[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 76 (Thursday, June 5, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H3520-H3544]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1715


                             GENERAL LEAVE

  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks 
on the conference report to accompany H.R. 1469, and that I may include 
tabular and extraneous material.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Barrett of Nebraska). Is there objection 
to the request of the gentleman from Louisiana?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might 
consume.
  (Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to once again come to 
the House with the conference report on the fiscal year 1997 emergency 
supplemental appropriations bill, H.R. 1469.
  As Members of the House may recall, on April 24 of this year, the 
Committee on Appropriations reported out the bill, and roughly 2 weeks 
ago we had the bill on the floor. Unfortunately, we were unable to 
complete the conference quickly, and we had to adjourn over the 
Memorial Day recess prior to the completion of this very, very 
important bill that will provide disaster relief to the citizens of 
some 35 States.
  Today we hope to remedy that situation because, after several weeks 
of negotiating with the Senate on the differences between the House and 
the Senate versions of this legislation, we have concluded conference 
yesterday and are able to bring this conference agreement to the House 
so that the process of providing that very necessary recovery for the 
vast number of natural disasters that have occurred around the country 
this year can be maintained.
  This conference agreement includes $8.9 billion in new spending 
authority for fiscal year 1997, of which the discretionary portion is 
fully offset by the rescission of previously appropriated funds and by 
including other offsets.
  I might stress, Mr. Speaker, that the conference report, as promised 
when we debated this issue on the floor 2 weeks ago, is fully, and I 
repeat fully, offset in budget authority.
  The major reasons for the increase over the House reported bill are 
an increase for veterans compensation and pensions and SSI, 
Supplemental Security Income, benefits for legal aliens. These were 
deemed by the administration to be necessary to provide for those 
benefit programs through the end of the fiscal year, and the conference 
agreed that the benefits, if not paid for, might leave some individuals 
without compensation before October 1, 1997. It is intended that these 
sums, these additional sums, be included in this bill so that those 
people might be provided for.
  A summary of the total conference report on the supplemental includes 
the following major categories: Nearly $5.6 billion for disaster 
recovery, as I said earlier, for 35 States; another $268 million for 
other appropriations; $240 million for SSI benefits for legal aliens. 
All of that is offset in the domestic category of the budget by $6.092 
billion in rescissions. That leaves a deficit, or an extra amount of 
offset by about $21 million.
  In the peacekeeping provisions or the defense side of the bill we 
have some $1.929 billion allocated to repay the Defense Department for 
what has already been outlaid in Bosnia and elsewhere in other 
operations around the world, and that is offset with moneys provided 
from the Defense Department of exactly that same amount of money.
  Likewise, there are mandatory appropriations in the conference 
agreement, mostly for VA, of $937 million. And, as I indicated, the 
entire discretionary amount is offset in budget authority.
  There is $3.3 billion of disaster relief bill going directly to FEMA, 
the Federal Emergency Management Agency, so that they can assist those 
people who have been devastated by floods, tornados, and other natural 
disasters.
  There is $500 million in this bill going to Community Development 
Block Grants. The people in Minnesota and the Dakotas have indicated 
that they are concerned that the traditional assistance of FEMA has not 
been direct enough, has not been flexible enough to go to the people 
who have lost their businesses, lost their homes, and who are virtually 
thrown out of their entire towns. And in order to get those folks back 
and their cities working, they feel that the Community Development 
Block Grants will be more effective in solving these problems. 
Hopefully, that will be the case.
  There is $650 million to be applied to transportation facility 
repair; $585 million for flood control and navigation facility repair; 
$166 million for watershed and flood prevention; $197 million for the 
national park repairs; $928 million for veterans compensation and 
pensions, as I mentioned earlier; and $240 million for continued SSI 
benefits for legal aliens; $1.26 billion for peacekeeping efforts in 
Bosnia and $510 million for peacekeeping efforts in southwest Asia.
  I would like to remind all my colleagues again that at the beginning 
of the 104th Congress; that is, the Congress preceding this one, we in 
the majority, the Republicans, began a policy of paying for all 
supplemental appropriations, saying to the country that no longer will 
we opt for the tradition that has been established in the past of

[[Page H3521]]

simply adding supplemental appropriations to what had previously been 
appropriated and not worrying about where the money comes from.
  We adopted the policy of offsetting any additional or supplemental 
appropriations which had not been encompassed in the traditional 
appropriations process, which occurs in the fall, with rescissions of 
previously appropriated funds; that is, taking money out of other 
programs that we have already paid for and applying it to these 
supplemental needs so that there is no net cost to the taxpayer.
  We have been successful. Every time we have come up with an 
additional or supplemental appropriation bill, we have offset it, since 
January 3, 1995, and I am pleased to say that we have done so again 
today. We have offset it with budget authority from other programs and 
other agencies. So I am proud to say again that this conference report 
complies with this policy, and that it is totally offset in budget 
authority.
  The bill we brought to the House complied with this policy as does in 
this conference report. Mr. Speaker, the President has indicated, 
however, that because of two items, that do not have much to do with 
disaster relief, that he is going to veto the bill. I regret that. I 
hope that he does not do that.
  Included in this conference agreement are matters that are very, very 
important to the majority of the Members of Congress and, admittedly, 
while they are not appropriation matters, I believe that the portions 
of this bill dealing with appropriations are not only acceptable but 
endorsed by the vast majority of the House, and I am proud of that.
  But I believe also that the best thing to do is to go ahead and 
proceed with these extra issues because they are not consequential 
enough to deny aid to victims of natural disasters. One involves simply 
directing the Census Bureau not to sample, not to provide estimates of 
numbers of people in conducting the census every 10 years, as required 
by the Constitution, but to actually numerically count each and every 
person. Every person. No matter what background, no matter what ethnic 
identity, race, sex, or any other religious affiliation, count each and 
every person in America. And if the Census Bureau will do that, we will 
pay the bill for it, but we think that that is what the Constitution 
envisioned.
  We hope that, in fact, the President would not veto this vital bill 
by saying, oh, well, let us just sample whoever is in America and not 
worry about counting them. We think that would be a terrible mistake, 
and so we have a provision in the conference agreement directing an 
actual count, and we have to do it this early because, otherwise, the 
Census Bureau will go ahead and make their plans. If we do it later on, 
they will say we were too late. So we have to address that issue now, 
and we just hope that that would not prompt the President to veto this 
very important bill.
  Likewise, there is much concern from Members on both sides of the 
aisle about the fact that 2 years ago the Government closed down after 
the President did not sign four appropriations bills. A lot of people 
believe that that was unfortunate and that we should have avoided that 
mishap, and that we can avoid it by including in this bill what is 
known as a continuing resolution which says that if all of the 
appropriations bills for fiscal year 1998 are not passed, that full 
funding at 1997 levels will continue until such appropriations bills 
are passed.
  That continuing resolution is included in this bill. All it says, or 
all it is, is an expression by the majority that says, Mr. President, 
we do not want to close down the Government. Just sign this bill with 
this continuing resolution and Government will stay open. If the 
President chooses to veto the bill because of that provision, I guess, 
in effect, he is saying that, well, he does not mind closing down the 
Government and he does not want to have a fail-safe that will keep the 
Government operating.
  Be that as it may, he has given strong signals that he is prepared to 
veto the bill and I regret that, as I have said. I hope that he does 
not, but we will just have to confront it.
  I believe the best thing to do at this point is for the Congress to 
express its views on the conference report and then let the President 
express his views. This will move the process forward. Should he veto 
it, we will readdress this bill. And it would be my expectation that we 
will still have a supplemental appropriations bill that provides 
disaster relief to the people that need it within a very few days under 
any circumstance.
  But we are prepared to move this bill forward now. We hope that it 
will gain a majority of votes so that we can send it to the President 
for his signature, and we hope that he will sign it, and then we will 
be done with this and go on to the regular fiscal year 1998 
appropriations process.
  Mr. Speaker at this point I would like to insert a table reflecting 
the conference agreement into the Record.

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[[Page H3533]]

  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, on March 19 the President sent a request to this 
Congress for an emergency supplemental to pay for flood damage relief 
in some 35 States and to reimburse the Pentagon for additional costs 
incurred by America's responsibilities in Bosnia. That request was for 
around $5 billion.
  Today is June 6, almost 80 days after the President sent his request 
to this Congress. Today, this House is apparently about to send to the 
President a bill that contains considerably more money and, 
unfortunately, it also contains three blatant political riders which 
have nothing whatsoever to do with disaster recovery or military 
readiness. Those riders will, and, in fact, they are doing it right 
now, they are, for all practical purposes, resulting in a second 
Government shutdown for the areas of the country who are desperately 
awaiting relief from Washington and are not getting it because of these 
three riders.
  The first rider is a political restriction on the census. Now, I 
happen to agree with the language of that rider. I do not like the idea 
of having sample census supplement the enumeration in the census. But I 
also recognize that that fight ought to be made on the State-Commerce-
Justice appropriation bill. It does not belong on an emergency proposal 
to get help to 35 States which need it very badly.

                              {time}  1730

  There is also a second rider which has to do with constructing roads 
on environmentally sensitive public lands in some 17 States across the 
country, most especially Alaska. No matter how one feels about the 
provision, that language does not belong on an emergency appropriation 
bill trying to help the American people.
  Thirdly, there is another rider, which is posed as being a benign 
rider, which will simply extend the activities of Government at the end 
of the fiscal year. In fact, that rider is a pernicious effort to 
create a new imbalance of power between the Congress and the 
Presidency, because the effect of that rider is to essentially allow 
the majority in this House to pass through the Congress those 
appropriation bills which they want to cut, but it allows them to hold 
back any appropriation bill which contains administration priorities. 
That means that the President is being asked to put himself in a hole 
in terms of being able to defend what he considers to be legitimate 
national priorities. No matter how one feels about that, that language 
again does not belong on an emergency appropriation bill.
  Now, this bill is going nowhere. It is going to be vetoed over those 
three riders. The American people know that once again Congress is 
putting, by its action on these three riders, it is putting partisan 
political considerations ahead of the needs of the American people, and 
I think we ought to see to it that that does not happen this evening.
  What we ought to do is to stop the political games. We ought to stop 
the delays which are preventing real help from getting out there to 
real people. So I am simply going to ask people tonight to vote ``no'' 
on the proposition. A ``no'' vote will actually speed up the needed 
relief to the affected areas of the country because we could, in fact, 
tonight go back to conference, strip that bill of these three offending 
riders, and in that way enable aid to get to these areas in the fastest 
possible way.
  That is what I think we should do. We should pass the effective 
equal, H.R. 1796, which I have deposited at the desk today, which will 
contain all of the provisions in this proposition before us today 
except those three riders that are causing this bill to go nowhere. 
That is the responsible thing to do if we are worried about meeting the 
needs of our troops in Bosnia, if we are worried about meeting the 
needs of the Americans in the affected areas.
  I would urge a ``no'' vote on this bill, not only because it is 
delaying the needed aid to these areas, but because it also is rapidly 
getting us into a place where our military is going to have to take a 
number of actions which are not in the national interest of this 
country.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Gekas], who deserves all the credit as the prime 
sponsor of the continuing resolution involved in this bill.
  Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. 
Livingston] for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, we are talking about a resolution that is geared to 
prevent the shutdown of Government. What is so wrong about that? The 
same voices that are saying we cannot pass legislation to prevent 
Government shutdown are the voices that the last time were heard, ``You 
have shut down the Government. Why did you shut down the Government?''
  This is a simple way, a common-sense way, and maybe that is why I 
cannot get it through to everybody, it is a commonsense way to prevent 
Government shutdowns.
  What did the President say during the last time when the Government 
was shut down that should be part of the record for this debate here 
today? He said, and I quote, ``It is deeply wrong to shut the 
Government down while we negotiate under the illusion that somehow that 
will affect the decisions that I would make on specific issues. As I 
said, this is only casting a shadow over our talks. I will continue to 
do everything I can in good faith to reach an agreement, but it is 
wrong to shut the Government down.''
  The President should be addressed in a way to indicate that this is 
exactly what we are doing: We are listening to his words, we should not 
shut down the Government. Same President, same arena.
  In the last shutdown alone, the Federal Housing Administration was 
unable to insure single-family home loans for tens of thousands of 
deserving applicants, and many, many thousands of citizens could not 
get passports. Some veterans could not get benefits. Many Medicare 
claims could not be processed. Small businesses, lots of them, could 
not get loans to create new jobs, all of because of a shutdown.
  We are asking in this particular amendment that we permit a common-
sense way to prevent Government shutdown. The President said this about 
the cost of a shutdown on Saturday, January 20, 1996: ``We believe that 
we can go a long way towards bringing the forces of goodwill to a 
measure that everyone agrees should occur to prevent Government 
shutdown.''
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha].
  (Mr. MURTHA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks and to include extraneous material.)
  Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, let me talk a little bit about the problems 
we have in defense. I include for the Record three letters, one 
addressed to the chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, the 
other addressed to Secretary Cohen from the Army, and the other 
addressed to Secretary Cohen from the Air Force.

