[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 152 (Monday, December 11, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H12068-H12070]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS, FISCAL YEAR 2001

  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 670, 
I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 129) making further 
continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2001, and for other 
purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
  The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
  The text of House Joint Resolution 129 is as follows:

                             H.J. Res. 129

       Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
     United States of America in Congress assembled, That Public 
     Law 106-275, is further amended by striking the date 
     specified in section 106(c) and inserting ``December 15, 
     2000''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 670, 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. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, H.J. Res. 129 extends the continuing resolution that we 
have been passing on a regular basis until Friday of this week. I come 
to the floor today with more optimism than I have in quite a while, Mr. 
Speaker. There was another meeting with the President this afternoon 
with the bicameral leadership, Republicans and Democrats, and I have 
reason to believe that much progress was made. I really believe that by 
Thursday morning, if Members are able to be back by Thursday morning, 
we will have a package to vote on.
  So I hope that we will pass this CR to give us time to accomplish 
that.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
This is the 20th time, two-zero, the 20th time that the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Young) and I have been forced to come to the floor and ask 
the Congress for an extension to keep the Government open while others 
in this institution and in the other body and folks in the 
administration decide what the budget ought to eventually look like by 
considering only macroeconomic numbers. After there is agreement 
between the leadership and the White House, I assume that we will be 
asked to work out how that money is allocated.
  So, in my view, the House leadership will be able to talk in very 
bright terms about what they have accomplished in macroeconomic terms, 
and then we will be asked to make the impossible choices within the 
dollar limits that are being suggested by the leadership around here. I 
cannot begin to tell the House how many times I have received letters 
from Members of this House, including the leadership on both sides of 
the aisle, asking that we increase funding for AIDS, special education, 
National Institutes of Health, title VI block grants, LIHEAP, Low-
Income Heating Assistance Program. I cannot tell you how many times I 
have received letters asking us to vote for increases in those programs 
and demanding that we bring to this floor what they refer to as full 
funding for some of these programs, while at the same time those same 
Members vote and those same leaders demand that we provide an overall 
number for the bill which makes our ability to produce what they ask 
for at the micro-level an almost impossible act. That in my view is 
what is happening here.
  I am not going to vote for this continuing resolution. Not because 
the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) has not done his job, he and I 
were here all weekend, but because I believe that the numbers that will 
be produced in the end will have virtually no room for some of the main 
priorities which a lot of Members in this body claim that they have. I 
think that when people put together an agreement about what the overall 
spending number ought to be in the Labor-Health-Education bill, for 
instance, that they ought to have some idea what that number will 
really mean in terms of its impact on low-income heating assistance, 
its impact on the National Institutes of Health, its impact on Pell 
grants, its impact on special education, its impact on Head Start, its 
impact on child care, and its impact on a whole range of programs.
  Yet I think the way that this is proceeding, we are going to have a 
take-it-or-leave-it proposition, where the overall number is going to 
be agreed to, and then people like the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Porter) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and I are then going 
to have to take Members aside one by one and explain to them why we 
cannot provide the increases for NIH that we promised the country in 
the campaign we were going to provide, why we cannot provide the 
increases in the Pell grants that we told people we were going to 
provide, why we cannot provide the funding for special education that 
we told people we were going to provide. We have got a winter coming 
where the Federal contribution to help low-income elderly pay their 
home heating bills will drop by about 50 percent as a percentage of 
those folks' income because of the rapidly rising energy costs; and yet 
this bill is going to be asked to savage that program in the out years.
  And this has all come about because we are told by a number of 
Members on

[[Page H12069]]

