[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 38 (Thursday, March 30, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H1592-H1621]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
2000 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT
The SPEAKER. Pursuant to House Resolution 450, and rule XVIII, the
Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the
State of the Union for the further consideration of the bill, H.R.
3908.
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In the Committee of the Whole
Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the
Whole House on the State of the Union for the further consideration of
the bill (H.R. 3908) making emergency supplemental appropriations for
the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000, and for other purposes, with
Mr. Thornberry in the chair.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The CHAIRMAN. When the Committee of the Whole rose on Wednesday,
March 29, 2000, amendment No. 8 printed in Part B of House report 106-
549 by the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Fowler) had been disposed of
and the bill had been read through page 80, line 11.
Pursuant to the order of the House of that day, no further amendments
shall be in order except pro forma amendments offered by the chairman
and ranking minority member; the amendment printed in Part B of the
report and numbered 12; and the following further amendments which may
be offered only by the Member designated in the order of the House or a
designee, shall be considered read, shall be debatable for 20 minutes
equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall
not be subject to amendment and shall not be subject to a demand for a
division of the question:
(1) An amendment by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) regarding
certain reductions and limitations;
(2) An amendment by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns)
regarding an across-the-board cut;
(3) An amendment by the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor)
regarding U.S. military in Colombia;
(4) An amendment by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant) regarding
buy America;
(5) An amendment by the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Baldacci) regarding
building technology assistance conservation activities;
(6) An amendment by the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo)
regarding the Food and Drug Administration;
(7) An amendment by the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) regarding
the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Modification to Amendment No. 11 Offered by Mr. Weldon of Pennsylvania
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to
modify my amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will report the modification.
The Clerk read as follows:
Modification to Part B Amendment No. 11 offered by Mr.
Weldon of Pennsylvania:
In the matter proposed to be inserted, strike section 512,
page 4, line 4, through page 5, line 8.
The text of the amendment, as modified, is as follows:
Page 80, after line 11, insert the following new sections:
Sec. 5109. For an additional amount for the Secretary of
Agriculture for carrying out section 10(b)(1) through (3) of
the Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act of 1978 (16 U.S.C.
2106(b)(1) through (3)), $10,000,000, to remain available
until expended.
Sec. 5110. (a) For an additional amount for carrying out
this section, $10,000,000, to remain available until
expended.
(b) The Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency
shall establish an office in the Agency to establish specific
criteria of grant recipients and to administer grants under
this section.
(c) The Director may make grants, on a competitive basis,
to safety organizations that have experience in conducting
burn safety programs for the purpose of assisting those
organizations in conducting burn prevention programs or
augmenting existing burn prevention programs.
(d) The Director may make grants, on a competitive basis,
to hospitals that serve as regional burn centers to conduct
acute burn care research.
(e) The Director may make grants, on a competitive basis,
to governmental and nongovernmental entities to provide
after-burn treatment and counseling to individuals that are
burn victims.
Sec. 5111. (a) For an additional amount for carrying out
this section, $80,000,000, to remain available until
expended.
(b) The Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency
shall establish a program to award grants to volunteer, paid,
and combined departments that provide fire and emergency
medical services.
(c) Grants awarded under this section may be used--
(1) to acquire personal protective equipment required for
firefighting personnel by the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration, and other personal protective equipment for
firefighting personnel;
(2) to acquire additional firefighting equipment, including
equipment for communication and monitoring;
(3) to establish wellness and fitness programs for
firefighting personnel to reduce the number of injuries and
deaths related to health and conditioning problems;
(4) to promote professional development of fire code
enforcement personnel;
(5) to integrate computer technology to improve records
management and training capabilities;
(6) to train firefighting personnel in firefighting,
emergency response, and arson prevention and detection;
(7) to enforce fire codes;
(8) to fund fire prevention programs and public education
programs about arson prevention and detection, and juvenile
fire setter intervention; and
(9) to modify fire stations, fire training facilities, and
other facilitires to protect the health and safety of
firefighting personnel.
(d) Applications for grants under this section shall
include--
(1) a demonstration of financial need;
(2) evidence of a commitment for at least an equal amount
as the amount of the grant sought, to be provided by non-
Federal sources;
(3) a cost benefit analysis linking the funds to
improvements in public safety; and
(4) a commitment to provide information to the National
Fire Incident Reporting System for the period for which the
grant is received.
(e) Grant recipients under this section shall be subject to
audits to ensure that the funds are spent for their intended
purposes.
The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from
Pennsylvania?
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, I will not
object and I will yield to the distinguished gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) for an explanation of his modification.
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished
gentleman from Maryland for yielding. This amendment is offered in the
spirit in a bipartisan way of clarifying the intent and the substance
of our legislation and our amendment, which we hope everyone will
support, to provide for the first-time major funding of an emergency
nature for our Nation's domestic defenders.
Mr. Chairman, it was never the intent of the author nor the coauthors
of this legislation to negatively impact the use of Community
Development Block Grant funds. Mr. Chairman, I will include my
statement in the Record to explain in some detail the justification for
what we originally intended to do and our agreement to work with the
appropriate subcommittee to enact reforms to the Community Development
Block Grant program.
I thank the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the
distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews), the
distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell), the gentleman
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster), and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr.
Smith). I want to thank the leadership for their cooperation; and I
encourage our colleagues to vote for this amendment.
After consultation with many of my colleagues, I am requesting
unanimous consent to delete the portions of the Weldon-Hoyer amendment
dealing with the reform of the Community Development Block Grant
(CDBG).
[[Page H1593]]
I realize that many of my colleagues have strong feelings about CDBG
and the role it plays in our low- and moderate-income communities. As a
former mayor of a town that receives CDBG funds and as a former
chairman of a county council that administers and distributes CDBG
funds, I share that commitment.
The CDBG reforms that were included in amendment 42 were intended to
do two things:
Clarify existing law to clearly define what fire and emergency
service activities are eligible for CDBG funds under the current
program.
Reform CDBG to allow counties and municipalities to designate
portions of their CDBG funds for activities that benefit poor
communities and also other areas of the community.
For example, my reforms would have allowed CDBG funds to be used for
the following activities:
Allow the use of CDBG funds for municipal-wide training facilities
for fire and EMS personnel--including basic fire and EMS training,
HAZMAT, terrorist threat response, etc. Such facilities would obviously
benefit poor communities, which often have less money available for
training and could take great advantage of a municipal-wide facility.
CDBG funds cannot currently be used for such an activity unless the
municipal government proves that 51 percent of the activities at the
facility benefit low- and moderate-income families--even if the
facility itself is located in a poor community.
Allow the use of CDBG funds for local fire and emergency service
organizations that routinely respond to emergencies in poor communities
or in areas that have high concentrations of poor people--even if these
groups are not themselves located in CDBG-eligible areas. For example,
many fire companies located in towns bordering poor communities respond
to fires and other emergencies in poor communities on a regular basis.
Likewise, local fire companies from non-CDBG eligible communities are
often the first response units for shopping malls, sporting arenas and
other community gathering places that attract large numbers of people
from low- and moderate-income communities.
Allow the use of CDBG funds for local fire and emergency service
organizations that are the first response units for highway accidents
and traffic incidents that impact low-income communities. For example,
if a major thoroughfare cuts through a low- and moderate-income
community, accidents on that thoroughfare impact the safety of that
community. Fire companies from surrounding municipalities are routinely
called upon to assist with major incidents--even though they themselves
are not located in CDBG-eligible areas.
By offering CDBG reforms along these lines, I was merely recognizing
the unique nature of fire and EMS response in our local communities.
Local first responders do not ask whether an emergency occurs in a low-
or moderate-income area, they respond without hesitation. It would seem
that we could take some small steps to help these organizations that
benefit many areas of the community--including our poorest communities.
It would not seem unreasonable to make some of these changes, given
the existing ``quirks'' in the administration of the CDBG program,
under which--
1. Curb cuts in even the wealthiest communities count as assisting
low- and moderate-income people, and
2. CDBG monies can be used for historic preservation in even the
wealthiest parts of the community once the municipality has certified
its CDBG spending for low- and moderate-income communities.
I am pleased that there are efforts to reform many parts of the CDBG
program in an authorization bill being authored by my friend
Congressman Lazio. I look forward to working with him to reform CDBG to
make it easier for counties and municipalities to spend CDBG funds in
cost-effective ways to benefit our low-income communities.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, further reserving the right to object, I
thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his action, and I yield to
the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell) who has been the principal
sponsor of a very large bill pending which will be heard on April 12,
of which this is a part.
Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Chairman, our leader on this issue, and on many
issues, has spoken. I think that this change is in order and is
something that all the sides have agreed upon. We should move quickly
as our first down payment on what we will hope will be the beginning of
a series of responses to the 32,000 fire departments and the hundreds
of thousands of fire fighters in America.
So I want to commend all of those who worked through the night to put
this together, and I believe it is absolutely necessary that we do this
to get it done.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, further reserving the right to object, I
thank the gentleman for his remarks, and I yield to the distinguished
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith), chairman of the subcommittee
overseeing these matters.
Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Chairman, I want to say that I also am
introducing a bill that hopefully takes care of this problem. I think
because those with low-income need this protection, because fire
departments are seeing a lot of damage in those homes that have bad
wiring, it is a consideration that we need to work out; and we are
going to do that. So in a more complete bill, we are headed in that
direction.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, further reserving the right to object, I
yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews), my friend and
cochair of the Fire Service Caucus.
Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, because of this bipartisan agreement, the
House is about to vote this morning for the first time in its history
for $100 million in direct aid to the fire service. The gentleman from
New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell) has really spearheaded this whole effort and
deserves enormous praise, as well as the gentleman from Pennsylvania
(Mr. Weldon) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) for bringing
forth the amendment, as well as the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer)
for championing it.
And let me say to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Meek) that she
deserves praise for bringing to our attention a very serious item that
was corrected.
I do believe that communities should be able to use Community
Development Block Grant money to help low-income areas for fire and
public safety, but the proper venue to make that decision is through
the authorizing process and in the appropriate committees. Because of
the gentlewoman's leadership, we are going to do this. I support this.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, further reserving my right to object, I
yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), ranking member
of the committee of jurisdiction.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer); and I first thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania
(Mr. Weldon) for the flexibility he showed, because I think we have a
solution here which preserves the very important purpose that he and
the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell) have been working on of
getting assistance to the fire fighters without impinging negatively
elsewhere.
The gentleman from Maryland played an important roll here, as well as
the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Meek), who has made her entrance as
I speak. I do not know if the meek are going to inherit the earth, but
they are entitled to inherit this bill after the brilliant work of the
gentlewoman from Florida.
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, under my reservation, I yield to the
gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Meek) who, in fact, I think has led us
to this very outstanding resolution of this issue.
Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) for removing all of the CDBG provisions
from the amendment.
As my colleagues all well know, I have been a strong supporter of the
fire service for many years, and I am glad to see that we were able to
come to an agreement that provides firemen with the needed funds and
without injuring the CDBG low- and moderate-income Americans that the
CDBG program serves.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, again, I thank the gentlewoman from Florida
(Mrs. Meek) for her outstanding leadership.
Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.
Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the amendment to
H.R. 3908 by both Congressmen Curt Weldon and Nick Smith. Throughout
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and other States, millions of people
in cities, towns, and rural areas depend on the volunteer fire service
to be there when a fire burns a home or a child breaks a leg. If there
is no money to help our volunteer firefighters what will our neighbors
do in an emergency? The Weldon/Smith amendment will ensure that our
volunteer firefighters will
[[Page H1594]]
have the money to purchase the equipment needed to help the victims of
tragedy.
As a Member of Congress who represents a district that depends on
dozens of volunteer fire companies to keep its communities safe, I
would like to applaud the sponsors of this amendment. My State of
Pennsylvania is home to the largest number of volunteer fire companies
in the United States. Unfortunately, a great majority of them are
underfunded. The typical budget for a volunteer fire department is less
than $20,000 a year. This amendment would provide for $80,000,000 for a
competitive grant program to award money to volunteer, paid, and
combined departments that provide fire and emergency medical services
and can demonstrate a legitimate financial need.
I am also pleased that this amendment expands on a bill I sponsored,
H.R. 3155, known as the Firefighter's Local-Federal Assistance for
Management of Emergencies Act of 1999, or FLAME Act. The idea for the
FLAME Act started with one of my constituents, Mr. Francis Ditzler of
the Lickdale Volunteer Fire Company in Lebanon County, PA. Mr. Ditzler
pointed out that as the rate and severity of highway accidents has
increased in the last 10 years along Interstate 81 in Lebanon County,
the rate of funding increases for volunteer fire companies has not kept
pace. In my home State, struggling Lickdale Volunteer Fire Company,
like other struggling volunteer fire companies, does not have the money
to purchase the equipment necessary to help treat the victims of auto
accidents that occur along their 25 mile stretch of the Interstate.
Twenty years ago, the answer in Pennsylvania was the Volunteer Loan
Assistance Program that would allow volunteer companies to take out
low-interest loans for needed equipment. Today, 20 years after this
low-interest loan program was drafted, volunteer fire companies still
need financial help.
The FLAME Act would provide a competitive grant program to those
States that have a Volunteer Loan Assistance Program. The FLAME Act,
which was introduced in the first session of the 106th Congress,
creates a partnership between Federal, State and local governments that
encourages volunteer fire companies to pay off their low-interest
State-sponsored loans for equipment and buildings. H.R. 3155 will help
our volunteer fire companies help themselves without raising taxes or
earmarking another appropriation.
My legislation would provide a Federal matching grant of up to
$15,000 to any volunteer fire company that has a State-sponsored
volunteer loan program and may raise equal amounts of money through
voluntary contribution and through local government grants. The goal of
the FLAME Act is to encourage other States to establish volunteer
firefighter loan assistant programs.
The Federal Government is not the only level of government working to
better fund our volunteer fire departments. The Pennsylvania
Legislature is considering a $25,000,000 grant program that mirrors the
FLAME Act and will provide similar benefits as my bill. The
Pennsylvania measure would also provide competitive grant programs to
volunteer fire companies throughout the State.
The amendment we have before us today will accomplish many of the
same goals as my legislation. These award grants may be used for
purchase of personal protective equipment, apparatus, establishing
fitness programs for firefighting personnel, for the purchase of
computers to integrate computer technology to improve records
management and training capabilities, and to modernize fire stations
among a myriad of other items. In an era of fiscal responsibility and
Federal and State financial partnerships, I find this legislation to be
one of the most important the House passes this year.
The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the earlier voice vote is vacated.
There was no objection.
The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the amendment is modified, and the
Chair will put the question on its adoption de novo.
Thre was no objection.
The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment, as modified, offered
by the gentlemen from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon).
The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the ayes
appeared to have it.
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to House Resolution 450, further proceedings
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Weldon) will be postponed.
Amendment No. 12 Offered By Mr. Kasich
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Part B Amendment No. 12 offered by Mr. Kasich:
At the end of the bill, insert after the last section
(preceding the short title) the following new section:
Sec. __. (a) Of the amounts appropriated in this Act under
the heading ``Overseas Contingency Operations Transfer Fund''
for military operations in Kosovo, not more than 50 percent
may be obligated until the President certifies in writing to
Congress that the European Commission, the member nations of
the European Union, and the European member nations of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization have, in the aggregate--
(1) obligated or contracted for at least 33 percent of the
amount of the assistance that those organizations and nations
committed to provide for 1999 and 2000 for reconstruction in
Kosovo;
(2) obligated or contracted for at least 75 percent of the
amount of the assistance that those organizations and nations
committed for 1999 and 2000 for humanitarian assistance in
Kosovo;
(3) provided at least 75 percent of the amount of the
assistance that those organizations and nations committed for
1999 and 2000 for the Kosovo Consolidated Budget; and
(4) deployed at least 75 percent of the number of police,
including special police, that those organizations and
nations pledged for the United Nations international police
force for Kosovo.
(b) The President shall submit to Congress, with any
certification submitted by the President under subsection
(a), a report containing detailed information on--
(1) the commitments and pledges made by each organization
and nation referred to in subsection (a) for reconstruction
assistance in Kosovo, humanitarian assistance in Kosovo, the
Kosovo Consolidated Budget, and police (including special
police) for the United Nations international police force for
Kosovo;
(2) the amount of assistance that has been provided in each
category, and the number of police that have been deployed to
Kosovo, by each such organization or nation; and
(3) the full range of commitments and responsibilities that
have been undertaken for Kosovo by the United Nations, the
European Union, and the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the progress made by those
organizations in fulfilling those commitments and
responsibilities, an assessment of the tasks that remain to
be accomplished, and an anticipated schedule for completing
those tasks.
(c) If the President does not submit to Congress a
certification and report under subsections (a) and (b) on or
before June 1, 2000, then, beginning on June 2, 2000, the 50
percent of the amounts appropriated in this Act under the
heading ``Overseas Contingency Operations Transfer Fund'' for
military operations in Kosovo that remain unobligated (as
required by subsection (a)) shall be available only for the
purpose of conducting a safe, orderly, and phased withdrawal
of United States military personnel from Kosovo, and no other
amounts appropriated for the Department of Defense in this
Act or any Act enacted before the date of the enactment of
this Act may be obligated to continue the deployment of
United States military personnel in Kosovo. In that case, the
President shall submit to Congress, not later than June 30,
2000, a report on the plan for the withdrawal.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to House Resolution 450, the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Kasich) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) each will
control 15 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich).
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, let me say to the Members of the House, this is
actually not a burden-sharing amendment. This is just designed to get
our friends across the ocean to live up to their commitment.
Just to give my colleagues a sense of where we are, the United States
has a GDP, an economy, the size of about $8.9 trillion. The Europeans
compare favorably of $8.3 trillion. Yet we spend $283 billion on
defense; they only spend $180 billion. I wonder why we have to have our
people over there for 40 years, because they have not been carrying the
load.
This is not even an issue about them carrying the load in a more
aggressive way. What this is designed to say is that the United States
has committed $20 billion to Bosnia, to Kosovo over the last few years.
When we went into Kosovo, regardless of how one may feel about the
action, let us put that aside for a second, and let us talk about the
pledge that the Europeans made.
They told us that they would help in rebuilding the country. They
told us they would help in a variety of ways. What this amendment is
designed to do is to carry forward the idea of Senator Warner who said
that we need to get them to honor their commitment. This is not
designed to increase their commitment. This is really not designed to
[[Page H1595]]
increase burden sharing. This amendment is only designed to say to the
Europeans they made a pledge to us; keep it.
The Europeans pledged 3,883 policemen in Kosovo. They have only paid
for 1,878. Our amendment says they pledged 3,800; deliver 3,800. They
made a promise to do it. They said they would do it. Why do they not
step up to the plate and keep their word.
The Europeans' pledge for the rebuilding of Kosovo, for civil
administration, they pledged $140 million. They have only given $30
million. Now, how unreasonable is it to say to our European allies, you
promised us $140 million, come through with $140 million? That is what
you pledged to do.
In terms of reconstruction aid, rebuilding those arts of Kosovo that
we bombed to a large degree on their behalf, they pledged $410 million,
but they have only delivered $44 million.
So what does this amendment say? It does not say we expect them to
dramatically increase their contribution. It only says that they ought
to live up to the pledge that they made and keep their word. Their
economy is relatively the same size as the United States. The least
they can do, after we flew all those sorties and they made their
pledges, is to simply keep their word. This is a time to change the way
in which we conduct business post-World War II.
My colleagues are going to hear today, ``not the right time,'' ``not
the right amendment,'' ``not the right wording.'' Baloney. All we have
to do in the United States is to say, keep your word. What we will find
is the Europeans will. Now is the time to act.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Chairman, very reluctantly, I rise in opposition to this
amendment. I do so, not because I disagree with the gentleman from Ohio
(Mr. Kasich), because I agree with almost everything that he said.
The problem is with the amendment itself. I am concerned that his
limitation on not more than 50 percent of the funds in the Kosovo
section could not be released until certain things happened. The
problem with this is, Mr. Chairman, money has already been spent. We
are not providing money in this bill for Kosovo to rebuild Kosovo. We
are not doing anything in this bill to actually deploy troops to
Kosovo. What we do in this bill is replace the money that has already
been spent by the deployment to Kosovo.
Now, if we were in a position to demand certain things from the
European allies, I would be standing up here with the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Kasich) to do that, because I think that that is only fair.
But as I read this amendment closely, not only on the first page, but
the third page, just let me make one comment about a section on the
third page, it says, if the President does not submit to Congress a
certification required, et cetera, et cetera, then beginning on June 2,
the 50 percent of the amounts appropriated in this act can only be used
to remove the troops.
Now, I am for removing the troops. But I have to tell my colleagues
that the money in the bill is not there to remove the troops. This
money is to replace monies that have already been spent. The monies
have been spent from the fourth quarter operations and maintenance
accounts of our military services.
Now, if we do not replenish this money, we are going to have to stand
down our training exercises, park the ships, park the airplanes, park
the trucks, park the tanks, and training will grind to a halt. We do
not have until June 2 to make that decision. That decision has got to
be made late in April or early in May because, for those exercises that
have to be stood down. The planning has to begin in April or May.
So as strongly as I agree with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich)
and what he is trying to accomplish, this amendment will not accomplish
that; and this amendment will cause severe chaos, in fact, in the
operations and maintenance of our military during the last quarter of
this fiscal year.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds just to point out
that, last night, we approved an additional $4 billion in this bill. It
is never the right time, never the right place.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Alabama
(Mr. Bachus).
Mr. BACHUS. Mr. Chairman, let me say this, we have an agreement here,
and I think there is a consensus building which ought to pass this
amendment. What that consensus is is that the military needs more
money. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the chairman of the full
committee, said they may need money to withdraw from Kosovo. But if we
do not approve this amendment, if we do not approve this bill, there is
no money there.
Well, let me say something to every Member. Every cent of the money
in the bill will go to the military if this amendment passes. This
amendment does not stop any funding of our military. All the funding,
every penny will go to our armed services.
If our allies live up to their commitments, if they deliver what they
promised, look again, this is what they promised. This is what they
promised. This is what they promised.
But look on that right-hand side as to what they deliver. If they
deliver what they promised, every cent will go to the military to be
used in Kosovo. Now, if they do not deliver what they promised, then as
the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the chairman of the committee,
said, our troops need to come home. That is what we provide. If they do
not deliver on their promises, the money is available to bring the
troops home. But every cent of the money is available under the
amendment.
Wesley Clark testified before the Senate, and he said the failure to
have civil implementation is threatening the peace. It is threatening
the military victory. We have either got to have a speedier
implementation, or we need withdrawal.
Let me quote to my colleagues one other thing. How long are we going
to be in Kosovo? Well, General Klaus Reinhardt last week said, ``I am
talking 5 years and it could be 10 years.'' ``I am talking 5 years and
it could be 10 years.''