                                     The Secretary of Defense,

                                                   Washington, DC.
     Hon. C.W. Bill Young,
     Chairman, Subcommittee on National Security, Committee on 
         Appropriations, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
       Dear Bill, I want to thank you for your action to date on 
     the FY 1997 Bosnia/Southwest Asia Supplemental request, but I 
     want to share with you my concern and that of the Service 
     Chiefs about the impact on operations and training if the 
     supplemental is not approved soon.
       In my testimony and discussions with Congress, I have 
     emphasized the need for early action on the supplemental. 
     Based on its likely passage by Memorial Day, few actions were 
     taken by the Department to offset supplemental costs. 
     However, since our request was not approved last month, the 
     Chiefs of Staff of the Army and the Air Force have renewed 
     their concern over the possibility of delayed passage of the 
     supplemental. I have enclosed copies of recent memoranda from 
     them. To ensure that their overall operations are properly 
     funded, the Chiefs have indicated that they cannot risk being 
     left with no options for funding Bosnia/Southwest Asia costs 
     if the supplemental is delayed much longer.
       I remain hopeful that quick action can be taken on the 
     supplemental to preclude the disruptive impact to the 
     Department's programs, especially those related to 
     maintaining our readiness capability.
           Sincerely,
                                                             Bill.

[[Page H3534]]

     
                                  ____
                                                        U.S. Army,


                                           The Chief of Staff,

                                     Washington, DC, June 3, 1997.
     Hon. William S. Cohen,
     Secretary of Defense,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Secretary: I need your assistance in expediting 
     the Bosnia Supplemental currently on the Hill. In early 
     April, I advised Congress that in the absence of supplemental 
     funding or the clear assurance that such funding would be 
     forthcoming, I would be forced to begin actions in early May 
     that would result in a degradation of readiness. I have not 
     initiated the planned actions to deal with the lack of 
     supplemental funding because the progress made had convinced 
     me that supplemental funding would be forthcoming.
       Recent developments indicate passage of the supplemental 
     may be at risk. This puts the Army in the position of having 
     to provide fourth quarter resource allocation to the field 
     without having supplemental funding in hand. We have a fiscal 
     responsibility to ensure that the allocation of fourth 
     quarter resources is done within current limitations. There 
     are several actions presently under consideration to cope 
     with this situation. Each will have direct readiness and 
     quality of life implications. Actions include the 
     cancellation of Army participation in JCS exercises, Combat 
     Training Center (CTC) rotations, home station training, 
     weapons qualification training, and the deferral of some real 
     property and depot maintenance. Some of these actions could 
     carry over into the next fiscal year. For example, canceling 
     home station training in the fourth quarter of this fiscal 
     year could impact on CTC rotations in the first quarter of FY 
     1998.
       We continue to monitor the supplemental very closely. As 
     the situation develops, the Army will initiate any and all 
     actions necessary to train and operate within the means 
     available to us.
           Very Respectfully,
     Dennis J. Reimer.
                                  ____

                                      Department of the Air Force,


                                 Office of the Chief of Staff,

                                     Washington, DC, June 3, 1997.
     Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense

     From: HQ USAF/CC, 1670 Air Force Pentagon, Washington, DC 
         20330-1670
     Subject: FY97 DoD Contingency Supplemental
       I understand that quick passage of the Supplemental may be 
     in jeopardy. The purpose of this memorandum is to make you 
     aware of the impacts of delayed passage (beyond June) on Air 
     Force day-to-day operations.
       The Air Force is currently cash flowing over $700 million 
     in support of Bosnia and SWA operations. We are doing so out 
     of third and fourth quarter funding but are fast running out 
     of flexibility and must soon take very dramatic action to 
     avoid incurring an anti-deficiency in our O&M appropriation. 
     On or about 1 July, Air Force commanders must begin taking 
     the following kinds of actions:
       Severely curtail or cease non-flying training--skill and 
     proficiency levels reduced, e.g., weapons maintenance.
       Severely curtail or cease flying training--squadrons and 
     wings stand down--aircrew readiness degraded.
       Cease all non-mission critical travel.
       Defer further depot maintenance inductions--aircraft 
     grounded.
       Terminate benchstock fills--aircraft spares and 
     consummables inventories drained.
       Park non-mission critical vehicles.
       Place moratoriums on all but safety related facility 
     maintenance, including runway repair.
       Impose civilian hiring freezes.
       I know you are aware of the importance of this issue. We 
     are well beyond the point where we can avoid serious 
     disruption to Air Force operations if there is no 
     supplemental. Timing is now critical.
                                               Ronald R. Fogleman,
                                    General, USAF, Chief of Staff.

  Mr. Speaker, we started doing our business as soon as we got the 
request. Chairman Young called the subcommittee together. We recognized 
the concern of the military if we did not replenish their supplies, 
because of the Bosnia operation. There are a number people that were 
against the deployment to Bosnia, but our position in the Congress has 
always been, we are going to take care of the troops.
  So we went to work immediately trying to make sure that we did our 
part in this supplemental. The chairman of the Committee on 
Appropriations recognized the need. He has been on this subcommittee 
for years, and he recognized the need to do something immediately about 
it. Let me say that the military is really in a bind. The quicker we 
get this done, the sooner we will alleviate the problems in the 
military. But let me go back a few years and show you the difference.
  In 1977, Johnstown, PA had a disastrous flood. The legislation had 
run out for flood relief. At that time it was handled by the Small 
Business Administration. I stayed for 2 or 3 days in Johnstown, and I 
recognized we could not do anything until we got legislation to extend 
and extended the coverage for the Small Business Administration.
  I came back to Washington, talked to the Speaker at that time, who 
was Tip O'Neill. He called the President of the United States, Jimmy 
Carter. Within a week, we had passed the necessary legislation and we 
could go forward with opening up the disaster relief centers that were 
needed so desperately in our area.
  The Federal Government spent $350 million in a very small area, 
within about a 4- or 5-month period, because of the cooperation of 
everybody in the House Chamber. There were no extraneous matters on the 
legislation. Everything was done in order to expedite it.
  I know how those people feel. I understand their pain. We went 
through it. Three times we have had disastrous floods in our area. We 
are, in effect, shutting down the Government because of extraneous 
material. Here we are with the CR. If we could not do our job, the 
Government shuts down. The Committee on Appropriations realizes the 
importance of passing this legislation without a continuing resolution.
  I remember the President of the United States standing up there with 
a continuing resolution passed under the Democrats, it was 2 or 3 feet 
thick, and he said this should never happen again. What we are doing 
here is trying to pass a continuing resolution, when we do not even 
know what would be in this, because we shut down the Government a year 
ago.
  That is a mistake, and I feel very strongly that the Committee on 
Appropriations does not need the advice of the Whole House in telling 
us how to do our business. We do our business. We pass the legislation. 
If we had an opportunity, we would pass this legislation without any 
extraneous matters.
  The census hurts Pennsylvania, this census matter that they are 
trying to pass in this legislation. So I would hope that we would pass 
this quickly, the President will veto it and get it back here, so we 
can get this flood relief and this defense relief that is so 
desperately needed for the people out there passed and signed into law 
and get help to them.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. Young], the very distinguished chairman of the 
Subcommittee on National Security.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise to echo some of the 
thoughts that my distinguished colleague from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha] 
has just spoken of. I would remind the Members, and as I have told Mr. 
Murtha, when I was 5 years old and lived in a little house on the banks 
of the Allegheny River in western Pennsylvania, I had an opportunity to 
watch that little house get knocked off of its foundation by the 
flooded Allegheny River, and at that point we had no idea where we 
might be going to live. So I know firsthand, although it has been a 
while ago, I know firsthand the feeling and frustration of people that 
lose their homes because of natural disasters, and in this case floods.
  Also, I would say that the needs of the Army and the Navy and the Air 
Force and the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard need to be met and need 
to be met quickly. In support of the work of the Committee on 
Appropriations, and especially the Subcommittee on National Security, 
we have done our job. We did it well.
  When we got the request for the supplemental for the Armed Services, 
we were asked to wait until the disaster supplemental was sent also 
from the White House, so we did wait for that. It arrived at the end of 
March. The subcommittee marked up the defense supplemental on April 16. 
We were through the full committee on markup on April 24. The Senate 
passed the supplemental on May 8. The supplemental went to the House 
floor, was defeated by an overwhelming vote on that side, 
unfortunately. So we had to bring the supplemental rule back to the 
House again on May 15. We finally passed it and went to conference on 
May 20.
  On the first day of the conference, the conferees on the national 
security issue, the defense supplemental, settled our differences with 
the other body, and we were prepared to move that legislation then. We 
recognized the need

[[Page H3535]]

that the Armed Services had. We did not delay. We have been prepared to 
go on this issue ever since May 20.
  So I hope that we can settle this issue today. I hope that we can 
send it to the White House. I hope the President will recognize that 
what we are doing here is in good faith, sign this bill, get the 
disaster relief where it is needed, and get the money to the military 
before they have to stand down their training and other issues that 
might seriously affect readiness.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Sawyer].
  (Mr. SAWYER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SAWYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to the 
sampling prohibition buried deeply within this measure. Legislating 
census methodology is not only wholly inappropriate, but holding 
disaster victims hostage to its political aims is unconscionable. For 
them, this is a Government shutdown.
  Consider this: We have just told the world's premier statistical 
agency that they cannot use statistical methods. The truth is that 
sampling and statistical methods are not new to the census, but even 
decades-old traditional uses would be banned, and would guarantee that 
tens of millions of Americans all across this country will be missed 
and millions more will be double-counted. Even worse, errors resulting 
from this count will reverberate and compound themselves year after 
year in the maldistributions of hundreds of billions of dollars over 
the next decade.
  Without sampling, we will never be able to count every head by simply 
relying on return census forms and dedicated amateur enumerators. Who 
says so? Well, in 1991 the now Speaker of the House urged the use of 
statistical methods to improve the count. GAO and the Commerce 
Inspector General criticized the Census Bureau for not going far enough 
to incorporate sampling, and three separate panels of the National 
Academy of Sciences recommended the use of sampling and statistical 
methods to make the count more accurate.
  Dr. Barbara Bryant, President Bush's director of the Census, said 
that the most accurate count possible will be the one that combines the 
best techniques for direct enumeration with the best known technology 
for sampling and estimating the unmeasured.