that side of the aisle that the agreement that was reached before the 
election is somehow too rich. I want to compare what that agreement 
would have done with Labor-H, with all the health and education and job 
programs, what that would have done with what we did in some other 
bills.
  This Congress passed an agriculture bill which was 2 percent above 
the President's request. This Congress passed an energy and water bill 
which was almost a billion dollars above the President's request. It 
passed an Interior appropriations bill which was $2.5 billion above the 
President's request, 15 percent above the President's request. It 
passed a transportation bill which is $2.3 billion above the 
President's request.
  And now we are being told that we have committed a mortal sin and we 
are all going to go to hell because we passed a Labor-Health-Education 
program that was a few billion dollars above the President's request. I 
make no apology for that. I make no apology for that. I think that 
those increases when compared to the increases in the energy and water 
bill or in the transportation bill are eminently defensible. Yet we are 
being told now, oh, we don't have enough room. We may add 7 or $800 
million in more money for the Middle East; but, no, if we do, we have 
got to take that money out of education and health and worker 
protection programs. I have a funny feeling that is not going to go 
down well with the American people.
  I do not have any objection to our meeting our international 
responsibilities in the Middle East or any other area of the world, but 
I do think that if that is financed out of reductions in the people's 
bill for programs here at home, that that action will unnecessarily 
turn even more people in this country toward an isolationist track. And 
I think it will encourage more people out of frustration to say, Well, 
if we have to make those kinds of choices, then I'm not for providing 
funding for various regions of the world. That is the proposition that 
we are going to be backed into.
  I apologize to the House for taking this time. No, I do not. I do not 
apologize at all for taking this time. Because we were told that this 
debate would come up at 6, and instead it has come up at 5, so almost 
no one is here to discuss it. I really have not had a chance to think 
through what a more thoughtful response would be if I had an hour to 
look at what is going on around this town. But I do want to say that I 
think that this process of extending continuing resolutions time and 
time and time again has served only one purpose. It has enabled the 
majority party leadership to avoid voting on education and health until 
after the election. And having now escaped the election season, it is 
now free to pursue the cuts that it apparently wants to pursue in those 
programs. I think that that is unfortunate.
  So I will vote against this resolution. I do not expect that there 
will be many people who will. But I do not think I am going to like the 
kind of priorities that are going to come out of this shakedown. And 
this has been a shakedown. This is what it has been. I do not think I 
am going to like the priorities very much when I see that we are going 
to be asked to squeeze these programs because we have at an earlier 
date on other bills provided very large increases in the President's 
budget, and now people seem to feel that we have to recoup that on this 
bill. I just do not happen to agree with that.
  When I was walking the streets in Wisconsin Rapids or Wausau or 
Superior, Chippewa Falls or anywhere else, I did not find many people 
who were asking me to have large increases in military spending, to 
have large increases in the transportation budget, to have large 
increases in Interior while we were neglecting our child care needs, 
our family planning needs, our National Institutes of Health and 
medical research needs. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) has 
provided a lot of needed leadership in the defense area, for instance, 
on the Subcommittee on Defense in providing supplemental funding for 
health programs, for bone marrow transplant and other programs.
  I am simply going to vote against this continuing resolution because 
I think that it is simply giving people more time to do bad things.

                              {time}  1730

  That is not my bag.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, I first want to confirm what the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) said, that he and I were here this weekend. In 
fact, we communicated with each other throughout the weekend just in 
the event that we had some agreement between the legislative leadership 
and the White House so that we could begin to complete the bill.
  I have been briefed by my leadership, and I believe that the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has been briefed by his leadership. 
My understanding is that the agreement would be substantially higher 
than the House passed Labor HHS bill, and that it is higher than the 
President's actual request. I believe that if we come together in a 
bipartisan fashion here, that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) 
and I and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter), who is the very 
distinguished chairman of the subcommittee, will be able to fashion a 
bill within that overall number. We will be able to guarantee that the 
promise that we made to medical research through NIH can be and will be 
kept; and that the promise we made in increasing the educational 
funding can and will be kept.
  So we have some work to do between now and hopefully the day that we 
are going to have the vote on this bill, which we hope will be on 
Thursday morning. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) and I have a lot of work to do and 
with our counterparts in the other body, but I am satisfied that we can 
do it. Everybody, I believe, wants to get this job done and we are 
going to produce a bill here that probably everyone could look at and 
say, gee, I do not like this or I do not like that; but there will be a 
lot of good in this bill that I do like.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut 
(Mrs. Johnson).
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I came to the floor because I want to remind the 
Members, and I hope to remind the White House, that it is time that we 
wrap up our business. It is very important that we, as a body, deliver 
to the executive branch a plan for spending and for funding the 
priorities of the next year.
  I wanted to remind my colleagues that while there is some debate 
about the exact level, it is a rather minor number of millions and 
billions that have to be dealt with; that, in fact, in this bill are 
many, many things that many of us have fought long and hard for. There 
is a big increase in funding for teacher quality. Now that we know more 
about the lack of certified teachers in many of our classrooms, the 
lack of subject matter preparation of many of our teachers, 
particularly in the inner cities, it is really imperative that we pass 
a budget that puts that money out there so we can make some of the 
progress in public education that we know needs to be made.
  In this bill is 575 million more dollars for after-school programs, 
and I would like to say that in my little town of Enfield, the Enfield 
after-school care program that provides after-school care for only at-
risk children has already had 10 of its children referred to DT out of 
our children family agency for neglect. This will be the security of 
these children as they move through a difficult time in their families 
and hopefully be the difference between these children. These are K 
through 6 kids. These are not high school kids. Six of the kids have 
already been referred to a juvenile review board only in the first 3 
months of the school year. These really are at-risk kids, and this 
wonderful program has given these kids stability, is helping them 
improve their school performance and will be their security and their 
ticket out of juvenile crime, under achievement, low self-esteem and 
catastrophic consequences.
  Also in this legislation is a significant increase in the child care 
block grant. This body prided itself on passing welfare reform, but if 
we do not do things like we are doing this year, and this bill is $817 
million more for those

