[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 56 (Thursday, April 22, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H2277-H2282]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
APPOINTMENT OF CONFEREES ON H.R. 1141, 1999 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL
APPROPRIATIONS ACT
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take
from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 1141) making emergency
supplemental appropriations 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 (Mrs. Emerson). Is there objection to the
request of the gentleman from Florida?
There was no objection.
Motion to Instruct Offered by Mr. Obey
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
The Clerk read as follows:
Mr. Obey moves that the managers on the part of the House at the
conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the bill (H.R.
1141) making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year
ending September 30, 1999, and for other purposes, be instructed to
disagree with the across the board reduction of funds appropriated with
an emergency designation in division B of Public Law 105-277 in the
Senate amendment, having the effect of reducing by 44 percent funds
made available for counter drug activities, antiterrorism programs
including security enhancements at U.S. embassies, Y2K computer
upgrades, Plutonium disposition and Uranium purchase, the Coast Guard,
Domestic Disaster Assistance, Child Survival, and other emergencies.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) will
[[Page H2278]]
be recognized for 30 minutes, and the gentleman from Florida (Mr.
Young) will be recognized for 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, let me say that in the handling of this supplemental
appropriation, the Republican majority in this House has given us a
case study in how not to proceed. It seems that virtually every time we
have an emergency which this Congress is asked to fund, we are being
asked by the majority caucus to do one of two things: either to do
nothing, or to blow up agreements which had just been reached in the
previous year's budget bill by finding offsets to pay for emergency
items designated by the administration.
Madam Speaker, I would simply observe that if the provisions of the
previous year's budget were so easy to reformat, it would not have
taken the majority party 2 months into the new fiscal year before they
got their work done last year. The decisions that were arrived at in
the budget last year were extremely hard to reach.
When the administration first provided its request to this Congress
to respond to the emergency events in Central America with the greatest
natural disaster we had in this century, and when they asked us to deal
with what is an emerging emergency in farm country, at first the
Committee on Appropriations, under the chairmanship of the gentleman
from Florida, produced a proposal which would have had the bipartisan
support of this House. It was an honest, practical, sensible way to
proceed. We thought we had a bipartisan agreement.
Then what happened is that contrary signals were sent from the House
leadership to the committee leadership. They said no, throw out that
approach and identify offsets, so these items will be funded on a
nonemergency basis.
What the House did, in my view, was to come up with offsets which
could not be more misguided if we had conducted a seminar on how to
make mistakes. So we were asked by the majority party to eliminate
funding which is necessary for us to have on the table in order to
begin discussion with the Russians about how to secure plutonium now in
the hands of the Russians so that it does not fall into the hands of
terrorists or rogue Nation's, and I think that is a pretty important
initiative.
Yet we are being asked to sandbag the ability of the administration
to begin those discussions by taking that money out. We are also being
asked to take out money which the Congress had previously appropriated
for callable capital to the international financial institutions, an
act which has caused our Secretary of the Treasury to become extremely
concerned about the long-term instability which that could bring in
dealing with many of our international economic problems.
In my judgment, those provisions were dumb enough, but then when this
proposal went to the Senate, we saw a congressional version of the
movie Dumb and Dumber. What they proceeded to do was to suggest that we
ought to cut 43 percent from a number of other items in the budget last
year, items which just a few months ago both parties thought were
important enough to include in the budget.
They suggested that we cut, or the Senate amendment suggested we cut
$973 million in funding to correct the Y2K computer problem, which
plagues many government agencies, as well as many private businesses.
{time} 1030
They suggest that we cut more than $200 million from various
antiterrorism activities, including $9.3 million in antiterrorism
efforts of the FBI and $43 million from the antiterrorism efforts of
the Federal Aviation Administration to prevent bombings and other acts
of violence against commercial airlines and their passengers.
It cuts $288 million from antidrug efforts, including reductions in
enforcement activities of the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Coast Guard,
and the Customs Service. It would have us cut more than $600 million
for the improvement of security at U.S. embassies overseas just 1 month
after the administration was chastised in three hearings on this side
of the Hill for not putting enough money in that item.
I have seen people fall off both sides of the same horse, but never
at the same moment. Yet, that is what this Congress is doing by the
actions that the Senate is trying to take on this conference report. It
just seems to me that we ought to resist what they are doing.
