[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 100 (Wednesday, July 9, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H6393-H6396]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 2657, LEGISLATIVE BRANCH
APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I
call up House Resolution 311 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 311
Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it
shall be in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R.
2657) making appropriations for the Legislative Branch for
the fiscal year ending September 30, 2004, and for other
purposes. All points of order against the bill and against
its consideration are waived. The bill shall be considered as
read for amendment. The previous question shall be considered
as ordered on the bill to final passage without intervening
motion except: (1) one hour of debate on the bill equally
divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority
member of the Committee on Appropriations; and (2) one motion
to recommit.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) is
recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the
customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter),
pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During
consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose
of debate only.
Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 311 is a closed rule providing for the
consideration of H.R. 2657, the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act
of 2004. H. Res. 311 provides 1 hour of debate in the House on the bill
equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority
member of the Committee on Appropriations. The resolution waives all
points of order against the bill and against its consideration, and it
provides one motion to recommit with or without instructions.
Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by first noting the first-class work of
the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee in bringing this
legislation forward to the House floor. It was particularly refreshing
to see the chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Georgia
(Mr. Kingston), and the ranking minority member, the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Moran), testifying in support of their work product
before the House yesterday.
It is a fiscally responsible bill that will ultimately encourage
greater productivity and meaningful savings, and the gentleman from
Georgia (Mr. Kingston) is to be commended for his management oversight
that will certainly ensure that organizational changes are administered
better within the legislative branch's agencies.
Mr. Speaker, this is not the largest appropriations bill and it is
not the most important. However, this appropriations bill is important
because it sets the tone for what the House leadership and the
Republican House are working towards in terms of fiscal responsibility,
effective organization, and result-focused management across the
Federal Government.
In brief, this appropriations bill provides $2.7 billion in funding
for fiscal year 2004, including funding for the House, the Capitol
Police, the Congressional Budget Office, the Architect of the Capitol,
the Library of Congress, the Government Printing Office, and the
General Accounting Office. It is important to note, however, that this
$2.7 billion figure is 1.2 percent less in total dollars than in the
current fiscal year. This decrease represents a reduction in funding of
almost $34 million compared to the current fiscal year.
While Congress at times has demonstrated difficulty in restraining
itself from spending money, it strikes me as a significant event that
this bill before us today cuts the congressional
[[Page H6394]]
budget for fiscal year 2004. It is an indication that there is a
continued commitment to make the government work more efficiently and
that that commitment begins with ourselves in the legislative branch.
Mr. Speaker, this rule ensures the orderly consideration of the
legislative branch funding legislation. I urge Members to support the
rule so we may begin to debate this important legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
(Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend
her remarks.)
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume, and I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) for
yielding me the customary 30 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, each week in the Committee on Rules, I see my colleagues
using procedure to kill substance and stifle debate. And again last
night, the Committee on Rules passed a closed rule on the Legislative
Branch Appropriations Act. This closed rule prohibits all amendments.
I am again concerned to see that our obligation to debate and
deliberate is sacrificed in the name of efficiency. The legislative
calendar for the month of July is very full. We have much work to do,
but this does not diminish or negate our obligations as Members of this
body.
The Committee on Rules rejected an amendment to transfer funds from
the general administration account in order to carry out the Technology
Assessments Act. The closed rule prevents offering that same amendment
from the floor. We lose the opportunity to consider the amendment and
to discuss the Office of Technology Assessment for the Congress and the
office's mission to consider the impacts of technology.
The closed rule also bars an amendment that would apply the Buy
American Act to procurement of manufactured goods by the House. Who
could disagree that we should buy American-made products for our
offices, especially when unemployment is at 6.4 percent, the highest it
has been in 9 years, and the economy continues to limp along?
Should we have an opportunity to discuss whether or not the desks in
our offices, paid for by the American taxpayers, should be made in
America? Sure we should.
Other issues in this bill merit discussion. The funding level for the
Capitol Police is lower than in the 2003 fiscal year, and the funding
is almost $80 million less than the Capitol Police requested. The
closed rule provides only 1 hour of debate but will not allow this to
be discussed. With the continual terrorist threats to the U.S., we
should at least discuss the funding needs of the Capitol Police. We ask
them to put their lives at risk every day to protect our staff, our
visitors, and us; yet we refuse to take the time to discuss their
funding levels.
H.R. 2657 provides the Architect of the Capitol no additional funds
for the Visitors Center. Today's Washington Post published an article
on the delays and cost overruns on this project, which we are all
concerned about. The Committee on Appropriations expressed serious
concerns about the management of the project; and, indeed, there are
certainly questions to be asked.
We still have to ask questions about the expatriate corporations
benefiting from this massive construction project. All of these serious
concerns warrant further deliberation on the funding levels for the
Architect of the Capitol; but, unfortunately, the Committee on Rules
continues to trample on the rights of the minority. This venerable
institution warrants a fair, open, and deliberative process in
considering legislation; and I regret this is another opportunity lost.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the ranking member of the Committee on
Appropriations.