[[Page H12070]]

very child care certificates that working women coming off of welfare 
depend upon, if we cannot provide child care subsidies to a woman 
coming off of welfare into a roughly minimum wage job or just above she 
is not going to make it; not because she is not trying but because she 
has such heavy child care costs that she could not possibly make it on 
those entry level salaries.
  So in this bill we are following through on many initiatives in human 
services, in education, that do, in fact, give our people the support 
and the opportunity, whether they are children or adults, that frankly 
this body has striven long and hard to create on a bipartisan basis.
  So I would urge my colleagues to remember that in here is fuel 
assistance, a big increase for fuel assistance, going into a winter 
when we know things are going to be very tough; health care; education, 
and it is our responsibility to pass it.
  I would also remind my colleagues that it is going to be well over 
the President's request, over anything this House passed, and so we 
have the ability to rationally agree on some modest reductions from one 
agreed-on level and get this bill to the President. I hope that we can 
get an agreement before he leaves for Ireland so by the time he gets 
back we will have it passed and his signature on it very promptly. We 
owe it to those people who work for our government so they can deliver 
consistent quality service in a knowing, established context of 
supported funding.
  I thank the gentlemen for their hard work on both sides of the aisle, 
and I ask that we move forward and this be the last CR we be asked to 
support because I will support it only reluctantly.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer).
  Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I know there might be some debate between the floor and 
the parliamentarian's office today and may demand a recount as to how 
many CRs we have done in this Congress. Is it 19 or is it 20? I hear 
from the parliamentarian's office it is 19. Regardless if it is 19 or 
it is 20, that is an all-time record in the history of Congress. That 
is a record that I do not think there will be a single press release on 
back in our districts. That is a record that I do not think we are too 
proud of, and that is a record I do not think future Congresses are 
going to want to break.
  We need in the future to not only come together in this 106th 
Congress on an agreement on the budget but we need to do it in a 
bipartisan manner.
  The second point I want to make is that when we do reach a bipartisan 
agreement on some of the most important issues that we handle in the 
106th Congress, we should look at how these issues are treated in the 
waning days of this 106th Congress. How does this budget treat 
education with Pell grants? As education and the cost of education 
becomes more important and higher in costs, we want to make sure we get 
Pell grants to those that need it.
  The second issue is how this budget treats the poor. In my home State 
of Indiana, we have seen natural gas prices go up by 50 percent, and 
our families are having a tough time, as it is snowing right now back 
in the Midwest, affording much of this. This budget deals with that. 
Let us look at how we treat LIHEAP.
  Thirdly, the NIH budget, how do we treat research for Alzheimer's, 
research for Parkinson's, research on cancer? These are three issues 
that are highly important to me and my constituents and highly 
important to the country, and I hope we will arrive at a bipartisan 
solution in this Congress.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I have no other requests to speak on this 
turkey, and so I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would just suggest that, whether we like it or not, we 
need to vote for this continuing resolution today. As I said earlier, I 
hold out the hope and I am very optimistic that now that our leadership 
has arrived at an agreement with the President that the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter), and I 
are going to be able to work out a bipartisan solution that will take 
care of most of the concerns that we have heard expressed on this bill 
throughout the season.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). All time for debate has expired.
  The joint resolution is considered as having been read for amendment.
  Pursuant to House Resolution 670, the previous question is ordered.
  The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the joint 
resolution.
  The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed and read a third 
time, was read the third time, and passed, and a motion to reconsider 
was laid on the table.

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