We have an emergency in Kosovo, and we are hoping that that will be
dealt with on a bipartisan basis. We have also had an emergency in our
own backyard in the Caribbean with the worst natural disaster that has
occurred in this century, and we are trying to do something about that.
We are being told that we are going to take 20,000 refugees from
Kosovo to try to relieve that situation, and yet we face the prospect
of having many times that number of refugees inundate our own country
because of the economic collapse that is attendant to the natural
disaster which occurred in Central America.
Yet that funding is not being called an emergency and it is being
delayed by actions taken by this House and the actions taken by the
other body. It just seems to me that we ought to recognize an emergency
when we see it.
We cannot do much today about the fact that the House has already
adopted what I consider to be incredibly ill-advised and misguided and
certainly, in the case of the Russian plutonium item, a spectacularly
destructive act. We cannot prevent the fact that the House has already
done that in voting for the offsets that it has voted on. But we
certainly should not compound the problem as the Senate amendment does.
So, very simply, what this motion does is ask the House to go on
record asking the conferees to reject that Senate amendment so that we
are not in the ludicrous position of blocking efforts to fix the Y2K
computer problems, that we are not in a position of cutting off drug
funding, funding about which many Members of this body just a couple
months ago were posing for holy pictures, trying to show who is most
for drug control efforts.
So I would simply say, I do not know any reason why any Member of
either party would oppose this motion. We are going to have strong
debates in the conference about the ill-advised offsets which this
House adopted. But I would think that the House would at least agree
that the Senate amendments which were adopted were at least as equally
ill-advised and would agree that they ought to be rejected by the
conference.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
Madam Speaker, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I agree on
the need to move this bill quickly. We are dealing with a true
emergency in Central America.
Immediately upon recognizing the result of Hurricane Mitch, American
armed forces were sent to Central America, and they did a tremendous
humanitarian job. They saved lives. They pulled people out of swollen
rivers. They helped get people out of the mud. They helped people get
water that they could drink, and they improved sanitary conditions. The
United States military did an outstanding job in Hurricane Mitch, but
there is more to be done.
As one of their good neighbors who spent billions of dollars in the
late 1970's and early 1980's to stop communism from taking over that
part of the world, which was a successful effort, by the way, I might
say, we now have an obligation to help our friends and neighbors when
they are in a real time of need.
The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I do not disagree too
much on what we included in the bill for the obligations that needed to
be met with the funding that we did include in this bill.
We did have some differences on whether or not the spending should be
offset by reducing other accounts in our Federal budget. The decision
was made to offset all but the military part of this bill, and we did
that.
We had already seen the offsets provided by the other body when we
developed our bill. As the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) said, we
disagreed with the offsets suggested by the other body, and so we
developed
[[Page H2279]]
our own list of offsets. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I
disagree somewhat on some of those.
But, Madam Speaker, the important thing is we need to get this bill
moving. We need to get to conference. In conference, we will have great
debates, especially about the offsets in this proposal. But we need to
get it done, and we can't get it done until we appoint the conferees
today.
I have no objection to the motion that the gentleman from Wisconsin
(Mr. Obey) has offered because I agree with him. We do not agree with
the offsets that the other body used. There will be, as I said, some
vigorous debate on this issue. But, Madam Speaker, I do not object to
this motion today, and I would hope that the House could expedite our
consideration of it, and move on to its next regular piece of business.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
General Leave
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all
Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend
their remarks on this motion to instruct conferees and that I may
include tabular and extraneous material.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Emerson). Is there objection to the
request of the gentleman from Florida?
There was no objection.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the distinguished
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the ranking Democrat on the
Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related
Programs.
Ms. PELOSI. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for
yielding me this time and for bringing this motion to instruct to the
floor.
I am pleased to hear that the distinguished chairman of the Committee
on Appropriations has no objection to the motion to instruct and would
not agree to the Senate offsets. I wish he would not agree to the House
offsets as well.
The reason we are here having this discussion, as the Speaker knows,
is that, according to the budget rules, when there is an emergency
funding bill, an emergency supplemental, we do not have to have
offsets.
What is an emergency? Well, many of us think that the greatest
natural disaster in this hemisphere in this century, Hurricane Mitch,
was thousands and thousands of people losing their lives, millions of
people losing their homes and their jobs. The economy is wiped out in
Central America. We think that constitutes an emergency. By any
measure, it is more of an emergency than most bills we have called
emergencies, most of the situations we have called emergencies before.