                              {time}  1745

  The bill before us rejects those judgments. There is nothing 
unconstitutional about the use of sampling or statistical methods. But 
prohibiting its use and holding disaster victims hostage to this very 
bad idea is unconscionable. This is for them a government shutdown. I 
strongly urge my colleagues to vote against this conference report.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
New York [Mr. Walsh], the chairman of the Subcommittee on Legislative.
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WALSH. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. THOMAS. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise to ask the 
chairman of the Subcommittee on Legislative Branch Appropriations to 
engage in a colloquy.
  The conference agreement contains an appropriation for the emergency 
repair and renovation of the Botanic Garden, which we all know is 
absolutely necessary. As the gentleman knows, the Joint Committee on 
the Library has jurisdiction over that program. Does the jurisdiction 
of the Joint Committee on the Library extend to the direction of the 
expenditure of the funds for the renovation project that is contained 
in this supplemental?
  Mr. WALSH. My response is yes. This is a supplemental appropriation 
which supplements the regular fiscal year 1997 appropriation for the 
salaries and expenses of the Botanic Garden. The language in that 
supplemental says, and I quote, ``for an additional amount that is an 
additional amount over and above the appropriation in the regular 
appropriations bill and under the same terms and conditions as the 
regular fiscal year appropriation.''
  The regular fiscal year appropriation clearly states, at 110 statute 
2406 in Public Law 104-197, that ``all necessary expenses for the 
maintenance, care and operation of the Botanic Garden are under the 
direction of the Joint Committee on the Library.''
  I confirm, therefore, that the repair and renovation project are 
covered by the terms and conditions of the basic appropriation. That 
means it will be conducted under the direction of the Joint Committee 
on the Library.
  Mr. THOMAS. I thank the chairman of the subcommittee and I thank the 
chairman of the full committee.
  Mr. WALSH. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stokes].
  Mr. STOKES. I thank the distinguished ranking member for yielding me 
this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the U.S. census sampling 
language contained in the emergency supplemental appropriations bill. 
The prohibition of sampling will guarantee a miscount of the American 
people. The U.S. Census Bureau and the National Academy of Science's 
research and evaluations have proven that statistical sampling is 
absolutely necessary to improve the accuracy of the census count. In 
addition, the U.S. Department of Commerce inspector general has 
determined that the use of sampling to measure and correct the census 
undercount is the only way to eliminate the historic disproportionate 
undercount of people of color and the poor.
  Mr. Speaker, the House leadership must not deny the American people 
their constitutional right to be counted. This is an issue of 
fundamental fairness and basic economics. Not only is the count used 
for reapportioning the House of Representatives, it is used in 
determining the allocation of billions upon billions of hard-earned 
taxpayer dollars.
  To deny the American people their right to be accurately counted in 
the U.S. census is not only a blatant act of discrimination, it is also 
irresponsible. The 1990 census failed to count an estimated 4 million 
people and cost the American people a record high of $2.6 billion. The 
census counting system is broken and must be fixed. I ask my colleagues 
to join with me in voting ``no'' on the conference report.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy].
  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I speak as the representative of the 
citizens of this country that have perhaps been hit the hardest by all 
of the natural disasters addressed in this bill.
  The bill before us represents some of the very best and some of the 
very worst inclinations of this body.
  Six days after the dikes broke in Grand Forks and the city was 
inundated, the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations was kind 
enough to add relief in the markup on this bill to respond to our 
situation. The very next day, the Speaker of the House gave up personal 
family time over the weekend to come and view the area. Two days after 
that the majority leader led a bipartisan delegation also to view the 
area and assess the damages. The very next week meaningful relief was 
added to the bill on the House floor, thanks to the work of the 
gentleman from South Dakota [Mr. Thune], another bipartisan effort.
  Then, just when it looked to the people of the country that Congress 
perhaps could act in a bipartisan way to meaningfully respond to a 
disaster, the games started and brought the whole effort to a 
screeching halt, leading up to the disgraceful exit of this body at 
Memorial Day recess without addressing the flood disaster.
  The bill before us still contains the political games that have 
slowed this effort and delayed relief to the people that need it, but I 
ask that it be enacted and sent to the White House. I have become 
convinced that we need to move this relief measure forward and that 
playing this silly game out, sending the bill up with the veto bait 
attached, ensuring the veto which will come, ensuring the sustaining of 
the veto which we know will then come, will then get us to a position 
where the bill can be passed, as it should have been all along, with 
just the relief component, so that at last, at long last, the families 
that I represent and others throughout the area that I am from, 
families that in some instances do not

[[Page H3536]]

have homes to go to tonight, families that will not have seen their 
children for 6 weeks, a city that does not know which way to turn until 
this bill is passed, only then can we begin the process of moving 
forward. Despite the reservations, I urge a ``yes'' vote.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Mississippi [Mr. Wicker], a very distinguished member of the 
Committee on Appropriations.
  Mr. WICKER. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I certainly rise this afternoon in favor of the 
conference report. I would like to address one of the three objections 
mentioned by the distinguished ranking member of the full committee, 
the gentleman from Wisconsin, and that deals with the issue of census 
sampling. The distinguished gentleman from Wisconsin says that he 
agrees with the language of the conference report on sampling but he 
simply does not believe it is appropriate in this particular piece of 
legislation.
  What are we talking about? There are people in the administration and 
in the Census Bureau who are proposing essentially to count 
approximately 90 percent of the people of our country and then to guess 
at the other 10 percent based on a computer sampling. That is the issue 
we are talking about.
  Mr. Speaker, we need an accurate count of every American. 
Constitutional principles dictate that we count every American. I am 
constantly amazed by the wisdom and foresight of our Founding Fathers. 
The U.S. Constitution, in Article I, section 2, calls for ``an actual 
enumeration'' of the people. Not a sample, not a guess.
  Further, the 14th Amendment of the Constitution calls for 
apportionment based on ``counting the whole number of persons in each 
State,'' not just some of them and not guessing at the others. Each and 
every one of our constituents needs to be counted.
  This ``Census Guessing Scheme 2000,'' as I call it, is not only 
unconstitutional but it is also inaccurate. According to independent 
studies from Congress, the proposal has a margin of error of up to 35 
percent. We do not need to have an estimate where there are 100 people 
and it could be 65 or it could be 135. That is not the way it should be 
done. We will provide the money to count each and every American.
  This issue is essential. It goes to the franchise of our citizens. It 
rises to constitutional dimensions, and it needs to be settled right 
now. I cannot for the life of me understand why the President of the 
United States would veto this essential bill on this particular issue.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Minnesota [Mr. Peterson].
  (Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of 
this conference report because it has the needed resources that we need 
in our community. I would also like to thank my friends in the majority 
for putting this bill together and making this a priority coming out 
and seeing our area. I represent the city of East Grand Forks and some 
other communities that have been damaged by this flood and, believe it 
or not, we have I think more damage to homes and more damage to 
businesses in our community than they have had in Grand Forks. We are a 
smaller community, a community of 9,000 people. We do not have the 
resources of some of the bigger communities, and we really need this 
legislation to help us put this community back together. We have to 
move probably 40 percent of this community. We have to rebuild the 
entire downtown area. We have got a lot of work ahead of us. We very 
much need this legislation.
  One thing that really disturbs me and disturbs the people of our area 
is that we have got these extraneous items that are attached to this 
bill. The mayor was here yesterday. They are very frustrated that we 
are getting partisan political issues added to this bill that have no 
business being included, they have nothing to do with this bill, and it 
is really unfortunate that we are in this situation. This bill is going 
to be vetoed, and we are going to have to go through this process.
  The other thing I would say is am really disappointed that we are not 
going to be here tomorrow and we are not going to be here Monday. We 
were planning on being here and I think we ought to be here. That way 
we could have the President veto the bill and we could have this thing 
shuttle back and forth and we could get it passed.
  Every week that we lose is more of a problem for us. We are in a very 
cold climate. We have a very short window of opportunity to rebuild 
this community. If we have to wait until Tuesday and we have got more 
vetoes and more going back and forth, it is going to put us in a bigger 
problem. I reluctantly support this agreement in its current form and 
hope that we can get through this process, get to a clean bill and get 
the money to the people of the area that need it.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from California [Mr. Miller].
  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, it is tragic that we now see 
Members whose districts have been impacted seriously by the floods 
being put in the situation of a bill that is now unacceptable because 
it continues to carry riders.
  One of the most egregious riders in this legislation is the one that 
deals with the issue of roads and public lands, the RS-2477 roads, if 
you will. Just as the floods destroyed much of the property of the 
people in the upper Midwest and in California earlier this year, this 
rider is designed to destroy much of the wilderness and the public 
lands in the United States. The reason it is on this legislation is 
very simple. It could not pass the House of Representatives any other 
way and it cannot pass the Senate any other way. It may not even be 
able to get out of a Senate committee. Yet what we find is the sponsors 
of this measure are the chairs of those committees but they do not want 
to subject it to public scrutiny. They want to put it on a rider in 
appropriations that is supposed to speak to the desperate situation of 
people who have lost their homes, their lives, their property. That 
ought not to be allowed. This amendment ought not to be allowed. This 
amendment suggests that if you find any historical trail, any tracings 
of somebody going across public lands, that somehow that can then be 
exploited and turned into an improved road. Then of course that 
improved road is used to say that that land will not qualify for 
wilderness because it has a road on it. It is a little bit like the 
young man who killed his mother and father and then pleaded for mercy 
from the court because he was an orphan. This ought not to be allowed. 
This should be subjected to hearings in committees. This should be 
subjected to a full debate in the House of Representatives where it 
will be overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis rejected. But the senior 
Senator from Alaska decides that he would rather hold the flood victims 
hostage. The senior Senator from Alaska has decided rather than have 
open debate, he would rather stick it into a bill for people in a 
desperate situation.


