[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 141 (Monday, October 18, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H10139-H10142]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  MOTION TO INSTRUCT CONFEREES ON H.R. 2670, DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE, 
JUSTICE, AND STATE, THE JUDICIARY, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS 
                               ACT, 2000

  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Coburn moves that the managers on the part of the House 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 2670 be instructed 
     to agree, to the extent within the scope of the conference, 
     to provisions that--
       (1) reduce nonessential spending in programs within the 
     Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, 
     and other related agencies;
       (2) reduce spending on international organizations, in 
     particular, in order to honor the commitment of the Congress 
     to protect Social Security; and
       (3) do not increase overall spending to a level that 
     exceeds the higher of the House bill or the Senate amendment.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn) 
will be recognized for 30 minutes and the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Serrano) will be recognized for 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn).
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  This motion to instruct is parliamentary procedure only to 
reemphasize the importance of the process that we presently find 
ourselves.
  Today, unfortunately, President Clinton vetoed the Foreign Operations 
bill and with that veto he made the statement that we did not have 
enough money in the funding for the things that he wanted in terms of 
foreign operations. As we have struggled this year to limit the 
spending in this Congress so that we do not touch Social Security 
money, part of the way we have done that is to flat-line the amount of 
money that is spent on the Foreign Operations bill. In fact, it is the 
only bill that we sent to the President that is somewhat less than the 
spending from the year before. That bill, as I recall, was $200 million 
less than what we actually spent last year.
  As we think about the options, spending money and the $1.7 trillion 
budget that we have, I think it is important to look at what the 
President said in his own statement of administration policy which was 
issued August 4, 1999, in terms of his desires for the Commerce, 
Justice, State appropriations bill which this motion to instruct is 
directed at. On the second page of that,

[[Page H10140]]

he talks about international affairs programs which ties back into what 
he vetoed today in terms of the Foreign Operations bill. It is his 
message that the ``committee underfunds activities to support the 
ongoing conduct of effective diplomacy and does not fully fund payments 
to international organizations necessary to ensure U.S. leadership in 
international affairs.''
  This weekend I happened to share my weekend on call that I do every 4 
weeks in my medical practice in Oklahoma. Starting Friday night about 
11:30 and finishing up about 4:30 this morning, 10 young Oklahomans 
came into this world. The debate we are going to be having with the 
President, whether we want to or not and whether we talk about it now 
or whether we talk about it in the future, is going to be focused on 
these 10 young lives. The fact is that the Congress and the President 
all too often make decisions in the short term and in the short run. 
What we find in the Commerce, Justice, State bill is many international 
organizations. I thought I would just kind of look at what the bill as 
coming out of the House funded in terms of international organizations 
and affairs programs that the President objected to. I just want to 
spend a minute talking about those.
  There is $1,949,000 for funding the following programs: The 
International Copper Study Group, the International Cotton Advisory 
Committee, the International Lead and Zinc Study Group, the 
International Rubber Organization, the International Office of the Wine 
and Vine, the International Rubber Study Group, the International Seed 
Testing Association, the International Tropical Timber Organization, 
and the International Grains Council. The amount provided includes 
funding for travel and for arrears.
  As we looked into some of these, I think it is very important that 
the American public knows what these organizations do and, remember, 
this money very likely, if the President has his way, will come from 
the future benefits of these 10 babies that I delivered this weekend. 
Their future is going to be compromised, because we are going to borrow 
money from their future to actually pay for this $1,949,000.
  Let me give my colleagues a little outline of what the International 
Office of the Wine and Vine does. First of all, remember that the wine 
industry in America exports $537 million worth of wine each year and it 
is growing each year. In 1999 we sent $64,000 to this international 
organization. I want Members to know what we got for our money so we 
did a little research. It turns out that the International Office for 
the Wine and Vine wrote the rules for the chardonnay of the world 
competition. That is a healthy, very important thing for our taxpayers 
and these 10 new babies from Oklahoma to be saddled with in the future. 
A qualitative confrontation of the world's best chardonnay. That is 
where the American taxpayer's dollars are going. But that is not all. 
The International Office of the Wine and Vine also wrote a press 
release touting a Danish study that confirmed that the consumption of 
wine has health benefits. Well, our own Surgeon General said that 15 
years ago. We know that. And actually that was all we could find that 
they actually did for 1999 for $64,000.

