[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 1 (Wednesday, January 3, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H67-H74]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEVASTATION OF GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May
12, 1995, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] is recognized for
60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to basically express shock, if you
will, tonight over the fact that the Republican majority here in the
House continue this process of leaving a significant part of the
Government shut down. I guess I was pretty much amazed before the
Christmas recess, if you will, when we voted here on the House floor to
give Speaker Gingrich the power to recess the Congress over the holiday
between Christmas and New Year's, and I suddenly realized that that
meant that Government workers and the services that they provided would
essentially cease to exist. The workers would be furloughed, and the
services would not be provided between Christmas and New Year's.
When I heard yesterday that the Senate, after repeated requests by
the President, that the Senate had finally gone along and decided that
they were going to pass a continuing resolution to keep the Government
going, at least for the next week or so, I fully expected that when we
reconvened that I would be coming back today to vote in the House on
that Senate resolution and the Government would be up and running by
tomorrow and even though the budget negotiations would continue, that
at least we would not have the continuation of this Government
shutdown. I guess I was very naive in assuming that.
When we came here today and we had a vote on the motion that the
minority leader, the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt], made to
try to bring that Senate resolution up that would reopen the
Government, the Republicans on the other side, almost all of them,
voted to table that motion, and now we face the real possibility, based
on this motion or resolution that has come up before the Committee on
Rules again at the request of the Republican majority, that tomorrow we
may go into recess again and possibly until January 23, which I guess
is the day when the State of the Union address is given by the
President, that the Government would continue to be shut down and the
Congress would not be in session.
I wonder who the Members on the other side are listening to when they
go home to their respective States or their respective districts. When
I went home over the last week or 10 days, in my district office
we repeatedly got calls from individuals, some of whom are Government
employees who were not getting paid for the Christmas holiday or for
the part of the time that they had already worked; others, people who
were missing services, whether it was passports or Social Security
applications or student loans or small business loans or whatever it
was, and my phones never stopped ringing for the whole period of the
recess from people who were paying their taxes but were not able to
receive Government services and from Government employees, many of whom
were asking how they were going to pay their rent, how they were going
to pay their mortgage, how they were going to get through the next day.
So I think it is incredible and it really is shameful, the fact that
we are now facing the real possibility that for the next 3 weeks this
Government continues to be shut down because Speaker Gingrich, and
particularly the freshman Republicans, want to hold the Government
hostage to their own particular ideology on the budget, and the blame
is squarely with the House Republicans, with Speaker Gingrich and the
Gingrich Republicans because as we know, the Senate, the other body,
has already acted on its continuing resolution.
I am joined here tonight by several Democratic colleagues from
various parts of the country, and we wanted to highlight, if we could,
in the time that we have, the fact that the shutdown is affecting the
quality of life for many Americans, particularly with regard to the
environment, the EPA, which is one of the Government agencies that is
shut down, particularly with regard to the Superfund program, which we
were told today is about to shut down completely for all practical
purposes over the next 5 days, and also highlight some other areas
where the Government, through its inspection, through its enforcement,
provides for the health and safety of Americans but cannot do so
because of the Government shutdown that has been put upon us, if you
will, by the Republicans.
So I would like to now yield, if I could, to the gentleman from North
Carolina [Mr. Hefner].
Mr. HEFNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
We heard in the last election, the campaign, the Contract With
America, but I doubt very seriously if, during this campaign, if the
people, who were campaigning as Republicans had said what we plan to do
is to cut inspection in the workplace where people work, on the safety,
and we are going to cut some of that and we are going to cut back on
the inspectors for our safe water, we are going to cut back on the EPA,
we are going to cut back on the funding for the FDA and all the other
institutions and agencies that protect the food and water and air that
we breathe, that we are so dependent on, I doubt very seriously if
there had been the outpouring of support for the Contract With America.
But there are a couple of points that I would like to make, and as I
said earlier, this is not just inconveniencing Government workers. One
of the Presidential candidates made, I thought, a very crass remark
when he said, ``Have you missed the Government since they have been
furloughed?'' I mean, you are talking families, people that have
children, people that have maybe their aging parents that are living
with them, maybe people that are trying to support a foster child or
whatever.
But there is one other area that is being very devastated to the
American people, and you have thousands, thousands of people that would
like to make applications for their Social Security, for Social
Security disability, veterans' benefits, our VA hospitals. I have one
in my district. They are shorthanded.
{time} 1945
They are short-handed. Some of the people that are deemed to be
essential, they are either getting half pay or not getting any pay. So
you are hitting individuals, there are real faces on these furloughs.
There are thousands of people that are being affected by these
furloughs.
I just would like to give maybe some of the people who have not been
here as long as some of us have, we did not use to do business such as
this. Nobody wants to do business as usual, and that is the standard
cry around here, we do not need to do business as usual. We certainly
need to make some changes.
But in the past, we have never gone to these extremes. I have been on
the
[[Page H68]]
Committee on Appropriations for a lot of years. We would have
disagreements with Presidents, President Reagan, President Bush, and my
dear departed friend, God rest his soul, Silvio Conte on the Republican
side, would always get up on appropriations when these bills that would
come before the Committee on Appropriations, and he would say ``OMB has
some real problems with this,'' or ``The President has problems with
this, and if there are not modifications made, he is doing to veto the
bill.'' In most instances, the committees would get together and they
would make some modifications and we would work it out among the
Appropriations Committee.
Now, this is absolutely mind-boggling to me, and it just tells me
that there are egos that are involved, there is a philosophy here that
is involved, that says if we do not get our way, we are going to close
the Government.
I have had people that talked to me here on the floor and said ``All
the President has got to do is to sign the budget. If he will sign the
budget, you can put these people back to work.'' Or ``You can get a
continuing resolution if the President will capitulate and do it our
way.''