It was our understanding, going into the bill, that the distinguished
leadership of the Committee on Appropriations of the subcommittee and
the full committee did not see the necessity for offsets. But
instructions from the Republican leadership were to have offsets.
The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has very eloquently described
the consequences of some of the offsets in the House bill relating to
plutonium, relating to callable capital, thrusting uncertainty on the
international financial institutions.
But this motion to instruct is about not making matters worse by
having the House conferees not agree to the Senate offsets, which, as I
say, would only make matters worse.
So here we are in a situation where ordinarily we would not need
offsets, but this time the Republican leadership has foisted them upon
the leadership of the Committee on Appropriations.
We have a bill coming up soon for Kosovo where I hope we will not
have offsets. It is hard to explain the inconsistencies in how we deal
with these emergencies.
We agree that we must move this along, as the distinguished chairman
said. But in order to do that, we have to have some very serious,
mature conversations about these offsets.
I just want to convey to the House briefly some of the consequences
of this delay that has been caused by this debate on the offset, this
departure from the regular order in terms of funding an emergency
supplemental bill.
Most of the world seems to have forgotten, because other events have
begun to eclipse what has happened in Central America. It is the fate
of the Central American countries who suffered the devastation of
Hurricane Mitch.
It is now the end of April, 6 months after Hurricane Mitch struck,
and none of the sorely needed reconstruction assistance has been
approved by Congress. This is an emergency. AID and the Defense
Department were able to respond to the immediate needs and restore
basic health and sanitation to the devastated areas. However, in doing
so, they are using existing resources that have been exhausted.
I associate myself with the comments of the gentleman from Florida
(Mr. Young), our distinguished chairman, when he talks and sings in
praise of the work of the DOD and the U.S. military in Central America
and their assistance there. They are to be praised; the situation would
have been much worse without them. We are very proud of their effort.
But it is hard to understand why the money going to the DOD does not
need to be offset, but all the other spending on Hurricane Mitch needs
to be offset, again, another inconsistency.
To be more precise, several of the major NGOs operating in Honduras,
such as CARE, the Catholic Relief Service, and Save the Church are
running out of funding, really momentarily. The major Food for Work
program under way in Honduras has run out of food to pay its workers.
One hundred thousand small-scale farms will not receive credit or
inputs for the first crop of basic grains, corn, bean, and rice as the
planting season gets under way.
Planting season is now upon us, and many farmers are without seeds to
begin their first major crop since the hurricane. Low yields on the
first crop will of course continue the food shortages and increase the
emergency food requirements.
Over 2,940 miles of roads and 300 bridges destroyed by the hurricane
remain unusable. No significant funding has been provided to begin this
rebuilding. Without funds for infrastructure or agricultural recovery,
the over 100,000 laborers displaced by the hurricane will remain
unemployed or underemployed. This increases pressure on migration to
the U.S.
Roughly 200,000 school kids have no schools or are managing in open-
air facilities. Over 1,700 schools were destroyed by the hurricane, and
little funding to rebuild them has been made available.
Over 700 health clinics, providing the most basic of health services
to the impoverished area, were destroyed. The chances for the
recurrence or the spread of epidemics for malaria, cholera and dengue
fever increases as the recovery of health systems delayed.
Congress needs to act now to make this funding available. It is in
fact long overdue. We want an economic recovery in Central America. We
do need to provide some assistance to spur that along. We should be
doing it without offsets. Certainly we should do it without the Senate
offsets.
It is in that regard that I once again commend the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for his leadership in bringing this very
enlightened motion to instruct to the floor, and I am delighted that
the distinguished gentleman (Mr. Young) has no objection to it.
Let us move forward, keep our promises to our Latin American
neighbors and relieve their plight as we move forward. We must move
now.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the ranking Democrat on the
Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service and General Government.
Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.
Obey) for yielding me the time, and I rise in support, very strong
support of this motion to instruct. I am not surprised that the
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) is not objecting to this motion, and
I congratulate the chairman on his leadership.
I want to associate myself with the remarks both that the gentleman
from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) made earlier and that the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Pelosi) has just made.
With respect to offsets and with respect to the necessity to move the
supplemental as quickly as possible both
[[Page H2280]]
for our farmers and for those victims of Mitch, we have, as the
gentlewoman indicated, and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and
the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) may have referenced as well,
some 800,000-plus people.