The reason we fail to commit the forces necessary to keep the peace,
World War II lasted 4 years and World War I, 2 years. Korea lasted 3
years. Do we want to commit our third graders to Kosovo?
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds just to
say that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) mentioned that we did add
additional money to the defense part of this bill. That is true.
However, it is not applicable to the section that we are dealing with
in his amendment, and that is the problem that I have in his amendment.
The money that we added yesterday was for specific purposes other
than Kosovo. The gentleman's amendment goes directly to the issue of
Kosovo, and that is not where the extra money was added.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the author of the
amendment a question, please.
Last night, I had thought that I was going to be supporting this
amendment, but I have a question. The House adopted last night a human
rights amendment which had a presidential waiver on the subject, which
is important to us, but certainly is not absolutely essential to our
own national security interests.
It is my understanding now this morning that the gentleman's
amendment does not have the authority for presidential waiver even if
he believes that this would threaten national security or put U.S.
troops in danger. Is that correct?
Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich).
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, there is no waiver.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I find that incredibly troubling. Perhaps it
was fortunate we did not take this up last night so we have had a
chance to reread the gentleman's amendment. What appeared to be
innocent last night, absent the presidential waiver, would be extremely
troubling, especially in light of the Secretary of Defense's statement
it would put the interest of U.S. troops at risk.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 20 seconds to make a point.
It is
[[Page H1596]]
about time that the Congress of the United States started asserting
itself when it comes to foreign policy. We are not engaging in some
major foreign policy decision other than to tell the Europeans to live
up to their commitment.
What is the message that gets sent when this is defeated? Do my
colleagues know what it is? If you make a promise and you break it and
you stiff us, that is okay. That is wrong. We better get on the stick
and realize that we are a big chunk of how we set foreign policy.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
Connecticut (Mr. Shays).
Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, by the end of next year, we will have spent
$20 billion, $20 billion in the Balkans. The amendment that the
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) and the gentleman from California (Mr.
Condit) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) and the
gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus) and I are introducing is really the
amendment of the chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services,
Mr. Warner.
{time} 1030
And basically it says that our allies need to pay 33 percent of the
construction costs they committed and 75 percent of the humanitarian
assistance, the Kosovo Consolidated Budget and the international police
budget. And if they do not, then we will withdraw our troops. We are
saying they should live up to their commitments.
Now, why would we care if they pay their commitment? One reason is we
ask the Japanese to pay 75 percent of the nonsalary costs of our troops
in the Japan theater, and they give us $3.6 billion. We ask the
Europeans to pay for the 100,000 troops stationed on that continent,
and they give us $66 million. This is a joke, and it has got to end.
So at the very least, when our allies make a commitment, they should
live up to it. They should pay their bills. And if they are not willing
to, let them stop taking us for a ride.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), chairman of the Subcommittee on
Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs.
(Mr. CALLAHAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Ohio just said that
Members of Congress should assert themselves on foreign policy. I would
like to bring to the attention of the chairman of the Committee on the
Budget the law, the law written by the Committee on Appropriations and
passed by this House. The law, in accompanying report language,
specifically denies the ability of the administration to spend more
than 15 percent of the total expenditures in Kosovo. So we have already
addressed this issue.
The percentage that the gentleman from Ohio is using is going to be
confusing because it appears to increase the ability of the United
States. I wish the gentleman from Ohio would listen to this because I
am responding to his indication. But it appears as if his amendment,
although it is not his intent, might even say with the higher
percentage factor that we are backing down on our insistence that our
administration only spend 15 percent. So I would invite the gentleman
from Ohio to read existing law whereby this Congress prohibits the
administration from spending more than 15 percent.
Under the law, the President must come back to the Congress if indeed
they violate that. They came to us in December of 1999, and they
certified that the United States' contribution was only 14.9 percent.
So I share the sentiment of the gentleman from Ohio; I think he is
moving in the right direction, but fortunately, the Congress has very
responsibly already addressed this issue and the law is the law. We do
not need confusing additional law to complicate the issue.
The President requested $100 million for assistance in Kosovo. The
committee rejected that, and we only included $12 million. So I feel
like the amendment, although I know that is not the intent of the
gentleman from Ohio, the amendment would actually deplete the ability
of the administration to have money to replenish money already spent.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, it is appropriate that we
just heard from the gentleman in charge of foreign aid, because this is
the biggest foreign aid program in the history of America. It is one in
which the United States' taxpayers consistently and generously
subsidize the other richest people in the world.
Europe will be very happy if the combined establishment here, the
leadership, the President, all these putative opponents, come together
to defeat this, because no bigger present could be given the European
taxpayers than this amendment.
The gentleman from Alabama says we have already done that; we said
they cannot spend more than 15 percent. Lo and behold it came to 14.9
percent, no doubt an independently arrived at calculation. But here is
what the facts are. On March 1, two articles, which at an appropriate
point I will put in the Record, reflect what General Shelton said.
``General Shelton's letter reflected anger at European allies for not
contributing as many troops as requested for expected in Kosovo.'' That
is from the New York Times. Here is The Washington Post quoting Mr.
Bacon, the Pentagon spokesperson. ``The chairman, General Shelton, made
it clear he doesn't think it's appropriate for American troops to go to
out-of-sector operations on a regular basis to take up police work that
should be done by the forces in those other sectors.''
Yes, we have said that they should help out, but we have zero
enforcement. This is the only enforcement. Now, I know when in control
of the administration and in control of the appropriations process, one
can always say it is not perfect. Agreed, it is not perfect. It is just
better than anything that we have come up with.
Let us be very clear here. What we are seeing is the pattern in this
House. When we see the administration do something, we will yell; we
will scream; we will beat our chests. We will do everything but vote to
change it. There is no doctrine of executive usurpation in foreign
policy. What we have is a consistent unbroken pattern of congressional
dereliction of duty in foreign policy.
There are Members here who will go home and make great speeches, some
will not even wait to go home, saying it is terrible we are in Kosovo;
we are spending too much; the Europeans are not doing anything. Here is
a vehicle to do something about it, and there is not room under the
table as Members jump to get under it. This is the only enforcement
vehicle we have.
All this talk about what the rules are means nothing. Look at what
General Shelton said. They are not there; we are there. My colleagues
say we have to help our troops. Do we help our troops by continuing to
allow Europe not to do this? What this House will be if we defeat this
amendment, we will continue our roles as the enablers of European
dependence. We will say to the Europeans, promise them anything, but do
not follow through. And when anybody tries to enforce that promise,
they do not have to worry, because they will come back and say, well,
it is not perfect, it is not this.
As far as the waiver is concerned, the amendment does say the
withdrawal has to be safe and orderly. The fact is this is the only
enforcement vehicle around.
Mr. Chairman, the articles I referred to above are included for the
Record.
[From the New York Times, Mar. 1, 2000]
Joint Chiefs Chairman Protests Troops' Mission to Kosovo Town
(By Jane Perlez)
Irritated that American troops had to retreat from a
bottle-throwing mob in Kosovo, the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Henry H. Shelton, has written to NATO's
supreme commander, Gen. Wesley K. Clark, telling him not to
use American troops outside their designated sector.
The letter, according to Pentagon and NATO officials, told
General Clark that other countries involved in the NATO
peacekeeping operation had to send more troops to Kosovo
before significant numbers of American troops would again be
allowed on a mission outside the sector assigned to the
United States' control.
General Shelton sent the letter to General Clark a few days
after the retreat on Feb. 20 of 350 American soldiers from
Mitrovica. The American soldiers had been sent out to the
[[Page H1597]]
troubled city, where Albanian and Serbian residents are at a
standoff and where French troops needed reinforcements.
Pentagon officials acknowledged today that General Shelton
had concurred with General Clark's plan to send the troops
from their sector in southeast Kosovo to Mitrovica before the
mission was under way.
But although General Shelton had agreed ahead of time to
the mission, the underlying tone of the letter, according to
officials, questioned the wisdom of sending American troops
into a volatile situation involving hostile Serbian
civilians. General Shelton's letter, and a mood of discontent
about the Kosovo peacekeeping operation in the Senate Armed
Services Committee during a hearing with General Clark today,
reflected anger at European allies for not contributing as
many troops as requested or expected in Kosovo. Several
senators complained that after the United States had led the
air campaign in the Kosovo war, the Europeans had pledged to
lead the peacekeeping in Kosovo but had failed to live up to
their promise. ``There is more than whiff of hype, where the
Europeans talk of doing more,'' then fail to carry out their
commitments in Kosovo, said Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of
Michigan.
The chairman of the committee, Senator John W. Warner,
Republican of Virginia, asked General Clark why American
troops were involved in house-to-house searches for weapons
in Mitrovica. Senator Warner recalled that in Somalia, where
American troops were involved in an ill-fated peacekeeping
operation in 1992, house-to-house searches by American
soldiers were ruled out as too dangerous. General Clark said
that in contrast to Somalia, where American troops were not
welcome, the NATO troops in Kosovo were respected and wanted
by large groups of the local population. But pressing ahead,
Senator Warner questioned the utility of a weapons search in
a city that was only a few miles from a porous border with
Serbia across which weapons freely flowed.
Senator Warner asked, ``What was the total number of arms''
seized in Mitrovica? General Clark replied, ``Twenty-five.''
A NATO official explained after the hearing that the searches
for weapons in Mitrovica were conducted by troops of several
nations and were announced to the community by community
leaders just beforehand so that the searches appeared
evenhanded. Both Albanian and Serbian homes were searched, in
northern and southern Mitrovica, the official said. In his
testimony, General Clark said that the Yugoslav president,
Slobodan Milosevic, was very much in control in Serbia and
that he was unlikely to be defeated or disappear any time
soon.
____
[From the Washington Post, Mar. 1, 2000]
American Troops in Kosovo Restricted to U.S. Sector
(By Roberto Suro)
U.S. troops in Kosovo will stick to their own turf under
orders announced by the Pentagon yesterday that sharply limit
missions to assist the peacekeepers of other nationalities.
The new restrictions reflect concerns in the Defense
Department and the White House over a violent encounter last
week between a Serbian mob and American soldiers who had been
sent to help French peacekeepers with a police action in the
French sector, according to a senior military official.
``The issue here is, how often do we get dragged into a
situation where we have to perform out-of-sector operations
that can diminish our ability to operate within our own
sector?'' Pentagon spokesman Kenneth H. Bacon said. About
5,300 U.S. troops patrol the southeastern sector of Kosovo.
French, Italian, German and British forces are in charge of
their own sector of the troubled Serbian province. The extent
to which troops of various nationalities are available to
reinforce each other has become a matter of both military and
diplomatic dispute, as NATO peacekeepers contend with rising
unrest while their own numbers decline.
The new orders came in a letter from Gen. Henry H. Shelton,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to NATO's top military
commander, U.S. Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark. ``The chairman
made it clear that he doesn't think it's appropriate for
American troops to go to out-of-sector operations on a
regular basis to take up police work that should be done by
the forces in those other sectors,'' Bacon said.
The still-classified letter was dated Feb. 20, Bacon said.
That was the day when a battalion of 350 U.S. soldiers helped
conduct a house-to-house search for illegal weapons in
Mitrovica, a town in the French sector where Serbs and the
ethnic Albanians who dominate Kosovo have frequently clashed.
The Americans encountered a rock-throwing mob of protesting
Serbs; and although no U.S. soldier was seriously injured,
senior civilian and military policy makers felt the mission
was risky and unnecessary, senior officials said.
Clark informed Washington about the mission but ordered it
on his own authority, just as he had on two previous
occasions when U.S. forces went to the aid of peacekeepers in
other sectors. Appearing before a congressional hearing
yesterday, Clark defended cross-sector operations as
essential in Kosovo. Under the terms of Shelton's letter,
however, U.S. troops will operate in other sectors only ``on
an extraordinary emergency basis,'' Bacon said.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, would the Chair advise us of the
remaining time on each side.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) has 5\1/2\ minutes
remaining, and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) has 9 minutes
remaining.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 10 seconds to the
gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan).
Mr. CALLAHAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I just
wanted to say to the gentleman from Massachusetts, surely he does not
think the President of the United States or the Secretary of State
would lie to Congress.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I yield 10 seconds to the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I would respond to the
gentleman from Alabama, that I do not think they would lie. I think
they would be willing, however, to mislead my colleague, if he were as
willing to be misled as he is.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha), the very distinguished
leading expert on national defense issues.
Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, this deployment is not about Europe; this
is about the United States. When we deploy troops, we deploy in our
national security.
Now, this is a cute way of trying to reduce our deployment to Europe.
We had 400,000 troops in there for years against the Soviet Union. Now,
we can argue about how many troops ought to be there right now, but
when we are doing it this way, NATO's in command. We said the U.N.
could not do it, so we put NATO in command. This amendment says no
presidential waiver. It says, okay, if they do not live up to their
obligation, then we have to pull our troops out.
Now, let us take Luxembourg; let us take Iceland. Let us say there is
a lobbying effort for those two little countries, and they get them to
pull their troops out. They are deciding the foreign policy of the
United States. Iceland and Luxembourg, under this amendment, would be
setting the foreign policy for the United States.
We are in Kosovo to save lives. Now, there is a lot of people that
can disclaim that. A lot of people can say let the Europeans do it.
They, obviously, could not get their act together, or we would not be
involved. We are involved because of the security of the United States.
Do my colleagues know how many wars have started in the Balkans? Two
wars started in the Balkans. My dad and three of his brothers served in
World War II.
We are talking about the security of the United States, and we are
not going to allow Iceland, and we are not going to allow Luxembourg to
set the policy for the United States. And that is exactly what these
four gentlemen are doing. They are surreptitiously trying to figure out
a way to get the troops out of Europe, reduce our deployment to Europe.
This is not the way to do it.
If we want to limit the deployments, let us face it up front. Let us
argue about it. Let us debate it and say we are going to limit the
amount of money and we are going to pull our troops out. Let us not do
it in a way that lets Luxembourg or Iceland take control, and then not
have a presidential waiver that speaks to the security of our troops,
or if the Secretary of Defense says this is endangering our troops, and
there is no waiver in order to cover that.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. First, of course, Mr. Chairman, we are
not talking about Luxembourg and Iceland, as the gentleman knows. The
gentleman wants to get into burlesque. We are talking about France and
Germany. They are the ones who made the commitment. They are the ones
whose taxpayers the gentleman is so valiantly defending.
Secondly, the amendment says there must be a safe and orderly
withdrawal.
But, finally, we are not making policy. We are just telling people to
live up to it. It is General Shelton who said I am not letting the
American troops be put at risk because of the failure of the Europeans
to live up to their commitments. It is General Shelton, the
[[Page H1598]]
chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who has said, the failure, the ongoing
failure of the Europeans, France and Germany, and Italy and England,
they are the ones who are endangering the troops.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly).
Mrs. KELLY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment
offered by my friend from Ohio because the elimination of funding in
Kosovo would not only make the time and resources that the U.S. has
already expended a total waste, but it would also render meaningless
the loss of life, the suffering and the hardship imposed on the ethnic
Albanians in Kosovo.
We are talking about people and their lives. For us to walk away from
a commitment to peace in Kosovo would essentially give Slobodan
Milosevic free reign in his campaign to force the remaining ethnic
Albanians out of Yugoslavia and Kosovo.
Peace in this region will not be coming overnight. Our forces who are
currently stationed in Kosovo are working in partnership with our NATO
allies. This is not our burden to carry alone. If our NATO allies are
not paying up, why punish the Kosovar people?
Order, peace, and hope for long-term security are beginning to spread
in Kosovo. However, without our leadership and commitment, I think our
allies will not continue their efforts; and everything we have already
spent will be for nothing.
Please join me, my colleagues, in opposing this amendment.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from
Alabama (Mr. Bachus).
Mr. BACHUS. Mr. Chairman, let me respond to the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, because he and I agree. We should not let the Europeans
dictate our military policy. But, in fact, under the present status
quo, they are directing our military policy.
In fact, President Clinton, in a letter to us in October, and I am
going to introduce that, when asked when will we withdraw our armed
forces, he said, ``Our armed forces will be withdrawn from operations
based on the assessment of the progress of civil implementation, and
that depends on our European allies.''
Here is the progress of that civil implementation. There has been no
progress. As General Klaus said, we could be there 10 years.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman
from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), who is the ranking member of the Committee
on Armed Services.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time.
Our friend from Ohio said that we should assert ourselves and send a
message. Let me tell my colleagues what that message would be. The
message would be that raising the possibility of American troops
withdrawing from Kosovo encourages extremist elements in Kosovo and
Belgrade who are determined to see NATO's mission fail in the Balkans.
This amendment would damage the readiness of our armed forces for the
rest of the fiscal year and for the rest of our efforts there. Sure,
European allies should and they will do more to meet their commitments
in Kosovo. We should continue to encourage them to do so. But we do not
by this amendment want to surrender to foreign nations the ultimate
decision-making authority on the deployment of United States' troops.
Congress and the executive branch should make that decision. Cutting
off funds and forcing the withdrawal of our forces from Kosovo should
not be an automatic based on what the Europeans do.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I can hardly believe the arguments here. We
have spent over $20 billion in the Balkans. We flew 75 percent of the
sorties using American flesh and blood to do it. And what this
amendment says is that when the Europeans make a pledge, they ought to
live up to it.
If my colleague goes to a town hall meeting in Johnstown,
Pennsylvania, and says the Europeans said they were going to give us
$140 million and they only gave us $30 million, they are in trouble and
so we have to cough up the rest of the bill. I would suggest to my
colleague that, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, he will be run out on a
rail.
{time} 1045
The fact is that all we are doing in this amendment is to say, when
they make a pledge, when they say they are going to give $140 million
to help Kosovo, just give it.
When it is said that we degrade the military by offering this
amendment, that is total bunk. The military does not lose this money.
In fact, the money would give increased readiness because it would say
that we do not have to spread ourselves out all over the world. The
military does not lose anything.
My colleagues should stand up for their taxpayers. Because if they do
not, they are going to come to the town halls and they are going to
hold them accountable.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds just to
say that I agree with what the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) is
saying, but that is not what his amendment does. What he is saying is
great, but what his amendment does is not what he is saying.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr.
Andrews).
(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment
because I think it is the right policy being put forth by the wrong
branch of government.
The idea that we should assert ourselves in foreign policy is right.
The issue is when should we assert ourselves in foreign policy. I
believe it is before we put thousands of young Americans at risk in a
region of the world.
I think the administration should have come to us before they made
this commitment, and we should have had this debate before the country
got involved. But they did not.
I do not see this as an affirmation of legislative authority. I see
this as an affirmation of a need to protect thousands of young
Americans who are in Kosovo today.
Conditions change every day, every hour, every minute; and when
conditions change, there needs to be the authority to make decisions
quickly and flexibly. This amendment deprives the President of that
authority.
For that reason, I cannot support it. I urge its defeat.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I hope some alert
journalist is going to publish a catalogue of the excuses for Congress
never to make a tough decision. We should have done it before. We
cannot do it after.
We are told, by the way, that it is too dangerous for the troops to
be there. Now, how do we increase the danger by withdrawing them? There
may be good reasons for keeping them there. I believe there are. But
protecting them from the danger of being there is hardly a good reason
to keep them there. And that is what they are saying.
People say they agree, the Europeans ought to pay more. But this
House has consistently refused to do anything to force the Europeans to
do it. And they know empty rhetoric when they see it. They are very
sophisticated.
What this amendment is intending to do, by the way, is not to pull
out. This is an amendment that says Europe should begin to pay up.
Apparently, there is a lack of confidence in our European allies
amongst some of the leadership in the Committee on Appropriations that
is greater than there is for us. Because they say, if we condition our
staying there on the Europeans doing what General Shelton complains
that they are not doing, that will lead to abandonment.
Well, if the troops are overexposed and it is costing us too much
money, there are two things to do, have the Europeans pay their fair
share or withdraw them. We hope it is the former. But in neither case
are we increasing the danger to the troops.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman
from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver), as a member of the Committee on
Appropriations.
Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me the
time.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment, which threatens
the unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces and resources from Kosovo.
[[Page H1599]]
The need in Kosovo for peacekeeping reconstruction and development of
civil and judicial administration is greater than all the promises put
together by the NATO allies and the U.S.
The authors of this amendment are right in one respect. Every
diplomatic effort to hold NATO allies to their agreement is entirely
appropriate. But threatening to unilaterally end our freely given
commitment just makes the peacekeeping job so ably done by our deployed
men and women and the massive reconstruction that is needed, the job of
massive reconstruction, makes those a great deal harder.
And, God forbid, if we were to actually act upon this threat, the end
result could only be giving the final initiative back to Milosevic.
Vote against this amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Chair would inform Members that the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Kasich) has 2\1/2\ minutes remaining, and the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Young) has 2\1/2\ minutes remaining.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Connecticut (Mr. Shays).
Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, by the end of next year, we will have spent
$20 billion in the Balkans.
What we are asking is that our allies live up to their commitments.
We are saying, on the reconstruction account for Kosovo, they make a 33
percent down payment; that they pay 75 percent of the humanitarian
assistance in Kosovo that they pledged; that they pay 75 percent for
the Kosovo Consolidated Budget that they pledged; and that they provide
75 percent of the international police force for Kosovo that they
pledged.
Why does the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) assume that we
will have to take our troops out? Does he assume they are not going to
live up to their commitment? Well, maybe it is an assumption he is
right in making.
They only give us $66 million for 100,000 troops. We get $3.6 billion
for our 40,000 troops in Japan.
I rise in strong support of this amendment, which I have offered on a
bipartisan basis with Congressmen John Kasich, Gary Condit, Barney
Frank, and Spencer Bachus. They are among the hardest working Members
of Congress and it is a pleasure to be offering this amendment with
them. I also want to thank the author of this amendment, Senator John
Warner, who intends to offer this amendment along with Senators Daniel
Inouye, Pat Roberts, and Olympia Snowe when the Senate takes up its
version of this legislation. When the Chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee says our allies need to live up to their
obligations, I think we all need to take this amendment seriously.
Our bipartisan amendment puts in place a framework for ensuring our
European NATO allies live up to their financial commitments with
respect to the war and subsequent peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. Last
year, the United States puts its money, personnel and military
equipment on the line to bring peace and stability to the Balkan
region. Our military's men and women served with great distinction and
did our Nation proud. But to this day, our NATO allies have not lived
up to their financial commitments and obligations. The most egregious
example of our allies' noncompliance is their failure to deploy
military personnel for the United Nations international police force
for Kosovo. NATO and the EU nations committed to contribute 1,264
personnel for this force. But to date, they have deployed 747 members--
or 59 percent.
