[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 28 (Monday, February 13, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H1639-H1672]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H1639]]
       LOCAL GOVERNMENT LAW ENFORCEMENT BLOCK GRANTS ACT OF 1995

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 79 and rule 
XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House 
on the State of the Union for the further consideration of the bill, 
H.R. 728.

                              {time}  1635


                     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 further consideration of the 
bill (H.R. 728) to control crime by providing law enforcement block 
grants, with Mr. Gunderson in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The CHAIRMAN. When the Committee of the Whole rose earlier today, all 
time for general debate had expired.
  Pursuant to the rule, the committee amendment in the nature of a 
substitute printed in the bill is considered as an original bill for 
the purpose of amendment and is considered as having been read.
  The text of the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute is 
as follows:
                                H.R. 728
       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,
     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Local Government Law 
     Enforcement Block Grants Act of 1995''.

     SEC. 2. BLOCK GRANT PROGRAM.

       (a) In General.--Title I of the Violent Crime Control and 
     Law Enforcement Act of 1994 is amended to read as follows:
                ``TITLE I--LAW ENFORCEMENT BLOCK GRANTS

     ``SEC. 101. PAYMENTS TO LOCAL GOVERNMENTS.

       ``(a) Payment and Use.--
       ``(1) Payment.--The Director of the Bureau of Justice 
     Assistance, shall pay to each unit of local government which 
     qualifies for a payment under this title an amount equal to 
     the sum of any amounts allocated to such unit under this 
     title for each payment period. The Director shall pay such 
     amount from amounts appropriated to carry out this title.
       ``(2) Use.--Amounts paid to a unit of local government 
     under this section shall be used by the unit for reducing 
     crime and improving public safety, including but not limited 
     to, 1 or more of the following purposes:
       ``(A)(i) Hiring, training, and employing on a continuing 
     basis new, additional law enforcement officers and necessary 
     support personnel.
       ``(ii) Paying overtime to presently employed law 
     enforcement officers and necessary support personnel for the 
     purpose of increasing the number of hours worked by such 
     personnel.
       ``(iii) Procuring equipment, technology, and other material 
     directly related to basic law enforcement functions.
       ``(B) Enhancing school security measures by--
       ``(i) providing increased law enforcement patrols in and 
     around schools, whether through the hiring of additional law 
     enforcement officers or paying overtime to presently employed 
     officers;
       ``(ii) purchasing law enforcement equipment necessary to 
     carry out normal law enforcement functions in and around 
     schools;
       ``(iii) equipping schools with metal detectors, fences, 
     closed circuit cameras, and other physical safety measures;
       ``(iv) gun hotlines designed to facilitate the reporting of 
     weapons possession by students and other individuals in and 
     around schools; and
       ``(v) preventing and suppressing violent youth gang 
     activity.
       ``(C) Establishing crime prevention programs that may, 
     though not exclusively, involve law enforcement officials and 
     that are intended to discourage, disrupt, or interfere with 
     the commission of criminal activity, including neighborhood 
     watch and citizen patrol programs, sexual assault and 
     domestic violence programs, and programs intended to prevent 
     juvenile crime.
       ``(D) Establishing or supporting drug courts.
       ``(E) Establishing early intervention and prevention 
     programs for juveniles to reduce or eliminate crime.
       ``(F) Enhancing the adjudication process of cases involving 
     violent offenders, including the adjudication process of 
     cases involving violent juvenile offenders.
       ``(3) Definitions.--For purposes of this subsection--
       ``(A) the term `violent offender' means a person charged 
     with committing a part I violent crime; and
       ``(B) the term `drug courts' means a program that 
     involves--
       ``(i) continuing judicial supervision over offenders with 
     substance abuse problems who are not violent offenders; and
       ``(ii) the integrated administration of other sanctions and 
     services, which shall include--

       ``(I) mandatory periodic testing for the use of controlled 
     substances or other addictive substances during any period of 
     supervised release or probation for each participant;
       ``(II) substance abuse treatment for each participant;
       ``(III) probation, or other supervised release involving 
     the possibility of prosecution, confinement, or incarceration 
     based on noncompliance with program requirements or failure 
     to show satisfactory progress; and
       ``(IV) programmatic, offender management, and aftercare 
     services such as relapse prevention, vocational job training, 
     job placement, and housing placement.

       ``(b) Prohibited Uses.--Notwithstanding any other provision 
     of this Act, a unit of local government may not expend any of 
     the funds provided under this title to purchase, lease, rent, 
     or otherwise acquire--
       ``(1) tanks or armored personnel carriers;
       ``(2) fixed wing aircraft;
       ``(3) limousines;
       ``(4) real estate; or
       ``(5) yachts;

     unless the Attorney General certifies that extraordinary and 
     exigent circumstances exist that make the use of funds for 
     such purposes essential to the maintenance of public safety 
     and good order in such unit of local government.
       ``(c) Timing of Payments.--The Director shall pay each unit 
     of local government that has submitted an application under 
     this title not later than--
       ``(1) 90 days after the date that the amount is available, 
     or
       ``(2) the first day of the payment period if the unit of 
     local government has provided the Director with the 
     assurances required by section 103(d),

     whichever is later.
       ``(d) Adjustments.--
       ``(1) In general.--Subject to paragraph (2), the Director 
     shall adjust a payment under this title to a unit of local 
     government to the extent that a prior payment to the unit of 
     local government was more or less than the amount required to 
     be paid.
       ``(2) Considerations.--The Director may increase or 
     decrease under this subsection a payment to a unit of local 
     government only if the Director determines the need for the 
     increase or decrease, or if the unit requests the increase or 
     decrease, not later than 1 year after the end of the payment 
     period for which a payment was made.
       ``(e) Reservation for Adjustment.--The Director may reserve 
     a percentage of not more than 2 percent of the amount under 
     this section for a payment period for all units of local 
     government in a State if the Director considers the reserve 
     is necessary to ensure the availability of sufficient amounts 
     to pay adjustments after the final allocation of amounts 
     among the units of local government in the State.
       ``(f) Repayment of Unexpended Amounts.--
       ``(1) Repayment required.--A unit of local government shall 
     repay to the Director, by not later than 27 months after 
     receipt of funds from the Director, any amount that is--
       ``(A) paid to the unit from amounts appropriated under the 
     authority of this section; and
       ``(B) not expended by the unit within 2 years after receipt 
     of such funds from the Director.
       ``(2) Penalty for failure to repay.--If the amount required 
     to be repaid is not repaid, the Director shall reduce payment 
     in future payment periods accordingly.
       ``(3) Deposit of amounts repaid.--Amounts received by the 
     Director as repayments under this subsection shall be 
     deposited in a designated fund for future payments to units 
     of local government.
       ``(g) Nonsupplanting Requirement.--Funds made available 
     under this title to units of local government shall not be 
     used to supplant State or local funds, but shall be used to 
     increase the amount of funds that would, in the absence of 
     funds made available under this title, be made available from 
     State or local sources.

     ``SEC. 102. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

       ``(a) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are 
     authorized to be appropriated to carry out this title--
       ``(1) $2,000,000,000 for fiscal year 1996;
       ``(2) $2,000,000,000 for fiscal year 1997;
       ``(3) $2,000,000,000 for fiscal year 1998;
       ``(4) $2,000,000,000 for fiscal year 1999; and
       ``(5) $2,000,000,000 for fiscal year 2000.
       ``(b) Administrative Costs.--Not more than 2.5 percent of 
     the amount authorized to be appropriated under subsection (a) 
     for each of the fiscal years 1996 through 2000 shall be 
     available to the Director for administrative costs to carry 
     out the purposes of this title. Such sums are to remain 
     available until expended.
       ``(c) Availability.--The amounts authorized to be 
     appropriated under subsection (a) shall remain available 
     until expended.

     ``SEC. 103. QUALIFICATION FOR PAYMENT.

       ``(a) In General.--The Director shall issue regulations 
     establishing procedures under which a unit of local 
     government is required to provide notice to the Director 
     regarding the proposed use of funds made available under this 
     title.
       ``(b) Program Review.--The Director shall establish a 
     process for the ongoing evaluation of projects developed with 
     funds made available under this title.
       ``(c) General Requirements for Qualification.--A unit of 
     local government qualifies for a payment under this title for 
     a payment period only if the unit of local government submits 
     an application to the Director and establishes, to the 
     satisfaction of the Director, that--
       ``(1) the unit of local government has established a local 
     advisory board that--
       ``(A) includes, but is not limited to, a representative 
     from--
       ``(i) the local police department or local sheriff's 
     department;
       ``(ii) the local prosecutor's office;
       ``(iii) the local court system;
       ``(iv) the local public school system; and
       ``(v) a local nonprofit, educational, religious, or 
     community group active in crime prevention or drug use 
     prevention or treatment;
       ``(B) has reviewed the application; and
       ``(C) is designated to make nonbinding recommendations to 
     the unit of local government for the use of funds received 
     under this title;
     [[Page H1640]]   ``(2) the chief executive officer of the 
     State has had not less than 45 days to review and comment on 
     the application prior to submission to the Director;
       ``(3) the unit of local government will establish a trust 
     fund in which the government will deposit all payments 
     received under this title;
       ``(4) the unit of local government will use amounts in the 
     trust fund (including interest) during a period not to exceed 
     2 years from the date the first grant payment is made to the 
     unit of local government;
       ``(5) the unit of local government will expend the payments 
     received in accordance with the laws and procedures that are 
     applicable to the expenditure of revenues of the unit of 
     local government;
       ``(6) the unit of local government will use accounting, 
     audit, and fiscal procedures that conform to guidelines which 
     shall be prescribed by the Director after consultation with 
     the Comptroller General and as applicable, amounts received 
     under this title shall be audited in compliance with the 
     Single Audit Act of 1984;
       ``(7) after reasonable notice from the Director or the 
     Comptroller General to the unit of local government, the unit 
     of local government will make available to the Director and 
     the Comptroller General, with the right to inspect, records 
     that the Director reasonably requires to review compliance 
     with this title or that the Comptroller General reasonably 
     requires to review compliance and operation;
       ``(8) a designated official of the unit of local government 
     shall make reports the Director reasonably requires, in 
     addition to the annual reports required under this title; and
       ``(9) the unit of local government will spend the funds 
     made available under this title only for the purposes set 
     forth in section 101(a)(2).
       ``(d) Sanctions for Noncompliance.--
       ``(1) In general.--If the Director determines that a unit 
     of local government has not complied substantially with the 
     requirements or regulations prescribed under subsections (a) 
     and (c), the Director shall notify the unit of local 
     government that if the unit of local government does not take 
     corrective action within 60 days of such notice, the Director 
     will withhold additional payments to the unit of local 
     government for the current and future payment periods until 
     the Director is satisfied that the unit of local government--
       ``(A) has taken the appropriate corrective action; and
       ``(B) will comply with the requirements and regulations 
     prescribed under subsections (a) and (c).
       ``(2) Notice.--Before giving notice under paragraph (1), 
     the Director shall give the chief executive officer of the 
     unit of local government reasonable notice and an opportunity 
     for comment.
     ``SEC. 104. ALLOCATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FUNDS.

       ``(a) State Set-aside.--
       ``(1) In general.--Of the total amounts appropriated for 
     this title for each payment period, the Director shall 
     allocate for units of local government in each State an 
     amount that bears the same ratio to such total as the average 
     annual number of part 1 violent crimes reported by such State 
     to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the 3 most recent 
     calendar years for which such data is available, bears to the 
     number of part 1 violent crimes reported by all States to the 
     Federal Bureau of Investigation for such years.
       ``(2) Minimum requirement.--Each State shall receive not 
     less than .25 percent of the total amounts appropriated under 
     section 102 under this subsection for each payment period.
       ``(3) Proportional reduction.--If amounts available to 
     carry out paragraph (2) for any payment period are 
     insufficient to pay in full the total payment that any State 
     is otherwise eligible to receive under paragraph (1) for such 
     period, then the Director shall reduce payments under 
     paragraph (1) for such payment period to the extent of such 
     insufficiency. Reductions under the preceding sentence shall 
     be allocated among the States (other than States whose 
     payment is determined under paragraph (2)) in the same 
     proportions as amounts would be allocated under paragraph (1) 
     without regard to paragraph (2).
       ``(b) Local Distribution.--
       ``(1) In general.--From the amount reserved for each State 
     under subsection (a), the Director shall allocate--
       ``(A) among reporting units of local government the 
     reporting units' share of such reserved amount, and
       ``(B) among nonreporting units of local government the 
     nonreporting units' share of the reserved amount.
       ``(2) Amounts.--
       ``(A) The reporting units' share of the reserved amount is 
     the amount equal to the product of such reserved amount 
     multiplied by the percentage which the population living in 
     reporting units of local government in the State bears to the 
     population of all units of local government in the State.
       ``(B) The nonreporting units' share of the reserved amount 
     is the reserved amount reduced by the reporting units' share 
     of the reserved amount.
       ``(3) Allocation to each reporting unit.--From the 
     reporting units' share of the reserved amount for each State 
     under subsection (a), the Director shall allocate to each 
     reporting unit of local government an amount which bears the 
     same ratio to such share as the average annual number of part 
     1 violent crimes reported by such unit to the Federal Bureau 
     of Investigation for the 3 most recent calendar years for 
     which such data is available bears to the number of part 1 
     violent crimes reported by all units of local government in 
     the State in which the unit is located to the Federal Bureau 
     of Investigation for such years.
       ``(4) Allocation to each nonreporting unit.--From the 
     nonreporting units' share of the reserved amount for each 
     State under subsection (a), the Director shall allocate to 
     each nonreporting unit of local government an amount which 
     bears the same ratio to such share as the average number of 
     part 1 violent crimes of like governmental units in the same 
     population class as such unit bears to the average annual 
     imputed number of part 1 violent crimes of all
      nonreporting units in the State for the 3 most recent 
     calendar years.
       ``(5) Limitation on allocations.--A unit of local 
     government shall not receive an allocation which exceeds 100 
     percent of such unit's expenditures on law enforcement 
     services as reported by the Bureau of the Census for the most 
     recent fiscal year. Any amount in excess of 100 percent of 
     such unit's expenditures on law enforcement services shall be 
     distributed proportionally among units of local government 
     whose allocation does not exceed 100 percent of expenditures 
     on law enforcement services.
       ``(6) Definitions.--For purposes of this subsection--
       ``(A) The term `reporting unit of local government' means 
     any unit of local government that reported part 1 violent 
     crimes to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the 3 most 
     recent calendar years for which such data is available.
       ``(B) The term `nonreporting unit of local government' 
     means any unit of local government which is not a reporting 
     unit of local government.
       ``(C)(i) The term `like governmental units' means any like 
     unit of local government as defined by the Secretary of 
     Commerce for general statistical purposes, and means--
       ``(I) all counties are treated as like governmental units;
       ``(II) all cities are treated as like governmental units;
       ``(III) all townships are treated as like governmental 
     units.
       ``(ii) Similar rules shall apply to other types of 
     governmental units.
       ``(D) The term `same population class' means a like unit 
     within the same population category as another like unit with 
     the categories determined as follows:
       ``(i) 0 through 9,999.
       ``(ii) 10,000 through 49,999.
       ``(iii) 50,000 through 149,999.
       ``(iv) 150,000 through 299,999.
       ``(v) 300,000 or more.
       ``(7) Local governments with allocations of less than 
     $10,000.--If under paragraph (3) or (4) a unit of local 
     government is allotted less than $10,000 for the payment 
     period, the amount allotted shall be transferred to the chief 
     executive officer of the State who shall distribute such 
     funds among units of local government whose allotment is less 
     than such amount in a manner which reduces crime and improves 
     public safety.
       ``(8) Special rules.--
       ``(A) If a unit of local government in a State that has 
     been incorporated since the date of the collection of the 
     data used by the Director in making allocations pursuant to 
     this section, such unit shall be treated as a nonreporting 
     unit of local government for purposes of this subsection.
       ``(B) If a unit of local government in the State has been 
     annexed since the date of the collection of the data used by 
     the Director in making allocations pursuant to this section, 
     the Director shall pay the amount that would have been 
     allocated to such unit of local government to the unit of 
     local government that annexed it.
       ``(c) Unavailability of Information.--For purposes of this 
     section, if data regarding part 1 violent crimes in any State 
     for the 3 most recent calendar years is unavailable or 
     substantially inaccurate, the Director shall utilize the best 
     available comparable data regarding the number of violent 
     crimes for such years for such State for the purposes of 
     allocation of any funds under this title.

     ``SEC. 105. UTILIZATION OF PRIVATE SECTOR.

       ``Funds or a portion of funds allocated under this title 
     may be utilized to contract with private, nonprofit entities 
     or community-based organizations to carry out the purposes 
     specified under section 101(a)(2).

     ``SEC. 106. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION.

       ``(a) In General.--A unit of local government expending 
     payments under this title shall hold not less than 1 public 
     hearing on the proposed use of the payment from the Director 
     in relation to its entire budget.
       ``(b) Views.--At the hearing, persons shall be given an 
     opportunity to provide written and oral views to the unit of 
     local government authority responsible for enacting the 
     budget and to ask questions about the entire budget and the 
     relation of the payment from the Director to the entire 
     budget.
       ``(c) Time and Place.--The unit of local government shall 
     hold the hearing at a time and place that allows and 
     encourages public attendance and participation.

     ``SEC. 107. ADMINISTRATIVE PROVISIONS.

       ``The administrative provisions of part H of the Omnibus 
     Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, shall apply to 
     this title and for purposes of this section any reference in 
     such provisions to title I of the Omnibus Crime Control and 
     Safe Streets Act of 1968 shall be deemed to be a reference to 
     this title.
     ``SEC. 108. DEFINITIONS.

       ``For the purposes of this title:
       ``(1) The term `unit of local government' means--
       ``(A) a county, township, city, or political subdivision of 
     a county, township, or city, that is a unit of local 
     government as determined by the Secretary of Commerce for 
     general statistical purposes; and
       ``(B) the District of Columbia and the recognized governing 
     body of an Indian tribe or Alaskan Native village that 
     carries out substantial governmental duties and powers.
     [[Page H1641]]   ``(2) The term `payment period' means each 
     1-year period beginning on October 1 of any year in which a 
     grant under this title is awarded.
       ``(3) The term `State' means any State of the United 
     States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto 
     Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the 
     Northern Mariana Islands, except that American Samoa, Guam, 
     and the Northern Mariana Islands shall be considered as 1 
     State and that, for purposes of section 104(a), 33 percent of 
     the amounts allocated shall be allocated to American Samoa, 
     50 percent to Guam, and 17 percent to the Northern Mariana 
     Islands.
       ``(4) The term `juvenile' means an individual who is 17 
     years of age or younger.
       ``(5) The term `part 1 violent crimes' means murder and 
     nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and 
     aggravated assault as reported to the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation for purposes of the Uniform Crime Reports.
       ``(6) The term `Director' means the Director of the Bureau 
     of Justice Assistance.''.
       (b) Conforming Amendments.--
       (1) Part Q of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets 
     Act of 1968 is repealed effective on September 30, 1995.
       (2) Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph (1), any 
     funds that remain available to an applicant under part Q of 
     title I of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 
     1968 shall be used in accordance with such part as in effect 
     on the day preceding the date of the enactment of this Act.
       (3) Effective on the date of the enactment of this Act, 
     section 1001(a) of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets 
     Act is amended--
       (A) in paragraph (3), by striking ``Q,''; and
       (B) by striking paragraph (11).

     SEC. 3. CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.

       (a) Ounce of Prevention Council.--
       (1) In general.--Subtitle A of title III of the Violent 
     Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 is repealed.
       (2) Funding.--Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph 
     (1), any funds that remain available to an applicant under 
     subtitle A of title III of the Violent Crime Control and Law 
     Enforcement Act of 1994 shall be used in accordance with such 
     subtitle as in effect on the day preceding the date of 
     enactment of this Act.
       (b) Local Crime Prevention Block Grant Program.--Subtitle B 
     of title III of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement 
     Act of 1994 is repealed.
       (c) Model Intensive Block Grant Programs.--Subtitle C of 
     title III of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement 
     Act of 1994 is repealed.
       (d) Family and Community Endeavor Schools Grant Program.--
       (1) In general.--Subtitle D of title III of the Violent 
     Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 is repealed.
       (2) Funding.--Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph 
     (1), any funds that remain available to an applicant under 
     subtitle D of title III of the Violent Crime Control and Law 
     Enforcement Act of 1994 shall be used in accordance such 
     subtitle as in effect on the day preceding the date of 
     enactment of this Act.
       (e) Assistance for Delinquent and At-Risk Youth.--Subtitle 
     G of title III of the Violent Crime Control and Law 
     Enforcement Act of 1994 is repealed.
       (f) Police Retirement.--Subtitle H of title III of the 
     Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 is 
     repealed.
       (g) Local Partnership Act.--
       (1) Subtitle j.--Subtitle J of title III of the Violent 
     Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 is repealed.
       (2) Federal payments.--Chapter 67 of title 31, United 
     States Code is repealed.
       (3) Table of chapters.--The table of chapters at the 
     beginning of subtitle V of title 31, United States Code, is 
     amended by striking the matter relating to chapter 67.
       (4) Funding.--Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph 
     (2), any funds that remain available to an applicant under 
     chapter 67 of title 31, United States Code, shall be used in 
     accordance with such
      chapter as in effect on the day preceding the date of 
     enactment of this Act.
       (h) National Community Economic Partnership.--Subtitle K of 
     title III of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement 
     Act of 1994 is repealed.
       (i) Urban Recreation and At-Risk Youth.--
       (1) Recreation.--Subtitle O of title III of the Violent 
     Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 is repealed.
       (2) Urban park and recreation recovery.--(A) Section 1004 
     of the Urban Park and Recreation Recovery Act of 1978 is 
     amended--
       (i) by striking subsection (d); and
       (ii) by redesignating subsections (e) through (k) as (d) 
     through (j), respectively.
       (B) Section 1005 of the Urban Park and Recreation Recovery 
     Act of 1978 is amended by inserting ``and'' at the end of 
     paragraph (6), by striking ``; and'' and inserting a period 
     at the end of paragraph (7), and by striking paragraph (8).
       (C) Section 1007(b) of the Urban Park and Recreation 
     Recovery Act of 1978 is amended by striking the last 2 
     sentences.
       (D) Section 1013 of the Urban Park and Recreation Recovery 
     Act of 1978 is amended by striking ``(a) In General.--'' 
     after ``1013'' and by striking subsection (b).
       (j) Community-Based Justice Grants for Prosecutors.--
     Subtitle Q of title III of the Violent Crime Control and Law 
     Enforcement Act of 1994 is repealed.
       (k) Family Unity Demonstration Project.--Subtitle S of 
     title III of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement 
     Act of 1994 is repealed.
       (l) Gang Resistance and Education Training.--(1) Subtitle X 
     of title III of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement 
     Act of 1994 is repealed.
       (2) Notwithstanding the provisions of subparagraph (A), any 
     funds that remain available to an applicant under subtitle X 
     of title III of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement 
     Act of 1994 shall be used in accordance with such subtitle as 
     in effect on the day preceding the date of enactment of this 
     Act.
       (m) Clerical Amendments.--
       (1) The matter relating to title I in the table of contents 
     of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 
     is amended to read as follows:
                ``TITLE I--LAW ENFORCEMENT BLOCK GRANTS

``Sec. 101. Payments to local governments.
``Sec. 102. Authorization of appropriations.
``Sec. 103. Qualification for payment.
``Sec. 104. Allocation and distribution of funds.
``Sec. 105. Utilization of private sector.
``Sec. 106. Public participation.
``Sec. 107. Administrative provisions.
``Sec. 108. Definitions.''.
       (2) The table of contents of the Violent Crime Control and 
     Law Enforcement Act of 1994 is amended by striking the matter 
     relating to subtitles A, B, C, D, G, H, J, K, O, Q, S, and X 
     of title III.
       (3) The table of contents of the Omnibus Crime Control and 
     Safe Streets Act of 1968 is amended by striking the matter 
     relating to part Q of title I.

  The CHAIRMAN. The bill will be considered for amendment under the 5-
minute rule for a period not to exceed 10 hours.
  During consideration of the bill for amendment, the Chairman of the 
Committee of the Whole may accord priority in recognition to a Member 
offering an amendment that has been printed in the designated place in 
the Congressional Record. Those amendments will be considered read. Are 
there any amendments to the bill?


                    Amendment Offered by Mr. Schiff

  Mr. SCHIFF. 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. Schiff: Strike subparagraph (B) of 
     section 101(a)(2) of the Violent Crime Control and Safe 
     Streets Act of 1994, as amended by section 2 of this bill, 
     and insert the following:
       ``(B) Enhancing security measures--
       ``(i) in and around schools; and
       ``(ii) in and around any other facility or location which 
     is considered by the unit of local government to have a 
     special risk for incidents of crime.

  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, we take an approach in this bill that quite 
obviously one can see from the general debate not everyone is in accord 
with, and I strongly suspect that those Members who do not want our 
approach will vote no, virtually regardless of what amendments are and 
are not accepted here today.
  Nevertheless, in accordance with our approach, I want to explain my 
amendment. Our amendment, as has been stated a number of times, is a 
block grant program to units of local government in which they can 
decide the best use of their funds. That may in fact be for more 
police. It may be for what we have come to call prevention programs. It 
may be for some combination of each. Our bill would leave that to the 
discretion of local government.
  Nevertheless, we do in H.R. 728 provide several illustrations at 
least of what Congress has in mind for local governments to look at. 
These are not mandatory and they are not restrictive, just because we 
list several areas, such as hiring of police, is not totally 
restrictive on how local government should in fact use the funds. But 
it shows at least what Congress is considering. We then at that point 
defer to their discretion as local government officials elected 
essentially by the same constituencies that we have and that sent us 
here.
  More particularly, Mr. Chairman, the bill states that the funds can 
be used, by way of illustration again, for the purpose of enhancing 
security, and the bill mentions as an illustration enhancing security 
of schools.
  What I would do in this amendment is to keep the illustration of 
enhancing security at schools. I doubt that there is any State, 
probably no local government that does not have some problem in 
security somewhere in its schools. However, I would add in addition to 
that, and again we are illustrating here, units of local government can 
already use these funds to enhance security, they can already use it to 
enhance security at schools and anywhere else, but just to make that 
fact clear, to make clear that schools are not all-encompassing and 
that nothing is left out, I would add the words that the local 
governments could use the funds 
[[Page H1642]] to enhance security at schools and in and around any 
other facility or location which is considered by the unit of local 
government to have a special risk for incidents of crime.
  We had a debate in the Committee on the Judiciary about the fact that 
some communities have a special incidence of crime at reproductive 
clinics.