The gentleman, the last Republican that spoke here, said ``We can put
this Government back to work in 6 hours. All the President has to do is
to offer a 7-year balanced budget our way.'' He has got to make the
massive cuts in Medicare, he has got to accept the giant tax cut paid
for with Medicare and Medicaid cuts for the wealthiest citizens in this
country.
If you just look at the numbers, the numbers that you cut from
Medicare and Medicaid almost match identically the tax cuts that are
going to be made for those that are the most privileged in this
country. To use an old colloquialism in North Carolina, ``that just
ain't right.''
So the Republicans have an agenda here, and what they plan to do will
keep this Government shut down until the President knuckles under, and
he does it our way.
But I would like to just remind my Republican friends, they talk
about a big revolution that took place in 1994. I would like to remind
them that 60 percent of the eligible voters in this country did not
vote for anybody. They did not vote for the Republican revolution, they
did not vote for the Democrats, they did not vote for anybody. And to
say that there is a mandate out there, there are people that want to
balance the budget, and I am one of them. But I think when you tell the
American citizens ``We want to balance the budget, but here is how we
want to do it: We want to do it on the backs of the senior citizens,
the veterans, the children, and the students that want to get a loan to
go to college,'' I do not believe that the percentage would be 85
percent of the people that wanted to balance the budget on the backs of
the people that are the most vulnerable people in this country.
I would like to make one other point. I remember Ronald Reagan, who
was a very amicable President of the United States. People have said
here for the past so many years, ``It is the Democrats that have run up
these giant deficits.''
I would like to remind the Republicans and the American public that
during the Reagan and Bush administrations, we accumulated more debt
than we had since the founding of this Republic. The Republicans say it
was Democrats that helped run up these deficits.
Let me just make a little explanation here. I will take you back and
just try to bring in history. A lot of folks have tried to rewrite
history. When Ronald Reagan became President, I would remind my
Republican colleagues and the American people, the Republicans had a
majority in the other body, and in this House for the first 4 years of
the Reagan administration, he had a working majority in this House. He
passed more of his legislation than any President since George
Washington. They did bad tax policy. We ran up deficits. Jimmy Carter's
last deficit was in the $50-billion range, and from there they
skyrocketed up to the $300 billion range, and we accumulated $3
trillion in just one administration.
So I would say to you, sure, it was some Democrats that voted with
Republicans to pass bad tax policy. But when Ronald Reagan became
President, he said ``I am going to balance the budget in 3 years.'' He
did not say ``I am going to do it with CBO or OMB numbers.'' He said
``I am going to balance the budget in 3 years,'' no qualifications. And
in 4 years, we had well over $200 billion more in debt in this country.
So to say that the 40 years that the Democrats have been running this
body and passing legislation is responsible for the debt is absolutely
rewriting history.
But that brings us to where we are today, which has really nothing to
do with history, but we want to set the record straight. There is
absolutely no reason and no justification for shutting down the
Government to keep the budget talks going between the President and the
leadership of this Congress. It is absolutely harassment. It is putting
a gun to the head of the President of the United States and holding
hostage the American people and those that are most vulnerable in our
society.
So I would say to the Republicans, there are faces to those people
out there that are being furloughed, and it is not just Government
workers; it is people, our senior citizens, our children, our veterans,
our small business community. They are all beginning to feel the pain
from this shutdown of Government. I would urge the Republicans to take
another look and do a clean CR, get the Government back to work, and
continue the negotiations with the administration. Working together, we
can do some good things for the American people. But this is not the
responsible way to do it, it is so painful, and it is just plain wrong.
Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate what the gentleman said. I think it is
particularly important that we zero in today on the fact that this is
now strictly the House Republicans that are holding up this process.
Because the Senate, the Senate majority leader specifically said, he
has been quoted over and over again, enough is enough, it is time to
put the Government back together, to send the employees back to work,
to provide the services.
They sent over a resolution today which we were going to vote on, and
we are being thwarted. We cannot even bring the resolution to the floor
that was passed in the Senate because Speaker Gingrich and the
Republican House leadership here refuses to bring it up. I think the
reason they refuse to bring it up is because they think it will pass if
it comes up. So they just do not bring it to the floor.
I would like to yield now to the gentleman from Minnesota.
Mr. VENTO. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] for
his outstanding work in terms of trying to develop a discussion and
debate I think really important, salient points to the American people
with regard to budget and various programs.
I have a great deal of admiration really for my colleague from North
Carolina, Mr. Bill Hefner, and the work he has done in the Committee on
Appropriations. The thing he did not say during the 1980's, when we
both served, was that the Committee on Appropriations and the
appropriations and the spending committees in Congress consistently
provided less spending than the Presidents in the 1980's sought. They
actually provided less spending. They did not always do it the same
way, but they tried to do their job. As I recall, I do not recall
President Reagan or Bush vetoing any appropriation bills. If they were
dissatisfied with that level of spending, of course, at that time, of
course, the political litany we heard from our colleagues of the loyal
opposition, the Republicans, was, of course, that it was the Congress
that was responsible, it was the Congress that was doing all the
spending.
I would be happy to yield to my colleague and friend.
Mr. HEFLEY. In the last 30 years under Democrats and Republicans, the
Committee on Appropriations and the Congress has always appropriated
less money, less money, than all of these administrations had
requested. Probably over 30 years, but I know for the past 30 years, we
have always appropriated less money than the administrations requested.
That includes Reagan and Bush and all the administrations in the past
30 years.
Mr. VENTO. I thank my colleague and appreciate his work in achieving
those types of savings and making certain. We obviously have funding
that
[[Page H69]]
does not go through the entitlement process, the appropriations
process. We want to recognize that as being a growing problem. Social
Security and Medicare as we know today, at least the Part A portion of
Medicare and Social Security, are not responsible for any of our
deficit. In other words, Part B Medicare surely could be attributed to
that, and, or course, Medicaid and the other entitlement programs,
which are really an indication of trying to respond to those that are
the deepest in need in this Nation.
