mr. speaker , i thank the gentleman for yielding me time , and i rise in strong support of this point of order .  simply saying in the legislation that this is not an unfunded mandate does not make the fact that it is not an unfunded mandate .  failure to provide the resources by which the directed activity is required under the law is what makes it an unfunded mandate .  we have communities throughout california that have had environmental and economic havoc wreaked upon them from the use of mtbe , in many instances , as the gentlewoman from california ( mrs. capps )  pointed out , after the knowledge was available and was continued to pursue the use of this compound as an additive to the fuels of our automobiles .  those communities now are stuck with the costs of either cleaning up that drinking water supply , finding an alternative source and dealing with it , and they must do so .  to suggest now that we are going to provide a safe harbor , that we are going to restrict the liability or prohibit the liability from those who knew of the dangers of this to our environment , to our drinking water supplies , to our citizens , and on the other hand , we are going to direct communities to clean this up when , in fact , the resources will not be available to do that , they are not there at the local level , and they are not forthcoming from the united states .  mtbe is just another way in which this congress , this republican leadership , wants to corrupt the process by which these communities can be made whole .  they want to corrupt the process by which these companies can be protected from the liability that they assumed when they knowingly did that .  it is just a continued process of corruption of the process of this congress that we can not deal with this straight up .  