                              {time}  1640

  I want to say that I helped cosponsor and helped pass the Federal law 
we passed which made it a crime to use violence and otherwise illegally 
interfere with people's access to reproductive clinics.
  That is indeed one problem that is faced in certain communities, but 
not all communities. In Albuquerque, NM, which I have the privilege of 
representing, in the last Christmas season holidays the Albuquerque 
police department put a substation in the parking lot of the largest 
shopping center. As we might expect, crime went down in that shopping 
center dramatically. It had been rather high up until then with 
attacks, shoplifting, break-ins and so forth. The subject is without 
limit.
  There could be any number of special areas, locations, facilities 
that a unit of the local government feels needs enhanced security and 
my amendment would illustrate this could be used by the local 
government in any such place whether it is a reproductive clinic, a 
mall, a school, a neighborhood, any other place that the unit of local 
government feels has a special risk of being subject to crime.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman from New Mexico would just stay a 
minute I would like to ask him a couple of questions about his 
amendment, if I may. As I read the bill, and correct me if I am wrong, 
the only limitations actually on any unit of local government is on 
line 21, page 2 of the bill where it says for reducing crime and 
improving public safety. Is there any other limitation?
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. VOLKMER. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I do not believe there are any other 
limitations as set out in the bill.
  Mr. VOLKMER. After that it says including but not limited to. 
Included but not limited to is everything on page 3 where the gentleman 
is amending, is that correct?
  Mr. SCHIFF. The gentleman is again correct.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Yours is a limitation of the language on page 3; it is 
not a limiting amendment.
  Mr. SCHIFF. If the gentleman will yield further, and I appreciate the 
gentleman yielding, all of the examples given in the bill as drafted 
are illustrations. The operative language, as the gentleman from 
Missouri pointed out a little bit earlier, is that the grants can be 
used for these ideas but not limited to these ideas.
  I am merely in my amendment expanding the illustrations that we gave 
in terms of enhancing security, because it was suggested in the 
Committee on the Judiciary that a local government could not use such 
funds to enhance security at areas other than schools and particularly 
at reproductive clinics, and my amendment is intended simply to make 
clear by way of illustration that wherever a unit of government has a 
need for enhanced security they can provide it. I yield back to the 
gentleman.
  Mr. VOLKMER. What the gentleman is saying to me and making clear is 
under the bill as it is written, if a unit of the local government 
feels it is necessary to have policemen around abortion clinics they 
can have all of the police around the abortion clinics that the Federal 
Government will fund them under this.
  Mr. SCHIFF. If the gentleman will yield, the gentleman is exactly 
correct. They can use police to enhance security wherever they feel 
there is a special need to enhance security. My amendment is not 
absolutely authorization, it is an illustration.
  Mr. VOLKMER. If they feel and the Attorney General would feel it is 
for reducing crime and improving public safety, that is the limitation. 
It does not make any difference what the gentleman's amendment says.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Basically the gentleman is correct in that my amendment 
is an illustration and the local governments are free to make this 
choice. There were some who felt that was not clear enough, which is 
the reason for my amendment.
  Mr. VOLKMER. The gentleman's amendment is to make it clear we can use 
moneys from these funds to have people that are picketing at abortion 
clinics go to jail.
  Mr. SCHIFF. It could be used to help local law enforcement identify 
wherever they felt that a special incidence of crime, that is up to 
them to decide in their communities.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Reclaiming my time, what the gentleman is telling me, 
this bill is really going to restrict pro-life people from picketing 
abortion clinics, and I am glad to hear about that.
  One other thing that I noticed in here is that I remember I did not 
vote for that crime bill last time, I think the gentleman might 
remember that. I thought it was pretty lousy. In fact, I put a bill in 
this morning to repeal the whole thing and start brand new, because I 
think yours is lousy too and you do not do much better.
  We had a big discussion on the same floor of the same House last 
August, ranting and raving about midnight basketball. I find midnight 
basketball and I find morning and afternoon and evening basketball in 
here. You want basketball, you name it, you can have it any time you 
want it. It is not even limited to midnight. Any kind of basketball, as 
long as local units of government feel it is necessary to reduce crime 
and improve public safety. That is what I find in this, and I find a 
lot of other things.
  It is very interesting, and I yield to the gentleman from Illinois 
[Mr. Hyde] because earlier on during debate I was over in my office and 
doing some work around the office, and I listened to him and how he 
believes so strongly in local government and how great local government 
is; and local government, I agree, sometimes it is and sometimes it is 
not.
  Mr. HYDE. Just like Washington.
  Mr. VOLKMER. I am going to yield in a minute.
  I remember the gentleman was here and I was here when we found out 
all of these things about LEAA and we were not happy. Then I find in 
this bill the local government may not be quite, may not just be quite 
the local government that the gentleman told us because right in here 
in the bill it says we do not want them buying tanks or armored 
personnel carriers, fixed-wing aircraft, limousines, real estate.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] 
has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Volkmer was allowed to proceed for 3 
additional minutes.)
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I find that and that tells me the 
gentleman does not trust local government, because surely his local 
government the way he described it in general debate would never do 
this.
  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. VOLKMER. I am glad to yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. HYDE. I hope the gentleman knows I supported LEAA. I voted for 
it. I had some concerns and they were good concerns because the LEAA 
was mismanaged. We correct that in our bill, but I supported LEAA. Did 
the gentleman know that? I do not think he did or he would not have 
brought it up.
  Mr. VOLKMER. I do not think I would have supported something that 
even President Reagan, this House, and our Senate at that time found 
there was such gross abuses in by local units of government, using it 
for things it should not have been used for.
  Mr. HYDE. We correct that here. We have ways of correcting that. We 
learned from LEAA, and we are building on that experience.
  But would the gentleman yield on the Schiff amendment?
  Mr. VOLKMER. Sure. I am glad to yield on any amendment.
  Mr. HYDE. The gentleman knows how I feel about abortion and am very 
much opposed to killing unborn children. But I suggest to the gentleman 
that under the block grant concept wherever the public safety is at 
risk, and this is in the judgment of the local officials, they are 
permitted to employ policemen or security anywhere in 
[[Page H1643]] their community where they think the public safety is at 
risk.
  Now this could be around abortion clinics, and I know the gentleman 
feels that is picking on the pro-life moment. I regret that. I do not 
want to pick on the pro-life movement, but if safety is jeopardized, 
then it seems to me the local community authorities have the right and 
ought to have the right to have policemen there protecting the public 
safety, and I do not see that as a violation of my commitment nor the 
gentleman's commitment to the pro-life cause.
  Mr. VOLKMER. If I still have time remaining, I would just like to 
comment to the gentleman that a local unit of government, if it sees 
fit under this bill, can make a specific proposal to the Attorney 
General's office, to the Department of Justice, specifically asking for 
dollars to employ people in order to protect clinics because there are 
too many picketers around the clinics and proposals can come in for 
that specific purpose and be studied for that specific purpose under 
this bill the way it is written.
  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. VOLKMER. Yes, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. HYDE. Only if in their judgment the public safety is endangered. 
Surely the gentleman does not want the public safety endangered by any 
group that is picketing.
  Mr. VOLKMER. I do not want the public safety, but I think a lot of 
times the people that are out there picketing are not endangering 
anybody. We have had this discussion; I thought we were on the same 
side.
  Mr. HYDE. We are on the same side. We are on the same side. But 
nobody has the right to violate and create a threat to public safety.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] 
again has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Volkmer was allowed to proceed for 1 
additional minute.)
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I think I have tried to point out some of 
the things that are severely wrong with this bill, and I think it goes 
too broad, permits any and every thing that you can use your 
imagination for if you are a member of local government. And one thing 
it does not do, it does not let the chief of police in my local town 
make a decision about it. It lets all of the other people make that 
decision. It does not let my local sheriff decide, it lets other people 
make that decision.
  It depends on who can persuade that unit of local government what 
they best need the money for. And if I remember, I doubt if there are 
very many communities to say that have all kinds of money laying 
around, and they do not need some money for a lot of things and they 
are the ones that are going to decide what their priorities are.

                              {time}  1650

  And if that priority is to have some more police or security at 
abortion clinics, then that is what they will make it for.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the 
requisite number of words.
  Mr. Chairman, sometimes legislative history is more interesting than 
other times. This particular amendment from my friend, and the 
gentleman from New Mexico, has such an interesting history that I feel 
compelled to share it with my colleagues, because I think it is a nice 
effort but ultimately an unsuccessful one, and I believe it will have 
to be improved upon tomorrow by our colleague from Colorado.
  Let use even begin the education process now, because one of the 
major issues we now have before us is whether or not the constitutional 
right of women to get abortions, if they choose, will, in fact, be 
fully protected. That is under attack, it seems to me, with regard to 
the nomination of Dr. Foster, but there is also a collateral attack 
here in the House. What we have in this amendment is basically an 
effort to deflect our defense.
  The bill came before us in the Committee on the Judiciary with the 
language that the gentleman from New Mexico has described, which says, 
under this bill, local governments can do pretty much what they think 
necessary for law enforcement. But that is not all it said. If that was 
all it said, I suppose that would have been the end of it. But it went 
on to give some illustrations. It went on to say in language of the 
legislation, including but not limited to, and it listed some things in 
the bill that the Republicans brought forward. Presumably these were 
favored programs, programs they wanted to highlight. They were not just 
wasting words. They were not legislatively binding on the local 
communities, but they felt it was important to highlight certain 
things, and then when we got to committee, two Republican members for 
the committee felt that even further highlighting was necessary.
  The gentleman from New Mexico himself offered one regarding violence. 
I thought it was an excellent one. I thought it was a very good idea to 
highlight that these could be used for violence against women and 
domestic violence. The gentleman from North Carolina, a former police 
official, said well, wait a minute, some people think we are anti-drug 
courts; drug courts are a good idea, and I want to show that drug 
courts are possible under this. we thought both amendments were a good 
idea. We supported them. Then
 the gentlewoman from Colorado said,

       Look, we have a serious problem in this country with deadly 
     violence being used against people who are trying to provide 
     abortion or other health services for women, and we want to 
     highlight that.

  By the exact same logic that said you highlight drug courts and you 
highlight domestic violence and other things that were in the bill, we 
are afraid in some communities people will not understand that you can 
use these to protect clinics. This is a matter of great sensitivity to 
my district where two young women were killed in the town of Brookline 
only recently for doing nothing other than trying to provide these 
services. So the gentlewoman from Colorado, quite sensibly, said, 
``This is what we should do.''
  It seems to me from my distance some uncertainty from the other side 
of the aisle as to how they should respond. The gentlewoman from 
Colorado was simply following their lead and said, ``This is important. 
Let us not have any confusion at the local level. Let us highlight 
it.'' She accepted an amendment offered by the gentleman from Florida 
to her amendment. But the chairman of the committee said, ``This is a 
bad idea.'' He did not want you to appear to be sanctioning in some way 
what goes on at these clinics. He opposed it. It became clear the 
gentlewoman from Colorado would bring it up on the floor.
  So my friends on the other side have a bit of a dilemma, because they 
are not men and women who like violence. They are men and women 
conscientiously opposed to it. Some of them had a problem appearing too 
specifically to be defending the right of these reproductive clinics to 
get safety. so what has emerged but the amendment from the gentleman 
from New Mexico. It was not in the original Republican bill. It was not 
presented when the gentleman had other amendments in the committee. It 
is proposed to try to deflect the gentlewoman from Colorado. I think it 
is a perfectly harmless amendment and have no objection to it. People 
should understand our friend from Colorado is harder to deflect than 
they may have thought. I am surprised they do not realize that.
  Many of us still believe, given the violence that has been very 
specifically directed at abortion providers on an interstate basis, 
given the controversial nature of that protection unfortunately in some 
communities, it is still important to make it clear to people beyond 
doubt that police overtime and other facilities can be used under this 
bill to protect reproductive clinics and, therefore, I welcome the 
gentleman from New Mexico, and I appreciate his desire to shield some 
of his colleagues from having to take a tough vote.
  I have to say it does not seem to me to work. I think that having 
adopted this amendment, it will still be relevant to have the amendment 
of the gentlewoman from Colorado.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. CONYERS. I thank the gentleman for his recollection of the 
processes by which this amendment came to the floor. What this could be 
called is the big duck amendment, because 
[[Page H1644]] what we are going to try to do now is get around----
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. 
Frank] has expired.
  (At the request of Mr. Conyers and by unanimous consent, Mr. Frank of 
Massachusetts was allowed to proceed for additional minutes.)
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I further yield to the 
gentleman from Michigan, the ranking minority member.
  Mr. CONYERS. The gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] was 
clearly planning to offer an amendment that would specify that funds 
may be used to protect reproductive health clinics which have been 
targeted for violence lately around the country. This amendment appears 
to be a roundabout way of addressing that concern and a way for 
Republican Members to avoid a straight up-or-down vote on whether to 
provide special protection for our abortion clinics.
  And it will not work, because it fails to specify that Congress 
recognizes the need to protect the reproductive health centers. That is 
what is in trouble now.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Let me say, reclaiming my time, we are 
talking not just about public buildings. We are talking about some 
facilities that might be private. In committee, the gentleman from 
Florida said, ``Well, wait a minute, you do not want to give public 
funds to private facilities to buy equipment with.'' We said, ``That is 
right.'' The gentlewoman accommodated that. It might be appropriate, 
however, to lend certain facilities to certain locations for certain 
time.
  So this does not obviate the need to point it out. When you begin to 
look at the examples, if there is an example anywhere of violence in 
this country which is fairly widespread sadly, it is violence aimed at 
these clinics, and therefore, it is certainly, if they are going to 
single things out, something that ought to be singled out.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. CONYERS. I hope the gentlewoman will continue to offer the same 
provision she offered in the committee, because we need to have it 
clearly discussed and debated on the floor.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I do think the gentlewoman from Colorado 
is to be congratulated, because she got us started early. I do think 
that absent the gentlewoman from Colorado our friend from New Mexico 
would not have been up with the first amendment, and I thank our friend 
from Colorado for getting into this so early. As I said, I understand 
the motivation. I understand the notion it would be nice to avoid the 
issue, but I think the question of safety for reproductive clinics is 
too important to be folded into a kind of parliamentary sidestep.
  Therefore, while I will vote for this, I will also vote with the 
gentlewoman tomorrow.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number 
of words.
  Let me thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for his recollection 
and let me thank the gentleman from New Mexico for his amendment.
  But there are some questions that I have about the gentleman's 
amendment that I would like some clarifications on. The amendment I was 
planning to offer would allow Congress, or would allow local 
authorities, to pay overtime for law enforcement officers in protecting 
women's reproductive health care clinics.
  Do you feel your amendment is broad enough to include that, the 
overtime issue?
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico.
  Mr. SCHIFF. In my opinion, my amendment, well, once again, I just 
have to back up to say again, we are talking about illustrations here. 
I think the operative authorization language is already there, and I 
think that authorization language would allow the payment of overtime 
for police officers to provide security at reproductive clinics if the 
unit of local government thought that was necessary.
  I would just add, at least as an illustration, we are pointing out to 
the unit of local government they can provide security many other 
places.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. So then I kind of hear that as the answer is ``no.''
  Let me say the one thing I worry about the gentleman's amendment not 
being inclusive enough also on is that the gentleman says in and around 
any facility or location considered by the unit of local government to 
have a special risk. Now, what I was trying to do in my amendment is 
say that lots of localities have been hesitant to enforce this right of 
women to have access to a health care clinic, and I think that that 
might be the big duck in which local communities could duck out from 
under this. They could say, ``Well, we do not consider it dangerous,'' 
because that is really the qualifier on it.
  What I would like to ask the gentleman from New Mexico is, if this 
would be possible, because I think he is trying hard, and I appreciate 
what he is trying to do. What if we were to offer an amendment to the 
gentleman's amendment, first, you would have (i), ``in and around 
schools,'' which has no qualifiers in front of it.
                              {time}  1700

  What if you then had (ii), ``in and around women's reproductive 
health clinics,'' again with no qualifiers, like schools, and then you 
could do other facilities that have qualifications. We could draft that 
and make that an amendment to the gentleman's amendment. I think that 
would be clearer on point because the issue here being one of a 
constitutional right that we think has a much higher Federal level of 
calling than just random crime. I think that would then give this a 
little more status, and we would believe then it would be a little 
clearer to the communities that this is indeed what Congress intended 
by this amendment.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico.
  Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
  I just have to say, as an aside, and as a supporter of the law that 
passed in the last Congress making it a Federal offense to commit 
violence, to prevent people from entering reproductive clinics, not 
simply for picketing them, as was referred to by a previous speaker, 
perhaps is a matter for another hearing. The prosecutions with which I 
am familiar that the Federal Justice Department has brought under that 
act appear to me to be duplications of prosecutions brought under State 
law.
  So the representations that the States are not enforcing the law, 
which is the representation I accepted when I supported that act, I 
would like examined perhaps at a hearing. I mention that because of the 
gentlewoman bringing up the subject.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. If I may reclaim my time, I do not think we are 
communicating. What I am saying is clearly what I want to do is send a 
strong message from this Congress to local officials that with this 
money comes the ability for them to then have no excuses for protecting 
women's constitutional rights because we spoke before on that very 
clearly when we passed the prior bill.
  Now, there may be some ancillary issues. I understand what the 
gentleman is saying. But I do not think that message gets through with 
the gentleman's amendment, because he has that qualifier on it. That is 
why I am saying could he accept a substitute that would specifically 
list women's reproductive health facilities? Because then I think it is 
standing there clearly, saying we will not accept excuses to localities 
who get money and then do not use it.
  Mr. SCHIFF. If the gentlewoman would yield further, I made the point 
at the point the gentlewoman reclaimed her time, just in response to 
the lady's point that there are localities that are reluctant to 
protect reproductive clinics, that is the representation on which I 
voted to make it a Federal offense to use violence to interfere with 
entrance to reproductive clinics.
  I am merely pointing out----
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. 
Schroeder] has expired.
  (On request of Mr. Schiff and by unanimous consent, Mrs. Schroeder 
was allowed to proceed for 2 additional minutes.)
   [[Page H1645]] Mrs. SCHROEDER. I yield further to the gentleman from 
New Mexico.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say with respect to that 
issue that the gentlewoman has raised, I have not seen the Federal 
Justice Department prosecute cases primarily where local government or 
State government has not prosecuted. I have seen duplication of 
prosecution, the same individual prosecuted twice. I am again saying 
that that may be a matter of further inquiry.
  Also I wanted to respond with respect to the gentlewoman's suggested 
amendment, I would oppose the additional amendment for this reason: As 
we discussed the matter in the Committee on the Judiciary, there was 
universal agreement, as I understand it, that in every State there are 
locations where schools have a security problem. There was no move by 
either side of the aisle to remove, as an illustration, enhancing 
security at schools. I feel past that point, that different localities 
have different threats to their security and different needs of law 
enforcement.
  I think in a number of localities the gentlewoman's point is quite 
correct, there is a threat of violence at reproductive clinics. I do 
not think that has been shown to be all over the Nation.
  I make it as clear as I can, in terms of Congress' intent, that my 
illustration even if it were operative, which it is not, would allow 
the communities to provide additional security support at reproductive 
clinics or anywhere else in their communities they felt it was needed.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Reclaiming my time, I feel bad that we cannot get 
agreement to add it here as freestanding, because at that point I think 
we can prevent having an amendment later on.
  The reason I feel that way is the gentleman from New Mexico and I 
seem to be agreeing that the reason we got into this in the clinic 
violence bill last year was that we were afraid localities were not 
doing their job in some places. Now, the gentleman feels like maybe 
there is duplication. I do not think that is the issue.
  The issue is: Are we putting a qualifier on this so that localities 
can continue to refuse?
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
  I would also point out, Mr. Chairman, that many, many Americans would 
not have the benefit of having been on this floor when we had this 
debate. There would be uncertainty. There would be localities----
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. 
Schroeder] has again expired.
  (On request of Mr. Frank of Massachusetts and by unanimous consent, 
Mrs. Schroeder was allowed to proceed for 2 additional minutes.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Will the gentlewoman continue to yield?
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. I do yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I thank the gentlewoman again for 
yielding.
  The point is there will be differences about how to spend this money 
locally.
  Local governments are not monolithic. Some people will say, ``Well, 
they list this and they list that, they list schools, they do not list 
the clinics. It is disfavored. It is not one of the things that they 
wanted us to do.''
  We understand it is all optional locally, but if you did not think 
there was any point in listing things, you would not have listed things 
in your bill. You would not have added amendments listing things in 
committee.
  We believe, to resolve any dispute because we know protecting 
reproductive clinics is an issue that is debated at local levels, 
whether you should or should not, unfortunately; therefore, since it is 
likely to be debatable, we think for you to have listed in your bill 
some issues and left this one out specifically by name would be a 
mistake. That is why, in addition to this, we think the gentlewoman's 
amendment would be necessary.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico.
  Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentlewoman for continuing to yield.
  Mr. Chairman, in response to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. 
Frank], again we are dealing with illustrative language. I was 
sensitive to the argument made in the Committee on the Judiciary that 
even where you were proceeding with illustrations, there could, by 
omission, be an implication that something is not intended by Congress. 
The amendment I am offering is as all-encompassing as I can make it, 
that the local government can select any location or facility where 
they think they have a security need to enhance security with a block 
grant under this bill.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Reclaiming my time, that is precisely why I do not 
think the gentleman is getting where he wants to go without 
specifically listing health care clinics, because he does say, when it 
comes to any other facility, it is qualified ``as the local community's 
saying it is needed.'' And that qualification, as far as I am 
concerned, is the qualification that kills it and does not send the 
clear, resonating message that we think Federal funds should go to 
protect Federal constitutional rights.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I thank the gentlewoman.
  Mr. Chairman, if this did not separately say schools, there might be 
an argument. But it separately says schools and a lot of other things.
  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  (Mr. HYDE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, we are going to revisit this debate when the 
gentlewoman offers her amendment. So we are in for a bit of a debate 
here.
  Just in passing, I must say, if it were not so tragic, it would be 
amusing. The wordsmiths on the other side use euphemisms like 
reproductive rights when they are talking about abortion. Why do they 
not call it abortion? Let us be intellectually honest. Or is there 
something unpleasant about that word? There is nothing reproductive 
about killing an unborn child. The gentlewoman wants to elevate 
reproductive health clinics, anything but what she really means, which 
is abortion clinics, or abortion mills. She wants to elevate that to a 
very special place where the bill, the block grant program, will 
specify they get special protection.
  Now, I am not against abortion clinics getting protection by the 
police if they reasonably expect violence or a threat to safety. I say 
that clearly.
  The gentleman from Missouri may not agree with me, but threats to 
safety; it is the business of government to protect people from threats 
to safety. So I have no problem with that.
  What I have a problem with is elevating abortion clinics to a special 
status over other places where an awful lot of killing really goes on.
  In 1993 there were 1,946 people killed in New York. In the great 
District of Columbia there were 454 murders. In Chicago, my city, there 
were 845 murders. How many cab drivers have been murdered in their 
cabs?
  We cannot specify every place, every location, every convenience 
store, every liquor store, every currency exchange that is going to be 
threatened by robbery and people with guns that are going to kill 
people. Communities where there are gangs that are armed; you cannot 
spell it all out, especially in the block grant program.