I would just like to say the reason we are where we are at today with
the shutdown of these essential programs is because the Republican
program, the congressional program that has been put forth as a budget,
cannot make it on their merits.
If these programs were in fact meritorious and would win the support
of the public, obviously somebody else would be doing it. But these
issues are not. I would just point out that it is up to the President.
The President could say the same thing, ``I will not sign a continuing
resolution until you give me the type of budget I want.'' In other
words, this could be done.
But this is not the case. This is being done by the Republicans in
the House at this particular point, and earlier joined by their
colleagues in the Senate, that we are saying ``we are not passing a
continuing resolution. We are going to stop the Government
months after, months after the regular spending bills should have been
in place to keep the normal operation of government in place.''
I would say that no one, in the fact that these appropriations bills
had not been passed was seeking 100-percent funding. It was not the
Clinton program. We were funding these at 60 and 70 percent of what
they could have or should have been funded at. So there was no
predisposition as to what the decisions would be with regard to the
spending bills.
But, in other words, this program, these Republican programs,
whatever you might believe, my colleagues, cannot be sold on their
merits. That is why we are here today with a shutdown of the
Government, because we are in essence going to say we are going to
force the public to be punished, be punished, in the short-term.
What is that punishment? What is the nature of the punishment? We
have heard here. The person that wants an FHA loan cannot get it. That
loan is frozen. Today there is $3 to $4 billion worth of paper that
people, the American dream, they saved, they made their down payment,
they made their contract, they cannot get it. You want a VA student
loan, you cannot get it. You want your Social Security card, 60,000
Social Security cards and reissuance of Social Security cards are not
being issued today.
So it is not just public employees who are being treated and mocked,
mocked by the Members of this Congress, and saying we do not need them.
What is the difference.
I would be happy to yield to my colleague from California.
Mr. TORRES. Mr. Vento, I thank the gentleman for yielding, but is
this not really a question of a sort of cantankerous attitude on the
part of our colleagues on the other side saying ``We want it our way or
no way at all?'' Have I not understood, have you not understood, that
this body is a body of compromise? We come here to compromise. None of
us, none of us, get whatever we want. The President does not get what
he wants. Republicans do not get what they want. Democrats do not.
Somehow we work a middle ground, a compromise. That is what the
gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Hefner] was talking about.
Mr. VENTO. The gentleman makes a very good point. It is called a
consensus. It is called building a consensus. The issue that my
colleague Mr. Pallone raised and Mr. Hefner, that Senator Done, I think
he was wrong not to act on a CR earlier, he has acted on it now. I
think he has recognized enough is enough.
But we do not set the agenda here. I am certain that today if that
were to come up, that measure for a CR with Senator Dole's support, it
would pass in this House of Representatives.
But the leadership, the Republican leadership, not just the freshmen,
not just the freshmen Republicans, but the Republican leadership, they
set the agenda. They say what can come up and what cannot. When the
unanimous consents have been made repeatedly on this floor today to ask
to ring that up, they were denied, because the Republican leadership in
this Congress that is running this House, that cannot sell their
programs on the merits, are trying to obviously do this on the basis of
trying to shut down and shut out Government.
The President has not even had a chance on 3 of the 13 bills; the
very important Labor, Health and Human Services bill, has not even been
presented to the President for a variety of reasons. You can blame
whoever you want for it. The fact is the President has no option. There
is no fund that has been brought before him. Nor for the District of
Columbia, nor for foreign operations which are so important in terms of
the passport programs.
Today in my district, as an example, a great tragedy a dear friend of
mine lost his son in Rome. So we are struggling with a limited staff.
Can you imagine the tragedy if that was your son or if that was your
daughter. Where is the empathy? Where is the understanding of the
people in this House that are proudly proclaiming ``we represent the
people?''
Who are you representing when you are acting in this particular
manner in terms of the people? You are not representing this man that
is having this problem in my district. An this experience can go on and
on and on.
People getting half pay for their work. What if you are a research
scientist at NIH? You think you can suspend those living models?
Somebody has to feed them and keep them in place.
Here on the Wall Street Journal, not necessarily a pillar of liberal
Democratic policy, they are reporting to us on the fact that we are
contributing to a downturn in the economy.
You got the weather, you cannot control that; you have other factors
I cannot control. In spite of whatever one thinks, the Members of
Congress do not control necessarily what AT&T does or other
manufacturers across this country laying off people.
But for heaven's sake, let us do what we are supposed to do in terms
of just providing the regular continuing resolution, the normal
operations of Government which people have a right to rely upon in
terms of what is happening in this Nation.
We are contributing to the downturn of the economy in 1996 as we go
forward. It is a precarious situation our economy is in today, and it
is not one that can sustain this type of indifferent mocking attitude
with regards ``I am going to get my way and make my political points.''
You failed on the merits, my colleagues. You failed on the merits.
{time} 2000
Now they are trying to try, in a cloud of political spin control,
trying to come out. They have painted themselves in a corner. I do not
know how to get them out. I would like to help them. We should send out
an SOS: The House of Representatives is in trouble. It is out of
control. It is out of control.
Now we see our Republican Speaker wants a resolution so he can have a
suspension and a recess. He wants to send home this House of
Representatives. Why? Because he cannot sustain for 2 or 3 weeks. He
cannot sustain for 2 or 3 weeks the type of pressure that would develop
right here on this floor if he kept this House in session. He could not
sustain it from the Republican or the Democratic side of this aisle. So
he is saying send them home, we will recess it, but I will not have to
deal with all these individuals.
I have news for the Speaker. I am sent here and the other Members are
sent here to represent people and to prevent this type of problem from
happening, not to sweep it under the rug, not to recess this House, but
to address the very serious problems that are coming to grip in this
Nation because of the political shenanigans, the political shenanigans
of the Republicans leading this House in the wrong direction.
