David Thomas: “this is an amendment, obviously, that decreases the funding level for the Council of Environmental Quality in the amount…”

“this is an amendment, obviously, that decreases the funding level for the Council of Environmental Quality in the amount of funding that was passed by the House, and I rise to discuss this. This amendment is offered largely because of what I think is the unfortunate changes that have taken place in CEQ during the Clinton administration. Congress established this council, the National Environmental Policy Act, to facilitate the implementation of NEPA and to coordinate the environmental activities of the executive branch. Congress envisioned CEQ as a technical resource for Federal agencies that were confronted with questions about NEPA. Unfortunately, the intention and reality have diverged under the Clinton administration. CEQ has not fulfilled the statutory mandates of NEPA, nor many of the promises which the chairman made to this Congress. I happened to be involved with the committee hearings last year on the confirmation of this chairman, and we talked a lot about how we were going to work together. Instead, CEQ has been actively engaged in partisan kinds of things with respect to those issues before the Congress. CEQ has not done many of the things that have been prescribed under the law. NEPA requires CEQ to provide an annual quarterly report--annual. The last report prepared was completed 3 years ago, in 1993, and that report remains the only report CEQ has prepared under the Clinton administration despite the statutory mandate.”