[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 67 (Wednesday, May 25, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: May 25, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT FINANCING, AND RELATED PROGRAMS
APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1995
Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman
from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], the chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign
Appropriations as well.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman who just spoke gave a fine
speech. The problem is it does not have anything to do with this bill.
If you look in this bill to find the cut in narcotics that the
gentleman is talking about, there is not any. We did not cut the drug
interdiction program. We should have, because it does not work.
Do you know what percentage of the drugs that come into this country
are interdicted at the border? Less than 5 percent. Do you know what
the former deputy administrator of this program told me when he came
and talked to me privately? He said the program does not work, and that
you should not spend a dime on it. Despite that fact, we fully funded
last year's level in the bill.
Now, we did not increase the program as the administration asked us
to because we did not have the money. We had to cut $9 billion to make
the Clinton budget conform with the ceilings under the Budget Act. So
we had to cut $400 million out of the foreign aid program, and we did.
But we did not cut one dime in narcotics. What we refused to do is to
fund an increase that we did not have the dollars to provide.
{time} 1440
I would also point out that we have been attacked because we have
supposedly engaged in a partisan act by structuring the rule on this
bill. I want to give my colleagues the facts.
Seven amendments are being allowed by this rule. Five of the seven
amendments that are being allowed are Republican amendments. Only two
are Democratic amendments. I happen to oppose those amendments.
There were 38 amendments offered in the Committee on Rules; 16 of the
38 amendments were amendments that would not even have been in order if
we had had the totally open rule that the gentleman from California is
suggesting that we should have. Six other amendments were withdrawn by
their Republican sponsors.
There were nine across-the-board amendments. Some of them
duplicative, calling for the same percentage cuts, and the one that was
agreed to was the one of the gentleman from California [Mr. Beilenson],
in an effort to try to fund a higher number for population programs, an
amendment which I also oppose.
I also want to trace for Members the history of this subcommittee in
terms of structuring the rule on this bill. This bill has been brought
to the floor under a structured rule for the past 9 years, because we
were originally asked to do so by Undersecretary of State Bill
Schneider, serving in the Reagan administration, and by then-Secretary
of the Treasury Jim Baker. They asked us to help them pass the Reagan
foreign aid program, and they knew that because there was such
controversy at that time that a lot of the issues in this bill were
going to be demagoged. So they asked us to help structure the rule so
that we would have a fair and balanced discussion on the bill. And that
is what we did.
I make absolutely no apology for it. It was an effort on the part of
a Democratic chair to support a reasonable request on the part of the
Republican administration, and we pursued that same policy under the
Bush administration. We are pursuing it now under the Clinton
administration. We are doing precisely the same thing that we have done
for 9 years.
I would suggest that rather than get exercised about a nonexistent
power play, I would simply suggest that what we are doing is allowing
Members to debate the major budgetary issues on this bill. And we are
doing so by denying, in the main, consideration of amendments that
would not be allowed under an open rule.
I want to make one other comment with respect to narcotics. I
understand the gentleman from New York and his concern about this
society and this Congress' willingness to pour billions of dollars into
new prisons, to put a great amount of political effort into three
strikes and you are out, without doing anything real to deal with the
problems of the victims of crime or to deal with the problems of drugs.
I share that concern. But this bill does not have anything to do with
that, and this bill does not do that.
I repeat, this bill did not add money to the narcotics program,
because we did not have the money to do it. Neither did we cut the
program from last year's level. I repeat, we did not cut the narcotics
program. In the context of a bill which is reduced overall by $400
million from the President's request, we level-funded this
appropriation. It is getting the same number of dollars it got last
year. A number of programs are getting considerably less; some are
getting zero.
We zeroed out the administration's $100 million request for ESAF. In
my view, if we are going to fight drugs, we need to fight it here at
home through education, and through law enforcement. If we had the
money available, I would strongly suggest that we not put it into this
program, because any program that only stops about 4 percent of the
drugs coming into this country is, in my view, by definition a failure.
But the fact is, we did not cut the program. We level-funded it, in
spite of the misgivings of the chairman and in spite of the misgivings
of the committee.
Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. No
one in the House has more respect for him.
He consistently characterized my statement as having nothing to do
with this bill. Now, I know that he knows a lot about a lot of
subjects, but when the President of the United States, the Secretary of
State, the drug czar, Mr. Brown, and all of the people that have
developed over the years some expertise in fighting this problem, and
they ask for $152.4 million, and the gentleman, with all of his
expertise, gives them $100 million, under what type of logic is he
saying that he did not cut the President's request.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I did not say we did not cut the President's
request. I said we did not cut last year's budget.
Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I
may have misspoke, but all I am saying is, I do not think my country
and this administration is doing all that it can. It makes a feeble
effort to ask for $152.4 million and the gentleman, in his judgment,
says, ``I do not like the program so I will give them $100 million,
because they got it last year.''
I do not think the gentleman ought to characterize what I said as
being out of line with the legislation.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is misstating my position. I
said that in spite of my misgivings about the program, I decided not to
cut the program. I did not operate on the basis of the President's
budget. We operated on the basis of last year's budget, because we did
not have the money to go around providing large increases.
Does the gentleman think it was a mistake that we provided an
increase for IDA, 50 percent of that money goes into Africa?
We decided that that had a greater effect than some of the other
requests that the President made.
Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman's thinking is that putting
the money in Africa has a greater effect than what is happening in our
districts, then once again, I differ with his thinking.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would suggest if we are going to deal with
drugs, we need to put them in the drug programs that work. We funded
last year's level fully, but we did not have the money for an increase.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Findlay, OH [Mr. Oxley], a coauthor of this very important amendment.
(Mr. OXLEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, let me first pay tribute to our leader in the
narcotics area, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Rangel]. I think the
House made a huge mistake when it eliminated the Select Narcotics
Committee because it did not encourage those Members who have been
fighting the drug fight for all these many years. And the gentleman
from New York [Mr. Rangel] represents the best of our efforts.
Mr. Speaker, I really think the question for the House to decide is
whether our amendment is going to be made in order. That question is,
do Members want this money going to the former Soviet Union, or do they
want it to be used to fight the narcotics trafficking going on in this
world and that is penetrating this country. That is really the
question.
It seems to me that the House, not the Committee on Rules, not the
Committee of the Whole, but in fact the House ought to determine
exactly where that money ought to go. That really is what we are
asking, that we defeat the previous question and allow this one
amendment to be offered.
I do not think it is too much to ask that the House be given an
opportunity to work its will. We have seen huge cuts in the drug czar's
office, in the DEA, in the FBI and in the Coast Guard, in Customs, who
are set up to fight this drug war.
We are going to send a terrible message to the American people that
we no longer think drugs are a major concern in this country.
I ask the House to consider, to vote against the previous question,
give us an opportunity to make our case on the floor of the House. Give
us an opportunity to make the case that drugs are a major component of
the crime problem in this country, and the best way we can deal with it
is to use that money to help countries who are cooperating with us in
this drug war, whether they are producing countries or whether they are
transit countries. That really is the question before the House.
I think that amendment will pass overwhelmingly. I think the
Committee on Rules and the leadership understood that intuitively, and
that is why they would not allow the amendment.
I thank the gentleman from New York [Mr. Rangel] for the help he has
given us. Please defeat the previous question.
{time} 1450
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Winter Park, FL [Mr. Mica], a hard-working freshman
Member who had an amendment denied by the Committee on Rules.
Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I had two amendments that I considered most
reasonable. One was to cut 10 percent of the half a billion dollars
used to administer AID. That is 10 percent of half a billion dollars, a
half a billion dollars more than any nation on the face of the earth
spends for administration of a giveaway program.
The second part of my amendment is to say, ``We could cut that, but
we could put it into supporting U.S. exports,'' which I think is a
valuable area. I was not even talking about reducing the amount of
money in the bill.
Last night, Mr. Speaker, on TV millions of Americans and I had a
chance to see the history of waste and fraud and abuse of foreign aid
in Zaire. That is history. In 2 minutes I cannot tell the Members the
trail of waste, fraud, and abuse in this bill. Members will hear some
of it. Many of the amendments that were denied being heard, Mr.
Speaker, take that kind of waste, fraud, and abuse out of this bill.
Mr. Speaker, today the House, unfortunately, has not gotten the
message. Maybe they did not get it in Oklahoma, Kentucky, or wherever,
but they did not get the message that the American people want this to
stop.
The Committee on Rules killed an amendment that cut $50 million and
would have transferred it from a giveaway program to a good program.
The United States gets beat by Japan, by France and Germany. We spend
the lowest amount of money in export underwriting and assistance of any
civilized nation, according to this report, which is carefully detailed
and just released by the Small Business Exporters Association.
This committee and the bill is committed to giveaways and to studies,
while other countries are conducting trade and business. I believe in
trade, not aid. The world has changed, but we are still living in
another era, in a giveaway era in this House of Representatives.
I urge Members to kill this rule and send the Committee on Rules a
message, and the American people will respect them for it.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Madison, WI [Mr. Klug], the author of a very important
amendment dealing with Ireland, which tragically was denied by the
Committee on Rules.
Mr. KLUG. Mr. Speaker, this House is supposed to debate issues, and
that is what the fight on this rule is all about, the sense that many
of us would like to debate foreign policy issues and the way that U.S.
Government money gets spent on foreign policy issues, but we are never
allowed to do it.
Yesterday I offered an amendment to trim back funding for the
International Fund for Ireland in fiscal year 1995 from $19.6 million
to $10 million. A number of my colleagues think this is a terrific
idea. It was originally set up in 1986 as part of a joint agreement
with the European Community, New Zealand, Canada, and the United
States, to help fund economic development projects on the Irish
Republic-Northern Ireland border.
Speaker Foley, for example, has said, ``In my judgment, this
contribution represents some of the best value for U.S. dollars spent
abroad under the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act.'' However, the former
chairman of it, Sir Charles Brett, said that this has grown out of a
``muddled but benevolent desire to believe that money could buy
peace,'' and that he did not think of the purpose or potentialities of
the fund had at all been clearly worked out before it came into
existence.
Last year, of the $20 million that we sent to the International Fund
for Ireland, $8.6 million went to encourage tourism to Ireland,
including production of a golf video, construction of a theater, and
pony trekking centers across the country of Ireland.
$285,000 of that money went to enhance Northern Ireland's reputation
for quality, and $127,000 went to assist stores in Boston to sell Irish
products.
Mr. Speaker, we all know the legend of the leprechaun, where somebody
gets in trouble for stealing his pot of gold. In this case, I think the
roles are reversed, and it is the leprechaun who has been stealing
money from us.
Mr. Speaker, I make the point that what we need to do is to debate
the continued United States involvement in the International Fund for
Ireland, and it is my sense that given a $200 billion U.S. deficit, it
is awfully difficult to explain $10 million to the American public
spent on Irish tourism development, spent on swimming pools and
Jacuzzis in Irish hotels, spent in golf course videos, and spent in
pony trekking centers. It is not an appropriate use of money.
Mr. Speaker, that is one of the reasons this rule should be voted
down so we can debate the issue.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Middletown, NY [Mr. Gilman].
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to
me.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a few moments to clarify the
record. In fiscal year 1994 the President requested $147 million for
the INM fund, and only $100 million was enacted. In fiscal year 1995
the administration's request was for $152.4 million, more than last
year's request, and again only $100 million was recommended. Fiscal
years 1994 and 1995 are cuts any way we slice it.
Permit me to recite some of the noteworthy results from the
Republican antinarcotics strategy in the 1980's: There was a drop in
cocaine use from $5.5 million in 1985 to $1.3 million in 1992,
marijuana use was down from 20 million users in 1990 to 9 million in
1992. Roughly half of all the estimated cocaine production was seized
by our own agents in foreign interdiction operations, indicating that
our international narcotics efforts have been substantial and have been
worthwhile. Let us continue that effort by supporting this amendment.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the gentleman from Ohio
[Mr. Hall] on the Committee on Rules how many speakers there are
remaining?
Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers. I am
prepared to move the previous question on the resolution.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time remains on both
sides?
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Torres). The gentleman from California
[Mr. Dreier] has 1 minute remaining, and the gentleman from Ohio [Mr.
Hall] has 14 minutes remaining.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to defeat the previous question. I hope
very much that we can make this Rangel amendment in order.
In order to close debate, Mr. Speaker, I yield to my good friend, the
gentleman from Fort Lauderdale, FL [Mr. Shaw].
Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me.
Mr. Speaker, I would very quickly like to make the observation that
the previous question that we are trying to defeat, the amendment that
the gentlemen from New York, Mr. Rangel and Mr. Gilman, and the
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Oxley] spoke to, is not money for
interdiction, it is money for foreign operations. It is tremendously
important to our effort.
I would also like to correct a statement made by the distinguished
chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, that interdiction is not
working. For every dollar that we spend on the interdiction effort, we
are taking $20 of street value out of the system. I do not know of
anywhere in the Federal budget we are getting more bang for the buck. I
do not know anywhere we have to do more than in eradication in the
source countries.
Let us wake up. We have to attack this drug war on every front.
Education is important. I agree on that. Treatment is important. I
agree on that. Also, our foreign efforts are tremendously important.
As the gentleman from New York [Mr. Rangel] said, and I think quite
courageously, and I would say this to our Democrat friends, never in
this Congress has fighting a drug war been a partisan issue. We have
worked together, we have worked shoulder to shoulder in this Congress,
in trying to do a better job on all fronts. Let us not make this a
partisan issue. To defeat the previous question is not a partisan
issue. Let us vote to defeat the previous question.
Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman
from Vermont [Mr. Sanders].
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to
me.
Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the Appropriations Committee's
thoughtful recommendation not to appropriate funds this year to the
ESAF, a facility within the International Monetary Fund. I want to
thank the committee for listing to and addressing my serious concerns
about the policies of the ESAF and the IMF in general. ESAF lends money
to countries at concessional rates on the condition that borrowers
adopt harsh economic structural adjustment programs based on supply-
side trickle-down economics which has been proven unsuccessful in our
country and abroad. The goal of the IMF is to promote stable economies
in the Third World which, in turn, would increase the standard of
living of the citizenry. The general consensus of both progressives and
conservatives is that, in practice, the policies of the IMF actually
exacerbate the plight of the poor, are fundamentally undemocratic, and
are unnessarily unaccountable.
The burden of IMF structural adjustment programs falls inequitably on
the poor. In the short run, they cut government programs that provide
the bare necessities to the poor. In the long run, the countries'
productive capacity is destroyed. Not surprisingly, the standard of
living of the poor within the borrowing countries, in both rural and
urban areas, sharply declined during the period IMF structural
adjustment programs have been implemented. The percentage of rural
populations living below the poverty line and unemployment rates
increased significantly in many borrowing countries including Bolivia,
Zambia, Sri Lanka, and the Phillippines. These declines coincided with
IMF loans and significant cuts in Government social programs on
education, health, and housing. Numerous riots broke out in response to
the deplorable living conditions.
The harsh and ineffective IMF structural adjustment programs are also
imposed in a manner antithetical to democracy. Desperately poor
countries, who often need to borrow in order to pay interest payments
on earlier IMF loans, have no choice but to accept the IMF's
conditional loans. Thus, the few individuals in positions of power in
the IMF are determining the borrowing countries' economic policies
while the national governments--which ostensibly have the authority to
make those decisions and are sometimes elected democratically--are held
hostage to the IMF's whim.
Unfortunately, the full extent of the IMF's influence cannot be
determined because the loan negotiations and resulting structural
adjustment policies are confidential--even after the policies are put
in place. We should not be pouring the American taxpayers' hard earned
money into a fund that keeps us in the dark, and thereby, takes no
responsibility for its actions. Many supporters of the IMF, like
Professor Jeffrey Sachs who has been intimately involved in numerous
loan negotiations, believe disclosure is practical and would promote
sound economic policies because it would allow scrutiny by economists
and citizens.
Congress has made numerous attempts to fix the abuses I have
described by directing U.S. representatives to apply their influence
and votes accordingly. Although the IMF has verbally agreed to make
some changes, in practice, our demands have been ignored. The IMF needs
to know that we mean business by not appropriating funds until after
these serious problems have been addressed.
{time} 1500
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, before yielding back the balance of my time,
I would like to urge a no vote on the previous question so that the
amendment of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Rangel], and the
amendment of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] may be made in
order. I will be offering one amendment when we defeat the previous
question and that is the amendment that has been discussed here by my
colleagues. I urge a no vote on the previous question.
Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, I oppose the rule on the Foreign Operation
Appropriation for fiscal year 1995 because I believe it unfairly
restricts the rights of Members, both Democrat and Republican, to fully
debate, consider, and amend this Foreign Operations Appropriation.
Despite the fact that the right to amend is perhaps most important on
Appropriation bills, the Rules Committee has used its powers to squelch
debate in this House. Like many others, I wished to offer an amendment
to this bill, and I testified before the committee to ask that my
amendment be made in order. I had hoped to give the American people and
their Representatives a chance to examine and debate the level of our
contributions to the United Nations.
But this restrictive rule prevents me from putting this amendment to
a vote. The heavy-handed domination of the majority prevented a
discussion of this important issue.
In 1993, the United States paid one-quarter of the operating expenses
of the United Nations. The next closest contributor, Japan, paid only
12.45 percent, or less than one-half of our expenditure. After Japan,
the next highest contributor is Germany, which expends slightly less
than 9 percent, or roughly one-third of what American taxpayers
contribute.
In exchange for these costs, the United States is allowed to host the
United Nations in New York, and supply the vast majority of the forces
in many U.N. peacekeeping operations. I believe these expenditures are
too high, and it seems clear to me that we must, especially in light of
our own budget deficit, control those costs.
I believe we should limit our contributions to the United Nations and
its affiliated agencies to an amount commensurate to our population. In
other words, the ratio of U.S. contribution to U.N. budget should be
equal to the ration between U.S. population and population represented
by the United Nations. Not only will this help us reduce our overall
expenditures, but will also remove the premium we pay for the
protection of the United Nations and will bring costs into line.
The House of Representatives ought to have the opportunity to debate
this issue. Unfortunately, the recent trend toward more restrictive
rules has manifested itself once again, effectively gagging Members of
Congress and in turn gagging the American people. In the future, I
would hope that the Rules Committee will reverse this trend. It should
allow more amendments and consequently more debate on the important
issues before the American people.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time
and I move the previous question on the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. (Mr. Torres). The question is on ordering
the previous question.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground
that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum
is not present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 233,
nays 191, not voting 9, as follows:
[Roll No. 202]
YEAS--233
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Andrews (ME)
Applegate
Bacchus (FL)
Baesler
Barca
Barcia
Barlow
Barrett (WI)
Becerra
Beilenson
Berman
Bevill
Bilbray
Bishop
Bonior
Borski
Boucher
Brewster
Brooks
Browder
Brown (CA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Bryant
Byrne
Cantwell
Cardin
Carr
Chapman
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Coleman
Collins (IL)
Collins (MI)
Condit
Cooper
Coppersmith
Costello
Coyne
Cramer
Danner
Darden
Deal
DeFazio
DeLauro
Dellums
Derrick
Deutsch
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Dooley
Durbin
Edwards (CA)
Edwards (TX)
Engel
English
Eshoo
Evans
Farr
Fazio
Fields (LA)
Filner
Fingerhut
Flake
Foglietta
Ford (MI)
Frank (MA)
Frost
Furse
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Geren
Gibbons
Glickman
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Hamburg
Hamilton
Harman
Hastings
Hefner
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hoagland
Holden
Hoyer
Inslee
Jefferson
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (SD)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnston
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kennelly
Kildee
Kleczka
Klein
Klink
Kopetski
Kreidler
LaFalce
Lambert
Lancaster
Lantos
LaRocco
Laughlin
Lehman
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Long
Lowey
Maloney
Mann
Manton
Margolies-Mezvinsky
Markey
Martinez
Matsui
Mazzoli
McCloskey
McCurdy
McDermott
McHale
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek
Menendez
Mfume
Miller (CA)
Mineta
Minge
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Montgomery
Moran
Murphy
Murtha
Nadler
Neal (MA)
Neal (NC)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Orton
Owens
Pallone
Parker
Pastor
Payne (NJ)
Payne (VA)
Pelosi
Penny
Peterson (FL)
Peterson (MN)
Pickett
Pomeroy
Poshard
Price (NC)
Rahall
Reed
Reynolds
Richardson
Roemer
Rose
Rostenkowski
Roybal-Allard
Rush
Sabo
Sanders
Sangmeister
Sarpalius
Sawyer
Schenk
Schroeder
Schumer
Scott
Serrano
Sharp
Shepherd
Sisisky
Skaggs
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (IA)
Spratt
Stark
Stenholm
Stokes
Strickland
Studds
Stupak
Swett
Swift
Synar
Tanner
Taylor (MS)
Tejeda
Thompson
Thornton
Thurman
Torres
Torricelli
Towns
Traficant
Unsoeld
Velazquez
Vento
Visclosky
Volkmer
Waters
Watt
Waxman
Wheat
Whitten
Williams
Wilson
Woolsey
Wyden
Wynn
Yates
NAYS--191
Allard
Andrews (NJ)
Archer
Armey
Bachus (AL)
Baker (CA)
Baker (LA)
Ballenger
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Barton
Bateman
Bentley
Bereuter
Bilirakis
Bliley
Blute
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bunning
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Canady
Castle
Clinger
Coble
Collins (GA)
Combest
Conyers
Cox
Crane
Crapo
Cunningham
DeLay
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Doolittle
Dornan
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Ehlers
Emerson
Everett
Ewing
Fawell
Fields (TX)
Fish
Ford (TN)
Fowler
Franks (CT)
Franks (NJ)
Gallegly
Gallo
Gekas
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Gingrich
Goodlatte
Goodling
Goss
Grams
Greenwood
Gunderson
Hall (TX)
Hancock
Hansen
Hastert
Hayes
Hefley
Herger
Hobson
Hochbrueckner
Hoekstra
Hoke
Houghton
Huffington
Hughes
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hutto
Hyde
Inglis
Inhofe
Istook
Jacobs
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, Sam
Kasich
Kim
King
Kingston
Klug
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kyl
Lazio
Leach
Levy
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (FL)
Lightfoot
Linder
Livingston
Lloyd
Lucas
Machtley
Manzullo
McCandless
McCollum
McCrery
McDade
McHugh
McInnis
McKeon
McMillan
Meyers
Mica
Michel
Miller (FL)
Molinari
Moorhead
Morella
Myers
Nussle
Oxley
Packard
Paxon
Petri
Pickle
Pombo
Porter
Portman
Pryce (OH)
Quillen
Quinn
Ramstad
Rangel
Ravenel
Regula
Ridge
Roberts
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roth
Roukema
Rowland
Royce
Santorum
Saxton
Schaefer
Schiff
Sensenbrenner
Shaw
Shays
Shuster
Skeen
Slattery
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (OR)
Smith (TX)
Snowe
Solomon
Spence
Stearns
Stump
Sundquist
Talent
Tauzin
Taylor (NC)
Thomas (CA)
Thomas (WY)
Torkildsen
Upton
Valentine
Vucanovich
Walker
Walsh
Weldon
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
Zeliff
Zimmer
NOT VOTING--9
Andrews (TX)
Blackwell
de la Garza
Grandy
Horn
Ortiz
Tucker
Washington
Wise
{time} 1521
Messrs. FORD of Tennessee, TAUZIN, and SLATTERY changed their vote
from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
Messrs. LIPINSKI, TRAFICANT, JEFFERSON, FLAKE, MFUME and TOWNS
changed their vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the previous question was ordered.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Torres). The question is on the
resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 244,
nays 181, not voting, 8, as follows:
[Roll No. 203]
YEAS--244
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Andrews (ME)
Andrews (TX)
Applegate
Bacchus (FL)
Baesler
Barca
Barlow
Barrett (WI)
Becerra
Beilenson
Berman
Bevill
Bilbray
Bishop
Bonior
Borski
Boucher
Brewster
Brooks
Browder
Brown (CA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Bryant
Byrne
Cantwell
Cardin
Carr
Chapman
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Coleman
Collins (IL)
Collins (MI)
Condit
Conyers
Cooper
Coppersmith
Costello
Coyne
Cramer
Danner
Darden
de la Garza
DeFazio
DeLauro
Dellums
Derrick
Deutsch
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Dooley
Durbin
Edwards (CA)
Edwards (TX)
Engel
English
Eshoo
Evans
Farr
Fazio
Fields (LA)
Filner
Fingerhut
Flake
Foglietta
Ford (MI)
Ford (TN)
Frank (MA)
Frost
Furse
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Geren
Gibbons
Glickman
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Hamburg
Hamilton
Harman
Hastings
Hayes
Hefner
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hoagland
Hochbrueckner
Holden
Hoyer
Hughes
Inslee
Jefferson
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (SD)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnston
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kennelly
Kildee
Kleczka
Klein
Klink
Kopetski
Kreidler
LaFalce
Lambert
Lancaster
Lantos
LaRocco
Laughlin
Lehman
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Long
Lowey
Maloney
Mann
Manton
Margolies-Mezvinsky
Markey
Martinez
Matsui
Mazzoli
McCloskey
McCrery
McCurdy
McDermott
McHale
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek
Menendez
Mfume
Miller (CA)
Mineta
Minge
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Montgomery
Moran
Murphy
Murtha
Nadler
Neal (MA)
Neal (NC)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Orton
Owens
Pallone
Parker
Pastor
Payne (NJ)
Payne (VA)
Pelosi
Penny
Peterson (FL)
Peterson (MN)
Pickett
Pickle
Pomeroy
Poshard
Price (NC)
Rangel
Reed
Reynolds
Richardson
Roemer
Rose
Rostenkowski
Roybal-Allard
Rush
Sabo
Sanders
Sangmeister
Sarpalius
Sawyer
Schenk
Schroeder
Schumer
Scott
Serrano
Sharp
Shepherd
Sisisky
Skaggs
Skelton
Slattery
Slaughter
Smith (IA)
Spratt
Stark
Stenholm
Stokes
Strickland
Studds
Stupak
Swett
Swift
Synar
Tanner
Tauzin
Tejeda
Thompson
Thornton
Thurman
Torres
Torricelli
Towns
Traficant
Tucker
Unsoeld
Valentine
Velazquez
Vento
Visclosky
Volkmer
Waters
Watt
Waxman
Wheat
Whitten
Wilson
Wise
Woolsey
Wyden
Wynn
Yates
NAYS--181
Allard
Andrews (NJ)
Archer
Armey
Bachus (AL)
Baker (CA)
Baker (LA)
Ballenger
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Barton
Bateman
Bentley
Bereuter
Bilirakis
Bliley
Blute
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bunning
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Canady
Castle
Clinger
Coble
Collins (GA)
Combest
Cox
Crane
Crapo
Cunningham
Deal
DeLay
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Doolittle
Dornan
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Ehlers
Emerson
Everett
Ewing
Fawell
Fields (TX)
Fish
Fowler
Franks (CT)
Franks (NJ)
Gallegly
Gallo
Gekas
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Gingrich
Goodlatte
Goodling
Goss
Grams
Greenwood
Gunderson
Hall (TX)
Hancock
Hansen
Hastert
Hefley
Herger
Hobson
Hoekstra
Hoke
Houghton
Huffington
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hutto
Hyde
Inglis
Inhofe
Istook
Jacobs
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, Sam
Kasich
Kim
King
Kingston
Klug
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kyl
Lazio
Leach
Levy
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (FL)
Lightfoot
Linder
Livingston
Lloyd
Lucas
Machtley
Manzullo
McCandless
McCollum
McDade
McHugh
McInnis
McKeon
McMillan
Meyers
Mica
Michel
Miller (FL)
Molinari
Moorhead
Morella
Myers
Nussle
Packard
Paxon
Petri
Pombo
Porter
Portman
Pryce (OH)
Quillen
Quinn
Rahall
Ramstad
Ravenel
Regula
Ridge
Roberts
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roth
Roukema
Royce
Santorum
Saxton
Schaefer
Schiff
Sensenbrenner
Shaw
Shays
Shuster
Skeen
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (OR)
Smith (TX)
Snowe
Solomon
Spence
Stearns
Stump
Sundquist
Talent
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Thomas (CA)
Thomas (WY)
Torkildsen
Upton
Vucanovich
Walker
Walsh
Weldon
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
Zeliff
Zimmer
NOT VOTING--8
Barcia
Blackwell
Grandy
Horn
Oxley
Rowland
Washington
Williams
{time} 1539
Mr. SWETT changed his vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the resolution was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
{time} 1540
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Torres). Pursuant to House Resolution
443 and rule XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of
the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the
bill (H.R. 4426).
{time} 1541
in the committee of the whole
Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the
Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill
(H.R. 4426) making appropriations for foreign operations, export
financing, and related programs for the fiscal year ending September
30, 1995, with Mr. Richardson in the chair.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as having
been read the first time.
Under the rule, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] will be
recognized for 30 minutes, and the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr.
Livingston] will be recognized for 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr.
Obey].
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 9 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, this week we have begun consideration of the 13
appropriation bills for 1995. I think it is important to place in
context the conditions under which we are dealing with this bill.
Discretionary appropriations now account for only about one-third of
all Federal spending. Funding for all of the programs that are funded
by the Committee on Appropriations will shrink relative to the size of
the overall economy, relative to the rest of the budget, and relative
to the inflation-adjusted cost of continuing these programs through the
next fiscal year.
In fiscal year 1995, we will have about $9 billion, or about 2
percent less, than the amount needed to operate discretionary programs
at the previous year's level. That means that for the first time in
nearly three decades, outlays from discretionary programs will actually
decline below previous years' levels.
That is why we have had some of the arguments we have had here this
afternoon. I have said many times, and I will say again, this is going
to be the first year in the service of virtually everyone in this House
when the primary criticism which is leveled at this committee and this
House on appropriation bills will be because of money that we do not
provide, rather than because of money that we do provide.
We are operating under a situation in which spending for both defense
and nondefense programs will decline over the next 5 years in real
dollar terms. Outlays for defense will be somewhat above the level of a
hard freeze, which would mean no adjustment for inflation, while
outlays for nondefense programs will fall significantly below that
level.
What that means in plain language is this: In appropriated items, we
are being asked to live with a 5-year nominal dollar freeze. That means
that the purchasing power of every dollar that we appropriate over a 5-
year period will drop by 20 percent. There will be a real squeeze, and
that squeeze is reflected in this bill.
The bill which the committee is presenting today provides a total
appropriation of $13.6 billion compared to the President's request for
$14 billion. It is $389 million below the request. It is $205 million
below the 602(b) allocation which we are allowed under the Budget Act,
and it is $707 million below the total amount that Members voted for in
last year's foreign aid bill.
This bill continues the trend in the reduction of foreign aid which
we have seen since 1985. This bill is 24 percent lower than it was in
1985. I would wager there is not 1 percent of Americans who know that,
but I repeat that: This bill is 24 percent lower than the foreign aid
bill was in 1985. There is no appropriation bill that we will deal with
in this year that comes anywhere near close to making that statement.
I would also point out that in addition to the funding reductions in
the bill, we have absolutely no, I repeat, no earmarks, and we have
deleted more than a dozen legislative provisions.