This is not why we were elected, to hand the power over and the
responsibility over to a few that have just a political agenda. We
cannot stand that. We cannot do that. It is time to forget about the
politics and get on with the normal operation and act responsibly
[[Page H70]]
in this case, to deal with those serious problems of the environment,
not to close down the EPA.
And, of course, what is the choice of some of these issues? There is
no choice. There is no choice. They are saying we can either fund the
EPA, defund the EPA through an appropriations bill, or defund it
through a continuing resolution or through lack of passing any measure.
No option there.
I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding, and my colleagues
that are joining in this special order. This is very serious moment in
terms of the credibility of this Government and the health of our
economy. It goes well beyond the normal politics that should play. They
have failed on the merits. They have failed on the merits, and now they
are trying to do it in terms of wedging this through and pressuring it
through.
The fact is, many of us have and hold convictions very deeply. I have
got news for the new Republicans in this House. They are not the first
group to come down here with a plan for a balanced budget. The 7-year
scheme that they have, which is an effort to get elected 3 or 4 times,
I guess, before they achieve their balanced budget, is a very
interesting scheme. Someone said where did this come from, out of
intuition? I say it came out of the political play book. This is a
justification for getting reelected, because, therefore, if one is
reelected, they can be expected to achieve this.
I have news for my colleagues. The last two Presidents, and many
others, many of us want a balanced budget, but it is not whether we
want a balanced budget, it is how we balance it. We do not balance the
budget by providing lavish tax breaks for our special-interest friends.
We do not provide a balanced budget by building a social deficit in
terms of health and in terms of education.
I have got news for my colleagues, that type of deficit and that type
of cost is something that we cannot afford to deny to those that are in
need, to the future generations of this country. We do not develop a
balanced budget by developing an environmental deficit and selling our
natural resource legacy.
So there is much that has to be debated, and I want to debate all
these issues on their merits. I want the Government back and running in
the normal operation. And I am happy to live, I understand, we
understand, the Democrats do, in this House and in the Senate, that we
lost the election in 1994. The Republicans have a right to come forth
and sell their agenda on its merits. That is what they have been trying
to do. And the answer that is coming back from the public is we do not
want the Republican agenda. We do not want the contract. We did not buy
into it. Most people are not even aware of what it was or is.
So I would hope that we can address this issue this week; that we can
get out the CR and then have our battles over policy and votes, which
we understand. There are more Republicans in this House than Democrats,
and in the Senate, and, obviously, we will have to make compromises and
develop consensus.
As my colleague, the gentleman from California, Esteban Torres,
pointed out, some of those compromises I know I will not like. But,
nevertheless, I do not think this is the way we should achieve our
goal. I certainly will stand here and resist it and fight it very
vigorously, and I thank the gentleman from New Jersey.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from
Minnesota for those remarks and, obviously, he is very concerned.
I want to say briefly, and then I want to yield to someone else, that
I think, as I have been watching this debate, and some of the comments
by our Republican colleagues, I just see this radicalism, this
extremism, taking over amongst them. It is the whole idea that their
ideology is the only ideology, and unless they get their way on the
budget, they are going to close the Government down.
There is a lack of concern for Government workers, lack of concern
for constituents who need Government services. The whole idea that
somehow Government itself is bad and, therefore, it is not a problem to
shut it down because the Government is evil, the Government should not
even be here. Almost an anarchistic approach, that I think the
gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur] mentioned before. It is an
extremism. It is a radicalism that seems to be taking hold on the other
side of the aisle.
I yield to the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Lowey].
Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey, and I
will save my comments on the environment for a little while later, but
I just wanted to respond and thank my colleague from Minnesota before
he leaves for his comments and for his well-placed anger.
I want to make one point that he made so well and add to it; that we
talk about the freshmen who are standing in the corner like children,
holding their breath and saying if we do not do it their way, it is no
way. But I think we also have to put the blame on the so-called
moderate Republicans. After all, the Democrats passed a resolution in
our conference; that we wanted to pass a clean CR that would support
the bipartisan resolution passed in the Senate to open up the
Government.
So we have to hold them responsible, because we have 198 votes; is
that not correct?
Mr. PALLONE. Exactly.
Mrs. LOWEY. All we need is 20 votes from Republicans who understand
that this kind of pain and suffering is wrong.
And, incidentally, I want to add that I got a call today from someone
who works in the Veterans Administration at the Franklin Delano
Roosevelt Hospital in Montrose. They had to hold a bake sale because
some of their employees who are so loyal, they want to go to work, but
did not get their paycheck that was worth anything. In fact, it was 2
weeks that included all the deduction, but it was really less than 1
week's pay that they got. And, in fact, they cannot afford to get to
work at the Veterans Hospital in Montrose.
So people who are working, taking care of our veterans, who gave
their heart and soul, and some made the ultimate sacrifice for their
country, cannot afford to go to work to take care of our veterans.
So I just want to say to my colleague that I understand his anger,
because I know all of us share it, and we cannot just blame the
freshmen Republicans who are standing in the corner saying my way or no
way, but the moderate Republicans have a chance now to join with
Senator Dole in the Senate in a bipartisan way to open up this
Government and then we can have and continue to have a debate.
This is a serious debate about the priorities of our country. We
really disagree. We want to protect Medicare, Medicaid, the
environment, and education, and they want to give tax cuts to those who
really do not ask for it. This is a serious debate. Let us have it, but
not to shut down the Government and cause so much pain.
And the impact on the economy, my colleague mentioned, which is also
so very important. It is not just the national parks, but it is all
those small businesses around the national parks that are not making
the income and contributing to our tax base.
