[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 108 (Thursday, September 14, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H7608-H7627]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 4516, LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 
                                  2001

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 565, 
I call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 4516) making 
appropriations for the legislative branch for the fiscal year ending 
September 30, 2001, and for other purposes.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the conference report 
is considered as having been read.
  (For conference report and statement, see proceedings of the House of 
legislative day of July 26, 2000 at page H7095.)
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and 
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young).
  (Mr. YOUNG of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.)
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to bring this conference report to the 
House. It was ready for consideration by the House before we recessed 
for our respective political conventions. But because of the schedule, 
we are just now getting to it today. The conference report includes 
three bills that have already been passed by the House.
  As my colleagues know, Mr. Speaker, the House has passed all 13 of 
our appropriations bills. We also passed the major supplemental that 
was requested by the President this year. We have already considered 
the conference report on that supplemental and on the Defense 
appropriations bill and the Military Construction appropriations bill. 
And so, we are on the move here.
  I am happy to report that this conference report includes the 
Legislative Branch appropriations bill and also the Treasury Postal 
bill, which funds in part the executive offices of the Executive Branch 
of Government, including the White House.
  It also includes a bill that was passed in the House by a vote of 
420-2 on repeal of the Spanish-American War tax on telephone services.
  And so, we have those three bills that passed the House with 
substantial votes included in this conference report. Even the Treasury 
Postal bill passed the House by a vote that could be considered a 
landslide relative to previous votes. We passed that bill by a vote of 
216-202. That is a lot better vote than we usually get on that bill. 
Nevertheless, we have worked hard with our counterparts in the other 
body, and we bring this conference report today.
  Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the following table for the 
Treasury and General Government Appropriations Bill, 2001:

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  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, as of this point, we have 2 of the 13 appropriation 
bills which must pass by October 1 actually through the system. Both of 
those bills fund the same department. Other than that, we have a lot of 
bills that are still caught midstream at various points between the two 
Houses.
  This bill is, unfortunately, part of an unfortunate process under 
which decisions have evidently been made to send yet more bills down to 
the President which will be veto bait rather than bills that will be 
likely to become law.
  That does nothing to put us any closer to getting our work done by 
the end of the fiscal year. And I regret that.
  The legislative appropriations bill started out as a bill which every 
single Member of the minority side was willing to sign and send on to 
the other body and the President. Unfortunately, it was been packaged 
with a number of other unrelated items, other appropriations bills, as 
well as tax provisions which have no business in the bill.
  In essence, at this point, this dog has three tails and no legs. It 
is not going anywhere. And the sooner we dispose of it, the sooner we 
can get back to reality.
  I do not expect, unfortunately, that we are going to see many Members 
on this side voting for this bill because it, unfortunately, is another 
exercise in futility at this point.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman 
from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor), who chairs the Subcommittee on 
Legislative Branch Appropriations, which is the primary vehicle for 
this conference report.
  Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, first I would like to 
thank again our staff and ranking members for the cooperation in the 
Legislative Branch bill.
  The conference agreement appropriates $2.53 billion for fiscal year 
2001.
  Compared to FY 2000, including supplementals, the conference report 
is an increase of $40 million, about 1.6 percent.
  In personnel, the conference report cuts 47 equivalent jobs. There 
are no layoffs or RIFs, and all COLAs are funded.
  Since 1994, we have cut 4,222 jobs throughout the legislative branch. 
That is a reduction of 15.2 percent. No other branch of the Federal 
Government comes close to that amount of downsizing undergone by the 
legislative branch.
  The conference report includes funds for the further development of 
the National Digital Library program with the Library of Congress. This 
project is laying the foundation for integration of the Internet and 
our educational system.
  There is also a provision requiring penalty clauses to be placed in 
the Architect's construction projects. Without the ability to hold 
contractors to schedules and funding limitations, we are totally 
vulnerable to mismanagement and lax supervision. This provision is 
aimed at improving the Architect's control over his construction 
responsibilities.
  The conference report does not include merger of the Capitol, 
Library, and GPO police, nor does the report include the human 
resources legislation for GAO.
  The GAO matter may surface again at a later date. A few matters need 
to be worked out, and I am confident we can accomplish that in the 
future. We have asked the Comptroller General to concentrate on that.
  The agreement includes an emergency FY2000 supplemental appropriation 
of $2.1 million for congressional and Library of Congress security and 
$9 million for urgent repairs at the Cannon garage.
  In summary, Mr. Speaker, the bill provides $2.53 billion. It is 7.3 
percent below the request of the President's budget. And FTE levels 
have been reduced by 47.
  The bill maintains a smaller legislative branch as established by the 
policies set in the 104th Congress, and it provides stability to those 
operations that must support our legislative needs.
  I include for the Record the following table that tabulates the 
funding agreement:

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[[Page H7617]]

  Mr. Speaker, I urge the adoption of the conference report.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the gentleman from Wisconsin 
(Mr. Obey), I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from 
Arizona (Mr. Pastor), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on 
Legislative Appropriations.
  Mr. PASTOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for being so kind in 
yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me thank the gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Taylor), the chairman, for the manner in which he 
conducted business with the ranking member on the minority side of the 
subcommittee. He was very inclusive, and we were able to work out the 
differences as we proceeded with this bill and at conference had a very 
good bill.
  I also want to thank Ed Lombard, who was assisted by Kit Winter and 
Tom Martin, for the professionalism that was displayed in developing 
this bill.
  On the minority side, I would like to thank Mark Murray, who worked 
with my assistant, Eve Young. They provided countless hours of guidance 
and assistance to the minority.
  Mr. Speaker, when this bill started, it had a very bad allocation. 
There was a concern about the security, the safety of the House, of the 
Capitol. As we proceeded with this bill, it got better.
  At conference, we had restored many of the cuts that were initially 
in the bill. We were able to maintain security by providing enough 
money to have the required two policemen at every door.

                              {time}  1445

  We were able to fund CRS to the level in which it would not have 
layoffs. We were able to give to the Members' accounts enough money so 
they could provide cost of living raises for their staff. We worked it 
out with the Senate, and the conference report was a very good one.
  As we were leaving the conference report, we asked the chairman what 
was going to happen to the bill and he, in his wisdom, said we do not 
know how many flies are going to be on this dog. That is how we left 
the conference.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, the conference is that today we are here and could 
have passed a legislative branch bill that would have served this House 
very well, but the leadership has decided to add the Treasury Postal 
bill and also the telephone excise tax bill. It will be with great 
reluctance that the minority side will probably not support this 
conference bill because of the manner in which the Treasury Postal bill 
was developed. So I will ask my colleagues on our side of the aisle 
that even though we have a very good legislative branch bill, the 
concerns of the Treasury Postal bill that has been tacked on to this 
bill gives enough concern in which we may not want to support it.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman 
from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), the distinguished chairman of the 
Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government and 
the bill that funds the White House, the President's activities.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Young) for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased this afternoon to rise to talk about 
that part of this conference report that covers the 2001 Treasury 
Postal Service and General Government appropriations bill. This is a 
bill that is strong on law enforcement. It is tough on guns and it 
supports a policy of zero tolerance on drugs.
  Now, the President has said that he will sign all reasonable 
appropriation bills this Republican Congress sends to him.
  Mr. Speaker, this is exactly what he asked for. It is reasonable in 
every sense of the word, as I will attempt to describe here. Our part 
of this conference report is fiscally responsible and it is completely 
free of any and all controversial legislative riders.
  Let me just take a moment to describe a little bit of the nuts and 
bolts of the measure. First of all, overall it has $15.6 billion in 
support of the agencies that are covered by our appropriations 
subcommittee. It is $1.9 billion, or 13.8 percent above the 2000 
enacted level. It is 5.4 percent or $900 million below the President's 
request but it is also $1.228 billion above what we first initially 
passed in the House.
  Some of the increases over the 2000 enacted levels include these: 
$449 million for U.S. Customs Service, including not less than $258 
million for the badly needed Customs automation program, particularly 
the new one called ACE or Automated Customs Environment; $204.9 million 
for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms; $423 million for IRS to 
support ongoing efforts for organizational modernization; $15.2 million 
for the HIDTA, the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, a 
total of $206.5 million for that; a $10 million increase for the Drug 
Free Communities Act; $142 million for the Secret Service to support 
their ongoing protective operations as well as the work that they do 
with school violence; a total of $276 million as an advance 
appropriation for fiscal year 2002 for four new courthouses for a total 
of $472 million in fiscal year 2001 for four new courthouse projects, 
two new border stations, the continuation of FDA consolidation and the 
construction of ATF headquarters.
  Lastly, let me just mention that there is $88 million to begin the 
work and restoration of the National Archives headquarters and 
protection of our charters of freedom.
  In terms of legislative items as compared to the House-passed bill, 
this agreement does not include any provisions related to the Cuban 
sanctions. It does not include provisions related to the prohibition on 
the use of funds to implement regulations clarifying what constitutes a 
satisfactory record of integrity and business ethics for Federal 
contractors, also known as the black listing provision. It does not 
include the provision prohibiting the use of funds to provide 
preferential treatment for the acquisition of firearms or ammunition. 
It does not include any provisions relating to reforms of the Federal 
Elections Commission, including the provision on the use of government 
aircraft by House and Senate candidates.
  Conversely, this agreement does include current law from both the 
prohibition and use of funds for abortion as well as a requirement that 
health benefit plans provide contraceptive coverage. It does include a 
1-year extension of the pilot project for child care and it does 
include current law as enacted in 1999 for the Kyoto protocol.
  Mr. Speaker, I know that some of my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle are going to cry foul about this bill. They are going to 
claim the conference agreement was put together in the dead of night 
without their participation.
  Well, we did work long hours and indeed some of those hours were in 
the middle of the night in order to put together this responsible bill, 
but the truth is, and my colleagues know this, that they were invited 
to participate at every step of the way. For every meeting that was 
scheduled with the Senate, they and their staffs were invited to 
attend.
  The fact is, they declined to participate. They declined our 
invitation to participate.
  Now, I also suspect my colleagues will claim, as they already have, 
this bill is headed for a veto because it fails to fund must-have items 
requested in the President's budget. The fact is, we do not know if the 
President will veto this measure. Through the grapevine we have heard 
several variations of the position of the White House.
  First, they thought this was a reasonable bill, albeit somewhat short 
when it came to funding new employees in the IRS. We were led to 
believe the administration wanted to add back or add an additional $100 
million. Then we heard the White House wanted $300 million, some for 
IRS, some for Archives, some for Treasury law enforcement. Finally, we 
heard the White House does not really have a specific list of must-have 
programs they believe are underfunded but rather there is a general 
list of must-have items that now totals between $729 million and $783 
million, more than half of which would go to courthouse construction.
  Regardless of courthouses, this conference agreement funds 8 
projects, one more than the President requested. Now, some will say 
that we are playing games with the numbers because we forward funded 
four projects. The fact is of those four projects, one of them, the 
largest one, in Miami at $122 million, has a lot of controversy about 
it