                              {time}  1710

  I agree with the gentleman from Massachusetts, when we start eroding 
the notion that this is within the call--it is the call of the local 
government, by suggesting drug courts and suggesting violence against 
women, we have ourselves eroded the concept of the block grant. I could 
not agree more; logic forces me to do that. However, because we did it 
two times does not mean we need to do it 20 times.
  Now what we are doing here with the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Schiff] is we are broadening the concept 
that wherever the public safety is threatened, and that includes 
abortion clinics, if 
[[Page H1646]] the gentlewoman does not blanch at the term--it includes 
that, but to specify them gives them a status that I am, frankly, 
unwilling to yield, and that is where I come down.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HYDE. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. VOLKMER. It will be very brief because, as my colleague knows, I 
am just amazed about the support for this bill in general because of 
what it does do as far as abortion clinics, and as my colleague knows, 
we have people out there that are picketing, taking their time, their 
youth, their adults, their grandfathers, their grandmothers, and 
everything. They are trying to save unborn babies. That is where the 
crime is. I say to my colleague, ``That's what's happening, and the way 
I read this bill, you're just going to help it happen.''
  Mr. HYDE. Does the gentleman say they are entitled to freedom of 
speech?
  Mr. VOLKMER. I say they are entitled to freedom of speech and freedom 
to walk down there, and what I am afraid of is that in the name in some 
localities they will get these Federal funds, and they will put people 
down there so they cannot do that----
  Mr. HYDE. I appreciate what the gentleman says, and indeed the 
gentleman and I are on the same side.
  I just want to say the reason the gentlewoman's subsequent amendment 
is flawed is it continues to erode the notion of block grants, which is 
that the call for where these policemen should go and with what 
equipment shall be made by the unit of local government, not us here in 
Washington. It is that simple.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HYDE. May I yield to the gentlewoman from Colorado and then to 
the gentleman from Massachusetts?
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. First of all, let me explain to the gentleman from 
Illinois why these are called reproductive health care centers.
  Mr. HYDE. Please do.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. That is because most women of reproductive age get 
their entire health care through their reproductive years through these 
clinics.
  Mr. HYDE. If they just performed abortion, the gentlewoman would not 
want them protected?
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. I am not afraid to say the word ``abortion.'' But I 
must tell the gentleman, if you look at most of these clinics----
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde] has 
expired.
  (On request of Mrs. Schroeder and by unanimous consent, Mr. Hyde was 
allowed to proceed for 1 additional minute.)
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. I say to the gentleman, if you look at these clinics, 
you will find that it is a very, very small percentage of what people 
are doing. Basically, they're going for family planning information, 
for mammograms, for breast checks, for Pap smears, for the whole range 
of services, and many even extend services to the children.
  Mr. HYDE. And 1\1/2\ million abortions a year in this country.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. But their problem is that what has happened is, as 
the gentleman knows, is that this is a constitutionally protected 
right, but localities have been under seige because of people going 
beyond just passive--no one has any problem with free speech, but they 
are going on with a very aggressive type approach to it, and that is 
why I feel, if we do not put clinics in there free standing, then it 
will not override communities who were refusing to protect them, and I 
think Federal money ought to go for federally constitutional rights. I 
think that is a very important----
  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, if I may reclaim my time, I think under the 
block grant concept it ought to be up to local government. If they want 
to send police there, they ought to send them, and, if they do not, 
they ought not, and we should not tell them how to deploy their 
policemen.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I would like it to be made clear that the debate going 
on now is whether the authority to send in protection should reside at 
the local level or not, and in the amendment offered by the gentleman 
from New Mexico it resides at the local level.
  In the discussion with the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. 
Schroeder], she does not want it to reside, the decision of whether 
police are to be provided or not for these clinics--she wants it to be 
specifically in this legislation that reproductive health centers shall 
be protected. Why? Because that is the focus of where the violence is 
occurring.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentlewoman from Colorado.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is absolutely right. What 
we do not want is localities to be able to use the resource scarce rule 
to protect women from a federally--from a Federal constitutional right, 
and if they are getting resources from the Federal Government, but then 
refusing to protect the Federal taxpayers, half of whom are women, and 
all of them pay exactly the same amount men do, I do not want them to 
be able to use some other criteria. So that is why I think it very 
important it be free standing rather than it be modified.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CONYERS. As soon as I say this:
  It has been made clear by the gentleman from Illinois that we are 
trying to duck whether there will be a direct authority to protect 
these clinics in this crime bill or whether it will be left in some 
discretionary pool with a lot of other problems in which they may or 
may be included.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. 
Frank].
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, my friend from Illinois is 
one of the most intellectually honest people here, and he has just made 
clear why so many of us will be supporting the gentlewoman's amendment 
tomorrow. He is conscientiously, and firmly, and on principle opposed 
congresses legalized abortion, and he says he does not want abortion 
clinics or other reproductive clinics included in this bill by name 
because it would give them a status that he does not want them to have.
  Yes, I want them to have the status. The status is as entities that 
are known as eligible for protection against murder and protection 
against criminals. Once we begin to list some things--there are two and 
a half pages of specific examples in the bill my Republican friends 
brought forward--if we list some things and do not list others, we put 
them--apparently the gentleman agrees--in a disfavored category.
  There was not any controversy about a lot of what the police do in 
this country, but there has unfortunately been controversy about 
protecting Planned Parenthood and other clinics that provide these 
services, and at this point, having mentioned some of these things, if 
after the gentleman from Illinois has been honest enough to say he is 
opposed to mentioning abortion because he does not want to see them get 
that status, if tomorrow the gentlewoman's amendment is voted down, it 
will be correctly interpreted as one more step on the part of some 
people who want de facto to take away the legal protected status of 
abortion because they will have passed a bill in which some things have 
been mentioned, others will have not been mentioned, and my colleagues 
will have specifically repudiated, if my colleagues vote down that 
amendment, protection for abortion clinics.
  There is some controversy, as I said, at the local level. What we are 
doing is saying this: ``We want to send a clear signal to people at the 
local level, without any debate about it, that it is possible for you 
to use your Federal funds this way,'' and the only reason to oppose the 
gentlewomen's amendment that makes any sense is the one conscientiously 
articulated by the gentleman from Illinois. He is so strongly opposed 
to abortion that he does not want us to call attention to the fact that 
they have this status where they are eligible for protection. That, to 
me, is a reason to pass it.
  Mr. CONYERS. And so, even if we accept, or if the Schiff amendment 
passes, it does not change the underlying problem that has been raised 
in 
[[Page H1647]] committee about protecting reproductive health clinics. 
We cannot get around it, my colleagues. We have got to face it. We are 
the Congress. This is where the issue is going to be decided, the 
rubber hits the road. There is no way we can collapse it into some 
general language that will include anything and everything and then 
leave it to the discretion of local officials to pick it up.
  I say to my colleagues, ``This is the big duck amendment. Whether you 
like it or don't, it doesn't change the problem that victims of the 
violence at health clinics need protection, and I urge that we keep 
this in mind as this debate moves on.''

                              {time}  1720

  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Schiff].
  The amendment was agreed to.
  The CHAIRMAN. Are there other amendments to the bill?


                  amendment offered by mrs. schroeder

  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment, one that was not 
printed in the Record, the technology assistance amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mrs. Schroeder:

     SEC. 102. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

       Add (c) Technology Assistance.--(1) The Attorney General 
     shall reserve 1% in FY 1996 through FY 1998 authorized to be 
     appropriated under subsection (a) for use by the National 
     Institute of Justice in assisting local units to identify, 
     select, develop, modernize and purchase new technologies for 
     use by law enforcement.

  The CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman, I think this should go fairly simply. 
This is about the National Institute of Justice, which many of us feel 
with this amendment we are going to be able to avoid many of the 
pitfalls that we saw with LEAA. This is basically a new group that has 
really started that is kind of like what the firemen have had all 
along. It is a group that tests the different equipment, that can tell 
you what works and what does not work. When you have got over 17,000 
police entities and their average number of cops per police entity is 
like 12, you know they do not have their own R&D department. When they 
go to purchase stuff, the only people they are getting objective 
information from is the vendor, and we all know that might be a little 
slanted. Caveat emptor rings loudly.
  So this is a group that has really gotten a terrific track record in 
doing R&D and transferring military technology to law enforcement and 
trying to get a much better deal for the taxpayer every way around. 
What they have done with bulletproof vests, with fingerprinting, with 
all sorts of standards, I think is long overdue. The firemen had this 
ages ago.
  So I think if the gentleman from Florida can accept this?
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. I think the gentlewoman from Colorado has worked up a 
fine amendment. What I understand it would do is it sets aside 1 
percent per year for the National Institute of Justice for these 
purposes. That would amount to roughly $20 million a year for the life 
of the bill.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. The gentleman is absolutely correct. There are three 
people. When 17,000 entities come knocking at the doors, they are going 
to need a little more help.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. If the gentlewoman would continue to yield, while the 
subcommittee has not had the opportunity to hold the kind of hearings 
we would like to on the National Institute of Justice programs which 
the gentlewoman has represented and several members on the committee, 
including Mr. Schiff, are aware of, we want to put this in the bill 
because it is the suitable place to go to set aside the money. But 
after the time has passed here and we get off the floor, we are going 
to hold some hearings in our subcommittee before this bill winds up 
going to conference with the Senate and see what all we can learn to 
help further enhance this.
  For right now, I think this is a very appropriate provision, I would 
like to do this, and I accept the amendment in the spirit in which it 
is offered.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida, 
because he has been wonderful on this, as has the gentleman from New 
Mexico, a cosponsor, and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Schumer]. We 
have a real bipartisan agreement on this one. I really appreciate the 
remarks of the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to commend the 
gentlewoman for drafting this amendment. We have discussed this at 
great length. We are pretty much in agreement, Mr. Chairman, that 
oftentimes modern law enforcement officers are Wyatt Earp in a car. 
Many of the attachments they have in terms of what they have available 
to them in the way of technology have not changed for many, many 
decades.
  I am pleased to say it is starting to change around the country, from 
simply computer access within police automobiles, to research going 
into items such as smart guns, in this particular case a police officer 
having a weapon that cannot be fired unless he or she, that is that 
officer, is in fact holding that weapon. A large number of the police 
officers shot in the line of duty across the country are shot with 
their own weapons.
  That technology goes even further than police officers. We could 
prevent some of the tragedies that happen when children get hold of 
firearms if we could simply keep applying that technology. So 
advancement in this area is very necessary.
  Although our side has not from the committee entertained very well 
the idea of reserving and
 earmarking funds for various purposes, and I strongly support the fact 
that we will oppose some amendments coming later in that regard, I 
think that this is very appropriate for this reason: Small police and 
small sheriff departments cannot be expected to have the resources to 
do all of the analysis necessary to know what technology is presently 
on the shelf and available to them, and how it works and the cost and 
so forth. Therefore, a centralized department, in this case the NIJ at 
the Department of Justice, has been selected for that purpose.

  I have to say, as the gentleman from Florida indicated, there is at 
least some reservation as to whether the NIJ is the right agency to do 
this right now, and that is a matter that we may have to discuss if 
that amendment is accepted and the matter goes to conference with the 
other body.
  I want to say wholeheartedly the concept offered in this amendment is 
a great improvement in the bill, and will greatly benefit law 
enforcement.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank both 
gentlemen for their support. It is one of the ways we will be spending 
the rest of the funds a lot smarter and will hopefully not repeat the 
LEAA problems we had before.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that I think that this is an 
excellent job done by the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder], 
the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum], and the gentleman from New 
Mexico [Mr. Schiff]. It is really essential that we take military 
technology and apply it so that we can have law enforcement and use it. 
And the amount of technology, when I was chairman of the subcommittee 
we explored this, is enormous. With a little bit of help, they can take 
that technology and convert it.
  So I think this is an excellent, excellent amendment. I am delighted 
the other side will accept it. I know I have talked to the gentleman 
from Florida, and our subcommittee will have hearings and go further in 
terms of exploring. I have a particular interest, of course. I see my 
good friend from New York [Mr. Boehlert] is in the Chamber. Rone 
Laboratories, in upstate New York, is helping out here, and they are 
very able to do that.
  So overall this is a very, very good idea, and I hope that all 
Members accept it. The technology, Mr. Chairman, is unbelievable. The 
idea that a police officer might be able to just point a ray in a 
certain direction and see who has 
[[Page H1648]] an armed weapon on him, the ballistics tracing types of 
technology, the ways of finding all these things out are just enormous, 
and we ought to be using them.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SCHUMER. I yield to the gentlewoman from Colorado.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from New 
York, because I did mention his leadership too. The gentleman had some 
wonderful hearings. I always figure if you can get a double bang for 
the people's buck, which is what you are doing with this, it is great. 
Not only that, but our military is going to need that too, because they 
are looking more like law enforcement officers every day. This has been 
a very exciting program, and I thank the gentleman for his leadership.
  Mr. BOEHLERT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this Schroeder amendment, 
and I am glad to hear the conversation ongoing here between the 
gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Schiff], the author, the gentlewoman 
from Colorado, and my colleague from New York [Mr. Schumer].
  Currently, H.R. 728 contains no money for research and development of 
law enforcement technologies, and this amendment would appropriate a 
mere fraction of the block grant authorizations for 3 years to focus on 
the development of technology assistance.
  This is critical. Wyatt Earp would recognize much of today's police 
technology, and it has been a long time since Wyatt Earp was around. 
Law enforcement officers must be afforded the opportunity to take 
advantage of new technologies to take that proverbial bite out of crime 
and to prevent injury and alter the balance of powers criminals possess 
to control America's streets. I want the good guys to have all the 
technology they need on their side.
  All over America we have outstanding research facilities. In my own 
congressional district, Rone Laboratories, one of the premier military 
laboratories anywhere in the world, with responsibility for command, 
control, communications, and computer technology, is working 
cooperatively with the National Institute of Justice to develop the 
type of technology that our law enforcement officials can effectively 
use to wage war on crime. It is an exciting concept. I applaud the 
initiative and effort of the gentlewoman from Colorado.
  I once again thank my colleague from New Mexico, and the chair of the 
subcommittee, Mr. McCollum, for outstanding leadership in this area, 
and the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Hyde. We want the good guys 
to have what they need. All of us want to stop the bad guys, the guys 
we are after. With technology advancements that make them better able 
to do what they want to do, and when our guys try to get in there, they 
do not have the equipment they need.
                              {time}  1730

  There are all sorts of possibilities. One could hold something the 
size of a pack of cigarettes in their hand and point it at a crowd and 
be able to detect a weapon instantly. They could detect illegal 
substances under special circumstances. There are all sorts of exciting 
developments taking place in the marketplace out there.
  The other thing that really thrills me and should thrill all of us is 
the fact that we are getting such magnificent cooperation from our 
military laboratories. They are reaching out. They are making available 
their expertise to work in sensitive areas like this.
  So I rise in the strongest possible support of this amendment, and I 
urge my colleagues to give it the attention it deserves and to take 
advantage of it, because it is good for America.
  Mrs. COLLINS of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, I rise in vigorous support of 
this amendment. The continuing episodes of violence directed against 
women's reproductive health care clinics across the Nation and the 
providers and patients that work at and utilize such facilities are an 
outrage. We must put an end to these growing attacks once and for all.
  Last year Congress passed legislation containing provisions making it 
a Federal crime for a person to physically restrict or bar access to a 
medical facility for the sole purpose of dissuading or stopping someone 
from receiving reproductive health services. In addition, this 
legislation contained provisions not only to allow women and clinics 
the ability to obtain injunctions against protestors employing 
blockades, but also to permit victims of attacks by blockaders to sue 
for damages as a result of such brutality. However, more can and must 
be done. The Schroeder amendment greatly assists in this regard.
  This amendment would allow H.R. 728's local law enforcement block 
grant funding to be used to improve security measures at women's 
reproductive health care clinics to protect patients and providers 
against violence directed at the free exercise of their constitutional 
rights. This funding could be used for overtime pay for law enforcement 
officers, security assessments, and the purchase of materials, such as 
bulletproof glass, to enhance the physical safety of clinics.
  Mr. Chairman, the most recent shootings in Massachusetts and Virginia 
accentuate the urgent need for action to further protect the safety and 
privacy of all individuals who support a woman's constitutional right 
to choose. We must continue to grant all levels of government the 
necessary authority to act when abortion protestors go beyond the 
legitimate exercise of their opinions to acts of terrorism and violence 
against those who have made different decisions.
  I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder].
  The amendment was agreed to.


                     amendment offered by mr. hyde

  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Hyde: On page 9, strike lines 3 
     through 8, and insert the following
       ``(v) Oversight Accountability and Administration.--Not 
     more than 3 percent of the amount authorized to be 
     appropriated under subsection (a) for each of the fiscal 
     years 1996 through 2000 shall be available to the Attorney 
     General for studying the overall effectiveness and efficiency 
     of the provision of this title, and assuring compliance with 
     the provisions of this title and for administrative costs to 
     carry out the purposes of this title. The Attorney General 
     shall establish and execute an oversight plan for monitoring 
     the activities of grant recipients. Such sums are to remain 
     available until expended.''

  Mr. HYDE (during the reading). Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent 
that the amendment be considered as read and printed in the Record.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the question of the gentleman 
from Illinois?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, I am offering this amendment on behalf of the 
gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott] and myself. We both came up with 
almost the same idea and that was to provide funds to the Attorney 
General to oversee the compliance with this act by local units of 
government. And the idea of the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott] was 
to make sure that the programs they were overseeing were effective. So 
we put them both together in one amendment, and this provides that 
funds will be available to the Attorney General for studying the 
overall effectiveness and efficiency of the provisions of this title 
and assuring compliance with the provisions of this title and for 
administrative costs to carry out the purposes of this title.
  The Attorney General shall establish and execute an oversight plan 
for monitoring the activities of grant recipients.
  Now, not more than 3 percent of the amounts that are appropriated is 
to go to this fund, but it can be as much as $60 million a year. That 
$60 million would be given to the Attorney General, as I have said, to 
assure compliance and the welcome addition of the gentleman from 
Virginia [Mr. Scott], effectiveness with the act and to carry out the 
purposes of the act.
  The Attorney General must establish and execute an oversight plan, 
and I would say not because we do not trust local government but to 
ensure the success of the bill's intent.
  I think this adds to the oversight requirement of this $10 billion. I 
think it is a very useful amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Scott] who 
is the cosponsor of this good amendment.
  Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment and 
congratulate the gentleman from Illinois 
[[Page H1649]] for introducing it and working with me and others to 
have in it a provision that will review the effectiveness of these 
expenditures.
  Mr. Chairman, we are going to spend $30 billion fighting crime in 
these various bills. This amendment will ensure that that money is well 
spent. It provides for the evaluation of programs, which is extremely 
important so that other localities may get the benefit of the 
experience from some programs that work, and unfortunately, some 
programs that do not work.
  So with this amendment, Mr. Chairman, we will see that this money is 
well spent. Localities can benefit from each other's experience, and 
that the actual prevention programs will actually go to preventing 
crime.
  I thank the gentleman from Illinois for introducing it.
  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his valuable 
contribution.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, on our side, we are delighted that the cooperation has 
been worked out between the chairman and the gentleman from Virginia. 
We are delighted to accept the amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde].
  The amendment was agreed to.
                   amendment offered by mr. ackerman

  Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Ackerman: Page 12, after line 7, 
     add the following new paragraph:
       ``(10) Preference for former members of the armed forces.--
     The unit of local government has established procedures to 
     give members of the Armed Forces who, on or after October 1, 
     1990, were or are selected for involuntary separation (as 
     described in section 1141 of title 10, United States Code), 
     approved for separation under section 1174a or 1175 of such 
     title, or retired pursuant to the authority provided under 
     section 4403 of the Defense Conversion, Reinvestment, and 
     Transition Assistance Act of 1992 (division D of Public Law 
     102-484; 10 U.S.C. 1293 note), a suitable preference in the 
     employment of persons as additional law enforcement officers 
     or support personnel using funds made available under this 
     title. The nature and extent of such employment preference 
     shall be jointly established by the Attorney General and the 
     Secretary of Defense. To the extent practicable, the Director 
     shall endeavor to inform members who were separated between 
     October 1, 1990, and the date of the enactment of this 
     section of their eligibility for the employment preference.''

  Mr. ACKERMAN (during the reading). Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous 
consent that the amendment be considered as read and printed in the 
Record.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
New York?
  There was no objection.
  (Mr. ACKERMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to offer this amendment to 
H.R. 738, the Local Government Law Enforcement Block Grant Act. My 
amendment employs a very innovative approach to tackling two very 
critical problems currently facing our Nation.
  My amendment would assist in the fight against violent crime while 
also helping to alleviate the unemployment that has resulted from the 
downsizing of our Nation's military. Since the end of the cold war, 
thousands of members of the military have been involuntarily separated 
or have been released from active duty as wide scale downsizing has 
forced cutbacks in military personnel.
  This amendment simply requires that local law enforcement agencies, 
in applying for grants under this bill, provide a preference for 
veterans who are victims of our downsized military as a condition of 
receiving funds for additional law enforcement officers.
  Providing these former soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines with 
meaningful employment, our communities will benefit from the experience 
and dedication that they have already demonstrated in serving our 
country.
  What a great way to recruit people for our local police enforcing 
agencies. People who are in shape, people who are well trained, people 
who have experience with the use of firearms, young men and women who 
have a great deal of discipline. Bringing these veterans in from the 
cold to fight our domestic war on crime will let the enemy know how 
serious we are about crime and will not let their wanton acts go 
unpunished and that crime does not pay.
  I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I think it makes good 
common sense.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I will not use the 5 minutes. I think the gentleman has 
offered a good amendment. I am prepared to accept it. I do want to make 
a couple of points about it, though.
  First of all, as I read it, it provides that in order to get the 
funds, one of the qualifications that the unit of local government must 
have to give is that it has established procedures to give members of 
the Armed Forces that he has described, to give them a suitable 
preference in the employment of persons as additional law enforcement 
officers under the funds that are made available in this title.
  The preference is going to be set forth as far as how it would work 
by the Department of Justice under the Attorney General and under the 
Secretary of Defense.
  What I want to make clear is my reading of this does not indicate 
that the local units of government are required to hire armed services 
personnel who are retired, but if they come forward and they do apply 
and there is a notice provision in here for some notice to be given to 
those who are coming out of the services, that they will be given a 
suitable preference to be determined based upon what the Attorney 
General and the Secretary of Defense have worked out, as well as the 
nature of what the local unit of government has.
  I would like to make sure that my interpretation of this is correct.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Ackerman], 
to confirm that what I am stating is indeed the sense of his amendment.
  Mr. ACKERMAN. The gentleman's interpretation is absolutely correct. 
It does not require the hiring. It just creates a veterans' preference 
within the statute so that they would get a certain amount of points 
depending on the system that is used in the local municipality.

                              {time}  1740

  Mr. McCOLLUM. Reclaiming my time, having gotten that assurance from 
the gentleman, Mr. Chairman, I have no desire to keep the time any 
longer. I will support the amendment.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I compliment the gentleman from New York [Mr. 
Ackerman]. This is a provision that is used in other parts of the law 
already, and it tracks it. I think it is very important that we use 
this for giving suitable preference in the employment of persons as 
additional law enforcement officers, and for that reason, Mr. Chairman, 
I support the amendment and hope it will be unanimously agreed to.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Ackerman].
  The amendment was agreed to.
  The CHAIRMAN. Are there other amendments to the bill?


                    amendment offered by mr. schumer

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is the amendment printed in the Record?
  Mr. SCHUMER. I do not believe the amendment is printed in the Record, 
Mr. Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will report the amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Schumer: Page 6, strike the word 
     ``or'' on line 10, and insert the following after line 11:
       ``(6) consultants; or
       ``(7) vehicles not primarily used for law enforcement.''

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is a very simple one. This 
basically puts some limitations on the wide-open nature of the 
Republican bill, H.R. 728. The problem, of course, is that the bill as 
drafted is so broad and so wide open, while things could be spent for a 
noble and worthwhile purpose, such as police or prevention programs, it 
could also be spent on anything under the Sun, and what we are 
[[Page H1650]] trying to do here is prevent that from happening.
  Very simply, Mr. Chairman, in committee, a majority of the committee, 
although not the majority of the other party, prohibited tanks, 
airplanes, limousines, and yachts from being used for these funds. Why 
did we come up with examples like that? Very simply, the reason we came 
up with examples like that is that these types of things had actually 
been used.
  Mr. Chairman, the now-Speaker of the House, then when he was a Member 
of Congress, said, and let me quote, and this is quoting from Speaker 
Gingrich only 6 months ago, he said ``If they say to me, in the name of 
fighting crime, will I send a $2 billion check to cities, many of which 
have destructive bureaucracies, to let the local politicians build a 
bigger machine with more patronage, my answer is `no.'''
  The same day he said ``If we have to choose between paying for a 
directed purpose, such as building prisons, I can defend that. What I 
cannot defend,'' and this is Speaker Gingrich, ``is sending a blank 
check to local politicians across the country for them to decide how to 
spend it.''
  Mr. Chairman, if there was anything that rebutted the presumption 
from the other side that this bill is good for America, it is Speaker 
Gingrich's words 6 months ago.
  What has changed? Are things any different? Most of the very same 
mayors and county officials who were in office then are in office now. 
They are the same local politicians across the country, and we should 
not send them or give them a blank check; Speaker Gingrich's words. 
Yet, that is just what the majority party seeks to do in its bill.
  What is going on here, Mr. Chairman? Something that had more 
restrictions on it a while ago, now, even broader, is perfectly OK. It 
does not add up. It does not make sense.
  Speaker Gingrich knew what he was talking about. The old LEAA 
program, which had less money and more restrictions than the Republican 
bill, paid for this.
 If Members cannot see it, it is an armored personnel carrier, an M113-
A3, bought in Louisiana.

  It paid for this, an airplane that was used to fly the Governor of 
Indiana around the country. In fact in one of its most famous trips, it 
went to Washington, DC, to pick up Moon rocks, a great law enforcement 
purpose. The LEAA Program was rescinded in disgrace.
  Speaker Gingrich was right. To send local politicians across the 
country a blank check makes no sense. Then why, Mr. Chairman, in the 
bill before us is that just what the majority party seeks to do? It 
does not add up.
  Therefore, Mr. Chairman, the amendment I have, and I could think of a 
long list of purposes that we should not spend this money on, but 
certainly consultants, why did I pick consultants? One-third, fully 
one-third of the LEAA money, the old law enforcement money that had 
more restrictions than H.R. 728, more restrictions than H.R. 728, a 
third of the money was spent on consultants.
  These consultants did not wear badges, did not have guns, did not put 
their lives in danger. It was pork.
  Mr. Chairman, I say to my colleagues, lots of other LEAA money was 
spent on vehicles for the emolument of local officials. That was pork. 
Let me say to my colleagues, Mr. Chairman, if we pass H.R. 728 without 
the amendments that the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers] will 
offer this evening, and the gentleman from New York, I will offer 
tomorrow morning, we are looking for such trouble. We are looking for 
the kinds of pork that we have not seen for ages.
  Mr. Chairman, the other side says ``Send it all to the local 
governments,'' but Speaker Gingrich was right. There are lots of local 
politicians who will misspend the money just as well as Federal 
politicians might.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Schumer] 
has expired.
  (At the request of Mrs. Schroeder and by unanimous consent, Mr. 
Schumer was allowed to proceed for 3 additional minutes.)
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is right. There are just as 
many local politicians who will waste and fritter away the taxpayers' 
money as there are Federal politicians.
  What we seek to do in our proposals, Mr. Chairman, is simple. We say 
to the localities ``Yes, we want you to spend the money on 100,000 new 
cops on the beat. We want you to spend the money on things like drug 
courts, but we do not want to let you fritter away all these dollars 
for anything you want.''
  I say to my colleagues who are thinking of voting for H.R. 728 
without these amendments, take the wisdom of Speaker Gingrich. He knew. 
He knew how bad it would be to put together a huge block grant with no, 
no restrictions on it. He knew in his wisdom that there would be planes 
that could be bought with this money.
  Under the new Republican bill, until our amendment, planes could have 
still been bought; armored personnel carriers. Why some police officer 
in Louisiana needed an armored personnel carrier is beyond me, but much 
worse than that is the fact that the Federal Government let him buy it.
  Under these provisions, they would be powerless to stop them. We 
could have the President, the Attorney General, the Speaker, the 
minority leader telling the locality ``You cannot buy these things,'' 
but they would still have the right to buy them under H.R. 728.
  Mr. Chairman, this is one of the times where I agree with the 
Speaker. The Speaker is right. We should not be giving localities all 
the money they want for anything they want. He said it, not 10 years 
ago, not 5 years ago, but in June 1994, a mere 8 months ago.
  Mr. Chairman, let us all listen to him. Let us not be so wedded to a 
bill that was quickly drafted in the heat of the campaign last year, 
and instead, improve it, build upon the crime law, but not rip it up, 
start all over, and then rue the day.
  That is my concluding comment to my colleagues. I would say to anyone 
who votes for this wide-open blank check to the localities, 2 or 3 
years from now, they will live to regret it, because the amount of 
waste that will occur will be enormous.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I think this amendment is perfectly fine. I welcome the 
effort of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Schumer] in improving our 
bill. He has put forward two areas which probably should be cordoned 
off, or at least it would improve it to do that, consultants or 
vehicles not primarily used for law enforcement, as areas where we 
would not want them to spend the money.
  We probably could think of a whole litany of things out here if we 
kept working at it. For the most part, he has covered all of them that 
he could think of that the LEAA which is ever accused of violating.
  My own judgment is that the word ``consultants'' could probably use a 
definition somewhere in the definitions section. I am sure the 
gentleman would not want that term to include what is in the bill right 
now, and that is the fact that we may utilize the contracts that local 
units of government may have with private, non-profit entities or 
community-based organizations to carry out the purposes funded, to 
prohibit that phrase, if we indeed go to the term ``consultant'', 
because obviously, non-profit entities or community-based organizations 
would not be people we would not want to receive money under this bill.