The United States, in contrast, has deployed 489 (or 89 percent) of
the 550 we have committed. And I am told that the remaining 61 are on
their way and should be in Kosovo in the next week or two. Our
amendment says our allies need to do better. They need to get that
number up from 747 to 948. Surely they can accomplish this by June 1.
Another reason we are offering this amendment is because there is
simply a lack of good information as to what precisely our allies have
committed to providing. In fact, our own Department of State and
National Security Council can't seem to provide identical data. So I
think it is very important to require the administration to submit a
report to Congress specifying the commitments and pledges made by the
European Commission, and the member states of the European Union and
NATO.
Part B of our amendment does exactly this. It requires a report to be
submitted by June 1 detailing these commitments. I want to stress that
we are not applying a straitjacket to the administration. The President
will have a certain level of flexibility in determining what it is our
allies have said they owe. Our amendment would withhold 50 percent of
the supplemental appropriation bill's funding for military operations
in Kosovo until the President certifies that the European Commission,
member nations of the European Union, and European member nations of
NATO have provided at least:
33 percent of the assistance committed by them for 1999 and 2000 for
reconstruction in Kosovo;
75 percent of the assistance committed by them for 1999 and 2000 for
humanitarian assistance in Kosovo;
75 percent of the assistance committed by them for 1999 and 2000 for
the Kosovo Consolidated Budget; and
75 percent of the number of police committed by them for the United
Nations international police force for Kosovo.
I want to stress these thresholds are anything but arbitrary. They
represent reasonable downpayments on the pledges and commitments made
by our European allies. Recognizing that autonomous nations have
different fiscal years and budget processes, we do not seek full
compliance in this amendment, but merely a downpayment. And,
recognizing that funding for reconstruction programs is often disbursed
over a series of years, we merely require a portion of this funding to
be made available right away.
If the President does not certify that these benchmarks have been met
by June 1, 2000, the withheld funding appropriated for military
operations in Kosovo would be made available only for the purpose of
conducting a safe, orderly and phased withdrawal of United States
military personnel from Kosovo.
I want to speak for a moment about what our amendment does not do.
Our amendment does not change United States policy toward Kosovo and
the Balkans. Our amendment does not alter the parameters of our mission
in Kosovo. Our amendment does not reduce the number of troops the
United States has committed to the international peackeeping force or
the U.N. police force. Our amendment does not decrease the funding for
Kosovo in this bill, which is equal the administration's request. And
our amendment does not require our allies to pay for more than they
promised. In fact, it asks for less. It merely requires a downpayment.
What our amendment does do is uphold current United States policy in
Kosovo by requiring our allies to live up to their agreements. This is
not an unjustifiable request. The United States has consistently met
its obligations--even exceeded them--with respect to the conflict in
Kosovo. This Congress has passed in a timely fashion appropriations
bills fully funding our participation in this conflict, and the
President has signed these appropriations bills.
Our allies, unfortunately, have failed to meet their obligations. Our
amendment will help encourage our European allies to provide the
necessary resources and personnel to implement the peacekeeping mission
in Kosovo. An equitable burdensharing arrangement strikes us as being
inherently fair and appropriate. After all, during the 78 days of
combat over Serbia, the United States bore the major share of the air
war, flying approximately 70 percent of the sorties. The men and women
of our Armed Forces took the greatest personal risks. And the United
States taxpayer paid the lion's share of the costs: more than $4
billion at last count.
I know our allies contributed to the military intervention in Kosovo.
But as they know all too well, it was the United States that provided
the high-performance aircraft, the guided missiles, the transport
aircraft, and the B-2 bombers that made this joint effort a success. I
am afraid if Congress does not step in and say, unequivocally, that our
allies need to live up to their commitments, this administration will
simply allow them to slide, as they've done too many times in the past.
The result, undoubtedly, will be that more of our Nation's tax surplus
will be expended to pay for the rapidly increased rate of military
deployments and our Armed Forces will continue to face retention and
readiness deficiencies.
I am struck by the fact that, over the past 50 years, the United
States military has been involved in 46 deployments. But a staggering
36 of those deployments have come in the past 10 years. Do these
missions cost money? You bet they do. From 1993 through 2001, our
operations in Kosovo and Bosnia are projected to have cost the United
States taxpayer $20.2 billion. Here is the bottom line of our
amendment: We cannot, we must not, indefinitely commit our Armed Forces
to keeping the peace in the Balkans without ensuring our allies live up
to their commitments. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment so
we can put some pressure on our allies to live up to their commitments.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. SHAYS. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman knows
that they are not going to live up to their commitment because they
[[Page H1600]]
know what strong support they have in this House for escaping any
consequences of evading that commitment.
All they have to do is listen to this debate and listen to the
administration, and they can say that they are free to make
commitments, ignore them, and pay no penalty for them.
Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, unless we pass this
amendment.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will
continue to yield, he is correct.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 15 seconds to the
gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).
(Mr. ENGEL asked and it was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, I chair the Albanian Issues Caucus. I think
I have done more work with Kosovo than almost anyone else in Congress.
This is a very ill-advised amendment. If we want to ensure a
presidential veto, this is the amendment to do if it passes.
Generals Shelton and Clark have been mentioned. They certainly would
not agree to this amendment. We have won the peace. We have won the
war. Let us not lose the peace. Defeat this amendment. It is awful.
Mr. Chairman, I include the following editorials for the Record:
Editorial
(By Madeleine K. Albright)
Washington.--A year ago this week, Slobodan Milosevic
rejected an international peace plan and intensified a
campaign of terror that had already killed hundreds of Kosovo
Albanians and driven more than 200,000 from their homes. His
new offensive, begun with peace talks still underway,
ultimately caused more than one million Kosovars to seek
refuge and was marked by burned villages, rapes, murders and
ethnic cleansing.
President Clinton and his NATO counterparts responded
forcefully and, through persistence, successfully. Most of
the displaced have since returned to their homes. Communities
are rebuilding. Children are in school. With international
help, most of Kosovo is secure and preparing for its first
democratic elections ever.
Having prevailed in war, our challenge now is to secure the
peace. This is proving, as expected, costly and hard. The
journey from conflict to cooperation is not made overnight.
Impatient, some in Congress suggest we give up, put away our
wallets and call our troops home. But the costs and risks of
quitting far exceed those of maintaining a stable Kosovo.
History teaches us that America cannot be secure if Europe
is not secure, and events have reminded us repeatedly that
Europe cannot be secure when conflict engulfs the Balkans.
With Mr. Milosevic still present, the region remains a
tinderbox. If we check out, wide-scale bloodshed will almost
surely check back in.
Moreover, the price of perseverance is affordable and the
obstacles to success can be overcome.
During the cold war, we stationed nearly 400,000 troops in
Europe. Today we have roughly 100,000. Of these, about 6,000
are in Kosovo. Surely, this deployment is not
disproportionate to America's stake in the region.
Further, Europe is committed to shouldering the majority of
burdens in Kosovo. European Union members have contributed 64
percent of the international troops and provided hundreds of
millions of dollars in humanitarian and reconstruction
aid.
We are contributing fewer than 15 percent of total troops
and less than 15 percent of the nonmilitary costs of helping
Kosovo recover from war and build stability. There are
proposals in Congress to make a 15 percent share of these
costs a legal cap. But such a restriction would harm, not
help, our ability to leverage contributions from Europe. It
would reduce our flexibility in responding to future events.
And it would underestimate America's stake in our
partnership with Europe, which extends beyond Europe itself.
After Hurricane Mitch struck in our hemisphere, more than 60
percent of the bilateral aid pledged came from Europe. And
Europe assumed a 33 percent share of the cost of establishing
peace in El Salvador and 34 percent in Guatemala.
Those ready to give up on Kosovo point to recent incidents
of ethnic violence there. We share these concerns, and
international authorities are addressing them by beefing up
resources, tightening security, and marginalizing and
disarming extremists.
But the problems should not obscure overall progress. With
United Nations leadership, a Joint Interim Administrative
Council has been established in which Kosovo's factions can
begin to share responsibility for governing their region. The
ethnic Albanian militia has met its commitment to demobilize.
The murder rate is now lower in Kosovo than in many American
cities. In much of the region, morale is high and people are
focused squarely on building a better life.
The depth of estrangement between factions in Kosovo is
profound. Urgent needs for police, prosecutors and courts
have not yet been met. And the risk that angry individuals
will generate disturbances remains significant. But if our
reaction to every setback is to pull back, a dangerous world
will grow rapidly more dangerous.
We are not asking anyone in Kosovo to abandon legitimate
interests. We are asking the people there to pursue their
interests through cooperation with the international
community and by participating in the joint governing
structures being created. With time and sufficient support,
the cooler heads on all sides will prevail. A sense of inter-
ethnic community may or may not develop; but pragmatic
coexistence is clearly possible.
The day may come when a Kosovo-scale operation can be
managed without the help of the United States, but it has not
come yet. If we are forced by ill-conceived legislation to
depart Kosovo or to slash our commitment of resources, others
will mimic our weakness, and the flames of renewed conflict
will surely and quickly ignite.
The American people should be proud that we did the right
thing a year ago and confident that by working with our
partners to consolidate the peace, we are doing the right and
smart thing now.
____
[From the Christian Science Monitor, Mar. 6, 2000]
Stay the Course in Kosovo
(By Michael O'Hanlon)
Washington.--Having won the war against Serbia last year,
is NATO now losing the peace in Kosovo? Based on February's
violence in the divided city of Mitrovica, one might easily
think so. In fact, that is not the case: Overall trends in
Kosovo are positive, and recent events in Mitrovica are not a
fair referendum on the state of affairs there.
On the other hand, the US and other NATO countries have
made some bad decisions in recent weeks--and if they keep it
up, the favorable prognosis could change. Countries on both
sides of the Atlantic need to get back to military basics to
make sure their victory last year is fully consolidated.
First, though, how can one say that life is getting better
in Kosovo today? After all, about 150 Serbs have been killed
there since the June peace accord. Largely as a result of the
violence, the province has been divided into two almost
completely segregated ethnic communities--and half of the
population of Serbs has left Kosovo altogether. In February,
two more Serbs were killed in the ethnically divided town of
Mitrovica when an ethnic Albanian fired a rocket at a bus;
Serb reprisals raised the overall death toll to 11.
It's true that these developments are regrettable. But it
would be remiss to forget that this was a land at war less
than a year ago. Nor was this just any war. It was a
systematic violation of ethnic Albanians by an organized Serb
compaign of violence.
Expecting people to forgive and forget within months, when
many ethnic Albanians are still mourning the loss of loved
ones and the rape and abuse of many who did survive, is
unrealistic.
At least in terms of physical security, life in Kosovo has
improved a good deal in recent months. According to NATO
commander Gen. Wesley Clark, the province's monthly murder
rate declined from roughly 200 last summer to about 35 this
winter. Even if the recent tragedies in Mitrovica have bumped
the murder rate up somewhat, it remains at least four times
less than six months ago--and lower than the per capita
murder rate in Washington, D.C. Part of the reason,
admittedly, is ethnic segregation--Albanians no longer have
as easy access to Serbs as they once did. (In fact, the
preponderance of violence in Kosovo today is Albanian on
Albanian). but it is better to be segregated and alive than
intermingled and at risk of death--particularly in the
immediate after math of an ethnic war.
Another major, positive development is that the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA), which fought Serbian forces last
spring, has surrendered large caches of weapons to
international forces and demilitarized its activities. Even
if pockets of KLA-related forces remain active, they pose
only a limited threat to the peace at present.
That said, there have been troubling developments in recent
weeks in the peacekeeping efforts of the NATO-led force in
Kosovo. Last week, the New York Times reported that American
troops were directed to stay out of Mitrovica by the
Pentagon, out of concern for their safety after Serbs in that
city threw snowballs, stones, and bricks at them. Other
recent reports from Kosovo have described how other
countries, including Britain, have drastically curtailed
their military strength in Kosovo, leaving commanders worried
they may not have enough forces to carry out required
missions.
The U.S. is wrong not to send its troops into towns like
Mitrovica out of concern for their safety, and should change
its policy. It's right for the U.S. to expect its allies to
provide most troops in Kosovo, given its role in the air war
and other military responsibilities from the Persian Gulf to
Korea. But whatever troops it has there should not have--and
probably do not want--special treatment. That is unfair to
the armed forces of other countries in KFOR, the NATO-led
protection operation. And it is dangerous. If the U.S.
telegraphs to the world that it is terrified of suffering
casualties, as it did in Somalia in 1993, it puts a
[[Page H1601]]
bull's-eye on the chest of American troops around the world
and severely hamstrings foreign policy.
U.S. troops are not cowards. Tens of thousands sleep near
their gas masks in Korea, maintaining a still-tense cease-
fire. Thousands patrol the Persian Gulf, where war and
terrorist attacks have claimed American lives on several
occasions in the last decade. Dozens lose their lives every
year in training and operational accidents simply because
they are using dangerous equipment or carrying out other
risky activities in difficult environments. They are capable
of facing down stone-throwing Serbs and Albanians, and if
they're needed for that mission, they should be sent.
That does not mean troops should be asked to do the
impossible, or to take unnecessary risks. Some want NATO
troops to do whatever it takes to allow Albanians and Serbs
to live together peacefully, protecting isolated pockets of
citizens wherever they are in the ethnic minority, or
searching house-to-house for weapons in a massive disarmament
effort. These ideas are unrealistic.
Kosovo, for all the distance it has come since June, is a
recent combat zone in a war that stoked ethnic passions and
left many thousands dead. Neither U.S. troops, nor UN police,
nor any other external assistance can change these facts
overnight. But even if international forces cannot make
Kosovo a harmonious multiethnic society, they must continue
to keep it stable.
That is where the allies come in, too. Their recent troop
cutbacks--12,000 out of a total KFOR force of 50,000--are a
bad idea. KFOR must remain strong enough that extremists
within Kosovo aren't tempted to test it. It also needs to
remain strong enough to deter Serbia. After all, Slobodan
Milosevic's military and police forces outnumber NATO
troops--three to one--even when KFOR is at full strength.
Given KFOR's superior forces, and Serbia's awareness that
NATO would send reinforcements if trouble began, KFOR's
numerical disadvantage is acceptable--but that doesn't mean
we should cut forces further.
Recent problems aside, things are going reasonably well in
Kosovo. But that's no reason to get careless, or tempt fate.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, how much time is remaining?
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) has 1\1/2\ minutes
remaining. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) has 2\1/4\ minutes
remaining and the right to close.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman
from Michigan (Mr. Bonior).
Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague for yielding me the
time.
Mr. Chairman, I have mixed feelings about this amendment, because I
think the approach that is being offered is a serious one and it has
worked. It has worked in Japan when we offered this on the floor years
ago where we had 40,000 troops stationed; and it made a difference in
millions of dollars. And it has been offered and suggested with respect
to Korea and Germany, as well.
But my problem with it right now is the timing of this amendment. The
timing is such that it has come in the aftermath of the war when
reconstruction is going on when there is a very, very difficult
situation in terms of bringing stability and peace to a region. I just
think it does not work right now.
Now, I am not suggesting that this is not something that we should
not use in the future with respect to our Europeans and getting them to
make sure that they fulfill their commitments. But this is not the
right time to use it.
I hope my colleagues will look at this. Serious border incursions are
still going on. Ethnic tensions are very, very high. And certainly
people need to rebuild. And sending a sign of no hope is not the right
signal in this very, very difficult time.
I hope my colleagues will vote ``no'' on this.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) is recognized for
1\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. KASICH. Mr. Chairman, let us not assume that our European allies
will not live up to their commitment.
Let me, furthermore, say that what we are simply saying in this
amendment is that when they pledge $140 million, $30 million is not
good enough; that when they pledge $410 million to reconstruct Kosovo
and they only gave $44 million, that is not enough; and when they
pledge to put 3,800 police, which is a vital component of rebuilding,
and they only provide 1,800, that is not enough.
We are not trying to force the Europeans to do more than what they
want to do. All this amendment says is that they ought to do what they
said that they wanted to do. All this amendment says is, they said they
were going to give these dollars, they ought to give these dollars.
If the Europeans have no interest in, at least, keeping their word,
then what is the prospect for long-term peace there? The fact is this
amendment will strengthen the U.S. military. Secondly, it sends a clear
message in post-Cold War America that people need to shoulder their
burden. Thirdly, simple workers across America say, hey, if they made
this pledge, why can they not live up to it? It was our flesh and blood
that went over there and made the peace. We are not asking them to
carry the whole load. We are only asking them to carry the load that
they committed to us. That makes good sense.
So I hope, my colleagues, we will come to this floor and will be in a
position to be able to support a reasonable and progressive policy
towards Kosovo.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) has 1\1/4\
minutes remaining.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to
the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), the very distinguished
chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense of the Committee on
Appropriations.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate my
chairman and my colleague yielding me the time.
Mr. Chairman, I must say that all of us must have empathy for the
expression of concern about our commitment to Kosovo, the number of
troops we have there, and how long we have been there, and how quick we
can get them out.
The difficulty I have with the argument today and this proposal is
that we do not need 435 Secretaries of State; we do not need 435
Secretaries of Defense.
I went to Kosovo in January, and at our major base camp, I met with
about 30 young sergeants who talked to me about why they were there.
The re-up rates in the Army are the highest there than anywhere in the
world because those people know they are there to save lives. They want
us out, as well. But, indeed, behind this mission is the stability of
Europe. And we need a unified America speaking about solving that
problem.
To have a proposal that would essentially have us force withdrawal
sends the wrong message to Milosevic. We should be most worried about
the spring thaw, where the Albanians are about to react. They, too,
want to have a head-on collision with the Serbs. Blood could flow as a
result of a message that says America is not unified in its voice.
This is the wrong time for this amendment presented in the wrong way,
and I urge a very strong ``no'' vote.
Mr. CONDIT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the amendment
offered by my friends and colleagues, the gentleman from Ohio, the
gentleman from Connecticut, the gentleman from Massachusetts, and the
gentleman from Alabama.
Very simply put Mr. Chairman, this amendment is about asking our
European allies to honor their commitments and keep their word. The
United States has very clearly shouldered the largest portion of the
burden in the Balkans. This amendment corrects that and puts a
framework in place to ensure our European allies live up to their
commitments with respect to the war and subsequent peacekeeping mission
in Kosovo.
The United States has put money, personnel, and equipment on the line
in Kosovo. We have met our obligations time and time again while our
allies have failed to meet their financial commitments and obligations.
As a result we are faced with the United States pouring more of its
resources and money into Kosovo. While our allies do not pay their
share, more and more of our nation's surplus is going into this open-
ended military deployment.
Our amendment corrects this. Until the President certifies that our
allies have met a set of realistic benchmarks--all of which are
reasonable portions or percentages of their original pledges and
commitments--we will withhold half of the emergency supplemental bill's
funding for Kosovo.
Mr. Chairman, we fully understand that our fiscal calendars and
budget processes may differ from our European allies. For that very
reason we are asking for a ``good faith'' payment--a percentage of
their original pledges of support. If the President doesn't certify
these ``good faith'' benchmarks have been met by June 1, 2000, the
withheld funding would be made available only to allow for the safe,
[[Page H1602]]
orderly and phased withdrawal of United States military forces from
Kosovo.
In the final analysis, our allies made commitments. I urge my
colleagues to support the Kasich-Condit-Shays-Frank-Bachus amendment in
putting a framework into place for ensuring our allies live up to those
commitments.
The CHAIRMAN. All time for debate on this amendment has expired.
The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Ohio
(Mr. Kasich).
The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
Recorded Vote
Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to House Resolution 450, the Chair announces
that immediately following this vote there will be a 5-minute vote on
the amendment offered by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon).
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 200,
noes 219, not voting 15, as follows:
[Roll No. 89]
AYES--200
Archer
Armey
Bachus
Baker
Baldwin
Ballenger
Barcia
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Barton
Bass
Berry
Biggert
Bilbray
Blunt
Boswell
Boyd
Brady (TX)
Bryant
Burton
Camp
Campbell
Canady
Cannon
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Coble
Coburn
Collins
Combest
Condit
Conyers
Cook
Cooksey
Cox
Cubin
Danner
Deal
DeFazio
Delahunt
DeLay
DeMint
Deutsch
Doggett
Doolittle
Duncan
Dunn
Ehlers
Ehrlich
Emerson
English
Eshoo
Evans
Ewing
Fletcher
Foley
Fossella
Fowler
Frank (MA)
Gallegly
Ganske
Gekas
Gibbons
Goode
Goodlatte
Goodling
Gordon
Goss
Graham
Green (TX)
Green (WI)
Greenwood
Gutknecht
Hall (TX)
Hansen
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Herger
Hill (MT)
Hilleary
Hoekstra
Hooley
Hostettler
Hulshof
Hutchinson
Inslee
Isakson
Istook
Jackson (IL)
Jenkins
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Kasich
Kingston
Kucinich
LaHood
Largent
Latham
LaTourette
Leach
Lee
Lewis (GA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lofgren
Lucas (OK)
Luther
Manzullo
Markey
McCollum
McCrery
McInnis
McIntosh
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Metcalf
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller, George
Minge
Mink
Moore
Moran (KS)
Myrick
Neal
Ney
Nussle
Owens
Paul
Pease
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Pombo
Portman
Pryce (OH)
Radanovich
Ramstad
Reynolds
Riley
Rivers
Roemer
Rogan
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roukema
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Salmon
Sanders
Sanford
Saxton
Scarborough
Schaffer
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shays
Sherman
Shimkus
Shuster
Smith (MI)
Smith (TX)
Souder
Stark
Stearns
Stump
Sununu
Sweeney
Talent
Tancredo
Tauzin
Terry
Thomas
Thornberry
Thune
Thurman
Tierney
Toomey
Udall (NM)
Upton
Vitter
Walden
Wamp
Watkins
Watts (OK)
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Wicker
Woolsey
NOES--219
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Allen
Andrews
Baca
Baird
Baldacci
Barrett (WI)
Bateman
Bentsen
Bereuter
Berkley
Berman
Bilirakis
Bishop
Blagojevich
Bliley
Blumenauer
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bonior
Bono
Borski
Boucher
Brady (PA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Carson
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Costello
Coyne
Cramer
Crowley
Cummings
Cunningham
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
Davis (VA)
DeGette
DeLauro
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Dooley
Doyle
Dreier
Edwards
Engel
Etheridge
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Forbes
Ford
Frelinghuysen
Frost
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Gonzalez
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Hastings (FL)
Hill (IN)
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoeffel
Holden
Holt
Horn
Houghton
Hoyer
Hunter
Hyde
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
John
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kelly
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind (WI)
King (NY)
Kleczka
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kuykendall
LaFalce
Lampson
Lantos
Larson
Lazio
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lipinski
Lowey
Lucas (KY)
Maloney (CT)
Maloney (NY)
Martinez
Mascara
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McDermott
McGovern
McHugh
McIntyre
McKeon
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Millender-McDonald
Miller, Gary
Moakley
Mollohan
Moran (VA)
Morella
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Nethercutt
Northup
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Ose
Oxley
Packard
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Peterson (PA)
Phelps
Pickett
Pomeroy
Porter
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Regula
Reyes
Rodriguez
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Sabo
Sanchez
Sandlin
Sawyer
Schakowsky
Scott
Serrano
Shaw
Sherwood
Shows
Simpson
Sisisky
Skeen
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (NJ)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Spratt
Stabenow
Stenholm
Strickland
Stupak
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tiahrt
Towns
Traficant
Turner
Udall (CO)
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walsh
Waters
Watt (NC)
Waxman
Weiner
Weller
Wexler
Whitfield
Wilson
Wise
Wolf
Wu
Wynn
Young (FL)
NOT VOTING--15
Becerra
Burr
Chenoweth-Hage
Crane
Everett
Franks (NJ)
Granger
Klink
Norwood
Quinn
Rush
Spence
Vento
Weygand
Young (AK)
{time} 1121
Messrs. LIPINSKI, COSTELLO, ADERHOLT, LAZIO, and BILIRAKIS and Ms.