So I want to thank the gentleman very much.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate what the gentlewoman is
saying. That is a good point. We keep talking about the extremism and
the radicalism of the freshman, but all we need is 20 votes, 198 plus
20 votes from anybody on the Republican side and we can reopen the
Government.
And now, Mr. Speaker, I want to yield to the gentleman from
California.
Mr. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for
this special order. Obviously, it provides for us a time to be able to
speak to some of these issues that concern us so much here today.
I was struck by the comments by the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr.
Vento], when he talked about the Wall Street Journal, certainly no
pillar of liberal reporting, so to speak, but today's Wall Street
Journal really is an indictment. It is an indictment of what is taking
place in this House.
To reflect on what Mr. Vento said, that we are told in this
particular article that 12 States of the United States that are serving
600,000 elderly have told the Department of Health and Human Services
that within 2 weeks, 2
[[Page H71]]
weeks, the Meals on Wheels Program will run out, and the transportation
programs for seniors will run out.
Moreover, they say that the Government has not paid the private
companies that process Medicare claims since mid-December, and they are
now owing something like $60 million. The administrator of the Health
Care Financing Administration, HCFA, which really makes the payments to
Medicare and Medicaid, is saying that benefits are funded with trust
fund money, but administrative officials worry that the processing
companies which they depend on will have to begin to lay off workers by
the thousands and this is going to delay reimbursement to the hospitals
and to the doctors.
Can you imagine the chaos that this country is going to go through if
that is, in fact, brought about?
We talk about the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency
yesterday began to shut down its Superfund Program, the very program
that is so important to the cleanup of toxic waste in this country. And
although the program already has multiyear funding, that funding
operates on an administrative spending ceiling that the EPA could crash
through if the shutdown continues as it is now doing.
The EPA yesterday started issuing stop-work orders to its contractors
who employ some 10,000 employees across this country. They are going to
be laid off. There are 18,000 employees of EPA now on furlough. What is
going to happen to Superfund? There is some real crises, my friends,
taking place here unless we reach some solution.
Mr. PALLONE. If I can just follow up briefly on what the gentleman
said about the Superfund Program. I have, in New Jersey, in my State,
the largest number of Superfund sites in the country of any State, and
in my particular congressional district a large number of Superfund
sites, and already this shutdown has delayed indefinitely cleanup work
at about, I guess five of the sites in my congressional district.
In fact, last Wednesday I actually went to the EPA lab and center in
Edison, in the heart of my district, and was in an empty room. The
entire place was closed down. I think there were two staff personnel
involved not only in Superfund, but all the EPA research activities
that took place in Edison, NJ.
Basically, what it means is that a number of these sites, not only in
my district, but around the country, if we do not continue to do that
work, a lot more work will have to be done. There were some contractors
that were quoted in a lot of the newspapers today that were saying that
because they are not able to do the contract work on Superfund sites,
when they go back again there is going to be even more hazardous waste,
and they are going to have to spend even more money in order to do the
cleanup.
So not only is it a question of health and safety about being at risk
for these hazardous waste sites in terms of people's exposure to
hazardous waste because the sites are not being cleaned up, but also
more money is likely to be incurred for the Superfund, which again goes
back to the taxpayers, if the shutdown continues, particularly the way
we are hearing now that it might go on, if we recess tomorrow, for 2 or
3 weeks or indefinitely.
Mr. TORRES. I have a particular interest, of course close to home,
because I represent a large sector of the San Gabriel Valley in
California wherein the water is polluted and a particular San Gabriel
basin provides drinking water for a million people. And we have already
started on a very unique plan to clean up that water, and it has taken
the cooperation of business and political and local leadership and
citizens to clean up, and they are cleaning up while keeping the
lawsuits out that would generally stifle this kind of advancement.
But now with this shutdown, we are going to see the safety and the
prospects for clean water for the San Gabriel Valley affected very
largely.
{time} 2015
These are the kinds of problems that are concerning all of us, I am
sure. I thank the gentleman for giving us this opportunity to speak to
these issues, especially the environment and what is happening with the
furlough and the shutdown.
Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate the gentleman's comments. I yield now to
the gentlewoman from Oregon.
Ms. FURSE. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a little about safety, both
environmental safety and other types of safety. I do not know if the
people in this country understand that this Congress has talked a lot
about putting people in prison. Let me talk a little bit about a
Federal prison in my district that is a large Federal prison.
We had a terrible riot there. The guards were fantastic. They worked
so well. I got a letter from the wife of one of those prison guards,
and she said, and I quote from this letter, ``Three hundred eighty-five
correctional workers at Sheridan, Oregon, are being held as political
hostages. Those guards are not being paid.''
Can you imagine the kind of work they do for the safety of the
community, and yet because of a political issue, this issue of who is
up front, who is going to win this political argument, those workers
who every day go to work to protect our safety, their financial safety
is being held hostage.
Now, there are some other environmental issues and safety issues that
I believe who should understand with this Government shutdown. We have
a choice. We can open the Government, as the Democrats tried to do
today; tried to get a continuing resolution that mirrored the Senate
resolution. We tried to get the Government back. Well, I think we
should think about the safety of people and their health.
When we close down, as we will, clean drinking water facilities, the
protection to turn the faucet on and get clean water, that is an EPA
function and if we do not have those people working in the EPA, the
drinking water of every single one of us will present a problem.
The veterans hospital, my colleague spoke about that. Well, I have a
veterans hospital too in my district. They will run out today of money
for drugs, food, and supplies. Imagine a government that would turn its
back on its veterans who are in hospital. Absolutely awful.
Ten States will have no money for unemployment benefits. Those
unemployment benefits, those people paid into that. This is something
those citizens earned, and yet, because there is a political goings-on
in this place, they are being held hostage.
The Republicans are holding the environment and the health of all
Americans hostage when they play this political game. We could have a
clean continuing resolution, get the Government back to work, act like
a civilized country, and then deal with the issues of the benefits.