[[Page H7618]]

and it has a difficult time in the authorization process. It made sense 
to actually forward fund this one.
  Let us be honest about who is playing games and using gimmicks. It is 
not the Committee on Appropriations. There is one fact and one fact 
only that has kept us from passing this bill sooner. The White House 
will not give us a position on the bill. They will not specify what 
items which might cause them to veto this measure. They will not sit 
down and negotiate with us. In all my years on appropriations, I have 
not seen a time when the White House outright refused to give a 
position on the bill, but this is apparently the year where they simply 
refuse to come to the table and negotiate in good faith on this 
appropriation bill. I urge my colleagues to support this conference 
report so we can get on with the business of Congress.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 12 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) and I 
are not managing this conference report, as was noted. In fact, it is 
being managed by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young). That is a testimony to the process, 
the convoluted process, that has brought us to this floor today.
  The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Pastor) rose and said that this was 
never considered in the legislative bill to be added. As far as I know, 
it was never considered in the legislative conference, not the 
conference that I participated in. At no time did the legislative 
conference meet and add this as a part of its bill.
  I am on the legislative committee, at least as far as I was invited 
to. I do not know whether the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) was 
invited to a conference of the legislative committee or the gentleman 
from Arizona (Mr. Pastor), but I think the answer to that is no.
  Notwithstanding that, I and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) 
have tried to work together to try to bring this bill to a point where 
we could all support it. Very frankly, I think that that is possible. I 
think it is still possible.
  I talked to the Speaker about it just an hour and a half ago. I am 
sorry that we are here today in a mode of not being in agreement on 
this bill.
  So, first of all, the process has been very convoluted. The Senate, 
of course, has not considered this bill on the floor and there was no 
real conference on a Senate bill and a House bill and the differences.
  This process, from the very beginning, has been a difficult one, if 
not incorrect one. In the committee's report when we came to the floor 
on this bill, the committee said we needed $1.3 billion more, I think 
they were correct, at least $1.3 billion more, to meet the 
responsibilities of our committee and of the agencies that we fund.
  That was the majority's observation, not mine. But they brought a 
bill to the floor which was $464 million low on IRS. I am going to talk 
about that in a second. It ended up being more than that because we cut 
$25 million on the floor to add to HIDTAs. So it was $491 million low 
on IRS when it left this House.
  Now, we did not have convened a conference in the sense that we had 
two bills. There were meetings. That is correct. There were invitations 
to come to meetings, some of which were attended. The final conference 
or whatever conference occurred, I was not at. The perception of the 
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) is that is by choice. I think that 
is from his standpoint. I understand that perception. But it was also a 
choice that was made in the context that we really did not know what 
was going on, and there were no discussions with us as to exactly what 
was to be added. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) represents 
there were discussions with the White House. The White House is not for 
these numbers in this bill, still thinks they are substantially low, as 
I think the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) knows.
  Now, the legislation bill comes back to us $1.2 billion over what the 
House passed, mostly Republicans but some Democrats as well.
  That $1.2 billion was added essentially without participation of a 
full conference. That should not happen. There were an additional $18.8 
million that included projects and priorities of various Members, none 
of whom were Democrats on this side of the aisle. That should not 
happen.
  Let us deal now with the IRS within the time frame that we have, 
because that is really the most important issue that we deal with in 
this bill. It is, after all, the agency that collects all the revenue 
that allows all of us who support a ready and appropriate national 
defense to fund it. Education, health services, law enforcement, all 
the other items for which government is responsible, IRS has to collect 
the money.
  Now, we adopted a vision of a new IRS and the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Portman) and others, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), a 
lot of others, brought this to the floor. We had a bill. We passed that 
bill.
  The budget recommendations of the Portman report were, and I quote, 
the commission recommends that Congress provide the IRS certainty in 
its operational budget. We recommend the IRS budget for tax law 
enforcement and processing assistance and management be maintained at 
current levels.
  Why? Because they said in order to carry out our responsibilities in 
passing this reform and restructuring bill, we need to have consistent 
and appropriate budget levels.
  Now, around that time we hired a gentleman named Rossotti, Charles 
Rossotti. I think the chairman respects Mr. Rossotti. I know I do. 
Furthermore, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer) does, and Mr. Roth 
does. They believe he is doing the kind of job that they expected to be 
done if we were going to meet our responsibilities under the Reform and 
Restructuring Act and have an IRS that was taxpayer friendly; that is 
to say that answered questions in a timely fashion, responded to 
taxpayers and were able to go personally over tax returns with 
taxpayers who had a particular problem.

                              {time}  1500

  After the conference was brought back to the floor and I expressed my 
concern that I had not seen the conference, had not talked about the 
conference, I asked Mr. Rossotti, I said does this allow you to do what 
we expect you to do? Here was his comment in a letter to me of 
September 8, 2000: ``Please recognize that this level of funding, that 
is the funding level, that is provided for in this conference report, 
would lead to a further decline in the already low levels of compliance 
activity.''
  I have an article which indicates that some people are saying that 
there is $300 billion in uncollected but due revenues. Why is that? 
Because compliance levels are so low and audit levels are shamefully 
low. I think the chairman knows that.
  Mr. Rossotti, who is a Republican, hired as a manager, a business 
manager to carry out reform and restructuring and taxes modernization, 
says without funding for the Staffing Tax Administration for Balance 
and Equity Initiative, otherwise known as STABLE, the IRS effort to 
provide increased service to taxpayers and reduce the decline in audit 
coverage are at risk.
  Substantively, the administration has a problem with this bill 
unrelated to politics. I share that view. So that in sum on the IRS 
title of this bill, we are dangerously low in providing services to the 
American taxpayer, and I had a discussion with the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Archer) on this. I think he shares my view that it is insufficient 
to carry out their duties.
  Mr. Speaker, courthouses, the chairman mentioned the courthouses. The 
administration asks for seven courthouses to be funded. The conference 
report, frankly without discussion as to what courthouses we were 
talking about, came back and funded four courthouses. Now, that 
courthouse list is an interesting list: California, Washington, 
Virginia and ends with Mississippi; the next, D.C., Buffalo, 
Springfield, Miami. There is a list of 19 courthouses that are in the 
mix and deemed not by any politicians for pork purposes, but by the GSA 
and by the court administration as being priority needs.
  We are not going to do all of those, but the conference, the so-
called conference, again, without any discussion with me or other 
members on our side of the aisle, decided that we were going

[[Page H7619]]