                             Point of Order

  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Point of order, Mr. Speaker. I think that the rules 
prohibit the last statement.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Combest). Is the gentleman making a 
point of order against the words?
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. I do not ask that the gentleman's words be taken down 
because of the lateness of the day. But I would make a point of order 
that the gentleman's words were out of order.

                              {time}  1800


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary 
inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Combest). The gentleman will state his 
inquiry.
  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I am perfectly clear to stand 
to be corrected, if that is the case, and I guess I need to be reminded 
again about how we identify who is being talked about if we are talking 
about somebody in the Senate? What does one say? A Senator?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind all Members not to 
mention specific Senators in a derogatory manner.
  Mr. MILLER of California. Can we get fingerprints on the resolution 
then, or how do we do this?

[[Page H3537]]

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the 
gentlewoman from New York.
  (Mrs. MALONEY of New York asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I would request the 
opportunity to place in the Record an earnest letter from my colleague, 
the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich], urging the Secretary of 
Commerce to adjust the population numbers to support sampling to 
reflect the fact that 300,000 people were missed in Georgia. The letter 
is dated April 30, 1991.
  How times have changed. I feel it is very wrong to legislate on the 
CR and certainly to change the census law banning sampling on the CR.
  The letter referred to follows:

                                    Congress of the United States,


                                     House of Representatives,

                                   Washington, DC, April 30, 1991,
     Hon. Robert A. Mosbacher,
     Secretary of Commerce, Department of Commerce, Washington, 
         DC.
       Dear Robert: Based on recent press reports, it appears that 
     there has been an undercount of the Georgia population in an 
     amount in excess of 200,000. I respectfully request that the 
     Census numbers for the state of Georgia be readjusted to 
     reflect the accurate population of the state so as to include 
     the over 100,000 which were not previously included.
       Needless to say, if the undercount is not corrected, it 
     would have a serious negative impact on Georgia. For example, 
     if the population is adjusted to reflect the 200,000, then 
     Georgia would be entitled to an additional congressional 
     seat. In addition, without the adjustment, minority voting 
     strength in Georgia will be seriously diluted. Based on 
     available information, without an adjustment to compensate 
     for the undercount, minorities in Georgia could lose two 
     State Senate seats and 4-5 House seats. As a result of 
     conversations with black legislators, it is my understanding 
     that they have not only concurred with this request, but 
     stated that they believe it is required under the Voting 
     Rights Act.
       In addition to these repercussions, the failure to make an 
     adjustment based upon the admitted undercount would seriously 
     affect federal funding which Georgia receives. In effect, 
     Georgia would be required to utilize funds to provide for an 
     additional 200,000 for which it was not receiving funding.
       Based on these factors, I strongly urge you to adjust 
     Georgia's population figures to reflect the correct 
     population. I would appreciate your assistance in this 
     matter.
           Sincerely,
                                                    Newt Gingrich.

  By including the sampling ban in the disaster relief bill you're 
effectively dumping on two segments of the population. Those who need 
flood relief, so they can recover their homes and businesses, and those 
minorities and poor--who are constantly overlooked by the majority in 
this House.
  The House leadership talks a lot about inclusion. What's worse, the 
language in this bill prevents the bureau from checking for 
duplications, or even from making sure enough people are employed to do 
the door-to-door visits.
  This bill even forces the Census Bureau to make mistakes and not tell 
anyone about it. I want to be clear about this. The 1990 census missed 
10 million people. It then overcounted 6 million. It was the most 
inaccurate, unfair census in history.
  Sampling would correct this attack on democracy. We need to let 
Americans know they can count on us not to count them out.
  In fact one House leader talked a little more about inclusion. I have 
an earnest letter from my colleague, Newt Gingrich, urging the 
Secretary of Commerce to adjust the population numbers to reflect the 
fact that 300,000 people were missed in Georgia. The letter is dated 
April 30, 1991. How times change.
  Banning sampling from the year 2000 census is a tidy way of making 
sure millions of Americans, mostly minorities and poor people, are not 
counted, and therefore have no representation on this floor.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer].
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding this time 
to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I will vote no on this supplemental. I voted yes the 
first time, hoping that it would be fixed in conference frankly. The 
ravages of rain and flood have victimized hundreds of thousands of our 
fellow citizens. Yet we are holding them hostage, very frankly, holding 
them hostage so that we can get some special issues addressed and to 
try to hold the President of the United States in a position of being 
hostage himself.
  That is not what this body ought to do. We should have long before 
this passed a clean supplemental appropriation for the victims of the 
floods and to supplement our troops keeping peace in Bosnia.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the chairman of our committee who 
would have tried to do that and who wanted to do that, in my opinion. 
His leadership was sound, it should have been followed.
  Mr. Speaker, I will not support this supplemental.
  I rise in opposition to this conference report.
  We are simply continuing the delay in getting much-needed aid out to 
the Midwest. The President has made it clear that he will veto this 
bill based on provisions that have nothing to do with providing 
disaster relief to our fellow Americans.
  This bill provides more than $5 billion for victims of disasters in 
33 States. I support that funding which could have been approved before 
the Memorial Day recess, sent to the President, and signed into law.
  I voted against the Memorial Day adjournment because I felt we could 
and should have finished work on a clean supplemental bill.
  Instead, about a month after House passage, all we have is a bill 
that will be vetoed. How many more days, weeks, or months do my 
Republican friends want these disaster victims to wait?
  Ironically, one of the administration's chief concerns is the 
automatic CR provision. In the name of preventing another Government 
shutdown next fall, the Republican leadership has sacrificed relief for 
victims of disasters. By giving the President a bill he cannot sign, we 
will effectively shut down many Federal disaster relief efforts. If we 
get about the business of getting our work done, there would be no fear 
of a shutdown.
  The time we have spent dickering over extraneous provisions could 
have been used getting to the regular appropriations bills.
  Holding disaster relief political hostage is not fair and it's not 
responsible. We ought to pass a clean appropriations measure and we 
ought to do it today.
  In addition, Mr. Speaker, I find our failure to reach agreement on 
the provision of funds for sorely needed public school repairs, and a 
deserved and overdue pay raise for police officers in the District of 
Columbia, highly regrettable.
  District Subcommittee Chairman Taylor's concern and frustration with 
the pace of reforms in the District and with the District's leadership 
are not without some justification. However, I would remind my 
colleagues that these funds were sought by the control board, not the 
mayor.
  Moreover, such concerns, however justified, must not lead us to turn 
a blind eye to the legitimate and pressing needs of both the District's 
citizens and those who do their very best, day in and day out, to serve 
and protect them--and us.
  It will be unfortunate indeed if the District's schools are not able 
to open on time this September because we, who are in a position to 
preclude that outcome, declined to do so--and purely out of spite.
  Mr. Speaker, the District's children, and the courageous Metropolitan 
police officers who protect the public safety of the District's 
residents and visitors--using scant resources, and in the face of 
increasing danger to their own lives--deserve better.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Appropriations 
Committee to craft a fiscal year 1998 funding bill which will address 
responsibly the education and public safety needs of the District.
  In the meantime, I hope, for the sake of the victims, that we will 
soon put politics aside and pass a disaster relief bill the President 
can sign.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New 
Jersey [Mr. Pascrell].
  (Mr. PASCRELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Speaker, this is a critical issue. This is a rider 
based on whim and certainly not science. In fact, the National Academy 
of Sciences has endorsed sampling as an accurate and effective way of 
doing the census.
  The census spent $35 million in 1995 in 3 communities in the United 
States to carry out this sampling. This is not guess, this is not whim, 
this is science. We have the state-of-the-art. We cannot count heads by 
counting noses. We have done it in the 1970, 1980 and the 1990 census.
  Follow the science like it's always being talked about. We have the 
facts; let us use it, Mr. Speaker. This is not doing it by whim or 
guessing.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains on both sides?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Both gentleman have 9\1/2\ minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Then I yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished 
gentleman from South Dakota [Mr. Thune], Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman, the 
distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, for yielding 
this time to me.

[[Page H3538]]