We see the pictures of refugees in Albania and in Macedonia being
created by the violence and, from my perspective, war crimes being
committed by the Milosevic army. But having said that, we also know
that there are other reasons to support this motion to instruct.
{time} 1045
I want to specifically refer to the Y2K emergency fund that was put
in, the supplemental that we proposed last year, or the omnibus bill we
appropriated last year, some $2.25 billion for nondefense agencies to
make sure their critical computer systems are Year 2000 compliant. The
motion that the Senate adopted would cut that by 44 percent. Quite
obviously, that would have a devastating effect on all the other
programs, but as well on the Y2K, which all of us, all of us, admit is
an emergency.
There is not a day that goes by that we do not hear on our
televisions or our radio or read in our newspapers about the issue of
Y2K. Are we, on December 31 of 1999, going to have our computer
systems, which are involved in almost everything we rely on on a daily
basis, going to recognize the change and be able to ensure that the
systems remain operative as they should? Obviously most critical, I
suppose, with the FAA airplanes flying, but to so many other systems,
large and small.
On the Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service, and General
Government of the Committee on Appropriations, we tried in a bipartisan
manner to enact the critical appropriation as an emergency fiscal year
1998 supplemental. But we were continually told by the leadership to
wait until the end of the year. Unfortunately, now the Senate has
waited until well into the fiscal year and are proposing a 44 percent
cut.
Madam Speaker, I am hopeful that not only will this motion to
instruct prevail, which I presume it is going to, but also that the
Senate, in conference, will see the wisdom of this motion to instruct
and will not only reconsider this amendment to cut by 44 percent those
supplemental funds but will, in addition, also see the necessity, the
emergency of reconsidering their requirement for offsets. And that on
those matters that are truly emergency, which we believe the
supplemental is, we will move ahead without political rancor, without
debate about offsets, to see that our farmers, those ravaged by an act
of God such as Mitch, and those as well ravaged by war and by genocide
will all be given the help of this Nation and of our people as quickly
as possible.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.
Let me simply say in closing, Madam Speaker, that I think this
Congress needs to recognize that we are facing a genuine emergency in
the consideration of this bill. A bunch of people wearing suits on the
floor of the House of Representatives, or sport coats, might not think
that there is an emergency in farm country, but real live dirt farmers
see the fact that world farm prices are at near record low levels; they
see that commercial lenders are refusing to extend the credit that is
necessary in many instances for farmers to proceed with planting; and
they understand why the President thought that this was an emergency
and so designated it.
I would simply note that it is now the latter part of April and we
are just now talking about going to conference on this legislation. It
is getting dangerously late for those American farmers. And I would say
the situation in Central America is also pressing.
Now, many people will ask why should we provide emergency funding
because of the Hurricane Mitch problems in Central America. I would
simply make the following observation.
We spent almost $9 billion in countering what we thought was a
military threat in Central America through the funding of the Contras,
through the funding of military aid and economic aid to El Salvador and
a number of other Central American countries when they were having
military problems. But we now run the danger of ignoring what is
happening in that region at a time when something is going on which is
just as destabilizing and in fact could be more so than the military
confrontations that were taking place just a few short years ago.
Polls have shown that almost 10 percent of the population of
Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador are thinking about leaving their
countries and moving north because of the devastation caused by that
hurricane. If that happens, we could see over a million people trying
to work their way up, either legally or illegally, into this country.
If people have a choice of simply standing in the rain or walking in
the rain, they are going to start walking north. That could cost this
country as much as $7,000 a child for every child who comes into this
country.
And so it seems to me even if we do not want to focus on the
humanitarian obligations we have to our neighbors, it seems to me at
least we have a self-interest reason for moving this legislation on and
recognizing it for the emergency that it really is.
I would urge adoption of the amendment and a recognition that, in
general, the offsets which are being proposed both by this body and the
other body are ill-advised, counterproductive, and in some cases
downright dangerous.
Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms.
Kaptur), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural
Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies of the
Committee on Appropriations.
Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time and want to thank him for his leadership on bringing this motion
to the House.
I felt compelled to speak on this because of the condition of rural
America and the fact that again we are encountering delay in the
consideration of this legislation; more amendments being offered in the
other body, slowing down a very important supplemental package that
contains many items relating to assistance for Central America and
Hurricane Mitch, but equally important for the farmers here in this
country.