                              {time}  1750

  So I think the term consultant perhaps needs to be defined, but I 
understand what the gentleman is getting at.
  What I would just like to comment on during the brief time I am up 
here on this amendment is that LEAA, the law enforcement assistance 
program of years past that the Democrats are so fond of saying is very 
similar to this, it is going to be abused again, we are going to be 
abused by this process, was quite different from what we are dealing 
with today.
  First of all, that program was designed specifically for innovation 
and experimentation. In fact, the moneys that went to the states and 
not to the local communities in that case, though the States may have 
given some of that money to them, that money was specified by us to be 
used only for experimental or innovative practices. It was designed to 
require that the States 
[[Page H1651]] and the local communities in spending that for law 
enforcement purposes be creative. They could not spend it for routine 
law enforcement or tried-and-true law enforcement procedures and they 
could not spend it for what we would consider to be prevention programs 
today. That is quite a different matter from what we have got forward 
in this bill.
  I would say that when you are charging them with coming up with new 
ideas and experimenting and putting a lot of money out there, maybe the 
past Congresses that passed it should have been wise enough to have 
foreseen that you were charging them with going off and trying to find 
new ways to spend money that would involve some things that would be 
pretty absurd at times because they could not spend it for normal law 
enforcement practices.
  However, this bill today that we have before us is designed in just 
the opposite fashion. We do not have a problem with some creativity, 
but it is open-ended in the sense that local communities may spend this 
money for anything which will help them fight crime in their local 
communities. I would submit that since we have an advisory board 
specifically set up that include a broad range of local community to 
decide what is best for that community and we have elected local 
officials making these decisions as bodies, not individually, but we 
have the county commissions and the city commissions making them, it is 
far less likely that the moneys will be spent on absurd projects under 
this bill than may have been under the old LEAA program which is quite 
different.
  Plus the fact under this legislation we have got all kinds of 
accounting checks and reporting requirements and oversight by the 
Comptroller General that is involved. So I would submit that it is 
highly improbable that this money will be misspent and that the program 
that we are seeking to accomplish here, the fighting of crime in the 
local communities, by its very nature requires giving this discretion 
to local governments, because Washington certainly does not know best 
how to fight crime which is 90 percent or better a local problem under 
local criminal laws.
  I submit that what is good for any community on the West Coast is not 
necessarily good for one in the South or the Midwest, or who knows? 
Every community is different. It is absurd for us to try to dictate to 
those communities how to do it.
  The very nature of providing flexibility contains within it the 
inherent risk that upon occasion, some local unit of government, some 
officials of government, elected by the people in their local 
communities, will act irresponsibly, will act in ways that you and I 
would not like them to do, and I fully expect that that is going to 
happen in a very tiny fraction of the cases where this money goes out. 
I would be remiss in not saying it is going to happen.
  But I think that the risk of that happening and the occasional 
misdeeds that will occur because local elected officials are not 
responsible in some cases is going to be far outweighed by the good 
that is done, by the flexibility that is provided in this legislation 
as opposed to what was there in the last Congress.
  What we had in the last Congress was far too narrow. It passed in a 
way that many local communities cannot take advantage of it. We had 
categorical grants saying, ``If you follow these things and do just 
this stuff, then you can get the money for these prevention programs, 
but you can't do it, for other prevention programs that might be better 
for your communities, you can't get any money for that.''
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] 
has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. McCollum was allowed to proceed for 1 
additional minute.)
  Mr. McCOLLUM. In the Cops on the Street Program, we said, ``Here is 
how you are going to go about it.
 If you have this matching grant program, 75 percent of the money will 
be paid for by the Federal Government for the first $20,000 or $25,000 
to hire a new cop.'' Since the average cost of a new cop is about 
$60,000 a year to hire him and outfit him and put him out on the 
street, for 3 years we did pay a small fraction but not nearly as much 
as a cop costs for that period of time. Then after the 3 years, the 
local community had to pay 100 percent of it if they submitted for a 
grant. We have found that in the process of the first few months of 
this grant program under last year's Cops on the Street Program, a lot 
of communities are saying to us, ``We can't afford to do that. We're 
not going to take advantage of it.''

  So our flexible approach is far better and the downsides to it are 
minuscule compared to the upsides and the positive approach the 
Republicans are offering today in this bill to let the local, county 
and city governments of this Nation spend $10 billion to fight crime at 
the highest crime rate level cities and communities around the country 
in the way that they best see fit and know how.
  I, therefore, commend the gentleman for this amendment, it is a fine 
improvement, but I think his points other than that were not well-
taken.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] 
has again expired.
  (At the request of Mr. Schumer and by unanimous consent, Mr. McCollum 
was allowed to proceed for 2 additional minutes.)
  Mr. McCOLLUM. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  The gentleman is raising problems with LEAA. We agree it had 
problems. But what Speaker Gingrich was referring to in these quotes 
was not the LEAA. It was the LPA, the Local Partnership Act which was 
in last year's bill which was virtually the same thing as the block 
grant proposed this year. So I would like to ask the gentleman, when 
the Speaker says, ``What I cannot defend is sending a blank check to 
local politicians across the country for them to decide how to spend 
it,'' how is the program in H.R. 728 any different than that quote from 
the Speaker? Where is the difference?
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Reclaiming my time, I can say to the gentleman that 
first of all the Local Partnership Act grant is $1.5 billion to the 
highest tax rate cities, not the highest crime rate cities.
  Second, I did not hear the Speaker say that, I do not know the 
context in which it was said, and I cannot defend him one way or the 
other today about that comment.
  But I would say to you that whatever he said, the fact of the matter 
is that the broad programs we are offering today provide the widest 
latitude of flexibility and conform the most to Republican principles 
of letting that government govern best which governs closest to the 
people. That is the local, county, and city governments. Consequently, 
when it is spread out to all of the governments to participate in, not 
just a narrow few as were under that LPA grant for $1.5 billion who 
were the highest tax rate cities in the country, we have a far 
different scenario than what we had in that bill last Congress.
  I think that whatever else is said about this, we are going to let 
every community in this country participate that has a crime rate 
problem, and it is a very positive improvement over last year's bill 
which was very narrow in scope with each of the categorical grant 
programs, as well as very narrow in scope of the conditions that were 
placed with regard to the cops on the street program which thousands of 
communities, including Oklahoma City for one, cannot participate in, 
say they cannot.
  So I accept the gentleman's amendment but I do not accept his 
premise.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I was going to give some more examples and make some 
more arguments, but at the conclusion of the comments of the gentleman 
from Florida, I am going to save them, because we are prepared to 
accept the amendment at this time.
  I commend the gentleman. We already have several items included. It 
was thought that consultants ought to be added, and I think the 
gentleman may want to indicate how we might even qualify that further.
  I yield to him at this point.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I would be happy.
  The gentleman from Florida makes a good suggestion. That is, that we 
make sure that consultants do not include nonprofit community 
organizations 
[[Page H1652]] that are involved in crime fighting itself, and I would 
suggest we do that in report language.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I think it is a great idea. We will take 
care of that, because it is true that sometimes community organizations 
do end up in a consulting capacity, and that is the last thing in our 
minds to in any way limit or inhibit their working under the provisions 
of this bill.
  With that, I indicate my support for the amendment.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield further?
  Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I guess the 
gentleman from Florida is gone. But I would just say, everything he is 
talking about did not answer the question, in all due respect to him. 
He was talking about the Speaker's language saying you cannot send the 
localities a blank check.

                              {time}  1800

  The gentleman from Florida is saying it is correct to send the 
localities a blank check, and I do not see how to defend that in any 
way other than it is a 180 degree turn, and some of the frustration we 
on this side have is that it seems a lot of what is in the contract, 
particularly on the crime bill, was not really designed to improve the 
crime bill. Anyone who thought this so convincingly in June would not 
draft something that was a blank check. I would argue to my colleague 
that it was simply done as a way of saying well, I am different and it 
is a bad way to go, and let us forget that mistake and let us go 
forward and pass something that makes sense.
  So I thank the gentleman for yielding. Again I stand by the fact that 
Speaker Gingrich said open block grants to communities is a blank 
check, we should not to it. And now we have a complete reversal. I say 
he was right then, he is wrong now.
  Mr. CONYERS. In addition, of course, this combines police grants, so 
what we are having now is a choice between every kind of prevention and 
nonprevention you ever imagined, plus the opportunity to not use police 
because there is not a separate category for community policing.
  I support the amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Schumer].
  The amendment was agreed to.
            amendment offered by mr. watt of north carolina

  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is the amendment printed in the Record?
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. It is not Mr. Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will report the amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Watt of North Carolina: Page 21, 
     after line 16, insert the following:
       ``(7) In no event shall the term `improving public safety' 
     be interpreted to allow the use of any funds appropriated 
     under this title for the construction or improvement of 
     highways, streets or roads.''

  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, a real problem I have with 
this bill has been illustrated by the last amendment which was adopted, 
and that is the question of how the bill is drafted.
  It leaves the field wide open for interpretation of about anything at 
the local level to be eligible for funding under this bill.
  The particular place which this amendment is designed to address is 
throughout the bill where amounts are to be paid to units of local 
government for improving public safety. There is no definition in the 
bill for what improving public safety means. In my congressional 
district there are some cities is that when we talk about public safety 
the first thing that they go to is not crime in the neighborhoods, 
police on the streets, or something of that kind, but public safety has 
the connotation of increased traffic, roads, streets, something that 
will help to improve the flow of traffic in and around the city.
  Let me make it clear that I do not have any problem with improving 
subject safety by building more streets or improving highways or 
improving roads, but in this particular bill, which is a crime bill, 
there should be no question that these funds should not be eligible for 
being used in that way.
  So I thought we better have something in the bill that gave some 
definition to this concept of improving public safety. I thought about 
trying to come up with a definition for improving public safety, and I 
really had some serious problems trying to draft the language that 
would cover that issue without creating more problems than I solved. So 
instead of trying to craft a definition for improving public safety, I 
at least thought we ought to back out this one element that could be 
interpreted as a means of improving public safety. In fact, it does 
improve public safety to improve the streets and roads and highways in 
a particular city. And I do not have any problem with that. But I could 
not come up with a crafted way, an ingenuous way to define improving 
public safety, which is really one of the problems that I have with 
this bill.
  I do not think the local officials are going to be able to, we are 
not going to be able to tell the local officials at the local level 
what improving public safety means any more than we can define that 
term in the bill.
  So, we have this broad, open, three words, ``improving public 
safety'' that we could about convert to any kind of construction or 
definition or interpretation that local government officials want to 
put it to, and that is a serious problem in this bill. At least if this 
amendment is adopted it will be clear that it is not a traffic bill 
that we are dealing with here, it is serious crime, or crime unrelated 
to traffic, even though there is nothing here in my amendment that 
would remove the funding from drunk driving or criminal activity other 
than traffic offenses.
  But I would just say to my colleagues here that as the bill is 
drafted now, traffic offenses and trying to solve problems of traffic 
in cities could just as easily fall under the category of improving 
public safety as criminal conduct, and I encourage my colleagues to 
please support the amendment.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I have to say to the gentleman from North Carolina that 
I rise to oppose his amendment. The gentleman from Florida who is our 
subcommittee chairman I believe accepted the last amendment because 
there is or at least there was some demonstrated abuse of funds under 
the former law enforcement administration that dealt with grants for 
the purpose of fighting crime.
  However, the fact of the matter is that we wanted to make that 
recognition, I will still take our approach in this bill of block 
grants over the micromanagement that is in the crime bill that passed 
last year. More specifically with respect to this amendment, when the 
gentleman said, ``in no event shall the term improving public safety be 
interpreted to allow the use of any funds under this title for 
construction or improvement of the highways, streets or roads,'' I 
would first of all say the reference to improving public safety is 
taken out of the paragraph that he says reduce crime and improve public 
safety as the purpose of the bill. And more specifically to roads, I 
would point out that one of the reasons to authorize the payment of 
funds in the crime bill that passed last year is increasing lighting 
within or adjacent to public transportation systems, including bus 
stops, subway stations, parking lots or garages, so that could be 
viewed under the gentleman's amendment as improving a road in such a 
way that would not be allowed.
  We have already allowed in the crime bill that crime occurs in roads 
and streets, like highway robbery, if you will, carjacking and so 
forth, and there could be action taken towards a street or road which a 
community does believe is for the purpose of reducing crime and 
improving public safety.
  For that reason I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SCHIFF. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. I am surprised to hear the gentleman 
concede that funds under this bill could in fact be used to improve 
roads and highways and streets. I thought clearly that was not a 
purpose of this bill.
  [[Page H1653]] Is the gentleman sure that he wants to concede that 
point?
  Mr. SCHIFF. Reclaiming my time, I do not think that is what I said to 
the gentleman from North Carolina. I pointed out that a provision of 
funding in the crime bill that passed last year allows increased 
lighting for roads, and under the gentleman's amendment that could be 
interpreted that the improvement in lighting is some kind of 
improvement to a road that is not allowed, when the improvement in 
lighting was found by its inclusion in this bill, last year's crime 
bill to be for the purpose of fighting crime.
  I just want to say that the gentleman is taking this out of context. 
The purpose of grants, block grants are for the purpose of reducing 
crime and improving public safety, and we believe that local officials 
that do not use the funds for that purpose are not going to be local 
officials for much longer.
  I yield again to the gentleman from North Carolina.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. I appreciate the gentleman yielding, and 
I want to make three quick points in response. First of all, the one 
instance the gentleman has referred to where there is a reference to 
reducing crime and improving public safety is on page 2.

                              {time}  1810

  But I would point out to the gentleman that on page 6 there is a 
provision dealing with maintenance of public safety which is not 
connected with reducing crime in any way, and there are other examples 
in this bill where improving public safety is used. So I think the 
gentleman is mistaken in that respect.
  Second, I have made no argument about lighting. My amendment goes to 
streets, roads, and highways, and if there is something in last year's 
bill about lighting at bus stops, I would not think that would related 
to either roads, highways, or streets, and if we are superseding last 
year's crime bill, then I am not sure why we would be debating that 
issue anyway. Because this language, I would think, goes beyond last 
year's crime bill.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Reclaiming my time, I just want to point our again that 
improved lighting for a street could, under the gentleman's amendment, 
be determined to be improving that street and, therefore, not allowed 
under our bill.
  But I want to steer back to the central idea of this bill, H.R. 728. 
We are going to trust the local communities. Nobody has denied on our 
side that not all of the past experiences have been perfect in that 
regard.
  But when compared to the experience of Washington micromanagement, it 
is a whole lot better, and that is why I urge defeat of the gentleman's 
amendment.
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, one of the problems with this whole process is it does 
not seem as if we fully understand what happens in the local 
municipalities and the local processes as it relates to budgeting, and 
that is even more important as we consider the fact that at every level 
there are reductions in budgets as various mayors try to find the best 
means of resolving their budget conflicts.
  All over this country today there are those who are trying to bridge 
the gap that they might be able to provide a level of service but, at 
the same time, deal with the reality that they cannot tax themselves 
out of problems that are endemic to the cities. In so doing, a 
community, a block grant for police, a block grant for anything, 
represents the potential as a tool to be used in almost any way to be 
able to try to bridge those budget gaps.
  I think a classic example may well be as we consider what has 
happened with community development block grants. They were intended 
for the purpose of insuring that many of these urban communities were 
rebuilt. In point of fact, in too many instances, those community block 
grants are nothing more than the difference between what it takes for a 
city to be able to not have to go out to the bond market and for it to 
balance its budget by the use of Federal resources. I think we all 
would have to agree that any local politician who is concerned about 
the next election, seeing the resources that are now available to them 
in a community block grant over which they have absolute control, with 
no direction from Washington, with no mandates in terms of how those 
funds would be spent, could easily provide justification that what they 
are spending the money for is, in fact, in the interest of public 
safety.
  If you consider what we are talking about and the number of bills 
that are before us, the number of bills that will be before us in the 
next few days, when you talk about welfare reform, when you talk about 
not providing people a decent kind of wage on which to live, when you 
talk about all the conditions that are endemic to the schools and other 
circumstances in these communities, you are doing to drive more people 
onto the kind of census that makes up this ever growing prison 
population. While you are doing that, you could easily make arguments 
then that your justification for spending money in various areas that 
are not defined within the bill might well fit within the rubric of 
public safety.
  I think what we are doing, in fact, is giving to those who are local 
representatives in government an opportunity to have before them 
resources that would not otherwise be available. They will do as they 
have done with the community development block grants, they will not 
use the money for policing issues, they will not use the money for 
public safety issues, they will use the money to be able to bridge that 
budget gap.
  If you look farther at community development block grants in some 
major cities where they have taken those moneys not to create housing, 
not to be able to rebuild communities, not to economic development 
vehicles, rather, they have used those moneys so they might provide in 
some instances security, housing that is warehoused by the city, that 
would not be considered within the interest of development of housing. 
I could see likewise one can just as easily argue you could make those 
funds available for providing security in areas the city would 
otherwise have to do it, but now would not have to do it by virtue of 
the fact that they have the benefit of a community block grant.
  These block grants are nothing more than a giveaway. It is a form of 
welfare. It is a form of a subsidy that allows for somebody who is in 
power who has the authority over a budget to say this is where I want 
the money to be targeted and, you know as well as I do, and I am a 
former educator, I can tell you if you give me a few minutes and you 
give me a lot of money and knowing that dollars are fungible, I will 
figure out a way to make those dollars usable for whatever I can 
justify them to be usable for. That is what we are making available for 
the cities, and we need to stand and be honest about that.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FLAKE. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico.
  Mr. SCHIFF. I wonder is the gentleman saying he opposes community 
development block grants?
  Mr. FLAKE. I oppose community development block grants that are given 
to those who are in power who do not do what those community block 
grants are designated to do, and in too many instances, there is a 
history that community block grants do not do what we have historically 
designed them to do when we have made community block grants available 
from Washington.
  Mr. SCHIFF. If the gentleman will yield further, either community 
development block grants exist or they do not. Is the gentleman in 
favor of repealing the whole issue of community development block 
grants?
  Mr. FLAKE. I would not repeal the whole issue of community 
development block grants. What I would do though is set some specific 
mandates on how those funds are being used as is the case with the 
amendment that is before us right now where it says there are specific 
things you can do and specific things you cannot do, because as we try 
to solve a particular problem, the block grant is developed for that 
reason, for that reason alone.
  Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I think we know the difference between improving 
lighting 
[[Page H1654]] and improving the roads, and improving the lighting 
would have a significant impact on crime in an area and could be 
supported.
  I know many localities trying to build roads who would be praised for 
spending this money on road building rather than crime fighting. This 
funding is for crime prevention, and thankfully we did have some money 
put into the bill a few minutes ago which would have the effect of 
evaluating programs for their effectiveness in preventing crime. But 
road building is one where we would not have to wait for the 
evaluation.
  Mr. Chairman, I would hope that we would adopt the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. 
Watt].
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding.
  I just wanted to reemphasize the point that I simply do not 
understand why there would be opposition to this amendment. There is 
nobody, I think, on this floor or in this Congress who thinks that the 
purpose of this bill is to improve roads, highways, or streets. And yet 
the language in the bill, improving public safety, is clearly broad 
enough to cover that kind of activity.
  For the life of me, I cannot understand why we make an issue of this 
simply to send a message to the public. I guess that we have crafted 
the perfect bill, and our language cannot be improved; surely, the 
proponents of this bill, the sponsors of this bill, do not believe they 
have crafted a perfect bill, and I just for the life of me cannot 
understand the opposition to this amendment.
  I would ask my colleagues to, please, be sensible about this. Make 
this clear. There are enough loopholes and gaps in this bill without 
leaving this loophole and gap for local communities to drive through.
  I can tell you that in some areas traffic is the major issue that is 
affecting the people, and there is no problem with addressing the issue 
of traffic.
  But let us do it in a transportation bill, in a roads bill. Let us 
not leave open the opportunity to address that concern in what we are 
calling a crime bill in the name of just the sense that they have some 
perfect bill here. It is not a perfect bill. There are all kinds of 
problems with this bill, and this is just one of them.
  We ought to at least close this one gap.
                              {time}  1838

  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt].
  The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the ayes 
appeared to have it.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that 
I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.
  The CHAIRMAN. Evidently, a quorum is not present.
  Pursuant to the provisions of clause 2, rule XXIII, the Chair 
announces that he will reduce to a minimum of 5 minutes the period of 
time within which a vote by electronic device, if ordered, will be 
taken on the pending question following the quorum call. Members will 
record their presence by electronic device.
  The call was taken by electronic device.
  The following Members responded to their names:
                             [Roll No 119]

                       ANSWERED ``PRESENT''--417

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allard
     Andrews
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baesler
     Baker (CA)
     Baker (LA)
     Baldacci
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Barrett (WI)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Beilenson
     Bentsen
     Bereuter
     Berman
     Bevill
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop
     Bliley
     Blute
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonior
     Bono
     Borski
     Boucher
     Brewster
     Browder
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Brownback
     Bryant (TN)
     Bunn
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Cardin
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Chrysler
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clinger
     Clyburn
     Coble
     Coburn
     Coleman
     Collins (GA)
     Collins (IL)
     Collins (MI)
     Combest
     Condit
     Conyers
     Cooley
     Costello
     Cox
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Crane
     Cremeans
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Davis
     Deal
     DeFazio
     DeLauro
     DeLay
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Dornan
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     Engel
     English
     Ensign
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Everett
     Ewing
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fawell
     Fazio
     Fields (LA)
     Fields (TX)
     Filner
     Flake
     Flanagan
     Foglietta
     Foley
     Forbes
     Ford
     Fowler
     Fox
     Franks (CT)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frisa
     Funderburk
     Furse
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gejdenson
     Gekas
     Gephardt
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Gonzalez
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Green
     Greenwood
     Gunderson
     Gutierrez
     Gutknecht
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hamilton
     Hancock
     Hansen
     Harman
     Hastert
     Hastings (FL)
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Hefner
     Heineman
     Herger
     Hilleary
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hoke
     Holden
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Jackson-Lee
     Jacobs
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson, Sam
     Johnston
     Jones
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kim
     King
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Klink
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaFalce
     LaHood
     Lantos
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Laughlin
     Lazio
     Leach
     Levin
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (GA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Lightfoot
     Lincoln
     Linder
     Lipinski
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren
     Longley
     Lowey
     Lucas
     Luther
     Maloney
     Manton
     Manzullo
     Markey
     Martinez
     Martini
     Mascara
     McCarthy
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McDermott
     McHale
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Metcalf
     Meyers
     Mfume
     Mica
     Miller (CA)
     Miller (FL)
     Mineta
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Molinari
     Mollohan
     Montgomery
     Moorhead
     Morella
     Myers
     Myrick
     Nadler
     Neal
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Orton
     Owens
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pallone
     Parker
     Pastor
     Paxon
     Payne (NJ)
     Payne (VA)
     Pelosi
     Peterson (FL)
     Peterson (MN)
     Petri
     Pickett
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Portman
     Poshard
     Pryce
     Quillen
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Rangel
     Reed
     Regula
     Reynolds
     Richardson
     Rivers
     Roberts
     Roemer
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Rose
     Roth
     Roukema
     Roybal-Allard
     Royce
     Rush
     Sabo
     Salmon
     Sanders
     Sanford
     Sawyer
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer
     Schiff
     Schroeder
     Schumer
     Scott
     Seastrand
     Sensenbrenner
     Serrano
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skaggs
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stockman
     Stokes
     Studds
     Stump
     Stupak
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tate
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Tejeda
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thornberry
     Thornton
     Thurman
     Tiahrt
     Torkildsen
     Torres
     Torricelli
     Towns
     Traficant
     Upton
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Volkmer
     Vucanovich
     Waldholtz
     Walker
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Ward
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Watts (OK)
     Waxman
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Williams
     Wise
     Wolf
     Woolsey
     Wyden
     Wynn
     Yates
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Zeliff
     Zimmer

                              {time}  1839

  The CHAIRMAN. Four hundred seventeen Members have answered to their 
name, a quorum is present, and the Committee will resume its business.
                              {time}  1840


                             recorded vote

  The CHAIRMAN. The pending business before the House is the demand of 
the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Schiff], for a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The CHAIRMAN. This is a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 194, 
noes 230, not voting 10, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 120]