McCARTHY of Missouri changed their vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
Messrs. MICA, NEAL of Massachusetts, LEWIS of Georgia and SAXTON
changed their vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
So the amendment was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Amendment No. 11, as Modified, Offered by Mr. Weldon of Pennsylvania
The CHAIRMAN. The pending business is the demand for a recorded vote
on the Amendment No. 11, as modified, offered by the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) on which further proceedings were postponed
and on which the ayes prevailed by voice vote.
The Clerk will redesignate the amendment, as modified.
The Clerk redesignated the amendment, as modified.
Recorded Vote
The CHAIRMAN. A recorded vote has been demanded.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The CHAIRMAN. This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 386,
noes 28, not voting 20, as follows:
[Roll No. 90]
AYES--386
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Allen
Andrews
Armey
Baca
Bachus
Baird
Baker
Baldacci
Baldwin
Ballenger
Barcia
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Barrett (WI)
Bartlett
Bass
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 (FL)
Brown (OH)
Bryant
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Campbell
Canady
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Carson
Castle
Chambliss
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Coble
Combest
Condit
Conyers
Cook
Cooksey
Costello
Coyne
Cramer
Crowley
Cubin
Cunningham
Danner
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
Davis (VA)
Deal
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Deutsch
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Doggett
Dooley
Doolittle
Doyle
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Edwards
Ehlers
Ehrlich
Emerson
Engel
English
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Ewing
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Fletcher
Foley
Forbes
Ford
Fossella
Fowler
Frank (MA)
Frelinghuysen
Frost
Gallegly
Ganske
Gejdenson
Gekas
Gephardt
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Gonzalez
Goode
Goodlatte
Goodling
Gordon
Goss
Green (TX)
Green (WI)
Greenwood
Gutierrez
Gutknecht
Hall (OH)
Hall (TX)
Hansen
Hastings (FL)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hill (IN)
Hill (MT)
Hilleary
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoeffel
Hoekstra
Holden
Holt
Hooley
Horn
Houghton
Hoyer
Hulshof
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Inslee
Isakson
Istook
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Jenkins
John
Johnson (CT)
[[Page H1603]]
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (NC)
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kelly
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind (WI)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kleczka
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kucinich
Kuykendall
LaFalce
LaHood
Lampson
Lantos
Largent
Larson
Latham
LaTourette
Lazio
Leach
Lee
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (GA)
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
McKeon
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Metcalf
Mica
Millender-McDonald
Miller, George
Minge
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Moore
Moran (KS)
Moran (VA)
Morella
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal
Nethercutt
Ney
Northup
Nussle
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Ose
Owens
Oxley
Packard
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Pease
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Phelps
Pickering
Pickett
Pitts
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Portman
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Radanovich
Rahall
Ramstad
Rangel
Regula
Reyes
Reynolds
Riley
Rivers
Rodriguez
Roemer
Rogan
Rogers
Ros-Lehtinen
Rothman
Roukema
Roybal-Allard
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Sabo
Sanchez
Sanders
Sandlin
Sawyer
Saxton
Schakowsky
Scott
Sensenbrenner
Serrano
Sessions
Shaw
Shays
Sherman
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shows
Shuster
Simpson
Sisisky
Skeen
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Souder
Stabenow
Stark
Stearns
Stenholm
Strickland
Stump
Stupak
Sweeney
Talent
Tanner
Tauscher
Tauzin
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thomas
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Thornberry
Thune
Thurman
Tiahrt
Tierney
Toomey
Towns
Traficant
Turner
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Upton
Velazquez
Visclosky
Vitter
Walden
Walsh
Wamp
Waters
Watkins
Watt (NC)
Watts (OK)
Waxman
Weiner
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Wexler
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson
Wise
Wolf
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
Young (FL)
NOES--28
Archer
Barton
Bonilla
Cannon
Chabot
Coburn
Collins
Cox
DeLay
DeMint
Graham
Hefley
Herger
Hostettler
Johnson, Sam
Kasich
Linder
Miller, Gary
Myrick
Paul
Rohrabacher
Royce
Salmon
Sanford
Scarborough
Schaffer
Shadegg
Sununu
NOT VOTING--20
Bateman
Becerra
Burr
Chenoweth-Hage
Crane
Cummings
Everett
Franks (NJ)
Granger
Klink
Miller (FL)
Norwood
Quinn
Rush
Spence
Spratt
Tancredo
Vento
Weygand
Young (AK)
{time} 1130
So the amendment was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Stated against:
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained for rollcall
No. 90. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''
Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 90, had I been
present, I would have voted ``no.''
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Indiana.
Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
Mr. Chairman, because my amendment to restore 401 agriculture
research funds was subject to a point of order, I will not be offering
an amendment, and rise to engage the chairman in a colloquy.
I greatly appreciate his participation in this, and that of the
gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen). I am deeply disappointed that
the measure strikes two very important programs for rural communities,
farmers and ranchers in Indiana and across the Nation, the Fund for
Rural America and the Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food
Systems.
As a conservative, I strongly support offsets for increased
expenditures elsewhere. However, these two are critical programs for
future needs in agriculture.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the chairman's assistance as the
bill moves to the Senate, that we could move to re-insert those
programs into the final bill that comes back to this House.
Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico, the
distinguished subcommittee chairman, to respond to the gentleman's
colloquy.
Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the gentleman from
Indiana for his commitment to Indiana agriculture.
Mr. Chairman, every year the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural
Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies is
requested to contribute offsets to the supplemental spending bills. We
did so this year by putting limitations on two mandatory programs, one
for agriculture research and one for rural development, for a total
offset of $106 million.
I certainly agree that it is important that critical investments are
made in agricultural research. In fact, two major research programs in
USDA will receive about $1.8 billion this year. Rural development will
get about $2.2 billion.
I would assure the gentleman that we will continue to work with him
to adequately fund agricultural research.
Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield,
I appreciate the remarks of the gentleman from New Mexico, and do want
to state that I greatly respect his wonderful efforts over the years to
make sure that the Appropriations Subcommittee would support
agriculture research, extension and education.
I look forward very much to working with him in the conference to try
to increase that funding.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Traficant
Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Traficant:
At the end of the bill, add the following new section:
SEC. . SENSE OF CONGRESS; REQUIREMENT REGARDING NOTICE.
(a) Purchase of American-Made Equipment and Products.--In
the case of any equipment or products that may be authorized
to be purchased with financial assistance provided under this
Act, it is the sense of the Congress that entities receiving
such assistance should, in expending the assistance, purchase
only American-made equipment and products.
(b) Notice to Recipients of Assistance.--In providing
financial assistance under this Act, the head of each Federal
agency shall provide to each recipient of the assistance a
notice describing the statement made in subsection (a) by the
Congress.
(c) Notice of Report.--Any entity which receives funds
under this Act shall report any expenditures on foreign-made
items to the Congress within 180 days of the expenditure.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of Wednesday, March
29, 2000, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant) and a Member opposed
each will control 10 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant).
Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the gentleman
from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Murtha), the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), the gentleman from
New Mexico (Mr. Skeen), the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan), the
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms.
Kaptur).
My amendment is right to the point, Mr. Chairman. We provide an awful
lot of money around the world, and many times these nations buy product
made in Japan and China. I am very concerned that some day China, with
a $90 billion trade surplus, may literally attack our children.
My amendment says we promote and encourage, without violating the
laws, the procurement of American-made products. The gentleman from
Florida (Chairman Young) has worked hard at this. I appreciate the fact
that he has accommodated this.
Let me say this to the House, we cannot protect America with a
neighborhood crime watch and styrofoam. We
[[Page H1604]]
need a domestic industry, and I think looking at procurement of
American-made products is of vital importance.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. TRAFICANT. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for
yielding.
I would like to announce to the House that we are prepared to accept
the amendment. It is the excellent amendment that the gentleman has
offered many times, and has been accepted by this House many times. We
accept the gentleman's amendment.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. TRAFICANT. I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to commend my colleague, the
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant) for continuing his crusade on
behalf of America's jobs, our workers, our communities.
We certainly would be pleased to accept the agreement, in agreement
with the majority here today. I want to thank the gentleman again for
keeping our eyes focused on what we should, and that is, America's
strength and productivity.
Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time, and
I urge an aye vote on the amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. With no Member seeking to control time in opposition,
the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Ohio
(Mr. Traficant).
The amendment was agreed to.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Stearns
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Stearns:
At the end of the bill, insert after the last section
(preceding the short title) the following new section:
Sec. __. (a) Across-the-Board Reduction.--Each amount
appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act that is
not required to be appropriated or otherwise made available
by a provision of law is hereby reduced by 10 percent.
(b) Exceptions.--Subsection (a) shall not apply to any
amount designated by this Act as an emergency requirement, or
any amount appropriated or otherwise made available by this
Act for the Department of Defense.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of Wednesday, March
29, 2000, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) and a Member opposed
each will control 10 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns).
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I would ask, is any Member opposed to my
amendment?
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in
opposition.
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) will be
recognized to control the time in opposition.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns).
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment is pretty simple. It attempts to
establish fiscal responsibility.
As all of us know, these emergency supplementals come once, twice a
year. This is pretty simple. I cut spending by 10 percent across-the-
board only, and I say to the Members, only for non-defense or non-
emergency spending. So it would reduce by 10 percent these non-
emergency appropriations for programs added to the supplemental for FY
2000.
I offer this amendment because the rescissions used to offset this
new spending are unauthorized funds whose use would be better served by
using them for paying down the debt.
For instance, Mr. Chairman, the $235 million reduction for emergency
Y2K funds, these are the funds we appropriated for 1998. They are being
used and this funding is being used, but it is not obligated, so we
say, okay, let us use it. But the fact is, this is previously-allocated
money that was appropriated, again, as emergency funding, and will now
be used to offset this emergency supplemental.
If we hear the word ``emergency supplemental'' used over and over
here, we have to say to ourselves, what is an emergency and what is
not? We need to hold the line on spending and practice some kind of
fiscal responsibility.
We have had several votes this morning, and we continue to add more
money to the supplemental.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey) had his amendment to set
aside $4 billion for FY 2000, non-social security, for the on-budget
surplus. The question is, why are we using $429 million, money that was
appropriated but not spent to offset recently added spending, when we
could apply it to debt reduction?
This is an emergency supplemental. The programs that fall under non-
emergency, if they are non-emergency, could we not go through the
normal process?
When we were in the minority, we always talked about all these
legislative initiatives on the floor. We said, these are not necessary.
These are non-emergency. Why are we putting them on the floor? We want
to see them go through the normal, regular appropriations cycle under
my distinguished chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young).
What we see happening with this bill is reminiscent of past years,
when we kept adding more and more spending. If we go back and look at
the spending that we did in the last fiscal year, we will see that the
emergency spending balloons. This thing continues to balloon far beyond
the original when leadership said, we will put on a bill that will be
about $6.5 billion. Then it went to 7, 8. Now it is at 9 billion they
brought it to the floor. This thing is continuing to go up.
We have already loaded this bill up with money for Colombia, Kosovo,
Bosnia, the Department of Energy security and cleanup. I am sure if
this bill remained on the floor for a week, this thing would balloon up
to $25 and $35 billion.
I ask my colleagues, this is a very simple amendment just to reduce
the non-emergency, only the non-emergency and non-defense, by 10
percent. The actual cut will be in millions of dollars, it will not be
in billions of dollars. We must not appropriate more spending in this
emergency supplemental. We must try to hold the line.
We do not want to repeat last year's mistake. The final budget
agreement exceeded the budget resolution by $25 billion in non-defense
outlays. We seem to be heading in the same direction, so my amendment
is modest and should be adopted.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Chairman, I am reluctant to rise in opposition to the amendment
offered by my good friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns),
because we do like to save money every chance that we can get, his
comments to the contrary notwithstanding. I have an idea that he voted
for one of the or for the biggest amendment yesterday that was added to
this bill.
Anyway, the gentleman's amendment wants to reduce the non-emergency
appropriations in the bill. The President asked for over $400 million
worth of non-emergency items, but he offered offsets for those non-
emergency items. We reduced the President's request from the $420-some
million to $160, but we maintained the $420 million worth of offsets,
so we have actually offset far more than we have non-emergency spending
items in this bill.
One of the things that would be affected by the Stearns amendment
would be safety at our nuclear weapons facilities in the United States.
Some of this money that would be reduced by this amendment, has to do
with upgrading and restarting the enriched uranium operations, which
were shut down for safety reasons. We are trying to make them safe.
This is at the Y-12 plant in Tennessee.
The money this amendment would reduce would also address hazard
analysis, the safety authorization basis for activities to be performed
in FY 2000 at the Pantex plant in Texas. So we are talking about safety
in our nuclear facilities.
Another item that my friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns)
might be interested in, because I know that he had supported it, and
many of his colleagues have supported funding for abstinence education.
This amendment would take a pretty good chunk
[[Page H1605]]
out of that money that was agreed to for abstinence education.
I do not think the gentleman wants to do that, because I know that he
supports that program. I am against the amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I think, in all deference to my good friend, the
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), my distinguished colleague and the
chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, I think he would agree,
and he has been on the floor many times saying, particularly when he
was in the minority as an appropriator, he said, why can we not take
the non-emergency, non-defense spending and run it through the
appropriations process, or go through the appropriate committees? Why
should not all 435 Members of this House have the opportunity to see
this in place and evaluate it?
He has mentioned a couple of programs that he said this would cut.
Now realize, Mr. Chairman, that we are only cutting 10 percent of 100
percent, so certainly, in government funding, if we cut 10 percent we
are not decimating a program. We are not eliminating a program.
So this is a modest attempt to signal to the citizens of the country
and to signal to the Senate, if they decide to vote on this bill, and
to make us feel, on this particular morning when we are voting for all
new spending, that we are taking the task of being fiscally
responsible.
I would say to my distinguished friend, the gentleman from Florida,
if these are that important to him, why does he not run them through
the appropriate process?
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the distinguished ranking minority
member on the Committee on Appropriations.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding time to me.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment is really amazing, if not amusing. We
have a huge circus elephant rampaging through this room, and the
gentleman has an amendment that is going to go after a fly.
If we take a look at this amendment, this bill spends almost $13
billion, and what does he go after?
{time} 1145
He goes after a $140 million tiny piece of the package. He endangers
three nuclear weapons productions plants at Oak Ridge, Tennessee;
Kansas City, Missouri; and Amarillo, Texas. They are critical to the
improvement of our nuclear stockpile, and he endangers safety
operations at those operations.
He is going to say to a thousand families, after every politician in
this House has been posing for political holy pictures about how they
are opposed to the higher energy prices, while I know that in his
district in Florida they do not need a lot of help to pay for home
heating oil, but it gets pretty doggone cold in the Northeast and the
Upper Midwest, this is going to deny thousands of low-income American
families help on that score.
It will take away the ability to get FHA loans from 20,000 low- and
moderate-income couples in this country. I do not think that is a gift
to taxpayers, although Members who make what we make do not have to
worry about those little folks, I suppose. Is that the way the
gentleman feels?
Then we just made a big production out of adding a lot of money for
fire protection. What does the gentleman do? He knocks out money for
fire safety right in the Capitol Hill complex, after we have been
chastised for the neglect of the buildings up here. And then lastly,
after we have heard so much on that side of the aisle about the need to
have family planning programs that emphasize abstinence, what does the
gentleman do? He cuts that program by 10 percent. The gentleman from
Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) has moved heaven and earth to get that program
funding up, and now he is knocking that baby down.
And what does he leave untouched? Yesterday, this House added $4
billion, not million, billion dollars in Defense Department programs to
this year's appropriation bill. None of those items were emergencies.
The sole, crass purpose of that amendment was to move $4 billion in
defense expenditures into this year's budget, so you freed up room for
$4 billion in congressional pork in the next year's Defense budget. Now
we see this House with this ``let's pretend'' amendment supposedly
protecting the taxpayers' interest. Do not make me laugh.
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I am glad to see the Ranking Minority Member from the
Committee on Appropriations fighting to reduce waste and to say that he
was upset about congressional pork, because I have been here some time
and I have been in the minority and I have seen these emergency
supplementals and in this case, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey)
was chairman at that time.
When the gentleman can stand on the House floor and take out a single
program and say that we are going to decimate these people, we are
going to hurt them because of the reduction, and it is only 10 percent,
and, in fact, it is a program that has not been authorized by Members
of Congress, why do we not just do away with all the procedures here in
the House of Representatives and just bring to the floor any idea by
any Member at any time and just vote on it? Pretty soon, we can be the
brand-new Santa Claus of history where we just vote on bills, not on
the basis of merit, but on the basis of emotion.
So I urge my colleagues to look back at this bill and realize that
this is not taking away from anybody. The programs are all left in
place. This is nondefense. This is nonemergency.
The gentleman from Wisconsin mentioned this huge amount of money that
was provided for defense. The gentleman could actually have an
amendment here on the floor to reduce that on the floor if he wants. If
he really felt that strong about it, why does he not come on the floor
and offer an amendment to reduce defense spending? It is an open rule.
Let us up or down it.
But the point is that we have to realize that at some point somewhere
we are going to have to address these programs and not continue to
bring them on the floor without being authorized without being brought
to the appropriate committees.
So I urge my colleagues again to consider this modest amendment and
vote ``yes'' on the Stearns amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the other gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Stearns) what planet he was on yesterday. The amendment
yesterday was to add that $4 billion in waste. And who led the
opposition to it? I did. Were you here or some place else yesterday?
Secondly, when I was chairman, the only year I was chairman, we
finished every single appropriation bill on time; and we spent less
money than the President. This bill going through here, which I am
going to vote against, spends $17 billion more than the President asked
for; and you are probably going to vote for it.
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, can we have the balance of time remaining?
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) has 2\1/2\
minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) has 4
minutes remaining.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I would announce that I have only
one speaker to close, so I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, let us talk about what the gentleman from Wisconsin
(Mr. Obey) just indicated, that he was strongly against the
appropriations for defense. He said yesterday that he was on the floor
objecting to the money that we added for defense. Is that correct?
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. STEARNS. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, no, that is not correct. I said that I
supported the core bill yesterday which had the additional money for
reimbursement for
[[Page H1606]]
Pentagon costs to fix the health care problems at the Pentagon and
those other items, but I did not support the $4 billion add-on because
it was not an emergency and that portion was simply making room for
additional congressional pork.
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, will the gentleman
answer whether he is going to vote for final passage of the emergency
supplemental?
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would continue to yield, am
I going to vote for it? I have been speaking for 2 days in opposition
to it. Where have you been?
Mr. STEARNS. So the gentleman is going to vote no?
Mr. OBEY. You bet. It is an outrageous breaking of the bank. But you
are going after a gnat instead of an elephant.
Mr. STEARNS. Well, I do not consider this a gnat, one-tenth of----
Mr. OBEY. All right. It is a flea.
Mr. STEARNS. Let us call it a cat or a dog or something. But the
point is, it is a start. And so the gentleman from Wisconsin is going
to vote against the emergency supplemental. If he is trying to fight
for fiscal responsibility, as he has been saying today, then certainly
if we are cutting nondefense and nonemergency items and it is something
that has not even gone through his Committee on Appropriations that he
is the ranking member on, I would think the gentleman would be more
than happy to say, ``Stearns is a great amendment, I am with you,
shoulder to shoulder we will fight for fiscal responsibility.''
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, let me say what my friend, Archie the
Cockroach would observe: It is important to have a sense of proportion.
What sense is there for a flea to fall in love with an elephant?
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, if the budget was a dollar and 10 cents
was on the floor, I would try to save 10 cents, which is one-tenth of
what we are talking about. So I urge my colleagues to think about it in
that term. All the change that we have at home in our bedroom, we save
it. We do not throw it in the trash because it might represent one-
tenth of a dollar. I am sure the gentleman has pennies at home in a
little tray like we all do and these pennies pile up and we go to the
bank and take these pennies in. I am sure the gentleman has quarters
and dimes.
Mr. Chairman, we are only talking about 10 percent of the
nonemergency and nondefense. So if my colleagues are keeping in their
pocket right now pennies and dimes and quarters, then I would think
they would be somebody that would want to support this amendment.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). I wish he would vote for the bill,
though.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would like to correct the statement of the
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns). He said that I supported the
supplemental when I was chairman. There never was a supplemental
appropriation bill when I was chairman, so the gentleman is wrong on
that fact too.
What the gentleman has done with his amendment, we have got a nice
fat sugar donut on the floor and he is managing to go after the hole.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my
time.
Mr. Chairman, again, I just want to remind the Members that we
reduced the President's budget request in the supplemental from over
$400 million to $160 million. That was in the nonemergency part of the
bill. So we have already made a substantial reduction. But the $420
million worth of offsets, we kept those offsets. So we really made some
money for the taxpayer in that regard.
Another point is that defense has become a part of this discussion. I
mentioned in my opening comments about the nuclear weapons facilities
that we need to upgrade for safety reasons. That is national defense.
The nuclear weapons facilities are part of our national defense. They
are a major part of our deterrence that says to the rest of the world:
Do not mess with America.
But those facilities have to be safe to protect the people who live
around them and work around them. The Stearns amendment would make a
reduction in monies going to make those nuclear weapons facilities
safe. I just cannot accept that amendment. I wish that I could, but I
cannot.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
The CHAIRMAN. All time for debate has expired.
The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Stearns).
The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to House Resolution 450, further proceedings
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns)
will be postponed.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
Mr. Chairman, since the subject has been raised, and since the
subject of what the content is of this bill and ``Who shot John and who
has not'' in terms of busting the budget, I think it is important to
point out the facts on the overall bill.