There is a literal depression that is affecting our country from
coast to coast among people who are hard-working, taxpaying Americans,
and this Congress is incapable of clearing a bill quickly to help the
American people who so desperately need it.
I find it completely ironic that now we here in the House have to
instruct the conferees to go back to the other body and say, no, we do
not want this amendment either because they are dipping into cuts in
other accounts that deal with Y2K and other programs, but tucked under
all of that is this giant need in rural America where farmers are being
put at the end of the line waiting as Congress dithers more, is unable
to reach any kind of conclusion, and we have to have more delays.
So, to me, I will support the motion to instruct simply as an act of
protest against the inability of this institution to protect the
American people's interests. Frankly, I am very much interested in us
being internationally involved and doing what is responsible elsewhere,
but the point is that rural America is in depression and we are acting
like nothing is happening.
I just wish every tractor would come back to Washington and surround
this place and make the leadership of this institution and the other
body responsible for what is happening. Farm income is going to drop
another 20 percent this year. USDA has used up all of its emergency
loan authority. Credit is not being extended this spring. Seed
companies back home are holding debt from last year.
Now is planting season, my colleagues. Spring has been in existence
for over a month now and we cannot bring a bill out of this Congress.
Where is the leadership of this institution and the other body in
trying to meet the real needs of the American people, which are urgent?
For the life of me I do not understand. To me, it is a disgrace that we
have to debate these kinds of amendments that are being loaded on over
in the Senate and not clear that portion of the bill which is so
desperately needed by our own people.
[[Page H2281]]
I want to thank the ranking member on our full committee, the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), whose State is as heavily affected
as my own, as well as every other Member here who understands the pain
of the rural countryside today, what has happened to prices, as we sit
here on our haunches and are unable to clear a bill. I ask again, where
is the leadership in this body and in the other one to recognize the
pain of the rural countryside?
Please support the motion to instruct and, more importantly, disgorge
the farm portion of this bill and get it moving.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Speaker, having been led to believe there
was not to be any debate on this motion, I yielded back my time. But at
this time I ask unanimous consent that I may reclaim my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Emerson). Is there objection to the
request of the gentleman from Florida?
There was no objection.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
I did believe that we were not to have any debate here so that we
could expedite this motion and get on with the rest of the business of
the House. But I would like to respond again, as I said earlier, we did
not agree with the Senate offsets in the bill. That is why I am willing
to support this motion that does not agree with the Senate offsets.
There has been sufficient leadership in the House on this measure to
move this to conference, and we will move it to conference quickly.
The gentlewoman is right, there has been a little bit of a delay on
the part of the other body. I met with the majority leader of the
Senate yesterday and discussed that issue and we are prepared to move
expeditiously.
There will be differences, even among those of us who are conferees,
on the House offsets. But what I have to tell my colleagues on both
sides of the aisle, we made a determination that we were going to,
except for true national defense emergencies, offset the spending
bills.
Now, when we dealt with disasters in our own country just a few years
back, we offset the money that we spent for those disasters. In fact,
one of the sources for those offsets was one of the offsets that the
other side objects to now.
So we will work this out, but I would hope that we would keep this
from becoming a partisan political issue. I am attempting to move the
appropriations bills in such a way that they relate to the needs of the
country and to move them as expeditiously as possible under the House
rules.
So we are prepared to do this, and we are prepared to accept this
motion today. I would suggest that I am ready to vote if the gentleman
from Wisconsin is ready to vote.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.
I am informed now that I have one additional request for time, and
then that will be the last person I yield to on this side on this
issue.
I just think the record is clear and we need to be reminded of it.
This side has not made this supplemental a partisan issue. This side
made clear to the gentleman that we were willing to support, on a
bipartisan basis, his initial recommendations that he intended to make
to the committee and to the House on how we ought to proceed on this
supplemental, because the gentleman did correctly recognize that this
was an emergency which should be funded on an emergency basis.
It was then the gentleman's caucus or his leadership, I am not sure
which, who then instructed the majority side of the Committee on
Appropriations to take a different route and, instead of seeking common
ground with the President and us on this issue, they produced a
proposal which they knew we would not buy.