  Now, let us talk about the rubber. The administration has proposed 
funding not one but two rubber organizations dedicated to supporting 
the rubber supply industry; not the rubber manufacturing industry but 
the rubber supply industry. We spent $300,000 on the International 
Rubber Organization last year, $111,000 on the International Rubber 
Study Group. The first organization we spent $300,000. What is their 
job? To keep the price of rubber high. To keep the price of raw rubber 
high. We are a total importer of rubber. Raw rubber, we produce no raw 
rubber in the United States, so we spent $300,000 asking that 
organization to help keep the price of our imports high.
  The third organization, the International Copper Study Group 
established in 1992, we spent $77,000. What did we get for our money, 
you ask? According to the web site, you can order a number of products 
from the International Copper Study Group. We spent $77,000, but you 
cannot get any of that information unless you pay them big-time bucks. 
$350 for a report, a directory of the copper mines in this country is 
$350, and if you want to use their database, another $550. The American 
taxpayer has already paid for it. These dollar figures do not sound 
like much, but when we put it in perspective, it does.
  I want to pull up a couple of charts for a minute and let the Members 
of the House see just in these international organizations, 475 
American families, their tax rate if the average family is earning 
$55,000, they are paying $4,100 in Federal income taxes, that is what 
they are paying to fund this. Looking at it a different way, the 
average senior in this country earns $9,396, receives that in terms of 
Social Security payments. If we look at the amount of seniors, that is 
the equivalent of shipping 207 seniors' receipts overseas, for programs 
that the President wants us to spend more money on in terms of 
international organizations.
  Mr. President, we are not going to spend a penny of Social Security. 
This motion to instruct is to reaffirm what the House has already done 
and to say that we are going to stand by the appropriated amounts and 
not go any higher than the House level. The Senate version actually is 
somewhat lower. We would expect you to be a better steward of our 
international moneys. All we have to do is look at what has happened in 
Russia. We do not need more money for foreign aid because the money 
that we are sending in foreign aid, whether it be through the 
International Monetary Fund, whether it is through the World Bank, we 
are not a good steward of it. All we have to do is trace the $3 to $4 
billion that has been absconded from the money that we sent to Russia.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  It is interesting to note that in anticipation of this debate, the 
House and Senate conferees took a break to be able to come here and 
speak about this issue. So from the onset, it should be noted that the 
work of the conferees is not being done at this moment because we have 
to be here to be dealing with what, in all due respect to the 
gentleman, I consider a waste of time.
  The fact of life is that there is a process, a process where the 
House passes a bill and the Senate passes a bill and under our system 
we sit down to work it out. The gentleman does what he considers a good 
job at singling out some items that, if we look at any budget, could be 
for some people questionable items. But this is the Commerce, Justice, 
State, Federal Judiciary, Census Bureau, INS, FCC, FTC, NOAA, this is a 
bill that encompasses so much, that to single out some items that he 
may think are not proper and then try to in fact instruct the conferees 
to go out and destroy the bill is totally improper. It is for that 
reason, Mr. Speaker, that I rise in strong opposition to the motion to 
instruct conferees on the Commerce, Justice, State, Judiciary 
appropriations bill.
  This is, as I said, a waste of time. Conferees are unable to meet 
because we have to be on the floor. On the motion, I would be 
interested in knowing what programs of, say, the Justice Department the 
gentleman from Oklahoma considers nonessential. For that matter, how 
would the gentleman from Oklahoma define ``nonessential''? I expect his 
definition would not agree with mine or with that of the 
administration. Does nonessential mean unauthorized? Much of the 
Justice Department is unauthorized. Does nonessential mean mostly 
salaries and expenses of Federal employees? The FBI is mostly salaries 
and expenses.
  The second item in the motion suggests that the gentleman from 
Oklahoma thinks U.S. engagement with the world is of little importance. 
I wonder that after the Senate's failure to ratify the comprehensive 
test ban treaty last week, the gentleman also wishes to put the House 
on record as also favoring withdrawal from world leadership and refusal 
to meet our membership obligations to the various international 
organizations.
  On the third point, it has been clear from the beginning that the 
allocations within which the House and Senate wrote their bills were 
too low and, therefore, unacceptable to many Democrats and certainly to 
the President. If Republicans are truly interested in getting the 
appropriations bills passed,