  I do not have to tell my colleagues how frustrating this entire 
process has been for me, and I would add that I believe that the 
patience of the people in the heartland is wearing very thin, and to 
the credit of the Committee on Appropriations they have tried under, I 
think, some very trying circumstances to move this process forward, but 
we are here today, it has been frustrating. This process has certainly 
tried my soul.
  But the disaster victims cannot wait any longer, and I believe that 
the credibility of the Congress and the Presidency is at stake if we 
fail to deliver on the commitment that we have made to the people who 
are in need.
  Now I have been a proponent from the very start of this thing to keep 
this particular disaster relief bill clean from all the unrelated 
things that have been attached, but nevertheless the fact is that we 
are going to be voting on a bill today that includes those provisions, 
and I would simply ask that as we send this bill to the White House 
that the White House would not delay disaster assistance any further 
and not veto the bill over a provision that asks that we count people 
accurately or over a provision that will keep the government from 
shutting down. Those are both things that are attached to this bill.
  I believe that we cannot afford to wait any longer. In my State, in 
particular, the construction season is very short. We have very short 
summers and long winters, and we have to get the work underway. There 
are things in this bill that are important to the people that I 
represent as well as to many other people around this country.
  We have made a commitment. The Congress, the House and the Senate 
have approved this legislation. It is time that we deliver and that we 
get on with it and send it to the President, and I would call on the 
President as well to sign this bill and to get the disaster assistance 
out there, and I thank the gentleman from Louisiana for having yielded 
this time to me.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to point out 
that the gentleman from South Dakota has from the very inception of the 
floods in his State, in Minnesota, and North Dakota been there along 
with the gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy]. They have been 
working very, very hard to try to move this bill forward. The gentleman 
from Minnesota [Mr. Peterson] and others; the gentleman from Minnesota 
[Mr. Gutknecht] likewise, have all really knocked themselves out to try 
to move and progress this bill and make sure that it was signed into 
law by the President so that we could quit dickering with it 
legislatively.
  Through no fault of theirs has this process been prolonged, and I 
just want to compliment the gentleman from South Dakota as well as the 
others for their strenuous hard work. They have made their case here. 
It is up to us to produce, and I urge the President to sign this bill 
so it will not go on any longer as well.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio].
  Mr. FAZIO of California. Mr. Speaker, this is an exceedingly 
important bill for hundreds of thousands of victims of disasters in 35 
States. The area I represent has seen $2 billion in losses and nine 
people die in the floods of January. We need this bill. But sadly it 
has become for those people in the affected areas another Government 
shutdown because we are walking right into the face of an inevitable 
veto, deferring even longer than is necessary the help that the people 
who elected us to come here and deal with their basic problems 
fundamentally need.
  My constituents understand a Christmas tree. They understand how in 
Congress so often we tack on extraneous amendments that really impede 
our ability to get the job done. In this case there are two giant 
ornaments, one of which is an attempt, a partisan political attempt, to 
frustrate the most accurate census we could have, that census which the 
National Academy of Sciences and judicial experts say is not only 
constitutional, most accurate.
  In addition, they attempt to cut back on the budget agreement in the 
name of keeping Government open.
  This bill needs to go to the President, come right back here to be 
passed again.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Michigan [Mr. Bonior], the distinguished minority whip.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding this time 
to me, and, Mr. Speaker, when the worst flood in 500 years swept 
through the Northern Plains 2 months ago, it was a natural disaster of 
historic proportions. Neighborhoods were evacuated, city blocks went up 
in flames, entire towns were under water. Overcome by these waters, the 
people called out for help. And how have the Republicans in Congress 
answered this call for help?
  Well, I will tell my colleagues how. They have tried to high-jack 
this disaster relief legislation, loading it down with unrelated, 
politically motivated provisions that have nothing to do whatsoever 
with disaster relief, provisions that would slash student aid, deny 
veterans medical aid, devastate our national parks, and prevent the 
Census Bureau from taking an accurate census in the year 2000.
  The American people know what an emergency is. They know that an 
emergency demands help and it demands help immediately. So what is the 
leadership of the majority doing in response to this flood? They are 
tinkering with mathematical formulas for the census in the year 2000.
  Now what if the Founding Fathers had sent Paul Revere out on his 
midnight run, but asked him to drag along an iron bathtub, pick up a 
kitchen sink on his way to Lexington? Now, sadly, this disaster relief 
bill, with all of this political baggage, turns this into a legislative 
pack horse that will not be able to get out of the starting gate. The 
Republican leadership should send the President a clean disaster relief 
bill that deals with just that, disaster relief.
  This whole process, Mr. Speaker, reminds me of how the Republicans 
shut down the Government not once, but twice, in an attempt to force 
their agenda on the American people. That was wrong, and this is wrong.
  I urge my colleagues to quit holding flood victims hostage. 
Exploiting these suffering families for their own political agenda is 
just plain wrong. Let us get on with the business of a clean bill that 
we can send to the President and take care of the needs of the American 
people.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the very 
distinguished gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Rogers], chairman of the 
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary.
  Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this conference 
report.
  I want to talk briefly about the census. My subcommittee supervised, 
and funded the census in 1990, and we are doing the same, of course, 
for the year 2000 census. We want every American counted, not guessed 
at, not estimated, not manipulated. Counted. Nothing less than the U.S. 
Constitution says that every American shall be actually enumerated. It 
does not say guess, estimate, pontificate, manipulate. It says count, 
enumerate, and we are following the U.S. Constitution when we say there 
shall be no sampling.
  We have never done sampling in the history of this country. This is a 
complete new departure. We insist in the House that there not be 
manipulation of the population count used to make up this body that 
governs the country. If one does what they want to do, if they want to 
guess, if they want to manipulate, try it. We will not stand for it 
because the Constitution says you shall actually enumerate citizens for 
the purpose of the apportionment of the U.S. House.
  That is the way it has been, that is the way it shall be, and that is 
the way the Founding Fathers said that it should be done. We will not 
allow sampling. It is unconstitutional.
  Lower courts have issued contradictory opinions on whether or not 
sampling is even possible.
  Sampling is not the solution to the problem that we encountered in 
the 1990 census. The undercount in 1990 was because we had a cumbersome 
form, we did not market it, we did not send people out to find correct 
addresses. We had bad address lists. There was ineffective advertising, 
promotion, outreach and the like. We are correcting that in the census 
for 2000. We are appropriating nearly $4 billion to the 2000

[[Page H3539]]

census for the purpose of counting Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, we want to count everyone in the inner cities, in the 
rural areas and every part of the country, and that is why we are 
spending $4 billion for that very purpose.
  Now if we use sampling in the census, we are going to have the courts 
questioning the result for years to come, and we will have the census 
thrown out. We will have wasted $4 billion. More importantly, we will 
have a defective census and count of citizens that will not gain any 
confidence anywhere in the country. It is a prescription for chaos, Mr. 
Speaker. The bill that is before us prohibits sampling in the census 
and requires that we count every single American because we think every 
single American is important.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I urge the adoption of the conference report.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the very 
distinguished gentleman from California [Mr. Lewis], chairman of the 
Subcommittee on VA, HUD and Independent Agencies.
  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my chairman 
yielding this time to me, and, Mr. Speaker, I currently have the 
privilege of being the chairman of the subcommittee of appropriations 
that deals with the disaster relief part of this bill. Throughout my 
career I have made a very serious effort to attempt to, where I could, 
eliminate partisan vitriol from subjects that relate to our 
subcommittee, but specially in the area of disaster relief.

                              {time}  1815

  When we recessed not so long ago, I was working in the conference 
dealing with this major bill. During that conference we had two or 
three items that were hanging up the bill, so we could not get the work 
done before that recess. Everybody but everybody knew there was enough 
money in the FEMA, that is the Federal Emergency Management Agency 
pipeline, to fund that which we could do in the very short term. There 
was some discussion of a slimmed-down version to make people feel good, 
but the facts were there was enough money to cover that 10-day period.
  Because of that, I was astonished, while working in my district, to 
hear the President of the United States using his weekly radio address 
to suggest that one way or another, the Congress had walked away from 
those disaster victims. He suggested that they were unconcerned about 
the people of South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota, and he said, 
as they go on vacation, ladies and gentlemen, disaster does not know of 
a vacation.
  I was astonished that the President would take that position, when he 
knew full well, or at least he should have known, that there was money 
in the pipeline to cover that very short recess.
  Now we find ourselves, we found ourselves today considering 
legislation in which the Republican committees have added $3.5 billion 
more than the President requested for disaster relief and put extra 
money in a housing program to make sure we can solve the problems of 
moving families from the floodplain way beyond the President's request 
in these cases, way beyond the President's request. And now we find 
ourselves with that same President who is talking about our vacation, 
threatening to veto this very important measure, because of two 
technicalities really, one having to do with the census in which we 
suggest at least everybody ought to be counted; and the other end has 
to do with whether we allow the President to deal with a continuing 
resolution, shutting down the House or not. He wants to strike the 
language that would eliminate the shutting down of the House.
  I cannot understand why he would want to do that. Nonetheless, on 
technicalities, he is going to veto this bill and presume that that is 
not a vacation, presume these people do not have this problem any 
further.
  Mr. President, you should sign this bill if you really care about 
those people in the disaster areas of this country.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of the time.
  Mr. Speaker, I have a great deal of respect and affection for my 
friend from California [Mr. Lewis], but I come from a rural area, and I 
know that a lot of folks in this Congress do not understand much about 
small towns in rural America. In fact, a lot of them do not know the 
difference between a jersey and a guernsey. But I have to say that, if 
my colleagues think that there is enough money in the disaster pipeline 
to deal with the problems of rural areas, my colleagues need to think 
again.
  There is not enough money in the pipeline to help with the crop 
planting that is essential if farmers are to recover in a number of 
States in this country. There is not enough money in the pipeline to 
deal with livestock replenishment, which is crucial to any farmer who 
has lost his operation orhis herd. There is not enough money in the 
pipeline to deal with the long-term housing problems that each of these 
mayors have. They need to know how to plan, and they cannot plan if 
they do not know what this Congress is going to do.
  There is enough money in the pipeline to deal with the short-term 
emergency problems that people have, with the exceptions of some of the 
agricultural problems I have just laid out, but there is not enough 
money in the pipeline to enable people to plan for the long-term 
recovery of these communities. When one is a mayor trying to hold one's 
city together, every day counts.
  What I want to say to my colleagues is simply this: The committee 
majority knows that these riders should not be in this bill. The 
committee majority tried to cooperate. In fact, the chairman of the 
committee--and I have great respect for him--the chairman of the 
committee tried to bring a clean bill to this House. But the leadership 
of his party had other ideas. So now, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. 
Livingston], my good friend, is once again being asked to make a good 
argument for a bad case. He makes a very good argument, but the case is 
still bad.
  I want to suggest that the 80-day delay which has been caused by the 
insistence of the majority party leadership in adding these three 
extraneous riders has effectively resulted in a second government 
shutdown for all of the areas of the country who need this help. There 
are 35 States who are still waiting for government to work for them, 
now, in their area on their problems. They are not interested in 
Washington games or Washington problems. They are interested in the 
problems of Carolina, of Florida, of California, of North Dakota, South 
Dakota, and Minnesota, and the other areas. That is what they want to 
see action on.
  In my view, the quickest way to end this political nonsense is to 
vote no on this bill, make the committee go back to work tonight, strip 
those riders out of this bill so that we can send the President a bill 
which is respectable, responsible, and can be signed. If we do not do 
that, this bill is going nowhere. We will all simply be back here next 
week doing what duty ought to require us to do this week, which is to 
end the Washington games and get on with helping real people with real 
things.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  This bill provides $8.9 billion for people who are afflicted by 
disasters in 35 States, as well as to repay the Defense Department for 
the money that has been spent in Bosnia and Southwest Asia and 
elsewhere.
  This money is needed. Yes, there are two extraneous provisions. There 
has been some criticism from the other side of the aisle that those 
extraneous provisions are in there. But, as recently as 1993 the other 
side put extraneous provisions on supplemental disaster bills. This is 
not new. It has always happened. Throughout the history of Congress it 
has happened. These are important provisions. If the President wants to 
veto the bill and say to the American people that he does not want to 
count each and every American in the census, if he wants to say that he 
does not mind shutting down Government, he will veto this bill. I hope 
he does not. People need help, and this bill will let them have the 
opportunity to get that help.
  I urge my colleagues, do not get caught up in the political 
squabbles, do not rationalize this bill to death. Move the bill, vote 
for the bill, and, Mr. President, sign the bill.

[[Page H3540]]

  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the 
conference report. I do so reluctantly because it has many important 
provisions, including badly needed funding for flood relief measures in 
California and elsewhere across the country. As senior Democrat on the 
House committee with prime stewardship responsibilities for natural 
resources, I recognize that the conference report would provide 
significant assistance for repairs and enhancement of Yosemite National 
Park facilities and also would help with the restoration of watersheds, 
road decommissioning, and other flood-related priorities in our 
national forests.
  But what makes this conference report unacceptable are the utterly 
nongermane legislative riders stuck into this conference report that 
have absolutely no relationship to the plight of flood victims and the 
needs to restore flood damage national parks. They will bring down this 
conference report, and make no mistake, they will delay much-needed, 
and unanimously supported, relief for the victims of the recent 
flooding as well as for peacekeeping in Bosnia.
  The nongermane rider on RS 2477 road rights-of-way, a matter within 
jurisdiction of the Committee on Resources, should concern every Member 
of this House regardless of your position on the issue, because it is 
an insult to the jurisdiction and the rules of this House.
  RS 2477 is a 19th-century statute enacted in the same era of Western 
giveaways of public resources that also produced the Mining Law of 
1872. RS 2477 was repealed by Congress in 1976, so the current debate 
concerns only rights-of-way which were valid at that time. An amendment 
narrowly adopted in the other body was intended to overrule the 
Secretary of the Interior's current policies, leaving it to the States 
to determine which rights are valid and where roads can be built in 
national parks and other public lands.
  The conferees have adopted an alternative that will establish a 
commission with members from affected States to determine the fate of 
these public lands that belong to all the American people. The 
commission is mandated to recommend changes in Federal law regarding 
road rights-of-way on Federal lands, ignoring the option that current 
policy on the Department of the Interior should be maintained and 
implemented. Should the Secretary of the Interior agree with the 
commission recommendations, the legislation provides for fast track 
consideration of legislation implementing the changes, including 
discharging of committees from consideration of the bill, limitations 
on amendments, and restrictions on debate time on the House floor.

