Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. I don't know if anybody has noticed what has gone on in Mexico recently. The previous speaker just spoke of the drug wars that are going on. It's a known fact that much of the equipment that's used to carry on those wars comes from the United States and is smuggled into Mexico.

This is a very sane and necessary attempt to slow down the availability of high-caliber, high-capacity automatic weapons that are smuggled into Mexico. It makes no sense not to know what's going on, because this is dramatically affecting the border States and American citizens who happen to be in Mexico.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, I'm from California so forgive me, but I also was the Deputy Secretary at the Department of the Interior in the mid-nineties, and we set up a program called the Appalachia Clean Streams Program to deal precisely with the issues that have risen over the years from the pollution and contamination from the various coal mines, including mountaintop removal. This effort underway by the Department is to deal with the ongoing problem. The continuing problem, mountaintop removal in mining, does contaminate and does destroy streams.

I could not believe the clarity of the water in the streams when I visited West Virginia. They would make the swimming pools in Los Angeles envious. Nothing was alive, nothing at all, because of the contamination from the mines. I just ask for the opportunity to go ahead.

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