The administration has made clear that under the funding for this
bill, Israel, Egypt, West Bank, and Gaza, will be funded at the
administration-requested levels. We will be funding $900 million for
the former Soviet Union, down from $2.5 billion provided last year, but
at the administration's request for this year, and we will be providing
$360 million for Eastern Europe.
For export assistance, and this is one of the very few programs for
which I can make this statement, for export assistance, which means in
plain language, that the Government is assisting American companies to
export American products, export assistance in this bill totals $884
million, which is $3.3 million above the President's request.
We are also providing for $19 billion in export-import loan
guarantees. We are providing for a reduction of about $200 million for
international financial institutions, but we still are providing
sufficient funding to prevent further increases in arrearages which now
are greatly in excess of three-quarters of a billion dollars. We are
providing $790 million for the African Development Assistance Fund,
combined with other developmental assistance that will provide an
approximate $2 billion in deliverable assistance to Africa. We are
providing more than $500 million for child survival, UNICEF and other
programs, aimed at helping children, $565 million in family planning
funds, up $59 million from last year, and I believe this bill is
fiscally responsible and warrants the support of Members on both sides
of the aisle.
Mr. Chairman, I would also make quite clear that I do not believe
there has been a single partisan consideration in this bill. The
committee has operated in a completely bipartisan manner. There was not
a partisan amendment offered, and I do not think you will hear any
partisan discussion this afternoon, at least not from members of the
committee.
I would also say that I think Members have a right to feel good about
what they have accomplished in this area.
{time} 1550
For example, through this bill, for a number of years, Congress has
taken the lead in supporting American assistance for child survival
programs, including immunization against childhood diseases which kill
millions of kids a year. Congress can legitimately take credit for the
fact that literally millions of children are alive today who would not
be alive without this bill.
I would also point out that we have pulled people's chains from time
to time, when we felt it necessary in order to enforce the view that
taxpayers' money ought to be spent with great care.
Members will recall, for instance, that the East European Development
Bank became somewhat of an international scandal, because we had a
runaway director who was turning that lending institution into a marble
palace, ripping out marble that was not good enough for them,
installing marble that was the duplicate of marble in Buckingham Place,
and frequently leasing their own aircraft operation.
What our committee did, when they would not listen to reason, we
simply eliminated all funds for that institution. That brought about a
rather drastic change. Among other things, it brought about the
replacement of the director of the institution. That institution is now
under new management. It is under new policies. It is under new
restrictions. And, I think, we can safely say that they are on the road
to behaving in an extremely responsible manner, which is a far cry from
the regime that used to run that institution.
I think we can also take credit or take pride, I should say, in the
fact that we did the same thing with the World Bank. Last year, we were
unhappy because the World Bank had, in my view, a runaway construction
project. So we reacted accordingly. We pulled their chain. We cut a
good amount from their appropriation in the rescission. That reduced
their lending authority by over $1 billion. That drove the message
home. They have now produced a rather forthcoming report on the entire
episode, and that project is under new management.
I think that record demonstrates that the committee has exercised its
stewardship responsibilities with great care and great determination of
both sides of the aisle. I think that care justifies the kind of
support that the bill got last year from Members on both sides of the
aisle
This bill continues in that tradition. I ask Members' support for it.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
(Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the legislation. I
would like to thank the chairman of the full committee and subcommittee
for working with me and the other Members in a very fair and collegial
process. It has been a pleasure to work with him, and I agree with him.
This has been a nonpartisan effort.
This bill has never been popular, certainly not as long as I have
been in the Congress. But this is a responsible bill, especially given
the tight budgetary conditions of the current environment.
Last year we provided $12.9 billion in the outright bill, but we also
added $1.6 billion in the Russian supplemental so we spent $14.5
billion overall.
This year we are spending $13.6 billion, so that represents a
reduction, a continuation of the downward trend of foreign aid. It is
less than the 1994 budget authority inclusive of the Russian
supplemental. It is less than the President's request. It is less than
the 602(b) allocation.
It is 24 percent, as the chairman pointed out, lower than the 1985
peak of $19 billion. And that amounts to $25.8 billion, when adjusted
for inflation. And yet we only have $13.5 billion in this bill.
It provides sufficient funding levels to honor our Camp David
commitment of Egypt and Israel and provides crucial support for the
ongoing Middle East peace process. It provides $900 million for the New
Independent States of the former Soviet Union. I supported that program
in the last bill, and I support it today.
We are expanding our exchange programs, bringing more students and
entrepreneurs to America in exchange for Americans over there. We are
providing technical assistance to Russia and the Independent States.
We are providing expansion of the Peace Corps activities, law
enforcement training to combat the growing crime problem, and we avoid
aid given directly to the government of those countries and focus,
rather, on assistance for the private sector development.
I think we are moving in the right direction. In fact, the statistics
in Russia bear me out. Nearly 70 percent of Russian small businesses
and 40 percent of industry are now in private hands. There are 150
million privatization vouchers which have been issued in the country,
and progress continues despite the fact that it may often appear
uneven.
In other parts of the world, the bill provides $1.9 billion for
multilateral development banks, cutting $190 million from the
President's request. This bill fulfills our negotiated obligations and
makes a small down payment on the arrearages. It provides full funding
for bilateral assistance, including development assistance, sub-Saharan
Africa, international refugees and disaster assistance. Unfortunately,
in my view, it also cuts $75 million in economic support funds. And
when we take that account and set it aside for Egypt and Israel, it
allows only $324 million for the rest of the world. When we compare
that to 1985, when the United States provided $811 million, that is a
substantial reduction and not altogether wise.
Also, if we take out Egypt and Israel, we will find that we only
provide $27 million in foreign military financing grants and only $48
million in subsidies to provide roughly $620 million in foreign
military financing loans. Only 5 years ago we provided $1.6 billion in
FMF grants to our other allies beside Egypt and Israel.
By the way, I might also add, if the Beilenson amendment were to pass
today, we would have zero military financing grants or loans, because
all of the money would be diverted to that amendment.
Personlly, I would like to see more funding for our strategic allies
through ESF and FMF programs, but these are tight times.
The bill provides $883 million in export subsidies through Export-
Import Bank, overseas private investment corporation and the Trade
Development Administration, slightly above the President's request. And
it maintains the Kemp-Kasten language which prevents funding for
abortions or funding for organizations which practice coerced
abortions.
Finally, we adopted an amendment in our committee to expand the
military to draw down weapons for Bosnia in the event that the United
States unilaterally lifts the arms embargo as was advocated by the
other body.
The bill, in summary, continues our support for Israel and Egypt
during the crucial time of the peace process. It continues our
privatization and democratic efforts in the former Soviet Union. It
provides humanitarian and refugee assistance to a turmoil-wracked
world, and it continues the recent trend for reduced levels of foreign
aid.
Therefore, I can in good conscience urge my colleagues to support the
committee work. I will, however, support some amendments, one of which
is to reduce the global environment facility, which will come up under
an amendment of the gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay].
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio
[Mr. Hall].
Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for
yielding time to me.
I just want to follow up very briefly on the statement that I made
when I carried the rule just a few minutes ago.
Child survival activities, basic education, vitamin A, micronutrients
programs, they work. And they save millions of lives. And they do its
very inexpensively.
Mr. Chairman, last year the gentleman and I worked very hard to
achieve the same numbers for child survival, basic education and
micronutrients. One was 275. Basic education was 135, and vitamin A,
basic nutrients, was 25 million.
What is more, U.S. AID practically bragged in their report language,
in their recent report to Congress, that there programs were worth
their weight in gold.
They surprisingly, AID, decided to hold back child survival funds in
fiscal year 1994. They ignored the gentleman's strong support language.
They put resources into programs that I believe stray from what real
foreign aid should be all about.
{time} 1600
Mr. Chairman, what I would most like to accomplish in our discussion
here today is a commitment, a partnership to jointly monitor AID in the
coming year to make sure that they spend the dollars the gentleman has
provided for these extremely worthwhile programs. I want my resolve to
be interpreted as a warning that we will not tolerate AID ignoring the
committee's strong language that tells the agency to spend these hard-
won resources as we think they should.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I would simply
say, Mr. Chairman, I agree with the gentleman. As he knows, we inserted
language in our report this year that states that the committee is not
at all pleased with the level that AID provided last year. The
committee expects AID to be much more responsive to the recommendations
concerning child survival this year, because we think the resource
situation is somewhat improved.
Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his
compliment, and certainly for his support.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Sharp].
(Mr. SHARP asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. SHARP. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the bill, and in
particular, the child survival activities as outlined by the gentleman
from Ohio [Mr. Hall] and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey].
child survival micronutrition, and basic education speaking points
Each and every day, 35,000 children die around the world from largely
preventable--and I must underscore preventable--malnutrition and
disease. Yet UNICEF's ``State of the World's 1993'' report states: ``In
the decade ahead, a clear opportunity exists to make the breakthrough
against what might be called the last great obscenity--the needles
malnutrition, disease, and illiteracy that still cast a shadow over the
lives, and the futures, of the poorest quarter of the world's
children.''
Representative David Obey, his subcommittee, and congressional
leaders in the fight to end hunger and poverty such as Representative
Tony Hall can be proud of the progress that has been made over the
decade because of their action.
Funding for programs such as child survival has increased from $0 in
fiscal year 1984 to $275 million in fiscal year 1993 and child deaths
rates have plummeted.
In 1980, five million children died each year from six vaccine-
preventable diseases--measles, tetanus, whooping cough and three
others--coupled with malnutrition. Now, because of the global campaign
to immunize 80 percent of the world's children by the end of 1990,
UNICEF--the UN Children's Fund--estimates that three million more
children are living each year because they got their shots.
In 1980, 4 million children were dying each year from dehydration
brought on by diarrhea when a simple Gatorade-like solution could stop
the dying. Now, UNICEF estimates that 1 million children are living
each year because their parents learned to prepare this simple
solution.
In an effort to mobilize broad global leadership behind such
lifesaving, affordable strategies, six heads of state called for a
World Summit for Children. The September 1990 Summit at the United
Nations brought together 71 heads of state and government, the largest
gathering in history up to that time. These leaders, and ministerial
delegations from 88 other nations, agreed to a set of year-2000 goals
which provide a global blueprint for eliminating the worst aspects of
poverty. They include:
Reducing child and infant deaths by a least one third.
Reducing maternal deaths and child malnutrition by half.
Universal access to basic education, with at least 80 percent of
children completing primary school.
Universal access to safe drinking water and safe sanitation.
Family planning education and services available to all couples.
UNICEF estimates that two thirds of the resources to meet the World
Summit for Children goals would come from developing nations
themselves, with the other one third provided from the industrialized
nations. UNICEF estimates that the industrialized nations, including
the U.S. currently spend less than 10 percent of their bilateral
development aid on meeting basic human needs. If that percentage were
doubled to 20 percent, it would free up enough money to provide the
industrialized nations' share of meeting the Summit goals.
This year, for the first time in a decade, USAID cut funding to child
survival programs. This cut of $40 million was below what Mr. Obey's
subcommittee recommended and below the FY 93 levels--basic education
was similarly cut by $30 million by USAID in 1994--in the foreign aid
appropriations bill passed last October, Congress urged USAID to
maintain funding levels for child survival, basic education and vitamin
A programs. But, for the first time in many years, Congress did away
with most earmarks, or binding funding levels for specific development
programs, and did not require USAID to comply.
The foreign aid appropriations bill for FY 95 once again does not
contain earmarks. The House report for the bill states: ``The Committee
is not pleased that AID did not meet the recommended targets in fiscal
year 1994. The Committee has fully funded development assistance this
year and expects AID to be responsive to the recommendations concerning
child survival contained in this report.''
It is clearly up to Congress to assert the priority of child
survival, vitamin A and basic education programs, and to be vigilant in
insuring that USAID funds these programs up to at least the level Mr.
Obey's subcommittee recommended. And it will be up to Congress to
increase the priority and the funding of these programs to that the
goals of the World Summit for Children can be met and the lives of
millions of children and women can be saved.
As UNICEF's ``State of the World's Children 1993'' report stated,
``If today's obvious and affordable steps are not taken to protect the
lives and the health and the normal growth of many millions of young
children, then this will have less to do with the lack of economic
capacity than with the fact that the children concerned are almost
exclusively the sons and daughters of the poor--of those who lack not
only purchasing power, but also political influence and media
attention. And if the resources are not to be made available, if the
overcoming of the worst aspects of poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy
and disease is not to be achieved in the years ahead, then let it now
be clear that this is not because it is not a possibility, but because
it is not a priority.''
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to yield 5 minutes to the
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Porter].
(Mr. PORTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. PORTER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana for
yielding me the time and for his excellent leadership in bringing this
bill to the floor. Mr. Livingston has been instrumental in ensuring
that this bill is well balanced and the concerns of the minority have
been addressed.
I would also like to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey]
for his tremendous efforts to craft a bill that, despite budgetary
pressures, reflects our country's interests and priorities in foreign
assistance.
This bill is heavy on funding for items that help the poorest of the
poor and encourage sustainable development and it is moving swiftly
away from high levels of funding for accounts whose justifications have
been eclipsed by the rapid changes we are seeing globally. I would like
to highlight some elements of this change in priorities.
One important provision in this bill that addresses post-cold-war
realities, conditions 25 percent of Turkey's military assistance on the
Departments of State and Defense reporting on Turkey's treatment of its
Kurdish citizens, which account for 20 percent of its population.
Turkey has repressed the Kurds for decades, but in the last 18 months
the government instigated violence has reached unprecedented levels.
Mr. Chairman, my wife, Kathryn, visited Turkey about 3 weeks ago in
conjunction with the Congressional Human Rights Caucus and the Danielle
Mitterand Foundation to attempt to meet with six Kurdish
parliamentarians who were arrested and their lawyers, who were also
arrested.
Not only was she denied access to the parliamentarians, she was
followed everywhere she went. While she was there, the Supergovernor of
the 10 provinces in the southeast called her and demanded to meet with
her on short notice. She postponed a meeting with a group of human
rights activists to attend the meeting with the governor, who kept her
for 3 hours. When she left the meeting she was told that one of the
activists she was to meet with had been shot in the back of the head
and killed in the busiest part of the central market in Diyarbarkir. In
addition, another woman Kathryn was to have met with disappeared and
the 18-year-old son of another activist was shot in his father's
butcher shop.
These incidents only bring into focus the larger picture of the
atrocities that are being perpetrated against the Kurds in Turkey.
Since 1984, 11,000 people have been killed in the southeast of Turkey--
the Kurdish area--but one third of them, nearly 4,000 have been killed
in the last year, 900 Kurdish villages have been razed by the Turkish
Army. Some were evacuated first. There are allegations that people were
rounded up and killed in others. Nine of the Turkish Human Rights
Association's workers have been killed in the last year and 27 of its
57 offices have been closed. In 1992, 17 journalists and 14
distributors of pro-Kurdish publications have been assassinated, many
shot in the back of the head. And 40 people have died in house raids by
the police.
I think it is a travesty that we are providing any funds to the
Turkish Government while it is doing such things. They clearly do not
share our values, and they are going in the wrong direction on human
rights. The provision in this bill conditioning part of their military
aid sends a message, but I strongly believe we need to do more and stop
our complicity in this situation.
The Turks, of course, in the face of any criticism, say it is anti-
Turkish. It is not anti-Turkish. Our nations should be close friends
and allies, but, Mr. Chairman, by their complete insensitivity to
international norms of human rights, they make it virtually impossible,
in the face of this ongoing, outrageous oppression.
I will continue to encourage the subcommittee to make clear to Turkey
that in a time of very tight budgets we simply do not have money to
give to violators of human rights.
I am also especially pleased with the subcommittee's emphasis on the
Cyprus problem in this bill. This July will mark the 20th anniversary
of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. For the last 20 years, the island
has been separated. The separation has been enforced by 35,000 Turkish
troops stationed in the northern third of the island. It appears that
the last round of U.N. talks have broken down after Turkish-Cypriot
leader Rauf Denktash refused to agree to a set of confidence-building
measures prepared by the U.N. Language in the report accompanying this
bill expresses the committee's exasperation with Mr. Denktash's
continued stonewalling on finding a solution.
I believe Turkey, the nation that divided Cyprus, is responsible for
working actively to find a solution. To date it has done nothing to
help resolve the situation. I am pleased that this bill conditions 25
percent of United States military assistance to Turkey on the State
Department and the Department of Defense reporting on Turkey's
willingness to play a constructive role in finding a solution.
This bill also contains a healthy increase in funds for international
family planning. Sustainable development and the preservation of the
environment are nearly impossible in undeveloped nations when their
population is skyrocketing. A number of nations have annual population
growth rates of 4 percent. In order to simply stay even economically,
these nations have to have enormous growth rates of at least 4 percent.
Starting from this hole, it is virtually impossible to get ahead. Even
if these countries could achieve economic growth greater than their
population growth, at such a high population growth rate it would
almost certainly come at a very high environmental cost, as natural
resources are harvested, agriculture leads to soil and water
degradation, and factories pollute the air and water.
This bill addresses this pressing concern and provides a nearly 15-
percent increase in population funding in the Development Assistance
account. These funds will provide voluntary family planning services
and education to tens of millions of couples around the globe. The bill
also provides funds through the U.N. Fund for population activities,
which will help the United States take a strong leadership role at the
International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in
September, which I and a number of other Members plan to attend.
I am also particularly pleased that the committee funded the Global
Environment Facility [GEF] at very close to the President's request of
$100 million. I know that we will have an opportunity to discuss GEF at
a later time in this debate, so I will not go on at great length now
except to say that the GEF is essential to promoting a coordinated
global response to threats to the environment. The GEF is the followup
to the Earth Summit that was held in Rio in June 1992. At the Earth
Summit and soon thereafter, many nations, including the United States,
signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on
Biodiversity. These treaties outline what each nation must do to
promote biodiversity and arrest climate change. GEF is a means by which
developing nations will finance the commitments they made at Rio.
Also, while this bill does not earmark any funds, it does provide
ample funding in the FMF and ESF accounts to fully meet our Nation's
Camp David commitments and the President has indicated that these
commitments will be met. The Middle East remains a very volatile area,
but tremendous progress is being made toward peace. Continued strong
support from the United States and our allies is key to achieving a
lasting solution, and I commend the chairman for ensuring that these
fund will be made available.
I would also like to thank the staff for their excellent work that
makes this bill possible. This year, subcommittee markup was pushed
forward by a week on short notice and the staff worked exceptionally
long hours to get this bill ready. Thank you to the subcommittee staff
Terry Peel, Bill Schuerch, Mark Murray, Lori Maes, and Pat Summers, a
detailee from AID, and Mike Marek. Thank you also to Tripp Funderburk,
who did an excellent job in his first year staffing this bill for the
ranking member, Jim Kulikowski, Bill Deere, Nancy Tippins, David Orlin,
Carolyn Bartholomew, Nancy Alcalde, M.J. Rosenberg, and Virginia
Johnson.
Mr. Chairman, I encourage Members to vote for this bill. As I see it,
the United States has an historic opportunity with the end of the cold
war to project our values of human rights, democracy, the rule of law,
concern for the environment, and free markets to the far corners of the
globe. This bill, which represents less than 1 percent of Federal
spending, promotes our Nation's interests in many important areas.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
California [Mr. Lehman].
Mr. LEHMAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise on behalf of myself and the
gentlemen from California, Mr. Berman and Mr. Torres, to engage in a
colloquy with the distinguished chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman, language in the bill
requires the Secretary to submit a report to the committee addressing
the allegations of abuses of by the Turkish Armed Forces and the
situation in Cyprus. It is my understanding that 25 percent of the
principal amount of direct funds to Turkey will be withheld until the
Secretary has submitted this report.
I would ask the gentleman, Is this correct?
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. LEHMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, that is correct.
Mr. LEHMAN. Mr. Chairman, I had considered offering an amendment
which would have withheld aid to Turkey for its refusal to allow
humanitarian relief to reach Armenia. I will not offer this amendment
today with the assurances from the gentleman that every effort will be
made during the conference to address my concerns. Those who receive
our assistance must share our commitment to humanitarian relief work.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I
share the gentleman's concern. I want to assure the gentleman that we
will do everything we can to review the situation in conference. It is
a very serious situation, and I think Turkey ought to be aware of it.
Mr. TORRES. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. LEHMAN. I yield to the gentleman from California.
Mr. TORRES. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
Like the gentleman from California, I am committed to ensuring that
countries that receive U.S. assistance do not deny humanitarian aid and
assistance to people in need. Therefore, I will join my distinguished
colleague, the chairman, in addressing this issue during the
conference.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield one minute to the gentleman
from Alabama [Mr. Callahan], a distinguished member of the
subcommittee.
Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding this
time to me.
Mr. Chairman, I will only take a few minutes to tell the gentleman
that he and the chairman of our committee have worked diligently to
bring this bill to the floor. I said last year on the floor of this
House that handling the foreign operations appropriations bill is akin
to changing a dirty diaper. It's not a pleasant job but, it's necessary
that someone do it. Let me tell the Members, this is not a pleasant
task, but our chairman and our ranking committee member have certainly
done outstanding work in this regard.
However, Mr. Chairman, the bill still does have one very serious
flaw, in my opinion, and that serious flaw is in the aid to Russia, but
the chairman has been very generous to me, supportive to me, in seeing
that the House has the opportunity to debate this issue. I will be
offering in just a few minutes an amendment to drastically reduce the
aid to Russia, but once again, I thank the chairman for the courtesies
he has extended to me, and the ranking Republican member, for the
patience he has given to me.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the
gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter).
(Mr. BEREUTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Chairman, while this Member supports the
Appropriations Committee's decision to increase the Trade and
Development Agency's budget to a paltry $45 million, I believe that a
larger increase in funding would be warranted for this agency which has
achieved remarkable success in increasing U.S. exports through targeted
export promotion. Secretary of State Christopher recommended funding
TDA at $60 million for FY95 and, upon questioning, the agency's head
indicates that TDA could productively utilize $120 million.
One of TDA's activities is to provide grants for U.S. consultants on
feasibility and design teams for multilateral development bank (MDB)
projects. By promoting the use of U.S. consultants, engineers,
architects, and other design and planning personnel, at the earliest
stage for these projects, U.S. goods and services are more likely to
receive the detailed design, construction, equipment, and maintenance
and resupply business for such MDB financed development projects over
the long term. Currently, our European competitors and Japan greatly
outspend the United States in this ``trust fund'' game to the detriment
of our United States exporters. Today's long-awaited General Accounting
Office report on ``tied aid'' practices of United States competitors
indicates that the Japanese outspend the United States by approximately
$5 for every $1 we devote to this important purpose. Moreover, the GAO
report dramatically reveals that our toughest competitors devote a much
greater portion of their ``tied aid'' to lucrative capital projects in
developing countries.
Mr. Chairman, developing countries are expected to account for 95
percent of the world's anticipated population increase in the next 30
years. The TDA greatly assists U.S. exporters in competing for the vast
and lucrative capital projects in the world's developing countries.
Therefore, this Member believes it could best use more funding for this
highly beneficial and important purpose. The results in U.S. business
activities would be impressive.
{time} 1610
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Lowey] a member of the subcommittee.
(Mrs. LOWEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her
remarks.)
Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend my chairman, the
gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. David Obey], for the fine work he did in
moving this bill to the floor. The gentleman and his staff do an
incredible job and it is a pleasure and an education to work with the
gentleman.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4426, the Foreign
Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriation Bill
for 1995.
This is an important bill. It is not easy crafting a Foreign
Operations bill in the 1990's. Foreign aid is never popular. And these
are difficult economic times here in the United States. Many Americans
feel, and feel quite legitimately, that our domestic needs must come
first.
And, of course, they will. That is why the amount appropriated in
this bill is such a small percentage of Federal spending--less than 1
percent of the budget. That means we are spending 99 percent of our
budget for domestic needs--as we should--and just 1 percent for aid.
This 1 percent compares to the 10 percent of the budget that was spent
on foreign aid back in the 1950's. So the trend for foreign aid is
down, way down. This trend is manifested in this bill, which is $389
million below the President's request and $707 million less than the
amount appropriated last year.
Mr. Chairman, there are two priorities that make up the bulk of this
bill. The first is aid to Israel and Egypt. The second is aid to the
states of the Former Soviet Union.
Both these priorities represent foreign policy triumphs. The Israel-
Egypt aid package is a product of the Camp David peace treaty, a
landmark treaty brokered by President Jimmy Carter. That treaty ended
30 years of war between Israel and Egypt. It has saved countless lives
since 1979: Israeli lives, Arab lives, and--quite possibly--American
lives. Viewed in the context, $5 billion dollars for Israel and Egypt,
two-tenths of 1 percent of Federal spending, is a very good deal for
America and the world.
I believe that the constancy of U.S. support for Israel and Egypt, in
successive foreign aid bills, helped make possible the Palestinian-
Israeli breakthrough that we saw on the White House lawn last
September. The government of Israel took bold steps for peace when it
agreed to negotiate with the PLO and agreed on a timetable toward an
overall settlement. Israeli forces have already withdrawn from Gaza and
Jericho as Palestinians exercise self-rule, for the first time in
history, in those areas.
In withdrawing from those areas, and in looking toward the
establishment of autonomy throughout the West Bank, Israel is taking
unprecedented risk for peace. It is only its confidence in its alliance
with the United States that enables Israel to make these sacrifices for
peace. That is why it is so essential that we pass this bill intact
with the President's requested Israel-Egypt aid package. To do anything
else would undermine Israel's confidence and would be not just a blow
toward Israel's security but would constitute a serious assault on the
peace process itself.
There is another U.S. foreign policy triumph represented in our aid
for Israel. This bill provides $80 million for the resettlement of
Soviet and Ethiopian Jews in Israel. This country was instrumental in
getting these people out of the Soviet Union, out of Ethiopia. So it is
appropriate that we are helping to resettle them, particularly as anti-
semitism in Russia--encouraged by Vladimir Zhirinovsky and others of
his ilk--is making it ever more clear that the future for Jews of the
former Soviet Union is in Israel.
The Russian aid component of this bill also represents a foreign
policy triumph: our victory over the Soviet Union. During the past 40
years we spent four trillion dollars to arm ourselves against the
Soviet Union. That four trillion equals $80,000 from every American
family.
The $900 million in this bill for the republics of the former Soviet
Union is one way to ensure that the next generation of Americans is not
taxed $80,000 per family to subsidize a new arms race. These funds,
which to the maximum extent possible, go to the private sector and not
to the central government will help build democracy and free enterprise
throughout an area that lived under the scourge of communism for 70
years.
Frankly, there is no alternative to providing this aid. In theory, at
least, we can look away and pretend that Russian's problems have
nothing to do with us. But, in fact, we all know that no nation is an
island anymore. Our two oceans did not defend us against the horror of
Nazism when Hitler and his cohorts stalked the planet. They did not
insulate us from the threat of Stalinism as it threatened all free
people everywhere. We cannot separate ourselves from the problems of
the former Soviet Union either. Our choice is either to help now or pay
the consequences later. I would rather pay $900 million now than
trillions later. And that is the choice.
There are other provisions in this bill that are of particular
interest to me. I am especially proud of a provision which makes aid to
the Palestinians contingent on the adherence of the PLO to commitments
it made at the time of the September 13, PLO-Israel agreement on the
White House lawn.
This PLO compliance provision states that before aid is released the
President must report that the PLO continues to adhere to its
commitment to live in peace with Israel and reject terrorism. It must
condemn specific terrorist attacks against Israelis and it must use its
influence to end the Arab boycott of Israel and of firms doing business
with Israel.
This limitation on aid is necessary because of the continued acts of
terrorism against Israelis since the September agreement and the
ambivalent response to these acts by the PLO leadership. It is also
necessary as we learn about PLO chief Arafat's most recent call, in
Johannesburg earlier this month, for a jihad to ``liberate'' Jerusalem
and his suggestion that, when the time is right, he will renege on his
commitment to peaceful coexistence with Israel. This provision lets him
know that his new relationship with the United States is contingent on
his living up to his commitment to peace with Israel. Let there be no
mistake. If the PLO retreats from peace, the United States Congress
will reinstate all the previous prohibitions on any U.S. dealings with
the PLO. We are watching carefully. The requirements in this bill are a
demonstration of that.
There is one provision in this bill that I am not happy with. Under
the bill, 25 percent of direct loans to Turkey and Greece would be
withheld until the State Department has submitted to Congress reports
addressing human rights violations by the Turkish military, and Greek
violations of the United Nations sanctions against Serbia.
I am, frankly, disturbed by the false equality implied by this
formulation. According to many independent sources, including United
States Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, Greece is
in compliance with the embargo. Other independent sources report the
same.
On the other hand, there is no debate about Turkey's human rights
record. One would have to look long and hard to find any independent
human rights report that did not cite Turkey as one of the world's
flagrant human rights abusers. One quote from the Human Rights Watch
Report of 1994 sums it up. ``Human rights abuses in Turkey continued at
an appalling rate in 1993. Security forces continued to shoot and kill
civilians in house raids, and during peaceful demonstrations; brutal
torture continued to be a routine and systematic interrogation
technique . . . and members of the Kurdish minority in southeast Turkey
were killed, tortured, detained and forced to abandon their villages.''
In short, Turkey has more than earned a cut in its U.S. aid. The
linkage to U.S. aid to Greece is a false analogy and it is one that I,
personally, reject.
I am pleased that the committee report has strong language on the
human rights violations that continue to occur in East Timor. The
committee report makes clear that it is the intention of Congress that
the government of Indonesia not be permitted to purchase IMET training
for its officers. Moreover, the report states that prior to approving
any arms sales to Indonesia, the Administration should determine
whether the Indonesian government is in compliance with United
Nations Security Council resolutions calling for an
immediate Indonesian withdrawal from East Timor and self-determination
for East Timor. This demonstrates that Congress has not forgotten East
Timor. The occupation must end. The people of East Timor must, and
will, determine their own fate.
This legislation is particularly sensitive to the needs of women
throughout the world. The following provisions demonstrate that this is
a landmark bill in terms of encouraging the Agency for International
Development and the State Department to give major consideration to
women in its efforts throughout the world.
$58 million increase in population assistance;
First ever ``soft earmark'' of up to $20 million in aid to the Newly
Independent States (NIS) for urgently-needed family planning assistance
there. As you may know, there is an appalling lack of contraception in
the NIS, which has led to reliance on abortions, which are often
performed in unsafe conditions, as a method of family planning, and is
responsible for almost one-third of maternal morbidity there.
First ever report language identifying female genital mutilation as a
significant health and human rights problem and directing AID attention
to its serious consequences.
First ever language acknowledging women's broader reproductive health
needs, including the rapidly rising AIDS rate among women, and maternal
and child health.
Language clarifying that AID funds can be used to treat women
suffering from septic abortions. Unfortunately, AID, which is prevented
from funding abortions by the Helms amendment, has been reluctant to
use its funds even to provide treatment to women who are suffering from
medical complications as a result of incomplete or septic abortions.
Unsafe abortion is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality, and
this clarification may help prevent some tragic deaths or crippling
health problems.
Strong language urging that all development initiatives take into
account the needs of women, and that women be involved at all levels of
planning and implementation of population programs.
Recommendation that the State Department appoint a senior advisor on
women's human rights.
In short, this is an historic bill which merits strong report. I urge
its passage.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, how much time is remaining on both
sides?