But I will tell my colleagues one of the problems of why we are in
this crisis. We were supposed to have 13 appropriations bills on the
President's desk October 1. That is the way it is supposed to work. But
we still, because of the mishandling of the legislation and the
disagreement between the Senate and the House, the Senate Republicans
and House Republicans I might add, we have not had those appropriations
bills even get to the President. How can they talk about a balanced
budget when they did not do the work that was necessary?
I want to remind my Republican colleagues that there was a time when
a crisis occurred with a Republican President and a Democratic House,
and they worked it out in less than a day because the people's right,
the people's safety and health was put first, beyond the political
game.
We do not need this crisis. We could get back to work if they would
bring forward, and they are in the majority, bring a resolution to us.
Let us vote to keep the Government open. That is what we want to do.
That is what we should do.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's comments. I
think the reality is that they are afraid. That actually the House
Republican leadership, Speaker Gingrich is afraid to bring this
resolution up, because as the gentlewoman from New York said, we only
need 20 Republican votes and we could possibly get them if we could
only have the continuing resolution brought up to the floor for a vote.
But we have been thwarted in that effort and now we are told that
tomorrow we are going to recess.
Mr. FURSE. If the gentleman would yield further, when we take an oath
of office to do our duty by the people of this country, we do not take
an oath of
[[Page H72]]
office to get reelected. We take an oath of office to look after the
health and safety of the people of the United States. That is our
office and our oath. That is what we are paid for. These Federal
workers are losing money, but the Members of Congress are still getting
paid. It is not right.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Gene Green.
Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from New
Jersey for, one, requesting this hour, but also getting a lot of
diverse Members that are Democrats. But we are diverse. We are from all
parts of the country: Florida, New York, Oregon, Texas and New Jersey,
and tonight we are talking about the Department of the Interior
concerns and the shutdown and also the EPA.
We share and we will talk about the lack of funding for the Medicare
suppliers. My own VA hospital in Houston, they are running out of
supplies tomorrow just like they are in Oregon. We are not serving the
veterans by keeping the Government closed. What I think is ironic, the
extremists, they think they are hurting Democrats or bureaucrats. They
are hurting a lot of people.
The people who are veterans who are not getting those services and
the senior citizens who want to apply for Social Security and cannot
apply for it. I had a townhall meeting in Houston and I had a senior
citizen with an appeal on his Social Security check. He thinks they
misfigured. The appeal here in Maryland is shut down. We do not know
when he is going to get some redress or at least an answer on it.
Tonight I want to talk a little bit about the Department of Interior
and what is happening all over the country, because a few years ago I
had the opportunity, in fact I took my kids and we went to Yellowstone
in Wyoming and we could not go into Yellowstone in 1985 or 1986 because
of the fires. They closed the park. That was a natural disaster.
Mr. Speaker, what we are experiencing now with our National Parks and
with our veterans and health care is an unnatural disaster, an
unnatural crisis to paraphrase my colleague from Oregon, that has been
created by the Republican Majority to force tax cuts that nobody has
asked for.
Sure, all of us would like a tax cut. But the first priority ought to
be to balance the budget. Let me talk about the 383,000 people that
visit our National Parks that are closed. In California, Yosemite, that
is not represented by a Democrat by any means, has asked for assistance
from the Governor of California, who could not do anything. Yosemite
and Mariposa County asked for State disaster assistance, but the
Governor of California, who was a Republican presidential candidate,
said he could not help.
It is just atrocious what is happening. The Forest Service that
operates our campgrounds and monuments and visitors centers, not just
here in Washington, because I have a group of students coming next week
from a junior high in my district. It is the first time a lot of those
youngsters will be able to come to their capital, and it is going to be
closed to them.
Mr. Speaker, it is unreasonable what they are trying to do because
they do not have the votes in Congress to override a presidential veto
to accept the cuts that they want to do in education funding and health
care.
In Houston, we have a petrochemical complex and there are EPA sites
that are not being staffed now because of the shutdown. That is why I
know the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] asked for the time
tonight. The other point is that the EPA is not only not enforcing the
Superfund sites, but the non-Superfund civil environmental enforcement
actions have been stopped, costing us $3 million a day.
I always hear from my colleagues on the Republican side saying that
no business can run like the Federal Government, and they are right. No
business can have $5 trillion deficits. But also you do not get your
income just because you want to cut the budget. We should balance the
budget first. That is the first priority, and then we are going to have
to make some tough decisions.
But, Mr. Speaker, we should not give $200 billion in tax cuts before
we balance the budget. We should not cut health care for seniors and
investment in our future for both job training and the children who are
the ones who are going to be paying those taxes tomorrow. We should not
cut environmental to make sure that we have a cleaner tomorrow by
saying we are going to cut that now. That is what they are doing.
That is why they have not been able to pass them, and we saw today
they could not pass a bill that would override a presidential veto.
Even though there were lots of things in those bills that I wanted to
vote for, I could not take the cuts that they were going to do in those
programs.
It is the same way with VA-HUD and NASA. In Houston, we have the
Manned NASA Space Center. We have those employees who are furloughed
right now. Tomorrow there will be a picket out in front asking, ``Why
are NASA employees being furloughed?'' That was passed here by
overwhelming votes, the efforts, and yet they are furloughing those
employees that are, quote, nonemergency.
Mr. Speaker, it is a tragedy that is happening, but it is a tragedy
that was in the making by the Speaker. And earlier this year I had some
Republican freshmen tell me they said they were elected to come up here
and close it down. I want to congratulate those 73 Republican freshmen.
They are successful. They closed down Pearl Harbor for veterans who
want to go out there. They closed down Yosemite and Yellowstone and the
monuments, and they are effectively closing down my VA hospital. If
that is what they want to do, then they are successful.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think it is
incredible, but I have heard it over and over again, many of our
colleagues saying that they were in fact elected to come here and shut
down the government. That is what we are hearing. It is part of this
radical extremism that we are seeing come into play every day.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gene Green for
participating. He pointed out that these problems that we are facing
with the shutdown are throughout the country.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.
Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from New
Jersey [Mr. Pallone] for calling us together. I want to reiterate once
more that it is strange that this is an election year, and Senator Dole
has joined with the President, Democrat and Republican, in a bipartisan
way and joined with the Democrats of the House to say, ``Let us open
this government and do it now.''
So, it is the extreme Republicans of the Republican Conference in the
House that are controlling the party, because all we need is 20
Republican votes to join with the Democrats and the government would be
open again.
I just want to take a few minutes to talk about the impact of this
shutdown on the environment. We have been hearing a lot about the
monuments that are closed, and certainly the impact of the economy in
those areas, all the small businesses that are not doing well, but
there are a lot of other areas that are severely impacted by this
shutdown.
For example, EPA's role in helping to ensure safe drinking water has
been halted. EPA's role in helping to ensure that the air we breathe is
free of harmful pollutants has been shut down. EPA's role in helping
clean up toxic waste that pollutes our drinking water and fouls our air
has been suspended. EPA's civil enforcement actions against polluters,
which bring in $3 million in fines on an average day, have been
terminated.
In the EPA region that includes the States of New York and New
Jersey, and we have worked so closely on protecting the waters in our
areas, nearly all of the 1,000 EPA staff are suspended. These are the
environmental cops on the beat, the people who protect our health from
polluters.
To step back for a moment, let us not forget that the shutdown is
part of a larger, concerted effort to roll back a host of laws that my
colleagues and I have been speaking about to protect our natural
resources and the environmental health and safety of the American
people.
They have already gutted the Clean Water Act. They have already put
in place a 21-percent cut in the Environmental Protection Agency's
budget, including a 50 percent cut in the enforcement activities and a
20 percent cut in
[[Page H73]]
the program that cleans up hazardous waste sites; a 40 percent cut in
funding for land acquisition for National Parks and Wildlife Refuges; a
24 percent cut in major wetlands conservation programs and a measure
that would terminate altogether the EPA's role in protecting wetlands;
a measure that speeds up the desecration of our National Forests by
increasing timber sales and the construction of logging roads; and, a
30 percent cut in loans to States to help keep raw sewage off our
beaches and out of our rivers; 40 percent cut in funds that provide
critical assistance to local communities to keep drinking water safe in
my district, and on and on and on.
I know we have two colleagues that want to share a few words, so I
will not continue; I will save it for another day. But I want to make
it very, very clear, this is unacceptable to the majority of American
people. They have to understand, and the ones that understand,
understand it very clearly, that this environment, our precious water,
the air we breathe, should not be destroyed by a right-wing extreme
group of Republicans. We all want to balance the budget, but it is
priorities that we care about, that has made our country strong, that
must be preserved.
So, we are going to continue to fight for our environment, and I know
we are all going to do it together. But right now I ask again that at
least 20 Republicans come join the Democrats, come join the bipartisan
effort in the Senate. Let us get this Government open and then let us
continue this very serious debate about the priorities of our country.
We can do it civilly and not close the Government down and create all
this hardship for thousands and thousands of people in my district and
all of our districts.
{time} 2030
I want to thank the gentleman again for calling us together, and I
hope we will gather another night until we get this Government open.
Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate the gentlewoman's remarks. I think she is
pointing out that, in fact, the shutdown even more severely impacts,
and it is selective in a sense, in that the agencies like the
Environmental Protection Agency, that the Republican majority has
targeted for these severe cuts, are the very ones in many cases that
are being shut down. So the ideology even goes to which agencies are
being shut down, which is one of the reasons that we are talking about
the EPA and other such health and safety regulators tonight.
I yield to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens].
Mr. OWENS. I want to congratulate the gentleman and thank him for
holding this special order. I know he is almost out of time, and I just
want to be associated with the remarks that were heard before from my
colleagues, especially the anger and the indignation that I heard
expressed here.
It is time to be angry. It is time to be indignant. This is a cruel
and heartless exercise being perpetrated on people who can accept it
the least, the least of our people, people who are working for wages,
people who are contract workers. There are a whole lot of people out
there who do not have any cushion at all. They cannot afford to be
without a paycheck.
As the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections,
I can tell my colleagues also that there are very few nonessential
employees in the Government agencies which carry out inspections of the
workplace. OSHA, for example, 10,000 workers lost their lives on the
job last year. About 56,000 workers died as a result of injuries
experienced on the job or diseases contracted on the job, a very
serious matter. Without OSHA inspections, all of these things increase.
They have never had enough people. This is one area where we did not
need downsizing and streamlining in the first place.
But since the Republican majority took over here, they have shown
great contempt for workers. They have gone after OSHA. They have gone
after the Department of Labor. They have let it be known that although
it is not in the Contract With America, they do not value workers in
this society very much. They want a class war. They are waging a class
war. The workers do not know, they are not fighting back yet, but there
is a class war being waged against them.
To have the civil servants, the Government workers, held as hostages
in a situation like this displays in dramatic form, very specifically,
that contempt for workers that is unAmerican. It is unAmerican to be as
heartless as they are in this exercise. It is not in keeping with our
tradition to use people in the way they are being used.
I just want to make certain, and I will continue this at a later
date, that we understand that workers are suffering a great deal in
many different ways. Certainly those Government agencies, the bureaus
and the units of the Department of Labor which are involved in
activities which deal with workers, not only OSHA but also Fair Labor
Standards Act and a number of others, they are essential and we need
them now for many reasons. Workers should not be treated with such
great contempt by the Republican majority.
Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate what the gentleman said. Going back to what
I said before, he points it out so well, that this shutdown is
selective and it is those departments in many cases that provide health
and safety protection. They are the ones that are shut down and are not
being funded.