                               AYES--194

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Andrews
     Baesler
     Barcia
     Barrett (WI)
     Beilenson
     Bentsen
     Bereuter
     Berman
     Bevill
     Bishop
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boucher
     Brewster
     Browder
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Bryant (TX)
     [[Page H1655]] Cardin
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Coleman
     Collins (IL)
     Collins (MI)
     Condit
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cramer
     de la Garza
     DeFazio
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Duncan
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fazio
     Fields (LA)
     Filner
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green
     Greenwood
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hamilton
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hayes
     Hefley
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hoyer
     Inglis
     Jackson-Lee
     Jacobs
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnston
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kleczka
     LaFalce
     Lantos
     Laughlin
     Lazio
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lincoln
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney
     Manton
     Markey
     Martinez
     McCarthy
     McDermott
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Menendez
     Meyers
     Mfume
     Miller (CA)
     Mineta
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Montgomery
     Moran
     Morella
     Nadler
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Orton
     Owens
     Pastor
     Payne (NJ)
     Payne (VA)
     Pelosi
     Peterson (FL)
     Peterson (MN)
     Pickett
     Pomeroy
     Poshard
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reed
     Reynolds
     Richardson
     Rivers
     Roemer
     Rose
     Roukema
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanders
     Sawyer
     Schroeder
     Schumer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Sisisky
     Skaggs
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stenholm
     Stokes
     Studds
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Tejeda
     Thompson
     Thornton
     Thurman
     Torres
     Torricelli
     Towns
     Traficant
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Volkmer
     Ward
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wyden
     Wynn
     Yates
     Zimmer

                               NOES--230

     Allard
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker (CA)
     Baker (LA)
     Baldacci
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blute
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Brownback
     Bryant (TN)
     Bunn
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Chrysler
     Clinger
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins (GA)
     Combest
     Cooley
     Cox
     Crane
     Cremeans
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Davis
     Deal
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Doolittle
     Dornan
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Fields (TX)
     Flanagan
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Franks (CT)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frisa
     Funderburk
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Graham
     Gunderson
     Gutknecht
     Hancock
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Heineman
     Herger
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hoke
     Holden
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Istook
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kanjorski
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kim
     King
     Kingston
     Klink
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Lightfoot
     Linder
     Livingston
     Longley
     Lucas
     Manzullo
     Martini
     Mascara
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHale
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Molinari
     Moorhead
     Murtha
     Myers
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pallone
     Parker
     Paxon
     Petri
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce
     Quillen
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Riggs
     Roberts
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roth
     Royce
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer
     Schiff
     Seastrand
     Sensenbrenner
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Shuster
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stockman
     Stump
     Talent
     Tate
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Torkildsen
     Upton
     Vucanovich
     Waldholtz
     Walker
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Williams
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Zeliff

                             NOT VOTING--10

     Becerra
     Chapman
     Crapo
     Geren
     Gibbons
     Jefferson
     Matsui
     Meek
     Tucker
     Wilson

                              {time}  1846

  So the amendment was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
                              {time}  1850

  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last 
word.
  Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for recognizing me for 5 minutes. 
I normally do not take a vote on an issue personally, but I think I 
need to say some things to this body.
  Mr. Chairman, I came earlier today and offered the amendment that 
just failed to the leadership on the majority side in an effort to try 
to work with the majority leadership to improve this bill. There is not 
a person in this House who believes that this money should be used to 
build streets, roads or highways. There is not a Member of this House 
who believes that the funds under this bill ought to be used for 
highways, roads or streets. And I tried to offer this amendment in such 
a way just to clarify that issue. And I won the voice vote.
  During the course of the debate on the rule, I pointed out to the 
Members of this body and to the American people that the time required 
to come over here and vote on an amendment is included in the 10 hours 
of public debate time that is allocated for this bill.
  Immediately before I had offered my amendment, the other side had 
just agreed to an amendment similar to this. So I am beginning to 
wonder here what is going on in this body. We are marching in lockstep, 
doing things that make no sense in the context of public policy, 
denying Members that right to clarify the wording of a bill, maybe 
taking out personal animosities and concerns from last week on the 
content of this bill, because this vote makes no sense in the context 
of what we are doing here.
  I want to just make it clear to my colleagues over here, if this vote 
is designed to send a message to Mel Watt, which I am inclined to think 
that it is, as I speak here, I will tell them that I will send a number 
of amendments that they will not like for their consideration. If they 
want to single me out and discipline me by calling for a vote on 
something that everybody in the House agrees to and tell their soldiers 
to march, contrary to public policy, contrary to what everybody in this 
House knows the intent of this bill is, then somebody have enough nerve 
to come to my face and tell me that. Because if they want to declare 
war, then I am up to it, and I will tell them that I am ready to start 
the war right here.
  But I will not be personally insulted. I will not be personally 
singled out. And I will not have them march like toy soldiers on issues 
of public policy without exposing what they are doing to the American 
people.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, what the gentleman is saying is, maybe 
some of the Members did not quite understand, what I understand what he 
is saying is that an amendment that previously delineated what they 
meant was accepted by the other side; correct?
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. That is correct.
  Mr. VOLKMER. And this amendment, which really, I think, is clear to 
everybody, I do not think, surely, maybe there is, maybe the gentleman 
is a little wrong, maybe they really want to use this money, crime 
fighting money, for roads and highways and streets. Maybe the gentleman 
missed the boat. Maybe that is really the way they want to use the 
money. But it does not appear that that would be a proper use of it. I 
agree with the gentleman.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. 
Watt] has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Watt of North Carolina was allowed to 
proceed for 2 additional minutes.)
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, 
if that is not so, then the only purpose of them asking for the vote 
and taking all the time is because, the gentleman feels, it was he that 
offered the amendment. In other words, perhaps if it was someone else 
that offered the amendment, the amendment may have been accepted.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Perhaps I should let the gentleman offer 
the next amendment.
  [[Page H1656]] Mr. VOLKMER. I do not think I am in any better shape 
than the gentleman is.
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Well, perhaps I should select somebody 
else of another hue to offer the amendment.
  I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I am sorry that the gentleman from North Carolina, who 
offered the amendment, felt that my opposition to it was based in some 
way in some personal fashion. I would point out that in the last vote, 
12 of my party voted with the gentleman and 14 Members of his party 
voted with me against it.
  I want to make two points. First of all, if we have misjudged the 
situation, I cannot say, but we had received ideas that amendment after 
amendment after amendment was going to be offered. We have seen drafts 
that included no purchase of rocket launchers, no purchase of farm 
equipment.
  Now the majority party in the Committee on the Judiciary helped to 
pass an amendment to this bill which provided several limitations such 
as the gentleman from North Carolina is talking about. We said things 
like no purchase of limousines and no fixed wing aircraft, and so 
forth.
  Second of all, the gentleman from Florida, the chairman of our 
subcommittee, accepted an amendment offered by the gentleman from New 
York [Mr. Schumer], which said no use of consultants and no use of 
unconventional vehicles for the police department.
  The point is, our belief was these amendments were going to come 
endlessly, not necessarily for their individual merit, but to make the 
general point that there are Members here who do not approve of the 
block grant approach and intend to oppose this bill no matter how many 
amendments are accepted.
  We accepted some amendments as an acknowledgment that, in fact, there 
have been past problems with block grants. Most of us continue to 
support H.R. 728 because we think the block grant is still appropriate 
when compared to Washington and congressional micromanagement.
  My point is that nothing here was designed or intended to be personal 
to the gentleman from North Carolina in any way. It was just to stop 
what we thought was a flurry of these amendments, duplicative in 
spirit, if not in letter.
  Second, Mr. Chairman, I have to say, with the utmost regard to the 
gentleman from North Carolina, I want to say that this particular 
amendment was a mistake. When we say that no money can be used for 
roads, that could be no lighting to improve security, it could mean no 
rerouting of traffic to prevent gang attacks and to prevent 
carjackings.
  I was given one example by the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Bilbray] of a road built to a county jail.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. Bilbray].
  Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Chairman, I tried to discuss this item. I crossed 
over the aisle and discussed it with the gentleman from North Carolina. 
I did have a concern and I think that that kind of communication was 
nothing personal on my vote. I was not in lockstep.
  The fact is that we built an $800 million facility trying to fight 
crime in the county of San Diego, and one of the major problems we had, 
too, is that we had to spend over a million dollars to get from the 
adjoining road to the site where we could build this facility.
  Now, I am sure my colleague from North Carolina did not mean to 
create that kind of barrier from being able to utilize these resources 
for different types of crime activity, but this was one that was a good 
example of where there would have been a legitimate facility built, 
legitimate expense that would have been blocked by his amendment.

                              {time}  1900

  That is why I voted, not because I was in lockstep on this side of 
the aisle, but because, from practical application, I saw that this 
could be a barrier from doing what the bill wants us to accomplish, and 
that is fighting crime.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say in conclusion once again 
that it was our belief we would be debating these amendments for the 
entire 10 hours of this bill, which essentially made the same point 
over and over again, which we think we have recognized in accepting the 
amendments we have offered.
  More importantly, Mr. Chairman, I believe this particular amendment 
offered by the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt] inadvertently, 
I am sure, would have precluded legitimate uses of law enforcement 
money.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman from California [Mr. Bilbray] has 
made just the point that we on this side of the aisle wish to make, 
which is if there was a need for a road, even if the road would be used 
by law enforcement personnel, there are State funds to do that, there 
are Federal highway funds to do that, et cetera.
  The very point is, Mr. Chairman, in this large block grant concept, 
we could stretch the definition so far that we could do almost 
anything, and the money would be so dissipated that the actual bang for 
the buck in law enforcement would be next to nothing. Therefore, Mr. 
Chairman, I think the amendment of the gentleman from North Carolina 
[Mr. Watt] was very well advised. I do not care if there is a road 
going from one prison to another. If you ask the American people 
``Should the money in the crime bill, whether it be a Democratic crime 
bill, a Republican bill, or a bipartisan crime bill, go to building 
roads from one place to another, no matter what the purpose?'' they 
would overwhelmingly say no. That is the very reason the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Bilbray] makes the point that we wish to make, the 
gentleman from North Carolina, myself, and all of us on this side of 
the aisle. That is that the block grant proposition, despite good 
intentions, it will pave the road, so to speak, for all sorts of kinds 
of things that will be built with this money that no one had any idea 
of, that have nothing to do with real law enforcement, and it will end 
up being a gigantic, big barrel of pork.
                     amendment offered by mr. wise

  Mr. WISE. 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. Wise: At page 4, after line 19, 
     insert
       (G) ``Enhance programs under subpart 1 of part E of the 
     Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968.

  Mr. WISE. Mr. Chairman, we have been talking to the majority. I 
believe it will be acceptable. This amendment is very simple. It simply 
says that for purposes of the block grant, that the local governments 
can use the block grant for the same purposes that they presently 
receive Byrne funds for. The Byrne grant is authorized under a separate 
law. The Byrne grant begins its appropriations, or its authorized 
amount begins to be reduced each of the next years up until the year 
2000. What this simply says is that for those programs that local 
governments have found useful, and there are 22 of them that are 
permissible under the Byrne grant, for those programs that they can use 
the block grant moneys for those Byrne programs.
  To give some examples, in West Virginia, for instance, one of the 
most successful programs has been the DARE, drug abuse resistance 
education programs. Byrne moneys can be used there. Police officers 
teach the DARE Program. Another one that has been very helpful, and I 
think goes right to the heart of what the majority bill hopes to do, is 
the multijurisdictional drug task force. Once again, Byrne moneys can 
be used to bring, in rural areas particularly, to bring the many county 
and local governments together, working with the State and Federal 
authorities in ways that they have not been able to do today to work on 
drugs.
  Mr. Chairman, I would ask that this be approved and that the 
amendment be adopted which would permit the 22 purposes of the Byrne 
grant, that the local governments be able to use the block grant moneys 
here to implement those programs.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  [[Page H1657]] Mr. WISE. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from 
Florida.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman's program is 
excellent. We support it. We already have, as Members know, the Byrne 
grant programs. The fact of the matter is this was never intended, our 
bill, to in any way keep programs that have Byrne grant program funds 
from receiving additional moneys out of this bill. There is total 
flexibility for the States to do that.
  The gentleman's amendment guarantees that. I support it.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WISE. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Michigan, the 
ranking member of the committee.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, this is an excellent amendment. The 
gentleman is attempting to reimpose some needed structure to the 
completely unmanageable and formless way the block grant programs are 
structured, so I commend the gentleman. I think we will accept it 
unanimously on this side.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wise].
  The amendment was agreed to.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Chair wishes to inform the membership that it is 
the intention of the Chair, to the best of his ability, to rotate 
recognition for the purpose of offering amendments between Republican 
and Democrat.
  It was the mistaken belief of the Chair that the gentleman from West 
Virginia [Mr. Wise] was seeking time to strike the requisite number of 
words. Obviously he was seeking time of offer an amendment. Therefore, 
the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Martini] should have been recognized 
first.
                    amendment offered by mr. martini

  Mr. MARTINI. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Martini: Page 8, after line 19, 
     insert the following new subsection:
       ``(h) Matching Funds.--The Federal share of a grant 
     received under this title may not exceed 90 percent of the 
     costs of a program or proposal funded under this title.

  Mr. MARTINI. Mr. Chairman, I rise today as a member of the Republican 
Task Force on Crime to offer an amendment that I believe is essential 
if this House wants to make sure the Local Government Law Enforcement 
Block Grants Act, H.R. 728, is a credible program to fight crime.
  As written, Mr. Chairman, H.R. 728 is a good bill. Block grants will 
combine the extra resources our communities need to combat crime with 
the added flexibility to use that money in ways that best suit them.
  I support the bill, Mr. Chairman, and believe it brings us a long way 
toward our goal. However, Mr. Chairman, we can make a good bill even 
better, in my opinion. The localities are being given the money without 
having to put up any of their own funds.
  With no direct financial stake in the program, I fear many local 
governments will not officially use the money we offer them. If the 
program is a waste, they lose nothing. It is a classic case of easy 
come, easy go.
  The amendment offered by my colleague, the gentleman from Delaware 
[Mr. Castle] and I seeks to address this problem by implementing a 
matching provision in which local governments will be required to put 
up 10 percent of the grant they receive. Even this small matching 
amount will protect the integrity of what we are attempting to do.
  Mr. Chairman, as a former local official on both the county and 
municipal level, I know these kinds of matching provisions bring 
accountability to local units of government. It is accountability that 
this amendment seeks to do.
  The 10 percent matching provision is not as large as those contained 
in last year's crime bill, and the amendment does not infringe at all 
upon the wise latitude given the localities that is the cornerstone of 
H.R. 728.
  Mr. Chairman, this year this House has taken many actions to preserve 
for our constituents and to tell our constituents that we understand 
their money is a scarce resource, and we can no longer afford to spend 
it on wasteful projects.
  It is not that I begrudge the amount of money in block grants this 
bill proposes; rather, fighting crime is one of the most important 
functions of our government, and I wish we could afford to spend more 
in this area.
  What the Martini-Castle amendment does do is force localities to be 
as careful with their Federal money as we have committed ourselves to 
be with the Federal taxpayers' dollars. Even the smallest amount of 
investment made by a locality will give local officials a stake in the 
success or failure of a program, and help assure us that our block 
grants are being put to good use.
  I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and strengthen what is 
already a very good bill.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. MARTINI. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, under the gentleman's amendment, any 
community of any size would have to come up with 10 percent of any 
application or grant that they receive as a result of an application, 
is that right? Is that the way I understand it?
  Mr. MARTINI. They would have to have a 10-percent matching provision 
for any grant that they would be eligible for under this program.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman, is that a cash 
10 percent, or is that in kind 10 percent, or what is it? What is that 
10 percent.
  Mr. MARTINI. It would be a matching 10-percent cash. That would be 
the intention of the amendment.
  Mr. VOLKMER. It would be in cash, Mr. Chairman, I would ask the 
gentleman, not in kind?
  Mr. MARTINI. Preferably in cash.
                              {time}  1910

  Mr. VOLKMER. I just wanted to clarify it so I would know.
  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. MARTINI. I yield to the gentleman from Delaware.
  Mr. CASTLE. The answer is it is a cash match. It is not an in-kind 
match in any way whatsoever.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, here we are again. After hearing that we were against 
block grants 4 months ago on the majority side, we are now 
enthusiastically for block grants.
  All during the hearings and markup of this bill, you were against any 
matches in the Committee on the Judiciary, and now out of nowhere comes 
an amendment printed by the chairman of the subcommittee no less but 
offered by the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey, a 10-percent 
match.
  Is there any rationale that we may employ to account for where this 
miraculous change of opinion has come about?
  You have quite a few positions on these matters that seem to be 
changing the more we examine this bill.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Florida, the subcommittee 
chairman.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  The reason why is that we believed that we need to have a match in 
here. It is a better accountability proceeding.
  Mr. CONYERS. So did we.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. We picked a 10-percent figure because after checking 
with the mayors, this seemed to be the reasonable amount. That amount 
would require the least discomfort, and a lot of the communities that 
could not afford larger matches would be able to afford this. We came 
up with a 10-percent figure, printed it in the Record, so it is not a 
big surprise to you. The task force of the gentleman from New Jersey 
[Mr. Martini] who worked with it on our side of the aisle is the one 
who has offered it today.
  Mr. CONYERS. After hearing all your rhetoric against matching, I am 
glad that we at least have a point of agreement here. I guess that 
means that all of the discussion and debate against matching funds in 
the crime bill was not as important or valid as I thought you were 
making it.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  [[Page H1658]] Mr. McCOLLUM. There may have been some Members who 
argued against matching on my side of the aisle but this one was not 
one of them. I argued against the fact that the police grant program, 
there was not nearly enough money out there because it cost $60,000 a 
year instead of $20,000 or $25,000 to be able to put a police officer 
on the street. But I never argued against a match.
  Mr. CONYERS. You do not recall yourself saying somewhere along the 
line that communities could not afford the police grants because there 
was a matching requirement?
  Mr. McCOLLUM. If the gentleman will yield, I have argued all along 
they could not afford it partly because of the 25-percent matching 
requirement and partly because and mainly because that the total cost 
of putting a new police officer on the streets instead of being the 
base number figured by the Department of Justice for a new police 
officer's salary at $20,000 or $25,000 was more like $60,000 a year to 
get him out on the street. Plus the end of that program was down the 
road 3 years from then and the local communities
 had to pick up 100 percent of the grant program then. That is what I 
argued for.

  Mr. CONYERS. That is why we have measures brought to the floor. We go 
through the committee hearings, we go through the markup, then we come 
to the floor and then you say, ``Well, perhaps there is something to 
matches and we'll put one in.
  So, look, this is a new position you have arrived at. I am happy 
about it. I have no objection to it. I just wanted to point out that I 
had not heard about it before, and it was printed in the Record and 
offered by the gentleman from New Jersey. So, so be it. I think it is 
an appropriate time to do it. We probably will not have any other 
chance to debate.
  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. HOKE. I think this reflects two things. No. 1 is the compelling 
quality of your own persuasiveness in bringing these things forward. 
Second, is the good things that happen when we have an open rule. We 
are actually debating, we are listening.
  This is an amendment that is brought to the floor, not least of which 
because there has been persuasion on both sides of the aisle. We have 
got better legislation as a result of it. I think we ought to all 
celebrate.
  Mr. CONYERS. Would the gentleman need more time? I am happy to hear 
that. As a matter of fact, I was waiting for someone to realize that 
these were our arguments.
  Mr. HOKE. We are very grateful.
  Mr. CONYERS. Under those circumstances, I think that this is an 
amendment that we cannot resist.
  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Delaware.
  Mr. CASTLE. I think the gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter] in a 
moment will speak to perhaps a different percentage, but I thought it 
would be interesting to discuss a little bit how we got to the 10-
percent figure because we did start looking at higher numbers.
  The gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Martini] has worked in local 
government and was very helpful in terms of working all this out. What 
we were trying to do basically was to get a threshold number that would 
make the local communities realize that they are buying into something. 
We have all seen the complete open-ended block grants for everybody----
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers] 
has expired.
  (At the request of Mr. Castle and by unanimous consent, Mr. Conyers 
was allowed to proceed for 1 additional minute.)
  Mr. CONYERS. I continue to yield to the gentleman from Delaware.
  Mr. CASTLE. We attempted to find a number in which the local 
communities would be involved but would not be such a high hurdle that 
they could not do it. And after a lot of discussions with a lot of 
local officials, we came out with a number of 10 percent. That is how 
we got to that number.
  We feel it does exactly what you have talked about and we should 
bring the local communities into it and we get rid of the extraneous 
and perhaps unnecessary and unwarranted applications that might be 
made.
  Mr. CONYERS. I am sorry you did not put my name on the amendment when 
you offered it. I did not realize how effective we had been.
  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Delaware.
  Mr. CASTLE. I am sure the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Martini] 
would be glad to add your name to the amendment.
  Mr. CONYERS. It is too late now.
  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Martini-Castle amendment. I 
think this bill must have some method of accountability in order to 
ensure that the grant money is not misused. A 10-percent match 
requirement would at least help ensure that local governments will have 
a financial interest in the success of the grant. Instead of local 
governments considering that grant money to be in effect free money, 
more care will be taken to ensure that the grants are not wasted. 
Oftentimes I think it can be shown that the degree of local concern 
will increase proportionately to the amount of matching grant.
  Mostly I rise today, however, to tell my colleagues that I really 
thought a larger grant amount was appropriate. I have an amendment 
prepared to the amendment for a 20-percent grant, but in an abundance 
of caution and with some consultation with local officials and 
especially my colleagues, I am going to support the 10-percent matching 
grant requirement, insisting, as the gentleman from Delaware said, that 
it is a cash match.
  My experience that leads me to the conclusion that we have to have a 
matching grant comes from serving on the State crime commission in the 
late 1960's and early 1970's when we had a number of excesses with the 
LEAA program. One of the excesses that came about, I think, related 
directly to the fact that we had no sufficient matching requirement.
  In the existing crime bill, last year's bill that was enacted, there 
are matches that require 10 percent in some instances, in some cases as 
high as 40 percent. We have got some difficulty in local governments 
apparently with some of the higher matches. I think the 10-percent 
match is perhaps a bit minimal, but I believe that the will of the body 
would support a 10-percent amendment, and I am going to ask my 
colleagues to support on both sides of the aisle the initiative by the 
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Martini] and the gentleman from Delaware 
[Mr. Castle], and I want to associate myself with their effort and with 
the remarks of the gentleman from Michigan in support of the matching 
requirement.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BEREUTER. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. I want to thank very much the gentleman from Nebraska 
for his comments. It was partly because of his influence on me and 
discussing this over some time that we decided that a matching program 
was absolutely essential to accountability. I want to compliment him on 
coming out today just as I want to make sure on your time, I compliment 
appropriately the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Martini] and the 
gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle] who have worked so well, one in 
local government, the other in a State capacity in the past who have 
seen the need for something of this nature.
  We did work very, very hard to come up with a right number. Not 
everybody is in agreement on that number, but it is one which is 
acceptable to the vast majority of our cities and county government 
officials.
  I thank the gentleman for acquiescing in the 10 percent. I appreciate 
his yielding. Like him, I urge the support of this amendment.
  Mr. BEREUTER. I thank the gentleman for his kind remarks. I would say 
that I appreciate the fact that the gentleman listened to some Members 
[[Page H1659]] on our side of the aisle and to the comments that we had 
in Republican conference on the need for a matching requirement. Our 
colleagues have taken the initiative. I urge my colleagues to support 
the Martini amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Martini].
  The amendment was agreed to.

                              {time}  1920


                     amendment offered by mr. mfume

  Mr. MFUME. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. MFUME:
       Add at the end the following new title:

                         TITLE II--DRUG COURTS

     SEC. 201. DRUG COURTS.

       (a) In General.--Title I of the Omnibus Crime Control and 
     Safe Streets Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3711 et seq.) is 
     amended--
       (1) by redesignating part V as part W;
       (2) by redesignating section 2201 as section 2301; and
       (3) by inserting after part U the following new part:


                         ``part v--drug courts

     ``SEC. 2201. GRANT AUTHORITY.

       ``The Attorney General may make grants to States, State 
     courts, local courts, units of local government, and Indian 
     tribal governments, acting directly or through agreements 
     with other public or private entities, for programs that 
     involve--
       ``(1) continuing judicial supervision over offenders with 
     substance abuse problems who are not violent offenders; and
       ``(2) the integrated administration of other sanctions and 
     services, which shall include--
       ``(A) mandatory periodic testing for the use of controlled 
     substances or other addictive substances during any period of 
     supervised release or probation for each participant;
       ``(B) substance abuse treatment for each participant;
       ``(C) diversion, probation, or other supervised release 
     involving the possibility of prosecution, confinement, or 
     incarceration based on noncompliance with program 
     requirements or failure to show satisfactory progress; and
       ``(D) programmatic, offender management, and aftercare 
     services such as relapse prevention, health care, education, 
     vocational training, job placement, housing placement, and 
     child care or other family support services for each 
     participant who requires such services.

     SEC. 2202. PROHIBITION OF PARTICIPATION BY VIOLENT OFFENDERS.

       ``The Attorney General shall--
       ``(1) issue regulations and guidelines to ensure that the 
     programs authorized in this part do not permit participation 
     by violent offenders; and
       ``(2) immediately suspend funding for any grant under this 
     part, pending compliance, if the Attorney General finds that 
     violent offenders are participating in any program funded 
     under this part.

     ``SEC. 2203. DEFINITION.

       ``In this part, `violent offender' means a person who--
       ``(1) is charged with or convicted of an offense, during 
     the course of which offense or conduct--
       ``(A) the person carried, possessed, or used a firearm or 
     dangerous weapon;
       ``(B) there occurred the death of or serious bodily injury 
     to any person; or
       ``(C) there occurred the use of force against the person of 
     another,

     without regard to whether any of the circumstances described 
     in subparagraph (A), (B), or (C) is an element of the offense 
     or conduct of which or for which the person is charged or 
     convicted; or
       ``(2) has one or more prior convictions for a felony crime 
     of violence involving the use or attempted use of force 
     against a person with the intent to cause death or serious 
     bodily harm.

     ``SEC. 2204. ADMINISTRATION.