Mr. Chairman, I yield to the distinguished gentleman from South
Carolina (Mr. Spratt), ranking member on the Committee on the Budget,
to illuminate the House on that matter.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.
Obey) for yielding to me.
Mr. Chairman, shortly the House will pass a $12.6 billion
supplemental appropriation bill. I guess it will pass. The House should
understand that this bill, this supplemental, breaches the spending
levels that were set just last week when we passed the House Republican
budget resolution passed.
During the debate of the budget resolution, we tried to point out
that the Republican resolution assumed 5-year spending cuts of $117
billion, which we did not believe that the Congress, under Democrats or
Republicans, was likely to make or would make based on past experience.
The supplemental appropriations bill the House will adopt is $4.1
million in budget authority above the funding level that was assumed
just last week in the House budget resolution. And since the extra
spending is not fully offset, the surplus for fiscal year 2000, fiscal
year 2001, and fiscal year 2002 will be lower.
We had a chart on the House floor last week. We have not been able to
blow it up again. We do not have the equipment that they do. I have it
run on a single 8\1/2\ by 11 page. It picks up where we left off when I
was trying to say last week that if we assume that we do the Medicare
prescription drug benefit, 45 billion over 5, 155 billion over 10, and
you do what you said you were going to do and pass a $200 billion tax
cut, that you would soon be back into Social Security.
Well, there were objections on that side saying we were not
distributing the actual revenue losses due to the tax cut properly. So
we said give us the numbers. Give us the numbers. We got the numbers,
and we have run the numbers. We have added in this particular bill that
we are about to pass, this supplemental, and here is how it
distributes.
Pass this and pass the budget resolution, enact the resolution that
we did last week, and the surplus this year will go to $4.9 billion.
Next year, a surplus of $15 billion will go to $7.8 billion. In 2002,
pass the budget resolution we did last week, pass this supplemental,
factor in the results, in 2002 we are $541 million in deficit. In 2003,
we are $172 million in deficit. This is using your numbers and your
assumptions and your budget resolutions.
In 2004, we are $68 million in deficit. That is where this takes us,
if we also pass the budget resolution. If Members voted for the
Republican budget resolution last week, and if they vote for the
supplemental today, these numbers, your numbers, clearly say we are
headed straight into the Social Security surplus. That is where it
takes us. Purely arithmetic. These are the consequences of having this
ad hoc resolution on the floor and of having a budget resolution which,
frankly, is not realistic.
Mr. Chairman, I am not contesting the validity of items in this
supplemental. I support many of them and will probably vote for it. But
I am contesting the validity of the budget resolution and the
assumption that we can
[[Page H1607]]
do the things that we did last week, because it did not factor in the
things that we are doing this week.
{time} 1200
Who in this House, who in this House thinks that the $1.6 billion, or
whatever it is we are providing for Colombia, is a nonrecurring item
that we will wipe the problem out with this one-time allotment?
Who thinks that these adjustments in military pay to get around the
food stamps problem and base housing will not recur again or that we
will not have the O&M requirements again in the future?
My colleagues have understated discretionary spending in their
resolution; and based upon that understatement, they projected a tax
cut that is simply not sustainable. If my colleagues do that, let me
repeat it again, if my colleagues who voted for the Republican budget
resolution last week, and if my colleagues vote today for this
supplemental, according to our calculation and their numbers, they will
be back in deficit in a year's time, back into Social Security.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, in addition to that, the fact is that, for
this fiscal year, rather than the next fiscal year about which the
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) has just been speaking, for
this fiscal year, if my colleagues vote for this bill, they are going
to be voting for a bill which is $17 billion in spending over the
amount the President asked for for this existing fiscal year. I will be
interested to see how many so-called fiscal conservatives are going to
do that.
Amendment Offered By Ms. Kaptur
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Ms. Kaptur:
Page 80, after line 11, insert the following new section:
Sec. 5109. The Secretary of Energy shall annually acquire
and store as part of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
300,000,000 gallons of ethanol and 100,000,000 gallons of
biodiesel fuel. Such fuels shall be obtained in exchange for,
or purchased with funds realized from the sale of, crude oil
from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the
amendment of the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).
The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Florida reserves a point of order.
Pursuant to the order of the House of Wednesday March 29, 2000, the
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr.
Young) each will control 10 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, the amendment I am proposing is very
straightforward. Essentially what it does is it allows the Secretary of
Energy at this time of very high gas prices to take a portion of our
Strategic Petroleum Reserve, draw it down, and use the proceeds to
purchase ethanol and biodiesel, adding those to the reserves that we
have across this country. There is no budget impact to this proposal.
Essentially what we are doing here is recognizing that rising gas
prices, in fact, harm and create havoc within our economy. This is a
great economic vulnerability and a great military vulnerability.
We also recognize that we want to encourage domestic production of
all fuels to the best extent possible. My colleagues should know that
92 percent of the fuels, the crude in the Petroleum Reserve, in the
SPRO, has been imported. So it is not domestic. In fact, what fueled
America this past year, over two-thirds of it is all imported. This is
not a position that we should permit for our great country.
This amendment promotes alternative fuels focused on biofuels,
specifically ethanol and biodiesel. It is a very reasonable proposal.
Even after being implemented, this would represent less than 2 percent
of all fuel that is in the reserve.
In addition, it is very competitive in the sense that, if one looks
at the prices of ethanol now at about a dollar a gallon, when one
purchases the amount we are talking about here, 300 million gallons,
and biodiesel at $1.50, we are at the point now where it makes sense to
do this.
In addition, let me say, if one looks at the SPRO today, there are
about 750 million barrels in it or allowed to be in it. But only 575
million are actually in it, which means we have a shortfall of 175
million barrels. So there is room in terms of the authority that exists
within the law.
So I would just ask for favorable consideration of this. In
particular, at a time when prices in rural America are so very low, let
us use the cellulose, let us use the power of the fields and force of
our country and help put us on a course of renewables and not such
dependence on imported fuel inside this great economy. I ask for
favorable consideration of the membership of what I believe is a very
worthy amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Point Of Order
The CHAIRMAN. Does the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) wish to
make his point of order at this point?
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I do.
Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment because
it proposes to change existing law and constitutes legislation on the
appropriations bill and therefore violates clause 2 of rule XXI.
The rule states in pertinent part: ``An amendment to a general
appropriation bill shall not be in order if exchanging existing law.''
The amendment directly amends existing law.
The CHAIRMAN. Does the gentlewoman from Ohio wish to be heard briefly
on the point of order?
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I wish to say I have the greatest respect
in the world for the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), chairman of
the full committee, and also the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen),
the chairman of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development,
Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies.
I would hope that, as we move toward conference, we might find some
language that would achieve some of what we wish to have happen here,
giving direction to the administration at a time in our country where
the American people expect us to do more than dither here in the
Nation's chief legislative body. I really think we have a reasonable
direction here.
I thank the gentleman from Florida for permitting me to talk on this
amendment. I will withdraw the amendment in hopes that, as we move
toward conference, we might be able to find some reasonable course here
to help America find a better way in this new century.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, we will work with the gentlewoman
and try to do that.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my
amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman
from Ohio?
There was no objection.
Amendment No. 5 Offered By Mr. Paul
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment No. 5 printed in the Congressional Record offered
by Mr. Paul:
At the end of the bill, insert after the last section
(preceding the short title) the following new section:
Sec. . (a) The amounts otherwise provided in title I for
the following accounts are hereby reduced by the following
amounts:
(1) ``DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE--Drug Enforcement
Administration--Salaries and Expenses'', $293,048,000.
(2) ``DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE-MILITARY--OTHER DEPARTMENT OF
DEFENSE PROGRAMS--Drug Interdiction and Counter-Drug
Activities, Defense'', $185,800,000.
(3) ``BILATERAL ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE--Funds Appropriated to
the President--Department of State--Assistance for Plan
Colombia and for Andean Regional Counternarcotics
Activities'', $1,099,000,000.
(b) None of the funds made available in title I for
``Military Construction, Defense-Wide'' may be used for
construction outside of the United States or any of its
territories or possessions.
(c) None of the funds made available in title II may be
used for operations in Kosovo or East Timor, other than the
return of United States personnel and property to the United
States.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of Wednesday,
[[Page H1608]]
March 29, 2000, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) and the gentleman
from Florida (Mr. Young) each will control 10 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul).
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
(Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I would first like to assure the gentleman
from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) that I am not dealing with a fly, a gnat, or
a flea with my amendment. I would rather not categorize this as dealing
with an elephant for obvious reasons.
But I would like to say that my amendment deals with what I consider
a monster, and that monster to me is careless foreign military
interventionism in which we engage way too often and something we are
getting ready to further engage ourselves now in Colombia.
I am quite convinced that, when most of the Members go back to their
districts, they never brag and they never say that, ``I go to
Washington, and I always vote for the United States to be the policemen
of the world. I enjoy deferring to the United Nations and NATO forces
for us to pursue some of our policies overseas.'' Quite frankly, I
believe most of us go home and say that we do not believe that the
United States should be the policemen of the world.
Earlier on, we debated the issue of whether or not our allies are
paying their fair share, and it is obvious they are not. So not only do
we defer to them for policy and we extend ourselves throughout the
world, we actually end up paying the bill, as most American citizens
know.
Last year, when we were dealing with Kosovo and our initial
involvement in there, we had several votes on the floor dealing with
the sentiment of the Congress. For the most part, the sentiment was
strongly opposed to our military troops being placed in Kosovo.
But, unfortunately, when it came time to deal with the funding, we
were all too anxious to permit and authorize and appropriate the money
to go into Kosovo. Today we are continuing to fund our activities in
Kosovo as well as Bosnia, East Timor, and now with plans to go into
South America, principally Colombia.
My amendment deals with this. It would strike these funds, and it
would permit funds to be used in Kosovo to bring troops home. Some
people argue that if we strike funds for areas like Kosovo, that we are
deserting our troops and it will be detrimental to their morale. Quite
the opposite. I think it would absolutely be helpful, because the
morale of our servicemen cannot get much lower. The morale is low
because they do not know what their real function is in areas where
we're involved. They have become policemen dealing with local laws as
well as Peace Corps type operators.
The morale would be tremendously helped by bringing these troops
home. This is what this amendment deals with. And it strikes the
funding for the expansion of our efforts in Central America.
In Colombia, there are a lot of weapons already, and we are
responsible for 80 percent of them. There is one irony about this bill
that strikes me. The administration and many here on the floor who vote
for these weapons are the same individuals who are anxious to prohibit
the right of an American citizen to own a cheap weapon in self-defense.
At the same time, they are quite willing to tax these individuals and
take their money to spend it on the weapons of war around the world and
become involved in no-win situations.
I cannot think of a worse situation where there is a four-way faction
in Colombia for us to get further involved. Buying 63 helicopters is
bound to cause trouble and some will be shot down thus requiring more
involvement by American troops.
It is time to reassess this policy; to come home. We should not be
the policemen of the world. The American people are not anxious for us
to do this. They have spoken out. A recent poll has shown that 70
percent of the American people are very anxious for us not to be
involved in policing the world. They certainly are not interested in us
placing United States troops under the command of U.N. and NATO forces.
This is a good time for the Members of the Congress to decide whether
or not they would like to vote clearly and say to the American people,
``I do not endorse the concept that we should have an open-ended
commitment to the world, to be the policemen of the world.'' This is
what this amendment says. Quite frankly, the large majority of the
American people are strongly supportive of this position.
This is a clear amendment. This is not dealing with a gnat or a flea.
This is dealing with a principle. Some say this amendment deals with a
principle of foreign policy, and we should defer to the President.
That is not correct. Under the Constitution, the words ``foreign
policy'' do not exist. All the obligations fall on the Congress,
especially with the power of the purse. The President is the Commander
in Chief. But he should never send troops around the world without
permission, which all Presidents continuously have done in the last 50
years. This amendment addresses that subject.
I would have preferred an amendment that would have struck some of
these funds from overseas and placed them into beefing up the military,
increasing the pay of our military personnel, giving them better
housing and better medical care, as well as having some of those funds
spent here at home. That amendment was not permissible under the rule.
But this point, if my colleagues are anxious to make it, can be made
by voting for this amendment. If you are sick and tired of America
being the patsy, sick and tired of us picking up the bill, sick and
tired of our troops being exposed around the world, this is the
amendment to support.
I think this is a very important amendment, and I the American people
support it.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Chairman, I want to agree with the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Paul) that this is not an insignificant amendment. This is a major
amendment. But here is what it does. It waves the white flag of
surrender in the war against the drug lords in Colombia, which provide
most of the drugs, illegal drugs that come into the United States. Now
we want to wage the effort to eliminate those drugs at their source.
This waves the flag of surrender.
I have already talked many times during the various amendments today
about the money for Kosovo. This bill is not sending any money to
Kosovo. The money spent in Kosovo was already spent. The President made
that deployment without getting the approval of the Congress, but the
money has been spent. The money was taken from the fourth quarter
operations and maintenance accounts of the military services, which
means, if we do not replace that money, they have to stand down their
training activities for the last quarter.
This amendment is also very significant. It deals with military
construction. It says that none of the funds can be used for
construction outside of the United States or its territories or
possessions.
I wonder if the gentleman from Texas is not familiar with the fact
that we have 37,000 American troops in Korea, in and around Korea, in
that region, 37,000 American troops. They need some medical facilities.
They need some housing, some new housing. The facilities are very old
in Korea.
The CINC who just retired from Korea has given us a substantial
argument as to why there are military construction requirements in
Korea. The new CINC, who has just assumed the job in Korea, has also
told us that there are needs in military construction.
This amendment would prohibit us doing for our troops who are in
Korea, whether they like it or not, and that is not one of the most
favored deployed areas, those needed construction jobs. That to me is
significant.
If we cannot take care of our own troops, and we have been there ever
since the end of the Korean War, and it is at least a year-long
deployment for most of the troops that are there, we cannot even
consider supporting this amendment if we believe that we have a
responsibility to the Americans who serve in uniform.
[[Page H1609]]
{time} 1215
And I urge a strong rejection of the Paul amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Hastings of Washington). The gentleman
from Texas has 3\1/2\ minutes remaining.
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I do not believe for one minute this is a surrender to the drug war.
This is an acknowledgment that the $250 billion we have spent over the
last 25 years has not worked; that the strategy against drugs is wrong.
Why continue a war that does not work? This is money down a rat hole.
This is totally wasted money and, as far as I am concerned, only an
excuse to sell helicopters and go in to Colombia and protect oil
interests. That is the real reason why we are down there.
We say this is only replacement of money for Kosovo. Well, what makes
us think if we put the money in and replace it the President will not
do the same thing over again? Of course he will. The fact that we are
not watching the purse strings tightly enough is the problem.
The gentleman suggests that this would mean that there would be no
more building and no support for our troops in Korea. My amendment only
deals with the money in this supplemental. What about the current
year's budget? Those funds can still be spent. But it also suggests
that we shall question how long are we going to be in Korea. It is time
to start thinking about these matters. It is time to bring these troops
home.
If we want to spend the money, spend it here at home. Spend the money
here. Build up our national defense. If we wish to continually expand
our interventionism and aggravation overseas, then I guess we have to
vote against this amendment and for the bill. But this is a policy
statement. Should we continue current policy of forever spending money
and being involved overseas? I say it is time to start thinking about
what is good for our people, what is good for our taxpayers, what is
good for national defense, and what is good for our constitutional
republic. Should we be doing this? I do not think so. Are we authorized
to do it? No, we are not authorized to police the world.
This is the furtherest stretch of the imagination to believe that
what we are spending here on this budget, especially what we are going
to do in Colombia, has anything to do with national security. What are
we worried about? Are the Colombians going to attack us? This is not
national security. This is special interest spending. This is
conservative welfarism; that is what it is.
We condemn all the welfare from the left, but we always have our own
welfare on the right, and it is not for national defense. We should do
less of this military adventurism overseas and put it into national
defense, take better care of our troops, which would boost morale, and
increase our ability to defend our country. But, instead, what do we
do? We subsidize our enemies to the tune of many billions of dollars
for a country like China at the same time, when they are aggravated and
annoyed with Taiwan, we send more weapons to Taiwan and then promise to
send American servicemen to stand in between the two of them.
Some day we should ask the question of whether is this policy in good
for us. I am frightened to think that this will only change either when
we are in such a mess, a lot worse than Vietnam, or we totally go broke
or both. But we should not wait. We should speak out and do what is
best for our country. We have a good guideline as to what we should do
in foreign policy, and it comes from the constitution, certainly we
should note the tradition of the last 50 years. The Constitution gives
us the guidance to pursue a proper foreign policy.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time
I have remaining?
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida has 7 minutes
remaining.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton).
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, let me take this opportunity to associate
myself with the comments of the chairman, the gentleman from Florida
(Mr. Young). He is right on on this.
What this amendment does is absolutely ignores the history and the
role the United States has played since the days of Harry Truman, and I
think that opposition to this amendment is proper and just and it must
be defeated.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Green).
Mr. GREEN of Wisconsin. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for
yielding me this time and let me begin by congratulating the gentleman
in the manner in which he has conducted this debate. I think he has
done a wonderful job, both yesterday and today.
I do rise in opposition to this amendment, because I believe it goes
too far, it covers too many things, and withdraws from too many places
and too many important operations. However, I do want to speak more
favorably at least on one aspect of the amendment. This appropriation
package has, as its linchpin, aid to Colombia. That is both its
greatest strength and, I am afraid, its greatest risk. It is risky
because its success in the long run is dependent upon cooperation and
commitment, a commitment to justice on the part of the Colombian
government, and this is, I am afraid, where I have some doubts.
Just over a year ago three innocent Americans were discovered, their
bodies. They had been brutally slaughtered in northeast Colombia,
slaughtered while they were educating the people of northeast Colombia,
slaughtered by thugs from FARC narcoterrorists. One of these Americans
was a constituent of mine, Ingrid Washinawatok of Menominee County,
Wisconsin. If we are not careful, I am afraid these three Americans may
become victimized yet once again. And here is why.
Last October, this body unanimously, unanimously, passed a Sense of
the Congress Resolution which decried these murders, condemned FARC,
but also, and this is the most important part, called upon the
government of Colombia to arrest and to extradite to the United States
for criminal trial these awful people. Some weeks ago, at a
subcommittee hearing before the Committee on International Relations, I
had the chance to ask our drug czar, the esteemed General Barry
McCaffrey, for help in pushing for extradition. He assured me he would,
and he assured me that he would keep me and my constituents posted.
Unfortunately, I have to report today that we have heard nothing from
him.
And now, just recently, we have heard from the president of Colombia
that he will not extradite at least one of these murderers, German
Briceno. So it looks as though the family of Ingrid Washinawatok may be
let down once again. For this initiative, for this initiative aiding
Colombia, to work, there must be trust, there must be understanding,
and there must be a commitment to justice; and I am afraid that
commitment may be slipping away.
I see my friend and colleague, the esteemed chairman of the Committee
on International Relations, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman),
and I would ask him and ask the chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the drug czar,
and the President all to help us push for extradition.
I do speak in opposition. I believe this amendment goes too far, but
some of the sentiments are valid.
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. GREEN of Wisconsin. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me,
because I want to assure him that we will try to work with him in
conference, and wherever we can, to assist in his desire in getting
this criminal extradited.
Mr. GREEN of Wisconsin. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I thank the
gentleman. That means a great deal to us. And I thank the chairman of
the Committee on Appropriations as well, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my
time.
Mr. Chairman, I want to repeat that this is a serious amendment and
should
[[Page H1610]]
be rejected in a very serious way. Now, the issues that our colleague,
the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul), has raised, are major policy
decisions that need to be made, but this is not the bill to do so.
I would suggest to the gentleman that he should go to the Committee
on International Relations or he should go to the Committee on Armed
Services to deal with the issues that he has raised. He deserves a
debate on those issues but not on this bill. This is an appropriations
bill, this is not a bill where policy is set. And so I ask the Paul
amendment be rejected in a very strong and serious way.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. All time for debate on this amendment has
expired.
The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas
(Mr. Paul).
The question was taken; and the Chairman pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 450, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Texas will
be postponed.
Amendment Offered by Mr. Taylor of Mississippi
Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Taylor of Mississippi:
To restrict funding for in excess of 300 U.S. military
personnel in Colombia.
On page 80 after line 11, insert the following new section:
Sec. . None of the funds made available by this Act may
be expended for the support of in excess of 300 United States
military personnel in Colombia.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of
Wednesday, March 29, 2000, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor)
and a Member opposed each will control 10 minutes.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in
opposition.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young)
claims the time in opposition.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor).
Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as
I may consume.
I ask my colleagues, Mr. Chairman, for a few minutes to try to
remember what it was like before we all got caught up in which party we
are in and which committee chairman is for something and which
committee chairman is against it, and try to remember why I think all
of us ran for this office. It was to do good things and to keep bad
things from happening.
It is the second point that I would like to discuss today, because I
think that the needless loss of an American service person is quite
possibly the worst thing that can happen.
The amendment that I am offering today is an effort to keep a bad
thing from needlessly happening. Colombia is a dangerous place. The
FARC and the ELN, the two primary guerilla groups, now control better
than 40 percent of the Colombian countryside. They are well financed,
they are well armed, they are well trained. And in increasing
instances, they are working in large units to overwhelm Colombian army
outposts; and just this week killed about 30 Colombian policemen.
In my opinion, they threaten the Nation of Colombia. And yet the
political leaders of Colombia in the past year have reduced their
defense spending. The political leaders of Colombia in the past couple
of months have actually changed their law so that people who hold a
high school diploma are no longer eligible for the draft in Colombia.
In private conversations with their business leaders, they tell me,
yes, there are taxes on the books, but they do not pay them. And I
suspect that they are expecting someone else's kid to defend their
country.
Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I yield to the gentleman from
Pennsylvania.
Mr. MURTHA. We have no problem on this side with the amendment.
Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I thank
the gentleman and assure him I will go quickly.
Usually it is some poor uneducated kid from the Colombian
countryside, and I get every indication that they expect American kids
to fight in a war they will not fight in and the American taxpayers to
pay for a war that they will not pay for.
It is with some hesitation that I will vote to help them with
America's money and equipment. I will not, however, vote to send
America's sons and daughters off to fight a war in Colombia that the
sons and daughters of Colombia and their political leaders often will
not fight in.
This amendment would limit America's troop strength in Colombia to
300 military personnel. In a hearing before the House Committee on
Armed Services last week on Colombia, General Charles Wilhelm, the
United States Commander in Chief of the Southern Command, was told of
my reservations and asked if he would agree to a troop limitation. His
response was:
Would I be willing, as the Commander in Chief of the United
States Southern Command, to subscribe to a properly
considered and developed troop cap for Colombia? I certainly
would. Categorically, yes.