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] has 14\1/
2\ minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] has
16\1/2\ minutes remaining.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from
California [Ms. Pelosi], a member of the subcommittee.
(Ms. PELOSI asked and was given permission to revise and extend her
remarks.)
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of H.R.
4426, the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. As a Member of the
Foreign Operations Subcommittee, I commend Chairman Obey for his
outstanding leadership in crafting the package before us today. I also
thank him for his commitment to shifting the focus of our foreign aid
toward promoting sustainable development and development assistance for
those who truly need our help. In addition, thank you, Mr. Chairman,
for holding the human rights and international AIDS hearings. I
appreciate your commitment to raising the visibility of these important
issues and to implementing effective programs to address them. Finally,
I would like to express my appreciation to the able and committed
subcommittee staff, Terry Peel, Mark Murray, Bill Schuerch and Lori
Maes. Their hard work makes this bill possible.
I understand that for many of my colleagues, voting for foreign aid
is not popular. But, it is important. Our foreign aid addresses many
strategic, economic and humanitarian interests. Serious efforts are now
underway to reform foreign aid programs to ensure that they are cost-
effective and more efficient. I have faith that Agency for
International Development [AID] Director Atwood will succeed in the
difficult chores ahead of him as he streamlines U.S. development
programs and adapts them to today's changing world.
The realities of the budget deficit were uppermost in our minds
throughout each step in the process of developing this bill. The bill
before us is $389 million below the administration's fiscal year 1995
request, and $205 million below our subcommittee's 602(b) allocation.
There are still many important programs which I wish we could have
funded at higher levels, including programs to improve the global
environment, to provide basic health and education for more people in
the developing world, programs to increase child survival rates and
programs for international family planning. The unfortunate reality is,
however, there is not enough money to meet all of the needs. I believe
this bill overall is a balanced and reasonable one which will provide
returns to the United States in many ways. Much of our foreign aid is
spent here at home, generating jobs.
This year the subcommittee held a hearing on the extent and the
impact of the international AIDS crisis. This was the first official
Congressional hearing on international AIDS. It is clear that if we do
not adequately fund international AIDS prevention efforts, much of our
development assistance will be wasted.
By the turn of the century more than 40 million men, women and
children are projected by the World Health Organization to be infected
by the HIV virus. Ninety percent of these infections are projected to
be in developing countries.
In Asia, Africa and Latin America, AIDS affects particularly men and
women between the ages of 15 and 45. These people are the most
productive members of any society. If we are serious about promoting
economic growth and development around the world, we must stop AIDS
now. As my colleagues know, this bill contains no earmarks. I am
pleased that the report notes the committee's support that fiscal year
1995 funding for international AIDS programs should be, at minimum,
restored to fiscal year 1993 levels.
I am also pleased that the Committee placed a high priority on
environmental programs in this bill, supporting an increase in global
expenditures from all AID funding sources for environment and energy
activities above fiscal year 1994 levels, as well as funding for a
number of specific environmental programs including the United Nations
Environment Program, the Montreal Protocol Facilitation Fund, and the
Global Warming Initiative.
Efforts to protect and improve the global environment will not be
successful if the global population continues to grow at its current
rates. Access to family planning is a critical part of sustainable
development. I am pleased that the Committee was able to recommend the
full amount of the administration's request for Population, Development
Assistance, which is $58 million higher than the fiscal year 1994
level.
The Committee took to heart the concerns of a number of the
environmental and humanitarian groups and did not recommend the
requested $100 million for the International Monetary Fund's Enhanced
Structural Adjustment Facility [ESAF].
We have recommended substantial funding for human resource
development programs including $100 million for UNICEF, $275 million
for child survival and $135 million for basic education. And in order
to address one of the major global crises of our time, the Committee
recommends $720.7 million for refugee programs including $12 million
for refugee resettlement here in the United States.
I am pleased that the Committee continued its emphasis on programs
relating to Women in Development [WID], noting the substantial and
important contributions of women to economies in the developing world
and urging that attention be paid to the particular needs of women in
development.
The committee recommended an increase of $7.3 million over the
administration's request for the Development Fund for Africa [DFA].
This increase is important, both to meet the growing development needs
in sub-Saharan Africa and to contribute to the new South Africa
initiative. Now that South Africa has acted to throw off the yoke of
apartheid, we must help to promote peaceful change and growth.
This bill contains the administration's request for aid for Israel
and Egypt, which I support and includes a recommendation for $80
million for the Refugee Assistance Program, which facilitates the
resettlement of refugees in Israel.
I am pleased that the committee has continued its tradition of
supporting the 10 to 7 ratio of military aid to Turkey and Greece. The
committee is requiring that the State Department report to Congress on
serious allegations of a pattern of terrible human rights abuses in
Turkey. We also continue to support the traditional funding level of
$15 million in economic assistance for Cyprus.
Mr. Chairman, I could go on and on about the important programs which
will be funded through the fiscal year 1995 Foreign Operations bill.
For the sake of time, for example, I will only touch on the critical
nature of continuing to provide assistance to the newly independent
states [NIS] of the former Soviet Union--funding which is in our
national interest. I also want to mention the multilateral development
banks, our export promotion programs like the Overseas Private
Investment Corporation [OPIC], the Export-Import Bank [EXIM bank] and
the Trade and Development Agency [TDA]. All of these programs
contribute to our foreign policy agenda, but I will allow others to
elaborate on them.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support the fiscal
year 1995 Foreign Operations bill. It is a balanced and reasonable bill
designed to address real foreign policy goals and real foreign policy
needs.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
New Jersey [Mr. Smith].
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend for yielding
me the time.
Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], and the
gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], have made a number of
difficult decisions in allocating scarce funds for America's foreign
assistance program. They and the subcommittee have tried to responsibly
divvy up a relatively small pie of available resources and make a
number of policy determinations. I am sure it was not easy or painless.
I for one would have been much happier if there were some changes. I
would have liked to have seen more child survival fund dollars. The
Child Survival Fund saves lives by funding immunizations and oral
rehydration therapy. But I can appreciate the fact that more money for
the Fund just could not be found.
Mr. Chairman, I would just note parenthetically that I first offered
as a member of the authorizing committee a $275 million earmark for the
Child Survival Fund that was passed by the authorizing committee to the
foreign aid bill and have for years worked to try to boost the money
available for these low-cost health interventions which literally have
saved millions of lives.
{time} 1620
In the mid eighties I traveled to El Salvador on two separate
occasions to participate in their countrywide vaccination days and know
firsthand that for literally pennies per child, we can save, boost, and
enhance the life of a child. It's truly remarkable.
I would note at this point in the debate that later on when the
amendment offered by the gentleman from California [Mr. Beilenson]
comes up, money from the child survival fund and a host of other
important programs will be lessened, will be cut, in order to provide
more money for population control, which is already getting a $59
million increase in this bill. Money for Israel, funds for Egypt, and
money right across the board will be cut in order to accommodate that,
and we are already providing in this bill $569 million.
Mr. Chairman, let me also note that on an issue of human rights that
is very, very important to me and to many other Members, let me point
out to this committee that each year population control fanatics in
China forcibly abort about 10 million children out of approximately 13
million annual Chinese abortions. That is as many children as make up
the entirety of the populations of both Nicaragua and El Salvador
combined.
Forced abortion was properly construed to be a crime against humanity
at the Nuremberg war trials. Today it is employed unfortunately with
chilling effectiveness and unbearable pain upon women in the People's
Republic of China. Women in China are required to obtain a birth coupon
before conceiving a child. Chinese women are hounded by the population
control police, and even their menstrual cycles are publicly monitored
as one means of insuring compliance.
The New York Times has pointed out, in one of their exposes, that the
authorities, when they discover an unauthorized pregnancy, an illegal
child, that is, normally apply a daily dose of threats and browbeating.
They wear the women down and eventually, if the woman does not succumb
to the abortion, she is forcibly aborted by the state.
Let me also point out that in December of 1993 the Chinese Government
issued a draft law on eugenics which would nationalize discrimination
against the handicapped, much of which is already in effect at the
provincial level in China.
In a move that is eerily reminiscent of Nazi Germany, the Chinese
Government is implementing forced abortions against handicapped
children and forced sterilization against parents who simply do not
measure up in the eyes of the state. Despite all of this, Mr. Chairman,
the United Nations Population Fund continues to provide funds,
materiel, people on the ground and, what no money could buy, the kind
of coverup, if you will, the kind of shield the PRC fanatics
desperately want.
The head of the UNFPA has said, ``China has every reason to feel
proud of and pleased with its remarkable achievements made in its
family planning policy.'' Dr. Sadik has said that the implementation of
that policy and acceptance of that policy is ``purely voluntary.'' That
is an unmitigated lie, Mr. Chairman.
Just let me finally say that I believe it is important that the bill
before us today maintain the Kemp-Kasten anticoercion language. This
language, I think, will help to ensure that we do not provide financial
assistance to any organization which supports a population control
program that in any way promotes or fosters these kinds of crimes and
atrocities against women.
Mr. Chairman, this is an important bill. It has the Kemp-Kasten
language in it. We will have to, during the course of the consideration
on the amendments, consider the amendment offered by the gentleman from
California [Mr. Beilenson], and I do hope that it will be turned down.
The kind of shameful coverup on the part of the UNFPA that I noted
earlier is inexplicable for an international organization that is
supposedly committed to the defense of human rights. Likewise, the
Clinton administration's determination to embrace the UNFPA despite
their terrible track record on China is cause for serious concern. This
action by the administration, coupled with their absolutely
indefensible policy regarding asylum for the victims of forced abortion
and involuntary sterilization, raises the very real question of whether
they are willing to countenance coercion if it serves the cause of
population control.
Despite the administration's strained efforts to evade the Kemp-
Kasten law's well established legal requirements, the need and the
rationale for the law is quite clear. Likewise, the necessity for the
administration to enforce it properly is very clear. Consider the
following: The need for Kemp-Kasten.
The executive branch--much more so than Congress--possesses the
diplomatic tools to make the international factfinding, necessary under
Kemp-Kasten, in an efficient and expeditious manner.
Kemp-Kasten creates a precondition to dollar one going to UNFPA,
rather than a general duty of investigation after disbursement of the
money. Such agencies as the General Accounting Office (GAO) are
inadequate to investigate expenditures that impact activities within a
foreign nation.
Because of the difficulty in Congress verifying the internal record
keeping, accounting, and actual activities of the UNFPA, the burden of
policing UNFPA policies is placed squarely on the executive branch. If
the executive branch announces its intention to disburse money under
the act to UNFPA, then it accepts the responsibility under Kemp-Kasten
to, in good faith, interpret and enforce Kemp-Kasten. It must ensure
that an organization does not support, or participate to any extent, in
a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.
Mr. Chairman, Kemp-Kasten is the most practical solution Congress as
a whole has been able to come up with to ensure that no American
dollars go to any organization which furthers or assists a coercive
program, such as the one in China. Kemp-Kasten, has in effect, become a
permanent feature of foreign appropriations dealing with population
planning, based on the collective wisdom of Congress over the last
decade.
There is strong evidence that the Clinton administration has not
faithfully interpreted or applied Kemp-Kasten in the past. In fact, the
Agency for International Development (AID) and Administrator Atwood
invented a legal distortion of the Kemp-Kasten language that rendered
it meaningless; that is, the requirement that Kemp-Kasten only applies
where there is ``clear evidence * * * that UNFPA knowingly and
intentionally provides direct funding'' for coercive abortion/
involuntary sterilization. This language does not appear in Kemp-
Kasten, and in fact, distorts its intent.
Mr. Chairman, this Foreign Appropriations Act, particularly regarding
population planning limitations, requires the proper coordination of
two branches of Government: Congress has set the legal guidelines and
restrictions for population funding overseas and has delegated the
authority to make the necessary factfinding to the executive branch.
The Clinton administration must, in good faith, execute the clear
language of Kemp-Kasten. A vote for H.R. 4426, with the inclusion of
the Kemp-Kasten language, sends a clear message to President Clinton
that congressional concern over coercive abortion and involuntary
sterilization in such countries as China must be taken seriously, and
must be executed faithfully.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New
York [Mr. Flake].
Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of, H.R. 4426, the Foreign
Operations Appropriations for FY 1995. Mr. Speaker for almost 50 years
the world has witnessed the unfortunate destruction of life and land in
the Middle East. This conflict often centered around differences
between the Palestinians and Israel.
Reminiscing of the landmark Camp David Accord between Israel and
Egypt, I would like to first congratulate the Palestinian leaders and
the government of Israel for participation in their dramatic peace
agreement which no doubt is of historic proportions. This agreement for
the first time recognizes the value of self-rule for Palestinians while
at the same time guaranteeing security for Israel. For almost a
generation, U.S. policy has had virtually no impact on this troubled
region. Undoubtedly, this landmark peace accord ends decades of
violence and occupation but more importantly, it provides an
opportunity for these countries' future to be better than their past.
As with the new peace in the Middle East, the fall of the Soviet
Union less than 2 years ago, and the historic recent all race elections
in South Africa, we must take every opportunity to facilitate and
support peace around the globe. Because of these new found efforts
toward peace, I believe that the security assistance for Israel in FY
1995 is well placed, along with the assistance for the former Soviet
Republics. Equally as important, I am pleased to see an almost 8-
percent increase in overall assistance for Africa. Particularly, I am
enthused regarding the decision to fully fund the development fund for
Africa in FY 1995. Also, I support the Agency for International
Development's initiative to provide $528 million between FY 1994 and FY
1996 to promote African-American private sector development for housing
and education in South Africa.
I believe that we as Members of Congress would be remissed in not
fully supporting this visionary measure which supports democracy around
the world.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.
Mr. Chairman, I just want to point out that the minority wrote some
views in the committee report encouraging AID to develop an index of
economic freedom, a quantitative scoring and ranking system for
countries receiving development aid based upon their commitment to
promoting private-sector economic growth.
It is our thought that if we are going to continue the foreign aid
program, the recipient countries should be attempting to help
themselves and our aid program should encourage them to change their
economic system so that their people can own private property and
produce wealth and eventually wean themselves from foreign aid when
they no longer need it.
I encourage all of the Members to take a look at our minority views
in the report and perhaps, in the coming months or years, we will
expand on that index and ultimately adopt it in our foreign aid
program.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Massachusetts [Mr. Olver], a member of the subcommittee.
Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman of the subcommittee for
yielding me this time.
In very tight times, this budget is as good as it can be under the
budgetary constraints that are involved, and I think the chairman, the
gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], and the members of the
subcommittee really should be very proud of the bill that has been put
out and of the close working relationship under which the bill was
created.
This legislation represents less than 1 percent of the whole budget,
and there are many areas in which I would be quite happy to support
additional funds, but we just do not have additional funds available at
this time.
The bill is $400 million below the President's request. It is $700
million below last year's bill, which is 5 percent below last year's
bill. The bill, at the same time, manages to provide critical support
for assistance in a number of places around this globe where very
dramatic changes have occurred, Israel and the Palestinians and the
effort going on there, South Africa, Central America, the former Soviet
Union, and Eastern Europe. It also manages to provide basic
humanitarian assistance and promote sustainable development which will
help us to reduce conflict and increase markets for U.S. products.
The bill provides the full request for Israel, for the Israel-Egypt
peace program, for Central and Eastern Europe, the full request of the
President for those areas, and for the aid to the newly independent
states of the former Soviet Union.
In fact, the bill provides, just as one example, in some critical
areas where additional money is provided, as one example, $720 million
for refugee assistance, which is almost $40 million above the request
by the President even in this very tight budget, and in an area where
we all know the needs that have shown up in Somalia and Rwanda and
Bosnia.
I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and to oppose
further major cuts in the legislation.
Mr. FRANKS of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, the foreign operations bill
I am voting for tonight represents our Nation's awareness that we are
not alone in this world. We have learned well the lesson from our
isolationism in the 1930s. Besides providing humanitarian aid to
countries that are threatened with drought or civil unrest, this bill
provides economic aid to maintain stability in areas of potential
unrest. Spending in this bill is over $700 million less than last year,
reflecting the need for budget cuts, but this bill still keeps the U.S.
as a leader in the world.
I want to especially recognize the African nations that are making
the difficult transition to democratic governments with market
economies. For decades the Soviet Union tried to promote communism as
the panacea to poverty in Africa. Now, with the Soviet influence gone,
these countries have a chance to attain genuine freedom. This bill
provides over $2 billion to help with this transition.
I am disappointed to see an amendment offered to reduce financial
assistance to South Africa. Five years ago South Africa was trapped in
the unjust doctrine of apartheid. This year South Africa held its first
election in which blacks were able to vote. This is a remarkable step
forward. I feel it is imperative that the United States not abandon
South Africa after it has achieved such a remarkable goal. The years
ahead are not going to be easy for the new South African government.
Our financial aid to South Africa will continue the process of
democracy. I will vote against this amendment.
This bill also provides $3 billion in security assistance to Israel.
This past year has shown great progress in bringing peace to the Middle
East. Our aid to Israel has allowed it to take the risks that come with
peace agreements. We should encourage more negotiations and continue
our important financial support.
I also feel that the world bank's global environmental facility,
while in need of operational reform, is available to play an important
role in making sure that development projects in poor countries are
environmentally sound. An additional $100 million in this bill is set
aside for other environmental programs. We have seen the environmental
destruction that occurred in Eastern Europe while it was under the
influence of the Soviet Union, and we do not want to duplicate these
mistakes elsewhere in the world. Poor countries are short on money and
are certainly tempted to disregard the environment when building these
projects. American assistance has the potential to make these countries
environmentally responsible and prevent serious environmental problems
later.
Mr. Chairman, I am proud to see that America has continued to remain
involved in the world even after the cold war. This bill allows us to
keep our role as a leader in the world. I will vote in favor of it.
Mr. BORSKI. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 4426, the
Foreign Operations Appropriations Act for fiscal year 1995. I would
also like to express my appreciation for the hard work of
Representative David Obey, Chairman of the Foreign Operations
Appropriations Subcommittee, who has brought before us a well-crafted
bill that will help us achieve our foreign policy goals with reasonable
levels of assistance.
H.R. 4426 provides $13.6 billion for our foreign assistance programs,
a modest level of aid to meet the many challenges of the post-Cold War
world. This amount is $707 million less than the fiscal year 1994
appropriation and $389 million less than the administration's fiscal
year 1995 request.
Despite these reductions, H.R. 4426 maintains the levels of the
assistance needed to move the peace process forward in the Mideast. The
committee report strongly recommends $3 billion in aid to Israel and
$2.1 billion in aid to Egypt. It also supports the administration's
request of $78 million for the West Bank and Gaza.
We have seen significant progress in the Mideast since we last
debated a Foreign Operations bill. A year ago today, few of us in the
House would have thought that within a year's time Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yassir Arafat would shake hands
on the White House lawn. Few of us would have thought that Israel would
withdraw from the Gaza Strip and Jericho to allow for Palestinian self-
rule of those areas. This tremendous progress is in great part
attributable to our constant, unwavering support for Israel.
Despite the success of the peace process, there are still those in
the Mideast who seek to derail the peace process. Tragic acts to terror
continue against Israelis and Palestinians. Iran and other terror
states remain vehemently opposed to Israel's existence. And while Syria
is currently engaged in discussions with Israel, it technically remains
in a state or war with Israel.
For this reason, it would be a serious mistake to cut foreign
assistance to Israel at this critical juncture in the Mideast peace
process. Cutting aid now would send the wrong signal to those who have
taken the risk for peace, while bolstering the destructive aims of
those who seek to undermine the peace process.
Mr. Chairman, foreign aid is always a difficult vote. But we need to
keep in mind that foreign aid is only 0.9 percent of the overall U.S.
budget. It is a cost-effective way to strengthen our allies and secure
our strategic national interests, without having to commit troops to
volatile regions of the world. It also promotes democracy and open
foreign markets to U.S. exports.
Furthermore, 73 percent of all foreign aid dollars are spent in the
United States--creating jobs, supporting U.S. businesses, and boosting
the U.S. economy. In fact, over $347 million in foreign aid is spent
every year in my home State of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Chairman, H.R. 4426 will help to ensure that the U.S. meets the
new challenges that it will encounter in the post-Cold War era. I urge
my colleagues to support the final passage of this legislation, and to
vote against amendments that would cut our vital foreign assistance to
the Mideast.
Ms. FURSE. Mr. Chairman, I want to express my support for the funding
levels in Chairman Obey's report language for child survival programs,
basic education and Vitamin A.
UNICEF's ``State of the World's Children 1993'' report says some very
important things about where our priorities should lie. I want to share
one of its major statements:
In the decade ahead, a clear opportunity exists to make the
breakthrough against what might be called the last great
obscenity--the needless malnutrition, disease, and illiteracy
that still casts a shadow over the lives, and the futures, of
the poorest quarter of the world's children.
Mr. Chairman, our most important priority is our children. Right now,
we are in the midst of voting on the fiscal year 1995 defense
authorization. It contains funding for every exotic weapon system you
could possibly think of and the most ironic thing about it will be the
fact that we really have no enemy that those weapons are designed to
kill. I do not mean that the United States has no enemies but they are
not the ones that the defense budget will protect us against.
The world's children, both here in the United States and abroad, need
some of the resources that are being spent on weapon systems--to
improve schools, decrease violence, create jobs, and housing. I look
forward to the day that our national defense budget will address those
real enemies. Let's do what we can through our foreign operations
appropriation now to give every opportunity to those who deserve a
better future.
Ms. SHEPHERD. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 4426, the
1995 Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill. I commend the chairman for
his tireless efforts to do more with less. In particular, I applaud the
committee's commitment to Israel and to the peace process. U.S. support
for those nations in the Middle East who have dared to break the deadly
cycle of war and bloodshed has been essential for the spread of peace
in the region. Israel has only been able to take the very real risks
which have been necessary to move the peace process along because it
knows it can count on United States support.
When I witnessed Yitzhak Rabin and Yassir Arafat shake hands at the
White House, I knew we had moved irrevocably into a new era. This bill
recognizes that change with $78 million for economic development in the
West Bank and Gaza. While the United States has funded development
projects in the West Bank and Gaza before, this will be the first time
that funds have gone to an independent Palestinian entity. I hope that
this new organization will use these funds wisely for the benefit of
the Palestinian people.
This year, in Bosnia and Rwanda, we have seen the tragic consequences
of ancient hatreds left to fester. However, in the transition to
democracy in South Africa, we have also seen that those hatreds can be
overcome. In the real world, there are no happily ever afters, no
storybook endings. We must always fight intolerance and fanaticism. I
am confident, however, that the Arab-Israeli conflict will become one
of those successes when differences are buried so that peace can reign.
Passing this bill will help make the dream of peace a reality. I urge
your support for H.R. 4426.
Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman, my inclination is to back foreign aid,
but this year I cannot because over half of it goes to programs about
which I have great concern. First, over a quarter of the total amount
is going to military assistance. Why? In this post-cold-war world, I
think we need to reform that program. Over a seventh of the total
amount goes to Egypt and Egypt is a country where female genital
mutilation is very widespread. I'd like to see much more progress
toward eradication before we send such sums to Egypt. The multilateral
institutions which get so much money in this bill need a lot more
reform and attitude adjustment before I'm willing to give them such
sums. Without the changes, the money will not be well spent.
We are having such trouble keeping our commitments at home. Most
countries are judged by how they live up to their own promises first
and when it comes to America's children, her future, we get failing
grades. We should fund those priorities first.
Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of this
Foreign Operations Appropriations bill.
I believe that Chairman Obey and his colleagues on the committee have
crafted a good bill--a bill that advances the cause of freedom and
democracy, and recognizes that in today's global economy, some of our
most important foreign policies must be economic and trade policies.
This bill is especially important because it dedicates our resources
and our resolve to two of the most important emerging democracies on
the face of this earth, Russia and South Africa.
Both nations are working desperately to promote political and
economic reform. They need our help. And with this bill, we can make
sure they get it.
That's why I'm surprised that the Callahan and Burton amendments
would dramatically slash our assistance to both nations. To do so would
be a dangerous mistake.
Consider Russia. Some of you may remember, at the height of the Cold
War, our debates over single weapons systems that cost more than the
entire aid package we are offering today.
Well, the Cold War is over. And now that Russia is inching toward the
kind of security and stability that we paid trillions to achieve in
decades past, how can we turn our backs in this hour of need?
How can we ignore the risk that extremism and deprivation will turn
back the hands of time, and bury the progress that cost us countless
dollars and lives?
Last month, I travelled to Russia with Members of this House, from
both sides of the aisle--including the Minority Leader and the Minority
Whip.
We saw with our own eyes the progress that has been made, thanks to
American assistance programs.
We saw the enormous opportunities for American business, now that
Russia has opened the floodgates of foreign investment.
But we also saw the dangers of a country that is trembling under the
weight of growing unemployment, exploding taxes, and eroding security
and benefits--the consequences of a transition to capitalism that hit
Russia like a hurricane.
This is a crucial time for Russia, and for all the Newly Independent
States. They need our help and support. We've got to be there for the
long haul.
And the price of failure would be severe, and vastly more expensive--
for Russia, for America, and for the whole family of nations.
We must also use this bill to advance the cause of South Africa, the
youngest of the world's democracies.
While we all share in the job of Nelson Mandela's victory, we need
this legislation to cement the promise of South Africa's democracy.
The economic and humanitarian assistance in this bill--and the loan
guarantees and assistance to American businesses, which I fought to
expand--will help South Africa to grow and to thrive.
It will help South Africa expand trade across its borders, and
encourage the full participation of the people in its economic life.
So let's stand by this appropriations bill. Let's stand by the cause
of freedom and democracy. And let's not shrink from our commitment to
helping the newly-freed nations of the world, and building peace and
prosperity all around the world.
Mr. ANDREWS of Maine. Mr. Chairman, many Americans wonder why the
United States should be investing tax dollars overseas when there are
so many urgent needs in our own country. This is a legitimate question
that deserves a serious response. Clearly, the U.S. cannot be all
things to all people. Nor should we. There are limits to the assistance
we can and should provide. That is why, for example, I am a strong
advocate of measures which would require our wealthy allies to pay
their fair share for their own defense. It is also why I support the
spending reductions in this foreign aid bill.
Prudent foreign aid investments in targeted areas of the world,
however, not only can contribute to peace and security while promoting
the ideals and values that we as Americans cherish, they can also bring
direct return to the United States. Prudent foreign aid can create
economic opportunity, but it can also prevent the need to put our young
people in harms way when international trouble spots erupt in conflicts
that threaten our interests. An ounce of prevention, in the form of
carefully considered and targeted foreign aid, can truly be worth more
than a pound of cure. It can promote democracy and human rights, create
economic opportunity for Americans and save lives.
While there has been great cause for concern recently in many trouble
spots of the world, recent dramatic developments toward peace in the
Middle East signify an exciting step forward--a step made possible by
U.S. support and involvement. Who could have dreamed that we would all
witness the historic handshake between an Israeli Prime Minister and
PLO Chairman on the lawn of the White House? The hope and promise of
that historic moment is one of the dividends of American investment and
involvement in key areas of the world.
The importance of progress toward peace that has been achieved in the
Middle East is even more poignant to me after visiting Israel and the
West Bank last year. Looking into the eyes of Israeli soldiers in the
West Bank and feeling the tension of those struggling in this troubled
region of the world, it was clear to me that the status quo was
anything but secure. I had the opportunity and privilege during my trip
to meet with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. I explained in our meeting
that, as someone deeply committed to the security of Israel and to
peace in the Middle East, I was struck by the volatility, instability
and insecurity of the region. The Foreign Minister spoke of his deep
commitment to peace and the need to take risks for peace. And he
affirmed Israel's determination to move the peace process forward. He
and his nation have made good on that promise.
Now it is important that the U.S. move forward to help the people of
Israel and the Palestinians achieve a lasting peace, built on trust,
economic opportunity, and prosperity. Indeed, at this critical juncture
in the peace process, there has never been a more important time to
stand by our long-time ally, Israel.
This bill represents a reduction in our foreign aid commitment. It
reflects the need to tighten our belts as we seek to bring our Federal
deficit under control. But it also reflects our historic commitment to
the State of Israel and to the process of peace in the Middle East. And
it recognizes the direct return that it provides to the people of the
United States through economic opportunity and a more secure future.
I urge support for this important bill.
Mr. McDADE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 4426, the fiscal
year 95 foreign operations appropriations bill and especially to
commend Chairman David Obey and our ranking Republican member Bob
Livingston for the expeditious and bipartisan way in which this bill
has been crafted and has been brought to us.
Mr. Chairman, the bill itself is below our 602 b allocation. It is
below our budget resolution. It is under the President's budget and it
is below to the amounts provided last year. It is, as one might
suspect, the product of many compromises. As a result it has things we
like and some things we may not like. But our committee is charged with
the responsibility of funding these activities and I believe the
Members have done an excellent job.
Our Commitment to the Middle East Peace Process is fully funded here,
as is the commitment we make promoting the gradual transition to
democracy and free markets in the Soviet Union. In many respects
managing the peace is more difficult than managing a cold war budget.
Yet our Nation is making the transition to do just that. But the
Members of this body should realize that in addition to advancing the
cause of peace and freedom in the world, we are funding activities that
promote stability, encourage democratic institutions and trade with our
trading partners. Many of the investments we make here are returned to
us in real dollars and real jobs here at home.
Undoubtedly this will undergo changes as it wends its way through the
process. But on the whole it is a fair bill and I would encourage the
Members of this House to give it their support.
Mr. KNOLLENBERG. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of H.R.
4426. This legislation, and the moneys it authorizes, can only help the
United States continue to project a presence anywhere, anytime and
anyhow.
The isolationist critics of this position are shortsighted and lack
any historical basis for their political posturing.
All I need to do in support of this is cite some mind-numbing
numbers: 116,000, 407,000 and 58,000. Each of these numbers represent a
lost son or daughter due to American politicians seeking to have
America withdraw from the international scene, shirking our
responsibilities.
In World War I, we lost 116,000. In World War II, we lost 407,000,
and in Vietnam, more than 58,000.
Mr. Chairman, how many more young lives does it take before my
colleagues understand the consequences of their actions here today?
Foreign aid represents less than 1 percent of the entire U.S. budget,
and the GAO estimates that more than 72 percent of those funds are
returned to the United States in the form of increased trade and
cooperative programs.
So even from a fiscal conservative perspective this is money well
spent, and I would argue that this is really an investment, preserving
our future and our children's futures.
It is my sincerest hope that our grandchildren will not have to bear
witness to another generational blood bath such as that brought on by
World Wars I and II, and Vietnam. Our failure to support a continued
American presence abroad is this important.
So, I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation and
help keep American leadership unquestioned and unparalleled.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests for time, and I
yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests for time on
this section, and I yield back the balance of my time.
{time} 1630
The CHAIRMAN. All time for general debate has expired.
Pursuant to the rule, the pending question is the adoption of the
amendment in the nature of a substitute printed in the reported bill.
The Clerk will designate the committee amendment in the nature of a
substitute.
(For the text of the committee amendment in the nature of a
substitute, see ensuing pages of this Record, following the 10 minutes
of debate and the rollcall vote on this amendment.)
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr.
Obey] will be recognized for 5 minutes, and the gentleman from
Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] will be recognized for 5 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey].