       ``(a) Consultation.--The Attorney General shall consult 
     with the Secretary of Health and Human Services and any other 
     appropriate officials in carrying out this part.
       ``(b) Use of Components.--The Attorney General may utilize 
     any component or components of the Department of Justice in 
     carrying out this part.
       ``(c) Regulatory Authority.--The Attorney General may issue 
     regulations and guidelines necessary to carry out this part.
       ``(d) Applications.--In addition to any other requirements 
     that may be specified by the Attorney General, an application 
     for a grant under this part shall--
       ``(1) include a long-term strategy and detailed 
     implementation plan;
       ``(2) explain the applicant's inability to fund the program 
     adequately without Federal assistance;
       ``(3) certify that the Federal support provided will be 
     used to supplement, and not supplant, State, Indian tribal, 
     and local sources of funding that would otherwise be 
     available;
       ``(4) identify related governmental or community 
     initiatives which complement or will be coordinated with the 
     proposal;
       ``(5) certify that there has been appropriate consultation 
     with all affected agencies and that there will be appropriate 
     coordination with all affected agencies in the implementation 
     of the program;
       ``(6) certify that participating offenders will be 
     supervised by one or more designated judges with 
     responsibility for the drug court program;
       ``(7) specify plans for obtaining necessary support and 
     continuing the proposed program following the conclusion of 
     Federal support; and
       ``(8) describe the methodology that will be used in 
     evaluating the program.

     ``SEC. 2205. APPLICATIONS.

       ``To request funds under this part, the chief executive or 
     chief justice of a State or the chief executive or chief 
     judge of a unit of local government or Indian tribal 
     government shall submit an application to the Attorney 
     General in such form and containing such information as the 
     Attorney General may reasonably require.

     ``SEC. 2206. FEDERAL SHARE.

       ``The Federal share of a grant made under this part may not 
     exceed 75 percent of the total costs of the program described 
     in the application submitted under section 2205 for the 
     fiscal year for which the program receives assistance under 
     this part, unless the Attorney General waives, wholly or in 
     part, the requirement of a matching contribution under this 
     section. In-kind contributions may constitute a portion of 
     the non-Federal share of a grant.

     ``SEC. 2207. GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION.

       ``The Attorney General shall ensure that, to the extent 
     practicable, an equitable geographic distribution of grant 
     awards is made.

     ``SEC. 2208. REPORT.

       ``A State, Indian tribal government, or unit of local 
     government that receives funds under this part during a 
     fiscal year shall submit to the Attorney General a report in 
     March of the following year regarding the effectiveness of 
     this part.

     ``SEC. 2209. TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE, TRAINING, AND EVALUATION.

       ``(a) Technical Assistance and Training.--The Attorney 
     General may provide technical assistance and training in 
     furtherance of the purposes of this part.
       ``(b) Evaluations.--In addition to any evaluation 
     requirements that may be prescribed for grantees, the 
     Attorney General may carry out or make arrangements for 
     evaluations of programs that receive support under this part.
       ``(c) Administration.--The technical assistance, training, 
     and evaluations authorized by this section may
      be carried out directly by the Attorney General, in 
     collaboration with the Secretary of Health and Human 
     Services, or through grants, contracts, or other 
     cooperative arrangements with other entities.''.
       (b) Technical Amendment.--The table of contents of title I 
     of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (42 
     U.S.C. 3711 et seq.), as amended by section 40231(b), is 
     amended by striking the matter relating to part V and 
     inserting the following:
                         ``Part V--Drug Courts

``Sec. 2201. Grant authority.
``Sec. 2202. Prohibition of participation by violent offenders.
``Sec. 2203. Definition.
``Sec. 2204. Administration.
``Sec. 2205. Applications.
``Sec. 2206. Federal share.
``Sec. 2207. Geographic distribution.
``Sec. 2208. Report.
``Sec. 2209. Technical assistance, training, and evaluation.

              ``Part W--Transition-Effective Date-Repealer

``Sec. 2301. Continuation of rules, authorities, and proceedings.''.

       (c) Authorization of Appropriations.--Section 1001(a) of 
     title I of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 
     1968 (42 U.S.C. 3793) is amended--
       (1) in paragraph (3) by striking ``and U'' and inserting 
     ``U, and V''; and
       (2) by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
       ``(20) There are authorized to be appropriated to carry out 
     part V--
       ``(A) $100,000,000 for fiscal year 1995;
       ``(B) $150,000,000 for fiscal year 1996;
       ``(C) $150,000,000 for fiscal year 1997;
       ``(D) $200,000,000 for fiscal year 1998;
       ``(E) $200,000,000 for fiscal year 1999; and
       ``(F) $200,000,000 for fiscal year 2000.''.

     SEC. 202. STUDY BY THE GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE.

       (a) In General.--The Comptroller General of the United 
     States shall study and assess the effectiveness and impact of 
     grants authorized by part V of title I of the Omnibus Crime 
     Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 as added by section 
     50001(a) and report to Congress the results of the study on 
     or before January 1, 1997.
       (b) Documents and Information.--The Attorney General and 
     grant recipients shall provide the Comptroller General with 
     all relevant documents and information that the Comptroller 
     General deems necessary to conduct the study under subsection 
     (a), including the identities and criminal records of program 
     participants.
       (c) Criteria.--In assessing the effectiveness of the grants 
     made under programs authorized by part V of the Omnibus Crime 
     Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, the Comptroller General 
     shall consider, among other things--
       (1) recidivism rates of program participants;
       (2) completion rates among program participants;
        [[Page H1660]] (3) drug use by program participants; and
       (4) the costs of the program to the criminal justice 
     system.

  Mr. McCOLLUM (during the reading). Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous 
consent that the amendment be considered as read and printed in the 
Record.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Florida?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman reserves a point of order on the 
amendment.
  Mr. MFUME. Mr. Chairman, I am particularly happy the distinguished 
gentleman from Florida has a concern because the amendment actually 
grew out of a program that found its genesis in Florida, and the 
distinguished Members of the Florida delegation I am sure will 
understand after I have an opportunity to discuss it, why it is so very 
important.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer this amendment to H.R. 728, an 
amendment that would continue the Drug Court Program as enacted by the 
Violent Crime and Prevention Act of 1994. The Drug Court Program 
included in the list of programs targeted for elimination under H.R. 
728 is an effective and valuable crime fighting tool, with the kind of 
proven results that Democrats, Republicans, and Independents want.
  Although lumped, and I think lumped inadvertently with the prevention 
programs that this bill tends to eliminate, drug courts really are not 
a prevention program. Drugs courts would better be classified as an 
alternative punishment measure that has the indirect benefit of 
preventing crime.
  Drug courts began as an innovative program by the State of Maryland. 
The gentlemen from Florida, Mr. McCollum, Mr. Stearns, the other 
distinguished members of the Florida delegation I am sure can attest to 
the effectiveness of it in the State of Florida.
  The State of Florida utilized a formula grant funding approach under 
the Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Act to 
fashion what eventually became an alternative punishment and drug 
rehabilitation program.
  The program was very successful in providing first time drug 
offenders with a second chance. I am not talking about the hard core 
drug user, I am not talking about the weekend user. I am not even 
talking about the recreational user of drugs. I am talking about that 
first time drug offender, that young boy or
 that young girl who experiments with taking a drug and then gets 
caught.

  In the city of Baltimore there are currently 130 people who have been 
diverted to the Drug Court Program and away from what conceivably could 
have been a life of crime, certainly a life of drug abuse.
  Of almost 200 people that have been involved in the program since its 
inception almost a year ago, only 10 of that 200 have dropped out. That 
means that out of every 20 nonviolent drug offenders who have been 
brought into the program in Baltimore, 19 out of that 20 has remained 
sober and clean, a surprisingly pleasant success rate.
  The basic program includes intensive supervision of the participants 
by the court through drug testing and treatment and the prompt 
application of a graduated number of sanctions for failure to comply 
with the conditions of the program.
  The program can be administered on a pretrial basis, it can be 
administered as a post-conviction program or it can be administered as 
both. That is up to the locale.
  The Drug Court Program as we know it in various States has been so 
successful in reducing recidivism and providing drug offenders with an 
alternative to drug use that the crime bill that we have been talking 
about over and over again funded this as a separate entity in the 1994 
act.
  The cost of drug courts is about one-twentieth what it costs to put 
people in prison, and again let me point out that the recidivism rate 
is so very low that we end up cutting crime by 80 percent.
  In my State of Maryland a unique consortium has been forged with 
representatives of the public defender's office, State's attorney's 
office, probation department, and treatment facilities work together to 
ensure adequate monitoring of treatment and supervision for the 
department.
  Drug courts in Maryland provide drug treatment on demand and serve as 
an alternative to incarceration, again for first time drug offenders, 
thereby saving prison beds for the most violent of offenders in our 
society.
  The program also provides job placement, it provides job counseling, 
it provides educational services and it even provides relapse 
prevention, in an effort to treat the problem and to provide intense 
supervision.
  The drug courts programs that divert first time drug offenders from 
prison and then ultimately places them under strict court-enforced 
supervision is necessary and it is responsible. And as I said before, 
it is not Democratic, it is not Republican, it is not independent. It 
is the right thing to do and it is not something that we do not know 
about. The results are all over this society, and they have been shown 
to reduce recidivism rates and to return first time drug offenders to 
society as productive, law-abiding citizens.
  Building more prisons does not necessarily do that. It may not be a 
bad idea but it does not do the same thing. So I would argue as we look 
at the first time drug offender that a young man or young woman or who 
for whatever reason experiments and gets caught, that we ought to make 
sure we do not do away with drug courts as we have known them and as 
they have worked so well.
  The CHAIRMAN. Does the gentleman from Florida insist on his point of 
order?
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I do not insist on my point of order. I 
withdraw the point of order.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman withdraws the point of order.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, it does appear that since the gentleman is adding back 
in drug courts from last year's crime bill as a separate drug courts 
title to this bill, and in essence undoing the repealer of the money 
for that in the program, that indeed this is a germane amendment. But 
what it does do is add $1 billion in additional drug courts money and 
drug courts authorization to this bill, to the $10 billion that 
underlies the bill, and adds it specifically to the purposes of drug 
courts. It goes against the grain of the very essence of what we are 
attempting to do in this bill even though many of us, including the 
people here, support the general precepts of drug courts.
  What it does is to set forth a specific categorical grant program for 
drug courts to protect them, to make sure that indeed the monies that 
are set aside go to drug courts and not to anything else. Drug courts I 
might add again, it is additional money separate and apart from the $10 
billion that underlie this bill, so the way it is crafted, as I 
understand it, does not from my reading of it and my staff study of it, 
does not affect the underlying $10 billion, it simply authorizes 
another billion for drug courts.
  But the thrust of the principle of this still violates the concept 
that we on our side of the aisle want, and that is to send back to the 
local communities a decision on what they want to do with money that we 
provide them under this bill. We would like for the cities and the 
county commissions of each local community to make their own decision 
as to whether they want a drug court or not. We set up a supervisory 
panel and require one be set up for all the cities and counties that 
get money under this bill that include officers or some person 
representing the local courts. In addition, of course, there is a local 
prosecutor's representative, a local police or sheriff's department 
representative, a local school system representative and a local 
representative of a prevention program of some type in the community 
who presumably, and I would assume in most communities the way it works 
on lots of things, get together, talk over what is best for this 
community with the resources that they get under this bill; and then 
they will say, OK, look, if we have the idea for a drug court, and I 
know there are a lot of judges and law enforcement community members, 
district attorneys and so on who get together and like this idea, if we 
think this is good for our community, then 
[[Page H1661]] let us use a portion of our money to supplement or to 
create drug courts.
                              {time}  1930

  In some communities, drug courts are thriving right now without any 
Federal assistance. They got created without it. It would be nice to be 
able to help them. We would like to encourage them, but to suggest they 
work in every community is to suggest something I do not think is our 
duty to do, nor do I think it is the responsible thing to do.
  There are plenty of places where it would work fine. There are lots 
of communities where it may not. I would suggest we should provide the 
resources here to let Spokane, WA, Sacramento, CA, Madison, WI, New 
Brunswick, GA, Orlando, FL, each of the communities wherever they are 
around the country decide for themselves if they want drug courts with 
this money and to use some of it to support it, not our setting it 
aside and saying, ``Look, here is a certain amount of money. If you 
want that money, come get it, because we in Washington know what is 
best for you as a drug court. By golly, we want to get as many of these 
drug courts out there as possible.''
  I am not convinced every community ought to have a drug court. I am 
convinced they do work in a lot of communities. I would encourage them.
  Our bill does do that. Our bill uses drug courts as a specific 
example of those kinds of things that we would list in order for local 
communities to look to for guidance of how they might use this money.
  It is one of those that we have as sort of preferentially treated by 
that example, but everything in this underlying bill is including, but 
not limited to, so it allows local communities to decide yes or no or 
not at all.
  And so I must oppose this amendment reluctantly, because I do like 
the concept of drug courts, reluctantly because I know the gentleman 
from Maryland has offered this with good intent, and reluctantly 
because I know how important it is to a lot of communities to have drug 
courts. But it destroys the underlying fabric and concept of the local 
community grant program that is in this bill, and I am opposed to it, 
and I do oppose this amendment and urge its defeat.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman and members, this is a measure that we should compliment 
the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Mfume] for bringing to the crime bill.
  The record is clear on this one. A study of 4,500 drug court 
participants between 1989 and 1993 showed that only 11 percent slipped 
back into criminal activity, which is a phenomenal accomplishment 
compared to the 60 percent recidivism rate for those who did not 
participate in the program.
  Drug courts, which cost only $800 a participant, compared to $25,000 
for incarceration, achieved these results through a tough court-
supervised program of counseling, drug testing, and daily monitoring. 
Those who do not comply know the alternative is incarceration, and so 
it is more than a prevention program. It is really almost an 
alternative form that is very effective, and with our prisons facing 
massive overcrowding that has been mentioned constantly here, these 
courts offer an effective alternative for steering nonviolent first-
time offenders away from crime toward a productive future as 
contributing members of society.
  This is an important provision of last year's crime bill that I think 
many would welcome into the 1995 version.
  Mr. MFUME. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. MFUME. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  Let me correct something that was said earlier by my colleague on the 
other side. This does not add new money. This simply takes the $10 
million that was already there for drug courts which has been taken out 
and puts it back in.
  Let me get to the heart of this particular effort. We always say in 
this body that we want to look at those programs that work, and we want 
to eliminate those that do not. Well, in the State of the gentleman 
from Florida [Mr. McCollum], he and the other distinguished Members of 
that delegation know this is where it found its genesis. It worked so 
well there it became a model for other States, including my State of 
Maryland.
  You have got to remember this program is for the first-time drug 
offender, not the hard-core addict, not the weekend user, not the 
recreational user, but somebody's son or daughter who is in school, who 
might experiment with drugs and get caught. We put them in a program 
where 19 out of every 20 young people that go into it all have proven 
results. Recidivism rates are at an all-time low.
  I dare say there is not another program that has that kind of a 
success record. So what we are saying here today is do we really want 
to, in all that we are doing, despite the partisanship on both sides, 
want to embrace a program that does what Democrats want, does what 
Republicans want, does what Americans want, independence; it creates 
the kind of results that make us feel proud and says to us in the 
process that we are able to go out and help young people before they go 
back and become the second-time offender, third-time offender, or the 
fourth-time offender and they have got a gun to your head or my head.
  We are talking about somebody's son or daughter. I am not here to 
talk about pie in the sky. This is not an Mfume creation. This was born 
in Florida. The good people in Florida had the sense to embrace it and 
nourish it. It became so much of a national model in Maryland and 
elsewhere. It is working fantastically.
  Might I say also that it is not mandatory. It says the Attorney 
General may make grants to the States, and so if a State does not want 
to participate, then it does not have to, but those grants go to 
specific things that deal with recidivism, with treatment, relapse 
prevention, and making sure we get young people away from drugs.
  So I would just simply urge those who watch this debate and who are 
on the floor now to recognize that of all the things that we have come 
to embrace or to reject or to examine, that when it comes to drug 
courts, there is not another example that Democrats, Republicans, and 
independents can point to that has the kind of success in just the few 
short years that this has had.
  I would urge all of my colleagues to find a way to allow themselves 
on this vote to go back and to restore the $10 million that was taken 
out for this program. This is not the kind of prevention program that 
the bill intends to do away with. This is not really a prevention 
program.
  The end direct result may be prevention. This is a program intended 
to help young people who are first-time offenders, and I would strongly 
urge its adoption.
  Mr. CONYERS. I thank the gentleman. His explanation has been thorough 
and quite convincing.
  The fact of the matter is that we have permitted this in the bill, 
and what we are doing is putting a money amount to it.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite 
number of words.
  Mr. Chairman, I just rise in support of the amendment and to reassert 
what my colleague, the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Mfume], has said 
about the extraordinary success of this program.
  I cannot sit here and fail to talk about something that I have had an 
opportunity to witness firsthand.
  I know Judge Goldstein, who was the father of this program, and no 
later than just this week I received a letter from Judge Robert Fogan 
in Fort Lauderdale who presides in the drug court inviting me for the 
second time to speak to the graduates of the program and talking about 
the enormous successes that it has had.
  Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are constantly about 
the business of trying to figure out some way to put somebody in jail. 
Rightly, criminals should be.
  The serious question becomes: When we do have something that does 
work, should we not see to it that it is maintained?
  I think that this program can be replicated throughout this Nation, 
and pretty obviously is one that all Members of this House ought to 
support.
  Mr. MFUME. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  [[Page H1662]] Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from 
Maryland.
  Mr. MFUME. Could the gentleman again talk about the phenomenal 
success that the program experienced in Maryland? Actually it is 
phenomenal wherever it occurred. It began in that State.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. It did begin in Florida. The judge in Miami 
that originated the program is still presiding in it and has had 
hundreds of success stories.
  What is remarkable is that they show a 90-percent success rate, and 
then in terms of recidivism, it increases. They have situations where 
as much as 95 percent of the graduates do not return to a life of 
crime.
  Now, how best then can we work to try to help people? You know 
something else, too, my colleagues, most of these people who talk about 
crime have not been in a criminal courtroom, have not had to sentence 
somebody, have not had to stand with somebody that was sentenced. They 
have this notion that comes from this air-conditioned Capitol about 
what happens on the street.
  These judges are in the trenches in Florida, and in Maryland and 
elsewhere in these drug courts, and they see these youngsters. They are 
not the hardened criminals, but they are the people that can become the 
hardened criminals.
  Mr. MFUME. If the gentleman will yield, let me add also that of the 
200 young people in Baltimore that entered the program, 190 never went 
back to drug use, never. They stayed away from crime and everything.
                              {time}  1940

  So again I would appeal to Members on both sides of the aisle to 
understand that we are trying to help someone by preventing a set of 
possibilities that nobody wants in this society. This is not for hard-
time drug users, this is not for junkies out on the corner, this is not 
for crack and cocaine users, this is not for recreational users, for 
the weekend user; it is for the first-time drug offender, somebody's 
son or daughter in your district or mine who in school experiments with 
a drug and gets caught.
  We have to find a way to make sure that this program that is so 
successful--every editorial, everything you read about it reeks 
success--that we not do away with it in our effort to try to reform 
this package.
  Mr. HEINEMAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words. Mr. Chairman, in deference to the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. 
Mfume], let the record clearly indicate that in the committee--and the 
gentleman from Michigan can speak to that and others in the Committee 
on the Judiciary--this issue was brought up at that time, and this 
issue was voted on at that time by the entire committee. Now, I am not 
one of those who has never been in a courtroom; I have been in many 
courtrooms in 38 years. I do have a feel for victims as well as people 
would have been arrested and are victims. I did offer up an amendment 
to the crime bill relative to drug courts, and it was at first 
unanimously adopted by both sides of the aisle.
  Then there was an order to recommit and another vote taken, at which 
time it passed 20 to 15. It was not unanimous on that motion to 
recommit. Those folks on the other side of the aisle voted ``no'' to 
that motion to accept drug courts in the crime bill and those on this 
side of the aisle voted in the affirmative. That is how it made its way 
into the crime bill.
  We are not insensitive. It was in inadvertently not given the 
standing in the crime bill that I thought it needed to have, and at 
that point we did pass it onto the floor.
  So we are not unfamiliar with courtrooms and with this issue.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HEINEMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for 
refreshing the memories of the members on the committee and the Members 
in the House because he is absolutely correct. I am hoping that the 
gentleman from Maryland has persuasively convinced him now to take the 
next step to create not only the permissive use that was accepted on 
the gentleman's own amendment, which was convincingly put to the 
Committee on the Judiciary, but that we carve out this modest sum of 
money to create an authorization for the same program that the 
gentleman in his career of police work has so long enforced.
  Mr. HEINEMAN. I thank the gentleman.
  I think what we are really talking about is what separates the 
philosophy on both sides of the aisle, on letting that be a grant 
whereby it is voluntary on the parts of those folks at the local level 
to use it as they see fit. And the gentleman from Maryland is putting a 
dollar figure on it.
  Mr. CONYERS. If the gentleman would yield further, we persuaded the 
gentleman about block grants, we persuaded him about matching funds, 
and now we have to convince him of the wisdom of moving in support of 
the drug courts from a permissive use to an authorization. It is a 
small step.
  Mr. HEINEMAN. Reclaiming my time, I yield to the gentleman from 
Virginia.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I would point out that the gentleman is correct. I was a member of 
the majority that voted to put the gentleman's language into the bill 
to make it perfectly clear that drug courts are an important part of 
this legislation, and the funding is available. In fact, any community 
that wants to use all of the funding made available to that community 
for drug courts can do so under their bill, and, in fact, we have 
almost $2 billion per year made available so conceivably, if drug 
courts are the preference of each locality in the country, all of the 
money could be spent on drug courts.
  I think they are a fine program. Some of the localities in my 
district are starting them and want to have this money available. Other 
communities in my district do not feel they need drug courts, and I 
think, as a result, we should make it plain that this program does have 
it available, the bill does that, but it does not sequester any funds 
in this program for any specific program.
  I think if we are going to give the localities the flexibility to 
handle fighting crime at the local level in the manner they see best 
fit, we should leave the bill as it is with the specific language 
allowing drug courts, but nothing more.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield further?
  Mr. HEINEMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. CONYERS. I thank the gentleman for yielding again.
  Of course, the gentleman understands the difference between leaving 
this in a block grant where it competes against an infinite number of 
others; the question is whether he feels convinced of the importance of 
this so as to lift it out of this infinite multitude of permissible 
items in the block grant to give it a life of its own. It would still, 
I say to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Goodlatte], still be 
optional; it would still not be mandatory to anybody. But it would be 
rewarding a program that works. And that to me is the important 
comments that were made by the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Mfume] and 
the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Hastings] that make it so important 
that we pass this amendment.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number 
of words.
  Mr. Chairman, I will be very brief. I just want to indicate that in a 
conversation with the head of our Office of Drug Policy just a couple 
of days ago, it was very clear that the utilization or the usage of 
drugs is now increasing. So I rise to support the request of the 
gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Mfume], his very succinct request, very 
frank and honest request, that not only do we applaud the fact that we 
use allocated dollars for drug courts but we isolate the language in 
the legislation and it is specific.
  I simply want to say we have a drug problem in this country, the 
gentleman has highlighted the problem; I think it is one that should be 
addressed as it relates to first-time offenders.
  Mr. MFUME. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. MFUME. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
  [[Page H1663]] Let me say directly to the distinguished gentleman 
from North Carolina [Mr. Heineman] that I am heartened to hear his 
remarks. The fact that he tried in committee to do essentially the same 
thing is commendable, and I appreciate his courage in this effort here 
tonight, which was not successful and maybe because someone on my side 
of the aisle did not join with him.
  Let me just say, though, that no one in this body has a license on 
purity on either side of the aisle. I would strongly say to the 
gentleman that I can empathize with his agony over having lost on 
something like that, and that is why I am so tremendously bent on 
trying to provide it myself.
  Well, the gentleman won, but he did not make it this far. That is why 
we are trying to win again with it.
  Let me just say one thing about block grants, which is important. If 
we are talking about block granting a basketball program that is one 
thing. That is an easy thing to do. Or block granting something else, 
it may be easy to do.
  Drug courts are very specific. My fear is, if we do that, that what 
you will have is a drug court type A in this State, B in this State, 
and C in this. It will not be the same thing. It will not produce the 
same results, because there are no guidelines mandated in this instance 
that the Attorney General would carry out.
  For instance, it says these courts shall provide mandatory periodic 
testing for the young person, first-time offender, for the use of 
controlled substances or other addictive substances, but substance 
abuse for each participant would be measured. There would be diversion, 
probation, and supervised training, and even the possibility of 
prosecution and confinement or incarceration, based on noncompliance 
with program requirements or, for that matter, failing to show 
satisfactory progress.
  It goes on further: Programmatic, offender management, and after-care 
services, such as relapse prevention, would be there, that the Attorney 
General would issue further guidelines. You are not going to get that 
in block grant. What you are going to get with the States who are 
saying: ``Oh, drug courts, they work, let's go try one.'' That will not 
be the same thing.
  So, since we have a program that works, and again I challenge Members 
of this body, anyone, to show me any program that works as well as this 
Nation in terms of recidivism rates, keeping them down, and success 
rates in helping the first-time young person who is abusing drugs. To 
say if you will just embrace this language, let us put back the money 
for drugs courts that we have taken out and do the right thing so that 
somebody's son or daughter whom we represent, whom they love, will not 
be in a position of believing that the Congress had an opportunity to 
act but did not.