{time} 1530
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I originally had intended to vote for this
resolution and this bill, but then about an hour ago my staff brought
it to my attention something which they discovered about this bill.
Buried in the bill, in fact, not in the bill at all, but in the budget
for the House Administrative Office, is a $750,000 item that would
begin to provide expanded dental care for Members of Congress and their
staff July 4 of next year. No Member on this side of the aisle, to my
knowledge, knew anything about it, and no member of our staff knew
anything about it. I am only the senior Democrat on the Committee on
Appropriations, and yet I did not know that that provision was at all
tied into this bill.
So we called the majority staff and asked about it, and they told us
that they did not know anything about it. I believe the person that my
staff talked to on the majority side, but I do not know what that means
in terms of who put that provision in the bill. I assume the tooth
fairy. But somebody did. And until that provision is removed or until
we have an assurance that it is going to be removed, and I understand
that the majority is going to remove it, nobody on this side of the
aisle intends to vote for this rule or the accompanying bill.
I happen not to have any objection to the idea that we provide dental
coverage for every American in this country, but it was only 1 week ago
when this Congress chiseled on Medicare benefits and chiseled on
prescription drug benefits for retired seniors in this country, and for
us to then find out that somebody has the bright idea that while we are
chiseling on benefits for everybody else in this society, we are going
to have an expanded medical benefit for Members of Congress is more
than I am going to swallow.
And I want to say something else. I am tired of people in Congress
who want to provide benefits for themselves who will not provide those
same benefits for the people we represent. I will never forget the
experience I had last year when I went to a town named Antigo to open a
small dental clinic for low-income people, and there I met a young
woman whose husband had been sick for months. I think he had MS, but I
am not sure. And she told me that there had been about 67 dentists in
that four-county area. Only half of them would take Medicaid patients
because of the low reimbursement rates. She told she went to every
single one of those dentists trying to get some help to have the braces
taken off of the teeth of her oldest child; could not find a single
dentist to do it. So she finally held the kid down while the father
took the braces off with a pair of pliers.
I have had a bellyful of Washington politicians who want to deny
people like that the needed healthcare, and yet will countenance this
kind of end run in this bill today. I do not know who knew about this,
but, by God, somebody knew about it, and I do not believe it was
anybody on our committee on either side of the aisle. But it is a
disservice for whoever tried this. It is a disservice not just to the
taxpayer, but to every single Member of this House on both sides of the
aisle because those Members, after they voted for this bill, they would
have found out that they had voted blindly for a bill which allowed
this to happen, and the public would have been justifiably angry, and
the Members would not have been to blame.
So I am glad that this is going to be taken out, but I am mad as hell
that this ever happened. And I know the gentleman from Florida had
nothing to do with it, and I know his staff had nothing to do with it,
but I wish to God whoever did would 'fess up.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I share the gentleman's concern
about this, and we are going to fix it. It should not have happened. No
Member knew about this, and I am not sure yet who was responsible for
it, but we will find the person who was responsible, and they will be
dealt with appropriately. That is not right. The Members should not
have something snuck up on them that they were not aware of. So I share
the gentleman's concern. We are going to fix it very quickly
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here, and we will do our very best to find out just exactly how this
happened and why.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments and his
assurance. I know he is an honorable man, and I know that he would not
have sneaked anything like this through. I want to know who did this,
but I do not want it passed off to some low-ranking staffer in this
place. Somebody got an order from somebody to do it, and every last
Member of this House has a right to know who gave that order.
I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I could not be more in agreement with the gentleman from Wisconsin
(Mr. Obey). We do have an amendment here we are going to ask unanimous
consent to be added to the bill that would put limitation and delete
that language so that no expansion of that service be available.
Let me just add this. This is not the first time I have seen this
happen. Some years ago I was involved in the settlement of some final
appropriations bills, and language was put into the bill to
dramatically change the Native American health system, and it was found
and stripped out, and it found its way back into the bill. When that
happens at any level, the person who is responsible for it ought to be
fired at that moment. I hope we can do that in this case.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Moran).
Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I was prepared to say as I did at
the Committee on Rules that we do not really have a problem with this
rule or this bill. It, in fact, is the first appropriations bill, at
least that I am told, that is less than the previous year. That is
because we are suspending some of the funding on the Capitol Visitors
Center to make sure we have a full handle on all the additional
expenditures, and we are not going forward quite as fast as the Capitol
Police chief would like, but it does not imply necessarily any
criticism in either respect. So this should have not been a problem.
This should have been a rule that we could have probably voiced.
Not now. What we have is a serious affront to the institution. This
was found by our appropriations staff person going through the bill.
The majority staff was not even told about it. The Chair of the
subcommittee was not even told about it. And it is just the kind of
thing that makes the entire institution look bad.