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I
will not take the 5 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, the committee substitute simply reduces the President's
request by $389 billion in the manner described by the gentleman from
Louisiana and myself. I think it is fiscally responsible to make this
reduction.
Mr. Chairman, I urge that we move to a vote as soon as possible.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may
consume. The amendment is a good one, and I support it.
The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the committee amendment in the
nature of a substitute.
The question was taken, and the Chairman announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
recorded vote
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 426,
noes 1, not voting 11, as follows:
[Roll No. 204]
AYES--426
Ackerman
Allard
Andrews (ME)
Andrews (NJ)
Andrews (TX)
Applegate
Archer
Armey
Bacchus (FL)
Bachus (AL)
Baesler
Baker (CA)
Baker (LA)
Ballenger
Barca
Barcia
Barlow
Barrett (NE)
Barrett (WI)
Bartlett
Barton
Bateman
Becerra
Beilenson
Bentley
Bereuter
Berman
Bevill
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop
Bliley
Blute
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bonior
Borski
Boucher
Brewster
Brooks
Browder
Brown (CA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Bryant
Bunning
Burton
Buyer
Byrne
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Canady
Cantwell
Cardin
Carr
Castle
Chapman
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clinger
Clyburn
Coble
Coleman
Collins (GA)
Collins (IL)
Collins (MI)
Combest
Condit
Conyers
Cooper
Coppersmith
Costello
Cox
Coyne
Cramer
Crane
Crapo
Cunningham
Danner
Darden
de la Garza
de Lugo (VI)
Deal
DeFazio
DeLauro
DeLay
Dellums
Derrick
Deutsch
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Dooley
Doolittle
Dornan
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Durbin
Edwards (CA)
Edwards (TX)
Ehlers
Emerson
Engel
English
Eshoo
Evans
Everett
Ewing
Farr
Fawell
Fazio
Fields (LA)
Fields (TX)
Filner
Fingerhut
Fish
Flake
Foglietta
Ford (MI)
Ford (TN)
Fowler
Frank (MA)
Franks (CT)
Franks (NJ)
Frost
Furse
Gallegly
Gallo
Gejdenson
Gekas
Gephardt
Geren
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Gingrich
Glickman
Gonzalez
Goodlatte
Goodling
Gordon
Goss
Grams
Green
Greenwood
Gunderson
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Hall (TX)
Hamburg
Hamilton
Hancock
Hansen
Harman
Hastert
Hastings
Hayes
Hefley
Hefner
Herger
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hoagland
Hobson
Hochbrueckner
Hoekstra
Hoke
Holden
Houghton
Hoyer
Huffington
Hughes
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hutto
Hyde
Inglis
Inhofe
Istook
Jacobs
Jefferson
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (SD)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnston
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kasich
Kennedy
Kennelly
Kildee
Kim
King
Kingston
Kleczka
Klein
Klink
Klug
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kopetski
Kreidler
Kyl
LaFalce
Lambert
Lancaster
Lantos
LaRocco
Laughlin
Lazio
Leach
Lehman
Levin
Levy
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (FL)
Lewis (GA)
Lightfoot
Linder
Lipinski
Livingston
Lloyd
Long
Lowey
Lucas
Machtley
Maloney
Mann
Manton
Manzullo
Margolies-Mezvinsky
Markey
Martinez
Matsui
Mazzoli
McCandless
McCloskey
McCollum
McCrery
McCurdy
McDade
McDermott
McHale
McHugh
McInnis
McKeon
McKinney
McMillan
McNulty
Meehan
Meek
Menendez
Meyers
Mfume
Mica
Michel
Miller (CA)
Miller (FL)
Mineta
Minge
Mink
Moakley
Molinari
Mollohan
Montgomery
Moorhead
Moran
Morella
Murphy
Murtha
Myers
Nadler
Neal (MA)
Neal (NC)
Norton (DC)
Nussle
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Orton
Owens
Oxley
Packard
Pallone
Parker
Pastor
Paxon
Payne (NJ)
Payne (VA)
Pelosi
Penny
Peterson (FL)
Peterson (MN)
Petri
Pickett
Pickle
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Portman
Poshard
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Quillen
Quinn
Rahall
Ramstad
Rangel
Ravenel
Reed
Regula
Reynolds
Richardson
Ridge
Roberts
Roemer
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Romero-Barcelo (PR)
Ros-Lehtinen
Rose
Rostenkowski
Roth
Roukema
Rowland
Roybal-Allard
Royce
Rush
Sabo
Sanders
Sangmeister
Santorum
Sarpalius
Sawyer
Saxton
Schaefer
Schenk
Schiff
Schroeder
Schumer
Scott
Sensenbrenner
Serrano
Sharp
Shaw
Shays
Shepherd
Shuster
Sisisky
Skaggs
Skeen
Skelton
Slattery
Smith (IA)
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (OR)
Smith (TX)
Snowe
Solomon
Spence
Spratt
Stark
Stearns
Stenholm
Stokes
Strickland
Studds
Stump
Stupak
Sundquist
Swett
Swift
Synar
Talent
Tanner
Tauzin
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Tejeda
Thomas (CA)
Thomas (WY)
Thompson
Thornton
Thurman
Torkildsen
Torres
Torricelli
Towns
Tucker
Unsoeld
Upton
Valentine
Velazquez
Vento
Visclosky
Volkmer
Vucanovich
Walker
Walsh
Waters
Watt
Weldon
Wheat
Whitten
Williams
Wilson
Wise
Wolf
Woolsey
Wyden
Wynn
Yates
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
Zeliff
Zimmer
NOES--1
Traficant
NOT VOTING--11
Abercrombie
Blackwell
Faleomavaega (AS)
Grandy
Horn
Inslee
Johnson, Sam
Slaughter
Underwood (GU)
Washington
Waxman
{time} 1653
So the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute was agreed
to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the committee amendment in the
nature of a substitute is considered as an original bill for the
purpose of further amendment and is considered as read.
The text of the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute is
as follows:
H.R. 4426
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
TITLE I--MULTILATERAL ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE
FUNDS APPROPRIATED TO THE PRESIDENT
International Financial Institutions
contribution to the International bank for reconstruction and
development
For payment to the International Bank for Reconstruction
and Development by the Secretary of the Treasury, for the
United States share of the paid-in share portion of the
increases in capital stock for the General Capital Increase,
$23,009,101, to remain available until expended.
limitation on callable capital subscriptions
The United States Governor of the International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development may subscribe without fiscal
year limitation to the callable capital portion of the United
States share of increases in capital stock in an amount not
to exceed $743,923,914.
For payment to the International Bank for Reconstruction
and Development by the Secretary of the Treasury, for the
United States contribution to the Global Environment Facility
(GEF), $98,800,000, to remain available until expended.
CONTRIBUTION TO THE INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION
For payment to the International Development Association by
the Secretary of the Treasury, $1,235,000,000, for the United
States contribution to the replenishment, to remain available
until expended.
contribution to the international finance corporation
For payment to the International Finance Corporation by the
Secretary of the Treasury, $68,743,028, for the United States
share of the increase in subscriptions to capital stock, to
remain available until expended: Provided, That of the amount
appropriated under this heading not more than $5,364,000 may
be expended for the purchase of such stock in fiscal year
1995.
contribution to the inter-american development bank
For payment to the Inter-American Development Bank by the
Secretary of the Treasury for the United States share of the
paid-in share portion of the increase in capital stock,
$28,111,959, and for the United States share of the increases
in the resources of the Fund for Special Operations,
$21,338,000, and for the United States share of the capital
stock of the Inter-American Investment Corporation, $190,000,
to remain available until expended: Provided, That
$25,269,224 of the amount made available for the paid-in
share portion of the increase in capital stock, and
$20,317,000 of the resources of the Fund for Special
Operations shall be subject to the regular notification
procedures of the Committees on Appropriations.
limitation on callable capital subscriptions
The United States Governor of the Inter-American
Development Bank may subscribe without fiscal year limitation
to the callable capital portion of the United States share of
such capital stock in an amount not to exceed $1,594,568,180.
contribution to the enterprise for the americas multilateral investment
fund
For payment to the Enterprise for the Americas Multilateral
Investment Fund by the Secretary of the Treasury, for the
United States contribution to the Fund to be administered by
the Inter-American Development Bank, $75,000,000 to remain
available until expended.
contribution to the asian development fund
For the United States contribution by the Secretary of the
Treasury to the increases in resources of the Asian
Development Fund, as authorized by the Asian Development Bank
Act, as amended (Public Law 89-369), $167,960,000, to remain
available until expended.
contribution to the african development fund
For payment to the African Development Fund by the
Secretary of the Treasury, $124,229,309, for the United
States contribution to the African Development Fund, to
remain available until expended: Provided, That of the funds
appropriated under this heading, $20,000,000 shall be subject
to the regular notification procedures of the Committees on
Appropriations.
contribution to the african development bank
For payment to the African Development Bank by the
Secretary of the Treasury, for the paid-in share portion of
the United States share of the increase in capital stock,
$133,000, to remain available until expended.
limitation on callable capital subscriptions
The United States Governor of the African Development Bank
may subscribe without fiscal year limitation to the callable
capital portion of the United States share of such capital
stock in an amount not to exceed $2,002,540.
contribution to the european bank for reconstruction and development
For payment to the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development by the Secretary of the Treasury, $69,180,353,
for the United States share of the paid-in share portion of
the initial capital subscription, to remain available until
expended: Provided, That during fiscal year 1995 the number
of shares of stock purchased shall be not more than 600.
limitation of callable capital subscriptions
The United States Governor of the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development may subscribe without fiscal
year limitation to the callable capital portion of the United
States share of such capital stock in an amount not to exceed
$161,420,824.
international organizations and programs
For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of
section 301 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, and of
section 2 of the United Nations Environment Program
Participation Act of 1973, $366,000,000: Provided, That none
of the funds appropriated under this heading shall be made
available for the United Nations Fund for Science and
Technology: Provided further, That funds appropriated under
this heading may be made available for the International
Atomic Energy Agency only if the Secretary of State
determines (and so reports to the Congress) that Israel is
not being denied its right to participate in the activities
of that Agency: Provided further, That of the funds
appropriated under this heading that are made available for
the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), 75 per centum
shall be obligated and expended no later than thirty days
after the date of enactment of this Act and 25 per centum
shall be expended within thirty days from the start of
UNICEF's fourth quarter of operations for 1995: Provided
further, That none of the funds appropriated under this
heading that are made available to the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA) shall be made available for
activities in the People's Republic of China: Provided
further, That not more than $40,000,000 of the funds
appropriated under this heading may be made available to the
UNFPA: Provided further, That not more than one-half of this
amount may be provided to UNFPA before March 1, 1995, and
that no later than February 15, 1995, the Secretary of State
shall submit a report to the Committees on Appropriations
indicating the amount UNFPA is budgeting for the People's
Republic of China in 1995: Provided further, That any amount
UNFPA plans to spend in the People's Republic of China in
1995 above $7,000,000, shall be deducted from the amount of
funds provided to UNFPA after March 1, 1995 pursuant to the
previous provisos: Provided further, That with respect to any
funds appropriated under this heading that are made available
to UNFPA, UNFPA shall be required to maintain such funds in a
separate account and not commingle them with any other funds:
Provided further, That notwithstanding the fifth proviso of
this heading, if UNFPA decides not to initiate a new program
in China after its current program ends in 1995, up to an
additional $20,000,000 of funds appropriated under this
heading may be made available to UNFPA.
TITLE II--BILATERAL ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE
FUNDS APPROPRIATED TO THE PRESIDENT
For expenses necessary to enable the President to carry out
the provisions of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, and for
other purposes, to remain available until September 30, 1995,
unless otherwise specified herein, as follows:
Agency for International Development
development assistance fund
For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of
sections 103 through 106 of the Foreign Assistance Act of
1961, $811,000,000, to remain available until September 30,
1996.
POPULATION, DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE
For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of
section 104(b), $450,000,000, to remain available until
September 30, 1996: Provided, That none of the funds made
available in this Act nor any unobligated balances from prior
appropriations may be made available to any organization or
program which, as determined by the President of the United
States, supports or participates in the management of a
program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization:
Provided further, That none of the funds made available under
this heading may be used to pay for the performance of
abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or
coerce any person to practice abortions; and that in order to
reduce reliance on abortion in developing nations, funds
shall be available only to voluntary family planning projects
which offer, either directly or through referral to, or
information about access to, a broad range of family planning
methods and services: Provided further, That in awarding
grants for natural family planning under section 104 of the
Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 no applicant shall be
discriminated against because of such applicant's religious
or conscientious commitment to offer only natural family
planning; and, additionally, all such applicants shall comply
with the requirements of the previous proviso: Provided
further, That nothing in this subsection shall be construed
to alter any existing statutory prohibitions against abortion
under section 104 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.
development fund for africa
For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of
chapter 10 of part I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961,
$790,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 1996:
Provided, That none of the funds appropriated by this Act to
carry out chapters 1 and 10 of part I of the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961 shall be transferred to the Government
of Zaire: Provided further, That funds appropriated under
this heading which are made available for activities
supported by the Southern Africa Development Community shall
be made available notwithstanding section 512 of this Act and
section 620(q) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.
PRIVATE AND VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATIONS
None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available
by this Act for development assistance may be made available
to any United States private and voluntary organization,
except any cooperative development organization, which
obtains less than 20 per centum of its total annual funding
for international activities from sources other than the
United States Government: Provided, That the requirements of
the provisions of section 123(g) of the Foreign Assistance
Act of 1961 and the provisions on private and voluntary
organizations in title II of the ``Foreign Assistance and
Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1985'' (as enacted in
Public Law 98-473) shall be superseded by the provisions of
this section.
INTERNATIONAL DISASTER ASSISTANCE
For necessary expenses for international disaster relief,
rehabilitation, and reconstruction assistance pursuant to
section 491 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as
amended, $169,998,000 to remain available until expended.
debt restructuring
For the cost, as defined in section 13201 of the Budget
Enforcement Act of 1990, of modifying direct loans and loan
guarantees, as the President may determine, for which funds
have been appropriated or otherwise made available for
programs within the International Affairs Budget Function
150, $7,000,000, to remain available until expended:
Provided, That it is the sense of the Congress that a program
should be developed to undertake direct buy backs of
bilateral debt from eligible poor and lower-middle income
countries with local currency offsets to fund development and
environmental activities, provided that such a program would
have no budgetary impact. The Administration should consider
how creative use of the sale of impaired Third World debts
might be used to lower debt overhangs and generate local
currencies for development and environmental activities.
micro and small enterprise development program account
For the subsidy cost of direct loans and loan guarantees,
$1,500,000, as authorized by section 108 of the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961, as amended: Provided, That such costs
shall be as defined in section 502 of the Congressional
Budget Act of 1974. In addition, for administrative expenses
to carry out programs under this heading, $500,000, all of
which may be transferred to and merged with the appropriation
for operating expenses of the Agency for International
Development.
HOUSING GUARANTY PROGRAM ACCOUNT
For the subsidy cost, as defined in section 13201 of the
Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, of guaranteed loans
authorized by sections 221 and 222 of the Foreign Assistance
Act of 1961, $19,300,000: Provided, That these funds are
available to subsidize loan principal, 100 percent of which
shall be guaranteed, pursuant to the authority of such
sections: Provided further, That the President shall enter
into commitments to guarantee such loans in the full amount
provided under this heading, subject to the availability of
qualified applicants for such guarantees. In addition, for
administrative expenses to carry out guaranteed loan
programs, $8,000,000, all of which may be transferred to and
merged with the appropriation for Operating Expenses of the
Agency for International Development: Provided further, That
commitments to guarantee loans under this heading may be
entered into notwithstanding the second and third sentences
of section 222(a) and, with regard to programs for Eastern
Europe and programs for the benefit of South Africans
disadvantaged by apartheid, section 223(j) of the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961: Provided further, That none of the
funds appropriated under this heading shall be obligated
except through the regular notification procedures of the
Committees on Appropriations.
PAYMENT TO THE FOREIGN SERVICE RETIREMENT AND DISABILITY FUND
For payment to the ``Foreign Service Retirement and
Disability Fund'', as authorized by the Foreign Service Act
of 1980, $45,118,000.
OPERATING EXPENSES OF THE AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of
section 667, $517,500,000: Provided, That of this amount not
more than $900,000 may be made available to pay for printing
costs.
OPERATING EXPENSES OF THE AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OFFICE
OF INSPECTOR GENERAL
For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of
section 667, $39,118,000, which sum shall be available for
the Office of the Inspector General of the Agency for
International Development.
ECONOMIC SUPPORT FUND
For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of
chapter 4 of part II, $2,339,000,000, to remain available
until September 30, 1996: Provided, That any funds
appropriated under this heading that are made available for
Israel shall be made available on a grant basis as a cash
transfer and shall be disbursed within thirty days of
enactment of this Act or by October 31, 1994, whichever is
later: Provided further, That any funds appropriated under
this heading that are made available for Egypt shall be
provided on a grant basis, of which sum cash transfer
assistance may be provided with the understanding that Egypt
will undertake significant economic reforms which are
additional to those which were undertaken in previous fiscal
years: Provided further, That in exercising the authority to
provide cash transfer assistance for Israel and Egypt, the
President shall ensure that the level of such assistance does
not cause an adverse impact on the total level of nonmilitary
exports from the United States to each such country: Provided
further, That it is the sense of the Congress that the
recommended levels of assistance for Egypt and Israel are
based in great measure upon their continued participation in
the Camp David Accords and upon the Egyptian-Israeli peace
treaty: Provided further, That none of the funds appropriated
under this heading shall be made available for Zaire.
international fund for ireland
For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of part
I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, up to $19,600,000,
which shall be available for the United States contribution
to the International Fund for Ireland and shall be made
available in accordance with the provisions of the Anglo-
Irish Agreement Support Act of 1986 (Public Law 99-415):
Provided, That such amount shall be expended at the minimum
rate necessary to make timely payment for projects and
activities: Provided further, That funds made available under
this heading shall remain available until expended.
assistance for eastern europe and the baltic states
(a) For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of
the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Support for East
European Democracy (SEED) Act of 1989, $360,000,000, to
remain available until expended, which shall be available,
notwithstanding any other provision of law, for economic
assistance for Eastern Europe and the Baltic States.
(b) Funds appropriated under this heading or in prior
appropriations Acts that are or have been made available for
an Enterprise Fund may be deposited by such Fund in interest-
bearing accounts prior to the Fund's disbursement of such
funds for program purposes. The Fund may retain for such
program purposes any interest earned on such deposits without
returning such interest to the Treasury of the United States
and without further appropriation by the Congress. Funds made
available for Enterprise Funds shall be expended at the
minimum rate necessary to make timely payment for projects
and activities.
(c) Funds appropriated under this heading shall be
considered to be economic assistance under the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961 for purposes of making available the
administrative authorities contained in that Act for the use
of economic assistance.
assistance for the new independent states of the former soviet union
(a) For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of
chapter 11 of part I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961
and the FREEDOM Support Act, for assistance for the new
independent states of the former Soviet Union and for related
programs, $900,000,000, to remain available until expended:
Provided, That the provisions of 498B(j) of the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961 shall apply to funds appropriated by
this paragraph.
(b) None of the funds appropriated under this heading shall
be transferred to the Government of Russia--
(1) unless that Government is making progress in
implementing comprehensive economic reforms based on market
principles, private ownership, negotiating repayment of
commercial debt, respect for commercial contracts, and
equitable treatment of foreign private investment; and
(2) if that Government applies or transfers United States
assistance to any entity for the purpose of expropriating or
seizing ownership or control of assets, investments, or
ventures.
(c) Funds may be furnished without regard to subsection (b)
if the President determines that to do so is in the national
interest.
(d) None of the funds appropriated under this heading shall
be made available to any government of the new independent
states of the former Soviet Union if that government directs
any action in violation of the territorial integrity or
national sovereignty of any other new independent state, such
as those violations included in Principle Six of the Helsinki
Final Act: Provided, That such funds may be made available
without regard to the restriction in this subsection if the
President determines that to do so is in the national
interest of the United States: Provided further, That the
restriction of this subsection shall not apply to the use of
such funds for the provision of assistance for purposes of
humanitarian, disaster and refugee relief: Provided further,
That thirty days after the date of enactment of this Act, and
then annually thereafter, the Secretary of State shall report
to the Committees on Appropriations on steps taken by the
governments of the new independent states concerning
violations referred to in this subsection: Provided further,
That in preparing this report the Secretary shall consult
with the United States Representative to the Conference on
Security and Cooperation in Europe.
(e) None of the funds appropriated under this heading for
the new independent states of the former Soviet Union shall
be made available for any state to enhance its military
capability: Provided, That this restriction does not apply to
demilitarization, defense conversion or non-proliferation
programs, or programs to support troop withdrawal including
through the support of an officer resettlement program, and
technical assistance for the housing sector.
(f) Funds appropriated under this heading shall be subject
to the regular reprogramming procedures of the Committees on
Appropriations.
(g) Funds appropriated under this heading may be made
available for assistance for Mongolia.
(h) Funds made available in this Act for assistance to the
New Independent States of the former Soviet Union shall be
provided to the maximum extent feasible through the private
sector, including private voluntary organizations and
nongovernmental organizations functioning in the New
Independent States.
Independent Agencies
african development foundation
For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of title
V of the International Security and Development Cooperation
Act of 1980, Public Law 96-533, and to make such contracts
and commitments without regard to fiscal year limitations, as
provided by section 9104, title 31, United States Code,
$16,905,000: Provided, That, when, with the permission of the
President of the Foundation, funds made available to a
grantee under this heading are invested pending disbursement,
the resulting interest is not required to be deposited in the
United States Treasury if the grantee uses the resulting
interest for the purpose for which the grant was made:
Provided further, That this provision applies with respect to
both interest earned before and interest earned after the
enactment of this provision: Provided further, That
notwithstanding section 505(a)(2) of the African Development
Foundation Act, in exceptional circumstances the board of
directors of the Foundation may waive the dollar limitation
contained in that section with respect to a project: Provided
further, That the Foundation shall provide a report to the
Committees on Appropriations after each time such waiver
authority is exercised.
INTER-AMERICAN FOUNDATION
For expenses necessary to carry out the functions of the
Inter-American Foundation in accordance with the provisions
of section 401 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1969, and to
make such contracts and commitments without regard to fiscal
year limitations, as provided by section 9104, title 31,
United States Code, $30,960,000.
PEACE CORPS
For expenses necessary to carry out the provisions of the
Peace Corps Act (75 Stat. 612), $219,745,000, including the
purchase of not to exceed five passenger motor vehicles for
administrative purposes for use outside of the United States:
Provided, That none of the funds appropriated under this
heading shall be used to pay for abortions: Provided further,
That funds appropriated under this heading shall remain
available until September 30, 1996.
Department of State
INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL
For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of
section 481 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961,
$100,000,000.
MIGRATION AND REFUGEE ASSISTANCE
For expenses, not otherwise provided for, necessary to
enable the Secretary of State to provide, as authorized by
law, a contribution to the International Committee of the Red
Cross and assistance to refugees, including contributions to
the Intergovernmental Committee for Migration and the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; salaries and expenses
of personnel and dependents as authorized by the Foreign
Service Act of 1980; allowances as authorized by sections
5921 through 5925 of title 5, United States Code; hire of
passenger motor vehicles; and services as authorized by
section 3109 of title 5, United States Code, $670,688,000:
Provided, That not more than $11,500,000 of the funds
appropriated under this heading shall be available for the
administrative expenses of the Office of Refugee Programs of
the Department of State.
refugee resettlement assistance
For necessary expenses for the targeted assistance program
authorized by title IV of the Immigration and Nationality Act
and section 501 of the Refugee Education Assistance Act of
1980 and administered by the Office of Refugee Resettlement
of the Department of Health and Human Services, in addition
to amounts otherwise available for such purposes,
$12,000,000.
united states emergency refugee and migration assistance fund
For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of
section 2(c) of the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of
1962, as amended (22 U.S.C. 260(c)), $50,000,000, to remain
available until expended: Provided, That the funds made
available under this heading are appropriated notwithstanding
the provisions contained in section 2(c)(2) of the Migration
and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962 which would limit the
amount of funds which could be appropriated for this purpose.
ANTI-TERRORISM ASSISTANCE
For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of
chapter 8 of part II of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961,
$15,244,000.
nonproliferation and disarmament fund
For necessary expenses for a ``Nonproliferation and
Disarmament Fund'', $10,000,000, to remain available until
expended, to promote bilateral and multilateral activities:
Provided, That such funds may be used pursuant to the
authorities contained in section 504 of the FREEDOM Support
Act: Provided further, That such funds may also be used for
such countries other than the new independent states of the
former Soviet Union and international organizations when it
is in the national security interest of the United States to
do so: Provided further, That funds appropriated under this
heading may be made available notwithstanding any other
provision of law: Provided further, That funds appropriated
under this heading shall be subject to the regular
notification procedures of the Committees on Appropriations.
TITLE III--MILITARY ASSISTANCE
Funds Appropriated to the President
INTERNATIONAL MILITARY EDUCATION AND TRAINING
For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of
section 541 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961,
$25,500,000: Provided, That up to $300,000 of the funds
appropriated under this heading may be made available for
grant financed military education and training for any
country whose annual per capita GNP exceeds $2,349 on the
condition that that country agrees to fund from its own
resources the transportation cost and living allowances of
its students: Provided further, That the civilian personnel
for whom military education and training may be provided
under this heading may also include members of national
legislatures who are responsible for the oversight and
management of the military: Provided further, That none of
the funds appropriated under this heading shall be available
for Indonesia and Zaire: Provided further, That none of the
funds appropriated by this Act shall be used to facilitate
the provision of IMET to Indonesia: Provided further, That a
report is to be submitted to the Committees on Appropriations
addressing how the proposed School of the Americas IMET
program will contribute to the promotion of human rights,
respect for civilian authority and the rule of law, the
establishment of legitimate judicial mechanisms for the
military, and achieving the goal of right sizing military
forces.
For necessary expenses, for the military-to-military
contact program of the Department of Defense, $12,000,000, to
be made available only for activities for East European
countries and the Baltic States.
foreign military financing program
For expenses necessary for grants to enable the President
to carry out the provisions of section 23 of the Arms Export
Control Act, $3,149,279,000: Provided, That funds
appropriated by this paragraph that are made available for
Israel and Egypt shall be available only as grants: Provided
further, That the funds appropriated by this paragraph that
are made available for Israel shall be disbursed within
thirty days of enactment of this Act or by October 31, 1994,
whichever is later: Provided further, That funds made
available under this paragraph shall be nonrepayable
notwithstanding any requirement in section 23 of the Arms
Export Control Act.
For the cost, as defined in section 13201 of the Budget
Enforcement Act of 1990, of direct loans authorized by
section 23 of the Arms Export Control Act as follows: cost of
direct loans, $47,917,000: Provided, That these funds are
available to subsidize gross obligations for the principal
amount of direct loans of not to exceed $619,650,000:
Provided further, That the rate of interest charged on such
loans shall be not less than the current average market yield
on outstanding marketable obligations of the United States of
comparable maturities: Provided further, That the principal
amount of direct loans for Greece and Turkey shall be made
available according to a 7 to 10 ratio: Provided further,
That 25 percent of the principal amount of direct loans for
Turkey shall be withheld until the Secretary of State, in
consultation with the Secretary of Defense, has submitted to
the Committees on Appropriations a report addressing, among
other things, the allegations of abuses against civilians by
the Turkish armed forces and the situation in Cyprus, and a
separate notification has been submitted at least 15 days
prior to the obligation of such funds: Provided further, That
25 percent of the principal amount of direct loans for Greece
shall be withheld until the Secretary of State has submitted
to the Committees on Appropriations a report on the
allegations of Greek violations of the United Nations
sanctions against Serbia and of the United Nations Charter,
and a separate notification has been submitted at least 15
days prior to the obligation of such funds.
None of the funds made available under this heading shall
be available to finance the procurement of defense articles,
defense services, or design and construction services that
are not sold by the United States Government under the Arms
Export Control Act unless the foreign country proposing to
make such procurements has first signed an agreement with the
United States Government specifying the conditions under
which such procurements may be financed with such funds:
Provided, That all country and funding level increases in
allocations shall be submitted through the regular
notification procedures of section 515 of this Act: Provided
further, That funds made available under this heading shall
be obligated upon apportionment in accordance with paragraph
(5)(C) of title 31, United States Code, section 1501(a):
Provided further, That none of the funds appropriated under
this heading shall be available for Zaire, Sudan, Liberia,
Guatemala, Peru, and Malawi: Provided further, That none of
the funds appropriated under this heading may be made
available for Colombia or Bolivia until the Secretary of
State certifies that such funds will not be used by such
country for purposes other than counter-narcotics activities:
Provided further, That not more than $100,000,000 of the
funds made available under this heading shall be available
for use in financing the procurement of defense articles,
defense services, or design and construction services that
are not sold by the United States Government under the Arms
Export Control Act to countries other than Israel and Egypt:
Provided further, That only those countries for which
assistance was justified for the ``Foreign Military Sales
Financing Program'' in the fiscal year 1989 congressional
presentation for security assistance programs may utilize
funds made available under this heading for procurement of
defense articles, defense services or design and construction
services that are not sold by the United States Government
under the Arms Export Control Act: Provided further, That,
subject to the regular notification procedures of the
Committees on Appropriations, funds made available under this
heading for the cost of direct loans may also be used to
supplement the funds available under this heading for
necessary expenses for grants if countries specified under
this heading as eligible for such direct loans decline to
utilize such loans: Provided further, That funds appropriated
under this heading shall be expended at the minimum rate
necessary to make timely payment for defense articles and
services: Provided further, That the Department of Defense
shall conduct during the current fiscal year nonreimbursable
audits of private firms whose contracts are made directly
with foreign governments and are financed with funds made
available under this heading (as well as subcontractors
thereunder) as requested by the Defense Security Assistance
Agency: Provided further, That not more than $22,150,000 of
the funds appropriated under this heading may be obligated
for necessary expenses, including the purchase of passenger
motor vehicles for replacement only for use outside of the
United States, for the general costs of administering
military assistance and sales: Provided further, That not
more than $335,000,000 of funds realized pursuant to section
21(e)(1)(A) of the Arms Export Control Act may be obligated
for expenses incurred by the Department of Defense during the
fiscal year 1994 pursuant to section 43(b) of the Arms Export
Control Act, except that this limitation may be exceeded only
through the regular notification procedures of the Committees
on Appropriations: Provided further, That none of the funds
appropriated under this heading, and no employee of the
Defense Security Assistance Agency, may be used to facilitate
the transport of aircraft to commercial arms sales shows.
PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS
For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of
section 551 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961,
$75,000,000.