[[Page H10141]]

they will have to compromise with the Senate and the White House. That 
is a fact. Doing as the gentleman suggests moves us in the opposite 
direction.
  I would remind the gentleman that while he has strong views on 
spending restraint, which I respect, and while this motion may actually 
pass because it is not binding so it is basically free, the votes are 
not there to pass bills that look the way he wants them to look.
  I urge my colleagues not to support this motion and to have a fuller 
understanding of what this whole process is about. I would urge the 
gentleman to take a closer look at the various departments and agencies 
and the significance of this whole bill rather than to single out 
something which he feels is not proper and therefore should destroy a 
whole bill and a whole process.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I find it very interesting that we did not specifically hear a denial 
of the claims that I made just in this one program. I was trying to be 
very, very general and not going into details on a lot of programs 
because that in fact is the priority of the appropriations process. I 
also was one that happened to vote to send this bill to conference.
  But I would also note that the gentleman from New York did not agree 
that we should reduce nonessential spending, he did not agree that we 
should reduce spending on international organizations that are 
wasteful, that do not have a purpose for our children and our future, 
and he did not say that he was opposed to increasing the spending. 
Where does he think the money is going to come from? The money is going 
to come from these 10 children I delivered this weekend. They are going 
to pay for it.
  The fact is if we want to talk about authorizations, the reason the 
appropriations process is so hard is because the Congress does not do 
its job in terms of sending authorizations to the appropriators. And, 
in fact, if we followed the strict rules of the House and did not give 
a rule on every appropriation bill that would not make it a point of 
order to strike those bills which are appropriated that are 
unauthorized, we would in fact have a budget that is much easier to 
handle, we would be doing our jobs in terms of the authorization 
committees, and we would not be forced to play the line to where we 
have to walk up to the edge of stealing Social Security money.

                              {time}  1715

  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers), chairman of the subcommittee.
  Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time 
to me, and, Mr. Speaker, I am in opposition to this motion. As the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) has just said, we had to 
interrupt a meeting of the conferees that Members of the Senate and the 
House who are downstairs in Room H-140 of this building in the Capitol; 
we had to interrupt the deliberations almost as we were concluding in 
order to rush up here to discuss this motion to instruct the conferees.
  Mr. Speaker, we are already working to do as the gentleman in his 
motion hopes. We are working within the overall framework set by the 
leadership to meet all of the relevant goalposts including saving 
Social Security. We are working to reduce spending for nonessential 
programs. And if the gentleman would like to attend the conference, I 
will invite him as my guest to sit at the table and to observe the 
nonessential spending that we have already cut from this bill, 
particularly several hundred million dollars worth of items that were 
in the Senate bill that no longer exists because the House conferees 
insisted that that nonessential spending be cut.
  We are working to preserve funding for critical law enforcement 
programs. The Senate bill was a billion dollars below the House for the 
Department of Justice; that is the FBI, that is the DEA, that is the 
INS; that is most of the law enforcement of the Federal Government in 
this country is in this bill. We have managed to get that money back in 
place in this conference.
  Mr. Speaker, we are working to get a bill that is acceptable to both 
the House and the Senate, and that is a job in and of itself because 
the bodies passed radically different bills. And we are trying to mesh 
them into something that both bodies can now agree on those changes. We 
are working to give our best shot to produce a bill that has a shot at 
least of being signed into law by the President. So my colleagues have 
to take into account in this divided government the desires of the 
administration; there is no way around that.
  We are working to do all that I have talked about and to spend as few 
dollars as possible, but the fundamental point is that we are working 
within the framework laid down by our leadership that will meet the 
targets for spending and protecting Social Security, as the gentleman 
wants.
  Mr. Speaker, I simply ask of the body:
  Let us do our job. Let us bring our work to a conclusion, I hope 
tonight, and then we will lay it on the floor here, hopefully tomorrow, 
and let our colleagues judge the bill and vote up or down on the 
product that we produce.
  So the process is working. We are going to see the product tonight or 
tomorrow, and then our colleagues can make their judgment. But 
beforehand to try to prejudge what the conferees are doing in the 
middle of our work is a little bit like saying to Picasso while he is 
half finished with a painting, ``Let's throw it out, it's not worth 
looking at.'' I do not want to be compared to Picasso, but let us 
finish our work, and then my colleagues can judge it according to their 
desires at that time.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I urge a no vote on the motion to instruct conferees 
so that we can go back to work and finish this bill tonight.
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I would just be very brief; I have no speakers. I just wanted to tell 
the gentleman from Kentucky, if he wants to compare me to Picasso, I do 
not have a problem with that.
  But to suggest that when we try to deal with the expenditures of 
government, and I might say just to be clear that the chairman and I 
are going through a process right now where we do not agree on how we 
are spending some dollars; that is the nature of our system. But that 
does not mean that I would try to impede his ability to do his job by 
having a motion like this one or that he would try to do the same with 
me. To suggest that somehow we are going to raid the Social Security 
system, I think we did that when we tried to tell the American people 
that the only thing they should get is a tax break and that nothing 
else mattered. That is the real danger. I do not think paying for the 
FBI, I do not think paying for the Immigration Department is 
necessarily creating that kind of a problem; and I have no further 
speakers.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I am going to be the closing speaker, so 
would the gentleman like to yield back the balance of his time?
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  The first point I want to address is the motion to instruct is an 
approved parliamentary procedure, and I hope the gentleman from New 
York would grant me the right to use the procedures within the House 
that are available to me to try to do a motion to instruct. We have the 
rules of the House, and this otherwise would not have been approved and 
would have been stricken down.
  The next thing I would say is the American people need to know where 
we are on this. Last year we spent $34.9 billion on CJS, this 
appropriation bill, and what passed the House was 35.7 billion. The 
House passed that. What we are saying with this motion to instruct is: 
Do not go any higher.
  Now we understand my colleagues have been given the ability within 
the conference to go to $37.2 billion; we understand that. What we are 
saying is: If we are ever going to control the spending, if we are ever 
going to truly balance the budget, let alone not touch Social Security, 
because what the American people do not know is just because Social 
Security is not being