We just had a bill yesterday that was not a bad bill. We wanted to
make sure that current Federal employees were treated the same as
Federal retirees, but it is a very sensitive issue given the fact that
we just passed a prescription drug program under Medicare that many of
us feel is very inadequate. So when it is compared to the benefits that
Federal employees get and the members of the legislative branch get, it
looks even worse. But the proposal we have here to provide dental and
vision benefits just for the legislative branch, the executive branch
does not have them, is the kind of feather-bedding, of taking care of
ourselves, of self-serving legislation that comes back to haunt us on
both sides of the aisle. And I agree with the gentleman from Wisconsin
(Mr. Obey) and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder), that this is
serious stuff, and that we have got to find out where it happened and
make sure it does not happen again.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield
back the balance of my time.
Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute Offered by Mr. Linder
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the pending
resolution be amended by the form I have placed at the desk.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ose). The Clerk will report the
amendment.
The Clerk read as follows:
Amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by Mr.
Linder:
Strike all after the resolved clause and insert:
That upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be in
order without intervention of any point of order to consider
in the House the bill (H.R. 2657) making appropriations for
the Legislative Branch for the fiscal year ending September
30, 2004, and for other purposes. The bill shall be
considered as read for amendment. The amendment specified in
section 2 shall be considered as adopted. All points of order
against the bill, as amended, are waived. The previous
question shall be considered as ordered on the bill, as
amended, to final passage without intervening motion except:
(1) one hour of debate on the bill, as amended, equally
divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority
member of the Committee on Appropriations; and (2) one motion
to recommit with or without instructions.
Sec. 2. The amendment refereed to in the first section of
this resolution is as follows:
Page 6, after line 22, insert the following:
Sec. 102. None of the funds in this Act may be used to
provide supplemental dental or vision health insurance
benefits for Members and employees of the House of
Representatives.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ose). Is there objection to the request
of the gentleman from Georgia?
Mr. OBEY. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker, I would like to
yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) to explain the impact
of this amendment.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. OBEY. Further reserving the right to object, I yield to the
gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, the impact of this amendment would just
delete any possibility that any increases or expansions of dental care
or vision care will be expanded.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, further reserving the right to object, I thank
the gentleman for that explanation.
Mr. Speaker, I want to make it clear I do not oppose any member of
this society being able to have dental coverage or vision coverage
under their insurance program. I would be very happy if my employees
had it. I think all employees ought to have that coverage. I think all
Americans ought to have that coverage. So I do not want this language
to be misinterpreted as meaning that we are opposed to the idea.
I think what we are all opposed to is the idea that this bill would
slip this into law without having an open public debate about it so
that it can be honestly dealt with and above-board in open-door
sunlight fashion.
And I would like to yield to the gentleman again to comment on this.
I would like him to explain to the House exactly what the process will
be so that every Member can be confident that they know what they are
doing when they vote on both the rule and the bill.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, as we have just learned in the last hour or
so, and the chairman has just learned it here, someone somewhere
slipped language into the leg branch bill that expands dental and
vision health insurance benefits for Members and employees of the
House. And I agree with the gentleman from Wisconsin. A fair and open
discussion of expansion of these benefits for everyone is a legitimate
course for this House to take and vote up or down, but to hide it in a
bill and slide it in is simply inappropriate.
This language is eliminating language on the leg branch bill, and it
says that none of the funds in this act may be used to provide that
expansion of dental or vision benefits. It puts a limitation on those
benefits where they are correct right now in the current form.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, further reserving the right to object, I would
simply like to make one correction. My understanding is that it is not
actually the language in the bill which provides this. My understanding
is that the key language was contained in the budget of the Chief
Administrative Officer, which is financed by this bill. So we actually
have to go to that document in order to discover the offending
language.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I believe the gentleman is correct, and if
he would not mind yielding to the chairman of the subcommittee, he has
something to say on it, too.
Mr. OBEY. Further reserving the right to object, I yield to the
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I
want to say he is correct. There is no
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specific language that just says funding in it. And I also want to say
that as the chairman of the committee, it certainly would fall on me to
know about this language. I have to confess I did not know about it,
but I will certainly take responsibility and support the agreement to
remove it.
{time} 1545
I will also agree with the gentleman from Wisconsin that it may be a
topic that at some point we should discuss. But, in the meantime, we
should do it in open forum and not through the back door in this
manner. This was put in as one of the administrative agency's budgets,
but we do certainly agree to take it out.
Mr. LINDER. If the gentleman would yield further, I think we know
where to start now.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, continuing my reservation, I thank the
gentleman.
I just want to clear up one procedural question. I think Members need
to know which action will adopt the language which strikes this from
the bill. Will it be the adoption of the rule, or the passage of an
amendment after the bill is under consideration?
Mr. LINDER. If the gentleman will yield further, it will be the
adoption of the rule will strike the language.
Mr. OBEY. If Members want to assure this provision is not in the
bill, and if they want to be on record voting against any possibility
that this will happen under this bill, they will vote for the rule.
Mr. LINDER. That is correct. The adoption of the rule will put in
place limiting language that will prevent any expansion of those
benefits.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ose). Without objection, the amendment
is adopted.
There was no objection.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, I yield
back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the
resolution, as amended.
The previous question was ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution, as
amended.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not
present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on this question will be postponed.
The point of no quorum is considered withdrawn.
____________________