TITLE IV--EXPORT ASSISTANCE
EXPORT-IMPORT BANK OF THE UNITED STATES
The Export-Import Bank of the United States is authorized
to make such expenditures within the limits of funds and
borrowing authority available to such corporation, and in
accordance with law, and to make such contracts and
commitments without regard to fiscal year limitations, as
provided by section 104 of the Government Corporation Control
Act, as may be necessary in carrying out the program for the
current fiscal year for such corporation: Provided, That none
of the funds available during the current fiscal year may be
used to make expenditures, contracts, or commitments for the
export of nuclear equipment, fuel, or technology to any
country other than a nuclear-weapon State as defined in
article IX of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons eligible to receive economic or military assistance
under this Act that has detonated a nuclear explosive after
the date of enactment of this Act.
subsidy appropriation
For the cost of direct loans, loan guarantees, insurance,
and tied-aid grants as authorized by section 10 of the
Export-Import Bank Act of 1945, as amended, $792,653,000 to
remain available until September 30, 1996: Provided, That
such costs, including the cost of modifying such loans, shall
be as defined in section 502 of the Congressional Budget Act
of 1974: Provided further, That these funds are available to
subsidize gross obligations for the principal amount of
direct loans, and tied-aid grants, and total loan principal,
any part of which is to be guaranteed, including insurance,
of not to exceed $19,000,000,000: Provided further, That such
sums shall remain available until 2010 for the disbursement
of direct loans, loan guarantees, insurance and tied-aid
grants obligated in fiscal years 1995 and 1996: Provided
further, That up to $100,000,000 of funds appropriated by
this paragraph shall remain available until expended and may
be used for tied-aid grant purposes: Provided further, That
none of the funds appropriated by this paragraph may be used
for tied-aid credits or grants except through the regular
notification procedures of the Committees on Appropriations:
Provided further, That funds appropriated by this paragraph
are made available notwithstanding section 2(b)(2) of the
Export-Import Bank Act of 1945, in connection with the
purchase or lease of any product by any East European
country, any Baltic State, or any agency or national thereof.
ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES
For administrative expenses to carry out the direct and
guaranteed loan and insurance programs (to be computed on an
accrual basis), including hire of passenger motor vehicles
and services as authorized by 5 U.S.C. 3109, and not to
exceed $20,000 for official reception and representation
expenses for members of the Board of Directors, $44,550,000:
Provided, That necessary expenses (including special services
performed on a contract or fee basis, but not including other
personal services) in connection with the collection of
moneys owed the Export-Import Bank, repossession or sale of
pledged collateral or other assets acquired by the Export-
Import Bank in satisfaction of moneys owed the Export-Import
Bank, or the investigation or appraisal of any property, or
the evaluation of the legal or technical aspects of any
transaction for which an application for a loan, guarantee or
insurance commitment has been made, shall be considered
nonadministrative expenses for the purposes of this heading.
OVERSEAS PRIVATE INVESTMENT CORPORATION
program account
For the subsidy cost as defined in section 13201 of the
Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, of direct and guaranteed
loans authorized by section 234 of the Foreign Assistance Act
of 1961, as follows: cost of direct and guaranteed loans,
$23,296,000. In addition, for administrative expenses to
carry out the direct and guaranteed loan programs,
$7,933,000: Provided, That the funds provided in this
paragraph shall be available for and apply to costs, direct
loan obligations and loan guaranty commitments incurred or
made during the period from October 1, 1994 through September
30, 1996: Provided further, That such sums are to remain
available through fiscal year 2003 for the disbursement of
direct and guaranteed loans obligated in fiscal year 1995,
and through 2004 for the disbursement of direct and
guaranteed loans obligated in fiscal year 1996.
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation is authorized
to make, without regard to fiscal year limitations, as
provided by 31 U.S.C. 9104, such noncredit expenditures and
commitments within the limits of funds available to it and in
accordance with law (including an amount for official
reception and representation expenses which shall not exceed
$35,000) as may be necessary.
Funds Appropriated to the President
TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT AGENCY
For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of
section 661 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961,
$44,986,000.
TITLE V--GENERAL PROVISIONS
OBLIGATIONS DURING LAST MONTH OF AVAILABILITY
Sec. 501. Except for the appropriations entitled
``International Disaster Assistance'', and ``United States
Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund'', not more
than 15 per centum of any appropriation item made available
by this Act shall be obligated during the last month of
availability.
PROHIBITION OF BILATERAL FUNDING FOR INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL
INSTITUTIONS
Sec. 502. None of the funds contained in title II of this
Act may be used to carry out the provisions of section 209(d)
of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.
LIMITATION ON RESIDENCE EXPENSES
Sec. 503. Of the funds appropriated or made available
pursuant to this Act, not to exceed $126,500 shall be for
official residence expenses of the Agency for International
Development during the current fiscal year: Provided, That
appropriate steps shall be taken to assure that, to the
maximum extent possible, United States-owned foreign
currencies are utilized in lieu of dollars.
LIMITATION ON EXPENSES
Sec. 504. Of the funds appropriated or made available
pursuant to this Act, not to exceed $5,000 shall be for
entertainment expenses of the Agency for International
Development during the current fiscal year.
LIMITATION ON REPRESENTATIONAL ALLOWANCES
Sec. 505. Of the funds appropriated or made available
pursuant to this Act, not to exceed $95,000 shall be
available for representation allowances for the Agency for
International Development during the current fiscal year:
Provided, That appropriate steps shall be taken to assure
that, to the maximum extent possible, United States-owned
foreign currencies are utilized in lieu of dollars: Provided
further, That of the funds made available by this Act for
general costs of administering military assistance and sales
under the heading ``Foreign Military Financing Program'', not
to exceed $2,000 shall be available for entertainment
expenses and not to exceed $50,000 shall be available for
representation allowances: Provided further, That of the
funds made available by this Act under the heading
``International Military Education and Training'', not to
exceed $50,000 shall be available for entertainment
allowances: Provided further, That of the funds made
available by this Act for the Inter-American Foundation, not
to exceed $2,000 shall be available for entertainment and
representation allowances: Provided further, That of the
funds made available by this Act for the Peace Corps, not to
exceed a total of $4,000 shall be available for entertainment
expenses: Provided further, That of the funds made available
by this Act under the heading ``Trade and Development
Agency'', not to exceed $2,000 shall be available for
representation and entertainment allowances.
PROHIBITION ON FINANCING NUCLEAR GOODS
Sec. 506. None of the funds appropriated or made available
(other than funds for ``International Organizations and
Programs'') pursuant to this Act, for carrying out the
Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, may be used, except for
purposes of nuclear safety, to finance the export of nuclear
equipment, fuel, or technology.
PROHIBITION AGAINST DIRECT FUNDING FOR CERTAIN COUNTRIES
Sec. 507. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made
available pursuant to this Act shall be obligated or expended
to finance directly any assistance or reparations to Cuba,
Iraq, Libya, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Iran, Serbia,
Sudan, or Syria: Provided, That for purposes of this section,
the prohibition on obligations or expenditures shall include
direct loans, credits, insurance and guarantees of the
Export-Import Bank or its agents.
MILITARY COUPS
Sec. 508. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made
available pursuant to this Act shall be obligated or expended
to finance directly any assistance to any country whose duly
elected Head of Government is deposed by military coup or
decree: Provided, That assistance may be resumed to such
country if the President determines and reports to the
Committees on Appropriations that subsequent to the
termination of assistance a democratically elected government
has taken office.
TRANSFERS BETWEEN ACCOUNTS
Sec. 509. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be obligated under an appropriation account to which they
were not appropriated, unless the President, prior to the
exercise of any authority contained in the Foreign Assistance
Act of 1961 to transfer funds, consults with and provides a
written policy justification to the Committees on
Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the
Senate: Provided, That the exercise of such authority shall
be subject to the regular notification procedures of the
Committees on Appropriations.
DEOBLIGATION/REOBLIGATION AUTHORITY
Sec. 510. (a) Amounts certified pursuant to section 1311 of
the Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1955, as having been
obligated against appropriations heretofore made under the
authority of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 for the same
general purpose as any of the headings under the ``Agency for
International Development'' are, if deobligated, hereby
continued available for the same period as the respective
appropriations under such headings or until September 30,
1995, whichever is later, and for the same general purpose,
and for countries within the same region as originally
obligated: Provided, That the Appropriations Committees of
both Houses of the Congress are notified fifteen days in
advance of the deobligation and reobligation of such funds in
accordance with regular notification procedures of the
Committees on Appropriations.
(b) Obligated balances of funds appropriated to carry out
section 23 of the Arms Export Control Act as of the end of
the fiscal year immediately preceding the current fiscal year
are, if deobligated, hereby continued available during the
current fiscal year for the same purpose under any authority
applicable to such appropriations under this Act: Provided,
That the authority of this subsection may not be used in
fiscal year 1995.
availability of funds
Sec. 511. No part of any appropriation contained in this
Act shall remain available for obligation after the
expiration of the current fiscal year unless expressly so
provided in this Act: Provided, That funds appropriated for
the purposes of chapters 1 and 8 of part I, section 667, and
chapter 4 of part II of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961,
as amended, shall remain available until expended if such
funds are initially obligated before the expiration of their
respective periods of availability contained in this Act:
Provided further, That, notwithstanding any other provision
of this Act, any funds made available for the purposes of
chapter 1 of part I and chapter 4 of part II of the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961 which are allocated or obligated for
cash disbursements in order to address balance of payments or
economic policy reform objectives, shall remain available
until expended: Provided further, That the report required by
section 653(a) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 shall
designate for each country, to the extent known at the time
of submission of such report, those funds allocated for cash
disbursement for balance of payment and economic policy
reform purposes.
LIMITATION ON ASSISTANCE TO COUNTRIES IN DEFAULT
Sec. 512. No part of any appropriation contained in this
Act shall be used to furnish assistance to any country which
is in default during a period in excess of one calendar year
in payment to the United States of principal or interest on
any loan made to such country by the United States pursuant
to a program for which funds are appropriated under this Act:
Provided, That this section and section 620(q) of the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961 shall not apply to funds made
available in this Act or during the current fiscal year for
Nicaragua, and for any narcotics-related assistance for
Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru authorized by the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961 or the Arms Export Control Act.
COMMERCE AND TRADE
Sec. 513. (a) None of the funds appropriated or made
available pursuant to this Act for direct assistance and none
of the funds otherwise made available pursuant to this Act to
the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment
Corporation shall be obligated or expended to finance any
loan, any assistance or any other financial commitments for
establishing or expanding production of any commodity for
export by any country other than the United States, if the
commodity is likely to be in surplus on world markets at the
time the resulting productive capacity is expected to become
operative and if the assistance will cause substantial injury
to United States producers of the same, similar, or competing
commodity: Provided, That such prohibition shall not apply to
the Export-Import Bank if in the judgment of its Board of
Directors the benefits to industry and employment in the
United States are likely to outweigh the injury to United
States producers of the same, similar, or competing
commodity.
(b) None of the funds appropriated by this or any other Act
to carry out chapter 1 of part I of the Foreign Assistance
Act of 1961 shall be available for any testing or breeding
feasibility study, variety improvement or introduction,
consultancy, publication, conference, or training in
connection with the growth or production in a foreign country
of an agricultural commodity for export which would compete
with a similar commodity grown or produced in the United
States: Provided, That this subsection shall not prohibit--
(1) activities designed to increase food security in
developing countries where such activities will not have a
significant impact in the export of agricultural commodities
of the United States; or
(2) research activities intended primarily to benefit
American producers.
(c) None of the funds provided in this Act to the Agency
for International Development, other than funds made
available to carry out Caribbean Basin Initiative programs
under the Tariff Schedules of the United States, section 1202
of title 19, United States Code, schedule 8, part I, subpart
B, item 807.00, shall be obligated or expended--
(1) to procure directly feasibility studies or
prefeasibility studies for, or project profiles of potential
investment in, the manufacture, for export to the United
States or to third country markets in direct competition with
United States exports, of import-sensitive articles as
defined by section 503(c)(1) (A) and (E) of the Tariff Act of
1930 (19 U.S.C. 2463(c)(1) (A) and (E)); or
(2) to assist directly in the establishment of facilities
specifically designed for the manufacture, for export to the
United States or to third country markets in direct
competition with United States exports, of import-sensitive
articles as defined in section 503(c)(1) (A) and (E) of the
Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 2463(c)(1) (A) and (E)).
SURPLUS COMMODITIES
Sec. 514. The Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the
United States Executive Directors of the International Bank
for Reconstruction and Development, the International
Development Association, the International Finance
Corporation, the Inter-American Development Bank, the
International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank, the
Inter-American Investment Corporation, the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development, the African Development Bank,
and the African Development Fund to use the voice and vote of
the United States to oppose any assistance by these
institutions, using funds appropriated or made available
pursuant to this Act, for the production or extraction of any
commodity or mineral for export, if it is in surplus on world
markets and if the assistance will cause substantial injury
to United States producers of the same, similar, or competing
commodity.
NOTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS
Sec. 515. For the purposes of providing the Executive
Branch with the necessary administrative flexibility, none of
the funds made available under this Act for ``Development
Assistance Fund'', ``Population, Development Assistance'',
``Development Fund for Africa'', ``International
organizations and programs'', ``Trade and Development
Agency'', ``International narcotics control'', ``Assistance
for Eastern Europe and the Baltic States'', ``Assistance for
the New Independent States of the Former Soviet Union'',
``Economic Support Fund'', ``Peacekeeping operations'',
``Operating expenses of the Agency for International
Development'', ``Operating expenses of the Agency for
International Development Office of Inspector General'',
``Anti-terrorism assistance'', ``Foreign Military Financing
Program'', ``International military education and training''
(including the military-to-military contact program),
``Inter-American Foundation'', ``African Development
Foundation'', ``Peace Corps'', or ``Migration and refugee
assistance'', shall be available for obligation for
activities, programs, projects, type of materiel assistance,
countries, or other operation not justified or in excess of
the amount justified to the Appropriations Committees for
obligation under any of these specific headings unless the
Appropriations Committees of both Houses of Congress are
previously notified fifteen days in advance: Provided, That
the President shall not enter into any commitment of funds
appropriated for the purposes of section 23 of the Arms
Export Control Act for the provision of major defense
equipment, other than conventional ammunition, or other major
defense items defined to be aircraft, ships, missiles, or
combat vehicles, not previously justified to Congress or 20
per centum in excess of the quantities justified to Congress
unless the Committees on Appropriations are notified fifteen
days in advance of such commitment: Provided further, That
this section shall not apply to any reprogramming for an
activity, program, or project under chapter 1 of part I of
the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 of less than 20 per centum
of the amount previously justified to the Congress for
obligation for such activity, program, or project for the
current fiscal year: Provided further, That the requirements
of this section or any similar provision of this Act
requiring notification in accordance with the regular
notification procedures of the Committees on Appropriations
may be waived if failure to do so would pose a substantial
risk to human health or welfare: Provided further, That in
case of any such waiver, notification to the Congress, or the
appropriate congressional committees, shall be provided as
early as practicable, but in no event later than three days
after taking the action to which such notification
requirement was applicable, in the context of the
circumstances necessitating such waiver: Provided further,
That any notification provided pursuant to such a waiver
shall contain an explanation of the emergency circumstances.
Drawdowns made pursuant to section 506(a)(2) of the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961 shall be subject to the regular
notification procedures of the Committees on Appropriations.
limitation on availability of funds for international organizations and
programs
Sec. 516. (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law or
of this Act, none of the funds provided for ``International
Organizations and Programs'' shall be available for the
United States proportionate share, in accordance with section
307(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, for any
programs identified in section 307, or for Libya, Iran, or,
at the discretion of the President, Communist countries
listed in section 620(f) of the Foreign Assistance Act of
1961, as amended: Provided, That, subject to the regular
notification procedures of the Committees on Appropriations,
funds appropriated under this Act or any previously enacted
Act making appropriations for foreign operations, export
financing, and related programs, which are returned or not
made available for organizations and programs because of the
implementation of this section or any similar provision of
law, shall remain available for obligation through September
30, 1996.
(b) The United States shall not make any voluntary or
assessed contribution--
(1) to any affiliated organization of the United Nations
which grants full membership as a state to any organization
or group that does not have the internationally recognized
attributes of statehood, or
(2) to the United Nations, if the United Nations grants
full membership as a state in the United Nations to any
organization or group that does not have the internationally
recognized attributes of statehood,
during any period in which such membership is effective.
ECONOMIC SUPPORT FUND ASSISTANCE FOR ISRAEL
Sec. 517. The Congress finds that progress on the peace
process in the Middle East is vitally important to United
States security interests in the region. The Congress
recognizes that, in fulfilling its obligations under the
Treaty of Peace Between the Arab Republic of Egypt and the
State of Israel, done at Washington on March 26, 1979, Israel
incurred severe economic burdens. Furthermore, the Congress
recognizes that an economically and militarily secure Israel
serves the security interests of the United States, for a
secure Israel is an Israel which has the incentive and
confidence to continue pursuing the peace process. Therefore,
the Congress declares that it is the policy and the intention
of the United States that the funds provided in annual
appropriations for the Economic Support Fund which are
allocated to Israel shall not be less than the annual debt
repayment (interest and principal) from Israel to the United
States Government in recognition that such a principle serves
United States interests in the region.
PROHIBITION CONCERNING ABORTIONS AND INVOLUNTARY STERILIZATION
Sec. 518. None of the funds made available to carry out
part I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, may
be used to pay for the performance of abortions as a method
of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to
practice abortions. None of the funds made available to carry
out part I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended,
may be used to pay for the performance of involuntary
sterilization as a method of family planning or to coerce or
provide any financial incentive to any person to undergo
sterilizations. None of the funds made available to carry out
part I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, may
be used to pay for any biomedical research which relates in
whole or in part, to methods of, or the performance of,
abortions or involuntary sterilization as a means of family
planning. None of the funds made available to carry out part
I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, may be
obligated or expended for any country or organization if the
President certifies that the use of these funds by any such
country or organization would violate any of the above
provisions related to abortions and involuntary
sterilizations. The Congress reaffirms its commitments to
Population, Development Assistance and to the need for
informed voluntary family planning.
reporting requirement
Sec. 519. The President shall submit to the Committees on
Appropriations the reports required by section 25(a)(1) of
the Arms Export Control Act.
special notification requirements
Sec. 520. None of the funds appropriated in this Act shall
be obligated or expended for Colombia, El Salvador,
Guatemala, Haiti, Indonesia, Liberia, Nicaragua, Pakistan,
Peru, Rwanda, Sudan, or Zaire except as provided through the
regular notification procedures of the Committees on
Appropriations: Provided, That this section shall not apply
to funds appropriated by this Act to carry out the provisions
of chapter 1 of part I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961
that are made available for El Salvador and Nicaragua.
DEFINITION OF PROGRAM, PROJECT, AND ACTIVITY
Sec. 521. For the purpose of this Act, ``program, project,
and activity'' shall be defined at the Appropriations Act
account level and shall include all Appropriations and
Authorizations Acts earmarks, ceilings, and limitations with
the exception that for the following accounts: Economic
Support Fund and Foreign Military Financing Program,
``program, project, and activity'' shall also be considered
to include country, regional, and central program level
funding within each such account; for the development
assistance accounts of the Agency for International
Development ``program, project, and activity'' shall also be
considered to include central program level funding, either
as (1) justified to the Congress, or (2) allocated by the
executive branch in accordance with a report, to be provided
to the Committees on Appropriations within thirty days of
enactment of this Act, as required by section 653(a) of the
Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.
family planning, child survival and aids activities
Sec. 522. Up to $8,000,000 of the funds made available by
this Act for assistance for family planning, health, child
survival, and AIDS, may be used to reimburse United States
Government agencies, agencies of State governments,
institutions of higher learning, and private and voluntary
organizations for the full cost of individuals (including for
the personal services of such individuals) detailed or
assigned to, or contracted by, as the case may be, the Agency
for International Development for the purpose of carrying out
family planning activities, child survival activities and
activities relating to research on, and the treatment and
control of, acquired immune deficiency syndrome in developing
countries: Provided, That such individuals shall not be
included within any personnel ceiling applicable to any
United States Government agency during the period of detail
or assignment: Provided further, That funds appropriated by
this Act that are made available for child survival
activities or activities relating to research on, and the
treatment and control of, acquired immune deficiency syndrome
may be made available notwithstanding any provision of law
that restricts assistance to foreign countries: Provided
further, That funds appropriated by this Act that are made
available for family planning activities may be made
available notwithstanding section 512 of this Act and section
620(q) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.
prohibition against indirect funding to certain countries
Sec. 523. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made
available pursuant to this Act shall be obligated to finance
indirectly any assistance or reparations to Cuba, Iraq,
Libya, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Iran, Syria, North
Korea, People's Republic of China, or Laos unless the
President of the United States certifies that the withholding
of these funds is contrary to the national interest of the
United States.
RECIPROCAL LEASING
Sec. 524. Section 61(a) of the Arms Export Control Act is
amended by striking out ``1994'' and inserting in lieu
thereof ``1995''.
NOTIFICATION ON EXCESS DEFENSE EQUIPMENT
Sec. 525. Prior to providing excess Department of Defense
articles in accordance with section 516(a) of the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961, the Department of Defense shall
notify the Committees on Appropriations to the same extent
and under the same conditions as are other committees
pursuant to subsection (c) of that section: Provided, That
before issuing a letter of offer to sell excess defense
articles under the Arms Export Control Act, the Department of
Defense shall notify the Committees on Appropriations in
accordance with the regular notification procedures of such
Committees: Provided further, That such Committees shall also
be informed of the original acquisition cost of such defense
articles.
authorization requirement
Sec. 526. Funds appropriated by this Act may be obligated
and expended subject to section 10 of Public Law 91-672 and
section 15 of the State Department Basic Authorities Act of
1956.
DEPLETED URANIUM
Sec. 527. None of the funds provided in this or any other
Act may be made available to facilitate in any way the sale
of M-833 antitank shells or any comparable antitank shells
containing a depleted uranium penetrating component to any
country other than (1) countries which are members of NATO,
(2) countries which have been designated as a major non-NATO
ally for purposes of section 1105 of the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1987 or, (3) Taiwan:
Provided, That funds may be made available to facilitate the
sale of such shells notwithstanding the limitations of this
section if the President determines that to do so is in the
national security interest of the United States.
OPPOSITION TO ASSISTANCE TO TERRORIST COUNTRIES BY INTERNATIONAL
FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS
Sec. 528. (a) Instructions for United States Executive
Directors.--The Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the
United States Executive Director of each international
financial institution designated in subsection (b), and the
Administrator of the Agency for International Development
shall instruct the United States Executive Director of the
International Fund for Agriculture Development, to use the
voice and vote of the United States to oppose any loan or
other use of the funds of the respective institution to or
for a country for which the Secretary of State has made a
determination under section 6(j) of the Export Administration
Act of 1979.
(b) Definition.--For purposes of this section, the term
``international financial institution'' includes--
(1) the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development, the International Development Association, and
the International Monetary Fund; and
(2) wherever applicable, the Inter-American Development
Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the African Development
Bank, the African Development Fund, and the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development.
Prohibition on Bilateral Assistance to Terrorist Countries
Sec. 529. (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law,
funds appropriated for bilateral assistance under any heading
of this Act and funds appropriated under any such heading in
a provision of law enacted prior to enactment of this Act,
shall not be made available to any country which the
President determines--
(1) grants sanctuary from prosecution to any individual or
group which has committed an act of international terrorism,
or
(2) otherwise supports international terrorism.
(b) The President may waive the application of subsection
(a) to a country if the President determines that national
security or humanitarian reasons justify such waiver. The
President shall publish each waiver in the Federal Register
and, at least fifteen days before the waiver takes effect,
shall notify the Committees on Appropriations of the waiver
(including the justification for the waiver) in accordance
with the regular notification procedures of the Committees on
Appropriations.
commercial leasing of defense articles
Sec. 530. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, and
subject to the regular notification requirements of the
Committees on Appropriations, the authority of section 23(a)
of the Arms Export Control Act may be used to provide
financing to Israel and Egypt and NATO and major non-NATO
allies for the procurement by leasing (including leasing with
an option to purchase) of defense articles from United States
commercial suppliers, not including Major Defense Equipment
(other than helicopters and other types of aircraft having
possible civilian application), if the President determines
that there are compelling foreign policy or national security
reasons for those defense articles being provided by
commercial lease rather than by government-to-government sale
under such Act.
competitive insurance
Sec. 531. All Agency for International Development
contracts and solicitations, and subcontracts entered into
under such contracts, shall include a clause requiring that
United States marine insurance companies have a fair
opportunity to bid for marine insurance when such insurance
is necessary or appropriate.
stingers in the persian gulf region
Sec. 532. Except as provided in section 581 of the Foreign
Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs
Appropriations Act, 1990, the United States may not sell or
otherwise make available any Stingers to any country
bordering the Persian Gulf under the Arms Export Control Act
or chapter 2 of part II of the Foreign Assistance Act of
1961.
prohibition on leveraging and diversion of united states assistance
Sec. 533. (a) None of the funds appropriated by this Act
may be provided to any foreign government (including any
instrumentality or agency thereof), foreign person, or United
States person in exchange for that foreign government or
person undertaking any action which is, if carried out by the
United States Government, a United States official or
employee, expressly prohibited by a provision of United
States law.
(b) For the purposes of this section the term ``funds
appropriated by this Act'' includes only (1) assistance of
any kind under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961; and (2)
credits, and guaranties under the Arms Export Control Act.
(c) Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit--
(1) the ability of the President, the Vice President, or
any official or employee of the United States to make
statements or otherwise express their views to any party on
any subject;
(2) the ability of an official or employee of the United
States to express the policies of the President; or
(3) the ability of an official or employee of the United
States to communicate with any foreign country government,
group or individual, either directly or through a third
party, with respect to the prohibitions of this section
including the reasons for such prohibitions, and the actions,
terms, or conditions which might lead to the removal of the
prohibitions of this section.
debt-for-development
Sec. 534. In order to enhance the continued participation
of nongovernmental organizations in economic assistance
activities under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961,
including endowments, debt-for-development and debt-for-
nature exchanges, a nongovernmental organization which is a
grantee or contractor of the Agency for International
Development may place in interest bearing accounts funds made
available under this Act or prior Acts or local currencies
which accrue to that organization as a result of economic
assistance provided under the heading ``Agency for
International Development'' and any interest earned on such
investment may be for the purpose for which the assistance
was provided to that organization.
location of stockpiles
Sec. 535. Section 514(b)(2) of the Foreign Assistance Act
of 1961 is amended by striking out ``$200,000,000 for
stockpiles in Israel for fiscal year 1994'' and inserting in
lieu thereof ``a total of $200,000,000 for stockpiles in
Israel for fiscal years 1994 and 1995, up to $40,000,000 may
be made available for stockpiles in the Republic of Korea,
and up to $10,000,000 may be made available for stockpiles in
Thailand for fiscal year 1995''.
separate accounts
Sec. 536. (a) Separate Accounts for Local Currencies.--(1)
If assistance is furnished to the government of a foreign
country under chapters 1 and 10 of part I (including the
Philippines Multilateral Assistance Initiative) or chapter 4
of part II of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 under
agreements which result in the generation of local currencies
of that country, the Administrator of the Agency for
International Development shall--
(A) require that local currencies be deposited in a
separate account established by that government;
(B) enter into an agreement with that government which sets
forth--
(i) the amount of the local currencies to be generated, and
(ii) the terms and conditions under which the currencies so
deposited may be utilized, consistent with this section; and
(C) establish by agreement with that government the
responsibilities of the Agency for International Development
and that government to monitor and account for deposits into
and disbursements from the separate account.
(2) Uses of Local Currencies.--As may be agreed upon with
the foreign government, local currencies deposited in a
separate account pursuant to subsection (a), or an equivalent
amount of local currencies, shall be used only--
(A) to carry out chapters 1 or 10 of part I or chapter 4 of
part II (as the case may be), for such purposes as--
(i) project and sector assistance activities, or
(ii) debt and deficit financing; or
(B) for the administrative requirements of the United
States Government.
(3) Programming Accountability.--The Agency for
International Development shall take all appropriate steps to
ensure that the equivalent of the local currencies disbursed
pursuant to subsection (a)(2)(A) from the separate account
established pursuant to subsection (a)(1) are used for the
purposes agreed upon pursuant to subsection (a)(2).
(4) Termination of Assistance Programs.--Upon termination
of assistance to a country under chapters 1 or 10 of part I
or chapter 4 of part II (as the case may be), any
unencumbered balances of funds which remain in a separate
account established pursuant to subsection (a) shall be
disposed of for such purposes as may be agreed to by the
government of that country and the United States Government.
(5) Conforming Amendments.--The provisions of this
subsection shall supersede the tenth and eleventh provisos
contained under the heading ``Sub-Saharan Africa, Development
Assistance'' as included in the Foreign Operations, Export
Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1989 and
sections 531(d) and 609 of the Foreign Assistance Act of
1961.
(b) Separate Accounts for Cash Transfers.--(1) If
assistance is made available to the government of a foreign
country, under chapters 1 or 10 of part I (including the
Philippines Multilateral Assistance Initiative) or chapter 4
of part II of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as cash
transfer assistance or as nonproject sector assistance, that
country shall be required to maintain such funds in a
separate account and not commingle them with any other funds.
(2) Applicability of Other Provisions of Law.--Such funds
may be obligated and expended notwithstanding provisions of
law which are inconsistent with the nature of this assistance
including provisions which are referenced in the Joint
Explanatory Statement of the Committee of Conference
accompanying House Joint Resolution 648 (H. Report No. 98-
1159).
(3) Notification.--At least fifteen days prior to
obligating any such cash transfer or nonproject sector
assistance, the President shall submit a notification through
the regular notification procedures of the Committees on
Appropriations, which shall include a detailed description of
how the funds proposed to be made available will be used,
with a discussion of the United States interests that will be
served by the assistance (including, as appropriate, a
description of the economic policy reforms that will be
promoted by such assistance).
(4) Exemption.--Nonproject sector assistance funds may be
exempt from the requirements of subsection (b)(1) only
through the notification procedures of the Committees on
Appropriations.
compensation for united states executive directors to international
financial institutions
Sec. 537. (a) No funds appropriated by this Act may be made
as payment to any international financial institution while
the United States Executive Director to such institution is
compensated by the institution at a rate which, together with
whatever compensation such Director receives from the United
States, is in excess of the rate provided for an individual
occupying a position at level IV of the Executive Schedule
under section 5315 of title 5, United States Code, or while
any alternate United States Director to such institution is
compensated by the institution at a rate in excess of the
rate provided for an individual occupying a position at level
V of the Executive Schedule under section 5316 of title 5,
United States Code.
(b) For purposes of this section, ``international financial
institutions'' are: the International Bank for Reconstruction
and Development, the Inter-American Development Bank, the
Asian Development Bank, the Asian Development Fund, the
African Development Bank, the African Development Fund, the
International Monetary Fund, and the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development.
Compliance With United Nations Sanctions Against Iraq
Sec. 538. (a) Denial of Assistance.--None of the funds
appropriated or otherwise made available pursuant to this Act
to carry out the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (including
title IV of chapter 2 of part I, relating to the Overseas
Private Investment Corporation) or the Arms Export Control
Act may be used to provide assistance to any country that is
not in compliance with the United Nations Security Council
sanctions against Iraq unless the President determines and so
certifies to the Congress that--
(1) such assistance is in the national interest of the
United States;
(2) such assistance will directly benefit the needy people
in that country; or
(3) the assistance to be provided will be humanitarian
assistance for foreign nationals who have fled Iraq and
Kuwait.