That was 1 week ago today.
I am asking my colleagues to put such a cap on American troop
strength in Colombia. Should it be the will of the majority of this
House to break that cap, then it should be done in a deliberate manner
and by a vote of this body, and not something that some president on a
whim gets us involved in.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Chairman, I think that this amendment is an
important one because it helps point out the fact that the strategic
thought on the fight against drugs is being directed in the wrong
place.
{time} 1230
What should happen and should, of course, come from the Colombian
military and their government is to put a stop to the traffic, the drug
traffic coming across the Andes by air as the Peruvians stopped, and
through the three, and only three, mountain passes through the Andes.
Instead, we might find ourselves enmeshed in a civil war, going after
one-third of the guerillas who, of course, are being supported by the
drug trafficking.
The proposed strategy is a 6-year strategy; that should not be. It
should be one where you shoot down the airplanes as they fly over the
Andes and stop up the three passes and then should we look at assisting
in going after the guerillas if that be our policy. Let us go the first
things first.
Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my
time.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield our 10 minutes for
purposes of control to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), the
chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Hastings of Washington). Without
objection, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) will control 10
minutes.
There was no objection.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, as my colleague, the gentleman
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha), indicated we are not going to have any
problem with this amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to my friend, the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Bateman).
Mr. BATEMAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished gentleman (Mr.
Lewis of California) for yielding me this time. I do not rise in
opposition to this amendment. I would not ask for a rollcall vote on
this amendment.
I do have to tell my colleagues in the House that within the last
hour, I have spoken to General Wilhelm; and General Wilhelm says that
he does not believe this figure of a 300-person cap on military
personnel in Colombia is realistic. And he does not know where it came
from.
If there was going to be a cap, as he said in his statement before
the committee, it should be properly considered and developed. This, I
do not believe meets that test. I am not opposed
[[Page H1611]]
to there being one. And I would hope in the course of the legislative
process that that kind of deliberation on what the cap should be and
what exemptions might be in order to that cap would be a matter that
would be considered.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests for
time, but I reserve the balance of my time. I am prepared to yield it
back as soon as we are through on both sides.
Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I am very grateful for the
help of the committee chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman
from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie).
(Mr. ABERCROMBIE asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Chairman, I think that it is very, very
important, speaking as a Member of the Committee on Armed Services who
was there when this statement was made, and reflecting for a moment on
very cogent remarks of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bateman), the
reason that we need to pass this today is to at least set in motion the
fact that we are not going to make an open-ended commitment here.
We are dealing with numbers that have been the case so far with the
commitment of the United States. It is very, very important in the
context of what has happened from Vietnam on that we not find ourselves
stumbling into something from which we cannot come back, getting into
something from which we cannot retreat if it is found to be necessary.
Of course, we need to take into account exactly what should be done
with respect to numbers or anything else, but failing to do this today
we will find ourselves in a position where that kind of benchmark has
not been established.
Mr. Chairman, I think it is very, very important for us to pass this
amendment today on the basis that we do not find ourselves drifting
inextricably into a situation that we cannot only control, but for the
consequences of which may be something that all of us would find most
grievous in terms of what the Congress of the United States did.
I recognize that we are near the end of a day in which people may be
leaving; that the full attention may not be on this question right now.
That is even a more important reason that we pass this amendment today.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to yield the
balance of my time, presuming the other side is as well.
Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the
gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Largent), the gentleman from Mississippi
(Mr. Wicker) for their assistance in this.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my
time.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. All time for debate on this amendment has
expired.
The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from
Mississippi (Mr. Taylor).
The amendment was agreed to.
Amendment No. 16 Offered by Mr. Tancredo
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment No. 16 printed in the Congressional Record
offered by Mr. Tancredo:
At the end of the bill, add the following section.
Sec. __. The amounts otherwise provided by this Act are
revised by reducing the amount made available for RELATED
AGENCIES AND FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES--Food and Drug Administration
Buildings and Facilities by $20 million.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of
Wednesday, March 29, 2000, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo)
and the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen) each will control 10
minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo).
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Chairman, in the proud tradition of the $500 hammer, the $1,000
toilet seat and the $1 million outhouse, the FDA and this bill now
bring us a hugely expensive Federal office building in Los Angeles.
This building, 133,000 square feet, will cost us, when it is done both
in construction and in land acquisition and design, some $53 million.
That is an extraordinarily expensive piece of property, and as you can
see by this picture here, it looks nothing like what one would consider
to be an appropriate design building for a Federal Government agency.
By the way, this amount, this $52 million, $53 million for this
133,000 square foot building does not include the cost of furniture,
telecommunications, or security systems. It is just the building and
the land. Yes, there are some laboratories in the building, but that
does not account for the massive expense.
It is the incredible opulence of this building, the building itself,
a rendering of which, by the way, the architect proudly displays on his
Web site, and proud he should be.
Look at this thing. Does this look like a building designed with the
slightest consideration for cost containment? Of course not. But why
should anyone care. After all, it is just government money.
Let us take this $20 million that they are asking this year and use
it for debt reduction and not for pork production.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume,
and I rise in opposition to the amendment.
Mr. Chairman, this construction project is not included in this bill
at the request of any Member. This replacement laboratory has been in
the agency's program of requirements for some time. It was included in
the President's budget request last year, and it was included in the
House-passed bill last year.
As we moved towards our conference agreement last year, this was one
item that we could not fit within our overall spending levels. But that
did not mean that the requirement went away. It only meant that the
building has gotten older, more decrepit, and more dangerous for
employees.
What is done in this laboratory? This lab does the scientific and
analytical work that backs up the FDA's consumer-protection mission,
with a heavy emphasis on the surveillance of important products. Fully
25 percent of the agency's laboratory work related to imports is done
in this one location.
What happens if this replacement construction is further delayed?
Eventually, and the time is soon, operations in the existing facility
will have to halt because of the combination of lack of worker safety
and questionable scientific results due to substandard conditions.
What happens then? Laboratory work will be performed elsewhere at
reduced efficiency and higher costs. Turnaround time on sample analysis
will increase, and fresh imported foods being held for this analysis
will rot on the dock; or worse yet, unsafe food will find its way to
our homes and tables.
So if the goal is to increase the cost of Federal efforts to ensure
the safety of imported products, increase the health risks to the
American consumer, increase the risk to Federal workers in doing their
jobs, and increase the cost of industry of complying with necessary
regulation, then, by all means, my colleagues should support this
amendment.
I do not support those goals; and, therefore, I oppose the amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I ask all Members to oppose this amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I have been on the ground at this facility. It is an
absolutely ruinous situation, very dangerous. I do not know whose
artistic presentation that was. But in a place where this facility is
today, it has to be redone and has to be moved, or we will lose it.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume
in response.
Mr. Chairman, first of all, the artist rendering of the building that
we presented here is the architect, the architect that has been hired
by FDA. This we took off of his Web site. This is not our
representation. This is the artist rendering the building that they are
going to put on a piece of property that
[[Page H1612]]
they have purchased for somewhere around $9.8 million is the cost they
gave us for land acquisition and for some design.
Let us assume that the design was for a million dollars. Let us
assume that the architect got to us for a million dollars for the
design. That still means that we paid almost, what, $800,000 or
$900,000 an acre for the property on which this is going to sit. And
after we do that, we are going to build a building that will cost us
$100 to $300 a square foot.
This is enormously expensive, incredibly opulent. This is not a
conservative stewardship of tax dollars when it comes to building
Federal buildings. And then let me say that my colleague has indicated
what happens in this building and he leads us to believe that there is
a great deal of concern that we should have if these people do not have
all this room.
There is almost, by the way, 700 square feet individual space per
employee in this building. The GSA standard, by the way, runs to about
175 feet; and that is even including the expanse outside of one's work
space, the average that the GSA indicates. This is a 700-square-foot-
per-employee building.
Let me tell my colleagues what is going to go on in this building
that is so incredibly important to the health and safety of the Nation.
We took this off of the FDA's Web site about what they do. This is what
they describe as what will be going on in this building for the Office
of Regulatory Affairs:
Advises and assists the commissioner and other key officials in
regulations; coordinates, interprets, and evaluates the agency's
overall compliance efforts; stimulates awareness within the agency of
the need for prompt and positive action to assure compliance; evaluates
and coordinates all proposed legal actions to ascertain compliance;
executes direct-line authority over all agency field operations;
provides direction and counsel to the regional food and drug directors;
develops and/or recommends to the commissioner policy programs plans.
All this bureaucratic gobbledygook, which we know really and truly,
when we get down to it, what is this all about but a lot of paper
shuffling.
We are not talking about a massive building with a great many
laboratories in it. What has happened here is that they are
consolidating two office buildings and one lab into this building. But
the majority is office building, office building.
{time} 1245
Look at that office building. I ask my colleagues, how many buildings
even here in Washington, DC, do we see that look like that? It is not
the cost of what goes on inside that building necessarily or the
construction of it that is so expensive, it is what it looks like.
This is something again, even if it is necessary, Mr. Chairman, even
if everything that my colleague has said is necessary, I ask, is this
an emergency, on the level of the hurricane disaster, on the level of
all the other things that we know to be in the true definition of the
term emergency it is known to fit. But if some FDA employee has to go
to a building that is less convenient, perhaps less opulent, certainly
dustier and in a seedier neighborhood, because that is what they list
here as being their big problem, they do not like the neighborhood
where they presently are housed. They do not like the neighborhood. I
am sorry about that. A lot of folks I know are not terribly pleased,
but they do not have the luxury of just coming to the Congress and
getting $52 million to move out.
I should say to my colleagues that if that is what really prompts
this kind of move, it is not an emergency, it should not be in here. If
all the things that are true about the need for this kind of
construction are there, then it should come through the regular
process, go through the regular appropriations process and end up yea
or nay on the floor. It should not be in this particular piece of
legislation.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/4\ minutes to the gentlewoman
from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).
Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment. I want to say
to the gentleman from Colorado that had he contacted our subcommittee
at any point during our discussions on this, perhaps we could have
clarified some of the misinformation that he is bringing to the floor.
This is not an office building. This is a laboratory. One-quarter of
all imported food that comes into our country is probed and the samples
from that are sent through this lab.
Keep in mind that in our country today, we only are able to test, the
American people cannot even believe this but it is true, less than 2
percent of what comes over our borders. But of what we do test, one-
quarter is sent to this lab, which by the way I wish he would put up
the picture of the current obsolescent, dilapidated embarrassment that
sits in South Los Angeles today that calls itself a building and a lab
which is unsafe for the workers to work in.
The reason this is an emergency, and we should have passed this last
year, is simply because the building is in such bad shape if this does
not pass and we cannot start construction very soon, and this has been
a competitively bid project, that means that we are going to have to
move everybody out of that lab and put them somewhere else which will
be a waste of taxpayers' money. We ought to get this building up. If he
takes the trees off that little drawing he has got there and just look
at the building, it does not look too fancy to me.
They had to come in within budget, what was budgeted for it. If we
think about what is happening in our country today, 5,000 people died
last year of food poisoning in our country. Seventy-three million had
different types of illnesses related to food. Of what is coming over
the border, over 5 percent of what we do test has microbiological
pathogens such as E. coli and salmonella and shigella.
This is a serious situation. We should not ask people to work in
those kinds of conditions. It is an embarrassment to the city of Los
Angeles to have this antiquated structure there. I do not think it
would be a very pleasant place to go to work. As conditions are today,
it certainly is not. This particular lab located where it is in
Southern California, way out there in the Southwest, I am sure his
California colleagues do not support this because we have so much
produce coming in from Mexico now and it is growing at alarming rates,
we have to be able to test this in the public interest.
I should tell the gentleman that the L.A. district, not just this lab
or the border but the L.A. district, the region, represents one of the
three largest ports of entry for all commodities coming into the United
States. This is a place that needs attention. I do not think it would
be very wise to shut it down or to try to transfer it to some other
part of the country. If we probe in Texas, we have to send the probes
over to Los Angeles because we do not have enough money to build other
labs. I say let us build a structure that will stand for a number of
years.
Mr. Chairman, I would just say to the gentleman, if he had come to
our committee and we could have spent time talking with him about this,
we would be happy to work with him in the months ahead. I personally
will be willing to go with the gentleman out there and see what we have
got now. I leave it to the experts to build the new lab, but let us
move on with it. It is the 21st century, let us get out of the 19th.
Defeat the Tancredo amendment.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
The information that we have about this facility comes to us from the
FDA. It is their own information. It is their own documentation. It is
the rationale for their budget request. It states that restricted funds
will serve to consolidate three district's sites, the laboratory on
People Boulevard, the current district office in Irvine, and the San
Pedro resident post.
If that has changed and it is a different configuration than this, I
will be happy to entertain that consideration, but that is what they
said this is for. They also said that this replacement facility was
going to house 75 laboratory staff and 120 office personnel at an
estimated construction cost of $40.4 million.
Again, $40.4 million for the building and the gentlewoman and I both
know that the building will never come in at that amount. When was the
last time a
[[Page H1613]]
Federal building project ever came in at budget? But our best hope is
$40.4 million. Again add the $9.8 million to that that we have spent
for land and design, and we have got a building that is now approaching
$400 per square foot in cost. This is extraordinary.
I repeat, that if all of the information provided is inaccurate that
we have here, if there is greater need than what we are able to
identify on this floor and certainly than what has been able to be
offered here on the other side as a justification for this expenditure,
I suggest that all could have been done in an even more appropriate
setting and, that is, the regular appropriations process, a committee
of reference, not just an appropriations committee but an authorizing
committee.
The Citizens for Government Waste has identified this particular
project as a particularly egregious example of government waste, and
they are supporting the amendment. They and others have looked at this
whole thing and recognize that once again it is not just the fact that
we may need a building. I am not arguing that point. Some facility may
be necessary. I certainly would not stand here and tell Members that
all of the claims to the contrary are accurate, but I am saying that a
building of this nature is what I am concerned about and a building
this expensive. Eight hundred, $900,000 an acre for the building for 10
acres to build a 133,000 square foot building seems to me to be
exorbitant.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I have some questions for the proponent of this amendment. Regarding
the gentleman's figures on the cost per square foot of the facility,
does the gentleman realize that you do not test for botulism and
salmonella in a garage? Does the gentleman understand that you do not
test for E. coli with a high school science kit in your kitchen? Would
the gentleman be happy if FDA were testing the food that he and his
family eat and that the families of all the Members here eat using old,
outmoded equipment in poor facilities?
Is there a Member in this body who does not want the country to have
the safest and best food supply in the world? Is there a Member in this
body who thinks that we can do that on the cheap?
Mr. Chairman, here in Washington, we are pretty good at taking care
of ourselves. We have nice offices, nice staff, lots of parking. We
even have our own police force. We work here less than half the days in
the year. Why then do we expect Federal government employees to protect
our food supply and our health every day of every week of every year
and not give them the means to do it?
I strongly urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may
consume. I go back again to the information provided by the FDA about
what exactly goes on in the Office of Regulatory Affairs for which this
building is being constructed, the Office of Regulatory Affairs. I read
the list. I certainly did not give a detailed description of each one
of these things because, quite frankly, they are quite amorphous. But I
assure Members that none of them, not one of the things identified on
this entire list except the last thing that says operates the Federal
medical products quality assurance program for the agency is even
remotely connected to the kind of thing my colleague brings up about
what FDA does.
Then we went to the Web site to find out exactly what the medical
products quality assurance staff does to determine just exactly how
close it came to this quality control issue. Here is what they do. This
is again from the FDA. The functional statement for the medical quality
assurance staff are develop and maintain liaison with the government
agencies procuring medical products, develop and manage operational
agreements and systems, receive and process requests from other Federal
agencies, maintain liaison, coordinate, direct field and headquarter
activities relating to the governmentwide assurance program.
Mr. Chairman, nothing in here, nothing they have given us certainly,
would lead us to believe that any of the activities going on in this
building reach the level of importance in terms of maintaining the food
quality of this Nation that has been identified.
The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo)
has expired.
Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from
Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).
Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
Mr. Chairman, I just want to say to our colleagues, do not take a
safe food supply for granted. We have to thank the lab workers across
our country who work at wages below what they would earn in the private
sector and in this Los Angeles lab I want to pin a gold star on every
one of them because they work under terrible, terrible conditions.
Yet they are there because they are dedicated to the public health
and welfare of the people of the United States and to food safety. We
still have the safest food supply in the world but we have got some
tears in the fabric. One of the answers for us is to try to provide a
more modern facility where we can test faster, move more product
through and increase the amount of surveillance that we do as imports
absolutely avalanche into this country.
Remember, we only check now under 2 percent of the food that you buy,
the fresh fruits and vegetables that you buy in the store, we only
check less than 2 percent. We have had outbreaks across this country.
The question becomes, are we going to put our money where our mouth is
in terms of food safety for our families and for our children? Defeat
the Tancredo amendment.
Mr. SKEEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I think the essence of this thing is, Mr. Chairman, I do not know how
many Members have seen this FDA laboratory in Los Angeles. I have. It
is an absolute ruin. I have been there. I have seen what it is like for
the FDA employees who work in the trenches, so to speak, doing the job
that we all want them to do to ensure the safety of the food supply.
They are in danger of their own situation because the place has been
broken into time after time. It is in a terrible location. It is in a
terrible state of repair. It is not worth this effort that we have gone
through.
I would say to the gentleman, a trip out there to see it would
probably change his whole viewpoint because he has been led down the
primrose path. Is this construction project an emergency? My answer is
``yes.'' This facility is in such poor shape that it is getting in the
way of FDA's performance and its consumer protection mission. That is
not a small statement on the situation that we have in this particular
laboratory. You have to go and see it. You cannot do it from the
presentation that you have had from this today.
I would like to read part of the letter I have received from an
association known as the Grocery Manufacturers of America.
I quote:
On behalf of the members of the Grocery Manufacturers of
America (GMA), I want to express support for the continued
inclusion in H.R. 3908, the FY 2000 Emergency Supplemental
Appropriations Act, of funding for the Food and Drug
Administration's (FDA) Los Angeles, California, laboratory
facility.
The food industry agrees that FDA must have up-to-date
facilities and state-of-the-art laboratory instrumentation to
stay on top of the huge task of monitoring imported food
products, many of which enter the U.S. through southern
California. The current Los Angeles laboratory is an old,
outdated facility, with equipment and instrumentation that is
quite simply not up to the task. With more than 1 million
import entries through this facility alone, the undertaking
is enormous and the potential risk to the public of failing
to do the job properly is significant.
As you may know, GMA is the world's largest association of
food, beverage and consumer product companies. With U.S.
sales of more than $460 billion, GMA members employ more than
2.5 million workers in all 50 states. The organization
applies legal, scientific and political expertise from its
member companies to vital food, nutrition and public policy
issues affecting the industry. Led by a board of 42 Chief
Executive Officers, GMA speaks for food and consumer product
manufacturers at the state, federal and international levels
on legislative and regulatory issues. The association also
leads efforts to increase productivity, efficiency and growth
in the food, beverage and consumer products industry.
Food safety is one of our highest priorities, as we know it
is yours. Providing FDA with
[[Page H1614]]
the funds it needs for its Los Angeles laboratory project is
definitely a needed component of a broad food safety agenda,
as it will ensure better response and more appropriate
scientific evaluations of potential risk from imported foods.
Again, I oppose this amendment, and I ask all members to oppose this
amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the amendment offered by the
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo).
The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes
appeared to have it.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to House Resolution 450, further proceedings
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo)
will be postponed.
{time} 1300
Amendment Offered by Mr. Baldacci
Mr. BALDACCI. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Baldacci:
On page 80, after line 11, insert the following:
``Sec. __. Funds made available under title IV of this act
for weatherization activities shall also be available for
other building technology assistance conservation activities
authorized in law''
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of Wednesday, March
29, 2000, the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Baldacci) and the gentleman
from Ohio (Mr. Regula) each will control 10 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Baldacci).
Mr. BALDACCI. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Chairman, I rise today to talk about the need for an energy
policy, something that the leadership in this Congress has not yet
addressed today or for the last 6 years.
The amendment that I have introduced is a modest expansion of a
number of programs funded with $19 million for weatherization
assistance grants. Although it is a small change, it is all that was
allowed; but it raises a larger question: When is this Congress going
to do something, and what they do do is counterproductive to the
interests of the American public.
When one lives in a State where the temperature dips in below zero
and dramatic increases in heating oil prices are serious matters, for
people who are on fixed incomes, it has presented a life-threatening
choice between paying for the delivery of heating oil or buying
medicine, between heating the house and buying groceries.
Now OPEC has decided to increase production and non-OPEC countries
have also increased production.
The most important tool that is available to the President of the
United States and the Secretary of Energy is said to expire tomorrow,
the tool that has allowed them to negotiate with OPEC and non-OPEC
countries to increase the production, readily available so that our
consumers, our small business people, our truckers, our potato farmers
and fishermen can make sure that they have reasonable costs for energy
and are not being put on the of business.
Millions and hundreds of millions have been spent on low-income
heating assistance and hundreds of millions more need to be spent. The
one tool is set to expire tomorrow. It has been languishing in the
committee, and an extension has been sought by the President to last
until 2003. This reserve was created during the Nation's energy crisis.
What tools are we going to have to make sure that OPEC and non-OPEC are
increasing their production, and how are we going to be assured that
they honor that increase and not another emergency arises?
There have been suggestions in the Office of Energy Information that
there may be shortages in New England and California this summer, even
with the increased production. This inaction compromises the
President's ability to negotiate with our allies. It raises doubts
about the President's ability to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in
emergencies. The last thing that we want to do is to send a message to
the world, a message that the President of the United States' ability
has been compromised because of the failure of this Congress to act.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from
Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), who has shown leadership in this and many
other matters.
Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Baldacci
amendment. This year we faced a major crisis in the Northeast where
there was not a sufficient oil supply to take care of the people in our
districts who desperately rely on home heating oil as the way they heat
their homes in cold winters, and we have cold winters in the Northeast.
We had a supply problem leading to a serious price increase. Hard-
working American families trying to heat their homes, drive to work,
fill the tanks of their trucks and boats are suffering from these price
hikes.
Two days ago, thanks to heavy pressure from the administration, OPEC
and non-OPEC countries agreed to increase the oil supply. This will
help to bring prices down.
In the meantime, the Republican leadership of this House has done
little more than point fingers at the administration, but it is
important to lay out the energy policy of this same Republican
leadership over the past 5 years. Their policy abolishes the Department
of Energy, sells off the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, slashes funding
for alternative energy sources, underfunds conservation programs that
would help to make us energy independent, the kinds of programs that
are listed in the Baldacci amendment.
