[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 123 (Wednesday, September 16, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H7814-H7817]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




APPOINTMENT OF CONFEREES ON H.R. 4104, TREASURY, AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT 
                        APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1999

  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the 
Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 4104) making appropriations for the 
Treasury Department, the United States Postal Service, the Executive 
Office of the President, and certain Independent Agencies, for the 
fiscal year ending September 30, 1999, and for other purposes, with a 
Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree 
to the conference asked by the Senate.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Arizona?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, have the conferees been appointed?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Upton). Not quite yet.
  Without objection, the Chair appoints the following conferees: 
Messrs. Kolbe, Wolf and Istook, Mrs. Northup, and Messrs. Aderholt, 
Livingston, McDade and Hoyer, Mrs. Meek of Florida, Mr. Price of North 
Carolina, and Mr. Obey.
  There was no objection.

[[Page H7815]]

           Motion to Instruct Conferees Offered by Mr. Hoyer

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to offer a motion to 
instruct.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the gentleman from 
Maryland offering a motion at this time?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Hoyer moves that the managers on the part of the House 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the amendments of the Senate to the bill, H.R. 4104, be 
     instructed to insist on the House position providing 
     $2,828,000 for forensic and related support of investigations 
     into missing and exploited children.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) is 
recognized for 30 minutes and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) is 
recognized for 30 minutes.
  Mr. HOYER. Excuse me, Mr. Speaker, I apparently had two motions in my 
hand. That is the incorrect motion.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the incorrect motion 
and to offer the correct motion.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman withdraws the motion. The 
Clerk will report the second motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Hoyer moves that the managers on the part of the House 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the amendments of the Senate to the bill, H.R. 4104, be 
     instructed to insist on the Senate position providing 
     $3,250,000,000 for emergency expenses relating to Year 2000 
     conversion of Federal information technology systems.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Maryland to offer this motion to instruct?
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the right to object at this point, 
under my reservation, Mr. Speaker, we have gone through a little bit of 
backing and forthing on this motion. I was quite prepared on the last 
one, which is one that we had had some discussion about, to accept 
that.

