I'm surprised Miller didn't cite the "Easter Bunny" as responsible for also blocking previous reform bills!
Published Tuesday | April 29, 2008
House approves massive public lands bill
By MATTHEW DALY Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=1 ... d=10322998

WASHINGTON (AP) - A bill that would extend federal immigration and labor laws to the U.S. commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands is on its way to the president's desk.

The Marianas, in the western Pacific, have been tainted by past associations with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and reports of sweatshop labor.

The bill also would grant the commonwealth a delegate in the House with limited voting powers. Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia already have one delegate each.

The massive bill also designates federal wilderness protection in Washington state, creates heritage areas in Illinois and New York and advances water projects across the country as it combines 62 proposals related to public lands from coast to coast.

The measure, approved 291-117, also would boost a project to create a memorial in Washington to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and create a commission to study a possible National Museum of the American Latino.

It also commemorates a site in Bainbridge Island, Wash., where Japanese-Americans were forced from their homes on their way to prison camps during World War II.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said reform of laws governing the Marianas was overdue.

The bill approved by the House will "end the broken immigration system" in the Marianas and "help begin to restore human rights to individuals working there," Miller said.

The bill "marks the first time that both the House and Senate have approved legislation closing the legal loopholes that have allowed some of the poorest men and women in the world to be lured to the CNMI, abused, and exploited in sweatshops in this American territory," Miller said.

Miller blamed Republican leaders - especially former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas - for blocking previous reform bills. "Jack Abramoff is now in prison and Tom Delay has resigned in disgrace," he said.

The Washington state measure would designate approximately 106,000 acres of low-elevation, old-growth forest near Seattle as federal wilderness, one of the highest levels of protection Congress can bestow to public lands.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who has championed the so-called Wild Sky Wilderness for nearly nine years, said the proposed wilderness offers more than 2 million people in the Seattle area access to "rolling hills and rushing rivers and low-elevation forests for generations to come."

The bill also would establish the Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area in Illinois and Niagara Falls Heritage Area in New York state and expand Idaho's Minidoka Internment National Monument to include a site commemorating Japanese-Americans who were rounded up on Bainbridge Island, Wash., during World War II, and then sent to prison camps.

A White House spokesman said Tuesday the administration had not taken a position on the bill.

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On the Net:

The bill is S. 2739.