to fund four and forward fund for others. Now, forward funding adopts 
the premise that these are necessary, but we are going to fund them 
next year. So, in effect, we are using next year's money this year. 
That is what forward funding means.
  That is somewhat of a gimmick, a budget gimmick; and I know many of 
the conservative action team has decried budget gimmicks. But now guess 
what, and I hope that my conservative action team friends are 
listening, in addition to that, we have now moved the dates for paying 
veterans compensation, SSI, and other pensions from one year to 
another.
  The problem with doing that is we changed it in the supplemental the 
other way just a few months ago. Now, I do not know how many people 
know that that is in this bill. It surely was not in the bill when it 
left here. It was never discussed in any conference in which I 
participated, and it was never informed to me that this was happening.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is probably a Member on the floor 
that knows that that has happened; maybe the chairman does, it has not 
been discussed.
  In addition, we shift $2 billion in this bill out of defense into 
nondefense domestic discretionary spending so that we can solve a 
firewall problem in the United States Senate. I cannot believe that the 
Contract With America that wanted to have a pristine process open and 
cleared to all without gimmicks that, of course, Democrats were alleged 
to perpetrate on the Congress, would support these provisions in this 
bill.
  Mr. Speaker, obviously, one could go on for a long time and talk 
about the necessity of these bills; but one of the items that is not in 
this bill that the administration feels very strongly about and may 
well veto this bill on alone is the absence of the response to the 
counterterrorism initiative included in the administration's request.
  There was some response in the conference report, but we left out the 
largest part of the administration's counterterrorism request. We think 
that is a problem.
  The last thing I would indicate again in a process that is supposed 
to be an appropriations process, we have added a tax provision to this 
bill that was never discussed in the legislative conference. It was 
never discussed in any Treasury Postal conference, and anybody who gets 
on this floor and says that was a conferenced item that was agreed to 
by any conferees on the Democratic side in an open way is simply 
incorrect. It was never, ever discussed.
  I would hope that my chairman would not make such a representation, 
because he knows that would be not true. I do not know how that 
provision became an emaculate conception on this bill, but it is now on 
this bill.
  So for all of those reasons, I would hope that we would either 
recommit this bill to conference and sit down and discuss it and come 
up with a bill on which we could all agree or, in the alternative, 
defeat this conference report.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may 
consume to the distinguished gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), the 
chairman of the Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service and General 
Government.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to a few of the things said 
by my colleague, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), my friend, 
who I have a great deal of respect for. We just happen to disagree 
about this bill and the way it has come to the body. I wished we could 
be in more complete agreement about it.
  First, with regard to the funding for IRS. Let us be clear. We have 
an agency that has 95,000, that is 95,000, employees. It is not a small 
agency. It is also one in which I think most of us have recognized over 
the years, that is why we passed the modernization legislation, it has 
been one that has been too bureaucratic, too hard to move around, to 
difficult in order to get a handle on it. So I do not think that the 
issue really is adding more employees. It is making better use of the 
dollars, better use of technology, better use of management techniques 
more than anything else.
  Mr. Speaker, I would also note with regard to the employees that were 
suggested to be added, that the President originally asked for this in 
the emergency supplemental. Now, they were not in there. He signed that 
bill. They were not in there, so all of this plan that is being asked 
for, the so-called program of STABLE, was going to be for annualizing 
these employees.
  Since they were not there to begin with, we cannot be talking about 
analyzing them; but we cannot get a handle on what it is we really 
need. They will not tell us how much it is we really have to have. So 
we know that the amount that is requested for this program is wrong. It 
is not the correct amount, because it was to annualize a program that 
has not even begun.
  We cannot start off with everybody on board in the first day.
  Let me just talk about IRS accounts overall, and I think one of the 
things that I have learned as Chair of this committee, it is the 
biggest agency that we have. It is one of the hardest agencies to get 
your hands around and your arms around in terms of understanding it.
  Mr. Speaker, now I think we have done a pretty good job in the 
information technology. We have had some bad times in the past, but we 
have been able to get a pretty good handle on the information 
technology account. But I do not think we are there yet with the 
personnel account, those that fund things such as processing and 
management and the enforcement.
  We do not have a real good handle. We need to do better in that 
regard, and that is why I think we need to work with Mr. Rossotti and 
managers at the IRS to get a better handle on exactly how this money 
they are asking for, this STABLE, for this new large number of 2,500 
new employees would actually be used, and what they would actually do. 
We have not been able to really get a clear understanding of what this 
would be all about.
  On construction, the gentleman from Maryland talked about forward 
funding and what a gimmick this is. Mr. Speaker, the President had in 
his request $477 million of forward funding requested for the FDA 
consolidation mostly, but for some other GSA projects. So please, do 
not tell us that forward funding is a gimmick. It is a commitment by 
this body that we are going to do the next set of four courthouses.
  And as I suggested, the one that is the largest by far in there is 
one that has not been authorized, has not been approved by the 
authorizing committee, and so it is not really in a position to go 
forward during the coming year anyhow.
  Lastly, with regard to counterter-
rorism, in the emergency supplemental bill, we had $55 million for 
counterterrorism. There is a request now for some additional amounts of 
money, but I do not think that this Congress has failed to step up to 
the plate, has failed to understand the need to have a strong effort in 
counter-
terrorism. Once again, we need to have a better idea of how this money 
is being used. We need to see where it is going before we just simply 
give a blank check to this administration or any other administration. 
That is our job as appropriators to do that.
  I believe that this bill is a very responsible one. I believe it is 
one that Members of this body can and should support. And I urge my 
colleagues to support it.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). The gentleman has 12\1/2\ 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.
  Mr. Chairman, let me simply say again the record is clear the 
administration wants additional money for the IRS. This bill provides 
and wants additional money to deal with the Puerto Rican elections, and 
it wants additional money to deal with antiterrorism.
  This bill makes a substantial reduction in our antiterrorism 
appropriations. We had a lot of talk last year around New Year's about 
whether or not we expected terrorists activities. Those, in fact, did 
not occur. It is no accident that they did not occur.
  We cannot talk in public about some of the things that the 
administration is trying to deal with in this category, but it would 
seem to me that before anyone considers reducing this account, they 
ought to have the briefing that the administration is asking to

[[Page H7620]]

provide, because I think it will bring into substantial question the 
decision made in this bill to cut that account.
  Mr. Speaker, I would also simply say, the gentleman from Maryland 
(Mr. Hoyer) has already referred to this, I want to insert in the 
Record at this time an article entitled ``Taxfree Millionaires by 
Donald Bartlett and James B. Steel.''

               [From the Washington Monthly, Sept. 2000]

 Tax Free Millionaires--How the Super Rich Get Away Without Paying Any 
                                 Taxes

               (By Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele)

