[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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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.
____________________