  Let me make a few clear statements on this provision.
  First, this legislation is an insult to the House.
  This is a big issue for the chairman of the Appropriations Committee 
on the other side, and he demanded that this section be inserted into 
the report. Last year, he brought us the Government shut-down by 
demanding inclusion in a continuing resolution of a nongermane rider 
concerning the Tongass Forest in Alaska. Apparently, the chairman of 
the Senate Appropriations committee intends to use every appropriations 
bill, CR, and supplemental to promote his personal anti-environmental 
agenda. The House had better think about whether that is the way in 
which we will allow major environmental issues to be resolved.
  Second, we don't need a commission to get this issue before the 
Congress. All the chairman of the Senate committee needs to do--if this 
is so important to his State--is to call up his Alaska colleagues who 
chair the respective authorization committees and demand that they 
bring such legislation out of the committees through the normal 
legislative process. Instead, we are subjected to this utter contempt 
for the regular legislating process.
  Third, this provision allows Members of the other body, who surely 
are neither members of the House Resources committee nor the House 
Rules Committee, to dictate with no input whatsoever from those 
committees of jurisdiction the provisions of important national 
legislation to be considered by the House, as well as the conditions 
under which that legislation will be considered: who gets to speak, for 
how long, and what form the resulting bill may take.
  With all due respect, any member of either committee who votes to 
sanctify this process needs to reconsider why he or she is serving on 
that committee.
  We don't mandate fast track for bills affecting health care for 
children. We don't mandate fast track for bills to assist farmers, or 
seniors, or students, or taxes. We don't even fast track emergency 
supplementals. But now, we are told, we must fast tract RS 2477, and we 
have nothing to say about it. Just how much insult is this body 
prepared to accept?
  The reason that we have not considered RS 2477 road right-of-way 
claims is because Senator Stevens and others know full well that the 
House and the Senate would reject this giveaway for many of the same 
reasons that we have repeatedly voted to stop the giveaway of land 
claims under the Mining Law of 1872. Because it is a huge ripoff that 
threatens taxpayers and our public resources.
  What is at stake here is a very serious threat to the integrity of 
our national parks, forests and other public lands throughout the West. 
In Alaska, Congress has created a world-class system of over 100 
million acres of parks and other conservation areas which is riddled 
with claims to road access by miners with bulldozers, among others. In 
Utah, local development interests are anxious to use these road claims 
to prevent Congress from designating new wilderness areas on the public 
lands, and even illegally bulldoze to assert claims that the products 
of such activity negate inclusion of the area in future wilderness 
designations.
  Mr. Speaker, the President made a serious error when he agreed to 
accept the anti-environmental the timber salvage rider on the 1995 
Rescissions Act. We all learned a lesson from that experience, and he 
was right to veto Interior appropriations riders like the plan to 
increase logging in the Tongass National Forest. He should not be held 
hostage to this attempt to carry this pave-the-parks rider on the backs 
of flood victims. And I urge my colleagues to stand up for themselves 
and for the rights of this House and reject this conference report so 
that this insulting and inappropriate rider will be removed.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the 
conference report on H.R. 1469, the emergency supplemental 
appropriations for fiscal year 1997.
  This conference report will allow for supplemental appropriations 
which was originally introduced to provide assistance to flood victims. 
Unfortunately, the pain and suffering of those flood victims was not 
enough to prevent good old-fashioned partisan Hill politics from 
corrupting this bill.
  There are serious problems with the emergency supplemental 
appropriations which are so great that the President indicated early in 
the conference process that if they were included he would veto the 
bill.
  The conference on H.R. 1469 today will only delay the much-needed 
assistance that the flood victims are waiting on.
  Contained in the emergency supplemental appropriation's conference 
bill is a provision to create an automatic continuing budget resolution 
if funds have not been appropriated at the close of an agency's fiscal 
year.
  There is an important reason that this Nation's Founding Fathers 
explicitly established that Congress is accountable for administering 
the Federal Government. We must remain accountable for tough decisions 
and not allow ourselves to give into anxiety over how or when we will 
resolve budgetary matters between the Congress and the administration.
  We should not place the Federal Government on automatic pilot with 
changes like the one suggested in this emergency supplemental funding 
legislation. There are programs which should be reduced in funding or 
changes made to meet current or foreseeable future situations.
  A major part of the Congress' work deals with the authorization and 
appropriation of the Federal Government's spending.
  Last year, I joined with many of our colleagues to address the 
problems of the last Congress' budget disagreements. I attempted to 
avoid the Government shutdowns which occurred by introducing 
legislation to raise the debt ceiling limit to avoid a Federal 
Government default of its financial obligations and insulate critical 
agencies.
  I stood with many Members on the issue of the budget crisis and 
fought to resolve the issue.
  I believe that this conference report would complicate the budget 
process by attempting to meet the Government's obligations without 
requiring the Congress to do its job.
  The reconciliation directives in a budget resolution usually require 
changes in permanent laws. They instruct each designated committee to 
make changes in the laws under the committee's jurisdiction that will 
change the levels of receipts and spending controlled by the laws.

  The 435 Members of the House who have the honor of being Members of 
this body must and should insist on remaining accountable for all of 
their actions.
  The constituents of the 18th Congressional District deserve no less 
than my best effort to participate actively and enthusiastically in all 
of the business of the people's House as their elected representative.

[[Page H3541]]

  We should not give into the anxiety created by our experience of the 
last Congress. We should work with each other during the budgetary 
process through our management of this House to do this job well.
  With over 200 years of history to support the way we have provided 
funds to operate the U.S. Government there is no precedent for making 
this amendment law.
  I am further concerned with the supplemental appropriation's 
legislation by the inclusion of language which would effectively and 
permanently bar the use of statistical sampling for the 2000 Census and 
beyond.
  The subject of the Census was so serious that it was addressed in 
article I, section 2 of the Constitution of the United States. It 
explicitly states that, ``The actual Enumeration shall be made within 
three years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United 
States, and within every subsequent Term of Ten Years.'' The proposed 
change to the 2000 Census and beyond would require large increases in 
funding to attempt to physically count every resident of the United 
States, which would be a tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars.
  Three separate panels convened by the National Academy of Sciences 
have recommended that the Census Bureau use sampling in the 2000 census 
to save money and improve census accuracy. The conclusions of this 
unbiased professional group of scientists should be respected by 
allowing the version of the conference bill to reflect their conclusion 
regarding statistical sampling.
  The ability to take samples during the 2000 census will insure that 
any undercounting which may occur in this census because of sparsely 
populated regions of our State and the dense populations of our cities, 
can be held to a minimum. Undercounting the results of the 2000 census 
would negatively impact Texas's share of Federal funds for block 
grants, housing, education, health, transportation and numerous other 
federally funded programs. The census, as you know, is also used in 
projections and planning decisions made by every State, all counties 
within those States and their city governments.
  I would like to ask that my colleagues join in opposition of this 
conference report.
  Mr. POMBO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1469, the Disaster 
Recovery Act of 1997. The disastrous floods of January 1997 had an 
enormous impact on my congressional district in California and the 
effects of the flooding will be with us for years to come.
  The scenes last month of the Red River flooding in North Dakota and 
South Dakota are very familiar to my constituents. The flooded homes, 
the damaged businesses, and the destroyed crops are what people in my 
district will remember of this winter's floods. What they will also 
remember is the tremendous outpouring of help from their neighbors and 
friends. The community response to the flood disasters was truly 
overwhelming.
  I would like to take this opportunity to personally thank those men 
and women in the various agencies of the Federal, State, and local 
governments that worked tirelessly to ensure that all residents were 
protected from harms way. I am certain that my fellow northern 
California colleagues will agree with me when I say they did an 
extraordinary job considering what they were up against. I know that my 
constituents will be forever grateful.
  I think it is very important to note that, just as bad as the Red 
River flood damage was, my district was equally crippled by the floods. 
My constituents have an incredible challenge ahead of them to rebuild 
and recover from the damage. Damages from the California floods are 
expected to exceed $1.6 billion. In my district alone, San Joaquin 
County endured an estimated $59 million in damages to homes, over $12.5 
million to businesses, $13 million to agriculture, and $14.7 million to 
infrastructure. Of the area I represent in Sacramento County, the 
damages to agriculture have not yet been determined, but it is 
estimated that there is over $1 million in damages to homes.
  I would like to bring to the attention of my colleagues just one of 
the very important issues that have arisen from the California floods 
this winter. This issue concerns the Cosumnes River in the northern 
part of my district, which lies in Sacramento County. The levees along 
the Cosumnes suffered catastrophic failure resulting from this year's 
California floods. More than 30 levee failures allowed river waters to 
flood homes and destroy fertile farmlands along the Cosumnes. H.R. 1469 
provides assistance to local officials in my district for the repair, 
restoration, reconstruction, and replacement of the levees along the 
Cosumnes River.
  I would like to reinforce that the figures listed above are purely 
estimates and more than likely will increase as floodwaters subside. 
However, we all need to recognize that the flooding in northern 
California is not necessarily over. More flooding is expected in the 
near future when the Sierra Nevada snowpack begins to melt. Since final 
estimates of damage caused by the floods have not been determined in 
all cases, I believe Congress must be vigilant in its efforts to ensure 
that additional emergency funding requests are met if they become 
necessary.
  It is my hope that I do not have to return to the House floor next 
year and speak on this subject again because my district is underwater. 
However, I feel that without common sense policy towards flood control 
systems to prevent future flood calamities, we will continue to live 
with the fear of future flooding.
  It is unfortunate that flooding has become a way of life for many 
communities throughout the United States. As my constituents in the 
11th Congressional District of California can attest to, flooding at 
any level can be devastating. It is essential that this Congress pass 
H.R. 1469, which provides much needed assistance for urgent levee 
repair programs as well as other Federal natural disaster emergency 
programs.
  In the interest of protecting the lives and property of my 
constituents, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 1469 to 
assist in resolving these problems caused by the California floods.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that we are finally 
considering the conference report to the emergency supplemental 
appropriations bill. Our Nation has faced an unusual array of natural 
disasters recently and the bulk of the money in this bill is earmarked 
for recovery efforts. It is my hope that the President will sign this 
legislation so that Americans impacted by these disasters can continue 
the process of rebuilding their lives.
   Mr. Speaker, as the author of a provision in the conference report 
that extends the San Carlos Apache Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act of 
1992, I want to clarify one aspect of the settlement agreement. Section 
6003 of the conference report to H.R. 1469 contains a section allowing 
the United States, and subsequently, the San Carlos Apache Tribe, to 
take over the operation of the Black River Pump Station from Phelps 
Dodge Corp. This section also provides for the lease of 14,000 acre 
feet per year of the tribe's Central Arizona Project [CAP] water to 
Phelps Dodge Corp. for a term of up to 50 years, with a right of 
renewal based upon a finding by the Secretary of the Interior.
  The language is clear, understandable, and supported by Department of 
Interior officials, the San Carlos Apache Tribe, and Phelps Dodge Corp. 
But to avoid any confusion regarding the intent of the provision, I 
want to further clarify the language relating to the $5 million lease 
payment which Phelps Dodge is required to make to the tribe at the 
beginning of the initial lease term. This sum constitutes a one-time 
prepayment for the first 4166 acre feet of water which will be 
delivered in each year during the 50 year term of the lease. In effect, 
Phelps Dodge Corp. will be paying the tribe in advance for the delivery 
of 208,300 acre feet of CAP water, that will be delivered under the 
lease at the rate of 4166 acre feet per year over the 50 year initial 
lease period. The remaining water to be delivered each year under the 
lease will be paid for by Phelps Dodge Corp. as provided in the 
legislation.
  Thank you and I appreciate the opportunity to clarify this provision.
  Mr. PETRI. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the inclusion of 
provisions in this conference report to require the Census Bureau to 
conduct, as the Constitution says, an ``actual enumeration'' rather 
than using the statistical technique known as sampling. Following the 
1990 census we had a debate over whether to use the number resulting 
from the actual enumeration or a number adjusted by sampling. This time 
the bureau does not even intend to try to count everyone. As I 
understand it, the plan is to try to count 90 percent of the people and 
estimate the rest.
  I oppose the use of sampling for several reasons. It would leave the 
census numbers open to political manipulation and would tend to 
undermine the public's confidence in the census. We have seen various 
administrations manipulate the FBI, IRS, and reportedly even the 
Immigration and Naturalization Service for political gain. Once we move 
away from a hard count what guarantee do we have that this or a future 
administration will not manipulate the census numbers for partisan 
gains?
  A member of the other body has recently stated that we should all 
support sampling since we all rely on something similar, public opinion 
polls, to get elected. The problem with this thinking is that we may 
use polls to guide us but we don't let them determine the winner. I 
would have no objection if the bureau uses sampling to determine where 
there may have been an undercount, and then goes back in and redoubles 
its efforts to count those people. That would be analogous to the way 
we use opinion polls. But to rely on sampling rather than a physical 
count is comparable to changing election returns if they are at 
variance with the polls.
  Sampling is said to adjust for undercounts in major cities. But once 
you estimate how many people are in a given city, to what wards, 
neighborhoods and precincts do they belong?