(b) Import Sanctions.--If the President considers that the
taking of such action would promote the effectiveness of the
economic sanctions of the United Nations and the United
States imposed with respect to Iraq, and is consistent with
the national interest, the President may prohibit, for such a
period of time as he considers appropriate, the importation
into the United States of any or all products of any foreign
country that has not prohibited--
(1) the importation of products of Iraq into its customs
territory, and
(2) the export of its products to Iraq.
pow/mia military drawdown
Sec. 539. (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law,
the President may direct the drawdown, without reimbursement
by the recipient, of defense articles from the stocks of the
Department of Defense, defense services of the Department of
Defense, and military education and training, of an aggregate
value not to exceed $15,000,000 in fiscal year 1995, as may
be necessary to carry out subsection (b).
(b) Such defense articles, services and training may be
provided to Cambodia and Laos, under subsection (a) as the
President determines are necessary to support efforts to
locate and repatriate members of the United States Armed
Forces and civilians employed directly or indirectly by the
United States Government who remain unaccounted for from the
Vietnam War, and to ensure the safety of United States
Government personnel engaged in such cooperative efforts and
to support United States Department of Defense-sponsored
humanitarian projects associated with the POW/MIA efforts.
Any aircraft shall be provided under this section only to
Laos and only on a lease or loan basis, but may be provided
at no cost notwithstanding section 61 of the Arms Export
Control Act and may be maintained with defense articles,
services and training provided under this section.
(c) The President shall, within sixty days of the end of
any fiscal year in which the authority of subsection (a) is
exercised, submit a report to the Congress which identifies
the articles, services, and training drawn down under this
section.
(d) There are authorized to be appropriated to the
President such sums as may be necessary to reimburse the
applicable appropriation, fund, or account for defense
articles, defense services, and military education and
training provided under this section.
mediterranean excess defense articles
Sec. 540. During fiscal year 1995, the provisions of
section 573(e) of the Foreign Operations, Export Financing,
and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1990, shall be
applicable, for the period specified therein, to excess
defense articles made available under sections 516 and 519 of
the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.
priority delivery of equipment
Sec. 541. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the
delivery of excess defense articles that are to be
transferred on a grant basis under section 516 of the Foreign
Assistance Act to NATO allies and to major non-NATO allies on
the southern and southeastern flank of NATO shall be given
priority to the maximum extent feasible over the delivery of
such excess defense articles to other countries.
israel drawdown
Sec. 542. Section 599B(a) of the Foreign Operations, Export
Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1991 (as
amended by Public Law 102-145, as amended, and Public Law
102-391), is further amended--
(a) by striking out ``fiscal year 1994'' and inserting in
lieu thereof ``fiscal year 1995'';
(b) by striking out ``Appropriations Act, 1994'' and
inserting in lieu thereof ``Appropriations Act, 1995''; and
(c) by striking out ``$700,000,000'' and inserting in lieu
thereof ``$775,000,000''.
cash flow financing
Sec. 543. For each country that has been approved for cash
flow financing (as defined in section 25(d) of the Arms
Export Control Act, as added by section 112(b) of Public Law
99-83) under the Foreign Military Financing Program, any
Letter of Offer and Acceptance or other purchase agreement,
or any amendment thereto, for a procurement in excess of
$100,000,000 that is to be financed in whole or in part with
funds made available under this Act shall be submitted
through the regular notification procedures to the Committees
on Appropriations.
authorities for the peace corps, the inter-american foundation and the
african development foundation
Sec. 544. Unless expressly provided to the contrary,
provisions of this or any other Act, including provisions
contained in prior Acts authorizing or making appropriations
for foreign operations, export financing, and related
programs, shall not be construed to prohibit activities
authorized by or conducted under the Peace Corps Act, the
Inter-American Foundation Act, or the African Development
Foundation Act. The appropriate agency shall promptly report
to the Committees on Appropriations whenever it is conducting
activities or is proposing to conduct activities in a country
for which assistance is prohibited.
impact on jobs in the United States
Sec. 545. None of the funds appropriated by this Act may be
obligated or expended to provide--
(a) any financial incentive to a business enterprise
currently located in the United States for the purpose of
inducing such an enterprise to relocate outside the United
States if such incentive or inducement is likely to reduce
the number of employees of such business enterprise in the
United States because United States production is being
replaced by such enterprise outside the United States;
(b) assistance for the purpose of establishing or
developing in a foreign country any export processing zone or
designated area in which the tax, tariff, labor, environment,
and safety laws of that country do not apply, in part or in
whole, to activities carried out within that zone or area,
unless the President determines and certifies that such
assistance is not likely to cause a loss of jobs within the
United States; or
(c) assistance for any project or activity that contributes
to the violation of internationally recognized workers
rights, as defined in section 502(a)(4) of the Trade Act of
1974, of workers in the recipient country, including any
designated zone or area in that country: Provided, That in
recognition that the application of this subsection should be
commensurate with the level of development of the recipient
country and sector, the provisions of this subsection shall
not preclude assistance for the informal sector in such
country, micro and small-scale enterprise, and smallholder
agriculture.
authority to assist bosnia-hercegovina
Sec. 546. (a) Congress finds as follows:
(1) The United Nations has imposed an embargo on the
transfer of arms to any country on the territory of the
former Yugoslavia.
(2) The federated states of Serbia and Montenegro have a
large supply of military equipment and ammunition and the
Serbian forces fighting the government of Bosnia-Hercegovina
have more than one thousand battle tanks, armored vehicles,
and artillery pieces.
(3) Because the United Nations arms embargo is serving to
sustain the military advantage of the aggressor, the United
Nations should exempt the government of Bosnia-Hercegovina
from its embargo.
(b) Pursuant to a lifting of the United Nations arms
embargo, or to a unilateral lifting of the arms embargo by
the President of the United States, against Bosnia-
Hercegovina, the President is authorized to transfer to the
government of that nation, without reimbursement, defense
articles from the stocks of the Department of Defense of an
aggregate value not to exceed $50,000,000 in fiscal year
1995: Provided, That the President certifies in a timely
fashion to the Congress that--
(1) the transfer of such articles would assist that nation
in self-defense and thereby promote the security and
stability of the region; and
(2) United States allies are prepared to join in such a
military assistance effort.
(c) Within 60 days of any transfer under the authority
provided in subsection (b), and every 60 days thereafter, the
President shall report in writing to the Speaker of the House
of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the
Senate concerning the articles transferred and the
disposition thereof.
(d) There are authorized to be appropriated to the
President such sums as may be necessary to reimburse the
applicable appropriation, fund, or account for defense
articles provided under this section.
(e) If the President determines that doing so will
contribute to a just resolution of charges regarding genocide
or other violations of international law in the former
Yugoslavia, the authority of section 552(c) of the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, may be used to provide up
to $25,000,000 of commodities and services to the United
Nations War Crimes Tribunal, without regard to the ceiling
limitation contained in paragraph (2) thereof: Provided, That
the determination required under this subsection shall be in
lieu of any determinations otherwise required under section
552(c).
special authorities
Sec. 547. (a) Funds appropriated in title II of this Act
that are made available for Haiti, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and
Cambodia, and for victims of war, displaced children,
displaced Burmese, humanitarian assistance for Romania, and
humanitarian assistance for the peoples of Bosnia-
Hercegovina, Croatia, and Kosova, may be made available
notwithstanding any other provision of law: Provided, That
any such funds that are made available for Cambodia shall be
subject to the provisions of section 531(e) of the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961 and section 906 of the International
Security and Development Cooperation Act of 1985: Provided
further, That the President shall terminate assistance to any
Cambodian organization that he determines is cooperating,
tactically or strategically, with the Khmer Rouge in their
military operations.
(b) Funds appropriated by this Act to carry out the
provisions of sections 103 through 106 of the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961 may be used, notwithstanding any other
provision of law, for the purpose of supporting tropical
forestry and energy programs aimed at reducing emissions of
greenhouse gases with regard to the key countries in which
deforestation and energy policy would make a significant
contribution to global warming: Provided, That such
assistance shall be subject to sections 116, 502B, and 620A
of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.
(c) During fiscal year 1995, the President may use up to
$50,000,000 under the authority of section 451 of the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961, notwithstanding the funding ceiling
contained in subsection (a) of that section.
(d) The Agency for International Development may employ
personal services contractors, notwithstanding any other
provision of law, for the purpose of administering programs
for the West Bank and Gaza.
policy on terminating the arab league boycott of israel
Sec. 548. (a) Findings.--The Congress finds that--
(1) since 1948 the Arab countries have maintained a primary
boycott against Israel, refusing to do business with Israel;
(2) since the early 1950s the Arab League has maintained a
secondary and tertiary boycott against American and other
companies that have commercial ties with Israel;
(3) the boycott seeks to coerce American firms by
blacklisting those that do business with Israel and harm
America's competitiveness;
(4) the United States has a longstanding policy opposing
the Arab League boycott and United States law prohibits
American firms from providing information to Arab countries
to demonstrate compliance with the boycott;
(5) with real progress being made in the Middle East peace
process and the serious confidence-building measures taken by
the State of Israel an end to the Arab boycott of Israel and
of American companies that have commercial ties with Israel
is long overdue and would represent a significant confidence-
building measure; and
(6) in the interest of Middle East peace and free commerce,
the President must take more concrete steps to press the Arab
states to end their practice of blacklisting and boycotting
American companies that have trade ties with Israel.
(b) Policy.--It is the sense of the Congress that--
(1) the Arab League countries should immediately and
publicly renounce the primary boycott of Israel and the
secondary and tertiary boycott of American firms that have
commercial ties with Israel and
(2) the President should--
(A) take more concrete steps to encourage vigorously Arab
League countries to renounce publicly the primary boycotts of
Israel and the secondary and tertiary boycotts of American
firms that have commercial relations with Israel as a
confidence-building measure;
(B) take into consideration the participation of any
recipient country in the primary boycott of Israel and the
secondary and tertiary boycotts of American firms that have
commercial relations with Israel when determining whether to
sell weapons to said country;
(C) report to Congress on the specific steps being taken by
the President to bring about a public renunciation of the
Arab primary boycott of Israel and the secondary and tertiary
boycotts of American firms that have commercial relations
with Israel; and
(D) encourage the allies and trading partners of the United
States to enact laws prohibiting businesses from complying
with the boycott and penalizing businesses that do comply.
ANTI-NARCOTICS ACTIVITIES
Sec. 549. (a) Of the funds appropriated by this Act under
the heading ``Economic Support Fund'', assistance may be
provided to strengthen the administration of justice in
countries in Latin America and the Caribbean in accordance
with the provisions of section 534 of the Foreign Assistance
Act of 1961, except that programs to enhance protection of
participants in judicial cases may be conducted
notwithstanding section 660 of that Act.
(b) Funds made available pursuant to this section may be
made available notwithstanding the third sentence of section
534(e) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. Funds made
available pursuant to subsection (a)(1) for Bolivia, Colombia
and Peru and subsection (a)(2) may be made available
notwithstanding section 534(c) and the second sentence of
section 534(e) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.
ELIGIBILITY FOR ASSISTANCE
Sec. 550. (a) Assistance Through Nongovernmental
Organizations.--Restrictions contained in this or any other
Act with respect to assistance for a country shall not be
construed to restrict assistance in support of programs of
nongovernmental organizations from funds appropriated by this
Act to carry out the provisions of chapters 1 and 10 of part
I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961: Provided, That the
President shall take into consideration, in any case in which
a restriction on assistance would be applicable but for this
subsection, whether assistance in support of programs of
nongovernmental organizations is in the national interest of
the United States: Provided further, That before using the
authority of this subsection to furnish assistance in support
of programs of nongovernmental organizations, the President
shall notify the Committees on Appropriations under the
regular notification procedures of those committees,
including a description of the program to be assisted, the
assistance to be provided, and the reasons for furnishing
such assistance: Provided further, That nothing in this
subsection shall be construed to alter any existing statutory
prohibitions against abortion or involuntary sterilizations
contained in this or any other Act.
(b) Public Law 480.--During fiscal year 1995, restrictions
contained in this or any other Act with respect to assistance
for a country shall not be construed to restrict assistance
under titles I and II of the Agricultural Trade Development
and Assistance Act of 1954: Provided, That none of the funds
appropriated to carry out title I of such Act and made
available pursuant to this subsection may be obligated or
expended except as provided through the regular notification
procedures of the Committees on Appropriations.
(c) Exception.--This section shall not apply--
(1) with respect to section 529 of this Act or any
comparable provision of law prohibiting assistance to
countries that support international terrorism; or
(2) with respect to section 116 of the Foreign Assistance
Act of 1961 or any comparable provision of law prohibiting
assistance to countries that violate internationally
recognized human rights.
EARMARKS
Sec. 551. (a) Funds appropriated by this Act which are
earmarked may be reprogrammed for other programs within the
same account notwithstanding the earmark if compliance with
the earmark is made impossible by operation of any provision
of this or any other Act or, with respect to a country with
which the United States has an agreement providing the United
States with base rights or base access in that country, if
the President determines that the recipient for which funds
are earmarked has significantly reduced its military or
economic cooperation with the United States since enactment
of the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related
Programs Appropriations Act, 1991; however, before exercising
the authority of this subsection with regard to a base rights
or base access country which has significantly reduced its
military or economic cooperation with the United States, the
President shall consult with, and shall provide a written
policy justification to the Committees on Appropriations:
Provided, That any such reprogramming shall be subject to the
regular notification procedures of the Committees on
Appropriations: Provided further, That assistance that is
reprogrammed pursuant to this subsection shall be made
available under the same terms and conditions as originally
provided.
(b) In addition to the authority contained in subsection
(a), the original period of availability of funds
appropriated by this Act and administered by the Agency for
International Development that are earmarked for particular
programs or activities by this or any other Act shall be
extended for an additional fiscal year if the Administrator
of such agency determines and reports promptly to the
Committees on Appropriations that the termination of
assistance to a country or a significant change in
circumstances makes it unlikely that such earmarked funds can
be obligated during the original period of availability:
Provided, That such earmarked funds that are continued
available for an additional fiscal year shall be obligated
only for the purpose of such earmark.
CEILINGS AND EARMARKS
Sec. 552. Ceilings and earmarks contained in this Act shall
not be applicable to funds or authorities appropriated or
otherwise made available by any subsequent Act unless such
Act specifically so directs.
EXCESS DEFENSE ARTICLES
Sec. 553. The authority of section 519 of the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, may be used in fiscal
year 1994 to provide nonlethal excess defense articles to
countries for which United States foreign assistance has been
requested and for which receipt of such articles was
separately justified for the fiscal year, without regard to
the restrictions in subsection (a) of section 519.
PROHIBITION ON PUBLICITY OR PROPAGANDA
Sec. 554. No part of any appropriation contained in this
Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within
the United States not authorized before the date of enactment
of this Act by the Congress.
DISADVANTAGED ENTERPRISES
Sec. 555. (a) Except to the extent that the Administrator
of the Agency for International Development determines
otherwise, not less than 10 percent of the aggregate amount
made available for the current fiscal year for the
``Development Assistance Fund'', ``Population, Development
Assistance'', and the ``Development Fund for Africa'' shall
be made available only for activities of United States
organizations and individuals that are--
(1) business concerns owned and controlled by socially and
economically disadvantaged individuals,
(2) historically black colleges and universities,
(3) colleges and universities having a student body in
which more than 40 per centum of the students are Hispanic
American, and
(4) private voluntary organizations which are controlled by
individuals who are socially and economically disadvantaged.
(b)(1) In addition to other actions taken to carry out this
section, the actions described in paragraphs (2) through (5)
shall be taken with respect to development assistance and
assistance for sub-Saharan Africa for the current fiscal
year.
(2) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, in order to
achieve the goals of this section, the Administrator--
(A) to the maximum extent practicable, shall utilize the
authority of section 8(a) of the Small Business Act (15
U.S.C. 637(a));
(B) to the maximum extent practicable, shall enter into
contracts with small business concerns owned and controlled
by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, and
organizations contained in paragraphs (2) through (4) of
subsection (a)--
(i) using less than full and open competitive procedures
under such terms and conditions as the Administrator deems
appropriate, and
(ii) using an administrative system for justifications and
approvals that, in the Administrator's discretion, may best
achieve the purpose of this section; and
(C) shall issue regulations to require that any contract in
excess of $500,000 contain a provision requiring that no less
than 10 per centum of the dollar value of the contract be
subcontracted to entities described in subsection (a),
except--
(i) to the extent the Administrator determines otherwise on
a case-by-case or category-of-contract basis; and
(ii) this subparagraph does not apply to any prime
contractor that is an entity described in subsection (a).
(3) Each person with contracting authority who is attached
to the Agency's headquarters in Washington, as well as all
Agency missions and regional offices, shall notify the
Agency's Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business
Utilization at least seven business days before advertising a
contract in excess of $100,000, except to the extent that the
Administrator determines otherwise on a case-by-case or
category-of-contract basis.
(4) The Administrator shall include, as part of the
performance evaluation of any mission director of the agency,
the mission director's efforts to carry out this section.
(5) The Administrator shall submit to the Congress annual
reports on the implementation of this section. Each such
report shall specify the number and dollar value or amount
(as the case may be) of prime contracts, subcontracts,
grants, and cooperative agreements awarded to entities
described in subsection (a) during the preceding fiscal year.
(c) As used in this section, the term ``socially and
economically disadvantaged individuals'' has the same meaning
that term is given for purposes of section 8(d) of the Small
Business Act, except that the term includes women.
USE OF AMERICAN RESOURCES
Sec. 556. To the maximum extent possible, assistance
provided under this Act should make full use of American
resources, including commodities, products, and services.
limitations on assistance for nicaragua
Sec. 557. (a) Funds appropriated by this Act under the
heading ``Economic Support Fund'' may only be made available
to the Government of Nicaragua upon the notification, in
writing, by the Secretary of State to the appropriate
committees that he has determined that significant and
tangible progress is being made by the Government of
Nicaragua toward--
(1) the prosecution of any individual identified as part of
a terrorist/kidnapping ring by the investigation of issues
raised by the discovery, after the May 23 explosion in
Managua, of weapons caches, false passports, identity papers
and other documents, suggesting the existence of such a ring,
including all government officials (including any members of
the armed forces or security forces);
(2) the resolution of expropriation claims and the
effective compensation of legitimate claims;
(3) the timely implementation of recommendations made by
the Tripartite Commission as it undertakes to review and
identify those responsible for gross human rights violations,
including the expeditious prosecution of individuals
identified by the commission in connection with such
violations;
(4) the enactment into law of legislation to reform the
Nicaraguan military and security forces in order to guarantee
civilian control over the armed forces;
(5) the establishment of civilian control over the police,
and the independence of the police from the military; and
(6) the effective reform of the Nicaraguan judicial system.
(b) The notification pursuant to subsection (a) above shall
include a detailed listing of the tangible evidence that
forms the basis for such determination.
(c) For purposes of this section, the term ``appropriate
committees'' means the Committees on Foreign Relations and
Appropriations of the Senate and Committees on Foreign
Affairs and Appropriations of the House of Representatives.
prohibition of payments to united nations members
Sec. 558. None of the funds appropriated or made available
pursuant to this Act for carrying out the Foreign Assistance
Act of 1961, may be used to pay in whole or in part any
assessments, arrearages, or dues of any member of the United
Nations.
consulting services
Sec. 559. The expenditure of any appropriation under this
Act for any consulting service through procurement contract,
pursuant to section 3109 of title 5, United States Code,
shall be limited to those contracts where such expenditures
are a matter of public record and available for public
inspection, except where otherwise provided under existing
law, or under existing Executive order pursuant to existing
law.
private voluntary organizations--documentation
Sec. 560. None of the funds appropriated or made available
pursuant to this Act shall be available to a private
voluntary organization which fails to provide upon timely
request any document, file, or record necessary to the
auditing requirements of the Agency for International
Development, nor shall any of the funds appropriated by this
Act be made available to any private voluntary organization
which is not registered with the Agency for International
Development.
special debt relief for the poorest
Sec. 561. (a)(1) Authority To Reduce Debt.--The President
may reduce amounts owed to the United States (or any agency
of the United States) by an eligible country as a result of--
(A) guarantees issued under sections 221 and 222 of the
Foreign Assistance Act of 1961; or
(B) credits extended or guarantees issued under the Arms
Export Control Act.
(2) Limitations.--
(A) The authority provided by paragraph (1) may be
exercised only to implement multilateral official debt relief
and referendum agreements, commonly referred to as ``Paris
Club Agreed Minutes''.
(B) The authority provided by paragraph (1) may be
exercised only in such amounts or to such extent as is
provided in advance by appropriations Acts.
(C) The authority provided by paragraph (1) may be
exercised only with respect to countries with heavy debt
burdens that are eligible to borrow from the International
Development Association, but not from the International Bank
for Reconstruction and Development, commonly referred to as
``IDA-only'' countries.
(3) Conditions.--The authority provided by paragraph (1)
may be exercised only with respect to a country whose
government--
(A) does not have an excessive level of military
expenditures;
(B) has not repeatedly provided support for acts of
international terrorism;
(C) is not failing to cooperate on international narcotics
control matters; and
(D) (including its military or other security forces) does
not engage in a consistent pattern of gross violations of
internationally recognized human rights.
(4) Availability of Funds.--The authority provided by
paragraph (1) may be used only with regard to funds
appropriated by this Act under the heading ``Debt
Restructuring''.
(5) Certain Prohibitions Inapplicable.--A reduction of debt
pursuant to paragraph (1) shall not be considered assistance
for purposes of any provision of law limiting assistance to a
country.
guarantees
Sec. 562. Section 251(b)(2)(G) of the Balanced Budget and
Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 is amended by striking
``1994'' and inserting in lieu thereof ``1994 and 1995'' in
both places that this appears.
PROHIBITION ON ASSISTANCE TO FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS THAT EXPORT LETHAL
MILITARY EQUIPMENT TO COUNTRIES SUPPORTING INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM
Sec. 563. (a) None of the funds appropriated or otherwise
made available by this Act may be available to any foreign
government which provides lethal military equipment to a
country the government of which the Secretary of State has
determined is a terrorist government for purposes of section
40(d) of the Arms Export Control Act. The prohibition under
this section with respect to a foreign government shall
terminate 12 months after that government ceases to provide
such military equipment. This section applies with respect to
lethal military equipment provided under a contract entered
into after the date of enactment of this Act.
(b) Assistance restricted by subsection (a) or any other
similar provision of law, may be furnished if the President
determines that furnishing such assistance is important to
the national interests of the United States.
(c) Whenever the waiver of subsection (b) is exercised, the
President shall submit to the appropriate congressional
committees a report with respect to the furnishing of such
assistance. Any such report shall include a detailed
explanation of the assistance to be provided, including the
estimated dollar amount of such assistance, and an
explanation of how the assistance furthers United States
national interests.
withholding of assistance for parking fines owed by foreign countries
Sec. 564. (a) In General.--Of the funds made available for
a foreign country under part I of the Foreign Assistance Act
of 1961, an amount equivalent to 110 percent of the total
unpaid fully adjudicated parking fines and penalties owed to
the District of Columbia by such country as of the date of
enactment of this Act shall be withheld from obligation for
such country until the Secretary of State certifies and
reports in writing to the appropriate congressional
committees that such fines and penalties are fully paid to
the government of the District of Columbia.
(b) Definition.--For purposes of this section, the term
``appropriate congressional committees'' means the Committee
on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Appropriations of
the Senate and the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the
Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives.
limitation on assistance for the plo for the west bank and gaza
Sec. 565. None of the funds appropriated by this Act may be
obligated for assistance for the Palestine Liberation
Organization for the West Bank and Gaza unless the President
has exercised the authority under section 583(a) of the
Middle East Peace Facilitation Act of 1994 (part E of title V
of Public Law 103-236) or any other legislation to suspend or
make inapplicable section 307 of the Foreign Assistance Act
of 1961 and that suspension is still in effect: Provided,
That if the President fails to make the certification under
section 583(b)(2) of the Middle East Peace Facilitation Act
or to suspend the prohibition under other legislation, funds
appropriated by this Act may not be obligated for assistance
for the Palestine Liberation Organization for the West Bank
and Gaza unless the President determines that it is in the
national interest to do so and so reports to the Congress.
procurement reduction
Sec. 566. (a) Of the budgetary resources available to the
Agency for International Development during fiscal year 1995,
$1,598,000 are permanently canceled.
(b) The Administrator of the Agency for International
Development shall allocate the amount of budgetary resources
canceled among the Agency's accounts available for
procurement and procurement-related expenses. Amounts
available for procurement and procurement-related expenses in
each such account shall be reduced by the amount allocated to
such account.
(c) For the purposes of this section, the definition of
``procurement'' includes all stages of the process of
acquiring property or services, beginning with the process of
determining a need for a product or services and ending with
contract completion and closeout, as specified in section
403(a)(2) of title 41, United States Code.
implementation of wapenhans report recommendations
Sec. 567. Funds appropriated by title I of this Act under
the headings ``Contribution to the International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development'', ``Contribution to the
International Development Association'', and ``Contribution
to the International Finance Corporation'' shall not be
available for payment to any such institution unless the
Secretary of the Treasury (1) determines that the
recommendations contained in the report entitled Report of
the Portfolio Management Task Force (commonly referred to as
the ``Wapenhans Report'') continue to be implemented, and (2)
reports that determination to the Committee on Appropriations
and the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs of
the House of Representatives and the Committee on
Appropriations and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the
Senate.
restrictions on assistance to russia
Sec. 568. (a) Restriction.--None of the funds appropriated
or otherwise made available by this Act may be obligated for
assistance for the Government of Russia after December 31,
1994, unless it has been made known to the President that all
armed forces of Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent
States have been removed from all Baltic countries or that
the status of those armed forces have been otherwise resolved
by mutual agreement of the parties.
(b) Exemption.--Subsection (a) does not apply to assistance
that involves the provision of student exchange programs,
food, clothing, medicine, or other humanitarian assistance or
to housing assistance for officers of the armed forces of
Russia or the Commonwealth of Independent States who are
removed from the territory of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
(c) Waiver.--Subsection (a) does not apply if after
December 31, 1994, the President determines that the
provision of funds to the Government of Russia is in the
national interest.
This Act may be cited as the ``Foreign Operations, Export
Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1995''.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, no further amendment shall be in
order except those amendments printed in House Report 103-530. The
amendments may be considered in the order printed, may be offered only
by the Member designated in the report, shall be considered as read,
shall not be subject to amendment except as specified in the report,
and shall not be subject to a demand for a division of the question.
Debate time for each amendment shall be equally divided and
controlled by the proponent and an opponent of the amendment.
The Chairman of the Committee of the Whole may postpone until a time
during further consideration in the Committee of the Whole a request
for a recorded vote on any amendment made in order by the resolution.
The Chairman of the Committee of the Whole may reduce to not less
than 5 minutes the time for voting by electronic device on any
postponed question that immediately follows another vote by electronic
device without intervening business, provided that the time for voting
by electronic device on the first in any series of questions shall not
be less than 15 minutes.
It is now in order to consider Amendment No. 1 printed in House
Report 103-530, the amendment to be offered by the gentleman from
Alabama [Mr. Callahan] or the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] or
their designee, debatable for not to exceed 30 minutes.
amendment offered by mr. callahan
Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Callahan: Page 32, line 1, strike
``$900,000,000'' and insert ``$552,000,000''; line 4, before
the period insert ``: Provided further, That none of the
funds appropriated by this paragraph may be made available
for programs in Russia, other than humanitarian assistance
programs''; strike lines 5 through 19; line 20, strike
``(d)'' and insert ``(b)''; page 33, line 16, strike ``(e)''
and insert ``(c)''; page 34, line 1, strike ``(f)'' and
insert ``(d)''; line 4, strike ``(g)'' and insert ``(e)'';
and line 6, strike ``(h)'' and insert ``(f)''.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Callahan] will be
recognized for 15 minutes, and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey]
will be recognized for 15 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Callahan].
(Mr. CALLAHAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment will reduce United States assistance to
Russia. The bill includes $900 million for Russia and the other new
independent states of the former Soviet Union. My amendment cuts $348
million in aid to Russia from the bill. It does not reduce funding for
the other 11 new independent states, and it leaves intact $42 million
in humanitarian aid to Russia.
I appreciate the fine work of the chairman of the committee in
putting this bill together, and I thank him for the courtesies he has
extended to me during this process. While we do not agree on the
subject of aid to Russia, the chairman has been exceptionally
cooperative and fair, and I have the deepest respect for him. I would
also commend the fine work of the capable ranking minority member, the
gentleman from Louisiana.
A year ago when this bill was debated, I offered an amendment to cut
aid to Russia. Having failed, I hoped to find that after a year
Americans' tax dollars were having a meaningful impact on the
development of democracy there. Unfortunately, little, if any, progress
has been made.
This time last year, economic reformists were prominent in the Moscow
Government. Today they are gone. Boris Yeltsin's position seems tenuous
and Vladimir Zhirinovsky's popularity is reason for serious concern.
{time} 1700
I am also troubled by Russia's failure to fully comply with
provisions of the Freedom Support Act and last year's Foreign
Operations Appropriations Act. The most troublesome areas are continued
arms sales to Iran, missile sales to India, and failure to commit to
withdraw troops from Estonia. I am pleased that the chairman addressed
this last issue in the committee report, and I appreciate the continued
condition on aid in the bill. At the very least, we must maintain
restrictions on American generosity, but we must also insist that the
administration not dismiss violations of these conditions which we
imposed.
We must also question the progress of economic reforms in Russia.
Impressive statistics are cited regarding the privatization of
industries in Russia, but many charge that these industries in truth
remain a part of the country's ingrained bureaucratic structure. There
is considerable evidence that organized crime has infiltrated into many
privatized industries and that it is practicing extortion against
virtually every business in Russia. It is difficult to see where the
average citizen here in the United States has benefited by trying to
help to promote democracy and private enterprise. A new large U.S.
companies have done well through contracts under the NIS program.
Regrettably, many more have been squeezed out either by our own red
tape or by prohibitive taxes or other Russian bureaucratic impediments.
Mr. Chairman, it is in our best interest to promote democracy in
Russia. We desire that this former adversary become our ally. However,
we can not fail to strongly insist that Russia adhere to principles
that the American people demand. We can not overlook even minor
indiscretions. Withholding further non-humanitarian aid until Russia is
unambiguously in compliance with United States law is an effective way
to make this impression. I urge my colleagues to support this
amendment, and I urge my colleagues to listen very closely to this
debate.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 7 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in profound disagreement with the Callahan
amendment. Let me first of all explain what it does. Out of the $900
million the administration requested for the former Soviet Union this
year, and keep in mind, $2.5 billion was provided last year so this is
already a major reduction, but out of the $900 million the
administration has requested, 390 million is planned for Russia. The
gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Callahan] proposes to eliminate all of the
aid to Russia except the humanitarian assistance. That is an 89-percent
reduction of the funds planned for Russia.
It would eliminate every dollar of the money which is meant to help
democratize the political system in Russia, and it would eliminate
every dollar which is aimed to help Russians privatize their economy.
I think that amendment is profoundly not in the national interest of
the United States. I respect the motivation of the gentleman from
Alabama [Mr. Callahan]. He has been consistent in his desire to cut aid
to Russia. Last year, he offered his amendment to cut in committee and
on the floor. It failed by a vote of 140 to 289 on the floor. It was a
bipartisan rejection, because there are good bipartisan reasons to
continue this assistance.