                              {time}  1950

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from North Carolina won. It 
is here establishing or supporting drug courts in law enforcement block 
grants. I say to the gentleman, ``What we want to do, sir, is promote 
you. You have done a great job. You deserve this. And what you're doing 
is isolating this out, putting a lot more language around it.''
  Remember, this is not a raw experiment any more. It is proven. 
Attorney General Reno tried it in Florida. Judges tried it in Florida. 
In Maryland it is working. I want to get this into Michigan.
  So, what we are trying to say in our own stumbling way is, ``You did 
great. You have done well. Please accept our promotion on this side of 
the aisle.''
  Mr. HEINEMAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.
  Mr. HEINEMAN. Mr. Chairman, I say to the gentleman, ``Thank you. You 
did it as well tonight as you did it in committee; I have to say 
that.''
  But, for the gentleman from Maryland, I believe that language that he 
read as it relates to the punishment and the sanctions are getting off 
track as it relates to the drug court sanctions within the language of 
the bill as it related to what came out of committee.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Mr. Chairman, I conclude my remarks by saying that 
drug usage is increasing. We need to do this in a bipartisan way and to 
respond to the needs of all of our States. I think effective drug 
courts will be part of the solution and not part of the problem.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words, and I will not use the 5 minutes in full.
  Mr. Chairman, the only point that I want to make is I think we all 
agree here that drug courts can be very effective. In my community, the 
city of Cincinnati in Hamilton County, we are just getting under way 
with the drug court. I fully support the drug court. I supported the 
gentleman from North Carolina's proposal that we make, clearly in the 
language in this bill, the drug courts, the money can be used for drug 
courts; we all agree on that. Where we differ is that the gentleman 
from Maryland would like to put another billion dollars of tax dollars 
to be spent.
  If we are going to actually move toward a balanced budget amendment, 
we have to be very careful, and for that reason I oppose an additional 
billion dollars.
  I also think that we should not earmark for particular programs. I 
think the local communities know best what works in those communities.
  For that reason, Mr. Chairman, I think we ought to give the 
flexibility to the local governments to decide how to spend those 
dollars, whether it is police officers, additional police officers, 
whether it is drug courts or whatever. Let us leave it up to the 
localities. I think they know better than the Federal Government does.
  Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I am going to be as concise as possible. The National 
Justice Institute, which was the subject of some of the discussion 
earlier, did a study a number of years ago where they sought to 
identify the correlation between crime, street crime, and drug use and 
found that in some of our Nation's largest cities that upward of 90 
percent of the street crime over the course of their analysis was drug-
driven. I think we all understand how the problem of drugs drives up 
some of the crime issues that we are trying to get at in this 
legislation and that there is no debate on either side of the aisle 
about the effectiveness of drug courts, and I would not want us to miss 
the opportunity.
  I served on a panel appointed by our State court, along with the bar 
association, the defenders and others in Pennsylvania, to look at this 
issue and to move forward on drug court as an alternative to how we 
have been proceeding. Given the concern that the previous gentleman 
spoke about in terms of a balanced budget, if we look at the costs of 
prison construction, law enforcement, we can see that on the prevention 
side drug courts could actually save us money, and the only thing that 
I would hasten to add, as I conclude, is that one of the points we have 
to understand as a body is that on the issue of crime we do not want to 
have to create a circumstance in which one needs a victim in order for 
us to do anything, and if we work on the prevention side, we alleviate 
a great deal of pain, not just for the first-time drug offender, but 
for all of the victims of what could become a hardened drug user.
  So, I would ask the house to sincerely and favorably consider the 
amendment offered by the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Mfume].
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Mfume].
  The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes 
appeared to have it.


                             recorded vote

  Mr. MFUME. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 160, 
noes 266, not voting 8, as follows:

                             [Roll No 121]

                               AYES--160

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Barcia
     Barrett (WI)
     Beilenson
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Bishop
     Bonior
     [[Page H1664]] Borski
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Bryant (TX)
     Cardin
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Coleman
     Collins (IL)
     Collins (MI)
     Conyers
     Coyne
     Danner
     de la Garza
     DeFazio
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doyle
     Durbin
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Fazio
     Fields (LA)
     Filner
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Gutierrez
     Hamilton
     Hastings (FL)
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hoyer
     Jackson-Lee
     Johnson, E.B.
     Johnston
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kleczka
     Klink
     LaFalce
     Lantos
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Luther
     Maloney
     Manton
     Markey
     Martinez
     Mascara
     McCarthy
     McDermott
     McHale
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek
     Menendez
     Mfume
     Miller (CA)
     Mineta
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moran
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pastor
     Payne (NJ)
     Pelosi
     Peterson (FL)
     Pomeroy
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reed
     Reynolds
     Richardson
     Rivers
     Roemer
     Rose
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanders
     Sawyer
     Schroeder
     Schumer
     Scott
     Serrano
     Shays
     Skaggs
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stokes
     Studds
     Stupak
     Tejeda
     Thompson
     Thornton
     Thurman
     Torres
     Torricelli
     Towns
     Traficant
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Volkmer
     Ward
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Wilson
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wyden
     Wynn
     Yates

                               NOES--266

     Allard
     Andrews
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baesler
     Baker (CA)
     Baker (LA)
     Baldacci
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Bevill
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blute
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Boucher
     Brewster
     Browder
     Brownback
     Bryant (TN)
     Bunn
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Chrysler
     Clinger
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins (GA)
     Combest
     Condit
     Cooley
     Costello
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crane
     Cremeans
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Davis
     Deal
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Doolittle
     Dornan
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Fields (TX)
     Flanagan
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Franks (CT)
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Frisa
     Funderburk
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Geren
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Green
     Greenwood
     Gunderson
     Gutknecht
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hancock
     Hansen
     Harman
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Hefner
     Heineman
     Herger
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hoke
     Holden
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Jacobs
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kim
     King
     Kingston
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Laughlin
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Lightfoot
     Lincoln
     Linder
     Lipinski
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Longley
     Lucas
     Manzullo
     Martini
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McKeon
     Metcalf
     Meyers
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Minge
     Molinari
     Montgomery
     Moorhead
     Morella
     Myers
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Orton
     Oxley
     Packard
     Parker
     Paxon
     Payne (VA)
     Peterson (MN)
     Petri
     Pickett
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Poshard
     Pryce
     Quillen
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Riggs
     Roberts
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roth
     Roukema
     Royce
     Salmon
     Sanford
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer
     Schiff
     Seastrand
     Sensenbrenner
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stockman
     Stump
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tate
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Torkildsen
     Upton
     Vucanovich
     Waldholtz
     Walker
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Zeliff
     Zimmer

                             NOT VOTING--8

     Becerra
     Chapman
     Crapo
     Gibbons
     Jefferson
     Matsui
     Tucker
     Williams

                              {time}  2012

  Mr. PETERSON of Florida and Mr. RICHARDSON changed their vote from 
``no'' to ``aye.''
  So the amendment was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
                    Amendment Offered by Mr. Chabot

  Mr. CHABOT. 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. Chabot: Page 18, after line 22, 
     insert the following:
       ``(9) Resolution of disparate allocations.--(A) 
     Notwithstanding any other provision of this title, if--
       ``(i) the attorney general of a State certifies that a unit 
     of local government under the jurisdiction of the State bears 
     more than 50 percent of the costs of prosecution or 
     incarceration that arise with respect to part 1 violent 
     crimes reported by a specified geographically constituent 
     unit of local government, and
       (ii) but for this paragraph, the amount of funds allocated 
     under this section to--
       ``(I) any one such specified geographically constituent 
     unit of local government exceeds 200 percent of the amount 
     allocated to the unit of local government certified pursuant 
     to clause (i), or
       ``(II) more than one such specified geographically 
     constituent unit of local government (excluding units of 
     local government referred to subclause I and in paragraph 
     (7)), exceeds 400 percent of the amount allocated to the unit 
     of local government certified pursuant to clause (i) and the 
     attorney general of the State determines that such allocation 
     is likely to threaten the efficient administration of 
     justice,

     then in order to qualify for payment under this title, the 
     unit of local government certified pursuant to clause (i), 
     together with any such specified geographically constituent 
     units of local government described in clause (ii), shall 
     submit to the Director a joint application for the aggregate 
     of funds allocated to such units of local government. Such 
     application shall specify the amount of such funds that are 
     to be distributed to each of the units of local government 
     and the purposes for which such funds are to be used. The 
     units of local government involved may establish a joint 
     local advisory board for the purposes of carrying out this 
     paragraph.
       (B) In this paragraph, the term ``geographically 
     constituent unit of local government'' means a unit of local 
     government that has jurisdiction over areas located within 
     the boundaries of an area over which a unit of local 
     government certified pursuant to clause (i) has jurisdiction.

  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, in the spirit of bipartisanship and 
cooperation, this amendment is also offered by the gentlewoman from 
California [Ms. Lofgren], who will also address the House.
  Mr. Chairman, this amendment addresses a concern raised in our 
Committee on the Judiciary markup, and I have been working with the 
gentlewoman from California [Ms. Lofgren]. Many counties are 
responsible for administering the criminal justice system for all the 
other jurisdictions within their territory. They bear the costs of 
pretrial detention. They provide the county jails. They pay the 
prosecutors and the public defenders. And they are responsible for 
maintaining the courts and paying for the judges.
  Clearly, arrests made by jurisdictions within these counties have 
significant implications for county budgets. What this amendment does, 
Mr. Chairman, is say that where the attorney general of a State, in his 
discretion, sees fit to certify that a county bears the bulk of 
prosecution or incarceration costs associated with violent crimes 
committed in a city within that county, and where the formula in this 
bill, nonetheless, allocates to one city government at least twice as 
much of the grant money, then the city and the county have to get 
together and agree on the ways that their combined grant money should 
be spent.
  The same situation would obtain where a number of cities within a 
county added together would be eligible for a total grant amount 
exceeding 400 percent of what the county would get. If the state 
attorney general determines that such a situation threatens the 
efficient administration of justice, then the cities and the counties 
would be required to work together.
  We do not change the allocation formula at all. But we do require 
that cities and counties work together when the allocation formula 
creates a real anomaly, which has occurred in a number of instances.
  These allocation anomalies can arise, Mr. Chairman, because while the 
bill 
[[Page H1665]] quite properly allocates money largely on the basis of 
part 1 violent crimes occurring within the different jurisdictions, 
some regions of the country report at the county level crimes that in 
other regions are reported at the city level.
  Thus, in some states, such as in Florida, the allocations between 
counties and cities appear roughly proportionate. Whereas in other 
states, such as my State, Ohio, there are some significant disparities 
between the jurisdictions that make the arrests and the jurisdictions 
that administer the justice after the arrests are made.
  Where such disparities occur, the common sense solution is that the 
affected cities and counties work together to ensure that proper 
coordination occurs.
  This amendment provides that cities and counties in this situation 
will apply jointly for the sums of money allocated them under the bill. 
And to that end, the amendment permits them to establish a joint local 
advisory board in satisfaction of the requirements of the bill.
  In keeping with the guiding principle of this legislation, we do not 
tell these localities how they must coordinate their efforts. We leave 
them to do that, and each affected area may establish such mechanisms 
and policies as their local officials see.
  Again, Mr. Chairman, this amendment leaves the bill's allocation 
formula in place and does not affect the amount of grant monies that 
will go to any given state. It only applies to require county-city
 coordination when, first, the county pays the majority of the costs 
associated with prosecution or incarceration, and, second, the city, on 
the basis of these crimes, is allocated at least 200 percent of the 
amount allocated to the county or a group of cities allocates 400 
percent of what their county allocates.

  I understand that this amendment has support of the chairman of the 
subcommittee, who along with the chairman of the subcommittee has done 
such an outstanding job working, quite frankly, night and day to get 
this legislation passed, to allow us to consider the criminal law 
reforms we have taken up over the last week.
  I urge its adoption, and I understand at this point that it does have 
bipartisan support, that both the leadership on our side of the aisle 
and also the leadership on the other side of the aisle is in agreement.

                              {time}  2020

  Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I will be brief. I have made no secret that I have 
philosophical problems with this bill overall. I did not agree with 
taking the $2.5 billion out of the local grant program and putting it 
in prisons. I think we ought to do a minimum setaside for prevention 
programs. Those are philosophical disputes that I have.
  Nevertheless, to the extent that this bill passes, I think it is very 
important that this be a workable bill. I very much enjoyed working 
with the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Chabot] to make sure this does work 
well.
  The issue that is really pertinent is when a city or cities gets a 
very large amount of money and the county gets comparatively less, the 
administration of justice will be defeated. We all know that it is 
important to arrest people who have committed crimes and who threaten 
our neighborhoods, but if the funds are not available to prosecute 
those individuals and to move forward in the process, ultimately the 
act of arresting somebody is not good enough.
  We need to make sure that the entire system works, from arrest to 
prosecution to local incarceration, and ultimately, to prison, if that 
is the end result of the prosecution and conviction.
  Therefore, Mr. Chairman, this remedy outlined by the gentleman from 
Ohio [Mr. Chabot] and myself I believe will resolve this issue. I do 
not think it is controversial. It has been devised on a bipartisan 
basis, and I would recommend it to my colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Chair has been advised that the pending amendment 
was not printed in the Record.
  Without objection, the amendment offered by the gentleman from Ohio 
[Mr. Chabot] is considered as having been read.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, the more I briefly examine this amendment, the more 
difficulty I have with it, because it is not clear. Even though we like 
cities and counties to work together, I began thinking about how in the 
real world this is going to happen, I mean by us putting an amendment 
of this kind in.
  It seems to me that in areas where a city has a large allocation of 
funds coming by virtue of the fact that there is activity that requires 
more funding under this bill, and the county has less, forcing the city 
and county together is going to operate to the detriment of the city.
  It may be, I would say to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. 
Lofgren], who herself is a former county official, better to let them 
work these differences out themselves, because it is not clear what we 
are ordering them to do in the amendment.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio, to give us a little 
more detail about the language contained.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  First of all, Mr. Chairman, let me preface my remarks by saying that 
I spent half of my political career prior to being here in Congress as 
a city official, being a Cincinnati city councilman. I spent the other 
half being a county commissioner, so I have seen both sides.
  What we have done in this bill, working with the gentleman's 
colleague, the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Lofgren], is to come up 
with a formula here which sets out what we felt was a fair and 
equitable way for the parties to come up with a reasonable solution.
  We are not dictating to those jurisdictions what the exact formula 
should be. We are saying they should get together and work it out among 
themselves, if they come up with a situation where there is really an 
anomaly.
  Mr. CONYERS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I would say to the 
gentleman, are they not going to work it out anyway? I mean, if the 
gentleman is not giving them any specific direction, if this is just a 
hortatory couple of paragraphs, no problem.
  If there is nothing specific driving them into an agreement, Mr. 
Chairman, then I feel less reluctant about it.
  However, Mr. Chairman, what is it we are doing? Are we inviting them 
to cooperate?
  Mr. CHABOT. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Chairman, 
the thing that will drive them to cooperate is they would not get the 
money if they did not cooperate, so they would be receiving Federal 
dollars here for law enforcement that would benefit both the city and 
the county.
  It would be up to the city and the county to work together to come up 
with an agreement, because otherwise, Mr. Chairman, neither would get 
the money, so it is definitely to their advantage to come up with an 
agreement. We do not want to dictate exactly what that agreement needs 
to be, but it is in both of their interests.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman, which entity 
would not get the money if they did not agree? Would they not all be 
eligible for a certain amount of money anyway?
  Mr. CHABOT. If the gentleman will continue to yield, neither.
  Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.
  Ms. LOFGREN. Very briefly, although in a sense this is analogous to 
the plan in last year's bill that provides for a comprehensive plan as 
a condition precedent to receive the funds, but only in the limited 
circumstance where a city gets a disproportionate amount of money 
compared to a county, the intent is for those two entities to work it 
out as they would have in last year's crime bill, in a comprehensive 
plan, to make sure that the system works. I will give the gentleman an 
example.
  Mr. Chairman, I understand that under this formula, Chicago would get 
in the neighborhood of $60 million, and Cook County would get $700,000. 
Cook 
[[Page H1666]] County is not going to be able to prosecute all the 
people that Chicago arrests unless they get together and figure out 
what they are going to do as a unit, so that is in the city's interest, 
it is in the county's interest, it is in the citizens' interests, and I 
think the precedent was really set last year.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. VOLKMER. I was listening to this and I was curious about what the 
gentleman just said, Mr. Chairman. If we have a county in which we have 
a major city that is predominant in the county, and what this 
amendment, the way I am understanding this, listening to it, is, if 
that city is not able to persuade the county to work with them and make 
an application, nobody gets any money.
  What it means to me, Mr. Chairman, is that the county can say ``OK, 
we want half the money. we get half, or we are not going to get any.'' 
Now wait a minute, Mr. Chairman. Is that really what the members want 
to do?
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers] 
has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Conyers was allowed to proceed for 3 
additional minutes.)
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I continue to yield to the gentleman from 
Missouri.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Chairman, at first when I heard that everybody was 
in harmony about this amendment and everything, I was not paying much 
attention, but as I listened and listened I got more concerned about it 
all along.
  That concerns me, to where I know not every city and county 
government get along; that not every city within a county and that 
county government get along. It is not like everybody is really happy 
with what is going on.
  As a result of this, Mr. Chairman, what I am afraid may happen is 
that we are going to find local jurisdictions fighting with each other 
as to how much money they are going to get out of the total 
application.
  To be honest with the Members, I will tell the gentleman, the 
chairman of the committee, I really do not care about this amendment, 
and I do not care about the bill, anyway. But I am afraid if it did 
become law that it is really going to bring strife out there more than 
anything else. I have serious concerns, also.
  I would just say this, Mr. Chairman. What we are doing here is 
putting the political subdivision that has a large area, a large 
population and small eligibility into the driver's seat in terms of an 
accord being worked out at the peril of municipality not receiving 
anything. That, I think, would be a position we would not want to write 
into the bill, because it would put every city, particularly every 
major city, at a horrendous disadvantage.
  Mr. Chairman, if we did not have the provision in, I think that 
agreement would have to come about anyway, but it might come about on 
parts where the county would not be involved.

                              {time}  2030

  After all, we have been working on crime grants, block grants, direct 
grants all along and we have been doing it without the sense that is 
implied in this particular amendment.
  What I am saying is that at best I would like my two friends to 
withdraw this amendment, so that overnight we can give it a little bit 
more support, or else I would probably have to oppose it at this point.
  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  Mr. Chairman, I want to speak very much in support of this essential 
amendment. There is an anomaly where you have a high crime rate city 
that is within the confines of a county and a shared responsibility for 
the administration of justice. Cook County is a perfect example, where 
the city of Chicago under the formula in the bill gets some $30 
million, as I understand it, and that is because the crime rate in 
Chicago is high. However, the housing of the prisoners, the prosecution 
of the prisoners and all that administration costs belongs to Cook 
County. So Cook County gets $200,000 and the city of Chicago gets $30 
million. Now, justice is served if both Cook County, and I might add 
the administration of Cook County and the administration of Chicago are 
very friendly, if both the county and the city apply together and the 
State attorney general determines that this anomaly exists so there is 
that protection, then the money is more evenly distributed and 
appropriately distributed as agreed to between the parties.
  So this recognizes an anomaly. It is an effort to establish some 
equity and balance. This situation in Chicago and Cook County obtains 
in many other places around the country. Frankly, it just makes a more 
equitable, fair distribution of these essential funds.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman very articulately spelled out 
the reasons why this amendment is important.
  To use another example, in my community, the city of Cincinnati, when 
the city police officers make arrests, the criminals are basically then 
turned over to the county. The county prosecutes them, there are county 
judges and they are incarcerated at county expenses. So what we want to 
occur is some fairness and reasonableness, and for the city and the 
county to work together, and I think they will. I think the counties 
and the cities all across this country are very reasonable and will do 
that.
  Mr. HYDE. The State attorney general makes that determination of this 
anomalous situation.
  Mr. CHABOT. The gentleman is correct.
  Mr. HYDE. This is an important amendment, it is not really that 
controversial, and I hope we will all support it.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the 
gentlewoman from California and the gentleman from Ohio. Both of these 
Members of the House are members of the Committee on the Judiciary and 
brought up at the earliest possible moment the fact that defining any 
formula for allocation of grants can be difficult, and in particular, 
the bill selects the part 1 violent crimes as determined by the FBI as 
the method to makes grants to various localities.
  Using part 1 violent crimes, again as defined by the FBI, is probably 
the best overall way that anyone can come up with for such an 
allocation, but it is by no means perfect, and it may omit certain 
kinds of situations, in particular the one that is being addressed in 
this amendment right now where the higher number of crimes are in one 
jurisdiction and, therefore, the criminal activity is there and 
presumably the police department or sheriff's department is most active 
there, but another unit of government has responsibilities for those 
criminal cases generated by arrests that might occur, either housing in 
a county jail before trial or prosecuting the cases.
  I think that while no formula is perfect, the amendment being offered 
here jointly is a very good attempt to solve a portion of the problem 
that exists in using part 1 as the system for awarding grants.
  Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, will gentleman yield?
  Mr. SCHIFF. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.
  Ms. LOFGREN. Just briefly, frankly I would have preferred that in 
every case localities would have to get together and put together a 
comprehensive plan in order to get any money. But that is not what this 
amendment does. It is a very narrow amendment that I actually wish 
would go further, that basically says when the city gets more than 200 
percent of what the county has, you are going to have a problem. If 
those cities utilize that for police, the administration of justice 
will be impaired. In the case of smaller cities, it would be 400 
percent. So I think this is targeted to a problem.
  Perhaps it is not the perfect solution, but it is the solution we 
were able to come up with. It is only when the counties bear the cost 
of prosecution and incarceration. So I still think it resolves a 
problem that will be created by the bill absent this or something like 
this, because in the end both the cities, the counties and the 
citizens 
[[Page H1667]] want the bad guys to be arrested and then prosecuted, 
and unless we have something like this, the prosecution then may 
suffer.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SCHIFF. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I think we have had a sufficient 
discussion on the issue. I wanted to flag this problem. I am going to 
see if it is tracked in the old crime bill. I want to make it clear 
that this may come back up in conference. I withdraw any of my own 
personal feelings about it, but let me remind you, relations are not as 
harmonious as they are reported to be in Cook County and Chicago 
between the city and the county. I am delighted to hear how well the 
local governments work together. Unfortunately, I know better across 
the Nation that there are a lot of places where that is not the case. 
Also remember, please, that Chicago is not getting the money because 
they are Chicago. They are getting the money because that is where the 
crime is. That is where the problem is. The county does have to lock 
them up and have some prosecutorial responsibility, but Chicago is 
getting the bulk of the money because the way we have derived the 
formulas, they are entitled to it.
  So I want everyone to know that, stay tuned on this. I will withdraw 
my reluctance about this amendment, because we have one more we would 
like to get through tonight before we conclude.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Chabot].
  The amendment was agreed to.
                    amendment offered by mr. conyers

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Conyers: Page 4, after line 19, 
     insert the following:
       ``(G) Establishing the programs described in the following 
     subtitles of title III of the Violent Crime Control and Law 
     Enforcement Act of 1994 (as such title and the amendments 
     made by such title were in effect on the day preceding the 
     date of the enactment of this Act):
       ``(i) Ounce of Prevention Council under subtitle A.
       ``(ii) Local Crime Prevention Block Grant Program under 
     subtitle B.
       ``(iii) Model Intensive Grant Program under subtitle C.
       ``(iv) Family and Community Endeavor Schools Grant Program 
     under subtitle D.
       ``(v) Assistance for Delinquent and At-Risk Youth under 
     subtitle G.
       ``(vi) Police Retirement under subtitle H.
       ``(vii) Local Partnership Act under subtitle J which made 
     amendments to chapter 67 to title 31, United States Code.
       ``(viii) National Community Economic Partnership under 
     subtitle K.
       ``(ix) Urban Recreation and At-Risk Youth subtitle O which 
     made amendments to the Urban Park and Recreation Recovery Act 
     of 1978.
       ``(x) Community-Based Justice Grants under subtitle Q.
       ``(xi) Family Unity Demonstration Project under subtitle S.
       ``(xii) Gang Resistance and Education Training under 
     subtitle X''.
       Page 9, after line 8, insert the following (and redesignate 
     any subsequent subsections accordingly):
       ``(c) Set-Aside for Prevention.--Of the amounts authorized 
     to be appropriated under subsection (a), the Attorney General 
     shall allocate $1,000,000,000 of such funds for each of 
     fiscal years 1996 through 2000 to carry out the purposes of 
     subparagraph (G) of section 101(a)(2).

  Mr. CONYERS (during the reading). Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous 
consent that the amendment be considered as read and printed in the 
Record.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Michigan?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order for one moment 
to just read the amendment since it was not printed and we were just 
handed a copy.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman reserves a point of order.

