 candidates. Virtually none of the campaigns were billed until March or April of this year. The administration claims that as of June 15. 1996 all campaigns have reimbursed the Government. This complete collapse of the billing process resulted in at least one case. that of a gubernatorial candidate in Nebraska. where the campaigns address was no longer valid by the time the department billed it. In the real world. what kind of business could get away with not collecting money owed it for so long? This would be unheard of. Yet. what did Mr. Babbitt and his propaganda machine do when they were caught? Listen to this. They blamed failure to reimburse campaigns .on a young special assistant in the Secretarys office. Well. all I can say is. thank God Bruce Babbitt is not in charge of the Department of Defense. Imagine what kind of excuse that would be in that big organization. Chairman YOUNG and the gentleman from California. Chairman HORN. of the Committee on Qovernment Reform and Oversight. have asked GAO to look into what went wrong with the reimbursement process. The total cost of these trips. both political and official. have been estimated at well over $100.000. including costs of staff. meals. lodging and transportation. He is at it again. Even as we speak. today he appeared in Portland and Eugene. OR. attacking Republicans on the Clean Water Act. a law which he has very little jurisdiction over. While Mr. Babbitt was canoeing at the taxpayers expense today. a senior official from the Fish and Wildlife Service testified on Capitol Hill that if the $386 million maintenance backlog that has accumulated in wildlife refuges to date were the responsibility of a private company. it would be bankrupt. As if irresponsibility was not enough for Secretary Babbitt and his staff. they have. like their teachers at the White House. continued to obstruct the Committee on Resources Republican efforts to get the truth about the nature of Mr. Babbitts travel conduct. In a letter earlier this year. Chairman YOUNG sent several followup questions to the Secretary regarding the reimbursement issue. Yet. Secretary Babbitt refused and continues to refuse to answer several questions posed in that letter. Of particular importance to the American people. we believe. is his refusal to provide the chairman with documents regarding direct communications between the Secretary and the White House regarding the Natural Heritage tours. This conduct is particularly troubling now in light of media reports which indicate Mr. Babbitt was personally involved in White House orchestrated efforts to attack Republicans on environmental issues for political purpose through creation of the Natural Heritage tours. These reports indicate that Mr. Babbitt and the President discussed the political impact of the Secretarys attacks. Also of note is Mr. Babbitts credibility regarding he planning of the Natural Heritage tours. For instance. Mr. Babbitt said in his March 21 letter to the chairman that the Natural Heritage tours were not planned in advance. however. the evidence suggests otherwise. In addition to media reports. the Secretary and the staff words speak for themselves on June 12. 1995. in Inside Energy. the following was reported. "Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is committed to visiting various regions of the country during the coming months to make a case against the GOPled congressional assault on environmental programs. a department spokeswoman said. Babbitt plans to travel at least twice a month on what the department is billing as a Natural Heritage Tour to talk about environmental success stories. the spokeswoman said." In a speech on December 13. 1995. in which the Department paid to put the speech on the AP wire. the Secretary said: "On Earth Day 1995. I set out on a journey. a series of 11 Natural Heritage Tours all across this country." "And while in the 1994 election campaign. the environment was not an issue. I can assure you. by November. 1996. in each county. State. congressional. and in the Presidential election. the environment will be right at the core of every single debate." In the press conference a short time later. Mr. Babbitt went still further and personalized the issue. In response to a question regarding environment as a political issue. he said: "I absolutely intended to make it a political issue." So there you have it. The Secretary admits to playing politics as he continues to state mistruths about Republican positions.. Tonight we will begin to discuss the true size of the mismanagement at the Department. the scope of the misstatements. and give a distortionfree look at the misguided policies. Secretary Babbitt has been running around the country claiming that the Congress is engaged in some attempt to close down or auction off units of the Park System. However. his own director of the Park Service has testified under oath. when I put him under oath. that he was unaware of any bills that would auction off or close down the park system. Further. Director Kennedy states that he was not aware of a list contrary to what the Secretary of the Interior said. about the Park System being closed. While the 104th Congress has taken no legislative action to close down any unit of the Park System. the Secretary has already closed some areas and is considering closing numerous park areas. Last year. while leveling unfounded attacks against Congress claiming that this budget resolution without the force of law would have closed 200 park areas. the Clinton administration announced plans to close three parks in the Washington area. Again in the fiscal year 1997 budget submittal for the Park System the administration has begun to withdraw all funding for these three park areas. At the same time. the Secretary is considering turning over as many as 30 park areas to Native Americans. These are not small isolated park areas but some of the best known parks in the country. According to an internal National Park Service document dated November 1995. Secretary Babbitt has under consideration turning over to Indian tribes such areas as the Redwoods National Park. Great Basin National Park. and Lake Clark National Park. Just 2 months ago in May. the Secretary turned over management of City of Rocks to the State of Idaho. Do any of Secretary Babbitts park closures have public support? No one really knows since none of them have been subject to public review or scrutiny. Further. last year during the lapse in appropriations. Secretary Babbitt shut down every single concession in the National Parks and closed off access to millions and millions of persons. By comparison. bless his heart. Secretary Glickman of the Forest Service did not shut down a single concession on Forest Service lands even though he had no budget. Well. what is clear is that they are duplicitous at best because the Secretary is so busy running around the country claiming that Congress in attempting to close parks because the Committee on Resources reported a bipartisan bill which requires a public review of the National Park System. As further evidence of his desire of this administration and Secretary Bruce Babbitt in particular to play politics with parks and disrupt the lives of persons who wish to visit and enjoy our Federal lands. consider how the Secretary has dealt with park concessioners. The Assistant Attorney General memorandum of August 16. 1995 provides guidance on the scope of permissible Government operations during a lapse in appropriations. including explicit detail on the process to be used in determining who are the emergency employees which should be retained on duty during a budgetary shutdown. The memorandum states that such a determination should be made on the basis of assuming the continued operation of the private economy. The opinion goes on to State that such an assumption is the reason for determining that air traffic controllers. Federal meat inspectors. and other such personnel are emergency. Using those criteria in the Attorney General opinion. Secretary Babbitt could permit the private businesses which operate park concessions to remain open to serve the public. and then declare those persons necessary for safe operation of the concession as emergency personnel. That is precisely what the Forest Service has done. Not one single Forest Service ski area. resort. or even a single outfitter or guide on Forest Service land has been told to shut down. Every single one of them is open. serving the public as we debate this bill today. Even the concessions at the Smithsonian Institution remain open on the same basis. However. Secretary Babbitt is so driven to public disservice that not only has he shut down park concessioners. but last week he tried to get the Forest Service to close all their ski areas and other concessions fearing it would expose his unnecessary closure of park concessions. I pay strong tribute to the former Member of this body. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman. for rejecting those attempts by Mr. Babbitt to further disrupt the American people and attempting to serve the public in the best possible way during this difficult period. There is one final irony to this issue of closing park concessions. Secretary Babbitt has closed these concessions primarily because he felt he did not have adequate personnel on duty to supervise their safe operations. Yet. when we. our committee. called a dozen parks around the country during the shutdown last November. we found just as many park rangers on duty during the peak of that shutdown as there was prior to the shutdown. The only difference was that none of these rangers were serving the public because the parks had been shut down by Secretary Babbitt. I hope this country will never again have a Secretary of the Interior so driven to public disservice as Secretary Babbitt. but as long as there is the possibility that we will have another Secretary more interested in playing politics than carrying out his duties and serving the public in the best way possible. this legislation is essential that we are working on. Mr. Speaker. I yield back the balance of my time.