The gentleman says that we have seen little progress in the Soviet
Union in the past year. I would simply suggest that after 70 years of
Marxist rule, it is progress when we see mere survival for the
reformers. What do we expect? How rapidly do we expect a country which
has never known democracy to suddenly achieve it? We have to be
realists in this world. To try to focus our attention on reality, let
me give my colleagues some numbers.
Just a few short years ago, we were facing 4,258,000 Soviet military
personnel. Today, there are 2,400,000 Russians in uniform. In 1989,
there were 160,000 troops in the Baltics. Now, there are 10,000. There
were 35,000 troops in Lithuania. Today there are none stationed there.
In Poland, there were 40,000 troops; in Hungary, 65,000 troops; in
Czechoslovakia, 75,000 Russian troops. Today there are none.
I asked the Library of Congress a while back to tell me what it cost
American society in terms of all the dollars we had appropriated since
the beginning of the cold war in order for America to finally win that
cold war. When they gave me the numbers, I was shocked. I took those
numbers and I divided them by the total number of American taxpaying
families to come up with the total cost per family to win the cold war.
Do you know what it was? $80,000 per taxpaying family. That is what it
cost us to win the cold war.
We are now being told that we should not provide this minimal
assistance to the Soviet Union. I would point out that the assistance
that we are providing is less than the cost of one aircraft carrier. I
would also point out that we have saved $234 billion in defense
expenditures that Ronald Reagan was planning to ask us to spend from
fiscal years 1990 to 1995. We did not have to spend those funds because
of the collapse of the Soviet Union. We have saved $234 billion.
Members are complaining about how tight the budget is this year. How
tight do they think it would be if we were spending at the level we
were spending before the Soviet Union collapsed? I would suggest quite
a bit tighter than it is today. It seems to me that we have had every
taxpaying family invest a tremendous amount of their income in order to
win the cold war. Now, what we are simply trying to do is to secure
that victory by assisting the reform elements in Russia and in other
former republics of the Soviet Union to move along bit by bit, inch by
inch, in dragging their societies out of the Marxist era into an era
which, at least, in some ways resembles an open, democratic system with
a private market economic system.
I think we know what the arguments are, and I do not think we need to
belabor them. But, I simply want to leave my colleagues with the
statement of Richard Nixon, whose funeral the Nation experienced just 2
weeks ago. This is what the former President said:
Russia will inevitably be strong again. The only question
is whether a strong Russia will be a friend or an adversary
of the West. We must do everything in our power to ensure the
former rather than the latter. The most dangerous mistake we
could make would be to ignore our differences or attempt to
drown them in champagne and vodka toasts at feel-good
summits. The second most dangerous mistake would be to
neglect our responsibility for assisting Russia in its
transition to freedom or arrogantly to scold or punish it for
every foreign or domestic policy transgression as though it
were an international problem child.
Then President Nixon went on to say this:
No other single factor will have a greater political impact
on the world in this century than whether political and
economic freedom take root and thrive in Russia and the other
former Communist nations. Today's generation of American
leaders will be judged primarily by whether they did
everything possible to bring about this outcome. If they
fail, the cost to their successors will be unimaginably high.
{time} 1710
Nixon then went on to say:
This is the time for the West to become a more active
participant in Russia's success, not a passive observer of
its failure.
Mr. Chairman, we need to do more than provide lectures to the Soviet
Union. We need to provide genuine help. This is a minimal level of
assistance to the reform efforts in the Soviet Union. It is, without
question, in the interest of every American family who wants to avoid
war.
Mr. Chairman, I urge Members to reject the Callahan amendment.
Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon].
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Chairman, it is nice to hear the other side finally
heaping praise on Ronald Reagan for bringing down the Iron Curtain, for
putting an end to communism in Central and Eastern Europe.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this new entitlement program,
because that is exactly what it is turning out to be. Mr. Chairman, it
is high time that we rethink this so-called strategic partnership with
Russia, and cutting this wasteful aid program is the place to start.
Let me outline four general reasons why I think the gentleman from
Alabama is correct in offering this amendment.
First, foreign aid is simply not the answer to the complex problems
of Russia today.
Anybody who has ever been to Moscow knows that.
Mr. Chairman, if and when Russia solves its problems, it will be the
accomplishment of the Russian people, not the United States taxpayer
bailing them out.
Mr. Chairman, nowhere in this bill does it say where our tax dollars
for the former Soviet Union are going. Are the Members not concerned
about that?
So we can only assume it will be the same black hole as last year,
into programs like loans for state-owned industries run by the
Government, those former Communists still running those state-owned
Government agencies that are totally divorced from Russia's real
problems.
Second, Mr. Chairman, there is no economic reform in Russia to
support. The reformers have lost.
Nobody is more disappointed about that than I am, but it is a fact.
Russia is now run by those who have been aptly described as ``red
economic managers.'' In other words, the same old former Communists.
So let's stop pretending that there is still a comprehensive reform
effort in Russia. There is not.
Instead we need to heed the lessons of Poland in the 1970's, when the
West dumped billions of dollars in that unreformed socialist economy,
all to no avail, and it failed miserably.
Third, in the past year, Russian foreign policy has become
increasingly aggressive.
Russia halted troop pullouts from the Baltics in November and
injected new conditions into the negotiating process, totally reneging
on their word and the condition for the loan that we gave them last
year.
Then there is the forgotten country called Moldova, where Russia
maintains 7,000 heavily armed troops. They were supposed to be out of
there a year ago? Why are they not out?
Russia has ensnared Georgia, economically reabsorbed Belarus, and
employed economic warfare against Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
Mr. Chairman, the idea of subsidizing Russia as she reasserts her
imperial weight should be repugnant to this body.
Which brings me to my fourth reason, Mr. Chairman.
And that is the desperate need for this Congress to induce a
reorientation of our current policy in Eurasia.
The administration's policy in that part of the world is dangerously
over-dependent on this so-called partnership with Russia.
And it is a failed policy, wasting hundreds of millions of American
taxpayer dollars.
Meanwhile, we have left Russia's neighbors dangerously exposed.
Mr. Chairman, certain things that ought to be done, like expanding
NATO to the former Warsaw Pact countries cannot be done by this
Congress. That has to be done by an act of the President.
But what Congress can do is turn off the aid spigot to send the
message to Moscow that we don't approve of this return to communism and
a roguish expansionist attitude.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], the ranking Republican on the subcommittee.
(Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I am as much a cold warrior of the old
days as the gentleman that just spoke, but I rise in opposition to this
amendment.
Mr. Chairman, my friend, the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Callahan]
means well, but when he says there is no progress in Russia, my
goodness. Just in the last eight months they have adopted a new
constitution, they have had parliamentary elections, they have a brand
new legislative body which is operating fairly rapidly, perhaps at
least as rapidly as this body.
They have over half the work force in private hands. Inflation is
staying down. Ten percent a month is a lot, but good grief, compared to
other nations around the world they are looking good. They have
established stock markets, and their people are actively trading these
stock holdings.
This amendment would cut precisely the kind of aid that is necessary
to help the Russians privatize their economy and democratize their
government, and get them in a peaceful mode so they dismantle their
missiles, and not destroy the whole world with nuclear holocaust.
To say we do not want to spend $900 million to do this is foolish.
Last year it was $2.5 billion, so the amount is going down; Mr.
Chairman, and it is not an entitlement program. The money is seed for a
burned-out forest in Russia where there is nothing but ashes after 70
years of ruin and mayhem, yet all of a sudden we see entrepreneurs
cropping up. Their little sprouts go up through the ash in Russia,
where entrepreneurial spirit and private enterprise, never existed
before. We have it there now.
If we turn our backs on the improvements that have been made in that
country in the last 3 years, we will be making a drastic mistake. Our
aid is not going to prop up the government in Russia, it is going to
help Russia develop free markets. We provide technical assistance to
the privatization program. It is driving the force for economic reform
in Russia.
Nearly 70 percent of Russian small businesses and 40 percent of
Russian industry is in private hands. Continuing assistance in
privatization is the core of AID's program in Russia.
In the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon]
made the point that our aid will not do anything because Russia does
not have a commercial law system or judicial system to protect United
States businesses or Russian businesses. He is right, but that is why
United States aid is working for legal reform in commercial law and for
changes in the Russian tax structure.
Of the $900 million in this total bill, $575 million is going to
market economy activities, primarily privatization activities.
Mr. Chairman, I might add that this amendment stops us in our tracks.
The cold war ended 3 years ago. We cannot expect miracles since then. I
tell the Members, if this amendment passes, we will not get one. What
we will be doing is rolling the dice, and they can come up snake eyes,
in which case we will be risking cataclysm. The cold war could start
all over, and the Iron Curtain, the risk of a very hot war, and
everything that the gentleman that just spoke has railed against for
the last 30 years could be upon us with far worse implications.
This is a bad amendment.
Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to my colleague, the
gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Kyl].
(Mr. KYL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. KYL. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of Callahan amendment.
I wish it were as simple as the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr.
Livingston] and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] said. The fact
is, American dollars will not a democracy make, as much as we would
wish it so. In fact, if it were so, I would happily support it.
Sending more aid to Russia is not only a waste of American taxpayer
dollars, but actually undermines in part the democratic reform process
that we all share as a strategic goal.
First on the issue of waste, it is not just my conclusion Mr.
Chairman, that United States taxpayer dollars are being wasted in
Russia. This is also the conclusion of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee.
According to a congressional report issued by the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee Chairman Claiborne Pell 2 months ago, ``There are
major problems in the management of the Russian assistance program,''
exactly what we are talking about right now.
The report, for example, concludes, and again I am quoting, that:
It does not appear that the average citizen, let alone the
vast majority of citizens who live thousands of miles away
from these urban areas, is even aware of or affected by
international assistance or the reform that it is supposed to
foster.
What is even more disturbing, however, is that the report concludes
that ``because the American foreign aid program in Russia is so large,
there is a substantial problem of corruption, favoritism, and abuse,''
so there are some very serious problems with the existing foreign aid
program we have already set up.
Second, Members need to be aware that the Russian Government is
actually taxing a substantial portion of the aid which we have
earmarked for Russia. According to a May 1994, New York Times article,
the Russian Government has discovered a way to convert Eximbank loans
into direct grants for their own government bureaucracy. All Eximbank
loans for the United States Government slated for the Russian energy
sector are being taxed by Russia's central government at a rate of 20
percent off the top.
{time} 1720
Mr. Chairman, while you and I may think we voted for a lending
program to support United States exports, the Russians are using these
loans to fill their own coffers for purposes completely unrelated to
the loans. In addition to the 20 percent off the top, there is an
additional 3 percent tax assessed on the value of U.S. equipment being
supplied. Needless to say, U.S. Exim Bank officials are quite upset
with this development because it would potentially undermine their
entire lending program.
I think, Mr. Chairman, that we need to send Russia a very clear and
unequivocal message here today. Let us place a hold on further United
States aid to Russia till this skimming scheme has been stopped in its
tracks.
Finally, we cannot continue to appropriate hundreds of millions of
more dollars in all good conscience in a pipeline that is already
overloaded. Since 1991, the United States has pledged $17.3 billion in
grants and credit guarantees to Russia. We have no good numbers on
exactly how much of that total has actually gone to Russia. However,
according to congressional research, of the $2.2 billion appropriated
in the 1993 supplemental, only $200 million has been obligated.
Mr. Chairman, finally since last year, we have unfortunately seen a
fundamental shift in the direction of reform. Almost all of the reform-
minded officials have left President Yeltsin's cabinet. On April 8 this
year, Yeltin's chief spokesman told reporters that Russia's romantic
embrace with the West is over. Instead, and I am quoting, he said:
Russia increasingly sees itself as a great power which has
its own strategic military and political interests different
from those of the United States and Europe. It has started
saying this loudly.
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksander Pano warned on March 29
that Russia would assist North Korea in the event of ``unprovoked
aggression.''
On April 5, President Boris Yeltsin issued a directive endorsing a
Defense Ministry proposal to allow Moscow to establish military bases
``on the territory of CIS and Latvia to ensure the security of the
Russian Federation and the above named nations, as well as to test new
weapons and military machinery.''
Russia is blatantly violating several solemn international treaty
obligations. According to NATO and U.S. officials, for example, Moscow
has redeployed its troops withdrawn from Central Europe to the St.
Petersburg and Caucasus regions exceeding the 1995 troop levels set by
the CFE Treaty.
And, according the Washington Post and London Times, United States
and British officials have also concluded that ``there is still an
offensive biological weapons program underway'' in Russia in violation
of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.
That things are not going in the right direction for Russia is not
just the opinion of this Member of Congress. In the current issue of
Foreign Affairs, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski writes: ``Regrettably, the
imperialist impulse [in Russia] remains strong and even appear to be
strengthening.''
My friend from Louisiana points to the strides in privatization that
have occurred as evidence that reform is on track. Ten percent--but a
start. Fine, but did U.S. aid have anything to do with that? And,
second, we are getting more and more reports that even here, the
privatization process has been corrupted by Russian organized crime.
Last month on April 20, CIA Director Jim Woolsey had this to say to the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
According to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs,
there are roughly 5,700 organized crime groups in Russia,
with an additional 1,000 in the former Soviet republics.
``A recent report prepared by President Yeltsin's staff
concluded that 70 to 80 percent of privatized enterprises and
commercial banks have been victims of extortion [by organized
crime].''
``Criminal groups are also targeting the financial sector
where economic reforms have led to explosions in the number
of banks, in the complexity of their transactions, and in the
geographic scope of their activities . . . [T]hese banks have
become a particular target for money-laundering schemes.
Indeed, links have been forged between Russian and Italian
organized crime groups to move money through the Russian
banking system. In addition to taking advantage of these
banks, organized crime groups have set up front companies
throughout eastern Europe and Russia.''
The power of Russian organized crime is largely due to
their ties to corrupt government officials. Criminal groups
may be spending as much as 30 to 50 percent of their profits
trying to buy off well-connected government officials
including Customs, militia, and police officials.
summary
In sum, this is not the time to be sending more foreign aid to
Russia. We have already appropriated more than the system can bear and
the results have been disappointing. I am not convinced that one more
dollar, much less hundreds of millions, will be well-spent in our
campaign to reform the former Soviet Union. I recommend supporting the
Callahan amendment.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Indiana [Mr. Hamilton] the distinguished chairman of the Committee on
Foreign Affairs.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the
time.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the Callahan/Solomon
amendment to cut U.S. assistance to the New Independent States of the
Former Soviet Union by nearly 50 percent and to prohibit U.S. aid to
Russia for anything but humanitarian purposes.
This is a dangerous and ill-advised initiative.
Let me address three issues.
I. U.S. Interests in Russia
First, U.S. assistance to Russia continues to be in the U.S. national
interest.
Russia is in the process of a massive political and economic
transformation. The outcome of this process will have a direct impact
on the security of the United States.
The success of reform in Russia would mean: a reduced nuclear threat;
reduced U.S. defense spending; a more stable Europe and peaceful world;
and, lucrative access to Russia's vast natural resources and huge
market.
U.S. support for this reform process is making an important
contribution. Pulling out now would aid those such as Zhirinovsky and
other extremists who want to see Russia return to the old system and
the old way of doing business. This would be a disaster not only for
Russia and its neighbors, but for U.S. and Western interests.
President Yeltsin and Prime Minister Chernomyrdin have stayed the
course of reform in Russia. To cut off aid at this time would send
precisely the wrong signal to all parties: it would undermine President
Yeltsin, Prime Minister Chernomyrdin and the reformers who support
them; it would embolden nationalists and extremists in Russia who argue
that Russia cannot maintain constructive relations with the United
States; and, it would harm United States-Russian relations.
ii. the progress of the reform process
Second, while there is much still to be done, Russia has made
important and, in some areas, impressive progress. Gains are being made
in nearly every area, and U.S. support is helping to make a difference.
In the area of economic reform: The central elements of Soviet
socialism--central planning and central distribution of industrial
material--has ended; ninety percent of all prices have been freed from
government control; over 70,000 small businesses have been privatized,
together with 10,000 medium and large enterprises; more than 50 percent
of the GNP of Russia is now derived from private, not government,
sources; with our help, the Russian banking system is being transformed
to operate in, and support, a market economy.
In the area of political reform: The Russian people have been to the
polls no less than three times since April 1991. Russia now has a
freely elected Constitution, Parliament and President.
The long term process of building national political parties is
underway.
In stark contrast to the dark days of the past, the Russian people
now enjoy a relatively free media.
U.S. assistance is critical in changing Russian laws, regulations and
policies and building the institutions necessary for a democratic and
market society.
We can have no illusions. This will be the long and difficult
transformation. There will be fits and starts in the reform process.
The important thing is that Russia continues to move in the right
direction--the direction of true political and economic reform. The
U.S. should continue to provide assistance to Russia so long as these
reforms continue.
iii. implications for u.s.-russia relations
Third, termination of all but humanitarian aid to Russia will
undermine U.S.-Russian relations at a time when this relationship has
been evolving in a positive direction: Russian troops will be out of
Germany, Latvia and Estonia by August 31st; in Bosnia, Nagorno-Karabakh
and elsewhere, we are trying to work together to find solutions to
difficult regional conflicts; Russia has just indicated its willingness
to join the Partnership for Peace. This is a significant step toward
closer cooperation between NATO and Russia on European security issues;
there has been important bilateral progress with Russia on de-
nuclearization, notably the January Tri-Partite Agreement between
Russia, Ukraine and the U.S.; Russian cooperation will be critical in
support of U.S. non-proliferation objectives in Asia and the Middle
East in particular; finally, continued Russian cooperation with U.S.
efforts to promote a comprehensive peace in the Middle East is crucial
to further progress in this important area.
iv. conclusion
I appreciate that there may come a time when assistance to Russia no
longer serves U.S. interests--if reform goes backward, and if Russia
pursues Soviet-style foreign, domestic and economic policies. But we
are not at that point.
There is no sound reason to take the drastic step recommended in this
amendment at this time. I continue to believe that the risk of
assistance to Russia is still a risk worth taking.
Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how much time we have
remaining?
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) has 5\1/2\
minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has 2
minutes remaining.
Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Burton, who is incidentally a member of the
Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for
yielding me the time.
Get this: $16.3 billion has been authorized and appropriated for the
former Soviet Union. That is $16,300,000,000 since 1992 and 1993; $2.3
billion last year. $900 million this year.
The gentleman from Wisconsin said, ``Well, it was $2.5 billion last
year, we're going in the right direction, we reduced it to $900
million, and this is absolutely essential if we're going to have
democracy and free enterprise in Russia.''
Mr. Chairman, we do not create free enterprise by giving people
money. We create free enterprise by encouraging business and industry
to go over there and teach them how free enterprise works, to create
jobs through industrial growth.
Mr. Chairman, we had an opportunity to do that last year. One of the
most mineral-rich countries in the world is Russia and the former
Soviet Union. They have every kind of mineral one can think of, that we
have to have to survive as a Nation. In fact, 11 minerals that we have
to have to survive as a Nation come from only two parts of the world,
the southern part of Africa and Russia.
We should have cut a business deal with them to buy things, to send
industry over there to create jobs and to mine these products, these
minerals, so that they will have ongoing economic growth and we will
get something for our taxpayers' dollars, we will get something in
return. Instead, we are pouring money down a rat hole and what has not
been mentioned here is much of this money, it is believed, is going
into Swiss bank accounts. Corrupt politicians in the Soviet Union are
shoveling that money into these bank accounts for their own use down
the road.
Mr. Chairman, all parts of the world face this kind of problem. Last
night on television, there was an expose on Zaire and President Mobutu.
He has taken millions of American taxpayers' dollars, bought 15 houses
around the world, actually castles around the world, and we paid for
it.
I submit to Members that much of the money we are sending to the
Soviet Union is going for the same purpose, for corrupt politicians'
use down the road. If we really want to solve the problems of the
Soviet Union and create free enterprise and long-term democratic
growth, then what we should do is cut a business deal with them and buy
minerals and send American industry over there to develop jobs and
economic growth.
Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from Ohio, Mr. Traficant.
Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Chairman, I am going to vote for the Callahan
amendment. I think the gentleman from Wisconsin, Chairman Obey, does
about as good a job as anyone in the House, no offense. But let me see
if I have figured this out.
We give money to Russia. Russia takes the money and they bribe
Aldrich Ames. Aldrich Ames, the CIA agent, gives top-level secrets to
Russia. We finance CIA treason, buying of our top military secrets with
my constituents' hard-earned tax dollars and yours.
Mr. Chairman, that is why I am going to vote for Callahan. I think
enough is enough. We are trying to help democracy. It looks to me what
we are trying to help democracy in Russia, Russia is trying to screw up
some democracy in America. Beam me up. It does not add up, folks.
I say yes to Callahan. You keep your bribe money, make it Russian
bribe money, and the tax dollars in America will stay in America, build
some roads and bridges and help perhaps with some schools for our kids.
Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, first of all I could not agree more with the points
that all of the opponents of this measure came forth with. Yes, Russia
does need help, but my colleagues are missing the point. The point is,
can we afford to give Russia this money? Can we not afford to reduce
our deficit by $348 million?
Mr. Chairman, I have two kids at Auburn University, a great
university. If they came home to me and said, ``Dad, I need a new
Mercedes,'' I am sure they could give 50 reasons why I ought to buy
them a Mercedes, but there is one good reason, Mr. Chairman, why I
cannot: Because I do not have the money.
They would say, ``Dad, you can borrow the money'' such as we would
have to do here. Maybe I would borrow the money, but if I did, I would
put restrictions on that and say if you did not make passing grades I
was going to take the car away; if you got caught speeding, I was going
to take the car away.
The Chairman said we must be realistic. Let me tell Members what
realistic is, it is recognizing that we are going to have to go to
Japan and borrow this money to give it to Russia. Yes, it will help
Russia; yes, Russia needs help; yes, we are going to leave $42 million
in humanitarian aid to help Russia. But we ought not go to Japan or
France or any other nation and borrow another $348 million when we
cannot afford it.
{time} 1730
That is the issue. The issue is not whether or not Russia wants it.
The issue is not whether or not Russia can use it. The issue is whether
or not we can better use it in this country.
I urge you to support the Callahan amendment.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I do not know quite where to start in correcting the
misstatements that have been made on the floor, but let me simply
correct one of them in the limited time.
One of the speakers suggested that Exim loans are going to be taxed
by the Soviet Government. The Eximbank heard that statement on
television and just called me and assured me that most definitely was
not the case. The gentleman quoted the article correctly. The fact is
that article is wrong.
In response to the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Callahan], who is
concerned about the money we have to borrow, let me ask this: How much
money are we going to have to borrow if Mr. Zhirinovsky and his friends
win the power struggle in the Soviet Union and we have to start
spending $30 billion, $40 billion, $50 billion or more a year in our
defense budget? The answer is we will have to borrow all of it. That is
the answer.
This reminds me of World War I. After World War I, Germany was in a
state of collapse. The Weimar Republic was in a state of economic
turmoil. The West sat idly by. A fellow by the name of Hitler came to
power. The result? ``Only'' 50 million people died worldwide. ``Only''
about 500,000 Americans died, because we let a critical situation get
out of hand.
I would suggest to you there is a lot about the Soviet aid program
that I do not like. But, the fact is most of this money, by far the
largest amount of it, is not even seen by the Russian Government. It
goes through private voluntary organizations. It goes to American
business groups and volunteer organizations that provide precisely the
kind of advice on democratization and privatization which the gentleman
says he wants.
I would suggest to you that if we do not do everything within our
power to assist the reformers in the Soviet Union, our children will
never forgive us.
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered
my colleague the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon]. His amendment
is essential to our continued cooperative counternarcotics efforts in
Colombia and Bolivia. I commend him for his leadership on the question
of support for our international counternarcotics programs.
Both Colombia and Bolivia have shown courage in the struggle against
the scourge of illicit drugs. The traffickers have responded with
assassinations and bribery. We cannot appear to cut off Colombia and
Bolivia; it is not in our interest to surrender the Andes to the
traffickers.
My concern with the section as it stands before us is that it
requires the Secretary of State to prove a negative. We ought not to
tie the Administration's hands in providing military assistance to
these key nations. Most of this aid goes to Colombian and Bolivian law
enforcement elements to battle the illegal drug trade. Mr. Solomon's
amendment helps continue this struggle.
Lest we forget, the Colombians, with U.S. assistance, broke up the
violent Medellin cartel and have taken steps against the Cali cartel.
This same courageous nation with our assistance helped to bring Pablo
Escobar, a notorious trafficker and murderer to his final end. Bolivia
has made gains against the traffickers, as well. I urge the adoption of
Mr. Solomon's amendment as a symbol of our continued engagement in the
war against the illegal drug trade.
The CHAIRMAN. All time has expired.
The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from
Alabama [Mr. Callahan]
The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
recorded vote
Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 144,
noes 286, not voting 8, as follows:
[Roll No. 205]
AYES--144
Allard
Andrews (NJ)
Applegate
Archer
Armey
Bachus (AL)
Baker (CA)
Baker (LA)
Ballenger
Barcia
Barrett (NE)
Barton
Bilirakis
Blute
Bonilla
Brewster
Bunning
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Camp
Canady
Chapman
Coble
Collins (GA)
Combest
Condit
Costello
Cox
Crane
Crapo
Cunningham
Danner
DeFazio
DeLay
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Doolittle
Dornan
Duncan
Everett
Ewing
Fawell
Fields (LA)
Fields (TX)
Fowler
Franks (CT)
Gallegly
Gekas
Geren
Gillmor
Goodlatte
Goodling
Goss
Grams
Hall (TX)
Hancock
Hansen
Hastert
Hayes
Hefley
Hefner
Herger
Hobson
Hoekstra
Hoke
Huffington
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hutto
Hyde
Inglis
Inhofe
Inslee
Jacobs
Johnson, Sam
Kaptur
Kasich
Kim
Kingston
Klink
Klug
Kyl
Laughlin
Lehman
Lewis (FL)
Lucas
Machtley
Manzullo
McCandless
McHugh
McInnis
McKeon
Mfume
Miller (FL)
Molinari
Moorhead
Myers
Nussle
Packard
Paxon
Peterson (MN)
Pombo
Portman
Poshard
Pryce (OH)
Quillen
Quinn
Rahall
Ramstad
Ravenel
Regula
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roth
Roukema
Royce
Sanders
Santorum
Sarpalius
Schaefer
Sensenbrenner
Shuster
Smith (OR)
Smith (TX)
Snowe
Solomon
Spence
Stearns
Stenholm
Stump
Sundquist
Tauzin
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Thomas (WY)
Thurman
Traficant
Valentine
Vucanovich
Walker
Young (FL)
Zimmer
NOES--286
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Andrews (ME)
Andrews (TX)
Bacchus (FL)
Baesler
Barca
Barlow
Barrett (WI)
Bartlett
Bateman
Becerra
Beilenson
Bentley
Bereuter
Berman
Bevill
Bilbray
Bishop
Bliley
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonior
Borski
Boucher
Brooks
Browder
Brown (CA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Bryant
Byrne
Calvert
Cantwell
Cardin
Carr
Castle
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clinger
Clyburn
Coleman
Collins (IL)
Collins (MI)
Conyers
Cooper
Coppersmith
Coyne
Cramer
Darden
de la Garza
de Lugo (VI)
Deal
DeLauro
Dellums
Derrick
Deutsch
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Dooley
Dreier
Dunn
Durbin
Edwards (CA)
Edwards (TX)
Ehlers
Emerson
Engel
English
Eshoo
Evans
Farr
Fazio
Filner
Fingerhut
Fish
Flake
Foglietta
Ford (MI)
Ford (TN)
Frank (MA)
Franks (NJ)
Frost
Furse
Gallo
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gilman
Gingrich
Glickman
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green
Greenwood
Gunderson
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Hamburg
Hamilton
Harman
Hastings
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hoagland
Hochbrueckner
Holden
Houghton
Hoyer
Hughes
Istook
Jefferson
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (SD)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnston
Kanjorski
Kennedy
Kennelly
Kildee
King
Kleczka
Klein
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kopetski
Kreidler
LaFalce
Lambert
Lancaster
Lantos
LaRocco
Lazio
Leach
Levin
Levy
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Lightfoot
Linder
Lipinski
Livingston
Lloyd
Long
Lowey
Maloney
Mann
Manton
Margolies-Mezvinsky
Markey
Martinez
Matsui
Mazzoli
McCloskey
McCollum
McCrery
McCurdy
McDade
McDermott
McHale
McKinney
McMillan
McNulty
Meehan
Meek
Menendez
Meyers
Mica
Michel
Miller (CA)
Mineta
Minge
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Montgomery
Moran
Morella
Murphy
Murtha
Nadler
Neal (MA)
Neal (NC)
Norton (DC)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Orton
Owens
Oxley
Pallone
Parker
Pastor
Payne (NJ)
Payne (VA)
Pelosi
Penny
Peterson (FL)
Petri
Pickett
Pickle
Pomeroy
Porter
Price (NC)
Rangel
Reed
Reynolds
Richardson
Ridge
Roberts
Roemer
Romero-Barcelo (PR)
Rose
Rostenkowski
Rowland
Roybal-Allard
Rush
Sabo
Sangmeister
Sawyer
Saxton
Schenk
Schiff
Schroeder
Schumer
Scott
Serrano
Sharp
Shaw
Shays
Shepherd
Sisisky
Skaggs
Skeen
Skelton
Slattery
Slaughter
Smith (IA)
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Spratt
Stark
Stokes
Strickland
Studds
Stupak
Swett
Swift
Synar
Talent
Tanner
Tejeda
Thomas (CA)
Thompson
Thornton
Torkildsen
Torres
Towns
Underwood (GU)
Unsoeld
Upton
Velazquez
Vento
Visclosky
Volkmer
Walsh
Waters
Watt
Waxman
Weldon
Wheat
Whitten
Williams
Wilson
Wise
Wolf
Woolsey
Wyden
Wynn
Yates
Zeliff
NOT VOTING--8
Blackwell
Faleomavaega (AS)
Grandy
Horn
Torricelli
Tucker
Washington
Young (AK)
{time} 1757
Miss COLLINS of Michigan, Ms. CANTWELL, and Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland
changed their votes from ``aye'' to ``no.''
Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas and Mr. EWING changed their vote from ``no''
to ``aye.''
So the amendment was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The CHAIRMAN. It is now in order to consider Amendment No. 2 printed
in House Report 103-350, the amendment to be offered by the gentleman
from Ohio [Mr. Kasich], or his designee, debatable for not to exceed 10
minutes.
amendment offered by mr. kasich
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Kasich: Page 103, after line 14,
insert the following new section:
ADDITIONAL LIMITATION ON FUNDS TO ENSURE IMPLEMENTATION OF
WAPENHANS REPORT RECOMMENDATIONS
Sec. 569. (a) Limitation on Amounts Available Before April
1, 1995.--If amounts appropriated by title I become available
pursuant to section 567--
(1) not more than $30,000,000 shall be available for
obligation before April 1, 1995, for ``Contribution to the
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development'' for
payment for contribution to the Global Environment Facility;
(2) not more than $1,024,332,000 shall be available for
obligation before April 1, 1995, for ``Contribution to the
International Development Association''; and
(3) not more than $35,761,500 shall be available for
obligation before April 1, 1995, for ``Contribution to the
International Finance Corporation''.