                              {time}  2040

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, because of the lateness of the hour, I ask 
unanimous consent that each side be given 15 minutes on this amendment, 
for and against.
  The CHAIRMAN. On this amendment and any amendments to this amendment?
  Mr. CONYERS. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Michigan?
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, would the 
gentleman consider 10 and 10, as it is 20 minutes to 9 at the present 
time?
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, this 
amendment is pretty large.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I do not object to the gentleman from 
Michigan's request to 15 and 15.
  Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Michigan?
  There was no objection.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers] will be 
recognized for 15 minutes in support of his amendment, and the 
gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Schiff] will be recognized for 15 
minutes in opposition to the amendment.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers].
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Chairman, this amendment merely sets aside $5 billion in a 
separate block grant for the prevention programs formerly authorized in 
the 1949 crime bill but does not specify funding levels for each 
program. Local governments can choose which program is best for them.
  Only 20 percent of last year's crime bill, that is $6 billion of the 
$30 billion total went for prevention programs. But the new majority 
cut $2\1/2\ billion here in favor of more prisons.
  So what we are doing is creating a prevention program worth $5 
billion in a separate block grant restoring each and every one of those 
that were struck in the 1994 crime bill.
  This is a more cost effective approach because the prevention 
programs are essential to dealing with crime on the front end of the 
problem, nourishing the health growth of communities, and study after 
study shows that this dose of prevention will now avoid the most costly 
police courts and prisons that later come on.
  Let us look at the data of just a few of them. The drug treatment 
program: A July 1994 study of the cost of treating 150,000 participants 
in drug treatment programs in California found benefits in a ratio of 
$7 in benefits for every $1 spent. Criminal activity declined by two-
thirds, alcohol and drug use by two-fifths and health care costs by 
one-third. Recreational programs in Phoenix, AZ, crime was cut in half 
by keeping recreation centers open until 2 a.m. In Fort Myers, FL, 
juvenile arrests dropped 28 percent when the city built a new 
recreational center in a low-income area.
  The costs of these programs is often as low as an amazing 60 cents 
per participant. President Bush selected one of the programs, midnight 
basketball in College Park, MD for one of the 1,000 Points of Light 
Program.
  Gang intervention programs in Spokane, WA helped steer juveniles away 
from gangs while offering constructive alternatives.
  The list goes on and on, but we want to eliminate once and for all 
the simplistic notion that all prevention programs are wasteful. We 
repeal them in favor of a no-strings block grant that we think will 
effectively reach some accommodation between the 1994 crime bill and 
the 1995 proposal that is before us in this bill.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  The CHAIRMAN. Does the gentleman from New Mexico withdraw his 
reservation on the point of order?
  Mr. SCHIFF. I do withdraw my reservation, Mr. Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN. The reservation of the point of order is withdrawn.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment by 
the gentleman from Michigan, and the reason is not the sincerity of the 
gentleman from Michigan wishing to promote the fight against crime as 
he best sees it, but because I believe this amendment goes against the 
very nature of the purpose of H.R. 728.
  It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, with the utmost respect, that those who 
do not agree with the philosophy of those of us who are advancing H.R. 
728 
[[Page H1668]] should, when the time comes, simply vote against it, but 
not to change H.R. 728 in a way that changes its fundamental approach.
  I believe that the gentleman's amendment makes those changes in two 
separate ways. The first change is the gentleman's amendment does more 
than simply reserve funds specifically for prevention programs as a 
general concept. The gentleman's amendment preserves certain programs 
that are found in the crime bill that passed in 1994, as I read his 
amendment word for word, as they appear in the crime bill of 1994.
  One of the problems with that crime bill is after many programs there 
is page after page after page of restrictions and conditions, not 
simply illustrations but actually Washington dictating how the programs 
have to function.
  This was somewhat lessened as we considered the crime bill twice last 
year, but I believe it is still present, and the idea of copying in 
H.R. 728 with all of the restrictive language and then micromanagement 
from the Congress and Justice Department is against the very grain of 
H.R. 728.
  Second of all, Mr. Chairman, I have to acknowledge that even if that 
problem were not there, even if this were an amendment that simply said 
let us set aside a certain amount of funds for prevention programs and 
did not otherwise specify the prevention programs, and that is not what 
this amendment says, but even if it did, I would oppose it because, 
again, the philosophy we are advancing in H.R. 728 is to let 
communities decide what they need best for their communities.
  It may well be that some communities feel the need to use all of 
their funds or almost all of their funds for more police officers, and 
that is fine with us. It may be that some communities decide that they 
must use all of their funds or almost all of their funds for prevention 
programs. That is also fine with us. And we believe that setting aside 
amounts for certain purposes that take away that flexibility from local 
governments is contrary, even without the other specifications, by 
copying word for word prevention from the crime bill into this 
amendment is a mistake and, therefore, I oppose the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Mr. Chairman, No. 1, these programs are all grant programs that are 
utterly voluntary. Nobody has to choose them. They are not mandated 
into them. They are optional programs. They are programs that, 
incidentally, the Congress, including the Senate, the other body, 
agreed to in last year's law. So these are not new programs, and that 
is why if they sound familiar to the gentleman, they are.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. 
Schumer].
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Michigan not 
only for yielding me the time but also for his leadership on this 
important prevention issue.
  Let me say, ladies and gentlemen, that I feel that we do have to have 
a broad and comprehensive approach to this bill. We need tough 
punishment, and I supported more funding for prisons, and we need more 
cops on the beat, and we may have an amendment tomorrow on that.
  But we also need prevention funds because we do not want to be in a 
situation in our society where we incarcerate and incarcerate and 
incarcerate, as we sadly must, when there are violent criminals and 
there is no hope.
  If Members believe there is no hope at all, or if they believe 
Government should play no role in bringing hope so that young men and 
young women who are 12 and 13 and 14 are inevitably going to be 
criminals, then vote against this amendment.
  But I do not think most people believe that. I think most people 
believe, yes, there are a few who are so damaged that they will become 
criminals no matter what we do. But there are many who have not been 
given the opportunities and the parenting and everything else, who, if 
a reaching hand could come out through a mentoring program or through a 
drug treatment program or through even a place where they get to 
congregate and play in a constructive way, that many might be turned.
                              {time}  2050

  The cost of these programs per individual is a heck of a lot cheaper 
than incarcerating them. Now, that should not be an excuse that we 
should not incarcerate. We must.
  But there is no reason why we should not do both, and I would say to 
my colleagues I have seen program after program that works.
  Drug courts take tens of thousands of young men and get them off the 
life of drugs before they become hardened criminals, mentoring programs 
where an adult, the only adult in these young people's lives, 
oftentimes spends an hour a day with an individual and sets him or her 
straight, sets the person straight.
  In Roosevelt, LI, they have a program where every junior high school 
and high school student, and it is a very poor area, spends 1 hour a 
day with an adult, and the dropout rate plunged. The criminal rate 
plunged.
  I would say to my colleagues there are prevention programs that work, 
that we have seen them, tested time and time again.
  One of the lowest points in my public life was when every program was 
brandished as pork because it did not go to the right people or the 
right district or sounded the right way. This is not an issue of not 
punishing. This is not an either-or situation. This is for many people 
in this country and for many communities and many neighborhoods the 
only hope that there is. We should not turn away from it.
  And so I would urge my colleagues in all sincerity to look at this 
provision and to try and pass it. Every program in this bill has model 
after model that has worked and saved the lives of the young.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California [Ms. Lofgren].
  Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Chairman, I think that this vote on this amendment 
is the most important vote that we have faced this year.
  You know, I have two small children. They go to a little inner-city 
elementary school, and none of the reasons why I ran for Congress was 
to make a difference in what they are facing and what their classmates 
are facing.
  A watershed moment for me was a year ago October when I took my 
third-grader to school and they had found a dead body across the 
street, and the perpetrator was still loose, and I knew that if we did 
not do something different in this country that my children would not 
be safe and the other children would not be safe.
  I knew something then, and I know it today, that part of the answer 
is prevention. As my mother used to tell me, and as our mothers told us 
all, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We know that 
there is a Federal interest in safety or else we would not be doing 
this crime bill at all, and I think it is important that prevention of 
crime be part of this package throughout the country.
  You know, when children get off on the wrong track early, we know 
they are going to get in trouble. We know they are going to cause pain 
to victims and their families, and we know that there is something, 
sometimes very little things, that we can do with children when they 
are 5 or 6 or 7 so that they will get on the right track. Those are the 
investments to make.
  I believe that every locality needs to make them. I am a firm 
believer in local government and, in fact, I am not offended by much of 
the block grant nature of this bill and said so during the Committee on 
the Judiciary hearings. Nevertheless, I think we ought to let 
localities know who are going to participate in this Federal program 
that some section of that must be used for prevention. Let them use 
their own creativity. Let them meet local needs. But we need to prevent 
crime, because a child who is going to become a monster in Nebraska 
today could be in San Jose, CA, tomorrow, threatening my children.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Mr. Chairman, I agree with the need for crime prevention programs. I 
have to say that, as a career criminal prosecutor and also a defense 
attorney for 
[[Page H1669]] 2 years, I have found it hard to identify specifically 
what does prevent crime.
  During one period of my career I was a specialist in the prosecuting 
of what we call white-collar crimes, frauds, embezzlements, and so 
forth. I prosecuted individual after individual who dressed well, spoke 
well, was well educated, had a job, had a good income, but was greedy 
for more. As a result, they defrauded the public, they embezzled from 
their employer, they committed all kinds of crimes, not necessarily as 
crude as robbing a convenience store at gunpoint, but the intent to 
steal was just as glaring.
  The problem is this amendment does not allow, in the words of the 
gentlewoman from Virginia, the ingenuity of local government. We tell 
them in this amendment what programs they have to have at the local 
level and the nature of crime prevention; that is one of the serious 
things wrong with this amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. 
Goodlatte], a member of the committee.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me 
this time.
  I rise in strong opposition to this amendment, because it will defeat 
the purpose of this legislation, which is to create the kind of 
flexibility for State and local governments to fight crime that this 
legislation is all about, and I would say to the proponents of the 
amendment that, quite frankly, we right now have in this bill $2 
billion a year, all of which can be used for prevention programs.
  The bill itself specifically specifies, and I will read it, 
establishing crime prevention programs that may, though not 
exclusively, involve law enforcement officials that are intended to 
discourage, disrupt, or interfere with the commission of criminal 
activity, including neighborhood watch and citizen patrol programs, 
sexual assault and domestic violence programs, and programs intended to 
prevent juvenile crime, establishing or supporting drug courts, 
establishing early intervention and prevention programs for juveniles, 
to reduce or eliminate crime.
  There are, in point of fact, hundreds of crime prevention programs 
all across this country that will
 effectively fight crime. The problem with this amendment is it only 
recognizes 10 of them and hands them over to the States and localities 
with all manner of strings attached to those programs with very 
specific guidelines that might be just fine in New York City but might 
not apply at all in Highland County, VA, in my district which has 2,500 
people.

  There is not a single community in my district with more than 100,000 
people in it, and the way crime must be fought in different 
jurisdictions varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. That is also 
why we have taken the money from the Cops on the Beat Program and put 
it into this same block grant, because the fact of the matter is not 
every community wants to or can qualify for the funding for the Cops on 
the Beat Program.
  The President says we are going to get 100,000 new cops on the beat. 
If you divide that by 435 congressional districts, that comes to 230 
per district. My district has received 15 new police officers in 8 of 
the 20 jurisdictions. Sixty percent of the jurisdictions in my district 
have either not applied for or not received funding under that program, 
and I have been talking to police chiefs and others in those 
communities and found out why. Some of them do not want to get 
dependent upon the Federal Government for a police officer and then 
have the funding end. Some of them do not feel a need for a police 
officer, but may feel a need for a crime prevention program, may feel a 
need for a drug court, may feel a need to have some form of equipment 
made available in fighting crime, computers or patrol cars or other 
things that can be made available to them.
  All of these things should be left to the localities. Flexibility is 
needed. When we tie their hands with specific programs that are not 
needed in specific communities, we are doing absolutely nothing to 
fight crime in those communities, and this will tie the hands of those 
communities and, therefore, I urge the rejection of this amendment.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds.
  Mr. Chairman, I want to reassure the gentleman from Virginia that 
localities will have the opportunity, if that is his major gripe about 
this, to use the funds the way they want, because it includes the Local 
Partnership Act, so that that provision is included.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. 
Jackson-Lee].
  (Ms. JACKSON-LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to 
me.
  Mr. Chairman, I wonder, how much is too much for our children? When 
we begin to look at what occurred with LEAA block grants, where there 
was no direction, we look at the purchase of $140,000 aircraft , we 
look at $27,000 to do some Xeroxing, we look at $265,000 to give us a 
2-page report, and then we look at $200,000 to buy some land.

                              {time}  2100

  I wonder how much is too much for our children. All we are simply 
asking is to recognize that we have the responsibility to focus our 
local jurisdictions, not direct or restrict, but to focus them on the 
value and needs of prevention.
  I would simply say to you, coming from local government, they welcome 
this. The cities, by and large, en masse, supported the 1994 bill that 
included the provisions for prevention. They want it. They know what 
happens in our inner-city housing developments, what happens in our 
communities. What is too much for our children?
  I ask for bipartisan support of the Conyers-Schumer amendment.
  We need to have prevention programs.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox].
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman for yielding this time 
to me.
  Mr. Chairman, the amendment before us tonight does not give the 
flexibility that H.R. 728 will do. H.R. 728, without this amendment, 
will in fact give each community the right to establish law enforcement 
block grants, the right to have such programs as community policing, 
which has worked so well in Pennsylvania, where the police are tied in 
closely with community leaders and each person on each block. Our town 
watch programs, where each community works with either walking patrols 
or walking operations where they keep in touch with law enforcement 
officials. Or drug courts, which specialize in prosecutions that deal 
with violent crime and those that are drug-oriented. Or crimes against 
the elderly and the programs that work with our senior citizen 
organizations. Or even the child-lure program, the ones that prevent 
the exploitation and abduction of children in our communities.
  All the law enforcement officers that I have spoken to in 
Pennsylvania feel that the block grant approach will give us the kind 
of flexibility that we need to truly fight the war against crime.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Meehan].
  Mr. MEEHAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me.
  Mr. Chairman, before I got elected to Congress, I was the first 
assistant district attorney in Middlesex county. We had 13,000 criminal 
cases a year. Fighting crime is serious business. It requires a two 
pronged approach: One is priority prosecution to remove those 
individuals, the worst offenders, from society and put them away for as 
long as you can get them away. The challenge we face in law enforcement 
is what are we going to do with the majority of the people who remain?
  There are countless examples from all over the country of priority 
prosecution programs. When they mix prevention programs and get police 
officers involved with thee school and open up schools for kids to 
provide prevention programs, it works.
  It is working in the city of Lowell, where crime prevention programs 
have resulted in dramatically lowering gang violence in that city. 
Crime prevention programs have worked in Summerville, MA, dramatically 
decreasing the rates of crime.
  Fighting crime is not a political issue, it should not be partisan. 
It 
[[Page H1670]] should not be Republican versus Democrat. Let us keep 
what we passed 4 months ago. It was the best crime initiative that ever 
came from this Congress. And now we are getting involved in partisan 
politics.
  It works. Let us keep it.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Mr. Chairman, I want to say that the Local Partnership Act, which 
will be continued under the amendment of the gentleman from Michigan 
[Mr. Conyers], is, as we see it, one of the problems in the crime bill 
of 1994. The Local Partnership Act runs for 24 pages, and this is pages 
in the crime bill that are typed in very, very small print, as to what 
localities have to do to qualify for the money. That is exactly the 
reason why we are presenting H.R. 728 in the first place.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds to advise the 
gentleman that the Local Partnership Act was the single most popular 
program by the cities that was in the crime bill of 1994, and that this 
is the flexibility that the gentleman from Virginia did not know was 
there, that would allow people to make these choices.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. 
Scott].
  Mr. SCOTT. I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me.
  Mr. Chairman, our goal is to reduce crime. Studies show the effective 
way to do this is through crime prevention programs, education, 
recreation, job training programs, all of which have been studied, have 
been shown to reduce crime 10, 20, as much as 80 percent.
  Not only have fewer victims, but you also save money. We have heard 
of the drug courts, one-twentieth of the cost, 80 percent reduction in 
crime.
  If your goal is to reduce crime, Mr. Chairman, properly designed 
prevention programs work. Without the Conyers amendment, it is going to 
be business-as-usual; no prevention, wait for the crimes to occur, and 
then deal with the consequences. It is simply a matter of pay now or 
pay a lot more later.
  Prevent crime. It works. Support the Conyers amendment.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the subcommittee 
chairman, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum].
  Mr. McCOLLUM. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Chairman, I think the bottom line of all of this is simple and 
straightforward; that is that many of us on this side of the aisle 
simply do not agree with that side on the idea that we know best about 
how to do prevention programs around the country. There are thousands 
of options. The gentleman from Michigan is once again reiterating a 
laundry list of those things he thinks are best, including this 
Partnership Act, that, as far as I can determine, is based upon the 
highest tax-rate cities in the country, not the highest crime-rate 
cities. I find this approach to be abhorrent. I think it is the wrong 
kind of approach. I know he means well by it. What we need is maximum 
flexibility to let every community participate and determine whether 
they want one program or the other. There are hundreds of cities around 
this country that might differ with the gentleman on how they would 
spend the money. They might not want to spend it on one of these 
particular programs that the gentleman has offered about a billion 
dollars a year. Hannibal, MO, might not like what Paducah, KY, wants to 
have. Certainly they are not going to agree with San Francisco or 
Detroit or some of our larger cities.
  This is the reason why last year's crime bill is so wrong and why 
this year's crime bill on local block grants for the communities of our 
country that decide for themselves on whether to spend it on cops or 
prevention is so right.
  So I urge, with all due respect to the gentleman, a ``no'' vote on 
this amendment and to keep the bill as it is.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Frank].
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, in the Committee on the 
Judiciary today members of the majority, who are talking now about the 
absolute wisdom of the States, were talking about a piece of 
legislation dealing with product liability which would take away from 
the State powers that they have had since the Union was created. I have 
never seen a sharper degree of inconsistency than we get from the other 
side on the question of State versus Federal.
  Last week they were for Federal dictation on prisons. This week they 
are for States' rights here, but they are for Federal dictation when 
business is involved with product liability changes.
  There is one thread of consistency: They are frustrated that last 
year we were able to get together on a good crime bill. If we were in 
fact starting from scratch, this might be a better argument to have. We 
are well along in the process of getting the money out and getting the 
people to work under last year's crime bill.
  This is a disruption, for partisan purposes, of a program that has 
begun to work because the people who want to argue that Government can 
never work hate nothing more than the sight of government working well.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Connecticut [Mr. Shays].
  Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this legislation and want to voice 
my concern with the argument that somehow we are allowing flexibility. 
We took away flexibility, in my judgment, when we said we know what is 
best for States: They have to have prisons, but they cannot have more 
money for cops on the beat and what I think are prevention programs.
  If we want flexibility, if we on our side are saying we are going to 
let everyone decide, then why did we not put the prison money in with 
prevention and enforcement?
  My problem is I think this is a direct assault on the prevention 
programs. Maybe I am one of the few Members on this side of the aisle 
who represents an urban area, where in my areas police chiefs in 
Stamford, Norwalk, and Bridgeport put more weight on prevention than 
they do on cops on the beat.
  Candidly, I have seen cops on the beat go to some of my wealthiest 
suburban communities that do not need them. We need programs that will 
help young people not go through a life of crime. In Fairfield, CT, 
which I represent, the people now have so many programs after school 
and during school and on weekends, they do not have a hard time not 
doing something, their challenge is what don't they do.
  In Bridgeport, CT, when school is out, they are left on their own, in 
most cases in a latchkey environment with no parent, no adult 
supervision. We have an after-school program, we have weekend school 
programs. These kids are hungry for preventive programs. I do not buy 
for a minute that we are saying we want flexibility. If we wanted 
flexibility, we would have put prison money in this package.

                              {time}  2110

  Instead we took money out of the police, out of enforcement, out of 
prevention, and gave it to prisons. My State does not need to build 
more prisons. It needs to decide who better should be in the prisons.
  I support this amendment. I urge its passage. I say to my colleagues, 
If you represented an urban area, you would know prevention programs 
are more important than anything else we could do.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to the time remaining on 
both sides?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers] has no time 
remaining. The gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Schiff] has 5 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes to close.
  Mr. Chairman, I want to respond first to the gentleman from 
Connecticut [Mr. Shays], my friend, on the view that having a prison 
funding grant is inconsistent with supporting flexibility. The argument 
was also made by the gentleman from Massachusetts. The fact of the 
matter is that might be true if no State used prisons, but every State, 
unfortunately as it may be, has found the need to have prisons. What we 
did in the bill that offered grants for prisons is to simply recognize 
that those States that increase the amount of time to be served by 
violent criminals would incur automatically greater 
[[Page H1671]] costs for that, and, since money is not unlimited, we 
thought the best use of prison funds was to help those States which are 
incurring the greater costs through their determination to protect 
their citizens.
  More importantly, Mr. Chairman, on the subject of prevention we agree 
that there ought to be prevention programs. We agree that there ought 
to be police. Our bill gives the maximum flexibility to communities to 
decide what they need best. The gentleman from Connecticut said that 
some communities in this State did not need more police. Some others 
might decide they do not need more police. We leave it to them, and if 
in fact we are going to block off any amounts of money, which I do not 
support, we should not do it by word-for-word simply incorporating the 
bureaucratic programs that are found in the crime bill of last year, in 
which Washington dictates step-by-step and page-by-page: ``Here are 
your prevention programs, you must use these programs, and here is how 
you're going to do it.''
  Mr. Chairman, I urge a no vote on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers].
  Mr. FILNER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the amendment 
offered by my colleagues, Mr. Conyers and Mr. Schumer.
  As a former City Council member, I have been fighting throughout my 
career to demand that local governments get direct funding and 
flexibility. But in this case, I seriously question whether H.R. 728 
will give local governments the true flexibility they want.
  Although H.R. 728 claims it will allow cities to spend money on 
whatever they want, the bill does not supply enough funds to 
sufficiently support the comprehensive crime-fighting initiatives of 
our cities.
  In practice, H.R. 728 would result in cities sacrificing prevention 
programs, without guaranteeing that any police officers would be added.
  This is a decision no city wants to make-because locally-elected 
officials know that crime prevention works.
  The City of Chula Vista in my district has urged Congress not to cut 
funding for the successful prevention programs they have initiated. And 
the National League of Cities recently stated that any anti-crime 
legislation must include support for anti-drug abuse, crime and 
violence prevention programs.
  But up here in Congress, supporters of today's bill clearly do not 
see crime prevention as important. And these Washingtonians are 
imposing that belief onto our local governments by refusing to supply 
cities with the funds they need to truly fight crime in a comprehensive 
way.
  H.R. 728 would eliminate the desperately needed community policing 
and crime prevention programs of last year's crime bill, and without 
this amendment, cut nearly $2.5 billion from the money intended to go 
to local crime fighting. This would destroy the crime bill's wise and 
reasonable balance between enforcement, punishment, and prevention.
  We need stiffer penalties and we need to keep criminals off our 
streets, but we also need crime prevention programs to stop crime 
before it starts.
  Crime prevention works. It works when school and community-based 
programs give kids a place to go after school and give them something 
positive to do. It works when police officers forge relationships with 
at-risk youth and teach them how to stay from crime. And it works when 
drug abuse programs rehabilitate individuals and get them back into the 
work force.
  In San Diego, a program called Safe Haven has been particularly 
successful, and I would like to read a bit about that program from an 
article recently printed in the San Diego Union Tribune.

       Until Anthony Majadi established a Safe Haven program in 
     Southcrest Park a year ago, prostitution flourished in the 
     parking lot, basketball players brought booze to the gym and 
     the drug trade dominated.
       The park is now a different place.
       With a budget of $160,000, Safe Haven helped hundreds of 
     children and adults through its myriad activities, including 
     instruction in martial arts and computers, homework 
     assistance, summer day camp and other programs.
       Safe Haven is part of a national program and federal 
     government established to complement seeding efforts in the 
     Weed and Seed target areas. Safe Haven is held out as an 
     example of what weed and seed can do--benefit a community 
     beyond drug raids and gang sweeps.

  Programs like Safe haven make our neighborhoods safer, they improve 
the lives of our children, and they bring tremendous cost savings to 
our criminal justice system.
  In the words of a concerned citizen in my district: ``Killing funding 
for crime prevention programs demonstrates a disheartedly shortsighted, 
simplistic and self-defeating approach to the Nation's crime 
problems.''
  This debate should not pit prevention against enforcement. We need 
them both. We need to combine them in a comprehensive approach to 
fighting crime. And it is irresponsible for Federal lawmakers to make 
local governments choose between the two.
  We have to address the causes of crime--not just the symptoms. I ask 
my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment--and to join me 
in continuing the long-term strategy to crime control that we started 
last year.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers].
  The amendment was agreed to.
  The CHAIRMAN. Are there further amendments?


                   amendment offered by mr. menendez

  Mr. MENENDEZ. 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. Menendez: Page 13, after line 4, 
     insert the following:
       ``(e) Maintenance of Effort Requirement.--A unit of local 
     government qualifies for a payment under this title for a 
     payment period only if the unit's expenditures on law 
     enforcement services (as reported by the Bureau of the 
     Census) for the fiscal year preceding the fiscal year in 
     which the payment period occurs were not less than 90 percent 
     of the unit's expenditures on such services for the second 
     fiscal year preceding the fiscal year in which the payment 
     period occurs.

  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Menendez] is 
recognized for 5 minutes in support of his amendment.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Chairman, I am going to be brief.
  Mr. Chairman, my amendment seeks to clarify and strengthen language 
in the bill requiring that Federal funds granted to local governments 
supplement, not supplant, local spending on law enforcement.
  I understand that the chairman of the subcommittee has had an 
opportunity to review the amendment.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. MENENDEZ. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I am ready to accept the amendment. It is 
a good amendment. It makes it very, very clear that we are not 
supplementing funds the way we want to. We want to make that 
protection, and I would agree with the gentleman in accepting the 
amendment.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. MENENDEZ. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, we are happy to accept the amendment on 
this side.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Menendez].
  The amendment was agreed to.


                   amendment offered by mr. traficant

  Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. Traficant: Page 12, after line 7, 
     add the following:
       ``(10) the unit of local government will achieve a net gain 
     in the number of law enforcement officers who perform 
     nonadministrative public safety service if such unit uses 
     funds received under this title to increase the number of law 
     enforcement officers as described under subparagraph (A), 
     (B), (C) of section 101(a)(2).''.

  Mr. TRAFICANT (during the reading). Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous 
consent that the amendment be considered as read and printed in the 
Record.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from 
Ohio?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Chairman, the Traficant amendment says that there 
shall be a net gain of non- administrative police officers 
as a result of funding under this bill, which basically means that 
there will be a few more Indians around. We do a lot of talking about 
cops on the beat, and I am not even sure the last crime bill did that. 
This will ensure that with any police officers hired under this bill, 
there would be a net gain of Indians on the street.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. TRAFICANT. I yield to the distinguished gentleman from Florida.
  [[Page H1672]] Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I strongly support this 
amendment. The gentleman is correct. It is an excellent proposal that 
makes sure that we are really going to get the net gain in police we 
want. It is better, as the gentleman says, than anything that we had 
even in the last year's bill relative to this kind of restriction, so I 
thank him for offering it. I accept the amendment and encourage its 
adoption.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. TRAFICANT. I yield to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I reluctantly accept the amendment.
  Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Chairman, with that I wholeheartedly support the 
amendment and ask that it be approved.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Traficant].
  The amendment was agreed to.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. 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. 
Bonilla) having assumed the chair, Mr. Gunderson, 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. 748) to 
control crime by providing law enforcement block grants, had come to no 
resolution thereon.

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