       Tax fraud is exploding in the United States. In ways large 
     and small, Americans are cheating like never before. One of 
     every three people, perhaps as many as one of every two, is 
     doing it. It's one of Washington's dirty little secrets, a 
     ticking time bomb with the potential to destroy the country's 
     tax system and to undermine essential government programs 
     like Social Security. Disguised by a robust economy and 
     record tax collections, fraud is growing at an exponential 
     pace among all groups, with more and more income concealed 
     from the IRS each year.
       How bad is it? No one can put a precise number on lost tax 
     revenue. But it's bad, and getting worse. Even the IRS, which 
     doesn't like to acknowledge this problem for fear it will 
     only encourage more taxpayers to cheat, admitted in 1999 that 
     the ``tax gap,'' its euphemism for fraud and error, is now up 
     to $195 billion a year. But that is based on data from the 
     1980s. A more reasonable count of the revenue lost every year 
     is $300 billion.
       If Tax Dodging Inc. were a business, it would be the 
     nation's largest corporation, eclipsing General Motors, which 
     sits atop the Fortune 500 with revenue of $189 billion.
       How do people escape paying the taxes they owe? They 
     inflate their itemized deductions for everything from medical 
     bills to charitable contributions. They manufacture 
     deductions to cover expenses never incurred. They understate 
     their income. Or they do both. They ship their money to 
     foreign tax havens. They claim illegal refunds. They 
     speculate in the stock market and don't report their gains. 
     They charge off their personal living costs as business 
     expenses. And many don't even bother to file tax returns at 
     all.
       How many nonfilers are there today? The IRS doesn't have a 
     clue. In part, that's because Congress has slashed the 
     agency's budget, halting the kind of audit that would make 
     even crude projections possible. Informally, government tax 
     authorities say there are 10 million nonfilers. In truth, 
     there are many more, and here's why:
       The IRS identifies a nonfiler as a person who fails to 
     submit a tax return even though a third party has filed an 
     earnings statement (W-2) or information return reporting 
     interest or dividends (Form 1099) that shows the person 
     received income during the year. This narrow definition 
     ignores all those who leave no paper trail. These are the 
     people for whom there are no W-2s, or 1099s, no record of 
     wages, annuities, gambling winnings, pensions, interest, 
     dividends, or money flowing in from foreign trusts and bank 
     accounts.
       In addition to these people who deal only in cash, there is 
     another larger group whose numbers have soared. They are 
     wealthy Americans and foreign citizens who live and work in 
     the United States and in other countries--multinational 
     wheeler-dealers, independent businesspeople, entertainers, 
     fashion moguls and models. They have multiple passports or 
     global residences and therefore insist they are exempt from 
     the U.S. income tax.
       People like the Wildensteins of New York City. That would 
     be Alec and his former wife Jocelyne, who became a staple of 
     the New York tabloids during an unseemly divorce that raged 
     from the fall of 1997 until the spring of 1999.
       Alec, born in 1940, is an heir to his family's century-old, 
     intensely-private, multibillion-dollar international art 
     business. Jocelyne, four years his junior, is best known for 
     having undergone countless plastic surgery procedures that 
     make her look more feline, permanently, than any member of 
     the cast of Cats. Her bizarre appearance inspired the 
     tabloids to dub her ``The Bride of Wildenstein.''
       For the Wildensteins, the once impenetrable curtain that 
     had protected the family from prying eyes for generations was 
     unexpectedly pierced on the night of September 3, 1997, when 
     Jocelyne returned to the couple's opulent Manhattan home 
     after a visit to the family's 66,000-acre ranch in Kenya. 
     Walking into the six-story townhouse on East 64th Street, 
     next door to the Wildenstein gallery, a few minutes after 
     midnight, she found her husband in bed with a nineteen-year-
     old, long-legged blonde.
       Alec hastily wrapped himself in a towel, grabbed a 9mm 
     handgun and pointed it at his wife and her two bodyguards. 
     ``I wasn't expecting anyone,'' he screamed with a touch of 
     understatement. ``You're trespassing. You don't belong 
     here.'' The bodyguards summoned the police, who arrested Alec 
     and charged him with three counts of second-degree menacing.
       So it was that the French-born, aristocratic Alex Nathan 
     Wildenstein, having traded his towel for an Armani suit and a 
     monogrammed shirt, spent the night in the Tombs prison with 
     some of New York's low life. If nothing else, the 
     incarceration gave him time to plot his revenge. When he got 
     out the next day, he moved quickly. He canceled his wife's 
     credit cards. He cut off her telephone lines, locked all the 
     rooms in the townhouse except for her bedroom and sitting 
     room, shut off her access to bank accounts, directed the 
     chauffeur to stop driving her around, fired her accountant, 
     and, in one final act of retribution, ordered the household 
     chefs to stop cooking for her, which proved a major 
     inconvenience because she had never learned how to operate 
     the stove.
       Jocelyne responded by turning up the temperature a few 
     hundred degrees on what had been one of the quietest divorce 
     proceedings ever among the rich and discreet. As a result, 
     life among the Wildensteins--a family that for more than a 
     century had guarded its privacy with a pathological 
     obsession--went on public display.
       Jocelyne demanded a $200,000 monthly living allowance, 
     payment of her personal staff's salary and expenses, and a 
     $50 million security deposit pending distribution of the 
     marital property. Alec pleaded poverty. He insisted he had no 
     money of his own and that the millions they spent came form 
     his father.
       The Wildenstein Family Circus that followed established 
     conclusively, one or more time, that the rich are very 
     different from the rest of us, beyond the fact that they 
     often pay comparatively little or no taxes. But first, some 
     background on this intriguing family.
       Alec is the son of Daniel Wildenstein, the patriarch of the 
     enormously rich French clan. Daniel, born in 1918, controls 
     the Wildenstein billions through a web of secret trusts and 
     intertwined corporations. The Manhattan townhouses, for 
     example, are owned in the name of the Nineteen East Sixty-
     Fourth Street Corporation, which in turn is controlled by 
     ``intermediate entities held in trust.'' He continues to 
     operate the private, secretive art business started by his 
     grandfather in the nineteenth century, with galleries in New 
     York, Beverly Hills, Tokyo, and Buenos Aires, catering to 
     private collectors, museums, and galleries. And while he 
     spends a lot of his time in Paris, a good chunk of his money 
     resides in secret Swiss bank accounts.
       Tucked away in family storerooms, notably in New York, is 
     reportedly the world's largest private collection of the 
     works of the masters--valued at $6 billion to $10 billion. 
     The inventory includes thousands of paintings and drawings by 
     Renoir, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Gauguin, Rembrandt, Rubens, El 
     Greco, Caravaggio, da Vinci, Picasso, Manet, Bonnard, 
     Fragonard, Monet, and others. Many have never been displayed 
     publicly.
       In 1990, Daniel's sons Alec and Guy took over management of 
     the New York gallery. Their families maintained separate 
     living quarters in the East 64th Street townhouse. They 
     shared the swimming pool in the basement, the informal and 
     formal dining rooms, the foyer, elevator, and the entrance to 
     the townhouse. Alec and Jocelyne lived on the third floor, 
     their two children had bedrooms on the fifth floor, and 
     Jocelyne used the sixth floor as an office. In addition to 
     the Manhattan townhouse, they maintained a castle, the 
     chateau Marienthal, outside Paris, an apartment in 
     Switzerland, and the Kenya ranch.
       Wherever they happened to be, the Wildensteins pursued a 
     lifestyle that was lavish even by the standards of the rich 
     and famous. The details, as they poured from Jocelyne's lips 
     in the divorce proceeding, told the story of a family of 
     seemingly unlimited wealth and no hesitation about spending 
     it. According to her, she and Alec ``routinely wrote checks 
     and made withdrawals'' from their Chase Manhattan Bank 
     checking account ``for $200,000 to $250,000 a month.'' 
     Jocelyne said that over the last 20 years they did ``millions 
     of dollars worth of renovations on the Paris castle and Kenya 
     ranch,'' and she directed the management, hiring, and staffs 
     of those properties. The routine operating costs of the ranch 
     alone ran $150,000 a month.
       In New York, Jocelyne's staff payroll at the 64th street 
     townhouse included $48,000 a year for a chambermaid; $48,000 
     for a maid who tended the dogs; $60,000 each for a butler and 
     chauffeur; $84,000 for a chef; $102,000 for an assistant with 
     an MBA; and $102,000 for a secretary.
       In Kenya, their vast Ol Jogi ranch, with its two hundred 
     buildings spread over an area five times the size of 
     Manhattan, required nearly four hundred employees to look 
     after the grounds and the animals.
       In France, the resident staff at the chateau, ``the largest 
     private home of its type within a fifteen-minute drive of 
     Paris,'' included five gardeners, three concierges, and three 
     maids.
       Talk did not come cheap for the Wildensteins. The annual 
     telephone bill in Manhattan alone sometimes ran as high as 
     $60,000. And then there were all the other necessities, like 
     $547,000 for food and wine; $36,000 for laundry and dry 
     cleaning; $60,000 for flowers; $42,000 for massages; 
     pedicures, manicures, and electrolysis; $82,000 to insure 
     here jewelry and furs, and $60,000 to cover the veterinarian 
     bills, medication, pet food, beds, leashes, and coats for 
     their dogs, As for miscellaneous professional services, 
     $24,000 went for a dermatologist, $12,000 for the dentist, 
     and $36,000 for pharmaceuticals. Her American Express and 
     Visa card bills for one year totaled $494,000.
       Some of these bills were paid out of the couple's Chase 
     Manhattan account. Some were paid out of ``other bank 
     accounts in

[[Page H7621]]

     New York, Paris, and Switzerland.'' And some bills, Alec 
     confirmed, were paid from ``the Wildenstein & Co.'' account, 
     ``the Wildenstein & Co. Special Account, and family 
     businesses.'' Sort of like having your employer pick up the 
     cost of your clothing, pets, and vacations.
       And then there were Jocelyne's personal expenditures. Over 
     the years, she accumulated jewelry valued at $10 million, 
     including a thirty-carat diamond ring and custom pieces from 
     Cartier. She attended fashion shows in Paris. Her annual 
     spending on clothing and accessories ran to more than 
     $800,000. She once spent $350,000 for a Chanel outfit that 
     she helped to design. Al told, according to papers filed in 
     the divorce case, the couple's personal and household 
     expenditures added up to well over $25 million in 1995 and 
     1996 alone.
       With all those tens of millions of dollars flowing out over 
     the years to maintain a lifestyle beyond comprehension to 
     most people--$60,000 in dog bills exceeds the annual income 
     of three-fourths of all working Americans who pay taxes--you 
     might think that Alec and Jocelyne also forked over millions 
     of dollars to the Internal Revenue Service. But you would be 
     wrong.
       They didn't pay a penny in U.S. income tax.
       In fact, they never filed a federal tax return.
       These admissions by a family accountant are spelled out in 
     records of the acrimonious divorce and also entered into 
     court opinions. They lived the tax-free life even though, by 
     Jocelyne's account, they resided in the Manhattan townhouse 
     for nineteen years, from shortly after their Las Vegas 
     marriage in 1978 until the rancorous divorce proceedings 
     began in 1997. Their children were born in New York and went 
     to school in New York. Alec conducted the family art business 
     through Wildenstein & Co., Inc., a New York corporation, from 
     the gallery next door. He had a U.S. pilot's license. He sued 
     and was sued in the courts of New York and other states. He 
     signed documents moving millions of dollars between 
     Wildenstein companies, some located in the tax havens of the 
     world. He transacted business in New York and other states. 
     He was vice-president of Nineteen East Sixty-Fourth Street 
     Corporation, which owns the townhouse, gallery, and other 
     properties. His New York pistol license identified him as an 
     officer of Wildenstein & Co. And following his arrest for 
     pointing the weapon at Jocelyne and her bodyguards, he 
     insisted that he should be released on his own recognizance 
     because of his substantial ties to the community.
       Nonetheless, he filed no federal tax returns. And no one in 
     Washington or New York noticed. Or cared. Under ordinary 
     circumstances, even the complex tax returns of the very 
     wealthy that are filed go unchecked. That's due to a 
     deliberate decision by Congress to starve the IRS, both in 
     operating funds and in manpower and expertise to conduct such 
     audits. So forget about ferreting out serious nonfilers among 
     the rich and prominent. That task doesn't even register on 
     the tax fraud radar screen. Not surprisingly, representatives 
     of Alec Wildenstein declined to discuss his tax affairs. 
     Jocelyne's lawyer said she doesn't know anything about taxes, 
     since Alec controlled the money. And the IRS can't comment on 
     the tax matters of private citizens. Or in this case, the 
     non-tax matters.
       In the divorce case, Alec argued that he was not a resident 
     of the United States, that he had a Swiss passport and 
     visited this country on a tourist visa, and that he did not 
     have a green card permitting him to work. Furthermore, he 
     contended that he had ``less than $75,000 in bank accounts'' 
     and that ``my only earnings are approximately $175,000 per 
     year.'' On a net-worth statement, Alec listed his occupation 
     as ``unpaid personal assistant to father Daniel 
     Wildenstein.'' That stirred the ire of State Supreme Court 
     Judge Marilyn G. Diamond, who presided over the hostilities. 
     ``He fails to explain why he is unpaid,'' said Diamond, 
     adding that ``this contention insults the intelligence of the 
     court and is an affront to common sense.''
       Judge Diamond was also angered that Alec never bothered to 
     attend the divorce hearings. Shortly after Jocelyne began 
     unveiling intimate details of the couple's private life, he 
     fled the country. He ignored repeated court dates, failing to 
     appear to answer either the gun charges or his wife's 
     allegations. At one hearing, an irritated Diamond excoriated 
     Wildenstein in absentia for his refusal to obey court orders 
     and to attend depositions. His attorney, Raoul L. Felder, the 
     New York celebrity divorce lawyer, offered an explanation for 
     his client's behavior:
       ``It may not be his disinclination to appear before the 
     court. You are aware there are substantial tax problems we 
     believe created by the plaintiff.''
       Judge Diamond agreed. ``There are going to be more 
     substantial tax problems,'' she said. ``There are more 
     substantial potential tax problems by people continuing to 
     take certain positions. Make no mistake about it.''
       If this conjures up visions of battalions of vigilant IRS 
     agents engaged in a relentless search to identify tax 
     scofflaws and, when they do so, dun them for the taxes they 
     owe, assess interest and penalties, seize their bank accounts 
     and cars, freeze their assets, and auction off their 
     possessions, well, that's what they are, visions--at least 
     when it comes to the very rich. For the double standard is to 
     tax-law enforcement what rock is to roll.
       Suppose you earn $40,000 a year and don't file a return. 
     When the IRS catches up with you it prepares a substitute 
     return, estimates your income, calculates the tax you owe, 
     tacks on interest and penalties, and sends you the bill. If 
     you don't like their numbers, you must prove that the IRS is 
     incorrect. What's more, the agency may seize your bank 
     accounts, your car, and whatever else you have of value.
       Not so with the truly prosperous. First, the agency mails 
     out a computer-generated letter asking the nonfiler to submit 
     a return. When the reluctant recipient fails to respond, a 
     second letter goes out. And then another. And another. If the 
     silence persists, IRS resorts to another tactic: The 
     telephone. It tries to find the number of the missing 
     nonfiler and place a series of calls. When all that proves 
     futile--it generally does nothing.
       Nothing?
       That was a finding of a 1991 study by the General 
     Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, 
     that examined IRS' handling of affluent nonfilers:
       ``The IRS does not fully investigate high-income nonfilers, 
     which creates an ironic imbalance. Unlike lower income 
     nonfilers in the Substitute for Returns program, high-income 
     nonfilers who do not respond to IRS' notices are not 
     investigated or assessed taxes. Even if high-income nonfilers 
     eventually file tax returns, their returns receive less 
     scrutiny than those who file returns on time.''
       What's the IRS's explanation for the double standard? 
     Incredibly, it told GAO that it does not prepare a substitute 
     return for rich nonfilers, as it does for middle-income 
     people, because it fears that it might ``understate taxes 
     owed.'' In other words, no loaf is better than half-a-loaf. 
     So do nothing. Second, GAO said, ``to pursue more high-income 
     cases, IRS would need additional staff.'' Which, of course, 
     is precisely what Congress refuses to provide.
       But things have changed since the critical 1991 audit that 
     tried to prod the IRS to act, right? Indeed they have. With 
     each passing year, the number of affluent nonfilers has gone 
     up while Congress has slashed the service's auditing 
     capabilities. There is no better evidence of the agency's 
     breakdown than the fact the Wildensteins went two decades 
     without filing a tax return, and the IRS knew nothing about 
     it.