(b) Requirements for Availability of Additional Amounts.--
No amount in excess of any sum specified in subsection (a)
with respect to an account or activity shall become available
on or after April 1, 1995, unless the Secretary of the
Treasury--
(1) determines that the recommendations contained in the
report entitled Report of the Portfolio Management Task Force
(commonly referred to as the ``Wapenhans Report'') continue
to be implemented as of such date;
(2) reports such determination to the Committee on
Appropriations and the Committee on Banking, Finance and
Urban Affairs of the House of Representatives and the
Committee on Appropriations and the Committee on Foreign
Relations of the Senate; and
(3) complies with the regular notification procedures of
the Committees on Appropriations.
1800
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Kasich, is recognized for
5 minutes. The gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] will be recognized
for five minutes.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio
[Mr. Kasich].
The CHAIRMAN. the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] is recognized for
6 minutes.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I come to the floor today with some good
news and some real accomplishment for people who have been concerned
about having their tax dollars used efficiently and effectively,
especially in the area of foreign aid.
You might remember that for about the three or four years, I have
been, along with our former colleague John Miller, offering a number of
amendments, a series of reforms, designed to clean up the operation of
the World Bank.
Last year we fought the recapitalization or the increased
capitalization of the World Bank, and we came within a very few votes
of being able to win that fight. And I believe as a result of
consistent efforts and constant pressure being applied to the World
Bank institutions, we were able to actually achieve the level of reform
we wanted to get.
You might remember that last year I was able to report that a task
force that the president of the World Bank had appointed, in
collaboration with the General Accounting Office, determined that the
operation of the World Bank had poor project design, inadequate
management, poor implementation, a culture that rewarded new loans and
not effective management of existing programs, basically that the World
Bank was broke, that the system of managing the operation of the World
Bank was not working, and so, therefore, I came to the House floor with
an amendment to eliminate all this increased funding for the World
Bank.
Now, in a nutshell, the World Bank, along with these other
multinational banking institutions, their purpose is essentially to
provide economic growth for poor nations in this world. And I want to
say to my colleagues that we honestly cannot prove, there is no
institution in our government and no formula anywhere else that exists
that I know on the face of the earth that can show us that the efforts
that these international lending institutions have made to try to
rescue people from poverty are yielding any real success.
Today I called General Boucher of the GAO and I said, the GAO has
done fine work in terms of monitoring the operation of the World Bank,
and a lot of the international financial aid institutions. But we need
to develop a way to measure whether the money we are sending really is
making a difference.
Now, what we recommended last year to try to develop some reasonable
reforms in the operation of the World Bank, we cited a number of
things: Declining loan performance. In other words, the loans that were
going out, the projects that were being built, they simply were not
meeting the mark. They were not meeting the standards, the internal
standards, that the World Bank set for itself. And what we argued for
was to create an independent IG to review all loans. And what we got in
the new policy being advocated by the House and by the Secretary of the
Treasury, who has assured me they are going to have speedy and
effective implementation of these programs, is the creation of an
independent inspection panel.
So last year we said that we wanted to create an independent IG. The
new policy will create an independent inspection panel to make sure
that the loans that we make meet their own internal standards and in
fact will contribute to the elimination of poverty and the development
of economies in the countries that we make loans to.
We said there was a problem of secrecy. In many countries around the
world, these projects get presented to people and for example, in the
country of India, in regard to a major dam project, we have displaced
more independent Indians who live in the area of the dam project. The
Indian people knew nothing about this. It has created tremendous chaos,
environmental problems. The Friends of the Earth, they are as concerned
about this as I have been.
So what we argued is that whenever any of these projects are to
begin, we ought to coordinate them with outside groups and have project
disclosure.
What do we have in this reform proposal being adopted today? The
establishment of a public information center. It expands technical and
environmental assessments so we can make sure, believe it or not, that
the monies going to the projects, the people it is going to affect, are
informed, and that it makes rational sense.
We also argued last year that the administrative costs of the World
Bank were out of control, rising at an annual rate of 12 to 15 percent.
We suggested we severely limit the growth of the World Bank
administrative costs. Where are we this year? The prescribed goal for
the reforms, no real growth in administrative costs between 1995 and
1997. Pretty darn good.
Then we argued about the extensive first class travel, a bunch of
international bureaucrats flying all over the world and living high on
the hog. In a nutshell, what we did was say no more first class travel,
recommended economy class, and that is precisely what we are going to
get in these reforms.
Let me say in a nutshell, we are not just trusting them. We have
constructed fences that say no money will flow to the World Bank until
the Secretary of the Treasury certifies that these reforms are in
place.
Then this amendment that I am currently offering fences additional
money, which means that next April, halfway through the fiscal year,
the Secretary of the Treasury must come back one more time and certify
to the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs and the
Committee on Appropriations that we in fact are having these reforms
carried out by this international institution.
Let me say that the GAO review of the World Bank says the World Bank
reforms are underway, but it is too early to determine their impact.
The bottom line is, if these reforms are enacted, along with continued
efforts to try to measure a standard in terms of progress in the poor
nations of the world and whether these reforms are working, we have
made great progress for the taxpayers of this country.
I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], and his
staff for working with us. I know the gentleman had the same attitude
about cleaning up the problem at the World Bank. I think we are making
some great strides and we are doing it together. I appreciate the
gentleman for his time.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, let me simply say that I support the Kasich amendment.
I think the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] does as well.
Let me simply say, I think we need to recognize that an awful lot of
people have been involved in the reform of these institutions. I would
say, frankly, that the process began with the Bush Administration in
1991 and 1992, when they dealt with IDA negotiations and pushed for
reforms during those negotiations. We also had the Wapenhans report
which was, I think we should remember, asked for by Mr. Preston, the
bank president himself. And, we have had a variety of actions taken by
the Congress dealing not only with the World Bank and IDA, but with the
European Development Bank, which we discussed earlier today.
I would simply say that I think the Kasich amendment is a
constructive amendment. It continues pressure on the bank to implement
reforms, without putting the U.S. further in arrears. That, in my view,
is the way to do it. I think we have had bipartisan pressure on the
institutions for a number of years to try to reform the way they do
business, and accompanied with some chain pulling along the way, I
think we have largely been successful so far.
Mr. Chairman, with that, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston].
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
I just want to add that I appreciate and support the gentleman's
amendment. It enlarges upon an amendment we introduced before the full
committee which originally asked the responsible institutions to review
the Wapenhans criteria by October 1st of this current year. The
amendment of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] provides for an
ongoing review of compliance with that criteria. I think it is well put
and I support it vigorously.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter].
(Mr. BEREUTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Chairman, as the ranking member of the authorizing
subcommittee, I want to commend the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich]
for his work. He has been persistent in this effort.
As the chairman said, many other people are involved in the past two
administrations, but this gentleman has worked diligently at this
effort, and I want to commend the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich].
The Wapenhans report does not directly relate to the ICC entirely,
but I think it is highly appropriate to condition it on progress.
Certainly it relates to IDA. I commend the chairman and the ranking
member of the committee, too, for working with Treasury and the
authorizing committee in this effort, but especially the gentleman from
Ohio [Mr. Kasich].
Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Chairman, this Member believes that it is important
that the World Bank continue to implement various management and other
reforms to improve the quality of projects of the World Bank as the
Kasich amendment proposes. A process of reform has been adopted by the
World Bank executive board and is being implemented by the management
as a result of the so-called ``Wapenhans'' internal quality assessment
report commissioned by the World Bank President in 1992. The parts of
the World Bank addressed by the Wapenhans evaluation included the
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the
International Development Association [IDA]. The Kasich amendment
appropriately limits the U.S. contribution to IDA to last year's level
until the Secretary of the Treasury certifies that these reforms are
continuing to be implemented. The amendment makes a similar limitation
on contributions to two other institutions which were not specifically
addressed by the Wapenhans report and indeed, in the case of the Global
Environment Facility, are now independent of the World Bank as a result
of the recently-completed negotiation. This Member votes that the
amendment covers the IFC and GEF, two institutions which are not
directly the subject of the Wapenhans assessment. Nevertheless, this
Member urges support of the Kasich amendment.
{time} 1810
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that I think it is
essential for us to keep the pressure on these institutions to live in
the real world. I also think it is essential that we continue
congressional support for these institutions, because they are the main
method by which we leverage American tax dollars and bring other
countries in the world into the process so that we do not get stuck
with the lion's share of the tab for assisting the Third World with its
development problems.
I appreciate the cooperative attitude of the gentleman from Ohio, and
I urge support of the amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich].
The amendment was agreed to.
The CHAIRMAN. It is now in order to consider Amendment No. 3, printed
in House Report 103-530, the amendment to be offered by the gentleman
from Texas [Mr. DeLay] or his designee, debatable for not to exceed 10
minutes.
parliamentary inquiry
Mr. DeLay. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
Mr. CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state it.
Mr. DeLay. Mr. Chairman, I thought the procedure was going to be that
we would offer my amendment, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey]
would offer an amendment to my amendment, and then we would split 10
minutes apiece.
The CHAIRMAN. That is the Chair's understanding, once the amendments
are offered.
amendment offered by mr. delay
Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. DeLay: Page 18, line 21 strike
``$98,800,000'' and insert ``$30,000,000''.
amendment offered by mr. obey to the amendment offered by mr. delay
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment to the
amendment.
The text of the amendment to the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Obey to the amendment offered by
Mr. DeLay: Strike the number ``$30,000,000'' where it appears
in the amendment and insert in place thereof ``$88,800,000''.
The CHAIRMAN. The Chair will divide the time between the two Members.
Each Member will be recognized for 10 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay].
Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I thank the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from
Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] for his cooperation in this effort.
Mr. Chairman, my amendment is quite simple. It would bring the
funding level for the Global Environment Facility, a program controlled
by the World Bank, down to the level of $30 million. The suggested
funding in the foreign operations bill is $98.8 million or an
unsupportable $68.8 million increase.
Run by the World Bank, the GEF has received about $1 billion since
its inception in 1991 as a pilot project and its performance to date
has been nothing short of dismal.
Complaints have abounded--not only from countries that have
contributed to the GEF but even from environmental groups regarding the
GEF's activities. These complaints prompted a internal evaluation
completed last year which produced a scathing review of its
performance. I would like to summarize some of those findings:
The report concludes that the GEF lacks a coordinated strategy to
carry out global environmental protection programs and pays
insufficient attention to project quality. The GEF's operations are
dysfunctional and its accountability ill-defined.
According to the report, the premise of the GEF's mandate--putting
emphasis on global environmental problems over local problems--is a
serious weakness. The World Bank's ongoing projects are evicting
roughly 2 million of the world's poor from their homes and lands. The
GEF claims it is reforming these abuses by involving local citizens in
the decisionmaking process. The GEF report called that claim a ``biased
exaggeration, if not falsification.'' Over half of the GEF's projects
to date have in fact led to conflicts over forced resettlement of
displaced local people.
According to the Environmental Defense Fund, ``80 percent of GEF
investment projects re components of much larger World Bank loans,
which are often at odds with global environmental goals.'' The report
concludes that the World Bank controls the lion's share of the GEF's
resources to make its regular projects look greener and to ``mitigate
criticism alleging World Bank insensitivity to environmental
concerns.''
I could go on and on.
I'm pleased to say that until recently, no taxpayer dollars had
actually been spent on this program. In the fiscal year 1993 Foreign
Operations bill, $30 million was appropriated but never released to
GEF. It was instead passed on to AID. Just this past Friday, however,
the $30 million approved in the fiscal year 1994 bill was released to
GEF by the administration.
Despite the objections of some environmental groups, the
Administration believes that GEF has progressed in making some reforms
and where they haven't yet developed reforms they are in the process of
developing them. Considering the well-documented failure of this
organization, it should go without saying that we should not put
taxpayer dollars at risk until we are absolutely certain that whatever
reforms are necessary have been completely implemented and have been
demonstrated to be successful. It seems that this administration
decision to release the GEF funds is just an effort to appear green.
According to the Environmental Defense Fund, the restricting process
has been very superficial. In commenting on the GEF report, the
Environmental Defense Fund states:
The report is right on target because it recommends that no
further money be allocated to GEF projects before key reforms
are, [and I emphasize] in place.
Promises are not enough.
Probe International in Canada, a group that has monitored the GEF for
3 years, states:
For the industrialized countries to renew their funding to
GEF given its disgraceful track record and the absence of a
worthy mandate or an accountable structure would be the
height of irresponsibility.
Despite such obvious reasons to be extremely careful with whatever
funding we give to the GEF, the administration pledged in March to send
a total of $430 million to the GEF over 4 years based on a meeting in
Geneva regarding the GEF's restructuring. According to the
Environmental Defense Fund, however, ``The GEF restructuring did not
deal with issues that are critical to ensure that the permanent GEF is
a transparent and accountable entity [and] decisions on fundamental
questions, which should have become an integral part of the founding
document of the permanent GEF, have simply been postponed.''
Mr. Chairman, this program is not authorized and as far as I am
aware, only one hearing has been held in the House regarding this
program. To reward the GEF's incompetence by more than tripling the
U.S. contribution is an outrageous abuse of the taxpayers' dollars.
Frankly, I'm not convinced that we should continue to approve any
appropriation level.
If we're not going to eliminate the U.S. contribution to GEF
completely, then at the very least we should hold the GEF appropriation
to last year's level. I would urge my colleagues to approve this
amendment.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. DeLAY. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to compliment the gentleman
on his amendment. What some of the environmentalists call this whole
effort of GEF is what they call ``green wash'' rather than a white
wash, ``green wash,'' because they have not been happy with a lot of
the impact of the environmental programs.
I will tell the gentleman that all the reforms that we called for in
the previous amendment would apply to the GEF. But frankly, the fact
that it is not authorized and the fact that its increase has exploded,
I think, is not justified nor warranted at this point. I think the
gentleman offers a constructive amendment and hope it will pass.
Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his input.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
The Global Environmental Facility was created to help Third World
countries take into account the effects of their development activities
on the worldwide ecosystem. It was created to focus the world's efforts
on preventing climate change, on preventing environmental degradation
and preventing ozone depletion.
The gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay] has cited a 1993 report which
raises questions about the operation of the GEF. I do not challenge
that report in any way.
What I think the gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay] has not mentioned,
however, is that the Administration used that report as the basis for
our negotiating position with some 73 other countries and secured the
changes which that report suggested as part of the negotiating process.
The administration, in negotiations, assured that there would, in
fact, be independence from the World Bank. They assured that the United
States would be in a strong position to stop bad loans. And they
assured a much greater degree of fiscal responsibility by scaling back
the size of that facility from the proposed $4 billion to $2 billion.
{time} 1820
The United States did not sign on until it won what it wanted to win
in that negotiating process. Now we have an international agreement
between 73 nations, including the United States. If this institution is
to be kept on the right path, it is important that our participation be
comprehensive and be aggressive in shaping the agenda of that
institution so that it becomes a combined agenda, a worldwide agenda,
rather than just the agenda of the underdeveloped recipients of some of
this aid.
Mr. Chairman, environmental groups, many of them, had considerable
concern about the operation last year, but they are fully supportive
now, organizations such as the Natural Resource Defense Council, the
Nature Conservancy, and the World Wildlife Fund. Therefore, in my view,
the administration has already taken the steps necessary to respond to
the report that the gentleman mentions.
Nonetheless, Mr. Chairman, I recognize that there is probably
considerable value in continuing to fire a shot across their bow so
that they understand that the Congress will be watching closely as we
move through the next year in evaluating how that agency proceeds under
the new international agreement. That is why I have offered my
amendment, to make a $10 million reduction in the amount we have
provided.
It is, in my view, the minimum amount which is necessary to maintain
sufficient American leverage in that institution and see to it that it
follows an agenda which we feel is responsible, and follows management
practices which we think can be defended.
I think the administration has made a good deal of progress in
assuring that some of the management practices which we have been
concerned about in the past are in fact a thing of the past.
Mr. Chairman, I want to assure the gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay],
as I did the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], that our
committee will continue to very closely monitor the activities and the
management practices of that agency, of that facility, and we will most
certainly be holding hearings specifically focused on the degree to
which the facility is in fact following the recommendations laid out in
the report mentioned by the gentleman from Texas, and used by the
administration in their negotiating posture earlier this year.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that it is legitimate to
have a disagreement about the techniques to maintain American leverage.
I think that the proposal I suggest is more effective.
If we renege on the contribution which this country pledged to make,
we virtually vitiate the ability of the administration to provide
leadership in that institution. That is precisely what we do not want
to do if we want to see to it that they stick to the kind of practices
that we think are defensible.
Mr. Chairman, I would urge support for the substitute amendment, and
thank the gentleman from Texas for making the points he has made this
afternoon.
Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
Louisiana [Mr. Livingston].
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time
to me.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the DeLay amendment with some
concern about the Obey substitute.
Mr. Chairman, it is hard to convince anyone who has lived in the
Northeast this last winter that there is really any such thing as
global warming. It may exist, but I tell the Members that they sure
could not find it with all the snow and ice we experienced over the
last several months.
Even so, Mr. Chairman, if we are going to investigate and/or treat
global warming, we have a responsibility to see to it that the money is
well spent, we are not throwing our money away.
Two years ago, we appropriated $30 million for this program. Last
year we appropriated another $30 million for the program. This year
they are calling for $100 million, and $100 million again for 3 other
years after that. If precedent is prologue, then we know this is an
entitlement which will work its way into American life.
Mr. Chairman, there are a lot of criticisms of this program, and yet
the Secretary of the Treasury, in response to those criticisms only the
day after the markup, provided us a certification that ``there are
clear procedures ensuring public availability of documentary
information on all facility projects, and associated projects of the
global environmental facility-implementing agencies.''
He says that they ``have developed or are in the process of
developing clear procedures, ensuring that the affected peoples and
recipient countries are consulted in all aspects of identification,
preparation, and implementation of facility projects and associated
projects of facility-implementing agencies.''
Yet on April 14, 1994, before the Subcommittee on International
Development, Finance, Trade and Monetary Policy of the Committee on
Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, Mr. Donald Goldberg of the Center
for International Environmental Law testified that ``Oversight and
review mechanisms need to be put in place before the global
environmental facility is implemented.''
Furthermore, on that same day, before the same committee, Mr. David
W. Reed of the World Wildlife Fund made the following statements. He
said, ``The GEF will have little impact in reforming the prevailing
development strategies that underlie a broader pattern of environmental
decline.''
He goes on to say, ``The reason the GEF, as presently conceived, is
unlikely to make a decisive contribution to promoting sustainable
development strategies is threefold:
``No. 1, the GEF has conceived of its environmental objectives as
distinct from the economic development strategies promoted by the
implementing agencies and recipient governments; No. 2, the GEF has
demonstrated little willingness to evaluate its investment experience
from the perspective of reforming prevailing development strategies;
and, No. 3, the GEF has not established mechanisms through which its
experience can be integrated into the operations either of the three
implementing agencies or of the other developing agencies.''
He says, ``Moreover, it is clear that while there may be high caliber
projects in the Pilot Phase GEF Portfolio, there is no overall
strategic vision which unifies its investment program.''
This fellow goes on to say that ``there is no clear statement of
objectives against which the actual contributions of the Pilot Phase
investments can be assessed in the long run. As a consequence, a very
high degree of uncertainty obscures the long-term impacts and
contributions of the GEF.''
These are leaders in the environmental community. They are saying
that the GEF has not done its job. It seems to me that we ought to be
very, very careful before we start committing $400 million more of
taxpayers' funds to a rather dubious proposition.
Mr. Chairman, I include for the Record a letter to me from Lloyd
Bentsen of May 20, 1994:
Department of the Treasury,
Washington, DC, May 20, 1994.
Hon. David R. Obey,
Chairman, Committee on Appropriations, House of
Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: Pursuant to Title I of the FY 94 Foreign
Operations Appropriations Act, Public Law 103-87, I have
determined that the Global Environment Facility (the
``Facility'') implementing agencies have:
(1) established a clear procedures ensuring public
availability of documentary information on all Facility
projects and associated projected of the Facility
implementing agency; and
(2) have developed or are in the process of developing
clear procedures ensuring that affected peoples in recipient
countries are consulted on all aspects of identification,
preparation, and implementation of Facility projects and
associated projects of the Facility implementing agencies.
Payment of the $30 million appropriated to Treasury for the
U.S. contribution to the Facility will be made to the
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development for the
account of the restructured Facility.
Sincerely,
Lloyd Bentsen.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.
Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that the gentleman just quoted a
letter from the World Wildlife Fund. I am in receipt of a letter from
that same organization dated today which indicates their support for
the exact amount of funding that we have provided in this bill for all
of the institutions, including the facility now under debate, so it is
obvious they recognize considerable progress has been made. I think the
record needs to show that.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr.
Porter], a distinguished member of the subcommittee.
(Mr. PORTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. PORTER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to
me.
Mr. Chairman, GEF is an easy target for Members to focus on, but I am
concerned that most of the Members do not know about the bipartisan
U.S. effort behind its development, or even know what it really does.
The GEF was created largely at U.S. insistence as a mechanism for
making resources available to developing nations to meet their
commitments, the commitments we urged on them under the Biodiversity
Convention and the Framework Convention on Climate Change. Its genesis
is bipartisan.
President Bush's Treasury Department insisted on it, and oversaw its
creation after the Earth Summit in 1992, and President Clinton's
Treasury Department has worked to fine tune it.
The administrators of GEF have worked with the United States in good
faith and met every demand for accountability that Republican and
Democratic administrations have made of it, and we have made many.
As many Members know, the Treasury Department certified on Friday
that GEF had met all of the criteria set out in the fiscal year 1994
foreign operations bill: more accountability to participating
governments, requirements for public information disclosure, and a more
democratic decision making process.
{time} 1830
So that GEF is a facility that we insisted on be separated from the
World Bank and be accountable and be transparent and now after 3 years
in a pilot status where no U.S. money was spent on it at all, we have
it in the shape we want it.
Mr. Chairman, this has been an effort of both the Bush administration
and the Clinton administration and it would be disastrous now if after
urging the GEF be formed, after insisting on structures and processes
that make it accountable and transparent, the U.S. would pull back and
renege on the funding. We are at a critical juncture in our leadership
in the world on so many issues, Mr. Chairman, on population, on human
rights, on women's rights, and on sustainable development, and our
credibility very frankly is at stake. We have played hard ball with the
GEF for the three pilot years, it has responded.
Mr. Chairman, the environmental community supports GEF, does not
oppose it. Yes, they have seen problems but they have seen them being
corrected. The funding for FEG is in our Nation's best interest and I
urge Members to oppose the DeLay amendment and support the Obey
amendment.
Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time, just
to say when one gets a memo from the Environmental Defense Fund that
says that the GEF restructuring which has just concluded in Geneva did
not deal with issues that are critical to ensure that the permanent GEF
is a transparent and accountable entity does not in my mind signal that
the Environmental Defense Fund is in support of what has been happening
in GEF.
Mr. Chairman, I think the administration might have made a better
deal and we are trying to correct this deal. I think that we do not go
into a deal that has a lot of questions into the deal and triple their
money. We find out if the deal is going to work, if the restructuring
is going to work, if the reforms that have been negotiated, all in good
faith, are actually going to work.
I understand in negotiating with the chairman that the chairman will
go back and in conference if they have not shown some progress in the
reforms that have been negotiated, that the chairman will accept my
amendment.
Mr. Chairman, in comity, I will accept the chairman's amendment to my
amendment that cuts $10 million and sends a very real message that GEF
ought to be getting its act together.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. DeLAY. I am glad to yield to the chairman if he agrees with my
assessment of our negotiations.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I simply want to say that certainly this
gentleman has absolutely no compulsion to fund any institution which is
wasting taxpayers' money, and I can assure Members that if we are not
satisfied that the facility is performing up to par that we will indeed
try to pull the chain in conference.
Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I know and have every confidence that the
chairman does not like to waste taxpayers' money. I appreciate his
participation in this. Therefore, I accept the chairman's amendment.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. Chairman, I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from
Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter].
(Mr. BEREUTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to hear the
accommodation between the distinguished Member from Texas and the
chairman of the committee.
Mr. Chairman, this Member rises in opposition to the DeLay amendment
to reduce to $30 million the FY95 contribution to the Global
Environment Facility--the ``GEF''--a special multilateral fund for
helping developing countries bear the extra costs of choosing the most
globally beneficial design of development projects that affect four
critical environmental areas: biodiversity, climate change, pollution
of international waters, and ozone depletion.
The United States never contributed to the pilot phase of the GEF
during the last 3 years because we, the Congress and the
administration, were insisting that it be restructured in certain
important ways. The negotiation to create the permanent GEF has just
been completed. The U.S. won agreement on all of our key restructuring
proposals: public access to project information, involvement of
nongovernmental groups and local communities in project preparation and
execution, an independent secretariat, and providing the governing
council on which our government sits with the authority to approve or
reject GEF policies and projects. The FY95 contribution in this bill
would be the planned first year installment of the U.S. contribution to
the new restructured permanent GEF.
Yet there are still many operational issues to be decided as the new
Council and the new GEF begin operations. The first year, when detailed
policies and operational procedures are being adopted, is when the U.S.
must be strongest and most vigilant to make sure that agreements made
in principle during the negotiations are carried out in practice. If
the U.S. is reluctant from the outset to back up fully its hard-won
negotiating position by making the contributions it has tentatively
pledged, it undoubtedly will undermine U.S. influence in the most
critical year of the new GEF's operations. This is the reason that this
Member will reluctantly oppose the amendment of the gentleman from
Texas. It remains to be seen how effective the new GEF will be, but our
government should at least have as strong a hand as possible to shape
events that may well determine the operation of the principal financing
mechanism for the new global conventions on climate change,
biodiversity, and other environmental policies.
I urge the Members to support the Obey amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] to the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay].
The amendment to the amendment was agreed to.
The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay], as amended.
The amendment, as amended, was agreed to.
The CHAIRMAN. It is now in order to consider Amendment Number 5
printed in House Report 103-530, to be offered by the gentleman from
New York [Mr. Solomon] or his designee, debatable for not to exceed 10
minutes.
amendment offered by mr. solomon
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Solomon: On page 41, line 23,
strike ``Provided'' and all that follows through
``activities'' on page 42 line 2 and insert in lieu thereof
``Provided further, That none of the funds appropriated under
this heading may be made available for Colombia or Bolivia
until the Secretary of State certifies that such funds will
be used by such country primarily for
counternarcotics activities''
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from New York [Mr.
Solomon] will be recognized for 5 minutes and a Member opposed will be
recognized for 5 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon].
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I am offering this amendment as a way of clearing up a
perceived ambiguity in the bill.
As the bill is presently worded, lifting the conditional prohibition
on military aid to Bolivia and Colombia would require a certification
that looks too much like having to prove a negative.
Before the aid could go forward, the Secretary of State would be
required to certify that these two countries will not use the aid for
something other than the control of narcotics.
My amendment would be less stringent and less ambiguous.
It would permit military aid to go to Bolivia and Colombia if the
Secretary of State certifies that the aid will be used primarily for
counternarcotics activities.
This revised language is less patronizing and should provide a more
positive and plausible context in which our diplomats and others can
pursue their contacts with these governments and their militaries.
Mr. Chairman, we have to work closely with our hemispheric neighbors
in getting the flow of illegal drugs under control, and we have to do
so without being patronizing or paternalistic.
Yes, it is true that many South American countries have had problems
in defining and maintaining the proper relationship between the
military forces and civil society--but that should not deter them or us
from doing what we have to do together.
Finally, I would just observe that both Bolivia and Colombia have
come a long way in recent years.
In 1982, Bolivia made a successful transition to civilian democratic
rule after decades of political instability and military interference
in civil affairs.
Bolivia has also made astonishing economic progress in the past 12
years, finally getting a handle on the hyperinflation and other
problems that had bedeviled the country for years.
Colombia has a longer history of stability and democracy than does
Bolivia.
But it was not too long ago that Colombia was beleaguered--the
capital city was under siege; government buildings were being seized by
rebels; half the supreme court had been killed in a bombing; and many
other senior officials--including several presidential candidates--had
been assassinated.
Mr. Chairman, Colombia has shown great courage in facing down narco-
terrorism and dealing with other problems.
We need to work with all of these friendly countries, because the
drug problem is so much greater than any one country--ourselves
included--can handle.
Mr. Chairman, I would certainly thank the chairman of the full
Committee on Appropriations for his help in helping me to craft this
revised version of the amendment. I appreciate his support.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. SOLOMON. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Louisiana, my
very good friend, and the ranking member of the subcommittee dealing
with this subject.
Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend for yielding.
Mr. Chairman, I just want to join with the gentleman and support his
amendment. I think it is a very fine amendment. It recognizes the
tremendous sacrifices that the people of Colombia and Bolivia are going
through right now in an effort to get a hold of the very real problems
posed to them by the narco-terrorists. I agree with the gentleman and
support his amendment.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Chairman, I certainly thank the gentleman. The
gentleman from Louisiana has been one of the real leaders in helping to
bring about real democracy in Central and South America and we all
appreciate his fine work.
Mr. Chairman, I urge support of the amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
{time} 1840
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, the situation we face here is that the committee
included the language in the bill requiring that no military assistance
be made available to Bolivia or Colombia until the Secretary of State
certified none of these funds were being used for other than
counternarcotics purposes.
The committee, I think, had every right to be concerned about what
was happening in Colombia and Bolivia, because a number of allegations
of misuse of American-supplied equipment have arisen, particularly with
respect to Colombia. The GAO has, in fact, documented that the United
States has very ineffective end-use monitoring mechanisms in place in
Colombia, and there can be no question that there have been
considerable violations of human rights in that country. So that is why
the committee made the original recommendation it did.
However, we have also been asked to recognize that the Colombian
military recently reorganized by disbanding military units involved
strictly in counternarcotics activities, because the judgment of the
Colombian Government was that it was creating more problems and
actually hurting the counternarcotics effort to have units organized
exclusively for that purpose, and, in fact, making them more
susceptible to infiltration by those who are trafficking in narcotics.
So the Solomon amendment is an effort to try to balance concerns, and
I am willing to accept it on a 1-year basis. But, I need to make very
clear that I am deeply suspicious that a year from now we will still
see substantial human rights violations in both countries by the
military, and I want to make clear that I think the administration has
an obligation to support an effort to totally cut off funds if we do
not see substantial improvement in the way the military is used so that
we are not continually embarrassed by the use of forces supplied and
trained by America in a way which, in fact, impinges upon human rights
which, as a country, we are supposed to value.
With that understanding, I would accept the gentleman's amendment and
ask that he be flexible next year in accepting our effort to shut this
off entirely if we do not have maximum and provable improvement.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. OBEY. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from New York.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Chairman, let me just say I fully agree with the
gentleman. I think the President, any President, has that obligation to
see human rights are improved in those two countries.
We have a similar situation coming up very shortly when we consider
the most-favored-nation treatment of China. The President has the same
obligation there to see that significant improvement is made, and I
hope it is made in all three countries, Bolivia, Colombia, and China.
I thank the gentleman for his support.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon].
The amendment was agreed to.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.
The motion was agreed to.
Accordingly the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr.
Obey) having assumed the chair, Mr. Richardson, Chairman of the
Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, reported that
that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 4426)
making appropriations for foreign operations, export financing, and
related programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1995, had
come to no resolution thereon.
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