[[Page H10142]]

spent this year, that does not mean the Inland Waterway Trust money is 
not being spent and the retirement program for all Federal workers that 
are unfunded is not being spent that we are going to have to come back 
and get sometime. All these things are still not accounted for, and 
even though we do not spend one penny of Social Security, the national 
debt is still going to rise something like $40 billion this year.
  So we can claim that we are not going to touch Social Security, but 
is that good enough for our children?
  Mr. Speaker, I want my colleagues to see this one graph because it 
tells greatly what our problem is. If we do not become frugal with our 
taxpayers' money and with our children's money, look what happens in 
the year 2014. That is when the amount of money coming in for Social 
Security and the amount going out starts exceeding. So we would not 
have the ability to spend Social Security money in 2014 because the 
amount going to seniors would be less than what is coming in, and if we 
look on out to about the year 2030, what we see is a trillion dollars a 
year in general tax revenues. A trillion dollars above and beyond what 
is paid in Social Security is going to have to be available to take 
care of our seniors, and we have not begun to address the problems 
associated with Medicare.
  So what we are trying to do is to slow the increase in the Commerce 
Justice State appropriation to about a 2 percent increase instead of a 
6.6 percent, which is about to come out of conference.
  Is it not interesting in our country when the Senate passes a bill at 
$33.7 billion, and the House passes a bill at $35.7 billion, and when 
they get together the tendency is, we are going to spend $2.5 billion 
more, and that is exactly what is getting ready to come out of that 
conference.
  So again, I would ask the Members to think about the new children 
born across this country in the last 72 hours and what are we leaving 
them. We can do better, we have to do better, and this motion to 
instruct says do not spend one penny we do not have to, do not send 
money overseas for the International Wine and Vine or the International 
Rubber Council because it does not benefit Americans. It is a token we 
throw down in the international market that brings us no benefit.
  I am not an isolationist, and I believe that America has to lead the 
world, but if we are bankrupt, how can we lead the world? And this is 
too important of an issue. We should not walk away from it. We should 
walk up to the line, and we should make sure that we secure the future 
for our children.
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Oklahoma, in 
offering this motion to instruct conferees, talked about some of the 
international programs that will be covered by the conference report.
  However, reading the Coburn motion, I note that it also would 
instruct conferees to ``reduce nonessential spending in programs within 
the departments of Commerce'' as well as other Departments. 
Unfortunately, it does not indicate what programs might be meant.
  In considering the motion, I must wonder whether it is aimed at 
making even further cuts in funding for NOAA's research programs, such 
as those carried out in its own labs or through cooperation with the 
University of Colorado and other universities. Because it's impossible 
to say whether NOAA is outside the scope of the motion, I cannot 
support the motion.
  Similarly, I have to wonder whether the motion is intended to 
instruct the conferees to make further cuts in funding for the National 
Institute of Standards and Technology. Is funding for NIST something 
that the gentleman from Oklahoma thinks is not essential? Again, it's 
impossible to tell, so once again I cannot support the motion.
  And what about the Justice Department and the Judiciary? What funding 
for law enforcement and the courts does my colleague think is not 
essential? I think that having that kind of information would make it 
easier to decide about this motion to instruct the conferees--and, yet 
again, without that kind of information, I cannot support this motion 
to instruct the conferees.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I will vote against this motion to instruct 
conferees.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gibbons). The question is on the motion 
to instruct offered by the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn).
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. 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. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this motion will be postponed until after the recorded 
votes on three suspension motions postponed earlier today.
  The point of no quorum is considered withdrawn.

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