What is more, they will not bring up a bill that extends the
President's authority to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve if there is a national emergency in this country. This
authority expires tomorrow. This is leverage with the OPEC countries.
They would handcuff the President, jeopardize our national security. My
God, this would be laughable if it were not so serious.
We need to move forward on a national energy policy, and we should
get an energy policy in order. That is why we should immediately
reauthorize the President's authority in the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve. We should consider our investments in energy efficiency,
conservation, alternative energy sources like those listed in this
amendment. We should provide tax incentives for our domestic oil and
gas industry, and we should set up a Northeast home heating reserve in
order to ensure that our constituents do not have to choose between
heating their homes and eating their meals.
Mr. Chairman, that is the way to an energy policy. Let us stop
pointing fingers; let us roll up our sleeves; let us get to work. Let
us start that with the Baldacci amendment.
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
The gentleman's purpose in offering this amendment is good. The need
to reauthorize the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is very real. I would
point out that it was delayed downtown for 5 days last year.
However, the gentleman's amendment does not accomplish his stated
purpose of reauthorizing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Indeed, it
deals with another program all together.
Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman to withdraw his amendment,
and I give him my commitment to work with him through the appropriate
venue to reach his goal of a Strategic Petroleum Reserve
reauthorization. I think the gentleman's comments focus our attention
on this need, and we certainly will do everything possible to get it
done. I hope the administration will support it.
Mr. BALDACCI. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. REGULA. I yield to the gentleman from Maine.
Mr. BALDACCI. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the efforts of the gentleman
in wanting to work on this and addressing this in a constructive way,
and I look forward to doing that.
I have one other speaker, and then that would be it.
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BALDACCI. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), a leader in these matters also, and an
esteemed colleague here in the Chamber.
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for raising this
issue of
[[Page H1615]]
what this Congress has to do in order to deal with the long-term energy
security of our country.
Mr. Chairman, we are very fortunate that between 1980 and the year
2000, the percentage of our gross domestic product that oil represents
has dropped from 7 percent to 3 percent. That is good. But much of that
is as a result of decisions that were made by this Congress. We forced
the automobile industry to improve its energy efficiency from 13.5
miles a gallon to 27 miles a gallon. If we had not done that, we would
have to import 4 million barrels of oil a day additionally.
The same thing is true with all of our appliances, those with Federal
regulation. Money for weatherization, which the gentleman from Maine
has wisely used as the vehicle to have this discussion, that money
helped, to make sure that homes were more energy efficient, less oil
had to be imported.
Now, short term, we do have to reauthorize the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve. And this time, maybe we will buy when oil is cheap, $12 a
barrel. We will sell when it is expensive. We do it just the opposite
in this Congress. We buy when it is expensive, and we sell when it is
cheap. If we had 1 billion barrels, we could do 2 million barrels a day
for nearly 3 years. Let us give some future President that weapon going
up against the heads of the states across this world that seek to hold
us hostage. Mr. Chairman, 2 million barrels a day. We do not have that
capacity right now. We are down to 560 million. We should still use it.
And a regional petroleum reserve, which the gentleman from Maine is
leading on, to make sure that New England, New York, New Jersey are not
held hostage every single winter.
Moreover, let us talk about better fuel economy standards for our
automobiles. If we just increased it up to 35 miles a gallon, we could
push out another 2 million or 3 million barrels ourselves. All of
Alaska, all of Alaska only gives us 1 million barrels a day. If we have
the biggest strike of all time up in Alaska, we might only add another
500,000 million barrels. It does not even touch what we could to make
sure homes are weatherized, automobiles are more efficient,
refrigerators and stoves and light bulbs do not consume as much energy.
The power is within ourselves, I say to my colleagues. But the
Congress acted in the 1970s and 1980s. They have not acted in the
1990s. That is what is central. Short term, Strategic Petroleum
Reserve, let us fill it, make sure we can deploy it, a regional
petroleum reserve, let us fill it. We are going to have to use that, no
question about it. But long term, let us work smarter, not harder. Let
us use our advantage in technology. Let us ensure that we make the
investment, pass the regulations, and then we can just thumb our noses
at OPEC. We have the power within ourselves to do it. We do not have to
drill off of the coast of California, off Florida. We can do it in our
own vehicles, our own technologies and make ourselves energy
independent.
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I would point out to the gentleman that it
was the Subcommittee on the Interior of the Committee on Appropriations
that refused to sell the oil, so it is still there.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr.
Stearns).
Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague from Ohio for
yielding me this time.
Let me just say to the gentlewoman from Connecticut and the gentleman
from Massachusetts, I have also had the opportunity to live in New
England, and I know how sensitive it is up there. In fact, during the
energy crisis I was up there, and I was well aware that people were
heating their homes with wood stoves; the cost of energy was soaring.
But I thought I would put in the Record something that perhaps should
be put in. It is not the end of the world if the EPCA, the Energy
Policy and Conservation Act, expires. It is supposed to expire, as I
understand, tomorrow. It is not the end of the world. In fact, the
House and Senate passed a reauthorization for the EPCA on September 30,
1999, last year. It was sent to the President on the day it was to
expire. The President of the United States, President Clinton, did not
sign it. In fact, he waited 5 days and it lapsed.
So I point out that here it is not a crisis. We are going to take
care of this, and I assure my colleagues, I am on the Subcommittee on
Energy and Power, and working with the appropriators, we will do this;
and I assure the gentleman we will. I am very sensitive and empathetic
and sympathetic to what he has to say here.
Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I would again urge the gentleman to
withdraw his amendment. The gentleman has our assurance as well as the
authorizing committee that we will deal with this issue. The gentleman
pointed out a problem that is necessary for us to take action on, and I
commend the gentleman for that.
Mr. BALDACCI. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Chairman, I want to express my appreciation to the gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Regula). I want to make a point, and then I will ask
unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.
I wanted to raise the point that a year ago, it makes a big
difference in the situation that we are now in, in the negotiations
that have been taking place, and we have all been watching it. Not just
us, but the people we represent and our families, the gas prices, home
heating oil prices, daily, hourly, weekly. So it is different, and to
take this tool away and not to be sure that he has it to be able to
negotiate with our allies diminishes his being able to do the job of
the national security interests of this country.
I look forward to working with the gentleman on this matter, this
very important matter, and to begin to accomplish some energy
legislation in a comprehensive way.
Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from
Maine?
There was no objection.
Sequential Votes Postponed in the Committee of the Whole
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to House Resolution 450, proceedings will now
resume on those amendments on which further proceedings were postponed
in the following order:
The amendment offered by Mr. Stearns of Florida;
Amendment No. 5 printed in the Record by Mr. Paul of Texas; and
Amendment No. 16 printed in the Record by Mr. Tancredo of Colorado.
The Chair will reduce to 5 minutes the time for any electronic vote
after the first in this series.
Amendment Offered By Mr. Stearns
The CHAIRMAN. The pending business is the demand for a recorded vote
on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) on
which further proceedings were postponed and on which the noes
prevailed by voice vote.
The Clerk will redesignate the amendment.
The Clerk redesignated the amendment.
Recorded Vote
The CHAIRMAN. A recorded vote has been demanded.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 126,
noes 291, not voting 17, as follows:
[Roll No. 91]
AYES--126
Archer
Bachus
Barcia
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Barton
Bass
Bereuter
Brady (TX)
Burton
Camp
Campbell
Castle
Chabot
Coble
Coburn
Collins
Condit
Cook
Costello
Cox
Cubin
Cunningham
Deal
DeMint
Deutsch
Doggett
Dooley
Doolittle
Duncan
Ehrlich
English
Ewing
Foley
Fossella
Ganske
Gekas
Gibbons
Goode
Goodlatte
Goss
Graham
Green (WI)
Greenwood
Gutknecht
Hall (TX)
Hastings (WA)
Hayworth
Hefley
Herger
Hilleary
Hoekstra
Hostettler
Houghton
Hulshof
Hunter
Inslee
Johnson, Sam
Kasich
Kind (WI)
Kingston
Kleczka
LaHood
Largent
Lazio
Lewis (GA)
Linder
Luther
Maloney (CT)
Manzullo
McInnis
McKinney
Meehan
Metcalf
Miller (FL)
Miller, Gary
Minge
Moore
Moran (KS)
Myrick
Nethercutt
Norwood
Nussle
Paul
Pease
Peterson (MN)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Pombo
Portman
Pryce (OH)
Radanovich
Ramstad
Riley
Roemer
Rohrabacher
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Salmon
Sanchez
Sanford
Scarborough
Schaffer
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
[[Page H1616]]
Shadegg
Shays
Shimkus
Smith (MI)
Smith (WA)
Stearns
Stenholm
Sununu
Tancredo
Tanner
Terry
Tiahrt
Toomey
Turner
Upton
Vitter
Weldon (FL)
Wu
NOES--291
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Allen
Andrews
Armey
Baca
Baird
Baker
Baldacci
Baldwin
Ballenger
Barrett (WI)
Bateman
Bentsen
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop
Blagojevich
Bliley
Blumenauer
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bonior
Bono
Borski
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Bryant
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Canady
Cannon
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Carson
Chambliss
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Combest
Conyers
Cooksey
Coyne
Cramer
Crowley
Cummings
Danner
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
Davis (VA)
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
DeLay
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Doyle
Dreier
Dunn
Edwards
Ehlers
Emerson
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Fletcher
Forbes
Ford
Fowler
Frank (MA)
Frelinghuysen
Frost
Gallegly
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Gonzalez
Goodling
Gordon
Green (TX)
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Hansen
Hastings (FL)
Hayes
Hill (IN)
Hill (MT)
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoeffel
Holden
Holt
Hooley
Horn
Hoyer
Hutchinson
Hyde
Isakson
Istook
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Jenkins
John
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (NC)
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kelly
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
King (NY)
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kucinich
Kuykendall
LaFalce
Lampson
Lantos
Larson
Latham
LaTourette
Leach
Lee
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Lofgren
Lowey
Lucas (KY)
Lucas (OK)
Maloney (NY)
Markey
Martinez
Mascara
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McCrery
McDermott
McGovern
McHugh
McIntyre
McKeon
McNulty
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Mica
Millender-McDonald
Miller, George
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Moran (VA)
Morella
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal
Ney
Northup
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Ose
Owens
Oxley
Packard
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Pelosi
Peterson (PA)
Phelps
Pickett
Pomeroy
Porter
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Regula
Reyes
Reynolds
Rivers
Rodriguez
Rogers
Rothman
Roukema
Roybal-Allard
Sabo
Sanders
Sandlin
Sawyer
Saxton
Schakowsky
Scott
Serrano
Shaw
Sherman
Sherwood
Shows
Shuster
Simpson
Sisisky
Skeen
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Snyder
Souder
Spratt
Stabenow
Stark
Strickland
Stump
Stupak
Sweeney
Talent
Tauscher
Tauzin
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Thomas
Thompson (CA)
Thornberry
Thune
Thurman
Tierney
Towns
Traficant
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walden
Walsh
Wamp
Waters
Watkins
Watt (NC)
Watts (OK)
Waxman
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Wexler
Weygand
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson
Wise
Wolf
Woolsey
Wynn
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOT VOTING--17
Becerra
Burr
Chenoweth-Hage
Crane
Everett
Franks (NJ)
Granger
Klink
McIntosh
Quinn
Rogan
Ros-Lehtinen
Rush
Spence
Thompson (MS)
Vento
Weiner
{time} 1335
Mrs. JONES of Ohio and Messrs. LIPINSKI, BRYANT, MARTINEZ, DAVIS of
Virginia, JONES of North Carolina, and NEY changed their vote from
``aye'' to ``no.''
Messrs. LUTHER, HUNTER, WU, SESSIONS, DOOLITTLE, MEEHAN, and LAZIO
changed their vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
So the amendment was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Announcement by the Chairman
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to House Resolution 450, the Chair announces
he will reduce to a minimum of 5 minutes the period of time within
which a vote by electronic device will be taken on each amendment on
which the Chair has postponed further proceedings.
Amendment No. 5 Offered by Mr. Paul
The CHAIRMAN. The pending business is the demand for a recorded vote
on amendment No. 5 offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) on
which further proceedings were postponed and on which the noes
prevailed by voice vote.
The Clerk will redesignate the amendment.
The Clerk redesignated the amendment.
Recorded Vote
The CHAIRMAN. A recorded vote has been demanded.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The CHAIRMAN. This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 45,
noes 367, not voting 22, as follows:
[Roll No. 92]
AYES--45
Archer
Brown (OH)
Campbell
Cannon
Chabot
Coburn
Collins
Combest
Cook
Danner
Deal
DeMint
Dickey
Duncan
Ewing
Gekas
Graham
Gutknecht
Hill (MT)
Hilleary
Hoekstra
Hulshof
Jones (NC)
Largent
Linder
Manzullo
Metcalf
Moran (KS)
Paul
Peterson (MN)
Petri
Pitts
Ramstad
Rohrabacher
Royce
Salmon
Sanford
Scarborough
Sensenbrenner
Shadegg
Simpson
Stark
Tancredo
Terry
Toomey
NOES--367
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Allen
Andrews
Armey
Baca
Bachus
Baird
Baker
Baldacci
Baldwin
Ballenger
Barcia
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Barrett (WI)
Bartlett
Barton
Bass
Bateman
Bentsen
Bereuter
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop
Blagojevich
Bliley
Blumenauer
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bonior
Bono
Borski
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Brown (FL)
Bryant
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Canady
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Carson
Castle
Chambliss
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Coble
Condit
Conyers
Cooksey
Costello
Cox
Coyne
Cramer
Crowley
Cubin
Cummings
Cunningham
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
Davis (VA)
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
DeLay
Deutsch
Diaz-Balart
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Doggett
Dooley
Doolittle
Doyle
Dreier
Dunn
Edwards
Ehlers
Ehrlich
Emerson
Engel
English
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Fletcher
Foley
Forbes
Ford
Fossella
Fowler
Frank (MA)
Frelinghuysen
Frost
Gallegly
Ganske
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Gonzalez
Goode
Goodlatte
Goodling
Gordon
Goss
Green (TX)
Green (WI)
Greenwood
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Hall (TX)
Hansen
Hastings (FL)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Herger
Hill (IN)
Hilliard
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoeffel
Holden
Holt
Hooley
Horn
Hostettler
Houghton
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Inslee
Isakson
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Jenkins
John
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, E.B.
Johnson, Sam
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kasich
Kelly
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind (WI)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kleczka
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kucinich
Kuykendall
LaFalce
LaHood
Lampson
Lantos
Larson
Latham
LaTourette
Lazio
Leach
Lee
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Lewis (KY)
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Lofgren
Lowey
Lucas (KY)
Lucas (OK)
Luther
Maloney (CT)
Maloney (NY)
Markey
Martinez
Mascara
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McCrery
McDermott
McGovern
McHugh
McInnis
McIntyre
McKeon
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Mica
Millender-McDonald
Miller (FL)
Miller, Gary
Miller, George
Minge
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Moore
Moran (VA)
Morella
Murtha
Myrick
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal
Nethercutt
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Nussle
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Ose
Owens
Oxley
Packard
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Pease
Pelosi
Peterson (PA)
Phelps
Pickering
Pickett
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Portman
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Radanovich
Rahall
Rangel
Regula
Reyes
Reynolds
Riley
Rivers
Rodriguez
Roemer
Rogers
Rothman
Roukema
Roybal-Allard
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Sabo
Sanchez
Sanders
Sandlin
Sawyer
Saxton
Schaffer
Schakowsky
Scott
Serrano
Sessions
Shaw
Shays
Sherman
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shows
Shuster
Sisisky
Skeen
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Souder
Spratt
Stabenow
Stearns
Stenholm
Strickland
Stump
Stupak
Sununu
[[Page H1617]]
Sweeney
Talent
Tanner
Tauscher
Tauzin
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Thomas
Thompson (CA)
Thornberry
Thune
Thurman
Tiahrt
Tierney
Towns
Traficant
Turner
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Upton
Velazquez
Visclosky
Vitter
Walden
Walsh
Wamp
Waters
Watkins
Watt (NC)
Watts (OK)
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Wexler
Weygand
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson
Wise
Wolf
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOT VOTING--22
Becerra
Burr
Chenoweth-Hage
Crane
Everett
Franks (NJ)
Granger
Hinchey
Hoyer
Istook
Kaptur
Klink
McIntosh
Quinn
Rogan
Ros-Lehtinen
Rush
Spence
Thompson (MS)
Vento
Waxman
Weiner
{time} 1344
So the amendment was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
{time} 1345
Amendment No. 16 Offered By Mr. Tancredo
The CHAIRMAN. The pending business is the demand for a recorded vote
on amendment No. 16 printed in the Congressional Record offered by the
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) on which further proceedings
were postponed, and on which the noes prevailed by voice vote.
The Clerk will redesignate the amendment.
The Clerk redesignated the amendment.
Recorded Vote
The CHAIRMAN. A recorded vote has been demanded.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The CHAIRMAN. This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 146,
noes 267, answered ``present'' 1, not voting 20, as follows:
[Roll No. 93]
AYES--146
Aderholt
Archer
Armey
Baker
Ballenger
Barr
Barrett (WI)
Bartlett
Bass
Bentsen
Biggert
Blunt
Brady (TX)
Bryant
Burton
Camp
Cannon
Chabot
Chambliss
Coble
Coburn
Collins
Combest
Cook
Cubin
Davis (VA)
Deal
DeLay
DeMint
Deutsch
Dickey
Doggett
Doolittle
Duncan
Ehrlich
English
Fletcher
Foley
Fossella
Fowler
Ganske
Gibbons
Gillmor
Goode
Goodlatte
Graham
Green (WI)
Greenwood
Gutknecht
Hall (TX)
Hansen
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Hill (MT)
Hilleary
Hoekstra
Hostettler
Hulshof
Hutchinson
Inslee
Isakson
Istook
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Kasich
Kelly
Kind (WI)
Kleczka
LaHood
Largent
Lazio
Lewis (KY)
Linder
LoBiondo
Luther
Manzullo
McInnis
Metcalf
Mica
Miller (FL)
Minge
Moran (KS)
Myrick
Ney
Norwood
Nussle
Oxley
Paul
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Portman
Ramstad
Reynolds
Riley
Rivers
Roemer
Rogers
Roukema
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Salmon
Sanford
Scarborough
Schaffer
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shays
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shows
Simpson
Smith (MI)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Souder
Stearns
Stump
Stupak
Sununu
Sweeney
Talent
Tancredo
Tauzin
Terry
Thune
Tiahrt
Toomey
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Upton
Vitter
Walden
Watkins
Watts (OK)
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Wexler
Wicker
Wilson
Young (AK)
NOES--267
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Allen
Andrews
Baca
Bachus
Baird
Baldacci
Baldwin
Barcia
Barrett (NE)
Barton
Bereuter
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop
Blagojevich
Bliley
Blumenauer
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bonior
Bono
Borski
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Campbell
Canady
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Carson
Castle
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Condit
Conyers
Cooksey
Costello
Cox
Coyne
Cramer
Crowley
Cummings
Cunningham
Danner
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Diaz-Balart
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Dooley
Doyle
Dreier
Dunn
Edwards
Emerson
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Ewing
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Forbes
Ford
Frank (MA)
Frelinghuysen
Frost
Gallegly
Gejdenson
Gekas
Gephardt
Gilchrest
Gilman
Gonzalez
Goodling
Gordon
Goss
Green (TX)
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Hastings (FL)
Herger
Hill (IN)
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoeffel
Holden
Holt
Hooley
Horn
Houghton
Hoyer
Hunter
Hyde
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Jenkins
John
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
King (NY)
Kingston
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kucinich
Kuykendall
LaFalce
Lampson
Lantos
Larson
Latham
LaTourette
Leach
Lee
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Lofgren
Lowey
Lucas (KY)
Lucas (OK)
Maloney (CT)
Maloney (NY)
Markey
Mascara
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McCrery
McDermott
McGovern
McHugh
McIntyre
McKeon
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Millender-McDonald
Miller, Gary
Miller, George
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Moore
Moran (VA)
Morella
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal
Nethercutt
Northup
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Ose
Owens
Packard
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Pease
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Peterson (PA)
Phelps
Pickett
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Radanovich
Rahall
Rangel
Regula
Reyes
Rodriguez
Rohrabacher
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Sabo
Sanchez
Sanders
Sandlin
Sawyer
Saxton
Schakowsky
Scott
Serrano
Shaw
Sherman
Shuster
Sisisky
Skeen
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (NJ)
Snyder
Spratt
Stabenow
Stark
Stenholm
Strickland
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Thomas
Thompson (CA)
Thornberry
Thurman
Tierney
Towns
Traficant
Turner
Visclosky
Walsh
Wamp
Waters
Watt (NC)
Waxman
Weygand
Whitfield
Wise
Wolf
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
Young (FL)
ANSWERED ``PRESENT''--1
Velazquez
NOT VOTING--20
Bateman
Becerra
Burr
Chenoweth-Hage
Crane
Ehlers
Everett
Franks (NJ)
Granger
Klink
Martinez
McIntosh
Quinn
Rogan
Ros-Lehtinen
Rush
Spence
Thompson (MS)
Vento
Weiner
{time} 1353
Mr. LEWIS of Kentucky changed his vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
So the amendment was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Stated against:
Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 93, I was summoned from the
House Chamber for a meeting and was unable to return before this vote
was completed. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will read the last two lines.
The Clerk read as follows:
This Act may be cited as the ``2000 Emergency Supplemental
Appropriations Act''.
Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Chairman, I rise to express my opposition
to this bill.
There are good things in it that I support. The parts of the bill
that truly concern ``emergencies''--funding to help low-income families
cope with sharply rising home heating oil bills; funding to repair
damaged roads and bridges and to develop affordable housing for those
dislocated by recent floods, tornadoes, and other natural disasters;
disaster loans for small businesses, farm aid, and rural economic and
community development grants to meet needs arising from natural
disasters--these are all important and worthwhile and appropriate
purposes for an ``emergency'' spending bill. Also important is funding
that the bill provides for NASA's Space Shuttle upgrades, security at
our nation's three nuclear weapons laboratories, and funds to
accelerate environmental cleanup of DOE facilities.
But these good things are far outweighed by what I consider to be
some very problematic provisions in the bill. One of the most
troublesome is the $1.7 billion package for Colombia. I don't doubt the
magnitude of the problem that the proposal attempts to address. Indeed,
there is much cause for alarm. Colombia produces 80 percent of the
world's cocaine and about two-thirds of the heroin consumed in this
country, and new estimates show that cocaine production in Colombia is
up 126 percent in the last five years. That said, I am not convinced
that a costly military approach is the best response to the problem. I
believe we should be considering other ways to address the source of
the problem--the U.S. demand for drugs--by funding additional treatment
and education programs right here at home.