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, the article points out that tax fraud is a 
ticking time bomb in this country, probably approaching up to $300 
billion in lost revenue. It tells the story of one family worth 
billions of dollars, one family that holds, in art collections alone, 
over $6 billion in assets. They have a town house, a swimming pool. 
They have property in Kenya and France. They spend tens of millions of 
dollars each year.
  They spend $65,000 just in dog bills. They have not even filed a tax 
return for the last 20 years, and the IRS did not even know about it. 
That is the kind of tax avoidance which the IRS ought to be able to 
track, and so as long as they do not have adequate resources, will not 
be able to track.
  If you are some taxpayer paying $30,000 a year and they caught you, 
you would get womped with a bill in a hurry. But here is an example of 
a family that has lived like kings, international multinational kings, 
for years, in full view; and they have paid not one dime in taxes and 
never even bothered to file.

                              {time}  1515

  This is no laughing matter, when the administration is asking for 
more money to fund the IRS. So I would suggest that for those two 
reasons alone, this bill still falls far short of where it ought to be.
  I also do not see why we should continue to play a flip-flop game 
with SSI. Last year we decided, the Congress decided, it was going to 
move the date for the payment of SSI checks into one fiscal year. The 
Congress moved it back to a different fiscal year in the supplemental 
this year. Now it is trying to flip it back again, moving it to a 
different fiscal year again, not for substance purposes, but for 
political purposes. All that does is create confusion and bring into 
question whether or not those SSI checks are going to be able to be 
cut. We ought not do that. That is another reason why this bill ought 
not to be considered in this fashion.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe).
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I just want to respond to a couple things 
that the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on 
Appropriations said. He used the word ``cutting,'' that this bill is 
cutting. But I think we should be clear that we may not be adding as 
much as he would like in terms of new spending, but at 13.8 percent 
over last

[[Page H7622]]

year's spending, it is hardly a cut. There are not cuts in this in 
virtually every account, there are additions, and most of them are very 
much needed, and we acknowledge that. But this is not cuts.
  The second point, with regard to the matter of IRS law enforcement or 
enforcement that the gentleman from Wisconsin talked about, the 
President's proposal would have transferred $43 million out of law 
enforcement into other areas. We did not permit him to do that. So if 
there is inadequate law enforcement, I think the problem is to be found 
in the White House and in the administration and their plans to try to 
reduce the enforcement part of the Internal Revenue Service.
  The third point, with regard to counter-terrorism, the additional 
monies, as I mentioned, we have $55 million in this bill that is 
emergency spending so it can be spent immediately, above and beyond the 
budget caps. We offered in our discussions with the minority as we were 
trying to get agreement on this, we offered to put an additional $37.2 
million, which is more than two-thirds of what the President thought 
was additionally required in this area. That offer was rejected.
  Again, we have not heard, other than that just absolutely everything 
is needed, there is no negotiation to be done except to give us 100 
percent, that has been the bottom line of everything we have had in the 
discussions here, and that is not what I would call a serious 
negotiation.
  So I think we have been very, very generous, and certainly are going 
to be prepared to look at additional amounts as we go forward from 
here. But certainly this conference report deserves support.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman indicated that they offered to put back 
additional money. They may have offered, but the fact is they have not 
put it back. So we are not voting on some ethereal offer; we are voting 
on the legislation before us at this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland 
(Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, first of all let me say to my colleagues, I really think 
had we had the opportunity to work on this bill a little longer, I know 
we have been working on it for 10 days, but, very frankly, we could 
have done this 8 months earlier had we had real numbers at the start 
and not been told this is the 1st inning and there are 8 innings left 
to go. I do not know whether it is the 6th or 7th inning, but, very 
frankly, this is premature consideration, if you will, because we could 
work this out. I think we are pretty close to working this out, but we 
are certainly not close, as the ranking member indicated, with not 
having added what has been offered by your side to add. That is not 
added here. We are not close to funding IRS.
  Let me say something about the chairman's comment about the level of 
employees of IRS. Let me remind you, he said there were 95,000 IRS 
employees. In 1992 there were 116,000 IRS employees. What has happened 
since 1992? Obviously, as the gentleman points out, they have been 
reduced 20 percent in the level of employees. That happened.
  Number two, we have millions of additional taxpayers.
  Number three, the complexity of the returns has increased as a 
result, very frankly, of some of the tax bills offered by the 
Republican majority which have become law.
  Fourthly, we adopted a Restructuring and Reform Act which said we 
want you to be more customer friendly; that is to say, we want you to 
give more services, we want you to answer questions more quickly, we 
want you to be more available for taxpayers to come in to regional 
offices, all of which were positive things. But then we turn around and 
we say, guess what though? You do not have any people to do it.
  That is a shell game. It is dishonest. That is why I voted against 
the Reform and Restructuring Act the first time around, and it is one 
of the best speeches I ever gave, and it was a very short speech. I got 
up and I said if you want to be for taxpayer IRS reform, you need to be 
for IRS reform at tax writing time and at budget time.
  That is what this report ultimately said. In this bill, we are $305 
million under what Mr. Rossotti, not the administration, asked for. 
Frankly, Mr. Rossotti asked for more money than this to do his job. So 
do not go home and tell your taxpayers, boy, we are providing the kind 
of service that you need, because we are on your side, we are taxpayer 
friendly, and then pretend that you can go from 116,000 IRS employees 
to serve 270 million Americans, and, sure, it sounds like a big number, 
until you decide that there are 270 million Americans that are covered. 
They do not all pay taxes, some are kids, some do not make enough 
money, but they are all in the mix. And you go down to 95,000, and then 
expect to say, oh, well, you can do it.
  I agree with my chairman, and he and I are good friends and respect 
one another, and I respect the big chairman, the chairman of the full 
committee. I think we can work this out. I think we can get pretty 
close, and I think we can get the administration on board. We did not 
participate in most of this. Yes, we discussed it, yes, I know the 
chairman is frustrated by the fact that we have not reached agreement. 
But you should not have brought this bill forward today, because it 
would have served the process and our committee if in fact we had 
worked this bill out and come to the floor together and said we have 
done what we should have done on IRS, we have done what we should on 
counter-terrorism, we have done what we should on court houses, and 
very frankly, we may stay where we are on court houses, with some 
additional discussion the chairman and I have had.
  But I would urge my colleagues, this is not the bill we ought to 
pass. In my opinion, and the President has not told me this, it is not 
going to be signed. And why do we continue in the 7th or 8th inning, or 
the 10th or 11th inning, wherever we are in this inning process, Mr. 
Chairman, I do not know where we are, but wherever we are, we should 
bring it to closure through agreement, and we are prepared to do that. 
We want to do it, I think we can do it, I would hope we would do it. I 
would hope we would send this bill back to a conference, that is a 
strange conference, because the Senate has never considered this bill. 
To that extent there was really nothing in the conference other than 
our bill, and in fact we did not conference our bill, it was added to 
the Legislative bill, which is why it is there.
  So, my colleagues, I ask you to reject this. We can do better, and we 
will do better, and, when we do better, this bill will be whole, all of 
it.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the 
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe).
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I hope this may conclude my part of the 
debate, but I do feel I need to respond to a few of the things that 
have just been said in this debate.
  A few moments ago we had the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) 
pointing out that the counter-terrorism dollars were not in here, that 
we are not voting on something hypothetical, we have to be voting on 
the substance of this. In the next moment the gentleman from Maryland 
(Mr. Hoyer) is talking about how the process was not good. So we are 
talking about the process, not the substance of it. We are kind of 
getting whipsawed on both sides of this thing here.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KOLBE. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, we have concerns about both the process and 
the substance, which is why we mentioned both.
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the bottom line is is 
this a responsible bill? The question that we should ask is not does 
this bill have exactly everything in it that I want, because that is 
not the way the legislative process works; it is is this a responsible 
bill? And nobody can look at this bill and say that this is not a 
responsible bill. It does not do everything that I would like, because 
in the process of being chairman, I have to give on some things. It 
does not do everything that the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) 
would like, it does not do everything that the White House would like, 
but it is a responsible bill. It funds in an adequate way the agencies 
that we are responsible for.
  The gentleman from Maryland has told us that this bill will not be 
signed

