[Senate Report 109-244]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
Calendar No. 406
109th Congress Report
SENATE
2d Session 109-244
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UKRAINE FAMINE MEMORIAL
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April 20, 2006.--Ordered to be printed
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Filed under authority of the order of the Senate of April 7, 2006
Mr. Domenici, from the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
submitted the following
R E P O R T
[To accompany H.R. 562]
The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, to which was
referred the Act (H.R. 562) to authorize the Government of the
Ukraine to establish a memorial on Federal land in the District
of Columbia to honor the victims of the manmade famine that
occurred in Ukraine in 1932-1933, having considered the same,
reports favorably thereon without amendment and recommends that
the Act do pass.
PURPOSE OF THE MEASURE
The purpose of H.R. 562 is to authorize the Government of
Ukraine to establish a memorial on Federal land in the District
of Columbia to honor the victims of the famine and genocide
that occurred in Ukraine in 1932 and 1933.
BACKGROUND AND NEED
During 1932 and 1933, Soviet leader Josef Stalin moved to
suppress nationalist and anti-Bolshevik urges among ethnic
Ukrainians. To pacify the Ukrainians, Stalin set impossibly
high grain quotas. Farmers who failed to meet the quotas had
their other food confiscated. Those who were found in
possession of even meager portions of grain reserved for their
families were often executed for ``withholding'' grain.
As a result of Stalin's actions, millions of Ukrainians
starved to death during the winter of 1932-1933. Ukrainians
call this forced starvation the Holodomor and historians
estimate that between 5 and 10 million people died during the
event. Twenty-six nations, including the United States, have
recognized Stalin's ``famine'' as an act of genocide.
H.R. 562 would authorize the government of Ukraine to
establish a memorial to the famine victims on Federal land in
the District of Columbia. The bill would require the memorial
to comply with the Commemorative Works Act. However, the bill
would exempt the memorial from 4 provisions of the Works Act:
two provisions that require memorials to commemorate American
history and two provisions that require the Secretary to
maintain and preserve the memorial. The memorial would be built
with non-Federal funds.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY
H.R. 562 was introduced by Representative Levin and others
on February 2, 2005. The bill passed the House of
Representatives on November 16, 2005, on a voice vote. It was
referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on
November 17, 2005. The Subcommittee on National Parks held a
hearing on H.R. 562 on February 16, 2006. At the business
meeting on March 15, 2006, the Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources ordered H.R. 562 favorably reported.
COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION
The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, in open
business session on March 15, 2006, by a unanimous voice vote
of a quorum present, recommends that the Senate pass H.R. 562.
SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS
Section 1(a) authorizes the government of Ukraine to
establish, on Federal land in the District of Columbia, a
memorial to victims of the Ukrainian famine and genocide of
1932 and 1933.
Subsection (b) requires compliance with the Commemorative
Works Act, with four minor exceptions: It waives two provisions
that require the memorial to commemorate American history and
two provisions that require the Secretary to maintain and
preserve the memorial.
Section 2 states that the United States government will not
pay any expenses for the establishment or maintenance of this
memorial.
COST AND BUDGETARY CONSIDERATIONS
The following estimate of the cost of this measure has been
provided by the Congressional Budget Office:
H.R. 562--An act to authorize the government of Ukraine to establish a
memorial on federal land in the District of Columbia to honor
the victims of the manmade famine that occurred in the Ukraine
in 1932-1933
CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 562 would have no impact
on the federal budget. Enacting the legislation would not
affect direct spending or revenues. H.R. 562 contains no
intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the
Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would not affect the budgets
of state, local, or tribal governments.
H.R. 562 would authorize the government of Ukraine to
establish a memorial honoring the men, women, and children who
perished by famine under communist rule in Ukraine from 1932 to
1933. The legislation would require that the establishment of
the memorial comply with the major provisions of the
Commemorative Works Act. As a memorial gift from a foreign
nation, the government of Ukraine would be responsible for
constructing, maintaining, and preserving the memorial. No
federal funds could be used for those purposes.
The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Matthew
Pickford. This estimate was approved by Peter H. Fontaine,
Deputy Assistant Director for Budget Analysis.
REGULATORY IMPACT EVALUATION
In compliance with paragraph 11(b) of rule XXVI of the
Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee makes the following
evaluation of the regulatory impact which would be incurred in
carrying out H.R. 562. The bill is not a regulatory measure in
the sense of imposing Government-established standards or
significant economic responsibilities on private individuals
and businesses.