[[Page H3542]]

How can State legislatures and school boards and city councils be 
apportioned if we don't know where these estimated people live? Is 
sampling really accurate enough to tell us if some small town has 3,300 
people instead of the 3,000 from a hard count? When a State, such as 
Wisconsin, has hundreds of towns of such size, will sampling adjust for 
an undercount there the way it might in Los Angeles or some other major 
city? In 1990 an entire ward in one town in my district was missed. The 
community leaders pointed this out during the postcensus review and the 
mistake was corrected. For 2000 the bureau will not do a postcensus 
review, presumably because no one can know what mistakes were made 
since everyone wasn't supposed to be counted anyway.
  Will the undercount of Indian reservations, of which there are 
several in Wisconsin, be corrected? My understanding is that the bureau 
plans to do a hard count on Indian reservations. Yet native Americans 
were among the most undercounted in the last census. How then can it be 
claimed that the reason the bureau wants do use sampling is to correct 
for past undercounts?
  I do believe that it is appropriate to bring this issue up in an 
appropriations bill as the main argument of those supporting sampling 
is that it will save money. Well that may or may not be true but that 
can't be the only basis for designing the census. The cheapest possible 
census would be if the numbers were just made up altogether. We 
obviously aren't going to do that but the point is that saving money is 
not the one and only goal. Fairness is a goal and sampling is unfair to 
smaller communities and rural States. Following the Constitution, which 
calls for an actual enumeration, is a goal and the Supreme Court has 
never ruled on the issue.
  What happens if we complete the 2000 census using sampling to 
estimate 10 percent of the population and then the Supreme Court throws 
it out? Then we will have wasted the $4 billion spent on the original 
census not to mention who knows how much in litigation. Rather than 
saving money, sampling could end up costing the taxpayers two or three 
times as much money as a hard count if we have to redo the whole thing.
  I believe a greater effort should be made to reach all Americans to 
provide an accurate hard count. 50 percent of the undercount from the 
last census was caused by people never receiving the forms. Better 
mailing lists and better coordination with the Post Office and local 
governments can correct this problem. Approximately 32 percent of the 
undercount can be corrected through the use of easier to read forms and 
perhaps an 800 information number. The rest will have to be reached 
through better outreach. Instead the bureau plans to spend less money 
on outreach, figuring that sampling can make up the difference.
  I don't believe the bureau's plan will provide for the fairest and 
most accurate census.
  Also, Mr. Speaker, I am concerned, however, about rescissions of 
trust fund moneys and additional transportation spending that is 
included in this bill and is unrelated to disaster relief.
  The bill rescinds almost $1.6 billion in contract authority, 
including nearly $900 million from the transit program.
  These rescissions were included in the House bill and were stricken 
by the Transportation Committee on a point of order. Yet this bill adds 
them back in.
  The spending provided for highways by the Senate goes beyond 
correcting any error and directs funding to specific States. This is 
unnecessary and I am opposed to this type of extraneous provisions in a 
disaster supplemental bill.
  Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this supplemental 
emergency assistance measure. I very much regret that the substance of 
this proposal has superimposed issues on the emergency response 
provisions included in the bill. This is being used as a way of 
avoiding full debate and attempting to force the President to accept 
such policy and law that he and others oppose.
  The emergency funding in this measure is very much needed in 
Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and the other States affected by 
flooding and natural disasters this spring. I supported the House-
passed measure and helped improve that measure when we initially 
considered this matter 3 weeks ago, with the expectation that in 
counsel with the Senate and administration the differences concerning 
the controversial unrelated riders could be resolved.
  I was very disappointed that the House didn't conclude its work on 
this emergency measure prior to the Memorial Day congressional recess, 
and now after nearly 2 weeks of delay, the end product before the 
House, and to be sent to the President not only doesn't resolve the 
matter of the controversial riders and changes in law, but increases 
the total number of problems and exceptions.
  Our GOP colleagues in the past Congress shut down the Government in 
an attempt to enact into law massive cuts in health care, education and 
the environment--a GOP retreat from basic programs that form the 
foundation of trust and the tools that the American families need to 
care for themselves and one another. And the GOP Congress in the last 
session proposed a massive tax break giveways which would have made 
deficit reduction and the goal of balancing the budget a mirage.
  When the Government was shut down for months, based on the GOP 
refusal to back down from these radical positions and wild proposals, 
the American people rightly rejected the GOP tactics just as they 
rejected the policies on their merits. The fight to add antishutdown 
language to this bill is an effort to rewrite history and in the 
bargain to try and gain an advantage for GOP spending priorities. The 
American people need neither revisionist history or a rearrangement of 
the congressional powers regarding the power of the purse. Congress 
should accept its responsibility with the constitutional and legal 
framework to pass the annual spending measures and work out differences 
with the President in time to avoid government shutdowns.
  The GOP census rider is a blatant attempt to attack the technical and 
scientific means of counting our population every decade for a 
Republican partisan advantage--it is unfair, unworkable, and 
unacceptable.
  The new GOP rider from the Senate in this conference report undercuts 
the Federal Government's role to manage public lands in the 17 Western 
States and would slice and dice the Federal lands, parks, and 
wilderness into pieces and in the end cost billions of taxpayer dollars 
to buy back that which the American people already own. This 
legislative blackmail under the guise of ``rights of way access'' and a 
newly minted Commission is just one more in a series of ongoing efforts 
to deny the American people their natural heritage of landscapes and 
public domain. This Civil War era policy made little sense in 1866 and 
makes no sense in 1997.
  Mr. Speaker, in spite of the much-needed help for natural disasters 
and Bosnia peacekeeping, we must not permit this pattern of 
policymaking to become successful. Vote ``no,'' and if this passes, the 
President will veto it. Hopefully, we will uphold such a veto and then 
enact a measure which will not include these controversial provisions 
in a timely manner.
  Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to oppose 
the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act conference report. 
Although this bill will provide needed relief for disaster victims--
which I support--for the victims of this bill, it will be a disaster. 
This is not a clean bill--this is not a good bill.
  This bill is loaded down with extraneous items that have no place in 
this measure. One item is an antienvironmental rider which diminishes 
the quality of our public natural resources.
  However, the most disturbing item is the prohibition of statistical 
sampling in the census. This language, inserted by the conferees, was 
not agreed to by the full House. This is a blatant attempt to legislate 
through an appropriations bill.
  As a representative of California's 37th Congressional District, I am 
particularly opposed to any language that would impair the Census 
Bureau's ability to make an accurate count of the U.S. population. Too 
many Americans were left out of the count during the last census. Ten 
million Americans were not counted and 6 million were counted twice--
which distorted our attempts to ensure equal representation for all 
Americans. In 1990, 800,000 people were undercounted in California. 
California represented 20 percent of the 1990 undercount.
  This undercount was not uniform across the population. The undercount 
between the African-American population and the non-African-American 
population rose dramatically to reach the highest level since 1940. In 
1990, the census was six times more likely to leave out an African-
American than a non-Hispanic white American. The 1990 census left out 
Hispanic-Americans at a rate of seven times the undercount for non-
Hispanic white Americans.
  The Census Bureau is developing a design for the 2000 census that 
corrects past mistakes and makes the upcoming census the most accurate 
in our history--and sampling is one tool that will help. An accurate 
count of the population is required to apportion congressional seats. 
An accurate count brings fairness to the distribution of billions of 
dollars in funding and planning decisions such as school and highway 
construction.
  We can't afford to leave Americans out of the census. This bill is, 
in fact, muddier than the flood waters it purports to clean up. I urge 
my colleagues to vote against this conference report.
  Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I regretfully must oppose this 
spending legislation, which commits taxpayers to foot the bill for 
dozens of special-interest items having nothing to do with disaster 
relief.