[[Page H7623]]

by the President. That is somewhat news to us, because we have never 
been able to get a definitive statement from the White House about 
that. I do not want to be in the business of passing legislation, these 
appropriations bills, and going through this process of having them 
vetoed. I want to get bills that can be signed. But, as I said at the 
outset, our problem is the White House will not tell us. They have said 
in no uncertain terms, they will not tell us what it is that they need 
in order to pass this, other than, of course, give us everything in the 
request.
  So we have to at some point pass a bill so we can get in writing from 
the White House some kind of a definitive statement about what it is. 
Perhaps we can do that before we send it to the White House. After we 
pass it and send it to the White House, perhaps we can work that out, 
because there are going to be other appropriations bills and other 
parts of this could be worked out in supplemental or omnibus bills at 
the end, other appropriation bills and conference reports.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe we have a bill that is responsible. I believe 
we have a conference report that should be supported. I believe that 
the White House, and I hope the minority, would join us in passing 
this, so we can move forward and get this legislation enacted into law.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize the work of the staff of my 
subcommittee: Michelle Mrdeza, the clerk; Kurt Dodd, Jeff Ashford, and 
Tammy Hughes, and Patricia Schlueter of the minority staff. I would 
also like to thank Kevin Messner of my personal staff, and Scott Nance, 
on the staff of Mr. Hoyer.
  In addition to acknowledging the work of staff who have contributed 
to getting this Conference Report before the House today, let me give a 
special thanks to Doug Burke, a special Agent with U.S. Secret Service 
who is detailed to the Subcommittee as a congressional fellow. Doug 
came to this assignment after serving for a year as a fellow in the 
office of my distinguished ranking member, Mr. Hoyer. He has brought 
considerable skill and energy to bear on our legislative work, to 
include preparing for hearings, conducting detailed oversight analysis, 
and coordinating two important Committee oversight trips to Miami and 
the West Coast, where his secret skills as a jazz pianist were exposed. 
In addition to serving as a full working staff member for the 
subcommittee, Mr. Burke did extra duty in doing Secret Service advance 
duty for the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia during the 
last recess.
  Mr. Burke, who grew up in the Washington Virginia suburbs as the son 
of a former Secret Service Assistant Director, began his government 
service in the U.S. Navy, and went on from there to graduate from Penn 
State University. His subsequent career in the Secret Service has 
included investigative field work in Miami, protective service on the 
Presidential Detail, and teaching assignments at the Secret Service's 
Rowley Training Center in Beltsville, Maryland and the Federal Law 
Enforcement Training Center in Georgia.
  I would like to thank Mr. Burke for his contributions to the work of 
the Subcommittee and wish him well in his future career as he returns 
this fall to the Secret Service. I would also wish him especially the 
best as Doug, the father of three, prepares with his wife Sarah to 
bring a new Burke into the world next year.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes to simply say it is 
simply not true that the White House has not indicated what they want 
to see with this bill. They have indicated they want to see more funds 
for the IRS, they have indicated they want to see more funds for 
counterterrorism, they have indicated they want additional funds in 
order to deal with the Puerto Rican election.
  They have indicated that they also do not want to have a non-germane 
separate tax provision which has no business in this bill being 
considered in this kind of a three-headed package. They have suggested 
that if indeed that tax package is going to be considered, then it 
ought to be considered along with other tax items, including some of 
the tax items that the administration is interested in several other 
appropriation bills. So they made it very clear what they regard to be 
the deficiencies in this bill, and I do not think it ought to be 
asserted otherwise.
  Secondly, I would simply say I think the gentleman from Arizona has 
negotiated in absolute good faith, but I think he has had the rug 
pulled out from under him, just as we have on this side of the aisle, 
by the decision of his leadership to proceed in partisan fashion to 
pass this bill with votes on that side of the aisle alone. I regret 
that, but that, nonetheless, is apparently what has happened today, and 
until the substance of the bill is fixed, we do not intend to 
participate.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, let me say, so the Members understand where 
we are going to be I think at the end game, if we had continued our 
discussions about how to resolve this, and so the public understands as 
well, our constituents understand, I believe we can agree, I believe 
the White House can agree, on a number for this bill that will still be 
more than one-half billion dollars under the President's request.

                              {time}  1530

  I hope my colleagues heard that. I believe the White House is 
prepared to sign a bill that is half a billion, almost $600 million 
under what they submitted to this Congress. So it is not that they are 
asking, gee, we ought to include all of these additional dollars.
  It was, and I want to repeat, in the committee report issued by the 
majority in the Congress, the Republican majority. It says that their 
allocation was $1.3 billion too little to meet the priorities. Now, 
that was still, we understand, $800 million less than the President 
asked for, which was 2.2. They are adding 1.2 back. So there is still 
$100 million under what the committee report said they thought, the 
Republicans thought, was necessary to adequately fund this bill.
  I repeat again to the chairman, for whom I have great respect, as 
everyone on this floor knows, we work together closely, I think we can 
work this thing out; and I know he is frustrated that we have been at 
it for 8 or 9 days and have not been able to work it out. There are a 
lot of interests here. The tax provision that was added to this bill, 
totally extraneous to our bill, has caused us a problem. That is not of 
the making of the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) or my making or 
the making of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) or the making of 
the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young); but it is causing us a problem, 
and that needs to be worked out. But we ought not to go up the hill 
just to be shot down and have to go back up it again.
  Mr. Speaker, I think we can reach an agreement that is almost $600 
million under the President's request, and I would urge us to do that. 
Reject this conference report and approve the motion to recommit to 
conference. Let us sit down at the table, reason together and come up 
with a reasonable, positive, productive bill.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, this conference report included, as I said in my opening 
remarks, three different sections. One is the repeal of the Spanish-
American War excise tax on telephone costs which passed this House by a 
vote of 420 to 2. So I take it that the substance of this portion of 
this legislation is not an issue. The Legislative Branch appropriations 
part of this package passed the House 373 to 50.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, let me make clear, that is an issue, because 
the administration indicates that if that tax is to be considered, and 
it ought to be considered in conjunction with other changes in the tax 
law which the administration also wants, not unilaterally in a 
privileged position, without any of the administration's tax 
preferences being taken into account. I thank the gentleman for 
yielding.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his 
comments, but I think a vote of 420 to 2 is a pretty good indication of 
how the Members of this House feel about repealing that Spanish-
American War tax.
  Most of the debate has centered around the other bill that I 
indicated earlier passed by a landslide, relatively speaking, because 
it had 14 more votes for it than it had against it. Now, on this 
Treasury Postal, General Government bill, that is almost a landslide, 
based on previous votes procedural problems were mentioned because of 
the adding of the Treasury Postal bill