I am sorry, but I believe it is downright stupid and dangerous for us
to take off the table the money which we need in order to negotiate a
settlement with the Russians that will remove the possibility that
weapons-grade plutonium, which is now in their hands, will be diverted
to other far more dangerous hands.
{time} 1100
It is stupid and ridiculous for this House to take that position, and
yet that is one of the offsets that this House decided to impose on the
President. At the very time that we are talking about trying to get the
Russians to help in solving the Yugoslav mess, they are yanking off the
table the principal carrot that we have to reach agreement on the
disposal of the most dangerous material in the universe.
Now, there is nothing partisan about that, but there is something
very stupid about it. And that is why we are opposed to what the House
did. We regret the fact that a proposal, which started out to be
bipartisan because of the wise and correct judgments of the gentleman,
have now been turned into something else by the determination of the
Republican leadership of this House to have yet another unnecessary
fight with the President.
Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from
New Jersey (Mr. Menendez).
Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me
the time.
Let me just say in the 1 minute that I have, this is in the national
interest of the United States. Forget about being humanitarian and
helping Central Americans, which we want to do.
Do we want to see a million people who have no home and no place to
work and have nothing to lose? They will come north; that is their
mission if they have no opportunity, no hope. Do we want to see disease
spread? It will spread north. Do we want to see the drug cartels take
over regions that otherwise have no other hope? They will do that.
It is in the national interest of the United States to provide this
funding, to have done so already. The rainy season starts. A million
people who have nothing to lose. It is in the national interest of the
United States to do this.
But our Republican friends have proposed those provisions that are
impossible to accept as offsets to the supplemental. Imagine in the
Senate having domestic drug programs cut at a time that the drug
cartels are even moving more forcefully forward.
So I support the amendment of the gentleman, but our cause and our
case is that this is an emergency. We have got a million people right
to the south of us and they need help now and we are languishing with
this. We need to move it and move it now.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
I would like to suggest that if the worst thing the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) calls me during the balance of the appropriations
process this year is stupid, I will be happy because there are other
things that will be mentioned.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I did not call him stupid, and I do not
believe him to be stupid. I called the action taken by this House
stupid, and I stand by that statement.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I must
respond that offsetting spending when we are trying to balance the
Federal budget is not stupid. When we have a national debt that has
debt service that is equal to or exceeds what we invest in our only
national security, it is not stupid to try to do something about that
debt and to try to balance the budget.
And if we are going to spend on one hand without taking the budget
into a deficit situation, we have got to take it away somewhere else.
And we cannot go visiting around the world dropping off commitments for
money for one thing or another without even consulting with the
Congress and expect the Congress to just pay the bill when it gets
here.
Now, that is not partisan either. What it is is trying to be
responsible and keep the commitment that all of us have made.
I do not know of anyone, there may be one or two, that have said we
should not balance the budget. But everyone that I know in this House
has committed themselves to a balanced budget. And you cannot balance
the budget by continuing to spend. So we take some of the items that
are not quite as
[[Page H2282]]
important as responding to the disaster and we offset them.
Now let me mention what the offset was that the gentleman is so upset
about. We used as an offset callable capital to the World Bank,
callable capital which has not been called in over 20 years and that is
not even important, but callable capital which was the same source that
was used in this House to offset a disaster appropriations bill. For a
disaster in the United States in the western part of our country, we
used callable capital as the offset.
I know the gentlewoman is shaking her head, but the fact is, the
Congressional Record has it on record and indicates who voted for that
amendment by our friend and previous colleague from California (Mr.
Fazio) to reduce the callable capital for the World Bank by the amount
needed to offset that bill.
Now, if that consistency was mentioned before, if we are going to be
consistent, if callable capital as an offset was okay now, why is it
not okay now?
So I think, Madam Speaker, that we have what I think Harry Truman
called a red herring, but we are going to debate these issues in
conference and we will come to a resolution and this bill will be
provided.
We are not withholding the immediate emergency support that was
needed in Central America. We did that already. We sent troops and they
took care of the immediate emergency requirements.
So, anyway, despite all of this debate and despite this argument, I
still support the motion made by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.