You mentioned OSHA, safety complaints, a minimum wage, other types of
labor violations. These are the agencies that are shut down and are not
able to do their work, so clearly health and safety is impacted in a
significant way. I appreciate the gentleman's comments.
I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
Mr. DEUTSCH. I thank the gentleman. I guess I pose the question to my
Republican colleagues who are here, two freshman Republicans who are
about to take over the next special order, and the question is, they
came here saying they were going to run Government like a business.
What we have is a situation, if you would think about it, in any
corporation in American where the CEO has a disagreement with the board
of directors. And what they decide to do is, they decide to furlough
the workers and pay them. If you think about that, furlough the workers
and pay them when they have a disagreement, and I guess I would throw
back to any of my Republican colleagues or anyone in America, is
there any corporation in America that would do that? Absolutely not.
And if any corporation did that, if it were a publicly traded
corporation, the value of that corporation would disintegrate the
following day.
That is exactly what we have done. Again, if we think about what is
going on, it is a situation that is totally indefensible. Adults have
disagreements. They have disagreements, and what they do in those
disagreements, is, they try to work out those disagreements.
On a practical level what is happening is we are actually wasting
taxpayer dollars, about $50 million a day of actual salary expenditure,
$50 million a day for the last 19 days, over $750 million that has been
wasted in direct taxpayer dollars to date. The last shutdown cost about
$750 million in direct payments, $1.5 billion in direct taxpayer waste,
which is going to take a long time to catch up on that $1.5 billion,
but there is a multiplier effect. There is a huge multiplier effect. It
is probably a 10 to 50 times multiplier effect in terms of what is
happening.
You cannot get a visa to come to the United States of America today,
if you are in any country in the world that needs a visa to come to
America. When those people come, they travel, and luckily a lot of them
come to south Florida and my district. They spend plenty of money, on
average a couple of hundred dollars a person, and there is a multiplier
effect on the couple of hundred dollars they are spending. Those people
are not coming.
There are 2,500 HUD home loans that are approved every day. That has
a multiplier effect. That is not happening. In my district, whether it
is the Flamingo--I have three national parks in my district--whether it
is a hotel in Flamingo, FL, in the Everglades National Park, or closing
down fishing in Florida Bay where people would come and spend money,
that is not happening.
Again, for anyone who is listening, for my colleagues on the
Republican side, try to explain to me why we cannot pass a CR and agree
to disagree and
[[Page H74]]
keep working on this. It is not unprecedented that the President and
the Congress have had disagreements over the budget. For 2 full years
under the Reagan administration, we operated under CR's. That is not
such a terrible thing. And let the voters decide in November.
But to do this destructive behavior, which is really what it is, it
is destructive behavior for ourselves, for our children, for our
economy, is just wrong, immoral, and just plain stupid.
Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank the gentleman. I really want to thank
all my Democratic colleagues for participating in this special order
this evening. I think all we are really asking is that we be allowed to
bring a continuing resolution, that has already passed in the Senate on
a bipartisan basis, to the floor of the House so that we can vote on
it.
Unfortunately, what we are hearing from the Republican side, from
Speaker Gingrich and the Republican majority, is not only are they not
going to allow the continuing resolution to come up either today or
tomorrow--they did not let it come up today-- or tomorrow, so that we
can vote on it and open up the Government again, but they are actually
considering another motion to put us in recess for as much as 3 weeks.
Today is the 19th day of the Government shutdown. If it goes from
today until the 23d of January, which is what the motion that passed
out of the Committee on Rules today and which we will probably consider
tomorrow would allow, you would have to add another 20 days, almost 3
weeks, to that 19 days that the Government has already been shut down.
It is already unprecedented, and we hope that that does not happen and
we are going to continue to make the point that it should not happen.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, the personal toll resulting from the Federal
shutdown is enormous and its effects are far reaching. For thousands of
Federal workers, the shutdown means a great financial stretch for many
to make mortgage and other payments due. For American taxpayers, it
means they are simply not getting their money's worth. Taxpayers have
made an investment in these workers and their services to the public,
and they are getting no return on their investment. Federal workers
have been shut out by the shutdown, and the American taxpayer has been
shut out by the shutdown.
In addition to the personal toll, there is a tremendous impact on the
environment. Cleanup of Superfund sites has been halted. The 2,800
individuals who are responsible for this important program have been
furloughed. Other important environmental enforcement programs have
been shut down, including the call-in EPA hotline to report drinking
water contamination. Many companies have been put on hold waiting for
EPA assistance or permits to conduct their activities. They have been
shut out by the shutdown.
In today's Post, there is an article about an EPA contractor which
discusses the difficulties imposed by lack of Federal funding for the
agency that owes him money. As a result of not being paid, he and
scores of other small businesses in the same situation may have to
release workers they can no longer afford to pay. These Federal
contractors and small businesses have been shut out by the shutdown.
The communities adjacent to parks and lands operated by the Interior
Department are losing tourist revenue. In California, Mariposa County
has asked Governor Wilson to declare a state of emergency because of
the loss of business from visitors to Yosemite National Park. The
average 383,000 people who visit national parks each day are shut out
by the shutdown.
The loss on all levels is great. The Republicans may be mad at
Government, but Federal workers, small businesses, and visitors to our
Nation's scenic wonders are not big government or what the Republicans
have now relegated to little taxpayers. They are valued workers who
deserve to be paid for their work and a public who deserves to get what
it pays for.
Balancing the budget in the name of taxpayers is a contradiction when
the shutdown is costing them over $40 million a day--over $1.5 billion
so far. By your actions to continue the shutdown, you are depriving
Federal workers of their earned income and the American taxpayer of a
return on their investment.
Balance the budget, but don't shut out our Federal workers and the
American public. This balancing act is just too expensive for everyone.
____________________