[[Page H7624]]

to the Legislative Branch conference report. That is probably not the 
best procedure, but we are a bicameral legislature. We have to work 
with the other body at the other end of the Capitol, as well as working 
with the President when we complete our conference reports.
  The Senate was of the opinion that they needed to add the Treasury 
Postal bill into the Legislative Branch conference report, so that is 
what we did. I would not have done that if the House had not passed the 
Treasury Postal bill. I would not agree to taking any bill and putting 
in another conference if the House had not already passed it, except 
under the most unusual circumstances. I just believe I owe that to the 
Members of the House to give them that protection. So I would not do 
that. However, if that is what has to be done on the part of the other 
body to get a bill through the process, then that is what we will do.
  It had been suggested that the IRS issue is a big issue, but I want 
the Members to know that we spent quite a bit of time talking about 
that. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), who is my dear friend 
and I have tremendous respect for him and his abilities, he is great; 
and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), who is also my friend and 
has great ability and talent; and I know a lot of people that watch 
these debates might wonder, well, how do these guys ever get along 
together? Just because we have different opinions does not mean that we 
do not respect each other, because I respect both of those gentlemen. 
We work together.
  In fact, we sat down with the Speaker of the House before we brought 
this conference report to the floor and one of the issues we discussed 
was the issue of the additional money for the Internal Revenue Service. 
The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the Speaker of the House, 
gave his word to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) that if we pass this bill, that he 
would be willing to guarantee that the additional money for the 
Internal Revenue Service would be added to a subsequent appropriations 
bill.
  Now, we talked a lot about that; and we were unable to come to a 
conclusion, so we made the determination to move ahead with this bill. 
We have talked a lot, and I know it was mentioned that maybe we should 
keep on talking. Well, unless the plan is just to delay the legislation 
and delay it and delay it, eventually we get to the point that it is 
time to end the talking, and it is time to take some action, and we 
think we are at that point.
  When we went to the subcommittee on the Treasury Postal bill back in 
July, 2 months ago, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and myself, 
the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), and the gentleman from Arizona 
(Mr. Kolbe) sat down and we talked with each other about several issues 
that were important to Members and had those conversations before we 
did the subcommittee markup.
  Again, prior to the time that we took the subcommittee markup to the 
full committee, the joint leadership, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Hastert), the Speaker; the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), the 
majority leader; the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the 
minority leader; the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and myself, 
and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and the gentleman from 
Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) and some of the other leaders sat down together in 
the Speaker's Office, and we talked about some of the issues in this 
bill. And we talked for a long time, and we decided to proceed with 
marking up that bill in the full committee. We have done that. We have 
brought it to the floor and we passed it. We have done a lot of 
talking. It is now time to take some action.
  This is a bill that I think meets the requirements, as we see them 
today. Should there be some adjustments? The gentleman from Illinois 
(Mr. Hastert) had made a firm commitment to the gentleman from Maryland 
(Mr. Hoyer), and I know the Speaker of the House to be an honorable 
man, a man whose word can be taken as truth. If he gives his word, he 
keeps his word. He made a commitment to the gentleman from Maryland of 
what he would be willing to do on a subsequent bill to make this bill 
more attractive to the minority party.
  So I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that we would reject the motion to 
recommit, and I am told it will be a clean motion to recommit; there 
will be no instructions. I would say to the gentleman from Maryland I 
appreciate that, because I believe that that does save us some time 
here today, and we do have some other appropriations issues to deal 
with, such as appointing conferees on other bills that we can get into 
conference and bring back to the House. But reject the motion to 
recommit the bill, and then let us pass the bill.
  Now, if it goes to the White House and the President decides he wants 
to veto it, so be it. We will deal with that. But as of today, the 
President and no one in the White House has been willing to tell the 
subcommittee chairman of this bill that he would veto the bill. Neither 
the President nor any of his staff has told the chairman of the full 
committee, this Member, that he would veto this bill. Just this 
morning, the Speaker of the House communicated with the White House. He 
was not told that the President would veto this bill. So we are 
proceeding in good faith. We think that we have worked out a bill here 
that meets our responsibilities and does it in a very effective way.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I hope that we can get on to passage of this bill, 
and then get to work on the other conference reports that have to be 
considered and get them to the President so that he has adequate time 
to consider them before the fiscal year expires at the end of 
September.
  So I ask all of my colleagues to vote for this bill.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Wisconsin and I have had 
suggestions and in the interest of time, I think we will not, in light 
of the fact that the motion to recommit is probably redundant in terms 
of the vote on passage, we will not offer the motion to recommit so 
that we do not take the additional time of Members.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for that, and I 
think that helps us expedite the business which needs to be expedited.
  So with that, Mr. Speaker, I just ask the Members to seriously 
consider this package, and let us vote it out of the House, get it 
through the Senate, and send it down to the White House and let the 
President make his decision once he sees the bill in its final form.
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, while there are still areas of 
this bill that need to be revised, I would like to commend the 
Conference Committee Members for including in this report $5 million 
for the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act's Interagency Working Group. 
This funding is vital to the work of the Interagency Working Group 
responsible for diligently reviewing documents regarding the atrocities 
of World War II and making those records available to the public. I 
applaud Senator DeWine for successfully securing this funding in the 
Senate version of the bill and then working with the Conference 
Committee to retain this funding.
  In 1994, I introduced the Nazi War Crimes and Disclosure Act with 
Chairman Steve Horn in the House and with the leadership of Senator 
DeWine in the Senate. After several hearings held by the Government 
Reform Committee and wide community support, this bill became law in 
1998.
  Recently the Government Reform Committee, under the leadership of 
Chairman Horn, held a hearing to announce some of the findings from the 
Interagency Working Group's efforts. At this hearing, we heard first-
hand how critical funding is to the future efforts of the Interagency 
Working Group as they begin reviewing classified documents regarding 
Japanese War Crimes.
  The Interagency Working Group has successfully released more than 1.5 
million documents to the public. While this is an impressive 
accomplishment, the IWG has succeeded without the support of Congress. 
This has led to inadequate staff support and the inability to preserve 
and protect the deteriorating and crumbling documents.
  This conference report before us will be the first time Congress has 
stepped up to fully support the work of the Interagency Working Group. 
Already, significant new information about the Holocaust has been 
revealed in the more than 400,000 Office of Strategic Services records 
released by the Interagency Working Group at the National Archives this 
past June, but that is only the beginning. Without the support of 
historians and trained staff,

[[Page H7625]]

we only have a small glimpse of the information contained in those 
documents.
  It is essential that the Archivist use all of the earmarked $5 
million dollars which is authorized in this legislation for the 
explicit purpose of supporting the efforts of the Interagency Working 
Group so that they may restore decaying documents, afford historians 
and trained staff, and to help the Archives make these documents 
available to the public. The report before us contains $14 million more 
for the National Archives than the previously passed House version. It 
is my understanding that this increase was included to provide adequate 
funding for this expenditure.
  I therefore urge my colleagues to preserve this provision in the bill 
and support the vital work of the Interagency Working Group.
  While there is still a lot of debate surrounding the Legislative 
Branch/Treasury Postal Appropriations conference report before us 
today, and there are many issues that must still be resolved, I rise to 
highlight two specific provisions in this bill that I strongly support.
  First, I am proud that this conference report contains a provision I 
authored which requires the Office of Personnel and Management to study 
the positive impact of providing federal employees with paid paternal 
leave.
  This study means progress!
  In May, I, along with Mr. Davis of Virginia, Mr. Hoyer of Maryland, 
and Mr. Gilman of New York, introduced H.R. 4567, the Federal Employees 
Paid Parental Leave Act of 2000. This bipartisan bill would give 
federal employees 6 weeks of paid parental leave for the birth or 
adoption of a child--a benefit that the majority of private sector 
employers already give their employees.
  Since we introduced the bill in May, I have heard from men and women 
across the country who have relayed their stories to me about the great 
impact this legislation would have on their families. They have told me 
that they will no longer be forced to make a choice: whether to stay 
home with an ill newborn or to put food on the table.
  In response to this overwhelming support, we have asked OPM to 
conduct a study to understand the important of providing paid parental 
leave to federal employees. This study will help us understand and 
quantify why H.R. 4567 is so important. It will also likely reveal that 
the federal government will become more competitive with the private 
sector by offering paid parental leave. It may also show that the 
government's recruitment efforts will be boosted and that the costs 
related to turnover and replacement will be greatly reduced. Finally, 
this study will conclude that the federal workforce can win back 
dedicated and qualified workers to the government if we offer a benefit 
that is already being offered by the majority of private sector 
companies.
  Everyone always says that the federal government should be run more 
like a business. This study will lay the foundation for the federal 
government to do just that.
  Let's keep this provision in the bill and show our federal employees 
that we care about them and support their families.
  I am also extremely pleased that we were able to find additional 
resources for this conference report to adequately fund the activities 
of the General Accounting Office. The funding included in this 
appropriation will guarantee that the GAO will be able to continue to 
produce the high quality, objective reports that we have come to 
expect.
  In recent years, the GAO has experienced severe budget cuts even as 
the demand for their services has grown. Since 1992, the GAO has been 
forced to reduce its workforce by 40%. Nonetheless, the quality of 
their work has never wavered. As a Member of the Government Reform 
Committee, I have frequently had the opportunity to see the GAO in 
action and have been constantly impressed by the quality and 
professionalism of their reports and testimony. Recently, the GAO's 
oversight of the decennial census has reminded me again of the 
fantastic, impartial work that the GAO consistently provides. I commend 
them for their work.
  I strongly believe that this agency is one of our best resources in 
the quest to make government run more efficiently. In fact, for every 
dollar invested in the GAO, taxpayers save more than $57.
  The funding included in this legislation will guarantee that the GAO 
will be able to hire necessary personnel to meet ever-increasing 
Congressional demands and continue to provide the services we have come 
to expect.
  I applaud the inclusion of these resources and hope that next year we 
can find the resources for the GAO without hurting the funding of the 
other agencies we rely on every day.
  Mr. Speaker, I strongly support these provisions included in the 
Conference Report. Even though other measures in this particular report 
will prevent me from supporting this bill, I look forward to working 
with my colleagues to retain these provisions and work toward a 
conference report that will have full support.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the conference 
report which contains language that seeks to close a loophole regarding 
the safety of child care in Federal facilities throughout this country. 
I would like to thank Mrs. Maloney and Mrs. Morella for their support 
of this issue and their dedication to improving the quality of child 
care for all children.
  Congress passed the Crime Control Act in 1990 which included a 
provision calling for mandatory background checks of employees hired by 
a Federal agency. However, some agencies have interpreted the law in 
such a way that many child care employees are not subjected to these 
background checks.
  Currently, Federal employees across the country undergo, at the bare 
minimum, a computer check of their background which includes FBI, 
Interpol and State police records. However, some child care workers who 
enter these same buildings on a daily basis do not. Federal employees 
who use federally provided child care should feel confident that these 
child care providers have backgrounds free of abusive and violent 
behavior that would prevent them from working with children.
  Moreover, this amendment helps to ensure the overall safety of our 
Federal buildings. Child care workers step into Federal buildings each 
day and look after children of Federal employees. Without performing 
background checks, the children in day care, as well as the employees 
in Federal facilities, are exposing themselves to possible violent 
attacks in the workplace. A child care worker with a history of violent 
criminal behavior has the opportunity to create a terrorist situation 
the likes of which have not been seen since the tragedy in Oklahoma 
City.
  Child care providers working in Federal facilities throughout the 
country have somehow fallen through the cracks and have become exempt 
from undergoing a criminal history check. This amendment corrects this 
situation. Accordingly, I urge my colleagues to support this conference 
report.
  Mr. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 4516, the 
FY 2001 Legislative Branch/Treasury-Postal Conference Report.
  This mini-omnibus appropriations bill is business as usual and I did 
not come to Congress to engage in business as usual. The people of 
Kansas' third district expect and deserve more of us. As Congress has 
done for too many years, today it will be voting on a bill that 
violates both the rules of the House and the Senate in the name of 
political expediency.
  Under these rules, Congress is supposed to consider 13 appropriations 
bills for each fiscal year. Under normal procedures, those bills should 
come before the House and the Senate individually, with opportunities 
for amendment and debate. After a conference report is negotiated, the 
House should then have the opportunity to vote on each bill, standing 
alone. Unfortunately, Congress has refused to follow its own rules. The 
majority party has combined two appropriations bills in this so-called 
conference report--one of which has yet to be considered by the full 
Senate.
  I have only been a Member of this body for 18 months, but I 
understand that these rules and procedures were put in place to protect 
the rights of all Members to represent fully the interests and concerns 
of our constituents. We cannot do so when we are confronted with an 
omnibus conference report which rolls together a number of provisions, 
that one of our two deliberative bodies has not had the opportunity to 
fully consider.
  While the process under which this bill has been considered is 
unacceptable, it does contain many programs which I have fought for and 
for which I would vote under normal circumstances. I am pleased that 
this bill contains provisions that strongly support law enforcement 
efforts in this country. Fully funding the administration's gun-law-
enforcement initiatives, including a proposal to add 600 employees to 
the agency to more fully enforce existing gun laws, suggests that this 
Congress is finally getting serious about stopping the scourge of gun 
crimes that have crippled this nation.
  This bill also contains a provision that I strongly support which 
would roll back the 0.5 percent surcharge on Federal employee 
retirement contributions. This increase was mandated by the 1997 
balanced budget law and has disproportionately affected Federal 
employees by taxing more of their gross income for retirement than 
their private sector counterparts contribute. Mr. Speaker, the budget 
is balanced: it is time to stop funding surpluses at the expense of our 
hard working Federal employees.