There is very little about the Colombia package that has been shown
to merit our support. Think for a moment about the dismal human rights
record of the Colombian military. The
[[Page H1618]]
military would itself be the recipient of the billions of dollars in
U.S. aid. Human rights organizations have linked right-wing
paramilitary groups to the Colombian military and to drug trafficking
and atrocities against civilians. How can we be content to pass a bill
that could well make this situation worse?
We should also think about the lack of clear objectives for this
program. There is no ``exit'' strategy spelled out. There is no way to
ensure farmers won't resume cultivating drug crops once this billion-
dollar assistance package dries up. None of these questions about the
long-term goals for this program have been adequately answered. Still,
we're being asked to support a program that could draw U.S. troops into
a protracted counterinsurgency struggle--and one that may ultimately
have little effect on the drug trade.
On top of that, Mr. Chairman, was the adoption of the amendment
yesterday that increases military spending levels by an additional $4
billion. That makes my opposition to this bill that much stronger.
While I agree that defense health programs and recruitment and
retention are areas of legitimate concern, I don't understand why we
should make $4 billion exceptions for our military that we can't seem
to make for prescription drugs or our children's education or shoring
up Social Security. The military budget was increased substantially
last year and well may be again this year through the regular
appropriations process. This isn't the time or the place to prematurely
commit to additional billions of dollars in military spending or to
label it as an `'emergency'' item.
Mr. Chairman, I certainly hope that as we go forward with this year's
appropriations process, we do so in a thoughtful and careful manner and
that we try to come up with spending bills that deserve the full
support of the entire House.
Mr. CROWLEY. Mr. Chairman, I speak today to express my strong
opposition to this so-called Supplemental Appropriations bill and to
express my outrage at its ridiculous level of funding.
H.R. 3908, as approved by the House Appropriations Committee on March
9, would appropriate $1.701 billion for counter-narcotics activities,
including $1.07 billion for Colombia, $4.956 billion for peacekeeping
operations in Kosova and related matters, and $2.243 billion for
Hurricane Floyd and other disaster assistance, plus several smaller
non-emergency items.
Amendments considered during the course of debate on this measure
have dramatically increased its cost.
A major concern of mine regarding this supplemental is that no
authorization language was passed to allow Members the opportunity to
argue for funding for projects important to them. As a Member of the
Committee on International Relations and the Representative of the
largest Colombian-American community in the U.S., I was hoping to be
involved in the development of our policy on Colombia.
We should have developed a bill that would strike a balance between
the needs of international concerns, such as Colombia, human rights and
Kosova, and domestic spending priorities. I would have supported such a
bill. Unfortunately, despite the inclusion of the amendment by
Congressmen Gilman, Goss, Delahunt and Farr, this supplemental doesn't
balance these issues.
Mr. Chairman, the reasons to oppose this legislation are too numerous
to list in a short floor statement, so I will just highlight some key
issues, mostly dealing with the military and counter-narcotics
assistance provided in this package.
First, I object to the fact that such a large change in U.S. policy
regarding Colombia and counter-narcotics assistance has not gone
through the normal authorization process. The Republican leadership and
the International Relations Committee had ample time to introduce
legislation and have it debated in Committee. As it now stands, we are
appropriating billions of dollars in military and counter-narcotics
assistance, and who knows what else, without the benefit of thoughtful
policy evaluation that the authorization's process was designed to
give.
Second, the supplemental originally sent to the House floor is about
$3.8 billion higher than the President's request and the Appropriations
Committee had only offset $421 million. Meaning the rest must come out
of the budget surplus--not that there is any left after the Republican
tax cut scheme passed recently.
Third, while I am extremely supportive of assistance to Colombia, it
needs to be the right kind of assistance. The provisions in this
legislation dealing with civil society programs are woefully
inadequate, especially when compared to the vast funding levels for
counter-narcotics assistance.
Mr. Chairman, I have met with Colombia leaders in Washington, D.C.,
in my Congressional District and in Colombia. I have traveled to
Colombia and seen the need for U.S. assistance. I know the problems of
the Colombian people and I am especially supportive of judicial reform
efforts, but this supplemental is not going to help them.
Fourth, where is the money for domestic prevention and treatment?
Interdiction plays a role, but it is next to useless without prevention
and treatment programs. Demand will always find supply. Congresswoman
Pelosi's amendment should have been protected under the rule.
Fifth, I am troubled by some of the provisions in this supplemental
which are being termed an emergency. Certainly, I believe the money for
LIHEAP, the assistance for Colombia civil society and money for
peacekeeping funds for Kosova warrant an emergency, although one we saw
coming last year. However, there are a number of spending provisions
which do not come close to meeting the definition of an emergency, yet
they are not offset.
Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to oppose the supplemental and I
request that the relevant committees be asked to deal with these
funding increases through the normal budget process.
Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 3908,
the FY 2000 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill. Since coming to
Congress last year, I have been determined to carefully review federal
spending to ensure we spend our taxpayers money efficiently and
effectively. Our Nation has many needs and our government can do much
to address these problems. Using our resources wisely is very
important.
As a member of the House Budget Committee, I have been fortunate
enough to be able to focus on our federal budget and our priorities.
Although not perfect, our budget and appropriations process allows for
orderly consideration of spending requests. When unexpected
expenditures are necessary, we have the flexibility to pass emergency
supplemental appropriations bills. However, this process is for true
emergencies, not for readily predictable expenditures that can be
incorporated into the annual appropriations process.
I don't understand why we are here today considering a bill that
would spend more than $13 billion. We do not have $13 billion in
emergency spending needs. Most of the money we are spending in this
bill is not in response to real emergencies. These initiatives should
be considered as part of the normal appropriations process.
Is $1.7 billion in military assistance for Colombia to fight the drug
war and its insurgency an emergency?
Is $4.0 billion in military maintenance, health care coverage for our
soldiers, and housing upgrades an emergency?
Is $75 million for upgrades to the space shuttle and hiring of 300
new NASA employees an emergency?
Is $73 million for the purchase of a used aircraft for the Foreign
Emergency Support Team an emergency?
Is $55 million for workforce and infrastructure improvements at
nuclear weapons facilities an emergency?
Is $37 million for operating expenses for the Coast Guard an
emergency?
None of these items need to be addressed this month. All of these can
wait for the normal funding process. I support many of these spending
priorities. For example, the $4.0 billion in benefits for our men and
women in uniform is a very worthwhile expenditure, which I would
otherwise support. However, this money can be provided as part of the
regular appropriations process--it does not require an emergency
spending bill.
The majority talks a lot about spending discipline, but what we have
before us today a huge spending bill that funds programs that were
never authorized. This is not the right way to spend taxpayer money.
Mr. McGOVERN. I rise today to express my support for the $600 million
in emergency LIHEAP funding and to express my disappointment that the
disaster relief provided in this emergency supplemental appropriations
bill will not help apple growers in the Northeast.
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) is nothing
less than a life-saver. LIHEAP provides the means for low-income
households to purchase energy for their homes. This past winter was one
of the coldest in memory. Combined with the high cost of home heating
oil, this winter placed a huge strain on many families in the
Northeast. Fortunately, President Clinton did the right thing by
releasing the entire amount of emergency LIHEAP funds during the course
of the crisis.
However, this emergency fund provides relief not only during the
winter months but also for the extreme summer heat that occurs
throughout this country. The emergency LIHEAP money undoubtedly saved
many lives in the Northeast during a true crisis. It is only right that
we replenish this fund, and I fully support providing $600 million to
do so.
The amount of LIHEAP funding provided in this bill is a stark
contrast from years past, when the Republican majority attempted time
[[Page H1619]]
and time again to cut the funding for this program. I am pleased that
the majority has realized the importance of this program. However, I am
very disappointed and dismayed that the same Republican leadership has
prevented the U.S. House of Representatives from providing emergency
disaster assistance to another group that needs our help--namely, the
Northeast apple growers.
Many people don't realize that the apple crop in the Northeast was
damaged due to adverse weather conditions, including Hurricane Floyd,
which caused tremendous damage up and down the East Coast. The crop
damage in states like North Carolina and Florida was much different
than the crop damage in the Northeast. The crop production in Southern
states was damaged by the hurricane. Although production in the
Northeast was not affected, the quality of the apple crop was. The
damage diminished the value of the apple. Apple growers are now selling
their crop at reduced prices because the quality is not as good as it
would have been if Hurricane Floyd had not hit the Northeast.
This supplemental appropriations bill contains relief for Hurricane
Floyd for some of the states that need help. Unfortunately, the
Republican majority does not feel that everyone who needs help should
get it.
The CHAIRMAN. Under the rule, the Committee rises.
Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr.
Hastings of Washington) having assumed the chair, Mr. Thornberry,
Chairman of the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union,
reported that that Committee, having had under consideration the bill
(H.R. 3908) making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal
year ending September 30, 2000, and for other purposes, pursuant to
House Resolution 450, he reported the bill back to the House with
sundry amendments adopted by the Committee of the Whole.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the rule, the previous question is
ordered.
Is a separate vote demanded on any amendment? If not, the Chair will
put them en gros.
The amendments were agreed to.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the engrossment and third
reading of the bill.
The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was
read the third time.
Motion to Recommit Offered By Mr. Obey
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman opposed to the bill?
Mr. OBEY. I most certainly am, Mr. Speaker.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to
recommit.
The Clerk read as follows:
Mr. Obey moves to recommit the bill, H.R. 3908, to the
Committee on Appropriations with instructions to report the
same back to the House with provisions that appropriate
$262,000,000 to the Office of National Drug Control policy
for grants to recognized national, State, or local prevention
and treatment organizations.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) is
recognized for 5 minutes in support of his motion to recommit.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, this is a general instruction to the
committee. The committee has the authority and latitude to bring a bill
back within existing or lower levels, and it is fully authorized.
This motion would require the Committee on Appropriations to report a
new supplemental bill that includes $262 million for the Office of
National Drug Control Policy for purposes of distributing grants to
State, local, or national organizations that provide substance abuse
treatment and prevention services.
The intention is to recognize that if the House is going to spend
$1.3 billion for source-country control of cocaine, then we ought to
include at least some funds for treatment services which, according to
the Rand Corporation, are 23 times more effective.
This motion recognizes that only 37 percent of the 5.5 million
Americans in need of treatment can get it, and a vote for recommittal
will reduce that treatment gap in all of our communities.
If we want to destroy the drug traffickers, we should destroy their
source of income. That is the best way to get at them. If we invest in
drug treatment and drug prevention, we are destroying their source of
income. That is the way to kill them.
Vote for this motion.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Condit).
Mr. CONDIT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this motion to
recommit. I do this out of respect for the other side and not to
lecture anyone. But I, like many of my colleagues, have traveled
through Colombia and Peru and Bolivia, took the drug routes, the roads
that the drug traffickers took, and met with coca leaf farmers, met
with law enforcement and a variety of different other individuals and
groups in those countries.
I came to the conclusion that the drug problem is our problem, and
for us to solely blame it on those folks is misplaced. Today, we have
an opportunity, I think, to correct that. We could do a great service
to this country by making sure that we fight the war on our terms and
in this country and not in somebody else's country.
Now, for us not to believe that this is our problem, I believe we are
sort of like an individual that is addicted. We are in denial. We are
in denial that we have to come to grips with this problem.
For us to pick a group of people, whatever country one wants, talk
about interdiction, which we ought to do some, but we ought to have
drug treatment programs for people in this country.
We as a Congress, Republicans and Democrats, we can do one good thing
before we leave here this year, and that is provide a safety net to
families, to individuals in this country so that they do not go through
the dilemma of, where do I send my young child, where do I send my
spouse. We have all been confronted with that. This is a problem that
has probably touched every life in this Chamber and probably most
families throughout this country.
{time} 1400
So I am here today not to just lecture anyone, but simply say that
for us to think that it is someone else's problem, that it is not our
problem, is misplaced. And if we want to do a service for the people of
this country, I think we should recommit this bill, send it to
committee, put a program in for people across the country, and I think
then we can really talk seriously about a drug war within our borders,
not somebody else's.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for
his comments, and close by simply saying that we are putting the money
in the drug czar's office because this subcommittee which funds this
office currently has $262 million remaining under its existing 302(b)
allocation. I ask for a vote in support of the motion.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hastings of Washington). Does the
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) rise in opposition?
Mr. YOUNG OF Florida. Mr. Speaker, I do rise in opposition.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the issue that the gentleman's
motion brings to the attention of the House is an important issue and
one that in the next few weeks, as we go to prepare for marking up the
regular appropriation bills, I would like to work with the gentleman to
try to find the proper way to handle this and not just do it here at
the last minute. If we were to agree to this motion to recommit, we
will have undone basically everything we have done here in the last
difficult 16 hours, yesterday and today.
So I just simply ask the Members to vote ``no'' on the motion to
recommit, then vote ``yes'' on final passage, and then for everyone to
have a safe trip back home to their districts, visit with their
constituents, and come back next week all fired up for another round.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is
ordered on the motion to recommit.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Recorded Vote
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
[[Page H1620]]
A recorded vote was ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 9 of rule XX, the Chair
will reduce to a minimum of 5 minutes the period of time within which a
vote by electronic device, if ordered, will be taken on the question of
passage of the bill.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 194,
noes 220, not voting 21, as follows:
[Roll No. 94]
AYES--194
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Allen
Andrews
Baca
Baird
Baldacci
Baldwin
Barcia
Barrett (WI)
Bentsen
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Blagojevich
Blumenauer
Bonior
Borski
Boswell
Boucher
Brady (PA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Carson
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Condit
Conyers
Costello
Coyne
Crowley
Cummings
Danner
Davis (IL)
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Deutsch
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Doggett
Dooley
Doyle
Edwards
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Forbes
Ford
Frank (MA)
Frost
Ganske
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green (TX)
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Hall (TX)
Hastings (FL)
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hoeffel
Holden
Holt
Hooley
Hoyer
Inslee
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
John
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (OH)
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind (WI)
Kleczka
Kucinich
LaFalce
Lampson
Lantos
Larson
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Lofgren
Lowey
Luther
Maloney (CT)
Maloney (NY)
Markey
Mascara
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McGovern
McIntyre
McKinney
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Millender-McDonald
Miller, George
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Moore
Moran (VA)
Morella
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Owens
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Phelps
Pomeroy
Porter
Price (NC)
Rahall
Ramstad
Reyes
Rivers
Rodriguez
Roemer
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Sabo
Sanchez
Sanders
Sandlin
Sawyer
Scarborough
Schakowsky
Scott
Serrano
Sherman
Shows
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Spratt
Stabenow
Stark
Stenholm
Stupak
Tanner
Tauscher
Thompson (CA)
Thurman
Tierney
Towns
Turner
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Velazquez
Visclosky
Waters
Watt (NC)
Waxman
Wexler
Weygand
Wise
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
NOES--220
Armey
Bachus
Baker
Ballenger
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Barton
Bass
Bateman
Bereuter
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop
Bliley
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bono
Boyd
Brady (TX)
Bryant
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Campbell
Canady
Cannon
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Coble
Coburn
Collins
Combest
Cook
Cooksey
Cox
Cramer
Cubin
Cunningham
Davis (FL)
Davis (VA)
Deal
DeLay
DeMint
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Doolittle
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Ehlers
Ehrlich
Emerson
English
Ewing
Fletcher
Foley
Fossella
Fowler
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Gekas
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Goode
Goodlatte
Goodling
Goss
Graham
Green (WI)
Greenwood
Gutknecht
Hansen
Hastert
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Herger
Hill (IN)
Hill (MT)
Hilleary
Hobson
Hoekstra
Horn
Hostettler
Houghton
Hulshof
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Isakson
Istook
Jenkins
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Kanjorski
Kasich
Kelly
King (NY)
Kingston
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kuykendall
LaHood
Largent
Latham
LaTourette
Lazio
Leach
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lucas (KY)
Lucas (OK)
Manzullo
Martinez
McCollum
McCrery
McHugh
McInnis
McKeon
Metcalf
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller, Gary
Minge
Moran (KS)
Murtha
Myrick
Nethercutt
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Nussle
Ose
Oxley
Packard
Paul
Pease
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pickett
Pitts
Pombo
Portman
Pryce (OH)
Radanovich
Regula
Reynolds
Riley
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Roukema
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Salmon
Sanford
Saxton
Schaffer
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Sisisky
Skeen
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Souder
Stearns
Strickland
Stump
Sununu
Sweeney
Talent
Tancredo
Tauzin
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thomas
Thornberry
Thune
Tiahrt
Toomey
Traficant
Upton
Vitter
Walden
Walsh
Wamp
Watkins
Watts (OK)
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOT VOTING--21
Archer
Becerra
Burr
Chenoweth-Hage
Crane
Everett
Franks (NJ)
Granger
Klink
McDermott
McIntosh
McNulty
Quinn
Rangel
Rogan
Ros-Lehtinen
Rush
Spence
Thompson (MS)
Vento
Weiner
{time} 1420
Mr. BACHUS and Mr. LoBIONDO changed their vote from ``aye'' to
``no.''
Ms. DeLAURO and Mr. McINTYRE changed their vote from ``no'' to
``aye.''
So the motion to recommit was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Stated for:
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, on Rollcall No. 94, I was unavoidably
detained at a meeting. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''
Stated against:
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, on Rollcall No. 94, I inadvertently
voted ``yes.'' I meant to vote ``no.''
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The question is on the passage
of the bill.
Pursuant to clause 10 of rule XX, the yeas and nays are ordered.
This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 263,
nays 146, not voting 26, as follows:
[Roll No. 95]
YEAS--263
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Allen
Andrews
Armey
Baca
Bachus
Baker
Baldacci
Ballenger
Barcia
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Bass
Bateman
Bentsen
Berkley
Berman
Biggert
Bilirakis
Bishop
Bliley
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bonior
Bono
Borski
Boucher
Boyd
Bryant
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Canady
Capps
Cardin
Carson
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Coble
Condit
Cooksey
Cramer
Cummings
Cunningham
Davis (VA)
DeLauro
DeLay
Deutsch
Dickey
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Dooley
Doyle
Dreier
Edwards
Ehrlich
Emerson
Engel
English
Etheridge
Evans
Farr
Fletcher
Foley
Forbes
Ford
Fowler
Frelinghuysen
Frost
Gallegly
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Gonzalez
Goode
Goodling
Gordon
Goss
Green (TX)
Green (WI)
Greenwood
Hall (TX)
Hastert
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Herger
Hilleary
Hilliard
Hinojosa
Hobson
Hoeffel
Horn
Hostettler
Houghton
Hoyer
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Isakson
Istook
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Jenkins
John
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (NC)
Kanjorski
Kasich
Kelly
Kennedy
Kildee
King (NY)
Kingston
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kuykendall
LaFalce
Lampson
Lantos
Larson
Latham
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lowey
Lucas (KY)
Lucas (OK)
Maloney (CT)
Martinez
Mascara
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McCrery
McGovern
McHugh
McIntyre
McKeon
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Metcalf
Mica
Millender-McDonald
Miller (FL)
Miller, Gary
Moakley
Mollohan
Moran (VA)
Morella
Murtha
Myrick
Napolitano
Neal
Nethercutt
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Ortiz
Ose
Oxley
Packard
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Pease
Peterson (PA)
Pickering
Pickett
Pombo
Pomeroy
Portman
Price (NC)
Pryce (OH)
Radanovich
Rahall
Rangel
Regula
Reyes
Reynolds
Riley
Rodriguez
Rogers
Rothman
Roukema
Roybal-Allard
Ryun (KS)
Sanchez
Sandlin
Sawyer
Saxton
Scarborough
Scott
Shaw
Sherman
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shows
Shuster
Sisisky
Skeen
Skelton
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Souder
Spratt
Stabenow
Stenholm
Strickland
Stump
Sweeney
Talent
Tanner
Tauscher
Tauzin
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Thomas
Thompson (CA)
Thornberry
Thune
Tiahrt
Toomey
Traficant
Turner
Vitter
Walden
Wamp
Watkins
Watt (NC)
Watts (OK)
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Wexler
Weygand
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson
Wise
Wolf
Wynn
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
[[Page H1621]]
NAYS--146
Archer
Baird
Baldwin
Barr
Barrett (WI)
Bereuter
Berry
Blagojevich
Blumenauer
Boswell
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Brown (OH)
Campbell
Cannon
Capuano
Castle
Chabot
Clay
Coburn
Collins
Combest
Conyers
Cook
Costello
Cox
Coyne
Crowley
Cubin
Danner
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
Deal
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeMint
Doggett
Doolittle
Duncan
Dunn
Ehlers
Eshoo
Fattah
Filner
Fossella
Frank (MA)
Ganske
Gekas
Goodlatte
Graham
Gutierrez
Gutknecht
Hall (OH)
Hansen
Hastings (FL)
Hefley
Hill (IN)
Hill (MT)
Hinchey
Hoekstra
Holden
Holt
Hooley
Hulshof
Inslee
Jackson (IL)
Johnson, Sam
Jones (OH)
Kaptur
Kilpatrick
Kind (WI)
Kleczka
Kucinich
LaHood
LaTourette
Lazio
Leach
Lee
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Lofgren
Luther
Maloney (NY)
Manzullo
Markey
McDermott
McInnis
McKinney
Meehan
Miller, George
Minge
Mink
Moore
Moran (KS)
Nadler
Nussle
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Owens
Paul
Payne
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Petri
Phelps
Pitts
Porter
Ramstad
Rivers
Roemer
Rohrabacher
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Sabo
Salmon
Sanders
Sanford
Schaffer
Schakowsky
Sensenbrenner
Serrano
Sessions
Shadegg
Shays
Simpson
Slaughter
Stark
Stearns
Stupak
Sununu
Tancredo
Terry
Thurman
Tierney
Towns
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Upton
Velazquez
Visclosky
Waters
Waxman
Woolsey
Wu
NOT VOTING--26
Barton
Becerra
Bilbray
Brown (FL)
Burr
Chambliss
Chenoweth-Hage
Crane
Diaz-Balart
Everett
Ewing
Franks (NJ)
Granger
Klink
Largent
McIntosh
McNulty
Quinn
Rogan
Ros-Lehtinen
Rush
Spence
Thompson (MS)
Vento
Walsh
Weiner
{time} 1429
Mr. BLAGOJEVICH changed his vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
So the bill was passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
Stated for:
Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 95, I was inadvertently
detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''
Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 95, had I been present, I
would have voted ``yes.''
Mr. ROGAN. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 95, I was unavoidably
detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 95, I was unavoidably
detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''
Mr. BURR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I regret that I was unable
to be present for the vote on final passage of H.R. 3908. Had I been
present I would have, albeit reluctantly, voted in favor of the bill.
Stated against:
Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 95, supplemental
final passage, had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''
____________________