Obey), and I say we get on about our business and get into conference
and settle this bill.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Emerson). Without objection, the
previous question is ordered.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct
offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not
present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 414,
nays 0, not voting 19, as follows:
[Roll No. 96]
YEAS--414
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Allen
Andrews
Archer
Armey
Bachus
Baird
Baker
Baldacci
Baldwin
Ballenger
Barcia
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Barrett (WI)
Bartlett
Barton
Bass
Bateman
Becerra
Bentsen
Bereuter
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop
Blagojevich
Bliley
Blumenauer
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonior
Bono
Borski
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Brown (OH)
Bryant
Burr
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Campbell
Canady
Cannon
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Carson
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Chenoweth
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Coble
Coburn
Collins
Combest
Condit
Conyers
Cook
Cooksey
Costello
Cox
Coyne
Cramer
Crane
Crowley
Cubin
Cummings
Cunningham
Danner
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
Davis (VA)
Deal
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
DeLay
DeMint
Deutsch
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Doggett
Dooley
Doolittle
Doyle
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Edwards
Ehlers
Ehrlich
Emerson
English
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Everett
Ewing
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Fletcher
Foley
Forbes
Fossella
Fowler
Frank (MA)
Franks (NJ)
Frelinghuysen
Frost
Gallegly
Ganske
Gejdenson
Gekas
Gephardt
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Gonzalez
Goode
Goodlatte
Goodling
Gordon
Goss
Graham
Granger
Green (TX)
Green (WI)
Greenwood
Gutierrez
Gutknecht
Hall (OH)
Hall (TX)
Hansen
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Herger
Hill (IN)
Hill (MT)
Hilleary
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoeffel
Hoekstra
Holden
Holt
Hooley
Horn
Hostettler
Houghton
Hoyer
Hulshof
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Inslee
Isakson
Istook
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Jenkins
John
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kelly
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind (WI)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kleczka
Klink
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kucinich
Kuykendall
LaFalce
LaHood
Lampson
Lantos
Largent
Larson
Latham
LaTourette
Lazio
Leach
Lee
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Lofgren
Lowey
Lucas (KY)
Lucas (OK)
Luther
Maloney (CT)
Maloney (NY)
Manzullo
Markey
Martinez
Mascara
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McCrery
McDermott
McGovern
McHugh
McInnis
McIntosh
McIntyre
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Metcalf
Mica
Millender-McDonald
Miller (FL)
Miller, Gary
Miller, George
Minge
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Moran (KS)
Moran (VA)
Morella
Murtha
Myrick
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal
Nethercutt
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Ose
Owens
Oxley
Packard
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Paul
Payne
Pease
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Phelps
Pickering
Pickett
Pitts
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Portman
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Quinn
Ramstad
Rangel
Regula
Reyes
Reynolds
Riley
Rivers
Rodriguez
Roemer
Rogan
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Rothman
Roukema
Roybal-Allard
Royce
Rush
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Sabo
Salmon
Sanchez
Sanders
Sandlin
Sanford
Sawyer
Scarborough
Schaffer
Schakowsky
Scott
Sensenbrenner
Serrano
Sessions
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Sherman
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shows
Shuster
Simpson
Sisisky
Skeen
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Souder
Spence
Spratt
Stabenow
Stark
Stearns
Stenholm
Strickland
Stump
Stupak
Sununu
Sweeney
Talent
Tauscher
Tauzin
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thomas
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Thornberry
Thune
Thurman
Tiahrt
Tierney
Toomey
Traficant
Turner
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Upton
Velazquez
Vento
Visclosky
Walden
Walsh
Wamp
Waters
Watkins
Watt (NC)
Watts (OK)
Waxman
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Wexler
Weygand
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson
Wise
Wolf
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOT VOTING--19
Bonilla
Brown (CA)
Brown (FL)
Engel
Ford
Hastings (FL)
Kasich
Lewis (GA)
Linder
McKeon
Moore
Nussle
Radanovich
Rahall
Saxton
Tancredo
Tanner
Towns
Weiner
{time} 1126
So the motion to instruct was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
Stated for:
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, April 22, 1999, I was unable to
record a vote by electronic device on roll No. 96. Had I been present,
I would have voted ``yea'' on roll No. 96.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Boehner). Without objection, the Chair
appoints the following conferees: Messrs. Young of Florida, Regula,
Lewis of California, Porter, Rogers, Skeen, Wolf, Kolbe, Packard,
Callahan, Walsh, Taylor of North Carolina, Hobson, Obey, Murtha, Dicks,
Sabo, Hoyer, Mollohan, Ms. Kaptur, Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Serrano and Mr.
Pastor.
There was no objection.
____________________