  Finally, I strongly support the provision in this bill that would 
repeal the 3 percent telephone excise tax that was levied as a luxury 
tax over 100 years ago to fund the Spanish American War. Mr. Speaker, 
the war is over and, with over 94 percent telephone ownership, this 
service is no longer a luxury. It is past time to repeal this tax and I 
voted to do so back in May when the House first considered this issue. 
I am disappointed that the majority party chose to hold this important 
issue hostage by marrying it with this controversial

[[Page H7626]]

measure. While I support many of the priorities in this bill, I remain 
concerned about one provision in this bill that suggest this Congress 
is not serious about holding the line on spending.
  Mr. Speaker, about a decade ago, through legislative slight of hand, 
Congress passed a law to allow for the automatic annual increase in 
Members' salaries. This was a politically motivated move to shield 
Congress from casting embarrassing votes to increase their own pay. 
While we were technically afforded the opportunity to vote against an 
increase by casting a no vote on a procedural issue, the fact remains 
that by voting in support of this legislation, we will be voting for 
our own pay raises.
  This will be a vote that comes at the expense of other mandates an 
earlier Congress created: Two years ago the House voted overwhelmingly 
for the IRS Reform and Restructuring Act which followed recommendations 
of a commission that studied the IRS and stated that IRS budgets 
``should receive stable funding for the next three years so that the 
leaders can . . . improve taxpayer service and compliance.''
  Mr. Speaker, this bill, contrary to the recommendations of a 
bipartisan commission and contrary to the will of this House, cuts $465 
million from the administration's request. If this Congress is serious 
about holding the line on spending, we would not hold our other 
priorities hostage to our desires of a larger paycheck.
  I will be voting against this bill and I will be voting against a pay 
increase--I urge my colleagues to put their money where their mouth is 
and reject final passage of this legislation.
  Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of 
the conference report of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill, 
the Treasury-Postal Service-General Government Appropriations Bill and 
repeal of the telephone excise tax, H.R. 4516. The Appropriations 
Committee has agreed to hire 600 ATF agents and to fund DNA ballistics 
technology that will assist law enforcement in arresting criminals. The 
conference report extends the Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative 
to 12 additional cities. My ENFORCE bill authorizes the same programs. 
The funding levels of this legislation are a victory for gun 
enforcement.
  It is the first time gun safety and pro-gun Members have decided to 
give law enforcement the tools necessary to enforce existing gun laws. 
Now we all agree gun enforcement equals more ATF agents and funding for 
ballistics technology. It is particularly gratifying that the conferees 
dropped the language that would have prohibited local law enforcement 
agencies from giving a buying preference to gun manufacturers which 
have agreed to make safer guns and to sell only to distributors that 
conduct background checks.
  Now, communities from Long Island to Hawaii will be able to purchase 
guns for their police officers that are safe and marketed through 
responsible dealers. This legislation contains the repeal of the 
Federal telephone tax. As a life-long resident of Nassau County, I know 
first-hand that our taxes are too high. I am grateful that the House of 
Representatives has recognized that the time has come to put an end to 
this unnecessary tax, which was originally imposed as a temporary 
luxury tax to help finance the Spanish-American War. Since the 
telephone is a necessity I am delighted the House is acting to remove 
this regressive tax that disproportionately affects lower income 
Americans.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my 
time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). Without objection, the 
previous question is ordered.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the conference report.
  Pursuant to clause 10 of rule XX, the yeas and nays are ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 212, 
nays 209, not voting 13, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 476]

                               YEAS--212

     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Baldacci
     Ballenger
     Barrett (NE)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bereuter
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bliley
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Brady (PA)
     Brady (TX)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Canady
     Cannon
     Castle
     Chambliss
     Coble
     Collins
     Combest
     Cooksey
     Cox
     Crane
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dicks
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Ewing
     Foley
     Fossella
     Fowler
     Franks (NJ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Green (WI)
     Greenwood
     Gutknecht
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hill (MT)
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Isakson
     Istook
     Jenkins
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Kasich
     Kelly
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kuykendall
     LaHood
     Larson
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     LoBiondo
     Lucas (OK)
     Martinez
     Mascara
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCrery
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McKeon
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller, Gary
     Mollohan
     Moran (KS)
     Moran (VA)
     Morella
     Murtha
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Ose
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pascrell
     Pease
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Salmon
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Souder
     Spence
     Stearns
     Stump
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Talent
     Tancredo
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Traficant
     Upton
     Vitter
     Walden
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weller
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NAYS--209

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Aderholt
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldwin
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barrett (WI)
     Bentsen
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Carson
     Chabot
     Chenoweth-Hage
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Coburn
     Condit
     Conyers
     Cook
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Danner
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Deutsch
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Duncan
     Edwards
     Engel
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Fletcher
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Frost
     Ganske
     Gejdenson
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Goode
     Gordon
     Green (TX)
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hastings (FL)
     Hayes
     Hill (IN)
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hoeffel
     Holt
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     John
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (NC)
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kleczka
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Largent
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Lucas (KY)
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Maloney (NY)
     Manzullo
     Markey
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller, George
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Moore
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Northup
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pastor
     Paul
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Phelps
     Pickett
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Rodriguez
     Roemer
     Rogan
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sanford
     Sawyer
     Schaffer
     Schakowsky
     Scott
     Sensenbrenner
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Shows
     Sisisky
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Spratt
     Stabenow
     Stark
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Toomey
     Towns
     Turner
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Weygand
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn

                             NOT VOTING--13

     Becerra
     Campbell
     Clay
     Eshoo
     Forbes
     Gutierrez
     Klink
     Lazio
     McCollum
     McIntosh
     Vento
     Weldon (PA)
     Wise

                              {time}  1614

  Messrs. ROEMER, DELAHUNT, STENHOLM, TURNER, ROGAN and Ms. KILPATRICK 
and Mrs. NORTHUP changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay''.
  Messrs. RAHALL, METCALF, MASCARA, CRANE and HILL of Montana changed 
their vote from ``nay'' to ``yea''.
  So the conference report was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.

[[Page H7627]]

  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________