                              {time}  1030

  But I am not inclined to accept a unanimous consent agreement on this 
particular motion. I would be willing to, on the one that was 
previously offered, to accept a unanimous consent agreement.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield under his 
reservation of objection?
  Mr. KOLBE. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, before the gentleman reaches that conclusion, 
I would urge him to consult with the central office of the committee. I 
have been asked routinely to approve unanimous-consent requests to 
facilitate the needs of the majority and have given that unanimous 
consent on numerous instances, sometimes over the objections or at 
least in the teeth of concern of our own party leadership. We can 
rapidly have that kind of cooperation come to an end, if that is what 
the other side prefers.
  Mr. KOLBE. Reclaiming my time and further reserving the right to 
object, I would say to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) that I 
appreciate the assistance that the minority has given in facilitating 
our consideration of the appropriation bills and the motions to 
instruct conferees and to get us moving to conference as quick as 
possible, but I do not think that is the question that we have here. 
The motion was not made in a timely fashion, it is one that I object 
to, and it is not one, is not our position, does not represent our 
position.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman continue to yield?
  Mr. KOLBE. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that just yesterday 
I agreed to a motion to roll a number of votes in order to facilitate 
the Republican conference. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) was 
in our conference. We have a rather serious issue before this House, 
and I think it is understandable that people be pulled in different 
directions. But if procedural cooperation is going to break down on a 
minor matter like this, we are going to have a terrible time getting to 
the right conclusion on appropriation bills before October 1.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KOLBE. Further reserving the right to object, I yield to the 
gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I want to say to my friend, the gentleman 
from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), with all due respect, obviously I had two 
papers in front of me, thought I had picked up this motion, and very 
frankly I want to tell my friend he thought that I was offering the 
motion there now.
  Mr. KOLBE. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct.
  Mr. HOYER. And, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Arizona did not offer 
objection. I made a mistake in picking up the wrong piece of paper, 
having thought the staff had already handed it to the desk, the proper 
motion. When the incorrect motion, the motion the gentleman and I also 
discussed, was read, my staff pointed out that I had handed the 
incorrect paper.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to tell my friend I understand his problem. But I 
also want to tell my friend that we are now cutting a very fine point 
in terms of knowing full well that I had talked to the gentleman about 
the motion, I picked up the wrong piece of paper, and I would hope my 
friend would not put me in a position or the House in a position of an 
inadvertent picking up of the wrong piece of paper puts us in a 
position where procedurally we will now be, I think, responding in a 
way that I think is not going to facilitate the work of the House.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time under my reservation of 
objection, the gentleman is correct. Only moments, not even minutes, 
almost seconds before we began this discussion we got the revised or 
the new motion to instruct, and it was obviously different than we have 
been led to believe earlier. And it is true that when the gentleman 
from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) went down with the piece of paper I did think 
it was going to be the revised motion to instruct, however I was 
considering at that moment whether I should object to that. I did not. 
This gives me another opportunity to at least raise this.
  I would like to at least ask either the gentleman from Maryland or 
the gentleman from Wisconsin about whether or not we would be able, if 
we are going to use this motion, this revised motion dealing with Y2K, 
whether we would be able to expedite the discussion on this so that we 
would not require a lot of time here on the floor this morning.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KOLBE. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, although I have not consulted with our 
ranking member, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) I think I speak 
for Mr. Obey, and he is here, he can speak for himself obviously, but 
it is not our intention to debate this at any length. Very frankly, we 
think this issue is known to the House, known to the Senate, and we 
believe this ought to be done very quickly.
  Am I correct?
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman continue to yield?
  Mr. KOLBE. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I have not even yet seen the motion of the 
gentleman from Maryland. I trust his judgment on it, and I understand 
the thrust of it, and I agree with it. But there are some other fairly 
important issues that all of us have to tend to these days, and I think 
we all need to give each other a little bit of running room on these 
questions.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I would agree with that, and I think that is 
what I want to accommodate and I am trying to accommodate here, and if 
there is an understanding that we can expedite this discussion making, 
and we had a full discussion on this, I might add, on the floor during 
the debate on the bill on this exact issue, and if we can understand 
that there would not be the gentleman's suggestions of other procedural 
road blocks being thrown up at this point, then I would withdraw my 
objection if that is agreeable with both sides.
  Does that understanding conform to the gentleman from Wisconsin as 
well?
  Mr. OBEY. Yes, and I appreciate the gentleman's removal of his 
objection.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Upton). Is there objection to the 
request of the gentleman from Arizona?
  There was no objection.

[[Page H7816]]

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to instruct 
offered by the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Hoyer moves that the managers on the part of the House 
     at the Conference on the disagreeing votes of the two houses 
     on the amendment of the Senate to the bill H.R. 4104 be 
     instructed to insist on the Senate position providing 
     $3,250,000,000 for emergency expenses relating to Year 2000 
     conversion of Federal information technology systems.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) will 
be recognized for 30 minutes and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) 
will be recognized for 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I again want to thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Kolbe) for his consideration. Frankly, I did not stand up in time, we 
all know that, and that was my fault. But the issue that has been 
raised is a serious one. The gentleman is correct, we have discussed it 
at length. There is an emergency situation as it relates to making sure 
that in the year 2000 that our computers in the Federal Government 
whether they be FAA comptrollers or whatever else they may be, are 
ready to make that transition from this century to the next. The Senate 
has obviously tried to accommodate that and ensure that both the 
Defense Department and all other departments of government have 
sufficient resources to accomplish that objective. We believe the 
Senate was correct, and we would urge the House to agree with the 
Senate's position and so instruct the conferees.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe).
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.