[[Page H3543]]

  First, the House-Senate compromise bill costs $200 million more than 
the House bill.
  Second, it includes $262.2 million in nonemergency spending, an 
increase of $150.4 million over the House passed version.
  Third, it includes such nonemergency items as: $35 million for the 
Advanced Technology Program of the National Institute for Standards and 
Technology under the Commerce Department; $2 million for the Commission 
on the Advancement of Law Enforcement; $3 million for Ogden, UT, in 
anticipation of the 2002 Winter Olympics; $650,000 for the National 
Commission on the Cost of Higher Education; $101 million in education 
grants; $33.5 million for Botanic Garden Conservatory in DC; $15 
million for health research; $1.9 million for the Denver Summit of the 
G-8, June 20-22, 1997; $16 million to the Customs Service for the 
Automated Targeting System; $5.383 million to the U.S. Postal Service 
to subsidize free and reduced rate mail; $12.3 million for a multistory 
parking lot in a Cleveland, OH, Veterans' Administration facility; $1 
million ``special purpose grant'' of which $500,000 goes to a parking 
lot and $500,000 for renovation of the Paramount Theater in Ashland, 
KY; and $30.2 million for HUD Demonstration Act purposes.
  This is supposed to be an emergency measure to help flood and 
disaster victims. The inclusion of such expenditures indicates it is 
not. In the exercise of fiscal prudence, I must therefore vote ``no''.
  Mr. McDADE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the conference report 
to accompany H.R. 1469, the emergency supplemental appropriations bill 
for fiscal year 1997. This important legislation is key to the long-
term rehabilitation of communities devastated by natural disasters 
across this great country. It is also essential to ensure our continued 
military preparedness through the replenishment of critical defense 
accounts.
  Mr. Speaker, the Energy and Water Development chapter of the 
emergency supplemental appropriations bill represents the dedicated 
efforts of Members from both sides of the aisle and from both sides of 
the Hill to deliver needed assistance to those areas of our country 
which have suffered the crippling effects of uncontrolled floods. From 
the Pacific Northwest to the Ohio Valley, from the Deep South to the 
Great Plains, floodwaters have been especially furious during the past 
year. We have all been deeply touched by the heart-wrenching images of 
dislocated families, destroyed homes, and inundated cities. Recognizing 
the emergency nature of these consequences, the Subcommittees on Energy 
and Water Development have acted expeditiously, responsibly, and in 
good faith to help flood victims get back on their feet.
  The conference agreement includes $585 million for the Corps of 
Engineers and $7.4 million for the Bureau of Reclamation to address 
flood related needs. These desperately needed funds will support the 
rehabilitation of levees, the repair of Federal flood control works, 
and the performance of emergency dredging. These public works are more 
than mere infrastructure; they represent a foundation for the continued 
vitality, protection, and economic viability of the towns, villages, 
and cities that constitute a free and strong America.
  In order to help pay for emergency disaster assistance, the 
conference agreement includes a rescission of $11.2 million from the 
Energy Supply, Research and Development account of the Department of 
Energy. Another rescission of $11.3 million from the Western Area Power 
Administration will also help offset the costs of this supplemental 
bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate and thank the members of 
the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development for their dedicated 
efforts in producing this critical legislation. I am especially 
appreciative of the efforts of the ranking minority Member, the 
Honorable Vic Fazio. His cooperation and hard work have been 
indispensable, and I look forward to continuing our bipartisan working 
relationship as we move on to the consideration of the regular 
appropriations bill for fiscal year 1998.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to support the conference report.
  Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. Mr. Speaker, I rise in firm opposition to a ban 
in the fiscal year 1997 Supplemental Appropriations Conference Report 
that disallows the use of statistical sampling in the 200 census. We 
must not dictate to the experts in the U.S. Census Bureau how they are 
to conduct this most important, Constitution mandated count of our 
population. Furthermore, this ban would ignore the need to restore 
accuracy to the census by accounting for groups grossly undercounted in 
the last decennial census--minorities and low-income individuals.
  The bill language states, ``the proposed use of statistical sampling 
by the Bureau of the Census exposes taxpayers to the unacceptable risk 
of an inaccurate, invalid, and unconstitutional census.'' Rather, a ban 
on the use of sampling poses this unacceptable risk and increases the 
cost to taxpayers for the 2000 census.
  All evidence reviewed from the 1990 census clearly demonstrates the 
inaccuracy of a persistent undercount. The Census Bureau acknowledges 
that this last decennial count failed to include more than 4 million 
residents--the highest undercount ever recorded. These included a 
disproportionate number of racial and ethnic minorities in this 
country. Hundreds of thousands of Asian-Pacific-Americans were not 
counted by census, at an estimated rate of 2.3 percent. For Hispanics 
this rate was 5.0 percent and for African-Americans, 4.4 percent. It is 
inexcusable that these rates were two times, five times and four times 
greater than the undercount for white Americans. Inaccuracy to this 
degree itself is an invalidation.
  As to the claim of unconstitutionality, a letter of May 8, 1997, from 
Census Bureau Director D. Martha Farnsworth Riche to Speaker Gingrich 
recapped three options from the U.S. Department of Justice under the 
Carter, Bush, and Clinton administrations: ``All three opinions 
concluded that the Constitution and relevant statutes permit the use of 
sampling in the decennial census. Every federal court that has 
addressed the issue had held that the Constitution and federal statutes 
allow sampling.'' the clear constitutionality of the use of census 
sampling has been stated repeatedly, in a nonpartisan manner.
  Sampling opponents further claim that this new methodology would only 
be to the benefit of large cities. A recent dear colleague from a 
supporter of the ban stated ``If a smaller town in undercounted, 
chances are we would never even know about it much less be able to 
adjust the census.'' This situation existed under previously used 
methods. However, under new sampling methods, the Census Bureau would 
in 2000 adjust for the undercount to the census block level in every 
single poor and rural community, rural and urban, for greater accuracy 
and fairness. The sampling plan would also:

  Complete the count of those who do not mail back their form or phone 
in the answers--only 65 percent of households mailed back the census 
form;
  Include those people missed in the census--about 10 million in 1990--
and remove duplications--about 6 million in 1990; and
  To collect information from a sample of the population for poverty, 
highway, and housing programs.
  Sampling is necessary because it would:
  Save approximately $500 million in taxpayer dollars, rather than 
spend more money for a census that is less accurate;
  Locate those people traditionally missed and take out those counted 
twice; and
  Allow the census to provide correct numbers for the distribution of 
Federal funds.
  By the words of the Commerce Department's Inspector General, in a 
recent report to the Senate, the use of sampling to measure and correct 
the undercount is the ``only proven method to correct the greatest 
obstacle to an accurate count.'' The General Accounting Office supports 
this recommendation as well.
  Three separate panels convened by the National Academy of Sciences 
[NAS] recommended the use of sampling in the 2000 census for improved 
accuracy and savings, instead of greater cost, ``Simply providing 
additional funds to enable the Census Bureau to carry out the 2000 
census using traditional methods, as it has in previous censuses, will 
not lead to improved data coverage or data quality.'' We must not 
ignore the counsel from these scientific, statistical experts.
  We are here today to say that everyone counts--whether you are a 
person of color, poor or elderly, whether you are a recent immigrant or 
a citizen, whether you live in an urban or rural area. The charge of 
the Census Bureau is to make an accurate count of all those within our 
borders.
  The simple fact is that in a country as immense and diverse as ours, 
we should use the most advanced methodologies to assure an accurate 
census count of all our population, even those that are hard to reach. 
Not because we want a certain political party to


[[Page H3544]]

gain seats in the Congress. Not because we want to favor urban areas 
over rural areas, but because we want a fair and accurate enumeration 
of our population.
  Too many times in our history it has been the person of color and the 
poor that have gone uncounted. If we do not allow sampling in the 2000 
census history tells us that we will once again make many of these 
individuals invisible, like they simply do not exist.
  This attack on utilizing a scientifically proven method of 
enumeration is an attack on the people of color in this country. It is 
another example of the Republican effort to downgrade, to diminish the 
voice of minorities in this country. We cannot allow this to happen.
  This is not simply a technical issue of concern only to 
statisticians. The accurate count of our population has enormous 
consequences from the apportionment of our elected offices to the 
allocation of Federal and State funds. And if people of color and the 
poor are not accurately accounted for their voice in our Government and 
our communities is weakened.
  For the sake of an accurate and fair census, we must reject any 
legislation to limit the use of sampling in the 2000 census. We must 
ensure that everyone counts. I urge my colleagues to oppose this 
egregious language in the fiscal year 1997 supplemental appropriations 
bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Combest). All time has expired.
  Without objection, the previous question is ordered on the conference 
report.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the conference report.
  Pursuant to clause 7 of rule XV, the yeas and nays are ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 220, 
nays 201, not voting 13, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 169]

                               YEAS--220

     Aderholt
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baesler
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bateman
     Bereuter
     Berry
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Brady
     Bryant
     Bunning
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Cannon
     Capps
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Coble
     Combest
     Condit
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Davis (VA)
     DeLay
     Dickey
     Dingell
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Everett
     Ewing
     Fawell
     Fazio
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fowler
     Fox
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Greenwood
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hamilton
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Herger
     Hill
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hooley
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Istook
     Jenkins
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kim
     King (NY)
     Kleczka
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Lucas
     Luther
     Manzullo
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McDade
     McHale
     McHugh
     McIntosh
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     Meek
     Metcalf
     Minge
     Molinari
     Moran (KS)
     Morella
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Nussle
     Ortiz
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pappas
     Parker
     Paxon
     Pease
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Redmond
     Regula
     Reyes
     Riggs
     Riley
     Roemer
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Royce
     Ryun
     Saxton
     Sessions
     Shaw
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (OR)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith, Linda
     Snowbarger
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Strickland
     Stump
     Sununu
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Traficant
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NAYS--201

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Baldacci
     Barrett (WI)
     Bass
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berman
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Burr
     Campbell
     Cardin
     Carson
     Castle
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Coburn
     Collins
     Conyers
     Costello
     Cox
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Cummings
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     Deal
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dellums
     Dicks
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Fattah
     Filner
     Flake
     Foglietta
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Furse
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Green
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hefley
     Hefner
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Hoyer
     Hulshof
     Inglis
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     John
     Johnson (WI)
     Johnson, E.B.
     Jones
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (MA)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kingston
     Klink
     Klug
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lampson
     Largent
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Manton
     Markey
     Martinez
     Mascara
     McCarthy (MO)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McInnis
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Menendez
     Mica
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (CA)
     Miller (FL)
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Neal
     Neumann
     Norwood
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Paul
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Pickett
     Poshard
     Price (NC)
     Rangel
     Rivers
     Rodriguez
     Rohrabacher
     Rothman
     Roukema
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Salmon
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sanford
     Sawyer
     Scarborough
     Schaefer, Dan
     Schaffer, Bob
     Scott
     Sensenbrenner
     Serrano
     Shadegg
     Shays
     Sherman
     Sisisky
     Skaggs
     Slaughter
     Smith (MI)
     Smith, Adam
     Snyder
     Spratt
     Stabenow
     Stark
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Stokes
     Stupak
     Thompson
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Torres
     Towns
     Upton
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Wexler
     Weygand
     Wise
     Woolsey
     Wynn
     Yates

                             NOT VOTING--13

     Andrews
     Archer
     Deutsch
     Diaz-Balart
     Farr
     Goode
     Jefferson
     Lantos
     McKinney
     Pickering
     Schiff
     Schumer
     Turner

                              {time}  1841

  The Clerk announced the following pair:
  On this vote:

       Mr. Goode for, with Mr. Turner against.

  Messrs. MORAN of Virginia, BROWN of Ohio, and INGLIS of South 
Carolina changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Mrs. TAUSCHER changed her vote from ``nay'' to ``yea''.
  So the conference report was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________