No personal information would be collected in administering
the program. Therefore, there would be no impact on personal
privacy.
Little, if any, additional paperwork would result from the
enactment of H.R. 562, as ordered reported.
EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS
The views of the Administration on H.R. 562 were included
in testimony received by the Committee at a hearing on the bill
on February 16, 2006. This testimony follows:
Statement of John Parsons, Associate Regional Director, National
Capital Region, National Park Service, Department of the Interior
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for
the opportunity to appear before you today to present the
Department of the Interior's views on H.R. 562, a bill to
authorize the Government of Ukraine to establish a memorial on
Federal land in the District of Columbia to honor the victims
of the man-made famine that occurred in Ukraine in 1932-1933.
The Department opposes enactment of this legislation
because it duplicates efforts currently underway to establish a
memorial that would honor all victims of communism worldwide.
This memorial, the Victims of Communism Memorial, was
authorized by P.L. 103-199 on December 17, 1993.
H.R. 562 would authorize the Government of Ukraine to
establish a memorial on Federal land in the District of
Columbia to honor the men, women, and children who perished by
famine under communist rule in Ukraine from 1932-1933. The bill
would require that the establishment of the memorial comply
with the major provisions of the Commemorative Works Act, but
contains minor exceptions to four provisions. Two provisions
require a commemorative work to have significance to the
American Experience, and two relate to the requirement that the
Secretary maintain and preserve the memorial. As a memorial
gift from a foreign nation, the Government of Ukraine would be
responsible for establishing, constructing, maintaining and
preserving the memorial.
The people of Ukraine were brought to the verge of physical
extinction in 1932-1933 when a man-made disaster resulted in
the deaths of millions of innocent men, women, and children.
The Soviet Government, under the political control of Joseph
Stalin, used food as a weapon to annihilate or suppress the
political and cultural identity of the Ukrainian people. To
fill impossibly high grain quotas, assigned brigades seized the
1932 crop from one of the world's most fertile farmlands. Those
who resisted giving up their crops were killed. Millions of
people starved while stockpiles of seized grain rotted by the
tons. Attempts were made by the United States Government to
intercede at the height of the famine to provide food and other
necessary supplies to help the starving people of Ukraine. In
1988, the United States Commission on the Ukraine Famine
reported that the people of Ukraine were victims of genocide,
or ``starved to death in a man-made famine.''
The National Capital Memorial Advisory Commission
(Commission), established in 1986 to review proposals to
establish memorials and provide its recommendation to the
Secretary of the Interior and committees of Congress, reviewed
this proposal on March 15, 2005. While it supported a similar
proposal in the 108th Congress, the Commission has since
considered revisions made by the Victims of Communism Memorial
Foundation (Foundation) to expand its effort as a two-fold
commemoration. The Foundation is proposing a memorial to
victims of communism worldwide that would be supplemented by a
virtual museum to tell the history of the impact of communism.
The Commission also concluded that because the Victims of
Communism Memorial would encompass the history of the Ukraine
Famine as well as that of 120 different nationalities, ethnic
groups, and countries that were also victims of communism, it
would not endorse legislation proposed to provide a separate,
specific recognition of this or other national or ethnic groups
that already would be recognized in the Victims of Communism
Memorial.
We agree with the approach of commemorating the millions of
victims of communism worldwide, including those who suffered
immeasurably during the horrific Ukraine Famine, through the
Victims of Communism Memorial. While the victims of the Ukraine
Famine obviously deserve recognition, we believe that creating
separate memorials for individual groups would detract from the
overall message of the Victims of Communism Memorial and could,
potentially, create an unfortunate competition amongst various
groups for limited memorial sites in our Nation's Capital. The
Foundation envisions the Victims of Communism Memorial as a
visible symbol for all those who have suffered atrocities to
human rights and perished. The Foundation secured site
approvals for placement of the Victims of Communism Memorial
within sight of the United States Capitol and design approvals
in 2005. The Foundation plans to begin construction on the
memorial this spring.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to comment.
This concludes my prepared remarks and I will be happy to
answer any questions you or other committee members might have.
CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW
In compliance with paragraph 12 of rule XXVI of the
Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee notes that no
changes in existing law are made by H.R. 562, as ordered
reported.