                             General Leave

  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the 
motion to instruct and that I might include tabular and extraneous 
materials.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, let me just say that this issue was completely debated 
on the floor of the House when our bill was considered in July. It is, 
as the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) has suggested, an 
extraordinarily important issue. When we say ``Y2K'' we are talking 
about the transition of our electronic and computer systems to the new 
millennium. We have shortened that terminology to an acronym, Y2K. I 
tell you this so that those who are listening or reading this debate at 
a later time might understand what we mean when we say ``Y2K''.
  There is no question that the debate over how we handle Y2K is 
extraordinarily important. It is also a difficult issue for the Federal 
Government and for the private sector. I think that we have much on our 
side to commend itself. The United States is probably well ahead of 
where many other countries are. We are behind in government efforts 
compared to the private sector, particularly the banking industry. But 
we are ahead of the efforts of other governments.
  On the other hand, we get constant revisions in the amount of money 
that is going to be required for this program. Let me just review for 
my colleagues the estimates the Office of Management and Budget, which 
has the overall responsibility for this problem. Here is what they have 
estimated, going back, not very far, to May of last year. In their 
first quarterly report in May of 1997 they said the fix was going to 
take about $2.8 billion. They revised that the next quarter, in August, 
to $3.8 billion; that was an increase of 1 billion. They revised that 
in the third quarter, in November, to 3.9 billion; that was an increase 
of only $100 million. They revised it in the fourth quarter to $4.7 
billion, an increase of 800 million. They revised that in the fifth 
quarterly report, in May of this year, to $5 billion. Now we saw an 
increase of another $300 million. And now we have in this sixth 
quarterly report an estimate of $5.6 billion, another $460 million 
increase.
  And so, Mr. Speaker, I would just point out that we have a lot of 
money that is involved in this issue. What we have decided, what the 
Republican leadership has decided, I think wisely so, is to include 
this with all of the other issues dealing with emergency supplemental 
appropriations. I know the gentleman from Maryland was with us 
yesterday when the Members of the House Committee on Appropriations 
listened to the State Department talk about the requirements for 
embassy security. So, we have funds for embassy security facing us as 
an emergency supplemental. Then, we also have farm aid as a possible 
emergency appropriations, we have Bosnia, and then we have the Y2K. So 
all of these issues are clearly going to have to be dealt with before 
this Congress adjourns, before the 105th Congress becomes history.
  We have begun those discussions with the Senate, with our 
counterparts in the Senate at the subcommittee level. Discussions are 
occurring at the chairmanship level, and it is happening at the 
leadership level. We know this matter must be dealt with. We recognize 
it is something that must be dealt with, but we also believe that it 
ought to be dealt with in an emergency supplemental that is separate 
from this appropriation bill so that we can look at these issues 
separately.
  So I would just urge my colleagues to defeat this motion with a full 
understanding that none of us, none of us, are making light of the 
seriousness of this matter. Indeed some of us have made it very clear 
that we believe the Office of Management and Budget and the White House 
has not given this matter the consideration that it deserves, and we 
have been urging them to give it more attention.
  But I do not believe that this motion to instruct helps us to move 
along the path where we need to get in order to have a resolution of 
this issue.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I think the chairman has articulated the issue very 
well. I explained it as well. The reason this motion is being offered 
at this time, however, is fairly straightforward.
  The reason is that we had this debate in July. That is now some 2 
months ago, 60 days ago. We were told that this matter was going to be 
resolved and that agencies would have appropriately the expectation 
they would have sufficient resources to meet this challenge.
  I tell my friend that this is not solved. The Senate has tried to 
solve it, but we have not solved it on this side, and we are 60 days 
later, some 2\1/2\ weeks or 3 weeks with I guess about 12 legislative 
days left in this session supposedly, at least until we adjourn 
subject, perhaps, to the call of the Chair. We are only a few short 
legislative days from adjournment.
  This matter must be resolved. We must address it. The Committee on 
Appropriations, the gentleman's subcommittee, Mr. Speaker, and the full 
committee recommended that we resolve it in exactly the way that the 
Senate has proposed. Exactly. It is my understanding the Republican 
leadership, the chairman of our committee and our subcommittee took 
this action. This is exactly what we proposed.
  Now I say to my friend, the gentleman from Arizona, A, I appreciate 
his allowing us to move forward on this issue, but B, that it is time 
for us to ensure that this objective is accomplished. If it is not, the 
losers will be the American public, and the reason we have offered this 
motion is because contrary to the intention that I think was a good-
faith intention expressed by the majority leader on the floor that this 
would be resolved before the August break, it was not, and we must 
resolve it.
  I would hope the Members of this House, therefore, would approve this 
motion and that in committee and in conference, Mr. Speaker, we could 
exceed to the Senate position, which is, I believe, the responsible 
position to meet this emergency.

                              {time}  1045

  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield back 
the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gutknecht). The gentleman from

[[Page H7817]]

Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) has the right to close.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I think I just did, and I yield back the 
balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered on the motion to instruct.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct 
offered by the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  The motion to instruct was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________